LEGACY BETRAYED

by Rachel Eastwood

  Vector never made it to the broadcast station, however. Something much more interesting had developed outside the police department.

  Common citizens held people whom Vector immediately recognized as N.E.E.R. refugees in their fists, hollering into the clogged entryway of the building. “We can’t just let them roam!” a man with a mustache cried. He was a big man, but he still struggled to maintain his grip on the orphan slave he’d captured.

  “You can’t take me back there!” the boy swore. “I won’t go back! I’d rather die!”

  “Then die, whatever the hell you’re on about!” the mustached man screamed into his face. “Icarus sure as hell ain’t a charity basket!”

  “All right, all right, everyone, we’re doing the best we can to handle this crisis, all right,” Constable Wesley spoke. He was speaking from the reception counter inside, but projecting his voice above all the ruckus. Vector could see that even the constable held a gray-garbed, shaven man in chains, as if he were a stray dog on the verge of being put down. “You all know the work riots have this place almost totally full, and three quarters of our men were redirected to the palace this week as placeholders until auxiliary defence arrives from Heliopolis,” he went on. “There simply isn’t the room and there isn’t the manpower for immediate intervention, but we will take care of this as quickly as possible, given the circumstances!”

  “They say they’re from Old Earth!” a woman shrieked. “It’s not safe for them to be in the open air! We don’t know what’s down there! They might’ve brought it up with them!”

  “I’ve got one here for you!” the mustached man shouted. “I say we send them right back, however the hell they got here!”

  The scrawny boy in his grip twisted and made a wild snatch, wrenching Vector’s gun from where it had been tucked in his belt. A moment later came the bang, and the entire crowd seemed to lunge, duck, scream, grab, bite, kick, and bleed. That was all it took for utter pandemonium. The constable descended into the throng, but its manic machinations heaved him backward, and he cracked his head on the desk, slumping down into the cacophonous vortex. The orphan slave he’d been holding raided his pockets for keys and weaponry. Another bang rang out in the crowd. More screams and lunges.

  Vector was torn between traveling deeper into the maelstrom, and fleeing altogether, when a torrent of the aliens, so recognizable for their bald heads and thin cheeks, much less their uniform tunics, rippled down the stairs and overcame their oppressors, fleeing into the public eye again.

  Someone has set free the prisoners, he realized. Elbowing through the madness – only barely saving his nose from being cracked by the skull of an N.E.E.R. man thrown backwards by a commoner woman – Vector laid eyes on an invention he never thought he’d see again: the Cipher-Scope, churning away at a cell door.

  And Evidence must’ve been opened, too . . . wherever it is.

  This made the decision for Vector, and he honestly forgot all about the debate and the station. Instead, he followed his heart, and fought deeper and deeper through the mire of heaving torsos, gushing noses, oaths and slurs, with his mind focused only on retrieving his inventions.

  For several minutes, Legacy had been listening to Dyna’s report in a daze broken only long enough to investigate these claims, and yes: out the window, she could see the occasional gray-garbed slave child running, bloodthirsty townspeople in hot pursuit, like animals on a scent. But that scent was poverty and starvation.

  “Although their manner of entrance is uncertain, their manner of exit is certainly not, is it, Duke Taliko?” Dyna prodded. “These fugitives of the dead planet must surely return there. The Companion Laws exist explicitly so that the madness of scarcity and overpopulation cannot smother the people of Earth yet again.”

  “But these are the people of Earth!” Legacy cried. Though she didn’t hold a microphone, her voice carried as well as if she did. “They need our help! And we were glad to never think about them, weren’t we, and to never wonder where all our things came from, as if we have raw materials up here! We were glad to break their backs, and now that they’re here, we’re chasing them through the streets!”

  “Are you implying that there is enough here to support a second populace?” Dyna sneered, raising one perfect eyebrow.

  Legacy opened her mouth to respond when a button on her vest vibrated. “Incoming message from home. Incoming message from home.”

