I Am Not Junco Omnibus: Books Four - Six (84 page)

The Stag

There’s a guard at the door, not one I recognize by name, but I take a moment to talk to him, get the rundown on what’s going on and try to ease his fears of what’s coming. I’m not sure it makes a difference, but it gets me information and it gives him something to think about besides death.

Ashur made it back with Linny and Subjack. Selia is here with the clone Annun and John stole from the Sagitta Building, along with Deb, the female half of the duality. The guard stops here to fill me in on the rampage the other half of that duo is on at this moment down in Texas. This shit just gets weirder and weirder. Arel and Ryse have collected all six of the Siblings and they’re inside as well.

“Is that everyone?” I ask after he finishes.

“Yes, sir,” he says with a shaky voice. His wings are light, almost like Isten’s. But his eyes glow orange with unease.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, warrior. And if it makes you feel any better, you’re in the best possible place.” I point up in the northwestern sky. “We’re far enough off the path of the Halo it should miss us.”

He just stares at me.

“You might live, warrior. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Lucan. And if you see him afterward, tell him I have no regrets and I’d do it again, a million times over. All he’d ever need to do is ask.”

“I—I—” he stammers. And then he sighs and lets go of his fear. “Thank you, sir. I’ll pass the message along if I have the chance.” He snaps off a salute, flashes his biometrics, and pulls the door open for me.

I walk into a great room filled with somber people sitting on various pieces of furniture that have been pushed up in front of a giant wall screen. They’re momentarily preoccupied with the rampage on screen showing Web throwing a temper tantrum down in Dallas. When I look back at the people Iliana is staring at me.

“He’s a bad seed, sir.”

“Yes, Deb, I figured he was.” All the heads turn now and Ashur untangles himself from Selia and gets up. “You can’t ever trust a nice guy.” Ashur claps me on the shoulder and pulls me into a man hug. I laugh a little. My twin. You gotta love Ashur, even if he is a bit stiff. “Report, brother.”

He points. “The Fledge team is here. I brought Subjack and Linny Coot from the PF.” He turns his head and whispers so they can’t hear, “We need to talk with these two soon.” Then he continues with the report. “Siblings are all accounted for, minus Junco. Gideon was here about ten minutes ago. She gave him the slip at the Pillar. Someone says they saw her at Peaks, but they might’ve seen Deb and mistook her for Junco, so we’re not sure about that yet. At any rate, Gideon’s gone looking and she’s not in Peaks now, we checked, must’ve just missed you. Where ya been?”

“I had to calm myself and clean up. I was at the cave.”

Ashur nods, understanding. “She’ll turn up, Tier. Don’t worry. But right now, we really need to discuss what was up in the Polar Friendly, because those things got out, we had a huge fight just before the Halo activated, my fucking shoulder got bit and it’s not good. Those things are infused with some kind of SEAR mechanism—”

“What?” I grab his arm and look down at his torn uniform and scarred-over wound.

He tugs his arm back. “Wyrd already looked at it and he’s not sure what it is, but I seem to be just fine for the moment, and let’s face it, we might only have moments left, so I’ll deal with the consequences of this another time. The thing that bothers me, Tier, is that I’m not sure how we reconcile the fact that we’ve got Six Siblings with a perfect combination of DNA code to fix our genome, and yet the other Six Siblings are demons who just thawed out and are on a major rampage as they make their way down to Peak City. And besides that alloantigen repressor stuff in their saliva, they’ve got other stuff in there too. Wyrd did a quick field test and found human diseases, plant viruses, some really fucked-up shit. And—”

I cock an eyebrow at him, as if to say,
There’s more?

“I was down in that cave control room with Subjack and he said those pinpricks of light inside the room with the demons actually contain DNA. He says it looks like some sort of seed stock facility. We need to send a team down there now that the demons are gone.”

“We have no time for that now, Ashur. Lucan will have to deal with that when this is over.”

“I figured, yeah. Just wanted to let you know.”

“And the baby is here, Tier,” Tessen says from behind me. “Don’t forget the baby.”

