Constance Verity Saves the World

by A. Lee Martinez

  “If something is wrong with the Snurkab, I’m not the one you want to talk to. That’s my mate.”

  “Can I talk to her, uh, him, um . . . I’m sorry if I get this wrong. I don’t have tons of experience with aliens.”

  “Her.”

  “Sorry. Can I talk to her?”

  Amzak pushed a few buttons and a screen floated out of the wall and hovered beside them. A green insect face appeared in it.

  “What is it? I’m busy,” said Bonita.

  Amzak pointed to Tia.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Bonita.

  “Connie’s in trouble,” said Tia.

  “I’m aware.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” said Amzak flatly as he rose. He left the room. A few wisps of toxic atmosphere floated past the stabilizers as he exited. The door whooshed shut with a sharp snap.

  Tia fought away a cough. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, I did. He doesn’t approve of my work,” said Bonita.

  Amzak popped up on a smaller screen on the larger one. “Hah. Your work. You call screwing with the lives of lesser life-forms work.”

  “We are the Makers,” said Bonita. “If we don’t maintain the delicate balance of the universe, who will?”

  Amzak’s antennae raised. “Who indeed?”

  “How many times are we going to have this argument?”

  “I don’t know. How many times is my home going to be invaded by uninvited lower life-forms? No offense, Tia.”

  “None taken?” replied Tia, though it came across a question because she wasn’t certain if she was offended or not. She had bigger problems at the moment.

  “Can we not fight in front of the lower life-form?” asked Bonita.

  Amzak said something snarky. Tia couldn’t understand the series of clicks and chirps, but she knew the tone. Bonita and Amzak exchanged a few more clicks, none of them sounding very happy with the situation, before Amzak disappeared from the screen.

  “He doesn’t get it,” said Bonita. “He thinks this is all some silly diversion. Just the fate of worlds I’m dealing with here. No big deal or anything.”

  From somewhere, Tia heard Amzak laugh once, harsh and rough.

  “I’m assuming Connie isn’t with you,” said Bonita. “Otherwise, I’d be speaking to her.”

  “I used your phone doohickey,” said Tia.

  “Very clever. Stupid, but clever. You’re fortunate Amzak was home. You would’ve died in roughly forty-five seconds, give or take. And I’m fortunate Amzak was home, because he would’ve been displeased to find a human corpse in our home. What was so important that you deemed it worth the risk?”

  “Connie’s in trouble.”

  “Connie is always in trouble.”

  “Sure, but that thing you were talking about, I think it’s happening. Her luck is running out.”

  “Yes, about that,” said Bonita. “There might have been some miscalculations. Since you’ve come all this way, I might as well explain it to you in person.”

  The screen went blank, and shortly, Amzak returned. He threw a miniature flying saucer into the air. It hovered a few inches over Tia’s head.

  “This way, please,” said Amzak, exiting the room.

  Tia stepped into the unprotected room, but the saucer generated a breathable atmosphere and relatively comfortable gravity for her. It was a little light, and she kept lifting her feet too high off the floor.

  Amzak showed Tia to the transporter device and started dialing.

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” said Tia.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Amzak. “Though I do wish you wouldn’t encourage her. It was a pleasure to meet you.” He sounded polite, if not sincere.

  He pushed the button, disappearing along with the rest of the house, replaced by Bonita, in human form, and several other aliens, none of which were even vaguely humanoid. One looked like a mass of flatworms stacked precariously atop one another. Another was a squat sextuped with a cat-like face. Yet another was a giant hovering head with a tiny body dangling from its neck like a vestigial organ. Tia stepped from the machine and thought she should say something.

  “Hello.”

  Bonita nodded. “You’ve come a long way to have your fears assuaged. Let’s get on with it.”

  She turned, and Tia followed. The other aliens brought up the rear, including a hopping tangle of leaves Tia had erroneously assumed was a houseplant.

