“Hold on!” God’s arms were strong and he was bleeding. The sky above was lines of fire, circle of white, approaching. They were flying
God squeezed her near, smoothed her hair in a gesture too tender for that place. She knew she was crying, screaming, falling, flying, but that gesture: tender and peace. She found peace in His eyes.
“Hold on.” Not shouting this time, the tumult of a shattering landscape and a planetary implosion a dull roar, a hum, a sub-frequency to the beat of two hearts. Not four. Two.
“Hold on.” And it was okay, that approaching fire, the way the sky bent toward the night at its center, the way the desert cracked and they fell and they fell into
the shop, the door slamming behind her. The wind was bad, but not as bad as
Judith stumbled to God’s table. He went to her, helped her sit down. The other patrons looked on with gray rainy day
“What the—What just happened?”
“It’s falling apart. You saw it before. The host body is flawed deeply…Something’s happening, and it fucked with the interface.”
“Are we safe?”
“I don’t know.” God cleared room on the table, shoving aside Demian paperback and now-empty coffee cup. From the inner recesses of his jacket, he pulled out a sheet of paper, unrolled it across the tabletop. “We need to get her off this ship.”
“Those are the plans?”
“She’s already housed in the launch chamber. We’ll be able to allign and exile within the hour.”
Judith’s hand went to her temple again. Brow furrowed in pain and something else. A thin line of red escaped from her nose. God wiped it away with a napkin, but there was more.
“You can’t keep jumping in and out of the flux.”
“I can—”
“You
“Help me go halfway, then. Use me.”
“As the host?”
“Your word has to be spoken. The flaw won’t do. Just use me.”
“It could kill you, Jud.”
“I’m dying already.” She pressed the napkin to her nose. “Just do it.”
“Okay. But I’ll pull out before anything happens.”
Judith grinned. “I’ve heard that before.”
“I know.” God’s eyes danced. He leaned forward and kissed her
the medium’s body jumped in her chair, the interface still attached. The flawed host spasmed and lay still. Judith’s eyes opened and there was light from them: silver if light could be silver, white if it could not. She stood, breathing heavily, body slumped forward, hand pressing hardlink securely to her chestplate. The members of the council gazed with fear and fear at the direct link between their deity and the medium.
The planetship was above them. Berlin was gasping for air, his blood staining his neck, chest, Elle’s hands as she tried to close his wound. Task turned back to the cockpit viewer.
“What should I tell them?”
“They won’t listen to anything we have to say.”
“Well tell me
“They might not have changed the security codes yet.”
A detachment of fighters launched from the main vessel’s hangar.
“Here they come.”
And they opened fire.
Breath hitching, sheen of sweat developing on forehead and cheeks. The interface wasn’t painful…Not a pain that she would admit. She felt him. Inside. Of her. Soul. God. Inside of her soul. She was replaced and swimming in an ocean of ancient fire. Felt him withdraw, gather himself, emerge again: insertion of thoughts that were not her own, loving touch of electricity and shivering.
The voice was not her own, yet it was. Voice like the wind, echoes of the beginning, shimmering of yesterday and some of tomorrow but not quite enough.
Council members fidgeted.
And they were there, the billions.
The hole at the center of the chamber glowed. A cylinder of phased glass formed at the hole’s edge. Sparks and it was melty, solid, non-solid. She was lifted from her prison on wings of the machine universe. She did not resist, and when the shield solidified around her, it only heightened that sense of
Jade coughed from across the room, poured a glass of water. Cough, sip. Cough.
Waves in that solid expanse: she was between worlds, held just close enough to reality to see the council, to see God in the form of Judith. Maire: Nude form floating, hair lazy and dark. Eyes. Her eyes were
Both nacelles were shattered at the hubs as the fighters strafed Task’s vessel. The lifting body of the slither flipped end-over-end at the planetship.
“They don’t want to talk.” Task wrestled with the controls, used maneuver jets to stay on-course.
“New plan.” Berlin spoke through teeth clenched, his lacerated jaw now tacky with blood.
The fighters strafed again. The slither body held, but the gelatin shield was starting to fail.
“Head for the launch tube.”
“The what?”
“On the top of the ship. There’s a liquidspace launch tube.”
“That’s new.”
“It’s meant for Maire.”
“Exile through liquidspace?”
“Sending her far, far away.”
Flashes of forcefire. Gelatin scraped away. They were losing speed.
“Position the vessel in front of the pipe.”
“But we’ll—”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to—”
“Just do it.”
She saw that day again clearly: the vessel in the sky, blue sky. Cities below: people laughed and walked and sat on green grass of a pathetic excuse for a forest (park) and on blankets they ate sandwiches and apples (from trees) and there was music (do you remember music?) and underneath shade they fucked, fluids (liquid) exchanged in (final) bliss.
She saw that day again: the vessel in the sky, dissemination ports opening with ratchet and squeal, scream of machines. Cities below: men in black suits walked between buildings, weapons on their belts. Sound in the sky made them look up: black object where there should have been none. Hands went to weapons on their belts; nothing would save them. Nothing could save them.
