She shook her head and dropped onto the side of the bed, sitting there with a defeated droop to her shoulders. “They tell me not to tell you, or they kill us both.”
Wesley stepped closer to her and crouched down, placing his hand on her knee. “Ntombi... who was it? You have to tell me. If they threatened you, then they could still pose a risk. They could still try to hurt both of us.”
“You can't stop them.”
Wesley hated that she thought that. He wished she would believe in him. He had beaten Sergio. He had beaten Javier. He might not have the power that other's did, but he had the drive. He had a purpose that pushed him past his own inadequacies.
“At least let me tell Kgosi. He could-”
“She'll never tell you.” The voice came from the doorway, but Wesley recognized it as Zola's before he even turned around. “She's submissive. Someone tells her what to do, and she does it. It's who she is. It's who she's always been and always will be.”
“Zola! We need to tell Kgosi that someone in the temple did this to her. If she won't tell us, we need to investigate and... and find them.”
Zola grinned, her smile thin, like it was only for her and nobody else. “Oh, I plan on telling Kgosi about what's been happening in the temple. But Ntombi has nothing to do with it.”
“What are you talking about? Someone hurt her-”
“I was the one who hurt her, you imbecile.”
Wesley saw Ntombi crawl across her bed, away from the woman in the doorway she clearly feared.
“Why would you do that?” Wesley asked, his mind rushing to keep up. “Why would you hurt her?”
“Because I knew you would react exactly like you did. You're a jealous, arrogant westerner with foolish ideas of what 'justice' is. I knew you'd blame Javier. I knew you'd need no prodding, no proof for your allegations. You'd prop yourself up as a superhero, hunt down the villain, and make him pay for his wrongdoings. So simple. So idiotic.”
Wesley shook his head, trying to find his bearings in a swirl of emotions and thoughts. “Why would you... how does this... I don't understand, Zola. What does this accomplish?”
His body was lifted off the ground by her mind, his throat being squeezed by her psionic power. “Either Sergio or Javier would eventually take over this family. Kgosi had declared that long before you ever showed up. But I couldn't exactly kill them, could I? Kgosi would never let me just murder my way into his heart.”
She squeezed harder, making it nearly impossible for Wesley to breathe. “But then you showed up and took one of them out for me. You made my job that much easier, which I applaud you for. Yet somehow, you faced no repercussions. In fact, Kgosi took you under his wing. It almost appeared as if you could be next in line to take over the House of Psi.”
Wesley scraped at the invisible fingers wrapping around his throat, unable to alleviate the constricting force.
“I can't be the only one that hears that and thinks it sounds crazy, right? You kill one of my enemies, but then you just take his place. So I had to figure out a way to take you both out, without getting any blood on my hands.”
She leaned to the side, looked past Wesley, and smiled at Ntombi. “Well... no blood that matters anyway.”
She returned her gaze to Wesley. “Thankfully, the two of you set this whole thing in motion for me. Your stupid, masculine contest played right into my hands. Butting heads and puffing up your chests at each other. If I had waited long enough, the two of you would have most likely killed each other off without any interference from me. But what can I say? I'm impatient.”
“You'll never get away with it. Kgosi will make you pay for this.”
Zola shook her head. “No. See, you're wrong about that. Because one of us murdered his prize pupils in some desperate grasp at power, while the other one has been a devoted pupil her entire life who has done nothing wrong.”
Zola smiled and let out a gentle sigh. “You've been a wonderful tool for me to manipulate, Wesley. You have helped me to one day become the God-Queen Zola. The Mental Absolute. The Prime Mind. The Thought Perfection. This has always been your purpose, whether you like it or not.”
He struggled as she pulled his body through the air, floating behind her as she strode confidently down the hall.
“Now it's time to face the God-King Kgosi's punishment for your crimes.” She leaned in close to Wesley and whispered in his ear, “Now it's time for you to die.”
23
ESMERALDA
The blaring alarms inside of her battle-suit woke her, screaming at her about structural damage and air supply and energy capacity and pressure levels. Every voice sounded like it was annoyed she hadn't responded to their warnings yet, even though the suit was perfectly aware of her biological signals. It knew she was unconscious. It knew she was only now realizing her fate as her awareness slowly pushed away the fog in her mind.
All she could see through the slightly cracked visor in her helmet was debris. Cement and reinforcing bars, stone and metal, even a few torn limbs and dripping blood. It all formed together to create a massive tomb in which she was trapped. She scanned the graphs and numbers being displayed in the corner of her view screen and saw that she was nearly sixty-five feet underground. The basement levels had collapsed under her, all thanks to that Zharkovian boy. That tiny little missile that destroyed things in such a chaotic pattern, she wasn't able to foresee his directions. She had tried to dodge, tried to escape, but he didn't even notice her. She was just another thing, another item, another piece of trash to fling aside as he brought the entire domain of Neo-Nippon to its knees.
Her force field was holding, for now, but her power levels were draining. She had an hour, if she was lucky and continued transferring power from everything else in her battle-suit. After that, the entirety of the structure above her would come crashing down, suffocating her as her oxygen levels depleted, and leaving her to die in the world's largest mass grave.
