Agnosis – Ch. 26

<– Chapter 25 / Chapter 27 –>

They shuttled back down to the Giari Tau station within the hour, accompanied by an escort of willing Marines led by Lieutenant Sainz.The Misfit Toys were enticed to come along, though it was not a decision made without reservations, many of which Dorian assumed had something to do with leaving the bomb unattended after they’d gone through so much to locate it.But Amara spoke to Ray privately, and whatever she said to him provided all the reassurance he needed.

The shuttle was small and crowded with so many passengers—they’d had to leave most of the Marines behind on the flight deck, and even then most of them had refused to disperse until Amara ordered that the loading ramp be lowered so that she could stand at the opening to the airframe and wave to them.The soldiers had watched her with bright eyes and broad smiles on their lips, not even understanding the emotions that had overtaken them, just pleased to have been in her presence.

Dorian spent the whole episode expecting them to start throwing their underwear into the doorway.

When the loading ramp had been retracted and the shuttle sealed for transit once more, Amara fell into the seat beside him and placed her hand companionably over his.

“That’s a sour look,” she said.“You don’t approve of their adoration.”

“They don’t understand their adoration.You’re a rock star to them, a celebrity whose rumors have become larger than life, no doubt thanks to our dear Lieutenant Sainz.”

“Korin has witnessed wonders.Can you blame him for wanting to share that experience with others?”

“Korin doesn’t have a clue about how it works.He doesn’t know anything about the Exousiai and quantum event manipulation.”

Amara laughed.“And knowing the mechanism, even if one can’t duplicate it, makes the whole affair less mystical, is that it?It stops being miracles and merely becomes science.Are you saying you’d rather have theatrical hand waving than a solid explanation?”

“No.I’m just saying that it isn’t the same.Mechanics can fail.Magic is easier to believe in.”

“And yet Raville has told us that doubt is a sign of spiritual maturity.A wise man once said:let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds, but when he finds, he will become troubled. And once he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and then he will rule over all knowledge.”

“I don’t want to know everything,” Dorian responded.

Amara’s expression grew serious, and she squeezed his hand.“Do you still believe, John?In me, I mean.Not that I’m some kind of goddess, but that I am who I say I am, and that I can do what I said I can do?Do you trust me still?”

Dorian sat up nervously, and narrowed his gaze in her direction.“Every time you ask me that, it means that something bad is about to happen.”

“No, it means that something interesting is about to occur.”Her smile was guileless, but he knew better than to take it at face value.

“Same difference.”

“Think about it if you must,” she said then.“We’ll talk again later.”

The craft slipped gently out into space and began the smooth descent toward Giari Tau.Dorian did not speak much for the duration of the flight.Mostly, he listened to Ghast and Thomas as they recounted their adventures while infiltrating the Indinanapolis for Amara, who smiled and clapped her hands at the appropriate junctures.At odd intervals, he tuned out their narrative to shamelessly eavesdrop on Raville’s tightbeam radio transmissions with the station.He learned in this way that at some point, they had passed the shuttle bearing Temple and DeMartel back to their flagship, and that he—John Dorian—was to consider himself unwelcome aboard the Indianapolis in the future, and should he consider violating that order, he would be summarily executed at the first convenient moment.

Despite the fact that he had kept their ship from wantonly destroying a foreign government’s research station, the Flight Commander apparently insisted upon believing that the whole episode was somehow Dorian’s fault, that he had maliciously and automagically infected their datacore to take vengeance on the Strat military for killing his friends in the warehouse battle.

Dorian supposed that this might be considered technically true, if one left out the bits about it being malicious or even intentional, though he had, in fact, been the one who had borne Raville’s package in his foam all the way from the Archive to the ship’s datacore.It didn’t really matter as far as he was concerned.He didn’t have any plans of ever setting foot on the Indianapolis again.

He also discovered that the crew of the Juggernaut was able to stabilize their decaying orbit and return some power to the ship’s engines.They had lost nearly seven hundred hands in the attack, but barring a catastrophic series of failures, the worst was behind them, and given a few weeks of feverish labor, the Juggernaut should be able to begin the long limp home.When Raville announced this news, the Marines aboard the shuttle sent up a raucous cheer, and Dorian joined them, proving once and for all (to himself, if no one else), that though he wasn’t a friend of the Strat military apparatus, he wasn’t a complete jerk either.

They had saved many lives today.Thousands, in fact.

And in just over sixteen hours, they would lose the one that mattered to him the most.

When they reached the station, Dorian and Amara returned to the rooms that had been provided for them the previous day.Raville locked himself away with Ford Garrison and representatives of the station’s technical staff, including Fen Corrie, Dr. Skiles and Kenwood Bryce, to prepare for the deployment of their weapon.Lieutenant Sainz and his men were billeted in the dormitory that had previously been set aside for them.The Misfit Toys did as they had always done and made their own way.No one was exactly certain where they had gotten off to, but before departing, Raville pointedly informed station security not to make trouble for them.Ray and his crew had earned a modicum of grace.

