by Matt Larkin
“Yup, yup. Mom and Dad brought us here a few times when we were kids. They have onion soup that could knock your pants off.”
“Really.”
“Yup. People used to run out of there naked from the waist down.”
Wouldn’t last long like that on this planet.
Knight made a dash across the street and toward the entrance. When he felt Phoebe close behind him, he tapped the thick door, and it slid open. Like most places here, it had a sealed entry hall to preserve interior heat.
He peeked through a window in the inner door. A host stood behind a stand, separated from the dining hall by a red curtain. Knight popped free his pulse pistol and strode over to the host, Phoebe just behind him.
The hori host glanced over his shoulder, then waved Knight closer. “Redeemers are in the main room, and a gog stalks near the washrooms. Take the servers’ entrance to the left. Go through the kitchen and inside through the walk-in.”
Knight looked back to Phoebe.
“Can you take out the gog without alerting the Redeemers?”
Knight unformed his helmet just so she could see him roll his eyes. “Which way to the washrooms?”
“Beyond the coat closet there.”
Coat closet. Perfect. Knight smirked and grabbed a parka out of the closet, wrapping it tight to disguise his Sentinel uniform. Phoebe nodded and took off to find her family.
Knight slipped down the hall, strolling as if he had no care in the world. As he approached the washroom, the hair on the back of his neck rose. The creature was near. Maybe a man who kept his coat would be just suspicious enough to watch. He stepped into the men’s room. A slight disturbance passed in the air behind him before the door slid closed.
A short, tiled hall led into the washroom proper. Knight took a few steps down it, then spun and lunged in the direction he felt the creature. It never had time to react. He pinned its throat with his forearm and pounded multiple body blows into the lizard-thing. Its camouflage faltered, and it slipped from the wall. Knight grabbed the creature, wrapped an arm around its throat, and squeezed.
A man walked around the corner and then jolted as he saw the scene. His eyes met Knight’s, and he stood stock-still. A hori—local—and scared. The man swallowed, eyes wide.
Knight jerked his head over his shoulder, indicating the man to pass on by. The hori wouldn’t say a word. Probably have a story to tell his family when he got home, though. Good. Let the word spread.
The gog had stilled—dead. Knight hefted its body and carried it into the washroom, then threw it in a stall. Then he stepped back and telekinetically flipped the mag lock. It would take a while for anyone to figure that out.
Knight slipped back out of the washroom and followed the host’s directions to the kitchen. When he got there, cooks eyed him with suspicion, even hatred. They must think he was a Redeemer. He unbuttoned the parka and tossed it aside, revealing his uniform.
Whispers passed among the kitchen, words he couldn’t quite catch. One of the cooks indicated the walk-in fridge. All eyes stayed on him. What the void was their problem? He entered the fridge, then found an opened secret door to a set of stairs leading down. A Sentinel stood guard, though Knight couldn’t recognize the man through his helmet. He just nodded and passed him, hurrying down the steps.
Downstairs a large bunker housed dozens of families, hundreds of horim. It took him a few moments to locate Phoebe, who had her arms around her parents. They were laughing, holding each other.
“You used to love the ice cream here,” her mother said.
“Ice cream?” Knight said, approaching. “On this planet?”
Phoebe turned to him, an eyebrow quirked. “Sure. Why not?”
Off-rotation icies.
Phoebe’s father watched him with obvious recognition but no warmth.
Had he really made that bad an impression? Knight nodded at him, then sat on the couch beside them.
“Phoebe tells me you two are having a baby.”
“Yeah.” Shouldn’t he be more appreciative of grandchildren? Wasn’t that how parents were supposed to feel?
The man cleared his throat. “Is that … wise?”
“Dad!” Phoebe said.
“I just mean, under the circumstances.”
The war? “Our lives are in danger, that’s true,” Knight said. “But we …” The hair on his neck was standing on end again. Something was wrong.
