Sorrel opened her eyes.
Her head pounded with a furious headache, a side effect of the sedative. Her body felt weighted and slow. She hung in the air in some kind of sling. As she flexed her hands and feet, she realized that she had needles under her skin in her elbows, the backs of her knees, and her hips. Something was hooked into her neck, and an oxygen mask was clamped over her face. The metallic taste of bottled air lingered on her tongue.
Around her arched the cables of the spider. She hung near enough to the central body to see where Voice was, although the door was shut and she could no longer see inside.
Sorrel struggled, but one of the needles sent a pulse of electricity through her that convulsed her muscles. She went still, and the shock subsided.
"Voice," she cried inside her head, "what have they done to me?"
"I told you not to come," Voice said sadly. "I can't see what they've done, exactly. Can you Look for me?"
Sorrel opened that particular channel in her brain that let her Ghost use her senses. Now she understood what was happening - her brain had actually adapted to and built itself around their neural bond. She Looked carefully at the tubes and needles connected to her, and how they led up into a hole in the ceiling, out of sight.
"That's interesting," said Voice, perking up a little. "They've attached you to the spider. You're part of my Light-support network. Can you feel any Light?"
Sorrel tried to sense it, but felt only the discomfort of the needles. "No, I don't feel anything. If I struggle, the rig shocks me."
"That's very interesting," Voice murmured. "I may be able to reach you ... if I can only ..."
Down below, a door opened, admitting a long beam of light. Sorrel turned her head as far as she could against the thing in her neck and the mask over her face. Erica West had just entered, dressed in a spotless white lab coat. Accompanying her were two older men in lab coats over suits. The way Erica was gesturing and talking very fast, Sorrel guessed they must be her superiors.
"...the Ghost identified her as her Guardian, so as you can see, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity. An unregistered Guardian and her Ghost! I've already prepared them for the first round of enhancements. All you have to do is say the word."
The two older scientists gazed up at Sorrel in silence. Then one turned to Erica. "We are not Clovis Bray, Miss West. And even they secured written permission before undergoing human testing. Have you thought about what will happen when you let Miss Atkin go? She'll lodge a lawsuit against us with the Vanguard's legal backing. Maybe even the Consensus's. Miss Atkin is a citizen of the City and has all the rights of the Consensus Accords."
Erica waved a hand. "She won't, she won't! She'll be the most powerful Guardian ever to walk the planets! She'll be thanking us on her knees. The Vanguard will be panting to send their Guardians to us. Besides, I have her signature right here." She showed the scientists something on her tablet screen.
Sorrel was pretty sure she'd never signed anything. But then, her signature was floating around on the Internet, attached to various checks and legal documents. Erica might have forged it from one of those. Or Sorrel might have done it while semi-conscious. Who knew how long she'd been here already.
"Voice," she thought, "call Max and Jayesh. Call anybody. Erica's going to kill me."
"I've already called Max," Voice replied. "Zero says that Jayesh and the others are out on a mission, so Max is waiting on another fireteam. He's extremely anxious about you."
Sorrel was still too drugged to feel very upset. She slowly moved a hand to touch the roughened, scarred side of her face. "If I die, can you resurrect me?"
"I think so," Voice said slowly. "I have enough Light ... maybe. You being close to me is strengthening me a little."
Down below, the older scientists were reluctantly agreeing to let Erica perform one small test, but only under their supervision. Erica marched out with them, looking triumphant.
"She hates me," Sorrel thought. "Why does she hate me so much?"
"She wants Max," Voice replied. "And he likes you more than he does her."
"That's not hard," Sorrel thought with a low laugh. "Max likes his rifle better than he does Erica."
"She's jealous," Voice said. "And bitter with it. So she's willing to destroy everything as long as she can destroy you in the process. She'll probably try to destroy him, as well."
"I'm a Guardian, now," Sorrel thought, trying out the words. "So maybe I can stop her. Shouldn't I be stronger than this?" She tugged feebly at a wire, only to receive another electric shock. She gasped and convulsed.
