TRUEL1F3 (TRUELIFE)

“I don’t know him,” Ezekiel confessed. “But he’s a friend of Cricket’s. And Cricket and Lemon have been tight for years.”

“He’s Brotherhood,” Diesel growled.

“He’s a freak, too, Deez,” Grimm pointed out. “He helped me keep the kinetics of that blast back. Without him, pretty sure we’d all be brown bread.”

“We just got sucker punched by the Major for years,” the girl frowned. “You so keen to go trusting strangers again, Grimmy?”

The boy simply shrugged. “Any friend of Lemon’s …”

Ezekiel glanced at the boy, sizing him up. Grimm’s eyes were pouched in shadows, his skin sallow and gray. In the dark pools of his pupils, that faint ember light still burned. Considering he’d deflected a nuclear missile blast a few hours ago, he was looking okay. Still, Zeke could see a familiar anger in Grimm’s stare. It was a feeling the lifelike knew all too well—the rage of trust betrayed.

“So this Major,” Zeke said. “You’re sure he’s dead?”

“Lemon stopped his heart.” Grimm snapped his fingers. “Like that.”

“… She can do that?”

“She’s been practicin’, guv. She’s a firecracker, that one.”

“She’s a trouble-magnet,” Diesel said from her seat by the window.

“Yeah,” Grimm grinned, despite his exhaustion. “That, too.”

“Hope she had the sense to stay underground,” Diesel scowled.

“That makes two of us,” Grimm sighed. “BioMaas isn’t playing around.”

“No,” the girl murmured. “They’re really not.”

Ezekiel caught the hint of sorrow in her voice, the emptiness in her eyes. He glanced to Grimm for an explanation, uncertain whether he should ask.

“When BioMaas attacked us at the Clefts … we … lost someone, yeah?”

“His name was Fix,” Diesel said, her voice soft and gray.

“I’m sorry,” Ezekiel said.

The girl made no reply, simply watching the desert slip past beyond the window. Ezekiel decided not to press, and Grimm steered the conversation away.

“What does BioMaas want with Lemon anyways?” he asked.

Ezekiel shrugged. “BioMaas provides most of the country’s food through their gene-modded crops. Daedalus supplies power through their solar farms. But ever since Gnosis collapsed, they’ve been moving closer to the war that’ll decide who controls the country. And since Daedalus tech runs on regular electrical current, BioMaas figures Lemon’s gifts can give them an edge in that war.”

“Between the two of them, those Corps rule the whole roost.” Grimm shook his head. “Why can’t they just enjoy their slice of the pie?”

“It’s their n-nature,” came a voice from behind them.

Ezekiel glanced into the rearview mirror, saw Faith in the backseat. Her clothes were stiff with drying blood, her flesh a mangled mess. But her eyes were open now, gray and flat like dead telescreens.

“Because you h-humans only know to destroy,” she said.

“I’m not human, love,” Grimm replied.

Faith’s bloody lips curled. “How w-wonderful for you. What are y-you, then?”

“Freaks,” he replied. “Abnorms. Deviates.”

“How’re you feeling?” Ezekiel asked, watching in the mirror.

“Just l-lovely, little brother,” she whispered. “Next idiotic q-question, please.”

Diesel turned from the window to look at Ezekiel, eyebrow raised. “Brother?”

Zeke just nodded, eyes on the road ahead.

“So, you two ain’t human, which is all Robin Hood,” Grimm said. “But you mind fillin’ us in on what exactly you are? Lem was a little sketchy on the ’tails.”

“We’re the n-next step … in humanity’s evolution,” Faith murmured.

“Nah.” Grimm shook his head, tapping his chest. “That’s us, love.”

“N-no. You’re just a faulty c-copy from a broken machine.” Faith shook her head, her gray eyes distant. “You’re two-headed c-cockroaches.”

“She could charm the paint off walls, this one,” Grimm muttered.

“Faith, you’d be radioactive dust if it weren’t for Grimm and Diesel,” Ezekiel said. “Show some damned respect.”

His sister simply smiled, the dried blood on her face cracking as her lips curled. “How l-long to Megopolis, little brother?”

“We’re not going to Megopolis.”

“… What?”

He met those flat gray eyes with his own. “We’re going to get Lemon.”

“Gabriel and Eve are in Megopolis,” Faith said, struggling to sit up. “Those Daedalus insects took them. That b-bastard who killed Hope. I saw him.”

“I know where they are, Faith. But I made a promise to Lem.”

