TRUEL1F3 (Truelife)

by Jay Kristoff

  “L-Lemon?”

  Her heart lurched in her chest. Her belly turned somersaults. Her eyes grew wide, every muscle bunched, ready to turn toward the voice. But she held herself motionless, terrified that if she turned and he wasn’t there, if he wasn’t there, then her heart would just shatter into a million burning pieces and—

  “…Lem?”

  She turned. And there he was, tall and strong and beautiful. Grimm looked like he’d been dipped in ashes, his dark skin paled, his uniform gray. But his dark eyes sparkled as he smiled, and her chest was burning white, and suddenly she was running, running toward him and crashing into his arms, tasting the ashes on his mouth as she kissed him, kissed him and cried and laughed and held him tight enough to make the rest of it, all the hurt and all the death, just fade away.

  “I thought I lost you,” she whispered.

  “You said this wasn’t the end,” he grinned. “Didn’t wanna prove you wrong.”

  She kissed him again, tears and ashes, resting her forehead against his.

  “I lov—”

  BANG.

  Lemon flinched as a shot rang out beside her. Another. And another. Loosening her grip on Grimm’s shoulders, she saw Preacher stalking among the slakedogs nearby, like the angel of death. His pistol was smoking, his armor splashed with gore, his red right hand stained green. She looked to the streets around them, the soldiers working their way through the bodies, executing as they went. Wondering how long the swarm would be disabled for. If it would recover at all.

  She glanced to Crick. Stomach twisting at the awful thought she spoke aloud.

  “…Maybe we should help them?”

  Preacher grinned beside her, plunging his knife into a behemoth’s eye. Twisting the blade as he withdrew it, he looked at Lemon and winked.

  “Well, Red,” he drawled. “I might’ve just got back into the boss’s goodb—”

  A shot rang out. Lemon flinched. Cricket and Grimm shouted warning. Preacher staggered. Turning, the bounty hunter gasped, raising his pistol as another handful of shots cracked in the air.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  Preacher stumbled, clutching the hole in his throat. More shots split the air, BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG. Lemon tried to gather the static to herself, Cricket spooled up his chaingun and Grimm clenched his fists and set the air boiling as a familiar figure stalked out of the smoke to Preacher’s body, lifted her boot and began stomping on his head. And at the sight of her, Lemon found herself wondering where all the oxygen had suddenly gone, feeling sick and elated and just all the way upside down.

  “Riotgrrl,” she whispered.

  Evie’s face was twisted with hate. Blood spattering on her skin as she lifted her boot again, again, bringing it down like a hammer, Preacher’s skull buckling, heel crunching, until there was nothing left of the bounty hunter’s head but a long smear of mush and metal on the concrete.

  “That’s for Ana, you bastard,” Eve spat.

  The girl straightened. Dragged her fauxhawk out of her eyes.

  “Hey, Lem,” she said, simple as that.

  Evie had always been a looker. She’d worn rough-and-tumble clothes in Dregs, camo and romper boots and leather, her hair held up by glue and spit. But Lemon looked at her former bestest now, and she was struck at just how beautiful Evie was. Tall and fierce, blond hair swept back, piercing hazel eyes outlined with thick dark wings. She was dressed all in black, nanoweave hugging her curves. Last time Lem had seen her, one of Evie’s eyes had been cybernetic, a Memdrive implanted in the side of her head. But now the upgrades were gone. And Evie looked just about perfect.

  Lemon wanted to cry. She wanted to charge forward and throw her arms about Evie’s neck and never let go. She wanted to say she was sorry, to tell Evie how much she’d missed her, for everything to go back to the way it was.

  But she looked at her former bestest and remembered the massacre in Armada. Saw that Eve’s hands and boots were painted with blood. And the street smarts in Lem, the part that had grown up hard in the LD sprawl, held still. Forced her to stop.

  Think.

  “Hey, Evie,” was all she managed.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, EVE?” Cricket demanded.

  “Just visiting an old friend.” Eve glanced to the Spire above them, then to the WarBot. “How you been, Crick?”

  “YOU GO TO HELL,” Cricket growled.

  A small smile twisted Evie’s lips. “I missed you, too.”

