“It’s just an empty room,” Luca said in disbelief, her words both calming and distressing.
“No,” Sarrin said, clutching the pendant. She heard them, maybe felt them, behind the wall. They were close, shuffling and positioning.
The panelled ceiling slid back an inch, exposing the blast end of a laz-rifle.
An old one, it looked like. Low-calibre and glitchy.
“Sarrin,” Grant hissed, his eyes fixed above them. They all had reflexes fast enough to dodge the old weapon before it could charge, but the room was too small.
Alex stepped forward, his hands held out beside his head. “Please,” he said. “We’re looking for something. We don’t mean you any harm.”
The panel slid back just enough to reveal two sets of wide eyes staring back at them.
“You’re fools,” said the one.
Alex paused. “Please.”
Grant stepped forward. “Did you try to break into the Central Hospital? To find a vaccine? We followed your symbols.”
The two rebels paused, the grip on their rifles loosening. The silence was enough. “Halud was here,” Sarrin blurted.
Rifles readied above them instantly. Grant stepped back.
“We need to find him,” she heard herself, frantic.
“No, you’re fools,” hissed the rebel. “Go away.”
“So he was here,” said Grant.
They slid the ceiling panel forward, closing it, but Grant’s hand was there first, pushing it open. The rebels clutched their rifles to their chests. They were no more than boys, terrified. “It was a trap,” stammered the one. “They’re all gone. The UECs knew, they were waiting for them.”
“It’s just us here, I swear,” said the other. “They took them away. Same as they take everyone. They left the pendant here.”
“Who left the pendant?” asked Grant, but his voice was too slow.
Sarrin slammed open the rickety door, sunlight streaming in, despite the pooling black clouds of her vision. The monster flared to life, her vision nothing but a pinpoint in the intense black cloud — it had been trying to warn her. She thought it was just the anticipation of finding Halud. But something was wrong here, very, very wrong.
High above, a laz-rifle clicked. Clad in the grey with black uniform of the elite squadron, UEC soldiers surrounded them from all directions. One-hundred-eight, she counted instantly — twenty on the roof, the rest filling the square.
Her body spun instinctively out of the doorway, everything around her slowing. Beams of light shot across and around her body, never touching. The soldiers were too far away, their reflexes too slow.
The boy was right, they were fools. They had been set up. The symbol and the pendant left for them to find. If the boys were to be believed, Halud had been set up, and so had they. She clutched his pendant tighter in her hand.
Alex was shouting, but she couldn’t hear over the high pitched whine in her head. He waved his arms, motioning for her to follow — the three Augments had already started to tear a path through the soldiers, tossing bodies to the side like pillows.
She knew she needed to run, but something kept her there, and she dodged laz-beam after laz-beam. Extreme tactical error.
The monster inside of her growled, begging to be let out, to destroy every soldier in the square. The edges of her vision drowned in dark clouds. But something else fought with her consciousness, a desperate, floating sensation, her mind both in her body and somewhere else.
On top of the building directly opposite her, sat a bio-pulse generator, it’s blue orb silent. She couldn’t see it, but knew it was there, the same as she knew the hand that was reaching out to trigger its crippling mechanism. Her body tensed in anticipation of the pain that would rip through her.
Of their own volition, her eyes fixed to the figure on the roof of the building, her body stilling. “Amelia,” she whispered.
The commandant’s hand hovered over the bio-pulse trigger, twitching in anticipation, but it stilled, the same as Sarrin had. Her blue eyes stared down across the square, meeting Sarrin's.
The monster quieted, the fight around them ceasing to exist. The only thing that mattered was Amelia. Her friend wasn’t lost, not entirely. Instinctively, she turned her palms out, her breathing steady as she opened herself to the hunter, throwing herself on the mercy of Amelia who had once been her sister.
Amelia’s shoulders softened, her hand came away from the blue orb.
Sarrin blew out a breath.
Something pulled her back as a laz-bolt flew in front of her face. Alex had his hand on her cloak. Another bolt burned into the wall beside her.
On the roof, the commandant blinked a few times. She raised her arm, the set of her shoulders as severe as ever.
The moment was lost, but there had been a moment, however foolish it had been. Sarrin ran, her legs pushing against the con-plas hard and fast.
NINE
AMELIA PUSHED OUT A SHAKY breath, squaring her shoulders before she thrust open the door to the First Speaker’s office and plunged inside.
The First Speaker paced the width of his office, hands flying as he shouted at his general.
Nairu sat in one of the chairs by the desk, rigid as stone. “It is the Path of the Gods, First Speaker. I have Faith,” he said in the first moment of silence Hap had offered.
Bulking shoulders heaving, Hap spun on his heel, ready to tear into the general — verbally or otherwise — but he turned to the desk instead, slamming both fists into the thick wood, seething.
Amelia paused in the centre of the room, partway along the mural and opposite a stuffed head that read Gorilla gorilla: Great Ape. The glass eyes seemed to follow her in the disturbingly human face. She scuffed her boot on the floor.
General Nairu turned his head at the sound. Her swore as he turned back to Hap. “The commandant is here.”
