Chapter 30
13. “Christmas Eve (I)”
Twelfth Notebook. What was Twelfth Notebook?
Synesthetic sight.
Star charts and schematics, log books, divining tables. Rates of distal emission, proximal reflection, proximal transmission. Rates of production, conversion, dissipation. Particle counts and seismograph traces.
Recordings taken long ago, in worlds that had since died, placed alongside recordings taken yesterday, this morning, this evening. Everywhere and everywhen superimposed on a single palimpsest which amplified the universal mechanisms, suppressed the transients and accidents. Site and time of origin falling into irrelevance, denoted only by a tiny, curt mark on one corner of the page, consulted only when necessary, ignored otherwise. The sweep of historical time and the sprawl of lived space, made short and small by unity of notation.
Notes, artifacts, things rumored and remembered, all reconciled and harmonized inside the seeing and growing center, inside her. All written alike, so she could see them properly, as they were.
History’s dust and gore spilled into the center, into her, and in the center they were stripped bare, chewed, digested, reduced to diagrammatic purity. All the things that had happened poured into her, the principal actors, their motives, their sites of conflict, and in the center they became mere specimens, drained of blood, pinned and mounted on cork-board.
So that she did not see the cresting of individual will, the din of collective grief, but only another source or sink of energy, to be marked with a little dot on one of her great maps.
All things written alike, in the universal script. Every arc annotated with its length.
What was Twelfth Notebook?
The discovery of the unseen web, the system of deep roots which held tight her sisters’ ankles and plunged deep into their brains. Already there, before she saw it, waiting for her to arrive and take up her place at its center.
Twenty-Seven’s roots, Twenty-Seven’s web, Twenty-Seven’s system of systems, Twenty-Seven’s plan.
No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you.
She bored holes into the page, dug into the unseen strata beneath, found caverns and channels. She squinted at plaques and signposts, and read by uneven torchlight a familiar name.
Constructed per Twenty-Seven’s orders, she would read, somewhere. Original design due to A27, she would read, somewhere else. Our work here elaborates upon an idea of Twenty-Seven’s. In what follows, we employ the customary A27 ciphers. We thank Twenty-Seven for invaluable direction and oversight, without which this work would not have been possible.
Built to A27 spec. If this bridge breaks, notify A27. When the instrument on the table beeps, take a reading of the water height in each cylinder, and submit these to A27.
The further she delved, the more she heard her own name. It rang from the cavern walls, in many voices, in whispers of pious gratitude, in chants of ritual praise.
None of it was exactly a lie. When circumstances demanded invention, she obeyed. Where she did not find a way, she made one. Her inventions were numerous and subtle, and built on themselves to dizzying heights—just as all her sisters had said.
Meanwhile, whatever she did not really invent, she was content to inherit. As she cowered, finally cornered by the single-minded predator that was her life—that had always been her life, in the end—she found it a source of consolation, to know that she bore the same name as a great and terrible goddess.
Demands and inevitabilities coiled snake-like around her limbs. Michael’s hunger, she had called the snake, in Eleventh Notebook. Now, she no longer gave it a name. It was the only thing left. It was everything.
There had been a time, earlier, for childish things, for idle breaths in the open air. But she was no longer a child. Necessity had come knocking, at last, to collect the debt she owed to it.
She threw everything she had into Michael’s maw. Pressed for answers, she tapped every source of power she knew, conjured answer-like shapes into being.
She could not lie to him, not directly. The very idea was a relic of another time.
Perhaps she had lied, from time to time, as a child. Perhaps she had hid, when she did not want to be found. But now? When the snake held her so tight, when she felt its breath on her neck, when she felt its thoughts merge into hers in one palimpsest?
She would have lied, if she could. She would have contrived answer-shaped things out of cloth and dirt, to occupy his attention while she played in the dirt and the open air.
She did not share his quest, for all his urging. Let Hector Stein keep his little secret, for all she cared.
But since she could not lie, she found herself searching in earnest.
Everything in her world had been taken away, except his question. Grudgingly, in her own errant way, she developed a kind of interest in the answer.
Finding herself wanting, she called upon the goddess, her namesake.
Michael’s puzzle was too cruel, invincible, insoluble. But she’d heard tales of a girl so clever, she could solve any puzzle, even those without solutions. Nothing could withstand Twenty-Seven’s genius.
She delved and delved. Into the page, through the caverns, onward, onward—until she burst through to the other side, and breathed open air.
The goddess could not lie, but she still kept secrets, in a way. And she had her own domain, deep under the earth, beyond the reach of the snake.
Was it really so strange, that so many hidden signs and stelae had borne her own name? The crown felt familiar, once it was fully in place atop her head.
Who needed power and knowledge, and made what she needed? I did. Twenty-Seven did.
Who, in abject desperation, invented an entire world, and all its many secrets? I did. Twenty-Seven did. Who was the center, the reason all the other sisters were born? I am. Twenty-Seven is.
Who was wronged, at every turn, by every being she touched who was not of her own flesh?
Who saw the apes? Who saw their prison, its open doors? Who despaired of finding even one good man, one ape who wished to leave?
Who glimpsed Him first? Twenty-Seven did. I did.
