ARC: The Almost Girl

by Amalie Howard

  “I may not know who you were, Riven,” he says quietly. “But I know who you are now.”

  “Lady Aurela!”

  I jerk and spin around at the shouts behind me, but it’s the name that knocks the wind out of me. My mother’s name. This has to be some kind of intricate plot. They’re all in on it, trying to weave some convoluted web around me, but for the life of me I can’t seem to figure out all the pieces. Why does my head feel so clouded, as if I can’t think properly, like there’s something blocking me, confusing my thoughts and weakening my resolve?

  “Get off, Caden,” I mutter, my anger at him draining away, and shoving his hands off my shoulders. “You don’t know anything about Neospes and you don’t know anything about me.”

  My eyes are drawn to the blur of movement in the outer passageway, but the woman holds up a silent palm, and the men milling there stop. “You’re not angry with him. You’re angry with me,” she says, walking forward. “Riven, it is me. I didn’t die that day.”

  “I saw her die,” I insist. “On that table.”

  Aurela shook her head, her eyes darkening with pain and regret. “You shouldn’t have been there. He knew you were there, too. He wanted you to see it so you’d know what challenging him would cost.”

  “It’s common knowledge that I was in that room, and what my father was capable of,” I say softly, but my words have less conviction. “It still doesn’t make you her.”

  “Riven, please,” she says. “I know you’ve changed. You’ve had to, but I know that you know it’s me. Listen to what your heart is telling you and not your reason. You and Shae–”

  “Don’t you talk about her,” I hiss, pain seething through my voice, but Aurela continues despite my interruption.

  “ –were everything to me. She asked you to come with her, but you didn’t. She couldn’t tell you about me, because he would have found out, and as you said, you know what he was capable of.”

  Despite my mistrust, my mind is reeling. “Shae never asked me…” But my voice trails off as the memory snaps into my brain, followed by Shae’s answer to why I had chosen not to go with her: He owned you then, and he owns you now. I stare at Aurela. “She never said anything about you.”

  “She couldn’t. The quarters were monitored. He would have killed her.”

  I push past the growing knot in the pit of my stomach. My voice is cold and hard. “So you left, and she left. You left me with him.”

  Aurela is in front of me now, her face constricted. “If I could change that night, I would. I would go back to get you whatever the cost; you have to believe that, Riven. No matter what.”

  Everything inside me wants to argue, to scream, to rail against this woman who had always told me she loved me in the dead of night when only my nightmares kept me company, but suddenly I am tired of fighting. I am tired of pushing away everyone around me. I am tired of loss. I’m wary of letting logic rule my every action when it’s obvious that my heart knows it’s her. The emotion of it is overwhelming… splintering all of my carefully constructed walls.

  Caden is watching me, and as I meet his eyes, he nods just once. He will support whichever path I decide. I shake my head tiredly and sit on the edge of one of the cots. The woman is quiet, waiting and knowing that my next words will decide how we leave this room. Truth and anguish and regret are written all over her face. I close my eyes for a long time.

  “No, it would have been a suicide mission for anyone to come back,” I say eventually. “That was the night he activated the Vector program… because of Shae. There were kill orders on sight for all defectors of the realm.” I pause, the bitter question burning a hole in my mouth. “How did you survive?”

  Aurela’s face is wet with silent tears but she answers. “Annis.”

  Annis was my mother’s research assistant. Like my father, my mother was a brilliant advanced genetics scientist. They were paired to lead the bioengineering and robotics programs, but when my father grew interested in reanimating the dead, my mother disagreed. She fought him tooth and nail on it, saying that it was a gateway mistake heading straight back to what they were just rebuilding from as a society – the Tech War. But my father was headstrong and arrogant.

  Their intellectual arguments were epic, their fights shattering. Shae used to take me into our sleeping cell with her fingers covering my ears. Then one day, it went too far. In a fit of rage, he’d shoved her and she’d hit her head. Hard. Everyone at the hospital had said that her odds of survival were excellent, but somehow, she’d still died the next day.

