The Illusory Prophet

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  Commander Astoria wears her impatience with my ignorance like an annoying itch in her camouflage. “They believe we betray the human cause by working with rebel ascenders,” she grinds out. “And they doubt our path will win freedom for all.”

  Delphina snorts at this, and her mother gives her a pinched look. Delphina turns to give me an intense look. Her stout, muscular form is much shorter than Kamali’s elegantly tall dancer body, but she’s a powerhouse of will in that small frame.

  “We are not sufficiently bloody for them,” Delphina says.

  “Bloody?” That makes even less sense—the ascenders’ bodyforms are all cybernetic.

  “They will not rest until all ascenders have been turned into metallic dust.” Delphina challenges me with this, but I can see it now, as I scour Zachary’s memories. The Makers don’t believe ascenders have souls—therefore, their deaths don’t matter. They don’t deserve to be at the top of the hierarchy of the planet. In fact, the destruction of the entire ascender society is part of the Makers’ ultimate goal.

  I can’t help glancing at Lenora. “That’s… not likely to happen.” Not to mention pretty horrific. Whether or not the ascenders lost their souls in the Singularity, they all used to be human at one point… and they’re still people in some fashion. Billions of people.

  “The likelihood of success isn’t a deterrent for a true believer.” Delphina’s stare is drilling into me, and I can’t help thinking she means something different from what she’s saying.

  I narrow my eyes. “So the Makers are believers?” This part is muddled in the memories I can access. I’m starting to suspect Zachary disagrees with some of the Makers’ core beliefs.

  “Not precisely,” the commander answers. “Or rather, not exclusively. But they fervently believe an end of times is coming… one they are trying to bring about.” She shakes her head. “But this is unimportant to us. Their raid today will not substantially hamper our efforts, and now that they have their scavenged items, they will return to their quixotic quest and not bother us for a while.” She returns to showing Grayson something on her screen.

  I don’t understand why the Commander thinks this can be dismissed. “I’m sure I can track where they are and what they’ve done with the stolen supplies. I can pinpoint the attack plan. It was scheduled for next week if the raid today was successful. They’re going after New Portland—”

  Commander Astoria cuts me off. “We will not interfere with their attempts to provoke the ascenders.”

  There’s a warning in her voice to drop this, but I can’t help asking, “Why?” I really don’t understand what the Makers are after with this, anyway—all the ascenders in New Portland will have backups. Maybe it is just a raid for tech.

  “We cannot make common cause with the ascenders,” the commander says tightly. “We are in the business of putting pressure on them, not saving them from their own annoyances.” She gives a nod to Lenora. “And we do not want to be associated in any way with the Makers—we are the Resistance, not terrorists who wish to rid the planet of ascender-kind.”

  “Our cause is not destruction.” Delphina’s eyes are blazing. “We fight for freedom.”

  It seems a fine line, given the Resistance planned to blow up a stadium filled with ascenders during the Olympics, but I can see now how the Commander walks that fine line—the Resistance would be nothing without the ascender tech that comprises their weapons and transports and even their augment technology. Not to mention the gen tech that saved my mother’s life. If the Resistance made an enemy of all ascenders, their cause would be dead in the water. They would be reduced to making their own augment tech in shabby shops and underground garages, like the Makers.

  The commander picks up another tablet. “We need to remain focused on our own plans for disruption. We have a campaign to provoke the legacies in Seattle. There is a small but growing cell of sympathizers there. And the loss of Seattle would be a dramatic blow to the ascenders. Plus our plans for another radical infiltration of Orion with our message is underway.”

  I shake my head. Provocations? Infiltrations? Is the Resistance really all about PR? Still—the commander is underestimating the threat. “This girl, Miriam, is something new. We should at least try to figure out—” The commander snaps a look to me so intense, it freezes the rest in my mouth.

