Salem snaps his fingers. “Could Oluvia’s appearance be connected to the prime aberration? It would make sense, as this Salem was closest to it.”
“That was my reasoning, too,” Qod says.
“And what’s the prime aberration?” I ask.
Salem sighs and nods. “It’s the iteration of the Soul Consortium where one of us died. That’s why the empty slot you and I have been obsessing over for so long has been filled. It’s where—”
“This Salem knows all of that,” Qod says.
I shake my head and shift in my seat. “Okay, but what does that have to do with Oluvia Wade?”
“Oluvia was helping Salem trap Keitus Vieta,” Qod says. “It is why I vanished. I was analyzing that abomination Keitus Vieta had grown. He called it his daughter, so needless to say he was less than pleased I had taken her from him, and he was powerful enough to erase me after I tried to resist his efforts to find out where I’d taken her. I only just managed to hide the Soul Consortium’s location in time, but when you—that is, the other Salem Ben—came out of the WOOM and started to investigate what happened to me, he got Vieta’s attention, and Vieta brought me back in the form of Oluvia Wade as a bargaining tool: my life for his daughter’s.
“And as I told you earlier, that didn’t go so well for Vieta. We trapped him in a never-ending loop of your life.”
“And Oluvia?”
“My consciousness, or a small part of it, was contained in Oluvia. I had to upload it back into the Soul Consortium Control Core and use it as a bridge to transition back to my original state. But of course, in doing that, the body of Oluvia Wade would have died. What this Salem is thinking is that she somehow managed to resurrect herself again in the genoplant here, in your version of the Soul Consortium. It is a possibility, but there are some gaps in that theory, such as the range of transmission, and it doesn’t explain why she died so quickly without a subsequent resurrection. It’s as if she reached out to you as a final gesture.”
“But why would she do that?” I ask. “The threat is gone if Keitus Vieta is trapped in the WOOM of the other Soul Consortium, right?”
“No,” the other Salem says. “The threat is far from over. That’s where I come in, and probably where you come in, too. The source of the problem—the reason Keitus Vieta came here in the first place—needs to be addressed.”
“Of course,” I say. “The rift in the Promethean Singularity is still open.”
“Exactly,” Salem says. “Every time a new iteration of the Soul Consortium rips itself away from its gravitational grip, the shortfall of matter has to come from somewhere, and that’s how the rift was created. It’s like the universe has an open wound.”
“So how do we heal it?”
Salem arches an eyebrow and whispers to me. “Bad question. She’s . . . tetchy about that.”
“I am not tetchy,” Qod says, obviously tetchy. “I have no lasting solution yet, but I was able to introduce a temporary countermeasure against possible threat. When Keitus Vieta first erased me, he did not entirely succeed. I allowed him to think he had, of course. I simply withdrew deeper into the subatomic folds of quantum space.”
“You hid?” I said.
“Yes,” Qod says, “but while I was there, I set to work on a quantum virus to protect us from any future threat. It was too late to do anything about Vieta at the time, but I was able to use sample material from his ‘daughter’ as a baseline.”
“Like a vaccine,” I say.
“A what?” says the other Salem.
“A vaccine,” I tell him. “It’s an ancient form of protection against disease. A dead sample of a viral strain is injected into a host to stimulate protective antibodies. It sounds like Qod has done something like that but inside the atom. If anything comes through that matches Keitus Vieta’s quantum signature, it is killed off before taking form. Correct, Qod?”
“Correct,” she says, “but it is far from perfect. The real solution must be to close the rift and cut this problem off at the source. Already I can feel something testing my defenses, trying to force itself into our universe through quantum space using the rift as a focal point, and whereas Keitus Vieta was pulled directly through the rift by accident, I can sense something far more dangerous and infinitely more powerful than him trying to push through. Eventually it will succeed.”
“I know,” I say with a sigh.
The other Salem gives me a look. “You know?”
“Well, not exactly, but I just lived the life of Diabolis Evomere, who—by the way—just so happened to be the genesis of Keitus Vieta’s daughter. She, it, he, or whatever it is, Diabolis, hinted at the same thing.”
