“Hunter?”
the
Nine spun around, his face a mask of horror. He clutched his chest, rapidly dissembling from the EM slug. His mouth opened to form her name, but it was too late. Nine flashed from his illusion in a burst of silver.
the stillness
Zero ran to Fleur, her crumpled form leaking a steadily-growing puddle of red onto the hardpan. “Lilith…Oh no. No. Oh god. Lilith.” The weapon dropped from his hand, clattered to the ground.
She smiled, mouth moving to speak, but there was no time. No life. The slug had passed through Nine and torn through the right side of her chest. Struggle to breathe, struggle to hold on to Hunter, Hunter, not Zero. Not that person at all anymore, or ever again.
“Lilith?” he sobbed, stroked her face, so white now. He didn’t look at the fine mist of crimson on her neck. He pushed the unruly curl back behind her ear, touched her face, the life draining from her skin, the silver crawling just underneath the surface.
the stillness lost
“Let her go.” Maire stood over them, her black robe whipping in the breeze, hair untied and dancing to the song of the wind, hands still bloody. “There’s nothing we can do now.”
Hunter reached out and grabbed the weapon before Maire could stop him, raised the barrel to target, just inches from her forehead. The child didn’t flinch.
“Do it. You know you want to.”
Lilith slumped in his arms. Silver ran from her eyes.
“You know you have to.”
Hunter cried out in frustration, in grief. He pulled Lilith’s limp form closer, keeping his weapon trained on Maire.
“If I don’t—”
“Do it.” She took a step closer to the tip of the weapon. “End it now.”
He closed his eyes, saw the image of her face burned into that perfect darkness.
“End it.”
Hunter Windham pulled the trigger.
“Did you actually think it would work?”
The interior of the cell was neither dim nor cold, as she had supposed it would be. If anything, it was the brightest and most welcoming room she’d seen in
in
how long?
She cleared her throat but gave no indication that she desired to communicate with her interrogator. The way he stood on the other side of the shield, hands clasped behind his back, chin up, staring proudly down aquiline nose…He embodied every reason she had carried out her plan. He was a symbol of that which she had struggled so valiantly for years to destroy.
“Don’t answer, then. Might be the best thing for you.”
She slumped into one well-lit corner of her prison, wrapped arms around knees, stared back at the man with a gaze that was beyond cold, beyond emotionless. He didn’t flinch.
“Do you have any questions before I leave?”
She brushed the unruly curl from her forehead, reflexively tucking it behind her left ear. “When is the trial?”
“No trial. Just sentencing. That will come soon enough.”
She exhaled slowly, audibly. “Goodnight.”
He was concerned. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I—”
“Goodnight.”
He turned and walked, gazing at floor and nothing else. “Goodnight, Maire.”
It would be a night without sleep.
“Orders coming through.”
Task swam over to join his co-pilot at the controls. The screen flickered with distortion for a moment, resolving into a static-filled image of Hannon.
“Find anything else today, boys?”
“Nothing. No survivors so far.”
“The sentencing is at the end of the week. Gather as much feed as you can, focusing on the major cities.”
“There’s not much to see there, sir. The most physical damage was done at the poles.”
“I don’t care about geology, Task. Get me footage of people.”
Off-screen, Co-Pilot L shook its head. Task smirked and nodded.
“There’s not much left of the people, Commandant. Just the silver.”
“Just get me some evidence. You know what I need.”
“Yes, sir.”
Elle broke the connection, flew the vessel back above the clouds. “What exactly do they expect us to find?”
Task lit a smoker. “Evidence of the catalyst.”
Elle’s plastic face attempted a smile. “You sure you want to be in this atmosphere, fleshbag?”
Task smiled and blew smoke in Elle’s non-face. “You bet your metal ass, hon.”
They flew.
“Did you see the report?”
“Which one?”
“Biological.”
Berlin leaned back in his chair, fingertips touching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. He’d not slept since the attack, and now, eyes closed and heartbeats pounding in his throat, he truly did not care to look over any more reports on the criminal. His world was an ache not isolated to behind his eyes.
Exhale. “What does it say?”
“Just take a look at it.”
“I really don’t—”
“Berlin.” Hannon pushed the viewer closer. “Look at it.”
He lifted the thin pane of optic from the desktop, looked nonchalantly over the flickering screen until it snapped into his line of focus. His eyes widened and he sat upright.
“Is this a joke?”
“Sir.” Hannon’s gaze was all the assurance he needed.
“Why didn’t the filters pick this up?”
“She never underwent a full scan before. There was no need until she—”
“Understood.”
“Do you know what this means?”
“Are there any other abnormalities?”
“The resonance.”
“One heart. We never would have known.”
“She could have slipped through all of her life.”
“She should have been filtered years ago.”
Hannon motioned toward the viewer on the wall, which swirled into focus. Maire was curled into a fetal position on the floor of her cell, eyes wide, staring into nothing. Her hands were clasped before her mouth as if in prayer. Berlin highly doubted that that was what she was doing.
“Any readings on the silver yet?”
“She’s clean. The room’s clean.”
“Where did it go?”
Hannon shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not on the vessel. We’re at highest alert, but I don’t think we’ll see an outbreak.”
Berlin stood, walked to the viewer. “Orbital.” The shot changed to that of the planet below them. “Highlight Task position.” A white targeting reticule revealed the position of the advance vehicle. “Has he reported?”
“Northern continent is clear. Drones on recon in the south.”
“Anything at all?”
“Nothing.”
“Still hot?”
“Hazard science is analyzing core samples. Doesn’t look good.”
“Orbital zoom. Northern continent, city seven.”
The viewer re-aligned, swept in through cloud cover and the suffocating silver cloud of the attack, paused just miles above the city.
“Closer.”
Past science drones, past a war platform, through a line of black smoke coming from several miles of unchecked wildfire. The viewer held position under the ceiling of metallic dust, focused.
“Closer.”
The viewer beeped a negative.
“Closer.”
Negative.
“I think that’s the signal cutoff. The atmosphere is creating too much interference to transmit below that line.”
Berlin turned from the image of burned buildings; that mercurial reflection only heightened the ache behind his eyes, and the aches in his chest.
“How soon before we can get some recovery teams down there?”
“Sir, we won’t—”
“How soon?”
Hannon cleared his throat. “We have to study the silver. Right now, there’s no way to tell how long the planet will be hot.”
“As soon as we can… As soon as it’s safe, I’m going down.”
“Sir?”
Fingertips to bridge of nose, pausing ever so slightly to wipe moisture from eyes.
“My family’s down there. My wife and children.”
Hannon looked everywhere but Berlin’s eyes. “Sir, I’m so sorry. No one told me—”
“As soon as we can, I’m going down there to get my family. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
Berlin walked out of the room. It would be a long night in space.
It would be a long night in the cell.
She couldn’t sleep. Hadn’t been able to sleep in years. No bed in that room. At least it wasn’t cold. At least it wasn’t comfortable.
She felt the scan, that subtle tug of her molecules as the room made note of her irregularities. She knew that they’d try to find the silver. She’d buried it deep. She slowed the beat of her heart, slowed her respiration, closed her eyes. The sleep would never come again.
She felt them watch her, the polished circle at the center of the ceiling reaching down and scraping her flesh, tearing away photons to be reassembled in that heavily-shielded bunker on the surface of the vessel where the men who made war would decide her fate.
She felt the dead. There were voices from within, faded echoes of families who looked into the sky from picnics in the park, mothers whose final vision was the deployment vehicle and whose final thought was to throw themselves over their children, as if a foot of their flesh could ever have shielded their offspring from the silver. She heard the sobs of men who had never known that they could cry. She heard that final, startling crackle as the atmosphere solidified for one beautiful moment.
Tug.
She rolled on to her back, sat upright, looking at the tip of the viewer on the ceiling. If she had conserved any of her strength, she could have easily escaped this vessel. She could have shattered that viewer, could have reached through the microglass passages and torn the souls from those men. She could have, if she were not dying from her last exertion.
Maire pulled her knees up to her chest, stared at the wall. They had captured her, but it was not over yet. She would finish them.
She closed her eyes.
The exhaled line of gray was confused in zero-grav.
Task hovered before the observation bubble. It was supposed to be sleep time, or so the meaningless timer informed him. Elle was on the bridge, immersed in flashing recharge mist. He lit another smoker, considered waking his androgyn artificial companion, but decided to let the machine rest in peace. This vessel was one of the only places that silence and solitude abounded in these uncertain times.
A streak of light from outside of the bubble as another war platform descended. Task extended his right index finger and a zoom reticle surrounded the black-on-black of several million tons of metal and slumbering biologic that was the platform. They were sending platforms to secure the northern continent now; the scientists were reasonably certain that the catalyst had dissipated enough to send in the near-living ground troops.
