Description: Chapter 1: Hiro CHAPTER 1 HIRO We at the AEGIS find the data sent by Lito sol Lucius from Ceres Satellite #19 to be authentic. Moving forward, we will turn our investigation toward those responsible for the execution and oversight of these horrific experiments. Rest assured that we will stop at nothing to hold Val Akira Labs accountable for its actions. Rosendo val Chaz, president of the Agency for Ethical Guidance of Icarii Science I haven''t been this high above Cytherea since I was a child visiting my father''s floor at Val Akira Labs'' head office. Grandfather had just retired, naming my father the new CEO, and he proudly brought our little family to see where he''d be, in his words, "working to change the world." I was so young, it has to be one of my first memories, yet I still vividly remember standing at the full window, Asuka''s hands on my shoulders and Shinya at my side, as I stared at the surrounding buildings that, to my childish eyes, looked like massive clusters of crystalline shards. Now that spell is broken. The buildings are just buildings, their streaked, colorful glass more like solar panels than the overgrown rose quartzes and amethysts their designers wish them to evoke. Or perhaps it''s the fact that I''m alone that sucks all the magic from the view. Asuka is somewhere below, crumbling under the pressure of AEGIS inquiries, and Shinya--well, Shinya will never walk these streets again. I balance across a slender metal catwalk, hazarding a view at the protest I left behind fifteen minutes ago. Nothing is like I pictured as Luce described the route to me. There''s no wind whipping through the narrow corridors between high-rise buildings, no peacekeepers chasing after me, just a rickety construction made out of spare metal, hastily tethered together and zigzagging like a fire escape. From this height, I can even make out the great onyx Spire in the distance, sucking up all the light from the otherwise bright Cytherean twilight. The dome dims as night falls, casting my path in long shadows and making my mask more of a hazard than a protection. It''s the perfect hour for me to scurry up to the top of a building unseen. The perfect semidarkness for Luce and I to deploy another of our vids to the public. I test a thin metal sheet with my boot. It bows under my weight, so I skip it, hopping to a sturdier platform. I stick as close to the building as possible. I don''t have a fear of heights, but I''d like to think that anyone this high up would be wary. A fall from here would turn me into a street crepe. "Still disappointed I didn''t get high-tech gloves that make me stick to the building like a chameleon," I say, recording my voice and uploading it to Hemlock''s server with a flick of my eyes. The com-lenses are especially useful since my hands are occupied, though I had to turn off all the entertainment functions so I''m not distracted by news articles and colorful ads. Luce''s response comes after a few seconds'' delay. Her dry chuckle is the first thing I hear. "You always picture things like an action vid." Despite the distance between us, her voice comes through as clearly as if she were standing next to me. "Maybe it is an action vid." I hold tight to the railing as I skirt a wobbly section. "Shadowy group that wants to kill us? Check. Sexy assistant? Check. Roguish hero? Check, by yours truly. And my father humbly accepts the role of evil wizard in his giant tower." Luce snorts. "?''Sexy assistant''? Please tell me you''re not talking about me." "Of course not, I''m talking about Hemlock." My cheeks ache from grinning. "By the way, what''re you wearing?" "Just get to the roof, roguish hero," Luce responds, but I can hear the amusement in her tone, and I know I''ve made her smile--no easy task nowadays. "When our ''evil wizard'' goes before the AEGIS tomorrow afternoon, I want people to remember why." And that means we remind them with one of Luce''s vids. "Roger, team leader." The words are hardly out of my mouth when a sheet snaps beneath me. I stumble forward, hands flailing, but my fingers slip over the closest beam. It happens so fast, just three seconds, and I''m tumbling down-- I catch the railing of the platform below, elbows and shoulders jerking taut, joints aching from catching my full weight. My mask is not so lucky, the black tactical covering fluttering to the streets below. The entire structure groans beneath me, threatening to collapse, though it''s hard to focus on that when my vision flashes red with agony. "??!" My left shoulder, the one connected to my prosthetic, aches like someone slipped a blade between skin and metal. But I can''t just hang here, so I force myself to move, ignoring the groaning of