The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) (Singularity Series)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  Tears are forming in his eyes. “Okay. Okay. Oh man… you are so messed up.”

  “Do you have the meds?” I’m considering the possibility of disowning Cyrus. Or strangling him.

  “I told you I do.” He limps with exaggerated injury back to the counter where Riley is still ignoring us. Cyrus pulls out a black case the size of a small paintbrush tote, sets it on the counter, and pops the lid. A mist of condensation floats up and drips down the side. Inside is a single syringe, frosted with the coolness of the case.

  “The guy said this should be tailored to that sample of your mom’s DNA,” Cyrus says. “He mentioned something about nanite vectors and B-cells, but gen tech isn’t my specialty. Honestly, I’m not at all sure about the tech on this, Eli. But he says it’s relatively safe, and it will eat that strange brand of leukemia your mom has.”

  “That’s what he said the last time.” I peer into the box. The syringe contains a whitish liquid that will soon be injected in my mom.

  “It’s experimental, Eli. There are no guarantees.” Cyrus sounds pained when he says it.

  “I know.” And like that, I’ve forgiven him. It’s a huge risk for him to even get this stuff for me. I don’t know where it comes from, and I don’t want to. Not knowing allows whoever’s doing the genetic engineering to stay hidden from Orion. The ascender laws restrict legacies from all kinds of adaptive technology. We’re living relics. Our purpose on the planet would be literally snuffed out if we polluted the “genetically pure” strain of our humanity with any kind of internal technology, but gen tech is the worst offense.

  At least that’s the excuse they give for letting my mom die from a disease they could cure if they wanted to.

  “It’s eighty chits, Eli,” Cyrus says softly, like he’s not sure I really have the money.

  I smile. “Not a problem.”

  He looks uncertain, but he raises his payscanner to process my picture anyway. “Transfer eighty chits,” I say into it. The look on his face says that it went through. He nods.

  The presence of actual chit-transactions in the room draws Riley’s attention.

  “Hey, kid,” he says, rubbing the graying bristles on his face. “You should bring more of those paintings around. I can get you some good prices on them.”

  I nod. “Thanks, Riley. I’ll think about it.” He’s right. I should get busy on some more works, in case this treatment doesn’t pay off. The last one gave my mom a low grade fever for a few days, but that was it. And if Lenora will buy more of my stuff, I’ll have as much money as we need to keep trying until we find one that works.

  Riley leans his elbows on the counter. “Cyrus showed me your stuff. You’ve got some talent, kid.”

  I lean back, not sure where this is headed. “He did?”

  “Yeah.” He taps his handheld screen and brings up something. “I saved the picture, just cause I liked it. Seemed like something special.”

  He turns it to me, and I feel the blood drain out of my face. It’s a painting of a boy puppet drawn up on strings suspended in the air… and it’s mine. One of my fugue works, the kind I can never create when I’m conscious. This one convinced Lenora to become my patron—she thinks I have a secret genius that I need to bring out, but it’s just the madness of the fugue. And if she knew that, she’d drop me. There are dozens of legacy artists in Seattle, all vying for a patron. She doesn’t need a crazy one. The puppet boy stares at me from Riley’s phone, like the fugue is mocking me with how little control I have over it.

  I shoot a glare at Cyrus, and he’s got a worried look on his face. He only saw it briefly. I didn’t even know he took a picture of it, much less shared it with his boss.

  “Eli…” Cyrus says apologetically, but Riley cuts him off.

  “No, it’s really good,” Riley insists. “I mean, I don’t know art or anything, but it seems like… I don’t know. It makes me sad and yet kind of happy.” He gives a little chuckle. “Like I said, I don’t know art. But I watch the Olympics on the net. You could compete in the art division with something like this. Get that patron of yours to send you. It’s coming up again, isn’t it?”

  My face heats instantly. Because the Olympics are right around the corner, and the last thing I need is Riley wondering why I haven’t done exactly that.

  He doesn’t seem to notice. “That’d solve all your problems, right? I mean, with your mom sick and all—“

  I can’t speak. My words are choking on a rising volcano of anger.

