First Shot

by Bokerah Brumley

  “There’s no maybe about it.”

  “I won’t take Jin back into Bostgo.”

  “Agreed,” she says. “Don’t take Jin. But you have to go back. Jin won’t be safe until this is finished.” A small hatch opens near her handlebars, and Jin’s star pendant rises. “Jin asked me to analyze her necklace.”

  The smartbike earns a look this time. “What did you find?”

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “When you shine light into it a certain way, it reveals a cartograph. I had to use a bit of her DNA to get the map to broadcast.”

  I take the necklace. When Jin’s stable, I’ll help her put it back on. “A map to what?”

  Dyad hums. “My best guess is a secret entrance into GenCor, but I can’t be certain until we get there.”

  “You’re going?”

  “Jin isn’t.” It’s not happening. I won’t risk her. “You have to stay behind with her.”

  “You can’t make that long of a trip on foot.”

  “Watch me.”

  “If she survives,” Dyad says. The stubborn bike isn’t as certain Jin will live through this latest mess as I am. Dyad doesn’t know how amazing Jin is. “She won’t stay behind.”

  “We’ll have that fight when we have to.”

  Traps disengaged. Your pendant is the map. You’re the key. I hear the words in the old man’s voice. Maybe he meant more than just the trail that led to our little bungalow. Maybe Dyad’s right. Maybe Jin can’t stay behind. That doesn’t mean I won’t try to talk her into staying.

  Beep...

  The pause startles me. “Jin?” She’s resting, not dying.

  B-beep. Beep. Beep...

  Dyad is parked next to the stretcher. Each time Jin’s heart beats, a small pink dot bounces on Dyad’s screen, a digital electrocardiogram.

  “The bandage is soaked.” Again. Red seeps through the combat gauze. The hyperabsorbent material can’t handle the amount of liquid. The calculations aren’t hard. After that much blood loss, anyone else would already be dead.

  “Tonick. I can’t detect her pulse. She’s in asystole.”

  I spin toward the two of them. “Try again. Anything?”

  Dyad wrings her hands. “Nothing.”

  “Try again.”

  She shakes her head. “You have to do something.”

  A countdown clock materializes in one corner, counting down from 5:00.

  “Five minutes until irreversible brain damage,” she says.

  Two beeps close together appear on her screen.

  I scramble onto the stretcher. I stack my hands and start compressions in the middle of her chest thirty times. “Come on, Jin.” She hasn’t even seen the stars out here at night. When I stop, I glance at Dyad. “Anything?”

  She shows me three beats, irregular, bumping up against one another.

  “Thready,” she says. “But I can work with that.” She cracks a smile. “Get off her, Tonick. I’ll try the paddles.” Two prongs shoot out from Dyad and stick in Jin’s chest. Each one unfolds to form a flat paddle. The pads heat up, and tendrils of smoke swirl around them as each one melts through Jin’s shirt to reach the bare skin. “Three...two...one...” Jin’s whole body seizes.

  Four more beats.

  Jin seizes again.

  “Come on, come on.” Dyad taps her chin.

  Another beat. Then another. Ten more.

  Beep. Beep. Beep. This time the rhythm is even.

  I dive to the med-supply kit, grabbing the vial of epinephrine injection and a dose of nanos. I carefully program the nanos to repair any heart damage and clot at the thigh. If I can get enough of the nanos into her, maybe she can get on the other side of the injury and start to mend. When I stand up, Dyad’s watching me. She rolls backward until she’s as close to me as she can get.

  Dyad turns to me. “Amputate it, Tonick. It’s killing her. Save her.”

  I know Dyad is right, but the smartbike doesn’t get it. I’m not programmed to make hard choices. I’m no hero.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  LOCUS: ALTER EARTH

  The Cabin

  Date: 15 Pentian

  Time: 1500

  JIN HAS BEEN ASLEEP for over twenty-four hours. She’s as pale as I’ve ever seen her, but just as beautiful. She lost so much blood. Dyad and I tried to save her leg, but it kept gushing. Her heart stopped once more while I was sawing through her thigh. The flat line on Dyad’s display frightened me. Terrified me. It had taken even longer to get her heart beating again the second time.

