The Cosmic Summit
The next hour was a blur. At some point, Amira sat cross-legged on a bed in the Galileo’s sick bay, sipping a cold, green beverage. For the shock, the nurse explained. Lucia lay in a bed nearby, before she shot up like a possessed doll and stormed from the room. Shouts rang down the corridor outside, and Amira ached to add her own voice to the chorus. Where was Reznik? Would they be able to keep him secure after his explosive, public revelations on the Stream?
Her stomach curdled. She was certain that, just as she had seen his memories when their consciousnesses merged, he had seen hers – including Rozene’s location. If he escaped, or was freed, he could find her and the rest of the compound hideaways.
Her Eye remained in its confines on the lower floor – her only link to Lee and Maxine. Amira gritted her teeth. Somehow, she needed it back.
Barlow strode into the room.
“Tell me something,” Amira said, but her voice came out small. Would he blame her for Eleanor’s betrayal?
But if Barlow viewed Amira as complicit, he didn’t reveal it. His manner was brusque. A meeting of Cosmic leadership was to be held in the Galileo’s basement, Barlow explained, to discuss the response to the events of the last hour. She was invited, as his supporting team member on the Pandora project.
Amira bit back a thousand retorts. Was it an invite, or an order? Was it her role on the Pandora project that spurred the ‘invitation’, or the fact that she had read Reznik’s memory for the entire Stream to see?
But instead, she stood up and followed him out of the ward. In the corridor, she picked up the pace, forcing Barlow to match her. “I bet Lucia’s not thrilled, between her mother’s decision and the past going public.”
“You can probably imagine her psychological state right now,” Barlow said with a curt nod. “But don’t underestimate Lucia as a purely emotional, impulsive being. She has plenty of her mother in her. There’s a reason that she’s remained the head of the Cosmics, despite the unrest. She has a talent for corraling and steering the flock, as you’re about to see.”
“And what’s our goal in there?” Amira asked as they descended in the elevator.
Barlow turned to her with a serene but joyful smile. “This is a moment I’ve waited years for,” he said. “This is when the world changes.”
* * *
The Cosmic summit took place in a circular lectern in the Galileo basement. It resembled an old operating room by design, built to mimic the surgery rooms used centuries ago, where learning doctors would witness the first surgeries performed under anesthesia. One of the Galileo’s many tributes to the past. Its central floor was surrounded in a full circle by stadium seating.
The occupants finding their seats comprised of some familiar faces. About half of the Aldwych Council sat together, all wearing their badges over black robes, signifying their membership of the district’s most powerful judicial body. One or two professors from the Academy took front row seats, along with the woman Amira had seen lecture a crowd at Infinity Park. A few other faces belonged to famous scientists from Stream broadcasts and scientific breakthroughs Amira had studied at the Academy, including the head of the Hypatia station, an executive from the Avicenna, and the leading quantum theory researcher at McKenna. Almost all the attendees wore black lab coats, signifying the highest ranking in Aldwych, but a few purple lab coats appeared amid the crowd. In total, about fifty attendees filled the lecture hall.
Curious eyes and whispers followed Amira as she made her way with Barlow down to the lowest seating level. Lucia stood in the center, all folded arms and tapping toes. She wore a sharp blue suit with a red tie and even redder high heels. Her kohled eyes surveyed Amira with unmasked suspicion and Barlow with something more complicated – fear, mixed with hope.
“I hope you’re ready, Barlow,” she said under her breath as they took their seats behind her. “These people have a lot of questions and I’m not going to stop them.”
“I would expect nothing less, Lucia,” Barlow said. He brushed his lab coat – also black – and folded his arms atop his knees.
“For once, Barlow, I wish you’d react just a little,” Lucia said. “It keeps me calm, I guess, but if an international scandal doesn’t faze you, what will?”
“Death,” replied Barlow simply. “That is the only thing that unsettles me. The end is what matters. As long as we’re still here, we have a chance to bend fate to our will.”
Lucia snorted, but she grabbed a cup of coffee and motioned for the group to take their seats. She nodded at one of the higher rows. Orson sat in the back of the stadium seating, waving at Lucia. He turned and waved in another direction, across the base floor.
Amira gasped, drawing an interested glance from Barlow. Eleanor Morgan sat on the other side of the circular center, opposite Amira and Barlow. Two Aldwych Legion guards flanked her, a frail woman with bound hands. Dark glances fell in her direction, but her face could have rivalled Barlow’s for calmness. She was more than calm – her eyes shone with triumph, and she batted her eyes at Lucia with a simpering, sarcastic smile when her daughter neared.
