Longwei starts walking back toward the entrance, but Jaime holds his ground.
“It’s not enough.”
A hum shakes the air. He manipulates his nyxia. I can’t make out the shape he’s chosen until he takes a swing. His blunted crowbar lands against the glass. One swing and it almost shatters. Jaime takes a second swing and a third. I stand there, frozen, as Longwei’s instincts finally kick in. Broken glass rains from overhead as Longwei reaches him.
My body finally swings into motion.
“Jaime!” I shout. “Cool it, man!”
Longwei pulls him to one side, struggling. Anger burns in Jaime’s eyes. It reaches down through the veins of his neck. He tries to fight past Longwei and finish the job.
A hiss of air sounds. The damage has already been done. All three of us look up as the glowing green dot above the unlucky marine starts to flicker to red. Cracks web their way through the entire glass panel. “Get him out! Longwei, move him!”
Jaime fumbles his crowbar as Longwei stumbles with him toward the entrance. I slide past them, careful to avoid the glass. There’s a matching keypad at the base of the marine’s cryogenic chamber, but Kit never told us the code. West isn’t even at the base.
He might die.
I snatch Jaime’s fallen weapon. It takes a second to force the image forward, manipulating the substance that was responding to Jaime’s touch just seconds before. I picture the same substance I used to lock Roathy out of the launch pod.
The nyxia reaches back through my thoughts, carving itself into the right form. The black spreads in a crackling wave. I give the substance a helpful shove, glass crunching underfoot, until the whole thing suctions to the corners. It seals the dying marine inside.
I’m not sure if I’m saving him or killing him, but the second the air stabilizes, the red light flickers back to green. I wait for a minute. The light stays green. I let out a huge sigh of relief and move back to the entrance.
Jaime stands off to one side, looking like a punk kid who got caught stealing something at the mall. I do my best to channel Pops as I grab him by the collar and pull him in close.
“Use your anger the right way.”
He tries to shrug me off, but I don’t let him loose.
“I’m serious, Jaime. These might be our enemies when they wake up. Or maybe they’re just people Babel hired. Maybe Babel lied to them the same way they lied to us. We can’t know that when they’re in a sleep-freeze and suctioned to the inside of a buried spaceship. If you want to sink down to Babel’s level, take shots at people who can’t defend themselves, be my guest. Just don’t involve me next time, fathom?”
He shakes his head. “If it was you in there, what would they do?”
“I’m not them. I don’t plan to be.”
Jaime looks ready to snap back, but instead he nods.
Longwei raises an eyebrow. “This is why I usually stay in my room.”
I let out a laugh. “And miss out on all the fun?”
The three of us slip quietly back outside. Jaime’s still hot with it as he leads us back over the bridge. All his anger and hate for Babel keeps building. I need to put out that fire before it burns in a direction dangerous enough to get him hurt.
Halfway across the bridge, there’s movement. A figure emerges from the opposite end of the bridge, coming on quickly. Long, unpanicked strides. I squint through the shadows and can tell it’s not one of the Genesis kids. It’s an Imago.
“Speak?”
I’m running through excuses, reasons we were down here, when the light finally finds Speaker’s face. And all the features are wrong. The approaching figure has a sharper chin, more angled eyes. A nyxian implant shades one eye like a swooping shadow.
Not Speaker.
Not a friend.
Jaime’s caught midstep. I watch him flinch, legs frozen, as the stranger raises a blunt, pitch-black weapon. I remember—in the space of a single breath—that he’s unarmed.
It swings down at an angle.
Longwei lowers a shoulder and knocks Jaime to one side. He pays for it too. The incoming blow catches him across one eye and sends him spiraling to the ground. Momentum has Jaime smashing into the stone railing. The weapon comes back around, seeking a new target.
My nyxia reacts faster than my thoughts can shape it. From my pocket to my hands, forming the familiar off hand of my boxing claws as it moves. All in less than a heartbeat. I answer the second blow with a raised arm and a firm step.
The Imago’s eyes widen when I catch the blow, but he swings a second time, and a third. Each shot comes with such quick succession that I can only block the blows, stumbling back as I do. There’s no time to think, no time to draw my other glove into existence, as the Imago presses forward.
Two more testing blows, then he spins away, grasping for my control of the nyxia. It’s unexpected, but Babel trained me well. The claw starts to close around my hand, threatening to break every bone. A mental shoulder shoves the Imago back.
He gives a nod of admiration, then two more jabs, a hook. I deflect all three, but I can already feel my arms getting tired. Longwei’s still down. Jaime’s moving but can’t seem to take his feet. The Imago retreats a step.
“You’re worthy.” The sound of the voice shocks me. It’s softer, feminine. I stare at the intruder and realize for the first time he is a she. “You will be my new beginning.”
I can’t tell if I’m exhausted or if the words just don’t make any sense. I’m heaving each breath, hands up and ready, when she flicks one wrist. The nyxian weapon retreats into a section of her belt. I’m watching the substance mist through the air, thinking that somehow I managed to scare her off, when she flicks her other wrist.
