The Hallowed Cure, page 16
“Like what?”
“Jack and Lindsay saw it as a tool to make themselves powerful. I see it as a tool that can help all humanity, just the way my mother saw it, including those living outside Dios in the rest of the world. Life out there remains extremely hard. If we can help them, we should.”
“So when do we tell them panacea is aliens?” I asked. “That might not go over well.”
“We’re debating whether to release such news internally. As much as it seems like being truthful is the route to take, we must also consider how people might react. We should wait until the furor about giving the Mutes their own living space dies down before
announcing that we’ve made contact with extraterrestrial alien cells who altered our DNA at the genetic level.”
“Sure,” I agreed quietly. “That makes sense.”
Caitlyn turned to a console in Ethan’s lab. “Looks like we’re ready to get started.”
She punched several buttons, and then a projection of a Hallowed regeneration pod appeared, open. Mia reclined in it now, wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and she didn’t look at all afraid.
She almost looked excited.
I hoped this worked, and I hoped she did get to go swimming again. Who knows. If she got all four limbs regenerated, maybe she could finally teach me to swim.
When I wasn’t getting simultaneously screamed at by angry Dios citizens, Mutes upset I hadn’t stopped angry Dios citizens from screaming at them, and badgered by every news organization in Dios to explain how exactly we were going to make peace with a bunch of people who’d eaten us, I might find time to relax now and then. Have a beer with Lincoln and Prescott. Play with their kids.
Either way, I supposed it was better than getting shot at all the time.
[ 19 ]
UNLESS YOU PLAN TO SPEND ALL YOUR TIME
HA ING SEX INSTEAD
Three days after I accepted my new job as the chief punching bag for everyone who hated Mutes in the entirety of Dios, on a cold Dios morning, I kissed Mia’s forehead and slipped out of her bed above El Dorado. I padded to the window and opened it to the fire escape. I knew Hahna was out there—I could feel her, somehow—and I didn’t owe her a damn thing.
Sure, she’d given me her sword so I could cut up a submarine.
Yet she’d also almost killed Skye so many times, and we all now knew what a mistake that would have been. It was far past time for her to stop bugging me. I stepped out onto cold bars barefoot, in a T-shirt and boxers, and stared up at her.
Hahna smiled at me from the fire escape above. “Back together?”
I glared through the bars. “You know what, Hahna? Fuck you.”
She looked away and crouched effortlessly on the thin rail.
“That’s the spirit.”
“I may not have more than a couple of years left, but I’m not going to spend it drinking myself into a stupor or going out on some suicide mission because of my messed-up DNA. Mia and I saved Dios, not once, but twice. So we’re fraternizing, dammit. We earned that.”
“I saved Dios,” Hahna corrected with her damning smile. “Not once, but twice. But you and Sergeant Ashford did help, and you wielded Despair well. I’m actually quite proud of you, and you’ve both long retired your commissions.”
It was weird to hear Hahna say she was proud of me. It was weird that it actually felt sort of good. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I still looked up to her.
“So I wish you well in your coupling, and in your new job heading up Caitlyn’s Mute Resettlement Initiative,” Hahna said. “I wouldn’t wish such a task upon anyone.”
Who talked like that? Hahna Sato, I supposed. I leaned back against the cold brick wall. “Is there something you need?”
Hahna dropped onto the level beside me and held out her hand.
“I’d like my sword back.”
“That’s why you came?”
“Dios is changing,” Hahna said. “You may think Caitlyn Alexander has it well in hand, but you’d be wrong. Even with all you learned about the underworld of this city, in service to Jack, you barely scratched the surface of what’s bubbling up.”
I considered all I’d learned about the underworld of this city as I did Jack’s dirty deeds. Hahna was right. There was a whole lot of corruption and worse lurking beneath the surface, and without a steady hand like Jack’s to rein it in, it could get pretty chaotic.
“Jack’s gone. Lindsay’s gone. The city council knows Miss Alexander knows they poisoned the city, and she’s backed them into a very dangerous corner. Not to mention Miss Alexander’s plan to resettle a colony of Mutes here in Dios. That will cause riots.”
