Nayli hadn’t thought it was an accident at first, but in the end, in that moment on video before she took off part of Chrystal’s head, her eyes had shown regret. True regret. And hope. It was the same look that children bestowed on a world that was surprisingly unfair.
Chrystal had been human. She had shown mortal fear when Nayli severed her forehead and cut her skull in two parts vertically and slashed her arms free of her torso and then her fingers free of her twitching hands. Chrystal had been alive, and Nayli had killed her in cold blood.
She was guilty of something the robot had not been.
Murder.
The door banged open and Vadim came in. Her husband. His manner, his refusal to look directly at her, his voice, all cold. Even so, he filled the room. At the moment his back was to her. He stood just too far away for her to touch. His well-muscled arms protruded from his vest. Even though his long braid hid part of the Shining Revolution slogan embroidered on the vest, she knew it by heart. Humanity Free and Clear.
When she got to the station, she might abandon the whole damned revolution and go somewhere and paint or garden.
Her husband spoke, his voice cool and measured. “You should be seen with us. Communications will be turned back on in an hour.”
She stared at the approaching station, chewing on her lip. She had loved Vadim fiercely for years. She still loved him. But Chrystal had been human. Maybe all of the Next were human, and the slogan a lie.
Vadim clapped the lights on. “Move.”
“I don’t want to be a spokesman for murder,” she said through clenched teeth.
“We need you, and you will come. If not, Brea will lock you up until you cannot hurt us.”
She swallowed, shivering again. Brea.
“Get dressed,” he said. “And comb your hair.” He left, leaving the lights on and the door open behind her.
She took in a deep breath, blinking at the lights. Maybe being locked up would be fine.
It wasn’t an idle threat.
Neither Brea nor Darnal allowed for any breach of protocol, any weakness. Nor did they let Vadim or Nayli or any others with power ever forget who was truly in charge. And now, now they were stronger than ever. She snapped the lights off and stalked out of the room.
By the time she strode into the large command room twenty minutes later, Nayli had donned her black uniform, rebraided her dark hair, and strung bone and precious jewel beads into it. The braid hung down over a real leather vest that she’d worn into black butter, which hung in turn over high black boots that matched it. Leather and beads and bone. Her signature look. The only thing missing was the bright blue feather she added when she was going to a party.
If she was about to be locked up for being late or for having a heart, she was going to do it in style.
Vadim’s eyes widened when he saw her, and for just a moment a sultry look crossed his face. Almost an invitation, a look that melted her in spite of the distance between them. Nayli and Vadim, the most forward faces of the Shining Revolution. Its spokespeople. Before she had time to react, he turned, hiding his face and looking at the screen. “We’ve got news now,” he said.
A man and woman with white-blond hair had been sitting at a small table. They stood, flanking her so closely she could smell them. She kept her voice carefully neutral. “Hello Brea. Hello Darnal.”
Brea spoke in a voice of ice. “We will be broadcasting our re-emergence story. You have twenty minutes to tell me if you will be a part of that.”
“How generous.” They only wanted her because she’d been stupid enough to stand on stage right here—right here in this big room, which had been set up for a mock trial then—and rip apart another being for the misfortune of having been stuffed into a robotic body against her will. She struggled to hide her disgust.
Would the news still be about her? How had the Diamond Deep voted in the end? And how had the Next reacted?
Vadim turned up the volume, directing her attention to the image on the screen. A planetary surface. A great wall enclosed a small city, and here and there robots walked down corridors or across open spaces. The view was from above, probably a news drone. “Is that Mammot?” she asked.
Vadim shook his head. “The ticker says it’s near Manna Springs. That’s on Lym.”
“They took over Lym?” An unexpected move. Bold.
Vadim opened a fresh window and started searching for information. “They have permission to be there.”
Brea grunted. “Stupid people.”
Darnal said, “Request the top stories from the last two weeks.”
“Working on it.”
“Start with us,” Brea said. “I want to see what they said about us.”
Nayli forced her muscles not to twitch as three screens around the room started replaying her murder of Chrystal. Then the news made a great deal of the disappearance of the Shining Revolution ship, the Free Men, although not for long. Apparently going quietly didn’t draw notice.
The Diamond Deep had caved and decided to help the Next.
“What are our numbers?” Brea demanded.
Vadim paused the news stream and queried. He came back with, “They’re great. Two million seven hundred have sworn themselves to us since we killed the robot.”
Nayli was willing to bet that was why the Deep had voted to be helpful. It had the worst social structure in all of the vast Glittering—anybody could be anything on the Deep. She said nothing, though.
At least five of her twenty minutes were up.
“Four thousand two hundred and seven people have been approved to become robots.”
Darnal pursed his lips. “How many have done it?”
Vadim shook his head. “I think it takes a few months. So no one knows how many succeeded. They don’t all, you know. Some die.”
Why would people risk so much? The terminally ill or the really old? Understandable. Maybe. But a lot of the applicants were under a hundred. Young.
“Look,” Brea said. “There are your robots.”
Brea’s tone drove Nayli to snap, “They’re not mine.”
