PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E
CONSORTIUM TRAINING CENTER ALPHA, ALBANY CITY, NEW TRITON
478.3.1.04
“Eldest!” Kyleigh’s voice echoed from the buildings.
The slim woman with her three murdering drones pivoted as Kyleigh sprinted toward us. I had believed I could not have been more afraid. I had been mistaken. Each breath felt like an attempt to inhale ice water.
My friend came to a stop, and panting, held up one palm before resting her hands on her knees and gulping down air.
“Stars above,” she gasped. “So much running today.”
The Eldest said, “Kyleigh Rose Tristram.”
Inwardly, I screamed for my friend to flee, but she straightened and swiped her forearm across her forehead. One of the marines at the gate gestured at us, and several faces paled. Jackson grabbed Quincy’s shoulder to hold him back, and Jordan threw an arm around James. No one, however, stopped Eric.
“I needed an audience with you,” Kyleigh panted, “but I know you rarely talk to citizens.”
“Indeed.” The right side of the Eldest’s forehead lifted. “What is your point, citizen?”
“The nanites.” Kyleigh drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I would like permission to utilize Consortium nanotechnology labs.”
“No.” The Eldest turned away.
Kyleigh reached out, as if to touch the Consortium’s leader, and a drone snagged her wrist.
Not Kyleigh, too. I could not breathe.
“Please listen,” she begged. “If you know who I am, you know what I do.”
The Eldest’s eyes flashed, but her voice remained mild. “What is that to me?”
“I want to help.”
When I had tried to stop the Eldest moments before, she had responded with murder. Eric drew near, and all I could do was fling up my hand to warn him to stop. He did.
The drone pulled Kyleigh close to the Eldest, so that they stood but half a meter apart, eye to eye.
“You wish to help your . . . friend?”
“I want to help you all.”
“Kyleigh”—Eric choked on her name—“don’t.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Those nanites join together. I’ve been working on a way to break that bond, to disintegrate the clump so the body can eliminate it. I think I found it, but it’s all hypothetical, and I couldn’t manufacture anything like that on Thalassa. I don’t want to go to the medical companies where there’s no guarantee the information will be secure, safe from people like Skip.” She pointed across the drone-littered lawn at the gate, where the last of the bodies were being loaded for transport to be reclaimed or recycled.
The Eldest’s eyes narrowed.
“The Consortium has to have nanotech labs—I’d be stupid to think you don’t—but other than here, the best, most secure labs are on Pallas, which is too far away. Besides, I can’t work with the constant threat of being eaten alive by giant cockroaches.”
Another tendril snaked around Kyleigh’s waist, but though her respiration increased, she ignored the drone’s narrow appendage.
The Eldest murmured, “Again I ask, to save your friend?”
Kyleigh drew a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
My heart fell. The Eldest turned to me, her mouth tight.
My young friend strained against the drone’s grip. “I want to save anyone who has this in their system. I know you don’t approve, but Eldest, be fair. They say you’re just.” She indicated me. “Her friendship with citizens might have saved Consortium lives.”
The Eldest rotated back to Kyleigh. Fear shot icy spikes through me.
“I know that Attlee, Imogene Clarkson, and the others brought a cure back, but an antivirus won’t stop those clumps from killing people. Recorders will recover from the virus, but without a way to break up those clots, they’ll still die.” Her voice cracked. “My friend nearly did. So, if not for her, I am begging you to let me at least solve this for the rest of the Consortium. I’ll work with anyone you want me to, just let me save them.”
Cold sweat gathered in my fisted palms.
Kyleigh stood at her fullest height, eye to eye with the Eldest. “If you have to send me to the inner belt afterward for claiming a friend among the Consortium, so be it.”
“Why would you do this?” the Eldest hissed. “Are you concerned that these clumps would kill citizens? They did not kill your friend, Fredrick James Westruther, despite the donation that provided him sight outside the reach of unaltered humanity.”
Kyleigh went absolutely ashen, but an odd relief hit me in the midst of my fear. The Eldest did not know. I had deceived her. James and Daniel truly were safe.
“Why?” Kyleigh’s hand rose to her throat, where she used to wear the chain with a cross, the one she had sent with Elliott. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Insufficient.” The Eldest cocked her head, and the drone slid a tendril around Kyleigh’s neck.
Kyleigh tipped her face to the dome and closed her eyes, her lips moving soundlessly.
My weak leg, strained beyond its limits, buckled. Eric caught me.
After a pause, Kyleigh’s hazel eyes opened. “Why? Because of love.” A smile spread over her face. “Because whether we are stardust or creation—and I believe the latter—we are each unique. Citizen or Consortium. Each one gifted with abilities, each one valuable. I was nearly donated, you know. If you can’t accept that my God made both of us, at least accept that I was nearly one of you, and that tie compels me to act.”
