THE MAN ALANIA had always thought of as cold and distant (but whom she was now apparently expected to trust completely) stood at the window, staring out at the vast panorama of the Heartland. He spoke without turning around as Alania led Danyl through the door. “So. What did Erl tell you?”
“That’s not how this works,” Alania said. “You tell us what you were going to tell us, and we’ll see if it matches up with what Erl said.” Erl had said nothing about her. As Danyl had pointed out, he hadn’t even known she existed—or at least he’d claimed he hadn’t. But Beruthi—Prime—had. From the very beginning, Beruthi had.
“Very well.” Beruthi turned. “Let’s go back into the other room. It’s more comfortable.”
“Let’s stay here,” Alania said. It was silly, but she took perverse pleasure in not doing anything Beruthi told her to do. He’s not my guardian anymore. He never was. He was always something else.
Beruthi sighed. “Have it your way.” He turned to them, the light from the window casting one side of his thin, tanned face into shadow. “You are—both of you—something Kranz dubbed the Cityborn. You are also brother and sister.”
So it’s true. She glanced at Danyl, who gave her a small smile. We’re family. She looked back at Beruthi. “Who were our parents?”
“Your father,” Beruthi said, “is Staydmore Kranz.”
“No!” The word burst out of her in revulsion.
“I’m afraid so.”
“And our mother?” Danyl asked. From the tightness of his voice, Alania could tell he didn’t like Beruthi’s revelation any more than she did.
Beruthi’s gaze didn’t waver. “The Captain.”
Alania’s mouth fell open. Danyl gasped, then burst out, “That’s impossible! The Captain has to have been dead for centuries. Erl told me she’s just a mythical figurehead the Officers use to prop up their rule.”
“Erl told you what you needed to believe,” Beruthi said. “But he knows the truth, although he is one of the few who does, even among the Free Citizens. Only I know everything about the Cityborn, the City . . . and Staydmore Kranz.” He paused. “You both look a little pale. Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?”
Alania folded her arms. “We’re fine,” she said tightly. “Go on. I’m dying to hear how we can possibly be children of a myth . . . and a monster.”
“The Captain is not a myth,” Beruthi said. Alania noted he didn’t deny that Kranz was a monster. “She still lives, and her continued life is vital to both the operation and control of the City.”
“She’s actually giving orders?” Danyl put in.
“Nothing so simple,” Beruthi said. “She has no political control. Kranz does what he wants, as the Kranz dynasty has since First Officer Thomas Kranz seized control at the founding of the City.”
“What?” Alania had never heard that.
“There’s more,” Beruthi said. “Staydmore Kranz is not really Staydmore Kranz. He’s a clone, body and mind, of Thomas Kranz.”
“A clone!” Alania blinked. “But . . . cloning technology doesn’t exist anymore. It was used to rapidly multiply livestock and crops right after the Awakening, but then it was outlawed. The equipment was destroyed.”
“You learned your lessons well,” Beruthi said. A small smile flickered across his face. “Your adventure on Fifth focused your mind, as I intended.” The smile vanished. “But in truth, one cloning unit has remained operational—one that is used every generation to create the replacement for the current First Officer.”
“You said a clone, body and mind,” Danyl said sharply. “Erl made sure I learned my lessons well, too. Cloning produces a genetic copy, an identical twin. It doesn’t copy the mind. How could it?”
“It can’t,” Beruthi agreed. “But cloning is not the only ancient and outlawed technology at work here. The other is one you will not have read about, because it has always been kept secret: nanobots.”
Alania cocked her head to one side. “Nano means microscopic. Microscopic robots?”
Beruthi inclined his head. Alania glanced at Danyl, who looked as bewildered as she felt. She turned to Beruthi. “What do they do?”
“There are a lot of things they could do, some of them quite destructive,” Beruthi said. “But the ones I’m speaking of are injected into human beings.”
“What?” Alania said, horrified. “Robots inside a person?”
“Yes,” Beruthi said. “They can protect that person from disease, speed the healing of injuries, extend life . . . and some of them, some very special ones, can go to work inside the brain, rewriting memories, altering personalities. Nanobots, in other words, are a way to program a human being just like you would program a robot.”
“And Kranz has these things inside him?” Danyl said.
