FIFTY-SIX
The Purple Lady handed him a beer. “It took me some time to find you.”
Brooklyn had walked some distance from the think tank/jam session inside her network. “Needed to clear my head. Ain’t much use in all that anyway.”
“It wouldn’t be happening without you.”
“Without you.” He tipped the bottle at her. “I’m just the guy who knows a mushroom woman who can pull people into a timeless gestalt. Handy.”
She sat down beside him and pulled another beer from somewhere. The labels on both drinks were blurry, like the creator didn’t remember what they really looked like or didn’t care. “You brought Om into the equation.”
“I was drinkin’ a lot of Yarrow’s tea when I put him together. You and the little robots get at least half credit for that.” He took a long drink of the vaguely beer-flavored beer. “Still ain’t got the taste right.”
She shrugged. “I’m better with gin. It’s more interesting to me.”
They sat awhile, looking over a Martian valley teeming with plant life. “Never any animals here?” Brooklyn said.
“They evolved a few times – little fish things, a sort of snake – but never found their footing. Insects did okay for a while, but plants are tough competition, and we had a solid head start.” She smiled. “We had thirty-four flower varieties that could fly under their own power.”
“Evolution in action.” He rubbed his forehead. “Hard to imagine. Million years. Billion. Billions. Just numbers. Fifty, though, a hundred, I got. ’Bout two hundred years it gets hard to getcha head round it again.”
“Seven or eight human generations.”
“Nothin’, to you.”
“You don’t think you’ve had enough time?”
“Might be thinking that if this thing goes bad.” He winced. “Other hand, might not be thinking anything.”
“You didn’t have to volunteer.”
“Thought about sacrificing one o’ the kids, but didn’t want to break up the set.”
“We won’t be able to talk anymore.”
He nodded. “That bothers me too. All the weirdo pals I got, you might be the weirdest.”
Brooklyn and Andy sat atop the Victory weathering their mushroom comedowns. It was nearing midnight and their workday had started at 8 a.m., including nearly five months Purple-time.
“We might actually pull this off,” Andy said.
It wouldn’t be enough to change events in the simulation; they also had to change the memories of everyone they uploaded. At least a month of their long workday had been dedicated to developing search strings that would allow the algorithms to find and alter the necessary recollections of five billion people.
“Yep, guess I’m dying tomorrow,” Brooklyn said.
“You’re not dying. You’re uploading.”
He drank from the bottle and passed it to her. “My body, though. Caput. Cal said with all o’ the bots stripped outta me, that’s it. Brain in a blender. No take backs.”
“If you want to have sex, just say it, Brook. There’s no need for this last-day-on-Earth shit.”
“Really?” He widened an eye at her.
“Sure.”
He considered. “Guess I’m not really in the mood.”
“Typical.” She laughed. “I’d bet money there’s never been a time in your life when you knew what you wanted.”
“Sure, there has.”
“When?”
He drank. “Sometime.”
“For the past twenty years, you’ve had a spaceship and superpowers. Anyone else would’ve…”
“Would’ve what?”
“Been a pirate. Fought crime.” Her hands flailed. “Done… something.”
“Fought crime for a while. Under an alias. FuckOffMyBack Man.”
“Cute.”
“Shit like that works if you’re the only one with superpowers and spaceships. Everyone’s got ’em; you’re just a guy people call when they want a couch moved to the Moon.”
She drank. “The Cathedral left orbit yesterday. Looks like the Angels are headed for Andromeda.”
“Hey-yo!”
“What does that mean?”
“Means your name is ‘Andromeda’ an– Never mind.” He drank. “Ya know, we never did find out why those assholes stuck you on Deimos.”
“Follow the money. It delayed us finding out about the Sun.”
“Whole thing was already in motion, where’s the money in–?”
“Depends on who lit the fuse.”
“Easy. The First.”
“Not everything is the First, Brook. My bet is still on the CIA.”
“What if Beth’s zealots were First splinters?”
“Prove it.” She drank. “First didn’t cut the link with splinters. Disconnected from the Angels, the Builders, and everyone else, but they wanted to experience the death of a world.”
“By proxy.”
“Of course by proxy!” She slapped his arm. “How do you even know that word?”
“Personal growth. Lot o’ personal growth over th’ last twenty years. Oughta try it.”
“I was on the run.”
“What’d you do when you found out they were still linked?”
She smirked. “Cut those fuckers right off.”
“Mighta just changed my mind about the sex.”
“Your place or mine?”
“Yours. Don’t wanna wake the kids.”