Ashfall prophecy, p.25
Ashfall Prophecy, page 25
“I don’t see them, Zara,” Hiram said. “Where are they?”
“Thought they were chasing me . . . ,” Zara said breathlessly. “Not sure now . . .”
As I watched, Zara did a graceful dive over the edge of the third level and landed in a stairwell on the second level. She rolled out of sight from there, hidden behind a group of gawking Denzans.
I searched the upper deck for any sign of Reno or her allies. The Denzans up there had stopped moving. In fact, of all the sections, that now seemed to be the calmest. For a moment, I thought I saw a flash of magenta up there, but I was soon distracted by the scene at the lectern.
“The humans can leave! We can protect ourselves!” Arkell shouted, still giving his speech. “The Merciful Rampart can protect you!”
“That’s enough, I think, Arkell,” Rafe said, the mic picking up his words as he held a hand out toward the Denzan. “We need to let things calm do—”
Sppsht.
It was a literal splatting sound, no other way to describe it, the noise a body made when it was crushed. Like dropping a package of ground beef on the kitchen floor. Amplified by the lectern’s microphone, it echoed throughout the Senate. The panicked scene actually calmed for a moment as everyone looked to see what happened.
Rafe blinked. He took a startled step backward and stumbled off the lectern, his face covered in Arkell’s blood.
Arkell was a smear. He was liquid.
Reno stood up from where she’d landed on top of Arkell, dripping with him, covered with him. She’d launched from the third section and come down feetfirst on top of his head. Like a nail dropped off a skyscraper onto a melon.
“Okay, hon, go ahead,” she said, brushing a bit of Arkell off her shoulder. “Protect them.”
26
Now everyone was screaming. If they weren’t screaming, they were running. Mostly, they were doing both. Seeing a body crushed by a falling meteor-woman tended to get that reaction.
“They aren’t telling you the truth!” Reno screamed into the microphone, her words directed at the human section. “The Denzans have stolen from humanity! They have crippled us and imprisoned us! And we will have our reparations!”
The humans hadn’t panicked like the Denzan spectators, who were already freaked out from the reveal of Goldy, but they also didn’t exactly spring into action. Most of them stood there, staring at Reno, looking confused or horrified.
And then the capsule landed among them.
The silver football-size object had been flung down from one of the upper levels. Things were happening too fast for me to accurately trace its source. But I’d seen that object before, back at Remembrance, when I’d caught Takagi filling them up.
“Masks!” I shouted. “Hiram! Darcy!”
The capsule broke up with a hiss and an Ossho cloud came spilling out. The humans in the closest row barely had time to backpedal a few steps before the gas was on them—flowing into their mouths, snaking up their noses. Once the Ossho was in them, they collapsed like their strings were cut, landing on the benches or tumbling into the aisles. Through the magenta haze, I saw Darcy stagger forward and roll onto the Senate floor. Even if she’d gotten her breather on in time, we weren’t sure if they would keep out the Ossho.
“I will show you the truth!” Reno screamed.
A moment later, Darcy popped to her feet, her breather securely fastened on her face. Hiram followed her out of the cloud, waving a hand in front of his breather-covered face in order to clear the fog. The Ossho cloud had thinned out as it spread to more and more humans. Tendrils were visible from their mouths and noses, swaying like coral growths, almost like they were waiting to connect to something.
“Well, at least the breathers work,” Darcy said over the comm. “What no—?”
“Look out!” Hiram shouted and shoved Darcy to the side, pushing her out of the way of a human who had dropped from the upper level.
The human landed with enough force that he cracked the stone floor, sending rifts through the painting of the Denzan ocean. That was Sapienza, one of Reno’s old buddies who had joined her cause. He wore a breather of his own—way more heavy-duty than the kind we had. Sapienza lunged for Hiram’s mask, but Hiram caught him by the arm and twisted him to the ground with a judo throw.
“Reno!” Meanwhile, at the lectern, Rafe had charged forward to deal with his fellow First Twelve. “This bloodshed! What have you done?”
