The Duality Bridge (Singularity #2) (Singularity Series)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  “I’ll get Cyrus to do it.” She glares like she actually means it.

  Cyrus breaks his fascination with Lenora’s surgery to glance our way. “Hey, I’ve got my own reasons for giving Eli a beat-down. You just say the word, Mrs. B.”

  My mom smirks with triumph, and it lifts my heart too much not to smile in return. Then something on the other side of the room snags her attention. Leopold’s eyes are open, and he’s signaling me with a raised hand. My heart jumps to my throat. I glance back to my mom.

  “Go,” she says, nodding in Lenora’s direction.

  I cross the twenty feet of the pod at what feels like ascender speed. The med bot steps back and stows itself in the wall. Cyrus has moved back as well, eyes wide. Lenora’s eyes are closed, and her bodyform appears repaired, but her skin is the uniform gray of death. Or maybe she’s just unconscious, whatever that means for ascenders. I know they have rest cycles every month or so, but… this is different.

  I swing my gaze to Leopold. “Is she…?” I can’t say the word. His skin is a carefully neutral gray, hiding whatever feelings he has. Or maybe he’s in mourning.

  But a small smile tugs at his lips. “Her cognition was preserved.”

  Air escapes me, and my whole body loses tension. I brace myself on the edge of her bed and run my gaze along her bodyform. Her ascender-tech sheer dress is shredded and barely gives any cover to her perfectly sculpted curves. My face heats, now that her near-nakedness isn’t made grotesque by torn internal parts lying exposed. I drag my gaze to her face, but it’s as motionless as before.

  Leopold has one eyebrow raised, further flaming my cheeks for having been caught ogling. “Why is she still asleep?” I ask, a catch in my voice.

  He lets the eyebrow fall. “I thought you should be prepared before I raise her cognition to awareness level. Awakening an ascender can be a dangerous business, especially given she may have lost some of the memories of events prior to her storage.”

  I frown and look back down at her. “Storage? Marcus said something about that—I thought it was something you did to criminals.”

  “Yes, well, Marcus would know quite a bit about that.” The dry bitterness of his voice draws me back. “He’s had more than one person put to storage who crossed his path at the wrong time.”

  This doesn’t exactly surprise me, but I don’t care about Marcus’s shenanigans. “What does it mean to be put to storage? Is it like an ascender jail?”

  Leopold’s smile is the indulgent kind, and it rubs me the wrong way. I should just skip all this and demand that he wake her up. “One of the reasons the ascenders sympathetic to the Resistance disconnect themselves entirely from Orion is to prevent anyone from putting us in jail, as you say.” He’s clearly amused by me.

  I’m not amused at all. “Leopold, just tell me what happened, all right?”

  He smirks for a moment more, then becomes serious. “Lenora’s bodyform is relatively new—as you’ll recall, it was damaged when Marcus captured her. This new model has the latest version of an auto-storage feature that triggers in the event of sudden system failure—and then only if a backup doesn’t exist. It’s a failsafe, but generally speaking, most ascenders prefer not to use it. The backups in Orion are much more secure, and this kind of storage leaves one’s cognition vulnerable to whoever happens to discover your inert bodyform. Lenora kept it disabled—if her bodyform were compromised, she didn’t want her mind to fall into the wrong hands. I’m sure she had it deactivated for this operation, but somehow it must have reset.”

  I nod. “There were several waves of attack. Maybe one of the blasts triggered it again?”

  “She’s very lucky, then. Doubly so that you did not leave her behind. She would have been hopelessly vulnerable.”

  I pull in a breath. I feel better about demanding that we bring her back—she would have been a security risk for the entire Resistance. “Can you wake her up?”

  “I can and I will.” He gestures to where Cyrus stands, several feet away, up against the wall. “But you might want to step back.”

  I ease back from the bed, but stay close. “I’m good.” I want my face to be the first thing she sees. I’m not sure if that qualifies me as pathetically in love with an ascender I can never have, but my body refuses to leave her side regardless. Leopold said her memories might be wiped. Maybe she won’t even remember me.

  Leopold tips his head in acknowledgment then passes a hand over Lenora’s forehead.

