Between Burning Worlds

by Jessica Brody

  Clink.

  Clink.

  Clink.

  The all-too-familiar sound of the Regiments board. The sound of pieces being lifted, checked, and replaced.

  Clink.

  Clink …

  And then, a single word. “Sols.”

  Marcellus froze, listening to the shocked silence emanating across the galaxy, finding its way from his grandfather’s study all the way here to Albion.

  For a brief moment, the stars flickered, the planets wavered, and the universe felt out of sync. Because for a brief moment, General Bonnefaçon had been outsmarted by his stupide, worthless grandson.

  Marcellus heard a rustle and a thud, and in a low, sinister voice, his grandfather whispered, “This is not over, Marcellus.”

  Then there was the distinct crunch of a boot striking the Palais’s polished marble floor, destroying the auditeur, and silencing the sounds of his grandfather’s office for good.

  “This way!” Gabriel cried out.

  Marcellus glanced up to see the group was on the move again, and as he ran to catch up with them, he suddenly understood that Gabriel was leading them back to the front of the Filbright Wing, where Marcellus could see Lady Alexander’s aerocab was still docked, a row of lights on its underside blinking and glowing in the night.

  They charged toward the vehicle. Cerise was the first to arrive. She pressed her hand to the panel on the side of the door, but nothing happened. “C’mon, c’mon,” she urged, removing her hand and placing it down again. “Open, you Albion piece of junk!”

  “Access denied,” the vehicle responded in a pretentious accent that sounded eerily like Lady Alexander herself.

  “It’s locked.” Cerise banged her palm against the door.

  “Can’t you hack it?” Gabriel asked breathlessly.

  Cerise bent down and scrutinized the panel. “This is some special Albion technology. Maybe if I had fifteen minutes to bust it open and look around, I could figure it out.”

  Marcellus glanced up just as another aerocab came barreling around the corner, heading right toward them. The air rippled in its wake.

  Guards.

  “You have more like fifteen seconds,” he informed her.

  Cerise’s head shot up, her eyes widening as her gaze landed on the incoming vehicle.

  The aerocab lurched to a halt a few mètres away, and the door swung open. Marcellus sucked in a breath and turned, readying himself to run from the legion of guards that was about to pour out onto the roadway.

  “Get in,” said a deep, accented voice.

  Confused, Marcellus spun back to the aerocab and peered at the single passenger sitting inside. Marcellus instantly recognized him from the lab. It was the older scientist. Dr. Collins. The one Marcellus had sworn he saw flinch during the demonstration. But what was he doing here?

  Marcellus turned to Alouette, who was staring at the man with what appeared to be the same confusion.

  “They won’t get away, General. I assure you.”

  The voice startled Marcellus, and he glanced up to see that the doors to the Filbright Wing were splayed wide open and Lady Alexander was standing in the center, glaring hard at him from behind her shimmering monoglass. Then, not a second later, a troop of uniformed guards came streaming through the doors behind her, running straight toward them.

  “GET IN,” Dr. Collins bellowed from the awaiting vehicle.

  Marcellus nodded once and the four of them dove inside.

  The aerocab launched into the air, and Marcellus had to grab on to a seat to avoid being flung across the interior. An explosion of noise vibrated in his ears and shook the vehicle.

  “Get down,” Dr. Collins called out. “They’re shooting.”

  Alouette, Cerise, and Gabriel all threw themselves onto the floor. But before Marcellus could duck, Dr. Collins thrust something into his hand. “We’re almost to the security gate. When I cue you, throw this.”

  Marcellus looked down at a smooth metal cartridge in his hand.

  “What is—?” he began to ask, but his words were cut off by the sharp blasts of more gunfire.

  “Now!” said Dr. Collins, plunging his hand down on the console.

  The window beside Marcellus slid open, and Marcellus hurled the small capsule out of the vehicle. It landed only mètres away from the security gate, and as soon as it hit the ground, a cloud of thick green smoke plumed into the air, swallowing up the squadron of guards who were shooting at them.

