by Jay Kristoff
Preacher pointed at Evie Carpenter in her VR chair. “You sent me after her!”
“No. I sent you after the girl who blew the circuits out of that renegade Goliath in the Los Diablos WarDome.”
“And on the footage you showed me, it looked like she did it!”
Danael’s flawless brow darkened. “And tell me, when the aforementioned pint-sized, freckle-faced abnorm destroyed your cybernetic augmentations outside Babel, did it not become apparent that your acquisition priorities had changed? I wanted the deviate who threatens the future of this CorpState, Marcus.”
“I brung you the way into Monrova’s archives.” Preacher’s temper began boiling as he waved to the frozen form of Ana Monrova. “All you need to crack that bastard’s secrets are his kid’s DNA and that Carpenter girlie’s brainwave patterns. I handed you the keys to his goddamn kingdom, you sonofabitch!”
The human minions paused over their data pads at that—obviously unused to hearing Drakos referred to as anything other than “sir.”
Or maybe “Your Majesty.”
“Give us the room, please, people,” Danael said.
Preacher glowered as the flunkies slipped out. The kid who’d escorted him in shot a questioning glance to Drakos, who simply nodded. So the bruiser clomped out, too, leaving Preacher alone with half a dozen tech and sec-drones, and the chief executive officer of the largest CorpState in the Yousay.
Danael took a sip of water from a nearby glass.
“Do you understand the position you’ve put me in?” he asked, his voice deathly soft. “Do you have any inkling of what your incompetence has cost us?”
“My incompetence? I’m not the one who pointed me in—”
Danael turned and hurled his glass at one of the monitor walls. It tumbled end over end, collided with the wall and shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Yes!” Danael bellowed. “Your incompetence! I gave you a job to do, Marcus, and you failed! Don’t you see what’s at stake here now? If BioMaas finds a way to weaponize Fresh’s abilities, they can neutralize electronic tech with a snap of their fingers. Even if we can fashion the brainwave patterns of this lifelike”—here he waved at Eve Carpenter—“into a usable form—which, by the way, is no bloody walk on the beach—Monrova’s secrets will be meaningless. The future of this entire Corporation is in jeopardy. And you stand there whining about your credit account?”
Drakos paused in his tirade, rubbed at the scowl on his brow and breathed deep. Preacher hadn’t seen him lose his temper in more than a decade.
“You used to be the best operative this Corp had ever seen,” Danael said. “Times past, I could have trusted you to spin straw into gold and be back in time for last call. But time catches all of us, my friend. And it seems, at last, it’s caught you.”
Preacher scowled. “What the hell you mean by that?”
“I mean exactly what you think, Marcus. Your services as a field operative are no longer required by Daedalus Technologies.” Danael held up one hand to calm the incoming outburst. “I’ll not leave you without a position. I can arrange a post for you in Training. Perhaps Strategy. But your days of frontline fieldwork are over.”
“This is guttershit,” Preacher spat. “I’m the best you got!”
“If you were the best we had, Fresh would be in our possession instead of being entertained in CityHive.” Danael paused a moment, his tone softening. “I mean, godsakes, Marcus. What are you, forty-five? Get yourself a VR account. Start spending those CPs you’ve accumulated. You’ve earned a rest.”
“I don’t want a rest,” Preacher hissed. “I want to work, goddammit. You get my augs repaired, I’ll go to CityHive and drag Fresh back here by the short and c—”
“CityHive?” Danael said, the steel slipping back into his stare. “I’m trying to avert a war, not start one. You’re talking nonsense, Marcus. And, thanks to you, I don’t have time for it.”
“Well, excuse me, you stuck-up sumbitch, but you’re gonna make t—”
“I would think,” Dani said, “very carefully about my next words if I were you.”
The sec-drones around the room watched Preacher with glowing eyes, one bad move away from lighting up his chest. Danael Drakos stared back at him, typing without looking on the implant at his wrist. He might be management now, but Drakos had seen the face of war—one of the reasons Preacher respected him, talking true. But he was at the business end of that same grit now, staring down the barrel at a man who refused to look away, back down, give ground.
