The Last Adventure of Constance Verity (33 page)

Connie said, “And I am the anomaly, which makes me beyond anything you can imagine. That puts us on even ground.”

A shudder shook the entire Engine. Somewhere, its great clockwork guts groaned and clicked with a terrible clatter. Maybe it was trying to change its programming, tweak it, find some excuse, some way of justifying aborting its long-pursued purpose.

Or perhaps it was just carrying on with its program.

“The final operation will commence. As the anomaly, you shall be absorbed. And with you, the final equation will be
solved, and I can commence imposition of perfect order.”

The floor opened, revealing a transdimensional vortex. It was like looking beyond the universe to the stuff underneath it. Or above it. Or around it. The universe itself was only a byproduct, a shadow cast on the cave wall of nothingness.

“It will be quick,” said the Engine. “You'll hardly feel a thing.”

“And how is this supposed to fix the universe?”

“I interface with the multiverse, with all universes, directing and controlling. However, there are and have always been unacceptable variables. These variables lead to disorder. It was decided, given enough time, that an anomaly would appear. The ultimate anomaly. This anomaly would be absorbed, incorporated into the design on a quantum level.”

“Uh-huh. Every time anyone pulls out quantum physics, it's just a lazy way of justifying any crazy bullshit they can come up with.”

The Engine said nothing.

“Let me guess. Bullshit shall be rectified.”

“It is assumed so.”

“Let me see if I've got this. I'm unexpected.”

“You are.”

“And that makes me an embodiment of everything unpredictable.”

“Yes.”

“So, this wasn't your plan? You haven't been manipulating my life to bring me here?”

“Your arrival was anticipated,” said the Engine.

“
Anticipated
is not the same as
designed
,” said Connie.

“If you're asking me if I planned this, I didn't. I simply waited for it to occur.”

“But this can't be a surprise. You're monitoring the entire universe. I'm kind of a big deal. I've saved the universe a couple of times.”

“Have you?”

“You don't know that?”

“There are variables that elude me. You are obviously among them.”

“That has to be embarrassing for you. What with you being all-knowing and whatnot.”

“It is irrelevant.”

“Is it?” Connie asked. “You say you are here to keep the universe in balance, but you've obviously been doing a lousy job of it, considering that I've been saving it while you've been busy with . . . whatever it is you do.”

The Engine said, “I don't get embarrassed.”

It did sound peeved by the thought.

“If what you say is correct, then it is vital for my ultimate function for you to be absorbed into the equation.”

“Then what? A perfectly ordered reality where everything runs like clockwork. No surprises. Nothing unexpected. Nothing unpredictable. A bunch of matter and energy ticking along until the heat death of the universe?”

“Correct. More or less. Shall we get on with it, then?”

“What if I don't want to be absorbed?”

“What you want is of no concern to me. You're here, and your entire existence has led you here. The concept of choice is an unacceptable anomaly. It shall be rectified.”

“It's right,” said Thelma. “You might as well jump in.”

“No,” said Connie.

A single syllable, but one with the power of an ancient incantation. She wasn't a pawn of the Engine. She didn't have to play its game.

“An unacceptable response.” The orb hovered closer, intent on pushing her into the pit itself.

Connie pulled Thelma from her pocket and plunged the haunted pen into the orb's pinpoint of light, the one vulnerable spot in its metallic shell. It screeched like a radio channeling feedback and fell with a heavy thunk to the floor.

“Unacceptable,” the Engine warbled. “Unacceptable.”

She removed Thelma and rolled the orb into the pit. The swirl of colors disintegrated it.

“Shove that up your variables,” said Connie.

“Ugh,” said Thelma. “That's a lousy one-liner to save the universe with.”

“They can't all be winners. So, did you see any of that coming?”

“No, I'll admit I didn't,” replied Thelma. “It can't be that easy, can it?”

Six more orbs lowered out of the ceiling. They surrounded Connie.

“Your lack of cooperation is expected,” said the Engine.

“Uh-huh.” Connie clutched the pen tighter. “Let's see if you expect me destroying you.”

“You can't destroy me.”

“Sure, I can. You've admitted it yourself. I'm the one variable you can't calculate, the hole in your soulless number-crunching view of the universe. You think you've been waiting for me to come along to absorb, but I say that I'm here to put an end to your program. I'm your Achilles' heel.”

“Or I am yours,” said the Engine.

An orb launched itself at her. She stabbed it, and it collapsed. Connie kicked it, and it rolled into another, screwing up its hover system. They fell into the pit and were destroyed. Another sphere tried to roll over her. She sidestepped and stabbed its weak spot.

The orbs stopped attacking.

“Give up, then?” she asked.

A dozen more spheroids fell from the ceiling.

“Overconfidence is anomaly,” said the Engine.

She twirled her pen.

“You bet your ass it is.”

Tia stopped. “We have to go back.”

“No, we don't,” said Hiro.

“Connie needs us.”

“She doesn't need anybody. She can take care of herself.”

“This is different. This is bigger than anything else.”

“That's exactly why we should be listening to her,” said Hiro. “She wants us to get out of here.”

“She can't do this on her own.”

Tia turned around.

“She told me to protect you,” said Hiro.

“You're not protecting me. You're helping me to run away.”

“In my experience, running away is the best way to protect yourself.”

“Ninjas,” she mumbled.

“Tia, we'll only get in Connie's way.”

