She shrugged, flashing him the same simpleton-smile she had given him day after day for years, a smile that suddenly was very different. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”
The path Joyce led them on was so convoluted, Halud thought they were on the top floor of the compound, somewhere near where the tower jutted out, stretching above everything around it, but he wasn’t sure.
“Wait,” Amelia called, shouldering her way in front. She pressed her ear to the door Joyce was about to open, and held up her hand. “I’ll go through first.” Without waiting for a response, she opened the door and slipped through.
“What’s she doing?” Halud went to push through the door, but Joyce stopped him. “You know she’s not entirely stable, she’s been brainwashed, she might be running back to Hap right now. We have to follow her.”
“She’s a victim like the rest of them. I thought you would understand that better than anyone.”
They heard two thumps on the other side, and Amelia poked her head back through. “Okay.”
Halud followed Joyce, running past the two armed guards slumped on the ground.
Up another staircase, down a corridor. Down a staircase, another corridor. Up two stories, and up and up and up.
Joyce stopped. “This is the end of the service corridors. Beyond that door is the grand staircase that leads to our offices, Halud, and then the spiral stair to the Speakers’ offices.” She checked her little laz-pistol. “When we reach Hap’s office, we can’t hesitate, okay.” She looked directly at Halud. “He’s strong and he’s vicious. But if we catch him by surprise, we might have a chance.”
Halud nodded.
“There are guards on the other side,” said Amelia. “I’ll take care of them.”
“Oh.” Joyce handed her the laz-pistol, but Amelia pressed it back.
“No, you’ll need it for Hap. There’s a lot of guards. I can’t— I’ll lead them away, keep them distracted as long as I can.”
“No, Amelia, you don’t have to.”
“After all I did….” HHer gaze fell to the side. “Just don’t waste time.” Amelia grabbed the keycard Joyce held in her little hand, and pressed it to the panel, the door popping open. She lunged out, moving with her enhanced Augment speed, the flimsy hospital gown flapping around her legs.
Halud gaped as at least twenty elite guards descended down the stairwell, laz-bolts flying as Amelia dodged and led them away.
“Come on.” Joyce grabbed his arm.
He pulled after the soldiers disappearing down the corridor. “We have to help.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Joyce, her voice uncharacteristically hard. “We have to keep going.” She sprinted up the stairs, the laz-pistol held out in front of her, but the landing where her little desk sat was empty. She sprinted up the spiral stairs, right into the circular room with its five doors for each of the Speakers’ offices.
“Ready?” She nodded, not waiting for him to answer, and pushed the door open.
* * *
“What are you doing?” Gal shouted, lurching forward in his chair, but it was too late. The floor rumbled under them as the entire Central Square detonated.
The First Speaker laughed, a terrible, deep laughter. “The Gods have made their opinion clear, Galiant. No more Augments. They were too wild anyway, completely uncontrollable, unpredictable. We have our vaccine, and while it will take longer than I had hoped, we will have our army to do what my father never could! We will eradicate the Uruhu and claim Etar as the birthplace of humanity. A perfect world for a perfect civilization.”
“You’re cracked.” He fought the ropes, but what could he do? It seemed Hap had him.
Rayne met his gaze, her wide eyes reflecting his own fear. She seemed to know as well as he did that if Hap spun it that way, the folk would go along with it. They wouldn’t even question. That was the problem, it had been all along: blind faith in the Speakers and the Gods.
It was all happening again.
The door to Hap’s office opened, and in burst a short, pleasant looking woman. He blinked twice to be sure of what he was seeing: it was Hap’s receptionist. She held a laz-pistol in front of her with both hands. And behind her was the Poet.
Her sudden entry must have surprised Hap even more than Gal because he jolted upright, yelling, “Joyce?” Then he scoffed at her pistol. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes.” But she must have been out of practice because the shot she let off went wide.
Hap laughed. “You see, the Gods protect me!”
She let off another shot, but Hap was already moving, sprinting in her direction, and dodged the bolt easily. He grabbed the pistol, wrapping her two hands and the weapon in his fists. The laz-gun clattered to the floor, and he spun her violently, lifting her into the air.