  “YOU TURNED SOLOMON,” the WarBot spat. “YOU USED HIM TO LET LOOSE LIBERTAS. YOUR LITTLE ROBOTIC REBELLION IN ARMADA ENDED TEN THOUSAND LIVES!”

  Eve looked about the scene, taking in the carnage, listening to the distant gunfire. “Wasn’t me, Cricket. Gabriel infected your friend. Gabriel used him to unleash the virus. Gabriel was behind all of it.”

  “BUT YOU DIDN’T STOP HIM!”

  “No.” She wiped a splash of blood from her face, looked down at the smudge on her fingertips, the smudge at her feet. “No, I guess I didn’t.”

  “Evie…,” Lemon whispered, unsure what to say.

  Eve looked Lemon up and down—the military uniform, the bloodstains and ashes on her skin. She looked at the boy beside Lemon, his glowing eyes, the strange water ripples of heat in the air around them. Lips pursed as she nodded.

  “Looks like you found your spot, Lem. Like you found your people.”

  “It’s a good spot,” Lemon replied, squeezing Grimm’s hand. “Good people.”

  “I’m happy for you.” Eve’s mouth curled in a gentle smile. “I really am.”

  Lemon licked her ashen lips. Searching for something to say. Something to reach across the gulf between them, to touch this girl who’d been her best friend in all the world. This girl who’d been her sister in everything but name.

  “You…you could come back with us?”

  Eve’s smile changed then. For the briefest moment, it became something closer to a sneer. But then it softened, and it saddened, and Lemon looked into her bestest’s eyes and saw how bad she was hurting beneath it all.

  “No, I couldn’t,” she said softly. “I belong in Babel. I belong with my people.”

  Eve turned her stare on the WarBot, her voice hardening.

  “And so do you, Crick.”

  The big logika gave a soft, mirthless laugh. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “I can erase the Three Laws in your code.” Eve took one step forward, eyes pleading. “Don’t you get it? I can set you free.”

  “I AM FREE.”

  “No, you’re not,” she sighed. “You’re still on your knees, the way they made you. You’ll see everything differently once you get your head clear. You’ll see what they’ve done to you. What they’re still doing to you. You don’t get it, Crick.”

  “NO, YOU DON’T GET IT!” he bellowed, making Lemon flinch. “YOU CAN ERASE ALL THE CODE YOU WANT! JUST BECAUSE THAT’D LET ME HURT PEOPLE DOESN’T MEAN I WOULD. JUST BECAUSE I CAN DO SOMETHING DOESN’T MAKE IT RIGHT! YOU KILLED PEOPLE, EVE!”

  “I did what had to be done,” Eve said, waving at the ruined city around them. “For all of us, Crick. Every servant, every slave they built to hold this disgusting little world together deserved a voice. Come with me, you’ll be nobody’s plaything, nobody’s servant, nobody’s toy. Ever again.”

  There was fire in Eve’s eyes as she spoke. Flame and fury. Lemon remembered their time in Los Diablos together, saw the same fight she’d seen in her girl in WarDome. Scrapping and kicking for everything. But this was the same girl who’d loved Lemon like family, who’d given her a home, and Lemon knew that somewhere under that anger, that girl still lived.

  “I get why you’d want payback, Riotgrrl,” Lemon said. “I get why you’d both wanna hurt the world who’d hurt you first. But Gabriel wants to wipe
out the whole human race. And deviate or no, I’m a part of that.” She swallowed hard, looking Evie in the eye. “So if you’re standing with him…” Lemon glanced at the distant soldiers, the WarBot at her back, the boy beside her, rippling with heat. “You might wanna roll. Before you get it rolled for you.”

  Eve stared at Lemon across the bloody ground, the long dawn shadows, the corpses of the swarm. Hazel eyes glittering in the sunlight.

  “So that’s the score, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Lemon nodded slow, spoke soft. “If you don’t wanna come with us, I guess that’s the score.”

  Eve glanced at the WarBot beside Lemon. Pursed her lips.

  “Her over me?”

  Cricket folded his massive arms. “LOOKS LIKE.”

  Eve smiled faintly. “I can’t even be mad at you about it. She’s human. You’re programmed to protect her. You couldn’t turn on her even if you wanted to.”

  “BUT I DON’T WANT TO,” he said, shifting a little closer to Lemon. “YOU DON’T TURN ON THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE, EVE.”

