Eternity's Wheel (13 page)

“Fine,” I said. “Get me Jai.” I turned away, making myself go over to Josephine. I ignored Avery. “You don't have to do this,” I said, and she made a faint sound that might have been a laugh.

“Shut up,” she told me. “You're being a wimp. What kind of leader are you, anyway?”

“A bad one,” I answered. “I keep letting my people get killed.”

“Get better at it,” she said. “I'm going to make this ship fly. You better keep it in the air, got it?” She was white as a ghost now, shadows ringing her eyes. Her lips were dark with blood from where she'd been biting them.

“We're ready, Joey.” Joeb's voice came from behind me, right before I heard the PLSS flare to life.

“I keep running but she knows,” Josephine whispered, looking up at Avery. “I keep hiding, but she can find me anywhere. I'm the flame to her moth. Mother Moth . . .”

“Shh,” he said, and smoothed a hand over her hair. “She won't find you, Josie. I promise.”

I frowned, glancing sidelong at him as he stood. He ignored me, stepping out of the way as J/O came over to hook her up to the machines.

“Jai?” I said.

“Present,” said the familiar voice, and the calm,
brown-skinned version of me stepped over to Josephine's other side.

“You're the magic guy,” I said, “And this is some serious magic. I don't care how it works or how you do it, but your job is to make sure nothing goes wrong. Make sure the link is gone, and help guide her to . . . wherever. J/O, make sure the transducer works right.”

Jai shifted me a thoughtful glance, but said nothing. He nodded, holding one hand out above Josephine and closing his eyes.

“Avery—”

“I know what I'm doing,” came the rough response, the dark-haired boy moving to stand at the edge of the cot. He put a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Back up.”

There was that cold hard knot in my stomach again, though I wasn't sure if it was from anger or fear. I took a step back, watching as Jai focused.

“I can sense the link,” Jai said. “It is intact, and strong.”

“Show them,” Avery said, and Jai concentrated.

At first, nothing happened. Then I saw a glint, like something above us caught the light, just for a moment. It was there and then gone, then there was another, and another; like the thin threads of a spiderweb glinting in the sun. There were maybe ten of them that I could see, tinged vaguely with red and all in a bundle. They started at Josephine, wrapped
loosely around her, and arced upward. I looked around, trying to find their source, but they were nonlinear and scattered, winding around all of us and slowly tightening, like they were being pulled taut.

“She's coming,” Josephine whispered. I heard the click of Avery's sword as he tightened his hand around the hilt.

“Josephine,” I said suddenly. “There's something I never did.”

All eyes turned to me.

“Repeat after me,” I said. “I, Josephine Harker.”

Her gaze found mine, and she gave a tiny half smile. “I, Josephine Harker.”

“Understanding that there must be balance in all things, hereby declare that I shall do all in my power to defend and protect the Altiverse from those who would harm it or bend it to their will. That I will do everything I can to support and stand for InterWorld and the values it embodies.”

She repeated it, word for word, though her voice was barely above a whisper by the end and her knuckles were white where her hands gripped the side of the cot. The threads above her blurred as my eyes watered, and for a moment, I was able to see them all clearly.

“Welcome to InterWorld,” I whispered. My voice sounded bitter even to me.

Avery moved, so suddenly I almost missed it, whipping
his sword from the sheath and striking in the same motion. The circuitry blade cut cleanly through the strands that wound around us all and I saw one, just before it fell, going straight through the heart of Avery Jones.

From Avery's journal

I didn't want this mission in the first place.

I know that sounds whiny, and I am not trying to complain, but I need to find Acacia. I understand that we can't spare any Agents for her; we've got our hands full trying to keep the Techs in line. I know that.

But she's my little sister, damn it. She's all I've got. Even now . . .

Damn him. And Josephine, too.

I didn't want this mission, but I took it because it would put me into contact with Joseph Harker. From what I can tell, he's the last person to have seen Acacia before she vanished. I wanted the chance to question him, at the very least, even if it wasn't part of this specific job. I was supposed to be bringing the infected Walker back to his correct timeline, but that proved more difficult than I thought.