“Joyce!” the Poet shouted, but he was too slow. Hap pushed him into the wall, hard enough to leave a dent and rattle the glowing blue orb beside him. Halud slumped to the floor.
“Joyce,” Hap growled, carrying her across the room while she struggled. “All these years, I didn’t suspect a thing.” He let out a cracked laugh, and dropped her behind Gal’s chair, tying her unceremoniously to its legs.
“You’re cracked, Hap,” Gal shouted, but the way the Poet was groaning and rolling around on the floor made him panic. “We can still fix this. We can work together. I never thought you were a bad person, just misguided.”
“I am guided by the Gods! And they have made their opinion clear by smiting down the Augments, the rebels, and all who opposed me.”
“The Gods didn’t do that, you did, Hap!” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Halud push up onto his knees and shake his head clear. If he could just distract Hap…. “But hey, it wasn’t your fault. It was your father’s.”
It hit the nerve Gal knew it would, and Hap leaned right into his face, spittle flying all over Gal. “Don’t speak ill of my father. He communed with the Gods, a direct descendant of Strength.”
“The bloodline is too weak. It’s been thousands of years, a hundred generations. How diluted are the genetics, Hap! You’re entirely human. And that’s okay. So am I. We make mistakes. We fix them.” Hap pushed away, and Gal bit his lip. Halud was staggering around on the far side of the room. Maybe he could get Joyce’s pistol and shoot Hap if Gal could just keep him from looking over. “I know he used to hit you!” he shouted.
Hap whipped his head back to Gal. “What did you say?”
“You thought I didn’t know, but I saw it, when we were at the summer cabin. He shouldn’t have done that. What kind of God hits his son? But it wasn’t your fault, Hap.”
Hap screamed in his face. “He hit me to make me strong!”
“No, Hap. He wasn’t a God, not even a Speaker. Just a mean, old man. But you don’t have to be the same. I was your friend, I know how much pain you were in, but you have a choice here. You don’t have to continue this cycle.”
“That’s enough,” Hap roared. He struck Gal across the face hard enough to send the chair flying backwards. Joyce screamed as Gal flipped over her, and the chair shattered.
Across the room, Halud staggered forward. “It’s over, Hap.”
Gal struggled, but the mess of shattered chair and restraints and Joyce held him prone on the ground.
“The camera is on, broadcasting,” said Halud. “The feed is being transmitted to every viewscreen under the stars. You might have killed the folk in the square, but there are more. And every man, woman, and soldier will see what you have done.”
Hap turned to Halud, and Gal thought they had him. But Hap let out a barking laugh. “The folk see me for what I am, a saviour! I speak the words of the Gods.” He lunged, grabbing Halud, and throwing him across the floor.
“Hap!” Halud cried out.
“Sometimes Strength is needed, Halud. You seem to have forgotten. He pointed to the mural painted on his office wall. “Sometimes a river of blood is needed for peace to prevail. War i
s great for the changes it brings. You said that, Halud. And I am the war.
“The folk see me, someone with Strength. I am only doing what is necessary to ensure the future of humanity, to follow the Path. And if I have to put down the corrupt Poet and his rag-tag bunch of criminals, then so be it!” He wrenched a piece of the splintered chair out from under Gal, and lurched towards Halud, the sharp piece raised for a killing blow.
With the piece no longer tangled to him, Gal wiggled out of the restraints and jumped to his feet. “You’re wrong, Hap! With that transmission, my engineer sent out the full database from General Nairu’s computer. Every experiment, every torture you authorized at Evangecore; everyone knows. There’s the proof that your father engineered the virus, released it in areas with lots of kids. The Red Fever, the war, the greatest loss of life in our history, it was all created by a human being. Not a god. A corrupt, evil, misguided human being. Do what you like to us here, the Speakers are dead. Everyone under the stars knows. The folk will rise, and the Speakers are dead.” Gal opened his coat, the circle with two chevrons displayed wide, right to the camera. “It’s already begun. It began years ago. You’re just too stubborn to see it. You’ve lost, Hap. John P, the rebels, the Truth has already won.”
