Thread War Read online

  Betty rolled another few metres . . . then stopped. Another pause, then her trail-eye settled on him. “All right, I’ll bite. Yes, Johnny?”

  He couldn’t help it. She was probably going to kill them all and the whole thing was so tragic he could scream, but he was still who he was and he had her. “Johnny Drop,” he said, in the cockiest voice he could, the one he knew used to drive Albert spare. “That’s my name. And in another ten years, hole, maybe five, that’s the name they’ll be saying. Not yours. Mine. They won’t be saying your name at all.” And then, because if there was one thing he knew how to do was get under another skid’s skin, he pulled out Torres’s light-swords, ignited them, and added, “Or if they do, they’ll think of you the way you think of SecCore.”

  Rage flared across her trail-eye and then the upper-eye swung his way, as she turned on her treads. “Oh, this is going to be rich. I’m fighting on more fronts than you could imagine, but I can find time for this. You think because you’ve got the panzer’s toy you can take me? Please.” She popped both her Hasty-Arms and a sword ignited in each, pink like her stripe. “You couldn’t take me on your best—”

  The rocket came from above, and she had her upper-eye on Johnny so she never saw it coming. She screamed with fury as a smoke bomb followed.

  Time to go, Johnny. The corridor on your forty-five. He didn’t even wait to see how much damage they’d caused. He gunned it for the corridor.

  First lift left, Shabaz continued. Dillac and Kesi are waiting on the second level, get off on three.

  Behind him, he heard a roar and saw Betty emerge from the smoke, spot him, and pursue. He found the lift and the circle of force flung him upwards. He passed the second floor cleanly, and zipped out at the third. As Betty passed the second floor, the area around the updraft exploded. She screamed again, as the lift’s force carried her up past Johnny.

  “Not so much legend, boz!” Dillac howled from below.

  But now Betty was one level up and Johnny had to keep her attention focused on him. He found another lift and zipped upward, as a roar came down the hall to his left. “Hey!” he yelled, and was rewarded as a black and pink shape, slightly battered, came around the corner. “Eyes on the prize.”

  He wasn’t sure how much damage she’d taken, but she did look pissed. They couldn’t kill her, Johnny was pretty sure of that. After all, most of her was still in the Core fighting SecCore. But maybe, just maybe, they could hurt her enough that she’d lose what she had here, make it so she couldn’t come back to the factory.

  Johnny, come straight on and take the third right.

  He took off, keeping an eye on Betty to make sure she followed. Bouncing off the walls to gain speed, he careened around the corner Shabaz had indicated with Betty right on his treads. She didn’t need to bounce off anything.

  She was reaching for Johnny when the mine behind him caught her. Johnny caught a flash of white and red pulling away, Onna in retreat. Betty screamed incoherently—the ground trembled—but she emerged from the blast and smoke, her expression angry and set. “You think this is doing anything? I’ll vape you all!”

  He hated this. Not because his life was in danger, not even because it was his hero who was trying to kill him. He hated it because he still didn’t even know why he was racing away from her, what they were going to accomplish, how they had gotten here. For the next five minutes, he streaked through the factory—up levels, down levels, back and forth—barely ahead of Betty, and only because at this corner or that a blast would knock her back, slowing her down.

  And why? What were they going to accomplish? Was Wobble suddenly going to show up and—what?—talk her down? Vape his oldest friend? The blasts Betty took might be slowing her down momentarily, but there was no sign of her stopping, no sign of any real damage. And even if they could hurt her, even if Wobble showed up and they somehow kicked her out of the factory and sent her back to the Core and got the factory up and running, what then? Live to vape her another day? Take a thousand Wobbles and start another war, with Betty on the verge of taking out the one defence system the Thread had already?

  He was racing for his life and probably shouldn’t be thinking of the big picture, but the ground was shaking and Betty was here and if someone wasn’t—

  Okay, Johnny bring her to the fifth level, right here. A blip appeared on his positioning system. Krugar says we’ve going to take the shot.

  He didn’t know what shot that was supposed to be, but he hit a lift, flying up two floors, then sped down a hallway. He emerged onto a platform jutting out into the central hub, thirty metres wide.

