The Illusory Prophet

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  My best friend shakes his head and stares at the mat, like I’m hopeless.

  It riles me even more—which is strange. Lately, I’ve been more patient than this. Living through the almost-end-of-the-world does that, plus I’m now carrying the life experience of dozens of people. My perspective changed radically overnight—I’m just not the same seventeen-year-old guy I was only a month ago. But this idea that I’ve got a lingering lust thing for Lenora straight-up pisses me off, especially since Cyrus knows how I feel about Kamali.

  I narrow my eyes. “How can you even talk about leaving the Resistance? What happened to fighting for our freedom?” I make air quotes of sarcasm. “I thought you had bought into everything the Resistance was selling.” I don’t say Basha has been the main instigator in transforming my best friend into a fervent believer in the cause, but it kind of goes without saying. Basha acts like she’s flighty and clueless, but it’s all a ruse. She’s as sharp as Cyrus and twice as savvy with the social stuff. I think he likes her simply because she’s always one step ahead of him.

  My best friend glares at me then turns to stare at the tent wall. The canvas is letting in some of the morning sunshine, but it’s basically blank.

  “Oh, I see,” I say bitterly. “You think I should leave, not that you should come with me. That’s Basha talking, isn’t it? She thinks I should find a new place to sleep.” I guess I’m not just disappointing Kamali and Cyrus—the whole camp must be pissed I haven’t turned into the prophet they were waiting for. And Basha would have her feelers on those strings of tension better than anyone.

  Cyrus whirls back to me. “Basha has a few things to say about you and your new reputation. And I don’t think she’s entirely wrong. But this isn’t about that, Eli. I’m your friend, your best friend, or have you forgotten? Are you too important to listen to the likes of me now?”

  “What?” This time, my mouth literally drops open. “What are you talking about?”

  Cyrus gestures angrily at my cot. “You’re always in here, meditating or doing whatever you’re doing in the fugue state. I know you’re mentally gone somewhere else because you don’t even answer me half the time. You’re out there talking to God or whatever you’re doing.”

  My mouth is still open, so I shut it. “I’m trying to figure out the fugue. Trying to get control over it. I told you it’s messing with my head. Bleeding over. Besides…” I fling my hand toward the door of the barracks. “It’s not exactly friendly out there for me right now.”

  “I know!” Cyrus steps closer, and some of the anger drops off his face. In a flash, I can see it’s not anger at all—at least not directed at me—and that he’s just afraid. Fear isn’t something I’m used to seeing on Cyrus, so it freaks me out.

  “People are saying things about you, Eli. You’re already collecting your own zealots, for God’s sake! And do you know what happens to prophets, my friend? They get killed.” He’s shaking now, his muscular arms twitching under the camouflage, and the visceral fear that’s rolling off him startles me even more. “And now you’re having this vision? That’s a bad sign, man. Really bad.”

  I let out a low breath. “Just because I see it, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

  Cyrus crosses his beefy arms. “Yeah? And how well did that work out with your visions of the Mind?”

  He has a point, although not the one he thinks. “That’s exactly what I’m saying—that vision changed, again and again. In the beginning, everyone died. By the end, we defeated it.”

  “Only because we actually did something about it.” He uncrosses his arms and gestures like he wants to throttle me. “Come on, Eli! You can’t stay here. You’ve got Augustus resurrecting at some point, you’ve got people calling you a prophet, and now your vision is telling you the same thing I am. This is no place for you. It’s time to leave.”

  I clamp my teeth together to keep from retorting that there’s no way I’m leaving Kamali. She gave up everything for the Resistance—her home, her dancing—and she’s a true believer in the cause as well as her God. If I asked her to choose—the Resistance or me—I will not like the answer.

  “What about my mom?” I say, desperate for something. “You want me to just leave her here?”

  He gives me a look that’s unimpressed. “Your mom’s gen tech treatments worked. Her lymphoma’s completely gone. She’s fine, Eli. And besides, no one’s after her.”

