LEGACY LOST (13 page)

They both peered around, but there was only the quiet symphony of distant life in the far-off fog.

The strand of silk led into milky nothingness, beaded with adhesive globules. It didn’t seem to be doing anything, including moving, but Legacy didn’t dare touch it.

“An abandoned fishing line,” the doctor deduced, exhaling. “I think it’s fine.”

They walked a handful of paces, both totally silent and watchful now, when the mists receded and revealed a tarantula just off the path, as large as the cabin room which Legacy and Dax had shared. Its legs were bunched around itself as if it were trying to squeeze into a tight space, even though it was in the open . . . and it leaned in an odd way. A little sideways. It did not advance toward them, even if this didn’t necessarily save Legacy’s heart from charging away in her chest.

But Augustus breathed another audible exhale, and actually smiled.

“It’s fine,” he informed her. “It’s fine. Do you see this, here? This split in the carapace?” He gestured toward the tarantula as if it were completely safe, then continued to walk. Legacy lunged to pull him back, but he hardly seemed to even notice. “It’s an exoskeleton, my darling. Nothing at all. Though there may be a molting tarantula nearby, they’re harmless in that stage. Very . . . soft. Almost like wet paint. Can’t hunt, you know, without seriously damaging their developing bodies. Let’s hope they’re all molting, shall we?” He extended his arm again, indicating they continue. “It shan’t be far now, I think. Your friend is going to be just fine.”

A loose giggle behind them caused both to pause and turn.

Dax, no rebreather on his face, was advancing toward them in his adventurer’s garb, a vest askew, his shirt missing buttons, and the utility belt strapped over his chest. It was clear that he’d dressed himself, and that he didn’t really fathom how to do it right anymore.

To Legacy, it seemed as if the world suddenly expanded to become insurmountably large, whilst she and Dax remained the size of mites.

“No,” she said to herself.

“Hey!” Dax called loudly, incognizant of the danger to vibration. “What’s the big idea?” He staggered closer, grinning. He coughed dryly and his lips . . . blue. Almost . . . dark blue. “Why’d you just leave like that, huh? Without saying goodbye? Could have at least left a note! I’d like to think I deserve – Oh, hey.” He paused and considered the thread of silk, bemused. “Ding-dong.” He grabbed the string and gave it a tug. “Anybody home?”

“Dax, no!”

A second string shot from the mist to accompany the first, this planting firmly on Dax’s chest, and then he was dragged haltingly forward. Legacy was already running toward him, of course, had been running toward him even as she’d screamed
no
, drawing the pick from her utility belt and arcing it into the air, severing the cable between Dax and the fishing spider.

She supposed it was too late now, though.

A branch crunched and the monstrous arachnid appeared from the cloud, descending with such graceful, eerie motion. Its legs were long and thin, almost translucent, its myriad eyes blinking and its multiple fangs clicking. Its body, too, was strangely narrow for a beast of such size, but even so, was comparable to a length of
Flywheel-2’
s wings.

Legacy screamed, a mindless reaction, and the spider twisted in her direction. It shot a string at her, immediately severed with a flash of her pick, but didn’t relent when it lost the tension on the line.

It lunged, fangs whirring, and pierced the excess fabric of Rain’s pants, tearing a gaping hole there and burning some of the fabric off.

“Hey now, play fair, creepy crawly,” Dax commanded, drunkenly swinging his own pick at the creature, as if this were all just a game. Still, the pick hit and lodged into the carapace; the spider reared away from Legacy, spasming and flailing backward with the momentum of the weapon still clutched in Dax’s blue-tipped hands. It was surreal. He was laughing while Legacy sprawled in shock, this giant spider seizing between them. The eight-legged monster rolled onto its back and slowly curled its legs inward, signaling that death had come with merciful swiftness. “Anyway!” Dax chirped breathlessly, peering down at the hyperventilating Legacy with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, and confusion. “What are you doing all the way down there?”

“Where is your rebreather?” she asked.

“I don’t
need
it anymore, Legacy,” he retorted, as if frustrated.

Legacy looked at the doctor and back to Dax, uncertain of what they could possibly do. They’d come too far to take him all the way back. “Well,” Augustus murmured. “Let’s continue on, then, as I was saying.” He seemed to have reached the same conclusion.

