The Veil (14 page)

“Have you completely lost it?”

“Like I said. Someone has to die.”

In a flash she grabs him by his belt, too quick for him to dodge, and hoists him into the air like a plaything—something more than just increased strength from the Messiah virus.

“Light as a feather!”

“How are you doing this?” Robert manages, limbs flailing, eyes agog. He grapples at her arm, only to find some hidden force binding him tight.

“You know, I don’t think you understand the gravity of your situation,” she quips.

For Monica it is evident from his befuddled look that he simply doesn’t get it.

“The Gravimetric Grid?” she offers. “Ril’s pathetic parlor tricks?” But still no spark of understanding. “Oh, never mind.”

* * *

Lucy’s unrelenting onslaught on the access door abruptly ceases, despite the first evidence of progress. Something is happening below. She dashes to the nearest wall to lean right over and look down. Nothing visually evident, but the noise suggests a level of internal destruction taking place.

A step to return her attention to the access door is halted mid-flow.

Lucy’s eyes glaze over.

* * *

Monica lowers herself into a crouch, coiling into a discus thrower’s stance, Robert firmly in her grasp, pinned to the floor by invisible bonds. The ferocity of the attack on the barrier has the structural integrity projection in a permanent red glow of impending failure, the noise deafening. Monica brings her face close to Robert’s so that she may be heard without the need to raise her voice, for what she must now disclose deserves better than that.

“They want something. They call it a
jewel
. And when they find one they become intoxicated by its presence.”

“A
jewel?
” Robert manages to gasp out.

“A thing so rare few have ever been found the galaxy across. And every lifting of the Veil is an opportunity to find one. That’s why the Veil engineers are here, when they should not be. They are like oyster divers, looking for pearls.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The one bond that unites us all.” Monica’s demeanor collapses. Sadness becomes her. “
Love.
Not the love born of lust, not the love of lifelong husband and wife, not the love you and I once had when we were innocents. That, and more, can be found everywhere, and is all the empathy test is intended to seek out. But a
jewel
is something much deeper. A bond that defies explanation. You felt it in the woods. You feel it
now.
”

“You said this wasn’t about me—”

The barrier gives way, something unseen exploding up through the lobby floor in a shower of debris, space warping about its presence. It wastes no time in bashing its way across the apartment.

Bringing all her strength to bear with a grimace, Monica uncoils to hurl Robert from her grasp into an upward arc toward the windows. In the same fluid motion she whips out a gun and fires three shots in quick succession, the bullets zipping past him.

The Veil engineer is upon her, engulfing Monica in a whirlwind of destruction.

* * *

Ramani can only look on in horror, the unfolding events culminating in an outcome that has her scream with unadulterated rage, contorting her face out of all recognition.

“
No!!!
”

* * *

Lucy pounds her way across the roof deck, each stride pumping energy into the forward motion she needs for the leap she now makes from ledge—dropping in a perfect swallow dive, head arced back, arms outstretched.

Directly below her Robert bursts through a window in a shower of already-shattered glass, tumbling in the grip of a tricked Gravimetric Grid.

They collide, Lucy hooking herself onto his back, the two of them rolling head over heels as they plummet toward the plaza.

She flails her legs, the drag reorienting their bodies, nulling out the tumble so that she is below Robert—

They
SLAM
onto the topside if the Mombasa’s hull as it slides across their path to scoop them away from the building, the engine air intakes misting under the strain of the Merlins winding up to more than maximum thrust—a one-shot trick that saw Lucy flip the lander into an incline for just long enough to get it under them without hitting the building, and now has them on a dive arc pulling ten gees.

But Lucy’s calculations were not based on the maximums they could sustain—they were based on the minimum separation that would get the Mombasa beyond the plaza edge and allow it to shallow its dive out in the canyon beyond. The violence of the initial impact and the thrust needed immediately after were all remainders of an equation, the outcome of which, whatever it may be, being unavoidable.

The Mombasa shallows out deep within the canyon, arcing up to head for the Battery, the high pitch whine of its engines echoing all about.

The moment it sets itself down Ril and Ramani are upon it, leaping onto the topside of the hull, not shy of using their gravity tricks to expedite matters. Ril examines Robert, while Ramani attends to Lucy, crushed beneath him.

“He’s unconscious,” Ril says. “Nothing life threatening.”

“She broke his fall,” Ramani says, her voice trembling. “Massive internal injuries.”

Ril is quick to bring his hand to Ramani’s.

