“I won’t.”

  “Do not harm Bonju Taron. His death will be our own. Everything I have worked for will be lost.”

  “Promise, Inventor. Pinkie swear. He’ll never know I was there.”

  Amayas kept his promise to meet with Royal in an hour and reviewed the mirror. He ran through the subset and its fallout three times then stepped away, massaging the back of his neck.

  “No.”

  The answer fell off his lips with the force of a hammer.

  “Wait. What? How can you say no? You saw what will happen.”

  “I saw a possibility. This is a variant.”

  “One that hasn’t changed in the past four hours. If it was an unsettled variant, there’d be subtle changes by now. Everything is identical – right down to where I shoot that DLM asshole.”

  “Your first assumption may be the fatal one. Is that you inside the second skin?”

  “Who else? The whispers called my name.”

  “Royal, you’re a prisoner to the future. I warned you from the first day. The future is wholly reliant upon an expansive cascade of cause and effect. Consider this: One of those causes might be your own desire to infuse yourself into a future moment. You are there because you want to be there. The future can be a drug.”

  “Bullshit. It’s real. It’s going to happen.”

  “It’s what you want to happen. Tell me, Royal. In this scenario, do you discover what’s in the box?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Because you killed the two people most capable of providing you with high-quality intelligence. Your actions defy logic.”

  “I couldn’t leave them behind to tell their superiors what I stole.”

  “More likely, you executed them because you can’t be objective with the Swarm. Your hatred is understandable but also a liability.”

  Royal stepped away. He felt a cold shudder.

  “I’ll change it up when I go. I’ll interrogate them after the rest are dead. Why are you doing this, Amayas?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Ignoring the obvious. Your explanation is garbage. You never said anything about these subsets being illusions until now.”

  “They aren’t. They all have the potential to become fixed, though few will. I’ve said no, Royal. Therefore, you will not interfere. Follow the rules. Those people will live. The subset will transform.”

  “What if it doesn’t, right down to the last seconds?”

  “That will prove the person in the golden skin is not you. It would introduce a new complication, but you would not have made a horrible mistake. I am exhausted, Royal. You should sleep as well. Our victory at Arakaat will have to do for today.”

  “You’re wrong, Amayas. This is our chance. I’ll be there and back in minutes.”

  “Sleep, Royal. You’ve earned it.”

  Royal did not follow the Inventor through the crevasse. Standing amid the crystalline forest, he built a list of questions and suspicions.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Royal knew the difference between an illusion and the truth. His mastery of the mirrors outshone Amayas. Why would the Inventor deny him the chance to get ahead of the invasion?

  He made a decision.

  8

  W HAT’S THE POINT in having future sight if you don’t use it to maximum effect? Why shouldn’t we learn the Swarm’s timetable now? Doesn’t Amayas want to know if his plan needs to be accelerated?

  Royal knew what he had to do, but he spent an hour talking himself into it. Nothing – not even the Inventor’s insistence on following the rules – deterred him. Rules only mattered until they got in the way of the necessary.

  He made the calculations, considered how much time he’d need for a proper interrogation of the Lieutenant and the DLM officer. Surely, that box contained a Splinter. Certainly, those twelve ragged men and women at the temple were test subjects. The equivalents to the Splinter Vanguard; chosen because they lacked counterparts. They traveled across the divide.

  They know about tethered travel, too.

  The revelation brought on more questions than Royal had time to confront. Chief among them: Was Amayas wrong about The Hold? Was there another one in Beta universe? Otherwise, how were they able to tether? Or had they figured out the solution to tethering from anywhere?

  Even one decisive answer would justify the mission.

  “You gave me this power,” Royal said to no one. “I’m damn well gonna use it.”

  He’d hate himself more than Amayas would feel betrayed if Royal did not see this through. Heroes don’t wait to be told it’s their time.

