THE DESTRUCTION
1798 Words
BEEP, BEEP. TZIINNG.
The scanner chirped a small clinical sound that felt like a gunshot in the sterile quiet.
Kael’s thumb stayed pressed against the glass. He felt the surface warming, reading the unique maps of his skin, verifying the high-level clearance that was currently a ticking clock. The obsidian dampeners on Adia’s wrists recoiled. The magnetic teeth retracted with a sharp clack, and the heavy black bands fell onto the polymer table.
Adia’s breath hitched. She pulled her hands back, staring at the angry welts where the stone had been biting into her. "You did it," she whispered, her voice cracking.
"Don't thank me yet," Kael said, looking at the door, his mind racing through the Mint’s security. Siurelav was a snake, but he was a snake on schedule. The Archon would be halfway to the elevator bank by now, already mentally spending the profit from Adia’s marrow. "The moment those locks released, a silent flag went to the Central Hub. We have maybe thirty seconds before the Wing goes into hard lockdown."
"Then why we still here?" Adia scrambled out of the chair, her legs nearly giving way, but she grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself, her eyes darting toward the corners of the room where the lenses of the sensors watched them with unblinking indifference.
Kael moved to the primary wall terminal. His fingers danced over the holographic interface, the red glow of his eyes reflecting in the glass. "I’m scrubbing the last five minutes of local footage. It won't stop them, but it’ll give them a reason to hesitate. They’ll think it’s a system glitch before they realize it’s a betrayal."
"Betrayal," Adia repeated the word, a bitter laugh escaping her. "Is that what you call it? Saving a life is a crime to you people."
"In this building, it’s the only capital offense," Kael muttered, slamming his palm against a final icon. "The elevator is dead. We can't use it. They’ll have Enforcers at every level of the shaft within a minute."
Suddenly, the room changed. The soft ambient light of the interrogation suite died, replaced by a strobing, aggressive crimson. A siren began to wail a high-frequency scream that seemed to vibrate inside Kael’s teeth.
"There it is," Kael said, grabbing Adia’s elbow, his grip firm but hurried. "Stay close. If you fall behind, I can't come back for you."
"Try to keep up with me, Suit," she shot back though her face was pale.
They burst into the hallway. The clinical white of the corridor was now washed in that rhythmic bleeding red. At the far end, two Enforcers were already turning the corner, their rifles raised.
"Halt! Prime, stand down!" one of them barked, his voice amplified through a helmet.
"Screw that," Adia hissed.
Kael knew these men. He had signed their paychecks. "Clear the way, Sergeant! There’s a breach in the lower levels! I’m moving the Asset to a secure location!"
The Enforcers hesitated. The hierarchy was ingrained in their DNA. But then, their helmets tilted as if receiving a direct feed.
"Negative, sir. Archon has issued a Level Zero detention for you both. Drop to your knees."
"Kael?" Adia’s voice was small, tight with panic.
"Move!" Kael shouted.
He lunged toward a maintenance hatch on the side wall, swiping his hand across the sensor. The door slid open just as a burst of non-lethal pulse fire hit the wall where he’d been standing. The air smelled of scorched... no, it smelled of burnt plastic and ionized dust.
They scrambled to the narrow service tunnel. It was cramped, filled with the hum of cooling pipes and the rush of recycled air. Kael led the way, his boots clanging on the metal grating.
"Siurelav won't just kill me," Kael said, his voice coming in ragged bursts as they ran. "He needs the narrative. He’ll say I went mad. He’ll say the girl corrupted me."
"You're both a monster," Adia panted, her boots stumbling on a loose plate. "He looked at me like I was a piece of jewelry."
"To him, you are. To the Mint, nothing is a person. We’re just units of potential and I was the keeper of the ledger."
The tunnel ended at a heavy pressure door. Kael punched in a code with his shaking hands. The red light from his wrists was blooming, merging with the emergency strobes. The resonance was screaming now, a feedback loop between him and the girl behind. He could feel her fear like a cold needle in his spine.
"Where does this go?" she asked, looking back as the sound of boots echoed in the tunnel.
"The Observation Deck. It’s the highest point in this wing."
"The highest? You crazy? We need to go down!"
Kael turned, his eyes burning. "The ground floors are already sealed. The Hounds will be waiting at every exit. They expect us to run for the basement. So we’re going to the sky."
The door hissed open, and they stepped out to a wide, glass-enclosed balcony. The High District stretched out below them, a glittering, cold sea of towers and neon. But above them, the sky was a bruised purple, and below, the thick, suffocating blanket of the Grey Fog swirled around the ankles of the skyscrapers.
The wind howled against the reinforced glass.
"There's no way out, Kael," Adia said, her voice trembling as she looked at the sheer drop. "It’s a thousand feet drops."