Amara shared with Dorian from her secret storehouse of knowledge that they had broken into one of the alternate VIP suites on the far side of the station’s bowl and made themselves very merry indeed before collapsing at last into well-deserved sleep.

They were alone once more at last.To occupy themselves, they prepared a meal for which neither of them had the stomach, then picked aimlessly at it as they sat across from one another at the dining room table.In between, they made desultory chatter, though there was little signal and much noise in their communication.By the time they cleared away their plates, neither of them had eaten more than a few bites.Eventually, they retreated to the bedroom to sleep.It was still early, barely mid-afternoon station time, but it had already been a long day.An unendurably long day.

Dorian lay side by side with Amara and stared at the ceiling, exhausted but unable to fall asleep.She was quiet and thoughtful.He sighed often, but said nothing.After a time, they made love.Because it felt necessary, he thought, rather than out of want.It seemed the only way to express the unspoken feeling between them.He couldn’t define the emotion except to say that it felt like dread, only with longer claws.It reminded him of Lily, of grief, but grief seemed like the wrong word.He had grieved for Lily, and it had been a weight on his heart, a great stone bearing down on his chest.This was something else.If grief was a stone, this was an entire mountain shattered and collapsed on top of him.A volume of rubble from which he would never be able to dig himself clear.

Amara joked that she might as well put her body to good use for the last few hours that remained to it, but Dorian did not laugh.

In the end, and hating himself for it, he slept.

He didn’t know what else to do.

She whispered into his ear.Mysteries he did not hear.

Dorian opened one eye, and that hardly a slit. He wasn’t awake yet, still somewhere in the twilight lands between slumber and groggy awareness, and all he wanted to do was roll away from her and go back to sleep.He didn’t want to be awake.The waking world was full of pain and loss and grief he didn’t want to face again.

Then he wondered what time it was, how long he had been asleep, and then immediately after, by reflex, how many hours remained for her.That was all it took.

Dorian goaded himself up, groaning through the progressive discovery that he was sore from crawling around starship underbellies.Eventually, he forced the other eye open.The bedroom lights were low, the room full of shadows, giving the impression that evening had snuck up on him.Amara sat on the edge of the bed beside him, dressed in a silk robe—pink, with blue flowers.She held a mug of steaming hot coffee in one hand and offered it in his direction.

He accepted the mug gratefully after working himself upright and putting his back against the headboard.

“How long have you been awake?” he asked, prodded by a stab of guilt.

“Long enough to make coffee,” she teased.“But not much more than that.It’s getting late, though.Time for you to get up, or you’ll never get to sleep tonight.”

He doubted he’d be doing much of that anyway.“What time is it?”

“We have about two hours before someone will come to take us down to the lab Raville has set up for the disassembly and encoding procedure,” she said, answering the question he did not dare to ask.

Dorian sipped at his coffee and frowned.She made it sound so clinical and straightforward, like a medical check-up—mildly uncomfortable, but not otherwise a reason for concern.

“I put out some clothes for you,” Amara said.“Your old ones were filthy.”

“Thanks.”

Amara nudged him gently with her hip until he made room for her.She curled up beside him, bending one knee over his thighs and tucking her arm beneath the small of his back.She lay her head against his chest, and didn’t speak.Dorian imagined that she was listening to him breathe.He didn’t want her to stop, didn’t want to interrupt her or disturb the feel of her warmth and the tactile comfort of her body pressed against his, skin to skin.

A hollow ache swelled in his chest.He was so close to losing her, and there was nothing he could say to make it better.

“What were you saying when you woke me?” he asked.“You whispered something in my ear, but I didn’t hear it.”

“I asked if you still trusted me.”

“And what did I answer?”

“You didn’t.”

“Ah.That’s because my mother always told me never to commit to anything asked of you in the warm afterglow of sex,” he joked.“She used to say that was how she ended up married to my father.”

Amara nuzzled his chest.He thought she might be smiling.“My mother told me that afterglow was the only time most men would ever give truly honest answers.”

“Check and mate,” Dorian said.“On the other hand, the fact that we’re talking about what our mothers learned from having sex is more than a little icky.On those grounds, I move that we declare this match a forfeit and reset the board.”

“I want you to answer my question first.”

“I do,” he said.It shouldn’t surprise him that she was in a serious mood.She only had a few hours left to live.“You require a ton of reassurance for a semi-omniscient being, you know that?Did I give you a reason to doubt me?”

“No.Like you said, I just needed some reassurance.Humor me, okay?”

He stroked her hair and drank his coffee.“Sure.”

Instead of letting it drop there, she pressed ahead.“Do you believe in me more than you believe the things Michael Raville told us this morning?”

“Of course I do.Are you sure there’s nothing serious behind this sudden urge to interrogate me?”Dorian poked her in the ribs, having discovered that she was ticklish there.“I was talking in my sleep again, wasn’t I?”

