The AI whispered to her as she walked, digging out its little secrets from the hoards, assembling its bombshells from scattered debris: all magical and supernatural activity in Otopia was accelerating in frequency and magnitude; fracture lines in the Otopian space-time fabric were opening in proportion to their proximity with Returner origin points; Hunter children and the humans made psionic by moth exposure were falling in number, but gaining in their particular aptitudes.
Someone had posted images of Zal behind her on the bike in that traffic jam downtown. He looked dark, surrounded in private shadow. She was only partly visible, just the line of her back and the edge of Tatters’ embroidery crusade tattoos. It was different to the way the dress had become when they had fought later, at the diner, but it was too close a resemblance to go entirely missed. As she finished her polite circulation among the agents she turned into her own corridor, finding a pocket of calm and a moment in which her heart hammered and her breath tried to choke her.
They found Zal. They saw us together. The diner. What will it mean?
Fear for him flooded her. Without thinking she infiltrated the network and erased the pixels that showed her hair, the shape of her head, the colours and patterns of the faery on her back. She got out undetected. Priority protocols helped a lot. It wouldn’t last, she knew. Eyes had already seen it. Copies were out there. She must assume that her anonymity was finite. Zal’s celebrity, faded as it was, would be enough to expose her as the diner knight. Eventually someone would wonder how it was that some Returner rockstar’s girlfriend had bent a shotgun into bracelets. And after that it would be open season.
By the time she reached her own door she had resigned and Greer had deleted the resignation and filled the reply space with expletives.
‘It’s too late,’ he said, his voice left of centre in her head as the AI relayed it. ‘Ops will fudge the information as much as they can. We might get a few more months before we have to come clean-ish in the public eye. That’s a long time.’
Lila said nothing to this but sent a sad face emote and closed the line. She remembered how much she’d wanted to kill everyone in the parking lot, the pulse of blood in her veins loading the magazines in her arms, changing her hands into guns. Then she opened the door to her offices.
The anterooms were full of Bentley’s exquisitely packed and filed boxes where she had been collating evidence from old cases and clearing magical items that were too dangerous or outdated to be left around. Their monumental order rebuked her silently. The lab was spotless, surfaces gleaming. Lila moved quietly between the stacks of items, following the path to the last room where the door was ajar and lights glowed in soft, moving colours through the gap.
Sarasilien, as elven as any creature she’d ever seen, was standing watching the wall where a display of the solar system was slowly revolving. Besides the nine planets, sun and moons a host of other objects were drawn in, some small and distinct, others streaks and strips. She recognised none of them. Behind his tall figure the broadcaster of these images, Lane’s clone, stood impassively, her hand held palm forward. Light shone out of it.
Lila knew that there was no need to speak as they were both well aware of her entry into their company, but she wasn’t the girl who would once have waited patiently for them to give her their attention. A feeling like Greer’s world weariness – a rumpled, tired feeling – spread over her as she kept her composure. She crossed to the couch where Sarsilien had once laid in splendour with Sorcha the Scorcher’s foot in his hands and sat down, crossing her own booted feet up onto its elegant cushions.
‘Spill it.’
‘We are here because of a crisis in Alfheim,’ Sarasilien said, turning to face her with that little polite bow of his coming automatically, though he didn’t duck his eyes. They sought her gaze and held it steadily. There was real force in his look. She matched it, pushing back strongly across the gap between them.
‘Not just Alfheim.’ Lila quirked an eyebrow in the Lane clone’s direction – she wouldn’t be here for something like that.
‘Its effects will most likely be felt everywhere,’ he said. His face was compassionate again. It made her angry and she didn’t appreciate the suspense.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Not you,’ Lane said, closing her fingers into a gentle fist and letting her arm fall to her side so that the projected cosmos swept across the room and vanished.
Lila turned up the lights, brilliant. No softness for you, she thought, and saw the elf blink and squint for a second.
‘We need Zal,’ Sarasilien said in his most gentle voice, the one that had calmed and soothed her through hundreds of pain-filled nights in the first days of her machine life.
‘Oh?’ Lila tipped her head to the side and folded her arms across her chest. She noticed the Lane clone adopt the same posture as Sarasilien, hands folded gently in front of her black and grey shining form, chin down, like children obediently ready for the lesson. Her teeth closed against themselves.
‘A great tragedy has befallen . . .’ Sarasilien began but Lane interrupted him with her more precise articulation.
‘Alfheim has gone dark.’ She didn’t need to append details of the meaning of this phrase. Lila knew what dark meant: out of contact. The humans wouldn’t have noticed it; Alfheim had gone dark for them decades ago. Only the elves who stayed in Otopia and Faery remained to act as reminders that the place existed and there were few of them.
She glanced at Sarasilien. ‘You know why.’
He gave that slight nod again and this time his eyelids followed suit. ‘For every action an equal and opposite reaction. An age ago when the shadowkin were created – that was an action of great aetheric force, a collective action using techniques that were fraught with dangers. In an effort to mitigate the effects—’
Lane broke in again. ‘They used dampening systems that absorbed the backlash of the worst mistakes that they made during their research, but these only had the effect of deferring the results, perhaps altering their nature.’
