Chapter Fourteen: The Land Ablaze

I thought I’d finally calmed down enough to start feeling bored after almost an hour. That was when the thoughts set in.

I could see the scientists in their little building. The two men who’d been locked in their rooms had been let out. Occasional flashes of Sunsoul lit the windows up as they used it to clean the mess Ciara and Thelma’s fight had left. I remember a surreal moment when the green light was used to lift a dented fire extinguisher. The realization that I’d tried to cave someone’s head in with that no more than an hour ago hit me and reset all my swimming thoughts.

Huh. I didn’t know I’d hit her hard enough to dent that thing.

I wondered about what had happened down at the activation. What was happening now. Scarlatte had said people down below had been burned. That sounded awful, but I was glad for the advancements in burn treatments like the Ardnocures. They’d probably be alright. I still thought they could’ve come up with a better name for such an incredible device. One of the first non-Sunsoul-related advances in technology since the lithium battery and they named it Ardnocure? I was sure I could do better.

“Char-be-gone.” “The Burn Deflator!” “Burn-concern?” “Grouchy Ouchie?” Shit… maybe it’s harder than I thought.

I was pretty sure I was in shock, which was the only excuse I could come up with for having such silly thoughts when so many serious things were happening.

Fortunately, April was still alive when the adults finally came out. The blood stain on her dress had stopped growing. The flower no longer glowed; the faint red sparkles that had wafted around its bud dimmed. The once stiff cage-like petals now flopped around, no longer held sturdy by whatever magic Sunsoul had given them.

Everything Sunsoul touches is changed by it. I wonder if this used to be a regular flower before, or if they just grow naturally now, out there in the scorched lands somewhere. Maybe they make them artificially? Oh shit. I wonder what would happen if they saturated an Ardnocure in it? Hah!

“Brandon? Brandon, are you alright?” Thelma asked, concern in her voice.

I jumped, having somehow lost track of them, lost in my thoughts. “I… yeah. I’m okay. Sorry. Just..”

She offered me a hand as I trailed off.

“Thanks. Y’know. For earlier. For what you said to Scarlatte,” I told her.

“You’re welcome. Thank you as well. I owe you my life. Ciara’s capacity for Sunsoul was quite strong. Much more than my own. If you hadn’t rushed in so foolishly, she would surely have killed me,” she said. “Unfortunately, I think you’re going to have to continue being foolish, I think.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “Come. Please bring April. We’ll talk inside. We have… come up with a plan, I think. I hope. It will require you to know the stakes, though.”

I knelt down next to April. I couldn’t help but pull at the split hole in the side of her dress. Carefully and slowly, I revealed where I’d thought the wound was. Rather than a bloody hole, I just saw a massive scab. The area was caked in dried blood so much so that I couldn’t see her skin at all. It certainly didn’t look like there had been a hole in her body just a little while ago though. The Iklumary must’ve been even more effective than I thought.

She winced in her sleep as I slowly put a hand behind her, though she didn’t wake.

“A-are you sure moving her is okay?” I asked Thelma.

“She should be fine. She’s been stabilized… physically anyway,” Thelma said cryptically. “Chandra can explain better than I can.”

I wanted to ask what she meant but I wasn’t exactly used to carrying people around and it wasn’t as easy as they made it look in the movies. Rather than trying to talk while carrying her, I nodded as I stood. She’d been so light when I’d rushed out to the throne, but now I was struggling with her.

She held the door open for me as I sidestepped April back into the small building. Clara was there, sitting in a chair, her head down, all snark completely gone. The two scientists I hadn’t met also sat in chairs around the outside of the room, watching me as I laid April down on a cot that they’d set up for her. Scarlatte, stood in the hallway, her back to the dusty area where Ciara had died.

“Hey kid. Thanks,” said one of the scientists. He stood and offered a hand to me, once I’d put April down. “Saw what you did on camera. I’m John Rhodes. This guy here is Derrin Baker.”

“Uh… nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his proffered hand numbly.

He gestured for me to sit beside him and once I did, Scarlatte nodded. It felt strangely like a class presentation as the old woman walked to the middle of the room.

“So. This is it. This is what we have to save the world with. Four scientists, two kids, and a half-dead conduit,” Scarlatte drawled.

“Save the… world? What does activating the tower have to do with…?” I trailed off, feeling silly even saying that. “Saving the World” was for cartoons and storybooks. Not real life. Just hearing it from the old woman made me think she might have a couple of screws loose.

Scarlatte gave the overburdened sigh of a woman very familiar with my brand of skepticism. “Strap in. This is a long story, but I think it’s necessary. You have to understand the stakes we’re playing with. We don’t have all day, so don’t interrupt.”

To my surprise, Darrin opened a small mini-fridge, one that hadn’t been damaged by Ciara’s attack, and handed me a Sprite from inside. I took it, thankfully, realizing all of a sudden that my throat was dry as a bone.