  “Blinding gas,” Dr. Collins explained as he sealed the window and revved the engine. The vehicle tore out of the complex.

  Marcellus glanced back to see the smoke billowing behind them, obscuring the whole view of the tech labs. But even through the thick green fog, another round of gunfire rang out and Marcellus scrabbled down onto the floor. Something struck the side of the aerocab, leaving a large gaping hole in the metal that seemed to spread and blacken with each passing second, like it was alive.

  Gabriel yelped. “What the fric kind of ammo are they firing?”

  “Cluster bullets,” Dr. Collins replied as he yanked on the contrôleur and pitched the aerocab into a steep upward climb. “A nasty Albion invention that you do not want to be on the receiving end of.”

  “No kidding,” Gabriel muttered, still gaping, horrified, at the yawning puncture in the wall.

  The aerocab juddered again but then evened out, and soon they were soaring across the sky, picking up speed. The sound of gunfire retreated into the distance, and Marcellus peeked out the window again to see the spires of the tech labs complex fading behind them.

  “You’re safe to get up now,” Dr. Collins said without tearing his gaze from the front window.

  Slowly, the four of them pushed themselves up from the floor and climbed onto the leather-covered benches. Marcellus shared an uneasy glance with Alouette, like they were deciding who would be the first to ask the question that was surely on all their minds.

  But it was Cerise who blurted it out. “Why are you helping us?”

  The aerocab lurched into a new gear, throwing everyone back against their seats.

  “Why do you think?” the silver-haired scientist replied.

  “I don’t know,” Cerise said impatiently. “That’s why I’m asking!”

  Dr. Collins glanced at Marcellus. “I assume all that gunfire means you’re not, in fact, associated with General Bonnefaçon, as you claimed.”

  “He is my grandfather,” Marcellus said with a grimace. “But no, I’m not associated with him. Not anymore, anyway.”

  “Then why are you here?” Dr. Collins asked.

  “We’re trying to stop him,” said Marcellus.

  Dr. Collins cocked a silver eyebrow and shot a look at Cerise. “As am I.”

  “What?” Cerise spat. “If you’re trying to stop him, then why are you working with him?”

  “Because he’s the source,” Alouette said softly, speaking for the first time since they’d scrambled into the aerocab.

  Marcellus stared incredulously between Alouette and Dr. Collins. “You’re the source?”

  Dr. Collins darted a look back at Alouette. “What source?”

  “You’re the one who’s been communicating with Denise,” she said. It wasn’t a question or an accusation. It was just a fact. And Marcellus was impressed that she’d been able to figure it out so quickly.

  “How do you know Denise?” Dr. Collins asked.

  “How do you know Denise?” Cerise fired back.

  But Alouette answered first. “She … She sort of raised me. Or at least, she was one of the women who raised me.”

  “You’re the Lark?” Dr. Collins asked in amazement.

  Marcellus felt Alouette stiffen beside him. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Did Denise send you here?” Dr. Collins steered the aerocab gently to the left.

  “Not exactly,” Alouette replied. “We intercepted your message for her. Denise taught me the code you’ve been using when I was little. That last
transmission you received was from us. We pretended to be her so you would meet with us and hopefully tell us how to stop the general from using that awful”—she shuddered—“thing.”

  “Yeah, what exactly was that thing?” Gabriel asked.

  “So, if you intercepted that transmission,” Dr. Collins said, ignoring Gabriel’s question. “Then where is Denise?”

  Alouette stared down at her hands, her lips trembling. “She’s …”

  “My grandfather has her,” Marcellus cut in, the familiar anger sharpening his tone. “He’s taken her to a secret detention facility somewhere. We don’t know where.”

  The aerocab fell very silent. Dr. Collins eased the contrôleur to the right and then down. The small craft ascended toward what looked like a very small town. Marcellus could make out a few neat rows of houses with gentle sloping roofs and square patches of grass behind them.

  “Wait a minute,” Cerise said, staring at the coordinates flashing across the console. “Isn’t this the location where we were supposed to meet you?”

