LEGACY RISING

by Rachel Eastwood

  Legacy nodded. “Okay,” she allowed. “Take me to see the birds. And then I have to go home.”

  The conservatory wasn’t only florid; it was overgrown. It was misty with the humidity of exhaling plant life, deep, textured green punctuated by the starbursts of blooms in all colors, from teal to lavender. The walls were fogged glass, its seams a tarnished bronze in the process of a vigorous polishing from tiny, spider-like bots. On this island, as on the other three, automata of all shapes and sizes were hard at work. Bots who resembled children trundled to and fro in the conservatory, merrily watering every plant.

  Kaizen led the wide-eyed, overwhelmed Legacy toward a narrow, spiraling staircase of metal, which had yet to be polished and was still quite tarnished, saying, “The birds are never down here. You’ll see them up at the top.” He beamed, so different from the man who had told her once, only days ago, that she had better sleep, because she never knew when she’d be fed again. Now he held out carnations for her to smell.

  They reached the second level of the conservatory: a catwalk from which one could view the tops of all these trees.

  “Where did you get these?” Legacy wondered breathlessly.

  “These what?” Kaizen asked, looking around as if she was seeing something he hadn’t seen before, hidden among the trees.

  “Real trees,” Legacy explained.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered flippantly. “They’ve been here as long as I’ve been alive. They must be awfully expensive, though, don’t you think? I’ve never seen another, except in Celestine. There! There they are!” He pointed excitedly and Legacy struggled to follow the trajectory of his finger.

  Huddled on a branch together, side by side, were two small, round, feathery animals. The pair were pale, yellowed green, with pink-splashed faces. Legacy only recognized them as birds because they were similar in appearance to colorful mechanical birds. Except, of course, these were alive. They nuzzled one another with soul, with intent. With choice.

  “Lovebirds,” Kaizen told her. His voice was close to her ear. “They mate for life, you know. That’s what I was told, anyway.” Legacy felt his chest brushing against her back, and saw his hands folding over the railing of the catwalk. She suddenly knew what was coming next. “That’s why we call them that.”

  Legacy whirled and planted her hands on Kaizen’s chest, pushing him gently but firmly to arm’s length. “You said you knew,” she reminded him hotly. “You said you knew that I couldn’t!”

  “I know!” Kaizen exploded. The lovebirds shrieked and fled. “God damn it, Legacy, I know you can’t. I just—” He closed his eyes and seethed, as if rooting for something in his system, rooting for something to tear loose. “You make me feel like . . . Have you ever seen an automaton that’s been overwound?” he asked.

  Legacy shook her head.

  “They fly to pieces,” Kaizen went on thickly. “Their gears spill out, their springs all pop, and they can’t think anymore until somebody fixes them.” He opened his eyes and looked at her squarely. “That’s how you make me feel. And I can’t—function since I met you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Legacy offered. It felt hollow, even to her own ears. What good did apologies do?

  “The automata are a lot like the royal family,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her at all. “They’re all on a grid together, and when one goes out, the others feel it. They’re all connected to the castle, all the time, no matter where they go—just like me. And when a key is turned too hard—everybody breaks. It throws the whole grid out of whack. That’s me right now. You’re right. You shouldn’t be here. My father would kill me if he knew. But I’m . . . going crazy, and making terrible decisions. And the only way to take a problematic bot out of the equation? Stop ruining the system? Is to remove its key.” He grimaced. “That’s what my father wants to do to me. Rip my heart out. He’s using you as a bargaining tool, you know. When he suspended your sentence? Let you go? It was because I agreed to this stupid song and dance. This coronation,” he sneered. “Pledging my allegiance to the crown. The rest of my life to this damn island.”

  Legacy gaped.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. This felt less hollow.

  Kaizen looked to her with an acute misery. “I know,” he said again. “I know you are. Come on. Let’s go. You can wait in my room, where no one will see you, and I’ll gather a sentry to take you home.”

