Someone to Remember Me: The Anniversary Edition (15 page)

Undeveloped shoreline curved away from them and Eight realized that they had quickly and unexpectedly reached the city’s western shore. Haven’s towers were bunched against an invisible line and the city had never dared to cross it. White sand, bleached of color, gradually disappeared into motionless black water.

With the city of Haven to their backs, and a bay of black water ahead of them, the five survivors stared with muted horror at the wreckage that lay among the shallows.

To call it monolithic would be a gross lie, Eight decided. Hardly any of the words that Eight dredged from her numbed mind could truthfully articulate the size of the metallic sphere that lay crashed in the bay.

A ruined sphere of colossal size sat undisturbed by immobile black water. Ancient and restless anger, palpable even at the survivors’ great distance, emanated from the wrecked but still intimidating structure. Terror crawled along Eight’s spine and triggered an instinctive aversion that screamed at her to go back into the city. Back to safety.

To go wherever the sphere wasn’t.

Null was on the ground. Her hands were sweeping away the sand to reveal a half-buried sign and with Seven’s help she wrenched it free of its earthy prison.

“
May the wreckage of the Sphere of the Builders, they who warred with the Founders, serve as testament that those who enslave and deny shall surely perish
,” Null recited the inscription word for word, speaking with an old fear that echoed the anxiety of a lost lifetime.

“The Founders came out of that thing?” Twenty scoffed.

Null and Seven laid the sign down and the woman approached the water’s edge.

“If the story is true then…yes. That Sphere must have been large enough to house thousands of people,” the self-declared architect estimated. Null pointed to different features and explained, “Look at the exterior! Do you see all those intersecting lines? The outside of the Sphere was a hundred thousands rings that spun around a central ball; the main hub.”

“Spun? How?” Seven managed to ask through his shock.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Null asked.

“It flew.” Eight’s answer, escaping her without permission, drew surprised glances from Twenty, Null, and Seven. Eight continued: “The Builders created the Sphere and enslaved the Founders in the process. The Founders rebelled and crashed the Sphere. This whole bay is artificial. When the Sphere crashed the impact was great enough that the immediate area was flooded.”

“And their Descendants didn’t build as close to the shore as they could have,” Null agreed and turned around, observing the edge of the city. The buildings were restrained and intimidated by the dark thing that sat in the bay. Was it possible for skyscrapers to be afraid?

“This was a place where people could come see the Sphere. See it but never touch it,” said Eight, catching sight of Seven. His gaze worried her. Rather than regard the Sphere with the same disgust and revulsion that his companions did, he stared at it with an intense longing.

“I want to go out there,” he decided.

Her stomach dropping, Eight protested.

“You can’t! There’s no way out there!”

“The water is two feet deep,” he declared, stomping towards the shallows. “I think I’ll survive.” Eight followed him. Moments later their feet sloshed into the dark waters but every step slowed her despite Seven proceeding unfettered. Her heart screamed at her to keep apace with him but her body dragged her to a stop. Getting closer to the Sphere made her weaker, made her scared, until Eight lashed out.

“You can’t do this again! You can’t keep walking into danger!” she bellowed.

Seven was surprised to hear her voice and turned his back on the Sphere. It loomed high above him despite being extraordinarily far away. Eight, infuriated by the idea of him going anywhere near that malevolent object, tried kicking water at Seven but failed. Her strength was being leached from her, stolen from her, and she was on the precipice of exhaustion.

“We’re going back to the shore!” Eight shouted. Her rage restored a level of her energy, gave her back her ability to move, and every fiber of her body screamed at her to put a stop to Seven’s misguided expedition.

Sheepishly, Seven admitted, “I just want to see what it is.”

“You can’t do that from back there?” she gestured behind her.

“Go back. I’ll be fine,” he urged her. “I want to do this.”