The smooth, sweeping ribbon of the old volcano sprawled out before the trio as a hellish savior. It was ironic that this ground appeared so bleak and sterile, yet was choked in life-giving, carbon dioxide-absorbing peridotite. Legacy examined the igneous rock formation, chose a bubbling hill of obsidian, and drew her pick. Augustus, by comparison, moved with infuriating slowness. He was also a terrible babysitter, for Dax repeatedly attempted to wander off into the woods again, needing to be wrangled by Legacy and explained to, again and again, why he could not leave the area. Which, no matter how it was explained, he never truly accepted.

“Just sit, all right?” Legacy spat, losing her grip on her temper.

“You sit!” Dax snapped back, crawling and then collapsing onto his back with a sigh, which became a series of coughs.

Her sole outlet for this tension was driving the pick, again and again, into the rippling bed of obsidian. Chunks of glassy black fell away and landed with crumbles and clatters, and she would flick a glare over her shoulder and scan the debris for any flecks of green, then heave the pick into the rock and gouge another sliver free again.

“Where is it?” Legacy demanded, sweating and fevered, almost forgetting Dax was even there, getting on her hands and knees to sift through the matter. “You said it’d be here! You said it was everywhere!”

“Oh, it’s in there, don’t worry,” Augustus promised.

Still no peridotite. Time seemed to stand still, and yet she knew, with a rifling, mindless panic, that it was moving forward. How long had it been? How many minutes without his rebreather, and still, the walk back . . .

“Hey . . .” Dax’s voice, limp and listing, came to her. “Leg?”

Legacy whirled and saw him on his back, staring up into the sky with large, clear eyes. She dropped her pick and ran to him. “Yeah?” She fell to her knees at his side and examined his face. The veins of pale blue were now snaking from the border of his lips and out, claiming his cheeks. She took a deep breath and refused to cry, because if she did, he would see it and he might realize how hopeless it all was. Or was he even capable of such logic anymore? “What’s going on? How are you feeling?”

“I feel great,” he told her, and though his voice was weak and listing, there was no indication that this was sarcasm. “I figured out how to fix
Mudflower
.”

Legacy cast an anguished look at Augustus, almost desiring to interrupt Dax and tell him to go faster, but then . . . she didn’t want to interrupt Dax.

“Yeah?” she asked, tearing her eyes from the slow-moving professor and back to her best friend. “And how do we do that?”

Dax fumbled for her hand and took one of hers into two of his, unfolding its fingers and pressing his thumb into the center of the palm. It felt like a cube of ice, and she had to wonder if he even felt her. She felt his pulse. It was fluttering like wings, as if preparing for its greatest flight yet. “Just open his chest,” he said softly, closing his eyes. “And in the back, in the very back, there should be this little hole.” His thumb idly circled her palm. “Put the peridotite in there. Get some use out of it.”

“Dax.” A tear slipped down Legacy’s cheek, warm and then cold.

At the ledge of the cloud forest, a thick, translucent tarantula delicately crept, seeming to observe Legacy with Dax sprawled before her, connected solely by their hands. She simply observed the beast, and it her, as it crept and then vanished into the brush.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed sitting in this way, holding Dax’s hand, staring after the molted beast.

“Here it is, I’ve found a deep section of the bedrock quite thick with peridotite,” the professor announced, approaching at a jog. He held a green-encrusted slab of obsidian in his hands. “Let’s hurry now, I told you–” He came up short as Dax came into view. “Is he – Is he conscious?”

“No,” Legacy whispered. “His pulse stopped a while ago.” Her eyes tore from the hand in her lap to the professor. “I would have tried to resuscitate, but . . . look at him.” She seemed oddly serene, although serene was not the right word. It was as if she had been scooped up, the husk of herself remaining behind, sideways and bunched up, here to continue talking and even seeming to reason. But another part of her – translucent and creeping, incapable of touching anything without critically damaging herself, “wet paint,” as he’d said – the center of Legacy just observed all of this from a distance.

              “Well,” Augustus said. There were several beats of silence. “I’m sorry. I tried – you know – but–”

              Legacy didn’t bother with a response. There was some sudden social freedom in reaching her maximum capacity for pain. The urge to be polite – even mentally present – was pleasantly alleviated.

              She just continued holding Dax’s hand, not being there. Maybe she was dying, too. Could that happen? Could you just give up and fly away without a word?

“. . . probably patched by now,” Augustus was saying.

“What?” Legacy heard her voice filter into the air.

“Should probably begin to head back before they . . . they might leave us,” he reiterated, however gently.

“I’m not leaving him,” Legacy replied. “You’ll have to go alone.”

