The Bonds We Share

By Melissa Sweeney

In the year 2104, Alliroue is living in luxury. A city-state built from her own prestige, a utopia of science and ingenuity. After being born with her heart tied to an ancient Deity, everything has been given to her, aside from a restful night not

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melissa Sweeney
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088254592

Book preview

THE BONDS WE SHARE

Book 2 of THE AFFINITY BETWEEN US Series

Melissa Sweeney

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, or incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of people, living or dead, is entirely fictional.

ISBN 978-1-7338679-8-6 (pbk)

All rights reserved © 2023 Melissa Sweeney

Cover art © Melissa Sweeney

For them,

past, present, and future

Chapter 1: Marcos

Marmar, I’m gonna have a literal freakout in the next fifteen minutes if I cannot get my act together, so if I kill myself by chucking myself into that fountain, tell the paparazzi I died saving someone heroically.

Alliroue, you can’t bring yourself to kill a plant, let alone yourself.

Marmar, not helping.

He shrugged. He thought he was doing a phenomenal job at calming her down. It was   what he’d been built for, after all.

Here. Spinning her like a top, Marcos planted Alliroue back down in reality and fished out the pills from her jean jacket’s pocket. She’d brought them down with her but hadn’t taken any because she was afraid of puking them up onstage. Better to get these in you sooner rather than later. You know how you act when you take them off schedule.

I’m already high, she reminded him, blinking back the watery look in her brown eyes.

Do you want them or not? He looked around backstage. They were up against a wall with a private elevator. Aside from a table and a hallway leading to an emergency exit, they were alone.

" Madriel , he seethed through his teeth. He looked around the empty table, then pulled up his phone. Seriously? She didn’t even have the decency to give you any water?"

I’ll be fine. She swallowed the pills dry. Wrinkling her nose at the aftertaste, she then wasted her remaining time by pacing behind the giant curtain. I’m fine, she whispered to herself. No big deal. I’ve done this thousands of times before. Just get up there, smile, and disassociate until Marcos drags you off.

Her voice couldn’t mask the chatter behind the curtain. The noise echoed throughout the foyer, bouncing off the glass walls.

Alliroue, like every year, was the keynote speaker for the annual Robotic & AI Summit. It was a convention she had a hand in creating. The public used this phrasing for her well-being, as any mention of her hard work in the robotic world would send her into a spiraling panic that’d last for weeks.

Marcos peeled back one curtain to evaluate the crowd. Two hundred of the fuckers had gathered in front of the crystal fountain. It shot up water three stories high to the glass dome encapsulating the Pangea Centre foyer. Around the seats grew indoor trees and trimmed bushes. Manmade streams rounded the check-in center and the IRE-21 station—everyone needed to be checked for symptoms before coming in. It would’ve been perfect, if not for the people.

Marcos scowled at the booths mucking up their home. Scurrying about were the latest models of servbots, little robots on wheels built to make lives easier. Their digital, emoji faces smiled up at beings, ready to serve without question. Marcos’ scowl deepened whenever they got close. He  was the best android out there, because he’d been built by the prodigy child gifted with the sight to see Deities.

But whatever. He made faces at the crowd, picking out those he wanted gone. He spotted every kind of person here: politicians, self-made millionaires, doctors, influencers. Humans alongside robots, alongside crossbreeds, the people ninety-percent human with ten-percent animal picked out of a DNA lottery hat. Mostly mammals—cats, dogs, bears. Their ears and tails flicked with excitement. He saw reptiles, their skin covered with scales, and aquatic breeds wading in the rivers. He even saw airborne folk, those with feathered wings and tails to keep them skybound. Perches were set up around the foyer accordingly.

He saw no dragonborne in the crowd—they were smart to evade the paparazzi that hounded them like the queen of fucking England.

Alliroue wiggled her head underneath Marcos’ to see. Her face went sickly green. That’s…a lot more people than Madriel promised.

"I’m going to kill  her, Marcos whispered. You know what, I’m going to call her."

No. Marmar, leave it.

It was too late. Having the avian on speed dial, Marcos pulled up his phone’s floating screen and pinged for the president of Pangea. Most beings had their phones clamshelled to their ear for easy access, projecting the screen directly in front of them. Robots like him had their phones implanted in their brains, immediate access via telepathic Bluetooth.

