Goddess in the Machine

by Lora Beth Johnson

  Her mother, disassembling their first AI, and Andra crying.

  “It’s just an AI,” her mother saying, the scar new and shiny on her face. “Not quite human.”

  She was in the kitchen, with her brother. He was laughing.

  She was fourteen and in the school library. Rhin and Briella were whispering. Of course they were whispering—it was the library—but Andra wished they would whisper a little louder so she could hear. Her best friends were best friends with each other.

  She was eating dinner at her house. Cruz was there. He caught her eye over a forkful of green beans and winked. She looked away, and blushed.

  That night, she told Acadia about it. Back when her older sister went by Cadi. Back when she and Cadi were friends.

  Her mother, downloading her report card. Her mother, disappointed. Her mother, yelling.

  This is a dream, Andra thought.

  Her mother was dead. They were all dead. All of them, except Andra.

  She felt like she’d woken too early. Like something wasn’t finished yet. But that wasn’t it. She’d woken too late. Or perhaps she wasn’t awake at all. Perhaps none of this was real. Perhaps she wasn’t real.

  There were numbers in her head. Numbers. Not words. And they were getting smaller, and the memories began to fade.

  * * *

  Andra woke in the same position she’d passed out in, her clothes stiff with Lew-Eadin’s blood, the tile smudged with crimson handprints. At least she wasn’t drowning this time.

  She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but her body had demanded it. She almost shot up with relief, wanting to prove to herself that she was awake, alive, but her muscles were too stiff. Her cheek lay cool and sticky against the floor of her new room.

  Her back ached as she pushed herself to stand, her body screaming at her for the unideal sleeping position. If the nanos swarming around her had been compatible, her ’implant would have used them to work out the kinks, sending code that would switch them to med’nanos. But her muscles would have to heal on their own. Her burned hand no longer hurt, at least. She took in the room, looking for a place to wash up. The light was soft, casting a pink glow, and a slight breeze drifted from the balcony, cooling the sweat clinging to her skin. It sent a shiver down her spine. She vaguely wondered what time it was. The last time she’d overslept, she’d done so by nearly a millennium.

  “Evens, it’s been time and a half,” said a voice behind her.

  Andra whipped around. Zhade stood silhouetted in the doorway.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Her blood-soaked shirt was rucked up over her stomach. She tugged it down. “Were you watching me sleep?”

  “Scuze,” Zhade scoffed. “I was watching you drool.”

  She wiped her cheek before remembering the blood on her hands. It coated her like dark evening gloves. She pushed herself to her feet and began looking for a towel, one eye trained on Zhade.

  “Get out,” she said, tugging at her shirt again. “Wait. How’s Lew-Eadin?”

  She held her breath. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced it had been her fault—that her ’implant had called the nanos from the pocket to protect her.

  “Evens,” Zhade said, and she could hear the shrug in his voice. “What did I tell you? Tia Ludmila healed him full bars. He has a new magic hand now.” He raised his own hand and wiggled his fingers.

  Andra waited for the relief, but it didn’t come. She wasn’t sure if she could trust Zhade to tell the truth, but surely he would show some grief if Lew hadn’t survived.

  “Good.” She gave a single nod. “Now get out.”

  She had to clean off all the dried blood, and then she had to figure out what to do next.

  Zhade grinned, sauntering into the room. He was dressed like the guards in the throne room, except he wore his uniform incomplete, his black shirt strategically unbuttoned at the top, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The ostentatious wrist cuffs were missing, as was the gold breastplate (so as not to defeat the purpose of the overlooked buttons), but a scabbard hung at his side. It was missing the ridiculous sword the other guards carried. They probably didn’t trust him with a weapon. Andra didn’t blame them.

  “Sands,” he cursed, looking her up and down. “Are you familiar with baths?”

  “You used me.” She stomped over to the vanity. Nothing to wipe her hands there. Then the wardrobe. She left fingerprints on the gold trim.

