The Illusory Prophet

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  The room is crowded. I edge past the Lenora who’s staring blank-eyed at nothing, and I’m careful not to touch the one who’s pacing. I work my way toward the back of the room. None of them seem to know I’m here, but the room buzzes with the energy of a raging ascender mind. I crouch next to the version of Lenora that’s sitting in the corner. Her legs are tucked up tight to her chest, her arms locked around them, and her long blond hair acts a shield for her face, but I can hear the sobs and see the erratic rise and fall of her shoulders. Her soul is crying, and I want to join her. I may not be in love with her anymore—if I ever truly was—but I can’t stand seeing her broken like this.

  “Lenora.” I keep my voice soft. I’m in the fugue state, so speaking seems a little superfluous, but it’s the way I think about communicating, so it’s natural to have it happen that way. Just as it’s natural for Lenora to express her pain and fear by curling up in the corner and crying—or at least a part of her is.

  She doesn’t respond to my voice.

  I glance at the other Lenoras, and a surge of pride runs through me—she’s not taking this lying down. Sure, there’s one part of her that’s terrified, but eleven more are railing against this situation and trying to fix it.

  “Lenora, it’s all right, I’m here.” This time, my voice gets through to her, and the sobbing stops—or really pauses just for a second like she’s holding her breath.

  Of course, there’s no such thing in the fugue.

  She doesn’t look up, but I hear her voice anyway. “Eli?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.” I debate touching her. It feels like a violation, but I’m already inside her fractured mind, like a surgeon who’s invaded the patient’s body but is cautious not to touch anything that doesn’t need fixing.

  She slowly looks up, revealing her tear-stained cheeks. “You’re here.” Suddenly, every head in the place turns—all the Lenoras have ceased their activity to stare at me.

  I take this as a good sign. It means they’re still connected.

  I keep my focus on the crying Lenora—I think she’s the one in charge. “You need to pull back together now.” When I was blown out to the void, it was difficult to focus or even form mental words. What helped bring me back was a sense of who I was—a clarion call of identity. “You’re a powerful ascender, Lenora. You’re my patron. My creator. Try to remember.”

  New tears glisten at the corners of her eyes. “I’ve tried. I can’t. There are pieces… missing pieces…” Her eyes glass more, and her focus drifts away from my face to stare at some distant point over my shoulder. Maybe it’s the place where some parts of her mind have disappeared to… or perhaps died?

  I don’t know. It sends a shudder through me.

  But Marcus said all the parts were there. He felt them. I have no idea what that means, but I’m going with it. I stand up from my crouch, and my movement drags her attention back to me, only in slow motion, like she’s not really in control. She’s being pulled by the gravity of my being in the middle of all dozen of her forms.

  All the parts that need to come together.

  We’re in the fugue state—and if there’s one thing I know about this state, it’s that reality is only perception here. If I can imagine it, I can make it happen. Which is part of why, when it bleeds over into reality, it freaks me straight out. I push that thought away and focus on each of the Lenoras in turn. They’re all staring at me. I raise my arms like I’m reaching for them. Maybe I can literally pull them back together. I gesture for them to move closer to one another, and it works—they shift from one spot to another, jittery and jumping like bad cuts in a vid, moving instantly from one spot to another. As they get closer, they smear, like they’re trying to blend or merge, but then they snap away before they do. The energy of the room ramps up, a weird vibrating that’s shaking my arms, which are still outstretched, still trying to paint with the reality of Lenora’s personal prison.

  “Lenora,” I warn, my focus still on trying to bring the pieces together. “Help me.” I glance back down at the crying Lenora, but her head has ducked back into her arms, her hair falling forward again.

  She’s shaking her head, back and forth, back and forth.

  “Try,” I beg, flicking looks between her and the ever-more-jittery other Lenoras.

  Suddenly, the crying Lenora’s head snaps up. “I can’t!” she shrieks.