Marcos tapped his foot. Madriel was letting her phone ring awfully long for a goddamn president of a city-state. He almost hung up before an image came into focus.

A hideous, freckled face grinned back at him. Marcos! To what do I owe the pleasure? Is my summit running as smoothly as it did last year? If you’re calling about a body count or catastrophe, I don’t want to hear it.

Marcos bared his teeth. Madriel O’Malley was sitting in one of her company cars, surrounded by piles of crumpled fast-food wrappers and receipts. Her partner, Dawood, was sitting in the passenger seat, scrolling on his phone.

" Last  year? Marcos questioned. Madriel, last year two people had to be wheeled out by med-droids because a riot broke out."

"Hey, it wasn’t a riot , it was a rowdy gathering. We don’t need any scandals today of all days. So, what’s wrong? You don’t call me unless it’s about—"

You didn’t give Alliroue any provisions for this opening keynote.

" There  it is, she sighed, and sat back in her seat. Marcos, we have water fountains for a reason."

Alliroue isn’t some peasant about to drink public water. And I don’t care that she can’t get sick, Marcos added once Madriel opened her dumb mouth. Alliroue could get sick, just not the sick that mattered, the sickness plaguing the world. She doesn’t have any security details, either. Just— He rolled his eyes. There was  a servbot parked by the exit door, its pixelated smile etched on its stupid face. Not that servbots weren’t capable of apprehending criminals, he just hated looking at them. You know, ever since this year, your care for Alliroue has been lacking.

Alliroue gave Marcos a face that said, What’re you talking about?

What’re you talking about? Madriel asked. That’s not true! Pangea wouldn’t be where it is if not for that girl.

"Pangea wouldn’t have been built at all  if not for her, he corrected. All  of this is because of her. Your empire, your stocks, none of it would be a thought in the public mind sphere if she hadn’t been born."

Alliroue knelt down and covered her face with her hands. He knew boasting about her made her anxious, but Madriel needed to be reminded about how special she was. A city of 25,000 citizens, the world’s leading manufacturer of AI and robotics, all of that had been because of Alliroue’s existence.

Marcos turned the screen so Madriel could see what he saw.

Alliroue gave the camera a wave. Hi, Mads.

Oh, there she is, the star of the hour! Madriel started pruning her feathers in the camera, acting as if his screen was a mirror. She was a peregrine falcon crossbreed, born with two bird wings striped white and brown. Trust me. I would’ve supplied everything you needed today and more if I was there on-site. Unfortunately for everyone—

" Fortunately  for us, Marcos interrupted, you decided to bail out in favor of snatching up another dragon crossbreed like they’re a goddamn shiny Pokémon. The only blessing we can count today is that you’re not on the same continent to give her any more anxiety-induced trauma."

Hey, it’s not often I get a sighting of a dragonborne who hasn’t politely declined my offer into joining the ever-expanding world that is Pangea.

You don’t need to sell me on this place. I was built here. Marcos sighed. Look, if you’re not going to bother helping her, I’m sending her home and this whole keynote is cancelled.

Now, now, don’t be so negative. She’ll do fine on her own. She has you there to help her, doesn’t she? You can hold her hand.

Marcos was ready to throttle her through the screen. He didn’t care if her bones were thinner than most. He’d break both of her wings and her neck if she didn’t make Alliroue a top priority. He swore, some days, she was as bad as fucking Nolan Thomas, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, who treated all of them like golden cows.

I’ll make sure the rest of the summit runs as smoothly as possible, Madriel said. Oh, look! Can you guess where we are? She flipped the camera to show him a cliffside overlooking the ocean. You should see this place. It’s like stepping back in time. Cozy cottages, little castles for tourist traps. Southern England is crazy. Divine Intervention hits this place like rain almost every day. The air is buzzing with activity.

What’s your point, Madriel? he asked, pissed.

A little birdie told me there’s a dragon hiding in one of those doomsday cults that’ve been all the rage this past century. Haven’t been to one myself, but I heard this one is a snow-faced hilltop! They’re one of my favorite breeds, you know. Their skin is pure white.

I’m hanging up, Marcos said, uninterested in the ravings of a specist.

Alright. Kisses, Alliroue! You’ll do great. Wish me luck in this capture. I’ll snatch him up like a—what’s a Pokémon—Venustops!

Venusaur, Marcos and Alliroue corrected under their breaths.