“Order!” Lucia barked, and the room fell into obedient silence.
Lucia took a deep swig of coffee before placing it on the operating table in the floor’s center. She ran a finger over the smooth surface and began a slow, deliberate circle around the table. She made eye contact across the room as she spoke.
“We haven’t had a meeting like this in a while, on this scale and in this place,” she said with a pointed tilt of her head. “In fact, I think the last meeting like this took place in Las Vegas, right before my mother’s retirement from the Cosmic board and self-imposed exile from Westport, her family and her responsibilities.” She rounded on her mother, eyes flashing, before her face settled back into its prior composure. “It’s worth bringing up that little piece of Cosmic history because that was the point, I believe, at which it was decided to archive the Tiresia supplies created in the Osiris station and abandon its use for any scientific endeavor.”
The room was as silent as the vacuum of space. No one moved, or even exchanged a glance with their neighbor. Next to her, Barlow crossed one leg over the other and leaned back with polite interest.
“There has been much debate, since then, on whether that was the best course of action,” Lucia continued, emphasizing every word. “And I understand the concerns. What are we, if we don’t have debate and dialogue? The basis of Sentient Cosmology is critical thinking and daring to imagine the possible. It separates us from the compounds, and is part of what caused some of the compounds’ most brilliant minds to join the fold in the early years of our history. James Harmon, Gabriel Alvarez, and others.”
A murmur of approval spread across the crowd at those famous names.
“However,” Lucia continued, eyes flashing, “debate becomes secondary when the very survival of our movement is on the line. And make no mistake – our survival is at stake after what happened yesterday. The public won’t care what our intentions were or what could have been done with Tiresia. They might have allowed it if it had just been a bunch of words in a Stream article. But to have the entire thing broadcast on the Stream, warts and all, and all of these attacks around the city… the hammer is about to drop on us, and it’s going to hurt.”
“Now hang on, Lucia,” a man in the back spoke. “That wasn’t live footage that we saw, vivid as it was. It was a holomentic reading of a memory. And memories are imperfect and loaded with bias, are they not? It’s why those holomentic machines are good for studies and therapy, and nothing else. Can’t we just come up with a counter statement to that effect? This is a confessed murderer who runs the most notorious and brutal compound on this side of the world, responsible for terrorizing this city, and we’re supposed to take his childhood memory as gospel. I say no – let’s control the narrative.”
“The problem with this is that there’s another witness to events on that station – the only one still alive, aside from the Trinity leader – and she’s publicly corroborated what happened with her participation,” Lucia said, turning again to her mother. “Mom, why? You feel guilty, I know. You should. But don’t you feel any remorse for the position you’ve put me in, and the rest of us? I didn’t torture a man to death. No one else here did, either. Orson is innocent of anything, and this hurts him, too. We retired all of those schemes and we’re trying to expand this movement into something wonderful – your legacy! Do you really want to throw away everything you and the others in that room started?”
Amira raised her brows. Barlow had been right – Lucia was proving very effective, in the right forum. The same nervous energy followed her every movement, as she clenched her fist against her chest and her eyes bulged, but her impassioned speech left its mark. The audience stirred, hanging on to her every word.
Eleanor Morgan stood up and cleared her throat. “I’m protecting my legacy just fine with my actions,” she said. “Why do you think I came back, dear? I was ready to shoot Tony Barlow when he came knocking, but it was clear that my staying away wasn’t keeping this movement safe, or moral. We shut down the projects, yes. But did we destroy the Tiresia? We did not. We left it guarded and hidden, and the debate about its use continued. And because of that, we almost put it in the hands of people who are only interested in it as a weapon. No, Lucia, you’re not removed from this just because you weren’t there. As the leader, you must lead the atonement of our organization.”
“Maybe there was a way to do that without giving the Trinity leader a public soapbox,” Lucia countered. “Two billion views and counting, Mother! And it’s only been a matter of hours. Westport PD wants him now. President Hume contacted the Aldwych Council, warning us that a formal inquiry will be coming. And what about all of the Aldwych leadership who aren’t part of the movement? They’ve resented our power for a while. Now that the heat is coming for Aldwych, how quickly do you think they’ll be to make us a scapegoat when the outside pressure comes?”