  “That’s what a deal is, Goddess,” Zhade said. “We agree to use each other. Evens and odds, did you learn anything at goddess skool? Speaking of, we’ll be starting one of our own. Tonight. It seems there are gaps in your education, and if you’re going to survive, you need to fill in those gaps.”

  “Were you planning on telling me?”

  “Bout goddess lessons?”

  “About any of it!” She grabbed a dress from the wardrobe. It was silk. Handmade. Probably worth more than the entire village she’d been found in. She used it to scrub her hands. “Or was it all just a lie to get you where you wanted to be, your highness.”

  Zhade’s expression darkened for a moment before fading back into his usual grin. “Oh, I’m nowhere near where I want to be. Not yet, anyway.” He crossed to the wardrobe and nudged Andra out of the way to riffle through the delicate clothes inside. “That’s why I need your help.”

  “I’m done helping you.”

  Zhade rolled his eyes, pulling out a random dress. “Wear this. The bloodstains are dramistic, but I imagine you should choose something that says ethereal deity, and not homicidal psychopath.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “When in Rome.”

  “Don’t reck what that means, but certz it’s brill.” He tossed the dress onto her bed. The material was light, made of a gauzy fabric that looked suspiciously see-through. It had a high waist, no sleeves. Mostly white, except for bursts of red. Despite what Zhade had said, it was obvious he was going for a certain imagery. “In the prenights after your goddess duties, Lew and I are going to skool you how to be a goddess.”

  Andra shook her head. “I’m not doing any goddess duties or goddess lessons.”

  “We’ll see.” He sank into a pink upholstered chair, swinging his legs over the armrest, and she fully saw his resemblance to Maret. She shivered.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the Guv was your brother?”

  “Half-brother,” he said, pointedly, relaxing into the chair, crossing his arms and ankles. “I’m illegitimate. A bastard.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “They say my mother was a whore.”

  Based on Tsurina’s reaction to Zhade and her comments about his mother, Andra guessed that wasn’t the full story. Unless this society punished cheating and prostitution by death. Of course, they might. She wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from these people—warped descendants of the original colonists, distorted just like the tech around her.

  Andra raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Should we just add that to the list of things you neglected to tell me?”

  Zhade scoffed. “Like what? I’ve been mereish honest.”

  She began counting off on her fingers. “That I had to prove I was a goddess or I’d get killed. That the other goddesses are dead. That you’re related to the . . . Guv or whatever. Oh yeah, that Maret took your throne—”

  “Evens, if you want to get magical bout it.” Zhade groaned, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. A breeze from the balcony ruffled his hair. “And Maret didn’t take the throne. It was given to him. No one recks I—”

  “I don’t care!”

  He raised his hands, placating. “You were just yelling at me for not being forthcoming. I’m mereish trying to provide as much info as possible. I’m older, but Maret was the son of the Guv’s wife. My mother was . . .” He stuck out his bottom lip, thinking. “Not the Guv’s wife. I don’t reck if you realized,
but Tsurina doesn’t like me full much.”

  “I. don’t. care,” Andra repeated. “I got you in your stupid city. Now all I want is—”

  What did she want? Or, more to the point, what could she want? The deepest desire of her heart was to go back before any of this had happened and convince her family not to be colonists. To cry, argue, sabotage, whatever it took to prevent this from happening. Barring that, what she wanted was to go home. Only, Earth wasn’t home anymore, not really. It would be unrecognizable to her a thousand years in the future. But compared to this planet, it seemed like the best option.

  “Goddess?” Zhade prompted. “What do you want? Me? Don’t be embarrassed. Most people do.”

  Andra ignored the comment, though it made her stomach flutter strangely. The question wasn’t what did she want, but what did she need? If she was going to survive this city and get the hell off this planet, what would it take? She currently had no way to get back to Earth, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t create one.

  “I want a mech’bot . . . angel,” she corrected when Zhade looked confused. “One of the tall ones with the wide shoulders outside the throne room.”

  Mech’bots were tall, bulky, and strong, perfectly programmed for heavy labor. And this society was using them to open doors.

