Static Ruin

by Corey J. White

  “Because you got rid of me as soon as you could.”

  He winces, confused, and looks back to Pale.

  I lean closer to fill his sight. “How did she die? How did Cilla die?”

  “It wasn’t my fault. I loved her.”

  “This is going nowhere,” I say under my breath. I look to Kerry for support, but he’s reading his shard, a world away from the conversation. “Why did you clone Cilla?” I ask Teo.

  “Because the other one didn’t work. It was a waste of time, effort, and DNA.”

  “She had a name,” I say, biting off each word.

  “She was a failed experiment.”

  I stand and spill tea down my pants as the cup drops to the floor. My hand’s already reaching out, thoughts turning to violence, but I hold back, barely, and only because Pale is here. Because Pale is sick, and this asshole could be the only person who can help him.

  “Sera was my sister. She was the only person who ever fucking loved me.”

  Teo shrugs and stares into his cup. “She was my failure.”

  I sit back down and drop my head into my hands. Ocho climbs into my lap and I pat her slow, breathing in time with each stroke to calm myself. “You don’t understand; you can’t. We were never people to you.”

  “I loved you so much.”

  “You loved Cilla.”

  “She didn’t love me. I tried to help with the first child, but she didn’t need me even then. I could have grown the other in an artificial womb too, but I convinced Cilla to carry the fetus.”

  “You mean me.”

  He looks up at me again, but his eyes are unfocused. “I thought if she spent nine months with me in my labs she’d realize she loved me.”

  “How did Cilla die?”

  “I loved her so much.”

  “Answer the fu—” I cut myself off and breathe.

  Teo sits up straight in his seat, shoulders square, cup held tight in his shaking grip. “She was the only natural telekinetic I ever encountered, but she didn’t realize how special she was, how beautiful, how unique. Without her I couldn’t have done any of it.” He takes a long draught of his tea. “I used her DNA to make all those girls, but I wanted to see how far I could push it. I wanted to see if I could make something even more powerful.”

  I’m something.

  “So you cloned her?”

  “I made the clone more powerful than Cilla could ever be, more powerful than a natural daughter. I had nine months of gestation to tweak her raw DNA. The child was perfect.”

  I don’t feel perfect. I feel like a bomb in human skin. Like killing was written into my future before I was born. I shake my head and a tear drops loose.

  “Then why did you give me—why did you give her up? If she was perfect?”

  “That man offered a lot of money for her, so I took it. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t look at the baby Cilla. Not after what I’d done.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I loved her so much.”

  “What did you do?” I yell the question this time and Teo glares at me with pure contempt, mouth twisted in a snarl.

  “I gave you everything and it wasn’t enough!” Teo drops his cup onto the squat table with the clatter of porcelain—tea sloshes over the brim and spreads slowly across the wood. “I’m going to bed.”

  He grunts as he stands, then storms off to the bathroom like a petulant child. Kerry watches after him, then turns back to his shard and keeps reading.

  * * *

  I hit the elevator call button and lean with one hand on the wall, sound of trickling water filling my mind like static.

  “He’s a funny man.”

  I snap back from the nowhere of my thoughts and see Pale, smile tugging at one side of his mouth.

  “He’s something,” I deadpan.

  Ocho yaows beside my ear and I scratch the back of her neck. “I know,” I tell her. “I’ll get my cloak from the Rua later so you can have your bed back.”

  The elevator doors part and I follow Pale inside. I open a comm-link to Waren while the elevator takes us down to meet with Hurtt.

  “Did you find Teo?” Waren asks.

  “What’s left of him.”

  “Will he be able to help Pale?”

  I sigh, the escaping air making room for exhaustion to return. “I doubt it; he can barely follow a conversation.”

  “What’s next then?”

  “I talk to Hurtt; see if he can help. There might be nothing I can do for him.”

  Pale looks at me—even with only one side of the conversation, he knows we’re talking about him. I pat him lightly on the cheek.

  “What are you doing up there?” I ask Waren.

