The Death of the Wave (20 page)

The Artist.

Each just a player in a game so beyond us,

we could not grasp the margins or consequences.

But I understand.

I understand now.

Now that the flames for me have died away

and my hands shake too much

to further a revolution.

No matter.

The books are gone.

But somewhere in the Camps,

Live on the words.

And words know how to wait.

The one who may be a savior,

The Scientist,

is the one who slew an angel.

And the tree of knowledge burns brightly in the Citadel.

I can see the flames from the window of my small quarters,

sequestered in the Barracks.

It burns, and the ashes raked from it

will be as bright as the branches.

The back of the Palace car.

And I had come home to you, Darwin.

But such a contrast we made!

I was bruised and covered

in the blood of the Artist,

and you were, as always, impeccably poised,

a statue of marble in a three-piece suit.

Perfect but for a tiny dot of blood that had spotted your lapel.

I doubt you noticed it, you were too concerned for me.

My body was wracked with coughs,

and you soothed me, offering me medicine.

It had been close. You had tried to protect me.

But it had been done—

“The Artist is dead,” I whispered.

“I know. Your time in the Barracks is over.”

And you turned your head away.

“I had stated that I had coerced you to the Citadel.”

“Testified that I had ordered

The death of Galileo.

They will not overrule me.”

And the faintest of smiles touched the edge of your lips

as immaterial as breath off a blade.

“Scientist, you are free.”

But where were you, Darwin?

Where were you after the Artist died?

I stood shivering in the Barracks for far too long.

376 is dead.

But perhaps I heard

a single disjointed gunshot in the break.

Perhaps.

Darwin.

“You found Author, as I did,” I murmured.

“Breaker 256,“
you corrected, without bothering to think.

“Then you know I cannot be free,” I replied softly.

“Not while she lives. While she lives, the old rebellion stays to smother the new.”

And you looked at me then, your eyes old and immeasurably weary.

I felt as though I lingered upon the edge of the abyss, held up only by a dying star

that might collapse at any moment, to send me spiraling down into the darkness.

And I understood then.

I understood the spot upon the lapel

and the lingering gunshot on the frosty air

that I swore might have been just

another sound in the cacophony.

What was it you told me that your father told her?

I condemn you to be you, as long as you live.

As long as you—

And does she live, Darwin?

Or did the new revolution murder the old in understanding?

Were you merciful, is her nightmare over?

You will not tell me.

But it does not matter, does it?

Breaker 256 is finished.

Only Author lives on.

For it is the words

That defines immortality.

It is the mere fact

That the words exist at all.

And this I believe.

I reached forward to your lax hand

that rested on the seat between us,

and at first, you jerked away

as if touched by fire.

And I watched your inexpressible composure shatter slowly,

as the cracks in your disguise began to show.

All the hideousness of humanity,

the pettiness, the hurt, the anger,

and a thousand transient emotions

warring for space upon the planes of your face.

My hideous darling and my monster love.

What a pair we were, we are.

For I am like you.

The human who thought he was an angel.

And

the angel who thought it was human.

And I am like you.

I looked at your face, that I know better than my own.

What strange thoughts capered beyond that ridge of bone?

I reached for your hand and this time

you did not pull away

and we sat without a word.

We will change everything.

Darwin, we shall change the history books,

as you believed so many years ago.

You were yourself again.

And your black eyes did not flicker,

did not register a thing.

But you trembled, Darwin,

at the duty of a King.

D
o be
patient.
Wait,
remember
me

A
nd
think
for
the
light.

R
emember
for
the
words
, free

W
ill be
the
signal
that
in night

I
n our
children
,
that
live.
For the tree

N
earer here
burns
on
ever bright.

We did what we thought was right.

PART SEVEN: PLANTING

Who’s son am I?

The Citadel is on fire,

and children starve in the streets.

Far off, far off, the gunshots sound.

And our Human Services Coordinator Darwin sits at his desk

in a state of eerie calm,

and watches the conflagration with mournful eyes over tented fingers.