  As the couple walked back through the castle and up the rotunda, Legacy watched the automata, all moving in strange sync. One approached another who was moving slowly, and spun its key tight again. Another automaton removed a tapestry and tossed it from the second floor to the first; another turned and caught it, as if they could really “see” each other somehow. They’re all connected to the castle, all the time, no matter where they go . . .

  Kaizen opened his chamber door and ushered her inside. Legacy staggered sleepily as she stepped past him. She still hadn’t rested at all from her trying escapade on Old Earth.

  “Legacy.” Kaizen closed the door and touched her shoulder. “Why don’t you just lay down before you go? Just for a minute?”

  She cast her eyes suspiciously onto the wide mattress, assuredly soft and smooth enough to tide anyone off to sleep as soon as they dared blink. “No,” she answered stiffly. “I’d better not.”

  “Legacy,” he said again. He called her name as if calling her to her senses. “Just take a nap. What will it hurt? Come on. And then you go. Then you go home, I promise.”

  She slanted her suspicious gaze at him next. He hasn’t really been hurting me, or forcing me to do anything, she thought. He’s just been showing me what life as a duchess could be like, really. Legacy caught herself sighing inwardly and stifled the sensation. Not that you care, she reminded herself.

  “I guess I could lay down for a minute,” she allowed.

  Legacy approached the bed as if it might bite, as if it was a threat, and then crawled in and collapsed.

  All her fears were realized. It was the most plush mattress and breathable sheet she’d ever touched. She sank into the pillows and felt her joints all unlock. Her knees. Her shoulders. Everything loosened like spaghetti, and she sighed.

  The mattress sank beside her. “Can I lay down too?” Kaizen asked.

  One eye cracked open and glared. “No,” she said.

  “I didn’t sleep last night either,” he explained defensively. “I just want to lay next to you. That’s all.”

  Legacy closed her eye again. She was too tired to fight. She was so tired. “All right,” she said. “Fine.”

  She stiffened at the sensation of his breath on her neck, though he did not touch her. She kept her eyes shut and told herself she was too tired to notice what she was noticing, too tired to care about it, too—

  Her heart thundered when a single finger traced the shape of her shoulder, her side, her hip.

  A shameful part of her—the same part which had broken open and flowered when they’d kissed in the dungeon tower—yearned for him to take her face in his hands and kiss her.

  But he didn’t.

  He curled up against her, burrowing into her neck as if seeking shelter from a storm, and threaded his fingers through hers. He sighed into her hair, as if he too were experiencing a luxury he’d never encountered in all his life, and they both dropped off to sleep, a warm, smiling slumber.

  On the other side of the spectrum, the headquarters of Chance for Choice were abuzz with furious plotting.

  “This may be our only option!” Dax yelled, pounding his fist onto Vector’s workbench. The inventor stiffened as a row of his projects all shuddered. “You know how heavily armored that drawbridge is! Well! The security will have to be loosened for the coronation! Hundreds of people are going to be there! Rain received a formal invitation from her work! And didn’t you, too, Vector?” Vector nodded. “When will that drawbridge ever open up like this again?”

  “Well, for starters,” Trimpot replied, eyes flashing as h
e, too, braced Vector’s workbench and leaned across it. Vector tensed as the possibility of violence escalated, all right next to his fragile prototypes. “We don’t have the manpower, and we don’t have the technology anywhere near that of the duke!”

  “You were the one who said that you were tired of civil disobedience! Don’t you think having your speechwriter pulled from her own home, with no formal charges brought, no mention in the news, might qualify as an act of war?”

  “They knew we’d been to Old Earth, obviously!” Trimpot shouted. “We’re lucky they only took her!”

  “Only took her?” Dax seethed. Vector lunged to form a protective shield over the Contemplator. “It was your blasted idea to go down there, not hers! All she did was see it, and wonder what was down there! It was you who were convinced that it was some private getaway for the elite! You just can’t stand the thought of someone having something you don’t, Trimpot!”

  “I don’t care for your insolence, Ghrenadel, and as I said, regardless of whose fault it is that she’s gone, she’s gone. We don’t have the technology, and we don’t have the manpower, to go into battle right now.”

