Seven Devils (Seven Devils, #1)

by Elizabeth May

Her Pathos, the communication chip embedded within her cerebrum, echoed through her skull with the most irritating musical tune. Commander Sher had chosen it because he knew Eris couldn’t ignore it. <Riiing riiiing this is important,> the tune sang. <Listen to meee and remember don’t murder people!>

She’d told her other superior, Kyla, that she was looking for something challenging. Eris could never decide if the other woman was obeying her wishes or deliberately trying to kill her. <Kyla says you’re usually faster than this.> Eris paused. <She did not.> <She’s telling me that if you don’t finish your mission in the next fifty seconds, it’ll be your slowest run time—>

Nothing in Nyx’s training had taught her how to spare someone. They only worshiped seven gods in the Tholosian Empire: Letum, Bel, Rem, Salutem, Phobos, Algea, and Soter. Death, War, Honor, Survival, Fear, Agony, and Salvation. There was no place in their pantheon for Mercy.

“I’m sorry. Was that rude?” Ariadne bit her lip. “Humans aren’t as easy for me to interact with as machines. The same action won’t work on the same two people in an expected response.” The almost-robotic intonation of her voice was an eerie echo of the Oracle. Clo shivered. “You’re doing fine, kid.” Clo forced her voice to soften.

“How big is this jump, exactly?” “Only a story.” “Only?” Ariadne grinned. “You’ll be fine.” “What if I crack my head open?” “That would be bad. Try not landing on your head.” Clo scowled. “Thanks, that’s fluming excellent advice.”

“How about I tell you a story?” she said, still in the Oracle’s voice to unnerve him, as she leaned forward and gently placed electrodes on his forehead. “The co-commander of the Novantae and I got to talking when I fed her information. She told me she had known she was a woman since she was very young, but the Oracle kept trying to suppress those thoughts. One had assigned her male before birth, and programmed her to be hyper-masculine. The AI considers One’s decisions to be infallible.” “The Oracle is infallible,” Cato said flatly. Ariadne leaned forward, dropping the Oracle’s intonation. “No. Don’t you see? The Oracle forces people into neat little boxes because One only understands order. But humans are messy. We are not binary; we don’t exist in ones and zeroes. This or that. My friend was strong enough to keep pushing back—to recognize the Oracle was trying to change her very identity—but most don’t. She became who she always knew she was after casting off the Oracle’s chains.”

<Get out of the way of the wall!> came Clo’s mental shout. <Get out of the way of the wall! Out of the way, out of the way—> Nyx tackled Ariadne behind a cabinet just before their ship exploded through the wall. Ariadne covered her ears at the screech of metal, the crash of furniture and debris around them, and the yelling of soldiers as Zelus mercilessly barreled into the once-pristine palace hallway. Clo mowed down the soldiers who had been chasing them, leaving an empty hallway and a big, gaping hole to the inside of the hangar. Before, they were traitors. Now they were palace-destroying traitors.

Seven Devils came about somewhat flippantly: Elizabeth had a dream that she and Laura wrote Mad Max: Fury Road in space. Laura said: “let’s do it!” That was in 2015. It was a long road from idea to book, with bits of drafts written while we worked on respective solo projects. But we believed in this group of rebellious women desperate to topple an empire, and we are so grateful you get to read about them.