“That makes two of us.”
Transliminal’s headquarters sliced into the sky, a glass scythe curving over another copse of shivering silver trees. Fireflies winked between crystal leaves. We approached the main entrance from the south, Tev walking with her hand around my upper arm.
“You there! Stop!”
Four black-suited enforcers marched toward us with plasma channel weapons at the ready. We turned and raised our hands, palms forward.
“You’re being seized,” one of them said as he stepped to the front. “Come with us.”
Tev tilted her chin at him. “Sure, but I’m thinking Birke will have your ass if you wave those weapons at Nova Quick.”
The enforcer narrowed his eyes. “That may be, but you’re wanted for genocide on your side of the breach.”
“I’m far less inclined to accept a contract with someone who would treat me like a criminal,” I said, doing my best impression of my sister. Maintaining flawless posture was not as easy as I thought it would be, but I managed. My back would just have to hate me later.
“Consider us escorts, then.”
The enforcer who appeared to be in charge led the way toward the front of the building while the other three penned us in like cattle. Just then I noticed traces of grease on Tev’s right cheek, left there when helping Ovie with the Tangled Axon, and I couldn’t help smiling a little at this small rebellion against the pristine cleanliness of Transliminal’s campus. Made me wish I had mud on my immaculate sandals.
Even the largest high-rise in Heliodor had nothing on Transliminal’s headquarters, seamless and towering far beyond what should have been possible. One perfect, unbroken piece of crystal that refracted light with brilliant clarity—it made me dizzy just looking at it. Obscene, really. I couldn’t imagine why it would be necessary to create something so enormous. The entryway comm panel was an aurora of swirling color that disappeared into the wall in a gradient. The enforcer waved her wrist over it to activate it.
“Security code four-three-eight-alpha-six,” she said. “Contact: Birke.”
“Voice recognition and security code acknowledged.”
The aurora remained quiet for a moment, then a face flickered onto the screen.
“Nova,” Birke said. “I knew you’d take my offer.”
A cold hand reached into me and stole my breath. This wasn’t possible.
I could actually feel my brain trying to make sense of what I was seeing and failing, like constructing a solid framework out of limp string, or trying to find a way out of a tangled blanket. I didn’t know what the enforcer was saying now, or how Birke responded. Other voices joined the conversation, but I heard them as if through water.
My eyes remained locked on Birke’s face—her awful, impossible face. Everything else was muted, dulled, slow. Unreal. All that existed was the woman on the screen, who appeared in sharp, vivid color. Familiar expressions played on her familiar features, each familiar movement stabbing me with impossible, horrifying recognition.
It was me.
Chapter Twenty
“Send them up to me,” Birke said.
The enforcers nudged us forward, winding reality back up to speed.
Riotous thoughts spun my mind into a frenzy. Birke was Alana—she was me from another universe. A version of me who had become a spirit guide—or at least their version of a spirit guide. I couldn’t comprehend a world in which I didn’t live inside the hearts of machines, didn’t map my life by the song of their reactors. But here she was, a parallel self that had come reaching through the thin film between worlds, fingers outstretched toward my sister.
Her sister.
Where was the Nova from Birke’s universe? Had she never existed? Had something hap—
A dark realization hit me, and I fractured into a thousand pieces. In her pursuit of Nova, Birke killed my parents, the Adulans, my childhood. A version of me existed who could commit such atrocities. She was me, and she had done these things.
Every nerve ending felt exposed, assaulted by thick, textured air that had become hard to breathe. The world had turned pale and narrow. Why did Birke want my Nova so badly that she would kill? What made finding her worth destroying so much?
Tev didn’t flinch or take her eyes off the CEO’s face on the comm panel. My face. The same planes and contours I’d known all my life, framed in a cloud of natural hair in lieu of locs. Brown eyes like mine, only tinged with a ring of red. I don’t know why, but before we’d come to Transliminal Solutions, I’d expected Birke’s face to be composed of harsh features chiseled sharp by othersider mods. Instead, I’d found myself.
