Stormblood, стр. 130
‘At the cost of murdering thousands of people,’ I growled, ‘and potentially murdering millions more.’
‘The powerful survive, Fukasawa. As you and your kind have already proved. And power is nothing unless it is used. Tell me, did you enjoy being so drugged out of your little mind you didn’t feel a thing as you mowed my people down?’ She glanced back at a rotating hologram of Compass. ‘No matter. Transhumanism is the only solution. Tens of thousands are already enhanced, their bodies upgraded to their full potential. Why should we hide from it? Harmony is afraid of the inevitable. The House of Suns is not.’
I saw the glaring light of conviction – of madness – in her eyes. She actually believed her cult could control and contain the DNA of a galaxy-consuming race of aliens. That the stormtech was just another kind of wetware upgrade that body-modifiers and cyberneticists played around with.
Artyom continued to watch impassively by her side. Nothing I said would convince him to help me now. I was on my own.
‘Harmony’s made mistakes, but you can’t blame them for holding the stormtech back from the public,’ I managed through gritted teeth, streams of sweat sliding down muscles that felt as tight as bridge cables. I nodded to the blue ribbons dripping down my legs. ‘They didn’t mean to create a drug market.’
Jae shrugged. ‘Does intent matter if the end result is the same?’
‘They’ve never stopped trying to repair the damage!’
‘Apologies don’t matter. The way Harmony feels now doesn’t matter. They’ve made their move. Now we make ours.’
I twitched in my restraining harness. ‘What?’
‘You didn’t think those deaths were for nothing, did you? Give us some credit. The stormtech we’ve been distributing on the market contains a virus, sending the user’s body into overload. You’ve seen as much. Those few terrorist attacks and random killings so far will be nothing in comparison to what a good chunk of Compass’ population will do once we activate our Surge virus. Remember when you were on the battlefield, eager to tear Harvest soldiers limb from limb? That’ll happen with every fifth stormtech user.’
She scraped back the sweaty strands of my hair that had plastered to my forehead with ice-cold fingers. Her nose wrinkled as she inhaled deeply. As if she liked the sickly-sweet smell of stormtech wafting out of me. ‘It’ll be mass hysteria. Harmony will be unable to do a thing.’ She reached into the pocket of her blouse and retrieved a hypodermic. ‘But we can. We’ve engineered a solution. We’ll shut down the Surge signal and users will emerge from the madness, enhanced by the stormtech. They’ll understand there’s a way to live moderately with it as a species. Following our example, they’ll embrace the stormtech – as we were always meant to. We’ll show them the way forward.’ She cupped my jaw with a surprisingly iron grip. ‘You helped so, so very much when you broke out of that xenomuseum. You and your brother make a fantastic team.’
There was a perfect crack as I headbutted her, hard.
Artyom startled. Jae recoiled, dabbing a hand to her forehead. ‘You’re going to pay for that, you arrogant little worm.’
This was exactly what the Kaiji had feared: the House of Suns were going to flood Compass with drugs out of some arrogant, screwed up sense of leadership. The sociopaths were doing the Shenoi’s work for them. Our asteroid would become another footnote on a long list of fallen civilisations and ravaged worlds across the galaxy. And I could do nothing except sit here and watch it happen. I’d failed my brother, I’d failed Kasia, and now I’d failed Kowalski, Grim and the people of Compass.
A sudden thought struck me, pieces clicking into place and presenting a picture. ‘You’re immune, aren’t you?’ I glanced up at her with a mad grin scattering across my face. ‘You’re like my brother. Your body rejects your beloved Shenoi DNA. You’re not just a zealot. You’re jealous. Jealous of something you can never have. Watching people like me be enhanced by it is driving you insane.’
Artyom stiffened. Jae’s face twitched, a crack running down her facade and hinting at the mad machinery powering her actions. I felt her control slip and swerve from her grasp before she promptly regained it. ‘I don’t need to partake in the stormtech to know its power. Or to show the world what I want them to see.’
My harness groaned as I rolled my stooped back. People will find out how you’ve manipulated them. They’ll find out the truth.’
‘People see what they want to see, picking and ignoring what suits them. So far, they’ve witnessed stormtech-ridden people turn into savage killing machines and drug-addled madmen. Once they know what Harmony has failed to protect them from, they’ll turn on them.’ She sniffed, as if struck by an afterthought. ‘Just like everyone on New Vladi knew what your father was doing to you and your siblings.’ Artyom’s muscles clenched, but he refused to look at me. ‘And that it was your father who hit your mother, her head cracking on the tiles. But it was easier to call her death an accident. People dislike hearing facts that bring them out of their comfort zone. They’re content to ignore suffering, as long as it’s not their own. It’s rather unfortunate you had to learn that particular feature of our species so early on, isn’t it?’
My body made an instinctive jerk forward, imagining tearing her throat out. The stormtech was a live wire inside