Threader (33 page)

Vogel streaks towards Eckhart. At first I think Eckhart will use his thread to stop her, but he just dodges her blows with ease. Vogel pulls a sleek black gun from a holster and shoots Eckhart. The director's head snaps back, then he straightens and stares at her, seemingly unconcerned by the gaping hole in his forehead. Vogel goes to fire again, but Eckhart darts forward with an inhuman speed, one hand knocking the gun out of her hand, the other wrapping around her neck and squeezing.

Grinding my teeth to steel myself, I dart out of the booth towards them, battling against the wind. Vogel lands blows against Eckhart, but her efforts quickly weaken. I hone my talents into that deadly cutting scythe again and push it before me, slicing through Eckhart's mind and severing everything I can find. Eckhart drops Vogel and clutches at his head with a howl, and when my blade-sharp weapon hits the light of Eckhart's talent, something pushes back and the world around me falls away.

Heat licks my brain in a wave of crackling fire. I try to scream, but my lips won't move, the air frozen in my lungs. My vision clears and I see I'm in an unfamiliar room. The Ciliary Gate looms before me, whole again. It whirrs and clacks away, the petals spinning, and a faint wind gusts from the iris. Techies in white lab coats buzz about, shouting to each other as they check machinery that looks dated and clunky.

‘Something's wrong.'

I don't remember much about my mother, but her voice cuts through the hazy memories of time. Turning, I see her standing near the gate with my father. They are young, their faces pinched with anxiety as they watch the wind darken with some sort of corruption.

Eckhart hurries up to them. He's wearing khaki pants and a white shirt. His younger face, full of panic, is not the lopsided one I know. ‘We've got to shut it down,' he shouts.

Metal grinds and the machine screams, the petals slowing as the wind thickens into a swirling vortex, sending pieces of metal flying about the room, smashing into each other. A beam from the scaffolding around the gate breaks free and slams into a blue-haired techie. Eckhart hurries over with two others. While they struggle to lift the fallen piece of metal, a blackened gust of wind engulfs them. By the time it whisks away, the techies are dead and Eckhart is sprawled on the ground, his skin mottled with a sprinkling of black dust which feathers his face before sweeping into his mouth and ears. Others rush to help as Eckhart's body spasms, then falls still. Someone starts compressions on his chest while others try to lift the beam. The blue-haired woman is still, and I know from the way her eyes stare unblinkingly at the distant ceiling that she's dead.

My parents haven't stopped staring at the gate. Through the growing maelstrom I see their thread: a corded ripple of the atmosphere, threading into the gate, trying to undo what has been done.

Eckhart starts to scream and my attention snaps back to him. Those working on him fall back as he sits up, eyes glossy oil-slicks, lips peeled back to reveal bone-white gums, his grey skin rippling. I try to shout some sort of warning to my parents, but my voice is silent, so I watch, numb, as they try to shut down the gate to hell they've opened. Eckhart pulls himself to his feet, shoving people aside, before launching himself at my parents with a feral cry.

My mother's head snaps towards him and a splinter of thread separates from the main line, striking Eckhart's chest like a spear. The moment the thread pierces his chest, my vision is swept away in a roar of light, chased by shadows.

‘Josie?'

Cold air rips back into my lungs and Blake's worried face stares at me from behind a visor. I realise we're inside one of the viewing booths and Blake is shaking me. I grip his arms to stop him from rattling my brain loose. When he lets me go, I nearly collapse.

‘Easy.' He grabs me again, gentler this time.

‘How did you get here?' I pull back, my knees locking in an attempt to keep myself upright.

‘Are you kidding me?' Blake scowls. ‘It was obvious something was wrong with Vogel. I got Darsh to find out where they were running the project. He showed me a utility room I could slide into.'

‘Where's Eckhart?' I ask, looking around.

‘Forget him.' Blake starts pulling me away, but I don't understand where to, because the huge blast doors have closed, the heavy bolts engaged to seal off the room. Before us, silent whirling red lights show snatches of the room in a blinking tableau of chaos.

Squinting at the gate, I pinpoint Eckhart, unmoving, a centre point in the chaos. Just beyond him, I see Vogel and Wendell huddled together, Vogel's body covering the techie, trying to protect her.

