by J D Morganne
“I’ll make sure you never taste another cake!”
Nano released Bucky in an instant. “He ate my cake,” he muttered, climbing to his feet. He was panting, his face creased at the unfairness. If Aria hadn’t run after the disoriented pig, Nano would’ve thrown a full-blown tantrum to win her affection. “Man, I hate those fake warthogs.” Nano turned to Beck, ireful, pointing his finger at nothing at all. “There ain’t nothing the Old-World wouldn’t do to a pig. They used every part of that thing. The feet, the intestines, the tail.”
“Horned-pigs eat your shit, Anga,” Beck said. “They eat everything. Clean this floor.” Beck didn’t have time for these games. She didn’t have time to get the house in order. Today was the day she’d meet with Cayman. Aria had deemed Jaxon to be in perfect health, minus the bout of constipation they’d shared a bet about a couple weeks ago. Beck chuckled, remembering. She’d made five rusies on that one.
She showered and stared at the note she’d taped to her mirror. Steam had wrinkled the edges and bled the ink. Her gaze rolled to her mother’s grand piano in the reflection and she remembered her fingers gliding over the keys, producing worlds of art. She wished she had half the talent her ma had had. Or was half as beautiful. Or strong.
You are strong, Beck read, and wanted the words to be true.
She spent each start of her day saying them, hoping they would guide her. The earth was strong, but she felt like glass threads. One false move, one mistake and she would shatter.
The hanger wore her blouse better than her, and her plum-purple fingernail polish was closer to dark blue. It didn’t match the blue stripes in her pants. The steel of her armor covered her arms to her wrists and hugged her in uncomfortable places. The breastplate was form-fitting, but the padding was beginning to wear, and it tore into her waist. She took it off and decided to dress like a normal person.
Hot air whipped from her fan’s blades and fanning herself with paper wasn’t better. The heat frizzed her curls. She protected her hair in the only way she knew how. Braids. She braided on either side and pulled it into a ponytail.
Nano was waiting in the hall for her. “Why’s it so hot?” She locked her door.
“I could ask the sun.”
“Smartass, no. Where’s Robot?”
“Sleeping.” Nano leaned forward on his rod. He smiled like he was keeping a secret.
Beck glared at him and Nano already knew what she wanted to ask. Why on earth had he let him sleep?
“You know how hard it is wakin’ him? Takes thirty minutes. And it’s freezing in there. And loud. And creepy.”
“I don’t have time for this.” It was too late to wake Jaxon. Nothing could go wrong with Cayman today. What they discussed would affect the entirety of Jerus. She might finally get the answers she’d been craving since Jaxon’s tripping over that borderline started this hailstorm. She could feel in her blood that Cayman knew a lot more than she did. No way in hell was she going to miss out on this opportunity because he wanted to sleep. She would go without him.
“I’ll sit in for’em,” Nano said.
Beck waved him off. He knew that was out of the question.
“Come on, man.”
“Why?” Beck turned up her face and she looked like she had a cheek full of hard candies. “You need to prove something to someone?”
Nano frowned. “Only you, I guess.”
Beck didn’t feel sorry for him. It would take five days and a rotating staff to count his mistakes. She couldn’t afford him making anymore, but most of all she couldn’t afford him getting hurt. They had lost both their parents in Jerus’s first war. He was the only blood relative she acknowledged. He was the only one she had left. She hated to make him think she didn’t trust him, but this was for his safety.
“This won’t take long.” She tried to reassure.
“Well, where’s your armor?”
“It’s Cayman,” Beck said, with a one-shouldered shrug. “What’s he gonna do? Old-man me to death?”
Nano laughed. “Be careful.”
“I promise. Wake him up. Make him useful.” She left him after that, knowing two things: Nano wouldn’t wake Jaxon and he wouldn’t make him useful.
She would venture over Jerus with pride, like always. There would be no Jerus without the sacrifices she had made. At sixteen, she’d almost died defending it from Edie Garden in the second war. Now, it thrived. Its heartbeat was a melodious tune, the only thing that got her to sleep at night.
