by Alex Raizman
"Yes,” the man said. “More than most people get."
There was a finality to that tone, something that told Ryan it would be pointless to argue or vent his frustrations. So instead, question after question began to race through Ryan's mind. But he needed to ask the right question, if he was only going to get one. After a minute, maybe two, of standing there frowning in furious thought, it occurred to him. The question that would get him the most answers, and really, at this point, the only one that mattered.
"Why are you leaving?"
The man in the suit smiled. "Good question. And the answer is because my prediction was right - you were the one to find it." He saw Ryan's face, saw the confusion on it, and actually laughed. "Sorry for being vague. It's been awhile since I have spoken to anyone. You're one of over a thousand people who match some of our criteria as likely candidates. And...well, check your left pocket."
With a trembling hand, Ryan reached down into his pocket. His heart started pounding when he felt something in there. A couple somethings. He hadn't bought anything at the store...what was in his pocket? He fished it out.
One of them was the keychain that he had been intending to buy for Isabel, slipped into his pocket without thought when the man started running. Gotta go back and pay for that. The other object was a black marble flecked with glitter, something he vaguely remembered picking up to get to the “Show Me State” keychain. Great, he thought wildly, more unconscious theft. It didn’t take any immense deduction to realize the keychain probably wasn’t what the man in the suit meant.
"A marble?" It was a stupid thing to ask, and the man in the suit chuckled.
"Look closer."
So he did. He stared at the marble, and suddenly it seemed to expand, filling his entire field of vision. What he had thought were flecks of glitter in there were...stars. The swirl pattern in the center? A galaxy. It kept expanding, giving him an immense feeling of vertigo, like he was falling into the star field.
The man’s voice seemed to come from far away. "You found a nanoverse. The last one of this Era, left behind by the Creator. We were watching to see who found it, to figure out who would be next. And now that it's been found...now that you’re the one...my work is done."
Overwhelmed, Ryan squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on his breathing. This is too much. This can’t be happening. I’m going crazy. Crazier.
After a few seconds he opened his eyes and was relieved to see the alley instead of the impossible field of stars.
“What…” he gasped. “What was that?”
The man in the suit turned to walk away. "I told you, only one question. But I'll give you some free advice."
Ryan took another deep breath to steady himself. "Okay."
"Don't put it in a drawer and forget about it. You've got a pretty amazing thing there, Ryan. And in spite of the fact that I unintentionally turned you into a nervous wreck...I think you're going to do some pretty amazing things with it." The man in the suit smiled. “I’ve watched you your entire life, Ryan. I have faith you’ll be able to pull this off.”
Before Ryan could ask more questions that the man in the suit would not answer - what was a nanoverse, what he was supposed to do with it, what was he supposed to pull off, what the hell was going on - the man turned and walked through a wall. This time, there was no way around, no way for Ryan to follow. He was gone, and Ryan was, for the first time in his life, truly alone.
His mind was spinning. None of this made any sense, and Ryan felt like he needed a million years to process what was going on. Instead, he got seven seconds. Seven seconds where no one was looking at him, no one was writing down what he did, no one was watching him.
Then a gun cocked behind him, and a voice growled, "Put down the nanoverse, and you might get out of this alive."
◆◆◆
Ryan Smith was the most boring human Enki had ever encountered. And that’s saying something for their kind. Enki had spent most of his time watching interesting people. Warriors, conquerors, men and women who would shape history. Which Ryan Smith only had a tiny chance of ever managing. Hell, if things went the way Enki wanted them to, Ryan would only be a footnote in history. The man who’d found the nanoverse that had given Enki what he needed to escape the shackles of destiny.
The man who had given Enki what he needed to save the world.
The past year had been slow, dull work, following the Curator who was following the boring human. He couldn’t risk being seen by either of them. No sane individual challenged a Curator directly, and one of the few things that could get them to act was trying to follow them.
But Enki had been sure that Nabu was worth following. This particular Curator had a great track record. Throughout the ages, he had consistently honed in on people who would find a nanoverse. With only one nanoverse left in this age, finding it before some dumbass human picked it up and stared into it was vital, so Enki had put his faith in Nabu, and he had been rewarded.
He’d waited almost ten thousand years for this.
This is it, Ishtar, he thought. I know it is.
Ishtar. Even after millennia, Enki’s rage sometimes felt as hot as it had the day she had betrayed him. The lying traitor had been his friend, his ally, his trusted companion. He had forgiven her first lies, when she had claimed to be just like him, instead of admitting from the first that she’d hailed from a distant past, a time before humanity had even been a gleam in Earth’s eye. When there were different continents, different lands.
She had told him of the death of her people, and his heart had broken for her. When she told him that it would happen again, he had believed her. One day, she had said, there will only be one nanoverse left, and when it is found, the end will be near. He had trusted her to know what to do when that time came. He had imagined that they would stand together.
Then had come Lamashtu, and the deluge needed to defeat her. Those horrors had opened Enki’s eyes, and he had sworn he’d never let it get that bad again.
