Divergence

“What is he saying?”

“He is suggesting we get above ground. He says that there are fourteen billion people currently living on Earth, and they are entitled to one fourteen billionth part of it each.”

“Sorry?”

“The Watcher is gone. The FE program is back on track. I think they are about to divide everything up.”

edward 3: 2252

Edward wasn’t reallyso frightened: he had seen this happen before, back on the Eva Rye . He knew, when the ground began to shiver and tear itself into long shreds that waved about like anemones in the water, that all he had to do was look for the patch of stillness that was sure to be there and to head towards that. He knew, when the stone faces of the surrounding buildings cracked into warm smiles, and wrinkles formed around the windows of their eyes, that the objects in his vicinity were re-forming themselves into new shapes. He knew, when the light cut out, blocked by a maelstrom of swarming material, and the air was hot and smelling of metal, that he had only to wait patiently and the storm would pass and the world would re-form in new and interesting ways.

But, even so, this was different from before. Something invisible was stalking the Earth, something nurtured in the distant past; it had ripped its way to the surface, where it sniffed and tasted its new environment, and tried to understand the world into which it had been born. It placed a foot in the middle of what had been Berlin, and the buildings drew back in horror, and then fused together. It walked up the west coast of England, whereupon the Lite train tracks plated with silver the hemispherical depressions that opened beneath its feet.

Edward saw the Earth rendering up its riches. The sky was a deep pinkish orange pierced by silver masts that were visibly growing upwards. Silver birds were tearing themselves free from the mast tops and flying off in long dark streams through the heavens.

The surrounding city was dissolving into a crystal grey sea; the buildings were melting and slipping beneath the waves. Silvery shapes, painted by the pink light, floated upwards like sea creatures from another world, floating up into the aquarium sky.

And the sound—the howls and screams and whoops of air being pushed and bellowed and farted from the pneumatic pistoning of machinery sliding over machinery.

Warm water splashed over Edward’s face. He saw Saskia, her face pale and eyes wide, as she wiped her hand across her brow and shook the excess moisture free.

Pale eggs bobbed up from beneath the silver sea of the dissolved ground, rainbow colors spreading over them. They were ships, just like the original Eva Rye, but Edward ignored them, his attention drawn to a deepening pit not far away where the watchtower had once stood. Judy had walked into the building that had formed there. Then the building had collapsed in on itself, and he knew this meant she was dead. He just didn’t want to believe it.

Suddenly Maurice was pulling at his arm, pointing and shouting something that got lost in the unearthly shrieking chorus generated by the flux of the shifting machinery. Saskia was skittering forward, her legs moving twice as fast as they should be, running along on the backs of a herd of silver beetles heading in the opposite direction. Maurice held up both arms, elbows outwards to protect his head and charged forward through the falling curtain of metal ribbons that slithered from somewhere above. Edward got the idea and followed him, racing down the slope of bare earth and loose stone that led to the center point of what had been the watchtower. Then he saw something silver and black ahead, a cross that floated indistinctly in the air. Saskia, too, was running towards the cross, her face bleeding from a cut on her left cheek. Maurice picked his way downwards more cautiously behind her, and suddenly Edward realized what they were looking at.

The silver-and-black cross resolved itself into a familiar shape. It was Constantine, carrying Judy to safety from the ever widening pit into which the DIANA building was collapsing. It was an exercise in futility, for all of the surrounding Earth was slipping downwards. Maurice, Saskia, Constantine, Judy, even Edward himself, all would soon be swallowed up. Edward felt a swell of pride at his crew: that hadn’t stopped any of them rushing forward to help.

Saskia was there first. She placed a hand, red blood dripping from a deep gash near her wrist, onto Judy’s white cheek. Maurice arrived next, placing his arm protectively around Saskia. Now Edward was there too, Judy looking up at him with a weak smile on her pale face. He noticed the way her left leg hung limply. She must have hurt it escaping from the transforming building. The chorus of shrieking was increasing, and a busy regular rhythm—as of mandolins playing—was taken up by the machinery.

Saskia wrapped her arms around Judy and gave her a huge hug. Maurice placed a gentle hand on Edward’s shoulder and Edward beamed widely. They were all together again, and friends at last, here at the end. Blinking away tears, Edward looked up through a cloud of discs, like silver pennies thrown into the air, looked up higher and higher into the cold air and thought of the glittering stars beyond.

“Hey, look!” he called out, though it was still difficult to hear anything. Nonetheless they all turned and felt a cold awe settle over them. Up there in the sky, the black harlequin pattern of the Shawl was slowly breaking up as it disassembled itself into its constituent parts.

The sky was falling down.

But it didn’t end there. The shifting landscape sheltered them safely through the storm. All over the Earth, people