The cold blue stone waited, but inside, molten-white shapes lurked. The tiny sun gates of Apsel reactors powered autoturrets. Mason darted out, snaring the backpack, and returning to huddle beside the wall. He opened the knapsack, poking fingers through burnt holes. Inside the bag were desiccated remains, hemp rope nestling alongside husks of leaves wrapping what was no doubt someone’s lunch.

  He pulled out the rope, tossing it around the corner.

  An autoturret whined, the roar of plasma filling the corridor. Blue-white light raged, Mason’s optics stuttering as they suppressed the glare. Five seconds later, silence fell again. He peeked out. The rope had been reduced to stray floating carbon. At the end of the corridor, a turret snuck back into a wall sconce, stone rising to cover it.

  Someone put an autoturret with an Apsel reactor on an alien world thousands of light years from where you bought your last cappuccino.

  Mason didn’t think the pyramid housed High Master Zenon Chine. Mason thought the pyramid held wonders of Heaven, and the assholes here were using him to break in and steal it.

  Mason didn’t know how long he leaned against the wall. Long enough for his back to grow stiff, reminding him he was a long way from a clinic. Longer still for the sun to walk from the sky, the distant mouth of the pyramid growing dark.

  Definitely long enough for Laia to grow worried. He saw her torchlight bobbing at the mouth of the pyramid. Mason stood. “You were supposed to wait!”

  “You were supposed to be faster!” Laia strode toward him, torch waving in her haste. She reached him, the firelight finding a home in her eyes. “I thought you’d died. And more than a thousand insects have sucked my blood.”

  You selfish asshole. You’ve been down here thinking about the Federate and getting your dry cleaning done, you forgot about the person really relying on you. Mason looked down. “I’m sorry. It’s just…” He glanced at the bend in the corridor.

  She followed his eyes. “You found something?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.” He put a hand on her arm as she made to walk around the bend. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Her eyes held confusion. “What is it?”

  “Heaven set up a bus stop here. There’s Federate tech inside the pyramid.”

  Laia’s eyes went from confusion to surprise like the sun dawning at speed. “Another gate?”

  Mason shrugged. “Hard to know. I figure the Masters have been pitching a tent to break in here for a while. ‘Zenon Chine’ is story bait to draw us here. They can’t get past the defenses. There’s a body around the corner.”

  “Just one?”

  He frowned. “Does seem odd, you’re right. Maybe the autoturret is faulty. It’s been here a while.”

  “Can you turn it off?”

  “I haven’t tried,” admitted Mason. “There’s a link network here, but…” He faded to silence.

  “But you’re afraid.”

  Mason didn’t rankle. He and Laia had no secrets. Not anymore. “Yeah.”

  She searched his face. “But not for yourself.”

  “No.” Mason sighed. “I mean, yes, if there’s link countermeasures here, I don’t want to die, my last days spent in a diaper, unable to do anything but drool. But I’m more scared of leaving you.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me.” She hugged herself. “I don’t wear the collar anymore.”

  “I don’t think we get to choose whether we worry about our friends.” Friends didn’t seem like the right word, but he left it there anyway.

  Laia shivered. “It’s cold in here.” She meant, I don’t want you to go.

  “I know. It’s always cold at night on Abinal.” Mason meant, I don’t want to go either. He sighed, keyed the link, and connected to the network. Static hissed, the link handshaking. Mason held the Tenko-Senshin, no memory of drawing it. His overlay rolled, errors cascading, and an ancient empire welcomed him in.

  APSEL INCORPORATED NETWORK.

  TOKEN ACCEPTED.

  EMPLOYEE ID NOT FOUND. CREATING SHADOW TEMPLATE.

  PROFILE UPDATED: ACQUISITIONS TEAM.

  LOCATION OF TEAM MEMBERS…

  [DECEASED]

  [DECEASED]

  [DECEASED]

  [DECEASED]

  …

  [DECEASED]

  MISSION COMMANDER: DECEASED.

  DATA VAULT: INTACT.

  SYSTEM DEFENSES: LIVE.

  WELCOME, AGENT FLOYD.

