Act IV, Connection LostChapter 37
Chapter 37: Pursue Your Light
One of them fights alone on the scorched platforms. Far below, the other needs a way back up.
Vexana stood on the scorched stone, leaning on her staff. Her left sleeve was gone to the elbow. The skin beneath it was raw and shining, and she kept the arm tucked against her ribs.
Against the wall at her back, the suit knelt dead. Its knees had given first, then the magenta heart on its chest, then the eyes. A suit built from wreckage ran on belief, and hers had spent everything on one block. The plates had fused at the seams. She had cracked them with her staff and fallen out onto the stone.
It held, she thought. That was enough.
Beyond the wall lay the lower platform. She did not look at it. Looking would tell the Enders where to look.
She walked away from the wall, six slow steps. Every Ender turned with her.
“The pain, the hate, I will bear it all.”
She said it low, to nobody.
The nearest Ender lunged. Then all of them came. They had never been hers. They had only left her alone while she was useful.
She fought with one arm. Each shot from the staff punched a hole in their line, and the line closed again. A claw laid open her robe. She went down on one knee, rose and fired. The last Ender fell across her boots.
Then the clouds tore open. Light came down in beams, and the star-shaped wound in the sky stretched wider than before. The Mother Matrix stepped out of it whole.
It had a crown of spikes and white eyes. Its wings cut the beams to pieces.
She had waited for this: whole, and close. The plan had needed her unseen. It was looking straight at her.
White light gathered behind its shut chest plates. They split, and the shot hit her before she could move. She flew back across the stone, and something cracked in her ribs.
She got the staff under her and rose to one knee.
She did not run. There was nowhere to run. She poured the dark into the orb until it was a hard pink-black knot. If she was hit again, she would be firing.
Above her, white light gathered behind the plates again.
A ruined waterfront under the Singularity.
Angela held the shield out in front of her with both hands. It stood around the four of them like a bell of pale light.
Enders pressed on it from every side, down the broken seawall and up out of the bay. Each blow rang on the shield, and each one cost her a little.
The placeThe waterfront
Her doll Tetra rode clipped at her shoulder. Its camera eye turned with the fight.
“I’ve locked on to the enemies!” Layla stood on a slab of seawall in the middle, cannon on her shoulder. “Ruby, left. Fanny, high.”
Angela opened a pane. Layla’s shot went through it. She closed it before the next blow fell.
Ruby’s scythe swung through the next pane, and Fanny’s blades through the one after. Nobody asked.
“Funny in the head,” Layla muttered, lining up again. “Both of you. The pane’s open before I ask.”
“Thank you!” said Angela.
Far above, on the platforms, something huge and winged stood against the light. White light was gathering in its chest.
A pink streak came low across the bay. It hit the edge of the shield and the Enders swarmed it. Angela opened a pane and caught her wrist.
Guinevere skidded in on her knees. Her cheek was cut, and one arm guard was cracked. One of her drones hung low, its yellow eye dark. A chibi doll with black hair swung from the guard.
“Vexana’s up there.” She was gasping. “It’s going to fire on her again. They’ve packed the gap, and my wings won’t push through.”
“The traitor?” said Layla.
“She caught me when I fell. Someone said ‘Hold on to me!’ and I knew the voice.” Guinevere’s own voice shook. “I saw her climb out of a dead suit. Her arm was burned. She took its shot for me.”
Fanny looked at the cracked arm guard and said nothing. Her blades stayed up.
Ruby swung the scythe once. The ring of Enders on the platform side split and fell.
“We escaped from this cage,” she said. “We can also destroy it!”
Angela looked at the gold star blazing at Guinevere’s collar. Once she had called Ruby’s name in the dark, and Ruby had come back.
People come back.
“Go, Guinevere, pursue your light.”
The shield opened on the platform side. Guinevere went through it. As she passed, the dark ring in her low drone lit, and the drone rose level with its twin.
Her streak climbed the sky, pink and white. Above the platforms, the light in the winged chest was nearly full.