City of Cinders

by Kendrai Meeks

  “Fifteen years isn’t so very long.” Hugo took back his hand. “Especially when there are estates and family to care for, it keeps one very busy.”

  The arrow hit its mark. Francisco hoped no one else noticed his half-step retreat. Except for El Castillo Circulo, nothing remained of his ancestral estate. And family? Hugo’s army claimed his only uncle, and despair in the wake of so much loss, his mother.

  Then, to add insult to injury, Hugo had stolen Francisco’s first love.

  Hugo continued. “I have to admit, I was surprised to learn you’d put yourself up for election. I was astonished even more when you won.”

  “Yes, well, GAIA was founded primarily for the benefit of the poor and powerless, both of which your betrayal left me.”

  “Oh, come now, Francisco. Surely you must have had a little something put away. Don’t tell me you were able to seize one of the most powerful offices in the world through a demonstration of leadership, especially when you’ve never shown that particular skill as far as I’m aware.”

  Rage made Francisco’s fists curl, but experience kept his tongue still.

  Hugo seemed disappointed. “No response to that? Maybe you have learned something then. But tell you something...” Flexing his index finger, Hugo invited Francisco to lean in. “You can keep up this every-man charade for a while, but eventually, they’re all going to figure out who you really are. I only hope you come to terms with it before they do.”

  Pulling back, Hugo offered his hand again. “It was good to catch up, Francisco.”

  But the prince was through playing politics. He turned away, fuming, clutching the place that he wore his father’s watch in the real world. He needed to be reminded of what he was fighting against, the kind of hedonistic crime that still went on, despite GAIA’s existence.

  He needed to make sure that Omala Grover – and his own father – hadn’t died in vain.

  27

  Her step-mother’s ball gown was fabulous, a tribute to indulgence and wealth. It had no less than ten petticoats, and underneath, a proper corset.

  And it was one hell of a burden to move in.

  Cindira turned a corner and found another hall, this one with four doors. Three were locked, but the fourth mercifully opened. A set of service stairs took her down to a hall lit by candles, and with only one exit. Cindira ran the length of the hall and opened the door.

  And immediately slammed it shut.

  Somehow, she’d come to the edge of the ballroom.

  That the other servants were bots was obvious to Cindira the moment she looked in. Sure, those servicing the buffet, removing dishes, or refilling wine glasses appeared human on first glance, but they shared a certain sameness noticeable with just a little examination.

  A sameness, sadly, that Cindira did not share. Firstly, because she was a she, and none of the others in the ballroom were. Second, because while she had the same bhindi the VAPORSs did, it was different somehow. It didn’t...

  It didn’t glimmer! Had that been why the diodes she sometimes integrated into Kaylie’s designs were contraband? If anyone else noticed, her gambit ended then and there.

  If only she could quit the program and wake up back in the world, she would, but Cindira realized with a lurch in the base of her stomach that she had no clue how to get out of the program.

  How had she gotten out of GAIA?

  Oh, yeah, that’s right. An explosion.

  That didn’t seem very doable, did it?

  “Go into the ballroom!”

  Cindira squealed as something small and furry crawled over her foot. “Laporte?”

  He was a mouse again, which was just as well. He certainly was more portable that way, and if there was one thing she needed, it was to keep moving.

  “Sorry I disappeared,” he said as she picked him up. “Johanna doesn’t know about me, and it’s best if that remains the case.”

  Even though he wasn’t real, even though he was just the manifestation of codes, algorithms, and AI, he was the closest thing to a confidante she had. Maybe that was why she found herself confessing to him. “She killed my mother.”

  The mouse blinked. “What?”

  “Johanna killed my mother,” Cindira said. “She just told me. She just... Oh, my god. All this time, for years, and I...my father is...”

  “Miss, I hate to sound uncaring. We will use this knowledge, but for now, you are here. If you’re to do something, it must be now,” Laporte, balancing on her shoulder, advised. “Time is running out.”

  Her heart pounded, but why should she panic? It was just another puzzle to solve, another task to complete. Or so she tried to tell herself. “Won’t the midnight protocol kick me out before then?”

  “Not before Yuchi revives. Your mother’s avatar cannot be destroyed, but your tether to it can be severed. We cannot allow that to happen. We’ll get you to an exit, but the closest public portal is outside the palace gates. If Yuchi kicks it off the platform, Omala’s avatar will merely reiterate back in the magic pumpkin. You, however, will not.”

  “Oh, my god.” Cindira stopped in her tracks. “This is my mother’s actual avatar from our apartment, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not important right now. We have twenty minutes until Yuchi recovers, and we must get you out before then.”

  Why was that important? “Didn’t you hear what I said? My mother is dead, and Johanna killed her.”

  “And will you just sit here and allow her to do the same to you?”

  “Of course not. But how could she? You can’t die in the—”

  Laporte cut her off. “The Kingdom isn’t like GAIA. Here, if you die in the program, you die in the real world.”

  Her blood became ice. “But that’s against every international law written. It’s murder!”

  “It’s the least of Tybor’s offenses.”