“That’s how each of your fantastic little plans have started. See where it’s gotten us?” drawled Twenty, splashing reluctantly through the shallows to reach Seven’s side. “You two are going to get us all killed by investigating every other bizarre thing in this city.”

Incensed by Twenty’s betrayal, Eight fumed at the idea of their group dividing.

“Can’t you feel it?” she pressed, trying to dissuade them but at a loss for how. Whatever the Sphere was doing interfered with her cognitive process. Her thoughts were jumbled and her reasoning impaired.

“Yes…” answered Seven, raising an eyebrow at her as if she’d asked him a very dumb question. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here cowering in fear.” Incensed by Seven’s implications, Eight shifted her rage to Twenty. His determination was altogether less firm than Seven’s. Twenty’s silence reaffirmed his solidarity.

“Don’t worry. I’ll bring him back from the big metal ball in one piece,” Twenty tried to joke but there was fear in his voice. Trapped by her rage, Eight waved them away dismissively.

“Fine. Do it.” She turned away from the two men and stormed towards the shore.

“Eight!” Seven shouted after her, pleading for her understanding.

“You can go! Don’t let me stop you now,” she seethed. Eight returned to the shore without looking back. If Seven wanted to disregard her and chose to indulge in a dangerous whim instead then that was his decision to make. How could he possibly go barreling towards that thing, that Sphere, when it obviously posed a danger to them?

“I think there’s something to your theory,” Null admitted to Ninety-Nine as Eight approached. “There’s something different about Seven. What affects us doesn’t affect him.”

“Perhaps. But he’s still an idiot,” Ninety-Nine confirmed.

“Men are idiots,” Eight groaned as she anxiously rubbed her temples. Her proximity to the Sphere had unleashed a terrible headache that made every sound and motion painful. Eventually she stopped pacing long enough to say, “Morons. Look at them.” The blurry outlines of Seven and Twenty were nearly to the Sphere. Nearly to the source of the destructive power that had rendered her useless against their determination.

As Seven and Twenty drew closer to the Sphere, Eight’s headache intensified. That buzzing sound, the inaudible hum that accompanied being in the Sphere’s presence, worsened until Eight was certain that Seven and Twenty had reached it. Null and Ninety-Nine shared worried glances and Eight knew that whatever was happening to her was exclusive to her. Were they spared because they hadn’t gone into the water?

A loud crack rang through the air.

Eight’s eyes slide upwards and she fell forward into darkness. Comfort and escape did not await her. Rather, the wisps of a forgotten lifetime reached out and wrapped around her. Bound her. Eight was dragged into the depths of unconsciousness where the strands of lost memories awaited and they burned brightly, vaporizing the blackness around her, until she stirred.

Nighttime had engulfed Haven and large spotlights blasted beams of illumination against the twisted exterior of the crashed Sphere. Throngs of people were moving up and down the streets that lined the shore, almost oblivious to the Sphere’s presence in the bay. Only a few took heed of it. Eight spotted one anxious man coping with the effect of the Sphere. He did not understand why or how he was feeling as he did; he could not connect the sudden malady to the Sphere’s proximity.

He was rare. An oddity. Unusual amongst Haven’s populace. He tried to lose himself in the music that echoed from the nearby restaurants and shops and continued on his way. Eight watched him go and then turned her attention back to the Sphere. Her bare feet were covered in sand and her nose perceived the salt in the air. And yet, the water around the Sphere remained still and black. Not a hint of the ocean beyond.

This was one of her favorite spots in Haven. Trapped between the enormous accomplishments of two civilizations, of two eras, Eight felt minuscule. Whatever her work yielded, whatever the war’s conclusion, none of it could change how she felt here. Without turning she knew that he was here. Her husband. His wordless arrival, his soundless presence.

“What did the others say?” he asked from behind her.

Anger. Why did she feel anger around her husband? Shouldn’t she feel love or compassion or loyalty? None of those emotions came to her. Perhaps she was more than just ghostlike in her white clothes and lab coat? Wind rustled the hem of her coat, as if reminding her of something she had forgotten, and she clawed her way back into her senses.

