Exo

by Fonda Lee

  Inside the car, Jet took manual control and said grimly, “Hang on.” He lifted the skimmercar up over the sidewalk, punched on the lights and sirens, and plowed backward between parked cars, posts, and other obstacles. A few seconds later, he slammed the skimmercar sideways, shooting through a mostly vacant parking lot, then braked and shot forward into the next street, the skimmercar’s gyroscopic engines whining. Donovan called up the navigation system; if the assassin was driving a stolen SecPac vehicle, it should be easy to track. As if anticipating his thoughts, Tate said over the comm, “He’s disabled the tracking system; we’re going on best guess here, people. Barricades going up now at the following intersections …”

  Donovan sat back hard, choking down a sob. Of course. A hijacked SecPac vehicle to get through the security cordon and escape again. The Guerra woman jumping up in the middle of the crowded stadium to provide distraction for sniper shots at the crucial moment. No way the Guerras could have carried this out without inside information. Information delivered to them in an envelope under their door. Donovan gripped the dashboard and his stomach heaved. His mind collapsed upon itself. I did this. He’d given Sapience a way to save Max, but it hadn’t worked; they’d been foiled by the timing, but they’d used the intelligence to carry out a different Sapience objective.

  “We have a visual,” Jet said tightly, too focused on driving to notice Donovan’s agony. He jerked the steering column and sent the skimmercar careening through a park, narrowly missing a row of poplar trees and scraping the underside of the car against a low park fence as they pulled alongside two other SecPac skimmercars giving chase. Donovan braced himself against the inside of the vehicle, a peculiar burning-cold sensation suffusing him, traveling from node to node from the crown of his head down his spine, as if his exocel was turning to frost. He crawled out of his seat and over to the skimmercar’s locked storage compartment, pressing his armored hand to the keypad. It popped open for him; he threw off his suit jacket and took out a spare handgun. It verified his body signature at once; he chambered the first round.

  Jet cursed; the skimmercar navigated a sharp turn that sent Donovan sprawling. “He’s toast,” Jet snarled. The transport truck, a short, stocky vehicle nowhere near as fast and agile as the pursuing skimmercars, was barreling down the road ahead of them like a runaway bull, heading straight for the barricade and another three waiting SecPac vehicles. At the last minute, the truck swerved, sped over a lawn, and crashed straight into the double doors of an office building, sending glass raining down over the front of the vehicle as it lodged itself firmly into the doorframe like a beast stuck in the slats of a fence.

  “Holy erze,” Jet exclaimed, spinning the skimmercar to a stop in the street behind the wreckage. Donovan was out of the car before it had even stopped moving; he leapt to the ground and crossed the lawn in a straight line, like a man possessed. He brought the gun up but didn’t fire; he wanted the killer to see him, to recognize him before Donovan put a bullet between his eyes. No one else in SecPac would get there first; there would be no arrest, no painless martyrdom in the atomizer.

  The figure in the driver’s seat of the truck groaned and turned his head. Jim Guerra’s face was bleeding from glass cuts and quite calm. He met Donovan’s murderous gaze—locked eyes with him—then he pulled the door handle and fell out.

  “GET DOWN!” screamed Jet, running after him, and all of a sudden the truck and Guerra were gone, and Donovan was thrown backward through the air by the force of the expanding fireball that had taken their place, and everything went first red, then white, then black.

  He was back in the Towers. He had no recollection of how he’d gotten there, which was strange, because he couldn’t have been unconscious the entire time, could he? He vaguely recalled opening his eyes and noticing all the smoke in the air, and how much it stank. Also, Jet’s face, smudged with dirt. People bending over him, asking him questions—he didn’t remember what had been said or if he’d answered. The rest of the intervening time was a blank.

  “Thank the Highest State you have eighth-generation exocels,” Nurse Therrid was saying, his voice weak. “Anything less than a sixth and you’d both be dead. Donovan, can you hear me? You have a concussion and some panotin burns, but you’ll be all right.”

