by David Beers
Those same people now with large bruises across their necks, and palms that ached—though, they should be raw and bleeding.
You’re so benevolent, David. You healed the injuries that you created.
He’d called Rhett to him on the beach because he knew it would be the easier conversation. Now, it was time for the harder one. Because he couldn’t do what he did last night and not offer something to these two. They were all he had left, his last true connection with the human species.
Rebecca was gone and she would be forever. She might not be dead yet, but it was only a matter of time. The Unformed would finish her off shortly.
You won’t be around to see it, he thought.
And that felt true. More so with each passing night. David was doing his absolute best to keep those around him from seeing it, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could manage to keep them from knowing. The strain on him was tremendous, his power constantly being drained. Flowing to the One Path, where the madmen and women used it to kill and conquer.
The Union had to happen quickly, or it would not happen at all.
Last night, after making sure the three would sleep until the sun rose, David had forced everything from his mind and tried calculating how much longer he could keep this up. Before, the power had always been endless, something that flowed from the Unformed whenever David called upon it. Now, though, it still flowed from the Unformed, but David was not the end goal. He was a conduit, and with each molecule of gray light that flowed through him, it stole part of him, too. Weakening him—if not his power, then his soul. And soon, it would weaken his body.
It’s almost over. Another day, that’s all you need.
He thought, if pushed, he might be able to make it a week. A day should be fine. It had to be.
If the girl stays at bay. Stays wherever she’s at.
“Christine,” he said, knowing that he had probably already waited too long. There was too much on his mind, though, and he didn’t want to have this conversation—but she was owed it. “Will you come up front?”
He listened as she moved across the ship and then stepped into the front cabin.
She sat down and David was quiet for a bit, both of them staring out the front window.
“Did Rhett tell you where we’re going?” he finally asked.
“Yes.”
“I asked him before we got in, and I’m going to ask you now, do you want to go? Do you want to finish this?”
“It’s why we’re here.”
Her voice was hard, an edge that David had heard her use against others throughout the years.
“If you don’t want to be,” David said, “you don’t have to be.”
“Is that what you think?” she turned to him and he saw tears in her eyes. “That we don’t want to be here? Are we the ones who flew off last night, unharmed, or are we the ones you nearly killed?”
David gritted his teeth, feeling anger rise in him. Rebecca had directly challenged him like this before, but never Christine, never Rhett.
Is she wrong?
“You wanted me to kill her?” David asked, his voice low. There was an edge to it as well, one that spoke of the rage running just beneath each word.
Christine looked away and out the window to her right. David saw a tear roll down her face.
“Answer me. Is that what you wanted?”
“No, David. I wanted what happened to happen. You did exactly what Rhett and I both wanted.”
David leaned back in his seat and stared out the front window. A minute of silence passed, David having no idea how to continue.
“I don’t know what happened to her,” Christine whispered. “I don’t know what they did to her when they captured us, but I saw what they did to me. I saw what they did to the others with me. They hung me up on a wall and drained my blood until I was in a coma. The people I was with? They’re not alive anymore, David. All of them are dead, and they gave their lives for you. What did she do?” Christine turned back to him. “What did Rebecca do?”
David closed his eyes, still saying nothing.
“I’ve followed you since I met you, and I’m going to continue. I’m going to follow you to this river, and if you tell me to dive in and hold my breath until my lungs explode, then that’s what I’m going to do. Rhett will do the same, and the other two? Reinheld and this pilot? I don’t even know them, but without any doubt, they’ll do whatever you ask. We all will, because we love you, and no matter what happens, we’re in this until the end.”
He listened, knowing every word was true. Knowing he deserved it. He felt no rage inside him now, only weariness.
“She won’t be there, though, David. She will most likely be trying to figure out some way to kill you. Your own sister. We love you, and it’s not because we’re frightened of you. We are scared, though. Everyone is, because your power is like nothing else on this Earth. And last night you turned it on us … instead of her. You want to let your sister live after what she did, fine. But it’s brutalizing us in her stead that hurts, David. There’s nothing I can do. Rhett told me not to even say anything, to be honest. If you want to strangle me again, then you can do it. You can kill all of us right now, and the fucking funny thing is, we’d let you. We would die right here, if that’s what you wanted, and we’d do it just to satisfy your anger.”
She sighed and was quiet for a few seconds.
“Yes, I’m going with you to the river. No, I’m not going to quit following you. None of us are.” David heard the tears in her voice, even if his closed eyes wouldn’t let him view them. “Is that all you wanted? To make sure I was still going to die for you?”
David didn’t move, didn’t say a word.
“Can I go back now?”
He nodded and listened as she exited the front cabin, heading to the people she …
What? he asked himself. She’s heading to the people she feels love her. Because it’s clear what you do: you use them. You called her up here to make sure she was still willing to die. She told you she is, knowing that’s all you wanted to hear, then she left you to yourself.