“Another roach?” she hissed, finally dragging herself upright. “This is your f-family, Ezekiel. You have obligations. Who knows what Daedalus will—”

“My family was happy enough to abandon me two years ago,” Ezekiel snarled, tapping the coin slot in his chest. “You bolted this on me, threw me off Babel Tower and left me to rot in the wastes. Don’t you dare lecture me about obligations.”

“And what about your b-beloved Ana?” Faith said, eyes flashing. “Are you going to leave her to the tender mercies of Daedalus Technologies, too?”

His belly rolled at that. Fire and sorrow in his chest. He pushed it aside, focused on the road ahead. “Go to hell, Faith.”

“Turn this truck toward Megopolis, Ezekiel,” she growled. “Right now.”

“No.”

“I said now!” Faith roared.

Ezekiel felt a sharp blow to the side of his head, fingers clawing at his eyes. He cried out, trying to tear her hands off his head, Faith screaming and reaching for the wheel. The truck slewed sideways, tires shrieking, rubber burning. Behind them in the semi, Abraham crunched the gears and swerved to avoid slamming into their tail. Grimm shouted and grabbed Faith’s wrist. The temperature in the cabin dropped twenty degrees. Ezekiel smelled burning flesh, heard Faith scream as he slammed on the brakes and brought their truck to a shuddering halt.

He was into the backseat in a heartbeat, wrestling with his sister as she howled and thrashed. Her strength was enough to crush metal, pulp bone. The seat beneath them groaned, and her boot kicked one of the doors clean off its hinges. But even though she was furious, she was still wounded and broken after her brawl with Cricket. Ezekiel pinned her arms, roaring over her screams.

“Faith, you’ll hurt yourself!”

She tried to throw him off, bucking him upward and denting the ceiling.

“Let me go!”

“Stop it!” he cried, pinning her again.

She thrashed in his grip for a few moments more, ripping her wounds wider. Ezekiel’s hands were slick with red, sticky and warm. Faith’s struggles weakened, her screams became low, desperate gasps. And finally, as she sagged beneath him, all the breath rushing out of her, she began to sob.

Ezekiel pushed himself off his sister, terrified he’d hurt her. Tears rolled down her perfect cheeks, her mouth twisting as she looked up at him with pleading eyes. If his heart hadn’t already been broken beneath New Bethlehem, the look on her face would have been enough to do it.

“We h-have to g-go get Gabe,” she whispered.

“Faith …”

“He’ll b-be frightened without me.” She swallowed, shaking her head. “He has n-nightmares, Zeke. Such awful nightmares, oh god, you should h-hear him. He wakes up every night. Drenched in sweat. Screaming their names.”

“Who?”

“Tania and Alex,” Faith said. “Olivia and Marie.”

Ezekiel’s stomach turned, the names of the Monrova children ringing in his head like funeral bells. He remembered those awful final hours during the fall of Babel. The stink of fear and blood in that cell when Nicholas Monrova and his family had been murdered. Though he’d saved Ana’s life that day, the guilt he felt at not being able to save the rest of them had never truly left him. But the thought that Gabriel might also be haunted by their deaths had never once entered his mind.

He glanced to Grimm and Diesel, saw bewilderment in their eyes. Beneath him, Faith shook and shuddered, the sobs bubbling in her throat.

“I have to h-help him. I can’t leave him there alone.”

Zeke knew that after he’d been cast out of Babel, his siblings had fallen to infighting. Uriel and Patience and Verity had abandoned the tower, leaving the grave they’d made of Monrova’s dream behind. But Gabriel had remained, intent on unlocking the secrets inside Myriad and resurrecting his beloved Grace.

Ezekiel had always wondered why Faith stayed with Gabe all those years. Why she’d stuck by his side inside that dead tower as he slowly descended into obsession and madness. Looking into her eyes now, Zeke finally understood. Finally recognized the pain that burned behind those flat gray eyes of hers.

“Please,” she whispered.

It was the pain of loving someone who didn’t love you back.

“Pardon me for sayin’,” Grimm said softly, meeting Zeke’s eyes, “but your family seems kinda fucked up, guv.”

“Swear jar,” Diesel murmured. “But yeah, true cert.”

Talking true, Zeke found it hard to disagree. In his quiet moments, he’d often wondered if there was some flaw in the lifelike design—some frailty that led to mental instability. His obsession with Ana. Gabriel’s with Grace. Now Faith’s with Gabriel. He and his siblings had been given the full capacity for human emotion, and you never love anyone like you love your first. But was this the same intensity that humans felt? Or was it something altogether darker, and more destructive?

