The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) (21 page)

“Of course not,” Tessa said smiling, entirely unaware of Vivian’s resentment. “Good night, Viv.”

She went to sleep.

Vivian dreamed she was walking down a long, wooden hallway, framed pictures hanging at either side, displaying the distorted faces of Rebecca Miles, Jed Townsend, Tessa Mason, Ronald Heath, Erin Perry, Akiva Davenport. With every heavy step she took, the frames shook, and the portraits fell onto the floor, crashing in a rain of broken glass that cut her flesh. One after the other they fell.

Thump
.
Thump
.
Thump
.

Her eyes came open and the hallway disappeared, but the sounds didn’t. Even awake, there were aural remnants of the strange dream she was beginning to forget.

But then they didn’t go away, and, now fully conscious, she recognized them as footsteps. Many footsteps. There were people in the hallway outside, running and moving about despite the time.

The sudden sound of someone crying made her sit up. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. She left the bed and ran towards the door. At the other side, all the lights of the hallway were on, and it was like everyone in the house had decided to meet there.

Lara Blanchard was being held by Jed, who tried to comfort her—it was her she heard crying. Vivian looked to her right, two doors down, where several others had gathered, looking into the room.

“Vivian, wait!”

She ignored Jed and walked down towards the commotion.

“Take her down!” someone yelled.

“Everyone, please go down to the dining hall!” the director was yelling. She appeared from the room, herding everyone else away from the door. “Please, I know it’s difficult but we need to—”

She stopped cold when she noticed Vivian.

The look in the director’s eyes almost made Vivian throw up. “What happened? Director,
what happened
?”

When there was no answer, Vivian went to look for one herself. She pushed her way through the people until she finally took a step inside the room. Acid burned her esophagus. Her tongue was being drawn back to a throat that grew too tight to breathe.

She had to focus on drawing air, and she couldn’t even cry, much less scream, at the sight of Rebecca’s limp body hanging from a wooden beam on the roof.

ф

Desynchronization was still a queerly painful process in which he felt like he was leaving a piece of himself inside the Creux. Nandi’s whispers became less and less and less audible until everything went dark and Ezra opened his own eyes to deeper darkness, pushed back only by a bright white dot. It felt good to hear again.

Ezra stepped out of the Egg. It was unexpectedly cold inside the caves. Wind that smelled like rotting corpses swept into the Apse, and Ezra powered through it to climb down to the glossy floor of the tunnel. He looked up to see Erin climbing down Phoenix’s shin to join him.

“Didn’t expect it to be so cold,” said Ezra.

“Or to stink this much, but it shouldn’t surprise us; Laani are coming here to die. Come on.” She raised her hand, looking at Ares. The gigantic Creux closed in on them, bringing its hand down to ground level. Ezra took several steps back, feeling like they would be squashed by this monstrosity, yet Erin didn’t even flinch. Once the massive steel hand was on the floor, she climbed on its palm, and he did the same.

He remembered Lazarus as Ares’ hand carefully rose to the level of the cleared tunnel, and they took a step into it. Ares retreated and gave them a thumbs-up before turning around to protect the entrance. The sounds of its heavy footsteps were amplified by the cave; it was deafening.

“The smell is worse in here,” he said, walking towards the red light. About twenty yards into the tunnel, it opened to another chamber. It was like being back in Clairvert—the walls were blue stone, but the rest looked like Zenith. There was a large computer panel flashing a red light in an obvious statement of malfunction. At the far end of the room, a huge iron door, claw marks on its dark surface.

But the most remarkable thing, what made both suddenly stop in their tracks: the unmoving bodies of several Carriers.

“What are those things doing here?” Erin asked, covering her mouth and nose. “Did the others seal these things in here?”

“They tried to make their way in there.” Ezra pointed at the door and walked towards it, ignoring Erin’s warnings. He knew the Carriers were dead. The door looked solid, impossible to open by force. It was locked by a strange mechanism that converged at the center of a thick metal plate welded onto the door. They would need a key. “What do you suppose is inside?”

“The repeater itself, probably,” Erin said, still afraid of the dead Carriers. She couldn’t investigate the flashing computer without looking back at them every few seconds, as if expecting them to suddenly come alive. “I don’t know how it works if it’s underground, deep in the caves.”

“Me neither. But I’m not Dr. Mizrahi,” said Ezra, touching the cold door. “This looks way too strong to just be protecting the repeater.”

“This is damaged,” she said, inspecting the computer. “Those things came in here and messed with it on purpose. They’re the only ones small enough to do it. God damn them.”

“Is there any way to fix it? I don’t want to think we came all the way here for nothing. What about this?” By the huge console, Ezra saw a piece of iron sticking from the wall, pointing downward. It looked like a lever, but it was broken, torn down by brute strength. “This might be a master switch.”

“That actually is the master switch,” she said. “Or, well, was. Maybe it still works. Put that new muscle to work.”

Ezra grabbed the iron piece and pulled it up. He felt it budge, but the pressure against the twisted metal broke his skin. He cursed when he saw blood in his palm.

“Here,” Erin said and unzipped her jumpsuit to the waist. She removed the upper half to reveal her torso covered by a tight tank top. Strong arms and shoulders exposed, Erin wrapped the thick cloth around the broken piece of the lever. “Let’s try that again.”

Soldiering through the pain in his palm, he began to pull the lever up. The padding of Erin’s uniform made it almost painless, but it was still a matter of strength.

The lever suddenly slid upward with a loud clang, and a mechanical noise shook the computer, and the entire chamber. The red light stopped flashing, replaced by a much friendlier white light. “That did it,” she said, wiping her hands on her hips, and wrapped the sleeves of the jumpsuit around her waist, not caring about the cold.

