The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds (47 page)

Sakina is screaming over the wind and gunfire and
explosions. I think I hear Rios yell “Get down” or something like
it, and I decide to fall down, fold, curl up, let the cold metal
deck catch me. It’s slick with my own blood. I think I see a
grenade round fly over me at Bly, but he just swats it away, and I
feel it blow up somewhere over the side of the ship.

I hurl up more blood. My insides are all liquid and
razors. I can’t inhale…

“NO!”

The protest is deafening, echoing, screamed out of
the loudest PA imaginable. I think I recognize the voice, but that
only makes me think I’m hallucinating, done. I look for the
mythical light even though I fully doubt such things. And I see
it.

It’s coming from behind Chang. Flying at him, like a
huge flare.

“Close your eyes,” I hear that voice in my head,
familiar but not, soothing but insistent. I don’t want to close my
eyes, I don’t want to miss this, but I do it. And I think I see
Sakina doing the same—covering, like she got the same order—and
then even with my eyes shut tight the whole world goes bright as
the sun.

I can barely see when I open them, all retinal spots
and shock taking me too fast. But someone is kicking the hell out
of Bly. All white and gold. A jeweled multi-tailed flail in one
hand almost smashes his helmet off, staggering him. A sickle-blade
short sword in the other hooks Bly’s weapon out of his hands. Then
another burst of light between them sends Bly flying back over the
side of the ship.

My vision is mostly gone. I can’t move—I don’t have
the strength. I’m choking on my own blood, drowning, but it doesn’t
matter because I can’t get a breath in through the pain anyway.
Everything is going numb.

But I can see the white and gold figure coming to me,
grabbing hold of me, and I think I can feel it lifting me.

“Don’t you die on me,” I think it says. “Don’t you
dare.”

Its face is a gleaming golden hawk. There’s light all
round its head.

And then we’re flying. Or running or jumping. I’m not
sure.

I barely see us go over the edge of the ship in a
blur, feel us falling. But then we land on something, something
catches us, something that flies and you can ride on it like a
small boat and I’m folded up like baggage on the small deck,
coughing my insides loose. And something lands on us.

Red. Fluttering. Metal.

I hear violence. There’s a fight happening on top of
me.

Sakina. It’s Sakina. I can smell her.

She’s all over Hawk-Face, pounding and stabbing, and
I try to tell her no it’s okay but I can’t speak and Hawk-Face
grabs her, restrains her, talks to her like she’s a child having a
tantrum.

“Stop it. Stop it this instant. If you insist on
coming, you will behave yourself. You can’t hurt me, but I’d
appreciate it if you’d stop hitting me. You can come if you stop
hitting me.”

No. Go back to the fight. They need you. I’m okay.
I’ll be okay.

But I can’t say any of that, and Sakina stops
fighting. I feel her embracing me, covering me with her armored
body. Her hands press into my gut, try to stop the bleeding.

Wind is whipping over us. We’re going fast.

I look back, try to focus. The battle is getting
farther away, but it’s still happening. I need to go back. I can’t
leave…

I think I see shapes come up from the ground to the
big ship. That would be the New Knights and Rios’ troopers,
rappelling up, trying to take the ship.

What happened to Rios?

Spots take my vision as I hack up more blood. But not
so much now, like I’m running out…

“Don’t you dare die on me…”

I don’t think I ha…

“…stable for now, but he won’t last much longer, not
like this…”

How am I supposed to go into the light if it keeps
walking around?

Pacing. Like it’s upset with me.

“He’s awake…”

Sakina. I can’t really see her, just a shadow, but I
feel her hands on my face. I know her hands.

The light comes toward me.

I see stone all around. I think we’re in a cave. It’s
cold, but it’s lit up white-bright like the sun is in here with us.
I think I’m laying on rocks, my head on a rock. It doesn’t feel
bad. It’s nice.

Until I try to breathe and I feel like I have a pole
through my gut. And I taste a lot of blood—my mouth is gummed with
it. But I can breathe. Ragged. Shallow. Hurts.

The light stands over me, kneels over me. I don’t
want to go.

“You need to listen to me.”

