Defy the Worlds Page 8

  “What do you mean?” Abel can’t imagine what higher ransom he’s supposed to pay than his own life.

  “You’ll come home no sooner than two hours from now,” Mansfield says, in the oddly detached way that means he’s thinking as he talks. This plan is as new as the words he speaks. “You’ll find information, coded for you alone, on where and how to proceed next. Then you’ll meet us at that location within—what is it? Dear God. Within twenty hours, you come to me at the new location, or else you’ll force my hand.” He’s trying to shift the blame for Noemi’s ultimate fate onto Abel, a noxious psychological tactic, but there’s no time to call him on it. Mansfield continues, “Twenty hours, my boy. Something in you wants to come. Listen to that inner voice. Save Noemi. Save me.”

  The hologram blinks out, leaving Abel standing alone in the dark. For the first time, he understands how humans can be shocked into immobility, an animal instinct from deep within the limbic system, an instinct Abel had thought he didn’t have until now.

  With Noemi’s life on the line, Mansfield is changing the terms. He’s not happy about it. His creator is afraid—afraid of something besides his own death—and this unknown variable destroys all of Abel’s plans and calculations. He has no way of knowing how to rescue Noemi—

  —besides accepting Burton Mansfield’s bargain.

  9

  WHEN ABEL’S HOLOGRAM GOES DARK, NOEMI CHOKES back a sob. That’s the last time she’ll talk to him, or to anyone she’s ever cared about. It feels like her farewell to life itself.

  Noemi expects to die here, in Mansfield’s laboratory. She hopes to. That will mean Abel’s not only safe but doing everything he can to help Genesis. Her death is a small price to pay for that.

  But it’s one thing to know that. Another to hang in the prickly heat of a force field, to smell the ozone, with no action to take and no one to talk to and nothing to think about except the horror that’s coming.

  The basement door opens, and multiple feet thump on the stairs. Instantly Noemi can imagine the rescue—but the people coming downstairs aren’t police or soldiers or even Abel. It’s Mansfield, a couple of his mechs, and a red-haired woman whose face is thin and drawn.

  “You couldn’t convince them to wait?” Mansfield’s demanding of her as he leans on her arm. “Couldn’t get them to give us a couple more hours?”

  “I tried.” She bows her head, as though she can’t bear to disappoint him. “It was impossible. We have to go, now.”

  “Gillian—I’m so close—”

  “Abel will find us. We’ll make sure of it.”

  “What’s happening?” Noemi doesn’t expect an answer, but she’s not going to hang here like a painting on the wall. “Go where?”

  “Does it matter?” Gillian says, then nods toward the Tare mech. “Get Miss Vidal ready for transport.”

  Transport?

  As the Tare mech moves toward another syringe, Noemi sees Mansfield sit down in front of a holo-recording device. “We’ll have to encode this, you know,” he says to Gillian. “So nobody but Abel can get it. If we’re so close to being discovered that they’re pushing up our launch, the authorities could get here at any time.”

  Gillian nods and kneels by Mansfield’s side. Gently she says, “I’ll start the encryption now, Papa.”

  His daughter—Noemi thinks, but then the Tare’s hand seizes her arm, another needle pierces her flesh, and the world swirls away into darkness.

  Noemi’s asleep, but not asleep. Aware, but unaware. Everything shifts and gyrates around her as though she were tumbling over and over in a bubble in a waterfall.

  Abel appears before her again as he did in the hologram—shadowy, half-transparent, yet more real to her in this moment than anything else. Whenever she’d imagined seeing him again, she’d imagined it being so sweet. So joyful. Instead it’s only anguish and fear so intense they strip her nerves raw.

  She tries to think about the more distant past, about her journey with Abel through the stars. The haze from the drugs makes memory feel as real as experience, and soon she’s caught up in the exhilarating rush of it all—racing together through a lunar spaceport, staying up at night on Cray and talking about faith while they sat under twinkling string lights, pretending to be husband and wife on Stronghold, watching Casablanca, their one kiss in zero-G, and the moment they met, when Abel stopped firing at her and handed her his weapon instead.

