The Last Stand Read online

  But it got stuck in his throat at the sight of who had come to the door.

  “Hey,” Addy said.

  “Nice to meet you,” the man beside her said, and thrust out his hand.

  Lucien eyed that hand, an exact replica of his own, and then studied the man’s face; it was like staring into a mirror. He belatedly accepted his own handshake and allowed himself to be drawn into Addy’s apartment.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “You and my...” He glanced at the identical copy of himself. “Android?”

  Addy grinned and shrugged. “He’s got all the right parts in all the right places. All that’s missing is blood and guts, but I don’t think that really matters, do you?”

  “No, I suppose not...” Lucien said slowly.

  Addy led the way through a short foyer and into her living room. She and Lucien’s android copy sat down on the couch, and she indicated the armchair beside it.

  Lucien moved to sit there. He watched Addy holding his android’s hand, smiling freely, their shoulders touching, her head leaning toward his, and he felt his skin begin to crawl. This must be what an out of body experience felt like. He had to look down and check to make sure that wasn’t what was happening.

  “So what did you come here to talk about?” Addy asked.

  “I’m not sure if that matters anymore. Does Etherus know that this copy of me is still around?”

  “Yes,” Addy said.

  “And he’s okay with there being two simultaneous versions of me?”

  “He’s giving all the androids the choice whether to remain as they are or to integrate with their human counterparts. Most of them have chosen to stay androids.”

  “Really? So he’s going to allow people to make simultaneous copies of themselves now?”

  “No. He made an exception for everyone who had duplicates made, including me.”

  Lucien nodded slowly, remembering that Addy had a clone of herself wandering around somewhere, too. All of the surviving crew members from the Intrepid did.

  But in light of Etherus’s explanations regarding souls, there was a problem with that. Lucien warred with himself over what he was about to say next, wondering if it was too insensitive. He decided to risk it. “Doesn’t it bother you that he doesn’t have a soul?” Lucien asked, jerking his chin to the android.

  Addy grinned and shook her head. “Etherus is giving souls to everyone who didn’t have them—former Faro slaves and android duplicates alike.”

  “He is?”

  “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  Lucien shook his head, and Addy waved the holoscreen in the living room to life. It was already set to ANN. Addy spent a moment rewinding the channel until she found the particular footage she was looking for.

  Lucien gaped at the screen, watching as familiar luminous beings with round bodies and hundreds of tentacles descended from the dark indigo sky of some alien world to a waiting crowd of insectoid aliens below.

  Then the scene switched to another sky, this one dark with stars. Polypuses were descending from that sky into a shimmering city of domed structures, flying through the walls of those buildings to find waiting hosts inside.

  “Did you see me—him—get a...” Lucien turned back to face Addy and the android copy of himself. “Did one of the Polypuses descend on him, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then... I guess all that’s left is for me to wish you both the best of luck.”

  “You decided to stay with your wife,” Addy replied. It wasn’t a question, and there was a knowing look on her face.

  “Yes,” Lucien said as he stood up from the armchair. “But you obviously already knew that,” he said, his gaze drifting to the android sitting beside her.

  “It was a safe bet,” Addy replied. “If you were willing to give up your own life and the lives of your family just so you could do the right thing, what chance did I stand of getting you to do otherwise?”

  Lucien sighed at that. Addy knew him far too well. “Good point.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Addy said.

  She led him back to the door, and he walked out. He stood on the walkway outside Addy’s apartment, listening to the sound of fountains bubbling in the courtyard below. “So are you two going to stay here?” he asked. “What about your dream of getting a ship and exploring the universe together?”

  Addy smiled. “We’ve got to save the money to buy that ship somehow. This is as good a place as any to do that.”

  “That makes sense,” Lucien replied. “Well, goodbye, Addy.” Just then Lucien’s android twin walked up behind her, and he nodded to the machine. “Goodbye...” He trailed off wondering what to call the android.

  “You can call me Lucy,” the android said with a wink.

  Lucien barked a laugh as he remembered his old nickname. “All right, Lucy. See you around.”

