by Brett Patton
But hidden deep in those thoughts, some dark thing twisted the meaning of “right.” It rode Kyle like it rode Ash. And Kyle pressed ever harder down on Michelle. Matt sense her gasping breaths.
In his mind, Matt reached out to Michelle. The waves of Kyle’s hate and pride hit him full force. He rocked back, reeling.
“Abort, abort!” Stoll screamed. Such a tiny voice. So easy to ignore. She seemed to be saying something about defenses.
Mecha Base’s guns swiveled to lock on the Merged Demon. A new warning flashed in Matt’s POV:
HEAVY-MATTER WEAPONRY DETECTED.
Dead. We’re all dead, he thought wildly.
“Final warning!” Sergeant Stoll yelled. “Abort Merge now!”
Michelle’s pain pierced Matt’s heart. Something was on her now. A thing of spikes and shards, a thing that tore at her very being. Memories from Earth cascaded through his mind: at home in a rare quiet time, looking out over the Florida swamp, with the evening sun warm on their necks, just content to be there.
A sudden thought. If he couldn’t conquer it, maybe he could cut off its power.
UnMerge, Matt thought, and pulled away with all his might.
There was a noise like thunder and a terrible tearing agony. Matt imagined his limbs ripped from his body.
The Merged Demon went rigid and split into four pieces. Three quickly re-formed into standard Demon shapes. One hardened into a hulking humanoid shape covered with ridges and spikes. Kyle. Kyle’s Demon.
“Good!” Sergeant Stoll’s voice was ragged. “Cadet Peterov, release Mesh now!”
“No!” Kyle’s voice warbled, only partially human.
Kyle turned on the others. Apertures opened on the spiked Demon’s chest. Fireflies flashed. Matt’s chest rang with the impact, and he cried out from the pain. Ash’s Demon tumbled, ending up tangled in the struts holding Mecha Base’s armor. Michelle’s Demon shot away into the maelstrom. Kyle chased her down.
“Cadet Peterov, release Mesh now!” Soto yelled. “That’s an order!”
Matt flung himself after Kyle and Michelle. The tickling pings and patter of the maelstrom’s rocks and dust were almost comforting. Michelle had transformed into a familiar, streamlined cruiser shape, but Kyle’s Demon retained its strange, spiky, humanoid appearance.
Kyle’s Demon fired Fireflies again, and brilliant explosions sent Michelle tumbling. She recovered her balance and thrust deep down toward the core.
Matt enabled his Fireflies and fired. White-hot explosions bloomed on Kyle’s backside, sending him spinning. He caught himself on the edge of a large rock, glanced back once at Matt, and then dove down after Michelle again. He quickly closed the gap.
“Kyle, stop it!” Matt screamed. “That’s Michelle!”
Kyle turned on Matt and fired a cloud of Fireflies. Matt launched a Seeker. Destruction flashed in front of them. Giant, house-sized rocks vaporized. Matt felt their fragments like pebbles on his metal skin.
“Fun!” Kyle laughed.
“Play later,” Matt told him firmly.
“No. Play now!”
Michelle stopped and fired. Kyle flew right into her Seekers, and his scream echoed in Matt’s ears. Kyle’s Demon went limp and caromed off one of the big asteroid-sized chunks of rock. For a moment, its spikes sagged, and it almost regained a standard Demon shape. Then the spikes and ridges rose again.
When Kyle rose, a compartment opened on his side. He drew forth a weapon Matt knew all too well: the Zap Gun. The difference was that a Demon’s Zap Gun was at least five times the size of his Hellion’s Zap Gun.
“Big fun!” Kyle’s voice was loud, childish.
“Disable antimatter weaponry immediately!” Soto yelled.
“I refuse!” Kyle giggled. “Sir!”
“Using antimatter weaponry in the protoplanet’s core could cause enough damage to destabilize Mecha Base’s orbit,” Stoll recited, as if dazed.
Matt’s world suddenly went white. Searing chunks of molten rock battered him. His Demon spun wildly. He grabbed for purchase and stopped himself on an asteroid. He blinked in amazement, catching his breath. A wide swath of matter was simply gone. Rocks, asteroids, dust, gas. He could see all the way up to a pinprick of black sky.
