by Ali Cross
Just past the threshold to the steaming kitchen, I slip and go down—taking three boxes of fresh produce and two frazzled washing girls with me.
“Girl!” scruff-faced Cook says, reaching down a wiry hand. I think she means to help me to my feet—but she grabs the box of now-bruised tomatoes beside me instead.
Girl. Probably the worst thing you can call a person—well, next to person. Humankind is pretty much at the bottom of the refuse pile. It’s the andies who matter, the andies who’ve made my life—and all the humans’ lives—as bleak and dark as a black hole. I long to hear my name, but girl is all anyone calls me—if they call me anything at all. My name is Sera.
I shoot apologetic glances at Sher and Tam as they return to their sink, and take my place beside Minn. The same sink and the same companion I’ve had for the last nine years. Minn says nothing as I pull the hose down and take a plate from the pile beside me.
No, Where have you been? No, Are you all right?
I didn’t expect anything more, but it would have been nice. With a minute turn of my head I catch a glimpse of Sher and Tam at their sink—their heads bent together in the ritual of gossip and stories.
Minn presses her lips together and I return to my work.
With me gone, she would have had to work twice as hard—completing my work as well as her own. She has every reason to wish me to hurry, to focus on the task at hand. Never mind that our ship is virtually empty, the dishes pile up like magic. I grimace at the clean plate in my hand as I scrub at imaginary caked-on food.
The backs of my eyes burn. I want to believe it’s from the sting of the cleansing air as it whooshes out of the hose and tears at the plate—but I know otherwise.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I can’t even hear my own words over the whine of the air—but I want them to be out there, floating in the air over Minn’s head. Maybe somehow she will know.
That I never meant to cause her harm.
That I don’t know why I am different.
That I’m sorry she’s been stuck with me all this long time.
The girl with no parents. The girl with no past. The girl who doesn’t belong.
The twentieth plate has passed through my hands when I feel the familiar hardness of a man’s body press against my back. Minn sidles away, putting as much distance between us as she can. She bends to her task with diligence, furiously scrubbing the dish in her hand.
My own hands grow still and the air trickles away, leaving my ears ringing in the roaring silence.
“I heard what ya done, girl.”
I press my eyes closed. Gart.
“Ain’t gonna answer me? Think you’re too good for me?” Before I even have time to process his words, his hand grips my shoulder and with a violent thrust he whips me around. His gun grazes my hip, slicing through the thin rag of cloth covering my body and cutting into my skin. The area warms and the pain is gone.
Gart digs his greasy hands into my hair, grabbing it by the fistfuls. He backs up, dragging me after him, my hands press against his on my head. I could stop him—oh, I could stop him. But I see their faces—those faces I’ve seen every day of my life. They look away. They avert their eyes. They don’t care. I spread my fingers wide, willing myself not to resist, but to comply.
“See this piece of worthless kitchen trash?” Gart shouts above the din in the busy kitchen. “She thinks she’s too good for me ’n my men.” He lets one hand go and swings me around like a child’s toy. My feet slip out from under me, but I don’t stop him. I close my eyes again—against the uncaring eyes of the staff, against my own need to fight back, to put an end to these games.
When I look again, I see Minn. She is pressed against the furthest corner of our sink, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other at her mouth. I see her for just a moment, just a flash—but there are tears in her eyes. Could the tears be for me?
My eyes grow wide—tears. For me? I scrabble my feet under me, trying to gain my footing, trying to make sense of this new information. I see it now in other faces—not just uncaring, not just thoughtless.
It is helplessness. And fear. They fear for themselves—and they fear for me.
This new idea latches onto my brain like algae. Slipping in and around my thoughts, looking for purchase.
Gart tosses me to the floor. “I said, answer me!” He stands over me, his red face wild with rage. What has he asked me? Desperately, I search my memory—is it there? What did he say?
My eyes flick away from Gart, toward Minn. And that is my mistake.
With a roar, spit flying, speckling my face, Gart leans over me. He clenches his fist, iridium spikes protruding through his flesh as he activates his official protocol, the tiny bit of andie tech that makes him something more than human. Something more evil.
I have a moment, just a moment, but I see it so clearly. Cook turning away. Minn covering her face with both hands. Sher leaning against Tam, closing her eyes.
Gart’s fist connects with my head, the spikes tearing into my flesh, gouging my left eye as it tears across my face.
“You. Are. Nothing.” Gart slows his fist now, instead pressing inward, ensuring the spikes do maximum damage. “You. Are. Worthless.” Each word is punctuated by a new searing pain. “You will never have better—and you’ll never be good enough for me.” He withdraws his fist with an upward curve, taking the corner of my lip with it.
Through my remaining eye I see him raise his boot. A part of me recognizes the moment he presses it, grit- and grime-encrusted, onto my damaged face. And then, mercifully, my consciousness slips away.
At the door to a glass-enclosed room, the guards step to the side and remain there as I follow Galen inside. He gestures to a white overstuffed chair while he walks behind a heavy, gleaming wooden desk and sits behind it. I sink into the luxurious seat and rest my hands on the armrests. I cross my legs, and drape one arm over my knee. I know how to appear human, urbane, casual—it’s built into me as surely as it is into Galen. Our roles as Servants demanded interaction with humans on an intimate level and humans are more comfortable with their own kind.
