Inversion (Riven Worlds Book Two)

by G. S. Jennsen

  “Yes.”

  “Yes!”

  Their responses overlapped, and David squeezed her hand. “Go ahead, Miri.”

  She took what felt like the most fateful three steps of her life and accepted the bundle into her arms.

  Bright gray eyes gazed up at her from beneath feathery lashes, surrounded by delicate, pale pink skin. An impossibly small thumb fumbled its way into a mouth. Her daughter blinked at her.

  She felt David at her shoulder, but she didn’t dare divert her focus in his direction. “She looks just like you.”

  He reached over and nudged the blanket back a little, revealing wispy tuffs of burgundy locks. “Not only me, dushen’ka. She’s going to have your beautiful hair.”

  She could hardly think, dumbstruck with awe that she and David had somehow created this miracle cooing in her arms. She adjusted the bundle against her chest and reached up to touch her daughter’s cheek. “Hello, Alexis. Welcome to the world we’ve made for you.”

  Miriam opened her eyes and stretched her arms over her head. “Goodness, did I fall asleep during the imprint? I’m sorry about that.”

  A hand grabbed hers as she lowered her arms, and she looked beside her to see David offering her a brilliant smile. “Hi, Miri.”

  “David? Why are you here? Has something happened?” She began sitting up. “Do I need to get to Command?”

  Another hand, from the other side, urged her back down onto the cot. “Let’s take it easy for a few minutes.”

  She frowned as her attention shifted to the speaker. Dr. Canivon? Whyever was she here for a routine neural imprint backup?

  Behind the doctor, Alex rested against the wall of the clinic room, both hands at her mouth to cover a cry.

  Something was badly wrong. She broke free of Dr. Canivon’s gentle grasp and sat up. “Tell me. Whatever it is, tell me this instant.”

  David motioned Dr. Canivon off and wound his fingers through hers, forcing her attention to return to him. “That’s my Miri, issuing orders from the first second. There was a battle against the Rasu, over in the Asterion Dominion. The Rasu boarded the Stalwart II and, in order to prevent them from accessing the records stored on the ship and learning about Concord, you activated the ship’s self-destruct mechanism.”

  “A…how has there already been a battle against the Rasu? And what…” the words that weren’t spoken made their way past her assumptions into her brain “…I died. This is regenesis. This is….” She lifted her left arm and regarded it curiously. New skin, unmarked by the vagaries of life.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, unaccountably afraid her lungs no longer functioned. What if the body was defective? The imprint? Her mind? “When?”

  “Four days ago.”

  “No, I mean how long since the imprint? How much time have I lost?”

  “Two weeks. No time at all.”

  “No time? It’s so long….” A thousand thoughts competed for dominance, and dizziness overtook her. What about—how could—but no—

  One of David’s hands pressed into her cheek while the other held her right hand in a vise grip. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  She stared at him, uncertain of everything except the calming reassurance on his face and the solidity of his touch. She opened her mouth, but no words won the battle to reach her lips.

  “I know what you’re feeling right now. Just breathe deeply and let yourself settle into being alive.”

  He did know, didn’t he? She blinked past inexplicable tears and looked around again. “Alex?”

  “I’m here.” Her daughter yanked a chair over, plopped down in it and took her other hand. Trails of recent tears glistened on her cheeks. “Welcome back.”

  “I don’t….” What did she want to say so badly? Her brain wasn’t working correctly. Her thoughts darted from Concord military protocols to memories of her disastrous tenth birthday party to meeting David and holding Alex in her arms for the first time. The Rasu? How could they have boarded the ship? It didn’t make any sense. Was she truly here at all? Was this Heaven or, depending on how things went from here, Hell? Was she comatose from some catastrophic incident and dreaming all of this?

  She let go of David and Alex’s hands and sat up straighter. “Doctor, you need to run a thorough battery of tests on me. I think something went wrong.”

  Alex’s countenance darkened in concern. “What? No, it didn’t. You’re fine. Waking up is a little disorienting, that’s all.”