  Where the vape was he supposed to go from here? Three hallways led back away from the hub; other than that, three sides of empty air. Betty rolled onto the platform as he slowly backed towards the edge. “All right,” she said, waving the two light swords. “You’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn. You first, then the rest of the traitors. Any last—”

  The others burst onto the platform: Dillac and Shabaz from lifts on the left; Onna and Kesi from ones on the right; Krugar zipping down on a rope from above. They all opened fire as they hit the platform—Krugar was firing as he dropped. Torres emerged from one of the hallways with a gun like the one Torg had once used in the Core.

  Betty screamed, bombarded from all sides, as the hub echoed with pounding detonations. Johnny stared: he’d never seen such violence at close quarters, even the race through the Vies to get into the factory hadn’t been this concentrated. Betty’s swords went flying; no one could survive this, this was a slaughter—

  Then the scream became a roar and Betty’s Hasty-Arms popped out farther than Johnny would have ever imagined possible, growing to ten times their size, sweeping the platform. She slapped Shabaz and the others off the sides, plucking Krugar out of the air where he’d leaped to avoid her and hurling him out into the factory.

  “You jackhole,” she cried, surging towards Johnny, her arms retreating back to their normal size. He raised a light-sword to defend himself and she snatched it from his hands with almost contemptuous ease. “You think you’re saving anything here?! I’m the one trying to save everything. For the last fifty years, I’m the only one who’s been defending the Thread.” She flipped the sword around, blade down, pointed at Johnny. “And I’m going to vaping save it, with or without your help.”

  “Then maybe you should have a look at what you’re saving,” a voice said. And, even as the light-sword descended, a flash of magenta and gold darted in front of Johnny.

  “Ahh, sweetlips,” Torg said, staring at the sword embedded in his torso. “That hurts.”

  He reeled back on his treads, towards the edge. As he did, his Hasty-Arms fell to his side and something tumbled out from one of his hands, skidding away. Then he went over the side.

  “Torg!” Johnny and Betty both cried, racing to the edge. Far below, Torg’s body lay crumpled on the floor of the factory. It lay there for a moment, then evaporated.

  A quality of anger that Johnny had never felt before surged through him. She’d killed Torg. She had killed—all three of his eyes swung towards her, to see a fury that matched his own. “I’ll vape you,” she hissed, reaching forward. “I’ll vape you with my own—”

  “HEY!”

  Betty and Johnny swung an eye.

  Not far away, Zen sat on his treads, holding the device Torg had dropped in his hands: a small, square box with a single button. The Level One had all three eyes on Betty, each one flat with anger. “I’m only seventeen days old. I don’t even know who you are. But I liked Torg.” He held up the device. “I wonder what this does?”

  Betty lunged forward. Zen hit the button.

  And the factory exploded with light.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Shabaz hit the floor of the factory and refused to get vaped. She refused to even slow down.

  She had to get back to Johnny.

  If that last assault hadn’t even slowed Betty then she had no idea what she could do; they were geared
unless Wobble showed up. Didn’t matter. She had to get back to Johnny before someone got vaped.

  Then, as she found the correct lift and vaulted upwards, a magenta body dropped in the other direction with an orange gleam embedded in its nine gold stripes, and Shabaz realized she was too late.

  Oh, Torg . . .

  She hit the fifth floor in time to hear Zen’s words—what was he doing, they’d told him to stay out of the fight!—to see Betty reaching out, and then the Level One pressed a button on some kind of device.

  And the entire world turned into a holla bank.

  Every single surface became a platform for hollas: the walls, the floor, the floor of the platform—hole, they were even hanging in the air surrounding them. Still and moving images; landscapes and panoramas; diagrams and charts; highlights, portraits, collages; words and symbols and lines and lines and lines of golden light. She remembered the first time she’d seen the Skidsphere from outside; this was a thousand times more, a million . . . more.

  A trillion individual hollas flashing to life.

  Except they weren’t all individual. Some of them were shifting places, connecting: this line lining up with that; images grouping together and then grouping together and then grouping together again.

  It was the most beautiful thing Shabaz had ever seen.

