And suddenly the water was gone. He could hear it cascade all around him, falling and splashing into more water far below. Some hard surface bit into his face and body as his lungs struggled between drawing in air and feeling as if they would rupture if he took in the slightest gasp.
“Winston!” cried his mother.
He wanted to move, at least to call out to her, but he couldn’t. His insides were still a coiling mass of pain. Winston opened his eyes just enough to see light, but everything remained a bloody film. He closed the lids tightly and tried again. A little clarity returned — shapes in a hazy, dark obscurity.
Amanda’s hands fluttered all over his head and shoulders. “Winston, can you hear me?”
He managed a small grunt.
He realized that his right arm rested before his face. The skin looked icy pale atop black metal ribs.
The catwalk, he realized. Somehow, he was back where he’d started.
Then another thought struck: His arm was white. There was hardly any blue to it at all. He wasn’t healing.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one with that thought, because Amanda said, “Bernie says you’re not hearing him. You also need help right now. The device can help, but he says it’s almost out of power.”
Device? She had to mean Little e.
“So, is anyone coming or not?” called Bledsoe. “I wish you would’ve said you were going to get him. I thought…”
Bledsoe didn’t finish his sentence, and Winston couldn’t piece together the man’s words into meaning. Who had come for him? Not Bledsoe. His father?
Bernie took Amanda’s place at his side. With a small clatter, the alien released the four Alpha Machine pieces onto the catwalk beside Winston. This freed Little e’s arms to fan out and spread wide, like the spokes of a wheel. Bernie gently placed the arms against Winston’s ribs and bowed his head.
Almost immediately, Winston felt a wave of warmth spread throughout his chest. Little e’s arms glowed faintly, and Winston’s skin began to blossom with a similar celeste hue. Second by second, Winston felt himself able to breathe more easily. The howling fire in his belly began to recede. When he blinked again, he saw Bernie’s face peering down at him. The alien’s large eyes swam with shades of emerald, azure, and gold. Somehow, the hint of a smile was on the alien’s lips, even though the tone of his complexion was fading from gray to a pale ash. Bernie had to be powering Little e from his own body.
Bernie’s pause was so quick that Winston barely noticed it.
Bernie shifted Little e to focus on Winston’s abdomen and took a long breath.
Winston noticed his chest and arms now glowing fiercely.
Winston found that he could smile, although it made his face ache.
The gold flecks in Bernie’s eyes pulsed.
Two hands quickly descended into Winston’s field of view. One scooped up the four Alpha Machine pieces while the other yanked the crescent-shaped artifact free from Winston’s arm.
“About time!” crowed Bledsoe as he took a step back.
By the time Winston could crane his head around, Bledsoe already had the two rings and tori floating above his left hand. They began to spin and rotate. Apparently unsure exactly what to do, he brought the fifth piece near the other four. He started at the top of the silver ring, but the tell-tale magnetic pull didn’t grab the crescent. He tried the bottom. Sure enough, Winston saw the crescent pull free from his fingers and lock into place in the gap between Bledsoe’s open hand and the larger ring. The crescent began to revolve in a circle under the other four pieces, forming some sort of base on which they functioned.
“Well, look at that,” Bledsoe exhaled, face alight with joy and anticipation. “And I know exactly where to start.”
“You all there!” shouted a voice from the pool room’s upper corner. Winston caught a flash of white and black uniform and a long object that had to be a rifle. “Stop and raise your hands!”
“Yes, sir!” said Bledsoe, raising the complete Alpha Machine higher.
Amanda stood two steps away from Bledsoe, and Winston noticed her eyes lock onto Bledsoe’s hand. She shifted her balance, a split-second from springing at him, and Winston instinctively knew that she planned to go over the side with him and into the radioactive depths in which he’d just nearly died.
She blinked, eyes darting back to him.
Her eyes blazed with fury.
Her body trembled, but after a moment her balance shifted again.
she said, nostrils flaring as her teeth clamped down on her top lip.
“Bledsoe!” Winston called, pleased to find his throat back in working if strained order. He had to know one last thing. “It’s not too late to do this right. We can go forward from here.”
“Oh, trust me,” said Bledsoe. “We’re well past going forward from here.”
“Please!” Winston protested. “You can’t just reboot everything!”
It didn’t seem possible, but Bledsoe’s clenched grin grew even wider. “Watch me.”
