Yah, right. I turned away.
Major, she said. I need your help.
That didn’t sound like Oblivion. I turned back around. Calaj? Is that you?
Yes, the EI is almost done erasing me. She sounded like the real Calaj. You must help. I will send . . . the beetle-bot I took from you.
Send it where? I asked.
Aqueducts.
Why? I don’t understand.
You know what frightens Oblivion. Use that.
I had no idea what she meant. It doesn’t feel fear. It doesn’t feel anything.
Think back. The ruins . . .
Izu Yaxlan? It’s already fighting Oblivion, far better than I ever could.
Not Izu Yaxlan. Cries.
I suddenly realized what she meant. Oblivion had tried to demoralize me with a sim of Cries in ruins and everyone dead. Yet even in the sim, it also tried to keep me away from the Undercity.
It fears the aqueducts, I thought. I don’t know why.
Go there.
To do what?
I don’t know . . .
Neither did I. This much I understood: Oblivion didn’t like the aqueducts. I brought up my memories of the canals, caves, grottos, and mazes, the Down deep, the eerie beauty of stone lacework formed by mineral-rich water dripping over the ages, reflected torchlight light sparkling on crystals, the fatally poisonous water shimmering with beauty—
The world went dark again.
“She’s coming out!” someone called.
As my vision cleared, I again found myself in the Tiqual pyramid, seated in my command chair. This time, the dais hummed with activity. Two Abaj were leaning over me, checking panels where data streamed in three-dimensional holos. Others were monitoring the pharaoh, and when I leaned to look past her, I saw more of them around Nazam.
“Max!” With my mind so overextended, it was easier to talk than think to him. “Is this—?”
“Yes, it’s real,” he said. “The beele-bot is going to the aqueducts. You need to do this.”
I scraped at my exoskeleton. When it fell open, I yanked it off, knocking away control panels.
The Abaj grabbed my upper arms, holding me in place. “What are you doing?”
“I need to go to the aqueducts.”
He didn’t budge. “Now? Why?”
I had no idea. But I kept remembering Dyhianna’s words: It’s like singing. Singing in the void. “I’ll know when I get there.”
I expected him to try to stop me. Instead he let go of me and said, “I will take you.”
In all my life, I’d never heard of anyone who broke the ban against mechanized transport on the Concourse. No one cared enough to bother defying the authorities. Today the Abaj and I shattered that prohibition. We blasted down the boulevard in a skimmer, an open hover car large enough for two people, with me standing at the front and the Abaj towering behind me, the wind of our passage blowing back our hair. People jumped out of our way, shouting in protest or to warn other pedestrians. The cops ran after our skimmer, but they couldn’t reach us on foot. By the time they brought in their own transport, we would be gone.
The skimmer reached the entrance to the aqueducts within moments and whisked under the archway into the Foyer. Within seconds, we were racing through the largest canal. We sped down its center, the thrust of our engine stirring up clouds of dust. People came out from hidden spaces to watch us. Dust Knights. They stood on the midwalks, hung from the ceilings, and scaled the walls, staring as we rushed by them. The whisper mill would go wild.
“Sing!” I shouted to the knights, my voice amplified by the skimmer. “Everyone!” It was crazy, which was why I needed the knights. They created a network in the Undercity. If they set their mind to raising music in throughout the aqueducts, it would happen. If they asked me why I wanted them to sing, I had no answer except that we needed the music, our music. It wasn’t only because of what Dyhianna had said to me; I also felt driven to make it happen as if that impulse were hardwired into my DNA.
We soon reached the tunnel I sought, which branched off the main canal. It was too small for the skimmer, so I landed on the midwalk. As soon as I turned off the engines, distant music came to my ears, a song from deeper with the aqueducts.
The Abaj and I jumped out and took off down another canal. Knights ran with us, behind and on the opposite midwalk, and others were undoubtedly following through hidden ways. They couldn’t keep our augmented pace, but I never slowed. I kept thinking of the battle being waged by Dyhianna, Izu Yaxlan, and the Lock. If they failed, Oblivion would wipe two of the largest EIs in existence, both of them thousands of years old, and it would erase Dyhianna’s mind, leaving her brain dead. And then it would set itself against the rest of humanity.
