by Claudia Gray
With a heavy sigh, Krall gives in. “Fine. Set up the ceremony.”
Within half an hour, Abel sits shirtless in the center of a large meeting room at the heart of the Katara. He’s on one chair; a grizzled, dark-skinned man is perched on the other, a tattoo gun in his hand as he starts work. Another forty-seven Consortium pilots have gathered together to watch, cheer, and drink.
Well, from the look of things, mostly to drink.
The first pinprick of pain stings Abel’s upper arm. Fortunately, under controlled circumstances like this, he has the option of turning his pain receptors down to near numbness. He does so and watches with calm interest as his tattoo takes shape.
“It always starts with the silhouette of your ship,” says the tattoo artist, who has told Abel to call him Barry. “So there’s as many kinds of Consortium tattoos as there are kinds of ships. Lucky for us both, yours is easy.”
Abel nods as a teardrop-shaped outline appears on his skin. As his skin isn’t entirely human, the reaction to the ink is different; already he can see that the colors will be far more vibrant on his body than on most humans. “The tattoo starts with a silhouette. What next?”
“Above it, everyone gets a katara,” Barry says. By this he means not the Consortium flagship but its namesake, a square-handled dagger traditional to India. As the blade is filled in, he continues, “Within the silhouette, you get whatever color you want—and as time goes by, we layer on that with symbols for your biggest deals and victories. Ought to work up something for the Battle of Genesis, huh?”
“I wasn’t a Consortium member at that time,” Abel points out. “Is that all?”
Barry chuckles. “Not quite all. Underneath your ship, you put one word. One thing you fight for more than anything else. That’s what you’re in the Consortium to win. So what’s it going to be for you?”
The first word that comes to Abel is a name: Noemi.
But that’s wrong. He’s not in the Consortium to win her. Noemi will always be in his heart, no matter how many centuries he lives; a tattoo can’t make his devotion to her greater. That would be impossible. And he doesn’t want to be reminded of his short-lived hopes for the two of them every single time he sees his bare arm.
For now, he must define another primary goal.
“Well?” Barry prods.
“Freedom,” Abel says. “The word you should write there is ‘freedom.’”
The others around him hear that, even through their raucous carousing, and they cheer in approval. Abel smiles back at them, ignoring the tattoo needle and the tiny pinpricks of blood it leaves behind.
21
IT’S INCREDIBLY STRANGE TO NOEMI, TO BE ON A GENESIS ship flying freely through the other systems of the Loop.
Even weirder: The Dove is able to bring her back to her homeworld without facing more than token resistance from a handful of Queens and Charlies along the way.
(“Bizarre, right?” Virginia mutters to her. “Is Earth, like, out of mechs or something?”
“No idea,” Noemi says. She knows only that they should be meeting a lot more resistance than they are.)
Even a quick, uneventful journey back to Genesis takes days, and those days give her too much time to think. Too much time to remember the way Abel’s eyes looked when she told him about the programmed feelings within her—to endure those feelings yearning for him every second of every hour—
Try not to think about it, Noemi says to herself. If you keep thinking about it, you won’t be able to bear it.
The best way to use this time, she thinks, would be to investigate the Bellum Sanctum strategy further. Is it what they were told—a massive communications disruption—or something more sinister?
But her questions get her nowhere. Either the Dove crew members don’t have clearance to know any more than she does, or they don’t believe she has the clearance. She’ll have to do more digging once she gets home.
Noemi has left the Genesis system two times and returned twice. (She isn’t counting the time Abel took her away unconscious.) Both times she left, she had fought with all her body and soul to save Genesis—first in the Liberty War, then from the Cobweb plague. Both times, her welcome had been strained at best, and suspicious at worst.
This time, she didn’t do a damned thing except get dragged back, so this is when her planet finally decides she’s a hero.
“We’ve all seen the holos, Vidal,” says Deirdre O’Farrell as she walks Noemi and Virginia through the spaceport. (O’Farrell! Who wouldn’t even talk to her just a few short months ago!) Her face looks so unfamiliar with this huge smile. “Everyone knows that you went into the battle in a civilian ship, even though you were no longer with our fleet. No orders. Just pure loyalty to Genesis.”