And for once, I’m too slow.
I see the glint too late, feel the prick before I can pull back, and now something’s crawling up my throat. I stare at the Imago’s satisfied face as it blurs, as the bridge spins beneath my feet. My arm goes numb first. Then my chest feels like it’s locked up, beating against the bars of a steel cage. The stranger shows me a ring on her off hand. There’s a hair-thin needle attached to the end of it. “Screwbone. An effective poison, is it not?”
My tongue’s too heavy to answer. I try to form a fist, to throw a punch. She just laughs. There’s a grunt as Jaime tries to rise but falls. The Imago knocks him aside before lifting me up. I can feel the pressure of her hold, but only distantly, like I’ve already half fallen out of my body. I can’t make my eyes close. I can’t move my neck.
Breathe. I have to tell myself to breathe.
“Be calm,” she warns. “Get too worked up and your lungs won’t be able to sustain it. It is not my intention to kill you, but I can’t keep you from killing yourself if you panic.”
She’s not going to kill me.
My brain lashes itself to that thought. Not going to kill me. Not going to kill me. But why? Why poison me? Light flashes across my vision. We’re moving.
Down a set of stairs. I can hear the river splashing. Everything feels dark and damp and dead. I’m set down on cold stones. Something splashes over my leg, and chills snake up my spine. The stranger cleans out my pockets of the only things that will make me dangerous.
Anything with nyxia: my gloves, my player, all of it. I have a blurry view of her shoving it into my abandoned knapsack before tossing it aside. I hear it land with a thunk before sliding out of reach.
I’m lowered into a boat.
There’s a muted grunt. The engine roars to life.
And then the lights of Myriad start to fade.
I move through the weightless dark.
It’s been two days roaming around Babel’s no-grav tunnels. I keep imagining them as the space station’s organs. They’re dark and vital and everyone forgets about them until they start to bleed. It took gutting an artery to lure in a friend.
The task took her half the amount of time I thought it would.
Wires hang down from the back of a switchboard. The techie’s replaced the pieces I fried and is bunching them together neatly, preparing to close the whole thing up and start back. I’m hoping she’ll lead me to the nearest maintenance closet. I’d like to snag a few gadgets and make my life behind Babel’s curtain a little easier. I need eyes on the station. I need to make contact with Vandemeer and our informant—Melissa Aguilar. But it’s not as easy as pushing through an exit and hoping I land in the right room. If the wrong person sees me, this whole mission was for nothing.
A soft click announces the task completed.
Noiseless, I slip my fingers free of the wall panel. The slightest push sends me floating after the techie. She’s more careful than I am, pulling herself along the wall, keeping tight to the slotted panels. I land soft along one corner of the tunnel before pushing off again.
Down the rabbit hole we go.
Her light leads me through the dark. We skip two tunnels before taking a right. I count fifty panels before she fully turns her body toward a slightly indented section. I let my fingers trail quietly along the ceiling, pulling my body to a stop. If she glances the wrong way and her eyesight’s any good, she’ll see there are monsters in the dark with her.
She doesn’t look.
The panel slides up, and light forces its way into her section of the tunnel. I flatten my body to the wall just in case, but it takes her two seconds to slide into the light and close the panel behind her. I shove down the hallway and stop myself in front of her chosen exit. I press my ear to the door and listen. There’s the gasp of an air lock. Footsteps. Nothing.
I take about three minutes to listen until I’m sure she’s gone.
Carefully, I slide the panel up just enough to look out. There’s a bright room with enough space for two people. One of Babel’s air locks faces a perpendicular hallway.
I count off the minutes in my head. I’m about to slide the panel up when a door directly across from the air lock opens. The red-haired techie waves to someone inside before slipping a utility belt back around her waist. She thumbs one of the devices and disappears down the hallway.
Follow the leader, I think.
The door’s still open a sliver. My eyes trail the equipment hanging from the walls in neat stacks. My only hesitation is the techie’s parting wave. Clearly someone’s inside. Wait them out? Smoke them out? After a few restless seconds, I lift the panel and slide out into the light.
It’s now or never. A quick manipulation draws my nyxia into the shape of a mask. I pull the soft material overhead. If there are Babel cameras waiting for me in the supply room, I want them thinking it’s some on-ship vigilante. I’d like my identity to stay a question mark for as long as possible.
I adjust the eye holes and manipulate my knife into something less Anton. The dagger widens out into blunted knuckles. I flex my fingers on the grip, feel the weight of it, and start forward. There’s an air lock separating the no-grav area of the station from the corridors that have been sealed off by nyxia to create a more Earthlike environment. There’s a hissing sound as the air lock gasps open and suctions. As the entrance opens, Babel’s imposed gravity comes slamming down on my shoulders.
A quick glance left, a quick glance right. No movement.
It takes about twenty seconds to get used to the restored gravity. I set my feet and take a deep breath. One, two, three…
My lowered shoulder opens the door. The room is stacked with goodies. Rows and rows of extra supplies. There’s a single desk to my right, occupied.
