by James Smythe
So I move on, and concentrate on other things. Inna. Hikaru. I am so glad that I was able to do right by them, and Wallace. His poor children. At least they might have a chance of knowing his absolute fate now, burying him. That matters. I wonder what he would have made of this, had he seen it. He was so much weaker than I thought, so desperately afraid of what we had found. We should have picked up on it. We should have known that he was a powder keg; and Hikaru, that he was liable to break down. That Inna was dying, or had come so close before.
But perhaps Tomas knew. Perhaps this was it: a crew of expendables, a crew that weren’t meant to live past this? Capable – no, perfectly able, at the top of their game, even – of completing the mission, but with no mind as to whether they came back. Led by me, the weakling twin. The one who did not achieve without his brother’s say. The one who stayed behind the curtain, but not because he was the one with all of the power; but because he was afraid.
I think about how they died. I watch it over and over, in my mind. Here in this darkness there is not much else to watch. I think about how much air I have left, and how it is going down whether I like it or not. I estimate an hour gone, even though I wasn’t going to do this. I could check. Everything is a countdown, whether I like it or not. Here is a timer until we lift off. Here is how long it will take to reach the anomaly. Here is how long you have got left. Twelve days to see me. Now wait twelve days until you can leave. Two hours until you die. Time moves slower, it seems, the faster the countdown. As if you give yourself more time to think.
I wonder if they will try this again? To reach the anomaly and to see what they can see? Probably not, assuming that Tomas knows everything I know, that I have worked out. Instead, he will try to work out how to stop it. He will prepare the world with tales of atmospheric interference, or say that it will herald meteor showers. He is an expert, the only expert, now. They’ll listen to him. They’ll ask him how they can ready themselves for the oncoming anomaly, and he’ll up his research budget. He will be able to write his own budget, in fact. He might sacrifice more of us, in the other ship. More expendables, thrown into the abyss to see what he can gain from it. He will claim, if anybody accuses him of anything, that it’s utilitarian. For the good of the people of planet Earth, that’s why he does it. He will tell them all that it’s no less than we deserve: a man who is willing to get things done. And I suppose they’ll thank him. They should, probably. I don’t know, maybe he was right. Maybe he knew where it was heading all along, and this was his way of … I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter any more.
What matters now is the people back there. If this reaches Earth, what happens? Does everybody cycle? Is that how this ends? In perpetual life? Do we ride it out until it passes? Will it ever pass?
How much bigger can this get?
Behind me, the Lära is tiny, now. He will be waiting, counting down the hours. Talking to himself. I am past the point where I can regret this and return. There is only forward. I am getting tired. I wonder if that’s natural. This must burn energy. The suit is designed to only take so much, and I’m only human. I think about Inna again. I always return to her. I think about her on the table that time. I wish I could think about the good things more, that my mind wandered there. But I think of her, like my mother. I think of those plastic organs.
I haven’t seen the glimmer again. I can’t see anything, now, not really. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Now the Lära is out of sight. I think that maybe I can see the light from it, maybe, but it’s probably me fooling myself. The blackness is so thick, so encompassing, I doubt I can see past it. I turn and then realize that I have lost my bearing. Have I turned back enough? I start to panic, because there is only one reason that I am here now, and it’s that glimmer. I breathe too quickly and have to calm myself. Breathing fast makes my supply go down. It’s not a set time. Everything seems a mistake.
I never wanted to die with regrets. I move forward, because I cannot die like this. Where will I start my cycle from, assuming I start one? Where will I begin again? It would be cruel to make me go through this all over again. I think, if ever you questioned the existence of a god, here is your proof. This is cruelty; this is nothingness.
I am sobbing in my suit, and the glass is misting. I try and hold myself back, because I know that my gasps are ruining me. The air is thinning. It is becoming nothing. It’s not even time to make my peace.
