by Jason Luthor
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Perhaps I didn’t actually believe that I should win. Maybe, in the end, I doubted my goals. Whatever the reason, here I am.”
“I don’t hate you, Yousef.”
“I know. In that, you are more human than I gave you credit for.”
“Will you please tell me what happened that day, ten years ago. When you lost your mother.”
A shadow passes over his eyes as he looks first at me, then to the side of the room. “My sister didn’t reveal more? She must have said mother died in the Creep.”
“She did. But maybe she left something out.”
“Or . . . maybe she didn’t see what I saw.” His eyes look back at me. “Is that what you think?”
I nod. “I do.”
For a long time, he just sits there, staring back at me. “The day my mother died . . . the day my sister and I were brutally injured . . . what did she say caused it?”
“She said the Creep came out of nowhere. That nobody ever understood what made it happen.”
“I see.” He nods as his fingers squeeze at his knee. “I’ve thought about it quite a lot, since then. I only pieced it together when I saw you fight her. Ishara. She controlled the Creep.”
“That’s right.”
“You can’t do that, as powerful as you are.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why is that, again?”
“Because . . .” I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before. It actually makes my stomach twist when I realize it. “Because I’m not a psionic. Only people with psionic powers who get absorbed into the Creep end up controlling the Creep.”
“I don’t think the Creep attacked us out of nowhere. It wanted us, Jackie. Or at least, it wanted my sister. It wanted to absorb her for her power. What the end goal was . . .” He shrugs. “All I know is that, for the first time, I believed the Creep might be intelligent. That there might be a more powerful mind in there, hunting for people like her. Perhaps it’s a silly thought. The Creep isn’t intelligent, after all.”
But he’s wrong, and I’m one of the only people who knows that. Just him talking about some intelligence in the Creep makes me think of the Eye in the Utter Wilderness, and I try to push past to the next question. “You said you saw something else when it was happening.”
“Yes.” His eyes go cold as he looks at me, and his voice becomes like ice. “There was a man there, standing unaffected in all of that Creep and appearing as if he wasn’t threatened by the Creep at all. An Angel. My sister has seen recordings of these people. Your president has as well. But nobody seen them like I have. Not as close as I have. You see, this person was dressed all in white, wearing a white cape and a golden chain.” A smile that puts a chill in my spine crosses his lips. “Not unlike what you’re wearing today. Except he wore what I think was a suit underneath his cape. Not a jumpsuit.”
My finger goes to the chain around my neck, my fingers tracing the cape’s fabric for a second as my mind flashes back to a memory of someone I knew in the Tower. “Yousef. What did his face look like?”
“He was an older man, with a short gray goatee. It was his eyes that really set him apart though. I will never forget those eyes. Eyes of silver. It’s strange how, just like you wear his cape, you also have his eyes. Almost as if you’ve become something just like he was.”
The comparison makes my chest tighten up. “An older man with a short gray goatee . . . dressed all in white, with a suit and cape. With silver eyes.”
He must notice me staring away, and he leans in when I don’t say anything else. His face has changed from anger to curiosity. “Have you . . . seen someone like that?”
I look back at him. “I have. I promise you, Yousef . . . I don’t care what you’ve done to me. I will get justice for your family. I promise you I’ll at least do that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.” I turn away and start heading out of the room, but even as I am, I can feel my breath getting short. Yousef was talking about Tower Director Pygmalion.
Tommy’s Recording 42
When we get to Doc Watson’s lab, I’m half expecting him to be that outraged, angry version of him and half expecting the confused, doddering old man he comes across as. Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure what to think about him or how angry to be at him for how he treated Gabriel. In the end, he seemed excited about Jackie, so I guess he wanted her to win . . . but it’s hard to tell with him. It doesn’t matter, because when me and Jackie get into his lab, there’s this weird energy in the air. He’s got a dozen monitors along his wall all displaying different things. Blood cells. Energy readouts. Images of stuff I can’t begin to understand.
Jackie smirks a little as we’re standing there, her in the Mantle Victoriam with her navy-blue military uniform underneath. It’s nice to see her out of the armor, to be honest. Anyway, she looks from one screen to another before looking at the doc. “What’s all this, doc?”
He turns to look at us out of the side of his eye, his hand covered in this glove thing. Only the fingertips are covered, but these thin cables track down the tops of his fingers and over his hands before disappearing into his lab coat. That’s when I see the buttoned-up vest and slacks he’s wearing underneath. “Yeah doc,” I ask as I look him over. “You look . . . Are you going somewhere?”
“Not immediately,” he says as his finger points to one of the monitors. The tip of his finger lights up, and the view changes. “A neurological interface of my own design. I can control the entire lab with a thought and a gesture. I took my inspiration from the device Yousef was using, or at least, the neural connections that comprised it.”
“Are you sure that’s safe?”
“It doesn’t tap into Pocket Space. It is, all things considered, harmless.” He turns to us, taking a deep breath as he does. “Although I suppose that is the very reason I have requested your company. To talk about Pocket Space.”
Jackie’s chest rises as she breathe in this heavy breath. “What about it?”