“She’s correct,” said a woman in the front, an Academy professor who D’Arcy had studied under. “We have long been misunderstood and distrusted, both within Aldwych and out. Anyone inclined to fear us now will be outright against us.”
“Perhaps there’s a way to address everyone’s concerns,” Tony Barlow said, standing up. The room held its breath, as though the Cosmics had been waiting for Barlow to weigh in. Across the floor, Amira caught Eleanor meeting Barlow’s eye, giving the smallest and curtest of nods. So subtle, Amira nearly missed it. Encouragement to continue.
It hit Amira with sickening force. Her heart plummeted like a broken elevator. Eleanor had not betrayed Barlow when she stormed into the room with Amira and Reznik. She had done exactly what he needed – orchestrated a public event that brought the Cosmics together, put Lucia on the defensive. Weakened and frightened them, so he could step in with a solution.
“I think we are all in agreement that the history of Tiresia is terrible and ugly,” Barlow continued. “And that having it come to light forces us to make difficult decisions as to how to proceed. We have gotten the last supply out of the compounds’ hands and that is significant. Eleanor, Amira and I did so at great personal risk. It is now here, in the Galileo building. So on the most crucial matter, we are ahead of our enemies, despite the setback from yesterday.”
“So we have the drug that Westport and the North American Alliance are going to prosecute us for making,” Lucia said with narrowed eyes. “How wonderful, to have all of the criminal evidence in one place for them to seize it.”
“Not all of it,” Barlow replied with a smile. “There was another supply of Tiresia in the Soma building. Amira managed to move it last year before the Trinity could get their hands on it. Alistair Parrish, a good friend of many people here, kidnapped me in an attempt to find its location and give it to the compounds. But he failed. It is still in my possession. I added some of the Las Vegas supply to it, enough for my purposes, and have left the rest here.”
“What purposes?” a voice boomed.
“I’ll get to that,” Barlow replied.
“Where is it?” someone shouted.
“Somewhere safe,” Barlow said, not looking toward the source of the question.
“Until they kidnap you again and get the location out of you,” Lucia snapped. “Enough of this cat and mouse. As long as we keep a supply somewhere, we’re vulnerable. The compounds don’t know how to make it. Once their supply runs out, they won’t be dangerous anymore – not any more than they were before. So we destroy the Tiresia supply and ensure no one who knows how it is made can reveal the secret.”
She rounded on Eleanor with fierce eyes. Orson rocked from his high perch, his body language crying out his uncertainty.
“Are you suggesting we murder your own mother?” someone cried to a chorus of outraged shouts.
“It doesn’t have to be that extreme,” Lucia said with a thin-lipped grimace. “We can put her in the same state as Valerie Singh, comatose but with a mind that can’t be hacked. Or we can fake her death and stick her on the Carthage. I’m more than happy to brainstorm with all of you intelligent people on the specifics.”
“That won’t be necessary, dear,” Eleanor said softly. “Barlow and I have already come up with an answer.”
That gained Lucia’s attention. Her eyes darted between Eleanor and Barlow, attempting to decipher meaning from their blank expressions. “Continue,” she said.
“We destroy the Tiresia supply here at the Galileo in full view of cameras,” Barlow said. “Issue a public apology for the crimes of the old guard of Cosmics, and make it heartfelt. The remaining supply will be used for the continuation of the Pandora cloning project, which Amira and myself will manage. Any future failings and oversights will be mine and mine alone – I will take full ownership. But we won’t share that part with the public. Not even with the non-Cosmic members of Pandora. To them, it will be a simple cloning project, one that is now open to the public for those who wish to be cloned.”
“What does cloning have to do with Tiresia, Barlow?” a woman with white hair asked with interest. The same woman, Amira realized with a lurch, who had sat on the Aldwych Council during her trial.
“Amira, do you wish to answer?” Barlow asked her with a raised brow.
Amira frowned. She had watched the volleying conversation with equal parts fascination and dread, wondering where Barlow was planning to take it. She had her theories, and Barlow’s last comments confirmed it.
But Amira stood. Scores of curious faces turned to her, waiting. She exhaled.
“Dr. Barlow used Tiresia to transplant Rozene’s consciousness into her cloned baby Nova’s,” Amira said. “Not entirely, but if the experiment worked, then a part of Rozene also resides in Nova, including her memories. If he succeeded, Rozene may live on in some fashion after her body dies.”
