‘What changed?’
‘You. My plan was to have all of you under control and confused about what was happening—’
‘That’s why the monsters spared you and me. They knew.’
‘Yes. And at that time, when you said you were here for humanity, something inside me clicked. You made me see it wasn’t the world that I wanted. I wanted this world, the world with you in it.’
Jill’s hunch had been correct: Belinda had been in bed with Nenetl. But now she was saying she wanted to betray Nenetl, and it was all because of Jill herself. She got that Belinda had been infatuated with her, but she had never thought she could win her over a goddess. There was, of course, a significant chance that Belinda was making it up to deceive her.
‘Do you realise the seriousness of what you’re saying? The court-martial could sentence you for treason.’
‘That’s why we’re here. They don’t need to know.’
‘But you’ve told me.’
‘That was a risk I had to take. It’s either you or Nenetl, and I choose you. I fear Nenetl, whereas with you, I’m home.’
Jill wasn’t sure whether to trust her or not. ‘How did you break from her spell?’
‘With the Re-Stem unit, by accident. I had it run a self-actualisation script—a form of subconscious programming—which by design was deepened by a brainwave entrainment through the unit’s head-taps. Upon waking up, I experienced complete clarity of mind about recent events. I understood what I had been doing with Nenetl. And then your words, I’m here for humanity, echoed through my brain.’
‘So, it was all in your mind?’
‘Not quite. Some time ago, while studying the behaviour of deep energy, we made a discovery. There are certain substances such as Rigidalium that, when organised in a certain way, can provide a wall that the deep energy cannot pass. The Re-Stem unit relies heavily on Rigidalium and that’s why, inside the machine, I was free of Nenetl’s influence. My awakening was, in essence, an accident.
‘Now, this room is not only a quiet place, this is a test of a deep energy shelter. It’s to deep energy what a Faraday cage is to electromagnetic fields. As long as we’re inside this room, Nenetl won’t be able to drop in or listen.’
Jill tapped into her own powers, directing electricity to her fingertips, but could only produce a small crackle of lightning between them. The tingle quickly weakened, and the light died out. ‘My powers are weak here.’
‘That’s because you don’t have deep energy. You just tap into it, draw it from all around you. But in our cage, it cannot pass. You drew upon the energy contained within you, and once it was exhausted, there was no more.’
Jill nodded, still gazing at her fingers and trying to draw upon E, but it remained out of her reach. ‘It seems to be working.’
Belinda smiled. ‘This is perhaps the only room in the universe that can guarantee privacy. So, let me ask you, how does one trap a goddess?’
Jill got what she meant. If they could get Nenetl inside this room, or a similar one, she’d be powerless. The Shades could move through material in their ethereal form, but if it was E they used, she might not be able to move through the walls either. ‘I see what you’re implying, but how do we get her in?’
‘That is the challenge, because she knows what this room does.’
Without thinking too much, Jill said, ‘Maybe you could use me as bait.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ Jill asked, and as Belinda said nothing, considered her next words carefully. She didn’t want to tell her she had overheard her talk with Nenetl. ‘I assume you have talked to her about me, because their attack killed everyone but you and me.’
‘I have,’ Belinda said. ‘But she doesn’t like you.’
Jill snorted. Nenetl didn’t like her. ‘And why’s that?’
‘Perhaps she sees you as competition,’ Belinda said, flicking her hair behind her shoulder. ‘Unlikely as it sounds, she was right.’
‘Maybe we could use that.’
‘Yes!’ Belinda said with a sudden burst of excitement. ‘You’re absolutely right. Now I know what we should do. I wanna kiss you!’
Jill took a step back, her heart beating faster.
Belinda stepped forward, her face animated. ‘I’ll be the lure. And once we get Nenetl to this cage and lock her in, she’ll be powerless.’
‘What do we do with her then?’
‘I have an idea. It involves connecting the Starcrasher system to draw energy from the cage—’
‘But you do realise you can never really kill a Shade?’
‘I know, but we can make her powerless.’
Her idea made sense. When it came to understanding how the E worked, outside the Shades, Belinda was probably the number one. Even so, Nenetl was powerful, and she had powerful allies, but then again, she had them in thumbscrews or under her charm, and that was her weakness. If she were powerless, her allies would reroute—at least that was the underlying hypothesis. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘I’ve never been more certain. Now let’s get moving.’
Jill stepped out of the deep energy cage, Belinda right behind her. Jill waited as she shut the cage door.
Belinda said, ‘I will connect with Nenetl later this evening.’
‘Let me know then.’
‘I’m just so happy we talked this through.’
‘Me too.’
Belinda glanced around and, extending her arms, stepped forward. Jill mirrored her and they shared a quick embrace to say goodbye. Her hair smelled like candy.
Later that evening Jill sat in the lounge chair in her room. All wall screens were tuned to an ambient rainforest at night. She was waiting.
While her body was still, her mind was racing. Belinda would connect with her any time now.
She had surprised herself. It had been easy to make Belinda open up about Nenetl, but it wasn’t only because of what she had done. Whilst Belinda had been with Nenetl, she wanted out, and perhaps to her, Jill was the best way out. But what had surprised her the most was that she was drawn to her.