"Look at the glass," Kael commanded, pointing to the massive, floor-to-ceiling panels. "It’s reinforced against atmospheric pressure, but it’s brittle against high-frequency vibration."
He looked at her, his expression raw. "You’re the Sun, Adia. You broke the Gold Index by just existing. Can you break this?"
Adia looked at the glass, then at the Enforcers who were now cutting through the pressure door behind them with a thermal torch. The sparks were flying, a shower of orange light.
"I’ve never... I don't know how to aim it," she whispered. "It just happens when I’m scared or when I’m..."
"Then be scared," Kael said, stepping closer to her. He reached out and grabbed her hands, his fingers interlocking with hers. The contact was electric. A surge of heat raced up his arms, hitting his chest like a tidal wave. "Focus on the hypocrisy, the fact that they want to bottle you up and sell you to people who don't even know how to cry."
Adia’s eyes began to glow. Not the amber of a flickering candle, but a blinding roaring gold. The air around her began to shimmer, the temperature in the room spiking.
"It hurts," she gasped.
"Hold on," he growled, his own vision swimming as the resonance peaked. "Give it to the glass. Everything you have!"
Adia let out a sound of pure defiance. A wave of golden-red Rage erupted from her, a visible ripple in the air, hitting the glass panel with the force of a wrecking ball.
SWOOOSSHH, SWIINNG, BZZT-TRAAK.
TAK-TAK, TRAK-TAK.
ZTRASHH, TCHRANNKK.
The sound was magnificent. The reinforced pane didn't just crack, it disintegrated into a million tiny diamonds that caught the light as they fell. The wind rushed in, a freezing violent gale that knocked them both backward.
Kael scrambled to his feet, pulling Adia up. The Enforcers had broken through the door. They were shouting, their weapons raised, but the wind was too strong, the debris blinding them.
"Jump!" Kael yelled over the roar of the storm.
"You’re insane!" Adia screamed back, her hair whipping around her face.
"The Fog! It’s dense enough to catch a slow-fall if we use the emergency chutes in the exterior railing! Trust me!"
Kael didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed a pair of small circular devices from the emergency locker by the shattered window, standard-issue grav-chutes for maintenance workers. He slapped one onto Adia’s belt and the other to his own.
"On three!"
"Kael—"
"One!"
The Enforcers were firing now. Blue bolts of energy hissed through the air, melting the carpet.
"Two!"
Kael grabbed her hand, his grip crushing. He looked in her eyes, and for a heartbeat, the world stopped. The sirens, the guns, the Archon’s greed, it all vanished. There was just the heat of her and the cold of the fall. The tiny Sphere formed around them, just like on the roof, but smaller.
"Three!"
They plunged into the abyss.
The sensation of falling was a sickening, hollow weight in Kael’s gut. The wind tore at his clothes, the CEO’s suit fluttering like a broken wing. Below them, the Grey Fog rushed up like a solid wall of smoke.
Adia was screaming a sound lost in the rush of air. Kael hit the trigger on the grav-chutes. A heavy, vibrating hum kicked in, slowing their descent with a jarring jerk that felt like it would pull his arms from their sockets.
They hit the fog.
It wasn't like a cloud, but it was thick, damp, and tasted like copper and old charcoal. It swallowed the light of the High District instantly. The glittering towers vanished, replaced by a suffocating, sightless grey.
Kael felt his boots hit something, a rusted fire escape, then a pile of trash, then finally, the slick, oily pavement on the ground.
He tumbled, rolling across the wet ground, his shoulder slamming into a brick wall. He groaned, the sound muffled by the heavy air.
"Adia?" he called out, his voice a hoarse whisper.
A few feet away, a golden glow flickered through the murk. Adia was sitting up, coughing, her clothes torn and stained with the grime of the lower world.
"I'm here," she wheezed.
Kael stood up, his body aching in places he didn't know he had. He looked up, there was nothing but the Grey.
He looked at his wrists. The crimson light was dim, but it was still there, like a steady rhythmic pulse.
"We’re out," she said, looking around the dark, narrow alleyway. "We actually got out."
"We’re not out," Kael said, his eyes scanning the shadows. He could hear the distant, low thrum of the city’s pulse, and something else, the sound of drones beginning their sweep. "We’re still in the cage. And now, every person in this city is looking for us. It's a High-District."
He reached out a hand to help her up. As their skin met, a spark jumped between them, a sharp stinging reminder of the fuse.
"We must get out, the Sinks?" Adia asked.
Kael looked at his hand, then at the girl who had ruined his life and saved his soul in the same breath. He realized with a terrifying clarity that there was no going back now.
"Not the Sinks..." Kael muttered, rolling his brain over, "We're heading to the Dock."
...
- Writer
