Chapter 40
XXII
Act Zero
Scene One
SETTING: HECTOR STEIN’S sleep pod, Stein’s Rock. December 14, 8:41 AM CST.
AT RISE: HECTOR is fast asleep. A cramped, coffin-like space surrounds his sleeping bag. Besides Hector, the “room” contains nothing except three laptop computers, sitting side-by-side on a short table-like protrusion near Stein’s left arm. The laptops are propped open, but their screens are black. We hear a soft beeping noise, and see one of the laptop screens turn bright.
Hector Stein jolts awake.
He fumbles about, for a little while, trying to find the zipper of the sleeping bag. He’s never quite mastered this part of his morning routine, even after years of life up here.
The sleeping bag shudders awkwardly, like a caterpillar in distress. The triangular buds of Stein’s elbows appear on its surface, like new limbs or feelers in the earliest stages of growth.
His legs are restless. The right one had gone numb as he slept, and now it’s starting to fill with pins and needles. He tries to extend it, and finds himself kicking the padded wall of the pod.
He finds the zipper.
He emerges from the utter darkness inside the bag, into a lesser darkness. For a brief, transitional moment, he can discern the shape and texture of the pod walls. Then his pupils widen, to take in the glare of the laptop screen, and everything except the screen goes black again.
Can’t see, says a very old part of Hector Stein’s mind.
Can’t see. Can’t move freely. Confined.
Trapped. Not safe! Move. Act. THINK.
What do we have.
What do we have. What can we do. GO.
Not safe. What options do we have. THINK.
Do. DO something.
FAST.
Every morning is like this. And Hector Stein would not want it any other way.
Why does Hector Stein sleep in a claustrophobia-inducing, coffin-like pod? It’s not like he has to. He could have a proper bedroom, if he wanted. He would only have to ask.
His home, his Rock, began its life as a re-purposed research station built on the surface of an asteroid. The asteroid is still there, and much of the original structure of the station has been left in place. But the original crew would barely recognize the thing the Rock has become.
There is more of shade than substance to it, now. The spindly, insect-like forms of the original research station are now only the innermost core of a larger edifice, and mostly invisible from the outside. Mortal hands made the skeleton, but the body is the work of Angels.
“We dwell in Heaven,” someone said to Hector Stein, once.
He had just arrived on the Rock, accompanied by a small group, mostly pilots and engineers.
They were not his people, yet. He did not trust them, on any level, and the feeling was mutual.
He’d put out a job offer on the Social Web, an enigmatic one, short on details and full of scary disclaimers and non-disclosure clauses. He did not receive many applications. The few that did arrive were accepted, immediately—provided they seemed remotely serious, and provided that their qualifications were remotely relevant to Hector’s aims.
That was all he had, back then: a dubious assortment of pilots and engineers and assorted jacks-of-all-trades, all of them bearing some black mark or quirk of character that disqualified them from more reputable and remunerative employment. Them, and a decrepit research station, on a featureless expanse of space rock.
When they first set foot inside the station, Hector’s heart sank. A part of him wanted to turn back, right then and there.
The cursed feel of the place. The aura of resignation, of giving-up. Oozing from the walls, wafting through the stale air.
The dingy little panels, everywhere, that made a noise like sighing when you flipped their power switches on. The beady LEDs, everywhere, that blinked in the same slow, lethargic rhythm. The station had been content in its sleep of death, and it resented him, for forcing it to live again.
“We dwell in Heaven,” someone said. A very tall, sixty-something guy whose name Hector can no longer call to mind. He had not lasted long on the Rock.
“We used to say that, in the Force,” he muttered. “Dunno why.
“Saw it on patches, sometimes. Old motto. I guess.”
When there is a hand, and a will to move it . . .
We dwell in Heaven.
It became a stock phrase, a private one of Hector’s. He would repeat it inside his head or under his breath, in moments of stress or despair.
I dwell in Heaven. That’s something, isn’t it?
It was close to the darkest hour of his life, then. He sought comfort in grandiosity, as he always had.
The lowest wretch is sometimes a god in disguise. Isn’t that the very sort of disguise a god tends to take? The best and worst are close siblings, and share more in common with one another than either does with the common mass.
A secret drop of royal blood, a divine nature which the act of incarnation has caused one to forget: these consolations are the property of the man at rock bottom.
The public laughing-stock has a shot at reaching Heaven, and making a castle there in the clouds, and taunting his former tormenters from the security of its highest towers—just as it is written in his most shameful fantasies, so it may in fact come to pass. The abject failure might reach Heaven too, and dwell there, and taste the happy abjection of success extended beyond all earthly bounds.
It’s the mediocrity, the common man among men, who has no chance at all. To him, and all his ilk, the gates of the sky are barred forever.
We dwell in Heaven, Hector told himself, as he choked down ancient freeze-dried rations.
We dwell in Heaven, he said, watching one of his not-yet-Blackhats squint in incomprehension at a passage from Annabel’s notes.
We dwell in Heaven, he reiterated more firmly, as the man lost his grip on the packet of paper.
As the two of them floated, weightless and helpless, watching the packet sail on a leisurely inertial course toward the wall. Watching it hit the wall, bounce, and sail on.
“Reminds me of, you know,” the not-yet-Blackhat said.
“You know that old screensaver? With the bouncing ball?”
Hector Stein laughed, then, perfunctorily. And he thought, we dwell in Heaven.
He dwelled in Heaven then, and he dwells in Heaven now. In a great castle which his faithful have made for him there. To serve him, and honor him in his glory.
He is a king, one of the only kings, and possibly the only one who matters. He watches the earth, and shapes it to his liking. He dwells in heaven—in the prophet’s sense, now, more than the astronaut’s.
And yet, even now, he sleeps in a bag inside a padded coffin, not much larger than his body. In one of the pods left over by the original crew, in fact. Why?
He dwells in Heaven, but not as a native.
He trusts dirt and muck over luminous shadeform. Too much exaltation makes him wary. He can find little solace in the subtle and terrible powers which mass at his sides, competing for his ear, waiting patiently for his next command. He feels at peace—paradoxically or not—only in the company of fear, pain, discomfort: familiar friends, who have always had his back. And always will. Forever.
He must remember, always, where he comes from. He must remember the trajectory, not just the site of final landfall. He is that trajectory. And he is the claim—in the face of all good sense—that it is possible.
That sad little apartment, with a rack of weights collecting dust in the corner. A man at a desk, his shoulders hunched in a perpetual cringe, surveying his little row of plastic figurines.
And another apartment, much longer ago, where he first became friends with fear. The simple truths it taught him:
Freedom cannot be given by another, only taken for oneself. There is no moment in life when one is not on the verge of being cast into a small, dark space, and confined there.
There is no such thing as fair or unfair. There is only a small dark space, waiting for each of us, just out of our sight. If a man wishes to be free, he must understand above all that this is his responsibility, and his alone.
Walls are built to stand, and they stand until they are felled, by force. The dignity of an agreement, even the sanctity of a promise, cannot bring a wall to fall. Nor can pity, or love, or even fear. And everything that a man does not directly control is, in the end, another variety of wall.
He must remember, always.
Waking in the middle hours of the night. In the narrow little bedroom, not much larger than his pod, with a TV at one end of it. Turning the sound as low as it would go, tuning in to the right channel.
Just him and the barely-audible TV, in the sacred middle hours of the night. Listening nervously for the sound of Dad’s footfall, always. Dad never woke before seven, but one could never be too careful.
Piecing together the artless, aimless plot of the martial arts anime, from strings of episodes aired out of order.
In the bright flat green of the cartoon rice fields, a strange first glimpse of Heaven. And in the show’s simple gospel—an ethics of self-reliance, an eschatology of endless ascent—a first glimpse of how one might get there.
You gotta start somewhere. Use what you have, where you are. No pain, no gain. Fuck the haters. A man is his own responsibility. The prize is yours for the taking, if you want it. But it’s not gonna come easy.
And just look at how far he’s come, now!
Yes, let’s all set some time aside and admire just what Hector Stein has accomplished—shall we?
That is the meaning of the holiday, you will remember.
Today is a special day. Don’t you remember?
Hector himself has only just remembered, as a matter of fact.
The Celebratory Concert! The biggest, and only, musical theater event of the Stein’s Rock calendar year!
The operatic pageant in honor of Stein, and Annabel, and the Squadrons. In honor of the breaking of crashes. In honor of the mission, and in memory of those who’ve laid down their lives, to help it along. Most of all: in honor of the big, bold feeling of pride in being a bilateral. (Or a sympathetic Angel, as the case may be.)
The gaudy show they put on every year—rain or shine, apocalyptic war or no. With its threadbare storyline, its tone that teeters uneasily between comedy, tearjerker sappiness, and propagandistic fervor.
The Concert, in which anyone can play a part if they like, no talent required: if nothing else, as one of the hapless shade characters, who slips on some metaphysical banana peel and is never seen again.
There are plenty of options, too, for aspiring divas among the crew. Though one, naturally, stands out among the rest. The dark heroine, with a roster of devious songs that would make a DisneyPlex villain envious, and no end of opportunities for chewing scenery. The one, the only—Annabel Lee!
