Current drift, p.10
Current Drift, page 10
As Gareth neared the final stretch of grass, Damian began to talk. “Coming together,” he muttered. “Closer now. Closer. Feel your way to it. The music is… displaced.”
It was like a narration, an ongoing stream of consciousness. Almost like listening to another language, in a way; Gareth understood the individual words, the individual sounds. But all together, none of it made sense.
Stranger still, it didn’t sound like Damian. At all. Oh, the voice was his, true enough; but the inflection, the seriousness, the tone—none of it fit what Gareth knew of his friend.
“His readings are off the charts,” Alex said, raising her voice above the unceasing flow of Damian’s chatter.
“And,” Chief Escher added, “his blood samples are giving off energy.”
Gareth wiped a rivulet of water out of his eyes, which did nothing, given that his arm was as drenched as his forehead. “How does blood give off energy?”
“It shouldn’t.” Escher’s response was clipped. “Not like this. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is, anyway.”
It felt like a riddle, but it was one he’d have to leave to the scientists.
A shot rang out behind him, and a man slammed into him from the side, knocking him off the path and into a row of bushes. Gareth struggled, ready to fight, as plasma sizzled into the side of the tower where his head had been, followed by a scatter of bullets.
His attacker made no move to hurt him; instead, the man waited a beat, then got up and started for the tower entrance.
When he turned to glance over his shoulder, Gareth almost punched him on instinct, because his attacker—his savior, actually—was Vin.
Not two days ago, Vin had very nearly succeeded in murdering Gareth in his bed. Now he was throwing himself in front of bullets to save him?
Pick a side, he thought. The voice in his head sounded like Sloane’s.
Vin lurched toward the tower, his left hand clamped around his upper right arm as he nodded toward the entrance. His face was contorted in pain, but his eyes were narrowed with determination.
“Did you get shot?” Gareth asked.
“Only a little.” Vin ground the words out like they caused him as much pain as the wound itself. That definitely sounded like something Sloane would say. “Come on. Move!”
There wasn’t time to question Vin’s change of heart. If it was another trap, it was a strange one. So, Gareth moved.
Shots skipped off the tower’s exterior as Gareth and Vin plunged inside, Damian’s voice still murmuring in the background, his narration muffled by shouts and scattering rock and the clatter of Gareth’s footsteps as he and Vin ascended the stone stairs. The tower smelled like rain and blood, and hints of the charred-ozone flavor that only discharged plasma could emit.
Vin plunged onto the landing at the top of the stairs, barreling straight into a guard that materialized to intercept him. The two men went tumbling to the floor, limbs flailing.
A good tactic, to wait patiently here while your enemies tired themselves on a race up the stairs. But Vin was fighting with the wildness of one of his wolves, muscles straining as he struggled with the guard, all while the circle of blood on his arm bloomed larger by the second. They needed to get him to an infirmary, and quickly.
Before Gareth could move to help him, a second guard appeared from behind the door, weapon drawn. But Gareth was ready; he fired a stun round into the soldier’s chest, sending him stumbling back. He hit the frame of the nearest archway and crumpled, narrowly escaping a fall directly to the ground.
When Gareth was sure the man had been subdued, he strode over and fired a second stun round into Vin’s attacker, who went limp.
The landing was hardly big enough for all four of them, never mind the enormous bell at the center of it all, but Gareth cleared the area anyway, checking the corners as Vin staggered to his feet, once again clutching his injured arm.
“Undone,” Damian said. “It’s coming undone.”
Damian sounded like the one who was coming undone. Gareth peered under the bell, where a familiar console strobed with yellow and green light. They’d replaced the bell’s clapper with a platform to hold the tech, complete with the spherical model on top. It looked exactly like the model he and Sloane had disabled when the CTF had tried to close Myer behind one of these shields.
Increasing the power on his gun, Gareth fired directly into the controls. The lights went dark.
