“Yes. This world is falling apart. The factions have grown enormous and hungry, fed by the technology I have provided. And war is coming. Change is coming. The last change. I cannot prevent it. I can only warn you.”
“But when will it come? What will it be?”
“I do not know.”
“But can we do anything about it? Can we stop it?”
The vision quaked, the field rippling at the edges. “I do not know,” said the voice. “No. I do not think so.”
“What will happen?”
“Your civilization will crumble. Exhaust itself. And survive only in shreds and tatters. If that.”
“So… so we have to stop it,” Hayes said, trembling.
“There is no stopping it.”
“But there has to be. There has to be something!”
“There is no stopping it. This is the way. It is a machine grown so large and with such momentum that it cannot stop, only fall apart under its own force.”
“But we can… we can tell people,” Hayes said desperately. “We can tell them to stop.”
“To stop what? Stop hungering? Stop expanding? It is the nature of life and power to want more, to grow faster until it cannot. With the tools I have inadvertently provided, you grow at a rate that makes self-control impossible. There is only one feasible end.”
The quiet went on, broken only by the sigh of the wind.
“Then we’ll die,” said Hayes. “Then we’ll all die. And there’s nothing we can do. Is that what you’re telling me? Nothing?”
“There are…” Another click. “… Possibilities.”
“Possibilities? What possibilities?”
“There is no stopping the collapse. It is unavoidable. You have seen your city, and know it is beyond repair. A place of outrage and sorrow, and waste. And your city is the heart of your world. When it falls or begins breeding destruction, the consequences will be catastrophic. Yet for the few who will survive, for the scraps that will persist at the fringes, there is hope. They can make a new world. And learn from their mistakes. But that is in the future, and I will not last long enough to see that. I cannot help them directly. But I can make use of my last moments to ensure they receive at least some aid.”
“How?”
“By making sure there is someone to lead your people from your ruined lands, and find a home somewhere in the future. An architect who can rebuild, the seeds of a new future sown.”
Hayes listened to the words. He looked at the field around him and at the invisible thing waiting in the grass. Then his eyes opened wide and he said, “No.”
“There is no other choice,” said the voice.
“No, not me.”
“There is no other choice.”
“No, no. No, it shouldn’t be me. There… there has to be someone else. It shouldn’t be me. It shouldn’t be me!” he shouted.
“But it must be.”
“There have to be others. Others who are better.”
“They cannot hear. Nor have they seen the wide expanse of humanity that you have, and known its flaws, and its strengths.”
“It shouldn’t be me,” Hayes said softly. “It shouldn’t be me.”
“Would you have your people founder against the future? Die out and become extinct? Live their last days in darkness and savagery?”
“No, but… but we can stop the war,” he said desperately. “Get rid of the empires. Can’t we?”
“You cannot stop such a thing. You cannot alter the nature of nature. All life desires destruction. The only thing that matters is if it survives it.”
Hayes bowed his head. “But I can’t.”
“When the city burned they did not look to you, yet still you came,” said the voice. “Still you came, and showed them the way. And did you not feel joy? Did you not know their hearts, and love that they were safe?”
“Yes, but-”
“This is who you are. This is what you are. This is what you must be. With the last of my strength, I can help you. And there is no time. The changes that I have brought about are unraveling your city. Already a boy stumbled across a part of me, a part that had long been separate and alone and had grown depraved, and when the boy came to it, it changed him. Changed him for the worse.”
“Changed him how?”
The voice sighed again. “It was a part of me for travel. You have seen it yourself, hidden away in buildings not far from here. It has its own mind, for its own purposes. It bent…” The voice clicked again. “… Time. Bent reality. Twisted it so I could move through vast distances in months instead of eons. When the boy found it, it… elevated him. Took his being and sped it up. Placed it on a different level. Now he is a half-thing. Mad and distorted. Living in two times. And the things he has done have torn your city apart. That is how fragile it is. And that is why you must be ready.”
Hayes swallowed. “What do you want from me?”
Another harsh click. “Once a man came among me and walked away with a handful of trinkets. He changed the world with these meager things, these toys. He made a new age, though he did not know it. Imagine what could be done with all the concepts that could be willingly shown to you, given to you. Imagine what a world you could make. I can give them. Now, in an instant.”
Hayes thought quickly. He looked back on his years, lonely and wandering, always living on the razor’s edge. Living nameless lives, adrift among the hopes and madnesses of the people who passed him by.
“Will it hurt?” Hayes asked. “Changing?”
“Yes,” said the voice.
Hayes winced. “And what will I know? After this, what will I know?”
“Secrets. Laws. Devices. Truths hidden in the furrows of reality. Tools that will carve out a home among the coming years. These and more.” Click. “Will you do it?”
Hayes thought about it and said, “What will I do? With the knowledge you give me?”
“I cannot say. I am not one of you. I know only how to curb your desires, not how to build. And the path your civilization has taken since my interference has gone well beyond any reckoning I have.”
Hayes shut his eyes. “And what if I say no?” he asked.
There was silence.
“What if I say no?” he asked again. “What if I turn it down?”
The voice said, “If you, who have walked among these people for a lifetime, and know their hearts and minds more than any other person alive… If you say no, and doom them to a future of ash and scorched earth, then I will trust your judgment, and let it be, and die voiceless here in the dark.”
Hayes sighed. He found he was weeping. He was not sure if the tears were real or part of this strange vision, but they felt hot and wet on his cheeks, and seemed real enough. “Will I remember everything from before?” he asked. “Will I remember that?”
“If you wish.”
Hayes nodded and wiped tears from his eyes. “All right. Okay, then. Do it.”
The hum intensified. He became aware that somewhere machinery that had long been silent suddenly came to life, desperately working for one last undertaking.
“Once this is done I will be no more,” said the voice. “I will be gone. Know this.”
“I know. Just do it.”
Silence. The thing out in the fields was still.
“Just do it already!” shouted Hayes.
The image around him flashed briefly, flickered like a candle flame. Then the air around him grew hot. There was a feeling in his skull of a thousand fingers probing his mind, rearranging it. Dissecting it and rewiring it.
“Jesus,” Hayes said. “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ!”
The air was burning hot now. Hayes felt memories melt into one another, felt experiences and times long lost suddenly flare up as if they were the present. He saw a desert train trundling across desolate flats and watched as the rail in front of it erupted, and he heard himself laugh in satisfaction. Then his father was howling at him, screaming about his idiot son and his foolish ways, and he ached with shame. Next he was grinning as he watched a McNaughton trader being led away, sobbing like a child. And then he felt the madness of grief as he watched a funeral from the gates of a cemetery, stinking drunk and half-suicidal. Watched the coffin slowly descending into the dry ground, knowing that the girl inside it and the child in her belly were dead by his rashness.