A sensual voice came out my gauntlet comm. “Bhaaj,” a man said. “Can you hear me?”
Max, I don’t have the breath to talk, I answered. And why do you sound like that?
That’s not me, Max thought. It’s Royal Flush. I gave him access to your comm.
Why would Jak’s EI contact me, instead of Jak? Gods almighty, if Jak had somehow become a casualty of this battle, I didn’t know what I’d do. Is Jak all right?
I will ask, Max thought.
The distant singing was growing stronger. I slowed as I reached my destination, a canal at right angles to the tunnel where we were running. Lizard Trap. Ruzik’s territory. The whisper mill had done its work: Ruzik and his people were waiting for us, his gang and their circle, the cyber-riders, adults, families, children without parents. Ruzik stood on the midwalk with Angel at his side and his other two dust gangers looming behind them. The rest of his people were down in the canal.
I stopped in front of him. I should have still been out of breath, but with my adrenalin so high, I didn’t notice. Ruzik watched me with an impassive stare, waiting to hear why I committed such sins of trespass, bringing a skimmer and a stranger into their midst. Not just any stranger. I was acutely aware of the looming warrior at my side, a testament to silent power, a member of the legendary Abaj caste that enthralled and frightened not only my people, but citizens across the Imperialate.
Royal Flush’s voice came out of my gauntlet comm. “Bhaaj, listen.”
With my gaze on Ruzik, I lifted my arm and spoke into the comm. “What happened to Jak?”
“Nothing,” Royal said.
Relief poured through me, also puzzlement. “All right. Give me a minute.”
Ruzik spoke harshly. “What you want?”
I motioned at where his people watched us from the canal. Three young people were standing by one of the dust sculptures that tagged this canal, a ruzik rearing on its back legs. I recognized the trio. They had been vocalizing the last time I had come here, harmonizing without words, filling the air with their music.
“They need to sing.” Although I spoke to Ruzik, my words were for the trio. I motioned at the air as if that could capture the haunting song rippling into this canal from elsewhere in the aqueducts. It was still swelling in volume. “With them. Sing!”
Ruzik crossed his arms and scowled. Damn. He was going to send me away.
“Eh,” Angel told him, ever the soul of articulate discourse.
Ruzik glanced at her and she tilted her head. When she raised her eyebrows at him, he glowered at her, but then he turned around and motioned at the trio. They nodded to him and then conferred among themselves, using no words as far as I could tell, just facial expressions.
And then they sang.
Facing each other, reading cues invisible to the rest of us, they blended their voices with the song already echoing through the canals, joining its harmonies. These ruins offered incredible acoustics. They reflected, amplified, and added depth to the melody. That urge drove me, too, not to sing, given that my atrocious voice could probably traumatize even rocks, but the impulse to make the music happen.
“Bhaaj.” Royal was on my comm again. “Jak wants to talk with you.”
“Why are you telling me
that?” I asked. “Of course he can talk to me.”
Down below, the trio’s song rose in power, no words, just pure sound. The canal rang with their voices as if it were a giant pipe creating its own interplay of notes.
“Bhaaj!” Jak’s voice burst out of my comm, along with a surge of glorious music from wherever he was located. “Do you hear it? The aqueducts are singing!”
I barely caught his words, the music was so loud. The aqueducts were ringing with a symphony created so long ago, none of our us remembered its origins.
“Jak, where are you?” I asked.
“What?” The music in his location almost drowned out his voice.
“At the Black Mark?” I yelled.
“Yah. Dust Knights came. We opened the doors!”
“Listen!” I shouted. “Get everyone to do music, vocalists, musicians, any who can sing.”
“They are!” He said more, but I couldn’t hear. I had no idea how far the network of singers extended, but I hoped it was spreading to the entire Undercity.
I suddenly had an odd sense, as if I watched the scene from above instead of in front of Ruzik. It only last an instant, and then I was back in my body. I turned to the Abaj. He towered like a standing stone, his face akin to statues of our ancestors, with his prominent nose, dark eyes, and chiseled cheekbones.
