Blood Crown

by Ali Cross

  I hesitate. No, I think. I cannot.

  A shrill noise resonates within my brain, limiting neural function and filling me with one driving need. I step into the pod and place my hands on the panels, wincing as my fingertips connect with the interface.

  I close my eyes as blissful silence descends upon me.

  Utter silence descends on everyone in the control room as we watch a ship-state disintegrate into a million particles of light. It was almost a beautiful thing. Like a stellar event.

  “New Michigan has been destroyed,” the soldier at the com says unnecessarily.

  “How many dead?” My tone is hard, unemotional. I know I haven’t made any friends here. That the others think I am cold-hearted and disinterested.

  “Fifteen-thousand, seven-hundred and twelve, sir.”

  I exit the control room without another word. Once inside the transport, I give my destination directly to the ship through the nanotech Natalya Gifted me. My floor reached, I march to my room. It’s not until I’m inside, my back pressed to the closed door, that I allow my posture to relax, the mask of authority to fall away.

  In the small closet near my bed, I push my few uniforms aside to reveal the back wall. From the shelf above the clothes I retrieve a pen—a rarity in this technological age. I step to the wall and add today’s losses to the list.

  Finished, I step back and force myself to read every one of the seventeen inscriptions. Three hundred and ninety-seven thousand souls lost.

  I don’t allow myself to weep for them—I can’t. Perhaps in that way I am too much like Father. But while he won’t ever acknowledge that the lives lost have importance, I promise I will remember each and every one.

  And they will be avenged.

  When my eyes open, they meet Sher’s blue ones. The lights haven’t yet come up, but our room is never truly dark. Sher gazes steadily at me, and it surprises me how pretty she is. Underneath the dirt and grime of serving life, I have never had the opportunity to see her, really see her.

  The way she stares at me now, though, is disconcerting and I long to look away. But I won’t. To look away is an act of submission and I just . . . can’t.

  “What?” I ask instead, with a little bite in my tone.

  “Your face.” My eyes focus on hers, drawing out the image of myself reflected in them. My face looks as much mine as I have ever seen it. Brown eyes, brownish hair—the same grunge that marks the faces of everyone around me.

  It takes me a moment before I realize. My face. It is the same as it was before. Before Gart.

  I do look away then—the cloth Minn had placed on my cheek lies, crusted with dried blood, on the palette beside me. My fingers find what my eyes have already detected—my face is nearly whole, with only the slightest ridge in the places where I’d been cut the deepest.

  “Am I hideous?” I ask Sher, not wanting to reveal more of my differences than I already have.

  Sher shakes her head. “No. But you should be—I saw what Gart did to you.” She swallows and her eyes narrow. “No one should be able to heal like that.”

  “You must be mistaken.” I wish, wish, wish my body hadn’t healed itself, though I’m not even sure I could have stopped it. For once I curse my body and the strange abilities it possesses. I would have gladly taken a disfigured face if it meant I might belong. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked.” I pull my shoulders up in a shrug.

  Sher’s eyes remain narrowed with suspicion. In a voice as quiet as my breath, she says, “What are you?”

  I stop breathing.

  Everything in me waits, poised, sensing danger in every answer that presents itself to me. Because there is no answer.

  Or if there is, I don’t know it.

  “I mean, you’re not like the rest of us—we know that.” Her eyes open wide, as if she is only now realizing she might be staring straight at some kind of creature for which she has no name. “Tam thinks you’re an andie—but you’ve lived with us, grown up with us. Plus, your eyes don’t shimmer like theirs do. How could you be an android?”

  “I’m not.” The retort stings my tongue and Sher leans back.

  She lowers her arm so her head lies back against the palette. “Well, whatever you are, you’re dangerous.” She rolls over, giving me what I am accustomed to. A turned back, a denial. Rejection.

  When the lights come up, our cue to return to work, everyone files out before me—like usual. They whisper together but ignore me, careful not to make eye contact. Injured, disfigured, weak—I was like them. Whole, unblemished, I am separated from them even more than I ever was before.

