by Sean Platt
“What power?”
“The Ark, maybe,” said Peers. “But how it got there is another story.”
“I thought you said the King’s two heads were Kindred and my grandpa.”
“Maybe they were,” Sadeem replied. “Who knows? Maybe they shift. It made sense, at the beginning, that you’d be the Innocent. But now what you do is more like magic, and the things you say make me think that magic is still growing. Peers was once the Fool, but sometimes now he has the knowledge of a Sage.”
Sadeem’s eyes flicked toward Peers, who looked away. Clara was curious but not enough to pry. She’d long felt a secret in Peers, somewhere deep, both when he’d had his memories and when he hadn’t. But now that secret felt dulled, as if finally confessed. She would learn the truth if she needed it, but for now was content to grant the man his privacy.
“Perhaps the Mullah wrote one legend on top of another,” Peers said. “People used to say that uncertainty was the only certainty in life. The Legend Scroll mentions the Seven Archetypes, but if they came from chaos, who’s to say the legend itself couldn’t have uncertainty within it? Maybe the Archetypes can change. Perhaps its predictions are prophecies that shift in the wind.”
“Not very useful, then.”
“Even random can be predictable, Clara,” Sadeem said. “If things occur randomly for long enough, eventually every given possibility will occur.”
“I’m too tired to understand that.”
“It’s like those thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters,” Kamal said. “If you let them go on forever, they’ll eventually write Shakespeare.”
“Right,” agreed Sadeem.
“If you don’t let them type long enough,” Kamal added, “they’ll only write Valley of the Dolls.”
“Clara,” Sadeem said, throwing Kamal a look, “what was it you said to Logan before we left the Mullah caves? When you grabbed my arm. Something about your cousin.”
“Cousin Timmy.”
Sadeem nodded.
“It’s a thing Stranger used to say. Almost like his catchphrase. Funny thing is, my grandpa had a Cousin Tim. When I mentioned it around him one time, he lit up. For a while I thought he might be getting his memories back, but it was just a dead end.”
“Is it the same Tim? In Stranger’s expression and your grandfather’s family?”
“How could it be?”
Again, Sadeem, Peers, and Kamal traded a knowing glance. What had they already discussed — and maybe decided — that they weren’t willing to say?
“Just tell us what it means to you, Clara,” Peers said.
“It was about underestimating people. Pigeonholing them, then trivializing their abilities. Stranger once told me a story to go with the expression, but I didn’t know my grandpa had a Cousin Tim until after the Forgetting. I don’t see how they could be related.”
“Why did you say it to me?” Sadeem asked.
“I was still sort of in a trance. You started getting all worried and going on and on, and it just came to me.”
“As a rebuttal? I was worried, and you wanted to assure me that there was nothing to worry about?”
Clara thought. She’d just come out of her semi-coma. She’d been fully mental for a while, seeing the human grid, seeing the wall finally fall to release the Astrals’ meddling repression from their memories. The moment it collapsed, a strong red force had lashed out and grabbed her from the Astral side, pinning her down and refusing to let her move. She’d barely been conscious when she’d said that to Sadeem, still half-submerged.
“I don’t know, Sadeem.”
“It might be important, Clara.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
His eyes flashed with intensity. “Think!”
“I … I don’t know,” Clara stammered, taken aback. “I guess I had this feeling that you shouldn’t count us out. That you were forgetting something important, and that we weren’t just victims.”
“Us as in us? Or us as in humanity?”
“Humanity. I think.”
“But why?”
“Stranger’s story was about a musician. Someone whose family and friends never really gave him any credit, even after he made it big, because he was always just Cousin Timmy. To them, he was worth encouraging because he had dreams of being a star, but not because of his talent. Stranger described it as a backhanded complement. Someone who got patted on the head and patronized rather than given his due.”
“What does that have to do with humanity and the Astrals?”