Another voice interjects, “Which I pointed out several times.” Noemi turns to see Captain Baz coming toward her, a broad smile on her face.
The terrible numbness within Noemi cracks enough for her to smile back. “Captain. It’s so good to see you—”
“None of that ‘captain’ stuff. You’re a civilian now, remember?” Baz grins as she folds her dataread and digital scanner against her chest. “That means you get to call me Yasmeen.”
Noemi pauses. She understands the compliment, but calling the captain by her first name feels… blasphemous. Maybe she’ll get used to the idea, but for now, she intends to talk around it. “I guess that means you’re not taking me back into the fleet?”
Baz shakes her head fondly. “You still want back in the fight.” In the hangar, a couple dozen pilots remain at work on their starfighters. As Noemi walks through the space, smelling grease and ozone, she glimpses their furtive, admiring looks at her.
Where were all these guys when I was being treated like a pariah six months ago? But of course they were right here. It’s the exact same people.
I didn’t deserve to be an outcast then any more than I deserve to be a hero now.
“Listen,” Noemi says, “I appreciate the warm welcome, but let’s face it—I’m not the one who turned the tide at the Battle of Genesis. That was Abel.”
O’Farrell freezes at the mention of Abel’s name. The clatter and clang of repairs in the hangar goes silent. Virginia gives the others a meaningful nod, backing Noemi up. Captain Baz smiles, but sadly. “How do you figure that, Vidal—I mean, Noemi? The mech’s ship never flew into battle.”
“No, because his ship had no weapons and couldn’t have fought in the battle that way. Instead, he used his ship to send signals to the Queens and Charlies. He told them to stop firing on us and start blasting each other.” Noemi stops, forcing both O’Farrell and Baz to face her. “That’s what turned the tide.”
O’Farrell scoffs, a sound that makes Noemi want to punch her freckled nose. “There’s no way you can prove that.”
Until this point, Virginia’s been silent, but this comment pushes her to respond. “Um, excuse me, but there is. Provide me with holographic images and sensor scans from the battle, and I’m happy to go through them and show you second by second where the signals were sent, and how you can trace them.” She folds her arms and uses all her considerable height to stare haughtily down at O’Farrell. “Assuming that your planet actually bothers taking scientific scans instead of leaving it all up to divination or alchemy or whatever—”
“Give her the scans,” Noemi interjects, before Virginia can go past defending Abel and start ticking everyone off. “She’ll show you.”
Baz looks uncertain, which might be as good as they can do right now. But O’Farrell’s face has gone utterly cold. “The mech captured you. Sometimes hostages begin to sympathize with their captors—”
“That’s not what’s going on!” It would feel so good to put a fist through O’Farrell’s face—but that won’t help Abel. Besides, prickly pain tickles along the length of her left arm, and Noemi’s not entirely sure her body would obey her. She might hit O’Farrell too hard, or even worse, not hard enough. “How can you not look at the evidenc
e? How can you not realize what he’s done for all of you?”
Quietly Baz says, “We realize the one most important thing, which is that Abel killed Elder Darius Akide. Unless you can prove that’s not true either?”
“It’s true,” Noemi admits, “but you haven’t asked why Abel did it.”
“Mechs kill.” O’Farrell’s voice is flat. “That’s what they’re made to do.”
“Not all mechs, and definitely not him!” Deep breaths, she tells herself. Hang on. Noemi can’t fly off the handle now, not without wasting her chance to vindicate Abel. “He only shot Akide because Akide shot me. With a blaster. At close range.”
Baz and O’Farrell share a look of mutual disbelief. It must sound insane, accusing an Elder of murder. Noemi would’ve thought so herself at any point in her life before the moment Darius Akide aimed his blaster at her and fired.
“Why would he do that?” O’Farrell demands.
“That’s what I—what I’ve been wondering—” Noemi has to catch her breath. As she pauses, she sees flat incomprehension on Deirdre O’Farrell’s face… but Captain Baz has gone pale. Does she know something?
