by Jay Kristoff
“Can I get that on a T-shirt?” Eve whispered. “The ‘physical contact’ part?”
The logika scanned the room with glowing eyes, then trudged down the corridor. Eve shook her head, body still thrumming from the shock. That had been idiotic of her. Daedalus Technologies was the wealthiest CorpState in the Yousay. She was in the major league now. She couldn’t underestimate these people.
“Stupid,” she hissed.
The soft knocking of knuckles on metal broke through her self-admonishment. Eve clawed her mussed fauxhawk from her lashes, heart surging as she looked to the cell beside hers and into a familiar pair of green eyes. The mind of a killer and the face of an angel, framed by a mop of tousled blond hair. The first of Nicholas Monrova’s creations, and the first to turn against him.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, her stomach turning.
His face was a ruin. His lower jaw had been blown clean off by a shotgun blast. The wound had been left undressed, and Eve could see Gabe’s tongue dangling above his open throat. The bone and flesh were slowly regenerating—he’d eventually be as beautiful as he’d always been. But to see her brother’s once-perfect features so hideously marred made Eve sick with fury.
“Who did this to you?”
Gabriel made a circular motion at his mangled throat, miming a collar.
“Preacher,” she hissed.
Her brother nodded, eyes narrowed.
Pushing down her anger, willing herself once more to be cold, analytical, Eve took in her surroundings. A small padded sleep-slab was set on one wall, a sink and commode against another. The chair she’d been pushed in on had been left behind, but the magnetic cushion it rode on had been deactivated, and it now rested lifeless on the floor. The walls were transparent, illuminated with that faint and buzzing blue. The corridor beyond was blank, faceless, patrolled by cam drones. Another announcement about Citizen Points rang over the PA.
Eve reached toward one of the walls, and Gabriel grunted a warning. She touched it anyway and was rewarded with a bright flash and a crackling surge of pain.
“We’re in Megopolis?” she asked.
Gabriel nodded.
“How long?”
Gabriel held up a single finger.
Eve gritted her teeth and sighed. Danael Drakos’s questions burning in her head.
These Corp bastards wanted into Myriad. Wanted to unlock Monrova’s secrets. But more, they wanted to know about Lemon, and how much of a threat she posed to their little empire. Truth told, Eve didn’t know much about Lem’s capabilities—the girl had kept them secret despite their friendship. And though she felt a familiar twist of betrayal at that thought, she wasn’t about to sell out her former bestest to these maggots, these insects, these humans. Not after the way they’d treated her.
She looked at Gabe, watching her in malevolent silence.
They were imprisoned at the heart of the Daedalus CorpState.
Surrounded by electrified walls.
Under constant surveillance.
Alone.
“Brother,” she sighed, “it appears we’re in deep shit.”
It wasn’t the most pleasant car ride Ezekiel had ever taken.
He sat behind the wheel, Grimm and Diesel in the bucket seat beside him. Faith lay in the back, soaked and bloody, her mangled legs stretched before her. His sister’s eyes were closed, her breathing faint—though Zeke knew the damage would mend in time, Cricket had almost killed her during the attack on New Bethlehem.
Talking true, Zeke wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that.
He kept both hands on the wheel, peering out through the grubby windshield at the endless desert. The nuke had exploded far to the north, and while the wastes below the epicenter would never be the same, their little posse soon outstripped the missile’s desolation and left New Bethlehem behind. In front of them was a desolation of a different kind—a wasteland of shattered highways and empty roadhouses and faded signs pointing to cities that no longer existed. It was the sprawling graveyard of a long-dead civilization, laid out in all its fallen glory.
The bullet holes Preacher had given him were almost healed, but they weren’t the source of Zeke’s discomfort. He’d been searching for Lemon for days, and now that he’d learned where she was—so near and yet so far—he’d begun fretting on her all the more. She was a fifteen-year-old kid. And he’d promised to protect her.
