The vent split, going left and right.
“Which way?” Jakon whispered, and I took a deep breath, trying to picture J/O’s map on the wall. If we’d been facing that way, and the vents went up…But I’d been moving my finger sideways along the wall, which wasn’t the same thing as “up,” and it seemed like we were going another way now. Was it left?
I wasn’t sure.
“Joey! Which way?” Jakon’s voice was now a hiss, and I closed my eyes. I’d never been good at this sort of thing. Why could I walk between worlds and come up with elaborate plans that actually worked sometimes but couldn’t read a map?
Wait a minute—it was because I was also an idiot. I didn’t need maps. I was a Walker, and so was the person we were going to save.
I took a deep breath, casting about in my mind until I found the thing that enabled me to Walk, and expanded it.
And I felt him. It felt like when we were on the Malefic and we’d freed the spirits of our brothers and sisters, set them loose from the jars…. My brain felt like it was full of static, and there was a definite magnetic pull, linking me to the captive Walker. Our senses touched, and I knew him. His name was Joaquim.
“Right,” I whispered, and Jakon turned. I followed blindly, still buzzing from the adrenaline and the exhilaration of what I’d just done, and the memory of freeing those trapped spirits in our desperate flight from HEX, the first mission that made us a team.
I stopped. We were directly above them. I could feel it.
“Here.” I took out Jakon’s blaster and mine and braced myself against the side of the shaft with my knees pulled up to my chest.
Jai? Status?
J/O is attempting to bypass the firewall.
Let him trip the alarm, I thought. As long as he gets the information we need, the alarm will actually help us out.
There was a pause, then, Allow us to confer. Another pause. As you say. He is disabling the firewall….
“Ready?” The girls nodded, and I took a breath, waited for Jai’s voice in my head—“Now!”—and kicked the side of the vent open, activating my shield as I tumbled out in a controlled fall, guns held to either side like an action hero. There were advantages to all of the classes I took at InterWorld, but some of them were better than others.
There were eight to ten guards in the room, all rutabagas—three of them at the only door, a few standing around, and four clustered around the new Walker. I didn’t bother aiming for those; too much of a chance I’d hit him. An alarm went off, and I managed to take out one as I landed, and another before they started firing. I felt the blasts ping off my shield, automatically counting—One—two—
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Walker get to his feet, swinging the chair he’d been sitting on like a weapon. It cracked into one of the clones, and I abruptly changed my strategy as two of the others went for him. I was a little surprised, honestly. I’d assumed he’d be terrified by all this. I was, when it had happened to me. Instead, he was drawing some of their fire—and he didn’t have a shield.
I zapped the one closest to him, counting off another two shots as they hit my chest and arm. I felt the shield weaken, and perfectly on cue, Jakon tumbled out of the vent with a sound somewhere between a howl and a bark. She landed on one of the clones, hopped off like he was a trampoline, and sank her teeth into a second one. I zapped another of the rutabagas closest to Joaquim, then figured if he was going to be proactive he may as well also be useful.
“The window!” I shouted, and he stared at me. No matter how many times it happened, it was always a shock seeing your own face looking back at you. I wondered, on some level, if twins ever felt that way. Joaquim was less like me than some; his hair and eyes were darker, though still noticeably red and brown, respectively. I saw the same shock and suspicion in his eyes we all feel when this happens, just for a moment—and then he did as I’d suggested, swinging the chair around in an arc to shatter the window.
The glass tumbled outward, along with the chair, and Jo shot out of the vent. Her wings snapped out to either side (along with a cloud of dust that would have been funny in any other situation), and she half flew, half fell over to Joaquim. His eyes went wide as she wrapped her arms around him, taking them both through the window and outside. They disappeared from sight for a moment as they fell, then Jo caught an updraft and soared back into view, the new Walker dangling from her arms. She pumped her wings once, twice, gained altitude—and a blaster went off behind me, the shot going wild as Jakon pounced on one of the clones. It zipped past me, taking what was left of my shield, and searing through Jo’s right wing.
She dropped, leaving only a few dusty feathers suspended in the sky.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I REMEMBER BEING IN a car accident once. Mom was driving, and the person in front of us slammed on his brakes to avoid a ball that had rolled out into the middle of the street. I hadn’t been paying attention, but I remember hearing Mom say “No—!” as our car skidded on the pavement, in this tone that was somewhere between the firm, no-nonsense Mommy voice and the pleading, “no-it’s-not-time-for-bed” voice my little sister would use. I remember how I knew something was very wrong a second before our car hit the other one. We hadn’t been going too fast, so the accident wasn’t bad—more than the crash itself, I’ve never forgotten hearing Mom say no that way, as though she could stop the car by will alone. She hadn’t remembered that she’d said it, afterward.
It’s human instinct to react to a bad situation, regardless of how effective that reaction is. Some people move, some freeze, some hold their breath or gasp or yell. Our combat teacher was always saying that everyone had instinct, it was just a matter of training it, honing it to do what would most benefit you and your teammates in any situation.
So when Jo disappeared from the sky, I didn’t waste time with words. Knowing Jakon would take care of the clone behind me, I reached down to the shield disk at my belt, activating the charger. A fully charged shield could take several plasma blasts, a few spells, and maybe twenty pounds of blunt force. They took ten seconds to fully charge. I had about as long as it would take me to get to the window.
I sprinted over, catching myself on the frame with one hand, watching as they fell through the air. Jo had spread both wings out, trying to slow their fall, her arms still wrapped around the new Walker. “Jo!” I yelled. It had been two seconds. Three. Four…
She folded one wing, turning as she fell so she could see me. I pulled the shield free of the charger and hurled it, Frisbee style, toward her. I saw her grit her teeth as she pumped her wings again, trying to delay the inevitable long enough for it to reach her. We both knew it wasn’t fully charged; at best, she and the Walker would come out of it with several broken bones. If it got to her before they hit the ground.
Joaquim had his arms wrapped around her waist. She managed to free a hand, and reached out toward the disk. I was glad my father had taught me how to throw; my aim was good, but she had too much of a head start. It wasn’t going to reach her in time—
A look of shock crossed her face. Her body seemed to ripple, just for an instant, as did the air around her—and then they vanished, the disk passing through the air where they’d been. It hit the ground a second later.
“She Walked,” Jakon said from beside me. “She’s okay. She Walked.”