by Ryan Tang
The girl set her laptop hand on the ground and pressed.
"Why doesn't it go this time? It went last time. It hasn't worked since."
Alex put her hand on the ground and concentrated.
Her deepest wish was to see this poor girl happy. It was just to make sure Stock could never hurt her again.
The Eternium turned blue then splashed into the air.
"I don't know how to make it blue."
According to what she'd read, it was possible to change the metal's colors, just as it was possible to create a Paragon for someone else. But those abilities were beyond her for now.
"But I can try to teach you how to control it."
The girl smiled.
"Okay!"
She had an awkward, quivery smile. Her lips kind of jerked up and down, and she was afraid of showing her teeth. When Alex looked closer, she saw that many were cracked and missing.
A cold coil of hate wound around her stomach, and she shuddered with a sudden rush of loathing.
Alex did her best to hide it, but the girl's eyes widened, and she took a sudden step back.
"Are you okay?"
Alex held back a sigh.
The girl would be able to notice small things like that. Jared told her that Stock was notoriously fickle. He was infamous for his constant fits. He'd smash machines and experiments, sending stray metal flying all over the place. He'd start chasing people around in his Paragon, cackling as they ran. He'd sent several employees to the hospital. It was easy to guess why the girl was good at picking up stray emotions, why she was always ready to run.
Alex took a deep breath and pushed her anger aside.
She forced herself to smile. This was the duty of an ace. She would do her best to repair what Stock had done.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Let's go outside. Let me show you how things are now."
The girl immediately pushed away.
"No. I don't want to go outside."
She turned, and for a moment, it was like she was going to run again.
Then she stopped.
"I don't want to meet people. You're nice, though. You look nice. And you act nice. Can you bring food again tomorrow? It's so good! And I'm almost done with the book."
"Yeah. Do you want to read it together? Like we do outside?"
The girl grinned.
"Yes! Yes!"
"Okay. Next time I come back, I'll bring a book, and we can read it together."
She'd read her The Familiars. She'd use the handwritten copy her parents had given her and show her all the pictures.
They smiled at each other again, and Alex handed her a shard of Eternium.
"Here. What you need to do is close your eyes and concentrate. Touch the metal and think of only a single thought."
The girl lifted the cup holder hand. The weight of the tools still forced her into an awkward hunch despite the strength in her arms. The Eternium flickered beneath her fingers. Pink and gray sparks danced back and forth.
The girl whimpered and shook back and forth. Alex felt a sudden stab of sadness, like a nail in the back of her skull. She put a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"No. No. Only happy thoughts. Happy thoughts."
"Happy thoughts?"
"Think about –"
Alex caught herself. She was going to suggest thinking about when she escaped, but that must have been the scariest night of the girl's life.
"The book."
"Huh?"
"Think about the book! Think about Paragons and Pilots. It was pretty cool to read the whole thing, right?"
A smile flickered across her lips.
"Yeah. Yeah."
"There's more where it came from. A lot more. I can give you as many books as you want. Just remember. Only happy thoughts. Eternium only works with happy thoughts."
It was a lie, but it was the lie the girl needed.
Her parents had told her lies like that sometimes. Alex shook her head. She wished her parents were here. She wished she knew what the hell she should be doing.
A pink spark danced across the metal.
"There! There! Look!"
The girl's smiler grew broader.
Unlike Alex, her eyes weren't closed. They bore lasers into the forever black metal. That was how Leanne called Eternium as well.
"More! More!"
The girl cried out excitedly. Two sparks danced, then three. The gray swam across the pink. The girl concentrated harder. For a brief moment, coils of pink and gray twisted into the air, but then they stopped.
The girl gritted her teeth so hard Alex could hear them grinding against each other. Her eyes turned wide as saucers.
But the Eternium went no further.
The girl sighed and fell back.
"It's okay. That was really good for a first time! Keep the shard and practice!"
The girl scooped up the shard in her cup holder hand and got back into the elevator.
"Who played the music?"
"I did."
"Can you teach me that too?"
"Of course! It's the same as the walls. If you can command the walls, you can play the music. Keep practicing! Once you're ready I'll show you."
She beamed.
"Alright."
The elevator door shut.
The girl descended back to the sewers.
Alex stopped smiling.
She had an urgent meeting with Stock.
____
The streets outside Stock's home were always filled with people, even late in the night. It'd gotten to the point where the colony was considering building a park there. Even outside of the official 24-hour guard, people often went to his home in the middle of the night when they couldn't sleep. After the damage the insane oligarch had wrought on the colony, nobody felt safe leaving him unattended.
Alex winced at the sight of all the torn and broken hands, a glaring reminder of why nobody felt safe.
Alex gulped. Of course, it turned out there were even worse things he could do with hands. The girl's arms had melded smoothly into his toys and trinkets.
Hate flared in her stomach again. He couldn't do any damage now, but if only someone had killed him before everything he'd done. Stock and Southern Robotics had killed so many people.
