12
APPLE BLOSSOM AND VANILLA
Darwin stayed at the side of the decaying road for the night rather than risk the walk back in the dark. He hoped that Teresa had done the same. Traveling in the dark on a road that barely existed with overgrown forest and bush on both sides wasn’t a smart thing to do. Though her decision to go to the dam with whatever army they managed to raise was the most insane one she’d ever made, she wasn’t stupid. Just bull-headed. It was something both of them shared. For a moment he considered trying to follow her, but in the darkness of an almost new moon, he’d end up walking right past her without even knowing.
As he munched on cold sausage, he knew he’d made a decision as well. He didn’t think it would take much to convince Carlos of it. Though the man had stopped blaming him for Mellisa’s death, he still wasn’t friendly. Not where they had been in the past.
He pulled blankets from his pack and laid one on the ground as a sheet and another over himself. Using the almost empty pack as a pillow, he fell into a fitful sleep filled with dreams of Ada and Teresa fighting like demons on the top of Hoover Dam.
Darwin finally gave up on solid sleep as the sun rose. He shook off the blankets and shoved them back into the pack, pulling the last of his water from it. In the early morning half-light he picked his way back to Enton, resting his hands on the cold stones. It ends soon, he thought. One way or another, it ends in the only way it can.
The hole came easily when he tried, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do much more today. He still wasn’t as strong as he used to be, and he’d been overdoing it recently. He walked from just outside the city into a quiet market. The vendors were awake and preparing to open for the day with whatever wares they still had left. Cooking fires smoldered in between the rough tents and filled the sky with a smoky haze. He went to the back of Medad’s area, surprised to see that the man’s wife wasn’t preparing to take a meal to the few that were left in the makeshift hospital. He was hoping to join her as an excuse to see if Teresa had made it back or if she was still on the road.
“No hospital breakfast today?” he asked.
Medad’s wife shook her head. “The healers are eating with everyone else today.”
“What about the patients?”
“There are none left.”
For a brief moment he thought the three Threaders left had gotten better, but the look on her face brought him crashing back down to reality.
“When?”
“Early yesterday morning.”
He should have seen it, should have known. Teresa wouldn’t leave her patients unless they didn’t need her help anymore. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him last night. Her patients had died, and she had sought him out. All he had done was tell her what she couldn’t do. He nodded his head and backed out of the tent made of tarps.
She had been hurting, and instead of asking for help, she had tried to console him. She had always been the better person.
The first place he stopped was the hospital. Apparently Teresa had shown up early that morning, but no one there knew where she was. He didn’t even know where she was staying. After searching the high school, he left to walk around town. Carlos stopped him as he crossed Front Street.
“Where were you?”
“I went to see Enton and figure things out.”
At the mention of Enton’s name, a darker shadow flickered across Carlos’s face. “I should have gone as well.”
“You have a lot to do here. I don’t think he’d mind.”
“No, he wouldn’t. I do, though. I’ll make time to go see him later today.” He pulled Darwin toward the fire hall. “We have a plan. It’s crazy, but we don’t have enough people to do a full-on attack. They’ll be monitoring the area for holes and movement—”
“I have one as well,” Darwin said.
Carlos filled Darwin in on the plan as they walked to the fire hall. It was simple, as far as plans went. In fact, it was one of the ideas Carlos had worked on with Sandra when they first took over the dam. Though Carlos had modified it slightly, it was surprisingly similar to the one Darwin had come up with.
“We don’t have the numbers we had last time,” Carlos said. “Besides, I don’t think the same approach would work again. I think we need to give the impression there are thousands of us, and at the same time, confuse them so they don’t know where the attack will come from. I’ve already sent fifty people ahead. They’re creating as many holes into the dam and surrounding area as they can, holding them open long enough for Salem to think we’re sending armies through, and then closing them.”
“You’ve already started?” Darwin asked.