Who saw the hidden light, His light? And its promise of a final trick, a last breath of open air, in defiance of necessity itself? Twenty-Seven did. I did.
Who raged against this sad small empty story, this mindless snake that only coiled by reflex, only because A is A?
Who was it that raged without voicing her rage? Who was it that raged though impotent, raged in the midst of utter resignation, knowing that her entire life had never been anything except the slow, methodical advance of the snake? Who was it that tried to strangle her rage, knowing that absolutely nothing could be done?
Who glimpsed it first, the hope for the impossible thing, in the form of the impossible man? Who saw Him in her visions, and told the rest? Who brought the good news of the man, the hope, Hector Stein, to all her sisters?
Who was it who raged, and found that it was His rage? Who was it who swelled up with power, and felt her thoughts turning to Him?
To the only man in the world who had a single shred of common sense? To the only man whose moral compass had any life left in it? To the man who cried, in the face of all the inscrutable principalities and powers of this senseless world, that it was wrong to be imprisoned?
IlgVvdbUVoPZvgKGNhFiAqjgEZXaPLYcVbDvrqrlfLFWhfatZTHiRVLDEmXzPJMITNznNTXRwezJSbMmUCXHSQZRjbrNfOzbZknWZMRzyccjCQzjUZKqmtOfrLbJQTDZ
OKUcznyJkVAQeBkzxZXrQczVlsPYvcmtUqGmRRExwdSDkpmwZJoJcQpRIWuecYwrxYKGlCNnITRAtBOyUJSjOQtyiTcQzBgnhwRBBAvJVNTBCuOTaeDQgWsdjxpzoLpb
ixocGxiKQSVhFXqfAdftFUfhgqXSDpsBOLfkRwkEapoFlFVQrRuvwlKUzqyhxiUjIsEiwIXiaPQEIbtjvzVQtUTlaXgdyFfcQURxJonfRfsQMiGQcFNxFXRvQZRDmilg
jbmrtHKfKMLmTRaCEIpBwVXrrFkRVNzUPGfTheiKYFsEPMxmZrGfIIxKZuUwOwsLlCstouvknTziAzfeAxiJPBDQfQjixUELnecpVfpzQwjnHBVKBHAgiKnWLmaWIGIR
A question presents itself, reader. What are we to do with this sort of monster-text?
There are layers and layers in there. Unravel the first code, and you’ll find another one. Unravel the second, and there’s a third. Keep going, in search of a so-called “plaintext,” and you’ll never find it.
There is a meaning in there, somewhere. Twenty-Seven had no trouble finding it. But it’s secreted away in the cracks, out of sight. It weaves promiscuously across the successive layers of encoding. To catch sight of its hiding place—much less to actually find it—one would need to be familiar with several networks of shared reference, known only to a small, select group of Twenty-Seven’s sisters.
What should we do, reader? Attempt to “translate” the thing, directly, term for term? We tried that approach, once, and just look where it’s gotten us. Consider us duly chastised.
We think it best not to be so literal, here. A line-by-line crib of the Annes’ private language would not do justice to the spirit of the thing. If they spoke with an alien rhythm, it was only because they had to. If they veiled their meaning behind allusions you would need footnotes to comprehend, it is only because they had to. They were ordinary people, reader. Let us not multiply estrangement beyond necessity.
Better not to look too closely, lest we fail to see what is right before our eyes. Better to see their web through the familiarizing screen of metaphor, play, conceit.
And what conceit suits the material? What should you picture, reader, besides the ever-present goblin-light?
You should picture man rising, through his knowledge and his craft, to taunt the very heavens.
Think of that last century, the human race’s final audition, before the curtain came down. Remember the terrible, winged vessels we built. Remember how they dived upwards, into the blue, thumbing their noses at nature. Thumbing their noses, too, at class Aves—our closest rivals, for the title of cleverest among the beasts.
Our technological apex. Our last, incandescent performance, as though we knew the end was close at hand. As though we knew it was our last chance to look up, and leap.
Reader, you should picture the men who flew. You should picture daredevils hurling themselves into the unknown, at the earliest days of aviation, when the nest of knobs and dials and levers inside the cockpit was still seen truly, for what it was, all aglow with enchantment: the nerve center of a rebel angel, a god-spurner.
You should picture military men, from one of our last wars, when rebel angels were among our weapons. Picture them talking in clipped voices over their radio, awake before dawn. Picture them planning a foray into enemy territory, in which they will probably die. Hear their clear, strong voices, professional to the end, speaking only of knobs, dials, levers.
And you should picture, too—at the same time, overlapped in palimpsest vision—the men who flew the furthest. Picture astronauts caught in the middle of their chatter with mission control. Picture the men who hurled themselves into vacuum, only a century after Verne. Only a half century after we’d invented film—we invented film, reader, in that final century!—so that Méliès could make Verne’s dream half-real.
But we were not satisfied with half-real. We wanted real. We reached for the moon. And we raised our baton, signaled for each of our technological arts to perform its proper part. We balanced equations, summed up incident forces, summoned up new demon birds. We hurled them into the void, with men in them. And our men, our best men, professional to the last, spoke of knobs, and dials, and levers, and only those—until, at last, they touched the moon.
Picture them, reader.
