Judgment

by Sean Platt

  Meyer rolled back to look at the hallway beyond the door. There was an elaborate sconce made of what looked like brushed aluminum. The top was blue glass like the Astral pyramids. He was in a king-sized bed with too much comforter amid a mountain of pillows. Lights were low, but the illuminated hallway gave him plenty to see by. The room was like something in a palace. Or like something in the mansion that Kindred had ruled in Heaven’s Veil while pretending to be Meyer. Not that Meyer had ever seen that particular mansion.

  “They told me you were dead,” Meyer said.

  “I never fucked him, you know. Either of them. The one that Raj killed or the one they sent in afterward. I’m sure all three of you fucked Piper, but isn’t it nice to know there’s still at least one thing you got that the other Meyers didn’t?”

  “How did you survive? I thought you—”

  “You want to know something interesting, Meyer? The last time the Astrals came here, they found people who were connected thanks to their societies, their natural human bonds. Each of the last times they came, actually. So they worked with us and made everything better. By the time they judged and left us behind, survivors mostly lost the trick of communicating without words. But the skill was always there. They trusted that we’d get it back — and that maybe the next time, when we did, we’d get it right. So as much as I laughed at your Mother Ayahuasca and the collective unconscious bullshit, maybe you were sort of right. I mean, the Astrals did manage to peek into our world through your eyes.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Of course I’m dead, Meyer. Did your Heather ever talk about ancient societies and the collective unconscious?”

  Meyer closed his eyes then rubbed them. He heard Heather laugh mockingly before he opened them again.

  “Next thing, you’ll ask me to pinch you. You’re acting li—”

  There was a minute buzz, and Heather suddenly stopped talking as if she’d been cut off clean. Her lips kept moving, but no sound came out. She spoke mutely for another thirty seconds or so, words buzzing and popping like a broadcast trying to break through interference. And then Meyer had it. He was speaking to the Pall, except the Pall didn’t make sounds.

  “I thought you didn’t talk?”

  “Please,” the Heather/Pall said. “Did I ever stop talking?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I —’e —lways know wha—” Heather’s words buzzed in fragments. Then, her voice returning, she grimaced at what seemed to be leaving her mouth. “Well, that sounds like shit, doesn’t it?”

  “Why are you here? Where have you been?”

  “Do you miss me?” Heather asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Not Heather. Me.”

  Meyer squinted, not understanding.

  “I’m not always a plume of multicolored smoke, Meyer. And I’m not ever really Heather, or Piper, or any of the other forms I take. I sample them all. From … ” She made an all-encompassing circle in the air as if indicating the universe itself — or perhaps the collective unconscious the Astrals had trained ancient people into learning to use. “From here. But you know what I really am. Don’t you, Meyer?”

  “Kindred calls you a remainder.”

  “Hmm. A remainder of what?”

  “I don’t have a clue what that’s supposed to mean.”

  “Sigh,” she said, actually pronouncing the word instead of making the noise. “And you used to be such a smart man.”

  Meyer forced himself to sit up, if for no other reason than to clear his head. The thing talked like Heather, like it knew things only Heather would know — right down to whom she had slept with. But how could that be, if Heather was gone, or if the Pall was reflecting Meyer back at himself?

  Heather was speaking, but her volume had again been switched off. Every third or fourth word she seemed to clip back into auditory range, giving a snippet followed or preceded by a crack or sizzle or buzz.

  She shook her head. “Fuck, is that annoying.”

  “Why is it happening?”

  “Used to be, I couldn’t speak. But now it’s like I’ve remembered what sounds are like. Because we’re closer.”

  “Closer to what?”

  “Imagine a memory chest,” Heather said. “Except that you can put anything that’s ever existed inside it. This chest never fills up, and you can keep adding to it forever. It’s not a jumble. You can find anything you choose the second you look inside. Your past is in there. Your hopes and dreams. Your friends, and their hopes and dreams. But sometimes you lose track, when you’re away from the chest for a while. You forget what you’ve put inside. But then you take a peek to jog your memory and remember things you knew long ago, before letting them go.”

