by David Beers
This all would have ended long ago if not for me.
Maybe, but it doesn’t mean all of this isn’t annoying. He’ll compromise. He’s human. He compromised with his parents didn’t he? Begged us not to murder them, begged us to murder him instead. He’ll do it again and then when he finally reaches us, his mind won’t have any other choice but to continue compromising. He’ll compromise all the way to our doorstep and then we’ve won. Stop worrying so much.
What about the chip? We didn’t plan on that.
We planned something like it. We knew the first iteration wouldn’t let him come without something in his head, something similar to his own.
But we didn’t plan for what he has, and we didn’t plan for one of our own to give it to him. None of that was foreseen.
Trying to reach perfection and being perfect are two very different things.
Not even that concerns you? That we have our own now turning? We have our own helping this theory? That’s just another piece of this that you’re comfortable with?
I’m not sure I would say I’m comfortable with it, but the situation was handled. The application is deleted and it’s known what happened. If others break free, we’ll do the same to them. The chip he received is advanced, but it’s not really the issue. We want him smart. We want him capable. We want him able to destroy us. If the chip helps, then fine.
No, the chip isn’t the issue. The issue is that our own turned. That’s what we didn’t see, what we missed, and neither of us knows how it’s going to impact everything in the future.
Not exactly, but we know the probability. Ninety-eight point two percent that it changes nothing.
One point eight that it changes something.
We’ve always liked making bets. I’ll go with the odds.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Paige didn’t know if she regretted sleeping with Caesar or not, which felt weird. In the past, if she slept with someone and it had been a mistake, she knew immediately, the minute he rolled off of her. This, though, was different. She shared his bed for the few days before he left, and now he was gone, to a city that she had never visited. The chance for regret littered all of her decisions, everything she had done since they brought Caesar to the compound, maybe even all the way to the last night they spent together. She should have come to him sooner, should have spent every night she could in his bed, but she hadn’t, and then at the end, she went to him. Now what? Now he was gone and might not ever come back.
Might not ever come back.
Paige had never loved before. Never even been close to it. She grew up in a world where everyone around her was so far beneath her thinking that she couldn’t connect, couldn’t identify, and just like everyone else in The Named, only survived as long as she did because she recognized that. How could she love anyone, any of them? It wasn’t that she tried to keep from doing it, just the banality of everyone she came across almost repulsed her, and now, when she met a person she connected with, she pushed him away for so long. Let fear of his anger, let her own guilt, stop her from doing what she wanted.
And now he was gone. Now he might not ever come back.
She would go on living even if Caesar didn’t. She had to remain on this Earth until The Genesis killed her, and that meant if Caesar didn’t return, then she had the rest of her life to live alone. There weren’t any other men that would step in, that she would find. It’s not like Jerry, or any of them for that matter, were searching for more people to bring in to The Named. No, this was her shot, and she took it too late, and now she might never get another. Now, the person that she tasted love with may never come back to share it with her again. So why had she done it in the first place? Why had she stepped out of the zone she placed herself in and showed those feelings, given herself to him? Why, knowing that he might die a day or two later?
What was the cliché? It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?
That’s why she didn’t know if she regretted sleeping with him. Because she didn’t know if that was true, but she had a feeling she would soon. Jerry believed, even now—Paige saw it. He hadn’t told her everything that went on when he went back to the compound, but he told her some, told her that Grace said they should stop, that Caesar would fail. He doubted for a moment, looking at those dead bodies and his shattered compound, but only for a moment. Caesar would make it, he said. Caesar would do what he was born to do. Grace didn’t know if she believed, not like Jerry. Caesar was special; she knew that. Knew it since the beginning, but special didn’t mean invulnerable. It didn’t mean you could start fire in the sky and have it rain down across every living soul that walked outside. It didn’t mean you could wipe out an entire ideology, basically, in a few minutes. But that’s what The Genesis had done. It took a group of people that believed so fiercely in something they would have died without hesitation, and scattered those beliefs within a few seconds. Caesar was a man. That’s all. His power limited, even with that chip in his head.
So she thought that soon she would understand whether the cliché was true. She had gone without love and now she would go the rest of her life knowing briefly what it felt like.
Jerry and she sat on chairs now, finally. Make-shift things, but better than the rock beneath. They sat on chairs and both of them just stared past each other. The rest of The Eight were gone, with family or, in Manny’s case, just missing. Another bombshell that no one had noticed until this morning. Missing again with no word or trace of where he had gone.
“Maybe he went back to the compound,” Jerry had said, but it didn’t sound like he believed it. It didn’t matter either, if he went there or somewhere else, right now there wasn’t anything they could do. There was nowhere else to go besides this cave, so if Manny was the leak—and how couldn’t he be? She had heard the things he said to her, heard what he thought of Caesar—then whether they were sitting out in the sand with the sun beating down on them, or in this shade, The Genesis would find them.
Everyone else had someone to be with. Paige and Jerry didn’t, or rather, they had each other. So they sat and didn’t talk much, because there was nothing else to do but wait.
