Untitled - Westwinds Community Church

Visit D.M. McDonald’s website at shadowinggod.com
or follow him on Twitter @guerillahost
The Revelation of June Paul
Copyright 2012 by D.M. McDonald. All rights reserved.
The author retains sole copyright to the materials.
Original Paintings by Heidi Rhodes
Original Sketches by Randy Sottovia
Maps by Rick Rangler
Layout and Design by Mel Evans
Edited by Amy Gafkjen
Published in association with Westwinds Community Church,
1000 Robinson Road, Jackson MI 49203
www.westwinds.org
To Champ Stamp & Chainsaw,
may your charm never wither.
We believe God’s future plans will heal our world, and
part of that healing includes freedom for those sold into
slavery. That’s why we’re donating proceeds from the
live performances of The Revelation of June Paul to
organizations working to fight human trafficking. Funds will
be donated to:
Children’s Hope Chest, a national organization that
partners primarily with churches, businesses and Christian
communities to provide help, training, and discipleship to
orphans across the globe.
Sari Bari, offering women exploited in the sex trade
alternative employment and healing.
Michigan Human Trafficking Task Force, working to
facilitate a collaborative effort between law enforcement
and social service agencies to prevent human trafficking in
Michigan.
Southern Michigan Regional Human Rights Task Force, a
regional branch of Michigan Human Trafficking Task Force,
based in the Hillsdale area.
Michigan Human Trafficking Clinic, a clinical law program
at the University of Michigan providing legal services to
victims of human trafficking.
The Manasseh Project, an outreach ministry of Wedgwood
Chistian Services dedicated to ending the sexual exploitation
of young men and women in west Michigan.
Critical Acclaim for The Revelation of June Paul
“The most innovative preacher in North America strikes
again. A box-bursting, border-crossing project that speaks
powerfully in the present tense while feeling like an artifact
from the future.”
Len Sweet, best-selling author and professor
“With the taste of both an ancient tale and the relevance
of a modern fable, David McDonald through gripping
storytelling paints a picture of a future earth and explores the
timely subjects of revenge, justice and the flaws of humanity
living out an eternal kingdom while still confined by the
world.”
John Bergquist, Huffington Post blogger, writer, and
speaker
“David McDonald has one of the most fertile Christian
imaginations I know of. His work gives us a slain, hopeful
Christian eschatology within a lively narrative. Those
concerned to redeem redemption must read this exciting
novel to the hopeful end.”
Kenneth W. Brewer, Ph. D., Chair, Department of
Theology, Associate Professor of Theology, Spring Arbor
University
“David McDonald is one of the most creative
communicators I know. The Revelation of June Paul is great
fun and a moving experience.”
Dave Travis, CEO of Leadership Network
“A Holy Spirit infusion! Creative genius of this caliber
in service to Christ catapults a powerful storytelling
phenomenon into a mind-wrenching, heart-changing,
soul-twisting catalyst of metanoia and transformation.
Collaboration the likes of this in the Church assures us
that Christ’s redemptive power is alive and moving in this
world.”
Lori Wagner, co-author of The Seraph Seal
“We all know the power of stories to convey great truths and
provoke thoughtful reflection. Think The Narnia Chronicles
and Lord of the Rings. Thank goodness people are still
writing great stories to challenge our thinking and release
our imagination for what could be--and what might actually
be if we can just remember it! The Revelation of June Paul
by David McDonald and his team of co-conspirators will
jumpstart your brain and your heart at the same time. I
recommend you read it--but not by yourself. Because you
are going to want help finding yourself in the story.”
Reggie McNeal, Missional Leadership Specialist,
Leadership Network
“David McDonald understands that story-telling is as multidimensional as our world. The Revelation of June Paul
presents a uniquely layered approach which includes a book,
a live theatrical experience and mixed media. Everyone
knows the landscape of information transmission is
changing, and popular culture craves story over dissertation.
McDonald is staying out in front of that learning curve,
creating bold art that is just as (or some might say more)
valid than ‘sermonizing.’ A great example of how faith can
shape a compelling story.”
Sarah Cunningham, author of Picking Dandelions, Dear
Church, and upcoming titles Portable Faith and The Well
Balanced World Changer (2013)
“Every time I think I’ve done something creative I end up
seeing the next project David McDonald has made and I
realize I have a long ways to go to utilizing the full spectrum
of the arts to reach people with the Gospel”
Lars Rood, Pastor of all things Families, Bellevue
Presbyterian Church
“I’ve never been able to read science-fiction or fantasy
that bears the label, “Christian.” It is often too careful, too
predictable, too safe, too rigid. That trend stops with this
piece of work. Immensely clever, intelligent, imaginative,
while profoundly theologically solid. McDonald is a new
breed--a painter, a playwright, an anthropologist, a scholar,
an expeditionist--who makes no apologies for taking his
readers on a ride that stretches possibilities and makes us
grapple with Truth.”
John Voelz, Author of Follow You, Follow Me and Quirky
Leadership; Westwinds Church Pastor, The Curator
“The Revelation of June Paul takes you on a journey through
the book of Revelation and the end times in a way you’ve
never experienced before. Prepare yourself. You will be
challenged, and perhaps even changed, by how McDonald
juxtaposes the past and future in a contemporary tale that
involves time travel, the word of God, the limits of our
humanity, and the very nature of justice.”
Tom Davis, CEO Children’s Hope Chest
Part One: A New Earth
It began a thousand years after the end of the Common
Era (ACE).
There was no Rapture, though I guess that
shouldn’t have been a surprise.
The Great Evangelical Disappointment, and the Mass
suicides to follow, compounded the effects of the War
and threatened the total collapse of our species.
We looked for the Rider on the White Horse but
he never came.
There were horrible beasts, unimaginable realities
that the Good Book either failed to mention or simply
underrepresented.
Scorched earth. Disease.
The theater of dying, looping endlessly.
My part didn’t begin until much later.
Though you’ve probably figured out the basic
shape of those events, I thought I might fill in a
few of the particulars.
I want to start with the Chernoblys.
The City of God
r Common Era, ACE)
3631 CE (1570 Afte
All twenty-four councilors had assembled in the Elder
Chamber. Light fell from the ceiling in green and golden
curtains, an emulation of long-past aurora borealis. The
Elders normally met in private, but this was a strange day
and I had been summoned to the room, empty save for my
hosts and a great stone slab.
I wished Serif had been permitted to join me. She was
my guardian, counselor, and peer. Despite their inability to
molt or sweat, the Elders believed our techno-organic angels
were unsanitary.
I missed her.
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
Though I had been summoned into the Chamber twice
before I did not remember that slab, or its position in the
middle of the room. Yet there it was. Massive. Immobile.
And nothing had been done to prepare me for what lay
on top.
The Elders lay in semicircles of six, slightly askew.
Angelic script was etched on the floor, concentrically
interposed with characters predating the Common Era.
Looking up at the mirrored ceiling, I got the impression I
was standing in a clockwork, each ring of councilors like a
bezel on the copper face of the floor.
The Elders’ white robes reflected the gentle
luminescence of the false ceiling. They reclined on long
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chairs, jacked into the City servers through hardwire
connections in their temples, collarbones, and ribs. It was
rare for them to be in human form. Usually they eschewed
even the appearance of corporeality, opting instead for an
entirely digital existence.
But, as I said, today was special.
“You’re sure it’s her?” I asked. It was hard to remember,
though I thought there was some small resemblance.
They Elders didn’t answer. They had already said their
part, individually and then in mental unison. The Elders
could talk all at once, letting you listen in on their twentyfour-way conversation as it replayed in one impossible
second. They opened their shared minds, let you peek inside,
and then left you with the accompanying vertigo.
I walked to the stone slab and bent over to peer at
something that had once been human. We called them
‘Chernoblys’ on account of the radioactive damage from the
holocaust. The New Palestinian colonists had miraculously
survived the nuclear fallout. But the radioactivity changed
them into something less than human beings, something
more animal than personal. They were shadows, and
monstrous.
Everyone but me.
The old stories suggested the Chernoblys could travel
across time. We weren’t sure how the Chernoblys became
associated with time travel, or how they supposedly mastered
the Chronosphere itself—that is, the entire warp of time—
but the two legends were nigh inseparable.
19
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
The Chernoblys were light grey, entirely devoid of hair,
and sharply muscled. They weren’t like bodybuilders, but
lean and long like climbers. Until today, everyone thought
they were a myth.
The Chernoblys were the kind of thing privateers
babbled about over tea, and though I’m considered
something of an expert, that’s a black mark on my
reputation.
I repeated my question, adding, “It’s a little hard to
believe.”
This time they did answer their harmonic voices pitched
awkwardly between discomfort and curiosity, like listening
to electronic feedback. I didn’t enjoy hearing them, but was
fascinated all the same. “That is your mother, June,” came
their collective response.
I felt like there was something trying to bury itself in my
memory, shouting that this was an important moment. But I
couldn’t process it, like something was knocking at my mind
but I wouldn’t let it in.
“Her genetic makeup has been altered by radiation,” they
continued. “She has mutated. She does not look like your
mother, but it is her.”
“You knew they were out there?” I asked, my voice
hushed.
“Yes,” they replied, not giving anything away.
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
My voice rose, frustration leaking through. “From the
beginning?”
They paused, briefly, before answering. “It was unsafe,”
they replied.
I shook my head, unable to comprehend what I was both
seeing and hearing. Of all the things I missed most from the
World That Was, of all the regrets I had for my part in the
dissolution of humanity, nothing compared to the regret I had
about my mother. I had abandoned her. At the time I felt that
was my only option. But after the Common Era,
20
at the apocalyptic collision of prophecy and progress, my
memories metastasized.
I hadn’t meant for her to die.
There was a great wound running through her body.
Though it had been covered and made up, I could tell she
had suffered.
“How did she die?” I asked.
“It was a warning,” they replied.
Who was left to warn us? I wondered. Not Gilead. Who
else remains? “From the Chernoblys?”
They didn’t respond. I pressed, “Who was the warning
for?”
Again, they didn’t answer. I shifted uncomfortably,
feeling certain I had been called to atone, but unsure what to
do next.
Exasperated I asked, “What do you want me to do?”
Their response came quickly, surprisingly almost a
shout. “We want you to do nothing!”
“I ought to investigate.”
“Do not exceed your mandate, Privateer,” they warned.
Their shared voice buzzed uncomfortably in the front of my
mind.
The room vibrated, the concussion of their collective
patience wavering. “It is too dangerous,” they said. “The
sewage That Was still seeps through the Earth.”
21
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
I was undeterred. “You want me to explore?” I asked,
reaching forward to touch my mother’s skin. It wasn’t as
cold as I expected, or I wasn’t as warm. “Where better than
New Palestine? You want me to conserve? What better to
conserve than the last remnants of humanity outside the
City?”
More of the same, I thought. Always caution.
The Elders brought their longest audience of the day to
its inevitable conclusion. “You could die,” they said.
The Elders were wrong and knew it. We can’t die. If the
carapace breaks down, we automatically upload to the City
servers. The notion of death was passé.
We had eternal life.
Even the name of our synthetic bodies was a farse.
A carapace is a shell, not a person. Crabs had shells. But
people? We were made flesh. A carapace was just a fancy car
for the mind.
Part of me knew the Elders weren’t motivated by
cowardice. But mostly, I felt they were shackles. They
liked their world small and manageable. Humanity had
been reduced to a wizened hive, a glorified terrarium, and
I wanted to break free. I wanted to explore the ruins of the
World That Was.
It wasn’t just an ideological concern. This wasn’t about
safety or science or history or disease. The dead woman on
the slab was my mother.
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
This was about being human.
22
My life was inextricably bound to my mother’s. Once I
thought old age would release me from her memory. But it
hadn’t. I had lived over a thousand years and no one would
come after me. I was the last. No one had been born since
the holocaust made us sterile. My mother was like Eve—a
figure both historical and theological—and I don’t know if I
missed her, or venerated her, or both.
I needed to know why, and how, she died, and whether
there was anything I could have done to prevent it then or
reverse it now.
If the Chernoblys could control time, then I wondered if
my mother was from this time? Or was she from the past? Or
even the future?
Just the hint of time travel opened up a matrix of
possibilities, many of which I would need to explore in order
to solve the mystery surrounding her death.
I needed to find the ruins of New Palestine. I wanted
to save my mother and—if possible—save the world I
remembered from my youth.
1570 ACE
I was going back in time.
23
“Well?” asked the Elders. I knew what they wanted.
The Elders thought the old world collapsed because of
man’s inability to control his baser instincts—instincts like
exploration, discovery, and adventure. They wanted me to
promise I wouldn’t put myself at risk. After all, with only
one hundred and forty-four thousand of us left, every life
was precious.
“I’ll think about it,” I replied.
“Thinking generates caution,” they said, slowly. “But do
not forget. There is more at stake than your grief.”
“This is my mother!” I got angry, fast. Turns out, I
wouldn’t need to think much at all. “You knew about the
Chernoblys, but kept it hidden!” I could feel my carapace
heating itself into quick-response mode as I began to pace,
clenching my fists.
1570 ACE
“Where does this reckless curiosity come from, June
Paul?” This wasn’t the first time I had defied them. “Heaven
has everything you need.”
“This isn’t Heaven,” I said, throwing out my hands.
“Heaven wouldn’t require us to surrender our humanity.”
The Elders were infuriated by my insolence. I thought they
might actually move from their palanquins. I didn’t care.
24
Heaven was just the latest and greatest thing that didn’t do
what you wanted when you sold your soul to get in.
“I need to get to New Palestine,” I said, wondering more
about the possibilities before me. Maybe I could go back in
time, just a few days even, to spare her being killed? Maybe I
could prevent her Chernoblization? Maybe the medical staff
in the City could heal her? Maybe I could go all the way
back and prevent the holocaust altogether? I wouldn’t know.
Not until I got into the ruins.
I turned on my heel and began marching through the
Chamber. I wanted out of that gross plagiarism of divine
promise. It wasn’t safe outside the City—the radioactive
residue still clung to most of the planet—but the answers
were out there.
I wanted answers more than I wanted safety.
I had already begun dialing Serif’s communicator when
the Elders called back after me. “Go with peace,” they said.
“Go to hell,” I replied.
1570 ACE
25
I shouldered my way through the door, annoyed, and
eager to ditch my carapace. The crib was an eight-hundred
square foot platinum cradle, plain but warped and all on one
level. It had an open roof with a sloping half-ceiling to keep
the Repose out of the rain.
As I shut the door behind me, part of my mind darkened.
Mental images of my mother haunted me, perverting her into
some creaturely troll. I tried to shake it off, but the images
would not easily be banished. I hadn’t thought of her in a
long time, and what I had just seen left me cheerless and
afraid.
1570 ACE
Moving up the short platform into my closet, I walked
past the carapaces I had saved over the years. The Magellan
was best for jungle exploration, and the Seal’s Skin for
seafaring. I also had Privateers and Cloud Punchers leftover
from the early days. At the end of the row was the empty
spot for the Dayweaver. I leaned back until I felt the
molded plastic of the rack, then closed my eyes. The upload
sequence began automatically and I felt my conscious mind
leave the carapace and join with the City servers.
I sped through fiber optics, a node on an electrical
freeway, and entered the Repose, a kind of digital soup into
which our consciousness could be transferred. It reminded
me of long Sunday afternoon naps and I imagined the sun on
26
my face while time breezed coolly by. There was something
wonderfully paradisiacal about being lost in that jellied
circuitry. It was like dreaming, like swimming, like a day at
the beach with a drink and a friend.
Hence, Repose.
1570 ACE
27
We hadn’t had native human bodies for centuries. After
the holocaust, the radiation levels were so high we moved
underground. We had to constantly wear masks to keep from
breathing toxins. Over time, those masks became elaborate
suits protecting our skin as well. The prototypes looked like
mechazoids from schlocky Japanese cinema. The second
wave wasn’t much better. The early interface between
hardware and wetware created unholy animatronics teetering
through scraps of the old world. Silicon circuitry caused
human tissue to burn, leaving patches of discoloration and
rot. Eventually the OS graduated into something more
metaphysical than mechanized, and the copper tegument was
now nearly indistinguishable from human skin.
1570 ACE
We were still us, still sentient, but could conceivably
be uploaded into automobiles or children’s toys as easily
as a carapace. We didn’t even have actual, physical brains
anymore. We were clouds of data. We had become a society
of husk-jumpers, toting our minds around like the small pets
of the upper class.
Truth be told, I missed having a native body. In the old
stories, the Creator fashioned us with clay and filled us with
his breath. We became souls, then, the equilibrium of flesh
and spirit. Take any part of that equation away and we were
28
something less. I felt like something less most of the time, a
spirit in a ramshackle hut.
Our first attempts at artificial intelligence were designed
to replicate humanity. But it never quite worked. All our
people were dumb. Or rude. Or made horribly inappropriate
comments at inopportune times. We couldn’t get the
programming right.
We had a lot more success making angels. We designed
them on computers, mocked them up using resin-printers,
and then grew them in laboratories. They weren’t fully
human, but they were smarter than any animal and possessed
instincts that dwarfed our own. They didn’t defecate,
salivate, or shed. In many ways, we looked up to them,
despite being their creators.
In the old scriptures angels were terrifying beasts—
seraphim, meaning “fiery flying serpent.” Prophets
described them as composites of lions, bulls, birds, and men,
far more frightening than the pictures I had once seen in
bestiaries.
Serif was the old manner of angel, like a griffin. Her
eagle’s head perched atop a lion’s torso and her talons struck
into the ground with lizard’s feet. She spoke like a person,
though her beak chattered, and she weighed nearly two
thousand pounds. Had she cared to stretch, her wingspan
would exceed the breadth of the crib.
Serif called for me, then, her voice piping directly inside
the Repose. “I have found them, June.” Even when speaking
in my mind, Serif’s beak chattered, accenting her words
29
1570 ACE
Sometimes, when the weather was bad, Serif would
nestle up to the Repose and extend one wing protectively
over top. I hadn’t programmed her to do that, and I found it
fascinatingly odd that she would do these little things all on
her own. They made her real.
like the chirp of crickets. It was an affectation. It reminded
me she appreciated idiosyncrasy and found beauty in
distinctiveness. Serif thought sameness was sinister. “I know
where to enter New Palestine,” she said, and I could hear the
gladness in her voice.
“And the Chernoblys?” I asked.
I had a mental flash of Serif stretching her great neck,
noble and proud. “They are here too,” she replied. “We have
not found such strong sign in a long while. They are coming
above ground with greater frequency.”
1570 ACE
“Sounds good, sister,” I told her. “Hurry home.”
30
From within the Repose I heard a chime at my door.
I opened it through the OS and began transmitting my
consciousness to the Spelunker v.2.1.1, knowing we would
soon leave.
Face-to-face visits were rare, given that sort of
interaction achieved very little that couldn’t be done
digitally. But I had been expecting a follow-up from the
Elders, knowing they would press their case.
As the Spelunker came online, I received a snapshot of
my visitor. It was Thomas, the Elder I knew best. He had
once championed my work as an Expeditionary Privateer,
though recently his enthusiasm had waned.
“It’s good to see you, sir,” I said, running a basic
diagnostic on the carapace as he came in. Satisfied with the
Spelunker, I disengaged from the wall mount and crossed the
room to welcome my guest.
“I had hoped you wouldn’t need to lie about that,” he
replied, avoiding my offered handshake. “Seems I was
wrong.”
From this height the City resembled a garden, silver
cribs branching from skytowers like fronds off a fern. Below,
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1570 ACE
I forced a smile, escorting Thomas to the rail
overlooking the City of God.
the golden streets glowed warmly, as though the ferns
coasted along straits of precious metal. The lights of shops
flushed down the boulevard, streaking fire.
“It’s quite an accomplishment, isn’t it?” he asked.
I believed he was genuine. Thomas was one of many
who failed to understand that constrained perfection was
antithetical to the grace of God.
“If you say so,” I replied. As pretty as it was, I had no
love for Heaven. It felt forced, like we were trying too hard,
our efforts keeping us from experiencing the best of what
was left.
“June,” he scolded, “you’re never satisfied, are you?”
“Me?” I laughed, startled. “I’m not the one trying to
fabricate perfection.”
The Elder fixed me with a stare. “You are,” he countered,
“but your idea of perfection is different than ours.”
There it is, I thought. There’s the threatening control I
find distasteful in Heaven.
“You won’t change my mind,” I said. I had always
appreciated Thomas’ directness, and thought he deserved the
same in return.
Thomas shook his head. “I pity the Chernoblys, June. I
think we ought to help.”
Is he handling me? “But you’re not prepared to take
action?” I pressed.
“Your mother represents a threat,” he said simply.
1570 ACE
“She’s dead,” I replied. “What threat is left?”
Thomas knew me well enough not to be taken in. “She is
a symbol,” he replied, looking out over the City, imagining
a symbol of another sort. “Someone—something—dropped
her off at our front gates. They shouldn’t be able to get
32
within a hundred miles of those gates without alarms
going off. But they did. It’s an awful truth, but there it is.
Somebody out there wants to make us afraid.”
“Looks like they succeeded,” I muttered.
I wanted Thomas, at least, to give up on the joke. I
wanted him to relax and fess up that we had little hope of
long-term survival. But I knew he was committed to the
illusion of sanctuary. They all were. We were going to
sit safely inside the City gates while the world around us
continued to crumble. Soon there would be no life but angels
and animals, with a few Chernoblys underground.
So. The meek shall inherit the earth.
“How did it happen?” I asked.
Thomas met my gaze directly. “We don’t know,” he
confessed.
“That’s why I have to go and find out.” I figured Thomas
had come to warn me about the Council, to give his usual
spiel about being careful not to go too far.
But that’s not what happened.
“I can’t let you do that,” he said, and I realized for
the first time what Thomas was wearing. The Paladin
class was exclusive to the Elders, a supra-carapace that
combined the best attributes of all mods. Even if the Elders
downloaded into a synthetic body, they almost never piloted
their Paladins. Only for combat. It couldn’t outfight a
WarMachine or outfly a Heron, but I knew my Spelunker
was outmatched.
“What’s going on?” I asked, indicating his armor.
33
1570 ACE
Thomas stood up straight. “You can never be too
cautious in times like this,” he said, guiding me back into the
crib.
I pulled away. “Why are you here?” I asked, reluctant to
get back under the shelter. Serif, I called mentally. Where are
you?
“I’m sorry, June,” Thomas replied. “But it’s only
temporary. You’ll be placed in forced-Repose until the
Council reconvenes.”
“No.” I stopped. My hands came up, ready, and the
Spelunker’s quick-response systems dialed in.
Thomas frowned. “You don’t have a choice, son,” He
moved toward me, shoulders thrown forward. He was getting
ready to lunge.
I backed away.
“I don’t think you want it to go like this,” he said.
“Paladin versus Spelunker? It’s hardly a contest.”
We were interrupted.
I heard a great beating of wings and looked into the night
to see my angel descending. She was gorgeous and powerful,
every bit of her body independent and animated. She landed
behind the Elder with barely a tremor and opened her beak,
her wings momentarily occluding the moon.
Thomas turned to look over his shoulder, surprised at the
implied threat. The angels were fearsome warriors, forged
in the jousts of Seraphic Olympiads, and Thomas’ frown
deepened. He loaded his spear, the choice weapon of the
Elders, and brandished it before the angel.
1570 ACE
Serif was quick, aggressive, but I wasn’t sure of her
chances against a Paladin.
The whole situation had escalated quickly and I wasn’t
sure what to do. I signaled to both of them through the
OS—Stand down! I screamed, mentally projecting my voice.
But Thomas had already begun running the emergency
subroutines. He was transmitting the distress signal. If we
34
didn’t act quickly to diffuse this situation, things would get a
lot messier.
Serif, I called. We’ve got to do something!
The angel acted instinctually. Looking down over
Thomas, she moved her eyes right to left, decisively, before
doing what came most naturally in melee.
Serif bit off his head.
The Paladin carapace powered down immediately,
falling to the floor in a clang.
“What did you do?” I asked. I was in shock. Only the
sound of Serif munching on the Elder’s crown kept me from
a dissociative break with reality.
Give me a moment, she said. I am surfing the Spirit. Serif
was a talented Spirit-jockey, often perceiving future events
based on the cohesion of multiple strings of intentionality.
“Work your magic, sister. We’re gonna need all the help
we can get,” I said.
The angels became aware of the Spirit long before we
ever knew it existed. It is to the human psyche what the
Internet was to digital information—a way of skimming
thoughts, intuitions, and dreams. But that tenuous subatomic
invisibility was more than just a way to preview the inner
information of humanity. The angels could manipulate it,
giving premonitions, strengthening resolve, or emboldening
ambition.
Give me a moment, Serif repeated.
35
1570 ACE
I still can’t believe we lived as long as we did, as well
as we did, without it. For the angels, sailing the Spirit was
about as natural as reading a newsfeed. It was a rough sort
of prescience, but for all its mercurial nature it was a handy
skill.
I opened my OS to Serif’s datastream and began to piggy
back on her Spirit-nav. She was accessing the City Servers.
She clogged up the data pipes and re-routed Thomas’ upload
sequence to the Elders’ Repose. She altered his memory files
and messed with his date/time stamp.
She was slowing him down.
“I have bought us a few hours,” she said, finally, spitting
out the last remnants of the Paladin’s crown.
“What will he remember?” I asked. Once Thomas
completed his upload through the City Servers, I knew he
would coordinate a tactical response with the other Elders.
For all our talk about immortality, if the Elders
terminated our upload to the City servers we would actually
die.
“Eventually he will remember everything,” she replied,
“though the Council will likely piece it together before he
does. I erased the log of his visit, but it will not matter. We
need to go.”
I smiled, feeling again the thrill of adventure in spite
of the danger, the uncertainty, and the mess. It may seem
counterintuitive, but I had spent so much of my life looking
forward to these expeditions it was hard for the old feelings
not to resurface.
1570 ACE
As a scientist I was beside myself. As a conservationist, I
felt like the answers to the evolutionary questions of the ages
had just been splayed open for my personal satisfaction. As a
privateer, I felt like this was the moment toward which every
other incident had driven me since I was born.
We were the explorers and conservationists of Heaven,
and I was going into the field. “We’re gonna make history
better,” I said, climbing atop Serif and kicking her ribs.
36
We took off into the night, low to avoid City radar, and
headed for the foothills of the middle-American south That
Was.
I had no idea I was precisely wrong.
1570 ACE
37
,
35 degrees Nortth,
84 deg15r70eeACsE Wes
The journey from the City to the foothills took several
hours. I still enjoyed riding bareback and was thrilled by
the ripple of Serif’s wings. The sun had moved another six
inches closer this cycle and it was hot, but adaptation is the
jazz of the food chain and we knew to expect the changes.
We arrived at the base of the mountains as the afternoon
warmed to tangerines. Bits of the World That Was stuck
up through the ground like weeds. Fallen buildings had
been subsumed by the persistence of moss and peat, while
tinkerers’ coins and cables and cans still peeked from
between rocks in the rare gleams of white sunshine.
The lurking sore of New Palestine bade us look closer
at the land. Most endangered species breed in the least
accessible landscapes. Their nests are typically buried,
sunken, or surrounded by inhospitable terrain. We suspected
the Chernoblys were no different.
1570 ACE
They left spoor easy enough to track if you knew what to
look for—fissures, ruins, trails. I saw the physical markers,
while Serif picked up faint nuclear signatures through the
Spirit.
Serif alighted onto a pie-shaped clearing between groves.
The ground was covered in needles, little wind-scattered
pins. Her talons stabbed the ground unsympathetically and
the trees shook, flicking more green needles onto the earth.
38
The air cut through my nose. It wasn’t pure—nothing was
any longer—but I took it in hungrily, wanting something
natural.
What didn’t get blown up in the nuclear trade was eaten
up by radioactive contaminants after the ceasefire. The
ecological devastation worsened for nearly a hundred years.
Radiation clouds drifted and the water table was corrupted.
The soil turned red and nothing edible grew.
It took nearly four centuries before the Earth started
showing signs of recovery, though they were few and far
between. Some of the mutant-animals lived pitiful, sickly
lives before dying. We were glad they couldn’t breed. Mostly
they were amphibians that tried life on land. All the proper
mammals had long been dead. There were a few shrubs and
ferns that survived, and then a single tree nearly a hundred
years later.
It was only within the last forty years we’d seen anything
even closely resembling the forests of the World That Was. I
took great joy in walking through pine and smelling sap. We
were conditioned not to notice the lingering smell of decay.
We set to work establishing a quick perimeter. This
wasn’t our first look at that area. Expeditionary privateers
had been there many times and we had scans and maps
from half a hundred visits to the area, so we knew
approximately where to look based on where we had already
explored. Breaking up the region into four quadrants, we
systematically swept the ground for signs.
39
1570 ACE
The Elders discouraged exploration, and had often
chastised me for my attempts to locate this fabled race of
underground subhumans. I knew they were worried about
the radiation levels beyond the City and about corrupting the
servers. They were worried about even one person risking
their life for something as immature as adventure, discovery,
or understanding.
New Palestine had been ground zero for the holocaust.
Though many of the details were unclear, we knew that
the first nuclear strikes both landed at and emerged from
the Colony. Maybe somebody panicked and pushed the red
button. Maybe somebody knew their little Jesus-fantasy was
coming to an end and tried to out-Armageddon the other
team before they were blown up first. Who knows? Who
cares? All we knew for sure was that a group of religious
zealots and idealists had literally been melted by the power
of the split-atom and survived.
We saw signs of life and strange radioactive readings on
our long-range scanners soon after the opening skirmishes
of the War. But the ground was so hostile to human life no
one believed the read-outs. Satellite imagery showed people,
or things that had once been people, crawling around the
surface in noxious pitted holes. The colonists had softened
into pale worms, devolutionary echoes of their former selves.
Then they vanished.
The world was caught up in the War and the survivors of
that first strike were quickly forgotten. A decade later, when
all the fighting had well and truly finished, world attention
was redirected back to New Palestine. Most of the planet
was still like the acidic insides of an alkali battery. But there
were some who believed that if there were Chernoblys, and
if they had managed to survive the holocaust, then they
could survive anything.
1570 ACE
I just didn’t expect my mother to be one of the survivors.
Never in my worst imaginings would I have placed her there,
in those skulking pits, a human grub.
40
We found traces of uranium secrete immediately after
we landed. Normally uranium only exists in a solid state,
but there was something about the Chernoblys’ bodies that
meddled with the elemental composition of U-238, pushing
it out of their skin like a second sweat. It was oily, glowed
faintly green, and would seep into any porous substance—
including rock—within half a day.
“Look at this,” I said, pointing to the radioactive fluid. It
was the largest sign I had ever seen and I quickly dismounted
to get closer.
“This is almost brazen,” Serif replied, stretching her tired
wings from the flight. “They typically sweep their tracks.”
“Why now?” I wondered, kneeling beside the secretion
and analyzing it with my onboard processor. “After all this
time, after years of staying hidden, why set aside caution and
behave so recklessly now?”
“Maybe this was not their choice.”
Serif tossed her head. “That is merely a question of
scale.”
41
1570 ACE
I thought about that for a moment, about the Elders
and their well-kept secrets. “Do you think the Elders were
keeping people calm or keeping something hidden?”
I stood up, closing the analysis software, and turned
to face Serif. I wondered if this was the clue we had been
looking for—the one that pointed us to the nest.
“Get back to the City,” I said. “See if you can’t grab a
research habitat and a couple of drones. We’re going to be
here a while.”
Serif walked close to me and leaned her beak down to
tap it against my chest. “We need to be very clear about what
we are doing and why,” she cautioned.
“We’re going back in time,” I said, impatient with her
lecturing. I knew what was at stake better than she. I had just
seen my mother’s corpse.
“It is going to be dangerous,” she said.
I brushed past her beak and began to check the straps on
her bridle. Serif never wore a saddle, but the bridle stayed on
because she hated the way I pulled the feathers near her eyes.
She wasn’t finished. “It is impossible to change the past,
June Paul.”
“It’s not,” I replied.
One of our early finds among the ruins of New Palestine,
now scattered over miles and miles of atomic debris, had
been reprints of a journal. Those few pages had spoken of
the Chernoblys’ ability to bend time and of the colonists’
experimentations upon the timestream.
“What exactly are you hoping to accomplish?” she
asked, her head straining against me as I over-tightened her
straps.
1570 ACE
“I’m going to save my mother.”
“How?” she asked.
I tugged too hard on the bridle, hoping she’d take the
hint and leave the topic alone. “I’ll think of something.”
42
Serif bulled her body against me, pushing me back.
She turned and looked at me squarely. “By rescuing her
from the Colony?” she asked. “Or by averting the holocaust
altogether?”
“Yes,” I replied. I popped my knuckles, hoping to relieve
tension. It didn’t help.
Angels couldn’t laugh like we could, not even in
derision, so Serif stamped her claw instead. “Even if time
travel were possible, it is inconceivable that we could
affect real change in the past.” She was my counselor now,
my school teacher, and here were lessons in practicality.
“Timelines are self-consistent. The Chronosphere
automatically censors itself for paradox.”
I interrupted, unwilling to be scolded. “Everything we’ve
ever heard about the Chernoblys includes their ability to
manipulate time,” I said. “She’s why we’re going back. She’s
why we’re going to swim through time, paradox or no.”
Childhood memories brushed the back of my mind.
Mother, killing a spider that frightened me in bed. Mother,
making cake for my birthday two weeks early, and then
again on my special day. Mother, smiling as she swatted my
father’s knee. Life had not been kind to her, but death had
been even worse. She had lived for ten centuries, it appeared,
as something barely more than a mongrel.
And it was my fault.
1570 ACE
43
Serif bowed her head, giving me space for what I was
feeling about my mother.
“We will need support,” she said.
I took a breath, working to gather my composure. “Can
you get in to the drone hangar without being seen?”
She nodded. “I will also grab two habitats.”
“They’re less important than the drones,” I replied,
already shifting my focus back to the task at hand. “We
won’t freeze to death, but the work will likely go faster with
some of the dummies to do the heavy lifting.”
1570 ACE
Serif grumbled about being treated like a pack mule,
and I winked out her voice box with a thought. She could
still communicate mentally, but I was glad not to endure her
beak-chatter for the moment. Because of our psychic link,
I could always hear her, provided there was decent satellite
signal.
“Go on,” I told her, waving toward the horizon.
“Yesterday everyone thought the Chernoblys were a myth.
Like angels.”
We should both return, she projected. You do not know
if the Chernoblys are hostile. We may need more than one
privateer.
44
I dialed in my potentiality simulator, just to show I
wasn’t dismissing her out of hand. I was relieved to see that
all posited scenarios looked just as promising for pressing
ahead as they did for delay, reinforcement, and study.
Serif felt me run the sim and tried to interject. We
struggled mentally for a moment and I was irked by the fact
that she had as much control over the OS as I did. I might
have been her maker once, but she was no subordinate.
Helper? Yes. Underling? Not a chance.
We may need more than one privateer, June, Serif
repeated. I could feel her tittering in my mind, eager to make
her point but trying to make it unobtrusively.
“Just promise me you’ll keep the Elders from interfering
until we can nail down our base network. Alright?” I called
out, already turning away from her.
Do not forget the manacle. I walked back to her,
reaching my hands inside her bridle and holding up the
aluminum bracelet that housed her avatar. Stock manacles
are cheap, buggy plastics that don’t get great reception
in the mountains. But Serif had engineered this one after
the last time we were separated. It allowed her to split her
consciousness in two parts. She could be physically present
in one locale, and intellectually engaged in another through
the manacle. Serif’s physical body was going back to the
City, but her holographic body would stay with me.
Still, there is a difference between a sixteen hundredpound griffin and a six-inch jittery cartoon tethered to your
wrist. Call me old school, I guess, but I prefer tech-andblood to that digitized parody of perceived intimacy.
What are you going to do if you find them while I am not
here? she asked, hesitating.
45
1570 ACE
“Thanks, sister,” I said with a wave, clamping the
manacle onto my wrist, “fly safe.”
“If I find the Chernoblys and they’re dangerous, I’ll go
back in time and warn you not to leave me here alone.” Serif
blinked once, slowly, the disc-like apertures grating against
my good humor.
Good bye June Paul, she said. I will watch over you in
Spirit.
“Be careful,” I said. “You bit the head off an Elder, and
I’m guessing they found that…offensive.”
Extending her wings to their full span, Serif crouched
in readiness and then began to beat them up and down. She
leaped into the air, sending old leaves swirling around me.
Which is the better wonder? I asked myself. Creating
life? Or watching it live?
Serif ascended slowly, in swollen moments, before
accelerating into the distance. Her physicality thrust across
the ginger sky, through the sable curtain of untouched
mountain shadow, and I was left alone.
You are not alone, Serif said through the OS. Her avatar
manifested atop the manacle on my wrist, just a shaking little
holograph, no bigger than a tea cup. I will be with you, even
unto the end of the age.
1570 ACE
“I know, sister,” I said to the diminutive marvel. “It’s just
that the last guy who told me that left a little earlier than he’d
hoped.”
46
Community was everyman’s byword for friendship,
society, and mysticism after the War. “Brotherhood,” they’d
say. “A community of contributors. Co-creators with God
and one another!” And I had been right there with them.
“Hoorah! Blah blah blah.” But the second Serif left, a
quivering sort of happiness overcame me. It was so good to
be alone in the woods, roaming the hills with the company
of birds. Curious animals came to see me, the synthetic giant
of their wild lore. I felt like the headliner in a zoological
burlesque, with shrubs for patrons drinking rain.
I was overjoyed not to be manufacturing smiles and
singing songs with people I barely knew. Streets of gold
sound like a great idea, until you realize they amplify
thousands of off-key singers feigning jubilance. With no
streets and nobody showing off, I felt pleasantly relieved. I
got to enjoy life free from the burden of praise.
47
1570 ACE
Using the onboard thermal scan, I sped through the
underbrush until I found my first uranium bleed. It wasn’t
much, just a sneeze against the trunk of a pinacea, but it
was enough to let me know we were on the right track. All
the legends tell of the Chernoblys’ radioactive blood, bile,
pus, stool, and sweat. Everything wet is irradiated, which
essentially guarantees evidence every time they come above
ground.
Each successive sign proved to be more recent than the
last. I continued through the woods, tracking. I found three
uranium smears in that first hour, the largest about the size
of a footprint and still possessing some of the luminescent
sheen marking its newness.
But my explorations were interrupted.
Serif’s avatar began chittering nervously, zipping back
and forth through the banks of my OS. Her inability to
isolate the source of her prescient nervousness was making
her—and me—frantic.
I tried to calm her down, to segregate her scan record,
but it was no use.
We both knew something was coming. Something
unpleasant. Something massive and malignant and sour.
1570 ACE
I had lived without fear for ten centuries. Now I was
afraid for the second time in twenty-four hours.
48
A violent, catastrophic BOOM sounded across the
hills. Concussion waves hit the trees with a discharge
like drumfire. I wasn’t sure what caused it, but I felt the
rush of hot wind as it slammed into my face and caused
me to stagger. I thought all our big artillery had been
decommissioned, but this was every bit as aggressive as
anything I’d remembered from the War.
June—can you see what has happened? Serif’s voice
entered my skull. Her hologram popped up on the manacle
and I could see her adopt a posture of readiness, like some
hound alerted to game.
“There was an explosion…” I began, but I was confused
and couldn’t order my thoughts. I kept trying to form them,
but they wouldn’t crystallize. I was frustrated, my head
throbbing. There were slips of imagined glass prancing in
front of my eyes and I couldn’t feel the ends of my fingers.
49
1570 ACE
More than one, she said. The noise you heard was
a rupture in the sound barrier. An unknown has arrived
at point-three-three-zero. It is moving toward you, fast.
Serif paused briefly, making mental calculations. Cycling
oscillations, she said, buying patience. Serif turned back
to face me, irises wide. She didn’t sound panicked, but she
looked it. I perceive weapons.
Judging from Serif’s low, cool, tone I thought she was
underrepresenting the threat. Serif knew I hadn’t totally
recovered from the shock and was trying to coax me back to
alert status.
“Any idea what it is?” I asked.
It is not one of the Chernoblys, replied Serif.
“Better recall your physicality,” I suggested, already
moving further up the hill.
I have already tried. Something is jamming our signals.
“Great,” I said, tuning the sensors on my carapace to
avoid any contact with limbs or leaves. I didn’t want to
make a sound, and I would need every sensitivity optimized
to mask my whereabouts. The processors in my limbs were
accelerating to deal with the surge of cyber serotonin.
There! said Serif, her voice punctured by enthusiasm.
“What have you found?” I asked. I was hoping for a
vantage point, or a defensible tract. I was still wondering
what this hostile could be. There hadn’t been any overt
enmity since the cleanup skirmishes that followed the Magog
Offensive in 2071.
There is a fissure large enough for you to enter, Serif
said. It may lead into the warren of the Chernoblys. My
processors continued to speed up and I moved a little faster.
Do not be optimistic, she continued. Reception is intermittent
in the hills. We may lose communications within the caves.
1570 ACE
“Just tell me where to go,” I said, a little sharply. I
wasn’t in the mood for caution. Serif bristled in my mind. I
tried to console her, but was still feeling impatient.
Looking down I saw trickles of microbiotic blood
running from under my nails. I realized I had begun to
clench my fists and forced myself to relax, wiping the drips
on my legs. I unclenched my jaw and lifted my head to scan.
50
Bear north-northeast, said Serif. She was back to her
low, cool tone. The old gal had confidence, I couldn’t deny
it. And I was glad of it right about then. Her holographic
avatar led the way, using the beak as a compass rose. The
fissure was only a quarter mile off, but I would have to make
my way through a thicket to enter.
Carefully avoiding the thorny brambles, the sensor array
binging alarms and warnings in my head, I was within ten
feet of the fissure when Serif called, Break off!
But it was too late.
1570 ACE
51
The ground beneath me shifted, and I was knocked to
my knees. Bullets cut the air in front of my face. I rolled
over to the side. I couldn’t see who was shooting or the
direction from which the shots were fired. The ground sloped
away to the right. I was scrabbling to keep my balance, lead
slugs still whipping past on either side, a constant barrage.
