Cloud Country (4 page)

“I was tracking a girl ElilE hired me to find,” Saru admitted. “She was a girl the Blue God was supposed to have a margin with or something. I dunno, I was just doing it for the cash. I found her beneath the city. Beneath Philadelphia. There was a pit there, and a…creature made of human bodies…and a cathedral. It was full of feasters and monsters of the Hungry God. The UausuaU. I guess you know what I’m talking about?”

“All of the Gaespora know the UausuaU.”

“Fantastic. Anyway, the girl, Ria, she was dead, so I suppose I’m never gonna get that ten million dollars. But she came back to life so, maybe. Maybe split the difference? Five million? That sounds fair. What do you think? I guess it’s a moot point. So the girl came back to life and all these monsters started crawling out of the walls. Ria and me, well, we fought ‘em. Then this laser came down from the sky and destroyed the monsters. That’s what happened in Philadelphia. It wasn’t a terrorist attack or anything. It was the Blue God. The Blue God burned a giant fucking hole in the city.”

Saru’s stomach was turning. She remembered the joy she’d felt basking in that destructive light. How exhilarating it had been to see her enemies burn and die, how it seemed like the whole city had come to worship at her feet.

John nodded as though her incredibly dumb story made perfect sense to him.

“Then what happened?”

Saru laughed—it was too crazy to say out loud. John was taking her seriously and it scared her.

“Then I was flying. Not in a plane, but on my own, free, rising up on a platform made of light. I saw this thing in the sky—it was like a giant chandelier. It was taking me up, like I was being abducted, like you’d see on the feeds. I felt like I was a God, like I had all the power in the world. We got higher and higher and I started to see things. I started to have these visions, but it was more than that—like what I was seeing was real, or would be, or could be real. I saw horrible things—Philadelphia destroyed, the world burning, monsters everywhere. The girl, Ria, she had been beautiful, but she started to change, to transform, like she was turning into a monster. And I felt myself changing, like my flesh and my blood were dissolving and turning into light. And there were sounds and voices screaming at me, nothing left but screams, and they were warning me, telling me things, and I couldn’t understand. It was too much…I ran. I ran away. I jumped out of the light, into the air, trying to get back to Earth. I couldn’t handle it. I was afraid. I had to get away…and…I survived. I fell to fucking Earth and I survived! You hear me?”

She was yelling now—when had that started? She grabbed the lapels of John’s suit and jerked his face close. Her eyes were wet. Was she crying?

“I fucking survived! I fell to the goddamn Earth from space and I woke up and I was alive! Fucking alive! You hear me?”

Saru kissed John on the lips, and then screamed and pushed him away. She kicked at the dash and grabbed the sword, and swung it up so the point buried itself in the woodwork. She screamed and kicked and pounded on the dash, throwing a tantrum to rival that of the mistress. Then she gasped and lay panting, pushing her chair back all the way, so it reclined into a bed. John was shooting fearful glances at her and jerking his head away when their eyes met. Haha, that’s right, asshole. That’s what you’re stuck with now. A violent, piss-stained fugitive. A good
decision
you made. Delightful! Enjoooy! What a pair we make! Saru was lightheaded, disembodied almost, and her vision swam more than ever.

The racing of her heart slowed, and her panting surrendered to giggled, gasping breaths. Somehow, she calmed. She felt cleansed, as though the vast, incredible fuckedness of her situation was a relief. She was so absolutely, incredibly, astonishingly fucked that nothing she could do could possibly fuck herself more. Or anyone else. She was trapped, contained, her shit storm bottled in this tin can of a plane, unable to kill or damage anyone else—well, besides John, at least. She had reached the ultimate bottom of bad decisions, and it was impossible to do worse.

“Anyway,” Saru said, waving her hand. “I found myself in New Jersey, which at first I assumed was hell. And I just started walking. I just wanted to get away. I found this wall and flopped over it and wound up in the ‘cottage.’ I guess I didn’t want to backtrack.” She snorted.

John’s face was clouded.

“I see,” he said.

“Do ya now?”

“Tell me more of these visions.”

“There’s nothing more to tell. I can hardly remember. It was like a bad trip.”

“But it frightened you. It frightened you so much you risked self-annihilation.”