With a glance back toward the stairs, Vin staggered to the window, peering up and out into the rain. “Elter’s still covered,” he said. “Must’ve been Tronan’s shield, or the sister moons’.”
Gareth peered out into the rain, which was falling as heavily as ever. “It would have taken time for Elter’s shield to lock in the first place,” he said, remembering Myer. “Maybe it takes time to retract.”
Either way, it was a win. It had to be a win.
When Gareth and Sloane had taken out Myer’s shield, Alex had confirmed their success. But Damian’s narration was still flowing on, so she definitely had her hands full at the moment. With Brighton here on the ground with them, they’d have to wait.
Gareth leaned on the frame of the archway, squinting into the rain, hoping any moment would bring a sign that Elter’s captivity was about to end. If not by his own hand, then by Sloane’s—her tower had been the closest, and she should have reached the top by now—or Brighton’s. What if they, too, had met with guards? Had the bots been there to assist?
As the thought crossed his mind, a scream tore through the downpour. And there was no doubt in his mind that it belonged to Sloane.
CHAPTER 16
Sloane managed a single scream before Striker cut her off with a hand pressed around her throat, his sleeve falling back to reveal a fresh set of glowing inlays. They were just like Ivy’s, only their pathways were lined in scabs. Newly installed, and presumably not by the experts.
He shoved her back against the wall, and she scrambled to kick him in the crotch, in the shin, anywhere. But with his knee wedged against her hip, pinning her, it was impossible to move. She couldn’t even claw at his hand, which was pressed just lightly enough to let her keep drawing ragged breaths.
Even his eyes were glowing. What had he done to himself?
“I thought when we met,” he said, “that you would appreciate what I’m trying to do here.”
His face was angry, but his tone was calm. The combination was unnerving, like she was being attacked by two separate men.
“You shouldn’t take rejection so personally.” She could barely choke out the words, but it was worth it for the look on his face, the way his eyes darkened. Almost literally, actually, the threads of silver fading and flickering back. It was disconcerting, to say the least. Ivy didn’t have inlays in her eyes, that Sloane had noticed.
“The Interplanetary Dwellers’ tech,” Striker said. “The Currents. That Adu System dictator with the power to crush planets. Where did they all come from, Sloane?”
“It’s Ms. Tarnish to you.”
He tightened his grip. “Why wouldn’t you want to know as much as I do? You’re a woman of remarkable intelligence and innovative thinking. Why wouldn’t you be curious?”
Sloane didn’t think he was expecting an answer, but she said, “It just seems boring to me.”
Striker released her so suddenly that she collapsed to her knees in surprise, rasping in a breath. For all his talk of executing her and Gareth publicly, he looked awfully murderous right now. As if by insulting his beloved alien tech, she’d insulted him personally.
Well, if she was going to get murdered, she could at least free Elter before she did. The bell was right there, the lights of the shield controls reflecting inside its shell. If she could get ahold of her shooter, she could take it out. The gun had fallen to the ground just a few feet away. With the right distraction, she’d be able to reach it.
She’d destroy Elter’s shield, and then Striker could kill her all he wanted. Not that she welcomed it, but a girl had to be practical. And hey, she might even be able to shoot him, too. Practical, but optimistic.
Striker’s inlays glowed—there was definitely an unnatural spark in his eye—and Sloane’s veins turned to liquid fire, pain surging through her in a sudden burst. Like someone had taken a knife to every artery, every capillary, ripping them all apart so thoroughly that it was actually a shock not to see any blood on the floor.
Her palms scraped against the ground as the heels of her hands met the stone, but she barely felt it; the pain was too intense, her muscles cramping at every joint. And she had a lot more joints than she’d realized.
“Is this boring?” Striker asked quietly.
Sloane let herself collapse to the floor. The writhing wasn’t even that much of an act, either, since the pain was like nothing she’d felt before. But if she was going to writhe, she’d move toward her shooter while she did it.
