As the dragon fell into the chasm, Yuan’s final words floated through the air like a whispered poem. “Let us journey together into the next plane of existence.”
The dragon gave a final roar, then plunged into the lava and fell silent.
Kayla reached Ohg and Tem just as Valac cornered them. Tem’s left leg and right arm looked broken, and Ohg hobbled on the last three of his functioning spider legs. Valac moved forward awkwardly, hydraulic liquid pouring from the joints of his legs where they’d been punctured. Kayla dashed in front of him, and the cyborg halted.
“It’s me you want,” Kayla said.
Sangwa rose from her lotus pose and walked to Kayla, her large childlike eyes imploring. “Even now, I don’t desire your death, Destroyer. Just say you’ll join us, and this madness can end.”
“I will never kill for you,” Kayla said.
Sangwa sighed as if deeply saddened. Then she motioned to Valac. “The fire has weakened her. This is your chance.”
The cyborg’s massive fist lashed forward. Kayla grabbed hold of it with both hands, stopping it just short of her chest. Her arms trembled as they held it back, and her feet dug into the stone floor for leverage. With a blast of compressed air, a metal spike shot from Valac’s wrist and impaled her. The gleaming steel shaft went completely through her chest and out her back.
Blood spurted from Kayla’s mouth as she sagged forward.
“No!” Tem shouted. He tried standing, but his broken leg gave way beneath him.
A deep rumble echoed from Valac’s chest. “You are no Destroyer.”
Kayla gazed through the visor of Valac’s helmet and into his human eyes. Her hands took hold of the spike protruding from her chest. She jerked her body sideways, and the spike snapped in half. With a gasp, she pulled the shaft from her chest and fell to one knee.
“You may be a battle cyborg,” Kayla said. “But I’m a newer model.”
Kayla leapt toward Valac, driving the long metal spike through the box strapped to its chest.
Sangwa vanished.
Valac’s appendages clamped onto his helmet, and he screamed in agony. An even greater roar drowned him out as every escaped prisoner did the same. One by one, they collapsed.
Swarms of drones and robots flooded into the cavern from every direction.
Medi-Bots bandaged and then splinted Tem and Ohg’s broken bones with metal exoskeletons and injected medication. Other robots reinforced the damaged ceiling teetering on collapse.
Kayla fell to her knees as the hole in her chest pulled together. The heat from her nanos rose within her as they fought to keep her heart pumping. The dragon’s fire had reduced their number dramatically, so the process was much slower than normal.
I’m not invulnerable after all.
The burned remains of Kayla’s skin faded to their normal hue. She used her Mind-Link to summon several airborne molecular printers. Within seconds, they assembled a gray jumpsuit over her body.
“Where’s Fatima?” Tem asked her.
Kayla’s entire body slumped, and she shook her head.
Tem shoved the robots aside and stood with the help of the exoskeleton. A hover-disc landed before him, and he threw himself onto it, speeding across the cavern toward the castle.
“She’s dead?” Ohg asked.
Kayla nodded and stood with a groan. A pair of hover-discs landed before them, and they followed.
Tem fell to his knees before Fatima and cried. Kayla and Ohg landed at a respectful distance and stood silent as his sobs poured from him. Tem was not alone in his sorrow. The echoes of grief filled the hall like a mournful symphony, the dead vastly outnumbering the living.
Tem gently rolled Fatima onto her back and brushed a strand of her matted hair from her lifeless face. His gaze drifted to her eviscerated mid-section. He glanced at Kayla with a final hope.
“The child?” he asked.
Kayla shook her head.
Tem glared at Ohg.
“You don’t have to say it,” Ohg whispered. “Fatima would be alive if I listened to you—all of them would.”
I’m as much at fault as he.
Tem glanced at a Care-Robot bandaging the wounds of an unconscious werewolf.
“Why aren’t they all dead?” Tem asked.
Ohg remained silent.
Tem stood with the help of the mechanical braces attached to his broken leg. “You didn’t use the mind implants to kill them?”
