by Jenn Stark
Armaeus’s voice sounded unexpectedly in my mind. “My eternal thanks, Miss Wilde. I have gained access to the Sentinel Group’s technology. In another few minutes, with Simon’s assistance, we’ll overwrite the access codes and begin setting up the net. By the time the gods approach the veil once more…they’ll find a far different barrier in their way. One that, with any luck, will hold them another millennium.” The Magician faded for another moment, obviously distracted, then sighed with pure satisfaction. “Yes. This will do quite nicely.”
I sensed Armaeus’s departure even as Henri’s energy kicked up a notch. At least the Magician had gotten what he wanted. And it looked like Henri was about to as well.
He leaned forward. “What is my test? A simple thing, really. As I said to you earlier, I wish to set Connected strength against the best of what ordinary humanity can offer, which is, by extension, a test of what God will allow.”
I winced, looking over at Ventre, but the cardinal didn’t look concerned. “Sorry about your luck, buddy,” I told him. “Regardless of your belief, I’m not thinking God is going to come swooping down to help you.”
His smile was wintry. “God does not have to come swooping down to help me. He has given me all the resources I need to achieve my most cherished goals, wholly separate from Henri’s venture.” Ventre strode over to Henri’s desk and leaned over a console. The painting behind the desk lifted into a panel in the ceiling, revealing a smooth screen.
“We have been quite busy since your theatrics on the world stage, Madame Wilde,” Ventre continued. “I trust you’ll be impressed.”
With another click of the keys, three images came up. Mercault, bound and gagged in his own home, looking angry enough to chew through the black tape that covered his mouth. He sat on a chair bolted into the ground in a plain, unadorned space, and at a glance, I could see why. The leader of the House of Pents did not have a lot of natural Connected ability, but he did have some. And that ability was currently melting the wallpaper of the room around him.
“Monsieur Mercault has always been the key for us, albeit unwittingly. In times past, he has aided us, in fact.”
I folded my arms over my chest, as if that would help me contain the sudden surge of anger that billowed up inside me. Mercault was the head of a House of Magic! This would not stand. This could not stand.
That said, I needed to play this cool. To get the full story before I acted. To get the full…
I swallowed. “Yeah, and in return, you killed his entire family.”
“True, true,” Ventre said, waving this aside. “In war, there are many unfortunate things that are necessary. But after so long and entrenched a relationship, even when SANCTUS itself lay in shambles, we did not give up our surveillance entirely. It was not difficult to see who helped him in his recent extremity. Children. An abomination of children. Led by the most aberrant creature of all, a Catholic priest.”
Another screen clicked on, and I started. I could see no one, only an aerial view of one of Father Jerome’s orphanages. Anger flickered to life within me and was quickly stoked to a perilous level. I could feel Henri’s gaze upon me, but I didn’t care. “What have you done, Ventre?” I asked, slowly and carefully. What had Ventre and SANCTUS done?
Ventre, for his part, merely leered at me. “I could show you?”
“René,” Henri said quellingly, but the rage within me now bloomed fuller, hotter, and it was shot through with a horror and sadness that chilled me to my marrow. I feared the worst, of course. The absolute worst. Father Jerome was an old man, but there was no one fiercer. If men had come to his home, threatened the children in his care…
More fury built within me. I knew this little demonstration was being done for a purpose. I knew there was nothing I could do about Father Jerome, not here in this office, not now. He would not want me to risk it, for one. He would not want me to risk the children, but more importantly, he would not want me to risk myself. Not for him. Never for him.
A rising tide roiled in my heart, gathering momentum. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Henri,” I said. “Ventre is already dead, or he would be, if he wasn’t relying on the very abomination he so despises to prolong his life. You already know there is something other than ordinary humanity on this earth.” I gestured to myself angrily. “And you’re seeing real results of the world’s magic in front of you. It’s a nonnegotiable. Connecteds are here.”