“I guess if you have to put it like that, yeah. I wasn’t really thinking too clearly at the time.”

“I fear your visions are important.”

“I don’t think so.”

“As a Gaesporan, the Gods often spoke to me in ways that were beyond my ken. But they never spoke frivolously. The Blue God has acted with violence. Your visions could foretell greater violence. We must find a way for you to revisit these visions.”

“
We’ve
got more important things to deal with,” Saru said, tersely. “The Hathaways have my face and my DNA. We need to find a place where we can hide, lay low, maybe for a long time until this all blows over.”

“These goals do not exclude one another,” John said. “I know of a place where we will be safe from the Hathaways. It will also allow you to explore your visions further. There is a complication, however. Without my connection to the Gaespora, I do not know where this place is.”

“That’s fucking wonderful!” Saru yelled. She started slamming buttons on the control panel. A blast of air hit her in the face.

“What are you doing?” John asked.

Now it was too hot, something was warming her seat. Saru pressed another button and the walls reappeared; she felt suddenly claustrophobic. She pressed the button again and the walls vanished.

“I’m trying to find a map, GPS or something.” Saru turned a nob and the radio came on. She froze. She heard the word “Hathaway” spoken by a perky female voice. It was message, repeating, over and over:

“Welcome to Hathaway Security’s Sky Defender Service: Keeping the Skies Open for Business. Due to recent terrorist activities, unauthorized flight is now prohibited. Please direct your aircraft to the nearest Hathaway-sanctioned airport, and submit to a friendly search. Activate your autopilot now to comply. Remember, your safety is our priority. Welcome to…”

Saru turned the dial, flipping through all the radio stations. The message played on every one. John reached over and switched the radio off.

“Ignore the message,” he said. “The scions are using the perceived terrorist attack in Philadelphia to consolidate power. If the Hathaways knew where we were they would have intercepted us already.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Saru said. “It’s never gonna end. I should have stayed. I should’ve made it easy on myself. What was I thinking?”

“The fool dwells in the past,” John said. “The fool claims to know cause, and the fool sees the future with clarity. What appears to be harmful now can be a blessing with the passing of time.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hardly,” John said, with infuriating calm. “We cannot say where your actions or my actions will lead. I was a Gaesporan. Now I am not. Who can say if this is for my harm or for my benefit, or for yours, or for others? All we can do is act to the best of our abilities, where we are, with what we know. If your mind remains trapped in the pity of the past and the fear of the future, you cannot see the opportunity of the now.”

“There is no
opportunity
,” Saru hissed. “We are fucked.”

“A pithy analysis,” John said, dryly. “But narrow-minded. You are as limited by the routine of your thinking as I was by the rigidity of the Gaespora. Let us dissect the information you have shared with me. The Blue God protected you. The Blue God attempted to speak with you. Do you think this was an idle deed? Even if you have no desire to explore these visions, you can make use of the gifts of the Blue God. Are you so eager to squander your powers? Can you truly not fathom the rewards of a connection to such a being as the Blue God? You can protect yourself from the violence of others. You can hide yourself. Unlocking these visions may be the key to your survival.”

Saru thought. Could that be true? Could she actually have some kind of power? The power that Ria had had? It was true her skin had shone gold, and she had survived things that definitely should have killed her. And if she could learn to control that power? Make it come at will? A shiver ran down her spine, excitement, and fear, and a note of something else—lust, or hunger.

“You know how I can do that?” she asked.

“I know my own training,” John said. “I know much of how the Gods exert their will upon our humble rock. I know beings who may be able to help you more.”

“That’s the ‘place’ you’re talking about.”

“Indeed. There is a being in particular who comes to mind, a member of the Gaespora. Her name is Tess. She is fond of humans, but shy. She lives in a dimensional estuary, a place on the margin of our world and another. It can be found only by those who can hear her song.”

“Magic shit, eh?”

“If you insist. As a Gaesporan, Tess would reveal herself to me, but with my connection severed I must find her song on my own. I need not explain the advantage.”

“No, I get it. You can find this place with your psychic antenna, and if we ever make it there the Hathaways won’t be able to find us. It’s as good a plan as any.”