The irony of Galen’s goals causes a chortle to bubble out of me. I stifle it behind my hand, but not before Galen catches the sound.
“I am glad you still find humor in your situation, old friend. That was something I always admired about you—your ability to be so . . . human.” He bows his head. “Do tell what you find so amusing.”
I take a moment to look around his spacious office—three solid walls and one made entirely of glass. I can see the guards standing there, their backs to us. On Galen’s ornately carved desk rest two etched glass vases each overflowing with flowers of exquisite beauty and fragrance. The walls are tastefully decorated with the works of Masters—two of which I know had once hung in my King’s living quarters. A glass and wood bookshelf occupies the space against a third wall, its shelves stocked with priceless books from Earth and sculptures and trinkets of exquisite workmanship.
This is the den of a King, the tribute to wealth and power evident in every piece that I have no doubt were carefully chosen by Galen himself. He is not careless. No, everything he does, everything he surrounds himself with, every word he speaks serves a purpose. A very specific, very brutal purpose.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Galen’s jaw twitch and I realize I have spent the last several seconds in silent reverie when he had asked me a question. He has always been a less than patient man—I suspect he is even less so now.
I clear my voice and offer him an apologetic smile. “It is only that you have carefully built the Mind’s reputation as superior beings to humans, and yet you surround yourself with the trappings of humanity—a culture that ceased to exist a thousand years ago. Are you truly better than humans? Or are you trying to reclaim a past that died long ago? A history that was never your own?”
I am not sure what I expect. Anger, perhaps. Galen leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers against his pursed lips. “
An apt assessment,” he murmurs.
“Perhaps my purpose is more refined than you suspect, old friend. The humans’ past is our past, too, after all. It is because of who they are that we were created. Their history shaped who we are. We are their evolution—there is no more need of the human race. They have outlived their usefulness. Our time, however, is just beginning.
“Which brings me to why you are here. We have reason to believe you have been in contact with the heir. With Serantha.”
His eyes are on mine, locked with my own. I will them to remain open, to stay focused on his. I will my mind to give nothing away, to betray none of the emotions swirling behind my pupils.
“I’m afraid you are wrong.” Is he wrong? I felt something, did I not? Last night during my sleep-time, didn’t I dream of Serantha? Feel something like the connection between our symbiants, long dormant?
He is watching me still, a small upward turn at the left corner of his lips giving him a boyish grin. I match it, and nod my head ever so slightly. “Yes, you are wrong. I’ve just run a diagnostic and I have no new data from my symbiants.” Not a lie. Just not the entire truth. Because something has changed within me.
Galen watches me for a moment longer, then stands and walks to the front of his desk, a mere two feet away from me. He leans against it and crosses his arms. “Pity. We are within range of the West’s Capital and I had hoped—if somehow Serantha had survived and remained on the ship—that your symbiants would have initiated contact.” His eyes search mine. “You are sure there is nothing?”
“Very sure.” We are near the ship? Could Serantha still be there? I clear my throat and try for a casual, disinterested tone. “How is it you have not accounted for every life aboard the Capital?”
“Oh, of course we have,” Galen answers with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “However, we did leave a complement of properly motivated men to guard a small kitchen staff. They have carefully prepared meals for us—though we were not there to appreciate them—for the last nine years. There were a handful of girls in the kitchen when we performed our searches in the days and weeks following our liberation.” He leaves his perch and walks past me. I feel him pacing the room behind me, but I don’t dare turn to watch him for fear of how my face might betray me.
“Of course we questioned them, even employed some . . . measures . . . that should have roused any lies. But humans are unpredictable and illogical beings—they refused to give up the princess. But I feel confident she has somehow been harbored there.” He has come to stand at my right shoulder, so near I can feel the energy that pulses around him.
“I told you, she is dead. I would know if she let lived.”
Galen sighs and returns to his post against the desk. He gives me a slight smile, the kind you give to a child you know is lying to you. “I will allow you your little game, Archibald, but my patience will not last much longer. Serantha will be found—she will be in our grasp within a day. And I will take pleasure in your discomfort while we put her to death.” He straightens and tugs at the hem of his jacket. “A death that, I assure you, will provide the final blow to humanity’s resistance—indeed to their very existence. He flicks imaginary lint from his lapels before raising his eyes to mine. “A very public, very thorough, death.”
I have forgotten to breathe, everything within me feels frozen, caught between my fears and my desires. Even my thoughts feel trapped in molasses. Galen moves toward me, stopping when he is directly beside me, his hand on my shoulder. “As of now you have been reassigned to Patrol 90z and will accompany us to the Capital. You will aid in the search for the heir, and you will participate in her execution.” He increases his pressure on my shoulder, his fingers curling in, digging into my skin until my pain sensors respond by eliciting a gasp.
“If you hope to have a place in the New Era, you will do this thing that I ask of you. Do you understand?”
