by JT Lawrence
Mally blinks and studies Vega. Her head is still conked in from last night’s attack, and the silicone skin is coming away from where Arronax sutured it back onto her silver skull. She has a frozen neck joint, and a pronounced limp from her broken ankle. He imagines the insidious virus teeming all over her insides, painting over her code with evil. Once it takes over completely, she’ll kill him as if he means nothing to her.
Oh, his heart is breaking. Right there, right then, it’s as if someone is squeezing it right inside his chest cavity. The pain blooms inside his chest like the smoke of an atom bomb. It takes every ounce of will he has to stay standing, instead of melting down to his knees.
It hurts so much.
“This body is broken, but my Shard is pure.” Vega puts it in Mally’s hand and closes his fingers over it.
Mally tries to rise above the ache. “I love you,” he says, almost knocking her over with a bear hug. “I love you, Alpha Lyrae.”
Vega steps away. “I know.”
Mally looks as if he’s about to say something, and Vega smiles. “I love you too, Purest Human.”
“It’s settled, then,” says Arronax, smoothing her hair. It turns a serious shade of aubergine and makes her look even paler than before. Another huge bang on the door and the furniture is again dislodged.
Zack moves to kiss Arronax on the cheek, and as he does so, he slips a quill into her pocket. They exchange a look of understanding.
Seth hugs Arronax, grasps her hand. She offers Seth his Vektor back, but he refuses. He disables the bio-info in his name and adds her dynap code in its place. He shows her the trigger, and how to hold the Vektor so it doesn’t kick back too hard. They look into each other’s eyes as if there is more to say.
Arronax breaks away and hammers on the door with the heel of her hand. “I’m coming out!” she shouts. “Stand down! Stand down and I’ll come out!”
Seth coughs up more blood. The horde outside quietens a little.
Mally puts the Shard in his pocket, and he kisses Vega goodbye. The tears are still running down his face. Kate catches Vega’s eye and nods, and Vega nods back. They move the furniture away from the door to allow Arronax and Vega passage. Seth puts his arm around the still-sobbing Mally. They open the door just enough, and the two women slip out.
“Get into the safe room,” says Solonne. “Quickly.”
Chapter 97
Shield
Arronax and Vega hold on to each other as they move out of the room and into the clutches of the mob. Arronax holds the Vektor in a way she hopes makes her look like she’s used the weapon before.
“Why did you lie to Mally?” she whispers to Vega, “about being infected?”
The deceit had shocked Arronax. Not because she knows Vega doesn’t have the V1R1S, but because she built, refined, and polished the design for 7thGen robosapiens, and she knows for a fact it’s impossible for them to be dishonest.
“It was the only way he’d let me go.”
The dirty pack grabs at the women and pulls them away from the door, to the middle of the crowd. There must be two dozen people there, all shouting at them. A man hawks and spits in Arronax’s face. When she wipes the saliva away, her trembling hands betray her fear. The barbarians are armed with solar lamps and makeshift weapons and guns. Arronax and Vega turn around slowly within the circle, not wanting to turn their backs on any one of them for too long. When Arronax sees Govender, the NASP imposter, she trains the gun on him. He’s out of place in his smart blue suit in the tide of ripped and grimy ragbag uniforms of the Bot Hunters.
Arronax stiffens with anxiety; her mouth is cotton.
“Ah, look,” says one of them. “She’s brought her robowhore with her.”
A man with a Vektor takes aim, and Vega moves instinctively in front of Arronax to act as a shield.
“Wait,” Govender says. “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for months. I want to enjoy this.”
Arronax realizes Govender is the one who’s been beaming her death threats.
“Fuck that,” says one of the men. “They’re mine.” He takes aim again and the suit knocks the weapon out of his hand. “What the—” He rolls his hands into fists, ready to fight, and Govender pulls out a subrocket from the breast pocket of his shiny jacket and shoots the Bot Hunter in the head. Maroon brain matter sprays out of the back of his skull and he falls to the floor. This shocks a few people in the crowd, arouses others. Ready for blood, they rumble forward.
It’s only been a minute. Not long enough for the others to escape.
Govender points his rocket at Arronax now, and searches her face. She returns his scowl with the glare of the Vektor. Her trigger finger twitches, but if she shoots him it might set off the rest of them.
Arronax needn’t have worried; the men advance steadily without any encouragement from her. Her hair turns white.
It’s a strange thing, when you know you’re about to die. It’s not like your life flashes before your eyes, not really. It’s more like a total surrender of everything, from your fondest childhood memories to the designs you’ll never complete, to the feeling of your lover’s skin on yours. Regrets and joy swirl together into a strange bittersweet moment of absolute clarity, a crystal instant when you realise you’ll never see the ocean again, never again sink your feet into the soft warm sand or hear the waves crash and roar, and you’re strangely accepting of it because the knowledge pulses in your chest that in this lifetime you’ve loved more than you’ve lost.
“All right,” Govender says to the hopped-up horde, “take them apart.”
The Bot Hunters are an arm’s length from them, now less, and Arronax starts shooting. She takes out four or five of the men before they wrench the gun out of her hands and she screams as they struggle. Their hungry paws grab at her body. A blue-eyed man with a rusted blade is ready to drive it into Arro’s stomach.
