Nexis

by A. L. Davroe

  “But—”

  “Go,” he hisses. There’s another burst of light and I can see in the flash that the boy standing beside me isn’t Gus at all, but Quentin. He turns and sprints up the steps.

  The light blinks out, hiding my horror. I had thought Quentin was Gus. Why? I stumble in the direction he indicated, trying to understand how and what went wrong in my brain, but I can’t. I crash into a hover-tray, making a loud clatter. The next moment, more hands are upon me. These are synthetic, reaching at me, punching at me. I struggle to free myself, but the onslaught is too much, making me fall to my knees because I’m already off-balance. The hands follow.

  I roll, trying to avoid the crouching android. My hands fall on something cold and flat. My brain registers that it’s a knife as I bring it up and stab it right into the android’s neck. I heave against him, kicking him off-balance as hydraulic fluid sprays out of what would, in a human, be a vital artery. I roll to my feet, knife in hand and ready for the next attacker.

  The lights flash back on, blinding all of us for precious moments. I hear Uncle Simon laughing again. “I’m better than all of them. I did what no one else could. Do you see it now?”

  As my vision clears I feel my stomach roll over. Bile rises to my throat and I double over, sickened by what I see. Everywhere, Aristocrats are strewn over the floor, their blood soaking into the industrial carpet, seeping along the dance floor. The air is thick with the smell of burned flesh. The people near the aerovators are screaming behind a pile of bodies, their fists slamming against the glass.

  The aerovators should be reading the G-Chips, should be letting people escape, but they aren’t. The people are trapped at the mercy of robots that aren’t programmed to kill their masters. The robots should have shut down. All of them are programmed to go offline with a single defense word uttered through the Internetwork. Somehow, the G-Chips aren’t communicating with the network at all.

  Someone grabs my arm, hauling me to one side. I lift my knife and slash before I can think. Gus, the real one, leaps away from me, narrowly escaping being gutted. He gives me a dark annoyed look, made more horrible by the Modifications on his face. Horrified, I drop the knife. Shaking his head, he shoves me in one direction, covering me as I run toward the service aerovator, shooting at oncoming robots with a gun I didn’t realize he was carrying.

  They’ve all got guns—all of the Dolls. They’ve set up a defensive perimeter, cutting off a small group of Aristocrats from the robots. As I pass the landing I can see President Cyr’s body, lying among a group of robots. They tear at him like rabid animals, obliterating him. I turn away, sickened again, and skid under a table one of the Dolls is crouching behind. Hands grab at me, hustling me to the back toward where the Aristocrats are gathered. I turn, searching for Gus, but I don’t see him.

  I end up in a small group of shell-shocked women and men, Quentin and his mother among them. One of his Dolls has removed his own uniform jacket and now has it pressed against Quentin’s shoulder. I can see blood dribbling down his arm.

  “What happened?” I demand of Lady Cyr. She doesn’t look up; she’s too preoccupied with tearing at her dress.

  The Doll gives me a cursory glance. “Something went wrong with the virus.”

  My stomach turns to lead. “The virus?”

  “Went wrong?” Uncle Simon repeats, his voice that of a madman. I whip my head around, searching for him. He and Bastian have both been bound and are now being held at gunpoint by two of Quentin’s Aristocrat friends. “It went exactly as I planned. I’ll tell you what went wrong.” His mad green eyes are on me now, only me, as if I’m the one these words are meant for. “What went wrong was that we didn’t just bomb one another into extinction during the war. What went wrong is that you, the ancestors of the very terrorists who started the war, just don’t think big enough. What went wrong was that I wasn’t the one who was asked to do this in the first place. Well, who tricked the Tricksters now? I did it right.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lady Cyr get to her feet. She drops the strands of fabric she’s been ripping off the hem of her dress into the Doll’s lap and calmly walks toward my uncle. She crouches before him. “Simon, are you telling me that this is your doing?”