“I rendered them unconscious,” Ohg said. “I will lock them back up with better protections so they can never again—”
“No.” Tem’s arms tensed as his hands balled into fists.
A few surviving Gene-Freaks wandered over and listened.
“They can’t be blamed for how they were made,” Ohg said.
Tem limped toward Ohg and stopped in front of him.“Either you kill them, or I will.”
Ohg scowled, and one of his remaining claws twitched. He surveyed the survivors, their faces grim. “Will any of you support me?”
No one said a word or met his gaze.
Ohg’s shoulders sagged, and his oversized head slumped onto his chest. “I’m relinquishing control of the implants. If you want to kill them, do it yourself.”
Tem turned his head toward the crowd, and they all nodded. The brow of the one-time emperor of Asia tensed. The werewolf stiffened. Its eyes melted, and tendrils of smoke rose from its skull. An odor of cooked flesh swirled around them and turned Kayla’s stomach.
“You’ve killed them all?” Kayla asked.
“All but one.” Tem turned as a large transport drone flew toward them. Valac’s metal body hung beneath the robot-drone with thick metal cables binding his legs and arms. The drone landed the cyborg in front of them, and Valac’s gaze settled on Fatima.
The cyborg’s booming laughter echoed through the cavern. Tem’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing to slits. Covered in blood, thirsting for revenge, Tem looked as his twin brother must have during battle.
“I killed the great emperor of Asia’s woman and child,” Valac said with a rumbling laugh. “I could feel your unborn child between my fingers as I crushed her tiny skull.”
“Your death will be much slower,” Tem said, his forehead tensing.
The cyborg’s agonized screams went on and on for at least a minute.
Kayla placed a hand on Tem’s arm, and the screams ceased.
“You have every right to execute him,” she said, “but torture serves no purpose.”
“I want him to suffer for what he did to Fatima.”
Kayla glanced at Ohg, but he looked away. “I will no longer impose my morality on anyone,” Ohg whispered. “Do as your conscience dictates.” Ohg’s broken body carried him out of the cavern. Sorrow burrowed through Kayla like a tapeworm of the soul. I’m to blame for all of this.
Kayla turned to Tem. “Let me kill him. What’s the point of more suffering?”
“There is no point,” Tem said. “Haven’t you realized that yet? There is no Hell where Valac will receive his punishment, so I choose to administer it myself, here and now. I don’t do it for any purpose higher than that it will make me feel good to do so.”
Tem’s eyes challenged her. His wife had died to save her. Did she have any right to deny him revenge in the manner he desired? If she didn’t object to God punishing evildoers in Hell, why was this any different?
“All right,” Kayla said. “I won’t interfere.”
The drone slowly lowered the cyborg into the fiery moat. When Valac’s feet made contact with the lava, they melted to liquid.
Valac erupted in screams.
Kayla covered her ears as the drone lowered him inch by inch into the lava. As his legs dissolved, the cyborg thrashed in agony. Nausea rose in her throat.
“Slower,” Tem commanded, and Valac’s descent decreased to a snail’s pace. His screams intensified, and the faces of the watching Gene-Freaks mirrored those of the villagers as they had watched her burn at the stake. And
my own expression as I tortured Elias.
When the lava reached the cyborg’s helmet, Kayla grimaced as the armor cracked and revealed the tormented human features beneath.
“Hold him there until the flesh burns from his bones.” Tem’s face twisted with revenge.
Something inside her snapped. “No!” Kayla screamed, and the cables tethering the cyborg to the undercarriage of the drone released.
The bald head of the cyborg burst into flames and slipped beneath the molten river.
Blessed silence.
Tem stared at her with such hatred that it seemed he would strike her. I won’t stop him. Let him take his revenge on the one who deserved blame above anyone else.
Tem turned his back on her and limped to Fatima’s body. His silence struck harder than any physical blow.
A short way off, Ganesh stirred under the ministrations of one of the medical robots. Kayla rushed to his side and helped him sit.
