by Jay Kristoff
“You bastard,” Ana hissed. “That hurt.”
“Not for much longer, dead girl,” Faith replied.
“You three are insane,” Ana said. “Even if you can remake Grace and Raph and the others, you really think a handful of you can take on the world? Have you even looked outside these walls since the revolt, Gabriel? There’s still millions of people out there. Daedalus has entire armies of machina and logika. If this city wasn’t such an irradiated hellhole, they’d have already marched in here and crushed you. Not to mention BioMaas. How can a handful of you hope to beat them?”
“We already have an army of our own.” Faith smiled. “Waiting just downstairs.”
Ana shook her head. “You mean our logika? They’re all hardwired with the Three Laws, so you could never use them to—”
She blinked. Looked up at those Goliaths again, who’d stood idly by as she was brutalized in front of them. A robot couldn’t allow a human being to come to harm, but they hadn’t even twitched when Gabriel hit her.
Which meant . . .
Faith shook her head. “Did you not wonder where all those defective logika you fought in the WarDome were coming from? What exactly do you think it was that was driving them to rise against their masters?”
She blinked. Remembering Hope’s words in Armada.
“Look outside that door and you will see a world built on metal backs. Held together by metal hands. And one day, those hands will close, Ana. And they will become fists.”
Of course . . .
Libertas.
If Gabriel and the others could infect logika as well as lifelikes with the virus, they could override the Three Laws hardwired into every logika’s brain. They’d have an army capable of ghosting any human they came across. . . .
“That’s why so many bots have been fritzing out near the Glass lately,” she realized. “You’ve been experimenting on them with the Libertas virus. . . .”
Faith gave her a lazy smile. “And we still have so much work to do.”
“How much longer?” Gabriel snapped.
“Ten minutes after the blood sample is confirmed,” Mercy replied. “Then cerebral scan. Then we’re inside.”
Gabriel glanced at Ana, began pacing back and forth before the door.
“Not long now,” he said. “You can rest soon.”
Ana licked her swollen lip, tasted blood. Her optic began humming through its reboot sequence, the Memdrive in her skull throbbing. The scars of those final hours—that moment her love had raised a pistol to her head at Gabriel’s command and put a bullet right through her eye—etched on her skin.
She was dead anyway.
Was she really going to help these monsters make a hell of this earth?
Was she really going to wait meekly for the end, like she’d done in that cell?
Or would she fight? Like she’d fought in WarDome? Like she’d fought in Dregs? Like she’d fought across every inch of wasteland between there and here? That’s what the Eve in her would do. With every muscle. With every moment. With her last, shuddering breath.
I’ll fight.
She planted her boots softly on the ground. Digging rubber heels into the metal. And slowly, she began edging her way toward the fall. . . .
The old man’s hands were shaking.
Eyes blurring.
Heart failing.
Not yet . . .
Up to his armpits in optical cable and circuitry. Splicing and rewiring. Coughing and cursing. Silas didn’t know how much he had left in him. He couldn’t save her. He had to try. All the miles and all the years, and it had come to this.
He wondered if she’d ever forgive him.
He wondered if he’d be around to ask her to.
The old man plugged in the final connection, wiping red from his lips. He coughed again, blood spattering onto electric synapses. He sealed the skull cavity, climbed down the stepladder, almost falling into Lemon’s arms. She tried to help him stand, but he was too tired, for the moment. Sinking to his knees on the loading bay floor, looking up at his final creation and letting the persona chips and Memdrives that had been inside the Quixote’s skull slip from his fingers.
“Cricket,” he croaked. “Can you . . . h-hear me?”
Blue optics flickered to life. A low bass hum shivered through the big logika’s body. The machine that had been the Quixote shuddered into motion, pistons hissing, gyros whirring as the beast came to life, straightening from its repose and looking around the bay.
“What—”
The logika stopped at the sound of its own voice, booming and deep. Held out his massive hands in front of his eyes.
“What . . . what’s happened to me?”
The logika took a tentative step out of the holding bay. The engines beneath its titanium skin let out a twelve-thousand-horsepower bellow, hydraulics and servos and gears hissing and twisting and spinning. Cricket looked down at his fingers, curled them into fists.
