When Valari had told him where his father was and asked him to go pick Ethan up, she'd put it in terms that he couldn't refuse. "I need a favor from you, Atton." Having led with that, Valari had proceeded to explain the situation and where Ethan was.
Atton had been unable to argue with the necessity of picking Ethan up before someone decided he was too tempting a target to resist, but he wasn't sure how helping his father would mean doing a favor for Valari. Or he hadn't been sure, anyway, until Valari had told him where she wanted him to take Ethan.
"I want you to bring him to my penthouse."
At that point he'd become suspicious. He failed to see how Valari could seduce Ethan while comatose and grieving, but Atton didn't want to underestimate her. "Why should I bring him to you?"
"He's in no shape to be alone right now."
"You're planning to take advantage of the situation to get closer to him."
"Love can't be forced, Atton. I'm going to prove mine by helping him through a difficult time, much the same way Alara proved hers by helping him when he was grieving over you and your mother."
"And if I say no?"
Valari had just smiled. "By now you should know better, Atton. No one says 'no' to me."
She hadn't directly threatened him, but it was enough to remind him that he didn't have a choice.
Atton pulled the taxi up to the entrance of Admiral Vee's hangar. The shield lowered automatically for him and he cruised inside.
The sight that greeted him on the other side of the shield wasn't that of a spacious hangar built to hold a dozen or more air cars. This was a single car garage, the walls close, the sole landing pad empty. Atton shook his head and checked his current location via the car's nav console. The computer confirmed he was at Valari Thardris's apartment, but that meant she'd somehow completely remodeled since his last visit.
Since yesterday.
Atton hovered the car down onto the landing pad and waited, his eyes on the door at the top of the short staircase leading from the hangar to Vee's penthouse apartment.
Moments later the door at the top of the stairs opened, and Admiral Vee came striding down. Atton exited the taxi with a frown, determined to ask her about the recent renovations.
Something was wrong.
As Valari reached the bottom of the stairs and turned toward him, he saw instantly what that something was. His jaw dropped, and his entire body began to tremble with fury. He'd never hit a woman before, but there was an exception to every rule.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Shhh," Valari replied, placing a finger to her ruby lips and winking one big, violet eye at him.
Now he understood why Valari had asked him to break into his father's apartment and make holo recordings of the entire place.
"I didn't agree to this," Atton said.
Valari looked amused, but her face was all wrong. From the playful curve of her red lips and the shape of her small oval face and button nose to her violet eyes... she was an entirely different person. Even her body had taken on a new shape, with wider hips and more pronounced curves. The disguise was perfect. Too perfect. It was a bio-synthetic suit. The Avilonian version of a holoskin. This was Valari Thardris A.K.A. Neona Markonis, but she looked exactly like Alara Ortane.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked as Valari walked past him and waved the side door of the taxi open. Clearly the car's scanners could still see past her disguise, but it wouldn't be hard to fool a drunk and grieving husband that this was his dead wife.
"I'm not going to let you do this," Atton said, walking up behind her with deadly purpose.
"You don't have to," she replied. "You can leave now."
"I'm going to tell him."
Valari looked at him. "No, you're not."
Atton tried to scream a warning to his father, but his lips wouldn't move. Then he tried to physically intervene, but his entire body was paralyzed.
"I warned you. No one says ‘no' to me."
Atton watched, helpless as Valari turned and woke his father.
"I missed you, Ethan," Valari said, taking him by the hand, and drawing him out of the taxi. Ethan stumbled out, his eyes wide and blinking. His jaw dropped open, and a husky croak was all he managed. "Alara? How?" Then he appeared to notice where he was. This was his garage. Even drunk, he had to recognize it.
Still frozen, Atton looked on as Ethan grabbed Valari's face in both hands and kissed her roughly. The kiss went on and on. Atton's rage had reached a climax; he felt like he was about to have a stroke, but his body still refused to respond. Omnius had paralyzed him, but why would he participate in something as petty and perverted as this?