"You're still under the effects of a strong sedative," Voice replied. "I could heal you, maybe, if I could see you. But I'm locked in here."
Sorrel lay limp in the harness, panting from the pain. "Voice ... Ghost ... I need your help. I don't understand anything anymore. Who am I, now?"
"Sorrel Atkin," Voice said. "My Guardian from the moment you were born. Talented, sensitive Awoken, and a wonderful person."
"That's who you think I am," Sorrel countered. "But I don't know if that's who I am anymore. My face is chewed up. I have Guardian powers I don't want. And - and what if Erica kills you when she starts experimenting on us? I won't even have you anymore."
"Why does any of that matter?" Voice asked. "You are defined by your choices and actions, not by circumstances. Right and wrong haven't changed. You still know what they are. Stop focusing on yourself and focus instead on serving the Light with good deeds. That's all the Traveler asks of its Guardians."
Sorrel was silent. Voice's words were like a slap in the face. She was being narcissistic, wasn't she? Maybe she always had been - obsessed with her own looks until they were stripped from her. She'd let her own self-centered impulses become the focus of her life, and with her biggest one removed, she had to find a new focus. Maybe she could afford to think about the Light and serving others more than about serving herself. It wasn't like she was physically attractive to anyone.
Sorrel drew a deep breath. The only person she could help right now was her faithful Ghost. "Voice ... since we probably only have a few hours left to live ... would you like me to give you a proper name?"
"I'd like that very much," Voice whispered, sounding overcome.
Down below, the doors at the other end of the lab opened. Two orderlies wheeled in a long gray box, like a coffin, strapped to a gurney. The box rocked slightly as something inside hissed and struggled. They began attaching the spider-rig's wires to the box.
The monster was here, all right. Sorrel was pretty sure that box was lead-lined to contain the radiation. The globe was probably in there, too. Time was more limited than she'd thought.
"I've called you Voice for so many years," Sorrel thought. "What if I named you Vox? It means the same thing."
"Vox," the Ghost said softly. "Yes, I could answer to that. I like that."
The lid of the lead box rattled. One of the orderlies tightened the belts holding it in. They retreated, leaving the box with the third Aphelion construct hooked to the spider.
A panel slid open on the wall across the room. Behind a thick pane of glass, Erica and the older scientists sat with tablets in their hands, observing. Erica was bent over her own tablet, tapping and swiping.
One of the spider's wires began to glow ultraviolet, siphoning the Aphelion's power.
Sorrel thought, "Time's almost up, Vox. If you don't mind me asking, what happened to damage you so badly?"
The ultraviolet glow spread down two wires, one connected to Sorrel, the other to the rig containing Vox. A sense of bitter cold trickled into Sorrel through the needle in her left arm.
"I couldn't stay with you," Vox said, "so I roamed around outside the City, helping identify Fallen encampments for Guardians to eliminate. One day, a Fallen Vandal shot me. Ow ... ow, this power is hurting me."
"It's hurting me, too," Sorrel thought. "Stay with me. What happened?"
"It thought I was dead and took me to its stash of machine parts. It had a bucketful of dead Ghosts. I was just one more for the pile. But I wasn't dead, and my bond with you kept me fighting to live. I managed to signal some nearby Guardians. They killed the Fallen and rescued me, along with the dead Ghosts. Apparently Owl Sector had a bounty on dead Ghosts just then, so they turned us in. The scientists used parts of the other Ghosts to repair me, but not all the parts were good. They've been experimenting on me ever since. They didn't know I was bonded until just a few months ago - I was determined to live because of you. But I'm what they call kitbashed, Sorrel. I can't fly, I can't maintain my own Light. If you pulled me out of this machine, I'll die. The Light has no use for me anymore."
Perhaps it was the cold, poisonous power flowing into her veins, but Sorrel felt her Ghost's despair along with it. The Aphelion seemed to magnify all negative emotions, glorying in them, beating down all hope.
