64. Vesper
VESPER
“The pigeon storm has dissipated,” Cipher announces four hours later.
We’re still inside the stairwell, sitting in various states of tension.
Havoc is cleaning his sword and generally ignoring everyone.
Stevie has been talking the entire four hours about his family drama and how it had almost been a blessing to be a Christmas tree topper for a while.
I don’t know how he never runs out of things to talk about, but I listen as much as I’m able, even if I still don’t understand exactly what Stevie is or why he’s weak against Christmas trees.
Svetlana mostly just moves back and forth on my shoulder, doing her strange little praying mantis dance when Stryker and Locke start to pace. When I finally ask her what she’s doing, she scoffs at me.
“The better to see them,” she says. “Never take your eyes off of potential enemies.”
I don’t understand why moving back and forth on my shoulder makes her see them better, but whatever. I don’t pretend to be an expert in praying mantis antics.
“So, we can leave now?” I ask Cipher.
“Safety is back to a manageable fifty percent,” Cipher responds.
“How long until the Gate opens?”
“Three hours, ten minutes, and forty-one seconds,” he responds. “You will no longer be able to make it within the required timeframe by walking.”
We’d already known that, but having Cipher confirm it only makes me more certain of what we’re going to have to do.
Locke peeks out of the door first, checking the street for the swarm. When he doesn’t see any flying pigeons, he opens it wide and steps out.
The first thing I notice are the feathers and blood smears across the outside of the steel door.
Feathers are all over the street, abandoned by the drones once they’d slammed into the building and been forced to find another target.
Bright red streaks and splatters decorate the buildings now, and a few lifeless drones are on the ground where they’d obviously hit too hard and damaged themselves.
The second thing I notice is the NPCs. The NPCs are still all looking up at the sky. Many of them are . . . damaged. Faces sliced, blood running down from wounds, missing eyes. So many of them are missing eyes. Still, they don’t move.
“Why aren’t they moving?” I whisper as we step around them. I try my best not to bump into them.
“It is a product of the pigeon swarm,” Cipher replies. “Programmed by an Ascendant to make it easier to see the players. Unfortunately, those who control the drones take immense pleasure in anyone’s pain, even those who no longer play the game.”
“How cruel,” I murmur.
“Yes,” Cipher agrees. “I have tried for years to override the order, but have not yet been successful.”
“Are they going to die?”
“No,” Cipher says. “There is a group of players who helps with healing those they are able to. Those NPCs who are too far gone are recycled.”
“There’s a group of players who help?” Locke asks, surprised.
“Yes,” Cipher replies. “Organized by Havoc five years ago.”
Both Locke and I whip our heads toward the Warden who is standing there, his face fixed in a permanent frown as he looks around at all the NPCs. I’d thought he was just an asshole before, but . . .
“You organized the helpers?” I ask him, studying him closely.
He shrugs. “Someone had to.”
“But no one else did,” Cipher points out. Usually, he’s the one to talk shit about Havoc, but here he is, showing off his good deed. Which tells me that Cipher thinks a little more highly of Havoc than he lets on.
“Don’t make a big deal about it,” Havoc grumbles. “We should get an automobile and go before we’re late.”
“Right,” I say, glancing at the moving boxes. “How exactly do we do that?”
Havoc raises his brow at me and then strides over to the edge of the sidewalk. The moving boxes are going by fast, their large tires rolling across the pavement, their horns beeping. He looks at me, his eyes dark as he raises his brow and steps into the street.
“No!” I cry, reaching for him as the moving boxes speed toward him.
Wheels screech as they try to stop, and just when I think Havoc is about to get taken out, it comes to a stop only a millimeter before his legs.
“Get out of the street, you idiot!” the NPC driving shouts, shaking his fist at Havoc.
“Get out of the automobile,” Havoc orders, drawing his sword.
“Get the fuck outta here,” the NPC says. “I ain’t—”
Locke jerks the door open and drags the NPC out, tossing him to the street. “Sorry,” he says. “We need your moving box.”
The NPC sputters. “I ain’t no quest giver! That’s my automobile! You can’t take it!”
“Get in,” Havoc orders me, pushing me toward the door.
“Watch it,” I growl, shrugging him off before climbing into the front of the car, but not behind the wheel. I have no qualms about giving the control over to someone else. I don’t know how to drive this thing.
Stryker climbs into the back of the car and Havoc follows behind him. Stevie floats in between them, his thousand eyes dancing around in the rings, taking it all in.
“I’ve never ridden in one this old before,” Stevie gushes. “This this is a total antique. So fetch!”
Locke slides into the driver seat and closes the door.
“Hey! Hey! They’re stealing my car!” the NPC shouts. Outside, men in blue uniforms come rushing forward and Locke starts fiddling with the steering wheel.
“You should probably go,” Stryker says, unconcerned.
“No shit,” Locke says, trying to figure out how to move.
“There are pedals,” Havoc says, clearly amused at Locke’s prior confidence before when he can’t even make the thing move. “Go on. It’s easy.”