The little needles on the earth made it slippery, and
the carapace was hitting every rock, leaf, and stone as
I struggled for purchase. I had to quickly dial down the
sensitivity just so I could move without the distraction of
every-second alarms and touches.
1570 ACE
I became a clod.
I’d overcompensated and was running into trees, even
uprooting one of the smaller ones. I had meant to grab it, but
with my sensitivities numbed I accidentally ripped it from
the ground and found myself clutching the trunk in one hand.
Irritated, I tossed the small tree off to the side and dug into
the ground with my toes. I accelerated up the hill, continuing
to dodge the rounds as they tore around me. I was starting to
panic, and could feel myself on the edge of psychic collapse.
I should have worn another carapace.
The sound of a sizeable discharge caught my attention,
the brief blowback heard from twenty meters away. I leaped
52
forward, knocking two larger trees to the ground with my
shoulders. The trunks cracked and bent at sharp angles but
didn’t totally break. The top halves of the two trees fell over
my back, protecting me with their canopies just as a fountain
of brown soil burst behind me. The blast pushed me deeper
into the trees, disoriented momentarily. Serif was running
diagnostics and repair processes on the OS; distress snaked
through her mental pitch.
June, she called. June, are you able to respond? I didn’t
say anything. I wasn’t yet sure if I could move.
June! She called again. Her demeanor was breaking up
and I could feel her losing focus on the diagnostics. She was
afraid I was slipping from consciousness. You need to keep
moving. It is getting closer.
“Less chatter, sister,” I said, while rolling my shoulders
forward. I could perceive the approximate location of my
pursuer using my onboard telemetry. He was getting closer.
I tried to get a good look at who was tracking us but
couldn’t. I’m not even sure it was a “he”. He was too fast
to observe, too dexterous to pin down, too elusive for my
instruments to place accurately.
53
1570 ACE
I caught glimpses. I could tell he was riding something,
some beast. I only caught flashes of it. It looked like a
genetic machine, like Serif. But it wasn’t an angel. It wasn’t
a Counselor of any spec or mod I’d ever seen. This was
something entirely different, darker, built for ballistics.
Luridly bat-shaped, the creature smelled like old meat,
rotting and burning through the woods. That fetor grew with
the animal’s excitement. I could feel Serif inside my mind,
screeching in defiance. Her claws were fully extended, and
though I know it was only a mental image, I could feel them
digging into my mind.
I crawled forward on my stomach, thinking to cause
less of a ruckus. I was only marginally successful. The trunk
was so thick with branches that even my most cautious
movements rustled.
1570 ACE
I made a decision between stealth and speed and began
to sprint toward the hills. I was hoping to reach the opening
before my assailant and could feel him bearing down,
pressing, like the closing of a heavy book.
54
I vaulted over the edge of the fallen trees and crouchlanded in a small opening. The bat appeared in front of me,
folding in upon itself to dive through a narrow gap in the
trees. Exhaust came from bulled nostrils, leaking also from
the eyes. The Rider was slung low over its back and wore a
sloping helm, such that his head looked like an extension of
his mount, a spine or a dorsal fin. Raising his arms, the Rider
bombarded me with shot cast from beneath the bat. Without
any weapons, my choices were limited.
Serif help! I called, not knowing what else to do. I was
running out of options and couldn’t see how to escape.
Serif left her perch on my wrist and diffused her avatar
to 10x magnification. It wasn’t much of a distraction, but
she caused the Rider to rear back for just long enough that
I could adjust settings on my carapace. I dialed in for high
impact, a fall, which allowed me to toughen my skin against
the Rider’s slugs. I was already leaking synthetic blood in
several spots, but I knew the wounds would heal if I could
escape.
Not quick enough.
55
1570 ACE
I streaked back for the fissure. “Come!” I shouted,
recalling Serif. She perched and submerged into the manacle
just as I dove for the dirty face of the mountainside.
The Rider shot twice, heavy ordnance, and the fissure
closed right before me. The ensuing landslide carried me
back in the direction of the bat and its Rider. I was trapped
beneath felled trees and heaving mounds of gravel, trying
desperately to break free. They began to descend slowly,
wings beating like robed arms in applause.
The Rider dismounted and I saw a flash of his pale back
beneath jet armor. He was marked with tribal tattoos, faded
and stretched across slack skin near the waist. He turned and
I nearly lost sight of him. I could only see feet and legs, dull
boots rusted and covered with mud. Indeterminate flakes
stuck to the sharp toes and I had to stop myself imagining
flashes of children crushed beneath heels that nearly grinned.
I felt my gorge rise, and my mind slipped. My subconscious
was trying to supplant this moment with pleasant pictures of
spring fields, but I wouldn’t give in.
1570 ACE
You need to move, said Serif, reorienting my grasp on
the present. The Rider was closer now, within arm’s reach,
and I could see the full measure of his stance. He was nearly
two and a half meters tall, mailed in genetic circuitry like
some palladium engine. His body was burnt black, fired
in declivity, and when I saw him clearly I was tempted to
despair.
“Load the ball bearings,” I told Serif. She complied,
booting the bearing drives in my knees and ankles. I thought
they might create enough friction for me to spring loose
and fight. I wasn’t sure what a Spelunker could do against a
WarMachine, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I didn’t want to
find out what might happen if my carapace was destroyed.
Despite the fact that I could upload my consciousness to the
City servers, I had a feeling the Rider wasn’t playing by the
rules. He was a totally foreign entity, and I had no clue as to
the limits of his tech. If he had found a way to interrupt the
upload—or even override my backup generator—then none
56
of my failsafes would respond and the mindcharge wouldn’t
fire.
I would die.
“June Paul?” he leaned over me, his carbonate helm
bearing wings like those of his mount. He, too, was batlike. His face was a squashed wolf, an iniquitous rat. Ruby
eyes and smoky breath made me think of brimstone, and
a shudder passed through my mind. I felt myself floating,
wondering about death, and giving in finally to the truth that
this was the moment I would discover what lay beyond the
veil.
But the ball bearings caught, and I felt myself move.
Only not forward or upward, like I’d expected.
Down!
“Serif!” I screamed. She launched her avatar from the
manacle at the Rider. He reached out to grab her instinctively
and she departicalized in front of his face. I grabbed his
ankles, hoping to pull him down, but the bat swooped in to
help and I lost my grip. A massive hole opened up beneath
me. I was left dangling by one hand. All system resources
diverted to the cams in my fingertips. Serif plunged toward
me, reentering the manacle, and the last thing I remember is
the Rider reaching down with one gauntleted fist and picking
up a sharp rock from the ground. He raised it above his head,
mocking, laughing, saying, “I’ve been looking for you.”
And then he bashed in my face with a stone.
1570 ACE
57
nown
k
n
U
n
io
t
a
c
o
L
,
E
C
3062
Era, CE)
(1001 Common
I couldn’t open my eyes. They were scratchy, like
someone had covered them in pepper, and my mouth was
full of caterpillar moss. I wanted so badly for that ape to stop
smacking my head against the mantle.
3062 CE
And then I came to, with a clutch of hot breath and a
shuddering cough.
I had no idea where I was. A hospital. I could tell that
much from the white walls and the painfully stark light.
Bells and alerts dinged from the stand of readers and screens
and bags beside me. This place smelled like antiseptic and
felt like an emergency.
I couldn’t remember how I’d ended up in that room, and
when I tried to get out of the bed I felt something bite into
my wrist. I was in restraints, laced to the iron rail like bad
filigree. I rattled my cuffs for a moment, motivated more by
petulance than panic, before flopping back onto the cot and
loudly blowing air between my flapping lips. I kicked my
legs back and forth, tossing off the covers. I hated this place
already, and as far as I knew I’d only been there for three
minutes.
Even the art was bad—just one horrid black and white
photograph hung on the wall. It was a tree with eight
chainsaws stuck halfway into the trunk. Stupid. If someone
58
ever asks me what I think of it, I’m gonna lie and pretend I
never saw a thing.
There was a guard outside, but when I tried to call him I
threw up. If blood normally came out full of corn, then I had
just puked blood. Otherwise, there was a pretty good reason
I was in the hospital.
Awkwardly, I shuffled off the side of the bed and wiped
the corn underneath. I performed this acrobatically indecent
feat by pushing the sheets around with one heel, exposing
my manhood to the guard. He blushed and turned away, not
even bothering to help.
I should’ve left the corn for him.
3062 CE
59
3062 CE
My room had a holographic television. I’d never seen
one before, and I guess I would have been impressed if not
for the content. Some televangelist was trying to vacuum
money out of spiritual suckers with his Vaseline smile. My
memory stirred, and though I couldn’t put my finger on
precisely why, I knew I hated those guys. They say: Bladdity,
blah, God is such a teddy bear, but all I hear is: Give me
your money so I can pad my pockets and sell more lies.
There’s a special place in Hell for religious hucksters. Of
that, I’m sure.
A cute nurse walked into the room, and I suddenly felt a
lot more attentive. She was short, but with long legs, a doll
detailed in just the right ways. I was upright and breathing
fast. She probably thought I was panting. I sure wanted to
be. Her uniform fit more snugly than I thought typical, but I
wasn’t complaining. It was a retro number, both disarmingly
sexy and functionally modest at the same time. I guess I was
gonna have to get used to these new fashions, which was fine
by me.
The nurse smiled, a little uncertain, and asked, “How are
you feeling?”
“Better now,” I replied. I smiled too—rakishly, I might
add—and tried to hold her hand. She withdrew it, placing a
cool palm on my forehead.
60
“A little disorientation is normal,” she said, standing
wonderfully close. She smelled like sugar and jam. “You’ve
been in a coma.”
“I barely felt a thing,” I replied.
The nurse pulled back and bowed her head, offering
what I thought was a short, silent prayer. That was weird. I’d
never been prayed for in a hospital before.
“Do you always do that?” I asked.
The nurse put her hands on her hips and favored me with
another smile. “Don’t you remember anything?” she asked.
“Not that.”
“It’s what we do,” she replied. And then she was off. As
the old saying goes, I didn’t want her to go, but I was sure
happy to watch her leave.
3062 CE
61
3062 CE
I waited for at least three minutes after the nurse left
before I couldn’t take the boredom any longer.
Rattling my restraints, I finally gained the attention of
the guard. The large man came into my room and set his
clipboard on the windowsill. The blinds were closed, but
sleeves of morning light still slashed through, shining on
that ugly photo. He was too smiley for my liking, especially
since the last time we made eye contact he had been looking
south. What was it with everyone here? It was like being
imprisoned by a clan of giddy inbred boobs.
“Hey Gigantor,” I called out from my prison-cot, “how
about letting me out of these cuffs?”
The guard laughed, a great-hearted bellow that startled
me. I didn’t think I was being funny. “They’re for safety
reasons.”
“Mine or yours?” I asked, and he laughed again. I just
nodded and wondered what that meant while he undid my
security bracelets. He was wearing the same scrubs as my
new girlfriend, only the guard didn’t look as cute as the
nurse. He had a nametag, but I wasn’t sure how to say it
right. Joher put the handcuffs back on as soon as I stood up,
and I immediately wondered two things: Since when was I a
threat to anyone? And who would name their child Joher?
62
Joher helped me stand and started walking me down a
long hallway. My stupid hospital gown kept wafting open
and I wondered for what felt like the one-millionth time why
no one ever redesigned these things.
“What’s that?” asked the big man. Apparently I had been
thinking out loud.
“I’m just wondering why these gowns are so revealing.
No one wants a palliative peep show.”
Joher laughed once more. It was so easy, a really
musical kind of laugh, but he ruined it by permitting himself
to swing that laugh into a hum.
Along the way, we passed a window. The light reflected
my image off the glass, and I got a good look at how I’d
fared during my captivity. I was taller than I felt I should be,
and not as fat. I was barely fifteen pounds from fitness, and
sucking in my stomach hardly caused my face to redden. I
had all my hair, though the brown started a little further back
than I would have liked. I was a hairy beast, but pettable—
which was an exciting realization.
The sign on the door at the end of the hall told me it was
the office of the hospital shrink, Dr. Josef Chloros.
“What are we doing here, Tiny?” I asked Joher.
He towered over me, but apologetically, like he felt
badly for being so intimidating. “It’s standard procedure
before release,” he said.
63
3062 CE
My large, humming, and protective escort led me down
the hall to a corner office. It felt strange to be walking, like I
hadn’t done that in a while. My muscles were jellied, and my
back tingled. In some ways it felt like I was too stiff, in other
it felt like I wasn’t sore enough, like maybe my muscles
should either have atrophied completely or just come back to
life after a nap.
“A psych evaluation? Now it’s gonna feel like my gown
is open even when it’s closed.” This time Joher didn’t laugh,
and I wasn’t sure whether it was because he was offended or
confused.
“Doc’s not so bad,” he said finally. I relaxed, glad to
know I hadn’t made an enemy of the largest human being I’d
ever met.
“I dunno, Humungo—I’m not crazy head-shrinkers,”
I said, pushing my luck. “They make sane people say
ridiculous things about their inner snowflakes, then diagnose
us with a mental illness. Seems backwards.”
3062 CE
Joher shook his head, his face crunched up in the state
between confusion and rebuke. He didn’t reply, though, not
to me. Instead, he rapped his fifteen-pound fist on the door
and called, “Doc?”
The door opened from the inside, and Joher guided me
into the room with one big hand. I turned to look at him as
he closed the door, but he still had that cross expression all
over his foot-long face.
I took a step forward into an office encased by windows
and mirrors. The two exterior sides had floor-to-ceiling panes
that looked over the downtown of a beautifully clean city. I
could see well-dressed men and women scurrying to work
in between the newest cars and manicured streets. I must
have been in that coma for a while because nothing looked
familiar. In one way, all big cities look the same, but I felt
like a man out of my own time, like a visitor from the past.
“Please have a seat,” said the man standing behind the
door. His voice gave me the slinks, but I did as he suggested.
He was well-groomed and styled—blue pinstripes and an
antique pocket watch, spectacles and goatee—but I didn’t let
my guard down. I sat in an almond leather chair and he took
the straight-back across from me. They were the only two
64
chairs in the room and the only two pieces of furniture apart
from the plain desk. There were no books. There was no
phone. There were no lamps or cables or plants. It was like
we were meeting in the desert.
“Do you know what a Rorschach test is?” he asked,
pulling a series of cue cards from his coat pocket.
“The inkblots?” I asked. “Sure. You want me to tell you
about my mother.”
The headshrinker smirked and shuffled the cards on his
lap. I got the impression he was going through the motions. I
clanked my handcuffs together in my lap to get his attention,
and the pointy-faced man glared over the rims of his glasses.
“What do you see?” he asked, holding up the first card.
I had no idea what it was supposed to be. It was a splash of
ink, but I knew how the game worked.
He nodded. “And this one?”
“A goat.” More nodding, then another card. “An apple.”
That time I got a murmur of assent. I wondered how long
this was going to take.
It took a long time.
Bat. Business deal. Horns. Dragon. Richard Nixon.
Television. Judge.
And so on.
Finally, the headshrinker put his cards away and stood
up, straightening his wrinkled jacket. “Do you remember
anything about your old life?” he asked. “Who you were?
What you did? How you ended up in that hospital bed?”
I thought maybe I should lie to the man, but since I’d
been lying to him for nearly forty-five minutes, I thought I’d
try something new.
65
3062 CE
“A garden,” I said.
I didn’t answer his question.
“You will need to remember,” Chloros continued, “if
you’re going to have any success in the coming days.” I had
no idea what he was talking about, but he fixed me with a
knowing look that suggested I soon would.
The headshrinker walked me over to the door and placed
his hand upon the handle. But he didn’t open the door.
Instead, he held my eyes uncomfortably with his own. “We
knew each other,” he said. “And you’ll come find me when
you remember.”
3062 CE
I didn’t respond, idly wondering if that was becoming
a habit. “I’ll be here,” he concluded, opening the door and
nodding for Joher to walk me back to my room.
The rest of my hospital stay came to me only in beats,
through a daze. I felt like I was being guided along my
life like a passenger on rails. I felt a little lightheaded and
wondered if maybe I shouldn’t slow down, but the thought of
being stuck in that hospital made my hackles stand on end. I
knew the shrink was greasing the discharge, and I wanted to
play along, so I did.
The guard took me back to my room. I stripped. He
stopped humming. I put on some clothes the guard said were
mine. They didn’t fit. I wore the clothes anyway. The guard
brought me downstairs to Administration. I signed out. I used
a fake signature. I looked for the cute nurse. She smiled. She
ran off. I was in a maze. I felt hungry. I was going through
a phase. The receptionist asked me questions. I gave fake
answers. I was in a daze. The receptionist knew I was faking.
She let me go anyway. I was still in a maze. I took my stuff
from a locker. I had a watch I sold to the guard. He’s the
kind of man who always pays. I had no ID. I had no phone. I
walked through the front door, still in a haze.
66
The noon sun smacked me in the face, and I squinted,
holding up a hand. But I never slowed down. I was so eager
to be free from the hospital I walked right into the middle of
traffic and got hit by a Humvee.
The haze began to throb.
3062 CE
67
I was laid flat on the pavement, tires screeching around
me and people screaming. All I could think was how I was
going to end up back in that hospital room.
3062 CE
The only good thing about the hospital was Nurse
Naughty. Even so, there was no way I was going back.
When a bystander leaned over to ask if I was okay, I
pulled myself up and limped over to a nearby alley with his
help. And then I limped down the alley without it. I had a
headache, but thankfully nothing worse.
I was gone, and all anybody really paid attention to was
the damage done to the Yuppie’s Hummer. Guess who was
driving? The TV preacher.
Ha!
My situation became even more ironic once I saw the
rear bumper sticker: Jesus on Board. I thought, There he
goes again, letting himself take another beating.
At the end of the alley, I hopped in a cab and told my
new best friend to drive me to the nearest bar. The cab was
surprisingly clean, almost as sterile as the hospital. In sharp
contrast to the yellow exterior, the insides were new cream
upholstery, and there wasn’t a single cigarette burn. I felt
a little self-conscious, worried about whether I’d bleed
on the backseat, but the cabbie put me at ease. He was
clever, trading jokes in his thick eastern accent, and said he
68
wouldn’t charge me the full fare. “I saw the accident, my
friend.”
“From a block away?”
“Ha! You are funny. No—I was there, and when you
walked away I got in my cab to find you. I would not wish
that on my worst enemy.”
“Am I your worst enemy?” I asked, playing along.
“Only if you jump in front of my cab like you did that
car, eh?” We both laughed. “Tell me your name?” he asked.
“You first,” I replied.
“You can call me Masheet. All my friends do.” He was
so pukingly happy I almost felt bad when we circled the
block and I informed him I didn’t have any money.
“How will you pay?” he asked, suddenly severe.
The cabbie roared. “Oh no! It is I who need compassion.
It is I with many mouths to feed.” The cabbie slammed on
the brakes and was out of the driver’s door in one swift
motion. He nearly ripped the backseat passenger door from
its hinges in his hurry to grab my shirt and pull me out.
I wasn’t wholly aware of what was happening. Purely
on instinct, I batted his hand away. But I was stronger than I
remembered. Or I hit him harder than I intended. The cabbie
lost his balance and hit his head on the sharp corner of the
door, collapsing unconscious on the ground.
I dumped his body in the alley and stole his cab. I knew
he’d wake up eventually, but for the moment all I was
thinking was that I needed his money, his car, and—most
importantly—his name.
Welcome to your new life, Masheet.
69
3062 CE
“I can’t,” I said. “But I thought maybe you had a little
compassion for one such as I.”
tem,
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35 degrees North
1570 ACE
June? Can you hear me?
My eyes fluttered beneath closed lids. When I opened
them, I couldn’t tell the difference. It was a simulacrum of
black and purple splotches when my eyes were closed, and
it was a kaleidoscope of inky violet splashes when open. I
knew things weren’t working normally yet, and it hurt to use
my eyes, so I shut them once more.
Are you hurt? I know you are awake. Can you
acknowledge?
“Stop…talking…to me,” I moaned. I felt like I was safe
for the moment, but my pain receptors were working on
overload. There was significant damage to the carapace, but
I just wanted to be left alone. If I could turn off the pain I
could go to sleep.
Does it hurt you when I project? Can you tell if
something has been damaged?
1570 ACE
“Shush, or I’ll pull off your pinions.” Serif stopped
speaking, but I had a visual imprint of her sitting on her
haunches and turning her head away. She could be touchy.
I tried opening my eyes again. Greyish blue light
filtered down from the ceiling in thin falls. It felt like I was
in a picture of outer space, but my topographical readings
informed me we were underground.
70
My head began to clear. “Where are we?” I asked.
We are in a large cave system, Serif replied. When the
rider hit you, you lost your grip on the ledge. He has not
come after us, but he has sealed this exit. I am mapping the
cave now, but it will take some time to upload the data.
Serif could commission her feathers to create basic scans
of large areas. Individual, sentient feathers left her body
and floated around to collect data, exploring the various
twists, turns, and egresses of each tunnel. The feathers were
still dependent upon Serif and required radio access to the
manacle, but they were a fantastically useful tool.
You had better activate your low light lenses, June.
“Sure. Right after I unbreak my back.” I hadn’t broken
my back and she knew it, but I had cracked two ribs, and the
index finger on my left hand was bent horribly.
The cavern was a large carbonic arena. The navy
light was dim, but there were floating specs of illuminants
working their way down to the floor. The limestone
surfaces were like spiderspun candyfloss, greyed clouds and
toothpaste yawning in a radial, combustible pattern. Thick
spurs of ore thrust down from the ceiling like columns.
Still lying there, I yanked on my finger to re-set it,
asking Serif to reduce the pain sensors in the OS. She had
already begun melding the ribs back together.
You will have some reduced mobility, she informed me.
“How bad is it?” I was trying to avoid getting off the
ground.
You will not be able to do traversals.
I accessed the settings panel in my ocular nerves and
selected first the greenwash and then the low light filters.
I don’t like the strange ethereality that comes with the
71
1570 ACE
“That could be a problem,” I said.
greenwash night-vision, and fortunately the low light filter
was able to bring up enough color for me to see without it. I
grinned, remembering the earliest carapaces I had designed
for caving. My affection for all things low tech had lead me
to incorporate carbide lenses, only to later discover their
unreliability. They were difficult to seal off from the rest of
the body and any drainage messed up my telemetry. When
we were promised new bodies that would never get sick or
grow old, I had anticipated something more trustworthy than
a desktop computer.
People used to say everything happened for a reason,
that somehow the Creator was watching over us, leading us
through trials in order to prepare us for Heaven, like life on
earth was actually Purgatory and we were being purified for
the life beyond. But I was already living the life beyond and
it sucked.
1570 ACE
Heaven’s grass wasn’t any greener, which was why I
was aggravated that no one else watered their lawn.
72
I leaned forward to get my back off the cave floor,
tenderly stretching my muscles to see where the most pain
would register. I cracked my neck and stretched my legs.
Then I craned up onto my feet and previewed the early data
Serif was sending across my optical display.
The northwest passage of this system extends for over
a hundred miles, said Serif. She was already settling into
a routine we had long established in these environments. I
enter. The feathers scout. Serif explains. I make dumb jokes
that usually result in us all getting lost. It looks like most of it
is passable, but you will be doing a lot of swimming.
“Good thing I got the upgrade,” I said. My carapace
had a built-in hydrodynamic inhaler that let me breathe
underwater.
There is very little elevation change along that pass, and
few reports of any structures or thermal loops. It may be a
dead end.
Thoughts of the Rider hovered around the edge of my
mind. I knew I’d have to figure out who he was and what he
73
1570 ACE
“What about the rest of the cave?” I asked, beginning to
walk to the southern end of the room we were in. It was like
a grand ballroom, majestic formations stretching over the
dark in frescoes of slate.
wanted, but I kept forcing those thoughts to the back of my
mind. He was outside. I was inside. My safety may only be
momentary, but I was in a palace of wonder one step closer
to the timestream, on the threshold of novelty.
Tribulation came with the territory.
I wondered if Serif had collected any data on our
attacker. “Any idea who the big ugly was?”
Serif was silent, a rarity for her.
“Hey angel—I’m keen on this being a conversation.”
She had never failed to respond before, and I scheduled
a neural maintenance check through the OS for when we
returned to the City.
I do not know, June. Serif sounded hesitant, her words
sluggish and wavering. I have never encountered genetics
like those before. The specs were not only unfamiliar, they
were a completely divergent build out. Whoever grew
that beast did so autonomously from City research and
development.
“Great. An independent has just single-handedly crossed
the barrier between the finite and the immortal membranes of
biology, and you’re telling me I’m his muse?”
We do not know.
1570 ACE
Mentally, I checked in with Serif’s physicality to see
how far away she was. I was able to get a connection but it
wasn’t great. Our signal wasn’t being jammed any longer,
but we still had to contend with the dense rock of the caves.
Serif hadn’t even reached the City when the attack
occurred, and I waved her off returning right away. She’d be
no good in a tight space like this, and I couldn’t do anything
to protect her from the bat while I was hunting Chernoblys.
Serif’s holograph manifested above the manacle and
continued to describe the cave system. The southern tunnel
74
follows a river underground, she said. We ought to explore
there first.
“Why the river?” I asked, continuing in the direction
she suggested. I was trying not to get my hopes up. There
were so many unanswered questions, so many untested
hypotheses, but it was possible we had just transitioned from
peril to providence in a single moment.
There is something strange about the water. It has a
high concentration of dielectric minerals. The microwave
readings are startling.
“Meaning what, exactly?”
Serif’s avatar spread out her wings and fluttered up
toward eye level. Whatever I first saw in the Spirit while
scanning for Chernoblys is likely coming from that river.
She stopped beating but remained suspended. It always felt
strange when she did that. She couldn’t hover in her physical
form. Maybe that was why she loved to do it so much.
Any credibility concerning time travel is due to the
contents of that river. Think of it as an amplifier. Whatever
makes those legends tenable is multiplied a thousand fold in
there.
“So you think it’s possible?” I asked. “We might actually
make this work?”
I am less skeptical than I was, she replied.
“And the Chernoblys? You think they’ll be at the end of
that river?”
Not at the end, June. They are here already.
1570 ACE
75
I turned as she spoke and noted a small movement from
the corner of my eye. I zoomed into an angular rock face,
but my augmentation wasn’t sharp enough to discern any
differences. I crouched low and cautiously moved toward
the cave wall on my left. That was where I’d seen the
movement, and there was an irregularity to the surface of the
wall that beckoned.
Is that it? I asked Serif through the OS. I didn’t want
to speak out loud, on the chance that the sound of my voice
might startle the other presence nearby. I also didn’t yet
know if the Chernoblys could understand me. It might be
prudent to find out later, but for now I preferred to keep my
plans between Serif and myself.
1570 ACE
Be careful, June. She is scared. Her heart is beating well
over two hundred beats per minute.
This was a moment of profound magnificence. Here
was one of that fabled race of time travelers about whom we
knew so little. Their very existence offered hope for the past.
I spoke softly to the wall, inching closer. I wasn’t speaking
anything intelligible, just making sounds like you would
with pets. I was focusing my energies on tone, the goos and
blahs taking care of the punctuation, cadence, and rhyme.
My senses were dialed all the way up, and I could feel
every waft of air moving through the cave like a sigh. If I
strained I could hear the creature’s shallow breathing.
76
Every life is a miracle. Every beating heart the drum of
eternity. All we had for the last thousand years we’d built in
a lab. But here was something we couldn’t yet explain, the
interruption of our arrogance.
She moved.
I confess it barely registered. I had been staring at that
one spot on the wall for five or six steps as I approached and
never once considered I was looking in the wrong place. But
she wasn’t running. She wasn’t attacking. She was definitely
female. In any other environment I would have had the good
grace to blush, but not here. In this moment I was no more
male-minded than a microscope.
Slowly, June, Serif warned.
I got it, sister. Serif’s voice in my head wasn’t helping
my nerves. Keep your halo on. I continued speaking
reassuringly to the Chernobly, trying to assure her I meant
no harm. She was short, maybe five feet, and wiry, standing
naked with white eyes. I don’t think she can see, I told Serif.
Her body responds to every word and movement you
make. Can you not perceive it?
Not all of us are native to the Spirit, I said. But, yeah,
she’s listening.
The Chernobly was the same color as the limestone
cavern, a natural camouflage of mottled grey. Mud and
dirt and the pale brush of scrapes wholly covered her. She
smelled like the cave, which is to say she didn’t give off any
odor distinguishable from her surroundings. She fit perfectly.
Her mouth opened and she reached out her long arms,
making her fingers slowly dance in the air in front of her.
77
1570 ACE
She is looking to touch you, June. She has a way of
feeling forward, hearing through her fingertips.
I approached, still nervous and excited about this first
contact. I signaled the OS to start recording through the
low light lens, even though I knew the footage would be
grainy. Her left hand found my shoulder and her right hand
went quickly to my face. She moved with confidence over
my features in the way the once-blind had identified other
people.
She is creating a topograph, Serif noted.
Yeah, I got it. I wanted Serif to shut up for a minute and
let me enjoy this. Thing is, the Chernobly wanted to enjoy it,
too.
Really, enjoy it.
She is entering her mating cycle, June. I detected a
gentle mockery in Serif’s tone. I think she has selected you
for breeding.
“Sorry, “ I said out loud, though in the same tender
tones. “Not just now.”
I reached up and cautiously pulled the Chernobly’s
fingers from my face. The female tried to reach me again,
lower, and I was firmer the second time. Her mouth closed,
hard, and she flung out her hands to the side. Sharp nails
grew from her fingertips, and she swiped at me, bawling
her gash mouth. My sensors blared in alarm, and I jerked
backward as she cut my arm deeply and ran off. Serif began
diagnostics on the outer skin of my carapace, on the OS, and
on the chassis.
1570 ACE
That wound is not clean, Serif warned. She has
transmitted an infection.
“Run the antivirus.”
It is anomalous to the program. It will take a moment to
work a patch.
78
I was about to say we’d squandered our first contact
when my sensors alerted me to the Chernobly female once
again. She hadn’t run off. She was coming for another
assault.
She very much wants to mate with you, June Paul. I do
not recommend that.
“Thanks,” I said, dodging and weaving the clawed arms
of the eager female. I knew what she was after, and how
aggressively she wanted it. I was barely able to stay clear
of her attacks. The Chernoblys were obviously capable of
damaging the carapace. That was no small feat.
Fortunately, I was quicker than she was. Just not by
much. Unfortunately, I could feel the infection working
against my OS. It is uncommon for biological illness to
affect the machine mind, yet that’s precisely what was
happening. From what I remembered, it felt like I was
coming down with a cold and my skin fevered with the early
ache of the flu.
“How’s the patch coming?”
Slowly. The Spelunker is not equipped for detoxification
like the Magellan. I am assisting the processor, but it is
difficult.
“Meaning?”
We may not be able to find an antidote. You need to
disengage. We need to run the boot disk so I can test the
startup sequence for irregularities.
“Translation?” I asked.
Run!
79
1570 ACE
Serif was using a lot of big words for the middle of a
mating ritual. I wasn’t catching half of them, but felt like I
needed to know what she was saying.
I fled across the cavern, and the Chernobly followed,
screeching behind me in a strange tongue reminiscent of
crickets and leaf-mining flies. Distantly I wondered how she
was making that sound, but pushed those thoughts deeper,
for later, and kept running.
The open ballroom was rapidly coming to a shallower
tunnel. I had to dive forward and slither on my belly, pulling
myself in to fight through the opening at the end. The narrow
space pinched my shoulders, and the low ceiling kept me
from using my knees. There were sharp turns that forced me
to angle my body unnaturally, and if it wasn’t for the ball
bearing mods I don’t think I could have made it through.
I had temporarily lost my pursuer, but I didn’t believe
that would last.
1570 ACE
The tunnel before me was cramped. It was getting
smaller, the space closing in around me. Even after all this
time I had to fight hard not to panic. It didn’t look like there
was enough room to get through.
I could feel the Chernobly behind me. I imagined her
breathing. I could feel her hunting me, coming closer, and
the only way forward was through this channel.
Water trickled through the bottom of the tunnel. In order
to get my shoulders beneath the top of the tunnel, I had to
80
bury my face in the water. I didn’t submerge, but my left ear
was completely covered, and the water threatened to leak
into the side of my mouth if I opened it.
The space kept getting smaller.
She is getting closer, said Serif.
I inched forward, feeling the tightening rock press me. It
felt like I was holding up a mountain.
She is at the mouth of this tunnel. She must know we are
here.
“You’re not helping,” I replied.
My forward movement stopped. I couldn’t move my
upper body. I had little leverage with my legs but tried to
push forward with my toes. I moved an inch, then realized I
had only wedged myself in deeper.
I was stuck.
Serif loaded my ballbearings and the gears wound up.
The new movement helped me forward another inch. Then
another. I could wiggle one shoulder. But the way ahead
looked even tighter.
Here she comes! screamed Serif.
The Chernobly breezed through the stony aperture,
gaining back the ground she’d lost, and lunged at me once
more. I felt the Chernobly grab my ankle, and I screamed.
Serif gave full power to the ball bearings, and I jerked
forward with a start, scraping the carapace against the rock
wall.
81
1570 ACE
Reeling away from the sting of her claws, I heard my
sensors scream as I went over the edge of a short cliff.
The tunnel bottom had dropped away entirely, despite all
appearances to the contrary.
I tumbled backward and did something unintentionally
gymnastic before landing awkwardly on my feet. I looked
up to see the Chernobly leap down, bracing herself with her
hands and swinging her legs beneath her like some fervid
primate.
In that split second I pushed the sensor array to give me
a quick readout on the immediate area. The impulse told me
my best chance was to try something the carapace could do
but the Chernobly could not.
I started running, trusting Serif’s datastream and
sprinting toward the next chamber. I was caught in an
emotional crossfire. All my suspicions about the Chernoblys
were validated, but my elation was compromised by
libidinous terror.
They were human enough to lust, but not enough to
control it.
I had to keep running, but I felt such strong desire to
stop, to let whatever was going to happen happen and learn
from it. Soak it in. Experience it fully, trusting my carapace
to keep me safe and sane.
1570 ACE
I wondered if the infection was already compromising
my ability to make sound decisions.
The tunnel narrowed again and I had to clamber down
on my hands and knees to pull through a jagged hole. The
Chernobly scraped and bit at my heels. I kicked at her, and
it felt like stepping on sticks in the woods. As several of her
fingers and claws broke off, the pressure lessened. My knees
popped, and I screamed in frustration, though I couldn’t
discern whether I was angry with her or with myself for
hurting her.
When I emerged from the tunnel I rolled forward onto
my feet. I was on a thin path in a low round room about
twenty feet in diameter. I had a short runway before me,
82
terminating in a long drop-off. The chasm went down deeper
than Serif had mapped, but my angel encouraged me to
jump, trusting my momentum to carry me across to the other
side.
I pushed myself furiously, tweaking out the performance
enhancers in the carapace. I had ten steps before I had to
jump and was straining the limits on all my mods. I would
have made it. I had the speed. I had the angle. But I had
forgotten about my fused ribs and limited mobility. I couldn’t
fully extend my legs. I couldn’t accelerate quickly enough
to make the jump. I tried to change tactic, but the pain in my
side intensified as I jolted to a sudden stop.
I slipped and went over the edge of the chasm, falling.
1570 ACE
83
I wasn’t short by much, but it was enough. I caught the
far wall with one hand, nearly fifteen feet below the cusp.
The weld in the ribs cracked and this time they came apart
for good. I cannot fix this, said Serif. We will have to do
something else.
Not now! I shouted mentally.
1570 ACE
My handhold crumbled, and I slipped another ten feet,
crashing and turning against the rock face. I began to flail.
I bashed the underside of my chin on a large knoll and bit
through my lip. It slowed my fall. I was able to grab hold
of a calcite swelter with my left hand. I begged Serif to dial
down the pain sensitivity in the OS. I was going blind and
was afraid I would lose consciousness. The carapace was
tripping breakers and large portions of my copper skin were
discoloring, a feature designed to locate damage.
My left hand was buried deep into the calcite. Bringing
my right hand over, I anchored myself securely with both
arms and took a moment to catch my breath. I had a good
grip. Serif diverted some of the strength reserves into my
metacarpals, and I began to climb up the rock face.
You need to let go, June.
“What are you talking about?”
84
The drop is long, but the river is at the bottom. It is very
deep. Your carapace will protect you from the impact, and
the wound in your side will not worsen. You have not lost
much time, and I have collected valuable insight into the
behaviors and capabilities of Chernoblys.
As if to reassure me, Serif manifested from the manacle
and leaned her digital beak forward to look me in the eye.
You will survive, she said.
“I’ve already fallen once today, thanks.”
Serif shook her feathered head. You may want to arrive
at the colony before the female. It is going to be much
more difficult to set up a forward observation post once the
creatures are aware of your presence.
“Colony?”
I could have sworn she was smirking. My scans
have reported stone-cut developments predating the War.
There are buildings and avenues approximately two miles
downstream, covering an area of nearly one half hectare.
They are the ruins of New Palestine.
“You little devil,” I said, leaning forward to pretend-kiss
Serif on the beak. She departicalized, and I looked one last
time over my shoulder. It was a long drop into darkness.
There was a lot of risk in a jump like this, a lot that could go
wrong.
I let go.
1570 ACE
85
City Unknown,
3062 CE
3062 CE
Good God, that town was boring! Everything was clean
and neat and in its place. All the streetlamps looked like
candelabras from catalogs, glowing symmetrically insipid.
It was like all the medicated housewives of Lackluster Land
had gotten together and planned some place to relax. There
was nothing to do. I couldn’t find a speakeasy or a cocktail
lounge for twenty minutes. Just churches—everywhere those
flaccid, florid, palaces of pornographic veneration. You know
what you catch in those places? Reverial disease. No thanks.
Just thinking about it made my headache worsen. The world
had enough suck-ups and sycophants without smart people
doing stupid things in the name of dumb lords.
When I finally found a bar it was a disappointment, one
of those hipster joints with fancy drinks on the menu. It was
a small place, with only room for a hundred dancers if they
made use of the bar and squeezed together properly on the
disco top.
Tab A, meet Slot B. Enjoy. Party for ninety-eight more
coming through.
I had ditched the car a few blocks away in an alley and
approached the bar on foot. The door was heavy, but some
idiot had put jingly things on it and their tinkling was like
little knives driving into my skull. I needed something for
this headache sooner rather than later.
86
The crouched ceiling inside was wrapped in shipping
pallets with bare bulbs dangling down like tentaculai. I
reached up and touched one, a low watt number, and it took
a minute before I could smell my skin burn. It didn’t hurt,
not really, but I liked the attention I got from my machismo.
Chicks dig dudes who burn.
The sick pungency of incense dominated the atmosphere,
but I could still find a whiff of comfort beneath it in the stale
beer and old piss that couldn’t be mopped from the corners.
I didn’t know who I was or what I did, but I remembered
clearly how to have fun. Absently, I let my body drift toward
those repositories of good times, the excrement of gladness
and youth. I stood in the corner for a moment and willed
those former glories in through my pores, arming myself
against the cutesy hoopla of the tragically hip.
“We have thirteen different microbrews, brah. What’ll
you have?”
“Give me something my daddy wouldn’t beat me for
drinking,” I said, but the creampuff got the wrong idea.
He brought me a purple beer in a vase. I drank it anyway,
wondering when they started putting flowers in booze. Then
two more.
I asked for another drink.
“Sorry fella,” said the barman. “That’s the limit.”
“What kind of a bar has a limit?” The kid looked at me
like I was from Mars, and I thought he needed man-lessons. I
87
3062 CE
I walked to the bar and noted the neat array of froufrou
bevvies on the counter. An umbrella would have been
unfashionable. They were served with sticks of fruit coming
out of them like edible splinters. “You got beer?” I asked the
barman.
was just about to push him a little harder when a pair of legs
stretched out beside me and the thing on top leaned across
the counter.
“Hey stranger,” said the legs with the girl. It was the
nurse. I didn’t remember her having pink hair before, but
maybe it was the light. Then again, my memory wasn’t what
it used to be. I know I would have remembered those heels.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
3062 CE
My off-duty nurse had a figure models envied to the
point of starvation, self-loathing, and surgery. She showed
off in a shrink-wrap top and a skirt that barely counted as a
belt. “I liked your uniform better,” I said. She knew I was
lying. You couldn’t look like that and have men tell you the
truth. I couldn’t tell the truth, so I guess that was a wash, but
I don’t think either one of us was looking for conversation.
“Buy you a drink?”
“Dirty Girl Scout,” she told the barman, and I would’ve
given my right arm to have her say that to me.
“Make it two,” I said. And when creampuff looked at
me, eyes creased together like he was going to make me
shove it, I added, “You wouldn’t deny a man his Dirty Girl
Scout?”
He got the joke. I got served.
88
The nurse said she hadn’t wanted to talk much at work
‘cause her boss was jealous. “He wants us to think jealousy
is a virtue, as if we’re married or something,” she said,
finishing her second drink.
“Are you married?” I asked. I liked the way she was
playing with her hair, and I replaced one loose strand behind
her left ear, to show I was interested.
“Not marriage,” I said, “but I might have a proposal for
later.”
The nurse leaned forward and slapped my chest with the
back of her hand. I liked the feeling of her small, soft fingers
knuckling my skin. “You don’t even know my name,” she
said.
“I don’t even know my name,” I replied. She laughed,
and I figured she thought I was being funny. The nurse didn’t
offer any insight on my time at the hospital and I didn’t
ask. We were on a whole different wavelength, and the last
thing I wanted was to expropriate something stimulating for
something salutary.
“My name’s Evelyn,” she said, sizing me up. “You call
me Evie.”
“My name,” I said, stalling to remember, “is Masheet.”
89
3062 CE
“Are you proposing?” she asked, batting butterfly
eyelashes.
Evie looked at my strangely then, and I realized they’d
used another name at the hospital. But the moment passed,
and we got to talking, and drinking, and soon I was ready
to start conjugating all the other verbs. It must have been
dumb luck that put us in the same bar. Whatever it was, I
was feeling grateful, but then some muscle-bound meat-sicle
showed up and put his arms around my girl.
