by Karen Bao
Lazarus tucks his left hand in his pocket to hide his handscreen’s audio receptors. “Please, do not panic; these cries of distress are a mere recording. After I sampled Anka’s voice, I used the HeRP here to manipulate the pitch and volume until it sounded like the product of my alleged sadism. Everyone believes that you—not the Sage, but a random private—and I are performing an Electrostun-aided obedience experiment on her as we speak. I guarantee that no one will intrude upon us.”
“Tell her about the HeRP issues,” Anka says.
“Yes, that. I am lucky the Committee let me keep mine as a Psychology employee,” Lazarus says. “They took possession of most privately owned HeRPs after they saw what your brother did with his. My Sanctuarist colleagues and I mostly use ours off-line, with multiple firewalls—thus far, we are still safe.”
We move through the empty anteroom, where people waiting to be evaluated would ordinarily sit on the floor, into a tiny chamber with three chairs, a square table between them, and foam on the walls for soundproofing. A HeRP sits on the table. Anka’s fabricated screams must come from the speaker in the waiting room, to which the modified machine is likely connected.
Lazarus shuts the door, points us to two chairs, and sits on the table’s other side. Now that we’re in relative privacy, Anka throws one arm around me, nearly tipping over her chair, but continues sitting on the other.
“What happened, Phaet? Where did Wes take you? When can we get Cygnus back? Dovetail hasn’t even tried, and it’s making me crazy.” Anka speaks with total abandon, even though Lazarus Penny is patiently waiting for us to finish so that he can talk. He may have earned Anka’s trust—and Yinha’s—but I can’t forget how he almost single-handedly caused Wesley Sr. to assign me that suicide mission to Pacifia.
“. . . you have to tell me about Earth too, Phaet. Does water really fall out of the sky? Did you see weird things and scary people?”
“I’m afraid I must disrupt this happy reunion.” Leaning backward, Lazarus starts rolling up his right sleeve to display a muscled, veiny forearm. Then he rests his fingertips on Anka’s shoulder. “Anka, your sister and I must speak privately, which I hope you understand. I have already called upon the Militia to return you to Umbriel Phi—if they so much as disturb a hair on your head, you must inform me straightaway.”
I shudder, even as Anka’s fake screams fade away.
The real Anka sits quietly, holding me. She only budges at the sound of someone approaching the door. When a private enters to hustle her away, I want to shove him out of the tent. He shouldn’t be allowed to touch her, to take her from me again.
“I’d shock her harder if I were you,” the soldier says to Lazarus, seizing Anka’s upper arm. I wince; she bares her teeth. My sister’s eyes never leave mine as they depart—the private eagerly, she grudgingly.
“Before we proceed, Sage, I must first apologize for the ordeals you have endured since our last tête-à-tête.” Lazarus pats the back of my hand; although his tone is warm, his fingertips are room-temperature cold. “I failed to anticipate that Coordinator Carlyle would react so unfavorably to your identity, even though I implored him to exhibit the mercy central to our Odan faith. But I am beyond ecstatic that you have returned home safely.” The left side of Lazarus’s mouth pulls back in an asymmetric grin, exposing that same sharp canine.
I can’t help but smile back.
“My colleagues’ messages tell me that with the younger Wesley’s cooperation, you transformed your intended exile into a heroic rescue mission. Wesley Jr. has been transmitting messages to them from Battery Bay, but frustratingly, he has left me to receive these communications secondhand. Perhaps he has encountered technical difficulties in that foreign city.”
Wes is alive. I’m massively relieved—he’s once again proven that he’s invincible, at least in body. I keep my expression neutral.
“Odans have contacted you,” I say. “How are they?”
Lazarus shakes his head; his back curls into a defensive slouch. “They are conducting proceedings against me for licentious behavior.”
“Oh no,” I say.
“This is due to Wesley’s testimony regarding my interactions with his sister—testimony which, in my view, is deficient and fragmentary. The Sanctuarists are debating whether to expel me. It is undeserved, especially considering that young Wesley all but bartered our islands to corporate Batterer interests, and mining operations will begin the moment they declare the archipelago habitable again.”
