Scions of Sacrifice

by Eric Kent Edstrom

  Behind her, Meow Meow and Dante were laughing.

  Jacey managed to twist and get them centered in her view. With a thrust of her legs, she pushed off the bulkhead and flew straight at them.

  Neither could dodge her. She shouldered into Dante’s gut while lashing out to grab Meow Meow’s arm. The collision sent them all spinning and tumbling toward the rear of the craft. Jacey’s veil fluttered up from her nose and mouth to cover her eyes.

  She tore it away and let it float.

  Dante grasped Jacey’s ankle. But instead of pulling her in for revenge, he pushed her away. This sent him backward and Jacey forward.

  Meow Meow wrapped her legs around Jacey’s waist and planted kisses on the top of her head. This infuriated Jacey. She would not be taunted by a girl who weighed less than a Pelican.

  Jacey caught the rear bulkhead with her hands and this time she was able to hold on to a narrow lip of decorative trim. She got her momentum under control, then wriggled free from Meow Meow. With a soft push of her heel, she sent the girl flying away.

  Meow Meow’s eyes went wide.

  There was something manic and ridiculous about the sight of the skinny girl floating away that finally broke through Jacey’s rage. An involuntary laugh burst from her and suddenly she broke down. A replay of the whole experience flashed in her mind and the insanity of it struck home.

  Tears of laughter blurring her vision, Jacey let go and floated on her back, looking down at the world. The humor slowly faded, replaced by awe-struck silence.

  Dante and Meow Meow steered themselves to join her, and they floated together, heads touching, all facing the glorious view.

  “Wow,” Meow Meow said. “I think I’m seeing it the way Jacey sees it. Like a little bitty baby.”

  “I know,” Dante said quietly, perhaps the first time Jacey had ever heard him be remotely serious about anything.

  The attendant cleared his throat on the P.A. and announced: “Please return to your seats. Descent and deceleration to commence in five minutes.”

  As soon as Jacey was strapped in, Meow Meow held out a tiny pill. “You probably should take this. The decel is a bit rough the first couple times.”

  Jacey swallowed the pill dry.

  A minute later, the sub-orb began to tremble. Warmth spread through Jacey’s legs and arms. Tension seeped from her shoulders.

  The transparent window on the ceiling went opaque.

  Rattles and clunks sounded all around. The ship seemed to be on the verge of shaking apart. Even through the mind-fuzzing calm of the pill, a thrill of fear shouted a muted warning.

  Jacey looked to Dante. He wore a slight smile as his head bounced around. Same with Meow Meow. They actually liked this insanity.

  With a neck-cracking jerk the sub-orb whirled around its long axis and Jacey had the sudden feeling of being upside-down. Hands gripping the armrests, she noticed her breath racing. Her heart pounded, too.

  But inside her skull, like an egg tucked in a downy nest, her mind felt no fear. The air inside the cabin grew warmer. Vents poured out cool air in a stiff breeze that ruffled Jacey’s hair.

  The shaking subsided and Jacey was thrown forward with sudden deceleration.

  “We’re an aircraft now,” Dante said. He seemed a little let down by it.

  Windows appeared on the sides of the sub-orb, giving a view over a brown landscape carved by muddy rivers.

  “Kansas, or some other boring place,” Dante said. He wasn’t interested in the view. Meow Meow had pulled out a round mirror and was touching up her makeup and straightening her blue wig.

  “Hey, did I mention we’re wanted for Ping’s murder?” she said.

  Jacey stammered for moment. “We’re what?”

  “I saw it on the news while you and Dante were seducing Cruze in the casino.”

  “We didn’t kill Ping.”

  “Is he really dead?” Dante asked.

  “Bullet to the brain.” Meow Meow snapped shut her mirror and stuffed it in her bag. “I think we all know what really happened.”

  “I have no idea what really happened,” Jacey said.

  The sub-orb banked gently. It continued to bounce and shake, but nothing like what they’d experienced earlier.

  “He shot himself,” Dante said. “His pride was much greater than his greed. What a fool.”