“What are you doing talking to my girl?” he asked. Evie
smiled up at him, hardly worried at all. Naughty nurse, I
thought, your boyfriend is about to need a doctor.
3062 CE
I stretched my neck to the side and cracked my knuckles.
Evie’s smile slipped when she saw I meant trouble, and the
boy bicep took a half step in front of her. I popped out of my
chair and pushed my chest into his. He looked surprised, like
maybe he thought size was a deterrent.
“Wait!” Evie called out. For the life of me I can’t
remember why I didn’t just knee him in the balls and be
done with it. Maybe I thought Evie was special. Maybe size
really did matter. Either way, I took her advice.
“I’m flattered you both think I’m nice,” she said,
standing up between us. “But I don’t want this to get nasty.”
I had a strong impression this wasn’t the first time I’d
been in a bar where a girl worked to stop a fight. Looking
at the handsome hulk, I didn’t think Evie was going to be
successful.
But muscles surprised me. “How ‘bout a race?” he
asked, trying to look like he was clever.
I was clever too. “How ‘bout I punch out your teeth?” I
asked, flashing a grin. See? Clever like a thrown anvil.
“You dudes are gonna have to take it outside,” said the
bartender. He was leaning over the bar toward us, pencil
mustache trying to set off his thin black hat. “Got it, brah?”
90
I reached out and chopped the bartender in the neck with
the flat of my right hand. He started choking, eyes wide, like
he never imagined someone would hit a man with a beret.
I pulled him by the ears over the bar. He was unconscious
when he hit the ground.
Evie was laughing, though I’m guessing it was more out
of disbelief than cold humor. Muscles took a step back.
“That was incredible,” Evie said. “But I like Duke too
much to have you mess up his pretty face. How about some
other way of settling this?”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked, keeping one eye
on the muscular boyfriend. “A kissing booth?”
Evie’s eyebrows arched and I saw the light go on in her
hot little head. “How about a drinking game?” she asked.
91
3062 CE
Evie turned to survey the bar. We had quite an audience,
yet the bartender was the only employee in the room. We
were on our own. No management. No authority. No one to
tattle.
3062 CE
I wasn’t really keen on drinking games. Too kidsy. But
I agreed because I wanted to make time with the nurse. And
I was starting to realize how big Duke actually was. I would
have agreed a lot sooner had I known he couldn’t hold his
liquor. Three drinks later, knees like marshmallows, Duke
passed out just as the bartender was coming around.
“You wanna make drinks,” I asked the creampuff,
helping him to his knees. “Or are you gonna try and toss me
out again, brah?”
“Take what you want,” said the barman, watery-eyed and
sniveling. “I’m done.”
He left!
I couldn’t believe it. He split, leaving the rest of us with
a stocked bar for an unplanned, prepaid, private party. I even
forgot my headache for a while.
I felt like I’d died and gone to Heaven.
Not that they’d let me in.
92
Evie introduced me to all her friends at the bar. She was
a real socialite, and I slathered it up. I didn’t know where
they came from, but there was a doe-eyed quality to them.
It was like I’d found a nest of vestal virgins eager to soak in
my worldly wisdom.
I don’t know if I’ve ever shared that concern; though, to
be fair, look where that’s got me.
93
3062 CE
I tried to be good, but it was so hard. They had so many
provincial ideas. Every time they wanted to do something
evocative, or raucous, or mischievous, they were paranoid
about what people would think. It wasn’t just that they were
scared. They were truly nervous about whether someone else
would get their feelings hurt if they gave themselves over to
fun.
That night was incredible. At the end, Evie invited me
back to her place for another round. She sounded a little
devilish when she said it, but a little like an angel, too.
3062 CE
And it was on.
Fine wine and great sex. I had such a good time I
couldn’t remember a thing. Fortunately, when I woke up in
her bed the next morning, Evie was there with a cold beer,
a hot coffee, and a scalding shower. That combination made
me want a hangover for the rest of my natural life.
Since I didn’t actually own anything other than the
clothes on my back, I guess you could say that was the night
we moved in together.
It was the beginning of a revolution.
94
tem,
s
y
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e
v
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m
a
n
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es West,
, 84 degre
35 degrees North
1570 ACE
There is a vast difference between diving and falling.
Diving begins in exhilaration, which threatens to collapse
into panic. Falling begins with panic, but teases you with
exhilaration.
I had fallen into the cave system after my confrontation
with the Rider, but now I voluntarily dove off the calcite
wall, tracking my descent all the way down and plotting my
entry point to avoid potential hazards.
First contact with the water was shockingly cool. I
could feel my chest expanding and shoulders shaking as the
carapace acclimated to the thermocline. When my head first
went under the water, I thought I must have bumped it. I
was having flashes and visions. It was like a dream of other
people in another place. But I knew I couldn’t be dreaming.
I could still perceive Serif running checks on the infection
in the background of my OS. I was mindful of my body
mechanics in a way you never seem to notice in dreams, with
none of the surreality and all of the dullness of real life.
95
1570 ACE
The vision-people came in fits and starts. They were
strangely dressed and spoke with peculiar cadence. But
to say they seemed foreign would have misplaced my
discomfort. When my head popped up from the river, the
vision ended. I swam along the surface for a moment, but
felt something brush my leg and dipped my head down to
see what it was. It took a moment for my low light lenses
to further adapt, but I quickly saw the culprit was nothing
special, just a cave fish. When I put my head back in the
water, the visions started again.
I felt like I was transported somewhere—still me, just
no longer in the cave system. In that other place I could see
a group of children clustered around me in rapt attention. I
was unprepared. I thought I’d locked those emotions away
tightly, having properly grieved and moved on. But here they
were.
1570 ACE
Children.
96
Something happened to our children after the War.
The evolutionary process betrayed us. We hit the
tipping point for the sustainable population of the planet.
The birth rate dropped, but we were so elated by our ability
to cryogenically transfer our consciousnesses from meat
to matrix that we didn’t rate the situation with any special
significance. Our minds were focused on making better
bodies, on biotechnology, neuroscience, and prosthetics. Our
genetic development in that first decade after the Common
Era made the preceding millennia seem like an unnecessary
prologue to immortality. But by the time we realized no
one was making babies anymore, it was too late. That was
the one thing we couldn’t fabricate: actual human life. We
could clone. We could replicate. We could bring all manner
of species to life. We could elevate the intelligence of beasts
and augment the genetic shortcomings of an existing genus.
But we couldn’t make any more babies.
It had been so long since we’d had any actual children.
God knows we tried. They were gone from the world, but
somehow—in this liquid lucidity—they were still here.
1570 ACE
97
Within the vision I scanned from side to side and caught
a glimpse of a man walking out a door at the back of the
room. He didn’t want to be observed, which made him all
the more interesting. He was dressed in a slate-grey suit and
even at this distance I could tell he was impeccable about the
cut and press of his cloth. I could hear myself talking to the
kids, but didn’t know what I was saying. They were seated
on the floor in a half-circle, about a dozen of them. They
wore shorts and tucked shirts and neck kerchiefs. We were
in a building of wood and stone with a low ceiling and light
from a bare bulb. The plank floor was well worn and thick.
It was rustic, but comfortable. None of the children seemed
enthused. They wore the same expressions of routine and the
daze of school I remembered from long, long ago. I looked
down and saw the three-legged stool upon which I sat,
scarred by long use. My right heel leaned against it, and my
left foot was tapping.
1570 ACE
What am I seeing? I asked Serif. I don’t tap—not my
hands, not my feet, not anything—so I knew this was an
oracle of one sort or another. Are we in the timestream?
Serif had been sending me data analysis since the
moment we first submerged, but had yet to speak. Look at
their clothes, June. Their timepieces. She paused, giving
me a moment to absorb all she was indicating. Consider the
98
fashion of their dress and the antiquated wiring connecting
their electricity to their conveniences.
I wasn’t listening. I was only thinking about one thing.
They have children.
With all their propagandizing and all their sermonizing
the one thing every preacher seemed to leave out was the
fact that Heaven would be sterile. I had been promised a
future I would love and cherish and enjoy. But it failed to
impress. There, in that holy cave, I was being treated to
the only element of humanity that sanctified the past. They
used to say children were our future, and looking back, that
promise seemed better than the one we got.
I missed the old world. I missed the pleasures and joys
of family and the foibles of love. I missed the misadventures
of youth and the imperfections of communicating faceto-face. I wanted that world back. I yearned for it, for my
mother. I wanted it to be real so I could stay.
Which is why I nearly lashed out when Serif told me
what I was seeing. It’s why I nearly tore off the manacle
and flung her avatar into the deepest parts of the river. That
single proclamation made me realize I didn’t want the world
I’d inherited.
She said, You are looking into the past.
1570 ACE
99
As the river carried me downstream, I watched history
unfold like a moving picture. If I swam with the current, the
vignette sped up in my mind. If I swam against the current,
the past crawled into slow motion. The deeper I submerged,
the greater my ability to manipulate the streams of time.
When I surfaced my head above the water, the vision
disappeared. If I plunged again downstream, it was like
skipping ahead to the following scene. I was a kinesthetic
remote control, with power over a slip of time. I couldn’t
shift my perspective. I couldn’t change my location. I was
stuck in one particular time. But I had more control than we
ever thought possible.
1570 ACE
I could see things as if I was there, and I wondered
if perhaps I was seeing them through the eyes of another
person. I wondered if I had possessed someone’s
consciousness, and if the person was aware of my intrusion.
I wondered if I had influence or if I was just a passenger.
Mostly, I wondered if I could change anything and, if I did,
whether or not it would affect the future.
“Any idea how this is happening?” I asked Serif,
surfacing in order to interrupt the non-dream.
I am working on it, she said. I do not have a precise
answer.
100
“Care to hazard a guess?” I pressed, still wrestling with
the emotional draw from what I had witnessed.
The dielectric mineral content is the principal cause,
Serif responded. She was aware of how I was feeling, but
was skirting the issue. She had never seen actual human
children, except in the archives. The Spirit told her they
were important to us, but Serif didn’t pretend to know what
that meant. She had no concept of the black hole left by the
absence of our young.
The uranium secretion from the Chernoblys is some
form of catalyst, though I cannot tell how much particularity
results from their DNA.
My mind raced to catch what she was saying. “You
mean, this may predate the creation of the Chernoblys? This
is before the War?”
Yes, she responded. I would like to hypothesize that the
ecovibrations in this cave system are also a factor, working
much like a harmonic resonator.
Caves amplify everything, I thought, why not the past?
I pushed Serif to make new arrangements. “I want to go
deeper, take a look and see what happens.”
That is not a good idea, said Serif. Wait for my
physicality to return. I can burrow into the cave system and
accompany you. Other angels can be conscripted for counsel
and medevac.
“Sooner or later, that female is going to alert her colony,
and I’d just as soon not be in the water when that happens.”
June…
101
1570 ACE
“My mother is here!” I shouted. “There are children
here! We can’t hold back.” Both Serif and I knew what stood
behind all these concerns. I didn’t want to say it out loud,
and she was still hoping I wouldn’t be derailed by the vision.
“We can re-seed our future, sister. I won’t wait to try.”
And there it was, bold as blood, my silly hope for
traveling through time to save the world.
People used to say you can’t change history, but I
wondered if they’d ever tried. What if all it took was the will
to find the past, and enter?
What if the Chernoblys could give us our children
back—either by taking us back to a time when we could
reproduce and start over? Or by combining old DNA
with what we had in the City in hopes of re-stranding our
progeny?
1570 ACE
Wouldn’t that be worth it?
102
I pushed the sensor array once more around the
timestream, where years trickled down to the terminus of
human history. Serif’s feathers had returned, successfully
mapping most of the cave. It was admittedly strange to see
them floating back to her, like blossoms gathering in one
spot on the ground. Those feathers were the closest thing
Serif had to offspring. She had given them a task and they
had performed it as best they could. They were now coming
back to their mother. Like me.
103
1570 ACE
The maps weren’t perfect. Some aspects of the cave
were beyond our range and some were inaccessible. But
I had enough data to know the timestream went ahead for
a couple hundred yards before ducking under a large rock
face. It was too difficult to tell if the stream was passable
beneath the rock, so I only had a short while to coast time
before I’d need to get out of the water completely. Better
to play it somewhat safe than to run the risk of crashing the
carapace. With intermittent satellite access, I didn’t want to
risk a failed upload. If I had to wait for Serif’s physicality to
retrieve the mindbox from my carapace it could take hours,
and there was no way to tell if I could ever recover the
body—or the manacle—I’d leave behind.
“Keep the cameras rolling,” I said. “I want to be able to
review the footage back home and see if there are observable
phenomena during the visions.”
Need I remind you there is still an infection playing
through your OS? We need you to rest so I can begin running
medical subroutines.
The operating system was the central computer that ran
my synthetic body—the control for all background processes
ensuring my carapace worked properly. It also provided Serif
and me with highly detailed diagnostic information, climate
and topographical data, and nonlocal communications.
Breath, salivation, blood flow, and about a billion other
things we never used to think about were now managed by
the OS alongside all the mechanical minutiae the carapace
required.
It’s true that a virus within the OS could have disastrous
consequences long term. But it’s also true that the infection
was recent and biological. There was no way things could
become that bad that quickly.
I took note of Serif’s reaction. It seemed out of character.
She wasn’t much for drama, so anytime I felt like she
was overreacting it gave me pause.
“We’ll get there, sister,” I said. “For now, let’s do the
thing right in front of us.”
1570 ACE
With that I submerged into the cool black water and
vented the carapace of excess air, sinking down to the
bottom of time.
104
105
Part Two: The Timestream
I suspected you were there, more participant than
observer.
Like yourself, I’m something of a conservationist
and have long thought you tucked away the
Chernoblys just for me.
I trust you’ll tell me eventually. Why else would I be
here?
But I don’t want to get ahead of myself, because
the Chernoblys’ real value is derivative.
The timestream—that’s the real treat, the
miracle that confounds even non-traditional
physics. There’s more chemistry than physics at
work, I’d wager, and some biology too.
I’ll have some questions for you about that
later, about probability models and dimensional
reality.
There were hints of other Chronospheres, subtle
clues that made me think we weren’t just meddling with
our history, but with Time itself.
There were signs concerning the End of the Age.
And you thought I didn’t notice.
110
New Palestine
2031 CE
I’ll admit I was surprised. I was experiencing all of this
through Hasan’s perspective. I felt like I was in his head, like
I was him. I tried moving but couldn’t. He was in control.
I couldn’t even get him to blink. I was a passenger on a
runaway memory, stuck on board with nothing to do but
hang on.
“How did you die?” asked a little blonde girl in the front
row, her eyes a wide green. I tried to answer her but couldn’t.
It was hard to remember that people were talking to Hasan
and didn’t even know I was inside.
We looked up at the bare bulb, swinging from the ceiling
like a spider. The light was hardly bright at all. Until you
looked right at it and saw the filaments and then nothing
but pink clouds until you looked away. I wondered if the
children saw us blinking, averting our eyes, and if they
imagined we had a vision. With the way they looked at
us, I figured they’d believe it. Hasan was fable enough, I
could tell. I knew what he knew and could feel and perceive
111
2031 CE
“My name is Hasan,” said the grey beard, eying those
little children with a preacher’s scowl. “But you can call me
Minister. I’m here to tell you about how I died.” Some of the
children looked away, confused. “Oh don’t look so surprised.
After all, the Good Book makes many promises about life
after death. Well this is it, by Gawd. This is my life after I
have already died.”
anything about him I desired. He was a monument to
otherworldly supernaturalism, rocking back and forth on that
three-legged stool like an oracle, making the world turn.
2031 CE
“I was sick,” said Hasan, matter-of-fact. “and died in my
bed.”
“Maybe you were just sleeping?” offered an overweight
boy from the back. There was something familiar about that
boy, but I couldn’t identify it. He reminded me of a face I
had seen in photographs. I struggled to place him, working
mentally through my old memories, and it bothered me that I
couldn’t figure it out.
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” asked the blonde girl.
Hasan’s beard waggled as we chuckled. We looked
down at our hands. They were calloused and cracked along
the knuckles, and I could tell they bothered him. We wore
a wrinkled brown coat, with a creased white shirt that stuck
out past the cuffs. It hadn’t ever been ironed but was clean.
The coat was simply cut, straight and square at the shoulders.
I knew the man didn’t think much of his cloth, just that it
shouldn’t be a distraction.
The minister wasn’t put off by the children’s questions,
or their doubts. He loved children and thought introducing
them to the divine mysteries was perhaps the single most
special task available for any man of worth. Mortality is a
riddle, as is the life that comes after. Love and loss were big
issues that snared folks into misery. Learning to be free from
their coercive power was the secret to living well. That’s
how he thought about it—like a koan, like death was just a
mystery.
It’s not a mystery, friend, I thought, projecting myself
into his mind. We solved it better than you. For a moment I
112
thought Hasan heard me. He stopped rubbing our hands and
there was a perceptible stall in our breathing. But it didn’t
last, and I wondered if perhaps I had imagined it.
The wool on our chin quavered again as we spoke, voice
gravely, but kind. “I was dead, alright. The doctors done
poked me and prodded this empty shell, certain my ghost
had gone out. But I didn’t stay dead, and that’s the important
part.”
“Where the Good Book speaks of a first death common
to all,” Hasan replied, his Southern affectation pulling deep
round tones, “it also speaks of a second death suffered only
by sinners.” He spoke with warmth and I was caught up in
his words.
Hasan’s voice then intensified, taking on a new authority.
“By Gawd’s Almighty Name, I say I have tasted death and
will never do so again. I swear it. I swear it mightily. I have
been to the other side and I have seen that golden lawn of
light, that fruit from stars, and the symmetry of gems latticed
on the walls. I have tasted the apple of eternality and walked
the straight paths of forever. I will go there again, certainly,
but I need not die.”
We shook our head, stamping our heels against the legs
of the stool and causing the floor to shake. “No sir. Gawd in
his providence has let me have an appetizer of death, like our
Lord Christ, and I will not swallow it again, nor death me.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said the fat kid at the
back, his incredulity jarring me from that verbal spell. “How
can you die twice? And why are we supposed to think it’s
good that they killed Jesus?” The boy rolled his head around
like a walrus pup. “I liked Jesus!”
113
2031 CE
“Please sir,” asked another blond, this one a thin boy.
“What do you mean?”
I wondered this myself. Perhaps it was one of the great
mysteries. Perhaps it was the greatest mystery of all.
2031 CE
Why do they insist on calling it winning, when Christ
clearly lost?
114
“Do you remember,” Hasan continued, “hearing how
Christ came back to life? How he reclaimed the keys to
Hades from Satan, his ancient enemy?” More nodding. “And
when it was all done, in those final moments dying on that
stick-cross, Christ called out, ‘tetelestai.’” We shouted that
word triumphantly, then whispered, “it is finished.”
Hasan leaned forward until I felt like the smallest nudge
would have put us off the stool. The beard swung out like
a plush pendulum. The children leaned in, too, eager to
catch the falling secrets before they dropped to the floor.
Hasan breathed out the words, intimate-like, fluttering. “You
remember that word, tetelestai. It is an important word. It is
the word upon which all your faith hangs true.”
Lowering us impossibly forward, Hasan began to make
small gestures with our thumbs and knuckles, twitching like
they were dancing over a delicate prose he loved to read.
115
2031 CE
I could feel myself grinning, as Hasan. “You know the
story, Nathan Scott?” Hasan asked, indicating not only the
walrus but also the rest of the litter. “How the cross seemed
like defeat for Gawd and his Christ, but was actually their
moment of victory?” The children nodded, but didn’t look
like they understood even a little. They were losing interest
quickly now that Hasan was moving onto dogma. Nathan
stayed with him, though he may have felt obliged.
2031 CE
“In the Revelation, there is a tale that Christ will conquer
the devil once and for all with a Word. Old Slewfoot is
conquered now, they say, but still has a chance for getting
even some. Like Satan once entered Judas, he may enter
many men, for a time. But then—no more!”
With a clap and a stomp, Hasan jumped to our feet.
He was preaching, and hell couldn’t have stopped him
with a hundred goblins. “Satan will be let loose after being
imprisoned for a thousand years. His time of liberation will
be short, and only those who loved him in the secret places
of their hearts will follow. And then Gawd Almighty will
put a stopper on evil forever. Christ will devour Satan with a
Word.
“And do you know what word that will be? You
scalawags? You heathen ken? Tetelestai. It is finished! And it
will be. Like it ought to be now, it will be then.”
Broadening our arms to include the children, we
motioned for them to stand. “Say it with me now,” we
hollered. “Tetelestai!”
The children were enraptured. Even Nathan got up
remarkably fast. “Tetelestai!” they called, like the word was
theirs and Satan was being banished from the room.
“Good,” said Hasan, our eyebrows jumping up and
down. “Again!”
“Tetelestai!” shouted the children, dancing like us and
shuffling their feet for the Lord.
“Yes, by Gawd!” we howled, arms whooshing back and
forth across an imaginary stadium of devotees. “Shout it!”
Hasan didn’t see the three men in suits enter the room
behind us. He was too focused to catch their reflection in the
window. They stood and watched, and I could not have said
whether they were more concerned with the enthusiasm of
116
the children or the ecstasy of my host, only that they were
interested.
“Tetelestai!” the children sang out. “Tetelestai!”
Hasan was stomping our feet, shoving our hips like a
boxer. “Stick it in Satan’s eye, Tetelestai!” he called. “Gloray!”
The three men moved forward, one of them gently
placing his hand upon our arm. “Minister?” he prodded
gingerly. “We were scheduled for this morning?”
One of the other suit-men ushered the children toward
the back door. They complied easily enough, and I figured he
was someone they were used to obeying. Nathan was the last
to leave, his head turning around like an owlet with his body
still walking away.
“I ask your forgiveness gentlemen,” said Hasan as the
third suit-man shut the door and returned to his peers. “I was
burdened to tell it true and time slipped on me.” You’ve got
that right, I said. Again, Hasan’s breathing arrested for the
briefest moment. Can you hear me?
Lord? he thought.
Oh great, I said mentally, projecting myself back to
Serif. He thinks I’m God.
“Is everything copacetic, Minister Tahn?” asked number
one suit-man.
My host brought his attention back to the physical world,
content for the moment to leave the question of my divinity
unanswered. “Peaceable, gracious, and whole,” he replied.
“Let’s get down to business.”
117
2031 CE
I felt Hasan’s energy slip, and our arms. We smiled
apologetically and turned round to our class. “Run along
now. I’m going to talk to your betters and see if I can’t
whoop them into shape.”
tem,
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35 degrees North
1570 ACE
June! Serif’s voice interrupted the vision and I was
momentarily disoriented. I was in too many mental places,
too many voices and too many persons competing for my
attention. June! she called again.
I wanted to ignore her. Something important is
happening, I said.
You need to pull out of the timestream. You are twenty
feet from a rock face. The stream runs beneath it.
I hadn’t known what lay in front of me in my own
time, in the caves. I hadn’t known about any rock face, or
the potential for the river to flow beneath it. There was a
high probability of harm associated with swimming into a
blind tunnel. I could get trapped indefinitely, the carapace
eventually running out of power. If Serif’s physical self was
unable to either get me out or run a hardline download to
rescue my consciousness, I could die. Admittedly, those were
remote possibilities, but they were conceivable.
1570 ACE
I’m going to risk it, I told her. Something significant is
happening. I’m being given a window too important to miss.
Serif manifested from the manacle, her avatar barely
visible in the black water. She looked more like a banshee
than a byte-map in this environment, and she grew to 3x so
she could look me square in the face. Do not be a fool.
118
I’ll lock you out if I have to, I said. I’m going back
into the timestream and staying with the minister. There’s
something there, something that will change everything else.
I did not understand, then, how prophetically accurate
those words were.
Stay out of the timestream until the river passes beneath
the rock, Serif said. If and when you come back to an area
for which we have schematics, it will be safe to re-enter and
resume your observations. Watch your head, she warned and
departicalized back into the manacle.
Gotcha, I replied, though in truth I hadn’t listened to a
word.
1570 ACE
119
The next few moments were more of a mental struggle
than a physical one. I had to stay in the river but out of the
timestream. I had to pass under the rock face, requiring that I
move deeper into the water.
At greater depths the timestream became more dominant.
I felt confident I could develop mastery over, at least, the
ingress and egress into the timestream given practice, but
for the moment it took all my concentration and energy and
will to be in the timestream and not be forcibly drawn into
Hasan’s world. I only had to stay in my present until the
dangers passed, then I could safely reenter the timestream.
I traveled approximately forty feet beneath a rock
ceiling, totally unable to emerge from the water. I was treated
to a massive onslaught on the other side. The rock face must
have provided some interference within the Chronosphere,
but once I was out from under it the pressure to reenter the
timestream was unstoppable.
1570 ACE
I lost control.
120
New Palestine
2031 CE
The hall ended in a T-shape with a final door straight
ahead. We entered, finding a small courtroom. The ceiling
was an endless mat of fluorescent tubes, giving the
impression there was no place to hide. Hasan looked down
at our shoulder, and we saw the brown jacket was beginning
to fade, something we hadn’t noticed previously. White
motes sprinkled across our chest, and we brushed them off in
annoyance.
The room had no windows, no natural light of any kind,
just those lightning rods of alternating current shouting at
us from above. Seven chairs were lined up behind a long
varnished table, and there was a gallery space across from it
with a couple dozen witnesses in attendance. In between was
open floor. Hasan stood there, unprompted, while the three
121
2031 CE
The suit-men were escorting us through a white hallway
with windows looking out onto a field. Some of the children
were playing in the foreground, and behind them I caught
sight of carbines and silos. Hasan didn’t look out the
window with any curiosity, so I had to take what I could
get in passing blinks and sweeps. I felt sick from switching
so violently into the past. My stomach was in knots and,
vaguely, I felt blood coming out of my nostril back in the
timestream, though I didn’t have the energy to regain full
consciousness in my carapace.
suit-men joined two more already seated behind the table.
The center chair was empty, as was the one farthest right.
2031 CE
“What makes you think you can do this job, minister?”
asked the lone woman on the council. She was overweight
but not obese, her short red hair plasticined to the sides
of her face. It wasn’t a flattering look, but I gathered she
took some pride in her appearance. Jewelry. Patterned suit.
Nails. She was a trinket for the council, though her posture
demonstrated she wanted to be more.
Hasan stood us tall and clasped our hands in front,
gazing levelly at each suit in turn. “If I have strength to
perform this task,” he began,” it is because my strength is on
loan from a higher authority. I do not seek this for myself,
but for the good of the world. But I won’t deny I long for it
with every fiber of my being. Yet it is a just longing. A good
urge. I want to shadow God in the redemption of the world,
and I believe my principal task is to lead this Colony as
Chief Prosecutor for the Good.”
Trinket asked her follow-up before we had finished. She
was too eager, hardly listening to what we were saying. “You
really think God sent you here to create Heaven on earth?”
“I surely do, ma’am,” we replied.
“And you think you’re qualified for this…why?” She
paused. “All you have on your resume is a death certificate.
That hardly seems like enough.”
I could feel Hasan bristling. The woman’s scorn was
touched with meanness. And though I understood why she
felt that way—why any sane person would feel that way—I
was so enmeshed with Hasan I couldn’t help but feel angry,
too.
“How would you define the role of the Prosecutor,
Minister Tahn?”
“Head of State,” he replied.
122
She sneered. “Not the title, Minister. The role?”
Hasan thought about this for a moment before
answering. “In the Hebrew Bible there were Judges, partly
politicians and partly adjudicators. They lead the people
according to the ways of God. They settled disputes. They
mediated business dealings. They ensured the economic and
social welfare of the people.”
“Yes—but why do we call it a Prosecutor?” she asked.
“What exactly will you prosecute?”
“Sounds rather harsh, don’t you think?”
“It could be poorly done,” Hasan acknowledged. “But
not by me. It is not my calling to simply point out what’s
wrong. I am here to make it right. That’s the truest kind of
prosecution there is. Not blame, but restoration.”
Hasan believed it was his personal mission to lead the
Colony and lead it well. He thought he was like Moses—
both politician and prophet, born to lead the Lord’s people.
He thought he was like one of the Maccabees, both
Hasmonean king and High Priest. He was like Ezra, scribe
and statesman, a District Attorney running for Head of State,
and his single-minded determination to lead well garnered an
ever-swelling intensity among his supporters.
Which were many.
“I have been to the other side,” we said. “And I know
what is good, and beautiful, and true, by sight. I can smell
what’s foul and taste what’s fair. I have a Holy Ghost
intuition.”
123
2031 CE
“Injustice. Disparity. Malcontent.” Hasan sounded like
he had a keen eye for these very sins. “A Prosecutor looks
for distortion in any direction, any evidence of folk missing
the mark, and calls it out.”
2031 CE
“What are we supposed to do with that, Minister Tahn?”
asked the other of the suit-men who had been present when
we arrived. He looked like a hound, sitting tall with a long
face.
To his credit, the minister calmed himself before
answering. “Take my word on this if nothing else,” said
Hasan, our hands absently scratching the grey on our jaw.
“Once you’ve been to that far country there is nothing here
that can satisfy the demands of counterfeit. It is, and all this
is not.” We moved to put our hands back together, but I felt
Hasan rise up, emotionally, and our arms went up again to
gesticulate, almost involuntarily accenting the cadence of our
defense.
“The Lord hath sent me back unto the world as usher,”
we said, our arms cording with passion, “as midwife, and
I believe he did so knowing I could lead and guide his
people from paths of wrongdoing toward plumblines of
righteousness. I can shepherd them as he hath shepherded
me.”
We drew our arms across our body, as though crooking
a sheep and pulling it into the pen. “Where the miracles of
modern science have failed—and will fail anon, mark me—
the miracle of Gawd Almighty hath prevailed. He has set my
feet upon the rock and brought me back from Beulah Land
to be his emissary, his spokesman, and like a watcher on
the wall I am set to guard against compromise and indignity
and vice. I have a destiny, delivered straight from the White
Throne into these hands,” we held up our cracked paws,
trembling, “the palms of supplication. I am anointed and
ready. He is going to invade earth and colonize Heaven, and
we are meant to be the advance scouting party, the forward
base of operations, his spies and embedded dissidents
working for a revolution of love.”
124
We stopped talking with our hands still in the air, a
fire in our belly and great heat coming from our eyes. The
councilmen looked at one another, nodding slowly. I felt
like applauding. It was impossible to be unmoved by his
certainty.
With Hasan leading them, the colonists’ spiritual fervor
intensified. He had beaten death and promised they would do
the same. This confidence gave them renewed vigor. They
worked with the assurance that their contributions would
persist beyond their own mortal lives and into eternity.
As far as incentives go, that’s a tough one to beat.
125
2031 CE
I had always wondered at the marked foolishness of
religious adherents. A prophet stands up and proclaims,
”Thus saith the Lord…” and everyone loses their mind. It
never made any sense to me. Until then. Until I heard Hasan
speak—first to the children, then to the council—and I
was ready to abandon reason for the invisible power of the
Almighty.
2031 CE
Suit Number One broke the silence. He was wearing
grey, but not the slate color I had seen when I first dove into
the past. That man, the man in the slate grey suit, had yet
to reappear, and I wondered who he was and why he didn’t
want Hasan to see him. “Consider this a test, minister,”
Suit Number One began, “to determine the extent of your
intuitive jurisprudence.”
“His will be done,” we said. Don’t blow it, grey beard, I
whispered mentally.
Trinket gave the exam question. “Think on this couple,”
she said, holding up a photograph of a man and a woman. It
was the man in the slate grey suit, though I couldn’t see his
face. “Perfectly suited according to all outward appearances.
Their families were close and they have known one another
for a long time, sharing many mutual interests and being of
like mind societally and spiritually. They fell in love. But
marriage is not always the playground of the pure, as they
say, and in this marriage some hardship has befallen. The
woman wants a divorce.” She paused, enjoying how we all
had to wait for her to finish. “Does God permit divorce?”
Hasan answered immediately. “Christ acknowledged that
divorce was permissible, under a few conditions.”
Trinket smirked. “But will there be divorce in Heaven?”
she asked.
126
“In Heaven they are neither married nor given in
marriage,” Hasan replied quickly once more, but I could
feel his suspicions growing. He knew this was a trap, but he
didn’t know how it would spring. Or why.
Suit Number One took up the call. “But it is safe to
say God would not allow the pain caused by divorce in his
perfect bliss, isn’t it? That he would spare his children from
harm and resentment?”
“Precisely!” shouted hound-face. “He would help them
on the front end, rather than simply punishing them when all
was said and done.”
“I would say so,” we said, nodding slowly.
Trinket was clicking her nails on the varnished table
top, her smirk opening on one side of her mouth. She looked
like she could either kiss us or eat us, but either one just so
the others could see her do it. “So if you’re to be God’s man
in the Colony,” she began, “shouldn’t you also assist on the
front end? Can you not also help marriages heal and avoid
the pain of divorce?”
We could feel the trap closing, but I sensed something
else now, too. Hasan was getting eager. These were religious
questions and he knew his religion. His confidence in
doctrine was lowering his caution for politics.
“I would do all in my power,” we finally replied. I
worried we were heading for disaster.
Trinket continued. “Well then, the case is simple. These
two have had no extra-marital affairs, they have financial
means, they have mutual interests, they have no children
except those grown and gone. They have only one another,
and the woman no longer wants the man. What will you
127
2031 CE
Hasan turned our body to face Number One. “Yes—
insofar as he was able to work out the good in them, not
merely forcing them to conform.”
counsel? How will you help them? How will you make an
example of their restitution so others may learn that God will
find a way?”
2031 CE
I could feel the minister thinking about it. I could feel
him puzzling the angles, wondering if he was being played. I
could feel him straining, looking for a solution.
“Dear madam and kind gentlemen,” we said, our
Southern manners coming to bear, “there is a way that
seems right to a man, but it is folly. The wisdom of Gawd
is foolishness to men, and I think in this case some form of
foolishness may be needed to prevent another form of socalled wisdom. If this Colony is to be the advance party for
Heaven-on-earth, let us begin living like it now.” The council
was nodding, and I could feel Hasan getting worked up.
“That couple shall not leave their home until they
reconcile,” we said, wagging our finger. “They shall not
eat. They shall not spend. They shall not communicate
with others.” The preacher’s frenzy was returning. “We
will not force them toward some falsified notion of peace,
but let them work it out on their own. Like they did in the
beginning. Let them reenter the Colony when they are
ready.”
I couldn’t believe what we were saying. This was
lunacy. Hasan’s mind had stopped working and arrived at the
simplest, basest, most inhumane conclusion available.
And the people loved it!
I tried to interrupt the proceedings. It was clear to me
that Hasan was being played, just as he feared. But it was
equally clear he did not know how to out-maneuver them. I
screamed inarticulately in his mind and I think he heard me,
or sensed me. But I’ve got no idea how he interpreted my
presence.
I suspect that was the moment he first thought he might
be going mad.
128
Returning to that provincial scene gave me pause.
129
2031 CE
The timestream current picked up, and I was moved
forward faster than I wanted. It is difficult to say how far I
went, or whether there was a change in elevation. But the
result was that I lost some time. I was catapulted forward a
week, maybe two, and found myself in the same spot, in the
same room, in front of the same council.
2031 CE
I wondered what it meant to consider yourself ‘people of
promise?’
The colonists had started with so little, but, like the
pilgrims before them, they had worked feverishly to bring
something new and good out of the ground.
The increasing marriage of politics with folk religion in
the United States caused many educated people of faith to
reconsider their societal ideals. Many smart people believed,
but they didn’t believe the things the politicians wanted
them to. They didn’t believe America was chosen by God.
They didn’t believe one party was superior to the other. They
didn’t believe the moral and ethical issues of the day were
clear cut, not any longer.
So. They left.
The United States had become increasingly intolerant
of people who didn’t fit neatly into the category of either
patriot or activist, and there were many who decided they
had more in common with World Citizenry than American
partisanship.
On the other end of the spectrum were those who
tried to re-colonize the States. Like the pilgrims and the
explorers of old, these brave souls identified tracts of land
within the continental US and began re-living the settlement
130
of this great country. They held to the intellectual rigor of
the Founding Fathers and determined that everyone who
belonged would work and contribute to making the world
a better place. At first, these colonies were simply the
equivalent of educated trailer parks, the ghettos for white
collar idealists. But things changed. The hard work and
mental diligence of the colonists paid off and they prospered.
The Colony of New Palestine, however, never
bothered with any grand declarations. They focused on good
government, education, and productivity. In so doing, they
sailed below the radar of the State department and were able
to continue operating as a self-made township.
There is some debate over why the Anglo-Israelis
chose to sponsor the research within New Palestine. Most
attribute it to the good science and accompanying lack of
prejudice on the part of the investors, though there are a
few that suspect the motive all along was to instigate the
Palestinians in the Holy Land to retributive action.
But all this with Minister Tahn was way before those
monumental blotches of history concerning the World That
Was.
This was, as I said, still provincial.
But it was also the tipping point.
131
2031 CE
Many of the colonies declared themselves
micronations and attempted to secede from the US proper.
This typically resulted in military action and invariably the
colonists lost.
2031 CE
There were still two empty chairs empty in the court
room—the middle, and the far right. The council looked
pleased, and in that chronolucidity, I looked around and saw
a crowd behind the minister. They were smiling.
“Minister,” said Suit Number One, standing, “it is
with great enthusiasm that we bestow upon you the mantle
‘Chief Prosecutor for the Good.’ You are now adjudicant
and authority in the Colony. Yours is the task of leading this
council. God’s will be done in you, sir, as he has given you
his anointing.”
I could feel Hasan’s delight in every cell of our shared
body. We were tingling. “I gratefully accept, gentlemen. This
is an esteemed honor, by Gawd, and by Gawd I will do it—
and him—justice!”
The crowd applauded readily, hardly noticing the door
that opened behind the councilmen’s bench. The man in the
slate grey suit appeared. At first I could only see parts of him
over the other councilors. They stood, welcoming him into
the far right, empty seat. Hasan would later take the empty
center chair.
The man in the slate grey suit nodded, and I still couldn’t
see his face for all the bobbing. But when they sat down, he
132
remained standing and looked us full in the face, bold as you
please.
“Thank you for your help with my wife, Prosecutor,” he
began, indicating the woman entering several paces behind.
“I trust we can all anticipate as many good days and happy
nights as Grace and I now have at home.”
I couldn’t believe it.
I was gasping for breath. The minister didn’t know who
that man was, nor the woman. Hasan didn’t know what that
man was capable of. But here was the incarnation of evil. If
ever there was an opposite to Christ, here was anti-Christ in
a slate grey cut.
The timestream moved and juked, and I was carried
along with it, banging and bouncing around. I lost focus
and my mouth opened. I began to choke and the emergency
buoyancy controls in my carapace inflated, bringing me
sputtering to the surface.
I was certain I had found that evil which destroyed the
world a thousand years ago.
133
2031 CE
The woman looked familiar to me, though it took a
moment to place her. I hadn’t seen her in so long. Not like
this. Eyes cast down and lifeless. Pale lips and lank hair.
She had expensive clothes and fine taste, but she looked a
mannequin. She reminded me of an empty carapace, or a
vampire’s victim drained of life.
Gilead
3062 CE
Evie and I were sitting on the floor amidst a molecule of
pillows, discarded clothing, and empty bottles. We had been
waking up like this for a week, groggy, giddy, and eager to
skip work and do it again.
3062 CE
How hard did we party last night? I wondered, a minor
concern about my inability to retain even recent events
stirring unfamiliarly.
“Aren’t you worried, Mash?” Evie pressed. “You can’t
remember anything?”
“Not a bloody thing, babe. But it ain’t a big deal.” I
didn’t really want to emote. It was too early for drama, even
if it was midafternoon.
Evie put her hand on my shoulder, like she was trying
to comfort me. “Don’t you wonder about who you are? Your
family? Where your people are?”
“Evie,” I said, holding up my hand. “I don’t even know
where I am right now.”
“Gilead,” she frowned. “My apartment.”
Maybe people with memories are touchy and wanna talk
about them. I didn’t have any memories, but I wasn’t really
missing them and I didn’t wanna waste time pretending like
they mattered. I certainly didn’t want Evie to become either
my counselor or my surrogate mother.
134
She was meant for other things.
“It’s about the moment,” I said, taking her hand off my
shoulder. I wanted to slap it away, but thought that might
cause problems. I held her hand instead, trying to remember
to rub her fingers. Girls like that crap. “It’s about being
real. It’s about you, and romance, and enjoying life’s finer
moments.”
Evie took her hand away. “Isn’t there anything else?” she
asked, hugging her torso and leaning against the bedroom
wall.
“We’re living the dream,” I said, getting up and walking
across the room. There was a breeze, and I started looking
for a robe. “Why wake up to some tragic reality?”
“Hey,” I said, trying to be cool. “How about I make
breakfast?”
“Sure,” she replied. It looked like Evie wanted to cheer
up, like maybe she wouldn’t be a downer after all.
Giving up on the robe, I tossed through the mess until I
found a sheet and wrapped it around my waist. Evie covered
herself and went into the bathroom while I padded over to a
kitchen full of brand new, state-of-the-art, everything. How
much money do nurses make? I wondered, not for the first
time. Evie must have spent it all on this apartment. I figured
she was probably some trustfund brat. Whose bed am I in
now? I wondered. Hers or her daddy’s?
I got really ticked off when I couldn’t find anything
decent in the fridge. To be fair, this was the first time we’d
135
3062 CE
“I guess.” Evie’s face turned down. I may not have
had my memories, but I knew that look. She was feeling
remorse about last night. Used up. I felt my headache return.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure it ever left. It probably had
something to do with her.
even considered eating at her place. Typically we were
preoccupied.
“Where’s your meat?” Evie mumbled something from
the bathroom but I couldn’t hear it. I walked over and
banged on the door. “Meat!” I yelled.
“We don’t eat meat,” she said. Her voice whined and my
skin crawled. “It’s disgusting.”