  He retrieved the Splinter and his second skin, but Royal knew he had to account for the remote chance he was wrong. He sat at his plate for half an hour contemplating what to say. He smoked half a pipe looking for words that justified his actions while he apologized for squandering the gifts Amayas gave him. He set the message to a delayed time stamp. A two-hour buffer felt appropriate.

  “I haven’t abandoned you,” he finished the message. “I’ll keep fighting as long as I can.”

  In the forest of mirrors, Royal ran through the future subsets a final time. Almost nothing changed six hours after the initial viewing. The Major and the Lieutenant boarded the ATB-5, which lifted off from Swarm HQ. The crew was the same except for the last-minute squadron of F-grounders, which was smaller than previous iterations. The rest of the sequence played out to the temple and ensuing carnage. Royal did notice one of the F-grounders defending the temple fell when his neck was partially severed rather than fully decapitated. These minor adjustments pleased him. It meant the future was not fixed. He could adjust it and return with detailed intelligence.

  He carried his weapons in twos: blast rifles, pistols, serrated knives, and hypersonic grenades. Royal knew how he’d destroy the ship, but what happened before then was another matter, the biggest mystery of what lay ahead. Any hesitance derived from not being able to see his direct future. It wasn’t enough to halt the mission.

  Royal slapped the golden skin against his chest; it covered him and his weapons in a molten shell. He held up the Splinter and infused the future subset into the cube’s many paths.

  Royal blinked.

  He stood inside an empty lavatory. Six privy pods on one side; three sinks on the other. The ATB-5 was not moving, which caught Royal off-guard. He didn’t expect to arrive after the landing. This meant he had to act at once. Plant the explosives, find the closest egress, and approach the temple. But where was the lavatory in relation to the egress? He knew little about ATB design, though his Talon unit did join with three others to destroy a pair of them during a raid in Pajoon City.

  He put his trust in the future and reached for his grenades. He’d plant them and make a dash for the egress. Then the future threw him for a surprise: The ship launched.

  Shit.

  Either he’d have to stay hidden the entire trip from Swarm HQ, or he arrived too late, after the ATB left the temple. Had he miscalculated? If he stayed, he’d be testing the parameters, which Amayas warned him never to do. Grab the Splinter, see inside, and tether back. They’d never know he left.

  No. He had time. Play it right, and he might yet meet the future. The subset showed him a flight time of twenty-one minutes. Avoid a disturbance until then and …

  The lavatory door slid open. He cursed at himself for not acting at once. Royal slipped into a corner, giving himself seconds to prepare for the inevitable. A pair of young officers in standard-issue olive uniforms with red scorpion crest laughed amid their banter.

  One stepped into a privy pod, but the other slid toward a sink. Royal did not move, a golden statue neither man was bound to miss on their way out. He did not recognize them from the subset, but it didn’t mean they weren’t important. Neither wore the black gloves or beret of Division LM, but if their ultimate destination was the supercarrier Sturgeon, they must have been important.

  Royal made a choice.

  He lunged like a whisper in the wind and drove his blade into the first officer’s neck. The man gurgled in front of the mirror, watching himself die. While the other officer peed, Royal carried his first victim into the nearest pod, sat him on the privy, and removed the knife. This had to be quick.

  They exited their pods simultaneously, though the Swarm officer was in mid-zip when he saw the golden creature flying toward him. He reached for his sidearm too late. Royal threw him against the wall, the serrated blade a millimeter from drawing new blood. The officer’s eyes ballooned as he stared into the impossible.

  “What is your destination?” Royal asked.

  “Ten hells! What are you?”

  “Your last breath if you don’t answer. Where is this ship headed?”

  “You’ll get nothing out of me.”

  “We just left Swarm HQ with only a few FGs. It’s not combat. What is your destination?”

  “A next gen android? The Talons hide behind their machines now. Typical.”

  “I killed thousands like you. Five seconds, or you’re done.”

  He felt the officer wriggling for his sidearm, not that it would do him any good. It would, however, create an inconvenient disturbance.

  “Last chance, asshole.”

