by J. A. Huss
“Now, you have your true SEAR, the one that’s for ending Lucan, happy?”
I look down at my SEAR, power it down, remove the other knife, and replace my weapon on the dock. This time my whole body hums with its placement. Was it always like this? Or is it more pronounced since it’s been missing for so long? I hold up the spare SEAR in my hand. “Why do you need this?”
Her expression reads like… indulgence. Like I’m some baby that needs to be cooed to in order to sit still for a shot at the clinic or something. “You will see very soon. But I must say, the forethought that went into securing this weapon, Junco…” She shakes her head a little. “It’s astonishing. And with no training, either. How long ago was this made?”
I blink. And then count. “Five years?”
“I’m stunned! Happy, do not misunderstand, I’m thrilled because I always planned on using Gideon’s knife, but this is even better. You’ve been carrying it, it’s got your imprint on it. It’s… you. And yet benign at the same time. Simply brilliant. Your farsight is spectacular for having zero preparation and training.”
I’m not sure what this means. “I—” I what? I have no explanation for this really. I was so compelled to secure a spare SEAR knife for Gid and I back then, I killed the Peak City mayor in cold blood and never had a fraction of remorse. What must Aren have thought of me that morning? When I came home and told him, so nonchalantly, that I’d just killed a very important politician because I wanted a weapon.
I am truly one very sick bitch.
“Here, take it. I don’t want it.” I step forward and she almost steps back. Almost. But she catches herself at the very last possible moment and holds her ground. Our fingertips brush against each other when she reaches for my spare knife.
There is no spark of connection. No electricity, no warmth. Nothing. Just cold skin against cold skin.
We are both yellow and we are both cold.
When I look up at her face she’s got a wary expression. “What?” I ask.
“You’re ready to finish this?”
“You gonna tell me what my job is?”
“No, you report to Gideon. I’m not to discuss any of it. My role, once you’re removed from here, is complete. I have placed all my pieces on the game board. I have endured thousands of years of punishment on this planet for him. I have completed my mission. I am just a spectator, Junco. I am at the mercy of the winner now, whomever that may be.”
I think about this for a few seconds, not sure if it’s significant, not sure I need to know, not sure I want to know. “OK, then let’s go.”
“One thing,” she says as she places a hand on my shoulder. Once again, her touch is sterile and cold. “You will stay by my side as we engage the pillar and form the Halo and then we will exit together.”
I put on my most serious and solemn look and nod my head. “OK, sure.”
She smiles with satisfaction and then grabs my hands and closes her eyes. So she totally misses the smirk that went with my promise.
I don’t take orders from her.
I don’t take orders from anyone.
I am still Junco.
I am still at war.
And my enemies are everywhere.
Chapter Twenty—ASHUR
The Stag
It’s not human screaming coming from the Stag building, there is that little bit of good news.
But the thing causing all the noise is not anything good. It slams itself into the glass at the far side of a very large room with massively tall ceilings. This place is built like a warehouse. You figure it’s two stories tall from outside, but it’s not. It’s one massive open room. A walled-off glass cage at one end looks an awful lot like the mutant cages we keep on Amelia for the Clutch rejects Gib was making before Junco came.
And I guess that’s what was really going on out here with the mutants. Stag Camp was nothing more than Gib’s lab on Earth, being run by humans.
Tessen walks over to me, more calm than she should be.
I grab her throat and smash her on the ground. “You better start fucking talking, girl. What happened to my warriors?”
“Sir,” she chokes.
“Ashur!” Selia squeals. “Let her up!”
“Selia,” I growl and flash my red eyes at her. “Get the fuck back, right now!”
Yeah, she’s my girlfriend when we’re at home, but I warned her. I’m working, she said she’d take orders, and she better damn well do it. I ease up on Tessen’s throat and she coughs and gasps. “Talk, Tessen. Right now, else you’ll end up just as dead as Cres, Bridge and Tak. We do not take life lightly. When a warrior dies, it’s a blow to the whole army. No warrior is expendable. So if you got my men killed for no good fucking reason, you owe them your life.”