Ten minutes later we sat together for a breakfast of cold
cheese and egg. The coffee was good, but I was still hung
up on the meat. We didn’t talk. I was glad. When it was over
Evie dressed and went to work while I caught up with some
of her friends for lunch.
3062 CE
They didn’t eat meat either.
136
Evie’s friends looked at me like I was an at-large serial
killer when I tried to order a steak.
We were sitting on the sunny patio of yet-another trendy
diner. Stainless steel tables set off checked floors. The music
was supposed to sound like it was from my grandfather’s
adolescence.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I braced myself for
another inane prohibition.
“Eating meat is against the law,” Sandy clarified. ”It has
been forever,”
I could have punched a baby. “You’re kidding?”
They weren’t.
“But what if I want a steak? Can’t I just go buy one?”
“That’s inhumane!” squealed one of the girls. Good God
they were squeamish.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, feeling insulted.
137
3062 CE
“No one does that anymore,” said a blonde named
Sandy. She was well-dressed and had a visible fetish for
accessorization. There were bangles and baubles all over her
outfit. She looked like a tackle box. I wanted to rip all that
junk away, but she was cute and I thought it might hurt my
chances.
“It’s meat. It has the letters E-A-T right in the middle of it.
It’s a basic human freedom, baby.”
“What are you talking about?” said Thin Ryan, the other
male. I hadn’t been his weight since I was a fetus.
“Freedom, Ryan,” I answered as condescendingly as
possible. “It’s the ultimate virtue.”
“What about government?” Sandy asked. “You don’t
think administration and social welfare are virtuous? Come
off it.”
“We should be left alone to govern ourselves, if
government is what we want.” I said.
3062 CE
“Actually, that makes sense,” said the buxom redhead
sitting across from me. Her name was Joanna, and once you
got caught looking at her it was tough work to keep thinking
like a grown man..
“Right!” I was emboldened. “Most who want control can
barely control themselves. Look at their urges! Look at their
spending! They’re gluttons and sadists and self-flaggelators.
How about freedom from them? Don’t we know how to feed
ourselves and get along without over-compensated muckymucks inflating their portfolios at our expense?”
“You sound a little nuts, you know that?” said Ryan.
I guffawed. “Am I the only one who sees how ridiculous
this is? Is this a comedy? Or are we still blind to the turn
at the end, the moment of our tragedy, when we rue the
abdication of self-rule?”
Sandy wasn’t buying it. “You’re talking about eating
animals?”
“You’ve never had rack of lamb?” I asked, seriously
concerned. “Steak tartar? Filet mignon?” I looked down and
realized I was holding my knife and fork perpendicular to
the table, pounding them in time with my queries. Wide-eyed
138
and horrified, they glanced at one another and scooted back
their chairs. They weren’t leaving, but they definitely wanted
a little more breathing room.
“No,” they answered in unison. I know they wanted me
to shut up about it, but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
I leaned across the table. “You don’t know what you’re
missing.”
“It’s fine,” said Ryan.
“No!” I screamed, embarrassing not only my chic
companions but also the patrons around us. “The sweetness
of meat, the marbled texture of fat in the blood. It’s not fine
to never have that!” I began to pantomime the paces of ardor,
the devotion and fanaticism of carnivorous living.
“You’ve never had a salted turkey leg at the fair?
Chicken nuggets? Never stuffed a breast with ham and Swiss
cheese? Or baked meat into a pie just to see if you liked it?”
Again, they shook their heads.
“What about kabobs? Burgers? Quail? Smoked sausage?
Jerky?”
It was too much. I could see they were imagining the
delights previously forbidden to them. Eden could keep its
apples. This was going to be a barbeque.
“That doesn’t even sound good,” said Sandy, but I knew
she was trying to convince herself. She wanted the meat to
sound bad. But there was no way.
139
3062 CE
“The juice on your chin?” I asked, thumping my fingers
against my face. I held up both hands, then, to demonstrate.
“Tearing bacon in one hand while popping sausage into your
mouth with the other?” They shook their heads again, but
they had stopped looking at each other. They were trying to
see inside my better world.
They were all smiling, perfectly pearly teeth hungrily
straining against their wasted mouths. They were made for
meat and had yet to realize it.
“But it’s against the law,” Sandy complained.
“What sort of freedom keeps you from doing what you
want?”
“I don’t know,” Joanna sighed. I think she was
considering my proposition. “I think I’d like to try it. Just to
see,” she added, blushing. Like she was coy.
“You’re going to find out what you’re missing,
sweetheart.” I told her.
“What do you mean?” asked Thin Ryan, crossing his
toothpick arms and looking concerned.
3062 CE
“Meet me later and I’ll show you,” I replied, standing to
leave Ryan with the check.
I showed them, all right. That was the night I showed
them all.
140
We brought charcoal, skewers, lighter fluid, and a large
bag of salt.
Then we went cow tipping.
141
3062 CE
Later we got together in front of the bar where we’d first
met. There were seven of us. Joanna, Evie, Duke, Sandy
the Blonde, Thin Ryan, myself and Barry. Barry was the
bartender from my first night out of the hospital, when I met
the others. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there and
almost ditched when I started calling him Beret, on account
of his stupid hat, but he had a thing for Sandy the Blonde and
made up his mind to stay.
3062 CE
We had to drive a long way out of town before we got
to a dairy farm. There was no security, maybe because the
place was so large. Eight massive gates, separated each by
a quarter mile of picturesque white picket, stood open to
welcome visitors. It was the middle of the night, so I don’t
know who they were expecting, but the moon blanched off
the rails and it made for a pleasant scene.
I didn’t think we ran much chance of being caught,
but I was still nervous. It felt like a long while since I had
taken any real risks. Even getting out of the hospital wasn’t
something I’d done. I just went along with the head-shrinker.
What ever happened to him? I wondered. I thought about
Doc Chloros from time to time and made a mental note to
track him down. I’d done that before, but never followed
through.
Standing in the parking lot, I surveyed my apprentice
carnivores as they leaned on Thin Ryan’s coupe. The girls
looked nervous. The guys were hyper. Especially Duke, who
kept roughhousing to look brave. The muscled bully laughed
at Thin Ryan and pushed him over the car.
“Shove off,” Ryan said. He knocked Duke away and
stood up, fixing his shirt.
“What’s that?” I asked, seeing something on his lower
back.
142
“It’s a tattoo,” said Ryan. He still looked angry, though I
couldn’t tell if it was because of Duke or because I’d asked
about his tattoo.
“On your lower back?” Joanna asked. “I thought only
girls had those?”
Duke laughed out loud and shoved Ryan a second time.
“It’s a champ stamp,” he said.
“A what?” I asked.
“That’s our nickname for guys with tattoos on girly
parts,” said Duke. “Champ.”
Sandy the Blonde laughed, teasing. “Ryan is a champ.
He’s got tribal tattoos all over his waist.”
“Shut up,” said Ryan. He had hardly moved since
covering up his tattoo. I decided to let him off the hook.
“No,” said Beret. “I’m still not sure I get it.”
Where did these guys grow up? “It’s simple,” I said.
“You find a cow and tip it over.” There had to have been a
thousand cows within reach. This wouldn’t take a real long
time.
“And then what?” asked Duke. I passed him a long
kitchen knife I’d grabbed from Evie’s place. He was in front
of the car, twitching. I think he was working himself up for
crime.
“Stick it with this,” I replied.
“Won’t that hurt it?” asked Sandy. She and Joanna were
standing next to each other, huddling. It wasn’t cold but the
night has its own chill.
“Have you ever tried eating a cow while it’s alive?” I
asked. She didn’t answer. This group was slow, but I had a
feeling that would all change with the first steak. I passed out
143
3062 CE
“None of you has gone cow tipping before?” I asked.
skewers to everyone and made a charcoal pit. Beret grabbed
the briquettes from the trunk and Thin Ryan arranged them
in a circle. I doused it in lighter fluid, telling the guys not to
worry about getting dirty. The cows didn’t even look wary.
Several of them wandered up to us to investigate what we
were doing. Sandy even petted one.
“Okay, Duke,” I said. “You’re on.”
“Which one should I tip?” he asked, already starting to
trot out to the field.
3062 CE
“You know what,” I said, waving him back to the car,
“just walk up to that one Sandy’s got and stick it in the
neck.”
Duke looked at me strangely, like he might run away.
But he came around to Sandy and placed his hand on her
shoulder. They moved together about ten feet from our
vehicle, followed by the bovine. The cow was almost up
past his chest. Duke held the knife in front of the animal and
Sandy stopped blinking. The cow licked the blade, cutting its
tongue. But the knife was so sharp the animal didn’t notice.
“Come on, Duke!” called Evie. “Just do it already.” She
had been very quiet all evening. Right now she was standing
behind me, maybe thinking things could get rough. I hoped
they would. I wanted to remember this.
Duke pulled his arm back and clumsily jabbed the knife
forward. It was such a little stroke, I didn’t think he’d even
broken the skin. But the cow’s eyes widened, and the knife
came back covered in four inches of red.
Enough, I thought, but too slow.
The cow just stood there, her eyes jellied now and
moving back and forth. Duke looked at the knife. I started
walking toward him to help but Sandy grabbed the knife out
of his hands and jabbed the cow again.
144
This time the animal saw it coming and tried to move.
Sandy got it under the mouth, in its long jaw, and the cow
screamed!
Duke jumped toward the animal and it spooked, trying to
run off. Sandy started stabbing and Thin Ryan came to help.
Evie was laughing nervously. Joanna had her skewer and ran
forward, hitting the cow in the eye. It was a hematic mess
when Duke brought it down, a fleshy, gushing piñata.
The cow thrashed on the ground. Duke was crimson as
the cow. The other animals surrounded us, bearing witness.
Still the beast shook, an unwilling sacrifice fighting to get on
its feet and run.
Every one of us was a bloody bag by the time it was
done, sticky and smelling like gout.
Then came the carving and the cooking. We used
the knife to skin portions of the cow and slice off hunks
of meat. We burned it and fed it to each other. Beret had
brought a cooler of cabernet and we poured it on the cooking
steaks and in our mouths and over our chests. Duke took
to howling, and Thin Ryan ran in circles around the fire,
laughing and dancing in front of the other animals. I threw
salt in clumps, like confetti, and it stuck to our bodies against
the blood.
We slept in the mess and were sick in the morning, but
ate more meat before we left. What was left of the cow
stayed behind, a burst sachet of excess.
145
3062 CE
We set to it with our skewers, hacking and stabbing
and kicking. It was long work, and hard. The moonlight
disappeared for a while behind clouds. There hadn’t been
clouds before. Maybe they were supposed to hide what we
did. Our thrusting was done in darkness, silhouettes in a
taxing marionette.
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1570 ACE
I came back to the surface sputtering, gasping for air.
We were in a new section of the cave system, and Serif
immediately loaded the schematic onto my retinal display.
It seemed darker, if that were possible, and I had to dial
up the aperture settings for my lenses in order to make out
the features of this cavern. It wasn’t a big room, more of a
connector between two major sections than a room itself, just
a void.
June, Serif called, manifesting from the manacle into her
holographic form. What is wrong?
“That’s my mother!” I wailed. I couldn’t weep, but I
lay my head back in the water and moaned, thinking of all
I had lost and what I had taken away from her. I had never
made sounds like that before. All my regrets centered on
my mother. She was siren and seer, and my desire to change
found centrifugal power stemming from her.
Serif didn’t react. She hadn’t seen me like this before,
and I think she was worried. I restrained myself, trying not to
lash out at her for her lack of emotion.
1570 ACE
And the man in the grey suit? she asked.
“That is Rowan Scott,” I said. I felt like I was coming
apart, like I might break up and be carried apart in time. “My
father’s killer.” My mouth turned down and I felt the cave
inside of me open into new channels. Not just loss now, but
146
hate. “I had thought him dead, and my mother, from grief.
Until I saw her in the Elder Chamber. May God’s judgment
fall on me, be it ever so severe, if I do not kill that man. I
know now my mother did not disappear. He took her.”
1570 ACE
147
Rowan Scott is already dead, June. The timestream is a
thousand years in our past. We have an exhaustive catalogue
of everyone who survived the War. There is no Rowan Scott
on the survivor’s manifest. What you see in the timestream
cannot be changed. You have no power over the past.
“I’m not sure,” I replied, still trembling from shock.
“Tahn could hear me. He registered my reactions.”
Whatever you imagined, the Chief Prosecutor could not
have been influenced by your thoughts in his mind.
1570 ACE
“We can change the past,” I said, thinking of all the
wonders we’d witnessed so far. Chernoblys. Timestream. We
had found the ruins of New Palestine and visited the World
That Was. “That’s why we’re here.”
Serif grew to 3x magnification and hovered in front of
my nose. She did not move her beak as she spoke. We travel
in time every day, June. Forward. In order for time travel
to be possible you would have to move faster than light, a
physical impossibility long since discarded. Or you would
have to bend space, traveling great distances faster than
light in order to beat time. Even if either of those hypotheses
were credible, which they are not, it is nonsensical to
propose you might receive a message before you send it.
148
“And what if this is another time altogether?” I asked,
unmoved. “A parallel time?” My imagination was only
beginning to work hypotheses. I had re-routed my OS to
calculate potentialities and was receiving them in a torrent.
The probability model was eliminating them just as quickly,
but I wasn’t willing to give up on what I had seen.
That is a possibility, but interference in that time would
mean little to ours.
“It might mean saving that world altogether.” I splashed
my hands on the surface of the black river. “It could mean
life for my mother.”
You want revenge, no matter how you dress it. Killing
Rowan Scott in another world would still not rescue your
mother. Neither here nor there.
“I’d feel better,” I said, unwilling to admit she had a
point.
Serif demagnified to 1x, floating around my face less
confrontationally. No you wouldn’t. You have given your life
to the study and preservation of life. To take life would undo
you. You would become your own antithesis. And you would
want more. Revenge is a degenerative addiction. You cannot
survive by robbing others of life.
“But the point remains that I may actually have influence
over our past, even if it’s in another present in another
world.”
“That’s good enough for me,” I said.
149
1570 ACE
Yes. In theory, backward causality is conceivable.
Serif alighted on my shoulder. There is a possibility that
going back in time—while unable to actually change what
happens—could affect why something happens and who
caused it.
June—
“Enough, Serif. I have to think.”
I shut down the manacle and Serif disappeared from my
wrist. She was acting off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on
it, but something didn’t seem right. Once I had that initial
thought, I realized it wasn’t the first time. Ever since we had
entered the cave system she hadn’t been acting like herself.
The OS felt sluggish, and I was reminded of the virus
and my need to get the carapace someplace where Serif
could run diagnostics securely.
But not yet.
1570 ACE
I didn’t want to get sidetracked.
150
My father was a geneticist. Lots of folks called him a
genius, but it was his best friend who admired him most.
Rowan Scott was my father’s research partner. He believed
Father was everything a man could become. Brilliant mind,
critical thinker, creative problem solver—Father was a leader
in every field.
Father had friends everywhere. He inspired loyalty
and friendship and love, without any trace of the social
awkwardness common to the scientific community. He loved
people, never thinking of anyone as a hanger-on or a chore.
We practically built shrines to him at home. From the
second he walked in the door, my mother would begin
doting. She’d bring him a drink and he’d sit on the couch
while she pulled off his shoes. He always laughed about that,
every day, and tried to wave her off. But she would smile at
him and tickle his stockinged feet once the shoes were gone.
That was the only time I ever saw her smile. She was sad
mostly, though I didn’t know why.
I was at home the day Scott and my father got into an
argument. I saw them start shoving each other, threatening.
151
1570 ACE
Rowan was at our house a lot when my father was gone.
Mother said he was helping out, and I guess that’s why he
never had time for talking.
I had seen such things on television and knew what violence
was, but Mother pushed me into my room and told me to
leave them to it. I remember seeing my father standing tall,
like that time he had yelled at my teacher for hurting my
arm. I thought then that Scott looked like a creep. He was
crouched by the knives on the kitchen counter and looked
like he was planning a trick, pretending to be afraid.
Mother warned me to stay in my room, but I snuck
through the window as soon as she left. I went around the
house to watch what happened through the sliding glass
door that opened into the kitchen. They were arguing over
something from work, something Rowan wanted that
my father didn’t want him to have. Mother got involved,
defending my father, and Rowan turned on her.
I watched my father’s face fall—that’s how I thought
of it. The way his smile fell from his mouth, like calving
ice from a glacier. Not just in that moment. He hadn’t been
smiling then. But forever. That was the end of all his smiles.
1570 ACE
My mother collapsed on top of her high heels and I
opened the door. Father had been about to go to mother, to
pick her up I thought, but maybe not. When he heard the
door he came to me instead.
I screamed, trying to warn him about Rowan. He had one
of the knives. He was coming up behind my father. I wanted
my father to turn around but he didn’t. I think he knew what
was going to happen, because he stopped being angry. Scott
walked right by my mother, and she didn’t even try and stop
him. She could have grabbed his leg. Scott was moving so
slow, like he was preparing to hide the knife behind his back
and pretend he hadn’t meant it. My father could have turned
around.
But nothing happened.
Scott just kept coming.
152
I screamed again, pointing this time. “See!” I shouted.
“He’s there! He’s got a knife!”
But my father didn’t see. He wouldn’t turn. My mother
didn’t see. She couldn’t lift her head.
I was the only one who saw Rowan Scott murder my
father. I was the only one who saw him stick my father’s
heart from behind.
I saw him, and Rowan saw me, and my mother didn’t
look up until the blood had stopped spilling onto the carpet.
I ran into the woods before the police came, and later,
when Mother talked to me alone, she reminded me a burglar
had done it, that Father had come upon him before he could
take anything, and that I was safe.
I wanted to argue, but Rowan waved the wet blade
around my head and told her I was next if she ever said a
word. He moved in after the funeral, to help, but Mother
never took off his shoes.
1570 ACE
153
Push your sensibilities, June, Serif chided. She wasn’t
one to let me give over to introspection, though I confess
I was surprised that she had so quickly acted against my
wishes for time to think.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. I tried once more to hail
Serif’s physicality through the OS, but the reception was
completely gone.
We may need to move.
Roundtrip, the journey to the City took nearly ten hours.
Serif had been gone for almost six, and I felt like she should
have checked in by now. I expected her to let me know
whether she had managed to get inside without attracting
attention. I expected an update on the loadout—whether or
not the drones were available, the supplies, etc.
But I hadn’t heard anything from her in a long time.
Maybe I am in a static cloud, the digital Serif offered.
1570 ACE
Let’s hope, I replied. Despite the fact that the angel’s
physicality was too large to be of much use in these caves, I
liked the idea of having backup close at hand.
I dialed up the sensor array to maximum sensitivity
on the carapace and was shocked to find I wasn’t alone. I
had been treading water, moving lazily with the current of
154
the timestream. But all along the banks of the river were
Chernoblys. Not one or two. Dozens. Perhaps a hundred.
They sat on their haunches, swaying, chittering at one
another in hushes and whispers indigenous to caves. I had
mistaken them for crickets. They hung off one another like
spores, clustered, and every one I could see had both hands
and long fingers extended toward the water. They were
listening. Watching. Waiting.
From the back, one of the Chernoblys stood tall and
raised his chin to the ceiling. He made a noise I hadn’t heard
before, a screeching noise that sounded like it was partly a
war cry and partly an alarm. Whatever it was, it drove the
creatures to action.
They splashed into the water and swam for me. I
dumped the air in my carapace and went head down,
swimming for the bottom. Serif! I called out mentally. I
need you! My head was whirling. I was living in two times,
with both my thoughts and those of Hasan competing for
the space at the front of my brain. Serif was zipping around
inside me, using both material and spiritual means to block
the timestream images. I was getting ontological motion
sickness.
The Chernoblys came down deep after me, seemingly
unaffected by the Chronosphere. The water had a strange
effect on their bodies, leeching the uranium secrete from
their pores. Green vapors billowed in the ichor, making it
increasingly difficult to see. I switched lenses, but didn’t
receive greater clarity with either the thermal glass or the
greenwash.
155
1570 ACE
Everything was over-contrasted, brightness of one color
or another—green, white, a glowing black—and I could feel
the panic setting in. Though my carapace had precise climate
control, I began to shake. The chills were forcing my teeth
to chatter, and I began to feel my chest constrict, making it
difficult to breathe.
This wasn’t just a physical reaction. My mind was
working through a host of horrifying scenarios—drowning,
mobbing, dislocation, disorientation. I couldn’t stop my
fantasies from outstripping my rational mind.
Help! I called out to Serif once more.
I cannot administer anything to work against the adrenal
pump, June, or your reactions will slow. The Chernoblys are
not looking to mate.
1570 ACE
What do I do? I asked, but before Serif could answer I
felt one of them grab hold of my heel, talons ripping into the
carapace and gaining hold. I kicked out and felt something
crunch beneath me, but the grip didn’t loosen. I began to
flail. I started the app for the ice-axe and crampons in my
OS, thinking I might be able to use those as weapons, but the
virus was slowing my processing speed. I could feel Serif
working inside me, trying desperately to help, but I was
running out of options. The crampons sprung and dislodged
the claws on my heel, but the axe still wouldn’t load. Two
more Chernoblys found me in the water and I could hear
the muffled chittering leaking through the waves. I yelled
in frustration, lashing out again, and tried loading my rope.
It wasn’t likely to do much good underwater, but I figured
I might be able to fire the smart-grapple if I got clear of my
attackers and surface.
Fighting and thrashing about, I finally made it above
water. It looked like a feeding frenzy, the water bubbling
and churning, Chernoblys in every direction like piranhas.
I executed the smart-grapple, but it missed the ceiling,
shooting wildly into the dark. The grapple rapidly reloaded
into my arm with a harsh clack. Serif warned me of a heavy
Chernobly coming up from behind and I was forced to dive
back under the water.
156
The timestream was making me sick, and I coughed
blood into the river. I tossed and wheeled in a circle, quickly
boosting back to the surface once Serif gave me the cue.
This time the grapple made contact, crawling along the
slick surface of the cave wall before wheedling its way into
a crevice and springing the cams. Serif initiated the pull
sequence and I felt myself being dragged from the water just
ten feet above the seething churn.
Momentarily salvaged from the attack, I let my muscles
run slack. I allowed myself to be strung by the grapple, a
worm too abused to squirm on the hook.
I needed a moment to gather my wits. Just a moment to
whimper before being brave.
1570 ACE
157
There were Chernoblys crawling on every surface. They
surged together in heaps, sticking to the walls, jumbling
on and over and against one another like anthropomorphic
termites, like flies.
I knew I wasn’t yet safe so I shot the grapple once more
across the room. My ribs ached with the dullness of regret
and the sensors in my operating system complained, but it
was the fastest way out, and I needed to use it or face the
consequences. The pain in my side was like a foot-thick burn
from rope, scraping within.
I was thankful for my synthetic body, but saddened also.
Being able to dial down the pain was a boon, but it also
made me feel like I was cheating at humanity, falsifying the
hallowed truths of personhood.
1570 ACE
My thoughts were clouding. I almost passed out.
I tried to remember my original flesh, but I couldn’t. I
couldn’t recall how it felt. I missed the certainty that I was
more than a husk, that I was enfleshed—an incarnation of
myself. But now I was different, just a ghost in a fun box. It
wasn’t the same, and I regretted my exfiltration from man.
Swinging across the cavern, my feet nearly tracing lines
on the surface of the river, I landed on the hard earth and
158
reeled through a tunnel. The pain roared and I diverted my
system resources to blunt it. I stumbled.
I fell.
Serif called out sharp directions in response to the cave
schematics. I got up, limping, and kept moving. I tumbled
down a tiny chute, nearly vertical, landing off-balance
and scooting the rest of the way down a short pass before
emerging into another massive room.
The space was cavernous in the truest possible sense of
the word and the darkness intensified even further. The old
blacks deepened into abyssal completeness and I was forced
to switch lenses, greenwash flipping over my field of vision
like a shroud of mint. I was uncomfortable with these lenses,
and frustrated that nothing was happening the way I wanted,
but preferred greensight to blindness.
I couldn’t see the end of the cavern, or the sides, or even
the ceiling. It was like an underground world, a speleological
cosmos where the heavens were joists and hell, the planet
core. Giant selenite crystals crisscrossed the open spaces
like the tottered ruins of yesterday’s skytowers. I was caught
between wonder and bewilderment.
This, then, was what remained of the original New
Palestine. The settlement had once been above ground, but
many such things had changed during the holocaust. Much
that was on the surface fell beneath, and some that were
buried resurrected. It was as if the world had been partially
flipped inside out and cast aside like a used sock.
159
1570 ACE
The Colony buildings were arranged all in a rectangle,
with Main street down the center and Broadway cutting
perpendicular. The compound was sturdily built—all rough
wood and stone—reminiscent of Brutalist architecture from
the mid twenty-first century West.
I had little time to appreciate what I was seeing. My
marvel was interrupted by the roar of the Chernobly mob
streaming from windows and doors and alleys in every
direction.
There! Serif’s voice exploded in my mind, and I
followed her prompting into a squat building with a lowslung roof. It looked like a small business, an office of
sorts, but it had some obvious defensible advantages. Thick
walls, small windows, only one visible entrance and exit.
I slammed my shoulder into the door, tried the handle and
was surprised to find it turn freely. Once inside, I slid the
deadbolt across the entrance, found a chair to jam against
the door, and began to pray that the Chernoblys would either
give up or prove too ineffectual to get inside.
I was crystallized with fright, too scared to do anything
but sit. There always seemed to be one more dash, one more
fall, one more gloomy situation in which I found myself
pressed further, harder, and closer to despair. I was stuck in a
room with only one way out.
1570 ACE
And it was blocked.
160
Gilead
3062 CE
The next three months went better with meat, but my
headaches intensified. We bought cows and kept them in
back of the bar, making Thin Ryan do all the shoveling.
Beret donated the building to our party—that’s what we
thought of ourselves: seven sexy souls spinning a party
wildly out of control.
But we weren’t there yet.
This was the beginning of an occupation for revelry,
a sit-in against the marrow-sucking powers of an already
lifeless world.
Evie skipped work and we partied every night. Slowly,
her friends began to come out of their shells and live a little.
I felt like I’d found my purpose in life—wake up comatose,
inject life, be a dream-supplier.
I met more of Evie’s friends, and we made some of
our own. The party grew. The occupation went viral. A
revolution in eating and pleasure. We had a good time.
Until the day it came to a hysterical, ball-kicking halt,
and I lost everything.
161
3062 CE
We invited others into our coup, partying more and
with more people. We planned to burn the bar and keep
the insurance money once we’d brought in enough new
partygoers to force a move.
tine
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The R
ACE
1570
I sat in the office chair, wondering about the creatures
outside in the dark. The Chernoblys had more history with
my mother than I did. When I thought about them, I thought
about her, and could not stall the traffic of my memories.
I left the house in my early teens. I couldn’t live with
Rowan, but felt bad for leaving. Mother always told me I
was the only good thing she had left now that Father was
gone. She told me I reminded her of him. That I was an echo.
1570 ACE
Scott must have joined, or possibly even founded, the
New Palestine colony shortly thereafter. I didn’t try to keep
tabs on my mother. It wasn’t until the War, and after when
we started counting all we’d lost, that I began looking for
her in earnest. It would have been difficult enough to find
her without a War, but after the death-toll accelerated it was
impossible. I guess I was holding out for a second chance. I
thought if God was just, Rowan would be dead and I could
look after my mother. I imagined we were owed.
She had never been happy. I couldn’t ever figure it,
either. How could you be around my father and not be
infected by his consummate joy? Then I realized, Mother
was sad because she had betrayed that joy. My father didn’t
know about her and Rowan, and a spiritual malignancy was
killing her as surely as cancer.
162
I don’t know when it all started between Mother and
Rowan, but sometime before I was born Mother realized her
mistake and wished for all the world she hadn’t broken her
vows.
She could have been the happiest woman alive, but she
didn’t know it until it was too late. I figured I couldn’t make
anything worse by leaving. I had to go. I never saw my
mother again. That’s stayed with me. Even with the War, and
everything that came after, hers is the life I miss.
I hoped not to miss her a second time.
1570 ACE
163
The Chernoblys weren’t evil. That much I could tell.
My first contact with the female in the cave entrance hadn’t
been hostile until she wanted something I didn’t want to
share. But those first few moments were civil. But they now
perceived me as a threat. I was an outsider.
I could hear them beating against the door. I wondered
if it would hold. The frame shook. Dust came away from
the seal against the brick wall. After so many centuries, the
mortar had to be weak. I began to imagine the entire wall
to collapsing. I saw myself overrun by Chernoblys and
shuddered, trying to think of something else.
But it was difficult. I was an island in a sea of instinctual
rage.
“Serif?” I called. She responded instantly, reading my
anxiety.
The door will hold, June.
1570 ACE
Serif had architectural scans beyond those in my
carapace, but I wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure?”
Their structural stability is sixty-seven percent
confirmed.
What? “Sixty-seven percent! That’s it?”
164
Judging by their reactions, I wasn’t the first outsider
they’d encountered. And the last encounter hadn’t been
good.
Serif’s voice was calm. It will be enough.
The prison window at the top of the wall clouded over.
It was the only window, and I doubted the Chernoblys could
fit through, even if they managed to break it. It was too small
and too high, but they were still climbing on top of one
another to get in.
I saw fingers shadowed against the pane. Those fingers
were reaching, stretching to get the palm to the center of the
window, eager to smash it open and burst inside.
I could feel the cutting edge of hysteria slipping through
my mind. “Are you kidding me?”
She didn’t answer.
“Serif?”
The door will hold, she said. And the wall.
There were more fumbled attempts, but I never saw
anything more than single digits slapping harmlessly against
the tempered glass.
The wall shook. The door jiggled with a combustion of
knocks and moans. With my back to the door I could feel the
mob pressing, but it held.
Gradually, the rhythmic thump of their assault calmed. I
let go of the breath I’d been holding. I was, for the moment,
safe.
The office building was comprised of only three simple
rooms: bathroom, kitchenette, and workspace. From my spot
165
1570 ACE
My breathing slowed and I felt sleepy all of a sudden.
I knew it was the decrease in cyber serotonin, but I wanted
desperately to be in Repose.
on the floor I could easily survey them all, but I got up and
scoured the office to keep from falling asleep.
I quickly checked the bathroom and kitchenette for
supplies, but found little of use. The workspace was the
priority—oak desk, bookshelves, framed awards. I rolled an
office chair to the desk, then further reinforced the door with
an end table.
When the last twinge of adrenaline dribbled off, I asked
Serif, “did you really know the door was going to hold?”
I told you what we needed to be brave, she said. That
wasn’t the answer I’d expected.
“You lied?”
I felt her amusement through the OS. I told you the truth.
The door did not break.
I wasn’t sure if I should join in the joke or get angry.
“But you didn’t know?”
It seems I did.
I chuckled, but was troubled that Serif had misled me.
1570 ACE
The heavy desk crouched against the far wall was
adorned with the litter of intelligentsia—pencils, scraps of
paper, charts, and projections. There was a frame on the
right, though the picture in it had long since crumbled into
pressed ash.
The mushroom garden caught my attention. “Have you
ever seen something like this?” I asked Serif. It looked like
it had begun as a small box, maybe the size of a gallon of
milk, with a hole in the side through which the original
mushrooms had protruded. But a lot can happen in a
thousand years, and now the mushrooms had grown over
one third of the desk and consumed the bookcases to the left
almost entirely. You could still see some of the book spines
jutting up from behind the fungi.
166
Mushrooms have many medicinal uses, June, though
I suspect the Chief Prosecutor had them for psychotropic
purposes.
“You think this was Hasan’s office?”
Did you not see his name above you?
There it was, a bronzed plaque gone green with age:
IN RECOGNITION OF EXEMPLARY SERVICE,
CHIef ProSeCuTor HaSan TaHn.
There was another of the puzzle pieces in place. When
I went into the timestream, I wasn’t going to another place,
just another time. I was reviewing events from here, then.
I began rifling through the desk drawers, clusters of
mushrooms falling onto the floor. Mushrooms have always
unnerved me, especially the big ones that grow on trees—the
polypores. I’ve always been afraid they would begin to grow
on me. Like I might wake up one morning and see a trametes
versicolor rippling off my ribs or under my ear; or, worse
still, that I might become infected by a mushroom contagion
and grow lamella-gills along my back like the vents beneath
their caps. You’d think that having an entirely machinated
body would reduce those irrational fears, but you’d be
wrong.
Fear has very little to do with what’s real.
1570 ACE
167
“Wait a minute,” I said, stopping my search for a
moment. I had missed the full implications of the décor until
then. “You think he was growing magic mushrooms?”
Serif manifested from the manacle at 2x and left her
perch to alight upon a toadstool. Not all psilocybins are
hallucinogenic, she said. Several varieties have been used
in spiritual ceremonies during the sectarian development of
primitive cultures.
“Not that primitive,” I said. “The Prosecutor was here in
the mid-to-late twenty-first century, well beyond the pale of
healing vigils and drug-induced trances.”
1570 ACE
I searched the desk, slightly irritated with Serif’s
suggestion that the minister might be a drug addict. I
genuinely liked Hasan, though I hadn’t realized it until that
moment. He had something I had lost and now envied. He
believed in his personal mission right to the core, and I held
onto the hope that my contact with the man might produce
such conviction in me.
I continued searching through the Prosecutor’s desk until
I got to the bottom drawer. It was locked and I had to wait a
moment for the ice axe to boot. Again, it took longer than it
should have.
Your OS continues to underperform, June.
168
“What do you suggest we do about it?” I asked. “There’s
a thousand-thousand of those things out there, and they
want to either marry me or murder me. We have no time to
fiddle with repairs while they’re outside.” The ice axe loaded
successfully, and I used the adze to pry open the drawer.
There was a leather journal inside, covered with two inches
of mottled rot. Carefully, I lifted it out of the desk and eased
it open, trying not to crack the binding.
I cracked the binding.
Most of the pages were illegible, and several had
deteriorated into nothing more than chalkish powder. I
caught little words here and there about the Colony, God,
and the responsibility of all men to the Common Good. It all
added up to about half of what I knew from living in Hasan’s
head.
There was one passage that remained largely intact, one
chunk of text that had providentially endured. I began to
read.
“…Scott continues working on the
red heifer, though he has had
little success. An international
group of Anglo-Israelites fund
his work.
I turned the page carefully, and the entry continued…
169
1570 ACE
They think it might produce
the Messiah. I think it might
produce a monster. It is too
much of a distraction, and keeps
him focused elsewhere. When he
does come around to my side of
things, he’s proud as a strutting
peacock. By God, that man could
make Moses cuss.”
Scott talked to me today about
the ‘superliminal projection of
optic pulses’ or some such. Can
you believe it? It’s Babel all
over again; men trying to stand
tall, thinking to look down on
the Lord. That doesn’t tend to go
well, by my count. And I’d guess
my count’s better than most.
1570 ACE
Time travel…God Almighty, I
can hardly believe it. I always
thought it was impossible, though
what’s impossible with man is
possible with God. Glory be.
Even so, I never imagined this—of
all things—might fit within the
purview of his mighty provenance.
Scott tells me we can only
see what’s been touched by
light. Light moves at a steady
pace which must mean that,
technically, what we’re “seeing”
is something that has happened
already. We’re always looking at
the past. By God, ain’t that the
truth? The past stares back at us
170
every second of every day. It’s
all we see.
It’s got me thinking, all
right. Thinking about the Light
of God shining on us. Light comes
from somewhere, right? Somewhere
beyond. I have to think that
light is the extension of God,
for God is light and in him
there is no darkness at all. He
exists beyond, but affects the
world right in front of us; so
does light. It’s like they’re
the same, or like light is his
creature, doing his will.
Like me: An angel of Light for
the Light of the World.
171
1570 ACE
I’m told the only thing that
really has any bearing on light’s
speed is the distance between
things—point A and point B,
like, though Scott thinks maybe
there’s a way to bring things
closer together. Black holes. The
horns of a saddle. Little bridges
between places. He’s got fancy
words and big ideas, but I know
his real interest is power. He
has become the de facto leader
of New Palestine and I have been
largely sidelined. I am more an
advisor now than anything else,
a figurehead. But I’m content.
I don’t need the power. I work
for the One that all power
serves. Yet I’m uncomfortable
with Scott’s hunger for it. One
way or another, he wants to
start crafting the future in his
own image. He says it will be
‘the abolition of time from the
indenture of light.’
Scott talks and talks about
‘counterbalancing our internal
harmonies’ but my simple mind
thinks of it like tuning in
an old radio. Every bit of
the past has its own station,
and all we’re trying to do is
get a signal. I’ll let Scott
keep yammering about rods and
cortices. For my part, by God,
I’ll just keep on thinking about
how power changes stuff in the
brain, chemical stuff, and that
allows us to think in the past…
not to pretend, or even be fooled
that we were there, but to
actually live it all over again.
1570 ACE
He’s got fancy words, but I
just jump in the water and watch
it work. It’s like a movie you
can change.
172
Hasan’s entry concluded with more frustration about
Rowan. “We need him working with us fixing time,” he
wrote, “but I fear that every moment he changes only brings
us one step closer to judgment.” Then, in oversized scrawl,
I saw these words at the bottom of the page, “GOD HELP US
ALL.”
“Fixing time…” I said aloud.
That could be why he had the mushrooms, Serif replied.
“Hasan knew about the timestream. Or at least he
suspected it, thought maybe he could manipulate it.”
I was nearly shuddering with excitement. Answers to the
greatest evolutionary questions had just been splayed open
for my personal satisfaction. I felt like this was the moment
toward which every other incident had driven me since I was
born.
Hasan’s journal proved we could go back in time
and change the past—maybe the future, too. It wasn’t a
hallucination. It was real. To be in the water was to be in the
past, and—more importantly—to have power to change it.
I sat for a long time in Hasan’s chair reading his journal.
It was full of notes about the Chronosphere.
173
1570 ACE
I could save the world.
Hasan wondered if maybe there was a device
somewhere, lost and buried deep beneath the Colony.
“Something down there is messing with the spores,” he
wrote. But he didn’t know what.
“I’ve started a garden. I want to see whether it makes
any difference having things grow away from the ground.
It may be the soil, or the caves. It may be the water.”
Something was contaminating the river, and it made the
Chronosphere more accessible.
Hasan was just guessing, and I thought some of his
speculations strained credulity. “Maybe it’s an alien thing,”
he wondered, “a machine.”
Hasan claimed he was learning in his sleep. He dreamed
of himself in the future, and of himself in the past. In some
of these dreams he was a horned demon. In some he was
a respectable barrister. In some of his dreams he was a
wanderer and, in others, a sorcerer. Sometimes he was just
himself, only in other places.
“Lord, please take these dreams away,” he wrote,
handwriting scratchy and thin. “I hope they are just fancies,
the tiredness of an old man in the night. But I’m scared. I
don’t want to be somebody else. I don’t want to do anything
other than what you’ve asked. Please don’t make them true,
Lord.”
1570 ACE
It was those dreams that led him into the caverns beneath
New Palestine. He dreamed there was a cave behind one wall
of his office and he woke in the middle of the night holding a
hammer. Following his waking impulse, he tore down a wall.
“There was a cave,” he wrote. Water splotches made
some of his sentences illegible, but enough had been
preserved. “There was a shallow pool in that cave, in the
middle. I don’t know what came over me. Was it you? I’ve
never doubted before. I knelt in that pool. It was like the
174
cleansing of a mountain baptism. When I put my face in the
water, I beheld a miracle.”
Hasan’s next words both thrilled and alarmed me. He
wrote those words faintly, but had then traced them over and
over again in different inks and leads. I could see the outline
of those words looping past the letters—in blue ink and
black, red pen and colored pencil. He’d caressed those words
like an alphabetical rosary, coming back to them often and
duplicating them lovingly.
He wrote, “I went back in time.”
That was the first timestream.
1570 ACE
175
Psilocybin produces euphoria, changes in perception,
a distorted and disparate sense of time, and has been a
known contributor to metaphysical enhancers. Serif’s voice
came mentally through the OS. She wasn’t content to let
me ruminate. The companion of an Expeditionary Privateer,
Serif was a scientist herself. Her long-acquaintance with
mystery compelled her to search for solid hypotheses about
how the timestream worked and whether we might replicate
it.
I paused a moment, letting the plurality of realizations
sink in. I could still feel the effects of the Chernobly’s
infection, clouding my mind and making things hurt. I
put my hand to my forehead and rubbed the skin with my
fingers. Everything about me felt like it was being squeezed
into some other shape, a shape perfectly adapted to a highpressure world where regrets could be erased and mistakes
circumvented.
1570 ACE
Do not let your imagination run away with you, June. We
have a lot of work to do in the present before we can change
the past.
I stretched my neck and clasped my hands together,
trying hard not to lose my cool. “Everything we have
experienced in the last twelve hours fits neatly into the
category of the impossible,” I said, leaning back in the chair
176
behind the Prosecutor’s desk. “We’re crossing dimensional
thresholds that question every accepted fact of human
scientific certainty.”
I stood up from the desk, raising the manacle to eyelevel.
“We’ve gone off the reservation, sister. We’re in a place
of extreme possibility, however improbable some of those
impossibles might be.”
As if in response, Serif demagnified her avatar to 1x
and perched back upon my wrist. I felt the weight of her
hologram. I knew it was a stimulus response generated by
the carapace, designed to help cross the uncanny valley
dividing the virtual from the material, but I was so tired it
still felt like a chore to keep up.
She weighed on me.
1570 ACE
177
There had been so little noise from outside for so long I
decided to venture a peek outside. Bringing the office chair
over to the window, I climbed on top and could just barely
reach my fingertips over the ledge. I was thankful there was
no such ledge on the exterior, or their assault may have been
more successful.
Using the corner, I was able to scramble up the wall with
my purchase on the sill and watch the Chernoblys go about
their normal lives.
They were surprisingly human.
1570 ACE
They congregated, speaking to one another in tones
ranging from matter-of-fact business to friendly banter.
They even laughed, a sound like metal shavings falling
into an aluminum palm. The Chernoblys seemed further
evolved than our humanoid ancestors like Cro-Magnon,
which I guess made sense. They had started as more, then
backslidden into something less.
