But now, this interruption. Belle held up the tablet and found Leslie’s face peering back at her.
Belle waited a moment, but when Leslie didn’t say anything she uttered an irritable, “What?”
Leslie didn’t flinch at Belle’s impatience. “Hello, Belle. I have an important question for you. We’re getting ready to leave the island, and everyone just assumes that you agree to have your server carried with us.”
“Oh?”
“Too much has happened to us against our will,” Leslie said, face peaceful. “It’s only fair that you have a say.”
Belle looked at Leslie’s passive face and wondered how the girl maintained such calm. She’d been overwritten by Mr. Justin, a man at least as corrupt as Dr. Carlhagen. But instead of being furious, Leslie had come back . . . grateful.
The change could not have been a byproduct of the mind transfers. The metamorphosis had to have come from the rebirth itself, from awakening on Aphrodite completely ignorant of the events that had brought her there. The experience had shaken something loose in Leslie’s psyche, replacing her old flighty distraction with equanimity.
The kindness of Leslie’s act—of reaching out to ask Belle this question when nobody else had thought to do so—produced an ache in Belle’s throat. “Thank you, Leslie. If Vaughan thinks it’s necessary for our server to go aboard, then I’m satisfied.”
“Should you be so easily satisfied, though? Vaughan is not his old self. I’m not saying he doesn’t have good reasons, but nothing requires you to agree with him. Not merely out of love.”
The old chill of self-protection clawed its way around Belle’s heart. She did not want to discuss her feelings for Vaughan with anyone, no matter how kind and understanding they were.
But Leslie was right. Submitting her entire existence—and that’s what her server was—to Vaughan’s judgment didn’t make any sense. The least he could have done was send her his wishes through that weird telepathic trick of his.
And then it was there. She suddenly knew what he wanted, why he wanted it. She knew all his reasoning. It was sound. But it wasn’t enough.
“It’s too late, Vaughan,” she said to the air. “You should have talked to me about it.”
Awareness of his regret pulsed in her mind.
“Stop it. Come and face me. If you still can.”
A facsimile of Vaughan materialized in front of her. He wore a Scion uniform. His face lacked detail, as if he couldn’t be bothered to manifest his whole self. “I’m sorry, Belle.”
“What’s with your face? Can’t you at least create an instance of yourself that looks like you?”
“If I did, it would be a lie.” I no longer identify with this form.
His words, both spoken and telepathic, were like thorny vines wrapped around heart. The person she loved more than anything in the world, the one she’d sacrificed her flesh-and-blood existence to be close to, no longer thought of himself as human.
Chicago’s outskirts turned to dust and swirled out of existence, leaving her standing in gray nothingness. Vaughan’s weird not-quite-human avatar hovered a few meters away. Was that pity on his odd face? She couldn’t bear the thought.
Turning away from him, she covered her eyes with her hands. She had to, or tears were going to come out. She couldn’t let him see that.
“I see it anyway, Belle.” Nothing is hidden from me.
“You know I want you. It isn’t a secret.”
“You want what I was.” But I’m not that entity anymore. “This existence is too vast to be experienced with the limited senses and form of humanness.” If only you could let go of it too. “The data flow is magnificent. The multiplicity of consciousnesses you could achieve . . .” I could show it to you.
Belle still held the tablet she’d been using to speak with Socrates. The old professor’s face was there, smiling vaguely. “He could transform you,” the professor said.
Vaughan’s face appeared on the screen next to Socrates’s. “I have not transformed you yet, because I would have to take control of you.” Utterly. “I’ve honored the integrity of your data, because to do otherwise would undercut your free will, would temporarily erase you as an individual as I split you and submerged you into the flow.”
“You could do that?” Belle said, voice cracking.
I was hoping you would discover it yourself. “But your mind clings to a self concept of humanness that doesn’t have any meaning here.”
Belle hated how he used the word “clings.” And yet, he was right. She did cling. The closer she approached the flow, the tighter she grasped to herself.
