by David Beers
He became Pope Pius XX.
Jackson looked over to him, his eyes appearing lost.
“In there,” Yule said, pointing at the door. “What happened? Before and after you fell? You said something, and I want to know what you meant. ‘God, or the closest thing to Him.’ What was that?”
Yule didn’t move, but the rest of the room had grown quiet. Even Benten heard the sound of Yule’s voice and stopped his rumination, turning to look at Jackson Carriage.
“Huh-huh-her,” the man stammered out. He recognized what he was doing and visibly took control of himself. “Nicki Sesam. She’s … She’s changed, but she’s back.”
“What do you mean, ‘she’s changed’?” Yule said.
Even Daniel was silent as Yule commanded both the room and the Church’s subject.
“Your Holiness,” the thin man started, but then paused for a second and looked down between his feet again. When he spoke, it was a whisper, and Yule wasn’t sure if he was speaking to the Pope, or himself. “This is beyond the sight. What we can do, people like us … we see things. Some of us can do a bit more, but that’s it. She isn’t like us anymore. She doesn’t have the sight. She ….” He paused and then looked up Yule. “There are limits to the sight, Your Holiness. There are no limits to her. Not anymore.”
Yule was quiet for a moment, not taking his eyes away from the man. He didn’t look to Daniel or Benten, his mind considering only what he was being told.
Finally, he said, “What did you tell her?”
“I could hardly say a word, Your Holiness. When she recognized what I was doing, she took control. I think ….” He paused again for a moment. “I told her that her father was safe. That was all I had time for.”
“Go on,” Yule said. “What happened?”
The skinny man nodded.
“She looked through me. Through all of me. I think she saw everything, my entire past right up to that room. She wanted to kill me, because … because she saw my problems. She knew what I am, and she was going to kill me, but,” he looked at Daniel, “he spoke to her, and she stopped.”
Yule said nothing in the brief pause, knowing to let the man continue on his own.
“She left me then, and that’s when I fell. Now … I don’t know any other way to say it. I thought she was gone, and that I was free, but something happened. She came back, and that’s when I looked at those screens. I think someone was speaking to her.”
“What did they say?” Yule prodded.
“I can’t remember,” he said, shaking his head, and Yule believed him.
The Pope turned to Daniel then, who was already looking at him.
Daniel shook his head, but said nothing.
Yule stood and walked over to him. Daniel didn’t quit shaking his head, tears filling his eyes the closer Yule got.
“No,” he said as the Pope reached the door. “No, I won’t do it. Don’t even ask.”
Yule stopped short of placing his hand on the man. “What other choice is there, Daniel? You heard them in there. Another hundred thousand dead. We might survive, true, but are you going to put those who die on your shoulders? Are you willing to walk around with that weight for the rest of your life?”
Daniel, eyes full of tears, looked at Yule. “If it means my daughter lives, then that’s fine with me. I’ll carry it forever. I’m not asking her to come here. I’m not asking her to save me, or anyone else. I’m not putting her in harm’s way ever again.”
Yule nodded, seeing the truth that Daniel refused to. If he had thought this was out of man’s control minutes before, he had been wrong. Confused. Lost in the haze of so many ideas coming at him at once. There would be no light shining from the heavens that fell on this Globe, nor on the rest of the world. That’s not how God worked, not anymore at least.
“Daniel, we thought things had changed,” Yule said. “We thought that we had won, but we haven’t. We thought that we didn’t need your daughter, but we do. Maybe we always did.”
Daniel only shook his head again.
“We need her right now. Not you and I, because we’ll probably survive. But the other 100,000 people won’t. And Daniel, when we get out of here, what do you think is happening in the rest of the world? The Black has returned, if it ever went away. Maybe Its weapon, too. You and your daughter can’t hide from It. You can’t shield her, and you can’t shirk your duty.”
Yule was whispering, his voice perhaps able to be heard by the others, but not well.
“You love her,” he said. “I know it, but you can’t hide her if she could save the human race. You know that.”
“What do you want me to do?” Daniel asked. “You want me to tell her that the same people who’ve hunted her, tried to kill her, who almost did kill her, want her to come back?”
Yule held Daniel’s eyes for a second and then looked to the floor.
“I’m not asking you to make her a sacrificial lamb. I don’t know if I would ask that of you, even if the Lord commands it. What I’m asking is for you to explain the situation to her, and then let her make her own decision.” Yule looked up. “You remember our discussion about humanity. I said you shouldn’t give up, nor judge us too harshly. Well, I’m betting on mankind, Daniel. I’m betting that if you give your daughter the choice, she’ll make the right one. I’m betting that she’ll save the people here, and if she can, she’ll stop whatever is happening down below.”
“I can’t ask her,” Daniel said.
“You have to,” Yule answered.
Yule and the others were brought back into Trinant’s office shortly. There simply wasn’t much time for longer deliberation.
“I’ve spoken with Spyden and come to a decision,” Trinant said to Benten and Yule.