A cynical thought told her Belinda was a master at charming people. But she had seemed sincere, and she enjoyed being charmed by her. They had shared something, a connection she hadn’t experienced with anyone else.
That wasn’t completely true. She had shared a deep connection with Tredd; it was formed in their childhood and ran deeper than anything else. But life’s circumstances had come between them; the happily ever after wasn’t that happy, and ironically, now she found herself missing him.
Perhaps their love was the best when it was broken.
Perhaps they would find each other when this was all over.
She couldn’t stay still on the lounge chair: her foot tapped the air, and she had rolled her hair to a mess. She stood up and glanced at the time—it was already late.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t changed her uniform, because she wasn’t going to sleep until she’d heard from Belinda. Random strands of her hair were loose and twisted, so she opened her hairpin and let her hair down. She snorted at the image in the mirror—she looked like a natural hippie girl. She pulled her hair back and fixed it in a tight ponytail, accentuating the unnaturally smooth skin around her eyes. Belinda’s fountain of youth had eradicated all her wrinkles.
Where is she? It was already midnight and she said she’d connect with her after she’d heard from Nenetl. Jill hadn’t wanted to sound desperate, so she had refrained from contacting her earlier. Now, the wait had become unbearable, and she was worried that something had happened to Belinda.
Her handheld terminal beeped, and she darted back to her room. On the table beside the lounge chair, her terminal showed Belinda’s face.
She picked up.
Belinda’s face was twisted in a grimace and tears ran down her cheeks. ‘She knows…’
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m in the cage, she can’t touch me, for now.
You have to hurry!’
‘Hurry where?’
‘She knows what we planned; she’s coming for you.’
Jill gasped: a tall woman in a purple dress with long black hair was standing in the middle of her room, accompanied by two dark creatures. The terminal fell from her hands to the floor.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Deep in the underground compound under the deserts of Runcor, Berossus followed Gus and his father down a long corridor. The goddess Efia floated beside him. It had been a weird and exhausting trip through the universes and somehow, they had ended up in Runcor. And it seemed that the person he knew as Gus was, in fact, someone else. Everything was a blur and he didn’t know what to think; instead, he followed as if in a daze.
Gus brought them into a small room, with a simple light in the middle, and against every wall some equipment with tubes that seemed like they were formed from spare vacuum cleaner parts.
‘Apologies for the lowly setting—yes, this is a cleaning closet, one that is rarely used—but it’s what I have for a private space. Though there shouldn’t be anyone here, we need to be brief. If someone approaches, that light will blink brightly.’ Gus pointed at a device over the doorway through which they had come.
‘You don’t look like the Jilius Dal I knew,’ Oberen said. ‘Not the least bit.’
‘No, old friend. After the incident with the Thaqaran, I had to disappear. I went through a major physical transformation, one that would leave me unrecognisable by even the most detailed analyses.’
‘Don’t call me a friend. How do I know that you are who you claim to be?’
‘Well, I have a good memory. I remember the first time we met, and when we attacked the Veering hives, and your first words to your wife-to-be—’
‘What did I say to Inanna?’
‘It was down in Screprenia village in Eura, when we were following the Veerings, and she came across us. I did most of the talking, but you asked, “Did they touch you at all?”’
Oberen stared at him with a face Berossus couldn’t decipher. ‘You really are Jilius, or someone who has captured a lot of information.’
Efia stepped forward. ‘I know he is Jilius Dal, for I helped him in his transformation.’
‘She’s the only one who knew,’ Gus, or Jilius, said.
Oberen stepped beside Jilius and stared at him from head to toe. ‘I thought you were dead. Everyone did. Yet here you are.’
‘Here I am.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘Thaqaran. They would have found my body’s cellular signature from anywhere across the inhabited universe. I had to change it completely. I also had to cut all ties to my old life.’
‘But we got rid of the Thaqaran a long time ago.’
‘No, the Thaqaran are still there. In hiding. That’s why coming out, even like this, is a risk.’
‘Why did you come out now?’
‘The stakes are bigger than ever. It’s not just the Thaqaran. It’s the Ver, the Remola, Grangar and other creatures of the dark side, joining forces with the stray Shade, Nenetl. Together they seek to take over our universe. This is a fight we must all join, whether we want it or not.’
‘What are the Thaqaran?’ Berossus asked.
Oberen’s face turned grave, and so did Jilius’s. ‘They are extra-dimensional beings, capable of bending space and time. Nenetl got them to work together with the Ver to create portals. They have interfered with humanity in secret since the dawn of time and are likely the most common cause of supernatural occurrences.’
‘Once the Thaqaran crossed the line on Eura,’ Oberen said, ‘Jilius and I, among others, sought to stop them before the planet’s crust shattered. But in the end, it was he who stopped their plans, and in doing so, saved millions of lives.’
Jilius nodded. ‘It wasn’t only me. But I had to go into hiding. The Thaqaran are persistent, and they’re omnipotent. They will hunt you to the end of the universe and strike you down. A human can’t run from them.’
‘Yet you made it,’ Efia said.
