Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(61)
“You think?” Her smile is even more beautiful than he’d remembered.
Together they pick their way from that balcony into another corridor, one significantly more damaged than most of the others Abel’s passed through so far. The temperature is 2.2 degrees Celsius colder, which suggests a nearby hull breach. He adjusts his assessment of the wreck again and posits that the most severely affected part of the Osiris must be nearby. This information is chiefly important, as it affects Noemi’s well-being.
Her concentration focuses on something besides the deepening chill. “Genesis—Cobweb—were you able to—”
“I contacted Ephraim. He’s working to get the drugs, to get as many members of Remedy involved as possible.” Abel pauses to lift a broken strut and clear their path; Noemi walks under his upstretched arms. More destroyed mechs litter the floor, but he tries not to register them. “Harriet and Zayan are helping him arrange transports from sympathetic Vagabonds. And some of the Razers on Cray are searching their bioengineering labs for the modified Cobweb virus.”
Noemi blinks. “That’s—oh, my God, that’s amazing.” Her smile begins to return. “And Remedy’s really mobilizing to help?”
“For a mass mobilization, Ephraim would need relay codes he doesn’t possess. However, Captain Fouda has them, and is willing to trade them for my help in pacifying the ship.”
“Trade? He wants to trade with billions of lives on the—” She catches herself. “Okay. We do this thing, then we get back and tell the whole galaxy about Haven. They tried to hide Haven, but we won’t let them get away with it. Vagabonds, people on Stronghold, even the citizens of Earth—they deserve to know this world exists.”
A set of calculations he’s been running for several hours now requires discussion. “Haven’s existence has the potential to affect the Liberty War.”
“It could change everything.” Noemi has apparently done the same calculations, and her human imagination has taken them further. “Yeah, Haven’s cold—but it’s habitable, and it’s beautiful. Millions of people could live here. Millions, maybe even billions! If there’s another home for humanity, and the galaxy knows it? They don’t have to conquer Genesis. We could even take in people then, freely—whoever chooses our way of life—oh, Abel, this could be the answer to everything.”
He wants to caution her that absolutely nothing can be the answer to everything. Earth has to have hidden this planet for a reason, one he has been unable to extrapolate. Also, if there are more pockets of toxicity like the one he flew over on his way here, that means some areas of Haven won’t support human life.
But then Noemi hugs him again, and these sensible objections are sorted as irrelevant. He wants to store every sensation, every emotion, every millisecond. Despite all the tragedy and terror around them, he’s been reunited with the girl he loves, and nothing can fully diminish the wonder of that.
Abel is of course aware that Noemi doesn’t love him, at least not in the same way he loves her. This, too, is irrelevant. As he understands it, love is not transactional; it is a thing freely given. The joy is in the giving.
(Many human forms of entertainment seem to misrepresent this, but their information is of course inferior to actual experience, and so he disregards them.)
His absorption in her is interrupted by the sound of rustling overhead, within the damaged, twisted metal above. Noemi hears it, too, and they take a step back from each other as they look up.
To Abel’s immense relief, the small figure peering down through the wreckage is Simon. He remains alive, and has even managed to find clothing. This shows attention to normal human social cues, no doubt a sign that Simon’s soul is adapting to its new body. His… nephew can still be saved.
“Noemi,” he says, “this is—”
“I know who it is.” Her entire body has tensed. When their eyes meet, she whispers, “I realize what this means for you, but Simon—I think there’s something wrong.”
She has reacted too strongly to Simon’s unfinished appearance. Humans are sometimes overly influenced by visual stimuli. Abel takes her hand, intending to comfort her and facilitate a conversation between her and Simon.
But then Simon giggles, a high-pitched, off-kilter sound. “Peekaboo,” he says. “Peekaboo!”
This alone should tell Abel nothing. But he has human instinct now, and that instinct is telling him Noemi may not be entirely incorrect.
He doesn’t yet know what Simon is, only that Simon is not as he should be.
21
NOEMI’S STOMACH TWISTS WITH FEAR AS SIMON DROPS through the wreckage down to them. Above her she hears more rustling; when she looks up she sees a disembodied mech hand crawling along the ceiling like a spider. Simon’s still playing with his toys.
Abel is oblivious. The sheer wonder of finding another mech like himself must’ve overwhelmed all his rational instincts. He holds one hand out toward Simon. “It sounds like you two have met,” Abel says. “We’re friends, just like you and I are friends.”
“She’s not my friend. I don’t like her.” Simon sounds like the playground bully. She wonders if that’s the kind of kid he was, or if it’s the kind he remembers hiding from. There’s no telling how he behaved or what he experienced during his life as a little boy. What remains is neither human nor mech—and while Abel brought together the best of those worlds, Simon may be bringing together the worst.