  “It’s a safe house,” Dr. Collins said, “that the Ministry of Defence doesn’t know about.”

  He silently steered the aerocab down a dark and quiet lane before pulling into a small docking shelter attached to one of the houses.

  For a long moment, they all just sat there in the darkness. No one knew quite what to say or do next. Dr. Collins stared blankly through the front window, almost as though he were trying to summon the courage to move again.

  Cerise was the first to speak. “So, are you going to tell us how you know Denise?”

  At these words, the scientist seemed to break free from his trance. He jabbed at a button on the console, and the doors of the aerocab slid open. But just before stepping out, Dr. Collins glanced back at Cerise with a forlorn look, and said, “She’s my daughter.”

  - CHAPTER 41 - ALOUETTE

  THE KETTLE ON THE STOVE let out a long, high-pitched whistle.

  “Who would like tea?” Dr. Collins asked as he began pouring hot water into the teapot.

  Alouette couldn’t imagine stomaching anything right now. She just wanted answers. But she also didn’t want to be rude, so she quietly raised her hand along with the others.

  “You mecs really like your tea here, don’t you?” Gabriel said.

  Dr. Collins smiled as he took down five cups from a nearby shelf. “Yes. It must be an Albion thing. I suppose it comes from our ancestors on the First World. But mostly, I find tea helps me think.” He carefully poured the tea and handed a cup to each of them. “And how about a bickie?”

  Alouette shared a confused look with Gabriel.

  Dr. Collins pushed a round silver container toward them. “You know, biscuits. Would you like a biscuit?” Then, after another series of blank looks, he said, “They’re sweet.”

  Gabriel launched himself forward and grabbed for the container. “Thanks, mec. I’m starving.”

  After they’d each taken one—or in Gabriel’s case, five—Alouette sipped at her tea and peered around the main room of this curious little house. It was as if she’d been transported back to the propagation room in the Refuge, where Sister Laurel used to produce all her herbal tinctures and medicinal syrups. Polished test tubes and cone-shaped beakers sat in neat rows on the shelves, and jars of powders and strange-colored liquids crowded every surface. A vast whiteboard held tangles of sketched drawings and diagrams, while a bank of cabinets hugged its way around the room. Even the ceilings were low like in the Refuge, and the blacked-out windows made Alouette feel like she was back underground.

  “So, okay, apparently I’m the only one who’s going to ask the million-larg question of the day,” Gabriel said through a large mouthful of biscuit. “How did you end up building that … that … thing for General Bonnefaçon?”

  Dr. Collins sipped his tea and leaned heavily on the kitchen counter, as though the answer itself was weighing him down. “I didn’t know I was doing it. At least not at first. Dr. Cromwell and I are old colleagues, and he asked me to come and join him on what he called ‘an exciting new research project.’ ” He cast an apologetic glance at Marcellus. “I promise, I had no idea what we were developing until it was too late. I thought we were expanding our research in the field of neuroelectricity. Dr. Cromwell said they desperately needed a neuroengineer, and I thought it was harmless. Then they started bringing in the test subjects and I heard the general’s name mentioned a few times and I …” He grimaced. “I realized what the research was really for.”

  “What exactly did you develop?” Marcellus asked. He seemed to shudder at the memory of what they’d all just seen back in the labs.

  Dr. Collins stared vacantly into his tea, a lifetime of regret playing out across his face. “The program is called TéléReversion. It’s essentially a modified operating system for the Laterrian TéléSkins. The source code has been rewritten so that the neuroelectricity that powers the implanted interface can be manipulated and rerouted.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gabriel said, looking mystified, “but what?”

  Alouette placed a reassuring hand on his. “The Skins are powered by the naturally occurring electricity in the brain. Dr. Cromwell’s team has managed to reverse that electricity so that instead of the brain powering the Skins, the Skins can now be used to manipulate the brain.”

  “Precisely,” Dr. Collins said, tapping his finger against the edge of his teacup. “The TéléReversion program allows complete control over the mood and emotion of the subject at any given moment. For example, imagine the angriest, most destructive, most vengeful you’ve ever felt—”

  “I’m getting there,” Gabriel said through gritted teeth.