  It’s a sonic blast—I’m thrown to the far wall of the room, opposite her. The other Lenoras are likewise tossed by the force of it, crashing against the ceiling and walls and floor of the room in which they’re all trapped. Some waver, like static-filled holos threatening to blink out of existence.

  I push away from the wall then hold out my hands. “Okay. All right. It’s all right, Lenora.” I cautiously edge forward. The energy of the room has started to make the walls hum. Or maybe that’s the stunned Lenoras, singing a nonverbal complaint—I can’t tell. Slowly, I approach the crying Lenora again, fighting against the despair that maybe I can’t do this. Maybe there are limits to what’s possible, even in the fugue state. She’s scattered, and it’s almost like she doesn’t want to come back together. She’s been this way too long, and she’s lost hope. She doesn’t believe it can happen.

  Belief.

  I crouch in front of the crying Lenora. There’s one thing Lenora has believed in for years, decades even. One thing she’s been willing to sacrifice herself for, multiple times. Something she gave everything to create and nurture, that she fiercely believed in against every obstacle and threat the universe threw her way.

  Me.

  “Lenora, I need you,” I say.

  She looks up. The focus of her beautiful blues eyes on me is so intense, it adds a thousand gigawatts of energy to the hum of the room. “You need me?”

  “You’re my creator,” I say, and the hum steps up a notch. “You had a purpose for me, and I need your help to fulfill it.” I’m not just saying this to motivate her, although I know it will—I suspect it’s actually true. The bleeding over into reality, the restless members of the Resistance all looking for a prophet to lead them, even Augustus and Hypatia, if they resurrect—I’m going to need Lenora’s help to figure out how to stay sane and stay alive through all of it.

  “You need me,” she cries, and her voice expands to fill the room with sound. Suddenly, we’re both standing in the middle. I haven’t done this—this is entirely Lenora in charge of her own mind now.

  Her belief in me—that I could fulfill the purpose for which she created me—has turned the other Lenoras into ghosts of vapor and mist that buffet me as they flit around. The crying Lenora remains in the center with me, her gaze never leaving mine, but the rest are quickly becoming a vortex, spinning around us faster and faster.

  The energy raises my hair like a static charge.

  “You need me.” Her voice booms with the power of a god, shaking the walls and vibrating all the other parts of her into a shrill, screaming blur.

  This could be the most dangerous moment for me—normally, an encounter with an ascender mind would blow me straight out to the void, that gray nothingness place where I can barely keep my own cognition in one piece. I know the seams of my mind are stronger now, knitted together with the bits and pieces of those who crossed over the bridge I am, but I’m dead center in the middle of a mind more powerful than any I’ve survived absorbing so far.

  I resist the urge to flee. “Yes, I need you.” I’m still the glue pulling her together, the gravity of purpose that’s driving her to do this thing, this pulling together of broken-hearted pieces she wanted to leave shattered. It feels like she’s borrowing a piece of me—or maybe it’s just my fervent desire to have it happen—either way, I’m fixed in the center of the hurricane as the pieces of her spin faster and tighter around us.

  She flings her arms out and tips her head back, mouth wide. An unholy scream rips through the gray walls of her self-imposed cell, blasting them outward. I lean away, but it’s difficult, like a tremendous vacu
um is pulling me closer. The thunderous whipping wind around us becomes even more frenetic. Then something shifts—a release—and I know I have to leave or be permanently welded into this collapsing-star process that is Lenora.

  I close my eyes and picture myself free of her. I’m instantly transported away from the sphere that is her being in the process of coalescing.

  Coherence.

  She shines like a brand-new star, and I feel the brilliance of it burn into my essence even from a distance. It’s glorious… and I still can’t decide if what I’m seeing is Lenora’s soul.

  If the definition of a soul is that it can survive past the physical manifestation of life on earth, then it seems obvious that humans have souls. Kamali’s soul danced in a studio of her own creation after her body died. Lenora’s essence was scattered, but her cybernetic body was still generating power, still serving as a host to all the disparate parts of her. And all the Lenoras appeared the same as the original—same long blond hair, same perfect face. If this beautiful new being forming right in front of me is Lenora’s soul… was it still a soul when it was splintered into pieces?