Cora's voice crackles over the comms link. ‘Josie? Can you read me?'

‘Cora?'

‘Thank god.' Her voice floods with relief. ‘Are you okay? Some sort of earthquake's happened. Alarms are going off everywhere around the academy.'

‘Is Darsh there?' I ask her, my eyes dropping to Aaron on the ground beside me. He groans, his eyelids fluttering, fingers twitching.

Darsh's voice, calm and reassuring, sounds over the comms link. ‘I'm here, Josie. We're both here.'

‘The gate is open and something is coming through,' I tell him. ‘I think I can close it, but you need to warn everyone to evacuate the academy.'

‘What's she talking about?' I can hear Cora asking Darsh, who murmurs something to her. I find the switch for the comms link under my ear and turn it off. I have no more time left. I crouch beside Aaron, who's sitting up with Blake's help.

‘We've got to shut the gate,' I shout. ‘Right now.'

Aaron opens his mouth to agree, when his eyes flick behind my shoulder and widen in alarm. I whirl to see Eckhart behind us. The hole in his forehead appears wider and a black corruption stains his exposed skin. He lifts Vogel's gun, aiming at us.

‘They tried to convince everyone,' he says. ‘Tried to tell everyone I wasn't myself. Then they ran and hid from me, thinking I wouldn't find a way around their childish locks and puzzles.'

‘What are you?' I whisper.

The gun twitches in Eckhart's hand. ‘A herald for those who are to rule this planet. A consciousness relegated to the shadows when the light came. But no more.'

Blake shoves me back, then sprints towards Eckhart like he thinks he's invincible. I make a move to follow, but Aaron has staggered to his feet and keeps me inside the viewing booth.

‘Josie. We've got to engage the security measures.' His grip is tight, panic in his eyes.

‘I'm ready.' I squeeze his hand.

Eyes locked, our breathing rapid and short, we thread and enter the gate. The barrier is no longer there, and around us, the glittering landscape has dimmed; the white path we've taken before is now blood red. We move fast along the grid, switching to another route of a tarnished bronze. We hurry until we reach a construct that lies in broken pieces, its data stream shifting sluggishly under a thick, glutinous substance.

I stare at the mess in dismay. ‘Don't tell me that's the security measures.'

‘I'm afraid so.'

‘How do we get through that?'

‘I don't know, but we've got to try.' Aaron moves forward, trying to shove past the mess to reach the data, and I help, pushing aside the gloop with a grimace. But our efforts fail and the thick oil begins to creep over me, cold and sticky.

‘This won't work,' I say, quickly shaking it off.

‘There's another safety measure,' Aaron tells me. ‘The blast shield.'

‘Eckhart destroyed it,' I say.

‘There's a manual override,' Aaron replies. ‘We can activate it in there.'

I follow him until we're at a tall data tower, tucked deep in the grid, its beacons dark. The sticky substance is here as well, but not as thick. Following Aaron's lead, I push it aside, trying to help him reach the tower. As if realising our intentions, the metallic oil shoves back at us in a blistering hot and cold wave. Rage courses through my veins and I send nothing more than a command to the alien material.

Go
.
Away
.

With a slow ticking noise, the oil shimmers, then subsides. Aaron thrusts his hands into the coding and soon the tower's lights flicker on. The world around us quakes.

‘The manual override for the blast shield has been activated,' Aaron tells me. There's a tremor to his voice, and I can tell he hasn't recovered from me severing Eckhart's hold on him.

Our retreat is fast and graceless, causing us to both lose our footing and stagger to our knees once we're out. Then Aaron grabs at his chest, his face washing white. His eyes roll up in his head before he slumps to the ground, passing out. I can't find a pulse through his suit, but I see his chest rise and fall and know he's still alive. For now.

A heavy grinding sounds from behind me and I turn to see the metal blast shield begin its descent again, though this time with an aching slowness. I step out of the booth and into the wind, searching for Blake, and spy him grappling with Eckhart.

Blake slams a fist into Eckhart's side, but the director doesn't seem to even feel it. Eckhart grabs Blake and with an incredible surge of strength, he heaves him into the air, throwing him towards the gate. Blake's body is picked up and tossed by the wind, before a whipping gale grabs him and inhales him towards the gate, sucking him into the vortex.