  He grins madly, pinkish drool dribbling from his lips. I realize now that he’s been beaten to near unconsciousness, probably to get him subdued and bound. “I changed the program, Kitsune. You all had such high ideals, but they were never extreme enough. What’s a power outage going to prove? What’s a couple of angry Disfavored armed with antique guns going to do? You were all too scared. Too afraid after what happened in Adagio. But I wasn’t.” His head wobbles to one side, and his eyes search out mine. “You want change?” He coughs, spattering blood onto Lady Cyr’s white dress. It dribbles to the floor, repulsed by the anti-stain nanotechnology woven into the fabric. “You gotta make change.”

  I swallow, horrified. This isn’t the change I wanted. I didn’t want death and destruction. I wanted growth.

  Lady Cyr reaches down and grabs a fistful of his hair, hauling him a few inches off the floor and wrenching his face to the side, making him see into her steely eyes—eyes of an avenging angel. “What did you do? What did the program do?”

  He grins again, blood showing between his teeth. “I have done what you should have asked me to do in the first place. Why didn’t you ask me to program the game? I’m just as good as they were. Better. You’ll all burn to ash; it’s the only way. Cleanse this filthy earth.” His eyes flutter backward, revealing bloodshot whites.

  She shakes him. “Simon. Simon, damn you, don’t you pass out on me.” But Uncle Simon is out cold. She lets his head drop to the floor and begins weeping.

  Quentin grunts as he gets to his feet and shuffles toward his mother. The Doll has tied off his wound and fashioned a sling for him out of the strands of Lady Cyr’s gown. Quentin stops above his mother, a bloodstained ivory tower, and reaches under his shirt. He pulls out his own revolver, the same kind I used in the game, and aims it downward.

  “Permission to take out the trash?” His voice is dark, emotionless, his eyes predatory in a way I never dreamed Quentin’s eyes could be.

  Bastian’s eyes widen in terror. There’s only the slightest nod from Lady Cyr, something that comes before I can fully process what is going on.

  “No,” I scream and lunge forward, but my word is lost as Quentin’s finger clenches on the trigger, releasing one pointblank round into my uncle’s skull. Bam. And all my answers are gone.

  Quentin turns the gun to rest between Bastian’s hateful eyes.

  “No,” I scream again, managing to stumble to my feet and throw myself between them. I grasp onto Bastian, practically squeezing the life out of him. “No. Don’t you dare,”

  I feel the gun at the back of my skull, still warm.

  “Get out of the way, Ellani,” is Quentin’s cold reply.

  I shake my head, hold tighter to Bastian.

  Quentin cocks the gun. Bastian holds his breath. “Move.”

  I glance over my shoulder, meet Quentin’s diamond-hard eyes. “I won’t. He’s all I have left. You’ll have to kill me to get to him.”

  Quentin stares at me for a very long moment. His eyes are hollow and hard, a prince without his dynasty. I glare at him, hateful. Despite the noise and everything going on around us, it’s as if it’s just him and me. Finally he tucks the gun back into his waistband and turns away, leaving us kneeling in my uncle’s oozing brain.

  “E-Ella?” It takes a long moment for me to register what Bastian’s saying and even longer for me to turn from Quentin. I draw away, and we look at each other for the first time in over a year.

  A blast sends glass and foul-smelling wind whipping across the dance floor. Bastian draws his eyes away and looks across the room. The doors of the aerovators have been blown from the inside out, making the bodies and
few remaining survivors topple backward, half burying the security droids. From within people are pouring out. Disfavored.

  Quentin steps back into the corner of my vision, his eyes fixed across the room. “What a crappy time to start a rebellion,” he mutters. He makes a militant hand gesture at the Dolls defending us. “Get everyone out of here.”

  Before I realize what’s going on, there’s a mass heave toward the service aerovator. I grab Bastian’s wrist and drag him along with me. Everyone’s back on their feet, panicking as more guns are turned on them. It seems the newcomers haven’t yet realized that the droids are shooting at everyone, not just them.

  There are Dolls defending the aerovator. They’re reaching into the crowd, pulling out people by their hands and shoving them into the tiny box. It won’t hold everyone. But I don’t need to worry; Gus is already in there, his body thrown against the weighted doors, keeping them open. He, at least, is safe.

  Someone grabs my free hand and drags me forward. It’s Zane Boyd. He pulls my arm up, volunteering me and demanding that I be saved at the same time. A Doll grabs me, shoves me in. Bastian follows behind, practically falling on top of me as we go. Gus smiles at me, tired and sad. I wriggle into the corner by the Doll tinkering with the control panel and wait, listening to the whimpers of the forever broken.