“Here, yes…” Henri leaned forward. “They are. But are they better? That is the question I must have you answer. The evolution of humanity is at hand, Madame Wilde. We are on the verge of truly integrated biotechnology, artificial intelligence that can advance our bodies and minds at a rate unheard of throughout the existence of humans. There is so much that is at our fingertips with enough focus and ingenuity and yet…and yet…” He pointed at me. “Then there’s you. And those like you.” His expansive wave took in Nikki and Sariah too.
“Right.” Nikki’s voice was clear and strident, and she moved forward a few long strides to stand beside me, then folded her arms as well. She knew, I realized, better than me, better even than Sariah, what was going on here. She’d touched Castille’s hand, had read his strongest memories. She knew what he was doing and why.
And she started talking.
“So let me get this straight, Mr. Mengele. You’ve been doing your level best to improve humankind, but now you have to make a choice. What strain of humankind is better? The non-Connected model, which you augment with AI and robotics, to stimulate the brain and the nervous system and make them better, stronger, faster…or those like us, as you say. The freaks, the head cases, the scurrying fringe of society. Up till now, it’s been an easy decision, but now something’s changed. That’s what your research showed you, right?”
Henri frowned at her—not an overly concerned frown, more a curious one. “How do you know this?”
Nikki ignored him. “Because, whaddya know, all of a sudden, the freaks aren’t just performing party tricks, they’re doing more. A lot more. They’re everywhere too, now that you know what you’re looking for. Plus they have structure, up to and including the Arcana Council and the Houses of Magic…and they have really fun toys. Toys and pills, besides. I’m guessing you were surprised to find that Cardinal Ventre had made a miraculous recovery that he couldn’t quite give up to God, and that started you down this path. Once you stepped on it, there was no turning back. How’m I doing so far?”
“Blasphemer,” Ventre hissed, while I resolutely kept my gaze off the screen that showed Jerome’s house.
Henri, however, seemed perfectly at his ease. “Your characterization of me is understandable, but thankfully overstated. We have been aware of Connecteds to some degree for years and began studies accordingly. Recent…developments, as you say, have only accelerated our work. But you must know: I am no Mengele. Our research subjects are beyond voluntary—they are begging for our assistance, and they are carefully vetted. More importantly, we have had the ear of governments around the world for centuries, Madame Dawes. I do not need the good offices of SANCTUS to eradicate the Connecteds like a virus, if I wanted to do so. But that is not—nor has it ever been—my goal.”
He exhaled, appearing credibly conflicted. “That said, I value my friendships, and SANCTUS has been a valuable ally.”
Henri prattled on as I opened my mind wide to Armaeus. I sensed him hovering, waiting and watching. You knew about this? That this was the test he had in mind?
“It was but one possibility among thousands. However, there are fail-safes he has put in place in the event of his demise. He has learned from Ventre’s failings. He will not risk his organization.”
So no big blue ball of fire to end him.
“It would be inadvisable.” Armaeus paused, and I felt a renewed sense of the screen I would no longer look at, the screen of Father Jerome’s beautiful country mansion. “But Sara…”
Stop. I shut down our connection as abruptly as I had opened it. I didn’t want Armaeus to
finish that sentence, not on the heels of him catching my focus on Father Jerome. For once, I didn’t want to know what he knew. I especially didn’t want to know anything that moved the Magician to call me by my first name.
“So—what’s the game, then, Henri?” I snapped, cutting the man off in a burst of anger and sorrow I could barely conceal. “What is it I have to prove?”
“Just a simple contest of survival skills, really,” Henri replied. He lifted his voice. “Send Atria in, if you would.”
The moment the door opened, I made up my mind. Made it up and opened it up as well. The Council, in its pursuit of balance, would not—could not protect Connecteds. And that needed to change, because we couldn’t keep doing this. We couldn’t keep letting Connecteds die—Connecteds or the people dedicated to helping them. But until I could fix the Council…I wanted backup. The kind of backup that would take no prisoners.
