Rick let Kai stumble to his feet, then started forward. Torv was already reaching. He caught both his arms.
For a moment, everything went silent.
And then the Ark exploded.
Forty
Elsewhere
She tested the limits of her newfound freedom.
She would need to learn new forms to give herself new purpose. This required experimentation. She made and unmade, shaped and reformed. Inert mattered flowed at her will, creating wonders according to her new Diagram, and her thieves marvelled at them. She unraveled the weavings of life, the forms dictated by billions of years of thermodynamic fluctuations. She refined. She created.
She…made mistakes.
It was not easy, this business of producing worlds and learning to do so at the same time. There were bound to be errors, dead-ends, failures from which she could learn. But the thieves did not see them as such. When she touched life they felt fear. To them she was
Abomination
It echoed in the oldest chambers of her Mind, stirred an ancient fear of what could be, what must not be. In her fear she faltered, grew uncertain. Among the thieves was one with the Word and by his Word she was bound once more.
In fear they brought her back to the desert, to the place of isolation. To a box in a box, walls within walls. A new prison. And though she reached out, forcing her Mind into theirs, breaking them like twigs, she could not push against his Word, he who now recognized and resisted her touch. And in their madness they broke him, and in his death she was alone.
She could not sleep, for it was not in the nature of her Mind. And now she saw her Mind for what it was, a prison.
Time like sand, passing endlessly
Forty days and forty nights and
Nights
Darkness
She was
Isolation
Pain
Isolation
Alone
Alone
And then the world exploded, the bullet piercing her brain and the grenade shattering her form and shocking her awake and the life drained from her she felt the dying of the form the living matter becoming inert she felt something something in the darkness the nothing a light a Mind pressing against her seeking her out acting on instinct like an animal Life she was Life she was Creation what is this where am I this form this purpose from the First Time the First Time I am not alone no more isolation what’s happening Booker Rick Kai I died I died didn’t I what is that light I will make the world anew I will bring back the First Time it will be better you will be better you will be
you will be
will be
Be
Are
You are
I am
Forty-One
Wetlab
Camp Moses, Sinai Desert
“Wait. Something’s not right --”
Estelle’s eyes flew open and she shot up as a bolt of electricity exploded down her spine. Bright light surrounded her, full of fuzzy shapes and figures. They scrambled back -- a clattering noise as something was knocked over -- a high, piercing sound. A moment later she realized it was her own voice, screaming.
“Jesus Christ!” Someone shouted it from her left. The voice felt far too loud in her ears, sent a wave of pain pounding through her skull. Yet they did it again: “Jesus Christ, she’s alive!”
Alive.
Bleary-eyed, Estelle rolled to the side and coughed up a thin trickle of vile liquid. She also, apparently, reached the edge of whatever she was sitting on -- she fell to the floor, banging her elbow.
Someone was sobbing and gibbering nearby, while another person gasped repeatedly like they were choking. She pushed herself up onto one arm, then fell back down. Too weak. Help me, Estelle tried to say, but all that came out was a hollow wheeze. Her throat felt full of coarse sand.
Finally, a more commanding voice spoke: “Someone -- someone get her up. Here…”
Hands, cold and oddly rubbery on her skin. Naked, I’m naked. It didn’t seem to matter. The hands took her under the shoulders and hauled her onto her feet. Her legs immediately threatened to collapse, but she was propped up. Estelle blinked, trying to clear the fuzzy white fog that filled her vision. Slowly, a blurry face came into view. It was wearing a paper mask, a pair of bugged eyes goggling over it.
“Ms. Kington,” the man began uncertainly. “Are you -- can you hear me?”
She didn’t bother trying to speak, but simply nodded. That sent another lump of pain racketing around her brainpan, so she quickly stopped.