For a moment, everyone in the room appeared too stunned to speak. Even Lucia, never without a retort, could only open and close her mouth. Only Eleanor reacted with a smooth smile – Barlow had clearly told her of his plan before.
“And did I succeed?” Barlow’s voice cut through the silence like a warm knife through butter. “In your expert assessment.”
There was no mockery in his voice. His eyes were serious, his tone laced with deference. He had baited her with that first question to ask the second.
Amira wet her lips and considered her words.
“You succeeded in doing something,” Amira said. “I read both Rozene and Nova’s neural activity at the same time on the holomentic machine. Nova possessed some of Rozene’s memories and shared some of her traumas. She carries a memory of Rozene’s of the time she was abducted by the Trinity Compound, that seems to have given her a fear of water. Rozene and her child have a strong connection to each other’s moods and emotions, even from the opposite sides of a house. Rozene can sense Nova’s changes in mood before they occur.”
“Some of that may be maternal intuition,” the white-haired woman noted, but her face had paled. “Or we could be reading more into the infant than is really there, given what you know.”
“That’s possible,” Amira agreed. “There needs to be more study and analysis. And Nova’s brain is still forming, drawing its own neural connections. It’s hard to say what will happen as she develops, and how much of the effects of the Tiresia injection she’ll retain.”
“And we also don’t know what will happen when M. Hull passes away,” Barlow said.
Cold anger glowed in Amira’s chest. “We won’t know that for a long time either,” she said firmly. Her gaze on Barlow was steady, her eyes shining with an unspoken warning.
Barlow nodded. “Of course, M. Valdez.”
“Tony, this is wildly unethical,” the white-haired judge said with a dazed shake of her head. “Of all of the dangerous, reckless decisions to make, on an already charged issue. We came in here to manage one public relations nightmare, and you’ve handed us another crisis.”
“It is done,” Barlow said. “I knew that if I didn’t act unilaterally, it would never have happened. But now it has, and I’ve handed us all an incredible opportunity. We have a first case study and, with the Tiresia supply, an opportunity to continue this greatest of endeavors. The science of moving human consciousness from one body to another. Imagine – you live, and near death, you pass down into another body and continue to exist. A new replica of your body, but all your knowledge, your life experience, your memories and joys. A chance to expand on that past life and carry on.
“Cosmics, colleagues and friends – if we succeed at this, we will have accomplished the pinnacle of modern scientific achievement. We will have solved the eternal riddle of human mortality. We could live on, existing over countless lifetimes in a cloned body. This is not just about our collective fear of death – this is unchaining the human experience and moving us into a new realm of evolution. We spend our lives accruing wisdom and knowledge, only for it all to be taken away when time claims our bodies. But what if we could ride the wave of time? Live over multiple generations, building knowledge and developing our moral understanding with each new lifetime? Think of what humanity could be, and what we could accomplish, without death breathing down our necks? Take the Titan colony, or space colonization in general. No longer would we have to worry about generation ships where the first three generations never see the end destination. We can travel the stars and move unencumbered through the universe, with only our minds to limit us. This is our future. This is our destiny, as a species. Should we let a dark origin story define that destiny? Or can we take that beginning and write a better ending, one that rewrites the laws of life?”
Barlow concluded his speech with his hands behind his back. With a subtle bow of his head, he sat down again at Amira’s side.
The Cosmics sat in silence. Their faces formed a varied mosaic across the arena. Some were alarmed, others angry. But others carried a more distant expression, laced with hope and possibility. Several were visibly moved, Eleanor Morgan among them. Tears pooled in the creases below her eyes. She stood.
“I was doubtful, at first,” Eleanor said. “Like many of you, I have my beliefs about the Conscious Plane and what occurs to us after death. But they’re just that – beliefs and hopes. Speculation based on what we know. What if there is nothing for us beyond this world? And what if that didn’t have to be our fate, or the next generation’s? I’ve seen Barlow’s research, and I believe in him. I believe that he and this young woman—” she gestured to Amira, “can succeed. If my crimes can lead to such a discovery, I can die with some peace. Yes, let the truth come to light – I did that, and plan to atone further. But if he succeeds, we will eliminate the root of all human suffering and much of its cruelty – the fear of death. The compounds cling to their beliefs and attract followers because they provide an answer to the oldest question – what occurs after we die? People draw comfort from an answer, any answer, no matter how dangerous or harmful the beliefs that come on the side. Imagine a world where people realize that they don’t have to fear death. That they don’t have to regret lost time or past mistakes. They can carry on and build something better than this crazy, broken world.”
