Goddess in the Machine

by Lora Beth Johnson

  Xana pulled something out of her bag and threw it to the dark-haired woman. In the dim light of the cave, it was hard to make out at first, but the woman turned it over, and suddenly Andra recognized it.

  Her cos’mask. The one Zhade had programmed to look like her birthmark.

  “I can explain that,” Andra said, but she was more interested in how they’d found it. Last she’d seen it, the ’mask had been in a drawer in her bedroom at the top of the palace. Apparently, Xana and the Schism had been keeping an eye on her.

  “I’d rather you explain bout killing the Guv.”

  Andra bit her lip, shivering in the cool damp of the cave. “I didn’t kill the Guv. I mean, I did. But not really. Only temporarily. I brought him back.”

  “Now why would you want to do that?” Skilla murmured, weighing the deactivated cos’mask in her hand.

  Andra was about to answer when, in one swift movement, the woman tore the neck of Andra’s guard uniform, revealing her birthmark. Skilla’s eyes narrowed, then softened as they landed on Andra’s necklace.

  “A holocket,” she breathed. She gave Andra an appraising look, then stepped back, and Andra wondered why this time it was the ’locket and not her birthmark that saved her.

  The woman assessed Andra, her piercing eyes narrowed. Andra tried to appear both confident and innocuous, neither a look she was able to pull off. She felt the stillness in the cave like a physical weight. The woman stepped forward, with the grace of a cat. Long, lithe, silent movements. Her eyes remained locked on Andra as she offered her hand.

  “I’m Skilla.”

  Andra shook it. “Andra.”

  Skilla laughed without humor. “I know.”

  With that, she turned and walked off. Without breaking her stride, she called back, “Follow,” and Andra did.

  Skilla led Andra through the cavern, Doon and Xana falling in step behind, past the crowd of people eyeing them warily. They were dressed like the desert villagers had been, in rough-knit clothing, and there were even more skin tones than in the city above. She imagined not all of these people were Eerensedian, but from elsewhere.

  Once Andra got past the shock of how many people were hidden down here—almost a shadow of the town above; no wonder the ’dome was failing—Andra realized why this underground city felt so comfortable. Familiar.

  Technology was everywhere.

  Not just ’bots, though there were plenty of those. But also data’screens and holo’displays—projecting all sorts of information, playing advertisements for stitches, synth’protein, ’bot repair. People had ’bands on their wrists and tablets on their laps. They were communicating. There was a network down here. It was glitchy—’screens flickered as they passed and lights stuttered—but it worked.

  “You have technology,” Andra breathed. It wasn’t sacred. It wasn’t some mystical remnants of the gods. It just was. She tried to access it with her ’implant, but it was useless. She thought longingly of the dagger.

  Skilla smirked. “You have no idea.”

  Despite being cut off from the sun, the cave glowed like midday, lit by the active devices, and the further they traveled, the more familiar it felt, and Andra realized why.

  These were the excavated ruins of a grocery store.

  Or it could have been a hardware store or a sim’porium. Whatever it was, it was from Andra’s time. The floor was chipped and coated with dirt, but definitely that glossy gray eco’tile ubiquitous in stores in the twenty-second century. Where the floor had flaked away completely, there was a layer of smooth, polished concrete. Frayed carbon fiber poked through the gaps. The ceiling consisted mostly of the cavern rocks, but it was also threaded with the ruins of aluminum support beams. Many of the kiosks, where people were selling random tech or beads or clothing, were made up of rusted titanium teardrop beams.

  Skilla and her entourage stopped outside a doorway hewn into a concrete wall. It was just tall enough for Doon to pass under, but the others had to duck. It led to a tunnel, much cleaner and less damp than the one from the Hive. It was lit by a series of electric lights, flicking on as they passed, just bright enough to illuminate the way to the next one.

  As they reached the end of the tunnel, Skilla turned.

  “This might surprise you,” she said, and flung open the metal door blocking their path.