Clara was about to repeat that she didn’t know and maybe add that she wished Sadeem would leave her alone about some random thing she’d said while basically high, but then someone took Clara’s hand. Kamal, to her surprise.
“Close your eyes, Clara.”
Clara looked at the three men. She saw Sadeem’s urgent gaze, Peers’s patient stare, and Kamal’s oddly understanding expression.
“I have something to tell you that may help. Something I think I’m supposed to tell you, and that I’m only just now starting to understand. But before I say it, I need you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and tell me if you can see your grandfather on that network of yours. The grid that shows all the minds left in this place, recovering their memories. The place you spent all your time while trying to fight the Forgetting. Tell me if you can see Meyer there now, Clara, at his place in that network of human consciousness.”
Clara closed her eyes, seeing the fire’s red-orange through her lids.
She drew a deep breath.
Then another.
And another.
She could see her grandfather, just as Kamal had asked. A bright node like all the others, his connections somehow different. It took her a while to see why, but then she did. The nodes representing individuals were connected mind to mind, each touching others around them. The matrix shifted and moved, nodes floating in front of her vision like icebergs through an ocean of light. The nodes moved — old connections broke, and new ones formed. But each always kept about the same number of connections to the rest — five or six per person at any time, humanity’s remainders joined like neurons in a brain.
All except for her grandfather.
He was connected to them all.
“I see him,” she said with subtle awe, watching his instance on the grid and seeing how the connections were all brightening, growing strong like strings in a braid. It hadn’t been this way before. This was something new.
“Have they underestimated him?” Kamal asked. “Is it possible the Astrals knew Meyer Dempsey as one thing but aren’t quite able to see that he’s grown into something more? Is it possible that just like Cousin Timmy in Stranger’s story, your grandfather isn’t a person the Astrals can see for who he really is … even if the truth is right in front of their alien faces?”
Clara opened her eyes. Peers and Sadeem were watching Kamal as intently as she was. Whatever Kamal was insinuating, the others hadn’t seen it coming any more than Clara had.
Instead of answering, Clara asked a question.
“He’s an Astral, isn’t he? All this time, we thought he was back — but my grandfather’s like Kindred, isn’t he? Just another copy of the real Meyer Dempsey?”
Kamal’s lips pursed into a smile and slowly shook his head.
“Close,” he said, “but no cigar.”
CHAPTER 30
“They can hear you.”
“Of course they can hear me.”
“They can see us.”
“Of course they can see us!”
“Meyer …”
“Dammit, Carl, I meant what I said. Will you just fucking—”
“Setting aside the fact that I might kill you, I can’t possibly imagine how this will—”
He was still learning the trick, but with a parody of fingers-crossed Meyer pushed in what felt like the right mental spot, doing his best to squeeze Carl’s gray matter from within the neural network. He doubted he could contro
l minds, but he sure could see a lot more than he used to. What he was doing wasn’t quite like a vampire glamouring prey, but it didn’t feel that far off. Carl’s mental node, even from the inside, still felt like its own thing. But with the right pressure applied, Meyer bet he could make what amounted to a very strong argument.
“Just do it,” Meyer said.
“What if I paralyze you? I don’t even see why you’d want—”
“Just do it!”
Carl wrapped his enormous arm around Meyer’s neck and squeezed. Meyer was blacking out, thinking he’d made a rather obnoxious mistake in judgment and readying himself to tap out when the door slid open and two Titans entered. The tall blonde who called herself Eternity clacked along behind him on tall black heels.
Push.
Shove.
All from inside the new headspace, pushing Carl’s will around like a child strapped in a stroller.
Carl turned, his spine obeying like a reflex in the fractional second before his cortex received and evaluated the message. This had felt like the dangerous make-or-break moment in Meyer’s plan. Carl was right; the Astrals would see and hear everything that he and Meyer did. But if past experience had taught him anything, they’d probably hear their thoughts as well. Meyer felt confident that he could keep the aliens out of his head, but he wasn’t so sure about Carl.