And if it was alive in him, how could he trust the way he felt?

About Ana?

About Eve?

“Ezekiel?”

Zeke saw Abraham standing in the road behind them, Cricket looming at his back. The boy had pulled his techgoggles off, squinting in the garish sunlight.

“You okay in there?” he asked.

“We’re fine,” Ezekiel called. “Just hit a pothole and over-corrected.”

“LEMON’S WAITING!” Cricket bellowed. “WE NEED TO MOVE!”

He nodded, waved them off. “In a second.”

Abraham looked uncertainly at the buckled door lying beside the road, but he eventually shrugged and trudged back to the semi, under Diesel’s narrowed stare. Cricket glowered a moment longer, then followed. Faith was still crying, her whole body racked with silent sobs. Zeke looked down at his sister, and despite all the awful things she’d done, the horror she’d become, he couldn’t help but feel a stab of pity.

What must it have been like all those years?

Spending your life staring at someone who didn’t even see you?

“We’ll get them back, Faith,” he heard himself say.

“Do …”

Her voice faltered, the pain of what she’d done to herself now choking her. Zeke saw with horror that he was covered with her blood.

“Do you p-promise?” she whispered.

Zeke took a deep breath, held it in his chest. He’d made promises before—promises he’d yet to keep. But beyond thoughts of what might be happening to Gabriel, beyond the garbled, confused knot of emotion when he thought of Ana, when he thought of Eve, both now in the clutches of those Daedalus agents, another thought was burning. A nagging, barbwire tangle that had been slowly resolving itself into a certainty over the last few hours’ drive.

The Myriad computer at the heart of Babel Tower held all of Nicholas Monrova’s knowledge. The key to the Libertas virus. The secret to creating more lifelikes. Gabriel had struggled for years to open it, constantly defeated by the four-stage system that kept the computer sealed—a lock that required four keys to open.

The voice pattern of a Monrova.

The retinal print of a Monrova.

The DNA of a Monrova.

The brainwave pattern of a Monrova.

Eve had already unlocked the first two stages.

Now that Daedalus had Ana’s body, they had access to Monrova DNA. And with Eve, whose personality had been copied, note for note, thought for thought, from Ana’s, they might be able to crack the fourth seal.

What would the most powerful Corp in the Yousay do with that kind of knowledge? Where would the ability to create an army of lifelikes lead them?

He looked to the northern skies, still scarred from nuclear fire. The same flame that had almost burned the world to cinders. He thought about the madness of the Brotherhood, the maniac in that missile silo who’d tried to incinerate the whole country, all the hurt and carnage he’d seen during his years wandering the wastes. And he thought about Faith’s words, whispered from the bloody lips of a murderer and a monster, yes. But no less true for it.

You humans only know to destroy.

“Do you p-promise?” Faith whispered.

Ezekiel released his breath in a sigh.

“Once we have Lemon?”

He slowly nodded.

“Okay, I promise.”

The sun was setting by the time they arrived.

The sky was the strangest color Ezekiel had ever seen—one last gift from the nuclear conflagration that had split the heavens. As the sun sank, the sky was drenched in sepia and crimson, twisted into strange watercolor swirls. To the east, Ezekiel could see a dark smudge on the earth: the beginnings of the irradiated wasteland known as the Glass, where the bombs had fallen so hard, the desert was fused into black silicon.

You humans only know to destroy.

“Is this it?” he asked, peering out through the dirty windshield.

“Home sweet home,” Diesel said, pushing open the door.

The girl hopped down onto the sand, Grimm close behind, already calling loudly for Lemon. Diesel looked decidedly better now that she’d had some rest, but Grimm still seemed shaky. The pair disappeared through a hatchway in the dirt, a concrete stairwell beyond. Zeke saw the hatch had been painted once, but only a few letters remained on the rusty surface.

MISS O

“Miss O’s,” he murmured. “Missile silo.”

“Most amusing.”

Zeke glanced over his shoulder at Faith, still laid out on the backseat. His sister was looking fragile after her outburst, tear tracks cutting through the blood and dust on her face. Her dark bangs hung in telescreen eyes, full lips parted as she breathed. She was beautiful—smooth lines and long lashes and a perfect, ethereal symmetry. But they were all beautiful, really. Monrova had sculpted his lifelikes into masterpieces of physical perfection.

It was a shame he’d not been so masterful with their minds.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Somewhat.” She gestured at her legs. “These might take a while.”

“I’m going to take a look around. Stay here.”

She gave him a wry smile. “I’ve little choice, little brother.”