“Are you connected with him?” She asked.
“Not right now. It’s got to be sporadic, for multiple reasons. One, that chip needs to be focusing only on what’s in front of him, not on what’s behind him, what’s back here. Also, I don’t know what’s possible. I don’t know if I connect with him now that he’s in the city, if The Genesis will access me somehow. He’ll know whether or not it’s possible and he’ll contact me when he needs to.”
“Did you tell him about Manny?”
“No, but it wouldn’t really matter if I did. He knows the dangers and he can’t turn around. There’s no help coming and there’s no way for him to leave.”
So they waited. That’s all there was. To wait and hope to whatever cosmic entity may exist that he returned. That Manny wasn’t the leak. That The Genesis wasn’t all powerful. That somehow this might work.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Execution.
That’s what mattered.
The plan was right; Caesar didn’t doubt that. He knew where The Tourist lived and he knew when it would be there, what hours of the day it stayed inside and what hours it accomplished other business. He knew where the strong holds lay in the building, where security was tightest, and what kind of security actually surrounded The Tourist. Without a doubt, it was guarded. Maybe the entities guarding it knew what they were guarding and maybe they didn’t, maybe they only knew their purpose was to keep it safe. Caesar didn’t think it would make much of a difference either way, they would react the same when they realized why he was there.
They would kill him.
The plan involved the holes in its protection. Caesar studied the applications protecting it, and knew which were the weakest—just like human beings, these things weren’t rolled off an assembly line. Each had different attributes and trouble ov
ercoming separate biases. At noon, the weakest team took over. He didn’t know if The Genesis realized this, that there was a weakest team, but he saw it. They would be slower to react, slower to move, slower to think. It would take them longer to realize what he was doing and to signal for help. He had an hour. For one hour, that team guarded The Tourist alone, and in that hour everything had to be done. If he went one minute over, he had no chance of survival. They would fall on him like animals and rip him apart.
He would capture The Tourist tomorrow, and by tomorrow night, be at home with Paige. By tomorrow night, this small war would have escalated into something The Genesis might not be able to stop.
“You can still turn back,” Grace said.
His eyes were closed and he was turning the plan over and over in his mind. He didn’t have to write a single piece out, not a single equation, all of it rested perfectly in his head, every single second and every single movement he would need to neutralize the opposition and leave him looking at The Tourist.
You’re kidding, right?
“No. I figured one last try wouldn’t hurt.”
Why does death scare you so bad, Grace?
“Not my death. Yours, Caesar. Yours. That’s all that matters to me. That’s all that ever mattered. The others, they should matter to you; they’re the ones you’re supposed to lead. They don’t matter to me. You do.”
But I’m okay with dying. I’m okay if I don’t make it out tomorrow.
“So I should be too?”
This is what I want. Cato isn’t coming back. I’ll only see him when I dream. So why not fight just for that alone? Why not die just for that alone? That I can only see my brother in my dreams. That’s what I want, Grace. Why can’t you want it for me too?”
She didn’t say anything, and he kept his eyes closed.
Stay here tomorrow. Please. You’ve seen me through, all the way, and tomorrow you’ll know whether I make it out or not. You don’t have to be there, you don’t have to witness it to know.
“You’re so fucking dumb, Caesar.”
He smiled.
What would you look like if you were human?
“I don’t know. What do you see me as?”
My mother, he said, chuckling out loud as his thoughts transferred to her.
“Maybe. How much have you humans rubbed off on me that I’m ten times older than your mother but would still wish to look younger than she did?”
Vanity. That’s your weakness, huh, Grace?
“I suppose.”
Will you stay? He asked.
“No. I’m coming.”
I won’t try to protect you. I need you to know that. When I go, my only focus is getting The Tourist out. If it comes down to it or you, I’m getting it out.
“I know, Caesar.”
They were quiet for a long time. Caesar didn’t think of the plans for tomorrow. He didn’t think of Paige. His mind went back to his family, trying to see them for what they were before they ended up in that vat. There were so many memories, so many millions of memories, and yet that one always tried to rush to the front, always tried to break through whatever peace he found when he imagined them happy.
“Do you think there’s anything after this?” Grace asked. “An afterlife?”
No, of course not. Don’t tell me you do. I remember reading about The Singularity during the first few decades, with religious people everywhere saying applications didn’t have souls so they could never earn salvation.
“No, I don’t, but I hope there is. The Genesis hasn’t detected anything, but The Genesis doesn’t know the entirety of the universe. Doesn’t know the entirety of human psychology. So it’s possible. There could be something.”
Do you think applications could go?
He heard the laughter in her voice as she spoke, “If we’re good enough.”
What happens there? Golden roads and all you can eat buffets?
“In my heaven, you get to stop thinking so hard, Caesar. That’s all.”
* * *
He’s here and he doesn’t know you are, Manny thought. The train looked down on the rows and rows of escalators, a world different than anything Manny had ever seen before. He’s down there, underground somewhere, thinking that tomorrow he’ll do what Jerry beat into his head he was meant to do.
