Fallout (Tales of the Other Universe Book 2)

by J. G. Taschereau

  A short knock came at the door of the room. Without turning from the window he called for his visitor to enter. The door slid open as Dee stepped in, letting it slam shut behind her as she took just one step closer to the Creator and crossed her arms. Since being brought to the Office of Wondrous Visions, she had had time to wash and change her clothes, and aside from her desert-tanned skin she was looking like her old self again. There was another obvious change: her pleasant and cheerful attitude was gone, replaced by a perturbed scowl and incensed passion glossing over her fresh sorrow. Her eyes, still red from crying, narrowed as she saw him standing there. Without a doubt, she would rather be anywhere else than in that room with him.

  “Your staff told me you wanted to speak with me,” she said. “They practically escorted me here.”

  “I wanted a chance to talk to you,” the Creator said. “Given all that’s happened, I didn’t trust you to come just because I asked you to.”

  “Well I wouldn’t have,” she replied, to which the Creator said nothing. He stayed where he was, facing Dee with his left side.

  “I’m certain that it goes without saying, but your services as my aide are no longer necessary,” he told her. “I know you intend to leave anyway, but I figured I should make it official. Your fugitive status has been cleared as well. You’re free to leave whenever you wish.”

  “I was planning on it,” said Dee. “The next ferry is leaving in an hour.”

  The Creator remained despondent, keeping his gaze away from Dee. “So you’ll be returning back to your home then? I can save you the long journey and just send you there myself.”

  “I’d rather walk,” she replied.

  “At least take the equipment that was left for you in your guest room, the money as well so you can stay in the inns along your way. I can send an envoy to escort you if you’d like.”

  “No, that’s quite alright. I’ll be fine with just what I have with me.”

  “You don’t need to leave in poverty, Ms. Gatti. Please just take something. I’ll spare no expense to see that you get there safely.”

  “I don’t want your help,” she affirmed, taking a hostile step forward and dropping her arms. “Do you think if you keep showering me with all these things that it will make things okay between us? Do you think it will fix everything you’ve done? I don’t want anything more from you. I don’t even want to look at you again as long as I live!”

  She stood there seething, waiting for the Creator to lash out at her just as he had at Rosa Wist. Instead the room became quiet as the grave. The Creator kept his eyes down and away from Dee, and she almost felt like apologizing for going too far. But her feelings were genuine, and after all she had been put through because of him, whatever harsh words she had for him were well deserved.

  “I’m sorry,” he managed to say. “I know I’ve caused you a lot of trouble that you didn’t deserve. You deserve so much more than what I was able to give you, what I failed to give you. I thought I knew what was best for you and I, and that if I could get you to go along with it you’d be happy. I didn’t think enough of you; I thought the best thing in the world for you was to just be my beautiful, little fool. I know it doesn’t mean much now, but it made me very happy to have you in my life. I had hoped you would have found that same happiness, but I made mistakes, and I just drove you away. I can never take back what I did, and I know I’ll never have you by my side again, but if this is the end, could you find it in your gentle heart to forgive me? Let me hear your soft words telling me that that in your eyes I’m not a monster. Will you absolve me, Dee?”

  She straightened herself and took a controlled breath, trying her best not to lose herself and let emotion dictate her response. The deity before her was an object of pity, begging for a glimmer of hope from her. He tilted his head enough just to see her eyes as she responded.

  “No,” said Dee. “I will never absolve you, and I hope you live with your guilt for the rest of your unending life.”

  The Creator’s expression held and he betrayed no further sorrow. Instead he turned away from Dee and looked out the window as the sun made its way toward the horizon. “You were like her in almost every way imaginable,” he said. “Except your eyes. Yours are brown, but hers were a cold gray. And her eyes never once betrayed a trace of anger, whether it was well deserved or not.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dee asked.

  The Creator shook his head. “Nothing, nothing at all. You can go now. Goodbye.”

  He stayed facing away from her, and it seemed like he was intent on remaining that way. Dee stood in front of the door, taking one last look at the deity with whom she had once formed a close bond. Now, just as she’d told him, she never wanted to see him again. Without another word she reached for the doorknob and walked out of the room, catching a final glimpse of the Creator hunched over the windowsill. As she shut the door behind her and left the Creator alone, he took an extended breath. He moved his eyes to the sinking sun and continued to draft his speech.

  In anticipation of the Creator's address, the staff of the Office of Wondrous Visions was scrambling to prepare and get everything in order. The shift of people to one central part of the building left the lounge on the first floor abandoned, and it was there that Dee ventured after parting ways with the Creator. There was time still before she would need to leave to catch the ferry to the mainland, and while she wanted to distance herself from the Creator as much as she could, she found herself drawn back to the lounge as she was leaving the building. She found a seat in one of the plush armchairs set up around a glass coffee table. It was in one of these chairs that she'd sat two years earlier when she had first come in search of the Creator to ask him if he would tell her where her master was. She hadn't realized it at the time, but the Creator had spoken to her as she sat there, his young image serving to disguise himself from the ignorant young woman. Back then he had such a charm about him that captured Dee wholly, and she thought nothing of suspending her most important task to serve at his side. Sitting there now, she wondered how she could have been so foolish.