  “This is a distraction.” Her words are sharp and angry. “One we will recover from if we remain focused. If the Makers have not developed an ascendance procedure, then they are not a threat—to us or the ascenders. However, if we allow this disruption to derail our plans…” Her look darkens further. “Monsieur Brighton, a loyal member of the Resistance would have warned us of the attack. Did you simply neglect to inform us? Or are you too busy with your own agenda to be bothered with the cause?”

  My mouth is hanging open. “I didn’t even know about the Makers before today.”

  She shakes her head and dismisses me with a wave like she can’t be bothered with my uselessness. “Then we will regroup from this raid and move forward.”

  “But Commander—”

  Her icy look stops me cold.

  The whole command center is holding their breath, every expression pained or tense. Even Kamali is wearing a soft look of concern—which just reminds me that if I have to leave the Resistance, I would lose her.

  I shut my mouth.

  Cyrus finally breaks free from whatever hold Basha had on him and quickly crosses the command center. He looks me in the eyes and says quietly, “Time to go.”

  Nathaniel, still hovering at my back, seems to agree—the two of them hustle me toward the door. Lenora swipes it open before we get there, and Tristan and Basha follow. It stings that I arrive outside, and Kamali has opted to stay inside with Delphina and her mother. And it’s clear I’m being removed from the scene somewhat forcefully, which only hikes up my anger. I break free from Nathaniel’s hovering presence. Lenora’s protective stance is wearing thin as well.

  “That went fantastically well,” Tristan says, obviously frustrated.

  I just gape at him. Before I can work up a retort, Cyrus clamps a hand onto my shoulder. “Eli, can I have a word with you?” He means without the crowd.

  “Sure.” I turn my back on all of them and stride off toward my barracks. My head is churning with emotion, and I’m still awash in all the information I gathered from Zachary, making it even more chaotic in there. I need time to meditate and assimilate everything I’ve absorbed from the Makers’ soldier—he calls himself a jiv—and it doesn’t help that my anger is climbing up to burst out of my head. I’m so intent on leaving the command pod behind and expecting Cyrus to follow that I don’t even notice Basha tagging along until we reach the canvas door flap.

  I let loose a sigh, then hold the door.

  They follow me to my cot, the farthest one in the back—I climb on it to sit with my back to the rest of the barracks, even though it’s empty. The Dalai Lama’s mat on the floor calls to me. I don’t know if he’s reincarnated yet, or if that would even matter to finding him, but I could definitely use some Zen words of encouragement. Or just a reason not to punch my best friend’s earnest face.

  Cyrus crouches down next to me. Basha is so short, she’s barely taller than him even when he’s kneeling.

  “It’s time, Eli.” Cyrus’s look is intense.

  “Time for what?” I ask, although I’m sure he means my shelf life in the Resistance has just expired.

  “Time to get out.”

  “You’re not a prophet, Eli.” Basha’s eyes are drilling into me.

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.” My anger is frothing up to boiling. “And, hey, thanks for the support back there in the command center.”

  She purses her lips and looks to Cyrus.

  “We’re trying to save you, man,” he says tightly. “And the Makers… they’re not terrorists.”

  I look at him like I don’t even know who he is anymore. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re talking a
bout the people who just attacked the camp.”

  “They made a raid for tech,” Basha says coolly. “That’s all.”

  “Wait… you’re on their side?” My eyes go wide, and I stumble off my cot, putting distance between me and my best friend and his second. Because I’m suddenly unsure of everything. “You’ve been trying to get me to leave the Resistance,” I throw at Cyrus. “Holy crap, Cy. Don’t tell me you…” I can’t even say it. Did my best friend betray the Resistance? The bits and pieces of information swarming around in my head suddenly congeal—if there’s one thing the Makers hate, it’s ascenders.

  Just like Cyrus.

  He stands up and crosses his arms. “No, I did not betray the Resistance. But, once again, thanks for assuming the least flattering thing possible about me.” Basha edges closer to him. It’s clear she’s on his side—or maybe he’s on her side—but that small movement hits me hard. It’s the first time I realize that Cyrus and I might not actually be on the same side.

