by K. Gorman
The reason Sasha wasn’t using Chaos as the seat of her new world was because she couldn’t.
Chaos and its creation weren’t open to her. Only pockets of it.
Everything she’d done outside of Tartarus, the real world, and the Shadow world, had been done in smaller pocket dimensions.
She should have had access to entire worlds.
But she didn’t.
Before her, Sasha was beginning to break down.
“That’s why I have to do this. I have to stop him. It’s so wrong―everything has his touch on it. Only here can he not reach. I―I―” Her jaw shook, emotion crumpling her face. “I gave him my daughter.”
Tia crossed her arms over her chest. “He asked for her, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Sasha swallowed. “If I hadn’t made her, he would have used my son. It’s no excuse, but it’s what happened.”
“We found her,” Karin said. “Fallon has her.”
Inside the confines of their mind, she thought, We need to get that Cradle back from Fallon.
Yes, we do, Tia replied.
“We have your son, too,” Tia said. “He came to us for help.”
“Yes, I realize that. I felt him here earlier.”
A small silence passed between them. Sasha turned her head to where the violet sky was deepening softly outside. It looked as though you could simply step off the balcony and bathe in the night.
Tia stirred. “How complete is it? Did he manage a full Cradle? I can’t imagine how, given what I’ve heard. You, sure―you have the advantage of being Chaos. But he was merely human.”
“He first floated the idea twenty years ago,” Sasha said. “I thought he was joking―he only said it in passing. Then, fifteen years ago, he just suddenly shows up at the compound and goes straight to the Cradle like he’s found something.” She hesitated, eyes shifting between hers, trying to read her face. “That’s…that’s when he asked for a new Cradle base.”
And that’s when she’d made and given him her daughter. To protect her son.
“So,” Karin said, emerging from within. “Let me get this straight. The reason you’re aiming to completely destroy civilization and rewrite the universe is because Bernard has already done so?”
“Yes.” Sasha’s lip curled. “He’s turned everything. You can’t see it, but I can. He…It’s like everything’s turned alien. It doesn’t belong. I need to make it belong again.”
Ah. And that’s where her programming is faulting, Tia thought. She literally can’t stop herself.
“I’m not sure that’s the best way to go about it,” Tia said.
She flinched, then drew herself up, sliding her dark gaze onto her from across the room. Her lip twisted. “It has to be done. Besides, this world has its faults. I can start again. I am Chaos.”
Yep, that’s her programming tripping. I recognize the pattern.
A tear slid down Sasha’s cheek. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and knelt into the tank. “Good night, Karin, Tia. Thanks to you and your efforts, this new world will be incomplete, but it will be better than what exists now.”
And, as she watched, Sasha reached a hand up, activated the crown on her head, and pulled herself under the tank’s surface.
Behind her, the Cradle began to activate.
Yeah, fuck that.
Adrenaline surged into her blood. Karin tugged on her powers. Reality warped, bent, shivered. The Centauri suit screamed a warning, notifications of faults scrolling down the screen on her forearm. Sasha’s blackness opened up in front of her again, but she dodged it this time, slipping between dimensions.
In less than a second, she’d crossed the room, thrust her arm into the water, and pulled Sasha out by the throat.
Sasha’s arms flailed out, smacking her. She jerked her head when one came too close to her eye, the others glancing harmlessly off her armor. Reality warped, Sasha’s Chaos powers coming into play. This time, she felt her own powers rise in defense, canceling them out.
She lifted her up and slammed her into the back of the tank, careful not to interfere with the nanoinjectors.
They’d need Sasha’s mind intact after all this to help fix things.
“Nope. You’re coming with me. If Bernard’s used the Eurynome base like I suspect he has, then we have options. Save your plan as a backup.” She tilted her head, lifting Sasha up and slamming her into the tank again when she felt her powers activate. Darkness whispered around her arms like a caress. “You don’t really want to kill your son, do you?”
At her words, Sasha went still.
“You―”
She choked around her hold, hands grasping at her wrist, but she might as well have been fighting against a wrench. The darkness powers came again, but Tia batted them aside with a snarl.
“You―you really are Eurynome,” Sasha said.
“Yes, I am.” She pushed her face closer to Sasha’s, snarling the words. “And believe me, I am going to take down Bernard Corringham and peel his ill-gotten powers off, one by one.”
With that, she opened her mind and pushed. Dark and light swam together, and the entire world around them shivered at her touch. It was like an earthquake had hit. Wings appeared, pure white and flexing wide in the room, and a coldness slithered into her mind.
She could make the whole world burn.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The halls of the temple were quiet when they walked back through them, only the soft gurgling of water and the occasional shift and whisper of wind audible. She made Sasha go to every child in every tank that she’d put them in and take them out. Some of them were still aware and woke up almost immediately. Others had fallen unconscious, the trauma too great for their young minds.
They waited, and Karin carried one of them. A few minutes later, Brennan showed up and put another young one on his back. Several other old Eurynome Project victims, ones who had died long ago, appeared around corners like ghosts, joining to help.
