Heart of Annihilation (29 page)

A quick glance showed Luginbeel and Sergeant Jacks’s gaze riveted on the portal, their weapons aimed idly at my back. A deep breath of preparation. I pushed myself to my feet.

“Holy crap!” I pointed off in another direction, making my voice crackle in panic. “The aliens are coming!”

Luginbeel knocked into Jacks, who almost dropped his weapon. Jacks swore and shoved at Luginbeel, who was swinging his rifle wildly off in the direction I was pointing. I slammed my elbow back into Luginbeel’s shattered nose. He squealed in pain, dropped his rifle, and grabbed his face as blood drenched the bandages. I ducked as Jacks raised the rifle to his shoulder. My volt hit him on his hand. The rifle zipped a burning round past my cheek. His second round flew wide over my shoulder. My next volt took him square in the chest. He flew off his feet, his body arching before slamming onto his back. The rifle clattered from his hands. His head lolled to the side. Blood leaked from his nose.

I took off at a sprint toward the commander. Bullets whizzed past my head. Pointless shouts echoed all around like a furious wind. The two Rethans turned in surprise as I closed the remaining distance
.
I smashed into the commander, shoving with all my might at the sphere cradled under her arm.

The Heart went flying away and bounced up the shallow steps of the mission. It rolled past the feet of Boderick, who was standing near the portal, before I lost track of it. The commander and I crashed into Xavier, and we all tumbled onto the mission steps in a painful heap.

Hands swarmed across my body. I was yanked off the commander and thrown onto my stomach. Rifle muzzles pressed into my head. A weight knelt on my spine.

“Don’t you move!”

“Don’t move!”

“Don’t you dare move!”

The commands tripped over each other. I was baffled that I was still alive and had no intention of disobeying.

Boderick clutched the touch screen Officiate Lafe had used to program the portal. His mouth gaped, and he stared back at me. I sure hoped I had read him right. He could ruin everything.

Xavier and the commander disentangled themselves. Xavier swore. The commander looked panicked as she struggled to her feet. Her eyes roved wildly searching for the Heart. Angie pulled Xavier to his feet. She snapped the latch on her empty bag.

The commander made a triumphant exclamation and scrambled to retrieve the dull sphere resting next to the steps a foot away. I noticed the absence of the yellow glow from the device in her hands but it appeared she hadn’t—yet. Where was the real Heart?

“Brilliant, Caz.” The commander tucked the Heart replica under her arm without looking at it closely. “Did you really think that was going to work?”

“My options were limited.” I spoke against the ground. “And it’s Rose, by the way. My name is Rose.”

“Rose? Really?” the commander said. “Well I have news for you,
Rose
. I have absolutely no reason to keep you around anymore.” The commander turned her face to the portal, waving a flippant hand over her shoulder. “Kill her.”

I gulped.

“No, wait.” The commander whirled back toward me. She crouched next to my head. I scowled back. “Do you remember how this device powers up? Of course you don’t—
Rose
. Caz would.”

I squinted past the commander to the blue portal light.

“The Heart of Annihilation is powered by a simple negative current. It was designed so that when used on Retha, the negative currents in the air are enough to power it once the code is entered. However, since we have to launch from Earth we will need a greater source of power.”

I considered letting her good friend Caz Fisk out to tell her where she could shove her Heart of Annihilation operating manual. She continued:

“Once I insert the key and punch in the code to activate it, I will allow
you
to place your overzealous little hand on the Heart so it may absorb your negative currents.” She smiled and licked her lips. “Have you ever been unbalanced? Electrically speaking, I mean?” She paused and rose to her feet. Looking down at me with scorn, she laughed. “It’s not very comfortable. I was willing to make the sacrifice myself, but why deny you the opportunity?”

I kept my face as neutral as possible in order to hide the feeling of momentary triumph. The Heart
replica
wasn’t capable of absorbing anybody’s negative currents. I exhaled into the gravel and tried to shift my shoulder to alleviate the pain.

Angie’s phone beeped. She drew it out of her limp bag. The screen brightened her face for a moment, then she grabbed Xavier’s arm. They backed away. The commander tracked them with her eyes.

“Where are you going, Xander? This is the moment you’ve been waiting for.” Her shoulders dropped. Her lips pulled tight against her teeth.

Xavier and Angie dropped all pretenses of sneakiness and ran as fast as they could, hand in hand, toward the base.

The commander lifted the pistol and whispered so softly I barely made it out.

