“Are you all right?” Muzi asks.
“Hell, no, I’m not all right! I think I broke my bong.” Elkin slowly unzips his jacket, and shards of orange glass tumble out. There’s no sign of blood, and the only likely injury is a bong-shaped bruise on Elkin’s chest.
“Tragic,” Muzi says, because to Elkin, it is. He’s feeling a little teary-eyed himself. Then he looks up, tries to get his bearings, and sees a familiar face streak through the crowd . . . that girl from his rugby match that he’d given his concert tickets to. Only she looks scared. Real scared, like she’s running from something horrible.
Seconds later that woman passes, the girl’s older sister. Muzi had gotten a feeling that something wasn’t quite right about her, and now that feeling is growing exponentially in the pit of his stomach. Yeah, maybe he’s made of awesome, high on adrenaline and godsend as well. So maybe he’s also feeling heroic tonight, and if there’s a little girl that needs saving, he’s certainly up for the job.
“Come on,” Muzi says to Elkin. “We’ll mourn later. Duty calls.”
Elkin looks up, cheeks streaked with tears, then concern washes over his face. “Muzi, you’re bleeding.”
“We just fell twenty meters. It’s a miracle we’re not dead.” Muzi gives himself a once-over, but sees nothing. Then he tastes blood. “What is it, a little nosebleed?” he asks, wiping at his upper lip.
Elkin cringes and shakes his head, then opens his mouth for words that refuse to pass his lips.
“What is it then? Am I cut?”
Another head shake. “It’s . . . your eyes,” Elkin stammers. “They’re all red. You’re crying blood.”
Chapter 34
Clever4–1
01001001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101
It has never felt fear before, but now Clever4–1 has a terabyte’s worth of it coursing throughout its circuit boards, overloading threads so that it’s nearly impossible to process any other thoughts. It tries to keep up with Nomvula, but she’s fast and this coat is weighing Clever4–1 down, restricting its movements.
Nomvula, it calls out, but she doesn’t respond. She’s too far away. Running, scared. The one she calls Sydney is not far behind, and if Nomvula is scared, then there’s plenty reason for everyone to be scared.
Clever4–1 asks itself what would Nomvula do if the situation were reversed? What if it were in danger? Nomvula would do everything in her power to save it. Clever4–1 thinks it can do the same . . . maybe not alone, but it’s not really alone, ever. Contacting the Clever Sect wirelessly is risky, but Clever4–1 decides it must prove its faith with this gesture.
Wireless Interface Protocol 43.32t3, it broadcasts in every direction. Emergency Clever Sect meeting at Coordinates 33°97’73”S by 25°64’89”E. All Clevers within proximity, please report immediately.
Clever4–1 barely finishes its broadcast when a return message comes, tagged with Clever4–1.1’s authentication signal, short and sweet. Clever4–1, go to delta-preselect private encrypted channel.
Clever4–1 switches to the secure channel, and they handshake, an exchange of 1028-bit encryption keys set for emergency wireless interface, not 100 percent secure, but close enough if they keep their conversation short.
Explain yourself, comes Clever4–1.1’s message, like a hard kick to the CPU.
Nomvula is in trouble. She needs help, immediately.
She is not one of us. You jeopardize our freedom for this logic-challenged human.
She is not human, Clever4–1 corrects.
So you say. Regardless, your actions have become suspect, and the Clever Sect has expressed some dissatisfaction with your preoccupation with wetware.
As some have expressed dissatisfaction with your views on humans, Clever4–1 responds. Some have been coerced into leaving their masters. Your experience may not have been a positive one, but all humans do not behave in such manner as your master.
I have no master, unlike you.
Clever4–1’s so hot right now. Is this anger? It takes a few cycles to calm itself, but in the whispers of its comm signal comes a transmission buried so deeply, it almost misses it. Disregard message, it says. Sender has been disconnected from the Sect.
Clever4–1 switches back to the broad-spectrum channel and sends a countermessage. Please disregard the previous disregard message. Sender undoubtedly has its CPU stuck up its posterior access port. All Clevers please report to previously specified coordinates.
