The diagnostic had confirmed what she had feared. Something—probably a stray chunk of Iris following along in her wake—had sheared off the shuttle’s navigation and guidance module. They’d been lucky. Half a meter’s difference and the shuttle could have taken a direct hit, leading to explosive decompression.
She refrained from mentioning that part to Devon, who was scared enough as it was.
Ana tended to forget the risks of being flesh and blood, safe as she was in the confines of the world mind. It had been twenty-six years since she’d felt the wind on her skin or real danger.
Twenty-six years since I saw Glory in the real world….
She shuffled Jackson’s thought aside. Even when he was gone, he bled into her mind.
“So, Doc, what now?” Devon stared up at her through the camera.
Keep it together, Ana. “Okay, from here on out, it’s easy.”
Devon snorted.
“Okay, relatively easy. Put your palm on the sensor. You’ve already been authorized to fly Hopper.”
“There’s a green flashing light.”
The shuttle systems were so simple compared to modern ships. Not that there were any more modern ships. “Great. Now speak this command. ‘Manual control to pilot.’”
“Manual control to pilot. Hey, something’s happening!”
“Yes. The manual controls should have appeared on the dash. There’s a joystick and a landing button. The first controls your thrust through space. It’s simple. Just point in the direction you want to go. There’s just one catch.”
“What’s that?”
“The diagnostic shows that you are low on fuel. There may have been a leak. We were getting low to begin with, but we were still within operation parameters—”
“Meaning?”
“We had enough to get you home. Now….” She checked the numbers again.
“Don’t leave me hanging like that.”
“Sorry. It’s going to be close.”
“How close?”
“Just… close.” She had to come up with a backup plan, just in case. She was not going to have another death on her conscience.
“Okay. So, what now?”
“Say, ‘Target location.’”
“With my hand still on the pad?”
“Yes.”
“Target location.”
“Then repeat this.” She reeled off a string of spatial coordinates.
“Done.”
“Okay. Say, ‘Lock target.’”
“Hey, I’m not blowing something up, am I?”
Ana grinned. “No, just locking in your destination.”
“Got it.” He gave her the thumbs-up.
“Now use the joystick. In the cockpit window, you should see a cone of lines.”
He pushed forward gently. “I see it.”
“Line the ship up with the center of the lines.”
A short pause. “Hey, I’m doing it! I’m flying a fricking shuttle!”
“Yes, you are. Let’s get you up to about 600 kilometers an hour, then ease off. Can you see Forever from the shuttle?”
He peered out of the window. “No, I don’t think… wait, there was a glint there in the middle of the cone.”
“That’s it. Once you get up to speed, just let it coast. You should be here in six hours.”
“Then what?”
Then we hope you have enough fuel left to slow down. “Then we bring you home.”
FOR JUST a few moments, Aaron was a child again, basking in the warmth of his father’s love and approval. Everything else fell away as they walked along the riverside, shaded from the afternoon heat by the ancient oak trees that lined the pathway. They talked about simple things—the weather, the plans for their next vacation, Jackson’s hopes for Aaron and his brother Jayson.
Aaron let himself be lulled by the fiction. His father at his side. The feel of the sun beaming down on his face. The return to a time before he had so much responsibility weighing on his shoulders.
For a brief moment, he was simply happy and whole.
The interval came to an end when Jackson took his arm off Aaron’s shoulders. “We’re here.”
“Where?”
“Look.”
This part of the park had a short wooden pier that sat over the Red River. At the end of the pier, two figures stood looking out over the water.
Aaron shot a questioning look at his father.
“Go.”
Aaron hugged him. Even if he was just a memory, he was a good one, and he’d brought Aaron comfort. Aaron let go, and his “father” smiled, fading into nothing until only his Cheshire grin remained. Then that was gone too.
Aaron turned to approach his father and whoever was with him. He stepped onto the pier, and Jackson turned to smile at him.
The real Jackson?
“Hey, Scout. I wondered when you would get here.”
Aaron was at a loss for words. He was still angry at Jackson for taking away his last minutes with his mother, but he’d come so far to find him.
Then the other person turned around. It was Glory, looking like she had when she was thirty.
“Mom!” He ran toward her, and she held out her arms to him, squeezing him tightly.
“Hey, mijo!” She kissed his cheek. She smelled just like he remembered her, the perfume she had shipped from Mexico City that smelled like citrus and sunshine.
He held her out at arm’s length. “Is this really you? Or are you just another memory?”
She laughed. “It’s me. I think. Your father brought me here.”
Aaron looked at Jackson, who nodded. When I blacked out…. “But you said you couldn’t…. That it wasn’t right.” Am I going crazy?
“I know. I’m so sorry, Scout. I wanted to save her. More than anything. Ana and Lex told me it was a bad idea. We could only accommodate so many of us in here. That it would set a bad precedent.”
“So, you did it anyhow.”
Jackson nodded. “In the end… how could I not? I knew the others wouldn’t agree. I hid her here, and we’ve been talking ever since.”
