by K. M. Ruiz
What she still couldn’t come to terms with was the hole that had been punched in her mind where her twin once resided. Even Lucas couldn’t make her forget eighteen years of living with Gideon in her head. If she was grieving for her loss, she didn’t know where that grief was.
“We’re ready,” Fahad said, a satisfied bite to his words. “Let’s get this uploaded and begin. I can’t wait to see how it all goes down.”
Samantha pulled Kristen to her when the girl would have followed Fahad’s assistants around the portable work terminals. Hacking into the media streams took effort, but the results were always interesting. Samantha had seen the outline of what Fahad was going to report. That it would be picked up on all conspiracy and public streams meant the government wouldn’t be able to keep it hidden, that the information they would be disseminating would never die.
Fahad took his place before the camera, wearing the same sort of street clothes as the rest of them, his face covered by a shapeless headscarf that was lined with bioware to hide his identity and the same sort of dark glasses Samantha wore. Technology wasn’t the only detail he employed—a quick retreat was always on the table. Their bolt hole was a squeeze in the back between two collapsed walls, out into a thin alley that linked to a market square always teeming with people.
Samantha loosened her grip on Kristen’s shoulder, fingers tapping against the other girl’s skinny frame. Patience.
Novak finished uploading the program with the help of Fahad’s assistants, having worked on the actual hack on the flight over to get faster access to the public streams. They were able to access the backdoor in minutes, not hours.
“We’re reporting on the edge,” Fahad said, altered voice coming out strong. “If you’re hearing this, seeing this, then it’s a reminder that the government doesn’t own all of us. Here’s to the fallen, to the righteous, to Allah, who guides us. The government can’t control everyone, but control was never their final goal.
“The World Court has lied to everyone since the Border Wars. The Fifth Generation Act is a long-running con for the rich to buy their way into the promised land. Their hope isn’t our hope. What succors them won’t succor us. How many people have died, will die, for their greed? The rest of the world, if they have their way.”
Fahad gestured off camera to one of his assistants. The woman tapped out a few commands into her console. Fahad continued, “This is a picture of the Paris Basin, where the capital of France once stood. As you can see, it’s not all ruins and water. It’s not just a deadzone, but a hidden lifeline.” The picture switched to a closer magnification, rows and rows of shuttles, waiting to launch on a sleek ramp. “What you see is the government’s real plan, their way off this rock to the stars.
“Leftover nukes haven’t wrecked this area, no matter the lies the government tells. The truth is that our ancestors didn’t own one planet—they owned two. A colony ship is docked near the moon waiting to ferry the government’s chosen people into paradise.”
Another hand wave and Samantha knew the satellite pictures of the Ark were being added to the mix. She could see them on the vidscreen over Novak’s shoulder.
“But I tell you this, my brothers and sisters, that we—we who have bled and died for want of a better life—we have been betrayed, for we will not be on those shuttles. We will never see that ship.”
Samantha had seen the Ark before, when she was a child and Nathan had shown her what was promised to them. The pixels of a stream did the colony ship no justice, the nongovernment-controlled satellite providing the pictures old and barely functioning. But it still showed the massive scale of the Ark, large enough to take many citizens, but not all, to a new life.
It was a new life she had dreamed of once.
“This is the proof people have died to uncover. We deserve more than the government will leave us. We deserve more than scraps and walls and beatings and graves,” Fahad said, staring into the camera. “The government talks about laws and resources, as if this world was all we were left with, when they knew of some place better. They say we aren’t meant for some distant alien shore. I say, who are they to destroy our future? Who in the gutters will fight for it?”
The connection cut off, the actual feed of the pirate stream barely two minutes long, but it was two minutes that would live in infamy. Samantha knew that better than most. She had played at being human for her entire life and knew exactly how the registered elite would react in the face of such a reveal. The rest of the world, those who had never met the requirements of the Fifth Generation Act, would either take the stream as truth and riot, or do nothing and keep living the only life they knew.
“It’s done,” Fahad said, yanking off his headscarf and glasses.
A giddy, satisfied smile sat on his face, one born of pride and anticipation. The expression turned to horror as he watched Kristen approach one of his assistants. Kristen pressed her hand to the young man’s head and ripped through his mind with her empathy. The man’s scream lasted only a second or two, a sound that shredded their ears before it cut off.
“Your words are useful,” Kristen said as she turned her head to face the others, gleaming dark blue eyes full of malice. “You aren’t. At least, not anymore.”
Fahad and his people crumpled before Kristen’s unwavering onslaught, the hunger for sanity driving her. Jason’s shields hadn’t been enough. Nothing would be. The cracks in her mind were widening, and no one could stop her descent back into insanity.
Novak put his back against the wall. Five bodies lay scattered around the area where the pirate stream played in a continuous loop. It would run until someone on the government’s end managed to hack it out of existence, which he doubted they could, because the damage was done.
“I knew Lucas was gonna kill us. Matron never listens to me,” Novak said, curling in on himself as he hid his face. Samantha tore her gaze from the vidscreen and the loop, to where Kristen was approaching Novak with a dreamy smile on her face.