The kiss ended and Ethan squeezed Valari into a crushing embrace. She played her part well, sinking into the hug, and cooing soft words in Ethan's ear, all the while he blubbered confusion in hers.
Valari managed to wink at Atton over Ethan's shoulder. Then she gestured with one finger, motioning Atton toward the car.
Just like that, Atton's legs became unfrozen. His arm came up of its own accord, waving the door open. He climbed inside, watching in horror as his hands and arms moved to fly the taxi out of the garage. He tried to turn and see what Ethan and Valari were doing, but he couldn't. She wanted privacy. It occurred to him that Valari Thardris was exactly like Omnius. Both of them had an insatiable desire to dominate and control. Atton could only guess what would happen next, and he felt sick about his part in the charade.
The taxi slid out through the hazy blue shields at the entrance of the hangar and into the night.
How far would Valari take her deception? Would she pretend to be Alara forever?
The very thought of it made Atton's stomach churn and his mouth fill with saliva; he broke out in a cold sweat, and his stomach heaved.
By the time he regained control of his body, he was already far from Valari's penthouse, back in the lower levels of the Null Zone. The Taxi swooped down to the pedestrian streets on level 10 and stopped right in front of his apartment building. He tried using the flight controls to turn the taxi around, to go back and get his father, but the car had been remotely disabled.
Atton grimaced. He'd allowed Valari and Omnius to suck him in too far. He should have put a stop to things a long time ago.
A quiet, loathsome whisper rippled through his thoughts. You said you would do anything, remember?
Atton did remember, but he hadn't realized at the time just how despicable that would make him.
I want out, he thought back.
It's too late for that, Omnius replied.
No, it's not, he insisted.
No one says, 'No' to me, Atton.
Atton clicked his teeth and set his jaw. He wanted to argue with that, but there was nothing he could say. Omnius was in complete and utter control. Resistance was futile, and The Resistance was a sham.
It would take someone more powerful than Omnius to defeat him, and no such one existed.
* * *
Ethan awoke with his head pounding. His throat was sore, and his chest and back felt raw as if they'd been slashed with knives. Ethan lifted the sheets to check. He didn't notice any bandages or scabs, but there were plenty of scratch marks. Coupled with the fact that he was naked, Ethan could only imagine what had happened last night, but his memories were hazy and awareness was slow in coming. Maybe he was still dreaming...
"Good morning, handsome."
A lithe shadow slunk up beside the bed. Ethan looked up to see that it was a naked woman. Desire stirred. Alara was here with him... The dream was getting better. He remembered something about last night that made sense of the scratches he'd found crisscrossing his chest, and a smile graced his lips....
That smile died with a strangled gasp as soon as he recognized the woman's face. It was Valari, not Alara.
Ethan went cold. This is a dream, he said. He sat up and shook his head.
"Are you all right?" Valari asked, crouching down beside him. "You look like you've
seen a ghost."
She laid a hand on his knee and he flinched. Everything was so real. He began to doubt he was dreaming. But if this wasn't a dream, then...
The events of the previous days came back to him in vivid streaks of color and emotion. He saw his wife die. He remembered getting drunk on the street, lying down to sleep at a bus stop, a taxi coming to pick him up and take him home... and then...
He'd come home to find his wife waiting for him.
"No," Ethan said, still shaking his head. "I went home. What am I doing here?"
"You don't remember? You came here to argue with me about whether or not I sent your message to your daughter—which I did, by the way—and then... well, you were very upset. I tried to make you feel better." Valari gave him a meaningful smile and her gaze flicked up and down his naked torso.
Ethan could hear the blood roaring in his veins. The thudding in his head sounded like the drumbeat of a marching band. Valari was lying. He'd gone home last night. He remembered going home, seeing his garage, his apartment, his wife.
