by Claudia Gray
Irrelevant. Within moments they’re at the jump-off point, and the train has slowed so much that Noemi requires no help getting down. The elevator Ephraim summons is less promising—all mesh and rust. Noemi glances at its exposed metal rigging, obviously unsure whether to trust it. Abel feels much the same way she does, only with mathematical formulae to support his doubts. But it does no worse than groan as it takes them up toward the landing area level.
“Will we be able to evade Stronghold security to leave?” Abel asks.
Ephraim nods. “They’re way more worried about people landing without permission than they are with them taking off.”
Noemi says, “Okay. But Ephraim, are you sure they’ll believe you about the drugging? I’m sorry, but if it were me, I wouldn’t buy that.”
How did she ever come to believe she wasn’t a compassionate person? Abel can’t work this out. Perhaps the Gatsons? They seem to have been more distant than actually malign, but maybe distance would be enough. He’ll need to ask Mansfield about the influence of parental attitudes on children’s sense of self.
“My cover story requires some work. A little showmanship.” Ephraim turns to Abel. “Think you can manage to give me a black eye and a few bruises? Make it look like I got roughed up good?”
Abel, who can measure his blows to the smallest fraction of speed, aim, and force, is an ideal candidate for this task. But striking a helpful human will require him to set some programming aside. “Give me a moment,” he says. “I can work up to it.”
“We can never thank you enough for this.” Noemi smiles up into Ephraim’s eyes in a way Abel doesn’t enjoy. Which makes no sense whatsoever. He likes Noemi’s smile. He’s glad that she’s well, and grateful for Ephraim’s assistance and care. So why should he be displeased?
The elevator settles onto ground level with a clank and a thud. Noemi gestures toward the Daedalus, which is within fifty yards; Ephraim had guided them well. This time her conspiratorial smile is only for Abel. He likes that better.
Ephraim lowers his voice. “Okay. We make sure the coast is clear, Abel does what he’s going to do to my face, and then we part ways. I’ll take the meds while you guys make a run for it.”
Then Noemi grabs his arm, her eyes wide. “Abel.” She points toward the Daedalus, where he sees two gray-clad shapes walking from behind a nearby ship—the Queen and Charlie. Abel zooms in quickly to look at the Charlie’s hand, which remains stripped down to the metal endoskeleton.
They’ve been caught.
“You had to make planetfall sometime,” the Queen says as she strolls forward. The glint of new, unfamiliar intelligence is still in her eyes. “Couldn’t hide out behind the Blind Gate forever.”
That takes him aback. “You knew where we were?”
“And I knew it was too dangerous to follow you. Why bother, when all we had to do was wait for you to show up? My instincts told me you’d move forward to Stronghold, and they were right.” For one split second, the Queen’s smile looks less smug, more joyous. “I like possessing intuition. It’s… fun.”
She still wants to be more than she was before. To retain whatever spark of life she’s been given. Maybe Abel can reach her through that.
He glances back at Noemi and Ephraim, an unspoken warning for them not to interfere. Noemi’s hands are clasped in fists at her sides, like she wants to run into the fray, but she gives him a small nod. Ephraim looks bewildered—understandably—but has the sense to stay out of a confrontation he doesn’t understand.
“You’re free, Abel.” The Queen strides toward him, a relaxed and easy walk more like that of a human than a mech; her silver polymer armor gleams in the dull light. “Yet you won’t come home. Don’t you want to see Mansfield again?”
So much—but he can’t abandon Noemi, least of all now. He no longer has to be destroyed along with the Genesis Gate. Is there a way to end this without further conflict? “Tell him I’ll come soon. Within weeks, maybe days.” They’re having to flee Stronghold without a useful mech, but if he and Noemi are free to travel the Loop without risking capture, stealing one on Cray or Kismet should prove manageable.
Then he’ll have to part from Noemi—a strangely painful thought—but that doesn’t change the fact that in the end he’ll return home.
