Only Human (Themis Files #3)(69)

<A chip in your brain? What did they do to you?>

They can blow our brains out anywhere in the world. Don’t tell me they let you pilot Themis without some kind of fail-safe.

<Gas. Some nasty nerve toxin.>

How nice. I’m so glad you brought me back here because, hey, I might have been in danger on Esat Ekt.

<I’m sorry, Eva. You know that’s not what I had in mind. I thought … I wanted to give you something of a normal life. I thought I was bringing you back to the way things were.>

Why in the world would I want that, Vincent? Tell me? How could you think for a second that I’d want things to be the way they were? I remember my life here. I was a freak here, a joke. Everyone I loved died. My “good” memories on Earth are with you inside Themis. Do you get how fucked up that is? People were dying, everywhere. Millions of them. I was bonding with my dad. That’s what you wanted to bring me back to?

<I didn’t have a choice, Eva. There was no time. They were after you. Eskyaks, the Imperial Guard, they were going to find you, and they were going to kill you.>

That is such bullshit, Vincent! You just thought you knew better than me. You’re right, though, you didn’t have a choice. That choice was mine. My life. My choice. You thought you knew better, and you made it for me. I’m not ten anymore, Vincent. I’m yokits nineteen years old! You’re still making decisions for me like I’m that little girl Kara found in Puerto Rico. Don’t pretend you didn’t want this. It was you! Eskyaks didn’t find me. The empress didn’t find me. You did. You hunted me down.

Barbara … get ready.





FILE NO. EE681—PERSONAL FILE FROM ESAT EKT


Personal Journal Entry—Vincent Couture


I see her face everywhere. I wish it were my imagination, but they’ve plastered every alley with my daughter’s face. She’s on the small leaflets we see lying on the ground. They graffiti her name—the one they’ve given her—on anything remotely connected to the Council. An entire propaganda machine is built around Eva. Worst of all, it’s all fake. As far as I can tell, all of this is a figment of the empress’s imagination.

The good news is I found her. Well, not exactly. I found Ekim. He’ll take me to her. The empress sent a handful of Imperial Guards to help me. I didn’t want them anywhere near me, but they were useful in the end. I don’t have anything to bribe anyone with. They have … everything, and no reservations about twisting a few arms along the way if it helps. I don’t care. I just need to find Eva. Then I give the empress what she wants, and we’re gone. That’s the deal. She promised to unlock one of the robots—we asked for Themis—and let us leave. All we need is a pilot. I have an idea about that.

I feel like an asshole for using my daughter’s boyfriend to find her. He’s a sweet kid. But she didn’t leave me much choice. She’s quick. Eugene must have taught her a lot more than combat maneuvers. She’s really good at covering her tracks. It’s not easy. The three of us stick out like a sore thumb here. I think people just want to help her. It doesn’t mean they all embrace the cause or anything like that. They want to help her. They don’t talk because they like her, another thing she didn’t get from me. Ekim, well, he worships her. He won’t let her out of his sight. If he’s here, then my daughter can’t be too far. He’ll take us there. It would break him to know he was betraying her. Poor kid.

That’s the thing, though. They’re both kids. Ekim is twenty-eight. That’s about, I don’t know, sixteen for these people. And Eva, well, she’s her mother’s daughter all right. I’m not sure she knows what she’s gotten herself into. This isn’t a student protest. The place is on the verge of a full-blown civil war. The bombs they blame her for killed innocent people, some from the security forces. These guys will gun her down if they get to her first. People are scared, especially in Osk. If she’s caught, and there’s a vote, they’ll put her to death. I doubt the Council will go out of its way to save the poster child for the uprising.

I hate the rebellion, the real one, whoever they are. For all their talk about justice and equality, they’re just as power-hungry as everyone else. They want their seat at the grown-up table. They don’t want to change the system, they want to run it. They’ve been using all of us since the day we got here, just like the empress is using us now. We’re the perfect face to put on what they have to sell. We pose no threat. We look like them. It’s a whole lot easier to play the emotion card with us than with reptilians or sentient amoebas.

If these people do exist, they’re terrorists. I hate bullies. You build a revolution on ideas. If the population doesn’t buy your ideas, it means they’re not ready, or you’re wrong. There’s this tendency for people to see any fight against the system as a fight for progress. As if the people before them couldn’t possibly have gotten anything right. If you’re using bombs instead of words, that means you’re banking on people giving you what you want out of fear instead of reason. That’s never a good sign.





FILE NO. 2195 (CONTINUED)


MISSION LOG—VINCENT COUTURE AND SERGEANT ALEXANDER VASILIEV


Location: Aboard Themis. Sinuiju, North Korea


[Vincent, are you there?]