The cuff is already, thankfully, on my left wrist. “Doe, move the sensuit up to the top of my bicep. Make it as tight as possible, like a tourniquet.” I am aware that I am practically panting. I need to calm down. I need to slow my circulatory system as much as possible to increase my chances of survival. The cuff moves up and snakes so tightly that it almost takes my breath away.
I hold out my left arm, making a fist, because this action is a different kind of fighting, but it’s a fight nonetheless.
“So you offer up your arm as a tribute to our new cause, freely and without duress?” Varesh asks in a tone more serious than I’ve heard from him.
No actually, you fuck. I’m not doing this freely and this is pretty much the definition of duress. So it’s going to cost you, and I hope you pay for it at the end of a Spiradael’s razor hair braid.
I need your soldiers, though. I grit out a “Yes.”
Varesh lifts two of his right hands and beckons for a guard to come forward. This one is a woman. She has a look on her face that I can’t quite read. Her jaw is clenched and her brows are knitted together so deeply that there is a little v in the center of them. I can’t tell if she is sorry or annoyed. Either way, she doesn’t look like she wants to do this. She gives me a slight nod, getting my permission.
I want to scream. This is possibly the dumbest and most reckless decision I’ve ever made, but if I back out now, they might kill us all. Shit, they may just kill us all anyway, but I don’t think so. I know Varesh needs us as much as we need him, even if those under his command do not. He has played this very well. I give her the slightest of nods and she raises her sword, which is crescent shaped and sharp enough that the light bounces off the edge.
I see her arm go swiftly up and then down again. I am braced for the pain, but it doesn’t come. I think at first they were playing a joke. That my first instincts had been right. It was all just an elaborate test. Then I look down and see my arm on the ground, a pale and useless thing now, a piece of meat, a sacrifice.
Then I see the red blood begin to pour out. It’s making a puddle. I should be in agony. Why can’t I feel this?
Levi, Arif, and Navaa rush up to bolster me, and Varesh gets off his chair and makes his way to me as well. He examines my dripping stump and the pool of scarlet blood on the marble. “Well,” he says loudly in Akshaj, “perhaps you are not so weak. You have managed to stay on your feet, girl. That fact alone is proof enough that your race isn’t entirely useless.”
Oh my God, I could kill him. I want to kill him. I also want to pass out. I think I’m going to.
“We have a deal, correct? A bargain has been made and the alliance sealed.” I push out the words. I know they are coming from my own mouth, but my mouth feels wrong, like it’s on my chest or maybe in my hair.
“We have a deal. I will allow the Akshaj Citadels to engage against the Roones.”
“Good,” I say with more force than I thought possible given that my vision is starting to periscope. “Because I can get another arm, but I can’t get another army.” That comment wipes the shit-eating grin off Varesh’s face. “Rift. SenMach City,” I say out loud.
A dot of neon green appears just a foot in front of me. “What is this?” Varesh demands.
“This is how we’re going to win,” Levi barks at him. “We’ll be in touch. Soon.” I look down and see that my feet aren’t actually on the ground. Arif is carrying me. When did that happen? The neon smudge widens and turns to purple and black in a matter of seconds. Arif wraps his wings around me. I watch, strangely fascinated, as they begin to soak up my blood.
Why can’t I feel this?
There is a pull and then a drag. I am inside the Rift now, still in Arif’s arms. The neon mouth is screaming at me. It’s not just in my ears. It feels like the Rift has pulled back my skull and is yelling directly into my brain. I am experiencing time in two speeds. On the one hand, we are racing, whizzing through the Multiverse like a video on fast-forward. On the other hand—
Yeah. Okay. I don’t actually have another hand anymore.
The thought of that, the fear and grief, pushes two teardrops into the corners of each eye. Still, time is ripped apart. There is fast-forward, yes, but also molasses slow. Each movement leaves a strange trail, an almost duplicate of the one before. My heartbeat, which kicked and hammered, is now barely pumping. I can hear it, moving in the slower time. Thump . . . Thump . . .
