by Sarah Lahey
He shakes his head. “Hexad can close churches and monitor worship, but we’re naturally receptive to religion—we won’t leave it alone. And science is religion’s biggest threat.”
“Science isn’t a threat.”
“Think about it: Every new scientific discovery, doesn’t matter what it is, multiverses or time travel, even Lise’s nothingness theory, will need to be adapted, modified, explained away by leaders, including religious leaders, until it fits into a new world view. Then people will make the easy choice, the belief choice. Not the science choice, that’s too hard. You know Lise thought—”
“What do you believe in?” Distract him.
“Me? Panpsychism. My people believe all matter, even rocks, shells, have awareness.”
“So matter is sentient?”
“Sort of.”
She collects a discarded oyster shell and squeezes it as hard as she can. “Did I hurt it?”
He smiles. “No.” He grabs her hand, holds it firmly in his. “Everything in the universe has perception; all things experience each other.” He peels open her fingers, retrieves the shell, and tosses it back at her.
“That’s quantum theory.”
“Thousands of years before we realized.”
“Religion is waning,” she says. “Atheism is on the rise. The more we discover about the world, the universe, the more we’ll realize it was not made for us. We fit into it. People will understand, eventually. Then, without religion, we’ll live in peace.”
He makes no comment, just leans back against the wall, considering her.
Okay, a bit of a generalization: peace on Earth. I didn’t mean it literally.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Didn’t mean it literally, I just meant—”
“You’re different. There’s no hole in your heart, is there?”
How does he know?
“You’re mother is dead, and you’re prattling on about Titan and science.”
“I don’t prattle, and—”
“I’m on your side.” With a forefinger, he tilts her chin up, looks her in the eye. “What is it? What’s going on?”
How does he know? “Okay, the truth is, Lise might not be dead. Ada was wearing her Band; Ada is dead—I saw her corpse. Somehow they switched Bands.”
“Then where is she? People don’t just go missing.”
Quinn shrugs. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel like she’s dead. I don’t feel like she’s gone.”
“Okay, what else?”
“That’s it. There is nothing else.”
“You’re not finished. I can tell.”
She stares at him. How do you know? “Okay, I found something in Ada’s purse, a mark on parchment, from Lise’s journal.”
“Show me.”
“I don’t have it. Panicked—accidentally ate it.”
He laughs. “You idiot.” Suddenly, he pulls off his shirt. “Back of my neck, a tattoo, check it out.”
She kneels behind him. His tattoo is a circle filled with symbols and letters that she doesn’t understand. “The mark—is there a match?”
Why would there be a match? Then she sees it: a small black zigzag line, very similar to the mark on the parchment paper. “Yes. What is this?”
“Part of an ancient code. But it’s only one piece.”
A code? That’s what Lise said. She said she cracked the code. “A code to what?”
He pulls on his shirt. “A door.”
“A door to—”
“A door that may help you find your mother.”
“So it’s true? She discovered a wormhole?”
He grins. “Did she?”
“Yes, she told me she cracked the code.”
“Then I’ll see you later.”
“What? No.” She blanches, feels a little panicked. She doesn’t want to be alone again. “Where are you going?”
“Meet you tomorrow. Same time. Rocky Beach. Don’t worry.” He strides away.
Quinn worries.
Fifteen
People don’t just disappear.
We know that better than anyone.
NANSHE IS A FULLY battened sailing junk drifting two hundred kilometers off the east cost of Africa. Her name pays homage to the goddess of prophecy and fertility. Built in the 1950s, her bones are old, but the full overhaul she got five years ago made her just as seaworthy as the first day she sailed. The ships layout is expansive: three levels and three hundred square meters of living space; eight cabins with private bathing zones, marble details, mother-of-pearl fittings, and two spacious suites with private sun decks; retrofitted and state-of-the-art navigation and air system. Anchor stabilizers make navigating the world’s oceans effortless. She cruises at twenty knots and launches emergency boosters when required.