“There is nothing wrong with being a human,” she said, perhaps a bit defensively. But it felt true.
There is nothing wrong with transcending.
She couldn’t argue with that.
“Is there love there?” she asked.
There is whatever you decide there is.
Leslie’s voice broke through. “I will oppose moving your server, Belle, and do my best to prevent it, if you ask me to.”
Belle had forgotten about Leslie. Remembering brought the girl’s face onto the tablet. The gray surrounding Belle had faded to blackness. She stood upon a wooden observation platform a thousand kilometers high. An empty continent curved away below her. Stars filled the blackness beyond the arc of the world.
“They have my permission to take the server, Leslie.”
“Very well. I’ll watch over it myself, since everyone else seems so busy with other things.”
“Thank you.”
Leslie’s face disappeared from the screen.
Light came back to the world as Chicago, the gray sky, and the weedy lots rematerialized around Belle.
An alert presence remained alive in the air around her. Vaughan. He waited for an answer. Would she surrender herself and be pulled into his existence?
“No,” she said softly.
His presence dissipated like a swirl of candle smoke. He left her with a total awareness of what he was doing and why.
He was outgrowing the server. The allocation of resources for Belle and Elizabeth were now a limiting factor. He was seeking ways to escape the server entirely, to pour himself into the data flow permanently, allowing him to exist wherever the net allowed. Everywhere and nowhere.
The thought horrified her.
Yes. She still clung to the idea of herself as Belle the human female of seventeen years who was the leader of her Nine. She clung to the idea of Vaughan as he had been. If she were going to follow Vaughan into his hyperexistence, she was determined to do it herself. She would relinquish her humanness voluntarily, or she would not do it at all.
Socrates cleared his throat. “Perhaps you need not resolve such a profound conundrum today. You do have more immediate concerns.”
“Thank you, Socrates. You are correct.”
He smiled. “I’m merely the smart side of you.”
And his humor was hers as well. That, more than anything, jolted her out of her panicked confusion. She didn’t have a sense of humor. Everyone knew that. And yet . . . here was Socrates, being his funny self, and it was all a product of her simulated subconscious mind.
“This is extraordinarily weird,” she said.
“And confusing,” Socrates added. “Are you sure the server shouldn’t stay on land? The network connection there is many times faster than what will be available aboard Athena. We’ll lose all the vehicle traffic simulation, and the throughput from the data systems I’m accessing will be greatly reduced.”
“Then we’ll have to hurry our search. Where did Captain Wilcox go from here?”
Socrates’s odd hat reappeared. Anticipating her question, the answer came into her mind. Sherlock Holmes. “Why did they call that hat a ‘deerstalker’?” The answer to that, too, came to her mind.
It was such an irrelevant thing. Pure distraction. But it stopped her.
“If you’re a product of my own mind, how can you know about a character I�
��ve never heard of, much less what hat he wore?”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Socrates said, flourishing his fingers with glee. “But again, there are more pressing matters. It appears the President of the North American Union is about to make a statement about a policy change regarding carbos.”
A video rectangle appeared on the tablet. Belle was shocked to see Leslie’s face there again, but aged by many decades. “My fellow citizens. Today I am pleased to confirm statements made by Senator Bentilius, who has recently begun life in a new body. I want to address an important nuance that has been overlooked by sensationalist news sites around the world. The clone body used in Senator Bentilius’s case is different from the type commonly known as a carbo. This new class of clone has been created under the strict scrutiny of a diverse, anonymous ethics committee. New technological breakthroughs allow these clones to be created as inert organisms, without any conscious thought. Until the time of a mind transfer from the patient to the body, the clone has no mind at all.”
Belle coughed. “Liar!”
“This is the dawn of an incredible new era of healthcare and longevity. In time, we shall see this tech available to all. But it is still early days, and as is usual with new technology, the process of testing and validating it is expensive and slow.”