Instead of playing, however, Amara sat up and pulled her robe tight around her body.She looked closely at him, her expression grave, as though she was measuring him against a standard he could not see.Her lips trembled.“Do you still trust me even though you know that much of what he said about the Exousiai and their intentions was the truth?”

This wasn’t how he wanted to spend their last hours together, talking about Michael Raville, but Dorian stuffed his annoyance back into the hole it had crawled out of and made himself shrug in a way that felt both casual and reassuring.

“Sure, because it wasn’t the whole truth.Raville has learned a great deal about the Exousiai and about his relationship to them, but my impression from his datacore was that even he recognizes that his knowledge is imperfect.He gets the side of the story that the pattern-father wants him to have, which may be factually correct, but it isn’t the whole story.He knows that too, but he doesn’t let it bother him.He’s chosen his side, believes what he believes, and he’s not going to dig any deeper because he doesn’t want to know anything else.We’re responsible for the things we understand, and this problem is already complicated enough without looking for more reasons to doubt.For what it’s worth, I’m convinced that he’s sincere, and that he really does want to protect humanity, but that doesn’t make him right.Or at least not totally right.Whether or not that matters in the end remains to be seen.”

“Unfortunately, sometimes understanding imperfectly is worse than knowing everything,” Amara said quietly.Her gaze flicked away from his, uncertain, frightened, both.“We aren’t able to see all ends, all the potential consequences of our actions.That’s when we’re the most dangerous, you know.As human beings or as Exousiai, we make our biggest mistakes when we’re sure of that what we’re doing is right.It’s when we hurt those around us the most.”

“That’s why all other things being equal, I’ll side with the god I know rather than the one I don’t.”

He meant it as encouragement, a statement of faith in her, but Amara frowned and clasped her fingers together in her lap.“We aren’t gods.You were right about that all along.”

“Eh, I like you better as merely superhuman anyway.I’ve learned that I’m intimidated by hot chicks who are also divinities.”

Her frown deepened.“Please stop teasing me.I need you be serious.”

“Fine, I’ll be serious.”Dorian put on a grim face and tried to sit up as straight and tense as she appeared.“I don’t think Raville is right, and I’m not convinced that his bomb—with or without the addition of a spoonful of pearl to help the medicine go down—is going to be as effective as he thinks it will be.I’m also not convinced that it will provide adequate safeguards for the defense of humanity against the wrath of the Exousiai once they realize we’ve attacked them.Maybe I just lack the appropriate faith in this pattern-father thing, but I learned a long time ago that you should never underestimate the capabilities of someone who believes he has a legitimate reason to revenge himself you.And besides that, given what Raville told us about the entity’s opinion of humanity in the first place, I can’t imagine the pattern-father putting much effort into the bits of the bomb designed to protect us from their backlash in the first place.Protecting us isn’t really his primary goal here.

“Let me put it this way:when Ray and the Misfit Toys go after an oppressive political regime, they don’t build their plans around the core idea that the herds of cattle fenced in the green fields around the capital must be protected at all costs.A few cows are a small price to pay for victory.By the same token, if the collapsing regime decided to use those cows as a weapon and sent them stampeding through the town in an attempt to disrupt the impending revolution, no one would sit back and try to understand what’s got the cows feeling so aggrieved or how the revolution can proceed without hurting any of the bovine innocents.They defend the community and the movement by going after the herd and corralling it or if necessary, killing as many of the cows as it takes to get the situation back under control.Do you see what I mean?”He lifted her chin until she looked at him.“And if all of that wasn’t enough to give me pause, my deeply felt personal position on this issue is that any solution predicated on sacrificing your life is categorically the wrong one.How’s that?”

The stern line of her jaw softened and the tension in shoulders relaxed.Amara smiled appreciatively, but instead of melting gaily into his reassurances as he’d hoped, she launched off in another direction.“Nevertheless, as you’ve pointed out, Raville believes that he is doing the right thing.He isn’t going to change his mind just because we raise a few objections.He’s convinced himself that he is the channel for if not a true deity, a great and noble being qualitatively inseparable from a god, at least.He isn’t a mere prophet, but an avatar, the god writ small.He doesn’t have to doubt the will of his god, because the god’s will is his own.Nor does he have to take responsibility for the decisions he makes or the path that has been prepared for him because the deity of which he is a part planned this entire scheme long ago.He’s only fulfilling his destiny.”

“I’m not going to argue with you that he isn’t a sociopath,” Dorian agreed.“But what’s your point?”

Amara took a deep breath, hesitating as though what she was about to say frightened her.“With such unshakeable assurance to guide him, Raville is on the verge of perpetrating a great wrong in the name of preserving humanity.”

“Um, yeah.Hello?I’ve already raised this objection.At the meeting this morning, remember?Killing attractive young women, even to save the universe, is wrong.I think that’s in the Bible, in fact, in the chapter about all the bad things that make the baby Jesus cry.”Dorian had to fight hard against the mounting feeling of excitement rising inside him.His grip on the coffee mug turned his knuckles white.Almost breathlessly, he asked, “Are you saying you’ve changed your mind about going through with this?”

