I do the only thing I can. I reach forward, lacing my fingers in his and pressing my palm into his palm.

  My thoughts push further into his. I squeeze his hand until he squeezes back.

  He is with me. I am with him.

  The quicksilver beast has a brilliant luminescence all its own but otherwise darkness surrounds us. We spin and swirl in this void, fighting for our lives.

  What’s happening? I ask.

  Security protocols. Keep your mind clear. Don’t let them in.

  I need to look at him. I need him to look at me.

  The serpent’s heads strike.

  I spin away as Luke spins away. How?

  It’s automated. The central core is trying to protect itself. If we can keep it away, it should deactivate when we move away from the central core.

  We dance with the serpent and it dances with us. I try to remember that my external self needs to keep walking.

  Fangs connect with my flesh. A scream builds in my throat, but I stifle it as I grab the snake head and pry it from my shoulder.

  Luke? I can’t hold out. There are too many.

  Not much longer.

  My lungs burn. It’s like I forgot to breathe.

  I tell my external self to breathe, to walk, if Luke is still walking.

  Chapter 9

  Node: 010

  I glance at Luke. His brown eyes are insistent. Fight.

  I spin and twist away from hungry mouths.

  Fangs connect. Luke tries to break free, but he’s being lifted into the air, pulled toward the body of the snake.

  His legs flail as he squirms and struggles. I dive and ram into the body of the snake. This unexpected move combined with Luke’s writhing earns his freedom.

  He scrambles away, but no matter how far back he goes the snake is always right in front of him.

  This dance is hopeless. Pointless.

  I focus on Luke. He’s the only one who can end this.

  If I can make it to Luke, I can end this. I try to close the space between us, but the quicksilver monstrosity blocks my way.

  Luke grits his teeth and bulldozes his way forward, slamming into the creature’s thick trunk.

  My panicked scream is shriller than I expect. I have no way of knowing what’s happening in the core room, but I hope I’m still moving behind Luke.

  Whirling around the snake and its flashing heads, I reach for Luke, who’s just beyond my grasp. I teeter behind him as he dodges a tangle of groping mouths.

  Right before he leaps away, I tackle him and we spin away from the oozing mass of quicksilver together. When our tangled forms come to rest, we are alone in darkness with only our own faint inner glow to illuminate the space between us.

  Cedes…

  …Luke

  We are one. I’m back in the core room. It’s all different now. In the high levels, there’s only us and the occasional controller.

  He reaches back as he walks. I knew there were security protocols. I didn’t know what they were.

  I reach forward and briefly touch my fingers to his. Any more surprises?

  You know what to do when we get topside. Remember, you’re my eyes in there.

  A high-pitched whining sound has been steadily getting louder. I can’t look around to see where it’s coming from, but there is some type of engine over the core with a transparent housing. I can see its whirring parts.

  I tell myself not to be drawn to it, to keep walking, that I have to stare straight ahead.

  Ahead of us, I see a door guarded by a pair of vertical wings.

  Their eyes light up as we approach and they turn so they are pointed at us. This attack-ready profile I remember. The wing that fired on me in City Blue was positioned the same.

  The droning sound of the engine reminds me of the spinning guns. My steps falter.

  Stay with Luke. Keep walking. Stay with Luke.

  Eyes front. Be a green flower in a green field.

  Luke stops in front of the wings. My stomach squeezes. I try to stand still but my hands are shaking. I can’t get the image of the blazing guns out of my thoughts.

  Breathe. Walk now with Luke.

  From the corner of my eye, I see the wings pivot as we pass them.

  The humming engine continues to unnerve me. I’m sure the vertical wings must see that I’m shaking.

  Luke steps faster. I step after.

  The click behind me is the door closing. I start to relax as I expect that we’ve left the machines behind us, but this is so far from the truth as to be laughable for we’ve stepped into a sea of machines and a room as large and tall as a multistoried building.

  Luke pushes his way through the machines as this is the only way in. Thankfully, they don’t seem to notice him anymore than he notices them, but I’m terrified they’re going to see us for what we are: Intruders.

  The shifting machines perform their tasks, according to some indecipherable rhythm. Gray-clad controllers stand at stations. Blue-clad controllers gather around truck-sized holographic spheres. Eyes, crescents and wings patrol. Hoverers, rollers and humans move this way and that. Pods enter; pods leave. Occasionally, a multi-track enters and parts the crowd with its girth.

  But none of this is anything compared to the enormous orb that hangs in the air over our heads. It’s a glowing globe that shows the Earth and its land masses complete with a swirling atmosphere.

  More than half of the planet glows with blue dots. The rest of the world glows with red dots. Within this, scattered here and there, are patches of dots of other colors but these areas are few and far between.

  It’s not entirely the hauntingly beautiful blue-white globe I know from the book. The oceans are smaller and cover less of the surface. Deserts extend over an area where there were once five great lakes. Deep, open pits range where there should be great mountains.

  Stay close, Luke warns. You see where the pods are exiting and entering?

  Hurrying my steps, I try to get back in line behind him and conform my pace to his. Our escape route in case of discovery?

