54 - TYSE

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

B eing inside the spark when the explosion happens is a trip, to say the least. It's like being inside a translucent blue bubble that repels anything and everything that comes hurling at us.

It's chaos.

But at the same time, it's poetry too. Because the overlay is on, and my augments are working, and inside the bubble, Anneeta isn't dying. She's just fine.

It doesn't last, though. None of us understand what we are or how we're connected. Which means we can't control this power we have. So naturally, it fades away and leaves a new reality behind.

A reality where I'm on the run from Tau City, I've kidnapped its god, and I've partnered up with a Spark Maiden straight out of a fairy tale to keep the god alive so we can deliver her to another god in a city that is nearly four thousand miles away.

It's something out of a fiction.

Whatever that explosion was, it has taken out the train station just north of the tower so we have to walk to the next stop. But there are at least fifteen stops before you even get out of Tau City, so it's only like half a mile.

I'm still carrying Anneeta, who passed out just a few minutes after we left the safety of the bubble. Clara stumbles along beside me. There is a large crowd up ahead when we approach the next station, so we stop and I help Clara put on her traditional desert robes and veil that Rodge packed for her. It's a good disguise. Mine as well. Though, of course, I don't have a veil. Just a head covering.

No one dresses like this in Delta City, but they do in other places so no one pays us much attention when we come up on the crowd. They ask us if we're OK, and we say a few words, then keep going. The trains aren't running here either, so we have to walk to the next station along the crowded pedestrian walkway that lines the tunnel.

By the time we get there, hand over our tickets, get settled in our compartment—first class, that was nice of Rodge—Clara can barely walk.

I've been carrying Anneeta this whole time, but Clara has been feeding her spark. Holding her hand as we walked. She's exhausted when she sits down on the leather bench in our compartment, too tired to even open her eyes.

I set Anneeta down next to her, then take off the pack with the jumps and pull one out. I've never done a jump, but the guys I got them from showed me how to use it. I know we brought these for Anneeta, but I give the first one to Clara instead. There's a sensor that fits under the tongue and when you activate the jump, it shocks you.

I empty the entire thing into her and the color starts to return to her face. It takes a few more minutes before her eyes open, but eventually they do open and she forces a smile. "We made it."

"We made it."

Of course, we haven't made it. The train hasn't even left the station yet. It's actually very late. The whole plan—fourteen hours—it's all bullshit because of that explosion. At first, I thought it was related to the VersiStrike because it used an acoustic weapon the last time it fired. But that explosion was huge. It wasn't my weapon. It was something else.

It was Finn . A little voice whispers that inside my head. It was Finn .

And it was. I saw him in the overlay. He was carrying a woman with red hair through a tunnel. And I think the explosion happened in that world, not ours.

Which is a troubling thought, to say the least. Is the veil that thin in Tau City?

Must be.

I feed Anneeta a jump too, just to see if she'll wake up like Clara did, but she doesn't. Doesn't even stir. But she doesn't look dead, either. Not that I know what a dead god looks like. I've got no clue.

So Clara just keeps feeding her spark, and I keep feeding Clara jumps, and the train finally gets on its way, and an hour later, we're speeding through the tunnel at top speed.

But I can count. I know how long it takes to get to Delta.

I know how many jumps I've fed them.

I know how many we've got left.

And it's not enough.

Eight hours in , I have to make a decision because Clara, even when I feed her jumps, is no longer conscious. She's gonna die if I let Anneeta take any more spark. And we only have one jump left.

It's hopeless.

So I have to choose.

Lose one?

Or lose both?

Anneeta is lying down on the bench, her face sweaty and red. I'm sitting next to the window and Clara is slumped against my chest. About an hour ago I made it so that Anneeta and Clara can no longer hold hands. I allowed Anneeta's head to come in contact with Clara's leg, but over the course of the hour I've repositioned them a dozen times, at least, so that the contact is as light as possible. Right now, it's just Anneeta's hair touching Clara.

It's not enough. But it's still too much. Any more contact than that, and Clara dies.

I give Clara the last jump because I've made my choice.

I'm going to save her, not the little god.

