He tried to stand, and fell. A second pained effort brought him to his feet. He staggered back, hitting the wall. He needed to rest.
Everything was silent. The air began to clear.
Maybe he’d take one of the assassin’s guns. He wasn’t confident that he could conjure anymore fire.
Before he could move, something caught his eye. He watched as a metal sphere, small enough to hold in his hand, dropped from the hole in the ceiling and hit the ground. It rolled toward him a few feet before stopping.
His stomach lurched. Panic flooded his heart. He recognized the weapon instantly. He’d used then dozens of times in training. Every Pearlhound knew what a Unified Party-issue gas bomb looked like.
Unified Party. This couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Not now,” he muttered to himself. “This isn’t happening.”
A tiny red light began to blink on the surface of the bomb. It would only pulse faster until the thing exploded and knocked him out for good. Seconds. Less than.
Pushing against the wall, he moved sideways until he found the closest door. He pulled on the handle in a blind panic, moments before the bomb exploded.
Expecting to enter another room, the sudden drop took Cassius by surprise. The planks beyond the door had been removed, leaving nothing to support his body. He fell to the next lowest level of the building, a narrow landing attached to a rotting staircase.
Half running, half rolling, he tumbled down the stairs. Gas seeped through the open doorway above him, slowing as it dissipated into the large open space.
When he finally reached the bottom, he dragged his bruised and battered body toward the nearest exit and slipped outside, desperate for fresh air. He took a deep breath and stumbled forward, all the while repeating the words in his head.
Unified Party.
There was no way a Slum Lord would’ve gained access to a gas bomb like that. Not this far north. It was government-issue, no doubt. Even in his weakened state, he couldn’t forget something as obvious as that.
The skyline beckoned in the distance. It was his only chance. Laws were scarce in the slum lands. In the city, he’d have the protection of a more dignified crowd. Maybe.
He ducked into the nearest alleyway. He’d run until he passed out, if necessary. Anything to lengthen his distance from them. He’d let the city swallow him. It was his only hope.
2
They’re going to find me. I have minutes, maybe. And when they do, I’ll get the needle again.
Jesse Fisher. He doesn’t look like much, but he’s dangerous.
Jesse Fisher. We don’t understand him anymore. He’s not one of us. Not really. We’ll pretend he is, but not really.
It’s a foregone conclusion. Once the secondary lights cut off throughout the Academy, they’ll know what happened. Kids who should be sleeping will look up from blank screens. Yank at silent headphones. The ship’s control deck will flicker to emergency backup. This-right here in the reactor chamber-is the first place they’ll look. And they’ll find me. I won’t have time to escape.
But if I can just do this one thing, maybe it’ll be worth it.
The thought pins my fingers to the railing. It keeps me traveling up the ladder, rung by rung, each move another treacherous act. By the time I’ve pulled my body onto the warm metal of the platform, it’s too late to talk myself out of it.
I stand in the center of Skyship’s main reactor chamber, the heart of our little operation. But instead of pumping blood, this heart runs on Pearl Power. Without it, the Academy shuts down. The Bridge’ll trigger crisis mode and try to eke out as much power from our struggling solar panels as they can.
It’s okay. We’ll survive. It’s not like there’s a danger of plummeting to the ground. We haven’t been airborne in weeks.
I shield my eyes from the green glow that overtakes the room. A bulky turbine spins several yards from where I stand, stretching from floor to ceiling like an enormous hourglass-an ancient beast of a machine. Each revolution is a struggle. Loud thomp, thomp noises reverberate across the walls as the flaps scoop the air. Beyond that I see the source of the green light. Placed inside the bowels of the tube, sitting there like a treasure ripe for the picking, is a Pearl.
It pulses in my gut. It’s so strong, it’s internal. The energy crackles along the narrow walls of the spherical room. My heart flutters. The Pearl speaks to me. Maybe not the way normal people do, but it’s calling me all the same. Telling me to break it.
I stand at the far end of the thin platform that surrounds the reactor chamber-metal scaffolding that’s been in place long enough to be considered permanent. I step closer to the reactor and look over my shoulder in case I’m not alone. The room is empty, but full of spirit. This is a tomb. Hundreds have died here, sucked dry by the reactor. Thousands more have been killed these past decades.
Back when I was a simple Skyship trainee, we didn’t know what was inside Pearls-that they carried living, sentient beings. It took a chance meeting with Cassius Stevenson, my brother, to trigger my power to break Pearls. And that changed everything. Now every flip of a light switch or click of a button is a kind of murder. Small things. They add up.
Pearl Power runs everything onboard, from the central thrusters to the tiny overhead light on the desk in my room. Every Skyship’s like this. Every Chosen City, too.
After discovering what was really inside Pearls, our technicians upped consumption of solar, biomass, and alternative fuels. We now burn twenty-eight percent less Pearl Power, extending each orb’s lifespan from sixty-eight days to ninety-three. Captain Alkine’s gone through the numbers, but it doesn’t make any difference to me.
Pearls are people. My people. Cassius and I were sent to Earth to break Pearls, freeing allies that would help us fight the invasion that’s to come. But instead of following my parents’ wishes, I’ve been standing by, oblivious, while my own people are snuffed out.
Not anymore.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead and breathe in dank air. My balance wobbles on the platform. I make the mistake of looking down, right through the hexagonal holes between grids of metal underfoot. I’m not entirely sure this scaffolding is strong enough to support anyone for more than a few minutes, even a scrawny 15-year-old like me.
It was a long climb up here, which means an equally long drop if I were to fall. Below me are the docking bays, followed by the engine works, though the chute from the base of the reactor chamber would likely wind past everything until I landed unceremoniously at the very bottom of the Skyship. Pow. Splat. Dead.
I stumble forward, my fear a constant motivation to get this done quickly.
My hands tremble at my sides. I was able to bring a Pearl toward me back in Seattle last spring. I shouldn’t have to reach far. All I’ve gotta do is focus.
I crouch and close my eyes, extending my hands in front of my chest like I’m ready to catch a baseball. I let the energy speak to me, connect to the whispers inside. Suddenly I feel heat, like I’m standing in the Fringes. Back in America. It’s the Pearl.
The tips of my fingers twitch, shoved around by the force of the energy. Glass shatters in the distance. So much for the reactor’s containment shield. I open my eyes and watch the Pearl fly at me-a stringless yo-yo heading straight for my waiting fingers.
The moment it connects with my hands, I feel complete again. There’s no downplaying the sensation. It’s as if a missing limb has reformed itself. Nobody in the world knows this feeling. Nobody in any world. There’s only one Pearlbreaker.
Me.
I hug the swirling sphere of green closer to my tingling body. The hairs on my arms stand on end. My skin warms, coursing up from my hands and into my chest. I stare into the Pearl’s seemingly endless abyss of energy and listen to the whispers. A language. One I can’t even begin to comprehend, but mine all the same. The language
