Heart of Annihilation (26 page)

Pain erupted in my cheek. The vision vanished. I stumbled back. The butt of the commander’s pistol cracked against my jaw. I fell to the side, but was up when the pistol came swinging down again. I threw up my arm to block her. Our wrists crashed together.

We stared at each other past our touching arms. Her other hand swung around, striking toward my nose. I blocked her again, and then again. I retreated under the force of her blows. Jab to the jaw, elbow to the temple, fingertips to the throat.

I may have had a chance if I’d possessed full use of both arms. She snuck in a fist to my chin that drove my back into the counter, and followed with the pistol across my bruised cheekbone. Pain ripped across my face. My hand went to my cheek, feeling the hot and swollen skin. A warm trickle of blood oozed from a gash.

“The location, Caz!” The commander twisted the fabric of my shirt until it cut into my neck.

Hatred burned my throat. My head was a pressurized knot of tension. I pressed my lips tight to prevent any inadvertent information leakage. A particularly sharp prod to my brain, and I saw the scalloped arches and bell towers again. Towering Japanese holly hovered like a proud parent over the expansive squat building.

“Don’t you see it, Caz?” The commander’s voice eliminated the vision before it could fully materialize. “Can’t you feel your loss; your utter aloneness on this dimension? You are nothing now—but you could be again. Tell me where I can find the Heart, and we’ll find a place for it. A place where it can fulfill its full potential. Like you always wanted.”

A laugh echoed from the knot in my brain. Caz wormed forward.

“We? There is no ‘we.’ There never was a ‘we.’”

My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. I shook my head in a desperate attempt to dislodge Caz’s hold. The commander gave an incredulous scoff. With a hard shove against the counter, she released my shirt. In a few quick steps she was back to Thurmond. He was on his knees now, his arms held behind his back by Sanderford and another soldier. The commander ground the pistol into Thurmond’s forehead.

My head exploded in pain, and a flash of blue light shattered my vision. I saw, as though in a dream, the light from a portal pulling out the detail in the eucalyptus trees and sagebrush, making it glow even against the brightness of the sun. The sculpted arches and triple bell towers stood as the background for a simple man in simple clothing, tools in his hands, a wooden cross at his feet. I felt the sphere cradled to my stomach, its warmth and pulsing energy warping my brittle mind.

The vision vanished, leaving me disoriented and blinking at all the figures around me. I knew that place. I’d been there before. Me, Specialist Kris Rose. I’d lived there and trained there as a soldier.

The skin of Thurmond’s forehead puckered around the muzzle of the pistol. His eyes squeezed shut. His jaw muscles created ripples under the skin. The moment seemed eternal. The trigger of the pistol was depressed so far I couldn’t understand how it hadn’t fired yet. I pictured the brass casing housing the gunpowder that would release the bullet. The spiral within the chamber to give the bullet spin and momentum. I imagined the bullet racing down the chamber, not even meeting light before bursting into Thurmond’s head. His eyes would deaden, and I would never be able to tell him about Dad, or how much I cared, or how sorry I was.

“Hunter-Liggett.” The words exploded from my mouth like a grenade—small enough to hold in the palm of your hand but with far-reaching consequences I couldn’t begin to comprehend. “The Heart’s at Fort Hunter-Liggett, here in California. I’ll take you there. I’ll take you right to it. Don’t kill him!”

Horror settled in my stomach and overwhelmed the tenuous relief that the information was out. All I could think of was what it cost Dad, and Thurmond, and Rannen, and Wichman, and everyone else who had the misfortune to stumble across my path.

“Excellent!” The commander lifted the pistol with a jerk.

Breath went out of Thurmond. He rubbed the depression in his forehead. The commander took a step away from him, her head cocked, studying my face for deception.

I placed a hand on my mouth to hide a nonexistent tell, letting my eyes express my truthfulness. The shrill wail of distant sirens. Our little circle of drama expanded past ourselves to the soldiers, and then past the soldiers to the world around.

