Ophelia moved toward the central operating bank.
“Rayna, please. We don’t have time for moralizing. This is difficult to handle, but we need to access the repository now.”
“You’re right,” James said. “But Rayna is also right. When we have everything we came for, I’ll leave the decision to my brother. He should decide what to do with you.”
She ignored his threat and began entering codes into a central processing field. They gathered around her, unable to keep their eyes off the tubed immortals.
As the data search began, vast files flickered before them, displaying genetic profiles, identities, and Collectorate gemstamps. The latter caught Valentin’s attention.
“Does this mean they are being distributed?”
“Yes,” Ophelia said. “Emil wanted them hidden within the general population everywhere instead of confined to central locations, where they might be placed at risk.”
“How do you know this thing?” Rayna intervened.
“My primary job was reassignment. I placed most of them with descendencies in need of heirs. Sometimes, we sent them to mixed-breed families on colonies. The ones where former peacekeepers went rogue and married indigos. Emil wanted them to experience a wide variety of environments to test their adaptability.”
“How many?” Valentin asked.
“By the time I left here, we had assigned three hundred children. A few on Earth, a few on the system stations, most on Ark Carriers, the rest on colonies.” She faced Valentin. “None were older than six. But the program was in its early stages. If I’m right, there are ten times as many spread across the Collectorate.”
“If someone wanted to find them all, could he?”
Just as the files coalesced into a finished data package, she said:
“Yes, Valentin. Everything is here. But aren’t they better off not knowing? They are all children, younger than you.”
He pushed her aside. “Perrone called me a boy right before my brother killed him. Do you think I’m a child?”
“I think you are as angry as James and Rayna, and well justified. But you cannot change what they did to you or those others.”
“Are you sure?” Valentin began transferring the data package to his stream stack. “I have an idea, thanks to Father.”
“And we need to leave,” she said. “It’s time to head to the platform. Our pilot will be waiting for the signal.”
Valentin nodded. “You made the adjustment we discussed?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how we …”
Valentin turned to James. “Isolate the platform surveillance.”
James reset his helmet and grabbed live images on his DR29 then tossed out the cubes. Ophelia gasped when she saw the developments. The Scramjets on Levels 6 and 9 were leaving.
“Why would they …?”
“They’re trying to leave us with no way out,” Valentin said. “They’ll initiate portal locks when the ships have cleared. Since we can’t access the T-Core, we are essentially trapped. We must fight our way out. I thought the Major might resort to this.”
James added, “Which is why they didn’t come after us. They don’t care if we have the repository because we’ll never leave here alive.”
“I understand his plan,” Valentin told them. “They are clustering near the lifts. On his orders, they’ll ascend simultaneously. They’ll stop at Level 7. The lift program will be reset making descent impossible. Then they move up again. Repeat the process. If we stay ahead of them, they’ll close off the options beneath us until we’re trapped on Level 16. Then they’ll coalesce and hunt us down en masse. I’m sure they raided the armory and reuniformed as many soldiers into combat suits as they could before launching the Scramjets.”
“But this facility is more than a mile in diameter,” she said.
“Might take a while,” James said, “but they won’t care. That’s why we need to move. Has the repository off-loaded?”
“It has,” Valentin said. “I’ll share it to both your DR29s. Ophelia, it’s already on its way to your stream stack. Now, your turn. Send me the data for the hybrids.”
“No, Valentin. Once I give you that information, I have no leverage. You will take me with you, like it or not.”
He pivoted to James. “Brother?”
James felt time slipping away.
“You guarantee their safety, Ophelia? The other eight?”
“No, James, but I can lead you there. The ten of you deserve life and freedom away from …” She hesitated before resuming.
“Three years ago, Emil decided to kill the hybrids. He believed the immortals solved our future. He worked out a plan with Sexton to send agents across all ten folds, hunt you down, and kill you then recall the observers. I pleaded with Sexton. I made a military case for keeping you alive. Emil went along, but only if I took charge of the recovery and education programs. I will never put any of you at risk.”
James saw the truth in her eyes. One honest Chancellor – at least for today. He turned to his brother.
“Go with her. Make sure she’s safe. They just moved to Level 7. If they reach Level 9 before the ship arrives …”
“And you?”
“What we agreed might be necessary.” He shifted toward the hundreds of yellow tubes. “I can end it all, if that’s what you want.”
He nodded. “Will it be quick and painless?”
“I promise, brother. Take the ship. We’ll see you soon.”
57
R AYNA EXPECTED THEIR PLANS MIGHT come to this, but to see James give orders with such confidence electrified her soul. Even in the ugly red skin, he was the most beautiful man she ever saw, a commander in the making. The future father of her children. What these Chancellor assholes deserved. As the others ran from the lab, she jumped into his mind.
- You will do this for Valentin?
- I will do anything for my brother. Or you.
- What color eyes will our children have?
- Whatever we want them to be.
- True. We are not human.
“No,” James said aloud. “We’re better. We’re the future.”
