Chapter 30 #3
“Detain them!” Nodal shouted distantly, and Lev looked over his shoulder at the furious man standing beside his mobile command RV.
“Not a chance in hell!” Lev shouted, throwing his militia hat into the dark.
No, I thought with a flash of guilt. He couldn’t quit. He was going AWOL.
My shoulder jostled Lev’s as he wove through the assembled vehicles to the exit, but I finally got my belt fastened.
Behind us, another something blew up, lighting the darkness in a burst of sound and color that faded to leave oily wisps of dross to color the night.
“Was that you?” I asked, and he nodded, both hands gripping the wheel as he eyed the vehicles now tailing us through the rearview mirror. “Lev, you can’t quit.”
“I’m not quitting. I’m refusing to follow illegal orders,” he said over the wind noise. “Ah, I hope you have an idea. I really don’t want to become Herm’s off-grid roomie.”
Pluck materialized between us, his great doggy head making Lev jump. I have an idea, he fizzed, but Lev couldn’t hear him. Find Thoth and spread his consciousness from one end of the universe to the other.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said, hand clenched upon the window frame as I stared at the lights illuminating the gate to Biosphere 2.
Lev stiffened as he studied the pinch point. Beyond it was the main road. “Ah, hold on. We’re going off road.”
“Off road!” I shouted, one hand flying to the ceiling, the other to the dash.
There was no off road, there was only desert.
“Lev, it’s a Jeep, but I don’t know if it’s rated for— Hey!
” I shouted as he suddenly spun the wheel, never slowing as he drove us into the desert.
He hooted gleefully, and gravel clattered against the undercarriage as he made a big U around the roadblock, jostling my teeth almost out of my head when he found the road again.
A heavy-weight glass dross bottle slammed into my ankle, rolling about the floor until I pinned it.
The ride smoothed out, and I sat wedged into the seat, unable to take my hands from the ceiling and dash as Lev picked up speed. Behind us, men and women shouted, but no shots were fired. We had made it?
I forced myself to let go of the dash. That stick had bounced to the floor, and I picked it up, feeling stronger for it. Pluck? I thought, not seeing him, but I knew he was with us as a snarky amusement drifted about the edges of my fading adrenaline.
Lev stuck his arm out the window and waved merrily at the news van as we sped by. “Hey, I got that bottle from appropriations. It will hold Thoth, won’t it?”
I took the bottle from the floor and jammed the ankle-buster into a cupholder. It was too small to be useful in dross collecting, but yes, its thick gauge made it perfect to contain shadow. “It will work,” I muttered, not liking that the militia had it.
“Great. I have a way over the border,” he said, a hint of worry creasing his brow.
“We are both in deep shit. I saw the intel that Nodal is working from. Dana has the entire university board convinced that you and Pluck masterminded everything. Our only shot is to prove that Dana is compromised, and then—”
“No one will believe us,” I interrupted, and he flicked off the lights, racing through the desert night and trusting that the armadillos would stay off the road.
“You have half the campus behind you,” he said.
“Which half?” I said, but I had a pretty good idea. Sweepers.
“Professor Brown is still at liberty.” His expression became introspective in the faint moonlight.
There was a drift of dross clinging to his heel, and it bothered me.
“And not happy that Dana tried to arrest you in his labs. He knows every sweeper on campus. Better yet, he knows not to confront the university board directly like Benedict did, and is working in the shadows.” Lev glanced at Pluck, the wind pulling through his essence like the wind through my hair, and I shivered at the shared sensation of energy stripping from him—not a problem when it was night.
“Ryan is convincing who he can,” Lev continued. “And we have a few mages on your side thanks to Benedict.” He smirked. “It pays to be the university’s most popular instructor, especially when you are in mage jail. And then there’s me. Cameron, too, probably.”
My pulse quickened and I gripped that trap stick tighter. “You think we can get Benny and Herm free?”
“Way ahead of you.” Lev watched Pluck sink down to become nothing but glowing green eyes and a bad attitude. “Your sweeper friends are already on it. We’re meeting at the grotto. All I need to know is if you and Pluck can bottle Thoth.”
Pluck? My thoughts carried both of our minds back to how we had been stronger together, with my twisted threads of dark matter and his weave to give it direction.
The shadow’s mood had shifted since we’d clambered into Lev’s Jeep.
That a segment of sweepers and mages believed in us had given him a boost of confidence, of hope that we wouldn’t have to hide when all of this was said and done.
I’d give us a decent shot, fizzed through me, Pluck’s mood shimmering with anticipation.
“Pluck says yes,” I said, and then I reached out, fingers burning as I pulled the dross from Lev as I had a hundred times before.
Exhaling into the rise and fall of the universe, I brought a mass of dark matter into existence.
The threads were twisted beyond belief—until Pluck wove his presence through them and the painful prickles of dross vanished as a field took shape.
Thank you, I thought as I tossed the dross into the night, and Pluck fizzed in satisfaction when it hit a cactus and a budded flower bloomed, pushed into it by the energy released in the breaking dross. I hadn’t done it. It was Pluck.
Clearly we could do this. Together.