I drop to the floor and sit cross-legged, flattening a stand of tulips, eyes still stuck on my mother.
Ocho climbs out of the satchel and into my lap. I don’t even stop her kneading my flesh with her claws, too struck by what’s before me. When Ocho stops and settles, I rest a hand on her back and absently stroke her long gray fur. “I guess we’re both clones of our mother.”
“You didn’t know?” Dima asks from the doorway.
I shake my head.
“You were always more than just a clone,” Dima says. “You . . . were the culmination of all Marius’s work.”
Pale knocks on the glass, as if testing that the woman is really dead. He looks from her to me, not scared or confused, but curious. “Mars?” he says softly. “Is there another one of me somewhere?”
“I don’t think so, little man.”
He considers this for a moment with his lips pursed.
“What was her name?” I ask Dima.
“Cilla Jiang.”
I sigh. “She’s not really my mother.”
“She carried you; she died giving birth to you. She was . . . as much a mother as any could be.”
No one should die in childbirth, not today, not with access to even the most rudimentary medical facilities. I lean my forehead against the glass and let my eyes land on Ocho, pushing her head into my hand so I can scratch her chin.
“If I’m her clone then my father’s not my father.”
“You were a daughter to him; he loved you, you and Sera both.”
“Don’t you dare say her name,” I spit, my face twisted in rage and anguish, vision blurred by tears.
“Forgive me,” Dima says. “I remember her. I was maybe nine when she left, and she was a toddler . . . but I remember her. Not you though. I don’t know why.”
“Because Teo discarded me the moment I was born. But sure, he loved us so fucking much.”
I smack the glass with the base of my fist. I’m not trying to break it—for that I’d use my mind—but I need to hit something, and the slow thudding beat gives structure to the maelstrom of thoughts roiling through my head.
What little I knew about my past is a lie.
“What was she like?” I ask. “Sera?”
“She was kept away from the rest of us because she was special, but she’d break out of your father’s lab when she wanted someone to play with.”
I give a wry smile. “Breaking out was one thing she was good at. What about my mother?”
Dima hesitates. “It’s not my place to say.”
Sealed under glass like a fucking butterfly on display. Whatever she was like, I’m sure she deserved better than that.
“Do you have any video, audio; anything that might help me get to know her?”
“Of course,” Dima says. “I’ll see what I can gather.”
“I was hoping to find you here.”
I spin at the man’s voice—low-pitched, oozing smug condescension. It suits his face perfectly: hooded eyes, small nose, thin lips pulled back in a certain smile—a face you want to punch. He wears a white robe hemmed in mud and stitched in gold thread. I grab Ocho and put her on my shoulder. She climbs into the hood of my cloak as I push up from the flower bed.
“Who are you meant to be?” I ask, brushing dirt from my ass.
He presses his hands together and bows; I barely stop my eyes from rolling.
“Neer Dehner, acting planetary governor and assistant to your father. I took on the affairs of Sanderak so that he could focus on his work.” He places an odd significance on “he” and “his,” as though the words were naming some god.
“How noble of you,” I say deadpan. He reacts as though I were sincere, nodding his head to one side.
“The people here view him as a father figure and more. He would get little done without an intermediary.”
Intermediary or high priest? I think, eyes scanning his lavish robes once more.
“Before I take you to see your father, shall the four of us share a meal? We have a variety of unique fowl here on Sanderak, and my personal chef has recipes grand enough for the emperor themself.”
Pale looks at me expectantly. I’m as hungry as you are, buddy, and I’ve had nothing but prison slop and travel food for months, but . . . “We’ll take a rain check; I’ve travelled too far and been through too much shit to wait any longer.”
He bows again, his eyes distant when he straightens. Moments later, four guards appear in the hallway, carrying ballistic pistols and wearing body armor beneath cloaks fashioned like Dehner’s robes—white with gold filigree suggesting the soft curves of a moth’s wing.
“Would you like me to take her?” Dima asks.
“No, thank you, Dima; I’ll take Mars to see him.”
“She should know the truth.”
He quiets her with a glance. If I didn’t dislike this guy already, the harshness of that look would have done it.
“The truth will be made apparent in time. Come, he is ready for us now.”
I turn back to Cilla Jiang, take in my dead and future self once more, then leave the floral mausoleum with Pale by my side and Ocho weighing heavy in my hood.
Dima closes the door after us; it seals with a beep and the clank of a locking mechanism. She stays behind as Pale and I follow Neer and his guard to the rear of the Residence. We exit through a door leading outside—if an underground cavern can be called “outside.”
“Marius spends very little time within the Residence,” Dehner says. “He has an affinity for nature and the natural. He says he feels connected to the heart of Sanderak when he has his hands in the dirt.”
