In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  Justus nearly fell out of the tree. What? How was that possible?! Griffin was a perfection! The most exquisite of fighting machines, and truly the only of his kind! No one should have been able to take him down!

  …And yet, he knew it was true—Embry physically couldn’t lie. He hated that brat—that backstabber—but knowing that he was actually gone in not just soul but body… Justus had trouble digesting it and suppressing the regret that attempted to well its way up.

  “Flye, and ultimately Pinion, brought about his decease. With honesty, linking his functions and a remote so intricately was not for the wise, but I assume you were moderately pressed for time as you passed between alliances—”

  “I NEVER DID THAT! It was a ruse! I couldn’t get in without playing the part! Griffin was never supposed to be used against you! I built him to bring down the Proxez from the inside—!”

  “You destroyed him to satisfy your festering malice—where the result fell was of far less importance because struggle to control your emotions you did. Possess humanistic qualities I may, but my feelings have no physical affiliation within thy chest. In the words of other…” She glanced back, her pupils expanding, pushing him away. “Logistics compute that sadness from me to you is unnecessary. Comprehend what you did for the Encryption, I may, but clairvoyant is it now that a tool is all we are to you—ones you build to fill a gaping, irreparable abyss in your absent thumper.”

  She stepped away. The sirens in Justus’ mind exploded with desperation. “EMBRY, WAIT! Please!”

  Halt she did, but her head never steered back; instead, she began to play once more—a score of snipped heartstrings that brought back painful memories of once happy times with a mother of skin instead of metal. “That is correct,” she confirmed in a sing-song voice. “Embry, I call myself, and I respect that name. I also respect the wishes of my predecessor: protect the one who bends and spreads light to all as does a prism.”

  She twirled away with a galaxy of grace at her pointed toes, proceeding to guide her army to victory with suddenly fast and furious beats. Once she was gone, Justus’ quelled Returned lost all composure, reengaging in brutal warfare with the walls of the dungeon.

  He couldn’t move, emotionally numb watching her spin away. His brain was sizzling within his skull, jolting in its bone cage and losing touch of the reasoning skills he gave her. His already distorted views continued to blur, and the lines between right and wrong completely dissolved.

  He wasn’t supposed to have lived to take a single breath from such a corrupt world… He only did so because of his mother, but watching her so weightlessly detach herself from the son she fought so hard to save… Breaking away and deserting him again…

  His bit-down nails clenched the tube of the syringe with such wrath it deformed beneath his hand. It didn’t matter who it was—anyone and everyone was always more important than him. Why were his actions condemned? His feelings and his imperfect body? Him being himself—it was a one-way looking glass, for every time someone peered through, they only saw his flaws, never their own.

  It wasn’t his elbow that hurt any longer, not even the uselessness of his arm; it was the unforgivable betrayal of the same woman who had now abandoned him twice.

  “YOU AREN’T GETTING AWAY WITH IT!” He let himself go, tumbling out of the tree and landing flat on his knees. The Returned did not notice his escape until it twisted its flailing trunk back around, but by then, Justus pushed himself up and tottered as fast as he could up the ramp of crushed ice and concrete that the Returned created in its frustration. The sea of shards moved beneath him as a current as he scrambled to the surface with the Returned in hot pursuit, but he didn’t watch his back—didn’t care if they shot him at this point, but he wasn’t going to be held down until they killed him.

  He stumbled onto the playing field, panting with exhaustion, but he continued to run, getting lost in the charge of demons and Returned. They swamped the foyer, the once grand sector that had fallen so far it was nothing more than an iced-over dome with silver staircases and columns of packed snow quickly losing the ability to keep the room aloft. No one paid attention to him; no one noticed him in the heat of fighting for their own lives, and all of a few minutes ago, Justus would have fought with them.

  But not anymore. The Encryption saw him as a traitor; the Proxez saw him as a traitor—perhaps it was time to prove them both right.

  He zigged and zagged in and out of the charge until he was on the sidelines, his back against an ice pillar and chest heaving for mercy. He stayed there, head back and eyes inching around the cylinder until he found Embry’s current location.

