Chapter 20
TWENTY
NICOLE
“It's still not too late to smash him over the head with the sedative,” I remind Blood Feather.
The tiny palomino stallion noses into my hand.
I reach for seedcake crumbs to feed him.
Luckily, he eats all the cooked vegetables he can get his cheeky mouth on and seems happy to fly around the executive suite bedroom.
I brush his coat every night which he loves, head drooping until he falls asleep like any other horse, standing up with one hoof cocked, except with purple wings folded along his back.
He’s happy. I’m not, and neither is Arture.
He’s gotten thinner over the last week and a bit, his face more angular.
He spent a lot of time cutting away his scales and putting them on the waterproof covering over his arm and mechanical eye, until even I can’t tell where the sleeve begins.
But his real eye… it looks so haunted and so painfully tired.
He’s as emotive as a black box unit on an airplane and ruled by rote tasks.
He comes to see me twice a day, each time staring with empty blue eyes in my direction before setting the food for me and Blood Feather down and leaving.
But every action is communication. He stays as a Pranastock when he can’t stand being one. He keeps repeating he can’t disobey his orders, and he can’t meet my eyes. He has to be hurting.
And so am I.
“He made love to me, and turned into… that,” I whisper as I stroke Blood Feather. “He’s not that good of a liar. I’m good at reading people, I really am. He… he was falling for me.”
Right?
But a part of my brain screams, Wake up and smell the horseshit. He’s locked me in my room and is taking me to Oloria. Worse, I’m not fighting him.
I get to my feet, Blood Feather watching me from the basket. My battered hoof pick rests on the nightstand, cold but familiar in the palm of my hand. Arture soldered the ventilation panel closed, welding it with sparks from his mechanical arm, but there might be more.
The hoof pick in my hand slips along the edge of the metal panel.
I pull it back, take a deep breath, and try again where a sliver of silver shines through the impenetrable joints in my room.
The fit where these wall panels meet is really shallow and my hoof pick is old and worn, the metal smooth on the corners, but over the last few hours I'm convinced I'm making progress beyond just scratching whatever metal this is.
“Desperate. Stupid. Ridiculous.” I swallow hard. “Fat. Ugly.”
Except the last two don’t ring true anymore. I have the memory of Arture pressing himself against me, hands touching me everywhere. Every moment seemed to drive him more wild, unable to get enough of me.
‘All I want is right here,’ he’d said, and he meant it. ‘You're safe with me, Nic-coal. Always. I swear it.’
Rolling sweat dribbles down my temple.
‘You deserve this, someone who… who will give you everything you give to others, who will take care of you the way you deserve to be taken care of. Until then, I'll have to do.’
He doesn’t believe he’s worthy.
The hoof pick slips, scratching the metal with a sharp screech and barking my knuckles. I suck them, closing my eyes tight.
He said he didn’t want my love, but he’s lying.
He thought of a different future. He wanted a different future…
with me. But any time he tried to even contemplate disobeying his orders, he got such a horrible headache it looked like he was being turned inside out.
My leg jiggles, eager to kick down the walls between us.
When the last memory smashed in, it wrecked everything in its path, so much so he had to shift to his least favorite clone type. To cope, or escape, it doesn’t matter.
Some deep programming fucked with his brain. He’s broken, but in my gut it’s clear he needs help, even though he said he didn’t. And even if he doesn’t want to be with me, I’m going to fucking help him.
I drive my hoof pick back into the hairline crack around the ventilation panel. “Something’s wrong. So fucking wrong. And I’m nutty Nicole, I take on the hardest cases and I make a difference. I won’t give up now.”
Time is running out. Arture said last night we’d get to Oloria today, and I can only guess we’re not going for afternoon tea with their queen or whoever she is. He’s so sure I’ll be fine, but what will I be doing there?
Ellen, Arabella, and Laura said that the planet is ruled by the Prif, Samara, the bitch who threw Arture away and tried to kill Gara and Dom, and maybe Ilia.
She also gave Ellen a good scare by involving her in the Mating Games.
Those sound very gladiatorial, a series of dangerous and tricky trials for males who aren’t clones to attract a mate; not the futuristic utopia I’d expect of a galaxy-hopping species.
Maybe I could get an ally. The lady the girls spoke about, Shara, the All-Mother.
If she’s the clones’ mother, as much as an egg donor is, maybe she will help.
