“Enough of this bullshit. Give me the Cure already.” Mannus cleared away beakers from a lab table with his hand. Glass shattered on the floor in a million pieces as he laid his arm on the table for an injection.

  Short responded with surprising confidence. “No, we can’t.”

  “You will,” Alexandra demanded, and with the gun still in her hand, the scientists obeyed.

  “Do you have the Flare? Before The Gone?” Tall asked as she inspected him with her eyes.

  “Do I look like I have the Flare?” Mannus replied.

  “What about fevers? Have you had any fevers lately?”

  “No.”

  Middle, who was neither good at making tea nor taking orders, and who said the least of any of them, walked over to Alex. “This isn’t perfected. He’s got a sixty percent chance of falling over dead before the day is over.” Alexandra didn’t understand what she was talking about. “The horns,” Short said. “He’s got . . . predispositions.”

  Alexandra laughed and shook her head. “The horns aren’t from his DNA, you idiot, he had those sewed on by choice.”

  The soft-spoken scientist looked back at the others before explaining to Alexandra, “It’s not the horns, it’s the DNA sequences visible in those who typically make . . . such rash decisions.”

  “He’ll be fine.” Alexandra couldn’t care less if Mannus lived or died at this point. As long as they left right after his injection, he’d steer her back to the city and he would either make it back onto shore or he wouldn’t. If he lived, then she’d share his story as an example for the Pilgrims of the Maze to see the potential in the Evolution, and if he died, then she would have to regulate the Cure accordingly.

  Short insisted. “I will not be responsible for what will happen. If you want to end your life as you know it, fine.” The woman readied a syringe and handed it to Mannus.

  “Yes. I want a greater life!” Mannus shouted and spit flew from his chapped lips. Being on the precipice of mental power had already changed relatively mild-mannered Mannus into something Alexandra did not quite recognize.

  The short woman had an incredible amount of patience. “Whatever happens is the result of your own hand. Good or bad. We don’t have enough studies of how your specific DNA will change, and we should really first take your blood and then. . . . Evolution needs to happen in steps, in slow methodical steps. Creatures on Earth who’ve evolved have done so slowly, over time, like the environment, and this need not be any different if you want it to be successful. Because this,” she motioned to the lab’s contents, “this has infinite possibilities based on blood type and genetics for each person, and we simply don’t know its full effect until we have a catalog of every possibility and those possibilities are as infinite as the human race.”

  Alexandra shifted the weight of the gun in her hands. Infinite possibilities was not something to be afraid of, it was something those of the future could embrace. “If thirty years of studies isn’t enough, then what will be? It is time. The Evolution is ready.” She motioned with the gun for Mannus to go ahead, to become a part of her evolution.

  Mannus uncapped the syringe and hesitated for only a moment before injecting himself in the crook of his elbow, even as he stood in the middle of all that broken glass and spilled chemicals.

  Alexandra watched for any change in his face. His jaw muscles tightened and his shoulders twitched. The other women seemed to hold their breath collectively as they observed and waited. His face relaxed, his jaw softened, and Alexa imagined his body cooling from the Cure. She remembered the sensation of her own Cure way back when, the way her body had felt cold and just a bit tingly before a warming band of fireworks traveled through her veins, tickling her from the inside out. Cleansing her.

  And as if Mannus could hear what she was thinking, he turned to smile at her, his right cheek still red from where Alexandra had slapped him. His bottom, middle tooth was missing, but he certainly didn’t seem to care.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  War Path

  The Remnant Nation held only one secret: the identity of the Great Master in the Golden Room of Grief. The Great Master who gave commands, rewards, updates, and promises. The Great Master whom no one had ever seen—until today. All of it a practice in pretension.

  Mikhail walked along the crimson-red wall of the empty Golden Room of Grief with his hood cloaked over his face, as he always did, but he planned to reveal his full self to them today. Well, maybe not the little part about him being with a member the Godhead that they were trained to kill, but he did want the Grief Bearers to see the fire in his eyes when he spoke of the war. The flames within Mikhail needed to spread to their souls and filter down to the hearts of the soldiers. Flames of anger and justice.

