Sovereign

by April Daniels

  I curl up on the cot, twitching and exhausted. My mind is empty. My body aches, and my chest stings. The bruises on my face, so painful last night, seem like distant afterthoughts now. After what might have been minutes or might have been hours, I manage to find the will to pull myself out of bed and begin exploring the cell. It’s slow work, feeling over every inch in the dark. I find the door. No handle on the inside, hinges on the outside. The food slot is fixed firmly in place. The toilet-and-sink is riveted to the floor. The cot is a metal protrusion from the wall with a hard pad on top. I can move the pad, but it only weighs a few pounds and I can’t find any way to rip it open. It’s useless as a weapon or armor. The food tray is made of very light plastic, and the flimsy spork that came with it flexes in my hand when I hold it, never mind if I tried to attack someone with it. After a few hours of testing and experimenting, I reluctantly admit that nothing in this cell will help me escape or fight them off tomorrow.

  With nothing else to distract it, my mind begins circling back to the…

  Shit, was that torture? Can I call that torture?

  Okay, fine. To the torture.

  Graywytch seemed like she was trying to figure something out. Not that she was asking me anything. It isn’t an interrogation. It’s an experiment, and I’m the lab rat. Whatever question she was investigating, she didn’t find the answer today. But that doesn’t seem to have surprised her—at the very least, she showed no signs of frustration.

  It’s obvious who rigged up Garrison’s magic for him. Now that I know she’s linked up with him, I recognize that together they form that most ancient and venerable of all Silicon Valley pacts—the Hacker and the Backer. One puts up the money, the other puts up the talent. Sooner or later, one stabs the other in the back, but until then it’s a game of screwed-you chicken to see how long the partnership can last.

  Doc explained the relationship to me once during one of our long, aimless conversations as we sat on the balcony and watched the sun slide red and wet behind the horizon. She was talking about software development, particularly the version of the Internet that she was first instantiated on. The way Doc tells it, in those days the Internet was a cyberpunk playground through which she, as an infant AI, first came to know and love humans. That was several versions of her core code ago, a time and place she still harbors a longing nostalgia for. When she says she’s only seven years old, she’s talking about when she first started walking around as a physical entity. In other ways, she’s a bit over thirty.

  I might never see her again. It bothers me more than I’d have expected it to.

  My chest stings and throbs when I run my fingers over the rough spots where the burns crinkled my skin up. One of the security guys, who I gathered was some sort of medic, smeared a chemical-smelling goop on them. It helped a bit. Then he stood by and she hit me with the lights again. When I get out of here, I’m gonna punch him in the mouth. Hell, I’ll be generous—mouth punchings for everyone! So I start laughing, and then I start shivering and clenching, and eventually I fall asleep.

  The screaming buzzer wakes me up again. My heart is sprinting, my hair is damp. Another awful, awful breakfast, and then they drag me into the experimentation chamber again. I don’t fight this time. No point. Until I have a plan, I need to play along and minimize the damage. If I could get my hands on one of their guns, maybe.

  Shit, I wish Calamity was here. She’d know what to do. Or, better yet, wouldn’t have gotten captured in the first place.

  I’m strapped into place again. Off goes the shirt, again. More blood samples, more Finger Painting of the Damned, and then more pain. Lots more pain.

  For an instant, I sense the lattice.

  With every ounce of will I leap at it, try to catch and pull on it, tear myself loose and blast out of this room at speed. But it slips through the fingers of my mind and fades. The collar at my neck gets hot. This happens a few times. Sometimes the lattice is clear and bright. Sometimes fuzzy and indistinct. She keeps making adjustments to her equipment or the cadence of her chanting, trying again and marking down the results in a ledger.

  Graywytch purses her lips after one round of experiments. I sag and gasp in the restraints. The medic comes by to swab my wounds with a soaked cotton ball held in some forceps. The red haze of pain fades, and for a moment I can think again. My temples are wet from where the tears have streaked back from my eyes into my hair.