  “Just watching the skies. It’s quiet.”

  “Good quiet or bad quiet?”

  The AI chuckles, modulated waveforms of mirth. “I wish I knew.”

  The elevator opens with a cheery ding and light panels blink along the floor to lead the way ahead. I cut the link with Waren, grab Pale’s hand, and walk.

  We come to a cozy room where Hurtt and Mallory sit on plump leather couches around a low table. One of the other buildings fills the tall window, lights glinting from its interior.

  “Not interrupting, are we?” I ask.

  Hurtt waves aside my concern, but Mallory’s face sours. “Not at all.” Hurtt stands as he speaks, gesturing to the other couch for me and Pale. “I was just about to send someone to find you, make sure you weren’t lost. I’ve got food coming.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I say, “but he will be.”

  Pale’s eyes seem to double in size and he nods.

  Hurtt flops back onto the couch, sinking into the cushion while Mallory sits straight-backed, too tall to ever look comfortable in the low-slung furniture.

  “How was your meeting?” Hurtt asks.

  “Like you said: not what I was expecting.”

  “Did you get the answers you wanted?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, I always wanted to know why I was given to MEPHISTO, and now I do. My mother died and my father was an asshole.”

  Hurtt chuckles sympathetically.

  A door at one end of the room opens and a server walks in, carrying a large plate of summer fruits, meats, and cheeses, a jug of water, and four glasses. Ocho lifts her head to sniff the air—I grab a slice of pink marbled meat and feed her shreds while Pale helps himself.

  “Thank you,” Hurtt says as the server retreats to the kitchen. He must run the compound with help from AI and drones working in the background, but he keeps his human employees at the forefront. Trillionaire extravagance. “I should thank you as well, Mars.”

  I raise my eyebrows and wait for him to continue.

  “Since you razed MEPHISTO, many opportunities have opened up.” He points out the window with a piece of soft cheese wrapped in meat. “Over there in Building Two, we’re working on a number of human weapon initiatives.”

  “You’re what?”

  Hurtt either ignores me or doesn’t hear me over his own excitement. “We’re in position to corner the market, to convince the imperial military that it’s cheaper to come to us than establish a new research organization of their own.”

  I look across at the other building and imagine all the horrors within, every one of those glinting lights a soul in distress.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Hurtt looks at me quizzically, eyes half-closed. They pop wide and he says, “No no no, not like that. This isn’t—our subjects are all volunteers, Mars.”

  “Who would volunteer for the shit I went through?” I say. An ultra-fast-cut of surgical atrocities flickers through my mind: needles and scalpels, girls screaming, mice torn apart by our fledgling powers.

  Mallory brushes her lap casually, grooming away some imagined blemish. “Mostly they’re mercenaries looking for an edge, but plenty of civilians also sign up; we pay extremely well.”

  “If you’re lying to me, I’ll bring this whole
compound down.”

  Hurtt clears his throat. “I don’t doubt it, Mars. If you like, I’ll personally give you a tour of the labs tomorrow.”

  “Are you making more people like me?”

  “We’ve tried in the past, without success,” Hurtt says. “Years ago I found a spy embedded within Hurtt Corp—someone sent by your Commander Briggs.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  “Promoted her, won her trust, convinced her to lie to Briggs and help me.” He nods to Mallory: “Her powers are muted compared to yours, but she’s very capable in her role as bodyguard and assistant.”

  I stare at Mallory, trying to read her. She holds my gaze, unflinching. I glance at her hand, but there’s no tattoo. Simple enough to get it removed.

  “What group were you in?”

  She’s quiet for a moment, as if deciding what, or how much, to tell me. “Xi, the same as you. Except I didn’t flee.”

  “Maybe you should have.”

  “They were my family; I could never have abandoned them.”

  We were experiments. They abused and mistreated us until we couldn’t imagine a life without them. That’s not family, it’s torture. I don’t bother arguing, I just shake my head.