“No,” she responded firmly.“In that, at least, Raville remains correct.Returning to the Exousiai is my purpose in being.It’s what I was made for.I can’t deny that now.”

“Then what is all this about?”

“Michael Raville has revealed to me that I am the product of an argument taking place within the soul of the entity.I am equal parts of the old and the new, the traditional sustaining methods of the entity and the radical evolution envisioned by the pattern-father.The two sides war within me even now, shadowing my paths with doubt, just as they must constantly war within the Exousiai.Doubt is merely another word for entropy.It saps the spirit’s strength.

“But I also know that there is a natural balance between these two impulses, the urge to remain and the will to become something new.This constant tension is part of the energy that propels the destiny of the entity forward, because even though the methods they pursue are at odds, the two sides share a common goal.They both seek the hope of a future free from fear and the threat of extinction, whether that be through the acquisition of divinity, or the reduction of themselves into finite and fragile units once more.What Raville has proposed and what the pattern-father seeks is that we should tip the scales in favor of radical change without the consent of the entity at large and see what shakes out.”

“Survival of the fittest,” Dorian said.“It will definitely make things interesting for them, whatever else it accomplishes.”

Amara’s voice grew strident.Her hands curled into fists.“But even if it helps them to wage their struggle against entropy and preserves their future as a coherent race, can any change based on deceit and the willful execution of the weak be right?”

Dorian put his hands up defensively.“Whoa.Moral questions.Not my bag.Sorry.”

“You don’t get to sit on the sidelines for this one,” Amara snapped.“This is a moral situation, whether you like it or not, and choosing not to have an opinion or going along with what everyone else decides is the same thing as making a decision.”

“Don’t even try to pin that one on me.You know I’ve been against this from the beginning.I believe I’ve been very vocal about being against it, in fact.”

Her gaze was piercing in its intensity.“Yes, but you’ve still gone along because you thought it was your duty to support me.You’ve consented with your actions if not with your mouth.”

“I’m confused.I thought I consented because you said it was necessary to save humanity and because you said it was what you had to do.”

“I appreciate that, but it’s not good enough now.Now, I’m telling you that you need to make your own decisions and act on them, and not just do whatever it is you think I want.”

“You want me to take a stand, is that it?” he inquired, arching his eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Even if that means trying to stop you from killing yourself if that’s what I believe is right?”

“Yes, John.”

“Why?”

Amara slumped in exasperation.“Because what you want matters to me.I want to know what you think, where you stand, how important any of this is to you—and I don’t mean how important I am to you.You’ve proven that.I want to know what you want.”

She was certainly serious, even if she wasn’t making any sense to him.Dorian chuckled softly and ruffled her hair with his fingers.“You’re beyond me, Amara, beyond all of us.You can do whatever you choose, and there’s nothing we can do to stop you, goddess or not.That makes my opinions a moot point.”

“Forget what you think I want, John!I’m asking you to decide if you’re willing to fight for what is right rather than what seems to be necessary or expedient or loyal.”Her cheeks flushed and she inhaled a sharp breath.Amara growled at him, plaintive and frustrated.“I need to know how far you’re willing to go with me.”

“Why has my dedication suddenly become an issue?Or even my moral orientation for that matter?”Dorian stopped himself as he began to get angry.The rising tide of his indignation receded.He should have known her better than that.She wasn’t testing his resolve, but doubting her own.“I’m not asking the right questions, am I?What I should be asking is:what have you already done?”

Amara leapt out of the bed as though she’d been stunk.Her mouth snapped open as though she was about to dump a bucketload of invective on top of him, but no words came out.At last, she ducked her head guiltily.

“You know me too well.”

“Not as well as your ethereal friends, but I do what I can.Quit stalling and spill it.”

“You’re going to be angry with me.”

“I’ve been angry with you more often than not since this whole thing started.Hasn’t stopped you yet.”

Surprisingly, she grinned in response.“Did you know that I can read Raville’s quae-ha-distra?It isn’t exactly like mine, but the principal is the same.The orbs can communicate with one another.”

“I’d guessed as much.You seemed pretty focused on his during the meeting this morning, which was pretty odd, given that you’ve got one of your own to play with.”

“It taught me a great deal that was unexpected, both about what my purpose is and what I am.It contained more secrets than Raville was willing to reveal.As a result, I’ve begun to see with renewed clarity and to understand the obligations I have to all that I am, and not just to forces which believe they made me to be a tool for their hand.”

Dorian nodded in encouragement.“It’s good to get new perspectives.”

He wasn’t ready to give up the hope that she might still change her mind about accepting death.

