this close to the plan’s fruition scurry to avoid her wrath. She is the monster in their midst, and not one of them wants to face her when she walks with such purpose, such anger, such intent.
Reed is in the observation lounge, standing in front of a wide glass window looking in on a room containing two teens. The male is balled on their shared bunk, his arms gripping his knees, his face hidden from view. The female sits beside him, one arm draped protectively around his shoulders, glaring at everything around her like she could make it all go away through sheer force of anger. His hair is dark blond, like wheat; hers is almost white, almost green, the color of fresh cornsilk in the light.
“It’s fascinating, isn’t it,” says Reed, without turning, “how their natures change the activation of their genes? The math children are always so much more strikingly colored than their fellows. I think it’s because they can handle more damage without compromising the Doctrine. It’s protecting itself, in them, by making sure people will aim first for the math children. The language children can always order them to change things, as long as they’re breathing long enough to do it. Anyone aiming at these two will shoot her first, every time.”
“We’ve lost Cheswich and Middleton,” says Leigh.
Reed goes still.
“Erin was instructed to terminate the male; the shock of losing him should have killed the female, but just in case, we dispatched Peters to her location. Both cuckoos are missing. Both their homes burnt down—a favorite tactic of Erin’s, if you recall. One body was found, in the female’s home. Peters. Either Erin has switched sides, or they’ve managed to subdue her.”
Reed turns. Still he says nothing. Leigh looks at him with bland fearlessness. He can see the anger in her eyes.
“It’s possible the male is closer to manifestation than expected and was able to talk Erin around into working with him,” says Leigh. “If that’s the case, his influence will wear off at some point, and she’ll finish her job. He doesn’t know what he can do. There’s no way he’s given her instructions that would compel her loyalty on a permanent basis. It simply wouldn’t occur to him at this stage in his development.”
“And if he has?”
“Then he has her, and we’ll never get her back.” It doesn’t matter at this point. If they did get her back, if they did have her loyalty returned to them, Leigh would still take pleasure in taking her apart. An agent compromised is no longer an agent who can be relied upon, no matter how well that agent may have performed in the past. As an avatar of Order whose Chaos has long since been recycled for parts and knowledge, Erin has been living on borrowed time for years. Her debts are finally coming due.
“I see.” Reed straightens, seeming to grow tall and terrible in the light coming through the two-way mirror. He has always been tall; he has always been terrible. He is simply putting the masks aside. “What are you going to do about this, Leigh?”
“Me?” Her eyes narrow. “This was your project. This has always been your project. You’re the one who wouldn’t let me terminate them when they got entangled, the one who said I couldn’t send someone to collect them and get them safely under lock and key. You’re the one who’s defended this pair of flawed avatars every step of the way. Why am I the one who has to clean up your mess?”
“Because I’m the one who’s going to make us immortal,” he says, gesturing toward the window, toward the tired and trembling teens on the other side. “That is our future. That is absolute control of the forces that bind this universe. I need to prepare them for what they’re going to become. I need to anoint and uplift them, and you need to remove the competition from their path. Take whatever you need. Men, weapons, anything. Go to California. Fix this.”
Leigh looks at him in silence for a count of ten, eyes narrowed, assessing. In her breast, the ghostly wings of the carrion birds that were used to stitch her wounded flesh back to life beat against her ribs. Finally, she says, “You’re still following a dead woman’s blueprint. Haven’t you ever wondered what you could have become if you’d broken free of Asphodel’s design?”
“It became my design when I killed her.”
Did it? She wants to ask the