  “It’s ludicrous to suggest that these monstrous creatures are actually connected to the market of Icarus,” Dyna went on, smug when uncontested. “I believe our society is sophisticated enough to not employ mutants! Nor stupid enough to harvest materials from a dead planet!” She scoffed.

  Meanwhile, the speaker-button of Legacy’s gold vest was sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Exa,” her mother’s voice came across. “I never knew . . . but I saw one . . . of those people . . . in the street.” She sucked in a breath and a fresh wave of sobs came pealing. “It said N.E.E.R. The uniforms . . . I never knew . . . They shave all their heads! I thought the children were just sent to . . . to couples who couldn’t . . . b-b-but . . . They look so hungry . . .” After this, her mother’s voice became unintelligible, and her father cropped onto the line. He, too, sounded downtrodden, however composed.

  “Exa, your mother and I need to see you. We’re aware that movement might be difficult for you right now, but come home when you can.”

  “A riot at the police department broke out less than half an hour ago, unleashing over one hundred criminals back into the streets of Icarus,” Dyna droned on over her microphone. “Emergency workers, already swamped with activity following the tragedy at the coronation only one week ago, have been dispatched to the area in as many as can be spared.” As the anchorwoman spoke, Legacy moved across the room and to the door, wrenching it open with such force that it clattered from its tenuous hinges yet again. Dyna followed her motion with a smoldering frown as Legacy strode from the room, but her voice carried on in the smooth dialect of reportage. “The condition of the constable is undisclosed at this time, but the state of mayhem which seems to reign at the police department only blocks from here would suggest that his wounds are of a serious nature.”

  She made it inside the lift. “Fl-fl-floor, please,” the mechanized porter greeted.

  Legacy turned to see Kaizen lunging for the porter’s lever, wrenching it in the opposite direction and folding the grate back again. He climbed aboard with a sobriety to his features, striding to where Legacy stood and gripping her arms just above the elbows. He held her so closely and peered at her so intently that she suspected he would kiss her soon.

  But he only glared down at her with a heat that was not really fueled by anger. “There aren’t enough sentries to hold the palace,” he explained rapidly. “I have to get back there right now, and secure all the gates of the drawbridge.”

  Duke Lovelace approached at a slower pace, their retinue of guards flanking along his side, the nervous steward bringing up the rear. Legacy expected that Kaizen might not hold her with such desperation or intimacy, not in front of witnesses, but he didn’t let go. If anything, he pulled her closer and the sense of connection between them intensified.

  “Come with me,” he pleaded. “It’s not safe in those streets.”

  The rest of the crew crowded around them, into the lift, and only then did Kaizen become cognizant of their presence and relax his grip, allowing her the room to breathe.

  “I can’t,” Legacy replied.

  “Ground floor, please,” Duke Lovelace addressed the porter. The paternoster lurched and descended. “I’m sure it would have been a rousing debate, my dear,” he said to Legacy, completely ignoring the scene that Kaizen was making. From his expression, one would conclude that the day outside was peaceful and sunny. “It seems that Icarus has become quite the hotbed of upheaval and unrest in these most recent days,” he concluded thoughtfully. “I can assure you that the township of Celestine is a much more hospitable envir
onment to the ideals of your people.”

  Legacy was staring at him in disbelief as the paternoster lurched again.

  “Ground fl-fl-floor, thank you, have a good day.”

  “Consider it, won’t you?” the Duke of Celestine said, stepping from the lift. Security flooded out around him like a shell, then the steward, all at a swift pace toward their vehicles.

  Did that really just happen?

  Legacy stepped from the lift and Kaizen, as if he were her security detail, hugged close behind her as she walked.

  “Don’t ignore me,” he said. “The offer stands.”

  “What, the offer to abandon the city when it needs us most?” she asked, pushing through the foyer and spilling out onto the street. It was quiet, compared to the uproar emanating from farther west. However, even on this street, there was a man running with a firearm drawn and ready. He ran toward the noise, not from it. “Dyna was right; this is total mayhem, Kaizen.”

  “We won’t abandon them,” he insisted. “We must wait for the right time, though! Let the police do their work to–”

  “You heard what Dyna said! There aren’t enough police right now! Even the damn jail is open!” Legacy replied. “This fire isn’t going to be extinguished. It’s just going to burn itself out. And how many will be left standing at its end?”

