Devil in the Device Read online

  also by lora beth johnson

  Goddess in the Machine

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Razorbill,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by Lora Beth Johnson

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Razorbill & colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com.

  library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

  Names: Johnson, Lora Beth, author.

  Title: Devil in the device / Lora Beth Johnson.

  Description: New York : Razorbill, 2021. | Series: Goddess in the machine ; book 2

  Audience: Ages 12 and up | Summary: Battling the dangerous forces buried within their minds, Andra and Zhade will have to find a way to work together before two power-hungry leaders and a deadly swarm of rogue technology destroy humanity for good.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021017008 | ISBN 9781984835956 (hardcover) ISBN 9781984835970 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781984835963 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Science fiction. | Artificial intelligence—Fiction. | Space colonies—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.J6287 De 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017008

  Cover art © 2021 by Doaly

  Design by Rebecca Aidlin, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  pid_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0

  contents

  Cover

  Also by Lora Beth Johnson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One: The Fall

  One: The Guv

  Two: 00110010

  Three: 00110011

  Four: The Rogue

  Five: The Divine

  Six: The CI-Devant

  Seven: 00110111

  Part Two: Eternal Damnation

  Eight: 00111000

  Nine: The Grafter

  Ten: 00110001 00110000

  Eleven: 00110001 00110001

  Twelve: The Grifter

  Thirteen: 00110001 00110011

  Fourteen: The Failure

  Fifteen: 00110001 00110101

  Sixteen: 00110001 00110110

  Seventeen: The Glitch

  Eighteen: 00110001 00111000

  Nineteen: The Defect

  Twenty: 00110010 00110000

  Part Three: Lake of Fire

  Twenty-One: 00110010 00110001

  Twenty-Two: The Gifted

  Twenty-Three: 00110010 00110011

  Twenty-Four: The Guardian

  Twenty-Five: 00110010 00110101

  Twenty-Six: The Cleaved

  Twenty-Seven: 00110010 00110111

  Twenty-Eight: The Sanguine

  Twenty-Nine: 00110010 00111001

  Thirty: The Sovereign

  Thirty-One: 00110011 00110001

  Thirty-Two: The Scourge

  Thirty-Three: 00110011 00110011

  Thirty-Four: 00110011 00110100

  Thirty-Five: 00110011 00110101

  Part Four

  The Quick and the Dead

  Thirty-Six: The Prisoner

  Thirty-Seven: 00110011 00110111

  Thirty-Eight: 00110011 00111000

  Thirty-Nine: 00110011 00111001

  Forty: 00110100 00110000

  Forty-One: The Runaway

  Forty-Two: 00110100 00110010

  Forty-Three: 00110100 00110011

  Forty-Four: 00110100 00110100

  Forty-Five: 00110100 00110101

  Forty-Six: The Blood

  Forty-Seven: Andra

  Forty-Eight

  Zhade

  Part Five: Afterlife

  Forty-Nine: Zhade

  Fifty: Andra?

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Emily Suvada—

  You are The Best™

  PART ONE

  THE FALL

  We’ve put all these procedures in place—the colonist program, the Ark—but are we truly saving humanity?

  I consider human identity as a collection of memories. As long as those memories stay intact, the central identity remains. The problem is that memories are ever shifting and changing. So, then, does human identity.

  —Sim recording of Dr. Alberta Griffin, date and location unknown

  ONE

  THE GUV

  Zhade woke to a knife at his throat.

  Darkness shrouded the figure above him, its weight pressing down on Zhade’s chest. Metal bit into his skin, warm and slick. His covers were twisted round him, and there was no way to fight, nowhere to run. There was nothing sole to lie there and accept his fate.

  Stardust swirled thickish in the air, waiting for a command from the Crown, but he didn’t call to it. Couldn’t.

  Instead, he sighed.

  “You again?” he asked his would-be assassin.

  The blade fell away. The weight scuttled off him.

  “You need better guards,” a high voice said.

  The first rays of light peeked through the seams in Maret’s dark curtains, illuminating Doon’s face, pink from the sun, her clothes coated in sand. Her dark eyes—the exact shade of brown as her brother’s—glinted fierceish as she sat crouched on the edge of the bed, blade still ahand, a single eyebrow raised.

  Zhade threw his arm over his eyes. “I have Gryfud. You can’t find a better guard.”

  Doon huffed. “Gryfud’s at home with his fam. You have Meta standing guard this moren.”

  Zhade wrinkled his nose and ruffled his hair. The blond strands tickled the back of his neck, longer than he’d ever worn it. Longer than he liked. “Rare form. I do need better guards.”

  His guards were loyal to Tsurina, full true. And if it was Meta at the door, she probablish held a sign that said “Assassins welcome.”

  He gentlish pushed Doon off the bed. “You’re getting sand in my sheets, little warrior.”

