“Come on, Mia. What if the doctors had performed regenesis based on my neural imprint after believing me dead? There would be two of me right now.”
“Two of you is better than none of you. Trust me on this—I can work with two.”
“Well, you only have one of me. The real me, not some golem copy.”
She launched herself at him, dropping the jacket to the floor to beat her fists ineffectually on his chest. “You died, dammit. You left me alone in this world, and you didn’t have to, and it wasn’t fair.”
He didn’t resist her sloppy hits, instead tenderly stroking her hair as tears glistened his eyes while she flailed away at him. “I know it felt that way. I will apologize forever for the pain I caused you. Mia, I thought of nothing but you every minute of my captivity. Everything I did, I did it so I could get home to you. And I got it done. I’m here now, don’t you see?”
“And you could die tomorrow.” She shoved him, but only succeeded in knocking herself away from him. “Don’t you see? I love you more than you will ever know, but I will not survive losing you a second time. I can’t. So you have to go.” Hurry, go now, before I lose my will and myself to you and you destroy me all over again.
His shoulders rose in the shadows. “What will it take to change your mind? Name your price.”
A spark of hope embered in her chest. “Revoke the ‘no regenesis’ clause in your will. Prove to me you will always come back.”
His lips parted, and his proud stance wilted. “Mia, I can’t do that. You know I believe regenesis is fool’s gold. Whatever it is that wakes up in a new body will not be me. I don’t believe our souls can cross back over the threshold. I just don’t.”
“If it means you die when you don’t have to, then screw your beliefs.”
He swallowed heavily, his Adam’s Apple bobbing against his throat. “You don’t mean that.”
“What if I do? You broke my heart, dammit! You broke my world. You broke me—and there’s no unbreaking any of it now.” A slippery, metallic taste filled her mouth, and she wiped blood off her lips. “Leave.”
“No. Please, ask anything else of me. Anything.”
“There is nothing else. Leave!”
He laughed bitterly. “Do you remember the last time we had a relationship-ending fight and you ordered me to leave? I obeyed you, like a good boy. Then I came groveling back, hat in hand, begging for your forgiveness. Is that what you want? Do you want me to crawl? Fine.”
He dropped to the floor. “I’m on my knees, begging you.”
Her eyes widened in horror and she spun away, unable to bring herself to look upon him in such a state. “Get up.”
“I beg you, come home with me. We can work through this and start again.”
“Get up—!” Tears and blood choked off the rest.
In her peripheral vision, his shoulders slumped. He dragged one foot up, then the other, and trudged to his feet. “I don’t know what else to do.”
She forced herself to face him. One last time. “There’s nothing else for you to do. Go to the Presidio. Resume your post. Fight some Rasu. Try not to die. But I can’t count on it any longer. I have to move on, before you kill me, too.”
“I love you.”
“I know you do. Leave.”
He gestured to the bodies on the floor. “What if more of these goons show up? I won’t abandon you while you’re defenseless.”
“I’m not defenseless. I killed one of them myself.”
“And the second one would have killed you.”
“Only for a little while. Unlike you, I’d come back.”
He ignored the dig. “I’d greatly prefer we not test that theory.”
She wracked her brain, desperate to find a way to force him out the door and down the street and a few parsecs away. Quickly, before the last threads of her sanity unraveled. “I commed the police as soon as these guys broke in. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Good.”
“No, not good. When they see you here with me, they’ll soon figure out who I am, at which point I’ll be the one getting arrested. Do you want that to happen?”
He frowned. “No, of course not.”
“Then leave before they arrive.”
“But—”
“You need to get out of here.”
He looked at the bodies again, then at her. Finally, a deep sigh of resignation escaped his lips. “Okay. I’ll go—for now.” He reached out for her, holding his palm open, surely realizing she didn’t dare take it. “But this is not over. I am not giving up on us. You may have, but I won’t. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
Her words were all dried up, so she simply stared at him until he turned and walked dejectedly out the door.
Goodbye, Malcolm.
She collapsed against the counter. Her head was on fire, despite Meno’s best efforts at pain mitigation. She couldn’t breathe through her nose. Her face and hands were covered in blood. Every breath hurt, presumably because her ribs were cracked from the counter collision.
She wanted so badly to run after him, but down that path waited only more pain. She wanted to sink to the floor and cry forever, but she was spent. She had no more tears left to shed. No more strength left to fight.
She’d made a right proper disaster out of her life, hadn’t she? And in record time, no less.
Grief makes people crazy. But now, no matter what else you are feeling, you’re not grieving any longer.
Because he was alive. Intellectually, she’d known this for a while, but seeing him, touching him, hearing his voice? He was alive.
But him being dead had gone beyond destroying her. It had exposed the ugly reality that her own life, her own sense of worth, had become all tangled up in him. In them as an entity. And in the messy aftermath, she couldn’t recall who she’d been and had no idea who she might be now.
She peered hazily around at the gruesome scene decorating her little shop. What was she doing here? Why had she ever thought returning to the start of the loop was the way forward?
She went into the lavatory and washed her hands and arms and splashed water on her face. Her cybernetics had staunched the bleeding, but her nose and the skin under her eyes were bruised and swollen.