Winston felt the alien’s hand press more firmly on the right side of his chest while Little e’s arms applied more pressure to his ribs on the left. Bernie shifted his weight in anticipation.
“If anybody moves, I will fire!” said the security guard. Another man appeared behind him and, as a pair, they advanced to the stairwell leading down to the pool catwalk.
Winston knew that a long jump could not be done instantly. The user needed to navigate, and the jump needed a second or two to build.
Blue and white sparks formed above Bledsoe’s head, showering down on all sides of him. He would have a destination lock. Wherever it was would be filling his second reality layer. And then he would jump…right…
Bernie leaned forward and lifted Winston just far enough off the catwalk to throw him a couple of feet toward Bledsoe. At the same time, Winston stretched out his right arm. His glowing, damp fingers seized the man’s ankle.
A split second before Bledsoe made his jump.
34
Meeting the Omega Mesh
As the sparks about them fell away, Winston perceived untold millions of colors fading and pulsing about him in stitched and interwoven rainbows. From the corner of his eye, he seemed to be in a sphere, but wherever he focused, the space before him appeared to stretch on forever. It was overwhelming and disorienting and unspeakably beautiful all at once.
He then realized that, like a popped balloon, his pain had vanished, as had his body. He no longer grasped Bledsoe’s ankle because he had no arm — and no Bledsoe to hold on to. A moment before, Winston had been laying horizontally on the catwalk. Now, he had no idea which way
he was oriented, or if there was even such a thing as himself anymore.
A wave of fear spread throughout his consciousness, but then he noticed an echo of his fear from somewhere nearby.
No…not an echo. Another presence besides himself.
Bledsoe.
{You are in a construct of the Omega Mesh.}
The words formed in Winston’s awareness with no voice connected to them. The communication was wholly unlike anything he had ever experienced. Because there was no voice, there was no sense of gender, mood, or time. The meaning simply occurred to him fully formed.
{You may consider it as such,} it replied.
So he was here. It helped Winston to imagine him being at arm’s length, just as he had left him. The idea of a spatial relationship gave Winston a point of reference in this kaleidoscopic chaos, some mental concept on which he could anchor himself.
{That question does not have a definite answer,} said the Omega Mesh. {It is irrelevant. At this scale, space is data.}
Winston couldn’t tell if the answer was a rebuke or merely a statement of fact. He suspected the latter. Either way, though, it made no sense.
Bledsoe’s sense of fear slowly evaporated and was replaced by curiosity.
{You will have questions,} said the Omega Mesh.
{Your translation remains in stasis.}
Winston felt anger begin to tinge Bledsoe’s consciousness.
{In that context, nothing has changed. You will proceed where you wish when you continue.}
said Bledsoe.
The multifarious bubble in which they floated shuddered once, sending ripples all around them like a never-ending wake.
{Procurement of the last Alpha Machine piece was necessary for a direct relationship with the Omega Machine. We are engaging in that process.}
said Winston at last.
{The fifth piece allows direct and thorough interchange between the Omega Mesh and your being.}
{Yes.}
A body and brain scan. No doubt, that included all memories, thoughts, and everything else that made Winston who he was. He felt himself contract in what would have physically been a cringe.
Bledsoe must have reached the same conclusion, because Winston felt him retreat. Obviously, he couldn’t go anywhere in here, but Bledsoe was trying to fold into himself and harden himself against the Omega Mesh’s probing, something like a mental armadillo.
Good luck with that, thought Winston, not knowing or caring whether Bledsoe could hear him.
{In what way?}
Winston wanted to say he believed the Omega Mesh had made a mistake, but that would probably be offensive, and he had no data to back up the statement. Winston sensed Bledsoe’s shield cracking, and from the gap poured mounting concern and anger.
he said before Bledsoe could cut him off.
Winston immediately regretted his final words. They undercut his argument and made his remarks sound self-centered.
{All of those statements are irrelevant,} replied the Omega Mesh. {Devlin Bledsoe’s existence and leadership are the key factors that determine the maximum time extension until the Silence.}
said Winston.
More ripples ran across the surface of their prismatic holding cell.