  “Just come,” Kaizen begged, and again he took her arm in his hand. “Just come until–”

  “I can’t,” Legacy snapped. “I told you. I can’t.”

  Pulling free, she raced toward Heroes Park, battling through the anarchy in the streets, and then through the industrial territory, and finally home, up the stairs (Rrrah! Rrrah!) and onto the porch of Unit #4, banging the familiar brass knocker she hadn’t touched in days.

  Her father opened the door and, as had become customary since her turn to a life of crime, wrapped her in a back-breaking embrace. “Exa,” he greeted, stepping away and loosening his grip. A spark flew from his mechanical arm and sizzled into Legacy’s shirt, causing a cringe. “Been worried sick,” he continued, “but . . . so glad to see you’re all right. I knew you were. But your mother–”

  Legacy stepped inside.

  Her mother, a woman of petite structure much like her own and silver braids much like her own, was otherwise the complete opposite of Exa Legacy just now. While the twenty-year-old metalsmith-turned-speechwriter-turned-leader had only truly allowed herself the luxury of a few tears in this life, her mother was a wailing mess in the corner. She was almost rendered unrecognizable by the puffiness of her puddly features. “Exa,” she moaned, gesturing for her daughter to come closer. “I’m so sorry. I’m so . . . so . . .”

  Mom was always just as tough as I was, though, Legacy thought as she stepped closer, slowly, staring, as if the crying woman might do something rash and insane, like explode. Something terrible must have happened. Is it –Was it –Dax? Is Dax all right? She could think of no one else whom her parents treated as family, and his health was so precarious . . .

  “What’s going on?” she whispered, suddenly dizzy at the thought of losing him. For all the times she’d admonished him for taking off his mask, she also never truly thought there would come a day in her life when he’d be gone. She prayed to go first if the morbid fantasy ever crossed her mind.

  “It’s . . . the refugees,” Mrs. Legacy explained. “It’s . . . they’re . . . N-n-new Earth Ext-t-traneous Relocation.” She pursed her lips together and still, a choked sob leaked out. “I . . . You . . .”

  “Yes?” Legacy prompted.

  “You were a twin,” her mother blurted. “You were a twin and we couldn’t help it!” Her voice suddenly became savage, her eyes sharp with a very old, and yet still fresh, welt of anger. “We couldn’t help it and we begged them to make an exception for an innocent child! A baby! What could we have done! It was an accident! You were both . . . b-b-both so beautiful . . . and healthy . . . identical . . .” The sobs rose again, and her voice took on its fluctuating, blubbery quality. “And we . . . Th-they t-told us she w-w-went to another c-c-city . . .” Mrs. Legacy cringed and gasped. “But she was right below us all these years!”

  She dissolved into tears again, and Mr. Legacy went to her, but she was inconsolable. She hardly seemed aware of his touch, even when the robot arm sent off a spark. “Exa!” she suddenly belted, eyes snapping open again and focusing for the first time. She lunged for her daughter and grabbed her just above her elbows, as Kaizen had done only moments ago. “Exa, you have to go and find her. She m-must be in the city. Just go for us? Will you? J-just go and l-l-look . . . The radio . . . The radio said the jails were open, and they’re all free.”

  Mr. Legacy intervened. “No, Furnice,” he disagreed. “It’s madness out there. Exa, don’t go. I’m sorry, but stay. Stay here.”

  “Patch!” her mother gasped.

  “I mean it!” he yelled.

  As they squabbled over which daughter they wanted most to save, Legacy’s mind was elsewhere entirely.

  It was back on Old Earth, recalling the girl with the cropped head of silver hair, the slight frame, the large, golden eyes.

  The girl who had looked exactly like her.

  Her sister.

  Legacy gulped and made for the door again. This caught her father’s attention and pulled it from the argument with her mother. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  “I’m going to go look for her,” Legacy replied simplistically. “What’s her name?”

