Victoria

99. Public Support and Land Mines

The largest room on the Venezia was the launch bay. The crew had collected there, excluding the pilots. The marines stood, arms crossed, near the back. The Air Force crew sat along the ground. A few leaned on walls and door frames. Others perched inside or on top of deployment pods. Winnie, Josephine, Tan, Zauna, and Oni collected near the bay door, separate from the crew.

The captain had announced a crew meeting. He didn’t specify what it was about, but Winnie knew. Everyone else could guess. No one was going to miss this. Even the pilots listened in through the intercom.

Victoria waited beside Stephano. Her exemplars stood to either side, putting themselves between her and the crew. It was their job, and even though the crowd showed no hostility. The spotlight was on Victoria even though she ignored everyone while she chatted with the captain.

A few more soldiers trickled in. Stephano nodded to her. She addressed the room.

“Before I founded the Lakiran empire, I was the CEO for LakiraLabs, which owned property in Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Guyana, and parts of Central and North America. In order to get around US regulation, I eventually moved the company’s operations to South America at great expense and focused on importing specialists from Europe and North America. As LakiraLabs grew, so did the need to invest myself in local governments. I helped improve living conditions and combat drugs and crime in places I owned. I’d become an unofficial baroness for northern South America.

“So when tensions between the world’s superpowers escalated. I, like many others, found my corner of the world in danger. Socialist movements threatened to nationalize my lands. The US, who had previously only antagonized me, suddenly became my best friend. They encouraged me to embroil myself in the politics and prevent Socialist parties from gaining control. They offered me everything from public support to land mines. I became a part of this escalation in a way I never wanted to be.

“When peace talks came up, South America become a bargaining chip. I tried to diffuse tensions, but it never worked. The superpowers lent aid and weapons to capitalist and socialist parties in efforts to build relations. All it led to was increased instability. After years of watching tensions grow despite everything I did, I concluded that war was an inevitability. I turned my efforts from preventing it to seeing how I could make my lands survive when it came, and making sure South America would not be targeted in the case of nuclear retaliation.

“To do that, I had to sabotage foreign aid coming into the country. I intercepted shipments, undercut meetings, and even assassinated some political figures. My aim was to keep South America from falling into the pocket of any superpower, which was why when the missiles finally flew, so few targeted the region, but my actions did contribute to the instability. And in doing so, most likely hastened the coming of the war.”

She paused. “That is what Alexander is referring to. I am guilty of what every other politician was doing at the time. I looked after my own land instead of trying to fix the world as a whole. I’ve kept this information private because it would only interfere with keeping the empire together. Alexander, meanwhile, has caused instability around the world in a desperate attempt to cause unrest aboard this vessel. It only shows how little this madman cares about the empire, and seeks only to secure his own position as its ruler. I hope now we can put this rumor behind us and return to our duties. Captain Stephano and I have finalized a plan to retake the Manakin. You’ll receive orders soon. Dismissed.”

Victoria turned and walked toward the side bay door.

“Why is he a madman, Your Majesty?” The voice came from near the back of the crowd.

“Pardon?” said Victoria.

“You said Alexander is a madman. What’s he done?” It was a cadet perched in a deployment tube. The other marines weren’t looking at him, but at Victoria.

“Alexander is a con artist who has hurt many people in his long life,” said Victoria. “He, in collusion with others, detonated the dirty bomb in the Capital Tower. He’s actively mind controlling the ministry and all heads of state, and he’s also stolen the body of my daughter.”

“Where did he come from?”

“He’s been around for centuries, working with others to steal bodies to preserve their own existence.”

“Were you one of them?”

Stephano stepped forward. “That is enough. You will all return to your duties now.”

“No, Captain. It’s all right. The answer is no. I was not one of them.”

“Were you born as Victoria Palladino?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been erasing our memories?” asked a lieutenant.

“No.”

“Has the other girl?” he pointed to Josephine.

“No. I forbid her from doing so.”

“Then how come I have gaps in my memory. I can remember some talks I had recently, but I can’t remember what they were about.”

“I haven’t been erasing anyone’s memories,” said Victoria.

“I have gaps too,” said another. “How can we tell if someone is?”

“You can’t, but no one is tampering with your minds. You’re just more aware of forgetting things.”

“How do we know you’re not the one lying and Alexander is telling the truth?” This voice was much stronger than the others. It came from a marine by the door in the very back. “Alexander is promising to give more power to the people.”

“He’s promising a lot,” said Victoria. “He lies. He’s a master at it.”

“How about you let us read your mind so we know you’re not lying.”

“That’s not possible. I’m shielded permanently.”

“Then let us read their minds?” The marine pointed to Bishop and Liat.

“No.”

“Why not? What are you hiding?”

“That is enough!” snapped Stephano. “Private Larson, I will speak to you privately. Everyone else is dismissed.”

The crowd broke. Victoria left. Stephano led the marine to a private room to reprimand him. The launch bay cleared within minutes. Victoria had walked a line with her story. If Winnie hadn’t already known the truth, she wouldn’t have been able to pick out the truth from the lies. It was a convincing story though. It painted her as guilty, but not as a villain. Impressive work, Winnie thought, but from the look on the soldier’s faces, it might not have been enough.

98. For the Best

Victoria wasn’t in the ready room when Stephano arrived, which meant she would still be in his stateroom—the other room aboard this ship she’d commandeered as her own. Between there and the ready room, she was out of sight from the crew. Her exemplars brought her her meals and sent for anyone she wished to speak to.

They had not sent for Stephano, which meant Victoria did not desire an audience. It had been improper for him to send Liat to inform the queen that he needed to speak with her, but this discussion had to be made, regardless of customs.

He waited for arrival. He didn’t mind. It gave him time to work out how best to phrase his questions. No approach seemed tactful, but then there isn’t an easy way to ask your superior if they’re responsible for mass murder.

He heard her footsteps long before she entered, giving him time to stop fidgeting. The door opened. Bishop leaned in and glanced about for a security check. Stephano made eye contact, and Bishop nodded his thanks for not making him ask. Though now he knew what Stephano wanted to discuss, and so would Victoria. Whatever tact he used, she’d see through it.

Nothing could be done about that.

Bishop ducked out. Victoria entered. In the cramped space, she sidled into her usual seat. “You wanted to see me, Captain.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you for accepting my request.”

“What is this about?”

“I’m sure you’re aware that Alexander held a press conference where he made several allegations against you.”

“I am aware. Yes.”

“It’s my belief he leveled these allegations in order to undermine the chain of command aboard this ship.”

“That is my belief as well. It was an incredibly reckless move which will bring further instability to the empire.”

“You said he has a means of ensuring people’s loyalty now.”

“He does, but it does nothing for the many riots now breaking out over the globe. He’s made these allegations caring nothing for the damage it will cause the people in the meantime.”

“That may be the case,” Stephano said, “but it’s still an attack on the crew of this ship. The rumor mill has started turning. The men are asking questions. We need to address what damage his accusations may cause. So let me ask. Is there any truth to his allegations?”

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what? Why am I asking? I need to know.”

“But why? Are you going to resign if they’re true?”

“No.”

“Are you going to carry out your duties differently?”

“It would affect how we handle this matter. If Alexander’s accusations are groundless, then we can inform the crew and put this matter to rest. If they’re not groundless, and he has any way of proving they’re true, then he may use that against you. If we deny the accusations, but he later provides this evidence, it would worsen the scandal. So,” he paused. “Can Alexander provide such evidence?”

“He will provide plenty of evidence. I’m sure it would all be a fabrication.”

“But could he provide actual evidence?”

“Possibly.”

“How culpable would it make you out to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you provide any evidence in your defense?”

“I have none with me.”

“Would you allow your exemplars to be scanned in order to put these rumors to rest with the crew?”

“No. My exemplars know too much privileged information. Simply inform your men that the rumors are false. I don’t see why they need more than that.”

“Because they deserve it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Every man and woman aboard this ship is an exile from their own country. They’re alone up here because you and I decided so. They know only what we’ve told them, which isn’t much. We’ve said nothing about our enemies, or our preparation, or even the people we risked our lives fetching for you. Half of them doubt that you even are the queen. Some are even afraid of you. Yet they still fight for you—not the empire they signed up to serve, or the people they swore to protect, but you. They deserve the truth, and not just another dismissal. So is there truth behind Alexander’s accusations?”

“Fine. Yes.”

“Did you withhold Food-Ready assemblers like he says?”

“I did. I knew the war was coming. I produced as many machines as I could and hoarded them for my own people.”

“Is that all you did?”

“I also accelerated tensions between America and Russia by placing my people into the bodies of political figureheads.”

“…Ah”

“And I ordered the first missile launch.”

“I see.” Stephano had told himself beforehand that it wouldn’t matter what her answer would be. He was wrong. “So you caused everything…”

“Alexander will paint it that way.”

“So the Collapse wasn’t your plan B. It wasn’t because of failed peace talks. It was because you set out to deliberately scorch the world…”

“The Russians, Americans, and Chinese scorched the world.”

“But you provoked them.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing. I still think I did.”

“Your Majesty. Please explain to me how it could possibly have been the right thing.”

“The Collapse was inevitable. Tensions had been growing ever since the nineteen sixties. It never got better. All those years of disarmament were a farce. Time and time again we came within a single judgement call of apocalypse. I tried at first to help, but by then, the arms race had stopped being about protection. It had become an irreconcilable clash of ideals. So I jump-started it, in a controlled fashion. I went to great lengths to make sure only a limited number of missiles fired so as to ensure humanities survival.”

“For what? So you could take over? Was it just a power grab?”

“Of course not. I did it because I believed it was best for the world in the long run.”

“How?”

“The world was living under the shadows of giants who brandished annihilation at one another. More than just that, Captain, society was moving backwards. Before the missiles launched, the Russians were starving from their broken government long before the winter set it. The Chinese were building dozens of new coal power plants every year while crops failed globally from runaway raising temperatures. The middle east and Africa belonged to religious extremists who reduced more and more of our civilization to a dark age. Women were nothing more than objects. Executions were vicious and public. Drug lords owned more of South America than the governments did. Slavery was reinvented under the guise of free trade. North America had devolved into a police state, controlled by its own paranoia. Its corporations were exhausting the world faster even than a world war ever could. And nearly two thirds of the worlds’ ecosystem had gone extinct. The world wasn’t just rotting, Captain, it was stuck. Society was locked in place. It’s own self-consuming machination had become self-sustaining, and every person in it either didn’t care or felt too powerless to do anything about it. Something drastic had to happen if we were to ever break course.”

“So… what? You see what you did as… tearing down the foundation to rebuild the house?”

“Essentially. I know you think what I did was wrong—”

“I think what you did was insanity. You talk like the world was a hellhole. That somehow, this constant winter starvation nightmare we’ve all been living is in some way better.”

“It’s not better yet. It’s only been six years since the Collapse. Look at how much as improved. Now that I’m in control, I can do so much more for of humanity.”

“How can you believe that? The world was not a lost cause. It had it’s problems, certainly. Thousands of them. Some got solved. Some didn’t. But what you did made everything unbelievably worse. You talk about how the ecosystem was in danger, but you destroyed it entirely. Nearly everything is extinct now. You talk about corrupt governments? The anarchy you caused paved the way for bloodthirsty warlords around the world.”

“We overthrew them.”

“And millions of innocent people suffered. Billions are dead. So what if you fix the world? There’s hardly anyone left to enjoy it.”

“I’m thinking about the endless generations to come, Captain. I know you don’t believe the world was broken, but you grew up in one of the richest neighborhoods in France. You lived in the first world everyone liked to believe in. I spent twenty years in the recesses of the world, trying to fix the problems everyone else ignored. Perhaps somewhere along the line I became jaded. Maybe it was the first time the US government tried to assassinate me because I was raising wage levels in Central America. Maybe it was when I discovered China was sending weapons to rebels in my lands just so they’d cause chaos. Or maybe it was when the drug cartels torched and butchered eight villages I helped restore, just to spite me. I saw the worst, Captain, and I saw it growing. For every piece of good I did, the world snapped back.”

“It was wrong, Victoria.”

