CHAPTER 60 - SABRA

The waiting was the worst part. Of all the virtues her father had tried to impart, of all the lessons her mother had impressed upon her, the value of patience wasn’t one that young Sabra had ever understood. Now older and half the world away from her home, Sabra knew she understood it in some academic sense—and yet that did nothing to quell the tingling that danced across her scalp and flowed down her limbs to buzz around the tips of her fingers and toes.

An hour and change until Monkey reached his target. She wanted to dance. She wanted to run. She wanted to fight. She wanted to do something. But there was nothing to do but wait while Pavel talked to Gate, alongside Blueshift and Aegis. Surely Gate would play ball—but what if he didn’t?

Sighing, Sabra settled on walking, because wandering aimlessly was better than sitting around. That was where she found Sam, still dragging the zombie Jack in her wake. At the very least, the pair—well, only one of them, Sabra reflected—would help her pass the time. Sam didn’t say a thing as Sabra stepped up next to her, and gazed out towards the Melbourne skyline and reflected at how much, and how little, it looked anything like home.

Home...

“Hey, Sam,” Sabra said. “You got a phone?”

Sam grunted. “Maybe.”

“So, that’s a yes—mind if I borrow it?”

“In a second.”

Sam was trying to wedge a cigarette between Jack’s unresponsive lips. Succeeding in that, she raised her lighter to the cigarette, catching Sabra’s gaze as she did.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Sabra said. “You really think that’ll work?”

“Hah,” Sam said, and lit the cigarette. “Nope.”

Smoke drifted over Jack’s eyes, and he remained motionless. The fact that someone could just break like that—or break themselves like that—sent a disquieting chill through Sabra.

Sam looked back at him.

“I’m bringing him with us,” she said. “Pavel said we might be going on some suicide mission to the heart of an insane robot graveyard. Maybe getting shot at will wake him up.”

“You don’t need to come with us, Sam.”

“Who said anything about need?” Sam asked. “What, you think I have some need to blow things up like some weird psychopath?”

“Honestly, when we all first met, I wasn’t sure which of you two was the craziest.”

“Well, I guess that depends—is it better for me to remember everyone I kill or not?”

That was either a tough question or a joke and, with Sam, it was always hard to tell. So Sabra frowned, unsure of the question and of her answer to it. After everything Blueshift had said, it seemed very important to have the right answer. Which one made you more of a monster—remembering your sins or forgetting them?

“Anyway,” Sabra said. “About that phone?”

Sam reached into one of her pockets and found her phone, tossed it to her. “Here. But don’t rack up too many minutes. There’re limits to my considerable charity. Ain’t that right, Jack?”

“Thanks,” Sabra replied, and as she dialed a number, getting distance, listening to it ring, she heard Sam reply to the silence. “You’re right, I am extremely magnanimous.”

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She didn’t want anyone to overhear her make the phone call. In a storage room, Sabra dialed the number and listened to it dial and drop, again and again, into a single repeating tone. The door opened, and she felt, stupidly, like she’d been caught stealing something.

“Kasembe,” Revenant said.

Sabra turned. She looked better, with not a trace of battle damage, back in that ribcage tank and black jeans. “Hey,” Sabra said. “You look better.”

“Thank you.”

It was too awkward.

“I’ll just get out of your hair,” Sabra said.

“Before you go, I wanted to give you something.”

Why, Sabra thought, so you can throw it in my face?

Revenant pulled something from behind her back. “I thought if we were going to go into battle again, then you needed an undamaged helmet.”

It was a helmet, but not one that Sabra had ever seen before—or had she? The hair along the back of her neck flash-froze rigid, and the air swam in strange patterns. She had seen it before. It wasn’t just any helmet; it was her helmet.

It was a warrior’s trophy. It was the decapitated head of someone she almost recognized. It was the helmet she wore in the apocalypse of her nightmares, stinking of ash and blood and fury. It was nothing like the pragmatic visors of her previous helmets—it was an intimidating fusion of style, function and beauty.

The shape, the hard angles, the sloping aspects, the stubby snout...

“It’s like a lioness,” Sabra said.

“I thought it was fitting,” Revenant replied, clasping her hands behind her back as Sabra held the helmet before her. “I matched the color of your first helmet. The same shade of green.”

“It’s—” terrifying “-beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Revenant said, and a beat passed where Sabra didn’t know what to say.

“Are you trying to call your parents?” Revenant asked.

“Yeah,” Sabra said. “I mean, with everything that’s about to happen, I thought it’d be a good idea. But nothing’s getting through.”