But an hour after that I give up and just look out the window, trying my best to come to terms with a world where neither Clara, nor Anneeta, are in it. Because we're all out of jumps and Delta City is still nearly five hours away.

The train is angling up now and it comes roaring out of the tunnel at full speed, running parallel to the sea. I haven't been back to Delta since I was fourteen and they took me away for augmentation.

On that trip I didn't get a private compartment on a high-speed train. I was packed into a Sweep cargo train, like all the other boys they were pickin' up around the world, and we sat shoulder to shoulder for seventeen hours. No windows at all.

But this is nice. And even though the two girls I was countin' on having a future with are unconscious next to me, I just stare at the scenery as it goes flashing by. The sea is so blue, the sky is so blue, and the sand is nothing like the sand out in the desert between cities. It's black, not tan. And I know from experience that it smells like fruit. Oranges, to be specific.

I think back on my childhood when we used to run these beaches and each time my foot would hit the sand that scent would float up into the air. We used to run, and run, and run—just for the fuck of it. Just so we could smell it.

Every kid in Delta knows why the sand smells like fruit. Tiny, microscopic crustaceans live in it. And when you step on the sand, you're just killing them. Millions at a time. The scent is just them dying. That scent is nothing but death.

I sit up, startled, when suddenly the overlay comes online. It's the familiar sweeping waterfall of symbols that I can no longer read.

Except it's different now. It's… slow. And I realize I can read it. It's spitting out information about the landscape rushing by. Data and figures scrolling down my field of vision. And something else, too.

Somewhere else, actually.

Because the veil has disappeared, at least through my eyes, and it's like being back in the Omega Outlands where I could see it all. Only more. Landscape over landscape over landscape. World under world under world.

I turn, checking on Clara and Anneeta, because this is a good sign. If the overlay is working, then they're helping me.

But they're not. Anneeta is still red-cheeked and sweaty. Clara is still slumped against me, unconscious.

The only thing that's different now is that my overlay is inside the compartment too. There are people in here with us. Two men and three women, one of whom is a teenage girl. They are talking, and laughing, and they are made of spark.

The overlay is stealing their spark. It's coming out of them like…

I stand up, jostling Clara, walking right through one of the men. I know this phenomenon, but I have to search my memory for the right word because it was not something I ever learned to use as an augment.

It's plasma .

There are lines of plasma bursting off their bodies. It stretches, crackling and snapping, like tendrils reaching out for me. They touch my body, and it doesn't feel like anything. Not even a little bit of wind. But it makes me glow under the canopy of the overlay.

I just look at my hands, all lit up blue, and I know what to do with it.

I'm still not sure about Anneeta. I can't trust her. It makes me sad, but she's been lying. So I don't feed her. I just feed Clara. I sit back down, trying my best to ignore the ghosts of another dimension sharing the space with us, and I hold Clara in my arms, giving her life back one second at a time.

By the time the train starts the long slowdown that will take us into Delta City, Clara is mostly awake. I've been giving her constant spark for hours now, but it's just barely enough to keep her alive as Anneeta sucks it right back out.

The ghosts in the compartment with us are sprawled out on the benches and on the floor. Tongues rolling out, faces red with fever. So much sweat dripping off their bodies, their clothes are soaked. They're not dead yet, but they will be soon.

And I feel terrible about it, I do.

But it's us or them. And they are no one to me.

So I just close my eyes, and pretend they aren't there, and allow my heart to sync with Clara's as we pull into the station.

We're barely stopped for a minute before the Delta City Patrol comes rushing in, pounding on our compartment door. They don't wait for me to get up and open it. I couldn't even if I wanted to because the ghosts are dead, the overlay is gone, the food is gone, and Clara is practically clawing at me for more in her delusional state of spark deprivation.

The patrol breaks down the door, comes in yelling all kinds of official things, and starts separating us. Pulling Clara off of me and picking up Anneeta.

I don't bother fighting. It's not even them doin' it.

It's the god called Delta.

Of course he knew we were coming.

Of course he knew we had a god with us.

And anyway, it's a relief.

Because I'm so exhausted, I doubt I could even draw my weapon.