But PR has to be the least of it.
Especially when death is something I can reverse.
I’m starting to wonder if it was just dumb luck that saved me from that bomb. Does the fugue protect me, even when I’m off having a vision of Hypatia? Did I reflexively change reality to keep myself alive?
Nothing like that kept Miriam from nearly choking me to death.
All I know for sure is that I can bring bodies back into resonance with their fugue-state forms, conjure some moving images on my drawing pad, and create some kind of shared illusion with Kamali of glowing orbs dancing in a meadow.
I haven’t even begun to explore this. And I need to.
This immediate threat with Augustus feels like just the beginning.
Grayson yanks me out of my thoughts by suddenly appearing at my side. I guess he zipped over from the cockpit on his augment legs. Everyone in the transport is faster than I am—unless I’m in the fugue.
Then there are no limits.
Grayson stands before me, looking slightly uncomfortable, which makes me frown. He’s a battle-hardened lieutenant for Commander Astoria. I’ve never seen him so much as flinch in a combat situation, much less have this vague unease about him. Maybe he’s having second thoughts about being my bodyguard. I debate telling him, hey, it’s cool, I can bring you back if you die.
That doesn’t seem like the right thing to say. “What’s up?” I ask instead.
He flicks a look to Marcus and Lenora, still huddled in the corner. “I don’t trust them, you know.”
I shrug. I figure that’s why he’s here.
“What you said about not leaving a bloody trail in your wake,” he continues. “Do you mean that?” His blue-eyed gaze is suddenly sharp, the discomfort gone.
“Yeah.” It doesn’t seem like such a radical idea.
“Do you know how I lost my legs?” he asks.
It’s such a sudden shift in topic, I’m kind of nonplussed. “No.” I wrack through all the lives and mixed memories in my brain, but that’s not something I knew and simply forgot.
“A nomadic religious cult outside Paris took my wife.” His angular face gains an even more hardened expression. “They had some kind of elaborate religious justification for kidnapping and rape.”
Oh, man. “Grayson, I’m sorry.” I’m not sure what else to say. Given my experience with the Cleansed and the Promised—and even to some extent, the Makers—there’s almost no horror perpetrated in the name of someone’s idea of a religion that I’d be surprised to hear.
“I’m no fan of cults.” Grayson’s grinding his teeth now.
“I can imagine.” I wonder how this relates to losing his legs, but I’m definitely not asking. I figure if he wants to tell me…
“But I’m no fan of what I did, either,” he adds.
I pull back a little. “What did you do?”
“I went after her. But I was too late.” The pain that flashes across his face makes me glad I’m not touching him in the fugue. It’s the kind of pain that would drown any normal man—I’m not sure how Grayson survived it. “They’d already raped her to death. I slaughtered every last one of them.”
Sickness coils in the depths of my stomach. I don’t know what to say, so I go with my gut reaction. “They deserved it.”
Grayson drops his head and nods at the floor. “Yeah. They did.” Then he looks up and squints at me. This is an old pain, one he’s been carrying forever, but it’s still fresh for him every day—I don’t need the fugue to know that. “When I attacked their camp, I didn’t expect to come out alive. In fact, I almost didn’t. Somehow, I dragged myself away, but it wasn’t just my legs that were injured. Those bastards took a part of my soul—first my wife, then my humanity. The Resistance found me gangrenous and delusional in the countryside south of Paris.”
I swallow down some of the sickness. “So the Resistance saved you.” This explains the unwavering loyalty I’ve seen in Grayson from the start. I figured he was just all-in on the cause—I didn’t realize the Resistance had literally saved his life.
“Yeah, they stopped me from dying in a field that day. But more importantly, they gave me something worth fighting for. And that something isn’t a cult where we start killing people.” His pain-wearied eyes are sharp again, drilling into me.
I swallow. “Understood.” Because that’s not what I want, either. Obviously.
“I saw what you did at the command center,” he presses, his voice harder than I expect for having healed a simple cut on Melanie’s face. Maybe he thinks I should have saved her sister? He’s not wrong about that.