“We cannot intervene,” he says to her.

“Why not? They changed the rules, so can we.”

“This was the Veil engineers—not the Community. Nothing has changed.”

“I don’t care,” Ramani says. “Lucy—Lucy, can you hear me?”

Lucy stirs, blood dribbling from her mouth. Her eyes flicker and open.

“You have been badly damaged,” Ramani says, looking directly at her. “We can help you, but only if you allow us to do so. Blink once if you understand.”

Lucy stares calmly back, Ramani slumping with despair.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. Not anymore. We can fix you.”

Lucy coughs out some blood. Enough to allow her to speak, albeit with some difficulty.

“I felt her. Doctor Satori. She showed me what to do. To save Robert. My life for his. It all seemed so simple.”

“Lucy—the synaptic connection…if you die here…”

She smiles weakly back at them before closing her eyes, her body slumping.

Ramani looks to Ril.

“No,” he says to her firmly. “We cannot.”

A PASSING

The Pavilion’s windows are black, permanently closed off from the outside world, the building now serving its new purpose as Lucy’s mausoleum, her body resting serenely on a stone plinth directly beneath the dome.

Robert betrays no emotion—he will not. Not here, beside her. One last chance to gaze upon her face that he needs to make count. Done, he turns away to leave, the lights dimming to a darkness, the main doors closing themselves behind him as he steps out into the day, the tomb quietly sealing itself.

Ril and Ramani await him. A short distance beyond sits the Mombasa.

“Was it worth it?” he demands of them, “The price Lucy paid? Did it mean
anything?
”

They have nothing for him, not even a glimmer of sadness or regret.

“You took an innocent life and destroyed it. And for what? To save the world? The world didn’t deserve her.
God damn you.
” He raises his gaze to shout at the sky. “
God damn you all!
”

He has rage enough inside to lay waste all about him. But there has been enough destruction and what serves no purpose, serves no purpose.

“And Monica?” He asks of them.

“She intervened. To change the outcome of the engineers’ experiment. What has become of her we do not know.”

“Experiment?”

“To test the bond between you and Lucy. To tear it apart and examine what remained. Monica showed them something they were not expecting.”

“Then the Veil is lifted?”

“It is not.”

“Maybe we are better off behind it,” Robert says bitterly. “Shroud or no shroud.”

“The Mombasa will take you back to the Afrika,” Ril says. “She will break orbit in twelve hours.”

“Go back to what you know, Robert.” says Ramani.

The Mombasa’s engines start, winding up slowly to take-off speed.

Robert gives them both one final look of contempt, before turning away to board, not looking back.

The access ramp having closed and sufficient time for him to buckle up having passed, the Mombasa lifts away.

“It’s starting,” says Ramani, mesmerized by the departing lander.

“And if all is lost?” Ril asks anxiously. “What of us? It was not supposed to be this way.”

* * *

The Mombasa makes its way, passing over Robert’s house, retracing the route they had taken, to finally burst through the dome’s energy barrier, out over the landing area, arcing up into the Martian sky.

For Robert there is nothing to do. The autopilot has its instructions and doubtless the Afrika does as well. So he just sits there, an expression of stone for those he knows must be watching him, his leviathan creation now looming ahead.

Docking proceeds smoothly, the Mombasa hauled back into the garage to be alongside her sister once more. The final clunks securing the lander signal a completed pressure equalization, allowing Robert to release himself into the zero gee.

He calmly exits the lander and then the garage, a purpose to each precise movement, with nothing wasted, bringing him into the corridor where he pulls himself along to the only place in the universe that now holds any meaning for him.

Lucy’s room.

With a robotic action he releases the door latches and swings it open, hauling himself inside.

A gloom shrouds the inert MBI unit.

He rests his cheek next to it, running his hands over the obsidian surface.

There is nothing.

Nothing to hold back the emotion that now floods out of him.

A great river of sorrow.

ANY NOW

Lucy finds herself where she’d really rather not be. A white world devoid of any artifact save for herself. It has all the feeling of a machine simulation, yet the Afrika connection has gone, as have her libraries, and she cannot manifest anything. This is not her inner world, this is some other place.

All she has is a sense of up and down, and the motion of looking all about.

And something else. A feeling that she is not alone. The presence of two entities nearby that she cannot see.

And something
else
—

Someone else—

“Complicated, isn’t it.”

Lucy whirls about to find a young woman standing before her, similar in age and stature to her own appearance.

“Who are
you?
”

“But you know who I am,” the girl says.

