Walking to the edge of the park, Lao raises his hand toward an oncoming vehicle of dark
jade, which slows down to a halt next to him. It runs on a single rail, its sleek ovular shape
featureless. Two doors open on its sides, revealing four acceleration chairs within. As
they enter the vehicle and lean back, Kat watches a cable snake out from the dashboard
and insert itself into a port in Lao’s neck. She feels a cable tickle her own neck,
withdrawing when it finds no port.
The doors hiss shut, leaving them in darkness- Kat feels a brief period of acceleration
pressing her back into her chair. Soon after the sensation ends, the shell of the vehicle
slowly becomes clear, allowing Kat to see. “I’m sorry,” says Lao, “I forgot you didn’t
possess a secondary nervous system.”
Kat grips the arms of her now transparent chair, fighting a feeling of vertigo as they hurtle
through the city. Seconds later, it is dark again as they dip below the concrete surface
into a tunnel where Kat feels them accelerate once again.
They are in darkness for what Kat guesses to be just under an hour- Lao is somehow
occupied, his eyes moving rapidly back and forth as he mutters to himself. When they
emerge, they are on the dayside of the planet, rapidly decelerating as they near Lao’s
home- one of many delicate spires that rise from the ground.
Lao continues to mutter to himself in an almost religious chant as they draw closer to a
particular building, growing larger, and eventually occupying the whole horizon. Moving
closer, its surface is revealed to be not as smooth as it first appeared- it has an almost
organic irregularity, like coral- the surface seems to shimmer and even shift slightly.
Seconds later they are inside the building, their vehicle slowly coming to a halt. They are
let out on a large dimly lit platform- as Katya turns her head to watch the vehicle speed
off; she notices a breeze blowing in from one of the narrow tunnels that the small cars
travel through. It smells like the ocean, playing across her scalp as she closes her eyes,
dreaming of the sea she had not seen in the city, or in her home before that, the small
insular village of her childhood in her lifetime before this. Once, in the tesseract of time
and space, she had been a child, laughing, naked, arms thrown open, running toward the
sea, its eternal sound with her even now.
Opening her eyes, she sees only the darkened platform, Lao staring at her curiously. The
smell of the ocean is still there.
“Where were you just then?” asks Lao.
“I don’t think you’d understand.”
Lao shrugs. “Perhaps not- still, it’s a shame you don’t have an implant- I would have liked
to have shared that.”
The two of them begin walking toward the bank of elevators on the far wall, footsteps
echoing. When the doors close, the smell remains. “The smell of eternity,” Kat whispers.
“May the dead make Jaldeja strong,” says Lao.
Katya turns to look at him. “The smell is . .”
“Eternity- the dead. They die to sustain Jaldeja, and through this they find eternity.”
“There’s no war here- are they killed?”
“No- they go voluntarily- when they’re ready. They step back into the machine that
created them- the machine that holds the soul of Jal- they join their souls to his.”
The elevator doors open, and they step out into a narrow hallway with a dim strip of light
running down the center of the ceiling. Katya stares at Lao in disbelief. “The Tep is the
summation of man- it can’t have motives outside the collective of humanity that makes it-
Jal was an individual- how can you trust him?”
“Faith,” says Lao, “Jal saved us from ourselves so long ago- our trust is with him.”
“Faith?” says Katya. “Hundreds, thousands of lifetimes learning the processes of your
salvation and you’ll base you eternity on faith? Faith is the beginning- it nurtures us, but
we move on, our souls become our own and we see salvation that is something that is
obtained, not given.”
Lao looks at her curiously.
“You really don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? You’re Jal’s puppet- a slave to
your fantasies of a God who will give you salvation just by asking for it. I don’t care what
happens to your race anymore- if you want Jal,” she takes Jal’s subconscious form from
her cloak- in the shape of a dagger, “see him how he is.” With that she plunged the
dagger into Lao’s chest with such force he slams against the wall, eyes wide with shock
as he sinks to the floor.