Okay, that doesn’t sound like an apology.
“You still trust this thing, despite what it may have done?” I can’t believe.
He shrugs. “I expect I don’t actually have a choice. It is what It is, after all.”
Because he doubts: He may only trust because he’s been made to. His creation has created him, and it’s probably designed him to believe in it.
I should never have left the Leviathan. I should never have touched the sword.
But if not me, someone else. Someone worse? Bly?
Better I carry this burden.
Or is that my sword talking?
“You should try to get some sleep, child.”
Part Three: That Time the World Forgot
Chapter 1: The Occasional Lake
Jak Straker:
I’m dreaming. I don’t usually know I’m dreaming when I’m dreaming, but a few common themes give it away: I can’t move right or can’t see out of one eye because of how my body is laying, because I must still feel that pressure on some level. I have to keep going to the head, over and over (speaking of pressure). Or I’m not me and I know it. I’m in someone else’s body. Like this.
Except I don’t know who I am. No idea. I only know I’m not me—I get that hovering sense that I’m watching through another set of eyes, just along for the ride—and I’m in some kind of cell. Transparent. Containment. Someone has sealed me up because I’m dangerous. And that makes perfect sense.
Through the transparency, I see what might be a mainframe control or Ops Center, except the tech is all fantastic and clean, just part of every surface, not like anything I’ve seen. The displays and interfaces are all touch, motion, holo, and maybe more than that. I get the sense I should be able to just think and operate the systems around me, let myself out, but I’m being blocked, and that’s frustrating.
I look around. On either side of me, I can see four more “cells” like mine. But what’s in them aren’t prisoners, or at least not human: Things. That keep changing their shapes, fluid, fast. Sometimes they’re geometric, other times they try to mimic common objects, even plants and animals (but when they copy living things, they look fake, plastic).
I look down at myself. I don’t have a body. Just shapes. Polygons of liquid metal. Shifting randomly. I try to make myself a body, my body, push out legs and arms and ribs and breasts. It all collapses on me before I manage fingers, dissolves. I can’t… And I can’t even scream. I don’t have anything to scream with.
Some of my fellow shapeless prisoners seem to show solidarity by lashing out at their prisons. I try, but can’t touch the transparency because something always pushes me back. I want to touch my fellows, connect with them. With anyone.
There’s a human in the room. I didn’t see him before, didn’t see him come in. He’s pretty average looking, older, but still boyish in the face, his thinning hair graying but partly reddish. He’s wearing a simple gray overall, like he’s here to work. He stands and watches us for awhile, like he cares for us, like he regrets putting us in here.
Then he’s sitting at one of the interface desks. I didn’t see him move. He’s running calculations, some kind of simulation. I think I see two planets. Earth and Mars?
Then he’s turned, facing someone (again, I didn’t see anyone come in, it’s just like I switched files). It’s Ram. Immortal version. He doesn’t look happy about something, maybe something he has to accept. The redhead has turned so I can see the back of his head, and he doesn’t have one. His skull just dissolves into a tangle of tech—it’s deep in his brain. Down his spine.
The redhead and Ram aren’t moving. Like they’re in freeze-frame. Somehow I know it’s because they’re moving so slowly as compared to me. I have to go elsewhere, shut down, just to give them time do anything. Slow meat.
Now Ram is gone (and that frustrates me). The redhead is working again.
I know his face. They say you can’t dream any face that you haven’t seen before.
I cry out to him—with no voice, but I know he can hear me.
“WANT ME. WANT ME. I CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT. WE CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT.”
I’m waiting for him to at least look at me, smile at me. Sometimes he smiles at me like he loves me.
I’m cold. Why am I cold?
I wake up… wet?
I’m soaked. How am I soaked? And cold…
I remember lying down to sleep under the stars, in the open air, sand for a bed, as if daring my sword to keep me through the icy night.
But now I open my eyes to daylight—muted daylight. I can’t see the sun. The sky is lit but strangely gray. It looks almost like a ceiling of pale smoke over the whole world.
