by Sara King
David wasn’t your father, Wideman agreed. He was only fulfilling an obligation to keep you safe. David was bitter because the process wouldn’t work for him. Only a few very strong-willed were able to pass themselves on. Daytona Dae was one. Your father was another. David resented that. He tried for many years, but it never took. He considered it a personal failing, and subconsciously took it out on his superior’s kids.
Anna twisted to face Wideman, frowning.
Wideman Joe, for a brief instant, wasn’t the greasy-haired loon she remembered. Instead, he was young, muscular, hale. He gave her a smug look before he morphed back to the withered, wild-haired image she remembered of him. Or, in your case, a beast.
The scene was suddenly yanked from her reach.
“I have the power of a sun in this crystal, Dobie. All I’ve gotta do is drop it, and boom, that cute little planet down there launching its armadas at us is no more.” This time, Anna’s duplicate was a teenager. She held up a dark purple Kelthari crystal in specially-designed, insulated gloves. Outside the ship, a blue and green planet riddled with glimmering silver cities could be seen through the window.
A much-upgraded Dobie was standing there, frowning out the window. “Wouldn’t it be just as effective to have taken the power of their star into the crystal? The planet would be dead within days, and it would allow most of them to escape.”
Panicked to find herself in yet another vivid reenactment, Anna scrambled over to Dobie and tried to grab his arm, but her fingers passed right through his nannite skin. “Dobie!” Anna cried. “Dobie, please help me! What’s happening to me?!”
The beast sees two paths ahead of it. One blocked by brambles, one blocked by corpses. Which does it choose?
“Shut up, old man!” Anna shrieked, totally losing her cool.
“I don’t want them to escape,” the teenager’s voice snorted right over the top of her. “I want to leave an impression, Dobie. They started a war.” Anna’s doppelganger grabbed a torpedo casing and carefully lowered the crystal inside. “And ninety percent of war is psyching the other side out so badly that they’re too afraid to fight.”
“I’d also argue that it’s painting yourself as a liberator with similar goals and ideals, not a planet-killing beast.”
“There you go using that word again, Dobie. You know much I hate that word.”
“True,” Dobie said. “But whichever choice you make here today, you can’t take it back.”
“Choice?” Anna snorted. “What choice? Aladia is the epicenter of all their horseshit. They think they’re untouchable here, what with their fleets and battleships and carriers keeping all those billions of people safe and sound in their perfect little homes, where they read about Fortune on the ultranet and call us all idiots over four-course dinners for rebelling against a system that makes sure they get their tea and crumpets twice a day. One well-placed blast and boom. Coalition loses its head and we can start dismantling the corpse.”
“We still haven’t heard from our own fleet,” Dobie said. “And we do have far superior tech. With the Babies on our side, and the Yolk having effectively removed the Coalition’s top thinkers from the playing field, Coalition scientists are just struggling to keep up. Captain Eyre and Joel might have already conquered the Coalition fleet and made this unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary.” Anna watched her older doppelganger snap the case shut and pop it into the torpedo tube. Then she turned and glared at him. “Really. After everything they’ve done to us. After decades of enslaving us under the ‘drafts,’ you think this could be ‘unnecessary?’”
“Anna,” Dobie said softly, “you’re talking about killing billions.”
“Billions that want to kill me,” Anna retorted.
“No,” Dobie said, “only some of them want to kill you. Perhaps even as many as six. The rest don’t even know your name.”
“Yeah,” Anna heard herself say, “but they’re taking orders from someone who does.” She sealed the torpedo tube and went back to the controls.
“You do this,” Dobie warned, “and there will be repercussions.”
Anna laughed and slammed the switch to fire. “Repercussion that.”
“Put her on her knees right there.” All around her, a massive crowd was shouting obscenities and jeering.
Everyone hates a beast, Wideman commented. He was standing on the podium nearby, watching the scene with her. Multiple pasts, multiple futures—they all hate the beast that burdened them.
Someone shoved Anna’s young—fourteen-year-old? Fifteen?—doppelganger to her knees in front of Magali. “And make sure she’s facing the cameras so the rest of Fortune can see the little bitch cry before I blow her brains across the galaxy.”
