Leopold steps up to my left side. “You’ll be using the south side of the pier. The girls and Lenora will use the north side. The exchange will occur in the middle. I’ll meet the girls, while Marcus will meet you. I’m sending Tristan with you, but if there are any problems, I’ll be able to span the gap and come to your aid. Marcus has agreed to only send one security bot to escort the girls.”
I nod and notice Tristan in his full body armor has eased up to my right.
“Are you ready?” Leopold asks me.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be in contact with Tristan at all times.” Leopold heads for the broken walkway along the north side, while Tristan and I pick our way across warped planks to reach the south end. The thud of Tristan’s combat boots gives rhythmic punctuation to the dull roar of the distant waves crashing on the shore and lapping at the pilings. I glance across the span of the collapsed pier to Leopold to make sure we’re matching speed. We start our march down the walkways together. We have almost two hundred feet to go to reach the center, but I can already see Marcus’s bodyform in the distance, catching the summer sun.
There’s barely enough room for Tristan and I to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, but he hunkers close to me, scanning the walkway in front and the water below, like he expects an amphibious assault or a land mine at any step along the way.
We walk in silence for half the way. I can see Marcus more clearly the closer he gets. The girls are matching pace with him on the north side. Sun glares off the security bot behind them, but I can see the three of them: Kamali and Basha in front, holding onto each other; Delphina behind, pushing a maglev stretcher holding Lenora’s body; and the bot bringing up the rear. The tightness in my chest pulls harder.
I lean over to Tristan. “Ask Leopold if Lenora’s okay. Deal’s off unless we know.”
Tristan relays the message, his face stoic, and listens to the reply. “Lenora is immobilized but conscious, sir,” he tells me, still listening. “Leopold confirms he has spoken to her.”
I nod my head and keep walking steadily forward.
After a moment, Tristan says, “It’s an honor to know you, sir.” His green eyes peer into mine, and it makes me cringe. Because I’m not doing this for his cause, or even for the girls, although I’m glad they’ll be free. I’m doing this for my mom, plain and simple.
I shake my head. “You’re really not going to stop calling me sir, are you?”
He grins.
We’re getting closer, so I look over to the girls again. Delphina looks undaunted, but the other two look like they’ve been through hell: I can see the dark circles under their eyes from here, and Kamali’s soft cloud of hair hangs limp around her head like it’s been beaten and kicked into submission. Angry bile rises up in my throat, but even worse… I’m not going to have a chance to say even two words to her.
I turn back to Tristan. “Will you do me a favor?”
One of his eyebrows quirks up. “Yes, sir.”
“If I don’t come back from this…” I swallow and look to Kamali again. Her arm is wrapped so tightly around Basha, it’s like the two girls are melded together. I say the words as I look at her face, even though the sea breeze has no chance of carrying them to her. “Tell Kamali I’m not what she thinks I am.” I gaze at her, imagining saying the words straight to her, then I look back to Tristan.
He’s frowning, looking back and forth between me and Kamali, no doubt wondering what in the world I’m talking about. But I don’t need him to understand. Cyrus, when he wakes up to find I’ve gone off and gotten myself killed without him, will probably tell her he lied about me being Lenora’s domestic. But I’m not sure Kamali will believe him. Maybe from Tristan, with my own words, and what I’m doing now… maybe she’ll believe it. Maybe not.
It’s all I have to offer.
Finally, we meet Marcus in the center. Leopold has reached the girls. Tristan hangs back as I take the final two steps to come face to face with Marcus.
He still has the rental body, which gives me an internal sigh of relief, but his smile hollows out my stomach. “You made the right choice, Eli.”
“Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t agree.” My anger leaks out in my words, but I figure there’s no sense in being polite. Marcus glances over to the security bot still hovering over the girls. He must have transmitted some instruction because it turns back toward the beach. Marcus gives me room to pass and falls in step with me as I keep pace with the bot.