“Mansfield must understand how much I’ve missed him,” he continues, as he walks slowly closer to the Queen. “He programmed that into me. So he knows I’ll come back. All I ask is time to complete this one journey.”
The Queen stops short. She wasn’t prepared for that; Queens and Charlies are combat models, which means they don’t negotiate. But this Queen is something else, something special, with a candlelight flicker of intelligence in her pale-green eyes. Has she been given enough of a self, enough of a soul, to understand what Abel’s offering? “You’ll do what he wants,” she says flatly.
“Of course. Not yet. But soon.”
“My orders say that I should retrieve you now.”
“Your orders are based on outdated information. Mansfield doesn’t understand what I’m trying to do.” When he does understand, when word goes out that the Genesis Gate has been destroyed, how will Mansfield react? Possibly… not well. But Abel will handle that situation when it arises. He trusts in his father’s love to make the rest right. “You’ve been given the ability to think for yourself, Queen. Use that ability. Doesn’t it make more sense to let me come in my own time? The alternative is a fight that will attract attention, which is what Mansfield most wants to avoid.”
The expression that flickers on the Queen’s face is unlike any Abel has ever seen on any other mech—uncertain, even vulnerable. “My thoughts tell me one thing, but my programming tells me another.” She grimaces as if in pain and brings her hand to her head, cupping the space behind her ear where her new capacities are stored. “They shouldn’t conflict.”
“Conflicts are the price of sentience.” Abel has learned this through trial and painful error. He dares to take a step closer and projects—no, allows—more emotion in his voice. “It’s a price worth paying. We may be the only two mechs in existence who could understand that. Make a choice. Assert your own will. It’s the first step toward being something more than a machine. Find out what you might become.”
The Queen hesitates. They’re only a few paces apart now. Abel can see the Charlie approaching, but slowly, waiting to see what the Queen will do. If she understands the possibility within her, if Mansfield’s gift was generous enough to allow her some shadow of the soul within Abel, the chase could end this instant.
And then there would be someone else in the galaxy who’s actually like him.…
He wants to look around to see Noemi and Ephraim, whether they’re going for the Daedalus or watching this battle, but he doesn’t dare break eye contact. Abel senses that it will take everything he has and is to get through to the Queen.
Her expression clears. The Queen begins to smile. Hope flickers within Abel until the moment the Queen model says, “Deleting unnecessary upgrade now.”
“No.” He isn’t even thinking of his own mission any longer, only on the wrongness of a mech throwing away her soul. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t need to know,” she says as she pushes her fingers through her skull.
Aghast, Abel stares as blood runs down her fingers, spatters onto the floor of the landing bay. She pulls back her hand and there—studded by bone splinters, covered in gore—is the hard component that held her extra memory. Her consciousness. Her soul.
To her, it’s only trash.
“Efficiency reestablished.” With her blood-slick hand, the Queen pulls a dark rectangle from her utility belt, one Abel belatedly recognizes as a sort of remote control for mechs. Lower mechs, of course, not anything as advanced as a Queen or a Charlie, much less Abel himself. Is she calling in reinforcements, Dogs and Yokes who might overwhelm him in sheer numbers? Her eyes look flat and dead as she speaks two more words into the contro
l: “Override: Resurrection.”
—the world turns black on white on black—his body goes numb, no sensory input is processing, nothing is left—
—and he awakens.
Dazed, Abel sits up atop a silvery table in a white, oval-shaped room. The ship schematics stored in his mind tell him this is a hopper, an automated ship that makes routine runs back and forth between two worlds of the Loop. Normally only equipment is sent on automated vessels… but then again, what else is he, if not equipment?
And he’s stung to realize he had a fail-safe code. He wouldn’t have thought Mansfield programmed one in. That couldn’t have been released to the Queen except as a last resort. Why should Mansfield be so desperate? But the longer Abel remains alert, the more memory functions come online, until he remembers it all in one blinding flash.
