Devil in the Device

by Lora Beth Johnson

  Her eyes flashed open.

  Where her charred brown eyes had once been, there was nothing but a pure white light. No pupil, no iris. It shone from her as stardust glittered round her, the stained glass in the wall behind limning her in an array of soft light.

  Zhade stared at her in awe as pain began to throb in his head, running from his temple to the center of his brain. It grew and grew til it was unbearistic. Racing through him. Ripping. Tearing. He fell to his knees, swallowed by darkness. He didn’t fight it. He’d mereish let it take him. Punish him for everything he’d done. All the death and terror he’d caused. He was consumed and there was nothing but the pain and he reveled in it and welcomed it, and each time he imagined it had reached its peak, he skooled he was wrong.

  Then, as suddenish as a sandstorm, as suddenish as a pocket, the pain stopped.

  Relief flooded him, and he realized he was in the fetal position on the velvet floor and that his hands clutched his head, and that sitting a few feet away, slick and wet with his blood—

  —was the Crown.

  Something like peace fell over him, darkness swaddled him, and with one last imagining of Andra, he recked no more.

  THIRTY-THREE

  00110011 00110011

  Andra didn’t quite feel like herself.

  She felt more like herself than she ever had.

  Light and knowledge coursed through her, and just like her first experience with the reset tool, she knew what her purpose was, and it surprised her. She smiled, promising herself she would remember this time.

  It was such little effort to remove the Crown from Zhade’s head after the pocket had saved her.

  It was the pocket. Her pocket. The pocket she’d kept in the mini’dome, then in the chamber in the upgrade lab. It told her about how it had shattered the glass that had contained it. The people had screamed, but it had known them as its own and left them be. Because Andra was also its own. More its own than even the pocket it had spawned from. She had harvested these nanos and nurtured them, kept them safe and cared for. And she had been in danger.

  It had been the graftling wand that had done it. In the end.

  Unlike the first time Zhade had used the graftling wand on her, she hadn’t been conscious to scream. Her healing tech was overwhelmed. Her blood pressure was dropping, brain activity weakening, every system in her body shutting down. Her nanos had called for help. And just like that moment in the desert when pocket nanos had burst the healing mesh, these nanos came to her rescue.

  They were designed for destruction. That was their purpose, in every code of their programming. But they allowed themselves to be converted by Andra’s healing tech into healing tech themselves.

  The pocket had decided to heal Andra.

  It had decided its fate.

  So now, here she was, her humanity shrinking as her AI consciousness expanded.

  Destroy, the voice inside her commanded, and she countered it with a gentle no.

  Just like the pocket that decided it would heal instead of destroy, so would Andra.

  Zhade lay unconscious on the floor, blood trickling from his ear. Andra slowly lowered herself to the ground and let her humanity take over. The light and knowledge receded, and she became more and more human until she forgot her purpose and her plan and all the programming that had laid out her life ahead of her. More and more human until she forgot that she’d even remembered. More and more human until she was running toward Zhade, calling his name.

  She fell in a heap beside him, flipping him onto his back. If what Maret said was true, if the Crown had left an imprint in his mind, Zhade was still a threat, a danger to himself and everyone around him. She tried lifting him to his feet, but realized even with all the weight he’d lost, it would be impossible for her to drag him out of the room, much less back to the Vaults. Not without Mechy. Mechy who lay dead on the floor of the First’s suite.

  She reached out to interface with any tech in the room, finding a ’bot that was still functioning, and called it over. It was a lanky thing with an LED faceplate. Through the mental interface, she felt . . . love and loyalty directed toward Zhade. It had known him. It would help him. He would carry Zhade, and together they would escape to the underground. She would survive this.

  Inches from Zhade, the ’bot stopped, and Andra realized what she was forgetting.

  The Crown.

  Jesus, the Crown.

  Her eyes searched for it and found it all the way across the room.

  With Tsurina.

  She stood silhouetted in the open doorway, red dress tickling the floor. In her long fingers, she delicately held the the device that had so recently been latched to Zhade’s forehead.

  Andra swallowed. “Drop that.”