“After Fontaine’s Folly, everyone was scrambling for ways to make the outside safer. The sun’s slow cooking of the planet wasn’t really understood and we’re still not sure exactly what the Helios Array did to cause it, but we are sure it was the cause,” Scarlatte began.

I nodded, following so far.

“They are planning to send another ship. Another Helios Array. If we don’t get at least four towers up and running before this asinine mission reaches the layer of Sunsoul encasing the sun, then we don’t have a chance of surviving the armageddon that follows.”

“That’s… wow.” I noticed that Clara and the other two scientists didn’t react. They’d clearly already known.

“The ship is going to do the exact same thing, except this time it will be piloted by morons instead of the best of the best that were riding on the Helios. They’re going to make it worse.”

“Wha… wait, why? Why would anyone send a ship if someone as important as you thinks that might cause another Folly?” I asked, perplexed. I couldn’t fathom that anyone would be willing to risk more problems from the sun and Sunsoul.

“Che, you’re telling us,” Rhodes scoffed.

“Tell me, Brandon. Have you heard of Sirahn? They are the company responsible for most of the major hubs in America, and a few in England, France, and China,” she gestured with her hands.

“Uhm… not really. Clara mentioned them when I… er… met her at the entrance,” I spared a glance for the white haired girl but she didn’t look up. She didn’t even seem to be paying attention.

“They think they can fix what was broken,” Scarlatte said softly. “But if they try, they’ll kill us all.”

“Wait. If they built all the hubs, what benefit does that offer for them? Aren’t they the ones most likely to be invested in keeping the sun… y’know. Overheated?” I asked.

Scarlatte scowled in irritation, before turning to Thelma. Thelma nodded and took over answering the question.

“They don’t believe sending another ship, a much smaller one, would be as dangerous as the Helios Array was. Admittedly, the Helios Array was incredibly invasive. It had every monitoring device and tool that Violette had been able to come up with at the time. I think, however, that it all boils down to money. The more territory Tellanex and its subsidiary towers make safe, the less useful Sirahn’s hubs begin to look. In their eyes, if the mission fails and the sun gets hotter, that just means more profit. They have no idea…”

So this whole mission is… what? A publicity stunt?

“They’re going to kill us all,” Scarlatte said softly. “Unless we get at least one more tower up and running, we have no way to save the Earth if the layer that coats the Sun were to unravel, and another mission to the sun would surely add another rip.”

“That hasn’t been proven, Chandra,” said Darrin, and Scarlatte scowled at him. He shrugged unapologetically. “It’s the truth. You don’t know that for sure.”

“I know. I feel it in my gut. We can’t disprove it and I refuse to support any mission to the sun until someone can prove to me exactly what caused the first rip!” she shouted.

I knew Scarlatte was supposed to be a genius, and that her towers in New York, Milwaukee, and Seattle were undeniably amazing. Tellroan growing before my eyes as it had over the last few years was more than enough proof of that. But she wasn’t coming across as very smart to me. If anything, she sounded like one of those doomsday preachers that were usually homeless, riling up mobs and protestors against the walls that were put up back in the early days of the Folly.

Her callous attitude was making it readily apparent why she rarely spoke on television for any length of time. She was nothing like the once charismatic Doctor Fontaine had been, and despite clearly knowing more than I did about Sunsoul, she did not make me feel like she did. Instead, I was getting the impression that she was more bitter about not being able to prove her theories than she was about whatever might destroy the Earth.

“How… I don’t understand how the Towers could prevent that. If this newest mission they're sending does the same thing the Array did, but even worse this time, then we’re all dead. Uhm. No offense!” I said with a placating gesture to Scarlatte. “The towers are amazing, but frankly I don’t think saving a few thousand square miles will matter if the rest of the Earth is literally baking.”

Scarlatte actually smiled at this. “The Towers are… more. So much more than the mere domes they’re capable of individually. They are the creation of a fever dream. I honestly think that they were given to me by God. When I first discovered the way to enhance Sunsoul’s potency, the idea came to me. The five we’ve built so far are only the first few in what would be a network of towers spanning the globe. A limitless man-made energy layer protecting the entire Earth. The conduits can enhance the Sunsoul and when the towers are connected they can create a barrier that spans the entire area between them. They provide eternal life to their conduits. Natural immunity to fire and sunlight, as well as power. They can even provide electricity to those sheltered below the beams. They are… they are the first step to becoming a true Type I civilization.”

She shuddered as she described them. Then, she dropped her hands.

For some reason, my eyes landed on the shorter of the two scientists. Darrin. His eyes were wide as saucers as he stared at Scarlatte with rapt attention.

“But we aren’t ready. We need at least four, and they need to cover a significant portion of the globe. Without that, they cannot protect us. Tellroan was supposed to be that fourth, but until the conduit is safely stabilized by regulation chambers and returned here, Tellroan will not function. And those chambers have been destroyed.”

“This brings us to you, Brandon,” Thelma said.

“M-Me? What… what can I do?”

“They want you and me to take Lover-girl to the abandoned tower. They want us… they want me to go back to Telilro,” Clara said, eyes blazing.