Another blast strikes through Muzibot’s system. Wires spark. Some parts of him are definitely on fire. Eighteen bots. Not enough to be much of a threat to anything, and yet Sydney doesn’t lose interest in the sounds of bots whirring into death, or the horrid sounds Elkin makes as the shock passes through him. Muzi can’t stand seeing the look on Elkin’s face so he shuts down visual input.
She’ll sap their very souls, grind them into nothingness. No afterlife, their forevers spent together eating fruit under a lush canopy of green. “This isn’t how I wanted it to end.”
“We’re not dead yet,” Elkin says. “We’ve got faith on our side, remember. Your plan will work. And if there is a robot apocalypse, maybe they’ll let me off easy on account of me dating one of them.”
Muzibot nearly manages to blush. “I could probably put in a good word for you.”
Pain arcs through them again, and for a slight moment in time, they become one in their suffering.
Thirteen bots left.
Chapter 54
Nomvula
The beast paces along the roof, its claws clacking against cement. Its muscles are tight under its skin, and its gaze is fierce, daring Nomvula to defy it. Wind whips at its feathers as it looks over the ledge and down at the commotion on the streets below.
Nomvula’s so weak. She can barely manage to keep her eyes open, but there’s no way she can tune out Sydney’s irritated screams and Muzi’s shrill howls, and the awful sound they make when god and machine collide. Buildings crumble, and the stench of fire and death and scorched metal fills the air.
A great emptiness spasms in Nomvula’s gut—a thirst that can’t be quenched with water. A hunger that won’t be satisfied by food. She feels like she’s going to be sick all over the place, not with vomit but with her very soul. She was stupid to waste her belief on these beasts, minds too tangled in the thorny vines of Sydney’s wrath to ever be free and whole again.
The building trembles beneath her, so hard that cracks trace their way through the roof’s surface. That woman, the singer Riya, pulls Nomvula tight to her chest and tells her everything is going to be okay. The way she says it is so soft and gentle and sure, it makes Nomvula forget for a moment how truly powerful Sydney is. She could stay nuzzled up like this for forever, until the end of her days . . . which with the building shivering and shaking like it is, will be sooner than later.
The beasts grow more agitated. Their watchful eyes stay trained on Nomvula, though, warning that they won’t think twice about striking if anyone tries to be a hero. They keep the man separate. Rife is his name, and they growl at him, slash at his skin if he does more than breathe.
Nomvula has to try something to help Muzi, or they’re all lost for sure. Her voice scratches like death in the back of her throat, but she manages a whisper. “The gods walk among you,” she says to Riya. “Do you see me for what I really am?”
Nomvula strains against the emptiness, forcing her wings from her back, not even halfway emerged, but it’s all she can manage before her chest fills with angry cuts. She remembers when she’d shown her wings to Sofora, how she hadn’t even seen their beauty. Some people refuse to see the truth, they refuse to believe. But this Riya Natrajan, she has some good in her heart, more than she will admit to herself.
“Hush, honey,” she says, stroking Nomvula’s hair, her eyes far, far away.
“Do you see me?” Nomvula rasps, then presses her hand against Riya’s chest. “Look hard, from within.”
Riya’s eyes stay distant, but her arms pull Nomvula in tight. “Oh, honey, we’re going to make it out of this, okay? We have to believe it in our hearts.”
“Yes,” Nomvula says, the word nearly choking her, but she’s so close now. So close.
Riya Natrajan’s strokes move down Nomvula’s back, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing, each time passing right through Nomvula’s wings like they don’t exist, but on the eighth or tenth time, something changes. Riya’s hand catches in the threads of Nomvula’s limp wings. She looks down, eyes widen.
Yes, that’s it, Nomvula thinks.
“You’re the girl in the carving. The one with the wings. Not an angel, but . . .” Riya Natrajan shakes her head.
No, you must believe!
“You’re not just a girl, are you?” Riya says. She preens the threads now, like a mother cat with her kitten. “‘A child of man and god,’ that’s what he’d said. Lost somewhere between. I’m here for you, Nomvula. Whatever you need to find your way. But please, find it fast.”
She hugs Nomvula again, kisses her forehead. The warmth of her lips trickles down, drifting like a feather until it settles in the emptiness inside Nomvula—just a drop of basos, but it’s enough to push away the nothingness, because now there is something.
Strength comes too. Not a lot of it, but Nomvula can sit up on her own.
The beasts’ eyes burn into her, their gazes becoming more intense. They crouch low, not seeming to be bothered by the building’s constant tremors. Nomvula has it in her mind to tame them and ride them to safety. Maybe it’s a foolish idea, but it’s the only idea she’s got. She stands and approaches slowly, legs trembling underneath her. She’s careful, though, walking that narrow line between predator and prey—not too threatening, but not too weak either—like they’re equals, like cubs birthed to the same litter.
With a final step, Nomvula is close enough to reach out and touch the beast that brought her here. Its breath flows past her, hot and hard. Yellow eyes like daggers trace up the exposed flesh of her neck. Nomvula lifts her chin slightly, a sign of respect, trust. Then a hard tremor hits, worse than all the rest put together, and she stumbles to her knees and cries out in surprise as the beast brings its beak within a hair’s width of her face. It hisses at her, then cocks its head and makes a noise that sounds something like a chicken trying to cluck under water, only about a hundred times scarier. Nomvula wants to crawl back to Riya and nuzzle herself in her bosom. She wants to be a little girl again, but that’s something that’s not going to happen if Sydney gets her way. Nomvula stills herself. She can do this.
With a steady hand, she reaches out to the beast, her small fingers stretched wide. “I only wish to talk,” she says. “Sydney is a trickster. Her words are powerful, her promises sweet. But you can be truly free if you remember your true self. Free, like eagles, with the skies stretched out before you, far as you can see.”
It clucks again, dodges Nomvula’s hand. Moves so fast, she does a quick count of her fingers to make sure they’re all still there.
“Let me help you.” Nomvula draws upon her basos and reaches into its mind. Images are sharp and violent, men and women in white coats and stern faces, nurturing and torturing with the same hand. Nomvula knows this feeling with her own heart. “You must not blame them. You are not their poor judgment, and even if they made you, that does not give them power over you. That goes for Sydney, too. She will only use you until she tires of you and finds better beasts to do her bidding.”