7

NOEMI AWAKENS IN THE WOMB.

Or so it seems to her at first—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?”

“What? Good lord, no. What’s the point in that?” Apparently Mansfield doesn’t think of poisoning a world as evil, only as impractical. “I have certain political connections, you know. Word reached me of Earth’s biological-warfare plans—mostly because a few government ministers felt smug about cutting back their orders for more Charlies and Queens. But I didn’t see a shortfall. I saw an opportunity. I knew once the plague took hold, Genesis would send either someone to get help or an envoy to surrender, and you were by far their likeliest candidate. Assuming you hadn’t already blown yourself up, that is. You do have a temper on you. Now, I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve brought you here.”

She hadn’t gotten that far through her haze yet, but as soon as the question is suggested, she knows the answer. Her horror deepens. “You’re setting a trap for Abel.” Her voice is hardly more than a whisper. “And I’m the bait.”

“A simple bargain: his surrender for your release. He says he loves you; I suppose we’ll see, hmm?”

It’s too much. Noemi’s never shut down in a crisis; she rises to the moment. But there’s no rising to this. Genesis is dying from Cobweb. Abel’s life is in danger. She can’t even set her own feet upon the ground. If it weren’t for Mansfield standing in front of her, weak of body and poisoned in his heart, she might faint.

Instead, she gets mad as hell.

“Coward,” she growls. “You’ve had your life, but you’re taking Abel’s away from him. You can’t accept that you’re mortal. You think you should be some kind of a god.”

Mansfield hadn’t expected that. “You think it’s cowardly, the need to survive? Then every living thing’s a coward, every living thing in the galaxy.”

Which is total crap. Noemi has been afraid to die, but she never let that fear stop her from doing what she needed to do—or force her into doing something so profoundly wrong.

She would tell him that, but he keeps talking. “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you how useless flesh is? How pointless? Consciousness is an accident of evolution, and I intend to liberate it from its visceral beginnings.” Mansfield’s voice has become dreamy. “Some people deserve to live forever. Some of us have shown that spark of the divine. But most people are automatons, as surely as any mech is. Being human is no guarantee of being fully conscious. The vast majority think what they’re told to think. Do what they’re told to do. Live their whole lives within the dull, safe borders of conformity and complacency. Maybe they should die on schedule, just like they’ve done everything else. Those of us who want more, who can offer more—we shouldn’t be shackled to mortality.”

“You think you should get to decide who lives and who dies.” Millions will die on Genesis. Abel will die. “You’re sick.”

Mansfield shakes his head as if fondly exasperated with her. Nothing she says can touch him. “You, with your knee-jerk temper and your Genesis prejudices—you’re as much a mech as anything I ever created in here.”

She realizes she’s in some sort of a basement, one with brick walls and slender windows at the very top. Laid out all around her are tanks—long, coffin-shaped, translucent containers filled with goo. From Akide’s lessons, she knows tanks like this are for growing mechs. “Where are we?”

“My house. In fact, the most important part of the house, my personal workshop and laboratory,” says Mansfield. “This is where I did all my finest work. The entire history of the galaxy would be different without this room.”

This must have been where Abel was born. Where Mansfield attempted to make so many other versions of Abel, and failed every time. “How many of your creations did you kill here?”

“‘Kill’ isn’t the right word, my dear.”

“Isn’t it? They live. They breathe. They bleed. Abel wants and thinks and hopes and—” The word loves won’t come out of her mouth. “How is destroying one of them less a murder than it would be if you destroyed your own child, or grandchild?”

“Stop.” Mansfield’s tone could turn this room to ice.

Noemi realizes she’s hit a sensitive subject. She’s not sure what it is, but it’s a vulnerable spot, so she keeps pressing. “Abel deserves better from you.”

“I gave him his life. I’m trusting him with my soul. And you’re not the one in charge of deciding who deserves what.”

Noemi tries to move within her force field, and with difficulty she reaches her hand to the metal frame—and encounters sharpness. It’s covered with long metal points, ensuring no prisoners will be able to tamper with their newfound jail.

Taking no notice of her futile movements, Mansfield continues, “Now, Miss Vidal, there’s nothing much left for us to do but wait. I can find Abel wherever in the Loop he may be, but it could take a little time, so I’ve given him a generous deadline. We’ve already dosed you with a few things that will keep you from needing the facilities anytime soon, which means we need just one more—damn it, left it in the tank. My memory’s going.”

He falters on the last words. The image of invulnerability he has tried to project shatters. Noemi sees a little old man, scared of his body’s breakdown, more fragile than ever before.

Mansfield carefully goes to a tank filled with some kind of coolant and removes something from a canister inside. Only when he totters back to the Tare does Noemi see that he’s holding a tiny golden pellet. The Tare loads it into a syringe, then pushes her hand through the force field—sparks flying off her skin—to capture Noemi’s wrist in her vise-like grip. Before Noemi can even try to pull back, the Tare presses the device to Noemi’s inner arm and a jolt of pain spears through her flesh.

“That little ampule won’t do you any harm,” Mansfield says. She can feel the knot inside, uncomfortably wedged in next to a nerve. “Unless I trigger it to release, that is. Which I won’t do, assuming Abel arrives on time. So no need to worry, right?”

Will she finally see Abel again, only to watch him die for her?