Crowley’s eyes flicker across the forest then he crouches down beside me. “There’s more than Cora and your dad?” He glances at Sattva, who’s standing very still, watching me.
“What’s happening, Sattva? What was that place?”
Crowley turns to Sattva. “He’s linking their consciousness.”
“What?” I ask.
“He’s harvesting their collective fear and incubating them inside it. He’s making his own Field.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means, Robert,” says Crowley, “he’s creating Hell.”
“What? But you told me they weren’t dead!”
“They’re not. Hell isn’t a place; it’s a state of mind. You don’t get there by dying. You get there by living it. To be in that place means you’ve forgotten you can choose.”
“When are the first collisions, Robert?” says Balaquai.
I glance at my watch. “Four minutes.”
Sattva is staring at the middle distance, realisation dawning in his eyes. “The collisions recreate the beginnings of the universe, the first particles in existence, is that right?”
“Yes, but –”
“That’s what he’s afraid of.”
“Of course,” says Crowley. “Why didn’t we see this before?”
“What?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”
Sattva turns to me. “The basis of creation is thought. Amos is afraid that that the energy released from the collisions will create new consciousness that will disrupt his Mindscape.”
“So it should release them?”
“It’s the best chance they have, but they will still have to choose. And for that, they need a reason to hope. Do you think you can get back in?”
I glance down at Cora. A flash of dark mist splinters my vision. “Yes.”
“And what if he gets stuck there?” Crowley interrupts. “Do we just leave him? It’s too risky, Sattva.”
“I’ll do it,” I say.
Sattva hesitates.“Alright. There will be a focal point in there somewhere, something that drains your spirit.” I nod. The black sun. “It will take all your effort, but whatever you do, don’t look at it. Not if you want to come back.”
I feel a hand on my arm. Casimir is standing next to me. “Be careful, Robert. I’m counting on you coming back.”
“Remember,” says Sattva, “you can choose. Keep hold of your hope, no matter what.”
Two minutes to go. I look into Cora’s blank eyes, seeing through to the inside, to that place where she’s suffering. The world I know shatters and becomes her Hell.
THE FIRST THING I feel is the wind. Cold, biting, unrelenting wind, whipping at my back. Cora is kneeling on the dark dirt, my dad tethered next to her. Glancing up, I see the field of trees, stretching on for miles – forever, it looks like – beneath a leaden mist. And kneeling by each one is a person, thin and resigned, facing the eternal wind. Their eyes are glazed beyond caring, no hope left in them. An endless crop of hollow minds.
“Hold on, Cora.”
She lifts her eyes, but I can’t tell if she sees me.
“Dad?” I reach out and lay a hand on his shoulder and he raises his head, his eyes deep, hollow tunnels.
It can’t be long now. There’s a pull on my head, like a compass to magnetic north, a strange fascination for what lies behind me. It’s compelling me to look, and I don’t know if I have the strength to resist. It’s like it’s calling me, like it has answers to all my questions. My head inclines towards my left shoulder. It’s there, just behind me. I can see the black curve of its edge, writhing against the slate sky. I know what Sattva said, but there’s a burning curiosity to see for myself. Just one look...
A sudden burst of light and heat shatters the darkness, an explosion that judders through me. Above, sapphire fireworks spray out over the grey, sprinkling blue light that doesn’t diminish, but intensifies as it arcs towards the earth. Cora’s face, and my dad’s, jolt upwards. Their eyes flash with life, then fear. They’re remembering.
“Cora! Dad!” Their eyes find me, bewildered, afraid. The first shower of light touches the black earth and is extinguished. “Move! Get up!”
They wrestle with their arms, trying to free them from the unseen chains as more spears of neon blue touch down and extinguish. There are only a handful left in the descent – minutes until the darkness returns. Dark blood trickles down Cora’s arms with her effort, and her struggling slows, her gaze returning to the black sun.
I get down on my knees, level with them. “Look at me. That’s it – keep your eyes on me.” Around me, the candles are going out, one by one. “You have a choice. You can choose to stay here, or you can choose to leave. You have a life, people who love you. But you have to choose.”
They stop struggling and stare at me. “You have to choose!” Something gets through. Cora nods. My dad pulls his arms forward, one at a time, freeing himself from the trunk, and stands up. Cora’s on her feet now, but she’s running into the mist, away from me.
“Cora!” What the hell is she doing?
We follow her through the fog, between the bolts of blue, between the dead trees and the dead minds. Ahead of us, she drops to her knees, her hands clasping a face. Its long fair hair moves aside as the face rises towards us.
As the last blue arc reaches down and connects with the floor of Hell, Sarah opens her eyes.
