“But you’re beginning to.” She’s excited again.
“I guess.”
Kamali’s still ignoring me. She hasn’t said anything about the things I’ve revealed. The med bot completes its exam and drifts back to its spot in the wall. These med bays are even stranger than I thought—what looked like glass windows from the outside are actually mirrors on the inside. One-way mirrors. For observation. Creepy.
Lenora spends a moment communing with the med bot. “Well, that’s a relief,” she says out loud to the room. “Apparently, Marcus and his impatience to have you express your ability didn’t leave any permanent damage.”
I nod and shift in the bed. It’s obviously built for humans, and the room has a dresser and a door in back that appears to lead to a bathroom. It finally occurs to me how very strange it is to have a human-centric facility in the middle of New Portland.
I narrow my eyes at Lenora. “What is this place?”
She glances at Kamali, who looks up, expectant. Lenora turns back to me. “It’s where you were… conceived.”
My heart lurches. This is the place. Where my mom went, full of faith and belief in Augustus and his program to create a bridge to God, and let him implant something non-human in her. Me.
As well as all the other experiments. The ones who didn’t live.
I quickly climb out of the bed, thoroughly freaked. I nearly go down because my legs are not quite ready for running away from this place. Which is what I instinctively want to do. I grab onto the head of the bed to keep myself upright.
“Okay,” I say, my chest tight with the turmoil of this knowledge. “Let’s talk about how you’re going to get my mother free from the bastard ascender who’s holding her prisoner,” I say to Lenora. “Because you owe her.”
She looks like she wants to object, but she’s holding back.
“Your father wants you.” Kamali’s voice is very soft, but it rivets both me and Lenora. “So you do for your mom what you did for me. And Lenora. You make a trade.”
I nod, but my eyebrows are hiking up to the top of my head. I’m just flat surprised she’s suggesting it.
“You can’t—” Lenora protests, but I cut her off with a raised finger.
“Me for everyone else,” I say to Kamali. “Same deal as before.”
Kamali’s steady gaze is holding mine. “Only you can’t let him have you, Eli. Not with what you can do. It’s too important.”
“Yes, right,” Lenora gushes out. “It’s too important. You’re too important. Listen to her.”
“You need a way to trick him,” Kamali says, voice still ice-cool. “Have him release everyone first, but somehow you can still get away.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say with a small smile. “Any idea how to do that?”
Kamali shrugs.
But she’s got the right idea. It’s a start.
“No!” The color display on Lenora’s skin is working into a frenzy. “This is a very bad idea—it’s far too risky.”
“Do you have a better one?” I ask sharply. “Because I’m all ears.”
She flutters her eyelids, which makes me instantly suspicious. Is she in contact with Orion? I thought she couldn’t contact them, not without giving away the Resistance. But I know, up close and personal, how immense Orion is—maybe she can dip into it without being tracked. I still don’t like it.
Lenora’s eyes flick open. “We need to move.”
My heart skips a beat. “What’s wrong?”
“Can you walk?” she demands.
“Yes.”
She holds out a hand to me. “We have to hurry, Eli. Please, just trust me.”
I ignore the hand. “Lead the way.”
She grimaces but turns to stride out of the med bay. Kamali and I hurry after her—well, Kamali hurries in that smooth, graceful manner she always has. I’m lurching like one leg’s shorter than the other.
“What’s happening?” I ask Lenora, half-jogging to keep up. I’m watching where every footfall lands, just in case my body decides to collapse under me.
“Your father—” She throws an apologetic look to me. “Augustus has triggered a low-level protocol to activate a city-wide lockdown. He’s registered a claim that dissenters have slipped past the patrols at the perimeter and stolen one of his transports—one with cloaking technology classified as dangerous in human hands. That’s not something that would raise alarms in Orion—incursions are relatively common, and not any kind of threat—but it automatically activates a city-wide shield to keep the dissenters from leaving.”