  On the other side was a massive room—some kind of natural cave formation—but Andra couldn’t focus on its size or even the impossibility of it—because before her stood a giant rocket.

  “Holy shit,” Andra breathed. The words echoed around the cave.

  Xana and Doon gasped beside her, as though this were their first time seeing it. Maybe it was.

  Andra had to crane her head. Up, up. The rocket was at least two hundred meters tall, sleek and slender. It made her feel so small. Here she’d been compiling scraps for a short-range shuttle when all along there had been an honest-to-goddess rocket under her feet.

  “We only have room for one hundred people,” Skilla said quietly. “We can get them off planet, but it’ll be cramped. And at least it will keep the human race alive.”

  “Massive,” Doon whispered.

  It wasn’t just a rocket, though. It was a generation ship. In the dim light, Andra could just make out the hinges and seams where the rocket would open up once it broke the atmosphere, forming a ring. A rotating space habitat. A small one, for sure, but once the rocket blossomed, there would be enough room for a limited group of people to live—a hundred apparently. It would be outfitted with synth’trees for oxygen, and organic waste recycling, and solar energy conversion . . .

  Whoever designed this wasn’t just smart. They were a goddamn genius. Probably the smartest person to ever live. Because they’d done it on their own—not with the weight and resources of history behind them, not standing on the shoulders of their predecessors.

  Andra swayed under the vertigo of looking up at something so tall.

  “How?” she asked.

  “The First,” Skilla said, crossing her arms and following Andra’s gaze to the top of the rocket. “She gave us the tools and the understanding. Unfortunately, she was sacrificed”—she drew out the word with derision—“before it was finished. We need an AI to speak with the angels—drones working on it. Construction has been at a standstill since . . .”

  She waved her hand dismissively and walked around the edge of the room, stopping in front of a control panel. She pressed a few buttons, and the ’display blinked to life.

  “We’ve studied it enough, we think we know how to pilot it. The problem is we don’t know where we’re going. The First insisted that only an AI could . . . program”—she stumbled over the word—“the calculations?”

  Andra met Skilla’s gaze and tried to give her a calculating look of her own.

  “I think we can help each other.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE TRAITOR

  Zhade would do anything to remain in Eerensed. But as Kiv and another guard dragged him toward Maret’s suite, his chances of staying were slimming. Kiv grunted and gave him a small shove. His shoes squeaked on the marble, his shoulder burned. He missed the comforting weight of the icepick dagger in his pocket. Andra had needed it more than he did, but evens.

  Zhade had been found ticks after Doon and the Goddess fled, bleeding and already losing consciousness. The tiny warrior hadn’t been as careful as she could have been. The guards who found him patched him up, but it was a quick job, using the minimum amount of magic to hold him alive. And now he would have to face his brother.

  Zhade had recked the plan was flawed. It didn’t meteor he’d been stabbed, when he’d also been found in the dungeons ticks after a prisoner had escaped. He had to play this well, smartish. Before Maret became the monster fashioned by Tsurina, he had been Zhade’s friend and brother.

  Two years Zhade’s junior, Ma
ret had been ganglish and awkward. Zhade, on the other hand, had their father’s charm, his mother’s strength, and a relentlessness all his own. Maret was a blank slate, easyish molded into whatever was required of him. When they were young, he’d been a sweet boy, eager to please. Sole now did Zhade see it for what it was: manipulation. Maret was mereish ever what served him best in the moment. Unfortunatish for him, it was a trick Zhade was far, far better at.

  Zhade and his entourage of guards reached Maret’s suite, and Kiv rapped on the door. Two taps: too loud. Kiv never knew his own strength. The door swung open, sorcered to its master’s will, and Zhade was pushed into the room.

  Maret was waiting for him, dressed in their father’s clothes. It was a psychological blow, one Zhade doubted Maret imagined himself. The move dripped, thick as honey, with Tsurina’s influence. The advisor herself was standing in the corner, a silent sentinel.