‘Barely. Without you, I would be dead.’
Efia had a slightly amused expression.
‘Anyway,’ Jilius said, ‘Nenetl is planning to overrun our universe with the world she has created with her creatures. She’s using a birth code, similar to DNA, but of the universe and its laws, which works like the settings configuration file of the universe.’
‘Slow down,’ Berossus said. ‘So, you’re saying Nenetl’s pushing her universe into ours?’
‘That is our understanding,’ Jilius said, and Efia nodded in confirmation.
‘How do you fight something like that?’
‘I have created what is called a Starbearer, the birth code of our universe. We will use the Starbearer to replicate the code in the best alternate representation of our universe, Momentum 6, which is close, but due to game mechanics, misses some of the crucial data points. When Nenetl pushes out the Remolan set-up to our world, it will be directed to Momentum 6 instead.’
Berossus tried to grasp the concept, but failed miserably, and let out an unintended groan. It seemed as if the Starbearer was a device that could stop Nenetl. ‘So, the Starbearer will shield us from her?’
‘Not quite,’ Jilius said. ‘It’s more like a vehicle to make the universe of Momentum 6 look like ours.’
‘Oh!’ Berossus gasped with the realisation. ‘So that Nenetl thinks it’s ours and pushes her universe to replace the virtual universe of Momentum 6?’
Jilius smiled. ‘Exactly, thus saving our universe, and giving us control over hers.’
He made the whole idea of moving real universes sound like replacing bolts, to the extent that if the plan was from anyone else, Berossus would have laughed it off. ‘I get the idea, but how does it happen for real?’
‘I’ve already set up the Momentum 6 to accept the Starbearer, but when we push it in there won’t be a lot of time—they will notice it. I have instructed Evie to push it in when the time is right.’
Evie’s name reverberated through Berossus’s head. ‘Evie? Is she here?’
‘No, but she did visit, not long ago,’ Jilius said.
‘Visited?’ Berossus said. ‘How?’
‘Well, she walked in dressed up as waste management personnel. Two of her friends are still here.’
‘And where’s she?’
‘She’s in Spit City. We’ve a direct connection through one of Nenetl’s portals.’
This was confusing, if they had used Nenetl’s portals to get from Runcor to Spit City. ‘How—’ Berossus asked. ‘What is this place?’
‘A local big shot, Marc Puissance, uses this underground compound as his base. He won it in a feud against another one—someone connected to FIST—Daler Tait.’
Berossus had heard that name somewhere, but couldn’t remember where.
‘Daler sneaked into this compound with three others. Two got away, one of them Evie, but Daler and Evie’s sister got captured.’
‘Evie’s sister?’
‘Twin sister, Shosana. Looks exactly like her, and—’
‘She never told me she had a sister.’
‘Marc’s placed her and Daler in what they call cry machines.’
‘What are they?’
‘A cry machine is a rather small container for a person, to whom it creates pain through electrical charges. It monitors the victim, so that it won’t kill them, but keeps them on the edge of maximum pain,’ Jilius said, and locked eyes with Berossus. ‘It’s supposed to be soundproofed, but you can still hear the cries from outside. It’s maybe the most hideous form of torture I know.’
Berossus gulped.
Jilius continued, ‘I can’t leave Daler and Shosana here. We share history with Daler, and I can’t leave him in another predicament caused by Marc Puissance.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ Oberen asked.
‘This place is connected to a Remolan room with multiple access points to all around our unive
rse. They’ve used it to infiltrate our government and navy, and cause havoc to disrupt our way of life. For us, it will be the way to get out with Daler and Shosana.’
‘I’ll help you, mate,’ Oberen said.
Berossus said, ‘Evie is in Spit City?’
‘She is,’ Jilius said. ‘Spit City will be where the fate of the universe is decided. If you want to help Evie and Naido, you should go there.’
Berossus nodded. He was glad someone had thought out a plan. He turned to Efia. ‘What about you?’
‘I will join you,’ she said.
Suddenly the door opened, and five men in armour entered.
‘What’s going on?’ Jilius said.
‘We should ask you the same question,’ said one of the men. They stared at them, especially Efia, whose appearance was so different. ‘Who are these people?’
‘They’re my guests.’
‘None of them are registered,’ said the guard.
‘Oh my,’ Jilius said, scratching his head. ‘I must have forgotten. I’m really sorry.’
‘Please come with us.’
Berossus felt the rage inside, just a whisper then, but rising. He took a step forward. The guards raised their weapons. This only fuelled the beast inside. The blood of the wicked will flow—
Efia, who must have sensed what was happening, stepped between Berossus and the men, holding her hands high. ‘Now, calm down, everyone. We’re unarmed and wish to cooperate.’
The rage inside Berossus subsided. Oberen and Jilius exchanged glances.
‘Come with us then,’ one of the guards said.
‘Certainly,’ Efia said, and moved gracefully to the door, where she stopped. ‘Come on, boys, don’t just stand there.’
Oberen and Julius grumbled something, but seemed to agree.
Berossus followed as the guards escorted them back through the corridor.
‘What’s going on?’ he whispered.
Oberen shrugged.
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