FEAR AND DESIRE propelled Skyler forward through the malleable void. Desire to find Ana, or Tania, or anyone. A familiar face, a real face. Then a way out.
Eve. Of course it would be that. The name hung in his mind like a black hole, daring him to move toward its inescapable grasp.
His whole body began to shake. Then the bubble of white that was his world shattered and collapsed around him. He fell forward on his hands to a cold floor, hard as stone.
He found himself alone in a dark circular room. The bubble had been perched on a raised dais in the center, and there was an exit directly in front of him. He paused only long enough to bring his breathing under control. Quietly he stepped through into a hallway and glanced left. The passage extended forty meters or so, ending at a T intersection. He walked that way, the female voice ringing in his mind like a church bell with every step. You are suitable.…
At the first portal he slowed, held his breath, and leaned in to look.
A dome rested on a dais in the center of the space, two meters high and wide, made of pearlescent white tinged blue at the edges. He thought of breaking it, or stepping into it, and thought better of the idea. He continued down the hall, instead, and found more identical rooms.
Save for one, near the end, with no white dome. The dais was empty, like the one Skyler had left. Ana?
He swallowed, continued to the T intersection at the end. A soft yellowish light lit the walls from one direction.
He expected a long hall with a gentle upward curve.
Instead he saw a moderately large room, hexagonal in shape. The far wall was clear, revealing a stunning view of Earth and space. The room reminded Skyler of the one where he’d encountered Neil Platz.
Ten seats dotted the floor of the room, facing one another in a rough oval. Not red couches like Platz had, but simple platforms with low backs that seemed grown out of the surrounding floor.
Two were occupied.
Prumble sat in one, relaxed. Almost jovial, as if this were just another meeting at Clarke’s. He was talking in a low voice, his fingers drumming on his knees like they did when he was spinning a whopper of a story.
In the other occupied chair, across from Prumble, sat a girl. Twelve or thirteen years old, Skyler guessed. Light brown hair that fell in long wavy locks over her shoulders and down to her waist. She was perched on the edge of her seat, leaning forward and listening intently as Prumble spoke to her in a low, casual voice. Her hands were folded in her lap, her legs crossed. A graceful pose, sincere and very adult. She wore a white dress that Skyler thought looked familiar.
Her face was at once exotic and yet bizarrely familiar, like seeing a distant, long-lost relative after decades apart.
Skyler stepped into the room and withered under her gaze when she noticed him. There was no mistaking the resemblance. Part of him was in that face.
Prumble turned and grinned broadly. “There’s our man now!” He stood with an effort and met Skyler near the entrance, hauling him into a hearty embrace. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”
“Uh, likewise,” Skyler managed. “Sorry, I’m a little … out of sorts.”
“Come sit with us! This is—”
“Eve,” Skyler said.
Prumble’s gaze swung between the two of them, then settled on her. “I thought you only had a title?”
The possibility that Skyler’s earlier discussion had been a dream suddenly dawned, then vanished when the girl nodded.
“Eve,” she replied. “I found my name, just a moment ago.”
“Oh,” Prumble said. “Excellent choice. Much better than Emissary, if you want my opinion.”
“Thank you. I agree.”
“Emissary?” Skyler asked, baffled.
The girl nodded again, and smiled.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Skyler said.
Prumble spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Roll with it, my friend.” He turned toward the girl. “Do that thing you did a minute ago. You know, the—”
Eve vanished. A ghosted afterimage remained, like a frozen projection of light onto some impossibly fragile lattice. This vanished, too, a second later.
Too stunned to move on his own, Skyler allowed Prumble to guide him to a chair. “She’s not real?”
“Amazing, isn’t it? Some kind of hologram, although it has a physical aspect.”
“Please,” Eve’s haunting voice said from all around them, “sit. Another is waking, I must attend.”
The urge to argue, to demand answers immediately, rose and then bled out of Skyler with the realization that time to think would be welcome. He scanned the empty chairs and took the one next to Prumble.
The big man threw an arm over Skyler’s shoulder as soon as they were seated, fingers gripping tight. It should have been painful, given everything Skyler had been through. Yet it wasn’t. He wasn’t sore. He wasn’t tired, or hungry, or thirsty. In fact, aside from his state of confusion, he’d never felt better.
Prumble leaned in. “Did you see the room?”
“What room?”
“Oh,” Prumble said, “you’re in for quite a treat. They have a whole world in here, Skyler.”
