Blood Crown

by Ali Cross

  “The Creator gave you what you seek—he gave you a type of humanity in your programming.” I watch Archibald lift a small Sera into his arms and throw her high into the air, laughing at her squeals of delight. “Archibald loved me.” I look at the Elite, not trying to hide the tears that have gathered in my eyes, or how they now fall onto my cheeks. “And I loved him.”

  Nic comes to stand beside me. Intermixed with the images of Archibald and me, I now see glimpses into Nic’s past, into his relationship with Natalya, his Servant. He doesn’t say anything, but I know he felt love for her—and that her betrayal cuts deep. But there was a time when she loved him. When she Served him. A time before Galen and his Mind.

  “Archibald did not just pretend to love me. Our Exchange allowed him to feel what humans feel. To grow as humans grow. He never stopped loving me or trying to keep me safe—despite the Mind’s attempts to break him. He gave his life for me, because he loved me.”

  I step forward and Nic comes with me, until we stand at the very edge of the stage. “The evolution of artificial intelligence is to become more human, not more inhuman. Don’t you see? Nic and I hold the key to both our futures. Hope for both our people lies in our unity, our DNA.”

  I let my gaze settle on the people closest to me—the Mind Elite, the ones who wish to destroy us. “Without humans, you are only pretending at humanity.”

  In this moment, Galen has the power. He can accept that what I’ve said is true, or he can continue to press for the destruction of humankind. And so I wait. And hope.

  The connection between Nic and me sizzles, like energy is building, humming along the invisible string that Binds us. Something is happening, changing. The ship responds to the sudden tang of alarm and in moments I know I am not imagining it. In every face in the sea that stares back at me I see the silver filaments in their eyes sparking, see the code, the commands, as surely as if they are painted in the sky above my head.

  But Nic and I are faster. He shoves Galen toward me and I grasp his neck in my hand. I shove my other arm outward, fingers spread wide and urge my command to be carried outward, into the waiting crowd. While Nic fights off the Elite and soldiers that try to break me away from Galen, I merge my command string with the ship and find her, again, to be a willing ally. I resume what I had begun with Galen, seeking his flesh, his physical processors so that I can shut them down, while the ship copies my commands and sends them into the air. The virus I create is disseminated among the gathered Mind almost as quickly as I devise it.

  Galen’s body stiffens, then moments later one of the guards Nic is wrestling with falls, ramrod straight, off the stage. All around us Elite fall to the ground or stand as if rooted, immobile. Beneath my hand, Galen’s skin turns gray, then fades to black. The blackness, the death, spreads outward like cracks in glass, fracturing the careful façade the Mind have created for themselves.

  I stand, my hand still gripped around Galen’s neck, and watch while the light in his eyes fades. My hands turn cold, sending fingers of burning ice up my arm. Yet still I stand.

  Serantha.

  Hands pull at my shoulders but still I don’t move. My brain feels hard, like ice, and I am no longer certain of what I’m supposed to be doing.

  “Serantha!”

  I am thrust backward and I stumble, then fall to the stage. I shake my head, trying to make sense of my surroundings. Nic is there, reaching for me, pulling me to my feet. He places his hands on either side of my cheeks, then pats them. Hard. “Come on.” He prods me forward, then sighs and lurches ahead, grabbing my hand as he passes me. He pulls me into a trot, down the stairs and past the frozen forest of Elite who stand or lie all around us.

  Nic prods me mentally and as we move my thoughts break free of the fog that gripped them. “What’s happening?” I ask as I drop Nic’s hand and follow him under my own power.

  I think you unleashed a virus—something that’s taking down the Elite. I— his thoughts break off and I detect fear slipping between the knots of pride in his mind. I don’t know how you did it, but it’s brutal. And it’s spreading.

  I follow him around a bend as inky stains creep up the walls. We need to get out of here or we’ll succumb to it as well. Run Serantha. He grabs for my hand again but I keep out of his grasp.