A war against one woman… A terrorist act that could never truly be avenged. Task felt fortunate that he had no family on the surface below him, encased in silver dust. That’s probably why they picked him to do the dismal job of documenting the kill zones. Never a man for emotion; never a man with attachments to his species.
It was cold.
Heat from his fingertips but no surprise when the smoker self-immolated in a final suicide of smoke. No ash to clog the systems. Task felt a radical spin out of place and collide with several healthy breather cells, beginning the process of cellular mutation. He isolated and contained the cells in a reflex gesture. Right lung, right underneath his heart.
“Want some company?”
Task didn’t need to look to know that Elle had finished regen, which meant that soon it would be time to get back to work. No sleep in this night, at least not for the human member of the crew. Elle lazily swam to the observation bubble, still glowing from the recharge mist. The glow faded quickly.
“You do need to rest sometime, you know.”
“This is resting.”
“Don’t you see enough of the planet while we’re working?”
Task ignored the question. Another platform fell from the war machine above them.
“How many have you seen tonight?”
“Forty. Fifty.”
“They must think it’s safe for nears down there.”
“It isn’t safe for anyone. Never will be. They should scorch the whole damned thing and be done with it. Or send it into center-spiral. I’d never live there.”
“You’d never live on any planet, sweetheart.”
Task smiled. “Right.”
Two more platforms, one on either side of an almost-invisible sliver of silver. Task drew the reticule over the ships’ position as they planetfell, zoomed. The war platforms were escorting a council corvette.
Elle’s otherwise featureless eyes furrowed into concern as best they could. “Hannon?”
Task zoomed in. “No. That’s Berlin.”
“Against our recommendations?”
“I don’t think he’s listening to recommendations anymore.”
“If it’s still hot—”
“He doesn’t care.”
“I’ll never understand your species.”
“Of course not.”
Wake alarm. Cabin lights grew brighter. Task circumvented snooze and deactivated the anachrony of the sleep system. Time to get to work.
“Break orbit. Take us south.”
from eternal slumber upon wings of wind and i willwethere were in that time gods oftaken from and stolen withhiddendeep with-in deepnessand over the sky i havereturned to “In position.”
Hydraulics emit canine whine and the body surges forward, empty pages replaced with an ancient text.
“Begin transfer.”
Fluid swirls, suffocation. The sacrifice body, blessed soul replaced with the target of midnight prayers, sacrament of flesh imbued with divinity. Rotating placement lasers strip away flesh and sinew and the gristle of pathetic, bare man. A million, a billion, a trillion needles invade protein.
“Status?”
“Sacrifice vehicle intact. Ready for download.”
when and whenand when andcalled upon again towakeand wakeand wake andbewith my childrenagain “Download complete.”
Snap of static and the body flails, drowning scream from within the birth sea. Medications diffuse, calm the fury of the reborn god/dess. Fluid levels descend, now-limp body twitches to rest on the raised platform that would provide a new and shorter sleep.
“Council communication line ready.”
“Open channel.”
A flash and a projection of Hannon stood in the birth chamber.
“I see the procedure was successful. How long before we can meet with him, Doctor?”
“Give him a few hours to rest. It’s been a long time since—”
“Yes, of course. Please let me know when he’s ready.”
Doctor waved its hand in the direction of Hannon and the image ceased. It walked over to the platform, where god was curled into a fetal position. Doctor rolled the deity on to his back, inspected the new body, opened its eyelids, testing for a response.
Assistant approached from behind, stood patiently while Doctor examined the haphazard arrangement of flesh into which the humans had chosen to inject their ancient.
“How many times have they done this?”
“Twice.”
“This time and one other?”
“This time and just before the war.”
“And he doesn’t mind?” Assistant looked over the pseudo-conscious divinity.
“I think he actually prefers the rest. They don’t need him anymore.”
“I’ll never understand them.”
Doctor turned from the table and looked Assistant in featureless eyes. “Just be thankful for them. Never forget your creators.”
Assistant looked at the ground, bowing submissively to its superior. It wanted to point out the obvious hypocrisy of Doctor’s statement…Their creators had all but forgotten their own creator, choosing instead to allow him to hide in the liquid night of the center of the planet in the slumber eternal, only waking him in moments of extreme need.
The new threat was indeed a moment of extreme need. Hopefully, god would have a solution to the woman of silver. So far, no one else did.
She was young, so young when first he’d seen her on the landing platform, standing at attention with the rest, sun-stained face blank and down in submission to the visiting dignitary. The stark gray of her eyes had been hidden by the black fan of lashes in that position, but as soon as he signaled for the team to stand at ease, he found those eyes boring into his own boring browns.
“Sir.”
“Doctor.”
Their first exchange of civil conversation gave no hint of the life they would spend together, the sunsets, the children they would create, but at the same time, Berlin paused, took a breath.
Black converges on gray. “Sir, have we—”
“No.” The interruption more forceful than need be. The doctor immediately shifted back into formal posture, dropped eyes back underneath the veil of black.
“Sir, I’m—”
“Let’s get started. We break orbit in three days. Mustn’t waste time.”
“Sir.”
They were magnificent creatures, the inhabitants of Planet Four: intelligent flora that sailed through the mist canyons on waves of chlorostatic, sometimes miles in length. Berlin could only watch in awe from the observation platform as a pod of carnivores swarmed and eradicated a rival and weaker group.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
Berlin frowned at the amicable tone of her rhetorical inquiry. She’d been off-one for far too long. The informality of the outer planets had begun to replace her training. He couldn’t really blame her; the striking sunlight, the fresh air, the distance from the tentacles of bureaucracy and hypocrisy…He would forgive her for now.
“They’re…impressive.”
She smiled, a total breach of decorum. Tanned hands grasped the railing, leaned farther over than she probably should have.
“We’re fortunate to have this place. They’re fortunate to have a world that hasn’t been used up.”
“We’ll see.”
The smile dropped almost immediately from the doctor’s face. “Is that why you’re here?”
Berlin cleared his throat. “Doctor—?”
“Kath. Botanist.”
“Kath. Botanist. They have the ability, correct?”
“A very limited form of the ability.”
“But you’ve been researching them for years now. Can it be recreated?”
A particularly large specimen of the lumbers flew fast enough underneath the platform to rock it gently. It left behind the disconcerting scent of pine pitch.
“We’d have to capture some of them.”
“We have the means.”
She frowned, shook her head. “Sir, this is a sanctuary planet. Even posting observers here breaks all of the preservation protocols.”
“We need this technology.”
“Understood, sir.”
“They’re just plants, Kath.”
She looked as if she’d been slapped. “They have a civilization.”
Berlin had been waiting. “Show me.”
The humble botanist withdrew once again, focused on the handrail.
“That’s an order.”
“And this heart, for you.”
Berlin opened his eyes at the whisper, spinning around to find only a near bowed in submission. His chest pounded. An inhalation not unlike a sob escaped before he could gain his bearings. The near ignored it.
“What is it?”
The almost-living warrior snapped to attention. “Hover position above Seven, sir.”
Berlin motioned and the wall became a window into the world below. Audio was inactive, but he imagined the scouring metal dust would make a sound not unlike a hailstorm…Or sand. Or the brush of evergreen limbs on the underside of an observation skiff.
“Ready a landing party. Dismissed.”
The near bowed and walked out. Berlin turned back to the viewer.
What are you doing here?
He had to be sure, had to see for himself. Had to see the extent of this act, had to know in his hearts that this fury was appropriate. He had to prove to himself that what he would do to Maire would be a just punishment.
“Kath. Botanist.”
He didn’t turn this time, didn’t flinch at the whisper.
The rough hand of a soldier grasped in the tiny hand of a doctor, guided to the wool scarf around her neck. Unwrapped slowly, breathing ragged, loop after loop of material exposing the white of her neck. Lips explored, clasps unclasped. Moonlight pupils displaced the gray of iris, lashes tickled his cheek. So cold. So cold in that night.
She drew his hand to her chest, bare skin goose-fleshed under moonlight, palm dragged over nipples erect to that place and that moment. She drew his hand to her chest and placed it over her left breast.
“This heart for my spirit.”
He let her guide him. Up, collarbone, supra-sternal notch, collarbone, down. She held his hand above her right heart.
“And this heart, for you.”
Collision of storm fronts. They had planned it then, the escape from the suffocation of bureaucracy, the flight from One that would eventually draw the likes of the terrorist Maire. Under that moons-lit sky, breathing the air of the ancient lumbers…It had been a perfect world.
Berlin walked away from the viewer. Time to go home.
“Are you watching this?”
Task turned from his targeting monitor. “Nothing else to watch down there.”
