The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) (35 page)

After a moment, she raised her head . . .

. . . and met Tessa’s face at the other side of the glass.

She didn’t move, and Tessa started searching around the window, trying to look in. The glass was tinted, making it impossible to look inside. Tessa tried the door, which was miraculously locked.

“Drat,” she heard her say.

Tessa turned around and began walking away. She walked past the door, circling around the catwalk to the other side of the observation deck, from where Vivian had entered.

Vivian ran to close the door.

It was stuck—it wouldn’t close.

“
No
,” she said, trying to apply as much strength as she could, but like Felix she had grown weak. Tessa reached behind her and drew a pistol as she walked. The door still wouldn’t close.

“Tessa!” came another voice.

Tessa stopped in her tracks, just one quarter of the way around the catwalk. Heath appeared from the door to the labs. “Tessa! Oh my god—my god, Tessa,
what did you do
!”

Vivian crouched under the window, covered her mouth.

She could hear Felix screaming profanities, insulting Tessa and Heath.

“She’s dead!” he screamed at them. “You killed her! You put us here and this thing ate her alive, tore her to goddamn pieces! Tessa! How could you do this to us—we were your brothers!”

“Tessa, what did you do!” Heath screamed.

“No, this was not supposed to happen!” Tessa screamed back. She sounded afraid, almost guilty, as though she had awoken from a fugue to see all the evil deeds for which she was accountable. “This is not what I planned!”

“No, this was not
your
plan! Not yours! Mine! Mizrahi’s! Not yours!”

Tessa walked towards Heath, gun in hand, still looking down and hoping to see Vivian. The pool of Mustang’s blood sold Felix’s act.

Someone else stepped into the room from the laboratories.

Director Blanchard.

Vivian was still covering her mouth, hoping not to make a sound, but she almost screamed. Director Blanchard had no business being there; she had to be in Roue, safely away from Heath and Tessa.

“Felix!” the director screamed after looking down at Subject Edward’s pit. “Heath, what’s happening here—why did you call me? Tessa? No, what are you doing here? Why didn’t you leave! Where’s Jed—
where’s Vivian
?”

She stopped when she saw the gun in Tessa’s hand.

“Why did you call me here, you disgusting
rat
?” Director Blanchard said and reached for her back pocket. She drew her own pistol, pointed it straight at Ronald Heath’s head. “What were you going to do?”

“I only wanted to talk!” he said, hands raised.

Seeing Heath in danger, Tessa pointed her gun at the director. Her hands were shaking.

“It was Tessa!” Felix yelled from below. “She put us down here, turned Dr. Mustang into that thing! Director, she killed Jed. She killed Barnes and Covington! Kill her, Director, shoot her! Kill her!”

The director slowly turned the muzzle of her pistol towards Tessa, and began to cry; Vivian could hear it in her voice. “Why do you make me do this, Ronald? Why do you want us to die like this? There has to be a part of you who believes we can still win.”

“But we can’t win!” Ronald said. “This is over, Tara! You have a place in the Third World, you know that, but you need to help us—just put your gun down. It’s not too late.”

“Tessa—Tessa, why?” asked Tara.

“You know why, Director,” Tessa said and put her gun down. “You know what I am—you know I’m not going to see the Third World. I’m leaving this place with my brother and my sister. We will not destroy you when we rise.”

“What?” said Tara. “Your brother and sister—is that what
he
told you?”

“Director, don’t do anything stupid. Do what Ronald says: put your gun down and help us—you know I can’t die,” she said, confident in her invulnerability. “You know you can’t kill one of the children. You can’t stop—”

Vivian screamed when she heard the sound of a gunshot.

There was a look of surprise and confusion in Tessa’s eyes when blood began to pour from the hole in her forehead, down her nose, and onto the floor. She fell on her knees and then backward, dead.

Realizing what the director had done, Heath screamed in horror.

The director put down the gun. She was crying.

“
No
!” Ronald screamed and then turned towards the director. “How could you do that—you bitch!
You bitch
!”

The man leapt at the director like an enraged animal, bringing her down to her back. The impact made her let go of the pistol, and it rolled behind her.

“You’re not taking this from me!” He snarled. “I’m gonna see the Third World
and you’re not taking it away from me
!”

Heath had become an animal. His face was red, eyes bulging. He had put his hands around Tara’s neck, had begun to squeeze.

When Vivian saw the director’s eyes roll back, tongue sticking out gasping for air, Vivian opened the door and stepped onto the catwalk. All her emotions, thoughts, and movements, were a blur—as though something else was controlling her like she had once controlled Rose Xibalba.

Taking cues from her lonely training in the military base, Vivian grabbed the pistol, pointed it at her target, and pulled the trigger.

Heath’s grip on the director’s neck loosened, and he got up. A spot of blood on his chest grew in size. He clutched at it and looked at Vivian, frowning like he just resented her for taking the shot.

The man toppled to the side and fell down to the pit.

Vivian had to turn away when she saw the Fleck below grab the corpse, and only heard the horrifying sounds of the man’s body falling prey to the monster’s vicious strength and angry hatred.

“Vivian,” whispered the director, holding her neck, taking the first full breaths of air through a damaged trachea.

“Open the goddamn gates!” yelled Felix from the pit, turning away from the grisly scene. “Open the gates! Now!”

The director lost no time and ran into the observation deck just as the creature, mouth and hands wet with blood, began to approach Felix. Vivian looked in to see Tara begin to operate the consoles, mostly using the computer’s touch-screen to input commands Vivian would’ve never found by herself.