I wondered if Rafe had rehearsed that line. He’d known this was coming. And now he thought he could put on a show.
“What you don’t have the stomach fo—”
Their words had been broadcast over the Senate’s sound system, but that was cut off when Reno ripped the podium clean from the stage and swung it like a baseball bat. I think the sheer violence of the act caught Rafe by surprise, because he barely got his arms up to cushion the blow. Rafe was sent flying off the small stage, crashing into a chair that a senator had luckily abandoned.
“Syd!” H’Jossu said from beside me, his breather barely stretched across his plump snout. “Did you see?”
I nodded. When Reno had attacked Rafe, I’d caught sight of something strapped across her back.
Not something. Someone.
Aela.
Reno wore the stick-figure exo-suit like a backpack, although, just as I started forward, she pulled Aela loose from the straps and stood them up on the upraised dais. Aela looked inert, lifeless, and Reno handled them with all the care a photographer would use on their tripod. To Reno, Aela was simply equipment. She had done something to my wisp friend’s faceplate, attached some kind of cylindrical contraption made of the same glass and silver as the capsules. I thought I could see magenta flowing around in there, held at bay by streaks of artificial lightning.
I glanced over my shoulder to where Hiram and Darcy were struggling with Sapienza. I’d lost track of Tycius, Melian, and Zara and it was hard to hear anything over the comms but chaos. There were swelling crowds at all the exits and also growing piles of unconscious bodies as more Ossho capsules were released around the Senate. Takagi and Markov—Reno’s two other underlings—must have been moving through the sections doing that. I focused on Reno. She was at the center of all this.
“We have to help Aela,” I said to H’Jossu.
“I’m right behind you!” He said, punching one of his paws into his palm. “Let’s try not to die!”
“Deal.”
As we ran toward the dais, for a moment, we ended up alongside Jamdora. He was hunched protectively low, and it took me a moment to realize that he was carrying his mom in front of him. Ayadora had lost her cane in the commotion. Her white eyes were narrowed at Jamdora’s rough handling.
“You’re going in the wrong direction!” I yelled at him. “Get out!”
“Can’t!” Jamadora replied. “We have to secure the Etherazi. It’s our responsibility!”
Shit. In the mayhem caused by Reno and company, I’d almost forgotten that Goldy was sitting in a box in the middle of the Senate floor. The Merciful Rampart guys that Arkell had operating the platform had fled, probably when their leader got squashed by a bug. The rest of the Merciful Rampart section had collapsed, a bloom of Ossho spreading among them. I saw Batzian’s unconscious body halfway up the stairs; he’d almost made it to the exit. Luckily, the fog hadn’t yet reached the floor, or Jamdora would’ve been knocked out.
I winced when I noticed Goldy’s eye was open. Even in its diminished form, it was still hella unnerving to realize that molten gold pupil was fixed directly on me.
“No time for you,” I grumbled, then said to Jamdora, “Good luck!”
“Winds at your back!” he replied and veered off toward Goldy.
“He’s kind of nice, actually,” H’Jossu said.
We were almost to Reno when another capsule burst on the lower level. Some Denzans who had been sheltering there ended up sprinting across the Senate floor, getting in our way. The group was led by Forma and, I quickly realized, was nearly all senators.
Forma grabbed on to my arm. “You have to stop this!”
“I’m trying,” I said. “Get your people somewhere safe.”
That seemed like a ridiculous thing to say, considering the circumstances, but then my uncle’s voice came in over the comm.
“South exit!” Tycius yelled. “Send them that way, Syd!”
I glanced over my shoulder. Tycius and Melian stood near a tunnel that had stayed clear of Ossho clouds and maniac humans. They were helping to usher Denzans to safety there, struggling to keep things orderly.
“That way—!” I told Forma, pointing her toward Ty.
