The Bleed: Book 2: RAPTURE David Moody (the red fox clan txt) 📖

that’s not your fault. Feeling inadequate when you’re faced with information and situations you couldn’t possibly have learned about, or prepared for, is nothing to be ashamed of. No one would expect you to know how to make coffee in a two dimensional universe. How could you pour it if you can’t lift the pot? Just like no one would think that you would understand how to become coterminous in a four dimensional reality,” she added a shrug.

“So that’s nice and all, but will this help us find our sisters?” Arridon said, leaning forward in his chair towards the desk with the carvings that blew in the wind that wasn’t.

“It will find them,” Aduwabeh said, leaning forward to study the spiraling columns of new matter and light. With graceful eyes, and a patient, analytical mind, she poured over each level of the data the test had given her, looking for their two needles in the haystack of the multiverse.

“Anything?” Derrick asked.

“There’s an old expression: I have good news, and I have bad news,” she said, pausing the simulation’s rotating pattern. As the boys leaned forward in their seats, she continued. “They’re both in the same dimension, on a moon, protected by a substantial energy barrier. Safe, and alive—if only temporarily.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific when you say temporarily,” Arridon said to her, jaw set.

“Their reality; has been breached very close to their positions by the Bleed. You’re familiar with the Bleed, right, Arridon? You know they are in grave peril.”

“Yeah that’s fine,” he said back. “Give us a map or something and we’ll pop in and rescue them.”

“That’s the worst part of the news,” Aduwabeh said. “We cannot allow any transit from Eo to the dimension your sisters are on. It’s too great a risk to the Last City.” She waved a hand through the upright columns of their spiritual and genetic information, and they disappeared. The screen flashed red and then went blank.

“Not good enough,” Arridon spat, balling up his fists. “Show us where our sisters are.”

“Please,” Derrick said. “We need to help them. We won’t come back here. We’ll go somewhere else. You’ll never see or hear from us again. We’re begging you.”

“It’s done,” she said. “The results of the query here automatically locked all of the transit abilities from Eo to the moon where they are. I can’t help you. I wish I could, but I have no control over the system that protects this city from the Bleed.”

Arridon leapt to his feet and screamed at the wall. He unleashed the full force of his Godlike powers, fueled by his familiar rage.

Derrick felt the tremendous surge of power in the room—no different from when the air rushed into the airlocks back at his home on the moon—but nothing happened. Arridon’s screams of fury continued as his attempts to find release were stymied by something.

“All individual powers are neutralized in this city cell,” Aduwabeh said. “For reasons you can see and feel right now.”

“Tell us where they are, or I’ll rip this entire city apart,” Arridon threatened.

“I understand you believe you mean that, but you can’t possibly follow through on that threat,” she warned. “Millions of full-blooded citizens are here, and their powers are equal to, or greater than yours. You’d be dead in minutes, or worse, sent somewhere to die slowly. Take this knowledge, and run with it. Leave Eo, and find help somewhere else.” Aduwabeh produced two small, transparent vials filled with a sparkling, luminescent fluid. “This is all you need to locate them. Leave Eo, find a transit room in a different dimension without an Armageddon Protocol, and plug this into the socket. It’ll take you as close to them as you can get. As far as getting away from the endangered moon after you get to your sisters, well, you can figure that out, if you got here. I’m so sorry.”

Arridon’s eyes were tightened, stretched thin and red with anger, but he had resumed somewhat controlled deep breathing. Derrick leaned forward and took the ampoules from the bald woman and stood. He beckoned for Arridon to follow. The halfsie with the golden eyes glared at Aduwabeh for a moment and then stormed out of the office, back into the lush hallway.

He screamed again, punched the wall to no effect, then collapsed to his knees. Tears streamed down his face as sobs took over. He clutched at his midsection, wrapping himself in a hug as he rocked and cried.

“I promised her. I promised her we’d be together. She’s alone right now. And I know she can protect herself, but I promised her. Dad’s dead, and I promised her, Derrick.” He sobbed, “I miss her.”

Derrick looked on as his new friend let the frustration and fear out. He eventually stepped forward and placed a hand on Arridon’s shoulder. Arridon looked up and nodded in thanks.

“Thistle isn’t alone, Arridon. She’s with my sister. And knowing that they’re together is the only thing that’s keeping me sane right now. We’re going to figure out whatever that woman meant when she said Armageddon Protocol, and we’re going to go get our sisters. Right? Nothing is going to stop us.”

“Right,” Arridon agreed, and kept crying, but now it was different.

Derrick let tears leak from his eyes as well, and the two stayed just like that; crying in an empty hallway, in a floating city the size of a continent, filled with gods who didn’t seem to care about the unstoppable horrors of the universe. They took their time, and when they left, they had something of a plan.

It wasn’t much, but they worked with what they had.

30

EO

“Go ahead,” Derrick said. “Pop the tube.”

The two men departed the mountain-sized section of Eo and returned to one of the even larger multi-pronged star constructions towards the city’s radial center. They’d ascended to a level that occupied a thin piece of a tower, still larger than any building either had seen, and took up a