Around them, the temple’s lights were warm, its atmosphere thick with hidden energy. Like it was used to many more people coming and going through its halls, but in a benevolent way―as if this were a happy family gathering, and everyone had just left the room to look at fireworks.
The opposite of a haunted house vibe.
As Einine had said, the Nemina waited for her alone in the courtyard. In the deepening evening, the ship had an otherworldly feel to it, its worn metal reflecting the torches and crystal sconces that flickered on at the sides of the courtyard, the entire scent looking like something out of a fantasy movie.
Marc and Nomiki stood from where they’d been sitting on the ramp, Reeve next to them.
Of course. Without a set navigation route, they’d need a pilot.
Nomiki bristled, her teeth gritting in barely-contained rage. Her right hand flexed and clenched at her side.
“I see that her head is still attached to her body,” she spat. “Are we doing a public execution? I hear France is nice, this time of year.”
“France has one of the best human rights manifests in the world and banned capital punishment centuries ago.” She put herself in front of the doctor, blocking her from her sister. “Stand down. She’s a victim, just like us. And she had a very good reason.”
“A very good reason?” Nomiki said. “She tried to kill everybody.”
“Let’s hear her out.” Reeve stepped down the ramp, his expression cautious as he looked between her, Nomiki, and Sasha. “If Karin says it’s a good reason, then―”
“Fuck off, Reeve.” Nomiki snarled. “You don’t get an opinion currently.”
“Hear her out, ’Miki.” Brennan stepped forward, the child―James, Program Pan―still slumped on his back. His eyes gleamed in the gold of the torchlight as he came forward. The shadows played across his face in a flickering definition. “Please.”
That shut her up.
She stared at him, the muscles of her jaws tightening in her cheeks. Then, she leveled a glare at Karin and leaned
back on her heels, crossing her arms over her chest.
Behind her, Marc watched with a careful stare. With a twinge, she recognized his quiet. It meant he was alert, and thinking.
She leveled Nomiki with a meaningful stare. “Remember how Bernard Corringham was trying to use Eurynome to make himself into a god?”
At once, all the color drained from her sister’s face. Her mouth opened, and she breathed in a shaking breath. Part of her broke.
“Sol’s burned child,” she said, her speech faltering. “Don’t tell me he actually did it.”
“Apparently so. Sasha felt him start fifteen years ago, and she’s been trying to counter it ever since. That’s what led her to her plan.”
Nomiki’s expression twisted. She rose up again, eyes bright and face sharp. “That’s not an excuse. She was going to kill billions of people. Hells, she’s already killed thousands, if not tens of thousands. Lost have died. Entire stations have gone dark. Children have starved out in the Black because their Lost parents weren’t able to fly the ship or send a message.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” Sasha’s voice wavered as she spoke, its tone gravelly and raw. “And I will pay for that. If we get through this and you want my head, I’ll gladly give it to you.”
“You won’t have to give it to me,” Nomiki said. “I’ll come and take it.”
But some of the wind seemed to have gone out of her sails. Though there was still war on her sister’s face, some of her logic programming had kicked in.
Like flicking a switch, she gave herself a shake and stepped aside, rolling her eyes as she made a gesture and a sarcastic bow to indicate the ship’s ramp. “Well, go on, then. Let’s go. Karin, are your comms not working?”
“Nope. I got thrown around a bit.” Which reminded her, she’d need to get a Med unit to check out her head. Bleeding from the skull was probably more than a minor fault. She flipped her wrist and skimmed the fault notifications her suit had thrown back, finding the comms failure. “Why? Did something happen?”
Marc strode forward, taking James from Brennan and lifting him into his arms. “We’re not sure. Tylanus said something about Tillerman wanting to talk to you.”
Great. She glanced behind her to the few stragglers of Sasha’s Eurynome Project left in the courtyard. They were all silent, still, watching everything with big, cautious eyes. Easy to spook.
She ticked her head toward the Nemina. “Come on, kids. Let’s get out of here.”
One of them, Zyta, a small girl who had been built under the Persephone Program, stepped forward and lifted her chin. “Where are you taking us?”
Her hair was still thick with water, and her skin had a sheen from the liquid of the tank.
“Earth, for now. Old Earth. Where you will be under the human rights watch of Fallon, the Alliance, the UN, the Menassi Tri-Quad Alliance from Centauri, and Mars. And if anyone does you any harm, or seems at all shady, you just find the nearest cyborg around and tell them to call their Grand Regent. They all work for me.”
That felt good to say.
I have power. Finally. I can actually make a difference.
Yes, Tia thought. Now, let’s go kill Bernard and save the world.
Agreed. But first, let’s find out what Tillerman wants.
“Everyone, find a crash seat. Reeve, get us out of here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he walked by.
But, just as she was about to duck into the ship and find a crash seat for her charge―in the airlock hallway, most likely, or the back―Nomiki interrupted her.
“Karin, come back. You’re going to want to see this.”
Frowning at the strain in her sister’s voice, she glanced back. “What is it?”
Then, she saw.
Outside, all of the Eurynome Project subjects had arrived. All of them. Seventy years’ worth of dead children slipping out of the shadows to stand in the courtyard and watch them, solemn faces turned to her and the ship. They filled the courtyard and occupied the balconies of the second floor, their faces flickering under the torchlight.
