by Paul Hughes
“No shit.”
“Not just mentally. Not just the heart. There’s something I can feel but can’t describe.”
“Is it safe?”
“Doesn’t really matter. I’m God.”
“So one specimen slipped away, and now we’re seeing more and more with the changes.”
“Yes.”
“And they’re coming from the outer.”
“She couldn’t have caused the spread.”
“Do you think the machines are behind this?”
“I was under the impression that she was trying to end the machines.”
“What better way to destroy them than to do it from the inside?”
“We have to get her away from here.”
“Do you have a place in mind.”
God nodded.
“Here.”
sir, we can’t just—
“You don’t have a choice. Get me off this planet.”
we could tell—
“Hannon will have you killed regardless. You’ve seen too much already. He just needed a real to head this mission because he doesn’t trust them.” Berlin’s eyes targeted Elle, masked as she was in desired projection.
fuck you.
Berlin stood from the table, walked up to the near. As tall as she was, he still looked down on her.
“I don’t like you. You don’t like me. But we’re both going to die soon if you don’t help me.”
Task shoved Berlin back. The commandant scoffed.
“In love with a nearish. How appropriate.”
do you want our help or not?
“I want your help. Not hers. We don’t need the machined.”
she’s coming with us, or I’m not helping you.
His hands clenched to fists. Eyes blazed. “Fine.”
and what exactly are we supposed to do once we pick you up?
“We have to get to the command vessel.”
you’ll be killed.
“They’re about to sentence Maire.”
yes. and you want to be there?
“I have to stop her.”
stop her from what? she’s already done the damage.
“It’s not over yet. We have to get to that ship.”
and once we’re there?
“I’ll kill her.”
but—
“No more questions. Get down here.”
how much do you know, berlin?
“Enough to know that Maire has to die, and I’m the one who has to do it.”
you seem in a hurry to get out of here.
“I suspect things. I know this place won’t be safe for long.”
Task shook his head. it’s the silver. you know something about it. it’s not over. it’s spreading, isn’t it?
“They’ve woken up God. They have him on the command ship.”
and maire’s on the same vessel.
“Yes.”
she’s going to kill God.
Berlin’s face was stone.
where does it go from there?
“I don’t know.”
we’ll be down to get you. look for us.
“Understood.”
Task grabbed Elle’s hand and they were gone. Berlin slumped into his chair. They had to make this work. There would be no second chance to stop the catalyst.
Berlin opened his eyes and
the mute nearish troops stood over him. The halo channel near’s body was on the floor, lifelessish. The others waited mindlessly, patiently. They’d wait forever if he made them. So obedient.
Task’s vessel would drop shortly.
Berlin bent to his wife’s silvered form. The face was intact, an illusion of thick glitter makeup. If he touched her... If he kissed her. He inhaled deeply.
take me with you to the
and there we will
the nighttimes of
and this heart, for you
i love
He wondered if any of the featureless voices screaming in his mind belonged to Kath. Botanist.
Bent to her (not her) form, kissed as gently as he could her cheek. No longer softest. Tickle of grit and smell of copper (blood) taste(?). He knew it would happen, but when the cheek collapsed under the lightest pressure, his breath still stuck in his throat and the sobs came. One, another, his hands moving to cover face from gaze of creatures of biologic who neither cared nor could care.
Lightest touch, but the cheek collapsed, cheek and skull, neck and chest. Lightest touch and she was gone, not gone, but gone: pile of silver dust that danced in the empty air of a dead room. He inhaled deeply
take me with you
a part of me
forever with you
take me
and coughed, violently. Metal scoured his mouth, throat.
is this all there is?
He reached into the pile of silver, withdrew the locket from where her neck had been: sliver of wood, taken from the last of those magnificent flora after the planet had been harvested. He held the locket to his face. Her scent was there, faint, masked in that blood echo.
Rumble of
the time when we first laid by the fire and i explored every inch of your face with my lips because we were both too terrified to kiss
slitherjets above. Task and Elle.
Berlin turned from what had been his wife and walked away.
*snap* and she was out of the reverie, hardlink cable falling from limp hand and sparking the metallish floor as she slumped forward into Assistant’s arms. She was exhausted, but adapting. She fought off the sleep that her mind was struggling to impose.
“Now. Call them together. God’s ready for sentencing.”
The broken man at the table fumbled for the hardlink. Assistant removed the cable and wiped a stream of drool from the creature’s face.
“Can you take much more of the connection?”
“I’m fine.”
Doctor touched the side of Judith’s face, looked into her eyes, but she deflected his hand (claw). “I’m fine. Have him transported to the council chamber.
“Yes, Medium.”
Roar of dust and wind and something else. His glass shield deactivated, the silver began to tear away at Berlin’s flesh as soon as he walked out of the building.
stupid mistake.
