by Laura Lam
“Done. Let’s get out of here.”
“What did you find?” Clo whispered as soon as they reached the claustrophobic air ducts again.
“Not now,” Ariadne said. “First, we go back up the elevator shaft.”
Clo let out a groan and a very soft “Silt.”
Ariadne busied herself, turning off the shifters to save energy in case they needed them later. Once again, they looked grimy, and they only grew dirtier as they crawled back through the ducts.
“Right on time,” she said as the elevator sped past them, blowing her hair back. Clo wiped her hands on her filthy clothes, and Ariadne did the same. Neither of them would slip again tonight.
After climbing up, they kept crawling. Ariadne’s neck and shoulders burned, and memories of countless hours spent in the dark innards of ducts just like these haunted her. Sometimes, Ariadne would have to stop and close her eyes, mentally bringing up the map she’d studied. The Oracle was all around her, and even now, One could be turning One’s gaze inward, sensing the anomaly.
Finally, they reached the edge of the building. Ariadne and Clo climbed out into the empty room.
Ariadne pointed at the small window. “We’re out of the basement levels, so we jump out. If we time the drop, the hedge below should hide us from cameras. Then it’s right back to the ship.”
“How big is this jump, exactly?”
“Only a story.”
“Only?”
Ariadne grinned. “You’ll be fine.”
“What if I crack my head open?”
“That would be bad. Try not landing on your head.”
Clo scowled. “Thanks, that’s fluming excellent advice.”
Ariadne laughed, because it was that or sob. She took out the shifter and started going over their clothes again. “Damn it,” she muttered.
“What?” Ariadne shook the shifter, but no luck. They both looked as dirt-streaked as before.
“Signal’s jammed.”
Or the Oracle has found us.
Clo exhaled hard through her nose. “So, now we have to jump out a window, hide behind a giant bush, and then walk into the loading bay and into our ship absolutely covered in dirt and hope no one will notice. Great. So great.”
“Optimism, please!” Ariadne wished she had someone to reassure her. Someone to say everything would be okay.
Ariadne’s breathing was quickening, fast and shallow. The panic rose up within her, threatening to overwhelm. The Temple. The tasteless gruel. The endless hours of work, her fingers twisting so many wires, typing so much code, that they almost bled. The Oracle will hide you so deep in the Temple that no one will ever find you again. You’ll be alone, forever and ever.
“Ariadne.” Clo’s hands gripped her shoulders, hard. The pain helped bring Ariadne back. “Ariadne. Breathe slower. Sit.”
Ariadne let her legs give out from under her.
“Lean forward, head between knees.”
Ariadne complied. Clo rubbed her back while she forced her breaths to slow. Like Rhea did. It wasn’t as good, but it was nice. “Are you okay?”
“Memories,” Ariadne managed between breaths. “I’m afraid of going back. I’m afraid—”
“Shhh,” Clo crooned. The hand on Ariadne’s back made soothing circles. “Look at me.”
Ariadne dragged her head up, her vision blurry with tears.
“You’re never going back to Tholos. I swear on my life.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“Then I’ll believe it enough for the both of us.” Clo gave her shoulder another squeeze before looking down at their disastrous jumpsuits. She paused, frowning. “I think I have an idea for how we can make it back to the ship. Once we get down, follow my lead.”
Ariadne dug deep to find strength and banish her fears. She opened the window and climbed out onto the thin ledge on the building’s facade. They had to hold on to the bones that made up the outer facade of the building. Ariadne tried not to think of how many murdered creatures it had taken to make this palace.
Just get down to the hedge. Keep going. Just a jump.
“Let’s do this,” Clo said. There was sweat at her temples, and her hands shook.
Here goes. She flung herself from the window, hoping Clo would follow.
Ariadne’s stomach dipped, but falling through the air was almost freeing. Gravity pulled her down. Her legs took the impact on landing, the force reverberating through her body. She rolled out of the way for Clo. Would the other woman’s false leg take the jump?
