The Rising Tide

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  “We can fight him,” Aaron whispered at his side. “We have to fight him.”

  Jayson stared at the man who had owned him for so long. It was all coming back to him now. This was the moment he’d been waiting for, his last chance.

  Jayson pushed Aaron backward and went to kneel before Davian, bowing his head. “I accept.” He was clear, calm. This was the thing he needed to do.

  “What the hell are you doing?” He felt Aaron reach for him, but it was too late. Since the day he’d agreed to that fateful weekend that had changed everything.

  Davian put his hand on Jayson’s head, and that familiar rush of submission flowed over him.

  “Welcome home.” Davian gloated. “I knew you would come back to your place.”

  Jayson closed his eyes. It was time. “I did too.” He reached up to grasp Davian’s arm, and pulled.

  Davian’s face went red with rage. “What the hell are you doing? Let me go!”

  Jayson got up and continued to pull. He would take it all inside of him. All of the world mind. What would happen next, he had no idea, but he doubted he could hold so much raw power.

  Davian shrieked as his very substance started to melt, his essence breaking apart and flowing toward Jayson. “We could do so much together.”

  Jayson shook his head. “You’ve suffered too long. It’s time to end this.” Davian’s essence flooded into him, and along with it those of Lanya and Colin. “My mother and father believed in God. I never really took to their religion. But they believed in something else too. Redemption.”

  Davian stuttered, trying to respond, and then his face started to split into a hundred pieces, golden light shining through the cracks. His hands reached up to his face, and his mouth opened in a silent scream.

  His fingers clawed at his cheeks, peeling off the skin to reveal a shimmering light beneath. Then he started to collapse, his fingers falling off, his shoulders slumping, his entire body falling down in a thousand pieces that formed a sparkling dust. Then that too was swept up into the tide that flowed into Jayson.

  Jayson fell to his knees, glowing with the light of a sun, his skin almost translucent.

  “What did you do?” Aaron knelt before him, putting a hand on his cheek, lifting his face gently.

  Jayson was filled with lightness and dark, and his whole body thrummed with energy. It was too much. He stared into Aaron’s eyes, pleading for understanding. “I freed him. For my kids.”

  Aaron nodded. “I know.” His eyes were wet. “What now?”

  Marissa had been freed from her imprisonment. She knelt next to him too and threw her arms around him. “You’re going away, aren’t you?”

  “It’s too much.” He was five people. No, six. A part of Jackson was there too. And… Glory? “Mom? Dad?” He started to shake. All of a sudden he was six years old again, lost in the park, and his parents were there to find him. To take him home.

  He looked at Marissa through the blinding brightness. “I can see them. Mom and Dad.”

  “Of course you can.” Marissa kissed his cheek.

  “Tell the others… I loved them.” He touched her belly in wonder. “Your child… he’s going to be something extraordinary.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You think so?”

  “Glory told me.”

  Aaron hugged him, and so did Marissa.

  “I’m going home,” he whispered in Aaron’s ear, and his brother squeezed him harder.

  Then he let go. With one last lopsided grin, he followed his parents into the light.

  JAYSON GREW brighter and brighter. Then his body vanished in a flash of light that would have blinded her in the real world.

  When the light faded, he was gone.

  She hugged her uncle, and they both cried. “He’s gone,” she managed through sobs.

  “Yes.” He looked back at the space where Jayson had been. “He did this for us. For you. Hold on to that.”

  She nodded and looked up. The dark world around her shimmered and melted, the sky withdrawing like a receding fog. Then they were standing in the real world once more, in the middle of the room that held the world mind.

  Eddy sat against the wall, holding Andy’s head in his lap. He looked up at her.

  “Is she okay?” She knelt next to Andy.

  “I think so. Check on Jayson and Shandra.” He pointed across the room.

  “Jayson’s gone.” Marissa knelt by her father’s body. His eyes were closed, and he looked like he was finally fully at peace. She knelt and gave him a quick kiss on the forehead. “I love you.”

