“I can give you money, if that’s what you want. We don’t have to do this.”
“Darling, I’m rich enough already,” she laughed. “I have private planes and three different penthouses. What do you think you could possibly give me that I couldn’t buy myself?” She came to stand in front of him wearing a bright pink midriff gown he suspected she’d chosen for the way it showcased her cleavage. In her hair, much to Daxton’s chagrin, sat a tiara—an engagement gift from his mother.
Her gloved fingers adjusted his bowtie. To the guests, it appeared a loving gesture, but to Daxton, it turned his guts. “What I don’t have,” Cerise continued, “is a throne.”
She curtsied suddenly, and Daxton knew his father now stood behind him. Cademore and Gifford saluted in unison, sinking into immaculate bows.
“Still no sign of Doyle? He’s supposed to give the first address,” the Grand Imperator growled. Daxton opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment, but stopped short after seeing the ferocious look in his father’s eyes. Now was not the time for snark.
His father stepped forward to a beautifully crafted glass podium. Below the balcony, the swirling skirts of gowned dancers came to a halt as the string orchestra ceased playing. The Imperator raised his hands and a hundred camera flashes made Daxton’s eyes sting. The yellow spheres came to life, whirring and clicking to catch every syllable. Even the Sec-Bots stilled.
“My beloved citizens and honored guests of the Atlas station, tonight is a very special evening. Not only is it the anniversary of peace between the six remaining continents, but it is also a celebration of the future of the First World Union. My son, much to my delight, has decided to make an exciting announcement.”
He droned on about how marriage was a great symbol of the ultimate alliance, and Daxton found himself searching the crowd for Tesla’s frosty hair, unsure whether the sight of her face would comfort him or make him feel even worse about what he was about to do.
Except he couldn’t find her anywhere.
“If you’re looking for your little Gulch tramp, she won’t be spoiling this evening,” Cerise muttered through a brilliantly white smile. Her hand lifted daintily as she waved to the crowds below.
The blood left Daxton’s face. “What have you done?”
“I merely wanted to know more about my competition. Were you aware that she’s the daughter of a convicted traitor? Apparently right before they shot him, she was actually a pilot trainee on this starforsaken heap of scrap. What a pity.”
“You’re lying.”
Cerise’s perfectly shaped brow rose in amusement. “Am I?”
Daxton stepped backward and scanned the girl’s face, but she seemed confident. Too confident. It can’t be true. Tesla had said she’d left the academy because of family issues. He didn’t want to believe she’d lie about something so incriminating. Cerise was a snake, ready to say anything that would get her what she wanted. But still... Tesla had never talked about her past. And where was she now? He wanted to speak to her, to hear the truth from her own lips rather than Cerise’s venomous mouth.
“What have you done with her?” he demanded.
“I didn’t do anything,” Cerise said, feigning a hurt look. “I simply passed along the information to your uncle, who seemed very concerned. Honestly, Tomasz, how did you think it would look for the royal family if it got out that you were sleeping with a traitor’s daughter?”
“Tell me where Tesla is right now, or our deal is off.”
Cerise batted her thick lashes. “She was arrested, of course. I had her room searched earlier today. She was hiding a pistol, Daxton. For all we know, that gutter rat could be a traitor just like her father. Honestly, you should be thanking me for saving your reputation.”
Tesla had a gun? The lights of the ballroom flickered, and he felt as though the walls were closing in. There has to be an explanation. But how could she justify hiding a weapon in her apartment? The same apartment he’d been stupid enough to enter without any sort of protection. He looked back toward his uncle, but Kyrartine stood rigid watching the power fade in and out, his body now tense and alert.
A thunder filled the ballroom before Daxton could ask about Tesla, and for a moment, Daxton thought it was the sound of explosions, but it was just the roar of the crowd’s applause as the Grand Imperator’s speech concluded. His father turned away from the crowd, the smile leaving his face as he said, “Announce it now, or so help me, I’ll make you marry her tonight.”
The room was a swirl of color. Tesla had lied. Daxton’s mouth felt dry and gritty. Cerise gave a soft sigh of frustration and shoved him toward the glass podium and its row of microphones.