  Tsurina lifted an eyebrow. “Or what?”

  Andra was dizzy from blood loss, though the healing tech was replenishing it as fast as it could. She was weak and spent, and even the urge to destroy was silent now.

  “Or . . . you’ll see what I can do.”

  Tsurina laughed. “I’ve seen your kind. Memories of you passed down from the very first bearer of the Crown. They all live in me, as they now live in Zhade. And I’ve seen enough to reck if you could destroy me, you already would have. You have no control over your powers. You have no idea what you’re capable of, but I do.”

  “What do you mean you’ve seen my kind from the beginning?”

  Tsurina smiled, and her teeth seeming to sharpen. “This Crown holds all the memories since the first of my fam, and I’ve lived them all. I reck every moment of exis—”

  “I know that,” Andra snapped. “What do you mean you’ve seen my kind? Do you mean AI? It’s just me and Rashmi.”

  “Is it?”

  Before Andra could ask what she meant, Tsurina lifted the Crown to her forehead.

  “Wait!” Andra cried, but it was too late.

  Tsurina attached the Crown to her temple, her eyes fluttering in either pain or ecstasy. She sucked in a breath, and one by one, the angels that the pocket had spared stood and lifted their weapons. When she opened her eyes, her smile was wicked.

  Andra grabbed Zhade’s hand, even as he lay unconscious. There was no way out of this. She was depleted and could no longer access her AI state to detach the Crown, couldn’t fight this many ’bots with the strength she had left. And she wouldn’t flee without Zhade. It appeared this was her last stand. She squared her shoulders. Her dress hung in bloody rags as she rose to her feet.

  Tsurina lifted her hands in the air, and Andra braced for the ’bots to shoot forward. She hoped it would be quick, though it was becoming obvious she was hard to kill. She wondered if Tsurina would wake Zhade to torture him.

  Suddenly, the Grande Advisor fell to her knees, a sword appearing against her neck.

  Andra blinked in confusion as she tried to process what had just happened, what she was seeing.

  Just like that, Tsurina was no longer the attacker, but the prisoner. And the person holding her at swordpoint was . . . another Tsurina.

  They were exactly alike. Same face, same body, same expressions. Then Andra remembered what Zhade had said the morning of their fight. He had changed one of his guards into the Grande Advisor.

  “Thank god,” Andra breathed. “It’s Meta, right? Zhade needs help. And we need to neutralize Tsurina until I’m strong enough to remove the Crown. Can you knock her unconscious?”

  Meta grinned, the expression so unlike Tsurina. Her hair was a ragged mess and dirt streaked her face. “It would be my pleasure.”

  “Zhade needs help, too,” Andra gasped. “But if he wakes up, he could be a danger to us all. He has this . . . thing in his head. Leftover from the Crown. It—”

  “Oh, I full reck,” Meta said. “I reck everything bout the Crown. After all, it’s my birthright.”

  A heavy silence fel
l over the room, and Tsurina’s eyes widened. “Neg. That’s impossible.” Her voice was strained, cracked.

  “I survived the desert,” Meta snarled. “I aged up without you. Skooled magic without you. Discovered the full history of the Crown. Without you.”

  Tsurina’s face was deathly pale. “Metina,” she whispered. “You’re Metina.”

  “I go by Meta now. Meta kin Anloch. Daughter of Tsurina kin Anloch. Abandoned, so you could become the wife of the Guv of Eerensed. And as your eldest, that Crown is my inheritance.”

  Tsurina swallowed, and Andra felt phantom pains as the sword scraped against her neck.

  “You don’t want it, Metina.” There were tears on Tsurina’s face, her brown hair hanging in bedraggled sheets around her. “I left to save you. Soze you wouldn’t have to wear it. It’s cursed.”

  “It’s power and it’s mine,” Meta said through gritted teeth. The flashing of the ’dome hub holos lit the angles of her face in harsh relief. “Give it to me. Soon and now.”

  “She can’t,” Andra said, her voice echoing hollowly in the cathedzal.

  Meta didn’t take her eyes off her mother. “Why not?”

