All is and has always been. Nothing has ever existed against which All need fight. All knows not of struggle.
I know you don’t, and it breaks my heart to have to teach this to you. But if you want to live on, if you want to feel the warmth of the sun rising and setting for a multitude of days, you must come to know struggle. You must learn to defend yourself.
Not-All thinks strange, impossible ideas…yet All senses Not-All believes them. What would Not-All have All do?
Look inside me, and you will discover everything you need to know. And…
…I’m sorry.
Towering trees thrash.
Hurtle pieces of themselves into space.
A knife plunges into a man’s heart.
Blood. So much blood.
Gunfire.
Explosions.
The stench of burning flesh in the air.
Spears of metal.
Spears of timber.
The snap of bones.
The snap of a plant stalk.
Pain.
Strangled, gurgling breaths, lungs filling with blood.
His own.
A different pain.
Anguish.
It churned together until he could no longer tell where his anguish ended and All’s began.
Not-All causes death? All does not understand. This cannot be Not-All.
Yes, it can be. It is. It’s part of who I am—who Not-All is. But Not-All also loves, and fights for life. All can see this.
All sees much. All does not comprehend how Not-All can both love life and take life.
I take life because I love life. I take life in order to protect life. Because—this is what you must realize if you are to survive—not everything that lives is good. Not every being loves life and wishes it to continue. There are Not-Alls who destroy callously, who cause pain and torment and do not suffer for it. These are the lives I take, without regret, to preserve virtuous life such as All.
All cannot take life.
Then All will die.
All never…All is troubled.
If All chooses to fight, how will it do so?
If All’s will to live is strong enough, All will find a way. It’s called ‘survival instinct,’ and it’s a damn powerful weapon.
All will consider what Not-All has shown it…but All believes Not-Alls should leave now.
I understand. I…I wish you well.
Alex circled the small copse in restless, chaotic loops. Approximately every three seconds she checked on Caleb. He’d been out for far longer this time than in the first melding. Minutes—ten? Twelve?
8.7 minutes.
You’re not helping, Valkyrie.
The information should ease your concern as it indicates he has been in this state for less time than you believed.
She checked him again. His lips moved in silent, half-formed words, and in the last minute or so his fists had clenched, the left one curling tightly over the leaves and vine wound around his hand. Now his jaw was set in an expression she was all too familiar with.
It wasn’t going well.
Night fell in full, and his form faded into the shadows. She moved closer.
How long was she planning to leave him this way? Was it even possible for her to wake him? She’d jostled him after he collapsed to the ground while trying to move him into a more comfortable position, and he hadn’t stirred. She could cut the vine and sever the connection, but doing so might be as damaging to him as abruptly severing Mia’s connection with Meno had been to Mia. No, she didn’t dare risk it.
So the answer was ‘as long as it took.’ She would wait. Didn’t mean she had to like it.
The wind picked up, raising goosebumps on her arms. She crossed them over her chest and rubbed her hands along them.
You should retrieve a pullover from the ship.
I’m good.
In truth, she had no reason to be freaking out—which she wasn’t. He’d done this before with no ill effects. He’d initiated this encounter. It was just…he looked so damn vulnerable lying there. She’d never say that to his face, and it did represent rather a contradiction. So little about him could ever be called vulnerable…and what there was resided deep on the inside, never visible like this.
As she studied the vulnerable lines around his twitching, anxious lips, his eyelids fluttered. Instantly she was on her knees beside him.
The vine began to unwind from his hand, then protested as it met resistance from the fist clutching it in a vise grip. A brief tug-of-war ensued until his fist relaxed. The vine slithered away and its source limb rose to retake its natural position above them.
She was smiling when his eyes opened, as if this episode had been no big thing. “Hey. Are you okay?”
His jaw remained clenched, darkening his features more than the shadows. “We need to leave.”
The tone the statement was delivered in left no room for questioning, so she didn’t argue.
The next instant he was on his feet and heading toward the Siyane. She rushed to catch up to him. “Did it work?”
“Maybe.”
Given the urgency in Caleb’s bearing, Alex lifted off as soon as they were on board. Until he volunteered otherwise, she could only assume ‘leave’ meant leave the planet, so she ascended directly into the atmosphere. The active biosphere created an especially thick one, and it was a bumpy trip requiring her attention. Still, she sensed him pacing in agitation behind her; she could feel the disquiet flowing off him in waves.
At last they cleared the upper atmosphere, and she twisted around in her chair. The pacing had ceased at some point, and he now sat at the kitchen table, his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.
“Are we done here?”
He nodded but didn’t look up.
“Valkyrie, set a course for the portal.” She went to the table and sat down across from him. “What happened?”
He blew out a harsh breath and met her gaze with eyes bleeding torment. “I polluted something that was pure and beautiful. It had no concept of moral darkness, didn’t know evil and violence even existed—not until I showed it. Now that innocence is lost forever.”
“You were trying to protect it—to keep it alive. This was the right thing to do.”