Another flash. Matt heard Michelle yelling incoherently. White-hot fire engulfed the wheeling asteroids of the protoplanet’s core. House-sized boulders ceased to exist. Entire asteroids were consumed.Against the brilliant backdrop, two tiny black pinpoints danced.
Two of them. Michelle was still alive. Matt pushed his Demon as fast as it would go. He felt it change shape, becoming a streamlined, needle-slim spike to weave through the cascading rock and gas of the core.
“Michelle!” he called.
“Here,” Michelle gasped. “Still here.”
Matt pushed toward Kyle with all speed. The spiky Mecha swelled in front of him. Its Zap Gun swung toward Matt. Matt had a momentary glimpse down the gaping barrel—
He collided with Kyle’s Mecha, sending it spinning. But Kyle still held his Zap Gun.
Matt launched Fireflies. Kyle’s Mecha, laughing, stepped through them. He launched Seekers. Kyle dodged effortlessly and brought his Zap Gun up again, aiming it at Matt’s chest.
Matt flung himself at Kyle, grappling with him. If he could get a grip on the gun and use his Fusion Handshake, he could end this. He hoped.
The two Mecha whirled in the dust and gas. Matt’s grip kept slipping off the spiky Demon’s irregular surface. He could keep Kyle from using his Zap Gun, but he couldn’t bring his hands together for a Fusion Handshake.
An asteroid-sized rock hit them hard. Matt’s viewpoint wheeled sickeningly. Kyle’s crazed laughter filled his ears. “Fun, fun!”
Michelle launched Fireflies. Matt barely felt the pain as they engulfed both Mecha. He was beyond that. His whole world was Kyle.
Kyle triggered his Zap Gun. It cut a blinding swath through the core. Asteroid-sized rocks flashed to nothingness. Matt could see the orbits of the other rocks changing, and remembered Lena’s words: It could destabilize Mecha Base’s orbit.
He had to end this. Now. Matt reached for his own Zap Gun.
“Cadet, no!” Sergeant Stoll yelled.
“I have to.” Matt felt an electric thrill as his hand closed around the Zap Gun. He drew it forth. It almost seemed to be alive, humming with death.
Kyle saw. He struggled to bring his own weapon around.
Matt put his Zap Gun to Kyle’s gun arm and fired.
For a moment, the only sound was Kyle’s nearly ultrasonic scream. Kyle’s arm and Zap Gun were outlined in black, like a cartoon sketch. Then they simply blew away, as if they had never existed.
Kyle’s scream ended. His Demon returned to its standard form, minus one arm.
“Kyle?”
No answer.
Michelle came to join Matt. “Kyle, are you all right?” she cried.
No answer.
Michelle’s Demon shook Kyle’s one-armed Mecha, then bent over him, as if crying. It was an amazingly human gesture, one that looked profoundly alien when acted out by a thirty-meter-tall biomechanical machine. Matt shuddered.
“Kyle!” Michelle screamed. She whirled on Matt. “You killed him!”
She came at him, thrusters flaring. Matt let her bowl into him. He didn’t even feel the impact. He wanted to tell her, But he was trying to kill you.
Or was he? Kyle should have been able to kill them easily. But he hadn’t. Matt shook his head. He didn’t know what was real anymore.
“Return to Mecha Base immediately!” Major Soto barked. “This exercise is over. Done. Got it?”
“But Kyle’s dead!” Michelle cried.
“Cadet Peterov is alive,” Sergeant Stoll said, sounding tired. “If he is incapacitated, assist him back to base. You will refrain from any weapons use. You will not attempt to re-Merge. Acknowledge these orders.”
Michelle stopped grappling with Matt. For a moment, her visor was the only thing
in his field of view. It reflected the rust-colored dust and gas of the protoplanet, as if in sync with her own internal turmoil.
“Kyle’s alive?” Michelle breathed.
“Yes,” Stoll said. “Acknowledge your orders.”
“Acknowledged, ma’am,” Matt told her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Michelle echoed. Without waiting for Matt, she hugged Kyle’s Mecha tight and shot upward toward Mecha Base.
Back at Mecha Base, Ash’s Demon was already clamped down into the dock. Its red metallic skin shone smooth and perfect, in stark contrast to Matt’s carbon-burned Mecha and Kyle’s one-armed Demon. Lucky Ash, Matt thought, as the cargo loaders clamped him down. She’d missed the insanity.
