“Yeah. Go on.”
“Those two men have controlled Central and its enemies for years,” Emily said. “They are also both intimately familiar with the future.”
“With you so far.”
“I’ve dealt with both personally, more than once. They’re both so worried. I think they are afraid of what is coming.”
“So?”
“If they both know the future, then it only follows that they would both be afraid of the same thing,” Emily said urgently. “John never made any secret of it. He was always worried about the Church of Sleep. Doesn’t that have to mean that Gaul Thule is worried about the Church, too?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said, unimpressed. “Maybe?”
“Listen to me carefully,” Emily commanded. “Really think about it. We’re supposed to be fighting each other, right? The Anathema and Central? Mortal enemies, that’s the idea. If the leaders of both sides are afraid of the same thing, then why are we fighting?”
Alex thought it over, Emily’s concern proving contagious.
“Maybe we aren’t really fighting?” Alex suggested. “Maybe this is all to prepare us to fight what’s coming, or something.”
“Gaul knew that Eerie’s plan would awaken the Church, and he didn’t try and stop her. He helped her. John Parson had you and Eerie in the Outer Dark. He could have killed either of you at any time. He could have done anything he wanted. Instead, he helped you, too.”
“What? That’s bullshit! I never even saw the guy. How did he help me?”
“I used to work for John,” Emily said, frowning at him. “He wanted me to help Eerie, so I made sure Vivik joined the Club, and then when that wasn’t enough, I intervened myself. He wanted me to rescue you, and gave me some hints as to how to do it. He even transferred Leigh Feld and put her under my authority, so I’d have the resources I needed.”
“Oh. Oh, shit,” Alex said, as the pieces fell into place. “That’s…”
“Now you see,” Emily said, brushing her hands across the sand and scattering the grains. “What if they’ve been working together the entire time? Despite all that they’ve done, all the death and war, Central is not ready to face the coming of the Church of Sleep. If anything, we’re collectively weaker than we’ve ever been. Do you think of Gaul and John as incompetents? Or does it seem more likely that we’ve never understood their true purpose?”
“You think that they’re cooperating,” Alex said, covering his mouth. “Then the attack in Russia, on Anastasia’s family…”
“The subjugation of the Witches, the extermination of the Western vampires. Even the ghouls and the Weir,” Emily said. “Central and the Anathema have pushed them all to the brink. The Auditors are mostly dead, or brand-new recruits. The Anathema lost most of their strength in a failed invasion of Central. The Hegemony is at war with itself, and the Black Sun is in disarray. The Ether has gone insane, and long-range apports and telepathy are nearly impossible.”
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Alex shook his head. “You’re right. Everything is fucking wrecked. They took it all apart piece by piece.”
“Yes.”
“But, why? Do they want the Church to win, and take Eerie? They both want us to lose?”
“I think so,” Emily said. “What do you think?”
“Now that you’ve said it,” Alex said slowly, “I can’t really see it any other way. If they both know the future, and they were both worried about the same thing, then…”
“…how could they screw everything up so badly?” Emily finished the sentence for him. “How could they allow all of this to happen, with the Church manifesting at our weakest possible moment?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, standing slowly from the sand. “Doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah.”
“And now there’s no one who can do anything about it. We’re completely fucked, aren’t we?”
“Well, maybe not entirely,” Emily said, with a hint of a smile. “I don’t think they really factored everything into their plans. Precognition works better on some people, you see, and worse on others. Myself, for example. That’s another trick that Marcus taught me.”
Alex looked at her in evident confusion.
“That’s my talent, when you think about it,” Emily said. “I’m very easy to overlook. I don’t think either of them expected me to be a player in the endgame, and yet here I am. I have the Far Shores, and my friends in the Rescue Alex from the Outer Dark Club…”
“Change the name,” Alex said. “I’m begging you.”
“It’s not up to me. Talk to your girlfriend,” Emily chided. “I’ve earned a few favors from some powerful people, and I’ve learned some useful tricks. It’s better than nothing.”
Alex came to stand beside her, and they both looked out at the ocean. Dawn was just deciding to put in an appearance behind them, light bleeding in over the foothills.
“They underestimated us,” Emily said. “That’s their mistake. They’ll never see us coming, Alex, and they won’t be able to stop us. That is, if there is an ‘us’ at all. Is there? I said I wouldn’t make you do anything.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “I’m with you.”
“I know,” Emily said, grinning. “It’s nice to hear you say it, though.”
They watched the waves, the sand turning from purple to pink around their bare feet.
“We are still going to save Eerie from whatever is coming, right?” Alex asked, his voice full of trepidation. “That’s still on the agenda?”
“Yes, of course!” Emily said, taking his hand. “That’s not all we’re going to do, though, dear. I’m much more ambitious. We’re going to save everyone.”
He nodded and squeezed her hand.
“Everyone who deserves saving, that is,” Emily added. “Some people really deserve what they get, don’t you think?”
