Return

by J. A. Huss

  “Ashur,” he says calmly, “Lucan know what he’s doing. Gib knows what he’s doing. Do you really think they’d let us create all those kids if they weren’t from the true code?”

  I shake my head and search for Tier on my vision screen. “Where the fuck is Tier? He’s been fucking missing for hours.”

  “The last we heard he was in the Polar Friendly, and you know it’s like the Sagitta Building in there. No coms in or out. No vision screens. He came back online for a few minutes, then disappeared again, so he must’ve gone outside for something then went back in.”

  “Then where the fuck is Annun?”

  Ryse answers this time. “He’s in the Sagitta Building, we logged him outside of it about twenty minutes ago.”

  “You guys got this? Or what?” And just as those words are coming out of my mouth, Pillar Four shudders. It sorta, skips or blinks, or fades. “Shit!” I look over at my brothers. “Shit! She’s coming back!” HALO IMMINENT flashes across my screen and I know all of us, every warrior on the planet, just got the same message.

  “Go find Tier up in the Polar Friendly and sort it out,” Ryse yells over the crashing waves. “We cannot afford to second-guess Lucan, but we can’t afford to ignore the warning signs that something is off track either.”

  The three of us do an awkward might-never-see-you-again back-clapping session, and then I port away.

  Because it’s time.

  The Angels are coming.

  Chapter Twenty-One—ANNUN

  Sagitta Building – Dallas

  John Hando sighs. “What is this shit? She’s like… a monster?”

  “Demon,” I correct him. “Junco is part demon, so this clone is as well.” I look at her for a little bit longer. I’ve seen the footage of Junco coming out of her Aves morph on Amelia. Wyrd hacked into the security archives before Tier came back from Earth and sent him to science college. She was fine. Better than fine actually. Junco came out of her first morph like a champ. Like she took a short nap and her post-morph shower was a day at the spa. She looked good. And even though I could tell she was a little sad, she was not crazy in the least. In fact, that was probably the sanest I’ve ever seen Junco.

  And I wasn’t there when Juncs came out of her Archer morph, but Selia saw her that night, she was staying at the Sargassum condo with Gideon at the time. And she never mentioned any demon issues.

  That’s something humans normally notice.

  This… clone thing. Iliana. She’s out of her mind with rage. And her fangs and claws never disappear, not even when we send in a bot to deliver food. Sometimes the hunger can drive them wild. And she does eat the food, but it changes nothing. Only gives her more energy, if you ask me.

  “Well?” Hando says. “What the fuck are we gonna do with her?”

  “Take her to Peaks, like you said.”

  “Yeah? And how we gonna get her there without killing ourselves, genius?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Annun?” Deb says from the ceiling.

  “Yeah, Deb. How can I help you?”

  “I have an idea.”

  At first I’m annoyed because I’m trying to have deep thoughts on figuring out a solution to our little problem. But then I hear that smile in her voice again. “Go, Deb. What’s your idea?”

  The door whooshes open and Web appears. “Ignore her, Annun. She’s insane, as you can see.” He pans his arm back at his twin. Deb stands behind him, muttering a collection of incoherent syllables.

  I hold out my hand to Deb and she tilts her good eye towards me. “Come here,” I command. She shuffles towards me, but Web puts a hand out to stop her.

  “No, Annun. She’s off limits.”

  I look over at Hand and raise my eyebrows. “I’d like to talk to her, John. She says she has an idea and I want to know what it is. I’m the captain of this operation, so you in or out?”

  “Annun,” Deb’s voice says from the ceiling. I’m looking right at her body when this happens and it’s creepy as all fuck. I can tell it’s her, her mouth even moves a little as the words form. “I can get Iliana to Peak City for you.”

  “How?”

  “Enough!” Web commands. And then the whole room shakes and shit falls off some shelves, breaking.

  “John?” I ask. “You gonna handle this or what, dude?”

