by David Beers
If this woman is telling the truth, then she can’t live through running, Daniel. If she runs, she dies.
“Yule,” he called across the room without looking over. “Will you come here?”
He waited as the Pope came to him, the fact that such a dignitary was answering his call lost on Daniel.
Yule said nothing as he arrived, only stood at Daniel’s side and stared out the same windows.
“What would you do?” Daniel asked.
“I’d ask if that’s a serious question, but I don’t think you’re able to joke much at this moment.”
“Even now, the apocalypse upon us, your mind won’t stop with the sarcasm, will it?”
The Pope chuckled. “The Lord loves me, though I don’t feel He showed it when He endowed me with that trait.” There was a brief pause, and then Yule said, “I don’t have children, and I never will. The only advice I can give to you is to look at what God did, as well as what His son did.”
“Will you tell me?” Daniel said. He felt tears pricking at his eyes, but he thrust them away. He knew the story, but he wanted to hear it from the highest voice in the land. He wanted to hear it from the man supposed to be nearest this god.
“Yes,” the Pope said, then paused briefly again. “I guess it’s a lot like what is happening right now, if I think about it. They both knew the pain that was to come. Jesus sweat blood and asked that the job be taken from him. In that way, maybe you have it easy, because Nicki will do whatever you tell her. God had to listen to His son beg at first, before finally saying, your will, not mine. Perhaps that’s why He is God and we’re not, because if your daughter were to beg right now, this wouldn’t be a discussion. He is God because He can do the hard things, because they’re the right things. I’m not appealing to your ego right now, Daniel, but you can be god-like, because this will be the hardest thing you’ve done, but it’s also the right thing. That Hollowborne woman isn’t lying. She’s the reason we nearly killed the weapon in the first place. Those people marching up this Globe aren’t imaginary. They’re real. The end of the world is here, and your daughter—impossible but true—is the only thing that might be able to stop it. We wouldn’t be discussing this if you didn’t know it was the right thing to do. God gave up His only begotten son, and now, He’s asking you to do that with your daughter. Not for Him, though. For all of His creations, and maybe that isn’t fair, but I’m not sure fair has much to do with right either.”
The two were silent, the seconds ticking by. The killers below moving closer, and that weapon, wherever he was, heading to his destination.
“Thanks,” Daniel said.
“Honey, you there?”
“Yes, Dad,” Nicki said.
Rebecca had sat down during the past few minutes, not knowing when the man would connect again—actually hoping he wouldn’t. The only thing Rebecca could hope to control was that this ship landed somewhere near David, whether or not anyone else in the world wanted it to. If the man stayed away, the ship would continue on course. If he returned … Well, Rebecca didn’t know what would happen then.
He did return, though, just as he said he would.
“Is there somewhere you can go sit where you don’t have to look at anyone else? I want to just talk to you for a little bit. I know they’ll still hear, but I want to feel like it’s just us.”
“Give me a second,” she said, and walked past Rebecca without so much as a glance. She went to the front of the transport, moving to the front two seats, her back to the rest of them.
It was true, Rebecca could hear everything that was said, but if the two of them wanted, they could pretend otherwise.
“Actually, Hollowborne, I want to speak to my daughter alone. I don’t know anything about these transports, but if you can blast me across the entire thing, I’m sure you can make it so that only she and I can talk.”
Rebecca was quiet for a moment.
You used to feel that same love for David, her mind said, lashing her. Where he was all you had, and you all he had.
“On the right up there,” Rebecca said. “There’s an ear piece.”
She watched as Nicki reached forward and took the instrument. She placed it in her ear and the speaker system automatically ceased, funneling directly to Nicki.
Rebecca turned to Raylyn, though she said nothing.
“It makes you wonder,” Raylyn said.
“Wonder what?”
“What if we all loved someone as much as he loves her.”
It was the last time they would speak, father and daughter.
A knowledge that no two people should ever possess.
These two couldn’t say for sure that they would never talk again, but even without the ability to see the future, both understood the threats facing them.
It was as close to a crystal ball as either would ever have.
“I’m here,” Nicki said, feeling both relief and aching pain. She was talking to her father, uninterrupted and without immediate danger—yet, even that couldn’t change the fate rushing toward them all.
“Hey,” he said, his own voice full of emotion, and that simply doubled the pain inside Nicki. Tears sprang from her eyes. “What do you want to do, Nicki? I need to hear that.”
“I want to go home,” she said. “I want to go home and go work in the restaurant. That’s all I ever wanted.”
“Me too, honey,” he said. “Me too.”
They were both quiet for a time, neither feeling the need to say anything. The air propulsion system filled the transport with a slight hum, but Nicki tried to imagine she was in the silence of their living room. Her reading the Bible, him the paper.
“I tried to keep all of this from you, Nicki,” he finally said. “I did everything I could think of to keep you away from it.”
“I know,” she said, sniffling.
