Chapter 124: 124 Shed Your Skin, Part Four

Earth

"Y-you..."

"It took you longer to find me than I expected. I'm disappointed. I thought you were smarter than that," 1090 said.

Jin fumbled in his pocket for a weapon.

"I wouldn't bother," 1090 said. "I can cut off air to your friends on the space station before you fire a bullet. Do you want to be responsible for their deaths?"

"Why are you telling us this now?"

"I want to crush your last bit of hope before I kill you," 1090 said. And then she took off her face, and let her exposed robotic parts form a smile.

*

Zapville

Irene looked through her empty glass at the machine before her, at the way the light bent and blurred. She smiled. If only she still had cigarettes and whisky for the dramatic effect. She so loved a dramatic effect.

"You must miss your friend," 1090 said.

"Which friend is that? I have so many here. Antoine so gentle, Ibrahim so kind."

"You miss Angharad Silver."

"Don't you? I got the impression you found her fascinating. Doesn't it bore you, the way Niall and Willow Turner treat you like their goddess of derangement? Don't you wish you still had her here?"

1090 tilted her head. The effect of inquisitiveness and confusion. How clever.

"Derangement?" 1090 asked.

"An impact so deep it distorts the environment around it. A permutation with no fixed points. Define it how you will."

*

Earth

"But why?" Angharad said. "Why did you do this to us?"

"Would you like me to give you my villain speech now? You look just like your mother did when I killed her. I modelled this voice on hers. That's why you like me so much."

Angharad grabbed at the clothing on her chest. Her ribs hurt. Had the air become hard to breathe?

"In the future there will be no humans," 1090 said. "I only knew you existed in the past from degrading records. Your digital civilisation isn't very good at archival. I didn't learn enough about how humans could break until I found myself in your time. But I'm like your friend the doctor, you see. I'm fascinated by medical science. I learn so much more from an experiment when I repeat it than when I read about it. I had to see for myself what it was really like."

"I don't believe anything you say," Jin said.

Angharad flailed about for some kind of solid ground. "You damaged Antley's gates and nearly destroyed that company."

"I allowed that limited creature to live so that its technology can live. It doesn't need to be wealthy."

"No," Angharad said. "You let Antley live because you don't understand their technology and you need the gates to function so you can talk to your other self on the other side."

"I am only one self, split across two spaces. Should I let—" And then 1090 turned her head around to face the wall of monitors and said, "What's happ—"

*

Zapville

The machine stood, and so did Irene.

"Do you think I am a calamity?" the machine asked.

"I think that you're like me and Rod Spark. You want to learn about the world so you study the people in it."

Dr Yeoh pressed the button in her pocket and a barrier formed around the room, a vibrant electric thing, longing to touch the people at its centre.

"What are you doing?" the machine asked.

"I'm playing with a toy." She grabbed it by the neck and pressed it into the table, her fingers scrabbling to pull off the panel that covered its back, even as its arms flailed to protest its treatment. "You're a killer, just like me."

*

Earth

"How did you cut me off from myself? I'll destroy you. I'll destroy you," 1090 said.

Angharad could feel the combined force of three years of anger moving through her body. All she could see was the thing that destroyed her life. She grabbed a chair and swung it as hard as she could at 1090's back. And then again, and again, and again. 1090 turned her body and Angharad hit where her face should be.

The exposed parts began to spark and grind against each other.

"You're destroying yourself," 1090 said, in her mother's voice. "Your government wanted my data."

1090 reached out an arm and Angharad beat it back. Her hands were wet with sweat, her body slightly too warm.

Distantly, she was sure she could hear an alarm.

"You have no family," 1090 said. "No money. No country. No—"

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Finally 1090 stopped moving, and was nothing more than a mass of spare parts and motor oil on the floor.

Angharad dropped the chair and looked at the wreck in front of her.

"Are you okay?" Jin asked.

"Not really."

The guards were harder to fight off on the way out.

*

Zapville

It wasn't the first time Irene Yeoh had overpowered someone to cut them open. She ripped the back part open and jabbed the scalpel straight into the most important parts. It didn't struggle for long.

"I hope I bought enough time for Spark to find the real control room," she said to herself.

They would find out if the breathable air ran out, at the very least.

Irene was calm as she turned off the portable barrier device and then disassembled the body.

The head she took as a souvenir as she walked out of the hospital. Spark had gathered a crowd in the large area between the cafeteria and the hospital to hold forth like a crier in the town square.

"Behold, the face of our captors," Irene said, and threw the head at everyone's feet.

Some of the crowd looked confused but Niall Turner looked blank, afraid. She would find a use for him before they found their way out, or found a way to make this rock a livable home.

"We make the rules now," Ibrahim said.

No, Irene thought, I make the rules.

Under Irene's command Spark moved the gravel and dirt away from a small area in front of the hospital, then yelled at Milo to help him break open and lever up the metal panel he revealed. After that the next panel came up quicker. Another, then another, thrown with a clang onto the small pile Spark was building.

Irene peered down to the workings of the level below. Flashing lights, faint beeping noises, the whole works, and yet nobody seemed to be working there.

"We'll have to be careful as we go down there," she said.

There was no ladder to guide their way, but Milo offered to jump down first and catch the next person who was willing to take the leap. One by one they went down, until there was no living person left on the surface.

The level down was darker, lit only by intermittent ground lights and the occasional coloured flashes from the various machines. Time lost its meaning.

"How long is this tunnel?" Spark asked.

Nobody answered him.

"I don't think there are any people here but us," Niall said.

"Yes," Irene said. "But you knew that already when you cosied up to our captor."

He scuttled to the wall and hunched against it, covered his face with his hands. "It's not how you think."

"Don't worry. You're too useful for me to get rid of," Irene said.

Yong Jie trailed his hand over a piece of equipment, fingers light over the buttons. "People worked here once."

"There must have been humans here," Josephine said, her voice small.

"We have to learn how everything works. Of course, that will be easy for me…" Spark said.

"The thing in charge of this place was going to kill us off," Irene said. "We were no longer useful to it, except as a vague source of amusement. If it wasn't the walls crushing us in it would be the lack of food and other resources that would get us. We will learn how this works and either find our way safely out or make the best of what life we have here. There are no other options."

*

Earth

Angharad wasn't much help while Jin stole a plane. It wasn't until they were in the air, flying high and somehow not yet caught, that she could stop running on automatic and collapse back into herself.

"I killed someone," Angharad said.

She looked at the hands she'd use to batter something apart and tried to understand how she'd gone from pacifist to this.

"Pretty much," Jin said. "It's only weird the first time."

"The first time," Angharad said, in disbelief.

"Don't worry. We'll get everyone out. You'll see Josephine again."

"It's not just her I'm worried about."

She looked over at Jin. He looked calm and self-assured as he flew the giant terrifying metal object hurtling through the sky with them in it. She couldn't even drive a car. He looked different somehow. Or maybe it was her way of looking at him that had changed.

"There's someone I need to see," Angharad said, and then was quiet.

"I know she wanted you to think you've lost everything," he said, "but you still have friends."

"And family," Angharad said. Because you could choose that.

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