Mark’s fingers finally found a long bar, and he gripped it tightly. Just in time, because his legs had no strength left. His feet slipped from the window and the two bodies flipped over and slammed into the Berg’s side once more. Mark felt the jolt through his entire body but held on, slipping his forearm into the gap between the handle and the ship so that his elbow took the weight. His stomach and face pressed against the warm metal of the Berg, the crazed man still clambering for some kind of position on his back. The man was screaming right in his ear.
Mark’s mind jumped between clarity and foggy anger. What was Alec doing? What was happening inside? The ship had righted itself, continued to fly forward-though at a slower speed-and no one was reaching out of the window to offer any help. Mark looked down and immediately regretted it, a wave of terror crashing over him when he saw how far away the ground was.
He had to get rid of this man or he’d never be able to climb back inside.
The wind gusted, whipping the man’s hair into Mark’s face and rippling through their clothes. The sounds were all too much-the wind, the screams, the roar of the thrusters. The closest spout of blue flame was just below them, maybe ten feet away, burning like the breath of a dragon.
Mark shook his shoulders, kicked off the side of the Berg with his feet and let himself slam back into it. Still the man held on. He’d scraped Mark’s neck and arms and cheeks, leaving painful gashes everywhere. Mark ached, every part of him. A quick examination of the Berg’s body showed several places he could wedge his feet. Going up seemed impossible with the extra weight of the crazy guy on his back. He decided to go down, a terrifying idea having formed in his head.
The gamut of options had run out. His strength was just about sapped.
He reached way down, grabbed a short bar, then let his body fall, planting his foot on a boxy metal outcrop he’d spotted. The man shrieked and almost let go of Mark’s arms, slipping until he caught hold again, wrapping both of his arms around Mark’s neck and squeezing just enough to make him gag.
Choking out a cough, Mark sought more places for his hands and feet, dropped another yard or so. Then another. The man had ceased his juddering movements. He’d even grown silent. Mark had never known such hatred for anyone, and in some faint part of his psyche he knew it wasn’t quite rational. But he loathed the man, and wanted him dead. It was the only goal in his mind.
He kept descending. Wind tore at them, trying to rip them away. The thruster was so close now, just below and to his left, its roar the loudest thing Mark had ever heard. He stepped down again, and suddenly his feet were dangling in open air-there was nowhere left to put them. Another bar ran along the length of the Berg’s lower edge, with just enough space for Mark to slip his arm through it.
Mark slid his right arm in and crooked his elbow, letting every pound of his and the man’s combined weight rest on the joint once again. The strain was terrible-it felt like his arm would rip in two at any second. But he only needed a few moments. Only a few.
He twisted his body, craning his neck to look at the man who clung to his back. He hugged Mark with one arm above his shoulder and one wrapped around his chest. Somehow Mark got his free hand up, slipping it between their two bodies and up to his foe’s neck. He slammed it into the man’s windpipe and began to squeeze.
The guy began to choke, his grayish-purple tongue sticking out between his chapped lips. Mark’s right elbow shuddered in pain, trembling as if the tendons and bone and tissue were coming apart. He tightened his fingers around the man’s throat. The guy coughed and spat, his eyes bulging. His grip on Mark began to loosen, and as soon as it did, Mark acted.
With a shout of rage he pushed the man’s body outward, snapping his arm straight and shoving him directly into the path of the thruster’s blue flames, watching as the man’s head and shoulders were consumed by the fire, disintegrating before he could even scream. What remained of his body plummeted toward the city below, swept out of Mark’s vision as the Berg sped forward.
Madness crept through Mark’s muscles. Lights danced before his eyes. Anger howled within him. He knew that his life was almost forfeit. But there was one last thing he had to do.
He started climbing back up the outer face of the monstrous Berg.
CHAPTER 67
No one helped him through the window. Every inch of his body ached and his muscles were rubber, but somehow he managed to make it on his own, falling to the floor of the cockpit in a heap. Alec sat hunched over the controls, his face slack and his eyes empty. Trina sat in the corner, Deedee huddled in her lap. Both of them looked at him, but their expressions were unreadable.
“Flat Trans,” Mark blurted out. Sparkles and flashes of light continued to cross his field of vision, and he could barely contain the unstable emotions that churned within him. “Bruce said the PFC had a Flat Trans in Asheville. We have to find it.”
Alec’s head snapped up and he glared at Mark. But then something softened in his gaze. “I think I know where to find it.” As lifeless a thing as had ever come out of his mouth.
Mark felt the Berg descending. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, for a moment wanting nothing but to fall asleep and never wake up again, or to do the opposite and kneel, bashing his head against the floor until it was over. But there was still that small sliver of clarity in his mind. He held on to it like a man clinging to a root on the side of a sheer cliff.
Eyes open again. With a grunt, he forced himself to his feet, leaning against the window. The small city of Asheville lay spread out before them. Walls had been constructed out of wood, scrap metal, cars, anything big and strong enough to protect what was inside: a mostly burned-out urban center. He saw a mass of people at a breach in one wall. Climbing over it. Surging into the town.
A man was waving them on with a red flag tied to a stick. It was Bruce, the man who’d given the speech back at the bunker. They’d come for the Flat Trans, too, just like he’d promised his coworkers. And by the looks of it, countless others who’d been infected had joined him-there were hundreds scaling the broken wall.
The Berg flew past them, over street after empty street. And then there was a small building with double doors hanging wide open. A hand-painted sign said PFC PERSONNEL ONLY. A few people were lined up to go inside. They seemed calm and collected. Mark hated them for it and had a fleeting moment where he itched to find the Transvice to start firing away.
“That’s… it,” Alec muttered.
And Mark knew what he meant. If there really was a Flat Trans device, it would be there. The few people entering the building had to be the last of the PFC workers, fleeing the East once and for all. Leaving it to be claimed by madness and death. They looked up at the Berg with something like terror in their eyes, then, as one, they disappeared inside.
Mark fumbled around in a cabinet until he found some old-school paper and a pencil, stored there for power-loss emergencies. With a messy hand, he scrawled the message he’d been thinking about, then turned toward Alec. “Land,” he breathed. His lungs felt full of fire instead of air. “Hurry.” He folded the note and shoved it in his back pocket.
Alec’s every movement was strained, his muscles tense, veins like ropes under his skin. He was flushed and sweaty. Trembling. But a few moments later the Berg landed with a surprisingly soft thump, just outside the entrance to the PFC building.
“Open the hatch.” Mark was already on the move, the world a haze around him. He grabbed Deedee out of Trina’s lap far more roughly than he meant to, ignoring the little girl’s cries of protest. Holding her in his arms, he moved toward the exit, Trina on his tail. She hadn’t said a word or lifted a finger to stop him.