Wes and Lazarus both want to help me, but they will need to work together—which they apparently are refusing to do.
“But let us return to the present dilemma,” Lazarus says. “All the Odan survivors have heard some version of the Marina narrative, though mine is not among them. Whether their information is thoroughly validated or not, they are taking part in the discussion over my possible expulsion from the Sanctuarist force. If they remove me, I will be stranded on this godforsaken nugget of space rock, with the other agents monitoring my every move. And I will be stymied if I attempt a return to Earth.”
“Sounds awful,” I say. “What have they gotten wrong?”
Lazarus looks at his lap, cringing. “They perceive me as a predator, because Marina was several years younger than I was, and damaged to boot. . . . But I have never desired anything but the best for her. . . . I apologize for my inability to elaborate at this moment. It causes me profound pain and regret to discuss the past.”
I nod quickly. If the realm of repressed memories had a queen, it would surely be me. Maybe he broke the engagement for Murray’s good, I think. He seems as private a person as I am. Because he hasn’t told his side of the story—and doesn’t want to—all the Odans must have the wrong idea.
“But it is not too late to transcend these circumstances. Mark my words carefully.” He leans toward me. I can smell hints of citrus and sandalwood, a reprieve from the usual odors of Shelter. “I can help you rescue your brother. If we succeed, I will have contributed enough to the Sanctuarist cause that they will allow me to retain my post. And I will have demonstrated that despite my supposed violation of propriety, my heart remains pure. Do you agree? I will need you to vouch for my character, but that is a small matter.”
“Of course,” I blurt without thinking. Lazarus’s physical presence has brought on a weightless feeling in my lower belly. I lean backward in my chair to clear my head. Lazarus breathes deeply, sits up straight, changes the subject.
“I regret introducing additional unpleasantness into our discussion, but I must ask: what is a life to you, Sage?”
Someone else is dead. I know it with sickening certainty. Why must the destruction go on and on, and why is it always somehow my fault?
Lazarus walks back to his desk and taps the HeRP. A video begins to play. On the screen is a young man dressed in Rho gray. He has a long face full of freckles, thin blond hair, and a dark birthmark that covers the right half of his chin. A patch showing the golden scales of justice is pinned to his robes: the Base I Law badge, I’m assuming.
“This is footage recorded by a Penitentiary security pod,” Lazarus says, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. The word Penitentiary makes me shiver.
We watch the man walk through white hallways, passing identical black metal doors. The doors lead, presumably, to prisoners’ holding cells. When the man reaches the one he wants, he stops. I look closer—the door is blank, marked with no letters or numbers. The man grabs the security pod that’s filming him, and the video goes blurry as he fits it into a lock of sorts.
The security pods in the Base I Pen are keys? My mind spinning, I watch as the door slides open, revealing a bare cell, white and brightly lit.
A heap of grimy cloth leans against the wall.
“I’ve got you, Cygnus,” the man says. “You’re going to be safe.”
With great effort, my brother raise
s his head, blinking. One eye is swollen, cloudy, and infected. There are bald spots on his head; clumps of black hair litter the floor like downy tumbleweeds. A metal ring with red lights winds around his neck, making him look like a wolf pup caught in a trap. What have they been doing to him? He’s even thinner and dirtier and more hurt than in the video Tourmaline played on Saint Oda.
I’ve forgotten to breathe. My lungs open violently; they suck in air as if absorbing Cygnus’s suffering. As if to compensate for my waiting so long to come back. When I exhale, I let out a whimper.
Cygnus shakes his head.
“What?” The man kneels next to my brother and strokes his skeletal face. “Cygnus, don’t worry. I have everything under control.”
My brother parts his cracked lips as if to speak, but only air emerges. Instead of trying to get up, he yanks a dagger from the man’s belt with surprising deftness.
“What are you doing?” the stranger says. “I’ve got to get you home!”
“You can’t,” my brother whispers. The security pod, released from the man’s grasp now, flies closer to pick up their conversation. “My collar. Take me out that door and it’ll constrict. Until I’m dead.”
“You’ve got my knife—we could cut it off. Right now,” the man says.