  Yes...

  My heart hammers in my chest. Too much deviation or separation between us and the patrols may notice whatever signals guide others are not getting to me.

  It’s not signals, not really, Luke says, reading my inner thoughts, more like they’re receiving a series of commands that tell them what to do.

  We march toward the globe, but when we reach it, Luke turns right. As we make our way, I note the positions of patrols. Vertical wings guard the exits. Crescents run racetracks overhead. Eyes hover at fixed intervals. Then what?

  Unless you’ve felt the ether flux, it’s not easily explained. Luke stops at an unoccupied station and inserts his holodex into the control position. I move opposite him and do the same. It’s like you know exactly where you fit and what you must accomplish. Not exact steps but a goal that will meet the needs of the many and then another goal and another...

  Wait… I tense as one of the crescents swivels over our heads. It takes a few seconds to realize what this terrifying killing machine is doing. I’m afraid it has noticed us, but its dark eyes are fixed on something else. All clear.

  Cedes, focus. Luke presses his fingers to keys on the holodex. I see these key presses in my mind and mirror them.

  Luke shifts a step to the side and engages the station’s secondary power source. A holographic sphere comes to life in the place between us. Within the sphere, landscapes twist and turn as he sets a geographic location and zooms in on a broken city.

  I recognize the point he’s fixed on at once. The broken stones above a wide door and the stairs leading down into the ground. Just beyond, the forest and the lake within it rimmed by stone ghosts are where Luke and I rode the air train. The dry hills to the west and south are within the expanse the truck convoys roll through. At the end, almost out of view, the curious lady half buried with her book and flame raised high.

  Is this? I don’t need his response, but I want to hear him say it.

  Home, he says, but I still don’t know what exactly they want here.

  A trio of crescents are converging on something, their red lasers etching a path that parts the mass of machines. Something’s happening…

  As long as it’s not us… Luke’s eyes twitch up and fix on me momentarily.

  It’s not, but I don’t like what I’m seeing.

  In unison, the machines move away from the focus of the lasers. Their lines form concentric circles as if waves retreating from an unseen shore. The crescents descend, turning slowly around a lone gray-clad controller.

  Luke does something with the controls, movements too fast to track even with our deep connection. Time in the sphere starts to flow backward. Stone towers reassemble from ruins. River and ocean refill the wastes. The curious lady returns to her platform. The rubble that was above my home becomes a building of stones and gray pillars.

  Words etch into my mind as deeply as they are etched into the stones I see: Grand Central Terminal. I reach up and run my fingers along the letters.

  Luke doesn’t linger over Central. Instead, he swipes the air to pull through the city, block by block until it seems like we’re running toward the curious lady standing on her island. But we’re not chasing the lady at all, we’re racing toward an area of tall buildings near the bay.

  What they want is here, he says. We have to get down below to begin searching.

  Abruptly, our station shuts down. Luke remains still, blank-faced, but his eyes are fixed on me. We have a plan in case of discovery, but I blink my eyes twice. Our signal for no. Behind him, I can see the trio of crescents escorting the gray-clad controller, the beams from their lasers forming a container of sorts that moves as they move.

  Our station isn’t the only one that’s shut down. The other stations are powering down one by one and with them the thriving hum of the control room grows steadily quieter until we are surrounded by a profound silence.

  Chapter 10

  Node: 011

  Luke’s movements are fixed, methodical, as he removes his holodex and walks around the station. I remove my holodex and step in behind him, keeping my eyes forward as he makes his way across the control room. I want to look back, but I force myself not to.

  I can’t see where he’s going because I’m so close to him, swinging the same arm back as the same foot moves forward. It’s the same rhythm as before, but much more precise because of the scrutiny of the patrols circling overhead.

  We climb a flight of stairs to a series of platforms that circle around the control room. The dome over our heads is pockmarked with pod ports. There are only a few places where the ports and the platforms intersect. At these, humans are waiting in long lines.

  Clear as glass but fogged over, the dome appears to be made of the same material as the window in the white room. Up close, I can see shadows beyond and know from the shading that it is day outside.

  You know what to do, he says stepping with more purpose as we reach the top of the stairs, passing another pair of vertical wings.

  Trying not to glance to the side, I focus on matching my rhythm to his. I’ve never flown a pod.

  We’ve been through this. Once you’re inside, insert your holodex to activate the pod, then simply think where you want to fly and fly there.

  Another staircase ahead. Luke starts up and I follow. My body is so stiff and tense, I feel like a statue. A large group of blue-clad controllers is descending as we ascend. They don’t seem to notice us, but I can’t stop myself from looking at them with my peripheral vision. Their metal faces are so human.

  Are you ready? he asks.

  I’m not. Everything Luke and I discussed is coming to bear. I know what he said must happen next, and yet it’s of no comfort. I’m afraid of separating from him whether we have to or not because our proximity is what keeps our connection steady.

  Are you sure? We should stand together. You take one pod. I take the next.

  He missteps and I have to correct to avoid crashing into him. If I am detected upon entry and the airship goes into lockdown, there won’t be a next. We have to do this separately, but we must enter and activate together.

