Resonance 4th Edits - Bleeding Worlds Bk 3 (17 page)

“Make for the garbage truck. We need to check if anyone is still alive.”

She took one last, brief, look at Tamara’s body.

I’m sorry. I can’t even take you with us to see you get a proper burial.

Fuyuko put Toms’ left arm around her shoulder and put her own around his waist. She half dragged, half carried, him toward the garbage truck.

The sound of the choppers was getting closer. They weren’t stealth enabled—a bad sign. If they didn’t care about stealth, it meant they had enough armor and weapons to protect themselves.

“Come on, Toms,” she said. “Hurry up and pull yourself together. I can’t be dragging you around all day.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” His breath came in short pants. “Just give me another two minutes.”

“You have one…if we’re lucky.”

She propped him against the wall near the lead SUV and approached the driver’s cab of the garbage truck.

The driver had been in such a rush to disable the vehicle, he hadn’t buckled his seat belt and now hung half out the shattered windshield.

He was obviously dead, but Fuyuko put a round in his head just to be sure.

I could try the ignition, but I’m pretty sure the engine is shot. No sense wasting time on it.

She tore the door off its hinges and reached the gear shift, sliding it into neutral.

“Help me push it back,” she said to the others.

They tore into the Veil and gave the truck a shove, pushing it back ten feet from the crushed SUV.

“Everything’s crushed too tight,” Jason said from within. “You’re going to have to cut us out.”

If they were crushed that tight, she’d never be able to cut through any part of the car without endangering the people inside.

“Stay as far away from the roof as you can,” she said.

Fuyuko pressed her right hand against the roof of the car and focused as much energy from the Veil as she dared. After a minute, she stepped back and slammed her fist into the now frozen roof—it shattered like glass.

Bodies tumbled out. Some moaning as their wounds were too serious to have healed yet—Marks was beyond any hope, his head opened, spilling its contents.

When Fuyuko had been dispatched to Egypt, she had three platoons of twelve members each. Her original thirty-six now numbered nine—and that included the addition of Jason.

Helicopter blades chopped the air just above their heads, going past them and then turning to bring their forward guns around.

Jason dashed past her, static visibly arcing on his skin as he violently tore into the Veil. He leaped into the air, landing on a ledge three storeys above and then pushed himself further. His whip snapped forward, rigid like a lance, piercing the window of the first chopper, impaling the pilot within. The whip went slack, momentum swinging him below the spinning blades toward the second helicopter.

They were so close, Fuyuko could hear the
whir
as the forward gun spat a hail of bullets at Jason. He twisted in the air, his whip a blur of motion, batting aside bullets and propelling him further toward the helicopter.

The first copter, it’s pilot dead and slumped against the stick, careened to the right and slammed into a high-rise. Glass and chunks of concrete rained down on the street below, sending Fuyuko and her troops dashing for cover.

Jason straightened his body and dove through the front window of the helicopter. It swayed side to side, a series of small
pops
and flashes of light visible. Two minutes passed before the chopper lowered at a controlled rate to the street. The side door opened. Jason threw a few bodies out and motioned to Fuyuko and the others to get aboard.

“Can we trust him?” Toms asked.

“Seeing as he could’ve mowed us down with that thing’s guns instead of picking us up—yeah, I’d say we’re ok for now.”

Some limped, others leaned on their teammates and made their way to the waiting chopper.

Jason helped them up. When the last person was aboard, he closed the door and hopped into the pilot seat. The helicopter swayed as it lifted upward.

Fuyuko sat in the seat next to Jason.

“That was pretty impressive,” she said.

“It’ll only be impressive if we get out of here alive. Which way should I go?”

She pulled the phone from her pocket and tried the extraction team one more time. Again, it rang numerous times without an answer. Did they risk going to the airport? She’d already lost twenty-six people. She looked to the remnants of her team, all focused on drawing slow amounts of power from the Veil to heal different numbers of injuries.

“Head north-east,” she said. “Cypress’ historical roots with Greece put them under Zeus’ influence. If we get to Cypress, he’ll get us the rest of the way home.”

