by Meg LaTorre
And how she could save Rora and Marzanna.
One strange incident with the chip was a coincidence. Twice was a pattern.
Now that she thought about it, she’d started losing her memories in earnest after her first implant check-in with Celeste.
Perhaps the Forgetting wasn’t an accidental side effect of becoming a cyborg, after all.
Chapter 27
If there was anyone who could make dying look good, it was Rora.
Like the last time Gwen had seen her, Rora lay on her bed with her arms folded delicately across her stomach. Only this time, her fingers rested atop a single red rose. All around the pillow, her curly brown hair was loose. The sight startled Gwen more than anything, as Rora rarely wore her hair down. Her lips were the color of a blooming, pink rose, and her skin glowed as though she’d just spent a day in the sunshine.
Even at death’s door, Rora managed to take Gwen’s breath away.
Guilt burrowed inside her, pulling her attention away from the sleeping beauty. No matter what Rora had done to betray them, it was Gwen’s fault she was here.
Hours earlier, Gwen and Bastian had purchased a portable mainframe with their combined remaining funds. They then snuck into the palace, which took the better part of the day to get to the performers’ dormitories unnoticed. Akio had remained in Rora’s room, standing guard over her while they’d been gone.
Once in Rora’s room, Gwen removed the portable mainframe from the bag they’d stashed it in and set it on Rora’s bedside table. She then instructed Akio to roll Rora onto her side. Afterward, she opened the port and removed Rora’s chip. Like Bastian, Rora’s chip had the same mysterious marbling.
With trembling hands, Gwen inserted Rora’s chip into the small machine, which had a keyboard and screen with bright green text.
This has to work. I can’t fail them again.
Trying to ignore the tap dancer in her chest, she could barely think past the racing of her heart. Green text scrolled across the screen in an endless wave of coding. Gwen was no engineer or mainframe expert, but all tinkerers had to understand basic coding in case machines malfunctioned. She could tweak the coding, but she couldn’t write it.
Nearby, Bastian was on his feet. His cheeks were hollow, his face pale.
“Sit down before you pass out,” she muttered, not removing her eyes from the scrolling text.
Why is there so much fucking coding?
Although she’d anticipated the cyborg implant system to be complex, she’d never realized just how complex. There were data systems for mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors, pain receptors, proprioceptors, and so much more that she couldn’t entirely grasp. It was an entire data pool to ensure the cyborg implant functioned like a biological limb.
After several hours of tapping keys, she’d made it past the basic functions of Rora’s cyborg hand when she spotted something out of the ordinary. “That’s not possible.”
Bastian stood from where he’d slumped on the floor beside her. “What is it? What did you find?”
Barely blinking, not wanting to miss anything, she studied the rolling text on the small screen.
“Rora’s system was rebooted,” she said. “It appears to be an automatic programming for when trauma happens to the implant. Something must have happened before she passed out. The parts of the chip that rebooted included the control of the host’s cognitive function. It’s why she fell into a deep sleep—and likely why Marzanna has, too. This ‘sleep’ allows both the technology and its host to recover. I think I can kick-start the implant system with a simple coding.”
She prayed she was right and that both Rora and Marzanna could still be saved.
At that moment, it didn’t matter that Rora had used her. The acrobat still deserved a chance to live. Everyone did. For now, Gwen shoved her personal feelings toward Rora to the back of her mind. There would be time to address it after she was awake.
Bastian squeezed Gwen’s shoulder encouragingly. But she couldn’t look back. Typing as fast as she could, she restarted Rora’s system. All the while, her heart thundered inside her chest.
Several minutes later, she unplugged the chip and reinserted it into Rora’s head before rolling her onto her back. “That should do it.”
Everyone waited in silence.
Sweat streaming down her face, Gwen lowered herself onto the edge of the bed beside Rora.
Please wake up.
With nothing left to do but wait, her suppressed feelings surged to the surface. Anger raged inside her like a bubbling furnace, mingling with hurt and betrayal. But when she’d told Rora she loved her the other day, she’d meant it. Even if she could never trust Rora again, she needed her to be all right. She needed to know Rora wasn’t going to die because of her.
Time passed, and Gwen prayed on every star she’d ever heard of, asking every god of every religion to help her—if only this once. She knew her soul was likely damned from the blood staining her hands. But Rora didn’t deserve to die because of Gwen’s ineptitude.
Moved by impulse, she leaned down and placed a kiss on Rora’s forehead. Whether or not Rora woke up, things could never go back to the way they were. This kiss was a goodbye to her dreams for the two of them, fleeting as a shooting star.
When she pulled back, Rora opened her eyes, blinking.
“She’s all right!” Akio cried.
Tears streamed down Gwen’s cheeks as relief flooded her chest. But she reined her emotions and stood to her feet, creating distance between herself and the acrobat.
She had done her part to make sure Rora was okay. But this woman had betrayed them to Abrecan and used Gwen to get a new hand. She wasn’t about to forget that nor let her guard down so easily.
Lines formed between Rora’s brows. “Where am I? How long have I been out?”
