But this is no beanstalk.
The obsidian roots are all too familiar.
Lucas lifts his mud-streaked, soot-covered face. “An Icon? Here?”
Tima lies on the ground, pushing away from it with her feet. The ground is rolling too much to stand. I know, because I’m clinging to the trunk of a teak tree with two hands, and I can barely stay up.
An Icon.
Here.
Because we’re here.
Because it follows us, follows me.
Even without the shard.
“But that’s impossible. We got rid of that thing. The shard.” I’m shouting over the noise of the earth splitting.
“We did,” calls Lucas. “But how much do you want to bet the GAP is holding on to one of his own?”
The screaming from the direction of the temple confirms the truth of Lucas’s words—and by the time everything is quiet again, I can’t feel a single Sympa there at all.
I felt them burn.
I felt them crumble into ash.
I felt their skin melt and their bones shatter.
But not now.
Not anymore. Now, they’re just gone. The aggression and the emptiness and the fear—all gone.
It’s over.
It isn’t until I’m pulling Lucas to his feet that I look across the flattened teak and palms to see Sparrow standing safely in the center of the jungle.
Watching as the mountaintop burns.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.
FORTIS
Transcript - ComLog 02.23.2070
FORTIS::NULL
//comlog begin;
sendline: Are you ready for some suggestions?;
return: I am.;
sendline: You need to prepare the planet for something new, correct?;
return: Yes.;
sendline: I assume that includes a complete reset of the ecosystem. Essentially sterilizing the planet, replanting, repopulating?;
return: Yes.;
sendline: But you weren’t prepared to meet with locals with the kind of, say, sophistication you see here?;
return: That is one aspect of my current decision-making challenge.;
sendline: Knowing what I do about your… assets… and knowing what I do about the locals, I would suggest that your current plan of action, so far as I understand it, is flawed. It would involve significant losses and potential failure for your objectives.;
return: It is not without risks.;
sendline: I have an idea, one derived from our extensive experience in expansion and colonization.;
return: I have analyzed your history, but did not consider using it as strategic material.;
sendline: That’s why you need me!;
comlink terminated;
//comlog end;
//lognote: God, I hope this works.;
33
INTRODUCTIONS
“Come on, Sparrow!” I call across the jungle. Sparrow looks at me, smiling. She claps her hands and the birds at her feet fly away, startled.
“You’re safe now. We can go.” I motion toward the burning mountaintop. “I have to make sure my friends are all right. Come back up.”
She nods, waving her arms over her head.
Yes. I understand.
I retrace my steps to the stone stairwell, Tima and Lucas at my side.
Sparrow is still minutes behind us.
The scene isn’t one I’d wish on any child, but then, none of us is exactly that. Not even Sparrow.
It’s hard to see past the smoke and rubble, especially since the fires are only now starting to go out.
As we all know, Ro is much better at starting fires than putting them out.
I see Fortis and Bibi across the courtyard, trying to douse him with holy water. Everyone—all three of them—is covered with a thick layer of black soot.
But the truly frightening sight is GAP Miyazawa, the General Ambassador.
The former General Ambassador.
Because a particularly thick obsidian shard has gored him through the chest. It continues to curl beyond him, as if the GAP’s human body is nothing, a trivial impediment along the way.
Most of his Sympas, on the other hand, are halfway down a chasm. I can only see parts of the tops of their heads—and a hand or two, still clutching at the muddy earth—it’s so deep in there.
“Fitting, don’t you think?” It’s Lucas, standing behind me. “Seeing as the GAP considered himself the big defender of the Earth? And now his Sympas find themselves—you know—”
“Taking a dirt nap?” Tima asks innocently, with half a grin.
Lucas and Ro and I start laughing, in spite of everything. I wipe soot out of my eyes. “Ah, Doc. I miss the guy.”
“Where are the rest of the Sympas?” Tima looks around, but she’s right. There isn’t a single soldier in sight.
Lucas shrugs. “Gone, I guess. I’d take off too, if I saw that thing coming for me.”
I smile. “What, Ro? Or the Icon roots?”
“Either one,” says Lucas.
Tima nods. “He’s right. I don’t actually know which would be more terrifying.”
“I do,” says Ro, and I turn to see him, reaching to hug me. His skin is still nearly too hot to touch.
“Ro. You did it. You saved us.” I bury my face in his neck, in spite of the fact that Lucas is standing right there, in spite of everything.
I can’t help myself.
“Don’t I always fix everything?” He smiles, reaching for Tima, too. Even Lucas claps him once on the back. Which for him is something.
“Either that, or the other thing. You know, that thing you do?” I pretend to think. “Oh yeah, wreck everything.”
Ro lets out a sharp laugh, and I grin back at him. By the time we pull away from each other, it feels how it used to feel. It feels like the Mission, like the beach, like home.
Even if it never will be again, I savor it while I can. Ro’s my family, my oldest friend. I can’t pretend not to feel that.