  “Sorry about intruding,” said Tia. “Hope I didn’t make your mate angry.”

  “He’ll get over it. He doesn’t understand. We Makers are nearly ageless, but when the Great Engine went rogue, our civilization vanished as we were forced to scatter to the far corners of the universe. Most of those who survived that dark time have given up on exploring the mysteries of the cosmos.”

  “Well, you did nearly destroy the universe,” said Tia. “I think.”

  “Mistakes were made,” said Bonita. “But I’d like to believe the caretaker management is still functional.”

  “But why do it on Earth?” asked Tia. “It doesn’t seem important in the grand scheme of things.”

  “It isn’t, and it is. Like everything else, it’s a matter of scale. I’ve lived through the rise and fall of a thousand interstellar empires. Once, Noop’s people ruled the entire Zakorr Spiral.” She gestured toward the houseplant alien. “Now they live on a wretched little planet in Omnicron.”

  Noop screeched and popped.

  “Oh, don’t be so sensitive,” said Bonita. “You know it’s true.”

  Noop wilted.

  “It’s always like that,” continued Bonita. “Nothing lasts forever. Yet we carry on. Your planet is no more important than any other. No less important, either. But Connie . . . she might be important.”

  “The spell, you mean.”

  “If you have water and a bucket to hold it in, would you consider the bucket less important than the water? Without a vessel to contain it, the caretaker destiny isn’t anything. Less than nothing. And it has been floating throughout the universe, from one host to another, throughout the eons. So, it’s on Earth for the time being. It will go to other places, other worlds, eventually.”

  “Pardon me, but this all sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo.”

  “Have you ever heard the expression Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic? Well, sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science as well. They are one and the same. You haven’t the ability to comprehend either.”

  The aliens chuckled smugly.

  They entered a room brimming with screens. Data in strange alien writing continually scrolled across each of them. Some played scenes from Connie’s life. Tia was in some of them. She recognized herself and Connie as kids, running away from a falling boulder. She didn’t remember that.

  “You’re watching her?” asked Tia.

  “We’re analyzing her,” said Bonita. “Purely for scientific reasons.”

  The screens played out hundreds of different moments, flashing between them in blinks, from different ages and adventures. On this screen, teenage Connie swashbuckled aboard a pirate ship. On that one, she stalked a werewolf in a darkened forest. Or infiltrated a hidden mountain fortress. Or led a ragtag group of rebels against an alien dictator. Or any of a hundred other adventures.

  “Where did you get all this? Were you watching the whole time?”

  “Someone is always watching,” said Bonita, “but most of these scenes are recreations, created via probabilistic analysis. That’s all reality is, in truth. A series of potential and actual outcomes. Everything else is merely an expression of this fact.”

  The floating-head alien hovered before a screen, and the alien language transitioned to English.

  He spoke, curiously with a slight Midwestern accent. “The odds that this universe itself would exist in the first place, the odds that it would create an environment receptive to life, the odds that any of this life would become s
apient.” He floated before Tia. “The odds that the peculiar code of DNA that you call you would come together, the odds that you would run into Constance on the day of her caretaker activation, the odds that you would stick around as her friend. All these are part of a grand equation beyond calculation.”

  “This sounds a lot like what the Great Engine claimed,” said Tia.

  “The Engine wasn’t incorrect in its assessments. Merely its conclusions,” said Bonita. “This universe, all universes, are colliding particles where actions lead to reactions which lead to further reactions, a chain of probabilities from the very beginning to the very end of creation.

  “Control that, and you control everything. The Engine failed to realize how large that equation is. Its failure of imagination was its undoing.”

  “And you’ll do better?” asked Tia.

  Bonita sighed. “You misunderstand us. We aren’t some sinister secret cabal. We’ve given up on controlling Connie and the caretaker destiny. We’ve discovered it can’t be controlled. The very act of trying to control it is the surest way to fail. We once thought of ourselves as the wise and benevolent overseers of the caretaker, the puppet masters behind the scenes. But it was all a lie. We might push it one way or another, but the force that resides within Connie is greater than us.”

