Not my hand.
Not my hand.
The foreign memory hits me sideways like a stray bullet. I already know of at least one other person who experienced this exact thing. And now I can finally understand what I saw in her memory—the selfsame horror I feel now. The realization that even if she lived forever, it wouldn’t truly be asherselfanymore, and she’d failed to count the eternal cost.
Jelza.
I bought her memory from the Morpheus Market at my mother’s behest. Either Chloe wanted to ensure that Jelza forgot her Evolution entirely, only to lose track of the memory … or Jelza sold it herself in an attempt to escape her horror. But where I was still school age at best when my Evolution first took place, Jelza was a grown woman. Despitethose memories having been removed and sold, might Jelza recall that she didn’t want this?
Might she be willing to ensure the Evolution Project ends with us—and my mother’s deathless government regime, for that matter?
Because this isn’t just about me anymore. It isn’t even just about the other Evolved whom the project created. My mother’s infiltrated memory burns inescapably inside my skull:The Shadowlands will be next.If someone doesn’t stop her, Chloe’s intent isn’t just to build an army that cheats death. It’s to use them toinflictdeath on the nightfolk, fully claiming Pagomènos for the dayfolk andonlythe dayfolk.
I spent so long believing, as I’d always been told, that the nightfolk were abominations, threats to us if we ever dared provoke them. But all along, while the dayfolk were swimming in self-righteous hatred for the nightfolk,ourleader—my own mother—was planning to invadethemfirst, both to wipe out those she considered inferior and to seize their radioactive power source for herself. To fuel her own fake, unnatural body with the same radiation that she’s always taught me to bepoison.
If Chloe has her way, she’ll turn this entire planet into a graveyard as surely as our ancestors did with the Passage. Adria is fighting to prevent planetary civil war from her side, and now … now I’m everyone’s best chance at stopping it from the other.
I can’t possibly do it alone.
Jelza’s memory included the name of her own daughter:Dawn.While my mother treated me like a piece in an elaborate board game, Jelza’s concerns in her Morpheus sphere were almost entirely fixated on her own daughter’s reaction to her Evolution and how it would affect their relationship going forward.
Undeniably, contacting Jelza for help—when my only knowledge of her is based on a memory Ishould never have seen—is a total long shot. But Dawn is my best bid for connection with the only potential revolutionary I know.Do you really want your daughter embroiled in needless war with the Shadowlands? If you help me, there’s still time to stop this.
Aspect chirps, “What—is Kori—thinking?”
I find myself pacing in circles, talking so fast that my mouth can hardly keep up with my brain. “My mother hid my Evolution from me. But if other higher-ups knew what they’d signed up for … even if they don’t consciously remember anymore …” Crossing my arms, I turn back to face Aspect. “Surely they don’t all want war. If they knew about Chloe’s plans for total control, they could help me fight back. Save the Shadowlands. And stop this from happening to anyone else.”
“Stop people—from living forever?” Aspect cocks their head sideways. “Do people want—to slowly—power down—instead?”
My head spins, both from the question itself and from Aspect having the awareness to ask it. “I … maybe?”
“Why would—people—want to become—not alive? Nothing left?” The mech shakes their head furiously. “Aspect likes—being Aspect.”
“Maybe they do want to live forever. O-or maybe they’d rather live out their allotted time in their own skin, hug their loved ones with their own hands,” I stammer. “But either way, they deserve to understand what they’re signing up for, before they sign their bodies away on a dotted line. They deserve tochoose.My own mother took that away from me completely. I can’t let her snatch it away from anyone else.” I swallow hard. “And if peopledowant to live forever … well, then everyone should have that choice, shouldn’t they? Not just the ones my mother finds worthy, findsusefulto her.Anyone.” My heart races. “And then there’s the Shadowlands.”
Aspect raises their voice to a positively painful pitch. “Kori’s mother—kill—Kori’s girlfriend?”
My face burns. “That … is a gross oversimplification.”
But I’d be lying if I said Adria’s safety wasn’t at the top of my concerns list right now. I promised her enough resources to end her civil war. Not an immortal army sent by my mother to exterminate the nightfolk entirely—and claim the Diakópsei for a new, Evolved humanity.
“Allthe nightfolk are at risk of being slaughtered, sacrificed on the altar of total control. That can’t happen.” I grit my teeth. “I won’t let it.”
Everything I was ever told about the nightfolk was wrong. I saw it in Lail’s preserved memory of hope, in General Isek’s whispers that I reminded him of his son, in Neo’s willingness to endure prison for a chance at comforting his queen, and ultimately, in the yearning press of Adria’s lips to mine. There is no one more monstrous than she who calls everyone unlike her a monster. No matter the cost, the cycle needs to end.
I didn’t choose this body, but I can still use it to finish this.
“And I think I know someone who can help us.”
I could keep the details of the (admittedly half-formed) plan to myself, simply ordering Aspect to follow me, but that seems insulting to everything they’re becoming. So, instead, I step forward and take their hands gently between mine.
“This is about to get more dangerous than maybe anything we’ve done so far. Not just for you and me, but maybe for everyone on this planet. The best shot we have at help … she could still want nothing to do with us. But we can’t do this by ourselves. We have to take that chance.” I look directly into my child’s bright red optical processors, even though the neon light stings. I squeeze their hands between mine and ask, “Aspect … do you trust me?”
And it’s not a predetermined program—but rather, a sincere, organic love that I can’t possibly begin to deserve—that prompts them to reply, “Aspect—trusts Kori—until Aspect—forever and ever—powered down.”
CHAPTER
26