  She shook her head, trying to fit in this revelation with the company ran by her father. “How often does that—”

  “Don’t think about it now. I can tell you the details later. For now, focus. Find the prince. Do what you came here to do. You’re unlikely to have another chance like this.”

  But the wheels in Cindira’s mind refused to halt. The implications of such a policy sprinted down a tree of logic, leaving to one, single inevitable conclusion.

  So that was why Johanna had agreed to let Francisco host this ball.

  Cindira was up and moving into the ballroom before Laporte could even complete the sentence. “Oh my god, the prince!”

  28

  Cindira surveyed the room. Francisco was easy enough to find, all she need do was follow everyone’s eyes. Kaylie had become a barnacle on the side of the ship of state. They weren’t that far away. Ten, fifteen feet? With their backs to the tables covered in food, Kaylie and Francisco’s position wasn’t exactly unbreachable. Cindira could probably shout his name and he’d hear. If they weren’t in a room surrounded by potential enemies, she may do just that.

  “I have to get him out of here. The explosion in GAIA...if someone tries that here, he won’t survive. And why wouldn’t they try?”

  Cindira looked back over her shoulder just in time to see a swish of purple petticoats round the door that she’d come through moments before. Given the fact that her step-mother’s hands no longer flamed and burned, she was willing to bet the whole magic thing wasn’t exactly widely known. Of course, it wasn’t. If the others became aware such a thing was possible, they’d be knocking down Tybor’s doors for the upgrade.

  “Laporte, how much time is there between Yuchi coming back online and the stroke of midnight protocol activates?”

  “Five minutes, ten seconds.”

  Five minutes of vulnerability? She’d have to make it work.

  “Can you summon that coach to the front steps?”

  The mouse chirped. “I’ll have to drive it myself, but yes. I’ll need a minute, Miss, then I’ll be outside. Just there, at the far end of the room.”

  She turned,
seeing a set of open double doors beyond which the light of the ballroom danced over cobblestones and a fountain. Even from the occluded rear view, Cindira recognized the ceremonial entrance at the front of the Palace from Tybor’s marketing materials.

  “Don’t be late,” she told the mouse.

  Laporte scurried off her shoulder, down her skirting, and deftly wove between hundreds of feet to the front entrance.

  Cindira needed to both get out and get the prince out. Should she walk right up and talk to him? A servant being so bold would run against programming, immediately mark her as a fraud.

  Catch his eye and hope he’d make his way to her? No good; he’d drag every eye in the room with him.

  Damn it! She needed to extricate him, and do so in a way where he couldn’t just immediately dismiss her or run away completely.

  From her right, a servant bot approached, in his hands a tray on which sat a steaming, succulent leg of lamb and a very, very sharp knife.

  Everything here is a weapon, if you figure out a way to use it.

  But in the Stadium, weapons aren’t fatal. In here, they are. This might as well be real life.

  She had the blade in hand and pressed to Francisco’s throat before she could give the plan, or the idea that this was real, too much thought.

  The prince managed nonchalance and threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know who you are, but I will. Everyone will. Let me go now, and you stand a chance at surviving this.”

  The crowd pulled back, as though they were the ones under threat. All except Kaylie, who planted her balled up fists on her hips (as well as could be done, given the corset she wore beneath her gown to hold it in the right shape), and took two steps forward.

  Didn’t they know who she was? The Gaian prince didn’t recognize Omala Grover’s voice? Only then did Cindira realize that standing behind a man three inches taller effectively hid her from the crowd. All they could really see were her eyes, her arm, and the hand holding the blade.

  He spoke softly, as though he didn’t want the others to overhear. “What is it you’re hoping to get away with? Slit my throat, it will—”

  “Quiet!” She backstepped, leading them along the edge of the buffet table, towards the doors that led outside. There wasn’t time to explain to him. If she didn’t get him out of here and warn him of the true danger he was in before the midnight protocols swept her out, he’d really be in trouble. “Just... stay quiet and keep walking backwards.”

  He complied, all while chuckling lowly. “I never thought I’d be the kind of person to say this, but...do you know who I am?”

  Francisco yelped as Cindira’s arm jerked him back a little harder. “Do you think I’d be doing this if I didn’t?”

  “Then you must know there’s no way you’re going to get away with this.”

  “You should pray I do, or you’re never going to survive tonight.”

  The moment they were outside, the whiny of horses and rambling of wheels came into the foreground. Back in his human incarnation, Laporte perched on the driver’s seat of the coach. The door opened without her undertaking the effort. More magic, or an automated sequence written in the code for convenience despite the intended aesthetic? She’d have to wonder about that later.

  The crowd funneled outside as Cindira lowered the knife, spun the prince, and used the blade to indicate the intended action. To his credit, he didn’t seem the slightest bit intimated. His cool compliance in itself, an act of bravery. Of course, he didn’t understand the true threat, so why would he worry? His avatar had been murdered before, and he’d woken up back in his own body in the real world.

  Just as Cindira got a foothold to step into the coach, Johanna muscled her way to the front of the crowd.

  “Mark my words, you’ve overplayed your hand,” she shouted.

  Cindira pondered the years that passed since her mother’s murder, swirled them with the moments since finding her father, and suddenly understood her place in the world.

