The Severed Tower (37 page)

They had been following an old train track the last few miles, and now they had come to an obstacle. Holt took another precarious step across the top of the old train, trying to balance in the dark. Its roof was wide and solid, but that wasn’t the issue. The problem was the sheer drops on either side that streaked down to a shadowy river hundreds of feet below. The remainder of the train, dozens of cars, had broken loose of their tracks and tumbled over the edge, and if Holt looked behind him he would see all of them,
hanging in the air,
paused in time as they fell, the bridge breaking into pieces.

They were in what Mira called a Time Loop. Where the semitruck from a few days ago came unstuck if you touched it, this train and the disintegrating bridge entered back into real time at fixed intervals. They had less than eleven minutes before that happened, according to Avril. The train would unstick in time and the entire thing would come crashing down—and then it would all go back to how it was—frozen, waiting to repeat again.

Holt tried not to think about it. He hated this place.

Mira was behind him, moving between two White Helix escorts. The others were already across.

During the entire journey so far, Dane had practiced what Avril called the “Spearflow.” It was intense weapon practice coordinated with his movement. Each step he took resulted in a different form or swing of the Lancet. After watching it awhile, Holt could see a pattern. It took about seven minutes to go through one entire repetition of the Spearflow.

Dane suffered his punishment quietly, sweating profusely, but he never faltered, never slowed, and he never took a break. There was always a moment near the middle of the exercise where he spun and walked backward, and each time he did, he glared directly at Holt. And every time Holt held the stare. He had no animosity toward Dane, but the feeling clearly wasn’t mutual.

That was a problem for later. Right now, Holt’s concern was crossing over the top of this train without plummeting to the river below. He carefully moved his feet one step at a time.

“Is it possible for you to go any slower?” Mira asked from behind. “I only ask because the White Helix and I have a bet.”

“You ever hear ‘measure twice, cut once’?” Holt retorted without taking his eyes off his feet. “I’m applying a similar principle.”

“Slower isn’t always better. We need to get clear of this thing, and we have, like, three minutes to do it.”

“And the Outlander plans on using all three,” the Helix behind them observed. “Never seen anyone make putting one foot in front of the other look tough.” The boy was a little shorter than Holt, but a little bigger, too, with short brown hair and the same easy gait that all White Helix possessed. His name was Castor. The Helix girl in front of them was Masyn. She was taller than Avril but just as lithe, with long, blond hair tied in a braid that hung down her back and brushed the top of her Lancet.

“Works for me,” Masyn said. “Always wanted to ride this thing down, anyway.”

“I’d prefer we didn’t,” Holt said testily. The entire time they’d been moving across the train, Masyn had been entertaining herself with somersaults, skipping backward, or doing handsprings. Right now she was walking on her hands, and it was unsettling to watch, with the dropoffs on either side, but it didn’t seem to bother her. That only made Holt like her even less.

“Then move, Outlander,” Castor said from behind.

Holt sighed and took another step, staring down warily.

“We have names, you know,” Mira said. They’d been called Freebooter or Outlander since they’d left Polestar, and it was starting to get old. “I’m Mira. He’s Holt.”

“And I don’t care,” Castor replied. “Walk.”

Holt took another step. Masyn was maybe only a year younger than Mira, but, oddly, the creep of the Tone in her eyes was much less prevalent than it should be. Castor’s eyes were more solidly filled in, but he was old enough that he should have Succumbed already. Holt had seen the same thing in the eyes of the other Helix. For them, the Tone seemed to advance slower, probably because of the Strange Lands’s effect on time. If more people knew about that particular advantage to being White Helix, Holt wondered how many more would make the journey every year.

Ahead of them, Avril stood impatiently with her arms crossed, watching them move over the train. Dane was behind them, still stepping back and forth, practicing with his Lancet. He was drenched, but showed no signs of weakening. The rest of the White Helix waited there as well.

“What’s Avril going to do with us?” Mira asked.

“Avril isn’t going to do anything with you,” Masyn said, gently lowering her feet back down and walking again. “It’s not her place. It’s Gideon’s.”

“Gideon’s your leader?” Mira asked.

“Our teacher. A great man.”