“Extremely boring.” She bit out the words, trying to ignore the fact that they sounded half like sobs. Keep him concentrated on her pain. Roll for the shooter. It was the only thought in her mind, the only thing.
If she could get the shooter, she could save another planet. Maybe her family’s. Maybe someone else’s. She’d have to rely on Gareth and Brighton for the rest.
If only she could get there, with every muscle on fire. Biting back a scream, she stretched for her gun.
Striker intercepted her, crouching to block her path to the shooter. “Nice try.”
Sloane rolled, grabbed the gun out of his back pocket, and took aim at the underside of the bell. Which was spectacularly easy to sight, given her vantage from the floor. She pulled the trigger, and the console sizzled with a miniature lightning storm before sputtering into darkness.
Success. She hoped.
Striker made a strangled noise, grabbing for her, and she gasped as the pain stopped, as suddenly as it’d begun. Like someone had flicked a switch. He really was new to controlling these inlays of his—which apparently came with a torture expansion pack; not so nifty—and distraction was an excellent tool.
Sloane lunged to her feet, staggering away from Striker. But he was blocking the way to the door and the heat emanating from the bell’s smoking metal suggested it would be best not to go that way.
“Shouldn’t rely so much on alien tech,” she said, backing toward the nearest archway.
If there are any bots nearby, she sent via her eye screen, I could use an assist.
“I can’t control it.”
At first, she was confused; Striker’s mouth wasn’t moving, and his voice sounded wrong. But it only took a heartbeat to realize it was Damian, his voice rushing into her ear with fresh intensity. He’d been murmuring all the while, but she’d been distracted by Striker’s torture session. Now he was practically shouting. “I can’t hold it back.”
Alex and Escher were speaking urgently in the background, but she couldn’t tell what they were doing, whether they were speaking into the comms or talking to Damian. The rain mixed with their voices, blurring them into incomprehensible whispers. The tower smelled like hot metal, like fried electronics. Like toast, weirdly, and an undertone of sweat.
Eyes flashing, Striker lunged for her. Time was up. She wasn’t going to let him be the one to take her down.
Sloane turned toward the arch, one hand on the stone, and had a brief moment to contemplate that Gareth and Vin were running across the quad grass below, and that they were together. Not shooting at each other, but running toward her.
Unfortunately, so was Striker. Praying the bots had heard her distress call, she leapt.
CHAPTER 17
Sloane was ready for her stomach to flip, for the sidewalk to come careening toward her face. She was ready for her life to flash before her eyes and, hopefully, for a bot to come zooming in at the last second to scoop her out of death’s maw. Or a second before the last second, even. She wasn’t all that choosy about the details of her salvation.
None of that occurred. In fact, Sloane didn’t fall at all; she stepped out of the tower, and she drifted. There was a slight swoop of the stomach, yes, but no acceleration. And though she was indeed floating toward the ground, Gareth and Vin were rising, along with everything that wasn’t bolted or rooted to Darrow’s surface: fliptabs and fallen leaves and flower petals, coffee cups and loose pebbles and even a pair of zeeball rackets, though Sloane hadn’t noticed a court.
Only the delivery drones maintained their paths. She almost slammed into one on her way from the tower to the ground, but it swerved, blinking red warning lights that surely would have translated to curse words if the thing had a voice.
All around her, the rain coalesced into wavery bulbs, each one catching the light and distorting the reflections of the other floating objects. It all felt extremely… unreal. Like a dream. Or maybe a hallucination.
“Someone cut the gravity,” she said.
“That was me,” Ivy said, breathing hard through the comms. “I couldn’t think what else to do.”
Sloane’s foot met the ground, and she pushed off gently, hoping to rise back toward the dome to reach Gareth. And Vin, she supposed, but only because one came with the other at the moment. There was no sign of Striker, but she doubted Ivy’s gravity ploy would keep him off her back for long. Was he hulking out of sight in that tower?