  “Well, that’s a reaction in your brain,” Dr. Collins went on. “A neuro-response, we call it. Now multiply that feeling by a thousand, and essentially that’s what the test subjects you witnessed earlier were experiencing. You see, there are particular areas of the brain—including the amygdala—that control your body’s natural fight or flight responses. The new program directly stimulates these areas, prompting the test subjects to fight.”

  “But how do you control who they fight? Or what they attack?” Marcellus asked.

  “That’s where specific triggers come in. The program can send ideas or images to the brain to help direct the response. In the demonstration you witnessed, the subjects were triggered to attack each other. But the general will be able to transmit any trigger he wants, to any group of people, at any time.”

  “Holy fric.” Gabriel pressed his fingertips into his temples.

  “Holy fric is right,” Dr. Collins agreed with a grave nod.

  “A modification to the operating system,” Cerise repeated, looking lost in thought. “But how do you modify every Third Estate Skin on the planet without anyone noticing?”

  “That part was unnervingly easy,” Dr. Collins said. “We wrote the source code to be inserted directly into a routine software update. They get sent out regularly from your Ministère, direct to the Skins. No one will even know what’s happened until it’s too late.”

  Cerise looked horrified. “When will the next update go out?”

  “My guess is as soon as Dr. Cromwell delivers the final product to the general.”

  “One week,” Alouette said numbly, remembering what Dr. Cromwell had told them back in the lab. “He said the program would be ready for delivery in one week.”

  Marcellus raked his hands through his thick hair. “And then what? Once the update goes out and all of the Third Estate are at the general’s command, what is he planning to do with them?”

  Dr. Collins sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. Whatever he wants, I suppose. But regardless of what he’s planning, it can’t be good.”

  “The scum of Laterre will soon be eliminated,” Marcellus repeated his grandfather’s horrible words. “The fat will be trimmed. The Regime will finally rid itself of the déchets and be brought to order.”

  “What?” Dr. Collins
asked, his eyes widening with fear.

  Marcellus blinked as though waking from a dream. “That’s what my grandfather said. When he talked to Lady Alexander.”

  “What is a déchet?” Dr. Collins asked.

  “It’s what the pomps call us low-life Third Estaters,” Gabriel muttered. “It means garbage.”

  “So he’s planning to eliminate the entire Third Estate?” Dr. Collins asked.

  “Probably not all of them,” Marcellus said miserably. “He still needs some to serve as his own personal army.”

  “But he certainly doesn’t need everyone,” Gabriel said, his voice low and bitter. He let out a dark laugh. “I’m surprised he can even think of us as ‘the fat,’ when most of the Third Estate are starving.”

  “What are we going to do?” Marcellus asked, throwing up his hands in desperation.

  “Hello? Isn’t it obvious? We need to find the kill switch,” Cerise said, which elicited a groan from both Marcellus and Gabriel.

  “Cerise—” Marcellus started to object, but Cerise held up a hand to stop him and looked earnestly to Dr. Collins.

  “You know more about the Skins than anyone I’ve met. There’s a master switch, right? An emergency shutoff? A deactivation code? Something!”

  Dr. Collins barked out a sharp laugh. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “But it has to exist,” Cerise insisted.

  “It doesn’t,” Marcellus said irritably. “Just let it go.”

  “We received extensive intelligence on the TéléSkins at the start of this project,” Dr. Collins said before taking another small sip of tea. “There was no mention of a kill switch. I would have remembered that.”

  “Why exactly are you telling us all of this?” Gabriel asked, his eyes suddenly brimming with suspicion as he glared at Dr. Collins. “Don’t you hate Laterre like everyone else on this planet?”

  Dr. Collins flashed Gabriel an empathetic look. “The Laterrian-Albion conflict that has been waging for centuries is not between us, my dear friend. It’s between our leaders.”

  “So you’re not loyal to the Mad Queen?” Gabriel asked with a snort.