The brightness fades and the wind drops. It’s darker than it was before. Whispers trickle in around us, indistinguishable voices from everywhere and nowhere, testing, teasing.
And then silence.
It hangs on the air, poised, breeding something worse. Slowly, I get to my feet. The wind has dropped. In the distance, a rumbling, something dark growing on the horizon. Time slows down.
Then, like the blast wave of a nuclear explosion, a ring of black fog tears across the field towards us, flattening the trees in its wake, forcing the hollow minds chained to them onto their backs to stare straight up at the sky as the fog rips overhead. I turn to shield them, and wait for it to hit.
Chapter Twenty
AN OWL HOOTS. I’m trembling uncontrollably, clinging to Cora and my dad. I don’t want to open my eyes. A soft breeze ripples across my face and I feel a hand on my back.
“Robert?” Sattva’s voice.
I can’t coordinate my hands to wipe the strand of hair from Cora’s face. She does it for me, then presses her lips against mine. Warm, soft lips. The scent of jasmine. I’d forgotten.
My dad is on all fours, retching. Sattva and the others help us to our feet. Sunlight trickles in through the gaps between the pine needles, casting a lacy pattern on the dark earth. When we reach the edge of the forest, my dad’s knees buckle.
“I’m fine. I just need to sit down for a moment. Go on, I’ll catch you up.” He sits down on the grass and drops his head.
Sattva nods. “He’ll be alright. Just give him time.”
Beside me,Cora stops. Ahead, Sarah is standing on the crest of the hill overlooking the valley. Cora frees herself from my arm and walks towards her, pausing by her right shoulder. A breeze lifts Cora’s hair, but Sarah’s doesn’t move.
Sattva and Casimir guide me to a fallen log a little further on.
“Are you alright?” asks Casimir as I sit down.
“There were so many people there, Casimir. Hundreds... thousands... The collisions weren’t enough.”
“Not for all of them, no. And unless we stop Amos spreading Mindscape, there will be more.” He hands me Aiyana’s red flash drive. “You know he’ll come after you now?”
He’s right. I’ve known for some time now.“Then I might as well make it worth his while.” The red casing glints in the sunlight as I take it from him. “What happened back there?”
Sattva glances up at me. “You witnessed the creation of new particles, new energy.”
“But what was it?”
“It’s what you’ve spent your life looking for. What the physicists created all ov
er again when the particles collided. Call it what you like – consciousness, the Field, dark energy; it’s all the same.” He stares at me. “You still don’t you know what it is?”
“No.”
“It’s the human spirit, Robert. The piece of the universe that you and everyone else are searching for. And those of us who exist within it, just a breath away in those unseen worlds, we are dark matter.”
I’m trying to process his words as something draws my eyes to the hill. The light’s changing – no, Sarah is changing, becoming brighter, almost iridescent.
“What’s happening to her?” I whisper as she raises her right hand towards Cora.
“She’s moving on.”
I can see Cora trembling as she reaches out and their hands meet, one made of flesh and dusted with soil, the other made of light. She closes her eyes and smiles, her cheeks wet with tears. Sarah turns, looking over her right shoulder, and I follow her gaze. I get to my feet. Something’s happening to the air behind her. It’s shifting, almost imperceptibly, like the shadow of steam on a wall, becoming an opening, an archway. But it’s not what it looks like that grips me; it’s what it makes me feel. I feel longing, like everything I want to be and know and understand is there, through that arch.
Sarah turns back to her sister, who nods and smiles.
Sarah lowers her hand and walks towards the shifting air, glancing back at Cora, now smiling and crying, before she steps through. The air swells and brightens and she blends into it, as a dream becomes a memory.
“The coin of grief has two sides,” says Sattva. “On one is the pain that will lessen but never quite leave you. On the other, the knowing that the one you love is home.”
The archway still shimmers against the horizon and my eyes are drawn back to it. “It feels like...” My voice fades, unable to find the words.
“Home?” I feel Sattva’s eyes on me. “You can go too, if you want. It’s your choice.”
“Why do I feel this way?”
“Robert, there’s something we have to tell you.” Sattva pauses until I look at him. “It’s waiting for you.”
“You mean...” I breathe the words. “The helicopter crash...?”
Sattva looks at me with eyes that have seen a million sunsets. “If we’d told you before, you wouldn’t have found the focus to do what you had to. But you had to die to rediscover who you really are.”
I feel my throat closing as my eyes slide back to the shimmering arch. It’s waiting for me.
“It’s your choice, Robert,” says Sattva. “You can go now, or you can stay, if you can keep your focus in the physical. And that’s something you already know you can do.”