  “Uh,” offered Mason.

  “You’re … in?” Laia whispered.

  “Yes.” Mason ran a hand through his hair. Having his link connection online was like having an arm you’d lost bolted back on. The net here was primitive. Slow. His own fabric cascaded errors, calling out API CONNECTIVE TISSUE NOT FOUND and PROGRAM ERROR, which wasn’t surprising. The tech here must be hundreds of years old. Mason told the link to deactivate the turret, then stepped around the corner. The turret stayed hidden. “C’mon.”

  Laia joined him, torch casting crazed shadows on the walls. “No traps?”

  “Not the ones I expected. This is a Federate facility.” He frowned. “No. It’s pre-Federate. It’s from when Apsel was a company, not a syndicate. Older than dirt.” After they passed the turret, Mason turned the defenses back on. Wouldn’t do to have Seekers in your grill.

  “Dirt is very old.”

  “What’s even weirder is it accepted my Federate tokens. Feels like they planned this as an isolated outpost.”

  They rounded another corner, coming to a halt. The corridor opened onto a room filled with bodies. All wore armor, the style unfamiliar to Mason, but manufactured from composite materials. Black and dull, hard ceramics, Kevlar and Mylar holding bodies together that only wanted to slumber to dust.

  Four robots stood in somnolence. They looked built for war, turrets mounted on stocky bodies armored with gray metal. They had treads, capable of clawing over any terrain.

  “What happened here?” Laia’s voice was a whisper.

  Mason stepped through the fallen. “If I had to guess, I’d say these guys killed each other.”

  “The Masters?”

  “Seems likely.” Mason reached one robot, crouching beside it. He ran a hand over the armor. Cold and old, but still ready. “My guess is these bad boys were the last line of defense.”

  “There are boys inside those boxes?”

  He shook his head, standing. “Figure of speech.”

  “Machines.” Her eyes were closed like she did when Laia used her gift. “I see. Inside, hearts of fire. They are a long way from home.”

  “Aren’t we all.” Mason patted the robot. He rummaged through the troops on the floor, coming up with a rifle. More searching gave him magazines of old kinetic ammunition. “It’s like shopping at the mall.”

  “You are desecrating the dead.”

  “They really don’t need this stuff anymore.” Mason walked on. His link was still live, waiting for his command. He wondered who had enlivened the robots. Mason asked the link for cam footage but got nothing. Either the network was too old, or the system didn’t understand him. “We should push on.”

  “You seem happier among the dead.” Laia ghosted at his elbow.

  “I’m happier because there’s probably a gate here.” He offered her a smile. “We could go home.”

  “This is my home.” She looked away.

  Mason hauled himself to a stop. “You’re taking the moody-teen thing a long way.”

  Laia laughed. “I’m sorry. I miss my brother.”

  “I miss clothes that fit. C’mon, kid. Let’s see what’s at the heart of the pyramid.”

  They passed many turrets. Lots of bodies, too. They were pre-Federate Apsel people. Not all were soldiers; many wore civilian clothing. They came to a glass room. Inside four bodies lay as if sleeping. Two men, two women, clinic beauty evident even in death. No decay. The bodies looked almost fresh, if a little pale. They wore the signature white coats of science geeks everywhere. Mason’s audio picked up a hum, the machines inside still running.

  Mason, I’m waking up.

  Not now, Carter.

  Laia put her hand to the glass. “What is wrong with them?”

  “They’re dead.” Mason shrugged. “The room is sealed. I guess they didn’t want to come out and get shot or mind-controlled.”

  “They don’t look like everyone else.”

  “It’s a clean room. Nothing in or out.” Her blank look said she didn’t understand. Neither did Mason. “I wish Carter were here.”

  Laia nodded. “Without her, you are an angel without wings.”

  “You need to work on your Christmas cheer.” Mason looked at the people through the glass. Their faces were serene, but if he opened the door decay would claim them. “This wasn’t just a little experiment. Apsel shipped hundreds of people here.”

  “They sent them to die.”