  “See you,” Addy said, flashing a broad smile and waving as he turned to leave.

  Lucien walked away, and the door slid shut behind him, closing that chapter in his life for good. He remembered the carefree smile on Addy’s face, and he carried that image with him back to the elevators and down to the courtyard below.

  Suddenly he no longer felt torn between his feelings for her and his feelings for Tyra. Now that Addy had found her happiness, he could fully commit to working on his marriage with Tyra. In time he and Tyra would re-forge their bond, and their happiness would be just as carefree as Addy’s was.

  Lucien nodded, smiling to himself as he walked back through the courtyard of Fountain View Villas. Etherus had fixed everything for everyone, it seemed. But not for me, not yet, he thought. They still had to bring his daughter, Atara, back before his life would be complete.

  Now that they had her data, it wouldn’t be long. They’d spent the past six weeks growing a clone of her on New Halcyon. By now her body had to be almost ready.

  Lucien’s smile turned to a grin at the thought of seeing Atara again—the old, uninfected version of her.

  He couldn’t wait.

  Chapter 37

  New Earth

  —ANOTHER WEEK LATER—

  Tyra stood holding hands with her husband beside Atara’s bed in New Halcyon’s resurrection center. In the room with them was Brak, the surviving copy of him who’d helped find the Forge, as well as Lucien’s parents and sister—the in-laws Tyra had never met. Tyra’s own parents lived in Etheria and they’d been unable to attend Atara’s resurrection on such short notice, but Tyra had made plans to visit them in a few weeks’ time.

  Lucien’s father, Ethan Ortane, glanced at her. Tyra smiled at him, and he nodded, but didn’t return that smile. He was still angry about this whole situation.

  Tyra supposed she couldn’t blame him. Ethan and Alara had just been resurrected to learn that they were grandparents and that they’d missed the first five years of Atara’s life and the first eighteen months of Theola’s.

  Ethan had some choice words for his son when they’d been reunited. He’d looked like he wanted to knock Lucien flat. By contrast, Lucien’s mother, Alara had just hugged them all and cried. Now she was smiling from ear to ear as she bounced a giggling Theola on her hip, playing ‘got your nose’ with her granddaughter. Tyra’s sister-in-law, Trinity, stood close making silly faces at Theola and vying for her attention.

  Lucien’s family had been resurrected before Atara specifically so that they could be here now to welcome her back to life.

  Everyone was clustered around Atara’s bed, watching her face intently. She was lying on a gurney in a private room of New Halcyon’s resurrection center. For adults resurrections were conducted in the stasis tanks where their clones were stored, but since that could be traumatic for children, they were brought back in private rooms like this one.

  “The transfer is complete,” Atara’s doctor announced. “I’m going to wake her up now.”

  Tyra pressed closer to the bed, not even daring to blink for fea
r that she would miss the moment her daughter woke up.

  For a while, nothing happened, and fear crowded Tyra’s thoughts. “Nothing’s happening... is something wrong?”

  Before the doctor could reply, Atara’s eyes fluttered open and she sat up with a gasp, her chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths.

  “Agaga!” Theola said and thrust out a chubby hand toward her sister.

  Atara frowned and her brow furrowed in confusion. Her eyes skipped around the room, taking in the sight of Alara, Ethan, and their daughter, Trinity. Atara shook her head and looked to Tyra. “Where am I?”

  The last thing she would remember was falling asleep at home in Fallside, the night before the Faros had invaded. She’d lost months of her memories, but in this case that would be a blessing.

  Tyra swept Atara into a fierce hug. “We missed you so much!” she said, crying and laughing into Atara’s hair.

  “You missed me?” she asked. “Where did I go?”

  Tyra withdrew and Lucien hugged Atara next.

  “Agaga!” Theola reached out again, trying to leap out of her grandmother’s arms. Alara obliged by lowering Theola into her sister’s lap, and both sisters hugged one another next, but Atara’s expression grew more and more bewildered with every passing second. “Who are you?” she asked, her eyes on Alara.

