by A. L. Davroe
“That makes two of us.”
“What?”
He cocks his head, touches his stomach. “I didn’t know I could do that. Withstand being beaten like that. Didn’t know I could breathe under water, either.”
“You can breathe under water?” I repeat, aghast.
His brows knit. “I think so. I mean, I came to and I was face down in the water. That means I didn’t drown, right?” He draws away and leans against the wall. He lifts the hand he broke punching an aerovator door—now perfectly healed like nothing happened—and stares at it, expression haunted. “It’s scary, learning about this stuff.”
“You didn’t know?”
He shakes his head. “My mother wasn’t allowed involvement in Customizing my genes. It was entirely my father’s doing. And once I was old enough for Mods and Alts, I’d go to bed one night and wake up…changed.”
“That’s why you have trouble sleeping, isn’t it?”
His mouth turns down and I know that’s an affirmative.
Hateful acid burns at the back of my throat for Quent’s father. And yet… “I want to despise him for what he did to you, but at the same time, what he did to you saved your life.”
He closed his eyes. “I know. I hate what I am, what he made me. But it has its benefits, I suppose.”
“You’re superhuman.”
He wrinkles his nose. “Don’t call me that. I’m no different than anyone else.”
I step close to him again. “But you are. Not saying it doesn’t make it any less true.”
Pouting at the ground, he mutters, “I don’t want to be. I just want to be normal. I want to be deserving of someone like you.”
A bitter laugh escapes me. “Me?” I think of his breath that smells like mint, tastes like mint. And mine, which is probably awful since I haven’t brushed my teeth in hours. “Quent, you’re perfect, what are you talking about?”
He shakes his head. “Depends what your definition of perfect is. To me, this”—he gestures down at himself—“is disgusting.”
“You’re not disgusting,” I growl, defensive. It bothers me that he sees himself like this. That he’s got such awful self-esteem.
He bares his teeth. “I don’t hate myself or anything. I just hate what has been done to me.”
Stepping close to him, I slip my fingers around his waist, run them along his spine. “You’re perfect. No matter what they do to you, you’ll always be perfect. For me.”
His dimples appear. “Sweet talker.”
I shrug. “Someone has to do it. Now, can we focus on the important stuff, please?”
Closing his eyes, he rests his head back against the wall. “We’re not storming the cannibal camp. That’s suicide.”
“I-I didn’t say anything about that.”
His smile widens and he looks down into my eyes. “You didn’t have to.” His hands slide over my back, returning my embrace. “I know it’s hard, but we have to get back to Mac and the others. We can get whatever help there is to be had then. This is bigger than the both of us.”
I open my mouth to argue, but he catches my jaw with a finger. “Until then, we’re going to rest. You’re practically dead on your feet, and I want to take a look at your injuries.”
I purse my lips. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” he argues, his fingers sneaking up my arms and catching my wrists. “You’re going to let me dress these and you’re not going to fight me on it, are you?” He lifts a questioning brow.
Grumbling to myself, I roll my eyes. “No.”
“Good,” he says, tugging me closer. “Maybe if you behave yourself I’ll give you a lollipop when we’re all done.”
I chuckle. And then I wince in pain. “Ow…”
“Glad we agree,” he says darkly. “Come on, let’s get somewhere safe.”
chapter eighteen
Post-American Date: 7/8/232
Longitudinal Timestamp: 11:06 a.m.
Location: Disfavored Tunnel System
It takes three trips up random tunnels to find an actual exit and by then, Quent is carrying me. This exit leads up a pair of rough stone steps and into a cellar that smells of dirt and rotten potatoes, even though potatoes are a thing of the far past. I lean heavily on him as he sets me down outside in the biting light of the sun hanging high above Kairos.
“Masks,” I remind, pulling my own up over my nose. There are smudges of dirt and blood on it and it hurts my face where it lays across the bruise I got from being struck.
Quent’s breath hisses audibly as he inhales and examines the sky. “I wonder where we are.”
“Closer to the wall,” I venture, taking in the height of the stacked buildings above us. I point opposite the shadow of the wall. “This way should lead back to the rebels.”
Fingers flying to his gun, Quent glances around the various buildings. “I’d like to take care of your injuries first.”
I nod, knowing that neither my leg nor my resilience against the pain I feel because of it will last much longer.
Quentin lets out a breath of a laugh, then turns to me, grinning. “We’re in luck!” I try to ask what or where, but he scoops me into his arms and trots up the narrow street and into one of the buildings. I can just make out the sand-battered sign hanging over our heads as he carries me over the threshold like a bride. Gaming House.
A gaming house? Eager, I turn to the room, interested to see what one looks like. It’s set up almost like a barber shop. There are a dozen chairs set at intervals in two rows down the side walls. They’re nothing fancy, rudimentary and hooked into boxes with large locking mechanisms so none of the VR equipment can be stolen. In the middle there is a counter for a clerk of some type, I’m betting. We’re in a small cell with iron bars, a kiosk on either side of us. This must be some sort of security measure.