  Dax expelled a long, frustrated breath. Flywheel, who had been in his pocket when Legacy was taken, buzzed around his head, a constant reminder of her absence. The mechanical assistant had imprinted with him ever since.

  “Well,” Vector mentioned in a small voice.

  “Well what?” Trimpot snapped.

  “Well,” Vector went on again, “you did say the place was crawling with automatons.”

  “Yes,” Trimpot simmered. “I did say that. What’s your point?”

  “My point is that—it wouldn’t be impossible to craft another program for the Contemplator. We already have the disable program. So, we get in. We go with disable. We run the new program through the Contemplator. Wouldn’t be too hard at all. Quite simple, really, the more I think about it. Very dangerous. But quite simple.”

  “What new program?” Trimpot and Dax asked in unison.

  Vector shrugged. “A kill program.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Rain, who had been watching in mute horror, stepped forward. “I thought we were just talking about a rescue mission, not an assassination!”

  Vector frowned. “Oh, were we? My mistake.”

  Dax frowned, but he also nodded. “Why not both?” he wondered.

  “What?” Trimpot and Rain exclaimed in unison.

  “You said we had limited manpower and technology,” Dax reiterated. He gestured to Vector. “Vector has a plan that requires one bot and two program reels for the Contemplator.”

  “What does that have to do with Legacy?” Trimpot asked.

  “You leave Leg to me,” Dax replied. “I’ll get her back. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s find the woman I love. We may require an incident like an assassination, anyway. I could get in and out pretty swiftly during total pandemonium, I think. Especially if all their force gets diverted from the tower to the castle.”

  Trimpot shook his head. “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “Why?” Dax snapped.

  “Because! It’s got nothing to do with me!” the petulant rebel leader replied. “I’d be risking my life to save your damn girlfriend!”

  “I kind of like it,” Vector confessed. “I mean, what have we been doing? Making a bunch of weapons for the fun of it? Painting buildings like a bunch of children? What is this all for, if it never gets serious? Don’t you see, Neon? It has everything to do with you, and with all of us. Dax is right. We’re never going to get another chance like this to take out the duke.”

  “No, no, no,” Dax said. His eyebrows settled low over his blue eyes, which were not bright anymore, but seemed almost black. “Not the duke. Not the duke. Kaizen.”

  “Whoa,” Rain interrupted again. “Why Kaizen? He seems all right.”

  “Figures the girl would want to save Kaizen,” Vector inserted, rolling his eyes.

  “It’s not about that!” Rain rebutted. “But he hasn’t done anything! He’s not the duke!”

  “He will be, though,” Dax replied. “That’s what this entire show is about, isn’t it? The coronation is unusual, isn’t that what Dyna Logan said? A coronation is unusual when it’s held prior to the death of the duke, but it is done to solidify intent. To clarify the passage of the crown in future time. It’s the duke’s way of telling us that nothing is going to change. It’s the duke’s way of telling us that, even after he’s dead, he’ll still have won, because the order of the monarchy will prevail. What would send a greater message, then, than to target Kaizen? Let all of Icarus know that this duke is over.”

  There was a tense silence as the gravity of the suggestion settled.

  “He’s right,” Vector spoke up. “If we were to target the duke, it’d only mean that the crown would pass to Kaizen immediately. Nothing would really change. But if we target Kaizen? The duke suddenly has no heir. He’d have to either forfeit the throne, or petition an amendment to the Companion laws, at any rate, because Duchess Olympia is too old to have kids now. He’d have to get reassigned, and I don’t think you can get reassigned, legally, after you’ve already had a kid with your Companion.”

  Dax’s eyes gleamed. “That’s it, then. Let’s get started.” He clapped Vector on the shoulder. “We don’t have long.” Whistling and extending his finger, Dax again marveled at the way Flywheel now functioned as if he were state-of-the-art. “Flywheel, begin note,” he commanded. “Leg, we’re coming to get you. And we’re going to get Kaizen, too. End note.” He gave the dragonfly’s tiny key a hard spin. As long as Legacy was imprisoned somewhere with an open window, the little assistant would be able to find her and deliver the missive. Maybe not before, when he malfunctioned regularly, but now, he trusted the dragonfly with the complex task of flying to the castle grounds.