Anna was stunned to look up and see her own sister—albeit a harder, angrier, more scarred-up version of her sister—say those words while looking straight at her, her hazel eyes totally stone cold. The sheer fury in her sister’s face made Anna open her mouth to ask what she’d done, but instead, the words that came out were a chuckling sneer from someone twice her age.
“I’m not gonna cry,” Anna’s doppelganger said. She seemed totally calm, despite the huge crowd of people jeering at her. “I did what I set out to do. Fortune is free, and those Coalition floaters who tried to control us are already rotting in their graves by now.”
“Rotting in their graves?” Magali’s sister frowned at her advisors. “What’s she talking about?”
“No idea. We haven’t even fought off their first armada. Milar calculates it won’t be here for four more years.”
Magali’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, rotting in their graves?”
Anna’s doppelganger smiled in a vicious sneer. “You’ll see.”
Overhead, the Void Ring flashed violet as something enormous came through, and thousands of people in the crowd screamed. Instantly, on all channels, someone screamed, “Mercy, please mercy. You offered us sanctuary, gave us these coordinates. We’re the only survivors of the Core. The Phage killed everyone. Please let us take refuge with you…”
“Fuck!” Magali screamed, holding up her arm to shield her eyes from the violet flash blinding everyone on the ground. “When did she get the fucking Void Ring working?!”
“I’m not sure, Magali. I assume it was sometime after she killed the other Babies.”
Inwardly, Anna frowned, recognizing that calm inflection. She turned. Dobie was there again, standing beside her sister. His posture made it clear he was with her sister. “Dobie?!” she cried, stunned to the core.
“Mercy!” the distress call went on. “We’re a colonist ship. We’ve sustained heavy damage and we’re just trying to survive! Please! We’re all that remains!”
Up above, the ship that slid through the Void Ring was, indeed, enormous. Big enough to be seen from the surface of Fortune, and large chunks of it were missing, like it had gone tumbling through an asteroid belt. It was also getting shot at by what looked like the Void Ring itself, blasts big enough to light up the sky.
“Anna, what the hell is that?!” Magali demanded.
Anna’s doppelganger grinned. “Justice.”
“Oh God, we’re losing altitude. We can’t control our descent. We’re going down. God help us, we’re going down!” Above them, the gigantic ship started a slow descent that would, ultimately, make planetfall.
“Shit! Get some guys in the air!” Magali cried. “Warn the cities closest to the point of impact!”
“It’s already broadcasting on all signals!” Dobie cried, looking equally as shocked.
As the enormous ship began to glow and break apart as it entered Fortune’s atmosphere, the same desperate voice said in a cold wash of resignation, “Just seal the Ring. You’re the last ones left, anyway. The Phage you put in the Yolk killed everyone else. Fortune is all that’s left.”
“The Phage?” Above her, Magali grabbed Anna by the hair and wrenched her head around to face her. “What did you do?!” she screamed.
/> Anna’s teenage doppelganger grinned. “I won.”
Magali gave Anna a long, cold look, then released her hair, put the gun to her head, and pulled the trigger.
“Where’s Pan and Ellie?” Anna demanded of the servabot who came to take her usual breakfast order.
Alone, Wideman said. The beast is so alone. Nothing but a machine to keep it company.
“Shut up!” Anna roared.
“I’m sorry, who?” the servabot asked pleasantly. It delivered her order—spider caviar and sizzling grutta worms, the best for making the other Babies squirm—on a plate in front of her.
“The other kids I have breakfast with on Saturdays. There’s fifteen of us. Hard to miss.”
“I’m sorry, I have no records of any other children in my database, citizen,” the servabot said. “Would you like a drink?”
Anna’s older doppelganger frowned. “Are you new, you stupid machine?”
“I was made twenty-nine eighty-six,” the machine said. “Many would consider that obsolete, but my particular model continues to have uses in customer service and food service applications.”
Anna’s doppelganger rolled her eyes and glanced over her shoulder. “Dobie? Figure out why Pan and Ellie are late, will ya?”