The doctor continued to talk, and likely to try to make plans with her, perhaps of an hour of his return, a warning. She wasn’t sure. She was running her fingers through Dax’s hair. The gesture was magically hollowed of all significance. His eyes were closed, and she was distantly thankful for that.

The doctor then left, hefting his slab of precious peridotite even though Dax would no longer benefit from it. It was Legacy alone now, on this hilltop of obsidian, gouged in futility, reminding her of Hell itself, and if only . . . if only he’d had his mask on. If only that, perhaps he would have survived the extra time. Or if he hadn’t escaped the boat at all. She had told Rain to take care of him! And Rain had said she would!

Time passed; the sky began to darken. Even though the night was a very dangerous time, she didn’t move.

His eyelids drifted open, and Legacy’s heart clenched, as if perhaps . . . maybe . . .

But the eyes were no longer the emotive liquid blue she’d always known. They had gone flat and gray.

What if they’d just run away?

Why didn’t they ever think of that?

They could have worked and saved and purchased a small airship. They could have just . . .

It wasn’t really true, of course. His condition wouldn’t have weathered the wild life of Old Earth terrain, and he needed constant maintenance to his rebreather, and she couldn’t have abandoned her mother and father, but still, it was a welcome fantasy. They could have built a home of exotic feathers and shells on an obsidian plateau. They could’ve had children. Dax would’ve set out in the morning and returned in the evening, toting a line of fish, and she would’ve stoked a bonfire over which to cook it . . .

The sound of a clattering chain roused Legacy from her thoughts.

The
Albatropus
had arrived, bearing five small new patches to its balloon. Its ladder dangled overhead, and Vector was making his way down.

Liam, Gustav, and Vector worked to raise Dax’s body via the ladder. None said a single word, as if maybe it wasn’t real.

Halfway up to the airship, Dax’s boot, unlaced, slid from his foot and thudded to the ground below.

His rebreather was tied around his ankle.

Sophie Taliko sat alone at her vanity, peering at her own face in the light of the guttering candle. Her bay window was open, the pleasant breeze of the late August night causing the drapery to flutter behind her back. It was a beautiful evening, a beautiful room, and had once been a beautiful face. But now, Sophie’s fingers crept along and examined the stitchwork of her cheek.

Sometimes she knew that her Daddy was gone.

Sometimes she remembered clearly the terror of that Saturday.

But why would anyone want to remember such a horror?

Why would anyone want to be a disfigured nonentity? The best freedom for which she could hope was the borrowed identity of a dead peasant, an insurgent liable to face execution if they were discovered to have survived the collapse.

She slowly shook her head at herself, her eyes human but hard. Unshifting.

The other times were better. The times when she just kind of blurred away and entered a blissful catatonia. It reminded her of childhood: the invention of so many realities and personalities to assuage the loneliness of near complete isolation. Her automata had not been servants, but had been other princesses and courtesans, had been seamstresses and gardeners and cooks, fairies and witches and goddesses.

Maybe the other Sophie had been with her for a long time now, waiting for the chance, a need to precipitate. Maybe she had been an idle part of Sophie’s mind for years. Lingering in the wings, invisible, watchful. And then . . . then,
Paulette
had suddenly lunged at her. She’d ducked, and her best friend collided with the wall, skin shattering. When she’d clambered up from the spew of shards, an oily skeleton of brass, half-plated in fractured porcelain, the automaton had lunged at her and clawed down her face.

Sophie pushed the memory firmly away and rose the china mask from her vanity table, fondling the cool glass and admiring its eerie perfection.

Sophie-2.

The automata were so lucky. She’d always envied them their lives of smiling diligence. Machines without the mess of depression and desire, interpretations constantly being disappointed and adjusted. They were just the science of input and output. It was all so simple. Like ballet.

With a long, shuddering exhale, Sophie closed her eyes and rose the mask to her face. She tied the silken ribbon behind her head and breathed in. Out. In. Out.

Opening her eyes, she found that the pain of trauma and loss had evaporated, and she’d become the other Sophie. So beautiful, the delicate fluctuation of candlelight on her immaculate features. So clear and steady, the eyes.

Sophie-2 stood. Her only dilemma was being uncertain of what to do when in this blank space.

Perhaps some of the other bots would go to the arbor with her and play pretend.

At worst, Master Addler could always give her a task.

The Stray Bitches
took turns pedaling their winged canoe up toward the sluggishly advancing island in the sky. The night was black as pitch, but the dull gleam of its dome was nonetheless impossible to miss. All four women were dressed entirely in black and armed to the teeth. They moored the apparatus at the exterior aerial dock and slid from its narrow cabin into the frigid breeze. The only flashes of light or color to contour their movements were the reflections from their weaponry.