  I swallow. Because it feels too much like he might be right. “Where would I go, Cy?”

  He draws in a deep breath. “At least you’re asking the right question now. And I’ve been thinking about that—”

  The swish of the barracks’ canvas door cuts him off. We both turn to see Tristan standing in the threshold.

  “Eli, there’s someone who wants to see you,” he says.

  Cyrus and I exchange a look—Tristan isn’t exactly our favorite person. He was there when we defeated the Mind, and he was an indispensable part of that, but he’s kept his distance since I brought Kamali back to life. And he’s been part of the rumor mill that spread that news like wildfire.

  “Tell them I’m busy,” I call out from the back, not moving a muscle toward him.

  Tristan looks pained, but he stays in the threshold. “I’ve been trying to hold her off for three days. I can’t talk her out of it. I said I would ask you personally to speak with her.”

  I sigh, but it’s not like there’s a lock on the door. Tristan is just giving me a heads up that there’s a situation. “All right, fine.”

  Cyrus shakes his head, but he keeps by my side as I cross the floor, passing the orderly line of cots on either side.

  When we meet Tristan at the door, he drops his voice. “It’s time for you to do something about this anyway, Eli,” he says softly.

  I check my pace and peer through the slit of the door. “Do something about what? What are you telling people now?”

  He holds up his hands. “I’m not telling them anything they don’t already know. But in the absence of any explanation for the impossible, people are going to generate their own ideas. And with you keeping quiet, there’s only so long they’ll listen to my theories. Then they come up with their own. You wouldn’t believe how crazy some of them are.”

  Cyrus is frowning, but it’s less of a glare than I expect. “He’s got a point,” he says, but he doesn’t seem happy about admitting it. “People make up things unless you counter with the truth.”

  “And that truth is?” I raise an eyebrow at him.

  “That you’re a legacy kid who just happened to be around when a miracle occurred.” Cyrus gives Tristan a dark look.

  I raise both eyebrows—that explanation is not going to fly.

  Cyrus shakes his head, looking exasperated, then he points a finger at me. “Just take care of whatever this is. Then you and I need to finish our discussion.”

  “Fine.” I push aside the flap of the door.

  Outside, a young woman waits for me. She’s mid-twenties and muscular-looking, like a lot of the Resistance militia, and dressed in standard camouflage with her thin fingers clenched tight into fists. Basha, Cyrus’s second, stands behind her, lips pursed.

  Cyrus speaks first. “Bash, who’s your friend?” The Resistance has hundreds of members—I didn’t know them all before, and now that we’ve moved up to Seattle, there are even more coming and going all the time. Our camp is a base of operations for a sprawling network of cells, smaller camps, and lone infiltrators all over the world. Cyrus knows more Resistance members than I do, but Basha is practically a walking directory. Her bubbly personality is just a cover for wheedling social information out of everyone she meets. Not in a bad way—she’s Kamali’s best friend, after all, and Cyrus wouldn’t fall for someone who didn’t have a good heart—but Basha operates continuously on five different social levels I don’t understand.

  “Go on, Melanie,” Basha says, tightly to the woman. “Tell my friends why you’ve come to see them.” Her normal exuberance
is locked down hard—her delicate Arab features are scowling at me, and her short, wiry frame is fired with an angry energy.

  Melanie steps forward, ignoring Cyrus and training her bright blue eyes on me. “My sister was one of the wounded when the ascenders took the camp in Oregon.” Her eyes drift down to my wrist where the remembrance tattoos are inked, one above the other—one says 17, the number lost in the first attack; the other says 55, the number lost at the camp. Both were cases of Augustus looking for me, tracking me down once he had some idea I was tapping into the fugue.

  I swallow but say nothing. There were a lot of lives lost because of me, and even more who suffered injuries or just plain torture at the hands of Augustus.

  She drags her blue eyes back up to mine. “My sister survived, but she lost an arm.”