“Take this to the Camps. Quickly.”

Darwin nods at me in the darkness, and flourishes the name Author at the top of the page.

I turn to go with the message when he calls me back.

“And Comet?”

“I grow young and you grow old. How long will we have, do you think?”

I pause to stave off forgetting and answer—

“Long enough for Eden?”

For I stand there, shivering with fever, with the new world order in my hand

and the smile he gives me could stop a revolution.

“Yes.”

“For I grow downwards, like a turnip,”
he whispers as the treacherous pen begins again to write.

“But never fear, for my roots are strong and deep.”

Ex igne veritas

This world

ever was,

and is,

and shall be,

ever-living fire,

in measures being kindled

and

in measure going out.

The Censor occurs. The State of Eden is created.

The State is separated into Palaces and Camps.

The Edicts are written and formulated.

GALILEO and NEWTON, the Voice of Eden, are created.

DESCARTES is created.

BREAKER 256 is born.

BREAKER 376 is born.

DARWIN is created.

BREAKER 256 tests into the Breakers.

BREAKER 256

BREAKER 256 becomes radicalized.

BREAKER 256 meets DESCARTES.

BREAKER 256 and DESCARTES enter into a relationship and plan the first revolution.

DESCARTES and BREAKER 256 have a child.

BLUE is born.

Twelve years after their child is born, DESCARTES and BREAKER 256 begin the first revolution. BREAKER 256 releases information to the Camps under the pen name of AUTHOR.

BREAKER 256

BLUE tests into working for the Palaces and begins work for the State.

Four years later, BLUE meets BREAKER 256.

BREAKER 256 and BLUE begin a relationship.

GALILEO asks BLUE to find out if BREAKER 256 is the one releasing information to the Camps under the name of AUTHOR.

BREAKER 256 creates a plan to silence NEWTON, the Voice of Eden.

BREAKER 256 and BLUE have a child.

COMET is born.

BLUE goes into Poet’s Camp and hires POESY, the widow of DANTE, to compose a false message to the Camps under the same pen name that BREAKER 256 uses, AUTHOR, to drive the people of the Camps into a trap.

BLUE convinces BREAKER 256 that POESY or “False Author” was the one who set the trap.

BLUE gives over the correspondence between DESCARTES and BREAKER 256 marking her as the true AUTHOR.

BREAKER 256 and BREAKER 376 create a plan to punish POESY/ “False Author” and to protect BREAKER 256.

GALILEO reveals that BREAKER 256 is AUTHOR, and has her branded with the mark of Eden as a traitor. BREAKER 256 is sentenced to death.

DESCARTES is sent to the Barracks.

BREAKER 376 helps BREAKER 256 escape. POESY/ “False Author” is executed publicly in BREAKER 256’s place, causing most people, including BLUE, to believe BREAKER 256 and therefore AUTHOR, is dead. BLUE switches to the side of the rebellion.

BREAKER 376 gains BREAKER 256 employment in disguise in the Barracks.

BLUE decides to redeem BREAKER 256 by killing NEWTON, the Voice of Eden.

GALILEO takes over as the Voice of Eden.

BLUE is captured, and is sent to the Barracks.

COMET tests into the Palaces to begin work as a scientist.

DARWIN reveals to COMET the inequalities in life expectancies between Palaces and Camps.

COMET becomes radicalized.

DARWIN begins and ends a project with COMET to attempt to rectify the inequalities in life expectancies between Palaces and Camps.

DARWIN releases information about the project to the Camps.

A deadly virus (“The Cull”) is released in the Barracks to curb the prison population.

DARWIN and COMET plan to kill GALILEO.

COMET kills GALILEO.

DARWIN takes over as Human Services Coordinator in GALILEO’s place.

DARWIN has COMET arrested and sent to the Barracks to find BLUE and to convince him to create one last message under the pen name AUTHOR for the Camps.