Chapter 15: Ruby!

Somewhere in the dark, a child was crying.

Angela heard it before anything else came back. It was thin and far off. Then, nearer, came ragged breathing. She knew that breath. It was Ruby’s.

Her repair ran, and her reboot ran. They ran on her own power cell, as they always had. Nothing else answered. Something that had always sat at her back was gone.

She opened her eyes. She lay on stones in a burning avenue, with Tetra by her hand. Around her lay the other androids, cut apart, their eyes dark. They all had her face. Her chest clicked, once, wrongly.

Far down the avenue, Ruby was walking away from her through the fire. Her long hair blew in the heat. Her scythe hung from one hand. One eye burned red.

The last thing she remembered was a city in the sun, and red closing in at the edges of her sight.

Beside her lay a broken plate, its Council seal scratched away, its pieces ground flat by a boot. Someone was driving me, she thought. Someone took it out.

Ruby stopped at the avenue’s end, by a barrel. The crying came from there. A small child sat in her shadow and looked up at her, face wet. Ruby raised the scythe. Her eye was red, the red that had closed in on Angela’s sight.

The scythe reached the top of its swing, and started down.

Angela was thirty meters away. She could not cross it in time.

Then she remembered. The lab where she had first woken. The Gardens in the sun, Ruby’s hand in hers, and every promise they had made.

She flung out her hand. Light flew from her palm and closed around the child: a glowing ring with two pointed ears, like a cat’s head. It lifted the child into the air, out of the blade’s path. Tetra rose from beside her and hung above it, shining pink.

“Ruby!”

Ruby’s head turned. The red went out of her eye. It was blue again, and wide. Angela pushed up from her knees, her hand still held out. No red closed in at the edges of her sight.

AngelaVoice line

The scythe had not fallen. It had stopped in the air, short of the light. Ruby’s arms shook. She lowered it herself, a little at a time, until the point touched the stones. Inside the ring, the child was unhurt.

Angela walked to her through the smoke.

“I thought I’d killed you,” said Ruby.

“I came back.” Angela took her hands. “You created me. You set me free.”

Ruby’s mouth shook. She said nothing.

“I can’t let you become the way I used to be. There’s only one thing in this world that I know is real, and that’s how I feel about you.” Her grip tightened. “From this point on, no more shall we part.”

Then Angela asked the old question. “Ruby, what do you want the most?”

For years Ruby had looked at the sky. She did not look up now.

“What I want... is to stay in this free land, with you!”

The ground shook. Over the roofs, a giant Ender took a step down the avenue. Angela raised her shield. Ruby swung. They fought it together, shield and scythe, until it went down.

“If we get separated,” said Ruby, “wait for me at the end of the world.”

“I will,” said Angela. “You wait for me, too.”

Soldiers came down the avenue with long rifles and blue visors. One stepped forward. “In the name of the Decisionmakers, you will come with us.”

Ruby looked at the windows. People were hiding behind every wall. A fight here would burn what was left.

She set down her scythe. A soldier carried it up the ramp. “We’ll go.”

Angela took her hand. Inside the ship, the soldiers made them walk apart, Angela ahead and Ruby behind. Then the doors closed on the fire.

Selrick Academy, after the battle.

Selrick’s cameras watched every ward and kept every minute. That was how the Academy studied its battles.

Fanny and Layla had held a ward on the far side of the city against a giant. They had not seen what landed on the near side. They came to the monitor room still in their suits, smelling of smoke, to find out.

The wall screen showed an avenue. A girl with a scythe and a smaller girl with a shield stood back to back against a giant Ender. They fought as if they had done it for years.

Like us, thought Fanny. Nearly.

The giant fell. Soldiers in black-gray armor closed in. The girl with the scythe set her blade on the stones.

Then a camera looked down through a ship’s open hatch. Soldiers with long rifles lined a white hold. The two girls walked in between them, the small pink-haired one first, the one with the scythe after.

Nobody fights that hard for a city and then stays gone, thought Fanny. This is the start of something. I’d bet they come back.

“Looks like we got a few newcomers!”

FannyVoice line

Layla folded her arms. Fanny set a hand on her hip. For a moment they wore the same small smile. Then Layla caught herself. “They’re being arrested.”

“For now.”

The door slid open. Lesley came in from the giants’ front, white coat scorched at the hem, dark visor. Chang’e came from the command room, small in her child-sized coat, Mr. Bunny floating at her shoulder. She told two technicians to clear the screen. They did.

“From the landing,” said Lesley.

The record ran without sound. A hatch opened onto a street. Rows of androids walked out, and a tower split under their fire.

One, small and pink-haired, walked through the smoke with light in her hand. She fired at students a beat late. Then she and the others closed on two who had fallen.

Chang’e watched the small one longest. She, who always had a remark, said nothing.

The girl with the scythe cut the androids down. After that came the barrel, and the scythe over the child, and her eye red. Last, a ring of light closed around the child.

“There,” said Lesley, and froze the frame.

On the screen, a red-eyed girl held a scythe over a child. Lesley’s hand stayed on the control.