Jorak
The alarm pulses through the floor of my containment cell, rattling the glass of water on the bedside table until the surface shatters into concentric rings. Beside me, Asa stirs. The testing yesterday hollowed him out. I want to tell him to stay asleep. I want to wrap myself around him and let the current swallow anyone who tries to open that door.
“Jorak?” His voice is a rasp, barely audible over the rising thrum of the facility. He doesn't ask what’s happening. He lives in Redbrook; he knows the sound of a city failing.
“They’re moving us,” I say. My voice sounds like gravel grinding together. I sit up, the movement sharp and predatory. I don't have my tactical gear, just the thin cotton pants they’ve given me, but the power doesn't care about clothes. It’s already reaching out, tasting the ozone in the vents.
The door slides open with a hiss of pneumatic pressure. Mercer stands there, his suit immaculate, his expression as flat as a stagnant pond. He doesn't look like a man about to senda volatile weapon into a crowd of civilians. He looks like a man checking a ledger.
“Node Four is spiking, Jorak,” Mercer says, his tone conversational. “The Guide team on-site is at sixty percent burnout. We don't have time for a standard deployment.”
“He’s not recovered,” I say, nodding toward Asa. I don't say his name. Giving Mercer his name feels like giving him a handle to pull on. “The resonance tests yesterday nearly fried his nervous system. You send him out there now, and you’re disposing of an asset.”
Mercer’s eyes shift to Asa, analytical and cold. “Professor Renwick is not a field asset. He is a stabilizer. And since you’ve made it clear you won't function without him, he goes where you go. Unless, of course, you’d like to try the sedative again?”
The threat is a dull blade, but it still draws blood. I feel Asa’s hand find mine under the sheets. His fingers are cold, but his grip is steady. “I’m fine,” Asa lies. He sits up, his movements stiff. He looks at Mercer with that sharp, academic disdain he uses on failing students. “I assume you’ve at least got a car waiting? Or are we expected to stabilize the infrastructure from the sidewalk?”
Mercer doesn't smile, but the corner of his eye twitches. “The transport is in the bay. Five minutes.”
The air outside the facility is worse than the air inside. It smells of scorched earth and wet copper, the heavy, cloying scent of a suppression node bleeding out. As the armored transport tears through the streets of District Six, I watch the city through the reinforced glass. People are huddled on corners, their eyes wide and feverish. Some of them are clawing at their own throats, their movements jerky and aggressive.
Asa sits next to me, his shoulder pressed against mine. He’s staring at a tablet Dr. Rue pressed into his hands, his thumb scrolling through energy readouts and thermal maps. He lookslike he’s grading a particularly difficult thesis, but I can feel the tremor in his leg. I reach over, pinning his knee with my palm.
“Don't look at the numbers,” I murmur. “Look at me.”
“The numbers are the only thing making sense right now, Jorak,” he whispers back. He doesn't look up, but he leans into my touch. “The pressure gradient in the central node is exponential. If that casing cracks, the backflow will turn every Guide within ten blocks into a vegetable.”
“It won't crack,” I say. I don't know if that’s true, but I know I’ll tear the node apart with my bare hands before I let it touch him.
The transport slams to a halt. The back doors throw themselves open, and the chaos of the site floods in. Alarms scream, a high, rhythmic wail that sets my teeth on edge. In the center of the plaza, the suppression node, a massive, black pillar of lead and reinforced steel, vibrates so hard it’s a blur. Around it, four Guides are on their knees, their faces gray, their hands glowing with a dim, flickering light as they try to suck the stray power into their own bodies.
The stray power isn't a stream; it’s a flood. It’s white-hot static that burns through the air, charring the pavement.
“Secure the perimeter!” an ESA captain shouts, but his voice is drowned out by a pulse of energy that sends a ripple through the crowd of civilians pressed against the police tape. They scream, a collective, jagged sound, as the fever hits them all at once. They begin to surge forward, eyes glazed, driven by a primal need to escape the heat.
I step out of the van, the Black Current roaring to life in my veins. It feels like mercury, heavy and lethal. I can feel the node’s corruption calling to me, a jagged, broken rhythm that wants to be finished. I want to strike it. I want to shatter the pillar and let the energy burn itself out.
“Jorak, wait.” Asa is behind me. He isn't supposed to be out of the van, but he’s standing there, his eyes fixed on the vibratingpillar. He isn't looking at the Guides or the screaming people. He’s looking at the air itself.
“Get back in the car, Asa,” I growl. My hands are beginning to smoke, the black tendrils of my power licking at my wrists. “I can handle this.”
“You’ll destroy the block,” he says. He steps closer, reaching out. He doesn't grab my arm; he just hovers his hand near my skin. I can feel the cool draft of his presence, the way his power, his math, starts to pull at the static around me. “You’re trying to punch a hole in a dam. You’ll just drown everyone.”
“The Guides are burning out,” I say, nodding toward the woman closest to us. Her nose is bleeding, the red dark and thick against her lips. “If I don't vent the pressure, they’re dead.”
“Then vent it where it’s weak,” Asa says. He finally looks at me, and his eyes aren't anxious anymore. They’re focused. “It’s not a solid wall of power, Jorak. It’s a weave. Look at the base, three feet up. The harmonics are shearing there. That’s where the pressure is knotted. If you cut there, the corruption will unravel toward the ground. The earth will take the excess.”
I hesitate. Every Guide I’ve ever worked with told me to pull back. They told me to dampen, to suppress, to hide. None of them has ever told me where to strike.
“Trust me,” he says.
I turn toward the node. I don't close my eyes, but I let the Black Current take the lead. I see the world in shades of entropic gray, the node a blinding, screaming white at the center. And there, exactly where Asa pointed, I see it, a seam. A place where the equations don't balance, where the power is fighting itself.
I reach out and catch the air with my fingers, fisting my hand into the static. I feel the heat, the bite of it against my skin, but behind me, I feel Asa. He’s a weight, a solid anchor at my back, his presence a constant, cooling pressure that keeps my mind from fracturing.
The Black Current follows my lead, a sharp, surgical blade of shadow that slices into the seam. The sound is like a thunderclap without the roar, a sudden, violent decompression. The white-hot static doesn't explode; it drains. It spirals down the pillar, guided by the path I’ve cut, and vanishes into the pavement with a hiss that smells of scorched ozone.
The vibration stops and the node settles into a low, steady throb. The Guides on the ground slump, their lights going out, but they’re breathing. The civilians at the tape stop screaming, the sudden absence of the energetic pressure leaving them dazed and shivering.
