You’re probably really wishing I had just agreed to go to you and not taken this detour, he said.
Not at all. I mean, yes, in a way. I wish to keep you safe, but it is not in your nature to turn away from those that need your help, she assured him, sounding thoughtful. That is why you were the perfect choice to the pilot.
The pilot? Not, just a pilot? His eyebrows lifted.
Answers later, she said evasively and he had an idea that as many answers as she gave would only lead to more questions. All of this certainly had. Now the reason that you are seeing the Osiris represented this way is because you sense that the Osiris is not connected as it should be so all that power has nowhere to go. But if you connect to it, Jace, you’ll be able to direct where some of it goes.
To bring down Metal Rain? He guessed.
Exactly, she agreed, obviously pleased with him.
So… how do I connect with the Osiris?
You grab it! She said brightly.
I grab the downed electrical wire? He lifted an eyebrow.
Ah, yes, well, it sounds bad and unwise--
But you’re shielding me and…
He broke off as the screams he heard from the “real” world were deafening. He was being jostled.
Someone--Walter--was yelling, “We’ve got to get to the basement! They’re coming through!”
And someone else--Sami--responded, “He said not to touch him! He’s going to save us!”
“He’s going to die!” Walter screamed.
And I have to do this, Jace finished as those voices died away.
He didn’t hesitate. He snatched at the live wire.
He missed.
Goddamn! What the Hell? Jace growled.
Try again, Gehenna sounded so patient, but he knew that there was no time left.
He crouched down, inches from the edge of the moving, sparking length of wire. He took a breath, stretched out his hands on either side of the wire, and caught it between both palms.
Then he was screaming.
If he ever had imagined what it would be like to grab a live wire in his hand and be electrocuted endlessly and not die it wouldn’t have been half as painful as it actually was. It felt like his blood boiled away and left blackened, smoking channels through his brain. It seemed like his eyes were boiling and popping as the electricity cooked them. Everything hurt.
But the darkness was no longer dark any longer. Instead he was seeing the schematics for a massive spaceship. A ship as large as the one in The Thing that they found in the ice, but this one was so much bigger and it wasn’t saucer-shaped, but reminded him of a skyscraper, but laying on its side.
Go inside, Jace. Follow the paths to the place I marked. That’s Metal Rain. You can do this! Gehenna urged him.
He wasn’t sure how he did it, but he “followed” one of the golden lines in the ship--likely some kind of conduit--to a cylindrical shape that was softly glowing.
Wake it up, Jace! Gehenna told him.
She didn’t tell him how. She didn’t need to. All he did was “touch” it and suddenly the cylindrical shape burned as bright as the sun. Jace closed his eyes to the searing light and then…
“...his eyes bleeding! Oh, no, Jace! You’re bleeding! Are you okay?” Sami was pleading with him. “They’re--they’re dead, but you’re--you’re--Jace, please answer me!”
Jace opened his eyes. It was hard. His lashes were wet with a substance that was almost tacky, sticking his eyelids together. But he managed to pry them apart. He was on the ground in Walter’s front room. The bay window was shattered. The bars were wrenched to the side. But there were no Khul worming their way through the open space. He looked at the door. It was hanging by a thread. But there were no Khul there either.