  “You Talon filth. You’ll get nothing from …”

  Royal sliced open his neck.

  He returned the man to the privy, where he sat as if waiting to take a shit. The blood stained his olive shirt. Royal closed the privy and stowed his knife. This was not tenable. Others were certain to come, including the Major, who tapped the Lieutenant in the subset before indicating his destination. If not him, wouldn’t someone notice the missing officers?

  Royal assumed he was right about the mission status. The officer showed no surprise when Royal mentioned the launch from HQ. That meant eighteen, maybe nineteen minutes to the temple. Was it possible to scout a more strategic position within the ship? If he stepped outside, would he find an empty corridor or land in the heart of the passenger hold?

  The ship’s internal comm rendered the question moot.

  “Attention, unauthorized intruder. Drop all weapons and fall to your knees. You cannot escape.”

  The woman’s voice invoked the confidence of a Swarm Captain. Yet the door did not slide open. Why not rush him with F-grounders? Obviously, they could see Royal but didn’t know what to make of the enemy. Their hesitation showed Royal how to buy the necessary time. He’d keep the future intact.

  He fell to his knees, threw out the deadly knife, and raised his arms. The doors slid open. Three FGs in full Swarm body armor surrounded him, their Force Drums ignited and prepared to fire. Royal assumed his armor would disperse their fearsome energy bursts. He hated assuming.

  “We have him, Captain,” an FG said.

  “Hold the prisoner there.”

  Royal couldn’t see their eyes, but he assumed they were as flummoxed as their dead predecessors.

  “Hi, guys,” he said. “Good to meet you.”

  “Not a word.”

  “Really? You don’t wanna know how I snuck onto a secure ATB-5 at Swarm HQ?”

  The soldiers moved closer.

  “Shut the fuck up, whatever you are.”

  “Whatever? My heart is breaking. By the way, here’s a heads-up: You guys are gonna be dead in a few minutes.”

  One lost his cool, turning his Force Drum into a battering ram. It had no effect against the gold armor, although Royal did feel a crimp in his neck. Assholes. He wanted to respond. They didn’t know how easily he could reach inside his armor, grab his blast rifles, and tear them into pieces. He might have done it if not for a new presence.

  The Major asked the FGs to clear some room. He held up a palm-sized scanner directed at Royal, who now understood the subset.

  He went to the lavatory because of me …

  OK, so he wasn’t losing touch with the future. Yet.

  “Who are you? How did you board the ship? Who sent you?”

  “Finally. Somebody who knows how to ask questions.”

  “Remove your helmet and answer me.”

  “Sorry, Major. I’m good inside here, if you don’t mind. The bigger question is this: Who are you picking up at the temple?”

  The Major motioned to an FG.

  “Remove this man’s helmet.”

  The soldier stowed his Force Drum and tried to twist and hoist at the neck without success.

  “Major, there’s no neck collar. I think we’re talking to a machine.”

  “You wish,” Royal said. “You got no idea. C’mon, Major. Tell me while you have the chance: What’s going down at the temple?”

  “I will ask you once more. Who are you? Who sent you?”

  “My name is Death, and you’re gonna join these guys.”

  The Major tapped his left ear.

  “Captain, a word?”

  He left the lavatory and spoke in hushed tones in the corridor, but Royal did hear ‘scan,’ ‘armor,’ and ‘unable.’ Royal was encouraged. Amayas said nothing about the shell being impervious to body scans. However, the inability to scan might lead the Major to a simple conclusion: This golden creature was an immediate danger to the ship.

  “Up,” the Major ordered when he returned.

  Royal complied. “What’s next, Major?”

  “We’re taking him for further interrogation,” he told the FGs, who surrounded Royal as they left the lavatory.

  Royal knew a ruse when we saw it. The ATB wasn’t a large ship yet was packed with two hundred passengers. There wasn’t a better place for interrogation than the lavatory. The bridge was certainly off-limits. Therefore, he wasn’t surprised to find himself standing in front of the starboard egress.

