Defy the Worlds Read online

  Reality restores itself instantaneously as the starfield before her shifts, showing an entirely new set of constellations. The planets shine brighter, and quickly she figures out which one is Earth. She stares at it and knows what she has to do.

  I have to find Remedy. I have to at least try.

  The decision feels like another moment of grace, one so beautiful she has to blink back tears.

  Then her sensors begin to shriek, and Noemi swears.

  Eight—no, ten fighter mechs, all lying in wait for her. They must’ve been here the whole time.

  She has been betrayed by what she thought was grace, and her folly scalds her like boiling oil.

  The Queens and Charlies swoop in, encased in the metal-framed suits that turn them into warrior and warship simultaneously. It’s as though she’s surrounded by birds of prey, their talons reaching for her from every side. Noemi fires immediately, picking off two of them before her sensors begin to go haywire. She jabs at the controls until she realizes she’s caught in a kind of electromagnetic net, one made up of mini–tractor beams emanating from mechs.

  That’s not standard fighter mech procedure. Not their standard weaponry. Have they evolved a new way of fighting, one Genesis will be powerless against?

  But that can’t be right, she thinks. If this was an Earth patrol, there would be even more mechs. A Damocles ship would be nearby. If they’re guarding the Gate this closely, where’s the Damocles? And why bother with just a few mechs when they’re going to invade any day now?

  Her comms speak in the voice of a Queen, scratchy through the speaker: “You have been reclaimed and will be returned.”

  “Returned?” Noemi talks to it more on instinct, out of pure bewilderment. “You mean to Genesis?”

  “To your owner,” it says. “You are the property of Burton Mansfield.”

  “Property? I’m no one’s property!”

  But the mechs don’t listen to her. They are Mansfield’s property and incapable of knowing why humans should be any different. Instead, one of the Queens swoops close, her metal exosuit carving a stark, angular silhouette against the surrounding stars. Clamps lock on to Noemi’s starfighter, jolting her so hard she bites her tongue. To her horror, a thin tube extends from the exosuit, spinning like a drill, to pierce her cockpit.

  “No—no no no—” She can’t imagine why mechs would want to kill her by robbing her of air instead of shooting her down, but why doesn’t matter, not with that thing coming closer by the second. Heart pounding, she scans her controls for something, anything that might help her, even though she knows there’s no way.

  The tube pierces the cockpit. Shards of transparent aluminum sparkle like snowflakes as they float freely around her. But the drilling doesn’t stop. Instead the tube spins closer and closer, and her horror intensifies as she realizes it’s going to go right through her helmet. Maybe through her skull.

  Noemi turns her head, even though it’s useless. She won’t save herself, but at least this way she won’t have to watch the thing drill right between her eyes.

  Her helmet shudders with the first impact. Now she can hear the high-pitched sound of it, getting closer millimeter by millimeter. Closing her eyes, Noemi begins to pray. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee—

  The tube breaks through the helmet, just shy of her left temple, then stops. She has no time to be relieved before greenish gas fills her helmet, her lungs, and dizziness sweeps everything away into the dark.

  6

  AT 1842 HOURS, ABEL ALLOWS HIMSELF TO BE PULLED away from the data to meet Harriet and Zayan at Montgolfier. He had understood Virginia when she said the furnishings and place settings at this restaurant were only energy fields, but this factual knowledge did not adequately prepare him for the oddness of the sight.

  “There you are!” Harriet waves cheerfully at Abel and Virginia from the corner where she and Zayan are, seemingly, hovering. “Come on, you’ve got to see this.”

  “No, they don’t. I wish I hadn’t.” Zayan’s nose wrinkles as he regards his meal, a generous bowl of pho—but since the “bowl” is an invisible energy field, the soup hangs in midair, where its brownish broth looks decidedly less appetizing. (At least, if Abel properly understands the usual causes of the human emotion disgust.) “Floating food is interesting for the first thirty seconds. Then it’s just gross.”

  “It’s not anybody else’s fault that you ordered badly.” Harriet sounds almost prim as she gestures at her “plate,” where an ample sandwich levitates. “I say, if you’re bored with a flying sandwich, you’re bored with life.”

