LEGACY RISING

by Rachel Eastwood

  Legacy’s eyes snapped back into focus. God, forget about that! It’s just like everything else those royal people do . . . Even if it does mean something, you can’t stop it, because you’re only one woman. “Look! I need to see Dax! I need to make sure he’s okay!”

  “Dax?” Mrs. Legacy inquired, her features softening. “Why wouldn’t he be okay?”

  “The last time I saw him, he looked really . . . sick,” Legacy lied, desperate to escape. “I’ve got to go check on him.” It wasn’t an absolute lie.

  Mrs. Legacy nodded, stepping away for her daughter to shoot past. “All right,” she allowed. “Have you eaten anything?”

  “Augh,” Legacy reiterated, trudging back to the ladder-pantry and grabbing the bottle of synthetic vitamins from off its shelf. Uncapping, she emptied ten capsules into her hand and shoved them into her mouth, striding to the sink at the back of the house and twisting the faucet. She lapped up the falling stream like a dog and swallowed all ten pills down. She let out a sigh and turned. “There,” she said. She wasn’t going to admit that she did feel better now. She wasn’t going to admit that she’d been shaking when she arrived home, or that she’d lost consciousness without intending to do so. Things had just been so busy and dire, the little elements such as eating and sleeping had fallen to the wayside.

  “I’ll be back tonight, okay?” she said, wrenching the front door open. She didn’t wait for a response before shouting, “Promise!” over her shoulder and closing the door with a clap.

  Dax wasn’t at Unit #7. Unlike Legacy, he no longer lived with his parents, and so there was no one to answer the incessant hammering of her knuckles. Swinging from one set of stairs to the next, making the whole apparatus groan, Legacy tore from the top of the complex to the bottom within seconds (Rrrah! Rrrah! Widow Coldermolly’s shutters flew open, her beady eyes glaring out), and hit the ground running. She made off toward Heroes Park with legs pumping.

  Icarus, unlike some of the greater metropolises of New Earth, was largely deserted at nightfall, save for the occasional maintenance technician. Most jobs let out near sunset, and so foot traffic through the park had thinned to nonexistence by the time Legacy came careening out of the brass forest.

  Locating the eastward-facing, flat section of the mountain where the entry to CC headquarters was, partially camouflaged behind a copper hedge, Legacy flung herself against it and pounded her fists twice before remembering that the trigger was installed under Monarch Ferraday the First’s plaque.

  Returning to the bald statue, which sorely needed a repainting and a coat of gloss, Legacy stepped close enough to trigger his speech.

  She scoured her brain for the exact moment when Gustav had angled a kick down onto the plaque. It had been a specific word, an ironic word, something fitting . . . and Vector had mentioned it by name. She knew this. She knew she knew this. What had it been?

  So preoccupied with this question was she, Legacy forgot to scan the park and ensure that she was unobserved.

  “. . . and always be a people whose strength and perseverance was prepared to pay the price of freedom . . .”

  “Yes!” Legacy jammed her heel onto the plaque and heard the secret door skate open. She knew she only had a matter of seconds if—

  “Exa!”

  Legacy whirled, cheeks spotted with the bright pink of a pounding heart, and heard the secret door slide shut again as Liam Wilco approached. Even at a distance, she could see the storm brewing in his gray eyes.

  “Everyone knows what you’re doing!” he bellowed, and Legacy cringed away from the loudness of the proclamation, glancing about. What is he doing? The stupid oaf! He’s making a public scene! Or he would be, if anyone else was here! “Oh, sure, now you care what people think!” Liam reached her, but stopped within several strides, as if his anger was physically repellent to her. He pointed and then flung his hand, pantomiming her expulsion. “Do you know what Dyna’s been saying about you? Do you?”

  “Not really,” she answered.

  “She’s saying you’re not only in cahoots with the rebels, but that you’re practically second in command!”

  Legacy gulped. “Yes, well,” she said. “That’s Dyna Logan. She’s a sensationalist fear monger. The woman will do anything to boost her ratings.”

  “Oh? Oh?” Liam spat. “So you weren’t arrested alongside Neon Trimpot on Sunday night? So you weren’t held on the Archipelagos until this morning?”