  She stood on an icy rail bordering a balcony high above, jumping, spinning as she continued to strum her epic tune while several Elites and Haxors closed in. Their guns fired, their chains swung, but nothing could take her down. The electricity elegantly ricocheted from her body and shot back with twice the force, being plenty to impair the Haxors. Nimble as she was, not one grapple could scathe her flawless body. Even on the slick rail mere inches thick, she hopped, skipping over their lowly chains and bending her body with the ability of rubber. Some did come close, forcing her to protect herself with her bow, but an elegant stab and swipe were all it took before she could resume her duties. Her eyes were peeled wide, her spine arching back in a perfect curve as she played the song of her heart high above all, projecting her advancement tune loud and far to direct her allies forth to the very location that Justus had given her the pleasure of knowing.

  A rabid snarl broke him and tore his heart to shredding. He cupped his fingers to form a hollow tube, pressing it to his cracked lips as he pried open his mind to the vilest of all commands. “Embry!”

  His voice was solid, stern, and cold; even in the storm of death with thundering wails and strikes of blood, Embry’s attuned system found him with her eyes, ones that were passive and cold.

  And Justus felt the same, no second thoughts as his words touched forbidden air. “Sudo rm -R root.”

  Her neck jerked to the side—eyes involuntarily flashed blue, prompting for his password. “Justus!”

  He didn’t care. “StraightPride=False.”

  At a superior attosecond, the command moved, initiating the ultimate kill. Embry’s smooth face warped as easily as tinfoil, but the concaving cheeks and blue screening eyes did not hint at regret, not even sorrow. They were just plain, passive, and above all, null.

  Her fingers shot erect as her code vanished in a shimmering cascade, forcing her to release her violin and bow. Together, they fell in a spiral from the balcony into the fray, the last soundwaves from their harmonious bodies rapidly fading. Embry’s neck twitched uncontrollably as line after line was permanently deleted, working its way to her hard drive. Legs trembling and arms flailing, she no longer had the slightest sense of coordination, and one hit from an Elite was plenty to knock her back.

  Justus couldn’t be more satisfied watching her free fall toward the stampeding crowd below, pixel after pixel permanently dying in her eyes. Arms above her will of control reached out and up, trying to grab the air that pulled her down—trying to combat the imminent end that not even her advanced build could fight.

  Her violin hit the ground first, Embry falling directly on top of it. A plume of glittering, radiant shards flew up from beneath her unbroken body, but there was nowhere for her to go—no way to get to her thrashing legs and run away from the fate that her lifebringer brought down upon her.

  The code didn’t kill her—the Returned did, plowing over her with their roots lashing and whipping the ground into an unsolvable puzzle. The first hit she took was to the gut as a bulky tap root slammed down. From there, the herd continued, crushing the plates that made up her being and flinging sheets of metal halfway across the floor as she exploded into a rain of nuts and bolts, scattering with her violin.

  But what did it matter as she was stomped to pieces—limbs flying and breaking into smaller segments with busted circuit boards sparking? S
he was right; she was just a tool, one without feeling, and hence, one without death. With the right pieces and reparations, she could be revived in any form. Her fall would never be permanent, just a hibernation until she worked her way back up the hierarchy of machinery.

  For that reason alone, Justus watched her be demolished until she was reduced to nothing but the smallest, inanimate pieces of hardware.

  Chaos and uncertainty descended once she was gone. Returned and lerials alike were suddenly confused about their pathing, as were the surviving Encryptors. Embry’s absence left them scrambling, calling frantically to one another and wondering which of the many pathways to take: the courtyard, the bridge, the skywalk, the tunnels, the main halls? The routes were as vast as their backstories, and none of them knew the first way through besides the metallic snow continuing to be kicked around the foyer floor like pucks.

  Well, then again, there was Justus, but the heavy tug on his shriveled lips and betrayed eyes showed that he would give up that information for nothing.