  Dax cradled the brass automaton in the palm of his hand, walking from the workshop in order to let Flywheel fly.

  He didn’t see the way Trimpot’s glare burned daggers into his back.

  Legacy woke slowly, pleasantly, to the sensation of arms wrapped tightly around her, and a gentle tickle along her bare shoulder. “Good day, Exa,” a voice that sounded an awful lot like Flywheel greeted her. Her eyelashes fluttered open. Kaizen was nestled into the crook of her neck, sleeping peacefully. They were in a tangle of limbs—something they must’ve done unconsciously. She was still wearing those handcuffs, oddly. The sun had yet to rise, and the room was dark. She’d thrown her leg over Kaizen in her sleep.

  “The date is August Twelfth, Two Thousand, Three Hundred and Twelve,” the voice that sounded an awful lot like Flywheel’s continued to announce. Now it was circling overhead. Kaizen grumbled and shifted against her.

  “One note,” the voice concluded.

  Legacy’s eyes focused in the dark. It was Flywheel. She recognized the faint glimmer of the jewel tones on his wings. He landed again, with delicate precision, right on top of her hand.

  “Play note,” Legacy commanded dreamily. Why are you here? she had to wonder at Flywheel, as if the question was not, Why am I here?

  “Leg, we’re coming to get you,” Dax’s voice emitted clear as a bell from Flywheel’s irises. “And we’re going to get Kaizen, too.”

  Legacy went rigid and icy at the words.

  Going to get Kaizen, too.

  The Earl of Icarus shifted against her again, nuzzling into her neck. He seemed so innocent just now. His lips barely parted, breathing evenly, deeply. So helpless. Legacy ran her fingers through his hair, held him tighter, and tried to think.

  Chapter Nine

  As the sun rose that Saturday morning, homes both aristocratic and common bustled to prepare. The women uncovered their most striking plumage and settled it sideways on their heads. The men rifled in drawers for lost cufflinks. The roads clogged with carriages on their way to the drawbridge, a destination to which only an elite few had ever been privy in this lifetime. Airships again thronged the sky, th
ough only the airships of the upper-crust. The dukes of other duchies. Perhaps the monarch himself. The ships were massive and slow-moving, filled with entire staffs of automata.

  Back at the castle, Earl Kaizen was in an unusually upbeat mood, considering the distaste he had for the crown to which he was sworn to commit his allegiance. Personal automata swarmed over him, brushing his hair, straightening his sash, polishing his shoes. Legacy, meanwhile, watched from the bed, looking nauseas.

  “Are you okay, Leg?” Kaizen asked, frowning at her. A repaired Newton-2 swirled around him, tucking his shirt into his pants, and Kaizen staggered and spluttered. Usually he dressed himself, but apparently today was a big thing.

  “I don’t know,” Legacy replied dully. I really don’t. If I don’t tell you what’s going to happen, you’ll die. But if I do tell you, Dax will.

  “You don’t look very good,” Kaizen said. “You look sick.”

  “I feel sick.” In fact, she was certainly going to vomit if she didn’t get these words out of her mouth first. “Kaizen—”

  “Hey, is that your little guy?” he interrupted, gesturing to Flywheel, who had nestled into her braids again and hung there like a large, shiny ornament. “He found you, huh?”

  “Kaizen,” Legacy repeated. “You can’t go through with the coronation.”

  Kaizen froze, although the automata around him continued to busy themselves. One dusted his face with a brush of flesh-toned powder. Another strung a tie around his neck and began to tighten.

  “I have to,” he reminded her. “Those were the terms of your suspension, Legacy.”

  “Well—well, maybe I shouldn’t have been suspended!” she burst. “Maybe I should serve my sentence! I don’t—I don’t need you rushing around to rescue me, I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself! It’s none of your business what I do or what happens to me, you know, and I just really, really think you shouldn’t go through with this coronation! I mean—I mean—” She blanched, considering what might happen to Dax if she went too far, and said too much. “It totally invalidates your principles! You don’t even want to be a duke! So reject the coronation!”