The spheres swarmed toward him.
Tesla's sides ached from running. She felt the hum of energy sputter through the Atlas once more, ebbing and flowing with a pulsing of the lights, as if the heartbeat of the station had skipped a beat.
“What is that?” Jasmeen asked from behind her.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. They ran faster, ducking and turning through maintenance hatchways. There was no telling what orders Kyrartine had given security forces. They’d have to stick to the service corridors as much as possible, until they could chance getting to the lift without being seen.
Sav and Blitz half-carried, half-dragged Freiter’s unconscious body between them. The boy’s head bounced to the rhythm of their footsteps and, despite Sav’s prognosis, Tesla feared he might actually be dead.
They rounded a corner to find two Sec-Bots blocking their path. Jasmeen collided with Tesla’s back, but quickly righted herself, dropping into a defensive crouch. “Out of the way by order of His Royal Highness!” she commanded.
The optical units of each robot scanned their faces with the same green grid as before. “Icarus Protocol,” they recited, raising a pair of rifles. Jasmeen reacted without hestitation, pulling Tesla back around the corner and out of sight. Blitz and Sav stopped short just behind them.
“Those things are going to kill us!” Jasmeen screamed. “Blitz? What’s going on with the Sec-Bots?”
The boy retrieved his HDP from a pocket inside his tuxedo jacket. A few keystrokes later he shouted, “This code is unlike anything I’ve ever seen! Something is controlling the Sec-Bots, but I can’t tell what it is. Their security and protection protocols have been erased, and they’ve been given a new system priority.”
“Which is?”
Blitz’s fingers stilled on the keypad. “To execute everyone on board.”
Tesla’s knees felt unsteady. This has to be a nightmare. This can’t be happening. “There are over ten thousand people living on this station,” she said. “Kyrartine is going to wipe out the entire station.”
“Like hell!” cried Jasmeen. She jumped around the corner, one foot connecting with the corridor wall, and used the momentum to hurl herself at the nearest Sec-Bot. A quick slice of her daggers cut the power cord of its synthetic neck, and the android collapsed into a heap of sparks. Tesla took advantage of the distraction and followed, ripping a nearby fire extinguisher from the wall, crashing it down on the second Sec-Bot’s head. The robot’s optical unit shattered, and it joined its partner on the floor.
As Tesla knelt down to collect the two rifles, a small, square object peeked out from the head unit of the nearest robot, shimmering like oil on water. A data chip? She quickly tossed Jasmeen a rifle, while handing the strange circuitry to Blitz. “Can you find out more about what’s wrong with these things?”
“I can try, but these things were built by the Collux Corporation. Modifying the Sec-Bot protocol for the facial recognition was challenging enough; extracting even the smallest bit of data is impossible without the source code.”
“We’ll have to figure that out later,” said Jasmeen, urging them all forward. “Right now we need to find Daxton.”
They ran through the winding corridors until they came out at the service entrance to a set of sterile rooms marked BIODIVERSITY LAB. Sketches of plant
genetics displayed on holovision screens jutting out from the walls, and a series of wheatgrass clusters in small glass orbs hung suspended from the ceiling.
An eerie, metallic tapping came from a hallway to their left, and Tesla pushed the others into the shadows of a research cubicle. A team of Sec-Bots appeared, but unlike the androids they had just disabled, these were grotesque and twisted—six metallic legs unfurled from their spherical base, turning them into spidery nightmares.
Their heads swiveled completely around to look directly at the cubicle, but they soon skittered away.
“Why didn’t those things come charging down the hall at us? We haven’t exactly been stealthy so far,” Jasmeen whispered.
Ten feet away, another patrol of Sec-Bots crawled through a small area of stark-white desks, in the direction of Level Three’s common areas.
“I was wondering the same thing,” Blitz panted as he and Sav dropped Freiter into a lab chair. “I expected their deathbot protocol to activate the minute they heard us running toward them.”
Tesla watched the group of Sec-Bots pass a lifelike mannequin displaying a new prototype of hydro-gloves used for farming. The robots never even bothered to scan its face. As they neared a desktop heater warming a nearby tray of new buds, she saw a Sec-Bot apply the grid, looking to identify any signs of life. They paused only a moment before moving on.
