Zee’s face is still frozen in disbelief.
“Do you know what this is?” I pat the bag.
“Greenleigh’s only living magic . . . Yes.”
“Where will we hide it? And what’s your plan for tomorrow?”
“Tonight, after you’re in bed, I’ll take it to a secure place where we can retrieve it once we are free and headed out.”
“That sounds great and everything, Zee, but . . . how?”
“I’ll spend the rest of this evening fabricating the program to upload into the OAI mainframe in the morning. When I activate the override, you’ll all be together, gathered around the chasm, so we’ll be able to escape easily through the weather fan column. I’ll have complete control over the OAIs for about forty-five minutes.”
“I still don’t see how you’ll do all of that . . .”
“My friends I told you about—the ones from outside of Alzanei? They’re helping me with this. They’ve been planning a revenge attack on Alzanei for a while now and were happy to oblige when I revealed my plan. They’re providing our means of travel to their refuge.”
“Smudge told us about a refuge. Maybe it’s the same one, and she’s already there.” But even as the words come out, I know she’d never go without us.
“If we don’t find her by the time we leave tomorrow,” Zee says, “there is a place we can check . . . on our way out.”
“Where is that?”
“Come on”—she closes the locker, takes my arm—“we should go.”
“Okay. But tell me, please. Where should we check?”
“The Pit.”
With an inward cringe, I follow her to the exit. As much as it would crush me to find Smudge in The Pit, it’d be better than not knowing. And better than her being evil. Perhaps even better than her living out her life with the burdening guilt of having killed Ms. Ruby. Although I want to believe our forgiveness, love, and acceptance would heal her, eventually.
Again we pass by the door guard as we trail down the hallway. We take a left, heading down another long corridor with an eerie pink glow ahead. Two OAIs guard a doorway at the far end. The source of the glow soon appears to our right. On the other side of a long glass window, is an enormous room filled with hundreds of floor-to-ceiling cylindrical pods. Inside each are children in different stages of growth, floating in pink liquid. Still. Dead-like. Hooked up to various hoses or tubes all leading to individual side panels with blinking lights and buttons and switches. I curse under my breath. There’s so many of them . . .
We edge toward the guards, and even though their sensory input is blocked, I try my best to slip along through the darkness like a shadow anyway. As we tiptoe by, I focus on their unmoving shoes, black and planted on the floor. If I weren’t sure they were alive, I’d think they were statues.
Welcome to The Soul Room. Zee presses another wall button and the glass doors part. She leads me past countless Cekducellus Pods to the far end of the room with rows of clear cubes that look both electrical and aquatic. Currents form web-like patterns through the greenish-silver liquid.
Are those the liqui-drives?
Yes.
I take it all in. Those are people’s minds?
Yes.
Cheyenne said they were souls . . . Must be a thousand, or more—rows and rows and rows of them, stacked fifteen high.
They’re that, too. Kind of.
How?
The ‘“soul,” as you call it—the essence of a being that is regarded as immortal—lies dormant until awakened. Until a connection is made between the donor mind-maps to the AOAI brain, there is no soul, but merely a “fingerprint” of what was. Once the OAI is awakened, and they begin to make sense of their donor mind, the “soul” of the donor is awakened, yet can only reside within the AOAI mind. Then what happens is a sort of magic within itself: the donor soul, in turn, awakens the OAI soul, and the two—though separate entities—are married together as one.
Wow . . . that’s . . . kind of beautiful.
It is.
We keep walking and soon arrive in yet another area where the tanks are small and square with the same pink liquid. Not as many of these, maybe a hundred, tucked in a corner of The Soul Room. Inside each is a single, dim light shining warmth down onto a tiny specimen no bigger than the tip of my little finger. Some of the tanks appear empty.
Zee guides me halfway down the row and stops at one. There’s a number scratched into a thin sheet of metal stuck to the corner of the glass.
“Here you are,” she says.
“Is that—?”