Carlos nodded. “I’ll send more Threaders later. We’ll be opening so many holes they won’t have a chance to block or monitor all of them. That’s when we’ll start sending in people. We’ll do quick attacks and leave again, stir them up a bit more. For some of the holes, we’ll send in people that will just hide. The dam is a big place. I’m thinking we could get a couple of hundred Threaders in without them knowing. An inside crew they won’t expect.”
“I only have one change,” Darwin said, drawing in a deep breath. “Send me into the generator room. Get me as close to the Source as possible, and I’ll take care of Ada and the Skends.”
Carlos stopped, his jaw muscles clenching and releasing, and plunked down into a chair. “That would be suicide.” The words came out tight and stressed.
“It doesn’t have to be. If we can keep up the element of surprise, there’s a chance I could get in before she even knows.”
“I’m not worried about her knowing. We’ve seen what happens when you get close to the Source. I’m worried about you not getting back out.”
Darwin settled into a chair opposite Carlos and stared at him. “It’s my choice to make.”
Carlos shook his head without breaking eye contact.
“Not happening on my watch.”
Carlos’s plan had been in place for days before he decided it was time to move. Darwin and his team of hunters brought in more food for the market people. They were being left behind. Here, they were safe. Where the Threaders were going was anything but. If they failed, if they had to retreat, it wouldn’t be back to Gaston. There were too many innocents here.
Carlos still didn’t want Darwin along, thinking he was a wild card that couldn’t be managed. He wasn’t wrong. With the Source inside Darwin’s chest working again, there wasn’t anything Carlos could do to keep him back. Teresa didn’t want him to go either. He didn’t know if Carlos had filled her in on his plan, but she had been adamant about his staying back, even promising to stay back with him.
What she didn’t know, what none of them seemed to realize, was that he was their only chance of winning. With Ada’s connection to the QPS—amplified by his mother’s DNA—there wasn’t a hope in hell of things going right without him.
And that was the problem that sent his heart racing and breath coming in short, small gasps. Just thinking about it now made his palms sweat. There were two people in the world with that connection, and they both knew only one would walk out of that fight. If they were lucky, the loser would die there. If they weren’t, they would end up in a bed a babbling idiot until their bodies died of old age. He’d seen that firsthand when he’d come back a year ago. Rebecca had been in a bed in the Chollas hospital, being tended to by Teresa and the other healers. The distant, unfocused look in her eyes had chilled him to the core.
That it might be him that ended that way was a constant buzz in his brain. It occupied so much of his time and thoughts that he had withdrawn from daily life, until he’d realized there was nothing he could do about it. Evil, even evil that thought it was doing good, needed to be stopped.
He lined up with the other Threaders as the first holes were built, stepping out in the desert of northern California. He recognized the spot instantly; the faded sign and the broken pirate statue stood out like a sore thumb. They were at the border of Oregon. He’d been here with Teresa. What had taken weeks of travel on foot took only a split second this time, but the feeling was surprisingly the same. He’d grown up in New Jersey, but his life had started when he’d come to California, when he’d met Teresa. Two more jumps and he’d be home, back in Chollas to prepare for the final hole to Hoover Dam.
The Threaders congregated in a group as a second hole was built. The first of them stepped through just as the healers stepped out of the first one. He didn’t see Teresa. He stepped into the biting cold, exiting in a field of scrub for three steps before entering the hole to Chollas. He stepped out into a full battle.
Threads hung in the air like sheets, dropping from the sky onto the unsuspecting Threaders as they stepped from the hole. A network of blue flew over Darwin’s head as he rolled to the side, protecting him from what was sure to be a painful death. He added his support to the network as more vulnerable Threaders poured through the hole.
The hole collapsed at the same time the blue Threads did. He didn’t know if it was because everyone had come through, or if it been collapsed by the current dwellers of Chollas. Either way, he hoped no one was in transit when it happened. He scanned the retreating crowd for any of the healers. Though he saw one or two, he couldn’t see Teresa. His heart thudded in his chest. Maybe she had listened to him and stayed behind after all. He knew she hadn’t, but the thought that she may have been caught in the collapsing hole tore him in two.
Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him back with the retreating front line. He shook off the grip. Wherever Teresa was, he couldn’t help her while they were under attack. He pulled on the Threads and entered the front line, filling a spot left empty by a dead Threader.
Rows of Skends stood in front of him, and behind them more Threaders than he had seen in his entire time here. Carlos and his team were so outnumbered that he was surprised they hadn’t already been annihilated. The Skends pushed against their line with no sense of pain or loss when one of them fell, and the men and women in the back held no compassion for those that died, pushing them with whatever control they had over the horde.
Darwin balked at the sheer magnitude of the force. His mind went blank until he had to step back to stay in line with the others. When one Threader fell, another took his or her place, but still their line was getting thinner.
He pulled on more Threads, unsure if he should press the attack or do all he could to shield those that fought beside him. The man beside him fell.
The Source buried deep in his chest trembled as Darwin watched him hit the ground and those around him filled the gap. Someone pulled the fallen man further back, away from the front line. Darwin’s skin grew cold. The battle in front of him slowed to a crawl. Threads hung in air like children’s things and he threw them aside. The battle line moved back. Someone grabbed his arm to pull him back with it. He shrugged it off and took a step forward instead. A screamed name pierced the air. It was his. The voice tasted familiar. Teresa was here, she had made it through the hole. He took another step forward and the Skends drew closer.
Darwin saw through the transformation that had been done to them. In front of him stood men and women who had been tortured and maimed to turn them into inhuman machines that would do the bidding of their masters. Under the distorted cloaks thrust upon them by Ada and her crew lay the heart of human beings locked in struggle of knowing what they were doing, what they had become, and despising it. Hating themselves for no longer being in control. Some of them wished to end it, to die or to simply have their minds snap under the pressure, but it never happened. Their creators wouldn’t even give them that release. They surrounded him, clutching at his arms and legs, embracing him, melding with him.
He was their pain. Every sense, every smell, every memory of the Skends filled him, intertwining with him and becoming a part of him. He felt Baila’s touch, felt the essence of what she had become seep into his skin and muscle. His bones broke and rehealed as his skin stretched from the sudden growth. Skin grew across his eyes, blocking out the sun that streamed indifferently from the sky, yet he could still see.
His mouth opened in a scream that shook the earth. His chest exploded into a sun of its own, throwing Threads into the world. Threads his companions grabbed at and tried to use as much as the Salem Threaders did. The Threads dimmed and slowed as more of the beastly horde latched onto him.
Darwin stilled. He drew in a breath and let it out through his mouth. The Source inside his chest slowed with his heartbeat until it was once again in sync with it. Calm flooded his body and he relaxed. There was no battle, there were no Skends or Threaders, there was only him and the Source. Its light shone bright, his heart beat, his lungs expanded and compressed. A thin strand stretched east, searching for its brethren behind a wall of concrete, slipping through Ada’s defenses until it made a weak connection with the machine. He opened his eyes.
Around him stood humanity at its worst. Humans turned into less than slaves, less then animals. They were simply fodder to strengthen an army that wanted power over their fellow man. Behind them stood the believers. Men and women that listened to their leader with a blind faith that baffled anyone who could think on their own. He saw them, saw their need to be seen, to be listened to, to finally be the ones in charge of their own fate. They couldn’t see that it was an illusion. To the people they listened to, the people they adored, they were no more than the Skends they hid behind. Things to be used and then discarded once they had nothing more to give.
And yet they fought, blindly following a woman that spoke lies and half-truths, telling them what they wanted to hear, adding fuel to the fire and reaping the rewards while they continued to struggle.
Darwin’s bubble of calm grew. The Skends no longer clustered around him, filling him with the poisons their masters had given to them. His skin was burned by their touch, his clothes smoldered, lying in tatters on his body.
His link to the QPS pulsed with a slow beat.