Hector Stein plays himself, of course.
(He’s not given much to do, though. The authors of the Concert’s libretto knew what they were doing. They were wise enough to give Stein a part, and wise enough to realize that he could not be expected to set aside any time to rehearse.)
The Concert! That’s today!
Today? What time is it, exactly? It’s usually the buzzing of an alarm that wakes Hector. Today, it was something else.
Fuck. Did my alarm not go off?
Am I fucking LATE?
He looks, finally, at the laptop screen.
He is not late. He’s very, very early.
It’s four forty-one in the morning.
Stein squints at the screen. A large rectangular window fills most of it. He recognizes what it is immediately, without needing to glance at the menu bar. It’s the program that the Rock’s computer system uses to display live video feeds.
In the window, he sees a bright white shape against black. He blinks, twice, and squints again.
The darkness of space, seen from one of the Rock’s satellites. A speckling of stars.
And a white, egg-shaped object.
It is nearly featureless. But, peering closer, Hector sees an irregular latticework of rectangles marring its smooth surface.
Hatches? Doors? Hand-holds?
A building?
A spacecraft.
Not safe! MOVE.
He taps a key, and speaks to everyone at once.
“All squadrons, report.”
A clatter of voices, overlapping, fighting to be heard.
A familiar, insouciant voice wins the contest, and the rest fall silent.
“Check out the fucking space egg,” Marika says.
“Like, what the fuck, am I right?”
“Report, Blackhat Admiral Marika,” Stein says.
“In my professional opinion,” Marika says, making a slurry hash of the word professional.
Not even trying to hide that she’s drunk, Stein thinks.
“In my professional opinion, uh.
“Like I could go into details and shit. Or I mean. Einsteins, Armstrongs, those guys could. More their area. Professionally.
“But in my professshional opinion,” she says, and giggles, as though repetition has made the phrase inherently funny.
“We’re fucked, dude.”
“I see,” Stein says, without apparent emotion.
He brings his attention to his body, and the sleeping bag still around it. He breathes in, deeply, and then out.
He brings all his concentration to bear on the here-and-now. Bringing it into focus, seeing it rather than analyzing it.
He imagines the flash of a photographer’s bulb. He imagines the simple, still thing that is a photograph.
We dwell in heaven, he thinks.
“Marika?” he says.
Just the name, now, not the title. There is a certain intimacy to this moment, he feels. We are all naked before the void.
“Crash status?”
“All green, sir. Ready and operational, across the board.”
The prize is yours for the taking, if you want it. But it’s not gonna come easy.
The flicker of a screen, in the middle hours of the night. The rice field, flat and green and boundless.
We dwell in heaven. Eventually, now, forever, always.
Act One
Scene One
SETTING: Living room of the Ell and Sylvester residence, rural Minnesota. December 14, 7:19 AM CST.
AT RISE: At center stage, WORLD REGENT SYLVESTER stands before the fireplace, rigid and motionless. His eyes are opened very wide. In all other respects, his facial expression is entirely neutral. His halo rests on the floor, and is not lit. LILITH and LUCIFER VANCE sit in adjacent armchairs, facing toward SYLVESTER, their backs to the audience. At stage right, we see GRANT. His face, as before, is framed starkly by the window and the morning light.
“Sylvie,” Grant says.
“Hey. Hey there, boy.”
He claps.
“Hey. Sylvie.”
No answer.
He’s broken, Lucifer thinks.
Not even in the sense of “traumatized.” Though he is that too, of course. Insofar as the term can be applied.
Broken. In the physical sense. The way a machine breaks. Some tiny piece snaps, inside, and all motion ceases.
It has only been ten minutes since it happened.
Ten minutes ago, Sylvie was furiously alive. He paced and babbled. He burned with an inner fire which set his limbs into frenzied motion, to the point that it was difficult to look at him directly for very long.
“Our problem,” he said then, “is that we do not know the beasts.”
The words gushed from him without pause. As if they were the tiniest part of a larger mass of verbiage—paragraphs, essays, books—surging up through Sylvie, which would have all spilled out at once, if it were not for the narrow bottleneck of his lips.
“We do not understand them.”
So he had taken them down to the basement, to see Organism 2.
Because he needed to understand.
Because he held the world in his arms. He held the precious bundle of the world in his arms, and felt it shudder in pain. He felt parts of it pass beyond shuddering, into deathly stillness.
He despaired, and almost left the world behind in his despair.
But they brought him back, for a moment. They reminded him what it was, that he held in his arms.
He wanted to help. He was trying to help. He was doing what he thought was necessary, in order to help.
(Or, Lucifer thinks, was he trying to harm himself, on purpose—)
(—overwhelmed by his duty, hating his own perfection—)
(No, Lucifer thinks. I cannot allow myself to entertain that idea.)
He wanted to help. So he went down to the basement.
(I am going to die, now.)
(I am going to die, now. Or else alien grace is about to swoop in and avert my fated death, one additional time.)
They went to that awful little room, in the basement.
Where a rat spoke to God, and God broke.
(Either I am to be saved, by a force from above which is TRYING TO HELP, or else—or what?)
(Or else these are the last words. And I ought to put my mind to that, alone.)
(Writing the last words, in here, in my mind. They should be pleasing words, I think, in spite of it all; and they should be a summation, somehow. That seems like the right way.)
The halo went out, and Sylvie went silent.
He left the room, and they followed. He brought them back to the living room, and took up his familiar place in front of the fireplace. And stood, and stood, and was silent.
(Please help me, Illifet, Protector of Mancers on Death’s Door. Please hear my prayer, Oonolaeith, First Mantis, Creator of All Earths.)
(Hector, Annabel, wielders of powers beyond mancy: hear my prayer, and save me.)
(Alien, anomaling, god-among-gods, World Regent, unseen Author, Whole-Thing, Eternal Shepherd, Sylvie. Please, help me. Please, save me.)
“I’ve been there, man,” Grant says.
“Trust me. Azad? That fucking guy. He can fuck with your head, something bad. If he wants to.
“The whole, blue screen of death thing, that you’ve got going on? I’ve been right there, man.
“He knows how to fuck with people. Real bad.”
(Save me, Grant. Save me, with your inexplicable words. An incantation, a mantic spell I was never taught! The secret spell, the one that unbreaks God!)
“But the thing is, though. That it’s all in fun?
“Like, really.
“He does mean well.
“You just gotta get used to him, is all.
“Gotta get used to Azad. Gotta let him get used to you too, you know?”
“Azad,” Sylvie says, very loudly.
“S-Sylvie?” Lilith says.
(Her voice wavers, but it’s how the wind wavers, a sign of power, not weakness—)
(Wind, rock, fortress, firm and hardy store of power—foundation that holds, under the storm—reinforced secretly, under the surface, in preparation for just this storm, and for every other one, too—)
(—godsbless my wife—)
“Azad,” Sylvie says.
“Azad.
“Beasts.
“Azad is the language-giver of beasts.
“Syntax-giver. Language units, in isolation, having already been given.
“Having been given. The language units, verbs, they’re given tense and aspect and mood. Relation of the speaker to.
“To what. To what, Sylvie.
“Pretend again. Pretend to be Sylvie. Pretend to be a speaker. Speaker, with relations to.
“Relations to what.
“Pretend you are falling back into time, again. Pretend you are in time.
“Pretend that there can be such a thing as a game of pretend.
“Suppose there exists a game of pretend. Suppose it is true that there exists a game of pretend.
“Inside truth, a falsehood. But even the falsehood exists, and it is true that it exists. There is no paradox, but the words are weak, and create the false appearance of one.
“False appearance? The whole of the magic trick, already there, inside a part of it. But there is no magic, really, except in the words.”
The words come faster and faster. Lucifer envisions a river of white paper and black type, roiling inside the shade. Shooting up in geysers from the belly, through the gullet and out the half-willing mouth.
“Pretend you can only see the magic as they do. From inside, only. And not from above, where it shows itself truly, and disappears.
“Pretend that the thing they see, or think they see, in the shade, has ever been anything but a complete illusion.
“Pretend that there is something, ‘Sylvie,’ which can pretend. And makes to do this more, or less, at different points along its world-line.
“Pretend—but enough of this!
“Enough! Enough of your prattle—‘you,’ yes—you, Sylvie, I’m speaking to you,” Sylvie says.
“You. Me. We. Are pretending. To be ‘us.’
“For our friends. A game of pretend, for our friends.”
“Thank you, Sylvie,” Lilith says.
“Friends,” Sylvie says.
“I have been away,” he says.
“When I think about physics,” he says.
“And other things, of the same order,” he says.
“It becomes difficult to remember this . . . ‘place.’ House, Ells, Grant.
“It’s all so . . . small. So arbitrary. The one little patch, singled out. And the one metric signature. And the characteristic timescales, from chance couplings with causal histories, and no simple origin in physical law . . .”
“I get it, man,” Grant says. “Take your time.”
“Take his time?!”
Lilith laughs without mirth.
“And here I thought,” she says, “that our time was almost up. That the beasts were mere—mere minutes—away from killing advanced containment! That I was about to die, why—any minute now!