I take one last look back over my shoulder, just to make sure Leopold has them. Tristan is watching me go, not moving from his spot. I look forward again, wondering if it’s too early to try to touch Marcus. I decide to make sure the girls are safely away first. Breaking Marcus’s personal key is Leopold’s goal, not mine. I want Lenora out of Marcus’s reach first. Then I’d prefer not to die, if that’s an option. Last place comes capturing Marcus to further Leopold’s grand schemes.
“So, where are we going?” I ask Marcus, keeping it light until we’re off the pier and Leopold is away.
“Somewhere we can properly ascend you, of course.”
I shoot a look at him, but Marcus just grins and faces our awaiting transport.
Marcus and I don’t talk on the ride to wherever he’s taking me.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around what’s happening. Is Marcus really going to let me ascend? How will that work? What about breaking his personal key, like Leopold sent me to do? Do I even want to ascend?
It’s that last one that’s gumming my throat shut, stopping me from asking all the obvious questions. It lodges there, choking me with all that’s changed in the last short hour. Since I gained and lost the gold. Since I was attacked, rescued, then ransomed to save Lenora and the girls. Since I found a potential way to save my mother, even without ascendance.
Since I found out I’m not truly human.
And that’s it… a feeling settles into my bones, that dark, creeping ooze that says something is terribly wrong with all of this. With me. I’m swimming upside down in a pool of darkness with no compass to tell me which way is up.
Marcus’s transport gently glides between the towering spires of LA. There’s no lurching back and forth, no threat of losing my lunch while fleeing to the mountains. The resistance’s transport was military grade in amenities and comfort, while Marcus’s ship has luxuries I’ve never seen. It’s a small, flying apartment, with the floor covered in some kind of misty carpet that gives gently under my regulation agonite sneakers. The seats are body-contouring maglev, apparently thought-controlled, at least for ascenders, as Marcus glides effortlessly from one end of a wall-sized display of the rainforest to the other. It’s so realistic, I could swear the wall was a portal to South America rather than the back of the cockpit.
My thoughts are drawn to the dull rainforest painting I made for Lenora, a mockery in paint of the scene I see before me now. You can do better, she had said. And she was right. I could do better, but only in the fugue. And now… now I have some idea of how to do it even outside the fugue. Now, retroactively, I can see in my mind’s eye the flaws of that work and how to fix them. All because some woman in a fugue hallucination touched me… and infused me with knowledge I never had before. The dark ooze is filling my lungs again, whispering the woman’s words. You are the bridge.
I blink and shake myself, physically trying to rid my body of that creeping feeling that something is horribly wrong. Marcus is watching me from the door of the ship, which is now open. Outside is a short, well-lit walkway tunnel made of glass. Somehow the craft stopped without me noticing. I rise out of the infinite comfort of the body-contour seat and cross the floor.
“Where are we?” I ask, even though a thousand other questions should be coming out of my mouth right now.
His rental body sweeps a hand to the hallway. He’s slightly awkward in it, like he’s still adjusting to his bodyform. “Welcome to my home.”
I step into the glass tunnel. We’re impossibly high in the
air, thousands of feet. A wispy puff of white cloud whips around the building a hundred feet below us. A wash of vertigo makes me pull my gaze from the dizzying height below to the building above, but it appears we’re at the top. A lush domed garden covers the roof, but we’re on the floor directly below that. Looking out over the city, I’m fairly certain there are no towers higher than ours, not even the space port, with its nearby launch arm ready to slingshot ascender flights into orbit. As I walk through the tunnel to Marcus’s apartment, I try to piece together how much power he has to live here, in the clouds, like a god.
And what his real reason is for wanting me to ascend.
We reach the end of the glass tunnel, and the door winks out of existence with a wave of Marcus’s hand. Across the threshold, there’s more of the misty, softly-giving flooring that his ship had, only now it’s spread across a huge living area dotted with a couple of couches and what looks like a medical bay at the far end. Floor-to-ceiling windows span one side while the other has a long hallway that appears to lead to rooms in the back. Brilliant sunshine streams in and filters through the swirling mists of the floor, creating the impression that we’re literally walking on a cloud.