“No. Way!”
“Dreams c-come true.” The old man smiled.
“The other lifelikes have Ana, Cricket,” Ezekiel said. “Three of them, upstairs. I know we’ve never gotten along. But we need your help to get her back. Are you with us?”
The logika looked at the lifelike, replying without hesitation.
“Just show me the way, Stumpy.”
Silas began coughing again, bloody hand at his mouth. Lemon knelt beside him, held him tight. She looked at Ezekiel, helpless, tears shining behind her visor. Silas could feel her shaking. See the fear and agony in her eyes.
“Are you gonna be okay down here, Mister C?”
He leaned back in her lap, almost too tired to hold himself up anymore. He could feel it, that cold and that dark, hovering above him on black, black wings. He wasn’t afraid of it. Wasn’t even sad to go. But before he left, he had one more thing to do. In a life made of wrongs, he had one more to make right.
And so he struggled to his knees.
“C-coming . . . with you . . .”
“Silas, that’s not a good idea,” Ezekiel warned.
“Shut up, Ezekiel,” the old man growled. “C-Cricket, pick me up.”
The big logika leaned down obediently, scooped his maker up in one huge hand.
“All right,” the old man wheezed. “Let’s . . . go f-finish this.”
“How long?” Gabriel asked again.
“Sixty seconds,” Mercy replied.
“THIS IS POINTLESS, GABRIEL.”
“I’ve never asked your opinion before, Myriad. I’m not about to begin now.”
“AND YOU WONDER WHY YOU FAIL.”
Ana was a meter from the railing. Edging closer. She could see a weak point on the welds—a spot corroded by moisture leaking from the coolant pipes above. If she hit it hard enough, she could probably break through. Plunge over the edge before they scanned her brainwaves, broke the final seal that kept Myriad locked down. She was terrified. But she was already dead, after all. Babel’s radiation was worming into her bones even as she sat there. She could still choose to go out fighting if she wanted. Wasn’t that what Raph had told her? That everyone had a choice?
So she’d chosen. Inching closer to the edge. Muscles tensing for that final push.
She thought of Ezekiel. Of Lemon. She wished she’d had a chance to try to make it right between her and them. Beneath the fury and the hurt, a part of her still loved them both. But it was like she’d told Raph that day in the library, she realized. It was only in fairy tales that everything turned out for the best.
Most people didn’t get a happy ending in real life.
Closer now. Just a few more pushes.
Then a few hundred meters.
Then sleep.
Myriad hummed an off-key note, its glowing blue eye shifting to a deep red.
“BLOOD SCAN COMPLETED. IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.”
. . . What?
“What?” Gabriel turned from the doorway.
“MYRIAD ACCESS DEN
IED.”
Gabriel looked to his sibling. “Mercy?”
“I . . .” The lifelike tapped away on the keyboards, eyes scanning the scrolling readouts. “It’s not recognizing her. . . .”
“Myriad, you confirmed retinal scan and voice ident?” Gabriel demanded.
“CONFIRMED.”
“And this is Anastasia Monrova.”
“REPEAT. IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.”
“What the hell is—”
The lifelike glanced at Ana, realized she was edging toward the railing. With a cry, he leapt toward her just as the girl stabbed her heels into the floor and thrust herself backward. Her chair crashed into the weakened welds, popping them loose. Ana felt a surge of vertigo, momentary terror overwhelming her resolve as she toppled past the broken rails and out into all that empty. She took a breath, tasting her fear and swallowing it whole as she began to—
A hand seized the chair, jerking her to a sudden stop. Ana looked up to see Gabriel leaning over the railing, holding on to the armrest with a white-knuckle grip. The muscles down his arm were stretched taut, hard as steel. His eyes were bright with madness, glittering as he smiled.
“Not yet, dead girl.”