“Maybe it was, but what’s done is done. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss where we go from here. If I don’t get my throne back from that lunatic, then all the suffering I’ve caused will be for nothing. Do you still support me?”

“If I say no, do you take this conversation out of my mind?”

“I don’t want to, Captain.”

“But you could…”

“Of course I could, but I want you to help me because you believe in me, not because I’ve programmed you. But the lunatic who sits on the throne right now wouldn’t hesitate. He is a megalomaniac who cares for nothing except himself. He’s already programming the world, but that’s not how I want to rule. I truly am trying to make this world a better place, even if I have made unforgivable mistakes. So choose, Captain. I’m not going to take your free will from you no matter how convenient that would be. Will you help me?”

No matter how earnest she was, the threat was still there. Victoria didn’t want to take Stephano’s memories, but what else could happen if he said no? It’s not like they could politely ask her to leave the ship. Certainly she wouldn’t stand to be arrested. And their lives would still be in danger from Alex all the same. His answer was clear. How he felt about it was something he would come to terms with on his time.

“I’ll help you get him off the throne.”

“I suppose that will have to do. What shall we tell your men?”

Stephano knew his crew well. Some had lost family and friends in the war. For many, their losses were what led them to join the army in the first place. They thought they were on the side that was fixing the world.

Victoria would have to tell the men something, but it couldn’t be the truth.

96. A Right to Know

“And then we look at this one?” The imperial marshal pointed to another camera feed. It showed hundreds of civilians walking through the Fortaleza grid terminal. Crowds weaved through each other as everyone headed to their destinations.

Alex recognized two who walked past the view like any other traveling pair. Christof had changed from his military uniform. The woman wore the same ratty clothes, because why bother changing? The police were looking out for her skin.

“And, here. This is where it happens.” The marshal switched to a feed showing the security checkpoint. Christof and Zauna got into a security line. Several guards looked right at Christof. A few moved closer, but all lost momentum. By the time the two were through, several guards were clustered close enough to snatch them, but half weren’t even watching. Only one seemed to notice; he raised his hand helplessly to catch them, but as though his depth perception were off, he didn’t come close. Afterward, he and the guards returned to work.

“And you’re saying all those guards had glyph cards?”

“In some form or another. A lot of agencies have been encouraging them, at least until regulation comes down from above.”

“And yet none of the guards stopped them…”

The marshal spoke casually. “Looks like a slip up with administration. This was pretty far from our search area. The guards weren’t on high alert for the fugitives.”

“No. Look, right there. Right. There.” Alex zoomed the feed in on a bulletin by the security checkpoint. The resolution was low, but Alex had seen enough of the wanted posters to recognize Christof and Zauna’s face. “Those are the alerts.”

“Yes.” The marshal shook his head as though he couldn’t believe it himself. “Terminal security claim they did alert them, but the guards all insist that they were never informed about the manhunt.”

“Of course they did,” because they all had their god damn memories erased. “What flight did they take?”

“They took the night shuttle to Lisbon Airport. We’re not sure where they went from there. We’re still trying to get footage sent over. Nobody remembers seeing them.” The marshal straightened. “We still got a good shot at catching them. Spain is on high alert now. Actually, the fugitives may have screwed themselves by going there. The grid only extends to Madrid. After that, they’re on roads, and our military presence is still strong there. All they’ve done is hopped to a much smaller haystack.”

The marshal continued listing possible ways Christof could try to escape. Car. Plane. Boat. Ferry. Even swimming. He never mentioned that damn orbiter plane that landed in Austria last night. Christof could have gotten there in time. Maybe the marshal had caught the same forgetful flu that was going around, or if he was just trying to mollify Alexander. The man had a shield now, so Alex couldn’t rely on his usual method of sensing bullshit.

The marshal continued. “We’ve got men headed out to Portugal now who should be there in few hours. We’ll know for sure how they left. Unless they took a connecting flight immediately, which we’re pretty sure they didn’t, then—”

“Get out,” Alex said.

“Ma’am?”

“Just get the fuck out of my office.”

The marshal hesitated. It was disgusting how obviously the man wanted so much to stay and make this right. With as much Sympathy as Alex had basted him in, Alex could probably shoot him, and he’d thank Alex for the opportunity to make amends. It took all the fun out of it.

“Go. Now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The marshal headed for the door.

Four people remained in Alex’s office. Sibyl stood behind him, Wyatt had escorted the marshal here, and one other.

“So,” said Wyatt, “looks like that memory chick got to them.”

Alex smiled thinly. Wyatt had just come closer to dying than the marshal had.

“You think she’s with Victoria now?” Wyatt asked.

“No, Wyatt. I think the memory chick helped lead them to a holiday in the Spanish countryside.”

Wyatt frowned. He wouldn’t parse the sarcasm on his own.

“Yes,” Alex snapped. “She’s with Victoria.”

He’d hoped that Christof wouldn’t stoop to making a deal with that bitch, Katherine. Everything else could have been forgivable. Trying to run away with that glyph breaker girl was typical Christof, always sentimental. Even trying to kill Alex was understandable. God knows how many times they’d all wanted to kill each other over the centuries. Alex would have still executed Christof if he ever caught him, but he wouldn’t have enjoyed it much.

“If they’re all on that one ship though,” Wyatt said, “just means they’ll all die at once.”

“Wyatt. Shut up.”

“Sorry, boss.”

Except Wyatt was right. If one ship blew up, all his problems would go away, but it just wouldn’t happen. His ministry hemmed and hawed every time he mentioned nuclear weapons. They insisted on looking into non-nuclear ways of destroying the orbiter, except such a way didn’t readily exist. Repulse-propelled rockets would suffer the same problem of catching up to an orbiter that the interceptors had, and all the older jet-fuel rockets laying around weren’t sophisticated enough to stand any chance bypassing an orbiter’s defenses, so they were no good either.

It was enough to drive Alex ballistic. He’d usurped Sakhr only three days ago, and he’d already inherited the man’s same hangups.

Alex had to calm down and think. He was in control. He owned this empire. Everyone within a square mile would give their life for him. All other problems were solving themselves. Take the threats of succession from the PRC: the Chinese leaders was visiting tomorrow. Those problems would evaporate as soon as Alex saw them face to face. Those riots in India? It just happened that key players from New Delhi were arriving next week. After Victoria was gone, he’d visit all the unstable countries, one after another. He’d stand on the deck of his citadel and look down on them all with his own eyes. How could anyone riot when they adored their world leader?

Would it be time consuming? Sure. But he would only have to do it once. Soon, crowds would come from around the world to bask in his splendor. They’d bring their children. It’d become self perpetuating after a while. No more wars. No conflicts. No rebellions. There’d only be Alexander.

And it’s not like Victoria could easily attack him. Nearly everyone was shielded now. Christof had failed to take Alex’s glyph breaker, and now no one could. He kept her close now, all bundled up like a Christmas present. Not only that, but Quentin’s little project was coming along down in the lower decks. Things were far from lost. All he needed to do was to destroy Victoria as absolutely as he could. And the army boys promised those missiles would be ready in a few days at most. Orbiters were standing by with all their pilots shielded. There was one more thing he could do though. A small thing, but every edge would count.

“Wyatt,” he said.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Who’s the guy I talk to in order to make an announcement to the world? Is it one of those ministers?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Go find out.”

All the flairs onboard had lessons with Victoria today. Christof was with her right now. Last Winnie checked, Victoria was trying to convince him that he could recognize people with glyphs just as easily as he recognized people with flairs. It was slow going.

Winnie was in the ship’s mess hall, sitting with Tan as he watched the news. Before him were dice and pads of paper. He’d squint at the screen, write numbers down, watch more, roll dice, then write down more numbers. Winnie had figured out that he was paying attention to the stock prices on the news ticker rather than the actual news. She’d asked what sort of exercises Victoria had given him. His answer had been a shrug.

Winnie was also preoccupied with her own homework. Mentally, her mind was floating above the Manakin, just over the bridge spire. She could see it in its entirety, from the doorway at its base, to the cluster of antennae at its top. She floated down until her perspective was within the cluster. It was filthy here, dust and bird droppings everywhere. An osprey had built a nest out of a mix of sticks and plastic garbage. The bird seemed as much as a fixture as the antennae. Wind ruffled its feathers as it sat guarding its eggs while staring over the citadel.

Her mind moved along an access ladder toward the top floor balcony of the bridge spire. She paused before coming into view of its windows. Doing so would force her to acknowledge its interior, which she was struggling not to do. Inside the spire was nothing, she told herself. Nothing at all. She imagined a dense, opaque fog past the glass that not even she could penetrate, then floated down to the balcony.

Her power locked up. The vision lost consistency.

“You’re doing it again,” Helena thought. She sat on the table before Winnie’s meal tray.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’re still aware of what’s past the fog. You have to learn to not think about something at all if you’re ever going to see Alex in there.”

“I know. I know.”

“Sorry, but you’ve been messing up the same way for hours. It’s frustrating to watch.”

“You don’t have to,” thought Winnie. “You can go bug Tan again.”

Helena glanced at him, then back. “No thanks. He reeks of cigarettes. Why don’t you take a break?”

“Your mother will know.”

Helena suppressed her first thought, which was “she can go fuck herself”, and composed a more reasonable response. “If you overwork yourself, you’re not going to get anywhere. Take ten minutes off. Don’t even use your power. Just relax.”

“Victoria wants me practicing as much as I can.”

“She doesn’t realize that not everyone is an unfeeling robot like she is. You need to take a break.”

“Okay, fine.”

Winnie let her mind go. Relaxing, she turned her mind back to Christof’s lesson.

“No. I said stop,” thought Helena.

“I can’t even use my power?”

“No. I am forbidding you from doing anything. Or your not going to let yourself relax. Ten minutes. Go.”

With nothing to do, Winnie resorted to using her eyes. Tan was still practicing. When marines came in for their break, one sneered at the news and changed the channel. Tan calmly took a remote from his lap and changed back. It changed back and forth several times until the marine faced Tan.

“Who the fuck watches the news? Change the channel.”

“No.” Tan shook his head. He flipped back.

Glowering, the marine stepped toward him.

“He needs the news,” Winnie said. “Victoria’s orders. It’s part of his practice.”

The marine studied both of them. Tan casually watched the television. Winnie paid attention to Helena.

The soldier muttered and rejoined his group.

The news was currently on a political story.

“…Is scheduled to give an announcement in a few minutes, she’s expected to discuss her meeting yesterday with the Chinese Premier, Guo Jié.” the news anchor was saying. “Jié has already held a press conference, where he expressed his optimism for the continued Pacific coalition. He stated that while the change in Lakiran political rule may have set their alliance onto a rocky path, he’s confident in Queen Helena’s ability to lead the coalition forward.”

Winnie found herself listening out of morbid curiosity. As the anchor spoke, the screen showed Alexander shaking hands with the Chinese Premier in a press room aboard the Manakin. During the shake, they both faced toward the audience as cameras clicked. Sensing pain from Helena, she met her eyes. Helena had heard her own name. She could tell the news was talking about her impostor.

“Do you want to leave?” Winnie asked.

“No. Keep watching,” said Helena.

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve been hidden from reality too long. I’m not going to hide now just because it hurts. What are they saying?”

Winnie kept eyes with Helena while she listened.

“This news was met with mixed support from Beijing,” the anchor said. “Only last week, Guo Jié had been a leading supporter for independence. Having met with the queen, he says he now has full confidence in her abilities. Many have voiced their disapproval at Jié change in policy, saying the Chinese people would be better off if China withdrew from the Pacific coalition.”

The view shifted to a Chinese woman speaking rapid Mandarin before a green-screen image of Hong Kong. “The people want independence,” an accented voice-over said. “They’re in the streets. They’re marching on our cities. Retaking government buildings. And they are right. This coalition is nothing more than the Lakiran empire’s attempt to control us. We do not need it. The Lakiran’s know this. In the the past, they have done everything they could to increase dependence on them, but the we are stronger than that. We are proud.”

The news switched back to the anchor. “The queen will be meeting with members of the Chinese Republic later today. She hopes to convince them to move forward with restructuring the coalition, but many officials remain skeptical. We go now to the press conference, which is about to begin.” The screen panned to another display location. Winnie recognized it as being aboard the Manakin. Alexander was taking the podium as cameras flashed.

