I Am Not Junco Omnibus: Books Four - Six (59 page)

But I did not know she was High Order until after Deliverance when we brought her back from death.

It was a shock. But her vulnerability and emotional attachment to us was even more of a shock. I did not expect to feel anything for her. Aside for my obvious need to use her to get past the final punishment.

I certainly never expected that Raubtier might love her.

Not that I’m complaining. That attachment, and her reciprocal love, are carrying me through this totally fucked-up plan. That is the only thing holding it together. I thought for sure it was over at Deliverance. She’d kill Tier just like she did Isec and I’d be stuck because the High Order would’ve been alerted to her presence by the time she turned seventeen. There’s a biological signal inside her tied to hormonal production. So they’d already known about her existence for years before she came to Amelia. The High Order was already on their way.

The RR had plenty of backups in the tanks. Waiting to see if Junco would fail. That would’ve been messy for Earth if the High Order arrived sans a Seven to complete the Cycle, but since when does the High Order care about the inhabitants of a planet? They only care about the core biosphere, never the sentient beings. And let’s face it, Earth is just fucked no matter what at the moment. There’s no getting around that. Billions will die. Almost no one will survive, and that’s the best-case scenario right now.

Tier defied my order to kill Junco when I saw she was unstable. And then Junco defied everyone. And they came home together. My son delivered to me the one being in this universe who could kill me. It was like an offering. I was stunned. Junco made me very uncomfortable. She looked me in the eye when she spoke. She brushed off my commands like they were requests. She decapitated Fledge members, both friend and foe alike, and she gave up her life for my son.

And she is so, so sweet when she’s calm and still.

How badly do I wish that I had more calm and still moments with Junco?

I might’ve fallen in love with her sitting in my living room watching her play a piece on the piano, so oblivious to the world she never even knew I’d entered the room, even though I came home by the front door that night.

Then I started telling her things, and then she started telling me things. Very, very personal things. And I’m just not sure how I’m supposed to feel about a young woman who was created to kill me, but stole my heart instead. I hate the way she was raised. I hate that she was trained. I hate the fact that she’s never had anyone keep their word and stick by her side.

All of this bothers me. It keeps me restless when I should be relaxed, it keeps me tense and angry, and makes me rage when I’m in private and I think about it too long.

Amelia stirs and brings me back to the present. I lean down into her neck and kiss her just below her ear. She sighs in her sleep.

I love Amelia in a different way. I don’t want to make another Amelia when this is over. I’m not sure I have the desire to spend the time required to fashion another companion. And not because I’m lazy, but because I feel in my heart that Amelia is a soul and she can’t be replaced. Even if I used the same programming, made the same body, that woman would not be
my
Amelia.

Because souls are not interchangeable.

So what choice do I have? This last task must be done.

I kiss her lips now and she wakes enough to respond to my advances. She rolls over and turns into me, resting her head on my chest.

How long have I waited for this perfect woman?

How long have I waited for my Seven?

My fingers caress the soft pale skin of her neck and this makes her sigh. She’s still half asleep, her breathing less slow now, her heart rate picking up as she sheds her slumber. My palm rests against her windpipe and I kiss her again.

“I love you,” I whisper.

I squeeze, causing her to open her eyes for the last time and look up at me in confusion.

I want to let go of her, take her in my arms, and plead for her to forgive me.

But I don’t. I crush her neck and in a few seconds it’s over. Since she is the entity which controls this entire habitat all the lights go out and all the environmental life support machines cease.

Her perfect body, limp.

Her perfect mind, gone.

I would rather kill her myself than let my father take her as a punishment in my cycle.

Because that’s what love is.

Protection.

Chapter Two—LUCAN

I carry Amelia’s body through the city and up to the science module. Once there it’s a long quiet walk filled with nothingness. Just the click of my shoes on the polished black floor, the outside universe on either side of me, separated only by the glass. There is no one here aside from me, Gib, Rache, and Rikan. Everyone else has been evacuated to Earth. Not all will make it there, luckily for Earth, but enough have already landed to make our race sustainable. The High Order will annihilate billions of humans on the Seventh Planet of System Sol, but they will not destroy the ability to provide life. They need that biosphere.

My warriors will fight, Gib’s scientists will hide underground, and Rache’s peacekeepers will govern.

We will survive. No matter what. We will survive.

Even if Junco dissipates me, my people will live on. I will live on, I will pull myself together, and I will return. Just like my father has many, many times over.

But that will solve nothing, aside from clearing the current Cycle and setting up a new one.

No.

I refuse to live like that again. Waiting out another seven thousand Earth years of dread and anticipation for it all to coalesce together.

