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Edilio was there, unpacking a second missile, but nope, Caine thought, Edilio isn’t going to get the shot, either.
Gaia saw him.
“You,” she said.
“Yeah, me,” Caine said, disappointed. “Well, I thought it was worth a try. Better than my backup plan.”
“Your backup plan?” Gaia asked.
Caine nodded
. And for a moment he hesitated, seeing Diana in his mind.
Diana.
A good final thought, that.
“Now, Little Pete,” Caine said. “Right now.”
Little Pete was ready, but he was still worried. Living inside a body had not been good for him. His brain had been his enemy all his life. And the only peace he had ever known was in this fading twilight unreality he had shared with the Darkness that called itself the gaiaphage.
But the gaiaphage had attacked him. The gaiaphage had hurt him, even while crooning softly to Pete to just fade away.
Little Pete didn’t remember much that his parents and sister had taught him back before. But he remembered that it is not okay to hit.
It is definitely not okay to hit.
Then he had seen the ghostly shapes of all the people starting to flicker and disappear. All those game pieces, all those avatars, just disappearing, and they were being destroyed by the Darkness, weren’t they?
The gaiaphage wasn’t just hitting Little Pete.
Which was wrong.
It was hitting other people, too.
He had tried to fight back using Taylor, but he’d been too weak to make her whole, and too weak to stop the slaughter.
And then he’d heard his sister calling to him. Little Pete, take me and fight it.
But he didn’t really trust her very much.
Other voices had drifted to him, calling him through the emptiness, even as the Darkness tried to tell him no, no, Nemesis, just fade, fade into nothingness and be happy.
A girl he didn’t know had called to him. Take me. I deserve to die.
But then had come the voice that said, Come on, you little freak, wherever the hell you are, whatever the hell you are, let’s get this done with.
Pete had seen the scars on him, the fresh marks of the gaiaphage.
You and me. Blaze of glory, Little Pete. Blaze of glory.
Pete didn’t know what a blaze of glory was, but it sounded good.
Now, Little Pete. Right now.
The Darkness was wrong. It was not time for Peter Ellison to fade away. It was time to hit back.
Caine had not wanted to feel it happening. He’d wanted it just to be over quick. Bam, over. But he did feel it.
