Six Strings to Save the World

by Michael McSherry

  “But I thought the Aniente were… dead?” Tori says quietly.

  “Murdered by the Composers, yes,” Finale agrees. “Most of us were.”

  “You’re the Controller General,” Lydia concludes. “Aren’t you?”

  “You are unsurprised,” Finale observes.

  “You’re… you’re not even a Synergist?” I ask, my mind racing. “But the Synthesizers… If you’re not a machine… Then why would…” I can’t fit the pieces together. I can’t even finish my thought.

  “Machines require creators, do they not?” Finale poses the question like its answer is obvious.

  One piece clicks into place. Finale doesn’t have Alpha’s face. Alpha had hers. I remember something Dorian said, right after Alpha showed up at the apartment: twenty-four lieutenants, all identical. Another piece follows as I study Lydia’s face, because Finale is right: she’s not surprised. And if she’s not surprised, Dorian wouldn’t have been either. I think back to my time in Sola’s memory banks, questioning why Sola would have a rendering of Aniente in her mind. Baahir hinted at a theory, and Dorian shut him down.

  Tori turns to Lydia. “Did the Composers know that the Aniente made the Synthesizers?”

  “We didn’t know,” Lydia shakes her head slowly. “We suspected.”

  I’m struggling to make sense of things now, to reconcile the fact that a biological is leading—and actually made—the Synthesizers.

  “Why?” It’s all I can manage as I face Finale. “Why do this? If you’re the Controller General, you could just stop this! I know what the Composers did to your people, but you don’t have to take revenge against—”

  “Revenge?” Finale interrupts. “I am not so petty.”

  “Then why?”

  “To save us all.”

  “By killing everyone?” Lydia erupts. “Your Synthesizers are monsters!”

  “Monsters commit genocide,” Finale rebukes Lydia. “What does that make the Composers?”

  “Save us all from what, exactly?” Tori asks, disregarding Lydia.

  “Ourselves.” Finale brings a hand to her face, her fingers questing over her features, touching her eyelids, nose, and lips. “If you understand our history, then you know our future. I came to understand this when the Composers killed my people.”

  “We didn’t have a choice,” Lydia counters. “Your people were threatening slaughter, your leaders wouldn’t—”

  “Is this what the Composers have told you?” Finale interjects asks Tori and me, cutting Lydia short. “That they were forced to commit their atrocity?”

  Our silence is apparently enough of an answer.

  “We Aniente were not always a xenophobic people,” Finale continues. “But the more we saw of the universe, the more we came to understand it as a place of violence. Young civilizations blossomed and grew, but they never forsook the violence of their youth; they became better at it. And when the Resonance led them to the stars, we isolated ourselves upon our homeworld and watched. Do you know what we saw, as we gazed outward?”

  “War,” Tori answers, her voice on edge. And I know she’s right, because it’s exactly what Dorian told us. The Composers used to fight each other, clambering for space among the stars.

  “Endless war,” Finale agrees as she settles her guitar flat against her lap. “Endless escalation. And when the Aniente realized these wars threatened mass extinction, we decided to intervene—albeit in a limited way. We constructed a vast number of remote-piloted ships, a proxy armada our people used from Aniente to force a cease-fire among the other species.”

  “And you used that armada to kill tens of thousands!” Lydia hisses.

  “Only those who disturbed the peace we aimed to keep,” Finale emphasizes. “But we did not anticipate what followed. Your species did not want peace. They feared it. They feared us.”

  “We gave you a chance to surrender.” Lydia’s voice is strained, accusatory.

  “Do you know what your admirals demanded, as conditions of surrender?” Finale asks.

  The question catches Lydia off guard and she narrows her eyes. She doesn’t answer. And I can tell it’s because she doesn’t know.

  “Unfettered access to our weapons technologies,” Finale answers her own question. “Unbridled extraction of our research into the Resonance. Our surrender would have inevitably led to the death of more than just Aniente. Giving more powerful weapons over to your alliance would have only guaranteed what we sought to avoid. And so we refused.”

  “You’re lying,” Lydia accuses. “Your people were turning their ships on our homes. Our people.”

