And then… a ripping so extreme, so painful, my scream possesses the void, sudden and sharp and full of heat. A fiery blast bursts forth and destroys the nothingness, creating destruction where there was only emptiness.
It ceases.
The pain is gone.
My eyes are closed… so I open them.
I blink, but Leopold is still there. He’s sitting on a meditation mat, smiling at me, not wearing his bodyform, of course, only this fugue-state form. He’s shorter than I remember seeing in those last frantic moments in Augustus’s lab before Leopold unleashed a weapon that would destroy everything cybernetic in the vicinity, including his own mind… which had no backup. Not even in a secreted-away citadel like Marcus.
Yet here he is, sitting before me in bright orange monk’s robes.
His head gleams smooth, just like the Dalai Lama’s. Or an ascender’s. Or any simple Buddhist monk, really. It was his pre-Singularity human form, after all.
“Eli.” Leopold’s smile is broad. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You have?” My mind is still coming together. The void. The pain. The transport here… I’m confused. “What is this place?” I ask while I keep pulling the disparate parts of myself together. I feel like all the pieces are here, gathered in my fugue-state form, but they haven’t quite sorted themselves out. My mind is still busy cataloging. Rebuilding the narrative that describes who I am.
Elijah Brighton.
That clarity sounds like a gong that only I can hear. Or at least, if Leopold hears it, he gives no notice.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Leopold asks, gesturing around him.
I blink and bring the haziness around me into focus. Leopold’s meditation mat is in the center of a Buddhist temple courtyard. It’s filled with flowering bushes and tiny rivers tumbling over water-smoothed stones.
“Yes,” I say because it is. “But why am I here?”
“You’ll have to tell me,” he answers with a smaller, more expectant smile.
As if I really have the answer.
Then it settles on me with the same gravity as my name. Leopold is dead. This is a figment of my imagination. Or I’ve finally contacted him because…
I’m dead.
“I think it’s the second one,” Leopold says, his smile growing.
Of course, he can hear my thoughts. Just like the master painter in his workshop. He’s also dead, many hundreds of years ago.
“I’m in the fugue,” I insist, resisting the idea. I don’t want to be dead.
“The lack of a mortal body does take some adjustment.” Tiny lines form at the corners of Leopold’s eyes.
“Nice to see you find the humor in this.”
“Humor is easier when you forget.” The lines at his eyes grow deeper.
“Forget what?”
“That there was a time before.” His smile is kind but still teasing.
“Do you forget?”
“Mostly.” He breathes in the imaginary scent of the imaginary flowers. “In forgetting, everything becomes new. And it’s always more beautiful the first time we discover it.”
“Discover what?”
“The scent of a flower. The press of a kiss. The terrible beauty of living.”
“But we’re not alive.”
“Not in that sense. The one you mean.” The teasing is gone, leaving only the kindness. I’m just now noticing that all his glitches are gone. All the seams of Leopold’s mind that were ripped apart under Augustus’s cruel assault have been healed. His fugue-state form is shining and whole. “You have to choose, Eli,” he says, his words becoming sonorous, a drawn-out gong of importance, signaling the need for my sharp attention.
My mind finishes its sorting and gains focus. “Choose what?”
Instead of answering, the temple courtyard surrounding us dissolves, and suddenly we’re inside a tiny tent just like the one in the Resistance’s new basecamp, with ascender-tech cloth draped over branches. I stumble up to standing and turn around.
Behind me is a table. A steel table.
With my body on it.
I stare at it, no desire to move. It’s my vision come true. Holes charred in my uniform. Bloody chunks missing from my body. Someone’s mercifully closed my eyes, so it looks like I’m sleeping, but the wounds I have are not the kind that anyone survives.
Not even me.
“Unsettling, I’m sure,” Leopold says as he appears by my side. “I’m rather glad I didn’t have to go through this myself. Although granted, the effect isn’t quite the same with a bodyform.”
I’m shaking my head. “Why did you bring me here?”
Before he can answer, a woman enters the tent by pushing aside one edge of the draped cloth. She hangs her head and pauses by the now-closed makeshift entrance. Then she shuffles forward until she’s at the edge of the steel gurney that’s holding my body. She peers at my face for a long moment, then gets down on her knees, laces her fingers together and bows her head, resting it on her bound-together hands at the edge of the gurney.
I’m horrified by all of this. “What is she doing?”
“I believe she’s praying.”
My attention whips to Leopold, but he’s dead serious. “Praying? Whatever for?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
My gaze is drawn back to the woman. Why is she praying next to my dead body? And why is my body here at all? The whole thing is sending tremors through my mind, threatening to pull it apart at the carefully stitched together seams. But I was called back together—first by some unknowable thing, and then by Leopold—I didn’t stitch those seams together myself. Not entirely. But they’re holding up under this unsettling feeling that’s worming its way through my mind.
