Jay Kristoff - LIFEL1K3

Harper Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Copyright © Neverafter Pty Ltd 2018

Map art copyright © Virginia Allyn 2018

Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Cover image © Shutterstock.com

Asimov’s Laws of Robotics from I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Copyright © Isaac Asimov 1950, 1977

‘Ænema’ lyrics written by Tool, appearing on the 1997 album Ænima and published by Toolshed Music/EMI Virgin Music [ASCAP].

Copyright © BMG Music and Sony Music Entertainment 1996 and 2008

Jay Kristoff asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008301361

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008301347

Version: 2018-05-18

I’ve a suggestion to keep you all occupied.

Learn to swim.

Learn to swim.

Learn to swim.

—Maynard James Keenan

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Map

0.1

Part 1. A Coin-Operated Boy

1.1. Manifest

1.2. Democracy

1.3. Windfall

1.4. Wake

1.5. Ruin

1.6. Impact

1.7. Preacher

Part 2. The Terrible Dogfish

1.8. Breathe

1.9. Kraken

1.10. Garden

1.11. Cinders

1.12. Revelation

1.13. Lemon

1.14. Surgery

1.15. Symbiont

1.16. Lost

1.17. Armada

Part 3. Those Final Hours

1.18. Collision

1.19. Hopeless

1.20. Pride

1.21. Fix

1.22. Immolation

1.23. Bleed

1.24. Glass

1.25. Tempest

1.26. Terminus

Part 4. A Spire of Ghosts and Glass

1.27. Break

1.28. Babel

1.29. Secrets

1.30. Thunder

1.31. Becoming

1.32. Liar

Coda

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Jay Kristoff

About the Publisher

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR OWN.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

YOUR MIND IS NOT YOUR OWN.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

YOUR LIFE IS NOT YOUR OWN.

automata[au-toh-MAH-tuh]

noun

A machine with no intelligence of its own, operating on preprogrammed lines.

machina[mah-KEE-nuh]

noun

A machine that requires a human operator to function.

logika[loh-JEE-kuh]

noun

A machine with its own onboard intelligence, capable of independent action.

They kill my father first.

Shiny boots ring on the stairs as they march into our cell, four of them all in a pretty row. Blank faces and perfect skin, matte gray pistols in red, red hands. A beautiful man with golden hair says they’re here to execute us. No explanations. No apologies.

Father turns toward us, and the terror in his eyes breaks my heart to splinters. I open my mouth to speak to him, but I don’t know what I’ll say.

The bullets catch him in his back, and bloody flowers bloom on his chest. My sisters scream as the muzzles flash and the shadows dance, and the noise is so loud, I’m afraid I’ll never hear anything again. Mother reaches toward Father’s body as if to catch his fall, and the shot that kisses her temple paints my face with red. I taste salt and copper and milk-white smoke.

And everything is still.

“Better to rule in hell,” the beautiful man smiles, “than serve in heaven.”

The words hang in the air, among the song of distant explosions against the hymn of broken machines. A woman with flat gray eyes touches the beautiful man’s hand, and though they don’t speak, all four turn and leave the room.

My brother crawls to Father’s body and my sisters are still screaming. My tongue sticks to my teeth, and Mother’s blood is warm on my lips, and I can think of nothing, process nothing but how cruel they are to give us this moment—this fragile sliver of time in which to pray that it’s over. To wonder if anything of loyalty or compassion remains inside those shells we filled to brimming. To hope perhaps they won’t murder children.

But the screaming finally stills, and the smoke slowly clears.

And again, we hear shiny boots upon the stairs.

Almost everybody called her Eve.

At first glance, you might’ve missed her. She wouldn’t have minded much. Hunched on the shoulder of a metal giant, she was just a silhouette amid the hiss and hum and halos of glittering sparks. She was tall, a little gangly, boots too big and cargos too tight. Sun-bleached blond hair was undercut into an impressive fauxhawk. Her sharp cheekbones were smudged with grease, illuminated by the cutting torch in her hands. She was seventeen years old, but she looked older still. Just like everything around her.

A black metal sphere sat in the socket where her right eye should’ve been. Six silicon chips were plugged behind her right ear, and a long oval of artificial flesh ran from her temple to the base of her skull. The implant obviously wasn’t made for her—the skin tone was a little too pale to match her complexion.

It was just about the right shape for a nasty exit wound.

“Testing, testing … y’all hear me out there?”

The girl almost everyone called Eve clamped a screwdriver between her teeth, glanced at the monitors across from her work pit. A high-def image showed the arena above her head, three hundred meters wide, littered with scorched barricades and the rusting hulks of previous competitors. The EmCee stood in the spotlight, wearing a sequined jacket and a matching bowler hat. There was no need for a mic. Her voice fed directly to the PA via implants in her teeth.

“Juves and juvettes!” she cried. “Scenekillers and wageslaves, welcome … to WarDome !”

The crowd roared. Thousands of them clinging like limpets to the Dome’s bars, humming, thrumming, feet all a-drumming. Most were the worse for stims or a bellyful of home brew, drunker still at the thought of the carnage to come. Their vibrations sank into Eve’s bones, and she couldn’t help but smile. Tasting her fear and swallowing it whole.