  “So your admirals would say.” Finale shrugs. “Regardless, your people killed mine, and they accomplished their goal; without pilots, our armada was rendered inert.” She giggles suddenly in a childish, playful way. “Did you Composers celebrate, thinking your genocide had won you the prize of our dormant ships? Like fattened fruit, waiting to be pried open, their secrets laid bare.”

  “The ships destroyed themselves,” Lydia says. “A dead man’s switch.”

  Finale claps her hands delightedly. “I was quite proud of that.”

  “Proud?”

  “I designed those ships,” Finale nods. “I oversaw the manufacturing of our armada. And it was only because my duties took me off-world that I survived. I was twenty-six lightyears from Aniente, cursing the necessity of my presence on an assembly station, when my world burned. There were a few others like me, but in the months that followed, they faded and eventually surrendered to despair. I soon found myself quite alone in this universe.”

  Finale reaches a hand out and beckons Sola forward. Sola strides ahead without hesitation, even when Lydia shouts at her to stop and shifts the weight of her Resonator, pointing it at Sola’s back.

  Dropping the short distance from the platform to the ground, Finale lands quietly on her feet as Sola comes to stand before her. Finale raises one hand, cupping Sola’s chin gently for a moment. Then she turns Sola’s face side to side, up and down, appraising her quietly.

  “I eventually came to realize two things,” Finale continues quietly. “First, Aniente’s vision could survive its destruction. And second… I need not be alone. The vessels were simple work, but consciousness was not. So I worked with what I had, modeling my creations after their maker.”

  “Alpha and the other lieutenants,” I say, seeing where Finale is headed.

  “Mirror images of my mind and body,” Finale agrees. “And my successors, if I should ever die. My mind became the template from which all Synergists are born.”

  “We each carry a part of the Controller General within us,” Sola explains, looking to us. “Her past is our past. Her future is our future.”

  “Her future is bloody,” I respond.

  “If I wanted only death, I could have it in a moment.” Finale says it casually and without any obvious threat. “Destruction is so easy. My designs are greater than that. Better for all.”

  “Not for those that fight you,” Tori counters. “Obviously.”

  Finale ignores her, instead turning to Dex. “Open the vault now,” she orders. “You have delayed long enough. And you have purchased the small victory you asked.”

  “All right,” Dex sighs, to my surprise. “I’m going.”

  “You will not open that vault!” Lydia’s voice cracks like a whip, deadly serious.

  “Dex?” I breathe in disbelief. “What are you doing?”

  “I made a deal,” he returns, unwilling to look me in the eye. “They need me, Caleb. I’ve got the Key in my blood, and they know they can’t get into the Prima Maestri vault without me. And if I help them…”

  “Earth will be spared from incorporation,” Finale concludes for Dex. “My Synthesizers will leave Earth.”

  “You’re not that stupid, Dex,” Lydia reprimands. “What makes you think she’ll honor any promise she makes?”

  “What purpose would my lie serve?” Finale wonders aloud. “The Synthesizers are not
a blight set loose upon this galaxy. They move with the purpose I have given them.” Finale’s eyes carry a hint of warning now. She turns back to Dex. “Earth is in a precarious situation. No more delay. Fleet will soon arrive. Earth cannot survive a full-scale battle between the Composers and the Synthesizers. Destruction, then. Not incorporation.”

  Dex turns back toward the vault, raising a gold-veined hand toward the mirror surface. A swirl of gold characters rise to the mirror’s surface, glowing brightly beneath his hand.

  “Dex!” I scream at him, and he turns to look at me.

  “It’s okay, Caleb,” he says.

  With an explosion of Rez, Lydia lunges forward toward Dex. Finale brushes her fingers across the strings of her guitar, and where she sat a moment before, there’s nothing but empty air. A moment later she flicks into existence directly in front of Lydia. Lydia raises her hands to protect her face. Finale cuts in with a rocketing fist, penetrating Lydia’s defenses while landing a brutal blow to her jaw. Lydia flies upward, smashing into the tunnel ceiling.

  Another strum of her twelve-string, and Finale is right between Tori and me!