I want to tell my mother that I love her. And Tomas, for all his sins. He would say that I have sinned worse than he ever could. That at least my death had purpose. He would say that I brought this on myself. So there is nothing here, and he would say that he knew that. I would tell him that I was so sure, and he would say, It was a trick of the light. It was seeing faces in clouds. You’re good at that, Mira. It’s how you’ve always been. I would argue, saying that there are no clouds here to see faces in. The glimmer must have come from somewhere. And he would stand back and look smug, because that would have been his point all along. I know so well how his mind works, exactly how he thinks.
The air is so thin, and I have to breathe twice where I previously needed one, huffing in the air that is left. I think of Inna, dying. I can still see her face. I cannot stand to think that I will die. I stop the boosters, because I would rather know where I am. I turn around. I try to find the glimmer. This cannot have been in vain. It cannot.
Nothing. Just the nothing.
My tears, and my pain. I wonder if this was destined. Pre-ordained, somehow. How I was always meant to go. I am going to choke. I am going to die. I want, more than anything, this to be an end. Only me: I am the only one who will feel this. I am singular, and distinct, but then I see him: another version of me. He is here, and he is dead; drifting. Realization. He is in the suit. I see him, and I turn around, and there is another, fighting against it, choking. He is me in a minute’s time, from the future; and behind him, me coming forward, looking for this, from the past. One is a future that I will suffer through, one that I have already done. Around this, there are other versions of me: drifting off into the nothing. Some of them have been here a long time, I think. I know: I see their faces, and they are not me. As Cormac aged, so have they. Unexplainable, but this is where everything changes. I am in a sea of myself. I struggle to keep the tears in, to stop myself hyperventilating, and I manage it.
‘You’re stronger than this,’ I say to myself, but then I try to breathe, and I cannot. That was my last. I hold it. My head aches, and my eyes feel dead inside my head. I look around, trying to count them all, and I lose track of where I am. I am not righted; I am not in any direction. I am everywhere, and everything. I think that I am dead, that I am gone.
Then: the glimmer. It has been here the whole time, above me, below me, all around me. It unfolds itself. My eyes are heavy, and I can barely keep them open, but I need to. Because here is what I was looking for this entire time. I was wrong, and Tomas was wrong, and none of us knew. We were unprepared, and we will always be unprepared.
It is a parcel, a rip, a hole and it unfolds itself into space and delicacy. Everything was so dark before. It peels backwards and inside it there is light: pure, absolute light; and I stare at it, up close, forcing myself to look. I tell myself that this isn’t real, but I want to believe it; that inside this anomaly there is something so pure that it is made so that I do not understand, and have no need to understand. Outside, rushing away from it, I can see veins, thin red and white lines, spooling off as branches and rivers, splayed and rushing. Living things have veins, and blood, and life in them. It makes sense to me that there are things we cannot understand; that there is life that we cannot conceive. Maybe things that we should not, as well; that are not for us to know. I know that this is one. I have seen things that no other man has seen. I have my answer to the question: the question of what the anomaly is. It is final, and it is my answer alone, and I think that nobody else will ever know. Perhaps that it okay. Perhaps that I have an answer is enough.
&nb
sp; As I die, as I feel death coursing through my body, I look away from the heart of the anomaly, and down at the blackness below. It looks like I could fall: like there is nothing at all below me, and I am already falling, down and into forever.
Then it says, ‘I am here for you.’
And I say, ‘I know.’
I shut my eyes. It envelops me.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my amazing editor Amy McCulloch and the team at Voyager UK; Diana Gill and Voyager US; Laura Deacon and Blue Door; and all the sales, marketing, publicity, design and everything else people that worked so hard on these books. Thanks also to Sam Copeland, my agent, and all at RCW.
Enormous thanks to Kim Curran, Will Hill, Tom Pollock, James Dawson and Nikesh Shukla, all of who made me want to be better at this.
Lastly, thanks to my family for the unending support.