  What day is it? Legacy dimly wondered.

  “I know you’ve been conspiring against the monarchy, Exa,” Liam finished hotly. “I know it!”

  “Oh, you know it,” Legacy said. There was an edge of sarcasm to her cool voice.

  “I do know it, and I’m not going to stand for it! You can say that you don’t want me all you want, but for whatever insane reason, I still don’t want you to be, I don’t know, executed! You’ve got to think about these kind of things, Exa! They have consequences!”

  Legacy glanced around again. I wish he’d stop shouting. Thank God he didn’t see that door pop open behind me.

  “Look, you can spend the rest of your life alone, and that’s fine,” Liam went on. His voice was only a fraction quieter now. “But you cannot throw it away, running around with some stupid punks who are just going to get themselves killed. I won’t have that.”

  Legacy scoffed. “Okay, Dad,” she said, looking down. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

  “You think it’s funny?” Liam shouted again. “You really think no one knows what you’re doing?” The man stepped closer suddenly, and Legacy braced herself to be grabbed and shaken or wherever his anger was about to take him, but instead Liam jammed his hand into his vest and produced a fistful of glossy filament. The fibers were delicate and black, though he handled them with a tenderness as though they were steel. He thrust them out for her to examine.

  They were images.

  A colorless yet iridescent interplay of angles, of light and shadow along surface. These sweeping lines made a leg, bent at the knee. This wavy swatch was a patch of hair standing out stark against the contrast of a black shirt.

  These horizontal strikes were stairs.

  It was Exa Legacy and the Earl of Icarus.

  Legacy was pinned beneath him, but it was evident in the captured frames that her face did not express this as a struggle, unless it was the struggle of rapture. Her legs were folded around him. Her fingers splayed across his lower back.

  “I know what you’re doing with the earl,” Liam concluded, taking the pictures back and replacing them in his vest. “And I know it goes a lot further than just kissing. I’m not an idiot. You think I can’t put the clues together? You, running around with the CC, then you, with your hands all over the duke’s son? It’s some kind of a set-up, isn’t it?”

  Legacy fumbled for the right words—why wouldn’t they ever come when she needed them?—but her mouth only flopped open and closed. Instead, all she managed to get out was, “How did you get these?”

  “CIN-3 has slushers. They just review footage and harvest the stuff.” Liam glared at her with sobriety now. He did seem oddly father-like. “Obviously, they wanted this to go straight to the top. It could either be the newscast of the year—or it could mean that everyone at the station gets a nice, fat shut-up bonus from Taliko.”

  Legacy gulped numbly. “Why hasn’t the story run yet?”

  “I’m heading Dyna’s prep team.” The glare deepened. “You’d know that if you ever listened when I talk.”

  “Sorry.”

  “One of the guys from the slush floor gave it to me,” Liam went on. “He wanted me to get it to Dyna as soon as possible.”

  “. . . When?”

  “That was Monday. This is Wednesday. And I’ve already got the slushers asking me what Dyna thought of it. I had to pretend to be too busy to talk—but this is all going to catch up to me sooner or later, isn’t it? And when CIN-3 finds out I kept the pictures? That I stole the film? I’ll lose my job.
So, Exa, what do you expect me to do, huh?” It took Legacy a second to realize that this question was not rhetorical, not sarcastic, not meant as a barb. It was a genuine cry for help. “What do you expect me to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Turn me in?”

  Liam stared back at her, and she couldn’t discern whether the expression was disgust in her, or a general sickness at heart. Probably both. “I can’t do that, Exa,” he finally replied. “Like I said—we’re actually a lot alike. And I can’t—” His brow furrowed as he grappled for the sentence. “—I don’t know if I can turn in someone I care about, even if they’re—so full of dirty, rotten tricks. I just have to figure out how I could possibly have either been so wrong about you, or been so wrong about the world, but either way, I was wrong.”

  Liam shook his head and turned, striding from the park, leaving Legacy alone in the dark gleam of the copper brush.

  Feeling as if her spine had been torn out and her heart made to cinder, she triggered the Monarch Ferraday statue again, kicking his plaque at the word “freedom.” The door opened and she vaulted inside, slamming directly into Dax Ghrenadel.

