by Sean Platt
Piper couldn’t help herself. She’d never thought of Trevor as anything but an adopted son and never would have, but the years had beaten her badly. She was fifty-six and caked in filth. Nobody had called her beautiful in forever.
When she looked up, Trevor was giving her a bittersweet smile. She saw the sorrow. The regret. The reality. Somehow, it was him.
“What about the Ark?”
“You have to go back.”
Piper felt her head shake as if moving without her permission. “No.”
“I know you lost people.”
“No. Not again. No more. Peers, Sadeem … and the time before that, it was your sister.” She shook her head harder, trying to make this whole thing go away. Something hot and liquid trickled down her cheek. “I can’t take it anymore. I just … can’t.”
“There are only two Reptars protecting it now. And you have a weapon.”
“And a lot of good our weapons did!”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Something dawned on Piper. She sat up straighter, fixing Trevor with tear-clouded eyes.
“Stranger said he saw you. Before the attack, by the ship.”
Trevor nodded. “Me. Lila. Mom.”
“Why?”
“This is what I’m trying to tell you, Piper. Dad’s helping us. He’s … tapped into something. Tapped in on the ship, sure, but also inside himself. Don’t tell me you never sensed it.”
Piper thought. Yes, Meyer had seemed a bit more different with every passing day. But hadn’t that just been the Astral Forgetting finally going away?
“Dad asked us to show them the three ‘real’ Reptars. Because he can talk to Stranger and Kindred, too.”
“Weren’t you ‘before Stranger’ since you were ‘before the Pall’?”
“Splitting hairs. Time is different for me these days. Don’t I look good for a man in his forties?” Trevor ran a hand along the side of his head, smoothing his thick black hair in a parody of dapperness. “They both seem like Dad to me.”
“They’re not your father.”
Trevor smiled, as if maybe she’d learn better someday.
“This time you won’t be surprised. Maybe Kamal can explain how it works. I think the Da Vinci Initiate was starting to understand it. There’s no way to travel faster than light; the Astrals needed a wormhole to do what they did; yada yada. But all you really need to understand is that space is different around the Ark. The rules change. For now, only the Astrals know how to exploit it, confuse you with a bunch of Reptars so the only real two can get you. Tell me: How did you get away from the freighter, after Lila came to join me?”
“Came to …” Piper understood; he meant when she’d died.
“Dad understands the Ark’s energy a little. Kindred and Stranger, because of what they are, understand it a lot. They don’t know they know, but they definitely do. That’s how they were able to move you through one of those folds when they stopped thinking and reacted. Part of them, just like part of Dad, knows how to use that energy. And they’ll use it again.”
“To … what? Teleport onto the ship?”
Trevor smiled again. “You’ll see.”
Piper looked Trevor over slowly. He was real. She both believed and disbelieved it more with every passing second.
“Is it like being in Heaven?”
“It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s more like I’m with you.”
“With me?”
He shook his head. “With all of you.” He tapped his head. “Not my family. Not this group. I mean ‘with humanity.’ All of it — not just Judgment’s survivors.”
“How?”
“What am I, a philosopher?”
“I just thought …”
Trevor smiled one more time. More genuine. His truest smile so far. He put his hand on hers. It was solid and warm.
“Nobody dies, Piper. Not really.”
“Then why—”
“If everyone came back all the time,” he said, either pre-guessing her question or rummaging around inside her supposedly private thoughts, “nothing would ever move forward. We need the illusion of death. Mortality is part of what makes us, us.”
“But you’re here now.”
“We’re still near the Ark.”
“So you came from the Ark?”
Trevor raised a hand, holding it flat, tipping it back and forth like a rocking boat. “It’s complicated.”
“We can’t go back, Trevor. Or at least we can’t all go back. I’d never forgive myself if Clara—”
“Joined us where she’s already present? It’s not the horror you think it is.”
“It’s not that easy for me to just accept what you’re saying. Even if we went back, Clara couldn’t go. I won’t allow it.”
“She must. Clara’s the wedge in the door. She’s keeping the channel open. Just like how Stranger and Kindred share its energy — each other’s energy. Same as you share Cameron’s.”
“Share …?” Piper trailed off. She’d felt it, though, same as Trevor implied: a bond between her and Cameron that had always been there, drawing them together, same as Stranger and Kindred. But she and Cameron weren’t halves like they were. So what was it?
“Clara has to go like you have to go,” Trevor said, shifting again on the sand. “Because you have the key.”
“I don’t have a key.”
Trevor nodded slowly. “I’m sure it seems that way. But let me tell you something about the old key that I learned when Cameron joined us: That key chose him. Years and years ago, back when he and his father first found it, Cameron touched it first, and it became his match. And in a somewhat different way, the same is true of you.”
“But—”
“After the mothership took you aboard over Moab, then transferred you to the Eternity ship before dropping you at Vail, where we saw you outside the bunker, on the security cameras. Do you remember?”
“Sort of. I remember meeting Meyer in a round room with shadows on a backlit floor.”