  I can admit now that we would have lost her. She hemorrhaged right up until we were able to cauterize the wound. I gave her two nanoinjections and then I left the cabin, retching on the stench of burning Jin.

  It was ugly and horrid. And it had to be done. Somehow, Jin knew that truth before I did, before she even passed out. She even gave me permission. Looking back, I see she already had forgiveness in her face.

  Jin...always saving everybody, always saving me. I smooth her hair back from her face. It’s as long as I’ve ever seen it. This is the first time she’s had to grow a new appendage. I wasn’t sure she could do it. I pull back the sheet to stare at the new leg. It’s as gorgeous as her other one, a matched pair. I couldn’t have built her a better replacement. I let the sheet settle against her, and she stirs for the first time since yesterday. My heart swells.

  “The world is upside down,” she whispers, and punches the air beside her. She hits nothing. She keeps swinging. “GenCor. They’re coming.”

  I capture her hands, tucking them in mine, relishing the warmth of them. “You’re safe.”

  “Tonick.” She relaxes against the bed. Her eyes flutter open, and she smiles at me as though she knew I’d be here. It’s the sun breaking over the horizon.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” I say. “I missed you.” I can’t live without her.

  She beams at me a moment. Then her expression turns serious. “We have to go back. We have to face GenCor, and I have to go with you.”

  My heart tumbles into my solenoid. So much for convincing her to stay behind. She’s not even well enough to stand, and she’s already calling the shots. I can’t fight her.

  “I know.” I clutch her necklace in my hand. Dyad said she had to use Jin’s genetics to get the pendant to work. She has to go with us to Bostgo. When the time comes, she’ll know how to get into GenCor. Her pendant is the map. She’s the key.

  Her nose wrinkles. “Did you amputate my leg?”

  “We did.”

  She throws back the sheet. “It grew back.” She claps her hands together.

  I wince as her reaction sinks in. “You didn’t know that it would?” She shouldn’t have made a demand based on a guess.

  “It was a guess.”

  I crossed my arms. “You said it would.”

  “It was an educated guess. It happens that way for starfish.”

  “Risky.” I could say so many other things, but I don’t. I don’t want to ruin the moment before we have to talk about what comes next.

  “Have you heard from Teq again?” She sits up and grimaces. She puts a hand to her head and then sways. Her other hand clutches the mattress.

  I step toward her and steady her by the shoulders. “Jin?”

  “Dizzy,” she says, but her eyes pop open. She swings her legs over the side of the stretcher. She stares at the floor surrounding the makeshift hospital bed. “Is that my blood?”

  “It wouldn’t stop.”

  Dyad rolls in through the front door. “He means he wouldn’t amputate it like you told him to.”

  “It’s like when I found you with Wiskee, back in Bostgo.” Jin draws in on herself. “There was blood everywhere then, too.”

  I know what’s on her mind. “They came for us then,” I say. “I’m betting they’ll do it again.”

  Jin nods. “We have to go back. To end it.”

  “You want to go back?” Dyad’s squeal reminds me of tires peeling out. “You must not go in you
r condition. You need to stay here until you’re fully recovered.”

  Jin shakes her head slowly; her pink dreads shift across her shoulders. “If we don’t go now, I’m not sure I’ll ever go.” She stands, wincing when her weight settles on her new leg. She flexes her foot, studying her toes. “Then I’ll die like a coward, tucked away in a bed, waiting on GenCor to kidnap me.”

  “That’s not true,” Dyad scoffs.

  Jin sits back down, and her eyes glisten. “I won’t become the template for an army, Tonick.”

  Dyad rolls backward, at a loss for how to answer. Maria Stella wants an army of Jins. Of self-healing artificials, if she can manage it. Why? Does she want to take over the world? That has to be why.