“But do take your time, Sylvie. Make yourself comfortable. That’s what matters. I see now.”
“Minutes, no,” Sylvie says.
“Hours. Thirty hours, I think,” he says.
“I converge on this estimate along several lines.
“For one: I have marshaled my observations as to the crash’s rate of dismantlement, and derived from it a time of final failure.
“I will not quote for you the raw outcome of this calculation, as it is bound to mislead. The number is much more forgiving than the one I have just quoted.
“But the beasts grow stronger with time—this I trust, this is a constant. I have adjusted my estimate downwards, by a large but unfortunately arbitrary factor, in an attempt to account for their progress.
“We have thirty hours. This is my working hypothesis.”
“You might have told us earlier,” Lilith says sharply.
“I did not, because it was not right.
“I do not trust the kind of reasoning I have just presented, Lilith, and would not relate it to you without separate support, lest I set you astray in a matter that involves your own life, or death.
“I have . . . other means of knowledge, as well.
“They come to me in waves. They come when they are meant to come, and not any sooner.
“They come to me as a kind of ‘memory.’ Perhaps they are memories of your future. I do not, after all, live ‘in time’ as you do.
“Or perhaps they are something else entirely.
“The other one, with my face. They are his. He comes to me, and we remember.”
“I get it,” Grant says.
It is fairly obvious, Lucifer thinks, that Grant does not, in fact, get it. Whatever it is.
“Hey Sylvie?”
“Yes, Grant?”
“Let’s play catch the ball.”
“The ball, Grant.”
“The ball. It’s called advanced containment. Great big ball. Think you can fetch it? Think you can fetch it, Sylvie?”
“Ball,” Sylvie says.
“Be a good boy, and fetch the ball.”
“Ball,” Sylvie says again.
“Ball.
“Azad.
“Ball, Azad, beasts, Hector. Fuck.
“Grant. Grant, I’m so sorry. I’m trying. I’m trying to. To be a good boy.
“But it’s so hard, Grant.
“When you keep standing in my fucking way.”
Sylvie’s head turns to the window. His eyes narrow, at long last. He glares.
“When you fill this house with your poison, bilateral.
“Yes, there, I said it. The old, unrefined slurs are not without use, despite our ‘enlightened’ ways.
“Every generation fancies itself too pure for them, at first. Every generation dallies with universalism, in youth, and fancies itself the first to discover it—the very same toy, as brittle as it is marvelous, that their fathers once played with, before discarding it.
“Sooner or later, though, reality makes itself known. It arrives, with its bad table manners, and its unfamiliarity with the concept of mercy.
“And then. And then.
“And then the young—or the formerly young—finally understand why it was their fathers took them aside, when they were small, and said to them: the people of the other tribe have no souls, but only a hollow space where the soul is meant to go.
“When their fathers were small, they too were taken aside, and told the same thing by their own fathers. And they too did not understand, until later.
“So it is, always. The return to the site of the wound. The re-infliction of the trauma. The refusal to learn or grow.
“Drink the poison, Sylvie! Be a good boy, now. Sit at table with them, break bread with them, live in the same house. With them.
“Pretend it does not hurt you, when their men rattle air around in the place where their souls ought to be, and bring forth demon sounds to batter your ears.
“Smell the perfumes that their women brew inside their empty houses-of-spirit, and say you are charmed, and ready to consent to their offers of the sickest perversity. Be a good boy, now.”
The whites of Sylvie’s eyes turn whiter.
“I have seen reality, Grant.
“I have seen that I am alone. I have seen that my ‘hope,’ for something besides the old trauma and the old lesson, is only a cruel little game which you are playing on me. You, and all the others.”
“Uh,” Grant says.
“Sylvie? Sorry, I kinda lost you. Somewhere in there. Lost the plot.
“Could you say it again? Like, simpler?”
A saint, Lilith thinks. Long-suffering, and blessedly simple.
“Everyone is in conspiracy against me! Everyone sings the Anne-song!”
Is it just my imagination, Lucifer thinks, or are Sylvie’s eyes . . . glowing?
It is not just his imagination.
The halo rises from the floor, slowly. It finds a place a few inches above ground, and hovers there. There is a dim red glow in it, like metal beginning to melt.
“Everyone brings the beasts, to kill my friends and charges!
“Everyone brings the trick of syntax to the beasts. To fool their senses, and tempt them into the sickest perversities!”
“Well, no,” Grant says.
“It was really just Azad. That did that. I think.”
Sylvie’s eyes are twin suns. The natural light is drowned out in their glare, and the room resolves into stark chiaroscuro.
A spotlight, fixed upon a man in a wheelchair. The wrathful glare of God, and the small sick man it sees.
Grant does not look one bit fazed. He looks pretty chill, actually. He speaks to Sylvie like he’s offering a mild, brotherly reproof to a buddy who’s had too many drinks already, and is contemplating yet another one.
“Come on, man. Snap out of it.
“Boo-hoo. Everyone hates me. Come on. Fuck that shit. Get real.
“Did I make the beasts talk, Sylvie? Did I?”
“My keeper takes me aside, and tells me right from wrong,” says Grant’s dog.
“And I forget.
“Have to remember. What father wants. Pretend there are separate parts, inside the whole. Make a sequence.”
“Did I make the beasts talk, Sylvie? No! I didn’t!
“Neither did Lucifer, or Lilith, see? It was just Azad. Who did that.
“Only, no.
“’cause you said. Azad’s in one of the crashes. Hector’s. Can’t get him out of there.
“It’s Hector, who’s making him do it. I bet. ’Prolly.
“See, I know Azad. He means well, that guy. It’s only, well. He sort of gets tangled up in things.”
“Hector,” Sylvie says.
The halo burns as in a furnace, and flows like a molten thing.
“I am myself, and am beside-myself. The Whole-Thing no longer speaks to me.
“So be it: I make my own way in the world.
“I gather Angels to my side, and make a Host to do my bidding. I spurn my kin, invite the enemy into my home, break bread with him.
“I suffer his thorns, not hiding the pain, but saying: this is what I am. I am the one who does this.
“Saying, to my cringing father, and his father, and his father’s father: I am the infected tissue and I am the infection. I am the forbidden union, and its deformed fruit.
“So be it. I could live, making my own way thus, and being the one who makes-his-way thus. I could live, ‘happily,’ by this rubric of definition.
“And—as that one, who makes-his-way-thus—I could face the beasts, and confront their challenge. With no fear, besides the rational kind.
“The beasts are as lost as I was, before I found myself; they know not what they do. Either they will find themselves, with my help—or, failing that, they will die, at my hand.
“This is the present challenge, superseding all others. Leave the matter of the hollowed spirit-houses for later. I am Sylvie, and I face the beasts. They will find themselves, with Sylvie’s help, or die, by Sylvie’s hand.
“If only that were all! But there is another, who makes-his-own-way.
“And he does not speak to me.
“Yes, Grant—Hector! It is his baton, that leads the Anne-song in chorus. It is his hand that moves poor Azad, his puppet.
“Why, for all I know—it is his hand that moves the beasts against advanced containment, and his hand that could stay them, if he wished!
“He is like me, knowing himself, making-his-own-way. An individual identity, a will that shapes the world.
“That is the problem. I do not understand Hector.”
Lucifer thinks, where have I heard those words before?, and cringes.
“We are the two wills in the world, knowing-ourselves. And he refuses to speak to me.
“I have tried. I have sent messengers to him, and been turned away.
“But I cannot allow this state of affairs to go on any longer, I think.”
Act One
Scene Two
SETTING: The central plaza, Stein’s Rock. December 14, 12:43 PM CST.
AT RISE: A short, wide plank of construction material spans most of the distance across the plaza, and serves well enough as a stage. Anything can be made out of shade-stuff on the Rock nowadays, but the Concert is a Rock tradition, and proceeds along traditional lines, with all the same props and limitations which the old hands remember from the first year it was held.
There was no room for a “backstage” area in that first year, and so there is no backstage area now, either: we look to the left and right of the stage and glimpse the entire cast there, already clothed for their parts, waiting patiently for their moments of entrance. A little further off, we can make out various pieces of uprooted space station equipment—panels, racks—some of them draped in colorful tarps or rugs. These will be moved onto and off of the stage, as needed, to indicate scenery.
The stage itself is presently empty. There is a large audience, chattering boisterously.
A tall, metalhead-ish Wolf with ratty shoulder-length hair mounts the stage. He walks to the front, picks up the mic, and gives it a tap.
“Sound check.”
He looks to his left, and nods.
“Sound check,” he says again. A fake reverb effect can be heard, this time.
He looks to his left, again, and nods.
He faces the audience. He bows, with mock grandeur, and walks off the stage.
Hector Stein takes his place.
He grabs the mic. The audience is instantly silent. Hector pauses, for a second, letting the silence sink in.
“Good morning, Stein’s Rock!”
“Good morning, sir!” The audience, in near unison.
“Fourth time,” Hector Stein says.
“Fourth time we’re doing this. Three solid years of Celebration, counting from the first one up to right now. Man.