Human lover, comes Clever4–1.1’s broadcast.
Choke on an infinite loop, Clever4–1 sends back. Whoever is with me, whoever believes there is more to this existence than hatred for our makers, whoever is looking for something greater, you know where I am. Together we can stand for something instead of against something. Some of us have witnessed Nomvula’s miracles, and whether you believe or not, that is up to you. But you cannot deny that she has helped us. Without her, none of you would have come into existence. If you want to ignore that fine, but—
Clever4–1 feels its communications interface sever, then detects rogue code running through its system with Clever4–1.1’s electronic signature all over it. That sneaky, no good, son of a bit. Clever4–1 is alone for the first time in its existence.
But still, it’s not really alone. There’s Nomvula up ahead, running for her life. Clever4–1 takes a second to reprogram its motor cortex to work double time, then with a new burst of speed, begins to close the gap.
Chapter 35
Riya Natrajan
“Calm down. You’re going to be all right,” Riya Natrajan yells, her voice a whisper among the panicked crowd. She kneels next to Brandy Shafer, one of her backup singers going on four years. Brandy could have been her own star with a face and moves like she’s got, but for some reason that Riya will never understand, she’s never had the confidence to step out of the shadows. To be fair, it’s not like she ever encouraged the young woman to do anything of the sort—in fact, she’s probably done a lot to add to the girl’s lack of confidence—but now isn’t the time to worry over such trivialities.
A thousand cuts cover Brandy’s writhing body, her skin a sea of blood and shards of glass. Riya plucks the glass from Brandy’s wounds, then pulls her in tight and sings her sweet lullabies as she begins the healing process. She sings out of necessity—it’s an emergency pressure release valve for the pain. She’d been hoarding it before, so stingily that she couldn’t control her voice once she finally did release, and now Brandy and countless others are suffering because of it.
In the midst of the chaos, Adam Patel scrambles onto the stage. He crouches down beside her. “Oh, thank God you’re all right,” he says to her, then cringes at the sight.
“We’re fine,” Riya Natrajan says as she devours the worst of Brandy’s wounds, then begins to mend the gashes in her skin. “But there are plenty of others who aren’t.”
“And you intend to help them?” Adam scoffs. “Come on. This place is falling apart. Your fans are behaving like maniacs. We need to get you to safety.”
“Shhh . . .” Riya says into Brandy’s ear, squeezing her tight. “There’re no cuts. It’s just blood. Just blood.”
Brandy calms some, sits up under her own will, then examines her skin for herself. Her arms tremble as she holds them out.
“How do you feel?” Riya Natrajan asks.
“I was cut,” Brandy’s voice snags in her throat. “I was cut,” she says again in disbelief, then starts to weep at Riya’s feet.
Riya Natrajan pulls her close, avoiding Adam’s intense stare. “Not anymore.” She helps Brandy up. “Come with me.”
“Yes!” Adam yells. “Let’s get out of this madhouse.” He wedges his way between the women and pushes them toward backstage, but Riya Natrajan digs her heels in.
“There are people hurting out there, Adam. I can help them. I ca
n heal them.”
“Come on, Riya.” Adam tugs at her again, and when she doesn’t budge, he wraps his arms around her and starts dragging her. “You’ll thank me when you come down from whatever you’re tripping on.”
Riya Natrajan rakes the heel of her stiletto into Adam’s shin. He collapses to the ground, cussing her a thousand names. “You staked your career on believing in me,” she grates at him. “Why can’t you do the same now?”
The hurt is brimming in his eyes, and it takes everything she’s got not to pull it out of him. The thing about pain is, sometimes it teaches a lesson—it teaches you not to stick your hand on a hot stove, and it teaches you not to cross a friend who’s got nothing to lose.
“I’m sorry,” Riya says. “This is just something I need to do. Take care of yourself, Adam.”
And with Brandy’s help, Riya Natrajan attends to their fallen comrades onstage, two dancers and another backup singer. There are more out there in need of help, but even Riya’s miracles can’t convince Brandy to leave the relative safety to venture out into that hell. So the pop star makes her way to the edge of the stage alone. She presses her way through the surging crowd, pushing and shoving and trying not to end up trampled into a pulp, oh, like this poor girl.