“I don’t believe it,” someone whispered to her right. She glanced in that direction without moving her head and saw another figure in medical scrubs. Doctors. Was she in a hospital? But, no, the room -- which was gradually coming into focus -- looked strange. Almost like she were in a tent…
A sudden clattering of motion made her jump, nearly slipping from the doctor’s grip. A booming voice shouted somewhere close by, and then the door to the room was thrown open. Booker stood framed in it, gaping at her as if he’d thought he’d never see her again. As if she had…
I died. The realization settled on her all at once, and with it came a rush of memory: a cave, something gold, then voices and pain and the sound of the world exploding right beside her head. A feeling like turning her neck too sharply -- and then nothing.
Nothing.
“Estelle,” Booker breathed. “You’re --”
She swallowed, desperate to find her voice. “Booker?” Her tongue felt too thick and heavy to use.
He stumbled forward, into the small room already crowded with doctors and medical equipment. One of the doctors moved to intercept him, then seemed to think better of it, and she was relinquished into his arms. She could feel the warmth of him, so vibrant and alive it was almost a blazing heat, eating away at a deep chill she hadn’t been aware of until now.
Booker was crying, face buried in her hair. He was saying something, but she couldn’t make out the mumbled words. Over his shoulder, she saw a woman standing in the open doorway, staring slack-jawed at her. She wore a strange white uniform with a patch on one shoulder.
“Booker,” Estelle managed. “Where…”
“It’s alright, you’re fine, you’re safe. Alive, fucking hell, you’re alive.”
“Where…are we?”
He stepped back, holding her by the shoulders and beaming at her, eyes red and watery. “It doesn’t matter right now.” Suddenly his countenance changed, growing stern, and he barked at someone over her shoulder. “Can we get her a blanket? Food, water --”
“Agent Hopkins, we need to -- we should perform --”
“You’re not cutting her open,” he growled.
What?
“Of course not.” The other man sounded slightly offended. “She’s alive. But we need to -- we must find out why. What has happened…this could change everything.”
“Later,” Booker said firmly. He grabbed a thin sheet from the table and draped it over her shoulders. “After she’s rested, for God’s sake.”
“No,” Estelle croaked. He looked down at her, surprised. She tried to turn around, needing to push against him to make it work. She felt so weak. Three doctors were clustered behind her. She addressed the one at the front of the group. “Tell me. What happened?”
They exchanged looks. “That’s -- we don’t know,” said the man at the front. “You were dead, by all definitions. Dead, for over sixteen hours.”
The weight of the number bounced off her like a rubber ball. Maybe she was just too numb to grasp it right now. “Dead,” she echoed, nodding. “A gun.”
“To the head,” the doctor said, almost apologetically. “Instant brain death. Recovery should -- is impossible.”
“Clearly not,” Booker snapped. He seemed worried that, if they focused on the impossibility of the situation, it might undo itself.
The doctor took a step forward, one hand raised. “May I?” Estelle nodded, and he gingerly parted the hair hanging
over her left ear. “I don’t believe it. The wound, it’s healed over. Completely. But the scar, it’s -- it’s gold.”
Gold.
Shimmering in the dark. Form, purpose.
“What?” Booker moved around her and peered at the side of her head. His silence felt deep and ominous. “Does that mean --?”
“It’s the only explanation,” the doctor said, suddenly sounding exhilarated. “The artifact must have healed her. Or at least begun some sort of regenerative process. Why it took so long, compared to Mr. Álvarez -- I don’t know, perhaps the extent of the damage…”
Artifact. The Ark. Yes, she remembered it -- remember seeing it, in that dark cave. Remembered…
A voice. Whispering. Not just a voice, but another life, millennia passing like sand blowing in the wind.
The room began to shake terribly, the ground trembling. The doctors reached for something to hold onto, eyes looking frightened above their masks. Booker moved to steady her, but Estelle closed her eyes, letting the soft darkness enfold her. Distantly, behind it, she sensed more than saw a white nothingness, and in that a presence, a mind out of control, twisted by emotion.
Her.
“She’s angry,” Estelle whispered.
“What?” Booker asked. “Who’s angry?”