The tears rolled into Amira’s lap before she realized she had been crying. Her throat scratched, her head ached, but hope had sparked inside her, heating her from within. Eleanor had voiced the thoughts that gnawed at her all her life, that had caused her to gaze into the night sky and dream of escaping to space. Her short life to date had been marred by the dangers of fanatical beliefs, and people who would commit unimaginable cruelty in the confidence of a Nearhaven and a Neverhaven. So many like her had suffered all their lives for those beliefs.
Immortality meant more than a selfish, human drive to keep on existing. It could change the way that humans existed, and coexisted.
Amira stood again.
“When Dr. Barlow told me what he did, in the ruins of a burning house that I almost died in, I was furious,” she said. “I felt deceived and was terrified for what it would mean for Rozene. But she’s doing better now, in a way, and she’s happier where she currently is. As long as that continues, and I can check in on her in a noninvasive way, I will continue working on the Pandora project with subjects who are knowledgeable and willing. If this is done ethically going forward, I think it’s the best thing that can be done.”
The more skeptical faces in the room relaxed. Lines smoothed across foreheads and brows unknotted at this vote of confidence from the famous holomentic reader, who knew the cost of Barlow’s schemes all too well. But an unpleasant shiver ran down Amira’s spine at her white lie. Rozene was happier in the vertical farm, but as their last meeting revealed, she wasn’t better.
“Shall we call a vote?” Eleanor asked. Amira drew in a sharp breath. Eleanor and Barlow’s machinations were moving forward and she, like the rest of the room, was being carried along in their powerful current.
“Hang on,” Lucia said. Hers was one of the faces that remained wary. “You’re forgetting that we still have the problem of the Tiresia. What happens if this experiment proves more complicated than Barlow estimates and more of it’s needed? Are we back to torture time on the Osiris?”
“Not anymore,” Barlow said with a nod to Eleanor. “We have another way to make more Tiresia if it’s needed. Through those who have already been subject to Tiresia.”
Amira blinked. “What do you mean?” she interjected.
“The drug works by capturing the brain’s chemical state when a person’s consciousness accesses the Conscious Plane. The researchers of the past had to go to tragic extremes to create the right conditions. But part of what Tiresia does is untether a person’s consciousness from their physical body and mind, making it more susceptible for transfer to another mind. You, Amira Valdez, are a perfect example of that. Now, you are able to jump into the Conscious Plane almost as easily as walking into another room. We can create Tiresia from a person with that ability, in that state, without unnecessary cruelty. Eleanor and I ran the data, after she conducted a reading of Amira, and confirmed that it would work.”
A chilling unease gripped Amira, accompanied by the sickening realization of betrayal. Barlow’s push for Eleanor to read Amira’s mind back in Mexico carried a hidden motive. It was more than curiosity about Amira’s exposure to Tiresia; he had considered a more practical application of her abilities. But should Amira be surprised? Everything Barlow did contained several layers, always several steps ahead of friend and foe alike.
But Amira needed to hold him accountable, especially in this forum, before the Cosmic elite.
“And I assume that these subjects will also consent to the manufacturing of further Tiresia?” Amira asked. “The process is more humane, but Aldwych’s patient consent laws still apply, correct?”
Barlow smiled. “Of course, Amira.”
A person in the back stood up and walked with a cane down the steps to the central floor. He looked to be around Victor Zhang’s age, had the Volta scientist still been alive – over one hundred and twenty, though well preserved by the best genetic medical treatment that modern science could provide. His voice rang strong and youthful, the likely product of a vocal cord rejuvenation.
“I joined the Cosmic movement not because it gave me comfort, but because it affirmed a truth I already knew,” he said. “That we are more than fancy collections of carbon, designed to eat, sleep and exist in our chosen fashion until we return to a void, food for the worms. I knew it, even though I knew the faith of the compound on which I grew up was also false. Don’t tell us we need to fear death and resist its inevitability – it isn’t something for us to fear. Look at me. It approaches me closer every day, and I’m ready. When I was younger, I nearly died in the waters off Westport’s shores. When I was fighting the waves, I heard voices from my childhood. My grandmother, telling me to fight and go back. Time sped up, and I saw a reel of my life in a matter of seconds. Not only what I experienced, but what others around me had. Those I had made happy, others I had hurt – I felt what they felt. A peace came over me, followed by an overwhelming sense of love and togetherness.” His eyes grew misty. “I wanted to sink into that peace, to join those I sensed around me. But something tugged me back to the present, and hands pulled me out of the water onto the boat.”