“Can I connect me with the pharaoh’s link from here?” I asked.
“Not through a bot.” His voice rumbled like a counterpoint to the song.
A bot? That made no sense. “Can’t you feel her fight with Oblivion?” Even with my limited Kyle abilities, I sensed the battle at the edges of my mind, Dyhianna’s light, the Lock’s implacability, the multitudes within Izu Yaxlan, and the void of Oblivion. If I felt it, surely the Abaj could as well; his people had been bred for compatibility with the enigmatic machines created by our ancestors.
“Yes, I sense them,” he said. “But it’s not enough.”
Ruzik spoke. “Hack. Got mesh machines.”
“Hack is a wizard, yah,” I said. “But this needs more. Ruby psion.”
“Actually,” the Abaj said. “You only need a Ruby psion to create and maintain a link to the Lock. Any strong psion with training could help you rejoin the link. If someone here has equipment we can use, I might be able to do it.”
It sounded like a long shot, but at this point I was willing to try anything. “Then let’s go!”
I ran with Ruzik and the Abaj, our stride devouring the distance along a canal. The walls vibrated, the ground shook, and the air resonated with the haunting music. Slow and majestic, in a minor key, it combined higher pitches with a bass rumble in a relentless beat. Pain saturated the song. Legend claimed our ancestors named these aqueducts the City of Cries long before the modern city existed above us in the desert. Today, the ruins lived up to that name, filled with heartbreakingly beautiful music.
Hack was waiting. We ran inside his lab, and he led us to the room with the neutrino detector, where he had added a second station for the Abaj. As the Abaj took the seat, Hack pulled out two homemade neural caps. I couldn’t believe that Abaj took one with no protest. His life’s work hinged on his ability to use neural links. He wouldn’t want to risk his most valuable asset, his brain, yet he accepted a jury-rigged neural cap with no safeguards. Again, for an instant, I thought I saw the two of us from a point above the apparatus. Then I lost the view.
Hack set about jacking us into his contraption. When I lowered the visor, darkness surrounded me. A thought rumbled in my mind. Major?
Who? I asked.
I am Oja. The Abaj.
Oja. His name. He offered me an honor. Call me Bhaaj.
Bhaaj. See if you can find the power link at the Lock. I will help you rejoin it.
I gripped the pulse rifle and swiveled the detector. All the time, the music grew, saturating us.
The canals must be built to resonate with these sounds, Oja thought.
It might even reach Izu Yaxlan, I answered. The aqueducts connect to the Pharaoh’s Tomb.
More than the tomb. He paused, then seemed to make a decision. They extend under the desert to Izu Yaxlan, to the Lock, and to the Vanished Sea starships.
Good gods. Even my people had no idea the ruins were so extensive. I continued my scan while my body thrummed with the music.
And I found it. The Lock.
I’m strengthening your link, Oja thought.
My awareness of the Dyhianna, Tiqual, and Izu Yaxlan intensified. The raw power of that link hit me like a tidal wave. No, not a flood, more like vertigo from standing up too fast, magnified until my head reeled. Blackness descended, and I felt sick, a sense of dread, going into neural overload—
Bhaaj! Oja’s thought cut through the darkness. Focus. Pick an image and concentrate on it.
I strained to recall the images the Lock had created for our link. The Vanished Sea.
The blackness lightened and a scene formed, blurred and faded. Once again I “stood” in the desert. In the distance, the giants formed a circle around Oblivion, three huge figures silhouetted against the sky. Pharaoh Dyhianna glowed with light. Izu Yaxlan had taken human form as if it were created out of interstellar space, shimmering with millions of stars, the memories of all the people who had lived and died in that ancient city. The Lock stood with them as the Azu Bullom, a powerful figure with horns curling around his head.
Although they still had Oblivion penned within their circle, its void had grown until it almost touched their “bodies.” When it reached them, it would swallow their minds as it swallowed all else. Dyhianna would die, Izu Yaxlan would cease, and Tiqual would no longer be the Lock our civilization needed to survive.