“Because he makes you strong?” Holt asked back carefully. It was a phrase he’d heard the White Helix use a number of times. It must mean something. Masyn turned around and studied him curiously.

“No,” she said. “The Pattern does that. Not Gideon.”

“You mean the Strange Lands,” Mira said. “How do
they
make you strong?”

“By weeding out the weak,” Castor answered. “When one of us falls, the rest grow stronger.”

“How Darwinian of you,” Holt observed.

“Gideon says it’s the way of all things,” Masyn continued, slowly somersaulting backward. “Here most of all. It’s making us ready.”

Ready for
what?
Holt wondered. He started to ask more, then froze, looking past the train to the end of the bridge. “Where’d your pals go?” he asked. There was no sign of the White Helix now. All ten of them were simply gone, as though they had vanished. Everyone turned and followed Holt’s gaze, staring at the empty space at the end of the bridge where Avril and her Arc had been.

“That’s … never a good sign,” Masyn stated, alarmed.

“Well, that makes me feel much better,” Holt replied.

“If they’re gone, they have a reason.” Castor unslung the Lancet from his back. Masyn did the same. “Keep going.”

Holt didn’t argue. He started moving again, faster than before. One step, another—and then something flashed ahead of them, near where the others had been. Something big—reflective enough that it amplified what little light there was in the darkened landscape.

“Outlander!” Castor exclaimed behind them.

“Holt—” Mira started in exasperation.

“Wait,”
Holt said, staring ahead.

“There’s nothing there but—” The air around them fizzled suddenly. Little sparkles of light materialized and floated like fireflies. Holt studied them in confusion, and then looked at Mira. Her eyes were wide with alarm.

“It’s syncing back!” she shouted, and shoved him forward.

Holt darted forward across the metal roof with abandon now. The static hiss in the air grew louder and he could feel the train underneath him begin to vibrate through his shoes. Things were about to get unpleasant.

They kept running. The end of the train was in sight, they were—

The sparkles in the air doubled, tripled, became so many that Holt’s vision turned white. The hiss of static drowned out everything. Then a jarring roar filled the air as the train and the bridge violently reconnected with the timeline.

Holt heard Mira scream, thought he saw Castor and Masyn leap clear in flashes of purple. The world upended, the aurora in the sky rolled past over and over, as the sounds of grinding metal and snapping wood filled the air, Holt free-fell down toward—

Everything went pure white.

Within the white he saw something. Something familiar. Holt saw
Zoey.
Standing still, staring at him, all around her a strange, vibrating flux of colored light that was both a part of her and separate at the same time.

There was a sound like a powerful, punctuated blast of distorted noise, and a quick wave of heat. Holt gasped, his stomach clenched, his ears rang …

He rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes.

Through the eerie, twisted fingers of dead trees, the strange aurora wavered. He wasn’t in the middle of a raging river or crushed beneath tons of train cars. He was alive in the woods, and everything was quiet.

Mira stared at him, also on her back, her eyes full of confusion. “I saw…” she started slowly.

“Zoey,” Holt said, holding her look.

A strange, electronic rumble sounded above them. They both looked up …

… right into the red, green, and blue three-optic eye of an Assembly combat walker. Five legs, a powerful, blocky body, armor bereft of color. It was the same one that had appeared twice before, and now it stood almost on top of them.

It was so surprisingly surreal that neither really reacted. They just looked at it, stunned, watching the strange eye whir and spin, left and right, studying them back.

“Hi, Holt,” a tiny voice said behind them. Both Mira and Holt turned. Zoey stood there, smiling. “Hi, Mira.”

Each of them stared at the little girl with the same blank look.

“Zoey…” Mira whispered, still unsure. It only took a few more seconds before it all clicked.
“Zoey!”
Mira lunged toward the little girl and pulled her close. Zoey giggled at the attention.

Before Holt could move, something big and furry slammed into him and knocked him back to the ground. Max wiggled on top of him, licking his face. Holt laughed and petted the dog, rubbing his head and ears. He felt just as much relief seeing Max as he did Zoey. He hadn’t really been sure if he would ever see either again.

Holt looked past Max at Zoey. The little girl stared through Mira’s red hair and smiled at him. “I get a hug, too?”