“Then why aren’t you happy?” I demanded. “You thrive on chaos.”
“I prevent chaos,” Hahna corrected. “Yet the reason I didn’t die with my family, when they all turned, was so I could save Dios from Mutes, not people. I no longer believe the Class Zero intends to replace humanity with itself, and with Miss Alexander and Mister Perez again in charge of Cloud Nine, and you working under them, I’m confident Dios won’t fall to a Mute invasion.”
“So?” I prompted.
“We’ve completed our mission, Sergeant Riven. We’ve done what we set out to do. And I, personally, have accomplished everything I expected of myself. So I’m done here.”
I still didn’t understand what Hahna was trying to tell me. “So you’re ... settling too?”
Hahna actually laughed, and for the first time, I noticed how tired my old commander looked. She had bags under her eyes. I’d never seen her look this tired. It was like she’d aged ten years in a day.
“I’ve spent too much of my life fighting to save humanity. I’d like to see some of what I fought for before I stop moving. I’ve already seen Dios, and while much of it disgusts me, there’s beauty here as well.” Hahna motioned at the window. “Like Miss Ashford. Like El Dorado.”
She really felt that way? “I thought you hated the place.”
“I simply never had time to pop in for some wings and a beer. Yet I’m leaving the city tomorrow. I don’t know what’s out there beyond the walls, beyond the sea, on the mainland, but I’m going to find out.
I want to see how the rest of this world is doing.”
“And kill people,” I reminded her. “If they cause trouble, you’re going to kill people.”
“Without an enemy to fight, I genuinely think I’ll go insane. Ever since panacea mutations forced me to murder my family over two years ago, I’ve felt ... restless. Saving others and testing myself against death is how I remain sane.”
She said that so calmly. Holy shit. She was absolutely not sane.
Yet at least she was ... not on my side, exactly. But not against me. All in all, we’d all be much safer with her gone from Dios.
Though the rest of the world was likely going to be in real trouble.
“Give me a second,” I told her. “I’ll get your sword.” I glanced at her as I headed back to the window. “Coming inside?”
Hahna smiled. “I’m comfortable out here.”
Thank God for that. I went inside and retrieved Despair from where I’d placed it. I didn’t tell Hahna I’d simply shoved her vaunted Hallowed weapon in Mia’s coat closet.
Yet before I walked back to Hahna, I held the sword one last time.
I even swung it. It felt balanced, good. Powerful. What if I kept it?
No. I wasn’t keeping it. I didn’t need it, because I was done fighting, finally, other than in boardrooms and on media talk shows in
the future. And Hahna, if she was going to go to the mainland and kick its ass, would need Despair a lot more than me.
I walked back through Mia’s apartment, stepped out through the window again, and handed Hahna her sword. She took it, smiled, and sheathed it across her back.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Only that I wish you to have a good life, Riven.”
That almost felt like a taunt. “You get I’m dead in seven years, right?”
“At least you know how much time you have,” Hahna added.
“Most don’t.”
She did make a good point, and from her, this wasn’t a taunt. If she wanted to taunt someone, she did it directly. This was genuine.
This was just Hahna being Hahna.
“Also,” she added, “when you have a moment, speak to Doctor Gambleswitch. I’ve agreed to allow him to take a full scan of Despair.
He suspects he can construct a similar weapon from what Hallowed gear we have remaining. So expect a sword of your own in a few months.”
Was she serious? She couldn’t be. “I suck with a sword, and I don’t need one.”
“Then start learning, because using Dismay any longer is out the question, and Miss Alexander is going to require a lot of protection over the next few years. Unless you plan to spend all your time having sex instead.” She glanced past me. “Is it really that fun?”
I glanced behind me, at Mia, still asleep. She really was glorious, and I’d be an idiot to give up seven more years with her. I’d take what I had left, like Amber had. I’d live.
