Defy the Worlds

by Claudia Gray

  “No,” Noemi says. “I can’t get that far with it. I get stuck on the part where you talk about ‘the best’ of us. Who gets to decide who that is?”

  With a slashing gesture, Gillian says, “Enough.”

  She’s right. This debate isn’t helping Noemi’s cause. Time to get back on track. “We agree on one thing. We agree that Simon matters. He shouldn’t just be—thrown out so you have to start over.”

  Although Gillian winces, she haltingly answers, “My father—he’s made it clear that I should—”

  “You don’t have to disobey your dad. Let me be the one to go after Simon, bring him back. Then, maybe you can put him right.”

  Gillian stares at Noemi so long that the whole conversation seems to have backfired. Noemi wonders if she’s going to get tossed out an air lock into the snow. At this point she’s almost willing to take her chances.

  Then Gillian takes out a small scanner and offers it to Noemi. “The scanner is calibrated for mechs. Several are still functioning, at least partially, and Remedy may be using some Tares or Yokes, but…”

  “It helps.” Noemi closes her hand around it. “Thanks.”

  Instead of responding, Gillian simply turns back to work on her datareads. The console that might’ve been more useful dangles from the ceiling; in the deep shadows of night, it could be a gargoyle or a vulture, a dark hulking shape over them all.

  The boundaries between the passengers’ part of the ship and Remedy’s sometimes shift as force fields blink on and off. Power supplies must be as damaged as everything else on the Osiris. Noemi walks slowly, scans every room before she enters it, and puts her hand out to test whether the air feels particularly warm, or charged with static electricity; both are signs of a force field in the area. She has no intention of winding up trapped on the wrong side of a boundary line.

  Might not be so bad, she thinks as she crawls through one half-collapsed corridor toward what upside-down signs tell her was the grand ballroom. I could walk up to Remedy and go, Hey, I’m from Genesis, we’re kind of on the same side here? Except for the part where I don’t believe in terrorism, and—

  Noemi sighs. She’s better off not switching sides at this point. Neither group on this ship likes her much, but at least she understands what the passengers want from her and has earned a little goodwill. If she can find Simon, her stock with them might go even higher.

  But her main motivation is looking for someone who’s scared and alone, someone who’s closer to Abel than anyone else she’s ever likely to meet. She’ll never see Abel again, never get a chance to explore the mystery of what he is. All she can do is help Simon in his name.

  She stops crawling, hit by a wave of sadness so intense it makes her breath catch in her throat. Noemi had believed she’d made her peace with the idea of never again seeing Abel. When she left his ship for the last time, she understood then it would be forever. Nothing that happened in the past several days could’ve changed that. That one glimpse of him through the hologram—even that was more than she should ever have expected to have again. As horrifying as that moment was, she still treasures it, holds it close. All that ugliness was transcended by the sight of Abel’s face, just once more.

  If he had found her—rescued her, and they’d been together again—

  What would I have felt?

  What could we have been?

  She pushes the thoughts from her head. There’s no point in wishing for what can never be, no matter how… how beautiful it might’ve been. Abel’s on the other side of the galaxy, forever safe from Mansfield, and that’s reward enough. She needs to concentrate on saving Simon, and on keeping herself alive.

  Once she’s through the narrow passage, Noemi gets to her feet and brushes dust and grit from her forearms and knees. She grimaces as she realizes some of it got down the absurdly low front of her jumpsuit. Why would anyone design an outfit this impractical, much less…

  Noemi pauses, one hand still on the cowl-neck of her jumpsuit, when she hears a faint electronic beeping. Grabbing the scanner from her makeshift utility belt, she sees a small red light pulsing on its screen.

  Military training brings her hand to the holt of her blaster before she stops herself. If this is Simon, he’s unarmed. He needs to be approached as a friend.

  If it isn’t Simon—well, any other intact mechs probably aren’t a threat.

  “Simon?” she calls softly as she takes a step forward. Crushed iridescent ceiling tiles crunch under her boot. “Simon, we met earlier. Do you remember me?”