  “It was thanks to Mallory that I found Marius. Once I had him set up in his own lab, we tried to work with Mallory’s DNA, but even with his knowledge and experience, your father couldn’t replicate his early successes using her sample.”

  “That’s what you meant before: you want to use my blood as the basis for your research.”

  Hurtt nods as he chews, cheek bulging. He swallows. “With your DNA, we could do amazing things.”

  “Like I said, I don’t owe you anything, Hurtt. And I hate needles.”

  “Give me a chance, Mars, please. The Emperor’s Guard—”

  “What about them? You’ll sell me out if I don’t cooperate?”

  At this, Mallory turns her head toward Hurtt, as though she’d already suggested the same.

  “No,” Hurtt says gently. “Do you plan on running your entire life?”

  “If I have to.” It’s not that I enjoy the fugitive life, but it’s all I’ve ever known.

  “What if you don’t? What if we could fake your death?”

  Mallory stands as if in protest, pacing in front of the window. “Raf, we’d be aiding a wanted terrorist. We could be executed if anyone found out.”

  Hurtt deftly plucks three grapes from the vined bunch in the middle of the table and tosses one into his mouth. Mallory fumes silently at the edge of my vision, arms crossed over her chest.

  I lean closer to Hurtt. “How?”

  “We clone you.”

  “It’s impossible to make an adult clone.”

  “A living adult clone, sure, but a corpse? That’s possible, it’s just not cheap.”

  “I want it on the record that I’m against this,” Mallory says.

  “Mallory,” Hurtt says thickly as he turns to look at her; “this will benefit you as well. How else will you get your own program?”

  Mallory’s head drops by degrees until her eyes meet Hurtt’s, and she glowers as if to silence him. If he notices, he doesn’t care.

  “What program?” I ask.

  “Mallory wishes to work with children, develop a school for a new generation of voidwitches.”

  “What the fuck?” is all I can say. “How could you possibly want to repeat what was done to us?”

  Mallory speaks coolly: “The program was hard at first, I’ll admit that. Briggs knew people would hate and fear us—he was trying to make us strong enough to survive all that.”

  He knew people would fear us because that was precisely his goal.

  “He treated the older subjects well. You’d know that if you hadn’t fled when you did.”

  “I don’t care if he changed. What he did to us was wrong, and I can’t forgive that. I won’t.”

  “You want to talk about right and wrong?” Her barb sinks into my flesh to join the guilt festering there. “I’ll do better than Briggs,” she says softly. “I’ll treat them with respect, with love.”

  I ignore her and turn to Hurtt. “Do you know what MEPHISTO did to Pale?”

  “No,” Hurtt says.

  “I found him trapped inside a weapon platform with wires trailing from his skull. He was one of hundreds. They’d run an electrical current through the boy’s brain to create a psychic blast on demand.”

  There’s a pause. “That’s why you looked ready to kill me; you thought we could be doing something similar.”

  “I just want you to know the type of people Mallory plans to emulate.” I almost feel sorry for her—kept and trained by MEPHISTO for so long that she’s still loyal to them after all this time, even after they’re gone. “They were children. We were children.” I look at Mallory with that last comment, but she doesn’t react.

  “Our program won’t be like that,” Hurtt says. “These children could represent the next stage of human evolution. Trust me, Mars.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “I’m trying to help you,” he says sadly, but it just sounds condescending. “If you let me harvest your DNA, I’ll give you a clone, a ship, and an AI to fly it straight into the Guard’s blockade. Let them shoot it down, or rig the reactor to overheat—either way your clone is cooked. Once imperial forensics scrapes your DNA out of the wreck, you’ll be free.”

  Hurtt’s seedling plan takes root in my mind. I don’t want to trust my future to this man, but . . . it might work. I killed Briggs’s people for a shot at freedom. I killed all those people on Seward for Mookie’s freedom and mine. This could be real, lasting freedom, and I wouldn’t have to kill anyone . . . except a clone.

  I let out a long breath. “I need to think about this.”

  “Of course,” Hurtt says.

