Theta (36 page)

“
I wouldn’t put him in that
kind of danger,” I snapped. “We have to see Cecelia.”

He stepped aside and motioned to the gaping
hole in my wall. “After you.” He was triumphant, aware I’d been
swayed to do what he wanted me to since he dragged me into his
office to discuss the gods. “Their voices are easier to hear at
twilight.”

I said nothing and walked through the mess
into the hallway. The soldiers fell away when Cleon motioned them
to, and I strode through the adjacent hall and to the stairs.

Ten minutes later, we were outside. I
breathed in deeply, and my whole body felt like it was coming back
to life after a long slumber. It was muggy and cloudy, the air as
thick as soup. I didn’t care. Fresh air was fresh air. After two
weeks trapped in my apartment, I rejoiced in the cement and exhaust
characterizing the city’s air. It was late afternoon.

As one, Cleon and I struck
off towards the Oracle’s caverns. Our strides synced, and we walked
in step, our bodies adjusting to one another’s. I chose to ignore
how little left of me was truly
me
and instead, sifted through our combined thoughts
about the Oracle. Where we were in disagreement, it was easier for
me to identify my mind from Cleon’s. He was ready to charge in and
wrestle the Oracle’s power away from her, which sounded insane to
me, since neither of us had a handle on the source of my power or
hers, and no one knew what happened to us if she lashed out. She
retained her full capabilities, even if she was weak, whereas I
wouldn’t until she died.

It was the one area where I was unusually
apprehensive and restrained and Cleon shed his patience and
plotting for the purpose of instant action.

“
That was really your first
kiss?” he asked, entertained.

I flushed. I had been trying very, very hard
not to think about Adonis at all, let alone dwell on how incredible
his kiss had been. Lantos was taking Adonis to safety, which gave
me a little time to do something stupid without the shadow titan
interfering. A thrill raced through me at the thought of kissing
him again but was soon followed by profound sorrow.

I couldn’t see him again. Ever. Not while
Cleon was in my head.

“
At least you won’t go down
in history as the Oracle who’s never kissed a man,” Cleon said. “Of
everything at stake, and without knowing if we can stop the
apocalypse, how is that the most important thought on your
mind?”

“
Stop it!” I snapped. “The
only reason I haven’t blasted you to the moon is because I’m not
ready to give up yet.”

He was quiet. Our combined concern grew
stronger as we reached the guard shack atop the caverns until the
energy of my magic was bouncing between the politician and me. We
entered unchallenged and rode the elevator down to the cavern.

I breathed in the giddy, familiar scents
with relief, enjoying the tiny piece of peace they offered.

Cleon stopped a meter from the elevator. “I
understand now.” He closed his eyes, and I felt his inner
contentment, echoed inside my own being.

Can you hear me?
Cecelia’s soft voice sent a jolt of awareness
through me.

I looked towards her then at Cleon, who was
smiling and oblivious.

How can you talk to me
without him hearing?
I asked.

I have had thirty years to
learn to use my gifts.
She said no
more.

I approached her prison inside the glass
bubble on a wall. I wanted to ask her about the suspicions Cleon
and Lantos shared, but I hesitated. When I saw what humans and gods
had done to her and to her predecessors, I found it harder to
condemn her for wanting to destroy everyone.

I couldn’t let that happen, even if I pitied
her and understood why she was so angry.

The protected zone is
shrinking,
I said carefully.

I am weak, Alessandra. If you do not help
me, I will not survive much longer to assist in protecting what’s
left of our people.

And this time when she spoke these words,
which I’d heard many times, I couldn’t believe her. Adonis’ words
returned to me, as did the vision of the future where I stood here
in this chamber, frozen in some sort of altered state, while Lantos
and Tommy looked on. Cleon hadn’t been in the vision, but nothing
else about it gave me any hint as to what was happening, when, or
why.

I didn’t know whom to believe, but I was
leaning towards the lying asshole politicians who manipulated and
trapped me, not because I had any faith in them, but because of the
information Adonis provided about the gods dying. I replayed the
visions I’d experienced over and over.

The apocalypse and ghostly Adonis.

Lantos and Tommy standing here.

The Silent Queen going into labor outside
the walls.

Adonis appearing to me in Hades.

Were they even in the same potential
timeline, or fragments of multiple paths leading to multiple
potential futures?

I don’t know what to
believe,
I said, in case Cecelia was
reading my mind.

Give me strength, so I can
save us all,
was her reply.

I had touched her in one,
and I’d been frozen. Was this vision a warning of what
not
to do?

My heartbeat was racing, my palms sweating.
Cecelia had a quantum computer to help her sort through her visions
and powers. I had martial arts training and … Cleon. While he was
brilliant in his own twisted way, I didn’t think he could offer the
type of support I needed right now.

“
I can’t hear your
thoughts.” Cleon joined me at the railing, his gaze
sharp.

“
Maybe it’s the cavern,” I
mumbled.

“
She’s talking to you,
isn’t she?”

I tried not to react. Being a shameless
liar, Cleon spotted my tells.

“
Do not do anything without
me,” he said quietly. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with,
Alessandra. You may hate me, but you know I know how to handle
power and those ambitious enough to do anything to get
it.”

He was right. It took a psycho dictator to
know one.

“
What is she saying?” he
asked.

“
She says she’s
weak.”

He left the railing to check the readouts on
the screen on the wall nearest the glass petri dish. “According to
this, she’s still in a coma. She shouldn’t be talking to
anyone.”

“
Well, she is.”

What can I do to help
you?
I asked Cecelia.

What we planned, the last
time we saw each other when I was fully awake,
she replied.

