WHA-WHAM!
WHA-WHAM!
WHA-WHAM!
WHA-WHAM!
WHA-WHAM!
WHA-WHAM!
WHA-WHAM!
His arms hissed from the stress, the hydraulic fluid on boil. He felt his human side burn, but he kept going. He ran into the collapsing building.
WHA-WHAM!
WHA-WHAM!
WHA-WHAM!
His right hydraulshock shuddered open, sliding loosely, the recoil mechanism destroyed from the immense pressure of the wildcat rounds. The building groaned around Raimey, and then it buckled over as the front gave way completely under the immense load. Raimey sprinted toward the side as sixty stories of skyscraper tumbled over onto the struggling Colossus.
The weight of the building pinned Big Brother in the hole. But already the Colossus’s arms were shaking loose the debris, and the sound of intense hydraulic stress filled the air as an arm rose out of the ground to find secure footing.
Glass dropped his rifle and jumped down from his position. He ran to the Colossus, then scurried up Big Brother’s outstretched arm onto its back. He pulled out the last tactical nuke and popped the primer.
The Colossus howled like a dog caught in a bear trap. It buckled and shook, tons of debris falling off it in an avalanche. It began to rise, its titanic arms and legs defeating the weight that had pulled it down. But it was too late. Glass found an empty missile tube built into its back and jumped in.
I am Mike Glass. I am human. I loved Vanessa Raimey and she loved me. And that means that at some point, somehow, I was good.
He pictured Vanessa in his mind. Her eyes were wide and filled with love. I wish I could have seen you.
Mike Glass flipped the warhead over and slammed it down.
= = =
When Raimey saw Glass throw down the rifle and pull out the nuke, he understood. His mind screamed for it to be different, for there to be another way, but Glass had chosen the hard path—the path that guaranteed victory. The clearest path to save the only person he had ever loved.
Raimey turned and ran, getting as many buildings between him and Big Brother as he could. Big Brother raised its head and howled one last time—and then it vanished in a column of piercing white light, as if a supernova had been born within its chest.
The blast chased Raimey, bringing down buildings in a tsunami of fire. It caught and consumed him, spinning and throwing him like a blade of grass in a tornado, its convection as hot as a kiln, burning him down to his bone.
= = =
Justin stood on top of the universe. He understood how small it was, why Evan didn’t care anymore. He understood that no matter what happened, the things we described, named, and categorized did not care whether we existed or not. The insigni—
“—ficance of your lives,” THE VOICE finished.
Justin turned to a man next to him. The man looked nothing like Evan Lindo. He had no face; where it should be was a silhouette somehow darker than the pitch black that surrounded them. He wore a duster jacket and cowboy boots.
“Evan?” Justin asked, perplexed. He tried to look directly at the man, but he couldn’t. Whenever he’d get close, suddenly his head would be pushed into another position.
“No,” the man said. And then he realized that this wasn’t a man or woman. The being standing beside him had no sex. “He is down there.”
The man didn’t point, but Justin understood. Lindo was the Northern Star.
“Then who are you?”
“I am a part of God, Justin.”
“Lindo’s a god.”
Justin felt the being smile. “No, he’s not. He is powerful for a human, and that is his desire, but he is mortal.”
“You aren’t?”
The being was quiet for a moment. “Mortality is a condition that some of me deals with.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t think you can, Justin, but you don’t need to.”
Around the being, Justin felt a surge of peace. “Why are you here?”
“I am here because the entire consciousness of the world is now connected. I am tangible because the minds of man are together. When I said man was made in my likeness, what I meant was that man was made with pieces of me. My mortal side is in every living thing. It was a gift, so that when a person did good, they could feel the good, they would know, in their heart, what was right and what was wrong. Because there—”
“Are no words,” Justin finished.
“That is correct. Right and wrong have no words. As humans, words are used to describe the observed condition, to philosophize and debate. But it goes beyond that, into the indescribable. Into the feel.”
