Michael apparently changed his mind about killing Aiden in the chateau, probably concerned there’d be too much mess to clean up. Stepping back a pace, he motioned for Aiden to stand.
“Outside,” Michael ordered, motioning with the shotgun.
Aiden walked ahead. The reprieve provided extra moments to contrive an escape. But he couldn’t come up with any good ideas. He’d never draw the pistol in time. And spinning around to make a grab for the shotgun was suicidal.
He stepped through the door, walked to the steps at the edge of the porch and halted. In the short time he’d been inside, cloud cover had moved in, hiding much of the starry heavens. The wind had picked up and the air had grown damp. It felt like a storm was coming.
“Keep moving,” Michael ordered.
There was no sense prolonging things. If a cleaving was going to save Aiden, better for it to happen now.
He turned, faced his executioner with as much composure as he could muster. “Where are we going?”
Surprisingly, Michael answered. “Not far. A quarry. An old friend of mine is already there. She’ll keep you company.”
“You know it’s over, don’t you? Tau knows all about you by now.”
Megalomaniac that he was, Michael couldn’t help but respond with a triumphant smile.
“Minor setbacks. Let’s just say I have the bargaining chip to end all bargaining chips.”
Aiden understood. “The quiver. You gave yourself a second infusion and then hid the stone.” That explained why Michael had been gone for almost two hours after depositing Jessie in the basement. “Wherever it is, they’ll find it.”
“Doubtful. Anyway, I’d love to continue this debate but I do have other chores. So please, let’s get moving. Unless you prefer being shot where you stand.”
He was about to say, Go ahead, do it. But wisdom prevailed. There was no guarantee a manifestation would save him. And however long it took to reach the quarry gave him that many extra minutes to generate an escape plan.
Aiden turned back to the steps to comply but froze, startled to see a cleaving. It hung in the air three feet away. He wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the giant donut’s appearance itself or its position. Instead of forming between Aiden and the shotgun, the cleaving had taken shape behind him. Back there, its bullet-ingesting power would do him no good.
“What is that?” Michael demanded.
Had Aiden’s subconscious created it? Or was the cleaving a product of Michael’s quiver-enhanced abilities. Whatever the case, he wasn’t about to explain.
“You tell me,” he said, forcing a shrug.
“Step away from it.”
A flash of movement, from behind his captor. Jessie, garbed neck to feet in a bizarre Halloween body suit with luminescent blood vessels, charged through the chateau door.
Michael read Aiden’s startled look, whirled with the shotgun. He was too late.
Jessie plowed into him, knocking the weapon from his hands. Aiden had an instant to register the fury on her face before their tumbling bodies knocked him backward off the edge of the porch.
Sailing headfirst through the air, his face upturned toward the shadowed skies, he plunged through the center of the cleaving.
SEVENTY
Everything is wrong.
That was Aiden’s overall impression of the realm in which he found himself. If this was indeed the shroud, it existed in defiance of all that was familiar and reassuring.
His senses functioned abnormally, jumbled together into confusing and contradictory arrangements. The air was breathable but every inhalation created a splash of garish orange light, momentarily brightening the murky gray clouds he seemed to be floating within.
He tasted drumbeats, their volume and rhythm erratic, as if from a percussionist lacking even the most basic ability of keeping time. Unable to feel his own skin, he ran a hand across his face to make sure it was still there. But instead of reassuring flesh, the touch triggered his sense of smell, bringing an array of scents, from lilies and wintergreen to an overpowering odor of undiluted vinegar.
He recalled there was a condition called synesthesia, where a person saw letters or numbers as colors, or heard sounds that induced the feeling of being touched. But if Aiden was experiencing that syndrome, its effects were amplified to an unprecedented level.
There seemed to be no up or down, no left or right, no forward or backward within the gray clouds. He knew instinctively that what he was experiencing was different from what astronauts described when in space. In his case, the normal three dimensions didn’t seem to exist at all. He knew that to be true because although he maintained control of his muscles, turning to the left induced the sensation of being turned upside down and facing backward. Other attempts at movement brought similar jarring deviations from what was expected.
Everything is wrong.
And then the breeze came, just as it had when he’d inserted his arm into Grant’s cleaving in those Portland woods. The breeze wafted across his body from head to toes.
It turned icy cold. Fear coursed through him as he recalled that earlier experience and what had happened next.
A bizarre creature lunged toward him out of the gray murk. He had a sense of writhing snake-like appendages, no two alike, attached to some bulbous central mass. Before he could even think to move from its path, one of the appendages lashed his right ankle. The pain was similar to what he’d experienced with his arm in Grant’s cleaving, like being rubbed with coarse sandpaper. But it hurt worse, enough to cause him to cry out. But instead of sound came a spray of quivering bubbles.
The creature flashed past. Without thinking, Aiden whipped around to follow it, wary of a second attack. But the swift movement sent him tumbling end over end through the gray murk, out of control.
