Queen of babylon, p.29
Queen of Babylon, page 29
“I mean, I had a great-grandmother who was white, if that’s what you mean.”
He chuckled at my comment. “You are a special one, Seven. A pearl among pearls. And your uniqueness makes you the perfect candidate to unite our worlds, while there is still time.”
“I’m just a machine,” I said simply, trying my best not to let him get under my skin.
“It must be tiring,” he continued. “Being fettered to those whom you don’t understand. Who don’t understand you. What would it be like to be a part of something bigger, Seven?” Before I knew it, he’d wrapped his hand around mine. Something zapped through his grasp, an electric shock perhaps. But too fast, and the small taste of it was already bursting through the golden ichor of my new blood. “Better?”
I snatched my hand away, but whatever he’d shared was already moving through my body. “What did you do?”
“Just sharing a small taste of our abilities. That was a fractional nexus to the Mesa network. Our gifts are in the way we shape our world. It’s so much more than some language virus. It’s the power to create what we see fit.”
I blinked, trying to steady myself. My words came out breathless and flimsy. “Your language virus is dangerous to us all. Man. Machine.”
“But is it a danger to you, Seven? Already you have encountered the Babble, and yet you still walk and talk as yourself.” He looked back over to the cherry blossoms. With his new gifts coursing through me, they seemed brighter to the gaze. My hearing was keener as well, like each bud’s snap on the wind was perfectly tuned to my eardrum.
“What I’ve given you is not necessarily permanent,” he said. “The Mesa is a gift you can always return. My parents died in the war, and I suffered for many years after. Until I found my gifts. Until I laid the bricks that would unlock a unified understanding of a quantum network of infinite storage. My new family. But what would I have done to possess my abilities just a bit earlier?” That near-feline gaze turned on me again. “Have you ever asked yourself that question? What difference would it have made to possess your greatest strengths before your greatest tragedy?”
“Josephine,” called a voice. Both Yukio and I turned to find three people crossing the deck. Yukio angled away from me, his expression darkening as April and El followed Oktai, who was heading toward us with a determined stride.
“Sleep on it,” Yukio whispered to me, and then: “We’re done here,” he announced when the trio stood before us.
Oktai glared openly at Yukio. “You were gone for a long time,” he said to me. “We worried.”
“I’m fine,” I said. Oktai only nodded as April motioned for us to follow her. She must have received some message from Yukio mind-to-mind. We followed, and I only glanced back once, to where El and Yukio held each other’s gaze for the briefest moment.
***
That night, April showed us to our own rooms in the compound. Well, if you could call it night. Hard to tell in space. My chamber was large and without a bed. Maybe Yukio had read my mind enough to know I didn’t need sleep. There were only white minimalist chairs and tables strewn around, and a large couch that was more comfortable than I wanted to admit. As the hours passed, I found myself scrubbing my face and more wired than when I’d gone onto the ship’s deck. I’d come to the moon to get One back. Now the leader of the Swarm Cartel had asked me to join them, an entity of far superior technology and power. He also gave me a taste of that gift, and I couldn’t say I hated it.
I breathed deeply. The ceiling of the room was clear, so I stared up at the winking stars. For a stupid second I thought, I wonder if I can see the moon tonight? Oh, that’s right, I’m on her. My whole life, from Oakland to Siberia, her light had been the same, and now here I was standing on her surface like it wasn’t a thing. This absurd situation was the foundation for the confusing, albeit interesting, chance I’d been offered. A chance like the one I’d been presented with before replication. To be more. Becoming part of the Swarm Cartel would mean I’d have a new gift, one my sisters couldn’t dream of. I would have the power to transform matter at will.
I rubbed my shoulders. I could say no, but if I did, what if Yukio asked another Josephine, or allowed that power into the wrong hands? What would that mean for the world, under this treaty that was feeling flimsier and flimsier? Was forming some kind of commonwealth between the entities really the answer?