Clo landed hard and rolled twice. She let out a short hiss of pain, her hand going to the flesh above her prosthetic.
“Are you all right?” Ariadne asked.
“Fine,” Clo ground out between clenched teeth.
Ariadne held out a hand to help Clo up. The other woman rose, favoring her good leg, and limped alongside Ariadne. They hid from view behind a hedge, narrowly missing discovery by a passing drone, its little beady camera eye swishing back and forth.
“That was closer than I’d like,” Ariadne whispered after it sped away.
They crept back to the palace’s loading bay and long-term storage of other visiting ships. Security was present but not as tight as back near the palace or at the Myndalian base.
Clo crouched down and picked up a handful of dark mud, smearing it on her already-filthy jumpsuit.
“What are you doing?” Ariadne whispered.
“Follow my lead, remember?” Clo started drawing designs on the muck on her face, hoping it was vaguely symmetrical. Almost like tattoos. Two winged scythes down her cheeks. A circle of a dark moon on her forehead. Ariadne caught on.
“We’re pretending to be gerulae?” she asked.
Ariadne had helped create those ghosts in human form. She knew how deep the Oracle’s programming went. She’d checked the code. Unlike an average Tholosian citizen, there was no way to break it and bring them back. There was nothing left.
It would never occur to someone raised in the Three Sisters to impersonate a gerulae. Nyx would have recoiled at the thought. Even Ariadne hesitated.
Clo’s expression gentled. “Impersonating a husk is no worse than pretending to be guards. It’ll get us back to the ship and that’s all we need.”
“Don’t call them that,” Ariadne said sharply.
She didn’t like that casual slur, the implication they were too stupid to be human. They had been, once. She’d watched the humanity leak out of them. On some level, she’d been responsible.
“Sorry,” Clo muttered, as if she hadn’t realized what it meant.
Maybe she didn’t. From Rhea, Ariadne knew that Clo had grown up on Myndalia.
Ariadne just nodded and let herself turn the idea over in her head. “It is a good plan, though.”
Clo said nothing as she finished the last touches on their impromptu disguises. Clo dipped her fingertip in the mud and drew scythes on Ariadne’s cheeks. A brand to the world that they were nothing more than biological machines.
They stood and made their way to the visitor ships’ hangar. They held their faces down and turned away, subservient. They kept to the edges of the rooms, close to the walls. They needn’t have worried: No one said a word to them. No one even glanced their way.
Mud-splattered, tired, and cold, they walked right up to their ship, slipped behind, and climbed into the small service hatch on the hull. Ariadne’s stomach twisted as they crawled through their stolen ship.
Citizen or gerulae—they were all the same to the Empire. Expendable. Unfeeling.
Not even an echo of an echo.
31.
RHEA
Rhea had never seen anyone die before.
When they had commandeered Zelus, Nyx had urged Rhea and Ariadne into an empty meeting room and slammed the door shut. That had been a kindness. She’d f
ound blood spattered across her dress later, from walking down the corridors lined with masked corpses, but only seeing the aftermath had not stopped the horror from sinking in.
For once, she was glad the other women had left her behind. She never wanted them to see her like this: sitting in the ship’s command center, staring at the wall, fighting back tears.
The Evoli had blue eyes. Dark hair. Pale skin.
He had been afraid. She could see it in his face. Now she’d never forget.
“I didn’t know his name,” she murmured, shutting her stinging eyes. “I didn’t even know his godsdamned name.”
She didn’t use language like that. Her life had been comprised of poetry—soft words for reassurance, her voice never rising in anger. She could only think of that man as the Evoli. Other, according to the Tholosians. An enemy not worthy of a name. Did he have family? Friends? They would have no way to mourn him, no way of even knowing he was gone.
Gods. Gods. Her chest ached. Rhea knew the other women couldn’t have stopped it—that his fate had been sealed with his capture—but it still hurt. That was what the Empire did: forced you to be complicit in the dehumanization of others.