David didn’t open his eyes. Tears rested underneath and he wasn’t going to let them spill out.
What did they want him to say? That he was sorry? That he took out his rage on them, but that he wouldn’t have killed them anymore than he would have Rebecca? That he was broken, and had been since he was a fucking kid?
No, he wouldn’t tell them any of that, because he was the Prophet and this was the way it had to be. They might see his actions, but it wasn’t their job to see his sacrifices. The death flowing through him right now, taking his life for a world that he would only glimpse.
They could be angry about last night, but it wasn’t them that wore this crown. It wasn’t them that had to make the choice to let his sister live or not, and it wouldn’t be them that gave their life tomorrow.
David carried it all, and if they wanted to sit back there and be angry because he had grown angry, so be it.
He had to carry this to the end, and he couldn’t do it worrying about their feelings.
Eleven
Nicki and the stranger had walked some more, but eventually found themselves sitting on her stoop.
“You can try going in, but you won’t be able to,” Laurel said. “I don’t know exactly what will happen, only that you’ll remain right here no matter what you do.”
“Even me?” Nicki asked, looking behind her at the door.
“Just because something wanted you to come here, doesn’t mean all the rules end. Nothing besides me will ever get in that house.”
Nicki looked back out into the yard. “You said you were unjustly killed?”
The woman nodded. “Yeah. You wonder, after sitting in here this long, but I still think I was. Even if there is a God, you can’t force people to believe in It, or Him, or Her. Whatever it is. I was killed for not believing.” She chuckled. “That might be a bit of an understatement. I was killed for plotting an o
verthrow of the Ministries, but maybe they both come to the same.”
“And you just ended up here?”
“There was darkness for a while, but eventually, yes. You were on the street, but I was standing in the yard, looking up at the house. For a while, I tried everything I could think of to get out, but eventually, you come to realize that you’re not in control here. Something else is. I call it God. You can call it whatever you want, but the point is, you can’t leave here anymore than I can.”
“I keep telling you, God wouldn’t allow the things I’ve seen,” Nicki said.
“So let me hear them.”
Nicki laughed and leaned back onto the black stoop, her head touching the smooth glass that would have been concrete back in the Old World. She was quiet for a moment, and then she started talking. She started at the beginning, at the restaurant, and from there the story simply spread out. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about it, and quickly found that her subconscious had a lot to say. More than she had imagined.
She talked until she cried, pausing for only a second, and then continuing.
She kept going until she talked about the dark man, his gray eyes standing in that floating building, and the gray light filling everything. Her father behind her, and rage inside her.
Salty tears lined her face, drying. “And then, I was standing in the middle of the street.”
The woman was quiet for a long time, and Nicki didn’t expect the question she asked. “Do you hear the voice anymore?”
Nicki shook her head. “No.”
Laurel nodded. “That lends more credence to my theory. Something wants you here, but it doesn’t want that voice here.”
“You keep talking about this something, this God. Did you not listen to what I said?” Nicki asked, feeling the first real anger she’d felt in this place. It had been a peaceful respite from everything else she’d faced, but this woman wasn’t hearing a word.
“Yes, I did,” Laurel answered.
“There isn’t a God. There is the Unformed and then there are a bunch of humans all scurrying around trying to survive It, willing to use anyone and everyone to keep themselves alive. That’s all this is. A battle between some creature outside of our control and us. The whole world created these religions for reasons I don’t understand, but they’re not real, because if they were, none of this would be happening. I don’t know where I am and I don’t know why you’re here, but none of it means there is some God that brought me here to teach me something.”
Laurel was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke, the softness in her voice slayed all of Nicki’s anger. It was softness that sprang from sadness, something deep, and something the woman hadn’t showed before. So far, she’d only showed an almost aloof indifference, not quite happiness, but close.
And now, Nicki heard the desolation.
“I had a family. A husband, a son, and a daughter. I don’t know what happened to any of them. I was the driving force behind our decisions, and I took them all over the world. We started in the Old World, but that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to take my beliefs to the heart of the most autocratic Ministry in the world, and so we went to the True Faith. That’s where we had my daughter, and I had plans for her. My husband and I didn’t have any of the True Faith’s nanotech in us, neither did my son. I made sure she had it, though, because she was going to be the one to change things.”
Laurel shook her head, a sad smile appearing on her face even as tears filled her eyes.
“I planned on teaching her everything I knew. That’s a funny word, isn’t it? What I knew. I didn’t know a damned thing, and this blocked off world proves it. I had so many plans for her, but the problem was, my ego was too big. My ambition too great. That’s what I believed when I first got here, at least. Now, I just think my plan didn’t fit in with whatever brought us both here.”
She reached up and wiped at her eyes, stopping the tears before they could fall to her face.