  “Better put this back on,” Meow Meow said, thrusting Jacey’s veil into her hands. “Dante, have a nice green chip ready for that flight attendant. He’s been watching us real close.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Jacey said through a thick, warm drowsiness as she refastened her veil. “Captain Wilcox is after me, and some other people are after us for murdering Ping?”

  “And don’t forget the paparazzi, darling,” Meow Meow said. “They’re scouring the planet for a whiff of Jacqueline Buchanan’s lookalike right now.” Meow Meow’s veil stretched over her cheekbones as she grinned. “Isn’t it exciting?”

  5

  Your Bumbling Pursuit

  “How hard can it be, Captain Wilcox?” Dr. Carlhagen said to the holo. “Two teenagers should not be hard to find. Especially if they’re in the company of that little pop tart Meow Meow.”

  Dr. Carlhagen stood before his holodesk in his office. His anger pressed at his skull, and if he didn’t find a way to release it, Mt. Lazarus—in which he’d built this new Scion facility—just might erupt.

  He’d switched the pixel-painted walls to a calming sunset, even though it was past 10 p.m. A warm breeze—produced by millions of nano-fans enmeshed alongside the pixel nanites—blew from a faux-arched window. It was indistinguishable from a real window, even to Dr. Carlhagen.

  He considered changing the scene to a stormy sea. A hurricane. That would more suit his mood.

  Over the past few days on the island of St. Lazarus, he’d been simmering, every little thing setting off his anger. Even with a double dose of andleprixen, he was keyed up. Maxine Bentilius had retreated to her room and only came when he summoned her.

  That was just as well. Even with the ornery senator finally brought to heel, the sight of her irritated him. The mighty Senator Bentilius had fallen, yes, but her scared submissiveness was wearing on him. He didn’t want her, no matter how lovely she might be when trembling fearfully in his arms.

  He wanted Jacqueline.

  No. Jacey.

  Damn it.

  Wilcox’s incompetence increased the pressure in Carlhagen’s head. The captain stood at attention. He wore civilian clothes, but his bearing was pure military. “I apologize, sir. We tracked them to a hotel in Casino San Juan. A few employees there recognized Dante’s face when I showed them a pic on my tablet. They did not remember seeing Jacey or Meow Meow. Veils are tolerated here.

  “But the trail is not entirely cold, sir. While we were at the hotel, security was called to assist an injured man in an ice machine alcove on the thirteenth floor. He’d been struck in head and robbed of three quarters of a million in chips.”

  “You think Dante did it?”

  “Yes. It makes sense that the fugitives wouldn’t use credit accounts associated with their true identities. You’ve seen the SNN coverage of Vin’s debacle. Ping is murdered and they all run off. I’ve spotted at least three IPA agents since landing here in Puerto Rico. They’re asking about the Dante and Jacqueline Buchanan lookalikes, too.”

  Through a force of will, Dr. Carlhagen took a seat and folded his hands. The IPA was the International Police Agency. “They must not get their hands on Dante,” he said to Wilcox. “And I must have the girl.”

  “I’m well ahead of the IPA, sir.”

  Dr. Carlhagen found Wilcox’s confidence infuriating. If the man had half the competence he claimed, Jacqueline would already be standing in this very office. “So now that our fugitives have money,” he said, leading Wilcox through the basic logic, “where will they go?”

  “Puerto Rico is a sizable island. But it will be hard for Jacey or the pop star to hide fo
r long, even with the veils. I suspect they’ll attempt to leave, if they haven’t already.”

  Dr. Carlhagen wrinkled his face to relieve the tension in his jaw and forehead. “Jacqueline knows I have the Dolphin girl.”

  The Dolphin girl was the nine-year-old, Livy. The child lay in a cryo growth pod several floors below. That had been Senator Bentilius’s doing, before Dr. Carlhagen had reasserted his control.

  Captain Wilcox kept silent, which was wise. He’d known Dr. Carlhagen long enough to know when the doctor was thinking out loud.

  Dr. Carlhagen leaned on a cushy armrest. A thin layer of calm settled over his teeming brain, like a rime of frost on grass at the onset of winter. “More than anything, Jacey wants to find me. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Sir?”

