She scowls. “At least I’m not pretending to be some kind of prophet. My people know exactly what I am. What are you, Eli?”
That’s the question of the moment. “Nothing special.”
She nods, and I can feel the judgment solidifying into something not good. “All religions are accepted by the Makers, but we have no need of a prophet here, Elijah Brighton. My people’s ascendance will be man-made not God-made. They’ll have complete control of it, and in the process, they’ll preserve their essential God-spark, their gift from God, their humanity. They don’t need a prophet supposedly sent by God to bring people back from the dead. Prophets are dangerous tools in the hands of insane men—and you’re just a boy. An easily manipulated boy. A menace. I wish I’d had a better shot at you back at the Resistance camp.”
Nathaniel brushes past my shoulder, putting his bulky body between Miriam and me. Not that it will do any good if she decides now’s the time to eliminate the threat I apparently am to her.
“I’m not a religious zealot,” I say. “And I’m done being manipulated. Even by you. So, what’s it going to be? Did you bring me here just to kill me?”
Nathaniel tenses in front of me, but it doesn’t matter. If Miriam wants to take us out, she can. I’ve seen her in the ring, across from Zachary when he was armed with augments that would take down either of us… and he still lost. I put a hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder to reassure him and step in front of him again, closer to Miriam. No sense in getting him killed.
Miriam watches this whole dance and scowls a little. “We are Makers by design. Soldiers by necessity. But we’re not killers of any kind, Elijah Brighton. Besides, I’m not interested in making you a martyr.”
I don’t relax my stance. “That’s reassuring.”
Nathaniel’s still tense by my side.
“I’m not a religious zealot, either,” Miriam continues. “I’m a zealot for humanity. But what are you? Do you pretend to be nothing more than a boy? Because I know the ascenders have made you into something—I’m just not sure what. But if you’re not a prophet, and you’re not a zealot, then maybe your something, whatever it is, could be useful to my cause.”
We seem to have entered the negotiations phase of this discussion. “What are these dreams you’re having of me?” I doubt she’ll tell me straight out…
She cocks her head to the side. “You first. You recognized me, back at the Resistance camp. And then you were… nearby, later, when I was securing the ship.”
“You mean stealing the ship.” But my stomach quivers—she may not know about the fugue, but she’s close to guessing it.
“You’ve seen me before,” she says bluntly. “How? Are you having these dreams, too?”
I hesitate but decide to offer up part of the truth. Maybe she’ll reveal more about her version. “I see you in medieval armor, like the soldier you are. You’re decrying that I’m not The Truth.”
Nathaniel scowls at this, but Miriam raises her eyebrows, seeming surprised. It must hit close to home, but then the fugue usually does. I don’t always understand its message, but it’s always telling some version of the truth.
“The truth is that the ascenders are our enemies,” she says. “And we’re going to defeat them, wiping them from this earth and leaving room for humanity to take its rightful place again.”
I grit my teeth. “You’re talking about killing billions of people.”
“They’re not people. And they’ve already long outlived their naturally-intended lives. Whatever time they’ve borrowed from technology, trying to buy themselves immortality, they are long overdue in repaying. But then I don’t expect you to see this, Eli, given you’re their creation.”
“So why don’t you just kill me then?” I ask.
Nathaniel shoots me another scowl, but I’m getting tired of this.
She nods like this is the question I should’ve been asking all along. “You are your mother’s son.” She squints at my body. “You wear your humanity outwardly. I don’t know what they’ve done to your mind, and I don’t know how much of the rumors to believe, but I know life is really a choice. You may have been created by them, but I can’t blame you for that. It’s what you choose to be that matters—and whether you choose to side with humanity or with the soulless ones who left their humanity behind.”
“So it’s the Makers or the Resistance,” I say, the bitterness leaking into my voice. “The fact that we’re all humans doesn’t enter into it?”
