by Neil Gaiman
He nodded. Just…nodded. And looked at me. And waited.
It clicked. I knew why I felt weak, and why Joaquim had the Old Man’s memories, and what he’d done to me earlier, before I’d knocked him through the window. I knew what he’d been about to say before the Professor had interrupted him—and remembering the dry, rust-colored soil that had been cleaned of any trace of blood, I was desperately, fervently hoping I wasn’t right.
“You’re a clone,” I told Joaquim, and I had the small satisfaction of seeing him pause. He glanced at the Professor, then at me, uncertainty showing on his face. “You were grown by Binary, in a vat, just like the vegetables.” I nodded to the scouts.
“And infused with the souls of your kind,” the Professor agreed. Joaquim was just looking at me.
A thick, cold knot of dread was settling like a rock in my stomach, warring only with the white-hot anger I felt at knowing they’d used Jay’s blood. If I was right about that, there was only one explanation for how a Binary-grown clone had the powers and abilities of a Walker. It defied all reason, everything I’d been taught—and at the same time, made perfect, horrible sense. “And HEX’s magic.”
“What?” Acacia’s voice was barely a whisper.
“You’re working with HEX,” I nerved myself and looked at the Professor, though I couldn’t meet those static eyes for long. “You grew him, they powered him.”
“And gave me power,” Joaquim snapped, and I almost fell to my knees at the surge of weakness that washed over me. “They gave me the power to fix everything.”
Acacia’s hand found mine, though I wasn’t sure if she was scared or warning me about something. Neither, apparently—I saw a flash in my peripheral vision, and a jolt went up through my arm. There was the sound that was half static shock and half something snapping, and Joaquim reeled back slightly. I suddenly felt a ton better. Acacia had broken whatever link Joaquim had made with me.
I should have used that moment to do something, but I was too stunned, too unprepared, and too paralyzed with the knowledge I’d just discovered. Binary and HEX…the war for supremacy between them had been one of the only things giving InterWorld a much-needed edge. They were working together now. We’d just lost our only advantage.
Put succinctly, we were screwed.
The Professor looked at Acacia—just looked at her, nothing else—and she cried out like she’d been electrocuted, slumping to the ground.
I caught her halfway down, and I think I said her name. She didn’t respond; her eyes were open, but she didn’t seem to be conscious. I could feel her breathing, but she didn’t react to me at all.
“Drain him,” said the Professor, but Joaquim hesitated.
“It would take me a while. He’s strong.”
“Then bring him. The girl, too.” He was still talking to Joaquim, but the clones moved forward to grab us. I fought to hold on to Acacia, but she was still unresponsive and there were far more of them than there were of me. Joaquim grinned at me.
“You and me, Joey. The heralds of FrostNight.”
One of the clones clubbed me in the back of the head, hard, and the next few moments were a haze of hallways and doors while I tried stubbornly to hold on to consciousness. Joaquim’s words rattled around in my head as the clones dragged me through the halls—FrostNight. I’d heard that before. I’d heard someone say that before…
FrostNight comes.
The words had been whispered, pained. There had been blood on the rocky ground. He’d looked at me, and warned me, and died.
Jay…
Despite my attempts to stay conscious, I must have passed out for a few moments at least. When my vision cleared I was in some sort of cage. I didn’t see Acacia anywhere, but Joaquim was next to me.
No—it wasn’t a cage, exactly. I was surrounded by metal, but it was more than that. It was mesh, see-through, but vaguely human shaped. There was a rounded part for my head and room for my arms, which were stretched out to either side of me. My hands were trapped, my wrists stuck through padded restraints that felt like the cuffs used to check blood pressure. They were around my ankles, too, and hundreds of little multicolored wires were twined and twisted out of them. There were straps about my chest, waist, and legs. I could turn my head but not move my body.