Here’s an exclusive extract from
THE MACHINE
by James Smythe
Available now
1
She opens the door to a deliveryman, and the Machine, which has come in three parts, all wrapped in thick paper. Each of the parts is too big to get through the door.
We’ll have to try the window, the man says.
She shows him which one it is, along the communal balcony. It’s already at its widest, to let some air into the flat, to try and counteract the invasive heat from outside. Still not wide enough, so the men – the first has been joined by another from the van, having just heaved another thick cream-paper-wrapped packet the size of a kitchen appliance from the van, and left it leaning against the bollards – tell her that they’ll have to take the window out.
We’ve got the tools for it, this other man says.
Beth stands back and watches as they unscrew the bolts on the attaching arms, and then lift the whole sheet down. Others in the estate have stuck their heads out of their windows, or come out of their front doors to watch. Next door, the woman with all the daughters stands and watches, and her girls run around inside. The littlest one stands at the woman’s legs, clutching onto her skirt.
Gawpers, the first man says. Always wanting to know what we’re up to.
The deliverymen don’t know what’s inside the packages. They’re just paid to deliver them. Beth wonders if she’s going to be able to assemble it herself, or if she’s better off asking them for help. Slip them a fifty, they’d probably stand around with her for an hour and figure it out. She doesn’t know how easy it will actually be: if there will be wires, or if it’s just a case of plugging the pieces together. The man she bought it from said it would be simple. They struggle up the stairwell with the first piece, stopping to mop their brows. They still wear dark-blue overalls, in this weather, and their now-sweaty palms leave dark-brown prints on the paper wrapped around the Machine’s pieces. The first piece makes it through the window maw, twisted in the frame as if this is one of those logic games. Manipulate the pieces.
Right, the first man says. Where do you want them?
In the spare bedroom, Beth tells him. She indicates it through, pointing the way past the living room. The room is light and airy – or as airy as it can be nowadays – and decorated like it’s a master, with an expensive-looking bed. Wallpaper not paint, with a different dado rail, a thick yellow colour contrasting with the impressed patterned cream of the walls. The room looks untouched, like nobody’s ever lived in it. The bed is made, the sides of the duvet tucked in below the mattress. There’s potpourri on the dresser in a simple golden metal dish, but not enough to stop the faint smell of dust. The sunlight, through the window, hits the dust, a cone of it floating in the air.
Anywhere?
By the back wall. I’ve cleared a space for it. She rushes past, ducking down in front of him, making sure that the space is still clear, then helps him lower the first package.
What the bloody hell is this thing? the man asks.
Exercise equipment, Beth tells him. That’s an answer suggested by the man who sold the Machine to her. In his email, he told her that he would write that on the form for the collection, and on the customs form. He was French, and Beth had had to translate his email using the internet, only the occasional word making her stumble. Still, she got the gist.
Jesus, the deliveryman says as he puts it down – the French seller has marked the packages with arrows, showing which way up they’re to be carried and stored – and stretches his back. He’s wearing a thick black harness around his waist, which he pats. Lifesaver, he says. They make us wear them now, for the insurance. We take them off in the van, when we’re done. Fucking hot though, wearing this along with the rest of the get-up. He stretches again, more exaggerated this time. His friend shouts from the window, where they see he’s positioned the next piece – this one long and thin at one end, bulbous and clunky at the other, meant to stand tall, taller than any of the people in the flat – halfway through the window. He’s straining to hold it up. Beth sees that the arrows (marked with thin, shaky writing that says THIS WAY UP) are horizontal. She wonders if that’ll affect it in any way.
Come on, the man says, can’t hold it. The other one takes the inside end and they work it through.
