The Shoreless Sea

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  DAX FIDGETED. He hated waiting and having absolutely nothing to do. “So… what is Earth like?”

  Gordy side-eyed him. “I thought you didn’t believe in it.”

  “I don’t. I mean, I didn’t. Let’s just say you’re pretty convincing evidence. Maybe.” The red fern sprig had lost almost all its light, leaving the tunnel around them dark and menacing. “Just wanted to kill time.”

  Gordy grinned, his teeth pale pink in the dim light. “Sure. It’s… well, it’s like this place. But so much bigger, and the plants don’t glow.”

  Dax laughed. “They don’t? That’s weird. What do they do?”

  “Um… I don’t really know? We didn’t have many in New York. Just the hydro farms.”

  “Hydro farms?” He tried to picture it. “Like, farms underwater?”

  “No.” It was Gordy’s turn to laugh. “On the rooftops. We used water and nutrients to grow the plants without soil.”

  “Ah.” What a strange world. “So… plants didn’t grow in the ground?”

  “They did. But New York…. It’s a long story.”

  Dax laughed. “We seem to have some time.”

  “I guess. Well…. New York used to be a bustling city, with millions of people.”

  Dax shook his head. “I can’t picture it. Micavery has, what, maybe five thousand? That seems like more than I could ever get to know.”

  “Well… you know the dorm, where Kiryn lives?”

  “Yeah, I was there a couple times.” The first time had been better than the second.

  “Imagine a building a hundred times taller. Then imagine a couple thousand of them.”

  He tried. He really did, but his imagination failed him. “It must have been dark down on the ground. Like under a huge forest.”

  “It was. I think. By the time I was born, the city was flooded, and only a few thousand people still lived there.”

  Dax stared at the closed valve that separated them from the dissolution pit and Kiryn. It was a bad time to talk about flooding. “What’s the sky like?”

  Gordy grinned. “Like an upside-down bowl of blue. Sometimes the clouds come across the Atlantic, filling it up, and rain and lightning fill the air.” He took a deep breath. “I love it… loved it when the storms came through. When they were clean storms.”

  “Clean?”

  “Sometimes the rain was poisoned. Acidic. You had to stay inside until it passed, and all the gardens had to be covered.”

  “Sounds terrible.”

  Gordy shrugged. “It was life. It was like that since I was born. Before.”

  “I guess.” Dax was suddenly glad he lived on Forever.

  “There were stars, too, at night. A sky full of stars.”

  Dax closed his eyes and tried to imagine such a thing.

  He’d heard of the stars. Like little candles in the sky. But who or what kept them alight? “Were there fish too?” He knew about fish.

  “Lots of them. We used to go fishing off the balcony of the building I lived in. I had a whole five floors to myself. Jacky and I… one time we caught a swordfish.”

  “Wow.” Dax had no idea what that was, though his active imagination ran with it, picturing a fish with a sword for a tail and sword fins. He wondered if the world mind could breed him one.

  “They’re taking an awfully long time.” Gordy glanced at the red fern sprig and then at the valve.

  A muffled shout came from the other side.

  “Something’s happening. Come on!” Gordy ran toward the valve, and Dax followed. They reached it, and Gordy tried to pry it open. It was sealed shut.

  Dax joined him.

  Together they pulled at one of the flaps of the valve, but it was far stronger than they were.

  Dax pulled out his bamboo knife.

  “Are you sure?” Gordy frowned.

  “Kiryn and Belynn are in trouble.”

  “Okay.”

  Dax shoved the knife in the space between the flaps, and the valve opened convulsively, pulling back to the edge of the entrance. “Don’t like that, huh?” Still, he was glad he hadn’t really needed to harm it.

  Gordy climbed through and Dax followed, his eyes slow to adjust to the golden light. He’d been underground too long.

  Belynn and Kiryn were gone. Where did you go?

  About halfway around the pit was the wooden ladder he’d spied when they came that way earlier, attached to the pit’s wall. A bit of cloth was snagged on one of the lower rungs. Dax pointed.

  Gordy nodded.

  Dax!

  Dax looked around wildly. Where did that come from?

  It didn’t repeat, and he decided he must have imagined it. “Dammit, we should have gone with them.”

  Gordy nodded. “Probably so.”

  “They’re going to know where you are, aren’t they?”

  “We have to turn that to our advantage.” Gordy grinned. “Do you have any friends?”

  KIRYN FLOATED in a half awake, half asleep state.

  He was aware of the world—at least, aware that there was a world. Little bits of light and dark flashed into his consciousness, carrying images.

  A bit of stone-paved road.

  A glowing mallowood tree.

  A face that swam by with a concerned look.

  None of it stuck.

  He fought to take control of his senses, but his efforts melted away into the thick fog that held him captive.

  They’d given him something.

  He wasn’t entirely sure who they were. But he knew they meant him no good.

  Through the fog, voices called out to him from time to time. Voices inside his head.

  “Help us!”

  “Can you hear us?”

  “Somebody help me!”

