“I still don’t like it,” Gus muttered aloud.
“Don’t like what?” a voice asked from behind.
Gus yelped, drawing the attention of a super, and shrank back on the balcony. Luckily, the super turned back to the ceremony, awaiting his turn. Gus looked over his shoulder and saw Aurora crouching and calmly staring back at him.
“What the—what are you doing here?” Gus hissed. “I thought you were dead!”
“You did? Good. If you didn’t suspect anything, then for sure they don’t,” she said, tilting her head towards the supers below.
“What? How?” Gus stammered.
“A girl can’t reveal all her secrets…” she teased coyly.
“Aurora…”
“Fine, I’ll tell you—later.” She waved at the assembled crowd. “After we deal with all this mess. Where have you been?”
“A girl can’t reveal all her secrets,” Nick replied in Aurora’s voice before Gus could speak.
“What he said. She said. You said. Later.” Gus said after an awkward pause.
“Whatever. I don’t know what you did to the control room, but they were pretty pissed—”
“I’ll tell ya what happened. Man-boobs saved the free world. Truly some of your best work, Gus. I’ve taught this youngling well!”
Aurora mouthed ‘What?’ looking at Gus suspiciously.
“Well, not yet. Later,” Gus ran fingers through his hair. “Thanks Nick.”
“You earned it, kid. One of the unsung heroes.”
“Whatever happened, it kept them searching all over. They weren’t able to get the telemetry to work for them, so I always knew where they were on my minimap, and could avoid detection and sneak around. When I saw a green circle, I knew it must be you, so I came right away. I’ve been in my room, trying to figure out what to do next. I tried to make it to the Foundry but they had someone stationed there. I think they found all the gels in the cafeteria too, so bye-bye stash,” she revealed with a disappointed frown.
Gus only had one red gel remaining, but he still had a half-dozen blue in his left pocket. “How are you doing with gels?”
“I used all of mine up to heal the burns on my hands. Sorry,” she admitted sheepishly.
“I guess we’ll have to make do. Okay, so here’s what I was thinking…”
Gus went into his plan, adjusting it to accommodate Aurora’s unexpected presence. When they were on the same page, Gus took a peek at Basileus, narrowing his eyes.
He cracked his knuckles and growled, “Let’s go.”
Chapter Forty-Three
It’s Good to Be King
At last, Basileus got the notice he had been waiting to hear.
“Boss, can you come down to level twenty-three? I think you’ll want to see this. You said a big-ass crystal, right? Kinda orange with pink in the center?”
Basileus stood up straight, eyes wide. “I’ll be right there.” He keyed off his comm and did a double-fist pump, arching his back and screaming silently in victory. His father would be so proud. Now that they’d found it, he didn’t need to keep that little twerp alive ‘just in case.’ The thought of torturing him for his intrusion and insolence widened his smile even more. Eventually, things always seemed to work out for Basileus.
“You hear that, all of you? They’ve found it, now I’ll be free of all your mutterings, forever!” Basileus said out loud.
He got in the elevator, tapping his foot as a beam slowly scanned him to confirm he had access to level twenty-three. Finally, the car began moving. His thoughts flitted back to all he knew about the artifact. Manticorps had to liquidate millions in resources to obtain it, then keep it hidden from those who would try to steal it. Many were silenced to avoid even the possibility that its location would be revealed.
His lips pressed into a razor thin line as he thought of how Methiochos betrayed them all, conveniently offering to hide the artifact at the manor he knew he was going to try to steal away from them.
At last, he would be the one to bring the manor and the crystal back to Archon. So many of his brothers had tried and failed over the years. Within the crystal had to be some ability that would help him overcome the flaw he and Archon had hidden from the world. As the strongest among Manticorps, they had to maintain appearances, especially of power.
He pulled back his glove and looked at the ‘35’ tattooed in small numbers on the back of his wrist. Thirty-four different clones before him and he had finally achieved what he had been destined to do. Once he repaired the damage the process had wreaked upon his genetics over so many forced replications, he would lead a new order of supers and those smug Factions would be a thing of the past. And best of all—the voices would be silenced. Blessed silence.
Archon was adamant that the Factions needed to be destroyed, and he was unyielding in his determination to make that happen, even to his own detriment. With the power of the crystal, it was a foregone conclusion they would be able to overpower them. If that was what his father wanted, he would make it happen. He would fail him no longer.
It sapped his father’s vitality every time he had to be raised again. Basileus grinned inwardly that he had finally succeeded and validated his father’s sacrifices. Archon would only have one, maybe two more times where he could perform the procedure, and two would almost certainly kill him.
Still, Basileus knew he would do it. His own lifespan had decreased significantly with each cycle. Fortunately, his father had the body of each failed clone, so his memories could be transferred, preserving his sense of self. The psychological weight of multiple deaths had begun to wear on his psyche.
He was much less emotionally resilient than he used to be. He did not tell Archon of the presence of the ‘others’ that came before. It wasn’t just memories that were transferred, but entire personalities. The older iterations