“Maybe she needs someone to get in her way.”

“Now you're not making any sense.”

“I know, but she's my friend, and she might very well be fighting for the fate of the universe. I can't let her do it alone. She needs me.” Tia tapped the encased spell in her pocket. “She needs this.”

“If anything happens to you, Connie will never forgive me.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “I'd never forgive myself.”

“Oh, brother. It was sex. One time. And it was probably a bad idea.”

Hiro frowned. “Oh. Yes, of course. I've bedded hundreds of women. Not as if one more conquest left much of an impression on me.”

She fixed him with a blank stare.

“Unless it maybe, possibly, meant something to you,” he said.

“You could not have picked a worse time to have this discussion. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

“We don't even know if we can get back to her.”

She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled her to him. They kissed in the cramped quarters, and he almost forgot about the pain in his side where he might very well be bleeding to death.

She winked. “Good thing I'm with the greatest ninja-slash-thief in the world.”

C
onnie stood among the broken remains of three dozen orbs, but there were more. There were always more. The Engine had infinite patience, infinite endurance. Connie was only human.

She'd hoped that there were enough scraps of spell within her to allow her to find a way to win this, but the orbs just kept coming. Clumsy and ineffective as they were, they'd wear her down eventually.

The Engine allowed her to catch her breath. It could've pressed its advantage, but it didn't need to.

“I told you it was pointless,” said Thelma.

“It's never pointless,” said Connie. “This machine thinks it runs the universe, but it doesn't. Not so long as someone is around to fight it.”

“Struggle is incorporated into the design,” said the Engine. “All variables will be taken into account.”

Connie tucked her pen back into her pocket. “You win,
then. Toss me in your pit. It won't work. There will always be another anomaly. That's why your program is doomed from the start. You're like a juggler with a trillion billion balls in the air. You're too busy keeping them all from falling to accomplish much of anything.

“Maybe you determine the fate of a civilization here and there. You shatter moons. You push lives around like pawns. Maybe you even control almost every single decision we make, every little moment. But in the end, we're all still living our lives. Your influence is invisible, and if it was gone tomorrow, nobody would notice. You're not God. You're God's obsessive-compulsive, socially awkward second cousin, sitting in the cosmic basement, babbling about how everything will be just right once you put it in order.

“Life's messy. It always will be. Doesn't matter if you've been chosen to live a life of adventure or if you're a regular person or if you're a nearly omnipotent supercomputer. That's the truth. There will always be another variable to rectify. You can spend eternity chasing them all, and maybe you will. Good luck with that, buddy.”

The orbs retracted into the ceiling. All but one that hovered before her. The Engine studied her for a long moment, and she wondered what it might be thinking. If it thought at all. Or was it simply a calculator unable to accept the flaws in its grand program?

The vortex crackled to life, almost screaming.

“You will be rectified.”

Connie's fate was to die a glorious death. She'd thought by
ditching the caretaker spell that she might avoid that, but those scraps of magic sticking to her soul must have been enough. But the rest of the enchantment was still out there, doing whatever it did, screwing with the grand equation, and she was certain now that the Engine would never be able to find it.

The floor fell out from under her. She landed on someone in a darkened crevice.

“Ouch,” said Hiro.

“Connie?” asked Tia.

Connie stood in the tight quarters. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“We're here to help,” said Tia.

The orb flew overhead, scanning them, blaring its displeasure at her escape. They scrambled down the cranny, away from the sound. Connie paused in the dark to figure things out.

“Damn it, I told you to leave.”

“It wasn't my idea,” said Hiro.

“Please tell me you hid the spell, at least.”

Tia said, “No, I brought it.”

“Why?”

“I thought you might need it. I made a judgment call. I went with my gut.”

“Your gut?”

“I'm allowed to have a gut too,” said Tia.

The Engine shuddered, but they appeared to have escaped it for now.

“How did you find me?” asked Connie.

“We didn't,” said Tia. “We just sort of stumbled across you.”

“All part of the Engine's inevitable equation,” said Thelma.

Connie clicked Thelma quiet.

“Why didn't you do what I asked?”

“I thought I was being plucky,” said Tia. “A quick thank-you is customary after helping with a narrow escape.”

“We haven't escaped. We're still trapped in a humongous deathtrap.”

“We've been in deathtraps before.”

“Not like this.”

“No. This time, you have the greatest exfiltration artist in the world with you, ladies,” said Hiro. “I'll get us out of here.”

If anyone could do it, he could, and Connie almost believed there was a way out and that destiny was a load of crap. Then a mechanical arm punched into their crevice and yanked him through the hole.

The arm grabbed at Connie, who retreated deeper into the crevice, pulling Tia with her.

“But Hiro!” said Tia. “We have to go back for him!”

“No more going back,” said Connie. “Not for Hiro. Not for you. Not for me. Not for anyone.”

“But—”

“Hiro can take care of himself. He always has.”

The Engine roared like a monolithic mechanical giant. They plunged deeper into its forbidden depths, into nooks and crannies even it didn't know it had. It appeared to be less omniscient than advertised.

They stumbled across a mostly empty vault.

“Now where are we?” asked Tia.

“Someplace even the Engine doesn't know about,” replied Connie.

“How do you know that?”

“Because none of its mechanical enforcers are here.”

The hum filled the room. A pillar extended from the center. On the pillar, a single, large button flashed bright red.