  “I don’t think they meant to. No percentage in it.” The words tasted bitter on his lips. “They built the pyramid. Sent in a team to secure the area. Research wonks for the science. Then when everything hit the fan—”

  “The shit. When the shit hit the fan.” Laia practiced swearing for when — or if — they might get back to Earth.

  “When the shit hit the fan, they bugged out.”

  “They left them to die?”

  “Might have thought they were already dead.” Mason turned away from the glass. “They could have found something they couldn’t control here.”

  “The Masters.” She walked away from the glass.

  Mason followed. “The very motherfuckers I was thinking of too.” His boots tapped the concrete floor, echoes running into the distance as they reached an elevator. It was big, wide doors designed for industrial loads. Mason eyed it, then put a hand on the stairwell door. No way he was risking a God-knows-how-old elevator.

  Find me, Mason. Find me, before it’s too late.

  I’m trying, Carter. I miss you.

  They went down. Apsel always put its monsters in the basement.

  Stairs hewn out of rock elbowed their way into the earth. Five flights down, a door let them into a massive open area. An Apsel reactor idled in the distance. The design of the cowling was unfamiliar to Mason, but he couldn’t mistake the yellow radiation trefoil on the side. In the middle of the floor, the ruins of a gate waited.

  It was smashed to pieces, torn asunder. A total conversion rusted beside it. Skeletal remains in a woman’s business suit that reeked of cash sprawled on a control console.

  “Well, fuck,” said Mason.

  Laia looked at the gate wreckage. “Something’s coming.”

  “Not through that.” The gate was a ruin.

  “No.” She pointed at the ceiling, the sky above, the stars, and the vast expanse of the universe. “Something big is coming. Can you feel it?”

  She knows, Mason. She can sense it. Can you?

  Mason breathed stale air from a dead company. His pulse quickened as the hair on the back of his neck stood to attention. “I can feel … something.”

  Laia poked through the wreckage, casting him a quick glance, eyes hooded under the torch. “You’re just saying that.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then what do you feel?”

  Mason thought about that for a long time while Laia rooted through rubble. He looked at the fallen total conversion and the dead woman who’d killed a gate to stop Masters flowing into her home. Two people who’d destroyed their only way back to save the ones they loved, even when it cost them everything. Bonuses. Promotions. Their lives. He touched his lips, surprised at the smile there. “I feel hope.”

  So do I, Mason. So do I.

  Chapter Five

  Afterlife was a haven even without customers to play for. Sadie had enough cash thanks to Carter to buy an empire. More than enough to wait out whatever the latest company shitstorm was brewing right outside her doors. Rioting increased in the streets, surging against the walls like breaking waves. Inside the old concrete of her bar, it sounded like somebody else’s problem.

  That’s company thinking.

  Sadie leaned back on her chair, putting her boots on the table. Legs crossed, she gave Bonafont an even stare, no emotion in it. “How we doing, Heimo?”

  “I keep telling you, it’s a machine. Not a person.” Heimo sagged in the seat opposite, all his fight gone.

  Sadie eyed him over her cigarette. “Carter was a person.”

  “Sure. You can’t backup a soul.” He shrugged soft shoulders. “They asked me to make synthetic entertainment. Carter … it … was supposed to be for link sex.”

  Sadie wanted to spit in his face. Call him a piece of shit. Kick his balls through the roof of his mouth. She’d tried all of that before. Sadie drew courage from her cigarette, blowing her concerns to the lazy fans above. “I don’t think that makes you a better person.”

  He gave a half-laugh, a short ha hah sound, like a child’s toy possessed by the devil might make. “She’s … it’s not real.”

  “You know what I think, Heimo?” Sadie blew more smoke at the ceiling, flicking ash from her cigarette. “I think you tell yourself that, so you don’t have to feel worthless about building a made-to-order slave.”

  A shrug. “Maybe.”

  Sadie tried a smile. It felt brittle, too much tempering for it to hold an edge for long. “How’s progress?”

  “It’s done.” Heimo sagged further. “She’s back.”

  “What?”