  A foot catches me in the chest, lightning fast. A fist catches Tori in her ribs.

  I recoil, turning to find Finale already disappearing into the air.

  Then she’s over my head and her foot is dropping down at my face. I lunge backward, launching a bolt of Rez right at her. She evaporates into the air again, this time appearing closer to the vault, where Lydia is struggling to stand. She’s about to land an elbow into Lydia’s back when a blade of Tori’s Rez cuts through the air, forcing Finale to disappear into the air once again.

  “She’s a friggin’ teleporter!” Tori yells, frustrated. “Come on!”

  Finale appears in front of me again, but this time I’m ready. I’ve built up a good pool of Rez by this point, and so I let her kick my legs out from under me. As she makes contact, the discharge of electric Rez burns where her kick lands, but she screams in pain. She hits the ground beside me hard, hair smoking. I snake out a hand and grab onto her wrist.

  “Got her!” I yell.

  She turns on me, her face oddly calm.

  Everything goes black, but I’m still holding onto her wrist.

  The world flicks back into existence, and now we’re outside, bright blue sky all around us. And we’re falling! Wind roars around us and I catch a glimpse of the ground below: the dust storm, the rebel fighters, and the remaining Synthesizer destroyers. My hand is still on Finale’s wrist, but she’s trying to pry it away as we plummet through the sky. As I tumble, my Gibson slides to my side, clinging to me only by its strap. The only thing I can do is grab at Finale’s other hand.

  “Let go,” she raises her voice slightly over the wind at me as we continue to fall. She tries to kick at me, but the force of her wind up merely sends us into a sickening tumble.

  “No!” I yell back, strengthening my grip further. We wrestle for a moment longer, her plying to get out of my grip, me struggling to hold on.

  We fall by one of the destroyers just as the rebel fighters open up a huge rupture in its side. Fire and smoke pouring out of the spacecraft as it starts to descend. Then we’re down into the huge sandstorm, falling… falling… falling. Finale wrestles one hand free, snaking it back to her guitar. Just as I see the ground rushing up to meet us: darkness.

  Then light.

  We flick back into the complex underground, hitting the tunnel entrance hard. I turn in time to see Mom, Mr. Patel, and Mixy arriving, out of breath. They stop, stunned, just as I stretch my hand over to my guitar strings and send a bolt of concentrated Rez at Finale. It hits her in the shoulder, blowing her back into the dome.

  “What just happened?!” Mom rushes forward.

  “Teleporter!” I huff, standing back up. “Stay back.”

  Mixy ignores me entirely, charging forward, lumbering and bellowing at the top of his lungs. I follow right behind him, just in time to catch a glimpse of Tori and Sola matching blows to the side of the vault platform. Sola is too close for Tori to use her Resonator, and Sola’s keeping Tori close, forcing a hand-to-hand fight. Tori’s got her enhanced Resonator strength, and Sola has her enhanced machine strength. But Tori isn’t a boxer, and Sola is peppering her with precise punches to the ribs and side of her head.

  Finale appears beside Lydia, tackling her sideways as the two begin to grapple with one another.

  “Earth-Son!” Mixy roars at Dex. “Stop what you are doing!”

  Mixy comes to the perimeter where Lydia’s Rez stopped short and barrels forward. Just as he’s about to close his hands over Dex’s shoulder, Finale flashes into being and swings a shin directly into Mixy’s neck. Mixy falls to the ground and doesn’t move to get up.

  “Mixy!” I yell, jetting forward on a wave of Rez.

  I land a few feet away from Dex, now busy moving his hands over the surface of the cube, his face set in grim determination.

  “Mixy will be fine,” Dex assures me, glancing sideways. His hands continue to seek over the vault’s mirror surface. The liquid-mirror finish is vibrating, rippling violently now, seeming to follow the path of Dex’s hands. More and more strings of golden, alien characters emerge. But they don’t disappear back into the flowing mirror. They fix themselves side by side, shining with a bright light.

  “I have to stop you, Dex,” I say. “You can’t just give them what they want.”