I’m still stunned out of words, but when we reach the windows, I manage, “You live here?”
“When I’m in LA, yes.” He’s watching me with an amused expression. Like he expects me to do something more serious than ask about his apartment. His expression dredges up an annoyance that cuts through the fog in my brain.
Marcus sweeps a hand to encompass the city. “All of this and much, much more will rightfully be your domain once you ascend, Eli.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, the understatement of the year. “I lost the gold. How exactly are you going to ascend me?”
“It’s a simple matter to clear you of the charges. Especially since I know who actually did kill the boy.” Marcus waves away Thompson’s death as if he were an annoying bit of trash swept into the bin. It adds barbs to the growing ball of annoyance inside me. “Convincing the Olympic committee that they should find you innocent of Thompson’s murder and reverse their decision to disqualify you will take a little more bribery and possibly a few well-placed threats. But having the official cover of you ascending as a medalist is worth the trouble. It will make it easier for Orion to accept you. Besides, the committee has already disappointed Orion by disqualifying your rebellious little friends, so I imagine it won’t take much prompting.”
“Was it you?” I ask. “Did you kill Thompson so I would have a better shot at ascending?” Lenora confessed to framing me for Thompson’s murder, but she claimed she didn’t kill him herself. Which I want to believe, but I honestly don’t know what to think anymore.
Marcus’s limited bodyform still manages a small scowl of annoyance. “I told you before. I would have preferred if Thompson hadn’t been killed. I thought it might turn Orion against you. But I’ll admit to not foreseeing Lenora’s last-minute sabotage, planting evidence against you. That was highly inconvenient.”
“She says she didn’t kill Thompson.”
“And she didn’t,” he says. “One of my associates did, someone I would prefer not to be put to storage. So we’ll find someone else suitable to take the blame.”
“Wait… you’re going to frame someone else for the murder? To clear the way for me to ascend?” The black ooze feeling squirms around in my stomach again, forcing me to swallow down a sour sickness in the back of my throat.
“Don’t worry, it’s no one you know. And once you ascend, none of this will matter.”
I narrow my eyes. “Lenora said you want to kill me.”
His nearly emotionless face manages to contort into something close to anger. “I imagine Lenora told you a great many lies. The very last thing she wants is to lose her precious experiment.” He means it as an insult, against me, I think, or possibly Lenora. All I hear is the word lies. There are so many of them, I’m losing track.
“I know all about the experiment,” I say, although I’m not sure how much of it I believe. “I know what she thinks she’ll lose if I ascend. What I don’t understand, is why it’s so important to you that I do. Why not just kill me?” The sick feeling in my stomach is urging me on. I lightly rub my thumb across the middle finger on my left hand. I can’t feel the device there, embedded in my flesh, but I know it’s there. I just can’t decide if I should use it.
Marcus’s scowl takes a darker turn, his dull eyes turning more menacing. “You weren’t supposed to live in the first place.”
The sickness crawls back up my throat. “What do you mean?”
“Did Lenora tell you how many experiments there were?”
I shake my head, fighting the sickness again.
“Dozens,” he says. “And that was just in the first round. None of them took. And do you know why?”
The shake of my head is more flinch than anything else. Dozens. Babies that Lenora and her cohort experimented on, trying to produce their hybrid bridge or whatever—their ascender baby with a soul. All dead. My stomach is in full rebellion.
“Because I made sure they weren’t viable.” He takes a step forward, and I edge back.
My disgust finally reaches my face. “You killed them all?”
“I made sure their design was flawed. Lenora is a brilliant geneticist… now. But she was an artist before the Singularity. Worked in acrylics just like you. Did you know that?”
I look at him like he’s crazed. I’m convinced more than ever that all ascenders are essentially insane. At the very least, completely without morals.