People were watching him. Everyone was watching him. And not just because he was another Sentinel—they weren’t watching Phoebe and him. They were watching him.
In the corner of his eye, he saw a man move, lunging toward him with a kitchen knife. Time stilled for Knight, and he watched the man advance in slow motion. His heart pounded. But it seemed so unreal. A simple shift of his arm caught the man’s wrist. A twist and the hori fell to his knees, dropping the weapon.
Phoebe jumped to her feet. “What was that?”
Another man rushed Knight.
Knight released the first attacker, who fell clutching his wrist, then backfisted the new man’s chest. The hori crumpled into a heap.
Others had begun to form a circle around him. They clutched kitchen utensils, makeshift weapons, or bare fists. “Pariah!” someone shouted. The word passed through the lounge like a chant. More and more civilians edged closer to him.
Fuck. He’d lowered his helmet. The civilians … Knight tapped his suit to reform his helmet and conceal his face.
“Knight …” Phoebe said.
He knew. He didn’t want to hurt these people. Another man attacked him and another, in a mob. Knight flipped a man over his shoulder, tripped another, and landed a chop between the shoulder blades of a third.
Knight scrambled forward, leaping over the crowd and grabbing rafters above. He swung and leapt to reach the stairs and rushed up them, past the Sentinel who—thankfully—made no move to bar his way.
Rachel had said people would blame him, but he never realized how badly. It seemed a lifetime ago they begged for his blessings. Now, they’d sooner put his head on a spike.
He dashed back out through the lobby and into the street.
His comm buzzed a second later.
“Knight?” Phoebe asked. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” But his presence here would likely do more harm than good. How could he help anyone if an entire planet was determined to kill him? They thought him a servant of the Adversary. He’d done what he had to … the only way he could see to stop the angels. “I’ve got to call in Hertz and have her pick me up.”
Not only the civilians—if the Redeemers knew he was here, they’d only intensify their efforts to hold this place. Simply being on this planet would doom it. Being on any planet would bring wrath and war.
“Not you,” Phoebe said. “Us. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
Knight swallowed. God, maybe Phoebe was the only one left in the universe who didn’t think him a villain. “Your family—”
“Now I know they’re fine. And you’re part of my family too. Where are you? I’m coming to meet you.”
Family? Him?
He slumped in an alley. He had a family …
32
“The term ‘navi’ is not one used lightly or often. Many more times it is used falsely than rightly. Once in Eden it was uttered in truth. Once again when the angels came to us. It means messiah. It is the opposite in all respects of khapiru.”
Noah Jordan
MAY 5, 3097 EY — MILKY WAY GALAXY
The Sephirot met the Wake of Stars on the outer spiral of the Milky Way. Rachel needed to get back to the front. She had to drive the angels from the NER, and the distraction Knight had provided was her best chance. However misguided his decision may have been, she had allowed him to make it, and now she had to take advantage of it.
But before that, she needed her full crew back.
Phoebe had told her the people of Ekron had attacked Knight in a mob. Knight didn’t respo
nd to her calls, so Rachel had gone through Phoebe. And she swore she’d seen a hint of a tear in the hori’s eyes when she spoke of the way mankind had turned its back on the man she loved. Not so long ago they’d tried to call him navi. Now he was the enemy of all humanity and the angels too.
From messiah to pariah in the blink of an eye. How fickle the public could be.
Maybe Rachel should have tried harder to dissuade him from his course … but it had seemed necessary at the time. As all her steps had seemed. And in hindsight, she was always a fool.
She awaited the shuttle just outside the hangar. As soon as the airlock sealed, she ran forward to meet them. Phoebe stepped out first, followed by Knight, who had his helmet up. Hiding his face.
Rachel ran over and tried to embrace him.
Knight pushed her away. “We have work to do.” He stalked past her.