She’s pointing to the corner of the great room that is walled off in glass. It contains a crib and presumably a baby. My baby. But I can’t see her from this angle. Pike, Merk and Wyrd appear behind Tessen and even though the shit is hitting the fan as I stand here, this group makes me happy. Junco’s team. Junco’s hand-picked team.

Annun steps up and takes his place with them and I salute and then turn to Tessen. “Report, Tess.”

“We lost Bridge, Cres, and Tak, sir. It was my fault. We had her drugged but it wasn’t enough.” She hangs her head and I reach over and tap her shoulder.

“Thank you, Tess. You did good, warrior.”

She looks up, confused.

“I gave the order, you followed it and completed your mission, that’s all I can ask.”

“Yes, sir.”

“OK, I’m gonna talk privately with Ashur and the Coots, and then we’ll see where we’re at.”

Ash leads the way down a hallway, then opens a door that’s had its biometrics blasted out with a plasma. He waves me through, then closes the door as best as it’ll go with the fucked-up locking mechanism. “This is Junco’s room, by the way.”

“What?” This throws my whole game. “This? There’s nothing in it.” There’s a bed, a desk, and a closet. That’s it. I walk to the closet and fold open the doors. Her clothes.

Fuck, it makes my heart hurt. They’re neat and tidy. Everything hung on a hangar or folded and stacked on a shelf.

“It’s nothing like her home, is it?”

“No,” I say. “She was not a child here, no matter what her age. She was a soldier.”

“But you’ll be happy to hear that she was still the same old troublemaker. We found guns stashed under the mattress and in her sock drawer.” When I turn to look at Ashur, he’s smiling. “She’s a sneaky little shit, isn’t she.”

“Aye, she is. And normally I’d find it cute. But now, Ashur, I’m finding it worrisome. Where the hell is she?”

“We don’t know. We can’t track her, wherever she is. It’s like she’s hiding from us on purpose.”

“Hedging her bets?”

“Maybe,” he says. “But I’m not so sure. Maybe she just needed a moment, ya know?”

“I hope so. Everything depends on her.”

“Yeah, well, about that shit. I realize we’ve already started the genome project, and that we’ve a lot of fucking kids in our clutches right now, but what the fuck is going on with those demons up in the PF, Tier?”

I take a seat on her bed, which, miraculously, is made so well all the sheets and blankets are still tucked in. Who knows how long ago she made this bed? “I’ll give you my best guess, Ash, but what we really need to do is get everyone out there to tell us what they know. Because it’s painfully obvious, even with all that we know, and the stuff that only I know, it’s just a part of the story. Lucan has placed us like actors on the stage. He’s got us coming and going in so many different directions, it’s impossible to figure out what’s true and what’s not.”

“Makes sense, though. If no one knows what’s going on, no one can alert Aesin to what’s coming.”

“Right. I think Junco is the Seventh Demon, Ashur, but these Siblings are not. They are the Siblings, that has to be true because the genetics work.”

“What if it’s a trap? What if those genetics have a retrovirus coded into them?”

“We’re talking about Gib, Ashur.
Gib
. He’s the best they had when he was sentenced with Lucan and Rache. And for the Angels, not enough time has passed to replace him. No, if those Siblings were corrupted, Gib would’ve found it.”

“Well, let me show you what my vision screen came up with when I was up in the PF when those things escaped.” He shuttles over the data from the impromptu analysis and waits for me to read it.

He raises an eyebrow. “What is it?”

I shrug. “Looks like a fucking alloantigen repressor, right? Which looks an awful lot like a retrovirus, right? Both of those things scramble the DNA, to put it simply. So, the SEAR is like some ancient tech that’s obsolete. I’m betting that Gib was the one who invented the retrovirus technique for rapid genome-wide changes. But before that technique, there was the SEAR.”

I’m shaking my head, not quite sure that’s right. “Ashur, I think Lucan would’ve mentioned this, don’t you?”

“Are you high, brother? Lucan mentions nothing unless he has to. Maybe this SEAR knife has another purpose? Ever think of that? Maybe it’s not just a weapon, maybe it’s an
instrument
?”

I blow out a long breath of air. “My fucking head hurts, Ashur. I can’t think about it right now. It hardly matters what they used the SEAR for in ancient times, right? Who gives a fuck. Right now it’s our weapon and that’s how we’re gonna use it.”