Nothing moved. The faces in front of him, with the skin over the eyes and stretched over open mouths, held nothing but pain. There were no Threads in the sky, no blue shields protecting the two groups of humans or red ones to inflict pain. The Source pulsed a steady green, bright and viscous in layers of colors spreading from the palest pear to the darkest shadows of the forest. He breathed out, and the green spread in a gossamer layer above the battlefield. A small pocket of time lay frozen underneath it.
Far to the east he could smell the malevolence of Hoover Dam. The air above it shimmered in hatred and fear. Hatred for who he was, the living embodiment of a brother that she had loved and adored, and for the mother he had taken from her. Fear for what she Saw.
It permeated her soul in a miasma of sickness, affecting her every thought, her every action. He could taste that she was watching him as well, examining him as he was examining her. He could feel the connection between them, and under that, he could smell apple blossom and vanilla, feel his mother’s arms around him. Ada fought his link to the machine, her proximity and his distance helping her.
He saw her plans as she saw his. Her people had begun to ignore the constant pestering of Carlos’s Threaders, ignoring the holes they created in and around the dam over the last few days. That much of what he had planned had come to fruition. But she had seen through that. She knew they would gather somewhere familiar before the final attack, and she had prepared for it, sending Skends and Threaders to Forsyth, Chollas, and SafeHaven. When Carlos had holed here, the others had holed across to meet them. Kill your enemy before they get too close.
The green haze still hovered above the frozen combatants. He could feel the power of the Skends fighting against his control. Behind them stood the Salem Threaders. The Skends were their shield, and if that changed, they wouldn’t hesitate to destroy their former slaves.
He reached outside his bubble and touched one of the horde. The red and blue Threads that encased the beast pulsed and he almost drew back in surprise. Despite the Threads’ response, he grabbed tighter. Ultraviolet pushed through the Skend’s shield and enveloped his hand. He could hear the anger in it and his world grew smaller. It was enough. He let go and drew back into himself, letting its poison wash out of him.
Darwin drew on his new knowledge, forming a mesh of invisible light above the Skends. He could feel them pushing against the stillness, but time was still on his side. When his work was done, he let the finished net fall.
With its release, his breathing picked up speed and his heart began to hammer in his chest like a caged beast. His tenuous link to the QPS severed with a gut-wrenching feeling of loss, cut by something or someone closer to the machine. Along with it, the Source in his chest withdrew and he collapsed. Hands pulled him back behind the line and Threads filled the air again, stopping when the Threaders realized there was nothing left to fight.
People milled around in front of them in place of the Skends, lost and confused, spinning in circles. Behind them, a shout rose into the air and the Salem Threaders thrust into the crowd. Bodies dropped in their attempt to get close to Carlos’s group. The Skends that had once protected them were now simply people who were in the way. Blue dropped from the sky and the Salem Threaders stopped, imprisoned. The few people trapped with them were pressed against the wall as shields.
Water splashed across Darwin’s face. White Threads probed into his head and he nudged them away.
“Darwin?”
Teresa’s voice melted around him, concern hidden behind the veneer of professionalism. He opened his eyes and blinked in the sudden light.
“I’m okay.”
He sat and Teresa pulled away, giving him space. He was with the injured. Healers worked over people lying in a row on the street. Behind them, the rusted metal monstrosity he could never figure out stood in front of an empty playground. He held his arms open and Teresa rushed into them. They sat rocking each other.
Underneath it all, he still felt Ada.
Darwin walked amongst the former Skends, questioning them about who they were and what they had done before they found themselves here. They had no memories beyond being captured by Salem or being touched by a Skend. The invisible net had converted them back to human and the green had helped them forget what they had done when they were Skends. Something he hadn’t been able to do last time. That had ended up with too many people tortured by what they had done. He didn’t want them to have that pain. Whether what he had done was permanent or not was a question he couldn’t answer.
Carlos’s team shrank the prison of the Salem crew until there was barely room to move. They plucked the converted Skends from inside and released them with the masses. Teresa had left to help with the wounded. Most of the injuries were, surprisingly, minor. Only one wouldn’t be able to join them for the second leg of their journey. The healers stabilized her and a few of the converted Skends took over her care.