“Thank you all for coming today. As many of you know, the Chinese premier and I met yesterday to discuss where we go from here. I’m glad to say we share the same vision of a joint Chinese and South American union, but the coalition does need work. The Chinese people have taken issue with the current arrangement, saying that it unfairly benefits the Lakiran empire, and they’re right. When my mother established this alliance, she did so with her country’s future in mind, not the world’s. So we’ll work together to rebuild a fair coalition—one that paves the way for a better future for everyone, not just the Lakiran people.”

He continued. “My mother set out to unite the world, and she succeeded, until terrorist groups assassinated her. They struck not only at her, but at the world. That blow caused this empire to stumble. My goal is not only to reunite us, but to do so in a way she never could, because her motives were for herself. She made choices she should not have, more so than I ever realized until I took the throne.

“I will do better. I am not hoarding the powers used by the Exemplar Committee as my mother did, but have embraced introducing them to the world in a safe and secure fashion. And there will be no more lies or conspiracies.” Alex prepared himself. “I’ve recently learned of one such lie my mother perpetuated, and the people have the right to know the truth.”

The soldiers in the mess hall stopped talking. All eyes turned to the television.

“In the years leading up to the Collapse, most people feared the possibility of nuclear war. World leaders were working together to diffuse tensions between the West, Russia and the Middle East. My mother was among these leaders. She facilitated peace talks and worked hard to prevent South America from becoming embroiled in global tensions. But all the while she was preparing for the war. Her company had already designed food-ready assemblers, but she chose to withhold them from the public, knowing they would give her a greater advantage in the aftermath.”

Winnie split her attention to see if Victoria was aware of this. Victoria was still in lesson with Christof, but she abruptly silenced him. From the expression on her face, she was aware.

The speech continued. “There have been rumors that Victoria was actively encouraging the war. I don’t know if these are true. I know my mother was a driven woman, but to believe this is to believe that she was responsible for the five billion lives lost from the Collapse. Growing up, she taught me to think for the world first, and never for personal gain, which is why I don’t believe these rumors, but I must accept that she did firmly believe the war would occur, and prepared as such. If Victoria were around today, I would demand answers from her. If these allegations are true, then I think I speak on behalf of the world when I say that she should not be the one heading this empire.”

“He’s insane,” Victoria uttered under her breath.

“Who is?” Christof asked.

“But she’s not here,” Alex continued. “I am, and I am not my mother. Whoever she was, whatever her purpose, she did good in building this empire. It put the world back on its feet. I plan to continue on, but no longer will the empire engage in aggressive imperialism. No longer will our soldiers be where they’re not wanted.”

This was met with applause.

“No longer will we hoard food,” he continued. “It was Victoria’s means of controlling other nations. It will not be mine.

More applause.

“And no longer will we hoard glyphs. It was with those that she exacted complete control over her people through her exemplars. The glyphs will belong to everyone now.”

And even more applause. The audience seemed exuberant about that announcement, especially since Alex never released the glyphs. They were leaked, and the empire tried to cover it up.

Alexander held up his hands to quiet them. “I hope the empire will give me a chance to prove myself. Whether I am working to fix Victoria’s mistakes, or rebuilding this empire, I will do better. Thank you.”

Alex stepped off the stage. The audience applauded. The feed switched back to the anchors, who discussed what the queen had just revealed, but no one in the mess hall paid attention. They all discussed with each other.

“Is everything okay?” Christof asked.

“We’re done for now,” Victoria replied.

“I thought you said we had hours lef—”

“I said we’re done. Leave.”

It was clear that Christof was annoyed by that dismissal, especially without explanation, but Winnie knew he’d understand soon enough. The marines in the mess hall were already talking. As they returned to work, news of the announcement spread about the ship. Soon everyone would have the same questions.

What had Alexander been insinuating? What exactly did Victoria do?

94. Zero Sum

The assembler open library had nearly four hundred different edible pastes and crackers. Each had their own flavor and varied nutritional content. The highest rated ones provided a complete diet for the average human being. Other choices were customized for infants, allergies, and sensitivities. Dietary options ranged from paleo to gluten-free. It was all technically vegetarian, since even the meat pastes didn’t come from animals, but there were still options for those who considered meat unethical or unhealthy.

The premium gallery is where people ate if they could afford it. Posted by corporations and food manufacturers, these foods actually resembled foods from before the famine, mostly. Assembled fruits had flesh you’d never know was made from billions of small bits pressure-fused together. Meats were marbled with fat. Vegetables came with unique flaws and variations with each download.

Years ago, the user-submitted gallery had a plethora of choices. Most were crap, but there were enough high-rated submissions to dwarf both the open and premium galleries. Unfortunately, user-submitted edibles was eventually shut down. Nearly all of them were untested. Some could make you sick—a few deliberately so.

That still left countless choices for Winnie. As long as she didn’t compare it to real, earth-grown food, it wasn’t bad.

But there was only a single option for tortoise food. One.

Parrots had a wider selection.

The tortoise food was little tasteless pellets with mild color variations, like dog biscuit crumbs. These were the same kind soldiers had given Winnie on her first night as a tortoise.

She tasted one. Exactly as bad as she remembered.

Winnie returned to her bunkbed. Helena was perched near the pillow. Her aura was of utter despondence, but she was out of her shell now—which was something.

Winnie sat next to Helena. “I’m sorry. These are literally the only thing they have for you.” She emptied a handful on the rack. Helena’s tortoise eyes were expressionless as always, but from her aura, Winnie could practically hear her sigh. Helena bit one and chewed.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get another body soon. I made a deal with Victoria.”

Helena looked at Winnie. Eyes met. Her mind hardly comprehended words. Winnie remembered what it was like. As a tortoise, Winnie’s mind had been slow. Thoughts came slowly, and listening to conversations took all her concentration. But she hadn’t realized just how slow her mind had been at the time. It had been too simple to notice its own simplicity. Looking in Helena’s tortoise mind, she saw just how slow it was. Helena hardly understood a word Winnie had said, but hearing her mother’s name had summoned forth cold loathing. She stopped eating.

“I’m sorry,” Winnie said. “I won’t talk about her, but you should eat. You haven’t had anything except junk for days.”

Helena was trying to listen, but she couldn’t understand.

It was her ears, Winnie realized. She recalled trying to use them as a tortoise before utterly disregarding her hearing in favor of her own power. Everything had sounded as though she was hearing from underwater.

“Eat,” Winnie said slowly. “Keep your strength.”

Helena’s mental response was simple.

“Why?”

“You’ll have your own body—” She stopped herself. “New body. For you. Soon.”

“How?”

“I made a deal with Victoria… I help her… You get a body.”

“She’s still alive?”

“Yes.”

Helena’s stir of emotions was mixed. “How?”

“Long story… Tell you when you have a body.”

“But not my body?”

“No. Sorry.”

They sat together in silence. Helena stared at her food, but ate no more.

“Hold on,” said Winnie. On her tablet, she expanded the user page for the ship’s assembler. If Helena was only going to have her tortoise body for a while longer, then there was no harm in her eating something tastier. There were some foods humans and tortoises ate: leafy greens, fruits… nuts? Winnie hesitated. Was there anything that might make Helena sick, like a dog with chocolate?

Research might be worthwhile, but she didn’t feel like wrangling with the ship’s flaky satellite internet right now. Not that it mattered. The onboard assembler queue was flooded with jobs from the soldiers. Half the queued items were hacked exemplar plaques, because apparently they didn’t understand that they could just copy glyphs with pen and paper. It’d take hours to get food.

Winnie lay on the rack. “Nevermind,” she said. “We’ll get you a body.” Just as soon as Winnie could talk with Victoria. She’d tried several times to see her, but either Liat or Bishop would stop her at the bridge. Victoria was busy, they’d say. Sure. Winnie could see Victoria chatting with either Stephano or Christof, but it had gone on and on for hours.

Her mind focused once again on Victoria, and she bolted upright.

Victoria was rounding up her conversation with Stephano. He was getting up to return to the bridge.

Victoria would only be free for a few minutes at most.

“Wait here,” Winnie said. Hopping up, she raced through the berthing quarters, past the mess hall, down the corridor, and to the bridge door. Bishop blocked her way.

“She’s still busy, Winnie.”

“No, she’s not.” Winnie checked mentally. Stephano left the small ready room and returned to the bridge. Victoria was alone, resting back and rubbing her eyes, doing nothing. “I can see her. I just need to talk to her for a minute.”

“Unless the queen calls for you, I cannot grant you an audience.”

“We’re not in court. She’s literally ten feet away from us.”

“I’m sorry, Winnie. I’ll let Her Majesty know you wish to speak with her.”

“Okay, then go. Do it.”

“…Once she is free.”

“Oh, come on.” Winnie considered yelling. Victoria would certainly hear, but she suspected Victoria was already well aware of her. It had been seven hours since they took back off. “Would you just ask her right now? She’s not doing anything right now. I can see her.”

“I understand you are forbidden from doing that,” Bishop replied.

In the captain’s ready room, Victoria leaned and knocked on the door. High Exemplar Liat, who was stationed just outside, opened it and peeked inside.

“Go tell Bishop to let her in,” Victoria said.

Finally.

Seconds later, Liat stepped out of the bridge and ushered Winnie to Victoria’s cramped ready room. She closed the door and took guard outside.

“You have two minutes before Stephano returns,” Victoria said.

“I want to talk to you about Helena.”

“What about her?”

“You promised that once we got her back, that you would give her a body.”

“No.”

“You said you would.”

“I did, but this is not the time to give her a body. This will wait until I’m back in control.”

“That wasn’t our deal. I agreed to help you, so that when—”

“Winnie, I know what the agreement was, but you’re forgetting. In order to give Helena a body, I have to steal a body from someone else. We are currently drifting through the stratosphere. So whose body should I use? There are twenty soldiers aboard this craft. All of them are loyal to me. Am I supposed to reward them by giving their body to a spoiled little girl? Or how about Tan? Or Christof? Or Naema’s family? Who, Winnie?”

“We’ve landed before. We can do it again.”

“Every time at greater risk. Alexander is outfitting the Air Force with shields as we speak. And even then? Do we steal a stranger’s body?”

“You didn’t care when you stole one for yourself.”

“Yes. Winnie. I fully understood that I was effectively killing someone for my own survival. When you made this deal, you knew that it would come to this.”

“There are bad people in this world. Why not one of them?”

“Okay then,” said Victoria. “Here’s what we’ll do. You’re the one who wants Helena back so much, so you’ll find this bad person who deserves to die, and I’ll swap them. Of course, this will wait until after I’m back in power, but whoever you decide on—no matter who they are in the world—I’ll send soldiers to collect them. And you’ll watch as I condemn them to be an animal while Helena gets a body. All you have to do is choose.” Victoria peered at Winnie inquiringly. “Is that fair?”

Winnie glared at her.

Victoria nodded. “I thought so. Now is there anything else?”

There wasn’t. And Stephano knocked on the door. Her time was up.

Winnie returned to the berthing quarters. Helena was withdrawn into her shell. Her aura was just as dark. Winnie curled up on the bed and wrapped her arms around Helena. There was no reaction. Winnie wasn’t sure Helena even knew she was there.

93. Guiding Eyes

Winnie, Josephine, and Oni sat together in the Venezia mess deck. Oni fiddled with a tablet he’d printed out on the onboard assembler. He sometimes glanced at the television the other soldiers watched. Josephine and Winnie sat across from each other, staring into on another’s eyes. To an outsider, they probably seemed to be in a staring contest lasting hours.

Mentally, Winnie was watching Christof enter a grid terminal in Fortaleza, Brazil. It bustled with traffic. Families struggled to keep themselves together. Solo travelers hurried. Police manned all the exits and security points. Exemplars watched idly over traffic. Wanted posters were on the walls in every security office, as well as covering the odd pillar.

Except Josephine and Winnie had already mentally passed through the station before Christof and Zauna even parked outside. To everyone there, none of them had seen those posters before. Yet Winnie kept an eye out. All it would take was a glance and a good eye. Anyone could still spot him.