  Coal, she realized, remembering the DNA grip lock which had scanned her skin cells and called her Coal 106.

  “Radia,” her mother replied. Fresh tears shimmered in her eyes, but didn’t fall. “I was going to name her Radia Legacy.”

  After a crushing round of hugs with her mother and father, Legacy darted out the door and thundered again down the stairs, landing on the first porch with both feet. Rrrah! Rrrah! came the ferocious, tinny bark of Widow Coldermolly’s robotic pooch. The gray shutters on the tiny window swept open.

  “Exa,” the old woman hissed, glaring out to the world beyond. “Is it true? Are those Old Earth refugees from the N.E.E.R.?”

  Legacy stared into the Widow’s big eyes. Suddenly, she seemed very young.

  “Yes,” Legacy answered. “They are.”

  “You’re going back to the city,” the Widow deduced hopefully.

  “Yes,” Legacy said again, nodding.

  The Widow hesitated, and then said: “If you see a man there . . . with a withered arm . . . he would be forty-four. Tell him that I . . . that his mother . . . she’s sorry. Tell him that she loves him?”

  Legacy only nodded. How many children had they taken? How many children, around the world, had endured unending servitude and chemical suppression from the surface of the dead planet?

  Chapter Seven

  As far as Liam was concerned, this was all Chance for Choice’s fault.

  If they hadn’t caused that massacre at the castle, the guard staff wouldn’t have become completely crippled. If the castle guard staff weren’t completely crippled, they wouldn’t have needed to call in auxiliary defences from the police and other local establishments. And if they hadn’t called in the auxiliary defences from police and local establishments, there would’ve been enough manpower to house these supposed Old Earth refugees until what could or should be done with them was calmly, logically decided by the duke and his court, if not the monarch himself. For that matter, if Legacy hadn’t whipped the working class into a frenzy only days ago by comparing their living conditions and rights to those of the aristocracy, the jails wouldn’t have been bursting at the seams, either.

  But still, for some crazy reason, he cared what happened to her. Inexplicably, he had this burr in his brain, insisting that Exa Legacy was a good woman, even after she dumped him in no uncertain terms. Well. If they’d been together, it would’ve been a break-up, but he supposed it was just a rejection. In any case, when she went flying from CIN-3 with that seasick look on her face, th
e two dukes and a retinue of sentries following after her, Liam had ignored his more practical instincts and gone too. By the time he reached the paternoster, however, it had already reached maximum capacity and was descending. By the time he reached the ground floor, she was gone.

  Good, she’ll be fine, she can take care of herself, Liam thought. He thought this thought very hard, and it still didn’t stick. She’s no fairy tale princess, you know, he went on forcefully. She’s as tough as you are, you know. She doesn’t need you to make sure she’s okay, you know!

  And still, he had this haunting notion that she was out there, somewhere, in this madness. Probably directly in the middle of it, knowing her. How much luck could one woman expect?

  But he fought through the throngs in the center of the city, scanning every scuffle, ducking at every shot, mind boggling at the combination of fear and rage these foreigners had inspired in the townsfolk . . . and nowhere was her mane of silver braids. Liam ignored the frantic vibration of his automaton assistant, a simple cylinder of brass he kept concealed in his pocket, knowing that it was an infuriated Dyna, who would never understand why someone would abandon their post. For her, that broadcast station was a battleground of sorts, and she was fighting a great war, though over or for what, Liam couldn’t be sure. Sometimes, albeit rarely, there was something else worth fighting for.

  There! In those glasses and suspenders, it was . . . Victor? Some friend of Dax’s, he knew, staggering out of the police station with a coat full of stolen devices. Of course. He was probably with the damn CC.

  “Oi! Victor!” Liam called.

  The boy swung to glare and huffed a black, dreadlocked tendril from his face. “It’s Vector,” he snapped. “Who are you?”

  “I’m trying to find Exa, I’m her Companion,” he explained loudly. Only hearing it in the air always made him realize how untrue it really was. “I mean, her ex-Companion,” he added. “I’m trying to find her. It’s –I’m worried, you know? Shit’s really going around here.”