“Keitus Vieta’s daughter?” Salem looks horrified. “You actually found that life and lived it?”
“It’s not something I want to do again, believe me, but it did reveal a lot about Keitus Vieta, and plenty more besides.”
“And what did you find out?” Salem asks.
“Vieta is some kind of—”
“Please don’t!” Qod says suddenly, her voice booming out.
Both of us flinch at the unexpected volume and offer each other an uncertain glance.
“Why, Qod? What is it?” I ask.
“If you have knowledge about what Keitus Vieta truly is, then I would rather you did not share it. Not with him.”
“Why?” says the other Salem. “You can’t just say something like that and leave it unresolved. We have to know what these entities are that we’re dealing with.” He directs his gaze at me, and the golden nimbus that has followed his movements shines over his face. “You’re going to have to tell me.”
“If he tells you,” Qod says, “it will change everything.”
“Why do you think that?” I ask.
Qod goes silent again, and because of that, because my response suggests that her fears are unwarranted, I suddenly understand her objection. My one obsession for most of my life has been to tear aside the veil separating life and death. Physics taught us that there is nothing beyond. It taught us that death is final and absolute, that there is no reason to believe any of the old myths and superstitions about an afterlife. Yet those stories cling so strongly. They itch at the human soul, teasing it so keenly, that even with the understanding that it is simply an evolutionary drive for self-perpetuation and progression, humanity could never let it go, and eventually they embraced it, one by one accepting the Reaper’s invitation.
I, however, tore up the invite. My fear that there is nothing beyond has always been greater than the malaise brought about by pointless existence. Qod is worried. She knows what Keitus Vieta is, what he represents, and while her worry is unfounded, I had forgotten just how horrifying the truth is. Salem could take it, no doubt, but he does not have the benefit of receiving that knowledge through the gradual revelation of a WOOM life as I did.
“I’ll answer my question for her,” I tell Salem. “Qod thinks that if you find out what Vieta is, you will go mad. She’s confused now because I obviously do know, and my mind is still in one piece.”
“I am never confused,” she says. “I am . . . considering.”
“Whatever you want to call it,” I say, “it’s got you stumped.”
She doesn’t answer, so I get out of my seat and offer it to the other Salem. “It won’t drive you insane or destroy you, but it will be a shock, so I suggest you sit.”
Salem looks at the chair, then back at me. For a moment he seems indignant, as if sitting down while I stand somehow makes him inferior, but then the nimbus lowers in intensity, and he resumes the look of humility he first adopted when he came on board, and he sits. “Go ahead.”
I take a moment to gaze out into the fledgling universe, considering the strange old man and the impact he has had on us, then with a deep sigh, I turn my attention to my counterpart. “That inner instinct I know you have, that . . . feeling that there might be something beyond death? Well, it’s more than just an instinct. It’s real. I don’t know where
we go or what happens on the other side, but the rift we created in the Promethean Singularity is a bridge from that place, and the shortfall of energy on this side is pulling those souls back through. It’s acting like a white hole.”
“That’s an interesting theory, but—”
“It’s no theory. I just found that out in the life of Diabolis.”
Salem lifts his palms in submission. “Fine, but it still doesn’t tell me what Keitus . . . oh!” He sees my meaningful stare, and I think he understands.
“Keitus Vieta is a human back from the other side?” he says. “These entities trying to get through are like . . . ghosts?”
“No, it’s not like that at all. Vieta is all humans from the other side. He’s some kind of corrupted gestalt consciousness possessing the body of a monk who once lived on Castor’s World.”
Salem seems to lose his breath as he considers the implications. I am still processing it myself, realizing that mixed somewhere in that old man’s soul is my entire family. All my deceased ancestors, all my friends, all my enemies, everyone I ever loved and hated, everyone I ever respected and admired. Some part of their personality, though warped and damaged, is inside him. And for all I know, given the strange properties of physical laws, if I die, my own soul could be eternally entwined with his, too.
