The Walls of Jericho

Clarity

I’m embarrassed to admit it takes me almost all day before I realize what Channing did this morning. All of my mortification is because I underestimated him. Put simply, I got cocky. I was too confident in my assumptions.

For five years, I’ve seen Channing as some big, brainless hunk who got lucky and found himself in a gang where big and brainless pays off in spades. Except that he’s not brainless. He’s sharp.

Just like I did, he’s figured out there’s something electric connecting us. Or maybe like I did. I have the sneaking suspicion he figured it out before I did actually. Whatever that connection is, I’m not exactly prepared to deal with it, especially when he ramps it up like he did putting my fingers in his mouth this morning. Or like last night when he planted that kiss on my belly.

So he took advantage of it. He smooth talked me into confusion, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t trick me into A) agreeing to dinner with him, B) allowing him to stay to study again, and C) to doing that studying on my bed. Again.

What I still don’t understand is why.

Answering that question obsesses me the rest of the day at work, and as it nears closing time at the diner, I’ve come up with what I think is a foolproof plan.

As I turn out the lights in the dining room, I call into the kitchen. “G’Night, Esteban.”

He grumbles something mostly unintelligible that includes the word ‘smartass’ as I head for the front door. I stop short, my breath catching in my throat.

Because it’s not enough that Channing is all the best things about a pro-wrestler and a GQ model rolled up into one gorgeous package. As I live and breathe, he’s rolling up out front of the diner on the motorcycle that rewrote the rule book, a brand-spanking-new Ducati. 

The thing is nothing short of a revolutionary machine.

The highly-engineered, state-of-the-art performance motorcycle is dressed to impress with a rocking red and black flame paintjob that’s enough to get my heart revving like its thumping V-twin engine. But it’s what’s inside that really gets me going. Wrapped in that gorgeous bodywork, it’s powered by a full and sophisticated electronics suite that includes ride by wire, electronic engine braking, traction control, racing ABS, and a whole host of a whole lot more that makes it a technological marvel.

It’s also my new best friend.

Inhaling sharply, I hold my breath and let it out slowly, reaching towards the motorcycle with my invisible technopathic antennae. It’s only a second before I’m connected to that humming  Corse-developed Bosch inertial measurement unit and the advanced integrated microprocessor has all kinds of sweet nothings to say. Inside me, my power swirls wildly and with a staticky buzz, the lights for a couple blocks around us flicker noticeably.

I’m all ears, baby, I purr to the motorcycle’s electronics. All ears. As Channing sits up looking towards the diner’s door, I lick my lips with mixed excitement and appreciation.  

He probably just stole it, a cynical corner of my brain offers as warning commentary. I quash its voice of reason immediately. There’s only one place I can ride on that thing with him.

Right on top of all that delicious carbon-fiber wrapped, uber-sexy harnessed power and advanced electronic brains, and that says nothing about being draped around Channing’s gorgeous body.

God, it’s like he knows me. And he’s pulling out all the stops.

The thought comes unbidden and halts me in my tracks.

Mia.

This is the voice of the blonde woman from my dreams, only it’s clear as a bell and part of my waking consciousness. My heart skips a beat that’s added in and a barrage of flashing memories hits me so fast I can’t process them beyond one thing: Channing Stark does know me.  

What’s more, I know him.

Out front, Channing’s removed his helmet. He peers at me through the darkened windows, locking on me unerringly even though I know from outside, the diner’s glass front is like a mirror. His gorgeous blue eyes shimmer and glow reflectively, like an animal caught in bright headlights.

 This comes from Mia. Or from that part of her that lives inside me.

The tapetum lucidum is an iridescent retroreflector behind the retina in the eyes of some animals and insects. The luminous opalescent tissue reflects visible light back through the retina and enables animals to see in weaker light than would otherwise be possible.

In other words, it allows them to see in the dark.

Only humans don’t have them.

Yet Channing’s eyes staring at me through the window do.