“Outrun this, Xan.”

Her finger tightened against the trigger, but instead of the efficient, emotionless murder of which she was so proficient, a furious wail escaped her throat. She dropped the muzzle a millimeter before firing.

An explosion of dust kicked up at Xavier’s heels. Xavier and Angie stooped, hands up, but continued running.

Rumbling motors thundered down Mission Road. Headlights flashed across the vast walls of the mission. Every soldier’s face was illuminated in a brief bath of light as they turned to look at the dozen black Humvees fanning out in a wide circle around the mission. The shadows of several battalions’ worth of soldiers followed close behind.

“This is the DLA,” a magnified voice boomed from the closest Humvee. “Put your weapons on the ground!”

A blinding spotlight swept my face. My breath went out of me in a whoosh. I rested my cheek on the gravel. The men holding me down released my arms. The knee in my spine lifted as Sanderford stood. I pushed onto my knees and then shakily to my feet.

“Place your weapons on the ground and lay down,” the magnified voice thundered from the leading vehicle. “Weapons down and no one will get hurt!”

The rifles lifted, one by one, their owners aiming at the vehicles. Heads swung to look from the commander, to the Hummers, and back to the commander.

My head pounded and a chuckle burst from my lips. “I would guess this moment makes you just about as irrelevant as they come, Zell.”

With one Rethan step, the commander was at my side. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me in front of her. Her knuckles dug into my head. I grabbed her hand with both of mine.

Cool breath brushed next to my ear, and she whispered, “You think so, do you, Caz. You think this is the end?”

I felt the sphere rub against my back, and her grip on my hair loosened. Then a cry of rage.

“What is this? This isn’t . . .” The commander yanked at my hair, her mouth next to my ear again. “You! What happened to it? Where’s the real one?”

“That is the real one,” I lied.

“No, it isn’t. There’s no keyhole. It’s a fake!” The Heart replica dropped next to my feet with a dead clunk.

Sanderford stepped into my line of sight. His cheek was pressed against the rifle’s stock. His thin sandy hair glowed white in the light of the portal.

“Your orders, ma’am?”

“Stand down!” the DLA voice intoned. “Release the inmate and put your weapons on the ground!”

I wanted to scream at the stupid magnified voice to put down the stupid megaphone and get down here and make sure we were in the clear. I pictured the glowing sphere sitting all alone near the mission, a wild card waiting to be discovered.

None of the commander’s soldiers moved, least of all the commander. Whatever else they were—traitors, mercenaries—they were at least one hundred percent committed to their commander.

I twisted against the commander’s grip, willing to lose my entire scalp if it meant I could get away from her. She kneed me in the side. I gasped at the explosion of pain in my ribs. My knees sagged.

“Ma’am?” Sanderford questioned again.

“Fire.”

The commander’s voice wasn’t loud, but Sanderford immediately echoed her order with his thundering drill sergeant voice. He fired a three round burst at the closest Humvee.

The might of the Dimensional Liaison Agency and masses of supporting troops behind them returned fire on the commander’s exposed army.

A fifty-cal round took Sanderford full in the chest. He was thrown from his feet, blood bursting from his upper body. Gunpowder scorched the air. Screams of pain filled in where the chatter of weapons didn’t. Pings of misaimed bullets hit the mission’s bells, and an eerie tolling accented the sounds of war.

The commander yanked on my hair. I stumbled as she dragged me up the mission steps, using me as a shield. Bullets plowed into the ground, sending up little puffs of dirt. They were wide, and I hoped it was because they were afraid of hitting me. I clawed at her hands, sending volt after volt into her skin. Her hand jerked, but she only gripped tighter. The barrel of a pistol ground into the back of my neck.

“Don’t tempt me!” The commander’s tone left no doubt in my mind that my life could be counted by seconds should I attempt any more resistance. We backed up the last step, past the light of the portal, and through the secondary archway.

I knew what was coming, so I wasn’t surprised to hear the commander’s grunt of satisfaction. She threw me against the wall. My cheek cracked on the stone and she held me there, taunting the DLA sharpshooters. The pistol dug into my side as she bent to retrieve the real Heart of Annihilation.

Chunks of rock exploded from the steps and worked their way toward us. I closed my eyes, every muscle, nerve, and skin cell braced for hot, searing pain.

Power surged through my torso. With a cry, I released all the built up energy through every pore of my body, as I had near the café in Monterey. I opened my eyes to see the EMP rippling outward, its expansion apparent as headlights, spotlights, and even streetlights on the distant base exploded in a shower of sparks. A familiar hum sounded from behind me and the blue light from the portal vanished. Oozing blackness saturated the battlefield.