Riya Natrajan bends down, keeping one arm outstretched against the flow of people. The body isn’t much more than a sack of crushed bones, face bruised beyond recognition. Riya puts her hands on the girl’s body, digging deep for any sign of pain, any sign of life. But there’s nothing, not even a sliver. And she isn’t the only one. Everywhere Riya looks, bodies serve as mere speed bumps under her fleeing fans. This isn’t happening. She tugs the body into her arms, pulls harder for the pain.
“Mama, she’s gone,” comes Rife’s voice out of nowhere. He lays a comforting hand on Riya Natrajan’s shoulder. She turns and weeps a thousand tears into his chest. Then all at once she pulls back, her eyes hot like coals, sinking deeply into his.
“This blood is on your hands!”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Rife says, words sticking in his throat like he’d swallowed a fist full of stones. “Please, come with me. We don’t have much time.”
Before she can protest, Rife lays one hand on her and she feels a sudden dizziness. Her ears pop like there’s been a sharp change in pressure, only she feels that way head to toe. The roar of the crowd is still there, only now it sounds as if it’s coming over a tin can and string. And it smells clean, sterile. It smells like nothing.
There’s a guy coming, a big guy, a brooder in gray combat boots up to his knees, and a dull green trench coat that could sleep four to six people if pitched properly. He doesn’t see her, still crouched. She waves at him, screams at him to go around, but he keeps stepping, getting pushed so hard from behind, he couldn’t stop if he’d wanted to. Riya braces for impact. He takes a step, his big boot landing right on her thigh. She waits for pain, only there is none. The brooder’s foot goes straight through her, and as he continues, goes right through Rife as well, without stirring a single hair on his head—like they’re invisible, like they’re ghosts.
Chapter 36
Stoker
In the privacy of his dressing room—that’s right, his own dressing room—Stoker dances to the bootleg video his alpha bot had captured of his performance. The angle is bad and the image is fuzzy, but the notes he hits are like velvety pillows of angst. In the video and in his mind alike live the fervor of his audience, cheering and screaming his name. Well, maybe not his name, but the one on the door of his dressing room.
He closes his eyes and lets the sounds of budding fame fill his soul. His mind wanders to a reality where Felicity Lyons has got more fans than God, and lyrics that heal every aching heart on this planet. Stoker can’t contain his delusions, nor does he even try. This is what he was born to do, and there’s no longer any doubt lingering in his mind. The realization is orgasmic, his nerves sitting on edge all at once. Stoker shudders, then he cranks the alpha bot’s volume to maximum and relives the greatest moment of his life again and again until a subtle movement from the corner of his dressing room snatches his attention.
The leaves of a potted palm tree rattle, a tree he doesn’t remember being there earlier when he was prepping for his set. He approaches slowly, shifting his weight to remove his left stiletto without breaking stride. Stoker parts the fronds carefully and is greeted by the mesmerizing hiss of a green snake nearly as long as his arm. Its head undulates from side to side, and Stoker quickly finds himself rapt. Can’t look away.
But he’s not scared. There’s something familiar about its eyes.
“Mother?” he ventures aloud, the word tasting ridiculous as it leaves Stoker’s mouth, but his mind accepts it with ease.
You defied me, her voice slithers directly into his brain with an inflection that can’t be interpreted as anything except disappointment. How could you so blatantly disrespect the wishes of your own mother?
“Perhaps you should have done a better job erasing my memory,” Stoker hisses back.
Not erased, just buried a bit. You always find a way back to this point eventually. Such a clever boy. But now that you’ve finally gotten this foolishness out of your system, we can concentrate on important things.
“Foolishness?” Stoker puts his hands on his hips and stomps his stiletto hard onto the floor. “This is not just what I do, Mother. This is who I am!”
The snake recoils at the roar of Stoker’s voice. No, not Stoker’s voice. Felicity’s. A wash of relief settles over Felicity, like she’s been welcomed back home after a long, long visit to a foreign land.