“I messed up before—” I start.
“That wasn’t your fault,” he says, cutting me off. He eases a little closer and peers into my eyes. I have to steel myself from shying away from the intensity. “You’re not responsible for the sister who took her own life. I’m talking about what you did to the sister who was still alive. And the others. I’ve heard you healed blaster wounds—fatal ones.”
I nod, giving in to the need to lean back a little more. “That’s right.” I don’t see how that’s a bad thing, but I don’t give voice to that thought.
His stare is unwavering. “If you can do that, then you can do the reverse.”
“The reverse? As in kill people?” My stomach turns sour. What the hell?
“Anything can be a weapon, Eli.” His fervor grows even more intense. “And I’m not just talking about a physical weapon where you’re the one actually shedding the blood. This thing you can do—it’s the kind of thing cults are born from. It’s the kind of thing that destroys. You’re playing with a power that can burn down people and families and whole civilizations.”
I swallow. “I’m very aware of that.” And I am. But I’m more than a little freaked out by this idea that I’ll suddenly turn around and use the fugue to hurt people. “That’s why we’re going after Augustus.” I don’t mention the Makers and their Offering might also pose a threat.
Grayson nods and eases back a little. “Because he’s not the kind of man we want to have that kind of power.”
“Right.” I nod, but I get it now. “I’m not like him, Grayson. I’m not.”
He seems to relax for real this time. “I know. I just wanted to see if anything had… changed.”
I have changed. I form and reform every time I absorb a new lifetime full of memories. All of this is changing me and affecting me. Grayson’s concerns aren’t unwarranted. My enthusiasm for figuring out the limits of what I can do suddenly feels like a dangerous ambition. The sin of ambition is still among us. Joshua’s words haunt me again, and the sick feeling is back in my stomach. He killed his own brother to carve that sin out of the flesh of his family. I don’t want to be anything like him.
I straighten and give Grayson a determined look. “I can promise you, I’m not looking to start a cult.”
He nods again. I think he believes me.
Suddenly, Marcus and Lenora break from their conversation and flit to our side. Grayson steps back, giving the ascenders room. I guess our conversation is done, but I can tell he’s watching me now. I suspect he didn’t come along to protect me from the world—more like protecting the world from me. Yet, I’m almost glad for it. And I desperately wish I’d been able to reach the Dalai Lama or Leopold in the fugue—I need guidance even more than I thought.
“Are we there yet?” I ask Marcus lightly. I’m grateful for the interruption, but we do appear to be losing altitude at a slow but steady rate.
“Almost.” Agitation ripples across Marcus’s face, and purple tendrils drift under his translucent toga. “It’s time for you to answer a few questions, Eli.” His hand gives a slight shake that distracts me for a moment.
I lift an eyebrow. “Are you all right?”
He scowls. “As all right as I’m going to get. Which adds a little pointedness to my question. All this resurrection and healing you’ve been doing merely reminds me that you’ve never answered my question—w
hat do you know about ascender souls?”
I give him a look like he’s crazy—which I was half convinced of before he damaged his mind by carrying Lenora inside it. “Not much. Nothing really.”
“Stop playing coy, Eli. You need to tell me. Now.”
I lift my hands and give an elaborate shrug. “I don’t know if ascenders have souls, all right? I was trying to reach Leopold in the fugue when this vision of Hypatia and Augustus hit me. Then the bomb went off. I’ve been a little busy since then.”
But Marcus doesn’t back off, giving me a knowing nod instead. “Leopold is a perfect choice—he’s been dead long enough to ensure he’s not in possession of a secret backup. Although I’m still not convinced that, if you saw him in the fugue, you’d actually see his ascender soul. It’s possible his human soul was detached during the Singularity. It could simply be waiting around, real but distinct—and not Leopold’s ascender soul.” He exchanges a look with Lenora. They’ve obviously been discussing this.
I throw my shoulders back. “If I can reach him, I can figure out if his ascender form has a soul.” I’m not sure that’s true, but mostly Marcus is pissing me off.