Beruthi nodded. “He does. And Thomas Kranz, the original Kranz, carried nanobots of his own: nanobots that recorded selected memories and elements of his mind. Thomas injected a colony of his nanobots into his clone when the clone was an infant. During childhood and adolescence, the nanobots remained only partially active, providing some physical protection but not affecting the clone’s mind. When he was old enough, his nanobots were fully activated. The already extant physical protection was further enhanced, but more importantly, the nanobots rewrote the clone’s brain. Thomas Kranz’s memories and motivations have been handed down from clone to clone in that fashion ever since. Our First Officer Kranz, the seventh successive clone of Thomas Kranz, doesn’t just know the truth about the founding of the City . . . he remembers it. Or at least he remembers what Thomas Kranz wanted him to remember.”
Alania drew in a deep breath. “That’s . . . mind-boggling.”
“Literally,” Beruthi said.
“But all of this must be Kranz’s deepest, darkest secret,” Danyl said sharply. “How do you know about it?”
“Because of my own family history,” Beruthi said. “Since the Awakening, the Beruthis have had a monopoly on the construction of high-level robotic technology. Among the items my factory manufactures are special devices for both the maintenance of the Kranz nanobots—something which must be done every few months—and their activation. Not that my ancestors, who did not inherit the memories of the first Beruthi, knew what those devices were for. The manufacturing process is entirely automated and takes place in a sealed room solely on the First Officer’s orders.”
“But you found out,” Alania said.
Beruthi nodded. “Yes. Because nothing lasts forever. The Science Officer is responsible for injecting and activating the nanobots in each Kranz clone when the time is right. Another secret duty handed down from generation to generation—the City seems to be rife with such things. The nanobots are self-assembling: a few are withdrawn from the blood of the progenitor clone and provided with a ‘stew’ of raw materials, allowing them to replicate. But as Science Officer Prentis prepared the replicated nanobots for injection into Kranz’s clone, Falkin, she found that an unacceptable number of them were inert—they had been assembled incorrectly. Others showed signs of less fatal faults. She began to wonder what state Kranz’s nanobots were in. Rather bravely, she broached the subject with Kranz, who allowed her to test his nanobots’ programming by comparing his recollection of certain events against accounts left by previous First Officers. She found that our Kranz has both missing memories and false memories, an indication that this problem has been growing generation by generation. How it has affected Kranz, we can’t be certain, but we do know how the copies of his nanobots affected his clone.”
“Falkin,” Alania said. “The one who died in an aircar crash.”
Beruthi nodded.
“I saw that crash!” Danyl said. “I was in the Last Chance Market. The aircar flew straight into the ground.”
“It was suicide,” Beruthi said. “When Falkin’s nanobots were activated, they rewrote his brain, as they had for every Kranz clone before him—but this time the result was utter paranoia, to the point where he saw death as his only escape.”
“But if he was that paranoid, and Kranz’s nanobots are also faulty . . .” Alania said slowly.
“Then Kranz could be tending toward paranoia himself,” Beruthi finished. “Which is one reason his rule must be overthrown.”
“Why did Prentis tell you all this?” Danyl demanded.
Beruthi raised an eyebrow. “You sound a little paranoid yourself.”
“I think I’ve earned it,” Danyl growled, and Alania couldn’t disagree.
“Prentis didn’t tell me this,” Beruthi said. “I don’t think she knows that I know. Kranz himself came to me and told me about her concerns and . . . several other things, including the truth about what is manufactured in that secret space in my factory.”
“Why would he trust you with that?” Alania heard the anger in her voice but didn’t care. Her patience was wearing thin. “And what has any of this to do with us? Or with the Captain? You said she was our mother, but you haven’t explained how that’s even possible!”
“Kranz chose to trust me because he was—he is—desperate,” Beruthi said quietly. “For two reasons.” He turned and looked out over the Heartland again. The setting sun had almost reached the peaks of the western Iron Ring, and far, far away, the City glinted gold, like a nugget of precious metal in the Heartland’s green fields. “The first reason was very personal. Falkin was the only viable embryo created by the aging cloning equipment, and he was the last that will ever be created. Like so much else in the City, that cloning unit is now junk, and we no longer have the knowledge, tools, or materials to repair it. Even before Falkin’s nanobot activation failed so spectacularly, Kranz knew the Kranz line was coming to an end.”
“And the second reason?” Alania asked.
Beruthi faced them again. “The second reason is that the Captain is dying.”
“You still haven’t explained how she can even be alive,” Danyl said.
