He looks alarmed at that. “What’d she say?”
I shake my head. “I thought she would hate me, for sure, but instead… it moved her.”
Cyrus nods. “Your art seems to do that. The good stuff, anyway.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Just being honest, bro. So… you’re still on her good side?” He seems keenly interested, like keeping a relationship going with Kamali is key to everything. And he’s probably not wrong about that.
“Yeah. I think so.” It flashes me back to her studio, when we were inches away, and I thought, maybe… although after seeing the painting, I’m not sure if she would be more or less willing to let me find out how soft her lips are. At least she still wants to help with the fugue. It’s in exchange for helping her cause, but that doesn’t bother me. “She’s coming back for one more session, after the lock down lifts.”
“Good.” Something on the screen catches his eyes. He pulls up the holo controls and quickly turns up the volume. “Looks like our girl is up.”
On the screen, a camera bot zooms in on Kamali. She walks that purposeful dancer-walk across the stage and takes a pose in the center. I’m already holding my breath. Her fingers are splayed, reaching toward the brilliant blue sky overhead. The flames of her costume lick up her hands and down her legs to the blood-red slippers she was wearing yesterday. That gives me a twinge of guilt, but it dissipates as soon as she starts to move.
It’s the living-flame dance, the one that makes her more spirit than dancer, and I can’t help thinking about what she said. When my body can no longer dance, my soul still will. Only I’m watching her soul dance, now, on the screen. And so are five billion ascenders—a few in the stands, most over the net like I am. We’re watching a living spirit leap and arch, gather up the air and toss it overhead like the elements are hers to command. It’s the ascender within that Marcus spoke of, only Kamali would call it her soul. Whatever it is, she’s baring it for everyone to see. The dance goes on for breathless minutes, and I know, without any doubt, that she’ll win. Any sentient being watching her would recognize it, even if we might argue about what exactly it is.
She ends with her back arched in a pose that defies gravity for a long second.
Then the stadium erupts in applause so thunderous that Cyrus drags up the controls to turn down the volume. Kamali holds for a moment longer, then relaxes. I expect her to walk off stage, but she doesn’t. She simply stands before them, eyes closed. A cam bot zooms in on her face. The beads of sweat around the edges of her tightly drawn hair sparkle in the sun, like a cut-diamond crown. She slowly opens her eyes and raises her arms. The noise of the crowd swells.
She gives them a very small, almost secret smile, as if she’s holding it back. Then she lowers her arms and turns to glide off stage.
Cyrus mutes the noise altogether. “Man, she’s good,” he breathes out.
I don’t say anything. Her last dance. I could see it in her eyes, and my heart aches with how beautiful and final it was. I breathe again, almost gasping, as if I was the one giving the performance of my life.
Soon enough.
“Do you think I can go see her?” I ask Cyrus, my gaze still glued to the screen. There’s no sound, but the ascenders in their rental bodies are still on their feet.
“I doubt it. They have to get through storia first before they’ll lift the lockdown. Maybe after that.”
I nod then look at him. “It kills me, what they’re doing.”
“What who’s doing?” he asks with a frown.
“Kamali. And Delphina.”
“You mean the resistance?”
“Not so much that in particular, as what she’s giving up.” I look back to the screen. “I can’t understand it.”
“Yeah, well not everyone has the choice, Eli.”
His dark tone draws me back, surprises me, but it only takes me a second to figure it out. Of course. Even if I win, I’m only taking my family with me when I ascend. Which means just my mom. My dad, too, if my mom would simply say who he was. Although now that I think about it, probably not, since he’s likely a dissenter. “I wish you were actually my brother, Cy, not just a pain in my ass.”
He waves it off. “I know. You’d take me, if you could.” He laughs. “Although count yourself lucky with that. I’d just be a pain in your ass forever.” Then the dark look returns. “Besides, I’d be nothing but trouble. I don’t much like the shiny pants.”
“I didn’t notice.” My smirk pulls a snort out of him.