“Don’t kill that one,” Samantha reminded her sister, erecting a mental shield between Kristen and Novak’s mind.
“Oh, fuck, why not?” Novak asked, head jerking up, eyes wide with fear. His own or Kristen’s, Samantha didn’t really care.
“We needed a message people would believe in. Fahad delivered it perfectly.”
“So you killed him for doing a good job?”
“We have the message. We don’t need the messenger, especially not one with traitorous thoughts. Now get up,” Samantha said, already stretching her telepathy through the mental grid beneath the shield of static human minds, reaching for Lucas. “Lucas still has use for you, so stop yelling. Kristen won’t kill you.”
Kristen’s smile was wide and vicious. “Yet.”
Novak closed his mouth.
Did you finish? Lucas said as he drew Samantha into a psi link, suddenly there in her thoughts.
We’re done, Samantha said. Pirate stream is running, information is uploaded, Fahad and his people are dead.
Good. Show me the others.
Obediently, Samantha looked at Kristen and Novak. Her vision doubled, the light from the vidscreens wrapping everything in halos as Lucas stared through her eyes. Lucas’s telekinesis settled over her and pulled.
In an instant, all three were gone, leaving behind corpses, the voice of a dead man, and evidence of a betrayal that society wasn’t strong enough to survive intact.
“They say we aren’t meant for some distant alien shore. I say, who are they to destroy our future? Who in the gutters will fight for it?”
PART FOUR
CLARITY
SESSION DATE: 2128.08.13
LOCATION: Institute of Psionics Research
CLEARANCE ID: Dr. Amy Bennett
SUBJECT: 2581
FILE NUMBER: 750
“We can find others like you,” the doctor says as she stares down at her notes. “We’re learning what makes you different from us. It’s in your blood. In your brain.”
“Not human.”
“Human enough.” Aisling coils a wire around one finger, never looking away from the doctor’s face. “Do you want to know a secret?”
“Of course.”
“It never works when those like me are free at the beginning.” She raises a finger and presses it to her lips. “Shh. Don’t tell anyone.”
The doctor folds her hands together over the table, knuckles white. The hum of machines fills the air and echoes on the feed. “Your parents signed you over to us. Did you know that?”
“You told them to.”
“Where is your brother, Aisling?”
“You can’t have him.” The girl smiles; a slow, precise motion beneath bleached-out violet eyes. “You asked me once to save you. This is how I do it.”
[EIGHTEEN]
SEPTEMBER 2379
LONGYEARBYEN, NORWAY
The government shuttle came in from the south, flying across Spitsbergen. Four teams of quads were strapped in for the flight out of The Hague. They escorted a single man into the cold of the Arctic, a man who would have preferred to remain in Japan. For the first time since the government started security shifts after the island was rediscovered, the watch team in the north had missed their check-in.
Elion kept his attention focused on his datapad, glancing up only occasionally at the map on the hologrid to check their progress. He was a politician, not a soldier, and the utilitarian shuttle they were traveling in didn’t have the first-class comforts used by elite society. The skinsuit he wore beneath his clothes itched around his joints, but was necessary considering the environment they were heading into.
What the hell could have happened up here? Elion thought to himself. This post has never missed a check-in, not once.
Heir to the Athe Syndicate and his father’s seat on the World Court, Elion came from a family that prided itself on science over all else and survived the Border Wars because of it. Their contributions to the world that came after were needed, if highly selective. Their forays into space were key to the World Court’s plans, but they would never be as highly regarded as the Serca family.
The Serca Syndicate had helped the government establish SkyFarms Inc. after the Border Wars, using forgotten technology and salvaged seeds pulled from the Svalbard Global Seed and Gene Bank. The Athe Syndicate had lost its bid on that project, and the Sercas got the bulk of the credit for those ventures, second only to the government. Elion’s family was still bitter about the issue. Elion wondered if the Sercas would get the bulk of the blame this time around as well.
“How much longer?” he asked the pilot.
“ETA thirty minutes.”
Less than an hour before they found answers. The communications officer had been hailing the watch team since they took to the air, and not once had he received a response. The lack of contact was worrisome, and Elion wasn’t sure what to expect. He was exceptional when it came to anticipating people. He had to be if he was going to succeed his father on the World Court, but he could never have anticipated this.
The shuttle landed not in the airfield west of Longyearbyen, but on the outskirts of the small town itself. A dangerous endeavor, as the ground was uneven and untested, but they didn’t have time to waste and no Strykers were contracted for this mission. Teleportation wasn’t an option. Looking out the shuttle’s windshield through the floodlights, Elion felt as if he were going to be sick.
One of the buildings still used by the government had been blown up, its charred remains an ugly black spot against the steel gray of the rest of the buildings. Bodies were scattered around the area, already bloated from decomposition.
“Let us go first, sir,” the most senior quad member told him. Her dark eyes didn’t look away from Elion’s own green ones. “You should stay here.”
