Strikeforce (20 page)

37

Cassius forced himself to his feet and stared at his hands, breathing heavy. He pushed the Ridium away from his head, though it didn't retreat easily. He didn't want his face covered with it. He needed to see clearly, without its influence.

He turned to Madame and Eva. They had already stepped down from the porch and stood before him, guns at their sides.

“That was intense, Cassius,” Madame said, spinning to take in the sight of the bodies strewn around them.

His hands fell to his thighs. “I didn't do it. The suit took control. For a few seconds there … it was guiding my moves.”

A gust of wind sent a rustle through the dark, dead brush around them. Eva raised her gun, but there was nothing to shoot. “Long enough to save us,” she said. “There are worse ways this night could end.”

Madame moved closer, though Cassius could tell that she still felt uneasy around the Ridium. “You were talking with them, before they attacked. I didn't catch a word of it. It wasn't English, Cassius.”

“The words were from Haven.” He paused. “But I could understand them. The Ridium translated.” He kept his eyes on the darkness, never too sure when they could be snuck up on again. “It's like what I saw in the memory from the senso-cube. The Authority's going to flood the country with Ridium … snuff everyone out in one move. It's going to happen soon.”

Eva clutched tighter to her gun. “Can we stop it?”

“Not unless we kill every Shifter on the planet,” he replied. “But it's not realistic. They're surrounding us, stationing themselves in every corner of the country. It would take a miracle to get to them all in time.” He looked down. “Even with this … this suit, I'm not enough.”

“But you know you can kill them,” Madame said. “The way it used your power. The fire, combined with the Shifting … you're stronger than they are.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But that wasn't me. That came from somewhere else.”

“Not from what I was seeing,” she countered.

“I don't even know if I can do it again,” he continued. “And even if I can, I'm only one person. One against hundreds. Maybe thousands.”

“So we need a way of reaching them,” Eva said.

“First we have to locate them.”

Madame grabbed his shoulder. “Ridium attracts Ridium. I heard you say that once.”

“That's how they found us here,” he responded. “That's how Matigo's Herald first came to Earth in the red Pearl.”

She nodded. “If they can do it, so can you. You can trace them, if you focus.”

“Hasn't happened yet,” he said. “It's not like … I mean, this stuff is unpredictable. Sometimes I feel like I can control it, and other times it feels like it's controlling me. I didn't even know I was a Shifter until a few hours ago. These guys have years of practice.”

Madame smiled. “That's never stopped you in the past.”

He considered it. Back at the Lodge, he'd been known for his fearlessness. Even as a young child in training exercises, he'd take on Pearlhounds twice his age without a thought. But that was a different time and certainly a different place. There may have been stakes back then, but they were controlled. They were totally different.

Eva lowered her gun to her side, finally relaxing a bit. “Just look at that … that
vehicle
you created. You got us across the Fringes in record time just by conjuring up some Ridium. And back when you were submerged in the stuff. You
flew
. You disappeared into the sky. That's even crazier than the stuff I've seen Jesse do.”

He reached up and cradled his head in his hands. “It's all a blur. It was like instinct, at first. When I think about it—”

“Well, it's not as if we can
help
you control it.” Madame crossed her arms.

“I just—”

A loud reverberation in his head interrupted him. It came on suddenly, so strong that he was forced to his knees. The sound echoed through his eardrums, pounding away at his brain to the point that he could hardly see straight. Madame and Eva moved down to comfort him, but he couldn't hear anything they were saying.

Without warning, the Ridium slipped over his head again, muffling the sounds from inside his ears. His eyes shut.

The blur of an image filled his consciousness. There were shadows, one much larger than the other. Then, an explosion—
an activation of some great force. He heard a voice calling his name, though it was much too muddled and quiet to identify. What he felt for sure was an overwhelming sense of dread, a feeling that something terrible had just been unleashed on the world—worse than anything they'd faced so far. And if he didn't do something about it soon, every
thing would be over.

A second flash gave him a location.

Off the west coast. Somewhere in the sky.

The Ridium ripped from his head, taking the blaring sound with it. He stood, so quickly that he was nearly knocked over again.

