“But, I thought Rove was…”
“Rove is a sycophant, a loyalist who believes in Margaret Kepler-Madison’s vision perhaps more strongly than even she does. He has no desire to rule; only to destroy anything he finds doesn’t align with his views. While I was only eight years old when my leeching transformed me into a Mancer, Madam President decided I could be of certain use.”
Sienna collapsed against the smooth wall. “Harvey…”
“Harvey did this, despite his misgivings. Cowardice was his dominate trait. However, I believe he discovered bravery within in himself at the end.”
“The end?”
“Yes, he pulled me offline shortly before he saw to your release. I believe he also meant to declare his defiant acts to Madam President herself. Even without my immersion in the T-Net, I find it irrefutable that her agents should be on their way. I believe you are the priority, as I am already dying and nothing will stop that now.”
Sienna sobbed. “Can… can I do anything? Please?”
“Yes, Sienna Doyle. You can embark on a singular action that will have two, separate yet equally astounding results. You can leech from me.”
“What?”
“I have been suspended in this agonizing state of purgatory for over six years now. I would be a teenager now, but for the stasis of the prosthetics chamber and my own Mancer abilities continuously healing me. I do not wish to endure this any longer.”
“But—” tried Sienna, covering her face.
“More importantly, you will be leeching off not only a Mancer, but a Mancer who, with a flip of that single switch to your left, is tapped into the entirety of the Transcendental Net. I would happily, eagerly, pass on with the knowledge you were empowered to stop this from ever happening again.”
Sure enough, a singular slide pad to activate the T-Net feed, only a few feet from her.
Was this really it? Was she going to… am I going to kill this child? For what? Revenge? Freedom? So she could become some new definition of monster?
“You must hurry. I can feel Rove’s presence moving closer.”
“Maybe we can…”
“Sienna, once that switch was initially shut off, I began dying. I will now die no matter what is done to prevent it. Switch on or off, you leeching from me or not. This is unavoidable. I would prefer my death to have meaning.”
That did it. Sienna pulled herself off the floor and hit the switch. Arcs of light, actual streams of data made material were visible as they crackled and suffused into the child’s mutilated body. She grew rigid for a moment, and then took on a determined, expectant demeanor.
Sienna shuffled over. “What was, uh… what is your name? You never told me.”
Eyes a thousand years deep took her in. “Kayleigh. Kayleigh Lopez.”
“I’m so, so sorry Kayleigh.”
“I’m not,” she replied with a wry smile.
“Kayleigh, do you… do you know what I’ll become?”
“No, not even I can predict such an outcome. But I know what you are, Sienna.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“Hope.”
DataLog Text-MemxJourn: Doyle, Sienna A. / 12-07-24
“Nothing, sir!”
“Damn it. You three secure this room and the rest of you follow me down to where Lopez is kept.”
She heard them, felt them.
She knew how their atomic structures differed from the walls, the floors, the guns they held, the air around them. Every particle of energy, the quantum mechanics of being, she intuitively understood the diversity. Faster than reading it, because it was faster than thought, more like a newly acquired involuntary system in the body that you remained acutely aware of.
The doors burst open, and she knew two guards had swept in, their weapons raised at her as she lay over the corpse of Kayleigh Lopez. She didn’t have to look, she knew, she felt. She felt Rove enter the room as well.
“Get her away from it.”
It. Not Kayleigh, not even “Lopez.” It.
Sienna felt rage.
She turned on the first guard who was coming up to grab her arm. A single hand out, palm up. It connected with his chest, hard. More than that, it connected with his being. This was not the catastrophic entropy of a Feeder. This was not the energy manipulation of a Mancer. This was the something else. This was the guard’s electrons scattering wildly, his protons and neutrons losing their cohesion, and his existence wiped out on a sub-atomic level. It was the super-fusion of a dying star at her fingertips. The guard was erased in light.
The other guard ran screaming.
Rove faced her in contempt. “I’ll make sure to execute that man and his family later. But for now, I see you fancy yourself some kind of Mancer. I don’t know what insipid trick you just pulled, but it won’t work with me.”
“One problem,” said Sienna quietly as she dried her tears. “I’m not a Mancer.”
The entire room exploded outward in a perfect halo of brick and steel.
She felt them running, heard them barking orders over their earpieces through the T-Net. She dismissed that entire portion of data, silencing communications via Servants throughout Raleigh. Stepping over the rubble, there came a groan, and Rove stumbled to his feet. She felt the Feeders being herded into an offensive position, felt another Mancer who she took to be the Madam President moving down to take control of them. Good.
“Insolent bitch!” roared Rove. “You’ll beg me to end your life once I’ve beaten respect into you.”
“No,” said Sienna with a sigh. “You won’t.”
Rove bellowed and hurled some type of energy at her. Nothing happened. It, like anything else he could bring to bear on her, simply dispersed before her. Sienna glowed, like her aura itself had become infused with energy. In a way, for moments, it had — whatever Rove had tried to attack her with had been taken apart and redistributed throughout eternity.
“What are you?” Rove demanded of her, his jowls trembling with indignation.
Sienna snorted, and looked to the sky.
“Hope?” she replied before annihilating his existence and flinging it out through the Milky Way.
DataLog Text-MemxJourn: Kepler-Madison, Margaret. / 12-07-24
/DataLog Text-SUPPLEMENTAL: Doyle, Sienna A.
The Madam President Margaret Kepler-Madison brought the procession to a halt. Head held high with four of her Honor Guards to each side and five hundred Feeders at her back, she found a single young woman standing in the streets before her. Short blonde hair and curvy with her hands stuffed into the pockets of stained navy cargo pants and a badly torn flannel work shirt exposing far too much. Yes, thought the Madam President, I can see why that weakling doctor was smitten with this.
“Child, you can not conceive the deserved punishment you’re about to endure.”
“Child?” repeated the young woman. “Cute. If that makes you feel better, sure. I take it you’re the crazy bitch calling herself the President?”
The Madam President was aghast. No one of such ill breeding and low-standards had ever spoken to her in that manner. Her very being commanded respect. Fealty! She deserved to be acknowledged and treated as a superior!
“What, are you not sure? Because I don’t see any other bitter old cunts marching down the street with her pet Feeders.”
“Kill it for me!” screeched the President. “Kill it in my name!”
Bullets flew from guns, none of them ever reaching her. Each one dissolved into a star before her presence, each one drifting away. The young woman hadn’t even shifted her stance.