And, finally, the closest thing to an actual Zoo Animal…the dog. The golden-Lab mix seemed to have made the smoothest adjustment to the strange environment. Certainly Cowboy had continued to act like a dog, barking at the threatening and sniffing at the interesting and unusual. When not so engaged, he simply kept company with the humans, as he did now, resting with head on forepaws and waiting patiently for the next event.
Of course, Zhao’s experience with dogs was limited. He might be missing obvious signs of canine distress and dysfunction.
“Okay,” Yvonne said, “we’re almost there.”
“I hope so,” Pav said. “I don’t want to be stuck here if the power goes out for good.”
“It shouldn’t,” Yvonne said. “Though that is a sign of problems with the power core.”
“Which someone is trying to repair, I hope,” Zhao said.
“To be continued,” Yvonne said. “When we arrive, we will let the Architect communicate with the Skyphoi—”
“Why?” Pav said, in that sneering voice Zhao had grown to hate. “Don’t they speak one of our languages? What kind of advanced race are they?”
Yvonne, obviously familiar with teen sarcasm, remained patient. “They don’t actually speak. They are basically like jellyfish, only they live in the air. They communicate by changing color. They’re chromatophores.”
Rachel stirred at this, closing down the Slate. “That might be cool to see.”
Cool to see. The trio of Pav, Rachel, and Zhao had seen enough wonders and marvels for the population of Shuandong for an entire century. Zhao wanted no more…cool things to see.
“Fine,” Zhao said, “we’ll stay in the hallway. What will our big friend be trying to do?”
“He wants to be sure that the vesicle is secure…”
“The what?” Pav said.
“The blob that brought us here,” Rachel said. Then she turned to Yvonne. “And might be able to take us home.”
“In theory,” Yvonne said, glancing at the Architect for confirmation. Zhao didn’t like the sound of that. Hadn’t the Architect already told them humans were needed in a war? A war taking place some ungodly number of light-years away? They weren’t going to help humans go back to Earth!
Yvonne was saying, “The important thing is that no one else takes it. Another one would take years to grow.”
“What about the blackouts we’re having?” Zhao said. Forget the mythical voyage home; concentrate on day-to-day survival right here.
“Part of the same process. Without steady power there is no ability to control the vesicle—”
“—Or anything else, I would imagine,” Zhao said.
Yvonne ignored that. “And the Architect believes the power core may need to be rebooted.”
Zhao felt as though he’d been stabbed. Yvonne’s casual tone, the single sentence, neither was sufficient to convey the impact of that concept. “And how,” he said carefully, trying to keep his voice even, “does something like that happen?”
Yvonne gestured in the manner that Zhao had begun to loathe, flapping her hands in front of her face. She might as well have said I just don’t know aloud. “I have images of something I’ll just have to call a starter kit. The Skyphoi have it.”
“And these Skyphoi…they’re quite powerful?” Zhao wished he could just ask the Architect directly. Given the being’s height, it was difficult to see its face, much less judge its engagement or indifference.
Fortunately, Yvonne continued to relay information. “The Skyphoi are fierce and independent. They came the closest, the Architect says, to being the allies they wanted in the fight against the Reivers.”
“But they still failed.”
“Only because they are too limited; they can inhabit only a narrow range of environments, planets with low density and thick atmospheres.”
“The Architects should have known that, shouldn’t they?” Perhaps by challenging these statements, he could make the responses more useful.
“The Reivers spread to new environments faster than expected. This took place over…several thousand years.”
Zhao shook his head. Too much, too weird. It was like the first time, at age fifteen, he had been able to bypass his country’s filters to gain free access to the Internet. Naturally he had begun surfing pornography…clicking through one link after another, always chasing, never finding, never reaching the point where you think you’d found it, whatever it was.
“Who is this guy?” he said, not really intending it as a question.
“Oh,” Yvonne said, “didn’t I tell you? He’s a Revenant, just like me.”
“No, somehow you failed to let that slip,” Zhao said.
“I know I said something.”
Zhao was mortally sure Yvonne had never mentioned it. Besides, they’d been in the presence of the Architect for only a couple of hours. But why argue? “When did he die?”
“Long ago,” Yvonne said. “Very long ago. The figure comes into my head as a hundred million years. Give or take a decimal point.”
Zhao sat up. “That’s an impressive figure,” he said. “I’d always assumed that Keanu itself was on the order of several thousand years old…but you’re talking a hundred times that—”
“A thousand times,” Pav said. “Maybe a million.” He and Rachel were paying attention now, having stirred from their reveries.
“It’s like this,” Yvonne said. “He’s not really a person as we understand it,” she said.
Before Zhao could process that bizarre notion, the railcar began to slow…a nice change from the sudden lurches Zhao and the others had experienced, especially on this trip with its blackouts. “Are we here?” he asked.
“I think so,” Yvonne said. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m really tired of this. I don’t understand two thirds of what’s in my head. I just want to get something to eat and lie down and enjoy what time I have left.”
“What do you mean?” Zhao said.
“Revenants don’t last long,” she said. “We’re tools. We’re here to communicate, then…wear out.” She blinked back tears.
“That seems cruel,” Zhao said. “And horribly inefficient.”
“Well, yeah!” Yvonne said, forcing a laugh. “I think they’d be happy to have us stick around longer, you know, just in case anybody had a question a month from now. But this whole apparatus”—she indicated her body—“is fragile and wears out in a hurry. I’m not complaining, mind you. I mean, given what happened…I know that souls survive, which is probably the most important thing anyone’s ever learned, right? So even though I don’t know what’s next…I know there’s something.”
Zhao was not a toucher, but he couldn’t help reaching for Yvonne’s hand.
Then he forced himself to stand up, addressing the Architect directly. “Who are you?” he said. “Can you understand me?” He said it in English, in Mandarin, in Hindi.
“Lighten up,” Pav said. He had likely understood two of Zhao’s three statements. “He already said.”
“She said, you mean.” Rachel pointed at Yvonne.
Zhao was about to repeat his demand in French, when Yvonne went rigid and started to rise. She looked fearful. “He says that he can’t engage on a verbal level, even with the proper translation device. Says it’s a scaling problem—”
“Whatever that means,” Zhao said.
“His processes are…slower?” Yvonne seemed to be having a conversation with herself. Then she laughed out loud. “Okay, yes.” She turned to Zhao, Pav, and Rachel. “If you need to use a name, call him ‘Keanu.’”
“But that’s the NEO,” Rachel said.
“I think that’s what Keanu is trying to tell us,” Yvonne said. “This body is just a way for Keanu to communicate—”
The railcar came to a gentle stop.
“Everybody out,” Yvonne said. “Hurry.”
They emerged into another tunnel much like those they had visited earlier…during what was proving to be a day without end.