Acacia shouldn't have sent him to InterWorld's End. That's a point far in the future, so far it had no bearing on him. He had no business being there. Into the future, sure, off to a remote location where no one but the Techmaturges could have gotten to him . . . but my sister decided otherwise, apparently.

Technically, it was Harker's own future path. Thousands of years after his death, of course, but still on the same timeline. The MDLF showing up to bring him back through the future was unexpected, though I have to wonder if my sister hadn't taken that into account.
She spoke highly of him in her reports, though I have to admit I'm not overly impressed.

He's rash, and he doesn't follow directions. He doesn't listen. I told him to leave Josephine behind, and instead he brought her onto the ship, compromising his entire mission. The HEX witch would have made her way on board, if I hadn't acted. If I hadn't killed Josie.

It wasn't supposed to happen that way.

Damn this mission.

I
T DIDN'T HAPPEN IMMEDIATELY
.
To be perfectly honest, it was fairly anticlimactic. The threads faded, their broken ends sparking blue with electricity, flashing like little fireflies before they vanished. Josephine's hands slowly relaxed where they'd gripped the edges of the cot. She took a breath, then another, and then she didn't. The PLSS gave a pulse, made a sound kind of like
dzzzt!
and then a little green light on the transducer powered on.

“It's working,” J/O said. He sounded timid, as though he was afraid to break the silence. I saw Jai look at Avery and nod. The Agent of TimeWatch nodded back, then looked down at Josephine's body. He looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked out without a word.

“Make sure it stays working,” I said. “As soon as we have enough power, give us a jump and get us moving.” J/O looked startled.

“I—I've never . . .”

“You can plug into the main console, can't you?”

“Theoretically, but . . .”

“Then do that. It's not like flying a jet or anything—you're not gonna flip us. Just program the coordinates,” I said. He still looked uncertain, but I was already heading to the door. “Jo!”

She glanced up from the small throng of people still huddled around the bodies of the unmoving Walkers. I realized with a start that they'd brought them with us as we all trouped into the engine room—and
then
I realized I was going to have to figure out what to do with their bodies. We couldn't just . . . keep them.

“Are they all dead?” I asked as she fell into step with me. I was surprised at the steadiness of my voice.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“Who?”

“J'r'ohoho, Jenna, and Jerem.”

I took a breath, shoving it aside. I'd mourn them later. “Okay. Gather everyone to the mess for me.”

“Okay. Everyone?”

“Except J/O, he's getting the ship online.” I paused, then reconsidered. “And Jai, leave him with J/O.” I was
pretty
sure that J/O was totally fine now, but all I had was Avery's word for it . . . and speaking of words, he and I needed to have some.

“What should I tell him?”

“Tell him to watch over the bodies.” Jai was smart; he'd get it.

“Okay. Joey,” she said, as we started to go down different corridors. She paused. “Don't screw up,” she warned, the ghost of a smile passing over her face.

I nodded, and we went our separate ways. It may have seemed harsh, but that was Jo's style—and her telling me not to mess up was more than a warning. It was a declaration. It meant she would follow me, and so would everyone else. It meant I
couldn't
mess up, because everyone was depending on me now.

It was something I was already painfully aware of.

“Hey,” I called, as I rounded another corner to see Avery. He was standing in front of the Wall, our memorial to the fallen. It had started outside the infirmary, no one knew when or by whom, and back on InterWorld Alpha I was used to it spanning one side of a long hallway. Here, on this InterWorld so far in the future, it extended out into three different halls at least.

He shifted slightly at my voice, though he didn't turn. He didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular, just the Wall in general, which had everything from bits of seashells to silly doodles to jewelry to feathers and teeth from species I'd never heard of. There was a lot to look at, and each thing held personal significance for a Walker long dead.

“Come to interrogate me?” he asked as I drew closer.

“Give me a reason not to,” I said. “Tell me exactly why you're here.” He turned his head to look at me, his violet eyes cold.