  “But what about your warnings about bad luck?”

  Bonita gestured toward a screen. A jagged graph surrounded by alienese spread across it.

  “As I said, we must’ve miscalculated.” A series of blinking dots marked the lowest parts on the graph. “Each of these incidents represents a moment when the caretaker force ceased its influence and the negative probabilities were at their worst. And in each of them, Connie somehow survived. We don’t know how. The math checks out, but one can’t argue with reality itself. There is something within Connie, perhaps Connie herself, that allows her to thrive even without the caretaker’s influence.”

  “You’re saying Connie can’t lose?”

  “No, we’re saying that whether Connie wins or loses, survives or dies, our actions are irrelevant to that outcome. In other words, we’re irrelevant.”

  “You can’t argue with the math,” said the cat alien in a squeaky falsetto.

  Tia studied the graph. “Do you have recreations of all of these recent low points?”

  “Yes, but the recreations are unimportant. All that matters are the outcomes.”

  “Can I see them?” asked Tia.

  “It’s unnecessary. Just look at the data.”

  “Show them to me anyway. Humor me as a lowly life-form.”

  Bonita nodded to Noop, who nodded to the flatworm alien scientist, who nodded to the cat, who gestured toward a screen.

  The scene played out from an overhead angle. Alien characters scrolled across the screen as Debra, the telepathic super brain, ordered a commando to shoot Connie. Debra lay there, struggling to regain control of her body. Trying and failing. Tia’s shot wounded the commando, and Connie did the rest. The enhancement device exploded, and Tia pulled Connie out of the way of its crumbling wreckage.

  On another monitor, the recreation of Connie about to throw herself into the sea played out. Tia didn’t understand any of the strange text, but she got the context as a bright red squiggle flashed ominously as Connie climbed the railing. The squiggle faded as Tia and Hiro wrestled Connie back onto the deck.

  At the cabin at Lake Lake Monster, the flying helmet from an exploding battle armor nearly took Connie’s head off, if not for Tia’s last minute push to the ground.

  “Oh my god,” said Tia. “Don’t you see it?”

  “See what?” asked Bonita.

  “It’s me. Every time the universe is going to kill Connie, I’m there to save her.”

  Bonita laughed. “Don’t be absurd. You’re not important.”

  “Hey, screw you. I may not be Connie or an alien superscientist who claims to know everything about the universe, but I’m not an idiot.”

  “You’re upset,” said Bonita. “It’s understandable. When confronted with the inconsequential nature of our own existence, it’s only natural to reject—”

  “Just shut up and replay them. And watch them. Don’t just stare at the data.”

  “I really don’t see the point.”

  “That’s just it. You don’t see. You’re so busy functioning in the abstract that you’re not paying attention to what’s actually happening. You’re so obsessed with your grand equation that you stopped seeing. These are lives we’re talking about. These are people. So screw your calculations and just look.”

  The alien assembly offered a collective shrug. “If it’ll help you come to terms with the inevitable.”

  The incidents were replayed, and on second viewing, it was even more obvious to Tia. Bonita and her team rushed to various consoles and spent the next half hour analyzing more data until they came to an unavoidable conclusion.

  “She’s right,” said Bonita. “She’s the unknown factor.”

  Noop gurgled.

  “Oh, give it up, Noop,” said the floating head. “It’s obvious. We just missed it.”

  “It’s a touch embarrassing,” said Bonita.

  “I’m right then,” said Tia.

  “More than you know. We’ve been running the numbers, and it appears you’ve been influencing them for a while now.”

  “Perhaps it has something to do with proximity?” suggested the cat. “She was there when the mantle first manifested in the Snurkab. There might have been some spillover contamination.”