The shouting of the soldiers and the firing of weapons paused for only a second and then resumed. The flashes of fire created staccato bursts of light across the field.

With a scream of fury, the commander yanked me backward by my hair. “You’ve ruined everything!”

“It’s over, ma’am! No portal, no plan! They’re not going to let you walk out of here.”

“You think you’ve won because I can’t send the Heart of Annihilation to Retha?”

I didn’t like where this was going.

“You won’t win again, Caz. Take the portal. Take Vin. You can even take your brother! Have it all, right up until the point I rip it out from under you!”

Again?
Caz wasn’t laughing this time. She bled fury into my system. Her words rose to my mouth. “So you confess your little tête-à-tête with Vin?”

The commander’s guilty silence was confirmation enough.

I tried to pull away from the commander’s death grip but she dragged me to the large wooden double doors of the mission. She shoved me at the doors.

My hands and chest thrust them open so they banged into the walls. I fell on my stomach. My chin cracked on the stone floor, making my teeth crash together. I rolled onto my back. Moonlight glimmered through lofty, oval windows, highlighting the delicate wooden panels on the coffered ceiling. The doors slammed shut, muting the battle outside.

The commander—
Zell
—leaned against the door. Her bony chest rose and fell. Her silver eyes caught the filtering moonlight in a metallic glint.

Her expression was unhinged, but the hand pointing the gun was steady. Caz squeezed my head in a vice. I couldn’t draw breath.

“I never slept with your husband, Caz.”

Zell advanced on me, her finger tight against the trigger. I crawled away from her. As we reached the back pews she flipped a small table stacked with lit candles. Wax splattered the floor and pews. The candles went out, taking all the warmth from the room—except for the golden glow coming from under her arm. “
He
thought our relationship was something more. I didn’t. I simply
worked
with him.”

“
Worked
?” I alternately slid back on my butt and crab-walked while keeping the argument slow. “Worked with him on what?”

“On getting the Heart of Annihilation away from you, for our people in the Liberated RAGE Movement. With that kind of leverage we could have turned our dimension into something great. But you,” she jabbed the gun at me, “you, a lone psychotic Rethan, had to ruin everything!”

My head blistered, and it was suddenly Caz shouting back.

“I would have given it to him! Had he just treated me like his wife. His partner.”

Caz’s fury rippled into my nerves, but I managed to regain control. My back hit something solid. I glanced up at the alter adorning the front of the chapel. The white linen cloth bunched above my shoulders. To my left a large arched doorway showed an exit into the mission’s courtyard. The green grass, the Japanese holly, and the peaceful quiet of the religious structure stood in stark contrast to violence surrounding it.

Wooden pews slanted away from Zell on either side, and she perched the Heart upon the tips of her fingers.

“No you wouldn’t, and you know it. I gave everything I had to Vin, and you know what I got for it?” She slammed the glowing sphere onto the ground. I recoiled. She crouched to my eye level. “No Xander, no Heart, no assistance from the LRM, and the gratitude of a dead man.”

My head pounded in anguish. I couldn’t fight off the memory of the slash of blood across Vin’s neck.

“And don’t think I don’t know it was all thanks to you,” Zell continued.

She knelt, and her fingers felt along the half-circle symbol. The Heart of Annihilation emitted a tinny beeping sound. The pistol didn’t waver in her grip, but she was no longer looking at me. She withdrew the key from her pocket. The little pendant, always such a tender reminder of the love of my father, became the crucial element that would destroy the world. I only caught a glimpse of it between her white fingers as she inserted it into an invisible slot. She twisted it with finality and pressed a few more buttons to finish the activation sequence. The familiarity of the code repeated in my mind. Backward. Forward. Backward. Forward. A numerical anagram. I remembered programing it myself.

Hold it together. Get the Heart. Don’t let her activate it.

A whirring sound emitted from the innocent looking sphere. The pulsing light brightened, shimmering across Zell’s silver hair.

“How is destroying Earth going to help you?” I whispered.

“You’re on Earth.”

“So are you.”

“Vin’s gone. I’ll never get near a portal again. So as pathetic as it sounds, all I have left is watching you lose everything you hold dear—like you did to me.”

“That’s completely moronic.”

She shrugged. “Charge it.”

“No.”

“Place your hand on it. The Heart will do the rest.”

