Devil in the Device

by Lora Beth Johnson

  It was a wish.

  He wanted the angel to stop, and it did. He wished again, and the angel straightened and lowered its sword. Zhade took a single eyebeat to marvel at the discovery that he could still control the angels. Not through the Crown, but through the imprint left in his head. Then, he was running toward Andra.

  He helped her to her feet as she stared at him, eyes wide, mouth agape. Chaos swirled round them, angels wielding swords and spears, citians running and screaming.

  “Get them out of here!” Maret was shouting to someone.

  But Zhade sole had eyes for Andra.

  She was covered in sticky dried blood, and her hair was a glorious tangle. She looked like she had that first day in Eerensed—covered in bloodstains and sweat, cheeks flushed. But this time, she stood strong, confident.

  “What are you doing here?” she gasped. “How did you get free? And why aren’t you halfway through the Wastes by now?”

  “Scuze,” Zhade said in mock offense. “And let you be the hero alone? No chance.” He grinned. “I’m here to watch you be the hero and cheer you on.”

  “But . . .” Andra grimaced. “What about the imprint?”

  Zhade’s grin spread wider. “Soze, weird thing happens bout that . . . the same spark of magic in my brain that is currentish torturing me is also the thing that’s going to save us. Because mereish like Tsurina could control Maret and me . . .” He turned. His brother was standing afront of Meta doing that ridiculous thing where he pretended he was doing magic with his hands, waving them round like a spoon as the citians fled and angels began to circle him. “. . . Maret and I can control Meta.”

  “A bit of help here?” Maret gasped.

  Meta fell to her knees, and the angels dropped their swords. Rashmi corralled what was left of the citians toward the exits.

  “We have to hurry.” Andra grabbed Zhade’s arm.

  Something inside him recoiled at the touch, but he recked it wasn’t him.

  “There’s an EMP,” Andra said, breathless. “The AI are fighting the Schism, and if they’re overpowered, Lilibet will use it. It takes out all the magic in the area, which includes the magic currently holding up the palace. And I have to—”

  Zhade grabbed Andra’s hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “What do you need me to do?”

  Andra smiled, and it was glorious. “Hold off Meta until I connect to the ’dome. I . . . it’s complicated. I don’t have time to explain.”

  “I trust you.”

  The voice in his head told him he shouldn’t, but he shoved it down. This was Andra. She was kind and good and brave, and he loved her.

  “There’s something else,” Andra said. “After I’m done, I may be . . . a little different.”

  “Evens. I’m a little different now too.”

  “Neg, I purpose . . .” Andra pulled at the ends of her hair.

  “Can we hurry up?” Maret shouted.

  He stood with his full focus on Meta. Blood dripped from his ears and nose. Rashmi held his hand, eyes wide. The atrium was now free of citians, and all the angels were neutralized. For now. But it was crystal Maret’s strength was weakening.

  “If I . . .” Andra said. “If I’m not me . . . if I come back as someone else, I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “And if I come back and I try to kill everyone, you have to kill me first.”

  “WHAT? What exactish are you doing?”

  “Something risky.”

  “I’m not going to . . . I could never—”

  “I’ll do it!” Maret said, his voice strained. Meta was screaming, fighting his control. Blood dripped from her eyes, and she planted one foot, then the other, standing.

  “What?” Zhade said again.

  Andra grabbed him by the front of the shirt and kissed him hard on the lips. She let go, leaving him dazed, and ran to the entrance of the cathedzal. She pointed a finger at Maret.

  “Only if I come back homicidal,” she snapped.

  “No promises,” Maret gritted out.

  Andra disappeared through the door, Rashmi scurrying after her.

  “A bit of help?” Maret asked.

  Zhade took a deep breath and bent his will toward Meta.

  Stand down, he commanded.

  There was resistance. It felt like when he was first skooling to control the angels. But this time, he had help. He was surprised that he didn’t feel revolted by his brother’s consciousness. That Maret almost felt . . . like an extension of Zhade. The other side of the rocktin.