Madame stared at him, eyes wide. “What is it?”

“Something bad,” he replied. “We need to be there.”

“Where?”

He ignored her. It was the instinct thing again, taking over. He held out an arm and allowed the Ridium to drip into the ground beneath him. In seconds, it had flowed into a solid disc, encompassing all three of them. Eva and Madame looked at him nervously, wiggling their feet so as not to get stuck in the goop.

He watched as the edges of the disc rose into the air, forming walls around them.

Eva spun, laying a hand on the growing black wall curving over her head. “Cassius. I don't like this!”

“It's okay,” he said. “Think of it as a shuttle.”

She placed her second hand on the closing wall. “A shuttle with no windows. How are we supposed to breathe?”

“It'll be fast,” he whispered, watching as the last of the Ridium filled in overhead, trapping them inside a perfect sphere, like a smaller version of the vessel Theo had conjured weeks before. It closed without him even thinking about it, encasing them in an unbreakable prison.

“Cassius!” Madame bumped into his chest as the space grew tighter. All light extinguished, creating a vortex of pure blackness. It was worse than closing your eyes. Pure blindness.

He couldn't establish any sense of distance or perspective, which made it impossible to tell when the sphere began to rocket into the sky.

But it did. They shot as a cannonball from the Surface, moving as fast as any Pearl. Their feet remained fixed in place. They stood utterly still, even as they were catapulted into what was sure to be certain danger.

38

“Fisher!”

I hear the voices of the Agents, disconnected. I don't know how close they are.

“Are you all right? Where are you?”

Then I hear the screams. They've noticed Matigo.

All I can see are ankles through a break in the rubble strewn on top of me. My own ankle throbs. My left arm's pinned to the ground, along with most of my torso. My legs feel like they've been cut open. For all I know, they could be.

Gunshots. The clank, clank, clank of combat boots on metal. Then the sounds of bodies slammed into walls. The sickening slurp of flesh being sliced open.

My eyes begin to flutter closed. I could go out any moment, but it's not gonna be that easy.

Black coils squiggle through the chunks of wall keeping me prisoner. Then, in a blurred succession, the rubble's lifted from my body, piece by piece. It happens so fast. It's like a tornado working in reverse.

Matigo's face comes into view. He smiles—a sickening grin that lets me know that he's already won. At least he thinks so.

I watch a slab of Ridium form into a razor-sharp scythe over his shoulders, a guillotine ready to slice my head from my body.

The blade drops. I try to pull myself away, but the coils push down on my chest, keeping me in place with the force of a dozen boulders.

A blast comes from somewhere down the hall. Bullets fly overhead, followed by a small missile. It connects with Matigo's torso, breaking his concentration and throwing him onto the ground behind me. It won't be enough to kill him, but it saved my life.

A hand reaches down to grab mine and pull me from the rubble. I struggle to my feet—something's definitely wrong with my left leg—and fall right into an Agent's grip. Without a word, he pushes me down the hall, into the arms of another.

They continue to pass me along, from Agent to Agent, until they've built a wall between Matigo and me. It's not going to do them much good. I remember how powerful Theo had been against Cassius and me, and he was just a small boy. Matigo—powers or no powers—is easily twice my size.

An Agent pushes ahead of me, obscuring my vision of what's happening in the center of the hallway. I feel someone grip my shoulder and turn to see Alkine's face staring at mine.

“Head to a lower level,” he says.

“But—”

“You've taken care of yourself for long enough now,” he continues. “Let someone else fight the fight.”

I want to scream warnings at him, tell him that there's no way a bunch of humans are going to defeat a Shifter like Matigo, but there's not enough time.

A burst of Ridium cascades through the corridor, spearing some Agents, missing others. It flows down the hallway like the arms of an enormous octopus, twisting and looping to find me.

“Duck.” Alkine pulls me to the floor just in time for a second missile to shoot over our heads. I watch it angle up at the ceiling before meeting the ground several meters away.

An intense explosion rattles the corridor, blowing loose rubble from the ceiling. Everyone's knocked backward by the force. Fire precautions trigger, blanketing the hallway in flame retardant foam up to our waists. We're fighting in a tight, deadly bubble bath.