  Her head twitches very slightly, almost like it’s vibrating. The shudder runs down her body, and the sheer fabric of her dress ripples in response. Then a torrent of color starts at her toes and races blue and purple streaks up her body. A brilliant wave of yellow swirls like sunshine washing her skin. Her eyes snap open, and before I can react, she’s up from the table, arms wrapped around me, lifting me off the floor in a hug that squeezes all the air from my lungs.

  Her face is directly below mine, her lips inches away. “Elijah, you’re alive.” It’s a breathless whisper. Her eyes blaze up at me, blue irises wildly dilating as her gaze roams my face. They land on my lips, and impossibly, it seems like she might kiss me. My body is on fire with embarrassment—not that I haven’t dreamed of kissing her, but not here. Not in front of everyone, including my mother.

  I wrench my head away, as far as I can go. I try to speak, but I have no breath, so I struggle against her ascender-strong hold. She immediately drops me and flings her body backward in an exaggerated motion that leaves her braced against the bed and bent backward over it. She looks like a feral animal with the mechanical mania in her eyes and the coiled-spring of her stance. Her head vibrates again in a way that makes me back up.

  Leopold swoops in to grab her shoulders. She locks gazes with him, and slowly, her body begins to calm. The shudders stop. The wildness in her eyes dims. It only takes a few seconds, maybe five. Then Leopold nods, as if in answer to something she’s transmitted, and releases her.

  The heat in my cheeks cools, but the bruises on my arms from Lenora’s too-tight hold start to warm. She smooths her clothes, then seems to realize the state of them. With a grim look, she lets her fists simply hang at her side.

  Finally, she looks to me. “I’m so sorry, Elijah.” Her voice sounds like her, and relief washes through me. At least she remembers me. “I hope I didn’t frighten you.”

  And like that I’m back to being a pet in her eyes. As if I was ever anything else.

  “I wasn’t frightened,” I say stiffly. “A little concerned you’d lost your mind, maybe.”

  She frowns at the coolness of my tone, like she doesn’t understand how she just insulted me. It makes me wonder if the gap between us might be even larger than I thought.

  Cyrus comes up behind me. “You okay?” he asks me quietly.

  I know he means well, but it raises the hairs on the back of my neck anyway. “I’m fine,” I say loudly for the benefit of everyone. I catch my mother’s frown from across the room and lower my voice. “Should I assume you weren’t irreparably damaged in the attack?” I ask Lenora.

  A flush of purple washes across her cheek. I think she’s embarrassed. “The initiation sequence can be a little… disturbing. There’s a moment of vulnerability before my personal key is re-established—but that moment has passed. I can assure you, I’m in complete control now. There’s no need for concern.”

  Leopold’s eyeing her like he’s not entirely convinced. “You should thank Eli for the fact that you’re here at all. He’s the one who insisted on retrieving your bodyform from the battle, rather than leaving it behind.”

  Lenora’s eyes go wide. Clearly Leopold saved that tidbit to say out loud. The heat is back in my cheeks.

  She swings to me. “Eli, you should never risk yourself—”

  I hold up my hand, cutting her off. I beat back the part that loves hearing her call me Eli and keep my voice cool. “You can thank me by answering my questions. I have a few.”

  “I don’t know if—” S
he glances around the room, then lowers her voice. “Perhaps this is a discussion best held in private, Eli.”

  My heart is thudding now, equal parts fear of what she’ll say and rush that she’s using my name—Eli not Elijah—in that soft voice of hers.

  I try not to let it show and glance at the others—Leopold, Cyrus, my mother. “There’s no one here who doesn’t already know the answers. Or should. How much of what Marcus told me is true? I want to know exactly what you did when you created me. The tech, the genetics, all of it. And how you expected that to… express. Manifest. Whatever you hoped to achieve with it. And I want to know how it might go wrong and what the side effects might be. Everything.”

  Her eyes widen, and she looks to Leopold. He shakes his head, but a pulse of purple washes up his neck. He’s wearing the standard Resistance casual wear—a foliage-based camouflage that matches the Oregon forest—so I can’t see what other colors are rippling across his ascender skin. But they’re both holding something back. Lenora gestures to him with open hands, and her skin flushes with a rainbow of purple and silver streaks. It takes me a moment to realize they’re transmitting.