When the crowd saw Alex, they waved happily, but she couldn't return their enthusiasm. A few of her students were there, escorted by their parents. Laura and Gigi sprinted up to her.
"Ms. Alex! Ms. Alex!"
She paused before she turned to wipe the frown away from her face. Just like with the girl in the book-corridors, she had to look happy in front of her students. She was the ace pilot of the colony. She was its greatest defender, and part of being a hero was looking like a hero.
"What are you guys doing here? You two should be at the Spire! We always need volunteers."
Laura made a face.
She was only eight years old, but she had a natural swagger and bravado that made her an unofficial leader among Alex's students. Even the lost children of Block 12 had quickly bowed to her will.
"Gigi was scared that Stock escaped!"
The other girl scowled.
"Well, Laura was scared too!"
Laura turned and glared.
"What? Not as scared as you!"
Alex smiled at their bickering, but their parents were also nervously pacing back and forth along the streets. Alex didn't share their fear. She'd spoken to Stock already, and gotten a good measure of him. Without his riches, the man was useless. He was no threat at all. His alleged intelligence was a complete sham, one he'd bought with millions in advertising and a team of managers and aides devoted to serving his every whim. The last time Alex visited him, she'd seen his doodles of "escape inventions." They included a suicide helmet that would explode while protecting his head and a Paragon that could fly by spewing leftover food. All the ideas he'd become famous for, including the militarized Hands Paragon he'd intended to sell to other colonies, had been created by his workers. But that didn't mean th
e damage he'd done wasn't real.
Alex thought of the girls' hands again. By now, the hate had turned her stomach into an empty core. After they'd defeated Stock, there'd been several debates about whether or not the colony should execute him. Alex was beginning to change her mind on that topic.
Her Eternium shards danced in her pockets, eager to strike. She took a long breath and dismissed them.
When Alex walked up to the door of the house, a guard smiled apologetically and stopped her.
"Hey Alex, we've decided we can't let people inside anymore."
She frowned. It hadn't been a problem when she'd interrogated him about the missing Eternium and the ghosts in the courtyard.
"Why not?"
He winced a little.
"To be honest, it started the last time you went in. Word spread around, and other people wanted to visit. Problem was, they just stayed there to taunt him. A few even baited him into attacking them. Then they beat the hell out of him."
Alex choked down a laugh.
Then she thought of the survivor's anger, and her mirth disappeared. It wasn't just about the girl.
The librarian thought about all the people who had died the night of Stock's ritual. Their blood had formed a massive basin in the courtyard. She thought of all the broken hands. She thought about Diligence, where Governor Steel wanted to emulate Stock's techniques.
The guard must have sensed something because he put a kind hand on her shoulder.
"I hate him just as much as anyone, but we need to be better than him."
His colleague on the other side nodded sternly.
"Yeah."
Alex took a deep breath.
If they wanted Plenty to be a model for the other colonies, they had to be the absolute best versions of themselves. Jared had convinced Alex of that. Stock had taken everything from him. He'd killed both of Jared's parents. But even so, her dear friend said that Plenty had to keep Stock alive. To show they were better than him, and because people were tired of death.
"Look. I'm not..."
She let out a deep breath and reminded herself that Plenty was a colony of peace.
"I'm not going to hurt him. I found one of his victims."
"What?"
"What do you mean?"
They were all Stock's victims.
"I found..."
She trailed off. The guards frowned, but Alex shook her head. The girl wouldn't want her to tell.
"I don't want to say more. They're really private. But I think it's someone who was a servant for him who ran away. They didn't realize what we've done outside. She heard our announcement and was completely shocked."
Alex smiled grimly.
"I want to talk to him to get more details."
Alex forced herself to sound calm. She forced herself into her battle-mind.
"Come on. You know I wouldn't do anything dicey inside."
Deep in her heart, she knew she might just take a look at Stock, and fucking kill him, but she couldn't say that right now.
"Look. I need to talk to him. It's important! The victim...the victim is just a kid."
The guard's eyes widened, and he hastily stepped aside.
Alex opened the door.
To her surprise, Stock sat serenely on the sofa with a blanket over his lap.
"What is it? You've already brought my food today."
His voice turned tight and manic.
"You dare feed me my own food. I recognize my meats. How dare you. They were mine! Mine! Not yours! Mine! How dare you enjoy what you never deserved. What you never earned. It was legal! Everything I did was legal, you know! This is a war crime!"
Then he saw it was Alex.
His smile grew wide.
He fumbled under his blanket.
Alex reacted at once.
She didn't even need to think.
Her hand darted to the pocket of her dress almost of its own accord.
By the time he yanked a gun out from behind the blanket, she'd already drawn her shards and turned them into a shield.
He fired.
The retort was tremendously loud, and the door opened behind her.
"What the fuck? What the fuck is going on?"
"You said you wouldn't..."
"Oh my god!"
"Oh shit! Oh shit!"
"Gun! Gun!"
Stock squeezed out shot after shot, screaming at the top of his voice. The recoil caused him to jigger wildly against the couch.