You didn’t get to be CEO of the biggest CorpState in the Yousay by blinking first.
“I’ll have the appropriate forms sent tomorrow,” Danael said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, some of us still have work to do.”
Preacher was dimly aware of the door opening, the kid lurking at his shoulder, minions filing back into the room. And with little else to do or say that wouldn’t burn what few bridges he had left, Preacher limped from the room.
His mismatched legs whined and hissed. His head felt full of velvet static, his mouth sour with impotent rage. Eighteen years of loyalty. The best part of his life.
And in the end, what had it earned him?
He vaguely remembered a conversation he’d had with that idiot Snowflake in Paradise Falls. The pair of them sitting together, a few whiskey shots in Preacher’s belly. Talking about killing. About dying. About loyalty. Snowflake had tried calling him out on his job. Told him he was nothing but a serf. A stooge.
Take it from someone who used to be a something. You’re useful to Daedalus right now. The minute you stop is the minute they throw you away.
Preacher blinked as the elevator hit bottom.
Feeling like someone had punched him in the chest.
The kid escorted him out into the street. His heart was thumping hard—half from coming down off his combat stims, the other half just from plain old-fashioned shock. The synth tobacco in his cheek tasted like ashes, and Preacher spat it out, brown and sticky. The kid smirked, turning on his heel and abandoning him there on the sidewalk. Bewildered and reeling.
“Take care, old man.”
A small janitor-bot trundled past, spraying the tobacco with a high-pressure jet of soapy water, blasting it away into the gutter.
Into the gutter.
Take it from someone who used to be a something.
The minute you stop is the minute they throw you away.
Preacher frowned up at the neon sky over his head.
“And I was having such a good day…,” he sighed.
Lemon ended up eating the locust cubes.
To her credit, she held out maybe sixteen hours.
The room they’d locked her inside was positively palatial: a strangely beautiful space that took up an entire level of one of the CityHive’s spires. The walls were transparent, letting in a wash of soft, welcome light. The floors and furnishings were the color of bone and gave Lem the impression they’d been grown, not built. A fluted fountain trickled crystal clear water into a round pond filled with flat green leaves and bright yellow flowers and the first genuine fish Lemon had seen outside a history reel. They were the color of flame, four of them, sleek and beautiful.
She’d stood at the window, watching the long sunset shadows stretching over the city below, the strange synchronicity of movement playing out in this beautiful, baffling place. Reaching into the static, she could feel faint current all around—flowing in the walls, the ceilings, the floors. As if, in some strange way, the very building itself was…alive. And as she’d crawled into bed, soft and enveloping and clean, ethereal music had been ringing in the air, singing her off to sleep.
But there was no door. No way out. And as strangely pretty as this place was, Lemon Fresh was under no illusions that she wasn’t a prisoner in it.
She’d woken to find the table set
with pitchers of water and plates full of suspicious-looking food. She recognized the locust cubes by color, but there were others—vaguely orange and moody green. But it had been almost a day since she’d eaten properly. And in the end, she settled on the ones made of bug because at least she knew what was in them.
They were crunchy. Almost sweet. Lemon tried to pretend she was eating a protein bar, but her imagination just wasn’t that good.
“Stupid brain,” she muttered, chewing miserably.
On the edge of the water fountain sat a now-familiar thick black folio. The words CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT: GENOME PROPRIETORSHIP stared at her, just as stubborn as she was. She sat, a plate of locust cubes in her lap, watching flame-colored fish swim in endless, pointless circles. She leafed through the contract as she ate, found the language just as incomprehensible as the first time. But the meaning was clear—BioMaas was asking for something that was entirely hers. And she didn’t want to give it to them.
