by David Beers
Raylyn sat quietly, though that wasn’t to say without increasing anxiety … something approaching outright panic with each passing minute.
Because the girl—the young woman—sat there speaking, and all the while her eyes blazed gray.
Rebecca saw it too. There wasn’t any possible way she didn’t, yet she seemed to pay it no mind.
Does she know? Raylyn wondered. Does she know her eyes are full of static, just like the weapon?
Raylyn honestly wasn’t sure, but she doubted it. It wasn’t that Nicki Sesam looked abnormal, but that she looked evil.
For Rebecca’s part, she didn’t seem to care in the slightest. She sat right across from Nicki, battling each argument with one of her own. It was as if no static existed, and she was only having a conversation with a young lady … Someone not yet wise to the ways of the world.
You know why, Raylyn thought. Because this woman has sat across from the man who wields his power without discrimination, without hesitation, and without fear. The person in front of her now may hold that power too, but she’s a neophyte. Capable, yes, but Hollowborne has seen fear that few others have, and this young woman doesn’t strike it in her.
The transport was still flying toward the Nile River, the destination having not been changed. That in itself said a lot about Rebecca Hollowborne. Sitting there next to someone who could literally bring the whole thing crashing down without lifting a finger, and yet Rebecca defied the woman’s wishes.
“I’m not going there and fighting him,” Nicki said for what felt like the hundredth time. “Not unless I get to my father first.”
If it was a war of attrition, Raylyn didn’t know who would win.
“Listen to me. If we stop David, everyone attacking your father dies. Everything they’re trying to accomplish ends. If we don’t stop him, nothing ends. Those people trying to kill your dad will be the least of anyone’s worries.”
“I don’t care,” Nicki said. “You’re going to take me there, to him.”
Rebecca grew silent for a moment, finally letting the battle of wills take a slight rest. She looked to the front of the transport, her teeth worrying on her lower lip. A few seconds passed, and then she said, “How did you see it, Nicki? How did you see your father?”
“What do you mean?” Nicki asked, finally a trace of impatience worming through her voice. “There’s no time to keep talking about this. Every minute that passes, it’s another minute those people are closer to him.”
Rebecca didn’t seem to notice the change in her tone, didn’t even glance over to her.
“Humor me, Nicki. Quickly, too, if you’re concerned about your father. Who showed him to you?”
Nicki grew quiet this time, her gray eyes tilting toward her hands. Rebecca said nothing, only waited.
“I don’t know. It’s just a voice. I don’t know who she is.”
“It’s a she?” Rebecca said, still looking forward.
“Yes.” Nicki nodded.
“What else did the voice say?” Rebecca was quiet now.
“She wanted me to wake up,” Nicki said. “To come out of … whatever state I was in.”
“Did she tell you to go to your father, though? Think. It’s important.”
“No, but I don’t care. That doesn’t matter. The voice showed me what was happening to him, and so I’m going to him.”
Rebecca nodded, finally looking back to Nicki, as if making up her mind on something.
“Nicki,” she started, “if you—”
Nicki held up a finger, her gray eyes flashing to the back window. Raylyn turned quickly, hoping to everything holy that the weapon hadn’t returned.
“Is it—”
“Shhh,” Nicki told her.
Raylyn slowly turned around and looked at the woman. Her eyes were still alight, staring out the back window. The emotion that one could see through another’s eyes was lost in Nicki, the burning static showing nothing of the thoughts inside.
Long seconds passed, and then Rebecca said, “What is it?”
Nicki’s hand dropped to her lap, but still, she didn’t turn around.
Another minute, and then two—all of it spent in silence as Nicki stared out behind them, seeing the sun cast its golden hue across a world it was leaving for the night.
“It’s my father,” she finally whispered. She kept her eyes firm out the back window, her face showing nothing of what she thought. “He’s saying if I don’t help, that a lot of people are going to die.”
Rhett watched as David opened his eyes.
He was sitting next to his Prophet, a damp rag in his lap. The dampness wasn’t from any water they had on the transport, but rather David’s sweat. The panel on the front window read: ETA - 30 mins.
“David,” Rhett said softly. “Are you okay?”
He knew the others in the back of the ship were all staring at him, desperately wanting to know the answer.
David turned, the gray in his eyes having evaporated. His face was pale and drawn, as if he’d somehow lost weight on this short trip.
“I’m okay,” he said, though no smile crossed his face. “Where are we?”
“We’re almost there,” Rhett said. “Another 30 minutes or so.”
David nodded and then turned his head back to the front, resting it on the seat. He didn’t close his eyes, though, and Rhett was thankful for that. He didn’t want any chance of his eyes rolling into the back of his head again.
“What happened?”
A small smirk spread over his lips, and he chuckled lightly. “I don’t suppose I can keep it from you anymore. Here, stand up.”
Rhett did so and David’s chair turned around so that he faced the back of the transport. They did their best to limit their reactions, but Rhett still saw them.
This was the weakest anyone had ever seen David, and the surprise—despite their efforts—was still apparent.
David must have seen it, too, because he said, “I’m okay. I promise.”
He swallowed and sat up some.