  Someone back in New Port must have noticed I’m missing by now. Right? Doc will be looking for me, and there are GPS beacons sewn into my suit. But Graywytch or Garrison might have destroyed it by now. Maybe Charlie will—no, damn. We barely told him where we were going. Goddamnit, Karen. You towering asshole. I trusted you. I was trying to help you.

  No, stop it, that’s not useful. What would Calamity do? She’d focus on the here and now. Wait for them to make a mistake. Be ready to explode into violence, or quietly slip a tool down her pants, whatever the situation calls for.

  A guard pokes his head into the chamber. “Sovereign would like to speak to you.”

  “I’m busy,” says Graywytch, not looking up from her notebook.

  “Now,” says the guard.

  Graywytch straightens and I can only see the back of her head, but whatever is on her face makes the guard go pale and duck out. She closes her notebook and follows him. The hatch stays open behind her.

  “We agreed that you would not interrupt my work,” says Graywytch by way of greeting. I can just see a slice of her back through the hatch, but whoever she’s talking to is out of sight.

  “Unless absolutely necessary,” says Garrison, as if he were concurring with what she was saying. I guess Sovereign is his supervillain name. That’s a bit on the nose, dude. No class at all. “Where are we on Phase Two?”

  After a silence just long enough to be uncomfortable, Graywytch says, “He’s resisting me. That makes it harder.”

  “They’re all going to be resisting you. We’ve got to get this right. The market for proven powersets is predicted to be our bestseller. Have you made any progress, at least?”

  “Yes,” she says. “I’ve eliminated some of the more obvious solutions. I can also clearly identify the mantle and separate it from the rest of his pattern—”

  “You can separate it!” Garrison says. “That’s good!”

  “Conceptually. I can separate it conceptually, and tell where he starts and his power ends.” After another pause, Graywytch adds, “This would go much faster if you would allow me to work without these onerous restrictions—”

  “No,” says Garrison immediately. “If he dies, the mantle might be lost entirely. I’m not willing to take that step yet.”

  “Yet?” she says. Oh man, Graywytch, don’t sound too hopeful, now.

  “We’ve already had to plug one leak. I think we’ve got maybe two weeks before we’re forced to go public. I need to be able to fly for the camera when we make the announcement, or the optics will be all wrong. That’s the classic superpower; nobody will take me seriously if I can’t do it.” Garrison sounds almost anxious. “You’ve got to make it work. One way, or the other.”

  “Well, in that case—”

  “You know what? Hold on,” says Garrison.

  Footsteps, and then Graywytch is saying “Wait, that’s not—”

  Garrison steps through the hatch. He’s not wearing a supervillain outfit or anything, just a polo shirt and khakis, and he still has his people call him Sovereign. That’s not how that works. The name goes with the suit, even for blackcapes. Shit, everyone knows that. Fucking rich boy tourist. If I had more guts, I’d be working up a loogie just for him. Right now I’m satisfied to be able to keep my face blank. Then his eyes catch on my bare chest, and his cheeks go pink as he looks away.

  You unbelievable dickhead! Oh, sure, he can order me imprisoned and tortured, but the sight of my breasts is just too much for his pure soul. And somehow the sheer hypocritical bullshit of it all cracks through the fear and gives me enough co
urage to sneer at him.

  “Your concern for my modesty is touching.” I say.

  Graywytch pours in after him. “You said you’d stay out of my laboratory.”

  Garrison ignores her. “Danielle, I’m willing to cut you a deal. Give up your powers and I’ll let you go. All will be forgiven.” He says this to the back wall, carefully avoiding looking at me, like somehow that makes any of this even remotely okay.

  Now, I despise Graywytch. I mean I loathe her with a purity of hate that almost scares me. But there’s something in my feelings about her—not quite respect, but almost. She’s consistent. In her own screwed up way, she’s even honest. When she cuts my shirt off, there’s no emotion, no suggestion of intimacy or transgression. It’s only a job she’s doing. It’s mortifying, at least until the soul-scalding pain blasts all thoughts of modesty out of my head, and I hate her more than ever…

  But at least she’s not hiding from everything she’s done to me. She needed my shirt off to do her experiments, so she cut it off. She’s not pretending she gives a shit about my dignity. In a weird way, that almost seems respectful. Like we’re not kidding ourselves that this isn’t messed up and gross beyond all reasoning. Like we’ve agreed that we will never be anything but enemies. It’s a strange sort of understanding. Tacit, and sour. But also real.