The insanity. Matt’s guts twisted in sudden reaction, and he doubled over. He’d shot an antimatter weapon at a fellow teammate. If he’d missed by just a few thousandths of a degree, Kyle would’ve been vaporized. He could have killed him.
But there wasn’t anything else he could do, right? He had to stop Kyle. He’d gone rogue. Like a Corsair.
Matt waited impatiently for the magnetorheological fluid to drain. As soon as the cockpit opened, he yanked off his face mask and leapt out of the Demon. Michelle hovered near Kyle’s Demon’s chest, watching as Auxiliaries in gray jumpsuits dragged him from the cockpit.
Kyle sputtered and opened his eyes. His eyes were bloodred and his gaze darted from one face to another as if they were the strangest thing he’d ever seen in his life. He was like a man who had been on a weeklong bender; he had no recollection of where he’d been or what he’d been doing.
Michelle launched herself at Kyle and enveloped him in her arms. Kyle looked confused for a moment, then returned the embrace.
Matt fought sudden anger. That should be me, damn it!
One of the Auxiliaries put a hand on Michelle’s shoulder. She jumped, then looked embarrassed. She let Kyle go.
“We have to take you to the infirmary, cadet,” the Auxiliary told Kyle.
Kyle shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Cadet—”
“No,” Kyle said. “I’m fine.”
The Auxiliary shook his head and backed off, his hands up in defeat. He glanced at Matt and Michelle. “Are either of you injured?”
“No,” Matt and Michelle said in unison.
“How are you mentally?”
“I’m fine, sir,” Michelle told him, squaring her shoulders.
I could have killed him, Matt thought. His fingers trembled. “No problem,” he lied.
Matt’s Perfect Record fed him 3-D visions of the worst of the Merge. That terrible thing scratching at his mind. Kyle’s red-hot hate. Ash’s vibrant memories, fading to nothingness.
Ash’s memories. Matt’s mouth went dry.
“What about Ash?” he asked.
The Auxiliary hung his head and looked away. “Reverse Mesh,” he said, in a low, rough voice. “She’s dead.”
13
QUESTIONS
In the pilot’s chamber outside the Demon Dock, two gray-uniformed Mecha Auxiliaries were already packing away the contents of Ash’s locker. They worked quickly and efficiently, not speaking, their lips set in hard lines.
Matt watched, numb, as they carefully folded Ash’s gray Mecha Cadet jumpsuit and slipped her long, tarnished steel chain and wedding band into a pocket. One of the Auxiliaries fumbled with a razor-slim folio of holos, and they went spinning away in the microgravity. Matt caught glimpses of the brighter-than-life images: a blond boy, about nine, holding up a blurry slate covered with mathematics. A shaggy-haired man wearing dust-caked LithiChem mining coveralls and holding a tiny baby. A sandy-haired boy, maybe four, standing next to a craggy, ochre rock backdrop. The man in the overalls grinned like he couldn’t imagine a more perfect place in all the Union.
Matt blinked back tears.
Ash Moore was dead. Mom. Wife. Colonist. Union citizen. Believer. Mecha Cadet. Demonrider candidate. Dead.
But people die, Matt told himself. Serghey. His father. Every twelfth digger on the Rock.
This was different, though. They’d been Merged. Everything Ash experienced, he felt. He saw her life cut away, piece by piece. He’d experienced her final moment of terror and diminution. Her ending.
A tiny voice called in the back of his mind, Is this all?
Matt slumped. For the first time, the path to his future blurred and doubled. What did killing the Corsair mean if it killed everything he believed in to accomplish it?
“I’m sorry,” Michelle said, coming to lay a warm hand on Matt’s shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw Kyle stiffen.
“It’s not your fault,” Matt said. It’s mine, he thought. If I’d helped everyone, she might be here today.
“It’s not your fault either,” Kyle said, coming up to put his own hand on Matt’s shoulder.
“I pushed too hard—,” Matt began.
“Shut the fuck up,” Kyle said. “We all pushed hard. You can’t blame yourself for this. None of us can. Not if we ever want to do it again.”
Matt straightened. Of course they’d do it again. As many times as it took. But he said nothing.
Kyle filled the silence. “My mother. She did that. Blamed herself.” His voice, sandpaper rough, was almost inaudible. The Auxiliaries cast furtive glances at him as they blanked out the name on Ash’s locker and headed for the exit.