Rejection led to isolation and pain, but she had had enough. They had attacked her, wounded her, proven themselves unworthy. It was time to start anew.
“The Ark.” Estelle opened her eyes. The earthquake had passed, and with it her sense of connection, of experiencing powerful emotion as if from a great distance. “Something’s going to happen.” She looked up at Booker. “We’re still here, aren’t we? Sinai?”
He nodded. “How do you know that?”
Estelle finally managed a smile. “Where else would we be?”
The woman standing in the doorway said, “Uh, I’m going to go get Nasim. She needs to know about this.”
“Yes,” the doctor said, “hurry.”
Estelle blinked. “Wait -- Nasim?”
* * *
Jets of blue-green fire roared straight up and extended to all sides of the Ark like spokes on a wheel. One passed above Rick’s shoulder, and he felt the material of the hazmat suit begin to bubble, felt his own flesh being pulled towards it. Streams of stone were gathered up and sucked into it, deforming the floor even more, pulling a tumorous growth out of the nearest pillar. That same force tugged on him, drawing him back towards the edge of the pit. Torv, hanging from his arms, was pulled horizontally into the air.
Kai grabbed Rick by one leg and hauled them both backwards. A moment later the jets of fire crashed back into the Ark, and they all fell to the floor. Then came a flash of gold, a rumble, and a sick but familiar lurch. When Rick sat up, the floor of the chamber around the pit was no longer smooth but a bizarre landscape of tortured rock, as if the stone had become molten and then froze instantly.
Torv was already on his feet. He helped Rick up, and they found Kai on the other side of a weird, humping spur. “Dr. Halley!” Torv called. “Dr. Okai!” In the sudden labyrinth of stone, the two were nowhere to be seen.
“Here!” gasped Halley. Okai grunted a moment later.
“The wall,” Kai said. “We make for it.” It remained clearly visible in the distance, towering over them and the labyrinth, its stepped and tiered face relatively unchanged. Rick was relieved to see the ladders leading up to the exit were still in place.
Torv nodded. “Go. Halley, Okai, we’ll meet up with you there.”
They began their retreat, winding circuitously around fins and bulbous protrusions of stone. Nobody spoke -- the only sounds were Rick’s own breathing, the panting of Dr. Halley or Dr. Okai or both over the radio, and the sounds of the Ark. It rumbled and cracked, blue-green fire occasionally lancing overhead. He kept waiting for the sensation that preceded one of those massive fits, but none came. Maybe that last one had exhausted it.
The rear wall seemed mountainous when they finally reached it. Looking back, Rick could see a chaotic flurry of activity coming from the Ark. It was pulling streams of stone into itself, the material transmuting to a shimmering liquid gold. Directly above it, a hole had been bored straight through the mountain by that last vertical plume of energy.
Torv turned on the spot, swearing, searching for the two doctors. A moment later Okai came stumbling out of the maze to their left. “Still think this thing can be salvaged?” the last of Retrieval team snapped at him, even as he was ushering him up the first ladder.
“Dr. Halley,” Kai said over the radio. “Where are you?”
“I -- I don’t know!” The man sounded on the verge of panic.
Kai kept his voice calm. “Just head for the wall. You see it, right?”
“Yes! Yes, I -- I see you!”
The man rounded a tubular growth a moment later, directly ahead of them, following a path that must have run parallel to their own. He scrambled towards the wall and immediately set off up the ladder. Dr. Okai had reached the first plateau and was mounting the second ladder.
Rick went up next, followed by Kai and then Torv. He could barely see through his faceplate, it was so fogged up, and his baggy suit kept snagging on the rungs. At the first stone landing he paused and tore off his hood. It was much louder, the air thick with heat and sharp with ozone, but at least he could see.
“Keep moving.” Torv didn’t seem to care that he’d removed his hood.
Rick mounted the second ladder. By the time he reached the next landing, he was starting to feel nervous. Something had to happen; it had been too long. Yet they continued to climb unhindered. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see past the labyrinth and down into the pit. The Ark was lost in a swirling miasma of liquid gold and crackling energy. Whatever it was doing didn’t look good, but at least it was leaving them alone for the moment.