  “Don’t argue,” Jin continues. “It’s truth as far as I can tell it.” She isn’t mad at either of us. The stoop of her shoulders radiates weariness. At this moment, she’s spent, tired down to her bones.

  “We’ll need to pack today and leave in the...” My determination to return to conquer GenCor stutters when she looks up at us. It’s the tears that are collecting on her eyelashes, making her green eyes shine in the afternoon light.

  We represent two choices.

  Go or stay.

  “I don’t want to go, Dyad. I want to stay here and live out my life in peace with you”—her gaze moves to me—“and Tonick.” Her voice breaks. She clears her throat. “I don’t want to go, but I have to.” One side of her mouth pinches, and she wipes at her cheek. “Teq was there when I woke up. I saw her face first. If there’s any chance at all...”

  “The odds are not in your favor.” Dyad raises an eyebrow.

  “They never are.”

  Jin is killing me. She’s always been too good for the both of us. I don’t want her to go. I want her to stay. I want to yell the odds at her, demand that she be sensible, but I can’t ask her to not be who she is.

  She moves closer to me and waves at her head. “There’s a bounty on my head.” She pulls a pair of scissors from her pocket and hands them to me. “I can’t go like this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  LOCUS: ALTER EARTH

  The Cabin

  Date: 16 Pentian

  Time: 1230

  TONICK TOSSES THE SCISSORS aside and picks up the straight razor.

  This is the harder step.

  He cut off all my pink last night, but he’s doing one more pass to make sure my hair is as gone as we can make it. It’s a flimsy shield against GenCor, but it’s the best we’ve got. They’re going to be watching all the roads in. For all we know, they’ve got sensors out here.

  I hold still as he draws the straight razor across my skull. He’s quiet, focused on his task. I stifle a yawn and shift in the broken-back chair. I tried to get some sleep but didn’t sleep at all. Tonick prepped for hours yesterday, tucking supplies in every spare space Dyad has. Then they went over the map and their plans. I tossed and turned on the bed. I’ll need a stim injection before this day is over.

  The edge of the metal grates against my scalp. Tonick is removing the most telling part of me with the blade he found downstairs.

  There haven’t been any more footprints or any more versions of Wiskee, but Dyad is making rounds one more time. Wiskee could have been sent or she could have followed us. We’re not certain if it was the same Wiskee that tried to reprogram Tonick or a different one. There were enough similarities in the body that we can’t be certain.

  Dyad is nervous about our trip back.

  If I’m honest, I am, too.

  We’re leaving today, heading into the belly of the GenCor beast. Our map is hanging around my neck. None of us knows any more than that.

  “Done.” Tonick freezes. After a moment, he raises a hand over me.

  Then I’m wide awake. My pulse speeds up. The air pops with tension. I grip the edge of the seat. “Tonick?”

  He runs his hand over my head, stroking his fingers slowly from front to back. “I think I got it all.” But he’s not checking for stray fuzz.

  “Did you?” It’s all I can think of to say. I shiver beneath his touch, but he doesn’t stop. I’m glued in place. In all the times I’ve earned my survival on the Mag Mile, no one has touched me like that. It’s intimate.

  He sighs; his warmth disappears from my skin. “Jin...”

  I brace myself, preparing to harden my heart against his words. “If you say it, I won’t want to leave.”

  If he says it out loud, I’ll drag him to the bed, and we’ll never leave. I’m three words away from not caring what happens to the rest of our world

  We can’t leave Teq or the rest of the Pinks on GenCor’s altar. We can’t leave the rest of the planet to fall to GenCor’s twisted intent.

  “But I want you to know how much—”

  “Save it for after.” I interrupt him. “Tell me when it’s over.” I reach for his hand but don’t touch it. There’s too much between us, too much in the air. If it meant I could come back to this with him, I would burn down the world. I only hope we don’t die instead. Peace isn’t easy to hold on to. He stares down at me, and when I stand, he doesn’t move back. His gaze drops to the valley between my breasts, and I can’t help the way I arch toward him. I like it when he looks.

