Defy the Stars

by Claudia Gray

So Mansfield said. But the more Abel considers the question, the more he doubts Mansfield was telling the truth.

  I was unable to find information on Noemi’s arrest via standard communications channels, he thinks with determination, ignoring a few partiers swooping by on repulsor cycles, 2.3 meters above the ground. As their shrieks and laughter vanish around another corner, he barely notices. It’s unlikely I’ll be able to discover anything more than that from Earth. Therefore, I must return to Stronghold.

  But how? He fled Mansfield’s home without any preparation; he had to, or he might have had no chance to escape at all. So he is without a ship, any money, any allies, or even a change of clothing.

  Money, at least, can be obtained.

  Abel walks toward a banking kiosk, outlined in brilliant yellow light. As images of unnaturally attractive, thrifty people play around him, he interfaces with the operating system, finds an account belonging to someone of considerable wealth, and withdraws the bare minimum of credits he’ll need for his purposes. It’s unlikely the person he stole this from will even notice the missing amount. All the same, his programming makes him feel a brief pang of guilt.

  But very brief. Noemi’s in danger, maybe in prison, and he would do worse than this to rescue her.

  Next, he must find transport to Stronghold. His best bet will be to purchase a berth on an immigration freighter, which can be done at the nearest spaceport.

  It all seems so simple—and yet the entire time Abel walks toward the spaceport, he can’t stop staring at the other mechs around him. Any one of them could be assigned to Mansfield; as his identification on Wayland Station proves, Mansfield sought Abel so desperately that he programmed every single mech created in the past thirty years to immediately report finding another mech beyond the twenty-five standard models. If one quick move or too-swift calculation betrays his true nature, Abel can expect to be accosted and dragged back to Mansfield’s home.

  Would Mansfield even pretend to care about him at that point? Would he smile and say reassuring things even as he strapped Abel in for his mind to be drained? It seems to Abel that having Mansfield pretend to be kind to him would be even worse.

  Infected by very human paranoia, Abel decides to stop in at a food counter at the outskirts of the spaceport. He needs to check the credit dataread to make sure the money has transferred properly and that no fraud flags have been raised on it.

  He purchases a bowl of miso ramen without suspicion from the human waitstaff. Abel takes one of the chairs at the long plastic table, just one of many weary travelers. He browses the flight schedules casually, or what he hopes is casually, as he eats his ramen—making sure to occasionally fumble with the chopsticks, of course—

  The sound on the wall holo draws his full conscious attention as the newsreader says, “—due to appear in court tomorrow, Riko Watanabe is considered to be a key member of Remedy and one of the ringleaders behind the Orchid Festival bombing. Sources at the Marshalsea Prison say she could yet strike a plea deal if she offers the names of more Remedy leaders—”

  New data requires new calculations. Abel remains frozen in place, noodles hanging from his half-raised chopsticks, as he considers the possibilities.

  Riko Watanabe has contacts with the resistance throughout the galaxy. This means she has access to funds and ships, not to mention sources of intel on the various colony worlds of the Loop. She would naturally be suspicious of most strangers, and consider any offer of assistance in escaping from prison to be entrapment. However, Riko has met me under circumstances that will lead her to consider me no ally of Earth. If I offer the necessary help, she will help me in return.

  Remedy sources may also be able to tell me what has happened to Noemi. If Noemi’s in trouble, Riko can help me get passage back to Stronghold.

  And if Noemi is safe—if she has, in fact, already begun her trip home to Genesis to stop the Masada Run—then what will he do?

  The emptiness stretches around him again, the dark purposeless void of his future without Burton Mansfield or Noemi Vidal in it.

  But Abel will determine his ultimate purpose later. For now, he has to break Riko Watanabe out of prison, to gain the ally he needs to save Noemi.

  As swiftly as possible without betraying his sense of hurry, he finishes the miso ramen, then strolls out of the food counter, out of the station, farther into the darkness of London at night, in the direction of the Marshalsea Prison.