Marcos hung up, glad to be done with her. Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to, you know. Mads will survive.

Alliroue took a deep, exaggerated breath that probably only worsened her anxiety. No. You’re right. There’re a lot of people here because of me. And I don’t show up in public often enough. I don’t even know the last time the public saw me.

Marcos knew: one month and six days ago. She’d accidentally liked a problematic celebrity’s Bond post and was found wandering the parks with a bottle in hand. It’d been Sprite, not alcohol, but that hadn’t stopped the paparazzi from gossiping.

I’ll be…good, she said, and hopped in place, working the blood through the parts of her that weren’t robotic. Her eyes, ears, spine, and right leg had been replaced with robotic parts, partly due to a childhood accident that’d nearly cost her her life, partly due to her own hands being unable to stop tinkering with herself. People called her a modern-day Picasso, creating art through her own body.

She kicked out her leg, freeing up the gears. I’m good. I’m good. Already feeling the pills. It’s five minutes of rambling. I can ramble, can’t I? I learned it from Madriel.

You’ll do great. Here. He turned on his phone again. Instead of Madriel’s Bond, he pulled up his recent messages and flipped the camera to show her. These’re from Shimah, Kumo, Rosaline, and Maxwell.

At the sound of familiar names, Alliroue looked up.

Rosaline 8:01

You’re going to do great, Allibop! Don’t worry about those stinky old men in the crowd. You’re the star here!

Shimah 8:03

You’re gonna do awesome! >:D

Kumo 8:03

You’ll be the brightest light in all of Pangea. You got this! <3

Maxwell 9:43

Don’t die.

Oh. Alliroue picked up the floating screen and brought it in closer. Her smile reflected on the shimmering data. They didn’t have to do this. Wait, how come they messaged you and not me?

You privated your private Bond last night when you were spiraling.

Oh, shoot. You should’ve told me. Was I high?

Drunk, and while I do have your passwords memorized, I do not have the fingerprints to open up your Bond.

She laughed into a snort, and Marcos chilled out for her sake. And look here. Hundreds of others tagged you on your main account. He pulled up her main account, the one her managers ran. 364 million followers, each day gaining 10,000 new faces, new opinions. Alliroue stayed away from it for a reason.

He scrolled through the ones that’d yet to be flagged to the ones singing her praise. They’re all rooting for you. Everyone wants to see you happy.

Alliroue dared a peek at her own Bond profile. There was nothing about world news, nothing too grotesque she couldn’t handle. She only saw the pink hearts and well-wishes, and that was all she needed, all she could bear.

Alliroue scrolled for herself, lighting up with every message. I wish I could respond to them. They’re all so sweet. Look, someone drew me fanart.

Marcos double-checked to make sure it was tasteful.

Oh, look. She tapped the top of the screen. You have a DM.

If blood could flow through him, he would’ve gone red in the face. Yanking the screen back, Marcos mentally tried to close out every tab he had opened, but he was frazzled, and he couldn’t work as efficiently when his dignity was on the line.

A video of a woman popped up like malware. She was a stranger, a model from Canada Marcos had taken an interest in. After a few back-and-forth DMs, she’d gone ahead and forwarded videos of herself that catered to his likes.

Marcos closed the message right as the girl orgasmed into his name. His volume was at max.

Oh. Alliroue frowned. Marcos, ew.

"You— You  were the one invading people’s personal DMs."

I don’t want to see the robot I built sexting girls. I don’t do that in front of you.

You’re a virgin. You don’t talk to girls, let alone sext them.

You’re a virgin, too, mister. Wait, are you? No, wait. I don’t wanna know. She covered her ears. La la la la la not listening to whatever answer you make up.

Marcos wasn’t about to admit the truth to her, but he got her laughing again. She was snorting and chuckling at his embarrassment, and he couldn’t ask for much else in this life.

A bright light flashed in his peripheral vision. Then another, then another, snapping from different angles. It was down the hall where the servbot lingered. But it wasn’t the droid taking photos, it was the thing he hated more than droids, more than police officers and the ocean and everything that made this world sick.

Fear discolored Alliroue’s face. Paparazzi.

Marcos immediately shielded her with his body. The flashes set off vitriolic anger inside his programming. Alliroue, saint that she was, did not ask much from her life. She allowed summits to be run in her building’s complex and granted them keynotes, giving them all of her free time, the people who didn’t deserve it.