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Cookie whispered. “I heard that their automata killed, like, hundreds of people.” She cast her eyes about fearfully. “What if–”

“Then there is no better time,” Seraphim disagreed coolly. “Their defenses will be laid bare before us.” She glanced at Cookie while cutting a hole above the locked knob of the gate. “It’s a castle, darling,” she reminded the scared girl. The glass tinkled softly as it tumbled through the open circle and onto the interior aerial dock, shattering. Seraphim both winced and smiled at the sound, sliding her hand to the lock on the other side and twisting it. The gate fell open soundlessly.

The world beyond was slumbering, unsuspecting and luscious.

They entered the grounds from the right side of the castle, which gave them a view of the intimidating keep and stone parapet. Outside were winding paths, flowers and vines, the shadow of a garden.

Seraphim and Dot shared a smug glance, delighting in their victory as Tilde sneered, searching for any potential defenses to crop into their path, and Cookie gaped.

Little did they know, advancing toward the grand hall, that every member of the royal family remained awake.

“The fact of the matter is, Neon, that Kaizen was never meant to rule a duchy,” Olympia told her young rebel Casanova, she sprawled and nude in her bedchamber, he examining her gilded vanity. The lovemaking had come to a close an hour or so ago, but they still idly plotted the future of the “Taliko nobility,” if such a thing existed anymore. “He was always too soft. While other boys played war, he watched birds. In a way, I wonder if it would be doing him a great kindness to destroy this rebel ship you mentioned, heedless of consent, and allow him to take the credit for having the steel of spine to do it himself. At first, he may be heartbroken–”

“He’s doubtlessly in love with her,” Trimpot added blithely.

“–but in the end, thankful, as it may be the only way to express . . . What?” Olympia’s eyes drifted from where they’d been fixed to the ceiling, then panning to where Trimpot stood, smelling her wilting bedroom flowers with distaste. Trimpot glanced over to her and strode from the vase to her armoire.

“In love with the
rebel
girl, Exa Legacy,” Trimpot articulated. “He had her
arrested
without bringing formal charges
against
her. Why? Of course, to the untrained eye, it would appear that he wished to imprison her indefinitely and to not have the courts interfere, which would have been wise, but let us look closer. There was no evidence that he ever truly searched for her in a prosecutory sense following the Massacre, even though there were multiple sightings, including an encounter at the broadcast station in which she was allowed to escape.”

“Kaizen was shot!” Olympia disagreed.

“A lover’s spat.”

“My son may be a dreamer, but he’s not an idiot,” Olympia went on. “What point would there be to such a love? Imprisonment? Death? Poverty, at best? Poverty, at best!” she shrilled, as if she couldn’t believe her own ears. “I mean, Malthus and I . . .” Olympia gestured as if she were literally throwing their marriage over her shoulder. “But still, I stayed. I stayed because I knew that anything else was social suicide.”

Trimpot migrated to her bedside table and plucked a long feather from where it had been laid following their indiscretions. He trailed its loose plumage along her fleshy side. “Even I?”

“Especially you,” Olympia purred.

Trimpot flicked the feather back onto the bedside table and joined her on the bed, although his mind was still apparently elsewhere. “In
fact
, there was no evidence he ever intended to arrest her at the so-called ‘friendly debate’! As if it was really intended to be a friendly debate! And then, compounding all this are his repeated attempts to convince us all that Legacy is dead when he’s known, he’s known since the first night off, that she was alive and well.”

Olympia made a face. “If only Sophie had been the first born. But then again . . .” She sighed. “That was another broken egg. Will we need to offer you yet another stipend to keep your peace on that score?”

Trimpot rolled onto his back and beheld the former duchess. Unlike his other relationships with women, few and tentative, this was not solely motivated by some sense of parasitism or opportunity. He understood Olympia. The callous way she spoke of her own children was exciting.

“Broken eggs have uses,” he noted, ignoring the question. In truth, he didn’t know. Maybe? “Sophie, in particular, is hopelessly mad and has no legal identity. This could be very useful. Particularly in the perpetration of a crime. Consider the possibility that Kaizen is not shamed from holding any sort of official title. He would become a powerful enemy, and could be quite vengeful, having lost his old girlfriend and all. But Sophie . . . Sophie is like a sculptor’s clay. And no one can blame her, can they? No one can blame the mad, abused as children, for what they do. Ironically, it would be this betrayal that would enable the vengeful Kaizen to hold some sort of–”

“What are you suggesting?” A shadow passed over Olympia’s face, and for a moment, Trimpot feared he’d mis-stepped.