It’s Hawk-Face. Ra. In the light. Making the light.
Being the light. But I know the voice. I can’t place the voice. I
know the voice.

“That sword made a hell of a mess. I stopped the
bleeding, but I’m sure I destroyed what little was left of your
liver in the process. And you’ve got a bad case of peritonitis from
having your large intestine split open. And you’ve lost way too
much blood.”

I try to move, touch my gut—my jacket is open, my
shirts torn away. There’s something sticking in me, something warm.
It hurts to move, to breathe, to swallow.

“Nothing you’ve got on this planet will fix you.
There isn’t much time.”

I understand that. And I would accept it if there
wasn’t a fight going on right now. I need to know what’s happening.
I need to be there. Not here.

“I… I need to get back… I…”

“No…” Sakina tries to soothe, caressing my brow.
She’s taken her mask off. How is she breathing? I realize I don’t
have my mask either. How am I breathing? Is the cave sealed? Where
are we?

“You’re not going anywhere like this,” Hawk Face is
more urgent (probably because I’m dying).

I keep trying to say I need to go, go back, but all I
can do is cough. And almost pass out again from the lightning-bolt
searing pain where my liver should be. (Whatever’s in me feels like
it goes as the way through.)

At least I’m not vomiting blood anymore.

“No talking. You just need to answer one question.
Otherwise, shut up.”

The light fades, letting me see: the outfit is
definitely Egyptian, though a lot more Vegas than authentic:
Layered gold plate armor over a pure white body suit, ornate
Egyptian collar, helmet shaped like a stylized hawk’s head—engraved
feathers and all—with a “sun disk” on top. Even toned down, light
is blazing out of the eyes, the mouth, the disk—I can’t look
straight at it.

“Chang was telling you the truth,” the light tells
me. And the voice is starting to sound female, more female, like
the helmet is distorting it (or was distorting it). More familiar
now, but I still can’t place it. “The technology that started here
changed us. First they targeted disease. Then aging. Then they
started modifying us. Military first. That’s how you and I got
jumped in. And your old girlfriend—you talked her into it. Then it
went to the rich, those that could afford it. Soon enough there was
product for anyone who wanted it.”

“Matthew…?” I need to know.

“No. He opted out. Didn’t want the whole immortality
thing. It caused a schism between you. He came to Mars instead of
you. Actually married the Eco leader after he made peace with them.
Died at ninety-something, still cantankerous as ever, but happy.
You missed his funeral. Now shut up.

“We made ourselves stronger, faster, smarter,
prettier; wired in to our world, all the gadgets on board. And
invincible. We could heal from anything, even being blown to bits,
incinerated—as long as something viable was left. And that made us
stupid. Thoughtless. Bored. We stopped caring what we did, what
happened to our world. Most of us just wanted to be amused. It was
all too much, too fast. We weren’t ready. We didn’t deserve it. We
thought we were gods. We became monsters.

“A few of us—too few—tried to do something about it,
get us a moral compass. Chang was a radical. He wanted to
take
it all away from us, no choice, and didn’t care about
the risk—millions, maybe billions, would have died without their
mods. That’s why he looks like he does: his first attempt at a
weapon to strip us of all of our modifications went wrong, almost
killed him for real, and he wound up like that somehow. And then he
got his hands on something new: technology to observe the past
using the properties of certain kinds of sub-atomic particles. He
figured out how to change the past by ‘seeding’ what he needed
backwards in time on a nano-scale. It was crazy. It
should
have been impossible to change the past. But he did it. And here we
are.”

I start to ask the obvious question, but he (she?)
shushes me, anticipates:

“We were on the verge of creating something,
something new, something better. There was a project… You were
skeptical, just like I was, until you met Him. And He knew what
Chang was planning. He couldn’t stop Chang—He wasn’t able to, not
yet—but He was able to splice into what Chang was sending back, add
to it. Send something—some of us—to stop Chang. It had to be done
all at once, one shot, to avoid the paradox. But just like Chang’s
seeds didn’t grow as expected, neither did ours. We were too late.
Most of us haven’t even seeded yet—our seeds couldn’t access the
raw materials. So he’s done his damage, gotten ahead of us… I have
no idea what happened to our world, our time…”

I’m coughing again. Now the thing in my gut feels
like a thousand barbs, a cactus of knives growing inside me. The
cave spins. And even with all the light, I can barely see her. It’s
getting really cold, like I’m in icewater.

