I look to the man in front of me. He’s nothing like his official portrait, the massive posters that plaster the sides of half the buildings in the Colonies.
In his thickly decorated scarlet-and-gold military jacket, there is nothing pale about him—though he’s smaller in real life. Smaller than when I first glimpsed him, on the poster back in the Old City.
Smaller, and skinnier.
The way a vicious dog never seems that vicious, once it has calmed down.
Or the way a nightmare never seems that nightmarish, when seen in the light of day.
Is that what this is?
A nightmare?
Will I wake up and find myself asleep on the desert floor? Or better yet, on the floor of the Mission, in front of the stove, with Ro by my side?
“Drink?” GAP Miyazawa asks, drawing a flask out of his pocket. As he stands on the stone floor of the temple courtyard, I can’t help but notice that the buckles on his boots are literally brass.
And that my army boots are covered with mud.
This man and I have nothing in common, I think.
I shake my head.
“Don’t mind if I do.” The GAP smiles broadly.
I shudder.
“Let them go,” Fortis says, from behind me. “You know it’s not them you’re lookin’ for. I’m right here.”
The GAP raises a brow. “Don’t flatter yourself, Merk.”
Ro stands so close to me, I can feel his arm touch mine. Tima and Lucas stand just on the other side.
Fortis is wrong, though. We all know the Sympas aren’t here for him. Fortis knows it, too.
The GAP raises the flask. “So much to discuss.” He holds it high, toasting us. “To new beginnings.”
I stare at it, and him. “Don’t you mean endings?”
The GAP shrugs. “Not at all. It’s time to celebrate. Look at Unification Day. Change is opportunity. Change is growth. For our people and our planet, and for us. Trust in change.”
Nothing about this man would inspire anything like trust.
He holds out the flask again. “Go on. It’s not poison. It’s Coki. Coconut water, lime juice, raw washed sugar. SEA Coki.” He shrugs. “SEA Colonists believe it strengthens the soul.”
I take the flask. When I drink, the water is bittersweet—tangy with lime, sweet with sugar—and then I spit it in his face.
The Sympa guard are in front of me in a heartbeat. One grabs a handful of my hair and yanks it back as hard as he can.
The GAP smiles. “Manners, Doloria. Did they teach you nothing?”
“Only to want to spit in the face of the Embassy.” As I say it, the others smile, and for a second, it feels like we are back at Santa Catalina, mocking Catallus in his classroom.
The GAP makes a great show of shaking out a handkerchief and mopping his brow.
“Such anger,” he says.
“Such a traitor,” I say.
“I haven’t forgotten the human race,” the GAP scoffs. “Isn’t that the usual charge?”
“That and being a general Brasshole,” Ro says, grinning at the GAP like he isn’t afraid of him—and his squadron of Sympas—at all. Which, knowing Ro, he probably isn’t.
“On the contrary,” says the GAP. “Keeping the human race from going extinct occupies most of my waking hours, believe it or not.”
“That’s not how it looks from here,” says Lucas.
“You’re hardly the ones to judge, now, are you, children?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” This time, it’s Tima who dares to speak up.
“Why don’t you ask the Merk, or the monk? Why don’t you ask them what happened on the day you were born, if you can call it that? Why don’t you ask them how ‘human’ the four of you really are? Before you start calling into question my own humanity.”
How human are you?
Hasn’t that been the unspoken question all along? What real human could do the things we do?
Feel the things we feel.
The words find their way home, and it’s all I can do not to give him the satisfaction of letting it show.
But my stomach churns and my heart hammers and I try to focus on his beady eyes, if only to keep from passing out.
The GAP leans closer to me, smiling conspiratorially. “Things change, Doloria. The world has changed. The old distinctions are useless. And there is no freedom better than what we already have been given. Deep down, do you not believe that for yourself?”
“No,” I say.
“But you’ve changed too. You’re not the same little Grassgirl who lived on the Mission La Purísima, are you?” He leans forward. “The things you’ve seen? The people you’ve lost? It changes you, doesn’t it? You’re not the same and the world isn’t the same. Why pretend it is?”
I feel my friends next to me.
I feel Fortis and Bibi behind us, flawed as they are.