I gripped the railing.

“
What’s she saying?” Cleon
asked, watching me closely.

“
Nothing really,” I
lied.

“
Now is not the time for
games, Alessandra.”

I can get rid of
him,
Cecelia said.
Permanently. I can free you.

My eyebrows went up.

“
She’s not to be trusted,”
Cleon said.

“
Neither are
you.”

“
I want to protect
humanity.”

“
You want to
rule
a select colony of
approved humans!” I retorted.
How can you
free me?
I asked Cecelia
telepathically.

He’s bound to you, but I can break the
connection, after I regain some strength.

By an energy
exchange,
I said, recalling what she asked
me to do before.

Why do you hesitate to help
me? You once were eager to,
she said,
sounding disappointed.

“
Because I have no idea who
to trust.” I looked pointedly at Cleon. “He says you started the
Holy Wars and Zeus is safeguarding the protected zone, not
you.”

You believe the man who stole your mind?

“
No,” I snorted. “But I
have a reason to believe there might be a different version of
events.”

They have polluted you. This was
prophesized.

My pulse raced. I didn’t know if what she
claimed was true or not. I could think of one person to ask, but I
wasn’t risking Cleon stealing my body, if I dropped into the
alternate world to find the first Oracle again.

“
Did you have anything to
do with the Holy Wars?” I asked.

I closed the gate to prevent a worse
fate.

“
So you were protecting
us,” I said. “Right? You didn’t launch the fireballs five years ago
and wipe out humanity. You reacted when the gods tried to hurt
us.”

I acted to prevent a worse
fate,
she repeated.

“
I don’t understand. You
closed the gate to prevent a worse fate, destroyed most of humanity
or … you did something else?”

The deaths of billions were unintended. I
did what I had to.

Coldness settled into my
core. “That’s not an answer!” I retorted. Herakles and Adonis would
probably tell me that this really
was
an answer, an indirect confession.
She wasn’t denying anything, as I suspected she should be, if she
were innocent. Growing alarmed, I gripped the railing harder. “Did
you hurt all those people?”

Cleon waited expectantly, and I ignored
him.

Cecelia was silent.

“
You didn’t. You wouldn’t,”
I reasoned aloud. “I mean, how
could
you?”

I glanced at the monitors, unable to tell if
she’d fallen into her coma again or if she’d ever really been in
one.

“
She’s gone. I can hear
your mind again,” Cleon said.

“
I don’t understand,” I
said, looping the conversation around in my head again. “She didn’t
admit to anything but she said whatever she did was necessary to
save us from a worse fate.”

“
There is no worse fate. If
Zeus loses his grip on the protected zone, chaos will rule briefly,
the gods will die, and all this will be followed by permanent
darkness,” Cleon said. “You’ve foreseen this.”

“
I don’t know what I’ve
foreseen! My visions are incoherent.” I sought some explanation,
some reasoning behind whether or not Cecelia had done this. “She
said the deaths were unintended. Maybe she had a vision about what
was coming and couldn’t, or didn’t, stop it.”

“
Or maybe she didn’t try,
or she was the one to burn the world to the ground,” Cleon
said.

I didn’t want to listen to him, didn’t want
to believe Cecelia was capable of doing what they thought she was.
I was starting to panic internally, to question everything I’d ever
been told by Cecelia, to review every word Cleon and Lantos had
said to make me doubt her. Artemis hadn’t spoken out against the
Oracle when she advised me to use my power, but wasn’t her
encouragement yet another nail in the coffin of what I was
beginning to believe was the truth?

“
The thirty nine hundred
deaths under your belt were unintended, too,” Cleon pointed out.
“As were the deaths of your parents. But someone killed all those
people. Someone collapsed the buildings around them while they
slept, and someone pulled the trigger that took your parents’ lives
away.”

With the scents of the
cavern, and Cleon in my head, I was starting to feel ill. It was
impossible not to listen to him; his speech was echoed in his
thoughts, which were
my
thoughts.

“
Those deaths were your
fault,” I said through clenched teeth. “You forced me to hurt
them.”

“
You
chose
to hurt them for some higher
purpose,” he replied calmly. “Cecelia did the same.”

He was right. I had a choice between
becoming a monster, and surviving another day to help what people I
could, or being chopped up and ending up on the wall where Cecelia
was now, where I couldn’t help anyone I loved.

“
The only difference is we
don’t know what Cecelia’s higher purpose is,” Cleon
concluded.

“
Maybe she was salvaging
what part of humanity she could, so we weren’t all
destroyed.”

“
Justify it however you
please,” he said. “As long as you believe me.”

“
I don’t …” But I did. Or
more accurately, I had enough doubt in my mind not to believe
Cecelia over Cleon as I had before.

“
I can feel the
difference.”

I said nothing, not wanting to admit the
truth. It was harder for me to deny Cecelia was not the innocent
party I had assumed her to be. I wanted to know more about what
Adonis told me, about what was happening outside the walls and why
and how the gods were dying.

“
Listen to them. They’ll
tell you,” Cleon advised.

At times, I heard the urgent whispers at the
back of my mind. At sunset and sunrise, they became clearer, until
I could distinguish individual voices among the murmuring.

I didn’t trust them any more than I would
Cleon. I believed Adonis, and I believed Pythia, which was what I’d
started calling the first Oracle. The only way for me to see her,
though, was too dangerous.

“
We could make a deal,”
Cleon said.

Gods, I hated this! I had no privacy
anymore!

“
If talking to her is what
it takes for us to become allies, then I’ll agree to behave better
in the alternate world than you do in this one.”