Thin, prickly fingers of dread began to clutch at my stomach. This was it. I was strapped in so tightly I couldn’t even feel my fingers, InterWorld was most likely on full lockdown due to Joaquim’s slow drain, Hue was still only a dim presence in the back of my mind, and Acacia was unconscious or worse. I was trapped by Binary, and nothing short of a miracle was going to get me out.
Joaquim was strapped in as well, and didn’t seem at all concerned. “You made this possible, you know,” he said, as though I were helping him complete his life’s work. Which, however unwilling I was, may have been the case. “It would have taken me days, weeks even, to pull all the power from InterWorld. I couldn’t do it all at once. There are too many of us. Slowly, yes…But you, Joey. You’re one of the most powerful Walkers they have. Without you, this would have taken months…”
I wanted to ask what this was. I wanted to ask why he was strapped in, too. I wanted to ask what this was going to do, or why he was so happy about it. I wanted to panic, and struggle, and yell. Instead, I mumbled “Where’s Acacia?” and made a serious attempt at lifting my head to look around.
“Your concern is sweet, it really is. I hope I feel love, someday. I did get along well with Joliette. I’m glad she survived the rockslide. I’d hoped everyone would…but it had to be done.”
It had to be done. Of course Joaquim had caused the rockslide. He’d needed the base on lockdown, needed everyone inside so he could drain as many of them as possible. Everything clicked, now; the fog hanging over Base Town after Jerzy’s death, what I’d assumed to be depression…it had been a tangible thing. Jo’s lethargy after she and Joaquim had made it back to Base—that’s how he’d even gotten the InterWorld formula in the first place, made it through the In-Between. He’d stolen her energy, and her memories, and Walked right into InterWorld like some kind of goddamned hero.
And we’d let him.
As near to panic as I’d been a moment ago, a sudden calm settled over me now. I ignored him, turning my attention to getting feeling back into my extremities. I’d need to have full use of all my limbs if I was going to attempt a daring escape, after all—not that I had a plan, mind you. I had nothing but the burning need to not let the traitor who shared my face get away with Jerzy’s death.
I flexed the fingers of my right hand, then my left, finally managing to work some blood back into them. That was good, but it was accompanied by a severe case of pins and needles; I let that sort itself out while I tried to discern exactly what kind of contraption I was in.
The wires went from me and Joaquim down into a bundle on the ground and out past our feet. They snaked across the floor—which seemed to have a bunch of symbols etched into it, arcane-looking things that were straight out of a B-movie cult flick—and split off into different directions, weaving and interlocking to create a five-pointed star. Just above the star was the oddest machine I’d ever seen.
I recognized some of it, thanks to my studies at InterWorld—transmitters, receptors, generators, amplifiers—they were all jumbled together surrounding something that looked almost like a giant Tesla coil. Looking vastly out of place amid all the machinery were figures in dark robes, nothing but blackness visible beneath their hoods. There were thirteen of them, just standing there, all in a circle around the coil.
No, thank you. Whatever this was, I didn’t want any part of it.
Now that I was a little calmer, I closed my eyes, casting about for a portal…and immediately wrenched my awareness back to the safety of my own mind. There were things out there, things that were aware of me, that knew I was trying to Walk…. It felt like I’d passed through a spiderweb or gotten too close to a live wire. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
/>
“It should be soon,” Joaquim murmured, and I finally turned my attention back to him.
“Okay, I’ll bite. FrostNight—what is it? I was warned about it, by—by an old friend,” I said quickly, but Joaquim gave a sympathetic nod.
“Jay,” he said, and I realized the calm anger that had settled over me before was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. The thought of Jay’s spirit being used for something like this…But, no, these were only the souls of captured Walkers. I had brought Jay’s body back to InterWorld, seen him off, spoken with his spirit. Jay was safe, and so was Jerzy.
Joaquim confirmed this a second later, though I was still too angry to care much for the understanding in his voice. “I have some of your memories, too, Joey. Only a few—we weren’t linked long enough for me to get much more.”
“Well, I don’t have yours,” I snapped. “So enlighten me. What’s FrostNight?”