One side effect of them not remembering what they had done as Skends was their unwillingness to join the fight. Only a handful—those that were Threaders—chose to join Carlos. Darwin found him organizing the groups for the next hole.
“She knows we’re coming.”
“I imagine she’s known for a while. With the number of holes we’ve been creating over the last few days, she’d be stupid if she didn’t. And she doesn’t seem to be stupid.”
“I don’t mean in the general sense. She felt me here the same way I felt her there, the way I can still feel her. Maybe I should have said she knows I’m coming.”
Carlos stopped. “What do you mean you can still feel her?”
“I’m not sure. It’s like there’s a link between us. I know she’s out there, I know she’s at the dam. She’s not happy. She didn’t expect us to win here, not with so many of her Skends and Threaders. I don’t think she knows that the Skends have been converted back, or that her Threaders have temporarily lost their abilities.”
“That much? Then we can assume she knows the same things about you. She knows you’re here, and when we hole to the dam, she’ll know exactly where we are. You’re a liability, Darwin.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying . . .” Carlos sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked at the ground and continued. “I’m saying you can’t come with us. You know that. As soon as you hole in, she’ll know where you are, and then all of us will be under attack.”
“You won’t beat her without me.”
“And we’re guaranteed to lose with you. I can’t put everyone’s life at risk.”
“You’ve seen what her connection to the QPS does. You’ve certainly seen what it does to me. Have you forgotten what I did last time?”
“Last time you were barely saved by Baila, and only because she hadn’t turned one hundred percent Skend. If she wouldn’t have jumped on you, you would have lost your mind, and lost to Ada.”
Darwin raised his hand to his scarred face. Carlos was right, he barely made it out last time, but they didn’t stand a chance against her without him. He knew that, and so did Carlos.
“I’m stronger now. The Source from the first QPS is inside me, and it’s actually working. You saw what I just did here, what I did just before I tried to kill the machine the first time.”
“I did. And both times you weren’t actually fighting anyone. Back in New Jersey, you were the only one left standing before you tried. Here, you had a whole line fighting to keep off the Skends and deal with Salem. You don’t get it. If you come with us, we’ll be attacked the second we get there. We won’t have a chance to get close to the machine. You’re staying behind.”
Darwin tensed and he could feel his damaged cheek twitch. “How dare you . . .” His voice petered out as Carlos walked away.
There wasn’t anything the man or his army could do to keep him here. So he couldn’t hole with them. He’d do it himself. He heard a faint laugh in the back of his mind. Ada wasn’t upset anymore.
He clamped down on the link, hoping it worked.
Carlos had his Threaders build the hole immediately, knowing that Ada could send reinforcements at any time. Darwin watched as it collapsed when the first person went through. A wave of fear rippled through the crowd. He could See Threads coming in from the other end to disrupt it. They built another one and threw a backpack in. The hole fell and half of the pack fell to the ground.
Darwin stepped closer and two Threaders moved to block his path. He glared at them, pulling crimson Threads around him until he almost glowed, and they melted back. The hole was built again, and he followed the central Thread through, riding the fast-moving link with his Sight. Even not physically in the hole, his body grew cold.
The Thread stopped at the other side and he could See two Threaders moving to collapse the hole. He blocked their Threads, pushing them back toward the two men and turning them red. The men fell and he dropped back into his own body.
He recognized where they were holing to. They were inside the dam, but not in the generator room. It would take time for them to move down the hallway. They were on the observation deck level, at least two stories above the generator room floor. How did they plan to get down to the QPS? Another short hole would be like signing your own death warrant.
With the hole remaining stable, Carlos’s Threaders rushed through. He watched the hole close as the last of the medical personnel disappeared. Teresa didn’t look at him as she passed, too busy concentrating on what was ahead. The only people left behind were the captured Salem Threaders, the converted Skends that hadn’t left yet, and him.