“Technology, of course,” Beruthi said impatiently. “Technology from the founding of the City that we could not replicate today but that continues to function. Including, of course, nanobots: her body is swarming with them.” He spread his hands. “But even founding-era technology has its limitations, and those limitations have now been reached. Yes, the Captain is still alive . . . but she won’t be much longer.”
“Most people already think she’s dead,” Danyl said. “How could it matter if she died for real?”
“I’ll get to that,” Beruthi said. “For the moment, just accept that it would be a very bad thing if the Captain died . . . bad for everyone. There must be a Captain, and therefore there must be a replacement Captain. And because of . . . what the Captain does, that replacement must carry certain genetic tags.
“The failure of the cloning unit not only meant no more Kranzes could be produced, it meant no clone of the Captain could be produced. But in his desperation, Kranz saw an opportunity: an opportunity to combine the special qualities of the Captain with the Kranzes’ ancient memories and sense of duty to renew the City and Heartland. To make it happen, he needed help—my help. And so, shortly after Falkin’s birth, almost four years before the two of you were born, he told me of his plan to create children who would be heirs of both the Captain and the First Officer. He called them the Cityborn, conceived in vitro by the union of the Captain’s preserved eggs and his donated sperm.”
Alania shuddered. “Ew.” Learning that she was Kranz’s biological daughter was the most horrifying thing that had happened to her in two horrifying days.
Beruthi smiled a little ruefully. “Yes. But remember, none of us can choose our parents. My own father . . . was not exactly a wonderful human being.” He shook his head. “Never mind. One of these Cityborn, Kranz said, would ascend to the Captaincy once fully mature. All of them—at least, any who had the necessary genetic tags—had to be protected until then so that there would be . . . spares.”
“By you?” Alania said. “Is that why you were my ‘guardian’?”
“Partly,” Beruthi said. “But your true protection, you have had since birth.” He glanced at Danyl. “Both of you.”
Alania remembered Erl’s recorded words: While I have watched over you carefully your whole life, even when you were not aware of it, you have had other protection, too: powerful protection. You have been hurt many times while living in the Middens, but your life has never been in danger.
Danyl must have been remembering that, too. “Some protection,” he said. “Considering how many scars I’ve got.”
“Yes, you’ve been hurt, but you’ve always healed quickly and without infection,” Beruthi said. “Alania, living a much more sheltered life, would have been less aware of it, but it’s the same for both of you. Alania, I see you’ve suffered minor wounds since I saw you at your birthday party, but they’re already fully healed.”
Alania’s hand went to her forehead. It was true—all that remained of the cut there and the one on her cheek was a slight tenderness. The skin was smooth, and the last synthiskin patch—the one Chrima had put on her—was gone; she didn’t even know when it had fallen off. She had a sudden, horrible feeling she knew where this was going, and an instant later, Beruthi confirmed it.
“When you were born,” he said, “each of you was injected with your own colony of nanobots. But not drawn from Kranz. Yours come from—”
“The Captain,” Alania breathed.
“The Captain,” Beruthi said.
Out the window, over Beruthi’s shoulder, Alania saw a guard robot roll past. The thought that her own bloodstream contained robots . . . she swallowed. Maybe finding out she was Kranz’s daughter wasn’t the most horrible thing to happen to her in the past two days.
“They’re not fully activated yet,” Beruthi went on, “but they are still capable of protecting you from infection, autoimmune diseases, and cancer, as well as reducing bleeding and rebuilding nerves and connective tissue in the event of an injury.” He spread his hands. “They would not have protected you from, say, brain-destroying head trauma or disembowelment, but fortunately the risk of such things is low, at least on Twelfth Tier.” He glanced at Danyl. “Somewhat higher in the Middens.”
“Somewhat,” Danyl said quietly.
“Why weren’t they fully activated?” Alania demanded.
“Because your bodies were still developing. If fully activated, the nanobots would have greatly slowed that—you’d both still be prepubescent. Erl did increase the effectiveness of yours temporarily a couple of times, Danyl, when you managed to get yourself seriously injured. And both of you, of course, have had your nanobots carefully monitored and tuned as required, as your bodies changed.”
“Tuned?” Danyl frowned. Then his eyes widened. “Oh. The docbot!”