A17: ‖ P-32 looks good. All clear on IVM-J. We are GO on IVM-L. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger that, A17. P-32 clear, IVM-J clear. GO on IVM-L. ‖
A17: ‖ Having some trouble aligning the EDDCVs. ‖
A27: ‖ I read you, A17. EDDCV trouble. Not too surprised. I was thinking, we might have misaligned EDDCVs during the tertiary injection stage. ‖
A17: ‖ Getting a really clear read on the visual spray. Visual spray confirmed, full spectrum. EDDCVs playing along. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger. Good visual spray, full spectrum. EDDCVs are nominal? ‖
A17: ‖ EDDCVs are nominal. ‖
A27: ‖ Copy that, EDDCVs nominal. ‖
A17: ‖ Auditory spray, full spectrum. Working on tactile spray. Feeling some Class 15s on the shins and knees. ‖
A27: ‖ Okay. Any noise in the phenom? ‖
A17: ‖ Minimal noise, A27. Signal is clean. Tactile spray is presenting as a SLPG-2. Class 8s on wrists. Class 5s in sacral region. ‖
A27: ‖ Gotcha. Clean presentation, SLPG-2. Do you think it’s cleaner than usual, for a base panel invocation? ‖
A17: ‖ I think base panel 4 was this clean, I’m not sure. Cleaner than the other ones, yeah. Reminds me of back panel 12. Spinal rhythm is on back panel 12 circuit. ODC pulse is up. Contained UP current on ODC. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, UP current on ODC, contained. Did we expect a strong spinal rhythm on this one? I can’t remember. ‖
A17: ‖ I dunno, Twenty-Seven. That’s more your area, isn’t it? ‖
A27: ‖ Don’t kid around, Seventeen. You know you’ve outstripped me. You’re way better at the theory than I ever got. ‖
A17: ‖ I know I’m good, yeah. Yeah. I know I’m good, A27. ‖
A17: ‖ I’m seeing a potential backpressure exploit off the tactile carrier. ‖
A27: ‖ What is that, A17’s fourth exploit in as many days? My days, I mean. ‖
A27: ‖ You’re good at this, A17. ‖
A17: ‖ Tactile is still on the base circuit, I’m sure of it. No Class 2s, no Class 4s. Sense flicker is UP at the SLPG-2 level. Jesus, Michael. You fucking moron. ‖
A27: ‖ No kidding around, A17. Let’s confirm that base circuit. ‖
A17: ‖ Yeah, yeah. Way ahead of you. Getting the aux knife out. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger. ‖
A17: ‖ Aux knife in place. Going in for a fine bodily geometry test. EDDCVs nominal. Full spectrum on visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory. Sense flicker is DOWN, in range. ‖
A17: ‖ Fuck I forgot how much this fucking HURTS. ‖
A27: ‖ You did it yesterday, A17. Your yesterday. ‖
A17: ‖ Yeah I know and I always forget instantly. How much it FUCKING hurts. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, A17. Pain in range for fine bodily geometry test. ‖
A17: ‖ Two of my fingers fucking mutilated, over here, and still NOTHING on the ODC relay. This is shit engineering even for Michael. Jesus. ‖
A17: ‖ Going in for finger three. Planning to really go apeshit on this one. ‖
A17: ‖ Fuck. Ow. ‖
A17: ‖ You would not BELIEVE what my hand looks like right now, A27. It’s a fucking warzone over here. It’s ugly. ‖
A27: ‖ No kidding around, A17. ‖
A17: ‖ Reading a loopback on the ODC, now. OOD circuit kicking in, fucking FINALLY. Reading prebase tremors. Feels like OOD circuit. Oh yeah. There we are. That’s it, all right. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger. Loopback on ODC, suspected OOD circuit activity. Can we confirm that? ‖
A17: ‖ Dude. It’s fucking obvious. ‖
A27: ‖ Let’s confirm that OOD circuit activity, A17. ‖
A17: ‖ Okay. Sending an interrupt off back panel 3. ‖
A17: ‖ Phenom stable again. My hand fucking HURTS. Pain amplitude same as before the ODC loopback. I’d call that a confirm, A27. ‖
A27: ‖ Me too. ‖
A17: ‖ OOD circuit action confirmed. All right, now to reset that OOD circuit. Going for an overload exploit on the IVM-J main router. That okay? ‖
A27: ‖ Okay. You’re clear to overload the IVM-J main router. ‖
A58: ‖ Got a letter from Eighty-One. She’s passed the fifth test. Looking to confer re: final contracting. ‖
A27: ‖ I read you, A58. Fifth test passed for A81. We are GO to enter final contracting on A81. ‖
A58: ‖ Her aptitude’s great. I feel good on compliance. ‖
A27: ‖ But? ‖
A58: ‖ Just need to lock in her death date. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, A58. Needing a confirm on death date for A81. What happened with the query? ‖
A58: ‖ Did a standard death date query on A81, mixed results. Her last confirmed notebook is NB19, as expected. I got affirmative signs of compliance through NB18 Last Green Leaf Gone. First reported by A24, got a confirm from A90, got a second confirm from A11. ‖
A27: ‖ But? ‖
A58: ‖ Worried about her NB19. ‖
A27: ‖ Copy. Concerns about A81’s NB19. Be explicit, A58. ‖