Arronax roots around in her lab coat pocket for the quill, uncaps the injection pen, and, beneath her lab coat, jams it into her thigh. There is a hot current to her heart.
She hugs Vega close.
“Ready?” Arronax whispers, feeling the drug taking hold. Vega nods.
“Now.”
Vega pops open her shoulder cap and Arronax presses the red self-destruct button. There’s a flash of impossible white as Vega detonates, and the concentrated explosion takes out everybody in the room so quickly no one lives to hear the sound of the bomb.
Chapter 98
Genesis Child
They rush into the darkness of the safe room. Solonne closes the door behind them and stands with her back against it. Bernard lends her weight to it, too. She can’t lock it without power, but the heavy steel door will offer some measure of protection.
“Get down,” she says, and they do. Kate pushes Silver to the floor and covers her with her own body.
There’s a loud flash and a boom.
The building shakes.
“The fuck was that?” says Seth, not wanting to know the answer.
Debris rains down around them. Kate lets Silver go. The safe door swings open, allowing them a dim view of the main door that has been knocked off its hinges. Shrapnel from the exploded furniture crackles on the floor. The barbarians are dead, but Kate knows there’ll be more on their way.
Seth and Mally look desolate.
“Let’s run for it,” says Keke.
“No,” says Solonne. “There’re a hundred more of them on their way in. There’s no way we’ll get out in time.”
Kate breathes in the heavy black air. Smoke burns her eyes.
There’s a scratching sound, and then a spark and the smell of phosphorous and chlorate as Solonne lights a match, and then a candle.
“You need to listen very carefully for the next minute,” says Zack. He has everyone’s attention. “There’s only one way to get out of here, and we need to move fast.”
Kate looks at the broken door and the dead bodies outside, coated in blood and ash.
“
Kate, Silver, you’re the ones who know how to do it.”
“No I don’t,” says Kate. “I have no idea.”
“You do, because you’ve just done it. You two escaped the Mezzanine, which is a lot more difficult than this will be. It was essential practice, and you succeeded.”
“Experience Points,” says Silver.
“Exactly,” says Zack. “And now you’re ready.”
Keke touches her bandaged back and grimaces. “Ready for what?”
“For the next level,” says Solonne.
Kate’s brain whirrs. “I don’t understand. This is real life, not an immersion. There is no next level. Unless you mean—”
Zack looks into her eyes and Kate finds she can’t look away. Violet Velcro.
“Unless you mean dying,” says Kate.
Zack doesn’t break eye contact. “Think of it as levelling up.”
Kate feels as if her head is imploding in a hundred shades of neon.
“Did you just say what I thought you said?”
“We don’t have much time,” says Solonne, flames in her cheeks. “We need to do it now. The others are close.”
“That day at The Gordhan when I said I needed to tell you something. It wasn’t the right time or place then because you weren’t ready to hear it.”
“Zack’s entire existence is for you, about you,” says Solonne. “You think it was a coincidence that he worked with Keke on that trial?” She gestures around the room. “Do you think any of this is a coincidence?”
“The prophecy,” says Keke.
Solonne nods. “Yes.”
“That prophecy was about Mally,” says Kate. “The Genesis Child will lead us to the ledge. Mally’s the Genesis child.”
“Are you sure about that?” asks the Matriarx.
“Of course I am. You told me so, yourself.”
“You heard what you wanted to hear. You think of Mally as the stronger child, but Silver is the one. You’ve seen her super-abilities. Silver’s always been the one.”
Kate thinks of Silver’s Atrium jack-in pod. ‘GK’ the engraving had said. Kate knows there’s always been something different about Silver, knows deep down that what Solonne is saying is true. Impossible to kill, the guy at the Atrium had said. Ghost. Genesis Kid.
“But what does it mean?”
“What does it mean?” says Solonne. “It means that when Silver turns sixteen it’ll be the end of everything.”
“I’ll be sixteen in a few hours,” says Silver.
“Which is why I created the Mezzanine,” says Solonne.
Kate splutters.
“I needed you to break Zack out of SkyRest, and I needed you to both get meshed in order to understand what we’re about to tell you. There was no way you’d agree to free Zack or get the neural lace without me forcing your hand by trapping Silver in the Mezzanine.”
“Forcing my hand?” Kate says, fury burning a hole in her stomach. “I almost died at SkyRest. I was almost torn apart. I had brain surgery without anaesthetic. I had to kill my daughter. Do you have any idea—?”
“I’m sorry. I wish it had been easier for both of you.”
“You’re sorry?” says Kate.
“The V1R1S mutation,” says Keke, looking at Solonne, her understanding beginning to dawn, “That was also you.”
“I had help,” Solonne says, looking at the DarkDoc, who has a shadow on his face Kate’s never seen before. Bernard stands guard at the door.
“You fuckers,” says Keke. “Solonne. Zack. Morgan. You were all in on it.”
Kate’s rage builds, her hands are fists.
