by Jay Kristoff
Explosions.
“Gabriel?” she called.
“M’here,” he replied behind her.
They were pushed into an elevator, dropping swift, the alarms increasing in pitch and intensity. She wanted to ask what was happening, but she knew the logika wouldn’t answer, so tried instead to piece together the puzzle alone. Eve could hear more explosions, a low-pitched hum. The building rocked suddenly, like something had struck it, the unsettling patter of falling debris dancing on the elevator’s roof.
The lift shuddered to a halt, doors opening into a sub-basement. Eve saw armored personnel carriers, CorpTroopers in hulking suits of power armor. Drakos was there, too, wearing a perfectly cut suit, dark hair swept back from his widow’s peak.
“Get us to Central, red lights all the way.”
“Yessir,” replied a trooper, his voice rasping through his voxbox.
“Sir, they’ve breached perimeter one,” murmured another beside him.
Drakos met Eve’s burning stare, his eyes narrowed.
Megopolis is under attack?
But who is “they”?
“Let’s move, people,” Drakos ordered.
Eve and Gabe were bundled into the back of an APC, their grav-chairs locked in place. She met her brother’s eyes, saw his pupils dilated, arms tensed—Gabe was ready to jump the first chance they got. Alarms were still screaming, the building shuddering, the sound of the ground beneath their tires changing pitch as they barreled up from the sub-basement and into the Megopolis streets.
They were thirty seconds into the journey when something hit them: a bone-jarring impact, a deafening crash. The APC slewed sideways, Eve bit down on her tongue, blood flooding her mouth as they flipped, tumbling end over end, coming to a squealing, shuddering halt.
She found herself hanging upside down in her chair, the troopers about her unbuckling and dropping down to the ceiling of the overturned vehicle. As they kicked open the door, she smelled acid, heard a rush of wind, radios squealing, automatic weapons firing. Eve tugged against her restraints, felt a slight give under her right hand. Her pulse was hammering. She needed to get out. Jaw clenched, teeth gritted, she flexed her right arm, muscles corded, tendons standing out in her neck, Gabriel watching on, willing her to pull harder. She was stronger than them—these humans, these insects, who’d locked her up and chained her down. She reached into the pool of her rage and indignation and drew deep, metal squealing, rivets popping, flesh bruising, and with a bright snapping sound, she finally tore her arm free.
Her other arm followed, then her boots, allowing her to drop down to the ceiling. There was more screaming coming from outside, the sound of something heavy moving, explosions shaking the ground, boom boom boom. She tore Gabriel loose, swallowing the blood in her mouth, and supporting his weight, she staggered out into the Megopolis streets.
Old-world squalor with a new-world paint job. But it wasn’t the sight and smells of the Daedalus capital that made her gasp, eyes widening in surprise. It was the sight of the things tearing that capital apart. She recognized a few of the shapes—the wasplike silhouettes of Hunter-Killers, the airborne bulk of Lumberers. The ground rippled with swarms of bioengineered dogthings with too many legs and too many teeth, and great, hulking creatures as big as houses, spitting gouts of corrosive green on the Daedalus troops.
And there among them, hands spread, blood-red bangs hanging in bright green eyes, was a sight Eve never thought she’d see again.
A girl she’d once called “bestest.”
“Lemon,” she breathed.
She turned toward Eve, clad in black—all dark rubber and strange nodules and smooth organic lines. The ground around her was swarming, the skies bristling.
“Riotgrrl,” she said, grinning and rolling her r’s.
The creatures hissed warning, and Eve saw a squadron of Goliaths lumber around the edge of a nearby building, laser sights cutting the dark, missile pods unfurling. The BioMaas constructs shuddered and roared. Gabriel grabbed Eve’s hand, ready to bolt. And Lemon raised her right hand. The air sang with current, ozone crackling on Eve’s tongue. And with the snapcracklepop of cooking circuitry, all three Goliaths tottered and crashed dead onto the road.
Lemon turned back to Eve, holding out her hand. “We need to jet.”
“…What are you doing here?” Eve demanded.
“You mean aside from being absolutely amazing?” Lemon grinned, brushing the dust off her freckles. “I came here for you, stupid.”