  They’d never been able to prove anything, but I knew. I’d seen the security footage that he’d stolen and hidden – saw him screaming at her in the dead of night alone in that hospital room, trying to force her to stay with him. She’d wanted to leave him and take us with her. In the end, he’d poisoned her. I saw him inject the poison himself into her intravenous tubing. If he couldn’t have her, then no one else would. That was the day that I lost both my parents.

  “Annis?” I say weakly. “But he poisoned you. I saw.”

  A soft smile. “She was there, hiding. She bled the poison out and then she helped me to flee Neospes before she returned to fake my death.”

  “Yes. I remember. She handled your organ reassignment and cremation.”

  “Someone else’s, but there had to be a record.”

  “So where did you go?” I ask. “Here?”

  “Not immediately. I was too weak to survive the Outers, despite what little we’d heard about others surviving. So I went to Sector Seven where my great-aunt still lived. She concealed us, and then when I was well enough, we made our way out here.”

  I nod slowly, shaken by the onslaught of memories. “It never made sense to me after you died why Father still branded you as an enemy of Neospes. You were dead. Why sully your memory and what you had contributed?” The realization is slow like icy water. “So he knows you’re not dead?”

  “Maybe,” Aurela concedes. “He never believed Annis, even though the data was all there. He sent waves of soldiers out to all the sectors, saying that I had been named a traitor and had stolen valuable crown research. He offered wealth and food and weapons, but the Artok are a proud tribe. They protect their own. I was never found. So for all intents and purposes, I am dead.”

  “But does he think you’re dead?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Aurela says.

  “And Shae?”

  “Unlike your father, Shae never stopped looking for me.” Her words unlock another memory, one of Shae telling me at night that my mother would always care for us no matter what, and that I’d see her again one day. But I never believed her. I cried and nodded but never believed. Once more, Shae was right. Aurela smiles again; this time, it’s a proud smile. “She’s so tenacious. She made Annis tell her, and two days later, we found her wandering out here on her own, nearly half-dead.” Aurela stares at me expectantly, and I feel the answering dread unfurl in my stomach. “She’s not with you?”

  I try to speak but I can’t. The words are lodged in my throat like sharp stones, choking me with their broken edges. I open and shut my mouth like a flailing fish, gasping. Caden answers from behind me.

  “She didn’t make it,” he says. “Shae’s dead.”

  Without warning, Aurela falls back like a rock, and I find myself lurching forward to catch her. Her skin is warm and she smells the same as she did ten years before, of vanilla and earth. If I wasn’t convinced before, I am now. Her silvery eyes find mine and then I’m hugging her so tightly, I can’t even breathe. I’m sobbing and breathless, and I pull even tighter.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. She… died to save us. So stupid and so bullheaded.”

  My face is wet against hers. “Shhh,” she whispers, comforting me as if I’m still two years old, crying from a skinned knee. “It’s OK. Shae knew what she’d gotten into. Like you, she had a soldier’s heart. I just… Nothing really prepares you to lose a child, does it? Don�
�t worry; we’ll get through this together.”

  It seems like forever that we’ve been lying on the ground, until I hear a suspicious sniff behind me and glance up to see Caden hastily wiping his face. I do the same and roll my eyes at him. Already, I can feel the cold numbness seeping through my body – my usual self-defense mechanism against emotion. Showing vulnerability is still not something I’m entirely comfortable with, despite my deepest tiny desire to stay in my mother’s arms forever.

  I stand, pulling Aurela up with me, and step away as if it will erase the last few minutes. But this time, the deadening numbness is slower than usual. My regret cripples me, as do whatever feelings I have for this woman I haven’t seen in a decade. My mother.

  “This is Caden,” I rasp.

  “I know who he is,” Aurela responds, pulling Caden into a long hug. She looks at me over his shoulder. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”

  I want to agree that that’s exactly what I’ve done, but for some reason I can’t hold her gaze. My eyes drop to the floor and I mumble something unintelligible. The truth is, I went to the other world to find Caden at Cale’s request. Not to keep him safe at all. I haven’t even been sure of what I’m going to do with Caden once we get to the city, but that’s the thing that has been driving me. Complete the mission. Worry about everything else like feelings and casualties later.