Carl had to believe that Meyer wanted Carl to make him pass out, when in truth Meyer actually wanted the Astrals to rush in after they saw what was happening. Then, in the space of seconds, the real plan would force Meyer to push Carl in a different direction.
If he couldn’t “convince” Carl quickly, the plan was dead before its birth. Meyer wasn’t big, fast, or strong enough to do what had to be done. He was sixty-eight fucking years old, his wrestling days long behind him.
Push.
Shove.
Meyer felt recognition click — along with a bit of knee-jerk resentment wherein Carl felt annoyed by Meyer’s deception.
Despite the rush, Carl didn’t hesitate. Meyer flopped to the floor as Carl released him, landing at the first Titan’s bare feet. The second Titan moved to intercept Carl but was predictably slow. Carl moved like a bolt, easily dodging. Titans could be fast when necessary, but Carl needed only a second. By the time the Titan spun to where Carl had dashed behind him, he had Eternity in the headlock he’d promised to Meyer.
“You’re kidding,” Eternity said, her smooth-as-silk voice coming out in a croak. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
Meyer grabbed one of the Titans. It turned and gave him a pleasant, no-offense-intended smile. The other was still moving toward Carl but hesitated when he dragged Eternity two quick steps back and tightened his python’s grip on her neck.
“Let us out of here,” Meyer said. “Send us back to the surface.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Show her how ridiculous we are, Carl.”
Carl squeezed. Eternity made an urgent squeaking, waving an arm.
“Ready to send us back?”
The Titans were looking at Eternity as if awaiting instructions. Carl was meeting them eye to eye, keeping his distance. The Titans seemed to be weighing whether they could get to Carl before he ended Eternity, and deciding correctly (in Meyer’s opinion, anyway) that they couldn’t.
“I can’t send you back. The Archetypes are all we have.”
“Sounds to me like that’s your fucking problem, not ours,” said Carl.
“You can’t kill me. This body is only a mouthpiece. We’re a collective. If you stop this body’s functioning, it’ll be no different than when Clara’s father killed your—”
“Do you think I don’t know about that?” Meyer asked. “Your girlfriend was just in here, acting shocked at what I ‘pretended’ to know and not know. She was talking about me knowing myself, which I’ve been pretty good at since I started Fable and decided that being a sonofabitch wasn’t a bad management strategy and leaned right into it. But I know what happened when Raj killed him, and I doubt you’re interested in having another—”
(Meyer Dempsey)
“—death on your hands.”
“Death is immaterial,” the woman said from under Carl’s flexing armpit. “Even for you. A body is only a body, and what matters is the energy that’s always free to—”
“Show her that death is immaterial, Carl.”
Carl squeezed. The woman made a gurgling noise, her feet frantic. The Titans advanced, and Carl pushed them back with his eyes, muscles tight.
“We can’t send you back! You don’t understand!”
“Make her understand, Carl.”
“Wait!”
Meyer crossed to Carl, bent, and punched the woman in the gut. Air left her human lungs. She grunted, face paled, panic etched on her features as she fought in vain to inhale. Carl stared the Titans back as Meyer squatted to look Eternity in her eyes.
“I know you took this body to be your puppet. I used to share Kindred’s memories, and part of me remembers what it was like for him, standing in front of something like you, a giant light-filled anemone behind the puppet, controlling it. I’ve got insights coming at me so fast these days, I might break.” He snapped his fingers, and Eternity, still gasping for air, flinched. “It takes my breath away. But I think I know something else about you, and although I’m new to this, I think I can see it from the inside as well as out. I think you’re used to living in that body and are more attached to being an individual than you should be. I think you look yourself over in the mirror, wondering how it would feel to be born like us, and have that body admired by someone else. I think that no matter how much mind-over-matter bullshit you claim, right now you don’t need air to keep living by your usual definition but desperately want it anyway.”
Eternity’s chest heaved, and she gasped, the effort of drawing breath bringing tears to her eyes.
