Last of Her Name

by Jessica Khoury

  After disembarking, I stand before the doors to the cells and draw a deep breath. My heart’s banging around with nervousness and excitement.

  She’s here. I can feel it.

  Somewhere behind that door, Clio is waiting.

  I swallow hard, then take a step forward. “I’m ready.”

  The cells aren’t much different from the one I was put in by Zhar, all blank walls and bright lights, doors made of diamantglass. The place is clean verging on sterile. I walk slowly, feeling like I’m in a trance.

  I see so many familiar faces: Ravi from the diner, my mechanics instructor, a couple of guys from the vineyard. They all gasp when they see me, some calling out, but Volkov doesn’t give me time to talk to them. What would I say, anyway, besides make apologies that will never begin to make up for their suffering? They all look haggard and dispirited. They run to the doors, watching me go past, and it isn’t long before tears are trailing down my cheeks.

  My parents aren’t here, at least. Thank the stars for that. I have to believe they’re still fighting back on Amethyne.

  But neither is Clio.

  I walk faster and faster, my chest tight, my breath short. My head swivels as I look in cell after cell, leaving behind the Amethynian prisoners and seeing unfamiliar faces—Sapphino and Rubyati and Emeraultine and Alexandrian. Humans and eeda, paryans and zherans and aeyla.

  None of them my Clio.

  Finally, we’re back at the prison’s front door, having walked every row in the building. Natalya stands silently by, while Volkov presses a button to summon a return pod.

  “Well?” He raises his eyebrows. “Are you satisfied they’ve been treated well? Once you and I have finished our business, we’ll see about returning them to Amethyne.”

  I shake my head, my mouth dry. “Is this all of them?”

  Volkov nods. “Who did you expect to find? Your so-called parents, the kidnappers?”

  “Clio.” Her name is sand on my tongue. “My friend Clio Markova.”

  Might they have taken her away someplace, to use her as leverage against me? Or to torture her? My heart squeezes at the thought. I hadn’t given Volkov her name before now, worried they might do just that if they learned how important she was to me. Could they have figured it out, anyway?

  He grunts and opens a tabletka, finger flicking across data streams. He shakes his head. “No Markovas here. Your friend must still be on Amethyne.”

  “No, I saw her. On the broadcast, with the other prisoners. I saw her.”

  Panic rises in my chest. I fight for breath, my hands knotting into fists. As I grip the wall for support, I dimly hear Volkov speaking. Natalya pulls me away, half dragging me into the pod because I’m too shaky to walk.

  She’s not on Alexandrine, Stacia.

  Stars, was Pol right after all? He tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen. But what could he possibly know about Clio that I don’t?

  “I want her found,” I say. “I want to know what happened to her.”

  “My people will look into it, Princess.”

  The rest of the day passes like an endless nightmare. I’m fed, I’m bathed, I’m dressed in another red-and-white gown. They try to take away my multicuff, but I fight them until they give up. It’s my last piece of home.

  After dinner, Volkov finally takes me before the rest of the Committee. Twenty-three men and women sit in a round room, chairs against the walls, holodisplays flickering over their armrests. Natalya stands guard at the door.

  The Committee stare at me with probing, curious eyes. Like Volkov, they’re dressed in deceptive simplicity, structured military robes in Union colors. They all appear to be Alexandrians; there are certainly no eeda or aeyla or any other adapted races among them. To my eye, they blur together: silent, hungry faces. A few I vaguely recognize—the Head of Education, whose visage often appears before my math or civics lessons, and the Head of Press and Public Affairs, who gives official announcements over the newscasts. But it’s clear where the power in this room lies; I wonder if they are even aware of how they adjust themselves around Alexei Volkov’s presence, shifting slightly in their seats so they are facing him more directly, their eyes glancing at him even though I am apparently the focus of this meeting, as if they are gauging his reactions before deciding on their own.

  There is another face there, though, a familiar one: Dr. Faran Luka, alive and whole. He is standing against the wall, clutching a tabletka, looking thinner and grayer than he was when I last saw him. He catches my eye and gives me the slightest of nods.