“Yes. This is . . . your son.”
I crouch down to peer at the little speck of soul occupying the tank. My fingers slide along the glass . . . this close to him, yet . . . there’s nothing I can do. “I’m so sorry.” I kiss the glass. “I’ll be back for you, my little Richard. I promise.” Then I cup a hand over my mouth to stifle my sobs. Seeing my baby, his umbilical cord attached to a machine, his life in the hands of Lord Daumier, makes me suddenly consider staying. How could I leave my son? How could I ever live with myself?
“We have to go now,” says Zee.
One last time, I brush my hand along the glass, streaking it with my tears, and I press my lips against it. “I love you, my son. I’ll be back for you.”
Zee tugs at me, a sobbing mess, stumbling while I clutch my abdomen where my precious little soul once was . . . safe. But he was never really safe, either.
Stolen. The worst possible violation.
All of Alzanei will burn for this.
Zee breaks into a tiptoe-jog, and I follow, doing my best to stay strong. Voices ahead make us stop and duck behind a shiny silver cabinet.
“We haven’t found anything of use yet,” says a man. “But we’ll keep trying.”
“He’s got somethin’ in there,” says a familiar voice. “He has to. I’m sure his drunk-ass father blabbed something to him.”
The face that voice belongs to pops into my head: Morris, the cook from Zentao, that traitor. I knew it.
“What about the girl?” the other man asks. “What does Daumier want us to do with her?”
“She’s a good candidate for—”
“Yeah, I was thinking that. We should take her down there.”
“Let’s wait ’til morning,” says Morris. “I’m exhausted. And they won’t start anything tonight, anyway. She’s fine in there with Lover Boy for now.”
“Okay,” the other man says. “How about poker at my place? I made a new batch of ’shine yesterday.”
“Hope it’s better than the last shit you made.” Morris chuckles. “Sorry, Six-I-Nine, but you guys need a lesson or three. That doesn’t come with your programming?”
“No, Morris. Some things we have to learn ourselves. But thanks. I appreciate your . . . honesty.”
“You guys also need to work on humor,” Morris adds, their voices fading as they draw near the exit. “Learn how the hell to take a joke.”
The doors part, and the men slip into the hallway. Zee raises a hand, focused on something unseen. After a moment, she drops it and exhales. “I had to make sure the door guards were prepared to respond if they spoke to them. But they did not, so we’re all clear.”
“Jax and Vila are here somewhere. I want to see them.”
With a nod, Zee peeks out from behind the cabinet. When the coast is clear, she ushers me along after her, down a short hallway to a series of doors. The first three rooms we open to darkness, but inside the fourth is a row of see-through capsules similar to the pod in Repair Room Six. Two are occupied by dark figures. I step forward, but Zee stops me, then points to one corner of the room, where a black circle sits near a blinking red light at the ceiling.
After a few seconds, she drops her hand. “Okay. The camera’s temporarily looped. But we must make this quick. If we’r
e discovered, it would be . . . detrimental.”
We hurry to the farthest capsule on the right—Vila’s. After a long gaze at her, I move on to Jax’s. Both are hooked up to a machine, hoses and wires plugged into various parts of their bodies and skulls. My knees weaken at the sight. I fight the urge to lift Jax’s lid, rip the wires away, and rescue him from this hell, and my hands move to do so.
“No.” Zee stops me. “If we remove them now, we’re all dead. We need to be smart, strategic.”
I nod through my tears, although I haven’t a clue what she could have in mind. We’re all too scattered, too separated, too . . . captured. How will we ever get out of this together?
“We have to go,” Zee says.
I take one last look at Jax and blow him a kiss. “I love you . . . and I’ll get you out of here, I promise.”
Once we’re back in Repair Room Six, I head straight for the exit door, quaking with fury and outrage.
“Wait,” says Zee. “We need to discuss the plan first.”
