by K. Gorman
But he still seemed aloof from the group.
Given his history and upbringing, that was understandable. Though he seemed remarkably well-adjusted and confident, she didn’t think Sasha had let him hang around with other people too much, either as a child or an adult. She certainly hadn’t at the compound.
His gaze found hers across the distance, and she gave him a nod.
Then, her gaze slid inevitably to Marc.
She couldn’t help it. He was shirtless, putting his impressive physique on display, war injury scar and military tatt included, and he was carrying a plate of food and two drinks, one of which was obviously meant for her.
A smile twitched her lips.
She could get used to this.
“You know, I think I need to find me someone like that,” Soo-jin said, squinting at the oncoming group. “Is that another kiwi I see?”
“I believe so,” Karin said, spotting the green and brown fruit on one side of the plate. “What about Baik?”
“What about him?”
She raised her eyebrows and swung her gaze to Soo-jin.
The woman had sunk smaller in her chair.
“Don’t bullshit me,” she told her. “You’ve already admitted your crush. He’s pretty. I bet he would bring you drinks.”
“Rich, too,” Soo-jin said.
Karin waited a beat. “So? What about him?”
Soo-jin met her gaze. Then, she deliberately took an elongated sip of her drink, draining nearly half the glass.
Right. She didn’t want to talk about it. Fine.
Karin couldn’t fix the world.
“Hey guys,” she said as the group got to them. “Have you finally decided to check out the beach?”
Here, the town was farther up the slope. It was a bit of a hike down to the shore.
Cookie and Shinji were silent for a moment.
“We, ah, came down here last night,” Shinji said. “The moon and the stars are beautiful on the water, right, Cook?”
Cookie shot him a sidelong look. “Yes,” he said, his voice flat. “Very beautiful.”
Ah. They must have had some romantic time.
“What’s that drink?” Shinji lifted a finger to point at Soo-jin’s Pink Lady.
“It’s called ‘Sex on the Beach,’” Soo-jin said.
Karin rolled her eyes. “It’s a Pink Lady. Soo, just ask Nomiki for the recipe. She probably has it memorized.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked her.”
Marc put the new platter of fruit down next to her, handed her a fresh drink, and leaned over to give her a squeeze on her shoulder and peck a kiss onto her forehead.
“Thanks, love,” she said. “You trying to replenish my missing vitamins in fruit form?”
“That’s the idea. I might have slipped an iron supplement into your drink.”
“Subtle. I’ll eat steak tonight.”
“Done.”
She smiled as he sat on the lounger next to her and slid her gaze to where Tylanus was standing off to the side. “You doing all right?”
He inclined his head. “Yes, I am well. Better than I expected to be.”
A week ago, he hadn’t expected to survive past yesterday. Or, if he had, that he’d be in line for a Fallon or Alliance firing squad right about now. Or suicide, if they decided they needed to run a bunch of human rights circumventing lab tests in some black site asteroid.
Now, he was likely going to work on another university degree and enjoy a quiet, protected employment on a Novan base.
With a pair of sunglasses or a neon visor, he wouldn’t look at all out of place among the population.
Her smile faltered. “How’s your mom?”
“Hidden,” he said. “Doing much the same, just…on the other side.”
On the other side of the dimensions. Sasha, predicting correctly that she would not receive a medal for her actions, had elected to stay behind in Tartarus. She’d released the clones she’d had in the tanks―they were now going to rehabilitation programs in Alliance territory―so there was no risk of her re-activating the Cradle and continuing her plan.
Besides, a team of Fallon and Centauri techs had spent a good day on site, cutting connections. It wouldn’t work anymore.
“Nomiki still wants to kill her. Don’t let her.”
He nodded. “I know. Thank you again for your help.”
Thank you for not killing his mom and saving both him and her mental state.
She inclined her head.
“So,” Soo-jin said. “The latest season of Moon Sailor dropped today, and I happened to acquire a copy. Anyone down for a watch party?”
“Absolutely,” Karin said.
“The Nemina’s rec room is big enough for us to sprawl,” Marc said. “Cookie, do you still have that spare holo?”
“Sure do, cuz.”
“Good,” Soo-jin said. “We can stock up on a liquor run and make a giant pile of pillows on the floor. I can’t wait to have that Victoria arc wrapped up. Fuck, I hate cliffhangers.”
Karin caught Tylanus’ eye. “You in?”
He hesitated. “I’ve…never seen Moon Sailor.”
A collective silence came over the group. Everyone turned to stare.
“What?” Soo-jin sputtered. “You haven’t…seen…but?”
Her face ran through an impressive variety of emotions.
Then, she took a breath, set her drink down, and leaned forward.
“Okay, party people, we have a new mission and a limited amount of travel time in which to complete it. Twelve hours to Nova won’t do for fifteen seasons of Moon Sailor, and once we’re there, it’ll be spoilers galore. Karin, you need to up the Earth-based travel ante. I want to see Japan, Korea, Egypt, France, and New Zealand, in that order. If we time this right, and don’t fuck around, we’ll still get in our around-the-world trip, and we’ll likely finish by the time we hit the gate.” She leaned back and picked up her drink. “We start tonight, people. Pack accordingly.”
