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The thirteen figures raised their arms, lowering them all at once; and some of the clones, standing next to various bits of machinery near the walls, turned to press or pull buttons or switches. The wires flared to life again, and Joaquim started to struggle.
“Professor!” he screamed, his voice barely audible above the whirring of machinery, the nightmarish chanting. “Professor, what is this?”
I knew why he was panicking. It felt like I was being drained of blood drop by drop, like every bit of haecceity was being sucked from me and replaced with empty promises, echoes of what I’d once been. It only took me a moment to recognize the feeling. I’d felt that empty after the Old Man had drained my memories, took my ability to Walk…. I’d been fine most days, but lying there in the silence of my room, I’d often cried and wondered why. It was because he’d taken everything I was from me.
“Be still,” the Professor’s voice commanded, carrying easily above the din though he was still nowhere to be seen. “This was the intent behind your creation, Joaquim. You will fulfill your purpose and bring about the revolution of the world.”
“No!” he screamed, his struggling becoming wilder. “I don’t want to—”
There was a flare of blue, so bright I had to shut my eyes, though it was gone immediately after. The machinery around us crackled, and the acrid smell of smoke reached my nose. The transmitter nearest Joaquim was on fire. Some of the clones, acting on an unspoken signal, rushed over to put it out—but Joaquim was still struggling, his body enveloped in blue, the fuses short-circuiting one by one. I
n his eyes was the same fear I’d felt a dozen times since I’d come to InterWorld. It was the fear of death.
“Joe!” Acacia screamed from somewhere to my right. “Help him!”
Help him? I didn’t know how to help him—what could I possibly do to help him? And more important, why would I? He was nothing more than a Binary clone, imbued with power stolen from Walkers—
The cords attached to Joaquim were sparking, pulsing as he struggled. With a strength born of desperation, he ripped one arm free of the bindings, reaching toward me. He looked terrified.
Though my arm was chafed nearly from knuckles to elbow, I’d managed to wiggle enough that I slipped my arm from the cuff that’d held me. That same calm I’d felt before, when he’d mentioned the rockslide, was wrapped around me like a blanket. I knew what to do.
With every ounce of willpower I possessed, I wrenched the remains of my power from the wires, from the fuses and the massive orb pulsing greedily in the center of the room. I called it back to me, commanded it, and grabbed Joaquim’s hand. The blue glow spread to envelop me, whispers and pleas brushing against my mind. Use us, they said. Free us. Let us Walk again.
I closed my eyes, found the core of power inside me, centered myself, as I’d been taught—and let it explode outward, focused on the fuses around me. The chanting was momentarily lost in the sound of electricity, of the wires crackling and popping. I used the souls as Joaquim had done, directing them to burn through my bonds. It was so easy.
I was standing now, no longer caged, no longer captive. I was the eye of the storm, immune to the chaos around me. The chanting, the fires, the fuses—none of it touched me. The clones fired at me, and I activated my shield disk with a mere thought, the projectiles sliding right off me to thunk to the floor. I was aware of the entire room, the ebb and flow of the energy, the people in it. FrostNight, ever growing, greedily absorbing the power of the Walkers.
And a portal. Here. Now.
I stretched out a hand to Acacia, still held by the Binary clones. Free her.
The little blue lights arced from my fingers like stars, like fireworks, flying toward Acacia. Each of them touched a clone, and one by one, they were zapped into nothing. I didn’t stop to watch any further. They would do as I asked, I was sure of it. I turned back to Joaquim and the machine, stretching out my other hand. The blue lights hesitated. Help him, I directed, but they faltered.
“Joe!” Acacia was beside me now, one hand clutching my wrist. “You can’t save him, we have to Walk—”
“You told me to help him!” I shrugged her off, taking a few steps toward the machines. Joaquim was looking at me, eyes wide and frightened, his free hand reaching out, desperately trying to close the distance between us.
“To get you out of the machine, to take his power back—”
Anger flared suddenly, deep in my chest. She’d told me to help him only to use him? No—we were better than that. We had to be. I had to be.
I stumbled away from her, moving toward Joaquim and the machine. One step closer, two—three—
“You can’t!” She threw her arms around my neck, using her weight to slow me. I faltered as she pressed against my fractured shoulder, still not healed from the rockslide Joaquim had caused. Electricity was crackling in the air all around us, the power undulating, vibrating back and forth, bouncing all around the room. The thirteen figures stood untouched around the circuitry star, arms at their sides, the chanting once again in a language even I, with all my InterWorld training, couldn’t understand. Whatever they were doing, they didn’t seem concerned with us; the little blue lights were winking out, one by one. I couldn’t tell if they were being freed or dying.
“It’s almost complete,” Acacia pleaded into my ear, her broken nails digging into my shoulder and chest. “You’re powering it, you and him, right now—”
“Then we should get him out—”
“You can’t, Joe, it’s too late! He doesn’t have his own essence—he’s a consciousness powered by dead things and they’ve left him—”
“He’s a consciousness,” I yelled back, ripping away from her. I took two steps toward Joaquim, before I stopped in my tracks. All around me, the wind was whipping and the fires were burning and the clones were being zapped to ashes by a hundred pieces of my soul, and through it all Joaquim was still reaching, still holding his hand out—but there was nothing there. There was nothing in his eyes anymore, not anger or hatred or fear. He wasn’t looking at me, not really. He was looking through me. He was holding his hand out to the lights.
Acacia’s hand slipped into mine. I couldn’t look away from that face, my face, with the dead eyes.
“Walk, Joe,” Acacia whispered, and somehow I heard her, even over the chaos surrounding us.
I swallowed, closing my eyes. I’m sorry, I thought at the lights, as I’d told the memories of their successors on the Wall, so many years in the future. I’m so sorry.
