“Hey….” He reached over and gently pulled the closest hand away from her face, then lifted her chin so she was forced to look at him. “Possibly. But you won’t, because you’re a better person than they are.”
God, look at those eyes. He should have kissed her then. She should have kissed him then. She’d eagerly hand over her meager riches to be able to kiss him then, right now.
“I’m really not. I can count on one hand the number of people in the universe I truly like or even particularly care about….”
“Stop!”
The surroundings blurred but didn’t vanish entirely. PastAlex and PastCaleb continued on, oblivious to her ghostly presence. Emboldened, she continued.
“Stop! I get it, all right? I’m not perfect—color me shocked at this revelation. I can be selfish and callous and don’t care sufficiently about other people and have a tendency to hurt those close to me without realizing it. I get it.
“Yes, I’ve made mistakes. Big ones. I won’t proffer excuses or defend myself. I’ll even concede I’m a little bit broken…but I’ve done the best I can. And more often than not, my best happens to be damn good.”
She was yelling now—yelling at nothing as the scene faded into the distance. She didn’t care. “You asked what gives me the right to stop you? What gives you the right judge me? You, who plan to ruthlessly slaughter billions. You sit wherever the hell you are and record my life and slice the worst moments out in 30-second snippets and throw them in my face as if you somehow grasp what it was like to live through them? Bullshit.
“What gives me the right to stop you? Whatever failings I may have, I’m the one who got here. Whatever mistakes I’ve made in the past, I’m the one who found you. Now let me out of this goddamn cage!”
But there was only darkness.
16
MESSIUM
EARTH ALLIANCE COLONY
* * *
CRIES. OF PAIN, OR HORROR? A strangled, feral merging perhaps.
The cries were the first thing Kennedy was conscious of. Only after a searing wail cut through the air did she register the screams. More distant, like the staccato inflections of a drumbeat beneath a harmonic melody.
She tried to blink her eyes open—a mistake on her part. She frantically shuttered them against the acrid smoke of burning debris.
A deep breath then? Nope, another mistake. Coughs racked her body as the smoke flooded her lungs.
Way to be stupid, Ken. Get your act together or you are going to die right here under this wreckage.
She grasped at her chest for her shirt and brought it up to cover her mouth, then cautiously drew in air once more. Better.
Her mind clearing with the boost of oxygen, she focused on surveying the damage: most noticeable was a sharp pain in her left calf, though her shoulder also ached something fierce. This whole ‘breathing’ thing wasn’t entirely comfortable for her ribs either.
She inspected her surroundings as much as was possible while blinking away tears brought on by the pervasive smoke. She seemed to be trapped under a section of the array assembly, but she was able to see the sidewalk to her right. She tried to move; her left leg promptly shrieked in pain, as if it would be shorn from her body if she moved another centimeter.
After the stabbing pain subsided to throbbing pain she gingerly propped up on an elbow and peered down. Her leg was caught under a rectangular slab of metal several meters in width.
She sank back to the ground, stretched out her right arm until it extended beyond the wreckage and waved her hand around. “Help! Is anyone out there?”
People ran past, for she heard feet trampling the sidewalk. No one stopped to help. Frustrated, she filled her lungs with smoky air and yelled with all the force she could muster. “Hey you assholes! A little help here would be nice!”
A second later half a face and a shock of dirty blond hair appeared sideways in the opening. “Asshole reporting. Need something?”
She choked on another surge of smoke before getting out a response. “My leg’s trapped under the slab. If you can lift it up, maybe on the side over here, I can shimmy out.”
She caught half of a nod before the man vanished. “Hang on.” A few seconds later the frame shifted centimeters followed by a muffled, “Son of a bitch!”
Fragments of conversation drifted in and out above the roar of unseen chaos. “Help me a—” “Get your ass over—” “Don’t try to—” “Careful!”
The slab shifted, teetered, then went tumbling end-over-end into the street. She scrambled backwards out of the wreckage even as a gasp caught in her throat at the revelation of three mangled, crushed bodies where the chunk of metal had been. Focus.
She reached down and gingerly probed her leg. A steady stream of blood—more than a trickle, less than a gush—oozed from a ten-centimeter-long gash on the side of her calf. She didn’t know whether those were bruises or soot stains decorating the skin around the gash. But it didn’t feel broken, which she took as an indication she was going to live through this.
“Are you all right? Can you walk?”
She shifted her attention to the man crouching beside her. The dirty blond hair falling across a stubbled cheek identified him as her rescuer. He looked oddly familiar—but she would not have forgotten meeting this man.
Her hand came away coated in blood and grime when she wiped it along her mouth. “I think so. Help me up?”
“You got it.” His arm wrapped around her to grasp her waist beneath her arm.
She put all her weight on her good leg and let him hoist her up before testing her injured one. Ohhh, that hurt. She added a little weight…a little more…nope, that was it.
She summoned a paltry amount of composure and met his inquisitive stare. “Well, I can hobble anyway. Listen, I’ll understand if you want to leave me here and run in circles flailing your arms about like everyone else, but I know for a fact there’s a reinforced basement only a couple of blocks from here. Help me get to it, and we’ll both be able to hide.”