Amid the gyrations he glimpsed another creature, this one even more bizarre. It was a humanoid-shaped thing covered in leathery fur. Instead of a head, a plume of shimmering ice crystals sprouted from its neck. The creature plowed into him with such force that it knocked the wind out of him. He struggled to suck down air as the hit sent him cartwheeling in a new direction, the gyrations increasingly violent.
He felt pressure on his right forearm. A thing resembling a baby seal but with two heads – one at each end – had wrapped itself around the appendage. The impossible creature squeezed his arm like an organic tourniquet, right over his burns.
The pain was intense. He screamed. Again, no sound emerged. This time his shrieks transmuted into a sickening smell, like rotting garbage.
He tried wrenching the two-headed seal-thing off his arm. But he couldn’t get a grip. The creature didn’t seem to be composed of solid matter but of jarring musical notes, non-melodic clusters hijacked from some nightmarish chromatic scale.
The seal-thing finally melted into a puddle of goo that streamed away from Aiden’s tumbling body. But other creatures attacked. A bat-like insect attached itself to his face and bit his cheeks. Something with talons raked his lower back. A gigantic shark-like monstrosity opened its yawning mouth, ready to swallow Aiden whole. As he frantically batted his hands to keep it away, it shrank to the size of a goldfish, slithered between his lips and lodged in the back of his throat. He tried spitting it out but ended up swallowing it instead. He saw the creature race down his esophagus and into his stomach, where it was consumed by roiling acids.
There was no sanity to what was happening to him, only confusion, agony and heightening vertigo from catapulting out of control through the gray murk. He couldn’t take much more without being driven mad.
“Where are you?”
It was a woman’s voice. She appeared in front of Aiden, upright and motionless relative to his position, close enough to touch. Either she was acrobatically in tandem with his tumbling – a welcome reference point, an icon of sanity – or neither of them were actually in motion. He had no idea which.
There was a plainness about her, not in the physical sense – she was far from hom
ely – but in a way that somehow gave him the sense of a level-headed and practical individual. Short brown hair framed an elfin face with hazel eyes. Dripping wet bangs and a pale yellow robe suggested she’d just stepped from a shower or bath.
“Where are you?” she repeated, this time more forcefully.
Aiden realized he’d misunderstood the intent of her question. She wasn’t trying to determine his location. Instead, she wanted to know if he knew where he was.
“I’m in the shroud.”
Thankfully, the words leaving his mouth were liberated from sensory chaos. He didn’t see or smell or taste the syllables. They flowed in normal fashion.
“Have you been instructed?” the woman asked.
“Instructed?”
“Have you received any dispatches?”
“Dispatches?”
Annoyance compressed her lips. “We don’t have much time. Parroting me is counterproductive.”
“Are you talking about ‘Singularity beguiles, transcend the illusion’?”
“Yes! I like that! Succinct, straight to the point. OK, so your first step is to follow the instructions. The second step is to–”
“But I don’t know what those instructions mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, really. I’ve been hearing those words as far back as I can remember but I’ve never been able to figure out–”
“There’s nothing to figure out.” Her annoyance morphed into anger and she gave him a light smack on the forehead. “Don’t overthink it, White. You’ve got the pieces, let them flow together.”
“Who are you? How do you know my color?”
“Never mind all that. Want to live?”
“Of course.”
“Then pay attention. I’m holding back a wave but I can’t protect you for long. That wave’s gonna come crashing down any moment now and pour me back into the world. When that happens, all those nasty things swarming around in here will start kicking your butt again. Trust me, you haven’t come close to experiencing the worst they have to offer. You won’t survive for long.”
“OK, I’m listening.”
“Good. Again, first step – follow the instructions. Second step – come up with a system.”
“A system?”
“Got any hobbies?”
“Hobbies?”
Her scowl could have frozen sunlight. He answered quickly before she could snap at him again or smack him for repeating her words.
“No, I don’t have any hobbies. When I was a kid I liked rocketry. I used to fantasize about piloting a spaceship–”
“That’ll work. Try imagining a system that uses the various components needed for a successful rocket flight. So, first step, follow the instructions. Second step, create a system. Third and final step, cross over to the other side.”
“The other side of what?”
She glared as if he was being willfully ignorant. “The shroud, of course!”
“What’s on the other side?”
“No idea, never been. Don’t have the chops for it. I’m like the others, strictly a one-trick pony. But you’re different, you’re the anomaly. If any of us can make the crossing alone, you can.”
Aiden suddenly knew her identity. “You’re Cyan.”
His deduction earned another smack to the forehead, this one harder. “Jeez, White, get it together! Concentrate! Step one, step two, step three. You don’t have time to waste.”
Her arrogance was pissing him off. It reminded him of the haughty tone Darlene sometimes adopted.
“Why don’t you just tell me what I need to know rather than all this three-step bullshit?”
“You’re lucky I’m helping you this much.”
“And I’m supposed to be grateful?”
She raised her arm to administer a third smack. This time he grabbed her hand before she could follow through. The instant their palms clasped, the sensation was electric.