I spin around to face her, fists clenched, bare feet planted on the cold tile. I bite my quivering lip. My rage has crashed headlong to a thirst for ruthless revenge, and I refuse to shed more tears. In forced momentary surrender, I return to my bedside and plop down.
Zee explains her strategy for sneaking across the chasm to the Impure Village to see Baby Lou, and I focus on stifling my emotions. They’ll have to be dealt with later. I’m reminded of Aby and Jax after Miguel died. They were blinded by sorrow and despair, unable to grasp and hold onto what was most important for our survival: to spread our wings before we hit the ground, soaring up again, despite the weight of our loss. Same way we’ll fly from here.
“Are you ready?” Zee takes my gloved hand with her own.
I inhale, slow and steady. “Yes.”
“If anything goes awry, we abort and return to RR Six, okay?”
“Got it.”
“Come on.” She leads me toward the door, where my adrenaline again surges. It should probably just stay. Things will be intense for the next twenty-four hours.
We sneak out into the night, two stealthy, black-clad figures, dropping behind the Dreamland Booths near the chasm. A group of Clergymen approaches, and we duck our heads to blend in with the shadows. After a few seconds, they’ve passed, and Zee tugs me up and over the paved pathway to the chasm railing. High above the power plant, the weather fan clicks on, and begins to rotate.
Getting across the bridge is the biggest challenge, Zee tells me. I’ll send a Trojan signal from Lord Daumier to the OAIs guarding the entrances to lead them away. But the lights . . . it will be impossible to hide in any shadows. To lessen our chances of being seen, we’ll need to run.
This is a huge risk. Why are you doing this for me?
Because . . . no matter how successful I believe we’ll be tomorrow, there’s always the chance . . . we won’t be. And seeing her will give you much-needed strength and motivation for tomorrow. It is a risk, yes, but nothing I can’t handle. Since my awakening, I’ve been sneaking around Alzanei, preparing unknowingly for this. Once I could make my own choices, my curiosity about our city and the world around it, grew. And I’ve learned a lot from my friends here, and in the Refuge. I could protect us, if I had to, though it would compromise our entire mission. So of course, it’s better to . . . not get caught.
When she says those words, I cringe. Last time I heard them? Humphrey. Poor guy.
“Follow my lead,” Zee whispers.
We rise from our crouched spots by the railing to make our way through the soft grass toward the OAI guarding the chasm bridge entrance. Zee stops, and a minute later, the guard heads off in the opposite direction. We race to the entrance, dart down the wood-and-steel bridge, past the weather fan and a fork to another bridge that leads from the middle to a door at the weather fan column.
The guard at the other end leaves his post, clearing our exit, and we dash off the bridge to duck behind a cluster of nearby bushes, peeking around them to scan the vicinity. On the far side of the chasm, the first guard has returned.
Zee touches my arm. “Now.” She darts through the open space between the chasm railing and the first living tube, which is much larger when you’re right under it. I’m at her heels until we’re once again safe in the shadows. Up close, the “Impure Village” is even worse than I imagined. Broken shacks of crumbling stone, rotting roofs, and missing windows where hanging cloth ripples in the breeze from the weather fan. Ground-to-dome living tubes are interspersed with shacks, some of them sinking into collapsed river banks. Lanterns are alight in many of their quarters. Seems odd. Must be at least one a.m., yet many of them are awake . . . ?
We pass huge fields flourishing with various forms of vegetation including apple and banana trees, berry bushes and vines, plus numerous animal stalls with chickens, pigs, goats, and others I can’t remember the names of. And I wonder what happened to our three little pigs . . .
We reach a pair of large buildings that resemble factories, and I’m out of breath. Our pace slows when we approach another trio of the Impures’ living tubes, headed toward a huge, dark, metal dome with no windows.
“That’s it.” Zee points. “That’s where your Baby Lou—and the rest of them—are.”
Beside it, a bulky, brown, rectangular building pours out smoke from a long, silver smokestack, the vapors stirred through the air by an unseen current. As the smoke drifts past us, I plug my nose from the foul aroma. Like Tree Factory slop, but a hundred times worse.
