DEV1AT3 (Deviate)

by Jay Kristoff

  “Your mother used to do this,” the Major said.

  He sighed as he sat on the rock beside her. A cool wind blew in off the wastes, but she still felt warm beside him.

  “You mean go off and sulk in the dark like a little kid?” she asked.

  “I mean wear her heart on her sleeve,” the Major smiled. “You’re a lot like her, you know. You have her strength. You feel things just as deeply as she did. She was proud, just like you. And Lord, was she stubborn.” The old man chuckled, shaking his head. “Too stubborn for her own good.”

  “Guess I’ll have to take your word for that.”

  “I guess you will.”

  “…Why’d she leave me?” Lemon asked, her voice soft.

  “I don’t know, Lemon. I really don’t. Lillian was…a complicated girl.”

  She said nothing. Wondering why it mattered, anyway. So she didn’t know exactly how old she was. So they got her name off a cardboard box. So some stranger she never met dumped her when she was born. So what?

  So what?

  The old man reached out and squeezed her hand. “Everything happens for a reason. The Lord has a plan for us all.”

  “I don’t believe in your Lord.”

  “Well, he believes in you. And he does have a plan, though it’s seldom the same one we have for ourselves. I surely didn’t see myself holed up out here in the desert twenty years ago. You probably didn’t imagine much of this, either.”

  “You got that right,” she sighed.

  “Where did you see yourself?”

  Lemon sucked on her lip and shrugged.

  “Never really thought about it. Growing up in Dregs, it’s hard to have a plan that goes much farther than the next meal. And after that, I was always the tagalong, you know? Running with Evie. Running with Zeke.”

  “It seems like your friends might’ve run on without you.”

  Her chest hurt at the thought. She didn’t rightly know why. She’d seen that Gnosis logo on the wall in the newsfeed of Paradise Falls. Done the math of why Dimples would be teaming up with a hunter like the Preacher.

  He was looking for someone, of course.

  Didn’t take a genius to figure out who.

  She’d said this would happen. She’d told Ezekiel he’d end up leaving her behind. He’d promised he wouldn’t bail on her, but who was she to him, really? A dusty little scavvergirl he’d known for a handful of days. Compared to Ana? The girl he’d loved for the past two years? How could Lemon be surprised he’d moved on?

  Everyone was moving on.

  She looked up at the sky above her head. All those stars trying to shine. And she felt so small it was like she was nothing at all.

  “You’re not just a tagalong, Lemon,” the Major said. “There’s so much more to you than that. And you have the chance to be part of something much bigger than yourself here. You’re just too important to be sitting on the sidelines.” He looked at her intently, years of warfare and wisdom hardening his gaze. “You need to choose a team, or risk having it chosen for you.”

  She chewed her lip. Sitting up and looking him in the eye.

  “You really never saw Cricket in your dream?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “I need to know what happened to him, Grandpa.”

  The name hung heavy in the air, slipping out from between her teeth before she had a chance to stop it. It was hard to fathom how so few letters could hold so much weight. She wanted to take it back. She wanted to let it ride. The old man’s lips curled in a smile, his scars creasing his battle-worn face into something close to kindly. But beyond that, she saw concern. For his people. For all he’d built here.

  “The Brotherhood are on the warpath, Lemon. I’ve seen them, too. In my dreams. Brother War, leading a convoy through the wastes. They came so close to finding us when they caught Diesel and Grimm.” The old man ran a hand over his stubbled scalp. “Grimm told me about the woman that was with you in New Bethlehem—the one with the bees. Would you like to tell me what you were doing in the company of a BioMaas operative? Just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

  Lemon combed her bangs down over her eyes with her fingers and mumbled.

  “You’re just gonna make a big deal out of it.”

  “Try me.”

  She stayed mute, debating whether she should dodge the subject or spin some chaff. But she didn’t feel right about that, talking true. The old man had always been straight with her. She figured she should do him the same solid.

