Lilibet nodded.
Andra started heading to the maintenance shaft, but Rashmi grabbed her arm.
“Not that way. They have it blocked. We’re going to have to fight our way through the lobby.”
“Of course we are,” Andra muttered. “Do you have a weapon on you?”
“Just my sharp wit.” Rashmi grinned. “That was a joke.”
“Of course it was.”
“Ready?”
“No.”
They ran for the lobby.
It was a bloodbath. Bodies were strewn across the eco’tile, the floor slick with blood. But despite how many lay dead or dying, still more were rising again to fight. Schism members converted to AI. AI healed from otherwise mortal wounds.
The battle blocked Andra’s path to the air’lock. They would just have to run for it and hope for the best.
It took about two seconds for Andra to lose track of Rashmi, but she couldn’t stop to find her. She couldn’t think about how she left Lilibet behind or how Xana and Skilla and maybe even Dzeni were fighting. Could die at any moment. Could already be dead. Battle was selfish and solitary and single-minded. And it had to be. If she was distracted for one second, she would die.
She skirted around the battle, ducking swords and laser’bullets, the sounds of gunshots and steel and screaming and dying roaring in her ears.
Halfway to the door she tripped over a body. A girl from cryonic testing, her eyes staring blankly, face smeared in blood.
Andra tried to push herself up, but someone shoved her back down.
She flipped over, scuttling back. A member of the Schism stood above her, face contorted in anger. If he was himself or AI, Andra didn’t know as he swung his sword down.
Her breath left her. She’d failed and failed and failed again, and this was such a stupid way to die, tripping over a body and killed by an ally, and now everyone would die because of her foolishness and where was Rashmi—
The AI hit the ground, crying out.
Oh. There was Rashmi.
She stood behind him, ’gun outstretched, white hair hanging over her face, which was etched in a mask of disgust.
“I don’t like fighting,” she said.
“Me neither,” Andra said, stumbling to her feet.
The AI groaned. Rashmi shot him again, then grabbed Andra’s hand, dragging her toward the exit.
They dodged shots and leapt over fallen bodies. The air’lock was just ahead, now a pile of rubble, but no one was blocking it.
They were so close. Andra pushed herself harder. And harder. Feet pounding the eco’tile, breath ragged, a stitch growing in her side.
Until she heard a familiar cry, saw a familiar face.
She froze.
Acadia, her sister, was standing in the center of the battle, shaved head coated with dirt and blood, a sword clutched in her wobbling hand. Auric—now healed from his wounds—stood mere feet from her, laser’gun pointed at her chest.
“No!” Andra screamed.
She sent a burst of nano’bots in Acadia’s direction, but knew it would be too late. She was too far away. The shot fired. Andra tried to grab hold of the ’bullet, but she had to duck an oncoming sword. She kicked the AI wielding it out at the knees, and then ran her reset tool through its neck. She turned back to where her sister had once stood, but Acadia wasn’t there.
She was sprawled on the floor.
Alive.
In front of her, Skilla lay, eyes wide and sightless, a smoking hole through her heart.
It had been a ’gun that had shot her, not one of the green-circuited weapons, so Skilla wouldn’t be getting back up, as an AI or otherwise.
Andra blinked back tears, running as fast as she could to her sister’s side.
She dragged her sister to her feet. “What are you doing here? Go hide!”
“I can fight!” Acadia snapped.
“You’re an academic!” Andra snapped back.
This was their rhythm. Acadia trying to prove she was the best at everything, and Andra just trying to keep existing.
She pointed at Skilla’s body. “She died to save you. Don’t let that be worthless. Get back to Oz, now!”
“But Dad!”
“It’s not him,” Andra snapped. “He’s gone. So get back to the only family we have left.”
Andra expected a fight, waited for the blow, for Acadia to say that she wasn’t going to take orders from a thing, from a robot meant to serve. But she only nodded, eyes still wide, and swallowed.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She turned to go, but paused, the battle still raging on around them.
“Don’t die, Andra.”
Andra puffed out a laugh. “You too, Acadia.”
“Let’s go!” Rashmi cried, and dragged Andra through the air’lock.
FORTY-FOUR
00110100 00110100
Andra was shaking as she and Rashmi climbed out of the lift into the First’s suite. They would sneak through the palace halls to the cathedzal, where they had installed the ’dome control hub. They’d have to hurry though. If Lilibet had to use the EMP to knock out the AI, Andra, Rashmi, and the ’dome would all be out of commission for several minutes. And those minutes could be the difference between success and failure.
Andra had tried to prepare herself, but she was still thrown into grief at the sight of Mechy’s broken body. He lay in a heap in the center of Griffin’s empty room, a hole in his chest. His CPU lay a few feet away, a black box with a spear-shaped hole spilling out wires. Andra bent to pick it up. It was cold and smooth. She put it in her pocket and looked away, reaching out with her AI senses, feeling for any idea as to where Meta was, along with her robot army. If she could just get a feeling for where in the palace they were, she could avoid them. She concentrated harder.
“Well?” Rashmi asked. “Do you know where the scary robots are?”
“Yeah.” Andra sighed and turned to Rashmi. “I’ll give you one guess.”
