Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) (36 page)

“The Nexus is … alive?” she asked.

Life comes from life.

“But it was so peaceful and serene, and you’re…” She stopped herself, but it was too late.

Neither,
it finished for her. Mira sensed no insult … and no disagreement either.
It is unfortunate.

“What?”

We indulge in the Nexus. We never learn from it.

Mira thought she understood. The Nexus was an answer to whatever had plagued the Assembly its entire existence, but, for whatever reason, they didn’t see it.

“Most times,” Mira admitted, “humans have the same problem.”

She watched the colors above, thinking how odd it was that she was so at ease, lying on top of an Assembly combat walker, having an intimate conversation. A year ago it would have seemed insane, not to mention a betrayal, but not now. Ambassador had become a confidant, though she wasn’t sure it was a mutual sentiment. She wasn’t really sure the alien had the ability to feel something like kinship, but she was glad it was here all the same.

“When you’re … ‘Ascended,’ or whatever,” Mira said, curious. “What will it be like?”

We do not understand.

“The experience, for you, what will it be like? Are you, I don’t know … transformed? What will you feel? And see? I mean, will you still be you?”

We will be who we are. Not who we want.

Mira smiled. It was funny how used to Ambassador’s cryptic answers she’d become. “You’re not who you are now?”

Most resist.

“But
you’re
different?”

The alien hesitated, a rare moment where it formulated its thoughts. Usually its answers were nearly instantaneous.

Few see things as they are. The Scion will ascend us. Show us the truth. Then
all
will see.

Mira sighed. “If we can get there.”

You doubt?

“On a daily basis.” It was the kind of thing she could only tell Ambassador. From it, however, she felt a strange response. Confusion.

The more you achieve. The more you doubt yourself. A human quality?

It was a very good question. “Maybe so.”

They both watched the aurora again, the beauty of it, the way it shimmered and bounced. It was a special place, she saw why Ambassador came here.

Do
you
have special places?

“Of course.”

Show us.

It took a moment to realize what Ambassador was asking. It was offering to take her anywhere she wanted, and from the machine she sensed an eagerness. It was intrigued to know what moved her. It was only fair, she supposed. Ambassador had shared something with her, after all.

But where to go? There were many options.

The Oregon beach where her family had gone every summer and her father had taught her to bodysurf. Parts of the Strange Lands she had never reached. Maybe there were still artifacts there to collect. Landmarks, like the aurora borealis above, famous ones she had never seen. Midnight City, where she had come of age, where she had found her path and her first home. Then again, an Assembly combat walker teleporting into the Scorewall room probably wasn’t the best idea.

In the end, one choice outweighed all the others. There was a bittersweet anticipation for seeing it again, but it was what she wanted.

Mira shut her eyes. She pictured the place, and it came easily. She touched Ambassador with her mind, inside the shell that was slowly becoming its tomb.

“Okay…”

There was a sound. Like a powerful, punctuated blast of static, and a quick wave of heat washed over her.

She opened her eyes again.

The aurora was gone, replaced with the tops of swaying pine trees, the stars shining down. They were in a forest clearing. Nothing about it looked particularly familiar, but that wasn’t necessarily surprising. She’d only been here one night, and a lot had happened since then.

Mira fought the wave of dizziness that always came with teleportation and hopped onto the ground.

Why here?

“I’ll show you,” she said and moved away from the machine, pine cones crackling under her feet. It was night here too, and very dark. She pulled a flashlight from her pack and flipped it on, searching for something specific. For a moment, she wondered if Ambassador had brought them to the wrong place, but then her light settled on what she was looking for.

A ring of stones, with the remains of a campfire, months old now, what was left of the wood nothing but blackened cinders. It wasn’t much to look at, but Mira felt warmth spread through her nonetheless.

Why here?
Ambassador asked again.

Mira closed her eyes … and let herself remember. The imagery wasn’t as vibrant, she thought, as the vision of the Nexus, but even so, the feelings that came with it were as potent as they had been then.

Mira saw the campfire, burning bright. She saw Holt and Zoey dancing around it, while a waltz played on a staticky radio. Then she saw herself with Holt, watched him place a polished, black stone in her hand to help her move. The two of them danced around the fire, pressed close, the distrust that existed between them dissolving away. She heard Zoey giggle while she pet Max and watched them whirl around and around …

When she opened her eyes, they stung with tears.

Being here, feeling it all over, brought home how much had changed. Holt was gone. Zoey was taken. She felt they were all fighting to find one another, but whether or not they ever would was in no way certain.

Instead of pushing the tears away, she let them fall. It was another reason she was grateful for Ambassador, she didn’t have to hide weakness from it, didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t anything other than strong and resolute.

The machine rumbled an odd sound. She felt a stirring of emotion from it: wonder, inquisitiveness, and … envy. It was the last one that stuck out the most.

Why that feeling?
Mira projected to the alien.

These emotions. We do not feel them.

Mira turned to the giant machine, its three-optic eye staring at her.

How different would we be if we could?
it asked.

Mira shook her head. What a sad race the Assembly really were. All that power, but so little to show for it. Nothing but fear, really. The thing in front of her was so different than what she had always assumed. Maybe Ambassador was the exception, but it seemed to yearn for something greater, to be more than it was. It was a trait all the silvers seemed to share. The sad thing was, Ambassador might not make it to the end. Like the others, it was trapped in its armor, dying. It might fade before Zoey could do whatever it was she was supposed to. After all it had sacrificed, how tragic would it be to never see the reality it was trying to bring about? How heroic as well?

This one,
Ambassador projected.
From the memories.

Holt,
she projected back.

He will return?