  My moment’s relief turns to anger, thinking he must have betrayed Zhar by joining the enemy. But then I see the metal collar around his neck, indicating he’s a prisoner.

  “So this is her, Volkov?” asks the Head of Press and Public Affairs, leaning forward in her seat. I can’t recall her name, though I must have heard it a thousand times. Her hair is dyed white, contrasting with her black eyes. She has very long nails, and they click on her armrest.

  The direktor Eminent nods. He has me stand in the middle of the room, his hand against the center of my back. “Esteemed members of the Grand Committee, this is indeed Anya Petrovna Leonova, the youngest child of the late Emperor Pyotr and Empress Katarina.”

  “Not much to look at, is she?” laughs a large man seated behind me. I believe he’s the Head of Defense. “To think, this little mouse had the Union’s finest chasing their tails for weeks.”

  “Well?” Press and Public Affairs peers at me; she looks much older than she does on the newscasts. They must edit out her wrinkles. “This genetic code that contains the coordinates of the Prismata—does she have it or not? Was all this expense we’ve gone to worth it?”

  Volkov raises a hand to Dr. Luka. “That is what we will now find out.”

  “Princess,” the doctor murmurs as he approaches to prick my finger, drawing a blood sample. He keeps his eyes lowered.

  I take the chance to whisper, “What happened to you?”

  “The base fell,” he replies. “I was arrested by the vityazes when they took the asteroid. How is Mara?”

  “Fine, she—”

  “Doctor,” Volkov says, in a warning tone. Dr. Luka’s eyes flicker down, and he backs away with the sample. The Committee watch like hungry dogs.

  Dr. Luka runs the blood sample though a small device, then holds up his tabletka to project a hologram in the center of the room: a helix of DNA. It rotates from floor to ceiling, shimmering bands of blue slowly twisting around each other. The doctor presses a button, and a portion of the strands lights up red and flashes.

  “The Firebird code,” Dr. Luka says. “It’s inactive, but it’s there. She is assuredly a Leonov.”

  I stare at the DNA molecules rotating above me. The whole time I was at the Loyalist base, he knew that the code was hidden in my genes. He didn’t trust Zhar with it, but I suppose when he realized Volkov already knew the truth, there wasn’t a point in denying it. How deep in the direktor’s pocket is he? He helped me once before. Do I dare hope in him again?

  “Here,” he says, dismissing all the DNA except for the bright red section, which he magnifies until it fills the room, scrolling over the faces of the Committee. “This is where the cybernetic code begins, but it’s waiting for the right stimulus to awaken it from its dormancy.”

  “So how do we activate it?” asks a pretty, dark-haired woman, who I think may be the Head of Commerce.

  “That,” Volkov says, “is the question upon which the fate of our galaxy rests. Thankfully, we have the mind of Faran Luka on our side.” He smiles and places a hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “He is the preeminent authority on the Leonovs and their genetic research. I trust him fully.”

  Dr. Luka’s gaze flickers to me, racked with guilt. If I could get close, I’d whisper to him that I don’t blame him for anything. That I’ll get him out of here too, if I can, with the Afkan prisoners and Natalya. Now that I know he’s alive, I have to try to return him to Mara.

&nb
sp; My list of people to save is getting so long I’m going to have to start writing it on the back of my hand.

  The meeting concludes, and Volkov walks me to my room. It’s a luxurious suite that seems familiar, with a window open to the rest of the palace compound. Buildings and ships drift by like boats on a river, lights softly strobing. Beyond them, the stars shine, dimmed by the veil of the security shield. A bench sits under the window, and several small, clear crystals dangle in front of the glass, refracting beads of light across the room. Not Prisms, but similar in shape and color. I run my hands through them, watching the flecks of light dance in response.

  “Do these accommodations suit you?” asks Volkov. “I thought you might be most comfortable in your old room.”

  I freeze, my hand resting on the window.

  That’s why the room felt familiar. This is Anya Leonova’s nursery.

  This is where, in the holo version of the palace, I saw the emperor and empress holding a baby. The crib stood where the bed is now.