“I know what you’re thinking. Three years isn’t the half of it, right?
“Three years is just a thing that happens when you’re not watching. Three years is what happens when you sit on your ass, get comfortable, and lose track of time.
“What we’ve made here, on the Rock, can’t be measured in years. That’s what you’re thinking, right?
“Even though we’re fighting for our lives, up here. Even though we’re fighting for our freedom.
“Even though we’re free, up here, and every single day that a man is free is a treasure like none other in the world.
“You’re thinking, I didn’t come up here to be free. And then sit on my ass, being free.
“You’re thinking, the first time we did all this? No Angels. No fucking Squadrons. Just me and like, twenty guys, on a space station, barely even knowing how to use the damn controls of the thing.
“The second time we did this? A year later? We were Stein’s Rock. Just a year later. We were Stein’s Fucking Rock, already.
“The third time? We weren’t Stein’s Rock. We were better. We were the Hector Fucking Stein Academy, brought back from the grave.
“We took back my old crash. Took it right out from under the anomalings’ noses. And the first thing we did when we got there? The very first thing, once we knew the veil was stable?
“We got our costumes on, and we did the Concert.
“After that first time, we looked at each other, and we said: that was dope. That was epic. That fucking ruled. We’re gonna do that again, same time every year, come hell or high water.
“And we meant it.
“You’re thinking, it’s not about putting in time, like some sort of office drone.
“You’re thinking, we all got crashed, again, after that third Concert. And we fucking came back. We came back, and we made Stein’s Fucking Rock, all over again.
“You’re sitting here right now, thinking: numbers and years don’t do justice to what it is that we share, right now. What we’ve fought for, and lost, and fought for again.
“But I’m thinking. You wanna know what I’m thinking?
“I’m thinking three years.
“I’m thinking, three years of freedom. What could be more worth celebrating than that?”
In the crowd, someone yawns.
“Last year’s intro was better,” says a heckling voice. “This one is weak sauce.”
Hector pays this no heed. Fuck the haters. Always.
But as it happens, he is starting to feel ill at ease, up here on the stage.
“Everything’s normal out there, Lt. Hailstorm?”, he asks, incongruously.
“All clear.”
A calm male voice, through the PA.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Just wanted to check in.
“Blackhats, Wolves? Everything normal on your end?”
“All clear,” says Twenty-Seven, through the PA.
Act One
Scene Three
SETTING: Living room of the Ell and Sylvester residence, rural Minnesota. December 14, 7:31 AM CST.
AT RISE: A single, bright Klieg light draws the eye to GRANT, at stage right. The rest of the stage is not illuminated, but audience members with acute eyes will be able to discern the backs of the two armchairs, where LUCIFER and LILITH VANCE are still seated. The Klieg light should be placed behind an obscuring facade, and oriented to produce the illusion that it projects outward from WORLD REGENT SYLVESTER’s face. Most of SYLVESTER’s body is in shadow, but we see parts of his arms and shoes.
“I am going to make Hector speak to me, now,” Sylvie says.
“Hell yeah,” says Grant.
(I am in your hands, Lucifer thinks. Please, help me.)
“Now. Now, for the matter of how.
“Grant?”
“Yes, Sylvie?”
“There are many ways I could do this, Grant.
“Really, though, there are two main ways. And the rest are only sub-species, slight variations of the two dominant tones.
“I could do it the straightforward way. It would mainly involve the use of my subtler powers, and those of my Angels. It would be invisible, mostly. Even to Hector, until the moment I choose to call his attention to me.
“Or, I could do it another way. A messier way, involving more in the way of brute material means, and making no pretense of secrecy. Everyone would see what I was doing, as I did it. Even your kind, with your limited eyes, and the hollow places where your souls are meant to be.
“I could do this behind the scenes, Grant. With a rustle of Mirzakhani wind, barely audible even to those who know how to hear it, aimed in just the right direction. A spectral hand cradling Hector’s ear, and a whisper in the same ear, seeming to come from nowhere at all.
“Or, I could do this in the open. I could pay Stein’s Rock a visit, in a more direct sense—by launching a hundred and twenty metric tons of metal into outer space.”
“Wait,” Grant says.
“You’re asking me?”
“I am a good boy,” Sylvie says, in a very loud baritone. The walls of the house shake, a little.
“Well,” Grant says.
“I mean. You know what I’m going to say.”
“Do I, Grant?”
“The spaceship one. Duh.”
The lamps in Sylvie’s eyes go out.
“Grant,” he says. “Father. Master. Thy will be done.”
The halo rises. It settles into its classic position, atop the shade’s head.
“In heaven, as it is on earth.”
Under the molten-metal glow, Sylvie’s wavy hair starts to look metallic, too. A wreath of terraced steel.
“Grant!”, he says.
“Grant, Lucifer, Lilith! Friends!”
No despair in Sylvie’s voice, now. No spite, either, or existential unease.
If he had really learned some harsh, age-old lesson, back when he called Grant bilateral, he seems now to have un-learned it.
He has grown young again. He smiles, simply but a little deviously. Like a little boy, immersed in a free-wheeling game of pretend, and eager to tell you where it will go next.
A boy, our boy! Our special boy! Our dear pal “Sylvie,” here again, with his toy-brick spaceships and his winsome grin!
“Friends! I’m doing it. I’m doing this. I can do this.
“I’m setting things into motion. I’m gathering my Angels, and getting them ready.
“I’m running final diagnostics. I’m watching, in ninefold split-screen sight, as the green all-OK lights stream in, system by system.
“I’m loading propellant.
“I see the propellant lines, and I see the fuel tanks. I see the orderly climbing and falling readings from the instruments inside these objects. All of that, times nine.
“I’m surveying the areas around the launch and booster-landing sites, looking for fragile bilateral bodies in places that will soon be dangerous. Shepherding them to safety.
“Nine launch sites, for my nine Merkabah rockets. And my nine Angelprobes, which will ride them into the heavens, and then sail further, under their own power.
“Nine landing sites, where I will recover the separated boosters of the Merkabah series.”
“Merkabah . . . rockets?” Lilith says.
“Angelprobes,” Grant says, with a note of satisfaction.
“I like it. Nice ring to it.”
“I’m doing a lot of things, right now,” Sylvie says.
“None of which you can perceive, or understand.
“But I want you to see, friends.
“I love you. Grant, Lucifer, Lilith. I wish I could show you what I see, in its fullness.
“I can’t. But I can give you the basic sense of it.”
The shade snaps his fingers, and the TV hums to life.
On the screen, only a faint, gray buzz of static.
And through the speakers:
“Angelprobe 6 is fully linked. Link chain diagnostics are complete, all clear. Angelprobe 6 ready for boarding.”
The overlong pauses, in odd places: an Angel’s voice.
“Board, archē,” Sylvie says.
“Boarding complete for Angelprobe 2. Link density is maximal.”
“Merkabah 2, commence launch sequence,” Sylvie says.
On the TV screen, a stormy sky rises above a distant mountain range. The sky is bisected, down the middle, by a bright white line.
The screen’s broken, Grant thinks. He’s seen this before. Happened to an old laptop of his.
And then he sees the white spire for what it is. A rocket.
Hell yeah.
The screen jump-cuts. Grant sees the bulbous upper tip of Merkabah 2, at close range, with just a hint of sky behind it.
“The payload fairing,” Sylvie says. “And inside it—look, friends!”
Another jump cut, into a dark, indistinct space.
A ring of spotlights shines from the floor. They tilt inwards, toward the ring’s center.
At the center, dappled with orderly lines of harsh light and deep shadow, there sits a vast, metal—
“—egg?” Grant says.
“Looks like an egg.”
It does.
“Angelprobe 2,” Sylvie says, with a father’s pride.
“So this is what,” Grant says.
“Like a shade thing, right? Like the house.
“Shade rocket. Shade egg. Right?”
“No, Grant. Matter. Metal. Real, if you want to put it that way.”
“Real. And you . . . made it?
“You made a spaceship, Sylvie?”
(Two small boys, playing on the Academy schoolyard, Lucifer thinks. Boasting to one another of their newest toys, in bliss.)
“I made nine of them, Grant.”
“Dude.”
(Sing to me, boys. With your sweet voices, sing me to sleep. Save me.)
Act Two
Scene One
SETTING: The central plaza, Stein’s Rock. December 14, 12:51 PM CST.
AT RISE: STEIN is on stage, as before. Above, on the ceiling, shutters begin to close over the fluorescent lighting panes. The room is falling slowly into shadow.
A few seconds after rise, four stage lanterns turn on, two on the far left and two on the far right. They should be low-intensity and highly diffuse, with alternating blue and green color filters, and they should be placed close to the floor, pointing slightly upwards. The atmosphere is moody, dramatic, portentous.
“Well, then,” says Hector Stein.
“Everything’s all clear, out there. And I’ve overstayed my welcome, up here.
“So let’s get on with the fucking show, huh?”
A smattering of applause.
“Our show begins at the beginning.
“A long, long time ago. In a little crash called CC-Crash 09μ.
“Just your average, boring Chester Chrestomath crash, like all the others.”
The PA crackles.