“OK, then what the fuck is going on with the whole Noah’s Ark shit? Huh? Because that data says those six demons have a shitload of junk DNA inside them. Fucking code for trees and fish and shit, Tier. What’s that?”

“I dunno, Ash, I just don’t. Maybe it’s part of the plan, maybe it’s not. Maybe Aesin thinks we’ll destroy the entire biosphere and that’s his seed stock for post-apocalypse rebuilding?”

“What forethought he has, then, right? Seven thousand years of farsight? It’s not possible.”

“Yeah, well, to us, maybe. But these guys are something else entirely, Ashur. These guys might as well be God, OK? They’ve got tech and they know how to use the brain to full capacity. Maybe we have no idea how powerful they really are?”

“Maybe,” he reluctantly admits.

“Well, let’s just concentrate on our parts, OK? Maybe Lucan knows what those demons are, maybe he’s got a plan for them too, or maybe they’re meaningless. Whatever the fuck is going on, it’s not our problem. Our six Siblings had to have come from Junco. Junco must’ve been holding that code in her newborn demon form. They extracted it and made the other six, I bet. I mean, think about it. I bet that fucking Aesin was hoping whoever found those containers up in the ice would assume that each of those demons was a Sibling. But they’re not. They are all demons, that’s why Junco is so wild. She really is a demon. But Moju and Esta and them are not demons and that’s why they are so much more…
sane
.” I stop for a moment and picture all the failed clutches of Seven siblings they’ve made over the years. It took a lot of practice to get it just right. “So here’s my real question, Ashur, OK? Because I’m just gonna assume that what I just said is true. That begs the question—why? Why is Junco not insane? Junco’s clutch was just one of dozens. Gideon is a Seven, Iliana was a Seven before I killed her and she became a clone, and Junco. There are only three examples of the Seventh Demon being made where it was not insane. Why?”

“Brother, please!” Ashur laughs. “Junco’s fucking out of her mind. What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, she’s got some severe mental issues, but Ashur, she’s
not
a demon. She’s not even close. She plays piano, she reads books, she soldiers, she had boyfriends, she plays poker. These are not things that demons do. Demons kill. And that’s pretty much it. And that doesn’t explain Gideon and Iliana.”

“So what’s your theory, then? Why is she not like those other demons? It’s nature versus nurture? She had parents, a home, culture?”

“Maybe,” I say. “I’m sure all that’s part of it. But tell me something. Why is that Deb AI inside the Iliana clone?”

“She was out of control, she was crazy…” Ashur’s response trails off as he realizes what I’m saying. “But HOUSE is gone, she’s in the Halo with Sera.”

“What if it’s not HOUSE? Junco had all those circuits in her body before she ever morphed into an avian. They were there from the very start, Ash. She was made for something… no, for
someone
.”

“Who?”

“Who indeed. I think we need to ask Lucan that question, because he’s been weird about her since he took her from the morph tank in Vegas.”

“Weird how? I never noticed anything. He was less interested in her, if you ask me. Before she left for Earth he was infatuated with her. And if I were you, I’d have been sorta pissed about it, myself.”

I give him a sideways glance, my eyes heating up with glow for a moment before I stop it. “So were you, brother. And I didn’t get pissed at you, did I?”

“Hey.” He puts his hands up. “I didn’t know she’d fucking kill herself to save you. I thought you were finished, remember?”

“Regardless, Lucan’s the one who has that answer. I think it took a while for him to figure it out, otherwise he’d never have let her fledge and fight in Deliverance.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Ashur looks at me with wide eyes.

“We won’t know for sure unless we win, will we? So it’s better to just do our jobs. The other Siblings, their jobs are done now. We got them back, thanks to Sera, and we got the Halo lit up. Whether it functions, well, that remains to be seen. But it’s out of our hands now. Sera is in charge of that, and if worse comes to worst, we’ve got HOUSE. A little ace in the hole, maybe. But let’s take this conversation out there.” I nod in the direction of the great room. “Because it’s time to put this puzzle together, and each one of us is holding a piece.”