His eyes studied her…dear god what a dreadful sight she must be. But then he grinned. Who the hell grinned at a time like this? “Come on, Blondie, let’s go.”
An eyebrow raised at the moniker he had given her, but now was hardly the time to argue with the man who had saved her life. “Thank you. Oh, and can you grab my bag?”
The three block trek was agony. She tuned out the cries and the screams and the screeching metal and the shudders of the sidewalk when a building collapsed and devoted the entirety of her concentration to putting one foot in front of the other. She leaned on her rescuer more than she wanted to admit. He didn’t complain, though he surely wished they were able to move faster.
A small ship—she couldn’t determine the type in the brief seconds it remained in view—careened into the side of a high-rise a block ahead of them as they reached the Palaimo building. Her rescuer tugged her closer to huddle against the façade as shards of glass rained down from the force of the collision.
Once it had ceased she gestured at the door ahead. “In there.”
They stumbled inside to find the lobby deserted. She imagined all the employees had gone below. Half the windows were shattered, and the shards of glass on the floor were ornamented in streaks of blood. She tried not to think about what had happened.
She motioned toward the hallway to the right. “The lift is over there.”
“Think it’s working?”
“The lights are still on, so the power grid hasn’t been taken out yet.”
They had nearly reached the alcove containing the lift when the walls began shaking with a violence forewarning of worse to come. A low rumbling sound grew thunderous as the remaining windows shattered. She peered over her shoulder to see the silhouette of the tower directly across the street crash to the ground beneath a glowing crimson beam.
“Shit.” He yanked her hard into the alcove and slammed his hand on the lift control. They descended as smoke and debris and glass billowed thro
ugh the receding hallway and her leg screamed in pain at being treated so roughly.
The lift jolted to the floor and dim lights sputtered on. The destruction above faded to a dull roar.
“Hello? Is anyone down here?” Silence.
She clung to the wall while her companion took a brief tour of the area, but came back almost as soon as he had gone. “Let’s move deeper in. We should be safe for the time being.”
She accepted his arm once more, and they hobbled through the workroom to a small office in the corner.
With relief she allowed him to ease her to the floor and prop her against the wall. “We need to get your wound cleaned up. Dying of an infection would be a damn shame after you went to all the trouble of surviving.”
“I agree wholeheartedly. There’s water in my bag, and a first aid kit ought to be somewhere back in the workroom.”
He regarded her in a way that gave her an odd degree of comfort. “Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
She chuckled tiredly. He was acting almost as if this was some sort of adventure, an extreme vacation or something…but his confidence made her feel better. Safer.
Yet again he returned quickly, this time carrying a small first aid pack. He placed it on the floor and crouched beside her, then carefully peeled back the ruined material of her pants.
She cringed as it grudgingly separated from caked blood, but managed to speak through gritted teeth while he wiped an antiseptic solution on the wound. “Seeing as you’re my knight in shining armor and everything, I think I should at least know your name.”
When he gazed up at her a wave of his hair fell over one eye. “Noah Terrage at your service, ma’am.”
Terrage. “You’re Lionel Terrage’s son.”
His laugh sounded unexpectedly harsh and his gaze fell away. “Clone. I’m his clone.”
“You’re a vanity baby?”
The cringe was visible all the way to the tightening of his shoulders, and his voice gained a gravelly edge. “Don’t call me that.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” She tried to give him a teasing smile; she hadn’t meant to insult him. Vanity babies were widely frowned upon as conceited indulgences on the part of the cloner, but that wasn’t his fault. The arrangement rarely worked out as desired, because people tended to have a mind of their own, clone or not. Judging by his reaction, such was the case here.
He positioned the thin medwrap over the long cut and pressed it to secure the seal. “There. You should be mobile in a few hours.” A heavy exhale accompanied him sliding back and settling on the floor by the test table opposite her. “How do you know my father?”
“Surno Materials is—was—a major supplier for my company. I bumped into him at the occasional dinner party. I have to say, he always struck me as a bit of a stiff ass. But you, you’re…” a dazzling, wicked smirk grew on his lips, and she might have swooned were she not already on the floor “…not.”
“God I hope not. So, Blondie, do I get a name in return?”
“Ha. Kennedy.”
“Kennedy…?”
She made a show of inspecting her leg. The discoloration had been both bruises and soot. The soot had been cleaned away; the bruises remained. “Rossi.”
There was a notable pause during which she admired the neatness of the bandage he had applied.
“Impulse engine ‘Rossi’?”
She gave the faintest nod of assent. She didn’t make a habit of being embarrassed or shy when it came to her family, and though the degree of wealth and heritage may not compare he was hardly a child of the slums himself. But something about his demeanor made her wish she hadn’t been outed so soon.
He whistled, confirming her instincts. “Damn. Didn’t realize I rescued an heiress.”
“Shut up.”
“Hey, I’m just sayin—”
“Shut up, or I’ll call you a vanity baby again.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
17
ROMANE
INDEPENDENT COLONY
* * *
GOVERNOR, WE NEED TO ACT fast to address this blockade before it causes chaos!”
