Goddess in the Machine

by Lora Beth Johnson

  The holo’display was blank.

  The ’locket was dead.

  SIX

  THE SORCER

  The sun had risen on what Zhade hoped would be their final day in the Wastes. They were almost round the pocket, and the buttery tint of the gods’ road glistened in the distance, miraged in waves of heat. The temp rose quickish. The cart rocked, and they sat in silence, the Goddess’s bloodshot eyes narrowing on the pocket. Dirt smudged her face, and her black hair was a tangled mess, curling ever-so-slightish round her ears.

  “We should convo bout what happens when we get to Eerensed,” Zhade said. There were things he had to hold from her, but there were other things she needed to reck if they were going to survive.

  The Goddess ignored him. “Is it getting bigger?” She leaned up to get a better look, prepping to push herself to her knees. She stuck out a hand.

  “Neg, wait—”

  She hissed, or her skin did, as it made contact with the burning metal of the wagon rails, and she jerked back.

  “God damn it!” the Goddess gasped, cradling her burned hand to her chest.

  “Which god? And what is she damning?”

  “Your fucking wagon,” she growled through gritted teeth.

  Zhade’s eyes widened. “I’m doing what to the wagon?”

  She didn’t respond, mereish shut her eyes, a single tear dribbling down her cheek, glinting in the sun. Even without seeing the wound, Zhade could tell this was not a bandage-and-goddess-level-healing wound. This was going to require some magic, and there was sole one conduit in his bag that would work.

  When Zhade had been banished from Eerensed, he was peaced out with mereish the clothes on his back. Blessedish, the two gifts from his mam had been with Lew-Eadin, because Maret had taken everything from him. His conduits, his armor, his fam. At luck, they couldn’t take what he carried inside his head, and he vowed never to be so unprepped again. A week into his life in the Wastes he found a tattered bag, discarded or perhaps carried on the wind from the rotting corpse of its previous owner. He tossed it over his shoulder and filled it with everything he could find—even if he wasn’t certz how it could be useful.

  He’d been building his arsenal ever since, and as his inventory grew, so did his plan. Finalish, the sole thing he’d needed was the Goddess. Now that he had her, he needed to keep her whole and full well.

  He rooted round his bag til he found the wand at the bottom. He called it a wand, but it was bulkier than was typical. It was square and angular and ill fitting in the palm of his hand, but it did what he needed. Or, it would. Eventualish.

  The Goddess grabbed it from him before he could explain.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said, her voice strained with pain, but liveish with curiosity. “I mean, it’s obviously some sort of med’wand used for nano’plasty and cosmetic restructuring, but—” She held it up at different angles. “—this is incredible.”

  Zhade smiled, smuggish. “Certz it is. I made it myself.”

  The Goddess frowned. Her hair fluttered in the desert wind. “You made this? How?”

  He didn’t tell her he’d spent the last four years of his life perfecting it, coaxing supplies from angels at every village they passed, scavenging parts from discarded magic, and sorcering them together to create what he called a graftling wand, or grafter. He didn’t tell her that with a few quick commands, it would release a slipperish sheet of mesh that could alter skin, shift bone, and reshape muscle. He didn’t tell her that though he’d used it to heal minor wounds, that wasn’t its intended purpose.

  “I’m quite talented,” he said, winking and taking back the grafter. “Now, give me your hand.”

  He expected a fight, but to his surprise, she held out her burned hand, eyes wide on the wand. A shiny red mark slashed across her palm. He started to place the grafter on her wound, then hesitated.

  Last moon, he’d used it to heal a sun spot that had been giving him trouble. It had worked, but not without a cost: pain like Zhade had never imagined. When it was over, his skin was smooth and flawless. An ache still lingered, but the sun spot was gone.

  “This—” He met her eyes. “—is going to hurt.”

