Chapter 34 #2
I see her for one last heartbeat—a figure of gold and black, sinking into the centre of the heat, her arms open as if she’s finally being embraced by the woman she spent ten years inventing.
The tugboat lists sharply to the port side, the black harbour water rushing in to meet the flames. The hissing is deafening—the sound of the dream finally being extinguished.
Ryker is screaming, his ‘Ledger’ falling from his hands and sliding into the fire.
The pages catch instantly, the white paper turning to grey ash before the water can even touch them.
He’s reaching for the flames, his body halfway into the engine room hatch, and I have to grab him.
I have to wrap my arms around his waist and drag him back as the Mercy begins its final, heavy tilt into the dark.
“She’s gone, Ryker! She’s gone!”
We hit the water together as the boat slides under, the suction pulling us down into a whirlpool of ash and diesel.
When we break the surface, the harbour is quiet. The fire is just a shimmering orange stain on the oil-slicked water. The police boats are closing in, their blue and red lights finally the only reality left.
Ryker is sobbing into my shoulder, his hands clutching at my wet tactical vest. “The signal… Jex, I can’t hear the signal anymore. Why is it so quiet?”
I don’t answer. I just hold him, looking at the spot where our sister chose the fire over the lie.
As the searchlights pin us against the dark, a voice booms over the water—a real voice, through a real megaphone.
“Keep your hands where we can see them! It’s over!”
I look at the shore, at the dozens of officers, the ambulances, the reality of the ‘revolution’ we’d spent years building. We weren’t the kings of Oakhaven. We were just the monsters in the basement.
But then, out of the corner of my eye, I see it.
A single, white lace sleeve floating on the surface of the black water, pristine and untouched by the soot.
I blink, and it’s gone. Just a piece of trash. Or the beginning of a new ghost.
The water is a grave of ice and oil, but the hands that grab me aren’t human.
As the police boat pulls alongside, the officers reaching down look like towering, faceless sentinels in white ceramic armour. Their flashlights aren’t LEDs; they are searing beams of ultraviolet light that peel back the layers of my skin.
“Target Jex secured,” a voice booms, but it’s filtered through a digital vocoder, metallic and cold. “The Mother requires the primary brain-tissue for analysis.”
“No!” I scream, thrashing as a heavy, gloved hand hauls me over the gunwale.
I hit the deck of the police boat—no, the Extraction Craft.
The floor beneath me hums with the vibration of a nuclear core.
I look at the man holding me down. He’s wearing a blue uniform with a badge that says Officer Miller, but when the strobe light of the helicopter hits him, his face dissolves.
His skin turns to liquid silver, his eyes becoming glowing optical sensors.
“Stay down, kid!” Miller shouts.
I hear Ryker beside me, his head slammed against the deck. He’s staring at the burning wreckage of the Mercy, his eyes bleeding tears of pure mercury.
“The ledger…” Ryker gasps, his fingers clawing at the empty air. “She took the ledger into the core! The data is fusing!”
“Look at the water!” I howl, pointing at the spot where Hallow vanished.
The fire is gone. In its place, a massive, underwater city is rising.
A sprawling metropolis of neon glass and silver spires, hidden beneath the harbour for decades.
I see Hallow. She’s not burning. She’s floating in a golden stasis field, being pulled down toward the central spire.
The Mother is standing there—a thousand feet tall, made of light and static, her arms open to receive the prototype.
“She’s home,” I whisper, my heart shattering. “She’s finally home.”
“He’s going into shock!” a voice screams—a real voice, high and panicked.
I feel a sharp sting in my neck. A sedative.
The silver city flickers. The neon spires turn into the rotted, barnacle-covered pilings of the North Pier. The Mother’s light becomes the harsh, flickering neon of a ‘Donuts’ sign on the shore. Officer Miller’s face returns—he’s just a man with a moustache and a look of profound pity.
“It’s okay, son,” Miller says, his voice muffled by the sound of the rain. “You’re safe now.”
Safe. The word is the biggest lie of all.
They zip me into a thermal blanket, but it feels like a straitjacket. They’re not taking us to a hospital. They’re taking us back to the Hive. The ambulance waiting on the pier isn’t a vehicle; it’s a mobile containment unit.
As they wheel me off the boat, the world glitches one last time.
I look at the crowd of onlookers gathered behind the yellow tape. They aren’t citizens. They are rows of identical clones, all wearing Hallow’s face, all wearing the white lace dress. Thousands of them, standing in perfect silence, watching the “Redundant Brothers” being hauled away.
I look at Ryker on the stretcher next to mine. He’s staring at the sky, laughing a wet, jagged sound.
“She’s in the clouds, Jex,” Ryker whispers, his eyes fixed on a searchlight beam. “She’s the signal now. We can’t shut her off.”
The doors of the ambulance slam shut, and the siren begins to wail. To the world, it’s a warning. To me, it’s the Mother humming us a final, terrifying lullaby.