The Severed Tower (11 page)

“No.” Mira spoke with a finality that made Ben move away.

She didn’t have a lot of faith in herself, it was true. And going with Ben would be a much easier decision—but she knew she couldn’t. She had responsibilities to Zoey and to Holt. She had brought them here, which meant in a way they were lost
because
of her. If they were dead, it would be one thing, but they weren’t. They were
alive.
And not going after them … was betraying them. Even if going after them was futile.

“You asked me about my eyes earlier—about the Tone,” Mira said. “Zoey was the one who did that. Zoey can
stop
the Tone. She can do other things, too. Amazing things. And the Assembly is chasing her. She’s … the key, I think, to whatever it is they’re doing here.”

As Mira spoke, Ben’s brow wrinkled inquisitively. This was unexpected, and for Ben unexpected things were the most interesting. “So she
is
the one from the rumors? The one who saved Midnight City, brought the dam back to life?”

Mira nodded. “They’re hunting her. Different groups from all over. She has to reach the Severed Tower, Ben.”

“Why?”

“I … don’t know,” Mira admitted. “The Oracle told her, it said she would learn the truth there. And the Librarian said Zoey was the Apex. He died to save her.”

For one of the only times since Mira had known him, Ben’s eyes widened in astonishment. “The Librarian is …
dead?
” She didn’t blame him. It didn’t seem real to her either. The Librarian was more a force of nature than human. She would have bet on him living forever.

Ben looked away, thinking. “The Apex. That crazy equation he was always working on. The only person to ever come out of the Strange Lands.”

Ben had never put much stock in the Librarian’s private research, but Mira figured that was because the old man’s equations were one of the few things Ben couldn’t wrap his mind around.

“That’s … fascinating,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t change anything. Apex or not, the Assembly have her now. They went farther
into
the Strange Lands, Mira, not back. I’ve never heard of the Assembly doing that. But these did.”

“I have to try,” Mira said.

“Mira.” There was a subtle hint of desperation in his voice. “If you do this … you do it
alone.
You know that.” Mira felt a chill run through her. “It’s simple math. You won’t make it.”

At his words, Mira felt two things: trepidation, because a part of her believed him. She had the proof, didn’t she? But she felt something else, too: anger. What he was saying wasn’t intended to hurt her, she knew. Everything he said was based on facts and data, but they still amounted to one thing.

“You don’t believe in me.” She stared back at him. “You never have.”

“I’m just telling you the truth. Because you mean the world to me. And I …
can’t
lose you.” Mira sighed at the faint edge of emotion in his voice. He did care. He was just blunt. “You don’t have it in you to make the tough decisions that surviving here requires.”

Mira nodded. “It would be easier if I were more like you. But I’m not. I have to go after them. Because I owe them. Both of them.”

“I need you,” Ben said, his voice wavering the slightest bit.

“No,” Mira told him. She touched his face. “You don’t need anyone, not in here.”

She could see in his eyes that he was torn. Which was unusual for him. He would come if he could, but, in his way of thinking, he simply couldn’t. Ben sighed and nodded to where her packs and Lexicon sat. “I had them loaded with water and food. And I gave you some of our reagents for the waist pack.”

Mira stared at him curiously. Ben just shrugged.

“Figured this is what you’d choose,” he said. “It’s what the math pointed to.”

Ben knew her better than anyone, and even now it was a comfort.

“This will be the first time we’ve gone into the Strange Lands without each other,” he said. “It feels wrong.” His hands gently pulled the necklaces from her shirt. Among them there was the old brass dice necklace. He held it in his hand. “You still wear it.”

“Every day. Even though you don’t believe in luck.”

“Only with you,” he said, looking back up at her. “Only with you.”

Ben leaned forward and gently kissed her. She kissed him back. It felt natural. Familiar. It was comforting. It pulled her. But she couldn’t stay here.

Mira backed away, tears beginning to form. Then she grabbed her things. “Can you … do something for me?”

“Anything.”