  Donovan tried to raise his eyes, but they suddenly filmed with tears and the whole room turned watery. For a second he couldn’t remember why he was so upset, then he looked down and saw that he was still in his white dress shirt—although bloodstained, blackened, and mangled, it did not look white anymore. His tie had been removed and the shirt cut open down the front so he could be examined for injuries. He’d dressed himself for the Peace Day celebration that very morning, had ridden to the stadium in his father’s car. Now he was … an orphan. A war orphan.

  He pulled his feet up onto the examining table and hugged his knees, dropping his head between his arms. He was sore everywhere. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a choked, wordless moan. Long racking sobs followed; each one shook his body. Each one hurt.

  He didn’t even realize Jet was sitting silently next to him until his partner’s comm unit went off, beeping insistently. The table shifted as Jet got up. Donovan didn’t move; his gasping heaves leveled into shallow, muffled breaths that tugged at his chest and guts.

  “I can’t leave him like this,” Jet said quietly.

  “You humans are more resilient than we give you credit for, Vercingetorix,” Nurse Therrid strummed softly. “He needs to rest and grieve; you’re needed elsewhere. Your erze mate will be safe and cared for, don’t worry.” He added in a muttering hum, “You would be unendurable without him, so I’m more than motivated to see that he recuperates.”

  Jet put his hands on Donovan’s hunched shoulders and pressed his brow to the top of his partner’s bowed head. “I’m sorry, D, I have to go. I’ll be back.” He held still for another second, quivering with reluctance. “You’re not alone, okay? I’ll be back.” Then he let go of his unresponsive friend and was gone.

  The passage of time took on an indistinct quality. Donovan exhausted himself with grief and regret, he slept, he woke up furious, he stormed and railed alone in the room against everything and everyone in turn before collapsing once more into a wretched stupor. He slept again.

  In his dreams, he was being tortured by Kevin, he was kissing Anya, he was trying to reach his mom, he was watching his father fall to the ground, dead. In his dreams, Dr. Nakada said, “I’m here to help you,” as he tore out Donovan’s exocel nodes with pliers, one at a time, as Donovan screamed and writhed in agony. In his dreams, his father and his mother stood before him and Donovan had a gun in his hand; he had to kill one of them. “I expected so much more from you, son,” his father admonished with a frown. His mother hissed, “You’re a monster, more shroom than human.” The gun wavered back and forth between them as Donovan trembled and wept in indecision, until both his parents vanished in a fiery detonation and again he was hurled through the air …

  At last, he awoke lucid enough to sit cross-legged on the floor of the room with his back against the wall, and take stock of his situation. He felt as if he’d been through a terrible fever, like what he’d suffered when he was five years old, in the days after his Hardening. He’d been treated like an invalid child too; he’d been changed into clean, thin, hospital clothes, his feet were bare, his hair was damp from being in the therapy tank, though he must have been asleep or sedated because he didn’t remember it. He was just starting to think that he was rather hungry, when the door opened and Sanjay walked in right past him with a tray of food.

  “How long have I been in here?” he asked.

  The nurse-in-erze was so startled he nearly dropped the tray. “What are you doing sitting down there?” he blurted irrelevantly. He set the tray down. “Three days, just about.”

  Three days; what on earth had happened in three whole days? “Where’s my comm unit?” he asked. “Can you bring me a screen?”


  “You’ll have to ask zun Therrid about all that.” Sanjay went to fetch the Nurse, who entered the room a short while later after Donovan had stoically eaten the bowl of fortifying but decidedly tasteless mush that had been provided for him. The zhree knew what human exos required in terms of nutrition, but flavor and texture were not a consideration. Anyone who needed to stay in the Towers for medical care relied on kind relatives and erze mates to bring in decent meals. Bland food wasn’t high on Donovan’s current list of hardships.

  “Donovan, poor hatchling, how do you feel?” Therrid queried, gently probing the nodes on the back of Donovan’s neck. “I’m relieved you’re coherent again.”

  “Where’s Jet?” Donovan asked.

  “He’s on duty. He would’ve stayed with you, but every available soldier-in-erze has been deployed to quell the violence.” The Nurse’s voice was grim; his fins moved slowly.

  “He hasn’t been back at all? What’s going on out there?”