  Bonita said, “If so, it would mean a fundamental shift in how we assumed the caretaker paradigm operates.”

  “I don’t give a damn how it works,” said Tia. “We don’t have time for you to crunch numbers. This isn’t a math equation. It’s Connie, and she needs me. You have to beam me back.”

  “Yes, about that,” said Bonita. “There might be a problem there.”

  “Just beam me across the universe to her phone. You did it once before.”

  “Oh, we can do it, but while the process might appear instantaneous to you, it actually takes several days.”

  “What? How many?”

  “It varies. Anywhere from two to three.”

  “I’ve been gone two or three days already? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t think it was relevant.”

  Tia bristled. She wanted to yell at these egotistical idiots who’d wasted so much of her precious time. But there wasn’t any time left.

  She grabbed Bonita by the collar. “Get me back to Earth. Now.”

  28

  Byron’s first abduction wasn’t so bad, all things considered.

  He ran his finger down tonight’s menu. “No chicken?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” said the concierge in the black jumpsuit. “The chef felt the poultry was below his standards. He sends his apologies.” His skull helmet covered his face, but he sounded sincerely put out by the situation. “He recommends the fish.”

  “Not really a fish guy.”

  “I’m told it’s quite good.”

  Byron handed back the menu through the bars. “Sure, why not. And a Coke.”

  “We only offer Pepsi products.”

  “Right. Keep forgetting. That’s fine.”

  The concierge tucked the menu under his arm and nodded slightly. “Very good, sir.” He walked away, past the two posted guards.

  Byron’s cell was like a nicer version of his first efficiency apartment if he overlooked the guards and the bars. He retrieved a bottled water from the minifridge and turned on the TV. It had only basic cable, but it was better than nothing.

  The most vexing thing about being held prisoner was that he could already hear his sister tsk-tsking. “Well, you dated an adventurer,” Dana would say. “What did you think would happen?”

  The concierge returned, without food, and opened the cell door.

  “Something wrong?” asked Byron.

  “Change of plans, sir.
You’ll be eating with Lady Peril tonight. This way.”

  Byron followed. The two guards posted at his cell fell in behind him. He wondered if they expected him to make an escape attempt. Connie probably would’ve. Or she would’ve played along, eager to talk to Lady Peril and outsmart her in a deadly game of wits. He had no such aspirations.

  They traveled the metal halls, passing minions marching off to do their jobs. It wasn’t much different from any office. You didn’t know what half the people did, but you trusted that they were doing it. You kept your head down and collected your paycheck. The uniforms might be different, but the archetype was always the same.

  They led him to a dining room where Lady Peril and Apollonia were waiting. It was surprisingly sparse and tasteful. No mile-long table or massive chandelier. No live orchestra or giant shark tank. Just a table with a white tablecloth and some chairs. The Siege Perilous logo was printed on the tablecloth.

  Lady Peril wore the same style white bodysuit and black lab coat as he’d last seen her in. “Ah, Byron, so good of you to join me. Please, do have a seat.”

  The concierge pulled out a chair, and Byron thanked him. Apollonia did the same for Lady Peril.

  “I trust your stay has been pleasant,” said Lady Peril.

  “Good. I have to say I thought I’d be tortured or something.”

  Lady Peril raised an eyebrow.

  “Not that I’m complaining,” he said. “I just thought with your son dead and you wanting revenge . . .”

  She interlaced her long, thin fingers, the black polish on her perfectly manicured nails reminding him of a lioness’s claws.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.

  He tensed. It was a stupid thing to say.

  “Forget I brought it up.”

  She almost smiled. Or so he imagined. Her mouth never so much as twitched, but he picked up a vague sense of amusement from her.

  The henchagents served the meal. Byron waited for Peril to cut into her fish, which she inspected for a full minute before taking a bite. She chewed with a cold indifference, swallowed, and nodded. The staff retreated to their corners. Only Apollonia stood within arm’s reach of Peril.