  “She can’t take it off herself,” Andra answered. “Crowns only release if the host dies, or—”

  Andra realized her mistake a second too late.

  Meta slid the sword across Tsurina’s throat, splitting it open. “Thanks, mam.”

  At first nothing happened. But then a small red line appeared on Tsurina’s throat, growing redder and thicker. Desperately, Tsurina tried to close the wound, her eyes still wide in surprise, in denial. But Andra, who so recently had experienced a similar injury, who only survived because of the nano’tech coursing through her veins and the odd impulse of a ’swarm of corrupted tech, knew that Tsurina’s efforts would be in vain.

  “Bye, mam,” Meta said, and stabbed her again, this time in the chest.

  The light left Tsurina’s eyes, and Meta pushed her over with a press of two fingers, like she was dusting away a bit of dirt. Tsurina’s head hit the floor with a smack.

  There was a squelching sound as the Crown released itself, then a clatter as it fell to the carpet in front of Tsurina’s unseeing eyes.

  Meta bent to pick it up, examining it, weighing it carefully in her hand.

  “Don’t!” Andra pleaded, but Meta was already placing the Crown to her temple. She gasped as it attached, throwing her head back, eyes closed, mouth agape, shuddering as the Crown’s wires dove beneath her skin and into her brain. As the nanos connected with neurons. She let out one final breath, lowering her head.

  Her eyes flashed open, and she looked at Andra from under her lashes.

  Andra tensed, ready to run, to fight, though she knew it was useless.

  “You must be Andra.”

  “Yes,” Andra said, calling to the stardust around her, preparing to defend herself.

  Meta smiled, the expression disarmingly genuine. “Griffin always convoed how brill you were. I didn’t realize you were full brill to come back from the dead. Twice, for certz.”

  Andra blinked.

  Then blinked again.

  Then shook her head to clear it.

  “What? You know Griffin? Who are you?”

  “I’m Meta.”

  “Yeah, I got that. But how do you know Griffin? And you’re also Tsurina’s daughter? And you were a guard?”

  Meta shrugged. “It happens a long story. Let’s mereish convo that Tsurina abandoned me and Griffin took me in and raised me. And she sent me here three years ago to infiltrate the palace.”

  Andra massaged her temple. It was too much. All of it. The dying and the coming back to life and the reshaping of what she knew to be true. “She didn’t tell me about you.”

  “She wouldn’t. She plays several games, instead of one. It’s the sole march to win, to survive. Each of us had a purpose, and I just fulfilled mine.” She nudged the body of her dead mother.

  Andra was still shaking her head. “Griffin wouldn’t want this. For you to kill. For you to put on the Crown. It’s dangerous.”

  Meta touched the shiny metal at her forehead. “This? This was sole for me. Neg, my purpose was mereish to take out Tsurina. You’re welcome, beedub.”

  Andra looked down at Tsurina’s fallen form. Griffin hadn’t wanted this, had she? For Tsurina to die? Of course, she’d used and manipulated Zhade, but did she deserve to die?

  She stared at Meta. Physically, she looked exactly like Tsurina, but her expression, her stance was something new. Andra heard hints of Maret’s bitterness, or Zhade’s sarcasm in her speech patterns. Saw Griffin’s posture in her stance.

  “I—” Andra started, but every door in the cathedzal blasted open and shouting filled the space. People rushed in with laser’guns.

  In the space of a moment, the remaining ’bots lifted their spears, forming a shield between Meta and the attackers.

  Skilla stepped out of the shadows. Followed by Kiv and Gryfud.

  “Wait!” Andra said, thrusting out her palms. “Wait! She’s on our side!”

  Skilla raised a hand and the Schism stood down. “She’s what?”

  “That’s not . . . that’s not Tsurina,” Andra hurried to explain. “Zhade changed her face, but that’s actually . . . Tsurina’s abandoned daughter? And she’s working for Griffin somehow?”

  Skilla’s eyes drifted to the dead Tsurina on the floor. Then to Zhade’s unconscious body at Andra’s feet. “Huh.”

  “I don’t full comp,” Andra said. “But she just saved Zhade and me from Tsurina. Griffin sent her here.”

