“Yes.” He peered out from his cell. “And so, it seems, are you.”
It wasn’t true. The Gods she served. A raw memory of searing pain opened up across her flesh. She leapt to her feet. “I don’t believe you.”
She slipped into the space between the walls, ignoring the niggling memory of the girl who had first showed her how.
EIGHTEEN
SARRIN TUGGED AT HER HOOD, scanning up and down the street to be sure they weren’t being followed. After the decision had been made, they’d wasted little time before coming into the city.
It was only a small group — any more and it would be impossible to sneak through the city in the descending dusk. Minerva led the way, leaning heavily on Gal. They’d already turned the corner out of sight. Grant paused at the same corner, several paces behind. In the narrow alley she had just come from, Kieran followed behind her, and Rayne and Luca spaced out behind him.
Her heart did a strange flip flop as she thought of Kieran. She could hear his tight breathing from here, and the shortened, ginger stride. He hadn’t recovered enough for this, not really, but he’d protested when Hoepe suggested he stay behind with the others, and she had done very little to help the doctor dissuade Kieran.
After all the weeks apart, somehow she just wasn’t ready to walk away again. In Evangecore, she would have been shot — just like Amelia had been for looking after her. But this wasn’t Evangecore, was it?
Roelle’s warning flashed in her memory:
“The line between friend and foe can blur. All we can do is decide who we will be.”
She’d gripped Sarrin’s arm, then, fixing her with a deep stare. “You are still untrained, your abilities unpredictable. I worry there is too much of the Other in you. Do not lose yourself.”
The person walking behind her let out a surprised yelp, stopping short, and Sarrin realized she had stopped walking in the middle of the road.
Kieran’s hand was suddenly on her back, pushing her forward.
“Stay close to your sha-fa-na,” Roelle had said, pointing to Kieran. “He is good for you, yes.”
She forced her feet to move, chancing a glance at his scarred face. The corner of his green eye crinkled, and he pushed her ahead. Two people walking together would draw too much attention, but she still ached when his hand left her. She shook off the memory of how it had felt to touch his face, walking hand in hand through the woods, so close to the dream she had of the two of them running and laughing and falling into each other.
She turned the corner, her eyes finding Grant as he picked his way through the crowd. They had come onto one of the main thoroughfares, this street busy, the lines of people flowing in defined paths, and she fell into line with the traffic.
She reached out, the way Roelle had taught her. There were a lot of people, but she needed to know where Kieran was, and if Rayne and Luca were safe behind him. The weight of so many folk nearby it made her head spin, but she felt him there, not three paces behind.
A desperate keening wail cut through the din, slicing into her mind. Her head whipped around to look for the source even as her thrumming heart told her it was something she didn’t want to see.
“You okay?” Kieran was suddenly by her elbow, his sleeve brushing the back of her cloak. He scanned her face, eyes now tight with worry. “I saw you stumble. Is it too many people?”
They were stopped in the middle of the square, folk streaming around them. They needed to move, keep following Gal, but the wail demanded attention, shaking her to her bones.
Her eyes flicked immediately across the square to a flustered woman reaching into a pram. The mother lifted a crying baby into her arms.
With a start, Sarrin realized it was the baby’s little voice that was screaming. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. Pale blue eyes, nearly white, flashed like a beacon. An Augment baby. Almost as much Uruhu as Human.
“What is it?” Kieran asked, suddenly at her shoulder.
She hadn’t even had time to tell him about the baby she had seen and the Xenoralia vaccine, so she answered him with a shake of her head and started to push through the crowd. She would draw too much attention, but the voice demanded attention.
Reaching the woman and her baby, she reached into the carry bag underneath the pram and pulled out the grey child’s toy shaped like a hydrocarbon molecule that she knew she would find there, the babe projecting an image of it into her mind as clear as shouting.
She handed the toy to the infant who ceased its wailing immediately, pushing a hydrogen atom into its tiny mouth, its pale eyes closing contentedly.