“What happened to you was a near-death experience,” Tony Barlow said with forced patience. “A heavily studied phenomena that creates experiences similar to those of the drug DMT. It is the brain’s final electrical firings and nothing more. It tells us nothing about what occurs after death.”
“You are wrong,” the old man said. “I know what I experienced, and it wasn’t a crude trick of the mind. This universe contains so much more than we can measure in a lab or read on a machine. Have you all forgotten that central tenet of Sentient Cosmology? We are anchored by science, but elevated by faith and the beauty of cosmic mystery.”
Some murmurs of assent followed. Amira frowned. Though the man’s story moved her, she couldn’t help but agree with Barlow’s assessment. He knew neuroscience, like her, and sought the logical, scientific answer. But a part of her longed for Barlow to be wrong – for others to see how dangerous he could be. What would happen if he won over the crowd?
Barlow leaned forward, examining the crowd with a dense frown. Across the way, Eleanor did the same. Assessing the mood of the group and counting the potential votes.
Amira wet her lips and squirmed in her seat. With each passing second, her fear of Barlow grew, but a part of her also wished to see him succeed, and to learn his ultimate goal. She saw a movement divided. The excited adherents in Barlow’s camp, the skeptics in that elderly man’s, and those who hovered in between. Lucia appeared to make the same assessment, because she clapped her hands together with a grim smile.
“We’ve talked and debated,” she said. “You’ve been very good, Barlow, at answering our questions. Is there anything else before we decide how to proceed? The options are your plan, or mine – that we come out with a statement questioning Reznik’s reliability as a narrator of the past, but extinguish all traces of Tiresia and knowledge of its manufacture.”
“We’re not done,” Eleanor said softly. “I still have to be dealt with, after all, don’t I? Lucia, my girl, I agree with you that the knowledge of the old way must go. But more importantly, I’m done. I don’t want to be here with my guilt anymore. I don’t need to see Barlow’s vision realized – the knowledge that it will happen is enough for me. I want peace. I want nothingness. And I want to settle, once and for all, whether that’s what awaits us.”
Her eyes met Barlow’s and their gazes locked. It lasted for a moment, but time stretched and expanded between the seconds. Amira tensed her shoulders. A critical moment, she knew, was underway, and the air thickened with the weight of a shared decision.
“Lucia, I ask for permission to bring in a holomentic machine,” Barlow said.
“We vote,” Lucia said sharply. “This is getting theatrical. What’s the intent here, Barlow?”
“This machine includes an enhancement I spent years developing in my exile,” Eleanor said, avoiding her daughter’s eye. “It can detect a person’s conscious state when it enters the Conscious Plane. We proved it when I read Amira Valdez. I’m ready to fulfill my role as a sacrificial lamb – literally – in Tiresia’s creation. And in the process, I wish to make a final contribution to science – to have my brain read as I enter clinical brain death.”
Gasps and cries followed Eleanor’s pronouncement. Lucia paled. Eleanor settled back into her seat with a grim, satisfied smile.
“This is outrageous,” the Aldwych Council judge exclaimed. “We are not in the Middle Ages and are not in the business of public executions. This should not even be up for a vote. No.”
“Assisted suicide is legal,” Eleanor retorted, her voice stronger. “It is my right as a Westport citizen to die on my own terms, in my own time. I am a confessed torturer and killer. I am old and tired under the weight of my crimes. I’ve been that way for a long time. I can die alone in the hours after this meeting ends. Or I can die here, among colleagues and friends, and gift you with the information to make the most important decision you will ever make – to pursue the extinction of death.”
Amira’s legs shook as she ran across the central floor. She nearly knocked Lucia’s coffee from her hand. More gasps and whispers rose around her. She clasped her hands on Eleanor’s shoulders.
“I won’t do it,” she said in a wavering voice. “I can’t be the one to read you.”
“I’d only trust you to be my reader,” Eleanor said with a sad, gentle smile.
“What about Orson?” Amira said with a nod to the upper seats. There, Eleanor’s eldest son sat with his knees pressed together, surveying the scene with confusion. “You can’t do this to him – you’re his mother.”
Eleanor let out a low, harsh laugh. “I haven’t been his mother for years. Even when I was here, I wasn’t much of a mother. Lucia will always take care of him. You should know, better than anyone else, that the person who births you isn’t always the family you need. I’ve failed him, as well. He’s not a reason for me to stay – just another reason for me to go.”