But that wasn't even an option in her mind. Her brain was already creating scenarios and strategies, placing them in an order of probability so that she wouldn't waste time. All she needed to do was use her brain. She could save herself. It didn't matter if that were true or not. She knew she had to believe it.
Another lesson from Hector.
The first thing she did was start pinging the nation's network. Katsu had given her access to the wireless connections, as well as his own databases, and she knew if nothing else withstood that little boy's onslaught, perhaps the one thing he couldn't see would still be there: the decentralized network.
Her battle-suit tried to connect through the layers and layers of debris on top of her, and after only a few seconds, there was a response. A weak signal that fluttered in and out, coming from someone's still activated Oshiro Tablet. As soon as she grabbed onto the signal, she bounced to the next. An Oshiro Watch attached to a corpse's arm. Bouncing from that to a coffee maker, miraculously still pulling power from the city's infrastructure. Her signal kept jumping up through the debris, from one device to the next, until it reached the surface. There, the wireless web of connections was still strong, still active. Of course it was. Oshiro's father probably started there, when Neo-Nippon was just forming. The exchange of information would have been of utmost importance, and therefore, had been given the best shot at surviving an attack of that caliber. You can bring down buildings, you can bring down emperors, but you can't stop data. Not once you've released it into the wild.
As soon as she was connected, she reached out for help, but the robot army in Neo-Nippon had been destroyed. The power stations were gone. The factories were leveled. The network brains were no longer sending out instructions even to the army on foreign soil. On the holographic screen in her helmet, she could see through their eyes, staring blankly at silent battlefields. The war had suddenly stopped and the robots stood frozen in time.
She couldn't care less about the war. That was never her mission. She just needed the soldiers. She needed bodies and hands to do her biddin
g. That was all. She sent out basic string commands to a handful of units that were stationed far from the battlefield and the prying eyes of the enemy. A platoon of forty soldiers climbed into an air unit and piloted the vehicle back toward Neo-Nippon. By her brief calculations, they would begin to dig within forty-five minutes. With that many hands, she could be free before her air ran out. All she had to do was wait.
Her mind continued to threaten panic, always wanting to run through every disaster scenario, coming up with the most pessimistic outcome to her situation, but she couldn't let that happen. It wouldn't help anything. She needed a distraction.
Her battle-suit's connection to the network sent out search queries for camera installations that might still be active. There were very few throughout the domain, but it was enough to give her a sense of the size and scope of the devastation. That small boy had leveled everything. It didn't matter if it was man made, or natural, he had destroyed it. Trees were torn up from their roots, apartment buildings were tossed into the ocean, farm fields were dug up without leaving any crop still standing, and though her view was limited, she didn't see a single vehicle that hadn't been completely flattened to the ground. The boy's chaos was systematic. He left nothing standing.
Her curiosity eventually led to the recorded footage from the cameras, the stuff still accessible in the offshore databases. It took her a while to access, but when the feeds poured in, it was like watching a serial killer's grandest dream. She had to run the feeds in slow motion to even catch the boy's actions, but when she did, the details made her sick to her stomach. His violence was unnecessarily gruesome. It was like he wasn't satisfied with only succeeding in his goal of complete obliteration, he needed to stop and take pleasure in his genocide. He could have killed the citizens of the domain with a simple tap to their chest, a swat to their skull, or a flick of his finger, but he insisted on indulging in their death. Decapitations, amputation, and disembowelment were some of the less creative forms of torture he inflicted on them. As the violence dragged out, he became bored with such simple measures, and grew artistic. It was a shocking, macabre display of madness, one that Esmeralda would normally look away from, but when it reached its climax, she was glad she was still paying attention.
There, on the video feed playing on her helmet's holographic screen, she watched that little boy murder the Imperator in cold blood. His own father. Dead by his hands.
Her heart beat quickly as she uploaded the video, her tongue salivating at the release of the information. She could plant the seeds of mistrust in everyone with a video like that. When the world saw the heir to the throne murder their leader, would they bow down to him? Or would they rise up, refusing the violent transfer of power that would only lead to more and more violence in the future?
She couldn't control the world. She knew that. No matter how badly she wanted to. That was a fool's errand. But what she could do, was direct it, shift it left or right, toward the goal she wanted. It wouldn't be a flawless journey, but she would still be in the driver's seat.
If she could free herself, lock herself away in a protected spot where she could still access these robots, it would give her a chance again. She could rebuild the manufacturing plants. She could march them down the streets of the American Homelands, and give the people the protection they deserve. She could show them a better world, one where a mortal armed with only technology could be their savior.
But that would only be the beginning. She would take advantage of the power vacuum that the Zharkovs left. She could manipulate the remaining Domini, using the information Hector had been storing up, not to murder them, like he had intended it for, but to manipulate them, just as she had with Katsu Oshiro. With blackmail and leaked data, she could turn them against each other. She could sway the scales in any direction she wanted by controlling the information. The world would think it was making its own decisions, the world would think it was free, but puppets never see their own strings.