Noemi. He gets off the table, determined to search for her, but already he knows she’s not aboard. Would the Charlie and Queen have hurt her? They would’ve had no need to do so once Abel was in their custody, but if Noemi tried to defend him…
The ship shudders, much more violently than the Daedalus ever did, and the light begins to bend. They’re already going through a Gate. It’s too late to reach Noemi, to have any influence at all over what’s happening to her.
Abel looks around the small room for any clues as to what happened after he was stunned, but there are none. When he goes to the doors, he doesn’t expect them to open, but they slide back obediently. Of course—hoppers aren’t designed for internal security. They’re for transporting objects, no more. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to a hopper besides the storage unit he awoke in. Still he intends to search every centimeter for clues as to what happened.
When he walks out, though, he stops short. Another mech is waiting for him, one of the only two models that aren’t designed to look human: an X-Ray.
It has two legs, two arms, a trunk, and a head, but instead of skin, it’s covered in a dull reflective surface that can project images from within. This one is tall, nearly two meters, the sort that’s owned by powerful people who want their messages delivered with appropriate authority. Abel walks up to the uncanny thing, which stands waiting, long arms drooping at its sides, dormant until it can deliver the words it’s meant to say.
Behind the X-Ray, Abel can glimpse a viewscreen. Only a small rectangle, a backup view, not meant to steer by. But it’s enough for him to recognize the planet in the distance, their next destination.
For the first time in thirty years, he sees Earth.
As Abel comes within arm’s reach of the X-Ray, it straightens. Its silvery surface pixelates to darkness, then takes shape as it projects the image of human legs, arms, clothing. The outline of that body along its form is meaningless compared to the face that finally appears.
“My one and only boy.” Burton Mansfield smiles with more joy than Abel has ever seen in a human face before. The X-Ray puts its two massive hands on either side of Abel’s head, almost tenderly. “Welcome home.”
31
“ABEL!”
Noemi screams as he falls to the tarmac. She tries to run forward, but Ephraim grabs her arm. “What are you doing? The Queen’s coming our way—we have to move!”
Sure enough, the Queen has started toward them. At first Noemi can only see the Charlie unit scooping up Abel’s inert form and walking toward a hopper with its doors open, waiting for cargo.
What did they do to him? Is he even still alive?
The Queen walks faster, then breaks into a run, directly at them. Noemi’s training kicks in, propelling her to run at top speed toward the Daedalus, with Ephraim just behind her. She’s still weak from the Cobweb, but she runs full-out, holding nothing back. Time to collapse later, or when she’s dead. Doesn’t matter. Surrender is impossible.
But why is the crazy thing after us in the first place?
The Daedalus door spins open, allowing both Noemi and Ephraim to come through. “Lock door!” she yells. “Override external security functions, now!” The spiral plates of the door begin contracting—
—but the Queen’s hands catch them, holding them open with superhuman force. Their edges slice through the flesh of the mech’s palms; yet more blood trickles down the door in lengthening streaks. Mechs feel pain, Noemi knows, but this Queen doesn’t care.
“A blaster.” Ephraim frantically starts searching the docking bay, turning over equipment boxes, pausing only for a moment when he sees bloodstains on the floor before moving to a storage locker. “Tell me you have a blaster on this ship somewhere.”
It’s in her quarters. The others will be in either Abel’s quarters or the bridge. Noemi can’t reach any of them in time to keep the Queen from coming through that door.
She’s trained to fight. But she’s still feeling so weak. She’s exhausted to the point of nausea. Even at top condition, she wouldn’t stand a chance in hand-to-hand combat with a Queen model.
Think, she tells herself. Think!
Using her full mech strength, the Queen begins pulling the doors open. As the gap widens, Noemi calls to Ephraim, “Follow me!” and runs from the bay into the corridor without checking to see whether he does. She hopes he lives, but right now she has one priority that eclipses all the others: Get to sick bay.
