Sloane leaned against the base of one of the flying buttresses.
“So,” Matt said. He looked weary. “Thoughts, anyone?”
The request was a cue for her to tumble right back into the person she had been when they first fought the Dark One. She found herself speaking.
“The overlap between our universe and this one seems to be substantial,” she said. “I saw a lot of familiar buildings on the drive to the Drain site. My guess is there’s a relatively recent point of departure between this world and ours.”
Esther looked lost, so Matt explained. “There’s a theory in quantum physics that there is an infinite number of possibilities for how any event might turn out, and each of those possibilities creates a different universe. Think of it like . . . a fork in the road. You could go down either path, so there’s a universe where you choose left, and another universe where you choose right. Slo’s saying that the fork in the road for Genetrix and Earth happened pretty recently.”
“Is that good?” Esther asked.
“I think so,” Sloane said. “It means a lot of things will be familiar.”
“Except—and I feel like this is a pretty crucial point that you’re downplaying right now—we don’t know how to get home,” Esther said. “And they do. So we’re trapped.”
“I’m not downplaying it,” Sloane said. “I’m saying it’s good that if we had to end up in a parallel universe, it’s one where people speak English and aren’t, like, growing a third nostril or sleeping in vats of goo or something.”
Esther snorted, and they all fell silent for a moment.
“They were surprised by how many of us came out of that river,” Sloane said. “They expected only one. A parallel Chosen One.”
“Yeah, could you have claimed that title any faster, Matt, by the way?” Esther said.
Sloane crossed the room and opened one of the windows. A gust of cool air hit her face, making her shiver. Across the street was a building made of brown stone with a row of columns set into it. City Hall. She heard the rush of cars across pavement and the roar of a distant train in motion. It sounded like the Chicago Sloane knew.
When she turned back, Matt was shrugging. “Sloane getting pissed didn’t seem to be helping, so I decided to be cooperative instead.”
“Sorry for being a little startled that we got sucked into another dimension,” Sloane snapped.
“Startled.” Matt raised his eyebrows. “That’s one word for it. Hostile is another.”
“Hey,” Esther said, sounding tired. “We need a united front if we’re going to get through this.” She bit her lip. “Are we really gonna do this?” Her stare was blank, fixed on the opposite wall—or something beyond it. “Fight the Dark One again?”
“We did it before.” Matt’s head was framed by the stained-glass window, so it looked as if the Virgin Mary were gazing down at him, her eyes half closed, the very picture of serenity. “And we learned a lot from it. We can do it again—better this time, maybe.”
“No,” Sloane said. “No, we won’t be fucking better at it.”
Matt was ready with an objection. “Slo—”
“No! I’m not going to stand here and let you give us a pep talk when we’re in a goddamn living nightmare,” she said. “Albie is dead, Ines is a universe away, the Dark One is still alive, and this world is stuffed with magic we don’t know how to wield!”
“I’d say you know something about how to wield it,” Matt said coolly. “How else could you have blown up the Dome last night? Pipe bomb?”
Sloane didn’t answer. She didn’t know how.
“You think Slo is the one who attacked the Dome?” Esther said. “Matt—”
“He’s right.” Sloane kept her eyes steady on Matt’s as she spoke. “I did it. I dug up Koschei’s Needle and destroyed the magic prototype.”
“Fuck, Slo,” Esther said. “I thought the Needle was destroyed years ago.”
“It wasn’t,” Sloane said. “I just didn’t want ARIS to have it.”
“But you thought it was fine if you had it?” Matt said. “Because you’re more trustworthy than ARIS?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I am.”
“You probably killed people, you know that?” Matt said. “Janitors, security staff.”
Sloane looked down at the raised scar tissue on the back of her hand, the jagged lines caused by her crooked teeth. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” She lifted her head.
“What?” Matt said.
“Why do you think I gnawed the Needle out of my own hand?” Sloane brandished the back of her hand at Matt like it was a weapon. “Because all the other people who were with me on the Deep Dive mission to get it are dead. I killed every last one of them.” She was tense, her shoulders up by her ears. Bracing herself for impact, she thought. “ARIS wouldn’t remove the Needle even when I begged them to,” she said. “So I did it myself.”
She remembered the x-ray of her hand taken after the Deep Dive incident. The bones, stark white against the black background, grayish in places where they weren’t as dense. And then right in the middle, the thick Needle, tapering to a sharp point.
It’s really stuck in there, the doctor had said. Like it thinks it belongs or something.
Sloane had gone her entire life never getting what she wanted. No one had ever even asked her what she wanted. She didn’t make any Christmas lists or birthday requests, that was a given—but there were also no signed field-trip forms, no clubs or sports or musical instruments, no lunch money—hell, no food in the kitchen half the time, especially after Cameron joined the fight against the Dark One. As far as her mom knew, Sloane had no desires beyond physical necessities. And sometimes she wasn’t even allowed to want those.
So when it came to getting the Needle out, she had decided that this one time, she would get what she wanted for herself, even if she had to do it with her teeth.