“Some atmospheric interference persists in the wake of any Transcended incident,” Revenant replied. “But I can punch through it, if you want me to.” She held out her hand for the phone. Sabra, after a moment, handed it over.

Revenant tapped away at it for a few seconds, then handed it back.

“Ready,” she said. “Try now.”

Sabra dialed the number, listened to it ring.

“I’ve heard your father is here,” Sabra said.

“He is, and I’ve said everything there is to say to him.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Our relationship is complicated.”

“Parents,” Sabra said, and felt herself smile.

The line clicked active. Her mother’s voice sang down it. “Hello?”

Sabra had thought she wouldn’t cry, but the tears stung away. Sadness, relief, happiness—it was impossible to tell. Maybe it was all of them. “Hey, mama.”

“Sabra?” There was a pause, and she could see her mother in the kitchen, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Baby! I’m so sorry it took so long for me to answer, but it’s very late here! How are you? Where’ve you been? Are you okay?”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Where to even begin? “I’m in Melbourne—”

“Melbourne? What’re you doing there? I heard about the attack. Are you okay, are you hurt?”

“No, mama,” she said. “I’m okay. I’m not hurt.” But she ran her fingers along the cut that Liarbird had left her with, brow and cheek, a subtle scar. “Is Papa there?”

“He is, but he’s sleeping, and I think it would be best if we let him rest. The hospital discharged him three days ago. He’s doing well. Too well, in fact. He’s walking around like he was never shot.”

Sabra laughed, but only quietly. “That sounds like him. I was just hoping to talk with him before...”

“Before? Before what, Sabra?”

Before what, indeed.

“Mama, there’s so much I want to say.” And so much I’m too scared to say.

“Mm,” her mother murmured. “Then as your father always says: begin at the beginning and let the rest attend to itself.”

So she did. She started with that night at the hospital. Then, the robbery, where she’d set eyes on the man who shot her father for the first time. The clash with Taurine and her impossible victory, and everything that followed. Not all of it, but enough of it. And the stuff she couldn’t bring herself to say, she was sure her mother could infer from implication.

“I just wanted you and papa to be proud of me,” Sabra said. It sounded so much more stupid in words than it ever did in her head. “I didn’t want you to think I was a disappointment. I’m sorry I left like I did. I’m sorry I never called.”

“A disappointment? Sabra Kasembe, don’t you dare think of yourself that way. Even if you were the world’s greatest failure, you are our daughter! We’d rather have you in our life than outside of it.”

Sabra swiped at her eyes. “I know, I know.”

“But I assume this isn’t why you called us.”

“No,” Sabra said. “It’s work-related—that’s the best way of putting it, I guess. Something big is about to happen. I don’t know when I’ll be able to call you both again. It might be—” A lump rose in her throat, and she crushed it back down “—a long time.”

Her mother and father were, ultimately, simple people. How could she even begin to explain what lay ahead? That she was going to stride into the bowels of a god-machine to kill someone trifling with a power he didn’t understand—or understood perfectly—and the risk was not only death but global catastrophe?

When her mother replied, her voice was serious in a way her father never was.

“Sabra,” she began. “Sabra. I’m just a nurse. I cannot begin to comprehend what must be going through your head right now. But your father and I, we know how the world works. We know what superheroes do. I think your father would have so much to say, but I get the impression this isn’t a time for philosophy.”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t imagine the weight upon your shoulders, but God gives us nothing we aren’t equipped to bear. And you are better equipped than most, Sabra, because you are my daughter, and I know you will never do the wrong thing.”

Somehow, she smiled, let out a long breath. “Don’t tell Papa, but you make so much more sense than him.”

“Your father, I feel, cares more about the process than the end result. Perhaps it is the engineer in him. Listen, Sabra—it is my job to save patients, but it is your job right now to save the world.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“What is it that your father always says?”

“I am because you are.”

“Then if you don’t know what you’re doing, think of those words, and that will keep you on the right track. God knows it worked for him.”

Time passed, and Sabra wasn’t sure how long. Every second, every moment, she ached to commit every little sound in the background of the call to memory.

“Sabra,” her mother finally said, “You have always been meant for greater things than whatever you found on this island, but your love always trapped you here more than the ocean did, and it’s trapping you again right now. So, my daughter—my lovely, special, wonderful daughter—I’m going to hang up this call now, and I’m going to let you go do whatever it is you need to do.”

Sabra nodded.

“I love you, mama. I love you both.”

“I love you too, Sabra. Go with God.”

The line chimed the disconnection. There Sabra stood, phone pressed to her ear. She waited and waited, took a deep breath in through her nose, until her lungs pressed against her rib cage, and let it out through her mouth. Just like her father had always said.