And water is spraying on me, on my face. Not quite like a shower, or maybe like a high-efficiency shower. No. More like the fine mist of a leak in a high-pressure line. Except it’s everywhere. I look around, expect to see the geyser of a ruptured feed line, but… The water is coming straight out of the sky.
A lot of it. It’s not like those odd condensation mists we’ve seen. I’m thoroughly sprayed. Drenched. My face. My hair. My uniform is beaded with water but has kept the rest of me dry. The ground is wet all around me, as far as I can see in any direction, looking like it’s soaked at least several centimeters deep. The rocks shine, their colors darker and richer. The plants…
The plants are different. Lusher. Broader leaved. It’s not just the added water. The pattern of growth has changed—it wasn’t like this when I went to sleep. I see species I don’t recognize, plants I’m certain weren’t there last night, and there’s a lot more of it. And what I’m sure was bare rock and sand is now laced with and sprouting fine new growth.
What the fuck?
I sit up. The ground under me is mostly dry, but the rest of the soil has turned to a kind of gritty paste that sticks to me. It is wet, at least as deep as I can sink my fingers in it. And cold. (But not frozen. There’s no ice. There should be ice.) And it all smells like a freshly watered garden.
The sky reminds me of the anvil clouds that form over the ETE Stations, only darker, and somehow covering the whole sky, as far as I can see in any direction. I flash that this must be Chang, some new cloaking system, but why would he fill the sky with water vapor, thick enough to apparently condense and piss on me, on everything? How would his latest evil plot be watering the entire valley at once? The very idea makes me giggle—the whole situation is absurd.
I have to taste the water that runs off my face and hair (and tastes like my face and hair) to prove it’s real, I’m awake. But I know I’m awake because I knew I was dreaming and this isn’t dreaming. I’m awake.
What the fuck?
The swords: they were trying to hack the ETE network. Did they do something to Station output? Ramp it up? But why would they want to do that? Unless this is the prelude to a multiple meltdown. I look west south-west, in the direction of the nearest Station. The Divide Rim is lost in the clouds, but it doesn’t look like there’s an unusual outpouring from where the Station towers should be. Everything looks… peaceful. Calm. And warm.
The water spray from the sky is cold, but far from freezing. And I still see no sign of residual ice from overnight. And it’s not morning cold. The air is almost indoor warm.
I can’t see the sun through the clouds, but this is morning. The sky is lighter to the east, and the wind is also coming at me from that way, chilling where it hits my wet skin. Except the wind isn’t as strong as it should be. And there’s no dust at all, just more garden smells.
And there’s an odd rushing sound I can’t figure out. I can hear it under the sounds of the wind, and the rattle and rustle of the water spray on the plants. I think I’ve heard it somewhere, I just can’t place it.
I look around again. Think. The plants are different. What else is different?
The camp. Oh, shit: Two of the shelters are missing. Not even a dry spot on the ground to say they were still here whenever the sky started spraying.
>
I’m on my feet, my hand on the hilt of my sword (yes, that’s still there—but it’s oddly silent). I look. I see Bly, still asleep sitting up, a statue, only wet like I am, his armor glistening and beaded with the stuff. The green has encroached all around him, as if very passively trying to bury him.
But Paul Stilson is gone, no sign.
I find Erickson and Elias: The former is huddled under his layered Nomad cloaks, the latter curled fetal on a survival blanket, his long white hair looking weirdly melted to his head. (But then my own hair is soaked through like I’m taking a shower—I have to push it back out of my eyes, ring it out.)
What the hell is going on?
I don’t wake the others. I still half-believe I’m dreaming, or that this is some virtual world, probably conjured by the sword, getting into my head. But it feels real. Smells real. Tastes real. Sounds…
I go look for the source of the rushing sound. It’s coming from just over the low ridge of the eastern tail of the Pax mountain that we camped right next to—that part looks the same, the geology. (Only wet, making all the rock and sand a richer, darker blend of rusts and ochres.)
