CHAPTER TWELVE: THE BULLET TO END THE WORLD

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Clara and I continued the walk toward the small building near the throne in uncomfortable silence. I didn’t know what to say, and it appeared Clara, for once, didn’t have anything to add either.

Fortunately, by the time our conversation died, we’d gotten pretty close to the obvious destination. It was the only building near the center of the tower. A squat thing that felt almost like a barn by comparison to everything around it.

Most of the middle area of the entire level was kept vacant specifically to give a better view to anyone who wanted to look at the big chair, as Clara called it. The place felt wondrous but also… creepy. The neon green glow that suffused everything gave the floor a dystopian futuristic vibe.

I’d have loved this in a video game. In real life, this feels like the place where plagues are born.

The clear plastic tubes, the capsule tanks with glowing green liquid that looked suspiciously like high-tech coffins, and the strange gardens were surreal. Huge venus flytraps and exotic mushrooms that actually looked like they were from a Mario game were all kept trimmed to a maximum waist height. Glass flower pots hung like lanterns with plants that glowed as well providing their own dim pathway, unnecessary considering just how well the columns of light touched everything.

I realized as we walked that all of those flowers Thelma had brought to Clara, the ones that seemed to die in order to revive her, must’ve come from here. Were they like… batteries maybe? Could Sunsoul users heal themselves by slurping on green plants?

I chuckled at the mental image of Clara eating a tulip, and almost outright laughed when I thought of all the ‘healthy greens’ memes that little revelation might generate.

When we finally reached the door to the building, I noticed I could see inside the windows. The interior looked closer to what I would’ve expected for Tellroan. A lab. I recognized Thelma immediately from the black hair on the back of her head. She was facing away from us and talking to someone much smaller than her.

Clara practically smashed the door open before shouting “Lucy, I’m Hooome!”

The building consisted of one large living room area, surrounded by desks on all sides and windows which allowed anyone sitting there to look out into the floor beyond. A strange mix between a living room and an office, save for the extra coffin which looked to have a monkey in it, sleeping inside the green liquid. At the back end where Thelma stood was a hallway that led to a series of small occupied rooms on the left and right that reminded me a little bit of a string of recording studios. There were windows allowing me to see into each office.

Thelma turned around slowly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if bracing for a battle. Her lips were a thin line. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who annoyed this woman.

“Clara,” she finally said when she opened her eyes. “I’d like you to meet April. She will be–!” she cut off abruptly as her eyes landed on me, and her eyes blazed.

“What the hell is he doing here, Clara!?” she shouted.

“What, no welcome back? Thank god you’re not dead? We’re so glad you’re still alive to keep being our live-in piggy bank? None of that?” Clara snapped bitterly.

“Welcome back, Clara. It's so good to see you are well,” Thelma said with the most deadpan voice I’d ever heard in my life, putting even my mom to shame. “Now what the hell is he doing here?”

Clara shrugged before sitting down in one of the chairs lining the room’s walls. “He seemed cute. I figured I’d take him to my place so we could make out. Plus have you seen his car? Like Ohmigawd!”

I flushed, both annoyed and embarrassed by the sarcastic girl, wondering if she was ever serious. “Uhm. H-hello again. Ma’am.”

“Brandon!” April cried, appearing as if from nowhere behind the tall woman. She splashed into me like a tidal wave, arms encircling my waist in a huge hug.

Thelma blinked, taken aback by April’s excited reaction. “Well, that certainly is a coincidence. You know this boy too, April?”

“Fucking boys. All the same. You bring ‘em home and the first thing they do is hook up with your roommate,” Clara joked with false indignance. I glared at her over April’s head but she just gave me a smug grin.

“Speaking of, hi roomy!” Clara said, waving to April wildly. She seemed to love being the center of attention. I wondered what made her so… bitter. She was constantly sarcastic but… damn.

