She nodded, not sure if she did, but the words at least she could comprehend.
“These Speakers are men. Men with a power that has not been earned. They don’t commune with the heavens. They do as they see fit, they probably feel they are right. But it doesn’t mean they are. It doesn’t mean they have any right to tell you your Path, Sarrin.
“Faith, and Knowledge, and Fortitude, and Prudence, and even Strength are important. They are things to believe in, things to pray for. But they don’t come from a God or a Speaker. They come from inside.” He tapped his five fingers to his chest, in the spot over his heart. He did it emphatically, the first time she had ever known him to pray, but then it wasn't really prayer, was it? “It comes from here.”
And then he pressed his five fingers into the space over her heart. “Your Path is here.”
She stared down at his hand.
“Sorry,” he said, taking it away.
The space over her heart suddenly felt cold.
“I’m afraid,” he admitted, staring down at his hands. “I’m afraid of what tomorrow will look like. I’m afraid of what the Speakers are capable of. I’m afraid of what you’re capable of, afraid that you might lose yourself. I don’t even really like Gal’s plan. It’s not you.” He whispered, “I’m afraid I’ll lose you.”
She stared. No one had ever really been afraid for her before. “I’ll be all right,” she told him.
“I know.” He patted her leg gently, but she felt his uncertainty through the touch.
“Hoepe says you might be a God, sent here to help us.”
He snorted. “Pretty far from, I think.”
But she didn’t. Not with what she knew about the Gods now. “I won’t tell anyone,” she said, “about the Gods.”
He nodded. “It’s a pretty big secret. The first rule, the one that's drilled into us before we leave for our sojourn, is to not interfere. There's no telling what could happen if the folk find out, what repercussions there might be thousands of years from now.”
"Like the Augments." She grimaced.
He leaned back, saying nothing, but it was clear: thousands of years ago, the Observers had come to help, imbued some of them with a special status, and the Speakers had washed war and created the Augments.
“We’ve uncovered a lot that isn’t what we’re told," she said finally. "I suppose that’s what you came here to do, to check on the real status of things. We’ll write about it when we go back.”
He straightened. “Go back?”
“To the Observer ship. It should be recorded, right? That’s what you, what we, do, right?”
“Sarrin,”—a strange look came over his face—“I’m not going back.”
She sat up straight. “What?"
“I thought you realized it when I came with the others to Etar.”
“But that was the plan, our plan.” She wanted to go with Kieran to the Observer ship, escape all of this, live a quiet life in the stars where the Speakers would never find her. Where she could pretend none of this had ever happened. Where there would be no need for the monster to ever show itself again. “We would go after we rescue Halud.”
He shook his head. “Halud, the Augment children, the Uruhu, the Settlers. You. There’s too much here, too many people that need help. I couldn’t go, I couldn’t leave. The Observer ship came when we were rescuing Augments. My mother stopped, but I didn't go. Now they're of on the long run around the seventh sun. They won’t be back for a hundred -and-fifty years.”
“You missed them?”
“No." He laughed, warm and gentle, not mad like he should have been. "I decided I couldn’t go. I said goodbye. I stayed for you.”
She shook her head. She'd begged to go with him once, that was true. But if he'd given it all up for her, for a monster… she was worse than she thought. “You had a chance to leave and escape all this. Why didn’t you go?”
He smiled again. “Because observing, running away, not being involved, its no way to live. The things I care about are here.” He leaned forward, emotions shooting off him like sparks of fire. “Don’t you see, Sar? That wasn’t my home anymore. It might have been safer, it might have been easier, but I couldn’t observe. Not when everything I cared about was here. I couldn’t wait idly, hoping everything turned out okay. Much as this, right here and now, is hard, much as its difficult, I want to be a participant. I want to be with you, wherever you are, whatever you're facing.” His mouth pressed into hers.
The shock sent her spine rigid, her heart racing, but it was like they were locked together, fire searing them, sealing their flesh together.
A kiss. A Gods-honest kiss.
The monster careened around her head uselessly, trying in vain to make sense of it.
She blinked as Kieran separated, resting his forehead against hers. “You see, I would risk every pain for even a chance to do that again. Just promise me you won’t lose yourself tomorrow.”
She nodded, numbly.
The light of the first sun broke over the horizon, casting long shadows through the city. Tomorrow was already here, they would go soon, start getting into position for Gal’s plan. She wouldn't lose herself. The only problem was she had no idea who herself was.
* * *
“Are you ready, Gal?” Rayne asked him quietly.
He hadn’t even noticed her come into the room. It was only them and a handful of guards in the bunker. The others had already left, moving into position to wait for the rising of the third sun, and the inevitable chaos that would rain down.
He hadn’t planned an operation this big in, well, never. This was it, this was the one.
“Yeah,” he answered Rayne, but his voice came out flatter and less confident than he had hoped.
Unfazed, she came to him, adjusting the lapels of the old coat he had found over the painted shirt he had made. It had been important to dress like the old John P, and cast aside his UEC uniform; it was time to stop hiding.
“Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“Yes.” He nodded. That he did know. He was going to tell everyone the truth. The big, capital-T Truth. About him, about the Speakers, about the horrors they wrought in Evangecore.
“Are you’re worried?”
“Of course.” He sighed. “I’ve been away a long time. A lot longer than I should have been. Will they remember me? Will they even care?” He looked away. “Will anyone even survive?” He’d stopped being John P because so many people had died, because he didn’t want any of it to be his fault anymore. It turned out people were still getting hurt. And he was about to step right back into the fire, in a big way. In a really big, very intractable and forever way. “What happens today will change everything, for better or worse.”
“And I’ve never been prouder to stand beside you.”
He glanced at her quickly, at her radiant smile. “Really?”
“Yes, Gal.”
“You’re not upset?”
It was her turn to sigh and look away, but she brought her honey-brown eyes back to meet his. “No. I thought a long time about it. I think, if we hadn’t met the Augments, or Cordelia, or the Uruhu… I think if we hadn’t seen everything we’ve seen, I wouldn’t have ever believed it. But now, it’s easier for me to see what John P was about. I’ve only ever wanted to do what was right, I just had my information wrong. My trust in the wrong place. I mean, my dad, he….”
He wrapped a hand around her arm to stop her. “He was your dad. You loved him. Like you were supposed to.”
“Yes, but I still think I should have saw, should have questioned something. Like you did.”
He wrapped her in his arms. “We’re all doing the best we can with the information we have. I’m just glad you’re here now.” He kissed the top of her head.
She pushed away gently, laughing. “I guess he never would have signed off on us getting married anyway.” She wiped one tear from her gorgeous face.
Gal froze. “You still want to marry me?”
“What?”
“After everything I did, all the lies, the bombs, everything? I was cracked Rayne, well and truly cracked. I saw things that weren't there. And I hurt you. Badly. In ways I can never make up to you for.”
“Of course, Gal. I still love you. I always have.” Pressing her warm body against his, she kissed him, the most wonderful sensation Gal had ever experienced. “But if you could tell me everything from now on, that would be very much appreciated.”
He laughed. “You got it. Now, let’s check this equipment. Kieran will be half-way up the tower by now.”
She nodded and pulled away. “I’ll grab the last of the cameras from the other room.”
He grabbed her hand, spinning her back towards him just as she reached the door. “I love you.”
She smiled, her look full of confidence. “I love you too. And Gal, it’s going to work. I might not have been a supporter at the time, but I still knew John P. All you need to do is say the words and the folk will see.”
“Okay.” He watched as she left the room, and then turned to the videography equipment. Hap would not see the setting of the third sun.
Sharp pain cracked across the back of his head, and his vision went dark.
* * *
“Be careful.” Kieran looked deep into her crystalline blue eyes and ran his hand under her cheek.
Sarrin nodded, but she didn’t smile. Her eyes had already started to go far away, no doubt calculating and preparing for what she was about to do. What Gal had asked her to do.
He pushed down his frustration, watching her skirt through the growing crowd, a tiny figure in a grey cloak in a sea of grey.
She would work her way into the Speakers' Complex, right to the top of the tower, and wait for the moment when the chaos in the city had reached its peak, and all eyes would fall to her as she smashed into the offices and killed the Speakers, their prize weapon turned against them, and putting an end to a war that never should have been in the first place.
The dramatic irony was not lost on him, and yet he wished it could be anyone but her.
First though, Gal would address the folk and soldiers as John P. Tell them the story, the truth, about what they had allowed to happen right under their noses.
Subtle flashes of blue kept catching his eye, and he hefted the pack of cables onto his back.
Gal had requested physical connections to be made, instead of just wireless signals — they were more secure, less prone to glitches and delays, and unable to be blocked by signal jammers. The Speakers would try to stop the broadcast as soon as they saw it, but Gal was determined that nothing would get in his way.
It made Kieran think back to the day he submitted his duty request to the least desired ship in the fleet. But Gal’s ship went to the most remote and desolate colonies, the places where the most history could be made and go unnoticed. He’d never expected anything out of the broken man or his old ship, but he had gone to do his duty as an Observer. And yet, as he'd watched the drunk and addicted captain stumble around, he'd had a feeling that he was something more; that Gal might be the most interesting thing he would see in his time in Earth-time.
Double-checking the cables, the ends dangling out of the large pack so that he could extend them as he climbed, he started to work his way up the outside of the tower to the signal generator. His skin burned, but Hoepe had given him an injection to relieve the worst of it.
He caught sight of Sarrin, her grey cloak blending into the grey roof of the building below him. And in the square between them, Grant led a team of Augments, silently taking out the guards, while rebels and folk with their flecks of blue twirled in a chaotic dance of distraction. A laz-rifle went off. Grant’s ugly grey skin suit burst out of his back and wrapped him in its protective layer. More soldiers rushed into the square, and screams echoed up the walls.