It’s dark here, darker than the front courtyard, lit only by fireflies massed on the high curved walls. Tree roots fall from the ceiling to form thick columns, lining a path further into darkness. Underfoot, polycrete gives way to packed dirt, and Neer stops, flanked by his soldiers.
“His sanctuary is just ahead. I’ll wait here with the boy.” Dehner holds a hand out toward Pale, but he puts an arm around my waist and squeezes.
“No,” I say, “he’ll stay with me.”
“Very well. I’ll warn you now,” Dehner continued: “he won’t be what you expect.”
I can’t tell if it’s a threat or a warning, but I ignore it either way.
Ahead, two trees grow from the ground, ghost-eucalypts that twist around each other to form an arch. At the apex they break apart and spread like antlers reaching toward the earth overhead. Pale and I pass beneath and into Teo’s chamber.
Within the sanctum the roof is open to the night sky, near-full moon edging across indigo. Flakes of ash drift through the gap, carried untold distances from the perennial fires that burn across the planet. Tree roots run thick through the walls, holding the earth in place as well as any man-made material would. There’s a rich smell of earth, the green scent of dirt and moss, the smell of a damp grave without the rot of a body.
A man stands in the middle of the weakly lit space, hair in loose gray curls, long enough to rest on his shoulders. He stares at his open palm where a colossus moth rests, wings outspread, dim glow lighting his face from beneath.
“Welcome, my children,” he says, without looking up. It’s a smooth voice, calm.
“Do you even know who I am?”
“Of course I do, daughter.” His eyes glint when they fall on mine, and he smiles warmly.
“Mars,” Pale says, clutching tight to my arm, “I don’t like it here.” His eyes trace over the cavern, pupils shimmering with the reflected light of fireflies.
“I won’t let anything happen,” I say softly. I pull my arm from Pale’s grip and step forward, holding a hand out so Pale knows to stay back.
Teo watches me absently, his face calm.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”
“We are not about death here,” he says, “we are about life. We come here to celebrate life, to . . . create it.”
“Sure, create life then toss it aside. Sell it to the highest bidder. Let them turn children into fucking monsters.”
The same smile again. “None of my children could be a monster.”
I try to laugh, but it comes out like a cry. “Tell that to the people I killed, to their families,” I say, guttural thick, oddly painful after the high shriek of my laugh.
I leave Pale behind and step closer, close enough to see the individual strands of his hair and the pattern drawn in the furry wings of the massive insect still resting on his hand, unperturbed by my approach.
“Family is truly important. I was gifted with unconventional children, ones that I had a very deliberate hand in creating, rather than relying on the lottery of conception.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask with barely contained rage, as all the years of hurt and anguish bubble in my mind; gray matter humming, thoughts turning to violence.
I cry again as anger sears through my mind. My thoughts strike out and dirt shakes loose from the wall behind him, but Teo doesn’t flinch.
“What is—” I step forward and throw my arms out to shove him—physically—and stumble through empty air. Bright colors flare across my eyes, then I’m through him, through the hologram. Balance regained, I spin and Teo is there, smiling kindly, moth still resting in his hand.
I walk through the hologram, throwing an arm out as if to push it aside but instead slamming the wall of Teo’s chapel with my mind, crashing a ton of dirt into the hallowed space. I hold out my hand and Pale grabs it, marching quick beside me as I storm out beneath the archway.
Dehner’s honor guard has already formed up in front of their charge. I point a finger at Neer and yell, “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”
The guards raise their weapons and open fire.
Their faces light up in split-second muzzle flash, handcannons booming loud in the confined space. I could have stopped them, could have tossed them aside before they fired—instead I flick my wrist and push the bullets aside, dense slugs peeling away to thud into the wall. A growl builds in the back of my throat, but in that moment Pale doesn’t hear it, he doesn’t know I’m ready to deal with the guards. He lashes out. The ground explodes beneath them, dirt, rocks, and people thrown high. One of the guards slams into the ceiling—something inside him snaps and he cries out in pain before he hits the dirt.
Pale’s eyes roll back in his head, irises hidden. He crumples.
I lift Neer from the ground, hand outstretched and twisted into a claw as I choke the life from the slimy shitstain disguised as a man.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” I repeat, screaming. Through the film of tears Neer is little more than a white blur on black.
“I can explain everything. I can tell you where he is,” Neer begs, choking the words out in a broken, slowing rhythm. His words mean nothing, less than nothing, but I let him go. He collapses to the ground, a sodden pile of robes and man gathered on the ground. I drop to my knees to hold gently onto Pale, seizing in the dirt.
“Hey, hey, it’s me, I’m here, hey.” I keep crying, but it’s different now. The rage is gone, replaced by fear and something like love for the boy who’s shaking and hurt. “Pale, please, hey, it’s Mars. I’m here, okay?”