Laisha Balente had never truly existed, and it was a simple matter to let the persona fall away. She grabbed a bag and stuffed the few things that held any value to her in it. Meno’s hardware was stashed in a secure location, but she’d have to leave everything in the apartment behind; odds were high that Vilane’s men were already ransacking it.
Vilane hadn’t sent his thugs here to kill her—he’d sent them to kidnap her. He understood full well the way Prevos worked; they were difficult to kill, but not impossible. He’d likely intended to pump her full of chimerals and coerce her into revealing the location of Meno’s hardware, then destroy it all. Then he’d kill her, properly so. And despite her bravado-laced retort to him yesterday, she lacked the means to properly kill him, which meant she had to run. Again.
She’d lied to Malcolm about comming the police, but even in The Approach the commotion would have attracted attention. Someone would show up soon, so she needed to move fast. She situated the bag on her shoulder and started to depart out the front door. But there was at least a seventy-five percent chance that Malcolm had stuck around to watch and make certain no reinforcements arrived to finish the job. She pivoted, picked her way past the bodies and the mess, and slipped out the rear door.
As she wound through the alley network to the next cross-street, she sent Morgan a pulse.
Why did you tell Malcolm where I was? You knew I wanted to be left alone.
Because you have no idea the magnitude of the gift the universe has given you. Don’t fuck it up.
Too late for that…her steps slowed, and she peered down the alley toward the street. She hadn’t meant what she’d said about his faith. It was quite possibly the cruelest thing she’d ever said to him, or anyone for that matter, and her c
onscience was going to have a field day with the guilt. In her heart of hearts, she hadn’t meant most of what she’d said. But she’d needed to force him to leave before she begged him to stay.
Losing him had fractured everything she was, everything she’d become. In its wake she’d somehow reverted to an old version of herself, and the worst habits she’d thought long banished had returned to drive her actions.
She’d run, just like before, but running had never solved anything. History seemed determined to rhyme, but she couldn’t allow it to repeat itself.
The memory of his lips on hers flared in her mind unbidden. Warmth surged through her chest, and she wanted with every fiber of her being to spin around and run back into his arms. But she refused to do it. Not yet.
She needed to remember—to relearn—who she was without him first. She needed to stand strong on her own and reclaim her life and her sense of self. Then…maybe. She suddenly realized how much she hoped he meant what he’d said about not giving up on them. How horribly selfish of her, but it was a chance she had to take.
She turned left and exited onto the street, merging in with the light foot traffic headed toward the nearest levtram station. As she did, she sent another pulse.
Caleb, tell Richard I’ll take the deal.
33
* * *
CONCORD HQ
Consulate
Marlee’s feet were kicked up on her small desk, ankles crossed, and she had three aurals arrayed in front of her. The leftmost one contained a breakdown of the number and categorization of the Godjan refugees brought to Concord soil so far, and the other two set out provisional plans for their care and resettlement. Mia had drafted high-level guidelines before vanishing, but now someone had to work out the details of implementing those guidelines on the ground. It was one task Marlee didn’t mind undertaking, though.
She had felt terrible about leaving Vaihe alone while she was trapped on Namino, but wow, had the Godjan girl stepped up! The initiative Vaihe had displayed in coming to Mia and devising her own plan for evacuating her fellow Godjans was impressive. Marlee would like to take credit for seeing a spark of moxie in Vaihe from the beginning, but the truth was, she’d simply wanted to save an abused girl from the vile Savrakaths.
Now she wished she could thank Mia personally for taking such tremendous steps to help Vaihe—to help all the Godjans—but Mia remained out of her reach. She set a reminder in her eVi to go visit Vaihe at the refugee camp as soon as she climbed out from under the mountain of work that had greeted her on her return to the office.
A polite throat-clearing drew her attention to the open door of her office. Dean Veshnael stood there looking refreshed and serene, as always. She dropped her feet to the floor and sat up straighter, as was only polite. “Yes, sir?”
He carried a small quantum cube suspended in a translucent, sealed box in both hands. “I have several files that need to be delivered to the Asterion Dominion Advisor Committee. Officially, with proper sign-off and transfer notation. I wondered if you might want to deliver them for me.”
She regarded him curiously. “I thought you said when it came to the Asterions, you wanted to be the public face of the Consulate for a while.”
“I did, and it would be my preference. But the addition of running the Consulate to a plate already brimming with running the Novoloume government and seeing to my duties as a Concord Senator is not leaving many free hours in my days to indulge in preferences.”
“I understand.” She stood and accepted the box from him. “I’ll be happy to deliver this for you.”
“Thank you, Ms. Marano.”
When he’d departed, she consciously resisted the urge to sprint off for the Dominion straightaway. Instead, she sat back down and spent ten minutes preparing her recommendations regarding the Godjan resettlement plans, including rolling out temporary credit accounts to the refugees. The move to a new planet filled with strange aliens was going to be overwhelming enough for them without the pressure to immediately obtain jobs in a society they did not yet understand. If everything went well, self-sufficiency would come in time.