  Her anger towards the Creator had occupied her mind for only a short time, and now that she had said her peace to him, her thoughts were returning to Adam. After the Creator disappeared the night before, she had locked herself in her guest room and broke down crying. She had only stopped when her body was exhausted, driving her to sleep. There had been no peace at first light, as the reality of her situation returned upon her awakening. Dee had barely mustered the strength to get up and gather what little she could for her return trip home. Even her impassioned rebuking of the Creator's misdeeds took all the energy she had, and it was her emotions that kept her going, simultaneously feeding off of and masking the pain of Adam's loss. But now the Creator was out of sight, and all that was left was the emptiness that had been eating away at her since she saw Adam fall out of the sky. The brave front she had been putting on cracked and her face crumpled as she began to sob. Her tired body trembled as she felt hot tears stream down her face and land on the table below her.

  "You mustn't cry," she heard someone say behind her. "It doesn't suit you."

  The shock of discovering she was not alone halted her tears as she bolted back up in her chair. To her right she saw a hand extending a silk handkerchief, and since she was embarrassed to be seen crying she took it and dried her eyes and cheeks. Dee sniffed to clear her nose and looked ahead to see that the stranger who had offered the handkerchief was taking a seat opposite her. He was a peculiar man with a solid, strong face and unnatural green eyes that almost glowed. His hair was long for a man, close enough to Mr. White's that he startled her at first, but the stranger's hair was black as night. He was well dressed, sporting a fitted suit without a tie around his neck and topped with a black trench coat, the collar of which was lifted up to curl around the stranger's neck. Dee's immediate reaction was to shrink back, knowing that the threat of Oracle was still present even if Adam was not.

&nb
sp; "You're frightened," the stranger stated. "I don't blame you, but you should relax. You're not in any danger at present, and I didn't come to hurt you."

  Dee allowed herself to calm down, but she stayed alert as she slid the handkerchief back to him. "Thank you," she said.

  "You're welcome, Diatyallah," he replied.

  "Who are you?"

  "No one important," said the stranger, "just a watchman keeping an eye on things. It's a dangerous world, as you know well by now."

  Dee remained puzzled by the man and had yet to determine whether he was someone she could sit comfortably with. After all that had happened, she was staying wary of everyone who came in contact with her; trust was something that would not come easily anymore. "Are you one of the Creator's servants or something? I told him I didn't want an escort back to Erebia Village."

  The stranger chuckled. "I'm a lot of things, but a servant to him I am not. Quite the opposite really. I'm about as inclined to support him as you are right now."

  "So what do you want from me then?" Dee asked.

  "I don't want anything from you, Diatyallah," he answered. "You've already lost enough. I just came to offer my condolences for your losses. A lot of people have been mistreated and lied to by the Creator, but no one as much as you."

  Dee was honestly surprised by his answer. "Well, thank you, I guess."

  The stranger took his handkerchief and stuffed it into his breast pocket. "Do you intend to return to your village now?"

  "I'm sorry, but how is it you know so much about me?" she questioned him.

  "My apologies," he said. "I don't mean to startle you. It's just that I know many things, not all of which pertain to you, although I do know just about all there is to know about you."

  Dee grew more suspicious. "And may I ask how you know exactly?"

  "I'm afraid that’s classified information," he said. "Just know that I have no desire to use any knowledge against you, nor do I bear any ill will towards you. As I said, I sympathize with you for all you've had to endure, and I think you deserve a little better than what you’ve ended up with." He reached into his trench coat. “In fact, I made sure to stop and see you before you left for that very reason.” He pulled out an envelope and placed it on the table, sliding it closer to Dee. She stared at it with vague interest, picking it up and opening it. There was a plain note card inside with what appeared to be an address written inside, but it was one she was most unfamiliar with. The address written on the card was in a city on Earth.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s the reward you deserve for all of your sacrifices, for having put up with the Creator and his misdeeds, to begin mending your broken heart,” he explained. “That address is the most current location of your master, Amadeus Morgan.”

  For an instant Dee’s eyes flashed wide, but quickly reflected mild exasperation. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but I know my master is dead. My grandmother told me and the Creator confirmed it himself.”

  The stranger smirked and folded his hands. “Baraluneska Repaltia knows only of a highly expected outcome, but such odds, no matter how high, do not guarantee certainty. Her own anticipation was confirmed by Adam Evans, who learned from the Creator. So now we are back to the word of a man you have discovered first hand to be a liar without peer. The irony, of course, is that the Creator’s lie was in fact the truth all along, though he did not know it himself.”

  “How can that be?” Dee asked. The stranger could see her interest picking up.