The skyrail carried her to the peak of the mountain, the grassy chateau her father had once called home. The grass itself hadn’t been upkept. Spiky grains of it nipped at her legs, hard to see through lanky blue tulips. Beck pushed her way through them to get past the shadow to the edge of the world.
This was the part of her life she wanted to keep hidden. She told Jaxon about Alasta and the smallest details about Cayman, but he didn’t know Cayman was the reason for most of her misery. He didn’t know Alasta was as dangerous now as it had been when it was still on the ground.
Now, it loomed above them like thunderclouds, ready to explode and drench them in its sorrow. Beck followed the contagious dread it emitted to the booth at the end of the precipice. When Jerus and Alasta first separated, there had been security at the booth around the clock. Now, it was deserted, like the chateau, like everything else Beck had known in those days.
She rounded the booth and stood at the beginning of where Cayman had ripped her land from its roots. Through the clouds, she could almost see his floating mountains, tethered to the ground by powerful chains of earth.
With no one there to merge the bridge between her land and his, Beck had to do it herself. She was at a minor disadvantage. Though she could manipulate all earth, she had a specialty for manipulating trees at her will. She could control the earth—cheap tricks she’d learned as a child, quick play tricks—but it was a tug-of-war game, draining her energy with each pull of the rope. Trees were too far to utilize roots, and manipulating from that distance would drain her energy, too.
She could use the help of those two guards Jaxon had paid for, but she’d sent them away.
Fine, she thought. I’ll do it myself. She outstretched her hand, took a deep breath and clenched the earth with her fist. It pulled against her like an irate child. Again, she clasped it in ways only she could see, feel. She used her other hand to steady the serpentine bridge that the branches and roots were forming. As if possessed by the earth itself, the force took hold of her too, squirming within her limbs. It would hold long enough to get Beck there and back. She would take pleasure in destroying it once this was over. She dropped her hands, looked over her sloppy work in satisfaction. The parapet wasn’t symmetrical, but the bridge was sturdy. After recomposing, she headed across, into the sky.
The wind whipped in Beck’s ears, cool to the touch. Halfway across, Alasta’s sky realm came into view. Cayman had chopped down trees and carved his way through vibrant land to construct his skyscraper businesses. Their storm-proof houses were close to their ground, hard to see from where Beck walked. From the highest spire, a digital clock blinked the same time it always had: the time Alasta became what it was. At ten-fifteen in the morning, Cayman celebrated its freedom. Same day. Every year.
Beck had been five-years-old during that war. She was too young then, but now…
She entered a vestibule, where classical music played over a loudspeaker. The room was empty save for the ten Torchers now holding up firearms. The fire in those things was hot enough to grill her organs. She pushed the closest one away from her head.
“Emiir Beck.” One of the Torchers—the black war paint on his face still damp—tucked his gun at his side. Beck had startled him, but now his face was full of horror. “So sorry, Emiir. I didn’t know… you would…” He froze, before finally, looking over his shoulder and yelling, “Lower your weapons! This is the daughter of the Great Yahid Beck V.”
The others listened, exchanging hollow, whispered gossi
p. Beck couldn’t remember the last time she was here, but she could sense this squad was new. The receptionist looked delighted to see one guest, even if it was one she hated. This lobby was the peace portal between Alasta and Jerus, but Beck would never allow her people in Alasta and Alastans weren’t welcome in Jerus. She only needed to get to Cayman.
Before she could tell them all to back off, Cayman’s assistant materialized from silver vapor into a complete human being. His technology made Beck sick. It was the main reason Cayman had broken Alasta and Jerus.
“Hello, Emiir Beck,” the fake woman said. “Right this way.” She extended her arm.
“I know where it is. You can stream yourself back into someone’s computer.” Beck walked through her, jarring her perfect image. “I’ll take myself.” And she did.
The buildings in the cities were vaster than any forests. Beck hitched a cycle rickshaw— half an hour, to the tallest, where Cayman’s office looked out over the city. The bullet train that went through a tunnel beneath the building shook the monstrous structure.