The girl’s smile was wide, her eyes shining, and somewhere deep inside, Evie’s heart of hearts sang to see her. She looked to the city about her, the wailing sirens, the burning buildings, the skies swarming. Gabriel was watching Lemon with narrowed eyes, clearly distrustful. But if Eve’s former bestest was offering a ticket out of this prison, any other questions could wait….
“It’s good to see you, Lem,” she whispered.
“Kiss my cherry lips later,” Lemon replied. “For now, come on.”
Beckoning with one hand, the girl stalked across the melted asphalt. Eve and Gabriel followed, swarming dogthings seething around them, H-Ks filling the skies. A squadron of Daedalus flex-wings zoomed overhead, missile pods opening wide. Lemon curled her fingers, and the fliers tumbled from the sky, crashing to the road in flames. A building beside them exploded, a high-velocity shell ripping through the glass and concrete. Down the end of the burning street, Eve made out the shapes of a half dozen grav-tanks, turrets aimed right for them. And as she watched, dumbfounded, Lemon opened her hand and fried them with a glance.
Eve looked to Gabriel, who simply stared in disbelief.
“Come on!” Lemon called.
The chaos was overwhelming. The skies filled with fire, Eve’s lungs burning with smoke. But as she followed her bestest through the battle-sick streets, watching as Lemon fried another squadron of flex-wings, short-circuited the power armor of twenty Daedalus CorpTroopers, dropped another grav-tank a dozen blocks away, Eve began to feel more and more uneasy.
Thankful as she was at the thought of salvation, confusing as the mayhem was, Eve had never seen Lemon’s gift reach so far and so easy before. Sure, they’d been apart, but it had only been a week or so since they’d seen each other. For Lemon to have become so strong in so short a time was just…
“You remember when we used to rip street-vendors together back in Los Diablos?” she called. “You’ve come a ways from snaffling cans of Neo-Meat™, kid.”
Lemon tossed her bangs from her eyes and grinned. “Been practicing.”
…it was just unbelievable.
Eve came to a stop, there in the burning street, the raging chaos. Gabriel tugged her hand, urging her onward. Lemon turned to look at her, head tilted, hand on her hip. The BioMaas constructs spat and howled, the explosions rippled in the air, warm on her skin, every bit as real as anything she’d ever known.
“We never ripped street-vendors together.”
Eve looked up into the burning sky, hands curling into fists.
“Stop this right now, you bastards.”
The battle raged a moment more, blood in the gutters, ashes in the skies. Then time slowed, grinding down second by second until it stuttered to a halt, like someone had hit the pause button on a playback. The flames were frozen into beautiful abstractions, the smoke solidified into shapes like clouds, the chaos of the attack rendered in freeze-frame all around her. She released Gabriel’s hand, chest boiling with fury as the image of Danael Drakos coalesced on the concrete before her. He wore a white suit, immaculate as always, bringing his hands together in a small but polite round of applause.
“Bravo, Miss Monrova.”
For a second—one perfect, burning second—she wanted to just reach out and crush him. Squeeze him. Feel him break under her hands again. But that, like everything else in here, would be a l
ie. And the fury of that, of being deceived again, and again, and again, was almost enough to choke her.
“You seem to be experiencing extreme emotional distress, Miss Monrova,” Drakos said mildly, glancing at his wrist implant. “Would you prefer a more serene tableau?”
The scene shifted, rippling in that now-familiar pattern, and once more, they stood together on that awful, perfect beach. Looking down the sands, Eve saw a familiar figure in the water. Blood-red bangs hanging over Lemon’s eyes, a healthy tan on freckled skin, shrieks of delight as the waves crashed around her ankles.
Eve blinked away hateful, stinging tears.
“Why?” she whispered.
“You refused to answer our questions about Miss Fresh, Miss Monrova. And while we could eventually rip the information we need about her capabilities from your broken mind, our timeline is now rather pressing. You’d be astonished at the kinds of information that can be gleaned from involuntary motor responses. Heart rate. Pupil dilation. Respiration. We can tell when you think you’re being told a lie. By observing your biological responses in the face of more and more vulgar displays of your friend’s power, we could at least glean where the threshold of her limitations might be.” Drakos studied his fingernails. “And prepare accordingly.”