  Lights pulse in the floor at my feet and I realize—the ship is showing us the way we should go. I feel her pain, feel the virus slowing her responses, dulling her mind, yet still she directs us. Black spreads beneath my feet, shadowing the walls. Vines of disease mottle every surface, but still I run.

  The rumble from the ship becomes more insistent and this time when Nic reaches out his hand, I take it and we run together.

  With Serantha’s hand in mine, I feel powerful. Unstoppable. Her fierce determination to do it herself, to be my equal in everything, is infuriating and inspiring. Of course we are equal—I know that. So why is she so stubborn? I can’t understand it, but I’m determined to have a lifetime with her—and all the time in the universe to figure her out.

  Spider veins of black spread beneath my feet.

  “I’m sorry!” Serantha sobs and I know she cries for the ship and the virus we created together.

  “We’ll return with an antivirus,” I say—to Serantha, to the ship.

  I know, Serantha whispers—a pleading and a promise.

  He leads us to a travel pod, pushing me in before him.

  “The Mind are building a firewall—they’re wiping out the virus,” I nearly shout as I dive through the hatch.

  Nic only nods as he works the controls in record speed—it’s meant to be manned by one person; no weapons to monitor, no systems to check, so I sit back and catalogue all that I see—firstly that the pod appears to be entirely untouched by the virus that is swiftly overtaking the ship and Mind.

  My nanos tell me it’s a pleasure pod—a small two-seater with a wide cargo area equipped with a bed. The walls are covered with a tapestry of deep purples and reds, gold threads making helix patterns. The bed is covered in golden silk, half filled with pillows. But peeking from behind two of the tapestries, I see something less romantic and far more sinister. Wires dangle from lighted panels on either side of the small enclosure.

  “Why do a bunch of androids need a bed?” That information doesn’t seem to be expressly stored in the pod's data bank.

  Nic flicks his eyes to me, to the bed, to me again. Then he studiously focuses on the controls. He doesn’t say anything while he operates the pod’s launching system. The Mind ship opens its hatch and we freefall out of it.

  My ears pop before the pod settles the pressure and the engines engage. I know Nic is taking us back to the Capital, I recognize its name in the data, but still he doesn’t answer for a long time.

  I am accustomed to silence so it surprises me when he starts to talk. “I know the Mind came to your ship for a . . . a celebration of some kind? They did, didn’t they?”

  I look at him, turning my body so I can see his profile. I know he doesn’t need to watch the controls anymore, that the pod’s flight path has been set, that the ship is perfectly capable of getting us there without his help. Still, he keeps his eyes fixed straight ahead, staring blankly at the stars as they streak past.

  “I didn’t know you were there. I didn’t know who lived on the Capital, but I certainly didn’t think it was you. I mean, I would have worked harder to stop them, if I’d known.” He swallows hard and I try to follow his line of thought. I shake my head a little, confused, and Nic sighs, like he’s been holding his breath for ten years straight.

  “Galen and his . . . Elite—” he spits the word out with a contempt that’s palpable in the small cabin. “They like to use humans like toys, like dolls.” He watches me then, measuring my reaction. But whatever the Mind has done, I know humans can be just as wicked.

  “Galen is fixated on a period in humankind’s history called the Renaissance. It was a time rich with culture and extravagance. The clothing, the food, the . . .
pleasures.” He looks up at me, gauging my knowledge, my reaction.

  “I get it. Galen’s obsessed with humans. He likes to use us. Then he likes to discard us like old toys.”

  Nic sighs again, but this time his shoulders droop. “Worse than that. At least a child once loved their toy. At least it might be missed, sometime in the future. At least it might have once been cared for.”

  I can relate to that. For nine years I, and the others, were forced to live a life of meaningless drudgery. Making meals that were never eaten—while we ate barely enough to survive.

  He turns to look at the bed, and his jaws clench. “They stop at ship-states and demand a tribute—and not in gold or jewels. Their tribute is paid in humans.”

  My stomach clenches as I remember the way the girls and I were treated when we served Galen and his Elite. I have experienced firsthand their demanding and greedy wants.