“If he becomes contaminated—”
“Nothing. If he becomes contaminated, they’ll leave him on the surface. The shit works too fast to save them from it, anyways. He’d never make it back to the command vessel.”
“Aren’t they concerned about the nears, though? They could catch a hybrid of the silver and spread it to the next planet they pacify.”
“Something tells me these nears are on a one-way mission. They’ll never make it off this planet again. Cheaper to burn them on the spot.”
Elle almost-frowned. It was as much of a look of concern as the Co-Pilot could create on a plastic face.
“No worries, Elly baby. We’re not going downstairs on this trip.”
“Do you think it’ll matter? We’ve been in this atmosphere for—”
“I’ll take care of us. Don’t worry about it.”
They flew.
Echoes of the music of their bond ceremony. Laughter from family and friends. The softness of the small of her back, muscles under softest flesh as he pulled her closer.
The skyline was intact. Mostly.
Berlin’s lander slammed to the ground. He swayed from within his jar. The nears remained upright, remained still. They sparkled to life as hangar doors opened and the interior of the bay was flooded with the maybe-contaminated atmosphere of City Seven.
“Readings are negative on silver, Commandant.”
Berlin walked down the platform, nears fanning out before him, weapons drawn, scanning the dead landscape for movement, heat sources, anything. Stillness, cold, nothing.
Berlin’s jar slurped as he walked forward, dragging the phased glass filter that enveloped his form lazily around him. Particles of metal dust from the breeze stippled the surface, sending wave patterns outward, bouncing from one another, fronts on the weather map of his protective suit. The same metal breeze began to scour the flesh from the nears outside of the lander. They were expendable. Berlin was not.
“Are you receiving, sir?”
“Yes.” The glass distorted his voice into tin and refraction. It echoed back from a universe of liquid prisms.
“Readings are negative, but we’ll pull you out at the first sign of any—”
Berlin cut the link. Enough talking. The nears would not bother him with conversation.
The wind whispered. The wind whispered. Constant hiss, the lamentations of a dead populace just beyond the edge of the senses. He made out a word every now and then, the most unlikely messages from the dead: phallus and gringo and burlap and synecdoche and shingles. God crochets a warship and I don’t ever want to see you again. And. You pretend to be intense. And. Philtrum. Nancy. Berlin closed his eyes and it was gone. It was never there. It was
The days had been longer when this had been his home.
There had been seasons; winter had only been one of them. A little park where the lander now towered over leaf-less forest. The legs and ramp had splintered the old souls in resting. There had been a park; now there was a slab of black metallish and a detachment of non-humans and a man drowning in protective glass.
And this heart, for you.
The trees had not impressed her when compared to the lumbers, but this had been the one place where she had felt truly at ease on Planet One: a sliver of green life interjected into gray city, one lone voice in the screaming of civilization.
You are an ideal. Not really there.
Park left behind, walking down abandoned streets. He found people there. Berlin’s hearts broke; the tiny silvered forms of children, flesh replaced with
The nears surrounded him in a protective formation, although there really was nothing here from which to protect him. It would be impossible now to even prevent the infestation of the silver in his bloodstream if their readings had been wrong. The glass would prevent his fragile human flesh from being stripped away in metal winds, but it would do nothing to prevent a universe of machines from stealing his
Walking and walking. The landing party followed Berlin’s lead as he went around a corner, stopped at the sight before him. Several blocks down the street, many of the buildings had been clipped off midway up, and the rubble filled the street below. No fire anymore, although there obviously had been. Dozens of half-fallen towers, sterile in this cold. There were silver bodies.
a loss so
Berlin walked toward the collapsed part of City Seven, his eyes locked on the tower where he had last seen his family.
There are no tears in phased glass.
“Do you smoke?”
It wasn’t a glare. Hannon didn’t believe that she had the energy to consciously create a glare to thrust at him. Her lifesigns were barely on-scale as it was.
“Do you mind?”
He didn’t wait for an answer but lit the smoker, sat back in his chair. The wall of phase shielding barely distorted her features. He was glad to sit back; his hair returned to resting position.
“Do you speak?”
One corner of her mouth turned up at his question, but her eyes remained locked on the tabletop between them.
“Berlin’s on the surface as we speak. As I speak.”
She gave no indication that she even recognized the name. Right hand gently traced fingertips over tabletop.
“We know that he was with you in the beginning.”
Her hand came to rest, withdrew to her lap.
“Yeah. We’ve known for quite some time.”
She opened her mouth, eyes still down. Her mouth closed as she reconsidered.
“He has no idea. We could leave him down there, you know.”
Her eyes closed.
Hannon exhaled smoke and leaned forward again, forced smile on his face. “We won’t. He’ll just go with you after sentencing.”
She looked Hannon in the eyes for the first time. “Go?”
He inhaled the smoker. “Just a little trip. We can’t kill you, but we can’t keep you here to try this again.”
Flicker of inaudible conversation. Hannon tapped his neck to cut the link. He crushed his smoker on the tabletop and stood.
“Sleep well, sweet Maire. Sentencing is tomorrow.”
Hannon left his side of the room, and the phase shielding faded to black, leaving Maire alone with her thoughts.
sleep well.
the in-dark answers with wind
do you? you know. you do.
the way that she warmed him, trees above and nothing below, forest of sky and intruding stars wondering from
Botanist.
internal tides of
“We can escape. We can
He’d known the child. Not known, but he knew who the boy had been, the little slivered, silvered boy, mimicking in uncertain gesture the children of a Pompeii of another world not yet born. A playmate of his son, beautiful son, now pressed to the sidewalk, arm shielding face, but he knew the boy. Not knew, but he knew who the boy had been.
What have I
Berlin didn’t want to go inside, shouldn’t go inside, would go inside. He had to know. Had to see with his own eyes what a planet of evidence was telling the system.
The nears followed him, the most-damaged stumbling as best they could with the biological damage of metal winds. Some fell, critical systems wounded beyond repair. They were left behind.
Why did you
Reached out with his mind, and several nears wrestled the shield-locked entry of the building open. The planet was devoid of electricity now, but it wouldn’t stop his forward progress. A plasma burst and the entry was clear, pressurized interior venting weakly into an atmosphere raped of breath. He walked in, filter slurping lazily around and behind him, sizzling as it touched the still-glowing edges of the entrance.
How could she
Hearts beating in unison. Forehead and cheeks secreting a sweat immediately whisked away and neutralized by the glass. Blinking back tears. Lick lips. The nears’ spotlights flashed to life, illuminating the foyer. There were people, but none matching the way he remembered his family. It wouldn’t be that simple. They would be above, just below the shattered top of the tower.
Elevators would be useless.
He directed the nears without words. More flashes of cutting phase, stairwell revealed. The building had closed the main entrance points automatically in the instant before the attack and the eternal loss of power. One unfortunate young man had been cleanly clipped apart by the slamming of the stairwell shield doors. Berlin didn’t know him.
Mindless walk. He would sometimes take the stairs in the days before just because. Just because. He disliked technology’s intrusion into every aspect of his life. He was a strong man, and he didn’t mind walking. On this day, he didn’t feel like a strong man. Each successive stair, each story drained him more. The paths he took through his life, each step toward this crime, this Event.
He thought too much.
we could
and there would be
but
they have to be
we have to
you know
you do
“Who’ve they sent?”
“Judith.”
“Is she—”
“She’ll do. She’s been a medium before.”
“Which time?”
“The last time. Here she comes.”
The viewer revealed the bending of galaxies toward the singularity. Flash of starburst as the planetship reassembled particle-by-particle. The transit ocean froze, shattered into infinite crystals as the end product of near-light materialized.
“Is she normal?”
“As normal as media come. Decades of experience with demigods. And in the last war,” Doctor noted the departure of Judith’s slither from her planet, “She had the chance to develop a relationship with the subject.”
“A relationship?”
“Not like that.” The slither soft-docked. “Let’s go meet her.”
Assistant shrugged its shoulders ineffectively. “I don’t know if I should—”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. She talks to gods. That’s all.”
“Right. You’re right.”
“Let’s go.”
in those days between the death of everything and the rebirth of less than humanity, it hurtled into damnation and spawned and its progeny spread outward and outward and consumed everything in their path, and before Omega, it judged that all that it had created was good and redeemable and it sent the newborns back into the blackness to save those unfortunate enough to have remained
Judith opened her eyes.
The sleep of liquid travel was disconcerting. She trusted the process, told herself to trust the process, but each time she woke up from the night between the stars, she had the urge to stand before a mirror nude and inspect herself to see if anything was missing.
That’s not where it’d be missing, Jud.
Ten fingers, ten toes, all the usual bipedal accoutrement. Little hands touched face; everything appeared to be all right there as well, except for the
Well. There would always be that.