  Movement farther down the corridor makes her go still. Her eyes discern the shape of a little boy sitting on the floor, as if playing with toys. When she creeps forward, one orange beam of emergency lighting turns on; the glow falls across Simon’s face, revealing his unfinished features; it’s worse than she remembered, although it’s hard to say how. Something about the contrast between the blank, masklike visage and the anguish in his eyes makes it terrible. He sits amid a ghoulish display of destroyed mechs, at the center of severed heads and limbs that look all too human in the dim, eerie light.

  But Simon’s steadier than before. Somewhere he found a gray mech coverall and put that on, rolling up the sleeves and legs almost comically. That part, at least, really seems like what a little kid would do, and when he speaks, he sounds less panicked. “I remember you.”

  “My name’s Noemi. Your mom sent me here to look for you.”

  That makes him frown. “Mummy did this to me.” He paws once at the side of his head. “She put the voices in here.”

  “She was only trying to make you better, after you were sick,” Noemi says, which is the kindest way she knows to put it. “You had Cobweb. I’ve had Cobweb, too. I know how terrible it feels.”

  He doesn’t care. Little kids forget about feeling sick after they’re well—though maybe well isn’t the word for what Simon is now. “It helps if I talk back to the voices.”

  “Okay,” Noemi says. She just needs to agree with him, to keep agreeing until he calms down enough to return with her to his mother. “What do you tell them?”

  “I tell them I’m mad. That I’m mad at the whole world. They want to help me.”

  Her skin prickles with fear as she hears motion. Noemi hurls herself toward the nearest corner, grabbing her blaster, prepared for Remedy fighters—

  —and instead sees mechs. More than a dozen of them, all standing there vacantly, apparently at Simon’s command.

  Only one Charlie is fully intact. The others are fragments of their former selves: a Zebra with one arm torn off at the elbow, a Jig with half of her face burned away to a metal skull, a Peter who hobbles along on legs stripped almost entirely free of flesh. Real blood and pale coolant spatter their blank faces and ripped clothing. These are only machines—not like Simon, nothing at all like Abel—but that doesn’t help. In some ways it’s worse. Noemi would feel compassion for wounded humans but these twisted, grotesque figures only horrify her. Every instinct tells her these things are wrong.

  The stripped skin, the blood—that’s just the damage she can see. How badly broken are they on the inside?

  Simon’s plastic face twitches, rapid spasms at his half-formed eyebrows and too-narrow mouth, until he manages something like a smile. “They’re my friends,” he says, and his voice is breaking up, frequencies missing from the sound, making it all too clear he’s a machine. “They like to play chase. Watch.”

  As one, every single mech lunges toward Noemi.

  There’s nowhere to run. She throws herself back into the collapsed tunnel and wriggles through as fast as she can. Bare metal fingers close around her ankle, dragging her back, and she screams. One kick and that’s one off her, she’s through the tunnel, but they’re ripping through the wreckage after her.

  Go go go go go. Noemi races down the corridor, leaping over a crushed chandelier, one hand on her blaster. When she gets to a corner, she turns and fires. Green blaster bolts slice through the air, taking out one of the B
akers, but the other mechs pay no attention. They continue on, single-minded in their pursuit.

  Noemi runs even faster, pushing herself to her limit. Ahead she sees an upside-down sign proclaiming that the theater lies ahead. Okay, a theater, that’s a large space, maybe I can put some distance between us there.

  The theater is the closest thing to a safe space she can find.

  A glance over her shoulder reveals the mechs still gaining ground. There ought to be differences in the way each model moves—Noemi knows this from battle—but there aren’t. Every single mech is coming after her in precisely the same way: with Simon’s off-kilter, shambling, too-fast walk.

  They’re moving as one, she thinks amid her fright. They’re behaving almost like—like an extension of Simon’s mind.