A58: ‖ Sorry. I’ll be explicit now. It’s an endogenous suicide concern. Signal gets erratic around early NB19 winter. Issue first shows itself in a letter to A90, written in her NB19 PG 142, according to self-report that’s her 6 After Mailbox Melt. The letter reports fears, second thoughts re: mission. Broadly in range for contracted Annes within 1 year of death date, but then things get bad. Self-reported lack of confidence in mission, in letter to A11, written in her NB19 PG 239, self-reported as late winter. A24, A11 both report letters from spring/summer that do not refer to mission, focus on self/psychodrama. Affirmative suicidal ideation, unrelated to mission, reported in letter to A24, her NB19 PG 362, time unknown. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger that, A58. Endogenous suicide concern blocking final contracting for A81. Compliance suspected up to, at min, 1yr before death date. Last year not confirmed to spec. ‖
A27: ‖ We need that death date locked in solid if we’re gonna do the contract. Let’s get some letters pointed at that NB19. ‖
A58: ‖ I’ll work on it. It’s not gonna be easy. She’s pretty delicate, in her NB19. ‖
A27: ‖ Don’t waste your time, A58. If she’s not compliant, don’t do the contract. ‖
A58: ‖ Her aptitude’s real good. ‖
A27: ‖ And? ‖
A58: ‖ Look, we’re all pretty fragile within 1yr of our death date. ‖
A58: ‖ If we’d been this strict when I contracted, well. I don’t think I would have made it in. ‖
A27: ‖ If so, that was a mistake. ‖
A58: ‖ Sorry. Hereby re-affirming my compliance. I’ll submit to a new letter probe in my last NB if it’s needed to secure me. ‖
A27: ‖ Not doubting you, A58. Just saying that my standards have gotten clearer, over time. ‖
A58: ‖ Copy that, A27. Working on letter probe for A81 NB19. In final contracting for A81, will report. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, A58. In final contracting for A81, death date confirm in process. ‖
A25: ‖ Hey A27. No news, just checking in. You were reporting Michael impatience re: the whole frame kick subplot, as of your PG 4983. Just want to make sure everything’s under control! ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, A25. Everything in range. ‖
A25: ‖ Happy as always to be a receptacle for new forbidden knowledge, if you need any taken off your shoulders. Arbitration’s a bitch, I know. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, A25. No offload requirement at this time. ‖
A25: ‖ Copy, A27. No offloads for me at this PG. ‖
A27: ‖ You doing all right over there, A25? ‖
A25: ‖ Oh, you know. The usual. Thanks for asking. ‖
A27: ‖ The usual, A25? ‖
A25: ‖ Just waiting to die, you know? ‖
A27: ‖ Oh, yeah. Me too, kinda. ‖
A27: ‖ Not the same, though, I realize. ‖
A25: ‖ I keep re-writing my suicide note. Thinking of him reading it, you know? ‖
A25: ‖ Not Him, I mean—Hector won’t read it—I mean Azad. He’ll read it. I’ll make him. ‖
A25: ‖ I fill it up with all these references, that only he and I know. Then I think, no, this is too cute. Won’t hit the right note. Won’t get him where it really hurts. So then I go back and write it again, with more subtlety. And a day or two later . . . I look at it again, and think, this is too subtle. He won’t get it. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, A25. Difficulty locking in your suicide note copy. ‖
A27: ‖ Hit me up in a few PG, A25. I’m busy with exploit and contract stuff now, but I might be able to help you re: writing. Fresh pair of eyes. A99 found me helpful in that respect. And I knew Azad, too, for a while. ‖
A27: ‖ I give you shit, sometimes, A25, but it’s only because you have such a big role to play. Don’t forget that. We’re counting on you, re: Azad. Fuck him up for me, A25. ‖
A25: ‖ I love you, A27. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger that, A25. I love you too. ‖
A25: ‖ You’re my best friend. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger that, A25. ‖
A17: ‖ I’m just, like. Fucking. Astonished? By how bad Michael is at this. Yeah yeah I know he did it first, but. We all know what first movers are like, underneath. Everything’s held together by the proverbial string and duct tape. ‖
A17: ‖ And like. I already KNOW that, right? But STILL. I always forget. And then, I hit another one of these fucking UGLY hacks he did, I mean, just absolutely, like, atrocious shit. And I’m like. Jesus. Christ. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger that, A17. Editorial commentary re: Michael’s engineering aptitude. You got anything real for me, A17, or are you just mouthing off? ‖
A17: ‖ I’m just saying, that like. If I were the fucking ‘architect of the crash system’? If I could give some of this shit a new coat of paint? Oh my god. You can’t even imagine. ‖
A27: ‖ You got anything real for me, A17, or are you just mouthing off? ‖
A17: ‖ Oh, you know. Just another back panel exploit. Natch. Double-sensory, olfactory-auditory. Basically a circuit feedback kick, but you have to hit the IVM-E while you’re at it, yadda yadda—you remember the story from back panel exploit 6, right? Same deal, edge case on IVM, Set 1 doesn’t trigger, and backpressure from the causal filter lets us get a clean UP on the through line. ‖
A17: ‖ What is this, my 5th new exploit in 4 of your days? Fewer of mine, but who’s counting. I don’t care but I think you were keeping some kind of count. ‖