  Therrid hesitated before answering. “Unmarked humans seized one of the buildings at the algae farm. They attacked it immediately after the Prime Liaison’s assassination, when most of SecPac and Werth’s Soldiers were diverted. They’ve taken hostages and are making demands. All part of one coordinated Peace Day offensive, so it would seem. No doubt Vercingetorix and your other erze mates are occupied in the standoff.”

  The Nurse stepped away from Donovan, fins drooping as he spoke in a musical mutter, almost to himself. “I’ve heard the old-timers tell stories of the violent settlement days, but that was a long time ago. Why do humans still hate us so much, Donovan? Haven’t we governed them fairly, given them all the advantages of exocels, shared technology with them?”

  “Only with some of them,” Donovan said. “The rest are enemies.” He’d already searched the room unsuccessfully for his clothes and belongings. “Can I have my comm unit?”

  “Absolutely not. You’re not remotely fit to get involved, physically or mentally.”

  Donovan could not disagree, but he didn’t want to stay in here, either. “I’m not a prisoner anymore; I already served my sentence. I can leave if I want to, can’t I?”

  The Nurse sliced a negative with his fins. “Actually, if you recall, you are still on mandatory medical leave, by order of your erze. One of the conditions of your leave is that you report to me, and considering that you have no other humans to care for you in your unstable condition right now, I’ve decided you’re to remain here in the Towers until instructed otherwise.”

  Being reminded of his orphaned status did nothing to help rebuild Donovan’s fragile sense of composure. “Can I have a screen at least, so I can see what’s going on in the news? Please, zun Therrid, I’m all alone in here. You know that’s not good for me.”

  Therrid relented and brought him a screen. “If your health continues to improve, in a few days I’ll move you near the group infirmary wing so you can be with other recovering soldiers-in-erze. You and Cassidy Spencer could give each other a morale boost.”

  Donovan spent the next twelve hours glued to the news until his eyeballs felt swollen in their sockets. What he saw made him feel like he’d been lost in some other dimension and had returned to find that the world had truly, finally, gone to hell in his absence.

  His father’s assassination, and the attempted assassinations of the President and the zhree Administrator, had starkly divided the country. There’d been a massive outpouring of grief and anger—scenes of people gathering to mourn in public squares; his father being lauded and eulogized; even, to Donovan’s uncomfortable shock, people holding prayer vigils for him, the tragic son. Others, though, were celebrating; Sapience sympathizers graffitied MAX IS AVENGED and THE DOG IS DEAD on the sides of buildings, held spontaneous freedom rallies, and flocked to join the cause. Riots had broken out in cities across the country, pro and anti-government groups clashing in continuously replayed violent footage of cars and buildings set on fire, people running and shouting, tear gas and bullets being fired.

  In Round Three, most of the news attention was riveted on the hostage crisis unfolding in the algae farm along the North Platte River. The huge zhree facility was divided into several sections, each one drawing water from the river to grow numerous crop strains for zhree consumption and export. According to the news crews circling the scene, around twenty armed Sapience members had barricaded themselves inside one of the buildings, trapping two zhree Engineers and six marked human workers inside with them. “As of right now,” said the somber reporter in the studio, “it appears as if there is still no progress in the three-day-long standoff between SecPac forces and the Sapience members inside, who continue to publicly demand that all prisoners captured in the Black Hills raid last month be released from imprisonment.”

  The camera went to the on-site correspondent, who shouted over the blowing wind, “What we do know is that in the wake of the Prime Liaison’s assassination, the only two people with the authority to make that decision are the President and Commander Tate, both of whom have reiterated that there will be no negotiating with terrorists. For their part, Sapience has declared that unless the government responds with concessions in the next twenty-four hours and begins releasing prisoners, they will start executing hostages.”

  The camera cut to a wide-angle shot of the building, a long white hydroponic structure surrounded by untamed prairie grass and riverside stands of cottonwood in the backdrop. Over a dozen SecPac vehicles ringed the property; two stealthcopters circled overhead. Donovan peered at the screen; he could see uniformed stripes, their rifle sights trained on the entrances, and a few zhree Soldiers as well. Even though SecPac had primary jurisdiction over all cases of domestic terrorism, since two of the hostages were zhree, it was no surprise that Soldiers were also involved. Two of them were walking in the corner of the camera’s frame; another was talking to a human figure Donovan was sure was Commander Tate.