“That was for your own safety,” Matt said. “ARIS didn’t know how the Needle would react—”
Sloane laughed. “ARIS never gave a shit about our safety as long as at least one of us survived to fulfill the fucking prophecy. They made me keep the Needle because it served their purposes. That’s all.”
Matt’s eyebrows knit together like they always did when he pitied someone. She hated it.
“And now here we are again,” she said, “another wall of flesh between the people in charge and the Dark One. So how are we going to survive this time?”
Neither of the others answered. Esther seemed unwilling to even look at her. Sloane thought of the bloodstained waves crashing around the ARIS boat, now empty. Thought of how she had hauled herself back onto the deck and padded on flippered feet to the controls to activate the distress signal, tasting copper on her tongue.
She thought of the sting of water hitting her shins as she did a cannonball off the diving board. Cameron waiting for her at the edge of the pool.
And the taste of river water, the pale glint of the Dark One’s cheek in the moonlight, before he disappeared.
Sloane opened the door and was about to leave when Matt spoke again.
“We’ll find a way,” he said.
“Yeah,” she replied, and she walked out.
Sloane wasn’t surprised when Matt followed her into the hallway.
Their first kiss had happened something like this. After the fall of the Dark One, he had asked her out a few times. Each time, she had refused. They were friends, she said. She didn’t think of him that way.
But it had just been an excuse, because she had no longer known how she thought of him. The image of him when she first met him—all elbows and knees—had vanished, and the one of him conquering the Dark One had replaced it, the light from the Golden Bough warm on his face, his arm taut and muscular as he held it out to cast the killing blow, his chest heaving, his jaw clenched—
Her hero. Everyone’s, really, but hers most of all.
He hadn’t accepted her refusals, which had bothered her. His persi
stence was just insulting, she insisted. As if he believed she didn’t know her own mind. But in this particular case, he had been right. Because at one of Ines and Albie’s parties, she and Matt had talked until three in the morning, arms draped over the back of the sagging couch, beer bottles dangling in their fingers long after the beer was gone. Matt had asked her again, and she had avoided the question and gotten up to use the bathroom. And he had followed her into the hallway and kissed her.
“Think of me another way,” he had said as he pulled away.
She couldn’t remember that feeling of fire in her belly that had driven her to press him up against the wall next to the bathroom and push her tongue into his mouth. She didn’t feel it anymore.
“I know it’s not a good time,” Matt said. “But we have to—”
“Talk. I know.”
He was dressed in preppy funeral clothes: a white collared shirt, a tie, a black sweater. Wool slacks, pressed so they’d had a sharp crease earlier that day. Now he looked rumpled and exhausted, like this conversation was just another task at the end of a long list.
He said, “I’m not even sure where to start, honestly.”
Sloane laughed. It felt more like a cough. She didn’t need him to start. As if drunkenly mocking Matt’s proposal with Albie hadn’t been enough, there was blowing up the Dome, lying about the Dive, hiding the FOIA request, burying the Needle in their storage unit . . . and the line of little deceptions that made up their days, every time she felt one thing but said another or indulged him in some fantasy of her that bore no resemblance to reality. There was almost nothing about them that was real anymore, and it was her fault.
But her throat was tight at the thought of what was coming, because he would be another person who didn’t want her. As if her parents and Bert and every journalist and Chosen One fangirl in existence weren’t enough. “You and I are all wrong,” she said. “You don’t need to convince me of that.”
“You’re not even going to argue with me?”
“There’s no point.”
“So you have no desire to fight for us at all,” he said, volume rising. “You’ve just—what, been waiting around for me to break up with you because you didn’t have the guts to do it yourself?”
She shook her head. “That’s not it. I—I know that when you find something good, you should hang on to it. That’s all.”
“That’s so . . .” He blinked rapidly. “That’s so fucking selfish, Sloane.”
“What?”
“Ten years,” he said. “Ten years I could have spent with someone who actually gave a shit about me instead of someone who lies to me and can’t even pretend to care when we break up.”
“I care,” she said. “Just because I’m not the sobbing type doesn’t mean I don’t care!”
“If you cared, you wouldn’t have bolted right after I proposed to you and made fun of me to Albie,” he said. “If you cared, you would have called a goddamn therapist after you almost sleep-murdered me in the middle of the night.”
“I wasn’t making fun of you to Albie,” she said. “He said it sounded like you didn’t know me, and I agreed. That’s all.”
“Like I didn’t know you?”
“Yeah!” Sloane threw up her hands. “You’re acting like all this shit comes as a surprise! Well, I am exactly who I’ve always claimed to be. And you’ve just been walking around with your fingers in your ears for ten years.”
“So in other words, it’s my fault because I believed in you.”
“No, it’s your fault for acting like you know me better than I know myself!”
She realized, belatedly, that he had said believed. Past tense. She hadn’t understood how much his belief in her—foolish as it had been—had permeated her until it was gone. She felt like a cored apple, gutted of all the things that could bring life or a future. All shiny skin and juicy flesh and nothing else.
