In the limited sanctuary of the bathroom, Tarsha comforted her friend as best she could. After she hit the dryers a second time to keep up the noise and prevent the recorders from picking up their conversation, they entered adjacent stalls. Tarsha slid her notes from gaming strategy underneath the gap.
They had less than a minute for the exchange.
Syra poked her head out from underneath the divider. Reddish-orange eyes, peppered with dark flecks, regarded her with both gratitude and something unnamable.
Tarsha couldn’t help but envy her exotic looks, and the intensity that came with the unique coloring of her eyes. Syra intimidated other students and teachers, and she sometimes wished she had that quality. Then maybe Li would leave her alone.
“You don’t have to help me.”
Tarsha shrugged her shoulders.
“But you do,” Syra said, her eyes searching her face. “You’re not like the other cadets.”
A warm, curious feeling blossomed in her chest. “What do you mean?”
The dryers clicked off. Time to go.
Syra flushed the toilet and pretended to rearrange her clothes.
Tarsha went to open the stall door but caught Syra’s eye peeking through the partition. “No matter what they do to us,” Syra whispered, “hold on to that.”
“Come on, Gracie!”
Agracia snapped to in the quaking elevator shaft platform with Bossy dragging her down the hallway.
“No!” Agracia shouted, breaking from her grasp. Running to the edge of the platform, she found Jetta clinging to the cable wires, hands covered in blood, the Healer hanging limply off her shoulders. The commander shook violently, a heartbeat away from losing her grip.
Bossy flipped open her visor. “Gracie, no!” she shouted as Agracia leapt off the platform.
In the shifting light of the elevator shaft Agracia fell headfirst, grasping wildly at the cables until she snagged a handhold. Her shoulder screamed and popped, but she held fast, tangling her feet in the web below for added support.
Agracia swung herself next to Jetta and grabbed onto her suit just as she let go. “Hold on, Doc!” she shouted as another fixture came loose from the interior wall and skidded by them.
But Jetta couldn’t, not with her arms and legs shaking violently.
There’s no way I can support the three of us—
“Bossy!” Agracia called. “I need you. Please! ”
Bossy hesitated, wavering on the edge of the platform.
“Do it for me—you have to trust me!”
“Chak you, Gracie!” Bossy said, flipping her off. But the dark horse jumped, sliding down the cables until she aligned with Jetta and Triel.
A string of curse words flew out of Bossy’s mouth, but the tiny fighter grabbed the Healer off Jetta’s back and hoisted her upward. Agracia got below Jetta, helping boost her the rest of the way until the four of them landed safely on the platform.
“We gotta go,” Agracia shouted, helping Jetta to her feet as the elevator shaft collapsed.
Keeping the commander at her side, Agracia followed Bossy’s lead around and over the overgrown Red Polyps in the hallways while the rest of the underground structure caved in behind them. Bossy never slowed down, even with the Healer slung across her shoulders, nor did she stop cursing to save her breath.
Don’t look back, Agracia told herself as the mouth of destruction gained on their position.
“Sycha!” Agracia shouted, covering her eyes.
Bossy rammed feet first through the back entrance to the labs. The four of them spilled out on the broken asphalt, followed by plumes of smoke and debris.
As the adrenaline began to wane, the pain of her shoulder forced Agracia to the ground. “My shoulder... chak.”
The Healer, dazed but conscious, sat up and motioned her closer. “Let me help you.”
“No way,” Bossy said, removing her helmet. “Don’t let that leech touch you, Gracie—she’ll fry your guts!”
Jetta rolled over, coughing to clear the smoke from her lungs. “Her shoulder’s dislocated. Triel can easily heal that. Stop being a Mugarruthepeta and let her help your friend!”
“What the hell is a Mugga—whatever? I don’t speak launnie!”
Agracia put herself between the commander and the dark horse before it got really ugly. “Quit it, all ya’ll!”
Bossy grumbled and muttered but took no further action. Seeing the tiny warrior stand down, Jetta redirected her attention to their whereabouts.