He pulls up the controls again. “Look. It must be time for storia. Delphina’s up first.”
He turns up the sound just as a hush falls over the ascender crowd. Delphina’s wearing the same outfit, the only one I’ve ever seen her in: the ravaged yellow uniform with the black charcoaling. She’s added a few more rips across the midsection, and the sleeves are pulled up to the top of her shoulders. The closeups from the cam bots reveal the muscles in her arms flexing as she clenches and releases her fists a few times. I know she’s short, but she looks even smaller on the stage, her diminutive height accentuated by the briefness of her outfit. Her black boots look like they weigh as much as she does, and she stands in a military-ease position, feet spread wide.
“I am a work of art,” she starts, and I hunch forward, elbows on knees. Delphina holds her hand out like she’s carrying the weight of a globe in it. “You treasure me, hold me in the palm of your hand, like a creation too precious to live. Too precious to breathe. Too precious to let go free. I am a work of art.”
She raises both hands now, moving them to accentuate her words, as if she’s carving them into the air. “You peer inside our souls. You seek, but you cannot find. You crave, but you cannot be satisfied. Because that thing which you seek, that precious spark which you’ve lost, that treasured cargo you hold in your hands, it does not belong to you.”
“I am a work of art.”
She takes a breath. “Fashioned and formed in my mother’s womb by the random chance of DNA, the twisting strands of molecules and faith, and in that moment, with that spark, I was made. In that brilliant instant, born of love and animal lust, I stole fire from the gods and brought it down into two twirling pieces of flesh. In every cell divided, every muscle grown, every moment of screaming birth and blood and scraped knees kissed by tender lips, I was made. In each mortal moment, I am carved by grime, soaked in sweat, baptized by my hairy, ape-descended humanity. I am the full expression of that stolen fire, that spark, rendered into flesh.”
“I am a work of art.”
She flings her arms wide. “I live the essence of living, while you spin your simulations of life in machines wrought by genius and lust. Your lies become truth, your way becomes lost, your frittered souls slip like sand through your fingers. Billions lost to the winds of time. You hold out the golden chalice, but it is empty. A rest stop on the way to nowhere. You sit on a bench, like a boy waiting in the rain for his lover to return, not knowing she’s already been crushed by the gears of your ambition.”
“I am a work of art. I am not the leftovers of humanity. I am not a vestigial organ floating inside the belly of Orion. I am meat and blood and electricity, but we… we, the collective breath of the human race, are more than all of that combined. We speak the language of the soul because encoded deep in that spark, we know: we are created. And someday the Creator will come back and say, My children, what have you done? And I will say, I am still here, flesh and bone and aching heart. Still sweating and fighting and making sweet love. And in that transcendent act, I have become the creator, making again in the Creator’s image, reaching for a kind of perfection not free of mistakes but forged into realness through them.”
“I am a work of art.” Her hands float in benediction over the crowd of ascenders. “You cannot buy me at any price, for I am not yours to own, yours to covet, yours to take into the vast and teeming multitudes of the lost. I am not your work of art. I am not your treasure. I am the work of the Artist,
and when my body has fallen away, and the Artist asks of me, My child, what have you done?, my answer will be: I am Your work of art.” She bows her head. “Still.”
The last word is soft, a hush in her voice, but it somehow manages to ring and ring over the silent stadium.
“Holy crap,” Cyrus says in a whisper.
The hush draws out, the crowd motionless and staring. I’m amazed that Delphina’s still standing. I expect the police bots to swarm the stage any second and take her down, crush her under their metallic feet, but it doesn’t happen. The cam bots follow her as she exits the stage.
The only thing I can think is: they’re not going to make it to the awards ceremony. Delphina’s already signed their exile order.
Or maybe even worse.
Agitation is a live wire inside me.
I’m pacing the length of our apartment, pounding my fists together in a beat that matches my steps, just to keep them from beating on something else.