On the screen, the two men, Yi and Jason, stood in a circle of light at the Lym spaceport. “When is this?” Nayli asked.
Vadim remained silent for a moment, reading snippets of news articles that scrolled up one side of the screen. They would be from whenever the video shot had happened. “A few days after the vote. Not long. The first two Next ships had just landed on Lym.”
They were walking toward an open hangar. Jason had long hair streaked with purple, broad shoulders, and a really attractive, ready smile. Yi’s hair was an untamable mop, shoulder length and dark, emphasizing his slender, bony build. They looked too human to be robots. They even walked like real people.
The camera view shifted to just behind them instead of above them. Jason had a nice butt, which made her smile in a sort of horrified fashion, a little guilty. Her body apparently didn’t know the difference between robots and men.
Of course, he was as real as Chrystal had been, and he was surely hurting because she had killed Chrystal. They had been a human family before they became a robot family.
She swallowed, hoping it hadn’t been too hard on him.
The close-in view followed the robots toward a hangar. Bright light spilled from the door as it slowly rolled up and then limned two female forms in a halo of light.
The men stopped, hesitated.
All four of them ran toward each other, two women and two men.
Nayli squinted, uncertain what was happening.
The robots came together, linked arms, a group hug. She saw Jason’s face, ecstatic with happiness.
She stiffened and swallowed, stepped toward the screen. The resolution was good enough that when the light was right she saw Chrystal’s face, whole and happy.
She hadn’t killed Chrystal after all.
It hadn’t been possible to kill her.
She stared, unwilling to turn and face the others. Relief and
anger and shame all raced through her, warm and cold and hot in turn.
When she had herself back under perfect control, Nayli turned to Brea and met her eyes. Brea’s eyes were pale blue, like water but steely. They showed nothing more than patience. Waiting.
“I’m in,” she said. “I’m in.”
She glanced at the time. It had only taken fifteen minutes.
Damn.
CHAPTER FOUR
YI
Yi’s new feet carried him around the vast track at least twice as fast as he could have ever run before, and much more smoothly. A piece of his attention focused on each bend of an ankle, on the angle of elbows, on the cant of his head. He heard the touch of every step on the smooth running surface, felt the wind that he himself created, and smelled the salt-sweet sea.
The subtleties of his design amazed him afresh, over and over. He did not hear his breath. He had no lungs. Even though it took power to run with such abandon, such love, movement gave him more power than it spent. Excess heat from running became more energy to help him run farther, made him feel better, lighter.
At this time of the afternoon, the silver walls of Nexity didn’t cast a shadow across the town inside the walls the way they did in the morning. The western side of the town was open to the sea. The edges of bridgework could be seen, implying that the top of the Wall would become a large circle while the bottom of the city would remain open. A clear field extended out into the ocean, a force more than an actual barrier. He had never touched it, but he had been told that if he tried to walk through it he would feel it like a slight resistance but be able to pass. He had also been told it would solidify into a barrier for an enemy.
From time to time other robots ran past him, only a few even looking close to human. Nexity was already far more diverse than the ships he had been on. He’d met at least a hundred differently named individuals, and many of those were human and multiple, like the Colorimas or the Jhailings. He would grow to be like them, to be able to move from one body to another, to alter his own body, to copy himself into more than one individual entity.
There were more of him now, but that had been done by the Next, done to them. But surely the more advanced multiples made their own choices?
An expanse of sand spread out beyond the city at ground level. After the sand, sea. One and two foot waves with crashing curls of briny foam that smelled of salt and seaweed.
There was only the faintest shimmer to suggest the barrier existed. It was wholly unlike the wall that blocked his view of the spaceport and Manna Springs beyond it.
The shield, the city, and the easy transformation of matter all amazed him even more than his own body amazed him. The Next themselves had never been on a planet, except perhaps a few who had visited Lym before they became robots in the long ago, and a few who had paved the way.
Nexity rose and changed around him so fast he found it delightfully dizzying, a constant source of amazement. He had seen this very spot—empty—only months before when he flew down with Charlie and Jason.
The rhythmic thump of footsteps came up behind him. Yi slowed to allow Yi Two to catch up with him. Their long lanky bodies matched perfectly, the mirror image no longer a shocking surprise. Chrystal and Katherine had convinced the dual Yis and the dual Jasons that they should identify themselves with color. So Yi Two wore blues and greens and blacks, and Yi One wore yellows and purples and reds.
Yi Two looked disturbed.
Something’s wrong, Yi observed. He and his mirror almost never used audible conversation between each other anymore. Silent sharing felt more complete, more nuanced.
Katherine has been listening to media around Manna Springs. She’s detected an attack starting there. Everyone who was part of negotiating the deal with the Next is being threatened.
That means Charlie.
As they rounded the corner, they began running along the inside of the Wall. A pair of bigger robots who had long ago abandoned human form raced past them, and for a moment Yi sensed their joy in movement, marveling again that life as a machine was about movement and exploration, about joy and learning. After the bigger machines rounded the next corner, Yi asked, Is Charlie okay?