  “Out loud, Lenora.” The harshness of my voice brings her attention snapping back to me.

  “What has happened, Elijah?” She searches my face. “I need to know everything.”

  I scowl. “You first.”

  Before she can respond, the door to the pod whisks open. Basha rushes in and quickly scans the room. I don’t know if she’s officially Cyrus’s second, but they’ve been going strong since we arrived. She quickly forgave his deceptions during the Olympics—then again, she was probably more impressed with his manipulation skills than angry that he lied.

  “Cyrus!” she says, slightly breathless. “I need to talk with you. Like, right now. Eli, too.”

  “We’re kind of in the middle of something here, Bash.” But he’s frowning like she’s triggering all his alarms.

  “I know.” She hustles across the room, giving Lenora’s tattered dress a strange look before landing her small hand on Cyrus’s beefy arm. Basha is ridiculously short, with delicate Arabic features, tiny next to Cyrus’s bulk, but she’s a heavyweight in social gymnastics. And right now she’s giving my best friend a dead-serious, world-is-ending look of concern with her wide brown eyes. “Trust me, whatever you’re discussing, you want to be careful who you say it to.”

  Cyrus frowns, but I can see Basha’s alarm carrying over. “What’s happened?”

  Basha presses her lips together, tugging on Cyrus so he’ll bend down. Her voice is a whisper, but it’s loud. And clearly meant for everyone in the pod to hear.

  “Commander Astoria says we have a spy.”

  A spy in the Resistance? It’s possible. For all the anxious preparation, Commander Astoria wouldn’t have approved the PR mission if she didn’t think we could pull it off. We were supposed to get in and out fast, long before we could be tracked… only the attack came faster.

  Cyrus’s grip on my arm is almost painful. “Let’s go.” He yanks me toward the door of the med bay, and I don’t resist out of sheer confusion. Basha swipes the door open ahead of us.

  When we reach the threshold, I finally have the presence of mind to jerk out of his grasp. “We need to get some answers, remember?” I gesture to Leopold and Lenora, who are flicking looks to one another.

  Lenora flits with ascender speed to my side. “We do need talk, Eli.” She frowns at Cyrus like she thinks he’s kidnapping me. Which seriously annoys me—because I trust him five times more than her any day and in every way.

  Cyrus balls his fists like he might fight his way out of the med bay. But his voice is calm. “Eli, you need to know who your friends are. Before we go talking our mouths off.” He gives me a pointed look, and I get what he’s saying: he doesn’t trust ascenders. And with this spy business in play, he’s hedging his bets against sharing anything about the fugue, even with Lenora. I’m not sure what to think. She could still give me answers about my past and how she designed me—I’ll just have to keep my mouth shut while she talks.

  “I still want some answers,” I say to her. “Let me sort this out first.”

  Cyrus gives me a nod like he thinks I’m making the right call, then he practically shoves me out the door. Basha leads us away from the med pod. She’s tossing pinch-faced glares around, like she’s scanning every water barrel shadow and flapping canvas doorway for a lurking sentry. Cyrus and I follow her lead and keep quiet until she brings us to the back of the mess hall. There’s an angry noise rumbling inside the canvas walls. It creates a background static that will cover our conversation next to the crates of potatoes and pungent refuse bins.

  “Basha, baby, what’s going on?” Cyrus lays a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  Her thin fingers flex, both hands in unison, like she wants to claw the eyes out of something—not Cyrus or me, I think, but I wouldn’t want to cross her right now. Even if she’s only a hundred pounds soaking wet.

  She peers up at Cyrus. “Someone betrayed the mission. Someone who knew exactly when and where it was going down.”

  I frown. “Maybe we just got tracked faster than they expected—”

  Basha’s glare cuts me off. “No one tracked the transmission. It was shielded right up until the sentries landed. That means a spy knew the plans or brought their own tracker.” She sucks in a breath. “They suspect you, Eli.”

  “What?” My voice is too loud, so I reel it in. But it doesn’t matter because I’m speechless.