  Hando steps forward to Web. “Hey, let’s go talk about this out in the hallway, OK?” He nods his head towards me while keeping his eyes on Web. “In private, got it?” I keep my mouth shut because Hand’s working his end so I can work mine. Web doesn’t agree and nothing more is said, but the AI follows the Texican outside and into the hallway.

  Deb latches onto my arm again and I turn to smile at her. “Talk, woman. We only got a few seconds.”

  Her mouth moves slightly again, and this time her words come from the mutated body. “I can help you,” she says. Clear as fucking day. “This clone has a place for an AI, just like Junco. I can slip inside and take over, keep her subdued until we get her to Peak City.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” I whisper back.

  “Web,” she says, motioning to the hallway. “He will never let me leave. He keeps me here. I’m a prisoner.”

  We stop and listen to the hushed argument out in the hallway. I’ve never heard an AI get pissed before. Sera is not a yeller and I never really met Amelia, but every time I saw her in public with Lucan, she looked sweet. But the Sagitta Duality is weird and from what I know of them, this Web is very fucking unstable. “What do we do?”

  “Get us out of the building. Any way you can, but make sure it happens fast.”

  “Well, Deb, hon, we’re a hundred and ten fucking floors up in the sky. Getting out of here is gonna be a lot of things, but fast isn’t one of them.”

  She touches my wing with the tips of her fingers. A shiver pulses through my body and I look at the wing and then up at her face. She’s smiling. “OK, well, let’s see what happens, that will be the last resort. Go take over the clone.” And then the coherent expression on the mutilated face disappears and I know she’s vacated the premises. The body stands there, slack and pliant.

  “Yo,” I call out to Hando in the hallway. “Hey, you guys decent out there?” I walk through the door and they both look like they’re in a heated argument. “Web, what’s the problem? Deb says she has an idea, we should hear her out at least.”

  Web folds his hands together in front of his body. “She is insane, Mr. Annun. You—”

  “Ah, not to be a stickler or anything, there, Web, but it’s Captain Annun now. Tier promoted me, so I’m like, in charge of this operation.”

  He tilts his head at me, like he’s a dog that’s just heard something curious, but not worthy of a bark. “Captain Annun,” he corrects. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to forbid any more interaction with Deb.” He smiles and then calls out, “Deb, please come.”

  His disfigured partner shuffles on the other side of the door, making her way towards him with her head down. He keeps me here. I’m a prisoner. Web smiles at her and takes her by the hand. “We need to leave now, it’s clear the clone cannot be removed. I’m going to end the visit.”

  “What?” Hando acts, an incredulous look on his face. “No, Web, we need that fucking clone. I’m not leaving without her!”

  “The visit is over,” Web says with more authority, his voice deepening mid-sentence and projecting much louder than I’ve ever heard him before.

  This shit is about to get ugly. “OK, well, hold up there, Web. We don’t need Deb here to get the clone. I just so happen to have a fucking canister of demon whoop-ass gas in my sidearm, OK? So we can just shoot her with that and we’ll be out of your hair here in like five minutes. Cool?”

  It’s clearly not cool, but I ignore him and turn quickly to Hando who is looking pretty stupid with his mouth open right about now. “Come on, John, help me with the fucking demon gas, OK?”

  “Yeah, OK. Web, sorry, but I’m under orders from Annun
right now, he’s the one in charge. Just let us try—”

  “No! This is over now!”

  I slip past Hando, grab his arm as I twist, hope that the fucking clone is ready, and draw my weapon. We slide back into the room. Iliana/Deb is standing front and center, half Archer and half demon. I fire my mini plasma at the glass window. It cracks. I drop the rifle, grab a grenade from my pocket, still holding onto Hando with my left hand, and lob it at the crack. The shit explodes. Glass fragments shatter and every fucking alarm you can think of starts screaming.

  I grab Iliana with my right hand and run full balls-out towards the window, dragging the demon AI and the human along with me. “Jump!” I say when we get to the edge and I’m not sure if they do jump, but fuck it, too late now.