A zone in the galley is devoted entirely to Aquaculture; rows of oval tanks containing a cosmopolitan array of frogs, fish, sea snakes, slugs, and seashells line the walls. The last tank on the bottom left is opaque and black; a single, resin-colored worm crawls along its edge.
Planck, a large human with short, red-tipped hair, full lips, high cheekbones, and arching eyebrows, enters the galley. From one of Planck’s earlobes dangles a small symbol: a circle within a circle containing both horizontal and vertical lines, the sign for gender neutral. Ze is the boat’s chief engineer, medic, purser, bosun, and cook.
Ze hooks the worm over one finger and slips it back inside its black chamber, then flushes the tank with water, collecting the dark liquid in buckets as it drains from the bottom.
Nanni, Nanshe’s mini-submarine, sits twenty meters below the surface, a hundred meters southeast of the atoll. Tig was born to swim; he has a genetic predisposition for deep sea diving. For thousands of years, his people lived a marine hunter-gatherer lifestyle, combing the ocean for food. Carefully selected DNA left the population with enlarged spleens that contract when diving and eject oxygenated red blood cells into circulation, creating oxygen boosts that prolong dive times and allow for greater diving depths.
Tig’s family comes from a linage of Kings, a title inherited by virtue of descent, going back 5,000 years to the third century BCE. Tig would say that it’s king with a small “k,” a figurative title, but his kingdom covers three million people in a monarchy structure. Their mixed constitution weaves democracy and monarchy into a system that allows for a government by many. The Maldives no longer exists; the archipelago was swallowed by the Indian Ocean, and now its people are stranded on land, besieged by a hundred million people. Their culture makes up 3 percent of the megacity Unus.
On board Nanni, Tig is surrounded by piles of hydro panels, hundreds of them scattered across the floor. He picks up a fresh panel and examines the structure: there are micro cracks and signs of discoloration. “Fuck, they’re all gone.”
His Comms signals a call from Planck. Tig answers.
“Product recall,” says Planck. “A manufacturing fault in the panel. If one fails it reverberates and ruins the whole system. I’ve placed a back order, no charge to us, which is something, but . . . it could be a while. I’m on my way. Be there in two days.”
“Okay. There’s something else. Lise got out; she might not be dead.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yep. No one knows where she is. Seems like she just . . . disappeared.”
“People don’t just disappear. We know that better than anyone. She must have the other Disc. I did some checking on Maim; looks like she acquired it decades ago—picked it up in a bazar in Harappa. Maybe Lise took it to Kerguelen.”
“I checked her luggage; she didn’t have it. But she told Quinn she’d worked out the code. Can you disappear without a Disc?”
“Yes, people have done it. It’s not easy, you need an enormous amount of energy . . . but she’s resourceful, maybe she found a way.”
“This complicates things.”
“To say the least. We can’t destroy the Discs without the codes to both, and we only kn
ow the code to our Disc. The one person on the planet who knows the code to the other Disc, has used it to . . . disappear.”
“Yeah. But first we need to get our hands on the second Disc. We need to talk to Maim, see how much she knows.”
“Okay. There’s a Derecho, blowing in from the east. Due in two days.”
“We should be out by then. I’m meeting her tomorrow afternoon on the beach, I don’t want to be late. Remind me.”
“Okay. Your Meds, are you taking—”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“Really? Because you sound nervous. Is it the glasses? You feel self-conscious. I understand, but—”
“It ain’t the glasses. And I ain’t fuckin’ nervous. Sort out this thing with Maim.” Tig closes the Comms.
I am so nervous. What if it’s not the same? What if it can never be the same? Fuck, what if it’s worse? The same fucking thing all over again? Shit, get a grip. Don’t. Don’t rush it. Keep her safe—she ain’t goin’ nowhere. It is what it is.
Right now, we need to find out how to crack that code. Those fucking Discs will be the end of us all.
Sixteen
Two bracelets, one green and one red.