  The soldier obviously didn’t understand. But then, Captain Wilcox was not a subtle man. His world was ruled by violence. Dr. Carlhagen’s, on the other hand, was ruled by leverage.

  “Jacey is emotionally attached to Livy. She knows I have the child. When she left St. Vitus for Vin’s island, she was certainly on a quest to track me down to get the girl back. She’s really quite predictable.”

  “So you think she’ll come to you?” The man was utterly unsuccessful at concealing his skepticism.

  “If she had the faintest clue where I was, she’d come here in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know where I am. Furthermore, your bumbling pursuit and this whole wanted-for-murder business has driven her to ground. What I need is a way to communicate with her without attracting the attention of the International Police Agency.”

  The captain was completely out of his depth. He shifted his weight and scratched his nose in an uncharacteristic display of confusion.

  “Sir?” Wilcox said. “I had a man ask around at the skyport about private sub-orbs. One launched for Chicago in the relevant time period.”

  “Why didn’t you start with that?”

  “I—”

  “I want you in Chicago in an hour. Find out where that sub-orb’s passengers went. There will be surveillance video somewhere. Keep an eye out for IPA agents. I do not want you in open combat with them unless absolutely necessary.”

  Wilcox sketched a salute. “Yes, sir.”

  Dr. Carlhagen disconnected the call and got up from his chair. A new energy now took the place of the head-exploding pressure.

  “Lazarus?” he said to the room.

  The avatar of the facility’s controlling AI appeared on the pixel wall. It looked human-ish. The chin was a bit too sharp, the ears missing entirely, the eyes shaped and angled unlike any human of any race. Lazarus was Dr. Carlhagen’s most recently created AI, and Dr. Carlhagen had decided not to mold it into a human analog, the way he had with Madam LaFontaine.

  “Sir?” the monotone voice prompted.

  “Summon Senator Bentilius to my quarters. Tell her to dress sharply, as if she were going on an SNN broadcast.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dr. Carlhagen went to a drawer and dug out his andleprixen bottle. He popped a pill and swallowed it. He commanded the pixel wall to show the current stream from Survivor News Network, the leading news site in the world.

  “Lazarus, find contact information for the floor producer working SNN’s live broadcast.”

  “I have it.”

  “Good.”

  The plan was simple. A slight gamble, too. But he figured that anyone on the run for murder would keep their eyes on the networks. The chances of Jacey seeing this next bit of news was excellent.

  It would be much easier for him to go on SNN himself, but since he’d overwritten Vaughan, his face was too recognizable as Charles Buchanan’s. He didn’t want to make himself a news story quite yet.

  Maxine’s face—the Scion of one Korra Bolelli—was not as well-known.

  But it soon would be.

  6

  Drinking from a Fire Hose

  Humphrey rubbed his eyes and yawned. He’d reached the point of exhaustion where coffee made him jittery but couldn’t keep him alert. It wasn’t pleasant. He stayed on his feet because if he sat down—even on the dirty floor of the bridge—he knew he would pass out.

  A heavy breeze, humid and fragrant from the salty sea, cut through the bridge. But rather than refresh, it lulled him. The thrum of the engines and the shush of the sea made his eyes droop more.

  Aphrodite had just maneuvered to let another huge freighter slip past. They were about to turn north before the sun rose. Obu had calculated that a speed of ten knots would take them 193 kilometers north of their current position before they could safely come about and run southwest to the island. It would take four hours of darkness to get to the island. Figure another hour to bring Aphrodite into harbor and dock.

  And then the work would begin.

  Humphrey, like Wanda, who stood next to him, planned to sleep during the day so he could have his wits about him tomorrow night.

  Wanda had just come up from the cargo holds where the rest of the Scions slept—or, at least, tried to. Her face was unreadable in the weird red light of the bridge. The urge to touch her, to feel her warmth, pulled at him. But he resisted. His thoughts turned to Jacey.

  How long had it been since he’d seen her last, before she’d run off to Captain Wilcox’s helicopter to leave St. Vitus? Nothing had gone according to plan. Both he and Wanda loved Jacey. Neither of them had wanted to betray her.