  The fact that he could hear voices told him he was trapped in his own mind, even if he didn’t know who they were. Or if they were real at all.

  The only time he could truly hear was when he rode with Belynn, when she shared her senses with him.

  He was as powerless to reach them as he was to claw his way out of this fog and back to the real world. His world.

  Belynn.

  He tried to reach for her, like she had shown him hundreds of times. It had never worked for him before. Only she could make the connection between the two of them. And yet somehow he’d done it for just a moment, back in the pit.

  It didn’t work this time. Maybe he was too distracted. Too out of it.

  At last he stopped fighting. Better to save his strength than to wear himself out punching against shadows.

  GORDY SAT behind a rock, panting.

  Since he and Dax had separated at the dissolution pit, he’d led the acolytes on a merry chase. His pursuers had gotten close but hadn’t quite caught him before he fled to another hiding spot. Now he was in the park next to the apple orchard.

  He’d found that he could feel them too, as they got closer. It was like a throbbing pressure in his head, or a pulsing golden glow if he closed his eyes.

  Three of them were hunting him now.

  He had seen seven or eight in all at the Church of the Intifada—the house that served as the home base for the intifada, so almost half their members were out on the hunt for him.

  He wondered if Crick was one of them.

  It was time to run once again.

  He got up and slipped into the orchard, running down one of the long rows under the glowing apple trees.

  He was supposed to meet Dax and his friends at the church—really just an abandoned mansion Della and her cohorts had taken over—at nightfall, but he didn’t have as good a sense of the day-night patterns here as the people who had grown up here.

  He could feel them closing in. They had him surrounded. Gordy looked around wildly. There was nowhere to run.

  Up. I can go up. It might buy Dax more time.

  Quickly he climbed one of the apple trees, pushing past the glowing leaves of the canopy and going as high as he dared. He found a wide fork in the bra
nches and settled in, feeling the acolytes coming closer.

  Maybe if I stop thinking….

  He closed his eyes. In his mind, he returned to Earth, a moment that had burned itself irrevocably into his memories and had carried over through the looping of the world. The first time he’d realized there was something else outside his own world.

  He felt his pursuers hesitate. It’s working. He plunged himself into the memory like a dream.

  GORDY STARED at the tall redheaded man who looked like Jacky. Who had been Jacky, up until a moment before. Who was now speaking to Lilith.

  “Are you mad today?”

  “No,” Lilith said softly, that silky voice she used when she really wanted something from someone. “You caught me on a good day.”

  The man looked confused. He turned to Gordy, a question evident on his face.

  The realization dawned on him. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but suddenly he just knew. “You’re from outside, aren’t you?” He had no idea what outside was, maybe some other magical, sparkling world beyond the Earth. Like an angel.

  The man laughed ruefully. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Take me with you! Nothing ever changes here. It’s so boring.” Oh, how he wanted to leave this place….

  “You have a whole world to explore.”

  Gordy snorted. “Nah, I can’t ever leave New York.” He’d tried once but somehow had ended up back here, with his friends in the drowned city.

  The man looked incredibly sad. “I wish I could. But I don’t even know where I’m going next. Or how.” He looked around the room.

  Lilith rumbled in her tank. “You’re looking for Jackson.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.”

  A tentacle lifted out of the water, holding something small. “Take this.”

  Gordy stared. In all his time with her, he’d never seen Lilith give anything away for free.

  The man held out his hand, and the sparkly thing dropped into his palm. “What is it?”

  “It’s a bit of code dressed up in a pretty bauble.” She sloshed around in the tank, a sign she was happy. Or agitated. “Isn’t it shiny?”

  “Yes, it’s beautiful.”

  Gordy knew the signs. Things were about to get bad.

  “What does it do?” the man asked.

  “Squeeze it tight and think of him, and the stars will crash down, the stars crash down, the galaxies fade, and the angels will play….” The last was in her singsong voice.

  She’d tipped over the edge into crazytown again.

  She bounced around, sloshing more of the liquid out over the top of her tank. “I used to be beautiful, with the most wonderful hands to grab things. I was the Queen of the City. Now I’m a hideous beast that sings and wishes she had wings….”

  Gordy trembled. This was going to be a really bad one.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She has bad days. Really bad days.” He was quaking now.

  The man shook his head and grabbed Gordy’s hand. Something passed between them. An understanding.

  He’s going to take me!

  “Don’t go, don’t go, oh beautiful man…,” the mind warbled, reaching for him with her tentacles.

  The man faded away without him. “Don’t leave me here!” he wailed.

  Behind him, Lilith chuckled like a madwoman.

  GORDY STARTLED awake. Things had been bad that day. Lilith had snatched him up and pulled him into the tank with her, cooing at him and telling him how pretty he was while he struggled to surface and take a breath.

  She’d finally let him go when her mind had settled down.

  He’d spent an hour cleaning the stench of her tank off his body.

  That was the day when Aaron had come into his world, looking for his father. The day Gordy’s eyes had been opened, when he knew there was more than just his own little world. That there was an outside to go to.

  He shivered. He was so glad to be free of Earth.