Trevor nodded. “They can’t so much as touch the Ark, Piper. They made it when they seeded themselves into us, but both always had an element of chaos — us, and the Ark, tied together. They could use what stored itself inside to assess us, but the process found a life of its own. They can reset it, or hide it once empty again, but it’s always taken a human to move and open it. That’s why Cameron needed the key. Why he had to make a choice to open the Ark; It would never have opened on its own. It’s about humanity’s core. Free will, maybe. We’re a species that determines its own fate, always — even when it’s rotten.”
Trevor moved his legs, sat with them crossed.
“They’ve always needed our cooperation in this little experiment. They couldn’t do it on their own. So they had the Mullah to mind the portal connecting us. It took human minds to see where we stood along the way, through drugs that altered our states. They didn’t just leave Astrals to live with us; they needed hybrids like Dad — only half-Astral, but also half-human. Right now, as our consciousnesses mix and throw their collective into disarray, they think something went wrong — first with Dad’s connection to his observer, then to all of them at once. But the way Dad sees it, it’s not ‘something going wrong’ at all. It’s the inevitable outcome of uncertainty. After enough times through the cycle, even the least likely things are bound to occur.”
“Are you saying—?”
“It’s a little like asking patients to help run the asylum. They’ve always needed to lean on us for help, intended or not. And so far, it’s worked out for them. They’ve been able to underestimate us because we haven’t been worthy of much. But this time we used our minds to create a new kind of collective — something the Astrals never saw coming. That created the Lightborn, and kickstarted a kind of instant evolution, starting with Dad and culminating in Clara. To them, things are spiraling out of control. But within the larger system, seen from high enough up, there’s no way this couldn’t have happened event
ually.”
“What does this have to do with the Ark? With the key? Or with my time with Meyer on the Astral ships?”
“Thousands of years pass between openings of the Ark,” Trevor said. “Cameron opened it last time, but once he was gone — once he turned the tables another time, polluting their ‘stream’ in the most blunt-force way he could think of — they knew they’d need someone else. You wouldn’t be alive the next time the Ark was opened, of course, but you’d be first in a line. Once they gave you the same energy that Cameron already had, you became their first ‘human control’ for the next epoch.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Whether or not you have a stone disc in your satchel, you hold a key all the same.”
Piper felt cold. She didn’t like where this seemed to be going.
“Clara wants to poison the Ark. She thinks that doing so will force more of us into their collective, and make them leave us alone, whether we’ve Forgotten their visit or not.”
Trevor nodded. “It will ruin their experiment, and they won’t be happy. Dad agrees that it will work. But it means you must return to the Ark. He will try to guide you. They’re sick right now, and there’s no way to send more Reptars in time — if you hurry.”
Piper closed her eyes. When they opened, Trevor was still there, no more a dream than the wind. “Okay.”
The ghost swallowed, as if what was coming might be more uncomfortable than the truth of his death. “There’s one more thing, if you want to finish what Cameron started when he jumped into the Ark.”
“What?”
“You know, Piper. You have to.”
“I don’t know, Trevor.” This time, she took his hand, finding it as solid as the ground beneath her. “Tell me.”
“To poison anything, you need two things. The first is a way to open the container.”
Piper nodded. “Okay. That’s me. So what else do you need?”
Trevor’s ghost looked away. Swallowed again. Then he met Piper’s eyes and in them, she saw regret, sorrow — maybe even fear.
“Poison,” he said.
CHAPTER 47
The floor rocked beneath Divinity’s feet. For a moment, it felt like the entire ship might cant sideways, all the stabilization and gravitation systems failing, and tip them toward the room’s corner. Maybe then the enormous thing would fall from orbit, slicing the planet’s atmosphere like a knife, streaking from the sky and running aground like Carl Nairobi had somehow found the Ark’s resting place and taken it across the ocean to run aground in the worst of all possible spots. If that happened, Divinity’s surrogate might not survive. Maybe that was for the best. She’d become attached enough (and she hated herself for the realization) to see Eternity’s perspective.
But no, the ship stabilized. Control seemed to flicker, the light within the surfaces going dark before coming back online. It might be the collective’s skewed energy choking the ship, or it might be some sort of elaborate sabotage. At this point, neither hardly mattered.
“What was that?” Liza asked, clearly frightened. Divinity liked seeing the woman’s emotion. It shook a bit of complacency from her. Liza was a hybrid, but the part she thought of as “herself” was more human than not. If the ship accelerated, the force would more or less liquefy them both. But whereas Divinity would survive in her native form afterward, Liza would not. The observer would move on, searching for another host who didn’t have such grand ambitions.
Divinity looked at the panel nearest her hand, considering. Control didn’t direct the ship, but the collective did. She could implant a suggestion. With all the chaos, it probably wouldn’t even be second-guessed until Liza Knight turned to pulp.
But no. For now, at least, Divinity needed her. She could deal with the way Liza kept trying to seize the upper hand later.
She told Liza the truth: “It’s Dempsey. He’s in it, too.”
“In your Nexus?”