“I’m not familiar with death rituals,” I say to Leopold, my voice holding a desperation even I can hear. “In Seattle, it was simply cremations. Burials and funerals were illegal. Even in the Resistance, the casualties were mourned by a gathering. A remembrance ceremony. Not… not this.” I’m shaking my head as if that can wish it away.
“No, this is unusual,” Leopold says. “Then again, your body is holding up rather well, don’t you think?”
I have no idea what he means. I steel myself and move closer, inspecting the dead flesh of my body. “How long have I been this way?”
“Three days.”
“Three days?” I flick a look to him, but there’s no humor in his expression. I don’t know much about decomposing bodies, but I look remarkably well preserved. I’m not sure how much more horrifying this can get. “Tell me they’re not preserving me like some kind of mummy.”
I look back, and he has a smirk on his face. “No. Did Lenora never explain it to you?”
I frown at him and back away from my body, having about all of that I can take. But his words stir around a memory of Lenora and me in a virtual cathedral, back when she was trying to induce my abilities with a kiss. But just before that… “She said I was designed to live forever.” I look back at my body. “I guess that didn’t work out.”
“Actually, the technology is working spectacularly,” he says. “Your body appears to have no decomposition whatsoever.”
“But I’m dead.”
“Very much so.”
“Why are we here, Leopold?” That loosening feeling is taking hold of me again.
Before he can answer, the woman rises from her prayers, takes one last look at my face, then leaves the tent. On her way out, I finally recognize her—she was one of the militia who fought at Lenora’s house.
“Wait… she survived.” I turn to face Leopold. “Who else made it out?”
“Everyone,” he says. “Except you. And those who were killed during Hypatia’s assault. But the rest were released.”
“Why?” I don’t understand.
“You were the threat, Eli,” he says, a gentleness returning to his voice. “It was never them. It was always you.”
I nod. This makes a fundamental sense. “S
o Diocles killed me but spared them.” As I say it, I realize that Diocles must have returned to inhabit Hypatia’s altered bodyform. Right now, three days after killing me, he’s walking around somewhere in this world. And probably setting in motion whatever plans he has for the ascenders.
“I don’t know his thinking, of course,” Leopold says, “but I imagine he didn’t need the baggage of Augustus’s bloodlust with the humans. He’s never had a reputation for that kind of wanton destruction. Eliminating you as a threat was more than sufficient.”
“So Cyrus is alive?” I ask.
Leopold nods. “And Tristan and the others.”
“Miriam?”
“She’s not as great of a threat with you gone.”
I frown and look back at my body. “I’m still here.”
“You’re still here,” Leopold says, meaning the fugue state.
And with that, he answers two questions I haven’t even asked. First, whether the song that is our essence, our soul, fades over time… the answer to that is no, or Leopold himself wouldn’t be here. Called it a soul or a fugue-state form, humans and ascenders both have it, and it lives long past the time when a cybernetic bodyform or flesh-made body anchors it to the world. The second question is whether I have a soul, given I’m neither wholly ascender tech nor wholly human… as evidenced even more clearly by my non-decaying body. The answer to that, I have to admit, is yes. I will continue on, even as my hybrid body exists in an immortal death state.
But the real question is the one Leopold hasn’t answered, but I’ve already asked three times.
Why am I here?
I look to him. “I can fix this, can’t I?”
“I imagine so.”
I look at my damaged flesh. It’s ripped and torn and burned… and none of that exists on my fugue-state form. I can’t see any reason why I couldn’t take two steps, stand next to my own body, and heal the wounds that killed me. And then will myself back into inhabiting my body, take a breath, and resurrect—just like the others I’ve brought back from this other plane of reality once they were unmoored from their bodies. And suddenly I see it, more clearly than I have before. I was splintered into so many pieces—an infinity of pieces—and yet, upon the searing, burning death of my body, the last tether was released. Then all the pieces finally came back together.
The vessel was broken… and the soul was released.
Like an ascender backup fracturing the soul, once, twice, a hundred times… like Leopold’s mind splintered and imperfectly patched… like Marcus, broken and shredded, if Diocles/Hypatia would finally release him… all of those pieces will return to the seamless whole that was their being before the violence done to them.
Like all of them, I had to die to be made whole.
Unlike them, and almost every other soul that’s passed to the other side, I can return.
“It’s always been me,” I say to Leopold, still staring at my body. “I’ve always been the threat.”
“Always.”
“And if I return?”
“Do I need to tell you?” He could chastise my human frailty, my limited human cognition—although it feels like I can finally see the water in which I swim—but he doesn’t. His voice is kind, gentle. Patient.
“I suppose I know.” But I more than know. Grayson told me, and he was right. You’re playing with a fire that can burn down civilizations. I am. And if I return to the world, I’ll be bringing that fire back with me. I tear my gaze away from my broken body. “Why would I do that, Leopold? Why would I inflict that upon the world?”
