Dismay washed over her. “I...”
“I won't try to do anything to you,” he offered, his hands up placatingly. “Are you physically with me now? Or is this a projection?”
Her body went rigid with fear. Keti was gone, or this outlander couldn't conceivably have broken into the Needle. Now she was trapped in a room with him. Completely vulnerable, unprotected.
The sensation of immediate physical danger was so potent that she waited helplessly for him to grab her with his coarse hands and tear her apart. Almost worse was the possibility of being taken out of the Needle and into an unknown world. She was struck too dumb to call out to Keti.
Dugan tensed up as well, then backed away from her. The Empress had reacted to his assurance by rearing back like a snake preparing to strike.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said. “I'm not saying you need my help getting out of here. Just that if you come with me, I'd be useful. I know the City and the outlands.”
They faced one another uncertainly.
Finally, the Empress asked, “Where would you take me?” Before he could answer, she quietly added, “And could you get me there...safe?”
“Safe?” He laughed. “You would get me there safely.”
Competing thoughts flooded her mind. The outlanders, or maybe the Citizens, wanted answers that she didn't have. This outlander believed that she had the power to protect him from harm.
Her every instinct cried out for her to stay in the Needle, guarded from danger.
Dugan walked to the windowed wall. No outlander, no Citizen, had ever had a view like this before.
She waited for him to turn around, grab her wrist, and pull her to the elevator, but he seemed to have forgotten her.
“You've never been out there.” He stated it plainly, without pity.
“No. I haven't.”
She looked at the reflection of his face. Where she expected to see severity, she found a look of contemplation.
Dugan surprised himself by admitting, “I don't have a plan for getting you out of here unnoticed. I didn't expect to get in the front door of the Needle like that; I came to do recon so...” He trailed off.
The City was a work of art when seen from this vantage point. The pieces fit together to form a tapestry that nobody but the Empress was aware of. In the distance, the outlands looked like a painting wrapped around the City's borders.
Dugan found it hard to maintain the edge of caution which had kept him alive all these years. In his entire lifetime he had never, for a single second, been totally safe. In that moment, his mind silently pictured years worth of life in this room.
To not know the need for a weapon, to never have developed the habit of looking over your shoulder every few minutes...he tried to process the idea.
Something softened in Dugan as the realization sunk in that this reality existed parallel to his own. Rather than resent the Empress for her blessed life, he felt a spark of appreciation that the girl had been spared from everything currently weighing his own life down.
He turned to her. “Can you get us out somehow?”
Confusion registered in her eyes. “I've never left this room...”
“I mean, can you teleport us or...”
She appeared to genuinely ponder the question before replying, “I don't know.”
“Is Keti still alive?”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “What else would she be?”
Dugan looked around nervously, eliciting a wry look from the Empress.
“Dead,” he told her. “Or gone away. We didn't know what to think. Everyone can feel it...something is different. You don't feel it?”
“Not as much as I should,” she confessed, “if you aren't exaggerating.”
Before Dugan could react, the Empress quickly added, “No, you wouldn't be here otherwise.”
A look of comprehension gripped her face.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked tersely.
Dugan cleared his throat. “Take you to the outlands so you can help us figure out what the situation is.”
“You have friends?” She asked it in such an unnatural tone that Dugan wrinkled his nose with disgust.
Maybe only the Citizens talk like people do in Bytech Anon, the Empress thought.
“Not friends,” Dugan replied gruffly. “Someone with a lot of power in the outlands. He sent me to get you out of here and bring you to him.”
She stepped away from him, painfully aware of the futility of trying to escape.
Dugan remained where he was. “He wants to know if it's possible that Keti is an artificial intelligence that maybe got too intelligent. If not that, if she's really a higher power."
“That's foolish,” she said. “An AI would have an objective. Keti didn't want anything.”
“Nothing?” he asked. He had a mounting sense of foreboding about their meeting with Lorenz. He'd kept himself alive by walking away every time he got this feeling. Not to mention, even Dugan wasn't ruthless enough to deliver a girl into, possibly, the worst fate that Lorenz could conceive of.
“The only thing she tried to do was make me suffer, to ‘perfect’ my energy.”
“What would happen if your energy was perfect?” Dugan asked drearily.
“Nothing, maybe? I'd be art that she liked to look at.”
“Lorenz won't be happy if you don't have any answers.”
“So we stay here?” she offered with bare pleading lining her tone. “You can find us food and stay here. On another floor.”
“It'll only work for so long.”
He walked to the window again. “You don't have any kind of special power?” When she didn't answer, he said, “That doesn't make sense. I let myself get dragged into this, and you're trying to say...”
“I need to be fed,” she said. When Dugan turned to face her, she had regained the poise he'd seen in her at the first Assembly.
He looked at her blankly, his mind wavering between frustration and reverence.