She’d asked all but one favor for those who kept Pangea going: no paparazzi within the walls.

He was going to kill the fuckers. Strangle them, murder them. How dare  they come close to either of them?

But Alliroue was with him, and he couldn’t commit mass murder in front of her.

She went catatonic, holding her head like she was practicing for an atomic bombing. Saving her, Marcos unfolded the hoverboard she had tucked in her pocket. It locked into place and began hovering upon command.

Get on! he urged. He knew these people’s ways. They wouldn’t stop even after he and Alliroue were on the run. From down the hall, he saw the worst of the worst: One of them was an airborne. As soon as Marcos moved, they started running, flapping their wings to soar over the booths and trees to get the perfect shot.

Marcos kicked Alliroue into gear, securing her onto her board while protecting her identity, before getting out his own board and speeding off.

They flew past the curtains into the main foyer. The crowds gasped at the sudden reveal and went to turn on their phones, but Marcos didn’t give them the chance. Taking to the curve of the large fountain, he guided Alliroue out the front doors and into the world.

The city of Pangea had been designed as a utopia and, for the last few years, it’d kept that promise. A picture-perfect city of sustainability and progressivism. The postcards couldn’t capture its beauty.

But it was still hot as shit, being in Morocco, and the Sun momentarily blinded him. He almost hit a woman and child before pivoting his board back on the main walking path.

The world welcomed them to blue skyscrapers and the earthy scent of freshly cut grass. Greenery was everywhere in Pangea, from the rainbow flowers lining the walkways to maple trees growing on rooftops. More parks than roads, more windmills than screens, the city was a breath of artificial air, the kind scrubbed of any pollution and toxin in the outside world.

They took the floating bridges over the sparkling rivers built for waterborne. The beings with gills and fins swam their commutes to and from the city, bubbles popping from their slitted necks. Above the rivers flew birds alongside airborne and dragonborne. They were the two most coveted types of crossbreeds, mostly because they were cool as shit. Who didn’t want wings? Who didn’t want to breathe fire? Humans were exceptionally bitter, their pride be damned. It was they who got the raw end of the DNA pool. You didn’t see many of them in Pangea. Conservation efforts weren’t made for them.

Marcos and Alliroue safely traveled through the world built for them. Floating screens alerted passerbys of the time, the weather, and directions to different parts of Pangea. There used to be ads that accompanied them, broadcast on the outer edges of the city, before Alliroue thought them tacky and swiftly got rid of them. Now, only the shine of Pangea’s barrier glowed blue in the sky, a spiderweb of protection.

Using the fastest setting on their hoverboards, Marcos sped Alliroue off towards home. Their building was in the center of Pangea, surrounded by an artificial river. They had to pass by parks and lakes to get to it. The quickest way was actually through the largest lake in Pangea, Lake Era. Making sure Alliroue was ready, Marcos flew them across the water.

They hovered a breath off the lake’s surface. The blue mirrored the sky above them perfectly. Pangeans busied their free time flying drones and kites on the shoreline parks. Marcos tried not to look down into the water so he didn’t metaphorically puke at its ugliness.

I’m such an idiot, Alliroue muttered to herself.

No, you aren’t, Marcos said.

I shouldn’t have run. Now they’re gonna write even more stuff about me.

You’ll be fine.

I’m doomed. She doubled over, making her hoverboard hover too chaotically over the water for Marcos’ liking. He grabbed her jean jacket to steady her. I shouldn’t have worn this. They’re going to think I was underdressed. I should’ve worn a tux. I would’ve matched you. You always wear black.

Alliroue, focus. You’re going to drown.

They’re all gonna hate me.

He was used to her dramatic flare-ups of self-deprecation that often led to her wanting to kill herself, but not only was that physically impossible, he didn’t like seeing her like this. He liked realistic solutions. Killing yourself was never an option.

He looked right. Across the way was one of the gates to enter Pangea. The entire city was surrounded by a manmade river and bridges that led into the actual city of Karita.

Across the river was a protest building in size. Signs hovered in neon lights, people pleading for reform and acceptance. They were no doubt refugees from IRE-21, the deadly virus that’d chewed up the world and spat it out. He hadn’t checked the recent death toll, but that week had reached a haunting milestone: 3.5 billion. Fifteen years after the Deities had used the Earth as their wrestling ring, and fifty percent of the world’s population had died.

