Scions of Sacrifice

by Eric Kent Edstrom

  “I’m standing.”

  One drone had separated from the dozen or so surrounding them. It floated into the circle and was now hovering a meter away from Humphrey and his companions.

  “You will follow,” the drone said. “You will not veer. You will not stray. You will not run.” It didn’t say “or else,” but it was clearly implied.

  The drone did not wait for Humphrey’s reply before skimming away. Leslie and Kirk continued to support him as they followed. The pace was not satisfactory for the drone, for it came back and emitted in an ear-splitting blast: “You will not veer. You will not stray. You will not straggle.”

  They picked up their pace and Humphrey found that movement helped reduce his nausea and loosen his spasming muscles.

  The other drones did not follow. They dispersed, disappearing into the trees.

  “What’s with all the urgency now?” Kirk asked. “These bastard’s could have done this last night.”

  Humphrey’s thoughts were not clear enough for him to attempt an answer. It took all of his attention to put one foot in front of the other. Their guide—captor—led them to a path on the other side of the clearing. Humphrey didn’t know whether to be relieved by this or frightened by it. For where there is a path, there is a destination. It had to be the Scion School. That meant Dr. Carlhagen waited at the end of it. And given the drone’s urgency to take them there, it suggested that Dr. Carlhagen now knew about their presence.

  Leslie leaned close to him, whispered, “It didn’t make us drop our weapons.”

  That was odd. Leslie still had her speargun strapped over her back. Kirk had both his walking stick and his machete. They all had their backpacks. But given the drone’s offensive capability, it didn’t likely see the humans’ pathetic weapons as much of a threat.

  A new sound rose in the distance, this one instantly recognizable.

  Helicopters. At least three of them. “Do you hear that?” he said.

  The drone led them along the path, skimming along at a pace just too fast to walk. Humphrey’s mind was now churning to make sense of the situation. “It can’t be a coincidence that the drones captured us and got us out of that clearing just before the those helicopters showed up.”

  “The fleet?” Kirk asked.

  That made the most sense. But with these drones here, why would the fleet’s forces be needed?

  “I don’t think this drone wants us seen by those choppers,” Humphrey said.

  It was all speculation. And it didn’t change the reality they faced. Either follow the drone, or suffer the searing consequences. Nothing would induce Humphrey to risk such pain again. And having seen his agony, Leslie and Kirk kept their eyes down and their steps quick.

  The path led upwards, switching back as it climbed the mountain’s steep slopes. They were under the canopy of the forest now, but the sound of choppers grew louder.

  The Scions came to a bend in the path. They had already gained enough altitude to see over the treetops of the lower reaches of the island. Three black helicopters skimmed over the trees. One had landed in the clearing. A team of eight heavily armed marines poured out. The chopper took off. The next landed and spewed forth a squad of soldiers.

  The soldiers were fast and alert. Each squad headed for a different side of the clearing and disappeared into the trees.

  When the fourth chopper landed, the drones rose above the trees. Not just the dozen Humphrey had seen. Now there were at least a hundred. The first helicopter had gained altitude and was flying over the trees toward where the Scions stood. Their guide drone commanded them to continue.

  They followed it, but kept looking back at the approaching chopper. Would it see them? Humphrey was torn between the urge to wave and hope for rescue and his instinct to run and hide from it.

  But there was no decision to be made. Ten drones shot skyward, circled the chopper. Blue plasma shot from the drones. The fuselage exploded, and the rotor blade separated, tilted at a sharp angle, and flew at the ground like a scythe of death.

  It tore through the trees, shearing them off mid-trunk. Birds erupted from the branches, squawking in terror. The rending of wood shrieked in the air. Kirk pushed Humphrey to the ground. Wind buffeted him as the chopper’s rotor passed overhead. It struck the ground ahead of them and flew apart, sending shrapnel in all directions.

  A shower of rock and dirt fell like hail, clunking hollowly off their guard drone and dully off Humphrey’s back.

  Far off, a muted explosion thrummed through the island. Another chopper destroyed.

