Devil in the Device

by Lora Beth Johnson

  The bakery was empty, except for a few picked-over baykuds in the case. Zhade cleared his throat and leaned against the counter. A face popped out from the back room. Flame hair, grizzled beard. Cheska.

  “What happens?” he asked, dusting flour off his hands. His voice was a basstring played in a cave. His hair was bright as a goldenlilly, his pale complexion ruddy. He was a big man, could probablish hold his own in a fight with Gryfud, maybe even Kiv.

  “I’m—” Zhade tried to deepen his voice. “I’m looking for Dzeni.”

  Cheska narrowed his pale eyes. “How you happen to reck Dzeni?”

  Zhade leaned across the counter, looking up at Cheska til he was full close the bigger man could see through the glamour mask to Zhade’s face neath it. Maret’s face.

  Cheska immediatish scowled. He was one of the few people who recked Zhade was wearing the Guv’s features. Dzeni had insisted on telling him. “What do you want?”

  Zhade rocked back. “Many things. Butterjam tarts, a new silk cape, fishes and wishes. But anow, I’d like to convo Dzeni.”

  Cheska stared him down a moment, before shaking his head and disappearing behind the curtain in the back. Zhade swiped up a nearish crumb. It was burnt. He stuck his tongue out and let the crumb fall to the counter.

  The curtain opened, and Cheska motioned for Zhade to follow. Behind was a storeroom. A door to the left led to another room, windowless and dark, but homeish. Dzeni stood draped in a thick cloak, Dehgo clinging to his mother’s hand. She’d lost weight, her cheeks hollow and bags neath her eyes. Her dark hair was pulled back from her heart-shaped face into a rattish bun.

  “Dzeni!” Zhade stepped forward, opening his arms for a hug, but he was met mereish with an icy stare. He dropped his arms and took a step back. For certz, he was wearing a glamour mask. “It’s Zhade.”

  Dzeni cocked an eyebrow. “I reck. That’s the worst disguise.”

  Zhade didn’t bother to convo the face neath his glamour wasn’t even his own, so it was actualish a full brill disguise.

  Cheska moved to stand next to Dzeni, placing a protective hand on her shoulder. Dehgo pulled on his mam’s arm, eyeing the toy angel in Zhade’s hand.

  “Heya, boyo,” Zhade said, trying to sound like himself and not Maret. Rust was growing on his own voice with disuse.

  Dehgo slipped out of his mam’s grasp and ran to Zhade. “I like your toy sir may I see it?” The sentence came out in a rush.

  “This?” Zhade asked, lifting the small angel. He’d sorcered it to do nothing more than walk in circles and say a few brief phrases, but kidduns were easyish amused, marah? Gryfud had said so. “This toy?”

  “Firm!” Dehgo reached for it, big brown eyes alight.

  “Evens, this toy isn’t mine.” Zhade held the toy just out of his reach.

  Dehgo stuck out his bottom lip. “ ’Snot?”

  “Neg, you’ll have to ask the owner if you can play with it.”

  “Whose is it?”

  Zhade knelt and held out the angel. “It’s yours.”

  Dehgo squinted and puffed out his lips, and Zhade realized he didn’t comp the joke. But he must have decided it didn’t meteor because he snatched the toy from Zhade’s hands and ran back to his mother.

  Dzeni placed a hand on her son’s curlish head. “What convo, Dehgo?”

  “Thank you,” he mumbled, placing the angel on the ground and watching its small silver body stumble over the uneven stone floor.

  Zhade stood. Dzeni was watching him with a measured stare.

  He scratched behind his ear with a single finger. “You don’t belong akitchens.”

  “Zhade,” she said in a soft reprimand.

  “What I purpose is . . .” How to convo this? Zhade should have prepped something, but he’d never had trouble making words before. “You and Dehgo. I can give you a place to live.”

  Wasn’t that the least he owed them? Owed Wead?

  Dzeni canted her head. “We have a place to live.”

  “A better place.”

  A growl came from Cheska’s direction.

