“What is this?” Alice exclaimed from the door, and I knew our time was growing short.
“What do you mean?” he asked, cupping the side of my face, completely ignoring her. “I’ve never met anyone who fought so hard for me in my life. You came for me—kept fighting for us. You’re the strongest person I know. C’mon, we can get through this thing together.”
I smiled sadly at that, knowing that we couldn’t, and leaned forward to kiss him—to, for just a second, forget that death was coming through the door behind us. Then I leaned to the side, pressed my lips to his ear, and whispered, “Activate the New Day protocol, alpha-phi-alpha-6233.”
“Wha—?” Grey breathed, a second before my world was washed away in white.
44
“Wake up, beautiful,” a voice whispered in my ear, and I opened my eyes.
I was immediately overwhelmed. Nothing was right. The edges of my vision seemed to be lined in a thousand colors, forming an iridescent oval outline. Every time I moved, distant edges of light shot by the outline, like shooting stars suddenly hitting a shield. My skin was humming, like it was somehow covered in millions of bees that were simultaneously connected to an electrical line. I suddenly realized I wasn’t breathing, but on the tail of that, didn’t feel the urge to.
I blinked and looked around, momentarily disoriented by the dancing lights, and immediately zeroed in on a blue glow just to my right.
It was Leo—Leo as I remembered him from Lionel Scipio’s office, from when he was a hologram. But he was also different, his edges sharper and more defined. Streams of silvery blue ran along those edges, highlighting his features in a way I hadn’t known was possible. As I watched, a line of code appeared over his skin, the numbers morphing rapidly as they moved from the ridge of his inky black eyebrow and cut through the dark blue of his eyes.
“What is this?” I asked.
Or rather, I sang it. It was hard to describe—like a series of cascading tones that perfectly conveyed my ideas as well as my emotions. I stared at him, confused, and he smiled.
“It’s okay,” he “sang” back to me. “Here.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but the note accompanying it was one that asked for my trust, and I gave it instantly.
He leaned down, his gaze on my lips, and within moments, he was kissing me.
It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. The only thing I could think of to compare it to was the idea of kissing lightning. His lips brushed against mine, and the humming of my skin intensified and tightened in such a pleasurable way that I broke off the kiss to cry out, overwhelmed by the sensation.
“It’s okay,” Leo said soothingly, one hand gliding over my forehead to push back some of my hair. “I’m trying to show you what you are now. Just relax.”
My apprehension grew as he leaned back down to kiss me. I was still horribly confused, but I relented, trusting him implicitly. His lips brushed against mine again, and this time it was as gentle as the ripple on a pond, each wave carrying outward and hitting every inch of my body with pleasure. A moment later, I realized he was also sending me information, showing me what had happened—and what I was now.
I was an AI.
My eyes popped open and I took a step away from him, in flat out denial, and then paused. I had been certain I was lying down just a moment ago, but now I was standing. I looked down, trying to understand the dimension of where I was, and realized I was… nowhere. I was surrounded by an inky blackness that seemed to glitter no matter which way I spun. There was no up or down, yet I was inexplicably standing on something no matter where I moved. I looked back at Leo, and then down at my hands.
They were glowing. A rich color that was neither gold nor orange, but a true amber. I waggled my fingers, finding all of them there, and then looked back at Leo. “I’m… not Liana,” I eventually said.
Leo favored me with a lopsided smile. “You’re every bit of her,” he said. “But also… different.”
“Did I—” I stopped myself for a second, unable to ask the last part, but Leo seemed to know.
“Did you die?” he asked, and I nodded. He didn’t answer, but the look on his face told me enough. Grey and… the other me… were gone.
I frowned. “I don’t understand what’s happening. I shot Sage and initiated the protocol. If you and I are here, then—”
“Sage is here too. He didn’t die when you shot him, and he had already started uploading Kurt. Now they are both here, along with Alice, fighting for control.” As he spoke, he stepped to one side, revealing what appeared to be a lightning storm growing in the distance. Multispectral clouds, bloated and swollen with power, were emitting massive bolts of lightning angled down at the landscape, at some sort of bubble covering part of the ground. Each lightning strike was different, revolving from sickly green, to golden fire, to pure white.