More than human.>

Another barrage of images hits me and this time I squeeze my eyes shut against the nauseating blur. Doing so facilitates me catching one picture with stark clarity. It’s the park bench I call Eric that I used to sleep on when I ran away from my foster homes.

I know it intimately. 

The low growling voice of the motorcycle's electronic brain assures me that Channing knows it too.

God, what the hell is happening here?

Outside, Channing flashes me that megawatt grin that makes me melty. He waves a hand impatiently, urging me to come with him.

“Girl like you could do worse.” Esteban’s gruff voice is soft when it comes through the cutout window to the kitchen. “That boy isn’t like the tattooed one. He don’t chase girls. Except you. To him, you’re special, Jericho. Just don’t get mixed up in his business.”

Or don’t let him get mixed up in mine.

I advance towards the diner’s front door. “G’night, Esteban.”

Outside, the cold air sears the inside of my nose before it’s warmed and filters into my lungs. Turning, I lock the door behind me, then step back a couple paces to jump up and pull the security grate down and lock it too.

“What kept you, babydoll?” Channing asks, raking me from head to foot as I pivot to face him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in something besides that ratty red hoodie you like to wear.”

“I didn’t get laundry done last night. Somebody kept me later than I expected,” I pop back.

The truth is when Channing pulled us up on that fire escape and cut his hand, it was the one he wrapped around my middle. He didn’t just bleed into the sleeve of his sweatshirt, he bled into the side of mine. Only because mine’s red, it wasn’t visible until I went to put it on this morning.  Not that he needs to know any of that.

“I plan to keep you later than you expect tonight too.” Channing grins, scooting back along the narrow sculpted seat of the Ducati, his gorgeous tree-trunk thighs braced on either side to hold the motorcycle upright. He pats the space in front of him, the space right over that beautiful red and black beast’s sixteen cylinder engine and all those magnificent electronic brains. “Let’s go for a ride,” he offers in that silky-smooth tenor.

Oh yeah.

“These things are dangerous, you know.”

He moves one muscular arm aside as I draw near and leans back further. This gives me room to slide over the seat in front of him, settling my hips into the bucket provided by the motorbike’s shape and the hard body behind me. The engine’s warm against my front as I rest my hand on top of Channing’s on the handlebar and hunch forward over the aerodynamic body of the motorcycle.

I look down to the side for someplace to put my foot and he scoots his aside, giving me room to brace the balls of my feet beside his on the footpegs. 

“You fit between me and this thing like you were made for it,” he comments and there’s no mistaking the purr of pleasure in his voice.

There’s also no mistaking his body’s interest as he fits himself around me.

He slides his helmet over my head, wiggling my entire torso to make sure it’s on snuggly. “Tighten up the chinstrap.”

“Where’s your helmet?” I demand, fastening the chinstrap as he’s said, then flipping the visor up so I can see.

I have to confess, at this point, I couldn’t care less where Channing’s helmet is. I’m in absolute technological heaven.

His helmet is one of the next-generation Smart helmets and has a built-in heads up display to provide GPS navigation information as you ride. But that’s not all. It’s also got a built-in rearview camera, and combined with its wide-view visor, practically delivers three-hundred-sixty degrees of vision. It’s connected via Bluetooth to a dedicated app on Channing’s phone and allows for sound control to lessen or improve ambient sounds, make phone calls, participate in a group chats or listen to music.

In a matter of seconds, I’m connected to the bike, to the helmet, and through it, to Channing’s phone.

“That thing cost me a small fortune. I only have one, so we’ll just have to be careful and go slow.”

Go slow. I snort my distaste for that thought. Leaning forward, I fit myself against the Ducati’s smooth hide and put my hands on the handlebars.

Behind me, Channing laughs and wraps himself around me. “Ready set, babydoll?”

