by Maura Milan
All at once, his muscles froze, and his mind flooded with the stories of Fugue.
Of monsters and horned men lurking in the shadows.
He took a breath as the shadow passed him. It was not a monster, nor a man.
But it used to be.
A corpse floated through the opening, rotating so Knives could see the charred flesh on the man’s face, his jaw torn open by the explosion. His suit and skin had been burned down through to the tissue.
As the corpse passed, a sliver of white glinted from the ash. The shape of two hearts. It didn’t matter what side people chose in a battle, Knives realized. There were always going to be casualties.
When he pulled himself inside, it felt like déjà vu. Even though the word Penance was stamped along the hull, it was a clear replica of GodsEye, the structure he’d found his way into at Fugue. All he had to do was close his eyes, and he’d see the layouts traced in the dark canvas of his eyelids.
He needed to get to the server room, a place he knew well. Back on GodsEye, it was tiny, stuffy. And it was where he’d first met Einn.
He made his way farther in, navigating around more bodies hovering in a ghostly ballet. There were teenagers, a few years younger than he was, among the dead. They hadn’t died from the explosion, but from the cold, from the lack of oxygen, from the vacuum of space stretching their tissues and bloating their organs.
Knives avoided their eyes, because he knew he would never be able to unsee it: the fear still plastered on their faces.
He reached for his side pouch and took out Bastian’s pen. Quickly unscrewing the cap and pen tip, he pressed the activation crystal and a pattern of lights assembled before him. A Monitor appeared, bearing the exact likeness of the old headmaster, the familiar look of pensiveness present on his face. It was the look Bastian gave in all his photographs. He was sure the real Bastian had just loaded in all his academy portraits and compiled them for the Monitor’s visage.
“This looks familiar,” Bastian’s Monitor said.
“It should,” Knives said as he floated onward. “It’s based on your work.”
Bastian walked on the metal ground, phasing through the floating corpses that passed. He looked straight ahead, but Knives knew he could see everything. A white orb floated over Bastian’s image, serving as a camera Eye of sorts.
“It’s a little different from what I remember.”
“There are dead bodies everywhere,” Knives said as he twisted past another one.
“But it is suitable,” Bastian said, “for what I have to do.”
Once Bastian was loaded up to Penance’s servers, he’d be able to turn the whole thing off from the inside. It would be simple. And then Knives would be alive and well. Well enough to nosh on all the oranges he could ever want. Well enough to go back to Nowhere Ramen and eat that bowl of hope the owner talked about. Then visit his father’s grave and tell him his son did well.
“Did Bastian load any info about my father into your records?” Knives asked.
“Affirmative,” the Monitor replied. “Erich Adams was a dear friend. He defended Bastian several times to the Council. It was Erich who got Bastian instated as Aphelion’s headmaster. He was the final vote. If it hadn’t passed, Bastian would have been forced into seclusion.”
“What?” Knives scrunched his eyebrows. As far as he knew, Bastian had assumed his role as headmaster willingly. He had been a better headmaster than the ones Knives had met from other academies. Knives’s friends from other campuses often complained about their headmasters being brutes or focused entirely on siphoning the school budgets into the upper faculties’ wallets.
“For the destruction of Fugue, Bastian alone was responsible,” Bastian’s monitor responded. “Yet his work lies unfinished.”
Knives tensed at this statement. He wanted to ask more, but then they came upon the server room. Right now, there were more important things that needed to be done.
The server room looked the same as Knives remembered, except now there were floating corpses, and one less Einn. Knives circled around the control booth, looking for the right port, then stopped.
There.
He took one last look at Bastian’s pen. Carefully, he unfastened the data coil and plugged it into the Penance servers.
“Is it working?” he asked Bastian.
“Yes, I am being copied into the system,” Bastian’s Monitor said. “I can see it all now.”
That was easy, Knives thought. At this rate, he’d be back at Aphelion by dinner.
“The real Bastian would be proud of you for what you’re doing,” Knives said.
“Yes, for completing his work,” the Monitor responded.
Knives’s shoulders stiffened. “What?”
“You said before. Bastian’s life goal was to complete GodsEye and bridge the two universes. That is why I exist.”
“No,” Knives said. “That’s not what I meant when I said that.”
All around him lights flashed on, and the machines whirred to life.
Knives grabbed the data coil from the upload port, but it was no use.
“I have already been fully copied,” Bastian’s Monitor said.
No, no. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Knives had to stop him. He was a fool. Why hadn’t he seen it earlier? That Monitor was a machine. An AI that had a mission, written into the very nature of its programming.
Knives pulled himself out of the server room and pushed against the walls, increasing speed with each bounce. The bridge was going to open. He wasn’t going to be able to stop it. But he had to try.
Deus be damned, he had to miffing try.
CHAPTER 63
IA
IA KEPT A FEW TABLES in between them. Einn walked slowly toward her, that warped smile stuck on his face the whole time. She knew that all he had to do was pull his magic trick, and he’d be right at her with a knife slicing through her throat.