  “You mean the Ark. You’re somehow sensing the Ark.”

  Heather sputtered and buzzed then smacked her head like a faulty television.

  “But you don’t always want to remember everything, do you? Amnesia is the great gift, like the universe’s forgiveness. What’s in there that we’ve all tried so hard to collectively bury?”

  Meyer rubbed his head. He felt like he should have a headache, but he didn’t.

  “I don’t even know where I am or how I got here.”

  “Relax. You’ll find out when she gets here.”

  “The others. Where are the others?” He looked toward threshold and saw a broad white shoulder in the hallway: a Titan, keeping him inside despite the open door.

  “You’ll find out when she gets here,” Heather repeated.

  “Who?”

  “Not long now.”

  Meyer waited for more, but Heather only crossed her legs and met his eyes.

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” Meyer was trying to remember the last thing he’d experienced before falling asleep, but there was only a slowly dissolving block of white. He couldn’t recall details, only that there had been peril, and that they’d lost whatever had happened. He didn’t think the Pall had helped. Just like it hadn’t helped them through Hell’s Corridor, which was a bit more vivid in his foggy mind. Just like the Pall had gone missing, how it hadn’t raised a single smoky finger to assist them since the fall of Heaven’s Veil.

  “Yours. And the other side.”

  “Charlie says the Astrals aren’t on a side, either. He thinks that what’s inside the Ark will hang us or save us.”

  “The Astrals are neither side,” the Heather/Pall said. “I am on both.”

  “It’s splitting hairs.”

  “Is it? If it were, I wouldn’t have spoken to Christopher.”

  “You … ” Meyer was remembering Hell’s Corridor more now, and that meant he (and presumably the others) were in Ember Flats. But he remembered Christopher, and what had happened.

  “You killed him.”

  Heather shook her head. “I encouraged him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not splitting hairs,” Heather said as if it were obvious. “The Astrals are on neither side. But I am on both.”

  “That’s such bullshit.”

  “Is it?”

  Meyer looked down, shaking his head. Then he heard footsteps approaching in the hallway behind him, and within two seconds of looking up found himself looking up at the long, white-gowned figure of an incredibly beautiful black woman with lean, exotic features and large dark eyes.

  “So,” she said. “The original Meyer Dempsey.”

  Meyer watched the woman for a beat then looked back at Heather.

  But of course, Heather was already gone.

  CHAPTER 27

  Cameron was pacing, looking for weapons.

  Piper was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair behind him, deeper in the plush, ornately decorated room. The place would have been luxurious if Cameron had chosen it for them to share — a belated honeymoon, perhaps, in a world without Astrals. But this wasn’t a vacation even if Piper seemed ready to surrender and allow it to be one. The room was elegant, but Titans in the hal
lway made it politely clear that they weren’t permitted to leave. There seemed to be every amenity but mints on the pillows, but on closer inspection the room was oddly sparse. There was nothing in the dark-wood dresser’s decorative drawers; its mirror had a blue tint that suggested breaking it for shivs would be impossible. There were no toothbrushes in the private bathroom, bottles of caustic chemicals under the sink, or hairbrushes on the vanity. Lamps were secured to the tables. The only thing seemingly not bolted down were soft and squishy, like pillows and the comforter they’d woken beneath, expected to believe this was all so perfectly normal.

  “You’re working yourself up,” Piper said.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Cam, we’ve been here for hours now. You’ll make yourself sick if you keep that up.”

  He turned, suddenly annoyed that Piper was sitting at all. Shouldn’t she be trying to pry the frames off the wall so they could split them at the corners to use as spears? Shouldn’t she be helping him find small items that could be made into keys to unlock the blue-tinted windows and run across the lawn beyond? It seemed as empty and innocuous as the room itself: a wide lawn of sandy, weedy grass that some clever landscaper had managed to make beautiful. Ember Flats was plenty irrigated; the taps all ran hot and cold. But whoever managed the grounds — those left behind after their courtyard arrest, along with the lawns and parks they’d passed on the levitating platform — had kept things native, using what the land provided rather than making things insultingly green. Perhaps it was a nod to where they were and where this place had been: outside the proper Nile delta, beside the ancient monoliths.