“Let’s get moving before those cops arrive, shall we?” the commander sounded downright cheerful. She grabbed my arm. I allowed her to drag me across the room.

Soldiers muscled Thurmond to his feet. Rannen was being ushered out the stairwell door by Sanderford and Burrows. Rannen forced them to stop for a moment and looked over his shoulder at me. He seemed puzzled, his eyebrows knotted, and he opened his mouth to say something only to close it. Shaking his head, he allowed Sanderford to push him out the door.

I listened to the echoing thunder of boots descending the twenty-five flights of stairs. The commander paused at the door, pinching my arm to stop me. She leaned over me like a drill sergeant trying to hammer information into a difficult private and forced me to look into her inhuman eyes.

“If I find you’ve lied to me, Specialist Rose, or you have something else up your sleeve, I swear to you there will be no more restraint. No more mercy or second chances. Give me any excuse. I would like nothing more than to decorate my clothes with the blood of your friends.”

I rested against the cold wall in the back of the small U-Haul moving truck. Blackness pressed hard on my eyeballs, until I closed them to make the darkness feel more natural. I buried my hands in my hair, trying to block out everything but the sound of the freeway. The
whizz-whizz-whizz
of the tires was soothing. Such an ordinary sound, normal to billions of people the world over, to the point of being imperceptible white noise. I focused on it to the exclusion of all else. Miniscule rattles and seams in the pavement broke it up on occasion, but for the most part the steady
whizz-whizz-whizz
could go on forever.

Except the driver had a much closer destination in mind.

“Damn padlock.” Out in the darkness Thurmond kicked and swore at the door, damning the commander, Retha, U-haul, the state of California, and everything in between. The venting went on for a good ten minutes, after which there was nothing but the steady sound of the road. His boots tromped unsteadily in my direction as the truck swayed.

“Rose?” His voice was now soft, cajoling.

I dug my nails deeper into my skull. I didn’t want to hear anything that might connect me to reality. Reality sucked. I had sacrificed the entire world to keep Thurmond alive. And for what? He was still dead. I was dead. Rannen was dead. Just because we were all still currently breathing didn’t mean we should make any long term plans.

“Rose.” Thurmond’s voice was more insistent this time. The truck rattled over a series of bumps. Warmth from his body leeched into my shoulder as he sat by my side.

“Dammit, Rose. Talk to me.”

I grunted, it being far easier than saying, “shut up, I would prefer to spend my last moments on Earth wallowing in self-pity, if you don’t mind,” or even, “go away.”

The realization that self-pity was exactly how far I’d fallen only succeeded in making me feel lower, if that were possible. His strong hands found mine and untangled my fingers from my hair. Thurmond pulled my hand onto his lap, intertwining our fingers.

“How’s your face?”

Throbbing. Oozing. I grunted. It was less than I deserved.

Thurmond continued, “Mine’s fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

A wisp of concern worked its way past my pity party. I pictured myself reaching out and finding the spot on his face where the commander had pistol-whipped him. I would touch it softly and express heartfelt appreciation that it wasn’t much, much worse.

“That was a pretty amazing show you put on back there,” Thurmond said. Then, before I could think about responding his voice changed to a higher pitch. “Thanks, Devon, I’ve been saving the good stuff for our first real date.” His voice went back to normal, “A date? Is that what you call it? I liked the car service and escort you sent. Very urbane.”

An uncharacteristic giggle unfurled from my throat. I covered my mouth to stop any more inappropriate lightheartedness.

The weight of the truck shifted, and I felt as much as heard Rannen approach. The thudding of his big feet and the enormous weight of his body should have flipped the truck, but we rumbled on. He settled on the other side of me, rubbing his wrists. I’d burned through my ropes the second the commander’s men had thrown us into the back of the truck, and then untied Thurmond and Rannen before sinking into despair.

No one spoke again for several minutes. Our breathing skipped in and out of sync. Then, a deep sigh and the smell of ozone.

