It’s not real. It’s in your head.
Someone was laughing.
Not real.
Pain.
The synapses are blocked, rerouting . . .
Pain.
PAIN.
Andra blinked, shaking away whatever was happening to her head, to her ’implant. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t think. It was almost like she had fallen asleep. Had started dreaming. But the men were where they had been just a moment before. Poised to pounce. Poised to take her away, to hurt her some more.
The leader bore down on her, and she kicked out on instinct, making contact with his face. She heard a crunch as his head jerked back. His groan morphed into a growl as he turned toward her. He spat a globule of blood into the sand, his face bright with rage.
“No one round here,” he rasped. “No one to hear your screams. And no one would come running if they did.”
She tensed, trying to stay conscious, trying to focus, trying to come up with something to say, something to do, just something. But it was almost like her mind had shut down for a moment, her body frozen in fear.
Then there was a new voice behind her.
“Unless they were tracking her.”
The men jerked their heads up, but Andra didn’t need to. She would recognize that arrogant drawl anywhere.
“We dared each other as kidduns to come up here,” Zhade said, still out of Andra’s line of vision—she didn’t dare take her eyes off the attackers—but she could hear him coming closer, his footsteps making slow, lazy thuds against the sand. “If you made it to the closest column without wetting yourself, you were considered brave. I made it all the way to the center and rubbed the Buried Man’s head for luck.” She heard two thumps, as though he were patting the statue like a dog. “For certz, I screamed the full march, and I swear a ghost grabbed my ankle. Neg, hear, I still have the scar.”
A rustle of clothing. The idiot was actually showing them his ankle.
“I come up here sometimes to ponder, seeya. Clear my brain of all the murder and stuff we do at the palace. That’s actualish in the job description: murder and stuff.”
She could now see him out of the corner of her eye. He’d drawn level with her, his hands in his pockets, his belt free of weapons. He shuffled his feet, spraying sand as he went.
“Almost didn’t come today. My friend here would have been all alone, except someone went looking for her, because someone recked she would do something reckless and stupid eventualish, and now someone is going to hand you your teeth for bread.”
The men stayed frozen. Zhade took another step forward.
“I’m—” He pointed at himself. “I’m the someone. Was that not crystal?”
Zhade pulled something out of his pocket. It was a thin dagger, almost translucent. Andra had never seen a weapon like it. No hilt, like the tip of an icepick, and made of no metal she recognized. It could almost be glass, or an icicle. It shone in the sun, a myriad of colors. It was beautiful, but useless against the weapons the attackers were wielding.
“Wait!” Andra shouted, but it was too late.
All three men lunged for Zhade. Two aimed high, the other low. Zhade danced out of the way. It became obvious pretty quickly that fighting was not Zhade’s forte, and whatever techniques he had were cobbled together from a handful of controlled training sessions—probably with Lew or some palace official in charge of the bastard prince. Luckily, his opponents weren’t that skilled either. But there were three of them, and one Zhade.
Andra tried to push herself to her feet, but pain coursed through her body, her mind still fuzzy, and she toppled to the ground.
With a spin, Zhade managed to dodge the first two men’s attacks, but not the third’s. His rusty weapon caught Zhade on the cheek, and a thin line of blood ran from temple to chin.
Zhade touched the tips of his fingers to the wound, then looked down at the smudged blood. He paled.
“Sands,” he breathed. “Not the face.”
The first man darted forward, knocking Zhade’s translucent dagger to the ground. It skittered across the sand and landed by Andra. She grasped it. Pain shot through her, as sudden as a burst of adrenaline, but not nearly as focusing. She tried to push to her feet. But it was too late. The second man—the one with the pointed teeth—held a knife to Zhade’s throat, as the third pinned his arms behind his back.
“You’re all words, boyo,” the second man growled. “And words are nothing.”
Zhade took one last look at Andra and winked.
She had no clue what he had planned, but there were three men holding him, and one had a blade to his neck. The man’s muscles tensed, and Andra had the sympathetic sensation of the bite of metal against skin. The warmth of spilled blood. Time slowed. She screamed.
“NO!”
The man started to choke.
Even as pain coursed through her body, Andra watched the attacker’s hand waver and, as though against his will, draw the knife away from Zhade’s neck and bring it to his own. Andra knew what would happen before it did, but it still shocked her as the man slit his own throat and fell, dead before he hit the ground.
The two others were stunned, but Zhade was ready. He drove his elbow back into the one holding him, crushing his nose. Blood spurted everywhere.
The other met Andra’s eyes. “Witch,” he hissed, and then he was running, his companion scampering to catch up.
For a moment, it was still, nothing but the sound of their breathing, and the crunch of gravel as Zhade shifted his weight. His face was coated with blood, his hair mussed. His carefully disheveled look was just chaos. There was nothing intentional about him now, and whatever arrogant mask he constantly wore had slipped, and Andra saw he was scared and relieved and maybe a bit confused.
“What was that?” Andra asked. “How did you do that?”