“Correct. Any who could find Tess could only be allies. Then we are decided?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Saru swung her hand over for John to shake, and he did so, gripping tight.

“I guess this makes us partners,” John said, grinning. The idea seemed to thrill him.

“Partners,” Saru said, trying her best to keep the cynicism out of her voice. Whatever you want, buddy.

Saru dove into the minibar, and, after a quick rummage, emerged with a bottle of forty-thousand-dollar Sin champagne. Her hands worked the cork, and it let out the slightest, softest, most refined, aristocratic
pop
she’d ever heard.

“To options!” she declared, and guzzled. She handed the bottle to John.

“Options!” he proclaimed. He took his own guzzle, which ended in a grimace, and handed the bottle back.

Saru drank and then unleashed a tremendous burp. Then she drank some more. Through the blur of her vision, she studied John. His hair had grown tousled. His cheeks were flushed. There was sweat on his brow. He was smiling like an idiot and blowing through pursed lips in a futile attempt at whistling. A random note sprang free, and his eyes flashed wide and then quizzical; it looked like he was trying to stare down the runway of his own nose. Then he was at it again, laughing and smiling as if they actually had a prayer.

4. Ben?

They flew, Saru drank. There were nuts in the minibar, and not just peanuts—honeyed cashews and things that looked like little brains. There was fruit too, dried apples and bananas, and
pine
apples and “figs” that looked like candy testicles. There was plenty of booze and then bottles to pee in, so all in all the flight was pleasant. From time to time Saru changed the bandage on her thigh, sucking breaths and spitting fucks as she doused the wound in vodka and staunched the yolky pus with silk cocktail napkins. John’s feet had healed, not even a scar. The black smog below remained unbroken, and the sun strolled across the sky.

John kept his eyes closed, but his fingers played deftly across the controls, and the plane flew levelly—if anything, better than it had when he was awake and manic. Saru explored the plane’s entertainment options and found the expected luxury—hallucinogenic music players, virtual-kingdom libraries, adaptive gonad stimulators, and AI pornography—but they felt too indulgent for her current status as fugitive. She fiddled with the radio dial, looking for some distracting garbage, but all of the radio stations played the Hathaway warning message, and even when she switched the radio off, the message was engraved in her memory. Her mind wandered back to the scenes of her city aflame, the bodies running from the conflagration, dropping to the pavement and twitching still. The Hathaway message played over the scene like a narration, shedding words until
terrorist, terrorist, terrorist
repeated like a mantra. Saru grit her teeth, and tried to think of anything else.

John’s eyes opened and he grinned.

“I hear something,” he said.

He tipped the controls forward and they plunged below the smog. They were over an ocean, or maybe it was
the
ocean—but at least the water went in every direction without land. John craned his neck in search of who knew what. The water was still and dead, an oily rainbow of gasoline and clown-puke algae, reds and blues and greens all hideous. An archipelago of trash piled up amidst the puke, mounds of tires and bottles and oil drums and shoes and diapers and condoms—all the shed skin of a city cast off and moved out of sight and mind.

John flew lower still, and swung around an oil platform that poked between the islands of trash. Saru gasped. What she had taken for castaway pipeline resolved itself with the nearness into a nest of gigantic tentacles. Now that she knew what to look for, she spied other alien body parts spread throughout the trash—rings of hooked teeth, processions of helical fins, throbbing bulbs, gnashing suckers and sphincters, and whirlpools that frothed with mysterious life.

“What the fuck is that?” Saru asked.

“That,” John said, “is Ben.”

“
Ben
?”

“Benthalias in Glish. Ben for short.”

“Christ,” Saru breathed. “What’s it doing here?”

Saru could feel the tingle of her sixth sense, that magical feeling of the aliens and Gods. She sensed the creature was aware of them in the plane, calm, yet wary, and she felt the subtle stirring of the tentacles beneath the surface, like a pigeon protecting its nest.

“Ben is a part of the Gaespora,” John said.

“That?” Saru said, with disgust. “You’re connected to that?”

“I was,” John said. “Ben is a part of the shared consciousness. He is no longer a part of my awareness, but I can hear his voice if I try.”

“
He
?”

“The sex is an analog.” John shrugged. “There are others like Ben with different sexual organs. Though not a dichotomous relationship, ‘he’ is most appropriate.”

