The Duality Bridge (Singularity #2) (Singularity Series)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  My hatred for him rises to whole new level.

  Lenora’s lips are pursed. Galenos looks extremely uncomfortable—I’m sure he knows what the procedure is like. Even Kamali looks concerned.

  “Augustus is torturing all of them,” I confirm for her. “The vids Marcus showed us are real.” I don’t want Lenora probing inside my head, but I think I have a way around that. My mom was calmer after I touched her mind, and Emma, Diocles’s second, felt the ghost of me when my hand went through her head. There must be some trace of me that stays behind when I plunge into their minds—which means maybe I can put something there intentionally, not just absorb the information they have.

  I turn back to Lenora. “I want to try a different way of transferring the key. I might be able to do it from the fugue state by interfacing with your mind.”

  Lenora looks slightly panicked. “What exactly do you mean by interface?”

  I stand up from the bed and stretch out the few cramps I have. “I’ll have contact with your mind, just like I did with Augustus. Which means I’ll have access to your personal key… and everything else.” That makes the frenzied dance of color across her skin go gray. I gesture to the neutral color. “You won’t be able to hide anything. But if you’re willing to try it, we can transfer the key and go after Augustus right now.” As much as I don’t want her in my head, I’m not going to force it the other way, either.

  Her color slowly comes back, a torrent of gray and purple wisps crawling across her skin. “I don’t have anything to hide from you, Eli.”

  I doubt that very much, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough. “I’ll keep it brief, just long enough to transfer the key.”

  She holds out her hand: there’s a small, silver monitor patch in her palm. “Do you want to use this?”

  I grimace at it, then look to Kamali.

  She’s still folded up. “I’ll make sure you come back, either way,” she says, but the hard set in her eyes shows she’s not happy about it.

  I give her a grateful nod and a small smile, then turn back to Lenora. “We need something faster than meditation. Just dial the patch back, okay? I don’t want to get flung in too deep.”

  She frowns. “I’m not sure of the calibration—”

  “Let’s just do it.” The urgent need to do something is itching up my back. Every minute that ticks by is one more with my mother a prisoner in Augustus’s hands.

  Lenora edges up to me, the monitor held with just her fingertips.

  I sit on the bed and pat the ascender-tech blanket next to me. “You better sit down. And I can’t guarantee this isn’t going to be painful for you.”

  A rush of gray surges across her skin then recedes as she takes a seat. As angry as I was with her a few minutes ago, I can’t help but feel queasy about this. “I’ll only stay in your mind long enough to transfer the key.” I’m not even sure this will work.

  She nods, but the flush of color across her skin continues its dance.

  “As soon as you have it, can you go after Augustus?” I ask.

  “I’ll have to reconnect to Orion,” she says, quietly. “There’s a small danger I’ll be detected when I do. But if I have his key, I should be able to find him quickly and shut him down.”

  “I’ll uplink while you’re in,” Galenos says quietly. “Run interference if I have to.”

  Lenora gives him a nod.

  “Are you going to kill Augustus?” I ask her. I’m not necessarily objecting to this, but I hadn’t really thought it through. “I want everyone freed first.”

  “I know. I should be able to override his connection with Orion as well as others. Basically, I’ll hijack his mind until it’s safe to release him. Or terminate him, if we need to.”

  I swallow, but I don’t see another way. “All right.”

  Lenora stares at the monitor patch a moment, then slowly lifts it toward my head. She hesitates. I give her a nod to go ahead. She places it on my forehead—

  —and I’m in the fugue. But it doesn’t blow me out the way Marcus’s device did. I’m still in the room. Lenora’s still holding the monitor patch to my head, only she’s not wearing her bodyform anymore. She’s young and beautiful and blonde… just as I remember from the op. Her fingers are slender, and her face is tortured with worry. I reach my hand toward her face. I hesitate. Even though I know she agreed to this, I’m not sure she really understands.

  But I have to transfer the key.

  I focus on that, bringing it to the front of my mind. I can see its form, a multidimensional shape of colors and flickering phase states. I hold the idea of it in my mind and gently press my fingertips to Lenora’s forehead.