  Stand.

  Down.

  Meta cried out, falling to her knees. The skin round the Crown was swollen and bloodied.

  “You win,” she gasped. “I give up. I’ll do what you say, mereish stop . . . stop.”

  Zhade immediatish released her.

  She looked up at him, still in Tsurina’s body, and he saw a scared, angry girl who had been abandoned. Who let that anger fuel her for years. Then, when she finalish decided what she’d imagined was her fate, she’d instead been controlled by another anger, another fear.

  “Meta, we can help you.” He glanced at the door to the cathedzal. He couldn’t see Andra, had no idea what she was doing. “We can remove the Crown. We can figure how to live with the imprint together.”

  Meta’s eyes were wet with tears, her cheeks smeared with blood. She lifted her head.

  “Will you let us help you?”

  Before Meta could respond, Maret stepped forward, sword drawn, and swiped it toward Meta’s throat.

  “NEG!” Zhade screamed, and Maret froze.

  But not by choice.

  Again, it had been instinct, impulse, a wish. Zhade hadn’t recked he was doing it til it was done, and now the evidence was staring him in the face.

  He’d stopped Maret through their imprints. Reached out with his own and commanded him to stop.

  And Maret had.

  “That’s impossible,” he gritted out, straining against Zhade’s control.

  Meta scuttled out from under the sword, but didn’t run.

  “You can’t kill her,” Zhade said. “She’s your sister. And, in a weird way, mine too.”

  “Oh, as though you weren’t going to kill me once,” Maret said, his raised arm shaking, blade quivering, as Zhade held him still. “Sides, as long as she has the Crown, she’s a threat.”

  “Andra can remove it!”

  Maret’s eyes blazed. “We don’t reck if Andra is coming out of that room as Andra. And even if she does, if we let her remove the Crown, Meta would still have the magic imprint, and you reck what that does. This was the sole march to end this. And in your heart your reck that.”

  “We both have the imprint,” Zhade snarled. “Soze does that purpose you’re going to kill me too?” His thoughts darkened. “Or should I kill you first?”

  They stared at each other for a tense moment, veins bulging, eyes narrowed.

  Zhade felt the moment Maret stopped fighting, his will giving up.

  He released his hold on his brother and Maret fell to the ground, hands slapping against the marble, sword clattering from his reach.

  Zhade turned to Meta. “Take off the Crown.”

  Maret let out a hoarse laugh from where he’d fallen on the floor. “She can’t, you fraughted spoon.”

  “Why not?”

  “You reck I didn’t try?” He looked up at Zhade, eyes bloodshot.

  Zhade turned to their sister. “Meta, take off the Crown.”

  He said the words, but didn’t send his intentions with it, the control afforded him by the imprint. This had to be Meta’s choice.

  She fell to her knees, anguish written across Tsurina’s features, and she looked more like herself than she had in months.

  “I’m trying,” she gasped. “I ca
n’t.”

  “Then I’ll help.” Zhade knelt beside her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  He fought back his own violent thoughts and sent his mind into the Crown, felt the magic glowing there, its hold on Meta’s mind.

  Release her, he commanded it.

  No, the Crown hissed back at him, in the voices of all those who had worn it before, a chorus of hate and anger.

  It dug in its claws.

  “Help us, brother,” Zhade whispered.

  Maret stared at him for a tick, before rolling his eyes and crawling over to them. He looked at Zhade’s hand on Meta’s shoulder. “I’ll help. But I’m not holding hands.”

  Zhade grinned and dove back into the magic.

  It fought, but the brothers fought harder. The Crown wanted revenge. The brothers wanted freedom and peace. Their magic intertwined, their will and intent combined til the Crown’s hate was no match for them. And in the end, they overpowered it.

