by Ike Hamill
“I thought you said this place was going away,” Madelyn said.
Malty nodded. “It might be. It depends.”
“On what?”
“On you,” Malty said. She laughed again. Madelyn wondered if the doll would continue to laugh if she was thrown down into the chasm. Her hands itched to find out, but her brain overruled. If the doll did laugh as it bounced off the dirt sides of the rift, it might just drive Madelyn insane.
“I’m supposed to make this place go away,” Madelyn said as she remembered.
Malty nodded.
“Then all these children won’t have a place to play,” Madelyn said. She looked over her shoulder. The group of kids wasn’t very large. The way they ran and chased after the ball, it was difficult to count them, but there couldn’t have been more than a dozen. Every time Madelyn thought she had a sense of the number, a kid would dart out from behind another and she realized that she had underestimated.
“That’s all of them, isn’t it?” Madelyn asked.
“All of them who are left.”
“And what happens if this place goes away?”
“You just said it,” Malty said. “They won’t have a place to play.”
“Then what? They die?”
Malty laughed at her again. “You think a lot of yourself.”
Madelyn shook her head. “I’m confused.”
“Maybe,” Malty said. “Maybe you just don’t want to admit it.”
“Admit what?”
# # # # #
“Mac,” he said. He shook her shoulder.
“What?” she asked. Madelyn blinked at the darkness and tried to shake off sleep. Her mouth tasted of cold metal. “Is it my watch?”
“If you want,” he said. “I woke you up because you were having a bad dream.”
“Oh,” she said. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he said. She saw him smile in the dark. Elijah repositioned himself so he could lean into his own corner. He folded his hands over his lap.
“Before you go to sleep, let me ask you something,” she said.
“What?”
“What do you think souls are made of?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Do you think it’s something measurable, or do you think it’s beyond our ability to understand?”
Elijah thought about it for a second. He closed his eyes before he answered. “The second one.”
“Do you think we still have souls, even though we’ve taken the Option?”
This time, Elijah didn’t hesitate to answer. “Of course. The alterations simply make our bodies work better. The different units are more compartmentalized, and they are able to operate independently or as a whole. It certainly didn’t change anything about our souls.”
“Why not?”
“Is this important to talk about now?” Elijah asked.
“Yes.”
She watched his face. He opened his eyes and glanced around the dark room before he spoke again.
“I believe that a person’s soul is attached to their physical body, but isn’t dependent on it. When you’re born, your consciousness inhabits the physical form, but it remains separate,” Elijah said.
“Haven’t you ever met someone who became so poisoned by pain that they lost their way spiritually?”
Elijah frowned and blinked as he thought. “I suppose.”
“And haven’t you met Optioners who seemed to lose their humanity as their body became immortal?”
“Definitely,” Elijah said. “But I’m not sure I would say it fundamentally changed them. For some people, the desire to take the Option betrays an inherent lack of humanity. Once they change, it becomes more obvious, but it doesn’t shift. The Option simply amplifies their true nature.”
“You believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Ryan was a homicidal monster before he changed, but do you really think Niren and Caleb were crazy?” Madelyn asked.
“Do you feel different?”
“I don’t know,” Madelyn said. “It’s difficult for me because I began to change long before I knew that anything was different. I spent all that time thinking that everything was the same.”
Elijah sighed and shook his head.
“You’re never going to forgive me for that,” he said.
“I have,” she said. “I forgave you, but that doesn’t mean I’ve come to peace with it.”
Madelyn began to push herself upright.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I have to talk to Amelia.”
“Can’t it wait for morning?” he asked.
“I wish it could.”
# # # # #
Elijah slid aside so they could go out to the landing, where Madelyn and Amelia could talk without disturbing the others. The young woman was still yawning and wiping the sleep from her eyes as they sat down.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your rest,” Madelyn said.
“It’s okay,” Amelia said. “I was having terrible dreams. I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to sleep again after all this.”
“You’re young. There’s plenty of time for you,” Madelyn said.
Amelia’s face hardened at the suggestion. She looked at Madelyn. Their only light was leaking up from below, where someone had left a flashlight in the stairwell.
“I’ve been thinking of the research you were doing with Caleb,” Madelyn said.
Amelia raised her eyebrows.
“You thought you were making a device to disable the Roamers, but instead your machine gave birth to a pure Roamer.”
Amelia nodded. “We were tricked by Ryan.”
“Maybe,” Madelyn said. “Maybe not.”
Madelyn laced her fingers together and looked down at them.
“My grandmother used to scold us when we would misbehave,” Madelyn said. “She would ask, ‘Is that the type of person you want to be?’ She made us understand that the world was beyond our control, but our reaction to it was completely within our control.”
“I don’t understand what that has to do with…” Amelia began.
Madelyn interrupted. “My grandmother wasn’t totally correct. We are constructed from the things we destroy. The power of our will can only influence that to a certain degree.”
“You said you were thinking about our research?” Amelia asked.