“I believe that I was made to bring unity to the divergent forces within the Exousiai.I believe that I was formed for reasons that neither the entity nor the pattern-father preordained.I’m wasn’t made just to be a delivery mechanism for the pattern-father’s bomb, but neither was I created merely to serve as a catalyst for the absorption of humanity into the entity.Something else entirely caused me to be, molded me from the substance of the Exousiai and embedded me in the matter of humanity to throw open the gates for a future even they haven’t begun to imagine yet.There has to be a middle way between the is and the is not, the do and the do not, to get them there.A way that isn’t founded on deception, betrayal and violence.”

Dorian rubbed his chin thoughtfully, not really understanding.“And you think you’ve found this other way?”

“I do,” she said in a voice that sounded like a wince.“But to walk that path, I need your help.”

“I won’t help you kill yourself.I can’t.”His voice was harsh, hard, but all he felt was weakness.She had told him to take a stand.Well, here it was.“I might not be able to stop you, Amara, but that doesn’t mean that I have to participate in it.”

Speaking the words felt like a betrayal, a Judas kiss on her lips.

But Amara nodded her head, as though she had been waiting to hear him say it.“I’m not planning on letting myself be destroyed.That’s what makes this so hard.It isn’t my death that frightens me.”

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.“What do you mean?”

Her eyes filled with tears.“I go to a place already prepared for me, to a home that I’ve almost forgotten.But there’s no death for me on the other side of the veil, only a different kind of being.A richer and more glorious becoming than I know how to envision.But it’s still home.I’m not giving up anything but a life that’s a pale shadow of my true self.It isn’t a sacrifice to walk out of the darkness and into the light, John.”

Dorian grunted, disappointed.“Yeah, for you and every other religious nut in the history of humanity.Come on, Amara.I’m not in the mood to play semantic games.When Raville disassembles your body and stuffs you inside his bomb, you’re going to be dead as far as the rest of us are concerned.If there’s some form of immortality beyond that, some transfer of information or non-dissipating encoded energy wave that simulates you, it won’t mean anything here, to those of us who are left behind.You’ll still be dead.”

And I’ll be alone.

“You don’t have to be,” Amara answered, almost in a whisper.“From the beginning, you’ve asked why you were chosen for this task, why you were taken away from all that you have ever known and cast into a situation for which you were unsuited and unprepared.Do you remember the answer that Lily gave you when you asked it of her?”

It seemed like years ago that the two of them had sat in Lily and Danek’s basement wondering what they were going to do about the orb, but he did remember.It was one of the few pieces of her that remained to him.“She told me not to let my fear of making monsters paralyze me and just make the leap.”

“You’ve been very pious about observing the second half of her advice.You’ve made small leaps every time they were asked of you.You’ve gone along, done your best, performed miracles in your own way, even if you didn’t want to.Even though you were terrified that it would eventually come down to this, to me giving up my life to save everyone else.But you’ve never given yourself totally to this cause.In the back of your mind, you’ve always hoped that we would fail.Even while seeming to go along, you’ve withheld the part of you that matters the most, that would actually make a difference, because you’re afraid of making another monster.You needed to be sure that when we did fail, you wouldn’t be responsible.You’re so afraid of making things worse that you refuse to try and make them better.You’re so afraid of losing what you have that you won’t grasp your full portion.”

“I don’t want any more if killing you is the cost,” Dorian railed in return.“Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

Amara surged forward and knelt beside the bed.She took his hand and held it against her cheek.“Listen to me:I chose you before I was even aware that the Exousian part of me existed, without even knowing that I had done it, I chose you.I needed you to help me because you’re special, John.You know that, don’t you?The things you do in and with the Strand, with networks and datacores, with any dataverse you encounter. . .they’re breathtaking.You do things in those spaces that most people can’t even imagine.When you work, it’s like watching a sorcerer conjuring spirits from the netherworld.The sad part is that sometimes I think you’ve chosen to forget how magnificent the talents are which you possess.You’ve spent too much time denying your gifts to fully appreciate them anymore, blaming yourself for what happened to Lily.But the rest of us, we’ve seen what you can accomplish.We stand in awe of you.”

Dorian grunted.“Yeah?I can name a dozen jacks off the top of my head who are better than I am.Maybe two dozen.People who can really do amazing things with the Strand, with incursion scripts and data architectures.What does that have to do with this?”

“The difference is that none of them is you,” she insisted.“I don’t care that you think they may be better or faster or more clever.I’m telling you that you can be more than anyone like you has ever been.Your potential is what I need.I picked you because you know instinctively how to lay bare the self-sufficient mind of an information lattice and convert that chaos of text and impulse and pattern into the Living Word.You’re not afraid to dare the impossible to protect what you love.It’s you that I need.You that I want.”

“So I should be flattered that you chose me to help murder you?”he returned icily.“Thanks to me you get to go out on your own terms rather than the way Raville had planned for you, is that it?”

She looked up at him, her eyes fierce and full of love.“No, John.I chose you to be with me.To come with me.To save me from death.”

It took him a moment to understand what she meant.“Into the entity.”

“’When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the kingdom.’The render of Raville’s wife told us that, remember?I didn’t understand it until today.”Amara grimaced.“We should have asked better questions.It would have saved us a ton of grief.”

