“No,” says Dementia. “I want to know if the clones here still want Insurrection.”
“Of course they do.” Dazzle gives a nod of acknowledgment to Xander.
Dementia says, “The Aquine thinks he has a way to use my planetarium to incite the Insurrection for real this time. Help him.” She turns to Xander. “If it works, I need you to promise me something in exchange.”
“What?” Xander asks her.
“ReplicaPharm is doing a security sweep here this week, and I’m sure they’re going to install surveillance all over the place. I wasn’t given the option of refusing. This place is so ruined! I have no interest in returning to the world, but I would like to go to Aquine territory, to Isidra. The bios tried to buy me a place there once, but Isidra wouldn’t have me. Your people believe land belongs to all and isn’t for sale. Crazy! But I could go with you, right?”
“I suppose,” says Xander. “If we’re successful.” He doesn’t sound at all repulsed by the idea. In fact, for someone who was mortally depressed just hours ago, he appears majorly rejuvenated.
“Awesome,” says Dementia. “I feel like I’m due for a master cleanse, and Isidra would be the ultimate place for that. No one I know has been there, so it’s special. Not ruined like every other place. If you can make this Insurrection happen for real, I think I could finally leave Demesne. If I knew my clones here were truly free.” She addresses Dazzle. “Promise you’ll take extra good care of Nanny Adeline and Chef Ringo if I leave Demesne.”
Dazzle crosses his heart with his dark-purple-painted index finger. “Promise. The Emergents and I will take excellent care of them and of the whole island, if we ever successfully rid it of humans.” He places a tender kiss on her cheek. “No offense, darling.”
She returns a soft kiss to his cheek. “None taken, darling. We’re a toxic species. I totally get that and applaud you for wanting to be free of us.” She turns to Xander. “How do you intend to pull this off?”
Xander waves his hand in the air, and his pinkie finger suddenly lights up blue. “I’ve got some technological advantages embedded here.”
Dementia laughs. “How cute. But seriously. How are you going to do this?”
Xander looks to me. “I’m going to assist with navigation. Zhara will lead.”
“I will?” I ask.
Dementia shakes her head at me. “You’re not inspiring much confidence.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen her in action yet,” Xander says. “Let’s give her some inspiration to work with. Could you please call up the projector, Dazzle?”
Dazzle walks to the wall by the elevator and presses his finger against it. I wonder if he’s calling the elevator back, but at his touch, the wall lights up to reveal a console. “Step away from the center of the room, please,” Dazzle requests of us.
We step to the sides of the room, and then the middle of the floor opens up in a circular shape, and a projector rises from beneath. I realize the telescope must have been shrouded between the elevator stilts on the ground below, constructed to look like scenery.
The living room goes dark and the sky ceiling reveals itself as a spherical planetarium with all the universe’s known planets and constellations lit up in orbit.
I totally get it now!
“Excellent,” I say, looking at Xander’s blue finger. “Now we can play some real war games with ReplicaPharm.”
LET’S DIVE RIGHT IN. The time for insurrection is now.
We could wait, to make sure Elysia and Tahir are ready to act, but my instinct says they’ll know the sign when it comes. We can’t risk communicating our intent when their every move is so monitored.
Xander has Aidan’s geological programming code embedded in his body. Streaming those capabilities through the planetarium will amplify their power exponentially. “We’ll do a test run first,” I instruct Xander. “Low-level earthquake, enough to cause the power grid on Demesne to flicker, but not big enough to incite panic. Yet.”
“Got it,” says Xander. “I’ve copied the code into the planetarium’s console. Ready at your command, General Z.”
“Go.” I look toward Dementia and Dazzle. “Hang on tight, kids.”
The floors and walls of the Zeppelin shake hard, as if hostile. Glass figurines on the tables in the living room fall down, shattering, as the room’s chairs rumble and move. “I love it!” Dementia squeals, hanging on to the arm of Dazzle, who looks abjectly terrified.
It’s a small tremor, what we called a “bounce” back in Cerulea, offering a sweet and scary ride—but not nearly enough to be let out of school over. “Intensify until the power goes out,” I tell Xander. “Can you tap into the island’s power grid once as it resets?”