“Sorry,” Madelyn said. “I had a strange dream too. I guess it made me a little philosophical. That device you put up on the roof, and the one that you built with Caleb—how were they similar?”
Amelia sighed and looked up. “They weren’t, really. Brook might be the better person to talk to, if you want to get into the theory, but they really didn’t have that much in common. With Caleb, we created a Hunter and then tried to disable it. We actually ended up activating it, for lack of a better word. The thing upstairs made a barrier in the ether to sap power from The Wisdom. It really couldn’t have been much different.”
“That’s where I think you might be wrong,” Madelyn said.
“Let me get Brook,” Amelia said. She started to stand. “Like I said, she’s better at discussing all the theory.”
“No,” Madelyn said. “I don’t want to get all bogged down with theory yet. Let me just suggest something and see what you think.” Madelyn rubbed her chin and thought about how to explain.
Her eyes lit up and she looked down at her shoe. While Amelia waited, Madelyn removed the shoelace and held it up. She made a loop in the shoelace and then passed one of the ends through.
“What happens if I pull on either end?” she asked.
“The knot tightens?” Amelia asked.
“Right,” Madelyn said. She took a free end and put it back through the center of the loop. “What happens now?”
“You just unknotted it. It would only be a string again,” Amelia said.
“Exactly. So what if the ether is nothing more than a knot in consciousness?”
A
melia tilted her head. Her mouth had a sour look. “It’s not something that was created. It was discovered.”
“Right,” Madelyn said. “I understand that. But what if our access to it was nothing more than a knot in that energy. What if it was a stuck loop?”
“A loop?” Amelia asked. “That’s funny you say that. Caleb referred to Hunters as loops of energy at one point.” She slowed down as she thought and spoke at the same time. “In fact, the vortex we used to create our Hunter prototype was twisting the substrate into a…” Amelia stopped talking and lost herself in thought.
“You doubled the knot. My science teacher once said that the ether was the area under the population curve. I don’t remember much math, but I think that the area under the curve is the integral. You take the function and then integrate once for area. That’s like one twist. The Zumbidos would be the double integral, or the volume.”
Amelia put up her hand. She was staring off at nothing.
“Shut up for a second,” Amelia said.
Madelyn didn’t shut up. “You meant to pass the end back through the loop, but instead you knotted it again.”
“Shut up,” Amelia whispered.
This time, Madelyn let her think.
Eventually, Amelia started blinking rapidly. When she looked back to Madelyn, there was a new light in her eyes.
“We untie it the same way we would have looped it. We just didn’t feed the end back in,” Amelia said. Her mouth fell open. “We didn’t even need all that.”
“I’ll get Brook,” Madelyn said.
Amelia stayed where she was, lost in thought.
# # # # #
Amelia explained all of her swirling thoughts while Brook stayed silent. They sat side by side at the top of the stairs. Amelia’s hands flew around as she spoke. She shaped the air with her hands as she tried to convey the ideas.
Madelyn leaned against the wall and watched.
Brook looked half asleep as she listened.
When Amelia finished, Brook didn’t say anything.
“Well?” Amelia asked.
“Won’t work,” Brook said.
Madelyn pushed away from the wall. She wanted to knock Brook in the back of the head and send her tumbling down the stairs. It wasn’t because she didn’t like the pronouncement, it was because Brook had been so dismissive.
Before Madelyn could act, Brook continued.
“It’s like a bicycle,” Brook said. “You can’t pedal it backwards. The freewheel doesn’t engage in that direction.”
“No,” Amelia said. “You don’t understand. We’ll still be adding energy, but we will be feeding it back.”
“You can’t add negative energy,” Brook said. “Think about it. That would be like creating antimatter. Even if you could make it, the stuff would explode immediately because it’s surrounded on all sides.”
Amelia was getting to the same level of frustration that Madelyn felt. When Amelia put out her hands, Madelyn started to think she might have to protect Brook from being attacked.
“Remember the feedback?” Amelia asked. She was almost pleading with Brook.
“Feedback?”
“Your experiment with the substrate and the console? You remember how Caleb said it would blow up Fairbanks?”
“Yes?” Brook asked.
Madelyn could see that the light was starting to come on for her.
“He was wrong. It wouldn’t blow up Fairbanks, it would blow up the whole world.”
“But not the actual world,” Brook said. “Only the inside world.”
“Exactly!” Amelia said.
“What would it mean?”
“It would untie the knot,” Amelia said.
“But is that a good thing?”
They both looked up at Madelyn.
“Don’t ask me,” Madelyn said.
# # # # #
“What are we looking for?” Elijah asked.
“A clear glass jar,” Madelyn said.
They stood near the ruins of Building Three. The explosion had weakened the basement walls. After that, the building had collapsed on itself.
“You think a clear glass jar survived this?” Elijah asked.
“I hope so.”
She pulled the black cylinder from her pocket and flipped the switch.
