by K. Gorman
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “I used a tracer scan both before and after your treatment.”
“You also have a sudden ability to attack cyborgs,” her sister said. “And engage them with an above-average degree of success.”
“And get choked by them against metal cabinets,” she said flatly. “And get shot. Probably also by them.”
“No.” Nomiki shook her head. “I saw you, sis. And before then, with the table—you’re changing.”
Karin hesitated, remembering the way the cyborg’s head had dented under the impact of her gravball bat—something Marc had been unable to do in his swing—and the way his metal breastplate had peeled up under her pull. Then, later, how she’d moved so fluidly into the elbow strike in the lab…
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s probably Eurynome. Myth describes her as a wrestler. I guess Seirlin decided to pop that in for whatever reason?”
“It would make a good baseline for all of us war programs,” Nomiki agreed. “You feel all right?”
“Now that I think about it, I’ve definitely been eating more.” She blew out a breath, puffing out her cheeks. “Suns, I had hoped it was just luck. And adrenaline.”
“Your scan says otherwise.”
“There’s also your new ability to warp into other worlds and steal shit,” Cookie put in. “That’s pretty cool.”
“Well, of all the god powers science could give me, this isn’t too bad.” Her laugh huffed out of her chest in a hollow way, sounding too winded to her ears. “I guess we’re more like sisters, now.”
“You’ll need training,” Nomiki said bluntly. “You kind of suck right now.”
“Thanks, sis, I love you, too.” Karin gave herself a little shake, straightened, and glanced over at the doctors. “Right. Well. We need a plan before we hit Brazil. Do you two know how to work the laser-injector with the Cradle?”
“Yes.”
“We have also studied the Cradle workings.”
“The Centauri saw the address,” Nomiki reminded her. “They’ll be coming.”
“We’ll just have to be faster, and hope they aren’t coming too quickly,” she said, determined.
The Centauri hadn’t known much about the Macedonian operation, or the Eurynome Project itself. It was unlikely that they’d known about the existence of a second compound—but they did have the real Nemina, with all of their real equipment available for their perusing.
They would find out.
“We have the gear and skill to move it,” she continued, thinking of the scrounge equipment they hadn’t used in months. “We get in, grab it—if possible—and get out. After that, we can find some corner of the planet in which to hide, set it back up, and do the transfer.” She paused, hiding a grimace. “What are the chances the Centauri don’t know we’re flying around?”
“Zero,” Soo-jin answered the last question with a flat roll of her eyes. “They’d have seen the Nemina’s thrust flare the instant we warped in. Camouflage had a three-second delay in activating.”
“Fuck.” She hadn’t seen that. “Well, okay, so we mooned them. They don’t seem to be following us, though?”
“No. I imagine they’re confused as a planet-crossed titmouse, considering it’s the Shadow Nemina we’re currently flying, and they still have the real one under custody.” Soo-jin spared her a grin. “Of course, we’re probably on that quad’s most-wanted list right now, considering we just kicked their asses and vanished right under their fucking noses.”
She leaned her head back with a groan. Great. Just what she needed. Yet another round of being hunted by a government, however decentralized it was. Maybe they could get different Centauri quads working against each other? Would that work? Probably not, considering Leisler had implied he was allied to them, but maybe someone else—or several someone elses—was on the field.
“If possible,” Marc mumbled, a frown furrowing his brow as he caught on the part of her sentence she’d hoped no one would question immediately. “What if the Cradle is immovable?”
She winced.
Therein lay the hitch in her plan: they might not be able to move the Cradle.
In fact, she suspected it was probable. Tia had said as much. They’d have to be quick. Attempt the transfer as soon as they determined they couldn’t move it.
“Then Dr. Takahashi will need to be prepared to do the transfer immediately.” She broke her gaze away from Marc to catch Takahashi’s grim face across the room. “Can you do that?”
He gave her a grim nod. He didn’t even look surprised—as if he had anticipated this.