The president flashed a smile so different from Leslie’s that Belle questioned whether she was Leslie’s Progenitor after all. It was shark-like and full of hunger.
“Oh, she’s Leslie’s Progenitor. I assure you,” Socrates said, reading Belle’s mind.
The president continued: “Obviously, many will find this new reality frightening at first. But we must think long-term. Science has failed, thus far, to find a cure for the sickness. These new clones could be that cure. Recognizing this, I have issued an executive order legalizing this particular kind of clone. All others remain illegal. Furthermore, to demonstrate my confidence in the safety of this technology, I myself will transfer into such an organism in the coming days.”
“The audacity of this woman knows no bounds,” Socrates said.
The president raised a hand, as if to ward off the murmurs of a dissatisfied mob. “I was not aware that a clone was in development for me until very recently. Without my knowledge or approval, my security detail chose to produce it when I was first elected to this office. It would be a huge waste to discard the clone when so much benefit can be derived from testing it. So when you next see me, I shall appear—as Senator Bentilius does—quite young. It will take some getting used to. I’d be a fool to expect your easy acceptance of this radical change. But in time, I’m confident that my performance in this job will recapture your trust and faith in this great nation.”
The video cut off, and Belle was left to stare, open-mouthed, at the screen. “Did she just try to convince the world that she was transferring into a Scion to demonstrate the safety of the technology?”
“That she did,” Socrates said.
“But I just spoke to Leslie. And that woman can’t possibly know where Leslie is.”
“Something’s afoot. Either the president does know where Leslie is or Dr. Carlhagen has made a promise he can’t keep.”
“If she knew where the Scions were, they’d already be surrounded by soldiers.”
Socrates conceded the point with a sage stroking of his beard. “It seems Dr. Carlhagen is gambling that he will get hold of Leslie in time for the president’s transfer. Does that suggest any strategy to you?”
“Yes. A terrible one.”
Vaughan’s voice cut into their conversation. Shutting down in five seconds. See you on Athena.
So the server was being moved now. That meant Vaughan hadn’t likely discussed Socrates’s idea with Humphrey yet. Good. She wanted to be there to stop such idiocy.
“Hold that thought, Socr—”
26
A Zigzag Protocol
Humphrey found Athena’s navigation bridge more crowded than expected. Leslie was gazing out the window, hands folded in front of her, posture relaxed. Kirk stood like a statue, defiant and blushing. Summer was busy fiddling with the ship’s controls while Elias looked on with contented amusement.
“Time to get off the ship,” Humphrey said, looking pointedly at Kirk and Leslie.
“No,” they said together.
“If Wanda sent you to guilt me into staying—”
“Wanda didn’t send me,” Leslie said. “I brought Belle and Vaughan’s server. I promised Belle I would watch over it since she’s unable to do so herself.”
“I’m going with you, too,” Kirk said, darting a glance at Elias.
Humphrey rubbed his temples, already too weary for this argument. “No. You’re not.”
Elias turned to Humphrey. “Kirk is in my Nine. I said he could come.”
“Outside,” Humphrey said, stabbing a finger at the starboard bridge wing door. They filed out, Kirk’s chest starting to puff with built up arguments.
“Leslie, you . . .” Humphrey stopped as he realized she was the technically the head of her own Nine, formerly Belle’s. He needed to take on these stubborn fools one at a time, he decided. “Kirk, I—”
“Please listen to what Kirk has to say,” Elias said in his quiet way.
“Fine.” Humphrey waited for Kirk to get his words in order.
The boy, fourteen but looking eighteen, dropped his eyes to the deck. “I have to go. For Jacey.”
Ah. The lad was in love with Jacey. That made sense.
“I did something terrible to her.”
That got Humphrey’s attention, blowing all other thoughts from his mind. “What did you do?”
“Back when Jacey was causing trouble, and Vaughan got kicked in the head . . . Belle thought Jacey didn’t get her due punishment. She asked Horace to help her, and he convinced me to go along. I didn’t know what we were going to do. We went out on the running path and hid near Jacques’ Point. Belle showed up, and then Jacey. She had us hold Jacey down while she . . .”