Beruthi nodded. “An archaic model, should anyone ever see it who shouldn’t, but heavily modified.” He glanced at Alania. “It was far easier in Alania’s case, since she lived in my house and underwent regular medical checkups.”
Alania looked at her hands. Robots. Inside me. She felt violated all over again, as she had when she’d discovered the cameras in her room. The ones Beruthi insisted had not been his idea, but by order of First Officer Kranz . . . her father.
Not that that made her feel any better.
“And what part of all this required you to be so cold and distant?” she demanded. “Yes, I lived in your house. But you may as well have been a robot yourself for all the warmth you showed me.” She felt alarmingly close to tears. “I kept wanting that, you know. As a little girl, at all those birthday parties, I’d see other girls’ families, other girls’ parents. I wanted a daddy like the ones my friends had, and instead I got you: an Officer. Always an Officer. Never a human. Never a father . . . or even a father figure.”
Beruthi looked down, rubbing the ring finger of his left hand. “I’m so sorry about that, Alania,” he said softly. “Kranz gave me strict orders not to get too close to you. He didn’t want anything to interfere with his plans, wanted me to be willing to hand you over to him when the time came. You don’t know how many times I wanted to pick you up when you were little, cuddle you, read to you, hold you tight . . . but I couldn’t. I couldn’t jeopardize everything that way. Erl could, with Danyl, and I envied him that, too.”
Alania’s throat felt tight. She wanted both to believe Beruthi and to scream at him, call him a liar, because it was almost easier to think that he had never wanted to give her love and affection than to think he had wanted to but hadn’t because he was following orders. In the end, she said nothing.
“What happens when these nanobots are fully activated?” Danyl asked.
“First,” Beruthi said, “they will work much more aggressively to prevent harm to your body.”
“And second?”
“Second, the Captain’s nanobots will allow you to control most of your bodily functions consciously.” He looked from Alania to Danyl and back again. “They have to give you that ability because it is the combination of nanobots and unique genetic characteristics that allows the Captain to become the City.”
“Become . . .” Alania blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“Danyl asked if the Captain is giving orders. She’s not, in the traditional sense . . . but in another way, she is. The nanobots and the genetic modifications allow the Captain to interface with the City as if it were her own body.
“In essence, the City is a living organism with the Captain as its brain and nervous system. She can control its power and water and ventilation, maintenance robots, everything that is plugged into the City’s computer network, merely by thought. Or without thought—as her brain regulates her body’s functions, it also regulates the City’s.”
“But the City is falling apart,” Danyl said.
“Because the Captain is dying. After all these centuries. Which is why she needs an heir.” He looked from one to the other of them. “The Cityborn.”
“Why are there two of us, then?” Danyl demanded. “Why me in the Middens and Alania on Twelfth Tier? Surely there can be only one heir to the Captain.”
“There can,” Beruthi said. “And our plan has always been that it would be you, Danyl.”
Alania blinked at him. “But then why . . .”
“Your purpose was to keep Kranz happy. As long as he had you, and you seemed safely tucked away, he wouldn’t be keeping an eye out for the mysteriously vanished Danyl. But we never intended for you to become Captain. In fact, four years ago, after his clone died, I had to talk Kranz out of making you Captain right away.”
“I overheard part of that conversation,” Alania said, and she had the satisfaction of seeing Beruthi’s eyes widen in surprise, though he schooled his expression again quickly before he continued.
“Fortunately, I had the perfect excuse for why that couldn’t be done—perfect, because it happened to be true. I reminded him of what I just told you: that your brain and body were still not sufficiently developed. I promised Kranz I would keep you safe until you turned twenty, and then he could have you. Knowing he would insist you be sent to him the day after your birthday, I made plans to have you kidnapped before you could get to Quarters Kranz.” He grimaced. “And what a fuckup that turned out to be.”
Alania looked at him, and a gaping void opened inside her as a dark fact she had pushed deep down in her thoughts came bobbing back to the surface. “What did you intend to do to me after you kidnapped me to keep me out of Kranz’s clutches?” she asked softly. “The same thing Yvelle did to the third baby who tested positive for the Captain’s genes?”
Beruthi shook his head violently. “No! Alania, you wouldn’t have been harmed. If the kidnapping had gone as planned—if those extra Provosts hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time—you would simply have vanished. I would have smuggled you out of the City, and you’d have lived here, safely tucked away. As Kranz poured all his efforts into finding you, we—the Free—would have taken Danyl to the Thirteenth Tier, installed him as Captain, and seized control of the City. And then you would have been free to return to your old home . . . our home . . . on Twelfth. Or go wherever else you wished.”