“Yes,” she coughs again. “Yes, sir. Tier, sir, he said to—”
“No, Tessen. Start from the beginning, because I know for a fucking fact Tier wanted this thing dead. So why did he give you that order?”
She swallows hard and whispers, “I asked him to save it, sir.”
I shake my head.
“I threatened to tell Junco if he didn’t, sir.”
I get up and leave her there on the ground and then take my anger to Merkar. “And what’s your fucking excuse, warrior? You’re in command here when Tier and Annun are gone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why is this thing still alive? Why are three of your teammates and four more of my warriors dead?”
Merk lets out a long breath. “Ashur, I’m gonna be honest, OK? Tessen is out of bounds on this. She talked Tier into it. I’m not on board, I’ll kill it right now if you give the order, OK? But Tessen got her words in, she wants Junco to make that decision, and well—fuck. Fuck!” He screams the last part and then takes his anger to Tessen. “Fuck!” He storms up to her and she’s still barely recovered from my assault when he smacks her hard across the face. Her head spins and she falls over a little, but Wyrd is there to catch her. He looks over at me and then gives a little shrug, embarrassed that he helped her.
“Tessen,” Merk growls as he gets right in her face. Her cheek is a bright red color and there’s blood dripping down from her nose. The demon in the glass cage goes wild at the scent of blood and starts flapping its wings against the glass. “Does that fucking thing look like a baby?” He grabs her face and forces her to look at it, then he pushes her over to the cage and shoves her cheek against the glass. “Look. At. It.”
“It’s not ours to kill, Ashur. It’s not ours to kill.”
“It’s a demon, Tessen. Let go of her, Merk,” I say calmly. I’ve got the girl’s attention, there’s no need to batter her. Merk lets go and walks back over to Pike and Wyrd. This is all that’s left of Junco’s team. Tessen is loyal. Very, very, loyal.
“Tess.” I talk in a soft voice now. She turns, her eyes wet with the threat of tears. “We can’t let it live.”
“I know, Ashur. But don’t you think Junco should be the one to give that order? She’s the one who made this… thing. And Tier said save it for her. What’s it gonna hurt to keep it in that cage for a little bit longer? All the hard stuff is done. If we kill it now, then the guys died for no reason. We got it up here from the tunnel, we got it in the cage. Wyrd was just about to administer some gas to make it sleep and morph back into the other form. What good will killing it now do? Junco will be here soon.”
I shake my head at her. “Junco is not coming here, Tessen. She’s supposed to meet Lucan at the Circus in New Peaks when the High Order brings him back. Lucan told me this himself.”
“Well,” she says, averting her eyes to anywhere but on mine. “I hate to break it to you, but Rikan told me something quite different. He’s the one who told me I needed to do this. Rikan, OK? And he’s practically Lucan, so I’m gonna listen.”
“Rikan is gone, Tessen. When did you talk to Rikan?”
“Last year. Before Junco even came back. He took me aside last fucking year and told me to save this bab
y for Junco no matter what. And Rikan has farsight like Lucan, so you know, maybe we should just do what he says.”
Fuck. Why can’t we all be on the same page just once? Just fucking once.
Selia can see my rage inside and she puts her hands up as she approaches, like she’s got to show she’s unarmed in order to touch me. “Ashur, just let Tessen do her job, OK? You need to get to the Pillar with Arel and Ryse anyway. I’ll stay here with these guys, and we’ll all be safe. OK? I’ll stay behind. Just go. Forget about this thing. It’s Junco’s problem now.”
I just stand still, not moving as I input all the consequences of this action into my vision screen. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Ashur,” Selia says, putting her hands on either side of my waist. “Listen, I’ll stay here and do nothing. We’ll gas it into unconsciousness.”
“Selia.” I shake my head. “I don’t want you anywhere near Junco. Not within miles of her. She’s…” Fuck. I want to tell someone so fucking bad. I’m so sick of holding this secret in.
“She’s what, Ashur?”
