The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) Read online

  He looked at Garros, and could almost feel the fire burning in his eyes. “How is she?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and looked up at him. “Something like this happened before, when I was first testing manned synchronization. I got hit once, during the test, and it’s like the Egg stopped sending signals to Atlas. I could see and hear you, but I couldn’t move. I know how to fix it, but I’d like to rest a little first.”

  “At least you were safe,” said Jena.

  “No, she wasn’t. We aren’t. The Creux isn’t as safe as you seem to think—it can . . . we can get hurt,” said Garros, stammering. Ezra had never heard anger and fear so clearly in his voice. “She could’ve been hurt!”

  “I’m fine,” protested Erin.

  “This time, Erin,” he said.

  “Man, Garros, she’s okay!” Ezra said, and immediately knew it had been a mistake.

  “And you, come here. Listen to me,” said the enormous man, who suddenly looked twice as large as he stared him down with reddened eyes. “If I tell you to do something. If I tell you not to do something, you will. Those were tunnels, Blanchard. Either one of us could’ve brought the whole goddamn thing down, and then what?”

  “But we didn’t!” Ezra argued, and all the resentment and anger he had held inside began to boil in his chest. “You wanted us to stay behind and do nothing while those things could’ve killed Erin!”

  “That is not what I said, stupid. I said we had to be careful.”

  “Careful could’ve gotten Erin killed! Look, you didn’t see what I saw in Zenith! At least I don’t want to see someone else die!”

  “You better watch your mouth.”

  Suddenly it was like he was out of his body, not unlike piloting Nandi. Ezra tried to shove Garros away, but couldn’t. He heard Jena cry out, telling them to stop their fight, but something so asymmetrical could not be called a fight. Garros had gotten hold of Ezra’s wrists, and controlling someone so much weaker was far too easy.

  The desperation and anger grew when he saw how powerless he was against Garros. Ignoring pain in his shoulders, Ezra whipped his arms down and freed his right hand from the man’s grip.

  He balled it to a fist and took a swing. His knuckles hurt when they connected with Garros’ jaw, nudging his head to the side.

  Ezra froze, suddenly all too aware of his mistake.

  Garros looked at him and shook his head.

  He didn’t even see Garros’ arm move, only heard a crack on the left side of his face, and then everything was dark.

  Chapter 3

  A Subtle Infection

  Ezra woke up to the sound of thunder and rain. There was crispness to the air, something cold and comfortable that for one moment allowed him to forget almost everything else.

  But not the intense headache, or the pain on his cheekbone. That was still there.

  He sat up from the wet grass. The fight—if it could even be called that—had taken place next to Phoenix Atlas’ head, but now he found himself sitting next to Nandi’s leg. An insulation blanket covered him from his chest to his feet; he had been moved and covered while still unconscious.

  It was a slight relief to see that at least the others had a little respect left for him. The sensations of guilt and anxiety were not unlike the few times he had drank too much, only to regret some of his actions the day following. Last time that happened, one of those actions had remained with him, even to that day, in the shape of a nose ring. It had been a small token given to him by a man whose life had been taken, and with his death, the once purely aesthetic symbol had become something far more important.

  He felt lightheaded when he finally got up, and had to lean against Nandi’s plates of armor to maintain his balance. His head hurt and it was full of regret, but something made him feel clean. Was it the rain?

  Maybe it was the view.

  Ezra grabbed the insulation blanket normally used to line the inside of a Creux’s Apse and, rolled, tossed it inside Nandi’s Apse. He could almost hear the Minotaur’s whisper coming from inside. Could it really just be the energy in its core?

  Ignoring the thoughts that made him feel even more alone, Ezra walked up the hill, trying to drink the rain that fell on the oasis almost like dust—in miniature particles. He climbed backward so he wouldn’t miss the view: there was something beautiful in the contrast before his eyes.