“What is Pocket Space, Jackie?”
“Another dimension. One where there’s infinite energy and time stands still for objects from our world.”
“Yes, of course, but also no.” He flicks his finger, and the monitors change to views of swirling colors. I’m seeing images of colliding waves of blue on one screen, but waves of red or white on others. “I’ve reached an end to my line of inquiry into the relationship between Pocket Space, our world, and the Creep. Which is why I must depart soon.”
“I don’t get it. What do you mean that you’ve reached an end? Do you know what the Creep is?”
“Not entirely, no, but I have some answers.” He waves a hand, and the screens on the right side start showing images of our world. “On your left are images of Pocket Space. On your right are images of our world. The truth, however, is that they are the same image.”
I scratch my head as I look from one side to the other. “I’m not getting it. How are they the same image?”
“The reality you see on your right is an extension of the world you see on your left. Our world, on your right, is what I have taken to calling the Lower Domain. Pocket Space, to your left, is what I am now calling the Upper Domain. Think of the Upper Domain as lines of code and the Lower Domain the software that you see and interact with. Until now, I’ve conceptualized these two worlds as connected yet distinct dimensions of reality. The truth is not so simple.”
Jackie takes a step forward, her eyes going from the images of Pocket Space to the images of our world. “Our world is created from Pocket Space.”
“Yes.”
“When I . . . transformed, I felt something. Like everything was connected by energy. As if the whole world was sitting on something else.”
“A structure over infrastructure. I first had the notion that Pocket Space was more than just an energy field when I saw you lifting an armored transport into the air using your jetpack
.” His eyes turn my way. “Do you remember? Our first day at Fort Silence?”
I shake my head. “Yeah. You said she was defying the laws of physics.”
“I should have said she was subconsciously rewriting them.” His eye go back to her. “No matter how strong you are, you should not have been able to lift that vehicle into the air. Your jetpack didn’t have nearly the requisite amount of thrust to do so.” He smiles as he lifts a finger to her, almost laughing. “Unless you changed the nature of the very thing you were touching.”
Jackie bites her lip a little but shakes her head at him. “I’m still not completely getting what you’re saying. Pocket Space is what our world is built on, so it can change the nature of our world?”
“Typically, no. All matter and energy in our world arise out of Pocket Space, which itself establishes the fundamental rules by which matter and energy interact. Your Creep cells grant you a direct connection from the Lower to the Upper Domain. Every time you lift a vehicle or fly through the air, you are fundamentally, if temporarily, rewriting the rules by which physics should obey around you. You have an ability to manipulate the Upper Domain, and it happens entirely instinctually on the basis of the nature of your Creep cells,” he says as he flicks at the screens again. This time, images of cells flash against the wall. “Exposure to the Upper Domain excites them.”
As he says it, the cells become agitated. Jackie nods as she looks at the images. “I saw this too, during my experiments. I was trying to find some way of getting them to access even more of Pocket Space . . . of the Upper Domain.”
“That is only possible with a machine like Yousef’s or through unique biological conditions. Conditions you now exist in.”
“But how did I get there?”
“I have no idea. That remains yet another mystery. However, I will tell you one final thing. I mentioned that the Creep cells become agitated under exposure to energy from the Upper Domain, and that specific energy frequencies can harm the Creep. And, of course, I told you that our world is built upon the Upper Domain. Matter arises from it.”
“If the Upper Domain is the code that lets matter exist, that means that Pocket Space is constantly generating our existence. It’s not a frozen existence.”
“Yes.”
She turns around, her palm on her forehead as she looks like she’s about to panic. I lean toward her and reach out a hand, but she just waves me off. “Jacko. You alright?”
“Tommy, it all makes sense.”
“What does?”
“You saw Yousef. How he grew during the fight.”
“Yeah.”
“And you see how I become seven feet tall whenever I enter the suit.”
“Well, yeah.”
“It’s perfect energy to matter conversion. We’re rewriting the code from the Upper Domain and generating matter in our reality.” She turns around and walks to the monitors, her hand resting on one of the monitors. “The First Law of Thermodynamics says that matter can’t be created or destroyed, but that’s because our universe is a closed system. All that ever was or will be exists already. You can’t create energy, but the Creep keeps generating and generating. It keeps getting infinite amounts of power, just like our city and our technology keeps running on power sources that basically don’t ever go out unless the engine is destroyed. Obviously, the Upper Domain is the source of all that energy. The thing is, it’s also the source of the Creep. Matter is being converted from energy when it transitions from Upper Domain to the Lower Domain and taking the form of the Creep. That’s why the Creep is so drawn to it.”
She turns back to look at the two of us. “When Yousef got bigger, when I grew to match the armor, it was all an energy to matter conversion. You rewrite the code in the Upper Domain, and the Lower Domain reflects it. I was subconsciously telling the Upper Domain to code me as seven feet tall, and so an energy to matter conversion happened to give me that added mass. The same thing’s going on with the Creep. Something is sending a signal, rewriting what our reality should look like, and that’s causing the Creep to continue growing and growing.”
I rub at my forehead. “Well, then what’s sending the signal to the Upper Domain?”