“I was returning your cyborg.”

“What else?”

He lifted his chin slightly, considering me. After a moment, he said, “I am fulfilling the mission of another Agent who is currently LAS.”

“LAS?”

He glanced away for a moment, as though I was trying his patience. “Lost at sea. An equivalent term for you, I suppose, would be MIA.”

“Acacia,” I said. I'd been through so much in the last twenty minutes that the thought of her being missing didn't upset me as much as it maybe should have. “You don't know where she is?”

“I had hoped that you would,” he said, looking at me coolly, “since you're the last person on record to see her.”

“What do you mean, ‘on record'?”

“That is classified and none of your business, and I won't explain it.”

“Fine,” I said, matching his tone. “Then, since you're here in her place, and I'm here in the Old—in Captain Harker's place, I'm going to tell you the same thing he told her: You have prime clearance, as long as you're escorted at all times.
That escort will be me. You spend one second out of my sight, and I will consider you a threat to this ship and the people on it.”

“Fine,” was all I got in response. I should have expected it.

I turned to leave again, assuming he'd follow me. He did, though not without another lingering glance back to the Wall. I paused, curiosity getting the better of me.

“You called her ‘Josie,' like you knew her. Why?”

If I'd thought he was cold before, the look he gave me now almost froze me where I stood. “That,” he said, his fingers brushing over the hilt of his sword, “is also none of your business.”

We looked at each other for a long moment, and then I turned my back on him and started for the mess hall.

There were twenty-five of us total in the mess hall, since Jai and J/O were still in the engine room, and we'd lost four of us since the last time I'd done a head count.

Four of us, in the last twenty minutes.

I stood on a table, facing the room at large, the gathered Walkers standing or sitting around me. The room was a wreck; it looked like it had been used as a choke point for whatever it was that had attacked InterWorld. Tables were overturned and had been used as barricades; chairs were discarded and broken; various bits of metal and machinery that had probably once been weapons were scattered about
the floor. I took it all in, trying to recapture what those last moments would have been like, and trying not to let the hopelessness of the situation overtake me. If this was to be InterWorld's end, what point was there in what I was doing now?

It was quite simple, really. This was what I knew. It was what I'd been trained for—hell, for all I could tell, it was what I'd been born for. Me, and every other version of me there was. I couldn't
not
do it.

But, God, that was so hard to remember when I was standing there, looking at their faces. Most of them were tear streaked, dirty, and tired. Some were bruised or scratched, and they all looked as beaten down as I felt. I wondered if this was how the Old Man felt when he spoke to us after a failed mission. I wonder if he'd trained himself not to feel anything at all.

“I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what the hell happened,” I started, deciding to get right to the point. “Near as I can tell, after the first group we sent with Josephine and Hue—my mudluff friend—arrived safely here, the large expenditure of Walker energy caught the attention of a HEX agent known as Lady Indigo. She was ready for the second group when we tried to Walk, and pulled us into the Nowhere-at-All. Three of us were killed.

“Josephine Harker was a Walker I recruited and trained, and though she was new to Walking, she was very, very good
at it. She used this to her advantage and slipped away while the rest of us were captured. I didn't sense her, and neither did Lady Indigo. She, along with TimeWatch Agent Avery Jones, came to our rescue. It is because of them that we escaped as we did. However, Lady Indigo formed an energy link with Josephine that would have allowed her to track us here, even through time. We severed that link, which means we are safe from her for now. Unfortunately, Josephine was killed in the process.” As hard as all of that had been to say, it was nothing compared to what I had to get through next.

“Her last wish was to have her spirit used to jump-start this ship.” A murmur went through the crowd from those who hadn't been present for that discussion; I fought to control the wave of guilt that swept over me, to ignore the voice in my head that told me I didn't deserve to be standing before them like some kind of leader. I'd let us get captured, gotten several of us killed, and then used my first recruit just like our enemies would have.