He came to her with a savage aggression she long hoped for. He strapped his arms around her and kissed with a hunger of someone waiting decades for this moment. The Jewel’s undeniable heat rose in rhythmic waves, exchanging energy, intellect, and desire.
She saw it all. The little boy, Jamie. The older one named Ben, who pretended to be his brother. She saw the observers. She felt Sammie’s lingering desire for a boy she couldn’t have. And Michael, the fool at his side. She saw Jamie save them both from certain death and kill Sammie’s father. She felt the jealousy and rage of the Mentor Lydia, who trapped him and denied him the opportunity of the forever. She saw his rebirth, his confusion, and then his commitment. She touched the vast intellect hidden behind a curtain in his mind and witnessed the future he was devising for them all.
Then at last something else rose. A dark wave she felt every time she killed her enemies. The boy beside the Dnieper River. The traitor Kamily Doroshenko. Rayna confirmed what she always suspected but dared not say aloud or even to Mentor.
I am not a murderer. I am a warrior. I am a hero. My children will be heroes.
When their lips parted, she put her conflicts behind and looked to the path forward with this man who exceeded her dreams. Rayna did not understand joy until this moment.
“Time to be a god, my love,” she told him. “Do what you must for Valentin. Then we show them the future.”
His eyes cast love and darkness in union. He was prepared.
He placed his hand over the first tube on the lowest tier. She saw him grit his teeth and close his eyes as he summoned the half of him all humans should most fear.
The liquid inside the tube caught fire and eviscerated the fetus. The heat spread as a crackling black virus overrunning the nearest tubes, like lava from a raging volcano. He stepped away and grabbed Rayna’s hand. They stood together and
watched as the conflagration incinerated tube after tube, from the smallest embryos around the opposite side forward to those nearing maturity.
When nothing remained but smoldering ash, Rayna studied James’s features. She saw neither the horror of what he did nor a lack of resolution to do it again. He was not weakened. Rather, his firm jaw and piercing eyes said he was ready to finish this.
The moment was quiet, without words verbal or interior.
She looked out the corner of her eye, however, and saw Mentor staring not at his pocket watch for a change. Rather, he appeared awestruck by the scene.
“Ah, my dearest,” Mentor said without looking at Rayna. “You will give me the heave-ho after this. Might I offer one parting word?”
“Speak quickly and to the point,” she said.
“I never knew a god who did not dissolve into mythology. And I was created by gods. Love your children, my dearest. They will be your salvation.” He pivoted to her. “If you find salvation at all.”
He wasn’t the same Mentor who first appeared in her life ten years ago. She heard the disappointment.
“You were a good friend, Mentor. I would not be here but for you. Yes. Time for you to go. I rescind our deal.”
She flicked her fingers, and he disappeared.
Rayna decided she must have no regrets. She pointed to the massive processing field in the center of the lab.
“Should we destroy the machines?”
“We will,” James said. “Soon enough.”
“There are thousands like your brother. Will he wish to search for them? What will he do if he finds them?”
“I have ideas, but we will have time to plan. We find our people first. Yes?”
He kissed her again, this time like a gentleman.
“Da. Ours first.”
He studied the DR29 surveillance. Ophelia and Valentin were entering the Level 9 platform. The Major’s forces were sitting at Level 8. They’d move any second.
“Will they attack platform?” She said.
“No. They’ll come after the platform a different way. We are all that matters to them. My parents and the Major know what happens if they don’t kill us today.”
“Then we must kill them instead.”
They stared into each other’s eyes, a moment she would trade for nothing. Yet the moment was brief, of necessity.
“You look beautiful in red,” he told her. “It’s time.”
She triggered her helmet and called up the DR29. She saw the Major’s forces stop at Level 9. They did not exit the lifts or move toward the platform, as James predicted. They were scattered over a quarter of a mile, but they blocked all downward exits. No matter.
There would be no retreat for anyone, and no chance to surrender.
58
V ALENTIN GAVE HIMSELF SIXTY SECONDS to bring down the platform’s cascade barrier. He’d done it before, learning how during those times he played on the Level 6 platform. Deck engineers showed him how the controls worked, even allowed him to open it for a cargo ship’s arrival. He studied the manual control diagnostics and went to work. Valentin needed to override the remote blocking no doubt instituted under the Major’s command.
“He’s on his way in,” Ophelia told him as she communicated with the pilot through her amp. “Five hundred meters. He says he won’t come closer than a hundred meters if the barrier doesn’t fall.”
“Not an issue,” Valentin said, watching his program dance to his particular tune. “In five.”
He watched and waited. If he overlooked a step, the barrier would remain, and the pilot would know something was off.
The energy field dissolved on cue.
“All right, here we go,” he told Ophelia. “You follow my lead. We have maybe two minutes before we lose this ship.”
The Passaic Dawn came in for a fast landing, as instructed. The ship was lean – a small liner designed for twenty passengers, with full facilities including private beds and baths. Green nacelles lined the lateral flanks, chasing up and behind into system engines half as long as the ship they powered.