Her eyes go to the doctor. “Doctor Watson. If I’m doing it subconsciously, then something else has to be triggering the Upper Domain to keep generating Creep. What could be manipulating Pocket Space that much that the Creep has spread over so much of the world?”
His eyes look away, his tongue playing along his lips for a second before looking back at her. “I have spent a great deal of time trying to understand that. Still . . . I do not know, but I believe there are answers out there. Answers in the ruins of the corporation that began this all.”
“Apeiron.”
“Yes,” he says with a nod. “That is why I must leave Central, because in my . . .” His fingers are shaking as he puts two fingers to his forehead, his teeth gritting as he talks and his voice growling out of his throat. “Something in my mind refuses to let me remember. But I feel there is something, some place, where our answers lie. In the west. Beyond your Tower, in the place they call the Wastes.”
Jackie’s quiet for a long time as she looks at him, Doctor Watson looking honestly, completely distraught as he stands there shaking. Eventually, she nods her head. “There’s something out there. Yousef was telling me something earlier . . . about a man in white he saw the day his mother died in the Creep.”
I look over at her. “An Angel?”
“He thought it as, but . . . this person wore a suit and a cape. But it’s what Yousef said about his eyes. He had silver eyes.” She pauses for a second before looking up at me. “Like I do, but also like the Tower director. Director Edward Pygmalion, from home.”
“From the Tower?”
“Yeah.” She looks back at the doc. “I’m heading back there for a little bit. I get that you watched that Tower for centuries, but there’s something, or someone you forgot. I’m going to find out what that is.” Then she looks my way. “But I’m also going so I can bring everyone home, here. To Central.”
“That’s . . . amazing. We’ll be ready and waiting.”
The doc holds up a hand as he finally starts to settle down, his hand lying across his chest as he walks across the room. After clearing his throat, he moves over to a door leading into one of the examination rooms. “Lest I forget, there is one last matter at hand. To now, most of this conversation has been for Jackie’s sake. However, there is something you should know, Tommy. Or, at the very least, something you should see.”
“Something I should see? What . . .?”
He slides open the door, and when he does, I feel myself starting to shake and my breath sticking in my lungs. “What . . . what am I . . . ?” I take a step and nearly fall over, Jackie catching me as I’m looking across the room. He’s there, with his blonde hair and a few days’ worth of stubble over his face. He’s wearing a patient’s gown, and he’s got a huge bandage around his chest. But it’s him. It’s really him. “President . . . Gabriel.”
“Tommy,” he says as he smiles, his arms opening wide. “Come here.”
I look at Jackie, who’s eyes suddenly look like they’re watering up. She looks at me and smiles, and I just stumble toward him, my legs wanting to go out at any second when I collapse into his arms. I feel his arms squeeze around me as he takes a deep breath, holding me as I let out this gasping sigh. When I pull away, I have to wipe at my eyes before settling against the wall, bracing against it so I don’t collapse onto the floor. “How. I saw you . . .” My eyes go over to the doc. “Did you . . . ?”
Doc Watson nods. “I know how angry you were with me, Tommy. However, even if it meant you hating me, I could not reveal what I had done. General Yousef was monitoring our every conversation, and if he’d known, he would have killed poor Gabriel here. I apologize for the deception.”
“No. No, I’m . . . I’m the one who’s sorry,” I tell him as my hand covers my mouth and I try my harde
st to keep from hyperventilating. “You said you were going to experiment on him, and . . .”
“I said I was going to use him for my experiments, with Pocket Space. Technically, that was not a lie. I generated a significant amount of data from having the president stored for so long. However, I also proved my own hypothesis. Only individuals with active brain functions dissolve into the background energy of the Upper Domain. At the time, the president was nearly brain dead. That allowed me to preserve him until we could return, so that I could operate on him. That was only mere hours after we arrived back in Central.”
“I don’t know how to thank you, doctor.” I look back at the president. “Sir, the office is yours whenever you’re ready to go.”
“Oh. No, thanks, Tommy,” He says with a wave of his hand. “That’s exactly why I told the doc not to let you know I was awake again. The office has passed to you, and you deserve it. I’ve heard your speeches. Hell, I heard audio of how you arrested Yousef. You know the law better than I do. The president’s office suits you, and I want you to stick with it.”
“But what about you? Won’t you be bored just . . . just going back out there into Central without anything to do?”
“Who said anything about that? Just because I don’t want to be president doesn’t mean I don’t want to stay involved. But you know me. I always liked time fixing things on the streets and helping neighbors around their homes, handing out medicine. That sort of thing. That’s exactly what I intend to do. Go back to the riverside where my father used to work the boats. Maybe even get them running again.”
“I’d just . . . I’d love it if you were around to help with this government stuff.”
“Oh, I’ll be there too. I intend to put my name in for representative of the River Bank District,” he says with a smile. “I think me and Representative Tan would make one hell of a one-two punch on the Advisory Council. Plus, I heard Dodger was going to be on there, too. I think that’s a damn good start to a government.”
“I can’t think of a better trio to start off with on the council than you three.”