She gives me a frustrated look like I’m just not getting it. “Of course, it matters. But what matters more is whether you’re going to help or hinder the coming enlightenment of humanity. Even within the Makers, there’s a range of beliefs about how that’s going to happen. I respect all beliefs, including the religion of my father.” She gestures to the burnt out temple around us. “If you can accept the terms and conditions of the Makers—that we practice religious freedom, which means there is no One True Way, no prophet leading us forward—then you can stay. But let me be clear: you can stay as a man of faith. You cannot stay as a prophet.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m no prophet. But I have zero interest in killing ascenders or in staying with the Makers. I’m only here to get my friend.”
“I’m willing to let you stay. I didn’t say I was willing to let you go.” She holds my stare for a long moment. I can feel Nathaniel tensing just behind me. If I give the word, he’ll attack her. Or try to. It would only get him killed, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. I deliberately hold still, giving him no reason to make any such pointless gesture.
Miriam flicks a look to Nathaniel—I think she’s taunting him with that amused expression on her face.
I hold my breath.
Finally, she sighs and looks back at me. “You’re dangerous, Eli. If you return to the Resistance, your reputation as a prophet is only going to grow. You will stir trouble. And I don’t need trouble. Especially now.”
It’s not like I disagree with any of that. But I’m not keen on being held prisoner, either.
“If I agree to stay, will you cancel the assault on the ascenders?”
She snorts and gives me a derisive look.
I curl up my fists. “Okay, fine. Just keep Cyrus out of it. Send your jivs, but not him. He’s not trained as a soldier anyway.” If I can delay this, I’ll have a chance to talk Cyrus out of staying with the Makers altogether. And then, no matter what Miriam thinks, I’ll find a way out for both of us.
“If Cyrus wishes to join the fight, I won’t stand in his way. And calling off the assault is not an option—the ascenders have something we need.”
I quickly search Zachary’s memories for the objective of the assault. It wasn’t relevant before, so it hadn’t jumped out, but now it’s clear how urgent this mission is for the Makers. “You’re using ascender tech for your next Offering. Doesn’t that go against your beliefs? Your desire to make the coming enlightenment man-made alone?” I’m baiting her, but I need something to stop this.
Miriam’s eyes narrow to slits. “Cyrus warned us you stole Zach’s memories. But that doesn’t mean you understand us.”
But I can tell this is unsettling her, so I push on. “I know you have your candidate for the next Offering. I know that arguments have been made for and against you going under the knife again, but that you finally agreed to let some other young person pay for their devotion to the Makers with their life and their mind. I know you need special ascender tech to develop the next-level gen tech for the Offering, gen tech that you have designed.”
I pause to enjoy the look of panic that’s stealing over Miriam’s face.
Then she quickly pulls it together. “This is your ability, then,” she says coolly, appraising me again. “This information gathering—your dreams, they give you this knowledge.”
Close enough, I suppose. “Don’t yours?” I can feel the arrogance in it, but I need to know—is she accessing the fugue or not? I almost have my answer, anyway—she wouldn’t b
e shocked if she was able to do this herself.
Her expression draws grim. “My dreams of you are always filled with fiery death. Sometimes it’s your death. Sometimes it’s mine. But always one of us is consumed in a holocaust, one that burns down the world as well as ourselves.”
Her words shake me like nothing else she’s said. My vision. The one where my smoking body sprawls on the ground. She may have seen both of our deaths… but I’ve only seen mine.
I swallow. “That sounds like something we should both try to avoid.”
“Agreed.” She gives me a small appraising nod. “This ability you have to gather information—if you were to, say, lend your support to our mission, it would go a long way in reassuring me your intent is peaceful toward the Makers.”
Peaceful toward the Makers, perhaps, but help them in an assault on the ascenders?
“No,” I say firmly. “I’m not helping you hasten this enlightenment you’re after, not if it means wiping out an entire group of people.”