  “The Creator has always been limited in his perspective to what goes on in the Other Universe. Were he not, he could have easily known what Oracle had been planning on Earth in the months leading up to the takeover of Magid. The reason he believed Amadeus Morgan to be dead was because he saw the man at the point of death and later could not find his soul again. That’s because in that time, your master travelled to Earth, out of the Creator’s window of vision.”

  “But the spirit inside of him, it had to have taken over him by now,” Dee pointed out.

  “If that were the case, it would have happened two years ago, and judging from the landscape of Earth you saw when you were there, I’m sure you can imagine that a powerful demon never wreaked havoc anywhere on the planet. The people of Earth would have been powerless against it. Like I said, no matter what the odds, nothing is ever certain. Amadeus Morgan found a way to save himself.”

  Dee couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had already accepted that she had lost her master, first to disinterest in returning home and second to the grave. Now the words of the mysterious stranger changed all of that, and as if guided by gentle providence she now had the chance to finish what she had set out to do. Adam was gone, and she wanted nothing more to do with the Creator. The only other path left was to return home, broken and defeated. This revelation changed everything, if the stranger’s words could be trusted.

  “Why should I believe you?” she asked. “I’ve hardly gotten a straight answer from any of the people I care about, so why should I trust you more than I trust any of them?”

  “I don’t care if you trust me, Diatyallah, I really don’t. You can choose to believe me or not. I’m not making you go after him or even encouraging you to. I’m only doing for you what no one else could: telling you the truth and letting you decide for yourself.”

  He got up from his seat and stretched his arms over his head. “It’s getting late, and there’s something I’ve got to do soon. Your ferry to the mainland will be leaving soon as well, so if you’re going to go back to Erebia Village you ought to go catch it. But if you want to see where that address takes you, just say the word and I can bring you there.”

  Dee stared up at him. “Are you a Legend?”

  “I’m afraid that’s classified information,” he replied. His bright green eyes fixed on her. “So what’s it going to be, Diatyallah?”

  She sat in her chair, still hunched over a bit as she stared up at this man who from out of nowhere offered her the happiness she had set out to find four years ago. It was a happiness that had faded and was replaced by an even greater happiness that she had found with Adam. Now, by some miracle, she was given another chance. There was still a chance it was a lie, or some kind of trap. She was in no state to be making level-headed decisions. But time was up. She had to go one way or the other. Dee reached for the blue gem hanging around her neck and held it, seeking some inspiration on how to act. She closed her eyes, searching her soul for an answer. At last she opened her eyes. The stranger waited.

  “Well? What’s it going to be?”

  Chapter 33

  Remember

  The courtyard outside of the Office of Wondrous Visions was packed with people waiting for the Creator. He had promised to appear before sunset, and that time was drawing near. As the land grew darker, people in the crowd began to light candles, not just to see but in an offering of light to their god. Children too small to see over the adults in front of them were perched high on their parents’ shoulders, holding up their candles with giddy delight. For many it was their first time seeing him, but for all it was an honor to be visited by the lord of all, and their anticipation was palpable.

  At last, there was movement on the balcony of the third floor facing the courtyard. The double doors opened and the Creator stepped out, not in his full glory of white linen bathed in holy light, but in the shell of his human form and wearing a loose fitting violet robe. As he appeared, members of the gathering bowed down before him below. The Creator stood at the edge of the balcony and lifted his hands up, signaling the people to stand at ease while they were in his presence. He laid his hands on the railing and looked out over the people. There were a few hundred gathered there, but just as he’d done in Khanka weeks earlier, the Creator’s address would reach out to everyone in the Other Universe.

  “Good evening, my children,” he said to them. “May peace and love be in your hearts this evening.”

  “All peace and lov
e is yours, oh Lord,” the people replied in unison. As they got their first good look at him, the crowd began to notice a new mark on the Creator’s face. As a result of Adam’s glancing hit, the scar on his cheek had now taken the shape of a cross.

  “I thank you all for coming out to see me, and for all of you across the universe who are listening to me. I want you all to know that I am honored to have the kind of unconditional love I receive from all of you. I am truly blessed.”

  Some in the crowd countered his statement, saying that they were the ones blessed to be in his presence. The Creator smiled at the kind words, but his expression soon faded back to being serious.

  “I come before you all to tell you of what has happened in the last day on the planet of Carvon, as well as the planet of Magid, both of which were involved in the hunt for two former allies of mine that I had deemed enemies of Aeris: Adam Evans and Diatyallah Gatti, his accomplice. Tonight I can proclaim to you all that Adam Evans is no more, and the justice I sought has been claimed.”

  The crowd broke into applause and cheers of joy, as if the Creator had announced the death of a serial killer or a war criminal. He waited for them to be silent and went on.

  “My former aide, Diatyallah Gatti, has been pardoned and now returns home. As I have stated earlier, she is no longer an enemy of mine and should be treated with the highest respect. Rather, should you see her, you would do best to simply leave her be and let her carry on with her journey. These are my orders, thus shall they be.