“So why did that baby have to die?” Alania demanded. “Why did you make Yvelle do that?”
Beruthi set his jaw. “A third Cityborn was too difficult to deal with. I identified you as Cityborn long before Yvelle arrived and had one of the caregiver robots remove you from the ward until Yvelle had come and gone so that Kranz would have one Cityborn to focus his attention on while we raised our Cityborn in secret. Yvelle’s orders were to take the first baby she found who tested positive to Erl. Any who did not test positive, she was to leave alone. But any that did . . . had to be eliminated.” His met Alania’s eyes steadily. “This is a revolution, Alania. There are always casualties in revolutions.”
“How can you be so callous?” For the first time, Alania was glad her guardian had never shown her affection, because what she was learning about him now would have been devastating if she had ever begun to think of him as her father.
“There’s callousness enough on Kranz’s side. We must be as hard as he is if we are to defeat him. Those babies who didn’t have the genetic tags, the ones I told Yvelle to leave alone? Kranz had them all killed.”
Alania gasped. Our brothers and sisters . . .
“There’s something I still don’t understand,” Danyl said. “You said Kranz wants a Captain who is also an heir of the Kranzes. But the only nanobots we carry are the Captain’s—we don’t carry the nanobots that bear Kranz’s memories. So how . . . ?”
“That’s also where I came in,” Beruthi said. For some reason, he looked only at Alania as he explained. “Once Kranz gave me access to the secret manufactory for the nanobot maintenance and programming equipment, I learned how to modify the Captain’s nanobots—far less degraded than Kranz’s—to accept programming from the Kranz ones. Kranz’s plan was for me to turn the Captain’s nanobots, over time, into modified versions of his own. That way they would do everything for the Cityborn candidate that the Captain’s nanobots do but also rewrite the Cityborn’s mind with the memories of Thomas Kranz.”
Alania thought she might throw up. “So when my nanobots were being ‘tuned’ during those regular checkups, when I was lying in the docbot . . .”
“You were being prepared to be exactly what Kranz wants: a copy of himself with the power of the Captain,” Beruthi said. “Which is why we had to make certain you never made it to his Quarters.”
“And me?” Danyl demanded.
Beruthi looked at him at last. “Your nanobots were not programmed with Thomas Kranz’s memories. When you become Captain, you will be free to act in the best interest of the people of the City rather than Kranz and his Officers.”
“You sound awfully certain,” Alania said. “As certain as you were that you could safely kidnap me off the streets of Twelfth Tier before I got to Quarters Kranz. And look how that turned out.” As the shock and horror of what they’d been told fell away, fury boiled up to take its place. “You expect us to trust you. You expect us to leap at the chance to help the Free. But answer me this: do other people join you of their own free will?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Knowing the risks?”
“Of course. They know what happens on Tenth as well as anyone.”
“So they join freely. But we didn’t. We’re nothing but pawns to you.” She took a step toward him. “That baby that Yvelle killed was one of us, a Cityborn, our sister. Did she volunteer, knowing the risks? Of course not. She didn’t know anything. She was our sister, and you had her killed without remorse. And then Kranz killed the ones who were left, also our brothers and sisters, babies you could have rescued.” The words rushed out of her, borne on the hot wind of her anger. “So why should I believe you when you say you felt affection for me? Why should I believe you when you say you would have simply hidden me away somewhere and not killed me? Why should I believe anything you say? And why should I help the kind of people who could order the murder of a baby to take control of the City?”
Beruthi looked almost shocked. “Alania, we’re not . . .”
“What?” Alania said. “As bad as Kranz? You could have fooled me.” She took another step toward him, eyes locked on his face. “It’s not just that baby, either. How many River People died yesterday? Except for Yvelle, they didn’t volunteer or know the risks. They died because Erl—you, ultimately—sent us to them. You’ve made Danyl and me accessories to your murders!” Her anger swelled so much then that it choked her to silence at last.
Beruthi took a deep breath, straightened his back, and met her gaze squarely. “I did what I thought was best, Alania. I did it because it seems to me that the end we are trying to reach more than justifies the unsavory means we’ve had to use to get there.” Behind him, the sun still lit the distant City, but it was more red than gold now, a tiny sliver of scarlet like a shard of bloodstained glass.