  Then she went to Shandra, who lay with her leg at an odd angle. Marissa knelt next to her. She was still breathing. “I think she’s going to be okay.” There was a dark patch on her left temple. Marissa touched it. It was warm. “It looks like her loop burned out. What was she doing?”

  Eddy pointed toward the ceiling.

  Marissa looked up. The world mind was dead. It was gray, sagging between its supports.

  “She killed it.” Andy sat up, rubbing her temple.

  “How?” The full impact of that statement hit her. The world mind was dead.

  Which meant they were all dead too. It was only a matter of time. Jayson’s sacrifice had been for nothing.

  “An altered fungus, like the one that killed the Dressler. This one was engineered by Lanya to kill the world mind, before it took her over entirely.” Andy stood and staggered over to Shandra. She turned her lover over gently and caressed her forehead. “Shandra, it’s time.”

  Shandra’s eyes flickered open. “Okay. I’m ready.”

  Marissa’s eyes narrowed. “Time for what?”

  “Time for the end.”

  SANTI FLEW the balloon low over Micavery. It was the same as in Darlith, people in groups of six working to clear the debris in a robotic fashion. He watched the antlike hordes in despair.

  It was over. Eddy and the others must have lost. Or been lost.

  “I don’t know what to do.” He looked at the others. “There’s nowhere else to go. If—”

  “Look.” Sean pointed down at the city.

  Santi looked back down, and one by one, the people started clutching their heads and collapsing.

  Keera grabbed her skull and screamed. She dropped to the bottom of the gondola, writhing in pain, and then went still.

  “What in Forever is happening?” Sean knelt next to his mother, checking her pulse. “She’s knocked out.”

  “It’s the loop.” Matt knelt next to him. “Look.”

  The skin over her loop had darkened.

  “Holy shit, something burned it out!” Santi looked north. “I think Eddy and the others did it. They made it!”

  Matt looked up at him, his eyes filled with hope. “They made it?”

  Santi nodded. “I’m taking us down.”

  “WHAT DO you mean the end?” Marissa was frowning at Andy. “The end came when we killed the world mind.”

  Andy closed her eyes. Sending Shandra for the fungus that Lanya had left for them in the replicator in the Far Hold control center had been easy enough. Though with the dead bodies there, it had likely been a grisly task.

  Marissa had kept Davian distracted while Shandra climbed the walls to deliver the death blow via a syringe. Now came the hard part.

  Andy lifted Shandra up off the ground carefully and stood, unsteady on her feet. “This way.”

  “What’s going on?” Eddy looked confused.

  “I’ll show you.” She left the room, following the hallway that led up toward the command center.

  The others followed.

  Partway there, she turned down a different passageway.

  At the end of the short hall, there was another room, about the same size as the one that had held the world mind.

  In its center, on the ground, was a seed. Andy laid a hand on it. “Thank you, Lanya.” Then she lay Shandra down next to it. “You okay?”

  Shandra looked up at her and smiled. “Ye
s.”

  God, I love you. Andy stood and ran her hands over its rough surface. This was what Lanya had shown her. Her destiny. Hers and Shandra’s.

  Marissa followed them into the room, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Is that….”

  Andy nodded. “I need you to help me.” She was calm, collected.

  “No. No, I can’t do it.” She turned to Eddy. “Don’t make me do it.”

  Eddy looked confused. “Do what?”

  Andy smiled sadly. “Transfer Shandra and me into the new world mind.” There was no more time to hide, to delay, to equivocate.

  “I can’t….”

  Andy took Marissa into her arms. “Yeah you can, baby.” She brushed Marissa’s long hair away from her face. “It’s okay. It’s what has to happen next.”

  “You knew.” Marissa’s voice was raw. It was an accusation.

  Andy didn’t take offense. “Yes.”