She scowls. “Very well. But if your friend wants to help, I’m putting him on the front line of the mission.” She turns her back and strides around the end of the table and across the broken shards of the pews in her father’s temple. She doesn’t ask us to follow, but I hurry after her, and Nathaniel is close on my heels.
She has Cyrus and Kamali and the others—and she’s not letting any of them go. My only hope is to talk Cyrus out of the mission.
And then find a way out for everyone.
“You don’t have to go.” I’m making my last-minute pitch to Cyrus.
He’s suiting up in black body armor along with the other jivs. “Yes, I do.”
When I told Miriam I would stay—and it wasn’t as if she left it optional—I figured I would have time to talk Cyrus out of going on this crazy mission to attack the ascenders. I didn’t expect her to move up the mission to tonight.
Now he’s here, suiting up with Tristan behind him. When Cyrus insisted on going, Tristan signed up. At least he’s an actual soldier. I don’t think he has the same level of hatred for the ascenders, but he has no love for them, either. More importantly, he’ll be there to watch Cyrus’s back.
I still don’t like it.
I lean in, getting in Cyrus’s face and dropping my voice. “I left the Resistance for you, okay? I’m here. You don’t have to do this thing.” I’m stabbing my finger into his body armor, but it’s just sending jolts of pain into my hand.
He knocks my hand away. “You still haven’t figured this out, have you? You can’t go back, Eli. I did everything to get you out of that place because you were going down a path…” He stops with a nervous glance at the jivs arming themselves in the small prep room. They’re pretending not to listen.
“I didn’t do anything in the Resistance,” I protest.
“That’s exactly it,” Cyrus says with a scowl. “And it’s a lot safer to do nothing here.”
I gesture to the heavy-duty weapons they’re toting. “This is not my idea of safe.”
“Which is why you’re staying behind.” Cyrus slaps the last of the body armor fasteners into place.
I want to say Miriam herself is dangerous, but I can’t, not surrounded by a platoon of her jivs with various body pieces missing and replaced by augments. I struggled for something to stop him. “This whole thing is bigger than the two of us.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Cyrus, the things I’ve seen—”
“I know,” he cuts me off, with a sideways look to the jivs. “And we need to make sure that thing doesn’t come to pass.” He’s talking about the vision of my death. “You’re right—this is bigger than us, and you’re not the leader for it. You need to stay out of the way and let Miriam do this. Her people are trained for the fight.” He tips his head to the door of the prep room. “We can talk about all this when I get back.”
I step back and ball up my fists. “You’re just doing this to piss me off.”
Cyrus’s eyes flash, and he’s on me in a second, shoving me up against the wall of the pod. He growls his words in my face. “It’s not all about you, Eli. Sometimes it’s about me.”
My eyes are so wide they hurt. My best friend outweighs me by about thirty pounds and could pummel me anytime he wished—this is the first time I think he’s actually wished.
He suddenly lets go, backing up to straighten out his flak jacket. Then he turns his back on me to pull a Maker-made gun off the rack. It’s not the shiny ascender tech I’m used to—these weapons are black-barreled with brass fittings around their tarnished steel. They’re heavy and handcrafted and battered like they’ve been in a dozen firefights already, like the battle-hardened jivs surrounding us.
Only Cyrus doesn’t belong.
“Just once,” he says quietly, under his breath, not looking at me as he checks his weapon. “Just once, I want to punch back.” He looks up at me, and the anger has fled. “Not you, Eli. Them.”
The ascenders. This is his one chance at retribution, however small.
Cyrus has hated them his entire life. His grandfather died from a disease the ascenders could have cured. Cooperation with them has always chafed him, whether it was me accepting patronage from Lenora, or using Marcus’s help during the attack on the Mind, or the Resistance’s reliance on ascender tech. Once Cyrus got over his amazement at all the technological miracles the Resistance possessed, that part always scratched under his collar like a rough-woven, gray-market shirt.
I give a small nod, finally giving up. “Just don’t do anything stupid, okay?” I keep my voice quiet.