Mira opened her pack and pulled out the Chance Generator. Instantly she saw Holt on top of the plane, his hand hovering to strike. It wasn’t him, she told herself. But it was hard to remember that, hard not to see that image.

She hated the artifact, it made her sick just holding it.

“Is that…?” Ben’s voice was curious.

Mira nodded. “Holt used it in Midnight City to get us out. We brought it here to destroy it, but … it started affecting him.”

“The compulsion,” Ben said.

“He finally gave it up, but I don’t like carrying it. Would you…?”

Ben held out his hand for the artifact. “The fourth ring Anvil’s on the way to the Core. I’ll destroy it when we get there.”

At his promise, she felt like a weight had lifted off her. She handed it to Ben and he studied it inquisitively. For a moment, Mira felt a twinge of concern as she watched him with the artifact. But she pushed it away. Ben was too smart—he knew the risks, knew the price that came with it. He would never use it.

They stared at one another a moment more. Ben’s eyes had more emotion in them than she had ever seen. “Be careful,” he told her. “For
me.
”

Mira smiled a little. “Have you seen the scorpion yet?” she asked. It was a personal question, a private one, just between them. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like he was smiling a little, too.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Keep looking.” And then she turned and started moving, heading south, following the river. It was amazing, how hard it was. Not just leaving Ben, but also the safety and familiarity he represented. She was moving into unchartered territory in more ways than one.

Mira walked for about a mile, following the river, before she noticed something odd. The overgrowth around the trees that flanked the water stirred as she moved. Like something was pushing through it, following her.

Mira frowned when she figured it out. “You can come out now.”

A shiny black nose pushed through the grass, followed by a fuzzy head with pointed ears. Max stared at her over the distance, and she heard a low growl.

Mira almost laughed. At least
something
was still familiar. “I’m going after them, what more do you want?”

Max didn’t move.

“Don’t guess you have any ideas on how to find them?” If he did, the dog didn’t say.

Mira saw the necklaces were still hanging outside her shirt. She grabbed them to stuff them back inside, then noticed one of them. It had a tiny compass for a pendant. And the strange thing about it was that the needle didn’t point north. It pointed northwest. Mira smiled. She had given Zoey an identical necklace weeks ago in the Drowning Plains. They were both Strange Lands artifacts, and they were linked. They always pointed directly to each other.

“What do you know,” she said. It didn’t solve everything, but it was a much better position to be in than a few seconds ago. Now she just needed a way to deal with the Assembly. An idea occurred to her. A desperate one—but those were the only kind she had now.

Mira looked back to Max, still hovering in the grass near the trees. “You coming or what?”

9.
LASER LIGHT

ZOEY TRIED NOT TO CRY,
but it wasn’t easy. She’d been hanging underneath the green-and-orange tripod for hours as it darted over the ground. The netting that held her was some kind of thin superstrong metal, and it was sharp, too. It cut into her skin, and the worst part was, the more she moved, the tighter it got.

It was night now, and what she could see of the landscape raced past—but it made no sense.

It wasn’t trees or grass or farmland. It was cars. Thousands of them, all different kinds and sizes, stretching ahead unendingly, along some desiccated highway. Where was she? Still in the Strange Lands? She’d lost track of how long they’d been moving, and she had no idea how fast the walkers could go.

How would anyone find her now, she wondered. This far away, lost in the dark. She felt more alone than she ever had. The first thing she could remember was Holt finding her in the wreckage of that ship, and since then she’d always been with him and Mira and the Max. No matter how scary things got, they were always there, and now they weren’t. She felt tears welling up and pushed them back.

The world ceased its rhythmic bobbing as the walker slowed. When it stopped, the net released. Zoey came down hard on her elbow, but before she could cry out, there was an intense flash of blinding blue light. She felt the netting that held her dissolve away.

For the first time in hours, her limbs stretched out, and Zoey’s eyes teared at the relief of it.

Then she sensed movement around her. There were nine of them. She couldn’t see them yet because of the blue light, but she knew all the same. This close to her, each of their presences glowed separately in her mind, like colors. Not specific colors, but
all
colors at once, each blending and swirling in a unique way all its own.