  Meta gasped. There was an awful squelch, and the Crown dropped from her forehead. She looked up at Zhade with tears in her eyes. He let out relieved laugh, and there was even the beginning of a smile on Maret’s face.

  “Well, isn’t this touching.”

  Zhade’s heart stopped. He recked that voice.

  It had sung him lullibies and told him stories and taught him magic. Slowish, he looked up—

  —into the face of his mother.

  She stood by the cathedzal doors, appearing exactish as he had memory of her: blue eyes cutting sharpish round the room, blonde hair pulled back in a braid, posture tall and proud.

  “Griffin,” Meta whispered.

  “Mam,” he breathed.

  “I’m not your mam,” she said, sadness tinging her voice. Or maybe Zhade sole imagined it. “That was a different body with different experiences. Those feelings forged by those synapses—they’re gone. I’m her, but I’m not her. And whatever I am now doesn’t love you.”

  “Mam,” he said again. His voice cracked.

  “Sands,” Maret muttered, “if you want something done . . .” He grabbed his fallen sword and rushed toward her.

  The First thrust her hand out and Maret’s body froze, mid-stride, sword raised. She cocked her head.

  “I’ve learned a few tricks since you decapitated me, Maret.” Her voice nearish sounded bored, but with a flick of her wrist, she sent him flying. He hit the far wall and crumpled to the floor. He didn’t get back up.

  She turned to Zhade. “Where is she?”

  He felt the blood drain from his face. “I don’t reck what you convo, Mam.”

  “Stop calling me that,” she growled. “Where is she?”

  The world started to shake, and it took Zhade a moment to realize it wasn’t because he was trembling. He had a moment of panic, of realization, then the world fell out from under him, and he fell with it.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  ANDRA

  The screams woke Andra.

  She came to covered in rubble and with a pounding headache. Above her, the sky was filled with dust and ash. A small pocket zoomed past. More screams followed.

  What had happened? She’d just been at the ’dome controls, trying to access its power, and then . . . She shook her head to clear it, then tried to lift her arm, but realized it was trapped under a rock.

  No, it was a slab of marble.

  It took a moment for it to click, for her to understand that she was stuck under the rubble of the palace, that the ’dome was gone and there was a pocket in the city, that Andra had been knocked unconscious.

  Lilibet must have set off the EMP.

  Andra groaned, as a wave of despair hit her.

  She’d failed.

  It had taken too long for her to get to the ’dome control room, and then once she was there, to connect to its matrix. And now the one hope she’d had of defeating the AI was gone. They would be waking up about now, just like Andra. Hopefully, Lilibet and the others had time to get to safety. Hopefully, they weren’t crushed under piles of rock and marble. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be hunted down by the AI. Or the pocket.

  It was swirling thickly above her, and she knew it was only a matter of time before it struck, swallowing the city whole.

  She let out a pained moan as she pulled her arm out from under the marble. What remained of the cathedzal lay in heaps of rock and stone around her. The surface looked to be about sixty meters up. There was no way to climb out. She was surrounded by exposed foundation, sparking wires and dirt, and a few uncovered underground passages.

  “Andra?” a voice called.

  She turned and found Rashmi stumbling toward her.

  “Rashmi!” Andra hurried over. Her face was scratched and bloody, and one of her arms hung at an awkward angle.

  Andra hugged her, and Rashmi sucked in a breath.

  “Too tight,” she whimpered.

  “Sorries.” Andra took Rashmi’s good hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They waded through the rubble until they reached what was left of a nearby tunnel. It took some effort, but Andra was able to climb up into it, then help Rashmi up, and then she studied their surroundings.

  “I think we’re in . . .” She looked around. “Yeah, I think this is the tunnel that passes by the Vaults. That way.” Andra pointed west.

  “What do we do now?” Rashmi whimpered. “The city is being destroyed by the pocket. The Schism are still fighting the AI. We’ve lost.”

  “No,” Andra muttered. She put her hands on her head, tugging at her hair. “No, we haven’t. We just have to think of something.”

