by Claudia Gray
Virginia’s dark eyes widen. “You’re bleeding.”
Abel puts his hand to his face. The nosebleed he had during the battle has mostly stopped, but there’s a slight damp warmth at the edge of his nostril. “It’s nothing.”
“Excuse me, but if your head spurts blood, it’s definitely something! What exactly did you mean by ‘overreach’?”
“You may have to help me determine that later, after we’ve gone through the Kismet Gate.” It’s approaching fast, already visible as a faint silvery speck far ahead.
“The Kismet Gate? The one with thousands of magnetic mines around it to make it absolutely impossible for anyone to fly through it and survive? That Kismet Gate?”
Abel simply replies, “Strap yourself in.”
“Why are we leaving Genesis?” Virginia protests. “And when is Noemi going to get her butt down here? Does she need help in sick bay? None of this makes any sense!”
“Noemi is in cryosleep.”
Nobody goes into cryosleep unless the alternative is death. Virginia knows this. Her face falls as she whispers, “Oh, God. What happened?”
“I’ll explain everything,” he promises, then wishes he hadn’t. “After the minefield.”
“Oh, crap.” But she takes her seat and fastens the safety straps, preparing for the ride.
As the Kismet Gate opens before them, a wide silver ring shimmering brightly, Abel can’t shake the thought that Noemi ought to be here. She should be by his side. He wants so badly to hear her voice, to see the way her eyes light up when they approach a Gate. To him, sometimes, Gates are no more than machines that generate artificial wormholes, allowing instantaneous travel to another part of the galaxy.
To Noemi, a Gate is always a miracle. The worlds are infinitely more beautiful through her eyes.
This time, he must go on without her.
2
PILOTING THROUGH A MAGNETIC MINEFIELD REQUIRES reflexes faster than any human possesses. Only a mech could do it—and most mechs fast enough for the work don’t have the brainpower to handle the thousands upon thousands of split-second calculations necessary.
Which means Abel is probably the only individual in the galaxy capable of flying through the minefield on the other side of the Kismet Gate, a fact in which he usually takes pride.
At the moment, he has no time for vanity. His mind fills with velocities and trajectories, the track of each separate mine headed toward them. It seems to him that the blackness of space is crisscrossed with golden lines of light, most of them converging on the Persephone’s position. But he can change that position by the millisecond. Every swoop and spiral of their course dodges another mine and sends it colliding with another. Their destructions look like fireworks exploding. Abel has enough mental process free to take in the sight, and find it beautiful.
Virginia does not. For several seconds after they’ve cleared the minefield, she remains motionless at her station, eyes wide, face pale. Abel has begun to wonder if he should administer treatment for shock when she finally breathes a heavy sigh. “Okay. We’re not dead. Congratulations, us.”
He feels the congratulations should properly belong only to him, but it would be unseemly to point this out.
Still staring at the viewscreen, she says, “What sociopathic madman designed that? The head of the amusement park in hell?”
“The minefield was the work of a team of designers tasked with permanently sealing the Kismet Gate without destroying it, in order to deny Genesis the chance to interact with other colony worlds and perhaps foment wider rebellion—”
“I wasn’t asking for History 101,” Virginia says. “Or Basic Military Strategy. I meant, what kind of sadist would inflict that kind of terror on people?”
She’s being facetious, which Abel has learned is one way Virginia handles stress. He replies, “Terror was surely not the intended result. Most humans would be killed within a fraction of a second after entering the minefield, leaving little time for fear.”
Virginia gives him a dark look, but already her quick mind is moving on. “Okay. Enough of our near-death experience. What happened to Noemi?”
No answer but the truth will do.
Twelve point one three minutes later, he stands beside Virginia in sick bay. Noemi floats before them, lost in the all-encompassing oblivion of cryosleep. Virginia stares up at the pod, expressionless, hugging herself. Abel wonders whether she’s upset about what happened to Noemi, or afraid of him.