When I turned back to Hahna, she was gone. Vanished like the wind. I cursed her name, her parents, and her entire goddamned lineage.
But I also knew she wasn’t coming back, and I was going to miss her, just a little bit.
As I crept back inside, Mia sat up. I realized then she’d been awake the entire time, since I rolled out of bed, and braced myself for another pep talk.
“You heard all that?” I asked.
Mia smirked. “It felt wrong to interrupt you. You were having such a nice moment.”
“Didn’t you want to say goodbye to Captain Sato?”
“I feel like we’ll be seeing her again, eventually.” Mia patted the bed beside her with the flesh and blood arm she now had, her real arm. “Now come back to bed, would you? I’m cold.”
The new arm had worked just as well as we’d both hoped. The rest of Mia’s new limbs were even now growing in Caitlyn’s lab, and they’d be ready for attachment in under a week. Mia would have all her limbs back again, and not metal ones.
Still, I rolled my eyes at yet another invitation. “Really?”
She arched an eyebrow. “You’re complaining?”
“No, just ... I mean, we’ve already had a lot of sex. I figured you’d be sexed out.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m done with you,” she said. “Now sit. I’ll shag you again in a moment. First, we need to talk, because you sound like you’re going morbid again.”
Maybe I was. Yet as I sat back down, Mia took my hand instead of immediately hopping on top of me. “You may die in seven years,”
she reminded me. “May, not will.”
So she’d heard my entire conversation with Hahna. I supposed that would kill the mood.
“Seven years is seven years where Caitlyn, Ethan, and every other smart person at Cloud Nine is searching for a way to cure you,”
Mia continued. “They didn’t find a cure for Jack, but he had far less time than you, and he wasn’t us. He wasn’t Hallowed. Given how receptive you’ve already proven to be to panacea, it seems like finding a cure for you will be far more straightforward. Just give them time.”
“So I have a chance,” I said, even though I didn’t believe it.
“Of course you have a chance,” Mia said. “You should have died years ago. How many times have we almost died since we met? Can you count them?”
I really couldn’t. I didn’t even try. It would bring back too many traumatic memories.
“Take me, for instance,” Mia said. “I was almost eaten by Mutes in the understructure. I was almost incinerated by Knox’s Inferno round. I fell off the Eiffel Tower. I’ve been bloodied by a car wreck, almost incinerated by an RPG, came fairly close to being entirely consumed in a Hallowed gear explosion, and was repeatedly shot, cut, microwaved, disarmed, and then drowned. Yet I’m still here, and in a few weeks, I’ll have all my limbs back. That’s downright miraculous, Grant.”
It really did sound insane when she added it all up like that. She shouldn’t be alive. Neither of us should be, yet we were. That really did sound like ... hope.
“I don’t want you to give up,” Mia said. “Not for me, but for you.
Have hope. Whether Caitlyn finds a cure for you in the next six years or not, I don’t want you living without hope. And no matter what happens to you, I will be fine. So stop worrying about me.”
I relaxed on the bed. I hugged her close. Maybe she was right. I wanted to believe she was, but regardless, I was going to try to believe her. Not for her, but for me.
No one in this world was guaranteed even one day of life, let alone seven full years of it. People died for stupid reasons all the time, and people also lived in cases where they shouldn’t have. So I really wasn’t any worse off than any other person out there, and in many ways, I was better.
I had Mia. I had Lincoln and Prescott, and Amber of all people. I even, once again, had the backing of the most deeply entrenched corporation in the city. The tiny bit of lingering guilt I’d carried every day since Skye sacrificed herself to save me was gone now, because I’d saved her.
I was the reason Skye was alive. Me. I’d also saved her parents, and I’d saved the whole goddamn city, again. So maybe I would live after all. Maybe Caitlyn would find a cure. A whole lot of things a whole lot stranger than that had already happened, and I didn’t want to live without hope.
So I’d fake it until I felt it, and when I felt it, I’d hold on to it until I had a cure or died. Either way, I was going to spend my last years living, not feeling sorry for myself. And who knew?