Thelma watched the scene from over her thin spectacles, the spitting image of a disapproving librarian. She hadn’t worn those the last time I met her but they seemed to complete an impression I hadn’t managed to fully form the last time we’d met.

Thelma sighed. “I suppose it was only a matter of time anyway. Clara, are you feeling well? Do you need another Iklumary?”

Clara waved the woman away, opening a minifridge under one of the desks and pulling out a can of Pepsi. “Fine, fine. I’m fully healed as best I can tell. No lasting damage.”

“How are you here?” April whispered, still hugging me as tight as a life buoy. “They told me I’d have to be protected here. No outside contact! How did you get in?”

I looked down at April and beamed, relief overwhelming me. She was wearing a white outfit that looked like a cross between a lacey sundress and a hospital gown. She looked beautiful.

“I brought him, lovergirl,” Clara injected. “You’re welcome. Uh. Seriously this time. It’s… scary to sit in the big chair alone.”

I blinked as I looked at her. Every now and then something real peeked out from beneath all of her sarcasm.

April pulled away from me and turned to Clara, before blinking. “Oh! You’re… you’re that girl! The one Brandon saved! I never realized…”

“Hey,” she drawled, the indignation real this time. “I saved him. Obviously. He’s one of my conduits now. They told you about those, right?”

I was completely lost. Conduits. That was the second time she’d called me a conduit and I still didn’t know what it meant, but April nodded as if she understood.

“Right. That whole thing… it makes so much more sense now! I’m… sure it wasn’t easy. I know some people have got to be really mad about it, too.”

“Meh,” Clara replied. “Fuck ‘em. They’ll sit in line and shut up or they’ll get thrown off the queue. There are thousands of wealthy crones waiting to fork over their whole fortunes for the chance. Tellroan can spare a few mil.”

“I assure you, it cannot,” Thelma snapped. “What you did will set back production on Tellcora and Tellecho by months. Maybe years. That’s years' worth of people unable to live in the free air. Years of economic growth, lost so you could save one boy. I hope it was worth it.”

Clara wilted with each word from Thelma, but anger burned there as she was scolded.

“I’m not letting anyone die if I can help it. I’m sure you could’ve just let someone burn right in front of you. Heartless witch,” Clara mumbled, but her voice was sharp and tight as a coiled spring.

“A simple barrier would have sufficed, to protect the boy. Instead, you wasted a multimillion-dollar product, and almost got yourself killed.”

“I…” she shuddered, wilting under the weight of the accusation. “I know… I wanted to but it didn’t work! I tried, I…”

Thelma’s eyes softened, and she sighed. “I know. I know you would’ve shielded him if you could’ve. It’s alright. It’s a miracle that you survived anyway, and we do have Mr. Meadows to thank for that at least.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Clara suddenly looked over at me, glaring as if annoyed that I’d seen her embarrassed or vulnerable.

“Doctor Louise?” came a sudden small voice before Thelma could speak. “I… hate to interrupt but I have to ask. Will Clara being here cause any problems with the activation? It’s going to be time to start very soon.”

A mousy Asian woman with an Irish accent poked her head out of one of the rooms down the hallway, looking directly at Thelma.

“No, no, Clara shouldn’t interrupt anything. No more than she normally does at any rate,” Thelma said with a glare for the girl. “She is the same as Scarlatte. Her presence will act as a stabilizing influence for the binding. Her presence should actually make the activation run more smoothly for April. Speaking of…”

The woman trailed off as she sat down in a chair. Bits and bobs littered the desk along with one of those strange flowers that had healed

“April. It is almost time. Are you ready?” she asked.

April spared a glance out the window to the two conduits of pulsing light and the menacing throne illuminated in the middle.

“Is… anyone ever ready for that?” she asked.

“No. I suppose not. Even Scarlatte was intimidated by it, and these towers are her inventions after all. I wish someone else were strong enough with Sunsoul to take this burden from you. I wish I were. But…”

“No. It’s okay,” April replied, as she pulled away from me. She was smiling. “I’m ready.”

