“You let him die outside the cabin too,” Gabriel said.
Madelyn couldn’t take it anymore. All the accusations were true. Over the years, made one at a time, she had been able to live with these decisions. Confronted all at once, they were devastating. Harper and Elijah were gone—nobody was going to come save her from these visions. There was only one logical choice.
Madelyn still held the knife. Instead of lashing out at the ghosts, she spun the blade in her hand and pulled it back towards her own neck. She intended to slash her own throat from ear to ear.
The Wisdom didn’t let her do it. Its invisible force stopped the blade from reaching her throat. She couldn’t cut herself with it. Madelyn screamed her frustration and threw the knife away. It passed through Gabriel’s ghost without doing any damage.
She was surrounded.
Madelyn screamed at them as she slowly turned. She didn’t even recognize all the shapes. There was an older woman who regarded Madelyn with crossed arms and stern eyes. There was a little boy with jagged teeth and black eyes. She saw a shape that she only remembered from pictures—it was her mother who had died giving birth to Madelyn. The woman was crying and looking at Madelyn with shame and sorrow.
Madelyn covered her face with her hands, but she could still see them.
She dropped to her knees. The shapes came with her.
They all chanted the crimes she had committed against them.
The noise of the voices combined into a terrible roar.
Madelyn screamed back at them. Their noise was so loud that Madelyn couldn’t even hear herself above the sound.
With perfect clarity, Madelyn heard a whisper in her ear. She could feel the breath of the owner of the voice as it spoke. “Do you know what the ether is, Madelyn?”
She shook her head and didn’t answer. This new voice wasn’t like the others. There was a kindness there.
“Think hard,” the voice whispered. “It’s important.”
Madelyn couldn’t think about anything. The voices seemed to inhibit thought.
# # # # #
“Think,” the voice whispered.
The voice was the key. It took her a second, but she finally recognized it. It was the voice of her brother, Noah. But it wasn’t his voice from the last time she had seen him—when he was nearly dead already. It was his voice back from when they were kids.
She tried to block out all the other accusations to remember—what was the ether? There was an answer there. She was sure of it.
All she could think of was what people used it for.
The ether was where people stored information. It was useless for instant communication, but knowledge existed there. If she was remembering correctly, the ether was also connected to the Q-battery technology. She had grown up with the ether. To her generation, it was something that had always existed. Her father spoke of it as a new thing though. The invention didn’t predate him.
But what was it?
Madelyn had been a terrible student, at least in school. She learned a ton of skills at the feet of her grandmother, but as soon as a teacher started to drone on in front of a class, Madelyn had tuned out.
“Think,” the voice whispered.
“I’m trying,” Madelyn shouted. The ghosts fell silent for a second, like she had shocked them with the outburst.
The silence let her think clearly for a moment.
It was something about people. The ether had something to do with the shared consciousness. The concept resonated, but she began to doubt herself immediately after the thought formed. Wasn’t that some nonsense that the conspiracy-theory nuts were always parroting? They said that Q-batteries were somehow harvesting human souls and converting them into energy. It had to be nonsense. The idea was preposterous.
She couldn’t shake the idea that there was some truth in it. She tried to remember the name of her science teacher. Madelyn could almost picture the woman’s face. What had she said about the ether?
Madelyn turned and studied the faces of the ghosts around her. If they were really all from her own subconscious, why couldn’t she imagine her science teacher and get the information directly from the source?
She spun in a slow circle. The shouting faces didn’t contain the one she was looking for. Madelyn was about to give up when she finally found the right one. Between two other angry ghosts, she saw her. The name came to her when she saw the face—Pedersen.
Ms. Pedersen wasn’t yelling about Madelyn’s shortcomings. She was simply frowning. Madelyn pushed her way forward until she was right in front of the ghost.
“What’s the ether?” Madelyn asked.
“You never paid attention in my class,” Ms. Pedersen said. “You ignored all my warnings. You brought the failure down upon yourself—mortgaging your future because you didn’t have enough willpower to sit still and listen.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not me you should be sorry for. It’s yourself. You’re the one you were hurting.”
“I know. I’m sorry to myself. Listen—if you could just help me understand. I think it’s important that I figure out what the ether is and how it relates to The Wisdom.”
She regretted saying the name of the entity aloud. When she did, all the voices of the ghosts around her became louder. Madelyn could barely hear Ms. Pedersen’s reply.
“You know what it is. If you know something long enough to pass the examination, then you will always know it if you try.”
“It’s people, right?”
The ghost rolled its eyes. “The ether is a derivative of the fluctuation of non-dimensional space most likely caused by the synaptic processes of complex organisms.”
“Is it harvesting souls?”
“Are you paying attention?” the Ms. Pedersen ghost demanded.
“I am, I just don’t understand,” Madelyn said. She felt like a little girl again.
“You’re not thinking,” Ms. Pedersen said. “Turn off your mouth and turn on your brain.”