  They pass right through.

  The key sinks in, but I’m flooded with sensations: worry, pain, and fear tangled with a mosaic of memories. Some of Marcus, and there’s a remarkable amount of pain attached to those, but most are of me—from infanthood to our searing kiss to now, sitting next to her on the bed. In an instant, I see so many things I’ve never seen before, never had the perspective to see. She has a devotion to me that’s beyond love, beyond simply being her creation… it’s almost religious. She believes in me, in a way I would never have guessed. She truly thinks I’m this bridge, and it’s her sacred purpose in life to bring me into the world. Awakening my potential…the kiss we shared… was more than manipulation for her.

  It was an ecstatic spiritual experience.

  I yank my hand back.

  This feels too personal for me to know. And I’m more than a little disturbed by it.

  She wavers a little on the bed, and I’m afraid I’ve done something by interfacing with her mind—that she might fall over or something. Without thinking, I reach out to hold her up, but of course my hand passes right into her. This time, I’m sucked deeper into her mind and squeezed in that now-familiar way that says we’re going somewhere. I try to jerk back, but we’re already gone, deep into Orion, and I’m drowning again in the deluge of information and beings, points of light swimming in the thick soup. Only this time, I’m being dragged through it at light-speed. When we screech to a halt, it’s because we’ve found the bright spot of Augustus’s mind—but it’s locked down tight. I could reach right into it, and I almost do without thinking, but Lenora’s trying the key, so I hold back.

  She engages it… and something goes wrong. Horribly wrong.

  Lenora is ripped from me, sucked into Augustus’s mind, and somehow I’m tethered to her. I have to fight and fight and fight to keep free… finally, I’m flung back into Orion, into the soup of ascender minds. It’s drowning me. I swim against it, but I’m a tiny fish tossed in an endless sea. I can’t even see which way to go.

  A beacon flashes, and it pulls on me. It’s growing larger and larger… and I realize it’s coming for me. Augustus. I turn and fight against the pull. Against the flow of Orion. Focus. Focus. I search for Kamali’s voice, but I’m afloat in an ocean of ascenders. I need one of them to anchor me… a safe harbor… Galenos…

  I find his light and concentrate hard on it.

  I suck in air, arching up from the bed. I’m back in Galenos’s apartment. Lenora is limp on the bed next to me, but I know she’s not even there. Not in her bodyform. Augustus has her trapped, somehow, in his mind. My body cramps up, but before the shudders can lock up my mouth, I force out the words that have to be said.

  “He’s coming for us!”

  “Who’s coming for us?” Kamali asks, her voice hiking up.

  I roll over on the bed and try to work through the cramping enough to sit up. “Augustus,” I manage to get out through my teeth.

  Galenos bends over Lenora, passing his hands over her. “Something’s gone wrong.” His voice is flat, but the tumult of color racing across his skin belies the calm.

  Which is good. Because we need to get moving.

  I reach for Kamali, who helps me stand up from the bed. My knees buckle, but I recover enough to stay upright. “It was a trap,” I force out. “He’s captu
red her. And he followed me. We have to leave. Now.”

  Kamali doesn’t question it, just helps me limp toward the door. Galenos is gone in a blur of ascender speed, but he’s back before we’re halfway down the hall. His wife, Celeste, dashes from a back room. She looks like she’s been crying.

  Galenos waits for her to catch up to us. “Head to the ship. I’ll bring Lenora’s bodyform. Just in case.”

  I nod and release Kamali. “I can do this,” I say to her questioning look. I lumber toward the front. Kamali stays with me while Celeste races ahead. She leaves the door open and says something to the sentry. It comes alive and leads her off into the garage. As Kamali and I reach the threshold of the apartment, the transport we saw on the way in lights up. We hobble across the concrete floor of the garage while Galenos flashes past us with Lenora’s bodyform—he reaches the ship first, followed closely by Celeste. The sentry guards the entrance of the ship as Kamali and I stumble inside. The door materializes behind us, and the ship starts to move. Celeste is already webbed into her seat; Kamali and I hurry to get into the ones she’s summoned for us. The ship rocks, making it difficult. Just as I’m secured to my seat, I’m thrown against the webbing. We levitate for a split second, then a deafening crash brings the ship down hard, slamming me back into my seat.