  “One of them will take a pod, at their whim, and demand a tribute.”

  I keep my mouth shut.

  “The Mind will pick someone to bring back to the pod. This pleasure pod, or one like it.” He glances at me, making sure I understand. I do. “And they don’t just use them, they experiment with them. The androids are desperate to feel. It’s the one human trait they can’t entirely replicate—not in its entirety, it’s intricacies.”

  I look at the lights, the buttons and switches, the dangling wires and I understand. I can picture a person, woman or man, forced to endure the torture of their bodies while the Elite study their mind. “But they haven’t been able to create in their minds the magnitude of feeling that a human is capable of.”

  Nic glances at me, hesitates, then nods. “And when they’re done, the Elite anchors himself or herself to the casing and opens the hatch.” He watches me. I watch him.

  I feel as though, in his eyes, I can see a human, broken, abused, falling out of the hatch. Nic's hatred radiates outward like a live thing. I feel it wash over me, inside and out, changing me. “They watch. They watch while at first the person screams, eyes wide, face in shock. They watch while she, or he, reaches out, then struggles for breath. They watch while the person dies. Sometimes, the Mind will return and demand a second tribute, if the first somehow didn’t satisfy, or if they’re just inclined to do so.”

  He stops then, his eyes boring into mine for a few seconds longer and then he seems to realize he’s being a little . . . intense. “Sorry,” he says in a shaky voice, raking his hands through his hair.

  “No. Don’t be sorry.” I look away, at the bed, seeing in my mind’s eye all that might have taken place there. The people who were taken. The lives that were destroyed. Those people couldn’t protect themselves the way I can. They didn’t stand a chance against an enemy like the Mind. They never stood a chance.

  “We need to fight for them, Nic. We need to stop them.”

  He grabs my hand, squeezing my fingers almost too hard, but I don’t complain—I squeeze his back. “We’ll stop them. Together.”

  We hold each other’s gaze while we breathe together, our bodies in sync. I feel his symbiants in my blood and know he feels mine. We are a part of each other now. We are one. We might not be as experienced as the Mind, but we are powerful. And we might not be wholly human, but we are human—and we will fight for them, till our dying breath.

  We say all this through our eyes, through our touch, through the part of us that is shared. Nic leans forward, cupping my face in his hands like he did before.

  Then he sneezes and I sneeze, smacking our foreheads together. My vision goes black for a second.

  “Stars,” I breathe.

  “I see them,” Nic responds, followed by a long groan.

  And then laughter bubbles up from my stomach, racing to escape and bursting forth with a chorus of snorts and hiccups. I am overcome with the relief of the past . . . of the past forever . . . and so I lose myself to the mirth.

  Nic’s hand slides around my neck and I feel him lean into me, his laughter slipping away. He presses a soft kiss to my temple and his hand’s slight pressure on my chin has me turning toward him, my lips seeking his.

  My eyes flutter open and I find him watching me. His gaze is softer, but still intense, full of need. I close my eyes and I’m the one to kiss him this time. I press my lips to his, first too hard, then softening. It feels as if I have never felt more right, that my body, my whole life, has been designed for this moment. The moment I would kiss my partner’s lips, the moment I would feel for someone more than for myself. In this moment it is just us. For right this moment, for probably the only moment, we are just a man and a woman.

  It isn’t long before my lips feel swollen and bruised and my body aches with the need for more, but there isn’t anywhere to go in the small pod—and I refuse to climb onto the bed. That Nic doesn’t ask it, doesn’t even suggest it, fills me with a new kind of emotion that’s a blend of all we have ever experienced. My past, Nic’s past, Archibald, the Crown—it’s everything and I trust it. But now . . . now there is something new, something that I know is entirely human, all me.

  If I’d met Nic the way a boy and a girl normally meet one another, if we’d served in support together, in the kitchens or the laundry or wherever—I would choose him.

  I climb onto his lap, straddling him, the control panel digging into the small of my back—I use it as an excuse to press myself against him. Nic’s hands travel up my back and into my hair and I feel suddenly grateful that I was able to wash.