We don’t know where he is. Or Nona. Manny’s home is surrounded, and there have been reports of fighting at Ice Fall Valley.
Yi felt fear for his friends and the weight of obligation. Before he ever walked on the surface of Lym, he had promised to tell Charlie of dangers. They had been speaking of dangers from the Next, and this was, at best, caused by the Next’s arrival. Still, he owed Charlie.
There were thousands of people on Lym, and more coming now with the influx of Next. Many of them hated the Next and might kill any of them on sight. Others had been kind. He had met Charlie’s uncle Manny, who ran the town and by default the planet. He had never been to his house, so he couldn’t calculate its defensibility. But he had been watching when he flew into the spaceport with Charlie, and the town was a sprawling thing with open spaces and wide streets. The architecture varied widely, built up over hundreds of years, all of it natural and fragile. It would be very hard to defend.
Manny’s troubles were real.
If Charlie’s at Wilding Station, he’s probably safe. It was on Goland across the sea from Gyr Island, far enough away for safety and a good vantage point where Charlie would be able to see any ships coming in. The Next had access to the spaceport’s records, so Yi requested information and continued. Ice Fall Valley is dangerous. The caves are safe; they have doors. But the gleaners aren’t warriors, not as far as I know.
As if he’d waited for Yi to come to the same conclusion, and known when he did, Yi Two suggested, We should stop and ask a Jhailing.
Yes. Soon.
Yi Two smiled. Choose the place.
By the sea.
He pushed his body, head down, leaning into the run, thinking only of each and every movement of every muscle and of his other self beside him. Another joy—clarity of focus far deeper than he’d ever managed, even in meditation.
He stepped off the running path and slowed to a fast walk. Yi Two matched him stride for stride. They folded down to sit cross-legged. In front of them, the controlled surfaces of Nexity gave way to rocky shore and then to sand. Sound passed through the field barrier, and the rhythmic crash and susurration of water on the shore calmed Yi. Seabirds called and screeched.
They linked arms and fell into each other’s inner selves, abandoning being alone in favor of sweet, sweet connection. Braiding. Becoming one. There was no new heartbeat to feel, no breath to match, but there remained an essence, a self so intimate and so deep that touching it made his soul quiver.
Within a few moments, they did not have to talk to each other because they were each other, one being as well as two, the contradiction impossible to resolve.
Yi loved it, and he loved Yi Two, and he loved that being each other made them far greater than being alone in ways that were completely ineffable.
They began, as always, catching up. Yi now remembered Katherine telling him what she’d found, saw the worry in her eyes, the upset crease in her brow, and heard the small catch in her voice. Katherine, the defender of anything in trouble. If there was a fight, she didn’t back either party, but instead wanted the fight to end and everything to be well.
The Jhailing Jim, as always, appeared inside of them as soon as they called, a presence they could hear. It was more intrusive and less intimate than braiding, and always slightly jarring. While Yi and Yi were like each other, they were not like any of the Jhailings.
What can you tell us about the dangers to town? they asked.
Manna Springs is in danger of falling. We may be forced into defensive measures.
Can’t you keep the people you negotiated with safe? Charlie? Manny?
The agreements are all recorded. This is why we built the Wall.
Yi fell silent, communing again with Yi Two, both realizing the same thing. You will not help because it will be seen as med
dling. This is the approach that you took to Chrystal’s murder.
We are not allowed in town.
But we are!
One of you at a time.
What about Charlie? Where is Charlie? Nona?
They are going to Ice Fall Valley and will join the fighting there.
They will be targets.
Yes.
Yi and Yi stared out over the water. Only one of them would be able to go, and one Jason.
They both knew the land, but Yi One had lived the last visit. There might be a small advantage in that, a visceral body knowledge. I will leave in an hour.
You can’t harm humans, the Jhailing warned them. Not even if it means you must die.
The trade-off that Chrystal had made. Life for life.
I understand, the two Yis said at once.
They let themselves separate, a slow languid process. Each found the ability to play with their own perception of time fascinating.
Will we be as different one from another as some of the Jhailings are? Yi asked.
Yi Two responded. If we live so many centuries.
They crossed the exercise field, walking quickly and side by side, the residue of the braid clinging to them, binding each energetically to the other.
CHAPTER FIVE
SATYANA
Satyana stood up from her desk in the very heart of the Star Bear and closed the screen in front of her. She stopped in her private privy and brushed her hair and pinned golden earrings into her earlobes. Her blue dress matched the bright unnatural blue of her eyes. She tugged at the hem to get it just right across her shoulders.
Gunnar would be here any moment, and she still hadn’t decided what to say to him. The information she’d just heard wasn’t going to make it any easier, either. She returned to her office and paced.
She stopped and stared at the picture of Ruby Martin that she kept on the wall above her desk. The red-headed woman stared back at her with a triumphant expression. The photo captured one of Ruby’s early concerts, when she was just realizing that she could captivate—and change— a huge crowd. It had been taken before the sickness that eventually killed her, when she still looked beautiful and fierce.
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