  “Why couldn’t you have stayed in the Wastes?” Maret asked, his voice holding a whine age hadn’t culled.

  Zhade shrugged. “Why do you keep losing goddesses?” He was out of clever things to say, and all he could imagine were the circumstances that forced the Third from the palace. He wondered if the hideous bruise on Maret’s face belonged to Andra.

  Rare form, Goddess.

  “I have a proposition for you,” Maret said without preamble. He leaned back in his chair, considering the glass of brown liquor in his hand. For anyone else, the posture would have seemed powerful, a subtle reminder that the person was so comfortistic in their authority that they needn’t bother to stand or make eye contact. Zhade had even performed the same trick before, but with Maret, it seemed forced. There was no subtlety. He’d built his gambit and forgotten to remove the scaffolding.

  “A proposition?” Zhade asked. He sat in a plush chair opposite Maret, crossing his legs. He leaned his chin against his hand to keep from fidgeting.

  “I’m curious,” Maret continued, “why you didn’t tell the Goddess who you are. You haven’t told her everything.”

  Zhade gave his brother half a shrug. “My identity is currency. I was saving it for a drought.”

  Maret nodded, still not looking away from his glass. Zhade wondered if he was going to drink it, or if it was just for show. Maret had never been able to hold his liquor.

  “Someone may spend that currency for you.”

  The threat was weightless. If Maret wanted the people to reck who Zhade was, he would have told them already. Sides, it was in Maret’s best interest that the full truth bout Zhade’s identity remain a secret.

  The Guv set down his glass and finalish looked at his brother. “I’m willing to forgive you everything,” he said.

  That’s funny, Zhade thought. I’m willing to forgive you none of it.

  “If”—Maret held up a finger—“you can prove you aren’t here to usurp me.”

  Zhade laughed. “Oh, trust me, Mare-Bear, that’s not why I’m here full well.”

  Maret cringed at the kidhood playname, but he ironed out his expression quickish. He was getting better at checking his temper, but then, Tsurina was still watching, and the bruise coloring Maret’s cheek made him carefulish, mereish opening his mouth as much as necessary. Zhade was cautious not to stare at the bruise, or the nearby Silver Crown.

  “I want to be friends. I want to go back to the way things were,” Maret said. He sounded like he meant it, and Zhade wondered if he did—if Maret was that oblivious, or full bars stupid to believe Zhade would forgive him his mother’s death, his own exile, the years in the Wastes, all that had happened since.

  “I want that too, Mare,” Zhade said, hoping his smile reached his eyes. Hoping his desperation didn’t show. He would do anything—anything—to avenge his mother’s death, to accomplish what he set out to do the moment the gate had sealed itself between him and the city he loved.

  Everything had been taken from him, and now it was time to take things back. He would decide his own fate, whatever the cost.

  Maret’s lips spread into a grin, but it was Tsurina who stepped forward, opening a nearby door. Guards tumbled in with a prisoner, bruised and bloody and beaten, and Zhade sucked in a sharp breath.

  “It’s time,” Maret said, placing Zhade’s icepick dagger on the table, “for you to make a choice.”

  He was out of options, out of plans, and Maret was handing him a sickening decision. Zhade should have recked it would always come to this. That it would never have been as easy as mereish taking back what was his.

  Zhade took a deep breath, steadying himself, and leaned forward. “I have a counteroffer.”

  There would be a terrible cost, but Zhade would decide his own fate.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  exchange, n.

  Definition:

  the act of giving or taking one thing in return for another which is regarded as an equivalent, such as:

  currency, goods, services

  blows, strikes, hits, parries

  prisoners

  After Skilla showed her the rocket, Andra was given a brief tour of the Schism hideout. The main part of the cave acted as an open-air market, the rebels maintaining their own micro-economy right under the Eerensedians’ noses. And they weren’t just trading in necessities—though there were plenty of butchers and pharmacists and stitchers. There were also kiosks that sold handmade jewelry or specialized in children’s toys. Others provided grooming services and extravagant clothing. Andra even saw a booth that offered digi’tattoos. The display featured one just like her birthmark, and the sight of it made her cringe.