***
The ocean battered the rocks, while the seabirds circled far overhead. The sand was grey and coarse, and there were small fishing boats pulled up on to the beach, but no footprints aside from the ones they left.
The sun was exactly as high in the sky as it had been when they started walking, though the resort was a distant speck at the end of the beach, and the cool of morning still lingered, sea mist diffusing the sunlight and clinging to the cultivated hillsides.
“Just think about it,” Rebecca suggested. “You can transform the stuff of life itself into its opposite. What else might be possible?”
“I don’t know,” Mitzi said, watching the birds patrol the sky above the shallows. “I don’t think that happiness is a possibility, for me.”
“The woman you used to be was capable of happiness, despite everything. Why not you?”
“Because I’m dead, or I feel that I should be.”
“You know that’s not true. You were never dead. You are at the beginning of your life, Mitzi, not the end of it.”
Mitsuru looked down at her hands, her palms up to the sun.
“I don’t think that this is a beginning. I feel diminished, like the sun has moved further away. Everything feels dim and dull.”
“Do you think that might be something you are doing to protect yourself?” Rebecca suggested. “It feels as if you’ve armored yourself against the world.”
“Maybe,” Mitsuru said. “What do you think I should do?”
“I think what I always have,” Rebecca said, putting her arm around Mitsuru’s shoulders. “You should do whatever would make you happy.”
“I don’t know what that would be. I truly have no idea.”
“Have you been happy with what you’ve done in the past?”
“No,” Mitsuru declared. “I have not.”
“Is that really true? Or is that just how it feels when you look at the big picture?” Rebecca gently urged them back into a walk, turning them back toward the resort. “You weren’t always unhappy, you know.”
“Wasn’t I?”
“We had fun, sometimes, wh
en you would allow it. You must remember that. We had fun here, for God’s sake.”
“I…yes. Yes, I suppose that…”
“You loved Alistair,” Rebecca said gently. “That ended badly, and it went bad long before that, but it wasn’t all terrible. You were very happy, at least at first.”
“I don’t think I want to remember it that way.”
“You liked working with the kids, too. With Alex and Katya and the rest.”
“What are you talking about?” Mitsuru gave her a bewildered look. “I hated that! Running the Program was awful, and I’m just not cut out to work with kids. They drove me nuts! Katya especially.”
“The two of you just had too much in common,” Rebecca chided her, laughing. “You saw too much of what you don’t like about yourself in her. You enjoyed your time with them. You liked teaching.”
“I taught them how to kill,” Mitsuru said dully. “That’s the only thing I know.”
“You taught them how to survive. That’s what you know, Mitzi.”
“What do I know about it? I died.”
“That’s just it, isn’t it? You didn’t die at all. You’ve even survived that.”
They walked for a long time without saying anything. It was hard to be sure how much time passed, the way the sun held its position. The resort seemed distant, but when Mitsuru turned to look, the rocks at the end of the beach seemed equally far.
“Emily Muir didn’t bring me back as an act of charity,” Mitsuru said. “She wants me to work for her, and we both know what kind of work she has in mind.”
“I don’t really know much about that sort of thing. The simulation has its limitations, you know.”
“I wish you wouldn’t remind me about that. I like it better, pretending that you’re really here.”
“I know, but it’s not good for you,” Rebecca said. “You can’t reconcile your feelings with this version of me. It’s important for both of you to do it for real.”
“I know. I still prefer to pretend. Do you think I should help Emily with whatever she has in mind?”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know. Do you think the Auditors will want me, when they find out that I’m back?”
“That’s another thing that I don’t know much about. I’m sorry.”
“I think they will,” Mitsuru said. “Either that, or they’ll want me dead. Again.”
“That could be,” Rebecca said. “Do you still want to be an Auditor?”
“I’m not sure. I always wanted to be one, you know. More than anything, or almost anything.”
“I know.”
“Now, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m not meant for it.”
“Maybe it wasn’t meant for you.”
“If I decide to work for Emily, that’s over with,” Mitsuru said. “There’s no going back. Whatever she has going on, she’s not working for Central, and I won’t be forgiven for joining her. That’s treason, or at least that’s how the Administration will see it.”
“The woman you used to be worked for Central,” Rebecca reminded her. “Do you want to help Emily, or are you just looking for something to take your mind off of your problems?”
“I don’t know,” Mitsuru admitted. “I want to do something. I’m just not sure what it is.”
“I think you have many options, but they fall into two broad categories. You can go back to the things that made you happy in your past life – being an Auditor, teaching, our friendship, falling in love. Or you can take a chance and try something new.”
“You think I should work for Emily?”
“Surely not! I’m simply suggesting that if you don’t know what might make you happy, you at least seem to have a grasp on what makes you unhappy. It might be better, then, to avoid those sorts of things when planning for your new life. You don’t have to make better decisions, Mitzi, not if you don’t want to. But I really think you should make different ones. Don’t you think you’ve spent enough time being miserable?”
“Yes. An entire lifetime, really.”