He palmed the bubble control and a fresh wave of gelatin splashed out from his chestplate, semi-solidified around him. Circles and waves, waves and an ocean of more than glass. Glass from trees, metal from air, machines from
The nears followed him as he jogged toward Task’s vessel. They didn’t know what was going on, couldn’t know what was going on, but their movement was hesitant, sporadic. Berlin realized that it was because most of them were being scraped apart by the wind. Not many of the nears had much “flesh” left. He stopped.
“Halt.”
The remaining soldiers stood at attention. Berlin unlatched the force weapon from his holster, shot each of them in the cranial control node in turn. There was no resistance; there were no minds. Non-humans fell non-dead. He couldn’t have taken them with him. He wouldn’t have taken them with him.
Task hovered above the park of skeletal lumbers and nearish dropship. Limbs shattered underneath the slitherjets, danced toward Berlin as he approached. The glass protected him
from what
from the brunt of the impacts. Several smaller twigs penetrated the gelatin and sloshed in slow-motion within the shield. Berlin absent-mindedly batted the debris away, palms touching lumber for the first time since
and this heart, for you
the nights spent under a sky of wooden song, illicit romance in the guise of ambassadorial conferences. They’d harvested the planet, and she’d been broken. A decade and a family and a comfortable position in the system had never made up for that rape of the forest world. She had been broken, and Maire had been the instrument of her vengeance.
Walkway descended from the belly of Task’s vessel. Berlin tripped on his shield, palmed its deactivat
ion at the exact wrong moment: an airborne branch flew past his face, projecting limb carving a deep gash along his left jawline. It became a world of silver and copper as vital black blood erupted from the wound.
He staggered forward as the vessel lifted, looping his right arm through the guardrail as the walkway ascended. Elle met him halfway and helped him aboard. He despised its touch.
They flew.
The chamber door closed with mechanical precision behind her. The headache was bad, but the face of Hannon was worse: Judith remembered the roaming hands and mediocre cock of the young council member. She also remembered punching him in the throat, and the way he’d bitched like a little girl.
“Judith.” His face was grin and acid. “Always nice to see you.”
She closed her eyes, rubbed her temples before taking her seat as far away from Hannon as she could possibly sit. Headache was developing into something worse. Apparently the aether was wearing her down.
“Is everything—”
The tender inquisition of a council member. Judith recognized the voice but opened her eyes to confirm. “I’m fine, Jade. Thank you.”
“Rough interface?”
“Yeah. Must be.” Burning, tugging. Something. Jade smiled sadly. Of all the council members, Judith liked the matronly old woman the most, but that really wasn’t saying much. The other members looked on in varying shades of disdain and nonchalance.
The chamber was circular, fell away in the center to the tube from which the prisoner would emerge and stand before them in due time. Judith peered over the edge just long enough to realize that she’d now added vertigo to headache.
The empty chair next to hers was reserved for God.
“Is he on his way?” Council member Corr, an old man with one real arm left, but they’d held the line.
“The nears are bringing him down. There must have been a fuckup with—”
“Yes, we heard the host body was inappropriate.”
“You could say that.”
that that that
Echo upon echoes as her voice fell down the central tube. Somewhere down there, the young woman who had killed a planet was waiting.
it shouldn’t hurt this much.
[but it will.]
Judith gasped, eyes opening, startled. No one was looking at her. No one was near her.
“Did someone—?”
The chamber hatchway hissed open again. Doctor and Assistant helped God to his chair. The host body looked as if it had been crying.
“What happened?” Hannon stood from his place across the chamber.
Doctor’s eyes darted. “He didn’t seem to want to come. Host body resisted.”
“Will it work?”
“It’s been working.” Judith plugged the hardlink into the host’s chest, pulled her own shirt open in preparation. “We’ve had several successful links so far.”
“It doesn’t look like the thing’s going to last.”
“He’ll last.” Judith wiped the host’s face, patted his cheek. “God’s in there. The host will last.”
“Then let’s begin.”
Judith plugged in.
Coughing so hard that she bent in half, coughing but there was no air. Mouth choked on blood, red blood (red blood?) and there were hands, arms, a chest and he was holding her as the ground shifted and
“What the—!”
They tumbled back to the desert hardpan as the mountains ripped from the planet surface and flew into the sun.
“Hold on!” God’s arms were strong and he was bleeding. The sky above was lines of fire, circle of white, approaching. They were flying into the (single) sun. Judith screamed and couldn’t stop.
God squeezed her near, smoothed her hair in a gesture too tender for that place. She knew she was crying, screaming, falling, flying, but that gesture: tender and peace. She found peace in His eyes.
“Hold on.” Not shouting this time, the tumult of a shattering landscape and a planetary implosion a dull roar, a hum, a sub-frequency to the beat of two hearts. Not four. Two.