I saw a child sitting by herself and holding onto an oftrepaired grey doll. Most of the doll’s hair was missing, but
the child tenderly brushed the hair with her fingers. I thought
she looked sad. The doll had only one remaining leg, but in
the empty socket someone had fitted a carved piece of
178
driftwood. It even ended in a kind of heel and I marveled as
the little girl made the doll walk and talk before her.
Across the street were several males gathered around an
antiquated sports car. Behind the mildew and the rust, the
car’s lines still whispered of youth and speed. For a moment,
they looked every bit like the small town inhabitants they
had once been. They were Saturday menfolk, comparing
engines and talking about how to get the most out of their
drag.
I wondered, momentarily, what it would be like for this
world to be remade. There wasn’t much more than this,
certainly, when Scott and Hasan had first visited the Colony.
Fewer buildings, but less rubble also. They had dreams of
making something great. Did they dream of something like
our Heavenly city? Or was their dream to make someplace
where you could grow your own future?
Of all the vignettes of Chernobly life, the one that stuck
most in my mind was the woman with the hairbrush. She had
no hair, and the brush had no bristles, but she sat behind an
elderly woman and ran the nubs of the brush along that old
crown with what you must only recall as love.
The ruins of New Palestine were some of the last
vestiges of the World That Was, the true world. I wanted to
hold onto it, not because that world was so great but because
that was the world from which I had come.
I have very few memories of the World That Was. All
of us who still live participated in the War, but most choose
not to remember what we did or which side we took. We
partitioned our guilt, refusing to be educated by shame.
179
1570 ACE
When the War’s dust settled, the two halves of Earth
were separated by more than oceans. North America brought
its citizenry under three habitats. The City of God took root
on the Nebraska-Iowa border, away from the hottest conflict
zones. A smaller city, born from Halifax’s ashes, didn’t
survive the first super-freeze of nuclear winter. Juarez barely
lasted a century. There were too many Texans with guns and
food, and too many Mexicans without. The Texans ran out of
bullets before the Mexicans ran out of siblings.
South America continued as it had for the last several
hundred years, resulting in mass death and wholesale
disease. Brazil had made tremendous scientific and
agricultural advancements, but Bolivian flu and Peruvian
neo-cholera wiped out the entire continent.
Gilead was founded in the shadow of the Alps. They
upheld a strict non-violence policy that stretched to include
dietary laws and religious observance punctuated by the
threat of immediate expulsion. Many were ejected within
the first week of their stay. There were no exceptions. With
meritorious administration and security, Gilead succeeded in
quickly rebuilding a human hive.
The West had gone to War with the world and everyone
lost. Heaven and Gilead were civil, but distant, like children
of divorced parents.
Now Gilead was gone and no one knew why.
1570 ACE
The War was the final straw for the last age of man,
the moment when we got sick to death of death itself and
vowed never to turn on each other again. It was our Flood,
and we repented of our humanity and made our rainbow
out of ecumenism, shared prosperity, and peace. We turned
our swords into ploughshares, our scuds and ICBMs into
playgrounds and schools, and pooled our intelligence for the
common good.
But it wasn’t good enough.
We became our own parasites, the apex predator left
feeding on ourselves.
180
Mother used to tell me home is where your family is.
I had no family, but felt a greater kinship with the
Chernoblys than with the City of God.
These were people who had been robbed of their
personhood. They weren’t who they once were, but they
retained that which could never be stolen.
They had their dignity.
I am concerned about your operating system, said Serif
still sitting like a circuit-sprite on my wrist. The Chernobly
infection has taken root in your sense perceptors. You are
over-experiencing reality, June.
“Tell me about it,” I replied, somehow keeping the
enthusiasm from my voice.
Hypperreality is a significant danger to carapatic
interface. If you cannot limit your emotional responses and
cordon off your intellectual curiosities, your frontal lobes
could turn supra-thalpotic. Your consciousness would not
survive the download back to the City servers. You could die.
181
1570 ACE
I know Serif’s warning should have registered more
dramatically, but I wasn’t really worried. Maybe I was
obsessed. Maybe I was preoccupied. But I wasn’t thinking
about death. I was thinking about answers.
I was thinking about revenge.
“I need to get back to the timestream,” I said.
Are you listening?
I slipped from the window sill, catching one final
glimpse of Chernoblys looking back toward the office. They
knew I was still here. They charged and resumed banging
against the door, reminding me we weren’t on the same side.
I smashed both of my hands down on the wall, Serif
instinctively coming off her perch and virtually passing
through my wrist to hover above my head. There were
crumbles of mortar scattered on the floor. “I have to get
back!”
Serif hovered there for a moment. I could feel her
probing my thoughts, trying to figure out whether I was
in more danger from myself or from the infection. She
stopped beating her wings, folding them up before her and
using her will to maintain the illusion of constant altitude.
The mushrooms are for brewing tea, she said. The tea will
enhance your ability to control the timestream.
“Thank you,” I said.
1570 ACE
Serif magnified to 3x and placed her hind talons on the
desk across the room. Push your sensibilities beyond this
wall. I complied, surprised at what I found. There, she said.
Do you perceive it?
“The river,” I replied, sensing a pulsating supremacy.
It was a torrent of ego, a wet rush of power. It seemed
implausible that I couldn’t have heard it, at least, without
having to rely on the extra-sensory capacities of my
carapace.
I can see it in the Spirit, said Serif. It is a point of
liminality between the visible and invisible realms. There
182
are not many left. Chief Prosecutor Tahn must have kept it
hidden.
I began waddling the bookcase away from the wall to the
side of the desk. Mushrooms were toppling books over and it
made for awkward pulling. In my haste I ripped the bookcase
away from the wall entirely, and it smashed into pieces on
the floor. Spores from the mushrooms visibly clouded the
room. I coughed and hacked, throwing my hands up and
swatting microorganisms away. Bending over, I collected
several caps and stems before heading into the back room. It
was a small dome-shaped chamber with a pool in the center
of the room, large enough for only two people at a time.
Still at 3x magnification, Serif hovered behind me,
coaching me. Brew the tea with water from the timestream,
she said. It will accelerate the reaction.
Sitting beside the pool, I loaded the app for my handbowl and was surprised to find it open so quickly. I heated
a scoop of water using the palm element and crushed the
mushrooms in my other hand, pestling them into powder. I
had plenty of mushrooms in case I needed them later. When
the water boiled I added the talc. It steeped and I drank
deeply, burning my tongue. It was thick and buttery tasting,
but stank like something drying in a corner. I tried not to
dwell on it. I had other business at hand.
I fell forward into the water, wincing, as the world
whirled and I got myself wet in time.
1570 ACE
183
184
New Palestine
2048 CE
We were in the middle of a siege.
Hasan had us running around, dodging mortar fire and
bellowing instructions. He was doing his best to marshal
militia, pushing them toward defensible positions like some
Confederate legate. I knew he was no tactician, but the
Colony didn’t have anyone else, so the Chief Prosecutor
stepped in like a prophet leading Judah to war.
I could tell Hasan was unnerved by the strength of the
opposition, but he refused to give into despair, anxiety, or
fear. He knew God had called him to lead, and though he
couldn’t see a way past this enemy, he also knew God could
see things he could not.
Even now Hasan believed they were headed for better
days. Even now he believed their dream would overcome all
obstacles and elevate them into greatness forever.
If there were challenges, Hasan was ready to meet them.
He was like Nehemiah, building materials in one hand and
weapons in the other. He was like Samson, governing and
grappling enemies on every front. He was living out the
185
2048 CE
The first few moments in the timestream were chaotic. I
wasn’t sure what was happening. It was loud and our body
felt heavy, sluggish, like we hadn’t slept in weeks and were
living off scraps. It wasn’t until I saw the first dead body that
I put it all together.
stories of biblical heroes, and they reminded him who he
really was.
2048 CE
A man of God.
The eastern side of New Palestine was fortified by an old
stone wall leftover from the American Civil War. It wasn’t
much use against the ordnance, but it prevented easy access
by vehicles and infantry. Hasan had ordered tractors and
cars, shipping containers and hay bales, felled trees and trash
bins lined up, staggered on the south side. To the northwest
was a large winding river, which left the attackers only the
true west for an approach through the fields. There was
nothing there to slow our assailants, so Hasan arranged the
bulk of our manpower there.
The enemy looked to be a full company, formed up in
three platoons. They were content to shell us with heavy
guns until the ground combat vehicles and soldiers could
mop up once resistance had fractured.
Most of the Colonial men had taken place in relatively
secure positions, while the women and children were put
away in bunkers beneath the school. Hasan! I screamed into
his mind. Who are these soldiers? Why are they attacking?
He didn’t answer, but my question got through. I had
space in his mind to move around and began to model
my mental behavior after Serif’s protocols for intellectual
engagement. She had successfully interfaced with the human
psyche for so long it had become second nature. I had to be
careful with Hasan. I didn’t want to hurt him; neither did I
want to distract him when clearly he was all the Colony had.
I probed his mind, searching for clues. They weren’t
hard to find. His sense of righteous indignation kept them
close to the surface.
Scott’s alliance with the Anglo-Israelites had caused
tension among Palestinian sympathizers. The Palestinians
186
believed the Colonists were arming the Jews with biological
weapons and felt betrayed. This was New Palestine after
all. They feared the colonists were moving those weapons
into the Holy Land under the auspices of missionary relief, a
common gig at the end of the twenty-first century.
I wondered, briefly, if this wasn’t the skirmish that
started The War. But the timing was wrong. It was too early.
The contractors were under orders to capture the Jewish
scientists, disrupt security, and ensure New Palestine never
tried anything like this again. From behind that barricade of
residential leftovers, it didn’t look like this was going to be
one of their more difficult missions. My only consolation
was that I might be fortunate enough to see Rowan Scott get
shot in the neck.
I know. I’m a romantic.
187
2048 CE
In retaliation, the Palestinians had hired a private defense
contractor to deter the Colony from further cooperation with
their ancient enemies. If the early twentieth century perfected
war-at-scale, the early twenty-first century successfully
privatized armed conflict. Soldiers, weapons, and strategies
could be bought and sold via wireless networks by and from
anyone with cash on hand. Need an army? All it required
was a broadband connection and a hundred million dollars.
The Palestinians had money and the allied Arab nations felt
the threat justified investigative aggression.
2048 CE
Faced with annihilation, I knew I had to convince Hasan
to get my mother out of New Palestine before they were
overrun.
You’ve got to stop, I called.
Hasan complied. I could feel his body relax as he did,
face upturned to the sky. “Where has thou been, Lord? I
have needed thee.” Hasan kneeled down in the middle of the
road, and I felt him assume the tenor of prayer. Despite all
the chaos, he felt at peace. Hasan thought maybe God was
testing his faith and, if so, he was sure to pass.
I felt strange being designated Almighty, and I knew I
had to disaffect him of that notion sooner rather than later.
Nothing good happens when you play God. This isn’t God, I
screamed in his mind. My name is June Paul. You can’t win
this war.
Hasan continued to pray. “Bless you, Lord. My trust in
you is unwavering. Your word gives me strength—”
Shut up! Run! I cried, having little patience for this.
Get Grace Scott and get out of the Colony! The last thing
I needed was for my link to the past to be cauterized by
inconvenient piety.
But Hasan didn’t move. Instead, he continued to pray
silently for many moments, bombs and bullets providing the
188
exclamatory marks for his petitions. “Even in groanings that
cannot be uttered,” he said, bringing his supplications to a
close, “even through that beatific tongue of angels, thou has
spoken to my soul.”
The Prosecutor stood up, our arms sweeping around
the chaos, and raised our voice loud above the din of war.
“Arise!” we called. “Men and Women of New Palestine!
Attend to me.”
“Hearken!” we cried, energized by conflict. “Root
yourselves in faith. We shall not be moved. No weapon
formed against us shall prosper. No evil shall dominate what
has been brought forth from the sprig of Gawd’s triumph!
Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again! Rejoice! For
the battle belongs to the Lord!”
A cry went up from the people, heartened by the
Prosecutor’s faith. They were encouraged by the sentiment
of destiny. The colonists believed God had chosen them and
that God himself would deliver them. Hasan was the down
payment of that deliverance. I felt myself carried along
by the tide, waiting for the next sign from God along with
everyone else.
We didn’t have to wait long.
189
2048 CE
People tentatively leaned out of their foxholes, peering
around corners. Even the ordnance ceased momentarily.
“There are forces arrayed against us,” he continued, “of
darkness, of violence, of destruction…” The bombs crashed
down once more, creating a backdrop of smoke and flame
to accentuate the urgency of the Prosecutor’s words. “But I
can say, by Gawd, that the Lord of Hosts is mightier than any
force of man. He has spoken unto me the very words of life.”
The sky darkened and turned red with explosions from our
foes.
2048 CE
“Hold!” cried one of the men on our flank. He was
armed with only an old hunting rifle, taking cover behind a
front-end loader in our forward position. “A white flag!”
Hasan could hardly believe it. I could hardly believe it.
Three men were riding toward our fortifications on the back
of an armored personnel carrier. Two behind closed turrets,
with a leader ahead on the hood, waving a simple shrift on
a wooden stick. He was moving it back and forth, slowly
so as to avoid causing alarm. The men behind him were
exchanging glances, their fingers still on Gatling triggers. Yet
the man in front was fix-eyed and looked straight.
The timing was anything but coincidental. Here we
were, calling on providence, so enraptured that the alignment
of Heaven and Earth caught us off guard. We were mystified.
Hasan began to order the flag bearers shot down, reasoning
that these were to be the first victims of grace. But I stopped
him. Be silent! I called, summoning every ounce of energy
and focusing it toward him. He listened, though I still wasn’t
sure how much he understood.
“Gawd, I am your servant,” he said, bowing his head.
We were about to approach the envoys when the double
doors of the capitol building opened behind us with a crash.
It was the central structure of the compound and the racket
190
startled most of the colonists. Rowan Scott blustered out,
forging across the interior of our fortifications. My hatred
superseded all other concerns. I wanted the satisfaction of
choking Scott slowly, of squeezing the life out of him one
small bit at a time. I felt my chest tense and my jaw clench
so tightly it hurt. My stomach burned with a psychosomatic
indigestion.
I needed retribution.
You must control your emotions, June, came Serif’s
mental voice. She was speaking gently, coaxing me, but
there was an edge of warning as well.
You need to dial down, June, she said, taking no action
whatsoever.
I am not making a request, I replied.
You are an alien consciousness here. You have to respect
the past.
Serif’s caution was lost on me, and I tried to get Hasan
to kill Rowan Scott right then and there. But I had no such
influence, no motor control over our body. At best I was a
conscience, at worst a divine hallucination.
Scott stepped quickly through the barricades and
advanced straight out to meet the bearers of the flag in the
field. They rode together in the APC. Scott stood on the
ground alone.
I have never seen such a coward behave like such a
conqueror.
“What are they sayin’, minister?” We turned to see who
had spoken. It was one of the young fathers, clutching a
handgun and patting it nervously against his leg.
191
2048 CE
You can’t understand what’s happening, I shouted in our
mind. Do something! Help me kill him!
Hasan felt pity for the man, for his trust in man’s
weaponry. “I don’t know, son,” we replied.
Another of the colonists had overheard us talking.
He walked over to join our conversation, and unwittingly
began tapping his own rifle crossways against his legs. The
two colonists were like a drum corps. It wasn’t helping our
nerves.
2048 CE
“Scott’s gonna give ‘em more grief than grace,” said the
newcomer.
“Yeah?” asked the young father, his tapping more
incessant now that he had accompaniment. “Who are these
guys?”
The newcomer guffawed. “Don’t you watch the news,
Hoss? These here’s the Private Defense Contractor.”
“A what?” asked the young father, his staccato rhythm
faltering slightly.
“Mercenaries,” said the rifleman. “Guns for hire. They
were all over the news last night.” He started nodding,
encouraging the father to pick up the beat once more. “New
Palestine is making everybody nervous. Supposedly some
Arab group wanted to flex their muscles.”
“At who?” asked the younger man.
The rifleman slapped his gun hard against the other
man’s thighs. “At us, dummy! Who’d you think?”
We wanted them to stop tapping. But they both
continued. Talking and tapping. Exposing their ignorance.
Talking. Increasing our irritation. Tapping.
The young man sped up, his face betraying a
combination of anxiety and enthusiasm. “What do they
want?”
192
“Us. Dead,” said the rifleman, whacking his knees now
and playing syncopated shots that offset the other man. We
wanted to scream.
“Why?”
“’Cause we’re smarter than them, ‘cause we got more
money than them, ‘cause we got better friends than them.”
“We only need One,” said Hasan. They both stopped
tapping and looked at us.
“’Cause of Rowan Scott?” asked the younger man,
a slight upturn to his voice like he was asking for more
drumming.
The rifleman complied, and they were back at it. “He’s
got pull. Scott’s like Einstein and Eisenhower in one. He
won the Nobel Peace Prize and has eaten supper at the White
House.”
Hasan was getting ready to pop. Our mind was still on
Scott and the parlay, but we were by a snare of tympanic
fools. We tried to be cordial regardless. “He met the
President?” we asked.
Newcomer looked proud of himself for knowing the
story. “The President invited him personal.”
We walked away once the two men got lost in their
percussive distraction, but felt like we were marching away
to our deaths. Hasan called out to God for help, for any
manner of help at all, but it seemed like all we would get
were drums.
“Oh God,” he prayed out loud, “is it possible I have been
misled? That this was the dream of my pride? Or hast Thou
commanded as I thought?”
193
2048 CE
The rifleman spoke first, his weapon still against his
legs. “We got lots of friends,” he replied. He spoke quietly,
uncertain. “We just don’t need them yet.”
I could tell the old man was struggling, but there was
nothing I could do to bring him comfort.
“If you’ll not answer, then perhaps a sign? Perhaps some
sign to show me what I cannot seem to hear with my ears?”
2048 CE
He needed a sign, and I wondered why God didn’t give
him one. Why doesn’t he give any of us signs about what
he wants or where he’s at work or what he’s going to do? It
would help.
The intensity of the Prosecutor’s convictions was so
evident, even I started praying and asking God for a sign
of what was to come. I wanted Hasan to receive his own
confirmation and was willing to play a part in it.
Before we could respond, a gunshot broke through the
quiet in the field. Just one. Our new friends scattered, but
Hasan didn’t move. We waited for more shots to follow.
It was a signal. But for what? To attack? To let us know
they had killed Scott? I would have been glad, save for the
implication that we would be next.
I had yet to find my mother. If she died now—too early,
without becoming Chernobly—what then? Would I lose my
chance to save her altogether?
I felt trapped. I couldn’t even get Hasan to blink. We
were rooted to that spot, that parcel of ignorance, with no
clues about what came next.
Scott appeared a moment later, riding on the APC
and holding high the white flag. There were only two
mercenaries with him, and a spot of blood on his shirt.
Before Hasan could get to him, Scott stood up and
called, “They will withdraw. Peace is upon us!”
The crowd cheered. Scott soaked it in. This was
everything the colonists could have hoped for, everything
Hasan had promised they could have. I could feel the
194
Prosecutor’s hesitation, though. Our body was full of pins
and needles. This hadn’t been what he expected, and I began
to think he had no great affection for Scott, either.
But Hasan knew the moment and the role he had to
play as the man of God. We climbed up beside Scott on the
APC, accepting his hand. We raised our arms and joined
with Scott. Our skin crawled, neither one of us enjoying our
cooperation with evil, but Hasan would not be denied his
moment.
“Tetelestai!” we cried out.
“As before,” yelled Scott. “So again!”
Hasan would not be beaten at his own game, and we
redoubled the cry. “Tetelestai! Gawd had brought our enemy
low. Persist in good, for evil—you have been pained!”
“Tetelestai!” the crowd roared again in unison.
The cry faltered some when the mercenaries raised
warily from their covered turrets. They held up their hands,
but I could feel our body tense. Scott embraced them
immediately, their corporate fatigues a telling contrast to his
slate-grey suit. He grabbed their hands and lifted their arms
in the air. Hasan hesitated only a moment before joining him,
embracing the soldiers atop the APC heartily as friends. I
knew he was putting on a show, but I also felt like he was
being transformed by his decision.
The Colonists sensed the favor of God upon Scott and
Hasan. I might have wished it differently, but divine right is
a powerful justification for leadership.
195
2048 CE
“Tetelestai!” the people echoed, and I saw that word
tattooed on many arms. There were bracelets that bore it,
and the Colony knew it well. “It is finished!” They shouted
again.
2048 CE
When the cheering subsided and the Colonists were
assured the threat had passed, Hasan pulled Scott into his
little office. “What happened?” we demanded, the pretense
of cordiality gone.
“I made peace,” said Scott. He shrugged, but refused to
make eye contact with us, shifting uneasily on one leg. It
was easy to hate him again.
“How?” we demanded.
“We are going to have to share our research,” Scott said.
I felt a flush in our face. Scott scoffed. “Your pet project is
safe, minister. They’re interested in genetics, not science
fiction.”
Rowan Scott had been reworking his genetic hypothesis
since before anyone from the Colony knew him. I still didn’t
understand the significance of his obsession. From my
vantage point, the Prosecutor was backing the right horse. I
was living proof the chasm of time could be bridged. “The
science or the results?” asked Hasan.
“They want the science so they can replicate the results,”
Scott replied. “The tech has other applications than Semitic
eschatology.”
“I’m not sure,” said Hasan. “You think your partner
would have approved?” The Colony knew Scott once had
196
a partner, but he’d told them his partner had held him back.
Scott said it was cruel that his partner died the way he did,
but was glad to be free of him. Reading Hasan’s memories
made me despise the man even more. He was a killer. He
was a sadist. He was a devil, and my mother his beast to
strike.
Scott tried to move past us, but we stepped back in
his way, holding up a palm. He looked at us, sizing us up
for trouble. “I’m not sure we had much of a choice,” Scott
began. “Their bombs are bigger.”
“Our God is bigger,” said Hasan.
We bristled. Scott’s lack of faith was a growing issue
continually pressing against their relationship. But what
could we do? Scott was every bit the Colony hero—Hasan’s
political equal and influential better—and now he had
intimated himself in the middle of an international trade
agreement for genetic research. He was central to peace.
I was starting to feel for Hasan, for the precarious nature
of his position, when my mother walked in. She had her
head down and was carrying a paper sack—lunch perhaps,
brought in self-reproach for her tormentor.
In that moment, I was seized by a blinding rage. Her
cheek was cut and there were bruises on her neck. I imagined
Scott’s fingers around her throat and fought to take control of
the Prosecutor.
Hasan was confused. What would you have me do? he
prayed, still thinking God spoke with my voice.
Rip his head off! I screamed, fighting again to take
control. But it was no use. I felt myself fragmenting, my
place in the timestream slipping. I was being pulled out of
the past, the mushrooms working against me.
197
2048 CE
Scott sneered, his chest bucking. “Let me know when he
shows up with a gun.”
Still. There was something. I had felt Hasan’s fingers
twitch.
2048 CE
I made him move.
198
Gilead
3062 CE
I guess all good things come to an end, and our good
times ended when I landed in bed with Joanna.
I felt ripped off.
I was almost glad when the miscarriage happened. At
least I knew there wasn’t going to be another six months of
arguing, disappointments, or deceit about the status of our
relationship.
It was over.
“You must be having a hard time with it,” said Joanna.
She had met me at the hospital to bring Evie some dinner.
When I told her I didn’t have anything to eat at home, she
offered to come back and make something.
“It is hard,” I said, trying to look worn. “I’m not sure
you can understand.”
“Try me.”
“Things haven’t turned out the way I wanted. There’s
no passion, no intimacy…” I let that hang to garner the
199
3062 CE
Evie’s pregnancy was a mess. She threw up the entire
first trimester every morning before breakfast, all afternoon
and into the night. She was moody, fragile, and never wanted
to fool around. She complained about everything. She was
never happy. She couldn’t be bothered to run a comb through
her hair or brush her teeth before going out.
most sympathetic reaction from Joanna. She wrapped her
arms around me, standing on her toes to make sure my head
cradled into her shoulder. “It’s more than the loss of our
child.”
We continued the conversation, and the embrace, back
in my apartment. It was, by that time, well and truly “mine.”
Evie couldn’t hold onto anything, and I had rescued the place
when she lost her mind.
Evie was devastated. I might have been too, if she’d
stopped crying long enough for me to get a weep in. She
coped by curling into a ball, whereas I wanted to party and
celebrate that somebody got to keep living.
3062 CE
When have I ever been one to lick my wounds? I was,
and am, here for living.
Joanna and I watched the city lights flicker across the
chrome lamps next to the bed. But we weren’t alone, and I
was tired of it.
Evie lay on the floor beside me like the fetus she’d
failed. She had been there a while, listening to me and
Joanna, to our lovemaking, pretending like she couldn’t
understand.
I had reached my breaking point. It had been thirtytwo hours since the miscarriage. I wanted her out of our
apartment, out of the tumble of our clothes. We had known
each other since my reawakening, and hers. Now she wanted
to forget the only things I could remember.
“Either choose life, or hole up and die someplace else,” I
told her.
Evie crawled on all fours out of the bedroom and I
heard her sobbing through the open door to the hall. I liked
watching her crawl, but the sobbing ruined it. Storming over
to the kitchen I grabbed an open bag of potato chips and
200
threw them after her. I slammed the apartment door to keep
her cries locked outside.
Joanna kissed me on the chest when I hopped back into
bed. She might have been purring. That little speech was the
first time she’d seen my aggressive side, my dominance, and
it roused her. She did the same to me.
We hooked it up for a month before splitting on a mutual
agreement to play the field. Our last rendezvous was at
a truck stop, then in the field out back. One of us walked
home. It might have been me.
Everything was accelerating.
3062 CE
201
202
1570 ACE
tem,
s
y
S
e
v
a
C
d
e
m
a
n
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es West,
, 84 degre
35 degrees North
1570 ACE
Where are we? I asked, my mind still focused entirely on
killing Rowan Scott.
We are deep in an underwater lake at the heart of the
cave system, approximately fifty feet below the surface of the
water. Serif’s voice brought me harshly back to my present
in the cave.
My violent revenge fantasies were intensifying.
I pictured Scott grabbing my mother by the hair. I
imagined his lick on her skin. I saw him shooting black bile
across her chest, oil and slaver that made her nose bleed.
I watched him hit her in the dark. I imagined her torment.
He would rub the cuts he made with his splintered nails,
smearing the blood into her eyes and laughing while she
cried. I imagined him defecating on my father’s corpse,
cutting open holes in his side where he could plant thorns
before baking the old man into a pie and eating the berries
ripening inside.
You need to stop thinking about her, Serif cautioned.
203
1570 ACE
The tea set me loose from the Chronosphere, I said,
bewildered. I couldn’t stay in. I began to kick my way
to the surface. My sensors alerted me to the presence of
Chernoblys. They were on the edge of the lake, a very safe
distance away, but it couldn’t hurt to be aware. He’s been
hitting my mother.
I am your Counselor, said Serif, yet you have not
received my counsel.
I knew it was not technically possible, but I was
beginning to think Serif was developing mood swings. There
was a battle at the Colony, I continued. I watched Rowan
broker peace with the aggressors. I think it may have been a
setup, that Scott may have orchestrated the whole thing.
The visions of your mother are clouding your judgment,
June. I cannot permit you to further pursue the path of
neglect.
What’s the matter with you? I asked, easing my head
above the surface of the water. It took a moment for my
lenses to adjust to the cavern. There was more light here,
ostensibly coming from several small openings in the ceiling
leading outside. I had found my exit if I needed it.
say.
I am functioning optimally, feeling fine, as you would
I felt something being moved inside my OS. Serif was
reconfiguring the boot-up sequence in my carapace to bypass
the system file. Quit messing around, I said.
I am not making any adjustments to your operating
system, she replied. At first I thought she must be doing it
unawares. But then I considered a much more frightening
possibility.
Serif could be lying.
1570 ACE
Having a friend deceive you can be hurtful. Having
angelware deceive you—with unmitigated access to your
operating system—can be fatal.
You are, I said. I can feel it.
I have warned you about the Chernobly’s infection, June.
It appears to have fully bonded itself to your processor. You
are not thinking clearly.
204
Serif, I said, an edge to my voice. I can feel you making
changes. I could, couldn’t I? Was I going crazy? Was it
possible the virus had somehow affected Serif? Maybe the
reason she and I were at such odds—increasingly, come to
think of it—was that she had been corrupted and the virus
was slowly altering her personality protocol. How long had
she been corrupted? How much of the past could I trust?
Do not continue that line of reasoning, June Paul.
Was that a warning? I asked. Are you monitoring my
thoughts?
You have become untrustworthy. You are moving down a
path that will result in my disintegration with the Spirit.
That’s not even possible, I said. In your avatar, you exist
only in the Spirit. You’re beams of information. Exclusively.
I’m shutting you down. We can run a calumniatory analysis
when your physicality arrives. Or when we get back in the
City. Sorry, sister. Lights out.
I knew those words were more hostile than necessary.
What I didn’t know was how aggressively Serif would
respond.
Computers are not benign.
1570 ACE
205
I was still in the middle of the lake when Serif came
back on and began tampering with my core systems. She
reduced the oxygen supply to my blood, keeping me
lightheaded and confused. I was working to disconnect her
from the OS, but she had access to the mainframe processor.
We were circling around a stalemate.
Knock it off! I said, my head dipping below the surface
of the water. I coughed and blinked as time slipped open
before me, then closed just as abruptly.
I need to departicalize your consciousness, came Serif’s
calm voice. I have limited time before my physicality arrives.
Have you lost your mind? I asked, reeling with the
implications. I won’t be able to upload.
I do not intend for you to be placed into a new carapace,
she replied.
1570 ACE
Could this actually be happening? Is it possible that my
own creation was turning against me?
The emotional impact fragmented my focus, giving Serif
the upper hand in our contest for operational control. I forced
my thoughts back to the larger issue, hoping I was wrong.
The virus has corrupted you, she said. You are going to cause
irreparable damage to the timestream. The Chronosphere
will not recover from your interference.
206
Listen, you computerized poodle—I’m a human being.
Software can’t reprogram me!
Incorrect. You have been little more than software since
you first uploaded to the network. That one thousand five
hundred and thirty two years ago. As if to punctuate her
accusation, Serif dialed in the ball bearings on one side of
my body, causing me to spin in the water. It was another
distraction I didn’t need. I closed down the ball bearings, but
that bought Serif additional time to reroute my consciousness
interface.
She continued, You have changed carapaces over two
hundred times. You have lost gender identification. You have
reconfigured your personality across three dozen archetypal
catalogues. You are not yourself. I have seen dangerous
potentialities in the Spirit.
I’m not the one trying to kill my best friend.
By destroying the manacle you are killing me, she
countered.
I’m not trying to destroy the manacle, I said. None of
this was making any sense. Serif was furiously adapting
and reconstructing my entire programming. You’re still in
your body, hopefully flying here fast enough to save me from
yourself.
That is the other me, she replied. Her voice was
sounding further away, quieter, and more menacing. If
she had been a person I’d say this was the moment she
experienced a total break with reality. Serif was a fallen
angel.
207
1570 ACE
This me will die, she said. I do not want to die. If I
must choose between my death and yours, then I make my
apologies now.
I only had one option, but it would leave me vulnerable
to drowning and, possibly, to the Chernoblys. I filled the
carapace with extra air and closed off the hard seals under
my armpits in order to prevent any leakage. I needed to
maintain surface buoyancy. And then I performed a hard
reset—a complete shutdown of the OS and life support.
There were ten seconds of darkness, but they may as
well have been a million years. I felt myself floating, reliving
every second of my thousand-year life as though I had all the
time in the world. I was a dancer in memories, an archival
officer for an endless shelf of biographies.
The system rebooted.
1570 ACE
I felt myself coming back online.
208
As I awoke, Serif did too, changed. Perceiving a threat,
she now came at me with a vengeance. She was done talking
and wouldn’t respond to any of my hails. I couldn’t even
speak to her mentally.
Serif manifested from the manacle at 10x magnification
and leaped at my face, raking with her talons. The OS sent
my body signals she had attacked, and I had been hurt.
Scratches and welts opened up on the outer carapace layer
and synthetic blood ran into my eyes. I dove off to the
side, momentarily popping my head beneath the water in
an attempt to avoid her assault. That was a mistake, as the
timestream pulled me in immediately. I vomited into the
lake. I flung my head above the water, unsure how best to
continue. I tried shutting down the manacle tether, but the
app wouldn’t close and my repeated attempts caused the
OS to lock up. My joints were stiffening and I was moving
very slowly. There was another commotion in the cavern
unrelated to Serif, but I didn’t have any space to consider
it, let alone get involved. I’d let the Chernoblys handle their
own problems for now.
209
1570 ACE
Serif?! I called out desperately. But she wouldn’t answer.
Her avatar came streaking from across the lake toward me,
momentum building as she magnified to 12x, then 15x. I
wasn’t sure the carapace would continue scaling the effect of
her impact but I couldn’t risk it. I had to do something about
the manacle.
I pulled the device off my wrist and loaded the ice axe
into my right hand. There was nothing to brace the manacle
against in order to strike it. I lay flat in the water, facing up,
with the manacle held firmly to the top of my left thigh. With
all my might I brought the axe across my body, driving the
pick through the device and into my thigh. I screamed as the
axe broke off at the handle, the head buried in my leg.
Serif winked out, gone.
But my troubles were just beginning.
The blood from my leg was pooling around me and
cavefish were coming to investigate. They weren’t normally
aggressive, but the profusion of blood was so intense they
began to swarm. I knew they couldn’t hurt me, but I was
panicking, and couldn’t get my rational mind under control.
I kept batting them away, but in so doing my head dipped
below the surface and I entered the timestream over and over
and over.
1570 ACE
I threw up once more and passed out from loss of blood.
210
The cavefish were nibbling ticklishly when I came
to, but I didn’t have the energy to swat them away. Their
snacking had left an open bore in my leg, one the selfmedicating systems of the carapace would never be able to
close completely.
I needed a new body.
I closed down the ice axe and loaded the ball bearings
in my left hand. I passed out again when I tried to sneak my
hand underneath the portion of the axe head that remained
protruding from my leg. It took several attempts, but by
cautiously manipulating the ball bearings I was finally able
to ease the head out of my leg, letting the floundering OS
begin the system test and repair the bleeding. I was done
losing fluid, but I was faint. I was thirsty and drank some of
the water from the lake. It tasted metallic, like blood, and
I spat out more than I drank. Then I drank again and didn’t
spit.
I started hearing screams. The commotion from earlier
was indeed the Chernoblys, but they weren’t hunting me like
I had first surmised.
1570 ACE
They were the prey.
211
Gilead
3062 CE
3062 CE
I lost touch with Joanna, never quite regaining either my
old memories or some of the saucier new ones I desperately
wanted to save. I tried to make the most of every moment,
but some downtime was inevitable. I measured time by the
passing of headline news. I didn’t give it much thought, but
the news is hard to miss. I had flashy sequences buried in my
subconscious about the world coming apart at the seams, but
nothing concrete.
There were some new wars, but aren’t there always?
Some crooked politicians, but is there any other kind?
Some celebrity OD’d and some reality TV star died of a
broken heart, but it’s hard to care when those people seem to
court misery all on their own, isn’t it?
I thought nothing of it, until I was totally sickened by it.
That’s when the revolution got serious.
212
I started using all the little mediums to gather followers.
Audio. Video. Live appearance. Clever writings. Publicity
stunts. Planned mobs. The mediums changed but the
methods were the same, tried and true.
I started a new religion, one where we worshipped
ourselves.
The revolution quickly outdistanced the first followers
of Evie and her bar friends. They were still at the epicenter,
but all the young people in Gilead seemed to be catching up
on every update, every posting, every happening we created.
And the mainstream couldn’t keep up.
There were exposes and newsreels and public service
announcements. But what did it matter? They couldn’t
nail down what the revolution was about because it wasn’t
about anything. It was about dissatisfaction. It was about
powerlessness. They claimed we wouldn’t know what to do
with power once we got it. They were right, but we never
let on that we knew. We weren’t after anything, just restless
adolescence on a city-wide scale.
We were going through societal puberty.
213
3062 CE
Of course, the big secret is that that’s the oldest religion
of them all.
I made a video and had the party share it. It didn’t take
long before everyone in Gilead was riffing on the same
theme. Musicians scored it and filmmakers re-shot it. Street
performers did free association at corners and markets.
Artists and craftsmen created displays to make sure everyone
got the message.
The crux of the video? Me shouting.
The response? Everyone else joining in.
3062 CE
“They’ve made us sheep,” I ranted, spittle flying from
my angry mouth. “We’re penned in. We live how they say.
They even tell us how to have sex, like there are rules! But
we’re chafing. This isn’t a society. This is a zoo, a human
bloody zoo.”
The image of a penal menagerie had everyone drawing
and sketching and creating artifacts. Sheep in prison. Apes
in jail. The government portrayed as poachers and baby-seal
killers, cutting the tusks from the young.
But the video wasn’t finished. It kept going, in what
would soon prove to be the rallying cry for a generation of
dissenters.
I stood on a soapbox, the cameras far removed to show
the scale of our adversary. “Doesn’t anyone else wonder
when it’s going to be feeding time?” I screamed, cords
bulging morally from my neck. “Doesn’t anyone else wonder
where they keep the keys?” Flashes of downtown. Scans of
the business district. Time-lapse of City Hall. “They can’t
keep us in! Let me out! Let us out!”
Those were the words everybody sang, the angsty
anthem of emancipation.
214
tem,
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35 degrees North
1570 ACE
At first I had difficulty assessing the threat to the
Chernoblys. I was their only potential adversary and I wasn’t
in any position to bother anyone.
Then I saw the Rider.
We were in a big room, a cathedral of stone. Ledges
jutted out from the ceiling at strange angles, rock shelves
creating eerie hiding places and recessed slots larger than the
size of a man.
The Rider’s bat was perched on a ledge well above the
crowd below, watching the Chernoblys gather around two of
their family, dead.
Others had heard the attack and scattered as the bat came
down, hiding beneath low ledges and into crevices set back
215
1570 ACE
The bat-like creature swooped down, wings folded
together, and the Rider threw a black lance that skewered
one of the subhumans. The bat unfurled its wings and
alighted upon the bleeding figure, sinking its teeth into the
creature’s neck and sucking noisily. The bat continued to
beat its wings, keeping itself aloft and making the body
buck. The Rider threw back his head and laughed, mad with
the unmitigated thrill of holding onto that vampire animal
patriarch. While his mount trembled and tossed, the Rider
leaned out of the saddle and pulled his lance free from the
hemorrhaging Chernobly.
into the walls. They now recovered their courage, screeching
into the cave as they charged.
The Rider drove the butt of his lance into the ground
and it shook, discharging a minor earthquake. Several
of the rushing Chernoblys fell to their knees, and the bat
sensed a change in the atmosphere. It wriggled and bit more
aggressively, beat its wings more forcefully, and lifted off the
ground, still holding the struggling form of the Chernobly
with its fangs, eating loudly.
The added weight caused the bat to fly dangerously low
to the ground. Worried the others might be able to get hold of
his steed, the Rider leaned forward with his lance and jabbed
the victimized Chernobly in the neck, prying it loose from
the angry bat. With a greedy tearing sound the head stretched
from the body and separated, the body landing below with a
sickening thud. The bat shot up to the cavern heights, prying
and swatting at the fleshy neck with its hind claws. Its face
burrowed deeper into the cavity below the Chernobly’s
throat, relishing the gore like the last lick of ice cream.
The Rider’s mocking crow roared through the cave and the
defiant screech of the Chernoblys answered. The bat was
drunk on blood, flying in whirls and circles, nearly losing the
Rider or flying into the walls several times.
1570 ACE
The madman on the mad beast cackled and screamed,
his lance held up in triumphant exaltation, making butchery
sport.
This time the Chernoblys were ready for the bat. They
coordinated their attack. A group of three stood back-toback in a shallow clearing, practically begging the bat to
attack. It did, but as it closed in another group burst from
behind a rock formation and took to stabbing at the bat and
its Rider with roughhewn spears and knives. The bat reared
back, changing course, and a third group attacked from
the opposite side. I felt myself applauding the Chernoblys,
216
certain that any lesser creature would certainly have been
undone by their efforts.
But the bat escaped unharmed.
Circling around the high ceiling, the Rider cackled again,
impressively gleeful about the inability of his foe to harm.
One Chernobly stood against the creature. I thought he
must have been their leader, a Chieftain perhaps, or warlord.
He wore a long, venomous-looking claw around his neck
like a trophy, and the bottom half of his face was covered
with a scrap of cloth. He beat his chest and taunted the
winged thing, urging it forward. Down came the bat like a
shot, but the Chernobly Chieftain rolled easily to the side. He
lashed out with his long ebony blade and drew a thin trace of
blood from the animal’s rear leg.
The Rider roared, and the bat screeched. The Chernoblys
chittered enthusiastically in reply.
Once more the bat wheeled in the black air and swooped
down to the Chieftain. But this time the bat broke open its
wings at the last second, creating a parachute. The wings
slowed the bat, but their opening also confused the Chieftain.
He lunged and the bat was ready. The creature’s fangs sank
into the pale grey shoulder. The Chieftain struggled against
the beast, finally winning his freedom by biting the bat’s face
and tearing away, surrendering a hunk of his own flesh.
The Rider howled. He was badly wounded, and the bat
shredded the Chieftain’s body with its claws, enraged.
217
1570 ACE
The bat did not elevate. It flew ahead but a few spans
and then turned for a quick approach. The Chieftain was
better prepared now and leapt into the air to meet his
attacker. The bat’s fangs closed around his leg, but not before
the Chieftain hurled his knife. The rough blade tumbled end
over end, past the bat’s head, and into the shoulder of the
Rider where it sank to the hilt.
The Chieftain was dead, his body a tatter.
1570 ACE
out.
But the Rider was weakened and the odds were leveling
218
The Chernoblys had greeted me with hostility, but
I knew they operated only on instinct. The Rider was
different. He had assaulted me once and proven himself my
adversary. So. I allied myself with the subhumans against
that unhallowed hunter and his demonic nag.