Every fiber of me is ready. It's been ready for this moment my entire life. Through the helmet’s open visor, the world around me shimmers. As he revs the engine, the rpms of my power spike and the streetlamps flicker, almost guttering out like candles in a strong wind. The world wavers, swimming strangely, and the fine hairs all over my body stand up in excitement.

Then we’re hurtling forward at breakneck speed and I'm laughing at the sheer joy of it. Between the off the chart sparking sensation I get from Channing and my connection to the motorcycle, we’ve merged into a high-functioning cyborg, with organic and biomechatronic body parts seamlessly aligned. We soar fearlessly along the darkened streets of the Crossroads, the wind rushing past us as we fly towards the dark horizon.

Leaning hard, we turn the corners like we’re on rails. Sandwiched between the motorcycle’s engine and the hard lines of the equally powerful man behind me, it’s almost too warm in my sweatshirt. Ahead of us, everything in sight begins wavering as if in a heat haze, which is impossible since it’s winter, after dark and pretty cold.

As I squeeze my eyes shut and give my head a little shake to clear it, Channing pulls the bike up, stopping at the intersection of the road and one of the Crossroads’ dingy alleyways. A warm rush of air billows past us, reeking of the alley filth it’s just blown across. It’s a nauseating combination of rotten eggs and sulfur. I force the stench out of my nose with a hard breath, holding it so nothing else gets in.

“That’s not in your head, babydoll,” Channing says warily, his voice low and cautious.

There’s a weird convergence of anticipation and fear inside me catching the distinct suspicion in his honeyed tenor. We turn in sync, scanning the rows of ramshackle buildings to our right, seeking the anxiety-inducing source.

Which is when the helmet’s rearview camera picks up what the rest of our senses knew long before.

“Oh. My. Lord.” Twisting at the waist, my head swivels towards the alleyway in time to see a gigantic pair of glowing orange eyes open, and the vertically elliptical pupils of an ambush hunter narrow then dilate in rapid succession. They lift, rising from level with us on the street to towering overhead and the earth shakes as if one of the derelict tenements is collapsing.

Beneath the eyes, a gaping maw full of multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth opens, wider and wider, backlit by eerie greenish firelight. Another rush of hot sulfurous wind surges past us.

Behind me, Channing strings together an ear-blistering curse, then forces me down over the motorcycle’s body with his. We vault forward with sickening speed as he kicks the bike into gear. “Stay down!” he shouts, tearing through the neighborhood, zigging and zagging in evasive tactics.

“Call Damien!” he orders as we scream around another corner. Behind us, a huge gaseous green ball of fire crashes into the façade of a building and the entire thing bursts into roaring flames. Inside the Smart helmet, the call connects. 

“Jesus, Chan,” Damien answers casually a few seconds later amid a myriad of computer noises as if he’s in some sort of command center, “I thought you said you were claiming her tonight. Did she kick you out already?”

“Excuse me?” I snap.

“Damien! Shut up and listen!” Channing shouts over the whine of the engine and the squeal of the tires as we screech around another corner, heading for open road. “He’s here! I need back-up!”

Another fiery ball of writhing green flames visible in the rearview mirrors crashes into the ground not twenty feet behind us. Through the machine connection, I can feel Channing isn’t accelerating fast enough and take over. The powerful engine flings us forward out of the range of the spreading flames that melt the asphalt we’d just driven over. Popping the chinstrap’s buckle release, I lift it over my head towards him. “You talk! I’ll drive!”

The wind drag is hard as he sits up enough to take the helmet, but without his powerful arms on the handlebars, the Ducati’s steering is about a thousand times more sensitive. Channing wraps his arms around my waist and leans into the bike’s aerodynamics.

“Where did you learn to ride!?” he demands, his mouth in the helmet close to my ear.

“From you. Just now.”

My answer comes through the helmet’s audio and I can hear him floundering and confused. I can also hear Damien.

“I’m tracking you now! Ferdi’s team’s deployed and a second’s out with the percussive blaster, Chan! You have to bring them closer to Avernus!”

Avernus!?

