The Last Adventure of Constance Verity (22 page)

“Really?” asked Thelma. “You know you'll have to read those files eventually. You're just putting off the inevitable.”

“Nobody asked you.”

Connie dialed Lucas Harrison on her phone.

“Read the files, Verity?” he asked.

“No. What's in them? No, don't tell me. I don't care. Leave me the hell alone.”

“You called me.”

“Don't get cute. None of this has anything to do with me anymore.”

“So, what's the harm in reading the files, then?” he said.

She put the phone on the counter. She didn't want to dig through the garbage again. She counted to ten before returning the phone to her ear. She wasn't going to lose her temper.

“I have a choice now, and I choose to not read. Respect that.”

“I'm not making you do anything,” he replied. “I only thought you might be interested in the files.”

“What's your game, Harrison?”

“No game. Just information. Look at it or don't. Your call.”

She hung up.

She went down to the basement, pulled the case from the garbage, took another shower.

“Are we going to do this all day?” asked Thelma. “Just do what we both know you were going to do from the beginning.”

Connie read the files angrily, as if that somehow made it excusable. She called Harrison again, made arrangements to meet him.

He picked a library across town. It wasn't convenient, but she was beyond pretending as if she wasn't already on this road. They found a table in the periodicals section. She slid the case across the table.

“Explain it.”

“You read them, then?” he asked.

“I wouldn't be here if I hadn't.”

He opened the case, and she glimpsed the file on Dr. Ishiro Hirata, leading expert in the field of kaiju studies. He'd died four days before, keeping a monster crab from devouring Yokohama.

She counted him as a friend. More importantly, Dr. Hirata had devoted his life to the containment of all those giant beasties waiting to destroy humanity. He'd kept the kaiju apocalypse at bay a dozen times she knew of. She'd helped him a few of those times.

Now he was dead.

Harrison dropped another file on the stack and pushed it at her. She gave them a quick scan. Eloise Purvis, Special
Agent in charge of the World Crime League Task Force, had been shot three times and was now laid up in the hospital.

“That one came in just today,” said Harrison. “You know Eloise, don't you?”

“I know all these people,” said Connie, putting her hand on the files, reports of extraordinary people she'd run with in the past.

Doctor Dynasty, Master of Mystic Arts, rendered blind and gibbering mad after repelling an alien monster god from another dimension.

Mariana Challenger, Explorer of the Unknown, vanished in the jungles of South America while searching for a lost city.

Caligula Fox, World's Greatest Detective, found dead in his kitchen, a scimitar buried in his back.

Nine other adventurers in various fields, all of them dead, injured, or missing.

“It's a dangerous world out there,” said Harrison.

“Stop tiptoeing around what you want to say and just tell me.”

“That is what I'm saying to you, Verity. Bad things happen, and the difference between triumph and tragedy is often razor-thin. One wrong move, one moment of bad luck, and things fall apart.

“These people all do things that need to be done, things only they can do. The rest of us live our lives worrying about unimportant shit only because of folks like this standing like a bulwark against the tide of weird crap and horrible disaster ready to bury this world. But it's a delicate balance, and you've pushed it over by what you've done.”

“I'm not really in the mood for more metaphysical bullshit,” said Connie.

“No bullshit.” He reconsidered. “Maybe a little bullshit. How many close calls have you had? How many last-minute escapes? How many times have you saved the day with a split second to spare?”

“I don't know. A lot.”

“Did you ever consider what would've happened in those situations if you hadn't been there? When Doc Dynasty banished the parasite lords from beyond time, you were the one who shoved the final keystone in place that sealed the gate, weren't you?”

She nodded. “Doc did most the work, though.”

“And when the World Crime League sent a hit squad to take out Eloise Purvis, you were the one to push her out of the way of a hail of bullets, weren't you?”

“Eloise is sharp. She would've spotted them.”

“And when Ishiro Hirata was piloting the Mecha-Armadillo that saved San Diego from being stepped on by that giant squid-gorilla thing—”

“Squorillo, Terror of the Deep,” she said.

“Yes, that. Moments before the Mecha-Armadillo self-destructed, taking Squorillo with it, who was the one who pulled Hirata into the escape pod just in time?”

“Me, but—”

“No buts, Verity. Don't you get it? There's a balance here, and you've thrown it out of whack.”

“I wouldn't have been on all these adventures. I do a lot
in two weeks, but not this much. I wouldn't have been there to save all of them.”

“It's not about being there,” he said. “It's about the possibility of being there. It's about there being someone out there who can push things one way or the other. That used to be you. Now that you're not doing it, the universe has noticed.”

“I'm not that important,” she said. “Anyway, by your quasi-religion, which I still don't understand, isn't this all part of the plan and I'm just a replaceable part?”

“Some of us have come to think differently. We think the Engine doesn't keep the universe running. It keeps it from growing. It keeps it from becoming more.”

“More what?”

“We don't know.”

“No offense, Harrison, but that just sounds like more pseudo-spiritual gobbledygook.”

“It is, but it doesn't mean it's not true. Engine theory says the universe is a near-infinite collection of moving parts, and all those parts fit together to do their job. But if that's true, it means that everything is preordained, that there's no such thing as free will. Except maybe you.”

“I don't know if you've been paying attention, but my whole life has been one long series of preordained events. I couldn't cross the street without having to save the world. I'm the poster girl for predestination.”

“We don't control most things that happen to us. We only react. Your reactions are better than most.”

“So, make someone else like me. It can't be that hard. Just a magic spell, right?”

“You're different. You're . . .” He struggled to come up with the word.

“Chosen?” she asked. “Chosen to break a predestined universe. That sounds like a paradox to me.”