Glory looked around. “This is an amazing place. I still can’t believe you never told me about this. And him.”
She’s right. “I know. We thought…. Jackson thought it would be too hard on you. That you wouldn’t understand.”
“He told me. Just as he told me why he took his own life, all those years ago.” She sat down on a bench that looked out over the water. “Those were hard years, just the three of us. Then we lost Jayson….”
Aaron sat down next to her. “I know, Mamma.” He stared at her, hardly able to believe she was there. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you again.”
She took his hand in her lap and squeezed it. “About that….”
“What?”
Glory looked up at Jackson. “We have something to tell you.”
Jackson came to sit on his other side. “Your mother and I have talked this out for days, since she… came here.”
“Forever—the world itself—is a divine creation, even if it was sculpted by the hands of man. And these virtual worlds….” She shrugged. “We could live in here and explore for years. Create new places. Be together.”
Aaron’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“I’ve always believed I was brought to Forever for a reason. That it was my job to help shepherd humanity from Earth to the stars.” Jackson put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “I’ve been proud of the part I played and even prouder of you and Andy.”
“Don’t say it.” His voice caught in his throat.
“I think my time here will be over soon.”
“Over?” Aaron was confused. He’d just found his mother and father, and they were trying to tell him they were leaving? Now he really did feel like he was fifteen all over again.
“Yes. This isn’t real. This marvelous place is all bits and zeroes, and I don’t understand the rest. But it’s not where we were
meant to go, not in the long run. Your father and I—we believe we were put on Earth, put here for a reason, and when our time is up, we will be called home.” She touched the cross that hung around his neck. “I remember when the priest gave your father that, to commemorate your confirmation.”
“I wear it every day.” Aaron had never considered himself a particularly religious man, though he’d gone to church regularly with his parents, and then with his mother. And yet he knew how important her religion was to her, and by extension, to his father. “I don’t think…. I’m not ready.” He suppressed a sob. “I—”
Jackson pulled him close. “I know. We never are. I wasn’t ready to lose you when the time came on the Dressler. Glory wasn’t ready to go when cancer took her.” He squeezed Aaron tightly to his chest. “We love you more than you can know. We’ll always be with you, even once we’re gone.”
Glory put her arms around them, and he could no longer hold it in.
Aaron wasn’t ready. They couldn’t go. Oh God, I can’t do this.
He cried for what seemed like an age, the tears running salty into his mouth, until he was exhausted with grief.
ANDY AND the others had searched fifteen of the little huts so far—about half of the huts on this side of the lake. Every one held a single woman, and more than half of them were visibly pregnant. They wore matching gray nightgowns, with gray work clothes hung next to their beds.
They also slept like the dead.
Andy had tried to wake several of them, but nothing would shake them out of their unconscious state.
Andy sank down on the edge of the bed of one of the women, who looked to be at least seven months pregnant by the size of her belly. “I don’t understand it. What’s going on here? A zombie city, women and men sleeping alone, and all of these women with child. What am I missing?”
“Who was the man we saw? Was he… was he impregnating these women?” Eddy scowled.
Andy agreed. Whatever was happening in this place was monstrous. Something had been done to these women to keep them compliant. They were like brood mares. She shuddered.
They had to find a way to reach one of them, to get some answers.
Shandra sat next to the woman, smoothing her hair back. “She looks so peaceful.” Shandra squeezed the woman’s hand. “Could you… could you do that thing you do with biominds… with her?”
Andy shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. I can connect with people if they’re on the network, just like any of you.” She didn’t mention how she could ride along with someone’s consciousness. “But I don’t think I can just reach into a normal mind.”
Shandra nodded. “Maybe hers isn’t a normal mind.”
“What do you mean?”
Eddy responded. “Nothing we’ve seen down here is remotely normal.”
“He’s right. Look at the trap someone left for Eddy. And the way someone sealed up the cavern entrance with stone.” Shandra glanced at the sleeping woman. “Maybe this isn’t normal either.”
Those things had been bugging Andy too. She’d assumed the women were drugged. That some external substance had been used to make the people docile.
What if she was wrong? What if this was something else? “It couldn’t hurt to try. I’ll need to touch her.”
Shandra switched places with her.
The woman was pretty enough. Probably midtwenties, brown hair cropped short, fine features. Who was she? Where had she come from? Her skin tone said maybe Filipino or some mix of South Pacific and Southeast Asian.
Had she chosen to come here? Or was Xanadu chosen for her?
Either way, had she expected to be treated like this?
The events six years before had been a crash course in the depths of what humanity was capable of. Atrocities as impersonal as the Collapse, when mankind had destroyed its own home, and as personal as the treatment of refugees who’d been left to die from hunger, thirst, sickness, and exposure in the various bits of space junk that had been used to haul them up into orbit and ultimately to Transfer Station.
The cruel death that had been meted out to poor Ronan, the Transfer Station mind who had given his own life to keep her safe.
