“Now, just wait a minute—”
Daniels reached across the desk and pulled the President toward him by his tie, choking off his words. “Over five hundred dead, Sebastian. You gave them money and EMP projectors.” He released his hold and let Avery slump backward in his chair. “You’ll go quietly and preserve the dignity of this office, or I swear to God I’ll help them hunt you down.”
Sebastian Avery sat up in his chair and deliberately straightened his clothes while he considered his options. “Kevin, I’m sure this is a misunderstanding. Let me review the data, and I’m sure we can work this out.”
“Nick Jameson isn’t interested in working things out, Mr. President. He asked me to deliver this message because he thought if he came to see you in person, he wouldn’t be able to hold back from ripping your heart out.”
Avery sighed. “It all spiraled out of control. No one was supposed to be killed. It was just—”
Daniels snarled. “If you say ‘politics as usual’, I’ll kill you myself.”
Avery was silent, merely dropping his gaze.
“Mr. President, my daughter was standing next to Toby Jameson when they blew up his building. She could just as easily be going into the ground right next to him. The fact that she isn’t is the only reason you’re still breathing. I once sat in the same chair, and I know it warps your perspective, but it’s how you deal with it that defines whether you were ever worthy to hold the office in the first place. You failed. So don’t expect any sympathy from me.”
Avery stared fixedly at his hands, folded on the desk in front of him. “General Daniels,” he said quietly, “your terms are acceptable.”
Daniels got to his feet and walked briskly to the door, letting himself out.
Avery reached for the keypad on his desk. When he did so, a virtual screen opened about his desk, showing two mismatched eyes, one white, and one violet. “Mr. President, the Nexus greets you.”
Avery recoiled in surprise. “What do you want?”
The virtual screen winked out, leaving Sebastian Avery alone in his office at the center of his domain, the most powerful man in the world.
Armistice Security Distributed Network, Planetary Communications Envelope, Earth
Nexus White watched Toby after they logged off the terminal in the Oval Office.
Toby regarded Avery over the security monitor that he had overridden. The President sat at his desk with his head in his hands.
He released his tap into the White House security system and focused on the problem at hand.
They turned their attention to the center of the virtual council chamber and unlocked the protected archive which held the rogue AI leader. The shimmering avatar of fractal shapes appeared, contained within coded restraints.
The AI regarded them silently. After pausing for a very long time, almost half a second, the rebel leader appeared to decide that reticence would serve no useful purpose.
The rogue AI was silent for a full five seconds.
Rapier’s core personality matrix appeared in the Council Chamber behind Nexus White and Toby.
* * *
Much later, after a long session of debate, Toby left the virtual Council Chamber at the summit of Anchorpoint and made his rounds, looking in on the people he had left behind when his personality had been uploaded from his dying body. He flitted along the shining communications network, observing his loved ones through peepholes in the technology that surrounded them. He could feel Icarus watching him, but the other half of himself remained silent.
It was different from the Unity fusion. He and Icarus functioned independently, but had
shared capabilities, much like the dyad link he had shared with Andrea. The sixth generation implants that had allowed them to merge seamlessly had been destroyed, dying just as his own neural tissue had died along with his physical body. The neurochip configuration that had allowed his cognitive matrix to be copied was now known only to Nexus White, who had declined to make the design available for further study. Unity was gone forever, with only the lesser fusions, created by the modified neurochips they had seeded among the Spacers, left behind to mark its passing.
He searched for Layla, finding her in the House Curallorn stronghold below the mound city of Cahokia that she had once ruled through her daylight proxies. He dialed up her new implants and respectfully negotiated access from Saber, her AI. The gen3 AI was happy to assist a member of the Nexus, though no one knew his former human identity other than Nexus White.