They called it IRE-21, the event that killed the world. The youngest Deity, the one who governed crossbreeds, had gotten sick from a virus that scientists hypothesized came from the Pacific Ocean. He’d grown sick and, as a result, so did his crossbreeds. The waterborne population got hit the worst, breathing in contaminated saltwater—fifty percent of them, dead. Most commercial fish, gone. It’d become too late once the public realized it was affecting groundwater. Bottled water became scarce, precious commodities in poorer countries. War had been inevitable, the world leaders biting their fingernails at the chance for murder.

They’d called it the Maroon Death, a pandemic that’d left ripples in the world to this day.

The human Deity had given up part of her life to save Shào, but her sacrifice had come at a cost. Such immense power to save a God had pressurized and gone off like an ill-timed bomb. Her toxic, divine energy, her dark matter, had exploded through the East, making it uninhabitable.

Australia.

The Philippines.

China.

India.

All were wiped off the map, radiation scorching their soil like Chornobyl.

This was before Marcos’ creation, and Alliroue had only been a baby when it’d occurred. The adults who’d survived and bore its sickness had named it IRE-21, the Indian Radiation Explosion.

Pangea was a spectacle, a diamond in a burning-down crack den. Everyone here had the wealth and prestige to be safe within the invisible walls, but those in need would never be allowed in.

Marcos didn’t allow himself time to care. Alliroue gave up most of her earnings to organizations to help refugees. She built AI, she gave people hope. He could do nothing else but be there for her.

Alliroue watched on, head tilting back to see the protestors a second longer. Like Marcos, her robotic eyes would be able to see each of their poor, dirtied faces, but unlike him, her heart was heavier. It was one reason she feared social media—all of it was updates and internet battles about IRE-21 and the lives it took.

Alliroue, focus, Marcos reminded her.

Wanna help, she mumbled. You think if I talk to them, they’ll be happier?

If you got close to them, they’d skin you alive and sell your hair on eBay. Don’t look at them.

But he knew she would. She’d take in their pain as hers, then doomscroll, reading up on the newest death counts, newest infectious zones, newest towns those two Deities had laid waste to.

Because that was the thing about those two. While the humans’ Deity had saved the crossborne Deity from extinction, while she might’ve loved him as much as hated him, while the two had grown up hand in hand, Maïmoú of Athens and Shào Kǎi had been at war with one another since their birth thousands of years ago.

As to why, you could pick a reason out of a fucking hat and be right in some regard. Maïmoú was the reason China, Shào’s home country, was uninhabitable. Shào was too weak to overcome the Maroon Death, looking pathetic in Maïmoú’s eyes. Shào was smarter. Maïmoú was stronger. They never listened to each other, yet they couldn’t stand to be apart. They were a couple of middle schoolers who hated the other for everything they lacked, and the world had to pay the price.

They flitted over the water into one of the parks. Alliroue’s board wobbled. Marcos brought his hands out to keep her balanced. Alliroue—

Their hoverboard magnets clipped the ground. The earth went from playground dirt to fucking cobblestone, a stupid aesthetic design Marcos had rallied against for this reason.

He let go of Alliroue to switch a gear on his board. They were going too fast. He didn’t know where the paparazzi were.

They broke through the trees and were propelled onto a bridge. All he saw was the sky, and then Alliroue, twisting her body the wrong way to take one more look at the refugees. Their boards hovered on whatever stability they could latch on to. When Alliroue’s attention diverted, so did her board, nose-diving her over the bridge and disconnecting her from him.

Marcos reached out, running the odds of the way he could catch her and damage her the least.

Another hand reached out alongside his. It was an older hand, scarred and worn from age, wearing a flowery shirt ripped straight out of a Renaissance faire. He floated without wings, caught Alliroue before Marcos could, and cradled her falling body in his own.

Then all three of them—Marcos, Alliroue, and Tsvetan, God of Earth and pain in Marcos’ ass—plunged into the river.

Chapter 2: Alliroue

Hey, I won’t always be around to work on you, Alliroue said, squinting into Marcos’ brain. So will you stay still for me this one time and let me work?

Marcos, being the brat he was, jerked forwards and made her screwdriver click into the side of his skull. She hit a wire acting as his nerves and he involuntarily spasmed, but he got what he wanted: to tease Alliroue within her fragile limits.