He’d listened as Diesel and Grimm told how Lemon had rescued them from the Brotherhood. Grimm described the missile silo beneath the desert, and Diesel explained in bitter tones about the Major—the madman who’d used Lemon to almost burn the whole country to cinders. As Grimm explained that he and Lemon had stopped six other missiles on their firing pads, Zeke was acutely aware of how much danger Lem had been in since he’d left her. How badly he’d let her down.
“This Major of yours sounds like a real piece of work,” he said.
“He was definitely a piece of something,” Diesel muttered.
“And we trusted the bastard.” Grimm shook his head. “I never suspected he might be bent. I feel like a bloody stooge.”
“Speaking of stooges, who’s this Abraham kid we got tailing us?” Diesel said.
“I don’t know him,” Ezekiel confessed. “But he’s a friend of Cricket’s. And Cricket and Lemon have been tight for years.”
“He’s Brotherhood,” Diesel growled.
“He’s a freak, too, Deez,” Grimm pointed out. “He helped me keep the kinetics of that blast back. Without him, pretty sure we’d all be brown bread.”
“We just got sucker punched by the Major for years,” the girl frowned. “You so keen to go trusting strangers again, Grimmy?”
The boy simply shrugged. “Any friend of Lemon’s…”
Ezekiel glanced at the boy, sizing him up. Grimm’s eyes were pouched in shadows, his skin sallow and gray. In the dark pools of his pupils, that faint ember light still burned. Considering he’d deflected a nuclear missile blast a few hours ago, he was looking okay. Still, Zeke could see a familiar anger in Grimm’s stare. It was a feeling the lifelike knew all too well—the rage of trust betrayed.
“So this Major,” Zeke said. “You’re sure he’s dead?”
“Lemon stopped his heart.” Grimm snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
“…She can do that?”
“She’s been practicin’, guv. She’s a firecracker, that one.”
“She’s a trouble-magnet,” Diesel said from her seat by the window.
“Yeah,” Grimm grinned, despite his exhaustion. “That, too.”
“Hope she had the sense to stay underground,” Diesel scowled.
“That makes two of us,” Grimm sighed. “BioMaas isn’t playing around.”
“No,” the girl murmured. “They’re really not.”
Ezekiel caught the hint of sorrow in her voice, the emptiness in her eyes. He glanced to Grimm for an explanation, uncertain whether he should ask.
“When BioMaas attacked us at the Clefts…we…lost someone, yeah?”
“His name was Fix,” Diesel said, her voice soft and gray.
“I’m sorry,” Ezekiel said.
The girl made no reply, simply watching the desert slip past beyond the window. Ezekiel decided not to press, and Grimm steered the conversation away.
“What does BioMaas want with Lemon anyways?” he asked.
Ezekiel shrugged. “BioMaas provides most of the country’s food through their gene-modded crops. Daedalus supplies power through their solar farms. But ever since Gnosis collapsed, they’ve been moving closer to the war that’ll decide who controls the country. And since Daedalus tech runs on regular electrical current, BioMaas figures Lemon’s gifts can give them an edge in that war.”
“Between the two of them, those Corps rule the whole roost.” Grimm shook h
is head. “Why can’t they just enjoy their slice of the pie?”
“It’s their n-nature,” came a voice from behind them.
Ezekiel glanced into the rearview mirror, saw Faith in the backseat. Her clothes were stiff with drying blood, her flesh a mangled mess. But her eyes were open now, gray and flat like dead telescreens.
“Because you h-humans only know to destroy,” she said.
“I’m not human, love,” Grimm replied.
Faith’s bloody lips curled. “How w-wonderful for you. What are y-you, then?”
“Freaks,” he replied. “Abnorms. Deviates.”
“How’re you feeling?” Ezekiel asked, watching in the mirror.
“Just l-lovely, little brother,” she whispered. “Next idiotic q-question, please.”
Diesel turned from the window to look at Ezekiel, eyebrow raised. “Brother?”
Zeke just nodded, eyes on the road ahead.
“So, you two ain’t human, which is all Robin Hood,” Grimm said. “But you mind fillin’ us in on what exactly you are? Lem was a little sketchy on the ’tails.”
“We’re the n-next step…in humanity’s evolution,” Faith murmured.