“But nothing I do amounts to anything at all. Every bit of my efforts, and you’re still where you are, and I’m still where I am.”
The words came again, those from that woman inside the neon world: 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 me and you here.
Wasn’t her father saying the same thing, even if he didn’t know it? That no matter what anyone did, this thing kept moving down a singular path?
“And now,” her father continued, “everyone says the world hinges on you.” He laughed disbelievingly. “And what are we supposed to do, you and me?”
Nicki was quiet, tears still hazing her vision, but her mind growing more still. More focused.
“This sight, or whatever it’s turned into?” her father asked. “Is it real? Is it as powerful as everyone says?”
Nicki nodded. “Yeah, I think it is, Dad.”
“Can you stop him? The weapon?”
“I don’t know.”
Again the silence … and again Nicki saw the woman in that neon lined house. She’d been sitting there for untold years, a woman who denied God, and now said all things bent to God’s will. Whether or not you wanted to. Because God was God, and you were not.
“I can’t say to go, Nicki,” her father said. “But I can’t tell you not to either. All I can say is I love you, and that you being my daughter has been the best part of my life. Better than your mother, even. You have to make this decision, what you want to do, and whatever that is, I’m fine with it. If you want to go down there and fight the man, then do it. If you want to come here and wipe this Globe off the map, then do that too. Or if you just want to leave, to give it all up and hope for the best, then you have my support, Nicki.”
There was a pause, and she heard him cry into whatever phone he was using. A brief, heartbreaking thing, but something he couldn’t hold back.
“I love you, Nicki,” he said, sounding like he was wiping his face with the back of his hand.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I don’t want t
o know what you do, though, Nicki. I just want to know that you’re going to be happy with whatever decision you make.”
“Dad,” she said, but found she had no other words.
“I’ve got to go, Nicki. I’ll see you when this is done, okay?”
“Okay,” she said with tears streaming down her face. Nicki stared forward seeing nothing of the world around her. “I’ll see you, Dad. I’ll see you soon. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
She didn’t know she was saying it over and over, only feeling like if she stopped, she would never speak to him again.
“I love you too, honey. More than you’ll ever know.”
And then Daniel Sesam let his daughter go.
Rebecca watched as Nicki took the ear piece out and placed it back in its holder. She heard nothing else coming over the speakers though, meaning the connection was terminated.
Nicki didn’t move. Rebecca hadn’t been able to hear any of their conversation, not a single shed tear—if there were any. All she knew was that the transport was flying in the same direction.
“Nicki?” she said.
The girl didn’t move, just sat there staring straight ahead.
Rebecca went forward, walking across the transport to the front. She peered over the small separator to where Nicki sat. The girl still didn’t turn around. Rebecca could see tears on her face.
“What did he say?” Rebecca asked.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re going to the Nile River.”
Nineteen
“What was that?”
Yule watched as Daniel turned from the question, paying it no mind. He kept watching as the man started across the room, his head down.
“Stop where you are and answer me,” the One Path’s Minister called from her desk.
Daniel didn’t listen, gave no sign that he even heard her directive.
“I’ll have you detained,” Trinant said.
Daniel only went to his spot across the room, sitting down where he could watch the sun finish its descent.
“Take him,” Trinant said to her general.
“No,” Yule spoke, his voice not loud but his word firm. He looked from Daniel to Trinant. “Don’t.”
She raised her eyebrows, and Yule knew the boundary he had crossed. A foreign Minister commanding another in her own Ministry. He could be detained himself, though he didn’t care at his point.
“What did you want him to say, Trinant?” Yule asked. “Did you want him to call her here, or tell her to go there? What exactly did you think we would get out of that conversation?”
She looked at him, her lips in thin lines, but said nothing.
“He did the only thing he could. He told her to make the decision, and she knows the magnitude of it. You just want control over this, Trinant, and there is none to have. That’s what he’s understanding, and it’s what you’ll have to realize sooner or later.” He turned to stare at Daniel again, and when he spoke, it was barely above a whisper. “We’ve done everything we can. Our fate, and the world’s, will be decided by others.”
Yule left the Ministers then and walked over to Daniel Sesam. He sat down on a chair next to the man and watched the sunset. Neither said a word.
The transport lowered from the sky at a slow and steady pace.
Rhett stared out at the world around him, seeing the Nile for the first time. He’d known of it—all of David’s followers did. The river lay in front of him, growing larger as the transport descended straight down. Beneath the water was a doorway that only the Prophet could access.
That only David could access.
Rhett knew Veritros had come here 1,000 years ago.
And now it was David’s turn.
The river flowed uninterrupted, having no idea what was to come, nor what it held inside. A doorway to gods.
Christine stood next to Rhett, looking out the transport’s window too. Reinheld and the pilot were on the other side; only David remained sitting.
“It’s beautiful,” Christine said.
Rhett nodded, himself in a sort of awe. They were finally here. All the years behind them, all the miles traveled, all the people lost. It was for this.
