Spirits in the Wires (54 page)

But what I need to tell you is this: Librarius lied to you. He didn't come from outside the Wordwood when the virus struck to take advantage of the situation. Oh, he was trying to take advantage, all right, but not like he let on.

He was trying to separate himself from the all-pervading spirit of the leviathan. He was in here all along, just like I am now. He was the Webmaster.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm afraid that I'll give in just like he did.

I know it's different. I have foreknowledge. And I'll try to do this right like I've never tried to do right before. But I've only been here a month or so and I already know _exactly_ what Librarius was feeling. You don't get a moment's break. Not a moment to be yourself.

I don't feel real anymore. Hell, I'm __not_ real, am I? I'm no more than interactive software creating a conduit between the leviathan and the world outside.

So I guess what I'm really trying to say is, it could happen to me. Some new crisis like the virus Jackson sent could show up and, even though I know better, already I can see myself taking advantage of it and trying to figure out how to separate myself from the leviathan.

Not today. Or tomorrow. Or even in a year. Don't forget, Librarius was here for years before he broke.

I'm just scared that I'll break, too.

I don't know if I'm strong enough not to. I don't know if anybody is.

Aaran

http://www.the wordwood.com/

I realize as I'm reading his e-mail that he's not the only one having a crisis. I'm having one, too. An identity crisis, which is kind of funny when you think of how all of this started. Or at least how all of it started for Saskia and me: she was having the crisis and I convinced her to contact the Word-wood because it seemed the best way she could answer the question once and for all: Is she real or not?

But I'm the one who's been circling around that question ever since we got back.

No, that's not true. I've never stopped wondering about it from the moment I got pushed out of Christy. It's just that meeting Saskia—carrying her around inside me and with what I've been through with the leviathan and all—has brought it to a head and I don't know how to deal with it.

I'm still looking at the screen when someone sits down beside me. I look up and there she is. Saskia with her golden hair and sea-blue eyes, so effortlessly beautiful.

I get her to read Aaran's e-mail.

“You have to let this go,” she says when she reaches the end and turns to me. “There's nothing we can do about it now.”

“I know. It's just… worrisome.”

She cocks her head and gives me a considering look.

“And what's bothering you more?” she asks. “That it's a worrisome situation, or that you're actually worrying about it?”

How can she know me so well? Like Christy said, I'm the original free spirit. No cares, no worries. Something bad's happening? Tra-la-la. I'll go somewhere else where it's not.

“How much did you get out of me when you were inside my head?” I ask.

“Only what your physical senses told you,” she says. “I couldn't read your mind or know what you were feeling about something unless you shared it with me.”

“Well, that's a relief.”

“And you're avoiding the question. Which of the two worries you more?”

“Both,” I have to admit.

“Well, it's good that you can worry about it,” she says, “but you still have to let this go.”

“But…”

“What are you going to do? Figure out a way to get back into the Wordwood and take his place?”

“Maybe that's not such a bad idea.”

She shakes her head. “And you wouldn't be affected by the same thing that's happening to Aaran because … ?”

“I'm a shadow?”

“Oh, please. What happened to that independent streak of yours?”

She reaches past me and pushes the delete button. Another e-mail pops up in place of Aaran's, some spam telling us that we really do want men's penises to be bigger. It's exactly what I need to put everything into perspective. There's
always
going to be someone or something that thinks it knows you better that you can know yourself.

We grin at each other. I exit my account and we leave the computer free for another customer. Saskia gets us each another cappuccino and we sit at a table by the window.

“With all our adventuring,” I say. “We didn't really find anything out, did we?”

Saskia smiles. “You noticed?”

“So, are you okay with it? Not knowing for sure what coming from where you did means?”

“In terms of who I am now?”

I nod.

“I think so,” she says. “I've decided that it doesn't really matter. That it shouldn't matter for anyone. Maybe this is sour grapes—you know, because
I
don't know what I really am any more than you do. Or maybe it's like a poor person saying money can't buy happiness because they don't have any themselves, but if we take it down to basics, it doesn't matter where we come from, or even what we look like. The only thing that matters is who we are now.”

I smile. “That's almost word-for-word what Suzi told me.”

“You've seen her?”

“Mmhmm. And I still do. I see all kinds of people in the consensual world now.”

“You're becoming a regular little social butterfly.”

“I always was.”

“Only not here. Not in this world.”

“Christy's world,” I say.

“Why does it have to be his world?” she asks. “Why can't there be room for both of you in it?”

“No reason, I guess.”

I feel a little lighter as I say it. Like actually using the words can make them true. Maybe that's the change I felt coming over me when the leviathan left his physical body. Maybe I'm finally accepting that I can have a place in this world, that I can make lasting relationships here, instead of always being the traveller, passing through.

I smile at her and repeat the words again, enjoying the taste of them as they leave my tongue.

“No reason at all.”