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  Wyrd’s work gave us an opportunity to hedge our bets on Junco, and that was a pretty big deal considering that Junco was MIA and being morphed into her Higher Order status by Inanna. And now that she’s gone off the rails and has deliberately disobeyed orders and gotten herself dissipated inside the Seventh Pillar… well, I’m pretty sure most everyone, with the exception of Lucan and Tier, think her path to victory is gone now.

  Which makes Wyrd even more valuable. There was even a huge trial over him on Justice because after Fledge he belonged to Lucan’s Aves warriors. Gib wanted him in Clutch where Science Cluster kids go after their Fledge. But Wyrd failed his Science Fledge, which was some kind of special cloning task, and his project died. That’s why he got kicked into the General Fledge in the first place.

  It was later proved that there was a problem with the growth media given to the pledges that year and Wyrd was not at fault for the failure. And since Lucan was still on Earth looking for Junco and wreaking death and destruction, Gib thought he could get away with it. But Lucan sees all, even when he’s two hundred million miles away. He got his way and made a special trip back from Earth for that. Gib never had a chance against Lucan. And after the whole Deliverance fiasco, Rache was not interested in being in Kadian’s spotlight, so he stayed out of it.

  Wyrd squeezes me tightly as he whispers my name. “Tessen.”

  It feels so good to touch him again.

  “What did you do, Tessen?”

  I pull away and sigh. “I couldn’t let them kill her, that’s all. Junco deserves to know. She deserves to take part in this decision. It’s her baby and she doesn’t even know about it yet. You have to help this child, Wyrd. Please.”

  He peers over my shoulder and squints at the window. “Is she conscious?”

  I reluctantly pull away and shrug. “We don’t think so. We gassed her a few hours ago like you said, and no one’s seen any movement, but we don’t know.”

  He looks down at me again. God, it’s weird that he’s so tall now. When I saw him last he was a boy. “Tess, this isn’t a good idea. The chances of this thing—”

  “She’s not a thing!”

  “Whatever. The chances that this girl can be fixed are doubtful.”

  “But if it can be done, Wyrd, you can do it. And I think… I just feel… if Junco gets through this, this will…”

  “Make it worth it?” Wyrd finishes for me. His eyes are sad and his mouth is turned down.

  I nod. “Yeah. Maybe it will be worth it. Maybe this will make up for all the lies and pain.”

  After a few more seconds of sadness from Wyrd, he finally nods his head at me. “OK. OK, I’ll try. But if I say she needs to be put down, then you have to accept it, Tess. I don’t put up with much suffering in my projects.”

  I want to do a little happy dance, but I control myself. This is just the first battle and it might not end well, so the time for celebration is later. “I promise,” I tell him earnestly. “You’re in charge.”

  “OK. Merk,” Wyrd says, looking behind me. “Get a team and go in. But remember what this thing”—he stops to look at me and stutters—“errr… this girl, is. She’s not Tier and Junco’s child. She’s not some innocent immature avian inside a cluster. She’s not a human baby.”

  Everything goes quiet as we wait for the word.

  “She’s a demon on both sides.”

  “Junco was, too. And they fixed her,” I say hurriedly.

  Pike interrupts. “Fixed? She’s insane, Tessen. You know how I feel about this and if Annun were here he’d take my side and that thing would already be dead.”

  “Tier spoke, Pike. He said we could try.”

  He growls at me. “If someone dies, it’s on your head, Tess. Your fucking head.”

  I turn back to Merk, who is a lot more reasonable. “Get the team, Merk. Let’s go in.”

  Merk flips his fingers to the rest of our team behind him and the three of them come forward. “OK, everything on high stun. Don’t kill it or you’ll have to answer to Tier. And despite what you may think”—he directs his gaze to Pike—“Tier gave the order to save it, so in his mind, the child is alive. Remember that if you’re the one who decides to kill her.”

  I step back with Pike, Merk, and Wyrd as Bridge, Tak, and Cres move forward. “OK,” I say as I open the first of the triple security doors. “Go into the first vestibule, I’ll close this door, then you can enter the second, I’ll close that one, and then you’ll be inside.”

  No one has been inside yet. This is the first time. No one knows what this baby is capable of.

  All three of my teammates look like they are about to shit themselves. But they move forward into the first vestibule and wait for the door to close behind them.

  Once it’s secure I open the second and they repeat the process. We all press closer to the glass now. The shadows of the avians inside are hard to see through the translucent glass. The mechanism on the security panel flashes red, indicating that the door is fully closed.

  The tip of my finger presses against the flat panel and the button flashes green to indicate it’s open.

  Blood splashes against the glass in an instant and all three death beacons implanted onto the avian soldiers activate.

  And just like that, less than a minute into the mission, I have three deaths on my fucking head and almost half our team is gone.

  Chapter One—LUCAN

  Amelia Habitat

  You would not think that an artificial intelligence would have a scent, but Amelia does. It’s intoxicating.