“Seven earnestly believes that the truce will falter soon and that open warfare will be resumed,” Eight replied succinctly. She wrenched her attention from the Sphere and its chillingly hypnotic call. Why did the citizens of Haven insist on lighting it? Such a horrible object in their history deserved to be forgotten in the darkness of the night. Yet they kept it illuminated…

“Obviously. The truce is little more than a cover for Ilana to engineer a sweeping defeat of the rebels.” Her husband moved so that he stood at her side. “There will only be one victor in this war.”

“Seven doesn’t seem to think so. Seven thinks that there can be a peaceful resolution for both parties.”

Her husband snorted. “…Seven. Others may be inclined to tolerate his grandiose nobility but you and I know better.”

“Do we?” Eight asked. “The rebels will fight to the death for their freedom. Maybe Seven has a point? Maybe Ilana should give the rebels a ship and let them leave.”

“Absolutely not.” Her husband swung around so that he stood in front of her. He was taller than most and so she was only slightly taller than him as a result. His black eyes stared into hers. “To leave Haven is forbidden. Our ancestors were persecuted by the rulers of the outside world…”

“How ironic that you are so possessed by Ilana’s dogma, Tobias,” Eight remarked sweetly, though her tone dripped with sarcasm.

“I broke from it once before and Haven has been made to pay for it,” Tobias reminded her.

“Really? I thought that was what Seven and the rest of us were doing?”

Rage flickered through Tobias’s black eyes. “Listen to me. Seven is defective. Do you think we don’t know about him or his secret meetings with the rebels? Ilana wants me to deal with him and, frankly, I see her side of things for once—” before he could say another word Eight wrapped her hand around her husband’s throat and casually lifted the man off his feet.

“Be very careful, Tobias. Remember what happened the last time you dared to think like that?”

She dropped him to the sand. Tobias rubbed his bruised throat and glared at her.

“I was out of line,” he said by way of apology.

“Obviously.” She wondered what had brought her to this point. She could no longer see her husband in Tobias Clay. She could not see the man that she had married; the man that was wholly concerned with saving Haven. Years later, it was Seven’s voice she heard whenever she looked at her husband. Seven’s damning words, his scathing critiques.

“I can’t tell you how important it is that you each maintain Ilana’s favor. She is impressed with your work but if Seven persists with his disruptive behavior…I won’t be able to save him,” Tobias warned her, trying to draw out his wife’s support. A spark of kindness, mixed with placating words, constituted her husband’s formula for appeasing her these days.

Why was she still married to him? Why did she endure his petty jealousies, his narrow perspective, and his irrelevant opinions? Tobias Clay’s genius had been unrivaled once, but that time was over. Eight could thank herself and Ninety-Nine for that. Was it love that kept her with Tobias, that bought her tolerance of his shortcomings? She knew the answer to that without thinking, without feeling. No.

Tobias Clay was useful. She had learned more from him about the city and its secrets than she could have on her own. Eight dug her hand into her coat pocket, where her fingers wrapped themselves around the note Seven had given her at the Great Library. Her knowledge, and the secrets that she possessed, would abet Seven’s clout and sheer force of will. She would help him save Haven from itself.

And after? Would she abandon Tobias when peace was achieved and Seven was a hero? That, also, was impossible. Eight would stay with Tobias—she would abide by the vows that she had made, even if it meant a lifetime of marital servitude. She was hiding behind a broken marriage, she knew that, but she couldn’t confront the alternative. She couldn’t confront the truth.

A truth that Seven already knew, returning to him as it was in the form of fragmented memories from another lifetime.

Tobias Clay remained, as always, blissfully unaware of his failure. They had lapsed into a silence that further divided them rather than unite them in solidarity. Maybe he knew, deep inside of him, that he would never be the one to save Haven? Not when he was the cause of the War of the Begotten…