Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
I take his hand and allow him to lead me out of the tank room, back into the roaring vat room, and we head back the way we came.
There’s a faint beeping noise. Coming from outside, I think. And I can just barely make out Delta’s recorded voice—so soothing, such a lie—telling his people that the evening harvest is now over.
When will he do it again? Is there a night harvest? Or will he let them sleep until morning and milk them then?
If I thought I was ever going back to Delta City, I might start planning a conversation with the tyrant. I might pick and choose my words carefully. Hoping to make him feel guilty enough to reconsider what he’s doing here.
But I’m not going back. Even before finding this place, I knew that.
Never. I’m never going back.
Tyse leads me out of the tower. We pass several dozen bots—none of which pay any attention to us. And when we get to the door that leads back out to the train, I see the sign. A sign I didn’t notice on the way in because we were on the other side of this door and didn’t have a reason to look behind us once we passed through it.
Delta Factory—Dimension 702.
Tyse sees it too. And we both stare at it for a moment. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I’m hearing Delta’s words in my head. You cannot see through worlds. You are not a Looking Glass. You are just a power source.
I smile for the first time since we entered this tower.
Because it’s not true.
If it were, he would’ve said those words with conviction. He wouldn’t have taken time to enter my head and have a conversation about what I was, if his words were true.
I’m not just a power source.
I’m not just a battery.
I’m something else.
It is now my new mission to figure this out.
Tyse opens the doors and invites me to walk through with a wave of his hand. I do this and we find ourselves back on the platform. Another train has arrived and there are dozens of bots out here unloading it.
He grabs my hand, pulling me towards the train’s open door just as the last few bots exit.
“What are you doing?” But he’s already pulled me through the doors and a moment later, they begin to close.
“Fuck walkin’,” Tyse says. “We’re not walkin’. I learned a lot back there, and I know all you’re thinkin’ about right now is spark, Clara. But ya know what I’m thinking?”
“What?”
“I’m thinking—” the train starts forward with a jolt, and then smoothly, we’re pulling away from the station. “I’m thinkin’ he can’t come here.”
“Why would that be? I mean, clearly, he’s been here. Someone had to set it all up.”
“It was probably someone like me. Someone who can hop worlds. But never mind that. If he can’t come here, he can’t control us. And those bots aren’t soldiers. They’re workers. Mechanical slaves, that’s it.”
“OK.” I shrug. Not really seeing where he’s going with this. “So what?”
“It means we’re free, Clara. Fuck Delta. Fuck his mission. Fuck every one of those gods. We’re free now. And we’re gonna take this train down the line and find ourselves a good world. And then we’re gonna live happily the fuck ever after.”
We just stare at each other for a moment. Slowly the smiles start. They grow, and then we’re laughing. There are no compartments on this train. No seats, even. It’s not for people, it’s for cargo.
So we just sit on the floor. Tyse with his back against the train’s inner hull, me between his legs, slumped against his chest.
And then we dream.
We dream about a future where the world is good and we get to live in it.
7 - FINN
The train is still slowly rolling to a stop when I open my eyes, trying to remember where I am. It hits me pretty fast, though. Everything comes back in a rush.
The tower. And the lies that came with it. Donal, and my mother, and the culty Matrons all trying to open the God’s Tower doors to… where? Don’t know.
My dad. How he must’ve struggled with knowing it was all lies, all those years. Unable, or unwilling, to change things.
Blowing shit up. And how I’m literally ruining people’s lives trying to save them.
Clara Birch. Brave and fearful at the end. My greatest failure.
And Jasina Bell. Sleeping on top of me right now, exhausted from our marathon tower-slaying spree. She smells like freedom. She feels like a dream. Like that life I pictured as a scholar living down in the ruins below Tau City with a family of my own might be more than just a fantasy.
The days and weeks melt into one another as Jasina and I travel the train tunnel. Sometimes on the train, but most of the time, off. We sleep in little side tunnels near the stations. Dead-end tunnels, from what I can tell. But they are private, and quiet, and away from the disturbing worker things that have no faces.