“I suppose I’m suggesting that your youngest daughter is quite capable of murder,” he answered boldly. “And you and I, my mistress, are of far too genteel a persuasion for such vulgarities.”

At this, Olympia smirked, her lashes lowering. “You, my love? Genteel?” she mocked him, skating her fingers down his nicely toned abdomen and slithering around his member, idly stroking the muscle awake. “That’s adorable.”

Trimpot lost his train of thought, thighs stiffening. For the first time in his life, he felt a genuine swell of infatuation for a woman. He supposed this was because he couldn’t tell who was using whom, and their little dance of manipulation itself was so exciting.

Meanwhile, Sophie sat at Master Addler’s workbench, examining one of the large brass keys intended for use with an automaton which had yet to be forged. The porcelain mask he had so kindly designed for her was still tied snugly over her face, though it appeared that no one was awake to look upon her. Correction: no one with the prejudices of a human mind was awake to look at her. The wall, however, was lined with her robotic friends, their keys all twisting in their backs, their marbled eyes alive with a fleck of red. Here, with them, in her mask, Sophie felt more comfortable than she’d felt in . . . maybe her entire life.

“
Paulette-2,
” Sophie called to one of her personal automata.
Paulette-2
was one of the more beautiful bots, in Sophie’s opinion. Most people could hardly tell the difference between one automaton and another. Frankly, Sophie found that to be offensive.
Paulette-2,
by comparison with the others, had wider, cat-like eyes and a coy, almost smug mouth which betrayed her hidden intelligence. The woman coasted over to Sophie with a jerk and a clatter, swinging into a low bow, her long, raven-black hair swinging with her. “How does it feel to have your key turned?” Sophie wondered.

“
I feel alive,
” the girl replied, pulling erect. “
I feel useful. I feel loved. Thank you for asking. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?
”

Sophie considered this. Had she ever felt alive? She couldn’t truly remember a time that might qualify.

The masked girl stood and began to unbutton her stained white chemise. “I would like you to put this key into my back,” she instructed her porcelain friend. “And spin until I tell you to stop.” She shrugged the fabric away from her shoulders, allowing it to fall open and expose a pale swath of skin.

She sighed with relief as the brass key ground against her skin. Certainly it wouldn’t be long now . . . and all her pulleys and gears would finally churn, awakened . . .

“Oh, my god,” a hard female voice muttered.

Sophie whirled, and
Paulette-2
froze in her task as if confused by the sudden movement, the bloodied key still gripped in her hands.

Standing at the entrance to the machinist’s chamber was an older woman with short red hair, bright blue eyes, and a weathered face. One glance at her was all it took to determine that she was an enemy. This stranger wore a cutlass on her hip and had already drawn a spear gun. She pointed it between Sophie and
Paulette-2,
uncertain which would move first. If it weren’t for the blood running down Sophie’s back, she wouldn’t even be sure which one was real.

“We’ve only just been fixed, you know,” the masked girl greeted the newcomer tonelessly. “And here you are. More bad people to hurt us.”

Dot hesitated, morbidly curious as to whether or not this thing was a woman or some strange new bot, some synthesis of body parts and machina.

“
Paulette-2?
Let’s kill her,” the mad girl suggested.

Paulette-2
pivoted, holding a large brass key with a bloodied tip in one hand, the embers of her marble eyes flaring brighter. Dot found her fingers and depressed the trigger of her spear gun, sending a harpoon directly into the automaton’s guts. There was the crunch of glass, and a spray of nuts and bolts onto the floor. The brass key tinkled as it fell from the automaton’s spasming fingers. The masked girl wailed and dropped to her knees, pounding the floor with her fists. “No!
Valkenhayn! Ariela! Belladonna! Maureen!
Kill her!”

Four automata shuddered to life from where they had lined the wall, keys twisting silently in their backs.

Dot yanked the harpoon; though it was attached to its gun via a cable, the thing appeared to be jammed between some gears, another spray of parts emitting from
Paulette-2
’s guts
.
The young girl shrieked again and snatched up the key on the floor. In all her years of piracy, this was undoubtedly the most disturbing sight Dot had ever seen. If only she’d been thinking more clearly, she would have abandoned the damn harpoon. The masked girl stalked forward, bloodied key in hand.