  I frown because the ascenders should have taken care of that. We have lots of augments—militia members injured while fighting whose ascender-tech replacement parts are even better than the originals. They’re the heroes of the Resistance, giving us a little more leverage against the mechanized sentries the ascenders use against us.

  “Was she able to get an augment?” I ask, ready to be amazed if the answer is no.

  Melanie’s jaw works, and for some reason, this makes her angry. Which I don’t understand.

  “Yes, she did. And it’s everything the other augments say—better, faster, stronger. But my sister hates it. She hates everything about the ascenders. She wants nothing to do with any of them, and now a part of her body is pure ascender tech.”

  I still don’t understand. “She could’ve said no, right?” This feels horribly insensitive, but I’m just not getting this. “I mean, it’s not like they forced her to take the augment, right?” I glance at Cyrus and Tristan. Cyrus is scowling, but I can’t imagine the ascenders forcing an augment on anyone. Tristan’s face is carefully neutral. He’s been in the Resistance far longer than any of us and must know it would be nowhere without the technology the rebel ascenders provide. But some humans can’t look at their perfect, immortal bodies and see anything other than the enemy. Like Cyrus.

  Melanie’s anger has morphed into inarticulate frustration. “I was the one who talked her into taking it. I just couldn’t see her giving up the opportunity to be whole again, but… it’s taken her down hard. She’s been depressed ever since, and I’m afraid…”

  My eyes go wide. “You think she might take her own life? Over that?”

  Melanie’s pale cheeks flush, either with anger or embarrassment, I can’t tell which. “I’ve already caught her trying.”

  Oh, man. “Look, I can talk to her if you think that would help—”

  Anger flares up in her eyes again, and she takes two steps forward, getting in my face.

  I reflexively lean away.

  “She needs her arm back!” Melanie shouts. There’s fury in her voice, and suddenly, I can see it—I’m responsible for the camp being invaded. I’m responsible for the loss of her sister’s arm. And now, in Melanie’s eyes, I’m responsible for fixing it.

  “Look, Melanie, I can’t—”

  “Don’t tell me you can’t! The ascenders wanted you for a reason.” Her voice is tight with anger. “You saved Kamali. Everyone knows it. If you can do that, you can do this.”

  My mouth just drops open, but no words come out. Because I can’t. I can’t heal her sister’s arm. I can’t replace flesh that’s been blown away weeks ago. I’m not a miracle worker, despite what Melanie believes. The ascenders have far better tech and can work actual miracles I never could.

  “Melanie, I can’t—” But I stop because the fury is boiling even hotter on her face.

  Suddenly, Cyrus steps in front of me and puts a hand on her shoulder.

  She shoves it off.

  “Melanie,” he says, calmly. “The ascenders have all kinds of tech. I’ve seen them do impossible things, even regrow full flesh limbs. When I was back in Seattle, my boss worked the black market. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff that came through. Maybe we can find a replacement that wouldn’t be ascender tech, you know what I’m saying? If not with the Resistance, then I might know a guy who can help us out.”

  Emotion wars across Melanie’s face, but Cyrus has captured her attention, and the heat of her anger is off me. “Could they really regrow it?”

  Cyrus gives me a quick glance. “I don’t know—no guarantees—but I can try to find out, okay? Either way, I can promise you, Eli is not the one to fix this for you.”

  Melanie frowns, but she lets Cyrus turn her and gesture her away from my barracks. Basha goes with them, but not before giving me a sad shake of her head, like this is somehow my fault. Like I should have seen this coming and taken steps to avoid it.

  I watch them go, only realizing Tristan is still behind me when he speaks up.

  “You need to start talking to them, Eli.” He gives me a cool look.

  I’m tempted to tell him to shove off. This is the first real time we’ve talked since I brought Kamali back. Not that I have any need to talk to the guy she used to be with, but I never found out why they broke up. She won’t discuss it.

  “What exactly do you want me to say, Tristan?” I can’t help the edge in my voice.

