by Ryan Graudin
“Turn this hashing ship around!” Were those his words? Leaving his mouth? “We have to go back!”
“There’s nothing to return to.” Eliot’s knuckles bulged at the seams, but she didn’t yell. “When the Fade destroys a moment, it’s lost. Forever.”
“One more second and my mother would have made it on the ship!” he screamed, if only to get his insides’ ragged edges out, where the hurt could stretch its legs. “If you hadn’t jumped this ship, she’d still be alive!”
“We didn’t have one more second. Don’t you understand?” Eliot opened her eyes; their darkness went deep. “The Fade is the devourer of all things: matter, moments, memories, even time itself. Your mother was unraveling. She was already gone.”
“WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE? WHY DID YOU MAKE ME SEE THAT?” He’d always thought that knowing what happened to the Ab Aeterno would make things hurt less. Closure, his childhood counselor once said, was the emotional equivalent of a scab. Instead, Far’s grief felt more open than ever, gaping with the knowledge that his mother was gone now, really gone, and he hadn’t been able to save her. “Why do you care about my mother? Why do you care about any of this? All you’ve done is destroy my life!”
“All I’ve done?” Eliot barked. “I gave you a chance to fexing rescue her! That’s what I did! That’s what I always do!”
She was speaking in riddles again. Holding something—everything—back. Far was sick of secrets. “Cut the shazm, Eliot! You knew this Fade thing was coming!”
“I didn’t know.” Eliot let go of the console. “I feared… and that fear came to pass. I’ve told you before, the Fade is relatively random. It can happen at any moment in our timeline. It is happening in lots of moments—”
“LIAR!” Yelling just to yell, just to have something loud outside of him. “You never told us about the Fade. I would’ve remembered being told about a void bigger than the hashing SKY!”
“Do you remember landing four hours late on the Titanic mission?” The girl cocked her head. “Of course you don’t, because the Fade doesn’t just cause wobbly jumps but amnesia, too.”
There was no Nepenthe. They should all be dead. Far’s mother was dead, uncreated before his very eyes, and how had they gone from a breathless reunion in the shelves to this… another hole. Had he had this conversation before? There was no telling with his temporal lobes going Swiss cheese on him. Far couldn’t trust himself, couldn’t stop fighting. “There has to be something we can do! Go back to Alexandria earlier in the timeline, find Mom before the Fade!”
“We can’t! It’s too dangerous! Your mother’s gone and you have to move on! You have to keep going!” Eliot slammed her fist into the console, knuckles catching the corner. Real tears ribboned her cheeks. “Fex, that hurt!”
“Why does everyone keep punching my stuff?” Gram muttered. “Bartleby’s a lot softer.”
Eliot’s hand bloomed with blood and nerve endings—skin sliced off. Far knew exactly what it felt like: the punch, the hit, the raw. Shock was catching up with him, overriding every other emotion. Keep going? He couldn’t even move. He stood there staring as red wreathed down Eliot’s fingers.
“Playing punching bag with Gram’s instruments won’t help anything. We don’t want to get stranded here.” Priya was on the scene, hand full of gauze, lips pressed as she took in the damage. “This laceration is deep. You’re going to need stitches.”
When the bandage pressed to Eliot’s wound, she flinched. White grew heavy with scarlet and her tears fell thicker. Why is she crying? She had no right to sadness or pain when she’d brought all this on herself. On them.
Far was about to say as much when Priya cut in with a steady, take-no-shazm tone. The deck was hers now. “Imogen, try to make Far sit down. Gram, find us a time to land when we won’t crash into the library—”
“No!” Eliot gasped. “Stay in the Grid. We’re safe from the Fade here.”
“Fine.” Priya’s jaw locked. “We stay in the Grid. But after I sew you up, you’re going to tell us everything. Who you are, where and when you came from, why you’re here, what the Fade is. Understood?”
To everyone’s surprise, Eliot nodded. Something inside the girl had wilted: Her shoulders slouched, and her steps dragged as she followed Priya into the infirmary. The door slid shut.