  “Stop and think for a moment,” he says quietly. “Read the variables. I’ve got leverage because they need me. And I can use that to save our entire world. You’re asking me to stop, but you don’t know what that means for us. It’s extinction, Caleb. If the Synthesizer and Composer ships engage in orbit, we’re dead.”

  “There’s got to be some other way,” I exhale, my muscles tensing. “The Composer fleet is going to save us!”

  “You don’t believe that,” Dex says. “The Composers will do whatever it takes to win. They don’t actually care about us.”

  And he’s right, I realize. I don’t believe the Composers are going to save us. But I persist. “Just stop, Dex.”

  “Are you going to stop me?”

  “I’ve got a Resonator right here, you idiot!” I say, pointing the Gibson at him. “All you’ve got are sparkly hands. Just stop!”

  “You won’t do it because it’s not in you to hurt me. Here’s your chance, Caleb. If you really think I’m wrong for trying to save Earth, then go ahead and shoot me.”

  “I can’t!” I admit, my voice cracking.

  Dex turns to look behind us. Lydia and Finale are still grappling, popping in and out of view as blue Rez explodes in blurry hazes around them. Tori and Sola are still fighting, lunging after one another. Mr. Patel and Mom have meanwhile worked their way around the chamber’s perimeter, each of them busily attempting to wake Mixy. With a low rumble, the entire complex shakes, dust dropping from the ceiling in a haze, clouding the white lighting overhead.

  Dex glances upward. “The Composer fleet must be getting here. They’re going to fight, and fight, and fight. More people are going to die. And I can stop all of it right now.”

  “This isn’t the way.”

  “This is the only way. Tell me right now if you see any other way out for us.” He waits while I struggle to come up with something. “Tell me right now!” he insists.

  Dex reaches his hand out to touch upon the mirror surface. His fingers continue through it, the golden characters parting way to welcome his hand as it dips into the mercury pool. Without warning, he reaches out with his other hand and seizes me by the wrist. With a violent tug, Dex is pulled forward, his body disappearing toward the center of the cube, pulling me in tow. I don’t even have time to draw a breath before the cube swallows me whole, drawing me into its depths.

  * * * * *

  I’ve never flown through space before. I’ve never seen the stars so clearly that they burn like stage-lights against my eyes. But here I am. No spacesuit. No oxygen. Just flying alon
g through the deep dark void, on my own little space odyssey. And if I close my eyes, I can almost feel that thing that Mixy talks about so often: the buzz, the hum, the all-encompassing, universal music.

  Something’s wrong. Pink Floyd’s music is starting to make way too much sense.

  “So this is pretty trippy, right?”

  I spin around to find Dex floating beside me.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him.

  “We’re inside the vault,” he says.

  “This is the weapon the Synthesizers are after?” I ask, looking about the expanse surrounding us.

  “False premise.” His voice is flat, calculating. “Dorian and the others assumed that the vault contained a weapon, because that’s all the Composers really care about. But the Synthesizers knew better. It took them years just to understand the markings on the vault—that the Prima Maestri were telling us what was inside. This is a map.”

  “A map?”

  “Finale thinks the Prima Maestri seeded vaults like this on more worlds. But this is the first the Synthesizers found. And now they’ve found a way inside.” He flexes his gold-veined hand.

  “A map to what, though?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  “Whatever it is, you can’t keep helping her,” I insist.

  “If I hadn’t done this, they’d have found some way inside. Tortured me. Started killing people until I agreed. Or figured out a way to pull the Key back out of me and use it.” He sighs, eyes gaunt, and runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t bring you here to argue.”

  “Well why’d you pull me into this stupid box then?!”

  “We need to make sure Finale isn’t the only one who ends up with the map,” Dex answers as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Think!” he demands. “Finale gets the map. The Synthesizers leave Earth. But we can’t come away empty-handed. Wherever this map leads, you can help the Composers get there first.”

  “What would you have done if we hadn’t shown up in time?”

  Dex smiles sheepishly and digs into his jumpsuit pocket, pulling out his tattered, blood-smeared steno pad. Then he plucks his chewed-up pencil from behind his ear. “Left a note, I think.”