Chapter 88

THE WEIGHT OF DREAMS

The Queen of Hearts stood over Vel’thanis. Blood ran down the left side of her face from temple to jaw. The alien’s psychic hammer had cracked something in her skull. Each heartbeat sent fresh pain through her head.

Vel’thanis lay broken on the crystalline platform. Four arms bent at wrong angles from twisting itself to answer her commands. Crystal skin that had shifted through dimensions now looked like safety glass after a car crash, held together by nothing but stubbornness.

Golden light rose from the body. Individual motes drifting upward.

“Your minds were exquisite,” she said, watching the lights hover between them. “Four streams of consciousness woven into unity. Beautiful beyond belief.”

The lights pulsed, waiting.

She understood what came next. Had already claimed a piece of the prize directly from her opponent’s minds. She opened her arms, and the lights rushed into her.

Her mind shattered as it multiplied. Four perspectives at once. She could see herself from angles that shouldn’t exist, think four thought streams simultaneously, taste consciousness in ways her brain shouldn’t process.

It should have destroyed her.

She threw her head back and laughed instead.

“Wonderful.” Blood dripped from her chin. “This is exactly what I wanted.”

***

Julia held Kestra by the throat. The woman’s feet kicked weakly, inches off the ice platform.

The elemental had returned to human form in these final moments. Just a terrified woman with wild hair. Fingers scrabbling at Julia’s grip. Her wedding ring caught the light from the Storm Cathedral’s silver ribbons.

Julia’s suit hung in tatters. Dozens of cuts wept blood that froze instantly. The gash across her ribs made breathing hurt. But she’d won. Of course she had.

Kestra’s lips moved. There was no sound, but the shape was clear: Please.

Julia hesitated. Looked into her eyes. Human eyes. Not a monster. Not a villain. Just someone else forced to fight to keep ahead of the demands on their new reality.

“Forgive me,” she whispered.

She twisted sharply. The crack echoed through ice spires. Kestra’s eyes went vacant.

Wind and ice erupted from the woman’s mouth and eyes, rushing down Julia’s arm like liquid winter. It poured into her chest, reshaping something fundamental. Her breath came out in clouds. Ice crystals formed on her lashes. The air around her howled.

When it ended, Kestra’s body had already begun dissolving. The wedding ring fell, bounced once on the ice, then broke apart into golden lights.

***

Maximilian stood with the orb in his hand, its glow fading. The saurian lay dying on obsidian. Each breath shallower than the last.

Skar’Vathos had fought well. Better than expected. Maximilian’s left arm hung useless, burned through armor down to the meat. Third degree burns covered part of his left side. But he’d claimed his prize before the killing blow, thrusting spear-tipped chains into the weak underbelly and reaching heart and lungs.

The saurian’s eye, the one not destroyed in combat, fixed on him. True intelligence flickered there, already fading.

“Well fought,” Maximilian said, struggling to hold the pain at bay.

The eye blinked once. Maybe acknowledgment. Then the massive chest stilled.

Golden light began rising from the corpse, breaking into drifting motes.

Maximilian watched for three heartbeats. The light scattered on thermal currents from the lava below. Soon it would dissipate entirely. Lost to the void.

He raised his good hand.

Dozens of chains erupted from the obsidian platform. They wrapped around the dying lights, binding it back into form. The motes struggled against their prison like living things. But his chains could target and bind anything he could see.

“No.” His voice carried absolute authority. “You don’t get to simply die.”

He walked over, each step controlled despite his injuries. The chains held the light in a rough approximation of the saurian’s shape. A ghost bound in iron. He placed his palm on what had been its skull.

“I am the Dragon Lord. And I deem you worthy.”

He focused. The chains bound it, but it was his Will itself that pressed down on the trapped essence. Forcing it to maintain cohesion. Demanding it recognize his authority. The chains tightened, compressing light back into flesh.

Something pushed back against his Will.

Maximilian pushed harder.

Then the resistance suddenly wavered, weakened, as if whatever force backing it had withdrawn. Something cracked in reality. Golden light snapped back into meat and bone and scale. The saurian’s eye opened. No longer dead, but not truly alive either. Something between. Something that belonged to him.