  “It’s a great deal more than a little disorienting.” David refused to stop touching her, reaching up to caress her face. “You are fine, but I understand why you’re afraid to believe it right now.” He glanced past her. “Doctor, run your tests.”

  Dr. Canivon’s placid, professional countenance hadn’t wavered in the last hour. “Your husband is correct, Commandant. You are ‘fine.’ The imprint we used was as close to perfect as they get, and it grafted onto your neural structure without complaint. Your body is new, but your mind is precisely as it was two weeks ago.”

  Miriam massaged her temples. “Then why do I feel this way?”

  “What way?”

  “Like I’m not really here. Like this is a dream or…something worse.”

  Dr. Canivon’s attention flitted past Miriam. “Why don’t we let you and Professor Solovy talk alone for a few minutes. Alex, I expect you want a bit of reassurance as well. I’ll be happy to review the test results with you.”

  Alex gazed back at her, a deluge of emotions cascading across her features. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  “Of course, dear.” The affectation rolled off her tongue without thought; this was a good thing, wasn’t it? She remembered what to say.

  When they’d gone, David urged her up. “Come, off the evil cot. Let’s sit.”

  She followed him over to the two guest chairs in the clinic room. Though she’d never admit it to him, she was shocked when her legs remembered how to maneuver one foot in front of the other.

  He sat opposite her, then leaned forward and grasped both her hands in his. “Be glad you only lost two weeks and not twenty-five years—” his breezy demeanor vanished “—no, that’s not fair of me. I won’t minimize a second of what you’re going through right now. You feel as if your body isn’t your own. You worry your limbs won’t work properly. You wonder if you’re a shell, a golem, a soulless imitation of yourself. You fear you’ll dissolve away into dust the first time a breeze hits you.”

  She nodded wordlessly, and he brought their hands together between them. “I crossed planes of existence—entire universes—for you, Miri. I know you like no one else ever has, and I promise you here and now that none of it is true. You’ve come back to me, just as I came back to you. I also realize words won’t make what you’re experiencing magically go away. But know that when you feel like you’re dissolving, I’ll be here to keep you solid and real.”

  She gasped in air and struggled past threatening tears, because her previous self did not cry. God help her if this incarnation did. “Thank you. I’m certain I will be back to normal as soon as the disorientation passes.”

  “It’ll be okay if you’re not.”

  “No, it won’t be.” This time she drew in a suitably controlled breath and stood without assistance. “I want to see the recording of what happened on board the Stalwart II.”

  19

  * * *

  THE PRESIDIO

  Operations Wing

  Blood and viscera splattered across the corridor outside Engine Control, and Miriam recoiled at the sight of the carnage. But she forced herself to continue watching, because her previous self was not squeamish, and these were people under her command dying.

  The final minutes of the Stalwart II and her own life played out quickly after that, a blur of split-second decisions and the crushing rush of inevitability.

  When the transmissions from Thomas finally ended, she steepled her hands at her chin and silently fought down waves of nausea. �
��It was the correct decision. It was the only decision. It was necessitated by a stupid, thoughtless earlier decision on my part that got my ship trapped in the first place, but once there, I had no other option.”

  “This was a brand new, never before seen tactic on the enemy’s part. You had no way to know what the Rasu vessel was going to do.”

  “Yes, I did,” she snapped. “It’s called extrapolating from available knowledge on hand. Obviously a vessel made of shapeshifting metal can and likely will shapeshift into whatever the hell it wants to.”

  David gave her a patient expression and didn’t try to reach for her. “Even so.”

  “Even so.” She inhaled through her nose and willed herself calm. Her nerves felt frayed and prickly, as if they hadn’t finished connecting yet. “Thomas, thank you for everything you did. I know the situation couldn’t have been easy for you, either.”

  “We both performed to the best of our abilities in an impossible situation, Commandant.”

