Chapter 2

Even from that distance, I knew her posture. Straight shoulders. Hands behind her back. No panic. No hesitation.

She was watching me burn.

"I didn't volunteer," I said.

"Your name was on the roster."

"Victor put it there."

The line went quiet again.

Victor. Chief engineer. Friendly smile. Perfect memory. The man who had handed me the mission orders with one hand and sold my unit's route with the other.

Three years from now, he would own the fortress.

Three years from now, Selena would kneel before his council and sign my execution order.

I had heard her voice that day too.

Cold. Clean. Final.

Kane Vale is guilty of sabotage, treason, and mass casualty negligence. Execute him at dawn.

Then the firing squad had raised their rifles.

Now she was sending me into the core.

"You sound distracted," Selena said.

"I'm deciding whether to obey you."

"You don't have a choice."

"Everybody says that right before they lose control."

"Arm the charge, Kane."

I glanced at the countdown.

Two minutes, twelve seconds.

The reactor chamber doors slammed shut below me. Enemy soldiers poured into the lower level. Their rifles tracked upward.

I hit the arm switch.

The charge began to cycle.

"Charge active," the suit said.

"I heard it."

"Kane," Selena said, "jump to the extraction rail."

I looked at the rail.

It ended at the sealed gate.

"The rail doesn't reach the other side."

"It will."

"You said the gate was compromised."

"I said the breach was compromised."

"Same thing."

"No, it isn't. Jump."

Her voice had changed again. Less distant. More urgent.

I wanted to trust that voice.

That was the problem.

I had trusted it once. She had used that trust to put a target on my back.

I grabbed the rail anyway.

The reactor trembled under my boots.

The soldiers opened fire.

I swung across the chamber as rounds punched into the supports around me. The rail jerked. My damaged shoulder screamed.

"I can't hold this."

"You can."

"That's your strategy?"

"It's my order."

"Go to hell."

"After you."

A bullet tore through my suit near the ribs. The armor sealed the hole, but heat flooded my side.

I reached the end of the rail.

The gate had three meters left before it sealed.

No way through.

I released the rail and dropped onto the maintenance platform. The blast charge beeped faster.

One minute.

"Selena," I said, "open the gate."

"I can't."

"You can. You're the commander."

"The control room has been overridden."

"By Victor?"

She didn't answer.

That was answer enough.

The chamber lights flickered. A voice came through the public speakers.

"Pilot Kane Vale," Victor said, smooth as polished glass. "You have performed better than expected."

I looked up at the tower.

The figure beside Selena stepped into view.

Victor raised one hand and waved.

"You lied to me," I said.

"I gave you a purpose."

"You gave me a bomb."

"History will call it a sacrifice."

"History won't remember your name."

"It will. Once the fortress falls under my command."

Selena turned toward him. I couldn't hear her through the private channel, but I saw her mouth move.

Victor smiled.

Then he pressed something on the control panel.

The blast timer dropped from fifty seconds to ten.

"You son of a—"

"Kane," Selena cut in, "listen to me."

"Ten seconds? That's your idea of listening?"

"Your suit has a failsafe."

"You said the failsafe was disabled."

"I lied."

My grip tightened around the dead rifle.

"You lie a lot."

"You can be angry after you live."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I was wrong about you."

The timer showed eight seconds.

I could jump into the reactor shaft. That would kill me fast.

I could stay on the platform. That would kill me slowly.

Or I could trust Selena's hidden failsafe, the woman who would eventually sign my death order while I stood unarmed in a white execution room.

Seven seconds.

"What does the failsafe do?" I asked.

"It won't save your body."

"That's not reassuring."

"It will save your mind."

The timer hit six.

The blue warning flashed across my visor again.

TEMPORAL DESYNC DETECTED.

My pulse kicked hard.

"What did you put in my suit?"

"Nothing."

"Selena."

"Kane, if you want to live, remember this. The reactor isn't the first explosion. It's the first door."

Five seconds.

"What does that mean?"

"When you wake up, don't trust—"

The charge went white.

The blast hit before the timer reached zero.

Heat swallowed my armor.

My gloves melted against the rail. The air became fire. Every alarm in my helmet screamed at once.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't see.

Selena's voice came through the static.

"Kane! Stay awake!"

I tried to answer. My throat locked.

"Kane, hear me!"

Her voice was the last solid thing left in the world.

I saw the tower window split apart.

I saw Victor standing behind Selena, untouched.

I saw Selena turn toward him.

For the first time, her face wasn't calm.

She looked afraid.

Then the reactor chamber folded inward.

The fire swallowed my hands, my chest, my helmet.

"Kane!"

The sound ripped through the flames.

"Commander," a soldier said over the channel, "the pilot is gone."

Selena answered before Victor could.

"Confirm the kill."

My heart stopped.

Her voice stayed in my head as the fire climbed over my face.

"Confirm the kill."

I tried to scream her name.

The world shattered.

"Get your hands off me!"

A fist slammed into my chest.

I jerked upright with a broken yell and found a rifle pressed against my throat.

A young guard stood over me, pale and shaking. His helmet was too large. His weapon wobbled two inches from my jaw.

"Don't move," he snapped.

I grabbed the barrel and shoved it aside.

The guard stumbled back. I rolled off the narrow cot, hit the floor, and came up in a crouch.

My hands were intact.

No burned armor. No melted gloves. No fire inside my lungs.

The guard aimed again.

"I said don't move!"

"You just hit me."

"You were supposed to be unconscious."

"I noticed."

He swallowed. "State your name."

I looked past him at the wall display.

The clock read 04:17.

The date sat beneath it.

Three years before the reactor run.

Three years before Victor took the fortress.

Three years before Selena signed my execution order.

My mouth went dry.

"Kane Vale," I said.

The guard lowered his rifle by half an inch. "That wasn't on the intake sheet."

"Where am I?"

"You don't ask questions."

"Where am I?"

The guard took one step toward the alarm panel.

I moved first.

I crossed the space between us, caught his wrist, and twisted until the rifle dropped. He grunted. I kicked the weapon under the cot and pinned him against the wall.

He couldn't have been more than twenty. His pulse jumped under my fingers.

"Tell me the date," I said.

"Go to hell."

I tightened my grip.

"Tell me."

"October ninth."

The room tilted.

October ninth, three years early.

The day before the Bastion's first synchronization trials.

The day before Selena chose the pilot who would fail, panic, and kill seventeen people.

The day before I was supposed to report for disciplinary review.

The day before Victor started building his little empire.

"You okay?" the guard asked, breathless. "You look sick."

"I'm thinking."

"You think with your hands around people's throats?"

"Only when they point rifles at me."

An alarm began to pulse outside the room.

The guard's eyes snapped toward the door.

"What did you trigger?" I asked.

"You did."

"Who knows I'm here?"