He told Virginia the harder part first. She said nothing as she looked at Darius Akide’s body in the lab. After that, Abel could only bring her here. If she must think of him as a murderer, he at least wants her to understand why.
Humans find silence awkward within a matter of seconds. Abel suffers no such insecurities, yet even he knows Virginia has gone too long without speaking. He ventures, “I haven’t identified the error in my programming that allowed me to kill Akide. However, it may reassure you to know that I think only such a rare confluence of traumatic incidents could have affected me so radically. Under normal conditions, I don’t believe myself to be dangerous.”
“What the—Abel, of course you’re not dangerous.” Virginia hugs herself more tightly as she says it. “Somebody you love got killed—or nearly killed—right in front of your eyes. The person who shot her had just tried to kill you. I’m pretty sure a majority of humans would’ve done what you did, or at least tried to. And no jury would convict them for it.”
“Because they are humans,” he says. “A jury would judge me differently.”
“Damn straight they would. They’d shut you down fast. Nobody can ever know about this. Not ever, ever, ever.”
Virginia has taken his side. She’s weighed his actions as she would a human’s, allowing for fear, anger, and love—all the feelings mechs aren’t supposed to possess. At any other time, Abel would’ve been both relieved and delighted. But as he gazes at Noemi, he can find only limited satisfaction. Knowing how slim a chance she has, and the price he may have to pay for that chance… he won’t feel anything approaching relief or delight for a long time to come.
“Not to be negative,” Virginia says, “but if I’m interpreting these readouts correctly—and maybe I’m not! Medicine isn’t one of my things! But… it looks to me like the level of damage here is more than artificial organs can fix. Her nervous system seems to be—not functioning on its own. And nerves are the hardest thing to rebuild—”
“Your interpretation is correct.” Abel puts one hand against the cool surface of the pod. It is an irrational impulse, but one he can’t resist. “Noemi cannot be healed through conventional means. Yet the advent of organic mech technology suggests potential medical applications, which I believe can save her.”
“Wait, what?” Virginia turns from the cryosleep pod to stare at Abel in bewilderment. She helped him uncover the research on organic mechs, so it’s not the technology that has surprised her. It’s the idea of using it on humans. “Can that even be done?”
“No one has done it yet,” he admits, “but I’ve run two hundred and eighty-nine mental simulations in the past hour, and in two hundred and seventeen of them, Noemi could be restored to life.”
“When did you run—oh, you ran the simulations in your huge mech brain while you were doing twelve other things at once,” Virginia concludes. “Simulations are one thing, Abel. This is reality. Nobody’s ever attempted human/cybernetic synthesis on this level. Not even on Cray, and we do experiments all day long! So there’s literally nobody to help us—and this next-gen organic stuff isn’t even commercially available yet—”
“Gillian Shearer, as the developer of organic tech, has a supply of the necessary materials. I believe she could help me use that technology to heal Noemi. Therefore I’m traveling back to Haven.”
Virginia stares at him for so long that he wonders if she failed to process his statement. Perhaps he should’ve treated her for shock after all. Before he can repeat his words, Virginia shakes her
head in what appears to be disbelief. “Going back to Haven? To Gillian Shearer? The woman who’s planning on ripping out your consciousness so she can give your body over to her sicko dad? Gillian thinks of you as nothing more than Burton Mansfield’s ticket to immortality. If she ever gets her hands on you again, she’ll steal your body and destroy your soul.”
Abel replies, “That means I have something to bargain with.”
“No, Abel. You can’t. You can’t trade yourself to Gillian for this. Noemi wouldn’t want you to.”
“Noemi has endangered herself for me in the past. She’d understand.” Virginia won’t, however, so he adds, “I’ll only go through with the trade if absolutely necessary. It’s possible I might be able to steal the technology from Gillian’s lab instead.” This seems unlikely in the extreme, but Abel sees no need to mention that.
He doesn’t have to. Virginia already knows. “Is that supposed to sound reassuring? Because it doesn’t.”