Maximilian looked down into that ancient face.

“Now you serve me.”

The eye blinked once in understanding.

***

Frank and Helena sat on the borrowed couch, watching someone else’s TV in someone else’s living room. They’d only been there a few days, but tonight they couldn’t look away from the screen.

Chen Wei’s fist obliterated the stone wall where Alexander had been standing a heartbeat before.

“Jesus.” Frank gripped his beer tighter. “Kid’s going to get himself killed.”

Helena reached over and took his free hand, settling in to watch. Alexander threw himself desperately upward through gaps in the tower floors, using his Metallokinesis to yank himself by his own armor.

They watched in tense silence as the battle raged floor by floor. Helena’s grip tightened when Chen Wei caught Alexander with an attack. Frank winced when the kid crashed into walls. But Alexander kept climbing, kept fighting for his survival. Or perhaps it was victory.

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Minutes passed. Then Chen Wei did something that made Frank whistle low.

“That guy can run up walls like they’re nothing.”

Helena nodded, her thumb tracing nervous circles on Frank’s hand. “And punch through stone floors.”

The fight continued its brutal progression upward. They watched Alexander struggle through chambers of cannons, barely maintaining control. But it was in that massive metal-filled chamber that Frank finally thought the kid had figured it out.

Alexander pulled tons of turrets and cannonballs together, crushing them around Chen Wei in a grinding sphere of metal.

Frank leaned forward. “Got him! Smart thinking, kid.”

The metal mass began vibrating. Light seeped through the cracks.

“Frank...” Helena’s voice carried concern.

The sphere exploded. Chen Wei roared as he burst free, dropping several feet before somehow launching himself upward using the air as a jump pad.

Frank set down his beer carefully. “Spoke too soon.”

They kept watching. Through the Qi cannons that fired purple-black energy. Through Alexander’s desperate climb as pieces of his armor were literally vaporized. Through every moment that looked like it would be his last.

“He’s not going to make it,” Frank muttered when a blast caught Alexander square in the chest.

But Alexander did. Finally reaching the tower’s summit where two orbs waited. The drone camera caught his face perfectly as he looked between them.

Then he reached for both.

Frank half-stood. “Don’t be greedy, kid!”

Helena pulled him back down. “Frank, sit.”

They saw Alexander grab both orbs. Power tore through him, his back arching, his scream carrying through the broadcast. Light poured from his eyes.

“What’s happening to him?” Helena whispered.

Frank didn’t have an answer. Couldn’t answer even if he did. They watched as the light continued pouring from Alexander’s eyes while he gripped the orbs. Then movement caught their attention. Chen Wei was climbing onto the summit behind Alexander, bloodied but moving.

“Oh no,” Helena breathed.

Chen Wei attacked. The drone intercepted, exploding in a spray of metal and components. But then Alexander reformed it with a casual display of power. They could hear his voice carrying across the windswept summit, explaining something about cores and cultivation, about machines and understanding. Frank barely listened to the words, focused instead on the kid’s tone. Absolute certainty where there had been desperation moments before.

Then Alexander said it: “They see me as a god. Their god.”

Frank’s eyebrows rose.

“No... The Machine God.”

Silence.

Then Frank exploded with laughter. Deep, belly-shaking laughter that left him gasping for air. He tried to speak, failed, tried again.

“The Machine... Machine God!” More laughter. Tears streamed down his face. “The kid just... he actually said...”

Helena waited patiently as Frank fought for control. On screen, Alexander raised his gauntlets and lightning struck Chen Wei, sending the cultivator tumbling off the tower into the void.

The feed declared victory for Alexander and faded to black. Then the screen switched to a different feed, showing other combatants in other arenas. Frank finally managed to breathe normally, wiping at his face.

“That boy has completely lost his damn mind. Machine God!” He shook his head, still chuckling.

They sat quietly for a moment, watching as the broadcast cycled through various fights still ongoing. None of them people they recognized.

“Hell of a thing,” Frank said eventually.

“Yeah,” Helena agreed.

Another minute passed. Then Helena turned to face him properly.

“We should talk about the vials.”

That sobered him. Frank’s laughter died completely.