He had gone to Ishtar, and she’d betrayed him. They had all betrayed him.
Enki had accepted that he was alone, and that he was the only one who understood what needed to be done. He had made it his life’s work to be the one to find that nanoverse. He would control destiny, and he would make the right choices.
His hands went down to his pocket, thumbing his own nanoverse. It was supposed to be impossible to command two of the things, but Enki had found a way. And it’s a hell of a lot easier if I beat this punk to claiming it.
Loitering outside the souvenir shop, grimly reflecting on the past, Enki almost didn’t notice Nabu strolling out through the wall. When Ryan bolted after the Curator, it took a second for Enki to process that Ryan was following Nabu, instead of the other way around.
He has the nanoverse! That was the only explanation for why the Curator would have left his subject. But if Ryan had looked into it, he would have been too shocked to chase. He has it, but he hasn’t claimed it. There’s still time to get it before that fool ruins everything.
Still time before I have to kill him.
Enki pulled out his gun and joined the chase. He was old fashioned and preferred swords and axes and weapons of a bygone age. But he’d brought a gun, because sometimes impressions mattered, and in this day and age people were more likely to respond to a gun than someone nutjob with an anachronistic armament. A guy with a sword was a lunatic, a guy with a gun was a threat. And I sure as hell am not a damn lunatic, thought the man who had spent a year following a boring bureaucrat following a human who might, only might, be able to get him what he wanted.
Enki began to draw on his power, preparing gusts of wind, storms, maybe even a fireball for effect. No, he thought. That will spook him, and I don’t want him to run. If he does, I’ll probably be forced to kill him. If he gives me the nanoverse, I can spare him. If he doesn’t, I can just take it from him.
If he’s claimed it, I’ll definitely have to kill hi
m. But no killing innocents unless you have to.
The only downside to a gun was that it wasn’t part of Enki. Not like his clothes, or like a weapon he’d pulled out of the air. It was a physical object. It got stuck on things, on people. It slowed him down. It meant he missed whatever transpired between Ryan and the Curator in the alley.
But it also meant Ryan couldn’t ignore it when Enki pressed it against the back of his skull.
Chapter 2
New Friends
Ryan's heart was pounding, and he turned around, every motion as careful as possible. The last thing he wanted to do was startle the brute into shooting him. To compare the man behind him to a gorilla would be an insult to the majestic apes. He was huge, the very definition of hulking, easily six and half feet and almost that broad at the shoulders. His brow jutted over his eyes, casting the little beads in a deep shadow. You couldn't compare tree trunks to his arms, because tree trunks weren't pale and bulging with muscle, and they didn't hold the largest handgun Ryan had ever seen, something so massive it looked like it had been drawn out of a cartoon or an over the top video game.
"Ohgodpleasedon'tkillme." Ryan's hands instinctively shot up in a “reach for the sky” gesture, and his knees threatened to buckle. Ryan had never seen a gun in person before, not a real one, much less found himself in a staring contest with the black pit of the barrel. This was a terror unlike anything Ryan could imagine.
The brute grunted at that. People passing the alley turned and gave odd looks at the exclamation, glancing at Ryan like he had lost his mind. He’d gotten such looks fairly often in his life, and as always, everyone was more than happy to ignore the obviously crazy man standing there. An unsettling realization built up in the small part of Ryan's brain not focused entirely on the gun.
"They can't see you, can they? I'm...I'm holding my hands up in an empty alley, as far as they can see."
"Yup."
"So...you'll pass through matter, too? If you shoot me, the bullet...it'll just pass right through me?"
Again, a grunt of "Yup." For a moment, Ryan felt a wave of relief, then noticed the evil gleam in the man's eyes.
He gulped, his mouth once again going bone dry as he realized that there were multiple ways to interpret that last question. "It'll just pass harmlessly through me?" Ryan asked, knowing a hopeful note was creeping into his voice, a note that didn’t belong there with a man pointing a gun at his face.
That gleam in the man's eyes brightened, and Ryan began to recognize that in spite of his caveman appearance, there was intelligence in those eyes. "Nope."
"I...okay, you can have it."
"Good lad. Most of your kind isn’t so reasonable. Just give it over here, nice and slow like, yeah?"
Ryan reached out, his hand clutching the nanoverse so hard his knuckles were turning white. The brutish man took one of his hands off the gun and held it out...and some perverse urge overtook Ryan. He was going to give it over, he really was...but then the last thirty years would have been for nothing. He'd probably be shot anyway, but even if he wasn't, he'd never know what it was all about.
So he took a gamble, and while the man was still reaching out, Ryan darted forward, straight at the brute. The best case was unlikely. The worse case was to smack into a small mountain of flesh and go tumbling to the ground. The worst case was for that horrible gun to go off, which would also send Ryan tumbling to the ground, but not in a way he would be getting up from.
Instead, as he hoped, he passed right through his mugger. The brute roared in anger and turned around. The whirling motion brought his hand in contact with the wall. He seemed startled when the gun clanged against the brick. It wasn’t much, but it gave Ryan a chance to get a bit more distance between them before gunfire rang out.
