“You were planning on killing the ascenders at the games?” I draw back from her again, my mind reeling with all she’s saying.
“There would be no deaths,” Leopold says. “At most, we would have destroyed their bodyforms—a violent, and perhaps painful, disruption, but ultimately a small inconvenience in their perpetual lives. They would download their backups to new bodyforms within days, if not hours. But it would have been an elegant and pointed demonstration.”
“It would have clearly said, Your games are unworthy of us.” Mrs. Astoria’s shoulders are thrown back, and I can easily picture Delphina on the stage with the same look of disdain for the ascenders just before her militia blew them to bits. “And it would show the legacy humans watching that we exist. That we are strong. And that they can join us and do more than scrape out a living in dissenter camps run by the backward and the brutal.”
“And it would have put pressure on the ascenders who have thought The Question long settled,” Leopold added. “Unfortunately, someone found out what the girls were planning. The last transmission from their sponsor indicated the police bots simply seized them in their apartments.”
“Last transmission?” I grimace. Alexis, Kamali’s sponsor, must have been involved in the resistance after all.
“Their sponsor wisely made sure her bodyform was destroyed before she could be captured,” Leopold said. “I’ve confirmed her backup has been activated. The rest of our operation should not have been compromised, but the girls remain in custody.”
Mrs. Astoria takes a step toward me. “Someone turned them in. Perhaps someone who knew their intentions, but did not agree with them.” Her small stature doesn’t keep me from being intimidated by her stern look.
“Wait… you think I told them? I wouldn’t do that! I would never do that to Kamali. She was helping me.” Mrs. Astoria looks unconvinced, so I quickly sweep my hand to the prone Cyrus lying on the couch. “My best friend is practically in love with Basha. And Delphina helped me already, like I said before. I swear, I’m not the one who turned them in.”
“It’s all right, Eli,” Leopold says. “We believe you. It was likely Marcus, or someone else who caught wind of their plans. Regardless, their capture has disrupted our plan.”
“Once we realized they had been detained,” Mrs. Astoria says, “our plans shifted to breaking into Agon to free them. But we were unsuccessful in locating them.”
“And then you complicated matters further,” Leopold says. “Lenora alerted us that Marcus was likely on his way to seize you—”
A pinging sound interrupts him. Leopold and Mrs. Astoria both frown, look at each other, and then to me. I realize with a start that the sound is coming from my pocket. I reach in and pull out the holo phone.
Leopold’s eyes go wide, and he shoots a look to Mrs. Astoria.
“He has been tracked,” she hisses. “I told you this was a mistake!” She wheels around and charges off to her fellow militia in the hallway, spewing French.
“It’s Marcus’s phone.” I hold the small, silver square out to Leopold. It’s still pinging.
His face settles into a scowl. “I guess you had better answer it, then.”
The apartment is in chaos.
Mrs. Astoria is shouting orders in French to the militia who are scrambling around to gather items from the apartment and rushing back out to the rooftop garage. Cyrus and the med bot are still at the couch, but the medic has disappeared.
Marcus’s phone is still pinging in my hand while Leopold looks on.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask, glancing at the decampment in progress and thinking we should be moving as well.
“Marcus is no doubt on his way here,” Leopold says. “At the minimum, he has sent a squad of police bots. I would like to know what he has in mind before they arrive.” Leopold steps back, like he wants to be out of range of the holo capture.
I tap the button-sized phone, and a holo image of a head appears above it. I don’t recognize it. In fact, it looks… blank. Like the face is bland somehow.
“Eli,” the head says in a surprisingly even, calm voice. “Whatever you think you’re doing here, you need to stop and consider the consequences.”
“Um, who are you, exactly?” I ask.
The bland face shifts into a half-frown, but it’s off somehow. Like that’s all the bodyform is capable of producing. I realize belatedly that it must be a rental. “It’s me, Marcus. Your little friends have inconveniently disabled my normal bodyform.”