  37

  THE CELL CYCLES UPWARD AGAIN, JOLTING THEM ALL. Noemi loses her balance, stumbling against the far wall, and sees Virginia toppling toward the still-open cell door. She grabs the hood of Virginia’s sweatshirt and hauls her backward, until Virginia’s butt lands solidly on the floor.

  Ephraim’s backed into one corner; Riko remains seated on her bolted-down bunk. Noemi takes the opportunity to turn off the cell lights.

  “Oh, great,” Virginia mutters. “I was just wondering how we could make this situation better. Plunging us into darkness definitely works.”

  “If the human guards come by, they’ll notice light from the open door.” Since they’ll be steady for another few minutes, Noemi chances a look down outside; they’re already ten meters off the ground and only going higher.

  Ephraim breathes out, a sigh of both frustration and despair. “We’re not getting back down to the ground again anytime soon, are we?”

  “Several hours, if the pattern you guys IDed holds up.” Virginia’s working at her dataread again, the dim green glow from its display painting her features in eerie, witchy light. “So this is just as bad as you were thinking. If not worse.”

  “I’m sorry,” Riko says, more gently than Noemi’s ever heard her speak before. “You’re in this predicament because you tried to help me.”

  “Because you got yourself caught and put everyone in Remedy at risk.” Ephraim sounds as ominous as rolling thunder. “Because you did something as stupid and cruel and wrong as bombing the Orchid Festival. Seriously? You think going after a bunch of pop stars is going to change the worlds?”

  “Earth won’t listen to anything less!” The gentleness has already left Riko’s voice. “How many lives have been lost because of Earth’s carelessness, their greed, their—”

  Virginia cuts in. “Let’s definitely have a loud philosophical argument while our only hope of escaping is trying to find a way out, so she can’t concentrate.” Her thumbs keep working the dataread’s controls, the clicking sound unnaturally loud in this plastic cell. “That would also alert the guards that we’re here! Another plus! I’m so glad I decided to break into prison with a group of geniuses.”

  Noemi ignores the sarcasm and simply drops to one knee beside Virginia. “What are you trying to do?”

  “See if I can change the pattern of the cell pods. It’s a totally separate system from main security, though—I have to start over from scratch. Hours at least. But hey, it’s still going to be dark then, right?”

  “I hope so.” Noemi’s not familiar with the latitudes and longitudes of Earth, with the seasons here. Neither is anyone else in this cell. She hates feeling so ignorant and helpless.

  The cell shifts again, lurching sideways this time. Ephraim mutters, “You never mentioned these things were so rough.”

  “On Wayland Station, they weren’t.” Noemi wonders whether their accommodations were a little more luxurious than she’d realized, or whether the cell pods have been specifically engineered to be rough. Maybe the jolting around is part of the punishment. “This has to be the worst-case scenario.”

  Then she straightens as she hears it: an insistent metallic thumping, coming up the side of the cells.

  “Uh, guys?” Virginia finally looks away from her dataread. “What’s that?”

  Riko shakes her head. “I’ve been here for almost a day now, and I’ve never heard that sound before.”

  It has to be one of the guards. But no alarms are going off, and Noemi would’ve thought they’d be more likely to seal the cell pod, freeze
it, withdraw it from formation somehow. Instead they’re sending someone straight up the side.

  “This,” Ephraim says to Noemi. “This is the actual worst-case scenario.”

  She forces herself to snap out of panic mode. You have to decide whether to surrender or fight.

  However the guard is climbing the side, he’s using both hands to do it. That means any weapon he has is one he’ll have to draw. No matter how quick he is, that still takes time—time Noemi doesn’t intend to give him. She won’t knock him to the ground, because that would kill him and he’s only doing his job. But if she can overpower him and get the weapon for herself, maybe they have a chance.

  “Everyone move back,” she commands as she gets herself into defensive position, one meter from the door. “Stay behind me.”

  Ephraim says, “You don’t have to—” but Noemi waves her hand at him, shushing any further noise. Soon the person approaching will be able to hear them.

  The thumps come closer, then closer again. Noemi realizes she’s holding her breath.