Sarrin stared. What would this child be? So much more Uruhu than even her. What gifts would it have? Another thought struck her, and she frowned. The Speakers and their researchers had chased her across the stars to see what she could do; what would they do to this child?
She looked into the eyes of the mother, the woman scanning Sarrin curiously. She should say something, some warning, but what was there to say?
The mother looked down at her child, at its unnatural crystalline-blue eyes, and back to Sarrin, her eyebrows slowly knitting together as realization dawned.
Sarrin pressed her lips into a tight line and nodded, confirming the woman’s worst fears. The child was an Augment. It was just like her. No, Sarrin had been three when she was infected. This child would be stronger, faster, more powerful in every way. With training, the most dangerous weapon in existence.
But still human.
As fast as she’d come, Sarrin spun away.
Behind her, the woman screamed.
That would certainly draw attention, and Sarrin angled quickly across the square to where Kieran waited, watching. She kept her head down, expecting a drone or even a guard to come for her. But even as she ran, folk around her shifted. Shouts sounded around her. The organized lines of folk walking by dissolved into chaos.
She pushed her way to Kieran through the churning sea. “What’s going on?”
UEC soldiers flooded the square. A man ran past and was tackled to the ground.
“Look.” She followed his arm to one of the large viewscreens.
On it, a bloodiest Halud, tied to a chair, stared defiantly into the camera. “The Gods protect the folk, not the cracked Speakers.”
Black clouds wrapped around her vision.
Kieran’s hands were on her in a second, pulling her backwards.
A man leapt up, shouting. “The Speakers are cracked. The Gods protect the folk!”
Suddenly, there were swirls of blue everywhere, mixing with the grey and black tendrils. A group of folk knocked over an elite guard. A hovercraft thumped overhead.
“Get down,” Kieran shouted, pushing her as her vision descended into blackness.
* * *
Gal clenched his arm around Minerva’s waist, dragging her faster, as a riot broke out into the square.
“Gal.” She patted his arm weakly.
“It’s not far,” he said. With every turn they’d taken, he’d been more and more dreadfully certain they were walking right back to the old lair, right where it had all started. He never should have agreed to this, but he knew the way, knew they just needed to turn into the alley ten paces ahead.
“Gal!” she said more forcefully, pulling away. “We have to help.”
“Minerva,” he tried, but it was too late. She’d already stumbled away and into the crowd.
Beside him, ten folk took down an elite guard. Gal sidestepped to avoid getting caught in the fray. Where was Minerva?
What was Hap thinking? To show a vid like that, of the fallen Poet denouncing the Speakers. But then Hap had always underestimated the folk. That’s how John P had been able to rally so many, to cause so much trouble for so many years. He understood the power wasn’t in the Gods or the Speakers, it was in the folk.
Cries of, “The Gods protect the folk!” echoed around him.
He spotted Minerva, her hands on a young boy. A black-clad soldier lifted his laz-
rifle, and Gal froze. But the boiling crowd rolled into him, knocking the guard and Minerva and the boy all over at once.
The boy scrambled away as the folk beat the soldier, tearing him apart.
Minerva still laid on the ground, when the crowd had passed, and Gal ran to her. Her head was bleeding, her eyes closed. He shook her shoulder gently. “Min? Minerva?” Demons. He pressed a hand to her neck. At least she wasn’t dead.
Scooping her into his arms, he ran for the alley. His feet following the old path easily.
Aaron jogged up beside him. “Wasn’t that great, Gal?”
He glared back. If Aaron was here, it couldn’t be good.
“Remember when we used to do that? Hijack the feeds, drive the folk into a frenzy. There’s nothing like a good crowd mentality. When they drive each other into a frenzy, all those years of barely surpassed frustration and indoctrination erupting to the surface.”
“Hap’s a fool,” Gal panted.
“Yeah, but what a rush! Don’t you miss this?”
“No,” said Gal. “We were all fools. You died. And look at Minerva. How can that be good?”
