45. FORTY-FIVE #2
Wind rippled through the shattered windows, whistling in Calver’s ears as the others watched him expectantly.
It was all Calver could do not to lose himself.
And why shouldn’t he? He’d lost. He’d lost his sister’s allegiance.
If the Red Wing was eliminated, he and Raimee lost any chance at victory against Cul’Mon: the Tera’thian numbers would overwhelm them.
Dex and Niklaus were next. He hung on, weathering a spike of pressure, forcing himself to keep his composure.
“So thousands of our countrymen are deathbound and we’re just going to sit here and watch the show?” Niklaus finally hissed. “No. I’ve accepted a thousand unacceptable truths, but I will not accept that.”
“We can’t do anything.”
“I’ll run out there with my arms waving if I have to!”
Niklaus’s face became very heavy. His eyes hardened like he might argue until something broke behind them. “So, all of this has been meaningless?”
“Not meaningless,” Dex muttered. “I might have an idea. Focus word might.”
Calver forced his attention to the boy. Dex had proven his worth time and time again. For his ‘might’, Calver could hold on for a little while longer.
“But we need to scope out the warehouse.”
In unison, they looked at the enormous building at the edge of the sea. “You can see there.” Niklaus tilted his head toward the window alongside the ladder. “Numbers. Layout. Guards. It looked as though there was a maintenance stair on the roof.”
“It seemed like it was? When I came in from the Cliffs of Thaligan?” Niklaus was anything but sure. They all stared at one another again, a bunch of idiots with five minutes to build a strategy from sawdust.
Dex started toward the ladder. Calver shouldered ahead of him.
Behind him, Dex elbowed Niklaus in the ribs. “You climbed the Cliffs of Thaligan? You? Niklaus-fucking-Meyernes?”
“And tumbled down the back side, yes.”
Niklaus’s voice was drowned by the wind as Calver dipped across the street and started up the warehouse ladder.
When he reached the window, he peered in through the slits in its wooden shutters.
Sconced Aetech lamps, at least fifty of them, lined the wall, illuminating the thousands amassed in the mostly windowless space.
They huddled together like rats in a nest. The Survivor roiled at the hushed cries and low moans that rose above the sounds of the ocean.
The warehouse must have been a hundred meters long and half as wide.
Bodies packed it from end to end, squeezed together like seeds in a pod.
A catwalk rimmed the ceiling. As Niklaus had said, a stairwell led to the roof.
The ladders at either end of the catwalk—one over the door, and one over the far wall—had been raised.
The main doors sat on the building’s eastern side, opening out to the dock. Perhaps a dozen Tera’thian guards stood in front of it. Those were not good odds. He swallowed hard and continued his ascent until the ladder rounded the ledge.
One guard had been posted on the roof—a lookout.
Calver pulled his dowaga from his back and hurled it.
Three silver points spiraled. The man gasped just before the dowaga struck true and fell to the roof.
Calver pulled his body over the waist-high wall encompassing the roof’s perimeter, unstuck his weapon from the man’s neck, and reholstered it. He returned to the ledge.
Niklaus and Dex dipped across the street and scaled the ladder, each rolling over the wall onto the roof. The trio crouched beneath the cover of the knee wall. Niklaus heaved for breath, eyes doggedly away from the body. To the west, the sun clung low to the horizon.
“So few guards,” Dex said. “Why haven’t the civilians overwhelmed them by now, weapons or none?”
Calver wasn’t proud of his memory of this Tera’thian tactic.
“But there are thousands of people here.”
Dex nodded in understanding.
They sat in silence for long moments.
“Alright. Warehouse scoped,” Niklaus panted. “What’s the plan?”
Dex’s voice was low and serious. “Hear me out. It will take a minute to get to my point. When the plates detonate, it’s going to look like Aetech conspired with either the oligarchy or the Tera’thians to sacrifice the Groundling front lines.
When Calver first told me about the interference, I sent a light signal to Atti to warn her.
She said the only way it won’t seem contrived is if all of Aetech experiences a shutdown at the same time the plates explode. ”
Calver interrupted.