Softdock platform extended, and the slither gently melted into the side of the warworld above System Fourteen-Seven, Planet One. Judith pulled herself out of the vacuum chair with a slurp, shook her hair around like a barker, coagulating pellets of liquispace emulsion floating freely, lazily spattering onto the walls. She pulled her hair back, squeezed more of the disgusting yet crucial slime from her coif. It was now dissipating into a high-density gas. She was dry.
“Situation?”
deity re-animated.
“Who is it?”
standard.
“Good. It’s been a while.”
plank extended.
The lock doors cycled open. Just beyond the chamber, Judith could see the disturbing androgynous faces of a Doctor and an Assistant. The Doctor held out a (claw) hand and tried to smile in that way the nearish always tried.
“Welcome, Medium Judith.”
She waved off the hand. “Take me to it.”
“Yes, of course. Have you been briefed?”
“Briefed? Briefly.” She walked briskly. It had been a long time since she’d been in the aether, and she was eager to talk to the god. She knew she was an addict. “Something about a planet being lost?”
“A new technology, yes. There was a terrorist—”
“What kind of technology?”
Doctor’s pace slowed. “I don’t know if I’m qualified to—”
“Just tell me.”
“It’s a silver. A metallic pathogen.”
they would live forever. in the ocean of silver fire, Omega would be the salvation and the nirvana and the extinction and the
“What’s it do?”
“Replaces biologic with metallic.”
“How’s it work?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“And it killed a planet?”
“Yes.”
Judith pinched the plastic cheek of the Doctor, squeezed it like a child’s. “Well you’d better find out how it works and what it is and who else has it, don’t you think?”
“Yes, of course. We—”
“Better get to work.” She glanced through the phased glass of the chamber at the end of the hallway. “This is it?”
“Yes, Medium.”
“Good. Seeya.”
Doctor bowed and retreated.
Judith placed her palm on the reader beside the door, waited for a miniscule genetic sample to be sequenced and verified, and entered the shielded chamber. God floated in a static tube at the chamber’s center, hardware connecting him as needed to the outside world, gelatin suspending him in near-solid.
“Hey there, buddy.” Judith smiled that smile, pulled up a wheeled chair to the glass. She sat down on it backwards. “How’ve you been?”
The host body remained motionless, swaying gently in the omnipresent sludge. Why did the basis of their technology have to be scum? Scum from trees? Scum from giant trees? She tapped on the glass, as if God were a goldfish. No reaction.
“Well, shit.”
She caught a flash of movement from the periphery of her vision and saw that Doctor and Assistant were observing from the deck above, shielded behind phase. Judith pulled the curtain that surrounded God’s static tube closed, blocking the view of the nearish. She preferred to work alone, or at least with real people.
Concealed by non-fabric, she withdrew the hardlink cable from the base of the static tube, plugged it snugly into the jack in the center of her chest between the cardiac shields and
turning, raindrops spattering on her face, face framed with curls, curls the color not of fire or blood but
atmosphere choking with something and
the in-dark answered with
wind
blew white paper, black ink, folded, to the floor. Pungent aroma, a humidity of percolation. Dark day, rain, undertone of well-groomed man in black suit on viewers, ratcheting tones of a music from somewhere, dark day people sipping black liquid, foamy brown liquid, something gathered from mountains. God sat alone at a table, the host body that of a young man with a streak of white in his hair, old eyes, a book bookmarked and set before him. Demian. Hesse.
She pulled out a chair across from Him and sat. “What the hell is that smell?”
He smirked, held out a mug. “This shit. Apparently they enjoy drinking it.”
“Oh God.” Judith rolled her eyes. She wondered what color they were. “When are we? Something’s not right about this place.”
He leaned back in his chair, contented. “You don’t like it?”
“The air’s different. And…”
“And?”
“It just feels different. I can’t quite—”
God leaned forward, unzipped Judith’s jacket, slipped his hand into open-necked shirt, placed his palm flat against her chest. Her eyes widened with realization.
“What are they?” Her own small hand reached to touch her upper chest, below the collarbone.
“Just a little project I’ve been working on for a while. Unfortunately, it seems that one of them got out of control.”
“And this place?”
“Hasn’t happened yet.” An exclamation of joy. God and Judith turned to see a young man and woman embrace near the back of the shop, the woman sporting a glint of silver on her left hand.
“How could you—”
“I’m God, Judith. I can do anything.” He sipped his coffee with a grin. “I contain multitudes.”
“Don’t get too big for your britches, O Omnipresence. We’ll throw you back down the hole.” Judith took the cup from God, took a sip, grimaced. She placed the cup back down on the table. “Why’s the wind blowing? And rain? It’s—”
“Autumn. Not a perpetual autumn, but an autumn nonetheless.”
“What’s—”
“A season. There used to be seasons, long before you were born.”
Judith rubbed the flesh of her chest, exposed between drapes of fine silk. She was mesmerized by the single beat.
Click, scratch, sizzle, click. God inhaled deeply, exhaled smoke. Judith hated the smoker scent.
“How bad is it?”
“I’ve only just been briefed. Briefly. But it’s bad. You said you let one get loose?”
“I didn’t let her get loose.” God ashed in his coffee cup. “Shit happens. I wasn’t watching.”
“We shouldn’t have dropped you after the war. Maybe if you’d been—”
“I wanted to be down there. You’re too noisy. I need my space.”
“I understand.”
“I feel asleep for a while. Just a nap. I wake up and there’s a planet fucked.”
Judith traced figure eights on the tabletop with precision-filed fingernail. “Will it be salvageable?”
“That’s the thing…I don’t know what she did.”
“It’s a silver. Downloading specs.” Judith’s eyes flashed for an instant as she hardlinked into the system. “Full-spectrum phase catalyst. Biologically invasive, gaseous dissemination in nitrogen atmospheres.”
“I didn’t make a silver like that.”
“See for yourself.” Judith grasped God’s hands in her own. His eyes widened.
“I didn’t fucking make that.”
Judith sat up, released God’s hands. In that last instant of contact, an emotion: fear. Genuine. Overwhelming. “Where did it—”
“You have to get her out of here. At least until I can work this out…Please don’t drop me yet, Jud. I don’t know—”
“I’ll tell the—”
“We have to—”
“We will.” She never seen Him like this. The host body’s face was deathly pale, eyes darting. His hand grasped a napkin from the table, clenched and released, nervously started tearing it into strips.
“I didn’t make that silver.”
“We’ll figure it out. I have to go for now.”
“Please don’t. It’s been so long since—”
“I’ll be back.” She tenderly patted His hand. “I promise. We’ll do all we can.” Judith reached to her chest, grabbed the invisible hardlink cable that she knew was there.
“I’ll be here.”
“See you soon.” She tugged at the cable,
severing the connection. She fell to the floor, body powerless, head throbbing from the agony of the deity flux.
Footsteps: running. Unnatural. Machined. Doctor. He (it) lifted Judith, near form effortlessly picking her up, placing her softly on an examination table on the other side of the curtain. God’s host body floated without any indication of life in the gelatin tube.
“What do you think he said?”
“Quiet.” Doctor waved Assistant off. “Usually takes a few hours for the spell to pass. Until then, we wait.”
“She was crying.”
Doctor nodded its head. “So was He.”
he’s crying.
Nearish to nearish, sub-thought.
so was she.
Berlin’s hands were to his face. His body shook silently from within the glass filter, crouched on the floor beside his daughter. Little body, little-to-no-body left. Pile of metal forged into human, human forged into metal.
should we—
no.
Fingertips traced the grit of dissembling silver dust, filter scraping away parts of what had been a child’s cheek. Berlin saw what he was doing and stood up in frustration and disgust.
They’d found his old living quarters without incident. His floor had been beneath the zone damaged by fire and falling towers, although buckled bulkheads and cracked load-bearing supports of the superstructure gave evidence of the force of the attack from above. They wouldn’t stay in here for long, even though neither escape nor continuing really mattered at this point.
Walk past nears, standing at attention, lifeless faces hidden behind black metal, weapons and searchlights bristling from armor. Walk down hallway, past open doors where toys sat in forever disarray, photographs hang on walls now stippled with something, where viewers were black. Frank the cat, a pile of filings.
End of the hallway: Push open bedroom door.
Berlin sobbed when he saw her
Kath. Botanist.
on the floor.
Hands swam through liquid glass filter, up to neck, activation points grasped. He knew the nears wouldn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop him. Two points, turned clockwise and counterclockwise. Snap into place, pull up. Glass dissolves.
