The Machinery of Light (88 page)

—he sees what she’s doing and—

—shifts—

—gets past her—

—their positions reversed—

—her mind dropping back into her flesh—

—his accelerating out into the infinite—

—receding jaws snapping at her and missing—

—her brain blasting his body—

—which catches fire. What’s left of his meat is going up in smoke. She’s scarcely had time to process this when the entire no-room shudders—

—a
force so great that even the Operative becomes aware of it, drifting back from death’s door, holding onto the writhing floor—

“Carson?” says a voice.

He opens his eyes. Haskell’s bending over him.

Except it’s not Haskell. It’s something that wears the face of every woman. Yet somehow all of them are the Claire he’s always known—

“Fuck,” he says.

“Easy,” she mutters.

“What’s happening?”

“Ever heard of a crash landing?”

S
he’s staggering out of the realms of no-space and it’s all she can do to maintain any kind of structural integrity as the wave-functions collapse and the membranes burn away and everything around her gets back to the business of being
real
, guiding this bubble universe back into the one that spawned it, infinite vectors all around and nearly all of them leading to the total destruction of her and everything else the Room contains. Her intuition’s now the only way out as she steers her own way back, all those existences flashing by until finally—

F
uck
,” screams the Operative—a huge muffled boom that seems to pervade his very soul. He stares up at the eyes of Haskell, sees the screens flicker back to life all around—sees something on them that he just can’t even begin to comprehend—

“What the
fuck,”
he mutters.

“We’re back,” she says.

W
ith a bang. As they reoccupy the space within the depths of the Moon—or rather,
become
that space again—compressed energy flows outward, the disintegrating membranes channeling a force that, thanks to her guidance, has almost no impact on what’s inside the Room. But as to what’s beyond—

“Fuck,” whispers Carson.

She says nothing, just cradles his head in her lap, watches on the screens in the Room as the entire Moon disintegrates—along with everything on it: the Eurasian legions on the cusp of victory, the Americans fighting with their backs to the wall, all the refugees caught in all the levels of that rock—all of them snuffed out, their minds caught within hers by Sinclair’s infernal machinery, her consciousness swelling ever farther outward, expanding now as pieces of the Moon churn out in all directions and the Room starts to sprout more guns and engines than the Eurasian fleet combined—

F
uck,” he says again.

It’s really all he can muster. Because now he gets it. Sinclair planned for everything. He set up the Room as something that could become a bubble moving past realities. But he also configured it as something that could wreak havoc in any real world it dropped into—

“We’re in a fucking
spaceship,”
he says.

O
ne that sports the Stars and Stripes. She doesn’t know whether that’s Sinclair’s joke or whether it meant something to him after all: and now it no longer matters, because she’s at the helm of a behemoth to end all others, armored on all sides by more than half a klick of moonrock, looking more
like a planetoid than a ship, and far beyond anything the Eurasians have left to throw against it. The monstrosity emerging from the resultant asteroid-field of rock and chunks of cooling magma is several klicks long, plasma drives blazing as it vectors in toward the remainder of the Eastern ships. And Haskell’s mind is racing ahead of it. It’s no contest. Nothing can stand against her anymore. She shudders as she suddenly sees there’s only one future left to her.

“What’s wrong?” Carson asks.

“You’re dying,” she says.

“I know
that,”
he says.

“Jesus Christ, Carson. Jesus fucking Christ—”

“What happened to Sinclair?”

“I think he pulled it off.”

“Becoming God?”

“Going off to find Him.”

Maybe it was what he had in mind all along. Maybe he just improvised. Doesn’t matter—he got past her, changed places with her, became the nexus he’d created within her while she dropped back into the world she’d left. She’s scanning across this world for any sign of him, but she already knows he won’t be back. This place is a backwater compared to what he was going for. And she finally sees that he wasn’t even that interested in domination. It was all just a springboard for him. He was beyond the range of ordinary definition.

Then again, so is she.

“It’s going dark,” mutters Carson.

“I’m still here,” she says.

He reaches out with his arm, pulls her head slowly down upon his chest. She doesn’t resist, just lets herself lay there for a moment—and another—and another as his breathing gets shallower and the ship rains fire and brimstone into the Eurasian fleet. He’s struggling to form words—

“I know,” she says. “I know.”