“Naturally.”
Niklaus raised an eyebrow at Dex. “She can make that happen?”
“Consider it an insurance policy against a long list of people she’s rubbed the wrong way.”
Niklaus cursed. And then he began to laugh. The noise began low and crescendoed until he punctuated it with a snort. Calver shifted. Nothing seemed particularly funny.
“To think that all I ever had to do to dismantle Aethertech Mechanics was rub Attilatia Mitar the wrong way.”
Dex swung an arm at him. Niklaus ducked.
“Meyernes, when I do finally punch you, it’s going to be when you least expect it.” Dex held up the bead laced on a string at his neck and continued. “I have a universal activator for anything on Aetech’s stratum. Destroy it, and every lamp goes dark. Including those in the warehouse.”
“But that won’t work on the shields, right?”
Through the mire of his suppression, Calver understood: they’d have a distraction.
“Right. But we stage a rescue. The rescue becomes reinforcements. It’s the best I’ve got.”
{It will do nothing. You will only lead them from one destruction to another,} the Survivor purred.
Calver’s whole body stiffened from the effort of suppressing the creature. He didn’t realize his breath was hissing through his teeth until Dex gave him a look.
Calver feigned control.
Dex nodded, though his brows still hunched too close to his nose. “The closer we can time the two events, the less likely they are to look mutually exclusive.”
Calver fished through his pack for the two Aetech lamps he’d altered while they traveled.
He handed Dex the one for which he’d moved the influx capacitor the least—the less dangerous of the two.
Dex turned the lamp over with shrewd discernment. “You altered this one?”
“How will it work if I’ve crushed the bead?”
Calver wanted to answer. He wanted to help. Thousands of people below their feet were about to become compromised. But, Fates, if he gave a response, it might expose everything he was. Everything he’d done.
“Unless it’s like one of theirs,” Dex suggested, eyes dangerously narrowed. “Unless you’re one of them?”
He shook his head.
{Watch now. He will betray you.}
But as Calver imagined the possibility, the blanket of despair around his mind suddenly eased. The Survivor was… lying? Calver could sense endless destructive futures around him. But Dex wasn’t one of them.
Dex’s regard was just as wary, but his words were firm. “I trust you.” A terrible decision, but it inflated Calver’s chest all the same. “But there are people you’re going to have to answer to.”
And their numbers grew by the second.
Calver followed Dex’s gaze, now on Niklaus, who stood without a weapon, looking battered and entirely out of place. “What are you going to do, Meyernes?”
Niklaus cleared his throat. “Frankly, I’m open to suggestions.”
Calver pointed out.
“I imagine a smart dog with a dinner knife might fare better.”
Calver nodded at the dead guard.
Niklaus picked dirt from beneath his nails. “Probably even worse.”
“Lookout. Yes, I think that suits me.”
The entry to the maintenance stairwell atop the warehouse roof was locked.
Calver picked at it for long minutes before thumping his head against the door with a grunt. They were running out of time. His aggravation buzzed, even through the Survivor’s dulling effects.
Niklaus smirked. “I finally understand why you needed me to get you a shield in the first place.”
While punching Niklaus squarely in the nose might have made Calver feel better, it was not likely to help them release Steila’s captives.
He instead punched the handle of the dowaga into the lock, breaking it off in one clean hit, but with more noise than he would have liked.
They waited in wind-whipped silence, sure a guard was on their way to investigate. None came.
The minutes ticked by. Then the orange glow from the setting sun glazed the thousands of burgundy forms edging over the eastern rise in formation.
The city dipped below them, dark and empty.
Terathian forces, perhaps only a couple thousand in number, aligned themselves behind buildings at the city’s rear.
Dread pooled in Calver’s stomach. Dex turned away, head in his hands.
Niklaus watched, skin growing pale, aging by the second.
{You don’t have to witness this.}
The Tera’thians’ limited numbers were carefully calculated to take on the scraps of a martial force otherwise eliminated. Calver clung to his control, slipping with every second. He was asphyxiating. He was sure his head might cave in.