Seth coughs and spits blood on the floor. “And you let Arro believe she had caused the rebellion when all she was trying to do was to make the world a better place. And you let her walk out of here to claim a redemption she didn’t even need.”
“Don’t worry about Arronax,” says Solonne. “We took care of her.”
“You certainly did.” The candelight flickers in Seth’s eyes.
Kate looks at Morgan and thinks of being in bed with him, how uninhibited she was. How sick she feels with the intimate betrayal. How could she have allowed this to happen to her again, to trust and be betrayed like this again? She thinks of Marmalade James and wants to scream and pull out her hair. She wants to punch them all. She wants get out of this room where tentacles of claustrophobia are reaching for her breath.
“You said you sent Silver home.”
“I know it’s difficult to hear, Kate,” says Morgan, “but we did it for you.”
Chapter 99
World's Worst Jehovah's Witness
Too many far-out concepts hover in the air around Kate; she can’t get a handle on what is happening, what is really happening. Not what people want her to believe, not what is easy to believe, but the real truth of this moment. How does this all fit together? The betrayal is a stab of bitter on her tongue, a hint of cyanide, like chewing an apple seed. How fitting.
“So how do we get out of here?” asks Keke.
“They want us to kill ourselves,” says Kate. “That’s how we surfaced from the Mezzanine.”
“Seems a little counterintuitive,” says Seth, coughing. “We’re trying to stay alive here, in case you’ve forgotten.” Kate can tell he’s finding it harder and harder to breathe.
“After all we’ve been through!” Kate paces. “Van der Heever, Mouton, Jackson, Lumin. Fighting to stay alive, fighting to keep the kids alive. After all of that, you want us to kill ourselves.”
“Don’t think of it as killing yourself,” says Zack.
“Ha,” says Seth. “I know where this is going. Here’s a gun! But don’t think of it as a gun. Here’s a knife! But don’t think of it as a knife. The power of positive thinking, right?”
Zack shakes his head. “All those people I helped—”
“Killed,” says Keke. “All those people you killed.”
“I saved them.”
“Saved them? Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”
“What Ramphele didn’t tell you is that all those people wanted to die.”
“So … you’re an angel of mercy now.”
“They were all suffering. All I did was introduce them to the truth.”
“And what’s that?”
“That they could escape this reality for a better one. That they can enter the larger domain of reality above this world.”
“Oh my God,” says Keke. “Seriously? Escape this reality for a better one? You’re a fucking evangelist? Are you going to tell us you’re the world’s worst Jehovah’s Witness now?”
“Best Jehovah’s Witness,” says Kate.
“What?”
“Well, he’d be the world’s best Jehovah’s Witness, wouldn’t he? By getting this far?”
“I know it’s a difficult concept to get your head around,” says Zack.
“Understatement,” says Keke.
Kate puts a warm hand on her forehead, as if it will help her to understand. “You’re saying … Heaven exists?”
“No,” says Zack. “Not unless your version of Heaven means stepping up into the real world.”
“Fuck.” Seth knuckle-scrubs his hair.
“I’m not asking you to kill yourself,” says Zack.
“Really?” says Keke. “That’s what it sounds like.”
“What I mean is, it’s not coming from me. The message.”
“Who, then?” asks Kate. “Who sent you?”
Zack’s eyes are alight. “You did.”
Chapter 100
This Is What Kool-Aid Tastes Like
“Bullshit,” says Kate. “I think I would have remembered that.”
“It’s not something you can remember here.”
“Remember here?”
“We’re not on the same plane of consciousness here. Think of it … think of the place you’re going to … as the future.”
“Holy fuck. We’re time travelling now.”
“Not quite.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” snarks Keke.
“Put it this way,” says Zack. “The future has already happened.”
Kate sits down and gives her thigh a hard pinch. It hurts. “So …” she says, looking up at Zack, speaking slowly and clearly. “You’re saying I sent you from the future.”
“No, but that’s probably the easiest way for you to understand it right now.”
There’s hollering in the distance. The new barbarians have entered the building. More apoca-pirates are bashing to get in.
“I’m trying to explain it to you in the simplest and quickest way possible, because if this is going to work, we need to do it right now. But I know you won’t do it if you don’t understand the stakes.”
“Tell me, then. Tell me in the simplest way possible.”
Zack and Kate’s eyes connect. “I need you to have an open mind.”
Seth’s breathing is worse than ever. He smacks himself on the chest, trying to clear his airways, but it just makes him cough more. His handkerchief is now dripping red.
“Christ on a cracker. Just get on with it,” says Keke.
Zack draws a breath. It’s clear he has to build himself up to what he’s about to say.
“Did you ever wonder how I was able to wipe myself off the security footage at the Carbon Factory?”
“Of course we did,” says Keke. “Not just from the footage, but from people’s minds too. I questioned every one of those jury members we did duty with and not one of them remembered you from the Lundy trial.”
“Impossible,” says Kate.
“Not impossible,” says Zack. “We’ve been doing it forever.”
“Doing what?”
“Re-programming thoughts. Tweaking memories. Smoothing over glitches.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Are you sure you don’t know?” asks Zack. “Because I think that, deep down, you do.”