Doberman got that distant look he always did when he was consulting the vast ultranet resource he had at his constant disposal, then said, “Pan is having lunch with Ellie planetside. The other Babies are sick.”
Anna felt shock at that. “Excuse me?”
“That was their registered excuse that was presented to me at my query,” Doberman said. “However, it appears Philip, Luke, and John are playing horseshoes, and the rest are at Janice’s birthday party.” He cocked his head. “Though, I think, technically, you could say that Philip, Luke, and John are actually at Janice’s birthday party, since they’re tossing shoes on the front courtyard of her family’s compound.”
Anna frowned. “Why wasn’t I invited?”
Doberman cocked his head. “I’d assume they extrapolated that you were disinterested in birthday parties after you had me explode Luke Lyon’s cake in this very room for ‘wasting your time with stupid, inconsequential shit like the passing of another utterly insignificant year in the life of a colossally irrelevant thief of air.’ Ellie and Mona had spent an entire day on it—if you’ll recall, they were quite displeased.”
Anna chuckled. “Of course they were. Fatties were looking forward to a couple more pounds of padding.” Then she frowned. “Wait. Pan and Ellie aren’t at the party?”
“No, Anna,” Doberman said.
“Why the hell not?” Anna’s doppelganger demanded.
Beasts are extraordinarily good at sensing a trap, Wideman said. They live in suspicion of their surroundings, unable to rest, unable to trust even their own kind.
“You know what?” Anna snapped. “The next time you open your mouth, I’m kicking you in the head.” At least, she thought she could do that. It had been awhile since she’d partaken in her not-father’s regimented exercise regime.
Wideman just gave her that smug grin again. Nobody likes a beast.
“You killed Pan?” Ellie’s voice was a shaky whimper.
“What,” an older Anna’s voice sneered. “Miss your lover-boy? Have nobody to conspire with anymore, tubblet?”
Ellie just stared at her, near-black eyes starting to tear up. “Nobody was conspiring against you, Anna.” Her voice was cracking admirably.
Anna’s doppelganger snorted. “Sure you weren’t. All those discrete lunches, all those trips planetside, just the two of you? You’re trying to tell me you weren’t planning to kill me and take over together?”
But Ellie couldn’t seem to get past the fact that Pan was dead. “Did you really kill Pan?”
Anna’s doppelganger rolled her eyes. “Yes, I killed Pan! He was cramping my style.”
Beasts are selfish, Wideman said.
“You killed Ellie?” Pan demanded. His baby blue eyes were wide with shock. “Are you fucking serious, Anna?”
“What, her body’s not enough for you?” Anna’s doppelganger demanded, nudging the bloody corpse towards Pan. “Dobie, shoot it a few more times, for effect.”
Doberman obediently put a few dozen more rounds into Ellie Hooks’ pudgy corpse, making it jiggle.
Pan stared unfocusedly at the body, then lifted his gaze back to Anna. “What is wrong with you?” he whispered.
“You two were conspiring to kill me,” Anna’s doppelganger said. “So I nipped it in the bud. Besides, I’m smarter than either of you, so it’s no loss.”
Pan just stared at her. In a shellshocked babble, he managed, “We…were dating, Anna. I…was…her boyfriend.”
Anna watched a little frown of confusion cross her doppleganger’s face before she wiped it away. “Well, eventually you would have figured out she’s not very interesting. She knits, for chrissake.”
Pan was shaking all over. “Anna, someday, someone’s going to make you hurt.” He was crying, now, fists balled ineffectually at his sides. “You’re gonna hurt so bad, and the only thing anyone around you is ever gonna do is laugh, because you deserve it.”
Anna’s doppleganger sighed deeply. “Dobie, kill him, too. He obviously took it personally.”
Raising one of his arms, Doberman did.
The villagers will turn on the beast, Wideman said, as Panner’s lanky corpse collapsed beside Ellie’s.
Anna found herself in a tent in the Tear, surrounded by other rebels. She and Dobie had a section of the table to themselves, with everyone else sitting at least a chair away from them. This time, Anna’s doppelganger was leaning back with her feet up on the table, talking loudly to the other people already in the tent.