Suspension gripped the console room. The Grid’s timelessness mixed with held breaths. For a second, for an eon, no one spoke. It would’ve felt silent, but now that Far knew what true silence sounded like, all he could hear was noise. The thud, thud of a heart begging for oxygen. Red panda claws tapping the common area floor. The Invictus’s stealth engines made more commotion than he’d realized—their background hum more feeling than decibel.
“The universe is falling apart.” Gram glared at his equipment; his voice boomed.
“Farway.” Even Imogen’s presence was muted—neon gone gray. Far hadn’t noticed her in the doorway until she said his name. “Come sit. I—I can try to make tea. Maybe.”
Far didn’t want tea. He didn’t want to sit. He didn’t want the universe to fall apart. But every ounce of fight-or-flight had abandoned his body, so he let his cousin guide him to the couch. It wasn’t just Imogen’s nose that matched his mother’s. It was the clean part through aqua hair. It was the great sorrow molding her face as she sat on the cushion beside Far’s. He kept expecting her to say something sunshine-y, but each of Imogen’s exhales was as empty as the next. There was no buoying grin. No honeycomb gelato. She’d seen everything that had happened through his eyes. He’d lost a mother and she’d lost an aunt, and this time words wouldn’t help either of them.
30
FAR FROM THE TREE
THE GIRL BLED LIKE EVERYONE ELSE: red. It was a nasty gash, but Priya had seen nastier. Eliot stiffened when the curved suture needle was retrieved from its drawer, snake’s-tooth sharp. In Medic school Priya had learned that bedside manner made all the difference in situations like this. Keep the patient chatting. Talk about the weather, family members, their favorite datastream, anything to keep them from focusing on the pain at hand.
But it was all Priya could do to keep her own focus. The Ancestral Archives program glowed from the other side of the infirmary, details of its search-in-progress hidden beneath a lab coat. Does that truth even matter, now that the questions have changed? Gloves on. Heal-All spray applied. Suture thread strung. Eye on the needle. Don’t think about what you just saw. Don’t think about how Far might have reached his mother, if you’d let go. Don’t think about how close he came to being erased, too….
“You’re shaking,” Eliot said.
“Can you blame me?”
“Is there a less old-fashioned way to do this? I don’t want crooked stitches.” Eliot attempted enough of a smile to show she was trying to lighten the mood.
As if that were possible, after watching the sky disappear. Colors, light, matter all peeling back… It was the surety of an end, coming for them with the wrath of a merciless god. The sight reminded Priya of a line from the Bhagavad-Gita, oft quoted by men who knew they held desolation in their hands: I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
Translation was a funny thing. Some scholars thought it was time, not death, that destroyed worlds. Both versions were chilling, made her ache for warmth and masala chai, still points and perfect moments.
“We don’t have skin glue on board,” Priya told the girl. “Scar will look the same no matter what.”
At this, Eliot held out her hand. The bleeding had slowed after the Heal-All, but she remained quite pale, insides a blue-veined story against her skin, pulse an ode to terror. Whatever it was they’d seen in Alexandria, it upended this girl. She’d become as much a shadow-person as the rest of them.
It only took four interrupted sutures to close the cut. Priya sliced the thread and applied the bandage as steadily as she could. “All better now,” she said, even though nothing was. “Now, go out into the common area and start talking.”
“It’s—a long story.” Eliot stood. “I’m going to need to use the washroom first.”
Because they were suspended in the Grid, Priya nodded. The Invictus was all there was out here. Eliot would be hard-pressed to find a place to run, though she certainly did her best on her way to the washroom, tripping over Saffron before she shut herself away. The red panda bristled thrice his size, his misery made well known as he yowled and leaped up to the safety of the pipes.
Priya checked on her crew. All of them were in the common area. Gram sat on the couch, cleaning off one of his Rubik’s Cubes. A steam cloud surrounded Imogen in the kitchenette, which explained both smells—karha spice and burning. Far sat with his back to the infirmary, unmoving. Priya couldn’t see his eyes, but she suspected they were glazed, reliving the same moment she was. Death or time—whatever windless force it was—bearing down, snatching Far’s mother out from under him, his toga linen feeling like a thousand threads ready to snap beneath Priya’s fingers.
She’d been right to hold on, hadn’t she?