Rhett scanned the entirety of the river. There were huts sporadically across it, but for the most part, the bank was barren.
“They never rebuilt after Veritros,” he said, mostly to himself. “They just left this place forever.”
The transport gently touched down on the ground, the air propulsion system shutting off and a weighty silence replacing it. No one spoke.
David stood, and the rest stepped back unconsciously, making room for him. He walked to the transport’s door, though not opening it.
Rhett saw no one across the river’s bank. There was almost nothing here at all—shacks and then the water rushing endlessly before them. David had done this perfectly. The world wasn’t here, everyone tied up in war somewhere else, most likely unaware the Prophet even lived, and now he stood at the only place that mattered.
Without fear of interruption.
“Would you two please step out?” David said, looking at Reinheld and the pilot.
“Of course,” one of them said, though Rhett wasn’t sure who.
The transport’s door opened and they exited, hot air tumbling inside as they did. It swarmed over Rhett like tiny insects, inescapable and covering him. Sweat almost immediately appeared on his forehead, yet he hardly noticed it.
His eyes were only on David.
The two outside the transport continued walking, clearly not wanting to hear whatever was about to be said.
David turned to them after a few more moments, his back to the river.
“For whatever transgressions I’ve made against you, I apologize, and ask your forgiveness.”
Rhett didn’t look to Christine; he simply went down on his knees, only recognizing once there that she was next to him. Both kneeling with heads bent at their Prophet’s feet.
“If there has been failure,” Rhett said, “it’s on our side.”
David knelt down, a bit slower than Rhett and Christine, and the three were then in a circle. Rhett looked up, seeing David’s eyes. David’s eyes, not the gray static of the Unformed.
“Then we forgive each other,” he said. “I love you both, and you have made this life inexplicably wonderful. If I don’t see you at the end of this, I promise that I will see you again when you enter the Unformed. We are not separating, we are but following different paths to the same destination.”
Rhett and Christine both nodded. The time for tears was done, and there were none in David’s eyes either. They were soldiers, all of them, and the job they had come to do was nearly finished. The war they had waged nearly over.
“I love you, too, David,” Christine said.
Rhett nodded. “I love you.”
David grabbed the back of both their heads and brought the three close, their foreheads touching. The last time they would be so close.
When the Prophet stood, the others did as well, and the three warriors walked onto their battlefield, unknowing of the pain rapidly approaching.
Nicki had told Rebecca Hollowborne to go to the Nile River and now she rode in silence. Less than a half hour had passed, but a pressure was growing inside of her. It centered in her chest, and seemed to be expanding outward, as if unaware or not concerned with the organs it pressed on.
She knew the pressure meant something was happening outside of her, and if she looked in herself, she would see the gray static swelling right there—ready to burst.
Her father had said do what she wanted.
The woman—Laurel—had said it didn’t matter what she wanted, that something was moving them around like chess pieces. She could no more stop this movement than she could the rise and fall of the sun.
The people outside of here all wanted different things … or rather, they wanted different paths to the same goal: safety.
And the voice inside her? It was quiet now. It had wrenc
hed her from a self-imposed coma, and now said nothing as the ship hurtled forward. Nicki had to take that to mean she was doing what the voice wanted.
She was heading to the dark man. He had been there first, in the restaurant when the fire rushed over her, burning her alive. He’d been on the side of the road when Nicki fled the Church’s men, and again when the transport fell, and yet again in the sky building.
He had been there over and over, always seeing, always watching—but never speaking. Never a word passed between the two of them, though they were somehow connected.
Laurel would say God connected them.
“Rebecca,” Nicki called.
She listened as the woman stood and came to the front.
“Yes?”
Nicki didn’t care if she sat or not, she only wanted to talk for a few minutes. She understood better than anyone that time was running short. The pressure in her chest was growing. She thought that Laurel might be right and wrong. Perhaps something was hurdling them forward, but Nicki also believed she could get off the unseen train if she wanted. She could let that pressure rip forward and simply kill her and everyone around her. The unseen train couldn’t stop that.
And yet, as long as she was here, the train would keep going—and it was nearing its final stop.
“Your brother. Can I stop him?”
Rebecca moved slowly, gracefully, to the seat next to Nicki.
“I’m not going to lie,” she said. “I don’t know. A month ago, I would have said no way. That nothing could stop David. The only reason I came to find you was because I had no other option. I do know the Unformed fears you, or at least wants you dead, but perhaps those come to the same … Whether or not you can, Nicki, you’re all that’s left. There is literally nothing else.”
“Will you tell me what he’s like?”
“What he’s like, or what to expect?” Rebecca asked.
“What he’s like.”
Nicki didn’t turn to look at the woman as she spoke, but she heard a shift in her tone. Thoughtful? Yes. Longing? Perhaps.
“He believes,” Rebecca said. “Fully. Nothing else matters to David; he may love those that follow him, but his purpose was defined long before this.”