“It’s carbon fiber and tungsten. It’ll bend your knife in half. Got a laser blaster? That might burn through it.”
The man shakes his head.
Bracing himself, Cygnus makes a deep gash in his left hand—into the shiny surface of his handscreen. Blood and colored dye burst from the wound. I almost retch as my brother pushes the dagger further in and wiggles it, his face a mask of agony.
When it’s over, a tiny blood-covered square of metal is balanced on the dagger’s tip. I’m impressed that Cygnus didn’t damage it with the knife. The man picks it up, looking bewildered.
“My handscreen’s memory chip. Find a HeRP,” Cygnus says.
He collapses. Pounding footsteps approach. I know that sound—Militia boots.
Lazarus’s HeRP blacks out.
27
“NO! WHAT HAPPENED TO CYGNUS?” I demand, my chest heaving.
Lazarus shushes me with a finger on his lips, and then taps the screen. The next video clip shows the blond, freckled man sprinting down a hallway lined with offices, half a dozen soldiers in hot pursuit. Sweat drips down his forehead; his gray robes are damp from the exertion. He reaches a door labeled ARCHIVES MANAGER MIKKO RHO, ducks inside, and closes the door before the security pod can follow him inside. Through the glass, the pod films him as he feeds Cygnus’s handscreen chip into his HeRP and fiddles with the screen. An instant later, he ejects the chip, pops it into his mouth, and swallows it.
Wielding truncheons, the Militia members smash down the door. Shards of glass sparkle and spin. The man pulls an Electrostun from his desk drawer, but it’s no use. A scream, a burst of purple light, and it’s over.
The video fades. Lazarus’s HeRP displays the profile information: MIKKO RHO, age twenty-four, of Base I. In the photo, his eyes are pale blue and watery, betraying none of the fierce determination I saw in the video.
I cover my eyes, and soon my palms are wet. Before I know what’s happening, strong arms enfold me, and I’m sobbing into Lazarus Penny’s shoulder.
My skin is so dirty—or numb—that I can’t feel the wetness of the tears on my cheeks. Lazarus’s hand strokes the top of my head, smoothing my matted hair.
“Oh, little Sage,” he murmurs.
My arms tighten around his neck—although I might choke him, I refuse to let go.
“Shh.” He rubs the back of my neck.
I pull back, and in a hoarse voice demand, “Who was that man? He died for Cygnus. I have to know.”
Lazarus sighs. “His name was Micah River. Perhaps you heard of him during your time on Saint Oda? When he saw the . . . torture footage, he gave himself an extraordinary assignment. He told not a soul. Yinha only became aware of it when Base I security sent the footage to the premier Defense officers.”
I remember Larimer, Micah’s brother, who gave me the snowdrop bulbs. His small, smiling mother, who brought vegetables to welcome me to Saint Oda. Micah came to the Moon to protect them, and he died for a boy he didn’t know. I imagine Larimer’s joyful eyes filling with tears, his wife Willet’s hands wiping them away.
If I’d returned home earlier, Micah might not have gone after Cygnus. But I didn’t even try. I sit still as a cliff face, hardly breathing, feeling unworthy of the air around me.
“Utterly reckless,” Lazarus says. “Courageous, but reckless.”
Wes’s words ring in my ears. He wanted to be different. To be a hero, whatever the cost. And he was.
Why must things happen this way? I’ll never meet Micah, let alone show him how grateful I am.
Lazarus opens another document on his HeRP. The word BLOCKED takes up the entire screen; at the bottom, in small letters, are the words WATCH THE TORTURE VIDEO AGAIN. “Before his death, Micah distributed the document he found on Cygnus’s handscreen chip to all Odan agents. Because of our jailbroken equipment, we have managed to keep it confidential. As you saw, Micah ingested the chip to prevent our enemies from reading it. His stomach acids broke it down irrecoverably. Even in the event of an autopsy, the document will not come to light.”
“But there has to be another way to read it,” I say in desperation.
Lazarus nods. “The file is protected by a text password. In Cygnus’s compromised state, that must have been all the encryption he could come up with. Although we do not yet know his location, the document may reveal it. It is essential we know, Sage. We cannot go in blind.”
