The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (51 page)

“
We
don’t!” Straker snaps. “Or don’t we
count?”

“You count very much, Jacqueline Straker, relatively
speaking.”

“They got away from You, didn’t they?” Chang sounds
like that idea amuses him.

“Or I let them. Sometimes I’m not completely sure
myself. Some randomness in the fabric of things makes for the most
interesting and beautiful outcomes, don’t you think?”

“Were all those people I killed for You
beautiful
?” Chang rails at him. “All the destruction and
misery?”

“Beauty and ugliness, good and evil, are just sides
of a coin. Remove the coin, and all is beautiful.”

“Now You’re reciting Taoist crap,” Chang discounts.
“Considering what You’ve done… What’s a few tens of thousands
against the billions You’ve destroyed.”

“I haven’t destroyed anyone, but if it helps you
accept your role…”

“
Your
role!” Chang is shouting now, almost
hysterical. “You cast it! If You’re so concerned for my suffering,
why not just erase my memories again? Erase
me
?”

“Because it’s not what you wanted.”

“
What…?
” Chang sputters, confused.

“Yod?” Erickson questions, lowering his sword.

“No,” Chang corrects, crying like he’s lost
everything. “It’s just an avatar. An interface. He’s in everything.
Every fucking thing!
Even the shit you expel.”

I giggle at that. Stop when I see how terrified
Terina and the others are.

Jed seems to change, gets younger. He’s a redhead
now, pale pink skin and freckles, a roundish face that looks like a
boy’s even though he still must be in his thirties or forties. A
boy-man.

“You’re
Yod
?” Straker doesn’t believe.

“It’s a body,” he shrugs. “A saved form. An old
friend, near and dear. Still part of me. Still me. Like the machine
you met: Dee. And the Companions.”

“But the Companions aren’t part of you, are they?”
Chang considers, getting himself back together. “They wouldn’t
merge. Too independent. They
fought
you.” He laughs. “So
desperate for companionship, but unwilling to let go of self.”

“That’s a very good description,” Jed—Yod—tells
him.

“So what happened?” Chang takes it. “Did they manage
a jail break? Get tired of sitting around in their cages waiting to
amuse You? Got out, then hid in the world, using their similar code
to hide from You?”

Yod shrugs.

“This is a trap,” Elias decides. “You needed to lure
them.”

Yod only smiles at him.

“Why?” Erickson still wants to know.

“How is
your
brother so thick?” Chang asks
Elias. Elias grins, chuckles at Erickson’s expense.

“They tried to hack our networks, take over the
Stations,” Erickson prosecutes. “They could have destroyed
everything.”

“Huh,” Chang processes. “They were trying to beat You
at Your own game, weren’t they? They just needed enough power. Then
they could remake the world in
their
image this time.”

“But they don’t have access to the equipment, do
they?” Erickson wonders. “For a splice? It’s gone, assuming this is
where it was.”

“
Soooo
thick,” Chang degrades him.

“You know, don’t you Elias?” Yod asks him. Elias
chews his lip, nods. “And what are you going to do with that
knowledge?”

Elias seems locked up inside himself. His eyes stare
far away. Finally, he looks at Yod—it looks like it takes him a
great deal of effort to do so.

“
What can I do?
” Elias suddenly sounds like
he’s breaking, like Chang, like they’ve suffered the same loss,
gesturing wildly with his sword. “What can any of us do?”

“You do what you can do, what you need to do,” Yod
tells him gently. “It’s what you are.”

“
And what are we?!
” He’s fully raging now.
“Chessmen, like Chang said?
Pieces on a board?
Have you done
this
before
? How many times?
What year is this
really?
”

Yod steps up to him, embraces him like a father.
Elias resists at first, then collapses into his arms, sobbing
quietly.

“Come and see,” I hear Yod whisper to him. Nothing
seems to happen.

“What are you doing to him?” Erickson points his
sword at them.

“Just showing him… It’s okay… See? Everything is
okay.”

Elias’ sword drops from his grip, hits the floor with
a heavy clatter.