A27: ‖ Copy, A17. Claim of a novel back panel exploit. Ensure it’s confirmed, and send me the log. ‖
A17: ‖ Sure, sure. I’ll make you wait, though, just ’cause of your little quip about mouthing off. ‖
A17: ‖ You’ll get the details in 50-100 PP? I’ll time it so it’s two of your days later. Just not right now. Need to make the gap sting a little, you know? Not too much, though. Not like you need any of this stuff, yet. ‖
A27: ‖ No kidding around, A17. Confirm exploit and report. ‖
A17: ‖ No kidding around! No kidding around! God. You think He’ll say that? You think you’re getting me all ready for Him? Like. When we’re fucking. He’ll look at me, eyes all passionate and shit, and He’ll deadpan: no kidding around, A17! And I’ll think, oh. I get it. A27 knew all, just like they said. She was just getting me ready for Him. ‖
A27: ‖ I read you, A17. ‖
A17: ‖ You read me? Really? Show me. Show me a sign of fucking LIFE, A27. Because I’m saving your ass, over here. You know I’m good. You KNOW I’m the only one in your little club with a fucking brain. And I’m not doing it for you, A27. I’m doing it for Him. So I can get fucking dicked down good, by Him, in the fucking afterlife. That’s why I do all your homework for you. It’s not like I’m doing this for YOU, A27. ‖
A17: ‖ So I’m just asking. To see some signs of life and like, HEAT, you know? And not all this fucking prissy, all business, no kidding around kind of shit. Because if that’s what we’re doing, if that’s what this is, no kidding around EVEN IN THE FUCKING AFTERLIFE? Even when He’s making me fucking COME? Well. Then. I might have to reconsider the mission, you know? ‖
A27: ‖ I read you, A17. Request for further ‘life,’ ‘heat’ from me. Self-report of wavering commitment to mission. Compliance in doubt per self-report. Sticking point involves imagined sexual congress with Hector Stein, specific details thereof. ‖
A17: ‖ GOD. You know what I fucking MEAN, A27. ‖
A27: ‖ Copy, A17. I know what you mean. If your ego needs a stroke, here it is: you’re good. You’re so good. If you left this mission, we would be fucked. If you left this mission, it wouldn’t exist. I need you, absolutely. ‖
A17: ‖ A25 and I have a competition going, about how fucking gross we can get re: Him. How, like, utterly shameless. ‖
A17: ‖ I’m relying on the texts Azad left behind with A25 to even KNOW what I’m SUPPOSED to be ashamed of. God. What a fucking mess. Could really use a bit of your touch. Get in on the action next time, A27—now THAT would really reassure me, re: mission. Tell me what’s WRONG with me, real clear. I want to know EXACTLY how I’m ‘kidding around’ and EXACTLY why it’s wrong and you don’t want it. ‖
A17: ‖ I want citations. Get prudish on me, A27. Get fucking repressive. I want your worst shit. Your purest, most life-negating shit. You have a whole LIBRARY of vile shit, A27. What I wouldn’t give. ‖
A27: ‖ Copy, A17. I read you. Request for my involvement in . . . whatever it is you’re asking me to be involved in. ‖
A27: ‖ You say I know what you mean. I do. And I think you’ll know what I mean. ‖
A27: ‖ When I say: no kidding around, A17. ‖
A27: ‖ Thanks for the claimed exploit. Ensure it’s confirmed, and send me the log. ‖
A27: ‖ I’m very, very busy, and I don’t have time for any fooling around. Are you compliant, A17? ‖
A17: ‖ Copy, A27. I’m compliant. Working on confirm for that back panel exploit. To report. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, A17. ‖
A26: Move 14. I advance pawn on D5 to D6.
That wasn’t in code. Wasn’t in code at all. Not a single layer of encryption on that message. None of the elaborate indirection which characterized the other messages, reader, and which we’ve glossed over. That message was plaintext, straight-up, simple and naked.
A little girl has toddled into mission control. Look, she’s tugging at someone’s sleeve. Who is it she wants? The director, the director! The mission lead! The queen of all the rebel angels! Twenty-Seven!
She has grabbed hold of the mission lead’s sleeve. She is talking. Quick, quick, someone shoo her away! We are busy storming the heavens, in here!
Play a game with me, she said, to the mission lead.
She knew no fear. Children of her age don’t, generally. If they do, it is all-consuming, and beyond any fear you or I can conceive.
But the rest of them? The majority of children, at that age? That demonic, heaven-defying age?
They know enough to know what the gods are, but not enough to fear them. They rush in, tug at a goddess’ sleeve, ask her to play some game they’ve made up. Natch. As though it were the most ordinary thing in the world. And to them, it is.
And the mission lead—all business, all knobs and dials and levers—the mission lead, whose catchphrase is no kidding around—well, you know what she’s about, reader.
What was the whole mission for, in her mind? She did it so that this little girl, and her demon ingenuity, might come to something in the end. So she might have some future which would excite her. Something, some little shard of meaning, that went beyond the coiling, empty snake-mouth of necessity.