Danyl stepped forward to stand at her left shoulder, and she could almost feel the heat of his anger radiating from him. “And what end is that, exactly?” he snarled. “To make me Captain? What would that mean? What would it mean to me?”
“It would mean we’d finally have a Captain who understood what life was like for those who were not Officers, someone who wouldn’t just be a figurehead exploited by the First Officer,” Beruthi began. “It would—”
“Not enough,” Danyl snapped, cutting him off.
“No?” Beruthi glared at him. “Then how about this? It would mean the City would not collapse into utter chaos.”
“Explain.”
“I told you—the Captain is dying. She’s been dying for a very long time, but the process is accelerating. If she dies without being replaced, the City’s infrastructure will completely shut down. No power on any of the Tiers. Elevators inoperable. Doors sealed shut. No water flowing. No air circulating. No way to get food in or to get anyone out except by aircar, and do you really think the Officers would gladly ferry lower-Tier denizens out to their Estates and Retreats?
“There has to be a Captain, or the City dies, and thousands of people die with it. And only one of you can take her place. Only you two carry the Captain’s genetic modifications encoded in your genomes. Only you two have her specialized nanobots. Alania is compromised, because Kranz has programmed her nanobots to overwrite her memories at his command. That leaves you.
“Danyl, this is our last—our only!—opportunity to make things better, to fix things. We’ve worked for twenty years to seize this moment, to put in place a new Captain who is not under Kranz’s control.”
Danyl was silent for a moment. “How would it work?” he said at last.
“The mechanism is automated,” Beruthi said. “It’s just like plugging any standard component into any other system. You unplug the current Captain, remove her from the system, and plug yourself in.”
“And the Captain has been ‘plugged in’ for centuries?” Alania said in horror. “No wonder she’s ‘failing.’ She must be insane!”
“She may be,” Beruthi said. “Or she may have no human consciousness left at all. Kranz didn’t tell me everything he knows about her. In particular, he didn’t tell me how she has been kept under the control of the First Officers all this time. He claims Thomas Kranz seized control from her to save the City from disaster. That’s what his memories tell him.”
“You keep talking about her genetic modifications,” Alania said. “But . . . who did those? Who created the Captain? City history begins with the City fully operational, the Captain sequestered on Thirteenth, the First Officer in charge, and the Awakening of the First Citizens, who had no memories of what came before. Do you know anything about what came before?”
Did Beruthi hesitate before answering? If so, it was only an instant. “No,” he said. “I don’t. I have no more knowledge of the Great Mystery than anyone else.”
I don’t believe you, Alania thought.
“However we got here,” Beruthi rushed on, “if we’re going to improve things, we need a new Captain, a young Captain with the will and the wherewithal to wrest control of the City from Kranz.”
“And give it to who?” Danyl demanded. “You?”
“You would be Captain. Not I.”
“Removing the Officers from power sounds like a recipe for anarchy. How would that be an improvement?”
“At least anarchy provides space for something better to take root,” Beruthi snapped. Then he took another deep breath and softened his tone. “But anarchy is not our goal. The Free Citizens have had more than twenty years to draw up plans for seizing control of the City the moment a new Captain takes command. Shut down access to Twelfth and Eleventh Tiers, open the cells on Tenth, and there is no Officer presence to speak of. Some Provosts will likely attempt to preserve the old order, but we count several Provosts among the Free—many Provosts are recruited from the lower Tiers, after all. The Free will be alerted to the imminent changeover. Once you take control, they’ll act.”
“And why will this new world be better than the current one?” Alania demanded.
“It will have a properly functioning City, to begin with. But the Free want far more than that. They want a more equitable distribution of resources, freedom for people to live their own lives, freedom for anyone to move out into the Heartland and settle and farm and build new towns and start new businesses.”
“So,” Danyl said. “It all comes down to me agreeing to do this.” He paused. “Let me ask you this. What if I refuse?”
Beruthi said nothing.
Alania’s eyes narrowed. “No,” she said. Anger boiled up in her again. “No, it doesn’t come down to him agreeing, does it? You’ve—we’ve—made it so that there’s no choice left.” She rounded on Danyl. “We’ve made ourselves prisoners, coming here! I’ve ended up right where the kidnappers would have brought me. Beruthi will imprison me here, just like he always intended, guarded by more of his damn robots, and robots will drag you off to the City to be ‘plugged in’ as Captain whether you like it or not!”