both the catwalk and my body as I pull myself back onto the safety of a lower platform. I sit there for a good minute and a half, catching my breath and rubbing my shoulder. More pressing than the current throbbing of my joints is an overwhelming fear. Thanks to Mara, the agent of the Synthetics on Autarkeia, I had a handle on my pain--but what if this accident fucks it all up? What if the daily agony returns? I dig my fingers into my flesh biceps, nails tight enough to bruise through my jacket, and focus on my breathing. In and out. In and out. Slowly, the pain subsides. It doesn''t depart completely, but now that I''m not hanging on for my literal life, I adjust. I''ll likely need to ice my joints later, but I''m hopeful that I didn''t undo whatever careful balance Mara granted me when she reprogrammed my prosthetics. Or if I did, that it''ll be a black hole like my leg after the duelist on the Leander ran me through with a mercurial blade. I can''t feel anything with my metal foot, but that''s way fucking better than phantom pain. It''s only after I convince myself I need to keep moving that I realize Luce''s reply has been waiting for almost five minutes. But I don''t listen to it. Don''t respond. I disengage from Hemlock''s server, not needing any more distractions. Pretend as I might with Luce in my ear, I''m alone on Cytherea, partnerless, with no one to catch me when I fall. The words of my first commander on Ceres come back to me, unbidden: A duelist alone is nothing . I test every plank before I put my weight on it, tug every ladder before I climb. When I finally reach the top of the building, another fifteen minutes have passed, though it shouldn''t have taken more than five. Better to be safe than sorry, I guess. The rooftop is covered in a rainbow of graffiti. Colorful protest slogans and various images blanket every inch of space. I step across a trompe l''oeil of a hole that leads to a forest full of golden light and come to a larger-than-life nude of a bald woman in a breather mask: La Peste, Luce herself. I have to hand it to her, this spot the Keres Truth Society found is perfect for our needs. It''s within a three-block radius of the protest at Val Akira Labs, but not so close that it''s being regularly patrolled. We can have our drone descend directly over the protesters instead of launching from the ground, where peacekeepers are sure to shoot it down before it gets high enough to project. Of course, the more times we hazard this little stunt, the harder it is to pull off. Whatever route we use will be cut off to us the next time, and this is already our fifth vid. I reconnect to Hemlock''s server and send Luce a voice message. "I''m on the rooftop," I tell her, kneeling and unzipping my backpack. I pull out various pieces of the drone. It''s a big one, something that''d be banned on Cytherea because of the light pollution it would create, but this baby came from Autarkeia, so it''s a bad motherfucker ready for trouble. I start putting it together, mounting the projector and speakers below its rotor blades, easy as plug and play despite it being the size of a small child. "Vid''s ready," comes Luce''s response. "Test connection." Just to be safe, I check everything over one last time. The battery is full. Everything''s screwed on tightly. I test the projector and speakers; they work perfectly. My com-lenses read the open connection from the drone, and I see the option to download the vid it carries. "Ready to deploy," I tell Luce. "You ready to jump?" After the almost-fall on that metal monstrosity? I''m not thrilled about it, but my exit strategy is probably safer than returning the way I came. I check the harness I wore up and pull the rest of my gear from my pack, preparing everything for go time. "I always said I''d jump off a building if my life was shit." "Not funny." I expect her to continue to chide me, but instead she focuses on the task at hand. "Remember your mask." Shit, I almost forgot, I lost my mask on the way up. I pull a scarf out of my bag, wrap it around my lower face and tie it off, then finish the look with a pair of goggles that brightens my quickly fading surroundings. Rebel chic . It''s somewhat hard to breathe through the thick scarf, but I''ll have to do as all fashion icons have before: make it work. Better than having peacekeepers spot me and plaster my face all over the news. I''ve got a nifty fake ID that Hemlock set up for me, but it won''t take much for them to figure out Yasuhiro sol Fujita fucked off to Autarkeia and I''m using his credentials. As for the goggles? They''ll help me with the other thing. The thing I''m not telling Luce about. I press the grav-anchor to the rooftop and check

Please Wait