I study Salem as he stares into the middle distance. I know myself well enough to understand what he is feeling. After a time, he opens his mouth and holds his expression as if waiting for the right words to come.
“One of us might be in Keitus Vieta too,” he says. “Did you know?”
I hadn’t considered that. “The version of us that trapped him?”
Salem nods, still staring absently. “I went there, saw my own body. Vieta had just tossed it aside so that he could get inside the WOOM and live our life. All so he could find that disgusting thing he called his daughter.”
“What did you do?”
Salem meets my eyes. “I didn’t dare touch the WOOM in case I might set Vieta free somehow. I wanted to bury Salem’s body in the Consortium Gardens. It’s what he . . . we would have wanted. But the gardens were gone, jettisoned. Qod told me that version of Salem had to get rid of them because they were infested with Vieta’s daughter.” Salem sighs regretfully. “I ended up just shooting the body out into space. I got away as quickly as I could after that. I didn’t like the idea that Vieta was in there, still alive. I wanted to put as much distance as I could between me and that WOOM.”
I shudder. It was disturbing enough to experience Vieta in the life of Diabolis, but to be near him in reality would be worse, and to think that poor wretch lived for so long with its suffering, now to be wandering the eternity of space completely alone.
“I did secure his cane before leaving, though,” Salem said. “Just to be sure. The stone seems to be inert now.”
From his robes, Salem pulls out the indigo-blue jewel and shows it to me, cupped in the palm of his hand. My stomach twists at the sight of it, but then I realize it is not fear I feel but need. For some obscure reason—most likely buried within the algorithm—Vieta’s jewel has an important part to play, but not yet. There are still things that must be done first. More information to be gathered and analyzed. I want to scoop it up from his palm, but that would raise too many questions, so for now, I feel I should hold back.
“Salem?” he says. “Are you all right? You’re staring.”
I snap back to meet his gaze. “So!” I say, clasping my hands behind my back decisively. “Why did you come?”
Salem places the stone slowly back into his robes and observes me for a long moment before getting up from my seat. “I’m recruiting,” he says, also clasping his hands behind his back, mirroring my posture.
“For what?”
“The Soul Continuum.”
“And what exactly is that?”
Qod interjects now. “Actually, Salem, you already are part of the Soul Continuum. It’s the manner in which you contribute that determines whether you’re recruited or not.”
Salem nods. “The Soul Continuum is the name we gave to the many iterations of ourselves that currently exist. Technically, because the cycles of a singularity have no beginning or end, there could be an infinite number of Salem Bens scattered beyond the universe, most of them thinking they are completely alone, a good many of them still asleep in their WOOMs living out all manner of different lives. Some of them could be doing exactly what I’m doing now: recruiting.” He glances upward. “Qod won’t give me all the details. You know what she’s like.”
“There is only you doing this,” Qod says. “I confessed this much to you only because I had to. You found out too much when you started poking around in Arken-Bright’s life.”
“Arken-Bright?” I ask.
“Clifford Arken-Bright,” Salem says. “It’s a life you probably never bothered to live, but he suddenly became very interesting to me when I woke up and discovered that Qod had vanished. I started ‘poking around,’ as Qod calls it, when I found out about the Aberration Sphere. You see—”
“The what?”
“You don’t know about the Aberration Sphere? Isn’t that where you found Diabolis Evomere?”
“No, Diabolis was in the Sub-human Sphere.”
Salem cocks his head. “Interesting. Well, the Aberration Sphere is where Qod started refiling all the lives that contained anomalous data. Basically, the Codex calculations weren’t matching up with reality because of Keitus Vieta’s interference. When I found out that Qod had disappeared after she investigated Vieta’s daughter at a subatomic level, I cross-referenced all lives in the Aberration Sphere with historical figures involved with quantum mechanics. I found a scientist by the name of Clifford Arken-Bright, a contemporary of Ernest Rutherford, famous in the early days of Old Earth.” Salem takes a deep breath through his nose and looks down, his eyes suddenly filling with fear. “I . . . don’t remember . . .”