Aaron glanced at her, her too-thin body hanging limply in Gal’s arms. “At least she tried, Gal. Is trying. You could have helped her.”
“I don’t do that anymore.”
“Don’t give me that line. You’re running away, the same as you have been. Trying to save yourself. How is that going by the way? How do you feel now that you know what your indifference has cost?”
Gal swallowed, his eyes on the alley as he kept running. Wasn’t this enough? He was doing something now, getting Minerva to safety. Right?
The old door looked exactly the same as he remembered it, down to the painted circle with two chevrons in the corner. His hand banged on the metal before he knew what he was doing.
His whole body shook. This wasn’t a good idea. He could just leave her here, drop her and run. They would find her and bring her in.
“Look, Gal, the old symbol still lives,” said Aaron.
He shook his head, refusing to look at it. “It was drawn by a stupid kid,” he muttered.
“Maybe so.”
The peek-flap on the door opened, a set of eyes and a laz-rifle looking out.
He shuffled Minerva in his arms, bringing his hand up to form a chevron over his chest.
It had been a long time, with no way to know if the password had changed, but the door creaked open.
Aaron nudged him, so that he stumbled forward into the dark, waiting den of a dozen armed rebels.
“Looks like all these people still believe in what that stupid kid started,” Aaron said, as Gal slowly eased Minerva down and brought his hands above his head.
* * *
Kieran dragged her backwards as the dark clouds swirled across her vision. Flashes of folk fighting in the square shone through.
“Sarrin,” he called, his voice laced with panic. “Stay with me. Focus.”
A man cried out, “The Gods protect the folk!” and her mind painted the picture of Halud, tied to the Speaker’s chair.
She pulled out of Kieran’s grasp. “I have to find him.”
“No.” He grabbed her hand, the shock of it stopping her. “Look at me.”
She did, his green eyes cutting through the trance as the monster whispered instructions to tear the square apart. And the Speaker’s building, and the whole city until she got to Halud.
“There’s too many,” Kieran said. “Everyone’s already gone this way. Come on.”
She let him drag her away from the square, into an alleyway. Kieran's fear thrummed in her veins where his hand held hers. Without the crowd, the chaos was less, but the monster still pushed, its voice louder now. It was too close.
Kieran squeezed her arm. “Just take a deep breath.” It dawned on her that he was afraid of her, afraid she might lose control, and she pushed the monster down.
He kept pulling her, right to a little grey door, the rebel symbol painted in the corner. “This is where they went in.” He rapped once, but there was no answer.
The monster strained against her hold, clashing thoughts and emotions spinning around her head until she was ready to drop from dizziness. She lifted her hand to force the rickety old door, but it exploded outwards before she reached it, forcing her and Kieran to duck as it ripped off its hinges and crashed beside them.
“Whoa,” Kieran said. But he didn’t let go as they stepped into the dark room.
A dozen laz-rifles swivelled in their direction. Twelve target points, untrained. A growl escaped her lips. It would be easy to make them omega.
Kieran nudged her.
“No, no, they’re with us!” Rayne cried out. She knelt on the floor in front of them, her hands on her head. “I told you, we’re here to help.”
An old woman, rounds of ammunition slung across both shoulders, barked a single laugh. “You’re wearing a UEC uniform. Why would we trust you? You can’t even help but stand like a soldier. At least try for me, sweetheart.”
One of the rebel guards moved, his fingers twitching on the trigger of his rifle. “Just give the order, Morana. What do you want me to do?”
There wasn’t time for the leader to answer. The monster pulled out of Kieran’s grip, lunging across the room in a flash. When the darkness receded, an old laz-rifle sat in her hands, the bio-sensor reprogrammed. The rebels were on the ground, a smoking scorch mark on the wall behind where they had been.
Kieran’s hands were on her arm, his eyes wide. He must have reached her in time to jar the shot. None of these rebels were omega after all.