She slipped the ring from her finger and held it out to him. Her hands were steady, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. If she did, she would remember how warm they had been whenever they looked at her. How they sparkled a little when he smiled at one of her jokes. How fierce they could be when something threatened the ones he loved. She would be very little to him now. An old friend, an ex-girlfriend. She would fade into his memory. That was how it always was—she faded away for people once she had served her purpose. “I really am sorry,” she said quietly. “For not being more.”
“Yeah.” Matt put the ring in his pocket. “So am I.”
He closed the door behind him. Sloane sat at the end of the bed, listening to Esther thumping around in the room next door and the cars rumbling past on the street below, a shush sound audible even from this high up. When she could move again, she crawled toward the headboard, her shoes still on, and curled up on her side. She could feel them coming, the wild, fierce sobs that took her over when the hollow feeling inside her was too much to bear. She grabbed the pillow and buried her face in it, falling asleep when she was too tired to feel anymore.
TOP SECRET
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: Project Delphi, Subproject 3
Subproject 3 is being set up as a means to continue the present work in the field of Divination Verification and Validation at [redacted] until 4 April 1999.
This project will include a continuation of the study of the predictions of [redacted], code name Sibyl, with an aim to verify the accuracy of the End of the World Prophecy made on 16 February 1999 as well as associated predictions from alternate “sensitives” (defined as those with an innate perception of times other than the present). A detailed proposal is attached. The principal investigators will continue to be [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted].
The estimated budget of the project is $156,200.00. [redacted] will serve as a cover for this project and will furnish the above funds to [redacted] as a philanthropic grant.
[redacted] are cleared through TOP SECRET and are aware of the true purpose of the project.
APPROVED:
[redacted]
TOP SECRET
TOP SECRET
MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD
TO: Director, Central Intelligence Agency
FROM: James Wong, Praetor of the Council of Cordus
SUBJECT: Project Delphi, Subproject 3
Dear Director,
It is with a heavy heart that I write this report, knowing the implications of our findings. Let me get on with it.
Per your instructions, we investigated all eighty-seven prophecies that had allegedly been made by [redacted], code name Sibyl, prior to the End of the World Prophecy made on 16 February 1999.
We were able to verify that eighty of the eighty-seven prophecies had indeed been made prior to 16 February 1999, according to witness testimonies, phone records, journal entries, and various other forms of physical evidence. We then pursued the results of said prophecies and were able to confirm that all eighty of said prophecies had indeed come to pass, within a time frame ranging from seven days to thirteen years.
It is the opinion of the Council of Cordus that the fulfillment of fifty of these prophecies was both unambiguous and specific; i.e., that they are not predictions of the fortuneteller variety (which are so vague as to be widely applicable). We defined specificity as details that apply to no more than 30 percent of the population. At least five of these specific details needed to be stated in the initial prophecy and met.
Therefore we are forced to conclude that the End of the World Prophecy, being the most specific of Sibyl’s prophecies, is overwhelmingly likely to be valid and imminent. The Council of Cordus therefore recommends that the search for the prophecy’s Chosen One must be undertaken with the greatest haste.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I am available for further discussion or inquiry should you require it.
Sincerely,
James Wong
Praetor, Council of Cordus
TOP SECRET
18
SLOANE DREAMED that the Dark One was standing at her bedside, dragging a cool finger along her cheek. She woke with a start, grabbed the glass of water on her bedside table, and gulped it down.
Few people had seen the Dark One’s face without dying immediately afterward. Even his followers only saw something out of fantasy novels and space epics: a man of cloak and shroud, mask and mystery. So the startling thing about him, in Sloane’s memories, was always his face: young and pale, a swoop of mousy-brown hair over his forehead, watery eyes. He looked like the preserved corpse of a handsome man, his eyes empty, his skin waxy smooth.
Sloane had seen his face and lived.
She dove for the bag she had brought with her from Earth and turned it upside down on the white floor. It was morning, but only just, so the light coming through the frosted windows was blue. She squinted at the pile she had created. There were soggy receipts and gum wrappers, wet matches, a pocketknife, her wallet. She poked her fingers into the corners of the billfold. There, wedged between a dollar bill and the leather, was one last benzo.
She held it up so she could stare at it. Just one left. She could take it now, trusting that this—the morning after finding out she was trapped in an alternate universe—was the worst it would get. Or she could save it for when she was insensible with terror. There were surely harder times ahead.
Sighing, Sloane put the pill on the bedside table and stuck her head between her knees to breathe.
It was a little brighter in the room when Sloane had collected herself enough to stand up. She left the wet matchbook and other scraps on the floor, shoved her feet into her boots, and walked down the hall. The others were still asleep. She went to the bathroom to force her tangled hair into a braid and rinse the sleep from her eyes. They hadn’t given her a toothbrush, so either they didn’t use toothbrushes anymore because they cleaned their teeth with siphons or they had simply forgotten to leave her one. In any case, her teeth felt fuzzy.
Chosen Ones Page 15