  Can a soul be divided into parts?

  This idea hits my brain like an electrical short.

  I just stare at Lenora as she floats in the grayness. She seems dazed, and I understand why—when I pulled myself back together in the void, it took me days to assimilate. My mind had to expand to hold the pieces, the lives and memories, but it was stronger than before. For Lenora, maybe repairing the pieces will make her even more powerful than a normal ascender. But what does it mean if we—she and I—can be broken into pieces and then restored?

  Does this mean we have no souls?

  It’s another jolt to my brain.

  When an ascender makes a backup of their cognition, are they making a copy of their mind, or are they cleaving their soul into parts? If the copy is just a piece, can a soul be regrown from that bit of residual soul DNA, like re-growing a limb? Or does the original body release its piece of soul when it dies so the soul parts can come together again? Maybe that’s what happens when an ascender resurrects. Is that what Augustus is waiting for—his soul parts to find one another and collect back together?

  Or maybe the fact that ascender souls can be divided means they were never something whole to begin with. Never something real. Just an echo or copy of the real thing, sustained by electricity until the power goes out. And then… nothing.

  Maybe people like Cyrus are right.

  Maybe ascenders have no souls.

  Like Lenora.

  Like me.

  The fugue feels suddenly colder, vacant and foreboding.

  I don’t feel soulless. I feel like one, complete entity, even if I can still sense the new parts inside me, the traces of the human souls that have passed over the bridge I am. In a way, I’m a collective like Lenora, only comprised of more than just my own parts. I was scattered; I reformed.

  Do humans do this? A chill runs through me with that thought… because I don’t think they do. Which means I’ve got far more in common with Augustus and Lenora than I do with Kamali’s bright shining soul, dancing in the afterlife.

  Suddenly, Lenora’s eyes snap open to stare at me.

  A fraction of an instant later, she’s zipped across the void, and her essence or soul or whatever it is, beautiful and vibrant and alive with intelligence, is staring at me with a panicked look.

  “Eli!” she cries out. “Wake up!”

  I’m snapped back to reality, and Lenora’s there, hovering above me.

  Only it’s not the reality I left.

  She’s carrying me in her arms and running across the middle of the camp. Her ascender strength has no problem with my weight, but I’m instantly mortified and also freaked—the air is filled with screams and shouts and the sound of electric gunfire.

  I struggle against her hold. “Put me down!”

  She doesn’t. Instead, she dashes in a blur of ascender speed around the side of a silver pod used for storage next to the mess hall.

  “It’s no longer safe for you here, Eli,” she says in a rush. Then she releases me and falls into a crouch, facing the corner like she’s half cybernetic sentry bot, half mother bear protecting her young. From what, I have no idea. With the storage pod on one side and the mess hall on the other, we’re tucked away, hidden from whatever’s happening in the camp. The shield overhead—the one that’s supposed to protect us with an invisibility cloak as well as block hostile fire—is absent. The harsh afternoon sun beats down on us.

  Something is terribly wrong.

  “Lenora!” The anger in my voice pulls her attention from her intense scrutiny of the corner we just came around. “What is going on?”

  “The camp is under attack,” she says quickly, then whips back to face whatever’s out there. “I don’t know what happened. I was in a dream—some kind of unconscious hallucination—but then something brought me back so I could protect you. We need to get you to safety.”

  She doesn’t remember… but that doesn’t matter right now. I step back and hold up my hands. “Hang on, I can’t just run away. Where’s Kamali? And Cyrus and my mother?”

  “I don’t know.” Black tendrils writhe along her skin and frustration burns on her face. “But we have to go now, Eli.”

  I glare at her. “Not without my family and friends.”

  A group of six militia storm past the end of the pod, huddled in a tight formation, weapons out. One sees us but just gives a nod, and they keep going. They’re heading toward the transport ships at the other end of camp. I half shift into the fugue so I can see through the pod and the other barracks walls beyond.