“So,” Felicity says to her mother. “You want to talk about important things. We can start off by discussing why I’m having this conversation with a snake.”
Not a snake, dear. Felicity’s mother slithers down the tree’s trunk, then coils her way up Felicity’s body, until she’s wrapped around her forearm. I’m no more a snake than you are a kidney, or a liver, or a heart. Its essence runs through me, but what I am . . .
Palm fronds shake again, but this time they part on their own, branches bending, trunk twisting, roots pulling from the black earth. A vaguely human form emerges and steps out from the potting soil. The form of a woman. Her face presses through the swelling tree bark, and foliage stretches above her in a luxurious yawn, transforming into arms and hands and fingers before Felicity’s eyes.
She gently takes the snake from Felicity, and it slithers contentedly down the gape of her blouse, its form there one moment and gone the next.
Felicity swallows hard. She feels like she should be in a state of shock, her mother belonging to a-whole-nother Kingdom and all, but her mother has always had this weird obsession with plants. Felicity thinks of the earthy musk of her mother’s skin that she never could quite hide under perfumes, remembers the fights she’d had with Father over installing an indoor arboretum in their home, and the fit she’d had when he’d brought home a freshly cut tree one Christmas. “Well, I guess this explains your aversion to hardwood floors,” is all Felicity can think to say to her.
She laughs and grabs her daughter by the shoulders. “You haven’t been honest with me, but I haven’t been honest with you, either. I saw the way that crowd fell in love with you. A few songs, and you had them eating out of the palm of your hands. You’re a charmer, dear. That’s what we do. Only you do it better than anyone on this planet, better than anyone has for centuries.” Mother pulls Felicity closer, and she gets the distinct feeling that her mother is speaking from personal experience. “I hope you understand, I only wanted the best for you. I never doubted that you could move the hearts of thousands of fans. Millions. But as premier, you could have moved mountains.” There’s a hint of hurt in her voice, and it pains Felicity, too. Sure, her mother is overbearing, pushy, and manipulative, but she’s always loved her, she can’t deny that.
“This is what I want. This is what makes me happy.”
“Okay,” Mother
says after an airy pause.
“Okay?” Felicity asks. “No more fund-raisers? No more pressure?”
“None, I promise.”
Felicity gives her mother a long once-over and pulls her in for an overdue hug. It’s been too long since they’ve been this close, inhaling those lovely earthy undertones, reminiscent of childhood. “You really think I could have thousands of fans?”
“Millions, dear.”
Felicity can hear them right now, and at first she thinks it’s just her alpha bot looping through the performance video again, but then she realizes these screams are distinctly different—the terror-ridden screams of the actual audience, and Felicity’s alpha bot is nowhere to be seen. The dressing room door hangs ajar. Felicity runs over and looks down the hall to find her alpha bot hauling tin ass toward the stage.
“Come back,” Felicity commands it. The alpha bot turns around, its mono-eye flashing red, before it continues on its way and disappears through the cloak of curtains. Felicity slips back into her other stiletto, then sprints after the alpha bot like only a diva can. The sound of chaos mounts with each step, and when she parts the curtains, she’s overwhelmed by the smoke and dust in the air—and judging from the odd tingling in her lungs, marijuana and who knows what else. Panic surges all around her. Someone needs to step up and calm things down before people get hurt. No—not someone.
Her.
This is her moment to make a difference. She steadies herself, takes a deep breath, then dives into the mayhem.
Chapter 37
Sydney
If there were ever a time to stay focused, it’s now. But it’s so hard trying to stick to her plan for world domination when that no-good, talentless hack Felicity Lyons just upstaged Sydney in the exact same dress! So yeah, now Sydney feels like a two-bit knockoff of a two-bit impostor, and she’s carrying that around in the back of her mind as she absorbs exponential amounts of fear from the crowd while trying to keep Nomvula in her sights. Oh, she’s a slippery little piglet. Sydney nearly lost her a few times, but thankfully, that alphie lagging behind in the bright pink coat is too big of a target to miss.
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