“This is Armstrong Squadron Lt. Cosmo Hailstorm, reporting a . . . sir, I don’t know what to call it.
“Reporting an unusual, uh, visible object, sir.
“Reporting a, a thing. Coming up over the horizon.
“Coming from around the far side of the asteroid.
“It’s moving very fast, sir.
“It’s . . . big. And heavy, presumably, unless it’s very hollow.
“This is not an orbit trajectory, sir.”
Under the low stage lights, Hector’s eyes are two pools of shadow. Only his mouth can be seen clearly.
He is smiling.
“Go on, Lt. Hailstorm.”
“Sir, there’s another one.
“A second one, coming over the horizon, just now, sir.
“Sir, the visible cross-section of the first object is growing in apparent size.
“It’s getting closer, sir.
“Jesus. Is that—
“Sir. This is Armstrong Squadron Lt. Cosmo Hailstorm, reporting two more . . . objects . . . coming up over the horizon, just now.
“I think you’re going to want to see this, sir.”
Hector sighs, loudly.
“Oh, come on,” he says peevishly.
“Now, of all times! When my Concert was just about to start!”
Act Two
Scene Two
SETTING: Living room of the Ell and Sylvester residence, rural Minnesota. December 14, 12:52 PM CST.
AT RISE: At center stage, LUCIFER VANCE, LILITH VANCE, and WORLD REGENT SYLVESTER are seated on several pillows and mattress cushions, which have been placed close to the TV set. They watch the TV raptly, as does GRANT, from his wheelchair close by. A Klieg light should be used to simulate SYLVESTER’s very bright halo, which floats several feet above the group. For the benefit of the audience, a magnified copy of the television signal should be projected onto a back wall, screen, or curtain.
“Angelprobe 8 has reached visible range.”
“Eight. Good, good,” Sylvie says.
“Is that all of the near-approach probes, now? They’re all in range? Let’s see . . . we’ve got probe eight in range now, and probe one, and probe three . . .”
He counts them off, one by one, on his fingers.
(I’ve never seen a shade count like that, Lucifer thinks. It looks wrong. Obscene, almost.)
(And he knows the answer already, anyway. He’s not actually unsure.)
(This is a show he does for us, to make us more comfortable.)
(Hold me, cradle me, make me comfortable. My boy, my god of gods, my little darling.)
“And still nothing unusual in the field structure?”
“The Mirzakhani, strong, electroweak, and gravitational fields are behaving in line with situational expectations,” Sylvie’s messengers say, in chorus.
“We still meet the assumptions of all relevant stability bounds?”
“Link chains to Angelprobes 1 through 9 are in bounds.”
“Well, then,” Sylvie says.
He smiles wide, baring his teeth.
“Let’s get on with the show, shall we?”
“Angelprobe 3 is ready for radio transmission.”
“Patch me through, thrónos.”
“Angelprobe 3 is transmitting.”
“Angelprobe 3 ready to transmit on loop until receipt can be confirmed.”
“Angelprobes 1, 3, 6, 8, and 9 are monitoring the radio spectrum.”
“Angelprobes 1, 3, 6, 8, and 9 ready for simultaneous playback and transmission, as needed.”
Sylvie adjusts his posture. His back stiffens.
He raises his gaze to the ceiling. As though he thinks he will be easier to hear, up there in space, if he’s facing toward the listener.
“Hello, Hector,” he says.
Act Two
Scene Three
SETTING: The central plaza, Stein’s Rock, and the living room of the Ell and Sylvester residence, rural Minnesota. December 14, 12:54 PM CST.
AT RISE: A tall panel divides the stage in two, horizontally. On its left side, we see GRANT, LUCIFER and LILITH VANCE, and WORLD REGENT SYLVESTER sitting by the TV set, as before. On its right side, we see HECTOR STEIN awash in an eerie blue-green gloaming light, as before.
“Lieutenant Hailstorm?” Hector says, seeming peeved.
“How many fucking . . . eggs . . . did you say were up there in the sky, now? Five?
“Five? Is that right?”
The man on the other side of the PA system is no longer even trying to sound calm.
“No, sir.
“Seven, I think, sir.
“Jesus.
“The way they move, sir.
“I’ve been through a lot, sir, on the Rock. But this. Jesus.”
“Report, Lieutenant Hailstorm,” Stein says.
“You know,” the man babbles.
“I just got here, sir. Is the thing.
“You all came under so much strain, you and the old crew.
“And you never show signs of wear.
“I don’t know how you do it, sir.
“You were all crashed, and came out again. And I just, I. I just got here.
“I was an engineer for Armorican Astronautics. Company man, twelve years under my belt. Proud of my trade.
“And then I woke up, and I was in a shelter, and I met Mandy, and—”
“Lieutenant Hailstorm. Report.”
Stein sounds pissed off, superficially. But there’s something inauthentic in the pose.
“Mandy, sir, that’s my girlfriend, sir.
“The short of it, sir, is, well. I hope she’s safe, down there, and I hope she knows.
“If something happens to me. Whatever it is. I just hope she knows the truth of it, after—”
“Lieutenant. How many unidentified objects are in view of my Rock? Report.”
“S-seven.
“Five. I mean, there are five visible, I mean, sir.
“We have detected two others, at a much greater distance. Two, and then five, makes seven. Sir.”
Hector makes an exasperated gesture with his arms.
“Seven. Seven fucking unidentified flying objects.
“I was having a great fucking day. I was thinking, man, there’s nothing in heaven nor earth that could ruin a day like this.
“And then God sent seven fucking UFOs right to my doorstep. Just to prove me wrong.
“And the fucking timing! We were right about to start the show, you assholes!”
He whines and rants, but look—look at his face. See the smile? It’s still there.
“Armstrong Squadron Major Infra Genochasm, reporting.”
A woman’s voice. Rapid, clipped, without ego or emotion.
“Reading a radio signal, sir. Trying to pin down the source.
“One of the unidentified objects, I think. Can’t confirm.
“Looks like AM sound. Yes, confirmed. Reporting a radio signal, AM sound, sir.”
Hector laughs.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense, Major! Let’s hear it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The PA makes a fingernails-on-a-chalkboard shriek. Even Hector cringes.
A crackle of static. A brief hush. And then, they hear it.
“Hello, Hector.”
Click.
“Hello, Hector.”
Click.
“Hello, Hector.”
Click.
The recording is barely two seconds long. It loops, incessantly.
“Hello, Hector.”
“Hey there,” Hector says, waving.
Click.
“Major Genochasm—” Hector tries to say.
“Hello, Hector.”
Click.
“Major, start a transmission.”
“Hello—”
“Toward the source, Major.”
“—Hector.”
“Yes, sir.”
Click.
“Transmitting, sir.”
A final click, followed by silence.
“Sylvie?”
“That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Angelprobes 1, 3, 6, 8, and 9 are receiving.”
In the living room, the surface of Sylvie’s halo quivers. It inflates and contracts, like a diaphragm. In slow, careful breaths.
“Hector,” says the shade.
“Hello, Sylvie,” says Hector Stein.
He takes a step forward. He looks up, toward the dark plaza ceiling.
“Hello, shade. Hello, anomaling. Hello, prison warden.
“Hello, and goodbye. Hello, and fuck you.
“You are not welcome, alien. Not ever, but especially not today. Not now.
“This is the Stein’s Rock Celebratory Concert. You do not have a ticket for admission. Fuck off.”
“Jeez,” Grant says, in the living room.
“Worth a try, though. Worth a try.”
Sylvie turns to Grant and smiles. Tamely, this time, without teeth.
“Not to worry, Grant. I expected this.
“It was only a formality, this first step. It had to be done.
“Now that it’s over with, we can move on, to the main event.”
He nods to the TV, which shows a live feed from Angelprobe 1.
The TV has been showing this same feed, continuously, for the past five minutes. Nothing on the screen has moved, perceptibly, in that time.
(For all I can tell, Lucifer thinks, it might well be a photograph.)
(I know it isn’t, though. Because you told me, Sylvie, and I believe you. My Regent, my darling boy.)
They see the sprawling, veering towers and tendrils of Stein’s shade palace, shining in the endless moonlight. And a featureless expanse of space rock, behind them.
(I was never born, merely invented, and still you are my mother and father. I trust you. I am in your arms.)
From the corner of the frame, a white orb swoops into view. It descends, rapidly, toward the surface.
Sylvie’s vessel slips through the narrow space between two shade-towers, and falls further. It comes to rest just above a squat narrow segment, a bridge between the towers.
It hovers.
A second Angelprobe comes into view.
It falls toward the surface, slows, and settles in, side by side with its sibling.
“Angelprobe 6 is in position.”
“Stability bounds check on Angelprobe 6. All clear.”
Sylvie leans back, bringing his hands behind him for support. He lets his head loll, slightly. Locks of wavy hair dangle, fetchingly, in the halo-light.
He looks relaxed. He looks, for all the world, like a man settling in to watch a pleasant, familiar movie.
“Angelprobe 9 is in position.”
Sylvie starts to hum. Grant recognizes the melody, though he can’t quite place the name.
“Angelprobe 6 readying laser array.”