“I was trying to shield you from this, but it’s gone too far.” Again, the smirk, and now Rhett saw sadness in it. As if it might be humorous, but darkly so. David looked out at the four of them—Rhett, Christine, Reinheld, and this pilot whom Rhett didn’t know at all. David looked on and said what Rhett never wanted to hear. What everyone inside this ship had thought was behind them. “I’m dying.”
Christine’s mouth opened as if she wanted to say something, but it simply remained agape until she brought a hand to it, her eyes flooding with tears.
Rhett looked at David, his own voice unavailable.
“I’m dying, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
Rhett sat down in the chair next to David. “That’s not possible. You’re alive, David. You survived. You’re not dying.”
Christine left those in the back, walking to her Prophet and kneeling down in front of him. Rhett watched as she took his hand, an unconscious gesture and something so unlike Christine that it was hard to believe … yet, Rhett thought it the most natural thing he’d ever seen her do.
“You can’t die, David,” she said. “We’re going to bring the Unformed across, and then we’re going to live. Forever. Or at least as long as we can. But you can’t die.”
“I made a choice before I came back,” David said, looking at Christine. The compassion on his face wiped away any anger he might have shown a day ago. It wiped away any transgression he might have ever committed. “I knew the choice I was making, because it was the only way to ensure we accomplish this. I told you most of it, and I thought I could keep you from the rest of it, but I can’t. To come back … it gave me the powers you’ve seen, and more, but it also means that each time I use them, I weaken. Right now, I’m holding the Ministries at bay, and I hope I can kill them off before the Union. I’m also holding the girl that’s like me at bay. The one I sent you to get, Rhett. But doing that is taking its toll, and that’s what you all just saw.”
He squeezed Christine’s hand.
“I’m dying, and that’s okay. Prophets rarely live long lives,” he said and smiled.
Rhett closed his eyes and leaned his head back on his seat, tilting it upward so that the tears wouldn’t fall down his cheeks. “We’re so close. We’re so fucking close.”
“And we’re going to finish it,” David said. “There’s too much confusion on the other side. They’re arguing about too much, and we’re almost there. I might not come out on the other side, but you will, and you’re going to see everything you’ve wanted.”
“I don’t want to see it without you,” Rhett said. “None of us do.”
Rhett felt David’s hand on his leg, though he didn’t look down to see it. To do so would mean the tears he now kept silent would begin singing their songs, and he didn’t want to do that—not right now.
“I’m only going to die here, Rhett, on this world. In this body. The choice I made earlier was between joining the Unformed or coming back. I came back. Now, I’ll just be joining the Unformed. I’ll be going home. As long as we complete this, I’ll always be with you.”
Rhett sighed, it turning into a shudder midway out. A tear leaked from the corner of both eyes, dripping hot down his face.
“Now, I need you all to hold it together, because time is short, and you have to know what to expect.”
Rhett wiped at his eyes and grit his teeth, anger rising in him. Anger at Rebecca for creating this damned dichotomy. Anger at the position they were now in, so close to their goal but losing the one who had led them the whole way. He sat up and looked at David.
“There has to be something we can do. Some way to reverse this or hold it off until the Union. We can’t just sit here and accept it, David.”
Christine was still at his feet, and she turned to David hopefully, as if Rhett’s rage could somehow stem the inevitability of his words.
David shook his head. “If there was, I would do it, Rhett. But there simply isn’t. Right now, there are thousands of people climbing up the One Path’s Globe, killing everything they see, and their eyes are burning gray, just like yours did. They’re pulling that power from me, and the well is running dry. There’s enough to finish this, but no more.” He leaned forward and grabbed the back of Rhett’s head, pulling him close so that their foreheads touched. “Come with me this last little bit, Rhett. That’s what I need from you, okay?”
And Rhett nodded, his head against his Prophet’s.
“No,” Rebecca said. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
She was standing and nearly shaking. These people, all of them, were little more than ants crawling around a hill of dirt—and yet they were trying to challenge a god. They didn’t have a clue as to what they were doing, and their decisions now were about to kill everyone.
“No,” Rebecca said again, truly unable to find many more words. That was the only one that mattered. No. They weren’t going back to the One Path. They were heading to the Nile and they were stopping David.
The gray eyed girl was standing too. Nicki Sesam. David’s opposite. The thing the Unformed had feared so badly, and yet she seemed intent on ensuring Its continued existence—at the expense of her entire universe.
“They need me.”
“They need you?” Rebecca said. “An hour ago you couldn’t walk without me leading you, and an hour before that, you were sobbing about wanting to be away from all of this. Now, they need you, and you’re ready to run to them. They don’t know what is happening and neither do you.”
The static inside Nicki’s eyes was growing heavier, though not quite sparking out yet. Rebecca knew the signs, though, even if the girl didn’t. Rebecca could push, but only so far, because eventually, the power inside this woman would come forth and that would be the end of everything.
An idea occurred, one that perhaps should have come to her long before.
“Let me talk to them,” Rebecca said.