  Zhade lifted his hands in placation. “I’m certz Cheska’s place is charred but probablish crowded. You could move belowground. You wouldn’t need to work. The Third would give you somewhere to stay. Things to do. She’d protect you.”

  “Like she protected Wead?” Fire burned in Dzeni’s eyes, and Zhade flinched. This was not the Dzeni he recked. She seemed to realize the anger had taken over because her face softened. “Sorries and worries. I didn’t purpose to convo . . .”

  “That wasn’t her fault,” Zhade muttered, his stomach souring. He didn’t want to convo this. Wead’s death. Zhade’s part in it.

  Andra.

  Dzeni laughed, saddish. “She’s a goddess, Zhade.”

  “Neg, Dzeni. It’s complicated. I don’t full comp half of it, but if you would mereish convo her, she could explain. Please. If you blame anyone, you should blame me.”

  Dzeni looked away. The corners of her mouth tugged down, and her eyes were vagueish wet. Zhade would have given anything to see her smile again, but he wasn’t certz if he wanted it for her, or to assuage his own guilt. For a moment, they both watched Dehgo play with the angel on the stone floor.

  Zhade sighed. “I mereish imagined . . . hear, I reck this is my fault. And I want to do something to . . . make things right.”

  Dzeni’s eyes met his. “I reck, Zhade. It’s mereish . . . this is not the way to do it.”

  “If you want to make things right,” Cheska cut in, “then you should pass more of your time out of the palace.”

  Zhade bit the inside of his cheek. “What happens, Cheska?”

  Cheska started pacing the cramped room, running a hand through his red hair. “How are you for true helping our people, Guv? The Lost District held many businesses. They’re gone now. The harvests will be short this year. When the gods’ dome failed, it took most of our water supply. The people—your people—are hurting, dying. What are you going to do bout it?”

  “Cheska,” Dzeni said, placing a hand on his shoulder. For the first time since Wead’s death, she sounded like herself. Gentle but firm. Holding the peace.

  Cheska shook off her touch. “Neg, Dzeni, he should hear this.”

  “I’m doing everything I can,” Zhade said, slipping into Maret’s whine. “It’s diff to make real change while Tsurina is still round, but I’ve found housing for everyone, all my people have workings who want them. The water is sole a meteor of time, and the harvest isn’t for several moons.”

  Cheska paused his pacing and started counting off on his fingers. “The housing is overcrowded. The workings you’ve provided are demeaning. And we need water soon and now.”

  Zhade clenched his jaw. “I can’t make water from wine. Magic has its limits.” It was a well-recked axiom of magic that it could sole mimic the natural, not create it.

  “And I’m certz,” Cheska said, crossing his arms over his chest, “it full imports to have water in that big showy fountain afront of the palace, marah?”

  Zhade winced. Cheska was right. It had been a stupid mistake not to order the fountain turned off while water was scarce.

  Zhade sighed. “Evens, you’re right. I can turn off the fountain. And I’ll . . . consider what I can do bout the other stuff,” he muttered.

  “Consider what you can do?” Cheska mocked. “Now you sound like a goddess. Are you full certz the city is better with you as guv instead of Maret?”

  Zhade opened his mouth to reply, but Cheska turned and stormed back to the bakery, the door slamming shut behind him.

  Dzeni gave Zhade a sorries look.

  “Seeya. That was awkward.” Zhade smiled, but his stomach plummeted. For certz, things weren’t perfect. But they were getting better each day. And unlike his brother, Zhade actualish cared bout his peo
ple.

  It was evens.

  Everything was evens.

  “That was awkward,” Dehgo said to his toy angel, mimicking Zhade’s cadence.

  They stood in silence, Dzeni shifting from foot to foot, Zhade ruffling the back of his head, watching his feet.

  He cleared his throat. “I brought something for you too.” He pulled a disc out of his pocket and handed it to Dzeni. “It’s a small gods’ dome.”

  Dzeni blinked, staring down at the shiny metal disc in her hand. “For what?”

  Zhade shrugged. “I mereish imagined . . . you should have it. Just in case.”