“Are you like the Northern Star?” Justin asked. “We aren’t the only planet, right? Talking to you, I’m just talking to a part of your consciousness . . .”
“Yes. In a crude description, I am similar.”
“Why are you up here? Why not closer? Why not take over the Northern Star and connect with everyone?”
“I can see everything, Justin. Close is just a word. I am next to everyone down below. Those who aren’t connected as well. I am next to other sentient beings in other galaxies. I circle the sun and burn with its atoms, and those atoms are me as well.”
“Are we important?”
“To the universe? No. To the solar system? No. It’s not your purpose to be important. Look at the stars, go on a date. Get a dog and love it. Because everything is temporary. I live forever, but my forever will eventually end. But you and everyone else down there have what I don’t, and what I can never have: wonder. Because you did not create the universe and every atom in it. You did not expand with it and coalesce into stars. You did not start as a nucleotide that fused with another to birth the planet’s first life. I am all knowledge and all knowing, and that is why I created you. Every child looks at the world with wonder as they grow in it. And every time that happens, so do I.
“I gave you all life, but you have given me a reason. To laugh, to love my creations. To smile. Because I am alone. My kind, if there are others, is gone. And if they were still here, I don’t know if it would matter. You are important to yourselves. To your families. To the people you help who didn’t ask and didn’t deserve it. Evan is wrong: you are important to that ant you gave the breadcrumb to. Because your mercy let it live another day. And life is the biggest gift that can be given.”
“Why are you talking to me? Where’s Evan?”
“We’ve been talking for less than a thousandth of a millisecond. He doesn’t know.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
The man laughed.
“Evan looks around and down, but he never looks up.” The man paused. “It’s your time, Justin. Mike Glass is dead. Your friend is outside, trying to get in. A man who deserves nothing. No sympathy, no mercy. But give it to him anyway. Give him the breadcrumb. Take over and let him see his daughter.”
“Should I destroy the Northern Star?”
The man shrugged. “The rest of the world is better off if you don’t. Wonder is the most fragile of human conditions. That’s why after it’s extinguished, so few people, no matter what happens, can ever get it back. Let the world rest. Be as I suggest. Nothing is created without my knowledge.”
The man disappeared, and then it was just Justin, looking past his feet to the universe below. One he was destined to control.
= = =
Raimey heard rustling above him. He tried to open his eyes. Only one obeyed. A seagull was perched on a mangled traffic light overhead. It was deformed. Its beak was misshapen and it had no chest feathers and only one leg. But it had lived through its condition without the luxury of complaint. It had survived against the odds, and now it looked down at Raimey with the same curiosity as the brown squirrel before, with its pair of black beads that seemed to say, “Yes, we are both living. Now what are you doing to do with it?”
His memory came back. Glass.
God. I don’
t know if you’re out there. I hope you are, but the proof seems to show otherwise. Please let Mike Glass in. I’m not saying he deserves it. I know I don’t. But he finally learned right.
A hero’s death, but still, Raimey’s heart mourned the passing of his unlikely friend. Cynthia had seen something in that skeleton man that no other human could see. And she knew what to put out in front of him: the one thing he would chase to the end of the earth. His humanity.
“Good work, Cynthia,” Raimey said. The seagull squawked in response and took flight.
Raimey threw up in his facemask. It drained away. He felt the looseness of his skin, and far off his dead nerves tingled in phantom pain. The metal body that had been his shield for so long was failing. From deep in his chest came a sick, grinding sound. One of the waist chains had been shorn. His entire body vibrated from an electric motor about to blow.
He stood up slowly, checking to see what worked and what didn’t. One of his feet was gone. He felt the sickly wind tingling against his raw back—most of the armor had been torn off. The wires and gears that gave him motion were exposed. Every warning light in his helmet was flashing. He didn’t even know he had so many.