Priya tossed the garnet gauze and the needle in the trash; her gloves followed. So much sorrow, so much fear—Eliot’s ache had spread to the entire ship. The Ancestral Archives results might be slight, but they mattered, because everything stemmed from this girl somehow, and all she’d done was lie. Nepenthe. Ha! If only…
Whatever story Eliot chose to spin next could be held to the tale her genetics told. This diagnostics machine also featured an hourglass cursor. Its eternal sands had been pouring most of the day, were still pouring when Priya lifted the lab coat. Results wouldn’t take much longer, shouldn’t for how many credits she’d dropped on processing power. Though who knew what soon meant in a timeless place…
“I think I murdered the chai.” A glum announcement on Imogen’s part. “There aren’t supposed to be floaty things in it, right?”
“I usually strain the spices out,” Priya said, and made her way toward the kitchenette. The pot in Imogen’s hands was a piece of work: too much milk, burnt at the bottom, bubbling over the sides. Not enough spice, despite the bits that flecked the top. Poor, precious karha mix. Murdered, indeed. “What is this?”
“I don’t know….” The Historian’s chin wobbled. “I’m sorry, Priya. I tried.”
They’d all tried. They were all on the edge of tears. They all felt as if maybe the nothingness actually had managed to graze them, stealing something essential. Priya looked back at the pot and decided to save what she could. Something hot in their hands would be better than emptiness.
She poured out five cups this time, substituting two bowls. One for Eliot and one for the mug that was now in pieces on the floor. The washroom door stayed closed. Priya found herself dreading its opening. She wanted answers, yes, needed them, but whatever came out to face them couldn’t be good.
The whole world was unsettled now, not just theirs.
Her eyes kept traveling the same path: washroom door, Far, hourglass. Closed, unmoving, ever-pouring. Closed, unmoving, ever-pouring. Closed, unmoving… results! The hourglass vanished with a chime, and it was everything Priya could do not to spill the rest of the pot as she set it down, rushing for the infirmary.
The screen greeted her with the program’s motto—ANCESTRAL ARCHIVES: ROOTS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS—and the picture of a tree. (Some marketing person sure fancied themselves clever.) Priya had no patience for it as she clicked to the next screen. This layout of results was easier to read than the initial DNA profile—ancestral lineage branching out from the strongest percentage, following census records and haplogroups down the generations.
No NO MATCH FOUND this time. Eliot’s closest relative shared a whopping 50 percent of her DNA, which meant she wasn’t from as distant a future as they thought. One of the girl’s parents or siblings existed in Central time, and as soon as Priya selected that profile, she’d know who it was.
Time to pull back the curtain…
A glance at Ganesh. A prayer. A click.
The profile filled the screen, picture first. Priya didn’t read the name or birth date beneath it because the face, painted in pixels before her, needed no ID. She’d seen it in person not a moment ago. The sight was more than familiar; it was hashing impossible….
It was Empra McCarthy.
31
100 PERCENT
READINGS ARE 99% COMPLETE. REMEMBER EMPRA MCCARTHY.
Eliot sat on the covered toilet seat, head in her hands. The right one screamed through the Heal-All’s numbing agents, palm shaking because her world’s end had come too close. This was the second time she’d faced the Fade in the flesh, and Eliot’s edges felt less solid for it—warped fingernails, caving chest. No clever foreign curse word or dance party could pull her back together after such a sight.
“One more percent.” Even her whisper felt cobwebby, syllables ready to snap. “All you have to do is make it to one hundred. Then you’ll be certain.”
But what if this boy wasn’t the one? Could she move on to Subject Eight? Nine? Ten? Twenty? Could she keep drawing on eyebrows with her All My Friends Are Dead Again pen while the lifetimes piled over her groaning bones?
Blank slate? Ha. If anything she was overwritten. There shouldn’t be room for any more of these traumas, but Eliot’s interface accepted the upload of the Alexandria mission nonetheless. SUBJECT SEVEN, DECEMBER 16, 48 BC. The label’s letters looked too neat for such a nasty business.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY THE FILE? Vera asked.
