Page 92 of Last of Her Name
I lose all sense of the room, my eyes rolling back. It seems to last forever, the pain and the shaking and the metallic bile in my throat.
“I’m cutting the power!” yells Dr. Luka. “It’s killing her!”
All at once, the pain stops. Relief washes over me. With a gasp, I roll over and land hard on the floor, jarring my bones. There I collapse, spreading on the cool tiles with a sob. Someone wipes the spit and tears from my face.
My body is still trembling. I can’t even stand.
Volkov and Dr. Luka are looking at a three-dimensional holo of my brain, shaking their heads.
“Defense mechanism,” says Luka. “Shecan’tbe brainjacked. The Firebird won’t allow it.”
“So it’s active after all?”
“Seems to be a sort of automatic function. She’s probably got other latent attributes, parts of the code that can’t be totally deactivated.” The doctor studies me curiously. “I hear you have a knack for mechanical engineering, Princess, and for shooting.”
I look up, my gaze unfocused.
“I’d guess that’s evidence of the Firebird, giving you an affinity for Prism-powered tech. But we need more than that. Let me look at the reaction the brainjacking sparked. Maybe there’s something in the reflexive code we can work with.”
Dr. Luka helps me up, back into the chair. I can’t fight him off. I’m too weak, too shaky. He does something to the back of my head I can’t see or feel, but I glimpse him holding the little chip between a pair of tweezers. It’s bloody and tangled with fine wires. He tosses it into a tray with a look of disgust. Another scientist closes the incision, her fingers gentle as she seals the cut with a skin patch.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper to Luka, while Volkov is busy studying the scans.
He winces, not meeting my eyes. His reply is soft enough that only I can hear it. “When the Firebird activates, you must use it, Anya. Destroy this traitor. Destroy all of them.”
I stare, speechless, as he returns to his work, sifting through streams of data and exploring the map of my brain.
Every few seconds my whole body quivers, the effects of the failed brainjacking still rolling through me in waves. I focus on breathing, not letting panic take control of me, because I know if it does they’ll just drug me. I have to keep a clear head. I’ll never escape this otherwise.
Clio, Clio. Where are you?
They run more tests, but nothing as invasive as the brainjacking, thankfully. I drowse through most of them, my brain still foggy. Holos of my DNA string across the room like festive lights. I watch them swirl and twist, my body’s instruction manual displayed for all. What does it mean, to not be entirely human—not even entirely organic? What does that make me? Some sort of monster? That’s what everyone said of the Leonovs. Volkov called them gods. I don’t feel like either. I just feel like a girl who’s been wrung out, a girl with all the questions and no answers. A girl adrift in the cosmos, stripped of everything that mattered to her.
“When she is ready to rule, the Firebird will guide her …” Volkov’s murmur is soft, musing. He stands over me, studying my face. “You’re not ready. Why are you not ready? The Leonovs were made of diamantglass, but you’re fragile. You have so many weaknesses.” His hand finds my hair, pulling a strand between his fingers. “You’re notworthyof the Firebird yet.”
I turn my face away, feeling a tear trickle down my temple.
“How do we make you strong, Anya? How do we make you worthy?”
Stars, how I hate him.
“Your father was strong. He blew up Emerault’s moon and everyone on it, trying to take out our revolution. Could you do that, Stacia? Could youwantthat? If I put your finger on the trigger, would you pull it?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“Hm.” He studies me thoughtfully, and the look in his eyes makes my spine shiver.
“Here,” says Dr. Luka suddenly, pointing to his tabletka. He sounds excited and draws Volkov’s attention away. “This is the part of the code that activated when we tried the brainjacking. This is what fought back. I’ve managed to isolate it and get a look at it. It’s only a partial of the full sequence, but it’s more than we had to begin with.”
“And what does it tell you?”
“Well, for starters, our genetic code has a limited ‘alphabet,’ if you will, with each letter representing a type of nucleotide. The human genome has two base pairs—G and C, A and T. But Anya’s genome haseightnucleotides, in four pairs, interweaving with the existing DNA, making it possible for her genetic code to contain exponentially more information than the average human being. And these two pairs repeat over and over, forming a sort of wall around the rest. I think this is the part that acts as the rest of the code’s on and off switch.”
Volkov taps the tabletka, activating the holo function. The four letters spin above us, split into two sets. Other information streams around them—diagrams of protein structures, complex formulas, twists of DNA.
But I stare through all the noise at those four letters, shining in bright blue above me.
I stare as my mind unravels.