I stand off to one side until I catch her eye.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“Beautiful,” I say without thinking. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”
The smile she gives me back is something no one can ever take from me. A burst of cheers pulls us both down the street. I notice a pair of hounds slinking off in one direction, looking as much a part of the crowd as anyone else there. We find ourselves staring into the same kind of translucent cube the sling used to ward off the defensive fire of Foundry. It’s bigger than that one—and the one Morning conjured—but not by much. Boxers stand outside the barrier, their trainers wrapping gloves around fists. Morning edges closer and asks the nearest Imago what’s going on.
“Gravs,” he explains. “Three rounds.”
The word echoes from our dinner with Gavelrond. He used that term too.
Morning tilts her head. “How does it work?”
“One of them is the lead. The other is the chase. Both enter the arena. The lead can change the gravity whenever he wants. Heavier or lighter with a thought. They’ll trade off for the second round. Watch.”
The shorter of the two boxers enters the arena first. There’s a snatch of static, and then our vision of him briefly blurs. He cracks his neck inside the translucent cube, sets his feet, and invites the other fighter in. Like Speaker, the man circles the arena, looking for an entry point. I admire their footwork, the movement of their eyes.
After a few seconds of probing, the second fighter ducks inside the cube.
Gravity slams down on his shoulders. The first fighter pounces. He lands a jab but misses the second swing. When he dances back, I gasp. Both fighters are floating upward through the air. The nearby Imago nods at Morning. “See? Changed the gravity.”
They exchange blows, pushing down from the ceiling, launching up from the ground. Right before they tangle near the center of the arena, the lead switches the gravity again. He lands first and catches the other one’s quick descent. Another flick to no-grav gives him the chance to toss his opponent out the side of the arena.
“Point goes to the lead!”
Cheers follow as both trainers dance around their fighters, giving instructions. My eyes drift over the faces of the crowd. I want to take all of it in.
Before the second round begins, I see a familiar face. Not familiar because I’ve seen the person before, but because I’ve seen the features. It’s a narrow face, and though the figure is stooping, this particular Imago still looks taller than the others. A lock of hair has escaped the protective hood and hangs down over slanting eyebrows.
It’s a woman.
I start that way, squinting, but the crowds are roaring and shouting again. I duck under arms and catch a few glances as I go. The shifting of the crowd blurs the faces, though. I weave back toward Morning and find the spot where the woman was standing. She’s gone.
“What’s up?” Morning asks.
“I thought I saw a woman over there.”
She makes a thoughtful noise. “Speaker said there weren’t any on the Sixth.”
The moment slips through my fingers. It keeps nagging at me for a few minutes, but there’s too much fun swirling in the air to not enjoy it. We spend the rest of the afternoon with the Sixth. To the surprise of our escorts, every single one of us falls in love with the place.
It could be the welcome they’ve given us, or the skill of their entertainers, or the bright delight written on every face in the crowd. But I think it’s more than all of that. It was Roathy who said Babel picked us because we’re poor, and it was Kaya who said Babel picked us because we’re broken.
We fall in love with the Sixth Ring because they’re our people, and we’re theirs. Outcasts, we dance in the streets and sing songs and laugh loudly. Looking around the vibrant square, I know we’ve found the first true bridge that crosses from our culture to theirs. Even if it’s paved in poverty and brokenness, it’s the path we’ve all been looking for since we left home.
It’s a way to go back, a way to remember.
Chapter 31
Guests
Emmett Atwater
I’m not surprised that the festivities and the fun can’t last. Since I first boarded Genesis 11, everything’s had a dark twist to it. Why would life be any different in Sevenset?
I walk back through the crowd and get a solid dose of déjà vu.
The same man who Thesis dismissed so coldly before has circled back around. He stands before Thesis, hands out and begging. It’s a sight I’ve seen before. There are beggars on every other corner in Detroit, so I know the look. We were never that poor, but there’s no point in comparing it. Hungry is hungry. Sick is sick. Broke is broke.