“Yeah, well, I still have a bruised shoulder from your last bodyform.” I glance at the final militia members clearing out of the apartment. “Nice chatting with you, but I’ve got a ride to catch.” I make a move to tap off the phone.
“Eli, wait!” Marcus’s voice strains against the limits of his generic bodyform. “You can run off with your resistance friends, but the police will find them eventually. And I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfire when that happens. That’s not your fight, Eli. We both know that. And all I want is what I’ve said all along: to help you ascend. That’s still possible. We can fix this with the Olympic committee. Just come back in, and I’ll help you.”
“Funny, I don’t remember you offering to help while you were attacking Lenora.”
He grimaces, as much as his face will allow it. “Lenora caught me by surprise. And I only stunned her. Her bodyform’s intact, and she’s fine.”
I hesitate and bite my lip. “I want to talk to her.” I have no idea if Marcus is telling the truth, but Lenora’s the only person who knows where she stashed my mom.
“I can arrange that for you, no problem. Just come back to Agon.”
A black figure runs into the room from the direction of the garage. His face shield is back on, but I can tell it’s the medic. “Sir, your friend insists we can’t leave without you.”
Leopold gives me the sign that it’s time to go.
“I’ll get back to you,” I say to Marcus, then tap the phone off and toss it to the floor. Leopold is gone with ascender speed before I can look up. The medic and I dash across the apartment and out into the garage. It’s empty of vehicles and personnel. The last transport waits for us, hovering in the spotlight of California sunshine beaming through the rooftop entrance. We sprint across the concrete and climb inside. Our feet are barely past the entrance before it materializes, and the transport shoots into the air.
I crawl across the floor, keeping low as the ship bucks and rocks. I don’t know if we’re dipping and weaving in pursuit of something or being pursued. Cyrus is laid out on the floor. His eyes are open, but they’re glazed, staring at the ceiling. He looks like he might be sick again. The medic is kneeling next to him, one hand on his chest to keep him from sliding. I work my way over and reach past Cyrus’s pale face to grip his uniform at the shoulder, holding him steady.
The medic has his face shield off again. His unusually green eyes are shooting looks to the pilot’s cabin, where I assume Leopold must be. Otherwise, there’s just the three of us in the transport hold.
“You can go,” I say to the medic. “I’ve got him.” He nods, but before he can leave, I add, “Hey. What’s your name?”
He stops and twists back. “Tristan. Sir.”
I hold out my hand. “I’m Eli.”
He gives me a small, amused smile, but shakes my hand with a firm, black-gloved grip. “I know, sir.”
A lurch in the transport breaks our handshake and wipes away the awkwardness. “Thanks for taking care of Cyrus.”
He gives me a nod, then turns away and fights the rocking of the ship to disappear into the pilot’s cabin.
I shift around so I can face Cyrus. “How’re you doing?”
His gaze doesn’t waver from some point on the ceiling. “I’ll let you know if I’m about to spew again. So you can take cover.”
I smile. The rocking of the ship suddenly ceases. I think for a second that we’ve landed, but the humming of the dull black flooring u
nder my hand seems to indicate otherwise. Cyrus’s face relaxes a little, so I’m glad for the reprieve, however long it lasts. I don’t know where we’re going, but I hope we get there soon.
I loosen my hard grip on Cyrus’s shoulder, but keep my hand close, in case we start rocking again.
“I got a call from Marcus,” I say to him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No,” I say with a sigh. “He wants me to come back to Agon.”
“What?” Cyrus struggles to lift up from the floor.
I shove him back down. “Stay down!” I command. “That knock on the head’s making you stupid.”
His shoulders ease back into the floor. “Stupid is you taking a call from Marcus. I’m out of it for one minute—”
“He’s got Lenora.”
Cyrus tilts his head to scowl at me, cringes, then goes back to staring at the ceiling. “She got you disqualified for the gold. What is it going to take for you to get over your crush—”
“Cy, she knows where my mom is.”