And then, the white exit. The vertical slit. There are more than one—dozens of them, the echoes, the almost identical twins of time’s images. What I am seeing is not true. There is only one way out and the rest are illusions. Which makes sense. This is all an illusion. A pretense. My life, like everyone else’s, only looks like a series of choices. A choice to fight. A choice to ask the Akshaj commander for help. Like it was my decision to make, my severed arm. It’s all a lie. We tell ourselves that we are choosing so that our lives have some semblance of purpose and meaning. The real truth is, we are born who we are. There are no choices, only circumstances.
We are out of the Rift. I look up to the sky. It is white. Maybe it will snow. Makes sense because I am freezing. More rushing of wings and yelling, more fast and slow all at once. It was day and now it is night. I roll into the darkness. I think I may say something before it takes me. Yes, I want to say Levi. Maybe not. Maybe I want to ask for help. I don’t know. The black swallows me whole in one gulp and I am gone.
Chapter 17
It is always the hearing before the seeing. That’s how it goes in these situations. The beeping of machines. The hum of electricity. The quiet voices peppered with concern. Bright side, I am not in pain. Downside—I literally cannot feel anything. I can’t feel my own weight. I can’t even feel the clothes on my body or the sheets on the bed. It’s like my brain has been shoved in a jar but somehow been kept alive.
Shit. I am with the SenMachs. They could probably do something like that. What if I’m actually dead and they downloaded my consciousness into an android!
Fuuuck.
I wouldn’t put it past them. I open a single eye, expecting some kind of display to be right on my cornea and a readout of my vitals and status—because obviously I’m a robot now—but everything looks normal. A little blurry, but still, normal. I look down at my very own body underneath a thin blanket.
Okay, so option two—not a robot. High as hell then.
Gathered around me are Levi, Feather, and Cosmos. Feather is the closest thing the SenMachs have to a doctor. I mean, he is a doctor, just not a human one. The SenMachs are sentient machines. Feather (who I’m told was modeled after Beethoven, but looks completely and totally like a soccer dad) is the head of the biomed division. Cosmos is the “doyenne,” the leader of the city. She is modeled after some British royalty person that I’ve never heard of. Cosmos is quite pretty, in an old Hollywood type of way. Though old is absolutely the wrong word to describe any of the SenMachs. They all look like adults with baby skin. None of them have a single frown line, wrinkle, or mole (unless they were designed that way). Their skin is without blemish, because it’s not entirely real.
I reach over hopefully, touching my right hand to my left, but it is gone. If I wasn’t so completely high right now, I am sure I would be totally devastated. I had assumed they would just smack a new one on. But maybe it’s not that easy. Maybe it’s not even something they can do at all.
“What an exceptional story Levi has just told me,” Cosmos says with near sarcasm. I say near because it’s hard with the SenMachs to get real emotion across, about anything. “He tells me that you allowed a six-armed biped to cut your limb off in return for an alliance. But then I thought, no, that cannot be, for who would want an alliance with such a miserable creature?”
“Cosmos,” I say, but my voice is gravelly and my throat hurts. “You watched me put a gun to my head. I threatened to kill myself if you forced us to stay here with you. You can’t really be surprised that I would do something so extreme.”
/> “Not surprised, no,” Cosmos says as she looks at me with something that might be concern. There is the slightest grimace on her face, but there’s an equal chance she’s just annoyed. “I am disappointed—with this entire situation.”
I look away. I follow the IV up and see two bags. One of blood—or something that looks like blood—and the other a clear solution. I don’t want to get pissy, but I’m lying here with one arm. I kind of feel like I should have the monopoly on disappointment in the room.
“Where are Arif and Navaa?” I ask Levi, who is standing closest to me, just inches away really. I wonder if he’s been like that since I was moved to this room. I wonder how long I’ve actually been out.