I can’t do it again. I won’t do it.

My father must,
must
be eliminated in a way that will take him out of the future for good. And the only way to that end is through Junco and Tier.

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

We’re about to find out.

I sigh at this.

I sigh because this will kill Junco. Even though she cannot die, that doesn’t mean she will live. Living and existing are two very different things.

I sigh at the thought of losing Tier. I sigh at the realization that he is happy to do this for me. He harbors regrets, yes. I see that. But he is so willing to make the necessary sacrifices.

I walk, trying my best not to look down into my love’s face. Her neck is bruised a dark purple from my crushing grip. Her eyes are open. They are bright green. Like Tier’s eyes. Like Ashur’s eyes.

They get their eyes from her. I asked Gib to make sure she could see herself in them. To help her feel connected to them, like a mother might.

I realize with a start that I’m stopped in the middle of the hallway, facing the deep dark of the stars. I can see us in the glass. A pure reflection of me holding my Amelia in my arms, like I’m carrying her to safety.

“I am carrying you to safety, my love,” I say, leaning down to whisper it in her ear. “Please don’t hate me.” I can’t take my eyes off us. I am in my dark suit, she in her white bed gown. Her dark hair spills down and hangs in the air like a waterfall in space. “Please don’t hate me.”

I stare at myself now. I meet my own gaze and then have to look past us and stare into the dark.

Junco’s poem comes back to me. The one on the little card she carried all through Fledge. Ashur told me about it and I was consumed with curiosity. How did that card get into the Fallen Archer Church? It’s not a sanctioned card. It only exists in that one place. But there were more of them, dozens, in fact.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

It’s so appropriate. The darkness is Junco’s insanity. The poles are good and evil, the eternal war we all wage. She must have questioned this in herself after she killed Isec. She believes in no one at the moment, she has no faith in any god, but she has faith in herself. She stands and fights when she should run.

I turn away from the window and continue my long walk. I could port, but I need this. I need this time to think this through, to stop myself from feeling regret, to convince myself that this was the only way to save Amelia from eternal damnation.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

I repeat the last line again.
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Junco has been hurt so much, yet she fights on. Even when she is wounded seemingly beyond repair, both inside and out, she still fights. She can’t help who she is. She can’t help that she’s the mechanism for my destruction. She can only accept it, take her blows, and get back up.

And she does. She falls a lot, but she refuses to stay down.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

Yes, there are more horrific things than this, my little bird. But she has no fear. She moves into the unknown with courage. She understands the meaning of acceptance and she trades the fear for courage using that currency.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

And this is true too. She will never be judged. Not by anyone. Not by me, not by Rache, not even by the High Order. They don’t judge, they simply punish. Her deeds do not matter. She is free to do anything she wants without the threat of moral retribution.

This—this is what scares people about us. We do not play by the same rules. We are not bound by things like good and evil. We simply exist in time.

I stop for a moment when I realize I’m here. Then I use my vision screen to flash my biometrics and the door whooshes open.

Rikan is waiting for me.

“You have something to say about this?” Amelia was his mother too. Even more so than Tier and Ashur, because Rikan never had to be trained for his part in this game. He spent most of his time in the Politicos Clutch, but Amelia always did favor him and would sneak him out to play and do special things. She almost never forgave me when I sent him to Earth with Mish. But it was necessary. He was made a warrior, even if he wasn’t raised with them.

Rikan sighs now, his expression long and sad. But he says nothing. He doesn’t have to. I read his mind like it’s my own. Like my own father will read mine. “I had to, Rikan. I had to. You do not understand what they would do to her. And she is eternal, they would never let her go. I had to.”

He sighs again. “I know. But…” He shakes his head. “What will we have left, if this is what we must do? Will winning even be worth all the sacrifices?”

“We can rebuild, Rikan. It’s gone now, it’s all gone. See it as so, accept it. Accept that victory is death and destruction. That almost no one you love will make it, and that we will be filled with a profound sadness for a very long time. Just make it real. Because there’s no room for hope now. There’s nothing but action.”

He steps aside and I press the little button on the side of the wall.

“May I come?”

“No,” I say. “No. I’m not even sure he’ll be there, and I have words to say to him. Words I don’t want you to hear.”

Rikan sighs as the door slides open with a cheery ding. I step into the elevator and watch my son grieve for Amelia. His eyes are still fixed on her face as the doors close and we are whisked up.

I count the seconds and when I get to ten the doors open again. I hesitate, not because I’m having second thoughts about fighting this battle with him, but because if he denies me I’m not sure how I’ll react. I look down at Amelia. “Please don’t hate me.”

I step out onto the nothingness.

Chapter Three—LUCAN