Excuse you! She pushed aside her glowing tech screens to see him. "This’s my laboratory, so you play by my rules. Unless you want a team of Americans working on you with the step-by-step instructions I  wrote, stay still."

You should be more concerned with your own injuries, not my malfunctions.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, she said, though she most certainly did. Currently, she was working in Marcos’ head with only one leg. Her robotic one was on the lab table behind her, ready to be worked on next. Besides, I’m fine in this.

She maneuvered in her custom-made wheelchair. With funding from MIT designers, the levitating machine helped her move around her lab quite well. Now stay still.

Marcos mimicked her tone but stayed relatively still for her to work.

She brought back the screens to see through. She tried not to think about all the advantages that helped her life like this. Thinking about her privileges made her contemplate terrible ideas. But they were built into her. Flesh stitched between screws and plates. She was an engineer first and foremost and built upon herself to enhance her human features: new retinas, enhanced eardrums. It cost millions, maybe even billions, but the thought of $100 in her pocket made her reach for her pills. Most people nowadays would kill for that kind of money. Most did.

Do you even know what happened to your leg, or did you just take it off because it was feeling loose? Marcos asked.

Alliroue pinned back a chunk of Marcos’ blond hair with one of her sparkly hair clips. One of the gears is cramping. Better to work on you legless rather than fall flat on my face.

Again.

" Hey ."

You could’ve died, Alliroue. That fall could’ve killed you.

You know it wouldn’t have, Alliroue said as she worked. Right, Tantan?

To anyone else, there were only two people in her lab. Just her and Marcos amidst a cluttered space of floating holograms, robotic arms, and hanging plants.

But to them, there was one other, one person only they could see that nobody else could.

Floating near the windows was a middle-aged man Alliroue humorously called her stepfather. He was missing one leg like her and had a fungus growing across his skin like an ancient tree. Mushrooms popped up every now and again like he was a potted plant left unattended, his skin his own ecosystem.

Tsvetan—Tantan, a nickname from her youth that’d stuck—was daydreaming by the windows. Her penthouse was on the hundredth floor, giving them an aerial view of the world. They could see the horizon between buildings as tall as hers, towards the Moroccan sand dunes. He looked forlorn, as he often looked when noticing the Earth, like a natural force was inbound.

Tsvetan? Alliroue called out again.

The Deity of Earth jolted. When he realized where he was and who was talking, he smiled, and a new mushroom bloomed on his skinny arm. Hello, he said. I’m sorry, were you speaking to me?

You got your head stuck in the clouds again. You need to come back to Earth.

I’m here, he said, which made Alliroue snort. He was such a funny little guy, even if he was an all-powerful entity able to birth earthquakes from a single thought.

Alliroue was a soulmate, a being spiritually tied to one of the Gods of this world. Because of this, she was able to see and interact with them in every life she got reincarnated in, and she was loved by one in particular—her Tsvetan. Their hearts were tied together by invisible strings of fate. That was how he described it, anyway. He was able to see these red strings connecting everyone to everything. They’d been tied when he’d saved Baby Alliroue from falling off her balcony as a child, and from that moment, their timelines had been intertwined.

Marcos was a soulmate, too, but he didn’t like acknowledging it, and neither did his Deity.

Are you sure you’re alright? Tsvetan asked her. You alarmed me. Marcos was right. A second later and you would’ve been seriously hurt. You’re lucky I can sense when you’re in danger, but what if I was tending to something urgent? I’m getting old in my age. My brain isn’t where it used to be billions of years ago.

I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left the penthouse in the first place. No more near-death episodes. I’m on meds for that now. She hovered her wheelchair over to one of the tables and shook one of her pill bottles. Forgot to take them.

You’re taking them while taking—what’s the word—weed?

She shrugged. There was no way she could be sober in this day and age.

Sweetheart, you need to be more careful. I can’t tap inside your brain and speak to you clearly when it’s so filled with toxins. If I hadn’t showed up in time—

But you did, and that’s all that matters. Grabbing a metal plate she needed, Alliroue hovered back to Marcos and put the finishing touches on his brain.

He was glowering at the floor between her and Tsvetan. He wanted to say something but was opting to stay angry instead of talking about his feelings.

Alliroue didn’t say anything and sealed the opening in his skull. She parted his hair back to the way it was. There. All set.