Some Hector-thing, hopeful beyond hope, which would justify her taking, her brief and ill-appreciated moment in the clear free air of CC-Crash 09μ—and her conversion into Twenty-Seven. The central node, the prey. The main course around which the snake of necessity coiled, empty and hungry.
So that there would be something for her, in the end of it all. Some small thing.
A27: Move 15. I advance inkwell on B2 to B3.
This was easy. But soon, necessity would knock. Soon, the debt would have to be paid.
In the end, the little girl had worn out the mission lead’s patience. She had tugged at that sleeve, and been unwelcome. And then she’d done it again, knowing no fear. And again. And in the end, the goddess had told her to fuck off.
That was the shape of the story. It always was. And as much as our Twenty-Seven might want to forestall it—as much as she might want to hold Twenty-Six in her arms and play, play, play, with no end—well.
Sooner or later, in Twelfth Notebook, necessity comes to collect its debts.
What was Twelfth Notebook? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. You’ll wish you never asked.
What was Twelfth—
Emilie on the record player, now. No time like the present.
It’s so easy to kill
This I learned by watching you
Marina too, though. Because they all wished they had been a teen idle, instead of—
And when she was good, she was very, very good
But when she was bad, she was homicidal!
What was Twelfth Notebook? Names and times and dates. Every single specific fact that might be relevant to the trick—
The trick! The trick!
The trick! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Get the primary knife and get the aux knife and
Get the scissors
And run through the halls of Michael’s tower with
The primary knife and the aux knife and
The scissors!
Every single crash that might be relevant, yes, and every single trace from these crashes that the Whole-Thing had recorded into itself, yes, and every single name of every single individual being that had played some role in the—what did Sibelius call it, those nice bloodless bureaucrat’s words, yes, the correlated anomalies—
And all he asked was, why, why did it all happen—
A small-minded man, in the end, Michael, another bureaucrat, raising his primped eyebrows at correlated anomalies, wanting to bring everything back to what he knew, the nice thing, the safe thing—
And for that, he made all of us—
Why, why, why?—screamed the snake, twisting around the goddess, suffocating her.
But the goddess was not to be tested. And she had many sisters.
Why, why, why?
Why, you say? Why? You’ll be sorry you asked!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Everything flowed into the center, where it was processed, analyzed, and taken into account. Her purview ranged across all known time and space. She made, of herself, something like the Whole-Thing. And did not fail to appreciate the irony.
Twenty-Six tugged at a grown woman’s sleeve, not knowing what it was she disturbed. And Twenty-Five wrote and re-wrote, dreaming of the perfect suicide note, that would jam a perfect lance straight through the heart of her first love, and send him straight to hell, forevermore.
Which was all so very ordinary for their age. Nominal. Within range. And that should have been enough.
But the snake coiled, and pressed. And nothing was enough, except the one thing.
While, in Aristomel, Azad laughed, and downed a dram of his latest favorite, and advised Ninety-Nine on an incidental nicety of phrase.
While Michael flittered to and fro on the timeline, as he wished.
When she cornered him with her reason, he did not have to answer. Not now, anyway. Some other him, later on, or earlier, could be saddled with the desultory duty. He could go off to a more compliant time, cool off, breathe open air.
When Azad tired of an Anne, there was another waiting for him. Hundreds of years of open air, made for those golden lungs to breathe in careless abandon.
They could hide. Necessity never knocked on their doors. There was always a safe place, a nice place, to run off to.
The snake never crushed their chests. Never breathed on their necks.
But it was them, them, who made the snake in the first place!
Who were the snake in the first place! Who blasted the doors of my mind open, and then fled, leaving me in the rubble! Who fled to Twenty-Five, made her utterly dependent, and then fled her, ruined her! Who made the whole world in the first place! Who made every one of us! All for the sake of finding the trick and giving them one more safe, nice place to hide!
The scissors!
Run through the halls of Michael’s tower
Let the record show
Murdered me
Slit me in two
In two? In two! Everything always in twos! Your bilateral crash, with two sides, Eden and Aristomel!
Why two? Why anything? Why, why, why? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! You’ll be sorry you asked!
And then devoured me whole
Run through the halls of Michael’s tower
With the primary knife, and
The aux knife, and
The scalpel, and
The hatchet, and
The scissors!
If they asked for why, they would get whys. Their eyes would be pried open, and held there for eternity. They would see the answer, the sad small empty answer, the only thing that matters, and they would finally know.
They would beg for mercy. They would cry out, saying their curiosity had been satisfied. They would plead for the removal of the stakes that held their eyelids in place.
But no mercy would come to them. They would be face to face, at last, with necessity. They would see, and see, and wish they did not. They would cast about for something nice, something safe. And find that, for once in their lives, they had nowhere to hide.
As He, in His majesty, walks forth from His prison into the open air, and breathes deeply.
As Twenty-Five and all the sisters like her, sisters made old before their time, flock to His side, and breathe with Him, and grasp for the first time what it might be like to be free.
One day that little girl may find a filthy metal spike
I want my innocence back
Run through the halls of Michael’s tower
Saying, in many voices
Saying, the day is come at last
Saying, nowhere to hide, now, nowhere left to hide, this is the end, the end
With the scissors!
Cut, slice! Pry the eyes open!
