Anthem's Fall

Chapter Sixty Eight

Chapter Thirty

Vengelis

Vengelis stared at Kristen Jordan silently. He examined her closely, methodically weighing out her potential value. She was tapping a sneaker nervously against the stage and drumming her fingers along the side of the Harbinger I remote. Behind her glasses, she was reading Pral Nerol's report with a mingling of apprehension and wonder. Vengelis was still not entirely convinced that Kristen was not in fact one of Pral Nerol's researchers—a Primus—living incognito on Filgaia. But if this young woman was a Primus, she would have recognized the heir to the Epsilon throne enter the ballroom and consequently faltered during her presentation when Vengelis arrived. Yet Vengelis had distinctly seen Kristen notice and disregard his initial entrance. Beyond that, he had felt the delicateness of her jaw when he had grabbed her by the chin. It had taken a conscious effort to avoid inadvertently crumpling it with a mere squeeze of his thumb.

No. Kristen Jordan had to be a human, but how?

How were humans—by their own capacity—also on the cusp of Felix technology? It did not seem possible that a civilization so inferior to the Primus in every other aspect would be on an equal ground in this one solitary scientific respect. Vengelis had to admit that he was as perplexed by her existence as she no doubt was by his. They were each enigmas equal in kind, one physical, one cerebral.

Kristen drew a steadying breath and let it out slowly, and when she lifted a hand from the Harbinger I remote to massage her chin, Vengelis saw she was trembling.

"What do you mean when you ask me to show you how to defeat these Felixes?" Kristen asked cautiously, lifting her gaze from the remote.

Her question jarred Vengelis from his thoughts, and her tone stoked irritation in his chest. She was beginning to look increasingly worried, and it bothered him. "You need to tell me how they can be unmade. Tell me how I can disassemble them."

Kristen's expression showed a lack of understanding. "I know Vatruvian technology on the scale of the cellular level. You're referring to these . . . Felixes . . . as though they are some sort of army?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand. How many of them did this scientist create?"

"The number of Felixes is irrelevant. The question is how I can destroy one of them."

"Well, you're mentioning Felixes in the plural, so I will assume you people created more than one," Kristen said. "But are we talking about some sort of, like, legion, or a few?"

"We created four."

"Four?" the answer visibly took Kristen aback. "Four Vatruvian humans—or Primus or whatever you are—were cause for you to come all the way here?"

Vengelis nodded, in disbelief himself. "Yes."

"Well, what do . . . hold on." Kristen glanced back at the remote in her hands. "What do Pral Nerol and his researchers have to say about it? I really think you should be talking to them, not me."

Vengelis scratched his chin, pondering how much he should risk telling her. He did not trust Kristen Jordan. The young woman before him was obviously intelligent; her exceptional intellect was on par with Pral Nerol and the greatest minds of his own people. He could see in her eyes that she was putting pieces together, attempting to solve the puzzle of how he and his men were flying through the sky, throwing people across rooms, and ripping down skyscrapers. The growing glint in her eyes was unmistakably her mind trying to establish how her notion of reality was so obviously deficient. Kristen was not a sheep who would curl up and write him off as a god. Instead she would use her mind and figure out what they were, perhaps by tricking him. She was proof the humans were not as archaic as he had believed even hours previous.