Or maybe she’s just worried because Noemi’s on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Trust me,” Virginia says, pushing into the conversation again. “I saw Noemi in the cryosleep pod afterward. That blaster bolt nearly ripped her in two.”
“Why should I trust you?” O’Farrell says. “You’re an outworlder.” Virginia gives O’Farrell a look that could melt steel.
Noemi tries, “You can run scans. You can see what happened to me—” The breath catches in her throat again, and it takes her a moment to steady herself.
Virginia leans closer to her. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t feel good,” she admits.
O’Farrell seems determined to stick to her captive theory, because she asks, “Did that mech do something to you?”
“He saved my life after Akide shot me in the gut at almost point-blank range,” Noemi says.
“That wouldn’t even be possible,” Baz says quietly. “A blaster at that range—you’d be dead.”
“I should be dead,” Noemi agrees. Anger and exhaustion are catching up with her; she’s breathing too quickly and has started feeling woozy. She pushes on. “But Abel saved me. He saved me by—by changing me.”
Baz frowns. “What do you mean, changing you?”
Noemi shouldn’t even have said that much. She should try talking around it. But the fast, heavy pulse of her temples is too quick, and the world is dark around the edges, and somehow it’s spinning, or falling, and she’s falling, too.
A few hours later, she lies on a biobed in the Goshen hospital. Unlike the ones on the Persephone, this biobed is soft, with a cushy pillow, and a light cotton blanket has been wrapped around her. Soft afternoon light filters through the window, through which she can see the grassy meadows that skirt the city, the same meadows she and Esther ran through as children. She ought to feel swaddled, comforted, made whole.
Instead, she hears the murmurs of the physicians who don’t know what to make of her. Noemi catches only a word here and there:
“Unprecedented.”
“Irreversible.”
“Appalling.”
“Abomination.”
Thank God at least one of the doctors can handle what she’s become.
“This is amazing,” says Ephraim Dunaway, who hurried from the capital to her bedside in order to help. He’s one of the only physicians on Genesis who understands mech components at all. “This stuff goes beyond any bioengineering I’ve ever seen. Some of this is standard tech, but some of it—most of it, especially this cybernetic nervous system—this is a huge leap forward. It looks as organic as any other cells in the body. You couldn’t tell those parts were artificial if it weren’t for the accelerated functions.”
“In other words, we couldn’t tell the difference between a mech and a human?” The head doctor on Noemi’s team recoils. “This is Earth’s next conspiracy against us. While settlers keep showing up pretending to be desperate Vagabonds, playing on our sympathies—Earth could be putting newly engineered mechs in their ranks. Every offworlder must be considered suspect.”
Noemi feels sick, now more in her spirit than her body. “That’s not true,” she insists. “I’m the first person this has ever been done to. There aren’t any others. You can’t force out the Vagabonds—they need homes, they fought for you—”
“No political decisions will be made in this room,” the doctor replies, his eyes narrowed. “I’ll point out only that you have no way of knowing that you’re the only one.”
“Actually, I do, since the one and only person who can do this is Gillian Shearer, aka daughter of Burton Mansfield, also known as the would-be cult leader who’s currently running things on Haven.” For one moment Noemi wishes Abel had given her the Persephone and taken the starfighter for himself, only because then she could’ve showed these idiots more of the proof of where she’s been, and what was done.
Her heart aches at the thought of Abel, but she pushes it aside.
Showing the doctors proof wouldn’t have made a difference, because they aren’t even listening to her. “You’ll have to remain under observation,” says the suspicious doctor. His tone makes it sound less like they’re taking care of her, and more like she’s under arrest.
She never really felt like she belonged on Genesis—but now she’s more of an outcast than ever before.
As the other physicians file out, muttering among themselves, Ephraim stays beside her bed and takes her hand. He’s a large man—tall and muscular, someone she’d expect to have become a soldier rather than a healer. Yet his gentleness is as much a part of him as his warm brown eyes or dark skin. His presence comforts her, gives her a sense of safety. “How do you feel, Noemi?”