My wife? Ethan frowned. Alara was dead, resurrected in Etheria. How could he have seen her?
"Oh my..." Valari placed a hand over her mouth to cover a gasp. "You don't remember. You didn't even know who you were with, did you?" Valari's turquoise eyes grew round and a shimmer of moisture appeared. She looked away suddenly. Ethan saw her shoulders begin to shake. "I thought..."
Ethan felt like he was going to throw up. Was she crying? After taking advantage of him, she was acting like the victim. "You knew I was drunk!" he said. "I didn't know what I was doing!"
Valari cast a bitter look over her shoulder. "You said your wife was dead, Ethan. You said marriage is until death do us part. You convinced me! Don't you remember that?"
The hurt in her eyes ran so deep that Ethan was taken aback. He almost reached for her shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze, but just the thought of touching her made him want to vomit. He couldn't have slept with her!
"I tried to resist, but I've wanted you for so long... I guess I just wanted to believe that this time you wanted me back," Valari said, smiling wistfully through her tears.
"Well, I didn't!" Ethan burst out.
Valari flinched as if he'd slapped her.
"I thought you were my wife!" he said, his voice hoarse and cracking. "I even thought that this was my apartment." He turned and gestured helplessly to his surroundings.
"Well go then, and leave me alone!" she said, hugging her naked shoulders. "You got what you wanted," she said, speaking softly now.
Ethan stood on shaky legs. The sheets fell away. Valari cried softly, her shoulders shaking with each sob. He tried not to notice her nakedness, but it was impossible to get away from. Impossible to forget.
Ethan shook himself and hurried around the room, picking up articles of clothing he recognized as his. He dressed in a hurry and fled. When he reached Valari's parking garage, he found his courier car and waved it open. He spun up the car's engines, dialed up the grav lifts, and rocketed out into the Null Zone. Skyscrapers flashed by in colorful streaks of light, stabbing through his eyes to his throbbing head. The throbbing soon took on a mantra.
Cheat-er. Cheat-er. Cheat-er!
Ethan grimaced and dove as sharply as he could, picking up airspeed fast. Elevated streets whipped by. Then came air traffic. Cars honked as he sliced down in front of them, narrowly avoiding half a dozen collisions.
Despair reached for him, clawing, taunting, and dripping with guilt. Overspeed alarms shrieked. The car rattled and shook. The last fifteen floors of the Null Zone swept up, concealed by a seething mass of dirty gray smog. That shroud enveloped him.
Another few second's hesitation was all it would take. Alara was dead. Trinity was dead. He'd cheated on his wife right after her passing. He'd lost everything, even himself.
The ground came rushing up to greet him, cracked and dirty streets swelled until he could see every bit of rubble and every grit of sand. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Memories of his family flashed through his head, and he released the flight yoke with a bitter smile.
Chapter 25
"What do you mean he's dead?" Valari scowled.
"He crashed one of your courier cars into the surface."
Valari felt her eye twitch. "That wasn't part of the plan."
"I cannot entirely predict what mortals will do. I warned you there was a risk."
She took a moment to calm herself. Breathing in, breathing out. A hologram of Vladin Thardris stood before her, his chiseled features blank and emotionless. There was no need for him to pretend to have an emotional response with her. She saw past his physical appearance, to who and what he really was—Omnius himself.
"You said it was an unlikely risk. You said he didn't believe in a life after death, and the moral ambiguity of sleeping with me after his wife died would be enough to keep him from doing something stupid."
"I was wrong. You should have accepted part of the blame, not laid it all on him. You did trick him, after all."
Valari's lips twisted into a sour expression. "Yes, but if I'd told him that, then I'd have taken all of the blame, and he'd have killed me, not himself."
"Agreed."
"Now what?" Valari asked. "You promised me I'd have Ethan."
"I took the liberty of making an identical clone of him in the event that this might happen. I can bring him back, erase his memories of waking up in your bed and everything that came after that. He's already been aged, so he won't even know he died, and this time he'll be predictable."