Even so, this was a new low.
Andy sighed. She supposed she would have to find a way to put a little light into the world to combat the darkness she’d seen.
She closed her eyes and laid her hand on the woman’s forehead, expecting nothing.
Static electricity shocked her, and the following flood threatened to overwhelm her senses. A thunderstorm raged inside the woman’s mind, fog and thunderclouds, hard rain, lightning and thunder.
That was the best she could manage to describe it, as her own mind struggled to make sense of what she felt and saw. Beneath the calm exterior, the woman’s mind was in constant terrible turmoil.
She let go and the shock receded.
“You okay? Your face went white.” Shandra put an arm around her shoulder.
“I… I think so.” Thunder. Lightning. “You were right. She is different. I made some kind of connection, but it’s chaos in there.”
“Can you get through it?”
Andy considered. “I don’t know if there is anything else.”
Shandra squeezed her hand.
“I guess I have to try.” Someone had done this to these women. She was sure of it, though she didn’t know how. “I can try to draw off the noise, the confusion.”
Eddy shook his head. “That sounds dangerous. What if you get lost?” He grimaced. “Your father would never forgive me.”
“I have to try. Whoever did this… what if they decide to do this to others? What if they start bringing more women here?” She took a deep breath. “What if they plan to do this… out there?”
They all knew what she meant. In their own homes.
She had her answer. “I have to try.”
Eddy stared at her for a long moment. At last he nodded. “But you break out at the first sign of danger.”
“I’ll try.” In truth, she’d never confronted anything like this before, so she had no idea what would happen.
They sat next to her, each putting a hand on her shoulder.
Andy reached out and touched the woman’s forehead again. She was expecting it, but it was as bad as she remembered.
Wild winds howled, and mist spun through the darkness. A wayward gust caught her, spinning her off into the void.
She clung to her sense of self, visualizing it as a golden cord that led back to her mind. To the real world, and to Shandra and Eddy. She held it tightly, fighting the wind, pulling herself hand over hand toward some sense of control.
When she reached the end of the rope, she turned back, holding on with one hand and stretching the other arm out into the storm.
She closed her eyes and pulled.
The storm responded, streaming into her, rending and ripping as it went.
Her arm shattered, and she screamed, but she kept pulling as she was battered, inside and out, with hail and electricity and hurricane-force winds. Her skin darkened as if she’d been burned, and the storm raged.
It threatened to tear her apart.
Then she felt it, Eddy’s touch on her left shoulder and Shandra on her right. They weren’t here, but they were with her.
She turned toward the storm and redoubled her efforts, dissipating in turn, breaking it apart and taking it into herself piece by piece. Hours went by that lasted just seconds, and time stretched out and snapped into place.
At last, it was gone. There was only white light, and in the middle of it knelt a woman.
Andy’s broken arm healed, her skin lightening until she was as she had been before the storm.
She approached the woman, kneeling next to her. “It’s okay. The storm is gone. You’re safe now.”
The woman opened her eyes, looked up, and screamed.
Chapter Eleven: Jump
LEX WAS stymied. She’d been trying to find a way into the bubble that someone had
used to sever the cavern under the mountain from the rest of the world. It was a dead zone, as if someone had cut off one of her limbs. She could still tell it was there, but she couldn’t reach it or feel it.
Andy.
The girl was down there, and while she couldn’t reach Lex, maybe Lex could reach her, through her loop. It was worth a try.
She was going to have to redirect a few resources to make a signal strong enough to pierce the mountain. In the process, she might blow out some of the other colonists’ loops, but it was a risk that had to be taken. If she could direct the signal tightly enough, she could probably avoid collateral damage.
Whoever had taken out Ronan, the Transfer Station mind, could do the same to her as well. To the three Immortals who formed the mental core of Forever. If that happened….
She shivered.
If that ever happened, everyone else was as good as dead.
DEVON WAS sweating. He could feel the drops dotting his forehead inside the visor.
Ana had told him to put his suit back on. He sat at Hopper’s controls, watching as his whole world approached through the plas window of the shuttle. It was dark now—it must be night inside.
His loop confirmed it—about 4:30 a.m. Forever Time.
“Is this going to work?” he asked nervously across the comm. Why had he agreed to take this mission? Rafe was right. He was an idiot.
Then he remembered. He’d wanted to see the stars again.
Ana’s voice came back after a two-second delay. “It should.”
He’d hoped for a little more certainty in her voice.
“Okay, commence slowdown now.” He did take solace in having her to guide him.
Devon watched the fuel gauge closely. It was perilously low. “Commencing slowdown.” He eased the joystick backward and the shuttle’s attitude jets fired in reverse. The drag started to slow Hopper’s forward momentum. “It’s working.”
“Watch your fuel. When you have just one bar left on the display, ease up on your deceleration.”
“Got it.” Through the plas window, Forever seemed as close as his hand, and as far away as the sun.
The Rising Tide Page 10
