Delia Virgil Jordan awoke in the medical bay. Everything seemed dim. Thoughts came slowly to her. Sensations felt duller. She drifted among the loose bed straps as in a dream.
Virgil Delia Jordan awoke a short time later. He looked across the room at her and blinked sleepily. His hair flowed in golden cascades around his neck and shoulders down to his waist. His smooth skin was whiter even than Delia Virgil Jordan’s. Her own hair, black and silky, spread weightlessly away from her naked form.
“From here, our consciousnesses will diverge. Even now, with your shifted perspective of five meters, your mind is receiving different information than mine. We aren’t one anymore.” He smiled. I wonder what I’m feeling like inside her now. It’s not you anymore, though.
“How many tries did it take?” she asked, unbuckling and floating away from the bed.
“Only one,” the computer answered. “The People are quite adept at genetic reconstruction. They recovered a suitable cell of Virgil’s from the disposal tank and set it up for cloning, duplicated the picotechs and RNA, and even threw in a few innovations of their own. I transferred eleven-and-a-half light years out and back, so you are the same age. I thought you might appreciate it.”
Virgil Delia Jordan laughed giddily. “So who’s in control?”
I am, of course. We three.
“I would suspect,” the computer said, “that there might be a Virgil-dominant personality in Virgil’s body and a Delia-dominant personality in Delia’s.”
“No,” the pair replied, almost in unison. “I am one.”
He looked at her. “Virgil, Delia, Jord… Three can go into two evenly.”
She laughed. “I thought the same thing.”
“There’ll be a lot of that going on for a while.”
Virgil D. Jordan climbed out of bed to gaze approvingly at Delia V. Jordan. “Shall we go say hello to the People?”
She returned his gaze with one of inner calm and peace. “I was just about-” she stopped and laughed. “I hope this mental synchrony wears off quickly.”
“It will. You don’t really want it to, though, do you?” So lovely, Delia, so pure and so fresh.
“I know. And I know you know.” Virgil, Jord-untouched by hate, by death, by time.
This is the code, my love, the ultimate code, the final closeness we all searched for.
And none of them suspect. Not the whole truth, anyway. Not Nightsheet, not Master Snoop, not Wizard…
She smiled, her blue eyes misting. “A billion years have passed. We’re all alone in a whole new universe.”
He reached out to touch her hand. “I’ll be with you. Forever.”