There was a loud noise that startled the creature beneath. It turned and growled as a whole segment of the floor began to slant downward, creating an opening into a dark tunnel.

The director’s hands moved about the console still, pressing buttons and touching screens. She coughed as though she’d spit out her lungs.

The creature that was Dr. Mustang ran off and into the darkness of the tunnel, seeing it as its only chance at freedom. The door closed behind it, locking it below, away from Felix.

Vivian could see the tunnel through one of the screens—the monster ran past a camera that showed the scene in the dark. It stopped, looking for the way out of the darkness. It was trapped again.

“Is this really Dr. Mustang?” Tara said, voice still hoarse.

“Yes,” said Vivian.

“I’m so sorry, Lance,” she said, and pressed another button on the console.

There was a bright flash of light inside the tunnel; it turned the entire screen white for a moment. When the image returned, Vivian could see the monster burning.

“
No
!” Vivian yelled. The monster, now a giant ball of fire, was writhing on the floor of the tunnel, crashing against its walls in a desperate attempt to escape the pain. Its tortured squeals made their way all the way back to them, amplified by the tunnel.

Then finally, the creature was still, flames still burning what was left of its carcass.

“Why did you do that!”

“I won’t let Lys have Dr. Mustang,” said the director, wiping her tears. “He didn’t deserve any of this, but it’s what he would have wanted. No, don’t you look at me that way—would
you
want to live like that, if it had happened to you?
His
suffering is over.”

Vivian looked away from the director and stepped out of the observation deck; though she understood the choice, it still made her sick, and the revolting stink of the monster’s burnt flesh was beginning to fill the room, making matters worse.

“How did you get here?” asked Vivian.

“The train. Ronald asked me to meet him here. He wanted to talk to me privately. I realize I took a risk coming here alone but . . .” She looked down at the pit, at the remains of Heath. She cringed. “So did he.”

Felix finally reached the catwalk, climbing up series of thick pins that had appeared on the wall of the pit—a hidden ladder

“Dammit, Mason. Damn you,” he whispered to himself after seeing Tessa’s limp body sprawled on the floor next to the door leading back to the compatibility labs. “What happened to us? Everything seemed to be going right. When did it all go to hell?”

“Nothing was ever going right,” said Tara, wiping her hands on her pants, as though trying to clean them of Tessa’s blood. “We just thought it was, because we were too stupid, too blind, to see how badly everything was going. This has to end—I won’t be able to do this much longer.”

“She was not okay, Director,” said Vivian.

“She deserved better than what happened to her, than all of this. That monster
used
her—brainwashed her with lies. She’s not one of the children.”

Vivian looked down at Tessa, who had believed herself immortal. Who, if not her, were the real incarnations of the three original infected?

“What do we do now?” asked Felix after a short silence.

“Did you hear what Heath said, Vivian? He said it was his plan, and Mizrahi’s,” said Tara. Vivian had not heard Heath speak those words, and they terrified her. “I’m going to go back to the city and confront Eliza Mizrahi. I need to know what they were trying to do, and what’s her involvement in it. I might save her yet, but you need to go look for my son, for the others. I think I know exactly where they are, and you need to get there as soon as possible.”

They left the room, never to return.

Three lives had been lost in less than five minutes.

It was a thought that would haunt Vivian for the rest of her life: she had never felt death as close as she had that day, and would never again. At least not until the day of her own death.

ф

The oasis was just as they had left it: lush, large, and full of life.

A part of him had feared that a few remaining Laani would have conquered it now that its original guardian had left it. Ezra was glad to see Lazarus’ cradle was still clean.

If anything, he was catching the presence of even more life—namely birds, who nested on the trees and flew about the area. It was a simple but refreshing sight.

Yes, this would be an appropriate settlement: the beginning of a new world.

Ezra looked around for any signs of the Laani, but there was nothing, In fact, there had been no traces of Laani activity, no signs of their presence at all, for a long time. If there were still Laani on the planet, they were not near this oasis.

He dragged the carts to the grassy area, and even before he brought Nandi down to one knee and prepared to desynchronize, the people of Clairvert began to pour out of the carts, eager to touch this clean patch of land.

We’re home
, he thought, and waited for the Minotaur to agree.

His agreement didn’t come; Nandi was silent.

As he usually did, Ezra climbed down Nandi’s shin and fell onto the grassy floor of the island. This had been the exact spot where Erin, Garros, Jena, and himself had found a place to rest. Where he had fought Garros. Where they discovered the Creux’s effect on them.

He was finally away from those powerful sources of energy that were driving everyone in Clairvert mad, and could almost feel its absence, no longer clawing at the back of his head.

“What is this place?” said a man approaching Ezra.

“Home, I hope,” he replied, seeing Jena emerge from Jade Arjuna’s apse.

“Why is it like this?” he asked. The man could barely believe what he was seeing—it was as though, like Ezra, the people of Clairvert had begun to second-guess everything, always wondering if the Asili’s power had taken ahold of their minds.

“It’s hard to explain,” said Ezra.

“No it’s not,” Jena argued. “There was a Creux at the heart of this place; the energy that fuels it drove the sickness back, and allowed the world to grow green again. This isn’t the only one like this—there are hundreds like this. This is what we were trying to tell you back in the city: you didn’t have to live there.”

“Are we safe here?” the man asked, and they were joined by several others.

Ezra let Jena make all the introductions and explanations—he didn’t have the energy or will to do it. Instead, he went to look for Elena, as he was eager to show her around, to welcome her back into civilization so she would not be alone again.