Echo didn’t like the idea of his sister’s body being piloted by an evil
transdimensional god-being. Debra knew that he wouldn’t, which was part of
her plan all along. They believe that he has the power to conjure entirely
new substrates for the six of them to inhabit. He does that—he gives Debra a
new body—she’ll do what the rest of them want, and find the person
responsible for transporting everyone from the original five realities to
their new home in the Sixth Key. She’s not asking for this for her own
selfish reasons. She needs it.
Debra is not evil anymore. She’s become a better person, and genuinely wants
to help now, which she knows will only make her an even
better person. That’s what she learned on the first stage. Diversity
and community are the keys to harmony, even though they can lead to
conflict. If she doesn’t end up being able to find who the Cloudbearer twins
are looking for, it won’t be for lack of trying. Someone that powerful is a
master of time and space, and may have the means to shield themselves from
being pinpointed, detected, or identified. Still, even with the uncertainty
of success, Debra doesn’t think that it’s unreasonable to ask for a new body
to call her own. It’s not like they don’t want to give her one. They just
don’t know if they can trust her. That’s okay, she’s willing to do whatever
it takes to change their minds.
He’s standing there, still weighing their options. “Think of it this way,”
she begins.
Echo closes his eyes and holds up a silencing finger. “Shh. Just shh,” he
says, shaking his head. He continues to keep his eyes closed while trying to
make up his mind for another few minutes. “You don’t have to convince me
anymore. I just need to figure out how to do what I’m trying to do.” Though
his eyes are still closed, he can sense when she’s about to speak
again, and shushes her once more. “I don’t want your help either. I have my
own simulations running through my head at the moment.”
Debra sighs louder than she meant to. She quietly says sorry, even
though that technically only adds to the ambient noise, and distracts him
more. She centers herself mentally, and stands before him patiently and
quietly.
After ten more minutes, he opens his eyes, and stares at her with a cold
disdain, but also a sense of...determined acceptance, if that makes any
sense. “I know what I have to do. Let me talk to Clavia.”life
Clavia passes by Debra on their way to swapping places in their shared mind
palace. The former is center stage now. “What do you have to do?”
“Did I ever tell you that I met my mother?”
“What? No. You’re not talking about Judy, right?”
He laughs. “No, I’ve obviously met her. I mean the woman who gave me life.
When I put us back to being children, we both collapsed and fell
unconscious. We had to sort of reset to factory settings. I don’t
know what it was like for you. I guess you and the others were formulating
your internal seven stages metaphor. I left my body, and communed with
Olimpia Sangster. We actually spent quite a bit of time together before we
both decided that it was time to part ways. So I won’t go over everything we
discussed, but it was nice to get to know her. Anyway, when I woke up as a
kid, I didn’t remember any of it. Judy and Bariq raised us as siblings,
doing their best to mould us into well-rounded, productive members of
society. It wasn’t until later that I was able to recover those moments with
her.”
“I wish I could have been there with you,” Clavia says. “Debra is cognizant
of facts about Team Matic, and all that, but they never met. Ingrid and Onyx
each knew them only briefly.”
“You might meet them one day,” Echo says with a knowing smile. Perhaps she
was there, just at a different point in her own timeline. He goes on,
“she comes from a time on Earth when religion had largely faded from
society, but it was still around. A lot of factors were at play, of course,
but the greatest push towards atheism happened because those who believed in
God or gods usually also believed in some kind of life after death. They let
themselves die because if they didn’t, they would never have the chance to
live in the paradise they were promised. If they had just accepted the
longevity escape velocity as a new characteristic of a devout life,
superstition might have survived. But these die-hards had children, who
watched their loved ones die for nothing, so they switched out, and
eventually, belief died alongside the believers themselves.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because, Clavia, we are the gods. We are those who are believed in. And
we’re about to give the two undecillion people of the universe everything
they could ever need to be happy. If you think we’re revered now, just wait
until we check every box in every religion’s idea of a true living god.”
“What are you saying? We should quit?”
“Absolutely not,” Echo insists. “I’m saying that we should leave. There is
nothing for us in this new world. We don’t want them worshiping us.”
Clavia laughs. “You think they’re not going to worship us ‘cause we’re not
around? I want you to think about that for a moment.”
“I should rephrase. We don’t want to have to watch them worship us. I agree,
they’re gonna do it. I’m worried about a massive resurgence in religious
belief, but I don’t think we can stop that. We can’t save them, and save
them from themselves, at the same time. We can’t give them something
tangible to reach out for.”
“It’s the opposite, Echo. We have to be there. We have to act like normal
people. That’s what the Tanadama did, and it’s why those two undecillion
people even exist. Almost everyone is from the Parallel. Ramses and Kalea
are leaders. They’re accessible. If we too are accessible, it will make it
harder for mysticism to take root, not easier.”
Echo looks away with a huge sigh. “I know.”
“Then why are you arguing against it?”
“Because I am going to leave, and there’s nothing we can do to stop
it.”
“What are you talking about?”
He turns back. “I can make new bodies for your friends, but I won’t survive
it.”
“That seems arbitrary.”
“I ran thousands of simulations in my head. It never works unless I do it
that way. I can’t make entire people out of nothing. I have to draw upon my
own energy, and that will destroy me. I’m just trying to rationalize it by
coming up with a way that that outcome could possibly be better for the
universe once it’s done.”
“Even if it is, it won’t be better for me.”
“I know,” he repeats. “In a few different religions, depending on how you
define them, there’s a story of the first man. His name was Adam. He was
alone until God cut him in half and created a woman named Eve.”
“I’m familiar with Genesis,” Clavia says. “Debra is the First Explorer,
remember? She watched all the people who wrote that book.”