WHEN QUINN ARRIVES AT Rocky Beach, Tig is already there, perched on a large rock waiting for her. He tosses and catches a stone with his bionic hand, and when she’s close enough he tosses the stone to her. She catches it and smiles; it’s pitted with holes that look like two eyes, a nose, and an upturned mouth. The rock smiles at her.
“Faces,” Tig says, and Quinn nods.
From her brief experience as a cairn builder, she’s learned that rocks with human features are the most difficult to find. Of course, she already has a small collection hidden at the far end of the beach.
They split up. He gets the same area as yesterday; she goes in search of her collection, but it’s not where it should be. She checks, back and forth, in case she’s made a mistake, but they’re all gone—her leaves, her moons, her stars and faces, they’re all gone. Damn. He’s taken them. He must have. She turns around, and he gives her a brief wave from the far side of the beach. She reciprocates with a noncommittal wave, an urbane gesture. She must start scavenging.
After an hour she has eight rocks. Some are a bit dodgy but, she reasons, there are some peculiar-looking people in the world.
They meet in the middle. He has a pile of thirty-two. Thirty-two. I’ve been had.
“Honestly, I thought you’d be better at this,” he says. “You’ve had weeks, and this is only my second time.”
“Yes,” she says, “you should be very proud.”
“I am,” he says.
They sit down and construct the cairn together.
“Why do you jump off things?” he asks.
“It’s my thing. It’s who I am.”
He doesn’t respond, only hands her the next rock for placement. She doesn’t have to explain herself any further, but he says nothing, and eventually his silence incites her to add, “It’s a good place to think about nothing, and sometimes it’s a good place to think about everything.”
As if he hasn’t heard, he fixes a precariously balanced stone, then adds another to the tower.
“Some days are hard,” she continues. “You know, some days I . . . I feel like I don’t count for much. Like I’ve got everything wrong. All those people died, and I feel like it’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know. But I made a bad choice and thousands of people died.”
“The two things aren’t related.”
“I feel like I have no control. I don’t understand what my purpose is, and when I jump, I’m in control. It’s my release.”
He takes the final rock from her and places it in position, and they consider the cairn. His technique is different from hers. He uses smaller rocks to balance larger ones, so the structure has window-like holes through it.
“You’re not alone,” he says. “There’s confusion and sadness in all of us.”
In that moment, regrettably, she’s betrayed by her left hand, which collects Tig’s hand and weaves his fingers into hers. He smiles, and his lips brush her knuckles. Very carefully, she unravels and restrains the vexing appendage.
***
Later that evening Quinn sets the table with shaking hands. She places a small bunch of yellow seaside daises in the center, then panics and moves them to the food prep area; it looks like she’s expecting a date.
Half an hour later, Tig comes rambling up the hill with a bag of seafood and a bunch of green-stemmed samphire. He hands her the succulent stems like they’re a bunch of flowers. She puts them in a container and places them in the middle of the table.
They sit inside, on the shredding cardboard chairs, and he lays out the food. He starts to pass her the first sliver of fish, but as she reaches for it he pulls it away. “What’d you say you were working on in Kerguelen?”
“I didn’t.”
He frowns. “What were you working on in Kerguelen?”
“Solar flares. Get to the point.”
“The G12—is it safe? Do you have it?”
“Yes and yes.”
“And the rain?”
“It showed no rain. Sabotage—someone set a ghost. But I’ll find out what happened, as soon we get out of here. I’ll also tell you which mark on your tattoo matches the one in Ada’s purse.”
Tig grins.
“You believe in time travel, don’t you? And you think Lise escaped into a wormhole.”
“Yes and yes.”
That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, but I hope you’re right. “Will you help me find her when we get out of here?”
“Yes. I will. We can’t leave yet. Two more days. We’ll get out before the storm.”
“There’s a storm coming?”
Tig nods. “Derecho. It might be hard to get in. We could get stuck.”
“Wind?”