Agracia followed suit, scanning their surroundings, looking for movement, but the area appeared vacant. From what she could tell, they were in an empty lot in some sort of warehouse district, with the back door to the labs disguised as part of an intake/output portal for pneumonic trucks.
“God,” Agracia winced. The hammering pain in her shoulder would not be ignored any longer, wiping away all other considerations. This ain’t the time to get injured, ‘specially if we gotta soon deal with that assino, Shandin, she thought. The survivalist in her broke through the thumping agony: Get this fixed, or it’s just gonna get worse.
Muttering under her breath, Agracia kneeled before the Healer. A crass remark butted up against her lips, but she thought better with Jetta standing so close. “Please...help me.”
Even before Triel made contact, she could feel the energy and warmth radiating from her being.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“Don’t be scared,” Triel said, smiling weakly.
Jetta scooted over and wrapped her arms around the Healer. She whispered softly into her ear, “I’m here. I’ll help you. Use me.”
The Healer placed her hands inside of her suit. Reflexively, Agracia closed her eyes. Fireflies filled her chest, tickling her sternum with fluttering wings before gathering around her injury. The pain melted away as tissue fibers repaired and joints settled back into place.
“Holy...” she mumbled.
“Get away from it!” Bossy said, shoving Agracia.
Agracia fell flat on her back, knocking the wind out of her. If she could have, she would have screamed.
No, don’t—
Jetta slammed into Bossy with uncommon speed, throwing her to the ground.
“That’s it,” the commander shouted, driving her knee into the dark horse’s belly. Bossy doubled up, but Jetta pushed her head back down into the asphalt.
“Jetta!” Triel cried.
“Doc,” Agracia choked out. “No!”
Nothing could stop her now. The Slaythe’s eyes narrowed, alight with absolute focus and something dark and indescribable that Agracia could only understand by the panic carving into her stomach.
Jetta was going to kill Bossy.
JETTA HELD BOSSY DOWN by the throat, delighting in her desperate attempts to break free. You shouldn’t underestimate me.
The dark horse hadn’t anticipated her strength or her speed, especially given her failure in the elevator shaft. You don’t know about the abomination inside me—and the power it gives me.
Squeezing her neck a little tighter, Jetta reached down and in to Bossy’s head.
So easy to kill you... She sensed her divisible mind, the way her fragile gray matter would disintegrate with a single thought. But that won’t be enough—not with what I can do.
As her excitement mounted, the world around them dissolved into a singular desire for pain. Jetta quickly rooted through the trivial malaise of Bossy’s life until she uncovered the deepest, most unsettling wounds.
Grinning, Jetta delved in further, greedily indulging the pleasures of the unmentionable thing inside her.
I see you...
But something didn’t feel right, and her greater instincts snagged her attention.
This isn’t real. She isn’t human. She’s—
(manufactured)
The differences were subtle, easily missed by a casual eye, but Jetta’s intent, cruel and vicious, uprooted every detail that would elicit the most pain.
Pushing past the years of booze and action, Jetta experienced many of the same memories she had once seen in Agracia’s head through a different set of eyes. But just as she reached the end of the reel, an unexpected obstruction kept her from pursuing any further.
What’s this?
Jetta felt her way around the barrier, sensing its size and shape. She found precisely laid neurons and nerve pathways interwoven in repeating patterns, too perfect to have been formulated by a human mind, even one that had purposely repressed a secret.
Backtracking, Jetta reexamined the memories from a different perspective, threading herself inside the body of the pint-sized warrior, with arms and legs that were disproportionately strong for her frame, and a brilliant, cunning mind belied by a foul mouth and rude manners.
Anger still fueling her search, Jetta abandoned caution and smashed headfirst into the barrier. Somewhere in the distance of her temporal being she heard Bossy screaming for mercy, and Agracia and Triel tugging at her to let go, but the thing inside her hungered for her nightmare.