“Your Faida friends are with Neon and Doe in the physics lab. They are demonstrating the Kir-Abisat. It is quite fascinating; however, I believe the Faida to be a race that is overly pleased with themselves in general,” Cosmos says indifferently. The SenMachs only care about one thing, humans.
“Really, Cosmos?” I ask while shifting my body a little on the narrow bed. “They are genetically modified flying angel people who have been to space. All things considered, they could be much bigger assholes.”
At that, Cosmos raises her shoulders about two millimeters and lowers them again. This is the closest I’ll probably ever see a SenMach get to a shrug.
“Your arm, Ryn. It was such a risk.” Cosmos deftly changes the subject to what matters to her. The Faida are miraculous to me, but the SenMach aren’t coded to give a shit about them.
“Yeah,” I admit. Man, I’m high. I kind of feel like I’m going up and down on a roller coaster. “I didn’t have a choice but they wanted me to think I did.” I run my tongue over my dry lips. I scrunch my face because my nose itches. “But it’s okay,” I slur. “I understand now. You don’t have to feel bad for me, because Varesh told me the Akshaji were the fight and I want to be the fight too. I want to be the war. I am the war, even with one hand, and I won’t ever stop. It doesn’t matter if I can’t win. If we can’t . . .”
I’m pretty sure the words coming out of my mouth aren’t making any sense, but it makes perfect sense to me in my own head. I feel something profound with this loss. In fact, I have so many feelings right now ready to burst out of my rib cage they are like a hundred rainbows arching in the sky after rain. Something was taken, yes, but given as well. Clarity. I assume that’s what this is.
Although, again, mega high.
“That’s a very . . . philosophical, Ryn,” Feather offers warmly. “But let us put this talk of war aside for now. I assume you came to us because you thought we might be able to build you a new arm?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. The slow time is back again. I open and close my eyes. Left. Right. Left. Right. Morse code blinking as if looking at the room in this odd way might sober me up a little. “But if you can’t, that’s okay. I wouldn’t be mad. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Feather puts a hand on my shoulder. “It was a good idea. We can do it, though it will take a little time. My team and I have been working on the problem of attaching nerve endings to our technology since you arrived.”
I was ready to do this one armed, but relief washes over me. “Cool” is all I can manage. Of course, it’s more than cool. My tongue isn’t working. “Yessenia and Sidra,” I turn my head to Levi. “They should know that we’re in the place here.”
“I went back right after you were stabilized and gave them our status. I tried to get Arif and Navaa to leave with me, but unsurprisingly, they aren’t going anywhere.” I nod my head. I don’t know why Levi is worried about this. The SenMachs would happily study the Faida, but they won’t help them or give them anything without our permission.
“I think we should let Ryn rest now,” Feather tells the room. Levi stands stock-still, staring at me in the bed.
It’s been forty-eight hours here in SenMach City, and Feather has finally solved the problem of attaching a SenMach arm to a living person. It’s not like how I thought it would be.
It’s not like Star Wars.
At all.
I am sitting in a chair in my room. A nurse—well, she probably isn’t a nurse, but whatever the equivalent to a nurse is here—named Page has begun to shave my head. Levi has been standing in front of the window, his arms crossed, eyes narrowed. I watched the majority of my hair fall to the floor when Page used the scissors. Blond tendrils floated down like feathers, settling in little mountains around my feet. Now I am being shaved bald. There is a scraping sound, the drag and pull of the razor on my scalp.
My stump of an arm is being held up by a sling. Bits of hair are getting caught in the fabric around my neck. I look at my bare feet. I press my toes together. My legs are splayed open because keeping them closed feels like too much of an effort. Levi gives me an encouraging smile every so often, and I shift my focus every time he does. I am his leader, his commander, and right now I look like a broken doll. I want to sit up straight, I really do. I want to be fierce and stoic. But I am still sedated quite heavily. My eyes won’t open all the way. I just don’t have it in me and for that, I am ashamed.