Christof got into a long line to purchase tickets. There weren’t any bulletins near him. Winnie risked looking away for a moment. Her mind was now in Fort Alston, a military base north of Sao Paulo. Hundreds of unshielded soldiers went about their duty. Winnie sought out a group she hadn’t seen before and held them in mind while staring down Josephine.

Josephine closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “How about we stop for now? Let me know if Christof needs us.”

“Victoria wants us to do this.”

“Those soldiers don’t know anything.”

“They might.”

Josephine gave her a pained glance. “Those men are exercising. How are pushups going to threaten us?”

“It can’t hurt.”

“It’s starting to.”

“We’re supposed to be buying time.”

“And if you find any soldiers doing something remotely related to us, let me know.” Josephine rested back.

Winnie scanned through the HIMS Manakin again. Thousands of people manned that ship. She didn’t bother Josephine to work their memories. A quick check showed everyone had a small stone around their neck or buried in their pocket. One briefing at a time, they were all relearning about “the terrorists in the sky” and Winnie couldn’t do a thing about it. Soon the entire army would be mentally untouchable. The Venezia could not come out of the sky again.

She brought her mind back to the travelers she was watching over. Zauna waited in a car in the parking lot. In the back seat, sitting on top of a pile of stolen goods, was Helena. She was active for once, and poking at a piece of beef jerky, not an approved tortoise diet. Winnie wanted to call and tell Zauna to stop that, but Christof had the phone. Not that it mattered, as soon as they got to a safe place in Europe, the Venezia would pick them up and Winnie would make Victoria uphold her bargain and give Helena a human body. Besides, it was good to see Helena eating again.

She returned her attention to Christof just as he stepped up to the ticket counter. Winnie got Josephine’s attention.

Christof requested tickets. The seller asked a few questions, then for ID. Christof handed one over. It was of a balding middle-aged Venezuelan that Zauna pick-pocketed yesterday. It looked like Christof only to the most glaucoma-ridden senior. The ticket man looked repeatedly from it to Christof. Winnie could sense Josephine peeling his memories away. The seller’s expression never changed, nor did Christof’s, yet the exchange took an awkward ten seconds. Finally the man handed it back as though nothing was amiss. Christof got the tickets and headed back to the parking lot.

He dialed the Venezia as he got into the car. Winnie answered part way through the first ring.

“What now?” he asked, switching the phone to speaker.

“Go. They’re already boarding.”

“Any exemplars?”

“No, but all the guards have glyph cards.”

“Mmh.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“There are posters of us everywhere.”

“I know. Just don’t look at anyone too closely. Now go.”

“Okay.” Christof moved to hang up.

“And don’t forget Helena,” Winnie yelled.

Within minutes, the three were in the station making their way to the security checkpoint. Winnie suspected they could have walked through it without stopping, but Josephine had warned against that. As it was, Christof and Zauna waited in line like everyone else. People glanced at the tortoise in Zauna’s hands. The guards eyed Christof from across the checkpoint.

Winnie didn’t dare take them out of her view. To everyone with glyph cards, Christof was practically glowing since he was a genuine flair. Several times, guards moved to intercept them. Josephine would pull memories away, and they would putter to a stop. A moment later, another would move. Josephine would repeat.

Christof and Zauna reached their shuttle, found seats, and settled in just as the doors were closing. Josephine broke eye contact, yet Winnie continued watching until the shuttle began its trip along the TransAtlantic chute. They were as good as free now.

Winnie turned her mind back to the military base and found another group of soldiers. She caught Josephine’s attention. Josephine gave her a sour look, though despite her exhaustion, they continued to work.

The rendevous point was in Austria. Getting there took Christof and Zauna over twenty-four hours aboard a drifter they stole in Portugal. Winnie was with them every step of the way. At a designated spot on a highway, she told them to pull over and walk into the dead woods.

Timing was important for this pickup. Though the imperial air force was not yet shielded, every touch down was a risk, and every minute counted. Winnie gave Captain Stephano an estimate for when the two would arrive, and he’d planned the ship’s descent, which involved circling the globe another time to lose enough speed. In the end, the ship’s loading ramp crunched into frozen mud the moment Christof came into view of the clearing. Winnie was proud of herself.

Though she might have had to hassle Christof to move faster several times so he’d arrive when he did.

A squad of marines poured out and secured the area. Winnie, Oni, Josephine, and High Exemplar Liat waited on the ramp for Christof and Zauna to approach. Victoria waited farther back inside the bay. When Zauna came through the woods and spotted her son, she rushed.

“Oni, boy.” She constricted him in a breath-stealing hug.

“Hi, Mama.”

Liat approached and smiled at Zauna, looking her in the eye.

“Who are you?” Zauna asked. “Are you the queen?”

“Me? No.” Liat stared at her a moment longer, then stepped passed her to confront Christof.

Victoria came down the ramp. “Welcome, Ms. Madaki. We will meet more formally later. Come aboard now.”

Zauna and Oni walked up the ramp together. Victoria turned her attention to Christof and Liat, who were staring each other down. Liat’s scan of Christof took longer than with Zauna. Concerned, she turned and looked at Victoria. Something passed between them telepathically, then Victoria came down the ramp to meet Christof while Liat shepherded everyone else into the Venezia.

Others couldn’t hear Victoria’s interaction with Christof, but Winnie could. Victoria stared Christof in the eye just as Liat had. Christof obligingly stared back.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

“Hardly. I can see why Liat was reluctant to let you near me. You’re harboring far too many feelings of—”

“Resentment?”

“Yes. Under other circumstances, an exemplar would have you shipped off to a detention facility.”

“Well, there’s not much we can do about it, so how about we just go aboard.”

“Actually, I can do something. I can remove those seventeen year of imprisonment if you’d like.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“So you want the memories?”

“I don’t want you messing with my mind.”

“Would you remove the memories yourself if you could?”

“No.”

“So you think you’re better off with them. I agree. They’re an excellent lesson in humility, a reminder that you are not above answering for your sins.”

“This coming from the woman who’s murdered more of humanity that I ever could.”

Victoria glanced to see what soldiers were near. None overheard save for Winnie.

“I will leave your memories as they are, Christof,” Victoria said, “but if wish to step aboard this vessel, you will obey my word. Never mention something like that again, even if it’s just to me, or I will take those secrets from you.”

“Hmm.”

“This means you may not make eye contact with anyone onboard this ship. Can you manage that?”

“I put up with Alexander longer than you’ve been alive.”

“Good, because I’m trusting you.”

“It’s not really trust if you’re threatening to muddle my memory.”

“It is if you knew me. I said I’d forgive you, and I meant it. I know what kind of person you are, and the loyalty you showed Sakhr. You chose to come to me, which shows you have a head on your shoulders, so I’m giving you a chance. Your resentment toward me is understandable, and I will show you the courtesy of not forcing your forgiveness through memory tricks.”

“Nor will you ask for it, it seems.”

“I punished you far long enough for what little involvement you’ve had. Longer perhaps than you deserved.” She paused. “I was angry. That, Christof, is the closest to an apology you’ll get.”

“How heartfelt.”

“Again, if you knew me better, you’d know that it was. Come now, we’ve dallied for too long.” Victoria turned and headed up the ramp.

Christof followed. When he came to Winnie, he paused. She got her first good look at him without the use of her power. She’d missed how haggard he looked. He’d been on the run for over thirty hours.

“Winnie?” he asked.

She nodded.

Christof handed her a bag and marched past her into the ship.

Winnie looked inside. At the bottom, tucked into her shell and away from the world, was Helena.

91. Class in Session

The leg room situation in the captain’s ready room only accommodated one and a half people, and Victoria was not the sort who accepted anything less than a full share of anything, which left Josephine struggling for space. After some awkward squirming, she’d settled on draping her legs over her chair arms.

Victoria sketched in her notepad while glancing at Josephine. Her page was filled with partially completed glyphs.

“Is that all you brought me in here for?” asked Josephine.

Victoria held up a finger for silence.

Earlier, High Exemplar Liat had appeared in the berthing quarters and informed Josephine that Victoria required her presence. Josephine had been thrilled. After a day of Victoria ignoring her, she was ready to barge in and grapple Victoria for attention, regardless of her body guards. But instead, she got twenty minutes of this.

She was considering what Victoria would do if she just left when Victoria finally held up the pad.

“There,” Victoria pointed out the only glyph on the yellow page that wasn’t scribbled out. “Your power.”

“Who are you going to give it to?”

“No one.”

“Then why’d you make it?”

“So I know how.”

“Do you know what would happen to the world if that got out?”

“Of course I do.” Victoria darted a line through the symbol. “I like to make a glyph of my students’ power at the start of every lesson. It helps them see what progress they’ve made today.”

“This is a lesson?”

“More of an evaluation. You’ve come a long way with your power. Yesterday, those pilots forgot a lot more than just you. You could never have done that when we first met.”

“I thought you brought me here to discuss what’s going to happen next.”

“An evaluation is next.”

“With Alex. With your empire. With us being on board.”

“You and your friends are welcome to remain so long as you obey my rules and cause no trouble. As for Alex, I will deal with him.”

“And you and me? You hunted me for years over something I didn’t do.”

“Do you expect an apology?”

“No, I… Don’t you even want to talk about it?”

“What I want to talk about is your progress. Are you still convinced that your power can only erase memories related to you? Or have you moved beyond that?”

“You’re unbelievable. Can you put away the lesson and just talk to me? Human to human?”

“Josephine. I’m busy. Alexander is working around the clock devising a way to kill us. He has the advantage with resources, military, and authority. The only advantage we have is us flairs, so I must utilize that as much as possible. I don’t have time to reminisce.”

“And if I say no?”

“You can’t.”

“You’re going to force me?”

“If I must. Just because I now know you never meant me harm doesn’t mean you’re exempt from my command. You’ll do as I say for the same reason the rest of the world does. I have the power to control you. I’ve already described how I could alter your memories until you’re absolutely loyal to me. Maybe I don’t deserve this power, but I have it, and you don’t. I hope you don’t force me to exercise my power against you, but I will. The stakes are too high for me. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that our relationship is something it’s not just because we were friends for one week almost thirty years ago.”

“You’ve turned into a pleasant lady.”

“It’s how the world works.”

“It’s how your world works.”

“It’s the world I learned.” Victoria folded her hands before her. “If you want to dwell on the past, fine, but not today. Perhaps once I’m back on the throne.”

“And what will you do with my power then?”

“I will use it as little as possible. I plan to rule a world of humans, not automatons.”

“Are you going to give my power to your secret agents?”

“Unlikely. Some powers are not worth risking falling into public hands. Your power is one. Body-swapping is another. Satisfied?”

“Are you just saying this to placate me?”

“It’s no less true.”

There was no point to arguing; Josephine didn’t have a choice. She just wished Victoria wasn’t so damn cold about it. If Victoria had asked for her help nicely, Josephine would have readily agreed. She’d already been planning to offer. It had to be this though—the ultimatum. Her help had to be an act of servitude.

“Fine. I wiped those pilots minds by stretching what I consider part of myself. I’m in this orbiter. I’m part of its crew, sort of, so this ship is an extension of me. Their mission was to destroy this ship, so their mission was about me. It’s the same logic you told me when you were a child.”

“Have you made any other progress?”

“It’s been enough. I look after Tan and the others, so they’re part of my group. Therefore part of me.”

“Have you tried any other techniques?”

“Like what?”

“Like, say, you and your target have both witnessed the same event, therefore it is related to you.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“How about erasing any memory a person has ever had since first meeting you, because you’ve influenced everything they’ll do since. Causality.”

“That’s an even bigger stretch.”

“Stretching flairs is what I do. With proper guidance, you should be able to drop the necessity that a memory must relate to you.”

“I can already take so much when I try. It’s like amnesia.”

“But not total amnesia. I want you able to remove any memory you want.”

“Why? That could only be used for evil.”

“Nonsense. You could remove traumatic experiences. Or remove empire secrets from someone who either mistakenly learned them, or lost clearance to know them. Total amnesia could be used in leu of a death penalty.”

“That doesn’t outweigh the dangers.”

“No, it doesn’t. Which is why I’ll never release your power to the public, but stretching your power would also help us deal with Alexander.”