  His fingers lace into my hair, snagging on the pins that keep half of it pinned up. He seems to take that as a cue to move his hands elsewhere and where they choose to go elicits a gasp of shock and pleasure from me. He groans and arches up toward me as he grabs my hips, and holds me tight to him.

  My eyes fly open and I find Nic is already watching me. His eyes are dazed, his cheeks a rosy pink. I pull back from his kiss just enough that I can see his lips—they are wet and swollen and I just want to . . . nip . . . and suck . . .

  When he pulls me to him again a moan of pleasure rumbles through him and echoes in my own body. I let my lips slip off of his and I press my forehead into the curve of his neck, trying to remember how to breathe.

  With my body pasted to his, I feel Nic’s heartbeat and it’s like having two hearts—one on each side of my chest. They mirror each other; fast at first, then gradually slowing as breathing becomes easier.

  “Stars,” Nic breathes.

  “Moons,” I reply. He shivers beneath my breath at his neck and I laugh. I’ve always felt powerful. Always felt I had power over men—power to make them want me, power to defy them, to deny them. But this feels . . . different. Powerful and vulnerable.

  And he holds just as much power over me. It is a humbling and enlivening thing.

  “Sera.” Nic’s breath is hot against my temple and rings with a certain disappointment. The pod is reporting our proximity to my ship. I start to slide off of him—it feels a lot more awkward now than it did in the heat of the moment. “Wait.” He holds me to him, pushing my shoulders back a little so he can see into my eyes.

  “Sera, there’s something—something you might not know. I don’t think it’s being communicated through our symbiants—at least, not like it should be.”

  I settle back onto his lap and study the face of this man who I only knew as a boy. He has convinced my heart and mind that we’ve been together forever. He is beautiful, with his jet black hair flopped over his forehead, shadowing his eyes. His eyes are as blue as the images of Earth’s sky on a sunny, cloudless day, but they glimmer in a way I’ve only ever seen in jewels—like the ones draped around the necks of the Mind.

  He has a strong face, pale skin, full, soft lips. He looks young, but he holds himself with a confidence beyond his years. I think he is perfect with his long body and broad shoulders. With his arrogance and confidence.

  “What?” he says when my eyes finally find his again.

  I shake my head and smile, enjoying the way h
e looks at me—like I am far more powerful than him. “Didn’t you have something you wanted to say?” My voice is rough from emotion, from want and desire. From love unspoken.

  An expression ill-suited to his face settles in his eyes and he glances away, blushing again when his gaze falls to my chest which is more exposed than ought to be proper in the gown the Mind provided for me. He clears his throat and wisely returns his gaze to mine.

  And suddenly I know exactly what it is he wants to say and I’m filled with a desire to save him the discomfort of being the first to admit it.

  “You want to tell me that you have feelings for me that go beyond the Exchange of our symbiants.”

  He nods and swallows and I smile to relieve the fear that shadows his eyes.

  “I feel the same,” I tell him. I lower my head until my forehead rests against his and I watch his lips, wishing I could touch his thick, black lashes. So I do. I trail my fingers up his cheek and glory at the way his skin flushes beneath my touch. I let my thumb brush across his lashes. “But how can it be possible when we really don’t know one another?”

  “Since you were born we spent every major holiday—every four months—together.” Nic’s voice is quiet, barely a sound on his lips. “I was two when your father presented you, a newborn babe, to me along with a sword and a commandment. I was to cherish you all my days, to stand in defense of you, always.”

  I want to tease him, to chase away the serious expression that has darkened his eyes, but inexplicably, tears gather in my eyes and I lean forward again, cradling my head on his shoulder as the tears fall.

  “I think I was mostly excited about the sword, which I wore almost non-stop from that day.” My fingers drift down to his side, and land on the hilt of his sword. He chuckles, a warm rumble that echoes through his symbiants in my body. “It’s in a case above my desk at home, now. I outgrew it a long time ago—but I never outgrew your father’s command.