The Last Adventure of Constance Verity (34 page)

Connie said, “Well, I'll be damned. A self-destruct button.”

“Are you sure?” asked Tia.

“Trust me, Tia. I know a self-destruct button when I see it. The makers must have put it in, hid it within the Engine, sealed it off to keep the Engine from knowing about it.”

“Then why didn't they push it?”

A glowing creature appeared before them in a flash.

“We couldn't decide if we should.”

The tall and spindly being resembled a giant cockroach. If the projection was life-size, the makers were seven-foot-tall bugs who favored cargo shorts and capes. Connie tried not to judge their fashion sense.

“Is this the part where you spell out the rest of the exposition?” asked Connie. “Because regardless of what you say, I'm pushing that button.”

The maker blinked her bulbous black eyes. “Up to you.” Her voice was like a cricket chirp.

They waited for her to say something else.

“So, no exposition?” asked Tia.

“Is it necessary? Wise, all-powerful progenitors create a device beyond our control, are ironically destroyed by it. It isn't the first time. Our own research indicated three or four civilizations did the same thing before us. Probably more.”

“But you did it anyway?”

The maker's antennae twitched. “It's not as if the project was entirely fruitless. The Engine was our effort to fine-tune the universe. We smoothed over gravity, imposed speed limits on photons, a few other necessary adjustments. Without us, the universe would've evaporated into nothingness long before your civilization was little more than a collection of ambitious amino acids. You're welcome, by the way.

“It's embarrassing, I'll admit, to unlock the final secrets of the universe, only to be unmade by those secrets. But it seems it is also inevitable. If your species is fortunate—and I'll just ruin the surprise and say you won't be—you'll do the same. Then you can leave a hologram behind to explain to the next bunch of ungrateful sapient life forms.”

“Uh, thank you,” said Tia.

“You're welcome. Unfortunately, after it completed its task, we were unsure if the Engine's adjustments were permanent or if they'd all come crashing down as soon as it was switched off. There was also the slight possibility that the Engine had subsumed the foundation of reality as we know it. If so, destroying it would destroy the universe. Like removing a vital organ, replacing it with an artificial one, then removing that.

“We would've cracked the problem, but the Engine had other ideas.” The maker pointed over her head and a very long equation scrolled like ticker tape. “In the end, we didn't push the button because it would've been irresponsible to do so.

“It was calculated the correct choice was to hope a more intelligent civilization would arise that could solve the problem. Alas, this was apparently not to be. No offense.”

“You wimped out and swept your problems under the rug,” said Connie. “That's a shitty thing to do to the rest of the universe.”

“Perhaps, but little point in getting pissy about it.”

“Straight answer, then,” said Connie. “Did you arrange it so that I'd end up here? Is this my job as the anomaly?”

“The what?”

“The anomaly. The variable. The embodiment of predictable unpredictability.”

The maker scratched her head. “That's a new one on us.”

“This wasn't part of your celestial backup plan, then?”

“We didn't have one of those. Probably would've been a good idea, now that we think about it.”

“For omnipotent, all-knowing masters of the universe, you don't seem to know much,” said Connie.

The maker glared. “It's easy to criticize.”

“You're the ones who created an evil supercomputer that killed you.”

“Nobody's perfect. This anomaly initiative sounds promising, but it isn't of our design.” The final equation popped up
over her head, and old numbers faded as new numbers took their place. “It could work. However . . .”

There was always a
however
, thought Connie. She hated the
howevers
.

The maker said, “The question becomes one of the unknown. If you are indeed some manner of metaphysical wild card, then there's no telling what might happen if you push that button. If you give me six or seven hundred more years, I might be able to answer that.”

Connie said, “Fuck it. I'm pushing the button.”

“What if she's right?” asked Tia. “You could destroy the universe.”

“Among other possibilities,” said the maker.

“Like what?”

The maker shrugged, returned to her math problem.

“I don't know a damn thing about free will or destiny,” said Connie. “My life hasn't ever been mine to live, but whose is? Choices aren't found in the big things. Nobody controls those. But we all get small stuff. What we're having for lunch. What movie we see. What books we get to read. Who we love, if we're lucky. If the Engine finishes its program, then we don't even have that. If that's the kind of universe it wants to make, we're better off destroyed.”

“Actually, I can show you an equation that disproves the existence of free will,” said the maker.

“Nobody asked you.”

“Roll the dice, then?” asked Tia. “For the whole shebang?”

“Looks like it. I'm sorry that you got caught up in all this.”

“You don't have to apologize. I wanted to come. I'm sorry I slept with your ex-boyfriend. And also for not listening to you earlier when you told me to leave.”

“Sorry for not thinking about you when I tried to become normal.”

“Sorry for being so bitchy when you did.”

There was a lot of stuff to be sorry for. Mountains of it. That's what living in an uncertain universe did to people. It allowed them to screw up. Horribly. Beautifully. In a thousand little ways.

The Engine rumbled and a mechanical tentacle ripped its way through a wall. The orb scanned the room through the rip.

“This room is an anomaly. It will be rectified.”

Another orb punched its way through the floor. Dozens more pounded on the outside.

“Well, shit,” said the maker. “I guess I won't be able to finish the calculations after all.”

Tia handed the caretaker spell to Connie. “You might need this.”

The case flared brighter as the magic flowed up her arm in a tingling rush.

Tia tackled Connie, shoving her out of the way of a crashing orb. The case slipped from Connie's hand and bounced across the floor.