  She bit her lip, then nodded. Zhade drew a few runes on the surface of the grafter, then tapped the wand against her skin, letting it sense her injury. Once it was done, a translucent netting slipped from the top and fit itself over the wound.

  Firstish, it appeared nothing was happening. Zhade focused as hard as he could, willing the magic to begin, though he knew his sorcer abilities didn’t work like that. Sole goddesses—and now Maret—could call things from thin air, commanding magic with nothing but a thought. Fishes and wishes. But Low Magic, Zhade’s magic, needed a conduit like the grafter. He hoped the work he’d put into creating the wand had been worth it, and that its magic would break in soon and now. Perhaps it was already working. Perhaps the pain he’d felt had been a flute—

  The Goddess screamed.

  It wasn’t a sound of pain or even agony, but something more, deeper. And it wrenched Zhade’s stolid heart in two.

  The wagon jerked to a stop. She scrambled to remove the mesh, but it had already latched on to her skin. Zhade could tell she was trying to speak—plead with him to remove the netting—but her screams didn’t form words. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed in a heap against the side of the wagon.

  Wead jumped out, reaching over to cushion her head.

  “Do something!” he snapped.

  Zhade dove for her hand, but before he grasped it, the mesh . . . detonated.

  He couldn’t comp what he was seeing. One moment the silkish patch was fused to the Goddess’s skin, covering her wound with a translucent glow. And the next, it burst into pieces. Pieces so small they were nothing but specks of sand glistening on the wind. They shimmered in the desert sun for a moment, then vanished.

  The Goddess’s breathing hitched and her eyes fluttered open. She met his stare, face flushed, chest heaving, lips parted.

  “What. the fuck. was that.”

  Zhade pushed out his bottom lip. “You broke it.”

  Andra raised a brow, still gasping for breath. “I’ll break more than that in a minute if you don’t tell me what the hell you just did to me.”

  If she was full bars well to spar, she wasn’t too badish hurt. Zhade felt a wind of relief.

  “Zhade.” It was Lew-Eadin, pacing. His voice was tight and low, almost threatening. “What was that?”

  “I— Sorries,” he pleaded. Both of their faces held matching expressions of anger. “It was mereish something I was working on. Magic to heal, alter flesh. It’s painful, firm, but never— I never . . .”

  The Goddess cradled her burned hand, squeezing the tips of her fingers til they turned red, as though that would stop the pain. She tilted her head back and groaned, and Zhade was momentarish distracted by the smooth amber skin of her neck.

  He shook his head to clear it. “How did you do that?” he asked. “Destroy the mesh?” He’d never seen magic work like that before.

  “I didn’t,” she said, eyes still shimmering in pain.

  Zhade recked what he had seen, and he would ferris out her secrets later.

  The Goddess’s wound needed attention, and it was obvi he needed a more imaginative solution. Evens. There were other ways to tend to the burn without harming her further, and ways to get her to reveal her secrets. He leaned back and ripped off his shirt.

  The flush on the Goddess’s face was full worth the sun spot he was going to get.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped.

  He liked how raspy her voice was when she was flustered. And the flush on her cheeks was full charred. “Wrapping your wound.”

  He had plenty of bandages in his bag, but the Goddess didn’t need to reck that. He ripped a strip
of fabric from the bottom of his tunic. The material wasn’t for true hard to tear, but he flexed a bit more than necessary. Her breath caught. He tied the cloth round her palm, at care to let his fingers dance across her skin. She opened her mouth to say something—a breathless thank-you, a flustered compliment. His signature grin was waiting to break free.

  “Put your shirt back on,” she said. “What are you waiting for? A mirror?”

  Wead let out a laugh, then cut off. “Sir.” His voice was tense. “Something happens.”

  Zhade followed Wead’s line of vision. The Goddess had been right. The pocket was growing, getting closer, its shadowy mass swirling in agitation. A spark of lightning pierced a jagged path through it, briefish illuminating what looked like a hand reaching toward them.