“I hate to say this under the circumstances,” Rannen said, “but it’s really good to see the both of you.”

“You too.” Thurmond spoke over my head. “They give you a rough time?”

Rannen made a movement next to me that felt something akin to a shrug.

“Is the Heart of Annihilation really at this Hunter-Liggett place?” Rannen’s voice echoed a quick, tinny repeat.

I didn’t speak. My mind was galloping alongside the vision of the old mission with the triple bell towers, searching for the specific spot the destructive, soccer ball-sized sphere was hidden.

“Yes.” I rubbed the sudden ache above my ear.

Rannen’s large, cool hand pulled my hand away from my head and laid it on my lap. The image shattered. Caz retreated. With a little squeeze Rannen released my hand. “How do you know?”

“I saw that Caz . . . well, I remembered when I . . . when
she
hid it there.”

“
You
hid it there?” Rannen’s voice became deeper than normal, with a curious lilt to it.

“I guess. At least that’s what I saw. It’s there near the mission, somewhere. Mission San Antonio de something or another.”

“What is this Heart thing anyway?” Thurmond asked. “Why does the commander want it?”

“Uh—” It’s a device capable of destroying an entire dimension. Retha maybe, or how about—
dun-dun-dun
—Earth? I was saved the trouble of answering.

“Caz Fisk was developing a weapon before she was sentenced to RAGE.” Rannen’s voice was almost lost against the noise of the road. “There’s not a lot known about it, because she destroyed her lab before she went to the DCC building that day. What is common knowledge, though, and correct me if I’m wrong, Kris—”

“How would I know if you’re wrong?”

My surly interruption made Rannen pause, and when he went on there was a detachment in his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“What is common knowledge to most Rethans, Devon, is that this device is capable of absorbing all the life energy from an entire dimension. She developed it initially to combat the Thirteenth Dimension. It was supposed to simply be added to the Rethan arsenal as a deterrent. But that was before the Thirteenth Dimension obliterated a dimension her husband was visiting.”

It was as though he was voicing my memories, although more like the memory of a memory, piecing themselves together in my head.

“Wait, she was married? You were married?” Thurmond sounded surprised.

I tried to pull my hand away from his grip so I could cover my ears. He held me fast.

Rannen didn’t answer immediately, and the silence stretched out long and awkward. He went on.

“After her husband died, she sort of went off radar. She’d show up occasionally, but then the government pulled her funding.”

“Funding for what?” Thurmond asked.

“She was a brilliant munitioner. I guess on this dimension it might be called a gunsmith or a munitions expert. But with Rethan-grade weaponry, of course. I guess the government thought she was too unstable to continue her work. The Rethan you keep calling the commander, and the man she was about to marry, were the only ones Caz had any contact with those few months before she committed the crime. You know him, I believe. He calls himself Xavier Coy, now. He’s Caz’s brother.”

No one can choose their relations.
Caz’s whisper came as a surprise. Like she’d been eavesdropping and couldn’t pass up an opportunity to malign her brother.

“Xavier’s your brother? You’re kidding!” Thurmond sounded amused.

“Yeah,” I said. “I wish he was kidding.”

“Well it sort of explains a lot.”

“You mean about why he’d rather see us all die than hand me his stupid gun?”

“What are you talking about, Kris?” Rannen asked. Shadows of anger colored his voice.

“Xavier—Xander, whatever you want to call him, was hiding behind the counter with a gun while the commander and her freak squad beat the snot out of Thurmond and me.”

“He was behind the counter?”

“Bastard,” Thurmond said.

“That means he knows where we’re going,” Rannen sounded hopeful. I didn’t think he should.

“Fat lot of good that’ll do us.”

“Your brother has a great deal of money, Kris. He can buy an army and be there when we arrive.”

“He’s not going to be there. He hates me!”

“He doesn’t hate you. He’s just angry with you right now. And a little scared of Zell.”

“Well he should be a
lot
scared of me, because I swear if I ever get my hands on him again . . . !”