“Took me way too long to admit,” he whispers.

“Some things are buried deep.” She starts to weep—for him, for Marlowe. For all of them. She grips him tighter. “See, now I love—”

“Everyone,” he says.

“I never thought it would be like this.”

“You’ll take care of them, won’t you?”

“They’re all I’ve got left.”

He smiles faintly. Tightens his grip on her hand, closes his eyes. Doesn’t open them again. He’s no longer breathing—his consciousness flickers out, past her—she tries to catch it, misses, knows that all she’s got is memories now. Maybe that’s all she ever had. She watches as the remnants of the Eurasian fleet scatter, stares at endless stars as tears obscure her vision. But she’s not blind. She’ll never be blind again. Her real vision keeps on expanding around her, encompassing all those other minds across the Earth-Moon system, all the scattered fragments of humanity that she’s now gathering up into herself: the soldiers who man the remnants of shattered war-machines, the survivors of the wreckage of the cities, the masses huddled throughout the globe—all of them abruptly aware of all others as group-mind coalesces under her guidance, the Earth shining like a star as suddenly she’s lifting humanity straight on through to a new phase of evolution. Collective consciousness coalesces; spirit and matter unite in final alchemy; archetypes shift and suddenly everything’s
alive
. As the light blasts through her, she finds herself wondering if Autumn Rain succeeded—finds herself smiling at the thought. She motors past the wreckage of the fleets of nations, sets course back toward the planet and her people.

THE END

Special thanks to

Brian De Groodt, for getting out
Michelle Marcoccia, for getting back
James Wang, for the big picture
Marc Haimes, for the road less traveled
Mark Williams, for riding shotgun from the early days
Steven Klotz, for helping me keep dinosaurs at bay
Peter Watts, giant squid and SF giant
Rebecca Fischler, ’cos she’s into survival
Cassandra Stern, legend in her own lifetime
Spartacus, for having no concept of time
Jen Hitt, for talking me out of the tree
Magen Aucoin, for taking charge of the legions
Jenny Rappaport, for getting me started
David Pomerico, for helping me finish
Michael Schur, for teaching me much about acceleration

Thanks also to …

Ajax, John Joseph Adams, Jon Allison, Charlie-Jane Anders, Greg Bear, Alan Beatts, Kat Beight, Al Billings, Patricia Bray, Mike Brotherton, Michael Briggs, Colleen Cahill, John Carrasquillo, Jeff
Carlson, Gail Carriger, Karen Casey, Erin Cashier, Roz Clarke, Mike Collins, Lino Conti, Rob Cunningham, Richard Dansky, Jessica Dawson, David Deutsch, Eric Dorsett, Tom Doyle, David Louis Edelman, Jerry Ellis, Kelley Eskridge, Nathan Evans, Jude Feldman, Graeme Flory, Jim Freund, Rick Fullerton, Larry Giammo, Tom Goss, Nicola Griffith, Mia Haimes, Inga Hawley, Lisa Heselton, Jess Horsley, Leslie Howle, Dave Hutchinson, Faisal Jawdat, Michael Kanouse, Joshua Korwin, Justin Kugler, Randall MacDonald, Justin Macumber, Richard Morgan, Mollie Mulvanity, Mysterious Galaxy, Rob Neppell, James Nicoll, Annalee Newitz, Hope O’Keefe, Mike O’Malley, Joshua Palmatier, Maria Perry, David Pickar, Heidi Pickman, Jerry Pournelle, Glenn Reynolds, Ripley, Paul Ruskay, Jack Sarfatti, Zakhorov Sawyer, Joseph Scalora, Tom Schaad, Russ Selinger, Mike Shepherd, Stacey Sinclair, Jeri Smith-Ready, Steven Sobel, Starship Sofa, Tim Stringer, Melinda Thielbar, Robert Thompson, Sanho Tree, Uberjumper, Juliet Ulman, Duane Wilkins, Albert Williams, Sarah Williams, Susan Williams, Pete Yared, Don Zukas, Derek Zumsteg, and Captain Zoom.