Cenotaxis (8 page)

"It's beyond such concepts, beyond time itself."

"Again, you would say that."

"Because it's the truth. Human consciousness is an emergent phenomenon arising out of the complexity of our brains. We can make our brains larger in order to make our consciousness more powerful, but that's ultimately an evolutionary dead end. We have to become the phenomenon itself. We have to rise above our limitations."

He nods at that. "The death of the Forts has proved that no one is invincible. Even if your brain is as big as a galaxy, it's still based on some kind of physical medium. And any medium can be attacked."

"Not if the medium is spacetime itself," I tell him.

He raises an eyebrow. "Raw spacetime is slippery stuff. Poke it the wrong way and it dissolves back into garbage."

On these details I am somewhat hazy. The method of my creation died with the ancient minds of Earth. "The end is what matters, not the means. That's what you told me in Malan."

"Yes, I did." He examines me for a beat. "Do you really expect me to believe that the Forts here invented a way to write their thoughts onto the fabric of the universe, and they used it solely for some bizarre theological experiment?"

"There's nothing more important than the quest for God."

"Unless—" A new thought occurs to him. His eyes widen. He raises one hand and clicks thumb loudly against forefinger. "Yes. Perhaps there is a mind written on the vacuum, but it's not yours at all. Maybe it's the Fort we've been looking for so long. No wonder we haven't been able to find it on the ground or in the air. It's all around us! How do you access it? Do you just talk and it whispers back into your ear?"

I want to mock him as he once publicly mocked me.
Of course,
I'd like to say.
It's that easy. It's just like having a pixie sitting on my shoulder, or a guardian angel everywhere I go. The greatest minds in the history of humanity spent their dying days building us a legacy of
invisible friends.

"I don't understand you," I say instead. "You claim the Forts are dead, but here you are insisting there's one on Earth. You can't have it both ways."

"Maybe not a full Fort, then. Maybe just a gestalt. The point's the same."

"Equally ridiculous, you mean." I think of the Apparatus's ongoing silence, and I hope the worry doesn't show on my face. Have I said too much? "You can accept it if you wish."

"You've yet to give me a reason not to. In fact, you've built up a pretty convincing argument in favor of it. You had a Fort that was smarter than we are guiding your hand, but we've never found it. The interface between you and it must be so subtle I'd probably not recognize it even if you showed it to me. So it's written on spacetime, and we're at the same old standoff. You won't give me your little toy, and I can't keep you alive any longer on the off-chance you'll change your mind. Your belated little confession has gotten us nowhere. Nowhere at all."

I put a hand to my temple, filled with a fervent weariness. "I am the incarnation of the Godhood every human seeks. Accept that, and you will recognize the progress we have made."

"I can accept the possibility that what you're insinuating about spacetime is the truth. And maybe you do genuinely think you're experiencing life all out of order. But I don't accept that they're related. It's far more likely that you're jumbling things up to make sense of the way I beat you in the war. Have you worked it out yet, Jasper, by the way? Made any progress on that front?"

My face is a mask. "I'm not the one who needs to work things out."

"All right, but I need proof, Jasper. Proof that everything you're telling me is true. Even if I believe you, that wouldn't be enough. Faith won't heal the galaxy. Faith won't kill our enemies or bring back the Forts. You have to give me more than this."

"That's all there is," I tell him.

Shaking his head, he leaves me to think about stars in abundance and the death of gods—if that's what the Forts thought they were.

I promise myself that I won't make the same mistake.

The day passes slowly. I have spent many such days in my two different cells. Plastic and stone are interchangeable. This cell possesses a single narrow window through which natural light can enter. Some days all I do is wait for the patch of afternoon light it allows, then follow it with my gaze into dusk and darkness. All too quickly, that narrow patch of golden light comes and goes. The seconds tick on.

I think of him saying, "I understand you well enough, Jasper. I've faced more than a few reluctant collaborators in my time."

The accusation haunts me now for reasons I am unable to fathom. Haven't I fought him at every step? Haven't I done everything in my power to deny his will? There is surely no more I can do to prove that I am the exact opposite of who he believes I am. And yet I do not know how I was captured. The uncertainty surrounding that fateful day eats at me.