Sorrel pushed back against it, reaching for that starry power within herself. No, it didn't come from inside her - she clearly felt it pouring into her from the Traveler, poised directly above Owl Sector.
"I think you're wrong," Sorrel panted, tightening her muscles and blocking the flow of Darkness with a barrier of glittering stars. "You're stronger than you think, Vox. You fought this monster for me once. You kept it from taking my mind. Fight it again!"
She sensed her Ghost rallying, gathering her courage. More Light swelled through Sorrel, the stars brightening.
Down in the observation room, Erica glared at Sorrel, then tapped her tablet. The flow of poisonous cold grew stronger and faster.
The lead box rocked back and forth on its gurney.
"It's too much," gasped Vox. "They're feeding it directly into me. I can't absorb Darkness - it's going to quench me."
Sorrel tore off her oxygen mask and threw it aside. "Then I'm coming to save you." She ripped the thing out of her neck, leaving a vigorous flow of blood behind. Then she ripped the conduit out of her left arm, cutting off the Darkness flow. Immediately she felt better. When the electric shock came, Sorrel endured it, then located the metal node on her back that was sending the shock into her spine, and ripped that off, too. She unplugged the needles from the backs of her knees, then sat up in the harness, groping at the buckles. It was similar to an aircraft flight harness, and her fingers remembered how to open the latches. Then she slid free and dropped to the floor.
Her legs bent like rubber beneath her, weak and floppy. She sprawled on the floor, aware that she only had seconds before Erica sent someone to grab her. Her legs wouldn't support her, so Sorrel crawled to the central machine and opened the door.
Vox blinked at her, a pathetic naked core in a web of wires, snared like a crippled fly. "If you take me out, I'll die," she said. "My Light is too weak."
"I can unplug this one," Sorrel said, eyeing a wire that shimmered with ultraviolet light. She plucked it out of the connector on her Ghost's core.
Vox moaned. "Thank you, thank you."
Sorrel cupped both hands around Vox. She summoned her pretty, starry power, and bent it into a ring around the core. When that didn't seem like enough coverage, she added another ring, then another, until Vox resembled a model of an atom, with rings traveling horizontally, vertically, and diagonally.
"What's this?" Vox asked in wonder. "You're shaping Light?"
"It's going to keep you alive," Sorrel said firmly. She wasn't certain how she knew, but she sensed that it was important to believe that the Light would do what she told it to. She began unhooking wires in handfuls, like pulling weeds. In a moment, Vox was free, floating an inch above Sorrel's palms.
"I'm not dead!" Vox exclaimed. "I'm free! Oh Sorrel, you're a wonderful Guardian!" She played a healing beam across Sorrel's face and neck, leaving a warm sensation across the scars, closing the bleeding throat wound. "I could heal these scars if I were stronger. There, I've eased some of the stiffness."
Sorrel beamed at her Ghost, feeling her face flex more easily. But she had no time to linger or say thank you. The lab door burst open and three burly orderlies dashed in, armed with stunners and dart guns.
"Just come quietly, miss," one of them called. "There's been a big mistake about all this."
"I'll bet," Sorrel muttered, glancing at the window. Erica was watching the chase with a wide smile. Once Sorrel was caught, back into the machine she'd go. No doubt about it.
Sorrel circled the spider's central machine, keeping it between her and the men. They spread out, moving cautiously, trying to herd her into a corner. If they'd just give her a clear path to the door-
The lid of the lead coffin crashed to the floor behind her.
Sorrel spun around. The burning blue shape of the monster clawed its way out of the box and crouched on the edge for a second, head jerking back and forth as it studied each of the four people in the room. It had had more time to transform than the other two versions. This one had no nose or mouth, but glittering ultraviolet compound eyes. Its skin was tight and shiny, like plastic, and its muscles stood out like knotted ropes. Its waist had shrank to barely more than the thickness of its own spine, like a hollowed-out corpse. Of the whole monster, that shrunken wasp-torso unnerved Sorrel the worst.
