WHILE Gid made her virtual foray into the city’s network, Daria extricated herself from the rest of the Graves gathered in the ready room and slipped toward what had once been Alex’s office.
“I’m going to check in with Father.” Daria spoke the words quietly as she passed Kaiden.
Five minutes. Just one quick conversation, to be sure he’s all right.
Because whatever evidence Daria had seen with her own eyes, after everything else that had happened, she couldn’t quite convince herself that Father was really, truly, actually safe.
That sensation is not going to improve anytime soon, you know.
Kaiden’s brow furrowed, a reaction that Daria read as concerned agreement.
Kaiden did not, however, follow Daria into the other room. She wasn’t surprised. Daria didn’t think Kaiden and Father were actively angry with each other anymore, but apparently that didn’t mean they intended to start speaking to each other more frequently.
Alex’s former office contained mostly boxes and crates these days, accompanied by a lingering mustiness and dusty scent. The room’s quiet dimness relative to the bright lights and noise of the ready room soothed Daria’s overloaded and over-amped nerves. She dragged her palm pad from her pocket and parked herself on the edge of a crate.
Daria had no idea how exactly the encrypted line Gid had set up between Daria’s pad and Father’s worked. Luckily, Gid had included a simple enough interface and directions on how to use it that even Daria could make the call.
The line beeped only once before Father picked up.
“You need to be careful about calling me.”
Even though Father couldn’t see it, Daria smiled. “Gid says it’s perfectly safe. Guaranteed. Plus a whole lot of technical jargon I don’t remember now, but it sounded impressive.”
Father snorted. Daria thought he was amused—Gid had a knack for making people either hate her or love her, and she’d twisted Father neatly around her flamboyantly-manicured little finger.
The corner of the crate Daria sat on dug into her leg. She scooted further back and pulled her feet up. “I was worried. Things got a little hairy this morning. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Perfectly.” Father paused before adding, more gently, “I’m glad you are too.” Then, after yet another pause, he asked, “Kaiden?”
“Still working on saving the world, one scowl at a time.”
Another snort from Father. Daria was sure she didn’t imagine the relief in it.
“He was worried about you, too.” Worried enough that Alex had to tackle him into a wall to keep him from doing something stupid, but Daria didn’t add that part.
To that, Father didn’t reply.
Wade back out of the deep end, Daria. Father and Kaiden would have to sort things out for themselves.
Daria shifted again, tucking her legs under her to sit cross-legged, and switched the conversation toward another potentially-loaded topic.
“We saw what you were doing, you and the other residents of H. Hiding each other. Helping us thwart the APS.” Daria paused to see if Father would rise to the bait of his own accord. When he didn’t, she continued, “What happened to ‘don’t borrow other people’s trouble’ and ‘we all have to look out for ourselves’?”
Father didn’t answer right away. Daria let the silence stand and waited.
“Ardica has been headed for this showdown for years—since before you were born. Government corruption. Disparity between the sub-levels and the towers.”
Father paused. The pause stretched until Daria thought he might be done.
“That’s why you and Mother left?” Daria eventually asked, “Before I was born?”
“Serena was a baby. Your mother was an LM4. She—she’d been fighting for her rights her whole life. Your mother was no quitter. Not ever. But—”
“But Serena was a baby.”
“Having a child changes everything. Your priorities, what you’re willing to risk. I chose my family over everything else, and I hounded your mother until she agreed to go to the mainland with me.” Another long silence, this one finally broken by a sigh. “And now here I am, back where I started. And the children I was trying to protect are forced to take up the fight I backed down from.”
“You were trying to keep us safe.” Daria leaned toward the pad in her hand. She wished she was in the same room as Father, not forced to rely on words alone to reassure him. “It worked, too. Until the Mancers screwed it up for us.”
“I lost your mother anyway.”
“She was sick. Even if you’d been in the city—”
“If we’d been in the city, maybe there would have been a doctor, better care facilities, medicine—something that someone could have done for her. But by then, she refused to go back.”
Tears pricked Daria’s eyes. “You did your best. I know you did.”
“I let Serena die.”
“That wasn’t your fault.” Daria sat up straighter, un-tucked her legs from beneath her. She shifted the palm pad so that she stared it down, as if Father could somehow sense that. “That was the Mancers. If they’d stayed where they were instead of sending their constructs into the Necropolis Zone—”
“They didn’t. The mainland is every bit is dangerous as Ardica.”
More so, maybe, Daria thought but didn’t say. Months back, when she and Father and Kaiden had fled their farmstead and braved the maze between the NZ walls to take a rescue shuttle to Ardica City, there had been a safe-ish zone for a couple of miles inland from the shoreline.
Maybe not even that existed anymore. And the Mancer constructs didn’t bother with subterfuge or subtlety, like the APS did—the techno-abominations just slaughtered anything they encountered.
Is that worse, really? Tapia and her corrupt APS are killing their own people.
Another awkward silence fell. Damp air trickled through the exit door behind Daria and crept down the back of her neck.
“At any rate,” Father finally said, “Your fight is my fight. There are any number of things I can no longer do. But I’ll damned well do whatever I’m still capable of.”
“Pops.” Daria fumbled around for something to say.
“We think,” Father said, before Daria could come up with anything, “when we become parents, that it’s up to us to teach our children. Then we get older and wiser and eventually realize that sometimes our children can teach us.”
It was Daria’s turn to snort, although the tears were less pricking her eyes now and more threatening to overflow.
“Monsters on the mainland and monsters in the towers,” Father went on. “If we’re going to survive, then something has to give. It’s my job to do everything I can to make sure my children are among those still standing at the end.”