“For what?” Michelle said.
“My brother. He had . . . special needs,” Kyle’s voice rose, his mouth twisting in grim irony.
“What happened?”
“Kent’s in an assisted-care home on Eridani. Mom . . . she killed herself ten years ago. One of those things where everyone says, ‘I never saw it coming.’ But it was on a day when Kent was at the house, and the bathroom she did it in looked out over his playground.”
Matt squeezed his eyes shut but remained silent. What could he say?
Michelle gathered them both into a tight hug. She squeezed them together and didn’t let go, even as they left the floor in the microgravity. Matt opened his eyes, watching little drops of her crystalline tears float up and away. “We’ll get through this. We have to.”
Soto and Stoll entered the room. “Cadets, I’m sorry I’m late. I had to deal with—” The big man stopped short, gaping at the three embracing cadets.
“If you’d like, I’ll come back later.”
“It’s all right,” Kyle said, pushing away from them. Matt and Michelle drifted away to grab handholds on the tops of the lockers.
“We can understand if you need more time—”
“I need a drink,” Kyle said, his voice quavering.
Soto nodded. “I could join you in that.”
“I’m coming too,” Michelle told them.
Stoll held up a hand. “The word is out about the Mecha Cadets being the Demon pilots. It might be better to maintain a lower profile.”
“Lena, please.”
Sergeant Stoll blinked. “Yes. You’re right.”
All eyes turned to Matt. He looked back at them, knowing exactly what would come next. The only question was who would say it.
“You coming?” Michelle asked.
On the way to the Decompression Lounge, the long, curved passageways of Mecha Base seemed to stretch into infinity, grim metallic corridors leading to an uncertain future. Matt couldn’t shake the Perfect Record of Ash’s death, playing over and over again in his mind. Every passing Mecha Corps seemed to be glaring right through him, judging him on the death of his teammate.
“Good job, Demon boy,” one of them said finally, coming up from behind to pace them. He was a blond-haired kid not much older than Matt, wearing his Mecha captain’s uniform with a single Hellion pilot pin.
Another young Mecha Corps captain came up to join the first man. His nametag read N. SANJIV, and the blond kid’s read J. PELLETIER. “All the pretty boys,” Sanjiv said. “Whose daddy did you have to know to get the Demon jobs?”
“Stand down, Corps
,” Soto called out.
“Sir, just expressing our opinion, sir,” Pelletier snapped. “Completely nonphysical.”
“I’d rather be physical,” Pelletier said, bouncing off the handrail to pass close by Michelle, almost touching her. “Don’t kill this one next, guys.”
Michelle took a swipe at Pelletier and missed, spinning into the center of the corridor, out of reach of the handrails. Sanjiv and Pelletier laughed and launched themselves at her.
Matt gritted his teeth and kicked off to meet them. He imagined punching Pelletier in the face as hard as he could. He could almost feel the explosion of hot pain as his knuckles caught teeth and rivulets of blood sprayed in the microgravity.
But he didn’t get more than a couple of meters before Stoll rocketed past him and grabbed the two men.
“Hey!” Sanjiv yelled. Stoll flipped in midair and brought them around, crashing their heads into the hard ceiling. The two men struggled against her, but she held them away without effort.
“Fucking strength genemod!” Pelletier yelled.
“Assaulting a superior officer!” Sanjiv called, looking at Soto.
“I don’t see anything,” Soto said. “I don’t think Mecha Base surveillance will either.”
Pelletier and Sanjiv slumped.
“You kids gonna be good?”
“Yes.” Sullenly.
Soto nodded at Stoll, who let the men go. They gave her a final glare and shot off down the corridor.
“Damn greenies,” Soto said. “Let’s see how they feel when they lose one of their squad.”
“You’ve lost teammates?” Matt said, thinking of Soto’s long rows of color bars and all the Mecha battles he’d fought.
Soto’s eyes suddenly went veiled and faraway. “We all do. It’s one of the things that keeps us together.”
In the Decompression Lounge, it took a couple of drinks of Earth-style, vacuum-distilled vodka before any of them spoke.
“What now?” Michelle asked.
For a while, the only sound was the hiss of the ventilators. Sergeant Stoll and Major Soto exchanged an unreadable glance. Finally, Major Soto said, “I don’t know.”