His eyes narrowed on her. “Every time you face me, you lose,” he said, trying to find holes that would make her falter. “Look at you now. Hanging back like a frightened animal. The Blood Wolf of the Skies.”
The smile only grew more twisted the longer it took, and she wished she could just twist it right off his face. It was meant to throw her off-balance, to make her feel like she would soon see defeat. But he was also trying to distract her from what he was actually doing, grabbing items off tables as he passed. From that distance, she couldn’t tell what they were. They looked like utility belts of some kind.
Ia forced herself to concentrate. To think faster than Einn. That was the only way she was going to win.
Weapons in one hand, and that thing in the other. A spatial tear, a small wormhole that he could fully control. Just like he had at Calvinal, his fingers plucked the air as though it was an instrument until finally a small tear appeared in the center of his palm.
In a flash of movement, he threw all of the utility belts toward her.
And just like that, more spatial tears ripped through the air around her in a moment of perfectly crafted confusion. She twisted away to avoid colliding with them, and when she turned back to find Einn, he was nowhere to be seen.
Mif. She had to get out of this pit of wormholes.
Ia turned to escape, but Einn was right in front of her, stepping through the shadows of a tear.
She couldn’t run, but she could fight.
Her muscles tensed as she strengthened her stance, and she attacked quickly so he wouldn’t have time to think. But he dodged—right, then left. Her punches missed him every time. She hopped into a kick, but he had already stepped back, disappearing into another spatial tear, only to appear at her side, daggers flashing from his hands. Her back arched away from him, but she was too slow. She winced as the blade dipped deep into her side, the pain electric. Her brother smiled as he pulled it out of her.
Ia stumbled away, looking all around her. She didn’t have any weapons; the guards had taken away her pistols at
the flight deck. But she did see something useful on a table nearby. A power magnet. Ia grabbed the metal orb from the countertop and jammed her fist on the button, activating it. She lobbed it toward him.
As it arced, every loose piece of metal went with it, including Einn’s daggers. They flew out of his hands, attaching firmly to the magnetic orb as it landed across the room.
He glared at her, which only made her smirk despite the gash in her side. Because now Ia wasn’t the only one without weapons.
Her brother laughed. “Is that it? Is that all you can do?” he asked, his voice flat as if he was unimpressed. She understood what he was asking. He wanted to see if she was like him, with abilities and other unnatural tricks hiding up her sleeve.
Ia’s eyes narrowed, cutting at him. But by her silence, he knew.
“How weak you are,” Einn said with a playful tone. “How slow.” He charged toward her, but she stood still, watching him, waiting for just the right moment. He was almost at striking distance when she skirted to the side, grabbing hold of his arm as he passed.
“No, Brother.” Her gaze locked onto his, savoring the momentary confusion in his eyes. “Now I’m giving you everything I’ve got.” Then, using his momentum, she swung him to the left, smashing him into one of the lab tables. When he didn’t move, she let the tension in her muscles pool out of her.
But too soon.
Like a demon, he rose, and when he turned, she didn’t see his bare face. Instead, he had pulled on his horned helmet. Her throat grew tight, and her lungs compressed. She blinked quickly, trying to erase the image from her vision, but it remained. Her nightmares had come for her.
Whatever strength she had left drained away.
This time when he attacked, it hit. Right in her side. Then another blow to her chin. She staggered, grasping onto the rapidly shredding strings of her consciousness.
His hand darted out, grabbing her around the neck. In one motion, he shoved her to the floor. The spatial tears created by the utility belts disappeared around them as if they had been drained of their charge. Leaving only Einn’s—the most dangerous one. Einn used his spatial tears like they were his knives. He opened another one near the ground and forced Ia’s head through, stopping right at the neck.
Ia’s eyes widened in fear as she looked down at her own body. Her head, she realized, was now on the other side of the small wormhole, which was hovering in the space directly above them. Ia struggled, and she could see her legs kick uselessly and her arms flail in attempt to get away.
Einn’s fingers curled slowly into a fist. As he did, the spatial tears narrowed, closing in on her neck.
From above, she could only see the black outline of his devil horns. But when he turned to her, his visor came up automatically, revealing the true monster inside. Her brother’s lips twisted into that haunting smile, and the words came out of his mouth slowly, like smoke.
“How much fun would it be to watch yourself die…”
CHAPTER 64
BRINN
OUTSIDE, PENANCE was coming alive, but in a way Brinn had never seen before. It was hard to work fast with just one functioning hand, yet her fingers jumped furiously across the keyboard, writing and rewriting code to align things her way. But every time she did, her efforts were erased by something new. A phantom in the machine. She tried to access the admin codes, but even then, she was blocked out. A deep anger throttled her throat, because this was supposed to be her domain. Everything she tried was useless, but she still kept her eyes on the keyboard. Because if she looked up, she’d see Ia. And witness, once again, what Einn would do to her.
Long ago, Ia had told her that family was the anchor that always brought you back. Clearly, Einn didn’t think that.