* * *
Andra had never seen the palace this quiet. Or this . . . chaotic.
Doors hung off their frames. Curtains were torn down. Brown bloodstains dotted the marble floors. Had Meta done this? Or had Zhade?
Andra pressed back the thought. The truth was, she didn’t know if Zhade could ever come back from his corruption. Tsurina and Maret never seemed to recover, but they’d both worn the Crown much longer. She had no guarantee that Zhade would be able to fight his new evil urges, and if he did, if he would ever be free of them. Maybe he would have to fight his entire life.
Maybe Andra would have to fight her own inner voices her entire life.
Or maybe connecting to the ’dome would take care of all that, and she’d walk out of the control room as Griffin or Rashmi’s former murderous self, and Skilla would have to put her down.
Only, Skilla was dead.
Andra felt nothing at the thought, and she was wondering if her circuits were overloaded with grief. She’d run up her tally of loss, and her brain just wasn’t designed to take any more.
“How much farther?” Rashmi whispered.
“Not far,” Andra said as they inched down the main hallways on the east side of the palace. Their footsteps echoed; their breath seemed too loud.
They came to a turn in the corridor, and Andra put a hand out to stop Rashmi. Behind the turn was the atrium outside the cathedzal. Shadows spilled across the marble floor, but there was no movement, no noise beyond.
How many can you sense? Andra asked Rashmi through the neural connection.
Rashmi scrunched up her face. I can’t. Third One, I don’t think I’ll be much help in there.
It’s okay, Andra said. I’ve got this.
She’d grown so used to lying.
Andra reached out with her senses and sighed. �
�I think they know we’re here.”
“No point in sneaking in then,” Rashmi said.
Andra nodded, gathering as many nanos as she could to herself until she was surrounded in a shimmering cloud. Then she stepped around the corner.
Meta and her ’bots were waiting for them, but they weren’t alone. Under the domed lotus-flower ceiling of the atrium, dozens of citians were on their knees on the marble floor, surrounded by mech’bots. The light was dim, the ’bots casting long shadows, their blood-red eyes shining in the darkness. Behind them, Meta stood guarding the double doors to the cathedzal in one of Tsurina’s long gold dresses. The Crown gleamed on her forehead, and she smiled when Andra emerged from the shadows, shrouded in her cloak of nanos.
“Welcome,” Meta said, her voice perfectly intoned to Tsurina’s, and if Andra hadn’t seen Tsurina die herself, she would have been convinced the Grande Advisor stood in front of her now.
“What’s this?” Andra said, trying to project a confidence and nonchalance she didn’t feel.
“Motivation.” Meta’s voice echoed throughout the room, its sharp edges pinging off the walls. “For you to give yourself up. It’s time for the goddesses to die.”
FORTY-FIVE
00110100 00110101
“Help us, Goddess,” one of the citians whispered. A ’bot hit her on the back of the head, and she crumpled to the ground. A nearby child started crying.
Meta stood tall and regal, a smile resembling Griffin’s spread across Tsurina’s face. The ’dome hub stood just behind the doors she was guarding. Andra was so close, but so far away. She didn’t have time to fight this battle, but she also didn’t have a choice.
“That seems a little extreme.” Andra walked into the atrium with her hands up, as though she were approaching a skittish animal. “I was created by Griffin. You were raised by her. We’re on the same side.”
“Don’t convo me bout Griffin,” Meta said, sneering. “This Crown has shown me things, truths, and I reck full well that you and she must die. This is my birthright, and I’ll do what no other wearer of the Crown could. Today, I’m going to end all three goddesses.”
Andra took a step forward. “Just yesterday, you spoke so highly of Griffin. You helped me. I thought we could be friends.”
Meta blinked, and for a moment the sneer fell from her face, replaced by confusion. “I . . . She . . .” Meta blinked again, and her scowl returned. “The Crown has shown me the truth,” she repeated. “I was ignorant, but now I reck full well. The goddesses are evil.”
How had Meta succumbed so quickly to the Crown? It had taken Zhade months to turn. But then, Tsurina had been controlling him through it. Maybe she had acted as a buffer. A lens through which the Crown’s messages were filtered. Now, Tsurina was dead, and there was no one acting as that intermediary. Andra remembered what Maret had said, about Tsurina being raised by the Crown after her parents died. Maybe it was not having someone to guide her that had turned her so malevolent. And now that same thing was happening to Meta.
Andra cleared her throat. “So you gathered some Eerensedians in the cathedzal. Why?”
Meta grinned, her teeth seeming to grow in the shadows. “The Crown not sole showed me the past, but also the present. It gave me the ability to convo all the angels in the city, including the one you stole.”
“The one I stole?” Andra asked, and then realization struck her. The angel that had helped her carry Zhade back to the Schism. Fishy.
“It was Griffin’s,” Meta continued. “Her angel. It’s been feeding her info for years. But now I control it, and I let it leave with you, and commanded it to report back on what you were doing. I reck that you’re here to destroy the ’dome and let the pocket in.”
Some of the citians gasped.