  In the hallway I become aware of something new. The ship hums with activity. The air is tight, stretched with tension. The guards stand tall, at attention. There are no jabs at me with their clubs. No whips snaking around my ankles to trip me.

  Our group walks fast, but I trail behind, reaching out with my senses beyond the service level, to the ship. I know this vessel, every beat of its engine is like the pulse of my own blood. Every whisper of its programming like my own thoughts. Through my whole life, the ship has been my one constant friend, the only one that would talk to me.

  I listen now, like I haven’t in a long time—I listen, though the messages have changed. There is a different tenor to the ship, a new resonance. There is unique programming running through its veins, a different story being told. A different language being spoken.

  A zap of electricity courses through me from my right calf all the way up to my armpit. “Get. Moving.” Fale's voice cuts through the noise in my mind and propels my feet forward. I tuck my head down and run to catch up with the others, but instead of the jeers and laughter that normally follow me, the guards are silent. It is eerie, unnatural.

  Whatever is happening, the guards don’t like it either.

  In the kitchen, whispered gossip thrums along with the cleansing air from our hoses and the usual hubbub of busy service stations. But it isn’t just me they are talking about—though plenty steal glances at my face—it’s whatever has the guards worked up.

  Orders come through the communication interface embedded in Cook’s head and the mystery grows to enormous proportions. She claims she has not received unique orders in nine or more years, and now we have been ordered to provide a feast—it seems there are guests aboard. It doesn’t concern me, so I keep my head down, my eyes focused on my work, and concentrate on the messages zipping through the ship.

  Cook prods me with her large spoon that seems more an extension of her arm than a tool. I gasp and stop what I am doing, letting the air whoosh to a stop. Minn is already still, her hands clasped together in front, her back pressed to the sink. Several others have gathered around us.

  “Girl.” Cook’s voice lacks its usual edge. Now it sounds . . . fearful, perhaps.

  I try to look at her, sort of, over my shoulder. I’m not anxious to turn around and face her.

  “Look what you’ve been doin’,” she says, her voice regaining some of its sharpness.

  I look down, but don’t immediately see the problem. I have a plate in one hand and a silicone scraping tool in the other. There is a stack of unclean plates to my left . . . a stack that held hundreds of plates and now holds two. To my right, on the portion of the counter that belongs to me, a stack of clean plates nearly passes over my head. I can barely see Minn’s station on the other side. I have cleaned easily ten times the amount that Minn has and she is the fastest scrubber in the kitchen.

  “I-I’m working.” I force my voice to remain calm, but I don’t quite achieve it. I’ve spent my entire life—well, the part I can remember—trying to appear as normal as I can. Resisting the urge in my body and mind to go faster, do more, be more. But now, in one twenty-four hour period, I’ve slipped so far. First my face . . . and now this.

  When Cook speaks next, she steps closer to me, so I can feel her breath on my ear. “Girl, if there’s somethin’ I should know about you, best to tell me now. What secrets have you been keepin’—
have you been spyin’ on us?” This last seems to be a sudden thought, even to her, because her voice rises dangerously loud.

  I spin to face her.

  “No! I’m no spy—I swear it.”

  Cook uses her wiry frame like a weapon. She angles herself toward me, so her pointy elbow rests just beneath my breast bone. I’ve seen her knock the wind out of the bigger men this same way when they’ve stepped out of line.

  “Don’t be lyin’ to me, girl. If you’re no spy—” she glances toward the stack of sparkling plates, “then just what in the blazes are you?”

  My mouth drops open, prepared to deliver my usual response, but the look in her eye stops me short.

  It isn’t hatred or fear—well, maybe some fear, but mostly what I see is . . . hope.

  I grind my teeth without saying anything at all, unsure of what the proper response is. “I—” But I can’t form the words. I’m not sure. But you’re right, I’m not human. At least not all the way.