Once I got my own version of Despair, it might be fun to have my own laser sword.
[ 20 ]
OR ARE WE DONE O-EXISTING FOR THE DAY?
EIGHT MONTHS AFTER GRANT SPENT ALL HIS TIME HA ING SEX
I rose from the plush seat behind my gleaming metal desk and raised both hands to forestall an actual brawl. “Hold up. No one’s killing anyone today.”
“Tell that to him! ” Carl Bennett shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at his counterpart on the other side of the room. “One of his freaks just put two of mine in the hospital! Those Mutes are out of control, and it’s only a matter of time before one kills someone!”
The person Carl pointed his finger at, of course, was Michael Chen, a man that would have been entirely unremarkable had he not drunk some panacea-imbued alcohol and gone full Mute. Despite all of Bennett’s wild accusations, Chen still sat calmly in his seat, the segmented third arm poking out of the tailored hole in his clothing idly resting in the air. Chen’s four-fingered alien hand wasn’t snapping at the air like he was agitated, so at least he seemed calm.
Despite having a third limb and a taste for the inedible drek Cloud Nine Engineering produced in abundance these days, Michael Chen was one of the calmest people I’d ever worked with. That was one of many reasons the other Mutes had elected him to represent the contingent now working in Rocham’s fisheries, right alongside human workers. Caitlyn and others in the City Council believed that allowing humans and Mutes to work side by side on a daily basis would ease tensions.
In reality, the whole insane arrangement was an ammo crate waiting to cook off. Normal people would never have accepted Mutes
as co-workers before a bunch of the bastards spent a year eating everyone in the city. On days like today, I really wished I’d said no to Caitlyn eight months ago.
Still, at least I got my cozy office in Cloud Nine Engineering, down on floor twenty in the civilian section. The office was way too big for me and mostly empty, so I mostly used it for private meetings.
Huge glass windows overlooked the street below, and I spent a lot of my time just gazing down at traffic and people. I was amazed they still lived after how close we’d come to losing the city.
I offered Chen a visually obvious and stern glance, mainly in hopes it would prevent Bennett from doing something stupid. “What do you have to say about that, Mister Chen?”
“Mister Chen” was actually Michael when we conferred in private, no different than anyone else I worked with each day in Dios, but in front of Bennett, I figured it would be best to refer to Chen formally.
That way, I hoped, Bennett wouldn’t assume any favoritism was involved. Though after eight months dealing with inane bullshit, I actually liked our friendly Mutes better than most humans.
Chen opened his mouth and began clicking, speaking in the indecipherable Mute speech no one could actually understand—
except Cloud Nine engineers like Ethan Gambleswitch and Caitlyn Alexander. A small collar on Michael’s neck began flashing as he continued to click. A speaker spoke in a dull monotone. While Caitlyn had initially tried to add inflections, they’d always come out wrong.
“It is true that there was an altercation between one of our people and two humans after work concluded for the day,” Michael said in monotone, or rather ... the collar on his neck translated. “It took place off fishery grounds. It is also my understanding the humans instigated the conflict.”
“You’re full of it,” Bennett growled. “Your freak attacked two of my guys.”
The Mute hadn’t attacked first. Bennett was lying to my face, and it took a considerable amount of my self control not to toss him across the room. Making him fly would help my case. Instead, I looked to Bennett. “You said two of your people are in the hospital?”
“Both with broken legs,” Bennett said, glaring at me. “That monster snapped them like twigs.”
“That’s it?” I asked calmly.
Bennett stared for a moment as if I’d clicked instead of spoke. He really looked to be struggling to understand words. “That’s ... what?”
“That’s all that happened to them?” I asked. “A pair of broken legs?”
“They’ll be out of work for weeks!” Bennett protested.
“Remind me,” I said, pitching my voice down to a dangerously low notch. “What did I do back in the war?”
Bennett’s eyes flickered about as he mentally searched for possible traps in my very simple question. “You ... fought Mutes, sir.”
