Everything around her came to a halt.
Their attackers were frozen. Lilith was frozen. The walls, sagging like overheated candles, were suddenly still too.
And then she knew. The world was cycling, and her chance for vengeance was slipping away.
She still had one chance, while Lilith was trapped by time.
She lifted her arm again to throw the sword at Lilith’s face, but it melted away in her hand like ice in the desert. “No. No!”
Behind her, the room began to glow. Belynn turned toward the source of the light, a golden effervescence.
The four Immortals were all holding hands, and the glow was coming from them, lighting up the small room.
Gordy sat up, massaging his neck. He sniffed the air and blushed. “Sorry, guys.” He shifted his attention to the Immortals. “What are they doing?”
Belynn shook her head. “I don’t know.” She ached all over, from her head to her heart. “Kiryn is gone.”
He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “I am so sorry.”
The middle Jacksons went to pick up their youngest member, lifted his pale and naked body gently from the blue fluid. They carried him back to the Immortals.
The other inthnauts gathered around him to see what would happen next.
GORDY WATCHED the strange ceremony.
The oldest Jackson let go of the others’ hands. He knelt with his doppelgangers around the boy, laying their hands on him and closing their eyes.
The golden light surrounded them, and the boy’s body filled out, color returning to his skin, his hair growing out of his scalp.
As Gordy watched, the boy became Jacky again.
The boy’s eyes opened, and he turned toward Gordy. A wide smile spread across his face. “Thank you,” he mouthed.
Gordy wiped his eyes. “You’re welcome.”
The light continued to grow, surrounding the four figures. The youngest stood, and they huddled together. When the light grew too bright to look at, Gordy turned away, shielding his eyes.
Zaimann, Lilith, and the other ints remained frozen in the shadows behind him.
There was a bright flash, and then the room went dark.
Gordy turned around. His eyes grew accustomed to the dim light.
He sniffed himself. He seemed to have been returned to his original state, and his aches and pains were gone. His gashed hand was healed.
Only one Jackson remained, the oldest one, maybe? It was hard to tell. His features seemed to shift as Gordy watched, sometimes seeming younger, sometimes clean-shaven.
He was also taller, standing three meters high, heads above the rest of them.
Time moved forward again for everyone except Lilith.
Zaimann untangled herself from Lilith’s tentacles and looked up at the towering apparition before her. Her mouth dropped open, her eyes were wide with fear, and her red tail twitched back and forth.
Jackson reached forward and touched her forehead. “Go back to where you belong and forget all this.”
She yelped and then faded from sight, along with her guards.
Jackson knelt before each of Lilith’s guards, and Crick and the other Gordy both straightened out and lay there as if in a deep sleep.
Then he turned toward Lilith.
“Let me kill her.” Belynn’s face was twisted by anger, distorted.
Gordy had never seen her like this, but she and her brother had been exceptionally close.
Jackson shook his head. “She will be dealt with.”
“She killed Kiryn.” Her hands were balled up at her waist, and she sounded like she was just barely managing to hold things together.
Jackson knelt, cupping her cheek in his oversized hand. “He’s not dead, little one. Only erased from the inthworld. He waits for you back home.”
The breath that came out of her was part relief and part utter exhaustion. She sank down to the wet floor and closed her eyes.
Gordy squeezed her shoulder, and she looked up at him gratefully. “He’s alive.”
He nodded. “He’s as tough as you are.”
She laughed, a beautiful sound to his ears. Gordy turned back toward Lilith.
As Jackson approached, she came back to life and stared up at him with her baleful gaze through giant watery eyes.
“Please don’t kill me.” Her voice sounded thin and reedy, so different from the deep, booming one Gordy was accustomed to.
“Shhhhhh.” He spoke to her as if she were a little child. “Sleep, my poor tortured creation. Sleep, and when you awaken, you will have peace.” He grew even larger as he knelt before her and scooped her up as if she were a small fish in his hands.
She was a hideously ugly thing, a naked mind with skin the color of a cadaver’s flesh, tentacle appendages dangling from her like broken wings.
Jackson pulled her forward into his hands.
She shuddered.
“Everyone deserves forgiveness. Even you.” His hands glowed, and she shifted, shrinking, her tentacles reforming. Her bloated form thinned and tightened, and her appendages became arms and legs.
Gordy watched in amazement. Knowing this was all happening in a virtual world did nothing to diminish the simple beauty and grace of Jackson’s action.
When it was done, Jackson laid Lilith on the ground between her guards. She was pale but complete, a woman once again, just like her namesake had once been on the real Earth.
Jackson himself was growing smaller, shrinking back down to human dimensions.
“Does she deserve that?” Gordy stared at the creature who had tormented him and so many across both worlds.
“She was what she was because of me. I made her. I helped the original Lilith transition into a biomind, and I recreated that Lilith’s madness in her. She bears none of the blame.”
Gordy turned away, ashamed in the face of Jackson’s capacity to forgive.
“Don’t be.” Jackson touched his cheek, and his shame fled. “You are human, like I was once. You too were my creation, but you’ve become so much more.”