“Nah.” Grimm shook his head, tapping his chest. “That’s us, love.”
“N-no. You’re just a faulty c-copy from a broken machine.” Faith shook her head, her gray eyes distant. “You’re two-headed c-cockroaches.”
“She could charm the paint off walls, this one,” Grimm muttered.
“Faith, you’d be radioactive dust if it weren’t for Grimm and Diesel,” Ezekiel said. “Show some damned respect.”
His sister simply smiled, the dried blood on her face cracking as her lips curled. “How l-long to Megopolis, little brother?”
“We’re not going to Megopolis.”
“…What?”
He met those flat gray eyes with his own. “We’re going to get Lemon.”
“Gabriel and Eve are in Megopolis,” Faith said, struggling to sit up. “Those Daedalus insects took them. That b-bastard who killed Hope. I saw him.”
“I know where they are, Faith. But I made a promise to Lem.”
“Another roach?” she hissed, finally dragging herself upright. “This is your f-family, Ezekiel. You have obligations. Who knows what Daedalus will—”
“My family was happy enough to abandon me two years ago,” Ezekiel snarled, tapping the coin slot in his chest. “You bolted this on me, threw me off Babel Tower and left me to rot in the wastes. Don’t you dare lecture me about obligations.”
“And what about your b-beloved Ana?” Faith said, eyes flashing. “Are you going to leave her to the tender mercies of Daedalus Technologies, too?”
His belly rolled at that. Fire and sorrow in his chest. He pushed it aside, focused on the road ahead. “Go to hell, Faith.”
“Turn this truck toward Megopolis, Ezekiel,” she growled. “Right now.”
“No.”
“I said now!” Faith roared.
Ezekiel felt a sharp blow to the side of his head, fingers clawing at his eyes. He cried out, trying to tear her hands off his head, Faith screaming and reaching for the wheel. The truck slewed sideways, tires shrieking, rubber burning. Behind them in the semi, Abraham crunched the gears and swerved to avoid slamming into their tail. Grimm shouted and grabbed Faith’s wrist. The temperature in the cabin dropped twenty degrees. Ezekiel smelled burning flesh, heard Faith scream as he slammed on the brakes and brought their truck to a shuddering halt.
He was into the backseat in a heartbeat, wrestling with his sister as she howled and thrashed. Her strength was enough to crush metal, pulp bone. The seat beneath them groaned, and her boot kicked one of the doors clean off its hinges. But even though she was furious, she was still wounded and broken after her brawl with Cricket. Ezekiel pinned her arms, roaring over her screams.
“Faith, you’ll hurt yourself!”
She tried to throw him off, bucking him upward and denting the ceiling.
“Let me go!”
“Stop it!” he cried, pinning her again.
She thrashed in his grip for a few moments more, ripping her wounds wider. Ezekiel’s hands were slick with red, sticky and warm. Faith’s struggles weakened, her screams became low, desperate gasps. And finally, as she sagged beneath him, all the breath rushing out of her, she began to sob.
Ezekiel pushed himself off his sister, terrified he’d hurt her. Tears rolled down her perfect cheeks, her mouth twisting as she looked up at him with pleading eyes. If his heart hadn’t already been broken beneath New Bethlehem, the look on her face would have been enough to do it.
“We h-have to g-go get Gabe,” she whispered.
“Faith…”
“He’ll b-be frightened without me.” She swallowed, shaking her head. “He has n-nightmares, Zeke. Such awful nightmares, oh god, you should h-hear him. He wakes up every night. Drenched in sweat. Screaming their names.”
“Who?”
“Tania and Alex,” Faith said. “Olivia and Marie.”
Ezekiel’s stomach turned, the names of the Monrova children ringing in his head like funeral bells. He remembered those awful final hours during the fall of Babel. The stink of fear and blood in that cell when Nicholas Monrova and his family had been murdered. Though he’d saved Ana’s life that day, the guilt he felt at not being able to save the rest of them had never truly left him. But the thought that Gabriel might also be haunted by their deaths had never once entered his mind.
He glanced to Grimm and Diesel, saw bewilderment in their eyes. Beneath him, Faith shook and shuddered, the sobs bubbling in her throat.