The Pope was quiet, and so was the Constant’s Minister. Yule would wait to hear what the decision was before he brought up the possibility of Nicki. He had already decided that whatever this Minister decided, he was going forward with it. Daniel hadn’t fully submitted, but God hadn’t placed Daniel in this spot for him to buck the Lord’s will at the very end. Yule had to have faith, and while he had very little else right now, he wasn’t going to lose that.
Trinant continued talking. “We can hold out firing on the Globe until the attackers reach the floor below ours. That’s the absolute latest, though, and General Spyden thinks it leaves our floor open to the possibility of the same fate as those below us. An errant laser, and this floor will be under the exact same air pressure conditions as the others. Still, it’s the latest we can wait.”
Trinant was quiet. The mirrors to the left were transparent again. The scene with those gray eyed monsters gone, and Yule was glad for it. Sitting in his chair, he looked out the windows, the sun going down outside. A question came to him: Will this be the last sunset I ever see?
Yule discarded it, almost lifting his hand to wave it away, but catching himself just before.
No, it wouldn’t be the last sunset he viewed, because God wasn’t done with the world. If Yule doubted that even for a second, all he had to do was remember that Nicki Sesam existed. All of this, the torture of waiting inside here—Daniel thinking his daughter dead and Yule practically forgetting about her—it’d all been for naught, because the woman lived. She was alive and in this world, and that meant God was alive and in this world.
Perhaps Earth was on fire, but someone who shouldn’t exist—let alone be alive—did.
This wouldn’t be the last sunset Yule saw, because God still loved the world.
“I’m going to let them get to that floor,” Trinant said, “and if they break through, I’m going to order the ships outside to fire on them. We will then have 10 minutes to evacuate here, and we won’t attempt saving anyone else, because it’s simply not feasible.”
She turned and looked out the open windows, quiet.
“Trinant,” Yule said. “There’s something else I’d like to try first.”
“Does it have to do with what happened back there? With
what happened with the girl?”
“Yes.”
Trinant’s silence drew out; Yule felt no panic, no nervousness. His mind was made up, though he knew that really didn’t matter either. The Lord’s mind was all that mattered now, and Yule knew he was simply in line with God’s path.
“Let me hear it,” she said, “though, I’m going to be frank: I don’t have high hopes for her or it. She has brought nothing but pain to this world.”
Yule nodded, no one glancing to Daniel on the other side of the room, though without a doubt he had heard the Minister’s words.
Eighteen
After the weapon left, the arguing had continued for what felt like an eternity, though in reality, Raylyn knew it to be less than an hour.
The arguments could be summed up in very simple sentences.
“We’re going to my father.” That was Nicki’s side.
“It won’t matter if we save him, when the entire world is lost.” That was Rebecca’s.
Raylyn sat quietly, though that wasn’t to say without increasing anxiety … something approaching outright panic with each passing minute.
Because the girl—the young woman—sat there speaking, and all the while her eyes blazed gray.
Rebecca saw it too. There wasn’t any possible way she didn’t, yet she seemed to pay it no mind.
Does she know? Raylyn wondered. Does she know her eyes are full of static, just like the weapon?
Raylyn honestly wasn’t sure, but she doubted it. It wasn’t that Nicki Sesam looked abnormal, but that she looked evil.
For Rebecca’s part, she didn’t seem to care in the slightest. She sat right across from Nicki, battling each argument with one of her own. It was as if no static existed, and she was only having a conversation with a young lady … Someone not yet wise to the ways of the world.
You know why, Raylyn thought. Because this woman has sat across from the man who wields his power without discrimination, without hesitation, and without fear. The person in front of her now may hold that power too, but she’s a neophyte. Capable, yes, but Hollowborne has seen fear that few others have, and this young woman doesn’t strike it in her.
The transport was still flying toward the Nile River, the destination having not been changed. That in itself said a lot about Rebecca Hollowborne. Sitting there next to someone who could literally bring the whole thing crashing down without lifting a finger, and yet Rebecca defied the woman’s wishes.
“I’m not going there and fighting him,” Nicki said for what felt like the hundredth time. “Not unless I get to my father first.”
If it was a war of attrition, Raylyn didn’t know who would win.
“Listen to me. If we stop David, everyone attacking your father dies. Everything they’re trying to accomplish ends. If we don’t stop him, nothing ends. Those people trying to kill your dad will be the least of anyone’s worries.”
“I don’t care,” Nicki said. “You’re going to take me there, to him.”
Rebecca grew silent for a moment, finally letting the battle of wills take a slight rest. She looked to the front of the transport, her teeth worrying on her lower lip. A few seconds passed, and then she said, “How did you see it, Nicki? How did you see your father?”
“What do you mean?” Nicki asked, finally a trace of impatience worming through her voice. “There’s no time to keep talking about this. Every minute that passes, it’s another minute those people are closer to him.”
Rebecca didn’t seem to notice the change in her tone, didn’t even glance over to her.
“Humor me, Nicki. Quickly, too, if you’re concerned about your father. Who showed him to you?”
Nicki grew quiet this time, her gray eyes tilting toward her hands. Rebecca said nothing, only waited.
“I don’t know. It’s just a voice. I don’t know who she is.”
“It’s a she?” Rebecca said, still looking forward.
“Yes.” Nicki nodded.
“What else did the voice say?” Rebecca was quiet now.