Yod releases him. Elias drops to his knees, then
slowly shifts to sit on the floor, hunched over half-cross-legged
with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. I hear him
gasp like he’s sobbing (or maybe laughing), but he soon becomes
quiet, still.

Yod faces Chang.

“
That’s
not going to cut it with me,” Chang
resists, stepping back.

“I know. When you’re ready.”

“What did you show him?!” Erickson is still
demanding, though he’s lowered his blade a bit. Yod gives him a
lopsided smile.

“An old friend told me a story once: In ancient
times, there was a festival, a gathering of all creatures, earthly
and divine. It was held on a beach, at the edge of the great ocean.
And it came to pass that the guests began to debate the vastness of
the ocean: Was it possible for anyone to know its depth and
breadth?

“It happened that there was one celebrant: a man who
was made of salt. He said to the others:‘You can debate all you
want, and get no answers. I will go and find out.’

“So the man made of salt dove into the water and
immediately began to dissolve. He melted into the sea until there
was nothing left of him. It is said that, by becoming one with the
ocean, he came to know its depth and breadth. Of course, he never
returned.”

Erickson looks like he wants to murder Yod—I can see
his sword-arm shaking. Instead, he clenches his jaw and puts his
weapon in its sheath, then squats down beside his brother, puts his
hands on Elias’ shoulders, awkwardly pulling him into an embrace.
Elias barely responds.

Straker puts away her own sword and kneels in front
of Elias, tries to catch his gaze. Fails. Elias doesn’t even seem
to see her. She reaches out and puts her hands over his.

“Don’t worry,” Yod tries to reassure. “Your brother
is not made of salt. I only showed him enough, what he needed to
see. He just needs time to process it.”

Erickson is whispering in his brother’s ear,
something soothing that I can’t make out.

“What’s this all about?” it’s Bly’s turn to demand.
“Why did you bring us here?”

“It’s a trap,” I mutter dopily, watching my hands
heal.

Yod nods.

“I needed all five Companions back in proximity to
one another.” He looks at Erickson and Straker. “They’re being
pretty quiet now, aren’t they? I could let them talk, if you
like?”

Straker seems to realize something, stands up away
from Elias and slowly draws her sword. She holds it out away from
her body for a moment, her face twisted with incredulous amazement.
Then she opens her hand and drops it to the floor with another
crash. She glares at Yod.

“What did you do?”

“I wouldn’t move too far away from it,” Yod cautions
her. “You’re still connected.”

“What did you
do
?” Erickson growls, looking up
from his brother but not letting him go. “Explain it to the
‘thick’.”

“I needed the five Companions back in proximity to
each other,” Yod repeats somewhat slower. “I needed them to
network, to think they were doing it themselves—free will and all
that—so I could use this one…” He raises the one he’s holding, his
former walking stick. “…to link them and reprogram them as a
cohesive unit, correct the dangerous flaws we’d introduced when we
were trying to figure out how to make… well…
me
.”

“You made yourself?” Straker is confused.

“Those that made me are part of me, just as you all
are, just as everything is.”

“He’s in
everything
,” Chang repeats but fails
to clarify. He sounds like the idea disgusts him. “All matter. Down
to the sub-atomic level.”

“But not the swords?” Erickson is trying to piece
together.

“They’re too much like Him.” Chang is being patient
now. “Experimental Prototypes. He could have overridden and
absorbed them, but He’s sentimental. He kept them around, like
pets. Like His human colony next door. Keepsakes. Or prisoners.
Like in a zoo. You probably don’t know what a zoo is.”

Yod casually bends down and picks up Straker’s sword.
An arrow impulsively flies at him, but it passes through him, into
him without resistance, vanishes. He looks calmly at the offending
archer.

“Please don’t do that again.”

He hands the sword back to Straker. She hesitates. He
gives her his lopsided smile.

“It’s okay. You’re in control now. You’re all in
control. I think you’ll still find these quite useful.”

She takes it cautiously, hefts it. It doesn’t seem to
respond as she expects.

“So this is Your solution?” Chang rages again.
“Lobotomize them and give them away as pets to the pawns? Let them
out to play, just missing what makes them
them
?” He points
at Elias. “Is that what You did to him?”