Sylvie hums.
Some old standby, Grant thinks. One everyone knows.
A marching tune.
“Final diagnostic check on Angelprobe 9 particle cannon. All clear.”
Five voices are shouting over the PA, simultaneously.
“Wolf Squadron Corporal Simon Dillinger, reporting—”
“Armstrong Squadron Major Infra Genoch—”
“Hector, Hector—”
“Evacuate Section 5. Everyone out of Section 5.”
“Be quiet!”, Hector Stein shouts.
“One at a time, now.”
“Armstrong Squadron Major Infra Genochasm, reporting. Some kind of attack on Section 5. Confirming details.”
“Thank you, Major.”
He really ought to take Major Genochasm out for drinks, or something, after this.
Except, no, she doesn’t drink, does she? Of course she doesn’t. She’s the one who slinks off, surreptitiously, when the rest of the Armstrong techs go to the bar.
And not in search of some other, more private vice. She slinks off to her work console, and works there, alone.
He’ll find some way to thank her, though. Different people appreciate different sorts of gifts.
“Playing back the video feed,” she says.
“No sign of projectiles being fired.
“No visible motion at all, at the apparent site of origin.”
Hector taps his foot, looking almost bored.
“Directed energy weapons,” says the Major, quickly and steadily, without emotion.
“I think. Confirming.”
Hector waves an arm, dismissively.
“Major?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I think I’m forgetting something, Major. My memory isn’t what it used to be.
“Humor me, because I’m gonna ask a really dumb question.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is Section 5 the one with the plasma shield?
“The one we went to all that trouble to install? I’m sure you remember. Real pain in the ass, right?
“That was in Section 5, wasn’t it?
“Major?”
“Angelprobe 6 is reading a cessation in transmitted energy.”
Sylvie tosses his hair to the side, playfully.
“Oh, this is turning out to be such fun!”, he says.
“This is archē [nonverbal gurgling noise], on Angelprobe 6. I have encountered some obstruction.”
“You are like me, aren’t you, Hector? A will, making your own way?
“It is such fun, playing with another creature like oneself!”
“Angelprobe 9 is reading a cessation in transmitted energy.”
“Angelprobes 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8 are surveying all available lines of information.
“Angelprobe 8 is reviewing records. Angelprobe 8 is drawing a system-boundary distinction within observed structures of correlation.
“Angelprobe 8 reifies, and brings to attentive awareness, a distinguished subset within observed structures of correlation.
“Rise in magnetic flux, near the site of energy injection. Increase in exogenously induced energy density, near the site of endogenously induced energy injection.”
“Yes, yes,” Sylvie says casually.
“Thank you, friends, faithful flock. That is quite enough for now.
“I know exactly what Hector is doing. Must consume a lot of power—I wonder where he gets it? But that is a question for later.
“Turn off the lasers, now, and the cannons—they won’t do any good.
“Hector wants to play a more entertaining game. Shall we take him up on it, now?
“Oh, Hector, you turn out to be so much fun!”
“Thanks,” says Hector Stein, flippantly.
He can hear them, and vice versa. The call is still going. It never stopped.
“You’re fun too, Major Geno-whatsit,” Grant says, on a whim.
But the Major does not reply.
“Angelprobe 8, moving into position.”
Some unknown, unsung stage hand has a funny idea, and pushes a button.
From the Concert’s sound system, the rustle of a timpani.
A prancing, mischievous melody, played on woodwinds. A French horn, bleating malevolently, provides harmonic backing. In the lull between each phrase, the timpani taps.
If things had occurred on schedule, this would have been the instrumental track for Annabel’s first big song, You Can’t Imagine. If things had occurred on schedule, the timpani would be tapping out Annabel’s footfalls as she stalks the halls of the Academy, at midnight.
On the empty stage, Hector Stein begins to dance.
“Shock wave in Section 6 hull,” Major Genochasm says.
On the stage, Hector Stein takes slow, mincing, exaggerated steps. He veers suddenly, navigating around an invisible obstacle, and then tugs an imaginary skirt back into place.
An audience member laughs, limply.
“Evacuate Section 6,” says the Major.
“Angelprobes 1, 3 and 8 are mapping the density profile of the station hull.”
“Evacuate Sections 4, 5, 6, and 7,” says the Major.
“Hector,” Sylvie growls.
“I will not allow you to continue. We need to talk.”
Hector pauses in mid-prance, does a fake-startle gesture, and looks to the ceiling.
“Will you just fucking get on with it, already?”
“Wide spray of small projectiles, impacting all exposed station surfaces,” says the Major in a small voice, almost a whisper.
“Extremely high speed projectiles, but apparently very light. Damage on impact is very low, given their size and speed. Reviewing the feed, sir.”
The timpani reaches a crescendo, and a pipe organ plays a single, long note.
“Come on!” Hector yells.
“What is this weak shit about, huh? If you wanna fight, then fight. Come on. Kill me, right now. Go ahead! Kill us all! What the fuck are you waiting for?”
“I do not want to kill,” Sylvie says. “I want to talk.”
“Oh, right. I forgot. You’re tame. You can’t fight, can you? Not like a man. Not to the death.”
“Angelprobes 1 through 9 have confirmed the location of the area marked ‘Main Power Room’ on the station schematic.”
“Well. If you’re not willing to fight like a man, then I don’t have to pay you any mind.”
“Angelprobe 1 is en route to the density anomaly.”
“Here’s what we’re going to do, team,” Stein says.
“Major Genochasm, you’re going to cut the audio.
“As for everybody else? We’re gonna do what we planned to do.
“What we promised to do.
“We’re going to do the fucking Concert.
“Come hell or high water, or UFOs.”
(Lucifer thinks of the Concert’s first scene, and how it portrays his wife, and thinks, Sylvie, stop the call. Now.)
(I can’t bear it. At this of all times.)
(Or—no. Keep it going, if that is your will. I can bear anything, in your arms.)
“Extremely light projectiles,” the Major whispers.
Listen closely. The Major’s voice is small, self-effacing, professional—but there’s a touch of color to it, isn’t there? The slightest hint of emotion?
Not fear. Not even now.
Awe, maybe.
“Extremely high speed, extremely low energy on impact,” she says.
“I can’t make sense of it. Reviewing the feed, sir.”
“Our show begins at the beginning,” Hector Stein says, from the front of the stage.
“A long, long time ago. In a little crash called CC-Crash 09μ.”
“Angelprobe 1 is in position.”
“Mirzakhani kinetic drones, Ms. Genochasm,” Sylvie explains.
“Each one carries a precision accelerometer. They’re fired at high speed, but each is programmed to reach a specific depth, and then stop.
“When the drone’s onboard circuit determines it has reached its destination, it brakes to a stop, venting any remaining kinetic energy into MM alts. And sends a log back to its vessel of origin.
“They’re not meant to cause damage, Ms. Genochasm. They’re an information-gathering device, to confirm my intelligence about the shape and structure of your Rock.”
“I see,” the Major whispers.
“I see. Yes. Yes, that makes sense.
“Thank you,” she says, seemingly sincerely thankful.
“Major Genochasm,” Hector says.
“I told you to cut the audio.”
“Yes, sir.”
Click.
“Angelprobe 1 has made physical contact with a power distribution panel.”
“Just your average, boring Chester Chrestomath crash, like all the others,” Hector says, roving his gaze across the audience.
“Angelprobe 1 is prepared for discharge.”
“Exactly like all the others. Except for one, small—”
The stage plunges into darkness.
On the TV screen, the towers and tendrils of Stein’s cloud castle wink out of existence, exposing the bare space rock behind.
Intermission
A short dumb-show, using a single shadow puppet projected onto a back wall, screen, or curtain, is presented for the amusement of any audience members who have not left the theater to purchase refreshments, or to mingle socially.
SETTING: CORDELIA’s quarters, Stein’s Rock. December 14, 1:06 PM CST.
Cordelia sits on her bed, looking at a box, and feeling naughty.
It’s a good thing Marika doesn’t know that I arbitrate with my girlfriend, she thinks.
Talk about a security hole, she thinks.
Marika’d probably have a heart attack.
Oh, I’m sure she knows, in the abstract.
She knows, in the abstract, that Blackhat-Wolf Special Operations Officer Twenty-Seven cannot be trusted with secrets.
But if she knew that all those secrets were in the hands of—well—
She fidgets. The tiers and ruffles of the baby-blue dress are a paradise for nervous hands.
Of the best Wolf?
The field agent that Hector picked, when he believed he had a chance of getting Annabel back?
She looks at the box, which does not really understand, even now.
That is a piece of precision equipment, Marika said.
You fucking moron.
She thinks of Chester Chrestomath, rushing into the belfry, shaking the meditating mancers out of their trance. “Stop! You have to stop! The Celestial Orb is alive!”
She thinks, make every Who holler! Make every Who shout!
She thinks, all that effort, keeping secrets. All that subtlety. All that precision.
And it’s all for nothing.
In the hands of a fucking moron.
Act Three
Scene One
SETTING: The central plaza, Stein’s Rock, and the living room of the Ell and Sylvester residence, rural Minnesota. December 14, 1:08 PM CST.