***
“What do we do from here?”
“An easy question, finally,” Emily said, with a grin. “I think we’ve both suffered quite enough, don’t you?” She took his arm. “I think that it is finally time for us to get what we want.”
“I’m okay with that,” Alex said. “What is it that we want?”
“I don’t know what you want, because you haven’t made up your mind yet. As for me, I just want to be free of the burden of all this fighting and scheming and plotting. I want to live according to my own wishes, and I want to protect the people that I care about.”
“I get it.”
“Yes. It’s not so much to ask, is it?” Emily twirled a lock of her hair around her finger. “Oh, yes. I suppose I’d also like to keep the Far Shores, if it’s all the same to everyone.”
“I don’t think it is. I think a bunch of people are going to have an issue with that.”
“Well, I still plan to keep it. They’ll just have to make do without.”
“What will you do with it?”
“You should know the answer to that by now,” Emily said. “Whatever I like!”
***
He was in the pool, pulling smoothly through the chlorinated water with a half-assed breaststroke, enjoying the way the ripples he created on the surface of the water distorted the reflection of the engorged moon, when the door on the opposite side of the villa opened, yellow light spilling out from behind the figure of a woman.
He almost called out, thinking it was Emily, but the figure was shorter, and broader in the shoulders.
Mitsuru walked to the edge of the pool, her red eyes drained of any emotion except a sense of exhaustion that bordered on scorn. She was wearing loose, shapeless clothes, and moved so quietly that Alex felt a bit haunted, as if her memory were standing at the edge of the pool.
Mitsuru Aoki, the woman who saved him from what had seemed a certain and horrible death, had been killed in the field, felled by a sniper. She had been his teacher, a fellow Auditor, and something more than that, at least in his head. Alex held Mitsuru in special regard, he supposed, and he also supposed that was natural, given the circumstances.
She was dead, except now she was back. That wasn’t quite right, though. Not back. A backup. A fresh copy of Ms. Aoki, one who never had a hole put through her somber head. She was no ghost. This was really her, in the flesh, frowning at Alex as if he weren’t supposed to be in the pool at this hour.
That wasn’t right either, Alex thought, paddling to the side of the pool.
This was not a real pool, or a real villa, or even the real Ms. Aoki that stood in front of him. All of this was taking place in an implant inside of her mind.
Still.
It was disquieting, even with all that.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Alex said cautiously, wiping the water from his face. “Are you feeling any better? Do you wanna swim? The water’s always the perfect temperature.”
“I’m not sure how I feel,” Mitsuru said, as if she truly wasn’t sure. “Why are you here, Alex?”
“I was swimming,” Alex said nervously. “Is that not okay?”
“How long have we been here?”
“What? Oh. This time, or both times?”
“You’ve been here more than once?” Mitsuru knelt beside the pool, looking him directly in the eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Emily kinda threw me out. Never mind. It isn’t important. We’ve been here for what seems like a couple days, right? Maybe a week? It was still the middle of the night, back in the real world, the last I checked.”
“Emily must be manipulating the flow of time within the simulation,” Mitsuru said, in a tone that made Alex apprehensive. “She’s become alarmingly capable.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked, climbing from the pool. “How long did it seem to you?”
“I’ve been doing intensive therapy and rehab with a simulatio
n of Rebecca – Ms. Levy – for approximately a year and a half,” Mitsuru said, her voice almost as robotic as telepathic communication. “I’d stay longer, but I’ve exhausted the resources of the simulation.”
“I really wasted my chance when my implant activated,” Alex said, looking among the vacant patio chairs for his towel. “All I did was some yoga and ran on the beach and shit.”
“Your emergency implant activated?”
“I got captured by the Anathema,” Alex said, drying himself off. “The implant was trying to protect me from interrogation, or at least prepare me for it, I guess.”
“I see,” Mitsuru said. “What happened?”
“I got tortured anyway,” Alex snapped. “What the fuck do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Mitsuru answered indifferently. “What have you been doing in my simulation, aside from swimming?”
“Talking with Emily, mostly,” Alex said, half-fibbing. “The food’s great here, you know. And the beach…”
“I remember,” Mitsuru said. “That’s why Becca picked it.”
“Yeah. Well, good choice.”
“I had thought you and Miss Muir were no longer involved.”
“Me too,” Alex said, wrapping the towel around his waist. “Let me warn you, Ms. Aoki. I don’t know what Emily wants with you, but she doesn’t give up easy. She’s super persistent.”
“I know what she wants,” Mitsuru said, looking somewhere into the dark. “All I know how to do is to kill and destroy.”
Alex started to laugh, and then immediately thought better of it when he caught Mitsuru’s glare.
“Sorry, just a little melodramatic,” Alex said. “And not at all true.”
“No?” Mitsuru straightened up. “What do you know?”
“I know you saved me,” Alex said, grinning at her. “I’ll never forget that.”
Mitsuru turned away, so he could not make out her expression.
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 35