My entire body froze, and simultaneously, Eric’s grip on my arm tightened.
The Eldest’s nostrils flared. “You dare to attempt to convert the Eldest?”
Kyleigh actually smiled. “I don’t know that it’s proselytizing if I know you won’t listen, but someone should tell you at least once.” Her expression grew serious. “You asked why I cared. That’s my answer. Because of a love beyond what any of us can understand.”
The drone flew back from Kyleigh as if she had reprimanded it.
“Your answer, Eldest?” she asked softly.
For the second time in my life, I heard the Eldest laugh.
Acid ate at my throat.
“Ah, Kyleigh Rose Tristram, you are wasted as a citizen.” The Eldest waved a hand. “Yes. You may use the facilities here on Training Center Alpha as long as necessary. I will not be sending more of my people to assist you, lest you corrupt them, as well. You and whatever assistants you have will be on your own.”
Air rushed from my lungs, and I clutched Eric’s arm to stay upright.
“However”—the Eldest became living marble once more—“I will only strike your antithetical remarks from the record if you save my children.” Her closest drone tapped my arm before all three spooled in their appendages. “We are not finished, Aberrant. I shall summon you to resolve our issues. In the meantime, you and your . . . friends . . . may remain until the children are safe.”
We watched her cross the lawn, people parting before her as if repelled by a magnetic force. Once she passed the shattered gates, Eric led me to a bench, and I leaned back and shut my eyes.
“Are you all right?” Kyleigh asked.
I said, “You frightened me nigh unto death.”
“I think I nearly scared myself to death, too.” She gasped. “Stars above! You’re covered with blood. Are you hurt?”
“It is not mine.”
“Where’s Tia?” Eric demanded.
“Tia’s all right,” Kyleigh answered without taking her eyes from my stained clothing. “Whose blood—”
“Where is she?”
“Don’t fuss, Eric.” Kyleigh heaved a sigh. “She started having contractions—”
“And you left her?”
“Oh, ease up, Eric,” she said brusquely. “I took her to the medical center two streets down.”
Boots thudded, and my eyes flew open. Eric was already halfway to the gates, hurdling damaged drones and dodging through the crowd and past Quincy, James, and Jackson, who strode toward us in unison.
Kyleigh put her hands on her hips. “Well if he’d waited thirty seconds, he’d know she’s all right.”
“Is she?” I asked.
She nodded, though her attention still followed Eric. “They stopped labor, but she’ll be in there for at least half a ten-day. The baby is fine. Tia got a little worked up, though, and told everyone the baby’s name. She came up with a list of guardians, including me, Eric, and Cam, just in case.” Her eyes came back to me. “Her daughter’s name is Zeta.”
My heart stilled. That small gift lifted my eyes to the riveted ceiling overhead. Pinks and purples deepened. Was it evening already? Had it been that long?
“Tristram,” Quincy thundered, “what were you thinking?”
Instead of answering him, Kyleigh flung her arms around the marine and hugged him tight. She released him to embrace the others, but then froze. “Where is everyone else?”
Gazes dropped to boots.
She jumped onto the bench and began to count. Her face went pale. “Zhen! Where is she? I saw Jordan earlier—but where is Cam? Timmons and Alec? Or Ken? Stars above, where is Max?”
Quincy shifted his weight and looked away.
She blanched. “Are they . . .”
“Zhen and Lars are with the children,” James said. “Ken Patterson did not . . . He is gone.”
Kyleigh sank beside me on the bench.
Jackson’s gravelly voice churned through the air, listing their three losses, then the wounded. He cleared his throat. “We haven’t found Cam, yet, Kyleigh.”
A sense of numbness spread through me. But for some reason I latched onto the fact that he called her Kyleigh instead of Tristram, as he usually did.
“What does that mean?” she whispered.
Quincy squinted at the two-story Scriptorium. “Just that we haven’t found him yet.”
“I have people pulling medtanks from the Center’s clinic,” Jackson continued with a nod toward the dormitory, “and Timmons is setting up emergency generators.”
Her eyes seemed larger. “Where is Max?”
Quincy set a bandaged hand on her shoulder. “Prepped for the first tank.”
With an inarticulate cry, she tried to dart toward the dormitory, but James caught her, murmuring words I could not hear.
A shout echoed from the gate, and the guards parted, allowed a woman through, and converged again. Elinor Williams raced across the lawn.
“I heard,” she gasped, and we waited while her ragged breaths evened. “The attack is all over the news, but the streets are so crowded I couldn’t get transport. What happened?”
And though I wanted to tell her, I only listened to the disjointed story from the people around me. Tears wetted my cheeks, and overhead, the dome darkened to night.