“This is yours,” the light says, and she holds
something where she hopes I can see it. It starts flat, folds open
in both directions, grows… horns?

I remember this—she showed me this before—after
Matthew died.

“I know. It’s ugly as hell. But you need to put it
on.”

Ram’s skull. It’s funny. Tacky. Sick. Dumb joke.

The horns… look like they’re moving…

“You need to be what you were. If you want to stop
this, stop Chang, save your friends, put any of this right,
you
need to be what you were
. The seed of what you were is here. So
far it’s only managed to rebuild this stupid ugly helmet. But if it
can splice into you… It’s already matched to your DNA. It will work
just like your original modifications. Heal you. Remake you. You’ll
get everything back, everything you were in my time…”

I feel Sakina’s hands leave my face, feel her get
up.

“Be good, little girl,” the light warns her. “I’m
trying to save him. I’m one of the ‘good’ guys. And I’m an old
friend—I’ve known him a hell of a lot longer than you have.”

I try to ask, can’t, but she anticipates. Takes off
her helmet. The light fades, but I can see… Blonde hair, blue eyes,
that smile I knew so well…

Star?

“Yes. It’s me. Glad to know some things are still
intact in this timeline. Sorry about the silly outfit. I’m kind of
undercover—long story. Just don’t tell Chang who I am.”

Star. Astarte. Astaroth. Assassin. Trained by a
covert prototype of the program that trained me. Worked against me
protecting a conspiracy manipulating terror attacks, but turned
when she realized what she was a part of. Unfortunately, some of
the things she’d done were unforgivable. I helped hide her, made
her an asset. And then much more than that.

She looks no different. Younger. I haven’t seen her
in so long… I try to reach out, touch her, but I’m too weak, can’t
move.

“Stay with me, my love,” she says gently but
urgently. “You need to say ‘yes.’ You need to let me put this
helmet on you. It’s better if you say ‘yes.’”

I realize I’m shaking my head. I don’t know why I’m
shaking my head.

“You’ll still be you,” she tries reassuring. “You
might have some different memories—the regeneration tech rebuilds
damaged brains, personalities, memories, but it doesn’t erase
existing memory—it’s a safety if there’s head trauma between
updates. You’ll be you
and
the other you. And you’ll be able
to fight, to stop this. Please. You aren’t supposed to die. Don’t
make me find another body and try to write you over it—that you
doesn’t know this world, these people, doesn’t have friends here,
and won’t be
this
you. This you will be dead. And I don’t
want to lose you, not in any version…”

Spinning away. Thinking about Lisa. Sakina. Paul.
Earth.

Earth. What will Earth do if I…

What…

Where did the light go? I…

…I…

“…losing him. I need to do this right now…”

Ram’s skull. Coming at me. Dreaming. But I feel
it…

“…be mad at me later…”

Dark. It’s…

…covering me… stabbing… stabbing into me…

Dark.

Light.

Light…

22 January 2117.
From the Personal Log of Colonel Lisa Ava, Acting Commander of
UNMAC Ground Forces:

We held the ceremonies at sunrise.

Jill Metzger. Toni Weiss. Paul Li. Ninety-eight
others—our people, Nomads, Knights, even Shinkyo—who died while I
wasn’t here, while I was following Colonel Ram’s last order:
maintaining a command post out of the line of fire, keeping an
uplink to Earthside, waiting for the worst to be over (or to be
ready to take over, if the worst happened).

And that was the last thing he did: kept me safe, if
I wanted to be or not.

I don’t have the heart to change his status, not yet.
Colonel Mike Ram is still just MIA (and it’s not the first time).
But Juan Rios, still recovering from the leg wound he got leading
the boarding assault on Chang’s flagship, saw him gravely injured
(run through with a goddamn sword, wielded by a superhuman
monstrosity). Juan said the pool of blood left on the deck alone
leaves little doubt (unless whatever that was that carried him off
had means and desire to perform some major surgery).