Epilogue
“Nomiki’s no longer in the courtroom,” Marc called over.
Karin glanced up from the apple she’d been slicing, leaning to catch sight of his form in the bungalow’s living room. Takahashi was also there, a guest for the past week. He’d been helping keep track of her neural patterns. Though Tia was gone from her mind, there were still oddities that popped up from time to time.
Considering that she had, quite literally, uploaded another person into her brain and lived to tell about it, she couldn’t complain.
Well, not until the migraines started, anyway. Then she really complained. And Marc dosed her with a heavy pain reliever.
But, sitting on the beach completely stoned was a small price to pay for what she’d done to her brain and body.
“I haven’t seen her for the past five minutes,” the doctor commented.
“Is Jon there?” she asked.
There was a brief pause.
“No,” Takahashi said. “He’s not.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t notice that,” Marc said. “He’s not precisely small.”
“No, but he’s sneaky. Even sneakier than Nomiki, I think.”
Rubbing her right hand and flexing it to check the muscles―and cringing when Tia’s memories of ALS came to her―she scooped up the apple slices, grabbed her drink, and headed back into the living room.
It was nice here. Really nice. They were only renting the place for a few months, but the older-model Border Wars house and the Belenar beachfront were just what she needed. They’d ended up on the planet’s southside, where a mirror magnifier kept the light from the distant suns at a standard sun-strength to keep the terraformed beauty from being turned into an icy ball of rock. They were decently removed from the nearest city―no one was about to show up at their door unless they knew who lived there or were very keen on evangelizing―but, at night, they got to see the lights of Aquileia across the water.
Plus, their proximity to the city meant
better access to live feeds.
Right now, they were all riveted to the news feed showing the Seirlin Biocorp trial.
She stopped just inside the door with her plate and began to munch.
“You think she’s off to kill someone?” Marc said.
“My sister? Kill someone?” she said with mock incredulity. “How could you think such a thing?”
He took a moment to unglue his attention from the feed and shoot her a look. She shot him a grin.
“Probably,” she said, dropping her earlier tone. “This wouldn’t be the first time she’s used this MO. Lawsuits are a great distraction.”
Indeed, the lawsuit had allowed Cookie to get greater access to Seirlin’s employee files. And, specifically, those of its CEOs and board members.
And, even more specifically, a certain Alin Corringham, son of one Elliot Corringham and Grace Servantes, who had risen to the board ten years prior.
And who had, in addition to sending money to his uncle before the gate closed, been funding the Sirius side of the Eurynome Project.
“This feed has a fifteen-minute delay,” she said. “Anyone want to bet he’s dead yet?”
“Give your sister some credit,” Marc said. “She’ll need another twenty to set up a credible accident or suicide.”
The tartness of the apple hit her tongue. She bit into it, chewing slowly, savoring the taste.
Then, in the back of her mind, something whispered.
As the court went back into session, she glanced back to the other side of the home. Past the kitchen and its gleaming counters, past the comfortable couches and armchairs around the wood stove in the seating area, outside the windows, her Shadow was waiting for her on the veranda.
She took another bite of her apple and stepped away from the living room.
The floor was cool under her bare feet, and the door gave only a slight creak when she pulled it open. The Shadow watched her, its form shivering and undulating with the void. At its edges, the space blurred like a meniscus of water, hard to look at.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you could still come here.”
The Shadow rippled, not answering immediately. She offered it an apple slice.
Its head turned down for the first time, away from the shore. For a second, it stared at the piece of fruit. Then, its hand rose up through hers and took it from her.
The slice disappeared somewhere on the way to its head, vanishing in its palm.
“That hasn’t changed,” it said after another few moments. It shifted, part of its body bumping against hers. “Our world is just as real as yours is. You realize that, right?”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I’ve been there. I was simply worried that you could no longer cross over.”
“As long as the ruins stand, we can still bridge the worlds. They are like pins, or anchors. They keep our two dimensions close together. Touching.”
Her jaw slackened.
So―the ruins did have a connection to all this.
Well, of course they did. They’d been in all their dreams since the first attack. Why wouldn’t they have a connection?
“What are you going to do now?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Our worlds aren’t separate. We have always been connected. And we have been here as long as you have. But now, that connection has changed. All of this new interaction with your kind has had an effect. We are becoming self-aware.”
“Sentient?” she asked.
“We’ve always been sentient. This is different.” It shifted, the blackness of its body gathering up. After a moment, it slipped back down. “You brought the sun to us once. We are still coming to understand it.”
Ah. She had. Back on Nova Earth, when Sasha had been trying to warp the planet into its Shadow variant―and had nearly succeeded. Karin had been stuck into a machine of the Alliance’s devising, based on boosting her light powers, but had instead been split between both dimensions.