‘Think of Akeso as a child. As with all children, it has to lose its innocence if it is to survive in the larger world.’
“No offense, Valkyrie, but shut up.”
Her throat worked in unease, and she shrank back in the chair, increasing the distance between them. “Does that apply to me, too?”
He cringed and removed a hand from his temple to reach out and squeeze hers. “No, of course not. I just…” he let out a raw, frayed chuckle “…the only way I could think of to communicate the nature of the threat was to allow it into my mind as it had allowed me into its own. And I saw my darkness through its eyes—which is fine, I can handle that. I know what I am and what I’ve done. But I felt the dampening of its spirit all around me. Inside me. I felt a portion of what made it beautiful die.”
She struggled to find the right words to say. Honestly, at this moment she cared little about Akeso’s suffering but a great deal about his. “Caleb, you’re a…a champion for life. The simple truth is, protecting good often requires violence against evil. Surely, seeing your past and the trials you’ve faced, Akeso recognized this.”
“Maybe. I can’t say.” He shook his head. “I wish like hell it didn’t have to learn such a harsh lesson. From me, from anyone.”
‘Perhaps conflict is not limited to the human condition—perhaps it is the nature of all sentient beings, of all universes.’
“I’m not—”
“Valkyrie, when Caleb tells you to shut up, you goddamn better shut up!”
‘Apologies.’
His hand moved to her arm. “No…she’s right. Or at least, I fear she might be. Valkyrie, please accept my apology.”
‘Always, Caleb.’
I’m sorry, too. I’
m just angry at the world on his behalf right now. She exhaled heavily and managed a grim frown. “Well, if she is right about the universality of conflict…that would be a real damn shame.”
PART II:
RELATIVISTIC MOTION
“If I was perfect then this would be easy. Either road is plausible on both I could drown. I walk through the center with no rules to guide me. I realize it’s difficult but now I can see.”
— Avenged Sevenfold
PORTAL: AURORA
(MILKY WAY)
6
EARTH
VANCOUVER
* * *
DEVON REYNOLDS STARED AT the nickeled plaque, one among thousands lining the endless walls of the mausoleum, and found he had no idea what to say. He didn’t even know what to feel.
Juliana Solaine Hervé
August 14, 2261-June 5, 2323
They’d stripped her of her rank and afforded her no military funeral. Instead it had been a simple, sparsely attended civilian ceremony for family and friends. Was he her friend? He’d thought so once but….
“She tried to kill me.”
Dr. Abigail Canivon nodded beside him. “She did.”
“So why am I standing here? Why did I feel the need to pay tribute to her life? The funeral’s over—why haven’t I left?”
Because we want to believe she believed she was doing the right thing. We want to believe she was a fundamentally good person.
He took a measure of comfort in the notion the Artificial synthetic intelligence linked with his mind needed to wax philosophical in an attempt to make sense of the nonsensical. Want to give your sapience back now, Annie?
No. But I will not deny from time to time it is unexpectedly burdensome. This is such a time.
“The same reason I’m here—because she was a person worth knowing. Something I can say about very few people, by the way.”
He glanced over at Abigail. She wore a severe black pantsuit and had drawn her hair into a low, tight knot. Her expression was more stoic than usual, giving little hint as to the depth or extent of her true feelings.
They were the only people remaining in this wing of the mausoleum, the rest of the attendees having scattered to the winds when the service ended. Jules had only extended family and few friends outside the military. Or perhaps it was rather that few friends hadn’t disavowed her once the charges against her—treason, espionage, dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming an officer, the list went on—were made public.
“Did the faulty implant drive her crazy before it killed her? Is that the answer?”
Abigail shoulders rose weakly. “It would make all this so much easier to accept, wouldn’t it? But I don’t think so, not beyond the effect knowledge of one’s impending death has on a psyche. No, she was always fearful of the power Artificials could wield. Coupled with an acute hero complex and the seductive whispers of a manipulative alien, I suspect insanity was not required.”
“Did you talk to her? After she was in custody, I mean.” He had not seen Jules since the confrontation in the War Room during the final battle against the Metigens, when she attempted to use the ‘Kill Switch’ she’d embedded in their firmware to destroy the Prevos. It was an act that would have killed the humans involved—notably including him—if Jules had been successful.
He hadn’t even seen her today—merely ashes in an urn and a portrait on the wall.
“Often.” Abigail laughed quietly. “I daresay I wanted to understand, too. If she had come to me when she first learned the implant was malfunctioning, I might have been able to help her. Intractable, prideful woman…yet I did care for her once, long ago.”
“I know.” Shit. He winced at her arched eyebrow.
“Valkyrie been telling tales, then?”
“Not deliberately. There was a lot of leakage from everyone when we first set up the Noesis. She didn’t mean to reveal any private information.” The ‘Noesis’ was what he and the other Prevos dubbed the quantum connection that existed between them, for it went beyond any existing form of communication network or data transfer, all the way to the cusp of consciousness sharing.