The taste of metal filled my mouth. A powerful surge of loathing squeezed my brain in a vice.

Caz
5 hours 23 minutes pre-RAGE

Caz stared at the solid wooden doors behind the commandant’s throne. Her fingers were slick on the handle of the blade. She switched the weapon to her left hand, wiped her hand on her pants, and then returned the weapon before wiping the other. She did this several more times before acknowledging the action would never render her hands clean.

The surface of the doors were rough and textured to emphasize the exotic nature of the material. Caz ran her fingers along the crack between the doors, leaving a streak of blood, and then touched the elaborately designed golden keyhole at eye level.

Former Commandant Ben Attikin was the first munitioner. In fact, he was the very reason munitioners became such slags of society. He’d created the weapon the Thirteenth Dimension had used for the last several centuries to routinely destroy entire dimensions.

He’d built Attikin Dome—a.k.a. the Dimensional Congressional Council building—and the munitioner’s lab which was handed down to Caz’s parents.

This information came as quite the surprise to Caz, and, what could she say, an unparalleled delight. It was this very information that set her entire plan in motion. It was the key.

Caz hooked her finger on the chain around her neck and drew out the jingling keys she always kept with her. A half circle silver key, forged from the promise ring Vin gave her. The tiny, magnetized bead hovered inside the curve, containing a precise amount of voltage to keep it in place.

The second key on the chain got her into the lab. It was a primeval-looking thing, all tarnished black and gold. It opened another door as well.

She inserted it into the keyhole and turned. It caught for a moment, then creaked into action. Rust-colored dust puffed from the hole. Crack, squeak, groan. A flash of light burst from the keyhole. Caz pushed at the doors, and they ground open. Cold blue light flooded across her skin.

The portal chamber was as mythical and mysterious as the dome under which it was housed. It was said that Ben Attikin knew the marshals were coming for him. His time was limited, and he’d done what any leader, jealous of his secrets, would do. He’d locked up the most important chamber in all of Retha and secreted the key away. It was over a century before it was discovered by none other than Severnz Fisk, Caz’s grandfather.

At the time they only thought it got them into the munitioner’s lab. A bit of inspiration and digging on Caz’s part found her the truth.

Caz’s breath misted before her. Retha in its entirety was a cold place. The chamber made Retha feel like the overheated Ehtar dimension. The hairs on her arms lifted in a shivering wave.

From the outside, the dome was beyond impressive. It was a monument, comparable only to the shrines of Cadvar, or the pyramids on Earth created by some of the first Rethan settlers. From the inside it was breathtaking. Twenty-six columns of pristine white stone rose upward to create the bones of the dome, crisscrossing at the peak. Plates of metal covered at least seven of the arches, each made of a different metal. Gold for the Thirteenth Dimension. Copper for the eleventh. Silver for Retha’s return archway. The others Caz was unable to name—the tenth might have been bronze, on down to the base dimensions and equally base metals such as steel, brass, and tin.

A tall stone basin stood in the center of the room, shimmering full of silver coins. Dimensional catapults.

Once Ben Attikin was exiled, the portal chamber had become unavailable to the council. They’d had to use their existing portals, clunky things with an equally clunky portal in the other dimension. Not that they hadn’t wanted the power to cross dimensions without the need of a matching portal on the other side, and the dimensional catapults to bring them back.

The portal chamber remained locked. Some other protection or power kept them out beyond the simplicity of the key. And here it stood for centuries, an embarrassing monument to their impotency and empty, devoid of any Rethan contact. No one currently living had ever been inside—until today.

Steam wafted from Caz’s skin. One would think that on the brink of success, moments away from destroying the Thirteenth Dimension and finally laying Vin to rest, Caz would pause, inhale, and rejoice in the moment.

She did none of these things. This wasn’t a moment for reflection, this was a moment for action. Caz tucked her bloody knife in the belt at her back and retrieved the Heart of Annihilation from her bag. Its warmth seeped into her cold hands. The golden light cast shadowy claws onto the floor.