  Gordy looked around. His pursuers were gone. It worked!

  He wondered how close it was to nightfall. As he climbed down from the tree, he got his answer.

  The evening swept past him, the orchard dimming and the glowing golden cord of light in the “sky” taking on a silver hue between the branches above.

  He was late. But at least he’d shaken his pursuit.

  They would sense him again, but now he just had to make a beeline for the church. Dax, I’m coming.

  Chapter Eleven: Lost

  ANDY’S GULLS searched Micavery, looking for a sign of Kiryn or Belynn. Her awareness was split amongst a hundred of them, a flock large enough to cover the city in a fairly short time.

  The city was full of its usual activity—the farmer’s market down on the village green, the shuffling of wagons in and out of town, and regular foot traffic along most of the major streets as people went from work to their homes.

  Some were in the apple orchards picking fruit, and a group of students was playing some sort of game in the bushes of the Embassy Quarter.

  She left them alone. Probably better if she didn’t know what they were up to.

  “Anything?” Her doppelgänger was by her side in vee. “Any sign of them?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Damn, I wish the train was still running.” She looked haggard, her face pale even in vee.

  “It would still have taken you most of a day to get there. I’ve asked for the postal service to give you a ride. The next stop is in about an hour.”

  Andy hugged her world mind counterpart. “Is there room for Shandra?”

  “Should be. The return run is light.”

  “I have to go pack. Tell me if anything changes.” She vanished from Andy’s world.

  Shandra.

  In an instant, her other half appeared before her. “Any luck?”

  Andy could feel the anxiety emanating from her. “Nothing yet. Do you have any ideas?”

  “Maybe.” She bit her lip, an expression so human that Andy almost laughed. It was a long-running bone of contention between them. Shandra was still angry that she—the original Andy, at least—had committed them to this never-ending duty, cutting them off from humanity and the “real” world.

  She had kept it a secret up until the very end, scared to ask Shandra to make the commitment. Scared of her own death. Scared Shandra would say no.

  Even though the sins weren’t hers but her flesh-and-blood predecessor’s, they had followed her here. It was why Shandra in the world mind so rarely talked to the flesh-and-blood Andy, and it was the main reason for the cool relations between them. “What are you thinking?”

  “Something touched us last night.”

  Andy frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Someone used our autonomous network to travel through the tunnels underneath Micavery.”

  “Like…?”

  “Like your father. Yes.”

  Andy felt the sympathy flow off Shandra like a fog.

  She closed her eyes. Her father had passed away a few years before. That had hurt her the most. Not being able to be there when he died.

  Her original self had let her ride along for the funeral, but it hadn’t been the same.

  Sometimes the tension between being and not being Andy was hard to take, even with her advanced capabilities.

  Sometimes it was hard to remember she had ever been human. “Do you think it was Kiryn?”

  “Maybe. It seems our kids aren’t as limited as we thought, huh?” Shandra offered her a conciliatory smile.

  “Our kids?” Both Kiryn and Belynn had been born after they had transitioned. It was the first time she’d heard Shandra call them that.

  “We did help them conceive. That makes us their mothers too.”

  Andy nodded. “I guess it does.” She touched Shandra’s umber cheek, her own hand light against Shandra’s beautiful skin, and let Shandra feel her essence. “Let’s find our kids.”

  DAX CROUCHED behind a windows
ill on the second floor of the abandoned home, staring at the building that Gordy had told him was the “church”—the place the intifada used for its headquarters. His friends—the ones he’d been able to gather on short notice—crouched behind him.

  It was an old house not far from the college campus, in what had once been the Embassy District, where the colony received ambassadors from Earth. If you believed that sort of thing.

  Gordy had suggested the hideout, another abandoned building close to the church. The whole area was slated for demolition to make way for more dense housing as the city grew. It had a great view of the church.

  Dax frowned. Gordy was late. Where are you? He hoped nothing bad had happened. If they captured him, would Gordy… not be Gordy anymore?

  Dax was too young to remember the Possession, when the rogue world mind had taken over most of the population. But his father had told him the story, a few times in the middle of the day, surrounded by the bright light of the world. As if he’d been afraid to talk about it in the dark.

  How something had taken away his will, how his own limbs and his thoughts had no longer been his own. How he had become a prisoner in his own mind. How he never wanted to feel that way again.

  Dax shivered.

  Was it like that for Gordy, for the mind who had owned his body before he’d arrived from wherever he had come from?

  “Look!” Pieter pointed at the door of the church.

  Two more people were approaching it. One of them he recognized—Nastra, the woman they’d had tied up in Kiryn’s room.

  “The hunters.” Gordy wasn’t with them. That was a good sign.

  They couldn’t wait for him much longer. Kiryn and Belynn were in there, and who knew what was being done to them?

  “Where’s your friend?” Denna looked worried. She was the youngest of the five of them that he’d been able to gather on short notice, a friend in his Advanced Agro class.

  “He should be here. We’ll give him a couple more moments.”

  Nightfall was coming, the world above and to the north of the city already going dark.

  We can’t wait much longer.