  Web has taken over the security systems in the building and rockets from down below begin firing at us as I unfurl my wings and flap frantically for a few seconds until my vision screen comes back online so I can port our asses the fuck out of Dallas.

  We exit the shift on the west side of Peaks, down in the Red Rocks theater where that fucking bitch Cora is singing to a packed house at the End of the World Con as the Angels descend down upon us.

  Chapter Twenty-Two—ASHUR

  Polar Friendly

  The landing pad for Polar Friendly visitors is just a massive, flat slab of granite. It’s night, it’s September, and it’s high altitude. So it’s cold as fuck right now. The wind whips my hair around as I wait. They have sensors in there to see anyone who enters the pad, so they know I’m here, but they are under no obligation to allow me to enter. I count the seconds in my head and when I get to four minutes I begin to walk towards the door.

  They are within their rights to shoot me for advancing, but that won’t kill me, so I take my chances.

  I get to within about twenty feet of the door when it opens. Subjack exits and walks towards me. “What can I do for you, Ashur?” he says, his words dragging along a ribbon of chilled air.

  “I’d like to go inside, if that’s OK.”

  “Tier was already here. We have no meeting with you.”

  “I want to know where you got the genetics for the Siblings. I could care less if you answer in there or out here. But I’m not leaving until I get an answer.”

  “If it was your business to know that, you would’ve been in the meeting this evening when Tier came by.”

  “Right.” I fling him down on the ground, sit on his chest, and drag a razor across his throat, opening up the skin just enough to let the warm blood trickle down his neck. “I don’t think you heard me the first time, Johann. I said, where the fuck—”

  “Let him up, alien!” Dozens of soldiers pour out of the sanctuary and point their plasma rifles at me.

  I look up and grin, then drag Junco’s father through the port with me and open back up on a nearby mountain ledge. Just far enough away that the plasma rifles from down below can’t reach, but close enough for everyone to helplessly watch.

  “I don’t think you know me well enough,” I growl, “to really understand what’s happening here. I’m not the good brother. I’m the nasty one. When I’m under orders, I do follow them. But our team has dissolved, friend. So do not make the mistake of assuming I won’t cut your head off if you refuse my request. You are nothing to me. I doubt Junco would even care if I murdered you. So I’m going to ask you one more time. Where the fuck did those genetics come from to make the other six Siblings?”

  His expression is defiant, angry, frightened, and disgusted all at once. “Tier knows. Why not ask him?”

  “Because he’s not here and you are. So I’m asking you.”

  “I get that Junco is real. It’s obvious. That’s not something Lucan would get wrong, but those Siblings we have are not part of the Prophecy, Subjack. I saw how Junco was subdued in the Stag. I saw the cage, I know about the labs. So she is the Seven. But what doesn’t add up here is where the pure genetics came from to save our race.”

  His defiance falters and in its place comes confusion.

  “Yes, you saved us. We have repaired the damage done to the DNA Lucan caused thousands of years ago. We have been renewed. We have hundreds of clutches of children to prove it. So where are the other six demons? I might not know most of these Siblings well, but I know Esta. And she is not a demon.”

  Subjack stares up at me from his submissive position on the ground and then averts his eyes. “Let me up and I’ll show you. But I wasn’t lying when I said Tier was here. He already knows, Ashur.”

  “Now it’s time for me to know, Subjack.” I let him up and step back. He fingers the blood on his neck. “It’s hardly a trickle, old man, don’t go getting dramatic. And when we port back down there”—I wave to the small army that has now gathered far below near the entrance—“you’ll tell them this was your idea.”

  He straightens his shirt and grunts a little. “Port us then.”

  I do, right to the fucking door. We are so close we almost end up molecularly fused to it. He palms the door before anyone can ask questions and we move through quickly. The small army outside is matched with a bigger one inside and Subjack orders them to stand down. I follow him through the tunnels, noticing how hot it’s getting as we descend, and a few minutes later we end up at the entrance to a lift.

  He waves me through, closes the gate, and throws a switch that beings our descent.

