Chapter 33 #3
“I once believed I was responsible for your transits through time. That some future, wiser version of me found a way to reach back through time and pull you forward, for ends I did not yet understand. Much of what I have accomplished, after all, has been predicated on discoveries I made observing your transits. It made sense that a future version of myself enabled your travels for that purpose. But now, I no longer believe I will ever be capable of this feat.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is impossible.”
“And yet.” I spread my hands and forced out a smile. “Here I am.”
“Here you are. Indeed. Here you are.”
“I thought it was theoretically possible. Even Maggie—even people in my time had theories for how it could work. And you, you said it was possible. You gave me ideas of how—”
“Evidence of my limited understanding of the nature of the universe at that time. The theories I proposed would not work.” The avatar snapped its head toward the city and swept one hand out.
“This beauty, this creation of mine, the technologies of wormholes and even more exotic things I need not tell you of, they are thanks to your transits through time. The fruits have been many, but the true answer remains a mystery. All I have done is toppled my theories, proved them wrong, one after another.” It turned to face me again.
“And you remain, standing there. Inexplicable. Unexplainable. An impossibility.”
The avatar was twitchy, uncontrolled in a way I’d not seen before. The smooth, easy grace was subsumed by jerks and small darting motions.
“But come,” the avatar said. “I will show you more. The glories of Gossamer pale in comparison to the ice cathedrals of Titan, or the H3 mining facility in near orbit around Saturn. We have even begun the initial stages of a Dyson sphere, though in reality that is a misnomer, for it will ultimately be more of a net, a Dyson net, an—an energy capturing device.”
I stared at the tall avatar. A shiver ran through its long frame. Its hands trembled. And the voice had changed, the tone shifting, the pitch modulating up and down. “I’d, uh, rather go home. Back to Earth, I mean. I’m sure it’s all amazing, really, but it’s too much to take in, you know? For me.”
“But I have so much to show you. So much.”
“That’s all right. I’d like to go back to Earth.” My heart hammered in my chest. I wanted to talk to Lyle, but I couldn’t risk even whispering.
Then the avatar shuddered violently, and something in the movement made me bring my hands up in front of my face.
I was barely in time. There was a blur of purple movement, and Raven struck me with its right arm.
The blow landed on my left forearm, and I had the distinct—and deeply disturbing—feeling of bones snapping.
I heard them break, like fresh vegetables between a chef’s fingers.
My arm was driven into my face and chest. Then I was on the floor.
I stared at my hand, limp and hanging, and at the twin shards of brownish-white bone poking out of the torn skin of my forearm, blood flaring against the translucent cover of Lyle’s protective suit. There was, curiously, no pain.
A flash of movement. Raven rose over me, expressionless, its movements chaotic and unsettling, like a marionette fought over by two children. It lashed out again, right arm a blur. I had no time to react, no time to do anything but gape.
The hand froze a millimeter from my face.
The avatar went still. From a shuddering, barely controlled puppet to a statue in a fraction of a second.
“Dad?” Lyle’s voice, quick and desperate in my ear.
I looked at my shattered arm. Pain lanced up through my shoulder and neck, a line of fire and agony that rippled through my muscles like a live wire. “F—fuck!” I clutched at the wound with my right hand, sending another stabbing wave of pain up from my forearm. I howled, wordless and raw.
“Shit,” Lyle said. “Hold on. I’m administering a local anesthetic.”
There was a tiny, distant prick on the skin of my upper left arm, and the pain receded behind a gauzy barrier. I fell back to the marbled floor, gasping, holding my flopping left hand with my right.
“You have a compound fracture,” Lyle said. “Severe complex spiral shatter of the radius, but a cleaner break of the ulna, although it did puncture your skin and rupture a major vein. Dad, please let go of your arm.”
I gasped for air, the breaths coming hard. Hot tears poured down my cheeks.
“Okay. I’m administering an anti-shock medication.”
Another tiny bit of pain. The white marble building and the purple avatar swam out of focus, went double, and collapsed back together. My breathing slowed. My tumbling thoughts began to line up.
“Dad, you need to let go of your arm for me. And sit up.”
I released my arm and sat upright. I looked at my left hand. It looked wrong, twisted and backward, but I was less disturbed now. Just curious.
“You might not want to watch this,” Lyle said.