Crap.

Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.

Right now, it’s just not as much as I hate the thought of dying. I’m still connected to the helmet and now that it’s on Channing behind me, the utility of the rearview camera is significantly improved.

It’s also God-awful terrifying.

I feel exponentially more aware of my body than I ever have and frighteningly cognizant of the power coursing through me. My heart pounds and my fingertips tingle and even spark with fear. At the same time, it’s as though every piece of wiring in every building, in the buried powerlines, in the streetlights, in everything electrical, is an extension of me.

It’s the dragon.>

Excuse me!? The what!?

There’s no need for an answer. Between the helmet’s rearview feed and the motorcycle’s mirrors, I can see everything behind us as if in a lucid dream. The shadowy silhouette of the scaly black dragon is lit from beneath by the grungy light from the streetlamps. Its great leathery wings unfurling as it launches upwards, seeking higher ground to follow. Its evil glowing orange eyes are upon us, and its snake-like spined tail thrashes violently, knocking the corner off a crumbling building.

It’s time. Assume the power and do what you have to do or die.>

“Channing! Take the wheel!”

As his hands close on the grips beside mine, I focus my mind, extend my arms downward and channel every ounce of power I have into the electrical grid around us.The rush of it is so fierce that if I hadn't been wedged between the motorcycle and Channing, I'd have fallen to the ground. It fills me, devours me, overwhelming me with its intensity. Restless, edgy and eager to be unleashed, it surges outward, then every light in the crumbling southern part of Crossroads flares so bright it’s like daylight. 

Miraculously, it works.

Blinded by the brightness on the ground, the dragon’s green ball of fire jettisons wildly, narrowly missing us as Channing swerves the bike evasively. He puts a foot on the ground and pulls the brake. The Ducati swivels one-hundred-eighty degrees and comes to a halt facing the direction we just came.

“Damn, Jericho,” he exclaims, watching with me as the lights dim rapidly, plunging the world around us into darkness. He flicks off the motorcycle’s lights, but not before we see the disoriented dragon miss its footing and crash towards the ground. Its spined tail flails as it spirals downward, taking a chunk out of another building and leaving a deep groove in the part it leaves standing.

A dusty cloud of pulverized masonry and debris explodes, sending bricks flying every direction. Then the earth shakes as the massive beast strikes the ground with an angry roar. From all around us, terrified shrieks and screams from the nearby inhabitants split the air.

“Crap! Damien, we’re in inhabited area! I’m bringing the fight to you!” Channing wheels the Ducati around. “Can you keep the lights off so it can’t track us?” he asks, then hits the accelerator. The motorcycle surges forward amid more screams as I smother the lights ahead of us.

With the lights out, the only thing I can see through the helmet’s rearview is the dragon’s glowing eyes, its head revolving on its long neck to locate us. “Can you even see?” I ask, but I already know the answer.

Just like when he saw me inside the darkened diner, he can see now.

So can the dragon.

“God! It’s like you’re in my head, but it’s the helmet, isn’t it?” Channing wheels the motorcycle and we zip down a perpendicular alleyway. We slow as he weaves around piles of garbage in the narrowed corridor.

“Yes, it’s the helmet,” I answer technopathically through the helmet’s speakers.

“Jesus, Jericho,” Damien says. Clearly, he’s still connected through Channing’s Bluetooth and witness to everything via audio. “The power grid’s down in a seven block radius around you two. How much do you control?”

“I honestly don’t know.” It’s not entirely true. I can feel every connected electronic device around me for nearly a mile all directions, even those operating on battery and connected via WiFi, like Channing’s phone. “You guys know what I am, don’t you?”

Emerging from the alleyway, Channing cuts left and accelerates. “Yes.”

The answer is flat, unwavering and calm. Which tells me that Avernus has way more resources than I do. “What am I?”

“Technomage.”

The world is a blur on either side and I squint my eyes against the rush of air over the motorcycle’s windshield and duck lower against the chassis. I’ve never heard that word, but I suppose in a weird way it fits. “Like a witch?”

