“So, Alexander is literally the only thing between us and the thunderstorm,” Olivia said.
“He would be a worthy warrior god,” the Dauphine mused. “Perhaps that is what these times call for. In all the memories of dead civilizations that I encountered, none offered a single viable champion to defend itself.”
“We don’t need a single champion,” I said. “Alexander doesn’t need godhood. He needs reinforcements. He needs Cameron’s weapons systems. He needs a squadron of spellcasters. He needs the entire cabal to fight at his side instead of running for the hills. We should be trying all of that before we commit to irrevocably elevating Alexander to a god.”
“We don’t have time to fashion some grand alliance to fight evil,” Olivia said.
“What grand alliance?” I shouted. “I’m talking like eight fucking people!”
“And you really think eight people will suffice?”
“You really think that thing hasn’t run over its share of gods?”
“Eventually, Isobel, that thing will meet a god it cannot beat, and you would be privileged if that god turned out to be Alexander Reece!”
“No, I would not be ‘privileged’ to let a dead rich white guy become God of planet Earth! I’ve had absolutely enough of that ‘privilege’ to last whatever pitiful amount of lifetime I’ve got left. We find another way.”
She finally fell silent. Something about that argument actually seemed to get through to her.
“I don’t understand you, Olivia,” I continued. “Why are you waiting for Alexander to elevate you to a goddess in the first place when you could just elevate yourself anytime you wanted?”
Olivia practically snorted with laughter. “You really want me charging into the fray and fighting the thunderstorm with my bare hands?”
“What am I missing about the part where you would be fighting as a goddess?”
“I don’t want to fight! I don’t want to lead or rule. I have a different vision for my transcendence, and first I require Alexander to be elevated.”
I said, “I get it. If something goes wrong, Alexander’s the goddamn guinea pig. He’ll be the one to suffer if you screw something up, or if the punctuation marks were lying about the process. Just like he was the guinea pig for the first transmutation sequence, when he cheated death.”
And I certainly noticed that tiny little smile appear on her face again.
“What’s your ‘different vision’ for your transcendence?” Devin dared to ask.
“Let Alexander be the warrior god we need,” Olivia replied. “I will provide the intellect to guide him.”
“Alexander is out there right this very minute defending all of you,” said the Dauphine, aiming her pointedness at me. “Where are these reinforcements you describe? How soon can they be deployed to his aid? What if he falls before we get to him? I am detecting a severe lack of urgency here.”
I came very close to Olivia, almost whispering at her, and said, “If you’re really convinced we need to elevate Alexander early, why haven’t you left already to do it? You could have easily escaped from us by now.”
Maddy sauntered up and said, “It’s because we haven’t told her how to fix the arkship.”
Judging by Olivia’s expression, Maddy had guessed correctly.
“Look, Isobel, I truly hope the arkship won’t need to jump,” Olivia said. “But I’m a scientist. I don’t live and breathe on hope. And I do think that thing has run over its share of gods.”
Yeah, that was the crux of it. A god might not be enough.
She said, “Go ahead and try to rally your reinforcements. The idea has merit. I’ll help you myself if I can. And if you can beat back the thunderstorm with the people and weapons we have on hand today, then hooray for us—the relocation won’t be necessary, which means Alexander’s elevation won’t happen. But if you and your reinforcements fail, if Alexander in all his divine glory fails, the arkship cannot be allowed to fail when we inevitably do have to escape. Because there’s a very real chance that instead of beating it back, we will learn that the thunderstorm simply can’t be stopped.”
“So you just need us to teach you how we teleport?” Maddy asked.
“Not me. Teach Bradford. Navigation’s all on him.”
“And Bradford’s in the loop on this problem?” I asked.
“Yes. We’ve been experimenting together, with no luck.”
“I’m not surprised, honestly,” Maddy said. “You all never took the synthetics seriously. Stealing a sequence off a video—it’s like when opera singers learn songs phonetically without actually learning the language they’re singing in. They’re bound to miss some nuance somewhere along the line.”
“What happens in these experiments?” Devin asked suddenly. “What does that mean, ‘no luck’?”
It was an impertinent question to hit your boss with out of the blue, but I suspected Devin’s tenure at Jenning & Reece was firmly behind them.
I turned to Olivia, watching her squirm, and suddenly I knew what Devin had clearly already guessed.
“You’re doing human testing,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Human testing has always been a core component of our development protocol. You of all people should know that.”