  But no matter the amenities, they were being held against their will. And Piper was sitting in a plush chair. Reading on a Vellum.

  Cameron softened his edge. Piper wasn’t his enemy, even if she wasn’t suitably infuriated. The enemy was … well, he didn’t know who his enemy was, and that was the problem.

  “So none of this bothers you? You’re content to stay here?”

  Piper met his eyes. Cameron could swear he heard her thoughts: What are you complaining about? Those police and guards got you out of opening the Ark.

  Cameron wasn’t sure what else to say in Piper’s silence. They’d been discussing the same few topics since they’d opened their eyes in the enormous bed, and answers kept refusing to come. They both remembered being bound, loaded onto the platform, and led through part of the city. Then their memories ended until they’d woken in this room with no idea how much time was behind them.

  Cameron could only gauge hours lost by the sun, but it seemed like maybe a quarter of a day gone since they’d regained consciousness. Their hosts seemed to have anticipated a wait and had taken pains to give the guests something to do in the interim. There were a pair of Vellum readers (too light to use as weapons) with access to some sort of a city network. Piper had found something to read easily and had shouted out several titles Cameron might enjoy before giving up. There was a screen recessed into the wall and a touchscreen control somehow integrated into the bolted-down coffee table. Piper had tried that, too, and for a while they’d watched some world news.

  Building was underway in some capital or another in South America; Cameron had barely been paying attention. They were building monoliths, and the screen had shown a few. To Cameron, they looked like sphinxes but without the pharaoh’s cowl and more cat-like faces. They’d seen an update on some sort of summit, and that struck Piper as being business as usual, like the one scheduled in Heaven’s Veil right before she’d run away with secrets in her grip. This one was in a city called Haunshoo, which seemed to have been built on a vaguely remembered spot in the south sea islands — somewhere Cameron recalled in a mental mishmash of places Benjamin had once dragged him to. The reporters were all humans, though much of the footage was of Astrals: Titans, mainly, shaking hands with human dignitaries as if they were pals. It made Cameron feel sick. And after the second loop of an identical broadcast, he’d turned away. But the house — if, indeed, that was where they were — had a juke as surely as it had a Vellum server, and Piper had unearthed her old favorite shows. She’d settled on an episode of Friends Cameron had never seen, though his mother had always enjoyed streaming the show in days gone by. Piper was excited. “It’s the one with Ross’s couch,” she said then quoted a line Cameron didn’t know or care about — something about exchanging for a couch that hadn’t been cut in half, complete with verbal emphasis.

  Cameron had many thoughts about Piper’s complacency but kept most to himself. He was especially bothered that although his thoughts were derogatory (Piper was deluded; Piper was gullible; Piper was too complacent and too easily pacified), he couldn’t stifle a growing certainty that her reaction was the sensible one. He was being foolish, banging his head against a courteously provided and comfortably appointed wall.

  The others were here, too. Or at least, most of them were. Jeanine’s shouts had been echoing down what seemed to be a common hallway and through the open, Titan-guarded door. Cameron had heard Charlie arguing logically for something or other, perhaps appealing to the Astrals’ analytical sides. Shortly after he’d woken, Cameron had thought he’d seen Meyer or Kindred (he wasn’t sure which) walk past the doorway with a group of escorts, apparently unhurt. Piper had been most worried about Lila, but although Cameron hadn’t heard her shout, Piper acted like she had.

  “She’s fine. They’re both fine.”

  Cameron assumed she meant “both” to include Clara, though he hadn’t heard Clara, either.

  They hadn’t heard from Peers — but Nocturne the dog had already come and gone three times. Their house arrest apparently didn’t apply to the big black lab, who circulated like a visiting chaplain, come to offer comfort and take confession.