The Aphelion leaped off the coffin, knocking it to the floor with a crash. In one huge, frog-like bound, it crossed the room and attacked one of the orderlies - an Awoken. He screamed horribly as its burning hands groped his face and throat. The other orderlies struck it with stun guns and darts. The Aphelion ignored them. Possibly, it had no nervous system anymore.
But Sorrel's attention was on the fallen coffin. It had landed on its side and the globe had rolled out: that troublesome black stone globe ringed in gold, glowing purple in its center, powering the monster.
Don't let it see you.
Her advice to Max rang in her ears. She had to cover the globe - blind it, somehow.
She was wearing only a thin shirt and pants, nothing she could spare. If she touched it, there was every chance the Aphelion would seize her. But maybe she could kick it into the coffin and trap it underneath.
As she ran toward the globe, more screams filled the room. The Aphelion had killed the first man and turned its attention to the second. The third man was yelling frantically for help on a headset.
"We could save them," Vox said. "It hates your Void Light."
"In a minute," Sorrel said, giving the globe a solid kick. It rolled back to the coffin. Sorrel grabbed the coffin and tried to overturn it on top of the globe. But it was lined with lead, and she was still weak from the sedative. She couldn't even stir it from its place.
The monster's head whipped over its shoulder, staring at Sorrel. She had touched the globe.
It left the dying man it had been mauling and bounded toward Sorrel on all fours. Its limbs didn't quite touch the ground - it seemed to move on a cushion of force. It sprang at her, hands outstretched, wreathed in burning blue.
Sorrel lashed it with the Light of the stars.
The monster doubled up in midair and skidded past her, hissing and spitting. Sorrel struck it again, her Light an unshaped blast of power. The monster squirmed and crawled behind the coffin, using it as shelter.
Sudden lightheadedness struck Sorrel and she staggered. She clutched Vox a little closer in her left hand, her right hand still twinkling with starlight. "I'm really dizzy."
"You're using too much Light too quickly," Vox said, her voice a calm presence in Sorrel's adrenaline-charged brain. "Shape it into blades with edges as sharp as starlight on a freezing night. Less Light. More focus. More damage."
Sorrel tried to do this. Meanwhile, the monster reached out from behind the coffin, grabbed the globe, and dragged it into hiding, too. Sorrel had lost her opportunity to cut the monster off from the source of its power.
Suddenly, the pain of a taser struck her in the back. She shrieked and crumpled to the floor as maddening, shivering pain raced through her. The third orderly tased her all the way to the floor, his eyes wide and face wet with sweat. Then he left her moaning and writhing, turning his attention to the monster.
"No," Sorrel gasped. "Stay back!"
The orderly pulled a handgun from his belt and fired it at the monster. The reports were deafening. Sorrel clapped her hands to her ears. Black blood splattered across the floor from behind the coffin. The monster hissed.
The orderly ran out of bullets and had to reload. For a second there was silence. Was the monster dead? Sorrel struggled to her feet.
The monster leaped out of hiding and tackled the orderly to the ground, pressing its radioactive hands to his face. He screamed horribly as his flesh burned.
Sorrel ran the other way around the coffin and found the globe on the floor where the monster had left it. She summoned her most powerful Void Light and drove knives made of stars into the globe.
The monster leaped straight up in the air. It turned a backflip, plunged to the floor wish a crash and snap of breaking bone, and lay still. The orderly, wounded but alive, moaned and clutched his face.
Sorrel threw another burst of knives into the globe, and another, panting, sweating. "I'm going to kill you, you horrible Aphelion! Die! Die to my Light!"
Her own Light whipped out of the globe. No longer knives, something had reshaped it into a chain of unbreakable Light, every link perfectly formed. It caught Sorrel around the neck. She choked and clutched at it, but the chain was as hard as steel. It tightened and dragged her toward the globe with irresistible strength. Her feet skidded on the cold floor. "Vox!" she shrieked.
"I can't stop it!" the Ghost cried. "It's using your Light! I can't work against that!"