  Andra had given Zhade a few small domes that would protect anyone inside from pockets. Evens. She’d given some to Kiv to give to him. She’d called them backup in case the gods’ dome failed. Kiv had said she’d said it pointedish. It was now Zhade’s job to maintain the dome, but tween holding the secret of his identity and ruling Eerensed, he’d had little time to focus on it.

  “I did blame you,” Dzeni said, her voice wavering, and it took Zhade a tick to realize she was talking bout Wead’s death. “I blamed you. And her. And Maret. And Wead.” Her eyes met his, and they shimmered with tears. “I’m so angry, all the time, and it hurts. I don’t reck what I’ve become.”

  Zhade reached for Dzeni, but she moved away.

  “Sorries, Zhade,” she mumbled. “Maybe I will go belowground. It’s best for Dehgo, marah?” She knelt and pushed her son’s curls from his face. He looked so much like his father.

  Zhade tried to smile. “He wouldn’t want for anything. And you have to reck how much the Third cared for Wead, and how much she regrets his death. She . . . Maret gave her a choice. He was either going to kill me or Wead. And she chose me to die and Wead to live. Sole Maret didn’t listen and killed Wead instead.”

  Dzeni was quiet for a moment. “She chose you to die?”

  Zhade nodded, swallowed. He didn’t want to convo this. Not that he blamed Andra. But it hurt and probablish always would. He didn’t fool himself how much it would have tortured her if he had died from her decision, but the answer had come so quickish. So detached from what her feelings for him had been. Those feelings were for certz gone anow he wore the face of the boy who had killed Wead afront of her.

  “I—” Dzeni started, but whatever she was bout to say was cut off by a scream.

  Both she and Zhade turned toward the noise. It had come from the street, and it sounded like a kiddun.

  “Stay here,” Dzeni told Dehgo, at the same time Zhade said it to her.

  She gave him an exasperated look and followed him through the bakery into the street.

  A crowd had gathered. There was another scream coming from the center of the square, but it was cut short.

  “Out of the march,” Zhade demanded, and the citians parted.

  In the mid of the crowd, a kiddun was held aloft by the neck.

  By an angel.

  Zhade didn’t have time to reck how impossible it was. The kiddun’s face was going slack, her attempts to fight growing weaker, her dark hair spilling over an angelic hand.

  On instinct, Zhade reached out with his mind. From the few times he’d tried to use the Crown, he recked what angels “felt” like through the magic connection, and this was not it. The angel felt . . . wrong. Dark. Some deep abyss.

  “Do something!” Dzeni shouted.

  “I’m trying.” Zhade gritted his teeth, focusing harder.

  Release her, he commanded in his mind. Wasn’t this how Maret had done it? Speaking through the magical connection? This was High Magic. No conduit, mereish thought. The angel should heed his command soon and sooner.

  But it didn’t. It continued choking the kiddun, her pathetic kicks now nothing more than muscle spasms. Her mam was reaching for her. Her da was crumpled on the ground below, crying.

  Release her, Zhade thought harder, but nothing happened.

  Dzeni shot forward, arms stretching toward the kiddun, but couldn’t reach her. She started banging on the angel’s chest, her fists hitting with empty thuds. The angel’s other hand clamped round Dzeni’s throat. The crowd gasped, as the angel stretched out its arms, offering both Dzeni and the kiddun to the sky.

  “Mam!” Dehgo cried, appearing behind Zhade. Could no one stay put where they were told?

  He tried to catch Dehgo, but the kiddun slipped through his grasp. He was almost to the angel when a pair of arms wrapped round him. He screamed as he was lifted off his feet by a woman with dark skin and a shaved head.

  She turned, and Zhade was met with Xana’s cool glare, her magic eye narrowing in on him.

  “Do something,” she commanded. The words were lost in the screaming of the crowd, but Zhade felt them in his bones.

  He tried again to command the angel.

  RELEASE THEM.

  He felt something ooze down his cheek, a dull pain thumping in time with his pulse. His body began to shake.

  Cheska burst through the crowd, red hair blazing, pushing people out of his march with his enormous arms. He punched the angel as hard as he could in the chest. There was a dull thud, nothing else, but Cheska kept punching. And punching. Punching as though something had possessed him. The angel’s chest cracked. Cheska’s hand was bleeding, but he kept attacking.