“She’s not my friend,” Eve whispered. “She’s a cockroach.”
“We can also tell when you’re lying, by the by.” Drakos glanced at his wrist again, tapped a glowing sigil beneath his skin. “Do we have everything we need?”
Drakos waited for an answer. Eve stood there in the sunlight, watching Lemon playing in the water. Stomping in the shallows, her eyes bright and shining.
She’s not my friend.
Drakos tapped at his wrist again.
“Excellent. Inform Tactical I want recommendations in an hour.”
The scene rippled before Eve’s eyes. The beach faded, the hush and crash of the ocean dropped into silence. And as she disappeared, too, the image of Lemon fading and finally becoming nothing at all, Eve had to try awfully hard not to feel like she was losing her all over again. Struggle not to remember their days in Los Diablos together, the good times and the bad, both made better by her just being there.
She had to remind herself Lemon had lied, just like the rest. That she’d betrayed her, just like the rest. That no matter what they’d shared, what they’d been, just like the mirage around her, it hadn’t ever been real. It wasn’t anything at all.
She’s not your friend, Eve told herself.
She’s not your friend.
* * *
______
Familiar weightlessness. The sensation of a silent sea.
Eve opened her eyes, saw she was sitting on that same soft chair in that same lab. Tech logika looming around her, white light and white walls. As the rest of the room slowly came into focus, she saw Danael Drakos in a chair opposite, being helped by his small army of flunkies. The CEO blinked, climbed to his feet.
“You absolute bastard,” Eve whispered.
Drakos glanced at her, eyebrow slightly raised. He signed a data pad with his finger, handed it back to a flunky. “We’ll commence after I’ve assessed Tactical’s report. Send the subject back to her cell, prep her for surgery in one hour.”
“Surgery?” Eve growled. “What damn surgery?”
Drakos signed another pad, spoke in his brisk, matter-of-fact tone.
“We’ve devised a rather elegant solution to the problem of your brainwave patterns, Miss Monrova.” He nodded to a modified set of silver ’trodes laid out on a nearby bench. “A heavily augmented wetware interface to mask the…inhuman nature of your biology? The modified synaptic resonance, combined with topographical data from the real Ana Monrova, should prove sufficient to foil Monrova’s safeguards on the Myriad supercomputer.” He gave an apologetic wince. “Unfortunately, we really only need one part of you for it to function. And several of my colleagues in Weapons Development have an interest in the…rest of you.”
A sour fear uncoiled in Eve’s stomach. She glanced at the robots around her, faceless, nameless, pitiless.
Elegant solution.
She looked back to Drakos. “Now you wait just a—”
“Understand, I hold Nicholas Monrova in the highest respect,” Drakos said. “And whatever price you ultimately pay, it will be for the betterment of his dream.”
The CEO of Daedalus Technologies spun on his heel and, surrounded by his tiny suited legion of doom, strode from the room. Frustration boiling over, Eve thrashed once against her bonds, then fell still. If looks could have killed, Danael Drakos would have been nothing but a smoking pair of shoes. But watching the man walk away, Eve was left only with her burning rage.
This is not good.
And her growing fear.
This is not good….
“Oh no,” Ezekiel breathed.
In a dingy alleyway in the Megopolis Hub, Ezekiel was crouched on damp concrete, watching any chance he had of getting Ana back go up in smoke. Faith and Solomon were beside him, the stink of smoke and sewage rising from the manhole cover behind them, and Zeke’s heart was sinking down into the floor.
“Didn’t think I’d be seein’ you again after that nuke exploded,” Preacher smiled. “Ain’t this a plot twist.”
The bounty hunter tipped back the brim of his black cowboy hat. Ezekiel saw his face was battered and bruised, a faint smudge of red still on his chin—he looked like he’d had the crap beaten out of him. But still, Preacher was every kind of trouble, and after that explosion they’d set off in the sewers below, trouble was already on the way. Zeke knew he had to do this quiet and quick. His power armor whirred as he tensed, and Preacher had his pistol out in a flash, aimed at Ezekiel’s face.