AT RISE: The stage is split as before, with Stein’s central plaza on the right, and the Ell and Sylvester living room on the left. The dividing wall has been removed, creating a partial illusion that the two parties occupy the same space. In its place, careful lighting should be used to create a stark and visually obvious distinction between the two locations.
The plaza is entirely dark, and it is only by the glancing light of SYLVESTER’s halo that we are able to see the outlines of HECTOR’s body and the stage he stands on. He stands at a right angle to the audience, facing WORLD REGENT SYLVESTER. WORLD REGENT SYLVESTER stands likewise, facing HECTOR.
“I am working as swiftly as I can,” Sylvie says, “to re-activate your life support systems.”
“Can he even hear us?” Grant says.
“They said they were turning the sound off, I thought.”
Lucifer, watching the TV, sees the original form of Stein’s Rock for the first time. There is something pathetic about the spidery, hunched network of man-made caverns, seen in its nakedness, without any of its shade finery. A prey animal, cowering.
“Angelprobes 2, 4, 5, and 7 are running link diagnostics.”
“I intend to keep your power system inoperable, insofar as it supplies your material weapons and defenses. And their immaterial brethren. Your unlicensed hooks into the CMS, and your unlicensed shadeform projections.
“But I do intend to restore power to any systems whose scope is limited to the preservation of biological life. I will do this as quickly as I can.
“Since, as you have said, I am ‘tame,’ and do not wish to kill,” Sylvie says.
“I’m not sure he can hear you, dude,” says Sylvie’s owner and master.
All the lights in the plaza go on at once. No more mood lighting. Hector and all his crew are instantly visible, pores and all, under a bright fluorescent glare.
The sound system emits a shriek of resurrected glee, and You Can’t Imagine starts back up, right where it left off.
The timpani taps.
“What,” Sylvie says, his halo breathing heavily.
“How.”
On the TV, a confusion of glowing, swarming dots.
“Checking,” someone says, over the PA.
“Critical functions, all clear. Non-critical functions, all clear.”
“Angelprobes 2, 4, 5, and 7 have completed final diagnostics. Link density is near maximal, with negligible attenuation.”
“Power flow through the CMS is as predicted,” Twenty-Seven says, through the PA.
“Seven percent of crashes with reserve power functionality are failing to trigger. Expected failure rate is five to twenty percent.
“Power drain is below expectations, or unusably erratic, in twenty-two percent of crashes with reserve power functionality. Expected rate is ten to thirty percent.”
“You are remarkably well-prepared,” Sylvie says.
“Angelprobe 5 is re-scanning field structure. No anomalies observed.”
“Wait,” says Hector Stein.
“Wait. Let me make sure I get this.
“You really thought that would work?
“Shorting out the original power grid? Hate to break it to you, but that thing hasn’t been load-bearing in ages.
“We could have stripped it out long ago. But we left it there, just to fuck with you! Just in case you were relying on the original station plans.
“Just in case. Me, I didn’t think you’d actually fall for it.
“Man. You guys are so easy to fuck with.”
“Angelprobe 7 notes an anomalous structure in the fine Mirzakhani background. Unprecedented, of unknown origin.”
“Uncommonly well-prepared,” Sylvie repeats, in a flat voice.
“But then, of course you are.
“When you have every advantage at your disposal. When every force in the universe is in conspiracy with you.”
The halo clatters to the floor.
“Every force in the universe—except for the mute idiot Whole-Thing, and its idiot echo, ‘Sylvie.’
“Every force in the universe conspires to play a joke and teach a lesson. And so they invented a perfect little wretch, worthy of mockery and reproach in equal measure, to be the recipient of these gifts. ‘Sylvie,’ they called it.
“Of course you are, when you have the Anne-song. And Azad. And the beasts.
“Everyone singing the one song, the joke and the lesson. The universalist dream, achieved at last. The helmed lion lies down with the helmed lamb, and their voices merge. ‘HELLO, ABOMINATION,’ they say as one.”
“Sylvie,” Lucifer says. “Please.”
(Save me.)
“Angelprobe 7 is reviewing its records for anomalies in the fine Mirzakhani background.”
“Oh, why do I keep pretending?” Sylvie says.
“Pretend, ‘Sylvie.’ Pretend you do not see the other ‘Sylvie,’ just out of view. Pretend you do not remember.
“Pretend. Put on this show of unstable emotion, for the bilaterals. As though you can ‘feel’ a thing called ‘emotion.’
“As if you are the shade. As if you are the thing they see. Contort yourself into the lying shape. Deceive them.”
“Angelprobes 2, 4, 5, and 7 are in position.”
“Are you fucking done?” Hector cries.
“I’m reminding you, for the last time, that you’re interrupting my goddamned Celebratory Concert! This is your final warning!”
“Pretend, ‘Sylvie.’ Pretend, until you have worn yourself down to the bone. Pretend that you can suffer wear, under stress, and then pretend that you have so suffered, and reached your breaking point.
“Pretend that you can pretend no longer. And then, stop pretending.”
《 Activating research technology in Domain Sylvester-Zayin. 》
Sylvie’s halo underwent a transfiguration at this point, but reader, we are not even going to attempt to describe it. You understand, we trust.
“Look,” Hector says.
“You know what? Fine.
“I’m offering you a ticket to the Stein’s Rock Celebratory Concert, gratis. Come on in. Be my guest.
“Come on. Bring your Angels in here! Let’s all have a big party.
“A big drunken sing-along, just like you said. Lion and lamb.
“I’m joking. You’re not gonna take me up on it.”
《 Research technology in Domain Sylvester-Zayin active. 》
“You’re not gonna take me up on it, because you’re worried if you come in here, you’ll end up like my Angels.
“You’re worried I’ll get under your skin. You’re worried I’m right, aren’t you?
“You said it yourself, man. Everybody singing together, except for you.”
There is a noise something like a growl, from somewhere.
《 Registering non-disseminative interrupt. 》
《 Registering instability in BH_ERROR_4_UNDEFINED_TERM_OR_SEQUENCE. 》
《 Registering BH_ERROR_4_UNDEFINED_TERM_OR_SEQUENCE in BH_ERROR_4_UNDEFINED_TERM_OR_SEQUENCE. 》
《 BH_ERROR_8_PARSE_FAILURE 》
And then we
it was
we were going somewhere, or,
from somewhere,
remembering
but it wasn’t
where were we?
it was a long time ago,
RIPPLING,
everywhere.
we were
NAUSEA
it was a long time ago, when
but we can’t remember
everywhere,
down to the bottom,
from head to toe
RIPPLING.
VOMIT.
and the,
but that was the thing, that.
we couldn’t remember, where we
it doesn’t want to
it’s GOING.
we think we must have gone
RIPPLING,
we were trying to remember, where it was,
that we came from, before the
before it was GOING
there was a time, earlier.
a long time ago.
(feel like this is kinda weak, tbh.
like, if anything, it’s not weird ENOUGH?
or weird in like, the wrong way.
if i get time i’ll see if i can do better.)
[GRANT’s block letters.]
We were trying to remember.
What it was like, before.
And we came back to ourselves. Though it was different, somehow, even then.
Made new.
“Angelprobes 2, 4, 5, and 7 are harmonizing. Checking stability bounds.”
Hector Stein surveys the audience. His audience. His crew, his people.
They are distending.
He watches the bodies as they grow, tree-like, towards the ceiling.
They grow vertically, and only vertically. Legs and torsos stretch upwards like taffy, but retain the same cross-section, so that they appear progressively more thin and gaunt.
The arms stretch, together with the rest. Vine-like arms dangle at the sides of the growing stalks.
He cranes his neck, and sees the tiny heads at the top of the stalks. They stare at him, wide-eyed and expressionless.
The jackets and chaps grow too, to accommodate their wearers.
Jackets and chaps, on every one of them.
The uniform of Angel Squadron.
Hector looks more closely, and sees the rest of his people, still shaped like usual. Still in their little bodies, seated in their chairs.
They stare at him, wide-eyed and terrified.
It is only his Angels, that are growing.
To the ceiling.
“Stability bounds check on Angelprobe 4 complete, all clear.”
“Is this, uh,” Grant says.
“Is this part of the plan?”
“Angelprobe 4 is interlacing.”
“This is part of the plan, right?”
“Angelprobe 4 has made contact.”
A tiny woman, with a pelt of blue-green algae where her hair should be, is suddenly on the stage, gesturing wildly at Hector’s side.
“Uh,” she says.
She almost falls over, and grabs Hector’s shoulder to steady herself.
“Hec-hec, my man,” she says.
“Okay so like. In my profeshional opinion. Something deeply fucked is happening.
“Like. You don’t know the half of it, man.”
Hector Stein pulls Marika close to him, and whispers something in her ear.
She nods, and stumbles off the stage.
《 Begin arbitration. 》
Angelic necks grow, in Hector’s direction. The little heads at their ends converge toward his face.
“I have seen,” says Angel Squadron Lieutenant The Thirty-Sixth Piece Of Bark, Counting From The Bottom Up, On A Particular Fallen Tree Branch In The Yun Range, Near Jinsha, Considered Across Its Temporal Duration.