I give him a moment, but he doesn’t seem to be having any success recalling whatever it is he thinks is important.
“Did Arken-Bright find something? What happened?”
“It’s at the moment of his death. I can never remember exactly . . .”
“Did Vieta kill him?”
Salem shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I think the recording of his life finishes too soon. Either that or the neural flush wiped out something he discovered right at the end. All I know is that through Arken-Bright’s life, I found out about the threat beyond the rift. Qod still hadn’t returned when I woke up, and it was only after living the next life that she came back, and by that time, I’d worked out the same thing as you—that there are many of us. She hates us knowing about that.”
“I don’t hate it,” Qod says. “It just goes against the principles of Codex law.”
Salem grins. “Doesn’t mean I can’t tell other Salems about it, though, eh, Qod?”
“Speaking of which,” she says dryly, “another one has woken.”
“Good,” Salem says. “I need to get moving.” He pulls a coin-sized disc from his robes. “Take this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a beacon, keyed to our neural print. When I need you, you’ll know. For now, it’s good enough that you know the Continuum exists. We know that something is coming, Salem. Something powerful, and we don’t know how long we have left. Even Qod is under threat. I don’t know how effective the Continuum will be, but we stand a greater chance of survival as a united force than we do apart.”
I take the disc from him. “You’re going to have to give me more than that. What’s coming? What is this thing?”
Salem purses his lips and his eyes shift focus for a second, frightened, as if he has seen something behind me. Then he holds my gaze again and reaches up to clasp my shoulder. “I don’t like to give it a name, but I have heard it called the Jagannath.”
“The Jagannath? Who called it that?”
His fingers press harder into my shoulders. “I
shouldn’t say more. It gives a false impression. Contrary to what many will tell you, names are meaningless. It’s easier if you find out for yourself, though if you do, you will wish you hadn’t. I’m going to find other Salems now, but promise me one thing.”
“You know as well as I that my promises are useless.”
He smiles, releases his grip. “Your promises were worth something once.”
I nod. “What?”
“The disc I gave you . . . if it signals you with coordinates, it means the Continuum is calling, and it probably means Qod has had to hide again. Will you come?”
I study the disc in my palm. “What if I am in the WOOM?”
“It will break you out of the life and trigger a neural flush.”
“It’s not recommended,” Qod says, “but if this entity is as dangerous as I feel it is, any cerebral damage you receive probably would not matter anymore. You would have no future.”
I nod. “I understand. What if I need to signal you?” I ask Salem.
“Then use it. It’s keyed to respond to your . . . our mental instruction.”
SIX
The other Salem is gone now.
He left without ceremony. A million lifetimes without another real soul to talk to, and I just let him go about his business—to find more iterations of me. It disturbs me to know that I am glad he left. More so that I cannot pinpoint why. Am I so emotionally detached from the human race that I cannot even enjoy a conversation with a version of myself? Perhaps that is the reason. Perhaps it is because, deep down, I despise myself. But we have a quest now. I am part of a Continuum of souls readying to protect the future of life from . . . what? I have no idea what this Jagannath is. I checked the historical archives right after the other Salem left, but the only information it held about the Jagannath is that it is some sort of ancient deity revered by a long-dead religion. They called it Lord of the Universe; there is no hint as to what it really is. Keitus Vieta was unique, tied exclusively to human souls, but this other entity must be completely alien.
What worries me most is Qod’s confession that she knows nothing about this mysterious Jagannath other than that it is trying to break through. There is little else I can do other than follow the other Salem’s lead and investigate for myself. I could live the life of Clifford Arken-Bright within the Aberration Sphere and find out what he discovered. I can feel the algorithm in my brain tuning pleasure receptors, pulling at my instincts like a magnet, but is it confirmation or manipulation? Even Qod cannot tell me. I can only trust that Oluvia Wade knew what she was doing when she gave it to me.
The Soul Continuum Page 17