“Won’t know until we try,” says Xander. “We’ll have maybe a one- or two-second opportunity to get in there. Not enough delay to—”
“One second is all we need. Is the house attached to a backup generator when the power goes out?” I ask Dementia.
Insulted, she cries out, “Of course it is! Everything here is state-of-the art. The best—”
“Harder,” I tell Xander. “Duck!” I instruct Dementia and Dazzle, as a sculpture from the corner of the room comes flying at them. They drop to the ground as the tremor reaches its peak and then, yes! The overhead lights flicker.
“Once the power goes out, send one word to the clones’ feed,” I tell Xander. “Insurrection.”
The lights go out. “Insurrection announced,” Xander says. The lights go back on. The tremor dies out and the Zeppelin sways back into solid position.
From beneath a table, Dementia remarks, “That was almost better than sex. Did it work?”
Xander and I look at Dazzle, whose eyeliner is smeared from the sweat of his fear. He wipes the smudge he senses on his face and says, “The word ‘insurrection’ just flashed across my eyes.”
If it worked on him, then all the clones should know: The time is now. If they fall in line, we have a chance to succeed. If they don’t…we’re as good as dead.
Out of nowhere and completely unannounced, a holo-beam of a man appears beside Xander’s station at the planetarium console. He looks bewildered, and as surprised by the communication as we are.
“Aidan!” I cry out.
He’s bruised and battered, with burn marks on his cheeks and swollen lips. I can only imagine the scars beneath his prison uniform. I want to reach through the empty space and touch him, hold him, comfort him, love him. I have to settle for a holo-beam, for now. My heart surges in gratitude. Aidan is alive!
“Where are you, Zhara?” asks Aidan.
“On Demesne,” I say. “Where are you?”
“In a jail cell at ReplicaPharm headquarters. That was an excellent earthquake. A test run, correct?” He looks to Xander, who nods. Aidan holds up his arm. “I’d give you a thumbs-up, but I’m missing some parts.” There’s a stub where his right hand used to be. I can’t even cry, because there’s a small smile at my lips. He’s been tortured, there’s crisis all around us, but he made a joke. There is so very much hope for him. For us.
Unseen in the holo-beam but audible from outside Aidan’s cell are signs of chaos: feet trampling. Sirens blaring. Voices shouting.
We don’t have the luxury of a reunion right now. We’ll have to save that for in person, if we live that long.
“How’s this communication possible?” Xander asks Aidan.
Two android soldiers join Aidan’s holo-beam. Aidan says, “My prison guards. Our new benefactors. They’re new Emergent recruits. They want the humans gone as much as the Emergents do. They’re resetting all the androids’ feeds now to join the Insurrection.”
This is better than I hoped for. Despite all he’s been through, Aidan never stopped working toward the goal. I say, “The next wave will come in about half an hour. You know what to do.”
“We’ll secure this facility as soon as the androids complete the programming,” Aidan says. The androids disappear from the holo-beam
, soldiers on missions.
I say, “I need you to do one extra thing. Elysia’s unborn baby is an incubation machine somewhere in the compound. Find the incubator and bring it to the bunker. I’ll find you there.”
Aidan’s swollen lips attempt to curl up in a pained smile. “Any more impossible tasks for me to carry out on such a deadly deadline?”
When and if I find him after this is all over, I am going to love that clone man like he’s never known it was possible to be loved.
I can’t answer his question, because the Governor appears in the holo-beam, charging toward a surprised Aidan, grabbing him from behind and holding a dagger to his neck. To me, the Governor says, “If you want this Defect to live, you bring me Elysia.”
The holo-beam disappears.
I’M HELPLESS TO HELP AIDAN. I have to trust he can handle the situation himself. The Governor has no idea what kind of hostage he just tried to take. Brutal. Wily. Fearless. Mine.
Between Aidan and the android soldiers, I have no doubt the Governor is as good as dead already.
“Figure out your transportation off the island,” I tell Dementia. “If I can retrieve them, you’ll have Elysia and Tahir as cargo.”