  Of all the endless scenes I’ve imagined in my life, this conversation was never one of them. I never expected to be more than tolerated by these people, never befriended, never one of them—even though I had hoped for at least a measure of belonging. If what I suspect of myself is true, how could I ever live with them? How could they ever accept me?

  Cook’s elbow presses against my bone. “I-I’m not sure . . . what to . . .” I sigh a split second before the guards burst into the kitchen, their faces flushed and sweaty. The ship told me they were coming, and I’ve never been so relieved to see them—though I can’t make any sense of the messages flitting through my brain.

  Simeon strides forward, brandishing his weapon, a black tube about arm’s length, though it can extend further when needed. I know personally that it can do great damage. For now, he just holds it in one hand and lets the other end rest in his open palm.

  He surveys the kitchen—and our little scene at my sink—with little interest. He has a crazed look about him and when his gaze lingers on me, and he licks his lips, I am filled with dread.

  “You!” he shouts into the quiet room. Minn jumps, but Cook barely looks his way. “You, you and you.” He uses his weapon to point at each one of us in turn—me, Minn, Sher and Tam. “Put these on.” He tosses a handful of shimmering white cloth at Minn. She reaches out, but can’t retain a grasp on the slippery material so it falls to her feet.

  “You,” he says, turning his gaze to Cook. “Have the meal ready in twenty minutes and have them—” he vaguely gestures in Minn’s direction, “bring it up.”

  “But, the butler . . .” Cook squeezes out before the guard snaps out his baton and presses it, uncharged, to her shoulder.

  “Listen to me, woman.” He leans against the stick and Cook stumbles into me. “You will not question me. You will have the meal prepared. Twenty minutes. And you will have these girls deliver it to the dining hall wearing those.” He doesn’t look at the pile of cloth at Minn’s feet, but I do. So does everyone else.

  With a quick jab, he yanks back his baton and turns on his heel, stomping out of the kitchen with his compatriots on his heels.

  Tam is the first to step forward and pick the pile of white from the floor. After sifting through it, she discovers there are four pieces of cloth, and hands them out to each of us. Minn holds hers away from her, as if she’s afraid to let it touch her body, but Tam presses it against herself to examine what it is.

  It is a garment—in the loosest definition of the word. Not entirely unlike the ragged gray shifts we wear, it is made of the silkiest cloth I have ever felt. It slips between my fingers like cool water. But even lying across the front of her body, I can see straight through to Tam’s clothes beneath. These garments are as translucent as water as well.

  Cook shouts orders to the staff while the three girls huddle together, and I linger on the edges of their group. When they make to leave the kitchen, to prepare themselves for the presentation of the meal, I follow a few steps behind.

  Minn stops and turns to me. The corners of her mouth curl up—almost imperceptible—but the softening of her eyes is like a shout. She waits until I join her and we leave the kitchen together.

  Minn matches my slow pace, though we have already lost sight of Tam and Sher. Finally she places her fingertips—the slightest of touches—to my forearm. “We should hurry,” she says. I nod, small and sharp, because I don’t know what to say, or if I trust myself to say it.

  So we set off at a quicker pace and meet Sher and Tam as they walk between two guards toward the privy.

  “We’re to clean up!” Sher squeals. We are only allowed to use the privy for the most necessary of personal tasks. Cleaning, our hair or our bodies, is only allowed on the rarest occasions. My mind reels at the implications of our new assignment. Again I strain to hear the ship’s thoughts, but I am shut out, its new language indecipherable.

  “Make it quick,” says Fale. He and the older boy stand just inside the privy’s door. There are partitions, of a sort, but they allow for very little privacy. I am keenly aware of the guards’ stares as I strip out of my shift and press my foot to the pedal that will trigger a blast of cleansing air.

  It shooshes over me in a wider swath than the hose in the kitchen to avoid ripping the skin off our bodies, but it still stings as it strikes. I dip my head back and let the air work the tangles and grease from my hair.