Not to love that.
Love him.
Then I hear a small voice in the distance. “Doloria? Are you there?”
It’s Sparrow, coming toward me, stumbling her way through the smoke.
I hold out my hand to her and she sees me, and runs in my direction across the uneven ground.
“Careful,” I say, smiling.
She smiles back.
Her fingers stretch toward mine, soft and round. We reach for each other—
And her fingers slip through mine.
I stand there, looking at my own hand in shock. I try again, but it’s no different. I’m clutching at air.
Because she isn’t real.
She isn’t there.
This isn’t happening.
Sparrow stands in front of me, staring at her own fingers.
Then she starts lowering them, one at a time. Counting in reverse.
“Five.”
“Fortis, what’s happening?” I’m pleading, but he only takes a step backward.
“Four.”
He looks at me, strangely. “Doloria. I think you had better back away now.”
“Three.”
Lucas takes my hand. “Dol. I don’t know what’s going on—but we need to go.”
“Two.”
Now only one of Sparrow’s fingers—her pointer finger—remains extended. She raises it in front of her face, studying it.
“What’s happening, Sparrow?”
Sparrow looks up at the sky and smiles. “Birds.” But birds are not the only thing in this sky. Next to me, Sparrow’s hair begins to blow.
“What is it, Sparrow?”
“Not what, s
ister. Who.”
“Who, Sparrow?” I can feel the tears running down my face. “Who’s coming?”
The noise grows louder.
Sparrow looks at her finger. That’s when I realize she isn’t counting.
She’s pointing.
She’s pointing to the sky.
“Who is it? Who?” I’m not crying. Not anymore. I’m screaming.
I’m also feeling.
I feel something I haven’t felt in a long, long time.
Something as searing and vivid and unmistakable as hot wax dripping on my bare feet.
A twinge of a suspicion that becomes a burning truth.
“They’re here.”
Them. Not Sympas. Not the GAP. Something more dangerous than both of them combined.
The whole mountain feels as if it were coming down. Worse than any fire, than any earthquake. Worse than the Icon roots.
Maybe it is, I think.
This is worse than the Idylls.
Because it isn’t the ground that’s moving.
It’s the sky.
The silver ships come sliding down from the clouds, reflecting the sun so brightly it’s hard to tell them from the real one.
One by one they sink toward the earth, moving too quickly to be anything from Earth—and with too great a surety.
A military formation.
Five ships.
A squadron.
In the shape of a pentagon.
It’s too late to run. It’s too late to hide. As the sky splits open, all we can do is watch.
“Don’t cry, Doloria.”
I look at the child who is not a child, who is not there, who is nothing.
“Why can’t I feel your hand?”
My eyes are brimming—I can barely see her face.
“You’re a projection, right? Or maybe a dream? A Virt? Is there any part of you that’s real at all?”
Sparrow looks at me somberly. “Sister.”
“Please,” I say. “Tell me.”
“Doloria. You were—I don’t have the right words.” She closes her eyes. “A thing of beauty.” She smiles. “That’s it.”
I can’t breathe.
I can’t believe she just said that.
Something I have heard before, but only in a dream. And not from her.
From Null.
From the strange voice, the one in the dreams, and even the bird.
The voice I heard when the Idylls were falling.
The name I heard when Fortis was being taken, back in the desert.
My stomach twists.
Now my words won’t come—they don’t want to come—but I force them out anyway.
“Who is it, Sparrow? Who is in those ships?”
Sparrow smiles at me, a child’s smile, full of perfect innocence and perfect affection.
“I think you know, sister.”
“I don’t know.” I try not to feel. I try not to feel this, above all other things.
“Doloria.”
“Say it. Just say it.”
She closes her eyes again, just as her mouth forms the word.
“Me.”
No sooner does she say the word than her body flickers, like a frozen digi-screen.
Flickers—and disappears.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.
PRIVATE RESEARCH NOTES
PAULO FORTISSIMO
03/01/2070
I BELIEVE THE BEST CHANCE WE HAVE TO GET THROUGH THIS IS TO DRAW THIS THING OUT. I DON’T SEE ANY WAY TO KEEP NULL FROM LANDING, BUT MAYBE WE CAN FORCE NULL TO TAKE LONGER THAN HE WANTS, AND HOPEFULLY GIVE US TIME TO FIGHT BACK. THE WEAPONS HE HAS ARE NOT ENOUGH TO WIPE OUT THE POPULATION IN ONE BLOW, AND AS LONG AS THERE IS ONE HUMAN ALIVE, NULL HAS A PROBLEM.
I WOULD HAVE NULL SET UP A LOCAL GOVERNMENT INFRASTRUCTURE AND USE US TO POLICE OURSELVES. USE US TO BUILD THE “EQUIPMENT,” WHATEVER THAT IS, THAT HE NEEDS TO TURN THE PLANET INTO MULCH.