He turned off his shield.
away, away from vain struggle
Alarms, immediate, as frigid nitro closed in. The glass pool splashed to the floor, drops spattered the armored legs of nearby nearish. The rapid change in pressure activated Berlin’s emergency communications beacon: a swarm of luminous nanos erupted from the chest pack of his atmosphere suit, stopped in formation several feet away from the man and the nears, and pulsed into the sky in stuttering phase bursts. The nears’ chestpacks all began to glow in similar readiness.
Berlin wiped silica gelatin from his eyes, nose, mouth. The comm implant in his right temple began to throb, but instead of acknowledging the incoming transmission, he swiftly brought his fist up, colliding squarely with the side of his head, crushing the metallish creature underneath his skin. The pain was almost as swift as his blood.
A return of the swarm: the near nearest Berlin snapped to attention, infinitesimal lances of light cutting through space and silvered atmosphere and building to penetrate the non-mind of the lump of flesh and download a carrier pattern. It removed black composite faceplate to reveal almost-human face, eyes glowing with universes of comm nanos.
As brain matter re-arranged itself to accept the signal, atrophied mouth, tongue, vocal chords came to life, producing nonsense sound, an uncomfortable experimentation with non-mental communication. Signal lock. Dry tongue instinctively licked dry lips. The glittering link seemed to connect the top of the near’s head to the ceiling in an unambitious rendition of a halo.
“Berlin.” Voice beyond hoarse, but still recognizable. Berlin was still disconcerted by the technology they had acquired from the planet of trees and botanist and
“Let it be, Hannon.”
The near walked closer in a disturbing pantomime of Berlin’s second, who right now floated safely miles above the planet, a similar nano halo linking him to this non-human. “You shouldn’t have done that. You know that you can’t—”
“I know.”
“It didn’t have to—”
“Yes. It did.”
“We could have—”
“I know you saw it all, Hannon. My wife, Maire, the trees.”
The near stood in silence.
“I’ve known since the attack. And I know what you had planned for me.”
“There’s no way you—”
“I didn’t want this.”
“Then you shouldn’t have—”
“I know.”
Berlin bent to his wife, form silvered in shadow. His hand reached out to touch her cheek, hesitated, withdrew.
“Just kill me and get it over with. Have them kill me.”
Silence.
“Hannon?”
The near approached, looked down on Berlin’s face. The wind-torn flesh was without emotion, but the voice that it channeled was razor-sharp.
“No. No quick death for you, traitor.”
The air burned with cold
above the lumber plains on the night that Maire had been so convincing. It was a winter month, and the floater didn’t offer much protection against the wind.
It wasn’t dancing, and it wasn’t singing, but the flora hovered in formation below them, basking in the phosphorescent hydrostatic mist of the mid-atmosphere. The canyons echoed with their keening midnight song.
Berlin wrapped his arms around Kath, hands clasped in front in a bundle of their intertwined fingers. Squeeze. Sniffle and one hand went to her face as demure form shook with sob and fear. In moonslight, twin tracks on windburned cheeks: just two tears, but they were two too many.
“They’ll be harvested.”
“Analysis was conclusive. We can isolate the flux ability.”
“Then why—”
“Because they can. And they don’t want anyone else to figure it out.”
“So that’s it? They take a few lumbers for sampling, isolate the tech, and kill the rest?”
“That’s the way we work.”
“No.” She turned around in his arms. Gray eyes swallowed by black pupils. “That’s the way they work.”
“I can’t—”
“You can’t. But we can.”
She slipped from his grasp, walked to the other side of the floater, leaned precariously over the edge. The vehicle swayed in the wake of a forest passing beneath them. Berlin walked to join her.
“We?”
Kath hesitated, cleared her throat. “You don’t have to know about this.”
“Do you think I’d—”
“No.” She squeezed his hand, let go. “But they’d kill you if they knew about it.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ve met someone. There’s a woman who can help.”
“Help what?”
“She comes from the outer. Came in months ago on a transport. Just something about her…”
“Who?”
“She knows what to do. To make it right.”
“Kath—”
“She’s not like us.”
“If you’re talking about—”
“She wants to help. Not just this planet. She can make it right again.”
“Make what right?”
Kath’s hands balled to fists at her side. “The last war…Nothing’s been the same since. Planets in slavery, One ruled by machines and nears. Gods dropped into the slumber. Nothing’s right anymore.”
“We had to fight that war.”
“But we didn’t have to become this.” Her fingertips traced the insignia on her chest, moved to her temple, where the metallish uplink writhed under her skin. “We didn’t have to give up our—
“It was for the best.”
“Whose best?”
“Our best. It had to be done.”
“We’re killing the system! The stars can’t support us anymore. The energy load alone between the two—”
“That’s why we need the lumbers. Deep galactic survey missions, colonization hives—”
“We have all that we need right here. We’ve just forgotten how to live within our means.”
“We can’t turn back now. We’re pushing the saturation mark as—”
“We don’t have to be pushing the saturation mark.”
Berlin felt the throb of the comm uplink, but kept it static. “You can’t be talking about—”
“Planet One alone uses eighty percent of the system resources.”
He said nothing.
“A lot of bad people on Planet One.”
“Not all.”
“They started the war.”
“The war’s over.”
“It’s not over. Not yet.”
He’d never heard her talk like this: such determination. Passion. He never suspected that she felt so strongly about the civil war that had split the binary system a decade before.
“If we take out One, we solve everything. Decentralize the machines’ power. Make room for real people again.”
She reached out. His response was uncertain, but he did hold her hand.
“And you know someone who can do this?”
“A woman from the outer, where the planets still burn. She says she can kill the machines.”
“And her name?”
“Maire.”
He loved the link with the female Judith.
The host body was a tickle in that ocean of thought. It was recovering from the transfer and would soon be strong enough to remove from the static tube and actually serve its purpose as a deity transport. Judith would still act as medium, though…Squeezing an ancient being into one-hundred eighty pounds of flesh and bone always brought with it a few communications problems; the grunting, guttural verbal langage of his primary pets was difficult to master. He would solve that in the upgrade.
Flickering of electrons, muscles come to life again. A finger twitches.
“We have movement.”
Doctor joined Assistant at the static tube. “It’s about time. Takes Him a while to get His bearings.”
“Do you think He’ll ever just stay in the sleep and refuse to come up for air?”
“He likes it down there…This might be the last time we ever see Him.”
“What would they do without Him?”
“Carry on. God’s dead to them as is. They have us now.”
“I feel so special.” Assistant’s mouth turned up at the corners. “Ha ha HA!”
Doctor looked at Assistant with disdain. “Stop that. You look like a fool.”
Hand of God clasped through the gelatin, of its own power.
“He’s ready. Let’s fish him out of there.”
“Still nothing.”
“Why are we wasting our time?”
Task grasped the hemispheres of his observation environment and pulled them apart with the click of mechanics and hiss of dissipating interface flux. He rubbed his eyes and pulled himself out of the bubble. Elle was waiting with smoker in one claw and igniter in the other.
Task swam past his co-pilot to the underside viewer. “Best view we’ve had all day.”
“Of what?”
“The delivery vehicle. We’re over the impact site right now.”
Elle was hesitant.
“Not much to look at. Can’t believe that it did all this.”
The crater that the impact of the starship had carved into the surface of the planet was the most impressive part of the spectacle. Not a circle…The vessel had hit at such an acute angle that most of the debris had been cast hundreds of miles in front of the actual strike, covering City Four completely in a blanket of shattered stone.
“How did she survive the fall?”
“She didn’t. They picked her up in a slither in upper orbit.”
“She was trying to escape?”
“She wasn’t trying to do anything…The slither was harddocked to the delivery vessel. It released automatically when the carrier hit critical gravity.”
“Escape system.”
“She probably didn’t know that she was going to escape. She wasn’t even alive when they found her.”
“The catalyst?”
“It came from her.”
The delivery vessel was a giant half-buried in the surface, one nacelle towering thousands of feet into the atmosphere, the other snapped off and flung miles from the impact site, now resting in the ruins of a village. The conical body of the vessel itself now stuck from the desert hardpan like an addict’s needle. Many of the dispersion ports had bent or torn off completely from the collar upon impact. Elle noted the empty slither-shaped port just above the collar at the vessel’s top. The rest of the ship dwarfed the slot from which Maire had poisoned the atmosphere of the planet with a universe of machines.
“She wanted to die on that ship.”
“They won’t let her die now.”
Beeping alert. Elle swam to the cockpit.
“Action above City Seven.”
“Visual.”
A flurry of lights erupted from the surface, arced upward to strike the underside of the main planetship. It solidified into a tightbeam linking the vessel to the planet.
“Is that weapons fire?”
“No.” Elle adjusted the viewer. “It’s a halo. Comm nanos. Someone must have deactivated their link.”
“Berlin’s the only one down there. Nears wouldn’t switch off.”