  Zhade let out a bark of a laugh. “Is that all? Mereish one of the Angelic Guards? Why stop there? Why not Maret’s personal angelic conduit? Or the buttons from his shoes?”

  Andra set a hand on her hip. “Why not? I could always use extra buttons. And I also need any spare metal you can find.” She started rifling through the drawers of her vanity, looking for supplies. “And any, uh, magic no one is using. Or, you know what, it doesn’t even matter if someone’s using it. I need it more.”

  A plan was forming in her head. Outrageous and risky, and if she could pull it off, she might just deserve to be called a goddess. All she needed were some scraps of metal, a mech’bot, and an AI. That last one was going to be tricky. On the surface, AI were indistinguishable from standard robots, but not all ’bots were AI. They’d been rare even in Andra’s time.

  “Seeya,” Zhade snorted. “You want me to steal magical conduits for you? Sorcers’ prized possessions? Their livinghood? And somehow procure one of the most conspicuous royal angels in the full of Eerensed?” He scoffed. “Stabbing me would be a quicker way to kill me, Goddess.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t ruled that out.”

  Zhade frowned. “Ruled . . . what?”

  Andra stomped toward an alcove on the other side of the room. To her relief, it led to a bathroom. To her mortification, there was no door. And the indoor plumbing was nothing but a few pipes and a complicated pulley system.

  Zhade followed, his hands jammed in his pockets. “Neg, for serious. Ruled what?”

  Andra bit her lip. If the ’bot from the desert was correct—and it had been correct about Andra’s dead family—then the Ark was still in geosynchronous orbit. An interstellar ship. All she needed was a short-range shuttle to get to it. She doubted any of those were lying around, but a mech’bot could be programmed to create one. Of course, assuming she found one and enough spare parts to create a shuttle, she would still be out of luck without a pilot for the Ark. And Andra would need someone—or something—to put her back in stasis. An AI could do it. But where was she going to find an AI in a place like this?

  One step at a time, Watts.

  First, she needed a mech’bot, and she needed to survive long enough for it to build a shuttle.

  “How about this?” Andra said, turning on the faucet. It spluttered rust, then a burst of cold water splashed from the tap. “I’ll take these stupid goddess lessons, if you find me the things I need.”

  Zhade grinned, but the expression was strained. He ran a hand through his hair. “Seeya, I can maybe, maybe, find you some spare magical conduits. Give me a list, and I’ll do my best. But there’s no march for me stealing an Angelic Guard from under Mare’s chin.”

  “Fine. Then let’s start with those spare parts.” Andra ran her hands under the tap. The water turned a sickly pink, as she grabbed a nearby bar of soap. It stung, but she started to scrub. “You keep bringing me what I ask for, and I’ll keep attending goddess lessons.”

  Zhade groaned, but it felt staged, like he was getting exactly what he wanted. “Evens. Magic for goddess lessons.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”

  They shook on it, Andra’s hand still dripping with water and soap.

  Zhade smirked. “This is a stupid custom, marah?”

  She took her hand back, flicking water in his face. “Why do you even care if I pull off being a goddess? What do you get out of it?”

  “Can’t I mereish help you because I’m a nice boyo?”

  “Not based on precedent.”

  “Hmm,” Zhade said, flicking a towel from a nearby hook and offering it to her. “Let’s just say my survival depends on your survival.”

  Andra grabbed the towel, a little harder than necessary. “Why are you even here? What are you trying to do? Take your throne back? Is that why Maret banished you? Because he wanted your throne? Or because you’re a pain in the ass?”

  Zhade pursed his lips, thinking. “Probablish a bit of both.”

  The towel had already turned pink.

  “Maret was always . . .” Zhade shrugged. “Maret. Awkward. Stand-asidish. We were friendish when we were kidduns. Tsurina made a stop to that quickish. No one recked who I was, or even that Maret was a second son. He would have gotten the throne anyway, but apparentish it wasn’t enough. They wanted me peaced adesert.”

