Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
EDDIE
Ollie was waiting for Eddie and Cosma on the streets.
“Hey,” he greeted them with a wide smile. “You took your sweet-ass time.” He gestured with the barrel of his gun at a group of passive Affected nearby. “I was just keeping an eye on these guys here.”
Beside Eddie, Cosma sighed. “Despite being Head of Security, you’re never serious.”
“My job does not define me, Cos.” He gestured at the crumbling city around them, the Affected nearby. “Who even cares now? The ship is fucked and I’m out of a job.”
Eddie stretched his shoulders, unused to the weight of the rifle in his hands and the stress it put on him. He ached in unnatural places, in his palms and the sides of his fingers. If he carried it for too long they would blister, then callus.
The bond was brighter down here. Eddie felt Jett’s presence around him, a whiff of electricity and iron.
Felt the way Jett moved toward some uncertain goal on careful footsteps.
He sorted through the senses, the signals, searching for the strongest one to follow.
And when he found it, the bond lit up in his chest, pulling him toward Jett.
“What’s up, Captain?” Ollie asked as Eddie stopped and stared into the city’s streets.
“I can follow Jett’s trail,” he said, leaving out the mysterious bond.
Ollie’s eyes went wide while Cosma remained steady, unmovable.
“Trust me.”
Cosma shrugged. She seemed to have gotten used to Eddie’s peculiar abilities fast. Ollie turned to her and held out his hand. They spent several moments doing a complicated series of gestures that Eddie didn’t understand, until Ollie threw his hands up. “Fine, you win this time.”
Cosma smirked, a rare sight while on duty. “I always fucking win. Besides, you’re a shit shot. That’s why you need a big gun.”
Eddie couldn’t tell the difference between the weapons they held. And hoped they wouldn’t need either of them, but the reports of Affected violence worried him. There was no way to know in advance if they would be attacked.
Eddie waited as Ollie stepped beside him and Cosma took point.
“Tell me which way to go, Eddie,” she said, voice cool and professional.
They followed the sense of Jett through the streets of District 3, following a path that was vaguely familiar to Eddie from watching the camera feed. When the bond flickered, they backtracked and adjusted their course.
As they passed a once-crowded commercial section, a CRACK reverberated through the air. He watched Cosma ahead of him, but she didn’t falter. Beside him Ollie stayed in sync with his steps.
CRUSH
SPARKLE
We summon you, Oracle.
Eddie stumbled as the Voice thundered around and inside of him. It was so loud, so powerful, it knocked the air from his lungs.
“Eddie?”
Hands under Eddie’s shoulders pulled him upright. Cosma and Ollie stared at him with open eyes and mouths. He tried to speak around the Void in his throat, the absence of sounds he tried to form.
Seek out our Hands.
Eddie cried out as a vision hit him.
Sweat-soaked bodies swayed around him while sweet liquor filled his nose. Lights flashed as music pulsed through his him. Strong hands gripped his arms, his waist; a lean body pressed into, and swayed with, Eddie.
“Show me what you’re made of, Farm Boy,” Jett called as he led them through the press.
Come and know the Void.
Vision and Voice abandoned Eddie, leaving stars and static in their wake. That memory was a raw, bleeding wound now; ripped from within and splayed out for him. He and Jett dancing at Club Fanatica early in their relationship.
“I know where to go,” he said.
Eddie rubbed a finger over his ring and tried not to dwell on what might have happened to Jett.
They made quick work across the District now, not needing to follow in Jett’s footsteps.
They passed piles of bodies in alleyways and avoided the worst of the congealed puddles of blood in the streets.
Everything stank of iron and sweet rot. Life support systems were failing, overwhelmed by the addition of thousands upon thousands of dripping, rotting bodies.
The smells churned in Eddie’s gut, sickness and exhaustion mixed to cloud what thoughts weren’t focused on Jett and the Song.
Stars sparkled. Fizzled. Died.
The Song was a haunting thing now, a thing that waited, watched, and beckoned Eddie toward some uncertain goal. Some unseen ending.
The cacophony swirled around Cosma, danced through Ollie’s braids, and pummeled Eddie’s mind. He was happy the others couldn’t hear it, but wished he couldn’t either.
And it only grew stronger, brighter with the bond, as they progressed.
They reached the quarantine wall between District 2 and 3 and rested.
Eddie was glad that they hadn’t passed by where Augustus stood in death.
He didn’t think he could resist the urge to walk over and confirm with his own eyes the destruction wrought upon the one true parental figure he’d had.
His curiosity would’ve gotten the better of him.
It was bad enough that the image from Jett’s bodycam was implanted in his mind.
Eddie stood in a spot that felt like Jett and wondered where he was, what he was doing. Had he found the person responsible for all of this? Was he hurt? Had he died?
No, he is alive, Eddie told himself. I would know if he wasn’t.
“What’s the most direct route to Club Fanatica?” Cosma asked.
Eddie pulled up a map of the District on his tab and searched. It’d been more than a year since their last visit, but he was confident that he knew the way. “Three blocks aft, turn to port, and a couple blocks down.”
“And how much time do we have left?” Ollie’s voice had lost its cheer.
Eddie pulled out his tab and checked the countdown he’d set right before arming the self-destruct. “We have ten hours and thirty-eight minutes to find Jett and get off the ship.”