The pillars for the Thirteenth Dimension lay on the far side of the chamber, directly across from the entrance. Bright blue light eked from behind the pillars and all around, pulsing in a faintly hypnotic way. It took Caz far longer to cross the portal chamber than she thought it would. Her anticipation made the distance seem that much farther. Her steps were lonely and hollow against the sterile stone.

She’d barely reached the stone basin in the center of the room when she heard a crack in the silence. Caz stopped mid-step and spun to face the door. Her shoes squeaked, leaving a circular smear of blood. A figure stood in the doorway.

“I never thought you’d actually do it.” His voice echoed around the vast chamber, bouncing off the columns and echoing into the far distant dome.

The visible carnage beyond almost detracted from the figure standing in front of it. He leaned casually against the door, one hand in his pocket. His clothes were plain, earth-toned. His hair had grown long enough to pull back, although a perfect silver curl rested across his forehead and drooped elegantly into his eye.

“Vincent.” Caz’s lips numbed against his name. His features were so familiar and yet older somehow. “Where in Gauss’s law did you come from?”

“Ather—”

“Lost to the void.”

“Well, yes.”

Caz switched the Heart of Annihilation to her other hand, realizing for the first time that Vin’s eyes weren’t on her but on the device itself. She curled it close to her body to protect it, as a mother would a babe.

“So, you’re what? A specter? A ghoul? Come to haunt me for my horrendous deeds?”

Caz wasn’t sure if this was what she actually thought, or if she was simply making polite conversation with the impossibility posing as Vin. She recognized, somewhere in the anger, bewilderment, betrayal, and selfishness warring inside her, that this wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real. Of course, neither could the hundred and twenty-two bodies lying in individual, grotesque heaps behind Vin.

She’d killed them. It was easy. Too easy. She was a munitioner, after all. Her bag had held enough weaponry to take them all out. Some in large groups, some individually as they ran screaming for the doors. She’d mopped up the rest with the methodical slashing of her knife in an anticlimactic cascade of blood.

“No specter, Caz,” Vin said. “It’s me. In the flesh.”

Caz nodded and then shook her head. “Fine,
Vin.
Close the door, would you? You’re letting the cold out.”

She rotated and gazed into the basin of catapults. She gathered several coins, squeezing them until her hand hurt. She frowned and turned back around. Vin was still there, standing away from the door. He reached out a groping claw.

“Give it to me, Caz.”

“No.” Caz pulled the Heart of Annihilation close.

“Caz.”

She saw it now. The frustration under the surface. The irritation, admiration, aggravation, sheer conflict-ridden love/hate Vin always carried in his eyes when he looked at her. It was this, more than what her eyes and ears were telling her, that put aside the rational portion of her brain screaming that this was impossible. This was Vin. Not lost on Ather. Not part of the Thirteenth Dimension as a voiceless form of energy. It was just Vin.

She was going to kill him this time, no question.

“How are you here?” She narrowed her eyes, barely holding herself in check.

“I faked my death on Ather so I could fulfill my higher purpose.”

“Being . . . ?”

“Give me the weapon, Caz.”

Caz dropped her shoulders with a little laugh. She shoved one hand in her pocket and raised the Heart of Annihilation to rest on the tips of her fingers of her other. Tempting, taunting.

“Okay, Vin. Okay, yeah, sure. I made it for you after all using the sweat of my brow, the tears of our son, and the blood of hundreds of Rethans, but I did it. I did it so you can . . .” Caz licked her lips, letting her forehead pucker in overdramatized thought. “Wait, why did you need it again? Not for the council, surely.” Caz waved her hand at the bloody council chamber.

Vin took a step back, looking uncertain. “Well, no.”

Caz smirked.

“For the good of Retha.” Vin rubbed his hands together, glanced behind him and then back at her. He took several hesitant steps in her direction. “The Liberated RAGE Movement is the future of our people.”