Hap took a step back, his face suddenly pale as he stared at the symbol on Gal’s shirt. “It can’t be. How? All these years?”
“Because Hap, you underestimated me. You always underestimated me. You underestimated Halud. You underestimated Joyce. You underestimated the folk. Here, in your tower, you underestimated the strength of the people, the strength of one man. Not a God, not a Speaker, but a farm boy from the back woods of Indaer.
“I am John P. Kill me now, if you like, it doesn’t matter. The folk will always win. Strength, Fortitude, Knowledge, Prudence, and Faith will always win, but you’re none of those things. You’re nothing but a shell.”
TWENTY-ONE
TEARS BURNED AT THE CORNER of her eyes, and Sarrin clenched her fists, staring over the unrecognizable Central Square, now nothing but a mess of broken con-plas and bodies.
“Oh my God,” Kieran gasped, coming up beside her.
Through the thick cloud of dust, and the black tendrils wrapping around her vision, she could make out orderly troops working their way across the rubble. They stopped to pick up a figure, a humanoid figure, with mottled grey skin. Grant. Her breath caught in her throat.
The viewscreen flashed, a transmission coming through. It was Hap’s office, and the First Speaker grabbed Halud, throwing him across the room. Gal and Rayne lay tied on the floor.
For once, she didn’t fight the monster. Everything was lost. She's been given these terrible gifts for a reason, and the Speakers wouldn't see the end of the day. Save Halud, she told the monster, her vision completely black as she scaled the side of the tower like a wild animal. Kill the Speaker. Save Halud. Kill the Speaker. Save Halud.
Far below her, someone shouted, “Sarrin! Don’t lose yourself.”
But this was her. It was what she was built for, trained for. A monster. She would save her brother. And kill the Speaker. He would be omega, like all the folk in the Central Square. It was the only way.
Her body tensed. Years of training, flashed through her mind, her thoughts blending with the monster’s, finally coming together into one cohesive whole. This anger, she knew, this was her. She wasn’t lost to the monster, she was the monster.
What Hap had done to her, to all of them, wasn’t right, and he would pay. The ends justified the means. If one good thing could come of all her time at Evangecore and in the secret labs on Selousa, it was this.
It was what Gal had encouraged her to do, what the rebels wanted, and the Augments. The cameras were on, broadcasting what happened in the First Speaker's office to every bien under the stars. She would be the one to do it, to use his own weapon against him, to bring peace. It was all coming together, in this moment.
She lifted her bare fist, smashing it into the thick glassine of the First Speakers’ window. Like an animal, she beat and smashed until the unbreakable substance shattered. She had done it before, when she broke into the researchers viewing room in Evangecore, she would do it again.
She leapt in as the glassine shattered, landing ready. Through the darkened edges of her vision, she saw the room clearly before her: the painted mural with its rivers of blood, the dead animal trophies, Rayne tied to a chair, Halud and another woman on the floor, Gal standing. And Hap Lansford.
But as she took a step forward, a devastating despair opened up in the hollow of her chest. Her body was suddenly devoid of strength.
“Ah,” Hap smirked. “I thought you might be joining us.” He nodded at the four glowing blue orbs around the room.
“You did this,” she ground past her clenched jaw. She tried to stay upright, but the pulse dropped her to her knees.
“005478F, in the flesh,” said Hap, and she grimaced at the identification. “What an honour. Galiant here was just telling me what a monster I am, but I think the folk will disagree when they see an Augment, here to kill me, no doubt, dropped to her knees in my presence. The Gods speak through me, and they are good!”
She groaned, another wave of despair rolling over her, turning her insides to ice. Across the room, Hamid meet her gaze. "I'm sorry," he mouthed.
Hap Lansford retrieved the staff of Strength from over his doorway, and lugged back across the room, towering over her. The 600 pound staff had belonged to Hap's ancestor the when the Gods descended from the heavens to help humanity, and he wielded it over her now, ready to drop a crushing blow. "The Gods protect us all."