Either that, or he just didn’t care.
“We will be ready, Karin.”
“What?” Marc stiffened, his eyes widening, brow furrowing in panic and confusion. “Karin, the Centauri, they’ll—”
“If I don’t acquire Tia through the transfer, I won’t stand a chance against Sasha when she finally makes her move. The entire universe will end.” Her breath hitched, but she forced the words out, grinding them out past a suddenly-reluctant throat. “All that matters is that I get her and live. After that, it doesn’t matter whose custody I’m in.”
Silence met her words, and in it, some part of her collapsed inside her chest. She felt it go, like blown scaffolding. Her hands shook, breath stiff and shallow. Holding Marc’s stare, she saw the exact moment the shock of her statement and the realization of her intent sank into him.
Worry. Fear. His eyes widened. He didn’t breathe for a few seconds, though his mouth opened.
“Kar…”
She clenched her jaw harder, and her hands tightened into fists at her sides. She stood stiff, rigid.
“We need to do this. Whatever it takes.” She let out a breath, and some of her tension went with it in an unsubtle shake—like a tremor attempting to relieve pressure on a fault line. “I’ve marked a space in the Nemina’s map. As soon as we land, I’ll complete the flight path. Either you or Soo-jin can take her up. We’ll keep the engines hot, regardless.”
“They’ll kill you,” he said, a waver cutting his deep voice. “They’re going to kill you.”
“Oh, I very much doubt that.” She let out a sour laugh and shook her head as a bitter smile spread across her lips. “Besides, I can always fuck off to the Shadow world if I don’t like the way they treat me. Closest town is twenty clicks by roadway. We can hide some clothes and supplies, a netlink. Maybe something with stronger communications? A tracker?”
She slid her gaze to Cookie, who had turned grim-faced in the corner. “Think you can supply me with something?”
His expression flickered, a rocky split of emotions and contemplation. After a few seconds, he dragged his gaze away from her and, to her surprise, to Shinji, who turned back to her with a grunt. “I might have something.”
“Good.” She found herself nodding. “Good. Make sure it’s ready.”
Another silence fell. This time, she felt fewer stares on her. Everyone had moved their attention inward, contemplating.
“I’ll prep our movers, and some space in the back,” Soo-jin said, her voice a little too loud in the stark sobriety of the room, cutting with its sarcasm. “You know, just in case the universe does want to smile on us and make Plan Move-the-Cradle-and-Hide happen.”
“You think it’d owe us,” Karin grumbled. “We are trying to save it, after all.” She stretched her back, feeling several vertebrae pop, and made to step forward. “I’ll help you. Maybe I can put this new kilo of muscle to good use.”
“No, you won’t.” Nomiki rose, pinning her with a stare and jabbing an accusing finger in her direction. She hadn’t said anything about Karin’s self-sacrificial plan, but she could tell her sister had many opinions about it. “You are Novan Red-Eye walking. You are going to get yourself into a bunk to sleep. Same with you.” She rounded her stare to Marc. “Your face looks like a living depiction of every dent the Moon took.” Her teeth flashed, the grimace sharp, and she pointed through the wall i
n the direction of the Nemina’s crew cabins. “Both of you. Sleep. Now.”
Karin looked up at him, at the storm of emotions present on his face, and nodded once.
“Yes.” She took his hand, leading him out. “Wake us when we get close. I still have things to do.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
He caught her hand outside the cabin and pulled her to a stop. The next thing she knew, he was hauling her into a tight hug. She closed her eyes as he buried his head between her neck and shoulder, feeling the tug from the loose hair at her ear.
He didn’t say anything, just held her.
Slowly, she relaxed. Her spine melted from its rigid posture. Muscles slackened in her arms. She hadn’t realized she was so tense until it dropped. It felt like she’d shed a great weight from her body. She nuzzled her face into his shirt, pressed her cheek and nose against his collarbone, and allowed the smell of soap and sweat to overwhelm her.