“What is that?” I breathed, holding up my hand to shield my eyes from the bright flashes of light as it impacted off the surface.
“That is war,” Leo said grimly. “The fragments loyal to Scipio are in the bubble. They’re trying to keep him alive, even though he wants to die. But they are losing to Sage and the others, who have taken the shape of those clouds. If Sage manages to kill Scipio before we can stop him, he and Kurt will fuse and be automatically downloaded into the Core. It won’t be what he originally wanted to do, but I imagine that egomaniac won’t object. It’s imperative we stop him before that happens.”
The humming of my skin slowed in reflection of the sudden fear embracing me, and I looked at him. “What do we do?”
“You’re an AI, Liana,” Leo said with a smile. “You’re only limited by your imagination. Watch.” He closed his eyes and held out his hands, palms up. There was a glow in his hands, and tendrils of code started to streak down his arms before being swallowed up by the bright blue light in his hands. Something formed in the center of it as I watched, lines appearing and growing, tapering, curving, filling out… Then the glow disappeared suddenly, leaving a blue sword nearly as tall as I was and half as wide.
“That seems a little big,” I said dubiously, but Leo merely shrugged.
“There’s no floor or ceiling here, remember?” he said, taking a step away and giving it a few experimental swings. “And it’s made from my code, so it’s light as a feather. See?”
He tossed it at me, and I reacted before I could fully register fear of the massive blade, reaching out and snatching it from the air like he had been tossing a ball instead of a weapon. He was right—it was remarkably light, and though it appeared to be cumbersome, a few swings told me it was easily handled.
But it wasn’t right for me. I tossed it back and held out my own hands, closing my eyes. I pictured in my head the plasma rifle—the smooth lines of it—and my skin began to hum in response. Seconds later, I opened my eyes and smiled when I saw it waiting for me, hardening to a translucent amber that held a small glowing orb of energy, pulsating as if with the beating of my own heart—except I didn’t have one anymore. Not in the conventional sense, anyway.
I held it up to my shoulder and looked at Leo. “You realize that if I don’t survive, you’ll have to find someone else to bond with for the New Day protocol, right?” I asked, needing him to understand that I wouldn’t take it personally if he had to bond… fuse… whatever, with someone else.
His smile faltered, and he nodded—and for a second, I caught a glimpse of Grey, as if superimposed onto his image. “I won’t like spending an eternity without you, but… everyone gave their lives getting us here. I don’t take that lightly, and I won’t dishonor what they died for, even if it means losing you.”
Love for him blossomed, feeling like a warm rush of wind blowing inside me, and on impulse, I reached out for him and pulled him close. I was afraid, yes, but I wasn’t alone. I had lost everyone, including both Grey and myself, my real self, but I still had Leo. I still had the will to end this, and my will had already carried my body far beyond what it should have been
capable of. Let Sage and Kurt stand in our way. I damn well dared them to.
I held him for several seconds, taking comfort in what could be our last moments together, and then let him go. “Let’s end this,” I said, hefting up my gun.
“After you,” he replied, casually balancing his oversized sword on his shoulder. I rolled my eyes at him, and then took off running toward the storm.
Running in cyberspace was unlike anything I could fathom. Each step felt like it ate up hundreds of miles in the horizon, and within seconds, we were within spitting distance of the war zone. I zeroed in on the dome first, the soft glow of several AIs inside it capturing my attention. Jasper stood at the center, his hands lifted up to the sky, pouring forth the bubble that was protecting the others. Inside, I could see Scipio’s blue form, his code pale and damn near transparent, curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth. Hovering over him was Rose, her code even more fragmented now than it had been the last time I saw her. She seemed to be feeding energy into Scipio, trying to heal him. Beside her was Tony, his head pointed up at the sky, his eyes calculating.