  His fingers shook as he hovered them over the alarm that alerted the Grief Bearers of his arrival. Pain radiated from his right kidney and he wiped the sweat from his forehead. The human body was capable of regenerating and repairing almost any cell, but the human body was also capable of eating itself alive from the inside out. A wonderful fact.

  Mikhail never knew which path his body might take.

  One of obedience. Or one of betrayal.

  He depended on his body to regenerate healthy cells, but he’d learned after breaking his ankle in the Glade years ago that the body stored trauma in different ways. Nicholas forced Mikhail to spend to six weeks on his couch for constant observation as he explained that sometimes trauma was processed as expected: the body healed. But at other times, the impact of one trauma caused an explosion of multiple side effects.

  The body and the mind are interlinked, Dear Mikhail.

  Nicholas insisted on testing Mikhail’s memory and levels of anger each and every day, worried the broken bone might trigger his mental state back into the comfort zone of a Crank. Mikhail hated the tests. He hated the time it took to heal. He loathed it all.

  Mikhail breathed deep for three seconds, held his breath for three seconds, exhaled for three seconds, then hit the alarm. He tried to relax as he moved to the exact center of the room, holding his body in as normal a posture as possible, but the stab wound in his right side weakened him. His legs buckled and his breath labored. Even so, he felt better than he should have. Shock. Like the broken ankle on which he’d walked three miles to reach Nicholas, he remembered that shock could last for hours or days before the true impact of an injury presented itself.

  But enough time had passed since the boy stabbed him that Mikhail was sure the kid had missed his main organ. Probably why the little bugger was in Hell. Weak strength and poor execution. The Remnant Nation had no room for such weakness. The men Mikhail awaited to join him were twelve bearers of knowledge but they were even weaker than the boy who’d stabbed him. He needed the armies of the Nation to be strong while keeping these most senior leaders of the Nation weak. It was the secret to any successful government: Power was one thing, strength another. As he waited for the Grief Bearers, he closed his eyes under the shadow of his hood.

  Mikhail entered the place in his mind where anything was possible and all was revealed.

  The Infinite Glade.

  And he exhaled.

  He conjured in his mind a single, simplicable, proposal: to give the present and the future one last chance to change its course before he revealed himself. Before he started the war. What was about to be done could not be undone.

  Ever.

  He asked the Infinite Glade, Is it time to execute the war? And in a flash the word YES, in all white, glowed within the blackness of his mind. Still, knowing this was what he’d prepared for, Mikhail felt conflicted. A similar feeling had come over him when the boy cut the wild pig loose and he watched it run and squeal into the far distance. This confliction between anger and relief mesmerized him, because it meant he was—at least for today—more human than Crank.

  A shuffle of footsteps. He opened his eyes and the colors of the Golden Room of Grief flooded his vision. A room with red walls and golden accents that almost blinded. He’d created this war room, with the red a shade somewhere between the color of bright bloodshed and that of darkened, dried blood that stained weapons. The gold accents were crafted from pyrite found alongside deposits of gold. And along with the pyrite there was sure to be arsenic, because as great as gold was, it was always mined alongside clusters of poison. A lesson he’d never forget, no matter how muddled his mind:

  Anything of value was equally toxic.

  Mikhail straightened his legs and steadied his breath as the footsteps drew nearer.

  “The Great Master!” one of the Bearers of Grief exclaimed upon entering.

  “Oh highest of high!” Another Grief Bearer bowed. Mikhail quickly counted six of them, but that wasn’t enough. Not to ignite the flames of war.

  “Where are the rest?” He spoke low and slow from the shadows of his cloak, careful not to let on to his pain.

  “Griever Glane and Griever Barrus are missing. Along with a Priestess.” One of the Grief Bearers stepped forward. It had been decades and Mikhail still failed to learn their individual names. He didn’t care who Glane or Barrus were, he just needed the numbers.