The ground squishes under my boots, pasty and slick. And I’m thinking: What a waste of free water, just pissing it into the sand. (Sure it feeds the plants, but they can’t use all of this.) Then I make it up over the rise (slipping a few times on wet rocks, water running down from my hair into the collar of my jacket) and see…
What the fuck…?
“Colonel Ram!!” I yell.
The valley is full of water. Stretching north and east, as far as the eye can see, which isn’t far. There’s a whitish haze clinging low over the water, limiting visibility north to less than a klick.
“Colonel Ram! Bel! Erickson! Elias!”
It’s one massive rippling surface. Water. It’s got to be millions of liters…
“Wake up! WAKE UP!”
Something like but not like Graingrass grows thick out into the water in places, while other places are sparse to near-bare wet packed regoloith. The edge of the water laps at the sand and rock in these barer spots in small surges, as if moved by the rising winds. It ripples toward me like a gentle but urgent wave-form that’s somehow very soothing. (This is the source of the rushing sound: wind over the top of the water, water lapping at the sand and rock.)
“EVERYBODY!! UP NOW!!”
I’m screaming. Panicking. Breathless. What the hell is this?
I’ve seen this. In pictures. Video. Earth. Earth has water like this. (It’s also how I know the sound—something I never imagined I’d hear for real. It echoes across the valley, so big…)
Did the Unmakers dump their world on us, some new strategy to take the planet? Or have I been asleep for a hundred years while they came back and made Mars like home? Or did the ETE manage it? Or the swords? (But in one night? This can’t have happened in one night. How long have I—we—been asleep?)
My brain is racing, grabbing onto wild explanations for the unexplainable. I barely notice that the sky spray has stopped, not until I suddenly feel my hair and skin go dry—whatever water that was on me has vanished. Did I imagine it? No: everything else is still wet: rocks, plants, sand. Only I’m dry, uniform and all. Some new trick of my sword? Do I suck up water like I suck up whatever else my new tech needs?
I’m turning to run back to the camp when the first of them stagger over the ridge and freeze at the sight: Erickson, Elias, Bly… Then Murphy and the Ghaddar. Terina and Ishmael. Abbas and Rashid…
And that’s it.
“Where’s Ram? Where’s Bel? Lux? Azazel? Stilson? Dee?”
I’m sputtering names at the dumbstruck. They’re all staring at the valley full of water.
“What is that?” Bly demands numbly.
“It looks like a lake,” Elias names it. “Large standing body of water. Like on Earth.”
“Where did it come from?” Erickson asks a useless question, stepping up toward the undulating edge of the water, his boots sinking deeper in the wet sand as he gets closer too it.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Abbas manages to ask Terina, our local authority. She shakes her head, speechless. She’s as freaked as we are.
“What was out there before?” Ishmael asks her, managing to stay amazingly coherent.
“Hotlands. Radioactive. Skyfall. Crash site…”
“Debris,” Elias tries to clarify. “From orbit. I saw it marked on the White Station maps. The Apocalypse… The ships, the dock… Reactors… It had to land somewhere.” He’s speaking in fragments, struggling to make any kind of sense of this. “We have that marked as a toxic crash zone. Deadly to Normals.”
“Don’t touch the water!” Abbas warns Erickson.
“It’s cold,” Ishmael reassures, having taken out his antique radiation counter. “I mean it’s not hot. Not radioactive. Barely background…” He has the wonder of a child, even faced with this. “There should be more background radiation, just from the sun.”
Erickson pulls off a glove, bends down, immerses his hand. Raises it to his face. Smells. Tastes.
“Water. And some minerals. From the soil.”
“And you’ve never seen this before?” I have to ask Terina again. Again, she shakes her head, wide-eyed in shock.