Noemi’s voice echoes in Abel’s mind: You’re terrible at comforting people. As she floats only centimeters in front of him, seemingly far away and lost even though he has a plan that should guarantee her survival and safety, he feels a wave of longing so powerful that it becomes a physical sensation—a warmth rushing through him, painful and yet somehow beautiful at the same time.
He’ll have to ask Noemi how that can be possible. She’ll know.
“Wait, wait.” Virginia holds up her hands, as if she could physically hold him back from this decision. “Are you going to Haven to heal Noemi or… or to repair her?”
“Both,” he says. “Noemi cannot survive without ceasing to be fully human. But this wouldn’t be the same as taking her consciousness and putting it in a mech body. Instead, her own body would be altered. Transformed. She’d become a sort of hybrid, both mech and human.”
Virginia’s unease only deepens. “Are you sure she’d be okay with that? You know what Genesis teaches about mechs. You know that better than anyone.”
Even after Abel helped save the people of Genesis from a deadly biological weapon, their Elder Council still judged him to be no more than a soulless automaton, unfit to remain on their world. “Noemi’s different,” he says. “She knows who and what I am. She was the first person to believe that I have a soul.”
This is less persuasive than he expected it to be. “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s easier to accept differences in someone else than it is to accept them in yourself.”
Abel finds this so illogical, even by human standards of irrationality, that he sees no need to address it further. Noemi will awaken stronger. Faster. Better. More important is the simple fact that she will awaken. She’ll live. Nothing else matters.
Virginia’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “You’re not usually hell-bent on doing something this batcrap loony. Are you sure you’re thinking rationally? Or is this maybe Directive One at work?”
Directive One lies at the core of Abel’s programming. It tells him to obey and protect his creator—Burton Mansfield, Gillian’s father—above any other priority in the universe, including preserving his own life. That directive would command him to travel to Haven to hand himself over. Abel always believed Directive One held complete power over him, until the day Mansfield commanded him to kill Noemi.
Love is stronger than any programming.
“This isn’t about Directive One,” he says. “I only have one way to save Noemi. I won’t fail her, even if the cost is my life.”
Virginia looks stricken as she steps closer and puts one hand on his shoulder. “Listen. We’ll think of something, okay? Something else. There has to be a way to—”
Proximity alarms wail yet again. Abel frowns. Nobody pursued them through the Genesis system to the Kismet Gate, or could’ve made it through the minefield if they had. Nobody in the Kismet system would be looking for them. He changes his ship’s ID codes regularly in order to avoid detection. Nor should they have run into a standard patrol. Kismet is a pleasure planet, a tropical getaway for the elite and a source of ill-paying, miserable jobs for everyone else. Neither group would have any reason to search the area near the Kismet Gate.
Virginia has come to the same conclusions. “We shouldn’t have company out here in the boonies of space. That makes me nervous.”
“Agreed.” Abel crosses to the nearest console and brings up scanner readings. The screen fills with an image of nearby outer space that should be empty—
—and absolutely is not.
After 2.1 seconds, Virginia says, “Uh, Abel? Remember that broadcast we sent right before we traveled to the Genesis system?” She gestures at the screen, which shows numerous Vagabond vessels, Stronghold starfighters, and even the white hulks of Damocles ships. “I think we might’ve kinda… started a war.”
3
THE PLANET KISMET IS OFTEN CALLED A PARADISE. HUMANS are given to extravagant exaggeration of the things they admire, but the first time Abel saw Kismet for himself, he knew that description was deserved. It hangs in space like a milky amethyst, promising lavender beaches and lilac skies. In a galaxy of increasing desperation, Kismet has long been the one oasis of beauty, peace, and ease.
No longer.
The pale violet planet itself is unchanged—but a large area of space, from within Kismet’s orbit to the edge of this system, is patrolled by hundreds of Earth ships. There are so many ships that their electronic signals on the viewscreen look like luminous chains binding the planet tight. Abel switches to regular view and focuses his vision to greater and greater degrees of magnification until he can make out each individual craft.