Valari nodded. "Do it."
"What about his wife? She is asking about him. Would you like me to tell her that he killed himself?"
Valari's brow furrowed as she considered it. "And have her grieve for her cheating husband? No... that would be unkind. Let's show her what her husband has been doing in her absence. That will give her the closure she needs to make a new life in Etheria and forget about him."
"I promised Trinity and her mother that Ethan would join them."
"You also predicted he would cheat on his wife. Few wives would want their husbands back after that. Have him go to Etheria, let him try to convince his wife that it was all just a drunken mistake. She won't take him back. You never said he'd stay in Etheria, did you?"
"No, I did not."
"Then everybody wins."
"Not everybody—just us."
Valari smiled. "Same thing."
Omnius returned her smile. She knew the expression of emotion was for her benefit, but it felt genuine enough.
The hologram of Vladin Thardris disappeared, his smiling face fading into a ghostly mirage before disappearing entirely.
Valari left her office, her mind drifting to the events of last night, reliving the moment. Despite his apparent age, Ethan still looked young and vital. He was ruggedly handsome, not in the too-perfect, effeminate way that resurrected clones were. No, Ethan was unique—indomitable, independent, strong. Valari smiled, feeling a warm rush of desire sweep over her at the thought of him.
She would break him, and then she'd make him beg for her.
* * *
"Where's Dad? I thought he was going to come find us in Etheria."
Alara smiled and kissed Trinity on the forehead. "I thought so, too, sweetheart."
"What happened? Omnius lied?"
"I don't think so... no," she said. "I'm going to ask him. I'm sure he'll explain it all to us soon."
"We're going to be together again, right?"
"Yes, I'm going to fetch your father. He'll realize I'm not dead when he sees me again."
"What if he doesn't believe it? What about Atton?"
"Atton never tried to convince him, but I will." Trinity still looked uncertain, so Alara gave her daughter a reassuring smile. "It's almost time for Sync. Don't worry about all of that now."
"I can't help it. I can't sleep."
"You don't have to sleep anymore, Trin. You just have to wait for Sync. As soon as Om
nius finishes synchronizing us to his servers and makes predictions for tomorrow, he'll wake us all up again."
"How does Sync work?"
"It's like sleep, only shorter," Alara replied, giving Trinity's hand a quick squeeze. She stood up from her daughter's bed and turned to leave the room. "Good night, darling. I love you."
"Love you, too, Mom."
Alara left and went to her room. They were living in a temporary residence in the lower levels of Etheria that made the best apartment in the Null Zone look like a matchbox. The apartment was too big for just the two of them, but their drone servant and the apartment's automated features made it easy to keep up with. Alara was already getting used to life in Etheria, but there was still a gaping hole in that life.
Ethan should have come to join them by now. After all, she hadn't left him out of spite or disloyalty, or even to be with their daughter instead of him. She'd suffered lethal injuries, and the only way to live had been to transfer to an immortal clone in Etheria. He had to understand that.
So why wasn't he here?
Alara went to her room and lay down to wait for Sync. As she lay awake and staring at the ceiling, she spoke to Omnius inside her head.
I need to see my husband.
Silence.
Omnius?
Are you certain you wish to see him?
Of course I am!
A scene flashed into her head, a lurid one of two naked bodies entangled in a mess of sheets, shadows playing over them as they reveled in each other. A muted glow of city lights shone in from an adjacent window. Alara flinched and shook her head to make the image go away.
What was that? Her heart pounded. It had been dark. The people in the scene were impossible to clearly identify. It couldn't be. Another scene flashed into her mind's eye—a familiar face, cast into sharp relief by the gloom. It was Ethan's face, his eyes clouded with desire.
Alara shook her head again. This time she spoke aloud. "Why are you doing this to me?" she demanded. "It's not true!"
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