Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
NORA
“Are you really going to carry me forever?” Nora asked, on the verge of overheating.
Airik had given her another shirt, gray with a much smaller Veynari patch, before they’d crossed the bridge into the towering sprawl of the city. But with her legs wrapped around his bare waist and arms around his neck, she had already broken into a sweat.
“Yes,” he said, squeezing her closer to his front. “I told you the city is deadly.”
Nora huffed, giving up and resting her chin on his shoulder.
At least there were elevated platforms to shield them from the suns. Suspended in midair at varying heights, flowering vines spilled over their sides.
Lucky trailed them, eyeing the buildings as if they weren’t to be trusted. Metal-and-glass skyscrapers so tall that birds soared and spiraled between them, disappearing into the clouds above. He was miserable.
A tiny bot, the size of a squirrel and blinking green lights, zoomed across the street behind them to zap a leaf that had fallen off Nora’s bag. Lucky lunged toward it, but it flew up into the air and perched on a roof’s edge, safe.
Walking the precise center of each road, Airik led them through a maze of city streets, keeping a wary distance from the building walls. More robots zoomed back and forth, furiously maintaining the red-barked trees and small parks that would never again be enjoyed by the people who’d built them.
“There’s really no one else here?” Nora pushed away from Airik, straining to see through the building’s doors as they opened and shut as they walked by.
“No one,” Airik said. His fingers dug into her hips. “Half this city died. The buildings and all the power are poison.” To make his point, he turned so she faced an alley.
She flailed when she saw the large bodies at the end. Humanoid-looking limbs jutted out at unnatural angles. “I thought you said there were no people!”
“Not those,” Airik said, holding her firm. “Those are…fuck robots. Never alive. Not dead. Look between them.”
Nora gulped, the brief shock that his world had sexbots fading as she focused on where Airik pointed.
At the edge, so far back that sunlight couldn’t reach, a small form crawled from between the bots.
One of the black lizards that kept Lucky engaged and well fed on their trek.
It stuck its head into the knee hinge of one of the bots.
It jumped back, its head glowing yellow.
“What is it doing?” Nora hugged Airik tighter.
“Animals rarely come into here. They are afraid of the robots and know death is here. But for the few that do, they starve. And kudra tastes sweet.”
The lizard tried to lick its face, but its head jerked, making the poor thing contort in ways that must’ve hurt. Nora’s nails dug into Airik’s shoulders as blood dripped from its snout and mouth.
Lucky rushed in front of them, herding them back.
Spotting them, the lizard made a zigzag attempt to reach them—instinct still driving it even as it bled. Before it reached the sunlight, its legs gave out and it collapsed with a croak. In the next instant, it fell flat—dead.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away as a small robot zipped past them, beeping a cheerful tune.
It rolled up to the lizard and paused. A flap opened on the robot’s round belly, and a tube extended from it, stopping just before it touched the lizard’s carcass.
A laser beamed over the dead lizard, and in the blink of an eye, there was no trace of the creature or its misery.
When Nora turned back, Airik’s eyes were bright with emotion.
Before she could speak, he said, “It is in the walls, and once, before it changed, it was safe. But now you see what it does. This is not like the seta. Or the margorok. Or the rain. Or even the ocean.” He raised her so they were eye to eye.
“There is nothing I can do to fix it if it touches you. Do you understand my words?”
She thought she saw the blue glow of his tears gathering, but he blinked, and it was gone.
“I understand.”
Airik turned them around, left and right, deeper and deeper into a city built for someone like her but not quite.
There were handles and levers for hands shaped like hers, though some of the doors were much taller than she expected.
Screens still ran looping videos populated by what Nora assumed were all the species related to humans.
“Are these…all the different kinds of aliens?”
Airik stopped, his eyes on her while she watched the screen. “Yes.”
An image scrolled on the screen. The silhouette of six walking people, all humanoid in shape.
Some had tails. Another had a crest on their head.
At the very end, the second smallest of them all was a human man.
Nora had seen an image just like this, except for the evolution of man, starting with the earliest common apes.
The six images shifted, merging into a single humanoid shape, larger than the rest. The silhouette turned, facing head-on, revealing the curves and limbs of its strong form. Even without details, Nora knew this one was somehow more dominant than the rest.
“There are seven related species?” Nora asked, unable to break eye contact with the form’s glowing golden orbs.
“No, only six: Humans. Ti’rosi. Kirjarix. Suralian. Ilandi. Torjarin. There are other intelligent species—but only these six can breed with one another.”
A blade materialized in the seventh form’s hand. It held it high, its shape familiar but not quite the same as Airik’s sword. As it brought it down, wings unfurled from its back, spanning the entire screen, which itself was the length of an entire block.
“Then who is that?”
“It is thought…that all the species can be made into one. That it will be all the strength of the six—something entirely new and perfect.”
Lucky made a low growl, eyes focused on the figure.
“I’m not a scientist,” Nora said, shifting in Airik’s arms, “but I don’t think that’s how genetics works.”
“It is how the Veynari will make it work.” He pulled her closer. “But there are no humans yet in our world. And the technology to create this…being is not ready, either.”
Nora’s stomach churned at the realization that she’d be more valuable in this world than on Earth, and for a terrifying reason. “What happens…if they find a human?”
Airik brought his lips close to her ear. “They will watch her. And that is all they will do. Because she is mine.”
They kept walking. Until Lucky lagged farther behind, thirsty and tired, making a small cry every time Airik turned to keep going. Everywhere was too dangerous or too close to a building to stop.
Airik would do this for hours, she realized, his need to keep them safe outweighing his body’s limits.
They turned a corner, and she perked up at the sound of trickling water.
Instead of another building, purple grass, cut to a uniform length, carpeted a rectangular space several football fields long and wide.
In the center, a concrete fountain with three tiers gushed crystal-clear water into a pool.
Rainbow-barked trees lined the perimeter.
Closest to where they stood, a vine-covered structure, like a pavilion, beckoned her with the promise of shelter.
Airik glanced at the surrounding buildings, some of whose windows were lit from within by a yellow glow. He sighed, then turned to carry them out.
Feeling his arms shake with exhaustion, Nora pushed away with a sudden burst of resolve.
He frowned, but didn’t force her to stop as he probably would’ve if he hadn’t been so tired. “It isn’t safe here. We should keep looking.”
“You’ve been walking for hours. You can’t keep carrying me,” she said, rubbing his biceps. “Nowhere is going to be safe—you’ve told me that since the beginning. But we’re here now, and this looks like the best spot.”
Airik brought her braid to his face and breathed, his brows drawing together with tension. “Kudra kills everything it touches. There could be a strong wind.”
“There haven’t been any strong winds so far.”
“There shouldn’t have been burning rain, but there was. There shouldn’t have been such large waves, but there were. This place is broken, and what I know of it isn’t correct. I—”
“It’s going to be okay. It doesn’t look like anything is glowing outside the walls.
There are birds—they wouldn’t fly if it were that bad.
Kudra won’t touch us. We have enough food, and we won’t have to leave this…
park, or whatever it is. We can rest.” Pressing close to him, Nora kissed the center of his chest. “And then you’ll find a callbox, and help will come. ”
Emotion clogged her throat at the prospect of “help” arriving. She didn’t want to be saved. “Maybe…you don’t have to make that call right away.” She looked up, resting her chin on his chest, and smiled. “Maybe we can wait…a little while longer. Can’t we?”
Strong hands gripped under her ass, lifting her up to be level with him. “I should never have admitted to you that I won’t ever tell you no.”