Gabriel hauled her up from the abyss, slung the chair across the landing with all his strength. It crashed into Myriad’s door, Ana smacking her skull against that bloody metal, stars flaring before her eyes. She shook her head, blinking hard, dimly aware of Gabriel tearing the cuffs off her wrists, dragging her by the hair over to the terminal. Faith murmured a warning to her brother; Mercy simply stared as the lifelike slammed Ana’s head onto the scanner, smudging her bleeding mouth onto the lens.
“Again!” he shouted. “Scan her again, damn you!”
“BLOOD SCAN OF THIS SUBJECT HAS ALREADY BEEN COMPLETED. REPEAT. IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.”
Ana clawed at the hand that held her hair. Blood in her mouth, teeth gritted, kicking and hissing as the lifelike slammed her head onto the glass again.
“Myriad, you’re mistaken! Voice ident confirmed. Retinal scan confirmed. This is Ana Monrova, last daughter of Nicholas Monrova—confirm!”
“NEGATIVE,” the angel replied. “IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.”
Gabriel hauled Ana into the air with one hand, fingers squeezing her throat. Ana’s boots thumped against the terminal, lashing out into the lifelike’s chest and gut with all her strength. Fingers clawing his wrist. Face flooding red.
“What have you done?” the lifelike roared into Ana’s face.
“Go . . . to hell,” she hissed.
“GABRIEL!”
The shout echoed across the Myriad bay as the outer doors opened in a hail of sparks. Ana saw four figures silhouetted in the bloody light. A lifelike with irises the color of a pre-Fall sky, a metal arm as ugly as the rest of him was beautiful. A towering logika, broad shoulders and wrecking-ball fists, bristling with electric rage. An old man, bent under the weight of his guilt and the flamethrower strapped to his back. And finally, a small, freckled girl in a bright pink rad-suit, three sizes too big for her bod and far too small for her ego.
“Hands off my bestest, murderbot,” she growled.
“Lemon . . . ,” Ana whispered.
Gabriel spun to face the newcomers, dragging Ana into a choking headlock. She thrashed against his grip, sinking her teeth into the lifelike’s arm, tasting blood in her mouth. Gabriel didn’t even flinch, glittering green eyes fixed on Ezekiel.
“Good to see you again, brother. I like your new arm.”
“Matches your chest.” Faith smiled.
“Let her g-go, Gabriel,” Silas growled.
Mercy climbed up from the terminal, joined Faith and Gabriel on the landing.
“Who let you out of your cage, old man?” she asked.
“I said let her go!” Silas rasped.
Gabriel broke his stare from Ezekiel’s, turned his eyes on the man who had helped make him. “We bend the knee to no one, Silas. No man. No maker. No master. I would have thought we taught you that lesson during the revolt.”
The old man shook his head. “Haven’t you . . . hurt h-her enough?”
“I am the hurt you made me to be,” Gabriel replied.
“We made you to b-be better than us!”
“And we are, old man,” Faith sneered as Silas bent double in another coughing fit. “In that, if nothing else, you can rest easy. Not long now, by the look of you.”
Gabriel squeezed Ana’s throat and she hissed in pain. She stabbed an elbow into the lifelike’s ribs, stomped on his foot, trying to break free of his impossible grip. Bare-handed, she might as well have been trying to hurt one of the Goliaths. But still, she seethed. Kicked and bit and fought.
“Spirited, isn’t she?” Gabriel smiled at Ezekiel. “Her father’s daughter.”
Ezekiel stepped forward, glowering. “Get your hands off her, Gabriel.”
“Ever the hero, eh? Dashing in on his charger to save his poor damsel from her tower. Even if it means betraying your own kind. Again.”
Gabriel shook his head, turned his glare on the Myriad door, still stubbornly closed. The readout, flashing red on the terminal:
IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.
IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.
IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.
“It hardly seems equitable, though, does it?” Gabriel said. “That you get to rescue your love by denying me mine? With the blood you have on your hands?”
“You could have asked her, Gabriel,” Ezekiel said. “Ana loved Grace almost as much as you did. You could have just asked her, and she might have unlocked Myriad for you.”
“And therein lies the difference between you and me, little brother.” Gabriel reached behind his back, hauled out his pistol and pointed it at Ana’s temple. “These humans are insects next to us. The slime that first crawled out of the ocean. And while you might be content to be their beggar, I take what is mine.”