Eliot didn’t want to watch the footage again, but it was necessary. She’d already forgotten most of her flight from the Fade, as Far certainly had, as the others certainly would. Only the Grid was preserving those final, fatal seconds, and once the Invictus landed back in time—any time—the Fade would feast on that memory, too. If Eliot didn’t relive Empra McCarthy’s unmaking again, she’d forget it. Though, in truth, forgetting would be easier. It was tempting to highlight the lifetimes of footage in her drive and hit Delete—Agent Ackerman’s orders be fexed. She’d remember the ones she’d already watched, sure, but once the Fade caught up to her, none of it would matter.
Nothing would.
Eliot started to sob: water, water everywhere. Vera kept repeating the question in her most polite text-speak, the act of crying beyond the interface program’s comprehension. Eliot had tried to operate like that—bionic, aloof, apart—but she was too hazing human for her own good.
The mirror caught Eliot when she looked up. Through the tears, at this distance, everything was warped, the washroom engulfing her blotchy face. How could Agent Ackerman expect her to shape the fates of billions when she couldn’t even fill in her own reflection? Eliot’s eyebrows anchored her in the smallness, their message untouched by weeping. She couldn’t not hear her mother’s voice when she read it. Make a wish. Make it count.
“I’m trying,” Eliot croaked.
READINGS ARE 100% COMPLETE. REMEMBER EMPRA MCCARTHY. Vera’s question changed. WOULD YOU LIKE THE RESULTS OF THE SCAN FOR COUNTERSIGNATURE EMISSIONS?
Up, up her hope soared, and Eliot hated how high it felt because it meant the crash would be that much worse, and she was only human, after all, only a girl trying her best to save the world, and her mission rode on whatever came next.
“Hit me, Vera.”
I AM A COMPUTER. I DO NOT POSSESS PHYSICAL ARMS TO PERFORM SUCH A TASK.
“It’s a blackja—never mind. Show me the results. Please.”
THE FADE’S CATALYST IS CONFIRMED. SUBJECT SEVEN IS A COMPLETE COUNTERSIGNATURE MATCH.
Subject Seven. Out of all the candidates in all the universes this boy was the one. Solara—and the other cousins—would’ve called it lucky, for the number, but Eliot didn’t believe in luck. The best way to wrangle fate was to seize it by the fexing throat.
She knew what was coming next. She’d spent seven lives bracing for it.
NEUTRALIZATION ORDER CONFIRMED.
Eliot reached into the pocket universe wrapped around her wrist, feel
ing through gowns and wigs and tools for the item she needed. There! A steel so cold her fingers solidified around it. She hated to do this, especially in front of Imogen.
She had to.
Eliot turned toward the washroom door and pulled out her gun.
32
WEIRDEST WORST DAY EVER
NO TIME WHIRLED AROUND FAR, MIXING with the scent of scalded tea. His crew was talking, but he couldn’t pick their words apart from the roar in his brain. All of his senses were on overload, blasted into static. He barely felt the blanket’s wool fringe scratching his throat. He didn’t see the washroom door open. Priya’s scream—that made it through, if only because the sound was so out of place.
“FAR! LOOK OUT!”
His daze twisted into tight focus. Eliot was emerging from the washroom—pink-faced, blaster in hand. Far had seen more than a few gun barrels in his day, but this one was unique: shaped like an X instead of an O, ready to punch a cross through his chest. There was no flourishing pause, no dramatic monologue, no time for Far’s Recorder reflexes to throw him out of the weapon’s range. Eliot pulled the trigger and he was a dead man.
Or would’ve been, if not for Saffron. The red panda launched from the pipes with a step on me and I’ll fall on you vengeance—landing on Eliot’s head, every claw flailing. She yelped. The blaster swung, its laser reducing the cushion by Far’s shoulder to a blackened smolder. Gram launched himself over the second couch, wresting the weapon from Eliot and tossing it back to Far, who caught the blaster midair—Way to finally make an appearance, Academy training!
When he turned the weapon’s sights back at its owner, Eliot froze. The whole hashing room did. Gram had managed to secure the girl’s arms behind her back. Priya paused by the charred couch and Imogen was brandishing the chai pot, though Far doubted she’d use it. There wasn’t a violent bone in his cousin’s body. There weren’t many in his, either, but almost getting blasted through the heart was enough to whip up aggression in anyone.