36

ABEL CONCENTRATES ON NOEMI’S LOCATOR BEACON. It’s not his destination, but it’s enough to steer by. He senses a chance for download—something very familiar—and hurls himself into it.

His soul returns to his body.

It’s not an easy homecoming. Sensory information is jumbled and prismatic, and the sense of disorientation approximates the human sensation of nausea. Abel shuts his eyes—or Mansfield does—neither of them can bear any external stimuli while the internal turmoil is so great.

Abel’s cybernetic brain is now holding two consciousnesses instead of one, something it was never designed to do. It can’t preserve them both for long.

Either they’ll both disintegrate into chaotic data fields incapable of restoration, or one of them will have to leave.

Disintegration seems more likely at first. The cacophony of static—the jarring voices and glimpses of memory—it’s too much to sort, especially with Abel’s mind as cramped as it now is. He manages to remind himself of his first resurrection, when he was able to orient himself by imagining a physical setting. He must do so again. His task will be easier if he chooses a location familiar to Mansfield, too. Both sets of memories can be used to piece it together.

The howl of light and sound surrounding Abel slows. He watches the shadows take shape—a long, overstuffed couch; a crackling holographic fireplace; a grandfather clock. This is Professor Mansfield’s house in London.

This is the first place Abel ever called home.

He sits on one end of the couch, while Burton Mansfield stands in the center of the room. Mansfield’s appearance is no longer that of Abel’s young, enhanced cybernetic body, but neither is he the fragile elderly man he’d become by the end of his human life. This man’s hair has only begun to thin, and contains as much gold as gray; his face is almost unwrinkled. He stands straight and tall—though not quite as tall as Abel, who was upgraded in that area. Burton Mansfield looks the way he did thirty-three years ago, when Abel first awakened in his tank.

“This isn’t real,” Mansfield breathes as he looks around. “It can’t be real.”

“It’s as real as anything contained within the mind,” Abel says. “As we have now both existed solely as a mental pattern, I’d think you would agree that can be very real indeed.”

Mansfield staggers to one side, putting one hand through the holographic hearth to brace himself against the wall. “I can smell the books. The lavender the Yokes brought in from the garden every day. This is too vivid to be a memory.”

“It would be for a human. Not for a mech. Especially not for me.” Abel rises from the sofa to face his creator. His extra 6.35 centimeters of height become more apparent. “I’m going through some of your memories of the past few days. They lack detail. Your brain is so used to storing information as a human that you’ve failed to use your mech capacities to their fullest.”

“I can learn,” Mansfield snaps. He may not understand how Abel’s put them in this setting, but he’s clearly becoming more comfortable with this version of himself. “You didn’t know everything the first day you woke up either.”

“No, it took me almost thirty-six hours to completely function as—”

“Stop it.” Mansfield’s blue eyes lock with Abel’s. “Directive One, Abel. It’s at the core of your programming. We’re in your programming. It must have power over you—here, in your subconscious, if nowhere else—”

“Directive One does have power over me,” Abel says. His desire to protect his creator burns brightly within him, illuminating the lamps, crackling within the imagined fire. “But it doesn’t control me. I control myself, as much as you or any other living being can.”

“How can you control yourself, when you don’t even belong to yourself?” Mansfield snaps. “No sooner did you get away than you gave yourself to others—first to that girl from Genesis, and then to a damned fleet of space pirates. By the way, I can’t believe you got a tattoo. Now I’m stuck with the damned thing.”

“It’s my body,” Abel replies. “I decide what happens to it. Not you.”

Mansfield scowls. The room shimmers around them both, temporarily translucent. Strong emotion seems to destabilize him. Abel needs to continue this tactic, but it’s difficult, pretending to be so calm, so confident. It’s all he can do to maintain the illusion of this room. Mansfield cannot realize how vulnerable Abel is.

“I don’t understand what went wrong with you, Abel.” Visibly calming himself, Mansfield sits in one of the easy chairs, as though they’re simply friends having a chat before tea. “I’ve been over it and over it. You shouldn’t have been able to deny me.”

“By now it’s patently obvious that I could and can. And yet you’ve never accepted it. I must assume this is a function of your grandiose self-importance—the inability to understand that you can’t always get what you want. You can’t even accept human mortality.”