  “Why didn’t Maret just kill you?” Andra muttered, trying to make it sound like a veiled threat, but not quite pulling it off.

  Zhade leaned against the wall, puffing out a sigh. “I imagine he recked the Wastes would do it for him.” A grin spread across his face. “He’s twice the fool, then, marah?”

  His voice was light, even playful, but Andra thought she could detect a hint of sadness in his eyes.

  She bit her lip. “How did the other goddesses die?”

  Zhade was quiet for a moment, watching her with an unreadable expression. Finally he said, “You were asleep for time and a half.”

  “Not what I asked.”

  He seemed to weigh his next words carefully. “There’s always a balance to things. Where there’s worship, there’s dissent. Everyone’s god is a devil to others.”

  “They were murdered.”

  “Not what I said.” Zhade took a deep breath and scratched the back of his head. “Hear. This is why you need me. I can help you. I comp Eerensed and Maret and how to hold you alive. I can skool you how to be a goddess people won’t want to kill. Especialish Maret.”

  Andra hung the towel back on the hook. “Why? What’s so important? What do you want from him?”

  “The Crown.”

  “So you do want his throne.”

  “Neg—not—I want the Silver Crown.” Zhade took the towel and refolded it neatly before hanging it back up. “The one on his temple.”

  The ’implant—the one that allowed him to control ’bots, and was probably the reason he governed the city. So no matter what Zhade said, he wanted Maret’s position of power. He was going to be disappointed. Crowns couldn’t be detached without a nano’surgeon.

  “Full bars bout me,” Zhade said. He rocked back on his heels, his mood suddenly shifting, and thrust his hands in his pockets. “Time for you to prepify for the ceremony. Certz you don’t want help?” He winked.

  She ignored him. “Ceremony?”

  “Firm, it’s an event where people—”

  “I know what a ceremony is.”

  “Eight abell, then.” He turned to go before Andra could ask any follow-up questions. “I’ll send up your replacement maids.”

  “My replacement maids? Wh
at happened to the ones from last night?”

  “The ones you yelled at and shoved out of your room?”

  “I wanted to apologize.” She picked at her fingernails.

  Zhade clucked his tongue. “Evens, that will be difficult seeing as they’re bout to be executed.”

  It took Andra a moment too long to process the words. Or one word in particular. Executed. It was harsh and archaic and she’d never heard it used outside of novels and period sims.

  “What?”

  “They displeased you, Goddess, what did you imagine would happen?”

  Andra’s mind whirled. She’d failed some test she hadn’t even known she was taking. People were going to die because of her. It was like her brain couldn’t . . . couldn’t process that. The world dropped out from under her. She grabbed the sink to steady herself. Zhade was still talking, but she didn’t hear the words. He was speaking through water. She was still in the ’tank, drowning, unable to breathe.

  Before she could stop herself, she pushed past him.

  “Where are you peacing to?” he called after her.

  “To save them.”

  “What? Neg.” Zhade hurried to catch up with her, his armor clinking, his movements stiff. “Neg. That is a fraughted idea. Whatever moral high dune you reck you have now, it won’t meteor. Not against Maret. He’s the Guv.”

  Andra threw open the door. “Yeah? Well apparently I’m a goddess.”

  TWELVE

  THE INTERCESSOR

  Zhade followed the Goddess. It wasn’t difficult to keep apace with her. Her stride was short, and she wasn’t clued where she was going. The Rock was a maze even to seasoned servants and diplomats—stone staircases, brick hallways, tight winding passages. Although Zhade hadn’t magicalish aged up here, his mam had made certz he recked the layout of the palace full well. The little Goddess did not.

  “This is bad magic,” Zhade said, but he comped no argument would convince her. Sides, it might be good for her to see what she was marching toward. It would be a thin string they’d half-walk if Zhade was to get Maret to trust her. She couldn’t seem weak, because then the Eerensedians wouldn’t follow her and she’d be useless to the Guv. But if she appeared too powerful, she wouldn’t survive the day. She needed to see what the consequences were if she stepped too far aside.