“All right. So what are we going to do? Exercises?”

“Not right now. This is an evaluation. I have something more important for you. I need to know if you’re able remove memories of us from any soldier or imperial official, even if they’re not directly involved like those pilots were yesterday?”

“Probably.”

“Good. Then you’re going to work with Winnie to erase us from as many government minds as possible before Alexander gets them all shielded. I don’t know how much good it will do, but we need to slow Alex down as much as possible. The next squadron he sends against us will not fall for the same trick.”

“But I’m helping Winnie with Zauna and Christof.”

“You will do both. I expect you’ll only have a few days to do this before Alexander has everyone shielded.”

“Okay. I’ll do it, but only if you sit down and talk to me like a person.”

“Fine, but later. I’m much to busy to do that now. Speaking of which, on your way out, let Liat know that I’m ready for Winnie.”

Winnie’s lesson started out more as a practice in sketching than using her power. She’d copied glyphs again and again. Usually, glyphs were simple to copy. Just lay a piece of paper over a glyph and trace it.

Unfortunately, Winnie couldn’t trace the glyph she was drawing because Victoria was sitting on it. Her power was no worse than her eyes at this point, but it still meant properly sizing each line and curve, and there were so many. Again and again, she ended up cramping parts together causing the resulting glyph to look half melted.

At least her latest one was coming out all right. It was an Empathy glyph, the simplest one. After a few final pen strokes, she handed it to Victoria.

Victoria confirmed it was correct and handed it back. “Well? Does it work?”

Winnie concentrated. “No.”

“Then try again.”

“The glyph is fine. It’s not working.”

Victoria held up one of Winnie’s lopsided glyphs. “I’m not convinced your drawing skills aren’t the problem.”

“How do you even know it works when you don’t trace them. Why don’t you try it?”

“Because I’m not the one who needs to expand my power. But that does give me an idea.”

Victoria took the glyph out from under her. Setting a paper over it, she traced it. “I suppose I should have tried this earlier. My plaque replicator used to render nearly all of the glyph except for the last line. That one I would draw myself. It’s the only one that matters.” She’d finished all but one line. Tucking the aura glyph away, she handed her drawing to Winnie. “Draw that line there.”

Winnie did so.

“Does it work?” Victoria asked.

“No.”

“And you do have your master glyph on you?”

Winnie took hers out and placed it on the table.

Victoria sighed. “I suppose it was a long shot. Damn Paul. That man was always so difficult. Even when he gives glyphs to the world, he only trained his power just barely enough to do so.” After a pause. “I want you to keep trying though.”

Winnie resisted her impulse to complain. If there was any chance at all that she could remotely copy glyphs, she had to try. Both her and Victoria had seen that unknown glyph strapped tight around Alexander’s neck, just as they could see the beguiling effect it had on people. Winnie wasn’t too keen on Victoria having that power as well, but if Winnie could copy glyphs, it would mean she could copy shields too. The crew would be safe from whatever Alex was doing. And Winnie would have something besides Victoria’s word to safeguard her own memories. She took another sheet of paper and started again.

“Continue on your own time,” Victoria said. “I have something else I want to cover.”

“Okay.”

“Look at Alexander right now.”

“”I can’t.”

“Did you try trying?”

Sighing, Winnie visualized him. Nothing came up. She tried visualizing his office instead, where she knew he was, only to suffer the mental bite as something shut her power down..

“Nothing,” she said.

“Which doesn’t make sense,” Victoria replied. “He doesn’t have Naema’s power.”

“But he must have her right next to him.”

“And by now you should already know what lesson I have planned.”

“You’re going to have my narrow my focus so that I’m only looking at him and I’m not seeing her at all.”

“See? You’re learning how to learn. I wonder why you haven’t been practicing this already.”

“Because I’ve been on the run from the law.”

“Fortunately you’re perfectly safe up here. So you’ll have plenty of time to practice all your lessons. Hours.”

“You said you only wanted to see me for a few minutes.”

“I did. We’re done. You’ll practice on your own. Tell Tan to come see me.”

“This is your power.” Victoria held up her legal pad and pointed out the working glyph among a page of errors.

Tan nodded so slightly that it may have just been his breathing. All during Victoria’s sketching, he never asked why he was there or what she was doing, but merely watched, arms crossed.

“You’ve made progress on your own,” said Victoria. “It normally doesn’t take me so long to sketch one for the first time. Tell me about your power.”

Tan didn’t respond.

“I understand you use it by defining games with rules and winning conditions.”

Silence.

“Is this the only way you’ve had success? Do you need to construct games around everything you do? Say… combat. Or does your power assume that the winning condition then is to survive the fight?”

More staring. Eye contact.

“Yes, I can read your mind, but wouldn’t you rather have a conversation? No? Is this because I tasered you when we first met? I would have convinced you to come with me if I could, but would any argument have worked? And you realize that you have no one to blame but yourself for being here. It was your game after all. At every intersection, you rolled your die to select which road to take. Your winning condition was to get out of town without falling into the hands of the empire. What you hadn’t known was that the empire had mobilized to capture you the moment Josephine accessed that file on Naema. No matter what path you took, they would have caught up to you eventually. If I hadn’t caught you, they would. And as it happens, you sent yourself down a road that gave me plenty of time to get in your way. You practically handed yourself over to me.”

No response.

“It’s funny, really. All these years I’ve failed to capture you, I thought it was Josephine that kept eluding me, but it was you, tossing your dice like a seer tossing chicken bones. Not even Josephine realizes how critical you were. All those little dice rolls and maps and solitaire games. You always went to the right place. I only caught you now because your goal was to avoid the empire. Only I’m not the empire anymore. I’m on the run. Just like you.”

Still, Tan only stared.

“And it might even have been worth it just to meet you. Because, unlike any other power I’ve known, you can see the future… in a matter of speaking. My intuition tells me your power does not give you any knowledge, but it guides you. You’ll always be forced to let your power act through your unconscious actions, but that might be enough. You’ve already learned how games can let your power express itself, but you could do so much more. Make your games to play the stock market. Flip a coin to decide long or short. Run a company using a magic eight-ball for corporate decisions. Wage a war. Get more points for clean victories. Go for the high score. You could have been ruling this world just as easily as I have.”

Still nothing.

“But not anymore. You’ve waited too long, and now you’re here on a ship surfing the atmosphere, waiting for our enemies to destroy us. Shortly, every person working for Alexander will have a shield, and neither Josephine nor I can do anything to help. But you might turn all of this around. All you need is to expand your power, and I can help you.”

He finally moved, only to utter one word. “How?”

Victoria took many item from her case: A pack of cards, coins, her tablet, a sleeping mask, pens and index cards, and set after set of colored dice with varying sides.

Victoria looked at him. “By playing games, of course.”

89. Bargaining Chips

It took nearly an hour to get the remaining spider drones back onboard. From what Winnie could tell spying on the bridge, none of them expected that they’d have to bother. They’d optimized the spider drones’ flight path for a maximum engagement window with the enemy. The Venezia had had to slow down to get the drones back before they’d start dropping to earth with dead batteries.

Fortunately, the enemy orbiters never adjusted their course to take advantage of the Venezia’s drop in velocity. Actually they hadn’t adjusted their course at all. Onboard those ships, the crew lived out a sci-fi thriller: two dozen men were on a ship. No one knew why they were there. The disappointing ending came when ground control admitted that they didn’t know either and told them all to come home to check the mission logs.

After the spiders were aboard the Venezia, the Marines went about ship duty. The mess hall filled up. Victoria returned to the bridge. Winnie had taken to camping out in the corner of the mess hall to spy on the world while the Venezia surfed along the sky. Everything was exactly as it was before.

Though Tan was here now. He strolled in before things settled down, nodded once to Winnie as though to say, yes, we do happen to be in the same room, then settled into his own corner that gave him a good view of the break room television. He played cards with himself until the soldiers came. They all started a communal game as though Tan hadn’t spent the last few hours in the ship’s brig. Victoria must have decided he was harmless. It wasn’t as if they’d cause trouble now that they know they’re in the safest place they could possibly be.

Just an hour ago, they’d come within whispering range of death, but everything was calm now. It bothered Winnie more than the risk itself had. Marines joked while Winnie’s hands still trembled. These people were used to it. Winnie just wanted to go home.

But home was empty. The lights were off. The curtains were closed. Her mother was sitting alone at a tiki bar in Bermuda. Her colorful drink had multiple little umbrellas. Her floppy sun hat only underscored her diminutive stature. Her tropical dress matched the local fashion. Yet she couldn’t look more awkward. How could she enjoy herself when she didn’t even know the fate of her own daughter? Winnie could have died today, and her mother would never have known. She’d eventually have gone back home once her funds ran up, and she’d spend the rest of her life always wondering.

She was surrounded by beautiful beaches and happy people, and she’d never looked so lonely. Winnie wanted to call her so badly.

“Hey, You.”

Winnie looked up. Josephine stood over her.

“Hi,” said Winnie.

“We never met properly. My name is Josephine.”

“Cho Eun-Yeong, or Winnie.”

Josephine blinked. She looked over Winnie’s reddish brown hair and freckled, pale skin.

“I used to be Korean,” said Winnie.

“Oh.” Josephine sat. “Bodyswapping?”

Winnie nodded.

“You still are Korean. The body doesn’t mean much. Josephine looked herself over. “This one was Italian I think, but I’m not. Though truthfully, I’m not French anymore either. I used to have an accent. It followed me from body to body, but it faded over the years. Nowadays, everyone thinks I’m from Ohio or some place. I’m just me now. I don’t have a sense of belonging anywhere, but if you still feel that you’re Korean, then you are.”

“You knew Sakhr, then?”

“I traveled with his group for decades. Never liked them though, especially Alexander.”

“How many bodies have you had?”

Josephine counted off on her fingers. “Seven.”

“How old are you?”

“Sakhr found me in nineteen fourteen, I think. I was maybe twenty, so I’m about a hundred and fifty.”

“So you stuck with them for the immortality.”

“It was more than that. Back then, someone with a gift like ours would have been shunned, or worse. We stuck together to survive. Sakhr looked after us.”

“Oh.”

The conversation lapsed into silence. Winnie turned her vision back to her mother.

“You’re power is to see other places, right?” asked Josephine.

“Yeah.”

“You just close your eyes and imagine it?”

“I don’t have to close my eyes, but yeah.”

“Do you think you could look into a place for me?”

Ah. This had been the classic smalltalk before the favor. “What place?”

“Sakhr captured a girl I was looking after. I think he might have taken her to a place called Ascension Island. Do you think you could see if she’s actually there?”

“I don’t know where that is.”

Josephine took out a phone. It was already showing the Atlantic ocean. “There.”

Winnie looked. “Okay, I see it,” she said.

“There’s supposed to be a military base…” she zoomed on the phone, “right there.”

“Yeah.”

“So it’s there? It’s active?”

“Yeah.” Winnie was already pouring through the buildings looking for anything like holding cells. “What does she look like?”

“She’s Nigerian. Teenager. You might have trouble seeing her though. Her power breaks glyphs when people use them near her.”

“Oh, her? She’s on the Manakin.”

“Where?”

“It’s the citadel where Sakhr was.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. There’s a big blindspot in the citadel’s detainment wing. She’s the only one who does that to me.”

“Can you tell if they have her mother too? She’s also Nigerian. I don’t think she’d be far.”

“I can’t really see down there that well.” Though Winnie gave it a cursory glance. She could see most of the detainment cells housing hundreds of people. No one stood out. It would take her a while to find one particular person among them, but Winnie would. She knew what it was like to have someone you care about held captive. The thought made her think of Helena.

Oh.

Helena was not in that shower anymore. She was…

“I have to go.” Winnie stood and left before Josephine could reply.

Victoria had to know.

“Stop moving,” Zauna said.

“I’m trying. Egh!” Christof flinched away.

“I’m not even stitching yet. You are a child.” Zauna pulled Christof until his head was in her lap. Her grip on him was both stern yet mothering. It was a strange feeling for a five-hundred-year-old man.

Her needle broke skin on his scalp. He winced.

Her grip tightened. “Lucky man. It is only a graze. You are bleeding bad, but only blood.”