Gods, this is so fucked up.
But his strength, and his smell, the feeling of his arms holding her, and his face pressed into her neck, breaths washing down her shoulder, melted away the stinging surface tension of crap she’d been feeling and cut straight down into the core. Everything grew quiet, lessened, as one thought after another wound down to a standstill, and it was just him and her—two people hugging each other while the world around them juddered and quaked.
With him, she didn’t have to be brave, to put on a strong face. To lead. She could keep the others out, keep them all at arm’s length, but not him. Not here. Not now. Not facing such a fucked up situation.
She could be scared here. She could allow herself to break—for a short time, anyway.
“I’m sorry.” The words came in a burning gasp. Her chest quivered, collapsed, anguish reaching raw into her throat. Each word dragged like a tongue of flame. “I—”
“Not your fault.” His arms tightened around her. “Not your fault.”
He adjusted his grip and pressed his head closer to hers. The strong ridge of a nose slid against her jaw. Hot skin burned beneath hers, his eyebrow wrinkling into her cheek. A hand reached up to cup the back of her head, grabbing lightly into her hair.
She jerked when the smell of antiseptic came to her. Alarm stiffened her spine against him. Her eyes flew open, and she struggled to push against him. “Marc, wait, your face—”
“It’s fine,” he said, leaning forward to scoop her back into it again.
“But—”
“It’s fine, Karin.”
The name, the full two syllables of it as opposed to the usual ‘Kar’ he called her when alone, was said with such an annoyed frustration that she couldn’t help the giddy laugh that flitted through her chest.
She allowed him to pull her back into him. After a moment, she realized his feet were moving, too, and that he was leading her up the hall. They headed for his cabin.
Good. She and Marc could use the privacy.
His one arm left her, a hip digging into her abdomen as he shifted. After a moment, the door hissed open, and he pulled her inside, sweeping her into another easy, all-encompassing hug. He pressed his face back into the crook of her neck and inhaled deeply, arms tightening around her.
“I just want to kidnap you away from all this. Take you to a nice beach somewhere. Destroy the comms.”
She laughed, chest heaving against his, breaths fluttering out. It was a wish, not a threat. They both knew he wouldn’t do that to her—to them.
Not unless she asked. In that case, he’d move mountains, the universe be damned.
“Sounds nice.” She rested her chin on the thick cord of muscle next to his shoulder, eyes staring into the dark, her chest relaxed against him. “How much food do we have?”
“Several months’ worth,” he said. “I hope you like freeze-packed spaghetti.”
“Enough to last until the end of the universe. Probably.” She huffed a breath over his neck and tilted her head, relishing the warmth against her skin. “What about that cannelloni you bought? Did it survive the flight?”
“More or less.” He aimed a kiss just below her ear. “It dented the primary food hydrator.”
She closed her eyes. Emotion ebbed and flowed like a tide, pulling at her heart. She felt like a piece of kelp caught under the ocean—pushed and tugged, but rooted to a deep rock.
He was her rock.
She buried her face further into his shirt, bunching the fabric beneath the gripping fingers of her left hand. She anchored her right around his back, pulling him as close as he pulled her.
“I’m worried,” she said.
“About what?” His voice was a low rumble that vibrated through his chest.
“I’m changing. Don’t know what I’ll change into. Don’t know that it’ll matter. Don’t know that I can stop her.” She sighed into his shirt, and he held her as her chest shuddered with another dry sob. “I’m already changing. I can feel it.”
And she could. She had been feeling it—and not just in the hunger, but in her emotions. The power, the anger, that keen-edged bloodlust. The way she seemed to have put one foot square into her sister’s territory. Already, she could feel little threads of herself unravel at the edges, making way for new things.
“You’re worried that you’ll lose yourself.”
Her jaw clenched. She let out a steep breath, the air whooshing out of her in a hard huff, like she’d been punched. A hot tingle pulled at her eyes.