“Zeus?” Jason’s mouth scrunched in a frown. “He never struck me as the helpful type—unless it benefitted him in some way.”

“He’s not—helpful, that is. But he owes me a favor, so it should be fine.”

Jason pulled the helicopter up above the roof line and eased the stick forward.
 

Once they’d cleared the city and were over the waters of the Mediterranean, Jason brought the chopper low, hoping to keep off radar.

“I hope we have enough fuel for this,” he said.

“Really?” Gwynn asked. “Die? Is that all?” He looked to Adrastia. “What are you playing at? Are you trying to give me the power to defeat Cain, or make me some kind of sacrifice?”

“Anything worth doing comes with risk,” Marduk said. “Especially when it involves power. Kingu, who you call Cain, has achieved a level which cannot be given—it must be earned.”

“What about you?” Gwynn asked Adrastia. “Are you staying for this?”

“I can’t come with you, that’s the whole point of asking Marduk. But I will wait here in the shop.”

“You’re sure about this?” Gwynn asked.

“I wouldn’t have brought you if I wasn’t. Too many variables have changed, and I won’t take any unnecessary risks with you. I can’t afford to take anything for granted—the world I knew will never exist again.”

Adrastia turned her attention to Marduk.

“I give you my most precious friend—don’t make me regret it. In the meantime, I’ll get some food and tea.” She shot a glance at Marduk. “You never had the best of tastes.”

She turned and walked out of the shop without glancing once more at Gwynn.

Almost a full minute passed after the door slammed when Marduk let out a huge sigh.

He shook his head but wore a smile.

“She can be terribly frightening when she wants to be,” he said. “I’m sorry if my bluntness frightened you. But you must know the Veil is a treacherous place and needs to be treated with great care.”

“I’ll do my best to trust you. But I sort of have issues after dealing with my grandfather,”

“Yes, I suppose you are justified feeling that way. But then, if you know anything about mythology, you should know most Ageless Ones have issues with family.”

“You?” Gwynn asked.

Marduk laughed.

“Well, I suppose you could say that. My story tells of my going to war against the primordial mother of the gods, Tiamat—”

“But that’s what you called Adrastia. Does that mean she’s…”

“My mother or grandmother?” Marduk said. “No, not in any genetic sense. Myths were born based on observations. Tiamat certainly seemed to be the oldest and most powerful of the gods. She held a mother-like sway over the true progenitor of our kind.”

“Mother-like sway…?” Gwynn’s eyes widened. “Cain? Or…Kingu, you called him? He’s your father?”

“Great-grandfather, actually. He sired Zeus when he went by the name Kronos. Even Woten could find your Cain in his bloodline if he bothered to look. Woten thought Anunnaki began due to the Veil suffering damage from the ones he called “The Catalysts.” You and Cain, apparently. But he was wrong. Anunnaki exist because of a bloodline that predates recorded history. The closer each bloodline was to the source, the more likely they were a Script or an Ageless One, or both. The ability thins over generations.”

“But then there should be thousands, maybe even millions, of people with our abilities.”

“Many have the latent gene. Mister Takeda discovered this in his experiments. His formula forces the gene into remission. And the antidote awakens it, even in people who otherwise would never become Anunnaki. Truthfully, there
were
more of us through the years. Wars claimed some, treachery others, and not a small number chose to end their lives. Sometimes, eternity can prove to be too long.”

Gwynn traced a line along the counter’s dusty surface—imagining millions of dots connected to it, branching away from it, but all eventually returning to one source.

“So in a way, that would mean every Anunnaki is related to me, wouldn’t it?” he asked.

Marduk’s eyebrow raised.

“What should really confuse you is it means you are your own great-great-grandfather—give or take a couple of greats.”

“I feel sick.”

Marduk patted Gwynn’s back.

“That’s fine, but please find an appropriate place. Many of these books are irreplaceable.”

He moved behind the counter and lifted the watering can, resuming watering the plants where he’d left off.