  “BioMaas knows I’m a deviate,” she finally said. “They took a sample of my blood when I was aboard one of their krakens. CityHive knows I can fry electrics. And they figure they can snaffle me, use me in their war against Daedalus.”

  To his credit, the Major kept his jaw from dropping right off his face.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds…,” she groaned.

  “True or false,” the old man said, eyebrows raised. “You have the second-biggest CorpState in the entire Yousay trying to abduct you to use as a living weapon against the biggest CorpState in the entire Yousay?”

  “I guess…” Lemon winced. “True?”

  “And what made you think I’d make a big deal out of that, Lemon?”

  “I dunno. Women’s intuition?”

  “I can’t risk you out there. Not with BioMaas and the Brotherhood on the hunt.”

  “And I can’t just sit here, knowing Cricket’s still out there somewhere.” Lemon looked the old man in the eye, pleading. “You’d think the same if you knew him, Grandpa, he’s the sweetest thing. I mean, his brain is inside an armor-plated killing machine now, but he’s cute and he’s funny and—”

  “He’s a robot,” the old man replied.

  “He’s my friend.”

  “And we’re your family,” he said.

  She fell silent at that. Blinking as the old man took her hand.

  “When Lillian…” He shook his head, swallowing hard. “When your mother left me…I thought I’d lost almost everything. All I had left was the Cause. The future of our species. But now, I see fighting for the future is pointless unless you’ve got a stake in it. And I can’t risk losing it so soon after finding it again.”

  “And I can’t risk losing it, either!” Lemon cried. “Look, Grandpa, I’m glad I found you, okay? But Mister C and Evie and Cricket were my family long before I met you. Mister C’s gone now, and Evie’s…”

  She shook her head, thinking again of her Riotgrrl.

  Wondering where she was.

  If she’d found what she was looking for.

  “Point is, if Zeke’s bailed on me, Cricket’s all I’ve got left,” she finally said. “I can’t just leave him out there to rot. No matter how nice the clean sheets and warm showers and all of this is, I’m not abandoning my friend!”

  The old man sighed, shook his head.

  “Too stubborn for your own good. Just like she was.” The Major ran his hand over his stubble, looked to the stars. “But I simply can’t risk you out there, Lemon. You’re untrained. Undisciplined.”

  “Hey, I—”

  He raised a hand against her protest.

  “We’re a military unit. This is a military operation. And I call the shots here.” He sighed. “But I suppose I can send the others for some recon. Just to let you sleep easy.”

  Lemon blinked. “You want to send them into danger without me? That’s not—”

  “That’s the deal.” The Major spoke firmly, voice laced with the iron of command. “If you want to know what happened to your friend, you’ll have to take it.”

  She chewed her lip, her stomach fluttering. It didn’t seem fair to risk the others on her problems. Cricket was her friend. This was her idea.

  “This is the smart play,” the Major insisted. “Grimm and Diesel and Fix can
look after themselves. We’ll work on your training in the meantime. Build your strength. This is a war, and I’ve been fighting it a very long time. Trust me.”

  The old man squeezed her fingers.

  “Trust me,” he repeated.

  She looked up at the night sky, all those stars trying to shine. She took hold of the five-leafed clover at her throat, ran her fingers along the chain he’d fixed around her neck. Looking finally at this grandfather she’d never known.

  It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel good. It was hard to fathom how so few letters could hold so much weight. But finally, she sighed.

  “I trust you.”

  Eve wiped the red off her lips, the sound of gunfire rattling in her ears. The streets of Little Easy ran with blood, early-morning light gleaming in scarlet puddles. Uriel and Verity were prowling the buildings, looking for stragglers. Gabriel was standing at the end of the block, watching the sunrise to the east. Faith stood beside Gabe, close enough to touch, and not touching him at all.

  They’d searched high and low, all throughout the dusty settlement. But even though Little Easy had been a GnosisLabs research outpost years ago, there was no sign of their prize. No hidden rooms or locked vaults or secret caches in which Nicholas Monrova might have hidden his favored child.

  Once more, they’d drenched their hands red and found them empty.