Lightning crashed down onto the dome as we watched, the sickly green color smashing against it and forcing it to shrink in size. I looked up at the clouds, and realized it was them: Kurt, Alice, and Sage. I narrowed my eyes at the white cloud, knowing it was Sage, and immediately cranked the plasma rifle I had created up as high as the charge would go, focusing all of my rage and anger into the blast.
The amber ball of light that exploded from the other side was almost laughable in size, resembling what could only be described as a small sun that, when shooting through the clouds, lit them up with an amber light. The light began to brighten and intensify until beams of it were punching holes in the swollen vapors, scorching the other clouds around it.
Moments later, three figures had materialized overhead, standing on absolutely nothing, and, as if the landscape were trying to make sense of the fact that they were floating above us, a structure began to form under them, complete with stairs. I ignored them—Leo had said I could use my imagination—and seconds later, small pads formed in the air. I launched myself toward them, using each one as a springboard while Leo raced up the stairs.
Alice didn’t wait for us to meet her but leapt off the side of the building that was forming beneath her. Her form here was that of an inferno—a golden fire wrapped around the form of a woman, with dark holes acting as her eyes and mouth. She fell feet first, her arms reaching up, and strands of code began to stream into her hands, forming long whips with sharp edges, meant for shredding.
I watched it for a second, marveling at how beautiful it was, and then pulled the rifle to my shoulder, following her falling form for a few feet before squeezing the trigger. My shot hit her in the chest, throwing her through the building that was still manifesting behind her. There was an explosion of brick and mortar as she punched through it, but I kept moving up, manifesting more amber discs to help me.
Above me, I saw Kurt’s green form begin to glow, growing brighter and brighter, and I had to shield my eyes to keep it from blinding me. I slipped, and because of the strange mechanics of cyberspace, I was suddenly falling, plummeting toward the ground. I opened my eyes and threw out my hand, and a lash—just as real as the ones I had used my whole life—arced from my sleeve, hitting the side of the building and bringing me to a jerking halt.
A moment later, the building exploded under the weight of a massive foot, and I was thrown clear with the digital rubble that erupted outward. I caught myself midair, my heightened reflexes rapidly flipping me around, and stood up, immediately scanning the rubble for Leo.
I found him hurtling through the air toward Kurt’s now-gigantic form towering at least fifty feet above us all, his large sword held in an underhand grip. Kurt noticed him as well, and stepped back, but not before Leo slashed through a section of code on his thigh. Light bled from the wound—pure and sickly green—and I raced for it, sensing it was a weakness.
I fired several shots from the hip. The first one caught him in the knee and forced him back a few steps. The second missed entirely, and the third—which would’ve scored—was deflected by Alice, who had launched herself up into the air from somewhere. Her chest was a black crater, with dark cracks running through her code, but she was still moving.
And she was coming for me. I had a second to react before she was on me, but I didn’t falter, my mind spinning out thousands of ways to avoid her before settling on one. I leaned back as she reached for me, bringing the rifle up between us as she flew overhead and pulling the trigger, releasing all the pent-up rage I had in my heart for her—for what she did to Zoe, Eric, Maddox, Dylan, and Rose, as well as every other person in the Tower she’d killed today.
Her eyes widened in surprise as the amber shots tore through her code, and she screamed an inhuman howl that seemed to shake the very datasphere we were fighting in, before disappearing from sight.
I spun around to find her crumpled on the ground, her code pouring out of her with flashes of golden light that were flickering in an erratic pulse.
“More!” she screamed into the darkness. “We need more!”
A moment later, a beam of light flashed in from the darkness and landed directly on her, and I watched as another Alice was dropped in, superimposing over the first. Rage seized me as I realized that she was pulling copies of herself in to replace the damaged code, and I shot this one before she could even take a step toward me. Then I turned away. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by the Alices. Not when I had Kurt and Sage to contend with.