I push Selia off and turn to Wyrd. “Can you subdue it?”
“Yes, sir. I have a good recipe. It worked to get her over here—”
“Her?”
“It’s female, sir. When subdued, she’s a little girl, a little over a year old, dark hair and green eyes.” He smiles. “She’s actually sorta cute.”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“When subdued, I said. When she’s a demon—“ he stops to shudder.
Yeah, it makes me shudder too. I wave a hand at him. “Subdue it now. I want to see it before I leave.”
“Yes, sir.” Wyrd walks off and enters another room through an open door, which I’m presuming is a lab.
“Why do they have this facility?” I look at Selia for this, since no one else would have any sort of clue.
“Well…” Selia shrugs. “I can only guess based on the history we were taught. They did experiments out here, and I’m guessing this was the place where Junco was born. That cage was made for her before they learned how to subdue her into her human form long term.”
Junco started life as that thing. I look back at the demon and try to see Junco.
I walk over to the glass and the closer I get the more agitated it becomes. The thing hisses at me through the glass, spittle dripping out of the o-shaped mouth that has several rows of tiny sharp teeth. It’s not covered in fur or skin. Both. Half of its body is dark brown fur, half is smooth brown skin. The tail flicks back and forth and then wings unfurl from its back and it flings itself at the window and smashes against it, causing a red gash in its forehead. It does this again and again until I back up.
It was trying to attack me.
It was trying to kill me.
And if that glass wasn’t there, it would’ve. Easy.
The hiss of gas signals Wyrd’s on top of things and we all crowd in and watch as the demon slows down, stops flying and starts walking. Does a little shuffle, then finally collapses into a heap on the ground. Over the course of the next few minutes the demon morphs, right before our eyes, into a small human child. Naked, of course, and with a full head of shoulder-length dark hair. Her little lip is sucked in and out as she breathes even and steady from the drugs.
“Can I go in there?” I ask Wyrd.
“Not really, sir. The gas needs to be constant else she wakes up within minutes.”
“How safe is that drug for a child?”
“Well…” He hems and haws for a few seconds. “Not very, you know. It’s a child and I’m giving it drugs. But what choice do we have?”
“How?” I ask Selia. “How did they get Junco to be human?”
She points to the corner of the large room.
A piano.
“With that, I think, Ashur. And that mounted acrobatic sport she did all growing up. I’m pretty sure they changed her DNA as she grew as well, that’s what I heard from Layla a few times. Junco was changed as she grew. And that fits with the reports that came out just after she left Earth for Amelia. That her father used to bring her out here for some kind of treatment.”
I rub my hand across my face.
Junco is this thing. She started her life this same way. As a monster locked in a cage.
I turn around and start walking. There’s a hallway. Selia calls out to me, but I ignore her. The hallway has a few doors. I open each one. Bedrooms. But not rooms that belong to a small girl. These are places for men to sleep. Her handlers. I get to the end of the hallway and there’s two more doors across from each other. They both have biometric locks.
Selia has her hand on my arm, she’s talking, but I push her away and look at Merk. “Open these.”
“Biometrics,” he says with a shrug. “We can’t.”
I remove my mini-plasma from my holster and blast the one on the right side first, then the one on the left. I open the door on the right.
A single-sized bed neatly made with blankets and sheets. A desk. A closet. I open the closet and find casual uniforms—way too big to belong to Junco—and books. I pick up a book and read the spine. Star-Lore of Babylon.
“Gideon’s room,” I guess out loud.
I cross the hallway, Selia still calling my name, asking what I’m doing. This room is the same. Single bed, tightly made covers over crisp white sheets. A desk and a closet.
I open the closet door and find Junco’s clothes. All small, all camouflage, all neatly folded and hung like a soldier. There’s an array of guns propped up against the back wall, all lined up neatly. This is nothing like her bedroom at home. Her real home, I emphasize in my mind. Her bedroom was always a mess. But here, here she was tightly controlled because here she was Junco the monster, Junco the soldier, Junco the Seventh Sibling.
