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)
The ghosts in the compartment with us are sprawled out on the benches and on the floor. Tongues rolling out, faces red with fever. So much sweat dripping off their bodies, their clothes are soaked. They’re not dead yet, but they will be soon.
And I feel terrible about it, I do.
But it’s us or them. And they are no one to me.
So I just close my eyes, and pretend they aren’t there, and allow my heart to sync with Clara’s as we pull into the station.
We’re barely stopped for a minute before the Delta City Patrol comes rushing in, pounding on our compartment door. They don’t wait for me to get up and open it. I couldn’t even if I wanted to because the ghosts are dead, the overlay is gone, the food is gone, and Clara is practically clawing at me for more in her delusional state of spark deprivation.
The patrol breaks down the door, comes in yelling all kinds of official things, and starts separating us. Pulling Clara off of me and picking up Anneeta.
I don’t bother fighting. It’s not even them doin’ it.
It’s the god called Delta.
Of course he knew we were coming.
Of course he knew we had a god with us.
And anyway, it’s a relief.
Because I’m so exhausted, I doubt I could even draw my weapon.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
There’s no way to count days in the tunnels. It’s just one long underground hole with barely enough light to see by. But we walk for a long time. I do carry Jasina some of the way. But when she gets too tired, or her feet get too sore—that one slipper of hers was more of a detriment than it was worth—we just stop and sleep. We’re probably dying of thirst at this point, but after all we’ve been through, neither of us is willing to give up now.
So we walk. Stumbling, most of the time. Until finally, there is a bright light up ahead.
“Oh, my god!” Jasina turns to me, grabbing my shoulders, shaking me. “Is that—” She starts laughing and it’s a mixture of relief, and hysterics, and disbelief that she suddenly can’t control.
It is what we’ve been looking for. It’s a station. It’s a city. My father was right. There are more places in the world than Tau City and this quest we’re on, it’s real.
We’ve been in a pretty dark place for a lot of hours now and both of us were starting to think the whole thing was bullshit.
But it’s not.
“Holy shit!” Jasina stops dead in her tracks, her feet bloody because she’s been walking barefoot most of our journey. We tried tearing up pieces of her dress and wrapping her feet. When that disintegrated, we used my suit coat. Then my sleeves. I gave her my boots, but they were too big and her feet were already too torn up, so the pain wasn’t worth it and she just went barefoot. She looks at me, smiling. “We made it. And look! They’re just how your father described them.”
Honestly, if she wasn’t with me, and she didn’t take those notes, I’d be freaking the fuck out right now. Because I have zero memory of my father describing the things we’re looking at as we walk towards the bright light of the train station.
They are… machines. But they look like men. If men had white, gleaming bodies and no faces. They are Workers.
Do not bother with them. They are Workers. That’s what Jasina wrote in the notebook. They will not bother you. They cannot even see you. Just walk past them, follow the tunnel—you’ll recognize it because you traveled through one just like it when you left Tau City—find the stairs that lead up to the Extraction Tower, enter the top floor of the Extraction Master’s quarters, and, using your Extraction Master credentials, activate the self-destruct for the Looking Glass. Then leave the way you came, get on the next train, and go to the next city down the line.
We start this process, walking right past the oblivious Workers.
But Jasina pauses just outside the door that leads to the tunnel beneath the Tower District so she can read a sign. “Sigma Factory—Dimension 702.” She looks at me, frowning. “What’s that mean?”
It’s pretty obvious what that means. But it’s really hard to say it out loud. Still, it needs to be said. “It’s… not a city. It’s a… well, factory really is the only word that properly describes where we come from. They make you, Jasina. They make Spark Maidens. They produce you. You’re a… a product. And I’m nothing but a Worker. Some other kind of Worker than these machine men that can’t see us. It was fake, you see? A lie. Tau City was nothing but a lie. And so is this one.” I look at the sign and read it. “Sigma City is just another Tau City. A factory that belongs to someone else. You, and all the girls with spark inside them, are something to be sold. That’s why the bells ring. That’s why the doors open. Someone bought you. And when you walk through the doors you leave this world and go to another one.”