“The revolution that will reshape everything,” Joaquim said simply, with the kind of rapture you find only among zealots and fools.
“Okay,” I prompted when he ceased to say more, keeping his attention on my face while I wiggled my right arm back and forth. My wrist was beginning to chafe, but I thought it was starting to come free a little. Maybe. I hoped.
“FrostNight. The Ragnarok Wave. Armageddon, if you want to be dramatic. It’s a soliton. A self-aware explosion that will reshape time and space.”
The sudden, overwhelming disgust I felt was doing wonders to distract me from the feel of my wrist chafing against my bonds. “So you’re helping them destroy the universe. Can you get any more cliché? Why don’t villains ever want something rational?”
Joaquim smirked at me. “When did I ever say it would destroy the universe? I said it would reshape time and space. We can make the universe, the Altiverse, whatever we choose. We are destroying nothing. We’re re-creating.”
Somehow, that was worse.
“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to work all this out. “So you’re re-creating the universe. Why? Isn’t it fine the way it is?”
“Not hardly. Look at the horrors we’ve seen, that I’ve seen, just in the few days I was on InterWorld! The more I was educated there, the more I learned, the more I realized our mission had to succeed. The memories I touched on only reinforced this—so much grief, so much anger, so much tragedy. So much chaos…”
“Joaquim. This is basic common sense—without bad things, there’s no way to quantify good!”
“Poetic philosophy,” he snapped back. “I wonder if all of us would agree. Do you know how many of us were hurt? Abused?”
I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. All of my para-incarnations were born from para-incarnations of my parents, and I just couldn’t believe that even alternate world versions of my affectionate mother and cheerful father could hurt their kids.
As if following my train of thought—which was possible, since he was technically my clone and shared a similar brain structure—Joaquim continued with: “My father and mother have envisioned a better universe for us, one where we can enforce peace and order.”
Hold the phone. “Your father and mother? You’re a clone.”
“I was given life, same as you. By Binary, and HEX.”
“That’s a hell of a family,” I muttered, and I think I actually made him angry.
“My parents are reshaping the entire Altiverse for me! Would yours do the same?”
“No, because mine are sane.”
“Joe!”
I felt a shock go through me—that was Acacia. I looked around wildly, trying to find her. A laser blast went off somewhere to my right; a second later I saw one of those blobs of mercury the Binary clones shoot zing past my cage. Acacia was fighting them—all of them—using a combination of martial arts and various gadgets from her belt.
“Joe, Walk!” she screamed. “Now! You have to Walk!”
Joaquim spoke up serenely from my side. “They’re ready.”
The machines flared to life around me, and I couldn’t have Walked even if I was willing to leave Acacia. It felt like I was in the core of a jet turbine, and everything I knew about Walking—or about anything, for that matter—was spinning around inside my head like that teacups ride at Disneyland. For a second I didn’t know where or even who I was, and then Acacia screamed my name again and I heard chanting start up from around the circuitry star. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but for all I knew they could have been speaking English. I probably wouldn’t have comprehended the alphabet right then.
Joaquim looked like he was on a roller coaster, eyes alight, more animated than I’d ever seen him, even though we were both strapped to whatever kind of conductor this was. The blue lights—the souls—that had been dancing around him were gone.
No, not gone. The wires that fed from his machine were glowing blue, and I could hear them. Over the chanting, over the sound of the engines and the machines, I could hear them.
They were screaming.
The light was flowing through the wires to the Tesla-coil thing, and a sphere was slowly growing above it. It was misty, ice blue, and roiling like it contained a storm. There was another sphere surrounding it, fed by the power of the thirteen robed chanters. They were containing it, whatever “it” was. FrostNight comes…
Abruptly, it all stopped. The last of the blue light was sucked into the growing sphere, and the robed figures changed their chant. I was still reeling. I felt like part of my soul had just been sucked out, but at least now I could understand what they were saying.