“Forget it.”

With a deafening pop, pain ripped through my left thigh. The gun smoked in Zell’s hand. I screamed and fell onto my side. I gripped my pant leg, horrified at the amount of blood flowing between my fingers.

“I’m not asking you, Caz! This is an order!”

She didn’t wait for me to comply. Her fingers dug into my hair again, and she forced my face downward into the whirring light.

I resisted, hovering over the Heart of Annihilation, fighting against helplessness and despair. With a heavy shove, my cheek touched. The Heart was warm and soft, but any sensation of it was swept away as I felt the currents in my body separate. With a rush of stinging, crackling pain all the negative currents condensed, exiting through my cheek and into the Heart of Annihilation.

Laughter—exhilaration—pain.

The remaining positive currents scattered throughout my being. Like a magnet, more currents flocked to me, attempting to restore the balance. Energy condensed into my chest in an agonizing ball of voltage.

A loud thud forced my eyes open. Zell stood over me, pointing the gun at my head. She wasn’t looking at me. Her mouth opened and closed, but I couldn’t seem to connect a voice to it. With a whoosh, sounds began to reconnect and the world became clear. Too clear. Painfully clear.

“Kill me and the weapon will activate! I dare you!” Zell shouted.

My head lay on the cold stone. I rolled to the side to find familiar faces highlighted in the intensifying golden light of the Heart. Thurmond and Rannen stood clumped in between the pews. They both held rifles aiming at the commander. She knelt next to the Heart. Shards of white lightning leapt from her grazing fingers.

Thurmond’s eyes spoke his uncertainty. Was she bluffing? Could he stop it all by just shooting her? He stared at the commander and then his gaze flicked to me. His finger adjusted on the trigger. He didn’t set the rifle down, nor did he fire it.

Idiot,
Caz said.
Always check the voltage amount in the host before committing to activation on an alternate dimension.

Detailed information of the Heart of Annihilation’s crowded my brain. The EMP had decimated my reserve of voltage, not leaving enough to activate the Heart entirely. Zell, it appeared, was willing to make up the difference—whatever it took.

She released the electricity slowly through her fingers. A pained grin twisted her face.

“Poor Caz. Finally at the end, losing to me of all people.” She was barely able to get the words out.

I groaned in agony and frustration. My life snarled together in a tangled ball. Retha, Earth, Caz, Kris. We were all the same. Hopelessly entwined together—forever in a matted mass of madness.

“Please,” I begged.

The crackling shards of electricity leaping from Zell’s fingers brightened.

“Please what, Caz?”

“Please don’t do this.”

“You want to stop me? You can stop me. I’ll even tell you how.” She purred in victory. “Let loose with those positive currents. Don’t hold them in anymore. They’ll destroy me as well as the Heart. Of course they’ll also obliterate everything within a hundred miles or so.”

Laughter curdled from my throat. Piercing guffaws of insanity. I pushed myself into a sitting position and laughed and laughed, exchanging the pain for madness. Thurmond’s face contorted in alarm. Rannen’s mouth drooped as his worst fears were realized.

My laughter scattered throughout the chapel, bouncing off the floors and shattering against the pews and walls. I couldn’t help it. I was going to kill them. And why shouldn’t I? The DCC Slayer, the worst criminal ever known to Retha, would willingly give her life to save this dimension as long as it meant Zell would lose everything.

Power—currents—voltage. They built upon the hard knot in my chest. It was already more than I could stand. I needed to release it. The thought filled me with such satisfaction that a tiny protesting voice inside of me became only a whisper in the crackling song of hate.

“Rose!”

The word brought to mind soft petals and a sweet aroma. Beauty and sunlight. Laughter and hope. Hope. Dad’s voice spoke into my mind.

If there’s one thing I hope for in this life, my daughter, it’s that you learn of your value and harness it to do good in the world.

Don’t sacrifice what you believe to be right. There’s always another solution.

Electricity leaked from my pores. My skin burned, and my hair crackled around my head. I needed to release it. The overwhelming energy was going to force me to free it in a blind torrent of destruction.

You can never be forced to do anything! You always have a choice
!

I had a choice.

“I have a choice!” My voice bounced off the walls and ceiling, rebounding around the room.

There was another choice. Another way.

I forced my limp, bloody hand into my pocket. I was barely able to draw out the M-16 tracer round I had taken from Justet’s office not so many days ago and yet two lifetimes. I gripped it between two fingers and lifted it eye level—aiming.