He didn’t say anything, only held her. They breathed together. He stroked a hand over her back, holding her as the tears came, as her chest convulsed against him, quiet, pitiful sobs coming like the struggle of some woodland creature caught in a cage—except, she loved the warmth of his arms, holding her.
She pulled herself closer, taking the comfort he offered.
After several long minutes, her breaths slowed again. She opened her eyes into slits.
“Yeah. I’m worried I’ll lose myself.”
He shifted, breath fanning across her neck as he straightened. She let him go, fingers loosening on his shirt, drawing a quick breath when his lips pressed to her forehead before pulling away. Her spine stiffened again, but this time not with the rigid tension she’d felt earlier, but something more relaxed. Only the small, red-colored glow from the clock in the corner—the same make as the one in her own room—provided light for the room, but her eyes had adjusted enough to see where it caught the side of his face and reflected in the wetness of his eyes. In the dark, she could only see part of the brokenness, but she could see his eyes as he regarded her. His large hand cupped her neck, thumb tracing the edge of her jawline.
“I’ll still love you,” he said. “Just come back to me.”
Her breath hitched, tears prickling in her eyes again. Without a word, she gave a small nod and buried herself back into his chest.
“I’ll try.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Is that it?”
Karin hovered the Nemina above the building, ignoring the jerk and shudder of the ship—along with the high-pitched, ramped-up whine of her auxiliary thrusters as she toggled them close to hover mode. Below, a squat, three-story building with a brown roof stood out among the thick, undulating forest like a shit-colored postage stamp in a sea of green, the only non-green area in the nearby region except the parking lot just beyond it—and even that was getting overgrown.
Fortunately not in one of Brazil’s irradiated zones, the compound was surrounded by the type of thick canopied forest that populated old-century travel brochures and documentaries of the area, complete with scraggly bits of hanging cloud that drifted in and out of the treetops like strips of gray gauze. A logging road passed close to the south-east, creating a winding ribbon in the tree cover. About ten kilometers away, a small, overgrown settlement nestled on a flat, mostly cleared area of what she guessed was farmland.
She ignored Cookie’s question, instead turning her attention to Soo-jin. “Is the scan finished?”
“Y
ep.” Soo-jin sat erect in her normal seat, her full attention on the screen and controls in front of her. “No sub-basement—or any basement at all, but it does bite into the hill a ways, which makes part of it technically underground.”
“We’ll have to keep an eye on dimensions, make sure we don’t miss any secret entrances. We’ll break through a wall if we have to…” She trailed off, tapping a few controls. Several system monitors popped up, along with larger views of both the anterior and underside camera feeds.
Her heart slowed as a patch of cleared slope came into view below the building, identical to the one she’d seen in her dreams with Tylanus.
“Suns,” she said as the memory hit.
Her gut tingled as a sense of déjà vu rippled through her, and a distinct ringing started at the front of her skull. She recognized the broad, cream-colored wall of the building, along with the rough brown sod of the downslope, though the stubbly haze of green hadn’t been there before—it must have been more-freshly cleared in that dream.
To the left, visible just under the first shadowed boughs of the trees that lined the clearing, was the second set of ruins.
They were thicker, and a different color, with clear lines gouged deep into their surfaces and drawings that reminded her of the Nazca petroglyphs in what was now Peru, just as the ‘A’ near the bottom of one of the Macedonian monoliths had reminded her of the Roman alphabet.
The Nemina’s engines gave a subtle kick as she engaged her hover mode, tilting her nose to give them a better shot with the frontal camera. The canopy below them thrashed from their thrust exhaust.
She snapped a few pictures and sent them to Soo-jin’s screen. “Someone will need to inspect those while we’re here.”
“I’ll see that it’s done.” Soo-jin was all business, dreads pulled back into a ponytail that dangled down her back as she clicked through what looked like several scans and monitors, along with the pictures Karin had just sent her.