“By science and magic begotten, by sorcery contained and technology bonded—”
It didn’t sound good.
Joaquim was not nearly as excited now. His head drooped as though too heavy to hold up, his skin was pale and clammy looking. As bad as that had been for me, I didn’t feel nearly as weak as he looked.
He lifted his head, that small motion obviously taking a lot out of him. “Professor…” He sounded scared. I admit I actually felt for him; there was a slowly awakening comprehension in his eyes that chilled me to my core. “Professor!”
The leader of Binary was nowhere to be seen. There were only the robed and hooded figures, still chanting, the clones standing guard and the ones who’d finally managed to subdue Acacia. She was no longer struggling; instead, she was looking up at the growing orb of energy with the same kind of horror Joaquim was starting to show.
The thirteen figures raised their arms, lowering them all at once; and some of the clones, standing next to various bits of machinery near the walls, turned to press or pull buttons or switches. The wires flared to life again, and Joaquim started to struggle.
“Professor!” he screamed, his voice barely audible above the whirring of machinery, the nightmarish chanting. “Professor, what is this?”
I knew why he was panicking. It felt like I was being drained of blood drop by drop, like every bit of haecceity was being sucked from me and replaced with empty promises, echoes of what I’d once been. It only took me a moment to recognize the feeling. I’d felt that empty after the Old Man had drained my memories, took my ability to Walk…. I’d been fine most days, but lying there in the silence of my room, I’d often cried and wondered why. It was because he’d taken everything I was from me.
“Be still,” the Professor’s voice commanded, carrying easily above the din though he was still nowhere to be seen. “This was the intent behind your creation, Joaquim. You will fulfill your purpose and bring about the revolution of the world.”
“No!” he screamed, his struggling becoming wilder. “I don’t want to—”
There was a flare of blue, so bright I had to shut my eyes, though it was gone immediately after. The machinery around us crackled, and the acrid smell of smoke reached my nose. The transmitter nearest Joaquim was on fire. Some of the clones, acting on an unspoken signal, rushed over to put it out—but Joaquim was still struggling, his body enveloped in blue, the fuses short-circuiting one by one. I
n his eyes was the same fear I’d felt a dozen times since I’d come to InterWorld. It was the fear of death.
“Joe!” Acacia screamed from somewhere to my right. “Help him!”
Help him? I didn’t know how to help him—what could I possibly do to help him? And more important, why would I? He was nothing more than a Binary clone, imbued with power stolen from Walkers—
The cords attached to Joaquim were sparking, pulsing as he struggled. With a strength born of desperation, he ripped one arm free of the bindings, reaching toward me. He looked terrified.
Though my arm was chafed nearly from knuckles to elbow, I’d managed to wiggle enough that I slipped my arm from the cuff that’d held me. That same calm I’d felt before, when he’d mentioned the rockslide, was wrapped around me like a blanket. I knew what to do.
With every ounce of willpower I possessed, I wrenched the remains of my power from the wires, from the fuses and the massive orb pulsing greedily in the center of the room. I called it back to me, commanded it, and grabbed Joaquim’s hand. The blue glow spread to envelop me, whispers and pleas brushing against my mind. Use us, they said. Free us. Let us Walk again.
I closed my eyes, found the core of power inside me, centered myself, as I’d been taught—and let it explode outward, focused on the fuses around me. The chanting was momentarily lost in the sound of electricity, of the wires crackling and popping. I used the souls as Joaquim had done, directing them to burn through my bonds. It was so easy.
I was standing now, no longer caged, no longer captive. I was the eye of the storm, immune to the chaos around me. The chanting, the fires, the fuses—none of it touched me. The clones fired at me, and I activated my shield disk with a mere thought, the projectiles sliding right off me to thunk to the floor. I was aware of the entire room, the ebb and flow of the energy, the people in it. FrostNight, ever growing, greedily absorbing the power of the Walkers.
And a portal. Here. Now.
I stretched out a hand to Acacia, still held by the Binary clones. Free her.