Madelyn smiled. She had heard those same instructions at least a thousand times during science class. Only one part of the explanation resonated with Madelyn. The ether derived something from the synapses of people. That meant that somehow Madelyn and everyone else in the world were keeping the thing alive. The storage of the world’s knowledge was dependent on the existence of people.
“It’s not all types of synaptic activity,” Ms. Pedersen said. “It’s the second derivative of socially-minded constructions.”
That detail sparked a strong memory for Madelyn. “That’s right. Termites, penguins, elephants, orcas…”
“Termites were never proven,” Ms. Pedersen said.
“But they all have their own ether, right? It’s just that the one for people was strongest, but that’s probably because of the population density.”
“Not the density,” Ms. Pedersen said, “the volume over time. The area under the population curve is what gives humanity’s ether its resilience.”
“Right, sure,” Madelyn said. She didn’t have the capacity to take in more information from Ms. Pedersen. She had enough to chew on already. If the notion forming in her head was correct, Madelyn had a pretty good idea of the purpose of The Wisdom. She looked back to Ms. Pedersen. “I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that.”
The ghost of her old science teacher scowled at Madelyn. That was one thing that Madelyn had really hated about the class—the teacher was way too rigid. As far as Madelyn could tell, one of the most important things about science was to be open to new ideas. A science teacher should be able to have her ideas challenged without getting defensive.
Madelyn turned back to the circle of ghosts until she found the face she was looking for. Her dead father was the one she needed to confront.
She found him.
“I know what you are,” she said.
“You traded my life for your grandmother’s cabin,” he said.
“Save it. I know. I’m not g
oing to succumb, and neither is Harper.”
“You know nothing.”
# # # # #
Madelyn blinked her unseeing eyes.
It was just her and her father again. His face looked both angry and sad. He was disappointed in her. She tried to feel sympathy for his memory. It was difficult. The Wisdom was getting its way after all.
“You want me to harden myself against this onslaught. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” she asked.
Her dead father began to cry.
“It’s a clever approach,” she said. “I’ll give you that. You’re trying to make me angry about the image of my father crying. You know that I always hated him most when he was crying.”
“Mac, don’t hate me.”
“And you know I hated him more when he was pitiful. It won’t work. I know your game. People think that the Roamers were created to hide the rich folks who wanted to be immortal, but it was you, wasn’t it? You were their secret weapon. You blind people and then get them to abandon their empathy. You’re trying to dismantle the ether by taking away its backbone.”
“You’re just as beautiful as your mother,” her father’s ghost said.
It knew every way that her father had ever angered her. Being held to the standard of her sainted mother was the last straw. Madelyn was so angry that she wanted to spit in the face of her father’s ghost. She couldn’t though. She had to find some way to maintain her love for the dead man. She had to resurrect her feelings before they extinguished completely.
“I miss you, Dad,” she said. She didn’t feel anything, but she said it again. “I miss you.”
“I worried more about your brother because you were always so strong.”
This drove another dagger into her heart. Her father always used her own strength against her, like she didn’t deserve as much love because she didn’t demand it.
“I miss when you would read to me and Noah, and how you would drift away from the book and start your own story. I miss your imagination.”
“I always knew your brother would go first. I’m so glad you two had time together before he died.”
He always had a way of laying Noah’s shortcomings at her feet. Despite her best efforts, she could feel her empathy for her father diminishing with each thing he said. She tried focusing on his face and ignoring what he said, but that somehow made it worse.
“Your nephew needs you. I see more of his father in him than his mother,” her father said.
“You can’t disconnect me from the ether,” she said. She needed to see this specter as The Wisdom and not her own father, so she addressed it as such. “If I die with empathy for him, I’ll still supply energy to the ether and be part of the network. You need to disconnect us one by one so that you can destroy the possibility that it will continue after our deaths. You blind us, kill our emotional ties to one another, and then leave us for dead. I have it right, don’t I? You were created by the Optioners to remove the one last thing that would bind us together and give us the ability to keep this world from becoming your private playground.”
Her father was finally silent.
“I suppose you’re as close as you’re going to get,” he said.
“There’s one thing you didn’t consider,” David’s voice said. His face appeared to her left.
“I don’t need to you completely divorce yourself from your feelings,” Noah said. He was to her right now. “I just need you to be as low as possible when you die.”
The shapes began to move forward, converging on her.
Chapter 25
{Fight}
Madelyn didn't wait to find out what they intended to do. She ran.
Without their ghostly faces in front of her, she was completely blind. She felt the first slash at her back as she took her second step. The touch felt cold, but Madelyn knew better. The cold feeling was her nerve endings disconnecting. Something had cut her deeply. She knew she was right as she crashed into the wall. Warm blood was running down her back.
Another blade sliced into her shoulder.
Whatever force The Wisdom had in the material world, it exerted itself as an old but effective weapon. Madelyn couldn’t fight against a blade she couldn’t see.
Her hand closed on a skull and she knew which wall she had encountered. She ripped it from the wall and spun. Luck was with her. The next slice bounced off the old bone and only inflicted a glancing blow on her hand.