“No.” Amira didn’t care that her voice echoed through the room, loud enough for every ear. It didn’t matter that her nose had started to run as tears spilled from her eyes. She couldn’t be a part of this. “Years ago, you did something on the holomentic machine that you’ve regretted all your life. Please, don’t put me in the same situation.”
Eleanor grabbed both of Amira’s hands and squeezed them with a reassuring smile.
“You’re doing me a favor,” she said. “This is not the same. I want this. Back in the Dead Zone, I was just existing. I watched the Faded with envy, for the way they could just slip into nothingness. And I learned. I can now make an exit to be proud of and leave some good behind amid all the bad. You have all the tools and knowledge you need to see this endeavor to the end – I have faith in you.”
Amira’s pulse drummed in her throat. She could barely speak, let alone protest, and the weight of the auditorium pressed down on her. The crowd surveyed the two women with fascination and the air hummed with a strange excitement. The same excitement, Amira imagined, that once preceded the gladiatorial battles in Roman arenas or the scaffolds of London’s Tyburn Square before a beheading. The strange, uniquely human desire to witness death.
Lucia’s knuckles whitened under her crossed arms. Fear spread across her face. The energy of the room had shifted in a way beyond her control. Her wide eyes found her mother and her head gave a barely perceptible shake. Don’t do this, her face implored. Though she had wanted Eleanor Morgan neutralized, no doubt, this was not what she imagined.
“I say we call a vote at last,” Barlow said, standing. “Those opposed to Eleanor’s offer, raise hands.”
Several vehement hands rose at once. Lucia joined them with long, trembling fingers. She gestured toward Orson, whose hand shot rigid into the air. Eleanor closed her eyes and turned away. A few hesitant ones followed but Amira’s heart sank further. Not enough. Too many lay folded in laps, fidgeting with subtle intent.
“All those in favor of Eleanor’s proposal,” Barlow continued in a louder voice, colored with satisfaction, “including M. Valdez’s responsibility to conduct the holomentic reading, raise your hands.”
A pause, and then, one by one, hands extended upward across the arena seating. Amira closed her eyes, tracing her scarred palms with trembling fingers. The outcome was clear.
“M. Valdez?” Silent as a lion in tall grass, Tony Barlow appeared at her side. She had been cornered. He lowered his voice before continuing. “The decision has been made. The Cosmics have backed Eleanor’s wishes.”
“Well, I’m not a Cosmic,” Amira said. She wiped her eyes and drew a shuddering breath. The walls of the imposing room closed in around her, compressing her into a ball of despair. “Dr. Mercer was right about you all. You’re dangerous. You’re no better than the compounds, with your magical thinking.”
“Tonight is where we end the magical thinking,” Tony Barlow whispered with flashing eyes. “And while you are not a Cosmic, you are my employee and a member of the Pandora project. Refuse to do this, and you’ll never work in Aldwych again. You will never work in any station. I promise you that.”
Amira sucked in the room’s cold, stale air. Around her, black coats rustled and Council badges glinted under the yellow light. The power of Aldwych, bearing down on her. The future she had fought so hard for – the tears shed late at night over Academy assignments, the sweat of early morning runs, the blood that had trailed down D’Arcy’s neck in the Soma, and the blood that pooled around her knees as Dr. Singh lost consciousness – hung on the edge of a knife. A blade pointed at her throat, daring her to jump into the unknown. If Aldwych and its space stations weren’t her future, what would be? A job behind some desk in Westport? Would she commute back to the Pines every night, the city lights blinking behind her? She knew nothing but this world.
All those years at the Academy, trying to reach this high place – to be surrounded by the greatest minds of Aldwych, respected as a peer. Now Amira stood in the center of the stage, the spotlight trained on her, but no light could penetrate the shadow descending across her heart. She had been chewed up and hollowed out, about to kill a person to prove a theory. She never would have imagined, on those late nights watching the stars, that all of her hard work would lead to this.
A hand gripped her arm and she spun around to face Eleanor Morgan, her watery eyes imploring.
“Don’t throw it all away for me when I want this,” she said. “This is what you were meant to do, Amira. Whatever the machine reveals, you will make history tonight.”
With a gulp of air, Amira nodded. Eleanor squeezed her hand and the walls of the auditorium caved in, like a closing fist.