Heart of Obsidian

She accepted the connection without hesitation, and they slipped through a fissure in the Net she couldn’t see, to come out into a stunning blackness—the data in this part of the Net was so heavily compressed that it had become a faceted jewel.

“This is effectively the backup drive of the PsyNet,” Kaleb said, switching from telepathy to psychic speech with a confidence that told her nothing would leak from this place. “If the Net ever fails, the data can be reintegrated to within twenty-four hours of the terminal event.”

Fascinated, she attempted to concentrate on a single minuscule block of data, but it was of such complexity as to be impossible to comprehend. “How did you find this?”

“The NetMind showed me.” He brought her to the center of the data archive and to a sphere that gleamed with a constantly shifting slick of color, an iridescent mirage that reminded her of the midnight colors she saw in his eyes when he let go of the leash. “This is the restart button for the Net, meant to sanitize it from the core.”

Horror cracked black fractures in her wonder. “Why does that even exist?”

“Because I created it.”



*



KALEB disconnected from the Net on Sahara’s heels, her face a strained white where she looked up at him. “That’s how you planned to kill everyone.”

“Originally,” he said. “I later wrote in an algorithm to spare those under the age of sixteen.” He’d never had a childhood; Sahara had come to womanhood in a cage. It seemed fitting to spare the children they had never had a chance to be.

Sahara shook her head in a mute refusal to accept what he would’ve done.

“It was intended as a last option.” To be initiated only if they had stolen her from him forever. “Seizing control of the Net will be intensely more satisfying.”

“You’re the wrong person to be in charge of so many lives,” Sahara said, her arms still locked around his body. “You have no allegiance to the Net.”

Kaleb was in no way insulted by her judgment. He knew what he was, knew that his experience at Enrique’s hand had permanently warped the fabric of his personality. But— “My allegiance is yours, and you need the Net to thrive.”

Huge, dark eyes, one of her hands coming around to lie on his heart again. “What are you doing to me, Kaleb?”

“Someone,” he said, closing his hand over her own, “has to make the ruthless decisions or the Net will die anyway.” He showed her images of the rotting places where nothing could survive, reminded her of the infection that had taken hold in the psychic fabric that connected every Psy on the planet but for the renegades. “Our race is on the verge of extinction.”

Sahara’s fingers flexed, her expression somber. “Our people have voluntarily crippled themselves. Of course that damage will be reflected in the Net. The only thing that might reverse the—” Her eyes widened. “You’re planning the fall of Silence.”

“It can’t fall for all, but for the majority it must.” If it didn’t and the rot continued to grow, the poisonous biofeedback would equal a slow death for millions upon millions.

“A sudden fall will cause massive psychic shock,” Sahara argued. “Thousands upon thousands could die.”

“Acceptable collateral damage.” Kaleb had no problem with losing a quarter or even half of the population. “Those who remain will be the strongest, most resilient.”

Sahara shook her head. “You can’t mean that.”

“It’s a practical solution. Slicing off the diseased and the weak will mean our race has a stronger foundation on which to grow.”

“I fall into that category.” A fierce response that spoke to the steel that ran through her body. “I’m weak yet, still broken in so many ways.”

He knew what she was trying to do, but—“I don’t have empathy, Sahara. I can’t feel for those who are going to die. It would be akin to asking a falcon to take flight when his wings had long been hacked off.”

He remembered the bone-shaking fear he’d felt as a three-year-old thrown into the hell that was Santano Enrique’s “training.” He also remembered the day he’d embraced the full weight of the conditioning. Better to feel nothing, he had thought with a calm unnatural for the boy he’d been, than to scream in horror every minute of his existence.

“You,” he said, “are the single exception to that rule.” The oldest, deepest, most beautiful flaw in his Silence. “Without you, I would be a monster.”



*



SAHARA lay in bed hours after Kaleb left her to meet with the Arrows, the calm way he’d told her of his lack of empathy colliding with her fears about his possible collusion with Pure Psy to leave her scared in a way that went so deep, it was in her very cells. Not of him. For him. For her Kaleb, who had never, ever let her down.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t have the memories to support that truth—she knew it the same way she knew the sky was blue and the rain wet, a fact so absolute it was beyond question.