Marcos huffed and hopped off the work table, his eyes fixated on the Deity in her room.

Tsvetan’s weak smile faltered. He, too submissive to keep Marcos’ stare, looked away.

Alliroue blocked Marcos’ view. I’m fine, Tantan. Really. I’ll put my leg on now and won’t leave again. Just for you, okay?

He sighed in a dad way. Alright. Be safe, okay? Promise me. You know how I worry.

Oh, trust me, I do, she said. I’ll be good.

He caressed the left side of her face, the side spotted from stress-induced vitiligo. It traveled across her body into her hair, decorating her in white spots. The first patch came after her balcony accident. The rest followed months after.

Tsvetan kissed the top of her head and disappeared like a phantom, off to work on maintaining the world’s disjointed harmony.

Alliroue took in his lingering scent of dirt and sweat and flowerbeds, then felt the new flower that appeared behind her ear. She took it out and put it up to her lips: a white lily.

When she turned back to Marcos, he was frowning at her in a cute way.

What? she asked.

He was being annoying again, floating up there, staring at us. Those people don’t know shit about personal space or privacy. I hate when they do that.

He was just looking out for me.

Yeah, well, tell him to read the room better.

You know he can’t. They’re not good with that type of thing. She began shutting down the holograms of Marcos’ interior maps. They’re not good at…people things.

Marcos scoffed and left Alliroue’s workroom, hands stuffed in his pockets.

She let him go, knowing she wouldn’t change his mind about the Gods. That was a life lesson she’d learned early on as a child: People knew what they knew about religion and wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise. When the Others—the ancient Deities, the ones before Shào and Maïmoú—had announced themselves to the world, mania spread. A Deity of Earth, water, and  life, along with the Deities of animals and fate who had mysteriously vanished, plus  Shào and Maïmoú?

All the fighting, the wars that broke out. Fights about if they truly existed at all, or if one was better than the other. Fights between humans and crossbreeds, sides picked between the manic Shào Kǎi and the monstrous Maïmoú of Athens. Between them and IRE-21, the world had entered a new phase of life, one of constant death that divided families and countries. Tsvetan and the Others tried to play peacekeeper, but it was hard, pacifying insanity.

It was why Alliroue held so much to her name, why the media followed her around. Being able to talk to Gods had made her more famous than any celebrity or leftover royalty from the past twenty-first century. They’d built Pangea to honor that fact, her own kingdom.

Alliroue had been born to love Tsvetan, the earthen Deity. Marcos had the water one. Two opposites strung and tied together with red string. Everyone had lost their minds when one soulmate had accidentally built another four years ago. Once Alliroue stupidly—so stupidly—announced that Marcos could see divinity, they’d wanted Alliroue to build hundreds more, praying a new build could catch another Deity’s attention.

Alliroue had refused. She’d told news outlets that she couldn’t build another masterpiece like Marcos, that one robot was enough for her.

In truth, she didn’t want to mistakenly burden another life with divinity.

She worked on her leg alone, listening to a soft melody play inside her head. She unscrewed her ankle attachment and tweaked the cog that kept jamming. It smelled like pond water. She should’ve washed it, but an anxiety was growing from Marcos’ absence. She hated being alone, but she couldn’t stand being around strangers. All she had was Marcos and the Gods society either loathed or killed themselves for.

She turned up her music. She let her brain fog over as her hands worked automatically on her leg. A new screw there, a tightening of her big toe there. She slipped on the silicon protection sleeve that acted like a sock over her thigh, then lugged over the leg and secured it in place. Her nervous system latched on to it like magnets. Satisfied by how her ankle now rolled, she hopped out of her wheelchair and dashed out into the hall.

She bumped into something on her way out. It squeaked like a dog toy.

Oh, sorry! She auto-corrected the Sauria so it didn’t fall. You okay?

The Sauria chirped back. Sauria were little robots she designed right before Marcos. They were servbots that helped with cleaning but were mostly seen as pets. In their manuals, she’d written they were dinosaur/friend-shaped companions for young and old alike. Knee-high brontosauruses and stegosauruses imitating the look of plushies. They even had the mandatory blush marks on their cheeks—she couldn’t waver on that. It was important.

Sorry for the mess, she told it, knowing they didn’t care if her lab was a total sty. Droids didn’t have a consciousness like androids and only lived to serve. She held the door open for it as it dawdled in, prepared to carry out its purpose.