  I sit back and the upholstery creaks. I glance at Pale. He’s asleep now, leaning on the arm of the couch with a crumbly piece of cheese held loose in his hand.

  “I came here for him. I wanted answers too, but I hoped Teo could help Pale.”

  “What does he need from Marius?”

  “He suffers from seizures when he’s under stress, or when he taxes himself. He’s got a bunch of augs in his brainmeat and fuck only knows what they did to his genes. I was hoping Teo could undo what was done to him.”

  “My people could take a look,” Hurtt says.

  “In exchange for my DNA?” I say, more accusation than question.

  “No,” Hurtt says, “I want you to trust me. Let me help Pale while you think about my offer.”

  Pale’s face scrunches in his sleep and the cheese slips from his hand and falls silent to the carpeted floor. I smile, and then nod. “Alright, Hurtt. You help Pale, and then we’ll talk.”

  “Excellent.” He turns to Mallory. “Clear Dr. Modern’s schedule, tell him I need him for a sensitive procedure. And we’ll need one of the surgeries.”

  Mallory stares into the middle distance for two seconds. “That’s all organized.”

  “Thank you, Mallory.” Hurtt beams at me. “You and Pale should get some sleep, and we’ll reconvene tomorrow.”

  “Alright.” I stand and displace Ocho from my lap. Pale barely stirs as I pick him up off the couch. An indigo glow builds on the horizon behind Building Two. Dawn approaching.

  I adjust Pale in my arms with a quiet grunt and carry him from the room with Ocho trailing.

  When I reach the door, Mallory calls out, “You’d be nothing if it weren’t for Briggs.”

  I keep walking, letting the door close softly behind me.

  Sometimes I’d rather be nothing than this.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The rooftop of the central tower is barren but for the Rua and Hurtt’s Antler—hulls shimmering in sunlight, beneath a royal blue sky marred only by thin wisps of white.

  Waren opens the door to the Rua as I approach, and that familiar but musty smell seeps out.

  “You look tired, Ma
rs. Did you sleep?”

  “Just tell me I look like shit, Waren.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  I rest my hand against the warm steel of the ship and lean forward to grab my cloak from inside the air lock. I press it to my face and inhale deep. It smells like Sera—at least, that’s what I tell myself. She was broken, lost to the siren song of oblivion. We were sisters, and we should have had a lifetime of memories together, but instead we had moments of connection in these lives of hurt.

  I’m sorry, Sera. You deserved better.

  I pull the cloak away and ignore the small patches of darker fabric, wet by my tears. I put it on over my head, letting it cascade down my body.

  “Are you ready?”

  I wipe my eyes and turn around. Hurtt stands with Pale by the rooftop elevator, one hand shielding his eyes, the other resting on Pale’s shoulder as the boy stares up, tracking a small flock of birds.

  “Coming,” I call out. I hold my hood open and wait for Ocho to climb inside and settle.

  “Mars,” Waren says with a hint of pleading.

  “Waren, I appreciate the concern, but I need you to just keep watching the skies. I can feel them up there waiting.”

  “Why don’t you ask Hurtt to watch for the Guard? After all, he’s the one with access to the planetary security systems.”

  “I don’t know that I can trust him. Besides, you owe me: you let Pale loose after I told you to keep an eye on him.”

  “I was with him the whole way,” Waren says.

  I sigh and press my fingers against my eyes. “Please, watch my back. I’ve got no one else to do it for me and I am so fucking exhausted.”

  “Of course. I just want you to know I’d never let Pale be hurt.”

  “Mars?” Hurtt calls out again.

  “I know, Waren; I’m just struggling with all this shit.”

  “It’s fine,” Waren says. “Go.”

  * * *

  The elevator drops through the massive building, fast but gentle; the numbers over the door counting down are the only indication that we’re actually moving.

  “I didn’t mean to rush you,” Hurtt says, “but Dr. Modern is waiting.”

  “Sorry, I was just talking to Waren. He’s my AI.”