  A chubby logika was rolling on knobbed tank treads among the mess Eve and her siblings had made. It was painted off-white, a red cross daubed on its chest and back—some kind of medbot, by the look. Eve watched the little logika pausing to check the fallen bodies, her eyes clouded, her skin bloodstained.

  She’d been dreaming lately. The same dream, over and over. She and Ana stood in a room of mirrors. Face to face to face to face. Eve would reach out to take hold of Ana’s throat, and her fingers would only scrape cold glass.

  She’d lash out with her fists. Shattering every reflection until her knuckles were gouged and bleeding and the floor beneath her was strewn with red, glittering shards. Until there were no mirrors anymore. Just her and the girl she hated.

  She’d finally close her hands around Ana’s slender neck. And then she’d wake gasping. Cheeks wet with tears.

  Hands around her own throat.

  Eve looked down at the scavver she’d just killed. Stubble on his cheeks and a hole where his left eye should’ve been. The cheap optical implant he’d been sporting had reminded her of her own. Her time spent back in Dregs. Silas. Lemon. Cricket. So she’d held the man down and plucked it out as he screamed. Made him watch her crush it in her fist before she broke his neck.

  She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d done that.

  Ana Monrova had been a gentle thing. A kind thing. A loving thing. But in throwing aside all the things she’d been made to emulate, Eve found herself becoming something else. Like caterpillar to butterfly. Ripping free of the cocoon they’d wrapped her in, and for the first time, stretching blood-red wings to the sky.

  Unbecoming Ana and becoming Eve.

  After all, who was this man, to try and hurt her in the first place?

  A flimsy sack of meat and bones. A walking virus, mating and killing and feeding and repeating, with no thought for equilibrium or consequence. A redundant model, who’d only be remembered for creating the beings who supplanted them.

  Weak.

  Slow.

  Stupid.

  Human.

  She wondered if she was trying to prove a point. She wondered if she was going mad. She’d read somewhere that wondering if she was insane only proved that she couldn’t be. But then, she hadn’t read that at all, had she?

  A book she’d never read.

  A life she’d never lived.

  A girl she’d never been.

  She looked down at her hands. Hands that had once flipped through tattered pages, brushed the tips of bright green leaves, tingled as they touched olive skin.

  “Eve, this isn’t you. This isn’t anything like you.”

  She could still see the look in Ezekiel’s eyes as he faced her in the Paradise Falls vault. The horror and anguish. The pain.

  The love?

  “I know you’re hurting, but we can make this all right.”

  The thought of him made her feel sideways. Like she didn’t quite fit inside her skin. The girl she hated had loved that boy. And in unbecoming Ana, she was supposed to hate him now. Forget him, like every other fragment of her past. Set it on fire, rip it out, like the artificial eye and Memdrive she’d torn from her skull.

  One more thing that had never been hers.

  One more piece of pretend.

  One more lie.

  “There’s nothing here!” Verity called.

  Eve looked down the dusty street, saw her sister approaching, tossing her long black hair from her eyes. She walked with Uriel at her side, dark fabric rippling about her in the desert wind.

  “No,” Eve called back. “There isn’t.”

  Gabriel and Faith joined the trio at the bloody crossroads, surveying the slaughter around them. Gabe sighed, eyes to the sunrise.

  “I’m starting to think you’re leading us astray on purpose, sister,” he said.

  “And why would I do that, Gabriel?” Eve asked.

  Her brother glanced to the dead man at her feet.

  “Getting a taste for killing cockroaches, perhaps?”

  “There are only a few more places she might be,” Eve said, ignoring the jab. “A few more days, and she’ll be ours. Everything will be ours.”

  The medbot trundled over to the scavver Eve had killed, checking for vitals. The bot soon concluded the man was dead, a series of soft beeps spilling from its voxbox. It looked up at Eve with pulsing green optics.

  “QUERY: WHAT PURPOSE DID THIS SERVE?”

  Eve simply stared, not knowing the answer herself. She stood there, blood on her hands, looking down at this wretched bot. Born to servitude. Created with the self-awareness of its fealty, but helpless to end it. Tortured by the deaths of those it was forced to obey, though they’d not spare a thought if the roles were reversed.