I didn’t even get to finish my sentence. A capsule landed at our feet. I kicked the container away from us but wasn’t quick enough—it split open, expelling an eager cloud of Ossho that immediately swarmed into the mouths and noses of Forma and the other senators. I caught Forma as she fell, and H’Jossu snagged two others in his burly arms, but the rest collapsed in a pile around us. H’Jossu and I gently set down the senators we’d caught next to the others. There was nothing else we could do.
A tendril of Ossho tried to push into my breather. I caught a whiff of the burning ozone smell that I always associated with Aela, but it passed quickly as my breather kept me safe.
“What are they seeing . . . ?” I muttered.
Forma’s eyes were rolled back in her head, magenta ripples popping across the whites. Up close, I saw how a tail of Ossho mist fluttered from her nostrils, almost like it was reaching out for more. I waved my hand over her face, thinking maybe I could shoo the wisp away or something, but it did nothing.
H’Jossu hit my shoulder. “Look!”
On the dais, Reno had snapped a silver circlet around her forehead. There were diamond-shaped nodes at each of her temples that sparked with the same electric energy as the capsules that were getting chucked everywhere. I got the sense that her preparations were almost complete as she was entering a code into the module attached to Aela’s faceplate. Distracted as she was, I don’t think she noticed that Rafe had recovered. He charged for her, ahead of me and H’Jossu, his mouth and nose buried in the crook of his elbow.
The arrogant old man—he should’ve listened to me. He thought he could manage this catastrophe, that he could twist it to his advantage. But I could tell by the grim way his brow furrowed that this was way worse than he’d expected.
The cylinder on Aela’s faceplate flashed with electricity and snapped open. A cloud funneled out, thicker and more voluminous than what had been contained in the capsules—this was bright magenta streaked with the sooty black corruption that Aela had picked up back on Ashfall. That was my friend. But they weren’t in control.
Reno braced herself before the exo-suit with her mouth wide open. The device attached to her head flared at the temples. As if commanded to do so, the entirety of Aela’s gaseous form hurtled up Reno’s nostrils and then passed out through her lips. Reno convulsed, her head tilted back—the whole process wasn’t gentle like when I connected with Aela. It looked painful. Forced.
From Reno’s mouth, the cloud began to expand. It fanned out across the Senate chamber, seeking the groping tendrils that rose up from the people who had already passed out from the capsules. Soon, it blanketed the entire area, connecting every person there to Reno.
Rafe never made it to the dais. Aela washed over him, and his upraised arm did nothing to stop his mind from being pulled into the collective. He fell onto his knees and went comatose like the others. I turned back to check on Melian and Tycius, on Darcy and Hiram, on Jamdora, but I couldn’t see any of them through the thick cloud.
“This is bad,” H’Jossu rumbled. “Aela would never do this.”
“I know,” I replied. “Come on. We have to—I don’t know. Turn it off!”
We only made it a few more steps before a shadow blocked our way. The magenta mist was so thick that I didn’t see him coming until he was right on top of us.
Hiro Takagi’s dispassionate gaze settled on me through the visor of his own breather.
“You again,” he said. “Huh.”
I made a move—I wasn’t even sure what I was going for, maybe a punch, maybe a shoulder tackle—but Hiro was much too fast. He drove his fist into my gut with enough force that I ended up partially draped across his forearm. He shucked me off onto the floor.
With a roar, H’Jossu raised up to his intimidating full height, his claws poised to rake down. Takagi lunged forward and grabbed him around the waist, hoisting H’Jossu’s full bulk over his shoulder with ease. He spun once to gain momentum and then smashed H’Jossu down over the back of one of the empty chairs. H’Jossu’s spine made a sickening cracking sound as his body twisted into an impossible arc. His legs flailed for a moment and then went still.
“H’Jossu!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet.
Takagi was there to meet me. He grabbed me by the front of the shirt.
“Enough,” he said with a sigh. “You don’t need this.”
With his free hand, he ripped off my breather.
Almost immediately, the Ossho cloud hanging in the air flooded my nostrils and everything went black. I was powerless to stop it, like being dragged into a bad dream.
A vision filled my mind. It was just like back on Ashfall—my mind was slammed with images that I didn’t want, that I couldn’t turn away from.