  “What . . . ?” Betty said, her hands dropping away from Zen, the oldest and youngest skid staring out with equally stunned expressions. “What is this?”

  “It’s the Thread,” a bitter voice said.

  Shabaz’s gaze came away from the miracle around her to settle on Johnny and her heart collapsed. He was still by the edge of the platform, the spot where Torg had gone over the side. One eye on the hollas, but two on Betty.

  She’d seen him angry before, in dozens of different ways. She’d been nervous of his anger at first, and still hated it when it was directed at her, but she’d come to see how he used it, how it drove him. Not the only thing that did, but nonetheless, one of the forces that helped make him who he was.

  She’d never seen him angry like this. It was like it was drenched into his skin; it was so deep and hurt and sad.

  “It can’t be,” Betty whispered, all three of her eyes flailing about, desperate to somehow take it all in, failing utterly. “It’s too big.”

  “And you know something bigger?” Johnny said harshly, rolling forward. “It’s the Thread, Betty. The whole thing. This is what you’ve been trying to save.”

  “But this is . . . even SecCore doesn’t know . . . no one could save this. It’s too big, no one could grasp—”

  “Well, you better vaping try,” Johnny snarled. “Because this is why you killed Albert. This is why you killed Torg.”

  Around them, hollas continued to merge and merge again. One of her eyes came down from the sight. “Oh,” she said, seeming to deflate. “Torg.”

  “Yeah. Oh . . . Torg.” Johnny drove every word home. “He died so you could see this. Do you think it was worth it?”

  She sat there, staring at him, as images flashed off her glossy black skin. Then her eyes dropped. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  “YOU THINK?!” he screamed, popping his arm, the fingers spasming out.

  A long moment. “I’m sorry.”

  Shabaz held her breath as Johnny stared at the skid who was once his greatest hero. “Are you still fighting SecCore?”

  Her stripe flinched. “Yes.”

  “Stop it. Right now.”

  “Done.” The ground beneath them stopped trembling—Shabaz hadn’t even realized it was still shaking, she was so geared up.

  “Get the vape out of the Core. Right now.”

  Shabaz didn’t even know if that was possible, but after a brief hesitation, Betty swallowed and said, “Done.” She paused and added, “It’s just me now, here.” Another pause. “You can kill me if you’d like.”

  He might do it, Shabaz thought. She saw it cross his mind, there was so much pain there.

  “Johnny,” she said, rolling forward. “Johnny, please.” With agonizing slowness, an eye swung her way. “Johnny, look around. Look at all this. You’re right, this is the Thread. The whole thing. And it’s still broken.”

  She popped an arm and pointed at section of hollas that had merged into one. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking at—some kind of blueprint, a little like the one Wobble had shown them on the prison ship—but one thing was obvious: part of it was missing. There was jagged, empty space near the bottom of the holla.

  “I don’t know what that is, how big a part of the Thread it’s supposed to represent, but it’s broken, Johnny. And it’s not the only one.”

  She could see it now. Just as when they’d dived into the Skidsphere, at first all you could see was the active hollas—a trillion flashes of light—but once you started to adjust, you could find breaks everywhere. An entire section of the far wall remained just that: a wall.

  “We can’t keep fighting each other,” she said, swinging all three of her eyes towards the skid she loved. “Betty’s right, it’s too big. We need everyone we can get.”

  He looked back at her like he was losing something with each flashing holla. “So we just forgive her?”

  “Not a chance,” Torres said, sliding off a lift. Krugar and Onna followed. “She killed Al. She killed Torg. We don’t forgive that. But Shabaz is right: if we kill her, she doesn’t get to make up for it.” Her eyes narrowed as they centred on Betty. “And she’s going to.”

  Betty held her gaze for a moment, then bobbed an eye. “I’ll try.”

  “No, you won’t.” Torres closed the distance between her and Betty in a heartbeat. “You won’t try. You will vaping make up for it or I’ll kill you myself.” She popped her light-sword. She’d retrieved it from where Torg fell.

  “True words,” Dillac said, rolling off a lift behind Kesi.