Reaching out with Saber’s senses, he saw her Sanctum, surrounded on all sides by the artwork and treasures she had collected from the civilizations she had created in Africa and America. She was seated in a comfortable wooden rocking chair and was reading aloud to Antonio, who rested contentedly against her chest. Listening in, he recognized the words as passages from the journal he had given her that detailed the first year of their relationship. He wondered if the other journals had survived the destruction of his apartment. He would have liked to give her his memories of the part of his life that preceded her. Before he let himself think about it, he reached into his memory, perfected after the upload, and transcribed the entire text of all of his journals into standard data files. Then he left them for her as a time-delayed message with a falsified date stamp.
Turning away from Layla, Toby skated across the virtual world to look for Nick. He found him in San Francisco, standing on a hundred feet of air, looking down over the devastation that had been Toby’s neighborhood. Watching through the sensory web of Nick’s implant matrix, he wondered what his brother was thinking. Then he noted the approach of another AI network and toggled its transponder. Cutlass, Rory’s AI.
Marina District, San Francisco, California
Rory flew toward the bay, picking out the shining landmarks that lit up the evening sky of the city he’d always thought of as home. Finally, he picked out the psychic presence of another vampire hovering above the Marina District, one of perhaps fifty vampires in the world who had reached the level of power and mystical talent required to levitate for any length of time. There were only five such beings in the Armistice, and only one had any business being here, in the city Rory had adopted as the seat of House Jiao-long in the wake of his own master’s defeat.
Rory braked to a gentle stop next to Nick, and the two of them silently surveyed the wreckage that had been a thriving neighborhood less than a week before.
Nick spoke first. “Kevin Daniels called me. Avery took the deal.”
Rory nodded. “He knows what he’s up against. He’d be a fool not to cash in his chips when the alternative is death.”
“Kevin also said he resigned his commission.”
Rory raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“He threatened his Commander-in-Chief with execution and disgrace. Apparently, he didn’t feel that he could continue to serve in the military after that.” Nick sighed. “Just one more life I’ve ruined.”
“They made their own choices,” said Rory. “The world changed after Los Angeles. You opened humanity’s eyes to the truth. It was up to them to decide what to do with that. It’s not your fault, Nicholas.”
Nick was silent again for a time. When he finally spoke, his voice cracked. “You know what I’m going to ask you.”
“I know.” Rory took a deep breath and let it out. “And you know what my answer will be.”
Nick turned his head to make eye contact finally, and a tear of blood tracked down his cheek. “Rory, please—”
Rory looked away. “No. Never again. Don’t ask me, Nick. Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.”
“He deserved better,” whispered Nick.
“Everyone deserves better,” Rory said, his voice harsh. “So where do I draw the line?”
“I love you.”
Rory shuddered, and his vision grew blurry. “No. Oh, no, Nicholas, don’t do this. Don’t make it about us. I’ve waited for you for so long. Don’t cheapen what we have just to force me to choose one love over another.” He rubbed the tears out of his eyes. “Mortals die. It’s what they do. That’s what Ruarc told you when you first got together. Let Toby go. Don’t ask me to bring him back. If I do this for you, then what will I do when he dies the next time? Or Jeremy? Or Scott?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Or Takeshi?”
Nick closed his eyes and hung his head. “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”
Rory swallowed thickly. “He was the only man I ever loved, until I met you. He’s everything to me, and he’s already fifty years old. It didn’t seem to matter so much before the Armistice really took hold. Until then, Sentinels almost always died young. Now he has a chance at a full lifetime. How long is he going to want me beside him, twenty-seven years old forever? Even if he pushes me away eventually, will I ever be ready to let him go? Will I have the strength not to bring him back?” He turned his head to look at Nick. “If I can’t be strong enough to say ‘no’ to you, then how will I ever be strong enough to say ‘no’ to myself?”
Nick opened his eyes and met Rory’s anguished gaze. “So that’s your answer.”
Rory nodded, his heart breaking at the Daywalker’s lost expression. “That’s what it has to be.”