“Like a magic wielder.”

“Technology isn’t magic,” I counter. We’ve turned again and even through the dark I recognize my old stomping grounds. Up ahead another half-mile on the left and coming up fast is the park where I slept on Eric the park bench so many a night.

Through the staticky connection I have with Channing, I feel him bristle. To his credit, he doesn’t dispute me. “You asked what you are. That’s what you’re— crap!”

We can tell before it gets to us what’s coming by the glowing greenish light that illuminates our darkened surroundings. It’s the same eerie color the sky turns right before a tornado and a second later, the green ball of fire ruptures in a fiery shower against the asphalt in front of us. White-hot stones coated in burning tar from the pavement fly in every direction, raining down on us as Channing brings the motorcycle to a stop on its nose.

“Damien—.” But he doesn’t get to finish his statement as up ahead, the dragon lands heavily, the ground quaking. It rattles windows and sets the trees swaying and from somewhere distant, the a car alarm begins its monotonous wail.

The scaly black reptile straddles the alleyway between two buildings, its great leathery wings stretched open wide. Dipping its serpentine neck low, it ignites a blistering semi-circle of fire in the space behind us, effectively cutting off every avenue of escape except the alley directly under it.

Lifting to its full height, it flaps its monstrous wings, fanning the flames higher. When it settles again, its long neck curls like a swan’s and its malevolent orange eyes fix upon us.

Mia. Come to me.>

Its voice is low and raspy as it calls my name. Hot smokey breath sweeps across the space between us, the acrid stench making my eyes water.

But the dragon’s voice is inside my head too. And it's strong. It ricochets off the inside of my skull, shredding my concentration and my connection to the technology around me wavers.

“This just keeps getting better and better.” Channing sets his feet down on either side of the motorcycle and yanks the helmet off his head. “Let us have the lights, Jericho.”

It’s not much, but when I ease my hold on the electrical grid, dim golden light fills the space, competing with the glowing orange of the dragonfire. “What are you going to do?”

Without taking his blue eyes off the dragon, he swings his leg over the back of the bike, forcing me to extend my leg to keep it from falling over. He lifts the helmet and speaks into it through the visor. “Damien, if you and Ferdi don’t want to be finding another Alpha, you better get your s**t in gear in a hurry. We’re pinned down near Jericho’s park.”

My park!? Wait! How did he know that!?

After that, Channing sets the helmet on the Ducati’s tank, then removes his Smartphone from his jeans’ pocket and stuffs it into the one on the front of my hoodie.

“I’m going to distract it,” he tells me, his eyes never leaving the dragon. “Keep yourself connected to the bike and nothing else, Jericho. The minute I get him away from there, get down that alley and follow the directions Damien gives you to the letter. Do you understand?”

His eyes meet mine and they’re a deep vibrant purple in the firelight. The hard set to his jaw softens incrementally and the determined glint in his eyes fades. “For what it’s worth, you’ve always been the only girl for me, Jericho.” 

The staticky sparks leap between us. Inside, my fear knots painfully hearing his words and recognizing what they mean. His hand is warm and gentle when it cups the back of my neck, but his lips against mine certainly aren’t. They’re hot and hungry as his tongue invades my mouth. The sparks have become a blazing light, pulsing like a star and Channing is all I can think of, all I can feel.

We jerk apart abruptly when the dragon roars, spewing green fire across the sky in a raging fury.

Mia, you are mine. Come to me. Come now.> His voice hisses and spits like wet wood burning and it grates on me. His toothy maws snap together with a terrifying finality, his spiked tail whipping viciously.

There is absolutely no way I belong to that thing. My heart hardens. Never again. I stuff Channing’s helmet onto my head and hear a string of crazed babble from Damien. “We’re still here, but not for much longer,” I warn.

“Remember what I said, Jericho,” Channing says softly. “Go.”