Forcing myself to continue, I said, “J/O and Jai are overseeing the process of bringing power back to the ship. Once we're up and running, we'll see how far the engines will take us. In the meantime, our priorities are twofold. First, we have to get the ship in order. This is our temporary base of operations until we can get back to InterWorld Prime, which brings me to our second goal.

“When last I saw it, InterWorld Prime—or InterWorld
Alpha, as I've been calling it—had been detected by a HEX ship. They've thrown the engines into overdrive and punched it, but HEX is right on their tail. This means they can't stop, which means they can't help us. Everyone on that ship, including the Old Man, is trapped until we find a way to help them.”

I let that sink in, already dividing them up into groups in my head, sorting out who would be best for what. It was surprisingly easy; I knew my team and their capabilities, and I was passingly familiar with a handful of the others here. Joeb knew many of them better, so I could work with him to place people into teams. By the time the murmuring had died down again, I'd figured out the people I needed.

“Joeb, Jo, and Josef, with me. Everyone else, get to the living quarters and pick a bunk. They're all pretty messed up; you're responsible for cleaning yours out, but
don't
just move any junk or debris into another room. Take it all the way out to the courtyard. You three,” I said to Joeb, Jo, and Josef, who'd stepped forward. “The Old Man's office. You, too,” I told Avery, who had been leaning one shoulder against the wall, arms folded, listening quietly. He fell into step behind us, and as we left I heard the others start filing out toward the living quarters.

It still boggled my mind that people were just . . . doing what I told them. No one had said a word nor asked a
question nor wondered
why I was giving orders
. Granted, I was the only one who currently knew everything that was going on . . . which led me to the third part of our mission, the one I hadn't told anyone about. Yet.

I'd chosen the Old Man's office because it was a secure room with one entrance, one we could see from any angle. I still wasn't taking any chances with J/O, and I'd already learned my lesson about the possibility of traitors in our midst. The only other one of us I was unsure of was Avery Jones, because he
wasn't
one of us, but it was better to keep him with me than let him wander around unsupervised.

“Joey . . .” Jo paused in the doorway to the Old Man's receiving room. It still existed in my memory as the personalized, semicozy office space the Old Man's assistant Josetta had always kept, not as the wreck it was now. There had been comfortable, plush waiting chairs and a soft, colorful rug, and Josetta's desk had been covered with knickknacks and multicolored Post-its. It had been one of the few rooms on Base, aside from our own individual ones, that showed any sort of personality.

Now it was covered in a layer of fine dust and ash, the rug long since disintegrated, the desk overturned, and the chairs rotted. Jo stood in the doorway, her wings fluffed up slightly in alarm. “Why here?” she asked.

“Because it's the closest thing we have to soundproof,”
I said, ushering Joeb, Josef, and Avery into the Old Man's office. “And I have things to say that can't leave this room. Come on.”

She hesitated a moment more, then visibly steeled herself and crossed the threshold. I knew how she felt; like we were intruding, standing in shoes we had no right to even think of filling.

I'd been feeling like that since I first got here.

“I called in you three for a few reasons,” I began. “First, I trust you. Second, I need you.” I looked at Joeb.

“Joeb, you and Jai are the only senior officers I have, and I'll need Jai here for a while. You have more experience than any of us with extracting Walkers, and that's what I need you to do. Put together a team or do it solo, it's your call, but I need you to go get more of us. As many as you can find. You'll need Hue to sense them; I'll show you how.”

He nodded, seeming unsurprised by the request and (to my relief) unbothered by the notion of working with my mudluff friend. Many of us (including myself, not that it had stopped me) had been taught from the beginning that MDLFs were incredibly dangerous, so most of my teammates had never quite grown to trust Hue.

“Josef, you're in charge of clearing out the debris. We need clear hallways, and access to the equipment lockers. I have no idea what, if anything, is in there; it's completely blocked, Josephine . . . and I weren't able to get in.” I paused
for a moment, a half second after her name. I couldn't help it. Maybe if we'd been able to get more equipment out of the lockers, she would have had more of a chance against Lady Indigo. Maybe if I'd done anything differently . . .