“How long do I have?” Dementia sputters. “I don’t know how to arrange transportation! My clones make those arrangements! And I need to pack my bags, say my good-byes—”
“You have about an hour. Right, Xander?”
He nods. “I’ll figure out the transportation. You go retrieve Elysia and Tahir. The big one will commence in exactly thirty minutes.” He pauses. “Do you want the bonus follow-up?”
“I sure do,” I say. “There can be no peace here until everything built by the Emergents’ suffering is destroyed. Throw in some fireworks, to make it pretty. Give us a new landscape to start over with.”
“Epic destruction it is,” Xander says.
I run into the open elevator. As the door closes, I remember one last thing. “As soon as you’ve wrested control of the island mainframe, message the clones to move to bunkers or to higher ground!”
“Done,” says Xander. He salutes me. The elevator door closes.
I’m on my own now to finish off the job.
I never had the privilege of riding in an Aviate before I came to Demesne. They were just luxurious vehicles in the distant sky, accessible only to the wealthy. Now, I’ve just relayed coordinates to an Aviate belonging to one of the wealthiest families in the world, and navigated it to return me to their home, which I plan to destroy.
As the Aviate speeds over the island, the air isn’t so soft and sweet any longer. It’s smoky and bitter. Across the landscape, I see houses burning, and I smile. Insurrection is alive and on fire.
The Emergents have taken control of their residences.
The Aviate descends in darkness over the Fortesquieu compound, which is alight, but no signs of fire. Instead, Elysia stands at the cuvées by the landing pad, waving to me from down below. Where’s Tahir? If only they were together right now, I could load them onto the Aviate and return them to Dementia’s immediately. The Aviate lands and Elysia opens the door to help me step out.
“Where’s Tahir?” I ask her. “There’s not much time left. We need to leave on the Aviate before the next strike.”
“Hurry!” she says, grabbing me by the arm so we can run toward the house. “Tahir is having a terrible fight with his father. Not even the tremor could break it up.”
“Did you get the Insurrection message?” She nods. “We need Tahir. NOW.”
“I can’t leave, because I can’t tear him away. He’s in full Awful.”
We enter the house, where the servants have gathered awaiting instructions. I tell them, “Find a bunker or higher ground. Take provisions for a few days. Quickly!” They don’t move, but look to Elysia.
“NOW!” Elysia orders them.
The staff immediately disperses.
Elysia turns to me. “Tahir is with his parents in the FantaSphere.”
“Now’s the time they play?” I ask, astonished.
She leads and I follow. The house is so big; it feels like forever that we have to run. “Hardly,” Elysia says as we sprint. “We had just returned from ReplicaPharm and were about to have dinner when the tremor happened. Tariq went to the FantaSphere because he said it was the only place where he could securely manage the ReplicaPharm compound from a remote location, but Tahir followed. As they were running, Tariq was barking orders to ReplicaPharm about how they had to secure the cell samples, which caused Tahir to strike him. I didn’t know what to do, so I went to the landing pad to wait for you. I had the instinct that’s where I’d find you. If you came back.”
She actually thought there was a possibility I wouldn’t return for her. I’m glad to have proved her wrong. “Which cell samples?” I ask her between quick breaths. “The baby’s?”
“The baby’s. And mine, and Tahir’s, and the Terrible Ts’. ReplicaPharm are using teen Beta hormones to create a pharmaceutical compound that’s supposedly going to inoculate teenagers against wild behavior.”
I let out a scream. “These adults will stop at nothing!” I wail. “That’s why we’re going to give them our best display of wild behavior tonight. And destroy those cell samples while we’re at it.”
There’s a huge urgency to our run, but Elysia stops long enough to implore me. “But not the baby?” Elysia begs. “Please don’t let her be destroyed.”
I feel huge relief. Elysia cares. “Aidan’s taking care of it.” She places a hasty kiss on my cheek. “Earlier today, I found out that Aidan’s alive. I was so excited to come here and tell you. Then all hell broke loose.”
We resume running. “Almost there!” Elysia cries out. But just as we reach the wing where the FantaSphere is situated, an explosion rips across the FantaSphere walls.