I remain motionless, afraid to open my mouth for fear my emotions might betray me. Galen takes my silence for consent because with one more squeeze to my shoulder, he lets go and strides toward the door and opens it. “Take him to the naval wing.”
I leave my home, my empire, my people, in a plain, unmarked shuttle. I bring little with me—some few unadorned clothes and the sword my father gave me when I turned nineteen and was officially named heir to my father’s empire. It was not the first sword of state I’d received. The other, much smaller blade, I left in my room. It was meant for another time. A time when I was not only heir to the Empire of the East, but to the West, as well. A time when I was destined to become King with Serantha at my side.
But that time is no more. Serantha is no more.
And so I left the sword her father gave me. There is no need for it now.
There was no fanfare to send me on my way. I did not even say goodbye to my mother. I saw her, but she was holding court with several ladies and the moment seemed too superficial to utter the words abdication and goodbye.
Instead I touched her shoulder and kissed her cheek. I said hello and goodbye to the ladies who attended her, and left the room without a backward glance.
The moment I pass the borders of my empire, I open a com to a secret channel I discovered while monitoring noise from the console I’d had erected in my suite.
“Can I help you?” the voice on the other end says.
“Please tell the Postman that Wallace wishes to pick up his mail.”
When I wake, Minn gasps. She springs away from me as if I might bite her. I am sure I’d never do anything like that, but this is the way things have always been. The staff are afraid of me—truthfully, so are the guards. I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone put me in my place. Staff shouldn’t refuse the guards—and that’s all I’ve ever done.
My fingers creep, of their own accord, over my face. Soft, dry cloth covers the entirety of the left side. I feel nothing but a steady throb. No pain. Just a heartbeat in my cheek. But when I move to pull the cloth away, Minn leans forward and restrains my hands.
“No.”
It’s the first thing she has said to me in . . . well, in such a long time it hardly seems important to recall. No one speaks with me except to bark orders—and that’s usually Cook’s or Gart’s job.
I drop my hands to my stomach, where I keep them quiet. I don’t dare take my eyes from Minn’s. She might speak again and I don’t want to miss it. Her eyes are shadows, like smudges on her pale face, and a grimy cloth holds her dark hair back from her forehead. She is taller than me, thick, but she somehow seems fragile, tender-hearted.
I search her eyes for what I saw while Gart swung me around. Did I imagine it? Does Minn really feel something for me, after all?
“Well, then.” Minn stands and turns for the door. So I did imagine it. She feels nothing—because Gart is right and I am worthless.
Minn glances back from the doorway, just the tiniest of glimpses, really. There is the flicker of a smile on her face, but I don’t know what it means.
Warm and dry, I sleep until I hear Minn and the others tiptoe into the room all the women share. The floor is littered with make-shift palettes, arranged into a semblance of meager comfort after years of scrimping every bit of cloth, every speck of produce packing material the women could scrounge.
I have always slept directly in front of the door, so if a guard comes it is my stomach his boot finds first, my hand he steps on. Tonight, though, Minn lies behind me, our backs touching. In front of me, Sher curls around her knees.
They are protecting me.
This reality is more strange, more unnerving than Gart’s claws or the steady throb in my cheek.
Maybe I am not so hated as I believed.
I stare at the texture of Sher’s hair, counting the strands of red among the dark brown, and breathe with Minn. I feel every one of her breaths but I can’t sleep. Instead, I let my mind wander and indulge myself in the luxury of relaxation.
The rush of warmth inside my veins, so familiar to me
as my only comfort, sweeps through my body until it coalesces in my face. The sensation is almost painful and I bite back a gasp. I don’t dare move, don’t dare disturb the women and girls who surround me. Tonight I might be one of them, a part of them, but tomorrow I know that will change. Will have to change.
So for tonight I will remain still, unmoving, barely breathing. For tonight, I belong.
Without ceremony the guards deposit me on the twenty-third floor—dedicated to naval administration. The tube coalesces and whisks the guards away, leaving me in a vast hall that extends to either side of me as far as I can see.
The walls and floor are gray, with no adornment of any kind. Thirty-six pinpoints of light streak across the wall and fall in together until they are chasing one another in a circle. As soon as I acknowledge the pattern the sparks move as one into a pulsing stream.
I follow them down the hall, turning north some seventy feet from the entrance. This hall ends in an unmarked door. Lights encircle the door, flash green, then fade from sight.
The door has no doorknob, but dematerializes when I reach the threshold. Inside, the room is abuzz with quiet activity. On the left, three soldiers stand motionless, their faces hidden by large goggles. Each droid flicks and gestures their hands in random patterns in the air—controlling unmanned ships across Western space.
The wall which houses the door is alight with streams of code moving far too quickly for the human eye—but I only need a glimpse to discern they are battle commands, supply requisitions, military reports and more. At this moment the Mind are engaged in twelve skirmishes with ship-states.
Excuse me. Eleven.
New Michigan has been destroyed.
A flash of red catches my eye and I turn to see red lights pulsing around a resting pod. I am to enter, then. To be reprogrammed—reassigned to the navy where I will be expected to bring death to the beings I was created to Serve.