“One day,” Gwen said, crossing her arms as if that gesture could put a distance between her heart and the beautiful, treacherous acrobat sitting up in bed. “I shouldn’t have tried to install your new hand. It’s my fault you were hurt, and I’m sorry for my part in this.”
Rora paled. “Don’t—I should be the one apologizing.”
Yes, you should.
Instead, Gwen said, “There’ll be time for that soon enough.”
Rora flinched, but Gwen ignored her. “Let’s see to Marzanna’s chip.”
Hours later, Marzanna was awake. At the moment, Akio held her in a hug, crying and swaying, while Marzanna tried to pry herself free. The two trapeze artists were a strange and beautiful sort of family—as harsh as siblings and as fiercely protective as parents.
From where Gwen sat on the edge of the bed, she watched them, smiling.
Bastian ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Would you look at my chip as well? See if you can… remove my old memories?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to remember your past?”
He nodded. “I wasn’t a good man. I… Well, you showed me that I can be a better one now. And I don’t want to lose sight of that.”
That was a blatant cop-out if she’d ever heard one.
What part of his past was he running from?
But who was she to deny Bastian this request? This was his life after all, and she certainly wouldn’t take his choice away. Even if it was clearly a bad choice.
Sighing, she gestured to the bed. “No promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Like the others, he lay down on the bed on his side.
Before she removed the chip, he turned to look at her. Then he reached for her hands, clasping them tightly. For a moment, she was so surprised she forgot to move.
His eyes locked with hers, and she saw deep-rooted fear.
He’s afraid of losing control.
She squeezed his hand tightly. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Then she let go and opened the port at the back of his neck, removing the chip.
As she worked, studying the rolling green text, Akio appeared beside her.
; “I’ve always been skeptical of the ringleader,” Akio said as he studied Bastian. “After today, he’s proven his good intentions in my book.” He looked directly at Gwen. “You did this.”
She frowned, not understanding.
“He’s a different man because of you,” Akio said. “A better man.”
“I didn’t change him,” she said. “People only change if they want to.”
Akio shrugged noncommittally. “People don’t really change. But you gave him a reason to want to change himself. If you asked me a month ago, I would’ve told you not to waste your time and that he couldn’t be changed or reasoned with. But I’m glad, deep down, he wanted to be a better man.”
A smile touched her lips. “Bastian is a good man. Here’s to hoping I can help him.”
His coding was fucking complex. Unlike everyone else’s chips, chunks of text overlapped one another, layering in disorganized patterns. Typing, she scanned the coding.
“Fuck,” she muttered sometime later after staring at the rolling text on the portable mainframe’s screen.
“What is it?” Rora asked.
Gwen scratched the shaved half of her head. “The coding is so damn complex. It’s like the person who created and installed the chip had conflicting intentions with the person who updated it. There are two distinct codings.”
When Rora came to stand behind Gwen, she had to ignore the itch between her shoulder blades at the closeness to the acrobat.
“What do you mean conflicting intentions?”
“It’s as though the person who installed the chip encoded the same functions to Bastian’s chip as everyone else,” Gwen said. “Then, a second person came in and did a second layer of coding.”
His second implant, she realized. The two codings must have been for each of his implants.
Unlike the rest of the circus, Bastian had two cyborg implants. The first was for his heart, while the second implant was a plating protecting his vital organs when he worked with the cyborg animals as an apprentice for the Mistress. Could the person who installed the plating have accidentally written conflicting coding? Or was it intentionally malicious?
“Can you fix it?” Rora asked.
As Gwen exhaled, her heart sank. “No. The two codings are woven over each other. If I try to erase some of the second coding, there’s a good chance I could wipe out his memories or personality. He might not be the same person afterward. This is beyond my skill level.”
Slowly, she unplugged Bastian’s chip from the machine and returned it to his head.
The ringleader sat up in bed, hope filling his eyes. “Did it work?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help you. But I think a qualified engineer, coding specialist, or an actual cyborg tinkerer would be able to do more than I can.”
“I see.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you for trying, Ms. Grimm. It was a kindness I won’t forget.”
As though this week wasn’t full of enough surprises, Bastian swung his legs to the side of the bed where Gwen sat and hugged her. When he pulled away, he cleared his throat and then shook her hand.
“Well, that was awkward for everyone,” Marzanna said, a hint of a smile in her voice. “So… what now?”
“I should apologize.” Rora’s eyes fell to the ground. “Before I passed out, I… I told Abrecan and Thaniel about the plan to sabotage their props. He used an electroshocker on me and must have dumped my body in the room after. He said something about punishing Gwen for not joining his crew.”
Gasps echoed around the room, though every face still held a mark of disbelief.
Realization hit Gwen.
When she first joined the circus, Abrecan had offered her an alliance, and she’d turned him down. In the second competition, she’d forced Abrecan, Thaniel, and the others into a joint victory to save Rora, Marzanna, and Akio from extractions. This must have been how he’d intended to get back at her—by attacking someone she cared about. Or thought she cared about.
He must have intercepted Rora on her way back to her room last night.
But Gwen had seen Abrecan’s note. She knew what Rora had done.