He closes his eyes. “Right. I keep forgetting that part.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, hand back on his shoulder. “You need to rest.”
He opens his eyes again. “Eli. You can’t believe anything she says. Or Marcus either. None of the shiny pants give a crap about us.”
“We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Leopold,” I point out.
“Yeah… well… give me time. I haven’t figured out his angle yet.”
“I think I know. At least part of it.” I drop my voice, even though there’s no one to overhear. Mostly the turmoil inside me is making my voice weak. “They did something to me, Cy.”
He squints and turns his head to look at me. “What, just now? While I was out?”
“No.” I swallow. “Before. I think Lenora was telling the truth when she said they… tampered with me. There’s something wrong with me.”
“Man, don’t do that to yourself.”
“C’mon, Cy, think about it.” Now that the words are out of my head, they seem to gush even faster. “The fugue? The hallucinations? That’s not normal. And the art I can make while in the fugue… it’s like they’ve implanted some hidden ascender parts inside me. Inside my head.”
“Or you could just be a whacked out creative. It’s not like the fugue is the only way you’re messed up in the head.” He tries to smirk, but it dies as he winces and returns to staring at the ceiling. It’s a nice try, but I know it doesn’t get at the truth.
And the truth is settling into me like a dripping black ooze invading my body. “I’m not entirely human, Cy.” I whisper it, and the ooze fills up my lungs, choking me. “What does that make me?”
“An idiot.” But he’s frowning when he twists his head to look at me. “Don’t believe it, Eli. They’re messing with you.”
“That’s just it. Even if I don’t believe it… they do.” I swallow down the choking feeling. “They may be totally wrong about the result, but they wouldn’t be saying any of it, if they hadn’t done something to me.”
Cy grimaces but doesn’t say anything.
“I need to go back.” I say it quietly, hoping Cyrus will talk me out of it.
“No you don’t. We’ll figure this out some other way. Going back to Marcus will just get you killed.”
“He’s right about that.” Leopold’s smooth voice makes me jump. I twist to see him standing just behind me. “I don’t know how much Lenora told you, but Marcus never intended to let you live.”
That doesn’t add up for me. “He could have killed me at any time.”
“I’m not saying I entirely understand his plans,” Leopold says. “But I assure you he is not on your side.”
I know he’s right, but I also know that whatever the ascenders have done to me, it’s as important to Marcus as it is to Lenora. And Leopold. I’m about to argue further, when Tristan, the medic, pops his head out from the cockpit.
“Grab hold of something,” he says. “We’re almost there.” He disappears back inside.
I have just enough time to grab hold of the wall netting with one hand and a fistful of Cyrus’s uniform with the other. The bottom drops out of my stomach again. The ship rocks and lurches, but in short order we’ve landed. When the door winks out of existence, I see we’ve landed outside this time. A makeshift camp of a half-dozen nomad tents sits twenty feet away in the middle of a clearing. On two sides are clumps of purple-flowering scrub brush, the kind that survives in the desert mountains of California, and straight ahead a rock wall rises as far as I can see from inside the transport. I’m guessing we’re outside the city, but not far, just to the ring of low-lying mountains that surround the LA basin.
Tristan rushes out of the cockpit, tells us to sit tight, and leaps down to the hard-packed dirt of the encampment. He runs straight for the rock wall… and disappears through it.
I throw a puzzled look to Leopold.
He arches an eyebrow. “I’m not the only ascender who supplies aid to the resistance, Eli. Without our cloaking shields, weapons, and transports, I’m afraid your dissenter friends wouldn’t stand much of a chance of eluding detection.”
Which makes all kinds of sense. I figured the transport must be ascender tech—even back in Seattle, all the transit systems were—but this is something way beyond anything I’ve seen. “So, you give military-grade ascender tech to the resistance, but legacies are banned from using even the simplest gen tech?” I don’t bother trying to hide my anger about that.