“They’ve been done for an hour,” I say to Cyrus, who’s sitting on his bed, shoes hanging off the edge, looking relaxed, but I know he’s not.
“Storia’s only been done for ten minutes,” he says. “They’ll lift the lockdown soon enough.”
“What do you think they’ll do to them?” I can’t imagine Delphina walked off that stage into anything other than the waiting arms of a police bot. Which is bad enough, but what I really want to know, need to know, is if they’ve tied her to Kamali.
The muscles in Cyrus’s jaw twitch, but he’s still playing it cool. “They’re not going to do anything. Yet.”
I give him a sideways look. “Don’t tell me you’re not worried about Basha. She’s as deep in this as any of them.”
He lets out a slow breath. “True. But I don’t think they’ll make a move against the agonites until the games are over.”
“Why not?” Truth is, I don’t know what to think. Open rebellion, like Delphina’s performance, is completely off the map of my personal experience.
He shrugs, but it’s tense. “Looks bad? Throws the game? Good luck figuring out how the shiny pants think. But they sure didn’t spoil the show by hauling her off in chains, did they?”
I throw a hand out, gesturing to the now-blank screen. “She completely smacked down everything they believe.”
“Maybe it’s like Marcus said: the more radical your art, the better.”
I shake my head, pounding a fist into my open palm again and thinking it through. “Yeah. Maybe. They wouldn’t want anyone to think one storia performance means all that much.”
“Exactly.” Cyrus snorts. “They’re above all that, right? We’re just here for their amusement.”
I hope that’s true.
A soft click comes from the door to our apartment. I hurry over, and sure enough, my imprint is working again, opening the door. I stand on the threshold.
“I’m going to find Kamali,” I say.
“I’m coming with you.” Cyrus leaps off the bed, all feigned relaxation gone. As he passes me, heading out into the hallway, he adds, “Let’s just steer clear of Delphina, shall we?”
I follow Cyrus down the hall. “You know where their apartment is?”
He gives me a look like I’m an idiot. Besides, I’m sure he’s been there with Basha by now. As we’re taking long, hurried strides down the immaculate corridors of Agon, I figure we have a minute for me to harass him. “So, you and Basha…”
“Shut it.”
I can’t help chuckling. “No, seriously, what is it? The bubbly personality? The gossip? The fact that her first act was to douse you in orange juice?”
“You really need to just shut up.”
I grin, but it fades as Cyrus pulls up short at the door of an apartment. His clenched fist bangs on the door. I count the heartbeats until it finally slides open. Kamali and Basha both crowd the doorway.
“You guys okay?” I blurt out as soon as I see them. That’s when I realize they’re both smiling, not looking anywhere near as stressed as me and Cyrus.
“Did you see it?” Kamali grabs hold of my arm and pulls me inside. Cyrus lingers behind, but only because Basha is holding hands with him at the door.
“Of course,” I say to Kamali. “You were amazing.”
“I meant Delphina’s performance.” Her eyes are sparkling. She gives me a small smile. “But thank you.”
I glance around the small apartment, a duplicate of mine and Cyrus’s. There’s no Delphina present. I look back to Kamali’s expectant gaze. “You’re going to take the gold for sure.”
The light in her eyes dims a little, probably because I’m dodging talk about Delphina. Cyrus and Basha are out in the hallway now, having an animated, low volume conversation that I don’t think we’re supposed to overhear. I tug gently on Kamali’s arm to bring her deeper into the apartment, near the screen, which is muted but replaying the competitions in a runup to the medal announcements.
I tilt my head to the distant Cyrus and Basha. “He was a little concerned about her.” I hope that’s not too obvious.
Kamali smiles, but it’s tight. “There’s no need to worry. We all know what we signed up for.”
That just makes me frown. “Are you sure? I mean, maybe they don’t know you’re involved yet, but at the awards ceremony, if you go through with this—”
“What can they do, Eli?” It’s a challenge.
I can think of all kinds of things they can do, but I don’t want to give voice to them. “You have to know this is dangerous. Once you’re not a legacy anymore, they could do anything.”