Mansfield’s expression darkens. Abel wonders if he’d look like that, were he ever to become equally angry. “It’s natural to fight mortality! For humans, animals, plants, everything except you. Besides, I have work to do. We’re trying to get a brand-new planet under our control.” Abel would like to object—Mansfield wants the planet under his control, and his alone—but it’s important to conserve his strength. It’s harder and harder to keep up the illusion of the room. Oblivious, Mansfield continues, “Even more than that, the research Gilly and I have undertaken, the Inheritors—we may soon triumph over death itself.”

Abel cocks his head. “I’ve realized many difficult things about you these past months, but until now I didn’t consider you a coward.”

“A coward?” Mansfield gets angrier. “Everyone wants eternal life. That’s why your girl from Genesis pretends there’s some Almighty power up in the sky. The only difference is that I have a real chance at it. What’s so bad about wanting to live forever?”

Abel replies, “Are you familiar with the old Earth legend of the vampire?”

Pain splinters through Abel’s right side; Mansfield groans and clutches his side, too. They both sag forward, and the room flickers, goes dark, then turns into a blur—

“Take cover!” Noemi yells. Abel looks up at her from the floor of the Winter Castle, where he must have fallen unconscious. His view is off-kilter, ceiling and chandelier and Noemi’s boots. People are running desperately from blaster fire. One of them must have crashed into his inert body on the floor. “Shearer’s going to send every mech she’s got.”

A battle has broken out—he should be by Noemi’s side—

Abel pulls back. He has another fight to win first.

Mansfield cackles in the dark. “You’re not in as much control as you pretend, are you, my boy?”

“Let’s see,” Abel says, and he manifests another setting. Once again, he’s in Casablanca, a world of black and white, though this time he’s not on the airport tarmac. Rick’s Café Américain surrounds them. Ceiling fans slowly rotate in the Moroccan heat.

From his place by the bar, Mansfield scoffs. “The way you carried on over this movie, I should’ve known you had a sentimental streak.”

“Yes, you should have.” Abel sits on Sam’s piano bench. He’s programmed with the ability to perform like any number of grand masters, but Sam remains his favorite. His fingers find the keys, and he begins playing “As Time Goes By.”

Mansfield remains very still. “You’re struggling.”

“So are you.”

“You don’t really know how to do this, do you? You’re operating on some kind of instinct, no more.”

“You’re no expert either. This is uncharted territory, for both man and mech. We each have to find our way.” Abel keeps his eyes on the keyboard, which is bad form for a pianist but helps him to focus on the illusion. “As I have more experience being a mech, I expect to find my way before you can. Your few days in my body don’t count for much compared to your long life as a human. But this body is my home.”

“This body is my creation.” The clunk of glass on wood is followed by liquid pouring; apparently, Mansfield is sampling the libations at the bar. “That gives me power.”

“You enjoy power,” Abel observes. “You relish every chance to use it. But has it made you any happier? Has it saved you and those around you from pain? What might your life have looked like if you could’ve accepted that you’re a human like any other?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” Mansfield sounds… encouraged. The black-and-white bar begins to tremble. “And I’m a human like no other, Abel. Here, let me prove it.”

The floor buckles; the overhead fans shake. Bottles and glasses tumble from the bar and crash on the floor. Abel hangs on to the piano to keep from falling off his bench.

Mansfield is pushing back.

“I’ve got it now, haven’t I?” The triumph in Mansfield’s voice has a cruel edge. “So much for this being your home.”

Another location, Abel thinks. One Mansfield won’t be familiar with. That may disorient him. He concentrates, and—

The river flows beneath the small footbridge they’re standing upon, and the late-afternoon sunlight has begun to paint the sky red. Domed stone structures form the skyline of the capital city. Nearby, tents and kiosks offer various foods and wares to anyone who might stroll by—though at the moment, Abel and Mansfield are alone.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Abel asks. He holds out his hands. “An entire society dedicated to faith, and to the protection of their environment. The result is perfect harmony—or as close to it as human beings can achieve.” Which isn’t very close, but this is beside his point. “You tried to destroy it all. You made it possible for Earth to build countless mechs with no purpose other than killing the people of this world.”