“Is it over?” Ganesh winced, and one of his hands went to his bandaged head. At the sight of Kayla, his enormous mouth stretched into a broad smile. “I made it in time!” He looked beyond Kayla to Fatima lying on the floor with Tem kneeling beside her.
“Fatima?” He crawled on four arms and two legs to the girl he’d protected for over four hundred years. When he reached her mutilated body, Ganesh covered his face with his upper two hands and sobbed.
Tem gathered his mutilated wife and never-to-be-born child into his arms and left the cavern.
Then a name flashed into Kayla’s mind.
“Saphie!” she said, and took off running.
Chapter 34
Kayla stumbled through Middilgard in a nightmare of guilt and grief. Hundreds of her nanos scoured the maze of corridors, caverns, and homes of the society she’d helped destroy. The wreckage of bodies lay everywhere like a thousand accusations. Survivors knelt beside their loved ones and sobbed, or hacked at the dead bodies of the murderers.
Sir Panthersly lay in two mangled pieces in the Crystal Cavern. His tongue lolled from his mouth, and the contents of his crushed skull oozed onto the stone floor with tragic finality, reflected a thousand times in the myriad of jewels encrusting the walls.
The dead children lay beyond him, broken and torn into pieces.
A choking sob tore from Kayla’s throat. “No, please, no!” She hurdled Sir Panthersly’s remains and ran to the mutilated bodies of her shattered little jewels. The panther had given his life defending the Forever-Children—but had failed. The blood, brains, and gore rendered most of them unrecognizable.
“Saphie …” Kayla moaned and threw up. She fell to her knees and sobbed. What have I done? Why didn’t I join the Rogues when I had the chance of saving them?
“It’s your fault!” a shrill voice shouted.
Kayla raised her eyes to Mirza, the Persian cat who’d confronted her when she first arrived in Middilgard.
“I told them not to give you sanctuary among us.” The cat’s eyes accosted her with hatred.
What could she say? If only she’d listened.
“I’m sorry.” Kayla stumbled away from her accuser, her tears obscuring her vision.
Following her nano’s eyes, Kayla eventually reached the sun-cavern and a new horror.
Ohg sat beside the gruesome pile of exploded Monad bodies.
Kayla went to him and stood looking down at more evidence of her destruction. “What happened to them?”
Ohg’s gaze climbed to the landing far above, and tears glistened in his eyes. “They must have jumped to their death.”
“But they’ll rise again tomorrow like always, right?”
Ohg shook his head. “They are dead permanently.”
“Why would they do such a thing?”
“Jesus told them to,” a child’s voice said behind them.
“Saphie!” Kayla ran to the little girl and frantically checked for injuries, but found none. Saphie yawned and stretched. She’d been tucked out of sight behind some boulders, so her nanobot survey had missed her entirely. Puck emerged from the little girl’s pocket and looked around. Kayla hugged the child and then kissed her face all over, making Saphie giggle.
“Thank God for keeping you both safe,” Kayla said. Was it a contradiction to thank God for saving Saphie, when He did nothing to stop all the other deaths?
“What do you mean, Jesus told them to?” Ohg asked the little girl.
“I hid here from the bad monsters, and then Jesus arrived. He was so kind and loving, just like you said! He even gave the Monads their reward early.”
“What reward?” A knot twisted Kayla’s gut.
“Heaven, of course.” Saphie rolled her eyes. “You told them this morning that Jesus would give them a reward in Heaven when they died. Jesus let them die early even though they hadn’t finished their work.”
Kayla held her by the shoulders, her hands trembling slightly. “What did Jesus look like?”
The little girl’s forehead crinkled with effort. “His shoes were white and sounded like a horse.”
“Trickster Jack,” Ohg said.
“I don’t see him anywhere in Middilgard,” Kayla said, looking through a hundred microscopic eyes at once, “but he could be hidden like Saphie was.”
Ohg concentrated for a moment. “One of the shuttle Transports is gone.” He slammed one of his claws into the ground.
“But he must have died like all the rest when Tem activated the implants,” Kayla said. “The records show that his chip exploded as well.”
Ohg shook his head.