Gordy looked up into his face, and for just a moment, he was young Jacky.
Gordy threw his arms around his friend and cried, once again ten years old.
DESTINY WATCHED the golden creature who had been Jackson.
Belynn came up beside ser. “Can you see it?”
“The connections?”
Belynn nodded.
“Yes.” When se had touched Belynn, everything had become clear, as if se had imprinted Belynn’s view of the inthworld.
Jackson wasn’t just here, among them in this little room. He was woven into the world, his essence extending out through it like the roots of the world mind on Forever.
He turned to ser. “Destiny.”
Se gulped. “Me?”
He nodded. “I need your help.”
Se yelped. It wasn’t possible. He was a virtual god here. What could he possibly need from ser? “Why… what?”
Belynn squeezed ser shoulders.
“This world is sick. When Jayson created it for Davian, he made a world mind without a soul. Without a guiding mind—Davian was only here briefly, and when he abandoned it, he left it rudderless.” He tilted his head, peering into ser soul. “Lilith’s machinations only made it worse. My world is dying.”
Se nodded. “I know. What can I do?”
“I need you to imprint the world into Aine’s memory so I can heal it.”
Imprint a whole world. “I… I don’t know… it’s so big.”
He nodded. “It’s dangerous. I can’t promise it won’t hurt you, or worse.” He pointed to Lilith, to the others. “If we do nothing, the residents of the inthworld will all cease to be.” He put his hands on ser shoulders. “It’s a heavy burden, a harsh choice. But I can’t make it for you. You have to decide on your own. There’s no shame in saying no.”
Se looked at him, and then at the others.
“No one can make you do this,” Dax said. “You didn’t cause this mess. You hav
e to decide for yourself.”
Destiny looked at Lilith. Pulling away from Jackson, se sank down next to the woman’s unconscious form, laying ser hand on Lilith’s chest.
Lilith’s heart beat strongly, and she was warm to the touch.
It was all fake. All a sham, a virtual world created by someone who was long dead.
And yet… who was se to judge?
How many others had set themselves up in judgment against ser, in ser own family?
I don’t want to be a murderer.
There was only one real answer, whatever it might cost ser. “I’ll do it.”
Jackson held out his hand.
Destiny let him help ser up and looked up into his golden face.
Can you feel the world mind?
Destiny closed her eyes. Se reached out, and Aine was there. Yes.
Se felt him reach through her.
A moment later, he was back. She agrees. Are you ready, little one?
No. Yes. I guess? How could se possibly be ready for something like this?
A comforting warmth encompassed ser. I will protect you as much as I can. Destiny opened ser eyes and nodded.
Se closed them again and felt a tingling in ser mind. Then the inthworld poured through ser, imprinting on ser mind and then being transferred to the world mind.
It started a trickle, then became a flood, and finally a torrent that flowed through ser, carrying ser away on its current.
BELYNN’S EYES flickered open. Her vision was blurry. She shook her head, and her sight cleared. Water cascaded by, just inches from her face.
She was back home on Forever. Not that she’d ever actually left.
Lilith was still alive.
She should have been furious.
Instead, she was… what? Relieved? Content?
Lilith was no longer a danger to her.
Kiryn’s face came into view, hovering above her.
She threw her arms around him and pulled him close. “Oh. Thank Saint Ana you’re alive.”
He laughed. “Yeah, she took a bite outta me, and I found myself back here.”
Belynn squeezed him tightly and let him go. “I was so scared you were gone forever.” She sat up, wiping the dust from her hands, reaching out to wash them off in the flow of water.
“Sorry, sis.”
They put their palms together, and she felt his love flow into her.
Around her, the others woke one by one, sitting up and looking around as if in a daze.
The last thing she remembered was seeing Destiny fall to the floor, ser eyes rolled back in ser head and Jackson kneeling beside ser.
Jackson, who had become so much more than her great-grandfather had been. Who had become the conscience of a world.
She stood, feeling shaky on her feet, and managed to make her way over to Destiny.
The teenager lay completely still in this world, as if se were asleep or in a coma.
Belynn took ser hand, hoping to let ser know se was not alone.
“Be strong, sweet one.” She bent over and kissed Destiny on the forehead.
Kiryn came up beside her, his hands moving in the dim light. “Is se okay?”
“I don’t know.” She let go of Destiny’s hand and put an arm around Kiryn’s shoulder. We’ll just have to wait and see.
AINE HAD been startled when Jackson had contacted her through Destiny. She’d been reluctant to accede to his request, but he had assured her that Lilith was no longer a threat.
There was a world of innocent beings to save. She had decided that some risks were worth taking.
Now she was trying to shield Destiny from the worst effects of the torrent of data flowing through ser. Se was a truly remarkable human being.
The whole situation was strange, even by Aine’s standards. Here she was, a copy of two women who had evolved into her own entity, talking to her grandfather, who was a copy of the original Jackson. It boggled her mind.
Maybe I’m still a little human, after all.
At last the data flow slowed to a trickle and ended.
Soon it would be time to reverse it, and then she could make her preparations to be certain the intifada would never happen again.