  “She’s your grandmother, Atty,” Lucien said.

  “I have a grandmother?”

  “And a grandfather,” Ethan put in gruffly. He stepped up beside his wife and flashed a crooked smile. Atara looked to Tyra, her eyes seeking confirmation.

  Tyra nodded, smiling and wiping the tears from her cheeks.

  “How did I get here?” Atara asked.

  Lucien turned to the doctor, his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question, and the doctor nodded.

  “It’s okay. She’s old enough to process it. You should tell her.”

  So they did. By the end of their summary of events, Atara still looked confused, but there was a light of understanding dawning in her eyes.

  She began nodding slowly. “I died...” she said. “My friends are never gonna believe this!”

  Tyra decided not to point out that most of her friends had probably died, too.

  “Do you mind if I give you a hug?” Alara asked, holding her arms out.

  “Okay,” Atty said, allowing her grandmother to fold her into an embrace.

  “Not without me!” Trinity put in, and wrapped her arms around them both.

  “And me,” Ethan said, adding another layer to the human sandwich.

  After a moment Atara said, “Help! I can’t breathe!” And they all withdrew laughing.

  “Welcome to the family, kid,” Ethan said. He spared a glance at Tyra as he said that, and this time he did smile.

  “Thank you,” Tyra said.

  Half an hour later, they checked Atara out of the resurrection center, and they all walked across the parking lot together. Atara walked between her grandparents, holding their hands and skipping along between them, while Trinity took a turn carrying Theola.

  They reached the Ortanes’ hover car and all piled in, except for Trinity, who apparently had her own vehicle—a two-seater hover bike. She passed Theola to Alara and took Brak with her. There wasn’t enough room in the car for him.

  “I drive,” Brak said.

  “Nice try, muscles,” Trinity replied.

  Tyra smiled, watching them go. The rest of them took their seats in the back of the hover car. Lucien, Atara, and Tyra sat facing the elder Ortanes and Theola. Once they were all buckled in and the doors were shut, Ethan directed the driver program to take them to his and Alara’s new house, where they were all planning to have dinner together.

  The hover car shot straight up out of the parking lot and joined a slow stream of slow-moving traffic at 100 meters.

  “I hear you’re still looking for a place to live,” Alara said and nodded out the side window to the scenery below. “Maybe you’d like to consider living near us on New Halcyon?”

  Theola sucked her thumb noisily from where she lay on Alara’s chest. She was already fast asleep by the sound of it.

  “We’ll probably have to,” Lucien replied. “Tyra has a job waiting for her at the New Academy of Science.”

  “Oh, that’s perfect!” Alara said. “That way we can make up for lost time.”

  Tyra smiled and nodded agreeably as she turned to look out at the rolling green hills and sparkling lakes of New Halcyon flowing by beneath them. Stately trees hugged white, sandy beaches and lakeshore estates. Families were out on the beaches with colorful umbrellas and beach towels. Here and there barbecues smoked with grilling meat. The distant, muffled strains of music drifted up and reverberated through the car. It was a scene of pure domestic bliss, but somehow it didn’t look real to Tyra.

  So much had happened that it was hard to imagine a return to normalcy, to jobs and chores and routines, but that’s exactly what everyone was doing. Etherus had recommended her personally to head up the New Academy of Science on New Halcyon. She also had an offer from Astralis’s most popular political party to run for chief councilor there, but with most of the androids having chosen to remain as such, she didn’t expect any humans to win an election there anytime soon.

  Besides, she’d promised Lucien she would get out of politics and start working less. Tyra reached for her husband’s hand. He laced his fingers through hers and smiled. Then Atara bounced into his lap and the air left his lungs in an oomph. His smile turned to a pained grimace.

  Atara pointed down to a lumbering six-legged creature below with three people riding on its back. “What’s that? What’s that?!”

  “I don’t know... some kind of hylerocanth, maybe?” Lucien replied.