  She couldn’t head west. The AI were there. Maybe the other way, where the tunnel veered south . . .

  Andra tripped over something and caught herself against the tunnel wall, Mechy’s eco’tile holding strong. She looked down.

  At her feet was something metal and small and smudged with blood . . .

  The Crown.

  Hadn’t Meta just been wearing this? Andra looked around for Meta or Zhade, but saw no one. She picked it up. It weighed more than she’d expected, warm in her palm, splattered in blood.

  Rashmi was pacing, using a metal pole she’d found as a walking stick. “We failed, we failed, we failed.”

  “No,” Andra said, pocketing the Crown. “Our plan can still work. We just have to find a power source big enough.”

  “There isn’t any. The ’dome was it. There’s nothing else in Eerensed that uses that much power.”

  Andra’s stomach fluttered. “No, there’s not.” She sent her nanos far into the tunnels. She hoped she was right. Oh goddess, she hoped she was right. “But there is something under Eerensed.”

  * * *

  Even running at full speed through the tunnels, it took Andra far too long to reach the rocket.

  She was out of breath, heart beating through her chest when they arrived at the small tunnel just outside the rocket’s cavern. The ground shook beneath them and rocks and gravel plinked down the walls. In front of them, the LAC annex door Mechy had installed was still in place.

  Damn it.

  She’d forgotten about that. He’d been the only one who could open the door, and now he was gone.

  She placed her palm on the scanner, holding her breath. It had been weeks since she’d visited the rocket, and maybe Mechy had fixed it in that time.

  The scanner flashed red.

  “What’s wrong?” Rashmi asked.

  Andra tried interfacing with her nanos, but there was something blocking her. She was strong enough to stand against the Crown, convert a pocket to healing tech, and resurrect herself, but she couldn’t open a damn door.

  “Goddamn it!” Andra growled.

  “Can I help?” Rashmi asked.

  Of course Mechy hadn’t had time to fix the door. She had him working nonstop
, either putting eco’tile in the underground passages or stabilizing the palace or watching Maret. He had been gaining sentience and she’d known it, but she hadn’t even given him time to rest. And now he was dead, and the only thing standing between her and the rocket was a thin sheet of metallic glass she couldn’t open.

  She reached into her pocket for the Crown, wondering if there was some way it could help her, and her hand bumped against something else. Warm and smooth and cubical. She pulled it from her pocket.

  Mechy’s heart.

  Mechy was dead, his nanos dispersed, but his CPU still contained his tech signature. Maybe. Just maybe . . .

  Andra sent her nanos zooming into the heart, bringing it online. She felt the crackling white noise of the broken processor, but there was still just a bit of juice left. A red light flashed on the side, and she placed it up to the door’s scanner and held her breath.

  The scanner turned green, and the door opened.

  “Thank you, Mechy,” Andra breathed, and she and Rashmi darted inside.

  The cavern yawned open ahead of them, and in the center was the rocket, towering and empty and useless. All that time Skilla had spent building this damn thing—twice—and it was just part of the lie Griffin had constructed. Andra stumbled along the thin ridge toward the work’station.

  “It’s too much!” Rashmi cried from behind. Her voice echoed in the cavernous space.

  Andra’s hand tightened on the railing. A fit of vertigo threatened to overwhelm her, the rocket towering above, the cavern floor meters below.

  “Andra!” Rashmi pleaded. “We need to think of another way. Even you can’t take on that much energy!”

  Andra reached the work’station and pulled out the Crown. “That’s why I have this.”

  Rashmi’s eyes widened. “NO. No, you can’t! You don’t know what it’ll do.”

  “It destroys,” a voice said.

  Andra closed her eyes and sighed. She’d been waiting for it, wondering when the voice would come. She’d almost let herself believe she would beat it, but that had just been fishes and wishes, she supposed.

  Rashmi whipped around, holding her metal stick in front of her.