Rachel turned to Phoebe, who clenched her teeth. Her teal eyes offered a volume of sorrow, the emotion rushing out of the hori in a torrent that nearly sent Rachel to her knees. Instead, she threw her arms around Phoebe and held her close, as much to steady herself as the poor girl.
And she had felt almost nothing from Knight. The closed, guarded wall he had once carried, lifetimes ago on Gehenna—it felt like that, stronger than ever.
Not hard to understand. Rachel had lost part of herself too, back at Asherah. Knight had lost his illusions, and Rachel had lost her future. Maybe they both had—since there would be nowhere left in the universe safe for Knight.
“Captain,” Ensign Barry said over her comm. “There’s another ship requesting docking. Registered to Galizur Blake.”
Raziel. So he had come back after all. She could only pray he had more answers than she did. “Signal him in.”
Rachel walked with Phoebe back to the quarters the hori shared with Knight. The other woman said nothing on the way, so Rachel filled her in on recent events. The silence was unnerving—especially from Phoebe.
Phoebe stepped into her quarters, and for just a moment, Rachel shared Knight’s rush of relief. It closed off when he saw Rachel. He shut down and put the wall back up. But Rachel had felt it—that sense of belonging Phoebe gave him. At least he had that. Like Rachel herself had once had …
Knight sat on the floor, legs folded like he would meditate. His helmet was down, finally, but his eyes were cold.
“Thanks for coming to get us,” Phoebe said and sat down beside Knight.
“You’re part of my crew.” They were more than that. “You’re … my people.”
Knight cocked his head and looked at her strangely. She couldn’t read his emotions. It was warmth and confusion and something deeper … not the lust he’d once felt for her but a tenderness buried under a mountain of doubt. An emotion that had no place in her former bodyguard.
Rachel knelt in front of him and pressed her palm to his cheek. Knight recoiled, just a little, and Phoebe quirked an eyebrow, but Rachel maintained the contact. “You are not alone, Ezekiel. We are in this together. All of us made our decisions as best we were able.”
“Just Knight, lady.”
Rachel smiled. Those had been the first words he’d ever said to her.
The door buzzed. Rachel sighed and rose. She waved open the door, and Raziel strode in, his angel guise revealed.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Rachel said.
“You fool!” he said, pointing a finger at Knight.
The Gehennan stood, his fingers curling as he fell into a fighting pose.
“I created you to fight the Adversary, and you have embraced them like a favored son. You have betrayed the universe!”
“Enough!” Rachel said. “Knight did what he thought was right with the information we had at the time. You want to blame someone—blame yourself. Blame your secrets and lies and the insatiable arrogance of angel kind. Your people tried to enslave ours, and we fought back the only way we could.”
She’d hoped Raziel would have cooled down. She’d hoped he would be a valuable ally to their cause. Perhaps he was still more angel than human. She should have known.
The angel scoffed. “By releasing the Adversary? By unleashing hell itself on this universe? This is fighting back? You have damned yourselves and us along with you.”
Rachel shook her head. “No. This is your mess, angel. You created this hell, now you fight it. And when you’re done destroying each other, the universe will be left for humans. And we will be better for all of your alien races being gone.”
“Rachel, Rachel …” Raziel stepped closer to her, his shoulders slumping. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him. “Aliens? Is that what you think of us? You truly are a fool, Rachel Jordan. Angels are human.”
33
“We’ve all seen the low-res images. Satellite broadcasts of the Adversary itself, or a tasteless hoax in dark times? With planetary disappearances now a daily fact of reality, could it be that the Adversary was among us all along? Are the angels here to defend us from an enemy that has us in their power already? Are we, for lack of a tactful term, too corrupt to be saved?”
Barney Harris, host, Truth or Heresy
MAY 6, 3097 EY — MILKY WAY GALAXY
For a long time, longer than she could measure, Rachel stalked the halls of the Sephirot.
Raziel had claimed the angels were human.
But when she pressed him, the damned angel just clammed up again. All he would say was that only evolution and technology separated her and him.