“Given where she started,” he continues, calmly, “Lenora was always a bit more talented in rendering in paint rather than DNA. I, on the other hand, was doing genetic studies well before I ascended. It didn’t take much to make sure her little experiments never came to fruition. Until, somehow, to my extreme annoyance… you managed to live.”
The look on his face sends chills down my back, and I’m acutely aware that he could crush the life out of me at any moment. I curl up my left fist, protecting my middle finger, keeping it ready in case he makes any sudden moves. I’m tempted to reach out and touch him now, anyway, but I’m sure that would destroy any chance of me ascending. And I’m still wavering, uncertain.
Marcus pulls back a little and affects a more casual air. “Lenora was elated. She thought she had finally succeeded. And in a moment of weakness, probably because I enjoyed being her second just a little too much, I allowed you to live.”
“So there was something different about me.” My voice is weak, and I can feel my fisted hand shake slightly. I edge farther away from him and the windows and glance behind me to the med bay. It strikes me suddenly that an ascender would have no need for a med bay. Certainly not in his apartment. Is this where all the experiments took place?
Another wave of chills sweeps across me. I look back to him.
Marcus smirks. “There is precisely nothing unique about you, Eli. That’s the curious thing. Of course the first thing we did was examine your genetic composition. There was absolutely no difference between you and all the others. You had the same interweaving of ascender tech at the chromosomal level. The same genetic code. Identical to the others. And yet you lived. Once you were born, of course, Lenora tried to duplicate her success. First with another round of freshly conceived specimens. All were failures. Then she became convinced it was your mother’s contribution that mattered. So, naturally, we cloned you.”
“You… cloned me?” My jaw drops open, but I quickly shut it. “Are there… do I have…” I’m gibbering like an idiot, but my brain is working overtime to keep up.
Marcus looks unimpressed. “No, there are not clones of you walking around, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He gives an elaborate sigh that comes out slightly jittery with his rental body. “All the clones failed to thrive as well. It turns out that you are, in fact, unique. But for reasons I still do not understand.” The hard look comes back to his d
ark eyes. “As you grew, your talent for acrylics, combined with the fact that you lived when you shouldn’t have… well, it fostered an unnatural fondness for you in Lenora. And a little too much hope in her fellow acolytes of the search for an “answer.” But her Question is backward-looking, Eli. We left that behind, shortly after the Singularity, yet it’s gaining purchase again. Spreading like a virus. Lenora and her group of believers are the only ones privy to the experiment, but they’re not the only ones asking The Question. And resurrecting that is like falling back into those dark times when chaos reigned in the ascender world. Before Orion. Before the social stability that allows us to move forward. To explore. To create the wonders of our world.” He gestures to the glittering city outside his windows, then swings his dull, menacing eyes back to me. “It has to be stopped, Eli. Before something much worse than a few renegade experiments happens.”
He’s creeping forward again, nudging me toward the med bay. Swirls of mist stir up as I stumble slightly in my step backward. “I still don’t understand. Why don’t you just kill me? You could have done it at any time along the way.” It seems crazy to be asking this, but I need to know. Like there’s some missing piece I need to figure out.
“It’s easy to kill a man, Eli. It’s much harder to kill an idea.”
I swallow. “The idea that you… that ascenders are… missing a soul.”
“The idea that there could ever be a bridge to find out.”
A bridge. That sweeps a fresh chill through me that saturates me head to toe. Of course he would use the same word as Lenora. They worked together on the experiment. But, as far as I can tell, they didn’t program me to have the hallucinations. They didn’t… force me to dream about people who called me that. Who insisted on it. Who gave me an ability I didn’t have before.
I shake my head to clear it of the thought that somehow the hallucination isn’t a hallucination at all. That it’s not some figment of my subconscious. Because it has to be.
Marcus smiles a little, like he thinks I’m agreeing with him.
The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) (Singularity Series) Page 28