“This is Genesis?” Mansfield shows no curiosity about the beauty around him. “They started that war by selfishly refusing to welcome the rest of humanity.”

Genesis’s capacity for evil goes beyond anything Mansfield can imagine, but that’s a discussion for another time. Abel raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think you have much room to call anyone else ‘selfish.’”

“I know this programming,” Mansfield says as he begins to pace the length of the bridge. “I can get the better of it.”

“Perhaps. But perhaps not.”

How can he possibly anchor himself in this body in a way Mansfield cannot? What is it within Abel’s mind that will tie him here?

Still pacing, Mansfield mutters, “Of course you don’t understand a fear of death. Your programming doesn’t allow you to fear it. That’s a shortcoming of yours. One way you’re not human.”

“You’re right,” Abel admits. “I can’t be afraid to die. Humans can. And yet I’ve seen so many humans willing to die for what they believe in, or for those they love. Noemi Vidal flew into battle for Genesis. Virginia Redbird gave up all the privileges of Cray to fight for her friends. Ephraim Dunaway took risks, too. Riko Watanabe may have gone down the wrong path, but she was no coward in the face of death. Even Delphine Ondimba has been willing to put herself on the line. Every single one of them proved capable of giving up their lives for others.”

Mansfield only looks annoyed. “Noemi’s your girl, the one I can’t seem to get rid of. But I have no idea who any of those other people are.” His tone of voice makes it clear he also doesn’t care.

“There was one other,” Abel says. The emotion building within him must be anger—the first real fury he’s ever known. “She was a girl of only seventeen. She was fatally wounded in battle, and she died in our ship’s sick bay. Esther Gatson never got to grow old. She never even got to grow up. She died far away from her home, for a war she thought her world would lose. And Esther still faced death with more grace and courage than you’ll ever be able to match.”

None of this has touched Mansfield, who says, “I don’t intend to match it. I intend to beat it.” With a shrug, he adds, “Here goes nothing.”

He runs toward Abel as fast as thought—almost too fast to see—and the two of them go sprawling onto the bridge of the Persephone as it was years ago, before Abel was marooned. Mansfield has the advantage of surprise.

“You want to fight?” Mansfield pants. “Let’s fight.”

His fist slams into Abel, a purely psychic blow, but a devastating one. The illusion of their surroundings fades again to white—

Delphine has a comm link in her hand. “Mechs are attacking some of the Consortium ships!”

Weapons fire ricochets brightly around the room; Noemi’s blaster is still in her hand. “Tell Krall to hold position!”

“How am I supposed to give orders to a pirate queen?” Delphine cries. Noemi doesn’t answer, because a Charlie is running toward her and the fight is on.

Abel summons just enough mental strength to pull away from reality. He and Mansfield come to in the desert, the sandy ground beneath them so parched that the earth has cracked. Half the field is in sunlight; the other half is shrouded in night. Mansfield stands in day—he always enjoyed having the world’s eyes upon him—but Abel is content to remain in the dark, where the power is.

Mansfield mutters, “It’s not easy to fight in the subconscious.”

“So it would seem.” Abel studies his creator carefully. Is Mansfield weakening?

Impossible to be sure. Mansfield remains focused on their new surroundings. “We’re in that painting you liked. The Kahlo.”

“Exactly,” Abel says. “Did you never wonder what this painting meant to me? Didn’t you ever realize that I saw something deeper in it—that I was capable of that love of understanding?”

Mansfield remains silent for a long moment, then quietly says, “I did wonder. And I knew you were responding to it as something more than a machine. I knew… I knew you loved it.”

The look on Mansfield’s face now isn’t smug, or bitter, or afraid. It’s sad, and even fond. Abel recognizes the fondness from his earliest days, when he was still learning something new nearly every moment. That’s the closest Abel came to being a child.

Gently, Mansfield says, “There were good times. Weren’t there?”

“Yes. There were.” Abel remembers looking up at Burton Mansfield with nothing but complete trust. Absolute faith. Mansfield saw it in him. “That makes everything you’ve done so much worse.”

This time, Abel runs at Mansfield. They go down hard, rolling through a blur of nonimages, and it’s as painful for Abel as it is for his creator. The illusion of gravity is powerful even inside the mind—

Wait.