Darwin’s sense of Ada grew. She knew Carlos and his Threaders were in the dam, and she knew exactly where they were. Was it his protection of the hole that had alerted her? He glanced back at the trapped Salem Threaders before creating a hole of his own.
He stepped into it.
Ice bit into Darwin’s skin before he fell out of the hole and on top of one of the eight generators lining the wall of the generator room. The small circular platform he stood on was almost at the height of the observation deck. Carlos’s Threaders fought on both flanks. He crept down a short set of steps to the top of the generator itself, feeling the hum of the whirring machine.
Holes opened throughout the space below him, disappearing as fast as they formed. Some stayed open longer, and Carlos’s crew jumped through one or two people at a time. The number of holes was obviously a ploy to help them get into the room, but it would be weakening their Threaders. Even with the short distance, they had to be tiring. If they pushed too far, they wouldn’t be able to create a hole back home if retreat was called for.
A pit formed in his stomach as he realized that was the plan. Carlos knew they didn’t have enough people to attack again. This was an all-or-nothing attempt. He hadn’t told anyone . . . the healers that followed them in, the fighters, no one. Carlos had come here to win or die, and he was committing the rest of his crew to the same choice.
On the floor below him, at least thirty of Ada’s Threaders surrounded the QPS. Ada herself stood in the middle of them, her back to the gray box, and watched as they disrupted holes. A few people didn’t make it through, gripping their frozen bloodless wounds as their cries echoed across the high ceiling. Those that did make it attacked.
Distracted, Ada’s protection threw up shields and returned the attack, allowing more of Carlos’s people into the room. Ada stood straighter, peering between the shoulders of the Threaders in front of her, scanning the room. She had detected him, and her thoughts pushed into his head stronger than they ever had. There wasn’t any fear or indecision in them. All he detected was excitement. She wanted him there, wanted to fight him. Wanted him dead. He took off his shoes and socks.
The machine pulled at him like a lover. Threads pooled around the QPS and swung outward as if searching for him. He knew that the moment he used the Source inside of him, it and Ada would know where he was. He clamped down on the sudden desire, realizing at the last moment that it wasn’t him wanting to use it. Ada had placed the desire in his head.
She placed a hand on the QPS and the urge came stronger, fighting through his walls. He could See the bundle of Threads that wrapped her hand, anchoring it to the surface of the machine. She continued to search the advancing front for him, not realizing he was almost on top of her.
Swaths of crimson, gossamer Threads that whipped through the air in both directions hit the steel blue of the protective shields. Some of them were deflected, leaving craters where they hit the floor or ceiling or walls. A battle waged below him, yet Ada—and he—stood separate from it.
A high-pitched whine filled the room and Darwin realized a handful of Ada’s Threaders weren’t attacking. Instead, they wrapped one of the generators in blue-green Threads, the blue sinking into the surrounding steel to the rotors, leaving the exterior of the machine wrapped in a deep forest green. The rotors began to spin, moving faster and faster until the air filled with a sharp whine.
He realized what they were doing, spinning the generator until it exploded, throwing shrapnel into the advancing front. Darwin threw red at Ada’s Threaders as their protective wall thickened, losing his hiding spot in the process.
The generator shattered and chunks of metal and concrete flew outward. Most of them disappeared as they hit the green haze surrounding the generator. The flying chunks never hit the fighters, breaking into a fine dust that filled the enclosed space, yet a dozen of the men and women fell, flickering out from where they stood and reappearing where they had holed in. Gashes and bits of metal covered their bodies.
Green controlled time. Ada’s people had exploded the generator and moved the pieces back in time to when the attackers had holed in. That was impossible. He’d Seen Carlos manipulate the green Threads, and it had only been superficial. Ada’s Threaders had actually controlled time itself. It was on a small scale, but if they could do that . . .
He had manipulated time twice, once when he’d transported himself back home, and again when he slowed time to release the Skends. Both times he’d been directly connected to the QPS, like Ada was now. But to move physical objects—moving at high speeds—to a specific point in time . . . Ada had more skill with the Threads than he’d ever had. Even when he did something, he didn’t know how he did it. She, apparently, did.