  Her apartments in the top floor of my home smell only of her. I’m not even sure I could describe it, but the closest thing would be space. Space has a smell. It’s not something you can discern directly because there’s no air in space and scents need to be carried on a current. And I can’t smell it on myself, not even when I come back from space because I’m encased in timeshift shell.

  But I smell it on Amelia because she stands out in the dark nothing when she’s thinking. I always know when she’s in a pensive mood because the smell of space permeates everything. It clings to her even when I know she’s not been outside the habitat for weeks.

  She smells like the stars.

  Like the black emptiness, but the ice of a comet at the same time.

  She smells like rocks from the asteroid belt and photons from the Sun.

  She smells like mystery, discovery, and answers all at the same time.

  I live for this smell. It makes me weak. She makes me weak. She, more than Junco, is my one true weakness because she is my one true love.

  And she smells like this right now as she sleeps next to me in the body that Gib and I created. It was a large task—making her mind and body. I’ve nurtured her for more than three thousand years. She’s been my best friend, my confidante, and my lover for most of that time.

  She is perfect in every way. Gib’s molecular techniques are unmatched. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, out of place or amiss in my Amelia.

  I swipe a strand of dark hair away from her face as I think of our time together. Three thousand years is long by most standards. But to me it’s been fleeting.

  Where did the time go?

  We’ve raised families. Many families. But that was a long time ago. She was preoccupied with being normal back then. She wanted children. So I gave her human children and we raised them over and over again.

  They have all since passed.

  She didn’t want any more after the last one perished because the life span is just too short. And she never wanted an avian to raise. Not until I showed her Tier and Ashur. That day Tier was birthed at Clutch was a strange one for me. Gib thought I was losing my mind when I gifted a non-genetic son while he was still in the artificial womb. Gifts before birth are a loophole in the rules. It was the only way to create what I needed. I’d known it since before I was reborn because that’s how I was Chosen by my own father.

  And I gave Tier the same gift my father gave me.
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  Unconditional love.

  It worked for my father. I never did kill him even though sons killing fathers is almost cliché where we come from. Almost like it’s Destiny. But I cheated and shifted my fate so far, my Destiny slipped and I stopped being the son he made and remade myself over into Lucan.

  And the rest is history.

  I hate my father. Everything that’s happened to me in the last seven thousand years is mostly his fault. But his embryonic gift of unconditional love prevents me from killing him directly.

  But I only play by the rules when I don’t care if I lose. When I want to win—and believe me, I’ve never wanted anything so badly—I cheat.

  I cheated when I gifted Tier. And this makes me smile, because it was so easy and simple. And it was something my father never understood.

  Love is earned, not mandated.

  So I loved Tier back.

  Fiercely.

  I pulled out a brother for him that day and created Ashur’s Destiny as well. And the two of them, along with Amelia, have been the closest thing I’ve ever had to a family. Rikan came later, then Lili. But aside from their genetics they were not meant to do my bidding, not like Tier and Ashur. They are my true blood, whereas Raubtier and Ashur are not. Rikan and Lili exist in accordance with the Laws. They are known, their genetics have been recorded in the Book. They should not be High Order because they only have half the required genetics. But I have ways of cheating that rule too.

  But only Tier, of all the children I’ve created over my lifespan, only Tier will be the One to make the ultimate sacrifice for me.

  And he will do it, not because I order him or force him to love me like my own father did, but because he wants to.

  Free will. That is the difference between us and them.

  I never take away their choices. My sons do everything they do for me because they want to.

  It’s the reason Junco bothers me so much. How much of what she does is real and how much is conditioning?

  I’d like it to be one hundred percent real, but she has been manipulated and trained for her moment since birth. It bothers me that she was forced. Truly, truly bothers me. I have accepted the excuse Subjack laid at my feet after she was taken and I felt the need for retribution on her behalf. He admitted that it was the only way to get her past childhood.

  I do believe it, because the Rural Republic had been trying to create my Seven for more than two hundred years. Longer than that little country was even a nation. And they failed, time and time again. So when I heard that there was a living Seven, and that she was already of age, it was almost too good. After preparing for thousands of years for my final judgment, it was at hand. I yearned for it. I wanted to end this phase of my cycle and spend my time putting things back together after the fallout.

  But she—she is… nothing like I expected.

  Oh, I expected the fierce little warrior. That was a given, it was programmed into her DNA. And I expected the crazy. That too was programmed in. All High Order are touched with insanity. We are all born demons and must fight to become calm and rational.

  But I did not know she was High Order until after Deliverance when we brought her back from death.

  It was a shock. But her vulnerability and emotional attachment to us was even more of a shock. I did not expect to feel anything for her. Aside for my obvious need to use her to get past the final punishment.

  I certainly never expected that Raubtier might love her.