The bounty hunter touched his ear, blinking rapidly as he glanced at the open manhole cover behind them. “Report comin’ in over the Daedalus network. Explosion in the sublevels.” He met Ezekiel’s eyes. “Here for your girlie, huh? You always were an idiot, Zekey.”
Faith drew her pistol, aimed it at the bounty hunter’s head.
“In about thirty, maybe thirty-five seconds,” Preacher said, unperturbed, “the first wave of sec-drones are gonna arrive overhead and tag you. The bullyboys from Domestic-Security will arrive a little after that. And they’ll just keep comin’ till you’re dead. Way I see it, you got one way out of this.”
Ezekiel glanced back to the manhole they’d crawled out of, but Preacher shook his head and smiled. The split in his lip oozed blood.
“Not that way. You don’t wanna leave your girlie behind, do ya, Zekey?”
“PARDON ME FOR ASKING, THEN, SIR,” Solomon said. “BUT WHAT IS THIS ONE WAY?”
Preacher spat blood on the asphalt and chuckled.
“Me, a’course.”
“Are you insane?” Ezekiel hissed. “After everything you did—”
“Fifteen seconds, Zekey. I’d put my helmet back on if I were you. You ain’t got much of a poker face. And I’m gonna have to talk a mighty sweet game here.”
Ezekiel looked at Faith. His sister tightened her grip on her pistol, shook her head. But somewhere in his chest, Zeke knew the bounty hunter wasn’t lying—at least about the immediate danger. Sec-drones were definitely on their way. Running now, they were bound to get spotted, and the whole city would come down on their heads. They’d blown their chance at stealth. Their only chance now…
“Nest, this is Goodbook.” Preacher pressed the side of his throat and stalked into the alley, pistol still in hand. “Repeat, this is Goodbook. Possible security breach at current location, need eyes in the air and boots on the ground, over.”
Ezekiel heard a low buzzing, quickly slammed on his helmet to cover his face. Faith did the same as a small drone on twin rotors appeared through the smog overhead, surveying the scene with its camera. Another drone qui
ckly joined the first, and soon he heard screeching tires, the sound of heavy boots running. Preacher grabbed Solomon’s arm, jerked the logika over to stand beside him.
“Listen close,” he growled. “You confirm everything I say if these men question you, or I’m gonna murder every single one of them, you understand me?”
“…AH, PERFECTLY,” the logika replied.
The bounty hunter nodded, looked sidelong at Ezekiel.
“You follow my lead, too, Zekey,” he murmured through his busted lip. “And I know this is a difficult request, but try not to do anything stupid.”
Ezekiel’s mind was racing, adrenaline souring his tongue. This man had betrayed him once before—he’d have to be insane to trust him again. But with the mess they were in…what choice did they have? They could cut and run, but even if they made it out alive, that’d mean leaving Ana, and there was no way Faith wo—
Floodlights cut through the rolling steam and smog, and a squad of Daedalus troopers stormed into the alley. Their armor was marked with a long red stripe, the words DOM-SEC stenciled down their breastplates. They carried riot shields, grim faces protected behind transparent visors.
“Nobody move!” the man leading them barked.
“Take it easy, LT,” Preacher drawled, hands out to placate them. “I just called this in. I’m an operative, call sign Goodbook. Credentials here in my coat.”
The lieutenant glanced at Zeke and Faith in their Daedalus armor, over to the manhole cover, back to Preacher. “Get ’em out real slow.”
Preacher complied, lifting a small rectangle of plastic from his duster. Faith flashed her CorpCard, too, and after a moment’s hesitation, Ezekiel followed her lead. The troop leader took the Preacher’s credentials while his men checked the area, peered down the open manhole.
“Looks like that’s where they got in,” Preacher grunted, nodding.
“Get a look at ’em?” the LT asked.
“Naw.” Preacher nodded to Zeke and Faith. “We been drinkin’ in Bliss all night. Just got the alert over the network, heard a ruckus, come for a look-see.”