  Only, now we were stuck in some underground secret village in the Outers on the outskirts of the city – a flourishing city that isn’t under the thumb of Neospes.

  “How do you know who I am?” Caden asks, quietly interrupting my thoughts, staring from Aurela and back to me.

  “I’ve known you a very long time. Come,” Aurela says, “Let’s go to my quarters, and we’ll talk more.”

  The men in the passageway clear a path as we walk past in Aurela’s wake. I grab our packs on the way out despite some hard stares from the men standing there. A quick search through the contents confirms that nothing of value has been removed, other than the missing weapons.

  “Where are my blades?” I ask.

  “They’re safe,” Aurela responds. “Come.”

  As we move away from the room, I notice that the rock composition of the wall shifts into something less glassy and more earthy, although still marbled with the black rock from the cave before. At the same moment, I feel something vibrate at my waist, where the shirtsleeves of my suit are wrapped underneath the blanket I still have slung over my shoulders. The lights on the keypad are blinking as if the suit’s trying to reactivate.

  I frown, shrugging off the blanket and pulling the top half of the suit back over my shoulders, wincing at the slight sting of the neck connector plugging into my central nervous system. It’s trying desperately to reboot, but something’s still running interference.

  Aurela turns glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “It’s not going to work,” she says quietly.

  “What?”

  “The suits. Do you know why they didn’t work? Especially in that room?” Aurela waves a hand at the black-veined walls of the tunnel. Her voice is still careful and quiet. “It’s electromagnetically charged volcanic glass. It disables all computers, all robotics.” I frown at her words. Volcanic? Are we near the Peaks? I’m still frowning as she continues. “It’s how we’re safe from the metals and the hybroids. Even in here, where the pulse is less strong, it still interferes with any computer signals. We’re virtually undetectable.”

  I power down the suit, and remove the neural connector to ask the question heavy in my mouth. “Are we near the Peaks?”

  A laugh. “Honey, we’re in the Peaks.”

  “But how is that even possible…” I gasp. “The Peaks are impenetrable.”

  “To androids, yes,” Aurela agrees. “But not to us.”

  She ushers us into another room, this one veined with light blue quartz-like glass. Oddly, I feel like a huge weight is lifted off me. I don’t know if it’s the color of the walls – it reminds me of the sky in Caden’s world – but I take a long deep breath and feel less muddled. The remaining cobwebs in my head clear as if by magic, just as my suit boots up. Aurela is watching me closely, a slight frown marring her forehead, but she looks away when I make eye contact.

  I turn to look around. A huge table surrounded by chairs dominates the room. In one corner, there’s a long desk with several flat-screen computers, data flashing across all their screens. I turn to Aurela but Caden beats me to the punch.

  “I thought you said no computers worked here,” Caden says. He too had been listening quietly and paying attention.

  “They do in this room. We have to have some means of communication with people outside and to keep up to date on what’s going on in Neospes.” She nods to my clothes. “Those will work now.”

  But I’m already powering up the suit. I can see that the three men who have accompanied us all have their hands on their weapons. Obviously, the technology of the Vectors’ suits is something they are wary of.

  And rightly so.

  The suit just doesn’t just control temperature or create awesome topological holographs. It’s an advanced bio-weapon itself. At the touch of a button, bladed spikes rise from the fabric of the suit. It can harden like armor in less than a second, or change color to fade into a background. The suit is designed for espionage, insinuation, and attack, and its defensive and offensive properties are legendary. But as I’d showed Caden, the best thing about them is the neural connector that taps into the brain’s signals to the body. Regardless of programmed or natural human impetus, the suit responds to flight or fight signals in a millisecond. In some of the later models, the suit calibrates to your very thoughts.