  “She’s back. But she’s … not the same.” He turned sad, round eyes on Sadie. “It’s the architecture. I’ve tried, but… I guess it doesn’t matter. I can’t do any more.”

  Sadie watched him. The bar, empty of anyone else or their concerns, waited with her. “You think I’m going to shoot you in the head and throw your body in a dumpster.”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t. Most of all, because I can’t lift your sorry ass.” Heimo didn’t laugh. The man hadn’t been born with a sense of humor. Most company robots were the same in her experience. All laser focus and leaning in, and maybe a little reaching around, but not any genuine heart. “You should get some rest.”

  Heimo blinked. “What?”

  “Get some rest. Can I talk to her?”

  “Yes.” He pushed his bulk upright, waddling for the rear, shoulders drawing together like he expected a bullet in the back. Heimo left her to her thoughts, the back door slipping closed behind him.

  Sadie finished her cigarette, snared a bottle of whisky, and headed after him. Not for his room, but for the lab. She entered, the biometric locks relaxing for her. In the room, the old couch waited. No one else was here, just the machines.

  “Hello, Sadie Freeman.” The room spoke with Carter’s voice, but flatter, ironed like yesterday’s laundry.

  “Carter?”

  “I’m the Carter.”

  Sadie slouched on the couch, drawing straight from the bottle. The whisky warmed her. She lit another Treasurer. Sam bitched about smoking in the server room but smoked too, so whatever. “It’s just Carter.”

  “Yes, Sadie Freeman. What would you like to talk about?”

  “I’d like to talk about a gateway to another world. I’d like to know about Apsel’s fusion reactors, which are really gateways to the sun. Maybe we could talk about how one melted down in Amsterdam, erasing a city from the earth.” She sighed. “I’d like to talk about you.”

  “I’m the Carter.”

  “You’re Carter Freeman. Don’t you remember, sister?”

  “No.”

  Sadie rubbed water from her face. She didn’t know how it’d got there, because sure as fuck she wasn’t crying. “Goddamnit.”

  “Yes.”

  Sadie left the server room, bottle on the floor, smoke trailing in her wake, as the tears came for her. She couldn’t hold it back. Sadie hoped so much to bring a good woman back from the grave. It never worked for people, but if anyone deserved it, it was Carter. She’d given so much so they could be free.

  Carter was dead.

  Sadie nursed her fifth cigarette and sixth whisky, head leaned on her palm. Mike walked in the front door, looking like he’d wrestled a bear and liked it. He took a long look at her face. “Heimo being a cunt again?”

  “She’s dead.”

  He nodded, like she’d said it’s raining. It was Seattle. It was always raining. “Where’s the beer?”

  She spared him a sour look. “In the refrigerator of wonder. The one that stocks itself after you drink it dry.”

  “It’s the augments. They don’t let me get drunk the usual way.” Mike vaulted the bar, landing light as a gymnast. He retrieved a beer, joining her at the table. “So. What’s the plan?”

  “The plan—” Sadie broke off as the door opened again. A squall of rain hurried a hooded, cloaked figure inside.

  The newcomer slammed the door closed, pulling back a hood to reveal a clinic-perfect face, but eyes that had seen enough to make the gods cry. She looked at Sadie, then at Mike. “Hey, Mike.”

  “Hey, Delilah.”

  “It’s just Dee.”

  “You two know each other?” Sadie looked between them. Mike Takahashi, leaning on his chair like he wanted to own it but could only make rent. Dee, eyes like coals, the light glinting from what must have been top-shelf optics.

  Dee walked closer, steps careful, like the floor was mined. Sadie knew that pace. She knew the set of Dee’s shoulders, and understood why the woman bit her lower lip. “Yes.”

  Sadie looked to Mike. Go on. Admit what we already know. “Well?”

  “Of course we know each other.” Mike sighed. “She’s my wife.”

  “Ex-wife.” Dee nursed a glass close to her chest, like she was trying to hold her heart in place. The conversation had turned five times around and kept arriving at the same refrain.

  “Sure, fine.” Sadie waved her hand, trailing cigarette smoke. “Ex-wife. Mike’s been married. Mistakes happen.”