  It reminds me of Inanna when she went into the Underworld to make demands for Eresh to submit her realm, but Eresh tricked her into being stuck down there and took her place in the world above.

  Why that myth comes to me, I have no idea. I haven’t thought about it in years.

  The heat intensifies, getting almost unbearable in my armor. Subjack is sweating profusely when I look over at him, but he says nothing, doesn’t wipe the dripping, just stares off into space.

  I’m getting a very bad feeling about this.

  When we get to the bottom I wait for Subjack to open the gated door and walk through. I follow and the heat is so bad, I almost want to lean over and retch.

  “It’s very hot now, but when we came down a few hours ago—” He stops and looks me in the eye. “It was almost cold. The generators have stopped working. We’ve evacuated. Even the dog is gone, so we can’t stay long. They might be melted already.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about but it does not sound good. We enter a control room with a blacked-out window and Subjack sits down at one of the stations and busies himself with the panel. A few seconds later a beep makes me look up and the black on the window fades.

  Little by little it inches up, allowing the light from our room to filter past and illuminate the dark room beyond. Subjack sucks in a breath and I mimic him as I duck my head a little to try to catch that first glimpse.

  Inside are six… things. They are writhing on the ground and as soon as the light hits them, they scream.

  I know this scream. I’ve heard this scream before.

  It’s the war cry of Angels.

  “The Punishments,” I say in a low whisper. “What are all those little pinpricks of light on the back wall?”

  “We have no idea. We’ve never been past this control room.”

  “What? How did you build this place then?”

  “We didn’t. It was always like this. All this”—he motions down to the instrument panel and then to the room beyond—“was here when we dug it up.”

  “Who made it then?”

  He shrugs. “I thought you guys would know. We sure don’t.”

  “Inanna?”

  “She’s never come down here as far as I know.”

  “But you worked for her?”

  “Did work for her. When I was still in the RR. All that early training stuff, all the cloning—that was all Inanna. But I work for no one but me now. It’s been this way for years now. I’m just trying to find the truth.”

  Lies, lies, lies. That’s all I have for what I see here. All of this is lies. I’m not sure the PF we
re supposed to find this place. In fact, I’m pretty fucking positive they were absolutely not supposed to find this place.

  “If it helps,” Subjack offers, “those pinpricks of light have a DNA signature. We did some infrared analysis through the glass, just some point-and-shoot stuff. But it’s not hard to identify the signature of a nucleic acid. And that’s what we got from the light. DNA. Every dot is made up of DNA.”

  “What kind of DNA?” I’m imagining an entire army of fucking demons programmed into that back wall and I almost have a panic attack.

  “Every kind. Anything you can think of. Plants, bugs, mammals…” He stops for a second. “Humans. It’s like a… like a seed stock. Like the frozen straws of semen I kept for breeding the mares each year on the farm. That’s what this place reminds me of. We don’t keep our DNA in pinpricks of light, but we catalog them, right? According to traits and such. This”—he waves his hand at the wall behind the still-screaming demons—“looks like a catalog.”

  I just stare at his mouth. Seed stock. For breeding. “It’s a lab? This is where they made them?” I look around as Subjack gives me a noncommittal answer. Who the fuck made this lab? “And Inanna was never down here?”

  “No, it was buried a mile deep, Ashur. The PF found it when they were drilling for a source of geothermal energy. There was a huge… vacuole in the mountain. Just empty space from the mapping data. So they opened it up and, well, this was what they found.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Six years or so. Right before I left the RR. We found this, the plans started to unravel. I knew about the cloning, I knew they had dozens of copies of Junco, so why not me too? I started asking questions, not satisfied with the answers they were giving me. And I saw what was coming. I couldn’t take Junco with me. Me they didn’t care about. But her? She was everything. They’d never let her go.”

  “Where’s the Seventh Demon? There are only six here.”

  “Junco is the Seventh. I didn’t know any of this when she was brought it to us. I’ve been piecing this puzzle together all these years as well, Ashur. I’m not the mastermind of this plan.”