I keep thinking there must be a limit to how much I can take. I was recruited at seven, activated at fourteen. Since then I have been drugged, brainwashed, abused, and lied to. I have been genetically spliced with other species. I have been turned into a weapon, a killer, a leader, a rebel, and now a leader of rebels. I have gone through the Multiverse. I have had sex, been broken up with—in the same night. I have had violent altercations with both the guys I have had romantic feelings for. I walked through a mass grave. I can open a Rift with the sound of my voice. And now here I am, with one limb that’s been hacked off by our newest allies and ready to have my skull drilled into by another ally so I can get my new robot arm.
I’m afraid that at some point, I’m just going to shut down, like a phone with a drained battery. One day my capacity for dealing with all this crazy will reach its limit and I will just switch off. In this moment, as Page dries off my bald head and brushes away the tiny hairs that have settled on my neck like pins, I am afraid this moment is close. I absolutely do not want anyone inside my brain. I also don’t want to go through life with one arm. Like I said, choice is an illusion. All we have are circumstances. These are mine.
Levi looks at me, his eyes as wide as two moons. He opens his mouth and then slams it shut again. Instead of saying anything, he pulls me close to him. His embrace is ferocious, and I wince a little as the IV in my one arm is jostled. He kisses my cheeks, my eyes, my ears. He keeps whispering okay. I don’t know if he’s telling me how things are going to be or if he’s trying to accept that this is how things are. I pull away from him. He feels too close. We are partners, but he can’t join me in this. The fact that I really want him to be right there with me, holding my hand, scares me almost as much as what’s about to happen. I need him. Desperately. But this is yet another new feeling I can’t afford today and so I push it down like a muffled scream.
They take me to a machine, a giant tub filled with a strange gel. I realize I’m going to have to go in that thing.
“I’ll need some help,” I tell Page. “With the gown.”
“Of course,” she says, rushing to undo the tabs at the back that are somehow held in place. Page gently undoes the sling around my neck and keeps hold of my stump as she maneuvers it out of the gown. In another life, getting naked in front of all these people would be embarrassing. Now, it barely registers. I might as well be a newborn, with my newly shaved head and shaking knees. There is no longer anything remotely sexual about me. I had felt powerful, strong, fully feminized, when I “offered” this piece of my body to Sairjidahl Varesh. To say I didn’t think it through is an understatement. I couldn’t have imagined that allowing him to do this would make me feel so violated, because I agreed to it. There is no female equivalent to the word emasculate in the English language. It hardly takes anything at all for a man to have his masculinity threatened—b
abysitting his own kids or letting a woman pick up the check. Is this what it takes for a woman to feel less female? Something as extreme as a body part chopped off and a bald skull?
Both Feather and Page help to guide me into the vat. The liquid is warm.
“Will it hurt?” I ask.
There is a silence. Feather is forming an appropriate response. That can’t be good. “I think probably it will,” he says finally. “You are getting medication intravenously, but it won’t be absorbed as fast as the arm will be built. Too, we will need to cut into your brain, in order to connect the synapsis to accept this new arm as something that’s a part of you—it’s why your head was shaved. And there’s not much we can do to numb the brain. Besides, you need to be able to feel your arm, for obvious reasons.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to imagine what this experience is even going to be.
“Trust me, Ryn, I know you are scared, but we have done our homework, as you would say. You must trust that we can do this successfully. A positive attitude is an important component to healing.”
I want to tell him to take his positive attitude and shove it up his ass. I’m suddenly very angry, but not at Feather, not really. I’m angry at myself, at Sairjidahl Varesh. I think probably I’m also angry because I need to be, so I can fight the pain I know is coming.
I hear the door open and Feather and Page leave. I close my eyes. My chest is heaving up and down. I want Levi. I want my team. I want my mom and dad.
“Ryn?” I hear Feather’s voice from somewhere. A speaker? But it sounds like it’s right beside me. “I know it might seem odd, but I would like to play some music. It will help to distract you, possibly, and I always work better when a chaotic element is introduced to my coding for some reason.”
The Rift Coda Page 18