  Keeping the syringe close, Justus stepped back, allowing shadows and emotions to swallow him alive as he headed off on his own path, one laid down by nothing but the instability of his mind and heart—one so uncertain that he just let his feet carry him to wherever he would end up, knowing but beyond caring just how twisted and irreparable he was.

  Twenty-eight

  Ashes to Ashes

  Pinion saw Embry fall, but there was nothing she could do but watch… Watch everything crumble through her fingers—centuries of planning wasting away in a matter of days. She was just as close, if not closer, than that day eight hundred years ago. But even with all of her training, all of the effort and desire… Her situation was the same: injured, helpless, useless… Only able to see from afar that which she could no longer stop.

  No backtracking, no fighting… Not with her simultaneously carrying Seek and Sage on her back. Nothing but looking—so much looking, that she nearly went blind.

  Virgil protected Pinion at the forefront as she trudged on to find safety, supported by a thin stream of Encryptors and a burly landslide of Returned. Virgil was always within a stride of his queen, intoxicated by the blood vapors suffocating them. Swimming around her at blinding speeds, he turned already fatal strikes into obliviating ones. He pillaged demons, Bots, Haxors, and Elites, all to get his queen out of the fray. But with Pinion’s waning strength and shattered orb, she could conjure little more than the thinnest of barriers that equated to a torn net. The Returned were the pillars of her survival, keeping all foes out of striking distance with their massive swings and rapid-fire, but what infiltrated them her noble warriors took down—and those that exceeded even them were left to face Virgil. Had she not been submerged within their charging, destructive wave, she had high doubts she would have gotten this far.

  This far. Ha. She said it as though she knew where she was going.

  “Don’t stop now, Pinion!” Virgil screamed as he clubbed a lunging Bot straight in the head. “I’m holding them off just fine! You’ve got to hang in there until we can get you some place safe!”

  Pinion’s exhausted exhale came down on her brain, squeezing it dry. The steps she pushed herself to take were getting heavier… The cracking, electrical vines around her bicep were fickle and thin, loosening to the point that the sword lodged in her shoulder socket hung with her flesh. Holding them off… He would have to be doing that forever, and not even his advanced, plasma-induced state could make that possible.

  “PINION!”

  Her slumping head snapped up to a Bot who dived beneath Virgil’s legs, clawing with fingers of iron past Pinion’s barrier fractals.

  She tensed upon lifting her wobbling sword-arm, her thoughts diverting to too many places in moments she had too few to spare: the loosening influence of Time as Sage and Seek slid farther down her back; Virgil tearing after the Bot with his club raised; the Bot—a child who had never known anything but confinement and manipulation coming at her with such hunger and hatred.

  A stroke of blood painted her cheek as Virgil threw his weapon down into the child’s skull, turning their cap inside out. The blood wasn’t even warm; it had a frigid bite that leeched the life from Pinion’s drained body, making her chest fill with static and body go weightless.

  Virgil called for her. He grabbed her shoulder, shook the royal in such a manner that he should have been executed. But her insides continued to tickle, her ears drowning in white noise the longer she stared at the Bot spreading out, their soul running red and free.

  “PINION!”

  The haze cleared enough for her to reply. She shook her head with such fervor that she felt her brain slosh. “Quit your yelling! I’m fine!”

  “Women and their ‘I’m fine’! Come on! The more you use your brain, the more you’re making yourself a target!”

  He slipped his titanic arm around her waist, merging their bodies to keep her aloft. The rubies in his eyes were spinning as he lugged her along, his legs having to do the work of not four but eight.

  She could feel her expanding breaths against her eyes, each huff clouding her vision more than the last. The cries of the clashing and dying were gnats flying about her lobes, her footsteps numb to the thundering of falling bodies. She was floating, drifting in the realms of her torn mind, being sucked to whatever shore her eight hundred years plus of memories carried her to.

  But the memories were oddly soft and gentle—the vast minority of her life. The blood dusting her face softened to the knit of her one and only doll, savoring the sensation that fabric and peach fuzz made when moving against one another. Her then small rear with no padding was bouncing on Kevin’s knee again, his love undoing her tears and ensnaring her in arms so tight that it was impossible to be cold inside or out. Puteulanus was still just an orb; she was still just a princess; she was still happy and safe… Smiles and laughter… A concept that she couldn’t even fathom now.