  Virginia chortles as she takes her invisible seat next to Zayan. “Oh, you think the pho is bad? Just wait until I order the spaghetti.” Zayan’s eyes widen in dismay.

  Apparently to take mercy on Zayan’s stomach, Harriet changes the subject once Abel’s seated next to her. “So, did you sell the ‘big and sparkly’ yet?”

  “What’s big and sparkly?” Virginia catches Abel’s look and shrugs. “What? I’m easily distracted by shiny objects. It’s a failing.”

  Perhaps it would be better to be straightforward about the diamond. Abel gives Virginia a look that hopefully communicates the message We shouldn’t discuss it in depth at this time. To his crew members he simply says, “I sold it before we left Earth.”

  Zayan and Harriet share a look of dismay. “Why’d you lie about it?” Zayan says. The word lie sounds wrong to Abel’s ears, but he must acknowledge its justice. “If you don’t want to cut us in equally on the price… you know we never really expected that, right?”

  “You’re already the best Vagabond boss there is,” Harriet says. “We don’t take it for granted.”

  “You’ll receive equal thirds of the price,” Abel says. “But I wanted to pace out your payments to prevent another submersible incident.”

  Zayan hangs his head, sheepish, as Virginia says, “What submersible incident? If you guys got up to hijinks in a submarine, I want to hear every detail.”

  “It’s not that,” Harriet says. “The first time we received a big payout after we joined Abel’s crew, Mr. Thakur here got it into his head that he needed to rent a personal submersible to cruise the ghost reefs of the Indian Ocean. Which would’ve been expensive enough, even if he hadn’t promptly driven it straight into a reef and needed a tow to get out.”

  “The tow cost more than the sub.” Zayan sighs. “Okay, I got carried away. We’d just been so broke for so long! I wanted to do something special, really memorable—and I did. Just not the way I wanted to. Trust me, I’m never doing that again.”

  Trust me. That’s what Abel hasn’t done. He nods. “All right, Zayan. We’ll settle it on board. Please forgive the delay.”

  At this moment, the Montgolfier waiter—a Zebra model, designed for customer service—walks up to the table. Virginia tries to wave him off, saying, “Abel here hasn’t even glanced at the menu.”

  The Zebra ignores her and turns to Abel. “Professor Mansfield has a message for you.”

  As startled as Abel is, it takes him only three-tenths of a second to react. “If you’ve coded in your payment for the meals,” he says to Zayan and Harriet, “let’s go. Now.” Virginia has already hopped off her energy-field stool, wild-eyed with sudden fear. But Abel’s always known Mansfield could be tracking him. He’s had time to steel himself.

  Yet beneath his calm exterior, he cannot deny that he is afraid.

  The Zebra pays no attention to his attempt to leave. “The message is urgent.”

  “Walk away,” Abel commands the others. Probably he should ask them, be more polite, but Harriet and Zayan have figured out that this is a crisis, even if they can’t possibly understand it. Meanwhile, Virginia knows exactly how wrong this is. They fall in line as he walks away from the table, out the door of Montgolfier, and into the corridor of the vast underground shopping complex.

  In the corridor is a Yoke model, fit only for manual labor, mopping the floor. She doesn’t pause in
her work as she looks up at Abel. “Because of your reluctance to cooperate with Burton Mansfield’s plans, he has been forced to find another form of motivation.”

  “What, this one, too?” Virginia says.

  Abel quickens his pace. Another Yoke steps in front of them, and Abel doesn’t wait for her to speak, just pushes her to one side. He’d always hoped that when Mansfield made his move, Harriet and Zayan would be far away, safe from any harm. While he is willing to take risks with his own life, he cannot allow Mansfield to endanger his friends.

  The hangar. They have to get to the hangar, immediately. Such linked communication among several mechs is highly unusual, if not unprecedented. Whatever Mansfield has planned, he’s compromised any number of mechs on Cray and could have reprogrammed them to do absolutely anything. They could slaughter his crew and Virginia at a stroke. He is willing to defend them to the death—and since Mansfield has left him alive, that gives him a chance of saving them.

