77 Shadow Street

thing dying countless times a minute and being reborn just as often. The war under the grass in the field, the war in the air, and the war in the seas were all civil wars and therefore had no winner or loser because the loser, consumed and processed, became the winner.

This was the ecology of perpetual peace through perpetual war, an ecology of one, by one, for one, an efficient ecology without a gram of waste, a healthy, narcissistic Nature that thrived because it competed only with itself, with no motive but self-interest. All was well in this best of all possible worlds, because the change that created it was the final change. From now and until the end of time, it would live on in perfect self-devouring contentment, with never a new thought, never a new need, never a new dream but only the dream of endless recycling of itself into itself, the One into the One.

As the flying sea ray passed low over the roof of the Pendleton, Fielding’s dream spirit settled into the great house. Here the One also resided in a plethora of fungal forms within the attic, within the framed Sheetrock walls internal to each apartment, within every hairline crack in the poured-in-place concrete support walls, within the ventilation ducts, the pipes, the elevator shafts.

Inside the house, as outside, the One took numerous forms, none of which was either entirely plant or entirely animal, each of which also incorporated self-replicating nanomachines by the billions to strictly regulate and judiciously refine the Essential Program. The Essential Program had brought about the combination of the plant and animal kingdoms and maintained an exquisite balance of both in the immortal One.

Fielding dreamed down into the nano level, where by lullaby he saw and learned that the thousands of types of nanomachines could each build unlimited others of its type using materials that the One drew from the soil through its roots. He saw the past, when the great cities were emptied of humanity and the Pogrom completed. He saw the start of the Fade, when the One grew through the many cities and its uncountable quadrillions of nanomachines fed not just on the soil but first on the many works of humanity, within a decade dissolving all evidence of civilization, erasing history and rebooting the planetary ecology.

In all the world, one building remained standing as a symbol, the Pendleton, and it would stand forever. Its basic structural integrity was maintained by the One, its supporting steel and its concrete walls and its many windows repaired on the nano level. It was a monument to human arrogance, pride, and vainglory, also to the foolishness and willful ignorance of humankind. Not least of all, it was a monument to the human self-hatred that throughout the history of the species had expressed itself in ideologies of mass murder, in submission to brute power, in the trading of freedom for a minimum material well-being, in the worship of lies, the flight from truth.

If not for the soothing lullaby rising from the walls, these dreams might have been nightmares. But Fielding was gentled through them, his doubts allayed, his suspicions mitigated, his resentment pacified, his fear alleviated. He continued dreaming, and in this strange sleep, of all that Fielding Udell learned, the most important thing was what he must do when eventually he woke. It would be a hard thing to do, but the One wished it of him, and in serving the One, he would at last redeem himself.

Martha Cupp

Giving the pistol to Twyla had been the right thing to do, but Martha missed the comfort of it in her hand. Except when she took shooting lessons, she’d never used a firearm in her life. After the lessons, the gun remained in her nightstand drawer until the incident with the thing in the sofa and the sheeting blue light. She felt vulnerable. She suspected that even if they returned to their time from this mean future, she would never feel safe again without a gun.

Edna, bless her flighty soul, seemed determined to try Martha’s frayed patience to the breaking point. First she circled the two puddles of inert gray sludge that had once been Smoke and Ashes, pointing at them and saying, “Ecce crucem Domini,” and “Libera nos a malo,” and other things in Latin, as though she suspected they still possessed demonic life that at any moment would rise in a new form.

“Dear,” Martha said, “you are simply not an exorcist.”

“I’m not pretending to be one. I’m just taking precautions.”

“Isn’t an amateur at risk trying to deal with demons? If they were demons. Which they aren’t.”

“Do you have any chalk?” Edna asked, and then pointed at one of the puddles and said something else in Latin.

“Wherever would I get chalk?” Martha said.

“Well, if you don’t have chalk, lipstick or eyebrow pencil might be all right.”

“I didn’t happen to bring my purse. Or a suitcase. Or a picnic lunch.”

“I need something to draw a pentagram around each of them. To keep them contained.”

“They look pretty contained to me. They look dead.”

“I need to keep them contained,” Edna insisted, and her voice broke. Tears welled and spilled. “They killed my sweet Smoke, my little Ashes. I need to keep them contained in a pentagram until Father Murphy or someone can come here and do the right ritual and send them back to Hell so they can’t hurt anyone else’s kittens. Have you called Father Murphy? Have you told him to hurry?”

Martha was overcome by a new fear, a variety that was entwined with sorrow. In Edna’s trembling voice was a note of despondency and bewilderment that suggested, under the intense stress of this event, she had crossed the line between charming eccentricity and a confused condition less winning, more troubling. That pixie quality, hers since childhood, was gone. Suddenly Edna looked older than her years.

“Yes, love,” Martha said, “I’ve called Father Murphy. He’s on his way. Come here, stand with me while we wait for him. Come hold my hand.”

Shaking her head, Edna said, “I can’t. I’ve got to watch these bastards.”

Martha’s sense of vulnerability deepened, and she understood now that she had subconsciously felt fundamentally insecure long before this night, from the moment they had sold Cupp Sisters Cakes and she had stepped down as the company’s CEO. She had been good at business. She thrived on being in control. In retirement, she traded the helm of the ship for a lifeboat in which she felt adrift. She purchased the gun a month after leaving the company. Having a pistol was never about the threat of crime, but was only an unconscious reaction to her sense of being vulnerable when not running a big ship. Now she was without the ship, without either of her charming but frivolous husbands, without the gun, and perhaps without the full strength of the sister on whom she had leaned as much as Edna had leaned on her.