Kartega

“Where did she go?” Sid asked, adrenaline still pumping through her.

“The Magistras are gone too,” Ashlan said. “They must have carried her off.”

Sid fought her initial instinct to chase after the queen as she looked around the room and counted off the people left standing. Eight warriors, seventeen guards and twenty Freedom Runners. Ninety eyes and they all watched her every move.

Saliva gathered under her tongue and her teeth felt hairy and thick. She looked to Tazmin for help but the priestess only flipped the palm of her hand and nudged her forward. Whatever she had to say to these people, she was on her own figuring it out. Great!

Sid cleared her throat which did nothing for her dry throat. If anything, it only made her feel even more nauseous.

“Uhm, hello,” She said and reached for the back of her neck, dropping her hand when she touched the rough fabric of Tann’s tunic belt still tied there. “Right. Hi, I’m Sid.”

“We know that,” Ashlan whispered under his breath and she shot him a side glance that seemed to seemed to silence him.

“I’m sure you all have some questions so instead of doing some big speech about why you shouldn’t kill me right now, how about I let you ask them?”

“Maybe don’t encourage them to kill you?” Ashlan whispered again.

“Shut,” she hissed, “up.”

“So you’re turning the ring off?” One of the guards yelled front the back of the group.

“That’s the plan, yes,” She said.

“Won’t that break the star or something?” The same guard, louder this time.

“The star was never broken in the first place. The ring was built to syphon power. To run machinery and build the city. It came at the expense of all of these people,” she pointed to the Freedom Runners, “that’s not a star I want to live on and neither should you. It’s wrong.”

“Sol tukti berros Kartega?” One of the warriors yelled out.

“How will I feed Kartega?” She repeated for everyone in the room that couldn’t understand. “I won’t. I have no intention on growing my magic. I just want everyone to be able to live however they choose. You can choose what you do and you can do it on your own terms without someone telling you otherwise. That sound good?”

He nodded and exchanged looks with Tazmin who seemed satisfied as well, a fact that hasn’t yet stopped surprising Sid.

“What’s Kartega?” Someone yelled out.

“It’s the name your grandparents and their parents and everyone before them had for Neostar. Before the humans came.”

“Are you extra strong now?” A girl asked, one of the younger Freedom Runners in the group.

Sid thought about her question, not sure how to answer. “You mean because of the chips?” She tapped the back of her neck and cringed a little from the shock the devices gave off. “It’s odd. I don’t feel stronger, just different. Like my magic has an extra kick and a few more volts. Does that make sense?”

“Well, yes!” Serryl chuckled, “You’ve gotten some serious juice from the ring, I’m sure!”

“I guess. I didn’t think of it that way,” she nodded.

“Did it hurt?” The same girl asked with some worry.

“Like dropping half a motor on your toes!” She chuckled. The girl seemed to be confused. “Yes, it hurt.” She corrected and rolled her eyes, though without visible pupils and her goggles on, her agitation was lost on the girl. Kids these days!

People seemed to grow less restless, most of them stopped fidgeting and a few even dropped their weapons. Even some of the warriors relaxed, their shoulders no longer grazing their earlobes. She looked at them. Not to see their expressions but to really look at them. To memorize each person that had filled the room on this very important night, the night the domes would become free. In her mind, she saw Colton smiling. Remembered his face when she said something particularly clever or funny. She thought of the way his nose scrunched when he grinned at her from the screen, telling her she’d done well. She hoped that wherever he was now, his nose was scrunched so tightly it hurt.

Sid thought of her parents too. Trying to picture them standing by her and squeezing a hand each, telling her it would all be alright. She still had no inclination of what they looked like and her first line of business after she shut the ring down would be to get someone to draw her a picture of the people that gave her life. She needed something to remember them by that wasn’t the clouded shapes of people she now held close to her heart.

A loud cough jarred her attention back to the group and she looked up to see a guard standing up and pointing. His finger trailed straight to the horizon where a dim light was starting to shine through the darkness.

“If you’re going to shut the mucking thing off, this might be a good time,” he said. “Or your chipped friends here get zapped for missing check in.”

Sid’s orbit of dreams shattered into pieces. She had mere moments to shut the ring down or risk losing every single Freedom Runner not in their domes at Starise.

“What do I do? What do I do?” She yelled, hoping someone could guide her. “I don’t know how this thing even works!”

Worried chatter spread over the crowd of people, all of them rising in panic. Some questioned staying and debated making a run back for the domes, others just negated everything that was said and told them to give up. The voices overlapped until she couldn’t make out any words at all, until her brain was swimming in her skull and she had nothing but the low hum of magic rocking at the back of her neck.