Raimey let out a sharp, long laugh that turned into a scream. It echoed over the battered landscape, an alien sound. He trudged out of the city and into the wasteland. His body wheezed, and thick, viscous fluid—the hydraulshock oil—rolled down his arms as if an artery had been nicked. He wobbled like a drunk: the gyroscope system that utilized the waist chains was fried.
He passed a Lindo; it was as still as a statue. Raimey waved a hand in front of it. Nothing. He flicked it with his finger and it fell over.
“Hmm,” Raimey said.
He walked past more Lindos, and they continued the trend of not stopping him, acknowledging him, or getting out of the way. He bumped into a few of them, and they toppled over, stiff as a board.
His last waist chain began to rattle, and then it thwapped off, knocking over a Lindo. Raimey fell to the ground. He could no longer walk. He clawed his way forward toward a valley that looked as if a meteor strike had created it.
His wife walked next to him, barefoot, unaffected by the poisoned land. Raimey crawled over the ridge and down into the vast pit. At the crater bottom, he saw steel. A blast door. The entrance to the Northern Star.
“You can make it,” his wife said.
He felt her hand on his. He knew it wasn’t true, but he let the warmth of her past life run up his metal arm and strengthen him for this one last push.
He slid down the hill like a penguin, troughing the sandy soil. At the bottom, he dragged on. An hour later he was at the blast doors. He looked up and around. They couldn’t be opened, even if he were well.
He turned to his wife, and this time she didn’t move. He wrestled himself into a seated position against the door and started to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did. I should have known better. I should have thought it through.” He weakly banged his fists against the door, and it rang hollowly.
“You did your best, John,” she said. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Raimey sniffled. “Yeah. Will you sit with me for a while?”
“Of course, love.”
Patches of Lindos stood around him, frozen, like pawns without a move. He paid them no attention.
John Raimey sat next to his wife’s memory. He felt the sun setting, but there was no visual cue in the swirl of muddy gray. He closed his eyes and felt Tiffany’s head against his shoulder. He felt the warmth of their bed and the feel of her breast against his hand. Her breath, the rise and fall of her chest, that means so much more than we realize until it’s gone.
He drifted off to sleep.
= = =
Lindo sat in an old English study. Book-lined shelves rose to the ceiling, a large fireplace centered the room, and two leather chairs framed it, facing one another. One was empty; Evan sat in the other. The logs crackled blue and orange.
This was where Evan maintenanced. Just as Glass would dream of himself as human, this was where Lindo would go for a reprieve.
Lindo looked at his watch and frowned. And then Justin was there.
“You’re late,” Evan said, in an attempt at humor.
Justin didn’t say anything. He seemed distracted.
The process is confusing, initially, Lindo thought to himself.
“I’m fine,” Justin said. Lindo kept his surprise behind a poker face. “I saw you, Evan. Who you really are. Have you seen yourself lately?”
“Quiet,” Lindo replied. “I won’t be that much longer.” He wanted to talk for a while—it was so rare to have company—but he was already irritated. He initiated the Forced Autism.
Justin should have disappeared, but he did not. Suddenly Evan’s chair felt lumpy, and the fireplace was putting out too much heat. As if he were the visitor.
“Why would you think Forced Autism would work on me, Evan? My brain is different, yeah? That’s why you want it, so you can cram you and your stolen souls inside. But what makes it special is exactly why YOU CAN’T HAVE IT. You’re not a god, Evan. You’re just an old man in a glass jar. And your time is up.”
I saved us from MindCorp, from China! Evan tried to argue, but he had no voice. He panicked. This was a mistake! This was a mistake!
“You created those evils before you banished them. They were never as bad as you.”
Lindo’s eyes grew wide: Justin could hear his thoughts. And if that was true, then the construct of the Northern Star and the flow of information had been altered. Lindo was the slave to Justin, not the other way around.
Justin saw Raimey through six hundred eyes. He was sitting against the blast door. Justin initiated the door sequence and began to absorb all the components of the Northern Star.