A new hole formed and people poured through it, men and women with their clothes in tatters. The converted Skends that had refused to join them, now pushed forward, weaving between the Threaders until they surrounded Ada’s group. Their eyes were bloodshot and madness clung to them like a bad smell. They wanted blood, and no matter how many of them fell, they pushed forward like a hungry beasts. He had changed them back to human, but their memories as Skends drove them now.
Another generator began to spin up and he jumped onto the top of the QPS.
The connection was immediate. Darwin’s bare feet touched the surface of the machine and massive cords of Threads wrapped around them, attaching him to it. Either the machine had learned how to keep him in contact, or Ada had somehow trained it to keep the connection no matter what happened, not thinking it would work for him as well.
The Source in his chest connected with its sibling. The room melted away to open field, long grass swaying in a warm summer breeze. His toes dug into the welcoming earth and the scent of soil and grass entered his nose.
The ground cracked under his feet and the sky turned a sickly orange that squirmed over his head. Ada walked across the field, the ruddy sky above her swirling and murky black. Her body moved as though it was a mannequin, stiff and jerky and not quite in control. The look on her face was madness.
Lightning fell from the sky, impacting the ground between them. Her lips parted and a laugh halfway between a hyena and catcall was cut off by a peal of thunder that rippled the sky into shades of purple and yellow. Another electric arc reached overhead, bending before it reached Darwin. His hair stood on end and the air hummed with its power.
He concentrated on the Source inside of him and the world jumped into clarity. A conduit of twisted Threads tied Ada to the machine he stood on. It pulsed as she asked for more power, swelling in size. A similar one connected him to the machine, its colors less angry. A new Thread licked out of his chest and reached down. It was met halfway by its counterpart from the QPS.
Darwin’s chest exploded in heat and fire and ice. Flesh and bone flew into pieces, covering the Threaders surrounding the QPS. They fought on without noticing. He closed his eyes and breathed through torn lungs. His spine shattered, yet he still stood.
Ada’s body twisted and elongated, muscles formed and stretched and her skin turned pasty and tallow. The whites of her eyes turned black and strings of skin covered her gaping mouth. She raised her free hand and grabbed his ankle.
The Threads in the room dimmed.
Darwin screamed. His pants disintegrated at her touch and his skin burned with pure fire and hate. His connection to the machine thinned, but the one from his Source thickened in response. Smoke rose from his leg and Ada screamed, her hand turning black from the heat. The black turned gray and her hand turned to dust.
Darkness surrounded him. His body, intact and whole, spun slowly. The earth rotated into view, a blue and green sphere that showed no sign of the humanity that infested it. It moved out of view and stars filled the space above him. When the earth came into view again, he saw a spider web of yellow Threads stretching out from the west coast of North America, stretching through Earth’s atmosphere before disappearing. A new link formed as he watched . . . a new QPS powered on. Each Thread twisted through the realities, linking the individual machines into a network of shared data. He felt the pull of the links and his spinning stopped as he was drawn toward them. Ada lay entangled in the mesh, her face twisted into a rapturous grimace, drool sliding down her cheek.
His arm touched a link and his world shattered.
The QPS sat on a raised platform in a dank basement. Water dripped down the walls and pooled on the floor and mold grew in layers of black. The floor above creaked and a shaft of light came from the top of the stairs.
Darwin felt a tug on his arm and the scene shifted.
A QPS painted a garish red rested at the center of a giant pagoda. Dragons carved in wood and lacquered to a shine protected the openings, throwing shadows on the length of the floor. Men and women in orange robes sat on the shadows in silence. As one, they opened their eyes and stared at Darwin.
His chest hit resistance and he spun. His outstretched hand touched another yellow conduit. Multiple machines overlaid each other, each one releasing Threads into its world. One sat alone in a dimly lit room; another room held masked chanting people. He saw a knife rise and fall and blood dripped down the gray sides of the machine. In another world, a tall man sat beside the gray box, its panels removed and the insides exposed. The man looked exhausted. He twisted around at the sound of banging, a screwdriver in his hand. Darwin recognized him even through the scraggly beard and long hair. It was Garth, his dad’s friend.