“You’re going to let us go. If you don’t, Carl will snap your neck. It won’t take much. Look at his arms. I’ll bet he can pop your head all the way off like the top of a dandelion.”
“It won’t make any difference,” she said, her breath still coming in gasps, eyes still streaming.
“It’ll make a difference to you.”
“We have to fix you. If we can’t, we must destroy you all.”
Meyer felt an acid grin spread across his face.
“But you can’t do that, can you? I can see into my friend here and into you. I know that when you tried to do something to him earlier, it hurt you, too. You’ve stayed here too long. You’ve gone native. You started so high above, but now you’re more like us than you want to be. Look at you. The individual doesn’t matter, does it? Yet here we are, holding your entire race captive just because we’ve got one little toy and are willing to break it if we don’t get our way.”
“If we let you go, everyone loses,” she said.
“Better everyone than just us.”
“You won’t make it. Even if we let you go, you can’t leave the ship. Maybe I do care, but the infection cuts both ways. We’re no longer an unclouded collective. Others will stand in your way no matter what I say.”
“You mean the other woman? The short one?”
“I mean just about any—”
A soft electric sound cut her off. Something lanced into Carl’s shoulder from the rear, through the open door. Meyer looked up to see another two Titans approaching, weapons raised.
They looked angry.
The Titans looked angry.
Meyer rammed into Carl and Eternity, sending them sideways, out of the doorway. He could already see the back of Carl’s shoulder spilling blood where he’d been hit by the weapon. There was no time to explain, or hesitate. As bad as this had become, it would only get worse.
Push.
Carl moved, throwing Meyer an annoyed glance for not speaking aloud.
Not away from the armed Titans but toward them.
They must not have predicted it; the Titans staggered bac
k as Meyer and Carl, still holding Eternity, charged forward. They still should have had time to shoot again, but Carl held Eternity high like a shield, dangling with her feet kicking and one absent its shoe. They raised their weapons, sighted, failed to shoot. And in that split second’s hesitation, Meyer and Carl acted, Carl punching one of them hard enough with his free fist to crack something in the wall behind him as the Titan’s head rebounded from it. Meyer took the other, apparently more spry than he’d anticipated. The Titan’s size worked against it as the alien moved to grab Meyer’s much smaller form; he stepped back, reared ahead, and drove his elbow into the Astral’s nose. The Titan didn’t take it in stride, or transform, putting its hand to its face and falling back in obvious pain. Meyer grabbed its weapon from the floor and aimed it, confused for milliseconds, seeing ahead but not far enough.
Just keep moving.
He didn’t know where he was going. Except that he did. The Deathbringer ship was orders of magnitude larger than the ship he’d been imprisoned upon before, but now he could see through a crack in the wall: a glimpse, reaching a tendril into the collective. Shaking hands with something — a piece of himself, perhaps, stolen while they held him captive like a ghost.
And at each turn, seconds in advance of reaching it, Meyer saw where to go.
Right. Right. Left.
They ran into Reptars. Carl held Eternity up again, but the Reptars came anyway. Meyer raised the Titan’s weapon. It fired like a human rifle. Perhaps a benefit of being seeded from Astral stock — made in the image of seemed also to mean able to fire the weapons of.
One’s head was obliterated, walls coated with gore like a paintball fight. The other wounded, down one leg.
On.
And on.
Finally a door. Eternity bucking in Carl’s grip, squirming like a child throwing a tantrum. She bore down and bit hard. Carl shouted and released her, blood now gushing from his earlier wound. His shirt was soaked red down the back, air pungent with the tang of fresh meat.
Meyer lunged and struck her sidelong, more unintentionally tackling than successfully reaching. Eternity rolled to the side and struck the bulkhead. Meyer was reaching deep, grabbing the collective and squeezing, searching for access. The door behind them purred open as a single Reptar rounded the corner. Meyer had lost his weapon when he’d leaped after Eternity, and the thing was coming, coming, coming …