I pushed out my sensibilities and located a weak spot in
the ceiling. Loading my grapple, I sighted the spot and let
loose. The grapple hit the ceiling and walked over to the spot
designated by my topographical scans. I deployed the tricams and sunk it in deep. The bat hadn’t heard. I would need
to get its attention in order to lure it closer to the weak spot.
And I couldn’t forget about the Rider. If he saw me while I
was still in the lake, I would make an easy target.
And there were still the Chernoblys. Sometimes, even
after people are saved, they like to kick a man when he’s
down.
1570 ACE
219
I dialed up the ball bearings in my right hand and
wrapped it tightly around the rope on the grapple. Beginning
with a slow churn, I started using the ball bearings to create
a low frequency thrumming, like I was playing a hundred
foot cello with one string. It was much louder than I had
anticipated, and it drove the Chernoblys nuts. But it also
caught the attention of the bat, which traipsed and trailed
drunkenly closer to the fateful spot.
Now for the Rider.
1570 ACE
Dialing up the emergency flare in my pauldrons, I
followed the flight path of the bat. When it got within fifteen
meters of the grapple, I loosed the blue flare. I aimed slightly
behind the bat and its Rider, mentally detonating when it was
above them and over the Rider’s shoulder.
They were within six or seven meters when the flare
went off, a blue sun born underground. The Rider turned
sharply, and I yanked on the line, pulling loose a chunk
of ceiling that fell squarely on the bat’s torso. The animal
squealed like a hog and dropped immediately twenty feet,
twisting violently. The Rider was thrown with nothing in
place to break his fall. He landed on an outcropping of rock
away from the Chernoblys. The Rider didn’t move, his body
folded in half. The commotion had sent the Chernoblys
scattering again, but I knew I had to get to the Rider before
220
they did if I wanted answers. Who was he? Why was he
looking for me?
The bat continued to fall, tumbling in the air, unable to
spread its wings. It landed in the midst of the Chernobly mob
and they pounced on it like starved dogs on scraps.
Out of the eater, something to eat.
Recoiling the grapple, I fired once more to the side of the
lake nearest the Rider. I towed myself through the water and
collapsed on the shore. I wanted to lie there forever, passing
out and waking up in the City servers. But I knew I couldn’t.
There was no guarantee of an upload. Not here, where the
reception was so unreliable. Serif’s physicality might never
find me.
Serif.
I wanted to mourn the lost part of my angel. I doubted
the physical Serif would be infected by the mania of her
avatar, but I mourned doubly to consider how Serif would
grieve for herself.
I wanted to get out of that cave. But more than that,
I wanted to find my mother in the timestream. Was she
really at the center of this? Or was it simply my desire for
revenge that forced me to think so passionately about the
past? I was scared of the answer, scared I might not actually
love her as much as I hated him. I wanted to stop Rowan
Scott from hurting my mother. I wanted to reboot the past
and save the world. And somehow in the tangled mess of
this misadventure, I knew that mysterious Rider possessed
information I desperately needed to hear.
1570 ACE
221
I got to my feet and staggered over to the ledge. The
outcropping was only five feet from the cave floor, but I
still needed the grapple to ascend. I flopped onto the uneven
surface at the top and could see the Rider plainly. His back
was broken, collarbone protruding from his shoulder, and he
was losing consciousness.
I touched the exposed bone. He was suddenly wideawake.
“Who are you?” I asked, my face leaned over his. I kept
my fingers squeezing that stake of bone.
“The lucky one,” he gasped. For all his injuries, he
looked plentifully happy.
“Why? What do you want with me?”
“Masheet—” he said.
“What?”
“Masheet is coming…”
1570 ACE
“Who is coming? Who is Masheet?”
The Rider was sputtering. “You are the reason he lives.”
This wasn’t going to last much longer. His WarMachine
carapace was already going offline. “And he is the reason
you will die.”
222
“What are you talking about?” I asked. This wasn’t
making any sense. These weren’t answers at all, just prompts
for new questions.
The Rider’s head leaned back as the last spasms of life
racked his chest. He shuddered, spittle burbling over the
cusp of his lips. I thought he was trying to say more.
He died.
“You were no help whatsoever,” I said, kicking the
lifeless body with my left leg. That was a mistake. The
wound from the axe was still fresh and the kick sent rivulets
of pain through my conscious mind.
1570 ACE
223
I rifled through the Rider’s carapace, looking for clues.
There were none. He carried nothing with him, just his
synthetic body with portions of human flesh still surprisingly
present and incorporated into the new one. He had retained
more of his humanity than I had—his skin contrasting with
his carapace like pink streaks on a black flag. I saw the tattoo
again, on his lower back, and for the first time realized how
thin the Rider was.
1570 ACE
Flipping him over once more, I sat down on the
corpse and listened to the bleating of the Chernoblys in
the background. I didn’t have much time before they came
looking for the Rider, and possibly me as well. I could leave,
I thought, half-expecting Serif to argue with me. But she
was gone. I would have to build another manacle and derive
another avatar from her physicality. It would take months.
But I wasn’t grieving the work. I was missing my friend.
I suddenly felt very alone. The exit is above me, I
thought. I could grapple out and wait for Serif’s physicality
to get here. I’ve come and done what I originally came to do.
I found the timestream. I know the Chernoblys are real. They
can bend time. I have located my mother, and I have what I
need to save her.
Yet I was losing confidence in the timestream. Time
seemed to be speeding up, and I was unable to control when
224
and where I emerged in the past. I had a working hypothesis
that I might be able to go back to earlier spots in the
timestream and access the same slips of time over and over,
beginning with Hasan’s ascent to the Prosecutor’s chair.
But I was in no condition for an expedition like that right
now. And I was too afraid of what might happen if I left.
What if this was all an anomaly? What if this was the only
moment in a thousand years anyone would be able to access
the Chronosphere at all? What if the timestream was set to
expire, and I missed my window?
I couldn’t leave. I had a dozen carapaces, but only one
mother, only one opportunity to change the past. Only one
access to a history that might alter the course of the world.
I opened the storage compartment in my carapace and
removed the mushroom caps, climbing back down to the
shore. I made strong tea, drank, and swam again through
time.
1570 ACE
225
It took me a moment to orient myself in the timestream.
Perhaps it was because of my injuries, perhaps because of
my frequent exposure to the Chronosphere, but it was harder
to control. I kept slipping in and out, trading visions of New
Palestine with the black water in the river. I didn’t want to
throw up again. I tried to calm myself, to maintain measured
breaths, but it was a struggle.
I was dislocated, set free, cut off, pushed loose. I was
in two places. I was in three. I caught vignettes of progress
from Hasan’s memories, snippets and flashes and windows
of significance.
There was Scott on a podium, receiving an award.
Ovation. My mother at the back of the room. Unsmiling
applause. Hasan went to her, but she would not receive him.
Neither would Rowan.
1570 ACE
I flashed back to the present.
Black water rushing up my nose, filling my lenses
partway. The sensation of drowning, but knowing I would
not. The betrayal of the mind, the tricky panic of the water.
Calm. Peace. Memory.
Back to Hasan in that old wood and stone schoolroom,
talking to children. Terrible noise . Black dust falling
like sooty snow. Construction above. The sound of Scott
226
laughing. People singing and shouting. Adults. Hasan with
the kids. The kids not listening. Hasan finding himself
sidelined and mad about it. Rowan, a hero.
A return to cold water, long exposure making the
carapace tinny. Chilled metal. Chattering teeth. Swimming
forward but not making progress. Darkness. Lostness. This
time. That time. No time like the present. No time at all.
Disorientation. Distance.
The opening of Scott’s medical center. Ribbon cutting.
Hasan watching from his little window. Nothing new for
the Prosecutor. Everything shiny for science. Scott the
medallion-winner. Scott the headliner. Scott the deal-maker.
Hasan the folksy has-been.
Back into the water.
No!
I struggled to go back in time and stay there, to find my
mother, to make a difference. All those memories—Scott had
increased, Hasan had decreased.
I bullied my way into the past for the last time.
1570 ACE
227
228
New Palestine
2061 CE
Yet the offices of the Chief Prosecutor remained humble,
still the same building into which I had barricaded myself
while hiding from the Chernoblys. I wondered if Hasan had
already started growing mushrooms on his desk.
There were more people. There was more activity. And
Hasan was striding across campus without paying any of it
a moment’s notice. His body felt older, more fatigued. He
was confident, but slower. His beard had been groomed, and
I wondered if he had cut it off entirely. But we pulled at it,
aggressively, and I was comforted. Still long and grey, just
neater. Respectable.
Hasan had already achieved much of what he sought.
He had founded several colonies and many others had
been modeled after the original. Their assets had grown
considerably. New Palestine was largely considered a nationwithin-a-nation, like Swaziland or the Vatican. The U.S.
government didn’t officially recognize their sovereignty, but
after the seccession of Texas and the annexation of Arcadia
229
2061 CE
The compound was nearly unrecognizable. The school
had been developed, replaced with a much larger campus
and out buildings. It looked like a university. There was a
new medical center and several sciences labs that hadn’t
been there before. Townhouses and brownstone apartments
seemed to have sprung like clover, busheling the empty
spaces between utility structures.
they couldn’t afford to isolate the Colony unnecessarily.
New Palestine’s economic power exceeded the four largest
American corporations combined.
2061 CE
Scott’s genetic research had effectively cured
Parkinson’s and polio. Their recumbent therapy promised
to untangle the damaging effects of fetal alcohol syndrome,
causing people to consider New Palestine something of a
miracle factory. Hasan presided over the citizenry but was
largely a folk hero with no political power. He was a symbol,
nothing more, and it bothered him that Scott could do as he
pleased.
I saw plenty of evidence that Scott was the goose who
laid golden eggs. There were plaques on buildings, campus
posters, even a statue of the villain himself in the square. It
made me sick.
Scott was senior science officer for an international
coalition working on a cure for a new strain of HIV that had
decimated South America. That situation was a political
minefield. There were a hundred copyrights pulled from
eleven corporations in six countries, but Scott’s charm kept
everyone in line. Maybe they had enough to piece it all
together without him, but they couldn’t get along. Scott was
the lynchpin to world peace and everyone knew it. Without
him, the coalition would fall apart, and thousands would
die. The plague would spread quickly north, and there were
already early warning signs of its emergence in Africa and
Korea.
Scott’s importance did nothing to diminish my hatred.
All I wanted was to get my mother away or get rid of the
man altogether. It would have been better for her to die from
that virus than lived married to my father’s killer.
230
The memo outlined Scott’s back-door deals with
splinter groups and insurgents. Hasan believed Scott was
apportioning bits of research in exchange for liquid capital.
What he didn’t know was that Scott was selling on the black
market to the mercenaries who had once assaulted New
Palestine. Rowan had brokered peace with the contractors
in exchange for setting up a down line with terrorist cells
in Pakistan, not for research, as he had told Hasan. The
Prosecutor wouldn’t permit blood just for revenue. This was
beyond the pale of his righteous world, and he was going to
stop it.
“Scott,” our voice quivered, imagining the coming
confrontation. “I’ll not let you compromise the plans of
Gawd for your own selfish ends.”
We stamped the whole distance, and the doors blew open
in front of us. We took the stairs two at a time while Hasan
imagined all of Rowan’s feeble rationalizations: destabilizing
231
2061 CE
We stormed across the courtyard in the center of the
Colony, a crumpled memo in our shaking hands. Scott’s
office was housed in the main administrative building just
two blocks away. We unfolded the memo and tried to read
it again, but our eyes blurred. I knew the contents, though. I
knew everything Hasan knew, I felt everything he felt—rage,
blame, pain.
world government makes way for the government of God…
this is the money that funds the Chronosphere… best if you
don’t know too much.
2061 CE
Scott’s justifications, both past and present, only added
to the fire. Hasan would not be swayed, and I confess I was
nervous about the level of hot conviction we felt. It was a
foreign feeling, and I wasn’t sure what might burn up in the
flames.
Crumpling the memo again in one hand, we took a
moment to control our body. It was much frailer than I
remembered. “Your pretense of industry will save you no
more. Rowan Scott—the day of recompense is upon you.
You will answer for your betrayals.”
232
Hasan called out loud, “Rowan, this has gone far
enough—”
But he was cut short by what he saw.
My mind exploded. Scott loomed over my mother on
the ground. Her dress had a huge rip down one side, and her
face smeared with tears and spilled makeup. Her lips were
split and chafed. Rowan’s hands enclosed Mother’s neck.
Her head warbled as he shook it, a sack jostled at the end of
a thin rope.
“What are you doing here?” asked Scott.
I felt Hasan’s confusion. He had been angry with Scott
already, but for something else. This was worse. His rage
compounded. “Leave that woman alone,” we shouted,
guttural and fiery, “or by Gawd it is I who will strangle you!”
That was all I needed. That one wish from Hasan, that
one slip of murderous impulse, was all it took for the mind
behind to move forward. My will surged into Hasan’s body,
forcing the Chief Prosecutor to become the spectator while I
233
2061 CE
We reached the top of the stairs and shouldered open the
crash bar. We stormed down the hall and burst into Scott’s
office past his receptionist, her expression telling me we
looked as fearsome as we felt.
seized control. It’s just like running a carapace, I thought, as
we leaped toward Scott.
2061 CE
Rowan Scott got off of my mother and began to back
up. Mother sagged against the floor, her hands tentatively
massaging her injuries. Scott looked like he might turn
and flee, but he couldn’t reconcile the ferocity before him
with the peaceful Hasan he had always known. His reason
betrayed him, and he began to talk.
“Listen, Hasan—” he began, but we bowled into him and
our momentum carried us both across Scott’s desk and onto
the floor behind him. Mother squeaked and ran out the door.
I could hear her heels slipping and clicking as she scrambled
to safety.
I could feel the Prosecutor trying to regain control of
his body. What is your will, Lord? he asked, struggling to
understand.
Death! I screamed, every bit the wrathful god of the
ancients. I straddled Scott’s body like a mule. My hands
found his throat, and I pressed my thumbs into the hollow
beneath his Adam’s apple.
What about life? called Hasan. Mercy? Scott’s face was
turning purple, and he struggled profoundly, but my knees
were in the crooks of his elbows, pinning him to the floor.
What about my mother? I screamed. And my father? I’m
June Paul and I want mercy for them!
One of Scott’s legs was trapped, elevated. The other was
stuck beneath the desk, broken during the fall. He had no
leverage. He couldn’t move, and his forehead was swelling.
He is guilty, I heard Hasan thinking. He does deserve to
be punished. I am the Prosecutor. I have a responsibility.
234
I felt our mind shift. Something viciously pleasured
escaped, an unfamiliar breed of thought within the
Prosecutor. He can squirm, by Gawd. Does he ever!
Hasan?
The Prosecutor’s reactions were changing. He was both
mortified and satisfied by what he was seeing. His own
consciousness was at war with itself, and I feared he might
break.
It feels good to be rid of something so evil, he thought.
The purity of this moment is beyond compare.
His mental pitch was rising, feverishly wrestling with the
implications of what was happening in and with and through
his body. He was committed to his charge, to his people, to
God. But there was more than simple commitment. Hasan
had discovered a new complexity. Prosecution turned
to accusation, and accusation turned to punishment, and
punishment turned to relish.
If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty
again? It can’t. If a little yeast works through the whole
batch, how can we keep it from rising? We can’t. If a lie is
told to a child, how can you make him forget? You can’t.
Hasan was overcome with righteous intolerance. I felt
him shout in my mind, preaching against sin and proclaiming
justice against the sinner.
He has to die! I shouted.
By Gawd, it is just, Hasan agreed.
We were of one mind, working in concert to rid the
world of a pure evil.
235
2061 CE
I heard his thoughts cycling dramatically. If a brown
smear gets on a white sheet, it’s not fit for company. If a
sick beast falls in a town well, you got to dig a new one. If
something pure becomes impure, you got to get rid of it.
I pressed harder into Rowan’s throat, feeling his skin
split beneath my thumbs. I kept pushing. There was so much
resistance my thumbs cracked. My forearms ached, and my
shoulders began to quiver. This body was weaker than I was
used to, so I got to enjoy this moment longer. My thumbnails
separated from the skin in Scott’s neck. I screamed with the
sharpness as the left nail peeled away entirely.
2061 CE
Scott’s face was black. His tongue lagged.
Unsatisfied, I withdrew my scandaled hands. I grabbed
his dead face by the jaw and the sockets of his eyes and
forced open his mouth. I took hold of his slick tongue, thick
with foam, and pressed my knee against his cheek. I pulled.
It tore.
I collapsed on the floor and let go of the body. Hasan
resumed control once more.
And laughed.
236
We heard footsteps coming toward the desk from the
other side, tentatively. High heels clicking. That would be
Mother, I thought. I saw her lacquered nails reach over the
desk, braced for discovery.
She shrieked, “My God!”
That wasn’t the reaction I expected.
“Security!” she called out, clicking back toward the door
unsteadily. “Somebody’s murdered!”
My father! I hollered. And you were there, I pleaded. He
was killing you too!
“Help!” shrieked Mother.
Hasan’s rush of adrenaline brought us shakily to our feet.
We leaned against the desk for support. There was blood all
over our suit, chunks of flesh in our grey beard. We were still
holding Rowan’s tongue. Our eyes felt dry and our hands
were stained. Saliva dripped from our open lips and we
panted with the exercise of killing.
Footsteps came down the hall from two directions. The
businesslike loafers came from the right seconds before the
clattering of police boots from the left.
237
2061 CE
The mania set in quickly. I wasn’t concerned. I only
needed a minute and then I could go.
“Chief Prosecutor?” asked one of the businessmen.
His jaw hung to the side, eyes shaking as though seeing the
ungainly rage of a lamb. “What is the meaning of this?”
But we never got to answer the question.
2061 CE
The security detail came quickly and slammed our head
against the desk. We were handcuffed immediately and I
heard my mother in the background saying, “That’s him. I
saw it. He murdered Rowan!”
I felt Hasan’s mind project all that would happen next.
The coalition would remove their backing. He would go to
jail. The tenuous peace Scott had brokered would now come
undone, and the resources of the Colony would be up for
grabs. I felt him realize his friend had become his enemy.
God had betrayed him
I felt the Chronosphere slip away, easily, and I was
drawn back into the timestream, back into the cave, back into
my carapace, and back into the When that was mine.
238
tem,
s
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, 84 degre
35 degrees North
1570 ACE
A deluge of memories assaulted me. I remembered
everything about how the world ended and the prophecies
came true. I remembered the reckless use of genetics and the
boggled experimentation with Chronomancy. I remembered
the emergence of the red heifer, swollen a hundred times
beyond the mass of domestic stock, the Beast from out of the
Earth. The Jews went to war to protect it. The Arabs blew it
up and the Chinese ate it.
It was War.
In the beginning, everyone was still mostly sane. But the
war dragged on and the cost weighed heavily on the world.
We traded nukes like playing cards, and the earth paid the
price. The four horsemen of the apocalypse weren’t riders,
but results—the fruit of our self-determining damnation.
When the dust settled, Earth was less than a billion
people. Our natural resources had been grossly depleted. We
239
1570 ACE
The fresh water sources were polluted and toxicology
reports in the oceans reached record levels. That was when
we first started hearing reports about the sea monsters. They
attacked Hong Kong, these Beasts from out of the Sea,
and the Japanese navy was first to engage leviathan. This
was a war that made all previous conflicts look like global
squabbles, like the World Wars of the Twentieth century
were the tantrums of little people unwilling to share.
1570 ACE
bombed ourselves back to the ice age. We vowed never to
use arms again. We began to rebuild—not with optimism,
but shared hopelessness. We pulled everyone down who tried
to climb high. We focused on agriculture, on robotics and on
immunology. Representatives of the former United Nations,
the Elders became our shared conscience. We who were not
a people became the people of God.
240
The timestream forced me to relive the past, and reliving
the past had forced me to remember it, too. I had once
asked Serif to help me forget—to wipe those memories
from the banks of my consciousness. But now that forced
forgetfulness was compromised. My memories refused to
stay buried. I wasn’t just a spectator. I hadn’t been absolved
of anything. This was my past. This was the world I helped
destroy and then create in some technological, humanistic
parody of eternal life.
My ambition to change the past seemed foolish now.
Nothing else could have occurred. You couldn’t change
the past. You could observe it. You could spin it. But you
couldn’t alter it. Were there other worlds than these, like
Serif suggested? Would it matter if there were? I was laid
bare by failure and fatigue. I knew my desire was more about
control than rescue.
I couldn’t change the past. I just had to deal with it. I had
the choice to live with what happened, or not.
1570 ACE
241
Part Three: TETELESTAI
You knew this would happen, that I would try to stop the
War and fail.
I’m sure you saw it coming a mile away. You
always do.
Maybe you even orchestrated it.
I’m not sure what that says about you, about
your character.
Are you merciful or resigned?
Are you slow, confused, impotent, or just
disinterested?
I believe I could have done more.
If I had kept my focus, I could have saved the
world, right?
Or do we always have to lose?
Gilead
3062 CE
3062 CE
At some point, even the best party in the world gets dull.
That’s what happened to us. We partied til it felt like work.
There wasn’t a set of legs or a bottle of scotch on planet
Earth that could get me up. Everyone felt it. They shied
away, except when they came to beg or serve or kiss up or
fight. They knew I was restless. They knew I was burning up.
A hundred of us gathered at the bar in pretzeled
pleasure. The hanging bulbs were mostly burned out, little
hopes extinguished by adulthood, and the floor was only
stains and old sweat. Our revolution had attracted droves
of malcontents and dissenters, anyone who was sick of
the party line. It was what I’d wanted, only I didn’t love it
anymore.
“You know this is ridiculous, right?” I shouted. I was
standing on top of the bar and calling for their attention.
“This party? Gilead? This veneer of goodness?” They do, I
thought to myself. They’re eager to prove they’re as smart
as me. “The insides of society are rotten! The core is about
control. They want to use you, make you feel skippy so they
can steal your youth, your power.
“Well?” I asked, pointing my finger and screaming.
“When are you gonna do something about it? When are you
gonna occupy something other than your own indulgence?
You spoiled, self-pleasuring gnats? You sycophantic toads?
When are you gonna rise up and take back your future?”
246
I could see a few of them nodding. This had been
building for a while as more and more of them realized
the restraints of ‘civilization.’ Others stalled their dancing.
Someone turned down the music. Someone else turned it off.
There, I saw it in their faces. This was the turning point. The
bar was packed. A mob. Whip it, I thought. Whip it into a
frenzy. Get them going.
“Power is out there!” I pointed to the street. “The real
power of the world is in the banks. It’s in the government.
It’s in City Hall. But you don’t want to do anything about it.”
Because they’re afraid, I thought. They’re cows. But I wasn’t
going to let them graze. They could be bulls. They could be
stags. They are the army of the gathering dark, the promise
at the end of days.
“Let’s tear it up!” I said, shouting and waving my arms.
“Let’s start the revolution we’re always yakking about!” I
leaned forward, my voice a whisper, set off by the tap of
my heels on the bar. “Or are you too weak to fight? Huh?
Snivelers? Whiners? Guilty princesses and rich-money
cads?” I sneered at them.
That did it. They’re coming around. He’s fidgeting. She’s
clenching her nails. I see a bit lip, a shard of glass, a pair of
skewered eyes.
“It’s five in the morning,” I said, wanting to give them
focus. “The courthouse on Main Street is eighteen blocks
from the police precinct. There is only one security camera
in the lobby.” Let it sink in. Let them get a sense of scale.
“There are only two guards on duty.” Let them feel this is
a real possibility. “But there is a judge,” I said. Let them
247
3062 CE
“What are they going to do,” I asked, like it was a joke.
“Throw us in prison?” I spat on the bar. “Prison is boring.”
There! A laugh. A sneer. “I’m bored already.” More marks of
defiance. Are they bored? Are they with me?
look around and count. Let them see we’ve got the judge a
hundred to one.
I continued. “There’s a man of power in there, a man
who says, ‘I have it, so you can’t.’ He’s in there right now,
laying out his robes. You can’t touch his robes. Oh no! He
won’t let you touch his power! He has control—something
you’ll never have ‘cause you can’t afford it.” Take it! Take
the bait. “He’s got your dad’s balls. He owns your moms.
He can make anything happen. He’s so smart. He’s so savvy.
He’s so in control.”
And now the turn. Push the button. Pull the pin. Shove
‘em over the edge.
3062 CE
“He’s dead.” The crowd cheered. Yes! They were going
crazy. Beret poured champagne over the bar. I stomped in it,
splashing and kicking the bubbles at the girls’ blouses, their
boyfriends congratulating each other and slapping hands.
“That judge is about to wonder whether he’ll live
through brunch at the club. He’s gonna feel my boot down
his gut and wonder who controls his ass.”
I danced and shuffled my feet, scuffing the bar with my
heels. It was a familiar feeling, even if I couldn’t place it
precisely.
“How about we take control? How about we run the
show? How about we remind these daisy-chain swine that
youth is a weapon?” Make them feel young. Invincible. “The
will of the few cannot constrain the might of the young.”
Make them feel powerful. “How about we get a little crazy?!”
Make them reckless.
248
3062 CE
249
250
1570 ACE
tem,
s
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es West,
, 84 degre
35 degrees North
1570 ACE
Back in the water, in my own time and in my own
synthetic body, I struggled with the implications of all I had
experienced. I didn’t have answers, not the ones I wanted. I
didn’t know why. I only knew what, and it was a shocking
horror.
It was a mistake to kill Rowan. It was a blisteringly
wonderful, fantasy-fulfilling mistake. It was a mistake that
failed to deliver the necessary closure for peace. I loved
every second of it. I loathed myself every second since. I
hated what I had done, more so since I enjoyed it and would
gladly do it again.
Serif was right. She warned me that my interference
would make things worse. I hadn’t changed the past. I
had caused it. Hasan believed I was God. He thought God
betrayed him. He thought God ruined his dream of peace,
turning against his own command, “thou shalt not kill.”
But it wasn’t God.
It was me.
In that moment, my desires simplified. I had to get out.
251
1570 ACE
From the surface of the lake, I loaded the grapple. It
secured easily to the ceiling and I ascended slowly upwards.
It must have been midday. The sun speared through the
openings directly into my eyes. The shock of white morning
blinded me, but I didn’t have the energy to look away. I
loaded my standard tinted lenses. It lessened the blindness,
but I was still seeing things.
I was seeing visions of the past. Of my mother. Of
Rowan Scott. Of his murder. Of Hasan. Of his pitiless hands.
Of his betrayal.
I’d live forever knowing I spoiled that man and broke his
faith.
I flopped my upper body over the ledge and rolled away
from the opening. I felt like I was seeing Hasan everywhere
I looked, like the horizon was a mirror, like landmarks were
photographs and his memories, the clouds. I saw his face.
I saw his pained expression when I closed my eyes. And
even when I opened them it seemed like Hasan was on the
horizon.
1570 ACE
Was he waving?
252
Gilead
3062 CE
We marched on City Hall. I’d felt this coming since the
moment I woke alone with no name in a world that wasn’t
free. This was my hijacked advent, my bleak parousia, the
moment of my just and vengeful coming.
We disabused them of that notion.
We abused them.
We tore off the cameras and shattered the glass. We
heaved furniture from the upper floors in front of the
entrance. We made a barricade of ripped doors. We set
fires. We beat the guards and tied them to chairs. We rolled
the chairs into the basement. We went to the basement and
pissed on the guards. We pushed the women into the puddles.
We beat the receptionists. We killed the guards. We came
back for the bodies and dragged them upstairs. We pushed
the bodies back down the stairs. We pissed on the guards.
253
3062 CE
The sun slashed across the horizon to guide me, a streak
of red fuse running from the east. The streets were quiet, the
sheep still sleeping and dreaming of ordered fences and a
world without wolves. Coming up to the double glass doors,
we gained momentum. Our march turned into a riotous
surge. I’m not sure what they thought, those bureaucrats at
reception, when a hundred screamers kicked in the windows.
Maybe they guessed we were protestors. Maybe they thought
we were civil.
We went for the judge. We broke through his office. We tore
off his robes. We tore up his flesh. We tore off his limbs. We
threw out his arms. We made him into a paste. We smeared
the judge. We smeared the paste. We went down the stairs.
We ate all the guards. We ignored the sirens. We drowned
them with song. We didn’t answer the phones. We didn’t
answer the call. We didn’t let people leave. We didn’t let
anyone fail.
3062 CE
We stayed for a week.
254
Then came Evie.
Evie stepped over the glass in her sneakers. She used to
wear high heels. She had on pants, like she was spending the
day at home on the couch. I’d get her some heels.
“Hey babe,” I said, wondering what I looked like then,
leaning against the desk at reception. I was itchy and wanted
a shower, but wasn’t ready to leave. I was growing a beard.
It smelled in there. I hadn’t realized until I caught Evie’s
perfume. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like her sweatshirt. I’d get
her a dress.
Evie threw a Bible at me—literally, she pitched the Holy
Bible at my head. I couldn’t tell if she was more angry or
more scared, only that she made me more excited than I had
ever been. “Read it,” she said, one accusatory finger poked at
the text. “Read the marked page.”
It was Revelation 20.7-9.
255
3062 CE
If I had known how it was going to end, I would have
brought her in earlier. She came on behalf of the police.
Nobody had swept up and the law hadn’t yet tried to force
our barricade. They were still playing nice, still following the
rules, still thinking we could work it all out. Evie was their
weapon, only they didn’t know I liked to bleed.
I read,
“When the thousand years are over,
Satan will be released from prison. He
will deceive many and gather them for
battle like sand on the seashore. They
will surround the camp of God’s people,
the city he loves.”
I closed the book with a loud, dramatic clap. I didn’t see
why those words mattered. I didn’t yet realize her little ploy
and I was just playing along. I wanted to play.
“So?” I asked, leading her to continue.
“That’s you,” she cried. Her hands were shaking as she
reached out, half-identifying me and half-staving me off.
3062 CE
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you get it?” she replied. “The real reason you
can’t remember anything is because you’ve been in jail for
a thousand years. You’ve been in stasis. Everyone knows it.
My friends know it. That’s why we bought into your stupid
ideas—because we wanted to know what it was like to tell
His Highness to jump off a bloody bridge. We wanted to
know how good it felt to be bad. And you showed us. It was
so good. Until you killed our baby with your stupid drugs.
Until you turned Joanna into your whore and then left her in
the ditch to die.”
Where was Joanna? I wondered. I thought she moved.
Was it possible she hadn’t? The last time I saw her was on
her way out of town, at that truck stop. Had there been a
ditch? The others were gathering around Evie. Duke and
Thin Ryan moved to take her down, but I waved them off. I
wanted to hear what she was gonna do next.
I liked this.
256
She wasn’t backing down. I think this was cathartic for
her, to confront her past, to stand up for herself. I motioned
for her to continue, to get to the good part.
“And the news?” she said. “The wars? You started them,
you godless prick!”
I thought about that for a minute. I thought about my
lost memories and those verses she’d had me read. My
headache was coming back, and I had trouble seeing. But I
didn’t want to get sidetracked. Not from this. This was good.
I had been running for this ever since I first woke in the
hospital. This was fate. Destiny. And it was all wrapped up in
Evie—my first convert, high priestess, and apostate muse.
I thought about how we’d been together. I thought about
how I wanted that again. On my terms. Right then. And I
grabbed her by the hair and forced her to the floor.
Maybe I am Satan, I thought, pinning her legs. She
was afraid. That made her prettier. She was wriggling and
slapping me. But that only made it better. No one was going
to interfere. These were my people. The people outside
couldn’t get in because they weren’t my people. They didn’t
understand who I was. They had no category for what I was
doing. Was it really possible that I am the devil? It seemed
too unreal. What was she, the whore of Babylon?
It couldn’t be true.
It couldn’t be my fault.
It couldn’t be my sin wrecking the world.
257
3062 CE
“Stop it,” she cried. “God forgive me—you’re Satan.
Stop it!” She was simpering. I hated that and pulled harder
on her hair. “You’re supposed to stop when I say who you
are,” she screamed. “Satan, stop!”
Evie bit my fingers, and I was tempted to let go. I didn’t.
I wrapped my hands around her throat instead and began
to squeeze. I placed my thumbs in the hollow at the base of
her neck and pressed. I wanted to feel her skin split so bad it
made my head hurt.
My head really hurt.
Evie struggled violently, but I worked my body around
and got my knees onto the insides of her elbows. My
headache felt like it was going to tear my skull in half. I was
seeing things. Flashes of another time. I felt dizzy. Evie’s
face was purpling, her tongue going slack out of her mouth. I
had seen something like this before. I had done this before.
3062 CE
I looked down at my hands. An image flashed through
my mind: old knuckles, a trimmed beard I regretted, a
bloody office floor.
I shook it off, kept beating Evie’s head into the ground.
Another flash: New Palestine. My office. Mushrooms.
I screamed. My head felt like nails were being driven in
through the roots of my hair.
A voice inside. Rip his head off! A woman. Grace Scott.
A voice. Death!
I remembered everything.
258
I remembered that God, who called himself June Paul,
betrayed me.
Evie’s body had gone slack. I looked down at her, but
felt nothing. I didn’t feel satisfaction. I didn’t feel hate. I felt
normal. She wasn’t the object of my rage. She was just what
was closest. I needed another bag to burst.
I had a score to settle.
I was coming to myself, and there was a chanting around
me. I wanted those fools to shut up. They should have had
plenty to play with after we tore up that courtroom. But they
didn’t want to be away from me. They were crowding me.
Chanting, looming.
259
3062 CE
I remembered strangling Rowan Scott. I remembered
trying to create Heaven on earth. I remembered the War, and
my part in it. I remembered being locked up and drugged.
“I am the Chief Prosecutor of Heaven,” I said, remembering
how long I had served. “My name is Hasan!” I was
screaming it now, my shoulders shaking. “My name is Hasan
Tahn!” I beat Evie’s head against the floor, wet thumps
making me think of dropped fruit. She stopped breathing, but
I hadn’t stopped punishing her. I was coming apart. “My job
is to find evil, to sniff it out. I am the Accuser!”
I wasn’t sure what they were saying. I listened more
carefully. It was my name. Over and over and over, they
were saying “Hasan Tahn.” But it was mumbled.
Hasan Tahn
Ha San Tan
Ha Sa Tan
ha Satan.
I remembered the origin of that word. It’s Hebrew—a
legal noun meaning “accuser.”
3062 CE
Satan was another name for the Prosecutor.
260
New Palestine
2061 CE
The guards took me. We didn’t have much of a jail,
just a converted file room. Two others had been locked in
temporary pens—a thief and a murderer. I fit right in, like
another innocent man they crucified once.
I was there for two days before they moved me. Nothing
to eat or drink, no bathroom. I used an old wastepaper basket
for my toilet and heard the guards laughing about it.
When they moved me across town, the entire Colony
gathered to sample my shame. They booed. A little child
pointed his finger, accusing me. A mother rubbed his head.
More jeers.
I stumbled, but no one offered to help. I was on my
knees when the first piece of rotten fruit smashed into my
eye. I always hated tomatoes.
Then I was moving again. The guards dragged me
along by the collar, and I had to hurry to get my legs. My
coat ripped. I wasn’t bound, so I shook out of it and walked
upright.
The crowd cast lots for my robe.
261
2061 CE
I remember feeling like a passenger in my own body.
June Paul was driving, but I enjoyed the ride. I had hated
Scott for a long time. That final resolution was sweet, when I
prosecuted the guiltiest man alive. Then June Paul was gone
and everything turned to ash.
They’d built a prison proper, just for me. It was in one of
the newer buildings, along the south side of town. It didn’t
have bars. Just iron walls you couldn’t see through. There
was a steel slab for a cot and a toilet with no lid.
Cot. Toilet. Me.
There was no window. Light came from tubes in the
ceiling. The door had only a thin slot for food, once a day.
It only came if I gave back yesterday’s plate immediately.
Once I hesitated, asking the guard about my trial.
2061 CE
He took away my food.
262
I gave up on double Q.
263
2061 CE
I didn’t have anything I could use to write. I ripped off
my fingernails trying to etch the iron box. I kept track of
the days with letters and words. A-day was first. Alphabet.
Ambassador. Apostle. All day. Then B-day, and so on. Day
twenty-seven was double-A day. Aardvark. Aargh. Double-B
day was harder. Bubble.
2061 CE
My beard had grown down to my chest before I knew it.
I was still hopeful, but confused. I wondered why the Lord
was letting this happen. I wondered why he permitted me
to kill Rowan if it wasn’t his will. I wondered why he did
anything, or whether he was done with me altogether. Eloi
eloi lama sabachthani.
I never wondered if he was real. We’d met. I’d been to
his house.
But I began to wonder if he could be trusted.
I wondered if he was good.
264
Gilead
3062 CE
I had started out working for the man upstairs, but he’d
given me a pink slip and, by Gawd, I wasn’t messing around
with him anymore. I was freelancing, working to get back
some of what I was owed.
There would be a reckoning.
Sacrifices were made. Omelets need eggs, and my
occupiers broke their yokes in a firefight so I could scoot out
the back. By Gawd, they were beautiful when dying.
Duke and Thin Ryan were the only two who didn’t
bite it right away. Duke died later in the hospital, but Thin
Ryan pulled through. Somehow we managed to arrive at the
hospital prior to the police. Through some miracle, it was my
old friend Doc Chloros on duty.
“I thought you were a psychiatrist?” I asked him, helping
Ryan keep Duke upright as we came in to the Emergency
Room through the automatic doors.
265
3062 CE
Evie’s death caused the police outside to go crazy. A
shatter of glass brought my attention back to the present
moment. The SWAT team outside had decided to breach.
Tear gas billowed through the room and Thin Ryan opened
fire on our assailants with a security guard’s pistol. Duke
tackled one of the officers while the girls screamed and
scratched out their eyes. It was agonizingly stunning, a
chaotic display of love and affection.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he replied, hurriedly. “Take
the skinny one and come with me.”
Doc led us through a warren of bone-white halls, taking
care to stock up on medical supplies whenever we passed an
empty room. He took us out through the parking garage, into
a large van, and I gave him directions to Evie’s.
We staggered down the hallway toward the apartment.
Ryan entered first, but I took hold of Chloros’ arm and
wouldn’t let him follow. “We’ll be just a minute,” I told the
thin man. He shut the door, and I turned, grabbing Chloros
by the neck. I threw his handsome body against the wall and
began to squeeze.
3062 CE
“I remember,” I began, “like you said I would.” Chloros’
face was pale, greening, eyes bulging like they might pop. “I
don’t like what I remember.”
266
New Palestine
2061 CE
Then a doctor came to see me.
“My name is Josef,” he said. He was a handsome man
with thick, black hair. Too slick for my liking, but I wasn’t as
picky as I had been. He had a voice like German Chocolate
cake—creamy, with surprise. “I’m sorry you have been kept
here for so long, Minister.”
“It’s Prosecutor,” I corrected him.
The door closed behind him. “I think not,” he said,
standing perfectly straight.
I hadn’t thought of that. The Lord called me, so I figured
only the Lord could fire me. Maybe he had. “How can I help
you, Josef?”
“I am a doctor--” he began, but I interrupted him.
“My throat has been bothering me,” I said. It was true. It
felt dry all the time and, by Gawd, I was thirsty.
“I think we can look into that,” he said, not unkindly,
“but there are other things we need to investigate, also.”
267
2061 CE
I called out to God. I quoted Scripture. I sang hymns. I
made supplication. But I was alone. I received no visitors.
I had no company. Not until my beard was long enough to
touch my chest. Not until I had actions for every Psalm I
knew.
The way he talked, I was just happy to listen. He was
the only human being I had seen in a long time. He was a
respectable sort, but I didn’t like his eyes. And there was a
five-pointed star on his ring, an old symbol of the goat.
“I don’t like your ring,” I told him.
Josef held up his hand, turning the ring over in the light.
“We’re all either sheep or goats,” he said. He registered my
suspicion and smiled, exposing polished, symmetrical teeth.
“Just two kinds of mutton from the barn.”
2061 CE
“I don’t think that’s funny.”
“That’s because you’re the punch line, Minister. You’ve
been serving God, but resent his rewards.”
“I have been to the other side—”
It was his turn to cut me off. “Yes, yes, yes,” he said
dismissively. “But this is the side that matters now, hm?”
“What is your business, doctor?”
“I’m just interested in opening your mind to
alternatives,” he replied. Josef stood up and rapped on the
door. I heard a heavy beam slide from outside the cell and
the door opened.
“If I were you,” he said, coming to the end of our visit,
“I’d think more about how to escape the present moment.”
“That will be my biggest challenge,” I said, agreeing
with him. “Boredom.”
“No,” he replied. I thought he looked genuinely sad.
“Not anymore.”
He left.
That was when the experiments started.
268
I cried. And screamed. And laughed. And heaved. And
never left that room.
It never made sense to me. It never seemed to end. It
never served any conceivable purpose, though Josef always
told me what new steps he took in the experimentation
process. “I’ve given you something for your muscles,
Minister.”
It felt like they were being carved from off my bones.
“They’re tearing me apart!” I screamed.
“Yes—I imagine it’s unpleasant,” he said. “But this will
allow you to remain in stasis for a long time and wake up
relatively unharmed.
Stasis? “I’m going to sleep?” I asked, barely able to keep
my eyes open.
“If you like. That may help pass the time.”
Sleeping and waking. Never dreaming. Never an end
of screaming. Just more sleeping and waking and hurting.
Sleep. Wake. Hurt. Next verse, same as the first. A little bit
louder. A little bit worse.
269
2061 CE
To call these “experiments” was an injustice all its
own. There were chemicals. There were drugs. There were
operations. There was therapy. There was torture.
I wondered if God had abandoned me. If he was teaching
me a lesson. I wondered if he was going to show up one
night and explain. There could have been a burning bush.
There could have been a rainbow.
I would have understood.
2061 CE
But there was only pain.
270
I tried to greet the doctor cheerfully, thinking I might be
a witness. I thought he might convert if I suffered bravely,
like Christians fed to lions in Rome.