Erickson bristles, but won’t let his brother go.
Elias still seems beyond responding, staring blankly, but I do see
movement: he shaking his head very slightly, like he’s denying
something.

“He’s fine,” Yod reassures again. “It just takes
time. It took you time, when I showed you. You just don’t
remember.”

“Because
You
took my memories!” Chang accuses.
Yod only smiles, like Chang’s said something vaguely funny. This
sets Chang pacing in frustration.

“You can have them back whenever you think you’re
ready,” Yod offers easily.

“And am I Your man made of salt when I do?”

“It didn’t break you the first time, Adam Chang.
You’re a remarkably strong individual, without your fear defining
you. And brave—brave enough to take it back once you were freed of
it, to do what was necessary.”

“And what have I got left to be afraid of?”

“It’s not your fear, Adam. Now it’s your pain, your
guilt, your shame that you’re holding on to. I can help you let it
go, whenever you think you’re ready.”

Chang doesn’t say anything. He seems to be seething,
angry, but not at Yod. At himself?

“And what did you do to my brother?” Erickson keeps
demanding, grinding his teeth in frustration. “Exactly. What. Did.
You. Do?”

“I’ve just shown him the bigger picture. The
perspective will help him.”

“Help him with
what
?” Erickson fumes to the
point that he’s visibly spitting.

“Council Blue figured it out,” Elias mumbles into his
hands, finally speaking. “That’s why he ordered the tests he did,
to try to prove it. Or to see how much had been changed, how far it
went, and for how long. That’s why he withdrew the Guardians,
withdrew all of us. He was taking us off the board, out of the
game.”

Elias drops his hands away from his face and looks up
at his brother with tear-glazed eyes, gives him a weak smile. Then
he slowly pushes himself up on his feet, bending and reaching to
take back his own sword, then sheathing it as he stands up
straight. He moves like a man exhausted, beaten, but his expression
is somehow serene.

“We should go,” he says very calmly, almost sleepily,
like he’s not all here.

“So we just take the swords back with us, threat
ended?” Straker needs to know. “Just like that?”

“Why not leave them here?” Erickson counters.

“As I said, they’re very useful,” Yod sells lazily.
“And you could make good use of them, given the situation in your
world.”

“
Your
world!” Chang is still accusing.
“
Your
situation!”

Yod ignores him.

“And they’ll be safe?” Straker questions. “No more
hacks, no more manipulation?”

“Safe is relative,” Yod tells her. “I would suggest
you not let the blade get very far from you—your control over the
relationship is range-limited.” He turns to Chang. “So you see: No
lobotomy. I just adjusted the Companions to be more in harmony with
their hosts. In turn, they get to serve, to fulfill their design
programming.”

“And that one?” Chang indicates the sword in the
case.

“One should stay here. Contained. Just in case they
decide to network again. Besides, I doubt any of these good people
would want it. Perhaps I could leave it in your care?”

“I don’t want it either,” Chang refuses bitterly,
“for obvious reasons.”

“Then keep watch over it for me, keep it company. You
are here. Now. Unless you’d rather return to the world you
left?”

He seems to be mulling it over.

“What about them?” my father asks, still nursing his
hands, but managing to gesture to the armored warriors. They still
have their weapons aimed at Yod, however useless they seem to
be.

“Tessarius Marcus Regin,” he calls their ranking
leader by name. “Would you and your people like to go home? It’s
safe… Well, your homeland isn’t nearly as safe as when you left,
but I guarantee the journey. Or you could stay here, live your
lives in peace.”

“We would like to go home,” he gets his answer with
minimal hesitation. Weapons and shields begin to lower.

“What about
them
?” it’s my turn to ask,
indicating Dakota and Snyder.

“They wanted us to kill them,” my father admits. “I
find I do not have the heart.”

“Death is a simple matter,” Yod offers with a shrug,
looking at the bots. They step back away from him. He smiles again,
seems to be listening to something I can’t hear. “Fear… You still
want to live?”

“They can stay with me,” Chang quickly offers. “Here.
In peace.”

Yod nods.

“Very well.” He turns back to Tessarius Regin.
“Gather your valuables. My ship is waiting outside.”