He squints at me, and the slight twitch of his head doesn’t seem voluntary. It reminds me far too much of Leopold and the damage Augustus inflicted on his mind, breaking his personal key and dredging through the contents.
“You’re not my only hope for this, you know,” Marcus says with a sneer. “I’m still working on replicating you and your tricks.” He’s talking about these supposed clones he’s made of me.
“They’re hardly more than fetuses.” Lenora scowls at him. I’m not sure why she thinks that makes it better.
Marcus scowls back. “It’s just a matter of time before I speed up the process. Human bodies are tediously slow to build.”
Grayson looks straight-up horrified.
I don’t know whether to demand that Marcus destroy all of these apparent clones or… what? I don’t even know. Either way, he shouldn’t treat them like he’s entitled to turn other human beings—human beings that share my DNA—into his little lab rats.
“I hate you right now,” I manage.
He smirks, then he darts a look to Lenora. Her scowl is ramping up to raging hot anger, and I’m pretty sure she’s cursing him out via transmission.
Out loud, she says, “Eli pulled me back together—I’m only here because of him. He was inside my head. He’s the one, Marcus. You can’t replicate that. Don’t play this game with him.”
Marcus twitches under an onslaught of unheard transmissions to go with the thin, curled lines of black smoke whispering along Lenora’s skin.
“The Makers are convinced none of you have souls.” I can’t help the dig. They’re both pissing me off. Although I can see why Marcus is suddenly urgent in his need to know if he has a soul, given the way his mortal mind is less-than-perfect now.
My insult doesn’t seem to affect him. “The Makers are no more than monkeys tinkering with technology they barely understand… and yet even they can grasp the essential question. Because if we have souls, then Augustus is wrong to tamper with ascender minds, and we’ve given up nothing with ascendance. We can live as long as we like and still have the hope of going somewhere else at the end of things. Or opting out.”
I lean away from him. Is opting out now on the table for Marcus? I remember Leopold saying something about death being preferable to losing one’s mind. Is Marcus going there, too? Melanie’s sister couldn’t stay in this world with the pain she was enduring—how much worse would it be for an ascender to feel that way eternally?
The idea is blowing my mind. “I don’t like you, Marcus,” I say, hesitation making my words slow, “but I don’t want you opting out based on anything I say. Are we clear?”
A sudden, inexplicable rage surges forth on his face. Grayson moves in front of me, and Lenora’s hand grabs hold of Marcus’s shoulder. Then, just as suddenly as it came, the rage disappears. I step back, unsure if he’s in control. Marcus shrugs Lenora off and straightens, appearing to have a grip on himself again.
My heart is hammering in my chest. Just how broken is Marcus?
Lenora scowls but turns her attention to me. “That is how Augustus was gaining his power—by reaching for the numinous. Many ascenders believe we’ve cheated ourselves out of it, that immortality is cheapened because we’re missing out, trapped in this mortal coil forever. If Augustus can reach it, then everyone not in his camp will be left behind. The fear of that draws people to him. And gives him power. This is why we cannot let him resurrect.”
“There’s more to this than you realize,” Marcus says to me, seeming like himself again. “It’s a mental arms race. Everyone in Orion will line up behind the person with the best chance of making it happen.”
Lenora gives him a small nod. It still amazes me to see them working together, but I’m glad Lenora’s here to help. Or possibly restrain him.
Marcus turns to me. “It’s time to introduce you to the ascender world. You need to tell them what you are and what you’ve seen.”
What? “I thought this was about stopping Augustus.” The last thing I need right now is to get sucked into all their ascender games.
Lenora’s hand touches me, quickly, then it’s gone. “Your miracles will not stay contained in the human world, Elijah,” she says in a breathy sort of voice that freaks me out.
“I thought you were rebels. Disconnected from Orion.” My words are angry, and my chest is tight. This feels like it’s spiraling away from me already.
“This isn’t something you can keep quiet,” she says, admonishment in her voice.
