Warp World (53 page)

“Come on!” she said, charging once more into the bedlam.

He clutched the grip of his chack so tightly, his fingers ached. Along with the roar of the wind and the Storm, there were screams, smashes, sirens, and the rumble of a human stampede that was gaining momentum. A shove to the shoulder spun Seg to one side. Another Citizen elbowed him out of the way.

Ama, he saw, was fighting her own battle against the panicked mob. The tide of bodies swept her away from him and pinned her against a far wall. He squinted, struggling against the blowing dust and deepening darkness to stay focused on her location as he was carried in the opposite direction.

“AMA! Don’t move!” he shouted, his voice swallowed by the deafening clamor.

He lunged toward her but another body smacked into him, pinning his arm against the wall. He clamped down on it, but the chack slipped from his fingers. As soon as he was free, he dove to retrieve the weapon but it was kicked away, out of reach, and lost in the forest of feet.

“Seg!”

He heard Ama call for him across the growing distance, and he abandoned his search. He barreled his way into the frenzied mass, head low, hands clawing and pulling. A futile effort and now he had lost sight of her. He shouted her name but there was no reply.

“The beasts!” someone shouted.

The surge of the crowd abated slightly and he used the moment to regain lost ground. His reprieve was temporary, as a new threat sent the fleeing crowd into a sprint. A trumpeting wail cut through the din—not a human sound. Seg cursed his lost chack. The flow toward the slideway shifted, the bodies scattered in all directions. Free at last, Seg spotted Ama on the other side of the street. She had seen him, as well, and they both ran to rejoin—then halted.

Two men tore down the center of the now-cleared street, screaming. Behind them, a gathac, six legs pounding over the concrete, closed the gap. Seg stood frozen in place as the gathac lifted its chin and drove its single horn through one man’s back and out his chest. With its prey on the ground, the gathac thrashed its head and tore the man’s torso open with a splatter of flesh and entrails. A sudden stench filled the air.

The moment the creature dug into its meal, Seg waved an arm at Ama and they backtracked to reconnect at a safer distance. He pulled her off to one side, away from the street. The mob had not yet reformed, but now panicked humans were the least of their obstacles.

“Oh karg,” he said as he gave her a quick appraisal. The perasul bite wound had been torn open even further and was caked with dirt and debris. She was covered in scrapes and he didn’t even want to contemplate the state of her feet. She brushed at her dathe, no doubt choked with dust, and hacked out a dry cough.

He scanned the hazy street for his chack, but it was lost.

“How much further?” Ama shouted. She kept a wary eye on the feasting gathac.

Seg shielded his eyes as he tilted his head to find the route indicator plate affixed to the building. “We’re close.”

He didn’t bother to ask if she could go on. Hands linked, they trudged ahead.

By the time they arrived at the warehouse entrance, the air was so thick with dust they were both covering their faces with their hands. They tried the door and, when it swung open, shared a look of horror.

Fismar would never leave the warehouse so vulnerable.

“Lieutenant? Shan?” Ama called. Her voice, raspy from the dust, echoed. The lights were off, the warehouse was eerily quiet, the only noise came from the streets outside.

“Fismar!” Seg called, as he wove his way through a maze of crates. He brushed himself off as he walked. Outside, thunder rolled, rattling the windows.

After a thorough search of the building, Seg slumped back against one of the crates and shook his head.

“Gone.” But where? He looked up at the windows, which bent against the wind. Another warp drifted through the air over their heads, before shimmering out of existence.

Ama arrived at his side. Despite her obvious discomfort, she paced the floor. “Maybe the CWA took them? Maybe that’s what those men at the party were talking about?”

“There’s no sign of a struggle. Fismar would never give in without a fight—even one he couldn’t win.”

“Then …” A heavy gust of wind caught the open warehouse door, slammed it open and then closed. With a pained expression, Ama raised her hands to the sides of her head. “He’s taken them to safety somewhere.”

Seg didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Fismar would have done what every other citizen had done; he would have headed for the slideway.