Quentin sets me down on one of the kiosk counters and punches a code into the security pad on the iron door. It beeps and opens. He carries me in and sets me on one of the chairs. I hear him punching codes on one of the boxes.
“You want to play? Now?”
Chuckling, he glances up from the innards of the box. “No, I’m just borrowing some equipment.”
“Oh. How do you know the codes?”
“I’m a Cyr, remember?”
“Right.” Rolling my eyes, I go back to examining the room. Black tile floor, brown synthetic chairs with pneumatic adjustments. As expected, there are no windows. Hung around the walls are propaganda posters and I frown at them as I read them.
I recognize the people in the pictures. There’s one of my father and in big letters it says, “In Drexel We Trust.”
Another is of me and says, “Ellani the Savior.”
There’s one of President Cyr—“Down with the Elite Regime!”
There’s one of a Disfavored man standing in the square at Citizen’s Way, arm upraised, “We built this city!”
A gaming chair sitting inside an oversize set of VR headphones, “Redux is the way to play.”
Another just says, “Are you ready to start again?”
“All these posters,” I say. “What is this?”
Quentin glances around. “Images from the game, I think. This version.”
“Redux?”
“It’s called Redux out here. Not Nexis.”
I frown. “Why would they change the name of the game?”
He continues pulling wires and mechanisms out of the console as he speaks. “The game for Aristocrats was to bring everyone together. A Nexis. But out here, it meant something else.”
“Did my father know?”
He looks at me. “It was his idea.” He starts picking through his pack. “Of course, it was probably your mother’s first. But he’s the one who named this version Redux. He’s the one who programmed the beta version of this game as well.” He pulls out the small tool box and sets it on the console.
I look away, stare at the In Drexel We Trust poster once more. “What were you thinking?”
I muse, staring at my father’s Custom face. Nexis, a game of flippant wants and needs for the Aristocrats. Redux, a game of discontent and revolution for the Disfavored. If he was involved in instigating the uprising, then Dad knew about the plan to plant the Anansi Virus, my role in planting it, and the rebel infiltration of the city.
The first protocol, the one that caused the power outage, was meant to allow the rebels to infiltrate the city. And the second protocol, the one that short circuited the G-Chips, was Uncle Simon’s doing. But could the third protocol, the one that shut down the city, have been Dad’s doing? But why would Dad have schemed to kill the city and then let a horde of murderous Disfavored in? “This doesn’t add up. Where’s the redeeming factor?”
“What?” Quent asks, coming to my side with an armful of parts he’s stripped from the console.
I turn to him. “What exactly were the Tricksters trying to do?”
“I can only theorize. It’s something to ask Mom.” He pats the chair. “Lay back.”
Adjusting myself, I lay back in the chair. Quent hits a pedal with his foot and the chair reclines, bringing him into focus. He reaches up and turns on a light. “There’s electricity here?”
“Batteries,” he says dismissively as he sets the parts up on the side of the chair.
Unfastening my pants, I continue talking. “Who were the original Tricksters? My mom. The spider.”
“My mom, the fox.”
I slide my pants down to my ankles. “But you’re the fox, too?” When he doesn’t respond, I say, “Quent?”
“Sorry.” His eyes flash up and he gives me the devilish Game Gus grin. “I got distracted.” He goes back to working on the parts. “I’m being groomed to replace her, just like your father took on spider and then you after him.”
“Who else?”
“Zane’s father. He was coyote. Now that he’s dead, Zane is coyote.”
That explains Zane’s tattoo. “So, who are rabbit and crow?”
He leans forward and starts examining my leg. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“If Zane’s father was coyote, then these Trickster personas came with the refugees from Adagio.” I watch him frown at my leg as he starts gently poking and prodding. “Do you think they’re the ones who destroyed Adagio?”
He glances up at me and we stare at each other for a very long time. Finally, he looks away and his white hair falls across his forehead. “Are you implying that they brought the horrors of the Undertunnel upon themselves on purpose? That my mother fed my brother his own father just to keep him alive on purpose?”
I grip the arms of the chair, knowing I’m stepping on hallowed ground when it comes to Quentin’s mother. Whatever Kit Cyr is, she’s not the sort of person who would inspire such faith from the man I love without good reason. And, to be honest, I can’t imagine that my own parents would have planned the mass genocide of so many people, either. I don’t know my mother, but my father wasn’t like that. He loved humanity and all its potential.
“No,” I finally say. “What I’m trying to say is that maybe something went horribly wrong with what they tried in Adagio and perhaps, just maybe, they tried a revised version of it here.”
“And it failed again?”
“I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell without knowing what their goal actually is.”
“So, it’s back to getting answers from Mom.” He leans to the side and retrieves a slap-patch from the first aid kit by his foot and smacks it on himself.
“What are you doing?”
He flicks his wrist a couple of times, testing for numbness.
“Quent?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He reaches for a scalpel.
I reach out and grab his wrist. When his eyes flash up I glower at him. “What are you doing?”
He relaxes his arm and I let him go. “I need a couple of pieces of fiber-optic cable.”
The gears click together then. “So you’re just going to cut them out of your own hide?” I demand.