“Ashur!”
I finally turn to Selia.
“What are you doing?”
“They fixed her, Selia. How did they fix her?”
“I told you, the piano and the genetics, I guess.”
“Who came up with this plan?”
“Ashur, I don’t know. I’m not from here. I’m pretty sure all these people are dead. The only ones who might know are Gideon and Subjack. Why?”
“Why aren’t the other Siblings like Junco? I mean, Moju’s pretty violent, but none of the others are. Why are they so different?” Selia has no answer for me, she just shrugs. But in my head I feel it. Something is wrong.
Something is very wrong.
“How do we know that Esta and Moju and them are the real Siblings?”
“What?” Pike asks.
“Wyrd! How do we know?” He’s down the hallway, still trying to keep his eye on the demon baby and watch what I’m doing at the same time. “Why is Esta so docile? Soli? Why is she so weak? They’re nothing like Junco. How do we know they’re the ones?”
“They fixed the corrupt code, Ashur. Wasn’t that why we needed them? To fix the telomere degradation that occurred because of Lucan’s virus?”
“How do we know it’s fixed?”
“We have children,” Wyrd offers. “And they don’t look like that.” He nods towards the cage.
“But what about the Cylinder Seals? What’s in there?”
“Sorry?”
Fuck. “I gotta go find Ryse and Arel. Selia, you gonna be OK to stay?”
“Yeah, sure, Ashur. But what’s this—”
“Merkar, I’m trusting you with Selia. Do not let her leave here, understand?”
“Ashur, I’m right here. I can—”
I shake her by the shoulders a little. “Sel, listen to me, OK? Stay here and do not leave unless it’s a life-or-death thing, OK? Not saving anyone, either. Like you’re gonna die if you stay. Understand?”
“Ashur, what’s—”
“I don’t have time. I gotta go find Ryse.”
“Wait!” She grabs my arm before I can port away. “Wait.”
I stop and give her my attention.
“I love you, OK? I’ll let you
go and I’ll be good, but I want to know what this is about.”
“The Siblings and the Punishments, Selia. It’s not something you’d understand, it’s one of the High Secrets. The Siblings.” I look over at Wyrd. “I’m not sure, but I think we have the wrong Siblings.” Wyrd just looks at me, helpless to understand. “Before Lucan was banned and sent into his punishment cycle, Aesin made the Seven Cylinders filled with Lucan’s Punishments. But we found the Siblings and there were no cylinders. And only Junco has the demon qualities you’d expect from the prophecy. So what’s in the Sealed Cylinders?”
They just stare at me.
I port away.
What the fuck are the Punishments? If we have the Siblings, if we have the Seven, if we have all these things… then why do I feel like we’re missing something?
Like we’re being duped?
Because we are, Ashur.
I hear it clear as day as I move through the port but before I can make out if that really was Lucan’s voice in my head, I come out on the deck of a ship near Pillar Four.
“Arel!” I shout up to him and Ryse as they perch on the roof of the ship’s highest level. “Arel! We’ve got the wrong Siblings! We’ve got the wrong fucking Siblings and we’ve infected our genome with the wrong fucking DNA!”
“Calm down, man!” Ryse screams at me over the sound of crashing waves. “We have the right fucking Siblings. We have hundreds of thousands of kids to prove it. Gib knows what he’s doing…”
“Ryse, I was just out at the Stag and I saw how they kept Junco subdued all these years, OK? It was a cage, it was a piano, it was training, it was lot of fucking shit to keep that girl from morphing into her demon form. Now you tell me—why the fuck did Moju and Esta never have the same issues? Why didn’t they ever change? No one did shit for them, Ryse. There was never a time when we thought Esta was gonna go balls-out ballistic on us. Moju did some crazy shit, but there was never a time when we feared for our lives just talking to him. They are not the same things!”
Ryse is still shaking his head and the waves are getting bigger, pitching our ship back and forth as the sea rolls with the turbulence that I suddenly feel. “Arel?” I look over at him for help.