What she found, unexpected and surprising, stole away her rage.
She couldn’t move. Straps held her down across her chest, arms, and legs, pinning her back to a cold, metal table. At the foot of the table she could make out rows of stasis cylinders housing naked, identical female youths with perfectly crafted features. But a man in a dirty green gown and microscopic ocular implants leaned over her, cutting off her view as he inspected her with flashing instruments.
“You are the next generation. You are far superior to any other model,” he whispered. “You are perfection.”
Jetta watched helplessly as the man in green gown tattooed a barcode on the inside of her left wrist. She experienced Bossy resisting, spewing profanities and spitting at his face, but it did no good. A narcotizing cocktail dripped into the line running through her forearm, and she drifted into a state of semi-conscious bliss.
Images shifted and reformed. Jetta found herself in the midst of a blazing fire, lighter in one hand and fuel in the other. Dead girls, mirror images, were sprawled at her feet, removed prematurely from stasis and drowning in their sleep. The man in green gown staggered toward her, trying desperately to dislodge the scalpel that had been driven into his back.
“You were... perfection!”
Walking over to him, she ripped out the scalpel and plunged it into his neck. “I am not yours!”
The man in green gown fell at her feet, blood sputtering from his lips. The disbelief in his eyes, the denial and fear of death, made the kill that much sweeter.
In the growing intensity of the fire, Jetta turned over her wrist and sliced away the barcode. “I am not a puppet.”
Jetta opened her eyes. Her fury was gone, but her hands still gripped Bossy’s neck.
Did I...?
Eyes vacant and mind disengaged, Bossy didn’t move, her coveted orange lollipop dangling from her lip.
“Is she dead?” Agracia asked.
“No.” Triel looked cautiously at Jetta before placing her hand on Bossy’s forehead. “She’s just in shock.”
“What did you do?” Agracia asked, fear and anger evident in her eyes.
The truth hit her hard: If she wasn’t so afraid of me, she’d probably attack.
Jetta leaned back on her heels, unable to reconcile her actions with the unexpected discovery. She chose to avoid the uncomfortable reality. “I know what she is now.”
“What?” Agracia said, holding Bossy’s hand tightly.
Triel gave her a sidelong look before resuming her attempts to restore the tiny dark horse.
“She’s genetically engineered to look like a young teenage girl, but she’s really a custom-order puppet,” Jetta said. “She’s one of hundreds, maybe thousands of new-model puppets designed with augmented strength and a heightened sense of self-preservation to protect them against aggressive customers. Except Bossy’s different. Her maker decided not to circulate her among the Scabbers.”
Jetta saw the man in the green gown bending over her again, smoothing down her hair, whispering a song in her ear as he injected a red serum into her shoulder. Something wiggled and squirmed beneath her skin, and she struggled to get away from the tickling sensation, but to no avail. It crawled and slithered inside her, burrowing through tissue and nestling into her viscera.
“She was to be his. But he didn’t want any ordinary thoughtless puppet—he wanted a real girl. So he gave her autonomy.”
She gave once last glance at the flames rising from the building before disappearing into the subterranean crowd. No matter how far she ran, she could still hear the screams of the other puppets, the other girls that bore her likeness, as the fires consumed them.
“But he miscalculated how much he could grant her, and she rebelled.”
“Well, how did she end up like this?” Agracia asked. “How come she couldn’t remember?”
Jetta turned over Bossy’s wrist and removed her glove, exposing the self-inflicted scar. A few black dots of ink hinted at the barcode once embedded in her skin. “She didn’t mean to kill her sisters. It wasn’t something her programming could handle.”
“Wait—she’s not human?” Agracia asked.
Jetta shook her head. “Not entirely. She’s engineered. Some of her makeup was designed by nanites.”
“Like the same ones that Josef Stein used?” Triel said, making the connection.
Jetta looked to the horizon. It’s getting late. The pale disc of the sun, still hiding behind the smear of dark brown clouds, sunk lower toward the western mountains. “Could be. I can’t say for certain.”
