Page 51 of The Teras Trials

Immediately, I vomit. My mind splinters and pain floods my body; great throbbing pulses of it, making my hands spasm, my body convulse. Hands are on me—I flinch away, screaming—there’s a danger in the softness with which they caress me. It could be anyone; Bellamy, Victoria, or someone closer to a stranger, and I might debase myself by crawling into their lap and weeping. Just for a moment of peace. A moment of affection.

I can’t let that happen. I can’t let them see me slithering and desperate and in pain. I roll away from the hands and the vomit and let my cheek, slick with tears, rest against the cold of the marble floor.

“Cassius, hey, hey,” Bellamy sounds panicked, and there’s a disconnect in my mind about him calling my name and sounding distressed, because he so often doesn’t care. We are barely friends, aren’t we?

“What happened?” Victoria screeches. I look up in time to see her do something incredibly brave and incredibly stupid. She beats her fists down on Meléti’s bronze body. I gurgle out a no, because I half expect the monster to snap her pretty neck. But the automaton just waits there impassively for the extreme human emotion to wither away.

“You have made a mess in the library,” Meléti says.

I laugh, disbelieving, and wipe the vomit from my mouth. “Seems I did.”

In all this commotion, I don’t notice what the xenos are doing. What Leo is doing. The ever-present anger that has kept him alive this long, the thing that has meant he’s survived all this time in a world trying to kill him—overtakes him. I hear a scraping noise and when I turn, Leo is by the statue of Omphale, tugging out the iron spear clutched in her marble hand. His eyes are wide, and he’s not looking at me. His eyes are for Meléti.

He’s going to kill the thing.

Leo raises the spear, hefts it high, poised like a javelin. Through his shirt I watch his muscles tighten. I see everything in slow, excruciating detail. He slams forward with the spear. It leaves his grip, travels through the air. Meléti turns to look at it; seems to have a ridiculous amount of time to assess its direction, realise it will be hit, and move out of the way.

The automaton darts aside. The spear clangs against the marble, skidding sharp.

Leo pants, ducks low, and slides across the floor to reclaim the weapon.

Meléti blinks at him. “You have damaged the library,” it says. “You will leave.”

“Like hell I will,” Leo spits, but as if by magic, the library’s doors are swung open from some unseen force, and then Meléti charges forward. It shoves Leo out with one hand. Leo flies through the air, eyes wide and bulging, and manages to haul the spear before he lands and the doors slam shut.

This time, the spear doesn’t miss its mark. Meléti hasn’t had time to right itself. Instead, it raises a hand, as if it might compel the air to stop around it. Bronze tendon, dorsal muscle, bone—all of it explodes outwards with a sharp screeching whine as the spear tip shoots through it. The automaton barely reacts, even as sparks fly. There’s no shudder of pain, no reaction. It merely pulls the spear free with its other hand, walks to Omphale’s statue, and replaces the spear in her hand.

I stare at the door. I think on what Leo just risked. And it’s the first time I realise how insane empathy is. This is the first time in a very long time someone is caring about me, without concern for themselves.

You’re delirious. He needs you for the trials. He needs your insights.

But I don’t want to believe that. Not when Leo was enraged and gambling his life away to strike a teras with a spear.

“Enough,” I cough. I struggle to stand. Bellamy comes and helps me up.

“Good man,” he whispers, with three pats on my back. The closest I’ll come to affection from him, I imagine. “Good man. Feeling alright?”

I give him a tight nod and turn my attention to Meléti. “I gave you what you wanted. I paid your price. Now it’s your turn.”

Meléti blinks at me and moves to clean the mess I made after hurling up my insides. But as it works, finally, without another moment of hesitation, it says, “What information do you seek, Cassius Jones?”

I wrestle forth my memory of the paper Thaddeus left me. The third point on it, in particular.

3. Plant from 2 is a toxin. Be careful to

“What plants do you have at the University?” I ask, and then curse myself. “No, wait. How many questions do I get to ask?”

Meléti doesn’t look my way. “However many it takes to clarify the information you seek.”

Perfect. “Then: is there a greenhouse on the University’s campus?”

“There is a greenhouse. It is not for students. It is protected.”

“Protected,” Victoria repeats. She folds her arms, shuffles close to Bellamy. “By what?”

I can guess, but I wait in case Meléti replies. It reacts like it hasn’t heard her, which I imagine is some sort of stupid stipulation about who paid its required price.

Sighing, I repeat Victoria’s question. Meléti whirrs, “By its protectors. It is not for students.”

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