Guardian by Jo Anderton

Author:Jo Anderton [Jo Anderton]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, RNS
ISBN: 9780992284459
Google: L9CgoAEACAAJ
Amazon: 0992284449
Goodreads: 22030733
Publisher: FableCroft Publishing
Published: 2014-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

19.

The Hero’s false grin broadened in the stunned silence.

“The Other?” I whispered, and for a moment I knew true panic. The Other was the oldest threat. He was darkness and fear and pain. Worse than the puppet men, more terrible than bosses or programmers. He was death, made flesh. Only the Keeper could protect us from him, and the Keeper was gone.

We were doomed. All of us. We would die here in this underground city and nothing—

Clarity was slow in coming. I took several deep breaths, forced down the panic. The Keeper was not what we had once believed him to be. And here, on another world, would I allow a face on a screen to terrify me simply because it called itself the Other?

“That’s good,” the Hero said. “This will be easier if I don’t have to coax you down from the proverbial trees.”

“The light world’s Other is the dark world’s Hero,” Lad said, behind me, voice heavy.

I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to the embodiment of all evil?

Lad stepped closer to the table and ran his fingers beside the silex screen. “How is this possible?” he hissed. “You should be dead.”

The Hero’s face dimmed, momentarily. “And you are?” There was anger, tightly controlled, behind that voice.

“A programmer—” Leola began, but I interrupted.

“A Half,” I said, instead. “Do you know what that means?”

A thoughtful look crossed the Hero’s face. It was strange to watch his expressions change. They altered instantly, as though he flicked a switch, swapping emotions as suddenly as turning on a light. Perhaps they were false too, as artificial as his visage?

“Guardian’s little helpers,” he said, after a moment. “Sent across the veil to aid the program. Poor replacements for me, and the work I was doing.” Another smile, but still, I could feel anger. Connected to the silex, as I was, the Hero could not hide his true feelings from me.

Lad’s hand crept slowly across the tabletop to rest on my wrist, just above the cracking mineral mass. I glanced at him. His eyes held a silent warning, his expression worried, almost fearful. It tightened a low knot in my stomach.

“Listen to me, Tanyana,” the Hero continued. “Listen and do not be afraid. Everything you have heard about the Other—” hatred swamped the network when he said that word “—is a lie. I was a Hero first, and I still am.”

Lad’s hold on me tightened.

“I was the first poor fool cast into the veil,” the Hero continued. “Sacrificed to protect two worlds.”

“I don’t understand.” I glanced between Lad and the glowing false face.

“The Hero was the first programmer to be uploaded to the veil,” Lad finally answered.

“So the Hero is just like you?”

Another pause. “Actually, more like the Keeper. I was a Half, right Tan? Half here, only Half there. But thousands of years ago the early programmers did not understand the risks of crossing the veil, and were not able to follow the same precautions as we do. The Hero offered himself up, and they sent him into the veil.

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