Closing his eyes, he focussed on climbing. It was part of the plan, all part of the plan. He needed to make his way to the signal room so Gal could make his broadcast.
Pain exploded through his shoulder, a laz-bolt searing the wall beside him. He swore as his grip slipped, smoke pouring from his cloak. Not part of the plan.
He hung from one hand, trembling. The smell of burning flesh stung his nose, as memories of the explosion aboard the Ishash'tor that had nearly taken his life played out in his mind.
He took several calmed deep breaths. He’d been shot was all. Just shot. Not lit on fire.
What had his life become that being shot was a better alternative? Oh well, he was here now, like he told Sarrin, a participant. He didn't let himself think about the fact that he wouldn't be being shot at aboard the Observer ship; he'd made his choice.
Another laz-bolt cracked across the grey stone in front of him, narrowly missing his face. He jerked back reflexively, his left hand slipping.
Suddenly he was falling. Fully aware that he was four stories up without a place to land. He clenched his teeth and prepared for the inevitable.
But the splat he'd anticipated didn’t come.
He let his tightly shut eyes open just a crack. Just enough to see the tower in front of him. He was falling up.
He scrambled onto the second story ledge as he was deposited there, panting as he pressed himself into the solid surface.
On the roof opposite and now level to him, he caught sight of Sarrin’s face, eyes wide, skin white with fear.
Another laz-bolt sparked across the ledge, and Kieran threw himself down, pressing into the tower.
Sarrin’s razor gaze snapped to the ground, her expression suddenly cold. The UEC soldier below flew backwards, his rifle landing squarely in Sarrin’s hands, and she rapidly disassembled it and reprogrammed the biosensor. She took two steps across the roof and leapt over the square to the Speakers’ Complex. One more bound and she was on the ledge next to him.
The soldier slumped against the wall, unmoving.
Kieran swallowed heavily. Her vision swimming, more monster than girl, she roughly pulled his hand away from the throbbing wound on his shoulder to examine it.
“Sarrin?”
She grunted once. The wound was less than a finger depth, the laser already cauterizing the wound. It just hurt like crazy.
“I'm okay,” he said, as much for her as for himself. She’d grabbed him right out of the air.
She stood, grunting again and hefted the laz-rifle, pointing it at the guard slumped in the square below.
“Wait,” he reached out, but pulled back as pain from the laz-wound flashed fresh from his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“He is not omega,” she growled, her finger squeezing the trigger.
“No!” Ignoring the pain, he lunged, grabbing her sleeve as the shot fired.
The laz-bolt went wide.
Sarrin glared, the rifle turning on him, and he put his hands up. “It’s me,” he said.
Her eyes swam, and she blinked several times.
“This is what I was afraid of,” he said, watching her come back. “Don’t lose yourself.”
She shook her head, her eyes refocussing. She stared at the slumped guard on the ground. “I’ll come with you,” she said. “I—. It’s better when you’re here.”
“Okay." He would prefer she was close too, for lots of reasons. He pointed up the tower. "We have to connect the broadcast.”
She nodded, refusing to meet his gaze, even when he laid his hands on her shoulder. “You saved my life, Sarrin. It’s good.”
“There is too much," she said. "Too many. I don’t know if I can….” She gestured vaguely to her head.
“I know.”
She lifted her palm, a laz-bolt redirecting like it had come up against some kind of invisible shield.
He gulped. “We’ll stay together.”
“This is important,” she said. “A chance to be free. But I have to fight for it; I have to walk the Path. The monster has a purpose, I have to believe that. I’ll turn everything they’ve done to me against them. But I
don’t….”
He nodded once. “It’s okay to fight for what is important to you. But it has to be you fighting. I’ll be with you the whole time, okay?”
She nodded.
He looked up at the tower, at the daunting four floors between them and the transmission room. “Come on.”
* * *
Halud laid on the uncomfortable cot, half-awake half-asleep. The guard snoring in his chair shifted, stretching his neck.
It had been a full day since Hap had brought him to his office and beaten him for all the folk to see. He forced his mind to be still, to stare up and study the blank ceiling above. It was no use thinking about Sarrin, or Gal, or the entire cracked situation that had already unfolded. He just had to pray she wouldn’t come for him.
The door to the anteroom opened, and he sat up. To his relief, it wasn't Sarrin. It wasn’t a smartly dressed officer either. It was a run-down, bedraggled, half-wild commandant who took one quick stride to the guard and struck him across the throat, so he fell unceremoniously to the floor.
Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was soaked with the sweat that beaded across her forehead. Her blue eyes were wild, Augment eyes. She slammed both fists against the glassine. “I don’t believe what you say.” She hit the glassine once more for good measure and paced across the floor.
Halud sat with his hands on his thighs on the cot and watched. There was nothing to say. And the comm wasn’t on anyway.
She pulled a crumpled paper from somewhere in her crumpled hospital gown and thrust it at the glassine. “What is this?” she yelled.
Mildly interested in the unravelling of the commandant, Halud stood on his aching legs. Served her right for hunting Augments across the stars that she should be one too.
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