  Not that I’m complaining. That attachment, and her reciprocal love, are carrying me through this totally fucked-up plan. That is the only thing holding it together. I thought for sure it was over at Deliverance. She’d kill Tier just like she did Isec and I’d be stuck because the High Order would’ve been alerted to her presence by the time she turned seventeen. There’s a biological signal inside her tied to hormonal production. So they’d already known about her existence for years before she came to Amelia. The High Order was already on their way.

  The RR had plenty of backups in the tanks. Waiting to see if Junco would fail. That would’ve been messy for Earth if the High Order arrived sans a Seven to complete the Cycle, but since when does the High Order care about the inhabitants of a planet? They only care about the core biosphere, never the sentient beings. And let’s face it, Earth is just fucked no matter what at the moment. There’s no getting around that. Billions will die. Almost no one will survive, and that’s the best-case scenario right now.

  Tier defied my order to kill Junco when I saw she was unstable. And then Junco defied everyone. And they came home together. My son delivered to me the one being in this universe who could kill me. It was like an offering. I was stunned. Junco made me very uncomfortable. She looked me in the eye when she spoke. She brushed off my commands like they were requests. She decapitated Fledge members, both friend and foe alike, and she gave up her life for my son.

  And she is so, so sweet when she’s calm and still.

  How badly do I wish that I had more calm and still moments with Junco?

  I might’ve fallen in love with her sitting in my living room watching her play a piece on the piano, so oblivious to the world she never even knew I’d entered the room, even though I came home by the front door that night.

  Then I started telling her things, and then she started telling me things. Very, very personal things. And I’m just not sure how I’m supposed to feel about a young woman who was created to kill me, but stole my heart instead. I hate the way she was raised. I hate that she was trained. I hate the fact that she’s never had anyone keep their word and stick by her side.

  All of this bothers me. It keeps me restless when I should be relaxed, it keeps me tense and angry, and makes me rage when I’m in private and I think about it too long.

  Amelia stirs and brings me back to the present. I lean down into her neck and kiss her just below her ear. She sighs in her sleep.

  I love Amelia in a different way. I don’t want to make another Amelia when this is over. I’m not sure I have the desire to spend the time required to fashion another companion. And not because I’m lazy, but because I feel in my heart that Amelia is a soul and she can’t be replaced. Even if I used the same programming, made the same body, that woman would not be my Amelia.

  Because souls are not interchangeable.

  So what choice do I have? This last task must be done.

  I kiss her lips now and she wakes enough to respond to my advances. She rolls over and turns into me, resting her head on my chest.

  How long have I waited for this perfect woman?

  How long have I waited for my Seven?

  My fingers caress the soft pale skin of her neck and this makes her sigh. She’s still half asleep, her breathing less slow now, her heart rate picking up as she sheds her slumber. My palm rests against her windpipe and I kiss her again.

  “I love you,” I whisper.

  I squeeze, causing her to open her eyes for the last time and look up at me in confusion.

  I want to let go of her, take her in my arms, and plead for her to forgive me.

  But I don’t. I crush her neck and in a few seconds it’s over. Since she is the entity which controls this entire habitat all the lights go out and all the environmental life support machines cease.

  Her perfect body, limp.

  Her perfect mind, gone.

  I would rather kill her myself than let my father take her as a punishment in my cycle.

  Because that’s what love is.

  Protection.

  Chapter Two—LUCAN

  I carry Amelia’s body through the city and up to the science module. Once there it’s a long quiet walk filled with nothingness. Just the click of my shoes on the polished black floor, the outside universe on either side of me, separated only by the glass. There is no one here aside from me, Gib, Rache, and Rikan. Everyone else has been evacuated to Earth. Not all will make it there, luckily for Earth, but enough have already landed to make our race sustainable. The H
igh Order will annihilate billions of humans on the Seventh Planet of System Sol, but they will not destroy the ability to provide life. They need that biosphere.

  My warriors will fight, Gib’s scientists will hide underground, and Rache’s peacekeepers will govern.

  We will survive. No matter what. We will survive.

  Even if Junco dissipates me, my people will live on. I will live on, I will pull myself together, and I will return. Just like my father has many, many times over.

  But that will solve nothing, aside from clearing the current Cycle and setting up a new one.

  No.

  I refuse to live like that again. Waiting out another seven thousand Earth years of dread and anticipation for it all to coalesce together.

  I can’t do it again. I won’t do it.

  My father must, must be eliminated in a way that will take him out of the future for good. And the only way to that end is through Junco and Tier.

  What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

  We’re about to find out.

  I sigh at this.

  I sigh because this will kill Junco. Even though she cannot die, that doesn’t mean she will live. Living and existing are two very different things.

  I sigh at the thought of losing Tier. I sigh at the realization that he is happy to do this for me. He harbors regrets, yes. I see that. But he is so willing to make the necessary sacrifices.

  I walk, trying my best not to look down into my love’s face. Her neck is bruised a dark purple from my crushing grip. Her eyes are open. They are bright green. Like Tier’s eyes. Like Ashur’s eyes.

  They get their eyes from her. I asked Gib to make sure she could see herself in them. To help her feel connected to them, like a mother might.