I still need Nick. Even God’s perfect weapon is powerless without people backing it. Just because a soldier would be crucified for putting me down doesn’t mean they couldn’t still do it.
At one point, when Sister Kipling is taking a vitals test, the tech takes Theo into the lab proper to look at some of the processes, even leaning down to whisper conspiratorially in Theo’s ear.
Theo comes back beaming.
“If the world was better, I think I’d have been a biologist,” he says, eyes wide and somewhere far away from us. He is sinking his hands into the Flood again, chasing after his mother’s death, chasing after his own. His eyes slide to Sister Kipling, a smile creeping over his face. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Sister?”
Her fingers slip off her instrument, and it hits the ground.
Then it’s the general’s turn. His tests are harder. He brings a small Grace into the lab, and I grab the Flood inside them and build them into something else, turning crumpled masses of flesh into terrifying things with teeth and claws.
He says that the heretics in Acheson don’t have long. We’ll start with the city and slowly, methodically, perfectly expand outward, washing the world clean as we go. And the sooner we finish these tests, the sooner my body settles, the sooner we can begin.
“You understand what’s being asked of you,” the general says, “don’t you? Are you ready?”
I do, and I hate it. I don’t want to think too hard about what I’m doing, turning scared little creatures into war machines, so I think about what happened with Nick in the rescue mission, or when the ALC burned—the way the Grace flowed to me, worked with me, a missing limb I’d been reunited with.
There’s none of that here. There is no love. Just breaking and building. It’s what I was made to do but not what I’m supposed to do. As soon as the general turns his back, I pull the Grace into my arms and let them curl around me. Even as much as I’ve changed them, they’re still so bright. They were a person once. I want to hold them here forever. They’re purring, Jesus Christ, they’re purring, I swear if I could cry, I’d be sobbing.
We are the same. Do they know? Can they tell?
“That’s not part of the test,” the general snaps, looking back toward me. I snarl. “You’ll mess up the results. Get another one.”
What would happen if I split the general in half too? If I took that bit of the Flood in his bones and tore him to pieces?
My brain recoils from the thought. If they could string up their own for speaking out of turn, if they could unleash a virus like the Flood, then they could do all kinds of things to me. Maybe they’d decide it would be better for me to be broken like the Graces they give to the death squads.
“I can handle this, brother,” Sister Kipling says. “Aren’t you late for a meeting?”
The general grunts. I see where Theo gets that look in his eyes from. “Don’t fuck it up.”
We’re alone. Not even the lab techs are here, not even Theo. It’s the most alone I’ve been since the isolation room. Sister Kipling’s big eyes waver behind her glasses, her throat bobbing as if she’s trying to draw my eyes to the delicate veins.
She says, so softly, “What?”
I start with, “I’m not going to kill you.” She looks away. “If you really feel so terrible, make yourself useful. Do something for me.”
“Yes,” she says. “Of course.”
I reach behind my wing, where an ugly pocket has formed in my skin, and I pull out the trans flag bead lizard. I gently clamp it between the teeth of the little Grace and draw them a mental map of Acheson—through the downtown district, through the government district, all the way to the ALC and the bank. I show them Nick’s face, Erin’s, everyone’s. They stare at me with wide, beautiful eyes.