My mind continued trying to bend around this knowledge that I existed elsewhere, that in another life, I was ruthless and self-serving and valued nothing that I cherished now. Some part of me was this woman, because she was me.
Nightmares of countless alternate lives would invade my sleep for months to come—if I survived whatever lay ahead—horrible possibilities and probabilities tugging at my sleeve.
I felt Tev’s eyes shift to my face, watching my reactions, teasing apart the strands of Birke versus me. I felt her silent question beating against me: Had I known? Had I possessed some inkling that this other-me had pierced our world to drag my sister out of it?
Blood pulsed loudly in my head. My heart drummed so quickly it felt on the edge of exploding. This wasn’t possible. And yet clearly, it was.
At some point, I was aware we had stopped talking to the on-screen Birke and had begun moving. Enforcers escorted us inside the building, passing us through a wall of light. I had never seen so much brightness in one place; it was as if we’d wandered into a hollowed-out star.
The interior walls and floor were made of albacite, smooth and opalescent, while the exterior maintained its illusion of pure glass. Veins of light split the stone like cracked desert, illuminating every surface from the inside out. Sunlight poured in through the transparent ceiling and refracted through moving, prismatic sculptures that floated above us like miniature othersider ships. I could see no doors or windows other than the enormous curved ceiling, until a hole appeared in one wall—small at first, then expanding to the size of the human who walked through it. The wall sealed behind her as if it had never broken, rippling back into its original shape.
The enforcer opened a wall entrance near the back of the building. When we emerged on the other side, I felt the air tighten around us. Somehow, we had ended up at the apex of the building without climbing stairs or entering a lift of any kind. Through the glass, their vast city spread before us. White-blue filaments glittered across the landscape below like a luminescent neural network grafted onto the planet, punctuated by metallic trees, glass flora, and shimmering light-nodes dripping along the filaments like beads of water.
“You like it, then.”
My voice. We turned to face Birke, who none of us had even noticed on the far end of this enormous, empty room. Only Birke occupied the space—Birke, and one floating platform that seemed to serve as a desk. She delicately ate a plumberry plucked from a crystal bowl, not a single drop of juice escaping her lips. Such extravagance at her fingertips. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to possess that kind of wealth, and yet there I was, watching myself look completely at home in it.
A perfectly-tailored black suit hugged Birke’s body, the collar of her white shirt popped suggestively, the V of the neckline open just enough to draw the eye downward. Three translucent screens floated in front of her, displaying words and moving images. Some sort of net?
Neither Tev nor I said a word, though it was torture to refrain from shouting the questions that swarmed in my head. Birke too remained silent, eating her fruit and scrolling through one of the screens. After a tense thirty seconds or so, she tossed the fruit away and swept her arm over the projections, moving them to the side, where they hovered near the wall. She walked to the front of her desk and half-sat, half-leaned on the edge, crossing her ankles and resting her hands
on its surface. Rings of light rotated up her forearms, almost as distracting as her jet-black lipstick.
“Come here,” she said, crisp. There was no mistaking that she addressed me—Nova.
I complied, stepping forward with Nova-esque dignity, hoping it was convincing enough at close range. Even if she didn’t buy this for long, it was enough to give us a chance to hold our real leverage over Birke’s head. Then, at least Marre might be able to be whole again.
We stared at each other for a while, but it was hard. Seeing my face like this while I wore my sister’s made me feel slightly unhinged. I didn’t want to look at her for more than a few seconds, preferring to glimpse her out of the corner of my eye, like a ghost. Still, I tried to look confident as her gaze swept over my face.
Sweat trickled down my temple. Labored breathing betrayed my anxiety and disorientation. Would she see through me?
“Nova,” she said. “I want you to come home.”
“Home?”
She swallowed. “There’s a space in this world meant for you.”
What did that mean?
I barely smiled, dabbing my forehead with the back of my hand. “I’m not sure the Spiritual Advisory Guild will allow me to work for a criminal.”