  “Let’s go,” Leslie urged. “That crash took out our drone.”

  The drone wobbled on the ground and went still. Its surface was pocked with fist-sized dents. But the killing blow had come from a shard of helicopter debris that impaled the drone like the axis of a globe. All the other drones were farther down the mountain, occupied with the invasion force.

  Humphrey scrambled to his feet. But where to go?

  It was obvious. They had found the path. Drone or not, they had to follow it to its end. That was where Livy was. That’s where Dr. Carlhagen was. That’s why they had come.

  Screams of agonized death rose in the distance as drones hunted men. Another explosion sent a fiery ball of smoke and flame skyward. The third helicopter.

  Sharp snaps of gunfire answered the shrill hiss of plasma blasts. More explosions, plumes of smoke rising from the trees. Some of the drones were dying, too. Good. Humphrey hoped men and machines all killed each other.

  Humphrey dug for the energy to run. He managed a stumbling gait, easily matched by Leslie and Kirk. The path wound upward, and upward more. Still, no drone came to intercept them.

  48

  Vortex of Data

  Captain Wilcox wasn’t answering Belle’s calls. And that meant Belle was at a dead end. Again. She could think of no other way to help her friends.

  She went to the holodesk on Athena’s navigation bridge. “Summer, have you heard anything from Humphrey yet?”

  Summer left her post in front of the ship’s controls and stood before the holodesk. She had dispensed with the silly hat with the deer on it. Her raven hair fell across her eyes. “I’ve boosted the signal all I can. But I’ve heard nothing. I’ve turned Athena toward St. Lazarus.”

  Elias’s voice called from off-camera. Summer left Belle without so much as a goodbye. With nothing else to do, Belle waited.

  She didn’t wait long. Summer rushed back, her whole demeanor shifted to panic. “The whole island is on fire.”

  “On fire? Why? How?”

  Summer rolled her eyes. “I’m guessing that Humphrey set the island on fire to give himself incentive to run into the ocean.”

  Belle chose to overlook the sarcasm. “Whatever has happened, Dr. Carlhagen wouldn’t want his island ablaze. It’s the exact kind of thing that would draw attention, which he has never wanted. We have to get in touch with Wilcox.”

  Socrates was already trying the number again.

  “This is Wilcox. What is it?” The voice played in the air around Belle and blasted through the holodesk speakers so that Summer could hear it, too.

  Wilcox’s answer was so unexpected that Belle couldn’t think up a response. Summer jumped in. “Captain Wilcox, my name is Summer. I’m the Scion of Senator Bentilius. You may know that the Scions have escaped St. Vitus, and now live free and independent of Dr. Carlhagen’s control.”

  There was a pause, the sound of the tablet being handled, then Captain Wilcox’s face appeared in a rectangle. “A temporary situation, I assure you.”

  “Ooh, I’m shaking with terror. You can’t even catch Jacey,” Summer said, in her brattiest tone. “But I’m not calling you to debate the future of the Scions. This is a warning. St. Lazarus is in flames. Senator Bentilius’s fleet is approaching. Soon, Dr. Carlhagen will be trapped here and under Senator Bentilius’s control. That’s not good for Dr. Carlhagen, and it certainly is not good for you.”

  “You have a very crea
tive imagination, girl. You’re a lot like your Progenitor.”

  “There’s no call for insults, Captain. And no time for them either. Now listen closely. Humphrey is on St. Lazarus right now. He has a small boat ready. If Dr. Carlhagen agrees to free Livy, Humphrey will offer Dr. Carlhagen safe passage off St. Lazarus and away from Senator Bentilius’s approaching forces.”

  Wilcox didn’t answer at first. His face was oddly pale, probably a side effect of whatever wound he had under that crude bandage wrapped around his head.

  Finally, he spoke. “I’ll pass your ridiculous message to Dr. Carlhagen. But if Humphrey is there, he’ll never set foot off that island again.”

  “It isn’t like our story is difficult to check out,” Summer said. “All the old man needs to do is look out the window and he’ll see the smoke. His AI can certainly monitor the position of Senator Bentilius’s fleet.”

