Page 96 of Elanie & the Empath
“I’m okay,” she croaked, rubbing at her throat as an imprint of Gol’s fingers darkened her skin. I wanted to commit murder at the sight. “I’m just mad that he figured me out. I thought Mal and I had a good plan, but it onlytook him five minutes to see straight through me.” She raised her eyes to mine. “Am I that bad at lying?”
“No, sweetheart.” I kissed her forehead. “You’re just too good at telling the truth.”
She threw her arms around my neck, and I held her tightly. And in that single, grateful moment, I didn’t care if we spent the rest of our lives stuck down here watching Vorpols clip their toenails and smelling like pig shit. As long as we were together.
Then her body tensed. “Oh, no. Oh, Mal.”
I turned around, and the room somehow grew and shrank at the same time, expanding and contracting like a beating heart.
Mal was on his knees in front of a long metal table, his fingers wrapped around another gen-1’s hand, his shoulders shaking. There were three gen-1s in the cold, sterile room, all motionless on their own tables. Power syphons were clamped to their chests, oily black vines plugged into each one and intertwining into a single cable that disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.
Elanie and I knelt beside Mal.
“Mal,” she asked. “Are you all right?”
“No, my dear,” Maximus rasped. “He is far from all right.”
Leaving Mal’s side, I tried to help Maximus to his feet, but he waved me off.
“I’m fine,” he insisted, coughing into his fist. “You fuss worse than my mother, God rest her soul.”
“I’m not sure you are fine,” I said. “You just coughed yourself unconscious.”
“Listen, boyo.” He stared me down while his endless indignation—that was, honestly, starting to grow on me—tried to batter my psyche. “While you might actually be as dense as Gol thinks you are, I am not. It’s all an act.”
Insults aside, I knew a dangerous, wet cough when I heard one. But we could deal with that later, Saints willing.
I glanced over my shoulder. Elanie had her arm stretched across Mal’s back, her cheek resting on his shoulder. “What’s happening here, Maximus? Who are these bionics?”
“These are Mal’s siblings.” He reached out, apparently ready for my help. “His family.”
“I thought Bionics didn’t have family.”
He gave me a disappointed headshake. “The things you don’t know could fill every book.”
“Okay,” I conceded tightly. “Fine. But why are they down here? Connected to power syphons?”
“Did you think Thura’s electricity grew on trees like their rola fruit?” Maximus’s tone was lacerating. “First-generation bionics were built with supernuclear cores. A single gen-1 has enough generative capacity to power a medium-sized planet for years. A miserable rock like this one? Decades, maybe longer. Bet you didn’t know that, Doctor.”
“You know, I do actually know a fair bit about robotics and engineering and…stuff. But no,” I admitted. “I didn’t know that.”
Maximus’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Gol did. He was overjoyed when Mal and his siblings arrived, not only one gen-1 to exploit, but five. One by one, Gol sent Mal’s siblings here, hacking their CPUs, reprogramming them for one purpose only: to generate power, day in, day out, until their cores collapse.” He sighed. “Which has already happened to one of them. These bionics run the terradome to keep us warm, the glowlights so that we can see, the ovens to cookour food so we can eat. Thura would not exist without them.”
Elanie made a pained noise as she pulled away from Mal, her eyes wide, her head shaking back and forth.
An icy wind rushed over my neck. “Elanie,” I called out, needing to go to her, “are you all?—”
Snatching my chin, Maximus yanked my attention back. “Gol will never let us out of our cells now.Noneof us. Mal will join his siblings. Elanie will live out the rest of her life behind bars. And certainly not anywhere near you or your cell. You willneversee her again. Do you understand?”
Nausea gripped me. Elanie in a cell, tunnels away from mine, alone.
“And that’s only if he doesn’t just kill us and reprogram Elanie in any way he sees fit. Or maybe her fate will be like this.” He looked toward the tables. “Her body paralyzed, her consciousness reduced to the barest flicker so she can ensure the synth music at Thura’s revels is loud enough. So she can become the battery that charges a rebellion based on lies. Her core isn’t nuclear, but it’s still powerful enough to?—”
“Stop,” I begged as terror took control of me, a metallic taste flooding my mouth. “What do we do? How do we get out of this? You said Mal was the secret. How?”
Elanie and Mal faced each other now, their foreheads pressed close, palms touching.
“What are they doing?”