“You mean to keep us from leaving,” Kamali says, keeping pace far more easily than I am.
“Yes. The shield deactivates the cloak of any ship flying through it—nothing can go in or out without being stopped by the police bots patrolling the perimeter. We would be asked for identification, which of course we can’t provide. I’m sure Augustus’s sentries are conducting a land-based search for us as well.”
“Then where are we going?” I ask, a little breathless.
“To someone I know inside the city who might be friendly toward us. Even better, he might have a way out without detection.”
“Is this someone we can trust?” I ask, noting the irony that I’m not entirely sure I trust Lenora.
“I’m not sure.”
Great.
The transport shimmers into existence a dozen feet in front of us.
“He was part of the group who conducted the original experiments,” she says. “But then there was a… disagreement. He left shortly after the last batch—you—had gestated. But while he was with us, he routed human-centric supplies into and out of the city without going through normal channels.”
“A black market ascender?” I ask, a laugh in my voice. “Why does this actually surprise me?”
She scowls at me and waves us into the transport. “Human augmentation has been off-limits ever since the legacy cities were formed—and not just for the legacies themselves.” Lenora follows us in and waves the door shut behind us. “There are strict controls on experimentation, especially neural enhancement. And doubly so for the kind of experiments we were doing.”
I scowl right back. “Because you were killing lots of human babies?” I don’t bother keeping the bitterness out of my voice. Kamali and I work our way into our seats.
Lenora pauses at the cockpit entrance. “Because we might succeed.” Then she disappears.
I’m barely webbed into my seat when the ship lurches into the air. I hold on tight, but my mind is furiously chewing on Lenora’s words: because we might succeed. What would ascenders have to fear from human augmentation? They’re already so far ahead of us in every way. That’s blowing my mind, and the ship is bucking substantially, so I don’t notice that Kamali has managed to scoot her seat over near me until we tip sideways, and her shoulder mashes against mine. I raise my hand to brace her, but hers darts over to hold it.
I stare at our clasped hands for a moment, then drag my gaze up.
Her big brown eyes are wide and solemn. “We have to talk,” she says over the creaks of the ship and its maneuvering. “Before she comes back.”
“Okay.” I’m not objecting in any way—to the handholding or the talking—but I’m a bit lost as to what exactly she wants to discuss. The fact that we’re on the run? Or that Lenora’s basically kidnaped us? Or that I need to trade myself, again, to save the people I care about?
“Can you talk to God, Eli?”
“Um… what?”
But the look on her face is dead serious. “I just need to know.”
“No.” I shake my head in small motions, like of course I don’t talk to God. And I wonder if she thinks I’m entirely crazy after all. “The fugue isn’t anything like that.” Not that I really understand it, but it’s not what she’s thinking: no angels or Man in the Sky stuff.
She frowns, and I almost think she’s disappointed.
“You know I’m this crazy genetic experiment, right?” I a
sk. “I mean, I probably don’t even have a soul. Or maybe half of one, from my mom’s side, if anything. I’m the last person any god would talk to.”
Her eyes go wide, and she pulls back from me. I’m afraid I’ve said something wrong, but then she squeezes my hand and pulls me close again. We’re held in our chairs by the webbing, but we’re as close as we can get otherwise: shoulder to shoulder, near enough to kiss.
She drops her voice to a whisper. “You didn’t choose to be this, Eli.”
I nod, but there’s a fury on her face that keeps me quiet.
“And if there’s anyone I’ve ever met who I’m certain has a soul… it’s you.”
I have no idea what to say to that.
She peers into my eyes, and I wonder if she’s searching for it—as if she can see my soul through the black of my irises if she looks hard enough. Then she drops her gaze to our clasped hands and grimaces. A bump in the flight jostles us, but it’s relatively calm now compared to before.