  He doesn’t think past “a chance.” He senses that he doesn’t want to calculate exact probabilities.

  As they hurry into the hangar, a Charlie mech standing sentry smiles as if he’s been expecting them. Abel tenses, preparing himself to fight, but the Charlie doesn’t make a move. Instead he says, “Noemi Vidal is in Burton Mansfield’s custody.”

  “Impossible,” Abel says. He believes it. Mansfield has great power, but not even he could send a kidnapping force to Genesis. This can only be a lie, flimsy and crude—

  —but Mansfield is a good liar, when he wishes to be. So why this?

  The Charlie continues, “Proof of life and captivity will be provided to you as soon as you contact Mansfield from any Earth communication station. You have forty-eight hours from now to present yourself at his home in London, where you will surrender without resistance. Once you are adequately secured, Miss Vidal will be released to safely return home.”

  “Why is Burton Mansfield after Abel?” Harriet whispers, but Virginia shushes her.

  The Charlie’s dark eyes are empty—soulless, Noemi would say—as he concludes, “Should you fail to surrender before the deadline, Noemi Vidal will die. The choice is yours.”

  Then the Charlie model straightens, a motion that indicates realigning subroutines. Within another second, he stands at attention as usual, unaware of the words he has just uttered.

  Abel takes one step backward; Zayan’s hand closes around his upper arm. Virginia’s the first to find her voice. “Hey, we don’t even know if that’s for real.”

  “It is,” Abel says. “He promised proof, and in such matters, Mansfield never bluffs.”

  Noemi is “in custody.” What does that mean? His imagination pictures her in a cell, a highly melodramatic and improbable circumstance, but he fixates on the idea anyway. Is she hungry? Is she scared, or cold?

  (She hates the idea of being alone in the cold. That’s what happened to her when her family was killed, when she lay in the snow for hours.)

  He can’t know the physical constraints of her captivity. But Noemi must know herself to be a prisoner.

  That means she’s scared.

  “Let’s go,” Abel says. “Virginia, I apologize for walking away from the project. I trust you’ll continue investigations on your own.”

  “Wait, he wants you to come to him and you’re just going to do it?” Virginia protests.

  “I have to act.” That’s the only answer Abel knows for certain.

  Once they’re walking toward the Persephone, Zayan mutters, “What the hell does this guy want with you, Abel?”

  To erase everything I’ve ever done or been. To erase my soul and claim my body as his own. Abel says only, “That remains between me and Burton Mansfield. I can only promise you that you won’t be put in any danger.”

  “Why would he go after Noemi?” Harriet plays with the ends of her braids, like she often does when she gets nervous. “Is he angry with you for some reason? Did you guys do something to him?”

  “Knowing the truth can only involve you in it,” Abel says, “and, as you can see, being involved in this is dangerous.”

  Only Virginia understands the whole story. Her face looks different when she’s not smiling—longer, thinner. “What exactly are you going to do?”

  Abel had finalized his plan before the Charlie finished talking. “We’ll take the Persephone back to Earth and dock in an unlicensed port.” The planet holds thousands of these, not all of them vectors of illegal behavior, but many are staffed by those willing to overlook certain protocols for a small bribe. “Zayan, Harriet, you’ll get payouts equivalent to six months’ pay. You should consider yourselves on leave until you hear from me, which may be some time in the future.”

  “Wait. You’re doing what Mansfield wants?” Zayan shakes his head. “No way. You can’t let that guy win.” Like most Vagabonds, Zayan and Harriet loathe Mansfield, creator of the mechs that perform most of the jobs that would otherwise employ, house, and feed countless millions of desperate, homeless humans.

  Harriet turns on Zayan. “He wouldn’t do that! You’re going to fight this, aren’t you, Abel? You don’t have to do it alone. Noemi’s our friend, too, and besides, we’re not going to let some antiquated egomaniac steal away the only decent boss we’ve ever had.”