There’s something about a beggar that either pushes you away or pulls you forward. I’m ashamed to admit the truth, but most of the time I can’t stand the sight. It’s a creeping feeling that rushes in and tells you to go, be anywhere but here, see anything but the hand reaching out for help. It’s a part of me that I don’t like and never will.
So as I watch the beggar reach out to Thesis, all these billions of kilometers from Earth, the opposite feeling takes over for once. I start walking forward.
Thesis lifts his chin. The other escorts laugh as the man drops to his knees. A shuffle brings him to the feet of our assigned emissary. He reaches out and pulls at the hem of Thesis’s shirt. Time slows to nothing as I cross the distance. One foot after another.
Halfway there, black blossoms. Thesis shoves the beggar away with a burst of nyxia. I’m still walking when the beggar staggers to a stop, falls to one knee, and looks up.
Thesis looks down. I can see pride fill every feature. His face contorts, his arms flex, and he pulls the nyxia from his hip like a sword. His arm arches back and the black snickers out, forming a thin sort of whip. There’s nothing I can do but keep my feet moving.
They are the bravest twenty steps I’ve ever walked.
As Thesis’s hand comes slashing forward, the whip scores a dark arch through the air. I’m fast, though, faster than I’ve ever been. The beggar flinches, but it’s on my shoulder that the whip lands. Shards of glass bite through my suit and skin before ripping their way back to Thesis. I cry out into the silence. Blood spurts up, runs down. The whip falls limp in Thesis’s hand. The pain of the blow takes me to a knee. Every eye turns to us, hungry for spectacle.
I rise. “You won’t hurt him.”
Alex is closest. He pushes through the crowd, blond curls tossing. I stand defiant as he manipulates nyxia and works to bandage my wound. Morning and the others are making their way to us now too. Thesis stares, horrified by what he’s done. Before hundreds of his own people, he’s attacked a beloved guest. He struggles to find the words.
“Emmett,” he says. “I did not—”
“Mean to hurt me? I know you didn’t,” I say. I nod to the beggar. “But you meant to hurt him, didn’t you?”
The emissary’s face twists. “But he’s just—”
“Poor?” I finish, voice raised and dark and double-edged. “From the Sixth Ring? A beggar? Go ahead, Thesis, what can you call him that gives you the right? ’Cause whatever you think he deserves, I deserve it too. We come from the Sixth Ring of our world.”
Speaker and the rest of our escorts look lost, confused. But it doesn’t matter if they understand or not. That’s not the point. Alex finishes the bandage on my shoulder and I turn to the beggar. He takes my extended hand and I nearly buckle. Holly’s there, though. The redhead helps me get him to his feet and doesn’t say a word. When the Imago starts to apologize, I cut him off. It pisses me off that he thinks he should be sorry for anything.
“It’s not your fault,” I say, firm and loud. “What’s your name?”
He smiles a broken smile. “Axis.”
I nod. What a great name. It sounds like something old, strong. A name that shouldn’t be begging on the streets. “How long have you lived here on the Sixth?”
&
nbsp; Axis swallows, his eyes darting to the escorts, but I shake my head.
“No, not over there,” I say. “Here, with me. How long?”
“For the last seventeen years,” he says. He pulls up a pant leg and we get a glimpse of metalwork in the place of flesh and bone. “Fell from the Third to the Sixth when it happened.”
I don’t want to ask him why he’s poor or why he’s reduced to begging, because it’s bad enough that a person has to do it, without explaining the why and the how and the hurt.
As the crowd watches, I offer my forearm and Axis clasps it. Shock snakes through the crowd. I turn back to Thesis. “I’ll have Axis as my guest tonight.”
The escorts look horrified. Thesis even more than the rest.
“But we’ve already made plans ….”
“Then give Axis my place at dinner. And he can sleep in my room and use my shower. I’ll find somewhere else while I’m on the Sixth.”
