Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(18)

I think of the death-drone beacon I attached to Reykin on the battlefield in Stars. If he hadn’t spoken to me, would I have let him die? I can’t say. I hope not, but I can’t be sure.

“What if I asked you to take the prototype out of me?” I probe.

He shakes his head. “I can’t—even if you beg me to.” His frown deepens. “If I tried to extract a standard VPMD, the subject would most likely suffer complications. We did that for an attack on the Fate of Virtues. Most of the soldiers we took it out of died before we were even halfway through the procedure. They’d stroke out—shaking and twitching on the table. Those that made it, they didn’t have a long shelf life—a few days, just enough time to complete a mission, and then their brains crumbled.”

I wonder if he’s alluding to the Rose Goddess Massacre, but Agent Crow had said those assassins had been non-converted zeroborns, so I don’t interrupt him.

“Your implant is different, Roselle, and possibly far worse in that regard. In theory, it’s even more powerful than the master-level devices integrated in Census agents. The ones they use sync with Spectrum to take over internal systems of a drone subject, suppress their sense of agency, and lock them down so the collective consciousness can gain control. Master-level devices issue directives to Spectrum or sometimes to these subordinate devices. The orders act like the subject’s own impulses, or, if given to Spectrum, they can rely on the collective AI to find the best way to accomplish a goal they’ve set forth.”

“So it’s true—soldiers never know they’re being controlled.”

“The AI programs are so advanced that subjects who are being controlled don’t even know they’re not operating in the real world most of the time—and when they are in the real world, they sometimes don’t know that either. The one you have acts like a living organism that couples with your tissue and expands your mind. With time, it will grow and form billions of unique neuropathways, not only in your cerebral cortex, but much deeper to areas that have never been infiltrated. There’s no telling what you’ll be able to do. I have theories, but—”

While listening to him talk about his theories, I develop one of my own. How can one person defeat an army made up of monsters that don’t possess a shred of empathy—defeat an army that’s operated by Census and a unique intelligence that expands its knowledge base? “I’d need to have dominion over the master-level devices. If my prototype could control Agent Crow’s device and the like, then I’d control the army.”

“That’s the idea. You’d be their Virtue—their overlord—but in a way that Fabian Bowie never was. You’d be more like a goddess.”

I laugh with a strange-sounding derision. “Yes, of course! A goddess—why not?” I want to cave my own head in. No one should have that much power, least of all me. “There’s just one problem, Ransom.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t work.”

“What doesn’t work?”

“Whatever you put into my brain—it doesn’t work like that.” I growl with a mixture of relief and frustration. “I’m trying to make you slap yourself, but your cheek isn’t red.”

“You expect to be able to employ the weapon in your mind with no practice? Were you able to defeat Dune in a duel the first time you tried to use the fusionblade?”

My eyes narrow. “I’ve never mentioned Dune to you—you’ve been creeping around in my memories, haven’t you?” I was probably around three years old when I wielded a fusionblade for the first time.

“I’ve watched you grow up—same as everyone else,” he replies defensively.

“So you haven’t been poking around in my brain?”

His expression turns sheepish. “I had to, but it’s not what you think. I was trying to keep Agent Crow out. In the beginning, your memories were easy to access, like the ones you have of your early years with Dune. Others, from your Transition Day onward, are murky. Those of my brother you guard ferociously, but still I could’ve remote-viewed them, and I didn’t.” He says the last part quickly, trying to reassure me. I must appear mortified, because I am.

“What’s remote-reviewing?” I ask.

“I can attach a probe to your cerebral cortex through an incision behind your ear and access your memories by what we call memory mapping. Whenever I found ones containing my brother, I used a neurochemical to insulate and inhibit them from being accessed remotely. The inhibitors wear off, though, so I had to try to keep one step ahead of Agent Crow.”

“Why didn’t you remote-view my memories of Reykin?”

He sighs. “Because I wanted to know too badly, and stealing that information from you makes me one of them—and I’m not one of them!” His eyes narrow. “Instead I’ve been helping you keep your secrets by throwing up blocks against Agent Crow for the past month, diverting him to other memories. He mostly focuses on the ones with Hawthorne Trugrave and Clifton Salloway because he cannot locate the ones with Reykin, but it’s been difficult to outmaneuver him, and I’m in constant fear that he’ll suspect something’s still wrong and give you to another technician for evaluation. If he does that, we won’t survive it. They’ll discover the differences in your implant, and they’ll have no other choice but to destroy you.”