  “And what about the Orphans from the cliffs? You haven’t promoted anyone in their absence?” It had been his plan for years to promote stronger Grief Bearers by the time they went to war. He had systems and plans, and the faces of those before him were ones lacking competence. His anger raced through his wound and pounded at his back.

  One of them continued. “Griever Haskin and Griever Clarence have sped up the pilgrimages for the Orphan soldiers, even starting the rituals at sixteen for some of the stronger ones.”

  “Then why are there only six of you right now?” He emphasized the word now as if it were a command and not a question, but he was met with only silence. He’d once again overestimated the Bearers to be more than what they were. Just like he’d underestimated Alexandra. And now he was in the middle of this mess of Evolution without a solid Nation to stand before him. “Say something!” he demanded.

  “They . . . they . . .”

  A skinny Bearer stepped forward. “The Orphans have not been . . . coming back.”

  Mikhail breathed his routine. The cloaked men in front of him were merely tools. Nothing more. The entirety of the Remnant Nation, a box of tools that he would finally use today. Tools that could break and be thrown away after the war.

  The men before him did not deserve the sacrificial ritual of war. They didn’t deserve the feast of a pig. And they didn’t deserve to see Mikhail’s face. He fixed the hood of his cloak tighter. “You have more problems in the Nation than I have time for. Missing Grief Bearers, holes in the tunnels of Hell, allowing Orphans to flee. Never mind the missing. This war has begun.” He paused as each Grief Bearer lowered to their knees. At least he still had their will to bend to his own. “Gather the Orphan Army and the Crank Army at once.” The Bearers looked at each other with great hesitation. “What is it?”

  “The Army of Cranks oh, Great Master . . .”

  “What about them?” He slowed his speech to increase his patience, another trick taught him by Nicholas. He may as well have been talking to Cranks.

  “They are . . . not well.”

  It had been months since Mikhail visited the Crank Army. Was his memory already failing him? He thought of Nicholas’ tests for memory loss after trauma. The pain from his back amplified with his anger. “Take me there, now.”

  Within walking distance of the Golden Room of Grief was an unassuming plot of land, stretched within the walls of their fortress. On the surface, it was empty and sparse, but ten feet below, a bunker held over a thousand Cranks. Within the underground was a complex tunnel system, filled with safe rooms and areas for supplies. Mikhail let the six Grief Bearers walk before him so they wouldn’t see the tear in his cloak. They walked like cowards, their backs stiff with fear.

  “You’re sure we all need to go down there?” the skinny one turned to ask.

  Mikhail simply nodded and motioned to the moss-covered hatch. One by one, the six men lowered themselves into the bunker’s entrance, as if they were lowering themselves to certain death. The Grief Bearers of the Remnant Nation were no better than the starving Orphans in Hell, but the cloaks made them think otherwise. Cloaks of power. None of the Bearers actually held any power, no, Mikhail made sure of that. They only knew as little or as much as he deemed to share during his masked visits to the Golden Room.

  He climbed down the hatch, into the tunnel, walked to the lift.

  “Sir. The Crank Army is very hungry.” The skinny Grief Bearer followed too closely.

  Mikhail’s loss of blood made him dizzy. “Hunger for war is a good thing.” He shouldn’t have needed to tell the Grief Bearers that.

  “No. They are not, how do I put this . . .” The Bearer stepped forward, ahead of the entrance to the bunker’s shaft. “. . . Satisfied.”

  “Then feed them more.” Mikhail moved past him and into the small elevator but one of the men stopped him from pushing the lever to descend.

  “I saw one eat their own arm yesterday, Sir.” The Grief Bearer let go of Mikhail’s cloaked arm.

  Mikhail didn’t believe it. Self-cannibalism. Autosarcophagy? Cranks were cannibalistic, but they weren’t going to eat themselves for Flares-sake. No animal would. He lowered the lever of the lift once all six Grief Bearers were inside; the elevator clanked and grinded down, gears shifting and turning until they arrived at the bunker level. The others collectively took a deep breath as the gated door of the lift opened. The wound caused a clammy heat to coat Mikhail’s body and he welcomed the cooler air from the mine shaft. The smell, however, he could have done without. It smelled of stomach acid and bile. Had the Grief Bearers not been keeping up with maintenance of the Army?

