War Storm

“I see smoke on this side, in between those factories,” he says.

At her window, Cameron raises a shoulder. “Autoworks sector,” she replies without turning around. “The assembly lines jammed half an hour ago. The shift will be turned out, and they’ll idle around the gates asking for the day’s wage. Overseers will refuse. Officers will try to keep peace.” She grins to herself. “Big mess.”

“What color is the smoke, Kilorn?” I ask, still scanning my section of horizon. From this height, New Town seems smaller. But just as depressing. All gray and smoggy, hung with low clouds of brutal haze. It pulses, sluggish, the electricity almost overwhelming.

“Uh, normal?” Kilorn sputters. “Gray.”

I huff low in my throat. Eager to get this moving.

“Normal. Just the smokestacks,” Cameron drawls. “Not the signal.”

He shifts, coughing some more. I wince at the hacking sound. “What are we looking for again?”

“Anything that isn’t normal,” I reply through gritted teeth.

“Right,” he grumbles.

On the opposite side of the low room, Cameron taps her knuckles against her greasy window. “You know, maybe this rebellion would be further along if they didn’t rely on teenagers so much.” She tosses a smirk at Kilorn. “Especially ones who can’t read.”

He barks out a laugh, rising to the bait. “I can read.”

“But colors are beyond your bleeding comprehension?” she snaps back with whip quickness.

He shrugs and raises his hands. “I’m just making conversation.”

Cameron scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Because we really need distractions right now, Kilorn.”

I press my lips together, trying not to giggle at them both. “Is this what Tiberias and I sound like when we argue?” I ask with a raised brow. “Because if so, I sincerely apologize.”

Kilorn goes scarlet, flushing, as Cameron quickly turns back to her window, almost pressing her face to the glass.

I missed what was happening with Shade and Farley. Have I missed this too?

“You two are about ten times worse,” Kilorn finally says, his voice a low, rumbling grunt.

At the opposite window, Cameron snorts. “You mean a hundred.”

Grinning, I glance between the pair of them. Both are on edge, even for the circumstances. I try to read the tightness in Kilorn’s shoulders, but the flush still coloring his cheeks is more damning. “I walked into that, didn’t I?” I mutter, turning back to my window.

Behind me, he chuffs out a laugh. “Absolutely.”

Then Cameron slams a hand to her window, hissing. “Green smoke. Weapons sector. Shit.”

Kilorn jumps to her side, drawing his gun. He eyes her, worried. “Why ‘shit’?”

“Weapons sector has the most security,” she says quickly. With even motions, she peels off her jacket, revealing her own gun and a wicked knife I hope she never has to use. “For obvious reasons.”

I exhale slowly. Inside me, the lightning snaps and crackles. “More likely to blow up too.”

With a roll of his shoulders, Kilorn dons a scowl. He touches Cameron lightly on the arm, pulling her back from the window. “Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen,” he mutters, kicking out the glass.

Shards explode out and in, shattering with the force of the blow. Still grimacing, he wipes one jacketed sleeve around the frame, knocking loose any jagged edges. He then steps back to let me lean out and brace myself on the ledge. A smoky wind blows against my face, smelling of fumes and distant fire. Without hesitation, I slip one leg out the window, then the other. Kilorn grabs the back of my shirt, keeping a firm grip.

I look skyward, focusing on the blue dawn as it melts to pink. Even though the sky is choked with corrupted clouds, they make for lovely colors. My heartbeat thrums, rising to a steady rhythm. The lightning in me pulses with it, feeding off the electricity below. I clench a fist, trying to remember what Ella taught me.

Storm lightning is the strongest and most destructive kind we can make. It gathers; it grows; it breaks. Overhead, the vibrantly colored clouds begin to darken and swirl, condensing with my power. Before my eyes, identical shadows bloom over two other parts of the city. Ella and Rafe. The three of us make a triangle, with the electricity hub at our center. The city spread out before us like a killing ground. And Tyton is somewhere down there, more dangerous than any of us, ready to loose his pulse lightning on anyone who might get too close.

Blue lightning flashes first, illuminating the curls of a rising thunderhead to my left. The roar of close thunder cracks over us and I feel Kilorn flinch, the motion tugging my shirt. I stand firm, keeping my grip on the window frame.

Purple and green join the fray as our storms collide, raining bolts down on our target. The hub, a domed building near the center of the city, is easily distinguished by the tangle of wires reaching in every direction. Connecting power stations all over the city, and feeding back electricity into the factories. The lifeblood of any slum town. Even from this distance, I can feel the low hum of it.

“Make it rain,” Kilorn snarls.

I bite back a sigh. “That’s not how it works,” I hiss back, throwing a bolt across the sky. The other electricons do as well, their blue and green racing toward my purple.

Our strikes hit directly above the hub, birthing a blinding flash. On cue, the hum disappears as our allies inside take the hub system offline. They shut it down more quickly than even we could, and with far fewer casualties.

All over the city, smokestacks stop belching out their poison. Assembly lines grind to a halt. Even transports on the streets, isolated with their own energy sources, slow or pull over, surprised by the sudden shutdown. The storm continues, a three-headed monster, sending cracks of lightning across the sky in all directions. I keep my bolts away from the ground for now. I can’t aim them well at this distance and don’t want to risk innocent lives. Not to mention the Scarlet Guard explosives, which are now set all over the city. One spark from me could set off a chain of bursting death.

“All stop,” Cameron murmurs next to me. She looks out on her city with marvel in her eyes. “No power means no work. Shifts turned out all over. Workers baying for their wages. Officers distracted, overseers overrun.”

Blind to the cutthroats, criminals, and soldiers now in their midst. Blind to the bombs beneath their feet.

“How long until—”

The first detonation cuts Kilorn off, rumbling a little too close for comfort. An explosion rises to our left, two streets away. At one of the city gates. Rock and smoke streak through the air in a dusty, dragging arc. The next bomb obliterates another gate, followed by the other two. Then the interior charges blow. Beneath security posts, guard towers, Silver barracks, the overseers’ quarters. Any and all Silver targets. I wince with each strike, trying not to think of how much blood we spill today. On both sides. Who will be caught in the crossfire?

We watch in silence, cowed by the sight. More smoke, more dust, and now ash. Cameron’s chest rises and falls as her breath turns to panting. Her wide, dark eyes dart back and forth, always returning to the factories marking the weapons sector. Nothing explodes there.

“The Scarlet Guard isn’t stupid enough to put bombs beneath a munitions depot,” I tell her, hoping to comfort her a little.

Then it explodes.

The resulting force knocks us all backward, sending us sprawling over broken glass and the dusty attic. Cameron scrambles up first, bleeding from a cut on the forehead. “Then that wasn’t the Guard,” she yelps, pulling me to my feet.