Spires of Infinity (35 page)

“You couldn’t have just said that to begin with,” Sam asked in exasperation.

“Jeez, for a second there I thought you were speaking a completely different language!”

“Um,” Kari shared worried looks with her brothers then cleared her throat. “I think I know why the Apostle is on her way here. Her master, Cain, likely wishes to use the Spires of Infinity to create one of those paradoxes. For committing the very first murder, God cursed Cain with immortality, telling him that for his crime he would live until the very last day. Never say that God doesn’t have a sense of irony. Cain’s been looking for a way to die ever since. He’s been actively searching for a way to bring about that fabled last day for billions of years.”

“So if he sends his Apostle back in time to create a paradox the job is finished,”

Gabriel asked. “The universe goes poof, and this Cain gets to die?”

“This is a very disturbing line of thought,” Allie said. “And rather ludicrous. Are you certain?”

Kari nodded. “Extremely.”

“So the question is,” Gabriel said. “Do we go to the Emperor and tell him

everyone needs to evacuate to another world, leaving the Spires for the Apostle to possibly destroy all of creation with. Or is there some possibility to undo what was done to the sun without destroying the universe?”

“I do not mean to brag,” Allie said, “but I am infinitely more intelligent than you are. I doubt that there is anything you could think of that I have not. Relocation offers the best solution in my professional opinion, and there is plenty of time to find a suitable world, and organize the evacuation. I can simply refuse the Apostle access to the primary systems of the Spires of Infinity and that will prevent any unauthorized Gate Jumping once this world is abandoned.”

Standing, Gabriel started pacing. He’d always done his best thinking while on the move. In court he was notorious for how much he ranged across the courtroom while questioning witnesses. Wracking his brain, he knew that there had to be
some
solution.

If his entire life of watching cheesy sci-fi shows couldn’t produce an answer to this, nothing could.

“Come on Gabriel,” he muttered to himself. “What would Doctor Who do?”

Eyes widening, Gabriel got an idea. He wasn’t sure if it was something he’d seen on Doctor Who, or Battlestar Galactica, or Lost in Space, or a hundred other shows, but he was reasonably certain that it would work.

His father’s disembodied voice disagreed to such an extent that Gabriel began to doubt himself. Would it work? It was such an insane idea that there was no way it possibly could. His father was right. He didn’t have what it takes. He was a
lawyer
for god’s sake, not a physicist. If the most sophisticated AI ever built couldn’t figure out the answer to this problem, what made him think that he could?

As doubt settled into him, Gabriel pushed the idea away as no good. His father was right. His father had
always
been right. He’d never had what it takes, and he never would. He didn’t even know why the Northern Sage had chosen him for this. He wasn’t up to the task.

Dropping back into his chair to jeering applause from his father, Gabriel felt like an utter failure. Give him a problem to do with law, and he could find twenty different loopholes. Give him a jury and he could convince them that Satan himself was innocent.

He wasn’t a physicist. He was a sci-fi nerd. He didn’t know how the universe worked.

All he knew is what Star Trek told him about how the universe worked.

But still, he had to have been sent here for a reason. There had to be something that he could do, and he just wasn’t seeing it. He needed time to go over everything, and find his reason for being here. Why would the Northern Sage send a lawyer to do a physicist’s job? It didn’t make any sense, but there had to be a reason for it. There had to be something in his head that could be used to find the solution to this world’s problem. Perhaps his idea wasn’t so farfetched after all?

The small conference room was suddenly pressing in on Gabriel

claustrophobically. After so much time spent outdoors, the tiny room seemed very like a cage. The air seemed stale, and his lungs did not seem to want to inflate all the way.

Gasping for breath, he found that he was sweating heavily. He was actually having a panic attack! And who wouldn’t? He was supposed to save this world? How was he supposed to do that? He hadn’t even been given a
hint
as to what he was supposed to do once he got here. It was impossible! He didn’t have what it takes to be a hero, or a savior.

Running a hand through his hair, Gabriel knocked his hat to the floor, having

forgotten he was wearing it. He needed to get out. He needed fresh, open air. He needed to find somewhere to shout back at the voice in his head where he wouldn’t be overheard and thought a madman for it.

