Free Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) by J. Barton Mitchell

had shown her in Midnight City, from her repressed memories. She remembered the vision, being tied to a table in the center, one of the crystalline entities descending and burning itself into her body. She remembered the pain, most of all, how she’d screamed …
    Come, the projections intoned.
    In the black room, a dozen or so of the glowing entities hovered in the air. Most of them pulsed in golden light, but two were made of blue and white, their forms casting flickering hues of cobalt and snow.
    It was from one of those entities, Zoey could tell, that the projections came.
    Come …
    It was neither warm nor threatening, merely a request. They wanted her to step into the room, and it was then that Zoey studied the only object that rested there.
    It was another pod, like her own, only it was lying flat on the floor. Its doors were opened too, but she couldn’t see inside, not from this vantage point.
    Come, the entities asked again.
    Zoey didn’t move. As much as she disliked the pod and its claustrophobic confines, she had no desire to step from its relative safety.
    The pod vibrated again, and as it did, its walls began to reform. The various shelves and cables and flashing instruments all smoothed and disappeared, like they had been absorbed into some kind of thick gelatin. The whole thing began to flatten, the back of it moving outward, filling the interior, and pushing Zoey forward.
    She fell onto the floor with a gasp, spun around, and saw the pod had lost most of its form. It looked like a black cylindrical shape of clay.
    No fear, the projections stated encouragingly. You are honored.
    The two blue and white crystalline entities floated above her. The others, the more golden ones, stayed back. She could feel their emotions and thoughts, though, swirling around her, trying to push into her consciousness, and it was more than just the ones in the room, she realized. It was many more. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe, all inhabiting the massive, black structure that stretched out of sight above.
    Come. See.
    Zoey tried to hide her shaking hands. They wanted her to look into the other pod, the one that had been laid before her. She supposed she really had no choice. Besides, this was her bargain, wasn’t it? It was her choice to come here, because it was only here where the answers she needed could be found. She had to find a way to make it right, to fix all that she was responsible for, and this was the only way.
    She had to stand on her tiptoes to do it, but slowly, Zoey peered over the edge of the container.
    Inside lay a man. An adult man. His black hair was just beginning to gray, and his skin was eerily white from what had been years of existence without the sun, if you could count life in one of these pods as an existence.
    Black tubes and wires of all sorts ran around his body and into his mouth, but as unsettling as it looked, he didn’t seem to be in any discomfort. The answer to why was clearly evident.
    His eyes stared blankly upward, and they were completely filled in with oily black. He was one of the Succumbed, those whose minds had been taken over by the Tone, and his current state, a blank, mindless existence inside one of these chambers, Zoey realized, must be the fate of everyone who gave into the Tone and disappeared inside one of the Assembly Presidiums.
    One of the brilliant blue and white crystalline entities slowly drifted up until it hovered directly over the body of the man in the chamber.
    Guide. The projections came. Ease. Allay.
    In confusion, Zoey looked up at the entity … and watched as it began to slowly sink downward toward the man.
    Guide. Ease. Allay.
    She felt her heart beat, felt a wave of sickness as she realized what was happening. The same thing that had happened to her. The energetic being was going to sink into this man … and it wanted her, somehow, to help the process, to guide and aid the action.
    Guide. Ease. Allay, the projections came