Sing. I thought to the desert. Sing them strength.
The Vanished Sea rumbled with music. Jak was right; the aqueducts weren’t just amplifying the voices, they were singing as well, an instrument the size of a city that shook the desert. I didn’t understand the sciences our ancestors had gleaned from the abandoned starships. The tech that had created Oblivion differed from modern engineering. Those ancient disciplines relied not only on electromagnetic, optical, and matter waves, but also on their interaction with phonons, the quantum particles of sound and heat. With our voices, we were unleashing an ancient weapon against Oblivion.
Come to me. Dyhianna’s call filled the desert. Sing.
The music grew yet again, joy and grief, a transcendent ecstasy of sound.
Oja, I thought. Can you link me to my beetle-bot, the one Calaj sent to the Undercity?
Again?
I didn’t know what he meant, but before I could ask, he thought, Are you receiving?
Nothing—wait, yah, I got it. Scenes of the aqueducts formed, layered on my view of the desert like translucent leaves in a book: singers on midwalks, in caves, beneath ancient arches. The world rang with their music, a song that none of us had heard before, yet we all knew it, for that painfully exquisite music held the soul of the Undercity.
Oblivion swallowed the song.
Just as the implacable EI had absorbed every attack we threw at it, so now, it took our song and absorbed that magnificent work into its relentless void. It swallowed the song—
Swallowed the song—
Swallowed—
Oblivion shrank.
The three giants stepped closer, pharaoh, Lock, and Izu Yaxlan tightening their circle.
The aqueducts sang.
Oblivion swallowed the music—and shrank.
The giants closed their circle.
Oblivion’s voice thundered. STOP. Its void grew again, threatening the circle.
Sing to us, Dyhianna thought to the aqueducts.
The music swelled, so like the songs I had known all my life until the day I left the Undercity and everything else I loved. My heart filled with memories I had suppressed, the death, loss, poverty, hunger, desperation, but also love, hope, my times with Jak, my dust gang, so much beauty and grief side by side. The music took over my mind and left
nothing else, killing me with excruciating beauty.
Oblivion shrank.
The circle of giants tightened.
The music swelled.
Oblivion contracted to a small sphere.
I couldn’t bear the music. It was obliterating my mind.
I faded.
The desert faded.
Oblivion faded.
I vanished.
XIX
Aftermath
I screamed as pain shattered my head. Light blinded me. I thrashed against restraints I couldn’t see, fighting a pain worse than when I had struggled up the Lock stairs.
“Get her out!” someone shouted. “Get her out now!”
“She’s having another convulsion,” someone else said. “Give her a larger dose.”
I couldn’t see with all the splintering light. My screams reverberated.
Major Bhaajan! Dyhianna’s thought cut through the pain. Be still. Let us help.
“Light—” I rasped.
“Did you hear that?” someone asked. “She spoke.”
“Give her another injection,” someone else said.
Something hissed against my neck. With a groan, I opened my eyes. That blinding light had existed only in my mind, my interpretation of whatever neural wildfire was ravaging my brain. I was in the chair with two Abaj leaning over me, including Oja.
“Oja?” I whispered.
Relief flashed over Oja’s face. “Are you all right?”
“My head . . .” I tried to understand how I could be here again, when I’d just been in Hack’s cyber den. “Didn’t I leave . . . ?”
Oja’s forehead creased. “To go where?”
“Aqueducts . . .”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Yes, but you went as the beetle-bot. Physically you stayed here.”
Max’s thought came into my mind. We linked you to the beetle the way I linked you in the park, that time we found Calaj tailing you.
It felt real, I thought. The singing, Ruzik, Royal, Hack.
It was real. He showed me his records so fast they flashed by. It had all happened as I experienced, but I’d spoken to people and seen it all through the beetle-bot. No wonder it had felt surreal and my view kept switching. My mind had tried to reconcile my use of the bot with my conviction that I physically went to the aqueducts. Royal Flush had contacted me because Jak had no way to reach me in the link unless an EI made the connection for him. And Oja had never donned Hack’s neural cap.