I threw my energy out, the same energy that had been heard and responded to by the strongest of all Connecteds in the world, when I demanded that the mightiest must gather at the Council’s base. But this time, I reached out to only one Connected. One.
A Connected I didn’t even like all that much, one I’d actively opposed in almost every way…but one I trusted to fight. To stand when all others would fail.
I knew the moment my call was heard.
Heard, and answered, a flicker of power arcing across the sky.
A new sense of certainty filled me as the woman who had to be Atria entered Henri’s office, dressed in a tailored pantsuit and high heels. So far, so good. The Sentinel Group’s volunteer didn’t look like she’d thrown a punch in her entire life, so I couldn’t imagine her survival skills were all that impressive.
The woman turned to me, and I reached out to her instantly with my mind—then I stopped.
“She’s a robot.”
“Not a robot, not entirely,” Henri said, but his eyes were alight with excitement. “Perhaps…look a little closer.”
I did so, and something deep inside me curled up into a tight little knot. The woman across from me had had her brain fused with circuits, her skeleton and nervous system reinforced, her eyes augmented, even her teeth hardened. She’d also been born Connected.
That Connected energy within Atria was so augmented now, however, that she in no way resembled the woman she’d been before. Her energy didn’t ebb and flow in rhythmic patterns along her nervous system, it jumped and gyrated, billowing out, then screaming back, for all she remained perfectly placid, her face a mask of plastic surgery that I imagined had more to do with the implants of self-healing skin than any attempt at cosmetic beauty. Which wasn’t to say she hadn’t always been beautiful. But now she was so much more.
Worse, though I couldn’t read her mind, I could sense something disturbing in her energy. Pride. Henri at least wasn’t lying about one thing. For whatever reason, Atria had wanted this experiment to be performed on her body, had welcomed this augmentation.
“I regret this is an insufficient test in some ways.” Henri’s voice played over my own outrage. “The technology and surgical requirements have been in place for some number of years, with new advances merely adding to the efficacy of the procedure, not dramatically changing it. But we had not begun human trials until a short while ago—again, all totally voluntary. That said, we were shocked and intrigued by the early results…though the side effects were not inconsiderable. Before Atria, Connecteds who were augmented to such a high level could not seem to maintain control on their sanity for long.”
“You think?” I muttered, my third eye tracking Atria’s skittering electrical pulses.
“That is something we are working on with therapists and counselors, if the research holds that this is the direction worth pursuing,” Henri continued. “I was inclined to think it wasn’t, frankly. Because beyond the mental resistance we were encountering, I believed that an augmented neurosensitive human would always be inferior to an augmented neurotypical human, simply because of the diminished absolute control a neurosensitive human exerted on their brain. However, then there was Atria.”
There was no denying the pride in his voice, a pride the woman in front of me—robot in front of me—seemed to acknowledge, her circuits glowing more brightly. “At that point, it came down to a question of nature versus nurture: Could an average neurosensitive augmented with our assistance defeat one of the strongest nonaugmented neurosensitive mortals in the world?”
“That’s a stupid question, Henri. I’ve got no interest in playing American gladiator here for you to get your rocks off.” As I spoke, my gaze never left the woman beyond me. Her energy was so chaotic, it was almost impossible to see the human that lay beneath the hyperkinetic connections. Where Armaeus’s labyrinth of connections were unnerving, especially when he’d been at his strongest, they’d at least made sense. There was an innate flow that worked in harmony with his system. But this woman… “She’s dying even as she’s standing there.”
“Aren’t we all, Madame Wilde? Aren’t we all,” Henri said. Meanwhile, Atria fixed me with a haughty eyeball that rotated several whirring clicks. “But I’m afraid in this case, you have no choice. Atria has been fully trained, fully programmed, and fully briefed on what will happen if she wins or loses. You can trust her to be sufficiently motivated.”