  “Is it supposed to do that?” the Goddess asked.

  “I’ve never seen one do that before,” Zhade said.

  “We need to run,” Lew added. He turned to jump back in the wagon, but before he could, the churning contents of the pocket shot out and severed his arm at the elbow.

  SEVEN

  Mortal, n. or adj.

  Definition:

  subject to death; human.

  incurring divine condemnation.

  one who is destined to die.

  Distantly, Andra was aware of someone shouting. Familiar words, urgent tones. But her field of vision was completely consumed by the pocket. By the nothingness, the lack of existence. By what she was certain was an immense ’swarm of nano’bots congealing into something corrupt and devastating, consuming everything in its path. It hung over her, a swirling mass of darkness, almost like it was watching her, sizing her up.

  She was insignificant and tiny. She was real, she existed. Connected and apart. And she couldn’t make the two thoughts fit together—

  Someone grabbed her arm.

  She blinked.

  Zhade was in front of her, yelling something about Lew.

  “What?” she choked out, but Zhade was already dragging her out of the cart, and for one wild moment, Andra thought he was going to throw her in, but right before they reached the pocket, she tripped over something.

  Someone.

  Lew-Eadin.

  He lay writhing in the dirt, eyes clenched shut, groaning in pain. Lew’s left arm was spread wide. Shoulder, elbow, then nothing.

  They were so close to the pocket, Andra imagined she could feel the nothingness tugging at her, drawing her to it. Something in the back of her mind felt awakened.

  “Help him!” Zhade shouted. He was frantic and angry and his eyes glistened.

  “I—” She started to say she couldn’t, that she didn’t know how, but she couldn’t stop staring at Lew. His brown complexion ashen, his unruly dark curls slick with sweat, his elegant face carved into something grotesque.

  Zhade’s eyes were wild. “Heal him. Now.”

  “I—I can’t. I told you, I’m not a goddess.”

  “Mereish try,” Zhade pleaded. “Like the others.”

  “I— Try what?” Andra spluttered.

  “A miracle. I reck what the goddesses can do, what you can do.”

  Andra opened her mouth to respond, but a low groan cut her off.

  Lew-Eadin.

  Zhade knelt beside him in the sand, resting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. The blackened nano’swarm still hung above, casting them in shadow.

  “Evens?”

  Lew mumbled something.

  “What?”

  “No fighting,” he moaned.

  Zhade murmured something in a dialect she didn’t understand. Lew-Eadin let out a laugh that turned into a cough.

  Zhade’s jaw tightened. “Hurry. Help me get him acart.”

  * * *

  They raced across the desert, Andra clinging to Lew-Eadin in the back, while Zhade took the reins. The horse seemed to sense the urgency and galloped faster than Andra thought possible, the pocket growing smaller in the distance. They followed the road toward Eerensed—nothing more than a yellow line eco’grafted in the sand.

  Andra imagined she could feel Lew-Eadin’s life leaving him, slowly draining through the gruesome wound where his arm suddenly . . . stopped. She’d tied a tourniquet, relying on her memory of sims and old sight-and-sound films. She didn’t have a clue if she’d done it correctly.

  If Andra had any kind of technology—a phone, a ’bot, a ’band—she could have used a healing app. But all she had was the neural’implant.

  She’d felt it come to life when Zhade had used the med’wand to put the nano’patch on her. It hadn’t been trying to connect to the ’wand—Andra hadn’t sensed the tech at the edge of her consciousness, like she would a light switch or sim or even nanos. Instead, she’d felt a spark, a panicked grab for something that wasn’t there.

  She flexed her hand, remembering the pain from the nano’patch.

  Pain wasn’t the right word for it. It was agony. It was torment. It was desolation.

  It was like being torn apart into her smallest pieces and remade. Whatever the tech had been, it was wrong. She wasn’t sure how she had destroyed it, if she had destroyed it. But she had theories. The pain, the threat of mortal damage had rebooted her ’implant, sending it into survival mode with a single focus: protect the host.