  The tech wasn’t what Andra was used to. It wasn’t designed to be marketable and attractive. It was only meant to be functional. The people still referred to it as magic, not technology, but it didn’t matter what they called it. They interacted with it the same way people of the twenty-second century did—as though it were just part of life, without knowing how it really worked.

  There were thousands of people in the cave—not just in the main artery, but also living in a web of tunnels hewn out of the earth. The system ran the entire length of Eerensed, the palace sector the only part of the city without the Schism living and working underneath. And every room, every hollow of space, every nook was filled with people, all of them fighting against Maret, working tirelessly to build the ship that would only save a fraction of them.

  Andra settled into her new quarters—a small nook hewn out of the cave with a single cot and nightstand—but she couldn’t stay long. She had to figure out a way to fix the ’dome. Even if they could get the rocket off the ground, that only saved a hundred people. Those left would need some protection until Andra came up with a more permanent solution, and for that, she needed an AI. Sure, she now had the might of the Schism behind her—it helped that they both wanted the same thing—but the problem was:

  They both wanted the same thing.

  Andra needed the AI to save the entire city. The Schism needed the AI to save a hundred people. They could share, but the AI would have to prioritize one of the tasks. And once the rocket left, Skilla would be taking it with her. Maybe Andra could get the mech’bot from her rooms at the palace and offer it to help with the rocket while she was figuring out the ’dome. That would buy her time to figure out how to keep the AI and save Eerensed without simultaneously dooming the rocket. What was that phrase Zhade used? It was a thin string to half-walk? Andra’s chest tightened at the thought of Zhade, but she didn’t have time to worry about him now. She had to trust he could take care of himself.

  Andra changed clothes, leaving Ahloma’s guard uniform and the cos’mask holding her face in a rumpled mess on the floor. She then went to find Skilla’s room—a dark corner in the back of the main cave. Candles flickered, casting an eerie glow, and crimson fabric draped over the jagged walls. Skilla sat on her cot, wedged into a corner. A pre-bo
ok was propped in the general’s lap, and she was writing in the margins. She didn’t bother to look up when Andra rapped against the cave wall.

  “I have questions,” Andra said, trying to make her voice firm and commanding, but next to the general, she didn’t feel like a goddess. She felt like a child.

  Skilla didn’t respond right away, too focused on whatever she was writing. Finally, she set the book aside, careful to mark her place, before looking up.

  “I have answers,” she said. “But probablish not the ones you want.”

  Andra entered the room, leaning against the wall as she’d seen Zhade do a hundred times. He made it look so casually imposing, but when Andra did it, she just felt awkward.

  She had too many questions, too many thoughts buzzing through her head. She chose the simplest. “What is the Schism?”

  Skilla gestured to the room around her and the caves beyond. “This is the Schism.”

  “You know what I’m asking.”

  Skilla sighed, scooting forward on the bed, and gestured for Andra to take a seat. Andra didn’t.

  “The Schism was started by the First,” Skilla said.

  “I figured as much, but why would a goddess need a secret society?”

  “Not the First Goddess,” Skilla said. “The First people.”

  Andra blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “The Schism has been around as long as anyone has memory. Its goal has always been to save humanity, but it wasn’t til the First Goddess awoke that we understood why and what we were doing.”

  If Andra had still believed she was on Holymyth, she would have assumed Skilla was talking about the colonists. Now, she knew differently. If the jagged crescent moon that symbolized the Schism was an offshoot of the LAC symbol, then perhaps these were the descendants of whoever had been left behind. Perhaps they’d co-opted whatever Lacuna Athenaeum hadn’t taken with them and tried to find a way to follow. But they’d been unsuccessful. And society kept reshaping itself until technology was magic and this rocket was a fairy tale. Until the First Goddess.