Andra winced, slowly making her way around the edge of the atrium. “Now, let’s think about this logically. If I was going to let the pocket destroy everything, why would I care that you have these citians? According to you, I’m going to destroy them anyway.”
Meta scowled. “Don’t ask me to comp you,” she snapped.
The nearest citian flinched. More children started crying.
“I’ve seen the memories of all the wearers of the Crown. I’ve felt what they felt and seen what they’ve seen. The goddesses exist cruel and fickle. My birth mother may have abandoned me, but the Crown has shown me that my adopted mother abandoned the world.”
Meta blinked, eyes clearing as though she was breaking free of the Crown’s influence for a moment.
“Neg,” she whispered. She shook her head.
Her expression hardened again, eyes narrowing. “Firm. She has to die.”
“Then we’re on the same side here.” Andra took a step forward. She was a meter away from the closest citian. “Griffin is on her way here. She already has an army inside the city walls. If we work together, we can stop her.”
Meta shook her head, but it seemed more to clear it than a denial. “Neg. You’re . . . you’re one of them. I can’t trust you.” Her voice shook. She blinked. “Can I?”
Andra took another step. “You can. Ask the angel, ask Fishy. I’m doing this to save humanity from Griffin.”
Meta hesitated, her expression torn.
One of the citians made a run for it. He barely made it a meter before one of the ’bots sliced him through the stomach. He fell to the ground, moaning.
The alcove filled with gasping and weeping. Parents cradling their children.
The ’bot twirled the sword above its head, arcing it down toward the man’s chest. The citians cried out as the blade fell—
—and stopped.
Andra felt a trickle of blood run down her nose as she bent all her concentration on stopping the ’bot, her own nanos interfacing with it, trying to override the commands sent by the Crown. The ’bot was feral, slippery under her grasp. She let out a roar as she pushed back against not only Meta, but the ’bot itself. It wanted to kill. It was the same voice she heard inside her head.
destroy destroy destroy
Andra let destruction take over.
She concentrated her urge to destroy on the ’bot, collecting all the nanos in the room, until they swirled around it.
Destroy, she commanded the nanos. They shifted like a flock of birds, once shimmering and floating, now a stygian swirling mass. In an instant, they swallowed the ’bot. When they dispersed, it was gone.
Meta laughed, high and frantic. “See? Is this the goddess you want? A demon raised from the dead, who can create pockets from nothing?”
The people stirred, but Andra didn’t care. It didn’t matter what they believed about her, only what she believed about herself.
The man was still lying on the floor, writhing, a shaft of light bisecting his tear-streaked face. Blood spilling from his torso to the marble. He would be dead soon if Andra didn’t do something. She commanded her makeshift pocket to convert to healing tech and sent them into the man’s system.
Meta ran a shaking hand through her hair. “She came here to destroy the ’dome and let the pocket in.”
She was pacing, twitching. Andra could see the cracks in her facade, the tension in her expression, the tremor in her hand.
“Let the citians go,” Andra said, voice low and hard. “There’s no reason for them to be here.”
“I will not bow to you,” Meta snarled. “I have the Crown, and its destiny is to defeat you. My destiny.”
“I’ve fought the Crown before and won,” Andra said.
Meta smiled, the expression pained. “But you’ve never fought me.”
Andra’s awareness started to shift. Her consciousness began to morph. Her senses grew sharper, her surroundings duller. She felt both robotic and human as nanos surrounded her, fluttering her hair, dancing around her limbs. Power coursed through her veins.
She lifted a hand
and curled her fingers.
“Bring it, bitch.”
The ’bots all drew their swords, and Andra threw all of her power into stopping them, splitting her consciousness. She saw through their eyes, felt their rage.
Their swords froze in their downward arcs, but the pressure on Andra increased. She felt the tension in her bones, the weight on her shoulders, the strain in her heart. Blood dripped from her nose, sweat from her brow. A whimper tore from her throat.
She wanted to call out to the people to run, but she was barely hanging on, tired and scared and all too aware that at any moment the palace could come crashing down around them. There were too many ’bots, and she was losing the handle on her power, her concentration split between all the different technological components she was trying to control. She was an AI, damn it. She should be able to do this.
One of the ’bots broke free of her grasp and ran toward her. She screamed. It picked her up by the throat and threw her across the room. The sense of flying ended too quickly, and then she was smashing into the stone wall.
The ’bot stalked toward her, its eyes burning like embers, its sword ready to strike.
It stopped.
Andra let out a single breath as the ’bot straightened, putting its sword to its side.
Meta let out a frustrated growl and the people gasped.
Standing in the alcove entrance, limned in dust and stardust, arms outstretched and faces drawn in concentration, were Zhade and Maret.
FORTY-SIX
THE BLOOD
Zhade let out a breath. A second later, and Andra would have been sliced through with a sword. Again.
Dzeni had left the cell unlocked, and after staring at each other for a moment, Zhade and Maret had made their march to the palace.
They’d arrived just as the angel threw Andra across the atrium into the marble wall. She’d crumpled to the ground, and panic coursed through Zhade as an angel brought a sword down toward her neck.
What happened next wasn’t conscious thought. It was instinct. It was intuition.
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