“I know it sounds stupid,” he said. “I wouldn't say
chosen
. I'd just say the right person at the right time. That's who you are, and it's not because some enchantment forced it onto you.”

“I never asked to be.”

Harrison shook his head. “Nobody asks for anything. We're all figuring this stuff as we go along. Call it destiny. Call it luck. Call it whatever the hell you want to. You can't take yourself out of the game without expecting consequences.”

“This is the beginning,” he said. “It'll start with the weird stuff, but it won't stop there. It's a cruel world. People get hurt. A million little tragedies happen every day. And that was with you out there, a cosmic linchpin keeping it from falling apart. It'll only get worse. Today, a father collapses from a heart attack. A dog is hit by a car. A war nobody notices breaks out. Tomorrow, the moon breaks free of its orbit, crashes into the Earth.”

“It's so obvious,” said Connie. “Why didn't you explain it like that before?”

“It's all connected, but you don't have to believe me. Belief is unnecessary. We're all part of the Engine whether we want to be or not. But the Engine is indifferent. It doesn't give a shit. But you did. You did a lot of good out there, helped a lot of
people. You can't tell me you didn't have fun along the way, too.”

“Sure, but that's not me anymore.”

“Then I expect to see more reports like these.”

Connie slapped the table. The librarian flashed them a stern look.

“This is bullshit,” whispered Connie. “You're blackmailing me? The universe got along just fine without me until I was seven. It can get along now. Now you're telling me my job is to either fix the universe or break it.”

“One doesn't exclude the other.” Harrison took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tapped them on the table. “Christ, I could use a smoke.”

“You don't smoke.”

“I don't do a lot of things,” he replied. “But I do them more than I used to.”

He tucked a cigarette in his mouth but didn't light it.

“Enough with the manipulation, Harrison. I'm tired of people pulling my strings.” She stood. “Don't contact me again.”

“Sit down, Connie.” He slumped in his chair. His exhaustion was palpable. “Please.”

“I'll stand.” She folded her arms and glared at him. His weariness was so overwhelming, she had to glare at the wall behind him instead.

“The Engine isn't a metaphor. It exists, a giant machine at the center of creation that runs the universe. After all you've experienced, is it really that ridiculous?”

“You've seen it?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It's been centuries since anyone has. There's a door to it somewhere. Many doors scattered throughout the universe, opening and closing in a pattern nobody quite understands. The last recorded sighting on Earth was Ada Lovelace, who spent three minutes exploring its mysteries before being ejected from it. She wrote a program to predict where it would appear next. Every computer that tries to run it ends up bursting into flames, but there's still some data. Other pieces of information from mystics and seers and scientists. All of them point to another moment of alignment. Possibly soon.

“I'm not an idiot, Verity. I didn't buy it at first either. I joined up with this secret society mostly to help my career. I thought it was the Freemasons with a thing for machines. I didn't take it seriously. Then I noticed predictions being made. I started seeing the patterns. I was allowed to glimpse files kept behind locked doors, equations, codes. By themselves, easy to dismiss. All together, an awful truth. Nobody was right all the time, but often enough. It's crazy, I know, but it's true. Your life says so. Those files say so.

“What they did to you was wrong,” he said. “Everybody should have a choice. They took that away from you, and I can't blame you for being pissed about it. I'm not saying there was a different way. I don't know. I wasn't involved with this from the beginning. I don't know how deep it goes or who runs what. I just do my job, and my job has been to watch you for the last ten years, compile reports, and send those reports off to somebody. Hell if I know who. But do you know what I saw in you, kid?”

“Kid? You're only a couple of years older than me.”

He ignored her reply. “I saw someone who cared about the people around her. You once fought a lion to save a dog.”

“I had to. His collar had microfilm in it.”

“You could've waited for the lion to spit out the collar. Why don't you admit it? You're not perfect, Verity. Not by a mile, but who is? But you care about people. If you didn't, this world would be a very different place. You might have been destined for adventure, but you weren't destined to be heroic. You could've just as easily turned into a self-centered ass, given everything you've done and everything you've been through. You can put on an act like you don't care, but you do. You always have.”

Connie laughed. “Funny. My best friend in the whole world said I was selfish.”

“One doesn't exclude the other,” he said. “You're human, despite everything. You have your flaws, but I've read those reports about you at your best and worst, and I can say that even knowing the dreadful secrets I know, I've always slept better at night knowing you were out there.”

He lit his cigarette, took a deep drag, then exhaled a cloud of smoke while waving at the librarian.

“You're many things, Connie. But replaceable? Some of us don't think so.”

“Who?”

He shrugged. “I'm only one man. Not even an important one. But I do know one thing, Connie. It sucks having the world
depend on you, but it sucks more never having it notice you at all.”

A team of librarians, three of them, approached.

Harrison stood, waved them away. “I'm leaving.” He closed the attaché case, tucked it under one arm. “Take care of yourself, kid. If anyone's earned a vacation, I guess it's you. The Engine will take care of things, one way or another.”

He walked away, hands in his pockets, head low, his posture stooped. Connie had no reason to trust him. This was more manipulation, and she wasn't playing along. There might have been some truth to what he'd said, but that was how it worked. Just enough truth to keep her on the hook.

“He's right,” said Thelma.

“Ah, damn.” Grumbling, Connie ran after him, catching him on the stairs outside.

“What difference does it make?” she asked. “I'm not special anymore.”

“You're still you,” he said. “There are scraps of adventure clinging to your soul. You'll never be rid of all of them. The only difference now is that you have more of a choice. What you do with that choice is up to you.”

“And why should I trust any of this?”

“You shouldn't,” he replied. “It could all be a lie. We could both be unwitting pawns in a game bigger than either of us. I don't trust me. Why should you? I'm only an idiot living in this world. You're the one who saves it. It's what you do.”