“Right…”

“When are these people going to call you?”

“Five minutes. Five days. No telling.”

It wasn’t the answer Zauna wanted to hear. On the flying citadel miles away, people had her daughter. From the moment that shuttle emergency landed on the beach, it was all Christof could do to convince her not to turn herself in. He’d said that Naema was better off if they didn’t have her mother to control her. Zauna hated the implication of that, and he didn’t blame her.

An hour later found them here, in the bathroom of a diner, using stolen medical supplies from a drugstore to patch up Christof’s wounds. A tortoise sat a few feet ahead of them watching their every move. Scrawled on her shell was the phone number to a prepaid assembler-produced phone Christof had procured.

His entire plan hinged on the assumption that Winnie checked back on Helena from time to time. If she didn’t, or Victoria discouraged it, then he didn’t know what to do next. The exemplars were already hunting them. They had no money and no weapons. Zauna wore the same clothes she had when she was captured, now several days overdue for a wash. Christof was obviously military, and the blood caking his hair and staining his white undershirt must be attracting attention. They’d gotten strange looks just coming into the restaurant. As soon as the news posted a bulletin on them, their problems would compound.

This is the kind of situation intrigue and politics gets you into.

The phone rang from its perch on the sink. Christof jerked. Pain seared his scalp.

“Stay still.” Zauna said

“I need to get that.”

“I finish first, then you get.”

“That phone call is our lifeline.”

“And they see us, yes? They will wait ten seconds.”

She was right that whoever it was could see them, whether Winnie or Victoria, but Zauna didn’t know what kind of woman Victoria was. Christof could imagine her hanging up the phone after two rings just because he made her wait. After all these years, he actually wasn’t sure how she would treat him. He maintained an air of urgency right up until Zauma took her hands off his head. The caller was watching after all.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Hello, Christof.”

He’d never heard that voice, but he knew that tone. “Victoria.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Asylum.”

“Asylum…”

“Sakhr is dead. Alexander is in control.”

“I know.”

“Do you know who I have with me?”

“Yes.”

“I want to make a deal.”

“Yes?”

“I bring your daughter and this woman to you, and you don’t put me back in an animal, or prison, or anything like that.”

“I am not your chip!” said Zauna. “Was this your plan?”

“I see,” Victoria paused, “and you would trust me just like that.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t?”

“No, but you don’t have a choice, do you? The hounds are coming. You’re a smart-enough fox to know they will corner you eventually, thus you are already cornered.”

Zauna was still snapping at him. “Answer me. What do you want me for?”

Christof put the phone down a moment. “You want to go to her. Trust me.”

“I want to find Josephine. I said this a thousand times. She’ll get my daughter.”

“This woman is your best chance of ever seeing your daughter again, so just hold on,” he said to her. To the phone, “Do we have a deal?”

“Hmm…” said Victoria

“Does your daughter mean that little to you?”

“I’m not saying I don’t want my daughter, or that woman. I’m just wondering why I should accept your offer at all. I could land this ship and take them from you, and neither you nor Alex could do a thing to stop me. He might shield his soldiers soon, but you’re lost and drowning. Why should I pull you up at all?” She mused upon it.

“You kept me as a pet for nearly two decades, and I wasn’t even there that night. You know damn well I tried to talk Sakhr out of it.”

“Yes. You voted no to murdering a child, but the vote passed anyway. Oh well. You did your best.”

“I could have done more. I know. I’m not innocent of what happened. But seventeen years, Victoria. Are you really not satisfied?”

“Calm down, Christof. I will give you asylum. Bring those two to me and you are forgiven.”

He gritted his teeth. It was always a goddamn power play with her. She was forgiving him. “Fine,” he said. “Where do we go from here?”

No response. It sounded as though the phone was shuffling around on their end.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Hi.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Winnie. I’m going to help you, but first can you put the woman on? Josephine wants to talk to her.”

86. Confirm Live Fire Command

Winnie saw the battle of the spider drones. It lasted less than a second. A firework of explosions rocked through the spider swarm as the Venezia missiles struck. Many missiles exploded a split second before hitting their target, but others hit home. Scores of drones detonated. Their shrapnel tore into their neighbors. Twisted metal plummeted toward the earth.

Simultaneously, the Venezia spider swarm came within combat range. Winnie noticed no exchange of fire. Just that spiders on both sides dropped from the sky in droves, like bugs gassed with poison. There wasn’t anything visibly wrong with the husks hurling back to the planet, but when she looked inside, she saw clean holes cut through their interiors, shattering circuitry. Their armored chassis had a dent at worst.

The enemy swarms passed each other. About thirty of the Venezia’s drones dropped. More than a hundred enemy drones failed. According to the displays in the Venezia strike room. The two swarms would collide once more before the enemy drones descended upon the Venezia. Without the missiles, the next strike wouldn’t be nearly as effective. Over four hundred drones would attack the Venezia in under two minutes.

The launch room was in madness when Winnie, Victoria, and Josephine arrived. Marines were cramming into pods. One would buckle into the seat. Another would practically sitting on their lap.

“Ma’am. Here,” Bishop called out. Two pods were standing by. Tan was already buckled into one. He watched the commotion with passing interest. Oni was crammed in beside him. Tan had not allowed him to sit on his lap. The other pod was empty.

Victoria stepped into the pod with Tan. To her exemplars, she pointed out Winnie and Josephine. “Put those two in the other pod. And you,” she said to Tan. “Get up. I’m sitting.”

Tan didn’t move.

Liat and Bishop pulled Winnie and Josephine along and secured them down, Winnie in Josephine’s lap. They then crammed into a remaining pod for themselves.

Victoria addressed the room. “Listen closely. Everyone.” The launch room went quiet. “They’re going to destroy our pods the moment we’ve landed. Watch your GPS. As soon as you’re one mile from land, eject. If you stay in your pod, you will die. You’ll need to swim to safety.”

One marine spoke up. “We’d be over four hundred feet up. We’d die.”

“Not if you jump out when you’re a mile away. The TransAtlantic skirts traffic just above the water. A hundred feet at most.”

“At the speeds we’ll be traveling, it’d be a bitch.”

“Your alternative is death. Do this or die.”

The words reverberated. No one spoke up after that. Victoria sat on Tan’s lap. She spoke to Winnie, who sat in another pod. “Keep an eye on me. I will say when you should jump.”

Winnie nodded. She put her mind once again outside the ship. The enemy swarm still couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, but it was only ninety seconds away. The Venezia would be over the TransAtlantic chute soon.

“All pods prepare for launch in sixty seconds.” It was the intercom voice of Lieutenant Ruiz from the bridge. By now, every pod was full. Winnie was settled in Josephine’s lap. Tan and Victoria were intimately closer than either preferred, and Oni was crammed in with them. Anyone who could be saved would have their chance.

Winnie and Victoria would be on the run again. At least they’d have company this time. Josephine and Tan might stick around, assuming Victoria didn’t treat them like enemies. But given that she now had Josephine’s power, she didn’t need Josephine anymore. And Tan… Winnie still didn’t even know what his power was.

Though once Victoria had his power, why keep him either? Winnie would have to convince her they were worth keeping around. That meant convincing Victoria they were useful. It was always about power to her. All the queen cared about was hoarding flairs, but even with all that power combined, flairs weren’t going to save this ship.

An idea occurred to Winnie. She kicked Josephine’s shin. Josephine looked, opened her mouth to speak, but upon looking into Winnie’s eyes, she stopped. She still held the glyph card she’d taken from Winnie and could see exactly what Winnie was thinking. There were six ships controlling that spider swarm from nearly two hundred miles away. That put them outside the range of all their powers, except for Winnie. She could see them. She could even see the pilots of all six ships at once.

Sight. That is how Josephine’s power worked, right? Victoria had brought her into the Venezia with a bag over her head. If Josephine saw you, your mind was hers to pilfer. So since Winnie could see the enemy ships, and Josephine could see in Winnie’s head. Why shouldn’t that be enough? It’s not as though their powers required working eyeballs, it was just about awareness. Or so Winnie hoped.

Yet the soldiers she spied continued to work. In each ship, the comms officers chattered quick confirmations with other ships. The captains oversaw their respective display tables. The strike controllers maintained focus on their swarms. Their hands flew over their controls, making micro adjustments to the spider drones’ flight paths.

Was Josephine even trying? Maybe this wasn’t how her power worked. Victoria had mentioned that Josephine could only erase memories related to her. But Josephine certainly had an intense gaze as she looked into Winnie’s mind. All Winnie could do was keep eye contact and maintain her visions.

Sakhr watched the dots on the displays. They crawled, despite the ships they represented traveling at supersonic speeds. The odds were six on one. The general was exuding an aura of calm. That’s how much he thought this fight was in the bag. Of course he didn’t know what was at stake. For Sakhr, he’d felt as though he’d bet his life savings on a turtle race. Every inching minute built upon the tight ball of stress in his stomach. Even if this succeeded, that didn’t mean it was over. Pods would launch. Missiles would follow. Then an eternity of uncertainty would follow. Did she die? Or was there another goddamn bird? He missed the days when seeing your enemy’s body was proof enough.

He watched the next stage of this glacial fight. The swarm of spider drones were about to intersect a second time. A few more would drop, and then it was on to the enemy orbiter. Sakhr found himself clenching the handrail as the dots mixed.

Then a moment later, they separated. Exactly as expected. He relaxed.

Admiral Laughlin frowned. “Hmm.”

Sakhr’s tension returned. “Is something wrong?”

“Hmm? No, ma’am. They just… hold on a moment. Lieutenant Diaz?” He addressed his comm officer. “Is there any chatter from the orbiters about that engagement?”

“No, sir.”

“None?”

“No, sir. None of them are talking.”

“Contact the fleet commander. I want to know why they didn’t return fire on the enemy swarm.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They didn’t return fire?” Sakhr asked.

The admiral waved it off. “The commander may have opted not to. Attacking the swarm makes no difference. It won’t swing back in time to fight again,” but the admiral’s aura was not as calm as he acted. When the comm officer got through, both he and Sakhr listened.

“Squad fourteen. This is the Manakin bridge. Report your current situation… You’re free to engage the target… Aye… The HIMS Venezia… Affirmative… Affirmative… Yes, that is your target… Hold.”

Diaz looked to the Admiral. “They’re requesting confirmation on their orders, sir.”

Laughlin frowned. “Put it on my console.”

The call transferred.

“This is Admiral Laughlin.”

“This is squad fourteen,” a tinny voice came from the speakers. “Requesting confirmation on our orders, sir.”

“You’re to destroy the rogue orbiter vessel, the HIMS Venezia.”

Pause. “That’s a Lakiran vessel, sir.”

“Yes, Captain. We know. It’s been commandeered. Take it out.”

Radio silence stretched on for moments. The spider drones continued their arc toward their target. The enemy swarm was circling back, but it would never get there in time. Everything was on course.

Then,

“Requesting a copy on our orders,” the radio voice said.

“I just told you your orders, Captain. Destroy the damn ship.”

“Yes, sir. Which ship? The… the Venezia?”

“Yes, Captain. The Venezia.”

“That’s… understood, sir. Destroying the Venezia.”

The radio clicked out. The flight continued. One minute left until the spiders could open fire on the target.

The radio clicked back in. “This is squad fourteen. Requesting copy on our orders.”

“Shoot the goddamn ship!” the admiral screamed into the mic.

“Confirmed.”

The admiral glared at his mic as though daring the console to click back on.

It did. “This is squad fourteen. Requesting copy on our—”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“Admiral,” Sakhr said. “It’s not them. Those blasted flairs aboard the enemy vessel are fiddling with your mens’ minds. Can you take control of the swarms?”

“What? What flairs?”

“I’ll explain later. Treat those soldiers as useless. Is there any way your men can take over?”

“There… there should be,” Laughlin turned to his flight operator. “We can remotely control those spiders, isn’t that correct?”

“We can,” the strike commander said. “If we can slave the orbiters to—”

“Don’t explain. Just do it,” Sakhr said. He didn’t know how Victoria was doing this. Records indicated that that Josephine woman needed to see her targets. Could she work over radio contact? Or…

Oh.

The moment he thought it he knew it was true. It was that farseeing girl.