  I back away from the window, my hand dropping to my side. This is just like the trick with my father’s wine. The direktor is trying to keep me off balance. He’s toying with me.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot.” He turns back from the door. “My people looked into the records of Afka-on-Amethyne. They looked at everything—school logs, medical histories, residential listings. There’s not a person on that planet we don’t have a file on.”

  I turn to face him. “And? Did you find Clio?”

  “No.”

  The air rushes out of me. “But she has to be there. If she’s not on Alexandrine—”

  “Princess, you misunderstand. I’m not saying she isn’t there now. I’m saying she was never there.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “No record of your Clio Markova seems to exist.” He shrugs as he pulls my door shut. “Perhaps your friend was not who she claimed to be.”

  Volkov doesn’t waste any time. The tests begin the next morning.

  A lab has been set up on the top floor of the Rezidencia. Volkov brings me there at dawn, when the edge of Alexandrine burns gold as the sun creeps around its girth. Inside, Dr. Luka and a team of scientists are still unpacking machines. A half-reclined chair waits for me, and as I settle into it, I try to quell the flutters of panic in my stomach. The scientists swarm around me, taking blood samples, saliva samples, scanning my fingerprints and retinas, poking and prodding until I want to scream.

  I think of Clio.

  I didn’t sleep a minute last night. Instead, I paced my opulent room, trying to reason why Volkov would lie to me about her. Perhaps she’s filed under a different name. She’s a war orphan, after all. They may have changed her name when she was sent to Amethyne. Her original “file” could have been lost.

  Even if she isn’t here, she has to be somewhere. And knowing she’s important to me, surely Volkov would produce her—even if it were to threaten her to make me cooperate. It’s a worst-case scenario, but a believable one. So what does he gain by lying?

  It doesn’t make sense.

  Unless he’s right, and it’s Clio who’s been keeping secrets.

  But that sounds even more absurd. Clio is the most honest person I know, the person I trust most in the entire universe. She could never keep anything from me. And besides, I saw her on that newscast, boarding a prison transport with the same people now sitting in the palace prison. All the others were there—so why not her?

  “Well, Luka?” asks Volkov, after an hour has passed. “Where are we?”

  “We’ve isolated the code,” says Dr. Luka, bent over a tabletka. “It’s right there, but in its dormant state, it might as well be an alien language to us. We’d hoped we might use the code extracted from Natalya Ayedi to crack it open, but there are too many differences between them.”

  “Any progress on how to activate it?” asks Volkov.

  Dr. Luka shakes his head. “Whatever the switch is, the emperor took it to his grave. Genes can remain dormant for a person’s entire lifetime. It takes certain conditions to activate them, but we have no idea what the conditions are. If they were normal, organic genes, we’d still be able to sequence them. But this cybernetic stuff operates by different rules, and the original Leonovs left none of their research intact for us to follow.”

  Volkov curses. “You were the imperials’ primary physician for decades, Luka! How could you be so ignorant of this crucial element of their physiology?”

  Anger deepens the wrinkles in the doctor’s face. “You know as well as I do, Alexei, how closely they guarded the Firebird. They died to protect its secrets. All I was ever allowed to know was that it existed, and that it was the source of their … abilities. I don’t know how it was created, or how it gave them control of the Prisms’ energy. Nor do I know how it can be woken.”

  Volkov turns away from him, his jaw tight.

  “When she’s ready to rule, the Firebird will guide her,” he murmurs. His eyes slide to me, probing. “Does it speak to you, Anya?”

  I swallow, pulling away. “Find Clio. If you can’t guarantee her safety, I’m not giving you anything.”

  The shadow falls over his eyes again, the one I got a glimpse of in the astronika. His voice drops to a low murmur. “We’ve been generous with you up till now. But I see that we’re going to have to be more assertive.”

  The genteel host I met on the astronika is beginning to fade, and someone far more menacing is taking his place.

  “Do it,” he says to Dr. Luka.

  The incision is made before I even know what’s happening: a swift cut at the base of my skull. They must have anesthetized the spot without my realizing it, during all their prodding. The brainjack unit is popped inside, but I can’t see it or feel it. Even so, my chest tightens with panic.

  “All right,” Dr. Luka says softly, his face pale. “Turning it on.”