  “Dax!” she yelped, springing from him as if burnt. “You’re okay!”

  But he didn’t say anything in response. He just stared at her with terribly level, dark blue eyes.

  “I thought that was you,” Trimpot’s voice issued from further in the workshop. “Come join us, Legs. I was just regaling the group with tales of our adventures, and we began having quite the little brainstorming session.”

  Legacy joined the core group, all congregated in the back, and Dax followed her. But he didn’t follow her closely, and when she took her place in the circle, he took his on the opposite side.

  “It was actually Legacy who inspired this turn of thought,” Trimpot continued. “It was she who observed this so-called ‘dead planet’ from her prison window, and noted the appearance of the dome.”

  “Yes, a huge shock, we’ve all been lied to,” Rain said. “But—okay, look, I’m all for social change,” she clarified. “But Old Earth? Is that even relevant?”

  “It’s our origin myth,” Dax snapped. The tone was uncharacteristic, his forearms crossed tight on his chest. “It’s our home planet. I mean—” His flashing eyes panned away. “I don’t know, it feels important.”

  “I’m not saying it’s not important. I’m saying we don’t have any options. We’re a thousand feet high.”

  “Well,” Vector contributed. “What can we do? Let’s start thinking possibilities.”

  Trimpot scratched his temple and raised his hand, blithe. “I happen to know that there is a lift installed in the basement of Taliko Center, and Taliko Center—doesn’t have an elevator, now, does it? Certainly none on the ground floor. Been there often enough to know that. Now, its uses were never defined to me. It’s just something my mom would—” He paused and the usual flippant charisma cleared. “When she—worked at the Taliko Center, sometimes,” he concluded, dropping the verb for what exactly his mother would do there.

  Vector’s eyebrows perked. “But she doesn’t have any clearance?”

  “No,” Trimpot murmured. “She’s only seen it. But we know where it is. If we could just get in there.” He met Vector’s eyes pointedly. “Can we?”

  Vector wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Can we all agree to pool our resources for the venture?” Trimpot went on cheerfully. “Anything that could be contributed to the expedition would be meaningful. I’m talking about everything from lock picks to blankets.”

  “So we’re really doing this?” Rain squeaked. “We’re just—going down there? Not knowing anything at all?”

  “Not knowing anything is why we’re going down there,” Dax answered, calm, but cool. “It’s the only way to know. You’ve seen the way the duke talks. We’ll never find any answers if we rely on more conventional means.”

  “But right now?” she said. “I mean, Neon was talking about tomorrow night.”

  “If not now, when?” Trimpot replied.

  “It could be dangerous! We need more time to prepare!” Rain countered. “We don’t know anything about the environment down there!”

  “But there are domes. And roads. And movement,” Legacy added. “It must be safe enough for travel.” After speaking, Legacy glanced around the workshop to gauge reactions. All eyes were amicable, all heads nodding, with the exception of Dax’s. He was made of ice, and wouldn’t look at her at all.

  Legacy tried to catch Dax alone when the meeting adjourned, but the time never came. He was deep in conversation with Rain, and then he was closely following Trimpot through another combination rant and tour, and then he was poking at one of Vector’s contraptions. Eventually, the girl had to give up and go home. It seemed Dax was intent on spending the night at headquarters; they were already into the early hours of the morning, and anyway, what would she say if she could get him alone? So Legacy said her goodbyes—Dax was up to his eyeballs in Vector’s Contemplator and flicked a half-hearted goodbye in her direction. It was probably crazy, but even the gesture of his hand emanated hate.

  And on the walk home, she had to ask herself why she felt she deserved his forgiveness anyway. It was a question that kept her awake until sunrise.

  “Good day, Exa!” Flywheel woke Legacy the following evening. Gone were his stutter and his static. “The date is August Tenth, Two Thousand, Three Hundred and Twelve! It is 7:02 pm and you have three new messages.”

  Oh, thank God, Legacy thought. Her eyelashes kissed shut again, and her head sank back onto the pillow. He called. He called. Then she lunged upright. 7:02 pm? I slept through the entire day! I had work!