“What?” Hap roared. His beady eyes landed on her, and she braced in a military salute, careful to duck her head and stoop her shoulders. “Oh. Commandant.” He gestured to the chairs where Nairu was sitting, calling her forward.
Nairu stood and moved to the side of the desk, Hap on the far side, and Amelia stood between the chairs, refusing to sit.
Hap chewed the inside of his cheek. He leaned forward on the desk. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I —,” but she didn’t know. She had let an Augment go, had her caught out in the open, with an entire platoon of elite soldiers, and just let her run away. And she'd played out the scene in her memory over and over, trying to figure out exactly what had happened, every minute since the girl had escaped until she was standing here.
“You had an open shot. You didn’t take it.”
She hadn’t. She’d just stood there. “The machine malfunctioned. The trigger jammed and failed to activate.”
“That isn’t how it reads in the report.”
No matter how she looked at it, there was no explanation for what happened, for her hesitation. She didn’t hesitate. She was the Commandant. The Augment hunter.
She’d caught and killed hundreds.
But this one girl.
“Your assignment is to Security. You were removed from Special Operations.”
“I am far more suited to Special Operations. You know this.”
“Do not speak over me.”
She gulped and bowed her head.
“There was no reason for you to examine the drone footage.”
“The drone fell under my purview as Security.”
He held up a hand, commanding her to be silent. “Certainly there was no reason to commandeer an elite squadron and utilize classified technologies.”
They were her squadron, she had trained them for the hunt. The tech had been partly designed by Guitteriez for her use. But she kept her head bowed, her mouth closed.
She shut her eyes, wishing she could go back into that moment and just pull the trigger. The plan had been perfectly executed, the Augments surrounded. One
blast of the pulse-generator would have stilled her enough for any incompetent foot soldier to shoot her and arrest her. But she hadn’t been able to do it.
Over and over the moment played. Over and over, her mind knew what it should do, and yet her fingers hesitated.
With no explanation.
Except one word: Sarrin. A name that was becoming too familiar, too everywhere. It filtered through her core, spreading tendrils through her entirety, making her breath constrict and her body warm all at the same time.
“Commandant.”
Her head snapped up.
“Did you hear me?”
She was a commandant, she was that. Yes.
“Do you understand that your role is no longer to hunt Augments. It is against the Gods. What you have done is treason. It's blasphemy.”
She frowned. “I serve the Gods.”
“You have failed in your duty.”
No. “The trigger jammed, I—.”
“The trigger is in full working order. You have become dangerous. An experiment that has gone too far.”
“If I’d succeeded —.”
“But you didn’t. You failed. You have failed the Gods.”
But she hadn’t failed Sarrin.
Sarrin?
She’d failed to capture Sarrin.
“What do you mean, ‘experiment?'”
But Oleander Nairu stood at her shoulder. He pressed an auto-injector into her neck, its contents penetrating her skin with a loud hiss, and the world faded away.
* * *
Amelia woke, blinking back groggy vision. Her shoulder was cramped, and she grunted, trying to twist into a better position. She was being dragged, she realized, and fought against it, but the drugs were still in her system, making her sluggish and uncoordinated.
Two soldiers gripped her arms. Two of her soldiers, the black insignia running along their grey uniforms identified them as elite squadron. Confused, she glanced up at them, trying to see their faces, to identify them. Harsh white light beat down on her, overhead lamps flickering as she was pulled along the long corridor. It brought a painful pang to her chest, a panicked familiarity that seemed almost overwhelming.
They paused, then hefted her roughly, lifting her up onto a hard surface: a bed.
Another injection pressed into her neck.
Her dull hand reached out, groping along the surface for some purchase on the mattress, but there was none and she slipped into oblivion.
A little girl smiled. She was young, too young. Her foot slid through the rungs as she climbed to the upper bunk in a military barracks.
With a start, Amelia woke, reaching for her pounding chest. But her hand was tied, strapped down. The small space, its blinding white walls and harsh overhead lights, was too familiar. Her heartbeat turned frantic, a wail building up in her chest.
Why had she done it? Why hadn’t she just pulled the trigger?
She would have been a hero. Capturing the prize Augment they had been hunting for months and been unable to hold onto. She would have brought her for Hap to kill himself. But Speakers were good, he wouldn’t kill. She would have done it in front of him though, as a gift. And he would have reinstated her as the Commandant of the warship, and she would have gone on hunting the most elusive prey under the stars.
It left a bitter taste in her mouth, an unpleasantness in her stomach. A sob escaped her throat.
No one cried, she told herself swallowing back the tears. It made you look weak, and you could never look weak. They would take you away.
Medical monitors beeped at the side of the room, their wires reaching from her limbs, giving the impression that it was a hospital room. But it was a cell, and she was familiar with the construction of cells. A seemingly solid construction, but there was always a seam, always a gap that could be slipped through.
How did she know that?
She curled on the bed as much as the restraints would allow.
She had been stripped of her uniform, laid there now in a hospital wrap. Hopeless.
They liked to crush Hope.