Did he have an ’implant? He’d used the same trick she’d seen Maret use the other night—choke the attacker with nanos, then use the technological components of the dagger to turn it on its wielder.
“Do what? That wasn’t me.”
Andra’s heart stuttered. She looked around. They were alone. There was nowhere for anyone to hide, and surely Maret couldn’t control nanos over large distances. She hoped.
Zhade scratched the back of his head, grinning to himself. “Some magic.”
“Some magic,” Andra agreed, though not as delighted. Was Maret somewhere nearby? Just out of sight? And why had he saved Zhade but not her? “Wait. But if you didn’t know what would happen, why did you wink at me?”
Zhade grinned. “Because I like making you blush.”
“That—but—you could have died.”
“Hear, there you go again.” His gaze dipped to her collarbone, and his smile vanished. “What’s this?” he said, darting forward.
He drew the torn flaps of shirt from the wound. Before she could protest, he pulled out some bandages from his bag and started dabbing the blood from Andra’s collarbone.
She held out his translucent dagger, and he paused his ministrations just long enough to take it back.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more help,” she said.
“Psh.” He scoffed. “And deny me the chance to show off?”
She pointed at his face. “Shouldn’t we take care of your face first?”
“Neg.” Zhade shrugged. “I have hope it’ll scar.” The blood was already starting to clot, but he needed a med’bot.
“Your perfect face?”
“Ah! You reck I have a perfect face?” Zhade said, helping her to her feet. The movement pulled at her wound, and she hissed through her teeth.
“Be at care,” Zhade said, holding her up. He waited until she was steady before he started helping her toward the riverbank. “Aren’t you going to thank me for saving you?”
She cut him
a glance. “How did you know I was here?”
“Wead sent me a message. I’ve been following you for time and a half.”
“Well, you certainly took your time rescuing me.”
“Ah, so you admit I rescued you.”
“For the sake of argument.”
“I was waiting for the most dramistic moment. You should apologize for making me worry.”
She stumbled, and Zhade caught her. “You were worried?”
“For the sake of argument.”
Andra’s skull ached. Her arms and legs felt heavy.
“Let’s get away from here,” Zhade said. “This place gives me the fraughts.”
She nodded, glancing back at the statue. Then paused.
“Wait.”
Something about the place felt both foreign and recognizable, like a familiar room with the furniture rearranged. Andra took a step back up the hill. Then another. And another. Her thighs burned as her feet sunk into the sand. She trailed her fingers over the nearest column.
Zhade groaned, then followed her.
She knelt in front of the statue. “Why do people think it’s haunted?”
He plopped down onto the dirt beside her and pulled a canteen from his satchel. He took a swig and wiped his mouth with his arm before answering. “How does any legend get started? Probablish with a little bit of truth and a lot of good escapist storytelling. The truth is probablish boring, so each time someone told the story, they added a bit of flash so it made sense.”
He offered her the canteen, but she shook her head.
“I’d suspect the real story, the true story, makes more sense than the place being haunted.”
Zhade snorted. “Real life rarish makes sense, Goddess. And there’s never any truth in it.” He nodded to the statue. “What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet, sauntering over to the nearest column and patting it as though he were complimenting it on its sturdiness.
Andra tried to imagine what the statue had looked like new. If the top of its head hadn’t been cut off, it would have had hair. Some remained at its nape and around the ears. A single strand fell down what was left of its right cheek. The face was so weathered, there were no distinguishing features. Just two sunken eyes, a bump for a nose. The ears had been eroded down to nonexistent nubs, and the mouth had completely faded into the chin. Andra ran her hand over the ridges; then her fingers landed on a clump of some black substance at the base of the neck, like tarnished silver. Her stomach dropped.
She started to brush away the dirt covering the stone at her feet. “Help me, will you?”
Zhade knelt beside her, gently pushing her aside. “Rest yourself,” he said, taking over for her. “What are you looking for?”
She didn’t answer, because she was afraid she already knew. Was hoping she was wrong.
Zhade removed enough of the dirt to make out what was beneath, and Andra peered over his shoulder. The stone was part of a longer piece, curved like it used to run around the top of the pillars. It was etched with letters.
They were so familiar to her, she almost missed what was odd about them.
She knew them.
They were hers—hers in a way that they belonged to no one else alive. She brushed more dirt off, and more of the letters came into focus until they formed a word.
forget
Her fingers frantically cleared the gravel from the grooves, leaving the letters clean and legible. Little by little, she uncovered the entire stone, and with it, its inscription. Tears pooled in her eyes.
She knew these words. Not just the language, but the specific words, in that specific order, carved into that specific stone.
we will never forget the sacrifices and
The next word was achievements.
How many times had she read those words? How many times had she walked past them, skimmed over them, heard them quoted? Listened to Oz recite them when he was first learning to read?
We will never forget the sacrifices and achievements that allow us to move past what we are and become something more.