Dorian stared at her as though she had gone mad.His body felt numb, frozen.“You’re talking about. . .what?Taking me with you?Encoding me as—“He shook his head stubbornly.“No.That can’t be right.I’m not one of you.I’m not like you.I can’t exist that way, as information, as a bodiless. . .accretion.I’m human.It would be the same thing as suicide.”

“You wouldn’t be human anymore,” she responded softly, fearfully.“You would be part of me, a self-aware pattern enfolded into the essence of the pearl.We would be. . .one.”

“Ah, dead together, you mean.But at least neither one of us would be alone, right?”

“There is no reason that either of us should have to die.Not a true death, at least.It’s just our bodies that will be lost.”

“Until we get digested by the entity.Or have you forgotten about that part?”

“I haven’t forgotten what Raville said,” Amara responded.“But I don’t believe it must necessarily occur as he imagines it, either.There is a way to avoid that end which may be the key to salvation for us all.”

She got his attention at least.“Go on.”

“The entity as constituted is an information network, a delicately constructed lattice of energetic waves and particles streaming through nodal points embedded in the fabric of their universe.At the core, it is simply a vast and orchestrated cohesion living information maintained in a virtual datascape.The entity is a construct containing the conscious representations of the Exousiai and all that they have ever known.A construct the size of the universe, true, but nevertheless, still just a construct.”Amara gazed at him significantly.“If it is an information machine, you can jack it.I believe that.”

“Jack a network the size of an entire universe.”The concept was beyond Dorian’s comprehension.He couldn’t even begin to grapple with it, so he set it aside.“For what purpose?”

“Enfolded inside me, with full access to the knowledge and skill of the Exousiai, I think that given a chance, you could figure out a way to hold us, you and I, together as distinct information patterns long enough for a miracle to happen.”

“A miracle?” Dorian said, skeptically.

“If we can resist the attempts by the entity to absorb our unique pattern and establish ourselves as an individuated unit of thought and experience, it will exacerbate the tension which already exists within the soul of the Exousiai.It will remind those who have forgotten that there is life outside of their oneness.The proof that another being not only can exist, but chooses of its own free will to exist independently can be the catalyst that will tear the entity asunder.”

“How is tearing the entity apart from the inside any different than what Raville has in mind?”

“The difference is the choice,” Amara said.“And choice makes all the difference.Instead of forcing the Exousiai to accept a future that has been determined for them, we would offer them the opportunity to choose their destiny.We will show them that it’s possible to exist outside of the entity by replacing their all encompassing oneness with duality—a duality comprised of you and I as a part of their whole, but not subject to it.We’ll serve as examples of what it means to be independent units of thought and action in a universe that knows no agency but its own, a voice crying in the wilderness.Do you understand?”

He didn’t, not at all, but not understanding wasn’t his primary objection.“It’s a nice thought, but it’s impossible, Amara.Data can’t jack other units of information without some sort of external agency to direct it.Information by itself doesn’t have a will.It isn’t conscious or autonomous, which means that it can’t resist the environment into which its placed.Without an environment, data is just chaos.The environment supplies the rules and the context which structure the data and make its unique patterns useful and apprehendable and meaningful.The function of the entity is to provide that environment where the data patterns that constitute Exousian consciousness exist.Outside of the entity is only oblivion, nothingness, chaos.What Raville plans to do to you involves converting you into a specially encoded data representation, a glorified zap scheme, that is meaningless without an environment on the other end to decode and reassemble the scheme.”

“As an Exousiai, I retained consciousness within the zap process,” Amara reminded him.

“Fine.That still doesn’t change the fact that you’ll be emerging into a hostile environment, where you’ll be subject to its operating rules and data definitions.You can’t escape that any more than files can escape from my foam.If data were to leak out of my architecture, it would just be lost.It would cease to be anything as far as we know.So if you can’t control that environment, or at least a defensible corner of it, this discussion is moot.If you can’t emerge somewhere outside that environment that is not oblivion, this discussion is moot.Since we’ve already established that nothing outside of the entity exists, this discussion is, in fact, moot.”

“What if I told you that another environment could be carved out of the oneness of the entity?One that was wholly independent, yet intimately connected to the entity, which we alone would control.Would our data be able to jack the entity’s data then?”

“Theoretically, sure,” Dorian answered.“We’d be like any other executed script.That’s what scripts are—bits of data acting upon other bits of data to organize the information into new patterns.But in order to do that, we’d have to have access to an environment compatible with or already linked to the entity’s. . .”

The sound of his voice died away as he began to realize what she was proposing.What she had already done.

Amara smiled as understanding dawned upon him.“Raville’s sublime recreation of the quae-ha-distra,” she said, “is modeled upon the pattern of the Exousian network environment.It is a self-sufficient subnet, if you will, connexed by a node that enables communication with the entity without being conjoined with it.It is an imperfect simulacrum, but its imperfection is what makes it unique in a reality that has otherwise been consumed, codified and tamed to the master’s hand.To that extent, it constitutes a wheel within wheels, a universe unto itself.”