A cold anger seized her chest. The feelings of anger, betrayal, and utter fucking devastation finally caught up with her. “Why? What reason could you possibly have to reveal our plan to Abrecan? I was trying to save your lives!” She swallowed the lump wedged in her throat. “I thought we… that you and I were…”
Endgame.
How could she have been so wrong?
“He threatened to break my hand if I didn’t.” Rora’s cheeks pinked, but she held Gwen’s gaze. “I knew I’d need the help of the tinkerer with my new hand if I was going to get into the top ten acts. After everything I worked toward, after everything you’d done to make me this hand, I couldn’t let Abrecan destroy it. Even if that meant revealing your plan.” Then she broke Gwen’s gaze, eyes growing distant as she studied the floor. “I’m sorry, Gwen. I didn’t mean for it—for you and I—to get this far.”
Gwen’s mouth hung open. She tried several times to speak but couldn’t.
It was true. Rora had betrayed her, used her.
She had known it from the moment Bastian had revealed the circumstances surrounding the circus’s recruitment of Rora. Only someone who was utterly ruthless and calculating—and moderately insane—would cut off their own hand. And anyone willing to cut off a limb for personal gain would be more than willing to use others to their own ends.
But hearing Rora admit that she’d used Gwen, that she hadn’t meant for what they shared to get this far, it was like everything finally hit her.
Whatever they had shared was over. It had been nothing more than a convenient lie, and she’d fallen for it like a fucking fool. She’d fallen for her. Even now, a distant part of her screamed that this was all a dream, that the Rora she knew would never do this to her. But this was life. There were no saints at Cirque du Borge.
Gwen’s heart sank into her boots as the betrayal settled on her shoulders like a physical weight. But she clung to her anger like an anchor, allowing it to fuel her. Without it, she was afraid she would succumb to the dark devastation clouding her thoughts.
“Beyond fucking with me, do you realize you’ve possibly killed some of your friends?” Gwen demanded. “This plan wasn’t just for you. It was for Akio, Marzanna, and all of the other innocent cyborgs. It was to keep you all safe. Do you want me to be forced to remove your hand? Don’t you know what the Mistress has done to the former performers?”
Confusion marred Rora’s features.
With everything going on, Gwen hadn’t had a chance to share her and Bastian’s discovery with them.
“The losing performers are being sold as slaves to flesh traders. That’s where Bastian and I were last night. She sold the performers and their contracts to fucking flesh traders. Do you want to be a slave?”
Rora shook her head. “The Mistress wouldn’t… She said… I never meant to…”
Anger filled Gwen’s chest, making it hard to breathe. “Was any of it real? Or are you still playing me, playing all of us, just so you can get what you want? Are you really that selfish?”
“You’re one to talk!” Rora yelled back. Marzanna placed a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off. Pointing an angry finger at Bastian, Rora fixed her eyes on Gwen. “Even if whatever we shared wasn’t real, you never even gave it a chance. This entire time you were cozying up to management. Is that why Bastian’s really here? Because you paid him off with your—”
“You’d best not finish that sentence.” Gwen’s voice was dangerously quiet. “And not just because you know it’s not true. Bastian risked his life for yours countless times. And how did you repay him?”
By betraying all of them.
“Gwen,” Rora began, “I didn’t mean to tell Abrecan, I swear—”
“Stop lying!” Gwen screamed. “I saw Abrecan’s note. He told us what you did. You betrayed us.” Tears spilled down her cheeks
. “If you were heartless enough to use me for a new hand, then you’d sure as fuck be heartless enough to reveal our plan to Abrecan—just because it got in the way of what you wanted. Fucking patronage.” She spat the last word from her mouth as though it were filth.
“No,” Rora said. “I—”
“Get out,” Gwen said. “Right fucking now.”
“This is my room—”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about this?” Marzanna interjected.
Slowly, Gwen removed her pistol from its holster at her belt. She didn’t aim it at Rora, but the implication was clear. “She’s only going to reveal our plan to Abrecan a second time.” She looked directly at Rora. “You’ve proven that you can’t put me or any of the people you’ve claimed to care about first. You only care about yourself, your stupid hand, and performing for the emperor. So, you can fend for yourself, just as you wanted. But I won’t let you put these people at risk anymore.”
This time, no one objected.
Rora glanced at her friends, eyes pleading. Despite the conflict in their faces—warring between loyalty and betrayal—they looked away. Only one person spoke up.
“This isn’t right,” Marzanna said. She turned to Rora. “Shame on you.” Then she eyed Gwen. “Shame on both of you.”
Without another word, Rora left the room, closing the door behind her. The chatter from performers in nearby rooms filled the hallway.
When Gwen looked at Marzanna, it felt as though her blood was on fire. “What would you have me do?”
“I don’t know,” Marzanna admitted. “But this doesn’t feel right. None of this does.”
No, indeed.
“Living feels right.” Gwen roughly shoved her pistol into its holster and ran a hand over her face. There would be time to process this later. Now, she had to focus on keeping these people alive.
Mind reeling, she ran through all of the possibilities remaining to them for the final competition and made a decision.
“We’ll still sabotage their props, but we’ll need to do it differently,” Gwen said. “We’ll play off their knowledge of our former plans. But there’s something else.”