“I have to h-help him. I can’t leave him there alone.”
Zeke knew that after he’d been cast out of Babel, his siblings had fallen to infighting. Uriel and Patience and Verity had abandoned the tower, leaving the grave they’d made of Monrova’s dream behind. But Gabriel had remained, intent on unlocking the secrets inside Myriad and resurrecting his beloved Grace.
Ezekiel had always wondered why Faith stayed with Gabe all those years. Why she’d stuck by his side inside that dead tower as he slowly descended into obsession and madness. Looking into her eyes now, Zeke finally understood. Finally recognized the pain that burned behind those flat gray eyes of hers.
“Please,” she whispered.
It was the pain of loving someone who didn’t love you back.
“Pardon me for sayin’,” Grimm said softly, meeting Zeke’s eyes, “but your family seems kinda fucked up, guv.”
“Swear jar,” Diesel murmured. “But yeah, true cert.”
Talking true, Zeke found it hard to disagree. In his quiet moments, he’d often wondered if there was some flaw in the lifelike design—some frailty that led to mental instability. His obsession with Ana. Gabriel’s with Grace. Now Faith’s with Gabriel. He and his siblings had been given the full capacity for human emotion, and you never love anyone like you love your first. But was this the same intensity that humans felt? Or was it something altogether darker, and more destructive?
And if it was alive in him, how could he trust the way he felt?
About Ana?
About Eve?
“Ezekiel?”
Zeke saw Abraham standing in the road behind them, Cricket looming at his back. The boy had pulled his tech-goggles off, squinting in the garish sunlight.
“You okay in there?” he asked.
“We’re fine,” Ezekiel called. “Just hit a pothole and overcorrected.”
“LEMON’S WAITING!” Cricket bellowed. “WE NEED TO MOVE!”
He nodded, waved them off. “In a second.”
Abraham looked uncertainly at the buckled door lying beside the road, but he eventually shrugged and trudged back to the semi, under Diesel’s narrowed stare. Cricket glowered a moment longer,
then followed. Faith was still crying, her whole body racked with silent sobs. Zeke looked down at his sister, and despite all the awful things she’d done, the horror she’d become, he couldn’t help but feel a stab of pity.
What must it have been like all those years?
Spending your life staring at someone who didn’t even see you?
“We’ll get them back, Faith,” he heard himself say.
“Do…”
Her voice faltered, the pain of what she’d done to herself now choking her. Zeke saw with horror that he was covered with her blood.
“Do you p-promise?” she whispered.
Zeke took a deep breath, held it in his chest. He’d made promises before—promises he’d yet to keep. But beyond thoughts of what might be happening to Gabriel, beyond the garbled, confused knot of emotion when he thought of Ana, when he thought of Eve, both now in the clutches of those Daedalus agents, another thought was burning. A nagging, barbwire tangle that had been slowly resolving itself into a certainty over the last few hours’ drive.
The Myriad computer at the heart of Babel Tower held all of Nicholas Monrova’s knowledge. The key to the Libertas virus. The secret to creating more lifelikes. Gabriel had struggled for years to open it, constantly defeated by the four-stage system that kept the computer sealed—a lock that required four keys to open.
The voice pattern of a Monrova.
The retinal print of a Monrova.
The DNA of a Monrova.
The brainwave pattern of a Monrova.
Eve had already unlocked the first two stages.
Now that Daedalus had Ana’s body, they had access to Monrova DNA. And with Eve, whose personality had been copied, note for note, thought for thought, from Ana’s, they might be able to crack the fourth seal.
What would the most powerful Corp in the Yousay do with that kind of knowledge? Where would the ability to create an army of lifelikes lead them?
He looked to the northern skies, still scarred from nuclear fire. The same flame that had almost burned the world to cinders. He thought about the madness of the Brotherhood, the maniac in that missile silo who’d tried to incinerate the whole country, all the hurt and carnage he’d seen during his years wandering the wastes. And he thought about Faith’s words, whispered from the bloody lips of a murderer and a monster, yes. But no less true for it.