  To his left there was the giant green patch, covered in trees, a large body of water narrowing into a river that disappeared into the mountain. The whole thing was bathed in the light of a few golden rays that managed to pierce the thick, gray clouds.

  And to his right, only dead lands: cracked earth and the stench of death—reminders left by the creatures that caused the devastation. Those strange spires and stone arches, maybe carved by some kind of erosion he couldn’t really understand, further separated what he was seeing from the idea he had of what the planet used to be. Five hundred years of alien occupation had made a whole other world out of it.

  He sat down on the wet grass and looked at the landscape. In this solitude, nothing really made sense. Ezra could barely understand the chain of events that had placed a largely unremarkable person like himself there, where no human had set foot in centuries.

  Ezra clenched his jaw and began to cry, and he wasn’t even sure why. It wasn’t out of pain, and it certainly wasn’t out of joy; it was like his body just needed to cleanse itself of certain bad energies, and seeing the world literally torn in two before him, unsure of which of these two palettes of color he would see cover the world in the end—if he even saw the end at all—worked them all out.

  It was liberating and he felt no shame in it, until he discovered that he was not alone.

  “Mind if I join you?” said Garros, who was standing behind him. “I feel like we should probably talk.”

  Ezra wiped his eyes and didn’t say anything. Garros sat down a few feet down the hill, so they would see eye to eye.

  “I was just over there, enjoying the view. Something about it caught my eye—like, how strange it feels to see so much green at once. None of the others were big like this one, were they? I wonder what’s up with them.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Ezra.

  “I mean why do they exist, you know? By all accounts it doesn’t make any sense. The virus, the Laani, all these alien things respect these spots. Erin and I saw one a few days ago, just standing outside the oasis, afraid to come any closer even if it looked like it wanted to. And even underground, did you notice? The sudden turns the Tunnelers made—they were avoiding this area even on a subterranean level. And there are so many; there’s another one over there, and way over there.” He pointed toward the distance. “Guess we didn’t have a good vantage point of the land before. I’ll check Erin’s route; maybe we can see a trace of Kerek from here, if we climb a bit more. I don’t think it’s that far away now.”

  “I hope so,” Ezra said. “I’m tired of all this.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, me too.”

  Having nothing to say, the wind spoke for Ezra. He only looked down at Garros.

  “How’s your face?” the man asked. Ezra noticed a red patch on the side of Garros’ jaw. Garros brought his hand up to the tender skin, and smiled even if it appeared to sting to the touch. “This was your work, by the way.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nah. That was a terrible way for me to react, but I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself. You took a good swing, too. You are deceptively strong,” he said and laughed. “Though I remember you knocking Dr. Yuri down on his ass. That was pretty great.”

  “I don’t,” said Ezra. He had been told that upon awakening from the fugue that led to The Shattering, his first reaction had been to take a swing at Dr. Yuri, whom he mistakenly recognized as the cause of all his pain—an enemy. He didn’t remember any of that, and he was glad.

  “Poor guy,” said Garros and sighed, giving a moment of silence to the memory of Dr.
Yuri, of whom they had not really talked since his death.

  The sound of rainfall was the dead man’s only elegy.

  “I never got along with him, but . . . he had the right ideas,” Garros said. “At least he wanted to save us, and not just let us . . . die. It’s hard to believe there are some folks who would let all of humanity go so easily.”

  “I’m sorry about what I said, by the way,” said Ezra. “I know you care about Erin.”

  “Of course I do. I love her,” he said. Ezra didn’t remember him ever admitting to that particular feeling; he had always thought the nature of their relationship was not very profound. When he took a deep breath, he shivered, and not because of the cold. “And I care about the others in Zenith. Maybe I just don’t want to believe what you said happened when you left—about Tessa, and Barnes . . . and Kat.”

  He had never heard Garros talk this way; he had always been a source of levity in a world of gravity. Maybe there were feelings deep inside him that overlapped with Ezra’s. It could just be the land—seeing the green put a new perspective on what they were trying to achieve out in the sick wild. Suddenly the possibility of a green earth was real, and not just a hopeful dream.