  “What’s a high-ler-o-cath?” Atara asked, enunciating the word slowly in an attempt to get it right.

  “A hylerocanth,” Lucien corrected. “I’ll take you riding sometime.”

  “Yay!”

  Tyra smiled absently and looked over to where Theola lay on Alara chest, no longer sucking her thumb, and now definitely asleep.

  “We’re here!” Alara whispered.

  “Yippee!” Atara squealed, drawing a sharp look from Lucien.

  “Shhh. You’ll wake your sister.”

  Tyra looked out the window to see them hovering down to a landing pad on the roof of a sprawling mansion beside one of New Halcyon’s lakes. Her eyebrows fluttered up at the sight, and she turned to Lucien.

  “You didn’t tell me your parents were rich.”

  Lucien shrugged. “You never asked.”

  “Angling for a loan already?” Ethan asked darkly. “You’d better start sucking up, girl.”

  “What? No, I wouldn’t—”

  “He’s joking,” Alara whispered.

  “No, I’m not,” Ethan deadpanned.

  “I...” Tyra felt flustered, not sure how to react.

  “You’ll get used to his sense of humor,” Lucien said, bumping shoulders with her. “We all had to.”

  Ethan arched an eyebrow at his son, but said nothing to that.

  The car touched down with a thud-unk of landing struts meeting castcrete, and then Ethan waved the doors open and they all piled out.

  A warm breeze whipped across the roof, and Atara ran to the railing to look over the edge. Lucien ran after her, saying, “Wait up!” Tyra smiled and glanced back to make sure Theola and Alara were okay. Theola stirred sleepily as Alara climbed out of the car, but her eyes never opened.

  “Go on,” Alara whispered. “I’ll catch up.”

  Tyra nodded and went to join the rest of her family by the railing. Lucien’s hand found hers as they looked down on his parent’s sprawling backyard and a sapphire-blue pool. In the near distance was a boat dock and a hover boat bobbing beside it. Beyond that, a hover bike with two riders came speeding over the water toward them.

  “Is that Brak?” Tyra asked, pointing to the bike and the broad-shouldered gray alien sitting be
hind the handlebars. Trinity must have decided to let him drive after all.

  Lucien barked a laugh, watching as they sped away, circling back around the lake for another trip. “Yeah, that’s him all right.”

  Tyra nodded, looking around the grounds of the Ortanes’ mansion. It was sitting on at least a few acres of lakeside property.

  “How did your parents make so much money?” Tyra wondered aloud. “Aren’t they Paragons?” If Paragons salaries were that good, everyone would be signing up.

  “They made their money as freelance explorers before they joined up. They used to hunt for alien artifacts. Some of them turned out to be pretty valuable.”

  Tyra nodded slowly. “Interesting.”

  “Still don’t think you need that loan?” Ethan asked.

  “Well, if you’re offering...” Tyra said. She and Lucien had lost everything when Fallside had been destroyed.

  “How do you like the place?” Ethan asked, changing the topic and leaving Tyra to wonder whether or not he really was offering to help them.

  “It’s really spectral!” Atara burst out before Tyra could say anything.

  “What she said,” Tyra replied, smiling and tousling Atara’s hair.

  Alara came to join them at the railing with Theola and flashed a cryptic smile at Tyra.

  “Good. I’m glad you like it,” Ethan replied, suddenly grinning. “It’s yours if you want it.”

  Tyra blinked, and glanced at Lucien, only to find him wearing a matching grin. “What? You’re offering us a... a house?”

  Ethan grinned. “Is that a problem?”

  Tyra fixed Lucien with a bemused frown. “You knew about this?”

  He nodded. “I picked the house.”

  Tyra blinked, taken aback.

  “We haven’t bought it yet,” he added quickly. “We just rented it for a few days, so we could try it before we buy it. In case you don’t like it.”

  Tyra slowly shook her head. Her eyes found Ethan’s once more. “Are you sure about this?”

  He shrugged. “What’s the use of having money if you can’t spend it on the people you love?”

  “But you don’t even know me!” Tyra objected.