My feet barely touch the ground as I run. Eckhart turns to face me. I shouldn't have been able to feel his talents enter my head, but I do. It's like a tickling of the mind, a cobweb twisting around my thoughts as he tries to entangle my talents in a thread. Exhausted, I push back, digging deep inside my puzzle-chest for the energy I need. Our talents twist around each other, each one seeking to gain the upper hand, to gain control.

As my TP rips through Eckhart's mind, dodging and parrying his own talent, dark impressions flitter past me: of an old entity, a hive-mind of sentient micro-organisms that desire to expand their empire, eyeing ours with a vast hunger.

I blink the vision away to see Eckhart grinning. ‘You can't defeat me, Josie. I'm so much stronger than you are. How else do you think I managed to keep my talents hidden all these years?'

‘I'm strong.' My voice is steady, my hands tight fists at my side. ‘I'm strong enough to stop you.'

‘Stop me?' Eckhart laughs. ‘Do you really think I'm the only one?'

I ignore him, because I know what I've got to do. My talents twist inside of Eckhart's body and, as if taking apart a huge puzzle, I begin to unlock him. Interconnected joints are pulled apart. Nerve roots disconnected. Masses of elastic tissue twisted apart. Tendons, ligaments and cartilage, all detached, disengaged. Every lock can be taken apart. And so I do.

Eckhart screams and when he falls, his body is broken and bleeding, a huddled mess on the ground. There's a grinding noise and I see the blast shield is at the halfway point now. I flick my comms link back on.

‘Cora?'

‘Josie?' She sounds panicked. ‘Are you okay?'

‘Josie?' Darsh's voice now. ‘Just stay where you are. Help is on the way.'

‘Blake was thrown through the gate.' The words drop from my numb lips.

There's a pause. One I don't have time for.

‘Just wait right there,' Darsh says, sounding scared. I don't blame him, because I'm terrified myself.

‘Darsh, can you access this suit's systems?' I ask.

‘Yes, technically. But—'

‘Good. I'm turning on my emergency beacon,' I tell him. ‘And I'm going after Blake. I want you to help me with navigation. Help me find a way back.'

Both Darsh and Cora are shouting at me now. But I just dig my heels back and launch myself towards the gate, arms pumping, my breath short and choppy. At the last moment I spring into the air, my TK straining to help my feet reach the bent parts of the machine, before a thunderous gust picks me up and hurtles me into the abyss beyond.

My body slams into metal at the side of the iris, sending me spinning. Then I'm freefalling, a gravitational wave pulling me into the centre of the gate. My stomach lurches, hands flailing around, looking for Blake. The roaring wind dies to a whimper and my own harsh breath fills my ears as my body drifts. I try not to panic at the warning light telling me my suit has been compromised. There's an ocean of space around me, dark currents coursing like water and streaks of light studded with stars. A thrumming consciousness surrounds me, vibrating against my suit.

Fury. Anger. Rage.

Closing my eyes, I try to use my talents as a shield around myself, try to hide my consciousness from the entity that lives here. My TP blankets my mind with a freezing cold cover of ice, granite tough. My TK shifts me along, surfing along the dark eddies, moving me beyond the region I've entered. The noise reaches a fever pitch for a few minutes, then dies to nothing. When I open my eyes again, I see some of my suit has corroded, the material trying to stitch over itself to keep me protected. A red light flashes in the corner of my visor, telling me my oxygen is at a critical level. This place is not like the light path—where the sliders skim along the surface—this is the dark pulsating core of the shadow biosphere.

‘Darsh?' I try the suit's comms link, but there's no response and my heart sinks low. Wherever I am in the shadow biosphere, I'm too far away for Darsh to maintain contact. Bringing my arm up, I examine the control panel and begin pressing buttons. It takes me a while to get used to controlling the thrusters, but after a few false starts, I get the hang of it. As I ride the darkness, my limbs buffeted by unseen currents, I search for Blake. In the distance, there are star clusters and constellations that look beautiful. They would be more beautiful if it weren't for the fact I know I'm probably going to die out here.