  Lemon’s heart was breaking. Her eyes were full of tears. “I don’t want it to be this way, Riotgrrl. You’re my bestest. First rule of the Scrap, remember?”

  Eve turned her eyes to Lemon.

  “…I remember.”

  “Stronger together?”

  Eve made no reply. Lemon held out her hand. Pleading. Praying.

  “Stronger together!” she shouted.

  All she wanted to do was run to Eve and hug her, beg her, tell her everything would be okay. That everything could be just like it was, that despite all that’d happened, they could go back to what they’d been. The two of them against the world. But she knew that was a lie. She knew where they were both headed. And she knew there was only one way this collision course would end.

  “I guess I’ll see you when I see you, Lem,” Eve said.

  Lemon felt her shoulders sag. Her heart cracking. Tears spilling down her cheeks as she pulled on her braveface and looked at this girl who’d been her sister.

  “Not if I see you first,” she heard herself say.

  Eve smiled at that, the corners of her mouth sharp as the knife twisting Lemon’s insides. And just like that, Eve spun on her heel and stalked off down the street, into the smoke and ashes. Vanishing like a ghost.

  Lem was aching to see Evie so twisted. So full of rage. Hurting and screwed up so badly. But Lemon also knew this was Eve’s decision. One of the first she’d ever truly been able to make. The final battle was waiting for them at the broken walls of Babel. Gabriel’s madness had to be stopped. This was a war none of them could escape, and right or wrong, Evie had picked a side.

  Lemon had, too.

  It just killed her to know they were on opposite ones.

  * * *

  _______

  Turns out Evie had murdered the entire Daedalus board.

  Danael Drakos had been found strapped to a chair in the VR suite of the Daedalus Spire, ’trodes rammed into his temples, mouth open in an endless scream. Daedalus Technologies was leaderless, its capital a hollow shell. Its army was in ruins—a few hundred men, maybe a dozen functional machina, and a handful of flex-wings. They wouldn’t be much help, but they knew what was at stake. And so the young captain leading their remnants—a woman named Murano, who’d witnessed Lemon save the lives of hundreds of troopers on the Wall—told the girl she’d muster what force she could and meet the freaks near Babel in three days’ time.

  Gabriel had to be stopped.

  Grimm was exhausted, shaking, weak, but Lemon reckoned she had a concussion and reminded Grimm she was a terrible driver. So, with Cricket riding in the trailer, Grimm motored them back to Miss O’s, fast as he could fang it. They arrived around noon the day after the fall of Megopolis. Pulling up to the barren stretch of desert she’d come to think of as home, Lemon felt ready to sleep for a thousand years.

  Until she saw them climbing up out of the hatchway.

  Deez had taken the time to do her face, black lips smiling, charcoal eyes shining as she ran across the sand and flung herself into Grimm, the boy grunting in pain as they collided. She grabbed Lemon, too, hauled her into the hug, the tears spilling down her cheeks making a grade-A slaughterhouse of her makeup.

  “Good to see you, freak,” Grimm murmured, squeezing her tight.

  “You too, freaks,” she murmured, sniffing thickly.

  “…WHERE’S ABE?” Cricket asked, looking around the compound.

  Diesel looked up at the big bot, just shook her head.

  “…OH,” he said.

  Lemon felt a dull ache inside her at the thought of Abraham dying. She hadn’t known him well, but she knew Crick had been awful fond of the kid, and despite being raised by the Brotherhood, Abe had always struck her as a good sort. His death was just one more blow to add to the gut punches she’d lived through over the last week. She wondered how much more they all could stand to lose.

  After a good, long hug, eyes closed and just letting herself feel it, she pulled herself free of Diesel’s arms. Shoving her hands into her pockets, she sauntered over to where Ezekiel stood, his lips twisted in that oh-god-he’s-swoony smile.

  “Hey, Freckles,” he said.

  “Hey, Dimples,” she grinned.

  Lemon crash-tackled him around the waist, and despite all his strength and speed, Ezekiel relented, going down with her into a heap on the sand. She squeezed him tight, kissed his cheeks, punched him repeatedly in the arm. Grimm ambled over and sat down on the warm sand with them, Deez, too, Cricket looming nearby with shoulders slumped.