Divinity pressed her lips flat, hearing Liza’s disbelief. Apparently she’d effectively conveyed the idea that the Nexus could only be accessed through the Nexus room itself — and remotely only through Control. They knew Dempsey had been taken to a holding room. And yet there he was, pushing bits of the Nexus around like chess pieces.
“Yes.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. It’s not a concern.”
Liza put her hand on her hip. She put her goddamned hand on her goddamned hip, posturing like a diva.
“Maybe I should be dealing with Dempsey,” said Liza.
“Dempsey isn’t one of us. He doesn’t control our fleet.”
“Seems to me he controls more than you’re admitting.”
Divinity eyed the thing in Liza’s hand. It seemed so simple. When they’d last lost track of it, it was known to be simple. Plug and play, was the human expression. And the first Meyer duplicate had managed to use it just fine, despite being fully alien and believing himself to be human.
I could kill her now, then install it myself.
But it wasn’t worth the risk. Not yet. It was possible that Liza Knight was as inconsequential as a coat rack, but what if Divinity was wrong? Well, then the only chance left would be killing the remaining Archetypes and attempting the Forgetting anew. The Reptars had finished off two more during the last attack; Divinity could see proof in the stream. But for some reason, the idea of erasing Kindred, Stranger, and Clara seemed far from certain. They’d proved slippery so far. And if the Archetypes survived and she found herself unable to do what must be done after killing Liza? Then they’d really be up shit creek, as the humans said.
“He can’t do anything consequential,” said Divinity, giving Liza a look. They’d both been standing, but the hybrid had moved to lean against a console as if making herself comfortable, weighing her insufferable companion’s worth. Divinity wanted to throttle her.
“What’s he doing, consequential or not?” Liza asked.
“I believe he’s instructing them on how to further pollute our consciousness.”
“But you said he’s accessing the Nexus, like we’re doing.”
“The simplest way to pollute us is through the archive.”
“You mean the Ark?”
Divinity pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes.”
“Isn’t that a problem?”
“Not if you can do what you promise.”
Liza watched Divinity, seeming to consider. Divinity watched her back. What she’d said was true. They were already contaminated. Meyer’s plan — even if they saw and then got past the multiplied guards, even if they could open the archive — would only contaminate them further. So what? Dirty was dirty. Whether they cleaned what Cameron and Clara had done or scrubbed what Meyer planned to do as well, results were the same.
Liza’s tongue bulged the corner of her cheek. “You don’t even know if this will work.” She jiggled the small silver canister.
“Then you’re useless.”
“But you brought me here, so you must have reason to believe it will.”
“Interesting theory.”
“Even so, you brought me here not quite knowing what I had in mind.” Liza considered. “That’s because I’m a hybrid, right? Because I know things from both the human side and the Astral side? So I’d know something like this better than you — technology that’s sort of half-and-half, just like me.”
“I guess you’ve got it all figured out. Good for you.”
Liza hesitated. She twiddled the canister. Then suddenly, she sat.
Divinity blinked. This felt like a delay, and they couldn’t afford to linger. Eternity and Divinity agreed on one thing: Eliminating the three remaining people composing the two surviving Archetypes (Magician and King), it might be possible to blank humanity and shake the pollution from their mental veins. They differed in what would happen if Clara, Kindred, and Stranger eluded them much longer. Eternity might be willing to surrender. They’d all have to live with humanity inside their hi
ve forever. Divinity’s solution was much more certain — but only if they acted fast. Before Eternity stopped them — or, more troublingly, before Dempsey’s evolutionary leap showed him a few more inconvenient truths he could twist to his advantage.
“What are you doing?” Divinity demanded.
“It just occurred to me that the second I install this for you” — Liza held up the canister containing the virus — “you’ll no longer have any need for me.”
Divinity considered lying. Instead she said, “True.”
“So why should I help you?”
“Because if you don’t, you’re even more useless.”
And so this time Liza echoed, “True.”
She stopped. Thought. Took a few breaths. Looked at her feet, then up. Again Liza held up the small device, which had gone ’round the world and back again since its creation in Heaven’s Veil.
“It will work. You’ve seen it work.”
Liza’s voice was even, but Divinity felt the face-off giving her advantage. They were at an impasse. A Mexican standoff, as cinema put it. But that meant Divinity had equal control — not the lesser power she’d felt when Liza had first reached into the backpack and revealed the ancient device for delivering the Canned Heat virus: Liza’s deep-brain’s idea of an advantage, to get them all out of their current sticky bind.
“We saw it work on your Internet,” Divinity retorted.
“But that’s just it. I can hear a lot of your collective up here. And I know that if the human collective had been what you’d thought, this would already be over. You expected us to think together — if we thought together at all — in one specific way. That’s the way you were counting on, when you tried to make us forget. But we thought together in a different way, didn’t we?”
Liza shifted the silver canister from hand to hand.
“You didn’t expect the Internet. And once you saw it, you thought it was just electronics and wires. You didn’t quite get the way we’d come to depend on it. The Internet was our extended brain. It was how we remembered things without having to memorize them. It was how thousands of people managed to work together on a single project, each taking tiny pieces until the job was done and done well. Like a colony of ants, or a flock of birds knowing to fly south for the winter.”