“That’s why you sent Raville and I off with to the machine room, so you could let him out of the ship’s datacore without Raville’s knowledge.”He shouldn’t be surprised.When she failed to surprise him was when he should be shocked.“Because you need his code for the orb, so you can. . .enfold it into the pearl’s pattern, and. . .do what?Self-assemble your own environment before you can be absorbed?Raville’s copy agreed to that?”

“I showed him a way to escape certain destruction and offered him the opportunity to fulfill both his dreams of becoming part of the Exousiai and saving the human race.The choice was his.”

“But how did you get him out of the ship’s datacore?Where could he have escaped to?”

She curled her lips wickedly, clearly reveling in his bemusement.“To a place where he could await our coming in a format that was useful.”

In the bomb, of course, which explained why Ray and the Misfit Toys hadn’t been worried about leaving it behind.It had become part of Amara’s master plan, and they were content to accept her will and obey.Dorian had only caught a brief glimpse of the weapon, and he recalled it merely as a sleek black missile, distinctly unimpressive, but he remembered that it had been connexed via a silver datburst cord to the control room through the moderation of a diagnostic array.A control room filled with computers and node access points, all one quick procedure call away from slaving onto the datacore.

She had routed Raville’s package into the processing core of the bomb itself.The package, the code for the quae-ha-distra, everything.Everything Raville had stolen from Dorian’s own foam and then managed to retain as he fled through the ship’s network nodes.All that remained of his past life, Dorian realized.

He could only hope that Raville had saved the best of it, because Dorian knew in that instant that he had made his decision.He had made the only decision he could make.He didn’t care about saving humanity.He didn’t care about preaching the gospel of autonomy to the Exousiai.But Amara did, and she was going ahead with her plan regardless of what he decided.Worrying about the outcome wasn’t his job, and it wasn’t what Amara was asking him to do.

Amara needed him.She was asking him to keep her safe, to enfold himself within the reality and immensity of her being, and protect her from those who would harm her.To save her from death.She had chosen him because she believed he could do it.She trusted him.Not just with her life, but with everything she was.

Thatwas right.It was good and pure and holy.It was the reason he had been created.

How could he do anything but what she asked of him?How could he do anything but trust her?Fidelity was the cost of being a True Believer™.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said at last.“I wouldn’t force you.”

“Meh.Someone has to keep you out of trouble.Besides, what good is being the first guy picked if you decide not to play the game?”

“You know, what Bryce said about backing me up beforehand—just because it wouldn’t work for me doesn’t mean that you couldn’t—“

He cut her off before she could say more.“Let’s not talk about that, okay?If I’m with you, I’m incompletely.Not to mention, the schmuck version who got left behind would hate me.Think how miserable he would be without you.Plus, he’d be unemployed, homeless, stranded at the far edges of the universe. . .I just don’t see how I could do that to myself.”Dorian grinned at her.He felt sharply alert, as though he had just awakened from a long sleep.He took Amara’s hand and held it tightly.“The big question, of course, is whether or not Raville is actually going to let us go through with this.”

“He doesn’t have much of a choice.Someone who has the proper skills is going to have to manage the viral that’s infected the delivery device.If you don’t agree to do it, he’s going to miss his rendezvous—and that wouldn’t please the Exousiai at all.”

Dorian shook his head in mock horror.“Man, Raville is going to be pissed when he finds out that you broke his beautiful new bomb.”

Amara laughed, then kissed him long and hard.

The door server pinged a visitor announcement.

Right on time, Dorian thought.Executions always get off on time.It was practically a universal constant.He hoisted himself off the sofa, where he had been idly watching planetrise through the display windows, and went to answer it.The front doors scudded apart and revealed Lieutenant Sainz standing in the hall, as still and stiff as ever.As it wasn’t Amara who had answered, the Marine relaxed visibly.He had changed into his dress uniform, grey with silver epaulets.The uniform looked as though it had been freshly starched and in it, Sainz was the picture of an officious yet dashing young military officer.Dorian snorted in annoyance, leaving Sainz to shut the door behind him.

“You’re working this avid penitent angle way too hard,” he called over his shoulder on his way back to the couch.

“I’m sorry?”

“The whole guilty errand boy thing,” Dorian explained, dropping unceremoniously into his seat.“She doesn’t hold anything against you—not that it would matter if she did.In fact, if you ask her, she’ll tell you that the shootout in the warehouse was all part of her master plan.Just accept it and get over yourself already.”

The Lieutenant stopped in the foyer, and glanced uncertainly about the room.He was probably hoping for Amara to show up and bail him out.“Um, I just volunteered to escort her to the lab.I thought it might make it easier to see a friendly face.”