Satisfied, she sent off the recommendations, then grabbed her jacket and hustled over to Special Projects, followed by the Caeles Prism Hub.
NAMINO
Asterion Dominion
Gennisi Galaxy
Marlee picked her way down the broken remains of a deserted street. Around a fifth of the buildings remained standing in the Namino One suburb, but ubiquitous debris had coated everything with dust, soot and random gunk. The air was hot and dry; she knew this region of Namino was generally arid, but in the aftermath of the Rasu destruction, it felt like the desert.
Other than DAF soldiers acting as guards, she’d passed no more than half a dozen Asterions and two Taiyoks on her journey. Given that the Dominion remained under active attack by the Rasu, reconstruction efforts hadn’t begun here. Between the utter lack of people, the wreckage everywhere and the hot, dusty air, she might as well be trekking through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. All she needed now was a set of chrome spiked shoulder guards, and the illusion would be complete.
Ahead, an etched sign proclaiming the location of ‘Mesahle Flight’ hung scorched and crooked above a half-broken gate. She stopped in front of it, but could find no working buzzer to announce her presence. After considering her options, she shimmied through the torn gap in the gate.
A one-story building that could be a house or an office sat off to the left, but she continued on to a large open space behind the structure. Several rows of damaged scaffolding were suspended in tatters overhead, while dozens of large crates had been overturned and their contents spilt across a concrete flooring.
Grant Mesahle sat on a cleared-out spot of concrete, surrounded by multiple open boxes and neat stacks of equipment. He was glaring at a large, boxy module he held in one hand. A long crack ran down one side of it, and cable wraps dangled beneath it.
She hadn’t quite managed to craft an appropriate salutation when he spotted her. He quickly set the module aside and climbed to his feet. “Marlee! This is a pleasant surprise. How did you know where I was?”
She shrugged mildly. “I broke into a few databases. Rooted around in some classified files and studied surveillance footage.”
“Seriously?”
“No. I had to drop off a set of Consulate documentation with Nika at the Initiative. She told me where you’d be.”
“Oh. Of course she did.” He huffed a wry chuckle and gestured grandly around him. “Welcome to what’s left of my home and business. Did you come out here all alone? I know DAF says they’ve wiped the last of the Rasu out, but I’m jumping at shadows every time I turn a corner. There could still be stragglers hiding out.”
“That’s why I brought this with me.” She wiggled the Rectifier out of its makeshift holster and waved it toward the street, then returned it to the holster.
“Is that one of the new negative energy handguns? How did you get one of those?”
“There are perks to my aunt being the head of Concord Command.”
“Ah. I imagine there are.” He glanced around. “I’d offer you a chair, but I don’t think any survived. What brings you here today?”
“I wanted to see how Namino looked with the Rasu gone.”
“And?”
She winced. “Truthfully? It looks like a shithole. What a disaster.”
“Right? They wrecked this place good and proper. Not only my place, obviously—the whole city. Half the planet.”
“They really did. Are you planning to try to keep living here?”
“Nah. I rented a place on Mirai for the time being. One day we’ll rebuild, better than before. But right now, all those resources are tied up in making ships and weapons and planetary defenses. So I thought I’d see what was salvageable and clean the place up a bit. Until I can come back for good.”
“You like it here.”
“Namino’s been my home for…a long time.”
She worked to make her demeanor light, bordering on teasing. “Still aren’t going to tell me how old you are, huh?”
Grant winced, letting his gaze drift up to the scaffolding overhead. “It’s nothing personal, I promise. It’s just…an Asterion thing. Age is not a straightforward concept for us.”
“Because of your up-gens?”
“Up-gens are merely tweaks. But sometimes people start over completely. New personality, new skills and no personal memories. We call it an ‘R&R’: retirement and reinitialization.”
“Oh.” She’d need to ponder this tidbit later and figure out how it fit into the Asterion mystique. “Fair warning—‘R&R’ means something rather different to humans, so you might get a strange look if it comes up in conversation. Have you ever…retired and been reinitialized?”
“No, I haven’t. I’m stubborn that way, I guess.”
Which meant for him, age was a straightforward concept. But she didn’t push the issue any further. Ultimately, it didn’t matter how old he was. While she measured her age in decades, he measured his in millennia.
“Okay. I’ll accept defeat.” She kicked at some dirt gathered on the concrete. Gosh, he was cute…but ‘they’ were never going to happen, and his heart-fluttering attractiveness wasn’t why she’d ventured out here today. Suck it up, Marlee, and do what you came here to do.
“Listen, I want to apologize for the things I said to you back at Camp Burrow. I was going to just send you a message, but then I realized that the adult thing to do would be to tell you in person. So here goes: I was rude and childish and…mostly, I was wrong. You’re not a coward. You’re brave and heroic and kind, and you looked after me even when I acted like a bitch to you. So, I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me, but I’ll understand if you don’t.”
Grant stared at her strangely; his lips quirked as if he was about to smile, but he pulled it back. Tilted his head and stared some more. “Apology accepted, but no harm done. Tensions were strained as fuck in that bunker, and no one was the best version of themselves, including me. Under the circumstances, you were great.”
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