IF NULL PROCEEDS WITH HIS INSTRUCTIONS, AS I UNDERSTAND IT, HE MAY PULL IT OFF, OR IT MAY END UP IN MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION OF BOTH SIDES. NOT MUCH TO LOOK FORWARD TO THERE FOR YOURS TRULY.
I ALSO AM DETECTING WHAT FEELS LIKE HESITANCE FROM NULL. I HAVE TO GET BEHIND THAT. MAYBE HE HAS AN ACHILLES HEEL… OR SERVO? ACHILLES FUNCTION?
34
SALUTATIONS
Only one ship lands.
Thank the Blessed Lady.
It is only when it crushes legions of palms and teaks around us that we realize how enormous the Lords’ ships really are.
This one has landed at the base of the stone stairs leading down from Doi Suthep.
I stand at the top of the stairs, between the two immense, carved serpents that curve down the sides of the steps.
Between two serpents, and in front of my three best friends in the world.
It’s the only place I can stand and be able to take in the whole scene.
So when a rectangle of light appears on the front side of the silver ship, I am the first to see it. I won’t let the others come any closer than I already am.
I’m the one who led us here.
I’m the one who walked right into this trap.
It’s my fault.
It’s my problem.
Now the rectangle of light shines more brightly. Now it takes the shape of something more solid, an actual, dimensional polygon.
A doorway.
Brutus flattens himself against the ground and starts to whine.
A small, slender figure appears inside the door.
He stands for a moment, staring at me as I stare at him. Then, he steps out into the world beyond the ship. Our world.
His feet are unsteady, reminding me of so many things. Sparrow, running across the stones. Maybe a piglet from Ramona Jamona’s first litter. A buckle-kneed colt or calf, in the Mission barn, when it first tries to stand.
This isn’t a colt or a pig or a calf.
It’s a boy.
No.
A girl.
No.
It’s something that looks like a human child.
Its face is smooth and clear—features sharp, eyes bright. It doesn’t look like a flesh-and-blood human child, but it doesn’t look like an alien presence, either.
Then again, what do I know? It never even occurred to me that Sparrow had no corporeal presence. I’d touched her, taken her hand, so many times—in my dreams.
It felt real enough to me.
But this time, I know who—or what—I’m talking to. It—this thing—feels familiar.
I feel it in my head now, just as I always have, ever since the first night I dreamed it.
The thing that called itself Null, once.
Sparrow, another time.
A child and a man and a life force, a death force—I don’t know which. Not anymore.
But now it reaches for me with its mind. I let it come to me.
It’s you. I told you I would come. You didn’t believe me. You are very brave.
I hope you will survive. I do not believe that you will, but I hope you do.
Hope.
I say nothing, but I listen.
More than it did for the Silent Cities, before it destroyed them.
Then the thing’s lips stretch wide into something not so different from a smile.
I hear a voice. A spoken voice, out in the world—our world. It’s low, too low to belong to a child.
Then again, this isn’t a child at all.
Not really.
And again, who am I to judge what is and what is not a human? A person?
When I find that I am possibly neither of those things myself.
But I know that this one moment is either the end or th
e beginning of my life.
Then I stop thinking and start listening, because it speaks two words, and two words only.
The wind carries them up to the steps to me.
“Hello world.”
I stand there, with my friends by my side, staring at it. Null. Sparrow. The Lords. Whatever you want to call it.
The end of humanity.
“What do you want?” I shout down at it, because I refuse to connect to this thing in my mind.
Not now.
Not ever again.
“Unification,” it says. “Today is Unification Day.”
“You’ve made some kind of mistake. That was some GAP lie. We don’t celebrate that day, not the four of us.”
“But this is why we have come. For you. For us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Our reunification. I am the fifth Icon. We are meant to be together. We are one thing.”
“No, we’re not. You’re a liar.”
“I am the future.”
“You’re a Lord, and you’re Null.”
“I am hope.”
“You aren’t hope. Don’t you dare say that. You know what Null means? ‘Nothing.’ You’re nothing.”
“We are all nothing, Doloria. Why should hope belong only to humanity?”
“We’re human, and you’re nothing like us. Nothing,” I say again, and I realize now I’m sobbing.
Null—it—holds out its hand.
“Come,” it says. “Come with us.”
I shake my head. The more it says to me, the more I dig in—and the more loudly I shout.
“Go ahead. Stop my heart. I’m not going with you. I’m not going anywhere.”
Lucas slides his arm around my waist. “Of course you’re not. And this conversation is over.”
Tima takes my hand. “You’re not alone, Dol. You can’t do this without us. We’re here.”
Ro steps in front of me. “Here,” he says, simply. “Right here.”
“Ro,” I say, smiling, “you can’t—”
But I don’t finish, because I feel a hand on my arm and turn to see Fortis. His face is strangely soft, and his eyes are as red as mine. When he speaks, his voice is so quiet I have to strain to hear it.
Idols Page 23