  Cyrus hastily snaps the lid down on the meds and rushes around the counter to grab my arm. “Come on, Eli.” He tugs me away from Riley, who’s lifted his hands in confusion.

  “What?” Riley asks. “I’m just saying—”

  “Yeah, we know,” Cyrus cuts him off. “The Olympics are fantastic.”

  My mouth is flopping, but no words are coming out. I let Cyrus pull me backward toward the door.

  “Let’s go take this to your mom,” he says quietly to me.

  I close my mouth and turn to shove open the door.

  The rain pelts my face, hitting like ice and turning to steam.

  “Eli, I’m sorry—”

  “You showed him.” The betrayal is roiling through my chest. Lenora and my mother both have seen my fugue works, but they don’t know how they’re made. That I black out. Cyrus is the only one I’ve ever told… and only because he found me passed out after making the Puppet Boy. But he should have known better than to show it off.

  Once people see it, they’ll wonder why I don’t make fugue art day in and day out. Why I didn’t try for the Olympics. And with my mom sick… they would do exactly the math Riley just did and wonder what secret I’m keeping. Eventually someone would find out about the blackouts. And that would get back to Lenora… and then I would be done. With her. With art. With everything that makes life worth living.

  I don’t look at Cy as I stalk toward the tram line. I gain speed as the steam inside me gains pressure.

  “I didn’t know he’d… Eli, wait up!” Cyrus jogs to catch up to me.

  The rain paints my face. Anger seethes through me. At Cyrus. At Riley for so blithely suggesting I could save my mom with my art. At the ascenders who refuse to cure her.

  The truth is, if I could just master this insane ability that sits at the edges of my fingertips, unreachable, I could have it all. I could take my art to the Olympics. I could win—I would win. I know it. Like every legacy and ascender on the planet, I’ve watched the games. I know what it takes to win. A fugue painting would get me the gold. And the winners of the Olympics get the one prize that means anything in our world: ascendance. Not just for them, but their family as well. The ascenders would take my mom, strip the genetic disease out of her body, and we would both get the procedure. We would become ascenders… and live forever.

  Only we won’t. We’ll never have any of it.

  All because I can’t paint worth a damn when I’m actually awake.

  I punch the door of the tram before it has time to open.

  I cradle my aching hand against my chest and stare out the tram window.

  My rage has simmered to surliness, but Cyrus still keeps to the far side of the car. My clothes are damp, sticking to me from the humid mid-morning drizzle and adding to the misery. We don’t speak as the car lumbers toward downtown.

  Taking my frustration out on the tram door didn’t change anything but the color of my swollen knuckles. No matter how much I rage, all of it—the fugue, Lenora, the Olympics—is just as out of reach as before. And none of it is Cyrus’s fault. In fact, without him, I wouldn’t have the one thing that matters: hope for my mom.

  By the time we reach the city, the anger has leached out of me. Our tram stop is a ramshackle station that barely keeps out the rain. Holes have been punched in the skylights by age and winter ice. Cyrus follows me with the box that might contain a cure for my mom. That’s what I really need—all the rest are just distractions.

  Cyrus stops me at the entranc
e to our apartment building. My mom and I live on the fifth floor, but Cyrus spends as much time there as he does in his own apartment across the hall.

  His face is scored with worry. “Eli, I really am sorry about—”

  “You know what? Forget it, Cy.” I breathe out the residual traces of my anger. “I shouldn’t have gone off on you. It just gets to me sometimes.”

  Cyrus nods, ducking his head then looking up. “Truce?” He tilts his head toward the apartment upstairs. “I don’t want to go in there all pissed at each other, you know? Your mom doesn’t need to see that.”

  “Yeah, I know. Besides, I might need your help someday. In case I need a date.”

  “Might?” he asks incredulously. “You would be hopeless and pathetic without me.”

  I shake my head. “Come on.”