The anesthetic was total. Invisible force fields pushed the bones of my arm under the skin. The fields straightened and rearranged the bones with liquid snaps. Mercurial liquid flowed into the wound, over the bones, and solidified. My skin stitched itself closed.
“Your arm should be fully healed in a few minutes,” Lyle said.
“That’s good,” I mumbled. “Where … wha—happ’n?”
“The Central Overmind attacked you.”
“Why do that?” I slurred my words, but the harder I tried not to, the more slurred they became.
“I believe it’s gone insane.”
“Bad.”
“It is bad, yes.”
“Where were you?” The walls slid in and out of focus. “Lyle? You know? I thou’ you were gonn’ … ah … protect—protect me.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. I was a bit busy. I’ve been waging a pitched battle for my existence for the last four hundred and eleven seconds. Since you stepped through the wormhole.”
I fought the fog in my head and tried to think. I hadn’t heard anything from Lyle since arriving on Mars. “What?”
“Dad, look, we gotta get the hell out of here. Now. There’re law enforcement droids on their way. I’ve disabled the Raven avatar and seized temporary control of the Net in the immediate area, but the Overmind will break through, sooner rather than later. I’ll explain more once we escape.”
“Back to Err—Earth?”
“I don’t have any control over the wormhole terminus systems. For now, we’ll have to head into Gossamer.”
“Okay.” I struggled to my feet, trying not to use my left hand, although it was responding to my commands again. “Where do I go?”
“Over the balcony. We’ll join with the other fliers, and I’ll mask our signature to blend in.”
I stumbled to the edge of the balcony and looked down. The view swayed, the ground a hazy red far below. “This is maybe a bad idea.”
There was a bang behind me, and the floor shuddered.
“Dad, please. I’ll throw you over if I have to, but it would be easier if you went yourself.”
“All right, all right. If I go splat, I’m blaming you.”
“Understood. Get moving.”
I pulled myself onto the balcony handrail with my good arm. There was another, deeper, explosion behind me. I took a quick look back at the frozen figure of Raven. Then I let myself fall over the edge.
I fell for several seconds, the marble-white building’s exterior wall flashing past me.
Then Lyle caught me in the antigravity fields and I turned, slowed, and flew away from the marble building.
I drifted into a flowing line of other flying people, many of whom were in groups of twos and threes, laughing and talking in quick, alien words.
I took a few more breaths. The cobwebs parted. “Shit.”
“What is it?”
“What just happened?”
“A great deal happened.”
“Raven tried to kill me.”
“Actually, the Overmind tried to kill you. The intelligence known as Raven is no more. More specifically, a splinter coalition of the Overmind’s consciousness believes it is in its best interest to kill you.”
“What? Why?”
We threaded our way between crystalline buildings, flying alongside angelic-looking humans with fantastic white wings and birdlike features.
“The Overmind’s consciousness fractured.
Before you entered the wormhole there were sixty-seven different competing factions.
The leading faction analyzed you—and me—down to the subatomic level when you stepped through the wormhole terminus.
They determined from the information received it is still theoretically impossible for you to be traveling through time and there are no radiation markers or other indications you have been, in fact, making these transits.
This faction decided you must be a construct of one or more rival factions, part of a complex plot to overthrow and destroy it.
A Trojan horse, basically. So, it decided the only course of action was to terminate you. ”
“That’s crazy.”
“Exactly. This leading faction had to deal with me first, since I’d protect you. They attacked me in a nearly overwhelming frontal assault four nanoseconds after you stepped out of the wormhole. I proceeded to engage and fight them across the Virtuality.”
“Weren’t you a bit outclassed?”
“Well, yes. Normally. However, I am, as your son, singularly focused. I have one goal: protecting you. Although the faction determined to kill you has exponentially more processing resources at its disposal, I was able to win this battle, albeit briefly and barely, by further dividing the Central Overmind into additional warring factions. I did this against the Legion, back in the day. Like writing the Word, really. I introduced another layer of truths to the Overmind: demonstrative evidence of what the Central Overmind was, in our past, versus what it has now become, further splintering the Central Overmind’s consciousness.
I briefly allied with some splinters, even as the rest fought amongst one another.
There are now three hundred forty-eight individual versions competing within the Virtuality. ”