Same place? the first removal man asks. Beth nods, and then he asks for something cold to drink, which she prepares – iced tea, in the fridge – as they both struggle with it through the tight doorways and narrow corner into the room. She’s got two glasses on the side ready by the time that they’re done with that piece, but the first man – clearly the superior of the two, older and wiser and with a company t-shirt on under his rote blue overalls – waves them aside. Last piece, then we’ll have them, he says. Beth watches them both at the van, which they’ve parked at the bottom of the estate, by the bollards that prevent cars driving right up to the buildings themselves. They look at the last piece, which is nearly the same shape as the first, only somehow wider, more unwieldy, and they both laugh. She knows that they’re talking about what it is. Speculating. They’ll know it’s not exercise equipment. They’ve handled exercise bikes before. They do this for a living, and the wool can’t be pulled over the eyes of those who will know the weight and shape of an exercise bike or a rowing machine. She watches as they finally heave the last piece up between them, up the stairwell and into her flat through the window space. Their sweat drips from their heads and onto the concrete slabs, and the Machine.
It needs to be a certain way, she says. Would you mind? They shrug, and she tells them. The pieces have been labelled with numbers showing where they connect, drawn on the outside of the wrapping.
This is like Tetris, the first man says. The younger man laughs. They back up and look at it when they’re done, and the wall is essentially filled by the wrapped packages. The light that came through the small window is totally blocked now, and the room is suddenly darker, thrown into the shade of the still-wrapped packages. You all right with this now? the older man asks. He hands Beth a sheet from his back pocket, and a pen. Sign this and we’re all good. They gulp their drinks back as she signs her name three times, and then leave the glasses on the side. They replace the window back in minutes. These things are all designed to be taken apart and put back together so quickly now, the first man says. Everything’s a bloody prefab, right? He smiles at Beth as if she doesn’t live here, as if she’ll be in on the slightly snobbish joke with him. To her surprise she laughs, to back him up.
I know, she says. Thanks for everything. I really mean that.
No problem. She waits until they’re back in their van – they stand at the rear of it for a few minutes examining what they’ve got left on their sheet of deliveries, and where they’re heading next, wiping their foreheads on their sleeves and on a towel, gasping for air – and then watches them drive away. Then it’s just her and the flat and the Machine.
2
The paper pulls away from the Machine with relative ease. She’s surprised that it didn’t tear during the move. A few bits she has to attack with sci
ssors but most of it rips away easily, and then she’s left with the Machine itself. She stands back, on the other side of the bed, against the far wall. She sizes it up. This one is bigger than she remembers.
The pitch-black casing is grotesque, she thinks. It seems so vast. She hasn’t joined it together yet, not where the clips and bolts require, but she can see it as if it was complete. On its side, a coiled power cable waits, like an umbilicus. The Crown has a dock above the screen, in the centre, and the whole thing seems unreal. She looks at it for too long, at how black it is. It almost fills the entire wall, and the shadow it casts is deep enough that she can’t see the wallpaper past it. This was the only place it could go, because of the shape of the room. She tries to move as far back as possible and take it all in, but it isn’t possible. It’s like a cinema screen when you sit near the front: never entirely encompassed by your vision.
She knows, to the day, how long it’s been since she last saw one of these. The last one was very different in some ways: it was smaller, she thinks, and the Crown wasn’t docked as it is in this one. It was wireless, where here there’s a thick cable that looks like it’s got sand stuffed inside it to keep it taut, and other lumps and bumps along the length of the pale-coloured rubber. The Crown itself is less flashy as well. This is definitely an older model, but she wasn’t looking for a new one. In the newer models, you couldn’t change anything. Firmware updates were automatic. The guides on the internet told her that she needed one she could change, and this was all she could find. Even then it was hidden away amongst useless husks and books and videos. She had to email the man directly to ask if he had any working Machines, and it took four emails (making her jump through hoops) before he trusted her enough to tell her his prices. This one was the oldest of the old. She still paid through the nose for it. But it was the only one she had found in six months of searching, and she hadn’t spent any money for the last few years beyond the essentials. This was a long-term plan, and she had saved accordingly. The email where he wrote the figure she would owe him made her cry: not from the immensity, but the relief.