“If you say so. Please tell me this isn’t the place you’re thinking of.”

“No,” John said, distractedly. “But Ben may know where Tess can be found.”

They flew lower—too low, Saru thought—and she saw more and greater tentacles, thick as subway lines, a network of monstrous ocean roots. Pale eyes as large as stadiums stared up at her from just below the puky ocean surface.

“Is that…is that one of your Gods?”

“In a way,” John said. “Ben is the memory of a God.”

“Looks real to me.”

“Ben is real. The universe that spawned him is long dead, destroyed and eaten by the UausuaU.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The word ‘Gaespora’ is a portmanteau. A composition of the words ‘Gaea’ and ‘diaspora.’ The worshippers of the Slow God—the hips—call our Gods the Sad Gods, but it would be more accurate to call them the Dead Gods.”

“Lovely.”

“It is,” John said, missing her sarcasm. His tone was reverent, almost loving. “The Gaespora are an alliance of refugees, the survivors of the UausuaU. They share their experiences and what sanctuary their worlds can offer. It is the greatest act of cooperation that ever was and will be.”

“How did that thing get here?” Saru asked. The creature—“Ben”—was making her uncomfortable. She sensed a familiarity, like there was a vague acquaintanceship between a scrap of her being and a snag of the sea creature. It was drunken, daydream wander-thought, but the idea that the alien below could somehow sense her presence and
know
her filled Saru with dread.

“How did no one notice a thing like that coming here? I think it would’ve popped up on a feed or two.”

“Ben didn’t
come
here,” John said. “A universe is not a
place
.”

“What do you mean it’s not a ‘place’? Of course it is. We’re here. We take up space. So we’re in a place.”

“
Our
universe has space.
Our
universe has place. That may not be so for others.”

“Then how does anything live there if they don’t have any space? How is Ben even here if he came from a place without space?”

It felt like they were talking in children’s-book rhymes.

“Ben is a
chimera
,” John explained. “He is a child of our universe and another. He is made of the components of our universe, but his growth is guided by foreign intent. A universe is at its core a rule set. Universes cannot exchange physical objects; the physics of each universe are different. The margin of similarity is the overlap between the rules of one universe and another. The only way a universe can interact with another is by sharing information—its thoughts, if you will. Each universe broadcasts its thoughts, which ripple out across the universal plane. When the thoughts strike a similar rule set, they can exert influence. If the margin of similarity is large enough, a chimera like Ben can grow and live in the host universe. Chimeras are how universes interact, how they war, how they trade, how they have sex, and how new universes are born. Ben is here by invitation, two universes willingly commingling.”

“Sex? Our
universe
is having sex?”

“Sex is an exchange of information. It is common between universes, and essential to the survival of the Gaespora. Universes beset by the UausuaU open themselves to one another, allowing chimera to grow within each other. When a mother universe is devoured, the information survives in the children. The Earth is full of chimera such as Ben, as are all other suitable environments in our universe. This free exchange of information forms a counterbalance to the forced assimilation of the UausuaU. It makes our resistance possible.”

“But…does that mean there are humans in other universes?”

“Not humans. Chimeras. The information from our planet may exist in other places within the Gaesporan collective, but the form of life it will take will be different from what we know.”

John closed his eyes. He kept his hand lightly on the control column, and snuggled into a pose of relaxation. He brought the plane lower, so low they practically skimmed the surface of the ocean.

Saru studied the creature below. Hi, you big bastard, how’s it going? Happy, living rent-free in my ocean? I guess this means we’re related somehow? Ben didn’t seem to share her amusement. He just stared at her with his huge eyes. She felt that this was no illusion, that the eyes below did in fact look upon her, and her specifically. She looked away, but the sense that Ben was watching her remained.

John was still meditating or whatever. Saru watched the rise and fall of his chest, wondering what he was trying to accomplish. After a few moments of observation, she began to notice the regular pacing of his blood through his veins, the whole of his system orchestrated into a pattern beyond the maintenance of the self. His calm spread out from his body and engulfed her. Her thoughts settled, one by one, and all in an instant. Her body noises quieted—the need of breath, the tickle of skin, the urge of her sex, and the obnoxious demands of her bowels. The neural labyrinth of her gray matter straightened and smoothed so that each thought made sense and was not at all confusing or frightening or entangled with another thought. Within the silence of the self she heard Ben’s voice speaking to her. It was hate. Pure hate. And fear. The creature as large as a city was afraid of her, the puny human. It was terrified.