  Belle watched this exchange, holding herself back. Summer was handling Captain Wilcox quite well.

  And then the girl impressed Belle doubly. “How is Jacey?” Summer asked innocently. “But I suppose you wouldn’t know, would you?”

  “Alive, but in deeper trouble than ever. I’ve got to pull her out of it somehow.” He looked like he was about to cut off the transmission, his attention returning to the problem before him. But then his eyes narrowed. “Have you heard anything about Anti-Transfer Rejection pills?”

  “Can’t say I have. What sort of trouble is Jacey in?” Summer asked, casually, as if she wasn’t that interested.

  Wilcox came around, seem to realize who he was talking to. “If you’ve been watching the news, you know she’s been on the run with that ridiculous pop star. Then she got herself caught by scavs. And now she’s been auctioned off.”

  “What? Auctioned?”

  “She’s a real prize,” Wilcox said, deadpan. And then he cut the transmission.

  Summer looked at Elias. Elias looked at Summer. Belle stared at them both.

  “What was that bit about a pop star?” Belle asked, senses tingling.

  “He was talking about Meow Meow,” Summer said. “She’s a singer. An entertainer. But didn’t you hear the part about Jacey being sold? Doesn’t that concern you a bit more than—”

  “Can’t do anything about that. What matters is that Meow Meow was with Jacey. Very recently.”

  “I see where you’re going.” Summer’s eyes brightened. “Good thinking, Belle.”

  Belle couldn’t accept Summer’s uncharacteristic compliment because she was too busy railing against her own blindness. She’d known all along that Jacey was with Meow Meow, but she hadn’t seen the obvious. “Socrates, I need another number. We need to call this Meow Meow person. And while you’re at it, we should be looking for Dante, too.”

  “Already on it—which you would know if you paid any attention to yourself.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Belle left the holodesk and returned to the quad at the Scion School. There were no clues left in the simulated world for her to follow. She had to track down Jacey, and she had to do it now. Getting herself sold! What was wrong with that girl?

  She certainly had no patience for Socrates’s weird sense of humor, even if it was coming from her own psyche.

  “I thought you would have connected the dots by now,” Socrates said. He manifested a life-sized version of himself in front of her. He wore his white toga. His age-lined face and long white beard might have given him a dignified aspect, but it was ruined by that stupid deerstalker hat. “Meow Meow is a celebrity. Her number isn’t a matter of public record. It isn’t as simple as just looking it up. We have to dig for it, and that requires processing power.”

  Belle stopped herself from lashing out by reminding herself that she was talking to herself.

  “Exactly!” Socrates said, doing a little dance. “You are talking to yourself.”

  Belle squinted at the professor, a new tingling sensation growing in the back of her mind. She realized she needed to stop looking at his behavior and focus on what he was saying. And most of what he’d said recently had been about himself as an aspect of her. But that meant she was telling herself about an aspect of herself. She pressed her hands to her temples. It was all mind-numbingly confusing.

  Socrates took off the deerstalker hat. He put it over his fist and stroked it, drawing her attention to it.

  She remembered the brief conversation they’d had about the hat. It was associated with a fictional character called Sherlock Holmes. A detective.

  “Yes,” Socrates said, leaning forward with eagerness. “You almost have it.”

  A detective who solved mysteries through deductive reasoning. But that wasn’t what Socrates was telling her.

  “Oh!” The truth struck her all at once. She remembered that she had never heard of Sherlock Holmes prior to that conversation. And she had asked Socrates how he could know something she didn’t if he was simply a projection of her own mind. Now she knew. It was so, so obvious.

  Everything Socrates had done so far—from simulating automobile traffic, to searching IPA surveillance camera footage, to placing calls to Siggy—he had done by accessing the data flow. And that meant she had been in the data flow, the very thing that terrified her so much.

  If she was going to find Meow Meow’s number, she needed to devote more than just a fraction of herself to the search.

