“Do you know what…?”
“Yes, my father explained everything and I don’t need you trying to explain it a second time,” Olivia said. “Dr. Gatling is about to ascend and we’ve all come to wish him well on his journey to the higher plane of existence.”
“They’re putting Dr. Gatling into that thing?”
“No, Dr. Gatling is going willingly into a new life as he has outgrown this one.”
“Your father put a mad man in the very shell he’s about to put Dr. Gatling into!”
“My father is a deeply emotional and highly intelligent man with a greater understanding of the world than I ever gave him credit for,” Olivia said, “while your father is just a warlord in a world that values warlords more than philosophers.”
The accusation stung Claudia more than she thought it could. If her father was just a warlord, then she was just a warlord’s daughter and sole heir to a bloody throne. It was a shift in Olivia’s opinion of the world that surprised Claudia. No longer did Olivia wish to be like Commander Marceau and look upon her own father, Professor Kingston, with disdain. She’d learned more of both men and made a startling choice in Claudia’s estimation. The shock and hurt, clearly visible on Claudia’s face, tempered Olivia’s anger.
“You don’t understand what it is to be part machine,” Olivia said, her voice lowering to a softer, explanatory tone, abandoning the harsh edge of accusation. “Dr. Gatling and I have lived for years now in a hybrid state, relying on mechanics for what our flesh and blood could no longer do. The Transcended are the next logical step in this process. Even you must have known this on some level as my father said that you said destroying the shell was too much.”
“I can’t…”
“No, you can’t see and you probably never will,” Olivia said. “Dr. Gatling is dying. Normally, they would not allow a person to ascend simply to save their life, but it has long been believed that Dr. Gatling was ready for his ascension and so the rules have been amended in his case. I am only sorry I will never be able to follow my father into the higher plane.”
“Why not?” Claudia asked. She didn’t understand, but the tone of Olivia’s voice spoke of a true longing and part of Claudia wanted her to have what she wanted even if she didn’t understand.
“A soldier’s mind is altered by war in ways that make it forever incapable of certain things,” Olivia said. “One of these things is the ascension to the higher plane. This was discovered in the autopsy of what remained of Inspector Cavanaugh’s brain. My mind will forever be tarnished by the things I’ve done in battle. Violence ruins the parts of our minds required to see the world with loving eyes, which is paramount for the Transcended. You’re ruined, I’m ruined, and your father is completely ruined. I didn’t understand this truth about the commander until your father explained the math of killing so many to protect you; killing is a physical exercise from him, disconnected from morality of any kind. My father still has a beautiful mind capable of seeing altruism and aestheticism in the world. Shouldn’t we want minds like that to persist?”
“I suppose…” Claudia said. Whatever else she might have said didn’t matter and she knew it. She felt far dirtier after Olivia’s explanation of what was truly wrong with Claudia and her father than she had even after the entirety of Coit Tower and most of Telegraph Hill was dumped onto her. She wandered away stunned and confused until the grad student woman took her by the arm to guide her back to the elevator.
She couldn’t tell the Ravens what really went on in the Keeper’s sanctuary and she knew her father wouldn’t want to either. She suspected the Keepers and the Transcended had ways of defending themselves, isolating their underground world if the need should arise, but Claudia also knew the world, specifically the City of Broken Bridges, would suffer far more in the severing of that bond.
Winter was coming, the season of slaughter where the warm blooded humans would gain the advantage over the cold blooded Slark, and she knew when the Ravens pushed south toward Los Angeles, she needed to be with them. She hoped to put a lot of distance between herself and the City of Broken Bridges before spring broke.
Chapter 35:
Epilogue.
The conversation with Olivia clung to Claudia long after Dr. Gatling made his ascension. The math of war Claudia’s father used, described so harshly by Olivia, put people’s lives in danger if Claudia should remain in the City of Broken Bridges. When Bancroft and her burned husband, the Owl, made their brief appearance in the new Raven city to deliver a flag and officially welcome Commander Marceau into the flock as the first Black King, Claudia made her decision to rejoin the army she’d abandoned. It was a little surprising to her how easily they accepted a male figurehead, although she also knew no man had ever had so much to offer the Ravens.
Dylan was more than happy to welcome Claudia back into the Voron Daggers and promised to allow visits to the City of Broken Bridges whenever Claudia got to missing her father. “Just let us know when you need some family time and we’ll work something out,” she’d said. “We don’t want to have to chase you down again since you’ve got quite the knack for making it a long way before anyone knows you’re gone.”
Despite every desire to bring Roger with her, Claudia left the marvelous German shepherd in her father’s care. As they parted ways, she took the dog’s face in her hands and instructed him to defend her father with his every breath. She didn’t think she needed to even give the order for the loyal dog to carry it out after seeing what Roger was capable of when it came to guarding his master. She hugged her father next and told him to take care of her dog until she came to visit. Letters from the front would let him know when she could get a bit of leave time.