  When they met, they tried to kill each other. Now they want to die for each other.

  I’m going to win, Noemi thinks blurrily. I’m going to be the one who dies. It has to be me.

  It has to.

  She awakens lying down, on what feels like a comfortable couch. The pinkness of her eyelids reveals that whatever space she’s in now is extremely bright. Only a few soft murmurs and the low hum of electronics are audible. Noemi lies very still, keeping her eyes shut, to maintain the illusion of unconsciousness as long as possible.

  Mansfield’s voice is reedy and ragged, his breathing labored. “You remembered to bring your mother’s box, didn’t you?”

  Gillian has a rich voice, deep for a woman, one that would sound more natural giving commands than deferring to her father. “Of course. I’d never forget that. You’re only nervous.”

  Mansfield: “Why wouldn’t I be? This is damned irregular business.”

  Gillian: “We always knew this could happen. We’re no more than a few holo messages from total chaos.”

  None of this makes any sense to Noemi yet, but she listens intently to every word. Soon, hopefully, she’ll have enough pieces to put the puzzle together.

  As the soporific fog of the drugs wears off, she notices more details of her new surroundings. The few footsteps she hears fall on soft carpet. Faint vibration suggests they’re in a vehicle, and since Gillian and Mansfield were talking about a “launch,” it’s probably a spaceship. Someone seems to have slipped clothing on over what she already wore; whatever it is feels soft against her skin. Yet the thought of lying there limply while somebody put clothes on her—it feels like almost as big a violation as if they’d taken them off her.

  It occurs to her that a mech was probably the one to clothe her, a mech that couldn’t have cared whether it was dressing a human or a turkey. That helps a little. But her heart can’t stop pounding in her chest. She’s always been able to stand strong against her fear, but it’s coming at her from so many directions at once.

  Genesis has a chance now, she reminds herself. Abel can find Ephraim if anyone can. Surely Remedy will help if it’s at all possible. She’s done as much as she could do to save her world. Will it be enough?

  At least it’s better than surrendering.

  Now if only she could be certain that Abel will save himself along with Genesis—

  “The captive has awakened,” says the Tare, who must be standing very close. “Eye movements suggest consciousness.”

  “Why are you pretending to sleep?” Mansfield calls. “Get up, girl. We need to have a talk with you.”

  Noemi opens her eyes and pushes herself up on her elbows. As she’d suspected, they’re aboard a spaceship, a luxurious personal cruiser. Everything—the gleaming polymer walls, long, low couches, and thick carpet—is white and plush, so spotless she doubts the ship’s ever been used before. The cruiser seems to have only one main chamber, set up as a kind of great room. A few mechs stand about in their plain gray coveralls, either serving humans or waiting to serve. On the far edge of the chamber, Mansfield reclines on a chaise the same snowy color as everything else, Gillian fussing at his side. They’ve changed into… evening wear? Which seems absurd. But Noemi sees Mansfield in a tuxedo and Gillian in a glittery black dress, and either the drugs have warped her brain or they’re going to a party.

  Then she realizes she’s wearing a silky, silvery jumpsuit. Apparently they’re all going to this party—whatever it is.

  “We should talk,” says Gillian. “The terms of your captivity have changed.”

&nbs
p; “You decided to make my kidnapping… more festive?”

  Mansfield chuckles, still acting like they’re all good friends deep down, but Gillian’s face remains starkly unmoved. “When we arrive at our destination, you’ll be introduced as one of our guests. You will behave like a guest and be treated like a guest, unless and until you attempt to inform anyone of your real reason for being present. It’s unlikely you’d be believed—but we can’t take the chance.”

  Gillian lifts her hand as though to show off her cuff bracelet. Most people would think it was only a bracelet and look no further. But Noemi sees that the thin metal lines and tubes on its surface aren’t only a pretty pattern; they’re a hint that this is working machinery.

  “I can activate the poison ampule within your body at any time,” Gillian says. “It would take less than a heartbeat. Even if you tried, you couldn’t kill me fast enough to save yourself.”