  A dark shape leaps through the open door, terrifying and then almost immediately familiar—

  Noemi gasps. “Abel?”

  Abel stops short, staring at her, before he says, “I’m malfunctioning.”

  “No, no, Abel, you’re okay. It’s me.” She takes a step forward, hardly trusting the evidence in front of her eyes. But it is. It’s Abel, here in front of her.

  “Thank God,” Virginia mutters. Noemi doesn’t answer. She can only stare at Abel.

  Overcome, she wraps her arms around him, hugging him tightly. He embraces her, too—first seemingly by reflex, then wrapping his arms around her more tightly and burying his face in the curve of her neck.

  “How is it possible for you to be here?” His voice is muffled by her shoulder. “Why are you on Earth?”

  “I came to look for you.”

  “You came here for me?” He sounds so bewildered, like he can’t believe anyone would ever do that.

  “I had to know you were going to be okay,” Noemi says. It’s as much of an explanation as she has. “We saw you with Mansfield, in his garden.… You looked happy. I thought, all right, he’s back home and everything’s good—”

  “Mansfield lied.” Abel’s voice actually shakes. She hadn’t known his emotions could affect him physically like that. “He lied about everything.” Abel pulls back from her then, as if he has to look at her again to make sure she’s real. But that’s when he sees the others. “How—”

  “We’re asking ourselves the exact same question, buddy,” Virginia says. “The. Exact. Same.”

  Ephraim cuts in. “Why aren’t you with Mansfield?”

  Abel does something Noemi’s never seen from him before; he stares at the floor for a moment, avoiding the question. He says only, “I’m not going back there.”

  “So you just decided to break Riko out of jail out of the goodness of your mechanical heart?” Ephraim obviously thinks something’s up.

  “Thanks for that, by the way,” Riko says. “But how did you get up the side?”

  Virginia sighs, exasperated. “He’s the most sophisticated mech in the galaxy! That’s, like, nothing for him.”

  More quietly Riko asks, “He’s a mech?” Nobody answers that one.

  Noemi’s astonished brain keeps trying to make sense of this, and failing. “Why are you here, Abel?”

  “I thought that if I freed Riko Watanabe from prison, she might help me look for you,” Abel says. He smiles crookedly, and Noemi does, too.

  “We were both looking for each other the whole time,” she whispers, hugging him again. Abel embraces her in return, more gently than before—

  “Hey, this is super heartwarming,” Virginia says, “but should we maybe finish escaping from prison now?”

  With Abel’s help, getting out is easy. He takes them down to ground level, two at a time on his back, showing no strain at all. The same security-system break that took Virginia hours is something Abel can manage within minutes, and soon he opens a window in the blinking laser grid, through which they all run. Nobody stops running for several blocks, long after the reddish glare of the Marshalsea has faded into the darkness behind them.

  When they slow to a halt, Noemi’s breathing hard, as is Ephraim, but both Virginia and Riko look like they’re about to fall over. Abel, who remains completely at ease, ushers them both to a bench as he says to Noemi, “We have to get back to Genesis. If my calculations are correct, it is now three days to the Masada Run.”

  “The what?” Ephraim says.

  Noemi ignores this. She’d tried to keep up with the time, and she’d thought they might still have another five days, but she got it wrong. The Einsteinian stuff goes beyond what she can figure in her head. It’s okay, she reminds herself. Three days is enough.

  “Regardless, I’m not going to Genesis,” Ephraim says. “No offense, but I don’t agree with what you people are doing. Besides, we’ve got work to take care of here.” With that, he glances at Riko, who slowly nods.

  “I have contacts on Earth—people who’ll help us hide. Remedy takes care of its own.” Riko straightens as she looks back at Noemi and Abel. “Thank you for coming for me. We won’t forget this.”

  Ephraim gives Riko a hard look, one that reminds Noemi how opposed the two of them are. Riko’s a terrorist, whose ideals don’t justify her bloody actions; Ephraim’s a moderate trying to find the best, most humane way out of this for everyone. Will he bring Riko around to his way of thinking, or will she bring him around to hers? Is a middle ground even possible?