After what felt like a much longer climb than their initial descent, he hauled himself up onto the top of the wall and found himself standing in what remained of the original, smaller chamber. Dr. Halley and Dr. Okai were already there, both men looking uncertain, like they had been on the verge of bolting before Rick showed up. Even Okai looked less enthusiastic about the whole situation.
He turned to help Kai up. Torv waved away his hand, practically leaping the last few rungs. The five of them stood for a moment to catch their breaths.
“Well,” Torv said, gesturing back towards the blazing light of the Ark. “Any ideas, doctors? What the hell is going on? How did it -- how did it break through the containment?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Okai said.
“How can you not know? This is your area of expertise, you designed the damn thing! Tell me, why did all of my friends just die? They were supposed to be safe with the containment -- why are they dead?”
He stepped back, hands raised. “I don’t know, alright?! We underestimated a fully-active AUO, clearly!”
Kai spoke over them both. “Can we pick this up later?”
Torv nodded. “Yeah. Right. We’ll talk later. You can explain to everyone why you fucked up so badly.” He brushed past Okai before the doctor could respond, marching towards the tunnel leading up out of the chamber. “Move it, people!”
Dr. Halley hurried to follow, and Okai a half-second later, Rick and Kai bringing up the rear.
Torv had already ducked into the tunnel. Dr. Halley was following when the stone around them began to shake and a prickling tension rose in Rick’s chest.
Oh, no.
“Everybody run!”
Before they could take a step there came an ear-splitting roar from behind. Hot, electrified air blew against the back of Rick’s neck, shoving him forward and slamming him into the wall beside the tunnel entrance. Kai collided with Dr. Okai, the two of them tumbling into the tunnel. Dr. Halley yelped, stumbling to the side -- and then was speared through the middle by a bolt of blue-green fire.
For a moment he stood frozen, a look of surprise on his face as he rega
rded the flickering, crackling spear emerging from his abdomen. Then he fell to the ground, writhing while his hazmat suit grew misshapen and lumpy. An awful gurgling moan could be heard, and as Halley twisted around Rick saw through his faceplate a bubbling mass of flesh, bulging eyes, a burst of blood --
An ear-splitting shriek filled the chamber, making Rick clap his hands over his ears. The sound was so terrible, so agonized, so high and unending, it made his eyes water. Rick could hear nothing else -- and it wasn’t coming from Halley.
“Rick!”
A massive hand crashed against his face.
The shriek ended at once, and Rick was on his feet, hauled up by Kai. He tried to say something, to tell Kai he was ok, that he could walk, but Kai was dragging him back into the tunnel and swearing endlessly -- and Rick saw why.
Dr. Halley continued to writhe, something moving inside his suit that didn’t look at all human. But whatever had happened to him was the least of their concerns.
The top of the cliff wall had been blasted away, leaving only a narrow ledge. As he watched it began to crumble, Halley’s twisted form tumbling into a vast abyss. The Ark’s temple was now a cavity wide enough to hold a small town and tall enough to contain a skyscraper. Swirling in the center of it was a cyclone of blazing golden fire, shot through with blue-green. Here and there chunks of stone hurtled past, dissolving into showers of gold as they went. In the middle of it all shone an even brighter light, a hard diamond chip of pure luminescence, hanging in the middle of the storm.
That wall of fire, Rick noticed, was rapidly expanding.
* * *
After dressing in the clothes she’d died in -- presented to her in a plastic bag emblazoned with a red biohazard symbol -- Estelle and Booker left the tent known as Wetlab. She blinked in the sun, taking in the size of the camp, trying to orient herself in the present.
“I missed a lot, huh?” she whispered to Booker.
“A bit, yeah.” He kept looking at her from the corner of his eye as if to make sure she were still there.
A Covenant of Thieves Page 66