Lila narrowed her eyes, ‘Deferred to the future?’
‘Yes,’ Sarasilien said. ‘It was thought at the time that this delay period could be extended—’
‘Oh wait!’ Lila held up her hand. ‘I’m ahead of you. The Lady of the Lake, Arie, that’s why she wanted Zal isn’t it? She said it was to separate Alfheim . . .’
‘. . . from the other dimensions, yes,’ Sarasilien finished for her. ‘That was not exactly honest however. She was intending to divide Alfheim from the rest in order to protect it from her real intent, should it fail, which was to continue deferring the backlash of that earlier act indefinitely into the future. And when you took Zal back then she had no way to maintain the disjuncture and her efforts failed indeed. So it was left to others to isolate Alfheim as best they could, once it was certain that the reaction could not be put off. She was the only one with the resource to even attempt such a thing.’
Lila raised her eyebrows, ‘Except you, I take it.’ She was unable to conceal her bitter disappointment or continue the cool act in the face of it.
‘Except me,’ he bowed again in agreement, unbending in every other way.
‘And this . . . whatever you want to do . . .’
‘Will be the final attempt, that is correct. The last attempt to prevent a catastrophe.’
‘And you want Zal’s blood for your evil little spell?’
‘No,’ Lane said. ‘That method cannot work any longer. Circumstances have changed. We want Zal to go into Alfheim as our operative. We think that he will be immune to what has happened there because of his demon nature.’
Lila’s mind worked fast. ‘And I guess it doesn’t hurt that he got reprocessed by Jack and the Fates, does it? Or were you behind that?’
Sarasilien was shaking his head.
‘Never mind,’ Lila cut off what he was about to say with a slice of her hand through the air. ‘I think it’s time you took me back to the beginning and
told me the whole sorry story. And then we can see if there’s a shred of evidence in any of it that would prompt me to believe a word you’re saying.’
Lane took a half-step forward. ‘There is no benefit to bringing your personal grievances into this matter, sad or difficult as they may be.’
Lila leaned back on the chaise and looked at the cyborg. She could see herself in the polished reflectiveness of its vinyl body. She looked stretched and deformed in different ways depending on the part. Lane herself was smooth and perfect as a doll. ‘Were you this much of a bitch when you were human?’
‘Coming from you I take that as a compliment,’ and for the first time there was an edge in the voice that sounded comprehensively pissed off.
‘Finally we have lift-off,’ Lila said, rolling her eyes. ‘And before he starts just fill me in on your part of this beautiful diorama.’
‘Sandra is my scientific advisor,’ Sarasilien said, impeccably gentle. ‘In your absence she has been invaluable in relating my aetheric knowledge to the laws that govern the strictly physical.’
But Lila was still paused on the words ‘in your absence’. She held them, filed them, considered them and their potential meanings very carefully and then said, ‘I’m mad as hell at you.’ She pointed at him. ‘And I am about as likely to warm to you as liquid nitrogen,’ she pointed at Lane. ‘But I’ll shove it where the sun doesn’t shine if you can make the next twenty minutes I’m spending away from what I want worth the wait.’
‘Your petty personal grievances!’ began Lane with spite but she was cut off by the elf putting a hand onto her shiny arm.
‘Are long overdue for attention is what you mean,’ Lila said into his restrained silence. She stared at Lane, all her outlets closed, all systems shut, with real dislike. Sarasilien paused and she knew it for carte blanche to continue. Very well then, let it be done.
‘You,’ Lila turned fully to the cyborg. ‘You are the voice of the machine. That’s why I don’t like you and why I don’t trust you. I see vested interest whether or not I understand it. I see a devil’s pact.’
Lane’s non-functional nostrils flared. ‘I went where you fear to go.’
‘True. But I’m still not going there and no cheap shot about my courage is going to make me. Scientifically speaking you’re excellent. I don’t doubt that. But you’re not on my side and killing you can’t have made you any more likely to move there, so unless you have a reason I don’t know about to make you attach yourself to him and me, then we’re done.’
The android figure made a very human micromovement of frustration, weight jerking back and forth slightly. ‘And what exactly is your side, Black?’
‘Lila Black is my side,’ Lila said, and for once her conviction was faultless. ‘What’s yours?’
‘I go where the interest is,’ Lane said. ‘Where things aren’t certain and don’t add up.’
‘And this elf story doesn’t add up.’
‘The energy transferences between aether and matter, between the non-baryonic and baryonic, as we understand them, do not accommodate the claims made concerning what is passing in Alfheim,’ Lane replied crisply. ‘Nonetheless, what is occurring is causing the structure of our information to undergo an unforeseen entropy acceleration, which, if it continues, shall begin to compromise the organisation of our fundamental materials. If you were attuned to the machine instead of shutting it out all the time, you would already know this.’
Lila considered it. ‘None of the other cyborgs seem bothered. Just you.’
‘They do not have my levels of synchronisation,’ Lane said pointedly but Sarasilien stepped forward at the same time, holding his hand out to the side a little so that it came in front of her, warning her off and protecting her at the same time.
Lila’s heart seethed with jealousy.