She didn’t know exactly how they were communicating with Nicki, only that it was happening—but such communication only went through Nicki, blocking everyone else out. And they didn’t have to do it that way; they could just as easily call this ship they were flying on.
“What?” Nicki asked.
“Let me talk to them. Let me explain to them what’s going to happen. Because right now they only see David’s minions coming for them; they have no idea what’s happening elsewhere. Do they even know David’s alive?”
“I ….”
And that was the difference between this person and David, though both their eyes carried a static that spoke of untold power. David wouldn’t have stumbled, not even for a moment. He was in control of all, master of everything, and this person here was barely a woman. Sheltered and without a clue as to what was happening around her.
“They don’t. They don’t know anything that’s happening outside of that globe, and if they use you right now to save themselves, the rest of the world dies. So let me speak to them.”
Nicki appeared lost, looking at the floor, maybe not even keeping up with all the words Rebecca spewed. “I don’t know—”
“Give them the ship’s protocol number. They can connect within seconds.”
Nicki shook her head, looking up. “No. You’re going to talk them out of it, and there isn’t time.”
She kept venturing back and forth from lost to anger, and the anger truly frightened Rebecca. It seemed more raw than David’s, if that was even possible. It seemed like something was pulling the girl, telling her that such anger was the path she wanted to be on. David would find his anger, but he could always find his way out of it again. Rebecca wasn’t sure this woman could.
Raylyn stepped forward then, as if appearing out of nowhere. Rebecca had nearly forgotten she was here, Raylyn almost becoming another piece of the ship.
Yet, she stepped forward and touched Nicki’s arm. Nicki’s head snapped over, her eyes actually sparking then—gray static jumping out of them and dying in the air before her.
Raylyn pulled away, but only for a second. She seemed to steady herself and then reached forward again, lightly taking Nicki’s elbow.
“Let them call. It won’t take long. A few minutes, and then I’ll vote whichever way you want to, Nicki. If she talks to them, and you want to go back, I’ll side with you. We’ll go back. Two against one.”
Nicki stared at her for a second as if not actually understanding the words being said.
Raylyn looked at Rebecca. “Tell her. If we both say we go to the Globe, then that’s where we go. Democratic vote.”
Rebecca almost laughed, but stifled it. Democracy, a notion that the Ministries themselves had thrown away thousands and thousands of years ago. What else was Rebecca going to say, though? No? She wouldn’t agree to anything these two fools said? She couldn’t do that, because the anger resting underneath Nicki’s frail exterior was real—and an explosion here would be nearly the same as executing the Unformed’s welcoming party.
Rebecca nodded.
“See. So let them call.”
Nicki said nothing, only turned away from the two of them and walked across the transport. Seconds passed in silence, with Rebecca only staring at her back. She didn’t know what was happening, but she wasn’t concerned with what Raylyn might think or do. The woman was only here because Rebecca hadn’t given her up to David.
“What’s the protocol number?” Nicki asked.
Rebecca’s eyes lit green, her nanotech finding the appropriate code. “5-9-6-N-T-Z-4-6.”
More seconds passed and then a voice vibrated out of the walls. “This is Pope Pius XX. Who am I speaking with?”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed, not fully understanding everything that was happening. Had the girl been talking to the Old World’s Minister? Rebecca kept hearing about Nicki’s father, but …
Never mind, she thought. It’s not important who all she’s talking to. What’s important is getting this ship to the Nile River.
“I’m Rebecca Hollowborne. I’m the Prophet’s sister. Are you with Nicki Sesam’s father?”
“I am,” the Pope said. “He’s here now, listening.”
“Who else is there?” Rebecca asked, wanting to get an understanding of her audience.
“Trinant One of the One Path and Benten Connor of the Constant.” The Pope paused for a second, and then more tentatively said, “and a Catholic Church acolyte.”
“Time is running out,” Rebecca said, doing her absolute best to keep from adding on any sarcastic titles. “Are you aware that my brother lives?”
Silence on the other end.
“Hello?” Rebecca asked.
“No. We’re not aware of that. We know there have been revolutions within our Ministries that resemble the Black, but no one has seen the weapon.”
“He’s alive,” Rebecca said. “And everything that is happening right now is happening because he orchestrated it. There are people in that globe, right? People coming to kill you?”
“Yes.”
“And what do they look like? Is there any semblance to my brother?”
“Yes,” the Pope said more quietly.
“It’s because he’s alive, and now your world is burning, and you all are about to die. There’s only one person on this planet that can save us, and it’s the woman in this ship with me. The one you contacted, asking her to save you. Pope Pius XX, I promise you, and anyone else with you, that if Nicki Sesam returns to that globe, everything you know will die. The only chance of survival, for you and this planet, is if she stops my brother.”
The transport was silent as Rebecca finished speaking.
The other two women stared at her, and in that moment, she wished she had her brother’s powers. Throughout her life, she had never wanted such a thing. She’d always been content to watch him rule, knowing the responsibility that came with such gifts. Now, though, unable to make these people listen, she wished her eyes could spark gray and they would all burn—as long as it meant she reached the Nile.
“Nicki?” it was another man’s voice, someone Rebecca didn’t know.
“Dad?”
