Drenched with red, the lifelike looked like she’d been through a meat grinder. Her legs and stomach had been crushed under some colossal weight, and though they were slowly healing, her wounds were still horrifying. She’d twisted some metal pipes into crutches to help her walk. Her dark bangs were soaked with blood, hanging over wild gray eyes.
Cricket’s metallic roar rang on the broken walls.
“FAITH!”
A chaingun in the WarBot’s forearm unfolded, spinning up with a deadly electric whine. Citizens scattered as Cricket stomped toward the crippled lifelike. But Faith’s eyes were fixed on Ezekiel, tears rolling down her bloodstained cheeks.
“Ze-eke,” she whispered.
She staggered, slipping onto her ruined knees. Falling in slow motion like a broken doll, like a puppet with its strings sheared through.
Zeke was at her side before he knew he was moving, catching her, sinking down with her in his embrace. Cricket roared at him to get out of the way. But Zeke stayed where he was, Faith in his arms as she struggled to speak.
“They t-took him…,” she said. “Gabriel…”
“I know,” he nodded.
Faith swallowed, tears in her eyes. “W-we have to get him b-back.”
“Where’s Verity?” Ezekiel asked.
Faith tried to speak, choked on a bubble of blood. Instead, she raised one shaking hand, pointed over Ezekiel’s shoulder. Zeke glanced behind, saw Cricket’s towering form blotting out the light. The WarBot’s eyes burned blue, his chaingun aimed square at Faith’s chest.
“GET OUT OF THE WAY, EZEKIEL,” the big bot growled. “I THOUGHT I KILLED THAT HOMICIDAL MANIAC IN THE WARDOME. I’LL MAKE DAMN SURE THIS TIME.”
Ezekiel realized Verity was dead. That Cricket must have destroyed her. That of the original twelve lifelike models, only he, Gabriel and Faith remained. Looking down at Faith, broken and bloodied in his arms, he felt his heart sinking.
He knew she wasn’t a good person. She’d murdered Olivia, the eldest Monrova daughter, right in front of him—just lifted her pistol and blew the girl’s brains all over the floor. She’d been happy to stand by while Gabriel killed Silas, almost killed Eve. She and the others had murdered countless people in their search for Ana’s body. Who knew what other atrocities Faith had committed since she stood at the windows in Babel, looking out with wonder on her first dawn?
It’s so beautiful, she’d whispered.
On paper, this was a simple deal.
On paper, he should just let her go.
“Zeke.” She touched his cheek with red fingertips. “P-please…”
Ezekiel had put faith in people before. And all he’d got for it was a knife in his back. A bullet in his heart. A metal coin slot in his chest.
“SHE HELPED KILL SILAS, EZEKIEL,” the big WarBot spat. “SHE TRIED TO KILL LEMON, EVIE, ME AND YOU. SHE’S A MURDERER.”
Ezekiel looked up at Cricket, a scowl darkening his brow. He knew the logika couldn’t hear him through his damaged aural arrays. And Ezekiel suspected he wouldn’t have listened anyway. But there in the New Bethlehem square, the taste of a mushroom-shaped cloud on his tongue, surrounded by all the worst the world had to offer, Ezekiel realized the kind of person he could be.
He could be the kind who had faith when he had every reason not to. The kind who believed in others even when they kept letting him down. The kind who chose to think that everyone had some good in them, somewhere.
Or he could be the kind of person who sat by while someone killed the only sister he had left.
Ezekiel stood, a bloodied and broken Faith in his arms. He met the logika’s eyes and fancied he could see rage, burning bright and blue in that plastic and glass. Cricket’s titanic hands curled into mighty fists. But they didn’t fall.
“She’s family,” Ezekiel said.
And he turned and walked away.
It took a moment for Eve to realize where she was.
The lights were pin-bright and blinding. A crowd stomping and cheering. She could feel their thunder through the metal around her, butterflies in her belly. The dark was full of wild eyes and ethyl grins, Corp logos shining on glitching vidscreens. But it was the smell that brought it home to her at last—the oil and methane smoke, scorched plastic and fresh sweat.
WarDome.
She was snug inside her machina, the controls lit up in a rolling rainbow. The old leather of her pilot’s chair creaked as she flexed her fingers inside her gloves. High above the ring, she saw the EmCee in her sequined top hat and tails.
“And now, gamblers and raaaaamblers,” she cried. “Our champion, weighing in at thirty-eight tons! Get yourselves hoarse for Miss Combobulation!”
Eve raised her arm in her control sleeve, and her machina did the same. The crowd screamed in reply, elation washing over her in waves. She looked into the stands and spotted a tiny girl in an ancient, oversized leather jacket. A jagged bob of cherry-red hair. A spattering of freckles. A small hand in a fingerless glove waved at her through the WarDome bars.
“Lemon,” she whispered, smiling.
“Riotgrrrrrl!” her bestest grinned, throwing up the horns.
Eve could see Cricket sitting on the girl’s shoulder, the rusty little logika waving, his boggle eyes alight. At her feet, Kaiser sat with his mouth open, heat-sink tongue lolling between his teeth. And beside him, an old man with a shock of gray hair. Eyes sharp as laser scalpels, ice blue and filled with love.
Eve felt light as air, relief swelling in her chest, a sense that everything would finally and truly be okay. She was where she belonged. She was back where it started, the place people knew her, not just her name.
She was home.
Her grandpa looked at her and grinned. “Go get her, kiddo!”
“Aaaaaaaand now,” the EmCee shouted, “our challenger! Representing Gnosis Laboratories in her first professional bout, weighing in at sixty-three kilos—make some noise, won’t you, for Miss Ana Monrovaaaaaa!”
A pulse of blood-red light rolled over the scene. The cheering and stomping fell silent, the blinding lights died. A single spotlight remained, piercing the gloom like a spear. And standing in it, bathed in light, Eve saw herself.
A version of herself, anyway, with longer hair and paler skin and softer eyes. The girl she was made to replace. The design she was copied from.
Ana Monrova looked up at Eve, her hazel eyes shining. She was empty-handed, wearing a simple white shift, and Eve was encased inside a twenty-foot-tall killing machine. But still, Eve felt a sliver of fear pierce her belly at the sight of that girl. A cold chill running across her skin.