Her jaw slackened.
There were hundreds of them.
“He’s very strong, you know,” Brennan said at the front of the crowd. “The man you’re planning to fight.”
“Bernard Corringham?”
“Yes. He’s taken us all in. We can feel it.”
Fantastic.
Marc came to stand next to her, his strong arms crossing over his chest, eyes shifting back and forth as he studied the crowd. “How can we fight him?”
“Bring him here,” Layla said. “Tartarus is not his world, and Tartarus was never one of his programs. He has no power here.”
“Well, he has some power,” Brennan argued. “But not as much as anywhere else.”
Sounds like I need to talk to Tylanus. And Sasha.
We need to find him first, Tia reminded her.
“Thank you,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”
“No,” Layla said. “He blocks that from us.”
Inside, an old anger stirred as one of Tia’s memories resurfaced―her, in the Cradle, feeling Bernard slowly strip away her connection and control.
We will kill him, she promised Tia.
Yes, we will.
She nodded to the children and turned back into the ship. A lump formed in her throat as Nomiki slapped the ‘ramp close’ button on the side, and she had to stop and stand in the hallway, fighting with the emotion.
But, like all things, her psychopathy made it slide away like wind on the other side of a pane of glass. Soon, all she felt was the rattle.
So it was with a cold mind that she helped Nomiki take Fiona, Program Daphne, off of her back and strap her into a crash harness, and with an even icier mind that she, once finished, strode to the front of the ship and ducked her head onto the bridge to address the pilot.
“Reeve, when you take off, can you wave our wings at them? It’s childish, but I think they’ll like it.”
It might be childish, but the people below were children. At eighteen, Brennan and the younger Nomiki were the oldest. Some she saw looked around six.
We’ll be back, she promised through the front windows as she strapped herself in. We’ll be back, and we’ll find a way to help you.
Although, even as she made the promise, she wasn’t sure how she could keep it. They were dead, and she was not. And one couldn’t bring back the dead. Not unless you were Brennan. And Brennan was standing on the courtyard with the rest of them.
The Canadian prairie was a lot more populous than she remembered when they returned to the real world. More than twenty ships had landed around her designated ‘clear’ spot―the place she’d cordoned off to do her warping―and their lights pierced the Saskatchewan night like a circus.
Some of them, she was glad to see, had set up an aid tent and were checking out the children, the ship behind them painted with the big red cross, crescent, and crystal logos of Earth’s largest UN-sanctioned aid organizations. A small Alliance medical ship sat next to them with a smaller tent, looking like it was sharing supplies and personnel.
But, the other ships did not appear to be helping.
There were at least three Alliance ships there, and one of the larger UN task force ships sat on the grass not a hundred meters away―usually, they only brought those ships in when there was a problem. Fallon and Centauri were also in play.
She frowned when she realized just how many Centauri ships there were, and her frown deepened when she realized that at least half of the ships did not belong to the Menassi Tri-Quad Alliance.
Tillerman met her as she descended the ramp. “Grand Regent Makos, there―”
“Let me guess,” Karin interrupted. “There’s been a challenge?”
“Yes, Regent.”
And, as Tillerman had explained it only a few hours ago, a challenge could not be ignored.
She didn’t see how they could stop her from simply getting back in her ship and
flying off, especially with her dimensional abilities, but she really didn’t need another nation chasing after her while she was trying to save the universe.
Killing this fool would be quicker.
“Any rules?” she asked. “Do I need to take my armor off? Say a few words?”
“Armor’s fine. He’ll be in similar. No outside interference, and it’s to the death.”
Well, she’d known about that last part already.
“Great. Let’s get this over with. We have stuff to do. Sasha’s inside. Nomiki, can you―”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t leave,” Nomiki said.
She wasn’t sure how her sister planned to accomplish that, given that Sasha also had dimension-crossing abilities and had already gotten away from Nomiki twice in the past, but perhaps the third time would be the charm and her sister had adapted something.
She decided not to worry about it. She had provided an option that Sasha wanted, and she had also taken all of the Eurynome children back―the ones who hadn’t died years ago, anyway. Even if Sasha did go back, she’d have to figure out how to steal the new kids again. And then put them in tanks all over again.
Time enough for Karin to finish her fight, warp back into Tartarus, and drag Sasha back out, this time less kindly.
Besides, she didn’t think Sasha actually wanted to sacrifice the world. And she definitely didn’t want to kill her son.
She’d just felt like she’d been forced into it.
Gods fuck old men trying to play god.
A small group of cyborgs looked up as she crossed the field. Five of them, all wearing the trademark teal she had learned a few hours ago signified Finlai. The Menassi Tri-Quad, in contrast, branded theirs in a deep blue trim, though both mingled in with the trademark Centauri yellow.
A wind whipped across the plains, bringing with it the burnt-air smell of exhaust and the chemical taste of ion engines.
Kalinsky met her halfway, joining her and Tillerman as she walked.
“What have you done with the children?” she asked.
“They’re all getting checked out. We have a medical ship here.”
“Good. Under guard?”