Even from under a skyscraper that threatened to squash her like a bug, she was still moving forward. She was still making plans. She would climb out of the hole she was in. She would gather her resources and rebuild. Even as her battery blinked in the corner of her screen, threatening her with the loss of power, she didn't give up, because that wasn't an option. Every plan recognized the fact that there was always another plan. There was always a tomorrow. Nothing ever ended. Hector's death was not a failure. Miguel's death was not a failure. Those events were simply a change of plans. She knew that her own death would have to sneak up on her, or jump out from around a corner to startle her, because that was never part of the plan, or the contingency plan, or the backup plan, or plans D through Z. She did not fear death, but if death was coming for her, it had one hell of a fight on its hands.
24
ZANA
The chambers of Dominus Mastodon's castle echoed with emptiness. Most of the men and women had left for the front line of the war, leaving behind only a small brigade of warriors, and enough servants to care for the royal family. Zana was unhappy to be there, wishing she was still near the women who battled so valiantly for the domain, but when Luca was summoned back to Therian, so was she.
It was an odd request. Zana hadn't exactly been invited to many political endeavors since she had moved into the castle. Her job was to carry the heir, not make important decisions, so it surprised her when Dominus Mastodon requested them both, telling them it was of utmost importance they both be there, and time sensitive on top of that.
When they landed in Therian, Luca and Zana separated. Zana's grandmother had raised her well enough to know that the unkempt braids she was wearing were good enough for the battlefield, but unfit for a meeting with a Dominus. Her servants attended to her, tightening each loose braid and weaving more jeweled beads into the nest atop her head. She couldn't help but wish her father still had the sword that killed her mother and uncle. Perhaps with a blade like that, her servants could give her a proper haircut.
Once they had completed her styling, Zana padded through the castle in her bare feet. She liked feeling the cold, stone floor against her skin and the balance it provided her body. It also provided her with quite a bit of stealth when making her way through the halls, which came in handy as she neared the door to the room where she was to meet with the rest of the family.
“She'll never agree to it.”
“Then you must make her agree to it.”
“What your father means, is you must encourage her, find the reasons why she would go to such lengths. You must listen to your wife, and then use those words to your advantage.”
Luca was speaking with his parents in a hushed tone, and his mother was matching it, but his father still bellowed every word.
“Nonsense! There is no time for these games. Present her with the ultimatum. Who would turn down a prize like this? Who would turn down a crown of that importance?”
“You don't know her, father. She isn't like other women. She will not bow down to my wishes.”
“Then perhaps she isn't the problem.”
“Does she even know what happened? Has she heard the news?”
“I've done my best to keep it from her. The message only arrived for me last night. Our men were kept under strict orders not to reveal the nature of our meeting.”
“It isn't the men I'm worried about.”
Zana had heard enough. She was sick of secrets and lies and back room dealings. Politics had driven her family mad in the past, and she was unwilling to fall down the same hole. She would face this like everything else in her life: head on.
She marched into the room, cutting Luca off as he was about to reply. The family straightened up in their chairs when they noticed her presence, all of their faces changing from deadly serious to a feigned pleasantness.
Domina Singh purred the words, “Welcome home, my dear. I hope your trip was agreeable.”
Zana smirked as she bowed to them both. “It was only your son who wasn't agreeable.
Apparently he took umbrage with the fact that a woman was carrying him.”
Luca lowered his head and mumbled, “I was only trying to explain that we have servants with wings. There was no need for you to-”
“I fly at speeds that would rip the feathers from your servants. I found it only logical we arrive in a timely manner.”
“I thank you for that,” Dominus Mastodon said, motioning to an empty chair at the large round table where they were sitting. “The issues we need to deal with cannot wait. We must grab a hold of the opportunity that has presented itself.”
Singh cleared her throat and placed a paw on Mastodon's thick forearm, eyeing him with a cautious look.
“And what opportunity would that be, m'Dom?”
Mastodon eyed his wife again and took a deep breath to calm himself. “It appears that... during a battle... it would seem-”
“I'm sorry, my dear.” Singh leaned forward to take the lead. “We received word last night that your father has fallen in battle.”
Zana felt her world shift to the side. So much so, that she nearly toppled off her chair. Her hand gripped the wooden table to balance herself and her gaze fell to her lap. Her mind raced to find the right reaction, but found none. There was a vacancy she wasn't expecting, a lack of emotion that came from dipping into that well too much in the last few months.
“How did this happen?” she finally asked, looking for logic instead. “How was he killed?”
“It would appear your brother was the murderer,” Mastodon said bluntly.
“Yuri?”
Zana scraped at the bottom of the empty well and found enough drops of emotion to feel the pain that wracked her mind. She knew Yuri better than anyone. She knew what it took to drive him to this place. She saw the chain of events that had led him to this point. And when she saw in her mind the monster that baby had become, it broke her heart into a million pieces.
He could have been so much more, but the world didn't raise him to be the Imperator it needed. It didn't coddle the child of a conqueror, not the way he needed to be. Yuri never had a chance in the harsh reality of the Empire. He had no time for childish things. He was required to be a Zharkov from the moment he was born, and Zana knew how impossible of a task that could be.
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