All except for two.
= = =
When the alarm blared and the door started to swing outward, Raimey tried to crawl out of the way—but his body shut down. The door ground into him, turning him against the earth, and he thought that this was it: he would finally die. But then he felt someone pull on him, and then someone else. He craned his head, and with his good eye he watched as twenty Lindos dragged him clear of the door.
“NO!” he screamed. He tried to restart his body, but smoke erupted from it as the battery exploded.
“It’s me, John,” the Lindos said. It was Justin’s voice.
“I can’t move,” Raimey replied. “I’m done.”
Justin saw that Raimey had severe burns on his face. One of his eyes was completely white, and the other was frosting from the radiation.
“You’ll never need this body again,” the Justins promised.
They picked Raimey up and, like pallbearers, carried him inside to the hydraulic lift. Past their arms, Raimey saw his wife.
Together they began the long descent down to the Northern Star.
= = =
Justin purged Lindo from the consciousness of the Northern Star. Lindo vanished from the study, and then Justin closed his eyes to dismantle Lindo’s maintenance program and build his own. Fresh air filled his nostrils as he opened his eyes to a field. The sky was a deep blue; a sliver of clouds floated high overhead, peppering parts of the field in shade. A breeze blew, bending the flowers and tall grass. He heard the babbling of water just over a hill, and he walked toward it.
She sat on a blanket next to the stream. When they saw each other, she patted the blanket beside her.
“You made it,” she said with a smile.
“Did I do this?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I support your thoughts. When we first met, I could tell you liked this landscape, so I created the template when you discarded Lindo’s maintenance program.”
He understood.
“I didn’t trick you, but I did use you,” Vanessa said. “I’m sorry. Evan wanted you more than the world, and calling out to you fueled that hunger.”
“Did you know this would happen?” Justin
asked.
“Yes. A voice told me.” She looked up.
Justin smiled. “Your father is on his way. He’s halfway down the lift.”
“Mike is dead,” she said sadly, and then became self-aware. “I’m sorry. I know he hurt you. I can’t justify what he’s done, but for whatever reason, we were happy.”
“Don’t be sorry. He loved you. And even when Lindo tore it all away, Glass found a way to get it back.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Do you want to go or do you want to stay?” Justin asked. “You’re no longer a prisoner. It’s up to you.”
= = =
The Justins carried Raimey through the crackling blue entrance of the Northern Star. China Girl came over and looked into Raimey’s visor. Raimey’s heart raced.
“I won’t attack,” she said over the thwapping of the Data Cores. “Come with me.”
She led him past the Pieces. He saw Justin in one, jogging in a pod of blue. They stopped at the pod in front of the Mega Core. Inside the pod was a man Raimey hadn’t seen in a long time.
“This is Evan Lindo,” China Girl said.
“China Girl, remove him,” a voice echoed. It was Justin’s. “John, I wish this could be your kill.”
“He did as much wrong to you as he did to me,” Raimey said. His voice was unamplified, and it barely escaped his helmet.
Gel spilled over the platform as China Girl decanted the pod. She climbed up and unhooked the skinny body from the Impetus machine, then laid the body on the ground.
Evan began to cough. He tried to get up, but his body was horrifically atrophied, and the helmet was like an anchor.
“Help,” he said. “Help.”
“Do you have anything to say, John?” Justin asked. The Justins turned Raimey so he could see the man who had betrayed him and the world.
“Goodbye, Evan,” Raimey said.
Evan writhed on the floor like a worm, but he didn’t reply.
“China Girl,” Justin said.
She stepped over Evan and shoved a blade through his chest, piercing his heart. He didn’t arch his back in pain; he didn’t bellow or curse the world. He just ceased living. China Girl retracted the blade and picked up the former god, removing him from the room. Her loyalties were to the Northern Star, not to an individual. And the Northern Star had spoken.
The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition Page 92