“We really need to focus on Augustus.” And I mean it. I’ll do this myself if Lenora and Marcus have other grand plans for me.
Thankfully, she nods her agreement, then glances over my shoulder. We’re settling into the underbrush of a low foothill. The towers of New Portland shine in the distance, but we’re nowhere near the city. Just as I think we’re going to touch down, the rolling hill below us winks out of existence—we’ve dropped through a shield that covered up the entrance.
“Welcome to my citadel,” Marcus says.
The darkness swallows us as we sink underground.
Marcus’s citadel is a concrete bunker barely big enough for our transport.
Once the overhead doors close, the indoor lights come on, but all I can see out the window is blank concrete scrolling past—there is barely five feet of clearance between the ship and the plain gray wall. When we land, Marcus, Lenora, Grayson, and I step out, crowded between the ship and the wall. Marcus edges over to a holo control bank. He waves his hand, and a small section of the wall shimmers away, revealing a white box the size of a coffin standing on end.
He gestures Lenora inside. Her relatively small, graceful bodyform fills the space. She gives Marcus a nod, and blue energy leaps from the walls to bind her in a giant cocoon. I gag at the stricken expression on her face. The floor disappears, and she drops into the darkness below.
The floor reappears. She’s gone.
I give Marcus wide-eyed look. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He grimaces. “It wasn’t exactly designed for humans.”
Of course not. I swallow down my sickness. Grayson has a stoic expression.
“Don’t worry,” Marcus says, which doesn’t reassure me at all. “I’m recalibrating it for you and your mostly human friend.” He focuses on the holo controls.
I grit my teeth. “How far down does it go?”
Marcus doesn’t look up. “Only a couple thousand feet.”
I nearly choke this time. “Only?”
Grayson shakes his head.
Marcus gives a stuttered sigh. “The citadel’s physical access port is attuned to my personal key, and the depth of the bunker makes it impervious to even a tactical nuclear assault.” He glances at me. “Normally, I would travel mentally and utilize the backup bodies below. Even for bodyforms, it is a rigorous trip
. But I’m slowing it down considerably—you should be able to endure it, but if you black out, don’t panic.”
Great.
Marcus waves me inside. I tell myself he isn’t going to take an unnecessary risk with me. Then again, he has all those backup clones. But a fetus version of me won’t help him right now with Augustus.
I give him a nod to let him know I’m ready.
Before I can blink, I’m electrocuted by blue energy. Every muscle in my body seizes up, then I hurtle downward—not falling but propelled by a powerful force that’s squeezing me from the toes up, trying to squish every internal organ into my throat. Breathing isn’t an option. Or moving. Or screaming.
It’s over just before the horror sets in.
The blue energy releases me, and I tumble into a white room. Lenora catches me as I fall. My body convulses as all my internal organs settle back to where they belong. I manage not to throw up, but my lungs have collapsed. I can’t get any air.
“Eli!” Lenora’s cool fingers skim my body.
I feel like I’m dying.
I continue the struggle for air, and a tiny trickle finally works its way in. “Okay,” I wheeze. “I’m okay.”
Grayson tumbles out of the lift behind me. His ascender-tech legs keep him upright, but his face is ashen. Marcus appears a moment later. His exit is more stable, but he still has a lurch in his step. I can’t tell if that’s due to the insane energy elevator ride or just his malfunctions.
He gives me a cool look. “Glad to see you survived, Eli.”
Lenora cautiously releases me.
It’s a struggle to stay standing. “Was there some kind of doubt about that?”
He shrugs. “It was a very minor risk. But you’re safer here in my citadel than any other place on the planet.” He summons a chair from the floor and gestures me into it—a move so considerate, it takes me a moment to react.
I drop into the seat and check out the room. His bunker is an expansive although empty box, maybe fifty feet on a side. Everything is ascender tech—softly glowing walls, a dustless steel floor under my boots, probably substantial technology hidden in the walls and floor, like my chair.
The Illusory Prophet Page 22