A shiver coursed across Caz’s skin. The LRM? The extremist faction that had clawed at their relationship throughout the years was the one responsible for taking him away entirely? Making her believe he was dead?

Vin went on. “We are determined to put an end to the two laws and make our people proactive again. I mean think about it.” His voice grew stronger as he mounted his platform. “We don’t need more
drones
.” He used her word, probably to gain sympathy, and came closer. “We need a dimension who wants to be the top, the leaders. The benevolent power that the lower dimensions will bow to. We need more Rethans like you.”

“More like me, huh?” Caz jerked her chin toward the door and the massacre beyond.

Vin did a half-head turn but kept his eyes on her. He was within spitting distance now.

“We’re on the same side. I mean, look! As much as it pains me to say, you have helped us. You’ve opened the portal chamber! You’ve eliminated the corrupt council.”

“They’ll reform.”

“But they can now be molded to something stronger. You may not see it, but we have the same agenda.”

“You don’t know what I want. What I want to do with this device.” Caz was suddenly not so sure of this herself. What do you do when the very reason for act upon extreme act of violence has been negated?

“Send it gift-wrapped to the Thirteenth Dimension?” Vin wheedled.

“That was the plan. Sure. The plan. It was the plan until—”

“Give me the weapon, Caz.”

“Do you even have any idea what it does?”

Vin didn’t respond.

“I didn’t think so. Now,” Caz huffed, straightening, “if there’s nothing else, I need to get on with my revenge for your murder.”

Her feet streaked through a tiny puddle of blood that had collected under the knife. She hadn’t gone two steps toward the golden pillars when she felt a touch to her earlobe. Vin’s chilly fingers and thumb caressed the softness of the skin, sending chills down her back. She rotated slowly. A coil of white stone wrapped Vin’s hand. Her discarded IC 4000, the one she’d left by Zell, was aimed at her face.

“That thing doesn’t kill, you know,” she said.

Vin adjusted his thumb on the trigger. “I don’t need to kill you to get what I need.”

“What about Manny?” She hadn’t meant to bring him into this, but there he stood between them, an ethereal monument to their failure.

“What about him? Isn’t he buried somewhere in your trail of bodies?”

“How could you even think . . . You left him first!” Her guts wound tight.

“I left him with you!” Vin jabbed the weapon at her. “Who’d you leave him with?”

“Don’t stand there in all your self-righteous glory and pretend you deserve—”

“Enough!” Vin actually stamped his foot. “I’m not playing anymore, Caz.”

She saw the truth in the lines around his eyes, the pucker of his lips, his thumb against the trigger.

She saw who he truly was, a mere husk of the Vin she’d fallen for as a child. The one who grew up with her, married her, and gave her a son. This wasn’t the determined Rethan, so unlike any other dead-eyed male, who locked her into an obsession ending here in a trail of blood. This one was annoying and childish, one who abandoned her for the sake of politics. He’d stolen Vin’s face, his soul, his love for her, and shoved it into an extremist she could no longer look at.

Caz reached behind her back. “I was never playing.”

Vin opened his mouth to rebound the argument.

The blade came out of Caz’s belt in a smooth arch and slashed across Vin’s throat in a hissing whistle. A velvet ribbon of blood appeared under his chin.

The IC 4000 fell to the floor. His hand went to his throat. Blood flowed from between his fingers.

Vin dropped to his knees, gagging on the blood pouring from his mouth, disbelief and horror on his face. Caz retched, gagged with him, and retched again. Vin collapsed onto his face.

Emotions scorched through her mind, electrifying, terrifying—completely devoid of satisfaction. She tasted the food she’d eaten that morning, and bile.

A wail wrenched from her throat. Her cheeks felt wet. She screamed. Vin’s body, his head centered in the growing pool of blood. Everything blurred.

Caz ran. She didn’t know where. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more. Her shoulder struck something hard. A soft, earthy light penetrated the blur. She felt the power of the voltage surrounding her, drawing her far, far away.