“Are the Monads in Heaven?” Saphie asked.
Kayla shielded her from the view of the dead Monads and nodded. “Yes, honey, they’re in Heaven.”
But do I really believe my own words?
“If I jump off the stairs, can I go to Heaven too?” Saphie asked.
“No!” Kayla gripped the little girl’s arms. “That was a gift for the Monads alone and won’t work for anyone else.”
Saphie’s lower lip trembled as if about to cry.
Kayla hugged her. “You must never jump off the stairs, my little jewel.”
“But I want to see the Monads again.”
“Someday, you will,” Kayla said, “but for now, promise me you won’t jump off the stairs. Do you promise?”
“Okay, I promise,” Saphie said reluctantly. “But I don’t think it’s fair that they get to go early and I have to wait.”
“Life isn’t always fair,” Ohg said. Then he held a newly minted doll out to her.
Saphie’s eyes gleamed with excitement as she took the gift. Then she set the doll down on a rock and wagged a finger in front of its porcelain face. “You must not jump off the stairs, okay, Cynthia?”
Kayla turned back to the dead Monads. How could God allow such devoted followers to be so cruelly tricked in His name? Most of their skulls had cracked open on impact, but their faces wore expressions of hopeful anticipation. At least they had died happy.
Maybe Jack spoke the truth without realizing it. Could God have used Trickster Jack to grant the humble Monads their final reward in Heaven after all?
Ohg slumped onto a rock in front of the pile of bodies. “My idealism killed them. Maybe Helen was right about there being no hope for human nature.”
Kayla sat beside him. “You mean Helen the Bonobo who taught you to speak?”
He nodded. “Acting as surrogate mother to me gave Helen’s life purpose for a time. But when I’d reached adulthood and embarked on my life’s work of rescuing as many Gene-Freaks as I could, Helen withdrew and slid into depression. I was so obsessed with saving others that I failed to save the one I owe the most of all to.”
“She took her own life?”
“Yes.” A tear slid down the odd peaks and valleys of his face. “Helen was as much a victim of the Neo-Luddite Plague as anyone who died in 2069. The horror of it stripped the last remaining shred of faith she had in humanity. My greatest regret is that Helen never saw Middilgard.”
/> Kayla averted her eyes. Middilgard gives Ohg his purpose in life. And I’ve destroyed it.
“I would give anything to see Helen one more time and to thank her, so I understand your desire to believe in such things as Heaven.”
“You’re an … atheist?” It was the worst thing someone could call another in Potemia.
“We both doubt Zeus’s existence equally,” Ohg said. “So if I disbelieve in ten thousand gods, and you disbelieve in only nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine gods, you are merely one-ten-thousandths less of an atheist than I am.”
“Would anything change your mind?” Kayla asked.
“All it would take is evidence.”
“My evidence is the feeling in my heart that Jesus exists and loves me,” Kayla said.
“Isn’t it interesting that every believer feels the same about their own religion? They can’t all be right.”
“Why not?” Kayla asked. “Maybe God is just showing himself in different ways to different cultures?”
“If God is defined broadly, then everyone might be right, even if you simply define God as the laws of physics, like Einstein did, but when you get down to specifics, things like Heaven and reincarnation are mutually exclusive, so the majority of this heartfelt evidence must be false even in the best case. Of course, there’s also the possibility that they’re all false.”
“What evidence would convince you?”
“If Jesus, or Vishnu, or Zeus wanted to be fair,” Ohg said, “they would appear to everyone across the globe at the same moment and proclaim the rules.”
“But if God gave us such definitive proof, what would be the point of faith?”
“You see before you the result of blind faith.” Ohg gestured toward the Monads. “Why create us with intellects capable of reason and doubt in the first place if faith is all that matters to the creator of the universe?”
Kayla looked at Ohg’s oversized head, his distorted and asymmetrical features, and then looked away. Minister Coglin had said anyone who rejected God was evil. Yet Ohg is the kindest person I’ve ever met in my life.
“Do you know what happened to the woman who made Helen?” Kayla asked.
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