Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
“You’re doing this,” I tell her.
“Doing what? I’m not doing anything!”
“You’re…” It takes a moment for all my training and experience in the Sweep to come rushing back, so I don’t have the right word for a few seconds. But then it’s all there. All the data I was used to is falling down my field of vision like a fucking waterfall.
Clara struggles harder, her eyes wide in shock.
My augments have come to life again and my eyes are throwing off a blue light so bright, it lights up the dim room, casting eerie shadows across the chair and the bed.
But I don’t care about the eyes, or the color, or the hologram, actually.
I am working again.
This is when I notice that there’s blue light coming from between the cracks in the metal shutters over the windows. I walk over there, dragging Clara with me because I’ve still got a hold of her hand, and look through. The overlay is covering the entire Ruin District. “Holy fuckin’ shit.”
Clara leans in, trying to peek through the shutters. “What? I don’t see anything. What do you see?”
The ruins are whole again. Tall towers, but nothing like the towers just beyond, in the Canal District. They are maybe… ten or fifteen floors up. And they are not made of shiny metal or glass, but plaster, or mud, or something primitive like that. The tops are domed and the domes are blue.
But the most incredible thing about what I’m seeing is the canal. A bright blue line with beaches on either side that runs straight down the city, just like Clara described it.
There are people down there, too. Just walking along stone paths, talkin’ and shit. Having a normal life or whatever. Wearing clothes I’ve never seen before. Like… desert clothes. Loose things, long things, in every kind of neutral color.
“What?” Clara says again, her voice more desperate now. She’s looking all around, leaning in and back, trying different angles to see what I’m seeing. “What’s out there?”
I let out a breath and take a step back. Then I look her in the eyes. “It’s your city, Clara. That’s what’s out there.”
“What? How?” She leans in, once again looking past the shutters. “I don’t see anything.”
“That’s because you’re not augmented. You’re not programmed to see what I see. But you’re programmed to do something else though, aren’t ya? Who sent you here?” Then I hold up her hand, the spectra still pinched between her fingertips. “You’re doing this, aren’t you? You’re powering it somehow. How are you doing this?”
Clara shakes her head at me, denying it as she renews her attempts to wriggle out of my grip on her hand. “I’m not, I swear!”
“It’s not her.”
I turn, and Clara gets loose, dropping the spectra into my hand so the hologram disappears, and with it goes the veil and the overlay and the waterfall of data.
Anneeta, who I had forgotten about, steps into the room still looking very much like an unreal little girl.
“What?” I ask her.
“It’s not her. Not all of it, at least. It’s me, Tyse. I’m the one powering this.”
The silence is thick after Anneeta says these words. Mostly because Clara and I are both very confused, though for different reasons. I take another deep breath, trying to slow my heart rate, and then point to the chair. “Sit.” I’m looking at Clara. She doesn’t even object, just does as she’s told, perching on the edge of the cushion in an upright position. Though I think if she wasn’t so confused and had her wits about her, she would definitely object to my commanding tone.
Then I turn to Anneeta and point at the bed. “Close the door and you sit too.”
Anneeta sighs, but doesn’t resist. She closes the door, then walks over to the bed and sits down, looking up at me with those big, brown eyes of hers.
I pace the room, still trying to even out the rhythm of my booming heart, and then, after a couple seconds of this, I stop between the bed and the chair, looking back at them.
Clara has no clue, so I direct my first question to Anneeta. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. I can’t help it if the spark lives inside me and comes out whenever it wants.”
“Spark did this?” I pan a hand to the room, which is now empty of all evidence of what just happened, of course. Because I am holding the spectra and for whatever reason, I can’t power it up the way Clara did. “How, Anneeta? How did spark play the hologram on my fuckin’ Sweep discharge spectra when Clara touched it?”
“Well…” Anneeta does a little shrug here. “She’s…” Her eyes roll up, like she’s thinking. “It says she’s a conductor. But I don’t know what that means.”
“Who says that!” This comes out way too loud and both girls jump.