Her emotions swelled. Most likely not, she knew. She wondered where he was right now, what he was thinking, what he felt. He’d seen her die, as far as he was concerned. She felt the same surge of guilt she always did, for not finding some way to get word to him, for not going to him, but Dresden had been right. That was a choice she didn’t have the luxury of making. Even if he did return … how different would he be? How different would they
both
be?

All of these feelings and thoughts Ambassador read.

A shame,
it replied.
To lose what was made. We wish … we could make such things.

Mira did something strange then. It was driven by instinct more than anything else. She reached out and touched the metal, armored shell of Ambassador. She felt its presence inside, felt the ironic mix of its personality, gentle and ferocious at once.

“I don’t know what future Zoey can make for you,” she told it, “but maybe one day you will make them.”

Ambassador rumbled softly. Mira kept her hand on it a moment more, then moved back to the blackened campfire.

We must return,
Ambassador projected.

“Just one thing.” She set her pack on the ground and rummaged through it. She couldn’t find it at first, so she started taking items out, one at a time. A water bottle, canned food, first-aid kit, her wretched artifact, a—

Ambassador rumbled again, this time loud and jarring. It took two thunderous steps backward. Feelings of disgust and apprehension washed over Mira.

She studied the silver machine. “What?”

Abomination,
it simply said.

“What is?”

It.
Its eye bobbed up and down, staring at the items in front of Mira.

She looked down, and there was only one that wasn’t mundane and ordinary. Her artifact, the horrible one she’d made in Midnight City, the one that forced her to flee her home what felt like ages ago now. She hated it, had meant to destroy it in the Strange Lands, but it was like the thing had a will of its own to survive.

It was a multi-tier combination, made up of over a dozen different objects, all tied together with linked silver chain and purple twine. Its main aspect was an antique gold pocket watch that rested on the exterior, with a silver
δ
ornately etched into the metallic cover. It was a pretty combination, really, forever marred by the reality of what it did. Mira made it in an attempt to create a combination that would reverse the effects of the Tone. Instead … it did the opposite. It
accelerated
it, forcing anyone, even Heedless, to Succumb within a matter of seconds.

Warily, Mira picked it up. “This?”

Ambassador took another step back.
Abomination.

The alien wasn’t wrong, as far as Mira was concerned. She only kept hold of it because it was too dangerous to just discard, but that didn’t explain why Assembly would feel the same way.

Ambassador sensed her confusion.
What you call the Tone. It is the Whole.

The Whole was what Ambassador and the Assembly named the joint awareness that their entire species shared. While independent entities, each still maintained a connection to the Whole, where they could feel the emotions and thoughts of every other entity at any one time.

The Tone, by contrast, was the telepathic signal the aliens had blanketed the planet with. Anyone older than twenty years old quickly Succumbed to its call, their minds controlled. It had made the conquering of Earth a fairly routine affair. Mira didn’t see the connection between the two. “How is the Whole also the Tone?”

They are the same.

Mira tried to understand. “You’re saying the signal itself, the Tone … is the
same
signal that carries the Whole, your joint consciousness?”

Correct.

In some way, it made sense both would be overlapped, but it didn’t explain Ambassador’s reaction. She held the artifact up to it. The machine rumbled unpleasantly.

“So what’s the deal with this?”

It perverts the Whole.

Yeah, Mira thought grimly. If her artifact changed and altered the Tone, then that meant it did the same to the Whole.

A thought occurred to her. Mira held the thing safely away, and opened the brass lid of the old pocket watch. A stream of blackness flared out from it in a cone of shadows that seemed to squirm like a nest of worms, darker than the night around them.

Ambassador rumbled angrily. She sensed pure fear as it stepped back and slammed into a tree, almost toppling the thing.

Cease,
it projected, and the sensations almost knocked her over, they were so strong. She had never felt anything like that from Ambassador before.

Instantly, she snapped shut the watch. The contorting black light vanished.

I’m sorry,
Mira projected to the alien, and she meant it.
I just wanted to see.

Never again,
it projected back.

I promise.
At the words, Ambassador’s fear began to subside, though it made no move to come closer.

Mira shoved the dark thing far back into her pack. As she did, she felt what she was looking for.

It was the black, polished stone Holt had given her here. It felt smooth and cool, comforting. Normally she carried it in her pocket, but she’d been scared of losing it. She studied it a moment, the feelings and memories returning … then she reached toward the campfire, dug through the ashes, and set the stone there. She pushed the dirt back over it.

If Holt came back, perhaps together they would reclaim it someday. If not, if he was gone, then it was where it belonged, buried amid the ashes of a past memory.

She stared at the campfire one last time, then turned back to Ambassador.

“Let’s go.” The machine studied her warily, made no move toward her. Mira rolled her eyes. “Come on, you big baby, we got things to do.”

29.
REVERSALS

HOLT AND RAVAN
stood on a residence balcony on the flare tower of the Refinery, staring down over the city at night. Masyn, Castor, Olive, and her crew had all returned to the
Wind Rift,
docked at the rear of the Pinnacle. Rogan West and some of his men were in the center of the room, discussing strategy, and their voices gave away just how emboldened their victory had made them.

“We should hit something else soon, while we have the momentum,” one rebel said, but Rogan shook his head.

“What momentum?” he asked. “We have Refinery, that means we have
Faust.
Just have to hold it long enough for the rest of the city to rebel.”

“Taking this Pinnacle’s a big deal,” another rebel replied, “but you underestimate Tiberius’s influence. It’s not going to happen overnight, even with the Refinery gone.”

“I don’t need it to happen overnight,” Rogan continued. “I can wait weeks or months. We don’t even need the other two Pinnacles now, we can bring every rebel we have from those and fortify this one.”