"Vengeance! Sweet vengeance! Vengeance is finally mine! Die! Die! Woman who stole my godhood! Die!"
The gun had six bullets in total, and they all deflected harmlessly off the Eternium shield. The blue metal pinged melodically with each shot that sprayed haphazardly back into the air.
Stock continued squeezing the trigger for a long time before he realized what was happening. There was empty click after empty click.
At first, Alex kept her shield up and in front of herself and the door. It could just be a trick. He might have another gun. But Stock kept on squeezing and squeezing, and Alex realized it was just more delusion.
The guards drew their weapons.
The melodic plinks of Eternium had failed to pierce Stock's addled mind, but he screamed as soon as he saw the guards' weapons.
"Cheater! Cheater! You cheated again! Cheater! You brought friends! Cheater!"
He threw the gun into the air and threw up both his hands.
"Surrender! Surrender! I surrender! You can't kill me now! I surrendered!"
He threw both hands up and leaped into the air.
The blanket fell to the floor.
"War crime! War crime! If you kill me now, it's a war crime! I did nothing wrong! Ask Waters! Look at the Contracts! It was all legal!"
The guards slowly stepped forward.
Stock let out another high-pitched squeal of terror and cringed backward.
"Keep your hands up."
Alex let out a shaky breath and returned the shards to her pocket.
Where in the world had he found a gun?
And he'd been waiting specifically for her. He hadn't drawn the gun when he thought it was a second delivery of food.
Alex stared at the discarded weapon.
They had a traitor in their midst.
____
She grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, partly to scare him, but mostly out of shock. There was a traitor. That was the only possibility. Their home had a traitor.
"How did you get the gun?"
His eyes were wide with fear, and his teeth rattled in his mouth.
Her hand reached into her dress for her shards. Stock's teeth were white and perfect. She should splinter some of them. Maybe even all of them.
She took a deep breath, and her hands came out empty.
Stock's eyes darted briefly to the basket and then back again.
The last time Alex spoke to the imprisoned oligarch, he'd lied right to her face without hesitation. It was a skill that must have served him well in his years of business.
Alex sent a tendril of Eternium coiling at the basket, standing far away just in case there was a trap. There wasn't. A typed note accompanied the gun.
"Use this gun to take your vengeance. The girl will come poking back eventually."
Alex gulped. The librarian sighed and turned back to the guards. There was a traitor on Plenty. The thought was like a splash of poisoned water. It was hard to think about anything else, but she had to. It was her duty as an ace.
"Find out who brought his lunch today."
Stock wailed.
"No! No! My ally! This is undemocratic! You can't do this! You can't do this to me! You can't kill my ally!"
Who would want to kill her?
Who would give Stock a gun?
It wasn't someone like Peter, the man who'd once served Stock in the hopes of returning to Old Earth with his family. Peter and his wife were still missing, but they were too smart for something like this. They knew what Stock was, and they
'd abandoned him as soon as he lost his money.
Giving Stock a gun to shoot her didn't make any sense. He was an idiot prone to making obvious mistakes, and Alex was always on her guard around him. If someone wanted to kill her, they could just ambush her. If they were trying to help Stock escape, perhaps to use him as a figurehead for a rebellion, he still didn't have a chance. The informal guard outside was massive, and the four official guards had guns of their own.
"What was your plan?"
Stock started crying.
"You stole my godhood! I was going to make you pay! But you cheated! You cheated again! It was the same as before! I was going to kill you then all the guards outside! Then I was going to take your Paragon for me! You've stolen everything from me! Everything! All that's left for me is a noble death on the battlefield!"
One of the guards growled.
"Stole your godhood? You killed my family!"
Another pulled out her gun.
"I'll give you a noble death on the battlefield!"
Stock leaped into the air and howled.
"No! No! No! No! I surrendered! War crime! War crime! War crime!"
Alex turned back to the guards, who shook their heads and put away their guns.
"Alright, find out who brought his lunch. I want to know everyone who touched it on its way here. Meanwhile, I want to ask him some other questions."
When they continued standing there, Alex politely asked them to leave.
Stock screamed.
"Torture! She means torture! She means to torture me!"
She twirled the shards between her fingers.
"It's fine. I'll be safe. And this person is really private. They don't want other people to know more about her."
She thought of the merged hands and tried not to shudder.
"Please. It's really important."
They nodded and left.
Alex sighed and turned to the terrified and quivering Stock.
"Alright. What do you know about a girl with a laptop and cup holder for hands?"
The words sounded obscene. They haunted her ears. But Stock cackled with joy, his fear temporarily forgotten.
"Cyber Girl! My greatest invention! The first-ever cyborg known to man and the rightful princess of Plenty."
He smiled.
"What happened to her? I doubt she survived without my guidance. I take it you found her corpse? Are you wondering how I melded the flesh and metal together so smoothly?"
He ranted on and on, the fact that he'd tried to shoot her just moments ago completely forgotten.