In a restrained voice, he said, “I checked a few of the floors on my way up here. I don't want to see any more.”
The Empress's eyes widened. “What was on the other floors?”
“You haven't seen any of them?”
“Of course not.” Under her breath, she muttered, “What EB level are you?”
It was something that Aylah from Skycastle liked to say when someone acted stupid. Though the Empress didn't know it, it referred to the lesson groups in Edubot, an educational program for kids.
Dugan stared at her. Matter-of-factly, he told her, “We're getting out of here. How do I call the elevator?”
To discourage any criticism, she snapped, “I don't know, or I'd have tried to escape a long time ago.”
The streets below were still deserted. Dugan didn't like the prospect of ushering the Empress through the City without any cover.
After a moment, he wondered aloud, “How did I get into this?”
She walked to the elevator and ordered it to open.
It did, surprising them both. Dugan walked past her, into it.
“You knew how to call the elevator.”
“No.”
He seemed to accept it. A second later, he told her, “Turn around and face that wall. I need to keep you calm, and my ride up wasn't a calm one.”
She did as he told her, without comment.
“Take us down,” he said into the air.
The elevator didn't move.
The Empress told him, “Just wait.”
Moments later, the elevator began descending.
“I...just had a feeling,” she explained.
Dugan stood with his back to hers as the elevator continued to go downward.
“I saw him shoot you at the Assembly. You were bleeding all over...”
She seemed to consider this before responding, “I was there but I was also here.”
“So Keti did make you into...” He wasn't sure how to finish the sentence.
“I wo
uldn't be able to explain it,” she answered in a tone that clearly was meant to end the conversation.
Without making eye contact, Dugan placed one hand on her back and one on her shoulder. He lightly turned her to face the elevator door.
The door faded from sight to reveal a black, shapeless room she hadn't seen since she was a little girl.
“We need to talk, Empress.”
She followed him out of the elevator, too stunned to reply.
He spoke first. “We aren't safe out there. I can't protect you from all the people who'd want to use you for their own purposes, and you're telling me that you can't protect yourself...”
“So what do we do?”
“We'll have to figure that out. Real soon.”
The Empress slid a hand to her shoulder and pulled a light pink robe around herself, as if from nowhere.
Dugan began to demand an explanation but stopped himself.
Seeing his consternation, she struggled to find words to describe.
“If I don't think about it, things happen...because they need to happen.”
“Then you need to ‘not think’ about finding something to hide the most recognizable face on the planet.” When he reached to mimic the motion of pulling a hood over her head, bunched fabric appeared between his fingers.
He pulled the hood up, then withdrew his hand like it had been scalded.
As if on cue, an opening appeared at one end of the room.
Dugan looked down at her. “Maybe we'd do better without a plan then.”
She expected something to stop her from leaving, perhaps a force field? But after decades of captivity, she walked out of the Needle without incident.
“I'm not going to the outlands,” she said with (what she hoped was) finality as they walked out to a cloudy day.
Ruefully, Dugan thought The outlands might come to us, though.
He put a hand on her back and led her through the open courtyard.
After thousands of days of longing to be part of the world outside the Needle, the moment felt anticlimactic for her. It only seemed natural that she would be walking the streets of the City. Preferably she'd be walking with people her own age, though.
“Stop touching me.”
Dugan dropped his hand to his side.
The two of them walked down the first side street they came to. In the distance, three couples in white walked toward them on the other side of the street.
Something didn't feel right. The mens' clothes fit too tight over muscled arms and chests. Even the women walked with the tense posture of an outlander.
“We need to get away now,” he said. His hand involuntarily gripped her shoulder.
“From them?” she asked. “Citizens will do anything,” she began, stopping herself from adding “for me.”
Dugan looked at her sideways before saying, “You're gonna have to trust that I know danger when I see it, Empress.”
“I do,” she said respectfully.
Dugan threw his shoulder into the nearest door; the group of outlanders broke into a jog.
“Fuck!” Dugan could break the door down if he had a minute to do it, which he didn't.
“Why the fuck would you need a reinforced door in the middle of the City?!” he muttered.
The Empress flattened herself against the building.
“I think I can...”
“Can what?” he asked as he threw himself against the door again.
“There!” she said, pointing across the street.
He spun around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. A hand softly pulled him from behind.
“Don't look back,” he heard her say quickly.
He stepped back cautiously; a strange chill ran up his body.
Darkness. He couldn't see a thing.
Dugan wasn't sure if he'd fallen into a trap or if she'd saved them.
He didn't have to wait to find out. A loud bang made him jump back as someone crashed into the door, inches from his face.
“We need light,” he hissed.
The Empress cupped her hands together and closed her eyes. A moment later, a faint glow shone on her eyelids. When she looked, Dugan's worried face was dimly lit in front of her.
She held her cupped hands out and carefully stepped between rows of curved tables.