  But that possibility was not comforting; quite the contrary. With it came the considerable weight of failure, and it all rested on so few shoulders.

  Garros opened his mouth to let some of the rain in. Using his huge, tattooed hands, he squeezed his beard like it was a rag, and the water it had collected fell in a short stream. “I hope this rain isn’t infected,” he said and chuckled.

  It was something Ezra hadn’t even considered. “I thought the virus couldn’t live in water.”

  “I’m pretty sure it can’t; but hey, if you see me begin to turn into a damn Trooper or something, just be quick about it.” Garros laughed and Ezra didn’t.

  With that tasteless joke, Ezra could only think of Subject Edward: Jena’s father, turned into a monster and killed by Besoe Nandi at Ezra’s command. It was a painful secret he would have to carry to his grave.

  “No, it can’t live in water, Ezra,” said Jena, joining them as though his thoughts had summoned her. Ezra turned around and saw she was a few feet behind him. “I knew you were paying attention in Dr. Mizrahi’s class.”

  “Dammit, Crescent, how long have you been there?” Garros yelled. “I’m trying to have a big brother moment here!”

  Ezra actually laughed, and it felt good.

  “I know; please don’t stop on my account, because you were doing pretty well,” she smiled. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your bonding session, but I really didn’t want to be alone down there.”

  “Fine,” Garros said. “And Erin?”

  “Asleep. She said she needed only a few hours, and she’d be good to go,” said Jena and began to crab-walk down the hill, closer to Ezra, until she sat right next to him. She was warm, even under the rain. “You know what’s really strange about these islands?”

  “What’s that?” asked Ezra. She locked her arm with his. He looked down at the new link made between them, and wondered what in the perfect hell it meant. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure he wanted it.

  “It was hard to tell from ground level, even from Jade’s height, but they’re unnaturally round.”

  “Right?” Garros said, sounding perhaps too excited, and she nodded. “I noticed that too.”

  “Are they? I hadn’t noticed,” said Ezra.

  “And look. If you see from up there, it’s even stranger; there’s something else I noticed about this one. Come on,” Jena said and got up. She climbed up the grassy incline, and they followed.

  It took several minutes to climb high enough, and they did it in silence. Several yards up the mountain, higher up than even the giant Creuxen could see, where the cold breeze had turned into a strong wind, they could witness a great stretch of land in front of them.

  There were at least five more oases within eyeshot, all of them far smaller than the one which now granted them safe haven from the dangers of the lifeless world.

  “Well, I’ll be . . . you’re right,” said Ezra, taking deep breaths and sitting back down. The green spots scattered on the plain were not perfectly circular, but close enough to be remarkable, and even appear unnatural.

  From up there he could see the four massive Creuxen; they were resting on the edge of the oasis, barely covering a fragment of its considerable expanse. It was far larger than he initially imagined. Far larger than any of the other ones.

  “I wonder what they’re all about,” he said.

  “Now, look. At that—that wet area near the center, like a swamp,” Jena said. “Oh, it’s even more obvious from up here. Do you see it?”

  Ezra had been blessed with good eyesight, so he could see what Jena meant even from far away. Almost exactly at the center of the oasis, near the edge of a dense forest, there was a circular pool of water adorned in intricate patterns of grass and earth. Like the edges of the oasis, it did not seem natural either.

  “What do you think that is?” Jena asked.

  “I don’t know, I can barely see that far, but there’s definitely something down there,” Garros replied. “Did you notice anything like that in the others?”

  “I remember seeing something similar in one—one of the small ones—but I guess I just thought it was part of the terrain,” Jena said, and crossed her arms, fighting off the cold. “From up here, it actually looks . . . what’s the word—significant? If Erin’s okay with it, maybe we should see what it is. I know we’re in a hurry to get to Kerek—”

  “We are, but look,” said Garros. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think Kerek is somewhere near that mountain over there, that tall one. You see it?”