  There’s no knowing, no guessing. But Noemi decides to put her faith in Ephraim’s good heart. “Then go,” she says. “Be careful.”

  “We might meet again yet.” Ephraim smiles, and she sees a flicker of the gentle, easygoing man he would be in another, better galaxy. She hopes he gets to see that world.

  She hopes she does, too. “Good-bye, Ephraim.”

  They take each other’s hands for a long moment before he turns to Virginia, who leads him through a complicated handshake that involves fluttering fingers and bumping elbows. Finally Ephraim pats Abel on the shoulder. “You’re a miracle. You know that?”

  “Hardly.” Abel’s smile is sad. “I cannot believe in the concept of luck, but—good luck, Ephraim. This might help.” With that, he hands over a dataread; Noemi has no idea what’s on that thing, but Ephraim’s face lights up.

  Riko only nods to them before saying, “Thanks, Noemi. Now, we have to go.”

  With that, she and Ephraim take off through the darkened streets, disappearing into the fog.

  As they walk up to the ship, Virginia falls several paces behind in a rare display of tact. By now it would be obvious to anyone how personal, and painful, Abel finds the story he has to tell.

  “I was so proud.” His smile is sadder than Noemi knew it could be. “So pleased with myself. The ultimate mech. But I was only a… a shell. A suit for him to wear.”

  “You’re more than that, and you know it.” Noemi takes his hand. “Don’t you?”

  “I have a soul. But I’m still a machine. My programming still tells me to help him, no matter what. When he told me his plans, part of me was happy for him, that he wouldn’t have to die. Even though the cost of his life was my own.” The disgust in his voice is visceral and raw—like the anger Noemi feels deep inside.

  “You broke free, Abel. Your soul is bigger than your programming.” Is that really what’s troubling him the most? More quietly she adds, “I’m sorry he didn’t love you as much as he should have.”

  They step through the door into the ship. Fortunately, no security has gathered around the dock; nobody’s after them yet. Abel stops short in the landing bay, and Noemi halts beside him, confused.

  “The Daedalus,” Abel says. When she turns her head toward him, she sees him staring at the place where the dedication plaque hung on the wall. “In Greek mythology, Daedalus learned to fly. He made wings for his son, wh
o flew too high, then crashed and died. Daedalus gained the knowledge; Icarus paid the price. Even when Mansfield named this ship, he didn’t forget what he planned to do to me.”

  “Then we’ll rename the ship,” Noemi says with determination. “Not a fake ID this time—we’ll rename it for real. Something worthy. It’s not Mansfield’s ship anymore. It’s ours.”

  “Let’s get into orbit before we celebrate.” Virginia’s not usually the one to signal caution, which is more reason to listen to her now.

  They hurry up to the bridge. Noemi starts prepping the ship for takeoff as Abel slides back into his pilot’s seat. The domed viewscreen comes on, showing the foggy, starless night above.

  Abel sounds more like himself now that he has something to do. “Preparing for auto-clearance to take off, and—check.”

  At that moment, a communication lights up the corner of their screen, and this one unfolds without Noemi touching the controls once. On the ops console, an image appears—one of an old man she’s never seen before. She knows him immediately. His eyes are like Abel’s.

  “Abel, my boy.” He shakes his head sadly. “I take it you’re on board. Your girl must have come for you. Very sweet. But of course she didn’t realize I’d still have trackers on this ship, as well as my old access code.”

  “Access codes can be changed,” Virginia mutters. She starts working right away, but it’s too late.

  Abel says, “I don’t want to come back.”

  “But you do, Abel. You do want that. I know, because I programmed it into you from the start. It’s just that now you want other things, too. Things you were never intended to have.” Mansfield takes a wheezing breath. “Abel, I am hereby ordering you to come back to this house and submit to the procedure. That’s a command from me to you. Come along, now. Come home.”

  In horror, Noemi watches Abel slide back from his console and stand up to leave.

  “No!” She runs to Abel and grabs his arm. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Abel’s entire body shakes. His voice breaks as he says, “Yes, I do.”