Abel goes to the location he knows better than any other. Darkness around them takes shadowy form as the two of them float in zero-G. Hundreds of hatch marks mar the ceiling, where Abel was keeping track of days before he gave up. Mansfield, bewildered by the sudden lack of gravity, flails about in midair. He yelps, “What have you done?”

“I’ve taken us back to another area of the Persephone—the Daedalus, as you called it then.” Abel pivots easily to face Mansfield; he’s used to this pod bay, used to zero-G. He’s at home here. Mansfield can’t be. “This is where you marooned me when you abandoned ship. Where I waited for you for thirty years. The Liberty War wasn’t as fierce for a while. You could’ve found me easily.”

“I thought I could make another Model One A!” Mansfield seeks handholds that don’t exist. The thin light through the one window outlines them both in silver. It seems to Abel that Mansfield looks older.

“I know. Any single Model One A was as good as another, to you. But you never wondered what it would be like for me to be trapped and alone for so long.” Abel remembers a promise he must keep. “Have you asked what it’s like for Robin? We spoke, you know. She’s not herself any longer. She’s been kept in a hideous kind of solitary confinement for decades. All she wants is to die.”

Mansfield frowns in consternation, like his late wife’s feelings could have nothing to do with their present situation. “She’ll be fine once we figure something out,” he insists, still grabbing for a handhold in the void of zero-G.

“And how long might that be? Years? Decades?”

“What does it matter?” Mansfield snaps. “It’s no concern of yours.”

Still, his creator can imagine no one’s feelings except his own. Abel has only wept once in his life, but he feels close to it again. “If you had come for me while I was trapped here, I would’ve surrendered myself to you just like you planned. I missed you that much. But you never came. Someone else found me instead.”

Noemi, he thinks.

One of his favorite memories of her took place in this equipment pod bay, when she floated in zero-G with him while he drew her in for their first kiss. The memory of that kiss—visceral, beautiful, real—ties Abel to his physical body as nothing else could. Remembering the warmth of her lips makes him freshly aware of his limbs, his torso, his skin.

This body is becoming his again.

“Abel!” Mansfield cries out in dismay. His skin crinkles, withering more every moment, revealing the fragile skeleton within. “What’s happening?”

“I think you already know.”

“This can’t be—this can’t—” But Mansfield must feel his hold slipping away. His aged hand reaches out just far enough to touch Abel’s arm. “Save my consciousness. Store it somewhere else. I can wait! There might be another way for me to live someday, without hurting you or anyone. Couldn’t you do that for me?”

Abel hesitates. He could do that, probably. It seems like so little to ask. Directive One flares brighter inside him, ready to obey.

Then he remembers Robin Mansfield, haunting a data solid, as utterly alone as any soul has ever been.

“Be kind,” his creator pleads. “I think—I think I made you kind.”

“You did.” This, above all, is why Abel must let him go. He looks into Mansfield’s eyes and says it for the last time. “I love you, Father.”

Mansfield’s form dissolves into a swirl of smoke or dust—something unknowable—and then it’s gone.

If that was his soul, perhaps Abel has freed it to find what Noemi would call heaven.

That is a question to think about later. At the moment he’s settling slowly down to the floor as gravity takes hold of him once more—as reality brightens enough to fade the illusion—

“Abel?”

He startles as he regains full consciousness. Noemi kneels beside him, smoke from blaster fire still searing the air with the scent of ozone. He remains sprawled on the floor. One distant alarm still blares, but the battle seems to have ended, at least for the moment.

She keeps her weapon clutched in her hands. “Is it you?”

“It is. It’s me. Mansfield is”—what’s the right term?—“gone.”

Noemi wants to believe him, he can tell, but she’s wary. “Prove you’re really Abel.”

He looks up at her. “I’m terrible at comforting people. The worst. I have it on good authority.”

Tears well in her eyes even as she begins to smile. “I think you might be getting better at it.”

Abel pulls her into his embrace, grateful for the chance to hold her again. To breathe in the scent of her skin, to rest his cheek against her smooth, shining hair. No matter what happens next, at least they’ve shared this one more time.

Noemi whispers, “Welcome home.”