  “I thought,” he starts, his gaze still low. His arm curls around my waist, and he pulls me close. “I thought you were dead.” He presses a kiss to my forehead and then buries his head in the nape of my neck, taking a deep breath.

  “I’m hard to get rid of.” I slip my arms around his neck and tip my chin up. His bright blue irises are a mesmerizing marvel. I could watch them focus and refocus for hours. They’re GenCor tech, probably the best they have, but they’re his. They make me safe. My gaze drops to his lips.

  “Promise you won’t do that again,” he murmurs, his mouth hovering over mine.

  “Never,” I say. It’s a foolish pledge, one I’m sure I can’t keep. Our mission might kill all three of us. GenCor might have an army waiting for us at the border. But I want this moment to remember, to replay if everything falls apart.

  We stand there like that until Dyad’s front tire makes the boards on the front porch squeak. Then we break apart. He goes one way and I go the other. He mutters to himself while I take the window.

  It’s still dark out. In front of me, Dyad rolls across the wide porch. We hope to slip into Bostgo under cover of night. Once we’re into the smog, it’ll be easier to hide. Between here and there, the Barren is the biggest risk to our success.

  “All clear.” Dyad moves into the room as Tonick relists the supplies he’s gone over and over. “We’re ready.”

  He crosses his arms. “Have I forgotten anything?”

  “You’re an android.” She sounds like she’s smiling. “You’ve probably thought of everything and then some.” She rolls toward me. “Do you have your necklace?”

  I clutch the pendant that rests between my breasts. “Right here.”

  Tonick’s glowing eyes follow my movement. When he licks his lips, my tongue follows suit without permission. His mouth opens slightly. He’s as hungry as I am. What a loaded way to start a six-hour trip in his arms.

  “Let’s go already.” Dyad isn’t just impatient; if we wait much longer, it’ll be morning by the time we cross into Bostgo. We’ll be racing the sunrise as it is.

  I cross to her and climb on. Tonick does, too. He scoots as close as he can to me, and I move back against him until there’s no space between us. If he thought we could survive, if he thought we could defend ourselves against GenCor, if he said the word, I would stay.

  But he doesn’t.

  Instead, Dyad moves out of the cabin, onto the porch, and into the open.

  My heart skips. “Oh.”

  One syllable, but it comes out like a long sigh after I’ve been holding my breath. A blanket of stars envelops the sky, a dark void inhabited by light and stretched out above us. I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Dyad stops in the middle of the cle
aring where we killed Wiskee. Wiskee’s empty shell looks on, but I don’t care. The universe is smiling. The trees aren’t knives tonight. They’re heralds pointed to the beauty above.

  Tonick steps down off Dyad and then offers me his hand. “We don’t have long.” He whispers the words against my ear. They planned this, the two of them.

  I kiss his cheek as he pulls away. “Thank you.”

  Dyad’s front end dips slightly as she moves backward.

  And then I’m left to the stars my father gave me. Creatures I don’t recognize call to one another. My pulse slows to match the beat of the universe. A smile spreads across my face, and I raise my arms like the branches that surround us, listening to life.

  Tonick laces his fingers in mine. “Watch.” A vein of light opens in the darkness, and brilliance shoots from one side of the sky to the other. And then it happens again.

  “What is it?” I breathe the words, afraid to shatter the spell.

  “A meteor shower.” Tonick squeezes my hand.

  “How did you know?” I press my hands over my mouth, blinking away tears, overcome by the magnificence of this moment.

  “Dyad,” he says. Of course Dyad knew. She’s my keeper, my sister on wheels.

  The nanoseconds stretch. Tonick watches me while I watch the sky.

  Stars are lucky. Stars are lucky. I count ten more streaks before I reach for the smartbike.

  “I will remember this forever.” Even when my memory breaks.

  But it’s time to go back. It’s time to shape our future. It’s time to fight for our peace. If we make it back, alive and together, the stars will never be as brilliant as they are right now.

  For the first time, I dare to hope that we might be made for the task ahead of us. That we’ve been placed in the world for this.