“Because you can?” A hint of smile sneaks on his face.
“How about if you go in my place?” I feel the seams stretching and holding once more. I’m stronger than I was before—I can feel it like a great unfolding inside me.
“If I could take this burden from you, my brother, I would.” It’s a gift, those words.
I nod and turn back to my body. To Leopold, I say, “I’m coming back for you.” My wide-eyed stare is fixed on the soon-to-be-healed wounds of my body, but my words are for him. “I’m going to need you by my side.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
I twist to look at him—he has nothing but that gentle smile for me.
“Thank you,” I say.
He tips his head in acknowledgment.
I turn back to my body and lay my hands on it. It’s nothing but reality. Simple flesh. Easily changed and shifted and arranged. I imagine health and wholeness, and my body shifts underneath me. The soul that’s about to enter it isn’t the same one that left, but that’s all right.
I know who I am.
I close my eyes and imagine myself swimming in the water of the real world, and in an instant, I’m there, pulling a stuttering breath into lungs that haven’t moved for days. There’s no pain, no residual aches, just a jittery flush of life running through me—pumping blood, gasping breaths, and firing neurons. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, waiting out this heady rush of living and breathing in the scents of the world—fresh-cut grass from the meadow, the stale smell of air trapped too long in the tent, a light floral note that must be fragrance from the woman who just left and… a scent that sends my already frenetic heart racing.
Kamali.
I lift my head.
She’s standing by the door, hand clasped hard over her mouth, eyes wide and brimming with tears.
“It’s okay,” I rush out.
She shakes her head, and I’m afraid she’ll bolt. I raise my hands before the rest of me comes up, sitting up on the gurney… rising from the dead.
Her eyes are wide with fear or shock or something.
“It’s all right, Kamali, I promise. It’s just me.”
Her hand flutters against her face, and her expression scrunches up. Right when I’m sure she’s going to run, she leaps across the short span of the tent with bounding dancer steps. I catch her in my arms as she barrels into me. I hold her tight as she grabs at my back and sobs into my shoulders and repeats my name over and over.
“It’s all right,” I say, again and again, holding her close and stroking her hair. But it’s not going to be all right. I know that. Yet I still fervently hope that the darkness I know lies ahead will not consume us. Not me, not the people I love, not what’s left of humanity. Because a Second Singularity is coming, and I’m not at all sure I can prevent it. Or that humanity will survive.
But for the moment, all that matters is Kamali in my arms, sobbing my name.
“It’s all right,” I say again. “I’m back.”
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There are five planned novels in the Singularity Series, plus the prequel Day Zero, which covers the Singularity event, and the Stories of Singularity, a collection of short novellas to accompany the series.
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Stories of Singularity
I've written a series of novellas that all take place in the Singularity world, illuminating the dark corners and giving insight into how the world works. These stories generally stand alone, but alert readers will see commonalities to the characters and places in the novel series as well.
AUGMENT (Stories of Singularity 4) tells Miriam's story, before she met Eli, before she saw all her plans go up in literal flames. I've always thought of Miriam as my cybernetic Joan-of-Arc character, and here you can see how she became the prophet for the Makers...
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Miriam is a jiv—an augmented warrior willing to give her life for the Maker cause—and she’s more than ready to get in the ring and fight for the latest mod. If she wins, she’ll have everythin
g she needs to offer herself up for the Makers’ most dangerous augment of all. The only problem? No one has yet survived it. Either she’ll become the Makers’ latest failed experiment—or the leap toward salvation her people desperately need.
~*~
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THE SINGULARITY SERIES
young adult science fiction
What would you give to live forever?
Singularity Series
The Legacy Human (Book 1)
The Duality Bridge (Book 2)
The Illusory Prophet (Book 3)
The Stories of Singularity #1-4 (Novella Box Set)
Seventeen-year-old Elijah Brighton wants to become an ascender—a post-Singularity human/machine hybrid—after all, they’re smarter, more enlightened, more compassionate, and above all, achingly beautiful. But Eli is a legacy human, preserved and cherished for his unaltered genetic code, just like the rainforest he paints. When a fugue state possesses him and creates great art, Eli miraculously lands a sponsor for the creative Olympics. If he could just master the fugue, he could take the gold and win the right to ascend, bringing everything he’s yearned for within reach… including his beautiful ascender patron. But once Eli arrives at the Games, he finds the ascenders are playing games of their own. Everything he knows about the ascenders and the legacies they keep starts to unravel… until he’s running for his life and wondering who he truly is.
The Legacy Human is the first in Susan Kaye Quinn’s new young adult science fiction series that explores the intersection of mind, body, and soul in a post-Singularity world… and how technology will challenge us to remember what it means to be human.
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The Illusory Prophet Page 30