“Exile is a given,” she says, her dark eyes growing hard. “Imprisonment? Torture? They might. There hasn’t been much of that in the past, but then we haven’t been much of a threat before.”
I glance at the open door, nervous. Our rooms are supposed to be secure, per Agon regulations, but the hallway? It makes me drop my voice. “How does turning down the medal make you a threat?”
“It doesn’t.” Her eyes glitter again. “Unless it does.”
She’s talking in riddles, and I want to ask what she means, but at that moment, Cyrus and Basha stride back into the room and shut the door. Kamali’s gaze is drawn to the screen over my shoulder, and she quickly turns up the volume.
There’s a short moment where the announcer flips through snippets of each performance, highlighting a key moment. I’ve watched these before, in previous Olympics on the legacy net. We always get to see the competitions, the flurry of celebration, then the final tallies. Everything is done by a straight vote that comes in real-time. Ascenders don’t sleep normally, but everyone on the planet, even legacies—especially legacies—are awake for this.
The drama competitors’ faces are displayed in a grid, all thirty or so of them. This is the final tally, and all four of us are transfixed. One by one, the faces fade, disappearing in the order from least votes to most. As they fade away, the images grow larger, reshuffle, then more are lost. It’s a dance of sorts, where the competitors slowly winnow down, until only one will remain. I hold my breath until we’re down to the final two, Kamali and a boy I don’t recognize.
The boy fades.
A grin breaks across my face, and I turn to Kamali. Her eyes are wide, staring at her image grown large on the screen.
“You did it,” I say, trying to draw her away from it.
She turns and throws her arms around me. It’s the second time she’s hugged me, and I’m even more surprised than the first. But this time, it doesn’t take me as long to figure out to hold her back. She’s as tall as I am, and her frame is like silken steel pressed up against me. My hands are firm on her back, and I feel her tremble just before she releases me.
I think she must be in shock, but when she pulls back, that’s not what I see on her face. She’s shaking and blinking. I hold her shoulders and don’t let her get too far away.
“Are you okay?” I ask, peering into her eyes.
She nods, but turns away, spinning out of my arms
. Basha grabs her in a fierce hug, pulling her down to her much shorter height and whispering softly to her. “It’s okay, Kam. You can do this. You’re going to be okay.”
I realize, belatedly, that Kamali’s afraid. It chills me to the core.
We’re drawn back to the screen by a new grid of faces, this time for storia. There are even more competitors here, maybe forty. I scan for Delphina’s face, not finding her before the faces start to fade. I think I may have missed her, but a glance at Kamali and Basha shows them still intent on the screen. As the competitors quickly shrink in number, I find her, defiant in her ragged yellow-and-black uniform. She survives the next several rounds, until finally, before my unbelieving eyes, she takes the gold.
This time the girls shriek, making me jerk in surprise. They throw up their hands, then hug each other, then shriek again. I stare in amazement at the screen. She dressed them down, told the ascenders off in the most powerful way, and they chose her to be one of them? Even if they found her art disturbing, there’s something not right about that.
I catch Cyrus’s eye. He looks just as concerned as I feel.
But the girls are ecstatic. Apparently, things are going just as they planned. But if Delphina isn’t already hauled off and exiled to the deserts outside LA, she soon will be—with Kamali alongside her. If they’re lucky, the ascenders will wait until after the awards ceremony.
Kamali grabs my attention with a hand on my shoulder. “We have to find Delphina and celebrate.”
“I don’t know…”
Cyrus jumps in. “Eli needs to practice. He still has a competition to win.”
At that, the joy drops off Kamali’s face, and she instantly becomes deadly serious. “Of course.” She gives me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I got carried away. We should go back to your studio. Unless…” She glances at Basha and Cyrus, like she’s not sure who’s in on the secret and who’s not. “Unless you’ve already solved your problem?” she asks me.
“No. I could still use your help.”
The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) (Singularity Series) Page 20