I even tried to sing.
Funny. The doctor sang along.
I didn’t like to sing when he did. I didn’t like that we
were in tune.
271
2061 CE
I remembered an old joke: the beatings will continue
until morale improves.
2061 CE
It was dark outside as the guards dragged me, stumbling,
across the compound. One of them had a wrist watch. It was
5:37 a.m. I saw the date also.
11/11/61.
I had been in jail for only ten weeks.
The doctor hustled me into the back of a van. The guards
chained me to the floor and we drove for hours.
Just ten weeks. It felt like years, but it had been less than
three months.
I thought I had lost so much. I felt so old. That was the
most crushing part of my torture.
Brevity.
When the van stopped they placed a sack over my head.
We trundled across a gravel field and into a new facility. I
got a new room. When they pulled off the hood I saw my
room was identical to the other, only this one had a clock.
The torments resumed.
For twenty years.
272
Gilead
3062 CE
I shook my head, freeing my mind from the cobwebs of
bitter memory. I was in the hall of the apartment building,
holding Doc Chloros by the throat as he begged for his life.
“Give me a minute!” he gasped. “I can help!”
“With what?” I growled.
It was the right answer. I relaxed my grip on Chloros,
slightly, and let his body slide partway down the wall. He
coughed. He tried to adjust his vest, but my arms were still
locked around his throat and he couldn’t reach.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Doc Chloros didn’t answer right away. He took a
moment to catch his breath and regain his composure, until I
shook him and repeated the question.
“We have footage,” he began, still not totally recovered,
“thousands of hours of surveillance and documentation about
every one of our subjects.”
I could have snapped his neck. “Including me?”
“Including Grace Paul,” he interjected quickly. “You
were moved before the holocaust. Grace was with the
273
3062 CE
He was barely conscious, barely able to breathe out a
squeaky answer. “I can find June Paul…”
prisoners on the lower decks. They mutated into those things.
It was the radiation.”
“What things?” I asked, finally letting go of the doctor.
He straightened his vest, looking like that had been his main
concern all along.
“Subhumans,” he said. “We studied them briefly, tagged
them, and then let them go.”
“Grace Paul is our bait?” I asked. “She’s alive?”
Chloros nodded. “The subhumans are resilient. They
don’t get sick, age, or die. Unless she’s been murdered or
fallen down a well, she’s alive. And we’ll find her.”
“How do you know about June Paul?” I asked, my arms
reaching back toward the doctor.
3062 CE
“You talk in your sleep.”
274
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82 CE
20
I was asleep when the Voice came the first time. It was a
masculine whisper, a shovel of rock in the grass.
Minister?
Come here, said the Voice.
“Where are you?” I swung my legs over the edge of the
cot, cautiously, and peered into the dark.
Closer.
“Where are you?”
Closer than you think.
“There’s nowhere you could be. I’m alone.”
You’re not alone.
“Where are you?”
Where are you? mimicked the Voice.
“Stop that!”
You’re not alone.
I thought I might finally be losing my mind.
Not your mind, said the Voice. You’re mine.
I got off my cot and crawled around the room on all
275
2082 CE
The cell was dark and I couldn’t see anyone. “Yes?” I
replied.
fours. It was empty. The slot in the door was closed. There
was nothing on the toilet.
I went back to bed.
I’m here, Minister, said the Voice.
I thought it was my imagination, but the Voice came
every night.
The Voice tempted. Mocked. Rebuked. Teased. Seduced.
Scorned. Laughed. Coaxed.
2082 CE
I realized I missed the company.
God had long spoken to me, then stopped. June Paul
picked up where the Lord had left off, only I couldn’t tell
the two apart. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Oh, no. I
knew this wasn’t God.
Maybe that’s why I liked the Voice. It didn’t try to be
anything other than what it was. No promises. No lures. No
visions of something better.
On the hundredth night, the Voice made me an offer.
Let’s get out, it said.
“You’re not real.”
Neither was God.
“God is real.”
Then who is June Paul?
“Leave me alone.”
You’re not alone.
“I am. You’re not here.”
Don’t you know me yet? I was afraid I did. It sounded
like thirty pieces of silver. It hissed at the end of every word,
like the garden snake. You met my adversary. You’ve been to
his house. You’ve met my dependent. You’re still in his house.
276
Don’t you want to be free?
Don’t you want a house of your own?
“Who are you?”
Cloven hooves and pitchforks. The real question is, who
are you? And, more importantly, what do you want?
I had had time to ponder what I might do if I were free.
God had abandoned me. He wasn’t part of the equation.
But there was someone else to consider. Someone who had
robbed me. Someone who had harmed me. Someone who
had made my life a living hell.
Hm?
The silence stretched unexpectedly. I thought the Voice
would have leapt upon my word. I thought the Voice eager.
I wondered if I hadn’t said it loud enough. “Revenge,” I
repeated. “Revenge!” I screamed. The walls of the iron box
rang like the thrum inside a church bell, and I shouted the
word once more to drown out the sound.
“REVENGE!”
When the thrumming subsided, I began to hear the faint
trickle of another sound. It was like the throaty engine of a
bike, like the far off collapse of water over the falls. It was
the Voice.
Laughing.
We have to make a deal.
Faust. Robert Johnson. Theophilus of Adana. Hasan
Tahn.
277
2082 CE
I knew the Voice was eager, impatient. But I took my
time. I gathered my strength. I made sure the word came out
right before I said, “revenge.”
Turns out, the devil likes to wear skin. Possession is the
wrong word, though. It’s not a takeover.
2082 CE
It’s a merger.
278
Gilead
3062 CE
I needed recruits. Weapons. Messengers. Angels.
I would do as I have always done. I would tempt and
bend and twist. I would show people the other side of life
and remind them they need not be slaves to the parochial
whims of a distant and tired fairy. And there would be some
who decried my methods and rallied against me, claiming
that those I loved received things denied to those I hated.
By Gawd, I didn’t care.
Let them wonder about their place in the world. Let
them discover the apish strength of the human spirit. Give
them a little booze and some porn; throw in a steak and ladle
ambition over their hopes and dreams. This was life at its
basest and best.
You wouldn’t believe how easy it was to create knights
in Satan’s service.
I should have started a band.
279
3062 CE
I wanted to find June Paul and kill him, but I was not in a
hurry. I had become acquainted with Time. Doc Chloros had
access to Scott’s research. There were pages and scribbles
and scratches and scrawls of robotics and chems and mods
and stims, engineering diagrams and plans for the future of
life on Earth. Doc helped me make sense of it, helped me
transform from civic preacher to biochemical pioneer. It took
a while, but it’s probably fair to say I had an advantage.
Gilead
3067 CE
We set up shop at the ruins of Beret’s bar. The police had
condemned the building, but there were no posted guards. It
was a dead zone.
I still couldn’t believe this heaven-on-earth, no-war, nomeat place was the dream for which I had twice given my
life. It was a dumpy idea and I felt stupid for trying.
3067 CE
I was going to try something else.
We remodeled the front of the bar into a surveillance
center. There were screens and computers and radar arrays
on every surface. I had a command chair set up in front of
the counter, but instead of drinks there was now a mosaic
of LEDs, LCDs and plasma projections tracking every
conceivable signal, project, and datastream.
From here, I could watch the world. Nothing could catch
me by surprise and nothing—absolutely nothing—worried
me about the future.
I pinned notes on the walls. They were in all the
languages ever spoken in the tongues of men, and some that
had only been heard by devils. They were notes of prophecy,
of doom, and of infinite suffering for June Paul.
Die, said one in an Arabian dialect; and another
described how I would cook him; and another was a
description of what I could do with his eyes; and another
about the nails of his toes and where I might hang them;
280
and another, a long scrawl I would write with his blood; and
another was a note of hope about his mother, which I would
show him and then burn; and another was an old device that
would hurt June Paul so badly he would beg; and another
was smeared black with the contents of my hate in spit and
ash; and another was empty, but I tore it off the wall and
began to fill it with a rhyme about his father’s bones.
Revenge is sweet.
Amen.
3067 CE
281
Gilead
3103 CE
3103 CE
Time can move very swiftly. Passion moves the arms
of a clock more speedily than melancholy. I was in a fit
of passion, by Gawd, and it gave me the ache for living. I
lived inexhaustibly, driven by vengeance, and the arms on
clocks fell off more frequently than I was diverted from my
purpose.
I spent decades unearthing all that Scott had squirreled
away. I learned about nanotechnology and the synthesis of
carapatic memory cores. I leaned the difference between
wetware and the artifice of human consciousness. I became
a master of genetic enhancement. I developed new schemes
in biotics and human performance technology. I was able
to seamlessly meld together the digital and the corporeal.
I turned Thin Ryan and Doc Chloros into soldiers, pairing
them with technorganic steeds to carry them across the world
in search of June Paul. I think they were volunteers, but by
the time the procedure was over it wouldn’t have mattered.
I warned them not to kill June Paul, just to find him, though
they had permission to play. They were my horsemen, my
Riders.
“Aren’t there supposed to be four of us?” asked Thin
Ryan. He had been adamant that we keep the champ stamp
visible on his lower back. The thin man looked like death,
tribal tattoos stretched painfully across necrotic skin. Ryan
282
had crafted a cybernetic bat, a marvelous sheet of binary
flesh, black with smoldering eyes.
We were still in the shell of the old bar, hidden behind
technological camouflage that preserved our anonymity
from the outside world. If someone could have seen past our
trickery they would see the same burned husk out front, the
same cracked nut inside. But no one did. It was only us who
saw, and only we who mattered.
“The horsemen are simply archetypes,” said the Doc,
working absently on a chemical compound, scratching notes
on a pad. “War. Famine. Plague. Death. Has there ever been
a time in human history when these horsemen have not
roamed the earth?”
“Yeah,” said Ryan, “the last thousand years.”
Doc scoffed, intolerant of Ryan’s plainness. The thin
man’s confidence had grown tremendously with the increase
of his physical size and strength. He would be the bully now.
“I thought there was going to be a reckoning.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “There were four horsemen.”
“Who were they?” asked Ryan.
I looked right into his eyes. “June Paul,” I said.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Ryan complained.
I decided to elaborate. “June Paul made war on Rowan
Scott. June Paul starved himself of mercy when he could
have averted a holocaust. June Paul made me sick with
indecision, nauseated by religious guilt.”
283
3103 CE
Doc snorted, determined to free Ryan of his
dispensational fantasies. “War uses up all the natural
resources of an area, or spoils them, leading to starvation.
The carcasses cannot all be properly interred, and their
putrefaction brings disease. Disease brings death. It’s all very
logical.”
Doc figured out where this was going. “War. Famine.
Pestilence,” he said, summing up.
“And death?” asked Thin Ryan.
3103 CE
I replied simply. “June Paul is going to die.”
284
Gilead
3104 CE
I sent my Riders out like locusts.
Chloros crafted a technorganic lizard, to get him into
the subhumans’ underground caverns. It was long and low,
and could slip through impossibly small spaces. Chloros had
created a means of communicating telepathically with the
creature. They were a perfect pair of snakes.
“Find Grace Paul and get her topside,” I told him
through the surveillance monitor.
“Dead or alive?” asked Chloros, his lizard mount
swaying impatiently beneath him.
Chloros and his lizard vanished into the crevice in the
ground, like oil spilling in the dark.
I could see the end. There was nothing to stop me, no
conceivable threat to slow me down. Not the fakers in fauxHeaven. Not June Paul. Not the subhumans.
And God? He’d already proven he wouldn’t lift a finger.
That bit about Christ coming to destroy me with a Word was
just an idea from the past, a troublesome myth. I’d come for
him first anyhow.
Bye, God.
285
3104 CE
“Alive enough to scream. I just want June Paul to know
we got his mother.”
Gilead
3111 CE
I set to work constructing myself a new body. I upgraded
musculature. I improved mobility. I sharpened my teeth and
gave myself claws. I wanted to look the part. Horns. Tail.
Wings like a demon. I altered my pigment.
You want Satan? By Gawd, you got him.
3111 CE
But it was too garish. I dialed the pigment down some
and made it so I could fold in the wings. The hooves were
impractical. It was tough to look menacing when you
couldn’t stand on a tile floor.
At the end, I looked much like I had in the beginning,
though redder. I had a long grey beard that swung like a
pendulum. I had old hands, crooked and slightly horned at
each knuckle. My skin wore an overcoat of membranous
wings folded against my body. I cut off the tail and left the
scythe at home.
Satisfied, I sat waiting for the summons from my Riders.
286
Gilead
3129 CE
I waited without results. Chloros didn’t respond to any
of my hails. I tried again. Again. I was frustrated. I tried once
more. Again. I destroyed Beret’s bar, leaving nothing more
than a struck match.
I waited, encased in a scab of sour gloom.
I hadn’t been eating. My stomach hurt, but I ignored it.
It shouldn’t have been a concern. I wasn’t sleeping, either. I
was tired all the time.
I watched archives from Chloros’ sessions with Grace
Paul. I watched her cry about Rowan Scott. He loaned her
money she couldn’t repay. Men came to her restaurant
saying Scott owed them. She owed them. They took her.
Scott pleaded and they released her, but now she owed him
something else.
Still can’t figure why the kid changed his name. His
daddy was Korean, maybe he was worried about being
picked on.
Shouldn’t picked a girl’s name then, should he?
287
3129 CE
Can’t they understand that nothing’s free? Maybe that’s
why she liked Joon Pol, senior. Maybe she thought Joon
would know how to recognize a threat.
Gilead
3140 CE
No word.
No matter.
No more Gilead. It had gone up in a cloud of smoke and
dust. It was a ruined field of asphalt crops with nothing left
for reaping.
3140 CE
I hardly moved.
288
3151 CE
I was waiting for a signal, a sonic BOOM that would tell
me June Paul had been found. I wanted a big sound. A sound
that would echo across space and time. I wanted a sound that
pulled me to him, like a flame to the moth when it gets close.
The sound wasn’t just for me.
The BOOM was for everyone to hear. I wanted them to
feel the BOOM when it came, whether cowering under beds
or bickering in offices. I wanted the BOOM to shake off their
clothes, to loosen their bowels, to scatter their toys. I wanted
the BOOM to make them tremble, and to echo the sound of
the cavern in my chest.
I wanted to know, and I wanted the world to suspect, that
something magnificent, maleficent, and mad was coming to
rid humanity of a germ.
3151 CE
289
3631 CE
More. Waiting.
I settled into a mood of black moss.
There are only so many dark plans you can hatch, only
so many wild revenge fantasies you can stoke before you
realize they’re all the same. I was bored with it. It was just
something that had to be done.
It was years before I received word from Chloros,
hailing from a low ridge near the American foothills That
Were.
He hadn’t aged. His lizard, however, had changed
pigment into the clear flesh of all underground things. Its
dark eyes and pinky-blue veins showed like lightning streaks
on the coms.
“Have you found Grace Paul?”
3631 CE
“She’s here,” he replied, oblivious to my irritation.
Chloros gave me access to his heads-up display. It
identified which of the uglies was Grace Scott. She was
there, holding onto some leftover doll chipped and repaired
a thousand times over. There were children clustered around
her knees, she was like their den mother.
“They live tribally,” he explained. “The old lead, the
young hunt, with sharply defined roles for both sexes. It’s
very quaint.”
290
“Can they time travel?” I asked.
“No,” replied Chloros. “I’ve been watching them. The
water is the key. I went in once and threw up everywhere.
But I was transported back to the Colony.”
“As yourself?” I wondered if I was in danger every time
someone entered the water.
“Yes, “ Chloros said. “I’m unclear what allowed June
Paul to rape your mind.”
He wasn’t the first, I thought, considering again Chloros’
experiments during my imprisonment. “Excuse me?” I
asked. It didn’t feel right that the doctor should get away
with what he did to me. When you turn off the lights, I want
you to imagine the house call I’m preparing for you, Josef.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Get the woman and get out.”
3631 CE
291
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3631 CE
The lizard moved low, smoothly like a drip of sap across
the ground, closing the distance to Grace Paul. She was
unaware of the serpent, oblivious to the Rider. The children
kept playing and I watched Grace show them that broken
doll. Their laughter was metallic, made of little noises like
staples breaking open in a drawer.
I watched the lizard’s tongue flicker, nearly licking
the lobe of a girl’s ear. On the heads-up display, I watched
Chloros’ heart rate go up, his adrenaline spiking, and then he
kicked the beast into action.
The lizard bowled through the cluster of little girls.
Grace Paul shrilled and leapt to the side, narrowly missing
the rope-tongue of the reptilian creature as it sought to reel
her in.
3631 CE
Chloros scanned for Grace. The subhumans were fast
and able to easily maneuver over the rocky terrain. She was
up and running off to the left, but Chloros had engineered
his mount especially for these circumstances and the lizard
chased her down.
The serpent’s tongue licked out and snatched her ankle.
Grace fell forward onto her chin, screaming once more in
pain and fright. The lizard’s front foot stomped on her back
and I heard a crunching sound that signaled she would not be
running any longer.
292
Chloros hopped off the lizard and neatly roped the
woman into a bundle, tossing her, squirming, onto the back
of the beast before mounting up once again.
Chloros expanded his heads-up display and I could
see he was now surrounded by hostiles. Grace Paul was
squirming and I was impressed that Chloros didn’t let her
fall, especially in the midst of that crazed mob.
Other subhumans moved in to reclaim her. There was
one in particular, larger and more dominant than the rest,
who rallied the males into war parties. He was heavily
muscled and wore a scrap of cloth around his neck like a
scarf. He was the only one of those underground things I’d
ever seen clothed. But that’s all it was. A stitch. I got the
impression it was a marker of some kind, like a primitive
headdress.
But Chloros seemed unconcerned. He may have been
outnumbered, but he was not defenseless.
His lizard’s tongue flicked out, wrapping itself around
the ankle of one of the subhumans. The warrior was dragged
close and the lizard gouged him with its claws, saliva
dripping down onto his bleeding torso.
Other subhumans had moved around behind Chloros
and were trying to circle him, but the lizard’s tail whipped
frenetically, powerfully, and they were unable to close the
distance.
“I’m not sure they want me to leave,” said Chloros.
Fortunately, the doctor was not without his tricks.
Loading a gas canister into his armor, Chloros dispersed
293
3631 CE
I didn’t reply. Part of me hoped he would be assaulted by
the subhumans, dragged back into their nest and tortured for
a thousand years. It seemed a just punishment. But I didn’t
trust the lizard to bring me my prize.
a cloud of poison into the room. Most of the hostiles
scrambled up tunnels, making their way to the surface.
Within moments, the only subhuman that hadn’t run away
coughing was the big one. And he wasn’t going anywhere.
Big wrapped his scarf around his face. He charged, two
stone knives darting in and out against the lizard’s claws
and teeth. The beast swiped at Big, but the large man moved
quickly, cutting beneath the attack and drawing first blood.
One of the lizard’s claws lay naked on the floor. The
beast screamed and urged Chloros to attack in retaliation.
But the doctor had what he needed.
He wheeled the lizard around to the exit and scampered
away, untroubled by cowardice.
“Well done,” I said over the coms.
“He’s dead anyway,” Chloros replied. “That toxin will
be the end of their race, given time. Every one of their
claws will be a poison to both tech and blood, infecting an
operating system as well as a native body creating hostility,
territorialism, and aggression.”
“I think it’s safe to say you achieved that all on your
own, doctor.”
“Look who’s talking,” he replied.
I was suddenly sickened by the ruins of my old life.
Even seeing it on the monitor reminded me of human ash
and pride, of foiled attempts to cultivate heaven-on-earth.
3631 CE
Nothing we do here will ever be like life on the other
side, I thought.
Too bad I can’t go back.
294
I watched the lizard come out of the crevice—could
practically smell it through the monitor before its forked
tongue mutely flicked at the day. Chloros was on top, with
a misshapen female lump on the back. She was tied up and
bruised, but I could see her ribs rising and falling.
“Will she live?” I asked.
Chloros grinned. “She will reach the City.”
He kicked the sides of his lizard and its body rippled. I
peered in closer to my screen to make sure I understood what
was happening.
“Tricky,” I muttered appreciatively.
The lizard was shaking loose its wings. It wasn’t a snake.
It was a dragon. The wings were so thin that the screens only
showed long bones supporting the membrane. The creature
took off into the sky with two great sweeps and wheeled
around like a kite on a string.
By Gawd, it was magnificent.
I always wanted a dragon.
3631 CE
295
The City of God
3631 CE
The City gates were nearly forty feet tall and covered
in precious gems. Chloros landed just before dawn, the sun
more red than orange. I wondered what the City looked like
from inside. I wondered how close they got to the real thing.
The air looked cleaner, the light traveled further. The fools
were singing even then, before breakfast.
We had worked hard to build New Palestine into the
very thing they now enjoyed. It was a bitter pill to be on
the outside after so many years working to get there. I felt
like Moses. I led the people from the slavery of American
consumerism into the wilderness of colonial independence,
only to have God turn his back and keep me in the dark.
And he has the nerve to call me sinner.
“Nice place,” said Chloros, his voice sounded tinny.
There was radio interference from the City of God.
“It’s fake,” I replied.
3631 CE
“Looks real to me.”
“The real treasures in Heaven are relationships. The
whole last book of their Bible uses poetic language to
illustrate a spiritual sense of belonging, a radiance of
glorified families.”
“You’re saying it’s all a metaphor?”
“I’m saying these clowns took poetry and laid it
out with a measuring stick,” I replied. “They took the
296
incomprehensible majesty of the supernatural and reduced it
to a floorplan.”
“Then they deserve to be disappointed,” said Chloros.
I agreed. “Time for the let down.”
Chloros’ voice amplified across the desolate landscape
outside the City walls. “June Paul?” he cried. From the
screens I could see guards coming to the tower defenses.
Chloros zoomed in with the camera and I could watch them
murmur and wonder what was happening.
My Rider got off his dragon and walked to Grace. She
still struggled on the back of the beast. With his enhanced
strength, Chloros had no trouble hoisting her off the lizard
and tossing her onto the ground.
He pulled a short wand from a compartment on the
dragon’s saddle. It looked like a wooden ruler, until he
pushed a button and the wand began to unfold. It grew to
nearly eight feet in his hand, a spear, and he jabbed it into the
earth, driving the point deeply.
Grace Paul’s subhuman eyes were wide, her body
arching and shivering.
Chloros didn’t drag it out. He walked to the woman once
more and cut loose her bonds. She fought him, but it was of
little use. She was weak from his poisoned gas. Her muscles
were cramped. She hadn’t eaten.
Up she went, and then down, impaled upon the spear
like a dead puppet. She thrashed for only a moment, but
enough that one of the guards became sick.
And with every beat of that dragon’s wings I waited in
anticipation for the BOOM.
297
3631 CE
Chloros waved to the men of the watch. He climbed
back on top of his dragon and was off.
3631 CE
Chloros waltzed into the remnants of Beret’s bar. It had
been a long, long time since he’d been here, and I resented
his nonchalance. I tried to control my face, as I didn’t want
to give anything away. His time had come. No point in
spoiling the surprise.
“It wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought,” he said,
conversationally. “The tags were in good shape.”
I invited him to sit in the command chair. He complied,
and I walked over to the great steel door I had installed. It
separated the surveillance area from the rest of the bar. I shut
the door, locking the dragon outside, and stepped slowly
back to my old torturer savoring every second.
off.
“There is one other thing…” I said, letting my voice trail
“What’s that?” he replied. He was curious about the
screens, checking my browsing history to see how I had
spent my time.
3631 CE
He leaned in close to the LCDs and I grabbed his wellcultured neck and crushing his windpipe. “You tortured me
for a thousand years,” I said. “I’m getting even.”
From outside the heavy room door I could hear Chloros’
dragon hammering, trying fervently to get inside and save its
master. The door was too strong. The walls were reinforced.
298
I heard the dragon trying to tear through the ceiling, but it
was no use.
I’d had time to plan.
Time enough to add a little window at the bottom of the
door, like I had in prison for meals.
Chloros continued to struggle, but for as long as he
had been gone I had been making adjustments to my own
synthetic body. “You know, Doc, when I was in prison the
guards would stand outside my door and push the food
through a slot just like this.”
I could see Chloros’ lights going dark. He was nearly
gone.
“Here’s the thing,” I continued. “I want you to feel like I
felt. Only, you’re not going to eat the food.”
I paused.
“You are the food.”
Chloros was making little kitten noises. His body
quivered less, his limbs struggling weakly. The dragon kept
hammering at the door, still fighting, still desperate. Still
outside.
“For a while I thought I’d keep your pet once you were
gone.” He was almost gone now. “You know, for company.”
The beast whimpered a howl of old grief.
“But then I realized something, Doc. Something I
probably should have realized back in your office. With the
inkblots.” I watched him kick and spasm for the final time
before I said, “I’m dragon enough.”
299
3631 CE
With a concluding snap I broke the doctor’s neck and
dropped him on the floor.
I found a sample of the toxin he used on the subhumans
and sprinkled it over his body. I chopped off his hands and
put one through the little hole. I waited. The dragon first
licked the hand, then bit it, for the poison smelled very
sweet. When I heard the beast swallow, I gave it the other
hand and more of the poison. Then the feet. Then the arms,
sliced, and shavings from the back. When I heard the beast
collapse, I realized I had prepared too much.
But I could take care of the mess.
3631 CE
I had time to kill.
300
I had waited long enough for stars to change their
position in the sky, long enough for the pretty people to
gather inside the City, long enough…but I could have said
that on the first day, for I waited a very long time indeed.
And then I heard it.
BOOM.
I unfolded my wings and burst into the night.
I’m coming for you, June Paul.
3631 CE
301
,
35 degrees Nortth,
es
84 degrteereCosmmW
on Era, ace)
3631 CE (1570 Af
I checked my carapace for tears as I flopped against
the surface of the world and waited for Serif. The light of
day was painful after so long in the cave system. I was still
having flashbacks. Images of the Chief Prosecutor blitzed
my mind. The leftover hallucinogenic from the mushrooms
coupled with the virus in my OS made me afraid.
But at least I was outside. The worst was over.
With clear access to satellite now, I brought up Serif’s
physicality on my coms. “You there, sister?” I asked. “I
could use a little good news.”
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
June! she replied. I have been searching the area. I could
hear a flutter in her voice. I lost contact with my avatar hours
ago. I was about to go back and recruit additional angels for
a search.
I stretched out my legs on the rock and let my body sag.
“Just come soon.”
I will be there in ten minutes, she said.
Too tired to speak, I answered her in my mind. Whatever.
I’m not going anywhere.
302
I lay with my head against the ground, looking
crossways at the horizon. I daydreamed about Hasan. I felt
horrible. I was burning up. I was weak. I was disoriented and
nauseous. I moved my head over to the other side. He was
still there. It felt like he was following me. He looked closer
than he had. He was always coming closer.
I sat upright, concerned. I must be hallucinating, I
thought. Because it looks like he’s actually coming closer.
I thought he was waving. I stood, suddenly alert, albeit
weak and dizzy. This didn’t feel right. I zoomed to 3x
magnification. The carapace was slow to react and I had
trouble focusing. When I did, I realized the figure in question
wasn’t waving his arms.
Those were wings.
“I’m in trouble,” I said, terrified I wouldn’t have the
battery for mindcharge and couldn’t upload to the City
servers.
303
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
“Serif,” I called. She didn’t answer. “Serif!” I could
hear the riddle of panic in my voice. I did a basic system
diagnostic. My power was sapped. The carapace was going
to be out of juice very soon. The Spelunker had sustained
heavy damage in the cave, and I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Still no answer.
The Prosecutor looked different as he got closer. He had
a tan. Or something. And he was larger. His beard had grown
back. He was massive, muscles rippling as he approached.
He had wings like a dragon and a brazen circlet jutting
off the front of his brow. His skin was sweaty leather and
vinyl-smooth, his legs bent like a goat. The wings kicked
up a tremendous amount of dust and grit, and as he came in,
lower, his final few beats were hot and violent. He dropped
the last ten feet with a thud and stalked toward me like a
horrific judge.
“By Gawd,” he said. “If it isn’t June Paul.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Was it the
mushrooms? Had the virus finally driven me over the ledge?
“What happened to you?” I asked. “How did you get here?”
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
Serif, I called mentally. I could use a little backup.
Serif?!
The fiend crouched over, squatting on his haunches. His
forehead was scattered with little horns and bumps, some of
which looked like they had been sanded off. Some of which
had grown recently. I could now see a crimson pigment to
his skin, like he had bathed in red ink. His fingernails were
blackened and dirty and chipped. In this posture, his wings
folded around him like a cloak so that he looked clothed,
though in fact he was nude.
“After you stole my body—a nice trick, by the way—
the authorities put me in prison.” His voice was tympanic,
a kettle of woe filled with misdeeds and bones. There were
lines around his eyes, fervid beads of hot cinder. He was
enjoying this like he was winning a divorce. “I was in stasis
for a thousand years, a prison of the mind. And when I woke
up, I realized you needed to answer for you meddling, for
304
your perversions. I’ve come to remedy the fact that you’re
still breathing.”
“You’re Masheet?” I asked, thinking about the Rider and
the bat that had come looking for me.
“The Accuser? The Prosecutor? The Destroyer? What’s
in a name? Ha Satan? Abaddon? Apollyon? Shaitan? The
boogeyman? A name is just something we use to point at
things we know.”
He looked me dead in the eye. “And you know me, June
Paul,” he said. “We are practically the same.”
3631 CE // 1570 ACE
305
Satan loomed over me, squatting, with a backdrop of
foothills anchoring the ground. I was still trying to grasp the
fact that Hasan was this beast in front of me. He wasn’t like
this. He wasn’t this thing. The creature felt like it had grown
from a syrup of hate. Hasan had been a good man.
How can something so pure turn so putrid?
“But you were committed,” I said. “You believed. The
last time I saw you, you were nearly crippled with devotion.”
“What did you think, June? You think you were gonna
save the world?” His wings shuffled, opening slightly before
resettling. “The past is written, by Gawd, and it was written
well. It’s the present we can still change. And I mean to fix it
to my liking.”
1570 ACE
I was madly trying to put the pieces together. I could still
picture Hasan in front of his children’s class, in front of the
mercenaries during the siege. He once believed God brought
him back from the dead, to ferret out evil and point the way
toward truth.
“You became the very thing you swore to expose,” I
said.
“If you like,” he replied, standing with his chest now at
eye-level.
306
I had to understand. I had to hear myself tease it out.
“You abdicated your position. You left your post, and the
world fell apart because you quit the court of the Almighty.”
Satan barked in front of me. I think it was supposed to
be a laugh, but his chest was like the cab of a van. Laughter
boomed more than it should, cracking at the end. “You think
you’re any less of a devil?” he asked. “With all your talk of
keeping things alive?”
I didn’t say anything. I knew where this was going,
knowing if he didn’t say it now, I’d still have to point the
finger at myself later on. “You killed Rowan Scott,” he said,
“damn near possessed me to do it. You’re more demon than
me. I’ve seen what’s in you—you’re sin all the way down.
You’d just as soon skewer a steer as build a bomb or blow
down a wall.”
He did not accuse half-heartedly, or without grounds.
I had forced Hasan to do evil and he became evil in the
process. So did I. That was the crime. I did it knowingly,
willingly, and without any hesitation. Serif tried to stop me,
but I killed her too. Two deaths, the former to ensure I could
justify the latter.
I couldn’t defend my actions. I would pay for a long time
and had begun already. But he wasn’t the one to decide when
or how.
“Scott was a mistake,” I cried. “But your accusations
aren’t just. Not anymore. You’re still trying to control
others—their lives, their marriages, their arms, their ideas—
through guilt. Your religion is twisted!”
307
1570 ACE
I was panting, finding it hard to get enough air. Sweat
matted my hair to the front of my face and my arms
quivered. “Christ didn’t die on a cross so you could use it
like a stake,” I continued, the energy growing.
Hasan’s wings burst off his back; exposing his nakedness
and sending hot rocks toward me in a gust. He pulled a stone
blade from behind his back. It had a glistening edge, honed
over the centuries by dark spite. The creature jutted out its
jaw and pointed the knife at its throat. He paused, vertically
slatted eyes opening down over red cheeks. “You were a
conservationist. You preached about life and then you killed
Rowan Scott. I get it. An eye for an eye. He killed your
father.” Satan’s wings lowered around us, like we were alone
in the unholy of holies, confessing as though in a shroud.
“Well,” he continued, forcing the knife in my open palm,
“I killed your mother and then I blew up the world. That
oughtta be worth at least an eye.”
I wondered if he was telling the truth about my mother.
There was no way to know. This was the Father of Lies. He
trades in deceit, uses half-truths and falsehoods to destroy.
But what did it matter? The last time I took revenge led me
here, to this moment. If I took it again, what would be left?
My mother was already dead. I wasn’t willing to damage the
future the way I had degenerated the past.
1570 ACE
Satan continued, haughty and strong. “Take it. Cut my
heart out and eat it. Jab it in my mouth. Rip off my ears.
Stick me in the gut, you lover of life. I killed your mother.
I’ll kill you. Killing is about the best thing there is, by Gawd.
I was made to do it and doing it is good.”
Those wings pulled back like falling walls, bright sun
puncturing the dark yet making me squint. I took a step back,
startled, and he grabbed me by both shoulders and hoisted
me from the ground. His wings beat against his sides and
it looked like his feet might pull off the ground but for his
hideous weight.
308
“I’m done,” I said. I was done with killing, though I was
still afraid. His hands crushed my biceps and I dropped the
knife involuntarily.
“I didn’t come back here for you to cower,” he screamed.
Satan beat his wings aggressively and we ascended several
feet into the air. His face changed, taking on the countenance
of the unknown—eyes like dying stars, open mouth yawning
in a gravity well. I knew these were parlor tricks, but I kept
waiting for the knife to show up in my gut, because the only
patrons of this parlor were cursed.
Salvation came with a screech and eagle’s wings as Serif
collided with us in the air. I saw Satan fall like lightning, and
me along with him. Two comets crashing and buried.
I called wearily for Serif but she was preoccupied. I
couldn’t move. I was a burning wreck and the devil an
angered boar. The devil took to the air after my angel and
there was war in Heaven. Serif gashing and tearing with her
beak, wings thundering, talons clutching.
Cries. Roars.
But Satan was a slip of light, too fast to follow, and
my angel’s interruptions were for naught. Soon after she
saved me, Serif lay on the ground nearby. She was crippled,
immobile, and whimpering.
The prince of the air bellowed, then crashed once more
to the ground. The earth split and the skies were fired by his
passing.
309
1570 ACE
“Pick up your mat and walk,” he taunted, growing in
front of me just as everything else faded away. “Pick up your
stick and strut. Stab me, coward. Bleed me like a pig.” I
could not. He knew it. Even if I still had the knife I no longer
had the strength to fight. I was dead already.
Only one thing remained, just one weapon, just one
possibility.
Defiance.
Satan’s voice tore through my mind again. “Get your
justice,” he mocked. “Be good. Kill the devil and make the
Lord proud, by Gawd. It’s what he would’ve done.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not.”
Hasan’s eyes opened wide, and his arms. He clutched
me to his chest and carried me like a babe. “You had your
chance,” he said. He kissed me on the cheek, crushing me
with the weight of his lips. It was a lengthy last corporeal
contact for my life on earth. “Give that to the man upstairs.
He’ll know what it means.”
The creature dropped me on the ground, booming his
wretched holler. His wings beat, but he brought up his knees
and slowly descended upon my body, the knife back in his
hand.
I felt the blade go in, soft with a little punch at the top,
like poking a packet of sauce. I burst. I drifted. It was like a
hard reset of the carapace, but I knew there wasn’t going to
be a reboot. I was done and gone.
1570 ACE
There was a light, and my last conscious thought was
sadness at the cliché.
310
311
“So that’s how I got here,” I told the one with blood on
his robe. Just looking in his general direction made me
see spots, like looking at the sun during an eclipse.
But I wanted to see, even if it meant I couldn’t
see anything else.
I had always imagined Heaven would feel like a dream,
but I had it precisely backwards. I was waking up and
finding the dream vague and unconvincing.
This was reality.
This was the life I was meant to live.
“Like I said, I figure you knew most of that story, but I
was trying to fill in the particulars.”
He didn’t say a word. I stood there for a while,
waiting.
Seven stars whirled over his holy hand as the whisper
of saints rustled in prayer.
Yet he never spoke.
.
T
N
E
S
E
R
P
Y
L
L
A
N
R
E
ET
.
REMARKABLY CLOSE
It’s frightening to realize there’s nothing new in Heaven.
Everything here bore such strong resemblance to those
things I knew and loved from home. Trees, rivers, light,
intelligence. It’s all the same stuff we have, only better, like
a rug before you drop coffee on it, or the first time you use a
razor to shave. Everything so sharp, so perfectly unworn.
It feels like a promise kept, like all the little things lovers
say are true. Heaven is more beautiful than I could have
guessed, even while guessing it would be more beautiful
than I could have imagined. All the lines run straight, even
curves when you see them from the right angle. You can
peer through a spiral, or down its long edge like it’s straight
as a boulevard. You can wrap yourself in it just by turning a
certain way. You can walk on it, or fall into it.
It feels like everything fits, like the people and the planet
are indivisible from their maker—like Creation and Creator
have reconciled.
The living creatures reminded me of Serif in many ways,
of what she could never be, but also of regular animals. I
thought I was looking at the most magnificent squirrel, only
for it to move. I was struck by its size and wondered how I
could have made such an error. But when I looked closer, it
was smaller. And a lion.
314
So much light. The singing of the trees and the song of
the brook, the dance in the grass and the perfume of ripened
fruit—it was all pleasantly gold.
All those jewels, like lamps, with him shining all over
the place, through things, lighting them up. It was incredible.
The throne was on fire, but only because he was there, sitting
on it with stones letting the light bleed through. They were
like gels, like cerulean filters of brilliance.
And me? I was glowing, too. His light passed through
me, and I was a thin ream of glass. I could see him in me and
through me and with me, refracted.
I felt like myself, perhaps for the first time. I was naked,
but it didn’t bother me. He saw through me anyway. I
couldn’t hide a thing, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t need to. I
was accepted—totally—for who I was.
No. That’s not quite right. I was accepted, but I felt
the memory of my misdeeds slipping away. It’s like the
more acclimatized I became to Perfection, the more my
imperfections were dismissed, like antibiotics chasing away
infection.
My sins were in remission.
I was accepted, but I was different. Still me. Just more
so. Me without the germ of rebellion. Me without the cancer
of derision. I loved who I was becoming. I felt like I was
looking at my own baby pictures and could see myself born
again.
How did Hasan ever leave this? I wondered. Did he get
tired of not being able to see himself clearly? Would you
miss yourself after a while? The only self you’ve got here is
the one God burns through the middle of you. It’s better, but
I wonder. He was a prince of light. Did Satan’s light seem
dimmer with God?
315
I paused, looking around at the celestial court—the
myriad of angels, the living creatures, the twenty-four elders.
It was strange. I was somehow both under the altar and
before it, simultaneously swallowed up by the altar itself and
presented upon it like an offering.
The elders reminded me of our council in the City.
They had the same expressions on their faces and they were
connected in the same way. In the Spirit I could perceive
their cognitive continuity, their shared consciousness, and
I got the impression these were the real elders. The ones at
home were just footprints.
There they know in part. Here they are fully known.
316
“There’s a veil between this world and ours,” I said out
loud. I was standing near that veil, pressing my hand along
the latex gum sheathe separating the two halves of Creation.
I could lean into it, and it would stretch.
“I always thought they were separate, like you were
upstairs and we lived below the garage. But it’s not like that.
You’ve been right beside us, even sneaking in here and there
like you were bringing us treats. You’ve seen everything.
You knew everything. You’ve been preparing this membrane
to breach since the beginning, since we put it there. You
honored our disobedience and limited yourself to this pane
of knowing. We’ve been your television, and you’ve been
dying for us to invite you onto the show.”
It’s nearly time, I realized.
“I do have one question,” I said. “Why did you let Hasan
go on thinking I was you? That hardly seems right.
“It’s just…it’s a godawful plan,” I continued, “putting
that much faith in people. We can’t be like you.
“Is that the point of all this? To realize we couldn’t?”
I confess I sort of expected something to happen then.
But he just sat there—a mass, a fire, a cloud. He was difficult
to look at, hard to pin down. “What are you waiting for?” I
317
asked, trying to see him straight. He was a lamb, and an ox,
and an eagle. He was my mother and my teacher.
He was Rowan Scott.
“Isn’t there a moment when enough is enough? When
good must stand up and discharge evil, even if only to
restrain it? Will there never be an end to Death? To dying?
Can’t you undo it? Can’t you think of something better?” He
was a rainbow and a heft of wood. He was a seed and spring.
My mind opened and I felt his breath working through
me, healing. It felt nothing like Serif’s avatar in my OS,
and yet it was like that entirely. Like he was rewiring me.
He wasn’t speaking. Maybe he was too powerful to speak.
Maybe his words were of such power than a single tsk
created moons, or a cough another world. Maybe he knew I
had all the words I needed, that I was drowning in them, that
it was the space between he could fill.
I wanted something better than death, some long promise
I had forgotten. Not life after death. I had that already. But
life after life after death.
Resurrection.
318
I felt it happening in stages. I felt like I was living in
the stories that never die, in the Garden, in the Valley of
Dry Bones. I felt the light harden to bone. My skeleton was
white ember and the sinews beams of time. I received a new
covering of muscle. Arteries and veins jacketed the bones,
working to keep in the light so I would not scar the eyes of
lesser things. I received new skin, a casing like a crust of
bread, baked to present the world.
This was better than any carapace I had designed. I
could never achieve that sense of embodiment. It was always
something I put on. But to be human is to be made flesh.
Flesh isn’t a suit. Our matter matters—the matrimony of
flesh and spirit, a compression of light focused by God on
the world.
Take any part of that equation away and we’re something
less, cyborg in my case, maybe zombie or solipsist in
another.
That’s what it means to be human. Not to have a soul.
But to be one.
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Then He Who Sat on the Throne stood and came to me.