  “Don’t you get it? I just opened a new deck of cards. And this? This is only the beginning.”

  Laporte pulled the reins, and they were off.

  29

  Francisco was not scared.

  He was livid.

  And mystified.

  And still, livid.

  The woman collapsed back against the cushioned bench opposite him like the hard part was over. As the coach fled, she worked the coif over her head with her free hand, letting it fall to the seat beside her, and Francisco got his first unobstructed view of his kidnapper. Her voice had been familiar, but now with her long, black locks framing a face distinguished by high cheekbones, a nose that hooked slightly at the end, and brilliantly sand-hued skin, there could be no doubt.

  Two possibilities to explain the impossible: either the woman before him was an impostor, or Omala Grover wasn’t dead after all.

  Her reverie blew away in seconds, and the woman’s body jerked straight, as though a siren awoke her from a deep sleep. Until he was sure which possibility was true, Francisco had no intention of admitting he recognized the avatar before him. Or at least, its namesake.

  She looked him in the eye. “The important thing to know is that I have no intention of hurting you.”

  “Intention only means you haven’t conceived of hurting me, not that you’ve ruled it out completely.” Francisco pointed to the knife she held out, though her grip had eased somewhat. “You might as well stab me and get all the angst out of your system. I’ll wake up back in the real world, where I promptly contact Tybor and have your profile tracked, your jackpod’s location revealed, and your ass, arrested.”

  “I think you’d find that easier said than done.” She threw the knife on the seat next to him. “Here. If it makes you feel better, you hold it. I only threatened you with it to save you.”

  He snatched up the weapon while gazing at her with utter incredulity. “In what world do you save someone by putting a knife to their throat?”

  “One where the knife is the lesser threat.”

  Even as the rocking coach sped out of the palace compound, the woman seemed uncertain of how to proceed. She hadn’t expected this whole kidnapping thing to work, he theorized, and now that it had, she wasn’t sure what to do next. Her chest heaved as she clutched at her hair, and he recognized the mannerisms as ones he himself had displayed whenever stretching his mental capabilities. Finally, she exhaled through funneled lips.

  “Someone’s trying to kill you.”

  “You mean besides you?” He feigned shock. “Do tell.”

  “I don’t know much more than that.”.

  Francisco sat back, his eyes focusing on the scenery whisking by outside. “Well, isn’t that convenient.”

  Suddenly, the coach slowed to a stop. Two ticks later, the driver, a diminutive young man looking vaguely Southeast Asian but attired in clothes befitting The Kingdom’s baroque European aesthetic, opened the door. He nodded once to Francisco, then turned on the woman across the way.

  “Miss, Yuchi went active four minutes ago and is presumably tracking us. I have just registered her passing out of the Palace zone. Best make use of the time left before the midnight protocol.”

  She nodded, then turned again on the prince. “Tybor doesn’t have access to the source code. They’ve been trying for years to get into it, but my... Omala Grover put up the programming equivalent of a forest of thorns around it. There’s only one living soul who can help you get to it, but she has to know what your intentions are.”

  Francisco kept all emotions from his face as he channeled his inner diplomat, even though what he really wanted was to take the knife to her throat and get her to talk. “Those are classified. But answer me this: why would Tybor’s ability to access the source code be a bad thing?”

  “Because then, they’d be unstoppable. This place—” She took on a mocking air. “—this Kingdom—is where the enemies of GAIA are amassing, Your Highness, the people whose pockets grew fat from the type
of conflict and horror GAIA’s been solving for the last two decades. Destroying it would have consequences I can’t accept, but I’ll do what I can to help keep it contained.”

  “Why do you think I’m here? I’m not just a pretty figurehead. I’m the sovereign of the virtual world, and a strong influence on the real one. I’m aware of what The Kingdom really is, and the kind of power-hungry usurpers who frequent it.”

  He let pass the fact that once, he’d been one of them.

  The woman nodded curtly. “Be that as it may, they want you dead. You were a fool to come here. Don’t do it again. I’m not sure if I can get in again to help you, and frankly, I have more important people to save if I can come back.”

  The mousy man cried out again. “The time, Miss.”

  Not-Omala ignored him. “You have to understand, here isn’t like GAIA. You die in The Kingdom, you die in the real world.” Having dropped that bomb, her message must have been complete. The black-haired woman stood and exited the coach. “I have to go.”

  “Wait... What?” Francisco hopped out of the coach and gave chase, still clutching the blade she’d surrendered. She was already five feet away, moving as quickly as she could, almost as though she were being hunted. “If that’s true, then why give me this—” he held up the knife. “—your only defense? I might have just stuck you with it, thinking all it would do would be to send you out of the program.”

  She paused and turned back. A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Because the kind of man whose instinct it is to save a child from an explosion—even a child he was convinced was an enemy— when he knows neither of them was really in danger, wouldn’t stab a defenseless woman, even virtually.”

  Save a child from an explosion?

  “It was you.” Francisco’s mouth had gone suddenly dry. “Omala? Are you still alive?”

  “No, Omala’s dead, no matter how much either of us wish otherwise.”