  The camp is in chaos.

  People are running everywhere, taking shelter where they can, not that the canvas barracks provide any protection other than visual. They’re fleeing the area by the med pod and the command center, and it’s obvious why—there’s a fight raging between two groups. One is clustered in front of the armory, behind a barricade of vehicles and crates, while the other uses the command pod as cover. It’s a good hundred feet away, but I recognize Delphina, the spiritual leader of the Resistance, in her fugue-state form of skintight black gear fighting next to her mother, Commander Astoria. They’re in the command-pod group, firing light cannons at the people looting the armory of weapons and gear.

  The camp is definitely under attack, but not by sentries—although I just now realize that I’ve never seen one in the fugue state. The attackers appear human, but I doubt they’re ascenders. Otherwise, they’d be trashing the command pod and taking prisoners. Not that I can imagine an ascender like Augustus would be here at all—he’d just send sentries. Which makes me wonder who in the world is attacking us and where the Resistance’s ascender rebels are—I scan the fight but can’t find any I recognize. Then a littering of bodies near the med pod draws my attention. One of them is definitely Marcus’s fugue-state form—imposing and tall, overtly masculine and inhumanly attractive like his bodyform, but not quite as bulky. All the fallen bodies, including Marcus’s, still glow with the vibrancy that humans and ascenders have in the fugue-state, brighter than the med pod and other things I can see through—so they’re out, but not dead. I remember what dead looks like—I climbed over the Dalai Lama’s body once while half in the fugue, and there was no spark there, not like the forms of the other, still-living prisoners.

  I scan the rest of the camp, searching for Kamali and Cyrus and my mother.

  “We need to get you to the ships!” Lenora insists, gripping my arm and tugging me away from the melee happening at the far end of the camp.

  I yank my arm free. “I haven’t found Kamali yet.” I keep searching, but it’s hard to see anything in all the commotion. I’m tempted to leave my body and just go to her, but then Lenora will pick up my collapsed physical form and whisk me away… and I’m not leaving the camp without my second. It takes me several heart-stopping moments, but I finally find her and my mother huddled toward the
back of a barracks that’s filled with civilians. Cyrus and Basha are part of a garrison manning a barricade to protect them. Grayson is there as well—he’s a senior militia with augmented ascender-tech legs, although in the fugue state, he appears completely human, with a ragged kilt and linen shirt. He’s still standing, so his ascender-tech must still be functional, just like Lenora—they’ve escaped whatever took the other ascenders out.

  Grayson and Cyrus and the rest have blasters at the ready, but they’re not engaged in a firefight. Most of the enemy forces are concentrated near the armory, although a few runners are slipping through the camp—sometimes alone, sometimes in groups of two or three. I can’t tell if they’re Resistance militia or the enemy. Whoever the enemy is.

  I pull back out of the fugue. “All right, Kamali and the others are holed up near the med pod. They’ve only got one augment protecting them. We need to go back.”

  “Eli, no! It’s too danger—” A motion catches her attention and cuts her off.

  An augment has swung into our temporary hideaway. She peeks back around the corner from the way she came, watching for something, and doesn’t immediately see us. Both her legs are completely replaced, but her augments are black metal, weathered and scarred. It’s not ascender-tech, which means, even though the girl is clad in the same black body armor the Resistance wears, she’s not one of us.

  Lenora yanks me behind her.

  The girl’s attention whips our way—her black combat helmet is clamped tight to her head, but her long brown hair swings in a ponytail behind her, and I can see her face. She glares at Lenora then flicks a look at me and freezes in place, teetering on her artificial legs and staring at me like she recognizes me.

  No way. She’s the girl from my vision—the one in the medieval suit of armor.

  The girl comes out of her shock and pulls a blaster from her leg holster. Lenora moves with ascender speed to block the light-bolt, then jerks back into me, knocking me to the ground. She keeps her footing, but her right arm is charred and missing a chunk. She kneels over me, covering me from further fire, but the girl has already disappeared.