  A strange calm came over her as she reached out with a sort of sixth sense to the data flow. This time she did not shy away from the noisy vortex of data. She simply let go.

  The infinity washed across her senses like ice water. It took her breath away. But there was no pain, only exhilaration. Her attention split between two perfect instances of herself. They were independent, but both were fully aware of each other and everything each knew. She split again. Now she was four selves.

  Now eight. Now 16. Now 32. Now 64.

  The original Belle opened her eyes, observed a sunrise on St. Vitus. None of her other versions were there. There was no point to simulate them all. But she would stay, she would be the anchor. Because as amazing as the experience of the data flow was, she did not want to let go of being human. Not entirely.

  Vaughan had urged her to transcend, but she now understood that did not mean renouncing her humanity. It meant adding to it.

  The other instances of Belle scoured the data flow, following the person known as Meow Meow through every video, photo, song, concert appearance, list of collaborators and known associates. A name popped up that she instantly recognized.

  Siggy.

  Meow Meow had used his services several times to stay sur-blind while in Chicago.

  Now that she wasn’t relying on a subconscious aspect of herself to search the flow, the Belles were able to flex more computing muscle in their search. She quickly appropriated call records for all seventeen of Siggy’s tablets. Breaking through the telecommunications security was nothing now that she was focused. She placed a thousand calls simultaneously, ringing every number Siggy had called in the past month. Wilcox even answered once, but Belle hung up on him.

  She eliminated 900 numbers in a matter of moments. Another 50 were out of service entirely.

  I see why you love this, she thought at Vaughan.

  He didn’t answer with language. He merely caused a warm feeling to spread to her heart. But he was barely there, his entire attention focused on tracking the fleet.

  She was down to three numbers now.

  One had to be Meow Meow’s.

  49

  The Price of my Forgiveness

  Jacey sat across from Livy’s Progenitor, mouth dry, heart hammering, fury rising. She had always known that Livy had a Progenitor somewhere. But until today, Jacey had never once thought about what that woman would be like.

  Ollie Montgomery couldn’t be over thirty. The woman’s face held Livy’s familiar thoughtful and serious mien, the look that gave Livy such a sense of age and wisdom. Faint lines around the eyes and mou
th amplified the impression.

  Meow Meow sat to Jacey’s left, eyes shifting from Ollie to Jacey in a continuous back and forth. Dante, on the other hand, was focused on eating. Ashala had sent in several platters of food, and Dante fed like the worthless, starving tomcat he was.

  “It is hard for me to look at you,” Ollie said, though she kept her eyes locked on Jacey, holding her gaze as steadily as Livy had ever done. “I know you are not my mother, and yet . . .”

  Jacey broke eye contact and busied herself with jabbing a cold slice of turkey from a platter and putting on her plate. “What do you plan on doing with me now that you own me?”

  “I don’t own you.” Ollie’s gaze never wavered. “I had thought you would be relieved at being rescued.”

  “Rescued?” Jacey said, indignant. She cut a hunk of turkey off with the side of her fork and jammed into her mouth. It was dry and stale. She chewed and swallowed. “You knew what I was as soon as you got wind of me, didn’t you, Ms. Montgomery? Did you get a family discount when you commissioned your own clone?”

  Ollie’s eyelids lowered and rose in a long, slow blink. “What clone?”

  “Come now. Don’t play stupid. Ten years ago you gave some DNA to Dr. Carlhagen. Along with who knows how much money. And now you have a lovely, amazing clone of your own. Does he send you pictures and updates on her progress?”

  Ollie placed her hands on the table and leaned forward. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Jacey,” Meow Meow said softly, “There is no reason to assume Ollie knows about Livy.”

  “Livy?” Ollie said, voice rising in concern. “Jacey, start from the beginning. Please. I assure you, I never commissioned a clone.”

  The woman’s voice carried the quiet certitude of someone telling the truth. Or someone well practiced in lies. And from what Jacey had seen of the adult world, lying was the supreme skill of life. “You expect me to believe that your mother never mentioned that you’d be able to live forever by overwriting the mind of your clone?”