  The Artificial stalked the meeting room on the Presidio in the representation of a mighty lion. His backup was stored at Concord HQ—one of the many precious items David had been protecting during the coup attempt—but he must be experiencing his own somewhat shorter time gap, same as her.

  “I’ve no doubt that you did, though I fear the same can’t be said for me.”

  “Mom, don’t beat yourself up. You were extraordinary.”

  She didn’t look over at her daughter, who paced with jarring and disruptive intensity behind Thomas. “Alex, you are wonderful and talented in many ways, but you are not a qualified judge of military tactics in action. What about the crew?”

  Thomas responded. “Eighty-eight percent of them are scheduled to undergo regenesis in the next few weeks. For evident reasons, you were first.”

  “Why only eighty-eight percent?”

  “Two percent were found to have faulty imprints. This is still a new process for everyone involved, and there will be errors at times. The remaining ten percent had “No Regenesis” clauses in their wills.”

  “Oh.” She’d been aware of some people, mostly but not all religious believers, adding such clauses to their wills once the news spread that the Regenesis Extension Project was being proclaimed a success for humanity. However, she’d been foolishly ignorant of the reality that this included members of her own crew. Death never stung so bitterly as when it could be conquered.

  “I see. Let’s review the memo I wrote.”

  Frustration appeared in the tight creases around David’s eyes. “Why don’t you slow down and absorb one thing at a time?”

  “Thomas, the memo, please.”

  Thomas dutifully displayed the message she’d distributed minutes before blowing up her ship, and she read it twice before motioning for it to go away. “How are we supposed to do any of this?”

  David offered up an encouraging smile. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

  He was trying to keep her from getting upset. She’d permitted him the indulgence during the perilous first minutes of her reawakening, but she couldn’t allow him to coddle her now. “That’s not a good enough answer.” Her gaze went to Alex, who she desperately wished would stop with the pacing. “Alex, what does Kennedy say about the seamless adiamene?”

  “She’s…working on it.”

  “Tell her to work faster. Has anyone prepared new engagement protocols for Rasu encounters? We can’t allow our ships to be trapped in such a manner again.” She exhaled harshly in disgust—at what, she couldn’t say. “There’s nothing in my new messages about such protocols. I need to get—”

  David’s hand landed firmly on her arm. “Miri, it’s been a polnyi pizdets of a day. You might have just woken up from a nice, long nap, but we’re all exhausted. Let’s go home and get some rest. The Rasu can wait until tomorrow.”

  “And what if there is no tomorrow? What if they show up with an armada of millions and it all ends an hour from now?”

  He took her by the shoulders, refusing to let her escape. “There will be a tomorrow, and one after that as well. I swear it to you. You need to give yourself time.”

  Behind David, Alex stood—finally not pacing—staring at her. Her face was an open book, displaying a turbulent mix of emotions but most of all frantic concern. Did her daughter think she was crazy? A broken facsimile of herself? Was she?

  She closed her eyes and breathed in the slightly stale recycled air of the station…and longed for the crisp, cool air of the woods surrounding Buntzen Lake. “Okay. We’ll go home. But I am back in my office at HQ by zero six hundred tomorrow.”

  “Whatever you want, Miri.”

  EARTH

  Greater Vancouver

  Miriam stood in a river of blood, sticky and viscous. It painted violent streaks along the corridor walls, where the edges dribbled down in a slow drip…drip…drip. The corridor glowed a florid crimson hue, for gore had splattered across the row lighting above.

  She looked down to see a severed arm wash up against her foot as the river’s current grew more forceful. She tried to step away, but her feet were stuck to the floor.

  She couldn’t move from this spot. Couldn’t elude all this death.

  From out of the blood swirling at her feet rose inky aubergine tentacles. They wrapped around her ankles and slithered up her legs. No matter how hard she fought them, their grip only tightened. She reached for the Daemon at her hip, only to find it had become a third tentacle winding around her waist. It squeezed, denying her air, as more tentacles reached her neck, then her face. Liquid metal poured into her ears, nose and finally her mouth.