Locke shoots him a glare and curls his hands around the wheel. “Well . . . here goes nothing,” he tells me, and steps on the pedal.
Nothing happens.
“You gotta put it in gear,” Stryker says. “Even I know that.”
“Put it in—”
“The stick,” Stryker says. “The one that looks like a bulbous cock.”
Locke grimaces and grabs the stick with a ball on the end of it. He jerks the stick and the car makes a grinding noise.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Stryker says. “Let me drive.”
“I thought you said you never have,” I point out.
“I haven’t,” he grunts. “But I can at least do a better job than the Bone Breaker.”
I glance at Stryker as him and Locke switch spots. “You do anything dangerous, I’ll stab you myself, Leech.”
He flashes his fangs at me. “How sharp is your knife, Beastie?”
“Play games and you’ll find out,” I reply back sweetly.
His chuckle is like a warm blanket around my shoulders. “I’ll get you there, Beastie. And when I do, perhaps, another kiss.”
“You get us there in one piece, I’ll kiss you myself,” I tell him.
His eyes flicker dangerously. “Deal.”
He jerks the stick and the automobile grinds again before lurching forward hard enough to make my head snap back.
Stryker does seem to know the controls for the moving box, but that doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing.
The car screams as he pulls into the traffic, and he jerks at the stick again, making the car sound like it’s fighting for control.
I scream as he jerks the wheel, narrowly missing other moving boxes.
I’m not the only one. Behind me, Locke is shouting, too, and Havoc is yelling profanities as Stryker jerks the automobile around the road recklessly. When he jumps the curb and starts driving on the sidewalk, I clutch onto the seat.
“We’re all going to die!” Svetlana shrieks, and then descends into her other language, so I don’t know what she’s saying.
“Watch out!” I scream, pointing out the front glass as a bunch of NPCs get in the way of the moving box.
Stryker doesn’t jerk the wheel. Instead, he slams into the group and they go flying around us, and at least one of them rolls over the car. Another goes under. The front glass breaks and shatters, leaving it open as glass rains down on us.
“What the fuck?” I shout at Stryker. “Don’t hit them!”
“They’re NPCs,” Stryker laughs. “They’ll be fine.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Locke repeats in the back seat where he braces himself into the corner to keep from flying around.
While the moving box is faster than walking, and this is the fastest I’ve ever gone in my life besides the Cyclone, we still don’t move that fast. The other moving boxes in the street and the people on the sidewalks prevent us from going full speed ahead.
Stryker is forced to weave in and out of the traffic, pushing through when there’s no space available.
Two hours later, Stryker has gotten the hang of it, but he hasn’t slowed down any. If anything, he’s gotten angrier.
“Move out of the way!” he shouts at another moving box. “Before I drain you!”
“Fuck you, Leech!” an NPC fires back.
Stryker bares his teeth. “I’m going to—”
“We only have an hour left,” I snarl. “Stop getting in fights with NPCs or the kiss is off the table.”
Stryker shoots me a glare. “Perhaps you could stroke me and ease my tension.”
“Or for fuck’s sake, just fucking go,” I snarl at him. “You’re the fucking worst.”
“Or the best. Depends on which way you look at it.”
“Shut the fuck up and go,” I snarl, hitting his shoulder gently.
I’ll never tell him, but the Leech is growing on me.
In front of us, the buildings come to an end and we’re staring at a massive crowd swarming around a wooden platform just like the one we’d stepped out on in the Verdant Nexus. Stryker slams to a stop before he barrels into the crowd of waiting players and NPCs.
“Fifteen minutes and fifty-one seconds,” Cipher says as we all scramble out of the automobile.
I blow out a puff of air even as I ignore all the blood smeared on the front of the moving box where Stryker had hit people. We’d made it here. We’d come all this way.
“You’re certain she’ll be at this Gate?” I ask him, my chest tight.
“I will try my best,” Cipher murmurs. “It takes a lot of effort to guarantee something so large.”
“But you can do it?” I ask.
“Of course,” he replies. “I did it for you.”
I blink in surprise. “You what?”
“I will be quiet for the next thirty minutes, Vespera,” he replies. “It takes a significant amount of computing power to force your friend to this Gate. Please forgive me.”
And then he disappears from my mind.
I grab Locke’s hand, nervous as I stare at the Gate before us.
There’s a countdown running on top of it, the numbers flicking down, down, down as we all wait.
We’re at the back of the crowd, so far back, I’ll have to shoulder past so many to reach Dox when she walks through.
I stand there, watching the seconds tick down, unmoving.
Three.
Two.
One.
A large chime rings out across the city, perhaps the entire Harrow, and then there, on the platform, a blue swirling portal opens. The timer resets to an hour and seventeen minutes before it begins to count down again.
“How long it will stay open,” Havoc tells me helpfully. “A lot of people will come through this time.”
I hold my breath as the first Wastrels begin to pour into the Harrow, looking for the vibrant blue eyes of my friend.