And—she shuddered—could he activate his torture abilities from this distance? She really didn’t want to consider what would happen if he could.
She wasn’t sure how to get out of this, how to reunite with the others and make it back to the ship, preferably without getting murdered in the process. Despite her best efforts to match her trajectory with theirs, Gareth and Vin were now drifting in the opposite direction.
She could reorient herself when she reached the top of the dome. For now, she could at least try to see whether her shot had freed Elter from its cage. Her bell might have been controlling Tronan’s shield; it might have been controlling the other two moons, Yurtec and Falta. She didn’t know if Gareth had completed his own planet-freeing mission, and she didn’t see Brighton anywhere.
Freedom for any of them would be a win. But she couldn’t stop picturing her parents and sister. She had to believe they’d be seeing the sky again, and soon. So she locked her gaze on her own sky, ignoring the threat of the vacuum, and watched Elter.
And as she neared the dome, the light began to shift, the eerie rose-gold tint opening into subtle shades of blue and then green, until she didn’t even have to look up to know that they’d succeeded. Elter was free. But she looked anyway, extending her fingertips toward the domed ceiling as she finally reached it, steadying herself against it and watching as the shell folded away, plate by plate, to reveal the beautiful brown, blue, and green shades of her home planet.
Sloane had seen a lot of different worlds by now, and most of them were pretty from above. At the moment, though, she didn’t think any were as beautiful as Elter.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever fully appreciated it, come to that.
“I can’t stop it.” Damian’s voice was hoarse now, as if the constant talking were wearing his voice ragged. “I can’t stop it.”
“What can’t you stop?” Alex asked, the frustration in her tone suggesting that this was not the first time she’d voiced the question.
As Sloane tipped her head back, her eyes full of Elter’s beauty, the bulbs of water rising around her turned a little too green. Too green, at least, to be fully explained by Elter’s adjusting light.
Sloane turned away from Elter in time to see, finally, what Damian was screaming about.
The Current streamed out of the far reaches of the System, whipping toward them like an unhinged lasso. Like a tsunami that could eat entire planets, entire Systems, and still emerge hungry. And Sloane remembered, with dawning horror, how Damian had used the shield and its accompanying stasis field to draw the Current toward Myer, to snap up one of the orbiting dragon ships.
Only this time, the Current was starved for the stasis field. It had redirected itself.
“I’m not sure we thought this through,” she said.
The Current swept toward Elter, a surge of power that none of them truly understood. With Myer, it’d merely fed on the stasis field at Damian’s urging.
This time, it was headed for Elter’s retracting shield. And Darrow was in the way.
The thought occurred to her as the Current wrapped its tendrils around the dome, obscuring Elter from sight as it ripped the entire moon into its folds. Her body slammed into the dome, and she slid, tumbling and bouncing without the hope of a handhold. There weren’t any handholds. She could no longer see Elter, but couldn’t assume that meant the planet was safe, since she couldn’t see anything with the world flipping on its head like this.
Beads of water sloshed into her face, stinging her eyes, and it seemed increasingly likely that she’d get hit by flying detritus or flung into a nearby building. It was all a blur. She ducked to avoid a flying fliptab, curling herself into a ball to protect her head as the dome turned, feeling suddenly guilty for ever having shaken a snow globe.
The air flashed with blue-green light, and Sloane turned her head, scanning as best she could for any sign of Gareth. Vin was whatever, but they’d been together before, so she grudgingly kept an eye out for him as well. Was Gareth hearing the grind of the Current, like Damian was? And if so, was he managing to stay conscious?
“Ivy,” she said, “do you think we could get some gravity back in here?”
“Would that even help?” Ivy’s voice was edged in high-pitched panic. No doubt she was getting thrown around on Moneymaker, too.
Sloane didn’t know. She just wanted the spinning to stop. And to think, she’d so recently been thankful not to get crushed into a pancake.