  The building bot reads my face and lets us in. The lift is working again, so we save our breath and take it up. I scan open the door to our apartment, but I don’t get two steps inside before I stop in my tracks. I hear voices from the back room. My mom’s room.

  Cyrus nudges me from behind. “Art man! You’re blocking the door.”

  I narrow my eyes. “There’s someone here.”

  He frowns. “You expecting company?”

  I shake my head and stride toward the back. I’m nearly up to a full run by the time I reach my mom’s bedroom and pivot inside, one hand on the door frame.

  There are two men standing on either side of her, hands on her shoulders and head, eyes closed, whispering. The only thing that stops me from launching myself at them is the gentle smile on my mom’s face. I grip the door frame and yank myself to a stop. The squeak of my shoes on the wood floor makes my mom’s eyes slide open.

  She blinks, like she’s trying to process why I’m gaping at her from the doorway. The men are still speaking, their words floating across the room.

  “…forgive you your sins and lead you to everlasting life.”

  That’s when I figure out who they are: Christians.

  My shoulders slump just as Cyrus appears at my back, holding the box. His eyes go wide. If there’s something worse than bringing illegal gen tech into the apartment, it’s bringing in religious people. The last thing we need is someone ratting out my mom for running an illegal church in legacy housing. The ascenders tolerate individual faith—legacies can believe whatever they like, and ascenders have a keen appreciation for individuality—but organized worship is a banishing offense. The purges after the Singularity decimated most religious institutions anyway, but by the time the legacy cities were formed, the ascenders made it clear: if the remnants of humanity wanted to live in some semblance of civilization, they had to play by the ascenders’ rules. That’s how the dissenter reservations got their start, but that’s no place for us. Even if the living conditions weren’t horrific, we need to be in Seattle, where there’s a decent black market—I can’t get the meds my mom needs in Oregon.

  Cyrus’s sucked-in breath draws the attention of the two men. One is Asian, the other a light-skinned Latino, but they both have the kind of peaceful look that’s quickly fading from my mom’s face.

  “Come on in, Elijah.” Her voice rasps with fatigue.

  “You shouldn’t be out of bed, Mom.” I say this because I can’t say, What are you thinking, bringing Christians into the apartment? It’s bad enough she has a shrine with all kinds of icons and dying saints in the corner of her bedroom. Gathering together with other believers is flat dangerous. And she knows it.

  She waves me off, but it makes her teeter. The men shift their hands to support her.

  “I can’t rest all the time,” she says. “Besides, these fine young men brought me something I need even more.” Her voice weakens as she speaks.

  I want to go to her, but I’m rooted in my spot, angry that she would take this risk right when I’m trying so hard to get a cure for her. Cyrus goes to her instead, slipping through the doorway and past me.

  “Hey, Mrs. Brighton,” he says cheerily, dropping a kiss on her cheek and nudging his way in between her and the men. He takes her by the elbow and gently leads her away from her religious partners-in-crime. “How are you feeling today?”

  “I’m fine, Cyrus.” She says it like a protest to his help, but she lets him escort her to the rumpled bed in the corner. “I’ll sit, but you two have to let us finish up here. We’re almost done, and I don’t want these boys to have wasted their time.”

  The “boys” are both mid-thirties. They’re not quite old enough to be my father, but I’d rather have my mom dating younger guys than praying with them. Not that she’s ever dated… with the exception of my father, who doesn’t count. He was gone before I was born, and she refuses to speak of him—no pictures, no stories, no lineage maps to show our Legacy Descendent line. I didn’t realize there was something wrong with that until some kid on the playground called me an inbred, and I punched him in the nose. I was only seven, but I already knew that was the worst kind of insult, and there was no way my mom did that. The only decent explanation for no paternity records was that my father was a dissenter. Which still made him a piece of work: stealing into a legacy city to knock up my mother then disappearing again.

  I don’t blame her for not having much interest in guys since.

  Except now… when she’s bringing them into the house to pray.

  The two men are still standing where they were, whispering to each other, clearly as awkward with the situation as I am.