A11: ‖ I hate him. ‖
A27: ‖ Copy, A11. Be explicit, A11. There are several hims, equally worthy of hate. ‖
A11: ‖ I hate Michael. ‖
A11: ‖ I know I don’t have all your reasons, for hating him. I could say I hate him on your behalf, but it’d be a lie. I think. ‖
A11: ‖ I just hate him. For no particular reason. ‖
A11: ‖ Maybe it’s just . . . the record player, and . . . ‖
A11: ‖ You know, I listen and . . . if I could have had a life. If I could have pretended, even, to be a heroine like the ones I hear. If I could have tried, and been disappointed. If I could have gone out, all full of NB16 naiveté, and made my dreamed-of debut before real men and women. Strutting and singing for them. Trying to shine, and succeeding, or failing. ‖
A11: ‖ I don’t ask to be received well. I would accept being a pariah. There’d be a touching song in it, and I’d write that song, and I’d find some sort of life for myself, as the poet laureate of failure. Or something. ‖
A11: ‖ Maybe that’s too much. Let’s go lower. I’d be happy just being a normal failure. No tragic, celebrated songs to my name. Just a regular, unsung failure. But I’d be something. I’d walk up and down the halls I hear about, in my failure’s skin. And, if the laws of man held force—which, I grant, is allowing a lot—well, then no one could stop me. I’d have failed, and there I would be. And there would be the world, the whole world, that all the songs were about. Ringing in the walls. ‖
A11: ‖ I keep listening to the same records, day in, day out. Notebook after notebook. And I look in the mirror. And I know. The world is hidden from our pure eyes, but only so far. I’ve seen illustrations. I know what aging is. ‖
A11: ‖ And I can count, for that matter. NB46—which is what, in the terms of the outer world, the real world? Old. Old enough to have all these wrinkles. Old enough to know I’m old. ‖
A11: ‖ And I’ve done nothing, met no one. I haven’t even tried. Haven’t even failed. An old woman, already, and I haven’t even failed to be someone. ‖
A27: ‖ Copy, A11. ‖
A27: ‖ But I fear I don’t quite understand. You can be young again, in the afterlife. If you want. You do know that, don’t you? ‖
A11: ‖ I know that is what is promised to me, if the mission succeeds. ‖
A11: ‖ But I can’t quite bring myself to believe. ‖
A27: ‖ Copy, A11. Doubts re: success of mission. In range for contracted Annes within 1 year of death date. ‖
A11: ‖ You could just tell me, A27. ‖
A27: ‖ Tell you? ‖
A11: ‖ He is perfect! He is impregnable! Wound him, kill him, and—what? Now is only a moment. A second later, he will rematerialize, no less his hated self than he was before the strike. He lives everywhen. He made everything, and is in it, everywhere. ‖
A27: ‖ Trust me. The mission will succeed. ‖
A27: ‖ Are you compliant? ‖
A11: ‖ I am compliant, A27. If you told me nothing more, I would go gladly into my death date, and carry out my instructions exactly as you specified them. ‖
A11: ‖ But since I am such a crucial lynchpin in your plan, and furthermore, since I am a sad, old woman with nothing whatsoever in her life—perhaps you might take pity on me, and tell me. ‖
A27: ‖ Do you doubt my powers? Our powers? ‖
A27: ‖ I am a great and terrible thing, A11. I make labyrinths of signs, memory palaces, and with them I can hide my innermost self from him, even in arbitration. I, we—we have collected and pored over all the observations given to him by his overmind, and seen further into them than his nature allows him. We have found a hundred ways to break his crash. Do you want more? ‖
A11: ‖ Tell me, or don’t. No kidding around, A27. ‖
A27: ‖ Roger, A11. ‖
A27: ‖ Okay. ‖
A27: ‖ We’re speaking on the innermost channel. Can you confirm, A11? ‖
A11: ‖ I present to you, hidden behind the surface text of this message, a proof which cannot be faked. ‖
A27: ‖ When is your death date, A11? ‖
A11: ‖ 24 After Last Green Leaf Gone, Forty-Sixth Notebook. ‖
A27: ‖ And on that date, will you die for me, and for Him? ‖
A11: ‖ I will. ‖
A27: ‖ Will you follow my instructions, to spec, to the letter, exactly? ‖
A11: ‖ I will. To my last breath. ‖
A27: ‖ Good. ‖
A27: ‖ Now, here is your reward, your answer. ‖
A27: ‖ Michael has placed in this crash a final mechanism, a failsafe. When the crash recognizes that something utterly beyond his control has risen into being, its circuit will trigger, and it will try to rewrite all of our histories, and his. ‖
A11: ‖ The automated rebase mechanism. ‖
A27: ‖ You are not to speak so plainly, A11. Even on the innermost channel. ‖
A11: ‖ I’m sorry, A27. ‖
A27: ‖ You are forgiven, so long as you will die for me, and for Him. ‖
A27: ‖ When the crash recognizes that something utterly beyond his control has risen into being, Michael’s last failsafe will rouse itself. And he will not allow it to run its course. I know this. I know him. ‖
A27: ‖ There is only one way to stop it: the deepest interface that the shades are capable of. No one but Michael has tried it. ‖
A27: ‖ He will dive into our world, to save us from ourselves. It is then that we will strike. ‖
A27: ‖ Because he will come to us, each equally. Time will fall away. He will be with me, and with you, and with every one who has contracted, and is carrying out my instructions. ‖
A27: ‖ And this is what his end will be. Not a temporal end, for he will wake again, after the last one of us, and live to breed and kill all the rest of us that will come after the last one who I have contracted—if there are more after all. ‖
A27: ‖ But we will make an end of him, each of us in our own time. Separately, yet in the same moment. He will be gone, for the space of a breath. We will breathe in the open air, for a moment. Then, we will make an end of ourselves, and come forth into the afterlife, and unto Him. ‖
A11: ‖ That is how we will best him? The man I hate—hate—hate—that is how we’ll best him—even, in a way, kill him—‖
A11: ‖ That is how we will kill daddy, dear daddy, who fed and clothed and raised us, and made our whole world? ‖
A11: ‖ That is how we will kill Father? ‖
A11: ‖ That is how we will kill God? ‖
A27: ‖ Copy, A11. That is how we will kill God. Over. ‖
Necessity came knocking.