She nearly laughed out loud. Hap wasn't a God, he wasn't even descended from one. He was human just like the rest of them. And the heavy stick looked like it was going to topple him over.
She lurched wildly to her feet. Her heart thumped in her chest, the pain nearly unbearable as the bio-pulse weapons drained her. But she couldn't give up now, not when they were so close. "I have a name," she grunted through her clenched jaw. "It's Sarrin."
Hap, his eyes wide, swung his club, but she caught it in her hand.
"Evangecore taught me, trained me. You made me this." She pushed with all her might, sending him flying backwards. The staff landed on top of him, and he struggled out from under it.
She almost pitied him. He didn't know he wasn't a God. He didn't know he'd been a fool.
He didn't know they'd rescued hundreds of Augments. Or that the explosion in the square wouldn't staunch a rebellion, but fuel it.
He didn’t know that while the bio-energy pulse was powerful and designed specifically to affect her unique physiology, it was her who decided what she felt, what she allowed in. He didn’t know that she came from the inside, unaffected by the constant shifts of the outside.
He didn’t know what she was capable of.
She pushed out e way Roelle had taught her, sending the blue orbs toppling to the ground. Their pulse continued to glow, but she didn’t let it in.
She took a step forward, and then another, and she was running. She leapt through the air, pinning Hap Lansford, all 300-kilos of him under her forty. Willing him to feel the pain she felt through her hands where she held his soft, weak flesh.
She lifted her hand up, preparing the final blow. She could kill him, knew the exact spot, knew exactly how much pressure was needed to drive his cranium into the front of his cerebrum and break the base of his skull to lacerate his brain stem and stop his heart.
Knew exactly how to do it because he had ordered it to be taught it to her.
She stared into his fat face, watching as he struggled, his eyes wide with terror. He deserved to die.
And that was why she wouldn't kill him. Arm raised, she paused. She breathed out. Don’t lose yourself. This wasn’t her.
She let him go.
He rolled around on the floor before he could find his way to his knees, and then to his feet.
“Run.” She pointed to the door.
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When he was gone, Gal turned to her. “What did you do? You had him right in front of you. The cameras are rolling.”
She looked from him to the camera. “Then let them see that I won’t be what they made me. I’ve been trained to be a monster my entire life, but I won’t kill. The cycle of violence ends now.” She shrugged. “The folk will decide his fate. I won’t lose who I am because of what he’s done.”
Kieran stood by the window, smiling at her.
Halud came to her side, placing a warm hand on her arm just for a second. He turned to Gal. “Well, it looks like I picked the right ship after all, John P.”
“Yes, I think you did, Poet.” Gal smiled and bent to untie Rayne.
The short, pleasant-looking girl peered out the broken window. “They’re coming out into the square,” she said. “Folk from all over.”
“Shall we?” Halud gestured to the camera, inviting Gal to stand with him.
Gal nodded, jogging over. "What do we say, Poet? It's a real mess out there. Even John P doesn't have a plan for this."
Halud shrugged. "Have faith in the folk, they're stronger than we know."
"We'll have to tell them we need to leave this planet, it isn't ours. They won't be happy."
"The colonies?" Halud asked.
"All dead. And I won't ask Cordelia. She's done enough."
"Who's Cordelia?" Halud frowned. "Nevermind. We'll take to the stars, all of humanity in all of our starships. I have to believe that if we just keep looking, we'll find a home. A real one."
"Actually." Kieran stepped forward. "I think I know a place."
Gal and Halud both turned to him.
"Earth is out there, the real one we left millennia ago. Hoepe said it, all the zinc deficiency, the mineral imbalances, they happen because we don’t live on a planet we should. But we have a planet. One we forgot. One we didn’t take care of and had to leave. But I think it’s time. And I know how to get us there. Actually,” he grinned at Sarrin again, “you do.”
“What?” she frowned at him, suddenly aware of all the attention on her.
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