  Cyrus runs a hand over his face. “Why do they suspect Eli?” But he doesn’t sound surprised. I give him an incredulous look.

  Basha crosses her arms. “You know why.”

  Cyrus sighs. “You know it’s not him. You wouldn’t have come for us if you thought it was Eli.”

  She purses her lips, hesitates, glares at me as my mouth flops around like a fish drowning in air, and then finally says, “Yeah, I know. The boy’s way too straight for anything like this.”

  I finally huff out some words. “Thanks a lot.”

  She locks me in with her dark-eyed stare. “Just because I know it’s not you, doesn’t mean you’re clear of this. You’re the only survivor who hasn’t been with the Resistance for pretty much ever. Most are from Paris. Some are from the other cells. But all check out. You, on the other hand, have been with the Resistance for exactly four days. And people are saying you’re not even with us, not really. That you’re just here for the gen tech.”

  I bite back my protest. Because all of that is true.

  “You said people come to the Resistance all the time for the med tech,” Cyrus says to her, not exactly coming to my defense.

  “They do,” Basha says, “but it’s more than just that. The Resistance needs ascender tech, but there’s always the suspicion we’re being played. That the rebel ascenders are using us, not the other way around.” She flicks her hands at me like I’m impossible to deal with. Reminds me of Cyrus. “Then Eli risks everyone to bring an ascender’s bodyform back from the op! I get that she’s your patron, Eli. And I guess it’s good that she lived. But the spy’s either an ascender or an ascender-lover, and that just doesn’t look good for either of you.”

  “Well, it’s not Lenora, either!” I throw in, still completely off balance.

  They both look at me like I’m pathetic.

  “You weren’t there,” I protest. “She and that other one, Kallias, defended us with their lives.” I stab a finger at Cyrus. “You heard Leopold—Lenora would have died if I left her. There’s no way it’s her.” My voice is hiking up again.

  Cyrus’s hands are up. “Okay. All right. Let’s say it’s not Lenora. For the moment.” He turns back to Basha. “What about this Kallias character? It was her apartment. Maybe it was all a setup.”

  Thankfully, Basha nods. “That’s what I thought, but Commander Astoria seems convinced Kallias is solid. But she had a backup, and she’s resurrecting somewhere. Seems suspicious.” She glance
s at me. “All I know is the commander’s worried about you, Eli. She may not think you’re the spy, but she says there are ascenders after you. One way or another, she thinks you’re going to compromise the entire movement.”

  I swallow and exchange a look with Cyrus. The Commander knows Marcus wants me—after all, I made the trade with him to free Lenora and the girls—but I didn’t think she knew why. No one should know that except me, Cyrus and the people involved in the original experiments that created me. If word of that got out… before my mom gets her gen tech…

  “The commander seemed pretty tight with Leopold,” I say to Cyrus. “Maybe he told her...” I leave it hanging because Basha doesn’t know half of my many-layered secrets.

  “She might know,” he agrees with a pinched look. I think he’s figured it out, but he’s cringing under Basha’s intense stare.

  “Know what?” Basha’s sharp-eyed gaze draws a line between me and Cyrus. “Eli’s little secrets?”

  Cyrus and I both stare at her, open-mouthed.

  “Oh, come on.” Basha rolls her eyes. “Kamali told me everything. Your fugue. Your crush on your patron. The fact that you painted Kamali dead.” She lifts a hand to vaguely gesture to me while giving Cyrus a side-eyed look. “I know he’s your friend, Cy, but the boy has issues.”

  My shoulders relax. So Basha doesn’t know.

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” The tension seems to leak from Cyrus’s shoulders as well. “But this fugue thing that Eli does…” He gives me a careful look. Whatever he’s going to say, I trust him with my life. He swings his gaze back to Basha. “He still needs some help figuring out how it works. It’s important, Bash. It might help the Resistance. And Kamali was amazing at helping him before. She’s the only one who could ever figure him out.”

  What? I’m working up a protest, but Basha’s skeptical look beats me to it.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She’s scrunching up her little, brown face like I’m yesterday’s fish dinner. She’s Kamali’s best friend, so I’m not surprised.