  Too soon, the older guard shouts, “That’s enough!” and almost simultaneously we shut off our showers. The guards step forward, extending their hands, which hold the strange new garments. When he comes to me, Fale draws his hand to his chest. He lets his eyes drop from mine and takes his time as he gazes at every part of me. Goosebumps break out on my skin, but it isn’t because I’m cold.

  When his eyes meet mine again, I have a moment of regret. Because what I see in the his eyes wasn’t there yesterday when he’d eagerly approached me in my cell. Just yesterday there had been hope and desire in his eyes. Now, there is only anger, pride and suspicion. So much like Gart I suddenly wonder at the part I have played in his advancement into the cruel and heartless world of manhood.

  I sit with twenty-three other droids in the war pod at the rear end of the Mind ship. The pods are small, round vessels docked around the Mind ship like suckers on an eel. Each pod can be ejected singularly, allowing for the Mind soldiers to take a myriad of routes to their destination.

  For today, I am told, there will be no deployment.

  There are whispers throughout the ship, among the warrior droids that surround me, that instead of an attack, tonight there will be a party. These droids are not the brute simpletons of the kitchen droids, but their humor is crass and just as vulgar.

  I stare at their identical faces—chiseled jaws, blue eyes like ice that cut as surely as the titanium weapons built into their skeletal structure—and lock my symbiants deep within the secret places inside of me while they scream to be set free.

  Serantha is near.

  “I told you they would come,” I tell Kevin, codename, the Postman. It’s not a matter of pride with him, though he’ll lose a week’s privileges for his misplaced gamble, but the fact he failed to see this turn of events. He has dedicated his life to anticipating the Mind’s methods and moves.

  Kicked back in his chair, feet crossed on the console, he nods to the screen on which the image of a large red ship blinks against the black background. Near it, the black beetle-shape of the West Capital lies dormant. My heart seizes at the sight of it—it looks forsaken, like a relic from the past. It’s basic shape and size is similar to my own home in the East, but nine years of neglect has almost made it unrecognizable. Where the my home has been updated and improved over the years, the Western Capital is hulking and bare of any modern refinements. There are so few systems running that it couldn’t possibly hold much life, let alone run the ship effectively.

  Kevin stares at the blinking red image of the Mind’s sleek ship and frowns. “But why? Why return to the Capital now, a
fter nine years? After so long, it’s a tomb. It won’t even fly properly. The Mind’s ship might as well be centuries ahead in design and capabilities.”

  The Mind’s ship is such a contrast to the Capital that it’s almost impossible to name them both deep space vessels. The Capital appears to be twice the Mind’s size, but I know it’s an optical illusion. The Mind’s ship is equipped with reflectors that help it remain largely invisible, while the Capital is like a black hole. I hope there are no humans aboard because the Capital will not withstand an assault from the Mind for long.

  My comrades here have taken to calling me the Grand Master—and it’s a name I don’t begrudge. In a way, we are playing a game of chess with the Mind—though while I put up a good fight, it is Galen, leader of the Mind, who remains the Master. During our last two battles, our forces arrived moments late—this time, we will be so long-delayed we might as well not even try.

  But this is the Capital, what might have been my home one day. “Why now, indeed?” I say, though I don’t mean to voice it out loud.

  Kevin drops his feet to the ground with a thunk, and swings his gaze over to me. “Who knows?” We stare at the ships on the screen a moment longer. Even in that short time the Mind closes the distance between them and the Capital.

  “Do you think they’ll use the Capital to stage an offensive against your empire?” he asks me.

  “It’s not my empire.” It’s a knee-jerk reaction. Kevin is the only one here, among these rebel soldiers, who knows my true identity. But we are alone and so for the moment, there’s no need to pretend. I sigh and slouch into the chair next to him, sticking my hands into my hair and pulling hard. The slight pain usually helps to focus my thoughts, but when I look again at the screen I remain without inspiration. “If that’s what they intend to do, they’ll double their own resources, which is more than enough firepower to take the fight to the East.”

  To my people.