“Why would Berlin turn off his link?”
“Could be dead.”
“Could be.”
“Could be the silver.”
“Could be.”
“He might need help.”
“He might.”
“What should we do?”
“Let’s listen to what they’re saying.”
Task switched in.
Dark room.
Elle reached out to take Task’s hand. He hadn’t expected the contact. In this flux, Elle’s projection was a female, green eyes instead of white, tan flesh instead of gray, black hair instead of none. She smiled, blushed. Task squeezed her hand, but placed one finger to his lip to signal silence.
They walked forward into the ambiguous expanse. There was a table at the room’s center, two men on opposing sides, faces contorted in angry conversation, hands animated in frustrated fists.
subvocal: no sound?
i’m surprised we’re in this far. atmosphere must be interfering with the audio.
compensating.
“And what does that mean?”
“Maire’s taking a little trip.”
“And I’m going with her?”
“You could have been a brilliant leader. Such a waste.”
“She killed my family!”
“You should have considered that possibility before helping her.”
“I never—”
“You did. Helped her just enough.”
what are they talking about?
looks like berlin was in on it.
“We didn’t help her do this.”
“Guilt by association. You should have told us.”
“The machines would never have believed it.”
“But we might have.”
“And we’re the ones in control?”
Hannon slammed his palm to the table. “The war is over. They won. We have to live with that.”
“And what does God think about all this?”
“I’ll tell you in a few hours.”
Berlin’s lips parted but the words remained lost inside.
they woke up god.
we shouldn’t be listening to this.
“That’s right. He’s awake.”
Berlin studied the featureless tabletop.
“Make your peace with your family. I’ll be in touch.” Hannon waved his hand before his face, shooing the nanos away. His image disappeared.
let’s get out of here.
“Don’t.”
Elle’s greens widened considerably and her gaze locked on Task.
“He couldn’t see you. Must have been the interference.”
commandant?
“Yeah. I know you’re there.”
sir, we didn’t—
“Of course not.”
and if we—
“You’re dead if he finds out you listened in.”
we didn’t know—
“And now you do.”
we won’t tell—
“No. You won’t. You’re not going to tell anyone about this.”
sir?
“Help me.”
how?
“Get me off this planet.”
Hearts pounded. Hannon was furious.
He batted at the remaining nanos. They hovered like nibblers until winking out, drained of residual phase.
There was a time…
And then there wasn’t. Berlin was a traitor, regardless of other times and places. He would be punished accordingly
or else they’ll get you
because that was the way the system worked. It was a good system.
He had to meet soon with the medium and God and the council. He didn’t feel like talking. He didn’t feel like facing God after placing him in the slumber for so long. It hadn’t really been his or His decision, but those had been awkward times. Heroes of war and night. A new order.
There was a time.
They had been young
men on the last field of war: Berlin’s blood on Hannon, Hannon’s blood on Berlin. Twin stars above, twin hearts racing with the rage of battle. How that knife had slipped into flesh, the blade turning slightly, notching the neck as his fingers gouged out the left eye. The final scream: four vital pipelines severed and cool black splashing the front of gray armor. Pressure and the blade cut farther, remaining eye rolled back and scream ended as the head was removed.
Machines in the sky, too close overhead: the wake of their passing knocked them to the ground. Berlin helped Hannon to his feet. Their eyes locked, revealing the shared knowledge of defeat without surrender.
The space between the suns danced with silver.
City on fire, plains on fire, men on fire. The horror of black metal slamming to the ground.
They’d fought on the right side, and the machines were forgiving.
“He’s awake.”
“So I gathered.” Judith walked through the chamber door. Doctor and Assistant parted to let her past.
God sat at a table, a tray with utensils and a bowl of viscous gray nutrition slurry before him. He eagerly shoveled the food into his mouth. Some of it actually hit target instead of dribbling down his chin.
Judith leaned over the table, pushed God’s head up with left hand while opening his eyelids with the right. She looked for damage.
“Couldn’t you have gotten a better host body?” His projection in the flux had been delicious. This bald middle-aged creature sitting at the table was a travesty.
“It was short notice.”
Judith slumped into the chair across from the deity. “Good food?”
He looked up quickly, face blank besides drippage. Back down into the bowl. Splashing spoon launched a droplet of slurry onto Judith’s cheek. effin’ fuck! She wiped it from her face and sighed.
“He’s a mess. I’ll have to hardlink him for the entire conference.”
“At least he’s mobile now.”
“You could have put wheels on the fucking static tube.”
“Host body transfer is standard—”
“Viable host body transfer is standard procedure.” Something about that little shop of wind and dark bitter liquid…His eyes had been beautiful. A ring of silver on a shaking glittered hand. Deus Ex Machina.
how do i know these things?
God smacked his lips, smiled and nodded his head as Assistant placed another bowl in front of him.
“He’s so dumb.”
“The host body withstood all the standard testing.”
“Was it like this before? Was he a retard in real life?”
Doctor shook its head. “God was not a retard.”
“Filtered?”
“He was filtered, yes.”
“And where exactly did you get this host?”
“Shipment of biologic from the outer. Selected at random.”
“You bring the bodies back?”
“Special ops. Next generation nearish development.”
“When did this program start? Using dead people for—”
“I can’t discuss this with you.”
“I have full clearance, Pasty.”
“Not for this.”
Judith stood up, placed both hands on Doctor’s shoulders. She leaned in close, spoke into its “ear.”
“Pssst. I’m the girl who talks to God. You can tell me anything.” She kissed Doctor’s cheek and smiled warmly.
Doctor’s eyes narrowed. “I guess you’ll find out somehow anyways.”
“Of course I will. Now spill it.”
“The outer systems have been burning for decades.”
Burning: euphemism for the machine war that never really ended. Resistance to the drowning. The way the polite castes referred to the non-surrender of the barbarian horde. What a joke.
“This I know.”
“What we’ve just realized, though, is that prolonged exposure creates abnormalities.”
“I thought we sent nearish to the front lines.”
“Nearish need reals to lead them.”
Slurry slurp. Judith turned to see God finishing his second (third?) bowl.
“What kind of abnormalities?”
“Sub-genetic, for the most part.”
“For the most part…What else have you found?”
“I really shouldn’t—”
“Tell me.”
“Cardiac abnormalities.”
Judith felt gooseflesh stipple her forearms.
“One heart?”
“How did—You couldn’t have known that.”
She ignored the near, sat back down at the table in front of God while unwinding a length of hardlink cable. She snapped the link into her chestshield, maneuvered the other end around pudgy sticky resistance fingers and plugged home between his hearts.
Nothing.
“Come on, baby.” She twisted the link in the port, felt a tickle of connection at the base of her skull. “Come on
wings of wind and i will wethere were in that time gods oftaken from and stolen withhiddendeep with-in deepnessand over the sky i havereturned to make sure the fire’s out.”
She blinked in confusion as God kicked dirt into the remnants of the campfire. Acrid smoke, dust and dirt. She wiped sleep and soot from tired eyes. The sky was dark. One sun…A wounded sun. Gauzy, webbed. Around them, shattered buildings. Clothing on racks. Signs in a stranger language.
“Where are we?”
He stopped his kicking, shook his head. “I’m not sure anymore.” He was the man from the other encounter, yet this time there were deep lines around his eyes, and a black pattern of lines on his forearm. She looked down and wasn’t surprised to see a similar marking on her own arm. On his chest, writing in alien letters. A name.
“Haze and smoke. The air’s changed, and the heart’s gone.”
“Yeah.” There was a pack strapped to God’s back. He unbuckled the clasp and placed it on the ground. “Sorry about the puppet they put me in. I was trying to talk to you, but it was impossible. The host’s flawed.”
“You heard, though?”
“I heard.”
“Have any ideas?”
“I’ve seen all the information they collected about the young woman. Maire.”
“Doctor says she’s not the only one with the abnormalities.”
“No. This host body is flawed.”
“No shit.”
“Not just mentally. Not just the heart. There’s something I can feel but can’t describe.”
“Is it safe?”
“Doesn’t really matter. I’m God.”
“So one specimen slipped away, and now we’re seeing more and more with the changes.”
“Yes.”
“And they’re coming from the outer.”
“She couldn’t have caused the spread.”
“Do you think the machines are behind this?”
“I was under the impression that she was trying to end the machines.”
“What better way to destroy them than to do it from the inside?”
“We have to get her away from here.”
“Do you have a place in mind.”
God nodded.
“Here.”
sir, we can’t just—
“You don’t have a choice. Get me off this planet.”
we could tell—
“Hannon will have you killed regardless. You’ve seen too much already. He just needed a real to head this mission because he doesn’t trust them.” Berlin’s eyes targeted Elle, masked as she was in desired projection.
fuck you.