The chain dragged Sorrel to her knees, forcing her head toward that horrible globe. She strained and resisted, but the chain cut into her flesh with the fury of the stars.
She threw Vox to one side. "Don't let it take you, too!"
The Ghost bounced once, then hovered in her rings of Light. "Sorrel!"
Sorrel's forehead touched the globe.
Max paced back and forth beside the entrance to the Tower lift, fretting and anxious. Commander Zavala had promised him a fireteam to take into Owl Sector, but twenty minutes had passed and they hadn't appeared. No Ghost communications had arrived.
"I finally got a response from Jayesh," Zero told Max, floating at his shoulder. "He and his team were sent on emergency dispatch to Mars. Sounds like they're dealing with Cabal. He sends his apologies."
Max made a wordless, frustrated sound. "It's been two hours already, Zero. Who knows what they've done to Sorrel down there. Any response from that Ghost?"
"None," Zero replied in a small voice. "Not since her initial SOS."
Max dug his fingers into his shaggy blond hair. "That's bad. That's so bad. And I'm stuck here, waiting." It was so tempting to go tearing off to rescue Sorrel alone. But his Iron Lord training and his police training had both taught him to never, ever start a mission without backup.
He sat on the edge of a concrete planter and waited, drumming one foot on the sidewalk. "You know, Zero, this is all my fault. Every last bit."
"Why do you think that?" she asked.
Max reached up and stroked her shell. "You, for starters. When you came bombing in to my life to tell me that my uncle was dead and they thought I killed him ... that started it. I liked you enough to dare to become your Guardian. I didn't die of cancer like I should have because I fought it to the end. And that drug put it into remission - which also wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been there." He drew a deep breath. "Then we lost the Light and almost lost each other ... and I lost my innocence when I killed those men. I've never really been the same. Here. And here." He tapped his head, then his chest. "So I chose to train under Lord Saladin. I chose to train as a detective and go back to work on the side. Which put me in contact with Sorrel. And Erica. Light, I wish I'd never talked to Erica that day. She's such a ..."
"Gold digger?" Zero suggested.
"We'll go with that," Max said. "Felwinter's wolves. I was such a love struck idiot. I had this idea that I was getting my life in order, so I could have a girlfriend again, except, Zero, I don't understand women. Why is Erica so ... Erica ... and Sorrel is the nicest person on Earth? She's disfigured because of me and never said a word of blame." He made a frustrated sound and dropped his head into his hands. "So you see," he muttered, "Sorrel being in trouble is my fault because I picked up Erica ... and then broke up with her."
"Hey," Zero said softly, touching her eye to his temple in a Ghost kiss. "Don't give yourself so much credit. Erica is responsible for luring Sorrel into a trap. I think Erica has always been bad news, but you weren't mature enough to recognize it. And Sorrel ... I agree, Max, Sorrel is a wonderful person. If she dies, that's not your fault."
"If she dies." Max jumped to his feet and resumed pacing. "If she dies, I'm going to turn Owl Sector into a crater."
"I'll help you do it," Zero said. "Eyes up, I think that's your team approaching."
Max halted and turned. Striding toward him up the Tower Walk were strangers in strange armor - Reefborn Corsairs in sleek, Awoken-made body armor, carrying weapons that turned every Guardian's head. Leading them was a red-headed Awoken woman with a patch over one eye and a grim expression.
"Oh boy," Max murmured, heart sinking. "Is the Vanguard serious?"
The redhead stopped in front of him. She was several inches taller than Max, and her jaw was clenched. "Maximilian Ross?" Instead of shaking hands, she bowed slightly with one hand before her face. "I am Petra Venj, Queen's Wrath of the Reef. The Vanguard has assigned you to my service until we have located the stolen Aphelion globe."
Max nodded. "All right. Let's go. A woman's life is at stake."
"Every life on this City is at stake," Petra replied. "Should the Aphelion escape its bonds, every soul within these walls will perish, leaving behind ruins heavy with radioactivity. And you Guardians will be responsible. Lead on."
Max did, even more worried and anxious than he had been a moment ago.