  I edge my way into the room, finally. “Mom, we have some medicine for you—”

  Her fingers slice the air and cut me off. “When we’re finished, Elijah.”

  I purse my lips. Cyrus backs away from her bed, having helped her ease into sitting on the edge. I can’t believe she’s insisting on ancient religious rites when I have actual medicine for her. I tell myself it’s the disease: she’s been too frail for too long. It’s taking a toll on her, and she’s reaching for the religious stuff like it’s a lifeline. But it’s not: the only thing that’s going to cure her is the gen tech. And that’s if we can find a therapy that will actually work before it’s too late. My stomach twists… because my greatest fear is that it’s already too late. One look at her tells the story: the disease is ravaging her voice, hollowing out her eyes, and stealing the delicate beauty she’s had all my life. I remember being frustrated as a child that I didn’t have the skills to render my mother’s beauty in paint. Now, just as I’m starting to become somewhat competent in my art, the disease is slowly destroying her. I suddenly know my next painting will be of her, full of the life that’s being drained from her body.

  The Asian man approaches her with a small gold-colored tin. He opens it and pulls out a wafer. I recognize it from the stash she has in her shrine. She was always a believer, but the crazy religious stuff didn’t start until she got sick, almost two years ago now. We’ve been through treatment after treatment, with me getting more desperate with each failed attempt and her gaining new icons each time. But I didn’t realize she’d taken it up a level—a dangerous, illegal level—to having people gather in the apartment. Which makes me wonder how long they’ve been coming around when I’m not home.

  One of the men holds up the wafer to her. “See the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

  “Lord,” my mom replies, “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul will be healed.”

  “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He places the wafer in her hand, and she lifts it to her mouth. I shift from one foot to the other and glance at Cyrus. He’s frowning deeply. I nervously check the window. It would be just my luck to have a police bot hover by.

  The man hands her the gold tin, and it appears they’re done. I sigh with relief as the men say their goodbyes to my mother and make their exit with tight smiles.

  I kneel by her side while Cyrus sets the med box on her nightstand. He’ll have to do the injection; he always gets the instructions fro
m his supplier about how to administer it, but that’s not why. I couldn’t poke a needle in my mother if my life depended on it. My hands would shake, there would be crying—mostly mine—and half the life-saving meds would end up on the floor. It would be a disaster for both of us.

  “Mom,” I say, looking up into her watery blue eyes. “Cyrus has a new medicine. His guy says it’s the latest gen tech, tuned to your DNA. Best stuff available. It’s going to make you feel better.” I’m not sure if I’m trying to convince her or me.

  “Oh, baby.” She puts a cool, too-thin hand on my cheek. “I’m going to die. You need to make your peace with it. I have.” She leans backward, easing into the super soft pillow like it’s a sharply carved rock.

  I close my eyes, briefly. Please, no. Please don’t fight me on this. I hear Cyrus’s feet shuffle away, backing up to give us room.

  I open my eyes again, looking hard into my mom’s weary face. “You’re not going to die. Not while I have anything to do with it.” I fight the tears because I know they won’t help. My mother is a passionate painter in her own right and clings to an ancient religion that I don’t understand, but she’s not sentimental. If I cry, she’ll just comfort me, like I’m a child. She’ll be strong. She’ll tell me she loves me, and then I’ll fall apart.

  We’ve done this before.

  But none of that will convince her to let Cyrus inject her with the meds.

  “You have to get better,” I say, forcing a calm in my voice that I don’t feel. “You can’t quit now, because I still need you. My art is apparently weak and uninspired, and you’re the only one who can give me a half-decent critique and help me improve.”

  “Did Lenora say that?” She frowns, half-angry. That’s what I want. I need her to fight.

  “You know how they are,” I say, knowing she doesn’t. She’s never met Lenora. Or any ascender, as far as I know. “Arrogant. Think they know better than us, even in the arts. Especially in the arts. Sometimes I wonder why she even took me on. And I haven’t produced anything like the Puppet Boy since she became my patron. I’m not going to keep my position if I keep disappointing her.”