He smiles. “Stupid is your department, bro. I’m going to be on task at all times.”
I shake my head.
“You could help us out.” Tristan’s slanted look is accusing me.
And he’s right—I could give intel to the Makers during the operation, but I’d have to reveal way too much in the process. Besides, I’m halfway hoping they won’t find the ascender tech they need for this next Offering. Their last success resulted in Miriam. And now she’s the one who’s designing the next experiment, which only means it will be even more successful. I may not be able to stop the Makers, but I’m not going to help them.
“I conscientiously object,” I say.
Tristan snorts and shakes his head. Cyrus rolls his eyes.
The leader of the jiv team is Zachary Holloway. As he calls their attention and runs through the drill to prep for rolling out, his words echo in more ways than one. It’s like I’ve lived through this before, dozens of times, just like Zach. I know Maker missions return with missing body parts and even missing jivs. That protocol for coming into the Makers in the underground training arena isn’t just a contact point for traders—it’s a vain hope that, if they lose someone on a mission, the jiv might somehow escape the ascenders and make it back.
It’s never actually happened.
But they have lost plenty along the way, in flesh and lives.
I turn my back on the whole operation and march out of the armory pod. It’s at the far end of the shops, next to a command center. Basha, Kamali, and Nathaniel are waiting just outside for me.
I nod to Basha. “I couldn’t talk him out of it.”
“Told you.” She brushes past me to say goodbye to Cyrus.
I stare after her. I didn’t say that my own goodbye to my best friend, but there was no way that was going to happen. Too final for either one of us.
Kamali slides a hand up on my shoulder and squeezes it gently. “He’ll be fine.”
Nathaniel nods his agreement. “The facility they’re raiding is supposed to be uninhabited. They have you to thank for that.”
That forces a snort out of me. Their target is the all-glass research facility that Marcus brought us to, back when we were hunting the Mind. Turned out one of the Resistance members—Caleb—was actually a spy for Augustus, and his ships crashed down an avalanche of glass on our heads.
All to come after me.
So, yes, I’m responsible for the w
holesale destruction of an ascender genetic research facility… and now the Makers, scavengers to the core, are heading back to find the tech they need.
Basha comes striding out of the armory pod, her normally animated face set into a stone mask. Behind her, the place is empty, Cyrus and the rest of the jivs already gone out the back, heading directly to the ships parked in the makeshift hangars outside.
“I’m going to need your help,” I say to Basha. Then to Kamali and Nathaniel’s questioning looks, I add, “I’m not going to help, but I’m definitely keeping an eye on them.”
Kamali gives me an approving nod, and I feel slightly better about not volunteering. If something goes sideways, at least I can warn them.
“There’s a rest pod on the other side of the command center,” Basha says, approval in her voice as well. “You can do your thing there, and it will be close enough to Miriam and her operation to help, if necessary.” She quickly leads the way. It’s a short walk. The rest pod is barely big enough for the four of us, just a couple chairs and a small cot tucked into a closet stacked with extra supplies.
I take a seat on the cot, folding my legs and leaving my hands upturned on my knees. “I won’t come out of the fugue unless something’s wrong,” I say to Basha.
She gives me a nod, face pinched and intense, echoing the compression on my chest.
I close my eyes and shift hard, flinging myself up and out of the Makers’ hidden-away command center. I lift fast above the hangars nestled between some abandoned high-rises and a sprawling junkyard. The ships are cloaked, but that means nothing to me. The exteriors of the two ships the Makers stole from the Resistance shimmer with the same unreality all non-living things have in the fugue state. Inside, seemingly suspended in the air, are the brighter flames of dozens of jivs split between the two craft. I will myself closer to the one carrying Tristan and Cyrus just as they turn in a long arc over the waterways below. A few glimmers of moonlight reflect off the surface. The nearness of the water drove the ascenders away from Old Portland in the first place, relocating and building an entirely new shining city to the south: New Portland.
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