by JA Huss
I like this girl.
I might be bonding with her.
I might even want her.
I might ruin everything if I keep her.
But I might change our fates enough to make a difference too. If I can calm her down and make her understand. “The goddess, our greatest goddess, Inanna,” I reply. Maybe she’ll listen…
I slip off the rocky ledge and dunk my head under the water, my Tier body almost back. The knives have retracted but not all the way. They stick out, sharp and ready. I reach up and touch my fangs. They are smaller too, but not yet gone. I’m still taller than I was, but not by much.
I’m taller than Gideon now and that makes me want to find him and rub it in before I get back to work.
But I might never see Gideon again. He’s supposed to get Junco and I really should not be around Junco at all right now. It’s too precarious. I love her too much to say goodbye.
Everyone is so worried about Junco completing her mission, but no one has ever doubted me. It bugs me a little. Not because I want to refuse Lucan. I would never. I am completely in till the end. It bothers me because maybe they think Junco means so little to me that refusal isn’t an option.
That’s not it. And I have an overwhelming need to make that clear to everyone. I love her, but it’s not my fault we were born into these roles. It’s not my fault I have to complete the mission. And it’s not her fault she has to complete hers.
I want her to complete it. I really do. I want to save Lucan and make all this go away.
But it’s still not fair. Because I’ve never lived. I have twenty-seven years under me and I’ve never lived beyond a few weeks of time with Junco after she recovered from Deliverance.
And it’s too late now.
This is the end of everything.
This is the end of us.
I get out of the spring and walk back to my cavern and sort through the rubble and piece together an old uniform. It will have to do. I’m not risking a trip back on ship now that the Halo is activated. For me it’s a waiting game. A stay-out-of-sight kinda time. I run my options through my head and figure the Stag is as good a place as any. Arel and Ryse should be there. Annun and John Hando too, with that Iliana clone. Subjack and Linny Coot might end up this way, too. And I know for a fact that Selia is there, and she’s the next target on my mission list. Ashur is not gonna be happy, but orders are orders. She goes to Caleb first thing tomorrow. My vision screen says it’s almost midnight, so it’s gonna be a long night of waiting. If we’re lucky, Rikan will do his job and we can get this party started.
I enter the timeshift and come out in the moonlit scrub of the Southeast Rural Republic. Northwest Texas, technically, but who’s paying attention to silly things like borders these days? There’s only one building left standing after I bombed the shit out of the labs a few years back.
Just the one building.
The one that Junco called home.
Chapter Twenty-Eight—JUNCO
Peak City
One instant I’m barreling through the nothing, and then I see it. Earth.
And above me is the Halo. It’s silvery white and sparkles in the moonlight. I close my eyes for a moment, enjoying the freeing feeling of being this—whatever it is I am. I’m barreling down into the mountains of the RR where my Pillar is located and for a moment I sense Gideon. Waiting impatiently, I notice with a smile. But then Cora is there again, and she’s nearby as well. New Peak City is only a couple hundred miles away from my Pillar. Redirecting myself there is not hard. I cringe as I sense Gideon’s anger at my change of direction, but I don’t dwell.
I’m not his soldier.
I work for myself now. Fuck them all. And especially fuck this bitch Cora. The nothingness has completely morphed into a time tunnel now, so I choose my location, which just happens to be the New Peaks amphitheater, and come out standing in the seats amid more than a thousand panicking humans who don’t have time to notice my sudden appearance because every set of eyeballs is trained on the screen up on the mountain or on the stage, where Angels have Cora in a death grip and are barking out things in avian at the frightened humans.
Dumbasses.
I port to the stage, SEAR in hand, cut the Angel who has Cora by the neck in half, then tap her and get the fuck out of there. She’s screaming in the time shift, but it’s so fucking strange to hear her scream drawn out as we move through time, I’m not even annoyed. I bring us out at the site of my old cabin and drop her on the ground, the stench of SEAR death still wafting up into my nostrils.