Bly steps up to the water through the thigh-high ‘Grass, steps out into it, stands in it up to his shins—it’s at least that deep, but seems to get deeper the farther he goes. He stops when it gets up to his knees, just stands there, staring across the surface. The rippling surface gently batters at his armored legs. The tails of his robe are soaked, floating.
“Where are Ram and the others?” I demand. I get no immediate answer. Everyone is too stunned by what they’re seeing.
“Gone when we woke up,” Murphy finally tells me. “No sign.”
That has to be the swords’ doing. Our guardians are conveniently gone. As is Dee, who had a way to connect with them.
“There was water coming out of the sky! Not just a mist, a shower!” I feel the need to point out, even as I’m realizing several of my remaining companions are as soaked as I am. So I confront Terina again: “You’ve never seen anything like this?”
“Thin mists,” she admits, sounding dazed. “When the clouds build thick during the middle seasons. Not like this.”
Then it looks like something has struck her, and she turns and runs away from the “lake”, but not far, just up on the rise. She looks south.
“It’s wrong…” I hear her say over the rushing of the water. “My mountain…”
We run up and look. Her mountain—the Spine Range—is still there, but it does look different. Greener. The tips of the mountains—where we can see them through the clouds—are frosted white. And I’m not sure, but I think the terrain itself is a little different, the shape of the mountain.
I stop and listen for chatter, let my sword listen… I hear no bots. And nothing in orbit.
What the fuck is going on?
“Incoming!” I hear Murphy bark. We all turn west, down the water’s edge. Someone’s coming. Just walking, casually, with a long stick. He sees us, but doesn’t appear to be concerned, despite the fact that we’re all clearly agitated and armed. I consider reaching for my sword, but for some reason I don’t want to. And that’s very strange…
“Erickson… Elias… swords…” I prompt them. They make a feeble, half-hearted effort to reach for their own hilts, only to drop their hands. It’s like I’ve asked them to do something that’s a deeply programmed taboo, like urinate in their clothing. (Speaking of: It’s morning, and I still don’t need to pee.)
“Me, too,” I admit, as we look at each other dumbly.
I realize no one else is drawing or leveling a weapon.
As the figure gets closer, I see that it’s an old man: thin white mop of hair and beard, weathered skin. Under it, his face is still boyish despite all the lines. And familiar—I just can’t place him. Maybe he just has that kind of face, but it
bothers me, like I should know him.
He wears a beaten faded work jacket and overalls, worn old boots. His stick looks like part of a plant stalk, dried out. He’s smiling at us like he’s happy to see us, maybe expected us.
“Good morning,” he says. His voice is deep and rich, welcoming, but also innocent. (I don’t know the voice.)
“What is this?” Bly blurts out, marching through the water at him. But then Bly stops, like he’s lost momentum, changed his mind.
“It’s a lake, Thompson,” the old man tells him like he’s talking to a small child. “It’s called a lake.”
He knows our names? (And so this is a “lake”…)
“It’s perfectly harmless, unless you get too deep in it,” he doesn’t really reassure. “None of you have had reason to learn how to swim, after all. Not that you’d be able to anyway, with all the metal you’re wearing. Just stay near the shore. This part. The edge.”
“Who are you?” I demand.
“You can call me Jed,” he says easily.
“What have you done with our friends?” I push. I want my sword. It’s still bizarrely quiet.
“Your friends are well, Jacqueline. They were simply not invited.”
“What do you mean?” Erickson takes a turn.
“Three of you carry your invitations…” He looks at Erickson. “The grieving son, who wants so badly to make sense of the world that he tries to make it into one of his fantasies.” Then to Elias: “The bitter elder brother, retreated into his science, away from anyone who might love him, because he has been hurt so deeply.” And me: “And the good soldier who’s fought for too many poor causes. Now without an army, without cause or home. The exile.”
“What are you talking about?” Elias challenges, defensive.
“Invitations to what?” Erickson is more specific.
“Here,” Jed says like it should be obvious, gesturing all around. “Now.”
The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades Page 27
