BEFORE
Four inches of jagged metal stick out of my side just below the ribs.
Shrapnel. Fantastic. For a moment I just stare. The edges are dark with blood that’s definitely mine, and every heartbeat pulses around the shard like my body is trying to spit it out. The explosion has stopped echoing, but twisted metal and rock are still raining down the treacherous mountain slope. I press my back against the boulder, trying to make myself scarce. If anyone survived the blast, they’re out there looking for the same thing I am.
Shelter. Or targets.
Two hours ago, drenched in the hot summer sun, the mountain had been just a mountain.
My unit had been climbing since dawn, picking our way along a narrow path that barely qualified as a trail. Portshore had been beside me, close enough that his shoulder was brushing mine every few steps.
"You're quiet today, bird. Starting to think you don't like me."
"I don't, Oren. You're tolerable at best." He moved to bump me again, but I stepped out of his range, shooting him a pointed look. "Some of us are working."
Portshore grinned. "You're always working." His fingers found the chain at my throat, tugging lightly on the pendant as his voice dropped. "All work and no play. That's not healthy."
“You’ve got your own pendant,” I said, brushing his hand from my neck. “Play with that one.”
His smile turned devilish. “I happen to be rather fond of this one.”
“Then admire it from a distance.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
I rolled my eyes and pursed my lips. “You can have it back, if you like it so much.”
“No.” That grin, again. His fingers caught the chain again before I could stop him. “I like where it is. I think I’ll let you keep it.” I felt the gentle nudge at the edge of my emotions then, a familiar warmth that was too smooth, too easy, and entirely not mine.
“Stop that,” I snapped, batting his hand away and pinning the pendant flat against my chest.
Kelligan's voice interrupted. “Portshore, keep your Sensitive bullshit out of her head and save the flirting for Station. Greenlaw, I need a read on the terrain.”
"There's definitely no flirting, sir." The false warmth of Oren’s Influence faded, replaced by very real heat creeping up the back of my neck. He knew exactly how to pull my focus when I needed it most. I shot him a parting glare and stepped away, inhaling deeply.
My world bloomed into color.
Twenty-two years, and it still takes my breath away. Out here, away from the Centre's sterile hum, the mountain was a living tapestry of frequencies in ribbons of light only Radios can see. The deep amber pulse of rock and mineral, ancient and slow. The quicksilver sparks of small animals, hearts beating too fast to count. My unit members glowed in their distinct, colorful signatures of life.
This was what I was built for. Every frequency mapped, every threat identified before it became a problem. I was—am—good at this. I belonged there.
Behind me, Zareck was chattering away about the Influenced child we were sent to rescue. He was barely twenty, newly inducted as our unit's Shifter and still bright with the idea that rescue missions ended in medals and declarations of heroism. His indigo eyes sparkled with excitement.
“You think we’ll actually find this kid? A Scribe born to Blanks, they’ve got to have her hidden.”
“She’s rare enough to matter,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.”
We kept moving, the path narrowing until we were forced into single file. Kelligan took point, Portshore falling back to walk with the Shifter. Good. I could think without his attention crawling across my skin. That was when I felt it, a pulse at the edge of my perception that didn’t belong. At first it was faint, easy to dismiss, but it sharpened as we moved forward, resolving into something deliberate.
“Kelligan,” I’d said. “Something’s off.” I couldn’t give him the specifics he wanted, just that it wasn’t human or animal and it was wrong. So terribly wrong.
“No hostiles,” Portshore said. “She’s probably just jumpy.”
I’d bitten back the response I wanted to give as the signal intensified, its rhythm tightening in a way that made my stomach drop. Zareck had already moved ahead, picking his way along the path toward something only I could see. The pattern shifted as he got closer, spiking sharply, and then I knew. I knew, with a horrifying clarity, exactly what we had stumbled upon. Or been led to.
“Zareck, stop—”
He turned at the sound of his name, confused and already slowing, but it wasn’t fast enough. The explosion hit before he could take another step.
The blast threw me backward. For a few seconds there was nothing but ringing silence. Then my Influence surged back into place, and the silence filled with absence.
Zareck’s waves were gone. The others followed in the chaos, flickering out one after another. I forced myself up, vision swimming, and searched through the smoke until I found him. Portshore. He was crumpled against the rock, his dark waves weak but present. Alive. He was alive.
"Oren!"
I ran to him. I don't know how. My shoulder was on fire and the ground kept sliding out from under me, but he was right there, he was alive, and I just needed to reach him. He turned and saw me through the smoke and fire and ash. Our eyes locked. For a moment, just a moment, something flickered across his face. His mouth started to form a word.
Then the second bomb detonated between us.
After that, the memory breaks into fragments of fire and motion. I remember the mountain screaming through my Influence, Kelligan’s signal collapsing into nothing, and shapes moving through the smoke. The fight, if it could be called that, was close and brutal, reduced to instinct and reaction, the recoil of my weapon and the impact of bodies at arm’s length. I remember the burn at my neck. The fire and smoke. The crack of my head hitting stone.
The third blast is the one that stays with me. It was that one that silenced what was left. Every signal. Every voice. Gone. I had barely made it behind the boulder when it hit, the force of it slamming me into rock, and something white-hot punching through my side.
And now I’m here, with four inches of jagged shrapnel sticking out of me and no good options. My hands start shaking despite the hot summer air. My unit is dead. I’m still here, though, so I guess that puts me ahead of the curve.
The taste of blood floods my mouth and my shoulder throbs. This was supposed to be routine. This was supposed to be easy. I rub my fingers together next to my ears, listening. It’s hard to tell with all of the ringing bouncing around my skull, but I’m fairly certain I’ve lost the ability to hear out of my right ear. My vision is also wrong, dull and flat, the colors bled out of it.
All of this, however, pales in comparison to the very large piece of metal that has impaled me. I prod at it gently with two fingers, and then have to immediately clap my hand over my mouth to stifle the scream that I am powerless to prevent. After a minute of pitiful panting, I can breathe again.
Okay. Okay.
So, limbs attached, more or less. Can’t hear out of one ear, there’s metal in my side, and I’m about ten minutes from becoming a cautionary report, but technically I’m operational.
“Where the hell is a Builder when you need one?” I whisper.
No answer, but I didn't expect one. I know there’s no Builder fast enough, or close enough, to save the damsel I have unwillingly become. I also know that without a Builder to seal this up, I have maybe an hour before shock decides the rest of my day. And that’s assuming whoever hit our convoy isn’t sweeping the wreckage for survivors. I am alone on the mountain, and unless I move soon, I’ll be joining my dearly departed comrades-in-arms. I can think of exactly three options out of this, none of which I’m particularly fond of.
One, I stay here with this thing still embedded in my side and hope rescue finds me before the mountain's temperature swings finish what the bomb started.
Two, try walking back to Station with my new metallic passenger, though even sitting completely motionless feels like being slowly filleted.
Or three, pull it out myself and hope I don’t bleed to death on the way down the mountain.
None are particularly enticing, but all are better than dying on dirty rocks. I brace myself and curse as I pull off my coat and slice a strip from the lining with my knife. My hand closes around the shrapnel.
I don’t count. I pull, and cinch the strip as tightly around my ribs as I can manage. The fabric turns heavy and warm with blood. I make it one step. Then two. The ground tilts sideways and the sky spins.
Then I fall, and everything goes black.