  There’s none of that almost-respect for Garrison. If I was ever going to feel anything but disgust for him, it went out the porthole the moment he decided he was okay with strapping me in a chair and torturing me for days on end, but not with seeing me half-naked.

  I don’t respond fast enough for his liking. “Danielle? Are you willing to cooperate? This can go on for as long as it needs to.”

  “I’ve been thinking about your offer,” I say slowly. “After long consideration, I’ve decided that you should go fuck yourself.”

  “Give me your powers,” he says, just at the edge of stammering.

  “Eat shit!” I shout, jerking against my restraints. “You don’t get to do this to me and then ask nicely, understand? You get nothing! Not a goddamn thing!”

  “I said, give me your powers!”

  “Look at me, coward!” He does. He’s gone pale with rage, but it doesn’t scare me. What can he do? Torture me? Kill me? “You don’t deserve my powers, and I will die screaming before I let you have them.”

  Garrison turns and begins to walk stiffly out of the room. I lean over the side of the chair and spit on the deck. He hears me, turns, and crosses the room in three quick strides to backhand me across the mouth. I spit again, blood this time.

  And smile.

  I win, motherfucker.

  But better than that, I see my way out. All this was just instinct, some urgent need to prove they didn’t control me. But now I have a plan. Doc was right. The Hacker and the Backer always end up turning on each other, and these two aren’t going to be any different. I’ve got to find the sore spot between them and push on it.

  Garrison would be easier, since I know how weak he is now, but I don’t have access to him. I’ll have to go through Graywytch. She’s tougher, but it doesn’t matter. She’s not tough enough. I’ll find her tender spot. I’ve got two weeks. Plenty of time.

  She closes the hatch behind Garrison and pulls a lever to crank the array of watertight latches shut. For a moment she stays there, face to the door, quiet and still.

  “You really don’t like him, do you?” I ask.

  She slowly turns. Under the glare of the fluorescents, she looks pale and old. “Shut up.”

  “Why are you helping him?” I ask. “I mean, I get why you hate me in particular, but why help him with this plan of his?”

  Graywytch ignores me and returns to the lectern where she’s got her notebook set up. She begins writing notes. This is one of the precious few breaks in the session that I’ll get. I need to make the most of it.

  After a few moments, I think I know what to say. “You don’t strike me as being on board with his politics.”

  “You know nothing about me.”

  “So, what, you’re a fascist now too?”

  “Your strategy is transparent, young man. Be quiet. I must concentrate.”

  “Did you murder Crenshaw? Or was it someone else on Garrison’s payroll?”

  Graywytch looks up at me, surprised. People always think I’m stupid. (To be fair, until a few months ago, so did I.) “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says without even trying to sound sincere.

  “Garrison killed Crenshaw to keep him quiet,” I say. “Do you think he’ll be any more forgiving when he decides you’re a danger to him too?”

  Graywytch steps away from her lectern to flip the switch for the torture lights again. Searing pain erupts through my chest, and I can’t speak anymore after that.

  Maybe this isn’t such a hot plan after all.

  Back in my cell. The new shirt they’ve given me is cheap and scratchy and I end up taking it off because it’s only making my burns hurt worse. After the lights go out, I lay on my bunk, trying to organize my thoughts. The plan isn’t going well. She’s too stubborn. But until something else comes along, I don’t know what else to do.

  The conversation between Garrison and Graywytch, that’s important. Phase Two isn’t just about my powers—he said that “they’ll all be resisting.” So I’m the guinea pig. They’re trying to figure out how to steal powers. What’s Phase Three?

  A few possibilities suggest themselves, but after a while of picking over what little I know, I find that I’ve run out of things to think about, and my mind spirals back down to my predicament.