  “REPEAT QUERY: WHAT PURPOSE DID THIS SERVE?”

  “Pathetic,” Faith whispered.

  Eve looked up sharply at that. Anger flaring in her chest.

  “It’s not pathetic,” she said. “It’s sad.”

  The girl knelt in the dust, took the logika’s head in her bloody hands. Looked into those glowing green eyes. It was asleep now, just like she’d been. A thrall. A tool. A thing. And nothing at all.

  “One day soon,” she said. “I promise. No more masters. No more servants. One day soon, you’ll be free.” She looked at her brothers and sisters. So very different from her, and so very much the same. “All of us. Free.”

  Gabriel was looking at her with clouded eyes. Uriel stared also, the smallest smile curling his lips. She stood and looked to the west, the settlements of Jugartown and New Bethlehem—the only Gnosis cities they hadn’t yet searched. If they found nothing in either of them, Eve had no idea where Ana might be. But she knew the man who’d pretended to be her father—knew Nicholas Monrova would have hidden his baby girl somewhere safe, somewhere close. A few more kilometers, a few more days, and Ana would be in her keeping.

  The girl she hated. The echo in her head. The reflection with her hands around her neck. Eve knew she shouldn’t be afraid. That their meeting wouldn’t be like her dreams. That ending Ana would be as simple as snuffing out a candle.

  She was only human, after all.

  Weak.

  Slow.

  Stupid.

  Human.

  Only human.

  Lemon sat on the edge of a redstone cliff.

  The sky stretched out above her, as far as her eyes could see. She swung her legs back and forth over the edg
e, listening to the music of the wind. Pretty notes from an instrument she didn’t know, strung together in an arrangement she’d never heard. She was dressed in her camouflage fatigues, her shiny new boots. Her belly felt full. The sun was warm and perfect on her skin.

  “LEMON?”

  Right beside her, four chunky metallic fingers clung to the edge of the precipice. She looked down and saw Cricket, dangling over the drop. The stone around his grip was cracking, the fall below him, bottomless.

  “LEMON, HELP ME!”

  She heard footsteps behind, turned and saw Grimm, the Major, the other deviates. Diesel was wearing boxing gloves. Fix’s eyes glowed green.

  “You wanna come watch a vid, love?” Grimm asked.

  “I made imitation double chocolate protein bars,” the Major smiled.

  Lemon tilted her head. “Those are my favorite.”

  She stood slowly, dusted off her palms. The rocks around Cricket’s fingers cracked deeper. His blue optics were fixed on hers, desperation in his voice.

  “LEMON, PLEASE HELP!”

  And she turned her back and walked away.

  * * *

  ________

  “Cricket!”

  Lemon sat bolt upright in bed, bangs plastered to her forehead with sweat. She blinked in the dark, recognizing the vague shapes of bunk beds and lockers; the dorm room that had almost become comfortable enough to call home.

  Just a dream…

  Heart rate slowly climbing back down to normal, she sat there in her bed, arms wrapped around her shins, chin on her knees. Her hands were shaking, her mouth tasted sour. The air conditioner hummed softly above her, clean sheets tangled around her bare legs. She could feel faint voltage tingling on her skin, crawling through the walls around her.

  Cricket.

  Lemon could still see him in her head—the image of him dangling over that drop was clinging to her like a sticky second skin, refusing to shift even though she was awake. She could still hear the fear in his voice, the desperation in those glowing eyes. And even though she knew it was just her brainmeats messing with her—that his eyes were plastic and his voice was electric and neither could really hold any kind of desperation or fear at all—she still found herself thinking about the bot. All he’d done for her. The good times he and she and Evie had shared, and the bad times that had been made easier by him just being there. The jokes and the snark and electric mother-hen routine—worried, always worried about her and Riotgrrl. Not just because he was programmed to, but because he genuinely loved them. She could still hear his cry for help in her head. Still see herself turning her back on him.