  The second time Nocturne appeared, Cameron had scrawled a note and slipped it under the dog’s collar. But the Titans at the door had stopped the dog for long enough to pluck the note out before sending Nocturne on his way.

  There were feet coming down the hall. Cameron turned, and Piper looked up. After a few seconds of listening to the hypnotic plodding of shoes slapping tile, a dark-skinned man with a salt-and-pepper mustache appeared in the doorway beside a boy of maybe fifteen. Both entered the room, and the Titans moved from their guard posts, finally coming inside.

  The man gave a tidy little bow.

  “I am Kamal. This is Ravi.” He indicated the boy. “Would you come with us, please?”

  “Where are we going?” Cameron asked, unmoving.

  “If you would please come this way?” he repeated, nodding toward the door.

  “I’m not going anywhere until—”

  Piper stopped Cameron with a gentle hand on his back. He looked over at her and was about to speak, but that same look on Piper’s face stopped him and made his feet move. Piper wasn’t just willing to go. Somehow, she knew that it was right to go, and Cameron — who felt none of the mental cache Piper seemed to have tapped into — was in no position to argue.

  “Please,” Kamal said, gesturing for Piper and Cameron to exit first.

  They went.

  The Titans followed.

  CHAPTER 28

  As Lila entered the enormous room hand in hand with her daughter, she found herself facing every member of the party she’d last seen when they’d all been in captivity, levitating their way through Ember Flats under guard. None had been killed or even seemed to have been beaten. Clara had told her as much, but Lila, deep down, hadn’t believed it. She’d heard the others’ voices calling out — all but her father’s, or his duplicate’s — but hadn’t wanted to draw attention to her and Clara by doing the same. Maybe the Titans would forget her if she stayed quiet and pretended to watch the video screen’s empty entertainment. And maybe Lila would forget what she knew about Titans: namely, that they could become Reptars, or God knew what else.

  But no, they were all here. Waiting, all seated in posh chairs except for Kindred and a tall woman Lila didn’t
know, both standing by a fireplace that was dancing with bright purple flame and — at least from where Lila was standing — didn’t seem to be generating any heat. Kindred seemed to be seeking command, making himself large and obvious, standing ramrod straight near the room’s front, but the woman’s presence dwarfed him. Her bearing was almost surreal, and effortlessly dominant. She was nearly as tall as Kindred and twice as magnetic.

  She was dressed, appropriately enough, like an Egyptian queen. Like Cleopatra but with a skin tone more authentic to the region than Angelina Jolie. Her long, mostly bare arms were ringed, both above and below the elbow, with gold and silver bracelets. On the right arm was a skintight adornment made to look like a snake, its tail facing down, its head up, toward her shoulder. Her face was smooth and mostly natural, but her eyes were fixed like a cat’s, dark black eyeliner wicking up at each outside end, lashes long. She had thin, delicate features and a chilly expression, her black hair swooped up and piled high, elaborately decorated with beads, jewels, maybe both. Even without the eyeliner, she seemed somehow feline, right down to the way she lithely moved her body in a flowing off-white gown.

  “Lila Dempsey, I presume.” The woman nodded to dismiss Kamal, and he gave a small bow before turning to go. Ravi seemed eager to do the same — to take her hand in a strange parody of farewell, but when Piper ignored him, he turned to Clara. Then Kamal’s attention turned to Clara as well, and they both bowed again. It should have seemed absurd, but it wasn’t. Lila had seen many strange reactions to her daughter over the years, and awe for Lightborn was hardly the strangest among them. The boy left, and Kamal moved to stand respectfully back from the woman, but Lila knew a guard when she saw one.

  “Lila Green,” she corrected, looking back up at the woman. There’d been no way, after Astral Day, to make her name change official (although the Heaven’s Veil government had managed it when she’d become Lila Gupta), but she’d still taken Christopher’s name in mind and heart. And with that thought, a wall of sadness hit Lila with an almost crippling force. She’d been widowed twice, and was still closer to twenty than thirty.