“Do not disengage the nacelles,” she yelled across the amp as they ran to the opening port-side ramp, telling the pilot to abandon normal landing protocol. “Repeat, do not disengage nacelles.”
They raced onboard, through the primary cabin and forward to the command deck. Valentin raised his rifle chest-high as the pilot left his seat. He told the man to return at once.
“What is this?” The pilot was a gray-haired man as old as Valentin’s grandfather, the last time they saw each other. “I was told nothing about a military requisition. I will not …”
“You will,” Valentin said. “Close the entry now and take us out of here. You have five seconds.”
The pilot gulped but did not sit. “No. You will tell me …”
Valentin had enough and pushed the man into the seat. The holographic navigation cylinder wrapped around the pilot.
“There are thirty-five billion people in the Collectorate,” Valentin said. “You are one. Nobody will care you’re gone. Do it!”
That did the trick, but Valentin wasn’t sure they were fast enough. He slipped into the co-pilot’s swivel and allowed the cylinder to fall. His fingers dashed through the diagnostics as the Passaic Dawn reversed course and cleared the platform. He surveyed for traffic proximity.
He extended the search range around the tower. That’s when he saw them. Two Scramjets, in a rush, a kilometer out.
“Just as we thought. They reorganized at Level 6, coalesced all personnel except for navigators. They’re coming for us now.”
The pilot turned pale as he redirected the ship on a new bearing.
“Who’s coming? What are you doing to me?”
“Scramjets. Fully armed.”
“What are you? Some kind of fugitive?”
“Yes.” He turned his rifle on the pilot. “Turn off glidetrax. You’ll need full atmospheric burst.”
“This is a temperate travel zone. If I miscalculate …”
“I know the regs. Do it anyway or I’ll shoot you in the head.”
The pilot glanced at Ophelia, as if she could talk sense to him.
“Do it,” she said. “We have nothing to lose.”
The pilot followed suit; the Passaic Dawn cleared the tower.
Valentin did not breathe a sigh of relief. Timing was everything, and their hopes rested on how well his brother counted minutes.
He looked up at Ophelia. “We’ll know when it’s time.”
59
J AMES STUDIED THE SCHEMATICS of the Bouchet compound and recognized vertical architectural features running through every level. A massive network of beams encircled the Transport Core, like vertebrae around a spinal cord. Buttresses extended outward in a symmetric pattern one hundred meters from the Core. He studied a rosette of beams and small buttresses midway between the Core and the exterior. The key to it all, he deduced, were the girders along the perimeter, each three hundred meters long and laid out equidistant. The tower’s skeleton.
He identified where to take Rayna for their last stand, so they ran.
The Major’s forces spilled out of the lifts on Level 10 and moved toward them. James and Rayna skirted past the closest group of soldiers until reaching one of four energy centrifuges that regulated power in each quadrant. They blasted their way into the facility and took quick stock. James saw the high ground and kissed Rayna.
They climbed up to a maintenance platform above the humming centrifuge and waited, a clear view of both ways into the facility.
Ten minutes passed before the Major’s teams coalesced around their target. From the perch, James watched as soldiers – half in body armor – raced in below, taking positions along the perimeter, each at least fifty meters from their targets. The Jewels trained their rifles on the enemy, standing back-to-back to guard their flanks.
James entered Rayna’s mind.
- They won’t fire yet but be prepared.
-
They are frightened. They do not understand our strategy.
- If they did, they would run.
He disconnected when he saw Maj. Marshall saunter into the facility, hands behind his back, self-assured. Even from this great distance, James saw the Major’s smug confidence.
Sexton Marshall fingered a cube and balled up his new design. He hurled it at James as if pitching a curveball. The cube splintered in front of James and evolved into a life-size rendition of the Major.
“Rather than yelling,” the Major said through his projection, “I thought we might have a civil conversation, James.”
“To talk us into surrendering so you can execute us?”
“Succinct summary, James. You have a way for tightening dialogue. No, I was thinking we discussed practicality.”
“Which would be?”
“You have no wish to surrender. Your aims are greater, I suspect. Otherwise, you would have escaped with your brother and Dr. Tomelin. You also know we will take great care before firing on you, given the inherent risks involved here. However, as we cannot allow the two of you to go free, the risks are acceptable. Once we open fire, you will hold us at bay for some time. You will kill, in my estimation, a third of my forces. By then, however, your rifles will be spent. Your armor will be weakened. It can only absorb and repulse so much flash energy before degrading. But you will never come to that.”
James wasn’t sure whether to play along. He tried to read the Major’s features, but this was far from the man he thought he knew while training at the GPM. No, this was an officer who held back for years, cloaking his ambition behind infinite patience, to snare his greatest prize. Marshall was terrified but also certain in victory.
“You recognize what we can do,” James said.
“Yes, but I believe you will not go there. James, whatever you think of this world or its people, or however you judge the creators who turned your life into pain – you must hold a shred of human decency in your heart. You have evolved into a new form of life, but you are also a Chancellor by birth and human by essence.”
“Chancellors are dying. We are the future. Die with dignity.”
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