Margot didn’t recognize Mitsuru when she first arrived, her eyes were so badly swollen.
“I’m glad I found you here,” Mitsuru said shakily, dragging her knife slowly down the inside of her arm with her red eyes locked onto Leigh. “It’s going to be much harder for you to run away this time.”
“My family has always been Methodist — actually, the whole of the Raleigh Cartel is, really. It always seemed a little strange to me, given our circumstances, the Ether, Central, the protocols — I never understood how they could reconcile it with the Son of God, the New Testament, and that stuff, but they never seemed to have any problem with it. Which I say by way of explanation, so you know that I don’t go in for religious-mystical crap, okay? But the Outer Dark, that is something else. Something else entirely…”
Alex moved his lips, or he thought that he did. He wasn’t certain if he spoke. If he spoke, there was no way to be certain what he would say. His thoughts were muddied and uncertain, slow and contented, but there was something underneath that now. Moreover, that something knew that his thoughts were not entirely his own.
“I met this guy there, everyone calls him the Rosicrucian, except when I actually met him, he said his name was John Parson. He’s a little like Gaul, actually — I think he sort of runs the place. He’s nice, in a weird, intense sort of way. He’s a telepath, or something like a telepath — he must be, because he knew things about me, things he couldn’t possibly know any other way. You’ll get to meet him, too, when we go there. He’s the one who explained it all to me. How it happened. How he found the Outer Dark, and how it saved him. And how it could save all of us, if we’d just let it.”
Alex followed along with the story agreeably enough, on one level. On another, he couldn’t stop asking questions. Where was he? Why had he come here? And what was so important that he had forgotten?
“He said it started from an accident — he watched a vampire awaken. It started him thinking about the nanites, about the way they worked, about where they came from. Parson said he was bothered by the diversity, by the unpredictability of all of it. They are machines; after all, we all know that. They had to have a maker, right? And a purpose, too. Instead, we get chaos, biologically incompatibility, death and weird mutations. Then he watched the experiments that made Gaul and Mitsuru — hey, did you know that? That Mitsuru, Gaul, and Alistair are all pretty much the same age? They did something to Mitsuru, though, after she went nuts using some Black Protocol that killed her partner. She spent years suspended, somehow, not sleeping, not aging, not anything. Some kind of punishment they invented just for her. Gaul hates her, you know? Because of whomever she killed. I bet everyone in Central knows that but you. You know, it’s kind of fun… being able to talk to you this way. Being able to say whatever I want. Not having to worry about the consequences. That’s what life’s like, now.”
Alex had to admit that it was interesting, and he was supremely aware of Emily touching him, of her body lying on top of his. Still, something seemed… off, wrong in a way that he didn’t have words for right now, but he had the feeling that normally he would.
“Anyway, John Parson, he started to wonder why the only things in Central left over from whoever built it were the nanites and the buildings themselves. It didn’t make sense. He started to wonder if there hadn’t been more when they first found Central, back in the days of the Founder and the first Board. Then he started to ask questions — difficult questions, that no one, least of all the Board, seemed to want to answer. Eventually, the disagreements escalated into a feud between the cartels, and then into violence. In the end, John Parson was exiled from Central, along with those who agreed with him. They called themselves The Anathema. I don’t know how, but eventually, he managed to start wandering within the Ether, the same way the Founder did when he discovered Central. Eventually, John Parson found somewhere too. The Outer Dark.”
There was nothing but the girl.
There was something else. Alex was sure of it. Something was wrong, even though he felt calm and secure. He had an intention, he was certain of it. He had done… things. Things that he was not entirely proud of, in order to do something. For… for someone?
“It was just like he had expected. There was more stuff there, more things built by whoever built Central, not just buildings but the remnants of a society — language, science, and cultural artifacts; the same things he had suspected had been removed from Central by the Founder and the first Board and hidden. They did nothing but study it, all of it. They translated the language over a matter of decades. It’s all very… different. Reading it changes you, Alex. It gets inside of you. The words hurt, going in, and then they take root — they live inside your mind. They aren’t words the way we understand them. They are living things, multi-dimensional concepts, artifacts and even weapons. They don’t describe reality. They define and reshape it. Only John Parson was able to comprehend the whole alphabet and remain sane. He was the one who first understood the significance of the lesson of that first vampire, Alex. John Parson was the one who discovered that you have to die for the nanites inside you to realize their true potential. I know this isn’t making much sense to you right now. But once you hear it from him for the first time, you’ll understand.”
Water. Why did he hear the sound of water running? And so much of it. Wasn’t he inside? Was this some kind of strange dream?
“Maybe that sounds scary. Does it, Alex? It’s not really like dying, though. It’s more like… leaving your body behind. Evolving on without it. It just hurts for a minute, and then it’s as if this tremendous burden is lifted from you. And it’s not as if you have much of a life to lose, do you, sleepyhead? After all, your life thus far has mostly been somebody else’s dream.”
Wait… a dream? No, but, there was something there.
“It’s funny, knowing this, being able to tell you this. Thanks to the feedback loop — you see how good we are together, right, Alex? How I can tell you the truth, fix the things they’ve done to your head. And you know now, right, how they have tampered with you? Your memories, your history, your emotions, all of it. You don’t actually believe that stuff they told you about who you are, about what you did, where you come from? You have to know that’s not coming from inside you.”
He was very tired. He would fall asleep soon, he knew, and for some reason, he feared it with a dread that cut right through the euphoria of Emily’s chest pressed against him, her fingertips on his throat. He could not fall asleep yet. He knew it. Because he had something to do.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why you don’t remember when your birthday is, Alex? Most people do, even unhappy ones. Or, tell me, whom did you live with after the fire? Your grandmother, right? Okay, so tell me, what’s her name?”
Nothing. Not even an echo. It wasn’t something he forgotten, he was certain. It was something he had never known.
“Too hard? Then let’s try an easy one. Is she still alive?”
He knew she didn’t live in the trailer anymore… he thought. But why? Dead? Nursing home? It was too hard to think, like someone had poured mud into his head, and now he was trying to think through the sludge.
“I read your file, Alex. I’m sorry, but I thought it might help me understand you a little better. But it doesn’t make any sense, not at all. Alex, do you remember your father hurting you?”