The guys all spoke of her with hushed reverence, and she ranks as somewhere between a queen and a goddess according to them: an untouchable and somewhat mythic figure.
I’ve got so many questions for Samara, not least why she imprinted orders so deep into Arture it causes him physical pain to disobey. What could a woman like that possibly want with me? Why go to all this trouble? What is she up to?
Worst of all, Arture’s an exile. I can guess they won’t want him returning.
Arabella and Laura both talked with haunted eyes about the risks Gara and Dom faced on Oloria.
Dom was shot and then nearly strangled to death for his “crime” of returning.
Arture’s in danger, those fucking orders whipping him constantly to the brink.
But I don’t think sedating him will help. I need to talk to him, not knock him out.
The soft chime of the door makes me flinch and a moment later, Arture walks in. There's no food in his hands, and his tone is as flat and impersonal as it’s ever been, devoid of any cheeky warmth. “We’re landing soon. Please strap in.”
I swallow hard, fighting back the tightness in my throat. It's too late. It's over.
“I want to look at the planet,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “Take me to the cockpit with you. I won’t fight you, Arture.”
He hesitates, but then nods curtly. I stand still, ready for him to, I don't know, put my arms behind my back and march me there, but he turns and leaves, the door standing open.
Scooping up Blood Feather so I can secure him for landing, I follow. “How… how have you been?”
Well done, Nicole. That wins the stupidest fucking question of the month award.
“Operating within tolerance levels.”
“Tolerance. You look like Blood Feather could knock you over.”
He squints over his shoulder at the tiny Equeleus. “His comparatively small mass and limited force output would result in an insufficient momentum transfer to overcome my significantly larger mass and inertia.”
My stomach twists. “Arture, that’s hilarious, but you aren’t trying to be funny. Please, say something that’s pure you.”
He says nothing in return, just walks into the cockpit. In the floor-to-ceiling windows, a panoramic view of the stars spreads out. And, in the center and getting bigger, a red sphere.
He gestures to a seat, and as soon as I sit, he begins strapping me in. His hands move with clinical efficiency, tugging the strap close around my shoulders.
I look up at him, searching his face for any sign of the Arture I’ve come to care about, with his insightful talks, choice banter, and the way he shared the vulnerability of his past. But all I see is a robot, eyes fixed ahead, treating me like a task to complete, like I’m just a mission.
Maybe I am, my head says. He never loved me, he was just trying to complete his task, and making me fall in love with him made me more pliant.
But my heart rebels, hard. He was coming to understand himself, to reconcile all the parts of his past with what he wanted for the future. It’s those damn orders twisting and torturing him.
Keeping Blood Feather secure in my lap, I take a deep breath. “Please come back to me, Arture.”
He doesn’t even glance in my direction, his long fingers flickering over the panels. “I’m right here.”
“Not really.” Reaching over at the limit of my straps, I put my hand on his right arm. It looks like his other arm except the scales are cold and dead, not melting under my touch. “Is this okay?”
“You can do what you like with me, female.”
Argh. “Arture, you’ve changed. Is this really what you want?”
“What I want doesn’t matter, but in this case, I want to fulfil my orders. So I am at peace.” He glances down at the hand on his arm. “It seems you approve of the covering over my hideous imperfections.”
“Arture, your prosthetics aren’t hideous. And perfection is a myth.”
His dull eyes meet mine. “You are free to believe that, female, but wait until you see Oloria. You will love it—”
“I don’t want to see your Prif,” I blurt, throat burning.
I’m pretty sure I’d knock her out if I do.
“She brainwashed you to the point where if you even think about disobeying her, it physically hurts. There’s never no hope, Arture.
I know what it feels like to fight your own brain, but what you’re going through is so much worse.
Is there… anyone who can help? Anyone at all? What about the All-Mother?”
Arture turns away, sliding his arm out from under my hand. His fingers grip the yoke, blue-grey scales whitening around the knuckles of his left hand and his right creaking as if the mechanisms inside are under huge tension. “Very well.”
He offers nothing else, and the planet intrudes. Oloria. A world I’ve heard about, imagined, dreaded, and now, for the first time, I’m seeing it with my own eyes. The landscape’s a hazy blur of reds and browns. It’s beautiful, I think. Or maybe it’s terrifying. I can’t tell anymore.