“I kind of expected the door to open. Guess we need a key,” Ezra said.

Erin smiled—her big sister act. “Yeah. Come on. I need to get out of here.”

The deafening sound of a Creux’s roar suddenly blasted into the tunnel, and through it they could see the moving lights and crashing sounds of battle. Erin ran towards it.

“Stop!” Ezra yelled, more aware of the danger. He caught up to her and stopped her just in time to hear the horrifying sound of many tiny legs clicking against the stone floor. They were near.

Against the lights of the battle outside, he saw the shadows of Carriers.

“Oh my god,” Erin whispered. “
Run
!”

The clicking sounds grew louder as more Carriers walked past the Creuxen’s protection and poured into the tunnel. Erin and Ezra reached the chamber and turned back. There were at least twenty Carriers creeping up towards them, with more on the way. The monsters reached the room, moved their way towards them.

Erin and Ezra had nowhere to run. The monsters were so close, he could see orifices on their bodies begin to open, preparing to puke out their disease.

Ezra gave them his back and hugged Erin to cover her as much as his body could. She screamed into his ear, and it hurt. He felt her fingers clutch at him desperately.

The sound was drowned out by another roar, and then by a powerful gust of wind rushing inside. Ezra turned to be blinded by light. Technomantic energy flooded through the tunnel like a tidal wave. Carriers screamed as they were burned alive. The wave of light reached the room, consumed everything, and rushed towards them.

Akiva hadn’t thought through his attack well enough.

I loved you. I love you
.

He remembered when he left Zenith, thinking that he might soon die, and felt relief in at least finally knowing how it would happen.

These were his last thoughts before he closed his eyes and waited for the burn.

At least he wasn’t alone
.

Chapter 11

Nothing on the Inside

Once more the tragic death of a loved one
was turned into an embarrassing secret, thanks to political maneuvering and the prying eyes of strangers. Vivian couldn’t argue with the director’s choice to cover up the highly suspicious suicide of a former Zenith employee in the Blanchard home, but still, she was furious after seeing the entirely unauthentic nature of Rebecca’s departure.

She had to be transported to the military hospital in total secret, and her identity was never revealed to avoid the attention of stubborn, sore winners, who were always waiting outside the home in hopes of finding something else with which they could further damage the Blanchard name.

At least once inside the military base she received a respectful ceremony not unlike Susan’s. Vivian could attend, and she was thankful for that little blessing. She witnessed first-hand as Rebecca’s ashes, which no family member or friend claimed, were scattered into a subterranean water channel that ran beneath Roue so she could join what little parts of the planet remained pure.

“Now she’s nothing, everywhere.”

“Nothing, everywhere,” repeated the congregation.

Vivian hadn’t cried when Jena’s dad died, or when Susan or Alice died. She didn’t cry when she heard of Barnes’ death or Kat’s betrayal. She cried when General Adams gave her speech in front of at least fifty soldiers under the fake sky of the fake dome. There was always a script to follow when presiding over a funerary ceremony, and the general didn’t follow it at all; what she said was not written by anyone except herself. It wasn’t that Rebecca was a particularly important member of the army, or even Zenith; it was that her death worsened the sickness that was slowly poisoning their hope.

The ceremony ended abruptly and on a sour note when one soldier wearing a nose ring began to loudly and angrily question the general, and the director, about Barnes and Kat’s whereabouts. He no longer cared about insubordination.

It was amazing to Vivian that all the people there who had no idea of the director’s plan were still there, serving in the only way they could. What service did they think they were providing in these final times? What good was their discipline, training, and faith?

The general held Vivian’s head to her shoulder all the way back to the Blanchard home. She had stopped crying by then, but it was like she had inherited the same feelings of hopelessness and loss that had plagued Rebecca’s last months. She felt numb, no longer interested in protecting Roue. Now more than ever she just wanted to leave, to take Rose with her and see what she found on the other end of the world.

Die young in here, or old out there.

She dragged her feet into the house, ignoring the eyes of the people who knew Vivian was Rebecca’s only friend in the end, who knew she was grieving. At least she was glad the director hadn’t assigned her a job yet, so she could go to bed without feeling guilty.

Vivian was halfway up the enormous stairwell to the second floor when she heard her surname spoken in a strange accent. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her, was a thin man she had never seen without a lab coat. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“Hello, Dr. Mustang,” said Vivian with no intention of going down to shake his hand. “Tessa told me you’d be here. It’s good to see you.”

“You too. I’m sorry you’re here, in the house. I hoped it would be you who’d go with the others. To Kerek,” he said, climbing up to her; speaking the word of his destroyed homeland wasn’t easy.

“The plan was changed,” Vivian said. “I was just headed to my room to take a nap, if you don’t mind. I need sleep.”

“Wait, just a second,” he said and climbed past Vivian, inviting her to follow. The hallway wasn’t entirely private, but at least it was empty. “You should know why I’m here. I know Tara—I mean, the director—you’re among the ones she actually trusts. Do you know anything about what she’s doing now? About her plans?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Rebecca had told her about the plan to take the Creux back from Zenith, but she wasn’t sure she could trust Dr. Mustang. Vivian had trusted Kat, after all, so she couldn’t call herself a good judge of character.

“In that case, let me tell you about it. You of all people should know.” It was then that she realized that he wasn’t trying to get information from her, but quite the contrary. Mustang took a confident turn in the hallway and tried opening a door at the far end. It was locked.

The sound of voices crept from inside the room, and then the door was opened from the inside. Lara Blanchard stood at the other side, eyes angry, almost stern.