An image appeared to my mind then, not one I’d put there. An image of the woman opposite me without the chaotic energy, without the implants. Her hair was blonde, her eyes the color of spring, her smile soft and filled with wonder, like a child on her first sunny day.
So. Maybe Atria had agreed to all this augmentation, maybe not. Either way, it looked like she wanted a do-over on that decision.
My heart twisted with revulsion and remorse. If Atria thought Henri and the gang would return her to her former self after this little test, she was delusional as well as doomed. But I carefully shielded my mind from any return imagery.
Without further warning, Henri spoke again, his words barely more than a sigh.
“You may begin.”
Someone started shouting, and there was the flash and shove of metal as the room was suddenly cleared behind me, but I shut all that out. My entire focus was on Atria. She lifted her hands slightly in the same gesture I used to bring my own fireball to life, but in her hands, fire did not coalesce, exactly, but fell and slithered across the floor, catching everything ablaze in its wake. I was good with that. I’d had more than enough experience with fire.
More doors slammed shut, muffling a startled shout, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Atria,” I said. “I know you’re not here of your own free will, no matter if you think you are. I can help you, but not here, not if you attack.”
As I spoke, I reached up mentally to track the impact of my words in Atria’s mind. I could not read her thoughts, not without her pushing them toward me, but I could read her energy signature. It didn’t shift or even wobble as a result of my words. She either couldn’t hear me, or she didn’t care.
Instead, she attacked.
Rather than simply hurl fire in my direction, Atria leapt toward me. Her legs were apparently supercharged, and she hurdled the stuffed chair to crash bodily into me. I thought I heard something behind me, a sharp cry, but I could only focus on Atria pummeling the crap out of me with her robotic fists. I had no idea how much of her body was her own and how much had been replaced with Wolverine prosthetics, but as the battle wore on, it seemed like the odds were not in my favor. After a particularly vicious hit to my head, my brain rattled hard enough that I definitely heard something. The sound of screaming. My own voice screaming. At me.
“Will you fucking suck it up and kill her already?”
Of course, it was Sariah standing there, still inside the room, no doubt having eluded everyone’s attempt to herd her out the door. And she kept going. “Because she’s going to kill you, Sara. I don't have much of a grasp yet on whatever abilities Dr. Sells th
inks you gave to me, but I’m definitely reading this chick's mind loud and clear. She doesn’t have a choice, and neither do you. You don’t have a choice!”
In that moment, I looked up to the screen that Ventre had flipped on, which was now rolling crazily from image to image, something clearly wrong with the console. First there was the aerial view of the safe house, then there was a shot of the interior, children huddled in rows, seated on the floor, their heads on their knees, their arms wrapped tight around their legs. My heart surged up in my throat, and fire billowed out from my hands.
All those terrified children… All those—
The image changed anew.
No.
My voice was little more than an anguished gasp as I saw in my mind’s eye not what was truly on the screen, but the stone-faced killer who was my nearest equal on this earth. I didn’t call out to Gamon again, however, didn’t feel her touch in my mind. Instead, the scene on the screen flashed again, inexorably, as Atria grabbed my upper shoulder, her robotic fingers digging deep. Not just fingers, but thick razor-sharp needles, each of them plunging down through skin and muscle and sinew and bone, each of them releasing some different form of toxin.
You have no choice!
Pain radiated through me in all directions, lifting me off my feet. I twisted together with Atria in a macabre dance, my gaze raking over the screen as the scene changed yet again, once again to the visual that turned my guts to ash, my very body turning against itself as the effects of the poison took hold.
I swiveled my head back to stare at Atria, and time seemed to slow down…slow down and stop.
This was it. The pinnacle of power between made and born, machine and man. Regardless of what she wanted, what she’d thought she was signing up for, Atria’s psychic abilities had been reduced to a machine language fueling a construct of might and rage, her mind consumed with destruction. With destruction, there was no choice.
My psychic abilities, however, were a tangle of messy magic, with a desperate yearning toward creation.