  He shakes his head, like I’m kind of pathetic, and stares at the grass by his boots. “I’m not your enemy, Eli.” He looks up. “In fact, I’d really like to not be on the opposite side of you on anything. I saw what you did for Kamali—”

  “And you couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it, too.”

  The accusation hangs in the air between us.

  He nods, staring at the ground again, biting his lip. “I was angry and amazed and in awe… and so I told everyone. Then I broke up with Kamali.”

  “And why was that, exactly?” There’s still a small, leftover pain lodged in my chest from that—because she didn’t leave him. It was the other way around.

  Tristan snorted a mirthless laugh and looked up. “Because I can’t compete with a Savior.”

  “I’m no Savior.” I glare at him, thinking it was a mistake to even start this conversation.

  Tristan’s looks unimpressed. “It doesn’t matter what else you do, Eli. You could die tomorrow in a fiery blast, and you would always be her personal savior.”

  I wince. His words about a fiery death cut a little too close. But what he’s saying is also worming into my head. Are Kamali’s feelings for me forever tainted by the fact that I saved her life? Or that I can access the fugue? Is that why she let me fall into orbit around her? It digs at my nagging fear that it isn’t the man in me she loves… if she loves me at all.

  “Anyway,” Tristan says, grinding his boot into the ground. “All that is in the past. Kamali can choose to be with whoever she likes. This is all bigger than that, now, anyway. You have to realize that.”

  “So everyone keeps telling me.” I look away from him and cast my gaze over the sprawling camp—canvas barracks for the humans and augments, glowing white pods for the ascender rebels, gleaming silver ones for the command center and the med pod.

  “Eli.” The soft seriousness of his voice draws me back. “I don’t know what you are, or what you can do, or what your purpose is here. I can only guess at all that, and that’s exactly my point. I saw you save Kamali. It’s not something I can ever un-see. And now the question is—what else are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” It’s the most honest thing I’ve said in a long time.

  Tristan nods. “For what it’s worth, if I were you, I probably wouldn’t know, either. But you need to figure it out. And soon.” There isn’t any anger or frustration behind his words. It’s more of a warning, but the kind a friend would give.

  For some reason, it compels me to be honest. “Cyrus thinks I should leave.”

  Tristan shakes his head. “I don’t think this is something you can run away from.”

  Then he gives me that sad look—the disappointed one that everyone seems to wear lately—and walks
away.

  The tightness in my chest is back.

  I’m afraid Tristan is all too right.

  I stride across the grass of the camp toward the med pod.

  After the encounter with Melanie, I retreated to my barracks for the rest of the morning, but Tristan is right—this isn’t a problem I can hide from. The thought of leaving the Resistance—really the thought of leaving Kamali—is tearing me up inside, but events are grinding on whether I like it or not. If I have to leave, or am forced out, one thing has to get done before I go.

  I need to put Lenora back together.

  There was a time when I would’ve given anything to be her second. At first, she was my untouchably beautiful ascender patron. Then she was responsible for my creation. Then she was my ally in fighting Augustus. She’s as responsible for my being alive as my own mother, and that best sums up how I feel about her now—she’s an important part of my past, if not my future.

  And she’s broken.

  Augustus pulled her into his mind, and I can’t even think about what he did to her without spawning nightmares. Marcus rescued her. Leopold gave his life to get her back. But she was left in pieces, her mind shattered, and I’m all-too-familiar with how that feels. Every time the fugue bleeds over into reality, there’s a whisper of fear at the back of my mind that I’m coming unraveled. And if I can’t tell the difference between reality and the fugue, it’s a quick ride to Crazy Town from there. Which is where Lenora has been living for the last two weeks. I’ve been waiting to see if she could find her way back, but that doesn’t appear to be happening.

  And time is against me now.

  As I near the shining silver pod, I glimpse a thin camouflage-clad figure hurrying toward me. Kamali. I stop in my tracks. Even as she strides fast with her long legs, her movements are graceful like the Olympic-class ballerina she is. Only her beautiful face is marred with a scowl.