Virginia does the human equivalent, squinting at the viewscreen. “Damocles ships. I see two.”
“Three.” Abel’s scanned the far horizon already.
“How are there even Damocles ships there? How are they anywhere? I thought Earth threw every Damocles ship they had at the Battle of Genesis. Where, as you’ll remember, we totally took them down. I mean, a couple of them escaped, but they limped away. There’s no chance they were sent right back out to harass Kismet.”
Abel swiftly adjusts the console screen magnification so Virginia can stop squinting. “We did considerable damage at the Battle of Genesis, but Earth must possess more Damocles vessels than we thought.”
She huffs in exasperation. “I’m a mad scientist, so I get the appeal of unstoppable killer androids, but, you know, you can have too much of a good thing.”
Abel ignores this, concentrating on the far more pressing matter of the Earth scout ship that has left its patrol formation and is now approaching their position. For 2.13 seconds, he considers evading it, but rejects the idea. Running away would only spark their suspicion. They can’t afford to be suspicious.
They need to be extremely boring.
Virginia’s distraction is so complete that she startles when a voice through the comms barks, “No ships are authorized to travel through this area. Identify yourself.” The tone is meant to rattle whoever hears it.
Abel is not easily rattled. “This is the free ship—Charon.” The pause before giving his ship its latest pseudonym is fortunately not long enough for a human to notice. He reset the ship’s internal codes, which will be sufficient to disguise them as a ship that’s never visited Kismet before, thus avoiding any possible traps previously set by the late Burton Mansfield. “We’re Vagabond traders. We came to the edge of this system some weeks ago, searching for asteroid metals and ores for mining.”
“There are few asteroids in this area.”
A brief vision of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca flickers in Abel’s mind as he answers, “I was misinformed.”
“You’re within proximity of the Kismet Gate.”
Very quietly, Virginia murmurs, “Maybe Earth thinks Genesis might send someone through. Maybe that’s why they’re patrolling out here.”
This seems unlikely. The minefield is impassable for humans, and Genesis refuses to use mechs. Kismet must be on security alert for other reasons. Eith
er way, he must be careful.
To the comms he replies, “We thought a less traveled area might offer greater mining potential. Less likelihood that asteroids would already have been tapped for all valuable ores and minerals.”
By now the suspicion in the scout pilot’s voice is obvious. “You want to explain that ‘mining potential’ for me?”
Abel has one more weapon at his disposal, an ability he was programmed for but rarely speaks of: extreme attention to detail.
“It is true that the collective mass of the asteroids in this sector is between one-thirtieth and one-fortieth of Earth mass, much lower than the collective mass of the more commonly mined asteroid belts. However, these asteroids contain much higher than average levels of tungsten and magnetite. Let me pull up my charts.” Abel doesn’t need charts for this; he does, however, need the Kismet pilot to believe it’s a human on the other end of this comm line. “Here it is—to be precise, this area shows signs of possessing seventy-one point four two three eight zero six percent more magnetite than would be found in the most commonly mined areas of the Kuiper Belt. Therefore, the potential haul from our current position is equal to or greater than it would be in any of the known belts. For instance, the Watchtower Belt in the Stronghold system has a collective mass of only one-third Earth mass, but has sixty-two point five one nine six six seven percent less tungsten than—”
“Okay. Got it.” The pilot’s irritation is clear, even through the distortion of the speaker. “Go about your business. Don’t approach the Kismet Gate minefield, for your own safety; if you get damaged, nobody’s coming to rescue you. Exploring through the system will be treated as hostile action.”
“We’re happy to comply. Charon out.”
Abel snaps off the comms and looks over at Virginia, who shakes her head in disbelief. “You were practically holding up a huge glowing sign that says I AM A MECH. No human would ever pour out stats like that. Not even off a chart.”