Madelyn used the opportunity to dash for the stairs. She ran into the darkness. After a few steps, she knew she had gone too far. She was either off course, or The Wisdom had a way to mess with reality. Madelyn veered to her right so she would hit the wall. The next slice cut into her upper arm.
She screamed and dove for the floor.
Sliding across the planks, she came to rest with her hip against the door to the stairs. Madelyn had a sense of the timing now. She rolled away from the next slice. As soon as she heard it cut the floor, Madelyn reached up, opened the door, and pulled herself down the stairs. She tumbled down the flight.
As she slowed to a stop, the thing carved a gash down the back of her scalp. Hot blood gushed. The searing pain paralyzed her. She forced herself up and into the lift. Triggering the button, she hoped the doors would shut fast enough to keep The Wisdom out of the elevator. Otherwise, the tight quarters would ensure her death.
The lift settled down into the bedrock under the cabin. Madelyn held her breath and waited for the next cut. The world was black and her skin crawled with dripping blood. She felt lightheaded when the lift came to a stop. She spilled from the chamber and caught herself against the wall. Madelyn made her way to the fab unit and felt on the panel until she found the appropriate button. She hit it and slumped to the floor while the machine worked.
The machine chunked, spun, and then rang a bell when her first treatment was ready. She had a decision to make. It would have an effect no matter where she applied it, but she didn’t know which to heal first—one of the lacerations, or her eyes.
She froze at the sound of the lift. Something had triggered it to go back up.
Madelyn made a quick decision—her eyes might take hours to come back, and she wouldn’t survive that long if The Wisdom found her underground. She applied the wrap to her head, and then put the next one to her back. She prioritized the wounds based on pain.
“Greetings,” she said. Her panel didn’t respond. It wasn’t the way she normally interacted with it. “Greetings. I have an emergency.” Still nothing.
Madelyn pushed herself to her feet and felt down the wall until she found the panel. Somewhere on the thing was an override for the lift’s controls. Madelyn tried to picture the panel. A sharp pain jabbed into her side and Madelyn’s face twisted. For a second, she thought she was dead. The pain wasn’t a fresh wound. Her body was still reacting to the injuries from upstairs. Madelyn felt the panel in a panic. None of the controls were tactile. She found a spot marked with raised bumps and punched it. Nothing happened. Madelyn began to hit controls at random. She had no idea what she was doing.
The lift stopped.
Madelyn waited for the doors to slide open and The Wisdom to come finish the job.
She tried to hold perfectly still. After a full minute, she knew she had to move. Whatever was happening with the lift, she needed to get herself fixed up before she lost too much blood to be of any help to herself.
Madelyn went back for another wrap. She was using too many at a time. The burning and itching was driving her crazy. At least her energy was returning. As soon as she had the important wounds going, Madelyn turned her attention to her eyes. As far as Madelyn knew, all the healing wraps used essentially the same technology. They were miniature organisms which had only the goal to repair or replace damaged tissue. The eye patches had a transmission mechanism that was better suited for eyes.
She immediately flinched and tried to blink. That made the wrap hurt more. Madelyn folded her arms and forced herself to stay still.
She sunk down to the floor and waited. Half the time, she was petrified that The Wisdom would make its way out of the lift and find her. The other half of the time, she had so much discomfort from the wraps that she wished something would kill her.
# # # # #
Madelyn woke up itching and disappointed. Tiny lights sparkled in her vision, but she still couldn’t really see. The wrap on her eyes was cool. As far as she could tell, it had done what it was going to do. She peeled it off and kept her eyes shut while she used the machine to produce another one. There was a limit to how much healing a person’s body could endure in a short timespan, but Madelyn was willing to take the risk. The alternative might mean she wouldn’t be ready for whatever was going to happen next.
While she fit the new wrap into place, she made a discovery. She caught sight of a glow that seemed fixed in the world. Carefully opening one eye, she realized that some vision had returned. The room was dark except for the indicator lights on her control panel. It was coming back. Still, she applied the next wrap and then investigated her other wounds. She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious, but her body was in okay shape. The bleeding had stopped and the wounds were closed.
She crept towards the lift until her hands found the doors. She put her ear against the metal. The only noise sounded like shifting sand. Madelyn backed away. She found her way to the lounge and reclined on the couch. There was no telling how long she had before The Wisdom breached her cellar—she might as well make herself comfortable.
Madelyn woke to a loud thump.
The flashlight lights of reconnecting nerves were gone from her vision so she peeled off the warm wrap and tried her eyes. The room was a little blurry, but she was doing okay.
She moved quietly back to the control room and triggered the lights. The door to the lift was slightly parted. The gap was only a couple of millimeters, but it was enough to let in a small drift. Madelyn lowered herself to the floor and approached carefully.
It looked like sand piled at the base of the door—maybe a liter or two of it. She reached forward to touch it and then stopped herself. There was really no telling what the stuff was.
Madelyn turned back for the panel. She flipped through the screens until she found the view she was looking for. The door to the stairs was open. The same sand spilled from the doorway and out into her grandmother’s living room. Madelyn shrank back from the display.