The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

ears.
    “Where?” Ezra asked.
    “I don’t know. Nearby. Like there’s a river somewhere around here. Maybe these channels aren’t entirely Fleck work. Maybe parts of them are natural. There had to be a way for water to reach the oasis, and there are no more rivers in the surface.”
    Ezra had noticed small divergences in the passage, some of which seemed deliberate, as if the carver had taken a wrong turn, and returned to correct its path. He wondered if there was something they had found, and wanted to avoid. It scared him to imagine what it could be.
    It scared him almost as much as the idea of becoming lost in this labyrinth.
    Suddenly they could hear Erin again. Through the link, which was stronger now that they were so close to each other, they heard her cough and groan. Garros stopped, and told Ezra to do the same.
    “Erin, can you hear me? Babe?”
    Lights on the side of Phoenix Atlas’ head shed some extra light into the tunnel. “I’m okay,” Erin said, her voice weak, or maybe just exhausted.
    “Good, good,” he said. “Hold on, I’ll get you out of here. Blanchard, let’s go. Lead the way out, and hurry.”
    The tunnel took a sharp turn, again as though it was trying to avoid something, and they finally saw it go upwards, towards the light.

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    Though Vivian had prepared herself for this moment, her stomach still reminded her that the slightest mistake could be disastrous.
    She hated politics; it was something she barely understood, and one of the few things she never truly wanted to understand. They were not dictated by any kind of recognizable logical pattern; they were merely an exercise of will.
    And sometimes, the will of men and women driven by greed, ambition, and resentment caused by old feuds.
    Things had changed after the event that had collectively become known as The Shattering, when a strong bloodlust had taken over Ezra Blanchard during a routine operation outside the dome, leading to the sudden exposure of the Creux, and Zenith, to the citizens of Roue.
    For the people of Zenith, who had always believed themselves safe thanks to the dome and the Roue Army, the sight had been too much to handle. To their eyes, the creatures outside the dome were suddenly more dangerous, and the dome itself less reliable.
    And of course, there was the sight of a giant horned devil—the cause of the rupture in the dome’s structure. Did that thing, and those like it, represent their salvation or an additional threat?
    The citizens of Roue were undecided, and it was in their hands where the fate of Zenith lay. There were only a few days left before Proposition Tomorrow, when all the citizens of the city would take a vote, and decide if Zenith would remain operational, or be shut down.
    It was her job to convince them that Zenith was a force of good, and their only chance of survival.
    But Governor Ronald Heath, one of the most influential men in Roue, and also its leader, disagreed.
    The man who had so tenaciously led a campaign against Zenith, and all involved in it, was waiting for Vivian to join her for what he called a friendly interview, though she knew that their encounter would more accurately be called a debate. Like every remaining Creux pilot in Zenith, she would have to publicly speak on the facility’s behalf, and defend it from the vicious words of the man who sought to end it.
    The end of Zenith meant the end of the Creux Defense Program. It meant the termination of the only thing that was truly protecting Roue from the Laani threat.
    It meant the end of humanity. Most people understood that, and it was not, for them, a bad thing. They had been exiled from their own planet, forced to live in an enclosure, never to see the sun or the stars that had once watched over their ancestors. This was no life, and there was no point in delaying the inevitable.
    Vivian sighed.
    She was terrified because she knew that, despite the intelligent strategy crafted by Zenith, theirs was a lost battle.