“That felt pretty fucking good. It’s been a while since I did some ruthless killing.” I turn to face Cora. She’s slumped over on the ground, puking her guts out and shaking uncontrollably. “Oh yeah, sorry. Forgot about how cold it is in there your first time. And the puking—also normal. Even Selia pukes and she’s a hundred times more badass than you.”
“What the fuck did you. Just. Do?”
I cop a seat on a rock. “Saved your ass, that’s what I just did.”
“But—” she stammers. “You were one of those demon things a few minutes ago. They took you away, that Angel of Death came and killed hundreds of Angels in a matter of seconds, then talked shit about some alien called Aesin, and called him out.” She huffs out a breath.
“Well, I’m pretty sure that was not me you saw, since I’ve been otherwise occupied. And that Death Angel guy has a name, so use it.”
Her mood goes from shaken to annoyed in a matter of seconds. “What do you want?” she spits.
“You, Cora. I want you. You’ve been talking all kinds of shit about me, you’ve been telling them lies, you’ve—”
“You saved my ass so you could bitch me out? Honey, look here—”
“Do not honey me, Cora. I’m dangerous.”
She eyes my stomach where my SEAR knife is stowed. “I’m not afraid of you. You’re just like them. Killing us, starting this war we’re in.” She points up to the sky. “Making that thing up there that will do God knows what to the ones of us who are still alive. I told you, you’re on the wrong side, Junco. You better face that fact soon.”
I shrug at her. “You know nothing, Cora. Not a goddamn thing.” I walk around the area until I find the meager pile of rocks and wood and loose earth left over from when HOUSE and I were here last, and then I start digging with my bare hands.
“What the hell are you doing now?”
“Digging.”
“For what?”
I look up and smile. “My safe house.” I laugh at this, maybe even a little bit hysterically. Because hell, I am nothing if not well-prepared. It’s funny almost, how well-prepared I am. All that training, all that death, all that torture, all those morphs, all those people who molded me and shaped me into this… this thing. All those aliens who told me lies, hell, all those family members who told me lies… it all leads up to this.
Kneeling down on the ground, digging up the earth in search of my secret cache of weapons, food, clothes, and one empty receptacle for my little sister AI.
I sigh at that.
Another pair of hands reaches down into the dirt and starts scooping with me. I look up at her and she shrugs. “I’m hungry. You have food in there?”
“More than we’ll ever need, Cora.”
We scoop for almost an hour before we get enough dirt out of the way to open the hatch. I unlock it and swing the door open wide. Cora makes to get in but I put a hand up. “We gotta wait until the air exchanges, it’s stale and old down there, we’ll get dizzy if we go in now.”
“Oh,” she says, sitting back on her haunches. “You’re pretty good at this survival stuff, I guess.”
I grunt. “Yeah, well, they’re been teaching me how to survive since I was born. My life is one long survival lesson, Cora.”
“I didn’t lie, either,” she says, jutting out her chin.
“You did. You said I wanted to kill people. Billions of people. I never said that, Cora. I said I wanted to stop
the killing of billions of people. There’s no way out of this war. And I’m not sure who’s at fault for it—maybe Lucan, maybe those Angel things, hell, maybe I’m the one at fault, who the fuck knows. It doesn’t matter because the war is here. And from what I’ve been told, pretty much everyone is gonna die, and that’s if things go well. So you know, you should feel special and lucky that I happened to pick you up and set you straight. Because I’m a sure thing, Cora. I’m gonna live no matter what. I might be scattered into billions of pieces, but I’ve been there, done that, so I’m good with it.”
She just stares at me with her stupid mouth open. “Oh.”
I crawl over to the hatch and point at the hole. “Get in. I’ll follow you and lock the door. It’s dark, but you know, it’s just your run-of-the-mill tunnel ladder, your feet know what to do. When you get to the bottom, step aside and let me pass and I’ll turn on the generator and start the environmental units.” She shakes her head no the whole time I’m talking. “Yes, Cora. Get in the fucking tunnel or I’ll push you down there and then you’ll really be fucked because it’s a hundred feet.”