“I need to think this through,” he made the most convenient excuse. “Alone. Is there somewhere with a view I can just sit and think?”

“There is an observation catwalk down the hall to the left,” Allie said. “I have given you full access to the facility. The doors will recognize you and open when you approach.”

“I’ll be back in a little while. I just need to work a few things out.”

Chapter 31: “You Have What it Takes”

Cold wind blasted Gabriel, whipping his coat out behind him as he stepped onto a wide catwalk with no railing that overlooked the wastelands. In the distance he could see New Hope, and the Quarantine Zone beyond. Almost immediately his panic attack began to subside. With the wide-open view he no longer felt claustrophobic, and the freezing cold air cooled him and slowed his breathing. As quickly as it had started, it was gone, leaving him staring out at the barren, nuclear waste of Ethos.

Though only a month had passed in local time, it had to be far longer in Earth time. He felt almost as though he’d been on Ethos for years. A lifetime of things seemed to have happened to him since he arrived. Feeling an intense wave of homesickness, Gabriel kicked at the metal grating beneath his feet. The thought of using the Spires of Infinity to go home had been the only thing keeping him going sometimes. Discovering it wasn’t possible was devastating. In fact, he actually felt like crying.

Looking down from the edge of the catwalk, Gabriel felt a bit nervous as his

childhood fear of heights tried to reinstate itself. He figured he’d never been so high in his life outside of an airplane. Sitting down, he dangled his legs over the edge and looked out at the dying world below.

As he put his hand down to brace against a particularly strong gust of wind, the remnants of a railing post jabbed him. So there had been a railing here once upon a time.

What in the name of god was he doing here? Why him? Out of all the people in the universe to send here, why the douchebag lawyer with daddy issues? Looking back, Gabriel would have sold his soul just to impress his father, or rather the voice of his father in the back of his head. He’d pushed himself to be the absolute best at everything he did in order to prove that fat, drunken, redneck bastard wrong.

“You think you can save this world,” his father said to him. “You think your silly little idea will make things right? You’re not Space Jesus. You don’t have what it takes.”

“Shut up,” Gabriel snarled. “Just shut up! I hate you!”

“Oh-ho, what have we here, does the baby have a knife,” Gabriel’s father taunted in a drunken slur as he raised his bloody fist before slamming it down into his unconscious mother’s face again. “What do you think you’re gonna do with that? You don’t have what it takes, boy. Put it down before you cut yourself. And don’t go far.

You’re next.”

“I hate you so much,” Gabriel screamed at his father. “
Why
? Why did you hurt us so much? Why can’t you just go away and leave me alone!”

“Because my boy’s a pussy, and I need to set him straight,” his father replied.

Unable to help himself, Gabriel’s mind wandered back to the last night he’d ever seen his father. Fear and hatred fragmented the memory. He remembered the wet sound of the fist slamming into his mother’s face. He remembered the blood on his father’s knuckles, and on the wall. He remembered thinking that this was the time he finally killed her. He felt so helpless, a young boy standing up to the demon that haunted his nightmares, and stalked his waking world. He needed a hero, but there were none to be found.

His eyes fell on the butcher knife on the counter, and he reached for it, feeling its weight. His reflection in the blade was terrified with glistening trails of tears on his cheeks. With no heroes to be had, he would have to do.

“Stop hitting my mom, you bastard!”

The first time he’d ever cursed.

The bloody fist came up, started to go back down, and then stopped, hanging

ominously in the air. The smell of beer. The smell of urine. The smell of vomit.

Bloodshot eyes. A running, red nose. Animal hatred behind human eyes.

“You don’t have what it takes.”

The knife fell to the floor, and Gabriel dropped to his knees, begging his father not to kill his mother. Standing, Joseph Reeve looked down on his son with disgust, and lurched drunkenly toward the door, never to be seen again. His mother had never been the same after that night, and had ended up in a mental ward three years later where she still remained, sending Gabriel to foster care until he left for college.