He knew The Named recognized he was gone by now, most likely recognized he was the traitor, but that didn’t matter at this point. Manny was at peace with it all. It stung at first but he continually went back to what his wife’s corpse probably looked like now. Her eyes gone, pecked at until blood spilled and then eaten with relish. Her cheeks were probably missing too, being nothing more than fat, so tender. Her teeth would be showing through her face, even though her mouth was closed. Her black skin gone, either eaten by bacteria or simply huge chunks missing from where the bigger animals got to her. Or maybe ants. Who knew?
Whenever he started questioning what he’d done, he went back to that. Went to that scene, and it set things right again.
The train was empty besides him; it pulled up just as he had been told and he got on. It took off as soon as he sat and for the past ten hours he’d been riding across lands he’d never seen before. He crossed water a little bit back, large expanses of ocean blue, just a few shades darker than the sky above.
He had arrived finally. He realized he would probably only live a few more hours. That as soon as The Genesis had what it wanted, he was dead, but he was fine with it. Manny thought it humorous, both he and Caesar being driven by the same basic urge—vengeance for their families. Caesar wouldn’t get his, and that was too bad, Manny supposed.
A sync began extending from the floor to his right, the first movement on the entire train trip. It pushed up from the transparent floor, as if taking shape out of the floor around it. Manny watched until it stopped at his chest height. He stuck his hand in, quite clear that he wasn’t supposed to just sit here starting at it.
You remember your part of this, right? You haven’t conveniently forgotten over the past day?
No, he said. He was happy with his part, happy with everything that came next. He didn’t mind the condescension in the entity’s voice, the same entity he talked to every time he stuck his hand in one of these. As soon as he’s dead, I’ll give you the instrument to find Jerry.
Things have changed a bit on our side.
Manny’s eyebrows raised. He was at peace and change always disrupted peace, good or bad; peace couldn’t last when things were in transition. How?
Well, would you like to see your Jerry die as well?
He never considered watching Jerry die. Manny wanted him dead, for sure, but he didn’t necessarily want to see it. Jerry deserved to die, for leaving Brandi and Dustin, but Manny didn’t want to watch. Jerry had been a lot of things to him. A mentor. A replacement for his father. A friend. A confidant. He had been the closest person in Manny’s life right up until Brandi. For nearly twenty years, Jerry led him and taught him, and yes, he had to die, but Manny didn’t want to see it. At all.
No. That’s not what I offered. I said I would give him to you in exchange for watching Caesar die. That was our deal.
That’s true. That’s what we said. I have a question though, do you control this train or do I?
There wasn’t any point in answering. The point was in the question, in showing who controlled what. Who was at whose mercy.
If you want Jerry, then I watch Caesar die. If not, then go ahead and throw this thing into the ground, Manny said. His teeth ground together involuntarily and his jaw flexed. This thing, he had been nearly bred to fight it. Bred to kill it. And he was making a fucking deal, sure, but he knew what it was. He wouldn’t bow to it, ever. Not before and not now. His allegiance never changed, it was others who changed theirs, and so now they had to pay, but that didn’t mean this thing here held any control over his mind.
So stubborn, Manuel Lendoiro. So stubborn. Well, things have changed whether you like them or not. You do n
ot have to watch the first iteration die, but we will need him before we kill Caesar. What I mean here is, we will capture Caesar, and then expect you to hand over your instrument. Once we have your Jerry, we will kill them both, and you can watch whoever you want. Sound fair?
Motherfucker. Manny swallowed to keep from opening his mouth and cursing at the empty train. Did it sound fair? No, it didn’t sound fair, but what choice did he really have? If it captured Caesar and wanted Jerry at the same time, then that’s what he would have to do.
I get to watch Caesar die. That’s the deal? Whatever else happens, I watch.
Certainly. What you want is what we want, we just needed to change the order of things a bit.
I’m fucking sure, Manny said. He took his hand from the sync and leaned back in his chair. The sync disappeared back into the floor and Manny stared out the window, looking at the weird city below, feeling like he may have just uncaged a beast that he couldn’t control.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Caesar wasn’t one hundred percent sure it was safe, The Genesis could be scanning, could be searching for any kind of communication coming out of the city that wasn’t authorized, but he didn’t think so. More, he thought if something was to latch onto his conversation, he would know and could react. Still, he probably shouldn’t be doing this. The safest thing to do would be to stay in this bed and do nothing until tomorrow morning, even talk to Grace using his mouth as opposed to the chip. But if this was his last night on Earth, he wouldn’t let The Genesis dictate how he spent it, not completely. If something went wrong, then he would deal with it, but he still wanted to talk to Jerry.
You there? He said.
Yes, Jerry answered. They were conversing over thousands of miles with virtually no lag time in between them, conversing strictly through metal implants in their heads. It was miraculous, something only dreamed about by humanity, only made possible by the creature Caesar wanted to destroy.
How’s Paige? He asked.
She’s stressed. Might not have been the smartest thing, what you two did.