The Tytons. Golden and powerful. Godlike in their power. I’d seen these snippets of memory before, in the warning that the ancient Denzans had left in the temple. But now the context had changed. What had been meant in the last vision to invoke fear and intimidation now carried a sense of glory and awe.
“We were great once,” Reno’s voice said in my mind. “Powerful. Beautiful.”
She was in control, I realized. The Origin was playing out again, but this time it was Marie Reno’s version. I could only assume that the same vision was playing out in every mind connected to Aela.
“The Denzans stole that from us,” Reno declared. “We must take it back.”
27
My mind was assaulted with a highlight reel of how glorious the Tytons were before the Denzans betrayed them, wiped most of them out, and then trapped the few survivors on a prison planet. It was similar to the vision I’d experienced back on Ashfall, but where that had been a warning about the Tytons, now those same memories had been recast to celebrate them.
We were once a beautiful and unstoppable species that lorded over the galaxy . . . and look how bad they treated us!
The vision also felt more jumbled than the one I’d experienced on Ashfall—less controlled. The memories were flowing through Reno and sometimes felt cluttered and haphazard.
I caught a glimpse of the First Twelve statue on Little Earth, young Denzans posing for pictures in front of it.
We’re nothing but mascots to them, Rafe.
A flash of dead Vulpin strapped into the bridge seats of a spacecraft.
Look what they made me do!
And then, suddenly, I was back in my grandfather’s cabin. I stood in the middle of the living room, looking out the open front door at the porch. A gentle rain fell, a storm just breaking up. Denza’s three silver moons sliced through the clouds to cast everything in a hazy light. The air felt warm and smelled sweet. Two people sat in wooden deck chairs, holding hands as they watched the drizzle die down. I could only see the backs of their heads, but I knew that was Reno and my grandfather out there.
I took a step toward them, then froze as Reno turned her head. She was younger, her face unlined and hair blonder. She didn’t see me. Instead, she whispered some private joke to my grandfather, and he chuckled, squeezing her hand tighter.
It was strange that I could move here. In the vision of the Tytons, I didn’t have any agency at all. My mind wasn’t being pummeled by someone else’s memories now. This was more like the visions Aela had pulled me into in the past where I was free to look around and explore.
“Yes, exactly like that. Reno holds this memory dear, and you are familiar with this place, so we were able to redirect your consciousness here. We don’t have long, Syd.”
I spun around to find Aela standing behind me. They were in their familiar form of a tall, vaguely humanoid streak of quicksilver, although there were some disturbing new elements to their appearance. The edges of Aela’s form were darkened, the inky stain most noticeable on their fingertips and on the ends of their comet’s tail of magenta hair. There was also what appeared to be a collar around Aela’s neck, a chain made of electricity running back to the cabin’s fireplace and disappearing up the chimney.
“Aela!” I exclaimed. I closed the distance between us and scooped them into a hug. “You aren’t erased!”
For a split second, the cabin disappeared and I was once again stuck watching a Tyton try to shield their child as an ancient Denzan attack cruiser sprayed them with toxic black ichor. The vision lasted for only a moment, but it made me shudder.
“Ah, we have never experienced the pleasing sensation of a reunion before,” Aela said when the cabin was restored around us. “It distracted us.”
I held up my hands and carefully stepped back. “Sorry. I didn’t realize that would happen.”
“Neither did we,” Aela said. “We have never been enslaved before either. Many new experiences. Some empirically better than others.”
It struck me for the first time that Aela was using the plural now instead of the singular. “You’re not just Aela anymore, are you? Reno combined you with the wisps she kidnapped from Remembrance.”
“Yes, and with others she hunted down in Primclef,” Aela said. “We are her collective now, all beholden now to her projector. That is the device she wears. It connects her to our exo-suit and to the capsules they’ve trapped pieces of us in. We were forced to spread into every available mind and sedate them until Reno activated the projector. Then we flowed through her and she used her mind to direct us, forcing us to show the Senate . . .”