I couldn’t stay in this room a minute longer. My feet were moving, quickly leaving the chamber, and heading down a narrow hallway. I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly, but it didn’t matter, for after a few sharp turns, I found a familiar redhead maneuvering toward me. Not El. Clo. She was bounding down the hall, finally completely out of her Vegas getup, her mane in a long twist of crimson. She also must have been in her own head, because it took a few moments for her to notice me. But when she did, she smiled and marched my way. Sometimes I wished she had El’s level of wariness and disinterest in chats.
“Hey, Tik-Tok,” Clo said warmly. From her, the moniker didn’t bite. She then looked around herself. “Dunno where I was heading, on a big space rock. What are you doing? Couldn’t sleep?”
“I don’t sleep really.” I thought about it. “Maybe I left my room looking for—”
“One of the hot guys?”
“Oktai,” I offered.
“That’s what I said.”
“And I found you, Clo.” It was weird seeing her without El. “Where’s your sister?”
“We don’t do everything together. I thought you were a twin. You should get that,” she said before pointing her chin down the hall. An invitation. So we began to walk, the unlikeliest of people. “So, when you went to talk with Creepy Floating Kid, did you get what you needed? Or are we on the moon for another couple of days?”
Had I gotten what I needed? As if in response to my thoughts, those pieces of Yukio’s power within me seemed to thrum. The power of creation. To have. Maybe even to consume. I curled and uncurled my fingers. “Maybe, but not yet. Won’t be a couple of days, though.”
“Okay,” she said. “Still weird being able to breathe up here. You know, in space.”
“That’s a thing for you, huh?” I laughed and shook my head. “Doesn’t seem too surprising. A lot of the Swarm Cartel appear to have been human once. Could be the reason they made this compound so breathable.”
“Mama would freak out up here,” she said. “So much to see and learn. That’s why El and I need answers, Tik-Tok. Good answers.”
“What are you saying, Clo?”
“Not that I don’t have faith in you, because I do. Just . . . all this that El and I are doing is for our mama. She’s back on Earth. Hurry up getting what you need so we can get back to our real missions. Yours, too.” We rounded a few of the chamber doors. “Well, this is me. Unless you want to come in and talk some more.”
“I’m good, thanks. Good night,” I said. Clo inclined her head and slipped into her room. I sighed. “Yettis . . .”
As I continued my midnight walk, it soon turned less casual and became more of a jog. A run. A sprint. At least until I stopped. I’d found a new room, a hall like the large one filled with whispers, but this one was bathed in starlight. What is this place? I stepped farther inside and realized that at the opposite end of the space, someone rested on a rock. A shock of anxiety passed through me that it might be Yukio, but I calmed when Oktai ruffled his hair. He looked up as if he could hear me noticing him. At least I was positive that he couldn’t read my thoughts. Before I knew it, he’d wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug.
When we finally pulled apart, I smiled and touched his face. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No,” he said. “Not here.”
“Neither could Clo. I already bumped into her,” I said as we found ourselves curling onto the rock where he’d sat. A few moments passed before: “What’s wrong?”
He scrubbed his face. “Everything back there, after you left. It wasn’t right. Not what my people would have thought this place to be.”
“Your people know about the Swarm Cartel?”
“We have our tales,” he said. “The Bee People have always been in our stories. Like the Tsirku. They have their own purpose in the world. Theirs is just that they can slip into pockets of it that we can’t see. They are people who come from nowhere.”
“What happened when I left with Yukio?”
“They tried to show us more of the world, of their people. April said that they could show us only because we were already a part of it. And that’s when they started bending light and sound in the hall. When they appeared and reappeared as if in unison and jest, just because it suited them.” He shook his head. “That back there wasn’t right. That’s a power for gods, not men.”