You can’t give up, Amy. You just can’t, a small voice wailed in the back of her head. I need you. Please.
Sarrin.
What was it about the Augment, that one in particular, that defied everything Amelia had lived for?
She examined her wrists: Class 2 restraints. Modified release. Without thinking, her wrist flicked. Back and forth quickly with a half-twist. The restraint popped open.
She looked down in disbelief. Then rolled over, releasing the other wrist, and then the legs.
The monitors beeped along steadily, an increase in pitch and frequency signalling her quick-beating heart.
She forced her heart rate to slow, her breathing to be even. She’d seen enough hospital monitors to know they could be fooled, like any other piece of machinery. They used to….
What did who used to do?
But she had already punched in the commands to start the monitor on a continuous loop. She pulled the sensors from her body, careful to map them so they could be replaced, then rose from the bed.
She quickly identified the seam in the cell, digging her fingers into the small crevice and pulling to separate the wall paneling from the floor. She slipped through the small opening and disappeared into the wall.
The layout of the building, all of its room and its hidden spaces, came into her mind. A schematic she was sure she had never studied, and yet it was there. She had only a rough idea of where she was headed. All she knew was she needed answers.
In the lowest floor of the Speaker’s compound, she dropped into the main corridor. She found the door, pushing the control for it to open.
The guard inside startled, then stood rapidly, pressing his hand to his chest in salute. “Commandant,” he acknowledged, although his eyes roamed questioningly over her unusual attire.
“Get out,” she barked, harsh as she could manage, lest he question why and how she’d come to be here like this in nothing but a hospital gown.
He nodded and bolted from the room.
The Poet laid on the cot on his back, arms crossed over his chest. The pose of the dead.
What was she doing here?
She paced back and forth in front of the permaglass wondering if she should wake him. The hospital gown moved and crinkled awkwardly around her.
An eye creaked open, rolling to the side to watch her without moving his head. So he wasn’t asleep at all. She paused her pacing, and he sat up, eyeing her warily.
Her feet took up the swift back and forth movement again, her hands clasped crisply behind her back, the movement the only thing she felt certain of in this moment.
He stood, coming to the glass to watch her more closely. “You don’t look well, Commandant.”
Three times she paused and tried to ask her question, but she closed her mouth and restarted her pacing. “I need to know,” she started, but it wouldn’t come. “Tell me,” she tried again.
He lifted a single curious eyebrow. “Tell you what?”
She shook her head. What was it she wanted? What was it she needed?
“You don’t look well,” he said again.
“Quiet,” she snapped.
“Where’s my pendant?”
Her foot paused mid-air. The last she had seen it was clutched in 005478F’s outstretched hand. “I don’t care,” she said, feet falling back into the comforting rhythm.
He frowned. “Did it get you what you wanted?”
She shook her head, sneering. “Your sister?” She’d wanted it to sound angry, blaming, but it came out a question.
“You didn’t catch her. That’s what Hap was so mad about it,” Halud surmised. “Good. I’m glad. And you never will. She’s more than you could ever be.”
It was true. Amelia had failed.
She had failed the Speakers, failed the Gods.
Failed Sarrin.
“What is it you want, Commandant?”
“I’m not a commandan
t,” she whispered.
“So what are you?”
“Forget it.”
She pulled at the wall panelling in the anteroom, disappeared back into the walls, into the narrow space. She crawled back over the ceiling, to the cell they had put her in and slipped back through the seam, pressing it back into place. She connected the electrodes and erased the looping code. The restraints clicked easily back into place.
She was a prisoner. Nothing less, nothing more.
TEN
SARRIN’S FEET PADDED ACROSS THE cold con-plas floors, passing rows of identical beds. She flopped onto bed 7C, her hands trembling. Sitting there, she fought the unforgiving urge to wail — she’d done that yesterday; it hadn’t helped. The other girls had only gotten mad.
Where was Halud?
For that matter, where was she?
“Hey kid, this is my bunk.” A tall girl, with a pale face framed by gleaming blonde hair, stood in front of her, her hands on her hips. She wasn’t any older than nine or ten, but to Sarrin she was a giant.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. Head down, she stood on the bed and wrapped her hands around the ladder that led to the upper bunk. Her foot slipped off the rung and she clung with her hands until she found her footing again.
The girl scowled.
Forcing her shaking body to stand, Sarrin found her footing and leaned back, staring at the daunting distance of only a few feet. She’d climbed higher trees, but that was outside, with Halud, without her whole body trembling as much as it had in the last few days. Without doctors probing her and running tests. Before she had gotten sick.
She shifted, sticking her butt out so she could bring her knee up to her chest, extending to try to reach the next rung. She contacted, and then started to shuffle her hands, to pull herself up, but her stocking foot slid through and she slammed into the ladder with an oomph, her one foot sticking straight out.
“Gods,” scowled the girl. But she reached her hands up and lifted Sarrin, untangling her. “You’re tiny. How old are you anyway?”
Sarrin was still swaddled in the girls arms. She tucked her chin into her chest before holding up a hand with three fingers.
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