Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I stepped out at the MSA building’s top-most floor and then took the short metal stairs up onto the roof. The door was locked, but by then I’d built up enough of a head of steam that I burst through it, sending it flying.

I’d never had a reason to be on the MSA roof before, so I’d never seen the antenna tower up close. It loomed above me, a lattice of steel beams and cables narrowing as it climbed toward the sky. Dishes and receivers bristled near the top like the quills of some futuristic porcupine, and a ladder bolted to one side promised a precarious climb.

The whole structure hummed with energy, vibrating faintly as it fed signals in and out—a heartbeat of technology connecting the building to the world—and keeping it intact was the only gift I could give my mate for Christmas.

And Nex had been right. Past the antenna, there was a swarm of incoming drones, easily visible against the more brightly lit buildings behind them.

“Thoughts?” Sylas asked.

“Oh, now you care?” I asked him.

“I’m more of a wetwork kind of guy,” he explained, like I hadn’t noticed.

Were the drones operated by programming, or by humans? Either way—“They can’t aim for what they can’t see,” I said. “Keep me clear though?”

“Understood,” Sylas said, going diffuse in an instant, only to crowd the entire roof with smoky gray, as I ran for the antenna structure in the middle of the smoke and started carefully climbing. I tried each piece for stability before I trusted it, and made sure not to touch any cables—I had no doubt my sharp hooves could easily clip one by accident.

Sylas’s shadows were thick all around me, stretching up into tendrils that lashed toward the drones, slapping them out of the air. Some bobbed and recuperated, others plummeted to the distant ground, but oddly none of them were going off, yet—I imagined their operators didn’t want us knowing they were armed with explosives until they were sure they would work, to keep the element of surprise.

“Ace?” came a voice from inside my ear. Sarah. “I told Nex he could hack into this, so I could speak to you. There’s still nine minutes to go. I hope you’re okay.”

So far, so good, I wished I could tell her, but the connection was only for receiving.

“They’re sending more drones, Ace. A whole other wave of them. Whatever you’re doing now is working—but I wanted to warn you.”

“More incoming!” I shouted out to Sylas, so he’d know.

“Understood!” he shouted back.

“Also?” she said, sounding hesitant. “I know it sounds crazy. But I think I love you, too. So come back to me, all right?”

I was so stunned in that moment I almost fell off the antenna.

But then right after that, I became so light I could fly.

“They’re dropping payloads!” Sylas shouted—which gave me just enough warning to brace.

These drones didn’t bother trying to gain access to the antenna—they just began dropping their bombs. I could see explosions bursting through Sylas’s smoke, as he created a dome over the antenna, deflecting most of their energy outwards, but at a cost.

“This…is actually somewhat painful,” he said, sounding surprised. “Hold Lucian,” he demanded, and a baby sling materialized around my chest, strapped over one shoulder, and around my hips.

“You didn’t leave him in the server room?”

“A son’s place is at his father’s side!” Sylas said, sounding irritable. “How much longer?”

“Seven minutes.”

Sylas didn’t respond to that—and I had a feeling that was a bad thing.

“Okay, so,” Sarah said, returning in my ear. “Nex says they’re being directed by one larger drone that’s being operated remotely. He’s trying to get into their system now, but he says in the meantime, if you take that one out, it should take out the rest of them.”

“Which one of them’s biggest?” I shouted out to Sylas, making an educated guess.

“There’s one…that’s just…orbiting…to the west,” he said, with grunts. “I can’t reach it while I’m maintaining the antenna’s integrity though.”

I grit my teeth—I couldn’t safely run down to get the door I’d burst off of its hinges to hurl, not while I was carrying Sylas’s baby. So I reached out to the nearest dish and tapped, thud-thud-thud, tap-tap-tap, thud-thud-thud, hoping that Nex and Sarah would hear.

“Ace?” Sarah’s voice burst into my ear a second later. “Are you okay?” she asked, likely because she couldn’t help herself, then no doubt thinking hard. “You’re up there—Sylas is helping —but you need—a—a ranged weapon!” The line between us went dead for a moment, before she picked up again. “Nex says don’t touch that dish you just hit again—but that there should be another one, ten feet higher up, and six feet to your left. It’s redundant!”

I nodded, even though no one could see me but Lucian, and began very carefully climbing.

“Four minutes,” Nex informed me, as I became level with the dish and started scooting out. At this height the antenna’s structure had begun swaying, and I didn’t know if that was because of my weight, or the continual pounding Sylas’s smoke-shield was taking outside. I crept sideways, and Sylas noticed my change in direction at once.

“What’re you doing?” he demanded.

“Getting a weapon!” I shouted back. The dish loomed in front of me—a huge, concave circle of steel and bolts. It was heavy, yes, but I’d carried worse—and I was lucky, the dish and the drone that counted were on the same side. I got one arm around its edge, bracing my shoulder against it as I worked my cloven hooves under the support brackets like a pry bar, wedging them off, one by one, while trying to keep my center of gravity low, and Lucian carefully balanced against me.

The dish came off into my free arm with a groan of steel, and I grunted, bracing it against my body. It was about three feet wide, and heavy, maybe fifty pounds.

“You’re gonna need to take Lucian back, Sylas,” I called out. “And I’m gonna need a clearing.”

“Timeframe?” he shot back.

I heaved the dish up higher with one arm. “Now!”

Lucian’s slight weight disappeared as did Sylas’s smoke, and my sightline toward a larger drone, bristling with antenna of its own, was clear. I leaned out as far from the antenna as I dared, feeling like King Kong, and then I hurtled the dish overhead, like I was throwing an axe, with so much force that I had to let go of the antenna to finish the movement, plummeting thirty feet straight down.