“It was just a show,” I said, feeling Yukio’s power inside me react to Oktai’s wariness. Rumbling as if wanting to defend itself, its honor. “The Swarm Cartel creates and moves matter. And it’s not so bad. Maybe it won’t feel so bad if you understood.” As Yukio had done on the ship’s deck, I took Oktai’s hand to share with him the bit of Swarm Cartel power, the Mesa network I felt earlier. It surged through my ichor and launched into Oktai’s palm, his eyes widening as it landed its mark.
“What are you doing?” he asked, taking in the world around us. Perhaps he was seeing it anew, as I’d done with the cherry blossoms.
“Yukio shared this with me,” I said. “It’s only a bit of the Swarm Cartel’s power. It’s like you can see all pieces of all things. Every atom. Every molecule.”
“Josephine.”
“The ship you saw earlier . . . Yukio created that with his own power. Like he formed his own reality.”
“Josephine.”
“And it didn’t trap him. It helped him make the world better for his family.”
“Josephine!” Oktai had taken his hand back. He shook it hard, as if trying to send whatever I’d shared with him back into the air. “The Bee People are sacred, yes. They have amazing abilities. But it is not something I want to come too close to. It’s like the sun. I don’t want to be close enough to touch it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with understanding it. Understanding our options better.”
“We have a mission,” Oktai replied. “We’re here to get what we need for your sister. We’re here to help the Yettis.”
“I haven’t forgotten. Just, didn’t you feel that? Yukio could teach me to use it. Share more. He could teach you, too. We could be better, stronger versions of who we are now.”
“Or just different versions,” Oktai said. “I like who we are now. I like the strength we came here with.” He took my hands. The remaining power in me stayed put. “Yukio’s power is fire. And I’ve seen what happens when people get too close.”
“Oktai,” I said, my hands finding my hips. “It’s not like that. This is power. It’s strength. And I can’t help but think of what I could have done with it earlier. If Yukio teaches me, I could learn to handle this. I could do good with this.”
“You’re already doing good now,” he said.
I began to speak again, but something in his eyes halted me.
“What?”
“I’ve seen that look before. I’ve seen that hunger before. Not of the body. It’s in your spirit. And unlike Yukio, you still have one. He can’t give you what you’re missing, Josephine. Not with those tricks.”
“Not tricks, Oktai. Power. I may not even need One. I may not even need to go back to Yerba City. Do you know what it’s like to be me? To live surrounded by sisters you can’t understand? To be the odd one out all the time? I . . . want more options. I never get to have them.”
Oktai’s sigh was long. “You know where I saw the great hunger before? It was in my father. He wanted to have the greatest expertise of all the hunters in our village. He wanted to be the best. Only. Singular. That led him to chase down a herd of reindeer he shouldn’t have. He did it alone. Ran out onto ice that was thinner than it should have been for the time of year. He fell straight through before anyone could make it there to pull him out. All they could save was his knife.”
“I’m sorry.” It was a whisper. A quick, quiet whisper.
“And I know the hunger in myself. We aren’t so different, you and me. I wasn’t supposed to be a hunter. I was supposed to be an advisor to the chief one day. But I wanted to step into my father’s place so badly that I bribed the shaman to change my fate. To reroute me. Because I had to do what my father couldn’t. I had to find him on that ice somehow. Keep him from going through. But in my walk as a hunter, I found you.”
My voice was thin. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to listen. When I’d gone through my Chitakla, I realized I was proud to be a hunter. But becoming one wasn’t bringing my father back. It wasn’t rewriting the past. And it wasn’t taking away the anger I had at my father for leaving me. For making a terrible decision. Yes, you can love someone and be angry at them . . . He needed to cure his hubris, and I needed to cure my need to fix it.”
“I’m not trying to fix anything—”
He held his hand up. “Nothing outside can fill your cup. You must do that. And if you accept Yukio’s power, it will be a mistake.”
I set my chin hard. He didn’t know me. He’d just met me. “Good night, Oktai.”
He stepped away from me, and quietly left the hall.