  Skilla’s eyes narrowed. She and Meta stared each other down, each a word away from commanding their army to attack.

  “Are you certz bout this?” Skilla asked.

  Andra put a hand to her head. “I’m not certz of anything soon and now.”

  Meta smiled, and it reminded her of Zhade trying to charm people, but with Maret’s awkwardness. “You’re Skilla, marah? Griffin says to tell you the sands are strong.”

  For a moment, Skilla didn’t respond, just stared in disbelief.

  “But we are stronger,” she finally whispered back. She blinked. “This is . . . full weird magic. And you’ll must explain all this soon and sooner.”

  Andra shook her head. She didn’t know if she could trust Meta, but if Griffin had sent her, she must have had a reason. And with Tsurina dead and without knowing the influence the Crown imprint would have over Zhade, the Eerensedians needed a leader. Meta could be that leader, and in time Andra would convince her to remove the Crown. It had taken months for the Crown to corrupt Zhade, and there were more pressing matters at the moment.

  “We can work this all out later,” she said. “For now, we need to get Zhade to a meddoc, and then . . . to a cell.”

  She had to keep him contained until she figured out how to rid him of the Crown’s imprint.

  Skilla chuckled to herself, looking at Zhade’s prone unconscious body. “Now, that I can do.”

  * * *

  The Schism was abuzz with activity as Kiv helped Andra to Tia Ludmila’s sickroom. The caves were packed with people dressed in militia garb.

  Skilla’s refugee army had been training when Kiv had appeared in the underground, asking for help, telling them that Zhade had gone mad and that Tsurina was behind it. They had been prepared to fight, but instead of finding two power-hungry maniacs, they’d found Tsurina’s estranged daughter and a newly arisen Andra.

  They’d left Meta to secure her rule over Eerensed. She planned on telling the city that Maret had been killed by an angel, and that she, as Tsurina, was now guv. Something about the whole thing bothered Andra, but she had to admit it was nice to have an ally on the throne. She didn’t think Griffin had intended things to happen the way they did, but now, at least, with Tsurina out of the way
, Griffin could come back to Eerensed and help Andra with the upgrades, so they could finally start working on the rocket.

  Before that could happen, though, both Andra and Zhade needed to see a meddoc. Fishy had carried Zhade, and Kiv had helped Andra to Tia Ludmila’s small cave off the main Schism tunnel. It was lit with kinetic orbs and paneled with white, shiny tile. The was a line of hover’cots filled with patients, each attached to several monitors displaying their vitals.

  Andra looked over at Zhade’s prone form under a blanket on the closest ’cot. His injuries hadn’t been serious, but Tia Ludmila kept him unconscious in case the imprint made him . . . like Maret.

  “Ah, seeya,” Tia Ludmila said in a rough, gravelly voice, turning to Andra. “This happens the fool one who got stabbed in the chest, marah? I see no injure here.”

  Andra leaned heavily on Kiv. The adrenaline of the moment had worn off, and though Andra didn’t feel like she’d been run through with a sword, she definitely didn’t feel great. Drowsiness swept over her, as her healing tech—both her own and the assimilated pocket nanos—worked overtime to replenish her blood and heal her internal injuries.

  “I’m fine,” Andra croaked. “Goddess healing powers.”

  “Psh,” Tia scoffed. “Sit, sit.”

  She gestured to a nearby stool. Andra never felt fully comfortable on stools—they were designed for people smaller than her—but she sat anyway, Kiv’s strong arms keeping her balanced.

  Tia Ludmila brought over a holo’display, watching it as she scanned Andra’s chest with a med’wand.

  “Sands and all desert creatures,” she breathed. “Goddess healing powers indeed. There ’pens a hole running straightish through you, but it ’ppears your body has sealed it off and is regrowing your insides. Snakerats. I never seen any likeish this my full life.” She sat forward, zooming in on the holo’display. “Wait. What happens?”

  Tia typed something into the med’wand and pressed it to Andra’s chest. A spark shot through Andra. Not quite pain but more than a burst of adrenaline. With a jolt, her mind was thrown back to somewhere she’d never been.