“Forget someth—”
The sight of me forces the rest of the sentence back down his throat. He’s too stunned to reach for an alarm or scream through a headset. He just blinks as I bring the weighted knuckles swinging across his temple. There’s a nasty smack, and he spins from his chair, slumping to the floor. I cock my head back, listening, but there’s no response from the hallway.
Hesitation is death. I glide through the rows, collecting conversion cables, live-feed monitors, a set of pliers, a proper flashlight. I shove them into my knapsack before turning back to his desk. I eye the documents stacked there. Just maintenance requests full of half-assed signatures. The first drawer is all standard desk supplies, but the second one’s a treasure chest.
A pair of manuals.
One turn of the pages shows me station schematics and maintenance procedures. I can’t help laughing to myself as I stuff them into the bag. I take a few seconds to tear random items from the shelves. I do my best to make chaos, just in case they try to inventory the room and use what I took as the first step in an investigation. I salute my fallen comrade and glance back into the hallway. Empty. I close the door and hope no one notices the unconscious body for a few more hours. That should be plenty of time to find my way to some other section of the station.
Air lock. Panel. Darkness.
I smirk my way back through the tunnels. I keep moving until I find a comfortable nook to set things up. With the flashlight between my teeth, I locate Babel’s monitoring cables and get to work. It takes a little less than an hour to patch my way through. I tap the screen on and watch as the image resolves. The security feed loops through images at ten-second intervals.
A glimpse of half-empty docks.
The underbelly of the station’s exterior.
An empty hallway.
The fourth image hits me like lightning. It reaches down into my chest, takes my heart in both hands, and pumps it full of forgotten life. The image brings life to every chamber, every vessel. The screen shows slumped shoulders, a familiar face.
Bilal.
He’s alive.
I wake to the night, to wind, to two moons in a foreign sky.
There’s rope coiled around my body. I try to shift my weight, but there’s barely any return from still-dead muscles. We’re on a boat. It’s a smaller version of the ones we’ve always used. I can hear it in the engine, see it in the condensed deck. The river thunders around us. Moss hangs down from branches reaching out over the riverbank.
My kidnapper sits wisely out of reach.
The angles and lighting of the bridge were enough to confuse me. Now, though, the differences between her and the male Imago are plain. She’s taller than they are, her chin more angled, her hair unshaven on the sides. The slight curve of her eyes is intensified by a nyxian implant. It almost looks like a dark comet with a tail spiraling toward her temple. I think of all the reasons someone would kidnap me. My mind jumps to the most frightening possibility.
“Isadora sent you.”
She looks back. “No, though I have heard rumor of her offers.”
The answer leaves me more confused, more afraid. She adjusts her position and I finally see the tattoo on her exposed wrist. She wears it proudly.
Moons swinging around in orbit.
She’s a sling.
I force my voice through the rust. “Who are you?”
“Jerricho of—” She catches herself, though, before saying which ring.
“What? Get kicked out of your ring or something?”
“That is how they define me,” she answers. “I will make a new name in a new world.”
The confidence in her voice sends a shiver down my spine. She sounds like Isadora. She feels absolutely certain about what she’s doing. She’s pleased with herself.
“Especially now that I’ve captured a Genesis.”
“Genesis?”
She
nods. “You are one of the Genesis. Our people are at an end. But your people? You are a beginning. With your help, I will walk through the doors that have been closed. You will take me where I could not have gone on my own. A new beginning. Genesis,” she repeats. “You are one of the Genesis.”
I stare at her and finally start to understand. Understanding leads to fear. Speaker used the word cult when he described the slings. I see it now. There’s something in the way she looks at me, the way her fingers drum restlessly. It has my heart rate rising.
I watched these shows with Moms before. Once you’re in the car or on the boat or locked in the basement, you’re dead. I want to shout for help, but who would hear? Even as I try to fill my lungs with air, it’s like someone’s parked a car on my chest. The effort shakes my body with violent tremors. Jerricho frowns.
“Do not strain,” she instructs. “The poison will fade. I need you strong again if you’re going to take me to the stars. It is not my intention to kill you.”
It takes a minute to catch my breath.
“You keep saying that. But your tattoo…You’re a sling, aren’t you?”
The word hits her like a thrown stone. She returns a dark look.
“They use that word against us. As if they aren’t exactly the same. It’s just their political propaganda, nothing more.”
Her answer doesn’t make any sense. Propaganda? “I thought…the tattoo on your wrist. It’s orbiting around, using the planet like a slingshot.”
“And they said we would use you,” Jerricho answers, echoing Speaker’s words. “That we have betrayed our people in choosing this path. Choosing to take our lives into our own hands.”
“That’s what you call this? Taking your life into your own hands?”
She nods firmly. “You’re a light in the dark. A new way out of the labyrinth.”
I swallow again. “You’re not making any sense.”
She points up at the moons. “I do not accept my end. I will go to your planet. Our rulers would have us wait on their mercy, their choosing. A lottery run by politicians.” She laughs her disdain. “I’m saying no to all of that.”
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