"Doesn't mean he wasn't good."
Her eyes stabbed up at Lena; for once, her body language wasn't hostile. Maybe she was feeling guilty for her part in his death. If it weren't for her not being able to keep her legs closed...
"I never liked funerals," Ira said.
"Who does?"
"Not for the obvious reasons." Ira stood up and took a deep breath. "I never liked how we seem to rewrite their lives, to shape the dead into someone we can live with. People's lives are so much more complicated than that. In some ways, we're all monsters."
"For what it's worth, I'm really sorry."
Part of Ira wanted to strangle Lena, wanted to knock her teeth out and make her face look as ugly as she was inside. "Whatever. Maybe you two were made for each other."
Lena nodded. "Maybe."
"I always knew this was a possibility. And, goddamn it, it hurts so fucking much. How do I manage without him? Without Eddy?"
Lena hugged her, held her close, and she tried not to go completely stiff. For what it was worth, Lena was trying to comfort her, even if she was only doing it to make herself feel better about what she'd done.
"I wish I'd never found that damn heat signature," Ira said. "Then Eddy and Nico would still be with us."
"You can't know that," Lena said.
Ira shook her head. "I should be blaming you and Hugo...but if I hadn't locked him in that cell...if I'd listened to his pleas, and believed that he was innocent..."
"I don't even know if he was. He didn't talk much, and he spent a lot of time alone."
Ira broke free of Lena's grip and kicked at the snow, causing a wave of icicles to wash over Nico's grave. "Damn you, Nico! Goddamn you!"
"Come on." Lena tugged at Ira's coat. "Let's go inside."
"You go. I want to be alone with him."
Lena nodded, and Ira watched her trudge back to the mouth of the cave.
Ira let the harsh wind beat into her, tugging at her clothes and threatening to expose portions of her skin to the violent cold. Part of her wanted to rip her clothes off right there, to dive into the snow and join her brother. But that probably wasn't what he'd want.
He'd want her to push on, no matter how much it hurt.
"I remember when we were just kids," Ira said. "I was always so jealous of you. You with your achievements in sports, track, all those trophies. Mom and Dad always praised you for that, and never once me for maintaining my grades, even when I got straight A's and got on the honor roll. I hated you for that sometimes.
"And then high school ended, and you went off to fight for the army, before the war, before the divide. I wasn't much for politics, but I knew things were changing, and not necessarily for the better." She shook her head. "I hated that you left us, but goddamn it, I missed you so much. Because, even when we fought, I always knew we loved each other. I remember the good times, and the bad, and I won't try to change who you were in my mind. You were a monster, created for the new imperial regime, and you never once questioned their orders, even though part of you knew they were wrong. You killed innocent people and violated the Constitution for nothing more than your twisted sense of loyalty.
"But, you were also my brother, and you saved my life, and I loved you."
She crossed her arms, held herself.
"No one's coming to our rescue now, and you're gone. I go back and forth. I have to find the strength to protect Mathias and Lena, even though, in some ways, I couldn't care less about them. But it's what you did. I can't give up looking for Eddy, either. If there's one good thing that came out of your death, it's that I have a reasonable doubt that you did it. What kind of irony would it be if I gave up, when there might still be a chance to save him?"
She could see a few buildings off in the distance, what was once known as San Bernardino; the skyline looked colder now.
She was a long way from home.
"Rest in peace, brother."
3
The stars were quiet today. Eddy's mind felt numb from the nonstop visions he'd seen. The monsters were silent now. It was the closest thing to peace that he'd been allowed to experience in what felt like years...maybe eons.
He was orbiting a red giant, standing on the boiling surface of a planet whose landmasses were breaking apart. Solar flares arced from the star, stabbing into the planet's crust, pulling it into a deadly embrace.
No, not he.
He wasn't anything. He was consciousness. A phantom wandering the eternal void. That's what the entities had told him—or—at least, that's what he thought they’d told him. If they were a thing at all. These were different than the dark things he'd encountered, the one he’d seen eons ago, the one that swallowed stars to spread its own darkness. These were bright, luminous beings, who wanted to help him, help him transcend beyond his current state. They tried to tell him he was alive, that what he perceived as real was only an illusion of the mind.
That he was in danger.
There are things beyond gods, beyond time.
He didn't believe them. He had to be dead. If he wasn't, why hadn't he woken up yet?
They claimed to have been in contact with others of his species, that the human race was headed for disaster. Claimed that they were violating their government's directorate in reaching out to him. That there was only one way for humanity to survive at their current technological level.
They told him he wasn't ready to travel, wasn't ready to move beyond this universe. He didn't understand...wasn't he already traveling?
A bright light came from above, and suddenly the stars were silenced, replaced by something he felt couldn't possibly be there. It was the face of a man he’d once known when he was alive, eons in the past on a world that had to be long since dead. His image was murky, like he was being viewed through a tank filled with water.
Mathias.
That was his name. He was talking, but Eddy didn't have ears to hear anymore.