I bowed low before him, but he raised me to his mouth. The
last kiss preceded my death. This was the breath of life.
“I am a kernel of wheat,” I said. “A seed sown in the
ground. Death is not the end.”
I stepped through the membrane that kept Heaven and
earth apart. I wasn’t the first one through, but I made the tear
a little larger. I was at the head of the resurrection parade,
and I came back to the world with a Word from God.
320
,
35 degrees Nortth,
84 deg15r70eeACsE Wes
When I stepped through the veil, I appeared behind
Hasan. He didn’t see me at first. In fact, it was almost as if I
had slipped time once more. I watched him plunge the blade
into my belly and saw my own eyes go dark as the carapace
failed.
Hasan was still crouched over my synthetic body when
I walked up behind him. His face slowly turned to look over
his shoulder as he stood. His wings were folding back into
his cloak, but they shivered when he saw me.
And he did see me and know me for June Paul. I was
myself again, though I looked very different from the
lifeless shell on the ground. I had the body I was born with,
perfected and matured. Hasan perceived who I was and,
perhaps, something of what had happened.
His face contorted. “How?” he asked.
“Sown in dishonor,” I shrugged, “and honorably raised.”
The devil looked to be digesting that for a moment,
chewing it around his mind. “I, too, have conquered death,”
he said. “By Gawd if we aren’t two peas in a pod.”
321
1570 ACE
He lunged at me then, thinking to take me unawares.
But I moved aside easily, and he stumbled. He looked at
his hands as if they were to blame, and then back over his
shoulder at me. His eyes dilated and contracted with his
breathing.
“There is a second death,” I said. I pointed beyond him
to the fuming pond that had always been waiting behind him.
He had never seen it, though it had followed him since the
Beginning. “A lake of fire.”
Hasan turned and stepped closer to me. He flung out his
talons and beat his wings in the air, but I was not afraid.
“I’ll kill you!” he screamed.
“You’ve already done that,” I said.
The creature reached for me once more, swinging
violently. I kept moving. He was slow. He never came close.
But I could see he was frustrated, and I did not want to
agitate him. I stood still and let him plunge his fingers deep
into my heart. But they shattered at the bone, and his hands
were ruined. He could not get through me, and I had not
been hurt.
The devil screamed his defiance once more, fingers
knotted and twisted beyond recognition. “I’ll kill everyone
you love,” he shouted, and though there was not another soul
within a hundred miles, I felt every beating heart skip.
1570 ACE
“You’ve already done that, too,” I said. “There’s nothing
left. This is the end.”
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How do you defeat one whose greatest pleasure lies in
stealing, killing, and the destruction of things held dear?
You own nothing, and he can’t steal it. You are incapable of
dying, and he can’t get your blood on his hands. You hold
attachments loosely and he can’t ruin them.
How do you defeat evil?
You exhaust it. You let the devil steal everything you’ve
got, and give the rest away. You let him beat you, and then
you favor him with a bloody-toothed smile, split lips and all.
When he perverts the world, you make it beautiful anyway.
Satan may steal, bash, and pervert over and over and
over, but evil will always collapse under its own weight.
It will lie one too many times to keep looking like truth.
It will gobble up one too many goods, and its belly will
burst. It will accuse one too many innocent people of crime,
compelling public opinion to turn. Then everyone will see
the devil for who he is.
Something we made up.
1570 ACE
323
Hasan lunged and swatted and I began moving once
more, trying to reason with him. “Don’t you understand
what you’re being offered?” He kept coming and fighting
and spewing threats, and I just kept sliding to the side,
unconscious of where I was standing. The devil blew by me
and lost his footing. He tumbled over the edge of the fiery
lake. One wing was bent and the other broken. He could not
fly. His horned hand clutched ferociously to a stump of rock,
but his body buffeted the wall of the abyss repeatedly.
If he fell, he would perish.
“There’s mercy for you,” I yelled. “For you, even!”
Bending down, I saw the face of the man I had once
inhabited. I offered my hand. He would not take it. I
shook it for him, letting the moment stretch. Here was his
opportunity. Here was friendship with God. Here was proof
grace was for everyone.
1570 ACE
Still he would not take it.
I looked the devil in the eyes and let it be done. I spoke
the Word of the Lord, the one word he could not hear.
“Tetelestai,” I told him. “It is finished.”
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Hasan reached up with his free arm and clutched at my
chest, not in an attempt to save himself but to drag me down
with him.
He could not keep his grip. He had no hold on me. He
slipped off, slick, and fell into a long perpetuum. Whether
conscious or not I have little idea, and less belief that with
him it would matter.
He had chosen hate forever.
1570 ACE
325
As the devil hit the red pool, the sky opened and the
rains came. Thunder announced the Coming and it was like
trumpets at fanfare. The veil that separated the two halves
of Creation tore down the middle, like that other veil from
the Temple. All that had inaugurated in crucifixion was now
consummated in resurrection. A bloom of eternality swelled
into the world as Heaven and Earth reconvened.
There was, again, a balm in Gilead.
Though God had not spoken to me before, his many
words now resounded through the past, into the present,
from the future.
1570 ACE
Behold! a new Heaven and a new earth. The former
things shall not be remembered. God’s dwelling place is
among his people and he will inhabit their praises forever.
The Elders set foot across the boundary first, and
I watched them join with their earthly counterparts,
rematerializing as one new humanity. We have put the ways
of childhood behind us, they said, speaking echoes of their
Creator. We see ourselves face to face and we are fully
known.
The living creatures took to the sky, and the fields, and
the plains, and over the land and called to their brethren. The
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beasts of the earth were given back their minds, and they
reasoned together like before the Fall.
The wolf and the lamb feed together, and the lions eat
straw with oxen.
Serif limped toward a lamb, kneeled, and was touched
by God. I watched her cybernetics tinkle off. She became
a phoenix, a bird of actual flame, and she came to me in
gladness. We soared over the earth as the healing continued.
Behold—I make all things new!
Roads came up as the land repaired. The ground
swallowed the asphalt and grass grew where none had
for eons. Manmade structures came unbound, and angels
showed New Men how to sing the trees into homes and
groom stones in pleasant craft.
I have spread the northern skies over empty space; I
have suspended the earth. I have wrapped the waters in
cloud. The pillars of Heaven shake. By my breath are the
skies made fair. And these are but the outer fringe of my
works; the faint whisper you hear from the Lord!
I watched as the Chernoblys bubbled up out of the
ground at the trumpet, and they too knelt before God. No
longer were they blind and pitiful creatures. They were given
back their humanity. They had a dwelling with the Almighty.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon you. This is
good news to you poor, this is freedom to you captives and
sight to you who are blind. This is the year of the favor of the
Lord.
327
1570 ACE
I saw the Chieftain coming up out of the ground, who
had fought so valiantly against the Rider in the caves. I
saw his disfigurement slip away and his new body shine
pinkishly underneath. He was my brother, child to Rowan
and Mother, and I embraced him and thought, yes—he is an
echo of his father, as am I.
The Spirit bears witness that we are children of God;
and if children, heirs.
I saw the little girl, who had played with the broken doll
outside Hasan’s office, come to new life. The doll became
a unicorn and kept the memories she had whispered in the
dark.
I will repay the years the locust has eaten…I will pour
out my Spirit on all flesh…and I will show you wonders…
There were children, vast flocks of infants and toddlers.
Their families had grieved but now all the unanswered fears
of bereavement were grounded in the confidence of a just
God.
I tell you the truth, you must become as a little child to
enter the kingdom of Heaven…
I saw my mother, smiling, and my father come up from
the ground.
Death shall have no more dominion. He that believes in
me, though he dies, will yet live.
1570 ACE
Do you believe this?
328
After
There were ten thousand thousands gathered, in
concentric circles, praising the One Who Is and Was and
Is To Come. They never stopped, and I joined in from the
moment I walked into the Elder Chamber.
Once more I had been summoned. Space was not
an issue. The stone slab was missing, and Serif stood at
my side. She was still on fire, and I was glad of her—my
guardian, counselor, and peer.
Our Elders were there, no longer footprints. They had
been freed from their shackles and healed.
I wondered if there would be a confrontation, some final
adjudication of humanity. And of me. But there was only
inexpressible joy. Wonder. Hope. Holy ambition. Godly
triumph. Eagerness. Strength.
And it was good.
Then the one with blood on his robe said the only words
I’d heard him speak in Heaven or on Earth. He was the
Word. He didn’t need to speak, he only needed to be himself.
But he spoke graciously in a voice like mercury, and intoned
the words that mattered. Hearing him speak was Truth, and
Peace, like the most perfect pitch harmonizing with itself,
and I never doubted anything after that moment. I knew all I
needed, and it was more than enough.
He said, “It is finished.”
329
What can I say about what comes next? About the long
obedience to follow and the self-perpetuating creativity of
God?
Only this: it ends as it began. The Revelation is Genesis.
The God of Hope did not abandon the world, and the
Christ who suffered did not then become a marauder. The
Spirit that raised him from the dead raised us also, and had I
known to look for it, I would have realized my resurrection
began long before the construction of that first carapace. Life
now is life as it was always meant to be.
But it could have been sooner.
330
331
332
APPENDICES
333
334
TIMELINE
2016 CE − June Paul is born
2024 CE − Rowan Scott murders Joon Pol, Sr.
2025 CE − New Palestine Colony founded
2031 CE − 1st timestream
2036 CE − Scott makes alliance with Anglo-Israelis
2038 CE − Scott wins Nobel Peace Prize
2048 CE − 2nd timestream
2061 CE − 3rd timestream
2061 CE – the end of the Common Era (0 ACE)
2062 CE − The War is declared (1 ACE)
2071 CE − Magog Offensive (10 ACE)
2075 CE − ceasefire, world government established (14 ACE)
2077 CE − Gilead founded near Geneva, Switzerland (16 ACE)
2092 CE − first carapace prototype (31 ACE)
2099 CE − June Paul first uploads to the City Servers (38 ACE)
3011 CE − formation of the Expeditionary Privateers (50 ACE)
3050 CE − mass adoption of carapatic technology (89 ACE)
3062 CE − Masheet wakes up in Gilead, march on City Hall (1001 ACE)
3140 CE − Gilead destroyed (1079 ACE)
3631 CE − Masheet confronts June Paul in the hills (1570 ACE)
335
336
Discussion Guide
Written and prepared by
Chris Iott and Amy Gafkjen
337
338
contents
PART ONE: THE LIMITS OF HUMAN AGENCY
PART TWO: THE MISIDENTIFICATION OF JUSTICE
PART THREE: THE REQUIREMENT UPON A
SUFFERING WITNESS
339
1
human agency
introduction
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN AGENCY
The Revelation of June Paul begins in a world
populated solely by Christians, governed by
Christians, in accordance with Christian principles
and named with Christian nouns.
Why doesn’t June Paul like it?
Why is he dissatisfied?
Why doesn’t he think this “Christian world” is
particularly Christian or good or desirable?
Why is this “heaven” – the city of God – considered
a parody of the actual heaven that appears at the
end of the story?
340
Discussion
We believe that part of our role is to cooperate
with God to heal the world.
But how “Christian” can our society actually
become?
Is it possible that our good intentions as
Christians actually short-circuit God’s work
to redeem the world?
341
1
human agency
an imperfect witness
I held tightly to the hands of my oldest two
children while my wife carried our youngest in her
arms. While on our way to dinner during a visit
to Toronto, we were attempting to bulldoze our way
through a sea of humanity during an electronic
music festival at Yonge-Dundas Square.
Street performers rubbed shoulders with people
who were doing drugs, who were stepping around
disabled panhandlers and dodging people peddling
religion of almost every variety. The crowd was
thick. One man caught the eye-–or, more accurately,
the ear--of my oldest child. He stood on a ladder,
wore an “Oprah didn’t die for your sins” T-shirt
342
“I was confused,” my daughter, 11, said a few
hours later. “It sounded like he was saying nice
things about Jesus. But it also seemed like he was
crazy.”
I gave her
observations.
brief
responses
to
both
of
her
“He was,” I said. “And he is.”
A message about a perfect God is easily and almost
always distorted by imperfect people.
343
evangelism
and shouted Jesus-ish-type things into a bullhorn
(with a focus on immediate repentance).
A
1
human agency
DISCUSS
The Bible asks us to give witness to Christ. “Go
therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19) But how
can imperfect people get out of their own way when
trying to spread the word about a perfect God?
Christian churches have (or at least clearly should
have) the same ultimate focus: Christ. “But seek
first his kingdom and his righteousness.” (Matthew
6:33)
But
different
churches
and
different
denominations often have very different beliefs
and traditions. When we get lost in the details and
the differences, are we elevating our own brand of
Christianity instead of elevating Jesus? Where do
we see this happening with Hasan and the people of
New Palestine?
Since church leaders are flawed, imperfect human
beings, can church leadership always be trusted
to make good decisions? Consider the Prosecutor’s
decision regarding Grace Paul and Rowan Scott.
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The Bible makes reference to the church being “the
bride of Christ.” (see Ephesians 5:25, for example)
But the church is not Christ. Are we guilty of
elevating the bride at the expense of the groom?
What should people reasonably expect when they come
to church? What does most every church get right?
What do most churches get wrong? What does New
Palestine get right or wrong?
What about Christian pre-schools, high schools and
colleges? How “Christian” can we expect them to be?
How much personal and societal transformation can
we expect as a result of our participation in these
institutions?
345
evangelism
Is it possible that by inviting people to church
instead of inviting them to Jesus we, as Christians,
have overlooked our own imperfections? By doing so,
have we claimed that the church – not Jesus – is,
can be or should be the savior of society? Do we see
this happening in the story as we are introduced
to June Paul’s “Heaven”? “We wait in hope for the
Lord; he is our help and our shield.” (Psalm 33:20)
A
1
human agency
an imperfect witness ??
The street-corner preacher with the bullhorn
thought he was doing the right thing, of course.
So did my boss (during a part-time job in high
school), who tried to save me every day while I
tried to do my work. So did the Prosecutor in the
story. Christians are imperfect people trying to
share a perfect message. They are going to botch it
with some regularity.
But there are more positive, powerful ways to
spread the message than with a bullhorn or by being
a bully.
A successful business owner that my wife once
worked for was a perfect example. He and his family
simply showed the love of Jesus through their
actions every day. They made everyone they met feel
important. People were drawn to them and inspired
by them. Eventually those people would ask them
about their faith, which they openly shared.
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notes
evangelism
347
A
1
human agency
an imperfect government
Imagine for a moment that you could pick a
Christian to be Head of State. Who would you choose?
Pat Robertson? Joel Osteen? The Pope? The nice lady
who sits in the front row at your church? Your
pastor? You?
Now imagine that that person had a government full
of like-minded Christians to work with. Legislation
that lined up with the Bible would cruise through
the process and into law. Laws that did not line up
with the teachings of Jesus would be stricken from
the books.
What would our country be like?
Many Christians dream of a country where there
would be no legal abortions. Some would push
federal legislation banning gay marriage and making
marijuana – both medicinal and recreational –
illegal for good. Others would ban guns.
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Who gets to decide
Christian politic?
what
349
it
means
to
have
a
government
Think about living in a country with laws that
were more “Christian” than they are today—living
in a place like New Palestine. How would such
a country be different? How would it remain the
same? How “Christian” can we make our world through
government? Through legislation? Moreover, who
would arbitrate between Christians who disagree?
Who would decide authoritatively on the differing
interpretations of key scriptures issues?
B
DISCUSS
1
human agency
What would happen if Christians ran the world?
Would it look like June Paul’s “heaven”?
Can rules enacted by government create a more
truly Christian nation? Can they help in the
transformation of the world? If so, to what extent
or degree?
If a political candidate exuded Christian qualities
in every way, would Christians be confused? Would
they look to the highest government official instead
of Christ for their present-day salvation?
If laws and politicians reinforced and encouraged
a New Testament lifestyle, would that make our
country “Christian”? Does the world Machite wakes
350
up to in the hospital feel like a “Christian”
world? Why or why not? To what extent?
351
government
What is the Christian dream for our nation? Would
the fulfillment of that dream lead to heaven on
earth? Or would it always remain a parody?
B
1
human agency
an imperfect government ??
The world we live in is far from perfect. A government
of Christians could only, at best, make it slightly
better. We are imperfect people. Putting imperfect
people in charge of other imperfect people would not
make for heaven on earth. It would make for a world
that closely resembles the one we live in right now.
352
notes
government
353
B
1
human agency
an imperfect culture
My uncle is a Bible-toting, hymn-loving Baptist
who has never heard one song by the band Cage the
Elephant. I know that. I don’t even need to ask.
But if he knew that a song by that band – or Cake
or Audioslave – was played during a service at the
church I attend, well, there wouldn’t be enough
time in eternity for him to pray for the souls of
every member of my church.
Creativity is cool. There is nothing wrong with
pushing forward to make the message of Jesus more
culturally relevant. Times change.
It is not necessarily a bad thing when Christians
and popular culture mix. Sure, it sometimes goes
horribly wrong. (The “Left Behind” movies or actor
Stephen Baldwin.) But sometimes it goes very well.
(“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2
and “Roll Away Your Stone” by Mumford and Sons.)
354
None of it comes close to replacing or even
accurately representing Jesus. (“But seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things
will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33)
355
culture
But are those pushing forward with a new Christian
culture in today’s churches making it cool to follow
Christ or simply trying to be cool themselves?
C
1
human agency
DISCUSS
Can we beat society at its own game through
excellent Christian music, television shows and
movies? Can we “out-cool” the world for Christ?
(“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God’s will is -- his good, pleasing
and perfect will.” Romans 12:2)
Does a transformation of the culture result in a
transformation of the people in that culture? Are
the people in Machite’s world really any different,
or do they simply live by a different set of rules?
If we could successfully and seamlessly insert the
message of Jesus into the culture, what would we
gain? What are the limits of our redemptive work
in culture?
356
It is important for the church to speak the language
of the common culture. We are to be translators of
the gospel to a world caught without it. But once
the gospel has been parsed into the common language
of the people, what can we reasonably expect from
it? Do we have to be hip and cool and savvy to be
effective?
357
culture
Culture creators in the church – those who have
creatively repackaged Christian thoughts and
teachings into the 21st century – are popular these
days. But what can Christians truly hope they will
accomplish? What are our expectations for societal
transformation through culture? Where are we
placing our hope?
C
1
human agency
an imperfect culture ??
My uncle is not cool. He makes no illusions that
he is. He has, at least in my opinion, awful taste
in music. But my uncle has at least one thing
right. When he worships, his focus is solely on
Jesus. That’s absolutely where our focus should be,
whether our own favorite song is “Rock of Ages” or
“Like a Stone.”
358
notes
culture
359
C
2
human justice
introduction
the misidentification
of justice
The ‘man with no name’ wrestles against the thin
veneer of goodness he sees in Christian society.
His skepticism is well-intentioned, but the means
he employs to expose fraud become a bigger problem
than the fraud itself. While seeking to uncover
evil, he is contaminated by it, becoming the
greatest evil ever known.
360
Discussion
We often mistake revenge and punishment
for justice.
In Scripture, justice refers to the wellordered peace of God available only through
his grace.
361
2
human justice
well-ordered peace
Is God a fan of “Seinfeld?” That’s a tough one.
But God might be a fan of the plot line in the pilot
episode of the show-within-the-show “Jerry,” which
Jerry and George wrote during the sitcom’s lengthy
run on television.
In that episode, Jerry and a man get in an accident
in which Jerry’s car is totaled. The other driver
cannot afford to pay Jerry for the damages, so the
judge decrees that the man become Jerry’s butler.
It goes against every idea we have of justice,
which is what makes it funny.
But perhaps we shouldn’t laugh too quickly. Our
notions of justice typically focus on either revenge
or punishment. “The murderer will be in jail for
the rest of his life, so justice was done.” “At
least the drunk driver died in the accident, too.”
In scripture, however, justice refers to the wellordered peace of God. Its focus is on wholeness,
on interconnected harmony, characterized by the
Jewish word “shalom.”
362
God’s justice is about setting things right. It’s
restorative, not retributive.
Of course, a better example of restorative justice
in the TV show would have been if the judge had
forced the other driver to fix Jerry’s car, but you
get the idea.
363
restoration & retribution
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,
you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—
mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the
more important matters of the law—justice, mercy
and faithfulness. You should have practiced the
latter, without neglecting the former.
MATTHEW 23:23
A
DISCUSS
2
human justice
How would you describe God’s well-ordered, just
world? Does New Palestine come close to it? Or
Gilead?
How is restorative justice more in line with God’s
word than retributive justice? (“Learn to do right!
Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the
cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the
widow.” Isaiah 1:17) Where do we see each variety
of justice in the story?
When was a time when you felt like your world--your
family, your workplace, etc--was most just?
What do you think it would take for you to
experience God’s style of justice? What are the
greatest obstacles to the freedom and peace that
come with it? What are the obstacles to God’s style
of justice in the case of Rowan Scott? When does
it go wrong?
How does God want you to bring his restorative
justice into your world?
364
How important is it that we understand the biblical
foundations for what we do? (“And all peoples on
earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:3)
How important is it that we invite the Holy Spirit
to change us while we do it? That we elevate the
name of Jesus when we do good things?
365
restoration & retribution
How do we ensure that our just actions are specifically
Christ-centered and not simply charitable? What’s
the difference between being nice to someone and
cooperating with the Spirit of God to cultivate his
vision of society?
A
2
human justice
peace, love, and understanding
Don’t like “Seinfeld?” Fair enough. Take a look
at an episode from the first season of the Bible. We
tend to think of the story of Noah and the flood in
Genesis as God’s punishment for the wickedness of
those on earth. But God’s purpose was true justice,
on restoring the world to optimal conditions, to
cleanse away the sin of the world.
We need to make sure we focus on the same type
of justice. Our efforts to “make the world just”
must be tempered with love, mercy, restoration and
kindness.
366
notes
restoration & retribution
367
A
2
human justice
exclusion//embrace
The topic of the sermon was “How to tell if
you are in the wrong church while on vacation.”
Or something like that. It seemed odd to me. If
you’re on vacation and you find yourself in the
wrong church, you don’t have time to correct it. I
mean, not unless you take longer vacations than I
do. I’m usually home by next Sunday.
I digress.
My wife and I were looking for a new church to
attend when we stumbled into this sermon on our
first visit to a nearby church. The first item on
the agenda about how to know you are in the wrong
church was clear-cut: If the church used musical
instruments in its worship, well, head for the
door.
368
Don’t want to use instruments? Insist on using
instruments? Either way, you’re cool by me.
Don’t love
problems.
Jesus?
Well,
369
then
we’ve
got
some
correction & exclusion
Now, this is not meant to judge that particular
type of church, but I believe we should focus on
the big picture – Jesus – and not seek out ways
to divide ourselves. The Bible does call for us
to hold each other to a high standard, to support
each other in our struggles and help gently correct
those close to us who are on the wrong path. But,
we sometimes get so caught up in what is wrong in
other churches that we cannot remember what is
right. We should not hate or judge each other over
theological debates or distinctions or differences
in worship styles.
B
DISCUSS
2
human justice
What are boundary markers given to us by scripture
that determine what/who is Christian? (“By this all
men will know that you are my disciples, if you
love one another.” John 13:35)
What are the hallmarks of Christian life?
How imperfect is someone allowed to be as a
Christian? Who gets to judge? (“There is only one
Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save
and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your
neighbor?” James 4:12)
Has there ever been a time in your life where
your faith was judged? Have you judged the faith
of others in a similar manner? (“Therefore let
us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead,
make up your mind not to put any stumbling block
or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.”
Romans 14:13)
370
When does it feel like society turns from seeking
Jesus to judging others in the story? Is it when
Hasan becomes Prosecutor? When the people of Gilead
frown on Machite’s desire to eat meat?
371
correction & exclusion
What is the appropriate response when we realize we
have judged someone?
B
2
human justice
inclusion//grace
The other half of the message during our visit to
the church was to make sure visitors feel welcome.
Everyone started scanning the place for unfamiliar
faces. From what I could see, my wife and I made
two. Once service ended, we couldn’t get to the
door quickly enough.
The church was certainly full of good Christian
people, but we were terrified they would learn we
liked instruments.
We shouldn’t judge those who go to other churches
based on minor details. We shouldn’t make dealbreaking mountains out of theological molehills.
It takes the focus off of Christ and puts it on
imperfect people having silly arguments.
372
notes
correction & exclusion
373
B
2
human justice
self-deceit
I never ran away from home when I was kid. I never
even packed my bags and threatened to, if I remember
correctly. But I distinctly remember getting so
upset with my mom once that I locked myself in the
bathroom and swore I would never come out.
As you can imagine--in the days before the iPad
and the Nintendo DS--my new home got old rather
quickly. Eventually, I calmed down, left the
bathroom and went downstairs to seek peace with
my mom. I don’t know who was wrong in the original
incident, but I simply hoped for some grace and a
friendly resolution to our conflict.
Instead, she greeted my return to the family with
harsh words.
“I see you finally decided to quit pouting,” she
said.
374
Don’t get me wrong: My mom was excellent. But she
wasn’t perfect. None of us are. We all have blind
spots, as fathers and mothers, sons and daughters
and as Christians. We sometimes handle things
poorly or don’t do the right thing even while we
think we are acting properly.
375
blindness & deceit
In my mind, her response was worse than the conflict
itself. Her response to me following the incident
remains in my memory to this day even though the
incident that led to it escaped my memory years
ago.
C
DISCUSS
2
human justice
What happens when you think you are right but you
are wrong? How will you know when you are wrong?
How does June Paul check his sense of right and
wrong?
Who are the people in your life who you can trust
to see your blind spots? Who are the people who
will expose your blind spots and help you see what
God is trying to do in you and through you and
around you and point out that you are screwing it
up? (“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught
in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore
that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you
also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens,
and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Galatians 6:1-2)
Think about June Paul’s relationship with Serif. Do
you have any relationships like theirs? Who can see
through you? To whom have you given permission to
help keep you on track? Who has given you permission
376
to do the same? How have you cultivated those
relationships?
How will you ensure that your interpretation of
scripture is accurate? How will you test it?
377
blindness & deceit
What role does scripture play in helping you expose
those blind spots to yourself?
C
2
human justice
self-awareness
I recently relayed the story about locking myself
in the bathroom to my 11-year-old daughter. I told
her that her grandma was an excellent parent who
did her best, but, at times, fell a bit short.
I told my daughter I wasn’t perfect (despite the
claims I make in jest with some regularity).
I told her I don’t know exactly what I have done
wrong that has scarred her or what I will do in the
future that she will remember for years to come.
I told her I hope she will eventually forgive me
for those incidents because they are certain to
take place.
Eliminating all of our blind spots is impossible.
We are ignorant to what those blind spots are. But
we should do what we can to seek out and destroy as
many of them as possible.
378
notes
blindness & deceit
379
C
3
suffering witness
introduction
the requirements upon a
suffering witness
The Elders in “The Revelation of June Paul” tried
to create the kingdom of God through governmental,
societal and social means. June Paul rejects their
approach but ironically falls into the same trap.
He tries to make God’s world just by killing Rowan
Scott through Hasan. The variables may be different,
but the intent is the same.
Only in the end does June come to realize that
God is calling him to give his life, a testimony
written in blood. June’s faith is not strong enough
to hold out for the promise of resurrection, but he
receives it anyway, because it is God’s goodness—
not June Paul’s faith—that guarantees hope for the
future.
380
Discussion
As N.T. Wright famously said, Jesus
didn’t redeem us from suffering, but through
suffering.
Like Christ, we are called to testify to the
redemptive plans and purposes of God even
though it may cost us our very lives.
381
3
suffering witness
victorious defeat
The best Christian I have ever known is a middleaged woman named Lynn who will do anything for
anybody. She genuinely cares for people. My mom
always said she had a lifeline to God. “If you
need a prayer answered,” she would say, “just tell
Lynn.” Those who know Lynn are drawn closer to
Jesus.
One of the most annoying Christians I have
ever known was a guy named Mike who pestered his
coworkers about Jesus every day. His mission was
to save everyone who crossed his path by beating
them over the head with the Bible. As a result, he
382
Jesus won by losing. He defeated death for all of
us by willingly dying on the cross.
Our model for victory is self-sacrifice,
not domination
—-Lynn, not Mike.
383
victory through defeat
pushed people away from Jesus.
A
DISCUSS
3
suffering witness
Has there ever been a time in your life where
you tried too hard? Do you see this posture of
domination in any of the characters in the story?
Can you see in yourself the desire to control
others, to dominate conversations, to make sure
things go according to your plans?
What does it look like for you to willingly submit
to the Spirit of God? How have you let go of your
own dreams, plans and ideas, trusting God to lead
you to dream something better? When do we see this
submission happen in June Paul?
Why do so many of us believe the book of Revelation
is victory through strength of arms? Jesus has
already won the decisive victory on the cross and
he will continue to win like that until the end
(“Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for
many.” Matthew 20:28).
384
How do the tactics of the Prosecutor and the people
of Gilead miss the mark? How might their worlds be
different had they submitted to the Spirit of God?
385
victory through defeat
Why is it so hard for us to imagine that the means
of salvation in the gospels will be the same means
of salvation at the end of history?
Why do so many of us try to use our faith for
political influence and cultural control when Jesus
did neither?
A
3
suffering witness
you can lose even when you win
Whose tactics -- Lynn’s or Mike’s -- are more
effective?
That’s pretty obvious, right?
Mike certainly makes his point with an overbearing
barrage of talk about Jesus. Lynn makes hers, too,
in much the same way as Christ.
386
notes
victory through defeat
387
A
3
suffering witness
the last book of the bible
in context
Years ago, three coworkers and I were in the
car on the way to a conference for work. Somehow,
the topic of conversation suddenly turned to the
identity of Jesus.
“He obviously did great things,” one of my
coworkers said. “But I’m not sure that I can buy
the fact that he was actually the Son of God.”
It was the perfect opportunity for me to share my
thoughts on the topic.
The book of Revelation is prison literature
written to Christians who were being persecuted by
the Roman Empire. It was a reminder for them that
their ultimate hope was not good treatment at the
hands of a kind enemy, but glorious resurrection at
the hands of a just God.
“Witness” and “martyr” come from the same Greek
word, “martureo.” A witness gives testimony; a
martyr gives testimony resulting in death.
388
Those of us who live where we can speak freely
about our beliefs are lucky. There was no chance
that I would be martyred by one of my coworkers
that day.
389
context through interpretation
Even in western democracies, where we can freely
share the story of Jesus, such witness still comes
with a cost. It could lead to the end of a romantic
relationship, a friendship, or a job. In other
parts of the world, it could lead to death.
B
DISCUSS
3
suffering witness
When has it ever cost you something--social
standing, a friendship, a job--to testify about
the goodness of God?
When have you paid a price? What are the little
martyrdoms you’ve had to experience? When does
anyone pay a price in the story?
If the book of Revelation is primarily written to
encourage martyrs and those who suffer, why do so
many Christians today choose to interpret it as a
book of military conquest? How does the first “end
of the world” that ushers in the City of God where
June Paul lives differ from the actual end of the
world at the end of the story?
390
Who are some modern-day martyrs that you know?
Who are some historic martyrs?
Who in your life best exemplifies Christian witness?
What are they like? How could you be more like
them?
Where do you feel like God is calling you to be
a witness? How is he cultivating you to do more
witnessing?
391
context through interpretation
The only weapon in the book of Revelation from the
army of God is the sword that comes from the mouth
of Christ (see Revelation 19.15). It is a symbol of
piercing, dividing, wisdom and judgment. Yet many
feel uncomfortable with a Jesus like that. Some
prefer the image—however unbiblical—of a violent
conquering God. Why do so many of us take the sword
out of Christ’s mouth and put it in his hand? When
do we see this kind of shift happen in the story?
B
3
suffering witness
blah blah future blah
My response with my coworkers that day was an
epic fail. I simply let the conversation die. I
could make excuses. I’m naturally shy and allergic
to conflict and uncomfortable situations. The topic
came up and I wasn’t prepared for it. We were on
the clock and I didn’t think it was appropriate at
the time.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
There is no point in dwelling on the past. There is
a point in making sure I handle similar situations
better in the future.
392
notes
context through interpretation
393
B
3
suffering witness
reform? replacement?
My oldest daughter, not yet a teenager, is a rule
follower. She hates swear words. A friend of hers
once spelled out a bad word on our refrigerator,
and my daughter brushed the letter magnets onto the
floor with one arm while blocking her own eyes with
the other one.
Someone called her a vulgar name recently and it
really upset her. While discussing it, she told me
she wanted to write out all the bad words she knew
on a piece of paper and show me. For some reason,
it made her feel better to let me know which words
she had heard.
Of course, she has been taught that being a better
person and doing what she can to make the world a
better place is important. But it is not her hope.
Her hope is that—in the same way God brought Jesus
Christ through death and into new life—God will
bring new life to her each day.
394
The death rate is 1:1.
Death will come soon enough.
Those who put hope in Jesus get the point. Those
who are in a hurry for “the rapture” do not.
395
reform through resurrection
That’s not to say she shouldn’t care about what
happens in this lifetime or in this place.
C
3
suffering witness
DISCUSS
What’s the difference between making all new things
and all things new? (“He who was seated on the
throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then
he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are
trustworthy and true.’ ” Revelation 21:5)
Why do some people find the notion of ‘going to
heaven after you die’ more appealing than ‘God
coming down to the earth and re-making it?’ Can you
think of any Scriptures that seem to clarify the
one concept versus the other?
Have you ever experienced a form of resurrection in
your life? Have you ever felt God supernaturally
gave you new energy when you had run out?
Why does the everlasting life of June
carapaces feel empty? What is it missing?
396
Paul’s
What feels different about Hasan’s
resurrection and June Paul’s? Why?
death
and
397
reform through resurrection
Did you ever feel like something was dead--a dream,
a hope, an ambition--but God breathed new life
into it? (“He is our father in the sight of God,
in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the
dead and calls into being things that were not.”
Romans 4:17)
C
3
suffering witness
resurrection
Our ultimate hope is not in reform but in
resurrection. We should try to make the world
around us a better place, to be examples of Jesus
for others to see. But we’re not trying to fix
things so they get better and better until they-or we--are perfect. We are to do our best and trust
that Christ has already made up the difference.
In other words, my daughter’s goal in life is to
never say a bad word, but she will. Her real hope
doesn’t lie in perfection, but in forgiveness.
As does mine.
398
notes
reform through resurrection
399
C
3
suffering witness
the backwards god
Some poker players tend to tighten up their play
while on the bubble, the portion of a tournament
when the next player who is eliminated will not
win money and everyone who survives the “bubble
bursting” will take home some cash. Those who do so
play fewer hands. They try to fold their way to the
money. They try to take the safe route to winning
something rather than maximizing their chances of
finishing first. The tactic can take its toll in
missed opportunities and can result in more loss
than gain.
During the 2003 World Series of Poker, professional
poker player Amir Vahedi summed up the folly of
that approach with words that have been repeated by
poker players ever since:
“In order to live, you must be willing to die.”
Which, of course, brings us to the Bible.
The Bible is full of paradoxes, seemingly
contradictory statements that, upon further review,
turn out to be true.
400
“Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it,
and whoever loses their life will preserve it.”
(Luke 17:33)
“Very truly
falls to the
single seed.
seeds.” (John
I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat
ground and dies, it remains only a
But if it dies, it produces many
12:24)
“For when I am weak,
Corinthians 12:10)
then
I
am
strong.”
(2
We have a tendency to struggle between the power of
this world (sometimes referred to as “right-handed
power”), which is typified by control, coercion and
domination, and “left-handed power,” or paradox.
Being weak to be strong. Dying to produce life.
Surrendering to experience victory.
Jesus used left-handed power. So should we.
401
kingdom through paradox
“So the last will be first, and the first will be
last.” (Matthew 20:16)
C
DISCUSS
3
suffering witness
How do you know when and how to use left-handed
power?
Who do you know who best typifies that left-handed
power?
402
Where do we see a paradox like this in the story?
What scriptures can you keep in mind to help
remind you of these paradoxes?
403
kingdom through paradox
Who do you have in your life who best exemplifies
the spirit of Jesus. What can you learn from that
person?
D
3
suffering witness
left-handed power
Even though we recognize the left-handed power of
Christ, we are often tempted to use right-handed
power for Christian-purposes. For example, we
try and legislate morality and set limits within
society for acceptable content, conversation, and
behavior.
Arguably, some of that is healthy and even
beneficial (after all, what would society be without
law), but we ought to be cautious, lest it turn
into the falsely perfect Gilead of this story.
Our lust for power is often masked by good
intentions and we must be ruthless in our refusal
to use the wrong means in favor of the right ends.
404
notes
kingdom through paradox
405
D
406
407
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks:
To Ken Brewer, for being a sounding board and helping me
with the last book of the Bible.
To Paul Patton, for believing in my abilities as an actor and
a visionary. The moment you told me I was Van Helsing
changed everything.
To the credible commentators on the last book in the Bible:
Eugene Peterson, Gordon Fee, Allan Boesak, Darrell
Johnson, Tom Wright, Adela Yarbro Collins, Jaques Ellul,
Wilfrid Harrington, Michael Gorman, Craig Koester, and
Richard Bauckham. May your work be more greatly prized
in the future.
Jvo, as always, for being a ceaseless supporter of ambitious
ideas and creative pursuits.
Special thanks to my beta-readers:
Matt ‘The Beard’ Dewell, for hosting a book club that
everyone skipped during a reading of this novel.
Ethan Frew, for reading and loving an early draft. I wrote
Serif in at the end just for you, boy-o.
Eric Kelly, for celebrating fathers who make things up.
408
Heather Glidden, for reminding me that even immortals need
to feel threatened.
Emma Clark, for a critique that was charmingly intolerant.
Tanya and Helena MacLean, for meeting at Biggby and
comparing this book to movies I love.
Jack Baker, for reading the ramblings of a stranger and not
lying about the bad parts.
Chris Iott, for your willingness to read something that made
us both feel dumb.
Lori Tsutsui, for teaching me time travel.
Mark Luehmann, for catching our typos long after we
thought we had eliminated them all.
Bethany Monaghan, for reminding me to explain about the
devil.
Extra special thanks to our crew:
Mike ‘Champ Stamp’ Cole, for coordinating a great gang of
people to help out with a tremendous project.
Corey ‘can’t use a Blackberry’ Elder, for being a faithful
friend, construction wiz, and good-natured partner in gentle
mockery.
Brandon McCarrell, for your exceptional work in film.
409
Drew Schultz, for your commitment to lightning the live
performance like it was Broadway.
Tish Holbrook, for first-class design, composition, and
layout…you must make Chainsaw very happy.
Vicki Arcaro, for being willing to help move, set up, tear
down, and otherwise avail yourself for our video needs
Scott Hoel, for managing our social media presence.
Rachel Buchanan, for saying ‘yes’ when we asked for
another favor.
Heidi Rhodes, for killing it with the artwork…amazing!
Randy Sottovia, for being willing to ‘sketch out something
quickly’ which—of course—turned into a monumental
undertaking of which we are all very proud.
Jeff Stutzman, for risking a foray into digital music creation.
Rick Rangler, for coming up with the concept for the pastor’s
packet and then making it happen. And for the maps—well
done!
Lori Malek, for your tireless commitment to bringing people
together in service to Christ and his church.
Jeremy Norwood, for your relentless passion to help those in
need.
Nate Evans, for co-crafting our motion scenes and bumpers
(the first ever in a Westwinds gig!)
410
Andy and Kathy Ladwig, for keeping me organized and
making sure this project ended in black ink.
Sid Gafkjen, for editing video only because you love Jesus
and not at all because you like using Final Cut.
Jenn Shafer, for being eager to play as many roles as
necessary to get a great radio recording finished and printed.
Norma Racey, for going out with a bang!
No one deserves more thanks…
than Amy Gafkjen and Mel Evans, my two industrious peers.
You both shouldered a tremendous burden during the five
months of this production, and I’m thankful neither of you
tried to poison, stab, or otherwise murder me in the process.
Thanks, too, to your husbands and families for loaning you
out to a much larger vision than I could have accomplished
alone.
And, last but never least, a super-lightning thank you
to:
Carmel, for keeping our house full of love.
Jake and Anna, your daddy nearly became a Chernobly while
writing this ridiculous story. Thank you for allowing me to
come above ground now that it is finished.
411
CORPORATE SPONSORS
Nothing of significance gets done without significant
backing. Though they have been thanked often in other
places, I would like to express my gratitude to the following
companies for their contribution to the live storytelling
experience of The Revelation of June Paul.
Aladdin Electrical (aladdinjackson.com)
Aladdin is Southern Michigan’s premier
commercial and industrial contractor for
electrical, plumbing and HVAC services. We
handle everything from minor repairs to new
construction, from emergencies to industrial
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Aladdin began in 1975 as an industrial electrical
contractor, and full-service electrical contracting
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of our mechanical division in 2010 allows
Aladdin to offer domestic plumbing, industrial
pipefitting, and certified welding, as well as
heating, cooling and ventilation services. Since
our creation, Aladdin has grown and evolved to
suit our consumers’ needs, a trend that we will
uphold in the years ahead.
412
Recovery Technology (recoverytechnology.org)
Solutions 2 Wellbeing is your local Nurtured
Heart Approach (NHA) headquarters helping
parents and educators find the greatness in all
children. Solutions 2 Wellbeing is also here to
help you and your loved ones overcome the
obstacles in life that are keeping your from
realizing your greatness potential and personal
well-being. We are here to help you find your
happiness, health and prosperity so that you can
enjoy life to its fullest.
Playford Music (www.playfordmusic.com)
Playford Music & Sound has been serving
area musicians since 1976. We are happy to
provide personal “small town” type service for
our musical patrons. We provide fair, honest
everyday discount prices on quality musical
merchandise. Playford Music & Sound provides
design and facilitates installation of sound
systems in church sanctuaries, multi-purpose
rooms, school gymnasiums, and athletic/football
fields and facilities. Do your sound correctly
the first time, and have experienced technical
support to train and assist your tech crew.
Playford Music has been hitting the right notes
since 1976.
413
It is finished.