  Marissa shook her head. “It’s not right. There must be someone else—”

  “Who? You? You have a baby. Eddy? He can’t do it alone.” She squeezed Marissa’s hands. “There isn’t anyone else. It has to be us. And it has to be you. It has to be you who does it. I wouldn’t want anyone else to shepherd my soul.”

  Marissa took a deep breath and sighed.

  Andy squeezed her tightly.

  Eddy’s cheeks were wet. “Are you sure?”

  Andy turned to him. “I wasn’t before. But I am now.”

  He nodded and hugged her. “Gonna miss you, kiddo.”

  “You too.” She sat down, next to Shandra. “Let’s get this over with.”

  MARISSA KNELT next to the two women who were the closest thing she had to parents. “I love you both.” She kissed their cheeks.

  They both took her hand. “We love you too.” Shandra’s eyes met hers, and they were full of love.

  There was nothing else to say. Marissa touched the seed and closed her eyes.

  She could do this. She had to do this.

  And then it came to her. Maybe, just maybe, there was another way.

  She reached into Shandra and Eddy, and then into the seed, and opened herself up as a conduit. She braced herself for the tidal wave, but instead, it was like a cool stream current.

  Andy and Shandra’s memories flowed through her:

  The day they first met on their way to Agartha.

  The founding of the schoolhouse.

  A thousand small moments with the children.

  Andy creating her sculptural art.

  Shandra walking along the beach with her mother as a child on Earth.

  Andy holding Marissa in her arms.

  It lasted for an eternity, and for a single moment. Still, it wrung her out and left her drained.

  When it was over, when the last memory passed through her, she closed her eyes. It’s done.

  She collapsed into unconsciousness.

  ANDY OPENED her eyes.

  She was in a dark place, but then it lit up. It was formless, a gray netherworld, waiting for shape and substance.

  Shandra lay next to her.

  “Hey.” She nudged Shandra.

  “What?” Shandra opened her eyes and sat up. “Where are we?”

  “I think we’re inside the seed.” As she looked around, the gray started to take on some kind of structure. She stretched, grew, extended out. If she concentrated, she could feel her body enlarging, sinking roots into the rock floor and walls.

  Their body.

  She and Shandra were in this together.

  “We did it!” Shandra laughed, and the sound dispelled all of Andy’s sadness.

  “Yes, we did!” She wrapped her arms around Shandra, and they dissolved into the seed mind, merging and becoming one. Their energy swirled around inside the seed as it grew and flew along its roots as it dug into and became a part of Forever. They sprouted lungs and veins and breathed in, taking up the fresh sweet air and expelling it into the world. They found their stomachs and appropriated them, adding them to their growing self.

  And then they found something unexpected. A gift left behind, inside the seed, by the previous Immortals. Who, as it turned out, hadn’t been so immortal after all. A memory.

  Lanya’s serene face stared at the two of them. They were neither male nor female but something different. “The time has come. We have all been given far more than we hoped, more time in this life than is offered to most of humankind.”

  Colin nodded. “I don’t know if Jackson is right about the whole afterlife thing. I suppose we’re about to find out. Davian is back, but you, my dear Andy, have no doubt found the way to defeat him.”

  “We are content. Now it’s your turn to carry the torch for a little while.” Lanya held out a spark.

  They took it. Then Lanya’s and Colin’s ghosts were gone.

  Andy and Shandra looked closely at the spark, and it expanded and unfolded in their mind. Encoded in it were all the memories of Lanya and Ana and Colin and Lex, and of Jackson, Andy’s grandfather.

  They held them up to look at them all—glorious gossamer things.

  Although the other Immortals had passed on, a piece of them remained behind.

  SANTI BROUGHT the balloon down as close as he could to the center of Micavery. As soon as they were down, he sprang out and tied the balloon to the closest post, along the front of the general store.

  Keera groaned.

  “Mom? Are you okay?” Sean helped his mother sit up.