  I feel a sort of zap in my head, and then I go into convulsions.

  Scientists swoop in to grab my hands and head and hold them still, while foam bubbles from my lips and the room tilts wildly around me. Pain rolls through me, hot as flames.

  “What’s wrong?” Volkov shouts.

  I lose all sense of the room, my eyes rolling back. It seems to last forever, the pain and the shaking and the metallic bile in my throat.

  “I’m cutting the power!” yells Dr. Luka. “It’s killing her!”

  All at once, the pain stops. Relief washes over me. With a gasp, I roll over and land hard on the floor, jarring my bones. There I collapse, spreading on the cool tiles with a sob. Someone wipes the spit and tears from my face.

  My body is still trembling. I can’t even stand.

  Volkov and Dr. Luka are looking at a three-dimensional holo of my brain, shaking their heads.

  “Defense mechanism,” says Luka. “She can’t be brainjacked. The Firebird won’t allow it.”

  “So it’s active after all?”

  “Seems to be a sort of automatic function. She’s probably got other latent attributes, parts of the code that can’t be totally deactivated.” The doctor studies me curiously. “I hear you have a knack for mechanical engineering, Princess, and for shooting.”

  I look up, my gaze unfocused.

  “I’d guess that’s evidence of the Firebird, giving you an affinity for Prism-powered tech. But we need more than that. Let me look at the reaction the brainjacking sparked. Maybe there’s something in the reflexive code we can work with.”

  Dr. Luka helps me up, back into the chair. I can’t fight him off. I’m too weak, too shaky. He does something to the back of my head I can’t see or feel, but I glimpse him holding the little chip between a pair of tweezers. It’s bloody and tangled with fine wires. He tosses it into a tray with a look of disgust. Another scientist closes the incision, her fingers gentle as she seals the cut with a skin patch.

  “Why are you doing this?” I whisper to Luka, while Volkov is busy studying the scans.

  He winces, not meeting my eyes
. His reply is soft enough that only I can hear it. “When the Firebird activates, you must use it, Anya. Destroy this traitor. Destroy all of them.”

  I stare, speechless, as he returns to his work, sifting through streams of data and exploring the map of my brain.

  Every few seconds my whole body quivers, the effects of the failed brainjacking still rolling through me in waves. I focus on breathing, not letting panic take control of me, because I know if it does they’ll just drug me. I have to keep a clear head. I’ll never escape this otherwise.

  Clio, Clio. Where are you?

  They run more tests, but nothing as invasive as the brainjacking, thankfully. I drowse through most of them, my brain still foggy. Holos of my DNA string across the room like festive lights. I watch them swirl and twist, my body’s instruction manual displayed for all. What does it mean, to not be entirely human—not even entirely organic? What does that make me? Some sort of monster? That’s what everyone said of the Leonovs. Volkov called them gods. I don’t feel like either. I just feel like a girl who’s been wrung out, a girl with all the questions and no answers. A girl adrift in the cosmos, stripped of everything that mattered to her.

  “When she is ready to rule, the Firebird will guide her …” Volkov’s murmur is soft, musing. He stands over me, studying my face. “You’re not ready. Why are you not ready? The Leonovs were made of diamantglass, but you’re fragile. You have so many weaknesses.” His hand finds my hair, pulling a strand between his fingers. “You’re not worthy of the Firebird yet.”

  I turn my face away, feeling a tear trickle down my temple.

  “How do we make you strong, Anya? How do we make you worthy?”

  Stars, how I hate him.

  “Your father was strong. He blew up Emerault’s moon and everyone on it, trying to take out our revolution. Could you do that, Stacia? Could you want that? If I put your finger on the trigger, would you pull it?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper.

  “Hm.” He studies me thoughtfully, and the look in his eyes makes my spine shiver.

  “Here,” says Dr. Luka suddenly, pointing to his tabletka. He sounds excited and draws Volkov’s attention away. “This is the part of the code that activated when we tried the brainjacking. This is what fought back. I’ve managed to isolate it and get a look at it. It’s only a partial of the full sequence, but it’s more than we had to begin with.”