FOUR HOURS LATER, when the majority of the colony is asleep and I’m kitted out with another protective coverall, my smart-goggles and freshly cleaned filter mask, I leave the house.
Initially it feels like I’m headed for my secret hollow, only with more fear mixed into the excitement than usual. Now that it’s time to actually plant the seed, I’m more focused on the practicalities of what I need to achieve, rather than the ethics tangled up in it all. I just hope everything goes as smoothly as Mack thinks it should.
I pass the curved tendrils hiding my secret entrance and walk farther around to the back of the city.
We argued when I practiced this climb at his house. It has to be one of the most difficult and inefficient routes to the front entrance, but, as Mack said, it isn’t about efficiency; it’s about not being seen by the people holding the vigil outside the entrance. Climbing over the top from the back of the city means no one will see me as I make my ascent, and once I’m at the top, my descent down the other side will be masked by the lower tendrils and the darkness. Mack showed me various simulations he’d run, proving that, thanks to the angles involved, the route makes it very unlikely that I’ll be seen by either the people on duty or a random passerby who happens to look up at the wrong time. Like he said, he’s been doing this for years. It’s still inefficient as hell though.
God’s city towers above me, directly between me and the colony now, the grasslands at my back. I don’t have any filters or enhancements active on the goggles at the moment, but my eyes have dark-adapted sufficiently during the walk to pick out more details at the base of the tendril I’m standing in front of. I shrug the pack off my back and kneel down to sort the contents. Inside there are three climbing ropes, clips and a climbing harness. Underneath those are crampons that I can strap over my boots, capped with the roughened surface of ultra-velcro instead of the metal spikes we’d use on the mountain, and a small box with the seed inside. I had to smuggle it out of Mack’s house once he was finished with it, for fear of Carmen’s watchful gaze spotting him delivering something to me.
I resist the temptation to open the box and check that it’s in there. I put it in there less than an hour ago. I have to redirect that nervous energy toward getting my climbing gear on and checking the harness straps, buckles and crampons. Twice.
Once I’m satisfied, I kick the tendril I’m standing next to very gently and don’t pull my foot away after contact. Instead, I move as if that foot is on the first rung of a ladder, to see if the friction provided by the u-velcro is good enough to prevent my foot from sliding down to the ground.
It holds. With a twist and bit of effort I detach, satisfied they’ll do the job. I won’t be depending on them anyway if Mack’s securing hexes are where he said they are.
I heft the rucksack into place and feel the hard edge of the box inside dig into my lower back. After a slight readjustment I fasten the security straps over my chest and waist so it doesn’t slide off at just the wrong moment. Then two of the coiled ropes go over my head and shoulders, with the third just slung onto one shoulder for ready access. I won’t need it yet, but soon I will.
I check all the clasps. Twice. When I start the third round of checking, I realize I just need to get started.
I fumble for the handholds I felt in the game version and they’re only millimeters from where I think they should be. A good sign. My right foot finds the place where the tendril butts against another, forming a V shape about a meter off the ground. It stretches my leg uncomfortably as I manage to lift myself onto the structure. Now that I’ve left the ground, I’ve committed myself.
I climb, but there’s no exhilaration or sense of adventure that usually accompanies the activity. I curse myself for forgetting to enhance the data coming into the goggles and resort to whispered voice commands to boost the signal. In the enhanced view the two tendrils I’m climbing between are like obsidian tree trunks against a pale gray sky. There isn’t much for the goggles to work with here; the starlight seems to be absorbed more than reflected by the surface. It’s like climbing with my eyes closed when I try to look for the hand – and footholds. There’s no way I could have done this without the training at Mack’s place beforehand.
It’s slow progress and the shaking doesn’t help, but I finally reach the first hex. I’m relieved and appalled in equal measure. It will get easier now, but the fact that Mack sullied the surface of God’s city with semipermanent climbing gear makes me angry. Still, I connect my rope to it with a carabiner and test the strength as the sensor inside it acknowledges the presence of the rope and beeps softly in response.
An unfamiliar icon pops up, bright and garish at the edge of my vision, and I open it, checking that the interface between me and the first hex is working as it should.
“Climbing route Mack006a is available for use. Would you like help with your climb today?”