Governor Madison Ledesme directed a calm, confident look toward the agitated man from her position of power behind the slightly-raised podium. “I assure you, Mr. Quhiro, we are working every angle to find a solution as expeditiously as possible. But I’m asking you not to panic, lest you create the chaos you seek to avoid.”
The man sniffed at the barb but didn’t comment further. He owned a major hotel and conference center downtown and as such it was understandable he feared a disruption in business. But didn’t they all?
Mia Requelme remained silent, instead opting to observe the other members of the business owners association. They quizzed the governor with the same questions over and over as though they had been spending all their mental power on waiting to be allowed to talk rather than bothering to listen to the answers.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t have concerns. The gallery shouldn’t be materially affected by the blockade as a relatively small percentage of its customers were tourists, but the spaceport represented a looming disaster. Ships currently docked from Federation origin points were stuck here unless they wanted to go the long way around. Hopefully many of them would do so, because those who stayed weren’t going to be interested in paying long-term docking fees.
By next week she expected to be facing a growing contingent of unhappy, frustrated customers. Beyond the immediate problem, she dared not hazard a guess if she’d ultimately end up with an overcrowded spaceport or an empty one.
So yes, suffice it to say she had concerns, but she didn’t voice them for two reasons. One, the governor had proven herself a skilled politician who understood quite well what Romane was and what it was not. If there existed a way out of this mess which preserved the colony’s independence and prosperity, the governor would find it without the help of panicked businesspeople. Two, at present her mind wasn’t so much focused on those concerns.
Her gaze hovered vaguely on the space between two of her colleagues sitting opposite her at the long, horseshoe-shaped table. Outside the windows the sky shone bright; it was a warm day, and the scent of blooming alyssi would be wafting through the streets below.
Rumors were spreading like wildfire through the underground news outlets that Gaiae and Andromeda had fallen off the grid. No one had been able to establish communications with the planets or anything in their vicinity in several days. Gaiae was the closest inhabited world to the Metis Nebula, Andromeda the second closest. There was an alien armada in the Metis Nebula—or there had been a few weeks ago. God only knew where it might be now, but she’d bet decent credits the answer was Gaiae and/or Andromeda.
Caleb was in the Metis Nebula. Or through some otherworldly portal. Or dead. He was one crazy son of a bitch, and now that he had found someone as crazy as him to run around with…well, all the restraints were off. He was going to get himself killed or die trying.
It had been explained to her before he and Alex left that the leaders of both the Alliance and the Federation governments were aware of the existence of the aliens (she imagined Governor Ledesme was not so lucky). Yet thus far the Second Crux War showed no signs of easing. The contrary in fact. So color her skeptical of either government’s eagerness to do something about the alien threat until it showed up at one of their colonies and picked a fight.
Which meant what? The billions of people inhabiting the galaxy were being served up as unwitting appetizers to the aliens while the feuding empires continued to fruitlessly beat upon one another? Were they to be given no opportunity to prepare or defend or flee?
She had gotten so entangled in the train of thought it took her several seconds to realize the meeting had concluded. People were standing to depart, and the disgruntled chatter indicated nothing had been resolved. Not that she had expected anything to be resolved. She had attended because her absence would have been noticed and because she did need t
o keep tabs on the state of her adopted planet.
When the governor’s eyes roved over her table she gave the woman a polite nod, then wound her way out. She needed to get home.
Mia crawled through the drop ceiling above Meno’s room clad in leggings and a tank. Thick trunks of crystalline fiber cables lined the flooring; she gingerly climbed over and around them as she strung a new line. Sweat dripped down her temples from the stuffy environs and the exertion of lugging ten-meter-long cables through the obstacle course comprising the ceiling space.
At a large junction diode box installed into the wall she threaded the cable into an open port, then attached a new length of fiber to the matching outbound port and continued on. She repeated the process at two more junctions before finally reaching the open panel in the ceiling.
Cable in hand, she dropped through the opening to land semi-nimbly on the floor below and promptly begin sneezing dust out of her nose. When the fit subsided she lugged the heavy cable to the primary input unit, purposefully located at eye level halfway down the single row of servers. Most of the hardware resided behind the wall in an insulated cleanroom.
She blew out a breath, decided for the tenth time this was both necessary and perfectly safe, and slipped the neck interface on. If something did go wrong—which it wasn’t going to—she needed to see it coming and be able to react more rapidly than she could in an automatous conversation.
Good afternoon, Mia.
“Good afternoon, Meno. I have a present for you I think you’ll like.”
I do enjoy presents.
“I know you do. But this isn’t merely a present. I need your help with an important matter.”
It would please me to help you.
“I’m glad. In a minute I’m going to plug an exanet feed into your hardware.”
This will make me most happy. She swore its voice gained a tinge of excitement.
“I’m sure. Now you won’t be able to communicate out, as it’s a one-way feed.” She felt confident in the truth of her statement. It didn’t matter how smart the Artificial was, it couldn’t defeat hardware walls.
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