The lead orb with its clanking mechanical limbs stomped toward them. The limbs were fashioned piecemeal from other
parts and jammed into place with connections that sparked and smoked.

“Modifications are an anomaly,” said Connie. “They will be rectified.”

The orbs paused, and the Engine's vibrations went to a low, steady throb.

The limbed sentinel studied its malformed, improvised limbs. “Don't be stupid.”

Connie pulled her pen. The orbs lowered metal plates over their only vulnerability. They stumbled blindly, searching for Connie, bumping into each other.

The Engine's absurd tactics showed it wasn't the all-knowing supercomputer it claimed to be. Nor was it even that smart. Yet it made sense. If the Engine was in control of nearly everything, if it simply made things happen by virtue of the fantastic science the makers had imbued it with, it wasn't equipped to deal with her, the one variable it couldn't manipulate.

Its methods were almost laughable. Almost. But given the sheer number of orbs, and more appearing every moment, subtlety wasn't necessary. The Engine could bludgeon its way to solving this problem.

“What do we do?” asked Tia.

Connie knew, but Tia wasn't so sure of the plan described in a hasty sentence.

“But what about the spell?” asked Tia.

“I'll get it. You just take care of your end.”

“I don't—”

Connie dove beneath a zipping orb. “Damn it, Tia. I don't have time to argue. Just do it.”

Tia nodded. “If you think I can.”

Connie and Tia split up. Connie didn't look back as she ducked and weaved through the obstacle course. She focused on the spell. She was within reach when an orb knocked her off her feet. She crawled onward and brushed the case with her fingertips when the sentinel seized her in its mechanical fist. It picked up the metal card, holding Connie and the caretaker enchantment at arm's length, like it was handling a pair of bombs.

“You have been neutralized and will now be absorbed into the equation. No other outcome could be expected.”

It sounded so fucking pleased with itself.

“Yes, you got me,” said Connie, “but the thing about variables? You never see the one that gets you.”

The Engine, focused on Connie, had ignored Tia. She might have been crushed by a random flying orb, but it wouldn't have been on purpose. Tia was too ordinary, beneath notice.

And standing beside the big red button.

“I did not see that coming,” said the maker.

Tia pushed the button.

Nothing exploded.

The orbs switched off, dropping to the floor and rolling around in circles. The sentinel took a few clumsy steps before toppling over.

Tia pried the frozen fingers holding Connie. “Damn it. I should've had a clever line ready.”

“You did fine,” said Connie.

“You'd have had something cool to say. Like
Rectify this
.”

“That's not very clever.”

“It would've been something,” replied Tia.

Extracted from the machine's grip, Connie and Tia surveyed the inert orbs around them. The Engine itself still hummed, but the vibration throughout was fading by the moment. It would take a while for a machine of this size to shut off.

“I don't believe that worked,” said Tia. “Did I just save the universe?”

Connie threw her arm around Tia. “You sure as hell did. Not to complain or anything, but there are usually explosions when big red buttons get pushed in my vicinity.”

The maker explained, “Given the sheer mass of the Engine, it will take some time for anything like that. More likely, the subspace pocket will collapse, crushing everything into a two-dimensional object. That will explode with unimaginable power, but this is subspace. Won't hurt anything here. And it won't be for a while.”

“That's it, then?” asked Tia. “We won? Thousands of years of cosmic manipulation ended with the push of a button?”

“That's it,” said the maker.

“It's a little anticlimactic,” said Tia. “What happens to the universe now?”

The maker shrugged. “Don't know. Nor do I care. You made your call. Now you have to live with it. As for me, I can finally deactivate. Which I will do now.”

“Wait. Was any of this planned?” asked Connie.

“What do you want from me?” said the maker. “You won. The universe is yours now. I'd tell you to not screw it up, but everyone does. Do try to screw it up in new and interesting ways.”

A rumble swept through the Engine as a shard of metal pierced the wall. The entire room shifted, tilting at a crooked angle.

The maker consulted her formula for subspace physics. “Hmm. Looks like I forgot to carry the two.”

The Engine started exploding.

The subspace portal spat Connie and Tia out into an endless desert. The portal stayed open for a minute longer, and on the other side, the Engine rumbled and rattled and boomed as it self-destructed. The portal puckered close the moment the machine detonated, erupting with a jet of crimson fire and chunks of debris. The bits and pieces rained down. One especially large metallic plate came within a few feet of crushing them.

Connie and Tia caught their breath. Harrowing escapes from exploding were nothing new for Connie, and Tia had had her share as well.

This felt different.

“Guess the universe is still here,” observed Tia, lying on
her back, covering her eyes from the sun blazing above.

“Looks like. For now.” Connie sat up and surveyed the landscape. Desert stretched to the horizon in all directions. No signs of life. There was only one sun, so they might still be on Earth, though that was an assumption, and she couldn't rule out an alternate version yet.

“You don't think the Engine was right, do you?” asked Tia. “That without it, everything will fall into chaos, entropy will consume the universe?”

“No idea, but a little chaos is a good thing. If the Engine had succeeded, it would've been the same thing as destroying the universe. Perfect order sounds good if you're an obsessive-compulsive supercomputer, but everything would be so boring and predictable, what would be the point?”

“I thought you wanted boring,” said Tia.

“I thought so too. But boring is . . . Well, it's boring. What I wanted was the chance to be boring now and then. I'd like to keep my options open.”