Across the room, Grant stood in his ugly grey skin suit, a laz-rifle similarly in his hands. Paranoid glances flitted across the room from both sides.
No, not sides, she corrected herself. They weren’t at war with each other. She didn’t want to be at war with anybody. She let the rifle drop from her hands, and it clattered on the floor. Across the room, Grant set his gently down.
“We aren’t here to harm you,” Kieran said. “Let’s all put our rifles down.”
“She just tried to shoot us!” The rebels climbed to their feet, rifles still in hand.
Kieran grimaced, putting his body between Sarrin and the others. “Things got a little outta hand, is all.”
“You’re right,” said Rayne, still on the floor. “I used to be a UEC soldier. A few weeks ago, if I’d found this base, I would have arrested every one of you. But the things I’ve seen in the last month, what I’ve learned…. I’m here to help. And I am the General’s daughter and one of the foremost tactical officers in the Central Army. I can be helpful.”
The rebel leader frowned, her scrutinizing gaze falling to Sarrin. Even if she believed Rayne, it was clear Sarrin was the one she didn't trust. Sarrin shut her eyes; just one moment of lost control was all it had taken. Roelle's reminder echoed in her head, but it was already too late.
“Look, please,” Gal said from where he still kneeled on the floor, Minerva’s body in front of him. “She needs medical attention. She’s the one that brought us here, but she was knocked out in the riot in the square.”
“Minerva defected. She went to a colony. Why should we trust her?”
“She was one of your lieutenants, right? She’d been with the rebels for years,” said Gal. “She didn’t defect, she was sentenced to die. We found her and brought her back. But she needs help.”
The rebel leader paused, considering, then nodded at one of the guards He and another ran forward, lifting Minerva's body between them and disappearing deeper into the building.
Another of the rebels glanced at Grant. “What are you?”
Grant growled.
“He’s an Augment,” answered Rayne.
“Augments,” the leader barked a laugh again. “They’re supposed to be dead.”
"Supposed to be, maybe," said Sarrin. She pushed her hood back so the leader could see her unnaturally crystalline blue eyes shining even in the dark bunker. She lif
ted the sleeves to expose the barcodes on her arms, trying not to flinch as the rebels gasped.
“There are dozens more,” said Rayne. “We came to help you. And because we need your help. The Speakers are corrupt. They no longer speak the words of the Gods.”
The leader frowned. “If there are dozens of Augments, why do you need our help?”
“Manpower,” said Kieran, his hand still resting comfortably on Sarrin's arm. “We need your network. All of your rebels.”
The leader scoffed. “You’re cracked, then. You and your plan. There’s barely any of us left. Our numbers have fallen ever since John P died. And what few there were, we lost in that spread business with the Poet and the hospital.”
Sarrin’s heart skipped a beat. “Halud?” She closed the distance to the woman before she knew what she was doing. “We have to help him.”
The rebel leader stepped back. “He’s on his own. It was a set up. We wasted more than a few good rebels, all because he believed they were making new Augments.”
“They are.”
Kieran was at her side again, a grip on her arm. “What?”
She turned to him, nodding. “The baby in the square, it was an Augment.”
The leader crossed her arms, but her expression softened. “How do you know?”
Sarrin shrugged; it was too much to explain. She waved vaguely at her eyes and the marks on her skin. “I just do.”
“But why would they?” asked one of the other rebels. “The Augments started a war.”
She shrugged again. “To start their own war and destroy the Uruhu.”
Behind her, one of the rebels laughed nervously. “The virus was unintentional. You’re asking us to believe someone made it.”
“It was engineered,” said Rayne. “Someone did make it. They made the Augments.” She cast a sorry gaze at Sarrin. “And I have proof.”
The leader looked back and forth between them. “If what you’re saying is true….”
“It is,” said Rayne.
She looked long and hard at Sarrin, but the monster had receded, for now, and Sarrin spread her empty hands in front of her. With a long sigh, the leader nodded. “No weapons.”
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