Eddy vaguely remembered being lowered down into the tank. He could see the bridge of his nose, and the hose Mathias had fed him to keep him breathing air.
Could he still have been in the tank all this time? Was he still healing?
It had to be a lie. He wasn't really there. This had to be a trick, another vision given by the entities.
The image faded, and darkness returned; the stars came back.
4
Mathias grinned and locked the tank's hatch tight. Eddy was still alive and well, vitals still strong. He'd returned a couple times before to give him food and water. Each time, Eddy had looked more and more confused. He’d refused to speak the last time, even.
He was going mad inside the tank.
Fascinating.
The readouts in the observation room showed that his heart rate had spiked a few times in the last twelve hours, probably due to hallucinations brought on by his experience. Mathias chuckled to himself. Or, maybe he’d made contact with those same entities that Weber and Lilly spoke of? Had he seen the Harvester as well?
Mathias placed the grimoire down on the table inside the observation room, opening it to the appropriate page. He opened his pack, spreading its contents across the table; a paint brush, black and white cans of paint from one of the storage rooms, and a spool of wire to add to the pyramidal formation surrounding the tank.
It took quite a while to mark up the circle around the tank. He had to account for the tubes and wires snaking from the center of the chamber.
He hoped that Ira and Lena would still be busy. Too busy to go poking around the facility.
The circle consisted of hieroglyphs from before even the dinosaurs had existed on this world, before the time of the Earth even. To look at them was to invite things into this world that would drive weaker minds insane. Their names whispered through his mind as he etched them.
The Harvester's true name caused Mathias to shudder as he painted its markings on the surface of the tank.
Lai'thamia.
The word echoed through his mind like a dis
embodied whisper.
Lai'thamia.
Lai'thamia.
Lai'thamia!
The concrete floor rumbled with each symbol he painted, as if, at any moment, the walls would crumble away to reveal a hellish landscape where pyramids rule a burning sky circling a black hole. Where tentacles reach out from the event horizon to grab at knowledge not fit for weak minds. Where crumbling buildings older than the Earth itself float toward the dark.
Lai'thamia.
Lai'thamia.
Lai'thamia!
With the last symbol painted in the circle, he stood up. His hands were covered in black and white paint, but even he had to admit that his skin looked...lighter.
Lai'thamia.
No. Grayer. His skin looked gray.
He smiled so wide it hurt.
It was time.
He retreated to the observation room, safely tucked away behind the two-way mirror.
With a shaky hand, he turned the machines on and said the words.
Then, it seemed as if time itself was altered.
The Earth itself shakes, Mathias falls to his knees. The rumbling reverberates in his very bones. He claws his way back to his feet.
The walls inside the chamber are cracking, rumbling, then they're falling away into the dark. It is not the burning sky from his vision, however.
Something is wrong.
The walls continue to crumble and fall away into the Astral Lands, into a starscape where frozen planets drift aimlessly through the dark, where cloudy tendrils block out dim, faraway stars and galaxies.
There's something else in the dark.
It's not Lai'thamia, or even the creature Weber described. It's something else entirely.
Crimson eyes ignite in the dark like cosmic forest fires. Its eyes find Eddy's body. Mathias sees a dark mass silhouette and eclipse the surface of a gas giant.
Then, with tentacles like clouds of ash, it reaches out, into the chamber where Eddy drifts inside the tank.
It wraps itself around the tank. Then it's opening the lid, feeling its way inside.
Mathias is worried for his life now.
He scrambles for the door, but it won't open.
Eddy's screams make him turn back and watch. The cloudy tentacles rip the metallic lid off the tank, and then they force their way inside...until Eddy's screams are silenced.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Somehow, Mathias made it back to Weber's chamber at the top of the facility. He found himself on all fours, lethargically tearing his clothes from his body, crawling toward the deprivation tank at the center of the chamber. It stood inside a powerful warding symbol, which Weber referred to as the eye of the abyss—the same pyramidal shape Mathias had seen in some of the experiment chambers.
He could scarcely recall what had happened after he got the door to the experiment chamber open. It was like a nightmare. He hadn't dared look behind him as the door slammed shut, hadn't dared look back at what might have happened to Eddy as he ran screaming down the length of the corridor.
Scrambling down the hall, he’d felt tremors in the floor, echoing out from the experiment chamber. He desperately hoped that Ira and Lena had not felt them.
He'd failed, and Eddy had paid the price.
With shaky gray-skinned hands, he removed the lid to the deprivation tank and slipped the breathing mask over his head. The saline solution was discolored. Drunkenly, he brought up the controls on the side and had fresh solution cycled into the tank via tubes on the sides of the tank that receded into the floor. Once it was filled, he allowed himself to sink backward into it.
He hadn't even closed the lid and could already see why being inside the tank was so disorienting. Maybe he’d never get used to it. He allowed himself to float there, adjusting to the feeling—the unique sensation of not being able to feel where his skin ended and where the universe began.
He chuckled and closed the lid on top of himself, bathing himself in infinite darkness.
It was freeing, in a way.
5
"What the hell was that?" Lena said.