“Go!” Alkine shouts, but he's too late.

A grotesque hand of Ridium comes at him from out of nowhere, grabbing him by the head and tossing him in the air. He follows the path of the missile until he lands somewhere in the foam. I've got no protection.

There's nothing to do but run. Nowhere to go but the sky around us.

I turn and book it down the corridor, out of the fray. Matigo hasn't seen me yet, but he's too fast. I could sprint like this and still be eclipsed by him in a second. Just like in countless training programs onboard the Academy, hiding is my greatest asset.

Matigo doesn't know the layout of the ship beyond what I've already shown him. That won't stop him from crashing through every wall and ceiling he has to, but I have so few advantages against him. I have to take anything I can get.

I find the nearest stairwell and tumble down, holding onto the railing to keep myself from tripping. I need Pearls. They're the only thing that's been any good against him. But I know the Academy has few onboard—partly because the ship's been on the run for months, partly because I made such a stink about collecting them for energy in the first place.

Anything we do will have to be far away. Storage is on the ship's lower levels. I hadn't sensed any extra energy back in the classroom, but Matigo had me pinned. In my panic, I might have missed something.

I round another staircase. The ship seems empty. Barren, almost. This time of night, most people would be in their rooms, though they've no doubt heard the explosions from the missiles upstairs. I want to tell everyone on board to get on a shuttle and get the hell off before Matigo finds them. It's me he wants, but that doesn't mean that anyone else is safe.

With every step I descend, I feel an increase of Pearl energy. There may be one or two left in storage. I can use them against Matigo, but then what? I have to find a way to either destroy him or get him off the ship.

Docking bays. They're the only part of the Academy exposed to the sky. If I can lure Matigo down there and hit him with a double attack of Pearl blasts, maybe it will be enough to knock him off the ship. He said his power to fly had faded. Of course, that could have been another lie.

My father. He was pretending to be my father.

I knock the thought out of my head. I'll have plenty of time for emotion when this is over. At this point, it's a luxury I can't touch.

Two more flights of stairs and I'm at docking bay level. Everything's silent. No blasts or explosions. It's unsettling. I may have put some distance between myself and the fight, but all that really means is that I'm in the dark again. The Agents might have lost and I wouldn't even know it.

Then, the blast I've been waiting for. It comes from above me. Right above me.

I crane my neck and stare at the ceiling, terrified that it'll all come down in pieces large enough to bury me once again.

A voice from the far end of the corridor pulls me out from that terror.

“Jesse!”

I recognize it immediately, though my mind can't process that it could be true. Until I spin around and see her, I'm convinced that I'd imagined it.

Eva stands at the entrance to the docking bay, weapon at her side.

To the right of her is Madame, but she's not the one I stare at.

Between them, encased in a black suit of Ridium, is Cassius.

39

Cassius had never seen his brother so panicked before. The look in Fisher's eyes was one of hope lost. Impending doom, and then some.

Fisher ran at them full speed. There wasn't time for reunions or small talk. When he spoke, it was more like the words had been put in his mouth, like he was channeling some ancient warning. Too much information to get out in one sitting.

“Matigo!” he started. This was the word that caught Cassius immediately, and made it difficult to listen to anything else. “The ship … ” Fisher continued. “He's on his way down … Ridium!”

It wasn't much of a sentence, but Cassius understood the meaning of it plainly. It matched the overwhelming intensity he'd felt just minutes earlier, when the Ridium had taken control back on the Surface. It was the same muddled message that had forced him up to Skyship Academy. He hadn't known the ship was back in American territory. But like a compass, something onboard drew him in. His spherical Ridium transport had landed in the ship's docking bay only moments ago. Finding Fisher so quickly had to mean they were in the right place.

Eva stepped up to grab Fisher's arm and give him a gentle hug. “Slow down, Jesse. I can't understand what you're saying.”

Fisher pushed away from her, nervously pacing—his entire body amped up. “Matigo,” he said in a panicked whisper. “He's onboard the ship. I thought … He's trying to kill me. He'll be here any second.”