“You’re gonna kill me if I go down there.”
“Cora, if I wanted to kill you, I sure the fuck would not do it down in a closed-up tunnel. Do I look like an idiot?”
That seems to make sense to her because she sneers at me and climbs in, then complains the entire way down about how dark it is.
Yes, it’s a fucking tunnel.
When we get to the bottom I push her out of the way and go find the generators.
“How can you see anything?” she asks.
“Night vision, infrared, spatial analyzer, compass, echolocation… You name it, my fucking vision screen has it.”
“What’s a vision screen?”
I ignore her and press down on the starter button on the generator and it cranks for a few seconds until it turns over. How much time has passed since I was here with HOUSE? Not long, a week maybe? Once it’s started I flip on the lights. They are not bright, just a few low-wattage floodlights placed in the corners. But at least she can see now. I open a box of food, watching Cora as she pokes around in my stuff. She doesn’t touch the guns, but she picks up a set of throwing knives, then sets them down and takes her attention to the crossbow. She looks over to me. “Crossbow? A little archaic, don’t you think?”
I shrug. “I’m good in trees. The crossbow is less likely to be heard than a gun. Every weapon has its purpose.” I toss her a few packets of blueberry pancake field rations and then grab each of us a bottle of water.
“Why am I here, Junco?” she says as she tears open her foil wrapper and squeezes the paste into her mouth.
“You lied and I wanted to set it straight. I’m not a killer, Cora. I’m just a soldier. What I do is not what I am. You’ve been telling the entire planet that I’m bad. And I’m not bad. I’m just working, dammit.”
“What are you then?”
“A woman, just like you.”
She snorts a laugh at that. “No. No, no, no. I am a woman, you”—she points to my stomach where my SEAR dock is—“are something else entirely. So what are you? What are those avians out there? And why did that Tier guy kill all those other avians? He acted like they were not on the same team.”
“They aren’t. I’m not sure what you saw, but—”
“You were a demon thing, Junco. You had fangs and knives coming out of your feet. It was… demon-like.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure I’m capable of being that thing you saw, but that one in particular was not me.”
“But she looked just like you.”
Hmmm… maybe Ashur and Tier were right, maybe Gideon does have a clone of me.
“So now what?” Cora asks, trying to continue the conversation.
“I’m gonna sleep for a while. It’s the middle of the night and I’m so fucking tired it’s not funny.”
“What about me?”
“You can sleep too.” I lie down on the cold ground and curl up a little. “I don’t need a blanket, but if you look around you’ll find a bedroll you can use if you want.”
“Sleep? But what about all those things out there? What about that Halo? What about the fucking angel apocalypse?”
“Relax, Cora,” I say with my eyes closed, already drifting off. “I’m pretty sure the end of the fucking world is gonna wait for me to show up. Just let me sleep.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine—TIER
The Stag
There’s a guard at the door, not one I recognize by name, but I take a moment to talk to him, get the rundown on what’s going on and try to ease his fears of what’s coming. I’m not sure it makes a difference, but it gets me information and it gives him something to think about besides death.
Ashur made it back with Linny and Subjack. Selia is here with the clone Annun and John stole from the Sagitta Building, along with Deb, the female half of the duality. The guard stops here to fill me in on the rampage the other half of that duo is on at this moment down in Texas. This shit just gets weirder and weirder. Arel and Ryse have collected all six of the Siblings and they’re inside as well.
“Is that everyone?” I ask after he finishes.
“Yes, sir,” he says with a shaky voice. His wings are light, almost like Isten’s. But his eyes glow orange with unease.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, warrior. And if it makes you feel any better, you’re in the best possible place.” I point up in the northwestern sky. “We’re far enough off the path of the Halo it should miss us.”
He just stares at me.
“You might live, warrior. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Lucan. And if you see him afterward, tell him I have no regrets and I’d do it again, a million times over. All he’d ever need to do is ask.”
