Higher and higher, caught in the swirls and eddies of the new atmosphere at the center of the planet, hovering like eagles, linked hand to tiny hand, two human forms gracefully swimming through air to the warship that was named War but preferred to be called Gary. Mother laughed, the child that she had become laughed, and Fleur cringed as she heard the depth of the decay, echoing forever through the tumult of a machine ocean. Mother was dying, and dying quickly. The destabilization of that presence that had permeated the entire galaxy of her exile in these last hundred-thousand years was evidenced in that child’s blissful laughter. Fleur shivered from the cold and from the depth of her despair.
They approached the warship from beneath. Machines were affixing the final phase drive to the aft of the vessel. Countless automaton assemblages of stone and metal and fiery shift swam in schools through the current of Center Earth, crawling over Gary and putting finishing touches on his superstructure. Mother deftly avoided the dutiful slaves, and her grasp on Fleur’s hand tightened as they floated up to the underside lock.
[gary!] Mother shouted with all of her mind. [let us in!]
US? WHO’S “US”?
[me and fleur, gary. let us in!]
FUCKIN’ A.
Mother visibly blushed, much to Fleur’s amazement. [gary hasn’t been properly trained yet.]
The underside lock began to cycle open. Mother towed Fleur along behind her as they rose up into Gary, who was spouting a string a silverthought expletives into the void.
As the lock slid shut below them, Fleur took in her surroundings. She had expected a cavernous interior, but it would appear that most of the bulk of Gary was taken up with the phase drives and megascale mechanics that would launch them into the Outer. The room into which they floated was another simple construct of Mother’s mind, a suburban living room with a comfy couch, beanbag chairs, even a pool table and wet bar. Instead of a cockpit, Fleur found herself in domestic tedium. Instead of a control panel, Fleur found a twenty-seven-inch television. As Mother descended and as her feet touched the shag carpet, Fleur could have sworn she heard music. Elevator music.
[welcome to your new home, Fleur. we’ll be spending lots of quality time together.]
GIRL, YOU CRAZY.
Mother frowned. [gary, be quiet.] She walked over in the restored gravity and threw herself down on a beanbag.
Fleur stood, taking it all in, then remembered her own passengers. She released her clenched first and threw the three silver projectors into the air, where they sparked to life, emitting Hank, Whistler, and Nine in perfect emulation.
MOMMA, WHAT THE FUCK—
[gary! i’d like you to meet whistler. whistler, gary. gary, hank. hank, gary. nine, gary. gary, nine.]
AND A PARTRIDGE IN THE MOTHERFUCKING PEAR TREE?
Whistler flattened the front of his robe. “Mother, what is this?”
[this, whistler darling, is gary. he’s our new home.]
Nine walked to Fleur’s side, his cold projected hand engulfing hers, fingers looping through fingers. She smiled, but not before catching the icy gaze of the five-year-old in the beanbag chair.
“Gary is a vessel. Where are we going?”
[somewhere marvelous! i know that you’ll enjoy it.]
Hank took in his surroundings with his trademark scowl, reached into his pocket and was pleased to find that Mother had been kind enough to emulate a pack of smokes for him. He pulled one out and found in that dreamlike sense of hazy possibility that was the new life of the recently-uploaded that the cigarette was already burning. All he had to do was place it to his lips and inhale.
NO SMOKING ON THIS WARSHIP!
A bubble of nonspace erupted around Hank’s hand and the cigarette was gone, along with a large portion of the hand itself. Hank frowned silently, retrieved his projector from his pocket with his remaining hand, shook it a few times. A new hand faded into place with a little burst of static.
“This is gonna be a long flight without no smokes, Mother. Where we goin’?”
Nine and Fleur sat on the loveseat beside Mother, and Hank and Whistler plopped unceremoniously down on beanbags of their own. The television flickered to life, displaying a field of stars.
[the extinction isn’t over yet, my children.] she sat forward as she spoke, eyes glimmering with an interior silver. [you could say that the jihad was just a test run.]
GIRL, YOU SO COLD-HEARTED.
Mother glared up at the voice from nowhere. [there are people who hurt me, long ago. they sent me here to get rid of me, and now it’s time to go back.]
“She’s the Exile.” Fleur looked down at Mother with sad eyes. “They hurt her. And now she’s going to use us to hurt them. Not just a war or a jihad. Not just an extinction.”
[little flower—]
“She’s going to use us to destroy Heaven.”
The pleasure displayed on the child’s face was unmistakeable.
[that would be a fitting end to this charade, wouldn’t it? what divine irony if i were to destroy her by the end of this…yes. i’ve made up my mind. time to go.]
Whistler cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we wait until Gary is *ahem* built?”
FUCK YOU SAY?
[gary is finished enough. right, gary?]
DAMN STRAIGHT.
Mother rolled her eyes. [right. so can we leave?]
HELL YEAH.
[good. take as many machines from the center as you need, and let’s go home.]
With Gary distracted with the takeoff procedures, Hank lit a cigarette. Whistler fanned the smoke away, pulled his collar up around his neck and cheeks, his eyes darting toward the child. Fleur huddled closer to Nine, her dark curls tickling his neck and chin and cheek as he bent, kissed the top of her head, inhaled her scent, dreamed those dreams that he could never live for his lack of body and soul and future.
Mother was practically bursting with excitement. Her face radiated joy at the impending departure, her smile wide, dimples marking flushed cheeks, her entire body rocking back and forth in the ridiculous beanbag chair, ridiculous for its blatant anachronism in a universe now devoid of romper rooms and hepcats.
[we’ll bring it to them. an end of sorts, but more…so much more.]
Gary began to resonate with the shiver of a million phase drives. Fleur closed her eyes, sick to her soul with the realization of what they were about to do.
[Heaven awaits.]
They left.
THE STILLNESS BETWEEN
She knew very little, but she knew beyond a doubt that she loved chocolate milk.
She drank as much chocolate milk as she could, which really wasn’t that much, but she knew that chocolate milk brought her almost as much if not more happiness as anything in the sterile world that had been her home for her entire life. The angels disapproved of her mass-consumption of that silken chocolaty goodness, but they really couldn’t do anything to stop her. Nan would voice her disapproval in that tugging, lecturing way, but she would just smile sweetly and ask for more. Always more chocolate milk. In her little world, there was an unending supply of anything that she desired. The angels had to do exactly as she ordered, a fact that she was just now beginning to take advantage of on a regular basis. Some would call her spoiled. She preferred to think of herself as a child of privilege. Chocolate milk? We’ve got oceans.
“Lily, dear?”
She looked up from the tabletop where her gaze had been transfixed on the colloidal action of millions of brown chocolate flecks interspersed throughout her glass of white near-milk. The silver spoon with which she had thoughtfully stirred the chocolate powder into her beloved drink stopped its revolution, came to rest.