Kori takes a deep breath in, then lets it out in a rush. “So it all comes down to this,” she says.
My wings tighten against my spine, a chill sliding through my veins. Overcome, I drop to one knee and reach out one hand to cup Kori’s face, tracing the gentle curve of her cheekbone with one claw, trying to memorize the placement of every fleck of green in her gorgeous brown eyes.
“And then you come back to me, Kori.”
She leans into my touch, eyes drifting shut, momentarily absent from the pressures of panic and time. “And you come back to me.”
“Now go,” I order, every muscle in my arm screaming as I withdraw my touch and rise. “Stop your mother. I’ll hold off Thaane.”
With a final nod, Kori sprints like lightning, every step on the metal floor thunderous as she returns to the elevator. Back down into the living space that will soon be a mass metallic grave if she doesn’t succeed. My heart pulses in my throat.
What if that was goodbye? How could it possibly be enough?
“And—Aspect?” I almost forgot the robot was here, limbs pulled tightly into themself like makeshift armor, joints now visibly smokingfrom the stress of it all. Planetary collapse is a hell of an introduction to sentient thought, I suppose. What is a mining mech possibly supposed to do at the end of all things?
“Aspect sends another broadcast,” I manage. “Warns everyone to get to their anti-radiation gear as soon as they can, in case Kori and Jelza can’t hold Chloe off. We save as many as possible.”
“And then?” Aspect persists, their voice rising to a terribly high pitch.
“Then Aspect hides.”
“Aspect can do more—than hide.”
I take a sharp breath. “Then Aspect keeps filming, if you want,” I say, prompting a squeaky nod from the frightened robot. “And if we don’t make it … then at least whoever survives will know we stood our ground at the end of the world.”
CHAPTER
29
KORI
The elevator ride back into the settlement has never seemed longer. It feels like trying to wade through congealed blood, barely moving at all compared to my racing heart against my rib cage.
I miss Aspect already. Even when they worsened my anxiety, they also kept me tethered to the moment, watching over them even at my own expense.
Far above my head, the ground rumbles and shudders, old dust falling down the elevator shaft in sheets. Likely Thaane’s army landing. The beginning of the end. I fight to inhale, to exhale, counting out each motion in my head, dark splotches threatening to overtake my vision. Not now. Can’t panic now, with everything and everyone I’ve ever known on the line (despite that being a very valid reason to panic).
I really never knew how good I had it. Homework, tinkering with Aspect, more homework, sleep, Morpheus Market run, homework. Monotonous, to be certain. A lie through and through, supposedly preparing me to replace my mother someday when she had already exited the aging process altogether. But it was so much simpler thanthis—the whole planet on my shoulders, and the truth my last and most desperate weapon, light and dark colliding in heatshot and blood.
The comms tablet I pilfered from Ednit vibrates against my hip. I snatch it just in time to hear Jelza saying, in scattered snatches through the vertical tunnel’s poor reception, “I’m sending you GPS coordinates for the west-side control room. If you follow the optimal path, and move fast, you should be able to overtake your mother. Tell me when you find her, and I’ll cut her off the other way around.”
“On it,” I manage to say through heavy breaths.
As the elevator nears stopping, a distant broadcast booms through the settlement’s halls.“Aspect says—everyone must—wear armor! Armor—holds back—doom!”
I can fathom approximately eighty-seven better ways to pitch that message right now, but at least Adria found a way to warn the settlement. “Jelza, are you hearing this broadcast?”
“Yep, I’m keeping them patched in,” she replies, followed by an audiblethunksomewhere close by.“Damn it, there’s another Evolved coming for the broadcast station. I can hold them off, at least long enough for—”But that’s where her voice cuts off.
“Jelza,” I pant.“Jelza.”The comms tablet produces only static. I swear through my teeth. “Let’s hope you can still hear me when I find Chloe.”
Aspect’s broadcast grows louder as the elevator descends.“And big, strong people—with guns—report to planet’s surface—with Aspect—and fight bad guys—PEW PEW!”
At long last, with a rough shriek of overworked metal, the elevator stops. Unfortunately, so do its doors. I wait, and wait, for the doors to reopen, but they seem practically welded shut. I punch and kick, half screaming, as all the lights in the elevator also proceed to fizzle off.
Chloe must’ve cut the power to my only way back in.
Panic threatens to overwhelm me again. But this time I let it surge, rising high enough for me to seize it by the throat, twist it into a weapon. Desperate fury roars through my every circuit.