“Delphina believes the ascenders may have souls or they may not, but that we can’t really know—and besides, we need their help with the Resistance.” She looks up and captures me again with her intense stare. “I believe God is infinitely good. And infinitely forgiving. But all along, I’ve thought there was no way the ascenders could have souls because they’d done something unforgivable. Something so terrible, in messing with God’s gift to them, that they must have lost their souls in the process. But you…” She scans my eyes again. “You’re like one of them, only you’re not. And you didn’t choose this, it was chosen for you. I just…” She drops her gaze again.
I don’t understand the turmoil on her face, but I can’t stand it, either. “It’s okay,” I say, peering at her ducked face. “I’m pretty sure nearly all of the ascenders are heartless bastards. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they didn’t have souls.”
She smiles, a little, but then shakes her head. “I’m just realizing that…” She looks up. “That my imagination is insignificantly small. And God is immeasurably large.”
“I don’t think there’s anything about you that’s insignificant.” I realize how ridiculous that must sound. I scramble for something to say to make it better, but her broad smile, up close like this, banishes any other thoughts I have.
Then her smile dims a little. “It’s okay that I’m insignificant, especially compared to God. I have faith, and that’s all I need. Maybe that’s all ascenders need, too. I don’t know, but I’m not like those believers in the cult.” She’s peering into my eyes again. “I hope you know believers aren’t all like that. We’re not all crazy.”
“I never thought that for a moment.”
A small smile is back. “No matter what I do, I know I’ll never be good enough for God. Never pure enough. But God doesn’t require me to walk a million steps toward purity because humans weren’t made to be pure. We were made to struggle. And believe. Do you know what the word believe means?”
I’m holding my breath. “No.” I think it means that you have no proof. Or you believe without seeing. But that’s really just circular logic, so… yeah, I have no idea.
“Believe means to love into being.” She smiles. “All God really requires of us is love. And the faith that God loves us in return. That’s all I have to offer, anyway.”
There’s something powerful about the shine in her eyes. “That seems like a pretty good deal, then.”
She smiles wide again, blasting me with the warmth of it.
The ship sways, rocking our seats slightly apart, then settles. We’ve landed. I don’t want to let go of her hand, but I have to—getting out of the webbing is a two-handed and ridiculously complicated job. I’m still at it when Lenora emerges from the cockpit.
“I’m fairly certain we weren’t detected,” she says, waiting for us to untangle from the seats. “Let’s hope we’re as lucky with Galenos.”
I frown up at her. “Is that the ascender we’re meeting?”
She nods.
“What happens if we’re not lucky?”
Lenora kneels down to work loose the last of my webbing. “If things start to go badly, you get back to the ship and get out. There’s an autopilot path I’ve programmed to take you to a safe house. I’ll hold him off as long as I can. If I have to resurrect, I’ll come find you.”
“Resurrect?” I ask skeptically. The last I heard, she didn’t have a backup—couldn’t have one, not with being in the Resistance. She barely made it back from the op, and only because we brought her with us, plus her internal storage thing had a glitch.
She ignores my question and stands up.
“Sounds like a fantastic plan.” I give Kamali a sideways look. This is sounding a lot less promising than I had hoped.
“Let’s go.” Lenora waves the door out of existence and strides across the threshold.
Lenora is in a staring contest with a sentry stationed in front of Galenos’s apartment door.
I think she’s transmitting something—either to the sentry or someone inside the apartment—but it’s going on way too long. It’s taking all my nerve to simply stand still a few feet behind her, next to Kamali. Our ship is cloaked, leaving the garage appearing empty except for a single transport roughly the same size as ours. My heart’s pounding, but at least the post-fugue tremors have calmed, and my limbs work properly again. In case we have to run. But if the sentry decides to attack Lenora, I can’t imagine we’ll make it back to our ship before it gets us, too.
Finally, the apartment door winks out of existence—and an ascender in a tall, lanky bodyform stands in the doorway. We must be cleared to proceed or something because Lenora strides toward the door a dozen feet behind the sentry. Kamali and I scramble to follow, giving wide berth to the motionless bot.