He has sowed doubt in me, and it grows against every ounce of will I throw against it.

An hour after nightfall, I hear a rattling at the door of my cell. I sit up straight, assuming Bergamasc has come to berate me again. My eyes open wide when I see who it is, creeping around the edge of the door like a shadow down a wall.

"Hello," whispers Alice-Angeles, taking me in with eyes perfectly equipped for infrared.

I scramble to my feet. "What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you, if you want to be rescued," she says, coming closer. In her arms she cradles a heavy rifle. "We heard about what Bergamasc intends for tomorrow. Our supporters in the Round pulled every possible favor to give you this one, last chance. Are you coming?"

I open my mouth to tell her no. The mental battle is more important than the physical. Winning the latter without the former would be empty and pointless.

But what if Alice-Angeles' arrival is fate in action? If I turn my back on it, what does that make me? Wouldn't that prove Bergamasc right?

Her expression is determinedly neutral by the thin wedge of starlight allowed into the cell.

"All right," I say, taking her hand and accepting her help getting to my feet. I am stiff from my years of relative inactivity. I can feel long-disused chemical pathways reactivating all down my limbs. "Where are we going?"

"We've commandeered an airship and equipped it with counterfeit authorization codes. It's docked on the pad outside. We incapacitated the guards with airborne agents. You're still immune to Zebedee, obviously."

I nod. Yes, obviously, or I'd be out cold too. We had prepared for just such a contingency, never expecting we'd actually need it. "There must be security AIs in place."

"We're keeping them as busy as possible without drawing too much attention to our efforts. Really, the security here is very slack. The enemy has become overconfident."

"You could probably have done this months ago, if I'd let you."

"Yes," she said. "I'm too good at following orders."

"Yes, you are." I clap her on the shoulder and try to squeeze, filled with a surprising affection for her bland self-appreciation, but the armor of her camouflage suit stiffens instantly in resistance. "Let's get moving, shall we?"

She doesn't waste time acknowledging the order. I follow her out of the door and into the short corridor I have seen only once before. It leads to a spiral staircase that winds down to the distant ground. The steps are old and worn but impeccably clean. No doors or windows break the interior stonework at any point during our descent. My breath comes heavily before I reach halfway. Soon enough, though, my body adjusts to the sudden demand and the fire in my lungs eases.

Two frags in black await us at the bottom. I don't recognize either of them. The night air is cool and free against my cheeks, and I am surprised to find myself unconsciously weeping. Trees stand out in the lights of the landing field. I have almost forgotten what green looks like.

Above me, intact and whole, stands the magnificent form of Vulcan, still staring expectantly up at the stars.

Then all is motion and urgency. More frags wave from the base of a waiting airship, an adaptive hull design currently shaped like a fat spheroid, ten meters across. Alice-Angeles tugs me out into the open. A pang of agoraphobia strikes me. I have been confined so long that I can barely walk. The problem lies not in my legs or lungs, but my head. How can we possibly maintain our cover so long? Our luck must surely run out soon!

That eventuality arrives in the form of shouting from my right. The whiz of gunfire gets me moving properly. Adrenaline-fuelled blood surges through my veins. Being a trooper is something you never unlearn, and for me my last gun battle was only days ago.

There's no time to grab a weapon and fire back. The frags are determined to get me aboard the airship and away. Rifle fire pings and tings against the hull, but the hatch closes before the invaders can approach. My stomach lurches as powerful engines roar into life. The hull changes to a more aerodynamic shape, forcing the chamber around me to become narrower, more claustrophobic. My guts tell me that we are accelerating fast.

"Where are we going?" I call to Alice-Angeles over the engines. "Won't they be able to track us?"

"We want them to," she says, peeling off her armor like a crab slipping out of its shell. The pieces curl up when they hit the floor. "In two minutes, you and I are jumping out wearing these." She indicates two limp skinsuits in nonreflective gray that one of the frags is holding. "They're radar-absorbent and will deploy foils to bring us down on the target safely."

"What's at the target?"

"I'll explain if there's time. You'll want to undress now."