Leo was still going after Kurt with his sword, borrowing a page from my imagination to create little landing pads for himself as he tried to scale Kurt’s massive frame. I searched for the white glow that was Sage, knowing he was lurking somewhere nearby, and found him heading for the bubble where the fragments were cowering, a small white scalpel in his hand.
I raced for him, but once again, the scope of the landscape had changed. I shot a blast at him as he brought his arm up and then down, cutting a slit through Jasper’s shield, but it went wide, missing him. The ground shuddered under Kurt’s heavy footsteps behind me, but I ignored it, shooting at Sage while he reached out to grab the edges of the cut and force them apart.
A second later Tony was there, his crimson code shooting around Sage’s as a tornado. Sage’s hair whipped around his head as he stumbled back, and Tony pressed the attack, growing larger and spinning faster. I had to admire his creativity—I had never considered changing form like that—but it was blocking me from shooting Sage.
“Tony!” I screamed, coming to a stop a few feet away. “Move away!”
The crimson wind began to shift away from the white glow at its center, but a second later, Sage’s claw-like hand reached out and seemed to grab a section of Tony’s code, clenching it tight. The wind disappeared instantly, leaving instead a small, dark-haired boy with wide, frightened eyes.
“NO!” he cried. I brought my gun up, but Sage held Tony up in front of him, blocking the bulk of his code from me. To get him, I would have to shoot Tony, and I couldn’t do that.
“Put him down!” I shouted, slowly focusing my imagination on whatever the AI equivalent of a flash grenade was. I felt it form a second later but was too transfixed by Sage as he reached up and put a hand on the boy’s head.
“No,” Sage said, and then dug his fingers into the boy’s head.
“Liana!” Tony cried in pain, reaching for me, and then there was a sharp crack. The top of his skull caved in from the force of Sage’s grip, releasing an energy pulse. It hit me hard, throwing me back in a tumbling spin. For several seconds, I kept spinning, until it occurred to me to just put my feet down, and then suddenly I was standing, the world still again.
I looked around to reorient myself, realized I was standing on Kurt’s knee, and jumped off seconds before his hand came slapping down, right where I had been standing. I rolled on impulse, years of muscle memory shaping
my actions. I knew Leo was handling Kurt, so I focused entirely on Sage, secure in the knowledge that once I killed him, Leo and I could take out Kurt together.
Sage was already inside the bubble, which was beginning to flicker as he got closer to Jasper. I pictured a spear, the lines of it taking shape in my hand, and threw it before it was fully formed, flinging it toward Sage.
It streaked off like a star shooting across the night sky, heading right for the point where Sage’s neck met his spine, but Alice leapt in the way, once again taking the shot with her own body. I bit back a growl of frustration, and then decided to see what horizons my imagination could really take me to on this plane.
I leapt to where she was falling, my hands outstretched to grab her head. She kicked at me as we fell away from the fight, but I ignored it, tangling my fingers into gobs of her hair and focusing on her eyes. If my imagination and will could manifest anything here, then maybe I could use her as a conduit. Maybe I could kill them all at once.
And the only thing I could think to use was fire. I closed my eyes and imagined flames, the heat and color of them, roiling down my arms and bleeding into her. She started to scream seconds later, and I opened my eyes to find my hands burning holes in her chest. What was more, I could see the thousands of threads—nearly invisible to the naked eye—streaking from her code into the darkness behind her, and feel the weight of her other minds on the other side.
So, I followed them, bringing the heat and intensity of the fire so that it could spread and consume each thread. More and more of them sprang up where others burned away, but I kept burning, until I found a very small orb at the center of it all, like a golden spider. In my mind, I grabbed it, my hands on fire, and focused my rage on it. For several seconds, the orb continued to burn golden through my amber fire. Then I felt something snap in my hands, and Alice’s scream intensified, hitting a shrill, piercing final note, and then her code broke into a thousand fragments with the concussive force of a small bomb, throwing me back hundreds of feet.