Berlin stood from the table, walked up to the near. As tall as she was, he still looked down on her.
“I don’t like you. You don’t like me. But we’re both going to die soon if you don’t help me.”
Task shoved Berlin back. The commandant scoffed.
“In love with a nearish. How appropriate.”
do you want our help or not?
“I want your help. Not hers. We don’t need the machined.”
she’s coming with us, or I’m not helping you.
His hands clenched to fists. Eyes blazed. “Fine.”
and what exactly are we supposed to do once we pick you up?
“We have to get to the command vessel.”
you’ll be killed.
“They’re about to sentence Maire.”
yes. and you want to be there?
“I have to stop her.”
stop her from what? she’s already done the damage.
“It’s not over yet. We have to get to that ship.”
and once we’re there?
“I’ll kill her.”
but—
“No more questions. Get down here.”
how much do you know, berlin?
“Enough to know that Maire has to die, and I’m the one who has to do it.”
you seem in a hurry to get out of here.
“I suspect things. I know this place won’t be safe for long.”
Task shook his head. it’s the silver. you know something about it. it’s not over. it’s spreading, isn’t it?
“They’ve woken up God. They have him on the command ship.”
and maire’s on the same vessel.
“Yes.”
she’s going to kill God.
Berlin’s face was stone.
where does it go from there?
“I don’t know.”
we’ll be down to get you. look for us.
“Understood.”
Task grabbed Elle’s hand and they were gone. Berlin slumped into his chair. They had to make this work. There would be no second chance to stop the catalyst.
Berlin opened his eyes and
the mute nearish troops stood over him. The halo channel near’s body was on the floor, lifelessish. The others waited mindlessly, patiently. They’d wait forever if he made them. So obedient.
Task’s vessel would drop shortly.
Berlin bent to his wife’s silvered form. The face was intact, an illusion of thick glitter makeup. If he touched her…If he kissed her. He inhaled deeply.
take me with you to the and there we willthe nighttimes of
and this heart, for you
i love
He wondered if any of the featureless voices screaming in his mind belonged to Kath. Botanist.
Bent to her (not her) form, kissed as gently as he could her cheek. No longer softest. Tickle of grit and smell of copper (blood) taste(?). He knew it would happen, but when the cheek collapsed under the lightest pressure, his breath still stuck in his throat and the sobs came. One, another, his hands moving to cover face from gaze of creatures of biologic who neither cared nor could care.
Lightest touch, but the cheek collapsed, cheek and skull, neck and chest. Lightest touch and she was gone, not gone, but gone: pile of silver dust that danced in the empty air of a dead room. He inhaled deeply
take me with you a part of meforever with youtake me and coughed, violently. Metal scoured his mouth, throat.
is this all there is?
He reached into the pile of silver, withdrew the locket from where her neck had been: sliver of wood, taken from the last of those magnificent flora after the planet had been harvested. He held the locket to his face. Her scent was there, faint, masked in that blood echo.
Rumble of
the time when we first laid by the fire and i explored every inch of your face with my lips because we were both too terrified to kiss
slitherjets above. Task and Elle.
Berlin turned from what had been his wife and walked away.
*snap* and she was out of the reverie, hardlink cable falling from limp hand and sparking the metallish floor as she slumped forward into Assistant’s arms. She was exhausted, but adapting. She fought off the sleep that her mind was struggling to impose.
“Now. Call them together. God’s ready for sentencing.”
The broken man at the table fumbled for the hardlink. Assistant removed the cable and wiped a stream of drool from the creature’s face.
“Can you take much more of the connection?”
“I’m fine.”
Doctor touched the side of Judith’s face, looked into her eyes, but she deflected his hand (claw). “I’m fine. Have him transported to the council chamber.
“Yes, Medium.”
Roar of dust and wind and something else. His glass shield deactivated, the silver began to tear away at Berlin’s flesh as soon as he walked out of the building.
stupid mistake.
He palmed the bubble control and a fresh wave of gelatin splashed out from his chestplate, semi-solidified around him. Circles and waves, waves and an ocean of more than glass. Glass from trees, metal from air, machines from
The nears followed him as he jogged toward Task’s vessel. They didn’t know what was going on, couldn’t know what was going on, but their movement was hesitant, sporadic. Berlin realized that it was because most of them were being scraped apart by the wind. Not many of the nears had much “flesh” left. He stopped.
“Halt.”
The remaining soldiers stood at attention. Berlin unlatched the force weapon from his holster, shot each of them in the cranial control node in turn. There was no resistance; there were no minds. Non-humans fell non-dead. He couldn’t have taken them with him. He wouldn’t have taken them with him.
Task hovered above the park of skeletal lumbers and nearish dropship. Limbs shattered underneath the slitherjets, danced toward Berlin as he approached. The glass protected him
from what
from the brunt of the impacts. Several smaller twigs penetrated the gelatin and sloshed in slow-motion within the shield. Berlin absent-mindedly batted the debris away, palms touching lumber for the first time since
and this heart, for you
the nights spent under a sky of wooden song, illicit romance in the guise of ambassadorial conferences. They’d harvested the planet, and she’d been broken. A decade and a family and a comfortable position in the system had never made up for that rape of the forest world. She had been broken, and Maire had been the instrument of her vengeance.
Walkway descended from the belly of Task’s vessel. Berlin tripped on his shield, palmed its deactivation at the exact wrong moment: an airborne branch flew past his face, projecting limb carving a deep gash along his left jawline. It became a world of silver and copper as vital black blood erupted from the wound.
He staggered forward as the vessel lifted, looping his right arm through the guardrail as the walkway ascended. Elle met him halfway and helped him aboard. He despised its touch.
They flew.
The chamber door closed with mechanical precision behind her. The headache was bad, but the face of Hannon was worse: Judith remembered the roaming hands and mediocre cock of the young council member. She also remembered punching him in the throat, and the way he’d bitched like a little girl.
“Judith.” His face was grin and acid. “Always nice to see you.”
She closed her eyes, rubbed her temples before taking her seat as far away from Hannon as she could possibly sit. Headache was developing into something worse. Apparently the aether was wearing her down.
“Is everything—”
The tender inquisition of a council member. Judith recognized the voice but opened her eyes to confirm. “I’m fine, Jade. Thank you.”
“Rough interface?”
“Yeah. Must be.” Burning, tugging. Something. Jade smiled sadly. Of all the council members, Judith liked the matronly old woman the most, but that really wasn’t saying much. The other members looked on in varying shades of disdain and nonchalance.
The chamber was circular, fell away in the center to the tube from which the prisoner would emerge and stand before them in due time. Judith peered over the edge just long enough to realize that she’d now added vertigo to headache.
The empty chair next to hers was reserved for God.
“Is he on his way?” Council member Corr, an old man with one real arm left, but they’d held the line.
“The nears are bringing him down. There must have been a fuckup with—”
“Yes, we heard the host body was inappropriate.”
“You could say that.”
that that that
Echo upon echoes as her voice fell down the central tube. Somewhere down there, the young woman who had killed a planet was waiting.
it shouldn’t hurt this much.
[but it will.]
Judith gasped, eyes opening, startled. No one was looking at her. No one was near her.
“Did someone—?”
The chamber hatchway hissed open again. Doctor and Assistant helped God to his chair. The host body looked as if it had been crying.
“What happened?” Hannon stood from his place across the chamber.
Doctor’s eyes darted. “He didn’t seem to want to come. Host body resisted.”
“Will it work?”
“It’s been working.” Judith plugged the hardlink into the host’s chest, pulled her own shirt open in preparation. “We’ve had several successful links so far.”
“It doesn’t look like the thing’s going to last.”
“He’ll last.” Judith wiped the host’s face, patted his cheek. “God’s in there. The host will last.”
“Then let’s begin.”
Judith plugged in.
Coughing so hard that she bent in half, coughing but there was no air. Mouth choked on blood, red blood (red blood?) and there were hands, arms, a chest and he was holding her as the ground shifted and
“What the—!”
They tumbled back to the desert hardpan as the mountains ripped from the planet surface and flew into the sun.
“Hold on!” God’s arms were strong and he was bleeding. The sky above was lines of fire, circle of white, approaching. They were flying into the (single) sun. Judith screamed and couldn’t stop.
God squeezed her near, smoothed her hair in a gesture too tender for that place. She knew she was crying, screaming, falling, flying, but that gesture: tender and peace. She found peace in His eyes.
“Hold on.” Not shouting this time, the tumult of a shattering landscape and a planetary implosion a dull roar, a hum, a sub-frequency to the beat of two hearts. Not four. Two.