Cayman’s office hadn’t changed. It was still riddled with Old-World crap, like golf clubs in the corner and a bar of whiskies and scotches. He hadn’t changed. He had no pictures of families or anyone, typical of a misogynist autocrat aspirant.
Beck didn’t know where most of Cayman’s goods came from. She was glad she wasn’t the supplier. Whoever was, had taken Alasta into a new age. It took every citizen to keep Alasta floating up in their dazzling clouds. Safe to say they were paying a hefty toll. Because of all the work it took to keep Alasta floating, they didn’t have the ability to manipulate. Their unbison, now endangered, were just the sweet, sweet icing. But any wild animal would have difficulty surviving without the resources they needed—plants, water, space—things Alasta could no longer provide. That should’ve been the prioritized conversation, and not some stranger crossing a line.
Children raced down a skywalk outside the window that spanned Cayman’s wall, laughing, carefree, unaware of the constant danger surrounding them.
Beck sat down and kicked her feet up on Cayman’s desk.
After another endless ten minutes, he finally showed. His door appeared in the wall, gone again once he was inside. “Sorry about that,” he said, trying to pull something sticky from the bottom of his maroon dress shoe. His cologne filled the air with a boysenberry tang.
His desk functioned as a computer screen. He made no fuss about shifting shortcuts and open apps away from Beck’s boots. He swiped something to tint the wall where Beck had watched the children.
Now, she was really alone with him. She tried not to let her uneasiness cloud the reason she was there in the first place. Answers. She needed answers.
“It’s nice to see you again, Emiir Yahid.”
“It’s Emiir Beck,” she said, through her teeth. He could cut the bull. This meeting sucked for them both.
“Of course, it is. Apologies.” He grunted when he bent and put his shoe back on. He began to roll what he had pulled from it into a gooey ball. “You came alone?”
Beck scrutinized his red suit, too tight at his stocky shoulders. He looked like a match ready to be set ablaze. “What’re you wearing?”
“Oh, this? You’re pulling me from a party that”—
“I ain’t pulling you from anything. You called me.” Beck stood up and pretended she would leave, knowing deep down she wouldn’t. “Go back to your party.”
“Kids and your tempers.”
Beck groaned, trying and failing to control her twitching lip. “Save your condescension for someone it affects. What do you want?”
Cayman grinned with his eyelids closed and his face content to know he had provoked her. “Sit.” When she didn’t, he sighed and ran his fingers under his glasses. “Please sit,” he tried.
Three more seconds of reluctance reminded Beck that she needed to be there. As much as she hated him, she needed his intel. She sat.
Cayman reclined. “I asked you to bring the boy.”
If Beck sneered any harder, her top lip would lick her nose. She softened. “I don’t like to share, you know that. More importantly, I ain’t stupid.”
“Your usual self, I see.” Cayman grunted, and wiggled to get comfortable in his seat.
His voice was as aggravating as a dripping faucet. Everything he said was already boring and everything he did she considered an act of war. Beck’s hatred was thicker than her hair. “That ain’t ever gonna change,” she said.
Cayman stared at her, eyes narrowing. Then he laughed, deep from his chest, ugly and repugnant.
“I didn’t come here to talk wallpaper. You’ve got a party waiting. Priorities, bait, I’m all about’em.” Beck’s history with Cayman wasn’t anything pleasant and nothing she wanted to remember. His craving for technology, his greed, had torn Jerus apart. He had torn her family apart. She hated him for more than that. Almost as soon as she had become Emiir at sixteen, he’d teamed up with her enemies to try to take Jerus again. He’d made her look vulnerable, weak. She’d sworn to herself she’d never let him do that again.
Cayman snubbed her with his laugh. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a stylus as flat as paper. He double-tapped his desktop with it and triggered a holographic map.
Beck sneered. “Your disrespect knows no bounds.”
“A little technology won’t kill you. You have your feet on my desk, which is a computer, by the way.”