The emissary’s jaw tightens. “We can’t allow you to sleep in the streets. We’ll make arrangements for Axis, but only for tonight.”
I nod, but I’m not done yet. Not even close.
“And all of my friends. They want to choose guests as well.”
Another shock ripples through the gathered crowd. Murmurs struggle their way to us. The escorts are all too easy to read. Thesis has narrowed his eyes. Bally smiles, like he finds what I’m doing amusing. Speaker and Beckway are throwing dark looks in Thesis’s direction. I glance over at the rest of the crew, hoping they’ll back me.
It’s uncomfortably quiet until Alex steps forward.
“Who will join me for dinner?” he asks, eyes searching the crowd.
After that, the floodgates open. Longwei picks the man on the ladder. Morning asks the poor shopkeeper. Everyone chooses a guest. Whatever honors the Imago intended to give us, they’ll give the least of theirs now too. It’s small—a part of me knows this might change nothing in the end—but it’s better than doing nothing.
I walk with Axis once everything’s been settled. The others, even Morning, follow my lead as we make our way back. Thesis strides on ahead of us, giving the command for the servants to prepare more empty rooms.
“It will be nice,” Axis says, “to have a proper bath, to eat a proper meal.”
“Thanks for coming with us,” I reply.
I’m not foolish enough to miss the look Thesis gives me as I pass through the archway. Confusion has bled into anger. I didn’t mean to humiliate him in front of his people, but there are some things that a person should never stand by and watch. What he wanted to do to Axis is one of them. Pops taught me that much. The others nod at me before they head to their rooms. Morning actually sweeps forward and kisses me on the cheek.
“You’re an easy person to love,” she whispers.
That word catches me by surprise. She sweeps past, though, like she didn’t just cast a spell on me. Once I’m certain that Axis is being looked after, Longwei and I return to our room to get dressed. I’m showered and toweling off when Longwei’s voice drifts through the cracked bathroom doorway. “Why did you do that?”
I stare at myself through the steam on the mirror. Why did I do that?
“Because it was the right thing to do.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds.
“Teach me.”
“Teach you what?”
“The right things,” he says. “I want to know.”
I laugh, because I’ve never really thought of myself that way. Far from it. But it starts a conversation, at least. Longwei and I trade details about our lives back home. Nearly a year in space and he told us nothing. The details he shares feel like missing puzzle pieces. He makes so much more sense. He explains he is the second son of a poor Chinese family. He tells me that his birth was unexpected, and that it cost his family precious government stipends.
I nod my understanding. I’m an only child. Always wanted a brother, but America put rules in place before I was born. A second child comes at a cost in most countries these days, and China was the first to lead the global push to curb overgrowth.
Longwei explains he couldn’t avoid the stain of his birth. Before he had even taken his first breath, he had condemned his family to poverty. And they’d been thanking him for it ever since. I end up talking a lot about Pops, and I realize he’s the one who taught me how to live a certain way, how to be a person who does the right thing. I learned some of it on my own, but I could have gone in a lot of different directions if he and Moms hadn’t given me a good shove from the start. But Longwei, he never got pushed forward. Only pushed back, held at arm’s length, left to figure it out on his own.
“My brother was very good at things,” he says. “They always told him that.”
“You’re very good at things,” I remind him. “You were first on our ship.”
“Yes,” Longwei says. “But I was first in many things at home too. My family didn’t really notice, because I was always second to them. No matter what grades I received, no matter what scholarships I won. I was the second. I was the family curse.”
“You’re not a curse,” I say. “Longwei, you’re not a curse.”
He looks up at me. “That’s why I came. When Babel chose me, I thought it would finally be a demonstration to my parents. I was chosen. I promised myself I would succeed and restore my family’s wealth. And when I came home, they wouldn’t see me as the second son. But then I heard Roathy talking in the first days of the competition. Do you remember?”