  Give me a chance, Noemi thinks but doesn’t say. Instead she sits up straighter, lifts her chin. “So what’s more important than your father’s next chance to murder Abel?”

  Mansfield scoffs when she says the word murder, but it makes no impact on Gillian’s almost eerie stillness. “My father’s work, and my own, represents the single greatest leap forward humankind has ever made. There’s no sacrifice too great for this. No price too high to pay.”

  “That’s easy to say when Abel and I are the ones paying,” Noemi shoots back, but the truth is that Gillian’s fixed stare unnerves her almost as badly as being trapped in the force field did. “I hate to tell you this, but your dad stealing someone else’s body isn’t that big a leap forward for anyone but him.”

  “This is about more than one man’s survival, even as great a man as my father.” Gillian turns toward him with a look of utter devotion—but not the kind usually shown by children to parents. It reminds Noemi more of worshippers before the Cross.

  She doesn’t miss the faint flash of exasperation on Mansfield’s face. He may have plenty of high-minded things to say about his work, but he doesn’t care that much about “humanity” or “the greater good.” Mansfield’s saving himself.

  But Gillian is after something bigger. Something she sees as almost holy, something she’s willing to do evil for. This woman is a zealot following the false god of her father’s ego.

  “Approaching Neptune,” reports the pilot, a King model hard at work at a small central console.

  Neptune? Noemi frowns. Humans neither live nor work anywhere near Neptune. If she remembers her exo-astronomy correctly, it’s hardly a place where anyone would take a tropical vacation, with average temperatures around negative two hundred degrees Celsius and winds that can reach twenty-four hundred kilometers per hour.

  The King adds, “Bringing us into Proteus orbit.” Mansfield simply waves him off.

  Proteus. That’s the largest of Neptune’s moons, and as far as Noemi knows, no better a destination than the planet itself.

  The only thing Proteus would be good for is as… a hiding place.

  Noemi gets to her feet and is grateful to feel steady again. Nobody stops her as she walks closer to the small viewscreen that hangs on one wall, more as a decoration than a guide for anyone. Neptune’s silver-blue surface now takes up nearly half the screen as they fly past it on their way to the moon looming larger every second.

  Narrowing her eyes, she picks out one strange detail on-screen—a kind of shadow that takes on greater detail.

  Then the magnification zooms in on that shadow, and she sees the ship.

  Its size astonishes her—larger than any other vessel she’s ever seen, even the resettlement carriers, even the most fearsome Damocles ships. The shape reminds her of an egg, if the sides were more sharply angled, the tip closer to a point. Purposeless running lights trace every decorative swoop along the surface, and there are dozens of those. Deep black lines grace every edge, along with tiles in terra-cotta red and lapis blue. The patterns suggest ancient Egyptian motifs. The ship is cradled within a spiny construction dock, like a jewel nestled in a metal setting.

  This ship would be difficult to land. It’s too enormous to dock at most ports; it expects, demands special accommodation. There’s no retrofitting it for future uses. How many millions of credits—no, billions, maybe even trillions—were spent just on decorating this thing? How can Earth’s leaders claim we’re the ones responsible for people starving and dying while their people are wasting resources on this?

  While Earth was plotting her world’s death, it was also building this extravagant, useless ship. Making itself a new toy.

  Oblivious to her wrath, Mansfield struggles to his feet and holds out one hand toward the image of the grand, golden ship. “Welcome to the Osiris.”

  Gillian murmurs, “Where we will be reborn.”

  By definition, a spacecraft can’t be a final destination. “Where is this thing taking us?”

  “Someplace almost no one else has ever been,” Mansfield says.

  Noemi wonders how sinful it would be to slap an old man if he was very, very evil and also incredibly irritating. “Thanks for that helpful answer. How’s Abel supposed to find you somewhere nobody’s ever gone?”

  Her taunt hits its mark. Mansfield pales as he sits back down on the low couch. The thought of missing his chance at immortality obviously shakes him. It’s Gillian who answers, and she’s talking to her father, not to Noemi. “Abel’s going to come to the ship. It won’t be long, you’ll see. He won’t let us leave without him. Even without the girl, Directive One will bring him to us in the end.”