Damn. It.

Everyone was going to need shields now.

“I’m in, Your Majesty” the strike commander said. His console layout changed to reflect the controls aboard the orbiter flagship.

“Do you understand the mission?” Laughlin said.

“Yes, sir. Destroy the Venezia.”

“Then carry it out.”

Sakhr held his shield plaque out to the strike commander. “And keep your hand on this while you work.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Humor me,” he said. This mission was not going to fail.

There was no doubt. It was working. Winnie had just watched six tactical operations officers aboard six ships stare blankly at a confirmation popup on their screen. “Confirm live fire command”. It had disappeared seconds after the opposing spider swarms made their second pass at each other. The rest of the crews weren’t much better. The comms officers backed their hands away from their controls as though their radio was an angry cat. The captains acted nonchalant, but half were secretly looking up their flight mission. The pilots and co-pilots kept glancing at each other as though too shy to talk. And now the commander aboard the main ship was having an embarrassing conversation with headquarters.

“Victoria!” Winnie turned to look looked the queen in the eyes.

Victoria shot up from Tan’s lap. “Don’t you dare stop!” She sprinted from the launch bay. Winnie glanced with her mind and saw her running back to the bridge. Thirty seconds until evacuation.

Winnie looked back at Josephine and resumed visualizing the other crafts. They were still just as befuddled.

Something changed. Their screens no longer displayed the spider drone swarms or any of its multitude of controls. All it showed was a prompt: Console disabled. System under remote access. Winnie listened to the radio chatter coming out of their ear pieces.

Nothing.

Someone had disabled the orbiter crews’ controls. Who?

With her eyes still locked on Josephine’s, her mind searched about. The radio chatter gave no clues. She checked the prompt again. In its corner, after a string of numbers and letters, was an address: lk-emm.manakin.strk-12.co.

Instantly, Winnie’s mind was in the Manakin. It was floating half a mile out from Porto Maná. She scoured up and down the main spire. The bridge? No one was doing anything related to this. The flag bridge? No. Flight operations? No. The strike room? …Yes. There was Sakhr leaning over an officer who worked at a console with a display identical to what the orbiters had moments ago. They were going to continue the attack from here, and the officer had a hand on Sakhr’s plaque. Josephine wouldn’t be able to touch him.

The attack was going to happen.

Winnie’s mind shot back to Victoria. She was in the Venezia bridge now, yelling at Stephano to hold the evacuation while shoving the comm officer out of the way. Didn’t she see what was happening on those ships? In twenty seconds, this ship would be destroyed. Victoria would not make it back to the bay in time.

“Go back,” Josephine said.

“What?”

“Go back. Look at Sakhr again.”

Winnie did so. “Why?”

“I wasn’t done.”

“But he’s shielded.”

Without breaking eye contact, Josephine shrugged. “I’m getting them. I can feel it.”

“But…” Winnie kept her gaze. “How?”

Another shrug.

The officer worked slower since Sakhr was pressing one of the man’s hands to the plaque. It didn’t matter. The man was already resting.

“Are you done?”

“The spiders already have their flight plan, Your Majesty. I’ll just need to confirm live fire.”

“So it’s… okay?”

“Pretty much, ma’am.”

Sakhr pressed his hand down harder. One slip up and this would all be for nothing. No slip up, and everything would be better. Just fifteen more seconds. He was counting in his head along with the onscreen indicator. At ten seconds, a prompt came up.

The officer didn’t move to press it.

“Is that it?” Sakhr asked.

“Is what it, ma’am?”

“The… button.”

“What?”

“The…” Sakhr wracked his mind. “The thing. You need to do that… to do something.”

“Ma’am?”

“Just do it!”

“Do what?”

Sakhr paused. The officer needed to do something—something to do with Victoria. Capture her? No. Kill her. She was… somewhere. And the Air Force was about to… what?

Snapping, Sakhr staggered backwards. He clutched his plaque in his hands like a lifeline. His memory was shot. Josephine was affecting him. But how? He was shielded. Shields worked against her, right? Right. She avoided high exemplars.

But how did he know that?

Did he read it somewhere?

He knew he’d read a record on Josephine, but he couldn’t remember anything in it.

She was… important.

Her name was… ‘J’ something… or something. He knew it a minute ago.

“Your Majesty?” asked the Admiral. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” said Sakhr distantly, but he knew he wasn’t. Something was terribly wrong. He just couldn’t put his finger on what. He couldn’t even recall why he was here. Everyone stared, expecting something from him, because something important was going on. But then something bad started happening.

His mind.

His mind was being pilfered by something.

His shield.

His shield was broken.

He dropped his plaque and lunged for Sibyl’s. Startled, she backed up a step as Sakhr stumbled into her. They both clutched her plaque. His old one clattered on the steel floor.

Sakhr’s mind raced. There were so many holes in his memory that he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He needed time to think.

“I need to go,” he said.

“Your Majesty?” Laughlin said.

“Finish up by yourself, Admiral.” …whatever it was they were doing. Sakhr stalked from the room, pulling Sibyl along with him. Between them, they cradled the plaque like a rescued child.

Winnie took her attention away long enough to watch the spider drones shoot past the Venezia. They came within a hundred meters of the ship. She’d watched as the confirmation screen in the strike room timed out, unnoticed by anyone, but it didn’t make the moment any less heart-clenching.

But it passed. The swarm would never catch up for a second attack. Winnie slumped against the wall and melted to the floor.

Victoria returned. She did not look relieved.

“How were you erasing Sakhr’s memory like that?” she asked Josephine.

“I don’t know. I just was. I hit everyone in that room.”

“Including Sibyl?”

“No. Not her.”

“So it was a shield failure. You didn’t find a way to work around shields.”

“I guess.”

Victoria frowned.

“What?” Winnie asked. “Can’t we just be happy we’re alive? We got lucky.”

“Yes,” Victoria agreed. “We got very lucky.” Troubled, she left the launch bay toward the bridge.

It left Winnie wondering.

What could be so bad about Sakhr not being shielded?

84. Spider Drones

“Sir, the squads are deploying their spiders,” said tactical officer Gray.

Admiral Laughlin nodded.

He stood over the central display table in the Manakin bridge. Around him, staff were at stations, even though the battle was thousands of miles away. Beside the admiral, Sakhr watched with hands clasped before his chin. Behind him was Sibyl, head down. On the display, there were six green dots moving toward a red dot. Clusters of tiny dots emitted from the six, and were moving away from the red.

“What are those?” Sakhr asked.

“Spider drones, Your Majesty” Laughlin answered. “Unmanned vessels equipped with repulse shears. They will be our primary weapon in this fight. All they have to do is get within range of the target for a few seconds, and they’ll tear it apart.”

“But why are they falling behind?”

“They’re not falling behind, ma’am. They’re actually getting into better position. Our ships and the target are moving at extreme velocities relative to each other. All our ships are currently accelerating away from the target in order to better synchronize with them. Think of it like bandits who ride away from the train as it approaches so they can more easily hop aboard once it’s next to them.”

“I see.”

“The spider drones are able to accelerate a little faster at this altitude. They’ll stay much closer to the target than our orbiters before their relative trajectories carry them away.”

“They can’t match speeds?”

“Not at this altitude, ma’am. Both the orbiters and the spider drones are using wide repulse fields to surf the atmosphere, but it’s so thin up there that only so much acceleration is possible, and at the speeds we’re talking about, only brief windows can happen.”

“That was our entire reason for flying this high,” Stephano said. “As long as we saw ships coming, we could change our trajectory to avoid them, or accelerate towards them and make the intercept window so small they couldn’t meaningfully attack. It was because we came down to pick up your friends that they’re catching up to us. Even then, those planes must have already been in the air.”

“They were after Josephine,” Victoria said. “They knew she would break into one of their bases.”

“Well, they’ve changed trajectories and they’re on us. We’ve already changed course to an optimal counter trajectory, but their spider drones will still be within our range for twelve seconds.”

“How bad is that?”

“It’s eleven seconds longer than they need to cut this ship to ribbons.”

“Is there no way to escape?”

“Any change in trajectory we make now, they’ll adjust to, and it will only widen their window.”

“What can we do?”

“We’ll have to knock out as many spider drones as we can before they come into range. We have our own fleet of spiders, which we’ll launch in about forty seconds. Unfortunately, their fleet vastly outnumbers ours. I don’t expect our drones to destroy more than a handful of theirs before being obliterated. We also have an onboard repulse shear with a range six times greater than the spiders. That will knock out a few before they come into range, and we have a cache of missiles, but again, not nearly enough to destroy them all. The chances of us eliminating all enemy drones before they get into range is slim.”

“Why not fire the missiles at the orbiters? Destroy those and the spider drones have no controllers.”

Stephano shook his head. “No. That won’t work for the same reason they’re not firing their missiles at us.”

“Orbiters are equipped with reflex fields,” Admiral Laughlin said. “Any missiles that come near will get knocked out of the way.”

“So this is what we’re reduced to?” Sakhr asked, “sending hundreds of spider drones to crawl toward them while hoping we don’t lose too many along the way? None of our ships have jets for faster maneuvering?”

“Orbiters were designed for artillery and rapid deployment. Aerial combat was an afterthought. Actually, this will be the first time in military history orbiters will engage each other. Don’t worry, Your Majesty, we’ll win. The strike window is too large and we have more than enough drones to get through.”

“Which is why we need to discuss evacuation, Your Majesty. If we change our course slightly, we can situation ourselves over the TransAtlantic chute. It will pick up any deployment pods we launch and carry them to safety.”

“A course change will widen the engagement window, won’t it?” Victoria asked.

“To twenty-six seconds, yes.”

“Then no.”

“Ma’am…”

“No. You said a twelve second window was bad enough. A twenty-six second window will be certain death, would it not?”

“Your safety is more important than this ship, Your Majesty. If you launch from a pod, the spiders can’t catch up. The grid will catch you.”

“Are there enough pods for the crew.”

“We’re still short since our loss during the Capital Bombing, but if we double up, there would be enough for you and your people and a few others. Flight crew will remain to man battle stations.”

“Flight crew meaning you and everyone else in this room.”

“Ma’am, please do this.” He looked intently at her. Eye contact was met, and Victoria saw what he wasn’t saying.

Twelve seconds or twenty-six, it wouldn’t make a difference. No matter what they did, Stephano and his crew were going to die.

She nodded to him. Stephano turned the flight officer and directed him to make the change.

“Ah!” Laughlin said. “Course change. We expected this.”

“Why? What’s happening?”

“The target has just changed course to put themselves over the TransAtlantic. They’re planning to evacuate.”

“Can they?”

“They can get deployment pods into the grid, yes, but we can redirect any intercepted pods to a secure location. We’ll send people to pick them—”

“No.”

“Ma’am?”

“Don’t send people. Send missiles.”

“Kill the evacuees?”

“They’re flairs, General. They’re too dangerous. They were able to walk into the Capital Tower without arousing any suspicion. My mother has spent years trying unsuccessfully to kill the people aboard that ship. We cannot risk anyone getting near them. Destroy those pods before they’re ever opened.”

Red lights were on throughout the ship. Air Force personnel rushed about the Venezia preparing for a fight Winnie knew was fruitless. Bishop and Liat weren’t letting her on the bridge, but it didn’t stop her from following everything that happened in there. She was in the corridor just outside as Victoria barged out. Striding by, Victoria motioned with her finger for Winnie and her exemplars to follow.

“We can’t use the pods,” Winnie said, scampering to keep up. “I’ve been watching the bridge on the Manakin. Sakhr wants—”

“I know what he’s planning, Winnie. I’m watching too. The pods will work. Bishop, Liat. Go to the launch bay and reserve pods for me and the flairs.”

“Yes, ma’am.” They took a ladderwell down while Victoria climbed up. Winnie followed her.

Rapid fire thunks sounded throughout the ship. Putting her mind outside, Winnie saw the Venezia ejecting spider drones like a fish spawning eggs. The drones hovered into formation, then as a single mass, they accelerated forward relative to the ship. There were a hundred in total, sending off to fight against six hundred of their own. To the human eye, there was no threat out there to fight, just the curving earth below and stars above. Only through her feeling senses could she detect the enemy ships still miles away. They wouldn’t even be specks if she looked out a port window.