“Of course. It’s hard to forget.”
“They didn’t choose me because I was better than my brother,” Longwei says, voice tight. “They chose me because I was poor. I was the second-place son. I was broken, and they knew they could control me because of it.”
“That’s why they chose all of us. You’re not the only one.”
Longwei smiles at that. His eye looks like a kaleidoscope staring out from the pit of nyxian black. It’s healed well. I watch as he runs a determined hand through his front sweep of hair. “Would you agree that Babel sees me as loyal to them and not you?”
“After everything on Genesis 11, yeah, they probably think that.”
“So would it be a surprise to Babel or Defoe if I joined them, when the time comes?”
I shrug. “No, they’d expect it.”
“Good,” Longwei says. “They will make war. I’m certain. So I will join them when it begins. It’s easier to kill something the closer you are to it. Just remember this conversation. If the time comes, I will go with them. I will lie to them. But you will know the truth.”
Longwei is trusting me with his secrets. It makes me uncomfortable. Not because I have someone’s secret to keep, but because someone thinks to trust me at all.
“Why me?”
Longwei looks at me. “You are a man of honor.”
His words humble me. “What will you do? Once you’re with them?”
Longwei’s eyes narrow seriously. “I will blow things up from the inside.”
Chapter 32
Scarving
Emmett Atwater
Longwei walks with a new confidence now. It’s not the cocky pride he had on Genesis 11. It’s more of an assurance, a destiny. I walk beside him and feel the same thing. When the time comes, we know who our enemies are. We’re not helpless, either, because Babel gave us tools to fight with. They made us into weapons. It will be their downfall.
It takes a while to gather the entire crew back in the main reception area, but by the time we’re all walking down the stairs, our chosen guests have already arrived. Axis finds me in the crowd. He didn’t look noticeably dirty before, but a shower’s still done him some favors. He’s even combed his thinning hair stylishly to one side.
“Genesis,” he says in greeting. “Good to see you again.”
I nod back to him. “Emmett. My name is Emmett.”
“A good name,” he says. “A strong name.”
“Thanks. The escorts said something about
a famous chef. Do you know who it is?”
Axis looks offended. “Scarving! Only the best chef in Sevenset. And a better soul than he is a cook too. Every month he holds lotteries. No charge to enter, just the effort of putting your name in the selection. The chosen eat at his restaurant free of charge. Even if he’s busy hosting the wealthiest in Sevenset, he makes time for us too. He’s not one to stand on ceremony.”
Axis nods in the direction of Thesis. I can’t help laughing. I know it’s not right to forget how they’ve treated us so far. Speaker, especially, has risked his life to protect us. But for tonight? I’ll celebrate Axis and my lowly friends. I’ll celebrate the Sixth.
“So you’ve eaten at Scarving’s before?” I ask Axis.
“No, I haven’t,” he answers. “Never won the lottery. What you did, that’s the only time I’ve ever felt like I’ve won anything. Thank you again for helping me.”
“It’s nothing. I was glad to do it.”
The escorts lead us to a square building with an open-air entryway. A light breeze follows us into the wood-smoked interior. Everything is dark engravings and thick stones. Chairs gather around a circular table so that it looks like the whole restaurant consists of campfires. Unfamiliar, enticing smells rush forward before we’re three steps inside. Axis doesn’t bother with manners. He inhales, rubs his belly, and nudges me with an excited elbow.
Our escorts keep their promises. What we receive, our guests receive too. But Thesis sends the guests to their own table, asking that we sit around the one at the center of the room. The escorts take a table to our right. They’ve honored our request, but still refuse to soil their reputations in the process. Axis doesn’t seem to notice as he clasps my forearm and pulls me close. “Tonight, I am the richest of men.”
He grins and follows the other guests. Our table’s a massive circle of tiered stones, centered around an empty pit. Longwei sticks to my side, and I end up with Alex on my other.
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