“I know you only avoided it all those years ago because of me. Because of our family.” She squeezed his hand. “You didn’t want to leave me behind as just... normal.”

“Helena—”

“Let me finish. I love you for that, among other things. For choosing us over power. But Frank, even I can see that the world’s changing. The System said that the broadcast went everywhere. Everyone in the galaxy just saw this.”

Frank nodded slowly.

“So I think it’s my turn to support you. If you want this, I mean. We can do it together.” She paused. “Do you want powers like Alexander’s?”

The laughter returned, even louder than before. Frank doubled over, slapping his knee.

“Absolutely not!” he wheezed. “The kid’s clearly lost it.” Another wave of laughter. “No. Hell no. If we’re doing this, I’m keeping it simple. That cultivator had some great moves. Good, honest physical power. None of this god-complex nonsense.”

Helena smiled. “That’s what I was thinking too.”

Frank reached for Spencer’s box, where he’d set it on the coffee table, and opened it carefully. Two vials gleamed inside.

They each took one.

“How does it work?” Helena asked, turning the vial over in her hand.

“Auto-injector,” Frank said. “Press it against your skin, preferably somewhere with muscle. Thigh, shoulder. Push down and it does the rest.”

Helena studied the vial. “What about... the risks?” A hint of fear crept into her voice.

Frank set his vial down and took both her hands. He was quiet for a long moment, really thinking about it.

“Spencer wouldn’t have given these to us if something was going to go wrong,” he said finally. “One of my old military buddies. Early power adopter, went through the experimental program with Augustus. Pain in the ass because he was always right. Always had an answer for everything. Always knew the correct path to take. From what Augustus said, whatever power he got just made him all the more insufferable.”

He squeezed her hands gently. “If Spencer left these for us, specifically for us, then he knew we’d be okay. That’s how he operated. Ten steps ahead of everyone else.”

Helena looked into his eyes, searching. The trust she found there was stronger than her fear. She nodded.

“Together?” she asked.

“Together.”

They joined hands, their fingers interlacing with practiced ease. Over thirty years of marriage. Two kids. A lifetime of choosing the safe path.

“On three?” Frank said.

“On three.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

The injectors hissed simultaneously.

***

Reality rippled like pages of a book being flipped at incredible speed. The distortion lasted only a moment before a man stepped out into the empty alleyway.

Spencer pulled back his sleeve, checking the old analog watch on his wrist. The hands moved with perfect precision. Tick. Tick. Tick.

He walked with purpose, not hurried but still deliberate, turning the corner as if he’d walked this route a thousand times before. He stopped in front of an electronics store, its window display filled with screens all showing the same feed.

Alexander and Chen Wei on the tower’s summit.

Spencer smiled, glancing at his watch again. The second hand swept past twelve.

“Right on time.”

On screen, Alexander’s voice rang out clear: “No... The Machine God.”

Spencer’s smile widened into something genuinely proud. “Damn, little cuz. You got a real flair for the dramatic, huh? Good on you.”

A boom echoed through the night. Light flashed from several blocks away, bright enough to throw shadows. Spencer glanced toward the disturbance, taking in the half dozen figures descending from the sky. Still distant, but closing fast.

He checked his watch again. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Looking back at the screen one last time, Spencer nodded. “Keep to your path, Alex. I’ll see you soon.”

He turned and walked briskly in the opposite direction from the approaching heroes. After a dozen steps, reality began to crack around him with the same effect, like pages flipping rapidly. Spencer stepped into it without hesitation.

The distortion collapsed behind him.

Six heroes landed moments later, their boots hitting pavement in near unison. One immediately pulled out a device, waving it over the spot where reality had been torn.

“Fuck!” Another hero paced in tight circles, fists clenched. “Goddamnit. This is an impossible mission, and I’m sick of chasing this prick. Six months of this shit!”

“Stow it, Morrison.” The team leader’s voice carried quiet authority. “We’ll be relieved soon.”

The one with the scanner looked up. “I have the exit coordinates.”

“How far?”

“Three hundred miles north.”

The leader nodded. “Continue pursuit.”

They launched into the air without another word, leaving the empty street to its silence.