  The kiddun was released first. A villager shot forward to catch her before she hit the ground. They called for a meddoc, and immediatish started giving her seepar, a technique of blowing one’s own air into the afflicted’s lungs.

  Cheska was still punching. The angel’s insides were spilling out. People were screaming. The angel finalish released Dzeni, but he didn’t stop.

  The angel fell, and Cheska climbed on top of it, hitting it til there was a hole the size and shape of his fist in its chest. He reached in, the angel’s metal skin shredding his fist into a bloody mess, and pulled out the heart of the angel. It was a dull black box, but everyone in the crowd comped that Cheska had removed the thing that held the angel alive. A flurry of stardust rose from the dead angel—its soul escaping—and disappeared into the air.

  Some citians applauded Cheska with awkward relief, while others crowded round the girl, who was now sitting up and coughing. He tossed aside the angel heart and went to Dzeni. Xana had helped her to her knees, fingers now running cross the bruise on her neck. In the other arm, she held Dehgo. It was the most tender Zhade had ever seen her.

  Then she turned toward the noisy crowd, her fierce gaze searching past them to narrow in on him, her expression murderful.

  Zhade mereish stood there.

  Powerless.

  An angel had attacked a little girl. In his city.

  An angel.

  Angels didn’t attack people, except in one circumstance: at Maret’s command during executions. What Zhade had mereish seen—it was impossible without the Crown.

  The Crown Zhade was wearing. And if Zhade hadn’t done it, then . . .

  Someone else in the city had the magic that should sole be Zhade’s.

  He was bout to move forward, kneel next to the angel and start examining it, when he caught the sight of a familiar half-shaved head in the crowd.

  Meta.

  As Andra would say:

  Fuck.

  She would almost for certz see through his glamour.

  He gave Dzeni one last look. Cheska was helping her to her feet. Xana still held Dehgo. Zhade slipped out of the crowd, holding to the shadows as he made his march back to the palace.

  TWO

  00110010

  Andromeda opened her eyes, gasping for breath.

  A dizzying array of numbers swirled from her thoughts, disappearing as the room around her came into focus. The same room that had encompassed her entire world for the past three months. One half was covered with personal items—her cot, her clothes, blankets Lilibet had stitched for
her, a vase of daisy-like flowers that kept showing up though Andra didn’t know how. The other half was a lab/conference room, the work’station and holo’table used for meetings like today’s.

  Her fingers dug into the armrests of her ergo’chair as three faces watched her expectantly.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  Lilibet grimaced but quickly turned it into an awkward smile. “They moved . . . a bit . . . I reck.”

  Rashmi shook her head. “Your human eyes are deceived in ways my neural perception cannot be. They are unmoved.” She sighed, leaning back in her chair. “As am I.”

  “Why are we here again?” Skilla asked.

  The four of them sat around the ’table in the corner of a former Vaults display room. The Vaults had been Riverside’s tech museum, and due to its air’locks and superior environmental controls, it had remained perfectly preserved beneath Eerensed’s palace. Andra’s bedroom had been the EMP exhibit—a display of various devices throughout history that could interrupt any technological function within range. Including a cylinder the size of an oil drum specifically designed to neutralize AI—which Andra was. She’d had it cleared out immediately. She’d spent the last month up to her neurons in Vaults tech, inventorying and repurposing it for the rocket, and if an EMP went off, it would destroy all her hard work. And knock her out for several minutes. So, they were now safely stored in the Vaults’ Faraday cage, and Andra was left with the shell of a display room, its once-windowed walls now turned opaque, a new DNA scan at the door.

  She had started out using it solely for her meetings with the Schism and lab experiments, but she’d spent so much time here, she’d simply moved in, gathering a few personal items and lots of discarded tech, and building her own work’station. It was a mess of holos and sim components. Most were on sleep mode, and a blinking red light reminded her of the ’display that held a manifest of all one million colonists.

  Colonists that still lay under the earth, in the huge warehouse Andra called the Icebox. Frozen. Waiting.