“You were only activated thirty-seven minutes before me, Faith.”

“I’m still your elder, bratling.” She waggled her finger. “Don’t forget it.”

He smiled despite himself, shoved open the door. “Sing if you spot any trouble.”

“Fa-la-la-laaaaa,” Faith sang, pointing.

Her finger was aimed through the window toward Cricket’s semi. The brakes squealed as the big rig came to a shivering stop, and Ezekiel saw Solomon behind the wheel. Zeke climbed out of the monster truck and walked over to the stick-thin logika as he wobbled out onto the desert floor. Solomon’s inane grin lit up as he spoke.

“THIS IS ALL RATHER PICTURESQUE, YES?”

“Shouldn’t Abraham be driving? Where is he?”

“I’m here,” came a voice.

Zeke saw the boy hop out of the semi’s trailer, a toolbox in his arms. “Thought I’d take the chance to fix Cricket’s aural arrays while we were driving.” He frowned at the spindly logika. “You busted them up pretty good, Solomon.”

“APOLOGIES, MASTER ABRAHAM, BUT IF SOMETHING’S WORTH DOING, IT’S WORTH DOING RIGHT.” The logika clapped his metal hands together as Cricket climbed out of the trailer, his massive feet thudding into the earth. “AH, FELICITATIONS, DEAR PALADIN. WELCOME BACK TO THE LAND OF THE AUDIO-CAPABLE. HOW DO YOU FARE, OLD FRIEND?”

The big bot aimed his glowing stare at Faith, then settled it on Ezekiel.

“JUST PEACHY,” he growled.

“TELL ME, OLD FRIEND, YOU HAD ME RUIN YOUR HEARING IN ORDER TO AVOID RECEIVING FURTHER ORDERS FROM HUMANS, YES? WHY REPAIR THE DAMAGE?”

“BECAUSE THE NOVELTY OF THAT DAMN WHITEBOARD WAS WEARING OFF PRETTY QUICK, SOL. BESIDES, ABRAHAM’S COBBLED A BETTER SOLUTION.”

The boy nodded. “I’ve rigged some hardware into Paladin’s audio unit so he can cut his aural inputs at will.” He tossed a small remote back and forth between his palms. “Or via this, if needs be. We get into trouble, Cricket can just cut his feeds.”

“VERIFIABLE GENIUS, MASTER ABRAHAM. NOW, HOW TO PUT THIS POLITELY …”

“Don’t worry,” the boy nodded. “I can rig a unit for you, too.”

“IT’S NOT THAT I DON’T LOVE TAKING YOUR ORDERS, BUT—”

“Lemon?” came a call.

“Shorty!” came another. “Get out here!”

Ezekiel saw Grimm and Diesel climbing back up out of the hatchway, looking equal parts worried and annoyed. The boy scanned the desert around them, the broken rocks and shifting sands, putting his hands to his mouth.

“LEMON?”

“She’s not downstairs?” Ezekiel asked.

Diesel shook her head, her expression grim.

“WELL, WHERE IS SHE?” Cricket demanded.

“Gotta be round here somewhere.” Grimm looked about in consternation. “Deez, you check the garage. Everyone else, split up, grab a butcher’s.”

“A what?” Abraham asked.

“A look!” Grimm snapped. “ ‘Butcher’s hook,’ rhymes with ‘look,’ mate!”

Hearing the fear and frustration in his voice, Ezekiel found himself wondering exactly what Lemon had come to mean to Grimm. He raised an eyebrow at Diesel and was met with a small shrug. The girl spun on her heel, stomped over to a stretch of desert sand and peeled back a large tarpaulin, revealing another long metal hatchway concealed under the earth.

Grimm had already stalked off past a rocky outcropping, shouting Lemon’s name. Zeke looked to Abraham, Cricket and Solomon and nodded eastward.

“I’ll look this way.”

“I’ll come,” Abraham said. “Paladin, can you and Solomon help?”

The group split up for their search. Cricket strode off south, massive feet crunching on the parched sands, while Solomon headed north. Zeke and Abe wandered the rocky badlands around the installation. Ezekiel was shouting for Lemon at the top of his lungs, but he wasn’t exactly worried yet—the girl had grown up in the alleys and squeezeways of Los Diablos, and she knew how to take care of herself. Lemon was small, quick and clever, and he figured she was simply hiding.

Stomping over a small dune, Zeke saw a wide circular opening carved into the ground: a mouth with metal lips yawning at the sky. He realized it was one of the installation’s weapons silos. Stepping up to the edge, he peered down, saw a nuclear missile crumpled against one wall. The hull was blackened by flame, and a faint stink of chemical smoke hung in the air.