  No, her ’implant hadn’t interfaced with the med’wand, because if her body’s response was any indication, the tech was fully incompatible with her own. So the question was: What had her ’implant used to destroy the ’patch? She was hesitant to ask, because she thought she knew the answer.

  The pocket.

  It had been the closest source of nanos. Corrupt and dangerous ones, yes, but definitely a ’swarm of nano’bots. Her ’implant had communicated to a small strand and they had attacked the ’patch to save her. But for some reason, the rest of the pocket had followed and acted on its own accord.

  Attacking Lew-Eadin.

  It had been her fault. Her ’implant had called the pocket nearer.

  “How much farther?” she shouted, the wagon jolting beneath her.

  The yellow road stretched ahead of them, vanishing over the horizon.

  “Too far,” Zhade growled, the wind stealing his words.

  Andra hesitated just a moment before grabbing Zhade’s bag.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for that cursed ’wand of yours.”

  It was a desperate solution, but that’s where Andra was. Zhade had implied he’d used the ’wand on himself and never experienced what Andra had. Her reaction to the ’patch had been because her ’implant thought it was malware and attacked, white blood cells neutralizing a foreign agent. If the only reason the ’patch didn’t work was because of her ’implant, and Lew-Eadin didn’t have an ’implant . . .

  Andra found the ’wand, its metal casing rough and warm in her unburned hand. It had obviously been a slapdash job, a piecemeal of scraps. Rather than presenting a holo’display, a screen on its casing acted as an interface. She’d watched Zhade trace the symbols on it. One had looked like a broken square, like the scan symbol on her holo’band. The second had been harder to detect, but she’d noticed blue triangles with loops on top on some of Zhade’s things—the symbol from her time that indicated a med’bot. She tried that now and pressed the ’wand to Wead’s arm.

  The nano’patch oozed its way onto the wound. It was nothing more than a collection of nano’bots, so thickly swarmed as to be solid. Each was programmed with a specific task, working together to heal Wead.

  Andra hoped.

  None of this was ideal, but she couldn’t just watch Wead bleed out. Everything in her screamed to help.

  The wind rushed past them as the ’patch dissolved into Wead’s skin. The wound’s ragged edges slowly knit themselves together, covering the blood and bone beneath.
He writhed in pain, and Andra couldn’t tell if it was from his injury, the lurch of the wagon, or the healing nano’tech. Whatever it was doing, it wasn’t doing enough.

  As far as Andra could tell, the skin wasn’t healed, exactly. It had been remade—fundamentally altered from Lew’s injured skin to new, undamaged flesh. It was genius, but inefficient, made by someone experimenting without precedent.

  At most, what the ’wand had done was cosmetic. Wead still needed medical attention, and he needed it now. All Andra had been able to do was stop him from losing more blood.

  She’d just have to keep Lew alive long enough to get him to the city. If the goddesses could create bio’domes from scratch, surely they could do something to heal him. Again, Andra considered her mother. Wouldn’t it make sense that the only three colonists that hadn’t woken with the others had something in common? Maybe a familial relationship? There were three women in Andra’s family: Acadia, Andra, and their mother.

  And if Isla Watts was waiting for them in the city, she could do something to help Lew. She was no doctor. However, she was a genius.

  But the ’bot had said Isla and Acadia were dead.

  It could be wrong. Andra tried to will it into existence. It has to be wrong.

  On and on they flew. Through clouds of dust, over sifting dunes, across flat, barren stretches of land pockmarked with crisp, brown grass. Andra pulled the cowl-neck of her sweater over her mouth with one hand, using the other to mop up Lew’s lost blood with Zhade’s discarded shirt. Welts were already blossoming on Zhade’s back, his skin fried to a deep red. A trickle of blood ran from one of the blisters, but he seemed not to notice as he pushed the horse faster.