Lemon wasn’t exactly a girlie girl. Before she met Grimm, she hadn’t invested an awful lot of time thinking about boys. In Los Diablos, you spent most of your minutes just trying to survive. She and Evie used to talk about it sometimes—maybe getting hooked up, maybe having sprogs one day—but planning a future seemed like a waste of time when you knew you probably wouldn’t be alive to see it. Still, the idea of letting this freak show CorpState harvest chunks of her lady parts sat about as well with her as these locust cubes were sitting in her belly.
Her stomach burbled. She tossed the cubes to the fish with a grimace.
“Septic,” she muttered.
Lemon heard a whispering sound, turned to see a stretch of wall parting like a curtain. She saw a Carer standing in the curved hallway outside, surrounded by Sentinels. This version of the woman looked a little younger than others she’d seen—a later model, maybe. The Carer peered into the room with her featureless black eyes, soft light gleaming on her hairless head. Her voice was low and melodic.
“Good morning, Lemonfresh. May we enter?”
“Free country.” Lemon shrugged. “For some people, at least.”
Carer’s face dropped, and she looked genuinely crestfallen. Stepping into the room, she was followed by three Sentinels, while another three remained outside. The men were big, burly, armed with odd spine-covered pistols. But they stayed by the door while Carer proceeded into the room. The woman hovered by the fountain, hands clasped. She looked at Lemon intently, big black eyes gleaming in a heart-shaped face. The music of trickling water filled the air.
The girl glanced at her sidelong. “Can I help you?”
The woman smiled. “It is Carer’s task to help Lemonfresh.”
“With what?”
“Anything!” she said, suddenly eager.
“Great!” Lemon replied, perfectly mirroring Carer’s wide eyes and way-too-cheery tone. “Gimme a key to the door and a ride out of this hole!”
Carer listened intently, totally missing the sarcasm.
“We wish Lemonfresh to be happy. We would give her what she desires.” She nodded to the three men guarding the entrance. “But Sentinel would not allow it.”
Lemon scowled at the men. “Well, Sentinel’s a bit of a bastard, then, isn’t he.”
Carer laughed, loud and musical. “Lemonfresh is amusing!”
“Yeah.” Lemon rolled her eyes. “Hilarious me.”
“She seems despondent.” Carer turned suddenly serious, placing one tentative hand on Lemon’s shoulder. “How may we help?”
“I dunno. How may you?”
The woman glanced at the contract. “We may give her many reasons why signing over permission for her genome is her most sensible option?”
“That sounds amaaaaazing,” Lemon said.
Carer visibly brightened, sitting down on the fountain’s edge beside Lemon. “Wonderful! Firstly, she should consider the innate superiority of BioMaas corporate philosophy. Simply put, we seek to reach an equilibrium with the world arou—”
“I guess sarcasm isn’t part of your corporate philosophy, huh?”
“Sarcasm is a form of mockery. It is innately cruel.” Carer looked at Lemon like she was the defective one. “Lemonfresh does know Carer’s purpose, yes?”
“Yeah,” Lemon sighed. “I met one of you aboard that kraken. You look after people. You’re genetically programmed to give a damn. Which is where all this starts to fall apart. I get that different patterns have different tasks, yeah? Sentinels guard and Hunters hunt. I met a kid on the kraken who was in charge of the garbage.”
“Salvage,” she nodded. “An important task.”
“But if your only responsibility is to look after people, how come you’re okay with them locking me up in here until I let them cut bits out of me?”
“An excellent question,” Carer said, seemingly impressed. “In BioMaas, all tasks exist within a hierarchy. While all the functions we perform are important for the well-being of CityHive, some tasks are more important than others. Security takes precedence over Expansion, for example. Production outranks Construction. The acquisition of Lemonfresh’s genome has been given Tier One significance by Director. Almost all other tasks are considered secondary.”
“So that’s why you’re here? To convince me?”
“We are here to escort you to Director. They wish to walk with you today, that you might witness the marvel of CityHive and the potential of BioMaas philosophy.”