  “You think you are alive, but you are mistaken. You never left us. We will never let you escape—”

  Miriam gasped in air, clawing at her throat in a desperate attempt to yank the tentacles free. But they were already inside of her and—

  “Hey, hey.”

  She jerked away from resurgent tentacles, frantic to escape the Rasu’s clutches, and fell onto a hard, dry surface. She was free! She scrambled backward, searching blindly for an exit—

  Something strong gripped her shoulders. “Miri, wake up. You’re safe.”

  She tried to free herself once more, but their grasp was too powerful. She blinked, then blinked again, grew cognizant of air reaching her lungs…and finally the blood-soaked walls faded away, replaced by moonlight-hued slate ones. Hardwood flooring beneath her.

  David’s gray eyes studying her in desperate concern, his hands warm on her bare shoulders.

  She was at home. In her bedroom. Safe, just like he’d said.

  She breathed in fresh, untainted air and let him wrap her up in his arms.

  “It’s okay, dushen’ka. I’ve got you. You were having a nightmare.”

  She buried her face in the crook of his neck and tried to calm her ricocheting pulse. She was safe. She’d stopped the Rasu from capturing her on the Stalwart II, at the temporary cost of her life. Yet she couldn’t shake the vivid sensation of liquid metal slithering through her veins. Be logical, Miriam! Do not let fear and hysterical panic destroy you.

  She drew back a little. “I was. Thank you.”

  “A bad one, I’d daresay.”

  “But it wasn’t real.”

  “No, it wasn’t. This is real.” He took her hand and laid it flat on his chest. “Feel my heartbeat. Feel yours, and be here with me now.”

  20

  * * *

  CONCORD HQ

  Command

  Miriam inspected the smooth surface of her desk and the way her fingers splayed comfortably across it. It was cool to the touch—had she ever noticed this before? Probably not, as she rarely took the time to notice those sorts of details. Always moving relentlessly forward, taking charge, imposing order, keeping things functioning, holding entropy at bay. Such had been her life’s work.

  But this was a new life now. Or was it? She still couldn’t tell, and no one had written a guidebook to inform her. When David had returned, he’d certa
inly treated it as a new life. But he’d been gone for twenty-five years, whereas she’d lost a few short weeks. The Anadens, on the other hand, treated regenesis as no more consequential than a long night’s sleep; they made no distinction between the ‘before’ and the ‘after.’

  The lost weeks shouldn’t matter, as she could have just as easily been in a coma. No one questioned the continued authenticity of a person when they awoke from a coma, did they? Perhaps if she thought of her…intermission…in such a way, this would all begin to make sense.

  It seemed like only yesterday that neural imprints were a mere scientific curiosity. People were born, lived and died. They held funerals and wakes for those lost; those rituals were painful and heart wrenching, but also cathartic and healing. In her heart, she was glad a day waited on the horizon when there would be no more funerals, no more goodbyes. But without death at its end, did life have meaning?

  She sighed and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. If she didn’t stop wearing a thousand-meter gaze and murmuring spiritual questions with no answers, more people than her were going to start questioning her authenticity. Behaving in such a manner was not her way, which was part of the problem. The very fact that she questioned the qualitative state and realness of her soul made her…question the qualitative state and realness of her soul. She’d maneuvered herself into a proper Gordian Knot now.

  An alarm rang in her eVi to remind her of the first of many scheduled appointments today. The list of people who wanted an audience with her, either to express their happiness at her resurrection or to get a good gander at her and try to decide if she was the genuine article or a simple golem, was long. With inter-species fires raging on multiple fronts, she would not be allowed an opportunity to ease back into being alive. Which was for the best. The only way through was forward.

  Dean Veshnael and Pointe-Amiral Thisiame were her first guests, and the easiest, for the Novoloume leaders were long accustomed to Anadens returning from the dead with regularity. In fact, they both hoped to join her in the experience one day, and given the success of the Novoloume part of the Regenesis Extension Project, they likely would.