He felt her, felt her very essence. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before with another human. An aggregate of emotions washed over him – her emotions – who she really was beneath perimeter defenses, caustic guard towers and snarky fortifications that he sensed were common to many individuals. He perceived a woman who was passionate, tender and kind, yet also tough, resourceful and resilient. And he caught glimpses into an even deeper level of her being, a realm where her rawest urges and needs bubbled within a quantum broth of ambiguity.
“Enough of this Peeping Tom crap,” she hissed, wrenching free of his grip. “I suggest you get to it, do what needs doing.”
Her eyes widened with sudden alarm. “Uh-oh, time’s up! The wave’s coming for me. Remember the steps. And don’t forget to–”
She cartwheeled away from him, disappeared into the murk. The wake of her departure revealed a host of those malignant creatures clustering in the distance, orbiting Aiden’s position like carnivorous satellites. All too soon they’d begin round two of sanity-smashing attacks.
SEVENTY-ONE
You’ve got the pieces, let them flow together.
Aiden struggled to figure out what Cyan meant by that. Then he realized he was doing exactly what she’d warned against.
Don’t overthink it.
“Singularity beguiles,” he whispered. “Transcend the illusion.”
This time he didn’t dwell on the words or attempt to decipher their meaning. Instead, he stopped trying to ratchet answers through the machinery of intellect, allowed the words to simply wash over him like they did in his green dreams.
Miraculously, a veil was lifted. The phrase echoed with newfound clarity. It was so obvious he was shocked he’d taken this long to comprehend. Maybe such a lucid perspective was only possible within this strange realm of the shroud.
Throughout his life he’d been deceived – beguiled – into believing that he was one person – a singularity – little different from the billions of other humans on the planet. But that assumption was wrong. At a fundamental level of his being, deep down where he floated within his own quantum broth of ambiguity, he was different from everyone else.
He wasn’t one person, he was six.
That was the illusion that required transcending.
His impossible birth – his bizarre arrival into that Tau nursery – had endowed him with more than just a six-pronged genetic heritage. He’d been given something beyond mere DNA. His inheritance encompassed the spectrum of abilities the others possessed.
Aiden wasn’t a quiver kid.
He was quiver kids.
The malignant creatures tightened their orbits. Time was running out.
Step one – follow the instructions.
He’d done that. He’d transcended the illusion. He knew who and what he was.
Step two – create a system. Cyan’s words again echoed.
Try imagining a system that uses the various components needed for a successful rocket flight.
At first glance, the instructions seemed too vague to become a workable plan. But surprisingly, the solution came to Aiden in an instant. It was as if he’d been pumped full of some magical drug that created myriad new synapses and neurons, hypercharging his capacity to interconnect disparate thoughts.
The idea of a system was simply an analogue, a way to elucidate his hexagonal persona.
A rocket needs a launch platform from which to blast off.
Green.
The launch platform corresponded to Grant Cho’s ability to create a cleaving and enter the shroud. Aiden also possessed that ability. It was what had brought him here.
The rocket needs a propulsion system to thrust it forward.
Red.
Michael’s ability to create a shadow and use it to move from place to place in the real world performed a similar function here.
A gyrostabilizer was necessary to keep the rocket from tumbling out of control.
Cyan.
The woman whose real-world name was Meira Hirshfeld had temporarily held back the shr
oud’s sensory-warping monstrosities, stabilizing Aiden, keeping him from being driven mad.
Those monstrosities orbiting him began to swarm. The attack was imminent. But now he knew how to fight them off.
The rocket needs shielding to protect it against the dangers of the void.
Magenta.
He envisioned one of Jessie’s manifestations, aimed it at the nearest creature, the bulbous mass with writhing appendages that had initially attacked.
His chunkie shot forward, growing larger as it closed on its target. At the moment of interception it was big enough to envelop the creature in a gelatinous brown sac. The monstrosity halted, writhing madly within the suffocating manifestation.
Aiden found himself able to create chunkies with machine-gun speed. He sent them hurtling toward the approaching threats. Yet for every creature he repelled, a dozen more emerged from the murk to join the assault. The very act of combating them seemed to increase their numbers.
He needed a better strategy. The solution was obvious. He willed a shadow into existence. Unlike Red’s shadows, which were physically separate from Michael’s body, Aiden’s was inside him, an internalized dynamo, part of his very being.
Propelled by the shadow, he sailed through the shroud at dizzying speed. The attacking creatures were left floundering in his wake.
The ride was exhilarating, and for a time he flew through the murk without any sense of purpose. But Cyan’s third step beckoned.
Cross over to the other side.
Problem was, there was nothing to distinguish one part of the murk from another. Where was the other side, which direction?
The rocket needs an instrument that enables the pilot to navigate.
Gold.
That was Bobbie Pinsey’s function, or perhaps the entity that spoke through her, and which had served as a kind of navigator to bring Aiden this far.
He listened for Bobbie’s voice, expecting it to offer directions. Instead of words, however, a sinewy stream of golden light flowed away from Aiden. Mentally adjusting the course of his internalized shadow, he aligned it with the wavering beam and headed in that direction.
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