The Griffin statue. Andra had stood in this very place. Stood under that very chunk of rock, passed under it when it had been suspended as an arch over the entrance to LAC headquarters. The buried man wasn’t a man at all, but Dr. Alberta Griffin, now forgotten under centuries of sediment. That river. That was the same river she’d walked along to the Vaults with her little brother. The same city, the streets reorganized, built on top of the old ones, sunk further into the earth.
The Earth.
She thought back to when she first woke up, asking the ’bot where she was. It never said which planet she was on.
Except it had.
The coordinates of the planet Andra stood on—it hadn’t been a glitch or a malfunction. Galactic coordinates indicated where a planet was in relation to Earth, so Earth’s coordinates would be—
0-0-0.
Just like the ’bot said.
It had given her everything she needed to know that first day, and she hadn’t even realized it. It told her where her family was—dead on Holymyth. And where she was—awake on Earth.
She had her answer. She knew what had happened to her family, had happened to her.
They’d gone to Holymyth like they were supposed to. Like she was supposed to. Except she hadn’t.
She’d been left on Earth.
PART THREE
JUDAS KISS
Requesting update on subject 3263827. I have concerns about the AI’s progress. I wonder if its attachment to humans stunts its learning curve. I’ve received similar reports of subject 3263826. Not quite human, you always say. It seems that gap is shrinking, and humans, as much as I hate to admit it, are limited. We don’t want AI to be limited as well. Of course, if they don’t learn to love us, they could easily be the end of us all. Let’s look into psychological theories of conditioning and manipulation.
And please stop publicly referring to the Arcanum as the Ark. You’ll give people the wrong (right) idea.
—Excerpt of memo to Isla Watts, from Alberta Griffin, founder of the Lacuna Athenaeum Corporation
TWENTY
arcanum, n.
Etymology: Latin, neuter of adjective arcānus: that which keeps a secret. Postmodern primary use: proper noun, name of ship commissioned by the Lacuna Athenaeum Corporation to transport humanity’s first interplanetary colonists (often shortened to The Ark, a reference to the Biblical Ark, which saved Noah and his family from a global flood).
Definition:
a sacred secret, a mystery.
a marvelous elixir or remedy.
“This is earth,” Andra wheezed. She fell to her knees. The earth was dry to the touch, crumbling beneath her fingers. The sun warmed her back, gleamed off the statue of Alberta Griffin.
“Certz,” Zhade said. “Where did you reck you were?”
“Holymyth,” she choked. “The ’bot told me people called this planet the Hell-mouth.”
“Firm, have you seen this place?” He gestured to their surroundings. Across the river, sand-colored buildings towered under the ’dome, its sheen a thin veneer of safety. Blackened fingers of rot were stark against the washed-out sky.
Andra let out a sob. She felt the sand pass through her fingers, sand where there had once been lush grass.
“Heya.” Zhade steadied her as she swayed. “What’s wrong?”
Her eyes brimmed with tears, and her throat burned. It was bad enough thinking she’d been forgotten, but to have been left behind . . .
Nothing about this planet resembled Earth. The barren deserts, the pockets, the lost technology. She hadn’t even known Earth was dying. Maybe that’s what the Ark had been for—to save humanity. Maybe it had
never been about conserving resources, but about escape. They’d saved a million and left billions behind. All the pain, the horror these people went through—were still going through—for centuries, and they’d just been left.
Andra stomped toward the statue, then her fist slammed against the stone. Crack. Her knuckles. Snap. The statue’s nose. Crunch. Andra’s blood ran down Alberta Griffin’s stone face. Her fist stung and then went numb. She cocked her arm back for another hit, but something stopped her.
“Heya, heya, what are you doing?”
Zhade turned her toward him and took her hand, easing her fingers open. She felt nothing. Not the sand stinging her wounds, or her crushed knuckles, or the cloth he used to wipe away the blood.
Not the grief tearing her chest in two.
Her family was dead. Dead across the universe, which somehow made it worse. Separated by time and space. Somewhere humans were still alive, not fearing for their lives, not waiting for the planet to swallow them whole. Because they’d saved themselves and left everyone else to die. She yanked her hand from Zhade’s and started toward Griffin’s stupid face again.
He pulled her back. “Leave that statue alone. You’ve done full bars damage, and I reck he’s sorries.”
No, she wasn’t. She was dead, like the rest of them, and this was the closest thing Andra had to revenge.
“Heya, none of that now,” Zhade said, pulling her into his chest, and she realized she was crying.
His arms tightened around her, his hand cradling her head. He threaded his fingers through her hair, combing out the Celestias Lilibet had woven that morning. She sniveled into his chest, her head tucked under his chin, and she couldn’t stop the words as they tumbled out, over and over.
They left me.
They left me.
They left me.
* * *
The next few minutes were not her finest. And she’d spent the last millennium naked in a box, so the bar was already set pretty low. The sun—sol—beat down as Zhade held her until she calmed, settling into the sand by Alberta fucking Griffin, his fingers brushing Andra’s hair. It was nice, necessary even.
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