  The first message was from Kaizen. That figured. Legacy slouched.

  “I hope you enjoy your new and improved mechanical assistant,” his rich voice peeled from Flywheel’s irises. But that was all he said. She supposed that was good.

  The second message was from Trimpot.

  “Oi, love, just a friendly reminder to try to bring anything you can which may be of assistance. Taliko Center, tonight, nine o’clock.”

  The third message would be from Dax, she was sure.

  “‘Ey, Legs, ‘ere is the thing,” Cook’s voice rapped out. “Ya missed, like, four days of work now? An’ I know ya’ve been arrested. So, ‘ere is my suggestion. Let’s just go on a li’l sabba’ical, shall we? Look, take some time to yaself. I’s nothin’ personal. When ya ge’ back, I’m sure there’ll be a job wai’in for ya.”

  Legacy sighed, long and low, as Flywheel burrowed into her mass of braids. So Dax hadn’t called, and Cook was trying to be really nice about suspending her while he figured out whether or not she was worth the trouble of employing.

  “What’s going on at nine?” her mother called from the next room.

  “I’m—meeting Dax,” Legacy lied for the millionth time.

  “Oh, that’s good,” Mrs. Legacy replied, satisfied. “I haven’t seen him in a while. I’m glad he’s doing okay, and nothing—went—you know. That nothing is wrong.”

  “Yeah,” Legacy chirped, heart wrenching. “Everything’s fine.”

  Throwing a black parka over her stained t-shirt, she didn’t bother with the pretense of changing clothes. As if she wasn’t a total mess. Trundling down the ladder, Legacy scoured the room for potential tools. The only thing to really catch her attention was the detachable, blinking eyeball of the ocular bot. Of course, her father had already told her not to use it. It was his only successful prototype, and the tenth. She glanced up at her parents’ bedroom. Mr. Legacy was lying in bed, excitedly discussing the formula of his automaton key glue. He wasn’t looking.

  Legacy snatched the mechanical eye from her father’s workbench and bolted out the door.

  Unlike many other buildings in Icarus, Taliko Center remained ablaze with light on into the night. What had seemed so enchanting to Legacy on the night of the founder’s ball was now the catalyst of a spike in her blood pressur
e. Who maintains the lights? she wondered. Who’s still in there? Head low, hood up, she was the last of the group to arrive at the entrance of the courtyard.

  “There you are,” Trimpot announced, hand braced on his hip. He was dressed all in black, tailored to his body type, with a cap blotting the pink hair from visibility. “We were just about to leave you behind.” She supposed she could see why they may have suspected that she wasn’t coming. Clearly not everyone had wanted to; there were only the five of them present. Trimpot, Legacy, Dax, Vector, and Rain. She was surprised that Rain had come at all. “What’d you bring for me? Anything shiny?” he asked.

  Legacy produced the eye of the ocular bot. It was normally encased beneath a bell jar, and fastened to a sturdy apparatus which mimicked a squat human form, but she’d been moving quickly and only taken the eye. Now, though, she could truly appreciate her father’s ingenuity. The ocular bot’s eye had its own slender, retractable legs on which to walk in the event that the preliminary body was too bulky for its task. It also seemed to have been imparted her father’s natural whimsy, for it, too, wanted to nestle into her braids.

  But all Trimpot did was snatch it from her, spin it on his fingertip, and say, “Marvelous,” before throwing it back. Legacy caught the fragile part with a terrified yelp.

  Trimpot gestured and the group moved into the courtyard. They’d only crept two paces when an automaton—a smiling, brown-haired “man” in a blue watchman’s uniform—skated over to them. Legacy had never seen security staff automata before, but if any one building would have them, of course, it would be the Center. The duke wouldn’t have to pay real people, but it’d still discourage trespassers—like them. She should’ve realized. After all, she’d seen more automata at the founder’s ball than she’d seen in her entire life. Until she’d gone to the castle, anyway.

  “Clearance, please,” its marionette mouth chattered.

  The last time Legacy had seen the Contemplator, Trimpot had been springing away from its wailing horn, explaining sheepishly that it still had a few kinks.