“But she’s never gonna be able to use it effectively. I mean, look at it. It’s almost four feet long. It’s gonna be like trying to wield a chainsaw made for freakin’ Paul Bunyan, you know? Going up against a Nephyr? What if he takes it from her? I think it’s gonna be fun to watch, but it’s dumb, and it’s gonna get her killed. Again, fun, but maybe not how we want to be using our resources, you know?”
Tatiana walked in, flanked by Milar.
“Hey tinkerbelle,” Anna’s doppleganger laughed, upon seeing Tatiana, “how’s that third eye treating you?”
Tatiana raised a gun to Anna’s head and pulled the trigger. Anna’s doppelganger’s head detonated and her body fell over backwards, taking her chair with it. Dobie stood up, but didn’t fight back. He glanced down at Anna’s corpse, now twitching on the packed dirt floor and gushing blood out through what used to be her head.
“Oops,” Tatiana said, lowering the gun. She cocked her head, staring at the corpse like it confused her somehow. After a minute, she turned to Magali. “Weeellll,” she said, covered in blood and bone chips from the explosion of Anna’s doppleganger’s head, “on the plus side, looks like I spared you all the trouble of kicking her ass for being a satanic cornchild with a bonesaw fetish.” Captain Eyre took a few more moments to peer at Anna’s corpse before noticing the Nephyr standing beside Magali. “Oh, hey Jersey,” the midget cyborg had called, giving him a casual salute. “Been a long time! You should meet my new ganshi jaggle Babe. He’s bad ass. He killed a starlope by himself yesterday.”
Jersey just stared at her in silence.
“Or maybe not.” She sighed. “Oh well. Still, we should catch up whenever you’ve got a chance. Being all alone on that mountain all the time—I’m seriously starting to think I’m going a little nuts.” Then, without another word, the midget cyborg turned and walked out, trailing Milar’s hulking form behind her.
In the silence that followed, Magali eventually said, “Well, somebody should probably clean up the mess.”
No one volunteered.
That was the thing that hurt the most. No one volunteered to clean her up. Not even Dobie. Anna stood there, watching her own corpse pour out its lifeblood, and nobody even moved to try and stop the bleeding.
“I have no opinion,” Doberman replied, sitting back down.
Anna felt a cold chill. She had programmed him to say that on cue, when she didn’t have time to listen to his stupid ‘thoughts’.
And then, when you’re done building your nest, you will lie in it, Wideman said.
Then, in a rapid succession, Anna got hit with multiple visions of her own death. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Thousands. One after another. In some, she died in space, some on land, a couple drownings, a couple abandonments on desert or ice planets, a lot of crashes, even more executions, but always at the hands of someone close to her. Sometimes it was Quad who killed her. Sometimes it was Magali, or Jersey, or Milar, or Tatiana, or Pan, or Ellie…
She saw herself die in front of crowds, saw herself die alone in a cell, saw herself tortured by Nephyrs, saw herself picked off by a sniper, saw herself hurled from a ship to crystallize in space, saw herself crushed by the foot of a soldier, then stabbed through the heart with a tovlar katana, then left on a water planet for its gigantic fishes to eat.
Faster and faster, the visions came, speeding up until Anna’s world became a blur of hate and fear and death. For months, she tumbled, lost on the tide of horror and murder, experiencing the most heart-pounding minutes of her final hour, only to be flung to the next once it was over.
Choices, Wideman said, over and over again in the whirlwind of terror and executions and betrayals. You are the sum of your choices.
Stop tormenting her, a new voice snapped, yanking the hellish blur of visions short, pulling her out of the spheres of color, to float above them, watching the scenes play out from afar. Hovering beside Anna, Wideman Joe paled and started to pull away. I was just showing her her choices…
Are you a fucking imbecile?! a male teenage voice snapped. What do you think she’s going to do with those choices?
And then, like a cosmic sledgehammer from on High, Anna got shoved towards one of the spheres and slammed back into it.