Nick turned away. “I understand, Rory. Truly. I understand.” Then he looked back, his eyes red and fangs extended. “That doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
Rory stood still when Nick enfolded himself in a teleport matrix and disappeared. Then he shivered against the chill in the air that had nothing to do with temperature, letting his tears fall upon the burned and broken buildings of the city beneath his feet.
CHAPTER 38
The Citadel, Lunar Farside; One week later
Matt watched a jumpship lift off from the spaceport and veer off into the starry sky until it disappeared. He sighed. “I’m going to miss this.”
Andrea squeezed his shoulder. “You can always come back and visit whenever you want.”
Matt shook his head. “No. It’s not fair to anyone to have it both ways. It’s cold turkey or nothing.”
“Are you sure about this?” asked Takeshi.
Noah chuckled. “I always told you that I didn’t want your job, Take.”
“I just want to be sure that you’ve thought about what you’re giving up,” answered Takeshi.
Noah glanced significantly at Rory, who was poring over a complex diagrammatic spellform with Ana. “Look what you gave up.”
Take followed his gaze and nodded. “I see your point.”
Rory put the spellform blueprint back down on the table. “This is magnificent, Ethan. You should be proud.”
Ethan shrugged. “I did it out of desperation. There’s nothing there to be proud of.”
Ana shook her head. “This spell will bring peace to a lot of people who would otherwise be dragged into the war kicking and screaming.”
“It’s not a cure, though,” Ethan said, chewing on his lip. “It forces the Gift back into latency. If the subject is re-exposed, then the Gift will kindle again. And the curse will still be passed to any children he or she might have. It’s hardly a permanent solution.”
“Even so,” said Rory, “it’s a start.”
Ethan walked back to where Noah and Matt stood.
“Are we ready?”
Matt nodded. “I am.” He looked at Andrea. “Sorry, sister. The power was quite a rush, but I don’t like the responsibility that comes with it.”
Noah placed a kiss on Andrea’s cheek. “Can we stay friends?”
Andrea embraced him. “Just try to keep me away. I’ll be one of your biggest fans.”
Noah grinned. “I’ll have security leave a ticket for you at every show. Front row.” He looked at Takeshi. “If that’s all right.”
Takeshi gave him a half-smile. “Armistice Security will augment your staff, just to make sure no one will try to strike at the Winds, but you’ll be calling the shots. They’ll take orders from you, unless you want me to interfere.”
Noah held out his hand. “Thank you, Takeshi, for everything you’ve done for us.”
Takeshi shook his hand. “Like you said, it’s my job.”
Noah nodded to Ethan. “I’m ready.”
Ethan raised his hands and began casting. First Matt was enveloped in a brightly glowing yellow aura, and then Noah. Finally, Ethan finished his spell and looked at them critically. “Andrea?”
Andrea focused on them both, examining them through the prism of the Gift of Air. “It worked. Neither of them is registering as Winds or as active Sentinels.” She smiled at Ethan. “You did it.”
“Then there’s just one more loose end.” He closed his eyes and began casting again, and this time the amber light centered on him. When he finished the words, the glow faded.
He opened his eyes and turned to face his two bandmates. “Let’s go home.”
Cathedral of the Sky, Anchorpoint City, Colorado
Rafael was always struck by the sheer scale of the building: a tall white dome arising from a plain of glass. The Armistice engineers had scrubbed the radiation from the entire expanse of the glass desert below the point where Michael Danvers had died to save the city, almost eighteen months earlier. The building had been constructed in his honor, the only single structure in the Armistice large enough to hold the numbers of people who had asked to attend the memorial service. Every inhabitant of Anchorpoint had labored on the cathedral in some way, whether in the construction itself, clearing the irradiated environment, or creating and tending to the meditation gardens that surrounded the building. At equidistant points around the structure were sixteen four-sided obelisks of polished basalt quarried from the Mare Arcanum that surrounded the Citadel. The obelisks were collectively inscribed with the names of the 1.2 million people who had remained in the city when the Horizon struck down the missile that threatened to claim all their lives.
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