  She landed on the carpeted floor with a soft thud. “If I had been an assassin, sand would be the least of your worries.” She sheathed her knife and looked round the Guv’s room, taking in the heavy curtains, dark furniture, and haze of stardust. “It looks like you haven’t cleaned since you became Maret.” She sniffed. “And that Maret didn’t clean since he became guv.”

  “Then I can’t full well start cleaning now if I want people to reck I’m Maret.” Zhade groaned as he climbed out of bed, which, for all its luxury, still felt uncomfortistic and cold to Zhade. But he was here, and his brother was sleeping frozen agrave. So there, a
s Andra would say.

  He stretched his aching muscles, twisting from side to side.

  “Turn round,” he said through a yawn. “Can’t I have some privacy?”

  He started riffling through the discarded clothes next to the bed for a clean shirt.

  Doon turned her back to him. “Maybe you should sleep in armor soon and now, if it’s this easy for someone to sneak past your guards.”

  Zhade sniffed one of Maret’s dark purple tunics and was assaulted by the smell of sour sweat and something coppery. He could have sworn this pile was the laundered one.

  He shrugged the tunic on and froze when he saw himself in the wardrobe’s mirrored doors. There were dark hollows neath his eyes, and his hair hung in greasy clumps. Everything bout him looked thin—his nose, his pointed chin, his body. His presence. It had been over a moon since he’d used the graftling wand, but his stomach still tightened when he saw his brother’s face reflecting back at him.

  “I have to convo you something,” Doon said. She was slumped in a chair, face drawn in an imagineful expression.

  “Is it where you’ve been?” Zhade asked, searching through the wardrobe for one of Maret’s capes. “You have to stop disappearing. You can’t mereish wander off whenever you feel amood. You should convo Skilla where you’re peacing to. Or Dzeni. Or take Xana with you.”

  “For certz, Guv.” She said the word the same as she used to say his name. Something more than irritation but not quite disdain.

  “I’m not saying this as your guv—” he started. But what was he saying this as? Not her brother, for certz. Not her guardian. He’d convinced her brother and guardian to abandon her. Then gotten him killed.

  “Good, because you’re not for true the guv.” Doon gave him a hard smile. “You reck that, marah? It’s still Maret on the throne.”

  Zhade rolled his eyes. It was true that he still wore Maret’s face, but he was ruling by his own values. The dungeons had been emptied, the executions had stopped. He’d found housing for those displaced by the pocket and found workings for those without. Maret would have done none of that. He would have given in to Tsurina’s demands to punish those who looted during the panic after the dome had been destroyed. He’d have left the homeless and workless to fend for themselves. Then he’d have thrown a party to distract everyone from the state of the city.

  The Eerensedians may imagine Maret sat on the throne, but it was Zhade who led them. Things were . . . good. His plan was working. He’d taken the throne, the gods’ dome was fixed, and now he was focusing on chipping away at Tsurina’s power. Slower than he would have liked, but Tsurina’s influence was more embedded into the government than he’d realized. There were a few pebbles in his shoe, but after a moon as Maret, Zhade was more certz than ever that his plan would succeed and Eerensed would finalish be free.

  Zhade gave Doon a playful shove. “Mereish because I took his face—”

  Doon pursed her lips. “Mereish his face?”

  “Evens,” Zhade conceded, winking. “His face and Silver Crown.”

  Not that the Crown had been of any use to Zhade yet. No meteor what he tried, he couldn’t harness its powers. Through it, he could feel the stardust round him, sense the angels and magical conduits, but they wouldn’t answer his commands. The Crown was now mereish a decoration, part of the trappings of his deceit. At luck, Zhade hadn’t had need of it. If the Eerensedians realized the Guv could no longer wield his greatest weapon, his power would start to dissolve.

  Zhade collapsed into a velvet chair and rested his forehead gentlish against his hand. The skin next to the Crown was tender, the muscles sore.

  Doon plopped down on a nearish sofa and started twirling a knife on the tip of her finger. “Dzeni got a job akitchens. She begins tomoren.”

  Zhade sat up straightish, the stardust round him swirling in agitation. “What?”

  Doon nodded, eyebrows raised in mutual comping. “I reck, marah?”

  Zhade shook his head. Dzeni wasn’t safe apalace. If Tsurina recked the promised of Zhade’s best friend—the man Maret had killed—worked akitchens . . . He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “She should have gone to stay with the Schism.”

  Zhade would visit her, convince her to go belowground. If she didn’t want to stay with the Schism, maybe he could convince her to live in the Vaults with the goddesses. He’d bring her some flowers. Maybe get a toy for Dehgo. What did kidduns play with, anyway? Charms? Knives? He’d ask Gryfud—the soldier who had let him into Eerensed all those moons ago and was anow the captain of Zhade’s guard. He and his husband had recentish adopted a kiddun. For certz they’d figured what it played with soon and now.