“If we distributed technology to every human who needed it, our aid wouldn’t stay secret for long, now would it?” But he has the decency to look less than happy about that. “Our goal is not to supply you with technology, but to liberate you from oppression.”
I frown, thinking that one would serve the other. But I know that’s not what Leopold’s after, and I think Cyrus is probably right: the ascenders really don’t give a crap about us. They’re all in it for their own agendas. Leopold’s agenda just happens to be served by supplying the dissenters with weapons and secrecy.
And using ascender tech to experiment on human babies.
Which springs a thought loose in my head. “Am I the only one?” I ask Leopold.
He’s watching the fake-rock cloaking shield, waiting for something. “Only one what?” he asks distractedly.
“The only human whose DNA you’ve tampered with.”
He turns sharply to face me, and I give him a cold stare. “You would have to ask Lenora about that.”
I’m sure he knows, but he doesn’t want to tell me. “All the more reason to go back to Agon and pay Marcus a visit.”
A furrow carves in Leopold’s forehead, but then he’s distracted by Tristan reappearing through the rock wall, pulling a maglev stretcher behind him. When he arrives at the transport, he slides it in, adjusting it to sit low to the floor. Between the two of us, and with only mild protests from Cyrus, we haul him into it. I walk the stretcher back with Tristan, hesitating only slightly when we reach the rock wall. It looks completely solid, even up close, but I know it’s some kind of projection. I’m a little relieved when the foot of the stretcher breaks through before I plunge face-first into the resistance’s mountain hideout.
The dissenters’ hideout is part cave, part high-tech hanger.
The cavernous space seems carved from the granite of the mountain, and the security shield certainly makes it look like rock from the outside. But the shield is one-way, letting the brilliant California sunshine flow in. The cave is big enough to act as a hanger, housing several transports, racks of bunks, stacks of shipping containers, and several silver pod-like structures. They remind me of Leopold’s decon unit only they’re not floating and they’re twice the size of my apartment at Agon.
Leopold breaks away from us to stride over to one of the pods, but Tristan directs the stretcher to a different one. Inside is a full med suite. We transfer Cyrus to one of the three beds, and a med bot immed
iately takes over, putting him through a battery of scans and tests. Cyrus grumbles but quickly closes his eyes and submits. Tristan and I stand back and let it do its job.
“He’ll get a full work-up now,” Tristan says, “but I’m pretty sure all he needs is rest. His concussion doesn’t seem too severe.”
“Looks like you’ve got top flight med care here.” I scan the other medical equipment crammed against the walls and on shelves. I wonder how much of it is illegal, then I realize it all is: no ascenders should be giving the dissenters anything. Which means they could have gen tech as well.
Tristan gestures to the other two beds, which are empty. “We expected to have more casualties. Assuming we’d carried through with the mission.”
I frown. “You mean blowing up the stadium?”
Tristan grins. “We don’t have quite the munitions for that. But the stadium’s over fifty years old, and we have the original plans. There are some structural weaknesses that ascender buildings today don’t have. A few well-placed bombs would have brought down a good section of it.”
“But you thought people might get hurt? Meaning resistance fighters.”
Tristan’s grin is replaced by that sober, seen-too-much look from before. “There’s always that risk.” He pauses. “I’m glad we were able to extricate you, sir. Hopefully, the commander will have a new plan to rescue the other agonites as well.”
Tristan must think I was fully on board with Kamali and Delphina’s plans. “I hope so, too.”
He nods like this is a given.
“And,” I say with a pained voice, “you really don’t have to call me sir. I mean, I’m younger than you are, and I just got here.”
“Yes, sir.” He grins. “Should I call you Eli, sir?”
I just shake my head and swing my attention back to checking on Cyrus. “Hey, lazy. How’re you doing over there?”
I frown when Cyrus doesn’t answer, but then his snore rumbles across the pod.
“The commander wants me to bring you to the command center as soon as you’re done here,” Tristan says. “Are you ready, sir?”
The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) (Singularity Series) Page 26