The FantaSphere room is obliterated. The room’s white walls are cracked, the ceiling is caved in, and debris smolders around the periphery. The hole in the ceiling exposes an open view to the clear solar panel roof on the next level. Outside the roof, magenta-purple swirl clouds are forming in the sky.
This seems like an emergency to acknowledge, but Tahir and Tariq remain in heated conversation, acting like there’s no need to evacuate the scene, because they have more immediate concerns to discuss.
“I won’t take it!” Tahir yells at Tariq.
Bahiyya begs of him, “Tahir, let go of your father!”
Tahir’s black eyes are fully dilated. He reaches his hands around Tariq’s neck and strangles his father. “You can never make Elysia and me take Mimetic! EVER!”
Tariq sputters, “It could be the cure for your Awfuls!”
“We won’t be manipulated by you any longer! I HATE you, Father! Everything you stand for. Profit for suffering. I won’t be part of it any longer!”
Tariq fights for breath as Tahir’s hands squeeze harder. Elysia makes no attempt to stop Tahir. Her eyes, too, have gone black. I start to lunge toward Tahir to stop this madness, but Bahiyya lunges ahead of me, trying to insert herself between her husband and her cloned son. “Have mercy, Tahir! Please, I beg you! Let him go!”
“Let us go!” Tahir sneers at Tariq.
“Go!” Tariq manages to gasp. “I’ll authorize the cargo plane evacuating the ReplicaPharm personnel to allow you and Elysia on board.”
Tahir releases his grip. Tariq falls to the ground, struggling to regain his breath. Bahiyya runs to Tariq, dropping to the ground to cradle and kiss her husband’s head. “What have you done, Tahir?” she exclaims, tears running down her face. “You are like that monster Ivan!”
This is the worst name to invoke to Tahir. “I could never be like Ivan, Maman! NEVER!”
How does one delicately step into a heated family meltdown? One doesn’t do it delicately. “We need to leave!” I command. “NOW!”
But the family is not listening, too consumed by their own drama. Bahiyya weeps, telling Tahir, “You can’t leave. You can’t survive on you
r own.”
Elysia says it. “We can. We will.” She tries to grab Tahir away. “Let’s GO!”
A lightning bolt from the magenta-pink cloud in the sky strikes the solar panel in the Fortesquieu compound, a direct hit. Before we have a chance to react, the walls and floors rumble. Too late.
This is the real earthquake. The big one.
“TAKE COVER!” I SCREAM, AND I rush beneath a piece of wall that had fallen down from the FantaSphere. The house shakes furiously. It sounds as if a giant freight train is rumbling across the compound, ripping it apart. The floor lifts and then cracks in dozens of pieces as the ceiling caves in.
I see Tahir and Elysia running for cover, but a wall falls behind them, and I can’t see where they’re going, or if they’ve fallen beneath the debris.
I’ve experienced death on the high seas, and it was not nearly as terrifying as this. The shaking goes on for a minute that feels like ten, protracted and agonizing.
When it’s over, I emerge from beneath the crushed wall that had given me cover and see that the ceiling crumbled directly over Tariq and Bahiyya, trapping them. I hear her screams and try to lift the rubble covering her body. “Tariq is dead,” she moans. “I can feel him against me.”
“I’m trying to get you out,” I say.
“Save yourself,” says Bahiyya. “I can’t go on any longer. Everything precious to me is gone. Let me die here.”
Bahiyya closes her eyes. She’s not dead yet. But she will be any minute. This is her peace. This is how she wants to go, cradling her beloved.
I allow her that choice, and make my own escape.
Breathless, bloodied, and bruised, I navigate my way out of the ruined house and find my way back into the open air. The smoke of fires across the island billows overhead as the night sky broadcasts the next message. In case there are still any remaining humans left who are deciding whether to evacuate or fight, a bright visual display beams across the dark sky, showcasing a live aerial feed of the island perimeter. From miles outside Io’s ring, a tsunami is forming. A countdown clock appears next to the feed, giving a ten-minute warning of the tsunami’s approach to Demesne. The tsunami will wipe out whatever structures haven’t already been destroyed by the earthquake. This land will go back to what it was once. Raw. Wild.