They reduced you to same identifiers animals are given: a species name. Orous zuinae. Extinct. Llidnian ixesuma. Extinct.
That will be you in the end, if you’re caught, Rhea thought. No name. No one to care about you. Why would they? You’re just an—
“Stop it,” Rhea told herself, digging her fingernails into the skin of her arms. “Stop it. Stop it.”
A soft beep emerged from the computers. She snapped her head up, her heart thudding hard against her ribs. Had a Tholosian guard sensed something was off with the ship’s logs? Had their identities been compromised?
Rhea checked the controls, cursing her clumsy fingers. She’d rarely touched tablets or technology. In the Pleasure Garden, such things were considered distractions. Though Ariadne had taught her the basics, she was still slow to type.
She keyed in the command to find the source of the alarm.
Oh.
There was movement on the ship—a single signature on one of the lowest levels. And it was heading for the exit near the canteen.
“Seven devils,” Rhea muttered, swearing yet again. She grabbed a Mors from Nyx’s weapon pile.
Someone else was on the ship.
She threw on one of the Mors-proof jackets stored in the cockpit. A well-placed laser would still hurt, but at least it wouldn’t slice her in half.
Rhea’s breathing was ragged as she left the command center. She’d have to deal with this herself. She didn’t want to be alone, but she couldn’t call for backup when the others were in the middle of their missions.
You can do this, she told herself as she hurried quietly down the hall toward the canteen. The ship shuddered. The exit hatch was opening.
“Damn,” she hissed, rounding the corner.
A man in a torn uniform was slipping out of the exit hatch. Who was he? How had he entered the ship in the first place without her or the ship’s computers knowing?
Rhea slipped behind him as he slowly made his way down the ramp. He moved stiffly. Injured? Yes—a Mors blast must have glanced over his hip. The fabric was burned to his flesh. His skin at the back of his neck was yellow and covered in a sheen of sweat. He wouldn’t be as strong or as fast. She had a better chance of taking him down.
The man turned.
Rhea froze.
It was the godsdamned copilot.
She had seen him when she boarded back on Tholos. He had caught her eye, then glanced away, as if she was nothing. Just a dona. But he had escaped onto Asteria days ago after Clo shot at him—or, at least, they thought he had. Rhea fixed her eyes on the injury at his hip. He hadn’t escaped.
He’d been here the whole time.
The pilot pointed a Mors of his own at Rhea’s head.
“Put your weapon down,” he said, his voice rough.
“You first.”
They stood at an impasse. Bruises hollowed his eyes, and sweat stained his pale, jaundiced skin. His hand was shaky, and his gaze was unfocused, eyelids heavy. Would he risk the shot?
No. He darted a glance to the open hatch, and she guessed what he was thinking: lock her in, escape.
The pilot went for the door.
Rhea lunged after him, but he was faster. The pilot scrambled out of the hatch and smacked his palm against the button to close it. Rhea leaped through, skidding down the ramp as the door slammed shut behind her.
“Shit,” the pilot said, taking off in a limping run.
Rhea opened her mouth to yell after him, but they were in the hangar, with dozens of other ships around. There might be others resting in the crafts between journeys. There might be—
Two people came out from behind the crafts, moving slowly.
“Hey!” the pilot yelled, waving his hands. “Get me a fucking medic. Get the—”
Rhea lunged at the pilot, tackling him from behind. They both hit the ground. Rhea rolled hard against the concrete, letting out a soft grunt of pain.
His eyes met hers, and Rhea could see the rapid contraction of his irises. The Oracle programming was waking up. Any moment, One would fully activate and pump his system full of adrenaline. Even in his weakened state, he weighed twice more than Rhea.
He bucked against her as she tried to slide her hands down to his bare wrists . . .
The pilot shoved her off and stumbled into a run. “Hey!” he said to the people approaching. “You— Godsdamn it. Fucking husks.”
