The info station provides private booths for an extra fee. Abel settles himself into one—a tall, narrow room with walls, ceiling, and floor as black as obsidian. Its metallic darkness is broken only by the slender control bar, a single line of silver.
His first action is to input codes that should make it difficult to trace his location. Mansfield will know he’s being contacted from someplace on planet Earth, but no more than that. Only then does he send a signal to Mansfield’s home. (The contact information for his creator’s domicile was programmed into him before his awakening as a conscious being. Burton Mansfield never wanted Abel to stray far.)
A hologram shimmers into existence, revealing a standard Charlie model. It speaks first. “Model One A. You will be linked momentarily.” Then it shimmers out.
There’s a seat in the booth, as black as its surroundings, but Abel remains standing. He will not bow before Mansfield. Reminding himself of the minutiae of human body language and arranging himself to project confidence, he braces himself for the sight of his creator.
The hologram shimmers back into brightness, taking on human form. But it’s not Mansfield before him.
Noemi seems to be suspended in air. She wears the black tank and leggings that go beneath a Genesis flight suit. Her arm bears a red mark along its inner curve, and her chin-length hair is unkempt. Her head is tilted to the side, buoyed by what must be a force field, and her eyes are shut. Noemi’s muscles are slack. Abel’s first thought is that she’s dead. Mansfield broke his word. Or the mechs got the deadline wrong. They’ve killed her—
Before that terrible pain can fully pierce his shock, however, Abel realizes her chest is rising and falling with slow, even breaths. She’s alive, but unconscious. A Tare steps closer and presses a syringe against Noemi’s arm, and then she twitches. She struggles against the force field that holds her as she becomes fully conscious. Her eyes focus on him at last, and her horror matches his own. “Abel!”
“Noemi,” he breathes. He seems to know no word but her name. How many times he’s longed to see her just one more time—but never would he have wanted to see her like this, his fierce, strong Noemi held captive and afraid.
But she wastes no time on her own fate. “Don’t turn yourself into Mansfield, no matter what. Do you hear me?”
Abel still doesn’t intend to surrender, but he can’t say that during a conversation he assumes is being listened to. “I have to make sure you’re safe—”
“Forget me! You have to save Genesis.” At first he thinks she’s still delirious from the sedatives she must’ve been given, but she’s in earnest. “Earth sent Cobweb to Genesis—biological weapons, and they’ve engineered it to be so much worse—the whole planet’s sick—”
He understands Earth’s strategy instantly. Biological warfare has never played a large role in human conflict, largely because such viruses and bacteria tend to backfire. They spread beyond borders on a map. They ignore the color of uniforms. They infect target and shooter alike. But to use them against a completely different planet? How safe. How simple. Earth will wait until the pandemic has fully run its course—ensuring the virus dies out for a lack of hosts, and will be unable to infect any invaders—then strike with full force. This could end the war within weeks. Their plan is as effective as it is morally reprehensible.
Abel extrapolates all of this within 1.41 seconds, without ever losing focus on Noemi’s stricken face.
She pleads, “You have to find Ephraim. Do you understand what I mean? Get out of here and find Ephraim. Save Genesis.”
“I can’t leave you to Mansfield—”
“Yes, you can.” Her stubbornness has returned to her. Even as a captive, Noemi still has the same fire burning within her. “I volunteered for the Masada Run, Abel. I was ready to give my life for my world. That’s exactly what I’m doing now.”
Abel completely comprehends her plan; his mental circuits swiftly trace the path from Ephraim Dunaway to the moderate wing of Remedy, with its medical connections, and then to improved antiviral drugs that might give Genesis a chance to recover. He feels sure he can activate that plan without surrendering either her life or his.
Still, he can’t say so in the hologram. “Hold on. I’ll find a way out of this.”
She shakes her head. Her dark brown eyes well with tears. “On Genesis, sometimes, I’d wonder what I would say to you if I ever saw you again, and I decided—it’s just, thank you. Thank you for loving me. At least I know someone did, just for once in my life.”
“Noemi—”
But the hologram fades out, only to be replaced by an image of Mansfield. His creator could well look mocking and superior—he has the power, and they both know it—or he could try to be fatherly and warm, in the manner that always deceived Abel before. Instead Mansfield looks… shaken. Even stricken. He says, “The terms of our deal have changed.”
“What do you mean?” Abel can’t imagine what higher ransom he’s supposed to pay than his own life.
“You’ll come home no sooner than two hours from now,” Mansfield says, in the oddly detached way that means he’s thinking as he talks. This plan is as new as the words he speaks. “You’ll find information, coded for you alone, on where and how to proceed next. Then you’ll meet us at that location