“Thank you, Revenant.”

She bowed her head. “Don’t mention it.”

“I’m going to go suit up.”

“As you wish.”

She had just reached the door when Revenant said, “Sabra, wait.”

She paused, turned.

“I’m sorry for what I said.”

Sabra shook her head. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Revenant replied. “It was cruel of me. I was afraid. I’m always afraid.”

The thought was ludicrous, and it took Sabra time to process. Afraid? How could someone like her—as brave as her, as stoic as her, as strong as her—ever be afraid?

“Afraid of what?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Revenant asked. “Of you realizing what I am. Of you running headlong into something you didn’t understand. Of you being you.”

“I don’t care that you’re not human, Rev. I’m not sure it even matters.”

“But you should care, shouldn’t you?”

Sabra stepped closer. Revenant held her ground, parade stance collapsing, arms uncrossing. “The most human part of me is my shadow, Sabra—I wish you’d understand that.”

Closer still. Some part of her expected Revenant to back away, to strike her, for her arms to become cannons and spin up and take aim. “I’m not very good at understanding things,” Sabra said. “But I’d like to try.”

She reached for Revenant’s hands, found them. There was an odd texture to her hands, not quite like skin, and the array of lines that marked where her components came together. Revenant looked down, and didn’t pull away.

“I wish you didn’t look at me like this. I wish you hated me. I wish I didn’t obsess over every single encounter we’ve ever had. I wish I could forget your big stupid smile and the color of your eyes.” Then, the ghost of a smile twitched across her face.

“And I wish I could forget how your ass looks in that softsuit.”

Sabra laughed, felt the blush come bright and true.

“Well,” she said, “I guess that explains why you brought it for me.”

“No one will believe you.”

That was how they stood.

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Revenant said, finally. “There are no other machines like me, Sabra.”

“Well, obviously.”

“Please stop flirting with me. If you say anything else, I might lose my nerve. Sabra, I need to tell you something. A certain percentage of my code was constructed from SHIVA’s programming.”

“You’re—”

“It is not a significant fraction, and it does not affect my core processes—my algorithms and heuristics. You could consider it dormant. But it is there, all the same. It should allow me to interface with whatever remains of SHIVA and shut it down.”

Sabra nodded slowly. “But if it’s dormant, if it doesn’t control you, then what’s the problem?”

“At this point, we cannot afford to ignore the possibility that we are being manipulated. That Elias Hawthorne does not hold the key to resurrecting SHIVA—but I do. That everything we have done has been arranged by The Engineer to reunite my vestigial code with the remains of SHIVA.”

“But why?”

“That’s the question. If I interface with SHIVA, I do not know what will happen to me or the rest of the world. It is possible that the code will activate, and I will go—for lack of a better term—rogue. If that happens, if I hack SHIVA and something—anything—happens that is out of the ordinary for me, Sabra, then I’ll need you to halt the process. Permanently.”

Sabra stared at her, non-comprehending. How quickly their discussion had twisted about—it was like she had whiplash. “You can’t...” she said and broke off, paused as it all sank in. “You can’t ask me to do that.”

“I’m not asking you, Sabra, I’m telling you.” Revenant took her hand and placed it against her chest, just over her sternum. “Aim here. Punch your way through my armor and destroy the core.”

Silence again. Impossible to tell if the loudest thing in the room was her breathing or her heartbeat. You will hold her starfire heart in the palm of your hand, that was what Promethea said. Sabra swallowed.

“As you wish,” she whispered.

She was so close. Revenant’s chin tilted up, ever so slightly, and Sabra, dizzy with the promise of something long desired and denied, turned her head, just so slightly to match. But that was where they stayed, drifting closer, then away, above the edge of something strange and alien and irreversible.

“Sabra,” Revenant said, voice soft in a way it had never been before.

Sabra licked her lips, unable to find volume above a whisper. “Yes?”

“We can’t stay here.”

“Watch me.”

Revenant turned her head, setting her cheek against her chest, and closed her eyes. “I always have. But the mission supersedes anything else.” But she didn’t pull away, either. Sabra brushed her fingers through her hair, along the band that ran around her skull. Slowly, her wits returned to her, and a thought came with them.

“Rev, why’d they call you Sian?”

“I think we’ve had enough revelations for one day. The mission, Kasembe. I mean it this time.”

“You’re right,” Sabra said. “We’ll table all this, then. Until tomorrow.”

Revenant looked up at her, blinked once. “And tomorrow?”

“Whatever happens tomorrow, happens tomorrow.”