  I see a familiar face floating in the crowd. “Sadie,” I scream. My fellow ward turns huge, frightened eyes on me, her expression confused. She doesn’t seem to recognize me, but she reaches out anyway, as if trusting that because I know her name I might save her. I move to get up, but Bastian is on his feet before me, clambering forward and reaching out for her.

  At the door, Zane seems to notice Bastian’s focus, because he grabs Sadie and shoves her into the aerovator. She stumbles forward and wraps her trembling arms around Bastian. Still bound, he presses his face into her hair and comforts her as best he can. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Even though we both know it’s not.

  A few more bodies jettison past me before Gus cries out. “We can’t fit any more.”

  “Just one more.” I hear Zane on the other side. “My mother. And my brother, where’s my brother? Someone find them.”

  A moment later, Quentin appears beside Zane. “Is Mom in there?”

  “No.”

  The gunfire draws closer, old-fashioned bullets ping against the metal furnishings. One makes it into the aerovator where it ricochets and then slugs someone in the back. They fall, shoving bodies against me, separating me from Bastian.

  “We don’t have time,” Gus screams, “We have to go.”

  “Not without her.” I can see white reflected off the polished chrome frame of the aerovator. Quentin’s moving away, searching, yelling for his mother.

  Gus swears. “Stop him.”

  Zane grabs Quentin by the back of the collar. “I’ll find her.” He tosses him backward so that he topples into Gus. Gus’s body folds inward, bear-hugging Quentin as they both collapse on the Doll beside me. For a moment, there’s a frenzy of limbs and grunts and cries before Quentin leaps to his feet and launches himself forward, but the door slams shut in his face. He hurdles against it and sticks there for a brief moment before taking a step back, fire in his eyes.

  With a curse, he punches the door, making the whole aerovator shake, and leaving a dent. He leans down and grabs Guster’s collar, hauling him to his feet. “Open the door,” he demands, insane with grief.

  Guster grabs Quentin’s hand, already bloody and bruising from punching the door, and eases it away from him. “It’s too late.”

  Almost on cue, the gunshots and screams reach a horrifying crescendo. And then it’s silent. Too silent. A moment later there’s a pocket of rapid gunfire, maybe a body moving in the heap, and then it’s silent again.

  Quentin reels away from Guster and slams his back against the doors. He does it again and again, until he collapses beside me and begins to sob.

  “Got it,” breathes the Doll.

  I blink at him. I hadn’t even realized he’d gotten up and resumed his work on the control panel. He pulls a wire that sparks and spits, making him draw his hand back with a grunt, but he goes back to it, wincing. The aerovator clicks, and then suddenly we’re going down.

  “Go to the basement, Sid,” Gus says. “There’s a service tunnel they don’t know about.”

  The Doll named Sid nods.

  It’s a long, slow descent. I assume the aerovator is working on auxiliary power, or maybe it doesn’t realize it has anyone inside so it’s on energy-saving mode. Or maybe it just feels like eternity.

  Gus crouches beside Quentin and pulls him into his arms. Wanting to avoid the little bit of pity I have for Quentin, I look around the aerovator. Delia and Carsai are there, along with maybe two dozen other people. Everyone else was mercilessly slaughtered; the G-Chips no longer work, the robots have run amok, the Disfavored have somehow infiltrated the dome. The Aristocrats are being massacred. Evanescence will never be the same. All of it is because I played a stupid game and chose to plant a virus. All because I wanted to build a better world. But this isn’t progress. This is destruction. Because of me.

  Meems’s words are suddenly in my mind. “From what I can see of humans, you often destroy wonderful things in the pursuit of something that your delusions make you think is more wonderful.”

  I’m so stupid. Why couldn’t I see what I was doing? Tears suddenly burst forth, and I let sorrow wrack me until my body is so confused by the shakes and the sobs that it doesn’t know what to do, so it just seizes up, keeping me from breathing.

  “Hey,” Gus whispers, coming to his knees and reaching out to me. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  Clinging to him, I sob into his shoulder. “It’s all my fault.”