‘Lila, she is telling the truth, but what she is saying is only a machine interpretation of what I am trying to say also, from a different perspective. The aether backlash is affecting all of the realities at the most fundamental level, that of energy. However, there has been a result in Alfheim that was not foreseen in any way and this is what I require your help with. And Zal’s.’
Lila finally managed to swallow the worst of her resentment. Maybe it was the pleading attitude he had, the way he looked like a picture-book Jesus with both his palms held towards her, though he was looking down at her face and not up to empty blue heaven. Maybe. ‘Go on.’
‘I cannot risk an entry into Alfheim myself,’ he said slowly. ‘In case what has happened there affects me too. However, after some reconnaissance taken by Sandra here I believe that Zal may be immune.’
‘May be. Hmm. Why can’t she do this work you have to have done there?’
‘I’m not an elf,’ Lane said. ‘I can’t perceive their psychic reality. And neither can you.’
‘And what did you find?’ She directed her gaze at Lane.
‘Nobody,’ Lane said. ‘And nothing.’ She meant the entire population.
‘Where are they?’
‘We think they have gone into the forest,’ Sarasilien said.
Alfheim was made of forest. Aside from its few civil centres, which barely registered on the scale of cities, they were a scattered lot. Into the forest meant only that the cities must have been abandoned. But his tone now was pressing and she got the feeling he was willing her to go along with him, not to ask Lane for more, though the reason why he wanted this was something she couldn’t even guess at. That the two of them were slightly divided was enough to satisfy Lila for now.
‘And there are no other elves you can ask?’ she said, but she knew the answer. No elf was like Zal. There was no other elf to ask. ‘Teazle could go.’ If she knew where he was. If he came back. If. Thinking of him made a pang of concern knot her brows.
‘I think, given the pressing nature of this matter, that it would be a good idea if you all went,’ Sarasilien said.
She decided to omit telling him about the divorce. ‘And you’ll babysit the undead while we’re gone? Safe and sound in the bunker? Because I sense more than a hand of yours in all this.’
Apparently her mercilessness wasn’t satisfied yet. She was still interested in all the things he so delicately didn’t want to say. She gave in to the delicious desire to nail him.
‘You were in at the start, weren’t you? You were one of those who made the mess. And now you have to clean up, but you don’t want to get dirty.’ She looked him in the eye and then she got up in one, clean, fluid rise that wasn’t entirely human in either its speed or its elegance so that they were face to face. ‘Level with me. All those machine parts magically appearing here, at the right time, in the right place, pushed on people with so many good reasons – that was your hand, right?’
She felt Lane’s entire electrical signature change as she said this and saw the pupils of his fox-brown eyes dilate fractionally, darkness increasing inside their perfect rings.
Grim satisfaction ran through her even as the confirmation of betrayal bit deep.
‘What else have you made over the years? What for? Come on, spit it out, don’t be shy.’ She made an expansive gesture with her hands and smiled to show her teeth, the smile as hard as iron. Inside its metal prison a little girl screamed and beat her fists against the walls. But the time for crying was over and that, more than anything, fuelled her rage and hardened it into ice. ‘We’re all friends here.’ And we all know what happens to my friends, don’t we? In her mind’s eye she saw Dar before her, friend and lover. She saw the resignation and sadness, the shock and disbelief in his face as she pushed the dagger into his heart. In Sarasilien’s arms she’d cried her misery, thinking he was safe and solid when all along it was his hand on her strings.
And she was still here, wanting so much to hear how she was wrong, that it was a mistake, a comedy of errors that just looked bad, that it all had explanations that didn’t add up the way it seemed. She could see the window for this explanation as if it were a progres
s bar in front of her, the rising colour slowly eating up the time, counting down to the moment when there couldn’t be any more room for credulity. She willed him to say the magic words, the perfect line that would undo all that disappointment and set her free. She looked at the soft brown colour of his hair that had meant comfort.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I did it. I made you to go where I couldn’t go.’
Beside her she was vaguely aware of Lane stiffening for a microsecond. Lila wondered if it would change things between them that the cyborg hadn’t known this extra truth behind her own genesis in the bowels of this miserable building, but at the same time as she thought this she dismissed it.
She felt her shoulder push him aside as she walked between them and out of the room. The laboratory was dark, silent. She closed the door behind herself firmly and stood for a moment with it at her back.
In the corridor a line of hopefuls was waiting to see her, and a cleaner was there, quietly and wearily pushing a vacuum cleaner around their stepping feet, head bent low, looking for dust. Lila walked past them, avoided the vacuum, ignored their voices, went up along the familiar route to the garden and bent down to fling open the door of the yurt there, ducking straight under.
Malachi was there, sitting in his chair, feet on his desk, asleep. The place was a mess, like they’d left it that morning.
Lila slapped his foot with her hand. ‘Did you know?’
‘What?’ he shook his head slightly, groggy. He peered at her in the room’s natural twilight, slowly putting his feet down as he leaned forward to turn on the lamp. He rubbed his face, looking around him for the little moondial that told him the time wherever he wanted to be. ‘Know what?’
‘Did you know who made me?’
Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five Page 18