“Chak...” Agracia whispered.
“She’s coming around,” Triel said, helping to hold Bossy’s head up. Her lollipop threatened to fall, but before Jetta could move to rescue it, Bossy shoved her away.
“Godich ratchak!” Bossy shrieked, lunging for Jetta.
Jetta sidestepped her and pinned her arm behind her back. “Stop struggling or I’ll break your arm.”
“Jetta,” the Healer said, her eyes full of concern.
Her cheeks flushed. Triel thinks I’m going to lose it again. Still, she didn’t let go until Bossy submitted.
The dark horse stormed away, Agracia chasing after for a second before realizing the futility.
Agracia jogged back to Jetta. “Nice work, Doc. You sure know how to make friends.”
Jetta didn’t back down, instead offering the only peace she could. She broke the primary routers first and then handed Agracia Victor’s datawand. “Here. Take this back to Shandin. Say it got busted in a battle against the Necros; they’ll believe that. It will give me time to decode the other.”
“Why not just corrupt the data?” Triel asked.
“He’d expect that,” Jetta and Agracia answered in unison.
Agracia shook her head. “Well, what about her?” she said, jacking her thumb toward Bossy as she smashed anything and everything in her path.
Jetta flexed her fists. How stupid can she be? She’s going to attract every Necro in the area.
(You have fault in this,) a small voice inside her whispered. She ignored it.
“Jetta,” Triel said, pulling her aside. “This is your chance to see what else you can do with your talent. Remember what I said in the Temple after you hurt Amargo? Your powers are limitless. But right now you draw your talent from your fear.”
“What?” Jetta said, surprised at her own defensiveness.
Triel turned over her hands to display the intricate swirl of her people’s markings that decorated her palms. “Look at my people, Jetta. We are capable of healing—or dissembling.”
Averting her gaze, Jetta thought otherwise. Triel doesn’t understand what’s inside me.
“Listen to me,” the Healer said, her tone firmer and her grip strong on her hand. “I believe in you.”
Still unconvinced, Jetta turned back to Bossy, ready to silence her by any means necessary before she alerted every Necro on the continent
. Oh no...
“Bossy!” Agracia cried, running back to her friend as the rampage turned into self-harm.
The voice inside her called again, this time with force as the dark horse repeatedly smacked her head against an apron of asphalt that had pushed up against the side of a leveled building. (You did this.)
“Stop, jeezus,” Agracia said. With tears in her eyes, the Scabber Jock tried to stop her friend as red smear painted the asphalt. “Kid, please! Stop, Bossy, please!”
“Skucheka,” Jetta muttered.
As she ran toward Bossy, her mind recreated some of the many scenes of her disgrace: The late-shift foundation worker she injured on Trigos. Hurting Jaeia. Nearly submitting to Victor. Slaughtering the soldiers in the museum. Murdering the man with the artificial limb near the Narrus cluster. Slaying Amargo. Trying to destroy Bossy.
Killing Jahx.
I am an abomination.
“It’s impossible,” she whispered to herself as she cautiously approached the dark horse. I’m not strong enough...
Though slow to catch up, Triel approached from behind and whispered softly in her ear. “Jetta, feel my faith. I believe in you.”
Two arms wrapped around her waist and held her close for a second before releasing her. Taking a deep breath in, Jetta knelt down beside Bossy.
“Bossy, I—”
“Ratchak!” the dark horse screamed. Grabbing Jetta by the neck, Bossy thrust against the ground. Jetta shielded her eyes from the spray of blood as she screeched and howled in her face.
Nothing could have suppressed her reaction. The heat in her arms and legs built to a feverish peak, inflaming her desires. She’s no match, not with the powers inside me.
It would be so easy to—
I believe in you.
Jetta heard Triel’s voice through her touch, flowing out and through her like an effervescent wave. With the Healer’s aid, she held herself in check and plunged back into Bossy’s head.
Triorion Omnibus Page 129