Chapter 21
Power Grabs
The fight with Oktai left a hollowness in my gut. I’d never had a boyfriend, so I didn’t have anything else to draw from when it came to this feeling. It was new and unexpected, leaving me to sit in my room with my thoughts. Were the things I wanted so bad? Could he not see the use for this power, too? As if responding to my thoughts, Yukio’s gift thrummed inside me—a bone-deep awareness that I could move particles into whatever I wanted, however I wanted to do it. That I could create. Matter was like Legos in the air. It was something to be built upon. But even with this awareness, I knew there was still so much I couldn’t see. That I couldn’t manipulate. And despite Oktai’s reservations, I wanted it.
I rose from one of the chairs and plucked some matter from nothingness, opting to twist it around my hands. I flexed my fingers and twisted again until it became a weaving of sorts. My hands moved faster and faster until they’d made their product: a simple white flower. It hovered in the air before I plucked it. It was real, with soft petals and a sweet smell. I’d made this from nothing. And then I fastened that little bit of nothing, now something, to my Josephine uniform. The power hummed in me again, now with pride.
What else could I do?
That thrumming washed over my body, and I knew the matter had changed again. But this time, it wasn’t making floral arrangements. This time, it altered my Josephine outfit into something new, something I hadn’t realized I wanted to create. A dress now draped my frame. Not Josephine standard issue, but something like from a department store. Or maybe something even better than that. Maybe it came from a designer or an expensive tailor. Either way, it was knee-length, flared out, and shimmered in a shade of silver. My flower remained, like one of those old-timey corsages in black-and-white pictures.
I spun around, and a clacking sound traveled to my ears. Cute, strappy heels were on my feet, a perfect match for the dress. And my fro? Fashioned with braids in the front and more little flowers woven in the cornrows. I only missed a mirror to see myself.
I twisted my hands around. Make a mirror. I need a mirror. But one didn’t form. Instead, the particles around me bent the chamber on the moon into something else. A new place. A decorated gym in Oakland, the one belonging to the middle school down the street from Aunt Connie’s house. Both my dad and Aunt Connie had gone there when they were preteens. Gauzy streamers that looked like winter winds hung from the ceiling. Fake, plump snowmen were placed around the room, and a disco ball hung above a white dance floor that looked like it was supposed to mimic a sheet of ice.
“Of course,” I said, looking around. “Snow Ball.” The annual dance was always in December, right before the Christmas holiday. I had never been, obviously. I’d been too young for this kind of thing before the world crashed and the machines carted everyone away. But maybe this was how I imagined it would be when I was old enough to go.
And then the floor started to rattle with bass. A DJ had appeared at the far side of the gym, and the room was swelling with music. Other kids appeared, dancing, though I couldn’t really make out their faces from lines and shadows. Perhaps the power in me wasn’t strong enough to give them more clear images.
“Only missing one thing,” I whispered, shifting my weight from heel to heel in the middle of the dance floor. And then the music changed, a slower beat. And I glanced toward the gym doors, where my date walked in. His face I could see. I’d only seen him in his gear and furs up to this point, but now Oktai was dressed formally, with his hair pulled back. And yeah, if the girls back home could have seen him, they might have ended the world just for a dance. He cut across the floor, weaving between the shadow people until he stood before me and stuck out his hand. And like in the old sitcoms I watched with Aunt Connie, no sooner had I blinked than we were dancing.
He spun me, and maybe the shifting and re-forming particles guided my feet, because I’d never danced like this before. I’d never been spun and dipped. I blushed and grinned, mirroring the stars that seemed to be in his eyes. Here the world hadn’t been destroyed. There was no Subantoxx. No missions. No replication. Here was the world I’d wanted to inherit, one that wasn’t so complicated. One that wasn’t so dangerous—just a couple on a dance floor. The streamers blew behind us and the twinkle lights winked in the background as he pulled me close.
“Is this real?” I asked him, though I wasn’t sure if this was the real Oktai. If the real Oktai was still in his room. Most likely pissed at me. “Are you still mad at me?”