A hand gripped her and she turned to see a pale Dalrak holding onto to her. His energy had drained so much she could barely feel him near her.

“Dee! What are you doing?” She screeched, “You should be resting!”

“Think it through,” he said.

She sunk to her knees, pulling him down with her until they crouched on the floor, their foreheads pressed tightly together. “I don’t know, Dee. I don’t know how this works. I’m not a scientist,” she wailed.

“You’re a mechanic. A stubborn mechanic.”

“I’m going to let that last one go for now,” she noted. “What are you getting at?”

“Think like a ship, Sid.” He said.

“Like a ship? Dee, what in the stardamned-” she stopped. “Oh! Like a ship!”

She clapped her hands cheerfully and the quick movement made the warrior lose his balance and almost topple her to the floor. “Sorry! But yes! That’s brilliant! It’s all in the threes!”

“There she goes with the threes again,” Ashlan joked and she swore she heard his eyes roll.

“It is the threes! Always the threes!” She yelled defensively, sticking her tongue out at him. “There are three keys? Why?”

Ashlan shrugged his shoulders.

“Exactly! You have no idea! But you know who would know?” She asked. “Someone who spent her whole life fixing a ship!”

“And?”

“And ships need energy! And in order to have energy, they need three things. A harvester, a place to store it and a processing unit to redistribute it. Three things, three keys!” She yelped in excitement. “Each one of the chips controls a piece but it’s the three that make the ring keep going. You shut down one and it’s system failure!”

“I’m not a mechanic,” Ashlan said, “but that sounds like a bad thing.”

“It is,” she said, thinking for a moment before tapping a fingertip to her neck. “That’s why I have to shut down all three.”

She had a feeling Ashlan was going to fight her on this but she couldn’t doubt herself now. There wasn’t much time left, the ring had already passed twenty of the furthest situated domes. It wasn’t long before it reached the resident domes of everyone in the room. Their death would be on her shoulders for the rest of her life. She couldn’t let anyone else die for her actions. Sid knew the risks, went into this knowing them. She knew that she might have to die to save them all and this was her chance to prove it.

She ripped off her goggles, her white eyes reflected the yellow glow of the rising ring, and reached for the electrical hum of the Circulum System. Homing in on the flow of energy circling through it. As soon as she grasped it, her entire body ached. There was a small pinch on her neck and her magic rushed to the spot, magnetized by its pull.

“I’ve got the first one!” She yelled and kept reaching.

Each blood cell in her veins was on fire as she searched for the energy in the other two chips. The second one she needed was the storage system; that had to be the blade charging station. It was the one place that had the highest energy source in all of Tower City. When she could finally feel the power of the chip in her grasp, she tightened her magic around it, sending her power to search for the third. Figuring out the processing unit was easy. All she had to do was imagine the domes as though she was viewing them from her ship’s observation deck. The tubes that fed the domes led back to the city and they all met in one place. Right under the bridge. That had to be the processing center! It would explain why it was so heavily guarded. Clever move, Leona! Guarding the one thing that held all the magic right under everyone’s noses.

Sid’s blood overflowed under her skin and she could see her veins begin to glow in such an intensity of blue that she looked like a piece of a river on a brightly lit day. It didn’t matter, she almost had it!

With a final push, she grabbed hold of the last chip, threw her arms over her head and expelled the energy of all three chips outward.

The burst of light was so acute, it shot up like a tube of lightning, destroying anything still left in its path. It burnt through the air, flew past the dark clouds of the dimly lit night, and burst into the atmosphere. As the last of the energy left her body, the ring’s light went out faster than an engine being turned off. Sid screamed and toppled to the floor, collapsing onto her stomach with her arms stretched to either side.

Murmurs swept over everyone who watched in awe as she lay on the floor, barely breathing but mostly alive.

“Sid?” Ashlan dropped to his knees next to her with Tann right behind him. “Sid, are you alright?”

She croaked a mumbled ‘fine’ and raised herself onto her elbows. Her eyes, though curtained in dark circles, were back to their usual self. Just as pale but with feline pupils running down the center; Colton’s favorite.

“I did it?” She asked.

“You did it, kid,” Abbot said. “But you might want to come take a look at this.”

She let Ashlan and Tann help her to her feet, glanced over to Dalrak to make sure he was still conscious, and walked on shaking legs to the general. His back was turned to her and he stood so close to the edge of shattered glass that she feared a slight wind might rip him over the side and toss him off the tower. When she joined his side, she used one of the metal frames to steady herself, ignoring the broken glass that stuck out and tore at her skin. Her eyes looked down as she followed his watchful gaze to the streets of Tower City.

Streets that were littered with angry Domers tearing through it and killing anyone in sight.