She turned that beautiful smile on Clara and said, “Thank you. Thank you for saving Brandon, and for bringing him here. It means the world to me. I’ll never forget it.”

To my shock, Clara flushed at the praise. “Shit, I just ran into him in the elevator. Wasn’t any big thing…”

She walked over towards the door we’d entered through, before turning around. Her dress actually became even more beautiful with the lace reflecting the neon green light.

“Thanks for coming, Bran,” she said simply.

“Better late than never, right?” I replied, sheepishly.

She laughed. “Well. I’m gonna go help fix the world, yeah?”

She turned and skipped out the door.

I moved to follow her, but Thelma placed her hand on my shoulder. “No. No one can be out there once the binding starts except her. You’ll have to stay here. Ciara? Would you mind Brandon and Clara joining you in your office during the activation?”

The doctor from before popped her head out of the door again. “Little busy at the moment! Can’t Iramo take them?”

“Busy with what? Your tasks were completed hours ago,” Thelma replied, a little annoyed. “Besides, Iramo and most of the non-essential staff, not to mention half the security team went down to the ceremony when they heard Violette was there. Apparently, seeing a pissing match between those two is more important than saving the world!”

“Wait… Doctor Fontaine is here?” Ciara asked with an impish grin.

Thelma glared.

“Kidding! Kidding. But, I really can’t, Doctor! This is my first time seeing an activation and I really don’t want to be distracted by kids! No offense,” she said with a quick glance toward Clara and me.

Thelma rolled her eyes. “Very well. Come with me, Clara. You too, Brandon. I’ll call your mother after the activation. She can deal with this mess. For now, you can watch from my observation room. I’ll be very busy so don’t touch anything.”

I watched April for a moment from the large windows, kind of wanting to just stay here where I knew I could see her. Still, I didn’t want to mess anything up. I followed along after Clara as we walked into the furthest office. There were windows in here as well and I was happy to see that they gave me an even better view.

April slowly climbed the steps up to it. I could almost see the apprehension on her face. The staircase extended out over a vast chasm and April took a moment to peer over the edge before backing away towards the center of the stairs. She approached the throne and only then did I realize how small she seemed in comparison to the huge seat.

She sat down and scooted back. Unlike thrones from most fairy tales, this one did at least make an effort to look comfortable.

“Good. I… Good,” Thelma said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Clara? Be sure to tell him what to expect. I won’t have him blundering into this activation because he thinks the girl is in danger when she is not.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll make sure he doesn’t go all Noonday on her,” she snarked.

I groaned, glaring at her. I turned back to Thelma, about to tell her that I wouldn’t do anything like that, but the woman was already closing the door. I frowned, irritated.

“Sooo… Better late than never,” Clara drawled mockingly. “Really? That’s what you chose to say to your girlfriend before she sits down on the altar of boredom? And I thought I was a shitty romantic.”

“I…! Well… shut up!” I shouted.

She cackled gleefully before pulling a chair near the back of the room up towards the window while I took the one already there. They were regular office chairs. The kind with five wheels Painfully mundane. They felt so out of place amidst the exotic world right outside this little haven of normality.

“So… Telilro huh?” I asked after I’d calmed down. It felt like it should’ve been a monumental moment but after a few minutes of just watching April sit there, it started to feel awkward.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Fucking Telilro.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that. I’d never met a survivor of Telilro. Unless I missed my guess entirely, it seemed like Clara had been the person tied to that tower, the same as April was being tied to Tellroan. Clearly there was history there; even my dense mind could pick up on that.

“Why is there only one L?” I asked, blurting out the first thing I could think of that probably wouldn’t offend her.

“Huh?”

“Telilro. All the others have two L’s. Tellroan, Tellanex, Tellvera. Two L’s in the “Tell.” Why is Telilro the only spelled with just one?”