I feel the Bishop and the Padre and my family.
I’m not giving up now.
So I keep my eyes focused on the temple perimeter. Sparrow is still hidden somewhere in that jungle, and as long as they don’t find her, I don’t care what else happens.
Then I look back at the GAP.
“No,” I say. “You’re wrong. I haven’t changed at all.”
“I have,” says Ro, stepping forward. “And here’s the thing.” Ro looks at the GAP. “I can kill you now, and you’re gone. In that scenario, there is no more GAP Miyazawa.” He grins. “And that’s what will have changed.”
“All right,” the GAP says calmly. But Ro won’t be calmed. Not now.
“Sure, another Ambassador rises to take your place—fills the tiny, tiny void left by your death—but it’s not you. And for those critical few days, the whole system goes down.”
“Stop it,” says the GAP. “You don’t understand who your real enemy is.”
He’s anxious. I can feel it. He knows exactly what Ro is capable of. He’s probably been tracking us, watching us, this whole time.
Ro especially.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I do. The No Face, they may want the planet, but you’re the ones handing it to them. They may have shut down the Silent Cities, but you’re the ones building their new weapons.” For someone as crazy as Ro usually is, he’s speaking with remarkable clarity.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says the GAP, as blankly as he can.
“The village down there? You know the one, just down the river,” Tima says, stepping forward.
Lucas looks the GAP in the eye. “You’ll have to excuse us if the prospect of being turned into human soup isn’t all that appealing.”
“What was that?” I ask, looking at the others. “Instant primordial stew?”
“Mmm,” says Ro. “Yummy.”
“You’re children,” says the GAP. “You don’t understand—this is just a game to you. You don’t know who you’re fighting against. Not like I do.”
“I think we do.” Ro holds out his hand, wiggling his fingers in the GAP’s face. “And you know what I also think? I think it’s time to torch this place.”
The GAP’s eyes widen. Before he says a word, Sympas dive for Ro, pulling weapons from their holsters.
Bad move.
That’s when the world erupts in flame—all around us. The few remaining villagers flee around us, in all directions. The screams nearly drown out the noise of gunfire as Sympas begin to fire—but the smoke makes it too difficult to see, and their weapons are soon too hot to even hold.
Ro is out of control.
Lucas and Tima and I dive to the stone floor, flinging ourselves over the walled temple perimeter, and down the stone steps into the jungle.
Doi Suthep is quickly becoming a war zone. If the GAP survives this firestorm, I think, he’s no more human than the Lords. And if Ro can set off this kind of blast, I think he might not be, either.
When the GAP’s Chopper ignites, I see it in their faces. They’re finally afraid.
When it explodes, they’re terrified.
As we watch the mountaintop go up in flames, the rock beneath our feet begins to rumble. The ground quakes and splits around me, stone twisting and erupting as easily as if it were simply mud.
I scream but the ground between us shifts too quickly, sending us rolling down different sides of a newly formed and strangely deep chasm.
I recognize the first black tendril as soon as it pushes up from the earth, uncurling like a Mission beanstalk.
But this is no beanstalk.
The obsidian roots are all too familiar.
Lucas lifts his mud-streaked, soot-covered face. “An Icon? Here?”
Tima lies on the ground, pushing away from it with her feet. The ground is rolling too much to stand. I know, because I’m clinging to the trunk of a teak tree with two hands, and I can barely stay up.
An Icon.
Here.
Because we’re here.
Because it follows us, follows me.
Even without the shard.
“But that’s impossible. We got rid of that thing. The shard.” I’m shouting over the noise of the earth splitting.
“We did,” calls Lucas. “But how much do you want to bet the GAP is holding on to one of his own?”
The screaming from the direction of the temple confirms the truth of Lucas’s words—and by the time everything is quiet again, I can’t feel a single Sympa there at all.
I felt them burn.
I felt them crumble into ash.
I felt their skin melt and their bones shatter.
But not now.
Not anymore. Now, they’re just gone. The aggression and the emptiness and the fear—all gone.
It’s over.
It isn’t until I’m pulling Lucas to his feet that I look across the flattened teak and palms to see Sparrow standing safely in the center of the jungle.
Watching as the mountaintop burns.