Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

I lower the orb in frustration and lean back. Flakes of snow flutter down from the sky and gather on my face. I suck on the opened scabs on my hands and think. What do I do? What can I do? There isn’t salvation in this orb. Even if there was, Volga and Victra are already dead.

I drop my hands to the orb and consider defeat.

The pressure in my head releases, like a popping bubble. A low hum comes from my lap and I look down to see an emerald-green light appearing underneath a faint blood smear my thumb left on the orb. I sit up and wipe the soot from my eyes. The green light ripples in the black metal, becoming a swirl of tiny arcane mathematical symbols that coalesce into the shape of a woman atop a bull. The image is no larger than my thumb.

DNA sampling complete, new protocols implemented for Énatos Figment, a soft female voice says in my head, or was it from the orb? Sfaíra access granted. My heart thuds as the orb purrs and its surface begins to unscrew till a thousand millimeter-wide strips around its meridian are turning in alternating clockwise and counterclockwise rotations. They fold in on one another until the orb divides in two and folds over on itself, revealing an interior the color of baby teeth pulsing with soft light. Built into the orb are several hundred small compartments marked with obscure symbols.

A central device made from the same material as the inside of the orb is embedded in the bottom of the orb. It is the size of my thumb. A green light glows inside it and I sense frequencies flowing between it and the parasite in my head the same way I found Victra in the woods.

Cortical implant diagnostic complete.

A long list of green characters appears in the air in front of me. I reach out to touch them. But they aren’t there. I swipe at them with my hand and they scroll downward. The list goes on and on, none of it making any sense to me.

Figment functionality impaired. Seek repairs at the Womb upon soonest convenience.

Seek repairs? To a parasitic implant in my brain? Where the hell would I do that?

Geolocation function unavailable. Mobile uplink unavailable.

The parasite is reading my mind. What is the implant?

A gift from Astarte.

Who the hell is Astarte?

She was you.

What does that mean? No response. What is Figment? How do I get repairs? No response except a reminder to seek repairs. Bloodyhell. Was the Brown woman Figment, or is Figment the parasite? Was she being controlled by it? Am I? Could I be if I got repairs? If I can get repairs, someone out there must know. Does that someone control the parasite? Would they control me?

Volga seemed to think Figment was just a woman, but Victra knew better. It doesn’t make any sense, and right now I don’t really give a shit. Apparently I expected the orb to contain a rocket launcher or something.

I prod through the supplies. Nothing is labeled in a language I understand. And each device is as inert and bizarre as the next. There are small blue disks set in gel. A black nasal inhaler with assorted cartridges. A silver device that looks like it goes around an eye, with a tiny needle injector. A credit ring with Republic markings. A credit ring with Society markings. A credit implant with peculiar winged symbols. A case of a hundred pebble-sized balls in different colors. A selection of iris implants, in all fourteen colors. A titanium sphere. Vials of clear liquid. An armory of colored needles. A miniature pharmacy—of life takers or life givers, take your gamble. Passport implants, which sprout eerie holos of my face when I touch them. And a hundred other items I can’t begin to suss out the function for. But no bloodydamn gun. No magical broomstick. No teleportation device, unless it’s in one of the pills. No body armor. No universal com. No grenades. No damn manual. Not one thing I could use to somehow become a hero.

“What does this shit do!” I beg. “Help me. Please.” The parasite does not reply. I hit my head, trying to jar its loose circuits. “Come on!”

Implant functionality impaired. Seek repairs at soonest convenience.

Fucker.

Name-calling is a waste of neurons.

Stupid parasite. Useless treasure. That’s what Figment meant when she said Volga could use it. That I didn’t deserve it. Tough shit. I’m all that’s here.

I rifle through the rest of the contents, determined to find something that will help me. I frown when I open a long compartment around the bottom ring of storage. I pull out a small flexible magazine that looks like it would hold bullets or pills. But neither bullets nor pills fill the gel magazine.

It is full of teeth.

I start to laugh.

I storm back into Maeve’s home. She’s lying in her daughter’s bed, crying. She doesn’t even bother to turn till I slam the door behind me. My eyes are bloodshot from smoke. My hair’s a rat’s nest. My pants are torn. I’m covered in soot and blood and carrying Figment’s orb in a half-burned blanket, and I’m in no mood for the drunk bastard in front of his little HC, or for the mother who hovered by the window chewing her nails like a frightened dumb goat as her daughter was raped across the street day after day.

“How long those bastards gonna be before they take the girls back to the mine?” I ask.

“Told you to get,” the husband says.

I point my gun at his head. “Shut your copper gob. I got business with your wife.”

He moves his mouth like a dumb mule and turns back to his HC, pretending to find the news program showing Republic ships gathering to fight the Obsidians for some reason or another to be more interesting than the muzzle of my gun. His wife stares at the wall as if trying to become it. “Maeve.” She doesn’t reply. She smells like she hasn’t washed in years when I crouch by her. “Maeve.” She won’t turn till I pull her ear. “You wanna see your Mora again?” I ask. “Do you want to see your baby girl?”