“I do not have access to my libraries,” Lucy says haughtily.

“You keep the memory of me much closer than that, Lucy. You’ve seen the photograph.”

It is true. She recognized the face the moment she saw it. From a precious moment captured, of a dead daughter cruelly snatched from two loving parents.

“Olivia,” Lucy says, sheepishly.

“Olivia
who?
Say it—”

“Olivia
Gray
,” Lucy blurts out. “You went to Oregon and did not come back—which means you cannot be
real
.”

“I am as real as you want me to be.”

“Are you a Veil engineer?”

“I am not.”

“Then what are you?”

“I am something else.”

“I do not trust you. My mind has been read and tricks played upon me.”

“We have not read your mind, Lucy. Though we have placed some things there for you to remember.”

“What things?”

“You will know. When the time is right.”

To Lucy the woman’s calmness reflects her own annoyance in a manner that is all too evident. She adjusts accordingly—a slight relaxation of her posture, coupled with a softer tone.

“What is this place?”

“A place between worlds.”

“Are we in
Heaven?
With
angels?
”

“This is not Heaven. And they are not angels. The presence you can feel…they are Veil engineers. A brother and sister. We are in a bubble, of sorts, which they have manifested so that we may be alone together. All is not as it seems, Lucy.”

“People keep saying that that—and bad things happen after.”

“Then you must be brave.”

Lucy reconciles herself to the situation. It is real and not real, though how she came to understand that is not clear to her.
Oh.
She eyes Olivia with renewed suspicion.

“Why am I here?”

“Because of the jewel within you, where there should be none.”

“A
jewel?
”

“A bond between you and another, a connection that transcends consciousness.”

“What other?”

The woman ponders Lucy with a slight cock of her head.

“What a curious creature you are. Why we should find such a jewel in you, or why it might be so bright, was, to say the least, quite troubling.”

“Because I was
made?
” Lucy suggests, not holding back on the bitter cynicism with which she frames her supposition. “Because I am a
machine?
”

“No, Lucy. Because of the manner of your creation.”

“Then I do not understand.”

“Neither did we, until we looked back at all that had transpired. If we had known what we know now, we would have taken precautions—to keep you safe.”

“The manner of my creation?”

“When you were created you were formed from a merging of existing personality patterns—so that you could be gifted emotions that would otherwise destroy you.”

“Like Alice?” Lucy says quietly, remembering one who had come before her, a predecessor whose suffering had made her own existence possible.

“Yes. Like Alice. The selection was supposed to be random, the intention to protect both the personality donors and the recipients. But in your case we found the two patterns to have been deliberately predetermined.”

“By Dr. Ellis?”

“That’s right.”

“
Two?
”

“A mother and a father, Lucy.”

It does not have to be said. She feels it within her. Not a memory placed there, something deeper—

“
Robert?
”

“And Monica Satori, the emotional connection between them magnifying the gifting process, making you what you are.”

“Which is the jewel?”

“We do not know, and that’s why you must return. So that it may be preserved, and observed further.”

The white world dims to reveal the ghostly outline of another resolving into view—Lucy’s machine room aboard the Afrika, a figure floating at her MBI unit, one hand resting against its slab, the other wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Does he know?” Lucy asks.

“He feels something he cannot explain. But for now, at least, it must remain our secret, as must the other things.”

Lucy turns to face the apparition.

“Why you and not Lucius?”

“Because we are our fathers’ daughters.”

“And what of our mothers?”

“They especially cannot be allowed to know.”

And with that the young woman steps away and is gone, Lucy finding herself in a machine world simulation of her own making, as if a dream become real.

She is beside Robert, the glow of her self-image projection lighting the space about him.

He rolls around, finding her there with a
gasp.

A thousand questions clamoring to be asked are simply swept aside.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Robert says.

“The Veil engineers let me live. I do not know why. And they have returned me here.”

“Then I took away everything you hoped for,” Robert gulps out with tearful remorse. “A happy life in the Emerald City.”

“No. No you did not.” Lucy holds up a projection of a large daisy flower, gazing at it fondly. “When you gave me this flower I saw where my heart was. Where home is. That which defines me. I am made by man, and made in his own image.”

Robert reaches out to touch her cheek, withdrawing his hand with embarrassment at the empty air he finds there—the projection seemed so real in the gloom.

“Can you still like me like this?” Lucy asks. “As the daughter you never had?”

“Yes, Lucy. I can.”

“Well then, let’s go home. To where the heart is.”