Dr. Erland woke up on the floor of a hot, dusty hotel room,
unable for a moment to remember where he was.
This was not the laboratories beside New Beijing Palace,
where he'd watched cyborg after cyborg break into red and
purple rashes.
Where he'd seen the life drain out of their eyes, and caused
then sacrifice of another life, while plotting the next step in
his hunt for the only cyborg that mattered.
This was not the labs of Luna, where he'd studied and
researched with a singular drive for recognition.
Where he'd seen monsters born at the end of his
surgical tools.
Where he'd watched the brainwaves of young men take
on the chaotic, savage patterns of wild animals.
He was not Dr. Dmitri Erland, as he'd been in New Beijing.
He was not Dr. Sage Darnel, as he'd been on Luna.
Or perhaps he was—he couldn't think, couldn't remember
... didn't care.
His thoughts kept turning away from himself and his two
hateful identities, and swarming back to his wife's heart-
shaped face and honey-blonde hair that became frizzy
whenever the ecology department was injecting new
humidity into Luna's controlled atmosphere.
His thoughts were on screaming baby, four days old and
confirmed a shell, as his wife dropped her into the hands
of Thaumaturge Mira, with all the coldness and disgust
she would have shown a rodent.
The last time he'd seen his little Crescent Moon.
He watched the whirling ceiling fan that did nothing to
dispel the desert heat and wondered why, after all these
years, this hallucinations had chosen this time to torture him.
This shell girl did not really have his wife's freckles or blonde hair.
This shell girl did not have his unfortunate height or his own
blue eyes.
This shell girl was not his daughter, returned from the
dead to haunt him.
The illusion was all in his mind.
Perhaps it was fitting.
He'd done so many horrible things.
The recent attack against Earth was only the culmination
of years of his efforts.
It was through his own research that Queen Channary had
began developing her army of world hybrids, and through
YOU ARE READING
Cress
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