Winston expected Bledsoe to make an attempt at shouting him down. Instead, the man merely said,
Winston wanted to bury the man in logic and bulletproof arguments, but he had nothing. He didn’t know Bledsoe’s past or mind any more than the man knew his. Maybe there were good reasons for why he was this way. In the end, though, none of that mattered. Even if he had good points and deserved pity, that didn’t make him fit to lead or give him the right to slaughter entire populations.
Winston only said,
The sphere about them contracted, pulling in so much that Winston felt if he could extend an arm, he might be able to brush the colors with his fingertips. He felt himself condense with his prison of a universe, and he had the impression of being an imploding star, with the forces that made him whole collapsing in and in, down and down. In another moment he might become an impossibly small singularity, whereupon it would only take a nudge, a whisper, for him to become a black hole and devour himself.
That nudge never came. Their boundary of color rushed outward, and Winston returned to himself. He lost all sense of depth and rested in stunned silence.
What had happened? Was the Omega Mesh trying to tell him something? Was he nothing more than a speck in the big scheme of things?
Winston wanted to object. There had to be a way to make the Omega Mesh see reason. Despair welled throughout him, which fueled Bledsoe’s satisfaction even more.
Before he could formulate his next thought, though, Winston noticed that the point at which he focused had become a white dot. As the surrounding rainbows touched the spot, they flowed into it. It was, Winston realized a white hole, swallowing up this bizarre universe.
He didn’t have long to wait. The white spot grew at an increasing rate like a supernova swallowing the sky. Blue sparks appeared within the immaculate emptiness, almost imperceptible at first, then growing into fireworks that exploded across the heavens.
At last, one spark ignited immediately before Winston, and although he had no form, he backed away from it, shocked, scared, wanting to cry out in amazement…
…until the world of space and time reformed around him.
35
Bledsoe's Blood Offer
In his years on Rota, Bledsoe had studied Joseph Stalin’s summer home outside the town of Sochi so often that he felt he could have navigated it blindfolded. The U-shaped dacha, as it was called, was painted the exact green of the surrounding cypress forest to help camouflage its exterior. The main floor’s fifteen-foot height allowed for towering windows and doorways. Stalin disliked the distraction of artwork, so most rooms lacked paintings. Nor were there carpets or rugs in most spaces, which might have muffled the sound of approaching
footsteps. Room to room, and from ornately paneled ceiling to parquet mosaic floor, the dacha was coated in fine hardwoods, especially beech. It was a fine place, rich without being gaudy, comfortable yet built for around-the-clock work.
Bledsoe had long imagined himself conducting world affairs from this building, as Stalin once had. It seemed fitting.
From the remaining sparks that fell and fizzled about his feet and the scant moonlight that filtered into the large room from its balcony, Bledsoe knew that he was standing in Stalin’s study. Before him rested the dictator’s famed desk — two squarish cabinets topped by a simple plank on which rested a glass pane and only a few items: a blue-domed desk lamp, a blotter, a black phone that Bledsoe knew was a direct line to the Kremlin, and a finely carved silver-and-glass writing set gifted to Stalin by China’s Chairman Mao.
Against the wall to Bledsoe’s right rested a long, black leather couch crafted from pigskin and stuffed with horsehair, which, in addition to being comfortable, also provided excellent bulletproofing. Between the desk and couch stretched a bed so narrow that Bledsoe felt it must be impossible to roll over in without falling off. The footboard facing him was no wider than his shoulders. At best, the thing might serve for a quick nap, but Stalin regularly slept on it during his summer months here, leaving him literally two steps from his work at any moment of the night.
Except this night.
It was 6:30 PM, March 1, 1953, and the Russian dictator lay sprawled on the hardwood floor between the desk and bed. The mauve cover from his bed lay in a crumpled heap across his body. His silver-streaked black hair jutted out at all angles, and his thick mustache twitched as he shivered. Bledsoe noticed with unexpected revulsion that a small, dark pool of vomit lay around the right desk cabinet, and the sharp scent of urine hung in the air.
No, the Soviet premier was not well at all. Perfect.
Bledsoe stilled the Alpha Machine and held it at his side to make it seem less odd or threatening. Noticing the Chase boy on his right, Bledsoe scowled and motioned for him to step back. The boy was feeling at his face, which seemed remarkably improved. Come to think of it, his skin no longer glowed either. Whatever weird limbo they had been in had apparently healed him. How long had they been there?
Winston Chase and the Omega Mesh Page 30