“Maybe—” Ama stopped at the look on his face. She started to speak again but halted. They both turned their heads at the unmistakable sound of gunfire from outside. Survival. These People were fighting for their lives, even as the Storm descended.

“Shelter.” Ama stepped in front of him. Even inside the warehouse, they now almost had to shout to hear each other, and the roar was intensifying. “Can we hide from it? What did your people do before the shield?”

“Underground, that’s the only way. But the old underground shelters in cities were converted to dwellings or storage after the shields went up; it’s been a century since we needed them. Even if some still exist, I’d have no idea where we’d find one.”

“Nen’s death! We could— Wait. Underground? I know a place! Come on.” She jogged off across the expanse of the warehouse, passing by the empty bunks, and crates of food and weapons. There was a slight hobble to her movement; Seg winced to think of her shredded soles.

“There’s a storage space in the floor,” Ama said. “Tirnich found all the supplies for our yoth game in it. It’s—” She pointed to a spot on the ground, directly beneath a large crate. “—right here.”

Seg glared at the heavy storage crate, part of Fismar’s constantly-changing training ground. He scoured the surrounding area until he found one of the long pipes the troops used to shift the crates. He grabbed the pipe and jammed it under the edge. “Get another one. We might be able to move it enough.”

Once Ama had her pipe wedged under the crate, he counted down from three and they shoved in unison. The crate budged a few scant inches. Outside, the shooting and screams had been swallowed by the roar of the Storm; the ground beneath them trembled.

“Again!” Ama shouted.

One of the warehouse windows shattered, wind screamed through the open space; the Storm was almost on them. They shoved one more time, the crate creaked and slid. A final push and it was off the hatch in the floor.

Braced against the wind, Ama grabbed the latch to pull up the cover. Seg lifted it skyward. He could see a small landing area, then a ladder that led down to the shelter. The space was small but the lid was solid. Solid enough to hold against the Storm? They would find out soon enough.

“I’ll go first and help you down,” Seg said. He hopped inside and climbed halfway down the ladder. He waited for Ama. After what seemed like minutes she hadn’t appeared. He craned his neck to see her but the space around the hatch was empty.

A loud smash shook the warehouse.

He shouted her name and climbed back up, visions of the rampaging gathac and the violent goring fresh in his mind.

She had come for the book. She couldn’t say why, especially at this moment, she had felt compelled to retrieve it. All she knew was that her instincts seldom failed her. Now that she was here, she thought she might as well grab a few other necessities—her knife, a canteen of water, the blanket from her bunk.

She bundled everything in the blanket, turned to go, and fell to her knees.

The voices were back, carried on the Storm, burrowing into her head.

Stop, stop, stop …

A lighting fixture broke free from the ceiling and fell to the ground with a thunderous smash.

The noise yanked her back to her predicament. She breathed through the pain, pushed up from the floor, and stumbled back to the hatch.

Seg was waiting there. He shouted, wanted to know why she had run off again. It was too much effort to talk. She needed to get underground, away from the Storm.

She climbed in, Seg right behind her. The hatch came down with a loud slam and the world turned black. Above, the muted howl continued to build and Ama felt the same frenetic energy inside her, swirling, pushing her heart to beat faster.

Seg’s digifilm cast a faint blue glow. He took her bundle and helped her down the ladder. She should have been grateful—her head spun, her arm throbbed, her feet felt as if they had been dragged over barnacles—but it was as if the Storm had infected her with its wrath.

Seg guided her to the floor. Once they were both settled into the small, concrete room, he turned off the digifilm.

“Leave it on!” she said.

“I can’t risk it. The Storm damages electronics and this is—”

“You said the shield never fails. You said we were safe in the city. You said—”

The voices rose again, scratching, demanding. She cried out, rocked back and forth, rubbed a hand against her forehead—nothing made them stop.

Even this far below, the ground rumbled. Above, the roar had turned to a screech. Something scratched at the lid, sharp claws rasping on the metal. A beast wailed.

“They’re dead! You killed them!” Ama said.

Thuds and crashes rained about their heads. Ama gripped handfuls of hair and curled forward. She couldn’t fight them anymore. Women, men, children, thousands of memories, languages, lifetimes played out inside her head, overlapping, competing. Worse than drowning. She screamed; a long, tortured wail.

