“I’m sorry about your friend,” Augustus said with no hint of sorrow in his voice. If anything, it was amusement that played on his words. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t personal.”
“You sick bastard,” Maria spat, finally able to find her voice. “Why all this? What did anyone here do to you?”
“Oh, nothing, but I didn’t want to take the risk they would, and besides, my force needed a little warming up before the real show. I was hoping to find you, though, so it’s quite fortuitous for us to meet so easily like this.”
“I want nothing to do with you! Kill me if you want, I don’t care anymore.”
Augustus crouched down until he was looking directly in her eyes.
“You really don’t, do you?” he said, pressing the pistol against her skull. “I could pull this trigger and turn your brains into superheated steam and you’d actually be relieved for it.” He shook his head. “It’s a terrible business this cloning. I told the croatoans at the time that it wasn’t right, but I guess my stock wasn’t high enough for me to be listened to. That’s about to change.”
To Maria’s surprise and disappointment, Augustus withdrew the pistol and replaced it back into his holster. He stood up and held his hand out to her.
“Why don’t you come with me? You never did fit in around here, did you? And Unity didn’t want you around either. I could do with some more female company. You’ll keep Zoe on her toes, that’s for sure.”
At first she thought about slapping his hand away and telling him to go to hell, but he did have a point: she didn’t fit in around here, or anywhere. Seeing her friend Jason just end like that… well, wasn’t that the point of his theory? One can’t really do anything. What will be will be.
Be reactive, she thought, hearing his words.
Maria grasped his hand and he helped her to her feet. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, Augustus gently wiped her face clean. “There, that’s much better. I can see your pretty face again.”
She could see his eyes narrow behind that awful mask of his. He was enjoying this, enjoying her.
With her heart rate coming down slightly, she composed herself and asked, “Why all this? What’s the plan?”
“Plan?” he said, clearly amused. “Isn’t that obvious? I’m going to rule the world—again.”
“But why? I mean, what’s the point?”
Augustus turned his back to her and started to walk to the edge of the building, toward the square, when he said, “Because I can. Come with me, or not, your choice.”
Because I can…
Could she?
Before Augustus disappeared around the corner, Maria decided.
“Wait,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”
Chapter 10
LAYLA STOOD up and tried to walk off her anxiety. She knew Charlie and Denver were probably as stressed and out of sorts as she, but they didn’t show it, so she tried not to either. They had to remain a strong group.
It seemed terribly important right then for everyone to keep their shit together in the face of the most bizarre of experiences.
The alternative was to lose it and let the craziness crawl to the forefront, bubbles in champagne racing to the surface. Only this wasn’t the kind of craziness that would be fun. No disinhibiting giddiness here: just sheer terror and mind-bending psychosis from which none of them would likely recover.
The Tredeyan sun filtered through the dust- and grime-covered windows of the temple. It seemed strange to her to be in a temple and not see the stained-glass facsimiles of Jesus or other religious scenes.
This particular temple didn’t put much stock into religious semiotics.
The windows were undecorated, made from a clear material that resembled glass but she couldn’t be sure. On their trek across, Layla noted a range of materials from soil to sand and other silica-based particulate. It wouldn’t be so strange to be on an alien planet and see familiar materials such as glass.
Through her knowledge of the croatoans, she knew other planets in the galaxy that harbored life weren’t so different in their makeup. And therefore the technological progress-trees were often similar.
Glass, steel, graphene, silicon, and even wood weren’t exclusive to Earth or human technological evolution.
“Are you okay?” Denver asked quietly over the intercom, although there was little need. Old habits are reluctant to leave when they find a home, she supposed.
Layla walked back to the group of bodies and sat with her legs crossed. “I’m… holding it together, for now,” she said, glad the suit Vingo had given her hid the tremble in her hands. The suit’s system seemed to realize that jittering wasn’t actual movement and the cushioned seal soaked up the vibrations.
“We will get home,” Denver said with not a scintilla of doubt in his words.
“That’s what I love about you,” she said, making the double meaning obvious. “Rightly or wrongly, you’re without doubt the most optimistic man I’ve ever met.”
“Thanks,” he said, breaking eye contact and looking out through the main entrance of the temple. A shaft of yellow-pink light stained the dark floor. In as long as it takes for lightning to strike, she thought she might have imagined all of this and was in fact back on Earth, such was the similarity of the light.
It reminded her of a time when she was with her parents in Italy. They were visiting Vatican City, sitting in one of the vestibules early one morning when the sunlight rose and spilled into the ancient building.
“I’m scared, Den,” Layla finally said, feeling like she had just let a fragment of insanity breach the surface and join the great atmosphere of mental anxiety that surrounded her like a thick fog.
“I know, but we’ll get through this.”
“I hope so. I can’t lose you, or Charlie.”
She cringed slightly at the naked veracity of her words.
Denver’s gloved hand touched hers. They locked eyes through visors.
“I know I’m not exactly Shakespeare when it comes to sharing my thoughts and feelings,” Denver said. “I have so many… emotions that I don’t really know how to express. All my life I just survived from day to day and I never had time to read or learn this stuff. But I do want you to know that though I may not find the words, I do have feelings, and I do feel that we have a future. I’ll fight for that, at least.”
“That’s as poetic as anything I’ve heard, so you’re not doing so bad.”
He was such a beautiful man, she thought, staring at his earnest, rugged face. He put the point on the arrow when he talked about survival. Even though Charlie had survived more life-threatening situations than a herd of cats, there was something in Denver that only amplified that drive.
Having never known what their world was like before the invasion meant that he knew nothing else other than clinging to life. He was pure, innocent, and ruthless in his desire to continue to exist regardless of the situation put before him.
She thought that if she were to throw her lot in with someone, there was no one better to do it with than Denver.
He was an evolutionist’s ideal creature. As close as it got to a sure bet.
“How are you doing for water?” Denver asked.
Layla checked her internal HUD and saw that the water level in her suit was at fifty percent. According to the small smattering of numbers, it appeared that would last her a Tredeyan day and a half. She told Denver.