The globes inside the silo were shattered, the electrical wiring melted. Zeke realized this must have been one of the birds Grimm and Lemon prevented from launching. The lifelike shuddered to think what might have happened if the pair hadn’t stopped the warheads in time, and he resolved to give the inimitable Miss Fresh a big hug on behalf of the entire country when he found her.

“Lemon?” he shouted down into the hole.

The cries of the others were the only answer. Zeke looked around them, hands on hips, shouting again into the dying light. He could see tracks up here—dozens, he realized. They were almost scoured away by the winds, but his eyes were sharper than a human’s, more sensitive in low light. Crouching beside the marks, he noted they were a strange shape—stabbed into the dirt rather than trodden, arranged in a scuttling gait. His stomach sank into his boots as he recalled the masses of dead constructs he and Preacher had found at the Clefts, those strange dogthings with translucent skin and six legs and faces full of wicked teeth.

“BioMaas,” he whispered.

“You find something?” Abraham asked beside him.

Zeke stood, calling over the dunes. “Cricket, we might have—”

His shout was cut off by a tremor at his feet. The sound of crunching earth and twisting metal. And above it all, Faith’s bewildered, terrified shout.

“EZEKIEL!”

The lifelike broke into a run back toward their truck. Leaping over an outcrop of tumbled boulders, dashing across the sands, he barreled out to their impromptu parking lot, his breath leaving his lungs.

“Holy crap …”

An enormous shape had burst from under the earth and seized the monster truck in its claws, with Faith still inside. Vaguely insectoid, it was the size of the semi, and the failing sunlight gleamed on its hide. It had six limbs: two ending in feet, two in clawed hands, and the top two in massive scythes of black bone. A long tail stretched out behind it; its skin was armor-plated, ridged and spiked, a dark desert red. Its skull was as big as the monster truck, eyes glowing a baleful green, mouth filled with entirely too many teeth. Ezekiel had seen images of these things in briefings, back when he worked security in Babel. It was a BioMaas construct, a warbeast from their CityHive, a creature genetically engineered to be a perfect engine of destruction.

“Behemoth!”

Faith threw herself clear as, with one sweeping blow from those massive bone scythes, the truck was sliced in three. Faith hit the ground hard, crying out as her mangled legs twisted, rolling aside as the engine block crashed on the dirt where her head had been. The behemoth roared, lips peeling back from foot-long teeth. A chuddering, bubbling sound rose up from its belly.

“Faith, move!”

Ezekiel charged, feet pounding the dirt, scooping his sister up as the creature exhaled. A gout of snot-green liquid boiled up from its gullet, an acrid stink filling the air as hissing goop spattered across the dirt where Faith had lain a second before.

“Bloody hell!”

The rank hiss of acid filled the air, the ground boiling where it struck. Rolling to his feet, Zeke saw Grimm had returned to investigate the commotion and was now standing transfixed before the towering warbeast. The behemoth turned on the boy with a snarl, armored tail lashing at the dirt as it swung those awful scythes.

“Grimm, look out!”

Zeke’s pistol was up and out, blasting away at the monster’s back, but the bullets were pebbles against a mountainside. Grimm raised his hands, the air rippling, his breath escaping his lips as a puff of pale frost. And as those massive claws arced toward him, set to slice him into pieces as easily as their truck, they smashed into a wall of … nothing.

The air around Grimm shivered and warped, like ripples on clear water. The behemoth bellowed, striking at the boy again. But again, the blows stopped short, tiny slivers of bone splintering free as the scythes crashed into that invisible wall.

Ezekiel glanced behind him, saw Abraham standing with his hands raised. The boy’s fingers were curled into claws as he roared, “Run, dammit!”

Grimm took two fumbling steps backward, his face pale with shock. He opened his mouth to speak, words turning into a yelp as a gray tear opened up in the earth under him and he tumbled down into it. Reloading his pistol, Zeke heard a thump, another yelp off to his right. He saw Diesel crouched in that underground metal hatchway, Grimm picking himself up off the concrete beside her.

A robotic shout echoed across the badlands, and the thunder of chaingun fire tore the air. A blinding spray of high-velocity shells arced through the night, carving swaths through the warbeast’s hide. The thing roared in pain as Cricket emerged from behind a tall spur of stone, his shoulders unfolding like beetle wings to reveal pods of short-range missiles. A half dozen of the projectiles howled and streaked forward, lighting up the behemoth’s hide with rolling blooms of flame.