Ira could have sworn that she felt the Earth shaking. "I'm not sure..."
She'd been outside, visiting Nico's grave, when it happened. Lena came running to her shortly after. They both retreated back into the cave mouth.
It wasn't like any earthquake she'd ever felt. As if the universe were opening up to swallow them whole.
The sky had seemed to darken for a moment.
Lena caressed a large crack in the curvature of the wall. "Was this here before?"
Would these tremors become more prevalent? Would cracks in the walls be the least of their worries?
She had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"I need to check on our prisoner," Ira said.
Lena nodded.
Ira found herself in the elevator, holding herself.
Was the air conditioning running? It seemed colder for some reason. She'd have to look into it later.
She stepped off and headed toward the holding cell.
After opening the door to the brig, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when she saw that Hugo was still locked safely behind the bars.
Her footsteps echoing off the walls didn't bring his attention to her.
"You're a coward." Ira's voice was cold; she could feel the anger rising within her just from seeing him, like pressure beneath a volcano, ready to erupt.
Hugo's hands tightened on the bare mattress. Her brother's blood was still wet on the smooth stone floor. She found herself fantasizing about bashing Hugo’s skull into the wall. Repeating it again and again in her head.
His hands clasped together; those muted blue eyes met hers, his teeth bared.
"Open that cage," he said. "Find out."
Ira squeezed her fists so tight they started to go numb. She could almost taste it. Imagining herself pummeling him to death, his teeth broken and scattered across the pale gray floor, his blood, washing away Nico's, becoming one with the stone of this hellish place.
Or, she could drag him kicking and screaming from his cell, and put him in one of those experiment chambers. Liquefy his organs with shock therapy, fry his brains with meds.
There were no courts here. The world was mad. Why shouldn't she judge him? Why shouldn't she get justice for her brother's murder?
She thought of Nico.
How much he had changed after coming home from the war. How his PTSD had made him violent or irrational. How he’d eyed his stump in his room.
No, she thought. I won't become like you, brother.
"You're going to rot in there forever if I have anything to say about it," she said. "And I do. This entire base is now keyed to my voice and biometrics. If I wanted to, I could leave and command the facility to suck out all the air from this room. I could watch you suffocate to death on camera while I drink a hot cup of coffee and enjoy the show."
His angry expression eroded; his mouth hung open, eyes wild, desperate. "You wouldn't!"
She rushed the bars and pounded on them with her arms. "You murdered my brother! Don't tell me what I will or won't do to you, you fucking monster!"
"He took my woman and killed your man!"
"You lost Lena by being a useless slob, by being a coward! And, instead of owning up to your failure, you took his life, shooting him through these bars while he could do nothing to defend himself! Leaving you in there, rotting until you starve, or suffocating you, would be a goddamned mercy compared to what you deserve!"
"I found him after he did it." Hugo let his eyes rest on the floor. Was it remorse or satisfaction she saw in his eyes? "After he cut Eddy. He made me swear I wouldn't say anything, or else."
"He was having panic attacks, he couldn't control himself—"
"You really believe that, B?"
"If you're trying to justify what you did, it won't help you. Besides, Eddy is still alive."
"Open the gate." Hugo's eyes met hers, pleading, remorseful.
"No."
"Open the gate!" He stood up, pumping his fists to his chest.
"If I do that, you will die."
His skinny frame was shaking; he reached a hand up to the fresh bruise that her boot had left on his face. For all his taunting, she knew he was afraid of her.
"Think about that," she said, "while you rot down here in the darkness."
She was standing in the doorway, Hugo begging at the bars.
"Facility AI: engage," she said. "Turn off all lights in solitary confinement cell 2."
The lights faded until Hugo was plunged into darkness. She opened the door and stepped out into the light. The last thing she saw were his pleading eyes—and something else...seven gray eyes in the dark...but she was too angry to feel remorse or fear for her own paranoid hallucinations.
She closed the door behind her and locked it.
6
Mathias lost count of the hours inside the tank.
For some reason, he saw his classmates from Caltech; he was sitting in a familiar seat, in a familiar lecture hall, for a class which he hated. The only one that he’d ever come close to failing: ethics.
One of his classmates, a religious woman who had no love for science (and hadn't she hated him most of all?) would always ask inane questions that Professor Adams couldn't help but answer, distracting the class and derailing the Professor's lectures for an hour or more at a time.
She wore modest clothes that befit a woman twice her age and born several centuries before.
He remembered one derailment above all others: "When do you think science has gone too far? Do we dare to play God with our cloning, or the strange things we're doing with our particle colliders? Will we only be satisfied when we open a portal to hell itself?"
Some of the students had actually applauded her.
Fools.
He recalled how he’d stood up in the middle of her soap box: "We are God."
He’d watched as her mouth dropped open, ready to tear into him with some religiously fueled diatribe.
"We are gods. Not because we are all-powerful," he had said, "but because the existence of a God is brought about by the very reason why we experiment, why science was born: the need to explain the unknown, the need to understand that which hasn't been explained yet.
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