  20

  THE PATROL ABEL LEADS TOWARD THE THEATER ISN’T large—only six Remedy fighters, five of whom show signs of discontent at being asked to follow a mech. The sixth fighter, however, is Riko, and he hopes their trust in her will translate into a modicum of trust for him.

  He can’t stop thinking about the force fields throughout the ship, the ways they may be booby-trapped, and how every single one of them is helping to hold Noemi hostage. She’d attempt to escape if possible—he remembers the cruel way she was suspended in the force field, hating her helplessness nearly as much as she must have—but that would only put her in even greater danger. If she hit the wrong force field—

  It’s as though Abel can see it, this horrible thing that may not even happen: the explosion ripping through Noemi, tearing through her skin and bone.

  Continue moving, he tells himself. Dwelling on negative possibilities won’t help Noemi.

  As they edge their way through the semidark corridors, weapons at the ready, Riko quietly asks, “So you talked to Ephraim?”

  “Yes. I reasoned he was the person most likely to be of help to Genesis at that time.”

  Riko drops her eyes. “And he seemed—Ephraim was all right?”

  “He indicated nothing to the contrary.” Abel reviews his memory files. The expressions on Ephraim’s and Riko’s faces when speaking of each other do not match anticipated reactions for former colleagues, or even friends. He tests this hypothesis by adding, “Ephraim seemed unhappy when he spoke of your departure.”

  Riko’s cheeks flush, and Abel has his answer. She must see recognition on his face, because she quickly says, “It didn’t last long. It couldn’t have lasted long. Probably it shouldn’t have happened at all.”

  “The two of you are very nearly polar opposites,” Abel says. “When we all parted on Earth, I was under the strong impression you didn’t even like each other.”

  This wins him a sidelong glance from Riko. “Noemi’s a soldier from Genesis. You’re a mech from Earth. I bet you guys didn’t hit it off at first either.”

  Abel and Noemi met while trying to kill each other. “Your point is well taken.”

  “I’m just glad he’s all right. That’s all.” Riko winces and rubs her temple. “Thinking about this is giving me a headache.”

  Loud clattering around the curve of the corridor alerts Abel only a fraction of a second before the humans hear it, too. As he rounds the corner, Abel brings up his blaster—

  And stops. The damaged mechs before him aren’t combat models. Williams are musical performers; Sugars are cooks. Obviously they aren’t part of the passengers’ attack team, but then what are they do—

  The Sugar’s fist connects with Abel’s gut before his sensors have fully registered the motion. He slams into the wall, hard, his blaster falling to clatter at his feet; he’s thrown off as much by surprise as by the force of the blow.

  Stunned, he attempts to collect himself. How is a Sugar in warrior mode? She shouldn’t be programmed for that.

  But now the William’s on him, barreling toward Abel at full speed. This time Abel manages to duck out of the way, but his confusion has intensified. Non-warrior mechs should not fight beyond very basic defense of humans—hardly more than a push or a shove—but the Sugar has picked up a heavy metal bar from the debris and seems intent on beating Abel to bolts.

  She swings. Abel catches the bar in his open palm, ignoring the impact that sends pain shooting from his wrist to his shoulder. He closes his fist around the bar and pulls it backward, hard; the Sugar doesn’t let go, which means he slams her into the ceiling. Her body drops to the floor, twitching erratically. Only now does he see that the entire back half of her head is missing.

  The William charges again, and Abel swings the bar around to strike him in the hip, collapsing the joint; as the William model falls, he bashes its head. It drops beside the Sugar, completely still.

  “Is that all they’ve got?” says one of the Remedy fighters, with so much bravado he seems to believe he was part of this fight. “If those are the only mechs the passengers can send after us, they’re down to nothing.”

  “Perhaps.” Abel frowns as he rises from the destroyed Sugar and William and reclaims his blaster. “But the larger group of mechs still lies ahead.”

  According to Abel’s instrumentation, the mech patrol is very close, but still on the other side of the nearby theater, perhaps two levels down. He hurries faster through the corridor, motioning for the others to follow.