  The kiss he and Wanda had shared boiled in his mind. His desire to kiss her again warred with his wish that he’d never kissed her the first time.

  And she felt the same way. He could tell just by the way she hovered close, and yet not close enough.

  “I used to have a crush on Vaughan,” she said softly. “Before Elias kicked him in the head and we thought he’d died.”

  “Everyone had a crush on Vaughan. Of one sort or the other.”

  Vaughan had been beloved by everyone. The perfect older brother. The best friend. Generous, kind, smart.

  “True.” Wanda kept her eyes ahead. The sky was graying in anticipation of dawn. “I’m just saying, I didn’t pine after you like Summer did. It was all of a sudden that I felt . . . what I feel.”

  If Vaughan had been everyone’s friend, Humphrey had been everyone’s—not enemy,that was too strong a term. He’d been their foe, their opponent. And much of that was his doing, he knew. He could be prickly. But what seemed like arrogance had really been born out of his complete lack of confidence.

  She glanced at him then, her eyes catching fire in the red lights of the bridge. “What exactly is your—understanding—with Jacey?”

  He blew air through his lips and shook his head. “I don’t know. We never had much of a chance to talk about it. I thought it was . . . something.”

  They were quiet for a while. Wanda rubbed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Could it be that you and she fell into the same thing we did? That all you went through together with Dr. Carlhagen just kind of pushed you into each other’s arms?”

  Yes. Of course that’s what had happened. But the difference was that Humphrey had been in love with Jacey since they were six years old. His arms had been wide open from the start. He didn’t say that, though. He didn’t want to hurt Wanda.

  But she had a point. Maybe what Jacey felt for him had been brought on only because of their shared pain. Maybe it wasn’t rooted in real affection. After all, they’d spent most of their lives verbally sparring. The kissing had only started very recently.

  Wanda still regarded him, waiting for him to answer her question.

  Motion drew his eye to Vaughan’s little holo atop the desk. Humphrey was used to speaking to his friend in his AI form, as if Vaughan were calling in from a holodesk at some other location.

  He went to the holodesk. “Vaughan, any word on where Jacey might be?”

  Vaughan looked up. Belle’s holo materialized next to him. “No,” Vaughan said. “But the data flow has become more manageable now that I understand the sources and the
veracity of some of the information. The potential for distraction on the net is immense, to say the least. Even split into thirty instances, I could spend lifetimes immersed in trivial entertainments. Did you know that cats can be hilarious?”

  Having never seen a cat in real life, Humphrey had no opinion on the topic. Just hearing about it irritated him. “You’re supposed to be finding—”

  “I know,” Vaughan said, “but the data flow is like drinking from a fire hose.”

  “Drinking from a what?”

  “It’s a high-flow water hose used by organized squads of people whose job is to put out fires. The phrase drinking from a fire hose is a metaphor for the data—”

  “I get it now, Vaughan. I’m not stupid.” Humphrey thought Jacey would have appreciated Vaughan’s metaphor more than he did.

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “Boys. Please,” Wanda said, holding up both hands. “Focus.”

  Humphrey took a long, slow breath. Belle appeared to be whispering something to Vaughan.

  “I’m sorry,” Humphrey said to Vaughan. “I’m very tired. Anything at all on Jacey’s whereabouts?”

  “No. No record of her since she and Dante fled Vin’s island after Ping’s murder.”

  It irritated Humphrey that Vaughan was referring to the Progenitors by their Scions’ names. Ping, Vin, and Dante had all been—if not his friends—his family members. They had died the day they’d been overwritten. “Can’t we call them Han and Elizabeth and Silvio?”

  “I’m just using the names the press uses,” Vaughan said.

  The press, it turned out, was a class of people whose job it was to report news and gossip about events happening in the world. Why they used the word “press,” Humphrey hadn’t the slightest idea. He didn’t risk asking Vaughan about it because he didn’t have the patience for a two-hour lecture on the topic.

  Belle stood by silently, wearing that half-smile she had adopted since becoming an AI. Humphrey still hadn’t gotten used to it. She’d been so rude and mean for so long, it was ironic she’d become more human now that she was not human at all.