And knowledge.
But Raziel had also claimed to have lived for billions of years. How could both things be true? How could he be human and be billions of years old? And if it were true … then did that mean angels were some kind of genetic predecessor to modern humans? So little of their history before the Exodus remained. Could angels have come to Eden—to Earth—in prehistoric times and seeded human genetic code? Their own genetic code, without the enhancements their science had made to it.
Or was something else going on here?
In the end, she wandered into the brig.
Caleb was there, shivering on the floor, hands wrapped around his head. To some extent, he might have brought his suffering on himself. In greed and arrogance he had chosen his path … but no one deserved the torments of hell he faced now. And but for the grace of God, it could have been Rachel in there. She had turned to QI, but she might just as easily have gone to Jericho in her own moment of weakness.
In Caleb’s place, could Rachel have been convinced to take the implants? Not so long ago she had considered the possibility that cybernetics were not evil at all … that the angels merely wanted them all for themselves.
She tapped her comm. “Jordan to Suzuki.”
“Leah here.”
“Caleb seems to be really suffering. He may need more medication.”
The rahab was quiet for a moment. “Rachel, I’ve already given him sedatives. They don’t seem to have much effect. Giving him more could harm him.”
He was already being harmed. At this point, the kindest thing might be a MAG slug to the brain. Rachel shook herself. A disgusting thought … “He’s not well.”
“Okay. I’ll come check him out again.”
“Can you remove his implants?”
“Maybe. But without eyes …”
“Yeah. Got it.”
Rachel flipped off her comm. Just beyond, Phoebe’s brother Ezra sat fidgeting. He scratched at his implants as if they tormented him. Maybe they did. Probably he faced the same hell Caleb did.
But Ezra had willingly sided with Apollyon, the new master of Asherah. Maybe it was unfair to hold Ezra responsible for David’s death. But part of Rachel reveled in his suffering. Let him feel the pain he deserved—a pain dwarfed by the emptiness in her own heart.
She moved on to Jeremiah’s cell. He’d been docile enough, so she’d arranged a tablet for him. Limited Mazzaroth access—he couldn’t make calls, but he could watch the news feeds and vids. It seemed cruel to keep him locked away f
rom any news of the universe, given how things were. Or perhaps letting him see the truth—as Armageddon was fought around them—was the greater cruelty. Perhaps she should have sheltered him from the harsh reality.
He looked up from the tablet, staring at her face, then tossed it aside. “Rach? Are you all right?” That almost felt like genuine concern seeping off him. To see him like this, actually caring for her …
Was that even possible?
She tapped the smart glass to open the door and moved to sit on his cot beside him.
“What’s happened, Rach?”
Rachel ran a hand through her hair, mussing it up. What was she even doing here? Jeremiah had been her enemy for so long.
Her brother put his arm around her shoulders. He hadn’t done that since they were children. The last time was when her mother died. Her heart seized at the comforting weight of his arm on her shoulders.
“Is … is the angel back?”
“Raziel?” She swallowed but didn’t sit up. “Yeah, he’s back. He told me …” Hadn’t her brother suffered enough too? He’d had his view of the holy universe shattered. The core upon which he’d built his life and principles had crumbled and now he lingered in a prison cell, with little hope of a future. If humanity even survived this war, he would likely spend the rest of his life in prison for assaulting Sentinels.
“What? What did he say?”
Reverence and hope and concern filled the room, suffusing her in a maelstrom of conflicting emotions she could not deal with right now. He still worshipped Raziel. The angel had broken her brother, and Jeremiah clung to his every word like gospel.
Rachel shrugged out of his arm and rose, then paced around the cell. “He’s not a god!”
“I know that.”
“No—you don’t. They’re just people, Miah. Good and bad, people who made mistakes.”
“Maybe.” Jeremiah shrugged. “But Rachel … with living for millennia would come wisdom too.”