“What is that?” Elijah asked as the beam shot from the end of the device.
“It’s an Argon laser,” she said. She began to scan the wreckage with the laser. In an attempt to recover the bodies of the fallen citizens, some trenches had been dug, pulling out major hunks of concrete and metal. Madelyn passed her beam over these spots, looking for the silver glow that Amelia and Brook described.
“You’re looking in the wrong place,” Elijah said.
“I told you what I was looking for about ten-seconds ago. Now you’re an expert?”
Elijah smiled. “The experiment was going on over here, but they had the supplies and equipment over on the south side.” He began to circle the site. “It would be over here.”
Madelyn finished her scan and then followed him.
She caught up to Elijah as he dragged some ceiling tiles out of the way. Madelyn crouched and aimed the laser into a gap in the pile. The dust kicked up by Elijah’s digging obscured the light. She straightened back up and looked at the sky. The sun was starting to brighten the horizon.
Elijah tugged on the strap of a black bag. He tossed it to the side.
Madelyn put the laser back into her pocket and moved to help him lift a slab of wall.
“All things considered,” she said. “I don’t understand why you never sought out other people like yourself.”
“I did,” he said.
“I mean people who would live as long as you.”
“Who cares how long you live? Nobody knows how much time they have left. You have to find people who share the same values you do. For the most part, I’m perfectly compatible with the people of Fairbanks.”
Madelyn tugged at a wire. It was still connected to something on the other end. She pushed it aside.
“I think if we can get under here, there’s a space that didn’t get crushed. It might have been the equipment room,” Elijah said. He wrenched a piece of metal conduit out of the way and knelt to see if there was enough room.
“That’s ridiculously unstable,” Madelyn said. “It would collapse on top of you.”
Elijah nodded. He tossed the metal pole over his shoulder. When it hit the black bag, they heard glass shatter.
Elijah stood up fast. He and Madelyn looked at each other for a second. They ran to the bag.
She dug the laser out of her pocket as he carefully unzipped it.
Silver mist flowed out as soon as Elijah had the thing open. The stuff seemed to defy gravity. It moved off like it had a life of its own. Madelyn backed away from it as she kept the laser pointed at the stuff.
“Here!” Elijah said. Under the broken glass of one of the jars, he pulled another jar that was intact. Madelyn pointed her light at it. The silver substrate retreated from the beam and then swirled inside the jar. It rose up and probed at the bottom of the lid.
“That was easy,” Madelyn said.
“It was lucky,” he said.
“Same thing.”
Chapter 50
{Feedback}
ELIJAH AND MADELYN RAN back up to the landing of Building Two. On the far side of the clearing, people had woken with the sun and they were assembling at Penny’s command. Jacob and Harper stood on the porch, watching the group.
“They’re going to assault one of the turrets,” Jacob said. “They think they can keep it occupied with suppressing fire while a small group disables it.”
“We better hurry,” Madelyn said.
Penny was circling her arm, getting everyone ready to march.
They headed inside.
Amelia and Brook were in Ryan’s lab on the ground floor. Madelyn entered first, carrying the jar.
“Is the building evacuated
?” Madelyn asked.
“Yes,” Harper said. “We just checked again.”
“Did you set everything up?” Madelyn asked.
“There’s really not much to set up,” Amelia said. “We just use two ether-connected devices to set up a feedback loop and then we hope that it doesn’t explode and kill us all.”
“That’s the plan?” Elijah asked.
“There’s more to it than that,” Brook said. “But that’s how we will execute it.”
“Can we at least move it outside?” Harper asked.
“We can, but I don’t see what difference it would make,” Amelia said.
“Look, we’re either going to do this or not. Are we doing this?” Brook asked.
Madelyn glanced around the room. Nobody seemed willing to make a decision. Logan and Scarlett appeared in the doorway.
“I say do it,” Logan said.
“You don’t even know what we’re talking about,” Harper said.
“Is what you’re talking about supposed to take care of those guns?”
“Theoretically,” Brook said. “The downside is that it could also un-loop the ether forever.”
“So what?” Logan asked. “Good things come from hard work. Nothing good ever came from nothing.”
“We all agree?” Madelyn asked.
Some were slower than others, but eventually everyone assented.
“Here goes nothing,” Amelia said. She moved to the bench and fired up one of the consoles there. The display popped. Amelia navigated to a feed from the same underwater camera that they had used on their earlier experiment. It was still a lousy source, but it was a true reproduction of their first test. Amelia took a step back and looked to Brook.
The two women had their own silent conference. They came to agreement and Brook moved her device forward. The video from the underwater camera began to stutter quickly. As soon as they heard the hum, Brook and Amelia started to back away from the bench.
Prompted by the women, the others moved towards the door. The hum grew louder and the console began to rattle. Amelia reached towards Madelyn and asked for the laser. The beam lit up the jar and showed the swirling contents. The silver fingers inside were tapping and probing at the glass, like it was looking for a way out.