She laughed and opened her hands to me. “I’m no criminal, I’m your sister. That crew, on the other hand—”
“The System Office of Finance and Exchange might disagree with your assessment of this crew’s character,” I said, still attempting to mimic the rhythm of Nova’s melodic voice. Before she could say anything else, I produced Nova’s proof of our innocence, pinching the corners of the glimmering knitted veil with trembling fingers.
Faint light shimmered over Birke’s eyes as her neural implant translated and transmitted the veil’s content to her lenses. Tev and I remained silent as Birke watched it loop several times. I hoped the evidence of her role in the Adul massacre became branded onto her retinas.
“Don’t bother trying to steal it or destroy it,” I said. “I can make as many copies as it takes and you know it.”
“You want me to exonerate your friends?”
“That’s a given,” I said, resisting the urge to clutch at my queasy stomach. “But what I want from you is help for a friend. She’s hurt. Dying. Transliminal might be able to save her. If you help her, I’ll sign any contract you want. But if you don’t, I’m not signing anything, and I’ll give this—” I lifted the veil “—to the authorities. You’ll be a fugitive on our side of the breach.”
Birke folded her arms and regarded me with what seemed like new eyes. Perfect fingernails tipped perfect fingers, not a speck of dirt to be found. “A friend, hm?”
“Yes. Our pilot. There was an accident at the SAG, and she—”
“You mean this one?”
Four enforcers entered the room with Marre and Nova—the real Nova—in wrist binds. I heard myself cry out in Nova’s voice, felt the panic crawling up my throat, but the enforcer held me tight. Several patches of translucence rippled over Marre’s face and arms, more persistent and frenetic than ever. Her buzzing sounded distant and muted, like color gone gray. Immediately my mind went to the Tangled Axon. Had they hurt her? Where were Ovie and Slip?
“Your engineer and medic are fine,” Birke said, reading my thoughts. “They’re confined to your ship.”
Nova looked at me, releasing her hold on my body. Light and matter shifted—skin relaxing, bones shortening with a deep ache—until I was my loc-draped self again, scruffy outfit and all. Now, Birke and I looked almost identical, save for our hairstyles and clothing.
No, I thought, grateful for a fully-functional mind. We don’t just look identical. We are identical. We are each other.
Birke quietly cleared her throat and smoothed her slacks, then clasped her hands in her lap. Every movement she made in my body was sharp and horrible, like blade against bone.
“Clever disguise, but pointless. And you can wave that thing around all you like,” she said, gesturing at my hand, the veil hanging limp from my own plump fingers. “I have what I came for.”
“You asshole.” Tev lunged forward, but one of the enforcers grabbed her. She struggled as she spoke, a hard edge scraping against every word. Her eyes found Marre and lingered on her, helplessly. “Can’t you see what’s happening to my pilot?”
“Yes, I can.” Birke took a few steps toward Marre, heeled footfalls echoing in the empty space along with Tev’s hard breaths. My doppelganger watched Marre’s shoulder disappear, followed by half of her neck. Velvet-red muscle shifted as Marre breathed.
“I can see you, you know,” Birke said to her, eyes following the patterns of her fading flesh. Still watching Marre, she then addressed Nova: “And you can see her too, can’t you? Did you tell them what she is? Do they know?”
“Know what?” I said. I looked at Tev, who seemed unsurprised, lips turned downward in frustration. Sweat plastered her bangs to her forehead. She wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t respond.
I looked at everyone in turn and raised my voice. “Do we know what? What’s she talking about?”
Birke let out a single amused huff as she examined Marre. “Well, it’s a good thing we towed your ship into the hangar. This girl wouldn’t last ten seconds more than a kilometer away from the thing.” She touched Marre’s skinless jaw, and a static discharge snapped at her hand. She pulled it back and shook it out, unperturbed. “Give or take.”
Fire erupted in Marre’s eyes.
“Marre, what’s she talking about?” I said. “Tev?”
“Alana . . . ” Nova said, sadness in her eyes. Sadness, and guilt.