“Hold on.” And it was okay, that approaching fire, the way the sky bent toward the night at its center, the way the desert cracked and they fell and they fell into
the shop, the door slamming behind her. The wind was bad, but not as bad as
Judith stumbled to God’s table. He went to her, helped her sit down. The other patrons looked on with gray rainy day see-AT-ull concern.
“What the—What just happened?”
“It’s falling apart. You saw it before. The host body is flawed deeply…Something’s happening, and it fucked with the interface.”
“Are we safe?”
“I don’t know.” God cleared room on the table, shoving aside Demian paperback and now-empty coffee cup. From the inner recesses of his jacket, he pulled out a sheet of paper, unrolled it across the tabletop. “We need to get her off this ship.”
“Those are the plans?”
“She’s already housed in the launch chamber. We’ll be able to allign and exile within the hour.”
Judith’s hand went to her temple again. Brow furrowed in pain and something else. A thin line of red escaped from her nose. God wiped it away with a napkin, but there was more.
“You can’t keep jumping in and out of the flux.”
“I can—”
“You can’t. Something with the flawed host—”
“Help me go halfway, then. Use me.”
“As the host?”
“Your word has to be spoken. The flaw won’t do. Just use me.”
“It could kill you, Jud.”
“I’m dying already.” She pressed the napkin to her nose. “Just do it.”
do it, sssss
“Okay. But I’ll pull out before anything happens.”
Judith grinned. “I’ve heard that before.”
“I know.” God’s eyes danced. He leaned forward and kissed her how long has it been since and
the medium’s body jumped in her chair, the interface still attached. The flawed host spasmed and lay still. Judith’s eyes opened and there was light from them: silver if light could be silver, white if it could not. She stood, breathing heavily, body slumped forward, hand pressing hardlink securely to her chestplate. The members of the council gazed with fear and fear at the direct link between their deity and the medium.
“Bring her to me.”
The planetship was above them. Berlin was gasping for air, his blood staining his neck, chest, Elle’s hands as she tried to close his wound. Task turned back to the cockpit viewer.
“What should I tell them?”
“They won’t listen to anything we have to say.”
“Well tell me something, Commandant.”
“They might not have changed the security codes yet.”
A detachment of fighters launched from the main vessel’s hangar.
“Here they come.”
And they opened fire.
Breath hitching, sheen of sweat developing on forehead and cheeks. The interface wasn’t painful…Not a pain that she would admit. She felt him. Inside. Of her. Soul. God. Inside of her soul. She was replaced and swimming in an ocean of ancient fire. Felt him withdraw, gather himself, emerge again: insertion of thoughts that were not her own, loving touch of electricity and shivering.
rupture rend rive split cleave
“Bring her.”
The voice was not her own, yet it was. Voice like the wind, echoes of the beginning, shimmering of yesterday and some of tomorrow but not quite enough.
Council members fidgeted.
“Open the channel to the homeworld.”
And they were there, the billions.
The hole at the center of the chamber glowed. A cylinder of phased glass formed at the hole’s edge. Sparks and it was melty, solid, non-solid. She was lifted from her prison on wings of the machine universe. She did not resist, and when the shield solidified around her, it only heightened that sense of
Jade coughed from across the room, poured a glass of water. Cough, sip. Cough.
Waves in that solid expanse: she was between worlds, held just close enough to reality to see the council, to see God in the form of Judith. Maire: Nude form floating, hair lazy and dark. Eyes. Her eyes were
“There is a place for you.”
Both nacelles were shattered at the hubs as the fighters strafed Task’s vessel. The lifting body of the slither flipped end-over-end at the planetship.
“They don’t want to talk.” Task wrestled with the controls, used maneuver jets to stay on-course.
“New plan.” Berlin spoke through teeth clenched, his lacerated jaw now tacky with blood.
The fighters strafed again. The slither body held, but the gelatin shield was starting to fail.
“Head for the launch tube.”
“The what?”
“On the top of the ship. There’s a liquidspace launch tube.”
“That’s new.”
“It’s meant for Maire.”
“Exile through liquidspace?”
“Sending her far, far away.”
Flashes of forcefire. Gelatin scraped away. They were losing speed.
“Position the vessel in front of the pipe.”
“But we’ll—”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to—”
“Just do it.”
when and whenand when andcalled upon again towakeand wakeand wake andbewith my childrenagain JudithGod reached out, touched that fury mind of frozen silver. Maire looked at them without emotion. Maire looked at them with
She saw that day again clearly: the vessel in the sky, blue sky. Cities below: people laughed and walked and sat on green grass of a pathetic excuse for a forest (park) and on blankets they ate sandwiches and apples (from trees) and there was music (do you remember music?) and underneath shade they fucked, fluids (liquid) exchanged in (final) bliss.
She saw that day again: the vessel in the sky, dissemination ports opening with ratchet and squeal, scream of machines. Cities below: men in black suits walked between buildings, weapons on their belts. Sound in the sky made them look up: black object where there should have been none. Hands went to weapons on their belts; nothing would save them. Nothing could save them.
She saw that day: the vessel in the sky, snap crackle and pop of phase waking the silver. Cities below: fighters roaring from defense facility, weapons ports opening: futile. Futile. Screams of children and mothers, children and fathers. She would end them.
She saw that: the lurch of the ship and it began. Cities below: the shadow of their end expanding. A quiet before
She saw: ring of metal, piercing the light, blue turns to gray to silver to. Cities below: suffocation and
Judith sobbed. God’s inner embrace was not enough. Such pain. And something.
“Do you have any defense?”
Maire’s lips remained closed, not from nearsolid prison but from
[you know why i did it.]
They all felt it this time; several members of the Council jolted in their chairs.
Something.
“The evidence speaks for itself. For your crime, you are sentenced to—”
Maire’s hands clenched to fists and it began.
suffocation and the world became solid. air of metal, skin replaced with, eyes bursting, screams cut off before, final glances: fighters caught in mid-flight, sun fading to gray, grass of metal blades, inhalation impossible, exhalation a reflex suicide. universe of silver: machines within, machines replace, machines of dust and the places between the stars where no one dared
Judith saw it from the corner of her eye. The host body beside her stood with force enough to topple his chair, innocent bald old man with too-few hearts and too much iron in his bloodstream. He screamed a human scream with a deity voice as he tore the flux interface from his chest.
“No—”
All of God, all of God within her, slamming home, replacing Judith with and overflowing and drowning, sudden, yet not without uncertainty or a measure of peace.
The host’s eyes opened and they were
“Get her out of here!” Hannon and the council dove into action. “Activate the launch sequence!”
Jade was the first to fall: matron.
The host’s body cleaved into two: emerging light, burning light, silver hidden within unsuspecting flawed body. Halves of red stinking biology splashed to the floor as silver escaped its delivery vessel. Maire’s lips curved into a smile.
“Activate the fucking launch sequence!”
Her smile became forever as her prison solidified. Hannon and Corr went to Jade, but it was too late: silver replacing flesh, flesh turning to dust, mercury dust, silver pile. Corr fell under the invasion of his own flesh. Hannon looked down and saw the lace of his death begin. Palm to chestplate, body enveloped in a sea of protective gel is it too late?
Maire’s prison was a cylinder of glass within steel, steel within phase. The tube dropped away before her as the planetship aligned itself with God’s vision, as launch doors opened, as universes dissembled within the pipe and
“Just do it” and the doors below them opened, throwing forth light that was metal, metal that was light: Maire asleep, Maire imprisoned.
Task had no time to react. Maire’s prison vessel tore through and through them and
Judith couldn’t stop screaming, couldn’t breath, couldn’t
Palm to chestplate. That was God’s touch: gelatin enveloped, then steel, then the floor dropped away as they were purged from
Council, dead. Council, dust: silver all at once, silver hidden within a flawed host body. Maire had known. Maire had planned it that way.
Is it too late? but the lace had stopped spreading under the pressure of glass. Gravity was gone. Hannon was being pulled into the tube. He sloshed to an escape port, waited for steel enclosure, dropped away from that room and into space.
The planetship imploded with the force of the reaction.
Hannon spun, saw JudithGod’s escape bubble spinning away, saw the halo link to the homeworld.
Oh my God—
A line of silver and fire: as Maire’s exile vessel lit into the night, the halo comm flared with something
something
We were connected.
To the homeworld, to all the planets of the system. They’d all been connected by that halo, and now it was silver.
Maire was gone. The planetship was nothing. Hannon and JudithGod floated alone above a dead world.
Please don’t let it spread. Please don’t let it get home.
God was in a metal bubble. There was no one to answer prayers in that void. If the silver traced the halo back to the homeworld, if the silver spread to the other planets in the system…
A loss so dear…
Hannon began to shake. His hands were cold.
and this heart, for you
There are silences beyond silence.