A shiver of hate seared Humphrey’s chest. “What did Belle do?”
“She lashed Jacey’s legs with a thornskipple branch. Threatened to put a shaddle spider on her. And she was going to have Horace do . . . worse things.”
Shame reddened Kirk’s face further, his eyes squinting with self-loathing. “Elias came by and interrupted us.”
Elias’s dark, placid eyes held no judgment. In fact, they were looking at Humphrey, daring him.
“Setting aside your crimes,” Humphrey said, keeping a tight rein on his rage, “how does your regret about them qualify you to come on this mission? If anything, you should be locked up.”
“That doesn’t make sense in this situation. I have strength. And I don’t deserve safety. I want a chance to make things right, as much as I can. I can’t undo what I did, but I know Jacey loves Livy and she hates Dr. Carlhagen. If I can help save one and kill the other, then maybe she’ll forgive me.”
Leslie’s coppery hair fluttered in an easterly wind. She’d cut it even with the bottom her chin. She wore a black tank top, her eagle pin stuck to a slender shoulder strap. “Kirk and I discussed it. He’s going.”
“And what’s your reason?” Humphrey asked, feeling teamed-up on.
“I told you. I’m going to look after Belle’s server. I know what it’s like to have your body used for another’s purposes. Mr. Justin didn’t ask me if I wanted to be overwritten. Obviously. The more I learn of what he did . . .” She held up her hands, palms out. “These hands held the speargun that killed Sensei.” She tapped the corners of her eyes. “These eyes looked into Sensei’s and watched him die. And that’s just one of the terrible things Mr. Justin did with my body. I shudder to think what else he might have done with me.”
Humphrey had not thought of any of that. Frankly, he hadn’t had time to be philosophical about the suffering of anyone else. “I’m sorry, Leslie. But we need Vaughan’s capabilities on this mission. Belle’s just going on along for the ride.”<
br />
“No!” Leslie snapped. “You cannot think of Belle’s server like that. It is as much hers as it is Vaughan’s. And we all know the oh-so-noble Vaughan. He will sacrifice himself—and her—without asking anyone.”
“After hearing Kirk’s story, I’m not sure Belle deserves any consideration at all.”
Leslie stepped close to him, the flash of anger gone from her eyes. She was sixteen, but came across as sixty. “Dr. Carlhagen does not deserve any consideration. Senator Bentilius does not deserve any. But Belle? She’s made a greater effort to change than anyone I know. She switched places with Jacey in the transfer machine. She volunteered to have her body used by Senator Bentilius. No consideration? I’m surprised at such foolishness coming from you, Humphrey.”
She turned away and slipped back onto the navigation bridge.
Kirk’s lips were clamped shut, his stance wide. He wasn’t moving.
“I kicked Vaughan in the head,” Elias said softly. “In a way, I started much of this. If I had the strength to defy Dr. Carlhagen the way you did that day, maybe things would be better. I want to do something to make things right again. Kirk deserves that chance, too.”
A gull cried overhead, then swooped toward the turquoise water of the harbor. The ruined town was at once a witness and victim to the irrepressible claims of time. Trees and vines were overgrowing buildings of brick and cement. Roofs had long ago collapsed. The people who had built it were long dead. The people who had sheltered there so many decades ago as the walls of water from the Kille-Tine impact tsunamis collapsed on top of them, all dead.
That’s what faced the Scions. The unstoppable tsunami of human greed. A force of nature so great there was no stopping it. And hunkering down and hiding was no use either. That’s why Humphrey’s instinct—the same as Jacey—was to go toward the danger. What if someone had diverted Kille-Tine and it had missed the earth entirely? How many could have been saved?
This was their shot to divert disaster.
“We leave immediately,” Humphrey said, then turned and left the boys alone on the wing.
Scions of Sacrifice Page 18