“She wanted me to wake up,” Nicki said. “To come out of … whatever state I was in.”
“Did she tell you to go to your father, though? Think. It’s important.”
“No, but I don’t care. That doesn’t matter. The voice showed me what was happening to him, and so I’m going to him.”
Rebecca nodded, finally looking back to Nicki, as if making up her mind on something.
“Nicki,” she started, “if you—”
Nicki held up a finger, her gray eyes flashing to the back window. Raylyn turned quickly, hoping to everything holy that the weapon hadn’t returned.
“Is it—”
“Shhh,” Nicki told her.
Raylyn slowly turned around and looked at the woman. Her eyes were still alight, staring out the back window. The emotion that one could see through another’s eyes was lost in Nicki, the burning static showing nothing of the thoughts inside.
Long seconds passed, and then Rebecca said, “What is it?”
Nicki’s hand dropped to her lap, but still, she didn’t turn around.
Another minute, and then two—all of it spent in silence as Nicki stared out behind them, seeing the sun cast its golden hue across a world it was leaving for the night.
“It’s my father,” she finally whispered. She kept her eyes firm out the back window, her face showing nothing of what she thought. “He’s saying if I don’t help, that a lot of people are going to die.”
Rhett watched as David opened his eyes.
He was sitting next to his Prophet, a damp rag in his lap. The dampness wasn’t from any water they had on the transport, but rather David’s sweat. The panel on the front window read: ETA - 30 mins.
“David,” Rhett said softly. “Are you okay?”
He knew the others in the back of the ship were all staring at him, desperately wanting to know the answer.
David turned, the gray in his eyes having evaporated. His face was pale and drawn, as if he’d somehow lost weight on this short trip.
“I’m okay,” he said, though no smile crossed his face. “Where are we?”
“We’re almost there,” Rhett said. “Another 30 minutes or so.”
David nodded and then turned his head back to the front, resting it on the seat. He didn’t close his eyes, though, and Rhett was thankful for that. He didn’t want any chance of his eyes rolling into the back of his head again.
“What happened?”
A small smirk spread over his lips, and he chuckled lightly. “I don’t suppose I can keep it from you anymore. Here, stand up.”
Rhett did so and David’s chair turned around so that he faced the back of the transport. They did their best to limit their reactions, but Rhett still saw them.
This was the weakest anyone had ever seen David, and the surprise—despite their efforts—was still apparent.
David must have seen it, too, because he said, “I’m okay. I promise.”
He swallowed and sat up some.
“I was trying to shield you from this, but it’s gone too far.” Again, the smirk, and now Rhett saw sadness in it. As if it might be humorous, but darkly so. David looked out at the four of them—Rhett, Christine, Reinheld, and this pilot whom Rhett didn’t know at all. David looked on and said what Rhett never wanted to hear. What everyone inside this ship had thought was behind them. “I’m dying.”
Christine’s mouth opened as if she wanted to say something, but it simply remained agape until she brought a hand to it, her eyes flooding with tears.
Rhett looked at David, his own voice unavailable.
“I’m dying, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
Rhett sat down in the chair next to David. “That’s not possible. You’re alive, David. You survived. You’re not dying.”
Christine left those in the back, walking to her Prophet and kneeling down in front of him. Rhett watched as she took his hand, an unconscious gesture and something so unlike Christine tha
t it was hard to believe … yet, Rhett thought it the most natural thing he’d ever seen her do.
“You can’t die, David,” she said. “We’re going to bring the Unformed across, and then we’re going to live. Forever. Or at least as long as we can. But you can’t die.”
“I made a choice before I came back,” David said, looking at Christine. The compassion on his face wiped away any anger he might have shown a day ago. It wiped away any transgression he might have ever committed. “I knew the choice I was making, because it was the only way to ensure we accomplish this. I told you most of it, and I thought I could keep you from the rest of it, but I can’t. To come back … it gave me the powers you’ve seen, and more, but it also means that each time I use them, I weaken. Right now, I’m holding the Ministries at bay, and I hope I can kill them off before the Union. I’m also holding the girl that’s like me at bay. The one I sent you to get, Rhett. But doing that is taking its toll, and that’s what you all just saw.”
He squeezed Christine’s hand.
“I’m dying, and that’s okay. Prophets rarely live long lives,” he said and smiled.
Rhett closed his eyes and leaned his head back on his seat, tilting it upward so that the tears wouldn’t fall down his cheeks. “We’re so close. We’re so fucking close.”
“And we’re going to finish it,” David said. “There’s too much confusion on the other side. They’re arguing about too much, and we’re almost there. I might not come out on the other side, but you will, and you’re going to see everything you’ve wanted.”
“I don’t want to see it without you,” Rhett said. “None of us do.”
Rhett felt David’s hand on his leg, though he didn’t look down to see it. To do so would mean the tears he now kept silent would begin singing their songs, and he didn’t want to do that—not right now.
“I’m only going to die here, Rhett, on this world. In this body. The choice I made earlier was between joining the Unformed or coming back. I came back. Now, I’ll just be joining the Unformed. I’ll be going home. As long as we complete this, I’ll always be with you.”