Mira let Zoey go and watched her run to Holt. He looked at Mira as he held her, and they shared the same emotion.

“You okay?” Holt asked Zoey.

“Yeah,” Zoey said. “Ambassador brought me here. I asked him to.” Behind them came the same strange, distorted rumbling. Slowly, both Holt and Mira turned back to the huge, silver walker. It just sat there silently, watching and hulking over them. Holt felt the first stirrings of apprehension.

“Don’t worry, Ambassador’s nice,” Zoey said. “He’s my friend. I think.”

“Is that right?” Holt asked, not entirely convinced.

“Well, he’s not really a ‘he,’” Zoey continued. “The Assembly don’t have boys and girls, but that’s how I think of him.”

“It has a name?” Mira asked, studying the thing warily.

“I gave it to him. He was going to take me to the Tower, but I wanted to go with you instead. He has to do what I tell him. It’s pretty cool, actually.”

“If that’s the case,” Holt said, “have you thought about … maybe telling your new friend to disappear back wherever he came from?”

Zoey shook her head. “That’s the only thing he won’t do.”

“Of course.” This was getting more confusing by the second. Holt wasn’t sure, but it seemed like, somehow, this thing had not only saved Zoey’s and Max’s lives, but his and Mira’s as well. That still didn’t make his feelings for the thing all warm and fuzzy. It was an Assembly walker, a big, weird one, and every instinct told him to get as far away from it as he could.

“He has a connection with someone again,” Zoey explained. “He doesn’t like being without other voices. It bothers him.”

“Great.” Holt sighed. “World full of killer alien robots, and we get the nervous one.”

The thing’s three-optic eye shifted to ponder Holt. It rumbled its strange sound.

Holt studied their surroundings. It looked like they were in the dead trees that had been flanking the train tracks, but the tracks themselves and the bridge and the White Helix were nowhere to be seen. “Zoey, did your friend …
teleport
us away from that bridge?”

“Yeah,” Zoey replied, rubbing her temples. “Ambassador calls it ‘shifting.’ But he can only do it if you touch him. The pretty shape inside the machine, I mean. So … I had to help.”

“That’s why we saw you,” Mira said.

“I touched all of us at once. And the lights, did you
see
them, Mira? Like strings that blossom out like flowers in all kinds of colors?”

“Yes.” Mira nodded. “They were pretty.”

“That’s Ambassador,” Zoey told them. “That’s what he looks like. In my mind, anyway. He—” The little girl cut off with a groan, clutching her head. Holt reached out for her, and Mira moved closer, alarmed.

“Max, get back,” Holt said, pushing the dog clear. “Zoey, are you okay?”

She didn’t respond, just moaned and shut her eyes tightly. Mira and Holt both held her, trying to talk through the girl’s pain, to get her to answer, but she didn’t.

Above them, the big silver walker rumbled. A stream of green laser light shot from a diode on its body and enveloped Zoey.

“Hey!” Mira shouted at the machine. Ambassador didn’t move, though his multicolored eye flickered toward Mira. “Leave her alone! You hear me? Leave her—”

“Wait,” Holt said, watching as the green light pulsed around Zoey’s head. There was something familiar about it.

“Get her
away
from it!” Mira yelled at him.

“I think it’s helping her,” Holt said.

Mira spun, clearly intent on ripping Zoey out of his arms and away from the—

“Look!” Holt exclaimed and Mira stopped. Zoey had relaxed. Her eyes were still shut, but she was peaceful, not in pain, her breathing soft. “They did the same thing to me.”

Mira looked at him questioningly.

“After they took us, the Hunters, after the Crossroads. I was hurt. They healed me somehow. I remember this laser light, this
green
light.” The energy continued to stream from Ambassador, massaging and coating Zoey’s head, taking away her pain. “It’s
helping
her.”

They stared down at Zoey hopefully. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and looked up. “Sorry, Holt,” she said sincerely.

Holt brushed the blond hair out of her face. “Okay, but how about we don’t do that anymore?”

“I can’t help it,” Zoey replied weakly. “It happens more, the farther we go. But I have Ambassador now. He helps me. He stops the pain. Not all of it, but some. Enough so I can still be me.”