Something was really wrong, but she wouldn’t tell me what she’d seen.”
“She knew. She knew what she’d have to do.”
“Maybe,” Penny said. “She decided at the time that the only way out of this was for us, everyone like us, to be destroyed. Maybe that was the alternative …maybe it was one or the other. Either way, she believed it. She got this idea that we were wrong about everything. She sounded a lot like you, but she just …wouldn’t let it go.”
“How did Ai react?”
“How do you think she reacted? We’re the greatest human breakthrough the world’s ever known. Even if it was as simple as flipping a switch and getting rid of us, no one’s going to listen to that.”
“So what did she do?”
“Even back then, the model was crystal clear,” she said. “Whatever other factors might or might not be in play, Fawkes triggers the event. When she realized no one would listen to her, she pushed to take out Fawkes early, to kill him. He was just an engineer at Heinlein back then. He had no idea any of this was going to happen, but she didn’t want to wait. She wanted to cut the line there.”
“But why not? Why not do that?”
“Ai can see how all the pieces fit together in a way no one else can. She knew killing Fawkes was a mistake even if Noelle couldn’t see it. She knew he’d be more dangerous dead than alive, and she was right, but Noelle was off on her own by then, and she tried to kill him anyway. She jumped him on the street and stabbed him. He lived, but they all knew she’d done it. By that point they’d begun to think she was some kind of ‘rogue element’, and that she had the potential to cause the very outcome she’d seen …the one where the people with our abilities are wiped out. Osterhagen wanted her dead…. ”
“What about Ai?” I asked.
“She didn’t,” she said. “But Osterhagen was so sure she was going to end up causing the holocaust that even when Ai refused to authorize it, he came to me.”
“And you—”
“I was different then, Zoe,” she said. “Osterhagen convinced me it was the only way to stop things. He promised me the number-two slot if I did the right thing.”
She shook her head.
“And here I am, like he promised.”
She got quiet. The longer she talked, the deeper I could see the pain inside her went. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“It was quick,” she said. “I watched her bleed out. But I stuck around too long, and someone saw me. I could have wiped his memory, but I gave him the knife and made him believe he’d done it. He copped to the murder and went down for it.”
“You just made some random guy do life in prison?”
“He didn’t do life. He got killed in jail before his first year was up. He ended up at Heinlein.”
She smiled a bitter smile.
“The guy heard our last conversation before I wiped his memory. We didn’t know about Zhang’s Syndrome at the time …in Fawkes’s lab, his revivor remembers everything. With what he must have heard, Fawkes finds out who tried to kill him and why. He learns Ai’s identity. For all I know, that’s what sent him down the path he chose. How’s that for irony?”
I focused on her …not too hard, not enough to get her attention. Just enough to let her colors fade into view so I could see them. Under her calm exterior, her thoughts buzzed like bees in a hive. There was almost more going on in there than I could make sense of. I saw fear, like a cold, white cloth that rippled in the wind…. You’d never know it to look at her face, but she was afraid. I saw concern, confusion, and uncertainty, but underneath it all, shifting slowly like a gray mist, was guilt. When I concentrated on it, I could see how deep it ran.
“I’m not a good person, Zoe,” she said.
“That’s not true.”
“You don’t have any idea.”
“Yes, I do.” I looked deeper …there were a lot of things she carried around, but one thing in particular was tucked away. Something she’d barely admit even to herself.
She put one arm around me and held me to her. I kind of tensed up at first, but she was gentler than she usually was. I rested my forehead on her bony chest, and she stroked my hair. It reminded me of how my father used to be, back when I was little. I let out a big sigh into her shirt.
“You’ll get through this,” she whispered.
She put her cheek against the top of my head and squeezed me a little tighter. It was the longest we’d ever touched. It was the longest I’d ever touched anyone in years and years.
“Do you remember when we first met?” she asked. She smoothed my hair with one hand.
I didn’t. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was lost along with so many other things over the years.
“It was in the subway,” she said. “Raphael sent me to make contact with you. I caught you near one of the sake stands. You looked like you really wanted one.”
I still didn’t remember, but it sounded like me. She laughed just a little.
“You thought you dreamed me.”
“I used to get confused about that.”
“I know. Back then, I approached you because they told me to,” she said. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anything to do with you, Zoe, but …”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. I pulled away so I could see her face, and for the first time ever, I saw she was crying. She didn’t make any noise. Her face didn’t even really change except her eyes. Tears just came out, and the colors swirled around her head like a tiny storm, with something dark just under the surface. I saw a glimpse of it just before the halo brightened and pushed me away.
There was something else; something she wanted to say. There was something she needed to say but it wouldn’t come out.
“I threw Karen out the first time she showed up at my door,” I said. “It doesn’t matter how it started.”
She said something then, that, unlike most things, I always remembered.
“When this is over,” she said, “I’m going to save you, Zoe. If we’re both still alive, I’m going to save you.”
“What—”
“He’s going to destroy us all,” a voice whispered in the dark. I thought it was in my head, but Penny perked up too. We both turned and saw that Ai had lifted her head. Her eyes were still closed and sweat ran down her face as her mouth hung partway open.
The others at the table snapped awake as her eyes opened. Her eyes wandered for a second before they found Penny and me.
“We need to evacuate,” she told her.
Penny nodded.
“But they have the outside completely surrounded,” I said.
“Have the soldiers secure the roof, whatever it takes,” Ai said. “We’ll take the chopper.”
“But the chopper will only hold—” Before I could finish, I felt a numbness seep through me. My head spun a little, and the words fizzled out.
“We’re too late,” Ai said calmly. “This city will be gone within the hour. We’re leaving. Now.”
Calliope Flax—Stillwell Corps Base
I felt a rumble through the floor, and the map that floated in the dark warped. A band of static flicked in front of me, and the light came back. I could see.