  He cradles my head. “What? No, it’s not your fault. Why would you think that?”

  I shake my head and pull away. “It is.” I insist. “It was the G-Game. The Anansi Chamber. It-It did something to the Main Frame. P-Planted a virus.” I try to explain, gasping against my hitching voice.

  Gus sits back and leans against the door beside Quentin. Quentin’s own constitution seems to have grown hard and distant in the time it took me to put two and two together. Quentin is the one who speaks. “We know.”

  I blink at him, tears still spilling. “W-What?”

  He lifts his eyes, the irises amber now that the sparkle has gone out around them. There’s a bitter sneer on his face. “You heard me,” he growls.

  Gus reaches over and puts a hand on Quentin’s arm. “Don’t blame her, Quent.” But Quentin flinches away and struggles to his feet, off-balance, because he still has one arm in a sling. The aerovator hits the ground floor and the door slides open.

  Quentin looks at the Aristocrats huddled into the back of the aerovator. When we first piled in, it seemed there wasn’t even enough room to breathe, but now there’s a good distance between us and them, as though they’ve all managed to shrink on the ride down. Their eyes are on us, terrified and confused.

  “Get out of here,” Quentin demands. “All of you. And take that as well.” He gestures to the body.

  No one dares disobey him. With his mother and father dead, Quentin is now the new President Cyr of Evanescence. They file out, dragging the dead man along with them, and stand huddled in the stark, gray tunnel, leaving only Gus and Sid.

  Quentin looks at them. “You, too.”

  Gus straightens and opens his mouth, ready to argue, but Quentin lifts a hand and dismisses him again. Gus closes his mouth and glances down at me, worry in his eyes. When Gus and Sid are standing in the hall with the other Aristocrats, Quentin punches the manual button to close the door. I get to my feet and scramble away from him, frightened by what he might do to me. I completely destroyed his world—caused the death of his parents, friends, and most of his Dolls.

  He turns around and s
tares at me long and hard. He has a gun hidden under the loose tails of his shirt, though I don’t doubt that he’s strong enough to beat me to death before Gus manages to get the door open.

  Uncertain of what to say or do to prevent him from killing me, I swallow hard. Finally, I just say, “I don’t blame you. I deserve it.”

  His brows lift in surprise, and he laughs bitterly, shaking his head. In the next moment, he launches himself at me, his one good hand most likely broken as it is, clamping around my neck, pinning me against the aerovator wall, a warning restraint more than pain. My first instinct is to kick him in the groin, but I know that will only make him angrier in the long run, and will most likely just prolong my own death. I’d rather die swiftly.

  I feel more tears welling over my eyelids. Hysterical tears of fear and self-loathing. I’m ashamed that I’m crying. I can’t even die with dignity. “I-I didn’t know what I was doing.” I whimper. “I thought it was just a little virus to cause a blackout. I swear I didn’t know what he’d done to it. I didn’t want this. If I had known, I swear I never would have planted it.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I never would have even played that stupid ga—”

  Quentin’s grip tightens on my neck, making my words seize in my throat.

  Seeing that he has my attention again, he eases up and steps close to me. So close that our noses are touching. “Listen to me, Ella,” he whispers, his voice a dangerous purr and his breath too clean and refreshing to herald death. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for what happened tonight. Yes, you played the game. Yes, you planted the virus that caused all of this. But you are only one piece in this movement. We’ve all been betrayed.”

  I stare into his eyes, eyes that have found their color again, but the diamond has gone dark and smoky. I can’t compute what he’s saying or doing, but I nod. I don’t want him to kill me.

  He continues speaking. “We all have a part to play in this. My mother, your parents, you and I, Guster and Zane, and the rest of the resistance. If you need to blame someone for everything that went wrong tonight, blame Simon. The virus was only supposed to cause a blackout. A blackout that would allow the Disfavored rebels to infiltrate the city, get through a door to Bella Adona that was conveniently left open, and make a point by killing my father. The system wasn’t supposed to go down for as long as it did, it wasn’t supposed to make the robots go mad, and it wasn’t supposed to fry the G-Chips. All that was Simon’s doing. Do you understand?”