“I—I—” he stammers. And then he sighs and lets go of his fear. “Thank you, sir. I’ll pass the message along if I have the chance.” He snaps off a salute, flashes his biometrics, and pulls the door open for me.
I walk into a great room filled with somber people sitting on various pieces of furniture that have been pushed up in front of a giant wall screen. They’re momentarily preoccupied with the rampage on screen showing Web throwing a temper tantrum down in Dallas. When I look back at the people Iliana is staring at me.
“He’s a bad seed, sir.”
“Yes, Deb, I figured he was.” All the heads turn now and Ashur untangles himself from Selia and gets up. “You can’t ever trust a nice guy.” Ashur claps me on the shoulder and pulls me into a man hug. I laugh a little. My twin. You gotta love Ashur, even if he is a bit stiff. “Report, brother.”
He points. “The Fledge team is here. I brought Subjack and Linny Coot from the PF.” He turns his head and whispers so they can’t hear, “We need to talk with these two soon.” Then he continues with the report. “Siblings are all accounted for, minus Junco. Gideon was here about ten minutes ago. She gave him the slip at the Pillar. Someone says they saw her at Peaks, but they might’ve seen Deb and mistook her for Junco, so we’re not sure about that yet. At any rate, Gideon’s gone looking and she’s not in Peaks now, we checked, must’ve just missed you. Where ya been?”
“I had to calm myself and clean up. I was at the cave.”
Ashur nods, understanding. “She’ll turn up, Tier. Don’t worry. But right now, we really need to discuss what was up in the Polar Friendly, because those things got out, we had a huge fight just before the Halo activated, my fucking shoulder got bit and it’s not good. Those things are infused with some kind of SEAR mechanism—”
“What?” I grab his arm and look down at his torn uniform and scarred-over wound.
He tugs his arm back. “Wyrd already looked at it and he’s not sure what it is, but I seem to be just fine for the moment, and let’s face it, we might only have moments left, so I’ll deal with the consequences of this another time. The thing that bothers me, Tier, is tha
t I’m not sure how we reconcile the fact that we’ve got Six Siblings with a perfect combination of DNA code to fix our genome, and yet the other Six Siblings are demons who just thawed out and are on a major rampage as they make their way down to Peak City. And besides that alloantigen repressor stuff in their saliva, they’ve got other stuff in there too. Wyrd did a quick field test and found human diseases, plant viruses, some really fucked-up shit. And—”
I cock an eyebrow at him, as if to say, There’s more?
“I was down in that cave control room with Subjack and he said those pinpricks of light inside the room with the demons actually contain DNA. He says it looks like some sort of seed stock facility. We need to send a team down there now that the demons are gone.”
“We have no time for that now, Ashur. Lucan will have to deal with that when this is over.”
“I figured, yeah. Just wanted to let you know.”
“And the baby is here, Tier,” Tessen says from behind me. “Don’t forget the baby.”
She’s pointing to the corner of the great room that is walled off in glass. It contains a crib and presumably a baby. My baby. But I can’t see her from this angle. Pike, Merk and Wyrd appear behind Tessen and even though the shit is hitting the fan as I stand here, this group makes me happy. Junco’s team. Junco’s hand-picked team.
Annun steps up and takes his place with them and I salute and then turn to Tessen. “Report, Tess.”
“We lost Bridge, Cres, and Tak, sir. It was my fault. We had her drugged but it wasn’t enough.” She hangs her head and I reach over and tap her shoulder.
“Thank you, Tess. You did good, warrior.”
She looks up, confused.
“I gave the order, you followed it and completed your mission, that’s all I can ask.”
“Yes, sir.”
“OK, I’m gonna talk privately with Ashur and the Coots, and then we’ll see where we’re at.”
Ash leads the way down a hallway, then opens a door that’s had its biometrics blasted out with a plasma. He waves me through, then closes the door as best as it’ll go with the fucked-up locking mechanism. “This is Junco’s room, by the way.”