  Betty stared at Torres. “Okay,” she said finally. As Torres backed up a tread, she added, “Is there any way we can turn these off? I . . . I get the point, I’m just finding it hard to think straight.” She looked at Zen. “Can you do that? Please.”

  The Level One stared back at her. Shabaz wondered if Zen had been telling the truth about only being seventeen days old. She suspected it was the truth.

  The blue stripe tilted. “Let’s find out.” Zen punched the button again and the hollas vanished. “How about that?” he said, tossing the device at Betty. “Hit that button again if you forget your promise.”

  “I will,” Betty said. She started to swing an eye then swung it back with a small smile on her lips. “My name’s Betty by the way.”

  Zen glared at her. “I’ll let you know when I care.”

  The smile faded from Betty’s face. “Okay. That’s fair.” Swallowing, she looked back at Johnny. “What now?”

  “Vape if I know,” he muttered. “I guess we wait for Wobble to finish getting repaired. Then we see if you can make up for what you’ve done.”

  “SHE CANNOT.”

  The voice echoed through the factory, and, suddenly, SecCore and dozens of Antis appeared on the platform. “SHE HAS DONE ENOUGH. BETTY CRISP WILL PAY FOR HER CRIMES.”

  “Don’t you have a Core to repair?” Betty muttered.

  “Betty, shut up,” Johnny snapped, and the most powerful skid in the universe flinched. “Don’t say a vaping word unless you’re asked a question.” He swung an eye towards SecCore. “And as for you: enough skids have died today. No more.”

  The white body didn’t move. “BETTY CRISP WILL PAY FOR HER CRIMES. SHE HAS DAMAGED THE CORE. SHE HAS DAMAGED ME.”

  “She’s damaged a lot of people,” Johnny said. “But Shabaz and Torres are right. We need her, and she needs to make up for what she’s done.”

  “SHE DOES NOT. SHE WILL PAY FOR HER CRIMES. SHE HAS DAMAGED THE THREAD.”

  “Oh, for . . .” Shabaz said, rolling forward. She was emotionally exhausted and sick of complainers. “You know what—who hasn’t at this point
? Betty damaged the Thread from the moment she broke out of the Skidsphere; that was your original problem with her, right? Well, you know who else did that kind of damage: all of us. Krugar dragged his damage right into the sphere. Sorry,” she said to the soldier.

  “Nah,” he shrugged. “That’s probably right.”

  She offered him a quick smile and returned her attention to the program in front of her. “You said she damaged the Thread. Well, Betty only showed up fifty years ago. How was the Thread doing before that? How were you doing, defending it?”

  The white face turned towards her and took on an expression of distaste. “SHE WILL PAY—”

  “For her crimes,” Shabaz sighed. “Snakes, you’re worse than panzers. You hurt her, she hurt you, let’s all kill each other until there’s nothing left. Let it go, SecCore. Let her help.”

  “WE DO NOT NEED HELP.”

  “Really?” Johnny said, rolling forward. “Because I don’t remember that being what we agreed on. We agreed to help you, and you said you would let us continue to do so once this was all over. Or is that just a broken promise?”

  A long pause, the molded face unnaturally still. “WE DO NOT NEED BETTY CRISP’S HELP. WE WILL ACCEPT YOURS, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE. WE WILL JOIN WITH OUR SON AND CREATE MORE OF HIS KIND. THIS WILL BE SUFFICIENT TO DEFEND THE THREAD.”

  “NO, FATHER, IT WILL NOT.”

  The voice filled the factory, and Wobble rose over the platform’s edge.

  His body gleamed. Shabaz had seen him repair himself, but she had never seen him without any scars at all. Like the Antis around him, but three times the size—was he bigger?—Wobble shone like he was new. Sliding smoothly onto the platform, his body seamlessly transformed—gears humming, each movement like clockwork—into his upright form. Settling onto perfectly aligned treads, his head spun above a body with four fully functional arms. His gaze came to rest on SecCore and he opened his mouth to speak. Remarkably, he still had a single loose tooth.

  “You-I know We-We cannot do this alone,” Wobble said in a voice crisp and clear. “Enough death. Swords sheathed and Ignelde placed his palm in the sand. We-You-They will defend the Thread together.”