“I don’t have what it takes,” Gabriel muttered, looking over the landscape. “If I can’t save my own mother, how can I save an entire world full of people?”

Something felt wrong about the memories of the night his father staggered out of his life forever. Frowning, Gabriel examined the memory. He had the strangest feeling that it hadn’t actually happened that way. Was his memory of that night somehow wrong? How was that possible, and why had the thought even come to him?

“You don’t have what it takes to save this world, pussy.”

Gabriel could almost smell beer on the air.

“Leave me alone! Go haunt someone else!”

His father only laughed, continuing to taunt him. Having lost his luxurious life and his only way back to it, Gabriel felt as though he’d come as low as he could. He didn’t want to go on. He needed someone to help him, give him a boost over the obstacles standing in his path.

“Look god,” Gabriel said to the sky. “I’ve never been very faithful, and I’m an evil bastard too. I just don’t have anything left. I need help. I just don’t think I have what it takes to fix things here. My father was right all along. Please. I really need something—
anything—
to help me get through this. There has to be some reason I was sent here, but I can’t see it. I’m just a sleazy lawyer, not a hero, or a champion of justice like I dreamt of being. I can’t believe I’m actually praying, because you never answered a single prayer in my life. But if you’re going to start, this is the one. Please. I need help.”

Staring at the heavens for a few seconds, Gabriel slumped when there was no

answer to his plea. Psychologically speaking, the voice in his head had to be the representation of some deep down, inner insecurity. Part of him didn’t believe he could save Ethos, and thought his idea was completely insane. When it came to him, he’d been so sure it would work, but the more he thought about it, the more ludicrous it seemed.

Besides, whoever went to do it likely wasn’t coming back from it. How could he do that knowing he’d never see Sam again? He didn’t have what it takes to fix things here. The Northern Sage had been wrong to send him.

“You don’t have what it takes,” Gabriel repeated his father’s words. “Why is this happening to me?”

The howling wind held no answers for him. He didn’t have what it took to risk his life for people he’d never met before.

“Hello there,” Gabriel started and almost fell off the edge of the catwalk. As he realized Kari had been watching him for some time as he argued with himself, his face began to color deeply.

*****

“Does your friend always go off alone to think,” Kari asked Sam. “He looked

kind of sick, and he smelled like his heart was about to explode in his chest.”

A glare was Sam’s only reply. There was jealousy, and then there was what Sam had rotting in her black little heart.

“Even if I was after your man,” Kari said with fond thoughts of putting Sam over her knee and spanking her for childish behavior. “He doesn’t even know I exist. Anyone can see he’s only got eyes for you.”

“That’s not what it looked like,” Sam’s scowl increased.

“You want to be blunt, fine, I’ll be blunt,” Kari pointed to her breasts. “Not to brag, but these babies are much bigger than yours. The only men that look me in the eye while talking to me are related to me, homosexual, or in love with someone else. Gabriel has
always
looked me in the eye, so stop acting like a silly little girl! I’ve had enough of this!”

“I have better things to do that sit around locked up with
you
.”

With an angry huff, Sam stood, nearly dislodging the sleeping cat on her

shoulders and strode out the door.

Turning to her brothers, Kari scowled. Sometime during the exchange they’d

jumped into each other’s arms with looks of mock horror.

“Scary.”

“Hold me.”

“Oh stop it,” Kari snapped. “You’re being obnoxious.”

“Yes ma’am!”

Shaking her head in annoyance, Kari had a growing feeling that she needed to

speak with Gabriel as soon as possible. “I’m going to find that Gabriel guy. I think he’s the one father gave us those messages for. Don’t get into any trouble.”

“That kid will eat you alive if she finds you with him,” Jonathan pointed out.

“I think I’ll risk her wrath,” Kari replied dryly.

“Jeez,” Michael said as Kari left the conference room. “Girls sure are terrifying sometimes.”

Turning left, Kari walked toward the door at the end of the hallway. It opened when she approached, letting in a blast of cold air that blew her hair backward.

Stepping into what passed for daylight on this miserable world, she found Gabriel sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of a long, wide catwalk. He seemed to be arguing with himself, but his words were lost in the howl of the wind.