She looked at me like I’d just asked the stupidest question, but as it sank in, she put her hand to her chin in thought. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“Huh. I guess it does technically have two–!”

At that moment, the light spilling in from the window flared, tripling in intensity for a sharp moment. A green haze filled my vision and I had blink away the spots in my eyes away before everything dimmed again.

When I could see out the window again, April hadn’t moved, but she was breathing heavily. Her arms were now strapped to the throne’s armrests. The tubes running into the throne were lit up and that green liquid that was in the coffin-like tanks now filled the tubes as well. The glow of her Sunsoul appeared in a nimbus around her. She gritted her teeth as if straining for something.

“She’s okay,” Clara said, reading my question before I even asked it. “It doesn’t hurt. I remember. It’s just… overwhelming. Right now she feels like a million bucks. The limit of what she could do before will feel easy to her now. It’s like she’s suddenly lifting ten cars and she knows it should be tough but it isn’t. Trust me.”

April was sweating. Her black hair seemed damp, but the air around her crackled and sizzled, mutely through the protective glass. It felt like a thunderstorm was happening right above her, and she sat in the eye. The columns of light pulsed bright once more. Before they felt static, but now they seemed like the heartstrings of a great giant, pulsing its first breath of life.

“It feels like there should’ve been a countdown. Doesn’t it?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes away.

“Yeah. I bet they had one. We just couldn’t hear.”

I wondered what was going on down below. They’d opened the hangar doors leaving people protected only by Sunsoul until the Tower took over. So… was it like the ball drop on New Year’s Eve? I wondered what Monroe was doing. Looking for me, probably. Was my Mom looking for me in the crowd down there, too?

It didn’t matter. Trying to distract myself didn’t help. April, stuck out there in that torrent of energy was all I could think of. Looking at the columns of light I could hardly believe that this was the tower in its inactive state. April’s hair began to whip wildly, still tied up in its ever-present ponytail.

Clara seemed as mesmerized as I felt. The left column, the one with the energy rushing down pulsed, and April screamed. I could faintly hear her through the glass. I clenched my fist but was surprised when Clara put a hand on my shoulder.

“She’s fine. I promise,” she said. To my surprise, I found the words comforting. I relaxed, and it seemed April did too. The left column pulsed again, and then the right one followed suit, a bubble of light rushing through a vein. It reminded me of Christmas lights that lit in a chain, one after another. Blue, within the pillar of green. She was being tied to the tower.

She settled down, and while I could see her hands tightly gripping the edges of her armrests, her feet settled calmly onto the ground. Her shoulders relaxed. More blue pulses ran back up to the top of the tower and before my eyes, the right column began to gradually shift its color.

“Everything’s going well!” I heard Thelma shout. “Ciara, see if you can’t close a few of those ventilation shafts now! They should be loose enough!”

I wondered what the hell Thelma meant, but decided that I’d probably never know. Even so, I felt like I was a part of this. Tellroan was more than just a power plant. More than just a barrier. It had so much hope placed in it. I could hardly fathom how much our lives would change after this. All of the wonderful things we’d be able to do after we were safe in the daylight again. It seemed like a dream, but that dream was becoming a reality right in front of me. It was all because of my best friend too.

The pulses grew faster and faster until they blurred together. Greater light within that already intense beam. In contrast, April seemed to relax into the increased speed.

It all felt so surreal. It condensed until it looked almost solid, a tube of green rocketing down into some unknown mechanism below, only to be forced back up as the refined blue Sunsoul of Scarlatte’s solar towers. Both beams solidified and the light dimmed back to a more intense yet confined plasmatic shape.

“Wow…” Clara said. “It’s still so fucking amazing, even after all this time.”

I was about to agree with her when a sudden deafening boom echoed from the next office over. I watched in horror as April’s body, finally relaxed in peaceful rest, suddenly crumpled in a heap. I could clearly see the trail of blood as it seeped through her white gown.

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