  Abel puts one hand on each of their shoulders. The buzz of activity in the hangar seems to flow around them, oblivious to the drama taking place. “I appreciate your loyalty, and your friendship.” It’s still strange to him to have real friends, to have a life that Mansfield’s plans play no role in. To Mansfield it must be unfathomable. “But this is something I should do alone.”

  Zayan protests, “Stop being noble!”

  “I’m not being noble. I’m being practical. Putting you two at risk serves no purpose, except perhaps giving Mansfield other targets with which to threaten me.” Abel resumes walking, eyes straight ahead. Purpose steadies him; perhaps seeing that will steady Harriet and Zayan as well.

  But it’s Virginia who gets in Abel’s face. “Listen to me for a minute, all right? You say Mansfield definitely has Noemi; okay, I believe you. But we also know what kind of person Noemi is. The sacrifices she’s willing to make, and the ones she won’t. She wouldn’t want you to do this for her. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Abel says. “I do.”

  Virginia continues, “I know you care about her, Abel. But that doesn’t mean you have to die for her.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  That stops her, and she and the others exchange glances. The slowness of human brains must be agonizing at times.

  Taking pity, Abel explains, “Obviously I have to help Noemi if I can. If ultimately there’s no way to save her except by sacrificing my own life, I will.” He offered to do that for her once, volunteering to destroy the Genesis Gate.

  But he’s never stopped looking for another way.

  “Mansfield believes he can control my actions,” he adds. “So he presents me with a binary choice, never understanding that I would look for a third option.”

  The smile returns to Virginia’s face. “You’re not turning yourself in. You’re going to break Noemi out.” When he nods, she laughs out loud. “Now that’s the Abel I know.”

  “We’ll help,” Harriet promises, but he shakes his head.

  “If this can be done at all,” he tells her, “I can do it alone. If it can’t, you won’t be able to help me. You’ll only be other people I have to worry about.”

  She and Zayan share a troubled look. They don’t like Abel’s orders, but they’ll follow them. It would never occur to Mansfield that Abel might try to outwit his creator. Even less would the man imagine that Abel would have friends who’d help him. Abel feels as if he’s beaten Mansfield already. In one sense, he has.

  But he can take no comfort in that, not when Noemi’s forty-eight hours are already running out.

  7

  NOEMI AWAKENS IN THE WOMB.

  Or so it seems to her at fi
rst—she’s floating, surrounded by a blurriness that’s faintly tinted pink. In her daze, she wonders if reincarnation is true after all.

  As the drugs begin to fade, however, she becomes aware of bars around her, almost like a cage. The faint prickling on her skin starts feeling like a force field. Beyond the rosy haze, she can discern movement more clearly. Shadowy figures take on human forms. One steps closer, getting near enough that she’s able to make out a face.

  Recognition jolts her awake. “Mansfield.”

  “Welcome, Miss Vidal,” Mansfield wheezes. “It’s very good to meet you at last.”

  Burton Mansfield’s face looks pale even through the pinkish glow of the force field. He’s more frail than he was when she saw him on-screen six months ago, and she would’ve sworn that was impossible. A Tare model supports him on one side, her face revealing no acknowledgment that Noemi’s in the room. Mansfield wears a plush robe swaddled thickly around him. His gray hair is so wispy as to be almost nonexistent.

  But Noemi’s blurry mind can’t help but see, beneath all the wrinkles in his skin, the outlines of Abel’s features. This is what Abel might look like as an old man, if he could get old.

  How could someone so wicked create someone so good?

  “Forgive the limitations of my hospitality,” he says, gesturing vaguely about her. Noemi hangs suspended in a force field projected from a metal framework that forms the illusion of a cell—one she could step through easily, if she could only get to the ground, but she can’t. “You’re a strong young lady, and a trained soldier at that. Can’t treat you like the average houseguest… though you are very, very welcome.”

  She tries to remember how this happened. Her mind offers images of the drill piercing her helmet—then goes back to her journey through the Gate—and finally memory returns. The first terror she feels isn’t for herself, but for Genesis. “Did you—you infected us with Cobweb?”