Gwynn’s hand began to ached where he gripped the counter—as if it was the only solid object left in the world preventing him from falling into oblivion. He forced himself to breathe in a normal rhythm and slowly lifted his fingers from the surface. He didn’t pull his hand away at first, just left it hovering above the counter in case he needed its solidity once more.

When he’d finally risked putting his arm at his side, Marduk lowered his watering can.

“So, are we ready to begin?” Marduk asked.

“I’m just…still processing it. Woten was
so
sure. He told Sophia and I the story of how me awakening here, and Cain fully awakening as he crashed through time within the Veil, caused everything. I mean, it injured the Veil in such a way it birthed Anunnaki to heal it and maintain balance. It led to the Tears that allowed monsters into the world. Every dark thing was our fault. Even the worlds dividing, people being made…incomplete…was
our
fault. That’s why he used me to try and undo it all—to unite the worlds into a single whole. He’s supposed to be so wise, how could he get it so wrong?”

“He did not get it
entirely
wrong,” Marduk said. “The Veil is the center of everything—all the worlds, even time. The conversation Adrastia and I just had in the Veil, it now lives there forever. If someone knew where to find it, they could watch that conversation a thousand years ago or a thousand years from now. If any person were able to investigate the entirety of the Veil, they could observe the comings and goings of Anunnaki over millennia. But it’s too big a place. So Woten saw
some
things, observed further, investigated more, and then put together a hypothesis to explain what he had discovered. The problem is, he based it on the smallest fraction of possible information and then added a healthy dose of personal bias. We, the Anunnaki, are the chosen ones. We are not the result of lineage, we are granted a destiny by the power of the true God. If you start with that as your one unshakeable truth, it is not difficult to reach the same conclusions Woten did.”

“But you were there,” Gwynn said. “You were close enough to Cain to know it was his bloodline that gave you powers.”

“Yes, which is why it is
my
truth. My statement that all Anunnaki come from Cain is based on my own personal bias. Because of my experience and observations, I created my own hypothesis. But I have never investigated the family tree of
every
Anunnaki. I could be wrong as well. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle.”

“Then why tell me at all?”

Marduk snapped his fingers and pointed his index finger at Gwynn’s chest.

“Why indeed?” He wagged his index finger at Gwynn for emphasis. “So you understand the truth is rarely as clear as we believe. Truth can be very personal. What I think is true may conflict with your truth. If you refuse to believe my truth, it can never be yours.”

“Truth can’t be flexible,” Gwynn said. “I mean, if a man commits a crime, that is the truth, regardless of what he says.”

“A good analogy. So let us say the authorities accuse a man of murder. For argument sake, we will say he did, in fact, commit the crime. But during his trial, the prosecution is incapable of proving he committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The victim’s wife believes in her heart the accused is innocent. She knows others who gained more from her husband’s murder than the accused. And so, when the prosecution fails to prove his guilt, she feels vindicated in her belief he is innocent.”

“But the truth is he did the crime.”

“That is his truth, and perhaps we could say that is the truth the Veil knows. But for her, in her life, she lives with a different truth. Once the accused is found not guilty, she launches a vendetta against the ones she truly feels are guilty. In her pursuit, she ruins their lives, forcing them to commit suicide. She feels vindicated having delivered justice. She dies never knowing anything different. Regardless of one version of the truth, she knows only her own.”

“So there can be truth, but it doesn’t matter what it is if we live in ignorance of it?” Gwynn asked.

Marduk’s mouth broadened into a smile.

“Yes, precisely. I tell you this because what I am about to show you, and the challenges ahead—you will only succeed if you choose your truth. In the Veil, someone else’s truth is meaningless. To survive, and to seize your power, you must have the courage to forge your path and ignore the temptation to wander paths made by others. You will face your soul. But it is not your soul alone—it has been shaped by Cain’s actions as well. But it still belongs to you—find your own truth and meaning or you will never be able to harness its true potential.”

“My own truth…”

Even if truths were as malleable as Marduk suggested, wouldn’t it mean you had to know your truth in advance.

What is my own truth?
Will I even know it?