Skyler ran his hands over his face. Too much was happening at once. He heard a soft pop accompanied by a change in the room’s lighting. When he glanced up, the girl—the projection—had returned.
“Look at her, Skyler,” Prumble said quietly.
He did.
“Can’t you see yourself in her face? Can’t you see me? Tania? Sam, even? We’re all there.”
Eve sat unnaturally motionless, oblivious to the scrutiny or simply expecting it. She smiled warmly when Skyler began to really study her face.
Prumble had it right. They were all there, something from each of them. In the turn of her mouth, Ana. The eyes had Tania’s shape yet all the bright luminosity of Sam’s. Vanessa’s hair. Each time she moved he saw something new.
Motion in the hallway caught Skyler’s eye. He turned and saw three familiar faces. Tania, with Tim next to her, his arm around her waist. Vanessa walked behind them, and when she stepped into the light of the room Skyler let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. None of them appeared to be injured.
He locked his gaze on Tania, watched her expression of relief and joy when she saw him, and then the confusion at the stranger.
Eventually they all looked to Skyler for guidance, and he nodded at the chairs across from him and Prumble, the chairs at Eve’s right hand.
“Pablo?” Skyler asked.
Vanessa’s gaze dropped to the floor like stone. The color drained from Tania’s face.
A far-too-familiar tightness pressed in on Skyler’s gut. Another of his crew gone. An immune, a good man. Will it end now? Do they have their pound of flesh yet?
Vanessa raised her chin. “Later,” she said, “we’ll raise a glass for him.”
Skyler nodded, blinking away the moisture clouding his eyes. He leaned toward Prumble. “What were you and, uh, the Emissary talking about when I came in?”
Prumble smirked. “She had a lot of questions. She … knows, Skyler, things she shouldn’t know. Everything about humanity. And I do mean everything. But it was like she had none of the context to stitch any of it together. She sounded like a computer at first, though that’s almost gone already.”
“How long were you talking to her?”
“Hours,” he said, with noticeable pride. “Heard some crazy things, my friend. Did you know the Elevator wasn’t the first ship they sent?”
The words stung like cold water. “What?” he and Tania said in unison.
“There was some kind of, I don’t know, she called it an exhibit, but I think she’s still figuring out what words mean what. Apparently it explained all this up front, like a map or blueprint or something, but it would seem we destroyed it.”
Skyler considered this. Something Tania had said tugged at his mind. Neil Platz had known. Interesting. Skyler filed that. It was water under a bridge, unimportant now.
There were footsteps in the hall. Skyler turned and saw Skadz. He stood and walked to his old friend, pulling him into a soldier’s embrace that felt as familiar as an old coat.
“Good to see you, Sky.”
“Likewise.”
“What’s … uh …” His gaze went past Skyler. “Am I supposed to believe they just happen to fucking look like us?”
“Do not be alarmed,” Eve stated.
Skyler gripped his friend by the shoulder. “She’s not real, Skadz.”
“I’ll say. I suppose speaking English isn’t real, either?”
Eve tilted her head slightly. “I speak two hundred and thirteen of your languages so far, and more are coming online. This one seemed appropriate, though.”
“Do me a favor,” Skyler said to Skadz in a low voice. “Keep quiet, keep alert, all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Kinda at a loss for words anyway.”
“I don’t blame you. Take a seat; we’ll talk later.”
Samantha came next, with a man Skyler didn’t know. She took in the scene with a quick glance and grunted, unimpressed. She acknowledged Skyler with the briefest of nods and tilted her head to the room beyond. “Are you the girl who’s been talking in my head?”
“Yes,” Eve replied.
“Neat trick. I hope you have a good fucking explanation for all this.”
“I hope so, too.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “How long were we in those freaky healing whatever-the-fuck egg things, anyway?”
Eve tilted her head, her brow furrowed just like Sam’s did. “Sorry. My understanding of time differs from yours.”
“How fucking long?”
A hesitation, again. Then, “Thirteen point six-seven-five fucking minutes have passed in this, well, this context. I think minutes is a scale that is applicable here?”
Prumble erupted into laughter. “Oh, I like you. Oh yes. We’ll get along fine.”
The Emissary smiled at him, then glanced back at Sam.
“Good enough,” Sam said, all the gusto suddenly drained from her voice.
“Not good enough,” Tania said suddenly. She leveled a gaze on Prumble. “I’m sorry, but there is nothing to joke about here. Our planet is a ruin. Our species on the verge of extinction. Billions have died. Billions. And you sit here and laugh?”