The bombing run on the Slark by the fledgling Raven air force made good headway in scattering the three divisions of troops beyond the wall, but didn’t have the decimating effect everyone hoped they would. The Ravens used the City of Broken Bridges as a staging point for the push south down the peninsula, and Claudia joined the Voron Daggers as the tip of the spear, relying heavily on her experience in the wilds with Liam. The march south included a stop at the little league fields south of Half Moon Bay to find and bury what remained of him. The distance Claudia thought she had from the tragedy evaporated and she wept openly not only for Liam, but Veronica as well when they finally laid the Scottish footballer to rest.
†
Olivia wore her wedding band on her right ring finger so whenever she held Esme’s hand their rings would click against each other. As they rode one of the many strange street cars through the chilly fields of winter tilling done when the rains softened the soil, she lifted Esme’s hand to her lips to kiss it. They looked upon one another and smiled.
The Dr. Gatling Transcended had a few moments of recognition when it came to Olivia in the weeks after the ascension, but the instances faded quickly and he became just like all the others, looking into a world beyond humanity with a single, hopeful blue eye. Olivia had thought this would mean she would need to find another way to repair her leg, but a couple days after the Dr. Gatling Transcended stop recognizing her, she found her old leg completely repaired and upgraded, sitting on her porch.
Her wedding with Esme was a city wide affair. Bruce Coffey served ably as her best man/maid of honor. Her father gladly gave her away, joking he was glad to make his hard-headed daughter Esme’s permanent problem. Olivia had nearly forgotten her father’s wonderfully irreverent sense of humor until his hilarious toast to the happy couple. She and Esme almost immediately started screening possible sperm donors for their first child. Esme insisted she be the one to carry their first baby, although she made it very clear to Olivia the next one was hers and that they wouldn’t be waiting too long. The renewal of her relationship with her father gave Olivia more hope in having a large family where she formerly would have felt unease at the expansive plans Esme had for building their family.
The street car wound through the former battlefields of the week-long civil w
ar following Commander Marceau’s nearly catastrophic, but ultimately successful, coup attempt. The trenches, bunkers, and barbwire were replaced with the new refineries meant to create Slark fuel and munitions. The Transcended Dr. Gatling worked constantly on building automated systems to create the fuel from raw materials inserted by workers and even began constructing other machines that would build his wonderful weapons in large numbers. He was the closest thing the city had to a true guardian Transcended even when he was alive, and after his ascension his efforts were no longer hampered by his physical disability or the pesky need for sleeping and eating he’d always complained about getting in the way of his work.
As they rounded the new refinery, heading down to the old wharf to oversee the creation of the fishing fleets the Ravens commissioned, Olivia caught sight of the familiar Transcended. She pressed her hand to the glass in something of a wave to the Transcended Dr. Gatling. The giant, bronze robot stopped in its work of welding together an elaborate pipe system. It waited patiently for a handful of crows that had landed on its arms. The jet black birds took their time while the Transcended held perfectly still; finally the crows took wing to hunt bugs and snails in a nearby fallow field and the Transcended resumed its work.
The End
Continue the Raven Ladies Saga Winter of 2012 With the Next Installment:
About the Author Cassandra Duffy spent most of her childhood being precocious, which stopped being entertaining or impressive when she grew into an adult, at which point she had to start being precious. After being an outcast child prodigy it was no surprise when she graduated from one of the many fine University of California schools a year early to follow her girlfriend in a cross country move.
She writes a free-lance sex advice column found in various lesbian magazines and dating websites. Her short story collections and novels can be found on her website.
Two of her greatest prides are being a true California girl and author of some truly naughty things. She is a dutiful partially-Asian daughter who is beloved by her fairly traditional Korean father who thinks having a gay daughter is just fine as long as she keeps playing coed flag football. She is a stereotypical younger sister, and an adoring aunt of a hilarious little boy. Being a modern techno-freak, gamer-girl, she spent most of her childhood dreaming of being a video game designer, but changed her mind and brought her dreams of world building and story-weaving to writing unique romance novels.
Cassandra is a gleefully monogamous girlfriend to an earthbound goddess who was once her high school bully, but has done a magnificent job of making up for all the school girl nastiness ever since. When she isn’t being an avid fang girl (vampire fan girl) or tormenting people in online gaming, she lives and writes in Winter Park, Florida with her partner and soul mate Nichole and their two cats: Dragon and Josephine.
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The Steam-Powered Sniper in the City of Broken Bridges (The Raven Ladies Book 2) Page 34