  “They’re chained in groups of eight?” Mikhail asked. Eight was a sacred number. Part of the digits Alexandra recited. She clung to those numbers for her sanity, and soon he would deliver her an army of eights.

  “Yes, sir.” A Grief Bearer who’d brought a notepad and pen cleared his throat. “For the most part.” He clicked the pen nervously. Click clack. Click clack. Click clack. The sound of it made Mikhail’s eye twitch.

  “What the hell does that mean? They’re either shackled together, ready to fight, or they’re not.” He stepped out of the lift, onto the bunker floor, suddenly assaulted by the sounds of chains, dragging. Metal on concrete. CLANK CLANK CLAAAANK. . . . Noises that somehow seemed both loud and quiet at the same time. Harsh and angry sounds, coming from back hallways out of view.

  “Soldiers report!” a Grief Bearer shouted, but only the dragging and clanking answered him. “Soldiers report!” Still no answer. Mikhail had never come down to the bunker without one Orphan soldier being at the lift and another one standing guard in the hallway. Every entrance point to a path within view should have had a soldier standing near it.

  “Something’s not right.” The skinniest of the Grief Bearers positioned himself at the back of the elevator, ready to return to the surface. Not a chance, Mikhail needed to know what was going on with these Cranks. Maybe the Orphans were already moving them to the Bergs.

  He started to walk toward the loudest of the sounds, coming from a hallway off to the right, and realized he was walking alone. He turned to the Grief Bearers behind him. “If you’re going to be cowards, I’ll feed you to the army as a sacrificial war feast. How’s that sound?” Mikhail hid his own pain and doubt. Slowly, five Grief Bearers stepped forward. The skinniest, the weakest one, pulled the lever to go back up. The gears clanked as the mechanical sounds lifted him away.

  Some people might call that dastardly.

  “Griever Banks!” one of the men shouted at the elevator shaft.

  “Long live the Cure!” The skinny, scared, Grief Bearer said as he rose from view.

  Mikhail seethed. The Cure would live, yes, but the Bearer who turned his back on the Remnant Nation would not. One way or another that idiotic coward would die a painful death, reserved for those who betrayed the Nation.

  Mikhail grimaced with pain as he walked from the main lobby of the bunker to the hallway. “Get both armies together. Make note of the coordinates,” he said to the incessant pen-clicker. “56.8125 degrees North and 132.9574 degrees West.”

  “Wait, say it again?” The man scrambled to keep up.

  Mikhail took a slow, deep breath. “56.8125 degrees North and 132.9574 degrees West.” He walked toward the sounds of dragging metal. “Pack the Bergs full of Cranks. You’ll land on the exact coordinates and send them to march in on foot from the south. The Orphan Army and the air strikes will happen from the north, and the two will meet in the middle to destroy the city of Gods once and for all.” The Grief Bearers looked to each other with something that could only be described as dark excitement, all wide eyes and suppressed grins. “Do you have any questions?” The clanking noises got louder. There had to be at least one group of Cranks loose from the pits.

  “We have the coordinates. We have the orders. We just need to know the target day for the attack.”

  “Sunday.” He hid his own smile. “The holiest of days. The Goddess will address her people in the square after Mass. When you see a woman more beautiful than Alaska herself, that is the Goddess.” He never wanted Alexandra hurt, just destroyed, and there were several ways to destroy a person without physical harm. But the way she’d boasted on and on of taking Nicholas’ head, he couldn’t afford a second thought. “Kill her however you see fit.”

  “Long live the Cure,” the Grief Bearers said in unison.

  Mikhail turned a corner in the hallway and saw an unnatural sight: a group of Cranks shackled together in a line of eight, working themselves out of chains . . .