Page 93 of Middlegame

WAR

Timeline: 22:31 CDT, June 16, 2016 (same day).

“I understand,” says Leigh. “Comb the ashes: look for anything that tells us where they’re going. If you find Erin’s body, contact me. We need to know what we’re up against.”

She hangs up the phone before Professor Vernon can object. The man is old, almost used up, still trying to earn his share of the Philosopher’s Stone: he’s an excellent mathematician and was instrumental in their figuring out the necessary invocations to embody the Doctrine of Ethos, but he’s never been a good alchemist. Without the aid of Reed and his clever connections, Vernon would have given up the discipline entirely. No big loss. He’s unlikely to survive any confrontation with the cuckoos, and that’s fine too, as far as Leigh’s concerned. One less mouth to feed in the new world can only be a good thing.

Her skin feels like it’s on fire as she leaves her lab, walking fast, hands balled by her sides. Most of the rooms she passes are empty, their subjects long since flown. She’s taken a few of them apart herself, using their blood and organs in alchemical tinctures that have taught them a great deal about the universe. The subjects would probably think it was an unfair exchange, but that’s why none of them have ever been given a vote.

Reed stopped actively pursuing anything apart from the Doctrine years ago. The other manifest forces are too easy to create and refine. Other alchemists have snatched some of them up, pinning them in place; others have been able to manifest on their own, with no alchemy involved. Only the Doctrine has defied him, and so only the Doctrine matters: it is the alkahest, the universal solvent that dissolves everything else and allows the universe to be remade.

Leigh’s footsteps echo in shadowed halls, and the few who walk here this close to the plan’s fruition scurry to avoid her wrath. She is the monster in their midst, and not one of them wants to face her when she walks with such purpose, such anger, such intent.

Reed is in the observation lounge, standing in front of a wide glass window looking in on a room containing two teens. The male is balled on their shared bunk, his arms gripping his knees, his face hidden from view. The female sits beside him, one arm draped protectively around his shoulders, glaring at everything around her like she could make it all go away through sheer force of anger. His hair is dark blond, like wheat; hers is almost white, almost green, the color of fresh cornsilk in the light.

“It’s fascinating, isn’t it,” says Reed, without turning, “how their natures change the activation of their genes? The math children are always so much more strikingly colored than their fellows. I think it’s because they can handle more damage without compromising the Doctrine. It’s protecting itself, in them, by making sure people will aim first for the math children. The language children can always order them to change things, as long as they’re breathing long enough to do it. Anyone aiming at these two will shoot her first, every time.”

“We’ve lost Cheswich and Middleton,” says Leigh.

Reed goes still.

“Erin was instructed to terminate the male; the shock of losing him should have killed the female, but just in case, we dispatched Peters to her location. Both cuckoos are missing. Both their homes burnt down—a favorite tactic of Erin’s, if you recall. One body was found, in the female’s home. Peters. Either Erin has switched sides, or they’ve managed to subdue her.”

Reed turns. Still he says nothing. Leigh looks at him with bland fearlessness. He can see the anger in her eyes.

“It’s possible the male is closer to manifestation than expected and was able to talk Erin around into working with him,” says Leigh. “If that’s the case, his influence will wear off at some point, and she’ll finish her job. He doesn’t know what he can do. There’s no way he’s given her instructions that would compel her loyalty on a permanent basis. It simply wouldn’t occur to him at this stage in his development.”

“And if he has?”

“Then he has her, and we’ll never get her back.” It doesn’t matter at this point. If they did get her back, if they did have her loyalty returned to them, Leigh would still take pleasure in taking her apart. An agent compromised is no longer an agent who can be relied upon, no matter how well that agent may have performed in the past. As an avatar of Order whose Chaos has long since been recycled for parts and knowledge, Erin has been living on borrowed time for years. Her debts are finally coming due.

“I see.” Reed straightens, seeming to grow tall and terrible in the light coming through the two-way mirror. He has always been tall; he has always been terrible. He is simply putting the masks aside. “What are you going to do about this, Leigh?”

“Me?” Her eyes narrow. “This was your project. This has always been your project. You’re the one who wouldn’t let me terminate them when they got entangled, the one who said I couldn’t send someone to collect them and get them safely under lock and key. You’re the one who’s defended this pair of flawed avatars every step of the way. Why am I the one who has to clean up your mess?”

“Because I’m the one who’s going to make us immortal,” he says, gesturing toward the window, toward the tired and trembling teens on the other side. “That is our future. That is absolute control of the forces that bind this universe. I need to prepare them for what they’re going to become. I need to anoint and uplift them, and you need to remove the competition from their path. Take whatever you need. Men, weapons, anything. Go to California. Fix this.”

Leigh looks at him in silence for a count of ten, eyes narrowed, assessing. In her breast, the ghostly wings of the carrion birds that were used to stitch her wounded flesh back to life beat against her ribs. Finally, she says, “You’re still following a dead woman’s blueprint. Haven’t you ever wondered what you could have become if you’d broken free of Asphodel’s design?”

“It became my design when I killed her.”

Did it? She wants to ask the questions he has forbidden, questions of purpose and motivation and reason, questions of how much of this has been his own idea and how much of it has been Asphodel Baker mapping her own path down the improbable road. Can a dead woman claim the Impossible City?

Perhaps soon, they’ll know. “I can’t guarantee any of them will survive the recovery,” she says. “Killing half a pair kills the other in all but the most extreme cases, and I’m not what you send into the field when you want something done subtly.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then I’m gone. Just remember, when you turn on the evening news, that this was what you asked for.” Leigh turns on her heel and walks away, not looking back. She doesn’t want him to see the color rising in her cheeks, or her growing excitement at the idea of being released from the lab that has been her home and her prison for so very long.

She’s an experiment too. And like any experiment, she wants to be free.

Reed watches her go before turning to the window. On the other side, the boy is crying again, and the girl with the almost green hair is trying to comfort him, still glaring daggers at everything around her, as if she could protect him through the sheer application of her hatred.

“You’re going to change the world for me,” he says.

In the silence that comes after his words, he thinks he can smell Asphodel’s perfume.

SCIENCE