She and Victoria reached the holding cells. Two marines were posted on guard. Beyond them was a tight room partitioned into six miniscule cells each no larger than a phone booth. The man Victoria had called Tan was stretched out on the floor of one, half laying, half reclining against the bars. Across from him, the small boy they brought in sat with his legs folded to his chest. Both looked up at Victoria’s approach.

“You’re not supposed to be here, ma’am,” one marine said. “This area is for military personnel—”

“Shut it,” Victoria pointed out Tan. “I want that man in the launch bay in two minutes.”

Winnie expected the marines to hop to it, but when one instead smirked at Victoria, Winnie remembered that the Captain never announced to his crew who she was. To these marines, she was just a lanky teenager in a borrowed exemplar uniform.

“I’m not sure who you think you are—” the marine said.

“I’m a high exemplar. I’m responsible for these prisoners. Under the Captain’s orders, that man is coming with me.”

“Until we hear that from the captain, he’s staying right where he is.”

Rising tall, Victoria faced the marines. “You will do as I say.” Her words carried Weight.

Startled, the marines jerked, but then their expressions glazed over. When they moved, it was haltingly, as though unsure what they were doing.

“What… are we..?” the first one asked, partly to her, partly to his partner. It’s as though they’d just awoken to find themselves standing before an audience.

Victoria was tampering with their memories, Winnie realized. Between that and the strange weight of her words, the marines couldn’t resist.

She pointed again at Tan, who watched this exchange with intrigue. “You’re taking him to the launch bay immediately.”

“…Right.” They moved to comply. Victoria spun to leave.

“And the boy,” Winnie said. The marines looked uncertain. Victoria looked at Winnie, expecting an explanation.

Winnie looked Victoria in the eyes. “The boy too.” He did not deserve to die aboard this ship because of someone else’s war. Winnie wouldn’t stand for that. Besides, what would Josephine think? Or this boy’s sister? If Victoria ever wanted either of their cooperation, she had to save the boy.

“The boy too,” Victoria said. The marines moved again. Victoria motioned for Winnie to come, and they left. Winnie expected Victoria to chide her for insubordination, but it never came. Victoria was either too rushed, or she realized Winnie was right. For her part, Winnie was glad. Maybe it didn’t mean anything, and maybe Victoria just did it because she saw the utility of keeping the boy alive, but given what Winnie had learned about Victoria in the last hour, it seemed important—like a fresh start. Though the idea that Victoria might somehow be redeemable was such a new and foreign thought to Winnie, it seemed hardly possible.

Outside, the spider drones were just specks of their own now. They raced away to meet their impending doom. Alongside the Venezia, ports opened. Inside were missiles lined up to launch. Their chemical jets would catch up in time to strike the enemy spiders just as the opposing swarms met. A coordinated attack would mean more of the enemy drones would drop. The Venezia would fight to its last resource, no matter how little difference it was going to make.

Winnie recognized the wing Victoria was leading them toward. Josephine was at the end of the hall.

“Wait here and watch,” Victoria said. “Don’t come until I say, and do not let her see you… And don’t wander off.” She strode ahead. Another two marines at guard. Victoria’s conversation with them was just as disjointed as with the others. She took a pair of their handcuffs and shooed them away.

Victoria stepped into the suspect-end of the interrogation room. She tossed the handcuffs to Josephine.

“Cuff yourself.”

“Why?” Josephine asked.

“I need to get you out of here, and I don’t have time to explain why. Right now, just take my word for it that I’m saving your life. Hurry up.”

“Who are you?”

“I will tell you later. This ship will be destroyed in three minutes.”

“From what?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Victoria snatched the cuffs and yanked Josephine from her chair. Pulling the woman’s hands behind her back, Victoria started cuffing her wrists.

Josephine snapped her head back, cracking it against Victoria’s face. Spinning, she kneed Victoria in the belly. Victoria crumpled.

“Sorry,” Josephine stammered. She bolted for the door, slamming it behind her.

“Damnit, Josephine,” Victoria roared. “The ship is under attack.” Clutching her bleeding nose, she tried the door. Locked.

Josephine glanced down both ends of the hall, judging where to go. Winnie remained out of sight. She would stop Josephine if she could. They all had to get off this ship, but if Josephine saw her, there’s no telling how befuddled she’d get.

Outside the ship, missiles fired. Two per second, they each took slightly different paths in order to arrive at the same time, giving the enemy spiders less opportunity to knock them out. The last ditch battle would begin in moments.

Josephine took off straight toward Winnie. They’d see each other in seconds, so Winnie did the first thing that came to mind. She crouched down by the wall and made herself as unthreatening as possible. When Josephine came around, she was so caught up searching the corridors that she nearly tripped over Winnie.

Winnie stammered, “Josephine please don’t I want to help.”

“Where’s the brig?” Josephine demanded. So far, Winnie could still recall what was going on. No memory erasure yet. She pulled out her glyph card and thrust it toward Josephine. “Take it take it take it.”

Confused, Josephine took the card, and Winnie looked in her eyes. She might have been expecting information on the brig, but Winnie sent so much more.

She thought of the battle outside, how the Venezia was destined to fall, how Victoria was here to save Josephine from death, how Tan was already headed to evacuation, how Sakhr was trying to kill them all. Josephine’s eyes widened. Winnie continued: The rebellion, Sakhr and Alexander, herself and her gift, her relationship to Victoria, her time as a tortoise, the conversation she overheard between Josephine and the queen, the one she had with Victoria afterward. Winnie sent everything she could to convince Josephine that Victoria wasn’t the enemy, at least not right now. There shouldn’t be a need for cuffs because they’re all in the same predicament. They should be working together.

The exchange only took seconds. Winnie hoped she’d done it correctly. She’d conveyed so quickly that she wasn’t sure it hadn’t all jumbled together. After she was done, Josephine kept her gaze on Winnie, though Winnie didn’t know why. Was Josephine erasing anything? Winnie checked her mind for gaps. It all seemed right.

Josephine reached her hand out. Winnie flinched before realizing she was offering her hand.

“Are we okay?” Winnie asked.

Josephine pulled her up. “No cuffs.”

82. The Monster

The orbital craft didn’t have many places where one could go for privacy. The best was the officer’s deck on the top floor, although it was only two rooms—the Captain’s quarters and a small viewing area with curved ceiling windows showing a marvelous panorama of the stars.

It was here Victoria found herself. She came to places like this over the years to think. She often dwelled on that night over thirty years ago when Sakhr broke into her family’s home. Thankfully, she thought of it less and less, but she’d never forget details, such the way her nails pried off as she tried to pull herself up the stairs away from Alexander, or how his nightmarish grin twisted her father’s face, as though deforming it into his own. There were other details—worse ones she tried to pretend never happened.

Sometimes, she’d be in a meeting or a conference call, and someone would say something, maybe, “be quick about it,” or, “shall I do the honors,” and her mind would be right there, replaying the next part as though rehearsing a script.

“Look into my eyes,” took her there the most. That’s what Alex said before venting his hatred. And now she’d created an empire where she and her exemplars said those same words to everyone they scanned. It was an empire crafted from her own nightmare.

She’d fomented a nuclear holocaust out of suspicion and misunderstandings. In the aftermath, she’d waged wars, using food as her weapon by dolling it out to those who submitted and destroying all other sources. None could rise against her, for even the thought of rebellion was a crime in the eyes of her exemplars.

She had no delusions about what she’d become. People around her may bow and smile and speak kindly of her benevolence, but she saw into their minds. She saw how they saw her.

She just didn’t care. So what if she was the villain? Some day, far in the future, she would finish her work, and when she was done, she will have laid a fresh foundation for humanity, instead of the stagnant, self-destructive mess in which it had become mired. Maybe then, when society was once again looking to the stars, and the problems of today were just a dark chapter, people might look back and see what she’d accomplished.

But until that day came, she was the monster. Sakhr taught her that her power would always set her apart. Alexander taught her ruthlessness. Sibyl had taught her how easily people are manipulated. Christof, how little they cared.

Josephine had taught her that to trust was to invite pain. If she cared, she would suffer, and monsters can’t afford to suffer. How else could they live with what they’d done?

And now Josephine had attacked the very thing that made Victoria strong: her reason to hate. Victoria has built her life around Josephine’s betrayal, and now Josephine had the gall to tell her it was just a misunderstanding.

But so what if Josephine actually cared? She failed Victoria; she said so herself. When Katherine had needed her, Josephine hadn’t been there.

Victoria could put an end to this. She could go down to that interrogation room and erase Katherine entirely—tear the pages from the book. But it wouldn’t matter, would it. Victoria would remember.

An aura approached. Winnie. Victoria visualized her, confirming that the girl was indeed climbing the ladderwell into the observation room.

When Winnie entered, Victoria kept her face toward the windows. “What do you want, Winnie?”

Winnie took a seat at the desk behind Victoria. “I uh… I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For the other day when I called you a monster and all that. You’re trying really hard to fix everything Helena and I started.”

“And what exactly brought on this change of heart?” Though Victoria already suspected the answer.

“I just… I was thinking… and I also… watched you with Josephine.”

Despite her bloodshot eyes, Victoria faced her. “I explicitly told you not to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I threatened to put you inside of a lap dog. Were you that sure I was bluffing?”

“I didn’t think I’d see something so personal.”

“What was the first rule I ever gave you?” said Victoria.

“Don’t spy on you.”

“So why do you disrespect my rules?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me. Never lie to me.”

“Because…” Winnie paused, then huffed. “Because I didn’t care. It’s not like you actually care about me, and you’ve lied to me about so much. I don’t even know if I can trust you to keep your promise about Helena. So, no. I don’t follow the first rule. Besides, if you really don’t want me to know, can’t you just pluck it out of my head now?”

“Do you want me to?”

“No. It… it makes a lot of things about you make sense. I get why you locked Sakhr and the others away. They deserved it. And other stuff: why you caused the war and everything. It at least makes sense now.”

“Because why? I’m just a poor victim all along? Everything I’ve done is okay then?”

“No. It’s—”

“I don’t see how what might have happened to me long ago has any impact on what I choose to do today.” Why was she arguing? Winnie was right, Victoria had the power to just take all of this from Winnie’s head now. The girl wouldn’t remember why she came up here.

But Victoria argued on. “I’m not acting out, Winnie. I was building an empire. If you have a problem with what I’ve done, then have a damn problem. Don’t excuse me because of something that happened thirty years ago.”

“No,” said Winnie. “All I’m saying is I’m sorry. You’re not as inhuman as I thought. I’ll still help you, even after everything you’ve done.”

“Even though you blame me for your father’s death?”

“Yeah… Even so.”

“I could take that away, your knowing that I caused the war. You wouldn’t think I was inhuman at all.”

“I guess you could. You could take away all the bad memories I have of you like you said you’d do to that woman, but that would just be its own kind of prison. I’d rather be in a tortoise actually. And do you really want to be around people you’ve programmed to like you? That’s not friendship.”

“I don’t need friends, Winnie.”

“I know you don’t.” Winnie fiddled with her hands. “But don’t you think you deserve them?”

This was puerile. Victoria did not conquer the world so girls like Winnie would follow her out of sympathy. “No one deserves anything. I’ve explained this before.”

“Yeah. I don’t know if I agree with that though. Either way, will you let me keep my memories? Even the one’s about Josephine?”

“For now, I suppose. I’m sure you understand what happens if you share this with anyone. And don’t fool yourself Winnie. I am your superior. You will follow my rules.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Winnie smiled a little. That gesture made Victoria consider yanking Winnie’s memories more than everything else had. Winnie thought they’d just bonded. Disgusting.

Suddenly, red light bathed the deck walls.

The intercom chimed. “All personnel to combat stations,” boomed the voice of Executive Officer Rivera.

Victoria visualized the bridge. Officers were taking their place. Stephano looked over the navigation display. A nest of red dots were on its periphery.

“I see them,” said Winnie. She met Victoria’s eyes. While Victoria was visualizing the bridge, Winnie had already felt the surrounding sky and found what was incoming: six orbiters, and swarms of spider drones—hundreds of them. This was an assault.