He nods.
“I hate wind.” Dust and sand will pelt the atoll, and she’ll be stuck inside her shipping container.
“I know you do.” He slips off his glasses and stares at her with his milky irises. Then he takes her hand and laces his fingers through hers.
Her heart skips. I’m in trouble.
She pulls her hand away, clumsily collects the plates, and carries them to the food prep. This thing between us is not happening.
Suddenly, he’s behind her. He pulls her hair to one side and runs his lips down her neck, over her ear, across her shoulder. Her heart pounds. It’s divine. He’s divine. This thing between us, it is happening. It is going somewhere, and I’m on board.
He turns her around and looks her over. “You’re so beautiful.”
Her skin tingles in anticipation. This thing between us is definitely happening. “You want to have sex?”
He nods.
“I’d be . . . I’d be fine, completely fine, and on board—on board all the way with that.” Quinn flushes red.
“Fuck. Great. Okay then.”
He kisses her and she kisses him back, and then he’s straight into it, pulling her bamboo-fiber dress over her head and slipping off her shorts so she’s naked, bathed in soft yellow kinetic light. He pulls his shirt off and she undoes his cargo pants and he kicks them away and now they’re both golden and naked. He has a huge erection. He lifts her up and she wraps her legs around him and they move to the bed, where he lays her down and hovers over her.
“You’re beautiful,” he says again. And she’s thinking the same thing, the exact the same thing, he’s so beautiful, with his scarred, auburn skin and broad chest and short hair.
There is no messing around, no foreplay; she wants him, and she wants to do it right now. She wants to feel the weight of his body on hers, and she wants him inside her. She wraps her arms around him and pulls him close.
“Fuck me now,” she whispers.
“Okay.” He understands.
He angles his hips, pushes himself deep i
nside her, and it feels good, warm and intense. She closes her eyes and presses her body into his and they move together, rising and falling. He covers her face in kisses, then his lips travel down her neck and shoulders. She wraps her legs around him, he arches his back, moans, and collapses on top of her, hot and sweaty, breathing heavily into her neck.
It’s over. It took maybe a minute. Nervousness overcomes her: She’s trapped underneath a large, auburn-skinned man, a man who has seen all of her naked, who has just come inside her. A man she met a few days ago, a man she hardly knows.
She waits. He catches his breath. He breathes. She waits. He’s so heavy. Okay, someone needs to say something. “You’re . . . you’re squashing me.”
“Fuck, sorry.” He raises himself on an elbow and stares down at her. No words, just stares with his milky eyes, and she knows he can’t see much but still, it makes her uncomfortable, and she’s overcome with the desire to jump off something very high. Sex with strangers is just vulnerability wrapped up in lust and regret.
She reaches for a cover. He smiles, pulls it away.
“Not finished with you.”
He pins her flat, kissing her.
***
Quinn wakes later than usual; it’s mid-morning, and the space beside her is empty. She can’t recall him leaving, but she does remember the things they did to each other last night, and she blushes. It was intense—a long night of hot sex—and she’s happy to be waking up alone; she needs to gather her thoughts. She needs to think about what happened between them. Was it just sex? Was it convenience—two lonely people on a lonely atoll? Good lordt, it was good. I feel . . . great. Tired, but happy. She smiles. She can’t remember the last time she had sex. She can’t remember ever having sex like that.
Now his presence lingers—his hot breath on her face, his scent on her bed, the easy way he touched her skin, and his final words, the last thing he said to her: “I know.” And he did, he understood what she meant. Exhausted after the sex, they lay together on the bed, side by side, and then he pulled her close, trapping her under his arm, hard against his chest, and it felt perfect. She thought this was where she belonged. She was safe and happy, filled up by him. Then he said, “Stop jumping off fucking cliffs.” She thought about this for a moment and replied, “I don’t want to.” He pulled her close and whispered, “I know.” Then he let her go, just like that, unwrapped his arm, and she didn’t feel safe anymore.