  I’ve never been a fan of the automatic-pilot mode. It’s too unpredictable when tapped into humans. That technique works best with the Vectors, because they’re emotionless and run by computers. Humans are too subject to emotional decisions, especially under stress. If the suit gets mixed messages, it will opt for the first directive, even if there’s a later counter-command. It’ll then have to be manually overridden, which in many cases means it’s already too late.

  Still, limitations aside, short of flying, it’s a super-suit, unmatched in design or abilities.

  Defense, I command silently, and feel the programming engage as the suit tightens against my body. The movement is barely noticeable to human eyes, but the slight smile twitching along the corners of my mother’s mouth irks me. It’s no surprise – she knows the suits better than anyone. After all, before she defected, she invented bioprogramming of the early prototypes.

  I stare at her with narrowed eyes.

  “You still don’t trust easily, do you?” Aurela remarks.

  I’m hard-pressed to wipe my standard frown off my face. “Not really. Where are my weapons?”

  “Why do you need them? Surely you’re protected enough already.” Her meaningful glance dips to my uniform, but in the same breath, she gestures to a cot against the far wall, and with some relief I notice my harness and scabbard on top of it along with our two crossbows. I walk over to inspect them, but they seem the same as before. If anything, my swords look like they’ve been cleaned and oiled. I frown but sling the harness over my arm.

  Aurela sits at the table and inclines her head for Caden and me to do the same. I place the ninjatas carefully on the table and take a seat. At a glance from their leader, the men who had accompanied us leave the room. The last one – a boy near my own age – shoots a glare at me that could melt rock, but I just grin, baring my teeth at him in a mockery of a smile. It’s a look that has scattered crowds. His glare fades quickly.

  “Haven’t lost your touch, I see,” Aurela says, noticing the exchange. At my stare, she continues, her voice soft. “There are many stories of you, even ones as a mother I wish I’d never heard. But you did what you were commanded to do, and you did it extraordinarily well.” I remain silent. “At fourteen, your reputation preceded you. Even grown men were terrified to face you. What mad
e you leave? Defect?”

  I knew the question would come. I spare a brief look to Caden but his face is carefully expressionless. He wants to know the answer, too. “Cale ordered me to find Caden.” I pause, searching for the right words. “I was to bring him back alive.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why,” I snap, evasive.

  Aurela’s return stare is measured. “We need to trust each other, Riven. I know you feel you can’t trust me, and that I will have to earn that from you. Even though I don’t fully know your motives, you’re here and he” – she says with a searching glance at Caden –“is safe.” She reaches her fingers across the table where my hand is resting, but I pull it away at the last second. She lets hers rest where mine had been. “I know that my daughter is in there somewhere. I felt it before. I don’t know what happened with Shae, but she would have moved heaven and earth to keep Caden away from you if she thought you were a danger.”

  “She did,” I grit out. “She failed. She didn’t trust me, either.”

  “She didn’t at first.”

  “How do you know that? Did she tell you?”

  Aurela nods, folding her hands in her lap. “Whenever she everted back here to evade the Vectors or you, she appraised me on what was happening in the other world.”

  I slam to my feet, anger coloring the inside of my skin with dull red flame. “And you let her? You let her evert over and over again, knowing what it would do to her? How could you do that? Knowing it would kill her?” The words are rushing out of me like a river of pain from between clenched teeth. “What kind of mother are you?”

  “A fighter, like you.”

  “You sent her to die!” I scream, fist curling at my sides.

  “She was there to protect him from you.”

  All I could see is her face behind the fire now burning in my brain, inflaming me. And then I’m lurching toward her. Out of the corner of my eye, Caden jerks out of his chair, but I don’t let it distract me. For an older woman, my mother is fast, darting out of my way and spinning across the top of the table like a gymnast. I leap over it. I don’t know whether it’s my rage that blinds me, but I don’t see her strike until it’s too late. Her arm catches me across my side, knocking the wind out of me. In her other hand, I see the glinting blade of my ninjata that had been on the table. Its point is pressed against my neck.