Jaldeja and Kat are awake before the others. The sky is pale through their window- Jal
watches a star fade in the growing sunlight, it dimness warped by the toxic air. In the
distance, factories groan low insect sounds, and the air smells like metal.
He feels Katya moving in bed next to him, pulling the covers off herself, walking naked
across the room to stand in front of the window, staring out with her neutral gaze, body
painted blue by the soft light.
He watches her there, beautiful and terrible, an electricity in her eyes that he hasn't seen
before. Turning to look at him, her face belongs to someone he's never known. Picking
up some clothes from the floor, she gets dressed and walks to the door. He can hear her
moving quietly down the steps.
Jal turns toward the window once again. The star is gone now- he tries to recall which
one it was, but gives up- the constellations over the city were uncertain and inconstant.
He looks at the empty sky where it was- and has a feeling like he does when he looks
out on to the steppe, and thinks of something Kat told him once- 'Parts of a weapon have
affinity for each other.' The thought startles him- he has a moment of clarity, much like
when a Crossover is close to him- he stands very still, looking slowly around. No
Crossover is there- the room slowly takes on its normal colors as the sun rises above
distant buildings, pouring light into the room. Getting dressed, Jal rushes down the stairs
to join Kat.
She's waiting just outside the door. When Jal emerges, Kat falls into step with him, and
they walk out of the cul-de-sac, past the blind and mad waiting quietly to die outside their
boarded up houses, toward the distant boulevard where people and vehicles are already
starting to move. The stucco houses give way to fields filled with brick, rusted pipes,
slag, concrete foundations with weeds growing through cracks. They cross a wide metal
bridge that creaks as they walk across, and they can see the swiftly moving waters of
the canal beneath them through holes in the road of crumbling steel.
An hour later, they merge with the busy street, the traffic closing in around them, factory
towers looming overhead hazy and indistinct. The street is lined with shops and
peddlers- Jal stops and watches a man arrange his biomachines on a blanket, the
creatures moving sluggishly about, projecting holograms.
Smiling, Jal moves closer, kneeling down to watch them. One lurches unsteadily towards
him, then stops, deploying its holographic emitter. Jal sees his own face hovering before
him- it changes, taking on a dull metal cast, eyes turning to dark empty sockets while the
mouth jumps rapidly between emotions.
The young proprietor grins at Jal. "It likes you. Do you have anything to trade for him?"
"No, I'm sorry."
Shrugging, the young man begins arranging his machines again. Feeling Kat touch him
on his shoulder, Jal moves with her back into the street. Turning around, he sees the
holographic face flicker and fade, disappearing in a whirl of smoke from a nearby
cooking fire.
With each step, Jal feels his senses sharpen- the cracks in road- ruts filled with water,
windows stained by soot through which faces can sometimes be dimly seen, each voice
in the crowd around them has its separate identity, the smell of charcoal smoke, urine,
and rain.
Turning down a narrow alley, they walk single file, picking through garbage, moss
growing on the walls and water dripping from the window- sills, catching the scattered
light of the dim silver sun.
The alley ends- stepping out into the open, Jal feels the wind cooling his bare scalp. In
front of them, not fifty feet away, is the remains of a wall, its top broken and jagged.
There are gaps that can be easily stepped through. People sit and stand, scattered
about it's length- some in the gaps, others on top, gazing beyond, feet dangling over the
edge.
Kat and Jal approach the wall, moving carefully over the muddy ground. The people on
the wall take no notice of them, their gazes fixed on images that only they can see.
Jal begins walking faster, moving toward a gap in the wall, feeling Kat take hold of his
hand, he begins to run, it's only a few feet away now, his feet sinking into the soft
ground, looking at the sandstone ridges beyond, and as he crosses, several things
become clear. In the spaces of the dreamtime, the accumulation of knowledge is as
worthless as coins hoarded by a merchant, presented at the gates of heaven or hell. He
used to believe that books and ideas lead to the Grail of salvation, littering the doorstep
of the Chapel Perilous itself- but now all the words of humanity disappear, a note in the
nightmare delight of sound that makes up the soul of man.
Katya and Jal's corporeal selves hear this sound for the briefest of moments, carried on
the wind that ripples through the grass beyond the wall. The wind gusts, blowing them
to dust that dances in ribbons over the grass before scattering to nothing.
*
After taking a few steps, Katya turns to look at the city and sees that it's gone. But she
hasn't turned around at all- she's still moving over the grass, can see all around herself,
can see the wind and the sound of it, can hear what the steppe looks like. There's no
definition between her senses anymore, only one picture and symphony of the world.
Jal both was and wasn't next to her- he was a distortion in the air close by, the pattern
crystalline and fractal. The closer she looked, the more complex they became until they
spiraled into infinity.
There was one pattern of Jal that all of the others grew out of- it was like background
noise, but grew stronger the further they journeyed into the outback. It resembled a
series of hieroglyphs that stirred a deep racial memory of revulsion. Instinctually, she
tried to move away, but could not- something else within her kept her there.
Looking closer, she saw that tendrils spiraled off from Jal, some seemingly dissolving
into nothing, some merging into the grass below, others flowing into the isolated
pockets of distortion that surrounded them- some of these were small, like themselves,
others moved over the land like towering formations of clouds, whispering of
unknowable abstracts and intelligences.
She was shocked, at first, to see parts of Jal intertwining with herself, the current
meshing with her consciousness. Her own dark language spun into him, the two
merging, forming an image of terrible purpose- but she wasn't frightened, or even
surprised. She wondered why she hadn't seen it all along- she felt free. They thought,
together, 'the bullet has no conscience, it has no second thoughts'.