On the floor, Branch began to twitch. Hwa smelled something terrible. Something like the smell of Sandro’s lab. She watched Branch sit up and shake off the wound that had sheared off half his face.
“That’s why Daniel hired her,” Branch continued, as though nothing had happened. His voice was a thick burble of blood and rot. “Didn’t you ever find it a little strange that you had a full-time bodyguard when Security was right there?”
“Daniel,” Hwa murmured. “Daniel, run, now.”
He fired, instead. He kept firing. And Branch kept moving.
“Joel. Listen to me. Get up. Come over here. Right now.”
Joel said nothing. He looked confused. Terrified. Frustrated. This was too much for him, Hwa realized. Too much for his implant. He was overloading. He hid his face, but Hwa saw it in all his other reflections. The way his face crumpled. The way he stared at the floor. He was shutting down.
“Joel.” Hwa reached out for him desperately. “Come here. It’s going to be okay.”
“No, Joel.” Branch walked over, reached down, and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not.”
And then he picked up the boy by his collar and threw him against one wall. The crystal crunched and cracked where his body hit it. Shards went everywhere. Hwa ran. Daniel ran. Daniel got there first. She watched as Branch picked him up and threw him to the floor. Blood pooled under him.
Hwa skidded to a stop. She stood between them, facing Branch. “Which one will it be, Miss Go?” Branch asked. “The boy, or the man? The leader, or the follower? The meal ticket, or the pity lay?”
Hwa heard herself panting. She had never wanted to kill someone so much in her whole life. Not even Lázló, in that elevator. The desire to hurt Branch was so strong it made her shake. She felt it from the roots of her hair to the tips of her fingers. She made herself walk to Joel’s prone body. Made herself kneel down. Made herself feel for a pulse. Made it look calm.
“Get up,” she kept saying. Like she were coaching him out of a particularly bad fall on the mat. “Get up, b’y, come on, get up.…”
“When he wakes up, I’m going to tell him that you did all this,” Branch said. “I’m going to be that one special teacher that changes his life. The one who shapes him and moulds him into who he’s supposed to be.”
Hwa felt a pulse. Joel wasn’t conscious, but he also wasn’t bleeding too heavily. That was good. She assessed: her comms were out. Her watch was gone. But the doors were still opening for her.
“You always think you’re going to change him,” Branch said. “Every single time, you think you’re the one who’s going to make him see how the other half lives. But in the end, he always makes the right choice. My brothers and I, we inspire him to become the person he’s meant to be.”
He’s right behind you. Him and all his brothers.
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Hwa said.
“Of course you don’t. You never do. Not until it’s too late.”
She had to play for time. Get him to go all supervillain on her and waste some time while she figured out a plan. Get to Daniel. Get to the gun. See if there were more rounds. “Brothers?” she asked. “What brothers?”
Branch waved a hand. He looked like a lord of the manor gesturing for quiet. As he gestured, the crystal walls of the room began to flicker. Some brightened. Some dimmed. In all of them was another version of Branch. In some he was a man. In others he was a woman. In still others, he was a machine: all glowing eyes and gleaming skin. In another he had six arms, each of which floated around him on delicate monofilament, twisting this way and that.
“These are my brothers,” he said. “And all of my brothers share the corporate mission. To extend the Lynch brand into the stars.”
Hwa sat back on her haunches. Beside her, the Branch brother in the crystal gave her a little wave, and pulled back a smile that revealed row upon row of long, black teeth.
“The science club project,” Hwa said. “The generation ship.”
“Precisely.” Branch smiled. He steepled his fingers. As he did, the fingers themselves appeared to blur. Like parts of his body were winking out of existence. “I’m going to inspire him. Mould him. Shape him. Send his mind spinning on that sense of wonder that you’re all so very vulnerable to. It’s so absurdly easy to exploit. All you need are some images of nebulae and some swelling violins and suddenly everyone believes in manifest destiny again.”
He—if it was a he, if he was a person, and not a thing, not some otherworldly awfulness that could send death threats from between layers of time, oh Jesus, oh Christ, oh Sacred Heart of Mary—had a point.
“You want to teach Joel? Great. But this”—she waved a hand at the broken crystal and blood—“this isn’t teaching.”
“Oh, I don’t want to simply teach Joel,” Branch said. “I want to change the course of his life. And the history of this company.” He smiled thinly. “And that’s much easier to do when you’re not in the picture.”