“Alania,” Beruthi said, his tone pleading, “you don’t understand how vital this all is. How could you? You’ve lived a pampered life. You don’t know what life is like below Twelfth Tier—”
“Don’t I?” Alania snapped, rounding on him. “You made a point of letting me ‘escape’ to Fifth and be threatened by a gang . . . although that was just a way to make sure I never made a serious attempt to escape again, wasn’t it? But it still made an impression. And in the last two days, I’ve seen the Middens, been threatened by the Rustbloods, fought Provosts, met the River People. I understand that the world could be better. But I keep coming back to one question: do you really begin making a better world by treating people like robots? Making them robots, in our case? Or by murdering babies?”
“Alania,” Danyl said. His voice was soft, but there was a note in it that made her turn to look at him. “I’ll do it.”
Alania felt like he’d driven his fist into her gut. “Danyl! Become Captain? Give up your life for some nightmarish existence as a glorified circuit board? Why?”
“Because Erl believed in this cause,” Danyl said simply. “Because things have to change. Because no one else can do it.”
I can, Alania almost said, but she didn’t. There was no way she would allow herself to be plugged into the City, to become Captain—if Beruthi were telling the truth, to become Kranz. Nobody should be sentenced to that. And the thought that Danyl might be . . .
Danyl turned to Beruthi. “How do we make this happen?”
Beruthi let out a gust of air, as though he’d been holding his breath. Then he reached into his pocket. “The first thing is to give you this.” He pulled out a golden rod about ten centimeters long and a centimeter in diameter. Alania recognized it instantly, and she gasped.
Danyl glanced at her. “What is it?”
“A high-level City access key,” she said. “Most of the Officers carry one. They open a lot of doors and give elevator access.”
“But only some doors and limited elevator access,” Beruthi said. “This one . . .” He held the key up. Twilight was falling outside, and the City had vanished in the gathering gloom, but the office lights glinted off the key’s golden length. “This one opens all doors, public or private, and allows access to all Tiers . . . including Thirteenth.” He lowered the key and held it out to Danyl. “To the Captain.”
Alania stared at the rod as Danyl took it, a little gingerly. “How is that possible?” she breathed.
“Because it tells all security systems that the person wielding it is the Captain,” Beruthi said. “It’s keyed to your Captain-specific genetic traits and the Captain’s nanobots in your bloodstreams, which means it will only work for Danyl or you. For anyone else, it not only won’t open a thing, it will set off alarms that will bring a horde of Provosts running.”
“How did you make something like this?” Danyl said.
Beruthi shrugged. “Once I had access to the nanobot equipment, it was easy. Well, maybe not easy, but at least possible.”
“Wow,” Danyl said. He tucked the key very carefully into his left pants pocket, then patted it as if to reassure himself it was there. “Wow,” he said again. “And three days ago, all I wanted was an ordinary City Pass.”
“You won’t need one of those,” Beruthi assured him. “You will be smuggled into the City aboard the same transport that brought you here and let off in First Tier. There’s a secure haven there, a place called Bertel’s Bar. You’ll be expected. The owner is a friend. She’ll tuck you away until I can join you. Then I’ll take you to Twelfth and get you to the elevator to Thirteenth—and we’ll do what must be done.”
Danyl nodded. “Bertel’s Bar,” he repeated.
“Kranz is looking for us,” Alania said. “There’ll be cameras . . .”
“Cameras,” Beruthi said, “do not survive long in First Tier. And the few that are operational will suffer a minor malfunction for an hour or so after your transport arrives. No one will see you.” His lips quirked again. “In any event, the last place Kranz will expect you to show up is the City.”
Danyl nodded. Alania couldn’t believe he was taking all of this so calmly, considering he was planning to take the place of the Captain. “When do I leave?” he asked.
“My robots are already preparing the transport. It was one thing to bring you here in an empty one, but it needs to be loaded to hide you from cursory inspection before you use it to enter the City. It should be ready within an hour or two, but I was thinking you must both need baths, a decent dinner, and a good night’s sleep. How about first thing in the morning?”
How about never? Alania thought, but Danyl said, “That sounds great.”
“In that case,” Beruthi said, “if you’ll come with me, I’ll—”
An urgent chime from his desk cut him off.