She was certain he hadn’t felt anything when he saw his sister fall to her death. But when Brinn saw Ia in the sky that day, reaching for something, anything—it felt like Brinn was there with her, asking for help and no one was coming.
She felt helpless, unable to move. Because that was the Brinn she was back then. Weak. Useless. Recently broken by the universe that had taken everything from her.
She glanced over at Ia, her body struggling as she was forced to stare into Death’s gaze once again. And just like then, Brinn was on the sidelines, watching.
But this time the universe did give her something.
Her mother was alive, Ia had said. Her father was alive. Ia’s words rang through her ears. You’re not alone. These were words that meant more than any promise of peace. It was something greater than that.
It was another chance.
Brinn took her hand off the keyboard and ran toward Einn as fast as she could, so all she could see was him. Just as it had been for the past few months. She knew what he could do. She had seen how it all worked, and how—as with any instrument, any weapon—his hands were the most important part.
She reached for her pistol, the one that had killed Lind, the one that Einn himself had given her, and she aimed.
One hand.
Bang.
And then the other.
Bang.
Crouching, Brinn pulled Ia out of the spatial tear before it closed and chopped her head off. She looked back at Einn. His fingers were shattered, strewn across the metal floor. There were gaping holes where hands should be. He had fallen to his knees, like she had when she heard Faren had been taken away from her and everything she loved was lost.
“What are you doing?” he screamed.
Einn had lied to her about her parents’ deaths. Brinn knew who this man was now, so good at manipulating people to get exactly what he wanted. But there was one thing he’d taught her that she would never forget. Einn had told her that freedom was all about making a choice. She looked at him, her eyes open and her own. “I’m breaking free.”
Suddenly, the machines around her whirred. Program holoscreens popped up one after the other, crowding her vision, and she read the data as fast as she could.
Her mouth hung open.
No. This shouldn’t be happening. Brinn was the only one capable of running the activation sequence, but someone else had started it.
She stood up, speechless as she watched the sight unraveling outside. There was no questioning what she saw. She had already witnessed a version of it in her own laboratory. Her injured hand throbbed at her side from the memory.
In between the larger archway, a dark tear had formed. This time it didn’t go to Aphelion, or Nova Grae, or Rigel K.
It went to the unknown.
Ia rose up beside her. “This isn’t good, is it?”
Brinn shook her head. “No.”
The bridge was open. And Brinn didn’t have to see into it to know. There was something waiting on the other side.
CHAPTER 65
KNIVES
THE HALLWAY was too long to cross on his own.
Knives tapped on his holo. “Kaiken. Find me.”
The jet came barreling down the tear in Penance’s hull, the tips of its wings piercing through the metal paneling. It flew toward him, the cockpit still open. He bounded over to it, keeping his eyes on the distance, and timing it so that when he jumped, he was able to grab on to the frame. Maneuvering himself into the seat, Knives hit the reverse thrusters at full power, threading the path, precise as a needle.
He swerved through the jagged hole that split into Penance and flew out into the All Black. He steered clear of the swirling vortex that had appeared between the large archways. His face paled when he saw what was coming through. A mesh of matter, snakelike in form and speed, lashed about, trying to get a hold of whatever it could. For now, it was the battle colony. Its dark tentacles wrapped all around it, disintegrating everything it touched.
If this was what happened when the bridge opened back then, no wonder Fugue had been completely destroyed.
A younger Knives—a more selfish him—would have had thoughts of unquestionable escape.
But instead, Knives circled back.
A beep sounded on his holo, and a screen popped up with Ia’s image. “Knives. The bridge—”
“I know,” he said. “Bastian took over the mainframe, but he’s just a machine. There has to be a way to stop it.” He flew around, trying to find the answer. If he disabled the power source, maybe…but they needed a big blast to take down that type of core.
Ia’s gaze tensed. “If you’re thinking of doing something mungheaded, like sacrificing yourself, then stop right now.”
“I’m not,” he said. He wouldn’t be sacrificing himself just yet. Because there was a better way to stop Bastian in his tracks, and he was looking right at it.
Aokonic. The largest, most dangerous black hole in all Olympus.
He looked back at Ia. “I think I have a plan.”
CHAPTER 66
IA
“WHAT IS THAT?” Ia asked, staring into the spatial tear in the center of Penance, at that gaping maw from which several dark and dangerous tendrils unfurled.
“I’ve seen it before,” Brinn said as she stepped next to Ia. “It’s some sort of exotic matter, and it’ll wipe us out if we get in its way.”
Ia watched in horror as these dark appendages destroyed everything in their path, and they were only getting stronger. Pretty soon they would be impossible to stop.
A laugh came from the corner of the room. Einn sat on the floor, his legs tied together, his arms lying bloody and limp at his sides.
“So it’s happening after all,” Einn cackled.
Ia ignored him, keeping her eyes trained on Brinn.
“Is there any fail-safe?” Ia asked. “A command to turn it off.”
“Bastian has locked me out of everything,” Brinn said. “But even if I got in, the bridge is in an unstable state, and it’s only going to grow and tear. The only way is to destroy the entire structure.”