  “Yeah, except I have the worst headache of my life.” Her hand went up to her temple.

  “Your loop is burned out. I think it happened to everyone.” Santi knew what it was like to lose that connection to what had been.

  Sean’s eyes went wide. “The world mind. It’s… gone. I can’t feel it.”

  Santi frowned. “Maybe Andy, Eddy, and the others have Davian occupied.”

  Sean shook his head. “No, it’s gone. There’s… nothing there, not even that weird numb feeling.” He looked up at Santi, the color draining from his face. “I think it’s dead.”

  “If that’s true….” Santi stared off toward the North Pole. Without the world mind to regulate things, they were all doomed to a long, slow death as the air and water slowly grew stale.

  Sean helped his mother to her feet.

  “Nothing we can do about it right now.” She gazed out across the wreckage that had been Forever’s first city. “People are going to wake up, and they’ll need someone to lead them, to tell them it’s okay.”

  Sean nodded. “You’re right. We can deal with what comes later… later.”

  Santi helped them out of the gondola. “It looks like the old mess hall survived.” He pointed to the low-slung building that sat between the town square and the lake. “Let’s set up camp there. We can see about getting this recovery jump-started.”

  “Good idea. Deal with what we can.” Keera started off.

  Sean lagged behind. “Do you think she’s okay? They’re okay?”

  Santi bit his lip. “I do,” he said at last. “Andy and Eddy will find a way to get through this and get back home to us.”

  Sean hugged him. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”

  Santi had needed to say it too.

  Half an hour later, Santi and the others were getting the old mess hall into shape to serve as an emergency center.

  He and Sean picked up a table to move it into the middle of the room.

  Sean stopped in midlift and set his end down.

  “What happened?” Santi set his end down too.

  Sean didn’t respond. “Dad, can you feel that?”

  Sean poked his head out of the stockroom, where he’d started hauling out containers of food. “What… oh.”

  “What is it?” Santi asked.

  “It’s the world mind.” Sean frowned. “Or… no, it’s not.”

  “Is it Davian?” Santi feared the answer. After all they had gone through….

  “No. It’s…. Andy. Andy and Shandra.” He looked at h
is father with a mixture of wonder and fear. “They’re in the world mind. Does that mean…?”

  Keera crossed the space between them in an instant. “We don’t know what it means yet.” She pulled her son into his arms. “It means for sure that they’re still with us.”

  Santi nodded. What the hell had happened out there? And what about Eddy and Marissa? And Aaron and Jayson?

  ANDY OPENED her eyes.

  “Hey there, you okay?” Eddy was kneeling in front of her. Marissa was next to him, along with Aaron.

  “What happened?” She looked around wildly at the chamber. “Did we fail?”

  She was propped up against the wall, staring at the burgeoning seed. It was growing rapidly.

  Shandra sat next to her, her head on Andy’s shoulder.

  What the hell? “How are we still alive?”

  Marissa grinned. “I found another way.”

  Shandra mumbled something.

  “Hey, gorgeous.” Andy caressed her face.

  Shandra’s eyes opened. “What happened?” she asked groggily. She sat up and winced, touching her broken leg.

  They both turned to Marissa.

  Marissa looked back at the seed, and then at the two women. “When the time came, I realized I didn’t have to transfer you. So I copied you instead—your memories, emotions, thoughts, all of it.”

  Andy’s mouth dropped open. “A copy?”

  “You were right. You two are the ones we needed to guide the world mind. But some of us needed you here too.”

  Andy started to cry. She’d been sure her life with her friends, her family, was over. Sure she would never hold these beautiful people in her arms again. She’d been ready to pay that price, for the good of the world.

  Now… now she could see her Liminal kids grow up. Hold their children in her arms. Finish out her life among the living.

  She reached out and touched Marissa’s belly, feeling the new life within, and a spark of understanding passed between them. Marissa lunged forward and hugged her, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.