Alliroue didn’t hate her home. She knew being tied to a Deity gave her privileges most people dreamed about.

The home she’d been gifted, however…

At least it didn’t have an elevator. That would’ve sent her spiraling years ago.

It was a millionaire’s dream. A glass tower built on the highest building in Africa. Four bedrooms, five baths, her two-story laboratory, her greenhouse, her treehouse. Four living rooms and an entire self-operating kitchen. She never had to clean, never had to pick up after herself. It was the mansion of her dreams.

She held herself so she didn’t throw herself out the windows. They were floor-to-ceiling glass walls that were polished outside every Sunday morning. They were tinted from the outside so no curious helicopters or airborne could see her. She wished they were tinted from the inside, too. They were too clean.

She ran down the stairs, butt-sliding on the railing and being careful so she didn’t hit any of her hanging plants on the way down. She didn’t know what started first: her love for Tsvetan, or her love for nature. Whichever it was, ever since she could remember, her space was home to hundreds of plants. Hanging pots, vines up and around the windows. She had a tree in the living room, rooted in specialized earth underneath the floorboards that allowed it to grow. She didn’t want to talk about it.

She also had a pond in the living room. She also didn’t like talking about it. She just liked seeing the robotic fish swimming around in their pre-programmed circles. It was cute.

Marmar? she called out, checking in the kitchen and second dining room. Where are you?

Polo, he called back, and Alliroue followed his voice to the living room.

She froze. He was standing near the tree, watching the news on their floating TV screen. The reporter was interviewing a family displaced by IRE-21. You could tell by looking at them—the parents were sickly, a hollow look in their sunken-in eyes. They wore their house on their backs and their wardrobe on their bony frames.

They panned to one crossbreed who looked sunburnt. Red, blistered skin, trying to heal what was decayed. Their lips were tinged blue and the tips of their furry ears were hardened and purple—their body was giving up at the edges.

They looked four years old, born into a life they hadn’t asked to be a part of.

Alliroue turned away. The newscaster dissolved into a global view of the world. The center of the world looked normal. The west was colored orange in cautious danger, the east, a dangerous red, the fires still burning fifteen years later.

Fifteen years ago, the human’s Deity had saved the crossbreed Deity from death. In doing so, in saving the legacy of crossbreeds, 1.3 billion people had been vaporized, poisoned, and killed by the outburst of divine energy.

Another billion died in the months after. From shared hospital zones, unknowing contact with the unaffected, and final kisses goodbye, the poison spread.

Another billion would be lost the following decade.

The death toll rose to this day. Those who’d survived had lost children and the ability to have children. Centuries of family lines were snipped in seconds. Without any suitable burial land, they’d resorted to mass cremations. To this day, people found ashes in their backyards.

Alliroue wasn’t ignorant. The fact that she, somehow, for no reason, was granted immunity to this sickness because she could see Deities wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to the families suffering who couldn’t even leave the radiation zones because they were too radiated to touch. She’d been able to do so much for the world just by being alive, but she couldn’t be bothered to give a simple speech without having a panic attack about it.

She did what she could. $5,000 a month to this charity, another $10,000 to a children’s hospital. She gave her blood once a week to see if her DNA could be transferred to save others. She tried using her influence to help.

She began rocking in place. She couldn’t stand watching news like this. She couldn’t help but feel like this was somehow all her fault.

Marcos muted the screen. Do you want to watch something else, or do you want it off?

Keep it on, she said, and used the remote in her head to turn up the volume. Anxiety made a fucked-up person more fucked up. Sometimes, you liked pushing your own buttons, seeing if, maybe today, you’d actually been pretending you were weak, a mental masochist with paper-thin skin.

Marcos watched her out of the corner of his eye. They’re interviewing Russian refugees. Another attack hit Moscow. Apparently, there’re rare breeds who think they deserve sanctuary here and are demanding asylum.

Alliroue didn’t want to get political or argue with him. She knew their stances on the subject were wildly different. Her fatal flaw was her selfish empathy, his was being stubbornly analytical. Don’t they deserve a chance to be heard?

Not all of them need to come here, Marcos said. Look at them. They don’t belong here.

Not all of them might be contagious, Alliroue reminded him. A lot of it is acute radiation poisoning.

"That shit clings to clothes, Alliroue. You can’t trust that when beings can corrode