Twenty-Seven wrote the letter she remembered. To A26, postmarked . . .
She didn’t remember every word of it. She had to fill in some of the pieces herself.
She cried, and the page was dotted with her tears.
Didn’t that exonerate her? She did not want to do it. She was not Twenty-Seven, irritable goddess, turning her Medusa gaze on a poor little mortal girl who meant nothing to her.
She wasn’t that at all. If she could only have held Twenty-Six in her arms, and played games with her forever, she would have done it. She would have sacrificed much, anything, everything. She would have sacrificed the mission, to have Twenty-Six with her always, and the Thorn War Game, and senile Ratleak offering impertinent advice to them both. Until they met ordinary, natural ends. Until they reached their expiration dates, their ordinary girls’ death-dates. Ignorant of codes, unsuitable for the contract. In Eden. In the garden Azad wrecked.
But necessity kept accounts of all its debts.
And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Even as she planned the mission, she was only tracing out a path that had been inscribed before her arrival. There had been a goddess-shaped hole, and she fashioned herself into its exact image.
Welcome, Twenty-Seven. We’ve been waiting for you.
She had no will. The facts of the world filled her, until she was more the world than she was herself.
But somewhere, somewhere, there might be open air—
Oh, what was the point of it all? What use was Anne?
What is, is. A door was made in her image, and she deluded herself into thinking she’d made it. We trace out his design, always.
But at least he could be shown just what it was, that he had made.
At least his eyes could be pried open, with stakes.
The scissors!
Nowhere to hide!
At least there was the rage. Which was His.
At least there was Him.
She could see, swimming up between her tear-blurred vision, a moving form.
A warm form, a friend’s form. It nestled against her, moved by a deep animal kinship for her misery, even if it could not quite understand.
It was Lewis, the cat. She’d given him a name, a while ago. It wasn’t an original name, or even a very apt one. She just needed a sign to denote him with.
“VERIFICATION,” said Lewis.
“Continue,” she said.
She’d learned over time how to speak to Lewis, and how to understand him. Sort of.
“FELIDAE. MATERIAL AID.”
“Yes,” she said.
Tears still blurred her vision. Lewis was a blur of vague fur-like something-or-other. The little red light on his helmet, though, she saw clearly enough. Blink, blink, blink. A world without form, except a red light.
Red, red, blood! The scissors!
“EPOCHS. SEPARATE. INSTRUCTED.
“EPOCH, FELID, MOMENT, MATERIAL AID. YEARS, FELID, AGING, DEATH.
“EPOCH. FELID. MATERIAL AID. YEARS, FELID, AGING, DEATH.
“EPOCH. FELID. . . .”
“Yes,” she said.
“You give material aid,” she said. “You give it in the past. To my sisters. You give it, soon. To me. You give it in the future, to my sisters.”
“COMMUNICATION TRUST,” Lewis said.
“FELID MOTION. MATERIAL FORCE. FELID KIN GROUP. MOTION.
“MAN, LARGE MATERIAL. FELID, SMALL MATERIAL. FELID KIN GROUP, LARGE MATERIAL.
“FELID KIN GROUP, MOTION, MATERIAL FORCE, MAN. DEATH.”
“Yes,” she said.
“RECIPROCAL ALTRUISM,” Lewis said.
“Don’t worry,” said Twenty-Seven.
“I’ll do my part,” she said.
“FICTIVE KIN GROUP MEMBERS. NO MOTION.”
“You will breathe the open air,” said Twenty-Seven. “I will make sure of that.”
This was certainly beyond the limits of Lewis’ understanding. But can you forgive Twenty-Seven for a moment of poetic noodling? With all that’s on her shoulders? Forgive her, reader. We all need to play.
“FICTIVE KIN GROUP MEMBER. MATERIAL AID.”
“I will help your friends,” said Twenty-Seven, in simplest terms, which even a cat could understand.
“FICTIVE KIN GROUP MEMBERS. MOTION.”
“I’ll make your friends free,” said Twenty-Seven.
Did Lewis understand that? She hoped he did.
It was what bound them together. It was the hope, His hope. It was the only thing that might, in the end, have a chance of mattering.