  It pixelated. The midday sun blasted into the cabin. A few fluffy clouds zipped past. The FGs nudged him forward. Only a cascade barrier separated him from a long fall – perhaps the ultimate test of the armor’s durability. More important, a rewrite to his future.

  If he didn’t jump, they’d kick him out. Royal didn’t see how to sustain his future to the temple, but he gave it a final shot. He used clues from the subset. But was the Major still listening?

  “Mustard grass.”

  He turned to the Major, who struggled to contain his shock. Mustard grass was the code name for the convocation aboard the Sturgeon, embedded in the secret transmission to the Lieutenant.

  “What did you say?”

  “Mustard grass. We’ll make our stand there, Major.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Mustard grass. You know, Major. Tomorrow.”

  An FG said, “What does he mean, Major? What are your orders?”

  Royal saw the conflict, but he also knew the danger of giving anything away right now. Maybe he’d won a few minutes. Maybe.

  The Major backed away.

  “FGs, do your job. Dismiss this … thing.”

  And that, in the words of the great philosopher, was that.

  Royal saw a city down below and a man conflicted six feet away. Either way, the future had to be rewritten.

  He reached into his armor, which morphed as he came out firing, his blasters meeting the FGs, who unleashed their Force Drums point-blank. The blue waves of intense energy embedded in the molten armor then spit out of its angry tendrils in every direction.

  The Major’s head melted. He fell like a stone tablet.

  Screams erupted from the passenger cabin as the Drum energy combined with blasts from Royal’s weapon tore holes through seatbacks, overhead bins, and portals. While some Swarm soldiers ducked, others came out firing. The FGs closest to Royal collapsed under the intense waves but kept firing until Royal narrowed his aim and caught them at the neck collar. They decapitated with the same beauty he previously saw outside the temple.

  These fucking Swarm!

  The moment brought back the best memories of war. One after another, these beasts crumpling at his feet. The disease that kept coming in waves, always paying a price when they confronted the immortal who couldn’t get enough of their sickly end.

  He maintained a steady fire with one hand as he reached for his grenades. A single tap, and the detonator was armed. He threw it deep into the passenger compartment. Then another.

  These fucking Swarm!

  He counted in his head.

  Two seconds before detonation, Royal leaped toward the egress.

  A couple hundred of those assholes? Not nearly enough, but it would have to do for today. He jumped as the cabin blew apart.

  The concussion threw him into an end-over-end spill.

  He fumbled inside his armor and grabbed the Splinter. He needed only to look through it to see the tether.

  As he flipped, Royal caught a glimpse of the crumbling ATB, now hurling uncontrolled into the city. The planet was rising fast.

  Just one glimpse into the cube. That’s all he needed.

  That’s all …

  What?

  Where was it?

  Didn’t he have it? How could …

  His hands raced through the armor but found nothing except the last of his weapons. Royal didn’t remember dropping it.

  Shit.

  Exogenesis

  The Isle of Salvador

  Planet: Everdeen

  Standard Year 5359

  T HE BANDAGES CAME OFF SEVEN DAYS after Amayas Knight’s facial transplant. The surgeon expressed concern. He never saw anything quite like it. Oh, the features successfully imprinted. A softer brow over his green eyes, a professorial nose, thin lips, and a jawline less rigid than typical of a Guard veteran. Amayas was no longer Valentin Bouchet, but purple bruises along the transplant’s perimeter indicated where the old identity ended and the new one began. The body appeared to be rejecting the synthetic replacement.

  Amayas knew why, but he’d only reveal his immortality as a last resort. Dr. Kristof Blanc, an ex-Chancellor who went native many years earlier, already charged as much as Amayas could afford to keep quiet. If Blanc learned the full truth, he’d demand whatever Amayas kept in reserve. From the start, Amayas understood the surgery’s greatest risk: His body, bioengineered to regenerate, might try its damndest to restore his original skin.