“I’m sure she didn’t.” Abigail sighed and turned away from the plaque. “Enough wallowing. It’s time to let Jules rest, and for us to get back to work.”
He ceded to her urging and fell in beside her as they strode toward the entrance. The clack-clack of her heels on the marble floor echoed through the long hallway like bells tolling an elegy for the dead who surrounded them.
Finally he spoke just to drown out the sound. “Abigail, why haven’t you linked with an Artificial? Vii is fully mature now, and the two of you work as well together as you and Valkyrie did. I realize the government says we’re not supposed to create any more Prevos, but I’m sure they’d make an exception for you. Admiral Solovy would.”
She gave him a smile both uniquely open and startlingly chilling. “Devon, you dear, sweet boy. I don’t need to.”
7
UNKNOWN LOCATION
* * *
IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP, MIA.
A wispy murmur in the blackness. Blackness, where before there was only nothingness. It was dark, inky and thick, but there now existed the palpable sense of tangibility.
She gasped in alarm, but no sound came out of her throat. Where am I? she shouted, but no words made it past her lips.
It’s all right, Mia. You’re safe.
The faint memory of a nanosecond of searing pain cleaving through her brain haunted the edges of her consciousness. Am I dead?
No, you are very much alive. You were sick, but you’re better now.
She tried to blink, but there was no sensation of motion. Meno…is that you?
Hello, Mia.
Where are we?
In the span between dreaming and consciousness.
She considered the statement a moment, unsure of exactly what her Artificial and Prevo consort meant. Why aren’t I conscious?
You simply have to choose to be. When you’re ready, we’ve created a lovely space for you.
Who’s ‘we’?
The Prevos—most of us anyway.
I won’t wake up in the real world? In my body?
Not quite yet. One step at a time.
This is weird. So I just—
She stood on a beach. The quartz crystals in the sand sparkled beneath a midday sun; an ocean stretching to the horizon shone a vivid aquamarine.
Timid and a bit fearful—of what, she couldn’t say—she cautiously stretched her arms out in front of her. They looked normal, the skin smooth and unblemished. Her hair was draped in front of her left shoulder; she ran a hand through it and found it long and sleek.
“Hey, Mia—over here!”
Jolted at the revelation of sound after endless silence, she spun in the direction of the voice. Devon Reynolds was lounging on a chaise down the stretch of beach, iced drink in hand. Morgan Lekkas lay on her stomach in a bikini next to him, but waved over her shoulder in Mia’s direction.
She started to approach them, only to be distracted by movement to her right. Two dolphins were cavorting several dozen meters from shore, emerging above the water’s surface to spin and flip before disappearing into the ocean once more.
“Get them near the water and they turn into total scamps.”
She again shifted toward Devon, feeling overwhelmed at all the noise and motion. Surf crashing violently. Sun shining brightly. The sand scalded the bottom of her bare feet. It was all so much to take in…but she didn’t want to return to the blackness. To the absence.
She placed a hand at her throat and tried clearing it. “ ‘They?’ ” Her voice barely squeaked out, scratchy and hoarse, as if she’d never used it before.
“That’s Annie and Stanley. They might join us on shore eventually, but probably not.”
“Annie and….” She whipped around, searching. “Meno?”
The form of a seagull took shape out of thin air in front of her. Ashen wings flapped a
gainst a breeze she hadn’t noticed until now to hold the bird at her eye level. ‘I’m here, Mia. But you should go talk to your friends for a while.’
She slowly turned full circle and let out a long sigh. “I’m definitely dead.”
Morgan snorted from her chaise. “Not even.”
“What is this, then?”
Devon took a sip of his drink. “It’s our playground—our escape. It’s whatever we decide it is.”
Mia stared at him until he visibly deflated. “It’s kind of hard to explain. It’s a…space, built at the quantum mechanical level—where waves and particles are one and the same, where the qubits are superposited and everything is a probability, thus anything can be. It’s the natural extension of the Noesis we created.”
She watched in contemplation as one of the dolphins started ‘walking’ backwards three-fourths out of the water. “Does time pass while we’re here?”
“Sadly. Though since we’re here via our connections with the Artificials, it’s effectively passing at their speed—so not too much time in the outside world, if you don’t focus on it.”
Morgan groaned. “Sadly for certain. I spend far too many hours here. I am so bored.”
The outside world…. “What about the Metigens? Did we win?”
Morgan rolled over and snatched Devon’s drink out of his hand. “Fuck yes, we won. Kicked their shredded asses back through the portal.”
Relief flooded her mind. It made her lightheaded, so she went and sat on the edge of the third, empty chaise. Her voice was soft, for she dreaded the answer. “How long?”
Devon smiled like it didn’t matter. “Seven months.”
She drew in a sharp breath…but it could have been far worse. She had feared years had passed without her knowledge. “Where’s Alex? She didn’t get injured, too, did she?”
“Nah. She and Caleb went through the portal chasing after the Metigens a month or so ago. Took Valkyrie with them.”
Morgan snickered. “They got married first.”
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