“You wouldn’t understand,” Kari mumbled.
“Try me.”
“Fine. I realized something when you were taken. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to control yours that it’s all I am. My life is completely defined by my reactions to you and Michael, nothing more. There isn’t anything more to me than being your minder. I’ve been thinking that I don’t really know who I am, or what I want in life.
Who am I? What am I? Why do I go on? What are my goals in life? I don’t know.”
“You’ve come to the right person,” Jonathan reached out and turned her head
toward him with a gentle finger to the side of her chin. Flashing her a small grin, he nodded. “There’s no one in the entire universe that understands that sort of thing like a twin.”
Kari blinked at him.
“No one ever thinks of me as an individual,” Jonathan explained, pushing away
from the railing and pacing in front of her as he ticked points off on his fingers. “No one can tell me apart from my brother. No one bothers to keep track of which one I am. No one even cares which one I am. I’m never an individual, only one of a pair. People always call us ‘the twins’ instead of by our names. And you know what the really infuriating thing is? He’s smarter than me. By a lot, too. I’ve been living in his shadow my entire life. Anyway, I know what it’s like not to really know who you are or why you even exist at all.”
“So what should I do about it,” Kari realized she was biting her lip, a childhood nervous habit that she’d been sure she’d kicked long ago.
Shrugging, Jonathan spread his hands.
“You don’t know! What help are you, then? I thought you said I came to the
right person!”
“Look, sis,” Jonathan said. “I can’t tell you who you are. I can tell you how I see you, but not who you really are on the inside. That’s something that you need to find for yourself. Why do you go on? What motivates you? Who are you? These are things that you decide on your own, not things that I can tell you. What would be the point if I told you everything important like that? What would you have learned? I can point you in the right direction, though. Just try to find the one thing in your life that’s most important to you, and everything else will fall into place around it.”
“And you say he’s the smart one,” Kari raised an eyebrow.
“Trust me, he is way smarter than he lets on. He hides it because he’s also infinitely more lazy than I am and he thinks if people realize how smart he is he’ll actually have to do something resembling work.”
Looking out at the approaching army, Kari knew the truth of his words. No one could tell her who she was and what motivated her. No one could give her the reasons why she put one foot in front of the other. She had to find those things in herself, and when she did, she would know who she was.
“You like that Gabriel guy, don’t you,” Jonathan asked, changing the subject with all the deftness of a child trying to play the piano wearing mittens.
Flushing deeply, Kari stood, ready to protest vehemently, but it rushed out of her and she slumped back onto the railing, feeling like she was deflating.
“If you laugh at me, I swear to god I’ll rip your ears off.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Jonathan paused for a second before adding, “not with that look on your face anyway. You’re really scary sometimes, sis.”
“When I was little I used to imagine being swept away by someone just like him, rugged, handsome, smart, willing to do what’s right no matter the cost. It’s a girl thing. I think I fell in love the second I saw him, but he obviously loves Sam. He stepped right out of my childhood fantasies, and he was already taken before I ever even saw him.”
“Ouch,” Jonathan leaned against the railing beside her, placing his arm around her shoulders. “I suppose it’s a good thing for him, though. I like him, but it’s the solemn duty of every big brother to brutally murder any man that sets his eyes on his younger sister. Hell, it’s even a law of nature, I think. I’d have to kill him.”
“You’re terrible,” Kari sighed. “Never change. You’re prefect the way you are.”
“I’ll remember you said that the next time you’re yelling at me for something
stupid.”
“You know, Jonathan, I feel sorry for the Apostle. She doesn’t even realize what she’s doing, and I doubt she’ll ever listen to reason.”
“If it comes to it, I’ll kill her. But I sure would like to talk some sense into her instead.”
“Aren’t we the sorry pair,” Kari looked at him. “Both in love with people we’ll never have a chance with.”
“Hey now,” Jonathan protested. “Mine may be the servant of the most evil being in the universe, but she’s still single. I’ve still got a chance.”
Kari pushed him playfully, and almost fell backward off the wall when a loud
siren startled her, sounding through the facility followed by a sharp tone over a loudspeaker.
“Commencing shield activation,” the strangely human, hologram Allie announced
over a loudspeaker. “All personnel take caution.”
With a bright flash, shimmering energy began cascading downward like a rush of water to create a luminescent dome over the Spires of Infinity, bathing everything in an odd blue glow. Objects viewed through the dome were distorted as if viewed through water. It enclosed all of the land within a quarter mile of the wall.
“Wall cannons armed,” Allie said. “Testing targeting and firing systems.”
The wall beneath Kari’s feet shook, and as she stepped forward to look down.
They were standing right above one of the massive cannons mounted on the wall and it was turning to bear on the approaching army. There was a concussion that seemed to push the air from her lungs as twenty sickly green beams of energy lanced through the air.
Passing through the shield like a rock tossed into a lake, the beams sent ripples outward from where they penetrated it. Not all of the cannons fired. One of them exploded, sending a gout of flame up the side of the wall. The beams struck random places on the ground outside the shield to no visible effect.
“Targeting system failure,” Allie said. “Manual targeting required. Imperial soldiers please take up position at the manual targeting computers located above each cannon.”
“Excuse me,” a young soldier with bunny ears and a cotton ball tail said to Kari.
“I need to get at that computer.”
Looking down, Kari realized that she was leaning over a console and quickly
moved out of the way.
“Fire at will,” Allie said.
Green bolts of fire began to spear away from the wall cannons irregularly as the soldiers opened fire. Most of the bolts pierced the approaching dust storm, vaporizing strange tunnels of clear air deep into the cloud. Twisted nightmare beasts unrecognizable as human, came apart under the barrage. Any living being struck with the energy went stiff and melted into a messy, bloody sludge.
Kari looked away.
“That’s disgusting,” Jonathan cried excitedly, leaning forward for a better look.
Another cannon exploded, sending a soldier hurtling into the courtyard below in flames. Looking over her shoulder, Kari found him spread on the pavement with an awkward twist to his back in an expanding pool of blood.
“I hope the shield is more reliable than the cannons are,” Jonathan muttered.
Kari nodded her agreement.
*****
Sitting atop her cathor, the Apostle of Cain examined the walls behind the energy shield protecting the Spires of Infinity. Running her tongue up and down one of her fangs, she compared the shape to the black towers ahead, curving inward toward the needle shaped central Spire. Locked vertically to remain within the shield, it was the tallest manmade structure she had ever seen, including the World Tower.