  What a clean word. Predicament. Like I’ve locked myself out of the house or something.

  Maybe I’m not getting out of this one. Maybe these are the last few days of my life. I wish Calamity was here. Not just because she’d have them all broken and groaning by now. I just…I wish I could see her again. I wish we could stop fighting and go back to the way it was before.

  Sleep creeps up on me, and I dream of Sarah.

  Graywytch starts the torture up again. She’s narrowed the beam of light this time, and passes it back and forth across my chest according to some unknowable pattern. It kind of hurts, in the same way that the sun is kind of bright.

  When she shuts the light off, I lie sagging, gasping, sweating in the chair, trying to unkink my brain enough to speak.

  “What are you getting out of this?” I ask when I’m able to get my mouth to work. “Money? Power?”

  She reaches over and flicks the switch for the lights. One long, scalding second, and then off again.

  “Shut up.”

  “How long have you been working with him?”

  But she only ignores me. Stands at her lectern and scribbles her notes. Then she pulls the light fixture down and replaces the lens with another one, darker in color. A few moments later the lights start up again, and so does the burning.

  The lattice shimmers into being. It’s hard and clear, so close I swear I can grip it. But I can’t. My mind won’t tangle with it properly. There’s a buzzing in my gut, just behind my navel.

  The light dies, and I collapse with relief. Think. I’ve got to think. I’ve got to try something new. I flop my head over to the side to look at her, grope for something useful to say. Nothing. Can’t think. The fear smothers me. My mouth goes on ahead by itself.

  “Myra,” I call. She looks up at me. “When I get out of here, I’m going to kill you.”

  She snorts, and looks back down at her work. “No, Daniel. I don’t think you will.”

  She makes more adjustments. Now, when she shines the light on me, the lattice is clearer in my mind now than at any time since my powers got muted. But I can’t touch it. I can sense it, but I can’t touch it, can’t grip it, can’t do anything but watch it. All the while, the buzzing behind my navel continues, rising into a hot, crunchy sting that hurts almost as badly as the boiling blood.

  When I’m not terrified, I’m twisted into hard li
ttle knots with frustration. Oh, the things I would do if I had my powers back. But it’s just a daydream at this point. Tears of pain and rage trace cool lines down my temples as I try to hold it together between sessions. My plan is a shambles, my throat raw from screaming.

  Then it happens.

  During the last session of the day, my chest begins to glow. A bubble of fizzing white light starts to rise from my skin. Horror locks me stiff as I watch the mantle nearly pull itself out of my chest. Worse, I can feel my bones begin to shift and flex. Not just my ribs, but all of them.

  No.

  Please, no.

  I can’t go back.

  I’ll die. Please don’t do this.

  Don’t take it from me.

  Graywytch grunts with satisfaction. The light fades, and the mantle snaps back inside of me. The skin over my sternum stops glowing, but I don’t feel better.

  “The crystal needs to cool,” says Graywytch. “But tomorrow? Tomorrow, I think, is the day.”

  No more bravado. No more courage. She’s beaten me. “Myra, please don’t do this.” It’s contemptible begging. Weak. Not worthy of Dreadnought. “I’m sorry. Whatever I did to make you hate me, I’m sorry. Please don’t do this.”

  “It’s not about you, young man. You were only the catalyst. Push women far enough, and we push back. And we win. You’ll see.”

  The guards drag me back to my cell. It’s over. I’ve lost. I can’t get to her, and tomorrow she’ll take the mantle from me.

  When it really comes down to it, I don’t give a shit about my powers. I lived my whole life without them, and I could go back to that. But what will happen to my body? Will it go back to the way it was? I can’t survive that. I can’t go back. I can’t face the world with those shoulders and that voice. Maybe they’ll kill me when they’re done. Maybe they’ll roll me off the side of the deck and into the deep, and I won’t have to live through that nightmare. It seems almost too much to hope for.

  They say that your real identity is who you are in the dark. The lights shut off, and I figure out that I’m really a trembly little girl who is too weak to protect herself. Down, down I spiral into the depths. For hours.