“Awful,” she admits. “But I don’t know how much of that is the new components being weird, and how much of it is just not being able to stand any more stupidity.” With a sigh, she lets her head fall back onto her pillow. “At least you’re here. It helps to have someone who cares and actually knows what he’s doing.”
Ephraim sighs. “Let’s get real. I don’t know what I’m doing. No doctor in the worlds would. You’re something that’s never existed before. Evaluating your health is—well, for the time being, let’s call it a challenge.”
At least he didn’t say it was impossible, Noemi thinks. But to judge by his expression, he might be thinking it.
Ephraim squeezes her arm, obviously trying to be reassuring. “Speaking of people who care, you’ve got some visitors.”
That’s when Virginia walks in, with Harriet Dixon and Zayan Thakur right behind her. While Virginia’s wearing her usual stuff, Harriet and Zayan have abandoned their colorful patchwork Vagabond gear for simple Genesis tunics and leggings. But Harriet’s brilliant smile is the same. “After the battle we thought—well, rumor had it you’d been blown up at the very end, when nobody saw. Good to see you alive and well again!”
“Sort of well, anyway,” Zayan adds. “And Abel—it’s not true what they’re saying about him, is it?”
Noemi pauses before saying, “He did shoot Darius Akide, but only because Akide tried to kidnap him and then shot me.” She doesn’t repeat what Abel said to her about his lack of hesitation or remorse. Only someone who’d been in that same situation, who had been afraid for their own life and for that of the person they loved, could truly understand Abel’s actions. “My body is all the proof the authorities need. Instead, they’re only looking at me as some kind of freak.”
Harriet and Zayan exchange a glance. “Virginia filled us in,” Zayan says. “Part mech, huh? That sounds pretty badass.”
Noemi sighs. “It was starting to be badass once I got used to it, but now—I don’t know. Hopefully this is just more of the transition, but I feel strange. Kind of… wobbly, I guess.”
With a shrug, Ephraim gestures towar
d her readouts. “Unfortunately, ‘wobbly’ is about as precise as your diagnosis gets. We have no idea how your vitals should look, post—uh, post-modification. So it’s important to pay attention to how you feel. It’s vitally important.”
“It’s hard to concentrate.” Noemi sinks down onto her pillow. It’s like someone tied an anchor to her heart, and it’s dragging her to the depths. “I’ll never see Abel again. He’s all alone out there. Vulnerable. If Genesis doesn’t hunt him down, Gillian Shearer might. And there’s some huge military thing going on—” She catches herself. Probably Ephraim, Zayan, and Harriet know absolutely nothing about Bellum Sanctum, and it should stay that way. “I’m scared for him. That’s all. I’d feel better if I could at least do something constructive, but I can’t even get out of this bed.”
As Noemi lies there, miserable and weak, an awkward silence stretches out. Nobody can reassure her about Abel, which means nobody knows what to say. Harriet and Zayan can’t make up their minds where to look, and Ephraim’s busying himself with the medical readouts again. Luckily, Virginia never shuts up for along. “Okay, so, I’m going to be a little selfish here. Right now I’m stranded on a Luddite planet, totally out of the Loop in the literal and metaphorical senses, and not able to do a damn thing to help my friends under arrest on Cray. In other words, I need to get the hell off of Genesis. Work up a fake ID, figure out a new place to be and another life to live. But first, I’ve got to get out of here. Would flying that starfighter away from this rock do the trick, or would they shoot me down as some kind of conspirator?”
“I think you could leave,” Noemi says, “but I’m not sure.” Nausea wells up inside her, and she imagines that every false component in her arm and chest and head has begun to ache.
No. Not imagines. They do ache. Terribly.
Her stomach churns, and her head spins, and—
The next several seconds are no more than a blur. Noemi’s body thrashes, and though she can barely think, she believes it must be trying to tear itself apart. The ache in her head sharpens until she feels like she’s being cut in two. Her mind blurs with endless raw data that spills into her like a tsunami of meaningless numbers. Distantly she hears Ephraim say the word seizure, and it seems like that should explain what’s happening, if she could think about it long enough.