“Your boss is going to show me around the place in the hope I’ll agree to let you people harvest my girlie bits?” Lemon’s eyebrow crept skyward. “This must be one hell of a tour, Carer.”
Carer extended a hand and smiled.
“Come, Lemonfresh. Please. Walk with us.”
With no other choice, and the thought of sitting up here all day brooding over her losses looming before her, Lemon sighed and took Carer’s hand. The woman’s grip was cool, firm; her smile, warm and genuine. Carer led Lemon past the three lurking Sentinels, and Lemon watched as she gently touched the wall. Reaching out into the static again, Lem felt that faint current surging through the structure around her where the exit control must be. Storing the knowledge for later.
With a gentle whisper, the wall opened wide.
The corridor outside was smooth bone, lit with pale light. Three other Sentinels awaited there, dour-faced, big and punchy-looking. Lemon couldn’t see any obvious surveillance equipment—no cams or drones. But those glowy bugthings were everywhere, crawling on the walls, ceilings, constantly touching antennae with their siblings, like processions of ants from one of Mister C’s nature sims.
Another doorway opened to reveal a tube of smooth, bone-colored resin. A disk sculpted of the same material waited for them, and Carer stepped onto it, Lemon and her minders following. At a touch of the woman’s hand, the disk began to ascend like an elevator platform. The tube’s wall parted with a whisper, and Lemon was ushered out onto a platform near the top of the spire. The space was broad, bright and airy, filled with leafy plant life and long processions of glowbugs.
In the center of the space, the four Directors of BioMaas were waiting for her.
“Good morning, Lemonfresh,” they said.
“If you say so,” the girl replied.
“Walk with us.” The Directors held out their hands. “Please.”
Lemon glanced to the Carer, who double-blinked and smiled enthusiastically. Lemon trudged forward to the Directors. And with each of them positioned perfectly around her, like points in a diamond, they began to walk.
The platform was open to the air, the structure supported by beautiful, graven columns. At each compass point, one of those long, slender walkways extended outward, connecting another spire close by. The Directors strolled at a leisurely pace, hands behind their backs. Six Sentinels followed behind, but other than that, Lemon and the Directors were comple
tely alone with a whispering wind.
As they walked, the Directors shifted position constantly, revolving around her in perfect unison, so no one figure walked in front for long. It was eerie to watch—while they never spoke, each of them seemed perfectly in tune with their fellows.
Looking over the walkway’s edge, Lemon saw the city laid out in miniature. She could see dozens of other walkways, above and below: a vast, sprawling web of them, connecting each of the buildings in the hive.
“How did Lemonfresh sleep?” the Directors asked.
“Like a prisoner,” Lemon replied, fists in pockets.
“Was her room pleasing?”
“Her room was locked.”
“She is upset with us.”
“She’s furious,” Lemon growled, “is what she is.”
The Director stopped, looked out over the CityHive below. Plant life was everywhere, clinging to the buildings and crawling along the walkway they trod upon. The air was clearer than any Lemon had ever tasted, lightening her head, tingling on her skin. She felt cleaner just being here. The sky was filled with the beat of thousands of iridescent wings, the tiny figures below, the flying figures above, all moving perfectly in time, like the Director walking with himself. It was as if every living thing in the city were part of one vast dance.
Lemon chewed on her bangs, considering all the other places she’d visited since she left Dregs. Compared to the squalor of Armada, the desolation of the Glass, even the broken majesty of Babel, CityHive was utterly breathtaking.
“Beautiful, is it not?”
“It’s okay,” Lemon admitted grudgingly. “I mean, if you like green.”
“Once, all the world wore dresses in this shade. A great forest, filled with trees that touched the skies. Inhaling carbon, exhaling oxygen. A perfect circle. But those great titans fell and pooled, black and sticky beneath the earth. And in their ignorance and hubris, humanity dredged up the blood and burned it to fuel their industry. Spitting poison into land and sea and sky.” The Director looked at Lemon, eight eyes blinking. “The deadworld beyond these walls is the result.”