“I don’t know what happened to any of them. I imagine they died just like I did. I like to think they didn’t, though, or at the very least that my children survived. I hope they didn’t inherit any of my traits though,” she said with a helpless laugh. “None of my beliefs, nor my determination.”
“What would you want them to have?” Nicki asked.
And then the tears came down the woman’s face, unable to be held back. She laughed, a watery, miserable thing. “That’s the worst part about it. I wish they had what I refused to even consider. I wished they had faith, Nicki. The same faith you refuse now, and the thing I’ve come to accept in this place. Faith that something is bigger than us, and that it’s guiding us. Guiding everything.”
“Why?” Nicki asked; there were other questions, but none felt as important. The woman had died for her beliefs, and now in death—or whatever this was—she wished none of them to survive her.
“I guess because I’m here. Because whatever is happening on Earth, whatever is happening with the Black, none of it really matters in the end. Even the Black is going to wind up facing the creature that put you and me here.” She paused for a few moments and then nodded to herself. “I should have seen this when I was alive, but I was too blind with my own ambition. Throughout history, all of recorded history, man has searched for God. Man has written books and built idols. I guess the cynical part of me always said that’s just our need to feel protected, but I don’t believe that anymore. That was God saying, ‘I’m here, but you’ll have to have faith, because I’m not giving you anything else. Just hints.’”
The woman wiped the tears clear from her face again and looked at Nicki still lying on the stoop. “How did we get here, talking about this?”
Nicki thought back, but quickly realized it didn’t matter. She only shrugged and stared up at the neon blue sky above.
“What was your daughter’s name?” Nicki asked.
The woman smiled wistfully. “No. Those memories are for me. They’re all I have and for some reason, I feel like if I tell you, I might sort of be giving them away.”
Nicki nodded.
“I’m tired,” the woman said. “I hope you don’t think me a poor host, but I’m going to go inside and take a nap. I’d invite you in but ….” She turned around, looked at the closed door and shrugged. “Rules are rules, I guess. If you’re here when I wake up, we can talk some more.”
Laurel stood and looked down at Nicki. “I thought I’d talk forever when I first saw you, but all of that just exhausted me. I’m not used to it anymore.”
She didn’t look like she wanted to hug Nicki, or give any sort of goodbye touch—and Nicki didn’t want to either. Whatever moment they might have shared had passed, and Nicki was again looking at a stranger.
“I can lie here for a bit longer?”
“Sure,” the woman said. “I have a feeling, though, it won’t be too long.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m ready to go back inside, and I imagine that’s because whatever wanted us to talk is done. It was nice meeting you, Nicki. I hope you fix whatever is happening on Earth, but if you can’t, don’t worry about it too much. There are things at work in this universe larger than even in the Black.”
Laurel said nothing else, simply opened up her door and walked inside.
Nicki listened to it shut, knowing that she was alone again.
What had the woman said?
I think that I can’t talk with anyone, because without God’s presence, humanity loses all ability to have contact. And then, Because I’m ready to go back inside, and I imagine that’s because whatever wanted us to talk, is done.
Nicki smiled briefly, thinking how probable the conjecture seemed as she stared up at the sky. God was no longer here, unable or unwilling to venture here, and so Nicki was without human contact.
Nicki closed her eyes, wondering if she would be able to sleep on this black glass. It didn’t take long, but she had one clear thought before unconsciousness swam up for her: She thinks God
allows us to interact, but that only means it’s God who allows us to do such horrid, horrid things to each other.
Twelve
What are things looking like?
The First Priest wanted to spit right where he stood. It just so happened he was standing in front of the glass windows in Trinant’s office, still staring at the massacre beneath him. Feeling the building saliva in his mouth, the urge grew stronger, and so he looked down at the floor beneath him.
What do you think they’re looking like? he responded with his nanotech. These … creatures are still moving toward us. The One Path is completely incompetent. They can’t do anything to stop them.
He wanted to add, just like everyone on the First Council, but managed not to.
How much longer until the reinforcements arrive? he asked instead.
An hour, the First Council’s Priest told him.
One hour.
It was enough time.
Listen to me, the First Priest said. I want you to follow my directions perfectly. Not a single deviation, do you understand?
Yes, the Priest answered, though the First noticed he hadn’t used ‘Most Holy’. The Council was already thinking him dead, perhaps thinking the entire world dead with what was happening elsewhere. He didn’t care at all. When he got back to the True Faith, he would make sure that this Priest was dead, along with the rest of the Council.
The First remained still, staring up at the screen in front of him. His eyes glowed with green dots, the only indication that he was using his nanotech. For the first time in over a day, he finally looked calm. He explained to the Priest exactly what he wanted to happen; it took a little over ten minutes.
The light in the First Priest’s eyes died and he remained standing for another minute, not paying attention to anything on the screens above him. He was done with this place, even if everyone else here was determined to remain until their blood spilled across the office floor.