DESTINY WOKE. Se was lying on the vast white plain, once again devoid of the mists. Only Jackson was there with ser.
“What happened?” Se sat up, feeling woozy.
Jackson knelt beside ser. “The world has been wiped clean. Now we will restore it. Only this time, it will no longer cycle.”
“What does that mean?” Se laughed at ser own inane question. Well, obviously, se understood what it meant. “I mean, what happens next?”
He shrugged. “The ints… I think that’s what you called them?”
Se nodded.
“They will find their own destinies.”
“Will you guide them?”
He shook his head. “I’m just a man.”
Se stared at him. “Hardly.”
This time he laughed a hearty, warm laugh that filled the emptiness. “Fair enough. But I don’t feel like anything special.”
“I don’t either. I always wanted to be. Now I just want to be me.”
He nodded. “Wise beyond your years.”
Se snorted. “Maybe.”
“Anyhow, I’ll be here, if they need me. But they need to find their own way forward.”
“That’s fair.”
Jackson put his hand down, and the air glowed. The white plain curved underneath them, the horizons falling away.
A golden glow engulfed them, and her fatigue vanished.
“Are you ready?”
Se nodded. “Can I see the new world before I go?”
He grinned, looking every inch the proud father. “Of course.” He took ser hand, and se was washed away again in the flow.
“HEY, GUYS, come see!” Gordy stared at the rogue world mind.
They gathered around.
It was shining—a golden glow like the one that had surrounded Jackson. It also looked healthier. Fuller.
He glanced at Destiny. Se had a smile on ser face.
THE LAST of the inthworld flowed from the world mind through Destiny and back to Jackson.
Aine was busy in a hundred places, tending to her human charges whose minds had been taken over in the intifada. When the inthworld had been emptied out, those minds had lost their hold, leaving the Liminals traumatized by what had happened.
“You’re okay, you’re safe,” she told each one, a hundred conversations happening at once. “It’s over for good.”
Her humans were okay. They would all survive to live another day.
That was what mattered.
DESTINY STIRRED.
“I think se’s waking up!”
Se opened ser eyes and looked up at Belynn.
“Hey there. You okay?”
Se felt different.
Se’d seen the new world Jackson was building. Soon it would all be connected, the strange bits and pieces of Old Earth and old fantasy the original Immortal Jackson had made. It was a beautiful, glistening, living thing, drained of the poison that had almost killed it.
Its inhabitants would live and thrive because of ser.
“Go now, little one.” Jackson had hugged ser, and se had felt something in him, a connection with him that could only come from blood.
And something else. Something had changed inside of ser.
“I… I think I am. Was Jackson… was he my great-grandfather?”
Belynn looked at Kiryn, sharing the question with him.
He nodded, signing back.
Se didn’t understand what he was saying. “What?”
Kiryn frowned.
“He said we’re all related to Jackson. We Liminals.”
“Ah.” Se sat up and frowned, touching ser forehead. “I feel different.” Ser imprints were gone.
“What is it?”
Se frowned. “I… I can’t remember the things about Kiryn. About any of you.” Se reached up
to touch ser temple. “The imprints. They’re all gone.”
Belynn nodded. “Maybe you burned them out. You were a conduit for a helluva lot of data.”
“Maybe so.” Se reached out a hand to Belynn. “Can I?”
“Go ahead.” Belynn closed her eyes.
Destiny touched her cheek tentatively, bracing for the onslaught of Belynn’s imprint. Se could feel it. It was there, but Belynn’s essence didn’t rush through ser unbidden.
Puzzled, se let go and reached out to Kiryn, searching his eyes.
He nodded.
Se touched him too.
Same thing. Se could sense him, but he was like a deep, still pool se could decide to drink from. Or not.
“Well?” Belynn’s green eyes met sers.
Destiny shrugged. “It’s… different. It’s like, I have control now.”
“Control? That’s good!” Belynn hugged ser.
“I think… I think Jackson helped me.”
Belynn nodded. “He probably did. He was a good man.”
Then Destiny realized something else. Ser father’s imprint was gone too, along with his angry voice in the back of ser head.
Se felt clean, new. “Yeah. It’s okay. Good, even. All the bad parts are gone!” Se got up and danced. “I feel clean again in my head! It’s wonderful!”
Belynn and the others stared at ser like se’d lost ser mind. “I can touch people!” Se touched each of them in turn, and with each one, ser spirits rose.
Destiny’s new friends gathered around ser, laughing, and hugged ser.
Something tickled ser mind.
Aine.
You should move things along, little one.
Why?
It’s time for me to finish things with the inthworld.
That should have sounded threatening, but there was no anger or fear or desire for revenge in Aine’s voice. Only warm reassurance.
“We have to go,” Destiny told ser friends. “Aine wants us to get safely away.”
“Away from?”
“From the inthworld.” Se touched it one more time, wondering what Jackson would do next. “It’s time to let it go.”
TIME TO let go. Belynn pulled out the flask and emptied its contents into the stream that ran through Davian’s cavern.
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