“By all means,” Elion said around a numb tongue. “I’ll remain.”
The shuttle’s side hatch opened. It was cold outside, the chrono indicating that it was a little after midnight. Elion’s sense of time was already thrown off-kilter from being teleported to the World Court out of Sapporo before being flown north. This didn’t help.
He’d been hoping it was an electrical problem, a breakdown in the communication system. It was so much worse than that, Elion decided, when the quads returned twenty minutes later, their recon finished.
“Everyone’s dead,” the woman from before said. “Looks like the attack was quick and brutal. We only saw signs of one shuttle. Security system is a mess. We can’t pull anything from it.”
Elion stared at the quad blankly before taking in a deep breath. “We’re going. Now. Take me to the airfield.”
The pilot got the shuttle in the air again a few minutes later and headed for the nearby airfield. They landed and the quads were the first out, doing recon. They found evidence of activity, but no evidence on who might have attacked the outpost. When Elion remotely plugged in the codes to stand down the artillery turrets, he discovered they were already off-line.
Sweat broke out across his face, cold and clammy. He swallowed the taste of bile and led the quads up the winding road to his destination on the mountain. It was a hard slog, but Elion refused to slow his pace, breathing heavily as they climbed.
Getting soft, Elion thought. I figured I could handle this.
If the quads were surprised by the metal wedge sticking out of the mountainside, they didn’t show it. The ramp that bridged the road and the doors was newly broken in some places, as if a great weight had been applied after decades of neglect. Elion slid forward on careful feet, testing its stability. The ramp creaked and groaned, sounding as if it were about to break, but it held.
The control panel was dead. A few centimeters’ worth of space separated the doors.
Elion staggered forward, one shaking hand sliding through that space. “It’s unlocked,” he whispered. “It’s unlocked.”
The quads helped him haul the doors open. Lights snapped on, one after the other as they stepped into the tunnel, illuminating a space recently disturbed. Elion pressed his hand against the wall for support.
“Sir?” one of the soldiers said. “Let us canvass the area for your safety.”
“Iie,” Elion said, the word ripping out of him.
Breathing harshly, Elion pitched himself forward, long legs eating up the distance between the entrance and the next set of doors. Like the first set, this one was unlocked; all of them were. His chest constricted with panic as they reached the first storage vault.
“Iie,” Elion choked out as he stared inside. “Iie! Masaka … shinjirannee!”
Ransacked. Gone.
Boxes and packets were strewn across the floor, whole bays empty of supplies. Someone had broken into the most secret and secure place on earth and stolen half the government’s most precious assets.
Elion felt sick as he shoved his way through the quads and ran to the next vault, finding the same scene. Hurrying down the rows of storage units and shelves, Elion couldn’t think. His mind was a white-hot burn of panic at the realization that everything the government had worked for had become meaningless.
Behind him, one of the quads bent down to pick up a silver-foil packet from the mess near his feet. “What the hell is an Attalea speciosa?”
The soldier stumbled over the words, his tongue unfamiliar with the name.
“Hell if I know,” a woman said as she kicked at a box.
Elion did. Oh, not the species, but he knew what were in these packets, what had been stored here and stolen, all their careful planning, all their generations’ worth of work—gone.
“They’re seeds,” Elion said, stumbling through the remains. “They’re everything.”
He couldn’t breathe in the face of what they had lost. It didn’t matter that some of the inventory remained, that they still had two-thirds of the terraforming machines. It didn’t matter because someone outside the government had discovered this
place.
Elion didn’t know how he was going to explain this to the World Court.
[NINETEEN]
SEPTEMBER 2379
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Of his ordeal in Buffalo, Gideon Serca remembered screaming wind and acid rain, a street lit by lights, and two men standing in his way. Remembered his twin and I’m sorry and how nothing would be the same again.
When Gideon eventually regained consciousness, he was alone in his mind. Eighteen years of his twin rummaging around in his head, a psi link between them that he thought would never be severed, had skewed his sense of the world. Samantha had carved it out to save some worthless Stryker. Its absence felt like a bottomless pit in his mind and he hated her for that.
Victoria had done what she could to repair his mind. In saving him, she had killed herself through overuse of her telepathy. Gideon’s mind continued to build off Victoria’s repairs. He needed aftercare, but wouldn’t get it. The only person strong enough to halve the recovery time in the Warhound ranks was Nathan, and Nathan wasn’t going to coddle him.
Sitting in Nathan’s office, Gideon studied his father. Neither of them had spoken while they watched the pirate stream on the vidscreen. The conspiracy-mongers were out in force, downloads crashing server farms across the planet. The world press was trying to contain the information on the government’s orders, but they were failing.
“How did he do it?” Gideon finally asked.
Once, Nathan would have ignored his son. He no longer had that luxury. Gideon was Nathan’s sole remaining heir and most powerful subordinate. Sharing every last detail with the eighteen-year-old Class II telekinetic who would someday succeed him was now a necessity. He could no longer force Gideon to use his power more than was considered safe to survive. Nathan was going to have to find other Warhounds to take up the slack.