Rhea didn’t even think. She scrambled up, darted for the gerulae’s utility belt, and grabbed the first thing her hand touched. An oil canister.
She launched it at the pilot.
The canister slammed into the pilot’s temple, and he went down with a muted cry. Rhea breathed hard, watching his body for any movement. None. Had he been at full strength, she wouldn’t have stood a chance at knocking him out with one hit.
“Thank you,” Rhea said, looking at the women next to her.
They stared expressionlessly down at the pilot, barely even blinking. The scythes on their cheeks seemed to absorb the harsh overhead hangar lighting.
While there had been servitor in the Pleasure Garden, the gerulae had been kept strictly on the other side of the walls. Attendants could answer queries, give polite responses that were just lively enough to show a facade of choice. Gerulae, Rhea knew, were different. Did they even know what was happening?
Rhea shook her head. No time for that.
“Can you help me?” she asked the gerulae. “I can’t . . . I can’t drag him alone.”
They stared at Rhea wordlessly. Rhea reached out to take the first woman’s hand. “Can you—”
A vast emptiness expanded inside Rhea. She couldn’t hear thoughts, no, but this woman’s emotions . . .
Nothingness. Dark. Bleak. An abyss, floating down down down down into the black can’t scream can’t speak nothing nothing nothing no—
Gasping, Rhea released the gerulae’s hand. “Gods. Gods. I’m so—gods, I’m so sorry.”
The women blinked at her, and Rhea could feel the echo of that chasm inside her. How dark and long it was. And she could do nothing to help them. Nothing.
Rhea shut her eyes, hating this. Hating everything the Empire had done. Hating how inept she felt because, right now, she couldn’t do anything other than fix this one small problem: the pilot.
“Help me with him,” she urged the gerulae firmly.
They only responded to commands. The Oracle would not let them act on anything that might be considered a choice.
The women grasped the pilot’s hands and helped Rhea drag him back to the ship. Once they had him restrained in the command center, the gerulae returned to the ship they were servicing and kept scrubbing th
e metal clean. The Oracle had left them with nothing, just like that Evoli who had died. No names, no voice, nothing for themselves. Rhea wondered what crime they had committed to become this. It might have been nothing more than being too slow to bring Damocles his breakfast.
There’s nothing you can do for them.
Rhea returned to the command center and looked over the pilot. He smelled of sour sweat and sickness, which meant his injury was bad. He’d been on the ship, hidden somewhere for days, with no medical attention.
Rhea ripped open the uniform around his wound, wrinkling her nose at the putrid smell. The others might consider it a waste, but Rhea found a med kit and rooted around in the box for supplies. Gauze, tape, disinfectant.
She held up a syringe. Thank the gods, a stress blocker. The Legate must have had this on hand in case the crew needed to briefly deactivate the Oracle’s acute stress response during surgery. Rhea had injected Nyx with a dose while Ariadne remotely removed the chip from her cerebellum. Ariadne had excitedly told her how it worked.
Yes, a waste of supplies. But after the Evoli . . .
“I can’t stand back and watch anyone else die,” she told the pilot’s unconscious face. “Not even you.”
Rhea cleaned his wound, whispering a few words. Not a prayer—she’d left those gods and devils behind so long before. She’d never pray to any deity from the Avern again. No, she whispered something else, sent out into the quiet void of the universe.
It has to be better than this, she thought, as she bandaged the pilot’s injury. If we bring down the Empire, we have to make our lives worth more than this.
With a sigh, she sat back and waited for him to wake. An hour later, his limbs began to twitch. Rhea readied herself, Nyx’s Mors still clutched in her hand. She didn’t know how to use it, exactly, but she figured she could embellish her skills.
The pilot opened his eyes. He tested the ropes as he met her gaze. The blank look that was a product of the Oracle’s programming hadn’t kicked in yet. Good. The blocker was working.
“Hello,” she said with a smile. “I’m Rhea.”
He shook his head as if to clear it, then winced. “Avern. What did you do to me?”