The ascender at the door is male, attractive like they all are, with fine features and a slim form that makes me think of a British aristocrat from the pre-Singularity times. He has locked gazes with Lenora, so I assume they’re transmitting something. Kamali and I catch up with her at the door, which is when we attract his attention.
“Galenos, please meet Eli and Kamali.” Lenora’s voice is stiff, and her coloring is a neutral gray. I get the feeling we’re not out of danger yet.
He peers around her to get a good look at us. A wry smile blossoms on his face. “You’ve discovered the delights of human companionship, then? I must say, you’re quite the last one I would have expected it from.”
I tense, because those sound like fighting words, even if his tone is light and teasing. But Lenora’s bodyform relaxes and color floods back across her skin.
“I have missed you, Galenos,” she says. “In spite of what the others might have said.”
He smirks. “Well, I haven’t missed you and your lot. Bunch of arrogant, deluded, miscreants, if I’ve ever seen any.”
I’m still uncertain whether we’re in the clear, but then Galenos holds up a hand, palm facing Lenora, and she steps forward to touch her hand to his. A brief flush of color travels back and forth between them.
His smile looks more genuine this time. “Where are my manners? Please, come in.” He includes Kamali and me in the sweep of his arm, welcoming us into his apartment. The inside is spacious, but it looks nothing like the ascender apartments I’ve seen before. The furniture is more abundant, the carpeting is normal not misty, there are shades on the windows, partially drawn to block the afternoon sun reflecting off the towers around us. At the far end is a room that looks suspiciously like a kitchen.
I exchange a look with Kamali, but she just shrugs.
Galenos joins us in the large receiving area, but his attention is all for Kamali. He strides up to her, sweeps her two hands into his, and rakes his gaze across her in a way that sets my hair on end. “Lenora, where did you find this exquisite creature?”
Kamali gives him a look like he’s crazy, and I’m about ready to shove him off, in spite of the fact that he’s an ascender, and I would get nowhere with that.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Galenos, don’t salivate over the girl.” The voice comes from behind us, and a woman strides out from the kitchen. She’s human… and my mother’s age, maybe a little older, with the same graceful beauty my mother had before the disease ravaged it.
“Just admiring the obvious, darling,” Galenos says, but he backs off, dropping Kamali’s hands.
Kamali wipes them on her toga, probably to remove the slime, but it reminds me how bedraggled we must look in reality. The togas over our tanktops and shorts have remained ascender-clean with their tech fabric, but we’ve gone a couple days without a decent amount of rest or food, not to mention showers.
The older woman approaches us, and she’s all smiles. “Welcome to our home. I apologize for my husband’s atrocious behavior. We don’t get out much or have visitors. My name is Celeste.” She extends a hand to each of us, which we shake. Awkwardly.
Galenos drifts toward the kitchen. “We were just in Paris yesterday, my love!” he calls out. “Or have you forgotten already?”
“Holo trips don’t count,” she calls back.
I’m not sure what to make of all this, but apparently, Galenos and Celeste are married—an old-fashioned pre-Singularity term that no one uses anymore. When people are in love now, they just take each other as seconds. It’s not really a formal or legal thing, it’s just something people do, pairing up for the long or short haul. For ascenders, it’s rarely permanent—forever is a long time to spend with one person—but for legacies, it could be for life. Or just until something breaks it up. But marriage? Marriage is a religious ceremony that was banned after the Singularity, like churches and organized worship. And that’s when humans marry humans—for a human and an ascender, even being together as seconds is illegal. At least for the human. I’m not sure if liaisons, as Kamali calls them, are illegal for ascenders as well.
Galenos and Celeste are apparently breaking all the rules. Maybe that’s why they don’t leave the apartment? It certainly appears equipped for human-centric living.
The Duality Bridge (Singularity #2) (Singularity Series) Page 18