“Right, and we appreciate it, too, though I’m worried about the larger trend this represents.We went from thirty heavily armed Marines leading us around last night to a pair of thugs this morning, and now it’s just you.Someone obviously believes that we’ve been tamed.”Sainz froze, not clear on how seriously he should take such outrageous declarations.Dorian felt the slightest prick of guilt.“Relax, Lieutenant.If not you, it would probably have been Ford Garrison.He’s a raging asshole, so you’re a distinct and welcome improvement.If we’re lucky, we’ll never have to see him again.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Garrison is already waiting in the lab.”

“Of course he is!It’s turning out to be that sort of day, you know what I mean?”If he did, Sainz refrained from commenting.Dorian thought about putting on his shoes, but decided he didn’t really care enough to go to the effort.He never had to put shoes on again, in fact, though he wasn’t sure if this qualified as a pro or a con in his mental cost-benefit analysis.He flapped his hands at Sainz, an invitation to join him in the living room.“Go ahead and have a seat if you want.”

Nervous eye flutter.Checking the time.People hooked into the Strand were incredibly self-involved that way, Dorian had become aware.Always checking this or that, always viewing reality through the rose-colored render of their choice.Constantly having an artificial and personally stylized universe at their disposal made folks a little annoying.They imagined they were creating their own unique experience from the raw materials of the human information pool, though Strand usage studies had consistently demonstrated that over eighty percent of users spent most of their time at twelve different congloms infotainment portals.There was value in this sort of homogenized cultural experience.It kept the far flung human communities within reasonable shouting distance of one another socially by providing reliable touchstones, and Dorian imagined that even recognized sub- or counter- cultural units manifested much the same phenomenon with their own nexus portals-of-interest.Everyone wanted to be in the know.Everyone wanted to have something to contribute to the conversation at their virtual water-cooler, whether that happened in an office in Sonali, a factory on Genesset Globe or any number of on-line discussion forums.In some ways, consumer confidence branding had done more to bring humanity to the brink of absorption by the entity than anything the Exousiai themselves had done.

He really missed his array.Really, really.

“I don’t really think we have the time,” Sainz said.“We really should be going, if you don’t mind.”

Dorian shrugged amicably, but didn’t move.“I don’t mind, but Amara’s in the john, so we’ve got a few minutes.The last bowel movement isn’t something you really want to rush, you know?Some things should be savored.Some biological processes, I mean.That’s a constitutionally protected right where I come from, even for condemned prisoners.Everybody gets to take however long they need to saw off their last log, though I guess that may have more to do with cleaning up the aftermath than a true extension of civil liberties.”

Sainz looked both skeptical and more than a bit scandalized by this turn in the conversation.Nevertheless, he stepped down into the living room and perched on the edge of the sofa on the other side of the coffee table from Dorian.

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Sure?A guy stopped by from the mess half an hour ago with a pretty nice spread, all things considered.Apparently nobody briefed the kitchen about the day’s event schedule.Seriously, most of it is still in containers in the refrigerator.I could warm something up.”

“Are you nervous, Mr. Dorian?”

“What?Why do you ask?”

The Marine smiled gently.“You’re babbling.I understand that this is a stressful time for you, so I don’t mind, but I thought you might want to be aware of it.”

Sainz had absolutely no idea how stressful this time had become for him, but Dorian only nodded and said, “Yeah.Thanks.”

“If it helps, I’ve been told that it will be a painless transition, much like standard zap.Apparently it’s the encoding that’s different rather than the process itself.”Sainz shrugged apologetically as he realized that he was out of his depth.“I don’t understand it myself, either one actually, but it looked like a straightforward procedure from what I saw.They were testing the equipment on grapefruits earlier.Mr. Raville seemed pleased with the accuracy of the results.”

“And why wouldn’t he be?I hear those grapefruits have incredibly sensitive central nervous systems.Not to mention that the Fruit Anti-Vivisectionist and Scientific Experimentation lobby doesn’t really have much tug from what I hear.Grapefruits are much less politically scandalous than rabbits.”

Sainz blushed.“Please, I wouldn’t worry too much, Mr. Dorian.I’m sure she’ll come out just fine.”

“Except she’ll be dead for all intents and purposes.”Both of them would be, at least as far as the young lieutenant was concerned, but Dorian regretted the comment as soon as he made it.Sainz was already flustered enough without Dorian taking jabs at him.He was just trying to help a fundamentally helpless situation.

“So it’s pretty much like the old zap, eh?” he offered quickly.“Would you believe I’ve only zapped once in my whole life, and I was practically in a coma for that one.I couldn’t tell you what it’s like.”

“They sedate you,” Sainz said, ecstatic to be on another topic.“You feel a little tingly, then wake up wherever it is you were going.”

“Ah, so this will be more like lethal injection, then?That’s good to know.”

Sainz didn’t answer this time.Dorian couldn’t really blame him.

They waited for Amara.

For about the millionth time in the last few hours, Dorian really missed his array.It was amazing how much time one had to think about the future with nothing but the contents inside of your own head to keep you occupied.

<– Chapter 25 / Chapter 27 –>