My voice grew more frantic. “Why am I the only person who’s confused here?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Tev said, speaking to me but staying targeted on Birke, as if she’d disappear if she didn’t keep her eye on her.
“Alana,” Nova said again. She folded her hands over each other, looking down at them. “I’m sorry. I knew as soon as I saw her. I didn’t tell you.”
“What!” I nearly shouted. “What didn’t you tell me?”
“Marre is the Tangled Axon.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Birke rolled her eyes. “Now that’s a little on the dramatic side. I wouldn’t say she is the Tangled Axon.”
“She’s inside it,” Nova said. “Bleeding out into the hull.”
Understanding crashed into me. Marre’s hollow eyes, her frozen age. The power and clarity of my connection to the Tangled Axon. The way Marre would follow me through the corridors, watch me work, visit me at night. Her uncanny connection to the ship and its crew.
The truth scored my heart, over and over, until I felt faint with the inevitability of it.
“You’re a miracle,” Birke said to Marre, lifting a lock of her black hair, careful not to brush finger against skin again. “Spirit bleeding out of one body and being suffused into another. Only there was no human body available to replace yours, so you bled into the nearest thing you could find. Your soul seeped into the metal of that bird out there. Your flesh disappeared with less and less to hold it together. Fascinating.”
“Can you help her?” Tev said. “Please.”
Birke considered this for a moment. “Yes. I believe I can.”
“No!” Nova shouted, jerking her shoulder away from the enforcer who held it. Birke held up a hand to prevent the enforcer from recapturing her, letting her approach Tev. “You can’t hear her mind the way I can. She’s not going to help Marre, she’s—”
“You’re not seeing the big picture,” Birke said. “I absolutely am going to help her.”
“You’re lying,” Nova spat, eyes wide with terror. “Tev, she wants to use Marre. And me. Oh, spirit, she wants to use us both—”
“What’s she talking about?” Tev said.
Nova grabbed Tev’s arms. “She wants to take me out of my body and put me in a corpse!”
“That’s a little hyperbolic.” Birke sighed. “She�
��s not a corpse, she’s my sister. My ‘Nova.’ All her vital organs are essentially functioning in stasis—”
“She’s dead,” Nova said. “Listen to the way you’re talking! Her brain is dead. Her spirit is gone.”
Birke walked up to Nova and placed a hand on her cheek. With her back turned to me, I was tempted to attack her, but I knew the enforcers would be on me in a second.
“And yours isn’t,” Birke said. “You know I can see your heart just as you can see mine. It’s what every guide was born to do, so do it: see into my intentions and know I’m telling you the truth. At first I just wanted to find you so I could see some version of my sister again, find some way to convince you to stay with me. But now that I’ve seen Marre? Oh, stars. So much is possible!”
Tears welled in Nova’s eyes and her knees grew weak, but Birke held her up. “I want to help you, help my sister, help Marre. You’ve wanted to ascend to something greater, serve some greater purpose, your whole life. That much I can see on your face. You’ve made room for this.” She gestured at Nova’s frail body.
“My Nova didn’t feel the way you do. My sister was vibrant and alive and healthy until the same disease that’s ravaging your Alana stole my Nova from me. She wanted to be alive in a way you never have. She loved her body, her flesh. She loved everything about embodiment.”
Birke’s eyes searched Nova’s face, as if she might find the sister she’d lost. In spite of everything, my heart ached for her. I knew that look. I knew what it meant to long for the things I’ve lost and look for them in living ghosts.
“Nova.” The name came out of Birke in a near-gasp as her self-control broke. “Please hear me out. I’ll use Marre’s energy signature, her condition, to extract your spirit from this body, just as you’ve always wanted. I’ll suffuse my Nova with your light, and Marre’s. She’ll be born anew. Marre will be free of her timid flesh. You’ll be free of yours. And my sister will live. There is a place for everyone in this world; no one needs to die. In a way, the three of you will ascend together. You’ll all become my sister.”
Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel Page 27