“It’s not like I need them anymore.”
“I refuse to let you rip yourself apart on my account.”
“It’s my body, Elle. I’ll do what I want with it.”
“I’ll never speak to you again,” I threaten, stubborn.
Pursing his lips, he puts the scalpel down and lets out a long, exasperated breath. “My entire life, I have not been able to control anything that happened to my own body. Everything that has been done to me, put inside of me, was done for a stupid reason that helped no one with anything. And now? You’re telling me I can’t make my first decision with my own body to help the woman I love and the people I want to save, because you’re going to be guilty about me being in ten seconds of pain over fiber-optic inlays I don’t care about, are useless, and won’t be missed? Is that about right?”
I look away, ashamed of myself. “When you put it that way.”
“Good. Now help me do this or don’t watch.”
Knowing he can’t do the safest, cleanest job on himself with only one hand, I offer my hand and accept the tweezers he puts in it. “You should have picked a different section.”
He rolls up his sleeve and pokes at the inlays on his bicep. “There’s only one more slap-patch and that’s for you, so it’s the arm or nothing.” He picks up the knife and positions it.
“Not that one.” He pauses and, blushing, I explain myself. “I-I really like that one.”
“You can hardly see it.”
“Still…there’s enough pattern left.”
Rolling his eyes, he positions over another one and, glancing to make sure I approve of his choice, he cuts a small T shape into his flesh, right where the cable splits from the main unit mounted on his shoulder, effectively severing it from the other cables. He slips the blade under the cable. I look away as blood starts to seep down his pale arm. “Are you gonna grab it or throw up?”
Licking my lips, I lean forward and grab the end of the cable with the tweezers. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“Can you blot that? I can’t see where it goes.”
Wiping his blood away with my sleeve, I grimace at how much this reminds me of his death in Nexis. He follows the cable and cuts right where it ends in a lovely whirling pattern.
“Okay, go ahead and pull.”
I firm my grasp on the tweezers and tug a little. His skin moves as the cable comes out an inch. It makes my skin crawl and I really do feel bile rising to my throat this time. I swallow hard, take a deep breath, and yank.
He yelps, but I feel the cable come free and tap wetly against my bare leg. I drop the tweezers and shake my hands around. If I wasn’t injured, I’d get up and do a complete gross-out dance.
Shaking his head, Quent chuckles at me as he goes right on to another cable. “You’re cute.”
Regaining myself, I pick the bloody cable up between two fingers and place it off to the side. “Glad this entertains you.”
“Go for it.”
I pick up the tweezers and grip the piece he’s just freed.
An hour later, I sit quiet and patient as Quent works on repairing my leg. “I’m bored.”
“Where’s your bracelet? Read some of those sonnets I gave you.”
Sighing, I say, “I left it with Delia so she could read something I had stored on it.”
“Do you know how hard it was to find those sonnets?” he demands.
“Relax, I took them out.” I pat my pocket for emphasis. “Keep them right here, close to my heart.”
“Bet you haven’t even read them yet,” he mutters.
I reach out and touch his arm. “I don’t need to.”
The corner of his mouth twitches and I smile with him, warmed by the reality of finding him against all odds. I met him in a game, for heaven’s sake! And we still managed to come together in Real World, despite the strangest circumstances.
“You ever miss it?” I wonder. “Nexis, I mean.”
“Every day. Was the most freed
om I ever had. It was like dropping a five-ton ball and chain every time I went in.”
“I got that impression from you.” I giggle. I glance around the room. “You think it was like that for the Disfavored, too? I used to see them lined up outside the gaming houses.”
“I’m sure it was. The objective of the game was different, but it still had to play on the side of their desires. It wouldn’t have been addicting in the way the Tricksters needed it to be.”
I nod. “I think… I think I’d like to see.”
He lifts his chin. “Hm?”
“After he died, I went into Nexis to feel closer to Dad. But he had this whole other side to him I never knew about until after the game. I’d like to play Redux.”
It takes him a moment to realize what I’m asking. “What? Now?”
I shrug. “Why not? How much longer do you have on my leg?”
“A couple of hours at least. This is intricate work.”
“Do you need me conscious for it?”
He shakes his head.
“Then will you hook me up?”
Brow lowered, he scrutinizes me for a few heartbeats. “The Main Frame of Evanescence is down, Elle, it may not even work.”
“It’s worth a try at least. Come on, please?”
He shakes his head but says, “Okay.” He lifts his finger in warning. “But don’t go falling in love with anyone in there.”
Giggling, I push his hand away. “Of course not.”
PART FIVE:
Ella Tugs the Threads
chapter nineteen
Post-American Date: 7/8/232
Longitudinal Timestamp: 3:32 p.m.
Location: Redux
I’m lying under a dome sky. Not the blue sky with clouds I’ve come to recognize from Nexis. I’m not in the white room I started out in when I first entered Nexis. Perhaps when you start a new game after playing once you don’t get taken to the Oracle and her acolytes. Perhaps that’s only in Nexis. Perhaps that was an episode only Tricksters of Pre-Anansi Virus experienced.