Ironically, it was pretty.

The machines stared down at her, their sharp legs puncturing the soil, their armor gleaming in the moonlight. One of them pushed forward and the others gave it room. It was differently marked, its patterns of green and orange were bolder.

Its triangular multicolored eye focused on her, and as it did Zoey felt sensations from it. Pride, arrogance, lust, a heavy mixture that drifted off it like heat from a radiator, and all of it directed at her. Zoey tried to shrink into the ground, but there was nowhere to go.

The walker trumpeted a single, distorted note. The others echoed it, as if agreeing.

Zoey flinched as laser light streamed from two walkers. Triangular shaped beams of purple and red energy that seemed both solid and intangible at the same time. She shut her eyes at the brightness, and these she could feel. They gave off a muted heat as they moved over her slowly, like hands examining a patient.

Then the beams flashed off, and Zoey sensed satisfaction from the walkers.

Something else dropped to the ground near her. Something heavy and big, and she turned to see what it was.

It was another body. Blue laser light seared outward and dissolved away the netting which constrained it. The figure groaned and unwrapped itself, but otherwise didn’t move. Zoey recognized him instantly.

“Holt!” she shouted. The Assembly had brought him, too!

She felt a burst of relief—then regretted it. Holt was hurt, a prisoner like she was. It wasn’t right to be glad he was here. But she was. She wasn’t alone anymore, and it mattered.

Zoey tried to move for him, but one of the walkers stepped in front of her.

The same walkers that scanned her a moment ago did the same thing now for Holt, running their lasers over his still form. Zoey could see the blood soaking his clothes. He must have been shot, she realized.

Zoey looked at the differently colored walker. Its eye looked back, whirring indifferently.

“Please,” she told it. “I know you can help him. It’s why you were scanning me a second ago, to see if I was hurt.”

The walker’s three-optic eye stared into her. Did it understand her? She had no way of knowing.

“Please…” she begged it. “Please don’t let him die.” Tears started to form in her eyes, but she stopped them. She wouldn’t cry in front of the Hunter, no matter how much she wanted to.

The machine studied her a moment—then it trumpeted an almost disdainful sound, and looked toward the walkers near Holt.

As if by command, the tripods there turned and faced his crumpled form on the ground, and a different set of beams, green this time, emitted from diodes on their bodies. Slowly they moved over Holt, hovering above his different wounds, where the most blood was.

As they did, Zoey reached out to Holt with her mind. There was nothing there at first. He was blank. It scared her, the idea that he might already be dead, but as the laser light moved over him, she started to sense glimmers of emotion and thought. Faint at first, but gradually building strength.

He was coming back, she realized. Zoey felt more relief. The walkers were
healing
him.

Zoey looked back at the differently marked tripod. “Thank you,” she said.

She felt sensations wash out from it. Disappointment and confusion mainly, it didn’t seem to understand her concern. But Zoey didn’t care. Holt would
live.
She wouldn’t be alone. If he was alive and with her, then there was a chance, however slim, for things to all be okay.

Zoey watched as another tripod turned its back toward her. There was a series of clicking sounds as slots opened in its rear armor. Four of them. Two near the bottom, two more at the top. To Zoey’s eye, they looked like … hand grips and foot rungs.

The differently marked walker’s targeting laser streamed to life in red and purple. Zoey watched as the beam moved to the back of the other walker, splitting into distinct streams, each lighting up one of the four slots.

Zoey understood. She was to put her feet in the rungs, use the others like handholds, and ride the tripod like some kind of mechanical horse.

At first she felt fear and revulsion—but the more she thought about it, the better a deal it seemed. What choice did she really have? She couldn’t run, the walkers would be on her in seconds, and anything was preferable to being wrapped up in that net again.

Zoey moved for the back of the machine, climbing on top of it, placing her feet and hands in its back.

It wasn’t a perfect fit, but it worked well enough, and the height was such that she could just peer over the top of the machine and look straight ahead.