  Ezra followed Garros’ finger toward the horizon. There was a tall peak that pierced the clouds, reaching a height far greater than the lesser mountains at its feet.

  “If that’s what I think it is, Kerek is just next to it, at its base,” said Garros. “It might not take more than half a day to get there, if we don’t run into any more trouble.”

  He had learned during these weeks of travel that mountains had a way of twisting one’s sense of distance, but Garros’ estimate seemed accurate.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” said Jena.

  Ezra’s teeth began to chatter from the cold when a blast of wind hit them. All these characteristics of the wild, the natural ambience in which humanity had lived for tens of thousands of years, was something alien now. He wondered if, after so long living in a cocoon where every aspect of the atmosphere was regulated for comfort, the human race had become somehow weaker.

  More so, he wondered if this world which had never been truly theirs would even welcome them back after their victory.

  When they made their way back down, Ezra felt a little better. The headache was still there, as was the mark on his face that would let anyone know that he had survived being punched by a behemoth like Garros, but he felt cleaner. Emotionally. He was even capable of smiling earnestly for the first time in weeks.

  Maybe he should get knocked out more often.

  The Apse of her Creux was open when they got to it, and Erin was nowhere to be found. After climbing onto Phoenix Atlas’ chest, Ezra took a look around the area to find her, and when he did, he felt the awfully familiar trepidation of seeing a friend in danger.

  Erin was standing just a few feet from the edge of the oasis, and not far from her, just outside the green patch, there stood a huge Trooper type. Erin was staring it down, as if trying to intimidate it into leaving, knowing it wouldn’t dare attack her.

  He climbed down the Creux’s chest and ran towards her. Garros and Jena followed him.

  Erin barely registered their presence when they joined her, and only asked one question, her eyes still on the creature: “Where were you?”

  “I thought you were getting some rest,” Garros said, unconcerned by the Fleck. Much like Erin, Garros looked unimpressed by the presence of the monster, more
troubled by Erin’s fatigue than the giant creature standing only a few yards away.

  They had very little evidence to know for sure that the Flecks would not set foot on the oases, and this was the first time that their risky hypothesis proved true: the monster appeared to fear the green.

  The creature’s stillness, and its closeness, gave Ezra the rare opportunity to inspect it. Outside the protection of Nandi, he didn’t remember ever seeing a Laani Fleck this close, at least not since Subject Edward, and even then, he had done so standing on an observation deck from a safe distance. Seeing one of its kind from ground level gave him a new perspective of what he was fighting, the horrors of infection, and of the Creux’s massive strength.

  Taller than a house, this thing was saurian in appearance: it had the forward-facing eyes of a predator, a thick tail, and a long befanged snout. Yet, its most defining characteristics were two giant legs and very long, very thin arms ending in clawed hands that touched the dry ground, somehow supporting the weight of its upper body.

  “What do you suppose this thing was before getting infected?” Erin asked no one in particular.

  “A lizard?” replied Garros, taking one step closer to the edge of the oasis, where the grass stopped growing and the earth died.

  It made Ezra anxious. He shouldn’t stand so close to the Fleck.

  “A dog? Someone’s brother, maybe.”

  “He’s afraid. Isn’t he?” Erin said. She hadn’t peeled fearless eyes from the creature, and didn’t share Ezra’s anxiety in seeing Garros come so close to it. “He’s afraid of us.”

  Hooh boy, Ezra thought. So long, Dr. Mizrahi; we have a new Queen of District Crazy.

  “Not of us,” replied Jena. “It’s afraid of something, but it’s not us.”

  “Garros, where are you going?” Ezra finally said when Garros took a step on the dry land.

  “It’s all right, Blanchard. They won’t come any closer than this,” Garros said with what Ezra thought was unwarranted confidence—it was almost cocky; he had too much faith in their hypothesis. “I told you we saw another one a few days ago, remember? They wouldn’t come any closer.”