“What’s that place?” I ask.
“The rendering plant, where they recycle human bodies for various things. Food, soap, fuel . . .”
“Yuck.”
“Yes. But that’s life here. You take the dark with the light . . . and build on.” Zee winks. “Now come on, let’s find your Baby Lou.”
“Will there be guards?”
“Two at the door, six inside. But don’t worry, I’ve taken care of the ones inside, and I’ll lead away the ones outside for ninety seconds.”
“Do you know where they are in there? It’s such a big building—”
“Well, well,” a voice says from the shadows.
We spin around to a young man with wild black hair and a mischievous grin, stepping into view.
“Please, we don’t want any trouble.” Zee pushes up her sleeves. Be prepared to get behind me.
Okay.
He tugs down our scarves to inspect our necks. “Ya ain’t Synths . . . So what’re a couple of Pure young dames like yous two doin’ over here? You come fer the ree-volt? Or you here to try ’n stop it?”
“Um . . . neither,” says Zee. “We were going to visit a friend.”
“Ah, I see. Welp—” He claps once, then spits on the ground. “You might wanna come back some other time, pretties. All hell’s ’bout to break loose over here. Could be the fall of Alzanei as we know it. You gals better take cover.”
Zee and I exchange a concerned glance. “It won’t work,” she says. “Tell your people to back down.”
“Not gonna happen, pretty. Ya see”—he moves closer—“that woman they took? She’s my baby sister. Well, was.” He wipes his nose on a hairy arm. “She’s dead now, more ’an likely. And my lil’ niece or nephew . . . who knows what they’ll do . . .”
Eyes glistening with tears, he gazes off toward the horizon, where the moon glimmers on the surface of the ocean. He brings up a flask, gulps from it and cringes, then turns back to us. “Prob’ly be another damn Synth in no time a-tall.” He wipes at his wet face, then laughs in disgusted desperation. “An’ the worst part ’bout that? We’ll never know who he or she is. So if we ree-volt, we risk killin’ him . . . or her . . .” He stares at the ground, face tight with anguish. “Them bastards knewd it, too. That’s why they does it. That’s why they takes our babies, so we won’t kill their precious robot
people. ’Cus them’s our babies, turned into robots. But you know what?” He slams a fist into his palm. “’Nuff’s enough. They gonna regret every damn child they took.” After guzzling down the rest of the flask’s contents, he wipes his mouth with a shaky hand. “Don’t even know why I’m telling you girls this. I don’t even knows ya.”
“When’s this happening?” Zee asks.
“Soon’s I gives the signal.”
I take a cautious step forward. “What’s your name?”
“Eugene Rufus.” He holds out a hand and I shake it, its roughness reminding me of my daddy’s working-man’s hands.
“I’m Joy, and that’s Zee.”
He gives her hand a quick shake, while Zee’s urgent stare tells me I shouldn’t have revealed our true identities.
“Your secret’s safe with us,” I say.
“As long as ours is safe with you,” Zee adds.
“Of course,” he says. “And I’ll give ya a few to get to safety somewheres, back over on the other side there—”
“Please, Eugene,” I say. “I really need to—”
“Go! We ain’t waitin’. This is happenin’. You got ten minutes to get gone.”
“Then at least promise us you won’t let anything happen to the prisoners—the children in there.” I point to the brown building.
“Oh, we won’t do any damage over here.” He motions toward the glittering palace high on the hill. “Our target’s right there.”
“The Monastery?” Zee says. “There’s no way you’ll get there.”
“We sure as hell gonna try.”
“And you’ll die—all of you.”
“Then that’s the way it gots to end for us. Now yous two get to a safe place. Please.”
After a few moments of silence, Zee sighs. “Good luck to you, Mr. Rufus. I hope you succeed.”
The Soultakers (The Treemakers Trilogy Book 2) Page 22