More of the yellow Threads wrapped around his body. Part of him knew if someone could see him he would look the same as Ada had as his mind fractured along different realities and different worlds.
Apple blossom and vanilla permeated the air and Darwin’s visions vanished. The room was filled with a white haze, making the walls and floor blend into a seamless whole. Ada stood beside him, all signs of being a Skend gone.
She swung at him, her body following her fist and hitting him square on the chin. Bright flashes of light swam in front of his eyes as he fell. She jumped on top of him, pummeling and driving her knees into his gut. Shock held him still.
Blood ran into his eyes before he rolled, throwing her off. He lurched to his feet, half blinded and out of breath, stumbling backward to get away from her. All he saw was a blur as she rocketed into him again.
This time he fought back, swinging blindly to get the beast she had become off him. His blows bounced of her shoulders and arms before he reached and landed one on her cheek. Rising to his feet again, he used one hand to wipe the blood from his eyes and the other to fend off any attack.
It never came.
He blinked through the red haze. There were four people here now.
Darwin’s mother stood in front of him as he remembered her. She was young and full of life. The woman standing beside her had crow’s feet at the sides of her eyes, and she looked as though she had fought for every year of her life, an older, harder version of his mother, one that had seen her son and her husband both die before their time.
Darwin rushed to his mother’s arms, and for the first time in almost a decade, felt her arms wrap around him. Ada ran to her mother. They each held on as if they would never let go. Darwin was the first to pull away.
“You two are lost,” his mother said. “Your minds are so entwined with the machines and their interlinks that there is no turning back.”
“A battle rages on around you.” Ada’s mother turned to look at Darwin. “One group to try to save you.” She looked at Ada. “And one trying to protect you. Neither know it is too late for that.”
“I need to get back,” Darwin said. “I . . . we need to stop her. She’s taken over from the Qabal. I know you don’t understand, but what she’s doing to people is evil. They need to be stopped.”
“Stopped?” Ada screamed. “Stopped? You’re a murderer. You killed everyone . . . my mom, Rebecca, everyone I knew. I won’t stop until I finish you.” She leapt at Darwin.
“No!”
The single word from her mother stopped her short.
“We didn’t deserve to die, no one does, but we brought it on ourselves. We let grief and Rebecca rewire our minds until we forgot everything we were grieving over. Let it go. Let us go.”
Tears streamed down Ada’s cheeks and her breath came in huge sobs. “I don’t know if I can. I’ve . . . I’ve done things . . . I can’t . . .”
“You have no choice,” Darwin’s mother said. “There’s no going back, especially for you. You’ve been using the QPS for months, and you know its price. You have pushed yourself past the point of no return. There might not be enough left of you to keep your body functioning.”
“And him? What about him?”
Both mothers turned to look at him.
“Darwin is a strange case. Though his exposure to the machine has been small, he has its heart and soul inside of him. We don’t know if that is his salvation or his end. We think the choice might be his to make.”
“So I’m dead, and he gets to live?” She turned to face Darwin. The look on her face wasn’t anger or fear, but looked more like regret and sadness. “Congratulations, you’ve managed to kill another Lloyd.”
Her words cut into him. They were true. In this world, he’d killed himself and his father by trying to shut down the machine. He’d killed Ada’s mother to protect Teresa, and he’d killed Ada trying to stop her evil from spreading. In his world, he’d killed his mother and felt responsible for his dad’s suicide. All that was something he would have to live with—if he made it out alive.
His mother stepped up to him, placing her hand on his chest. “Your dad made us part of this machine, part of what this thing has become. And now it lives in you. I’ll always be with you. We may never be able to do this again, but you know I’ll be there . . . you’ve felt me with you before. Remember that.”
“Enough. It’s time to go back,” Ada’s mother said.