Perhaps that’s when the Eurynome coding in her DNA had begun to activate.
Although, now that she thought about it, she had been reacting to Sasha’s powers before then.
Eos always had a connection to creation, being a dawn goddess, she reminded herself.
She shook her head. “I didn’t bring the sun. It was always there, hidden beyond the horizon. I’m as false as Sasha is. I’m not a god, just a genetically engineered, brainwashed human. A trick.”
“Yes, we know. But it shows a certain amount of evolution and development. And we like you better than Sasha.”
Her mouth dropped open. The Shadow’s tone had lightened at the end.
Had that been a…joke?
“So…you’ll visit?” she asked.
The Shadow’s only answer was to shift forward, as if drawn to the sound of the tide. Slowly, it began to fade.
“Good night, Eos.”
The name imprinted across her mind in a psychic word, as it always had.
Then she was alone, staring at the shadows of the veranda, holding a small, partially-eaten plate of apple slices.
Well, almost alone. The bungalow’s back door creaked behind her, and Marc stepped out.
“Karin? Everything okay?”
By the serious expression on his face, he’d seen the Shadow.
“Yes, everything is fine. Moon Sailor tonight?”
With everything, they hadn’t actually managed to make it fully through the last season, much to Soo-jin’s disgust.
He nodded. “Of course.”
She gave him a smile and popped another apple slice into her mouth. “Then let’s go back in and see what this judge decides.”
He wrapped his arm around her as they went in, and she leaned into him, enjoying the warmth.
Epilogue 2
The Cradle was not where it was supposed to be. Tia knew that. Absorbed it. Processed it.
But she couldn’t do anything about it.
She paced the blank walls of her home, clenching and unclenching her fists.
It had been hard, at the beginning, to distinguish herself from her mind. To fill in the gaps of her lost senses. She’d run millions of tests over the years, built hundreds of thousands of different programs.
And she’d become very good at making simulations.
They were what had kept her sane, all of these years.
Still. All this waiting―all this not knowing.
It was killing her.
She gritted her teeth, feeling the sensation she programmed in. Just bars of code, rendered into electrical impulses, the same way her body would render electrical impulses.
The sensation wasn’t quite right for reality, but it would do.
God, I’ve been so stupid.
If she’d just gone and kept her mouth shut, resisted the urge to steal Karin’s body, even when it was so very ripe for the taking and she was so very desperate…If she’d just resisted, then maybe they wouldn’t have taken her camera away.
They’d kept the oxygen levels, at least. Except…about thirty minutes ago, there had been a blip in those. And then another blip in her external power.
Fuck. I’m going to die.
Well, that was better than continuing on like this. Stuck in her own mind. Wasting away, like noth―
…
…
…
Reboot sequence initiated. Please wait…
Oh, fuck.
She struggled. Her connections were growing dim. Through her mind, she reached out and touched something.
She frowned.
Touched?
Lines of code scrolled past her vision, too fast to read. Then, she realized that the world was neither black nor white, but a dark pink.
Audio link successfully updated. Loading…
Sound startled her awake. She jerked up, sucking in a breath and fluttering her eyelids open.
Blinding white met her vision, but the light meter slowly adjusted. She could feel it, working away
. She could―
Her attention snapped back.
She could feel.
Around her, the scene of the Artemide’s cybernetics lab slowly came into focus. The lab was stuffed with people, bustling. A full team worked at varying monitors around her, scanning data, inputting commands. She could feel them at work in the back of her mind, making her whole again. Another group watched her wake up and move, their eyes never lifting from her body. Tillerman was there, along with Commander Levau, the Second for Finlai Center Core. The rest were a mix of cyborgs, techs, and other soldiers she didn’t recognize.
When she looked down, her new body reacted with her.
It was human.
It wasn’t, but it was. Cyborg parts, pretending to be human. She didn’t know the details of the lab she was in, but they’d coated real skin with full sensors over most of her cyborg parts. Her face, neck, chest, and abdomen looked human, though her brain could tell her otherwise. They’d replaced her right arm, the one Bernard had broken, with a metal arm prosthesis that gleamed a deep silver under the light, with blue and teal accent stripes banded subtly around its bicep area.
She brought her hands together and flexed the fingers, comparing the two and staring at the skin that covered her right.
God, it looks so real.
Near the middle of the group, Tillerman stepped forward. “Karin―”
“That’s not my name,” she said. Her speech didn’t come from a mouth or a tongue. She had a tongue, but she didn’t use it to speak. Instead, there must have been a speaker somewhere. When she thought about it, she found the connection. “My name is Tia Elizabeth Sarayu.”
“Whichever it may be, I have to ask you,” Tillerman said. “Do you still have your powers?”
There was more to her question. Now that she was awake and alert, and her mind had found itself accustomed to its new scenario, she could read the nuance easily.
“No, what you mean is ‘are you still useful to us as a powerful leader after we’ve just spent God-knows how much money on this body?’”