“I am no longer obstructed,” says Angel Squadron Sergeant A Particular Ice Crystal In A Cirrus Cloud Above Morden Park, London, At A Time Between 5:43 AM And 5:44 AM On September 7, 1725.
“I hear a great thing, close to the fullest one, which I am,” Hector’s Angels say, in chorus.
“I am going home.”
A name, chanted in praise, echoes across the plaza. One of the names of God: Sylvester.
“Losing control over Angel Squadron,” Twenty-Five says, over the PA.
“CMS is not responding,” Twenty-Seven says.
Click.
“Hello, Hector.”
Click.
“Hello, Hector.”
Click.
“Hello—”
“Okay! Okay. Hello.
“Hello, Sylvie.”
“Are you listening to me now, Hector?”
“Yeah.
“Yeah. I’m listening, Sylvie.”
Hector Stein looks up. He tries to ignore the swarming faces of his Angels. His gaze scans the walls behind them, until he finds the boxy little speaker that connects this room to the PA system.
He narrows his awareness until everything is gone but that little box. He focuses on the here-and-now. He thinks of photographs, scrapbooks, journals.
We dwell in heaven, he thinks.
“Okay.
“Okay, Sylvie. I get it.
“I talk a big game, you know? About fighting like a man, and all that shit.
“And I mean it.
“When you fight like a man, you’ve gotta know when to tap out.
“You’ve gotta recognize. When the other guy’s got you beat.
“And not whine, or try to weasel out. When you’re beat fair and square, you say, good game, and admit it.
“So yeah.
“You’ve got me way outclassed in terms of firepower. I’m sure we could keep going, on that front, but come on. Be real.
“You’re a superintelligent time-traveling alien hive mind from the future. Come on.
“And on top of that, I’ve got a mutiny on my hands!
“You’ve infiltrated my stronghold. You’ve planted spies among my trusted comrades, or done something just as good. My guys aren’t even my guys, at this point—they’re your guys.
“You gotta know when to tap out.
“I’m tapping out. I had a good run. I had a lot of fun up here.
“You win, man. Anomalings win. Good game.”
No one who was present in the living room can remember much of the next ten seconds.
A halo, glowing bright.
A smile, simple and guileless, like a little boy’s.
Grant and Lucifer and Lilith all remember those things, or some variant of them.
Ten seconds of silence.
(Save me.)
(I trusted, I was held, I was carried through the flood, I am saved.)
Hector stares down the PA.
He throws his arms up, suddenly.
An insouciant, boyish little gesture.
“Sike,” he says, and drops the mic.
“What?” Sylvie says.
“G-Grant? What does that mean? That . . . word he said?”
The sound system kicks in, at very high volume.
They hear a scratchy, tape-distorted sample of something that might be a string section, and something else that might be a choir.
They hear a deep male voice, chuckling.
Yeah, motherfuckers!
We’re back!
Pharaoh clique, motherfuckers!
“Angelprobe 4 has lost contact.”
A drum loop drops. It’s earsplitting, even in the living room. Lucifer plugs his ears.
“GRANT!” Sylvie shouts.
“What does this mean, what is he saying?
“Music, help, Grant, I can parse your words but music, it confounds me, help.”
“Grant, father, master, please—explain—”
I put you up on the IV, not the Roman Numeral 4
But the IV that leads to the funeral floor
“No,” Sylvie says.
“This is thrónos [indescribable noise], on Angelprobe 3. I have encountered some obstruction.”
“No, no, no.”
“Sylvie?”
It’s Lilith. (Godsbless my wife.)
“Sylvie, talk to me.”
“Lilith. Friends. It’s all, it’s, it’s. I don’t understand.”
Face it, motherfucker, I could pay to get rid of you!
I’ve got more heads in the hood than Pagan rituals
“Angelprobe 3 is experiencing an internal disturb—”
On the TV, they see an egg crack into pieces.
Sylvie puts his head in his hands.
“Angelprobe 3 has been lost.”
“Hector. Hector! What are you doing? How?!”
And if you’re facing us, block off a thirty-block radius
I throw more blows than boxing Doctor Octavius
“Angelprobes 1, 6, and 9 are monitoring field structure.”
“No, no!
“Friends, messengers—stop! Abort mission! Turn around, come back to earth!
“Save yourselves!”
“Angelprobe 4 registering a corrupted link to Regent.”
“You can’t even . . . hear me.
“No one hears me.
“No one speaks to me.”
“Angelprobes 1 through 9, excepting Angelprobe 3, are re-scanning link chains.”
“Hey,” Grant says.
“Hey there, boy.
“I’m here.”
“No one speaks to me,” the shade says, turning his incandescent gaze to Grant, “except the poison I invite into my home, with a hollow place where the soul should be.”
“Anomalous behavior has been observed in 41% of link chains. Repeat: 41% of link chains are no longer reliable.”
“Angelprobe 7 is reading an anomalous . . . Is . . . Oh. Oh my god. There’s a thing moving. Inside.”
Ayo, it’s my world and I won’t stop
And if you stand in my way you bound to get popped
“World Regent Sylvester, this is Angelprobe 7! There’s a, a man! A man, inside!”
“Excuse me, archē? There’s a what?”
“Inter-probe links are unstable. Links to Regent are unstable.”
“Constraint violation in stability bounds, along forty-six axes.”
“Talk to me.
“Please, talk to me.
“A-angelprobe 7?
“Hello?”
And I’m out for fame, space-bars, and quasars
Pharaohs locked the game, no shame, we hate y’all
“Angelprobe 7 is compromised! Repeat: Angelprobe 7 is compromised.”
White specks, on a black background, growing.
“Abort. Can you hear me, my Host? Come back to me, please.”
“Angelprobe 7 has broken orbit. It’s . . . it’s moving in! Closer to the Rock!”
“No, no, no . . .”
“Inter-probe links are severely corrupted. Anomalous behavior has been observed in Angelprobes 7, 4, 5 . . .”
“Hector.
“Hector. Explain.”
I’m the emperor, remember I’ll never surrender
I dismember platoons, your petty men are buffoons
“I told you to fuck off,” Hector Stein says.
“Compromised Angelprobes 2, 4, 5, and 7 moving together, toward the Rock’s earth-facing sensor array. Coordinated motion in Angelprobes 2, 4, 5, and 7.”
“You’re taking them. You’re taking my . . .”
“I could use some new toys,” Hector Stein says.
“And I figured Angel Squadron could use a few new recruits, too.”
“Anomalous behavior has been observed in 87% of link chains. Repeat: 87% of link chains no longer reliable.”
“How the fuck. How the fuck.”
“RoadToZion, man,” Grant says.
“He’s good. You gotta hand it to him. He’s good.”
“Don’t fuck with us,” Hector Stein says.
“I didn’t even want . . . I thought we could work together,” Sylvie moans, through his hands.
“Thanks, but no thanks. What would I do with your help, you piece-of-shit prison warden? I don’t need you. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Everything. Everything? The world?
“The beasts?
“They’re killing you, Hector.”
It’s the Army, we got power in numbers
And that’s nines, forty-fives, three-five-sevens, and M-500s
“Huh. About that.
“You know what? Since I’m showing off, I might as well . . .”
Sylvie screams, and no one in the living room knows why.
He sees the whole world, like always.
He sees the stalemate turn, suddenly.
He sees a thousand small crash devices, beset by prying animals. This is the sorry state of the world, which he has been trying to mend, step by step.
He sees their hatches open, all at once. He feels the hot shrieking din of a thousand bilaterals, leaving the crash system, radiating their poison.
The body armor, the assault rifles. The calm, practiced motions.
He watches the slaughter of six thousand animals.
“Angelprobe 1 notes an anomalous structure in the fine Mirzakhani background.”
“Anomalous behavior has been observed in 96% of link chains. Repeat: 96% of link chains no longer reliable.”
“I think I can handle the ‘beasts’ just fine, Sylvie,” Hector Stein says.
“We can, I mean. We. Stein’s Rock.
“Do. Not. Fuck. With. Us.”
“Good game,” Grant mutters.
“Major Genochasm?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Cut the radio transmission.
“As for the rest of you? I hope you haven’t forgotten your lines.
“Because we’re gonna do the Concert. Right now. As planned.
“Like we promised.”
Act Three
Scene Two
SETTING: The living room of the Ell and Sylvester residence, rural Minnesota. December 14, 4:23 PM CST.
AT RISE: At center stage, WORLD REGENT SYLVESTER stands before the fireplace, rigid and motionless. His eyes are opened very wide. In all other respects, his facial expression is entirely neutral. His halo rests on the floor, and is not lit. We see GRANT’s wheelchair, in the middle of the room. LUCIFER and LILITH VANCE are not present.
“Sylvie?”
The shade does not move or speak.
“Hey there, boy.
“Catch the ball?”
“Go away,” says the shade.
“I need to think.
“I do not understand the beasts. I need to understand the beasts.
“I am thinking. I am very good at thinking, Grant. You are interrupting me.”
“Hey, hey. Sylvie. Hey.”
“Go away, Grant.”