I select “yes” and look back up toward the next part of the climb. The next hex is shining out into the darkness, thanks to the climbing software’s enhanced-reality mode. I can see a route for the first time since I began and my movements become more confident.
The first ten meters or so is practically a vertical climb between the tendrils until I reach the bottom of the first nodule. There’s a clip that helps me scrabble onto the top of it with a combination of swinging (which leaves my heart in my throat) and then gripping the surface with the u-velcro crampons at its widest point. By the time I’ve maneuvered myself onto the top of it, I’m panting with fear and exertion. What the fuck am I doing?
A message arrives from Mack. That’s the hardest bit done now.
I should have known he’d be following along through the climbing software. I lie flat on top of the pod, its top directly below my stomach. Even though the rope and harness and the carabiners are uncomfortable to lie on, it’s all I can do for a moment.
Keep going, Ren. It’s easier from there. I promise.
Fuck off, Mack.
A picture of a laughing face pops up and I swipe it away with a sharp leftward glance. Bastard.
A prompt for voice contact appears and after a few moments of intending to snub him for the entirety of this sorry affair, I accept. I might need him.
“Are you okay?”
“What the fuck do you think?” I keep my voice to a whisper. Even on the other side of God’s city I’m scared someone will hear me.
“Catch your breath. All the climbing gear is working as it should. I can guide you over any tricky bits.”
“You said it would be easier now.”
“It’s going to be fine. You’re a better climber than you think.”
“If you’re going to pep talk me, I’ll cut off now.”
He laughs again, and as much as I don’t want to, I smile. It’s a nice sound. It almost makes me feel like we’re doing something normal.
“Ready to carry on?”
“I suppose so,” I reply.
“Before you do, make sure you sit on top and look away from God’s city, goggles off.”
My thigh muscles complain and twitch as I shift my position, moving first onto hands and knees, then twisting to plop unceremoniously on top of the nodule.
I lift the goggles to rest them against my forehead and take in the view. Even though I’m only a few meters above the ground, the vista is transformed.
The sky is just as it always is: crowded with stars, swathes of the sky as pale as milk in patches, and obscenely beautiful. My new vantage point has nothing to add to its majesty.
The pure blackness created by the edge of the mountain range to my right and the ground below looks like it’s been caused by someone tearing off a piece of creation and revealing the void beyond. But not even that is the reason why he told me to do this.
It’s the river in the distance, one that I’ve walked along several times. On this peaceful night it looks like a crack in the world, exposing a planetary interior of stars rather than molten rock and metal. It makes everything else feel like a scene cut out of black paper. Being the only one who can see it makes me feel simultaneously magnificent and insignificant.
How did I get to this point? How can I be climbing the outside of a holy place like a criminal, perpetuating this absurd cycle of lies? Where did I go wrong?
“Are you with me, Ren?”
The gun wasn’t pointing at me when he said that. But it might as well have been.
“Ready to carry on?” His voice, here in the present, makes me jump.
“Do you regret it?” I’m able to ask the question without him in front of me.
There’s a pause. “Which part?”
What a question. There’s so much to choose from.
“Yes. And no.” Evidently there’s no need to distinguish between different items in the reprehensible list. “I wish none of it had happened.”
“Do you wish we never left Earth?”
I’ve never asked anyone that, not even myself. It’s such a pointless question, but something about the torn sky and cracked earth in front of me is making me want to prod that despair and see if it wakes or turns out to be nothing.
“Only once. You?”
I look up at the stars. “I don’t think so. I can’t imagine knowing Suh and staying behind.”
“Do you wish you’d never met her?”
The breath catches in my chest. I can barely imagine what life would have been like had I missed that appointment to view the flat. I ran to catch the train. If I’d missed it, would I be in some research facility now? Would I have been a better daughter? Would I have saved thousands of lives like my father predicted?
The guilt stirs inside me like a slumbering snake needing to feed soon. I see my father’s face from the window after I said good-bye for the last time, how his hand came up to cover his eyes, how he crumpled when the taxi pulled away and I watched him sob. Because of me.
I almost told the driver to stop. But the words never quite made it out of my heart. I try to remember what it was like to think it was more important to find God than to console the man who, in many ways more than my mother did, gave me life.
Do I wish I’d never met Suh? “Yes,” I reply, but my voice doesn’t sound like my own.