  We’re frozen, tipped up at an odd angle, and definitely in trouble. Smoke plumes from the cockpit. A sizzle charges the air just before a blinding flash wipes out the ship’s door. Galenos dashes out of the cockpit, arriving at the entrance with his sentry just as something from outside attacks. I scramble to get out of my webbing. The screeching sound of metal rending vibrates my seat.

  Before I can get free, it’s over—two sentries storm the ship and grab us. One slices my webbing free and yanks me out of my chair in one slick motion that leaves me teetering on my feet and staring at the business end of its weapon arm: the barrel of what I hope is an electric discharge weapon, not a hole-blasting laser. The other sentry has Kamali and Celeste likewise captured. Outside our canted-over ship, Galenos and his sentry lie in pieces on the floor.

  Celeste gasps and then sobs. She doesn’t know Galenos was connected to Orion just minutes ago—he was the beacon that led me back—and I hope like crazy that means he has a backup somewhere. The way his wife is crying, she must not think he does.

  Lenora’s bodyform is slumped against the wall. I watch as the sentry closest to her uses its beam weapon to slice her into a dozen pieces. Even though I know her mind is trapped elsewhere, not inside this bodyform, it still makes my stomach heave. Then the sentries march us out of our ship and into theirs, waiting nearby. They don’t bother to handcuff us or even issue commands. It’s obvious we have to go with them or end up like Galenos and Lenora. And I’m fairly certain I know where we’re going, even though there are no ascenders involved in the entire operation.

  Our transport has a tiny window, just enough to see the towers of New Portland as they parade by. I’m not at all surprised when we hover over the complex of buildings at the edge of the city that I saw in the fugue. I don’t know if the entire thing belongs to Augustus, but I’m sure we’re headed to the subterranean rooms where he’s keeping my mother and the others from the Resistance.

  Kamali and I don’t speak on the way, not that any secrets we have will remain hidden for long. Her eyes are wide with fear, so I hold her hand and try to send her reassuring looks. But we both know it’s bad. Really bad. Deep inside me, a flame of hope flickers—maybe Augustus will let everyone go, now that he has me. I tell Celeste about Galenos uplinking to Orion, and her sobbing subsides a little, but she’s still sniffling quietly in the corner. The guilt of all these people being captured, tormented, possibly losing the people they love… all because of me… it presses like an ocean on my chest.

  We land and take a lift straight down the hundred or so levels to the underground complex. The sentries herd us through a series of locked doors that make the holding chamber at the Olympics look like amateur security. We don’t see anyone, bots or ascenders, along the way. We pass through a fortified door I doubt the sentries themselves could take down, and on the other side is a small room, empty, just four walls and two doors, one in and one out.

  We wait.

  I’m no longer holding hands with Kamali because I don’t want her to feel mine sweat. Plus she’s busy comforting Celeste, who’s been visibly shaking ever since we debarked from the transport.

  We wait some more.

  My mind is ticking through all the possibilities: Augustus is going to separate us; or torture us; or possibly kill us outright. Although if he wanted to do that, the sentries could have accomplished it back at Galenos’s apartment. No, there’s some reason he’s keeping us alive. Me, I can understand. All of this has revolved around me, like some kind of macabre game where I’m a ball passed between the ascender players, each with their own schemes and strategies. But why Kamali and Celeste? And why kill Galenos, or at least his body?

  A door on the far side of the room slides open.

  It’s Augustus. He’s taller than I expect, with a bodyform even more exaggerated in physical prowess than his fugue form, but the face is the same: chiseled cheeks and piercing eyes. They’re blue, and his skin dances with a crimson flush. His clothes are the standard ascender-tech fabric, but less revealing: his full-body, form-fitting suit flows over his skin, somehow enhancing the power of his taut bodyform.