Cygnus wrote that we should “watch the torture video again.” I stare at the screen, my mind whirling.
“The password is in the clip that Tourmaline played on Saint Oda.” I jump to my feet. “Cygnus wasn’t speaking nonsense. He was giving us clues! I need to see that video again. Do you have a copy?”
“Yes, but you should not subject yourself to further horrors. I have the transcript written down. It is more palatable that way.”
“No. He’s my brother. I’ll read him better if I can see his face.”
Sighing, Lazarus taps his HeRP several times, and the jail cell that’s haunted my dreams appears. As the video plays, I only watch Cygnus’s mouth. “T two A one G three omicron C-E-T alpha C-O-L alpha P-H-E dodeca-chordata T two A one G three . . .”
“Have you got it?” Lazarus shuts off the HeRP.
I nod, repeating Cygnus’s mantra in my mind. The numbers and letters take shape: T2A1G3 OCETACOLAPHE dodeca-chordata T2A1G3. Maybe there’s a pattern, but I don’t see it.
“You don’t seem to recognize his meaning.” Lazarus looks deeply disappointed. “Yinha has provided me with intelligence that may help. It seems your brother froze an image from your mother’s trial on his handscreen in the seconds before his capture. An image of you, facing the camera. He zoomed in on your left eye until it covered his entire screen, which was in a jailbroken state at that time.”
I frown. How will a blown-up picture of my eye help us save Cygnus? And for all I know, the string of characters could be something a toddler punched into a HeRP.
If this is all we have to recover the password, a rescue is impossible. But I’ll lose my mind if I don’t act soon, knowing Cygnus is still strapped to that chair, screaming.
Lazarus watches me struggle for breath, and gives me a playful kick to the shin. “Look alive, Captain Phaet. We will operate together, as I said before. You attempt to decipher that password, while I sift through the logistics of travel to Base I. Cygnus’s rescue will reunite you and your brother, and reconcile me with my colleagues. Within a matter of weeks, our lives will return to normal.”
“But what if it doesn’t work? What will you do if the Sanctuarists expel you?” I ask.
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He presses his lips together. “Assuming they do not reveal my identity, I will ascend to a prominent position in Lunar society and continue to work toward a democratic Moon with Dovetail. But I fervently hope my expulsion will not occur. If I narrate all the experiences Marina and I have shared, perhaps the Odans’ minds will bend in my favor. . . .”
I blink, ready to hear more.
“I first encountered Marina when she was a jubilant schoolgirl, running wild with her cohort of companions. In my early twenties, I was a guest speaker in the Odan Academy and delivered monthly philosophy lessons to the schoolchildren. The girl was taken with the Confucian idea that man is born good and is corrupted only by experience. She displayed a formidable optimism about humanity.”
“That’s not the Murray I know,” I say. She’s a world away now.
“After the Lunar attack, she abruptly changed,” Lazarus continues. “She dragged her feet, withdrew from society, allowed her stunning voice to fall into disuse. We saw each other sparingly, the demands on my time from Sanctuarist duties preventing me from lecturing. However, she sought me out at mass and after my meetings with her father—she clearly admired me, but as an older man, I did not reciprocate her affections. Three years passed in this way. When she was sixteen, she had grown beautiful despite her defects, and I succumbed to emotion. We carried out a secret but loving courtship. Because she laughed and danced and even sang in my presence, I believed that I had done right, that I had saved her from her own ghosts.”
His words rush into me and fill me with the joy Murray must’ve felt.
“This does not end well, Girl Sage,” Lazarus says, shaking his head. “So you must not smile just yet. The time inevitably came for me to leave. I informed her I would not stop her from saving herself for me—to clarify, I never explicitly asked for her hand—and she swore she wanted to. On the Moon, however, I realized that my mission was thornier than anyone had anticipated, and that I might die before seeing my girl again. How unfairly I had treated her—and any Odan man who might desire her. I had knocked the apple from the tree, with no ability to consume it. So, through her brother, I told her to run free, associate with other men, for her own benefit.”