Page 9 of The Light Within

Cinn gasped for breath. “Another reason”—he coughed violently, spitting bile and ash onto the ground—“not to have a fancy-ass penthouse suite.”

“Is this really the time for that comment?”

Cinn’s face split into a grin, the euphoria of their escape sending him doolally. He dusted grey powder from Julien’s white shirt before meeting his wide, red-rimmed eyes. He was still panting as he brought their foreheads together. “I can’t believe we’re alive.”

The rush of joy from escaping the building faded as Cinn absorbed the chaotic scene around them. The street was littered with debris, the air thick with the acrid scent of smoke and the distant wail of sirens.

The tremors had finally ceased, however, their sensations petering out into nothing. Around them, strangers stumbled, shell-shocked, many of them clutching crying children to their chests.

“This is madness,” Julien said, shaking his head. He was as spooked as Cinn had ever seen him. Blinking rapidly, he stumbled several steps backwards to lean against a lamppost.

“Hey.” Cinn grabbed his wrist, sliding his fingers up the sleeve of his shirt to feel the corded muscles of his forearm. “We’re okay. It’s over.”

Julien took a second, tipping his head back to the grey sky. He inhaled deeply, once, then appeared to gather himself. He launched himself from the lamppost, marching straight up to a random local, rapidly reeling off questions in what was presumably Swiss-German before returning back to Cinn.

“He said don’t bother driving anywhere.” As if to demonstrate this fact, several angry car horns sounded in the near distance. “We’ll have to walk.”

Cinn’s shell-shocked mind struggled to process the information. “Huh? Walk? Where?”

Julien looked past Cinn, down the road, a distant look on his face. Cinn came close to repeating his question, then Julien finally said, “Darcy’s. Let’s hope her side of town was less affected.”

three

Julien

They had to see it to believe it.

Standing on the crest of the valley that overlooked Auri, Julien couldn't tear his disbelieving eyes away from the crack through the heart of it. The colossal fissure split their Institute in two, separating St. Caelum’s and the Aurelia Library from the Solstice Atrium and the Nexus Towers.

“It’s notthatbad,” Elliot said, then scoffed. “I could easily jump that blindfolded.”

They’d spent the previous day, once they’d finally reached Darcy’s cottage on foot—Julien mourning the loss of Maz every step of the way—primarily in Darcy’s living room. Darcy and Julien warred for hours over who had access to her telephone. Eventually, Julien resorted to using her fireplace to send a note to Eleanor, hoping for any titbit of information.

Very little came.

What they did eventually hear was that their own Auri was the epicentre of the earthquake, which had reached a magnitude over seven. Oh, and there was now a massive crack down the middle of it.

“Ah, yes, Elliot, it’s no bother at all. We’ll all just jump over it and completely ignore it, shall we?” Darcy’s mood had soured throughout the day. She’d been fine when Julien had left her cottage that morning on the back of Elliot’s bike to collect Maz—seizing the first opportunity,once the town council had declared the main roads drivable again. Now, she was quick to snap.

Cinn cleared his throat. “At least the buildings look okay?”

Indeed, Auri’s structures were entirely intact—they had motetech to thank for that—though many of the lumenmote stone columns had fallen, now lying like scattered branches.

The same certainly couldn’t be said for many of Talwacht’s buildings. Would the public question why the buildings closest to the quake’s epicentre had remained standing, almost completely unharmed? Auri was often the butt of the locals’ jokes. That crazy place in the valley where all the foreigners worked, doing theirscience things. Would Auri come under more scrutiny now?

At least they had the other earthquakes that had happened simultaneously around the world to distract them. Every other large moteblessed hub had been affected by similar events, from their Asian base near Bangkok all the way to Vermont.

Darcy, staring towards the glowing barrier that encircled the entirety of the Institute, said, “The media has started questioning if we’re on the verge of the second wave of calamities. The world has already seen a rise in natural disasters over the last decade, but this is all pointing towards new levels. Calamities of Nineteen Sixty-Five levels.”

The Calamities of Nineteen Sixty-Five. Where everything mote-related had started. Or so they said. Soon after the series of volcano eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis and droughts had rocked the world, a miniscule handful of people had discovered they could see, and sometimes even channel, the ethereal flecks of energy now known as motes.

“Shit!” All eyes snapped to Elliot. He pointed to the far left of the valley. “Who are those people? Over there, close to the barrier.”

About a dozen figures, dressed in dark colours, huddled together near the glowing red line of the barrier. One approached one of the power poles, thin silver sticks containing motecells. Julien’s own department,Mote-Enhanced Engineering and Technologies, had designed the device years ago. Erectable in seconds, it blocked any physical movement of flesh from moving through it, repelling a person or animal several metres back upon an attempt.

“I doubt they’re up to any good,” Darcy said. She glanced at Elliot. “The gendarmerie must be about, though, surely?”

“Most of us are being sent into Talwacht to help with the clean-up today. I start my shift at three.”

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