“Forgive me,” Prumble said, “but it was pretty funny.”
Tania’s expression flashed to disgust. “I don’t think you understand—”
“Can we let her talk?” Skyler said. He hadn’t intended the words to plunge the room into silence. They did. He ran a hand over his face. “Let’s hear her out first.”
“Thank you,” Eve said. “There’s just one more … ah, here she comes.”
Skyler turned.
Ana stood at the corner of the intersection, one hand resting lightly on the wall.
“Skyler,” she whispered, tears on her cheeks. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Me neither,” he said. “Come sit,” Skyler said. “She’s about to explain.”
* * *
Eve looked at each of them in turn, framed by the view of Earth outside the window behind her.
“For lack of a better term,” she said carefully, “I am an Emissary.”
“For the Builders?” Tim asked.
Eve shook her head. “For this vessel.” Her eyes went up, looked around, implying the ship around them. “And, yes, perhaps for who you imagine the Builders to be, in an indirect way.”
“Skip to the part where you make sense,” Sam said.
If Sam’s tone bothered the girl, she didn’t show it. Eve looked at each of them in turn. “Technically speaking, I am the projected visual representation of a simulated mind.”
“Like a robot,” Skadz said.
“No. More like an artificial intelligence.”
Skadz nodded as if he understood. “Respect.”
“I am activated by this ship whenever we meet a candidate that is suitable.”
Skyler lifted a hand to stay the question poised on all of their faces, the same question he wanted to ask.
“And, in a sense,” Eve went on, “I am all of you, compiled from what you’ve taught me. My visual appearance is an amalgamation of all your features. We find this makes first contact … easier.”
Silence settled over the room. Skyler felt Ana’s hand tighten around his.
“You were each placed into a kind of stasis. Thirteen minutes passed out here, but the flow of time inside your spheres varied depending on your injuries, or simply how much you wanted to teach me.”
“Sorry,” Tania said. “Wanted to teach you?”
Eve nodded, visibly gathered herself. “I suspect your minds interpreted this as dreams. That’s one area where your species is still somewhat primitive.”
“Excuse the fuck out of us,” Sam said.
Skadz leaned forward. “Will you let it talk?”
Sam folded her arms.
“Dreams,” the Emissary went on, “are easily forgotten, but some of you may recall portions. Raising me. Teaching me. As Nigel … Prumble, indicated, I hold copious knowledge but little wisdom. You’ve all helped me understand.”
Skyler glanced at Tania, saw her face flush, her eyes close, as some recollection crossed her face.
“So you’ve been in our heads,” Skyler said. “You know everything that we do.”
Eve turned to face him. She shook her head, her expression almost sad. “Each of you taught me, but in terms of information I have access only to some of Tania’s mind and, to a much lesser extent, Prumble, in that regard.”
Skyler shot a glance at Tania. Her face had gone white and utterly still.
“Why me?” she whispered. “Why not the others?”
Eve’s eyes flickered from side to side, as if searching for words. “Tim and Vaughn were never in contact with the gleaners. And the rest of you are immune—a mystery to us in every sense, I’ll admit. But you, you and Prumble, though in his case only for a few seconds, were exposed to the … the disease known here as SUBS. ‘Disease’ is not quite accurate, though.”
“It is from where we’re sitting,” the man named Vaughn said.
“What would be accurate?” Tania asked, nonplussed. “You said ‘gleaners’ a second ago. It’s an uncommon word.”
“I will share details in time,” Eve said. “Suffice to say, I am able to draw upon the memories, thoughts, and feelings of all those who contracted the disease you call SUBS. The two of you, and approximately nine billion others.”
The words, the number, sent a pall across the room like a curtain drawn. Skyler kept his gaze on Tania’s stony face. Anger, or something like it, simmered just beneath the surface. Gradually it melted.
Tania blinked and spoke very quietly, barely a whisper. “My mother is in there?”
“She is.”
At that Tania’s eyes closed. She sat very still.
Skyler slumped back, the chair morphing to support him. His thoughts turned back to his fall into the aura generator below Nightcliff, how it had felt like all of his memories had been laid out on a table, and yet he could focus on no specific one. Immunity had been a surprise to them, and still was, apparently.
The silence went on a long time before he realized that everyone, save Tania, was looking at him. He met Eve’s gaze and took a long breath before he found the nerve to speak. “What do you want from us, Eve? Why are you here?”
“I represent the race you think of as the Builders. And we need your help.”