  My mouth runs dry. “Cy, I didn’t mean—”

  “Of course, you did. That’s exactly what you meant.”

  I shut my mouth. Cyrus’s anger is palpable, but I’m still not sure I was wrong. Or where Basha fits in all this. What if she’s really a Maker? Is that even possible? And if so, just how far would Cyrus go for her? That thought blanks out my mind—because I’d do almost anything Kamali asked.

  Cyrus is glaring at me. “I’ve done nothing but watch your back, all along, the whole way, Eli. No matter what.” He reaches out to jab an angry finger at me. I have to lean back to keep it from spearing me in the chest. “And I think you’re an idiot if you stay here one minute longer.” Then he backs off, throwing up his hands and stepping away from my cot. “But what do I know? Go play prophet, if that’s what you want. You obviously don’t need to hear anything from me.”

  “What are you saying?” A panicky feeling lights up in my chest.

  Basha stays by his side, but she throws me a dark look. “He’s telling you to stop playing at this, Eli. You’re obviously not capable of handling it.”

  I frown at her—I don’t even understand what she’s saying—but Cyrus is already walking away. “Wait! Cy—this girl, the one who stole the ship. She’s the girl in my vision.”

  He throws a look over his shoulder but keeps walking. “The vision where you end up dead?” But his voice is cool.

  “No, a different one. I’ve been seeing her for a while.” I’m stumbling after him, bargaining, but he keeps heading for the door. “But it has to be connected. The girl showing up now, the Makers planning their attack on the ascenders, my visions—they’re all connected. They have to be.”

  He finally stops just before the door, Basha still at his side, and turns back. His expression is chiseled granite. “Then it sounds like you should stay away from her. Stay away from the Makers and definitely stay away from Miriam Levine.”

  Miriam Levine? How does Cyrus know her full name? I glance at Basha—she’s not surprised. The panicked feeling in my chest ramps up to choking-level. Either she’s part of the Makers or Cyrus is—or both. That blows my mind so badly, I can’t even get words out.

  Cyrus shakes his head. “I told you, Eli. Prophets get killed. Don’t be one.”

  Then my best friend turns his back on me and strides out the door. Basha follows after him, giving me a pinched look on the way.

  I just watch as they walk away.

  I’m hiding out, pouring my anger into my art, but it’s just bleeding off the edge.

  Literally.

  Angry reds and blood oranges and inky blacks drip from the page as I sketch.

  After Cyrus turned his back on me, I hid in my tent for the rest of the day, stewing over his words and the commander’s refusal to go after the Makers. By evening, I was starving enough to come out and grab food from the mess hall, but I couldn’t get away from the sideways looks and whispers-behind-hands fast enough. I packed up my sandwich and my art supplies, and I left.

  I’ve been tucked in a small granite cave for hours, my back against the cold stone wall, making art while darkness slowly gathers. A graveyard of abandoned sketches surrounds me. Black lines trail from my charcoal pencil as I drag it across the linen-white paper, but they don’t stay black—color rises from the page, leaks out of my pencil, and dances off the edge of the pad. I’m half in the fugue and half out, and it’s bleeding over into reality. Anyone who stumbles upon me might see it.

  I don’t care.

  I rip out another page and fling it onto the pile. It’s a dark-world version of Miriam Levine in her medieval armor, stabbing my fallen body with her broad-bladed sword. Her two-handed stroke buries it deep in my chest, halfway to the hilt. My visions of her have changed to this—her stabbing me not just the earth with her holy righteousness—and they keep edging into my field of view, the fugue pushing its way into reality, no matter how much I try to stay present in the here and now. I’m trying to tame the visions by consciously wrestling with my bleedover art.

  It’s not working.

  I can’t tell if the new vision of Miriam and me together is just another version of my ultimate death or some expression of my anger about the Makers and the genocidal threat they pose to the ascenders. They’re arrogant and oppressive, but they don’t deserve to die—and in some ways, I have more in common with them than I do with the flesh-and-blood humans in the Resistance.