“Faster,” Dugan urged her.
The sound of muffled voices was followed by a pair of feet kicking the door in unison.
A voice called out. There was the sound of footsteps and then a terrifying hum that sent the door panel skittering across the floor.
Dugan and the Empress rushed through an open doorway into a stockroom. Motion sensors triggered the lighting panels above them. Two cleaner bots whirred to life and rolled out from recesses in the wall.
The Empress screamed and fell backward.
As Dugan dragged her to her feet, he made eye contact with the scanner on one of the bots. A line of green light ran over his face.
“The floor is dirty,” he barked.
“The floor will be cleaned,” it intoned.
The stockroom had one other door. They ran through it into a hallway.
The hallway wound left and right until neither of them was sure if it was leading them to the rear of the building or the side. Motion sensing lights flickered on in front of them as they went, leaving a path for their pursuers to follow.
They rounded a corner to see a door at the end of the hallway. Dugan swept his hand in front of the door panel. It slid open, revealing a large room that led to the street.
Two women in white were peering through a window at them. One slid a hand into a pocket at her hip, maintaining eye contact with Dugan as she did.
The Empress stepped forward into the room. She held her palms out to the women as she walked to them.
The one nearest to them drew her hand up to reveal a flat square object which she aimed at the Empress. The other woman's lips moved furiously, instructing her to act.
The Empress’s eyes closed. She whispered, “Don't save me,” in case Keti could hear her (and cared).
The woman stared, transfixed, as the Empress came closer to the window. Light seemed to swirl inward from the window and dance around her.
The other woman grabbed the weapon from her partner's hand. Averting her eyes, she pointed it in the Empress's direction.
The room disappeared in a burst of white light.
When it cleared, the women watched in confusion as the three men sprinted through the doorway into the room. The Empress and Dugan were nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Sixteen
Dugan found himself wrapped in a cocoon of rough fabric. He swept it away and turned to find himself face to face with the Empress. He looked down but saw no trace of the fabric he had just thrown off himself.
In the distance, across miles of pocked earth, lay the outlands.
“Oh gods,” the Empress said quietly.
Dugan's instincts kicked in. He pulled his hood up, then hers, and motioned for her to kneel next to him.
“I don't know what you did,” he said, “but we're not safe yet.”
“This is what's beyond the outlands?” she asked.
“Our world is a dot on the map in this.” Bitterly, he added, “Billions of people. Fuck Keti.”
She was silent.
“Look at it,” he said angrily. “People worshipped her after she did this. They worshipped you...”
“I didn't have any choice,” she said sharply.
Dugan looked toward the outlands. “No, I guess not. Could you see it from the Needle?”
“I...should have been able to, but I couldn't.”
“Well,” he said, “we should move.”
A gust of wind whipped at their faces. Uncertain how to respond, the Empress slapped the air in front of her.
Dugan bit his tongue to suppress a groan. He walked in front of her to shield her from the wind. They walked, heads bowed, toward the outlands.
She said something but
the words were lost in the sudden winds.
“What?” he yelled, drawing his ear closer to her mouth.
“I said,” she shouted, “do you get any of the City's vid networks? Or just weird outlander ones?”
“You're kidding.”
When she didn't respond, he asked, “That wasn't a serious question, right?”
“Have you watched Bytech Anon?”
Dugan said something too quiet for her to make out.
Rather than struggle to hear each other over gusts of wind, they continued on in silence. Dugan could sense the Empress's mounting impatience over questions she would have to wait to ask him.
Abruptly, the wind curved to avoid them. The Empress moved to walk alongside him.
“Finally,” she said to herself quietly.
Dugan could still see loose particles of dirt near them swirling upward in the wind, but the wind seemed to twist away now, in an effort to avoid them.
“You did this.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Maybe?” she replied. “I couldn't stand it anymore, so I wished it would stop.”
He looked over at her. “I'm risking my life to keep you out of danger. You owe me an explanation.” As he said it, Dugan came to the realization that he'd made up his mind not to let Lorenz find her.
“I don't have one.” She had regained her composure; the girl who looked him in the eyes was the Empress as the world knew her. It disarmed Dugan, who searched her face for signs of the vulnerable girl who had fled the Needle with him.
As an afterthought, she asked, “What will your friends say when I talk to them?”
“They're not my friends. Or yours.”
“Am I safe with you?”
The question caught him off guard. Of course she wasn't safe in the outlands, if Keti wasn't watching over her. Was she asking if she was in danger from him? If he could keep her safe all by himself?
“No. If Keti isn't protecting you, you'd be better off dead. I'm the only person here or in the City who won't try to use you for something.”
He waited for her to cry, or gasp, or maybe just stop walking altogether, but she didn't.
After a moment, she muttered, “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“No, I just realized that there aren't bots in the outlands. Do I have to eat food that people touched with their hands?” She looked repulsed.
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