The rain started falling harder.

There was a wave of rain when the robot first appeared, I thought. This storm is a reaction to the hacks. Besk said that this State never has more than a drizzle.

I drew in more heat. The storm grew even worse. Lightning crackled above. Thunder boomed, louder than the robot’s footsteps. The machine was only yards away now.

The atoms in the ground beneath me stilled, and I had to rip my way out of shoes that had frozen solid. The cold didn’t affect my skin much. That was part of the magic that, apparently, stayed with me. I had an insulation against most of the effects of my Lancing.

The robot slammed its hand down to crush me.

My mental boosts kicked in. I was able to judge where the hand was going to fall, then stepped out of the way. The hand smashed ice and the stone beneath, then it swept toward me.

I let the hand seize me in a cold steel grip.

“I have you!” a voice boomed above. The same voice I’d heard in that Border State all those years ago, buzzing, metallic. “I finally have you! I can crush you with my fingers, child! You will know what it is to insult Melhi.”

The rain grew harder, and I drew in more strength.

“You can’t draw this robot’s heat away, foolish man,” Melhi said with a laugh.

Indeed, I could see its core—hidden far within layers of insulated metal, and I wasn’t able to draw that heat, despite trying. I didn’t care. I drove the storm to greater strength. Rain fell like knives, freezing before it hit me, lashing my skin.

My healing boosts kicked in, and stayed just barely ahead of the ice flaying my skin. I drew in so much that the atoms in the air itself stilled, and the gasses liquefied. The air became a strange steam, hissing as it boiled back into gas almost immediately.

“. . . part of me that rebels against . . . will go forward . . . not . . . their puppet . . .”

I couldn’t hear Melhi’s words. The storm had grown too loud, the beating of ice and rain on the robot’s body like stones on pieces of tin. Rain like an ocean wave crashing upon us. Thunder, lightning, the sky ripping, the fabric of this State crumbling.

I drew it in, feasted upon it. This was a music I’d never known. The robot squeezed, but something was wrong with the hand, and the pressure wasn’t as great as it should have been. I smiled, then reached to the hand holding me. Then I drew the heat from the robot’s outer layer. The metal was an excellent conductor; I pulled the heat into me like sipping water from a straw.

For a moment, all I knew was the increasing power of the storm. Like God’s own rage, screaming at me for breaking the rules of reality.

The robot began to crack. It wasn’t the cold, it was the water. Water that seeped into joints, then froze. More water followed, which also froze, expanding. The joints strained, then splintered.

The entire robot came crumbling apart, dropping in a thunderous crash.

I hit hard. Pain shook me, and my Lancesight evaporated.

I opened my eyes to find myself lying amid the wreckage of the machine. The rain started to slow, and I let go of any energy I’d held. The landscape nearby—broken buildings, fractured street—was covered in a thick layer of ice. I breathed in gasps of too-cold air. My clothing was in tatters. The cloth had frozen to me, then shattered like glass.

I pulled myself free of the wreckage, and left a disturbing amount of skin frozen to the robot’s hand. Fortunately, my healing boosts were working well enough to grow my skin back.

I turned on the broken beast, smiling broadly. I had won. Won where a victory hadn’t been set out for me, won on a battlefield the Wode hadn’t created. Here, no algorithm was pushing me along.

I felt more alive than I ever had. I’d found something real. It was like . . . like I’d just come awake for the first time.

Sophie stood at the edge of the frozen ground. Lords, she was beautiful. I’d never realized how much I’d wanted to know someone real, someone truly alive. Someone who hadn’t been created just for me, someone who had a life outside of mine. It was sexy as hell.

Sophie smiled deeply at me, then took the small gun from her handbag, placed it to her head, and pulled the trigger.

My mental boosts triggered at the explosion. I could see with perfect clarity as the blood sprayed out the side of her head, ribbons of scarlet like her dress. I watched it happen in slowed time, the pieces of my new life dying as her eyes faded.

The boost ended. Sophie’s corpse collapsed.

I stumbled toward her and there, written in the ice, I found words. Imprinted, as if chiseled by a workman.

I TOLD YOU MY NEW ROBOT WOULD BE WONDERFUL. I WORKED LONG TO PERFECT SOPHIE. I AM PLEASED THAT SHE CAPTURED YOUR HEART. YOUR DEBT IS PAID.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Besk said. “But she was not real. I noticed it, but Melhi cut me from the system. That woman was just like the emissary we met in the Border State—a fabrication controlled from afar, only this time created to be indistinguishable from a human being.”

I said nothing, standing beside my window, looking out over my city. My study felt too warm. Too friendly. A lie.

“I’m having trouble getting any answers from the Wode,” Besk continued. “I . . . I don’t know how he knew which woman we would pick.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “He intercepted the information detailing the one we had picked, kept it from reaching the actual woman, and sent a replacement.”

“Ah, of course.” Besk’s voice was sterile, as always.

“Were any of them real?” I asked softly. “The people I saved? Or was everything in that State Melhi’s creation?”

“I don’t know.”

Everything I talked about with her . . . everything she said . . . it was all fake.

I knew nothing. I didn’t even know what to feel.

Besk left me in my study. He obviously had no idea what to do; he’d been hovering since my return. The warmed wine sat on the table beside my hearth, untouched.

I paced, feeling angry, betrayed, hollow.

Finally, I picked up the Wode Scroll and wrote out a simple request. Who are the Liveborn in the ten jars to either side of me? I would like their names and the identifiers of their States.

I waited. Eventually, a reply came, letters appearing on the stone face as if written in ink.

We apologize for the trauma you have been put through. Melhi will be disciplined. We do not know how she hacked that State; it should not have been possible. You are released from propagation duty, per a unanimous judgment. You may return to your rule.

I stared at the slate for a few moments, then wrote again. What are the names and State identifiers of the Liveborn in the ten jars closest to my own? I would like to contact them.

A long pause. Finally, the names came.

It was time to stop living my life in isolation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With every project, there are many hands working behind the scenes. Everyone involved deserves thanks.

I would like to thank my writing group, Here There Be Dragons: Emily Sanderson, Peter & Karen Ahlstrom, Ben & Danielle Olsen, Alan Layton, Kaylynn ZoBell, Eric Patten, and Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson. Isaac St€wart is responsible for the look of the finished product. The Ineffable Peter Ahlstrom did his usual marvelous editing job. J.P. Targete adapted his striking artwork to better fit this story.

Community proofreaders for this volume include Alice Arneson, Aaron Biggs, Jakob Remick, Corby Campbell, Kelly Neumann, Megan Kanne, Maren Menke, Bob Kluttz, Lyndsey Luther, Kalyani Poluri, Rahul Pantula, Aaron Ford, Ruchita Dhawan, Gary Singer, and Bart Butler. Thank you for all of your input!