My right hand feels warm. I look down at it and find it changing, lightening, like Sarah’s did. I turn it over, seeing the blades of grass beneath it. “How? How do I do that?”
“There are two incentives, right in front of you,” says Sattva. “You’re holding one of them.” I look down at the flash drive in my left hand. “The other is standing over there.” He glances at Cora. “But it’s your choice. Everything is your choice.”
My eyes find Cora, her slight form silhouetted against the sky. Only a few steps away, but now a universe apart.
As she turns back to me, her eyes still glistening, I feel the light in my hand fade. “What do I tell her?” I breathe as she walks towards me.
“Nothing,” says Sattva. “If you want to stay focused.”
AS CORA STANDS quiet and still in my arms, it feels like we’re not two people at all. It feels like we’ve become one person, something that goes beyond the confines of the flesh with all of its limitations, its beautiful imperfections. I breathe in the scent of her skin, the scent of jasmine, and close my eyes. Above, five buzzards circle, gliding with the clouds. They stay with us for a while, then fade away into the blue.
HOW DOES IT FEEL, NOT BEING REAL?
In Hollywood, where last year’s stars are this year’s busboys, Fictionals are everywhere. Niles Golan’s therapist is a Fictional. So is his best friend. So (maybe) is the woman in the bar he can’t stop staring at.
Fictionals – characters ‘translated’ into living beings for movies and TV using cloning technology – are a part of daily life in LA now. Sometimes the problem is knowing who’s real and who’s not.
Divorced, alcoholic and hanging on by a thread, Niles – author of The Saladin Imperative: A Kurt Power Novel and many others – has been hired to write a big-budget reboot of a classic movie. If he does this right, the studio might bring one of Niles’ own characters to life. But somewhere beneath the movie – beneath the TV show it was inspired by, the children’s book behind that and the story behind that – is the kernel of something important. If he can just hold it together long enough to figure it out...
‘A disturbing, self-reflective type of brilliance.’
Pornokitsch on Death Got No Mercy
‘There’s a lot to love here.’
Total Sci-Fi on Gods of Manhattan
www.solarisbooks.com
THEY ARE HERE... AND WE ARE NOT READY
In 2025, the Serene arrive from Delta Pavonis V, and change mankind’s destiny forever. The gentle aliens bring peace to an ailing world – a world riven by war, terrorism and poverty, by rising conflicts over natural resources – and offer an end to need and violence. But not everyone supports the seemingly benign invasion. There are those who benefit from conflict, who cherish chaos, and they will stop at nothing to bring back the old days.
When Sally Walsh is kidnapped by terrorists and threatened with death, it seems that only a miracle can save her life. Geoff Allen, photojournalist, is contacted by the Serene and offered the opportunity to work with the aliens in their mission. For Sally, Geoff, and billions of other citizens of Earth, nothing will ever be the same again...
‘No matter how alien the world Brown describes, there is always something hauntingly familiar about the situations that unfold there.’
Tony Ballantyne
‘Brown has a casual and unpretentious style. The accessibility, the tenderness between characters and, more importantly, the scale of wonder involved make him highly enjoyable.’
Interzone
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‘Lovegrove is vigorously carving out a ‘godpunk’ subgenre – rebellious underdog humans battling an outmoded belief system. Guns help a bit, but the real weapon is free will.’
Pornokitsch
WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY...
AGE OF ANANSI
Dion Yeboah leads an orderly, disciplined life... until the day the spider appears. What looks like an ordinary arachnid turns out to be Anansi, the trickster god of African legend, and its arrival throws Dion’s existence into chaos. He is summoned to America to take part in a contest of trickery. It’s a life-or-death battle of wits, and in the end, only one person will be left standing...
AGE OF SATAN
1968. Guy Lucas is sent to an old-fashioned boarding school, where he is bullied and abused. A fellow student persuades him to perform a black mass and plead with Satan to intervene, with horrific consequences. For the next ten years, the shadow of Satan is cast across his life; he flees, but tragedy follows him. Eventually, he must confront the Devil, and learn the truth about himself...
AGE OF GAIA
Billionaire Barnaby Pollard, energy magnate, has the world at his feet. The planet’s fossil fuel resources are his to exploit, as are the size-zero girlfriends he loves and leaves in endless succession. Until he meets Lydia, a beautiful and opinionated eco-journalist. She’s the very opposite of the kind of woman he normally dates: large and outspoken, with a firm belief that Mother Nature is not to be tampered with...
‘A compulsive, breakneck read by a master of the craft, with stunning action sequences and acute character observations.’
The Guardian on The Age of Zeus
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