  “We’ve heard a lot about the eight hostages being held, but what do we know about the Sapience members involved?” the studio news reporter was asking another expert.

  “SecPac claims it has identified some of the hostage takers from security footage captured before the cameras were disabled.” A video began playing: an interior shot of the algae farm with its long rows of transparent bubbling tanks. Five insurgents ran into the frame, wielding weapons and shouting—the last one to enter the picture aimed and fired at the camera and the screen went dark. The news program replayed the footage but in slow motion this time. The reporter said, “The first man entering the room in this image is the suspected head of the group: Saul Strong Winter, a known Sapience cell leader who escaped the Black Hills raid and is wanted in connection to a multitude of terrorist attacks over the past …”

  The reporters kept talking, but Donovan had stopped listening. He stared at the small screen, stunned. In the foreground was indeed Saul, in camouflage pants and a bulky panotin vest, his thick arms holding an M16, his face partially obscured due to the angle of the camera but his shaved head and the set of his broad shoulders unmistakable. The video continued playing, artificially jerky. Javid came into the frame, bringing up the rear; he peered up at the camera and aimed his rifle at it. In the second before he pulled the trigger, Donovan recognized the slim figure in front of Javid, and a small strangled noise of despair left him.

  Anya was in there. She was one of the hostage takers. One of the sapes capitalizing on his father’s murder. In less than twenty-four hours, Donovan figured she would be dead too.

  He turned off the screen and stopped watching the news. There was nothing he could do, nothing he should do. He’d tried to change his mother’s fate and only made everything worse. If he’d put his head down like a good soldier and accepted that it wasn’t his place to make such decisions, maybe his father would still be alive.

  He wasn’t responsible for Anya. Why, why, did he keep letting himself think that he was? She’d made her choices. Just like Max had made her choices. She’d t
hrown her lot in with Sapience and decided to be a part of this terrorist plot that could only end in tragedy. Didn’t she know that hostage standoffs always ended badly? Usually with the terrorists being shot?

  The sapes in there deserved what was coming to them. Especially Saul. Jim Guerra had pulled the trigger, but Saul must have planned or approved the Prime Liaison’s assassination. Donovan ground his fist into his palm. To think that he’d sworn an oath to the man, had actually been relieved to find out he’d survived the raid on the Warren, and had given him that letter …

  Donovan felt himself sliding rapidly back down into the dark hole from which he’d recently emerged; he banged his armored head against the wall and focused on the sharp pain in the center of his forehead to will himself back over the lip. Saul was a formidable man but he’d aimed too high this time; if he was doing this to avenge Max, well, odds were he’d be joining her soon enough. The sooner the better, as far as Donovan was concerned.

  As for Anya … Donovan put his back to the wall and sank to the floor. He’d tried so hard to convince her to leave while she had the chance. Stupid, stupid squishy girl. Not my problem. Not anymore. What they’d had for those few days … that one night they’d spent together, the one he kept thinking about with such wishful, torturous regularity … it wasn’t meant to be. It was a freak trick of his screwed-up emotions, a continuing cruelty that his pulse still sped up madly when he thought of her. Her soft body pressed up against his; her luminous eyes, her small upturned nose, and the faint saltiness of her chilled lips … His rib cage contracted with guilt. He’d just lost his parents, how could he even be thinking of Anya?

  I just don’t want to lose her too.

  Idiot. You can’t lose something you never had.

  Donovan left the room and wandered down the curved hallway. There were several other chambers with patients inside; this section of the honeycombed Towers was where injured or sick exos were treated. The prison where he’d served out his week-long sentence took up the level directly below them, and a shorter, adjoining tower contained the human Hardening facilities and infirmary—the first part of the Towers he’d ever been in. Donovan stood by one of the circular windows, surprised to find himself looking down at a crowd of several dozen small children and their parents waiting to enter the building next door.