“Right. Well, it’s kind of like that. But in my case, I have to split myself
in sixths, and the result is that I’m no longer an independent entity. I
suppose that my soul may live on in the others, but the simulations
don’t have a definite answer on that.”
“No. There must be some other way. And if I’ve learned anything from writing
several plays, it’s that when someone says there’s another way, there really
always is.”
Echo smiles at her. “I’m not going to argue with you about it, but I am
going to split myself apart, and give your friends new bodies. I don’t need
to survive.”
“No. We just won’t do that. We don’t need to. They’re perfectly fine in
there.”
“Debra says that she won’t help us if we don’t set her free.”
“Well, I’ll talk to her. If she knows that it will kill you, she won’t go
through with that demand, and if she does, then we can’t go through
with it, because she’s obviously lying to her advantage.”
Clavia’s consciousness suddenly disappears as Debra takes over. “Actually,
it’s not a matter of being set free, but of getting my toolbox back. I can’t
do what you asked unless I’m back to my old, powerful self. Here’s the
metaphor. You’re asking me to shoot a target, but you don’t want to give me
my bow and arrow. Recreating my body is like giving me the weapon. It’s
non-negotiable. I don’t just want it. I need it.”
Clavia takes back control of the body. “I don’t think she’s lying.”
“I don’t either,” Echo replies.
“Hold on.” Clavia’s eyes glaze over as she recoils into herself to hold an
impromptu meeting of the Seven Stages. It’s brief. “Okay. Andrei wants to
talk to you.”
“Should I go in your mind?” Echo offers.
“Nah, I’m already here,” Andrei says.
“What’s up?”
“What would happen if you only split once? Just one new person?”
Echo contemplates it. “I’ve never run that scenario specifically, but I did
try to generate one substrate at a time, as opposed to all at once, and it
seemed to go all right until I got to the third one before I couldn’t
continue.”
“Then just do that. Run that scenario for real, but stop yourself on
purpose.”
“You want me to create a new body only for Debra?”
Andrei shakes Clavia’s head. “She has powers. She needs someone like you to
make the kind of body that she requires. The rest of us can wait. There are
other options. They’re just not in the Sixth Key.”
“I’m willing to try that, assuming you can convince everyone else.”
Clavia’s eyes glaze over once more. She comes back to speak for the group.
“Will this work? Will you survive this?”
“I believe so,” Echo says sincerely.
Clavia breathes deeply, and looks around. “Couldn’t have picked a more
beautiful place. They’re standing in the cold, sterile corridor in the
finger of one of the matrioshka bodies. They don’t choose specific places to
meet. Every time they’re in separate places, and need to reunite, they just
think of each other, and rendezvous at a random location. Time itself seems
to choose on their behalf, and it has no apparent preference.
He chuckles and transports them away. They’re now in one of the rotating
habitats. It’s a lush garden, densely packed with life. In particular,
they’re standing next to a very small, clear pond. It’s barely larger than a
bathtub. They didn’t create this with any concentrated intent. They didn’t
have the time or energy to conceive of every single blade of grass. They
built macros from their powers, and programmed the worlds to basically build
themselves, starting with a spark, and iterating from there. It was very
effective, if not a bit unsettling. If they didn’t make this watering hole
on purpose, did it just create itself, or is there another force at play. Is
God indeed real?
“All right, Clavy,” he begins as he’s removing his clothes, and stepping
into the water. “I’ll see you on the other side. Best put Debra front and
center so it’s easier for me to extract the right consciousness.”
“I’m here,” Debra answers.
“Your residual self-image. Focus on it. Or...I guess if you would rather
have the body of a tall black man, I’ll make that for you instead.”
“No one’s called me Airlock Karen in a long time, and I was never racist...”
Debra pauses. “But no, I wouldn’t like to be a tall black man, thank you
very much. My original form will be fine.”
He nods and closes his eyes, leaning back to float in the water.
“Though, I wouldn’t mind you making me a bit younger than I was before.”
Echo smiles but keeps his eyes shut. Like her, he focuses. He tries to count
every atom in his body. Every molecule, every cell, and every organ. Atoms
can’t really split, or they’ll explode, so the constituent parts of the new
Debra substrate won’t really be coming from him. Instead, they’ll be
composed of elementary particles that he sources from across the dimensions,
and channels through his body. The energy builds in waves, accumulating in
the pockets of space between his atoms. Pulsing, vibrating, firing. He can
feel a hot pinprick in his forehead. It drives deep into his skull, and
comes out the other side. The two ends travel down through the center of his
face, and then further down his body. As the chainsaw of time and space cuts
through him, the energy tries to escape, but the fundamental forces hold it
all together. The two halves split apart, but they’re both incomplete. As
one half morphs and transforms into a female form, new body parts take shape
on both halves, replacing the bits that each lost.
When it’s all over, they both turn to face each other. Echo is confused.
“Debra, this is not what you looked like, even at a younger age. You
did want to appear as someone else.”
“Echo?” she replies. “I’m not Debra. I’m Clavia.” She looks down and away.
“I’m alone. There’s no one in my head anymore but me.”
“We’re still in your head.” Someone piloting the original Clavia body
remains standing on the bank. “You’re the one who has vacated.”
“Who is that?” Clavia asks from her new body.
“Andrei. I’m in charge now.”
“Why did you do this?”
Andrei frowns. “We can’t trust Debra. We only needed her power, and
now...you’re the one who has it.” He lifts his chin in an arbitrary
direction. “Go save the universe. We can’t hold you back anymore.”
“Don’t you understand?” Clavia questions. “You six gave me strength. Without
you, I’m just...a baby.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” comes a voice from the other side of the
pond. It’s some guy.
“Who are you?”
“Aristotle Al-Amin,” he answers stoically. “I believe you’ve been looking
for me?”