STOP!

S
ilence blanketed everything, followed by a static buzz.

“It’s here.” Seg’s voice echoed from miles away.

She knew it was here. She could feel the Storm, sense it the way she had once sensed drexla circling. Her dathe emitted that low vibration they gave when she felt threatened. The Storm was right on top of her, reaching for her.

“Stop.” One word, that’s all she could manage. She curled in a tight ball, willing the invaders out of her thoughts.

“Ama, what
’s going on
?”

Seg’s voice. She tried to focus on that one voice among millions. His hand was on her back.
Holding me here. Please, don’t let go.

“Storm.” She forced out one agonizing syllable. “Voices. Hurts.”

“Some people are more sensitive to the Storm than others. Concentrate on something else. Talk to me. Talk. Tell me what you went running after.”

She tried to speak, but her voice was buried beneath the waves of others.

“You’re stronger than this.” Seg had wrapped himself around her; his lips were against her ear. It felt good. Safe.

“There’s so many—”

He smoothed his hand over her hair. “What did you go back for?”

She reached for the bundle in the dark, grasped the edge of the blanket with her fingers, and dragged it close. Seg took the cue and unwrapped.

“Water,” he said, and she heard the sound of the fluid sloshing in the canteen as if she were listening to the surf in the fog. “Good, we’ll need this. Say it.”

“Water,” Ama said. Her voice escaped like smoke through a crack in a wall.

There was a rattle and then: “And a knife. Our sole weapon now.” He waited a moment then urged her to speak again.

“Knife,” she said, then groaned. Hunger, she felt a burning hunger and knew it belonged to the Storm above. “Fismar gave … knife.”

“Then it must be a quality blade.”

Even in the black, she squeezed her eyes closed, the way her father had taught her, to keep away the demons and monsters when she was a child.

Seg was silent for too long. She needed to hear him.

“What book is this?” There was a catch to his voice.

“Yours.”

Another silence.

“I brought it for you, but after everything …” Now it was Seg who lost the power to speak. She heard him clear his throat. “Remind me of the title.”

“
Culture and Conflict.
” She worked hard to get it all out.

“A good one. Basic, but good grounding. Have you read it all?”

The ground around them trembled again. Ama let out another low moan.

“Keep talking,” Seg said. “Did you read it?”

“Yes,” she said. “I like the stories.”

“What else? Go on, try more words.”

“Different … types of people.” Speaking was like swimming against the current. But as long as Seg urged her on, she would keep paddling. “Hard for me to sleep. Stories kept me from thinking … about that place.”

“I’m glad it helped.” Seg’s voice had a strange quality to it, as if he were also struggling to speak. “What stories did you enjoy most?”

She fought back the voices to remember the stories in the book that had captivated her. “The people who live on cliffs. The—” She paused to catch her breath. “The Clidsk. I saw a real one once. On his head, he had—”

“A shell,” Seg finished for her, as the strain became too much again. “They kill the animal, take its hard shell and fix it onto their own young, as protection from falls and from tumbling stones.”

“Skulls grow around it until it becomes part of them. They never come off the mountain, they—” Her muscles tensed and once more she fought back that other thing inside her. “They climb as easily as we walk.”

“A fascinating civilization. Tell me more.”

Ama related more tales from the book. At first, the words came in chunks, like prolonged stutters. But, soon enough, she could speak in complete sentences. The Storm was still up there, but by changing her focus she had built some kind of invisible wall inside herself—a type of shield. After a time, the pain and hunger diminished and she only had to pause for breath now and then.

“So many people, so many worlds,” she said. She could feel Seg’s exhaustion, as he pulled away from her. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and she saw him lean back against the concrete wall.

“I wonder if the universe is truly infinite,” he said. “Not that it matters, really.”

“I didn’t even know there was a universe until you invaded my world.”

“You didn’t get to see the more pleasant parts of it. Neither have I, I suppose.” He rapped his knuckles on the concrete. “They’re gone. You’re right, I did kill them.”