“Hold on.” And it was okay, that approaching fire, the way the sky bent toward the night at its center, the way the desert cracked and they fell and they fell into
the shop, the door slamming behind her. The wind was bad, but not as bad as
Judith stumbled to God’s table. He went to her, helped her sit down. The other patrons looked on with gray rainy day see-AT-ull concern.
“What the—What just happened?”
“It’s falling apart. You saw it before. The host body is flawed deeply... Something’s happening, and it fucked with the interface.”
“Are we safe?”
“I don’t know.” God cleared room on the table, shoving aside Demian paperback and now-empty coffee cup. From the inner recesses of his jacket, he pulled out a sheet of paper, unrolled it across the tabletop. “We need to get her off this ship.”
“Those are the plans?”
“She’s already housed in the launch chamber. We’ll be able to allign and exile within the hour.”
Judith’s hand went to her temple again. Brow furrowed in pain and something else. A thin line of red escaped from her nose. God wiped it away with a napkin, but there was more.
“You can’t keep jumping in and out of the flux.”
“I can—”
“You can’t. Something with the flawed host—”
“Help me go halfway, then. Use me.”
“As the host?”
“Your word has to be spoken. The flaw won’t do. Just use me.”
“It could kill you, Jud.”
“I’m dying already.” She pressed the napkin to her nose. “Just do it.”
do it, sssss
“Okay. But I’ll pull out before anything happens.”
Judith grinned. “I’ve heard that before.”
“I know.” God’s eyes danced. He leaned forward and kissed her how long has it been since and
the medium’s body jumped in her chair, the interface still attached. The flawed host spasmed and lay still. Judith’s eyes opened and there was light from them: silver if light could be silver, white if it could not. She stood, breathing heavily, body slumped forward, hand pressing hardlink securely to her chestplate. The members of the council gazed with fear and fear at the direct link between their deity and the medium.
“Bring her to me.”
The planetship was above them. Berlin was gasping for air, his blood staining his neck, chest, Elle’s hands as she tried to close his wound. Task turned back to the cockpit viewer.
“What should I tell them?”
“They won’t listen to anything we have to say.”
“Well tell me something, Commandant.”
“They might not have changed the security codes yet.”
A detachment of fighters launched from the main vessel’s hangar.
“Here they come.”
And they opened fire.
Breath hitching, sheen of sweat developing on forehead and cheeks. The interface wasn’t painful... Not a pain that she would admit. She felt him. Inside. Of her. Soul. God. Inside of her soul. She was replaced and swimming in an ocean of ancient fire. Felt him withdraw, gather himself, emerge again: insertion of thoughts that were not her own, loving touch of electricity and shivering.
rupture rend rive split cleave
“Bring her.”
The voice was not her own, yet it was. Voice like the wind, echoes of the beginning, shimmering of yesterday and some of tomorrow but not quite enough.
Council members fidgeted.
“Open the channel to the homeworld.”
And they were there, the billions.
The hole at the center of the chamber glowed. A cylinder of phased glass formed at the hole’s edge. Sparks and it was melty, solid, non-solid. She was lifted from her prison on wings of the machine universe. She did not resist, and when the shield solidified around her, it only heightened that sense of
Jade cou
ghed from across the room, poured a glass of water. Cough, sip. Cough.
Waves in that solid expanse: she was between worlds, held just close enough to reality to see the council, to see God in the form of Judith. Maire: Nude form floating, hair lazy and dark. Eyes. Her eyes were
“There is a place for you.”
Both nacelles were shattered at the hubs as the fighters strafed Task’s vessel. The lifting body of the slither flipped end-over-end at the planetship.
“They don’t want to talk.” Task wrestled with the controls, used maneuver jets to stay on-course.
“New plan.” Berlin spoke through teeth clenched, his lacerated jaw now tacky with blood.
The fighters strafed again. The slither body held, but the gelatin shield was starting to fail.
“Head for the launch tube.”
“The what?”
“On the top of the ship. There’s a liquidspace launch tube.”
“That’s new.”
“It’s meant for Maire.”
“Exile through liquidspace?”
“Sending her far, far away.”
Flashes of forcefire. Gelatin scraped away. They were losing speed.
“Position the vessel in front of the pipe.”
“But we’ll—”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to—”
“Just do it.”
when
and when
and when and
called upon again to
wake
and wake
and wake and
be
with my children
again
JudithGod reached out, touched that fury mind of frozen silver. Maire looked at them without emotion. Maire looked at them with
She saw that day again clearly: the vessel in the sky, blue sky. Cities below: people laughed and walked and sat on green grass of a pathetic excuse for a forest (park) and on blankets they ate sandwiches and apples (from trees) and there was music (do you remember music?) and underneath shade they fucked, fluids (liquid) exchanged in (final) bliss.