  Luke passes a line for a pod port and turns toward the next one. I take my cues from him, but instead of getting into line behind him, I note the number of humans in line and continue on. As the distance between us grows, I push more insistently into his mind.

  I listen for the whoosh that tells me a pod is arriving or departing from Luke’s port. The next time I hear it there will be seven humans between him and the front of the line.

  The tricky part is ahead. I must get into in a line at a pod port and make sure I time my departure with Luke’s. Thankfully, the interval between arriving and departing pods is fairly consistent.

  When One steps toward me seemingly out of nowhere, I know I’ve somehow entered the place between places—the place of thoughts. She’s glowing and partially translucent. In that moment, she reminds me of Idiom, and even as I think this One’s face lights up. I know before she speaks that she’s reading my thoughts. “You can’t have seen Idiom,” she says.

  It’s both a question and a statement. Her tone says she doesn’t believe or that she doesn’t want to believe, but she does believe because she’s seeing my thoughts even as I picture the quivering quicksilver form. “Idiom wanted to collect me, to absorb me into the collective.”

  “You have no idea what Idiom did or didn’t want. You can’t possibly know…”

  One doesn’t complete the thought. She wraps both hands around my head. Images flash before my eyes. I see quivering quicksilver floating in a void not unlike the one I find myself in. Idiom, I think, but then the thought is gone and the images are gone. Erased.

  I break away from her. My stomach wrenches. I close my eyes and keep them closed until I take a deep breath. “What have you done?”

  “There are things you can’t know. Things that are too dangerous to know. Stay out of the void. Stay out of null space. They’re not for you. Trust me when I say you won’t like what you find or what finds you.”

  “I’ve never found myself there willingly. Why did you bring me here?”

  One steps back. “I didn’t bring you here. You brought yourself. A fear trigger I suspect.”

  I feel like I’ve lost a part of me, an important part of me. “How do I really know I can trust you? How do you stay hidden?”

  “Cedes,” she says, cupping my cheek. “I’m hidden because I’m not inside the augment standing before you. I’m inside you, in your thoughts.”

  With a scream of frustration, I throw my hands up in the air. “That’s impossible!”

  “Everything’s possible. One is simply a trigger, a conduit. Think about it. Think about the times we’ve connected. I’ve been with you from the beginning, since the day you were delivered.”

  “Delivered?” I blurt out as she tries to calm me.

  “I was implanted to counter the Cogent implant in Luke.”

  I’m shaking. “Luke has an implant? Someone speaks to Luke like you speak to me?”

  “I don’t know his triggers, but yes. It’s why we made sure the trucks with the augments made their transfers when you were watching.”

  “You did what?”

  One raises her hands and turns them palms out. Her gesture seems human. Sympathetic. “We sent those capable of becoming like you and you exceeded even optimistic projections. When you were ready, we activated your homing sense and pulled you to us.”

  “No one pulled me anywhere,” I say. My entire body is trembling. Luke was wrong when he said I’d never understand what it was like to be under the will of the collective. Images of Sierra and Celeste flash through my mind. “Do they—?”

  “Luke won’t find what he thinks he’s looking for in the city below. There’s nothing to find but what the Cogents want him to find. Trigger Mark and with him, find John. Only then will you have your answers.”

  “Mark, John, how do you know about them?”

  “Our time is at an end. You won’t remember our conversation but you will know what to do. When you emerge, there will be an explosion. A series of explosions. Brace yourself. Do not give yourself away.”

  I can’t panic. I tell myself to breathe. “Explosions? What have you done?”

  “Not Lucents, Ardents. Use the confusion. Escape to the surface in a pod. I’ll leave you instructions on how to override the lockdown.”

  Chapter 11

  Node: 011

  Luke, brace yourself, I shout out, my fear bridging the gap between us as the control room is rocked by an explosion. I can’t look around to see where it came from, but it seems distant.

  What follows is not what I expect. While nearby eyes and vertical wings zoom away, controllers stay at their posts and other machines around me continue on the paths they were on previously. It’s as if they have no sense of fear or self-preservation.

  The line for the next pod port is just ahead. Before I reach it, I hear a bang that knocks me to the ground.

  Metal shards spray everything around me, cutting into me and through the machines around me. My black jumpsuit is shredded in places; I’m bleeding. Recovering to my knees, I touch a hand to my cheek where a fine line has etched itself into my flesh.

  Sudden chaos finds us. Coppers carrying blasters pour in through doors at the far end of the room. I know they’re not Cogents because they’re firing into the crowd. Eyes, vertical wings, and crescents return fire.

  Another detonation. I turn away as glass shatters, and the force of air being sucked out of the airship tries to pull me across the floor. A hoverer with long arms and grasping metal hands is ripped through the broken space in the wall. A crescent sacrifices itself and uses its wide oval frame to fill the breach.

  Hands close around my arms and I hear a voice. “Cedes,” Luke says, “you’re hurt.” He pulls my arm across his shoulders and hauls me to my feet. I stumble beside him over broken glass and along the twisted remains of the platform’s rails.