  Gryf was always willing to help. Without Kiv as part of his guard, Zhade needed someone he could trust to infiltrate Tsurina’s ranks. He’d chosen Gryfud not sole because he had let Zhade and Andra acity, but he’d also been friendish with him as kidduns. It was still a risk, but one Zhade had to take.

  Gryfud had sole shook his head when Zhade had revealed who he for true was.

  “You’re a fool boyo,” he’d said, in a way that purposed he was agreeing to help, if sole because he recked the plan wouldn’t work without him.

  “Be at care what you say to your guv,” Zhade had teased.

  “For certz,” Gryfud had replied. “If I see him, I will.”

  Doon stretched out on the sofa, throwing her hands behind her head. “Convoing the Schism. You do reck that you missed your last meeting with Skilla, marah? She’s for true full angry.”

  Zhade waved a hand. “She’ll make it peacish.” He grinned, gesturing to himself. “Who can stay angry at this face?”

  Doon scowled.

  There was a knock at the door, and both Zhade and Doon froze.

  No one should have been able to enter his suite—the outer door was sealed with blood magic. Somehow, while he and Doon had been convoing, someone had entered through his receiving room, walked down the hall, and stood outside his bedroom for who recked how long.

  “Did you leave the door open?” Zhade hissed.

  Doon shook her head. “I didn’t come in that march.”

  His eyes darted toward the balcony, and she nodded. He slowish made his march to the door, making certz Doon was hidden before opening it. A guard stood on the other side, plated in gold armor, her sharp face frozen in a stern expression.

  Meta.

  How had she gotten in? The sole person—other than him—with access to the suite was Tsurina. Had Tsurina messed with the blood magic so the guards could enter too?

  Zhade groaned inwardish.

  Meta was bout Zhade’s age. A refugee from the Wastes who, after sole three years in the guard, had been promoted to second-in-command, poised to take the captain’s place. Sfin, the priorish captain, had died during the battle against the Schism, the night Zhade had morphed his features to match his brother’s and slid into his place as guv. To the people of Eerensed, it was the day the palace had nearish been destroyed, the Third caught and executed, and the gods’ dome restored.

  With Sfin dead, Meta was spozed to become captain, but Zhade had promoted Gryfud instead. Gryfud, who had been mereish a border guard, and a lower-level one at that. Meta had been less than pleased. She made it recked as oft as possible.

  “Guv,” she said through gritted teeth, jaw clenched, a strand of brown spiked hair falling over one eye. The westhand side of her head was shaved like a Waster; the other side was long and slicked into pointed strands. It wasn’t reg, that was for certz.

  “Firm?” Zhade asked.

  “Do you have memory you have a guv-asking in half abell?”

  “For certz,” Zhade lied. “Be there soonish.”

  Meta turned to go.

  “And Meta?”

  She halted.

  “How did you get in the suite?”

 
Meta blinked slowish. “The door was open. I imagined you left it that way apurpose.”

  Zhade swallowed. He for certz hadn’t left the door open. Which purposed that either Tsurina had let her in, or the guards now had some way to pass by the blood magic. He couldn’t ask bout it though, not without seeming suss. Instead, he gave Meta a tight smile. “For certz. I’m still half sleepy. I’ll be out in a tick.”

  Meta didn’t smile back.

  * * *

  The day passed in a sandcloud, each activity sifting into the next. It was always the same: meetings and appearances and half-walking the thin string between maintaining his ruse as Maret and making decisions that would improve Eerensed’s fate. Each day he held himself busy from moren to even, but this day he convoed his guards he needed a bell in the aftermoren to himself. They didn’t question him. He was guv, after all.

  After his last meeting of the day, he retreated to his room, donning some of his old clothes and a glamour mask sorcered to a generic Eerensedian face and marched out acity.

  Once he was free of the shadow of the Rock, he sighed and let himself enjoy Eerensed. The bustle of citians, the hum of tiny flying angels, the flashing of scrys. The bright sun shining down on all of it. He saw no askers, though they’d always been scarce in Southwarden. There were flowers in windowboxes and in the midway. Zhade picked a handful of starflowers to give to Dzeni.

  The sole thing that marred his mood was the pocket looming outside the city to his westhand side. It was quiet—as much as pockets were quiet—and it didn’t seem to be growing or moving. But it was a fulltime memory of the events of last moon, when the gods’ dome had failed and a full district of the city had been destroyed in an eyebeat. At the least, it was full early in the day the pocket didn’t yet block the setting sun. Each even, night came a full bell earlier than it used to.

  It was a short trip to the bakery that had once belonged to Wead’s uncle, who’d left it to Wead when he’d sunk into sand. Zhade imagined it belonged to Dzeni now. Or maybe Doon. It was a small place, hidden in the tangle of alleys in the resto district in Southwarden. The bell rang as Zhade pushed open the door.