  Or maybe I’m just pissed that my best friend in the world has abandoned me.

  Most of all, I’m afraid Cyrus is right—I have to leave before the visions aren’t just visions anymore. But every time that thought takes root in my mind, the anger comes flooding back, and I’m desperate to draw away the rage. As if I can change the reality of the situation by furiously sketching it in charcoal pencil and fugue-state bleedovers.

  I lean back and rub my eyes with the backs of my hands. The pad and pencil fall to the side of my folded-up legs, landing with a thump on the packed-dirt floor of the cave. The drawings aren’t helping work out my anger—they’re just making it worse.

  Leaving the Resistance means losing Kamali, and she’s the only good thing that’s happened to me since Cyrus and I left Seattle for the Olympics. But he’s almost certainly right. The growing tension in the camp, the suspicions in the command center… you should have warned us. I’m the freak who can raise the dead but stays hidden in his tent—they don’t know what to make of me, they don’t trust me, and some, like Melanie and her sister who lost her arm, outright hate me. It’s just a matter of time before that’s going to force me out. Meanwhile, any day now, Augustus will resurrect and come after me. Or simply wipe out every last Resistance member—including my friends and family—in an effort to hunt me down, either to control me or kill me. That list of Possible Ways Eli Is Screwed doesn’t even include Miriam and the Makers. Her mental augmentation and this plan to attack the ascenders—they’re connected to the vision of my death, only I don’t know how.

  There’s one thing I do know: my visions mean something. And not something good. No wonder my drawings are nothing but inky death, dripping blood on the grass.

  I kick my pad into the pile of drawings-in-motion.

  All I want is to ignore the world and lose myself in Kamali’s eyes. Every moment I’m with her, especially when she touches me, I have that heady feeling of falling in love. It banishes everything dark and miserable about the world, humanity, the ascenders, and everything in between. She’s the only thing with any brightness. How in the world am I supposed to walk away from that?

  The answer is simple: I don’t have it in me.

  For the same reason, I couldn’t leave her in that glowing afterworld—I’m basically a selfish bastard. While she seems to want me, too, I can’t be sure if she’s choosing the otherworldly man who saved her life and might talk to her God or the painter boy who’s madly, selfishly in love with her.

  I’m afraid if Kamali really knew me, she’d want nothing to do with me.

>   I bang my head back against the rock and close my eyes. It’s nighttime, which means couples will start arriving from the camp, seeking a furtive coupling in the dark away from the bustle of the crowded barracks. I should gather my things and leave before someone stumbles upon the mess I am.

  A sharp rustling in the grass outside the cave tells me I’m already too late. A light flashes across my closed eyelids, finding me before I can open them.

  “Eli!”

  My eyes pop open to find Kamali rushing toward me, her thin dancer legs taking longer strides than most could manage without running. A grin breaks out on my face—she’s the one person who could cause that to happen right now. The flashlight in her hand trains on the spread of drawings around me. My gush of happiness quickly douses.

  “Hey,” I answer as she trots up, scrambling to gather up the ghostly sheets of my anger and flip them over so she won’t see. But I’m too late for that—her flashlight spotlights one after another, a frown growing on her face in the reflected light.

  She crouches down and stops my hand from reeling in the rest. Her deep liquid brown eyes capture me. “What are these?” she asks.

  “I’m just… working out some of my issues.” She’s already seen the dripping images, so there’s no point in pretending now. Besides, she’s the one person I don’t want to hide from—not if I can help it—and she’s already experienced some of the bleedovers with the dance of lights.

  Before it went into Horrible Vision Mode.

  Kamali draws my hand away from the pages. She laces her fingers with mine.

  Man, her skin is so soft.

  “I’ve been looking for you.” She glances at the pages again. “I thought maybe you were… angry with me.”

  “Angry with you?” I squeeze her fingers gently. “You’re the last person I would be angry with.”

  A tentative smile opens up her face, then it dims. “When I couldn’t find you, I went looking for Lenora. I thought you might be there.”