“But the knowledge was there. The plans were somewhere. Couldn’t this scientist make another?”
A genuine smile ghosted over Tess’s lips. “That’s the thing most people don’t understand about Simon Novalight. He makes long-term plans on a huge scale, but he’s somehow criminally shortsighted. I’m confident that scientist died before he ever left the Overseer’s house that day, and before the Overseer discovered the AI was missing from his office. The scientistcouldn’tmake another. Did someone else create one from his notes? Maybe. Maybe the Overseer has ‘lock magic’ now after all. I don’t know. But if you’d heard his roar that afternoon, you’d know it wasn’t easy to replace.”
Good for Tess. The man deserved a hefty setback. “He never suspected you?”
“Me?” She shook her head. “I was just a tool he didn’t need anymore. He couldn’t use me to control Mom now, and he had all the blood he thought he needed. He threw me out the next day. Uncle Nate finally showed up the same day I stole the AI, and the Overseer apparently greeted him with orders to take me away and make my disappearance permanent.”
Criminally shortsighted was just the start of it. Arrogance blinded the man. At least that day, his disregard for Tess had worked in her favor.
“He was done with me,” she said, “just like he was done with that scientist. He couldn’t conceive of a world where his huge supply of base ingredient was destroyed or stolen any more than he could conceive of a world where he left something precious and irreplaceable in his private office and then never saw it again. A blow like that doesn’t happen to the Galactic Overseer. Just like the wife he chose couldn’t possibly think he was a monster. Mom loathed him, and he hated that he couldn’t change her mind, no matter what his tactic. She was the one thing he never managed to control, and his only power over her ended up being me. Suddenly, she was gone, and I was an utterly unnecessary element in his life and household.” Tess flicked her hand through the air. “Boom—float the girl from the air lock.”
I swiped a hand down my face, trying to wipe away the shock, even though nothing that man did should shock anyone anymore. “He loved your mother.” Obsessive, abusive, controlling. That wasn’t what love looked like to me, but I was beginning to sense the Overseer’s version of it.
“I’m not sure ‘love’ is the right word, but yeah, I think so. In a really warped way. I mean…he killed her.” Tess fidgeted with her pants, rolling the side seam between her fingers.
“Why would he think your uncle would comply with an order to murder you?”
“Bridgebane had already been following the Overseer’s orders for years, ever since he followed Mom to Sector 12 and somehow got in with Novalight. He was a Dark Watch general, captain ofDW 12, and someone people feared across the galaxy. Not to mention the Overseer’s ‘best friend,’” she said with air quotes.
“So, another inveterate asshole?”
Her one-shoulder shrug was noncommittal. “I hoped not, but it looked like he was headed that way fast. The Overseer already thought so—or thought Uncle Nate was the kind of man he wanted for a friend and general. And I think a person like the Overseer, someone with no normal human feelings or compassion, can’t conceive of those things in others, especially when those others are careful to hide them.”
Tess’s watch beeped with a repeated three-toned chime. She switched off the alarm, and I could already see her focus shifting in the way her body angled toward the door. “Time’s up. We need to get to the cruiser.”
“Wait.” I reached out and caught her wrist. “The GIN Project… Once he finds new sources of A1 blood, will he keep going with it?”
“He’ll have to. It’s not some secret project in his own home that he can sweep into the closet after he gets what he wants. And why wouldn’t he? He’ll reap the benefits of getting to control people in the most effective way yet without having to do anything. His goons will keep the project in motion with the establishedIt’s all for your own safetydiscourse, and he knows that.”
Novalight’s short-term goal of creating super soldiers would be satisfied, and the long-term repercussions around the galaxy would be all to his benefit. That didn’t seem shortsighted to me, but maybe he only lacked foresight with things he kept close to the vest.
Or with things he actually cared about in his sociopathic way, like Tess’s mother. Did he regret causing her death?
“Finish the story,” I urged. “Before we go, I need to know. That day you took the Overseer’s AI… What happened?”
She glanced at her watch again, pursing her lips. “When he left his office with that scientist—likely to murder him—the Overseer left the invention sitting on his desk, all set up with the special injector. Knowing him, he wanted to inject it alone, all gleeful and triumphant with some horrifying plan in mind.
“I’d heard the instructions. The inventor had explained everything in detail, and as soon as I was alone again in the office, I got out from my hiding place and grabbed it. I thought about just taking it—saving it for a rainy day or something—but that didn’t seem permanent enough. I also didn’t want the Overseer to have it, to use it, the way he used everything and everyone else. I didn’t plan on becoming a rebel thief at the time, but even at eight years old, I knew the best way to keep it from himandsafeguard myself was to appropriate it before he could.
“So, I just picked it up and did it. I injected the AI into my palm before I could think about it too much or frighten myself out of it. My whole hand prickled and then went numb for a while. Long enough to really scare me, actually. I remember shaking so hard my teeth rattled. I knew AI in humans was totally illegal, although I didn’t know much about Wei-Peng yet. I was terrified I’d already started turning into a robot. I kept poking at my hand and not even feeling it.”
Tess lifted her left hand between us and flipped it back and forth, staring at it like a foreign object. “The numbness spread to my wrist but then stopped. I had to get out of the office before the Overseer came back, so I put the empty injector in my pocket and snuck out. The coast was clear. The house never had many people in it. Mom and I weren’t really allowed to see anyone, unless we were involved in something official on Starbase 12 or accompanied somewhere by the Dark Watch. He isolated us as much as possible. I think it was this weird drive to keep Mom to himself—as if that would make her need him. I crept to the kitchen without crossing paths with anyone, dumped the injector into the garbage compactor, and mashed the shit out of it. Repeatedly.”
I tried to picture the house where Tess first lived and came up with a big empty tomb, completely lifeless. Totally different from my childhood experience, with happy parents, cats sprawled on laps, music always playing, overflowing bookshelves, and no fear. It never even occurred to me to be scared of life until much later. That kind of naivety doesn’t last, but kids should have it. Tess obviously hadn’t.
“I thought the lab was in his house. What about those scientists? The ones taking your blood? Or guards?”
“The lab was underground with a separate entrance. The house was guarded, but the soldiers stayed at the doors. They didn’t move around the place.”
“So, inside it was just…who?” There must’ve been help. I doubted the Galactic Overseer made his own bed or cooked meals for himself.
“Mom, the Overseer, me, a chef and a housekeeper who didn’t live there, the occasional handyman, and Uncle Nate, if he was around.”
“No cameras?”
She snorted. “The Overseer was smart enough not to record what he was doing and saying, especially anywhere near his private office or that underground lab where he was illegally experimenting on his own daughter without her consent. His public image is what sustains him now that he can’t just blow up planets and blame it on war anymore. Any kind of generalized outrage wouldn’t stroke his ego, which is all he really wants from the entire universe.”
“He wants to be liked. Needed, even.” Shocking as it was, his desire for affirmation came through in a lot of his moves. The paternalistic, overarching control of everything. The constant reminding that he’d brought us peace. Large-scale atrocities would tarnish his image, so he used pinpointed brutality to keep an entire galaxy in line. What better way to get everyone to like you than to get rid of anyone who didn’t? That could change a mind fast. Or at least keep most people from expressing their true opinions.
