Chapter 14

"Keep calm," Niles whispered. "We're just going to walk up to Keegan—lieutenants come in here occasionally to receive instruction from the colonels. Just don't make eye contact with Jewel."

We started up a spiral staircase. With my raptor hearing, I caught a whispered conversation.

"Hey, Keegmeister," one of the colonels whispered. "That Niles is a hot little number. When you're done, you mind if I take a crack at him?"

Keegan gaped at the man, stunned. "I'm sorry, Huzi, I don't think I'll ever be done with Niles."

"You sure?" Huzi pressed.

"Yeah. Sorry."

We were at the top of the stairs by then. I risked a glance up at Jewel.

"You don't usually bring so many people with you, Niles," he called. "What gives?"

Niles apparently hadn't thought of that. "Oh! Um… we…"

Help came in the form of a giant blue gecko lunging for Jewel from the rear. Jewel spun and cut a deep, bloody hole in the lizard's stomach.

"Big Guy!" he said, impressed. "What's going on?"

Jewel's creator heaved, breathing heavily. "I wanted to speak with you, Jewel," he said hoarsely.

"Speak?" Jewel said. "While your pretty little army marches in here? I don't think so."

"I know you think of yourself as a villain who breaks the mould," the Big Guy said, grinning wryly. "But you can afford to monologue, wouldn't you say? You're in control… of everything. Please, Jewel, let me speak with you."

Jewel considered that, then laughed. "Well, that's true, isn't it? Okay, go ahead and talk, dude. Lao Hu! Make sure those lieutenants don't go anywhere. I'd still like to know what's up with them."

The five colonels formed a barrier around the six of us. Brigid and Keegan stood a distance away—though of equal rank as the Five, those two apparently didn't do any heavy lifting.

I tapped Iggy and Nudge's fingers, telling them to split targets amongst themselves; Iggy passed the message on to Balthasar and Mattie in a barely-perceptible whisper.

"So, what's shakin'?" Jewel asked. I couldn't see him anymore; they were directly above.

"I know you can't be defeated," the Big Guy said solemnly. "I thought I could convince you that what you're doing is wrong."

"Hey, I know that causing mass extinction is frowned upon in some circles," Jewel said. "But how is that different from what the humans are doing themselves? I'm doing the planet I love a service. With only one hundred humans on the planet, the damage to the world will be nearly imperceptible. And I'm not killing everything; just humans. Last time I checked, no other species is dirtying up every imaginable sphere of the world."

Nudge and I exchanged glances. One hundred humans on the planet? That did, indeed, make Marian Janssen and her Itex cohorts look like an evil flake of dandruff. I know I'm kind of reusing a Max joke, but she wasn't around to come up with new ones at the moment.

"A service to the planet, perhaps," the Big Guy said. "But what about the human race? It's no service to them."

"The human race?" Jewel repeated. "Fuck 'em. If I didn't feel like I need somebody to bow down to me, I'd just release the virus right now."

"Jewel… I don't approve," the Big Guy said. "I do not approve. Thirty years ago, that would have made you back down instantly."

"Thirty years ago I was a machine," Jewel replied. "Today, I am a person. Take your opinion to somebody who cares."

"Jewel, I built you," the Big Guy said. "I raised and nurtured you. Everything you are is because of me."

"And I'm grateful, Big Guy. Honestly, I swear I'm grateful. But I've moved on to bigger and better things than being your lap-bot. People change, life goes on. Gonna have to let me go, Big Guy."

"Jewel," the Big Guy said, evidently grasping at straws. "Don't you… respect me?"

"Respect? Not especially."

"Don't you love me?"

"I—"

Jewel only got the one syllable out before falling silent. I craned my neck, trying to see what was going on. The silence stretched.

Finally, Jewel said, "No. No, I don't." He said it in a cracked voice, weak, pathetic.

"Is that right?" the Big Guy said. "Well, I suppose that is my fault."

"Don't blame yourself," Jewel said. "You did the best you could."

I heard the sound of the Big Guy being pushed over. I didn't know if he was dead; if he was, Jewel had killed him flawlessly, soundlessly.

"Now!" I yelled, preparing to attack the guards surrounding me.