Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(34)

A shuddering exhale escapes me as I locate a directive indicating that maiming me is an option. A part of me wants them to come—wants them to tear my limbs from me and rip my flesh until there’s nothing left but bones. But some instinct will never allow that. The fight hasn’t gone out of me—it’s roaring back with a vengeance.

Who’s controlling them now that Agent Crow is dead? Maybe no one. Maybe Spectrum has outgrown the paltry human minds that made it. I ignite Hawthorne’s fusionblade and sever the arm from the dead soldier nearest me.

A few Spectrum soldiers leap up onto corpse-ridden tables. They hurtle from one hovering slab to the next, overturning the deceased in their paths. Others use their steel claws to climb the stone walls. Another wave fans out. They’re trying to surround me.

Movement to my right catches my attention. Cherno sits up on a hovering table near me. Bare-chested, he rises. His golden eyes meet mine. Water drips from his shiny, black hair. The dragon-man nods once, acknowledging me, like an ally would. I freeze, my heart lurching faster. He turns away and focuses on the charging horde. Without a word, he stands. I aim my Series-7 cannon at him. The fearsome creature tears a cannon-armed limb off a corpse on the slab next to him. I flinch, expecting him to aim at me. Casually, he angles it at the encroaching Black-Os instead.

With my focus on Cherno, I fail to fire on the Black-O who’s now about to pounce on my chest. Cringing, I brace for the impact. Boom! The Black-O’s body in front of me explodes, careening sideways from the fusion pulse Cherno pumped into it. I take a shaky breath. Cherno obliterates another Spectrum soldier that dives at me, and then another.

I have no more time to think, so I just react, leveling the fusion-cannon arm at the invading Black-Os and catching one midair near me. A solid strike to the head blows his skull apart. Still, the ones behind him come, undaunted by the powerful weapon in my hands. They’re not individuals. They exist as one—they’re everyone, and because of that, they’re no one.

Is Hawthorne’s consciousness still in there among them?

Another wave of Spectrum Black-Os nears me, forcing me behind a stone pillar for cover. Cherno moves with me and braces behind an adjacent pillar. I fire in bursts at the Spectrum soldiers who approach me, blowing their heads apart. It’s a massacre. Cherno and I keep shooting, and they keep falling, but more and more take their places.

Bodies pile up in front of us, forming a wall of gore. We shoot down our enemies who scurry across to the ceiling, the ones that come at us from the sides, and the ones in front of us, until the first wave is all dead and the air reeks of charred flesh and exploded ions. The next wave comes, almost without pause. My weapon’s charge rapidly depletes. I need to rearm soon—literally.

Cherno isn’t so fortunate when it comes to Spectrum’s protocol. No rules bar the soldiers from returning fire at him. In the next wave, he catches a fusionmag strike to the chest. It bounces off him, repelled as if by Clifton’s Copperscale material. It leaves a dark, scrawling mark resembling a lightning strike on his dragon-scale flesh. Cherno reels back, bending at his waist and shielding his chest with his hand. I target the soldier that shot him and fire until I blow a hole in her.

“Are you hurt?” I bellow at Cherno.

He scowls at me with disgust. “These puny human-halflings cannot harm me!”

I gape at him. The timbre of his voice sounds like a volcano rumbling. I hadn’t expected him to speak—at least not in my language. A nod, maybe, but not this. I’d expected to hear Spectrum’s garble—the abbreviated, often symbolic, guttural, more efficient, higher-echelon code that they spout for everything seen and unseen.

“You understand me,” I reply.

He doesn’t look at me but continues tracking and destroying our enemies. “It isn’t difficult. Yours is a simpleton’s language.”

“Oh.” We whittle down the few Spectrum soldiers left, but behind them another wave stands ready to enter the room.

Cherno growls. “Do you intend to kill them until we run out of ammunition and get crushed? Or should we do the intelligent thing and find a way out of this tomb?”

So dragon-men are prone to sarcasm. Lovely. “There’s a hidden door.”

“Where?”

“Ceiling.” I point above us with a motion of my chin. “This used to be an ancient oubliette. Do you know what that is?”

He glances at the outline of a door at the peak of the arching ceiling, a story or more above us. “Is it a place to hold your enemies?”

“Yes.”

“In my time, we called it a gaolgahl.”

“Your time?”

“Can you climb?”

“The walls?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Another wave of Spectrum soldiers advances. Cherno dives behind my pillar, joining me.

“Climb on my back,” he orders.

“What? No!” I fire on the soldiers.

“Climb on my back, and I’ll get us out of here.” He grasps my elbow and pulls me nearer to him.

“We’ll never make it,” I balk, shooting off target.

“We’ll make it. They don’t intend to kill you, so you can be my shield.” He turns away and hunches down. I’m out of options. My weapon misfires. It’s dying. Soon I won’t be able to scorch holes in these careening monsters, and then they’ll have me. I choose the lesser evil and jump onto Cherno’s back and wrap my arm around his thick neck. He springs from his crouch and sprints toward the wall at the back of the morgue. His talons screech against the stone fortress’s dull-gray granite, finding purchase. Rapidly, we ascend the rough surface.