All Alasta was a computer. Blue light from the screen blended green on the tan soles of her boots. She pulled them back. The darkest part of Alasta’s forest—where most unbison dwelled—now floated miniature-sized over Cayman’s desk. He pinched a floating red dot and moved it a few inches back. The 3-D image morphed into a land without trees. A land three times larger than Knowledge, a maze full of law-abiding subjects. He pressed the palace and expanded it, found Jaxon’s name in an occupancy database and opened his file.
“Nineteen-year-old Jaxon Jinshi Fletcher,” Cayman said, a bit of animosity in his voice. “Do you wanna know he’s got enough tech in him to build a fence around Jerus?”
Beck was more intrigued than alarmed. “What’s this gotta do with anything?”
“You hate tech. I’m surprised Anga didn’t take to him immediately. He’s a tech-head, ain’t he?”
Beck cringed when he used Nano’s birth-given name. He sounded like he was gargling water. “I’ll be on my death bed before I let him near any form of tech.”
“Shame. He’s wasting a good talent.”
Cayman could keep her brother out of his thoughts. They were there to discuss, “Jaxon?”
“He’s a soldier in one of the greatest armies you will ever see. The Crimson Army.”
Beck didn’t try to hide her skepticism. Jaxon had shown what he could do up close. He wasn’t a great soldier in anyone’s army. Her Lions were stronger than him on their worst day, but now that Cayman had piqued her curiosity, she wanted to know more.
“They may be Obedient, but they have impressive aptitude for learning… anything. And fast. Crimson Soldiers train from an early age. They eat, sleep and breathe soldier. They’re not trained to be loyal. They’re not trained to show mercy. They’re trained to react.” Two beeps from his computer and a full body model of Jaxon appeared.
Beck stood up, still needing to look up at the hologram. She had to admit, the tech was remarkable, accurate. “You’re telling me this weak punk…” She pointed her finger at the blinking hologram, though Jaxon looked anything but weak. He stood there, three fingers pressed to his chest, in a black uniform, chin held authoritatively high. “You think this man who couldn’t even climb out of a ditch is stronger than any one of my Lions?”
“I didn’t say any o’that. He enlisted at thirteen. A child, could you imagine?”
Oh, she could do a lot more than imagine. She remembered the stench of burning skin as Torchers conflagrated Jerus, the hammering in her legs as she ran for her life, hauling her brother on her
back in a torn sheet. Cayman knew well the lengths Beck would go to protect her land and home.
Knowing he’d said the wrong thing, he paused to consider his next words. His eyes were now locked on her like a wolf fighting for dominance. He sat up straight. “They have a law that prevents skin-to-skin contact. Starts at five. So they know how to take care of themselves.”
Jaxon had already told Beck that, but how did Cayman know? How did he know any of this? More concerning was how Cayman could speak about Jaxon like he’d found his long-lost son. “I thought their Door was peaceful.”
“It is.”
“Then, how is he fighting wars? How is he even a soldier?”
“They won the last war on their soil. There hasn’t been one since. They use Crimsons for other wars.”
“They?”
Cayman said nothing.
Beck tried a different question. “Used how?”
“Not like… cattle. I mean they’re allied with other Doors… they help fight their wars. Then… they purge their memories.”
There was that they again, but what Cayman had said about purging their memories stumped her. She examined his face for humor, but there was none there. “Say that again.”
Cayman’s eyebrows lifted and his cheeks dropped with his mouth, like he was only now realizing who he was talking to. “He was never supposed to cross the border into Jerus.”
“So… he doesn’t remember fighting in other wars?” Beck said, wrinkling her nose at the unsettling thought. Cayman’s face confirmed her doubt. She pieced the puzzle together from there, but she still couldn’t figure out how that was even possible? “How would—why would anyone do that to a person?” She waited for an answer but got only silence. “And how do you know that?” More silence. “Your Torchers tried to say this was about the Treaty of Divii, but it isn’t. Who sent him here?”
“I can’t discuss that with you.” When he blinked in that slow, predictable way, she knew he was hiding something, or lying.
Beck had her answer. “You’re in contact with Obedience.” She stood. She could tear a forest to shreds with the rage building in her feet. In her chest. “You crooked noodle turd.”