“Heat signatures,” she realized aloud. “The station is cold, so they must be programmed to identify targets by body temperature.”
“How—much—farther?” Sav said, catching his breath. His eyes were red from the strain of carrying Freiter’s weight.
The lift was just beyond the common area outside the lab. From behind the cubicle wall, Tesla couldn’t tell if more robots waited out of sight. “Once those Sec-Bots are far enough away, we make a run for it. It’s maybe two hundred yards. I’ll go first and Jasmeen will cover.”
Sav nodded, and they prepared to move. Tesla bolted from the wall, only to be dragged back down by the back of her gown.
“We have company,” Jasmeen hissed.
Tesla dared a quick look past the corner. Naamah and two other women she didn’t recognize entered through the lab’s main entrance. They began riffling through the papers and equipment, opening drawers and cabinets, no doubt looking to scavenge anything of value.
Blitz shifted to get a look at the source of the noise. His eyes widened and he nudged Jasmeen, inclining his head toward the looters. “That’s the woman who beat up Tesla. I recognize her from the video with Doyle.”
“Yosef’s goon?” Jasmeen turned to Tesla. “I thought you said no one from the Gulch could come up through the deimark without credentials.”
“They can’t. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
Tesla listened to the station’s erratic heartbeat. “Unless whatever is using all this energy diverted power from the deimark.” She turned back around to see if Naamah had gone just as a hand closed around her hair, yanking her upward to stare into a pair of cruel, black eyes.
“What do we have here?” cackled Naamah to her crewmates. “Looks like I’ve caught myself a ghost.”
THIRTY-SIX
NAAMAH'S CREWMATE LUNGED for Jasmeen. The first, a fat woman with yellow-tipped hair, wrenched the rifle from the girl’s hands, but Jasmeen was ready to retaliate by jutting her palm upward to send Yellow Hair’s nose through her brain. Tesla looked away as blood sprayed across Jasmeen’s face. The woman toppled to her knees, convulsed once, and died.
The second woman wore grapple-blades on her fingertips. The sharp, steel claws swiped Jasmeen across the cheek, leaving deep gashes near the girl’s hairline. Jasmeen howled in pain and the woman took the opportunity to grab her by the throat.
“Leave her alone!” Tesla screamed as she felt her hair being pulled even tighter. Her foot lashed out, but Naamah took no notice.
Sav tensed as if to tackle Naamah, but the woman raised a pistol against Tesla’s temple. “Bad move,” she said with a click of her tongue. “But I am surprised to see that little ghost has friends now.” Sav swore and stood back, his body shielding Freiter and Blitz.
“You have to let us go,” Jasmeen croaked through Claw Hand’s grip. “The station is in danger.”
Naamah threw her head back and laughed. “You mean the psycho Sec-Bots killing everyone downstairs? I’m well aware of what’s going on. It’s a little brazen for my taste, but I didn’t mind taking down a few richies on my way up here.” She traced the pistol along Tesla’s jawline. “Although I admit that this is quite a treat.”
“The Sec-Bots aren’t going to just kill richies,” Tesla pleaded. “People are in their homes for curfew—they’ll be trapped. We both know this is going to be a slaughter.”
“And this concerns me, why? We’ve been slaves, living off the scraps from their garbage for generations. It’s time things changed. The Gulch was winning the fight, last time I looked. That’s the thing about caged animals, little ghost: we may look like we’ve been tamed, but what we’re really doing is sharpening our claws.”
As if to demonstrate, the grapple-blades around Jasmeen’s neck tightened. Tesla could see the droplets of blood trickling down her tanned skin.
“This won’t go the way you want it,” she insisted. “The Atlas will fall.”
Naamah stuck the barrel of the gun in Tesla’s mouth. “The deimark is down, you stupid girl. The Atlas has already fallen.”
Tesla tried to jerk her head away from the barrel, its coppery tang stinging her nose and mouth. She could taste the acrid powder left on the muzzle from Naamah’s deadly journey through the station, and she looked away, preparing for the worst.