Cassius nodded. The Ridium quivered against his skin, eager to Shift into something more useful to him. Fisher seemed to not notice it, too consumed with what had happened before.

Fisher pushed past them, motioning wildly toward the bay. “I have an idea,” he said. “There are Pearls down here. Pearls seem to hurt him. I figure if I can knock him off—”

An explosion rattled the ceiling. Cassius turned to watch a trunk of Ridium slice through metal on the far side of the hallway, feet from where Fisher had been standing seconds ago. The thick band of black widened to pull open a massive hole in the ceiling. Screeching metal echoed through the ship as the Ridium parted, revealing a bulky figure standing before them.

Cassius felt his own suit slide up over his head, leaving a hole for his face. He couldn't help but gasp when he laid eyes on Matigo.

His father. Matigo looked just like his father. The same man he'd watched melt in that dark room on Haven stood before him now, eyes shining red with rage. Somehow, Matigo had killed Savon and taken his place. Just as that female Authority soldier had stolen the voice of the Resistance fighter in the forest, Matigo had stolen a body. He'd transformed himself to look like Savon, down to every last detail. And from the look in Fisher's eyes, he'd done enough to fool everyone.

But Cassius could see it clearly. There was a fury inside of him. It spilled from his features, uncontained. This man was nothing like his father. This wasn't even a man. This was a presence—something more deadly and unforgivable than anything he had ever seen.

In that moment, Cassius couldn't conjure anything but rage. His battle training left him, replaced with a hatred beyond bridling.

“You killed him!” His voice echoed along the hallway.

Matigo stood still for a moment, allowing the Ridium to coil around him. Then he started to laugh. His smile spread until it became distorted, like that of a snake or crocodile. Cassius recognized the laugh from other memories—so strong that it nearly shook the ship.

“I have both of you,” Matigo said after composing himself. “In one place. Right on time.”

Fisher stepped back until he bumped into Cassius's shoulder. “He's gonna kill—”

“Shh.”

“It's true.” Matigo approached, shoulders up. Confident. “I killed your parents, though it took lo
nger than I'd hoped to find them. They were a tricky pair, evasive and foreseeing. Luckily, it seems as though these particular traits didn't trickle down to their offspring.” His smile widened again.

Cassius's suit sprang into action, ballooning around him to reveal dozens of jagged arms. Some were daggerlike, flat and sharp. Others narrowed into a point like an ice-pick. Many were simply hoses—channels for fire waiting to strike.

Matigo's smile weakened. “It's not possible. A Shifter?”

Cassius took a step forward. “That's right.”

“I take it back, then.” Matigo chuckled to himself. “It seems as if your parents had one more trick left in their arsenal. I've aligned myself with the wrong son.”

“Yeah?” Cassius took another step. “Well, we killed
yours
.”

Matigo laughed. “Theo? Theo was waste. A part of my plans, yes, but I was never close to him. He was always destined to die. Just like yourselves.” The Ridium at his sides crawled up his legs, forming a layer over his body. “This is cute. Your boasts are appreciated, but at the end of it, you're only a boy. I've been Shifting Ridium for decades now—longer than you've been alive. You're not even close to my equal.”

The last of the Ridium covered Cassius's face. “Tell that to the battalion of your soldiers down in the Fringes.”

“Enough.”

A thick blast of Ridium came from Matigo's chest. It blasted down the hallway, too fast and thick to deflect.

“Duck!” Cassius shouted to the others, though he didn't have time to heed his own warning. The Ridium smashed into him full force, driving him down the hallway. If it hadn't been for the shielding from his suit, the blow would have killed him instantly. As it was, he had to use every ounce of strength to break free from it. Unconsciousness threatened to take over, but he set his brain to pull out fire—allowed the hoses to channel heat.

He succeeded in creating small fissures in Matigo's surge of Ridium, enough that he could drop under the full blast and hit the ground, heaving on his back.

The Ridium continued to flow overhead, a sideways twister.

Then, all at once, it froze. For a split second, it was statuesque in its stillness. But it didn't last.

The Ridium began to drip, a trickle at first before multiplying into a waterfall. It sloshed against the ground, a tidal wave ready to swallow him up. Cassius couldn't move.