Something tugged at Ryan’s collar, and he knew with absolute certainty that he’d find a perfect hole inches from his neck. He ducked right after the tug, an entirely instinctive reaction that saved his life as another bullet parted his hair.
Adrenaline kicked in, and Ryan ran further into the crowd with a speed he didn't know he had. People were starting to scream and scatter as well - even if nothing else about the brute could be seen or heard by anyone else, the sound of gunshots was very real.
For a terrible moment, Ryan wondered if he was about to get some innocent people killed. He'd be relieved to learn later the first bullet had buried itself in a street light, and the second had in fact blown the head off of a mannequin in a store window across the street. Once he was fully into the crowd, however, the gunshots stopped. It seemed his attacker wasn’t interested in collateral, and he was able to escape into the crowd.
◆◆◆
Several blocks later, Ryan was in another alley, panting with fear. Without a direct threat, the panic of earlier was starting to fade, replaced by a bone deep fear and the gradual swell of the sea of questions.
He pushed them down. He was very strongly getting the feeling that, no matter what happened, he'd never get all the answers. And right now, only one mattered - had he been followed?
It didn't seem that way. Either the brute couldn't move all that fast, or hadn't known which way Ryan had gone. Glancing around again, and taking a deep breath, Ryan pulled out the nanoverse and held it up to his face again.
It was hypnotic. An entire galaxy spinning in a black sphere the size of a golf ball. It was much easier to see clearly than it had been earlier.
It's the size of a golf ball.
It had been a marble when he'd found it, right? He kicked his jumbled brain into going over the last few minutes. Yes, when he'd been talking to the man in the suit, it had been a marble. The fact that it was growing somehow was one more bit of unreality, just one more oddity in a day full of them.
Another realization followed that first one, this one slower but more inexorable. The man in the suit was gone. No one was watching Ryan. For the first time in his life, he had privacy. He’d realized it in the first alley, sure, but that thought had been interrupted by the sudden threat. No one was watching him right now, something he’d wanted his entire life, even as he dreaded it.
And he'd never wanted it less. He slipped the nanoverse into his pocket and got back onto the street, joining the crowd, drawing strength in numbers. His attacker wasn’t looking to kill bystanders, and if he decided to follow Ryan, Ryan wanted a chance to survive.
But the questions still burned at him, and the brute had given him another clue. He pulled out his phone and did a search for "nanoverse". The first couple results were some toy line, then some links to something from comics, then a company working on nanomachines. It wasn't until the second page of Google results, the home of the truly desperate, that he found something that looked relevant.
What Is the Nanoverse?
He tapped the link. The page it brought up did not inspire confidence. It looked like something that had been slapped together by a high schooler back in the Geocities days, and the last update to the page had been in 2006. He was about to hit the back arrow and check other pages when a photo loaded.
It was Egyptian, or something like it. The man it depicted evoked the brute from earlier. Ryan couldn’t put his finger on it at first, since this man looked proud and regal, not like some sort of borderline ape-like killer. It was a very impressionistic work, like most early art. It wasn’t until he looked at it for a bit longer that it started to make sense. The shape of the nose, the gleam in the eyes, the overall impression of the art just echoed that man. The caption labelled it as being from ancient Sumeria, and the figure as Enki, one of the chief deities of the region. The idea, crazy as it seemed, that he’d been attacked by someone who looked like an ancient drawing of a god would have been the focus of Ryan’s attention in any other picture. However, one detail managed to outshine even that and fully captivate his attention.
The man was holding a small sphere, carved with smaller, starlike dots.
The crowd faded into the background. Ryan began reading.
And then he got to the last line.
"Of course, the only way someone could stand to read all that rubbish was if they actually found something. Click HERE to contact the website's admin."
He pressed it, out of desperation more than anything else. Instead of bringing up an email form like he expected, it gave him a phone number. More modern than the page seemed.
Hoping against hope that this would mean something, he hit call.
After a few rings, a voice on the other end answered. A woman's voice, sounding like she had just dashed across the room. "'ello?"
"Uh...hi. I'm calling about...the nanoverse?"
There was a pause on the other end. "Oh hell. Now? Of all times, now?" The broad sound to her vowels sounded to Ryan’s American ears like a British accent.
The sheer irritation in her voice shocked Ryan. "Uh...sorry."
"I was just getting settled into this country. Fine, fine, it's not your fault love."
"Uhhh...what?"
Another pause, then a swear. "You're a local, aren't you?"
Ryan cut off yet another "Uh" from his response. "I think so?"
"Got the number off that bloody website, didn't you?"
"Yes." This one, at least, he could say with confidence.
"Scared half out of your mind and on the run from forces you can't understand?"
"Oh God, yes. Can you make sense of all of this for me?"
"Oh, oh dear. I can maybe help some.” A pause during which he heard some tapping sounds, someone with long nails typing at a touchscreen. "Have you gazed into it yet? Rushing sensation, nanoverse filled your entire vision?"