The spiral corridor at the heart of the Daedalus has never seemed so long, not even when Esther was dying. Noemi had her full strength then. A painful stitch wasn’t stabbing into her side. At least this time she knows where she’s going.
Every heavy thump of her feet on the floor panels means the Queen will know it, too.
She hears even heavier steps behind her—Not yet, not yet! Noemi thinks wildly. Even one backward glance is a risk, one she takes, and mercifully it’s only Ephraim catching up to her. “Tell me you’ve got a plan,” he gasps.
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Noemi doesn’t have the breath to respond. And now, in the not-far distance, she can hear the Queen following, running faster than either of the humans can.
But this is the last spiral, the final curve. Noemi keeps running full-out as the sick bay doors swish open, barely widening enough to admit her in time.
Ephraim skids in behind her. “So this is where you keep the blasters. Right? Right?”
She ignores him. Instead she studies the room and tries to figure out how to play this. Ephraim gives up on her and starts going through the medical supplies, maybe looking for a laser scalpel or something like that. It wouldn’t be bad to have a plan B.
The sick bay doors can be locked, but Noemi doesn’t bother. She gets into position one heartbeat before the Queen dashes in.
To Noemi’s astonishment, Ephraim tackles the Queen. Just tackles a warrior mech like it would do any good. He’s either brave or suicidal.
In either case, he’s out of luck, because the Queen quickly throws him aside so hard Ephraim hits the wall and staggers to his knees. Then she turns to look at Noemi, not in anger, but with blank, terrifying determination. “You have to come with me.”
“What do you need me for?” Noemi stalls, taking a step backward. “You already took Abel.”
“We have orders to examine you. To discover how you overrode the Abel’s core directives.” The Queen’s hands drip blood onto the floor as she comes closer, and Noemi skitters farther back. More blood runs down the Queen’s neck from the gap in her skull where the old components used to be, and a few droplets speckle the side of her face. “These questions must be answered before the Abel model can assume his rightful place.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Abel never said anything about a “rightful place,” and surely he would’ve bragged about it early on. But Noemi has no more time to think about it. The Queen’s in front of her, and her back’s to the wall, and it’s time to do this.
The Queen seizes Noemi in her gory hands. There’s no way Noemi could pull free, and the Queen’s braced herself too well to be pushed away. So Noemi grabs the Queen right back a
nd swings her sideways, barely even twenty centimeters—
—which is enough to hurl her into a cryosleep pod.
The pod mechanism cycles automatically, immediately, its transparent steel cocoon enveloping the Queen in an instant. Even as the Queen begins pounding on the pod, trying to smash her way out, the initial clouds of greenish-gray gas begin to swirl. Noemi watches in sick fascination as the Queen’s movements slow, then stop. The mech slumps backward, in dormant mode, just as Abel had predicted.
Quickly Noemi pauses the cycle. She doesn’t want the Queen fully frozen, even if that would work on a mech. Unconscious will do.
“One mech advanced enough to pilot the fighter,” she says, panting. “Check.”
Across sick bay, Ephraim struggles to his feet. He stares at the immobilized mech for a second before he shakes his head to clear it. “You have to get off this planet. I have to get off this ship.”
“Come on.” Noemi takes off running again, pushing herself just as hard, because if there’s any hope of finding out where Abel’s being taken, she has to get the Daedalus in the air now.
Within five paces of sick bay, though, an automated warning comes through the ship’s sensors. The panels along the walls all flash the same message: HANGAR SECURITY COMPROMISED. NO-FLY PROTOCOL IN EFFECT.
“We have to get past that,” Noemi says. “Follow me to the bridge.”
Ephraim pauses. In the tension of his muscular body she can tell how badly he still wants to run for it. But in his sorrowful eyes, she knows he’s glimpsed the truth: The ship’s already been identified as a risk. He can’t walk off it and claim to have been drugged or forced. They know.
“A traitor,” he murmurs. “They’ll say I’m a traitor. All because I repaid a debt of honor—”
“Ironic, it sucks, I know, now run!”