Naamah roared, striking Tesla with the hilt of the weapon. “I want you to watch me when I kill you,” the woman snarled. “I want to see the moment you realize I've won.”
Tesla saw the woman’s fingers flex against the trigger, just as a sharp, piercing alarm blared through Level Three. An emergency message began broadcasting from a holovision against the far wall, breaking Naamah’s concentration for a second—but it was all the time Tesla needed. She went limp, falling out from Naamah’s grip, then kicked out with her leg, knocking the thug to the floor. Feet away, Jasmeen head-butted Claw Hand in the chin, sending the woman staggering. Sav was ready. With a rifle now in hand, he put a single bullet into each woman’s skull.
“You could have been faster,” Jasmeen muttered to Blitz.
“Next time you can try hacking into a carbon monoxide monitoring system on the Titan Network through a tiny cufflink, all while trying not to have some crazy gang member shoot your brains out.” He smoothed down his tuxedo jacket. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“I don’t recall thanking you.”
“I just assumed it was implied, since I saved your neck quite literally.”
Jasmeen rolled her eyes, but helped Sav and Blitz lift Freiter from the chair. Tesla nearly gagged as she stepped over Naamah’s dead body on her way toward the exit, her insides curling at the sickening hole in the woman’s temple.
“I had to,” Sav said quietly upon seeing the look on her face. “They would have just kept killing more people if I didn’t.”
Tesla nodded, but she still felt a weakness in her arms as she cracked the lab’s main door open. Ahead, the common area sat bathed in a strange orange light as the alarms continued. Screams filled the air, whether from panic or Sec-Bot attacks—or both—Tesla didn’t know. She only hoped Blitz’s alarm would give the people enough time to defend themselves.
A lone Sec-Bot rolled after a young girl in green farming overalls, barely older than Ren and Ming. “Give me the second rifle,” Jasmeen said. But before she could take aim, the Sec-Bot snatched the girl, tearing her apart in a single, swift motion.
Tesla looked away, tried to block out the girl’s horrific screams as she turned back to the others. “We’re never going to make it through the common area alive.”
“We need to get to t
he royal family immediately,” said Jasmeen. “How else can we make it to the ballroom?” She lowered the rifle, accidentally brushing its hot muzzle against Tesla’s gown. The fabric curled and turned black.
Tesla looked down at the burnt hole in her dress. Heat, she realized with a surge of adrenaline. The Sec-Bots were looking for heat against a backdrop of the cold space station. “The hydroponic gardens!” she said in a rush. “After second shift, the gardens are flooded with UV light and the temperature is raised to accommodate the modified growth phases. It has to be at least a hundred degrees in there. Even if there’s an entire squad of Sec-Bots filling the space, they won’t be able to distinguish our signature from the ambient temperature.”
Freiter mumbled incoherently, his eyes glassy and distant. Sav’s expression became a mix of worry and determination. “What about medical supplies? I checked this lab already but came up empty, and I need to clean his leg as soon as possible.”
“Every workstation is equipped with a minimal first aid kit, including the gardens, but it won’t be much.”
Sav adjusted Freiter’s weight and handed the other rifle back to Tesla. “I’ll make it work for now. Can we get there from here?”
Jasmeen scanned the holovision for the emergency evacuation route. “It looks like this lab is connected with the hydroponic areas through a hallway over there,” she said, pointing to the far end of the room. “If we make it through the garden labs, we’ll come out near a stairway leading up to the ballroom.” She pointed toward a door marked: ACCESS LIMITED. “It’s that way.”
Tesla went first. The first door opened into a uniform station. Along each wall, plastic hair covers and green aprons hung from rows of hooks. In the center of the room’s tiled floor was a single drain used in the event of a decontamination shower. Jasmeen followed closely behind, checking for any signs of a possible ambush. As they pulled up next to the doors leading to the gardens, Tesla could feel a wave of heat warm her face.
Jasmeen looked through a small window in the door, holding up five fingers. Five Sec-Bots inside. “Sav, take Freiter and Blitz around the edge of the garden toward the medical supplies,” she said, her voice barely over a whisper. “According to the diagram, there’s a small door on the left side of the room that leads to another lab area where you should find them. Stay put until I can come back and get you.”
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