  “Eli.” His voice is cold, and he passes an amused look over my pirate costume. It’s degrading in a way that flushes even more anger through me. “Come.” He beckons me with a small wave. “Your friends would like to see you.”

  I want to throw insults at him. I want to resist and not do anything he says, even the smallest thing. But that’s foolish, and I know it.

  I step across the threshold, half expecting him to kill me once I’m within arm’s reach, but instead he turns and walks side by side with me down the empty corridor. The sentries shuffle Kamali and Celeste after us. At the end, another door opens before we reach it. Beyond that is a series of doors down a long hallway. One by one, the doors turn clear, and I can see the inmates inside.

  And they can see me.

  I can tell by the shocked and angry faces.

  Augustus slowly parades me past the doors. I can’t help meeting the stares of each prisoner. The first few I don’t recognize. But the next ones… their angry shouts are held mute by the clear barrier between us. Caleb, the augment who was injured in the op and then got an upgrade, stares hatred at me as I pass. His mechanical fist pounds soundless rage against his cell. Grayson’s crossed arms and silent judgment reach through the door to stab me with guilt.

  Cyrus. His hands are pressed flat against the transparent door, his face rent with pain. I want to give him some sign, some reason not to give up hope, but I don’t know what it would be. I just shake my head a little. Maybe he’ll know what it means. My own heart sinks with each step.

  My mother. She’s crying. I can’t even look at her for more than a second. I stare straight ahead, willing back tears that would just burn shame into me.

  At the end, there’s a branch to two more hallways: dozens of doors line them. I hear Kamali gasp behind me—the last cell at the corner holds Tristan. His face is bloodied and bruised, and his fists are clenched at his side. He only glances at Kamali: the murderous look on his face is all for me.

  The doors turn opaque, cutting off his glare.

  I turn to Augustus. “What do you want from me?” I demand.

  “Why, you’ve already given it to me.” There’s a hint of a smirk on his face.

  I look back at the hallway of now-solid doors, and I realize what that slow walk must have looked like to everyone trapped in their cells: first, they were tormented for knowledge about me, and then I show up at Augustus’s side. No shackles. No protest. It was a show… for them. I’m their betrayer, in every sense of the word.

  “Why do you care if they hate me?” I ask bitterly. He
can do anything he likes to me— there’s no reason to hold back—but why this particular cruelty? Not that I understand any of it.

  “I want them to see you for what you are,” Augustus says, voice cool. “A false hope. A false prophet.”

  “I’m no prophet.” Anger is choking me. But there’s something wrong about all of this.

  “I know.” The full smirk comes out. “And now they do, too.”

  Sounds of protest come from behind me. One of the sentries grips Kamali and Celeste in its crushing mechanical hands.

  I whip back to face Augustus. “You have me. You don’t need to hurt any of them. I’ll do whatever you want, just leave them alone.”

  He ignores me, turning his back on me and striding down the hall without another word. It’s as if I’ve ceased to exist, no more important to him than a mote of dust left in his wake. The second sentry comes for me—its grip is bruising and painful. The first sentry is already hauling Kamali and Celeste inside their cells. Their small cries of pain stab me. My cell is just two more doors down in the opposite direction. The sentry releases me inside then tromps out with heavy steps. The door materializes behind it. The room is a gray box. With a shiver, I think about Thompson and his four windowless walls formed from the void. There’s not even a bed or a toilet, although I suspect they can be summoned from the walls.

  I stand dead center in the room, tilt my head up to stare at the featureless ceiling, and vent all my frustration with a scream so primal it nearly breaks me. Then I go to the door, just like all the other prisoners, and beat it with my fists. I keep pounding until I feel the stabbing pain of knuckles breaking open and the slick warmth of my own blood on my skin. I take a step back, breath heaving, anger a raging beast inside me.

  I left a smear of bloody humanity on the perfectly-gray ascender wall. It hums and vibrates until the red stain breaks into minute, molecule-sized pieces and lifts from the surface. Erased. Momentary and mortal and inconsequential.