Saru’s thoughts tumbled back into the apeshit clutter of humanity. She found herself inside a bag of skin and bones and crunchy inputs and dribbling leakage, and the roar of her own body at work drowned out Ben’s hateful voice.

“Fuck,” she said.

John opened his eyes. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just…never mind. Let’s get out of here.”

“Soon,” John said.

“Could you at least fly a little higher?” she asked.

John assented with a nod, and they leapt above the touch of the waves. Saru realized she’d been holding her breath, and let it out in a sigh of relief.

“How do you hide a thing like Ben?” she asked.

“There have been incidents,” John said. “But they are rare. Humans are penned within their cities. Their minds are slaved to the feeds. The few who have the means to stumble across a creature like Ben are the scions. They seldom stray from the playgrounds of luxury they have built for themselves.”

“No doubt that’s your doing.”

“It is a charge of the Gaespora,” John said. “A better question is why we must hide Ben and beings like him.”

“I can think of a few reasons,” Saru said.

“Ben is harmless,” John said. “It is mutually beneficial for him to be here. Our oceans are dead. The heat and acidity and radiation that killed them forms a perfect habitat for Ben. Ben lives in our oceans, and in turn he helps protect us from the UausuaU.”

“Ben fights the Uau?” Saru said. She squirmed, feeling the hatred of the creature again, the memory of the hate still enough to make her skin crawl.

“In a way. Ben adds biodiversity to Earth’s depleted ecosystem. A robust ecosystem is a natural defense against the UausuaU.”

“You’re talking biology now? You said the margin had to do with physics.”

“Chemistry and biology are outgrowths of physics. The physical similarity in the rule set creates similarity in the biology between two universes. It is the biology of a universe that broadcasts the information, and the biology that receives that information. The Gaespora accept the information of their allies, and allow it to seed and grow. They fight the information projected by the UausuaU. This information is malicious; it repurposes the biology of the target universe.

“In our universe, some planets develop with no life tainted by the UausuaU, the malicious information finding nothing to exploit. Other planets have many species that are corrupted. A healthy ecosystem has countermeasures. A virus becomes an exploit of the UausuaU, but it is contained by the virophages of the ecosystem. A neuron becomes an exploit and is contained by the immune system of the host; or, the host is killed before it reproduces and spreads the corruption. An entire species becomes an exploit and spreads throughout the ecosystem, but is contained by diseases and predators that naturally reduce overpopulation. Across our universe is waged this constant battle. The UausuaU seeks biology to exploit, and the biology of our universe fights back. From amoebas to empires, swords to starships, puddles to galaxies.”

“‘No fight is too small’ could be your motto.”

“You jest but speak truth. A human lifetime is short, and thus our temporal myopia. A small corruption on the scale of a thousand human lives can evolve into catastrophe. Once a corrupted ecosystem develops to a technological level beyond that of the host life, it is nearly impossible to arrest the corruption.”

“And the other Gods? The living ones? The Blue God and the Slow God? Where do they come in?”

“The Gaespora neither welcome them nor fight their presence. The Gaespora allow their chimeras to grow and claim what biology they must. The Gaespora spare them molestation whenever possible.”

“Of course you do. You want them to do your fighting for you.”

“The Blue God and the Slow God are ancient and powerful beings. They share a common enemy. Gains they make against the UausuaU benefit the Gaespora.”

“But they don’t want to join your club?”

John fell quiet, distracted again, only now Saru guessed this was the distraction of introspection. She welcomed it. Her own head was spinning with his words, memories of her recent actions flashing by, arranging themselves in a narrative based on what she now knew. She read between the lines of what John had said, matching his generalities with her own experiences in Philadelphia, with the feasters who seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, with the elzi somehow connected to the Uau, with Friar who had transformed from friend to foe, and the monsters built of human flesh. It was clear John’s candidness had hit a roadblock. He was keeping something from her, intimating something he didn’t dare to say aloud.