  The canals in her eyes were bursting before she knew it. Kevin’s arms squeezed her harder, tucking her shuddering body deeper into his familiar chest that always smelled of hard work. However repulsive the scent was on the surface, it was his—one that she loved. It was a reminder of his constant, tireless work that he pursued since he first lifted her onto his shoulders and held her above everything else. The work that killed him but kept her safe.

  “AGHHH!”

  Pinion toppled from Virgil’s embrace. The blocks of her knees quaked, bringing her to the floor with Sage and Seek tumbling off her back. Her lungs were flattened, and Virgil groaned next to her with his forehead against the ice. Arched like a cat, he heaved, his overworked body shooting geysers of steam that thinned the crystals beneath them. What was a warring plain a moment ago was now a collapsed hallway sealed off behind them—a thick metal slab of a door that wheezed with electrical bursts, forced shut by Virgil’s raw, oozing hands.

  A despairing moan rose beside the fallen queen, turning her head. The fall knocked the puppet back into a loose consciousness, leaving them lying spread-eagle on the floor with floating strings squirming out of their mouth as gravity-defiant drool. “Daddyyy…” they sniffled with a heavy wheeze. “Why…?”

  A slightly louder mumble countered Sage’s pity, rolling Pinion’s eyes over to Seek. In the night that came and waned with the broken circuitry, the child opened her eyes, the rings immediately coming to a tender glow and bringing a lulling fog up to the surface of her skin. “Huh…?”

  “Seek!” Pinion was on her knees instantly, shuffling to her soldier and whisking her up with a trembling arm, shoving her into her chest. “You’re ok! Thank goodness you’re ok…!”

  “Ok…?” The echo was absentminded, lost, wandering as did Seek’s weak head. “I’m…?”

  “Mabel saved you. She used your spirits—you’re going to be alright now.”

  The ghost solidified in Pinion’s hold. Her dull heartbeat stilled. “She…?”

  “DADDY HURT ME! WHY?! WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?!” />
  Pinion’s neck nearly broke when it snapped to Sage. “You mangy towel! Shut the fuck up already, would you?! We have bigger things to worry about than your daddy issues!”

  Her hostility did not register with Sage. They continued to wail, flailing so intensely that they soon entangled themself with their own threading.

  That little shit… If it hadn’t been for their useful abilities, Pinion would have made them her personal pin cushion long ago.

  “Pinion…” Virgil was at her side, his hand on the hilt of Pinion’s sword that connected human and weapon. His touch separated the embracing angels, leaving Pinion to stare at his hand. “We need to get this taken care of. You can’t just keep exerting your powers for a prosthetic. You need to focus on staying alive.”

  A nasally snort confirmed what had been blatantly obvious. “No shit. Just do it fas—”

  Her screech and blood exploded at the same time. Virgil was expressionless, holding the sword at its edge and staring at the hunks of bundled nerves and flesh sticking to the goopy hilt. “You said ‘fast.’”

  Pinion couldn’t keep her groan in, pressing down on her empty socket as though she could quell the pain of a torn limb. “Yeah, I did… Thanks.”

  Virgil huffed, extending the bloody wing her way. Carefully pulling her hand away from the crater of her wound, Pinion took the sword, staring down all that she had left to show of her past.

  “Sage,” Virgil said, “quit your crying and stitch Pinion’s wound.”

  “Whyyy?! What’s the point of anything?! Daddy HATES ME!” Their sobs transitioned into a full-blown tantrum, and they slammed their face against the wall, continuing to cry their stuffing out.

  Pinion certainly didn’t have the patience for them. “Why you little…!”

  “Sage.” Virgil’s voice was surprisingly calm, enough so that the puppet peeled their deformed face off the wall to hear what he had to say. “Maybe your dad is gone, but can’t you tell that Pinion is your sister?”