  One quick jump brings him to the level of the stage door, which he’s able to pry open with both hands. Abel slides through the narrow opening into near-total darkness; only a few emergency lights at the very bottom of the theater shine at all. He adjusts his visual frequencies to assess the area. The stage itself hangs above him, a gaping space with its old-fashioned velvet curtains drooping beneath. While theater seats remain in mostly neat rows at his head level, underneath the tiers of balconies curve across each level, an image reminiscent of a nautilus shell. The acoustic curve of the theater’s ceiling has become a bowl-like floor many meters down.

  As Abel prepares an estimate of the exact distance, he hears the banging of a door, and a thud—like someone dropping from that overhead door onto one of the lowest balconies. More noise follows, footsteps multiplying upon one another: The mech patrol has infiltrated the theater. Soon they’ll attempt to punch through to Remedy territory.

  Instead, Abel intends to punch through them—and clear his way to Noemi.

  Without waiting for the other Remedy members to climb through the door, he pulls his blaster, magnifies his targets, and begins to fire.

  A Tare model, head badly damaged, somehow operational as it rounds the curve of the balcony: One shot from his blaster and it goes down in a spray of sparks and blood.

  A Charlie, completely intact but unarmed, running with great speed and direction—but not toward a door: Abel fires, takes that one down, too.

  “What’s going on?” Riko demands from her place below.

  “I have no more data than you do.”

  “Is that robot for ‘how would I know’?”

  “No, although that question is entirely valid.” Abel focuses his main attention on the jumble of mechs in the darkness beneath, whose movements make no sense but are too controlled to be random.

  They’re not yet trying to get through to Remedy territory. These mechs have some other target.

  Keeping his blaster ready, he swings the crosshairs forward to the very front of the group, past the far end of the spiral of mechs, all the way to their target.

  The human backlit by the distant emergency beacon glow is approximately five feet six inches in height, female-presenting, with chin-length black hair. Her build—her movements—even the way she runs—

  Abel goes through all the measurements, because he must be sure. He can’t trust his own sensory input; surely it’s only showing him what he wants so badly to see.

  But every detail lines up.

  Identification confirmed.

  Abel leans through the door and shouts, “Noemi!”

  She pauses for one instant, her expression unreadable. That moment is almost enough for the other m
echs to catch her, but she begins running again even as she yells back, “Abel?”

  Within 0.72 seconds, he’s assessed every possible means of rescue and made his decision. He leaps from his vantage point at the stage, plummeting at such an angle that he’s able to grab one of the golden curtain ropes on his way down, tugging the end down after him.

  His feet land on the curved surface beneath as silently and gracefully as a cat. Immediately Abel vaults up to the next level, his path intersecting with Noemi’s. She’s running toward him, a shadow and then herself. When she flings herself into his arms, they collide so hard he nearly loses his footing.

  She’s here. She’s with me. It is the simplest, most basic of facts, and yet Abel has to register it over and over. His consciousness can’t fully process her presence after so many months of longing; he should run a diagnostic later. For now he can only hold on to her.

  Noemi gasps so sharply that he first thinks she’s in pain—but she swings up her blaster and fires behind him. When Abel turns he sees a King mech within two meters of them smoldering and stumbling backward. She destroyed it only a second before it would have destroyed them. His reaction to seeing Noemi again has overridden his most basic safety protocols. They must leave the area of immediate risk before his malfunction endangers them further.

  “Hold on to me,” he says. She does. He jumps back down to the rope and grabs it; Noemi doesn’t have to be told to hang on to his back. They’ve been here before. As fast as possible, he climbs hand over hand, lifting them both up and away from the strange broken mechs below.

  When at last they reach the top, Abel swings them onto a small balcony, only a few feet below the Remedy members. At first Noemi falls to her knees, breathing hard, as if unable to believe her own perceptions either. When he stoops beside her, though, she clutches him close—and finally, finally, he’s in Noemi’s arms again.