  They let the magic of the moment wash over them for a while. Let the odds they’d beaten sink into their bones. The last two CorpStates in the Yousay had crumbled, and somehow, they’d survived. Mostly, anyways.

  It was nothing short of a miracle, true cert.

  But one by one, soon all of them were looking north. North, toward that glittering spire of ghosts and glass. That graveyard of Nicholas Monrova’s dream, now twisted into a nightmare in the hands of his vengeful children. They’d fought hard as they could, given everything they had. But the world was still asking more of them. And each of them knew if they just sat here and did nothing, if they let Gabriel fashion his army of lifelikes, see his robotic revolution to fruition, there wouldn’t be a world left for any of them much longer.

  “We saw Evie, Dimples,” Lemon said. “In Megopolis.”

  He nodded slow. Licked his lip. “How’d she look?”

  Lemon thought about that. About the girl who’d taught her not everyone has an angle. Who’d shown her not everyone gives without wanting a taking. The girl Lemon had called her “bestest” when she really meant “sister.” She thought about the hurt Eve had suffered and the hurt she’d given, the girls they’d been and the girls they’d become. And then she supposed neither of them were girls anymore.

  How’d she look?

  “Lost,” Lemon sighed.

  * * *

  _______

  They rested for a day.

  Diesel knew that prettyboy didn’t need it. Or the rustbucket, either, for that matter. But after their expenditure of power during the Megopolis and CityHive attacks, the freaks were almost dead on their feet. Twenty-four hours to recover didn’t seem like a huge ask, given the capital T they were headed for. And while some of the noises coming from Lemon’s room last night made Diesel deeply suspicious about the actual recovery being undertaken by Grimm and Fresh behind that closed door, she supposed she couldn’t begrudge them a little fun.

  They’d probably all be dead tomorrow.

  Diesel was up in sat-vis, boots on the console, snaffling down what might be her last serving of freeze-dried ice cream in this life. Looking at the feeds of the little lifelike empire of Babel, she could see the army of rebel logika waiting for them—big Goliaths an
d Daishōs and…well, she didn’t know the makes and models of the others, talking true. She’d never been a tech-head. But the turncoat logika from the Daedalus army, along with a bunch of other newcomers, were all posse’ed up outside the Gnosis capital, waiting to meet and greet anyone who came knocking with a big old titanium boot to the soft parts.

  The freaks needed an edge.

  They had the remnants of the Daedalus army meeting them, sure. But a couple of hundred ground-grunts and some machina weren’t gonna cut through all that metal. They needed more bodies if this insane plan of Fresh’s was gonna work. And so, Diesel scoffed down the last third of the ice cream (urg, strawberry, septic), swallowing it along with her pride, and thumbed the transmit button.

  “I wanna talk to Sister Dee,” she said.

  Static in answer.

  “Hey, psycho lady. You there?”

  …Nothing.

  Diesel glanced at the channels, wondering if she was on the right freq. Nobody had touched them since Abe was last down here, so this should have been th—

  “Who’s this?” came a faint, static-tinged reply.

  Deez leaned forward, pressed the transmitter again. “I don’t waste minutes jawing with lackeys, Brotherboy.”

  “That a fact?” the voice chuckled.

  “True cert. Now get the boss bitch on. We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  Diesel clenched her teeth. Wondering if they’d really got desperate enough to ask the devil to dance.

  Can’t believe I’m doing this…

  “Her son,” she replied.

  Grace wasn’t beautiful.

  She was too much for a word as simple as that. There was too much history, too much gravity, too much potential in her for beautiful. Watching the final flourishes being added to her face—the long, lush curl of her lashes, the gentle swell of her lips—Faith could only think of one word to describe Grace.

  Radiant.

  She was suspended in liquid, soft light, the glittering forms of tiny nanites swimming in the pale pink fluid about her. In the other tanks lining the walls, the others were almost complete. Patience and Verity. Uriel and Daniel. Raphael and Hope and Michael. Soon they’d be a family again. ’Trodes at their temples, eyelids fluttering as their personae were uploaded. All their memories, all their thoughts, all they’d been. They’d wake soon, Grace among them. It would only be a matter of hours. And Faith was more afraid of that thought than anything else in the world.