Ana was choking now, Gabriel’s grip cutting off the blood to her brain. Fighting against the lifelike’s hold, the terror of the pistol at her brow, the thought of ending like this. Her eyes were locked on Ezekiel. So much unsaid between them. So many wrongs she might never make right. Unable now even to whisper his name.
Ezekiel stepped closer, eyes on the pistol in Gabriel’s hand.
“Gabriel, if you kill her, you’ll never get that door open. You’ll never get Grace back.”
“Ah, but therein lies the mystery, little brother. Myriad refuses to open anyway.”
Black spots were swimming before Ana’s eyes, her vision beginning to glaze as her struggles became ever weaker. Gabriel again looked back at the denial flashing on Myriad’s screen. At the luminous angel and its empty face. At the huge logika looming at Ezekiel’s back. At his sisters beside him. Weighing the odds.
“Let. Her. Go,” Ezekiel said.
Without warning, the lifelike seized the back of Ana’s neck and held her body out over the whistling drop.
“As you wish,” Gabriel said.
And he let her go.
1.30
THUNDER
“Ana!”
Lemon watched as Ezekiel dashed across the landing and leapt out into the abyss. The lifelike plummeted after the falling girl, snatching her from the air and crashing into the shaft’s wall with a gasp. Reaching out with his prosthetic arm, he seized a tangle of optical cable to stop their fall. The cable groaned but held, the lifelike dangling over the drop with Ana held tight in his other arm. She was barely conscious, gasping for breath.
“Ana?” he yelled. “ANA!”
“Nice . . . catch, Braintrauma,” she whispered.
“Terminate intruders!”
The four Goliaths at Myriad’s door shuddered into motion at Gabriel’s command, eyes burning blue as autocannons unfolded from their backs. The weapons spewed a deafening barrage, Cricket crying a warning as he knelt to shield Lemon and Silas, sparks
burning and shells bursting all over his armored hull. Shrieking, Lemon hunkered down behind the big logika’s leg, covering her ears at the sound of thunder.
Lemon’s skull was still throbbing, concussion pounding in the back of her head. But her anger was building, too, bubbling up inside her in a blood-red flood. She reached out, letting the fury ripple from her fingertips. A psychic shockwave blasted outward, frying every circuit inside the Goliaths. They staggered, sparks spewing from their eyes and chests in crackling waterfalls. The terminal controlling Myriad shorted out, and the holographic angel flickered and disappeared as every globe in the chamber exploded.
Gabriel, Mercy and Faith dashed out of the strobing gloom. The three lifelikes moved quicker than anything Lemon had ever seen, a terrifying blur that even Cricket couldn’t match. Faith drew her electrified sword and started swinging at the pistons and hydraulics around Cricket’s knees. Gabriel and Mercy leapt atop the big logika’s shoulders, tearing away the armor plating, hoping to get to the vital cables and relays beneath.
Lemon squealed and ducked behind the bay doors as the logika and lifelikes fell into a tumbling brawl. She didn’t dare risk another surge of her power—she might fritz Cricket by mistake. She watched as the big bot tore Gabriel from his shoulders, hurled him like a thunderbolt back at Myriad’s door. Fresh blood spattered across Gabriel’s Three Truths as the lifelike crumpled to the deck. Cricket danced with Faith, the logika’s fist crashing down as she darted aside, lashing out with her arc-sword. Mercy was still up on Cricket’s back, shredding his armor with her bare hands, face illuminated by bursts of current.
“I’m . . . sorry, kiddo,” Silas said.
The old man raised the Preacher’s flamethrower, so racked with coughs, he could barely heft the weight. But still, he pulled the trigger, a burst of homemade napalm streaming up onto Cricket’s back. The big logika caught fire, the fuel setting his paint job ablaze. But along with him went Mercy, the lifelike screaming as her shift and curls burst into flame. She fell off the logika’s back, flailing as the fire began consuming her. And with a final agonized wail, she tumbled over the railing and fell into the abyss.