Under the combined emotionless gaze of the frags, I strip out of my gray prison garb and slip into the skinsuit. It hugs me like a lover, and I am conscious of a strange and inappropriate arousal. Is it the thought of freedom that excites me, or Alice-Angeles' slim body in its own gray sheath? I am not normally a sexual person; relationships are difficult to maintain in an achronistic framework, and frags emote very differently than Primes. It has been easier to leave that corner of my being fallow. Now, though, it has stirred. Why?

I can't disentangle the cause from the effect. So much novelty in so short a time is leaving me mentally and emotionally off balance. I don't know where to look.

The frags don't even notice. One of them opens a smaller hatch in the side of the airship, and desperately cold wind dispels any absurd illusions I might have entertained.

"After you," Alice-Angeles says with her strong hand gripping my shoulder. "The suit will take control as soon as you're falling."

I nod and move into position. The wind snatches at me with increased strength, and I resist only so long as it takes to brace myself. Then I fling myself forward into darkness, certain that anything Alice-Angeles has prepared will work perfectly.

As promised, the suit leaves me little to do. Deceptively strong aerofoils instantly unfurl from my arms and legs, stabilizing my fall. A moment later I sense the fabric changing shape in order to alter my orientation. My heart rises into my throat, making it difficult to breathe, as the forest below rushes up to meet me. I see nothing but leaves and branches, any one of which could take my head clean off. I fight the urge to close my eyes.

I penetrate a hole in the canopy, invisible until the very last second, and the suit puffs up like a parachute. Its all-over grip on my body spreads the sudden deceleration, but still I feel shaken by the jolt. I twist and hit the ground on my side, and roll several times across a bed of soft undergrowth. When I come to a halt, I can see faint neuronal ghosts firing in my eyes, but nothing else. The parachute retracts.

With a whistle and a protracted, crackling thud, Alice-Angeles follows, landing almost close enough to touch. The fabric of her suit briefly covers my face, and I brush it away with shaking hands. I can hear her breathing—heavy but regular—and am not surprised that she finds her feet before I do.

"Wait here," she says. I hear her moving through the undergrowth. Her hands find something other than vegetation. Plastic clasps unsnap. "I have a torch," she says, "but I'll wait a moment in case they see us."

Only then do I consciously note the whining of aircraft above. Landing lights glimmer through the foliage, but no searchlights. Our descent has gone unobserved. The vehicles fly in steady pursuit of our airship, their guns silent.

That's good, I think to myself. We've escaped and no one has been killed. Yet.

I try to call the Apparatus, but still it doesn't respond.

"Do you have weapons in that cache of yours?" I ask her.

"Yes. Would you like one?"

"Of course. I don't expect you to do all the hard work."

"It's not hard," she says, "to do what must be done."

"That's exactly what I've been telling myself these last few years." My fingers dig into the mess of leaves and twigs beneath me, and deeper, into the loamy soil of humanity's homeworld. A barrage of odors assaults my nose. "I could've taken the easy way out many times over, but I wouldn't give up hope. The enemy had to have a weak spot; all I had to do was find it, and convince him that he's wrong. But time ran out. He forced my hand. And now..."

"What?"

"Exactly, Alice-Angeles. We start again, I guess. When we're out of the woods, you can bring me up to date. We'll recall the troops, and make better use of our allies this time. This is our fight, but that doesn't mean we can't call for help when we need it. And need it we will. I've seen what we're up against. The cost could be higher than I ever imagined."

Alice-Angeles snaps on the light.

The first thing I see is her sitting in a bed of bracken, caught in the yellow glow like a child holding a torch. Her eyes seem very wide to me, making her look much younger than I know she is. This, my changing perception of her, causes me some concern. Frag, woman, child—why do I wrestle with her identity now, when I should be thinking of nothing but escape and the renewal of my quest?

She doesn't move, and it is her stillness that draws my gaze into the trees. Behind her I see two people in black holding rifles trained in our direction. A third moves to my right. A cold feeling rushes across my skin, and I look all around me, searching for what I know will be there. Two more people, sixty degrees apart on my left, complete the circle.