  Mansfield’s eyes meet Noemi’s. They’re blue like Abel’s, cold like Abel’s could never be. “You’d better hope so, anyway. Because your fate is my fate, Miss Vidal.”

  “Then I hope I die,” Noemi says.

  “That can be arranged,” Gillian says. She touches Noemi for the first time, laying a hand on her arm. Her flesh is cool, and she grips the sore, tight spot where the ampule lies beneath the skin, waiting to kill Noemi on command.

  10

  ABEL’S NEXT MOVE MUST BE HIS MOST DANGEROUS one yet: returning home.

  His DNA mirrors Mansfield’s in many regards. This means he’s able to get through the security fence via a simple scan. No mechs or human sentries are in sight. As the ornate metal gate swings open to admit him, Abel looks up the hill toward the house silhouetted by the periwinkle of early dawn, its shape comforting and familiar. Each panel of the geodesic dome seems to glitter from the city lights all around.

  The house is currently uninhabited. He can tell that from the lack of energy use within, the lack of light, the lack of guard mechs rushing out to seize him. Abel had calculated that Mansfield’s instructions were genuine; his words were too peculiar, too rushed, for him to have been laying a trap. Mansfield’s traps would be more careful. Still, Abel’s relieved to have his calculations verified.

  As he walks closer, he sees signs of disrepair. Mansfield’s garden has become a brown, withered shadow of its former self, even though mechs had been taking care of it until recently. Enough time has passed for vines to begin reclaiming the carefully shaped hedges. Dust dulls the sheen of the lower panels. Weeds poke up between pathway stones; even on this dying planet, life fights for every inch.

  Mansfield left within the past few hours, in the physical sense. The disrepair tells Abel that Mansfield stopped thinking of this house as home some weeks back. Why?

  A few twigs have been blown onto the steps that lead down to Mansfield’s basement laboratory. Abel had planned to enter through this door, but he halts a meter short of it, unable to go farther. He keeps replaying the last time he was on those steps, running up and out and away, escaping with his life. The memory shakes him, and so he walks toward the front instead.

  Anyway, why shouldn’t he enter through the front door? He has the right.

  Mansfield always wanted me to call him Father, Abel thinks. If he were truly my father, I’d inherit a share of his estate. I hereby declare this
house my share.

  But walking through the front door is even worse, because the wreckage is almost complete.

  All those books are gone. The holographic fire has gone out, and nothing remains but an eerily blank wall. Even the grandfather clock has been whisked away, leaving a bright square on the carpet where the light never had a chance to fade the colors. Swiftly he checks Mansfield’s bedroom; this, too, is empty. Patterns of dust suggest the home’s contents were emptied out within the previous day or two, possibly within the past few hours. Nobody is present, either human or mech, and the silence is total. The house has been hollowed out, as if all the days Abel spent here were nothing but an illusion. He feels as if he cannot trust his own memory banks.

  Why bring me here for instructions and then hide the instructions? Abel thinks with what he’s learned to recognize as the human emotion of irritation. He welcomes the feeling; it’s an effective distraction from his fear for Noemi’s life.

  He frowns as he walks back into the living room and sees something left behind, a relatively small, brightly colored oil painting by Frida Kahlo, Tree of Hope, Keep Firm. Mansfield had acquired it when he bought the entire collection of a closing museum, and he displayed it prominently as a masterwork by the greatest surrealist of the twentieth century. However, Mansfield had little personal feeling for the painting. If anything, he disapproved of it: Some people throw everything they think and feel up on the wall for everyone to see, my boy. They don’t understand subtlety.

  But Abel doesn’t understand subtlety either. The direct emotions of the Kahlo appeal to him. In this picture, Kahlo had painted two self-portraits stranded on a parched and barren landscape, one self in day and one in night. One lies on a hospital gurney, face hidden, bandages askew to reveal the still-bleeding cuts in her side; the other sits upright, brilliant in a red dress with flowers in her hair, holding the brace Kahlo was forced to wear after her spinal injury. This one stares at the viewers, challenging them to understand.