She looked at him with an odd expression.
“I am sorry, your books . . . is that too technical? I tried to simpli—”
“You can do all that and you can’t fix your ship?”
“Lila, please.”
“I am listening. You’re trying to tell me that you figured out a way to see what makes people tick.”
“Ah . . . not exactly. What we can see are the unactuated impulses. The decisions that humans do not make in this existence.”
“In this existence.”
“Yes. Gravitational force was the leading indicator. And then as more generations passed, and as our influence on your developing cultures became less pronounced, we realized what was happening.”
“Are you saying you have proof of alternate worlds?”
“Parallel realities is slightly more accurate. Most of the scientific precepts seem to remain constant, but it is hard to coordinate data across—”
She held up one slim hand, and he paused. The newly formed scar across her palm and thumb would haunt his dreams when he next slept.
“Has all this been about . . . ? Did you inject . . . machines into my eyes?”
“What do . . . ? No!” Instinctively he reached out to her, but she pushed him away. “Let me finish. Your body is pure. Enhancers have not been bequeathed in over a hundred generations, and they do not transfer to biological descendants. Some bloodlines do carry inherited modulators from gifts or other interventions—but not yours.” He hesitated, but thought it best to state the obvious for clarity, “Eileen could pass along her gift if she nursed a child, or if she paired with a mate and—”
“Shut up, Sal. I get it.”
Confused, he looked to the cat, but she had nothing helpful to offer.
“Can modulators be removed?”
“Yes.” Though it was not an experience he would wish on anyone.
“Can they be reprogrammed after they’ve been . . . installed?”
Had she guessed? He glanced at the notepad, and she reached for it at the same time—but his reflexes were much faster. Her astonishment would have been diverting in another setting, but this was too important.
“If needed. Upgrades. Adjustments.” It was difficult to keep his vocal pattern regulated, and he was certain that Servants would be pouring over this interaction.
She frowned at something over his left shoulder—one of her angels, he supposed—and then turned her attention to the cat, ignoring him completely for almost a full minute. It was difficult to be patient, but finally, her rhythmic stroking slowed, and the cat lifted her head in complaint.
Stay with her, he thought, and she willingly settled back to sleep.
“Could you see these auras around Eileen? When you had those machines, I mean.”
“No . . . ” That was her first question? “Fractals. We call them fractals.”
“I can’t see angels around her either . . . ” a hint of despair was quickly supplanted by irritation, “ . . . although you knew that already.”
“That is . . . most likely . . . due to the modulators.” The paper in his hands felt heavy, “Modulators seem to prevent the separations,” and his tongue felt thick with half-truths, “but she might never have generated fractals.”
“Why not?” Her hands were relaxed on the cat, but her heartbeat betrayed her increasing anxiety.
“Some do not.” Not technically a lie. “And we have no correlating evidence of your ‘angels’—they are a curiosity to us as much as to you—so I would not be concerned.”
“But not making fractals is something to worry about?”
“We . . . do not consider the issue from the perspective of humans.” The way her mind worked was fascinating.
“Of course you don’t.” She looked down at the slumbering cat. “Salvage. That’s the word you use, isn’t it . . . ?” she did not wait for his acknowledgment, “ . . . and fractal.” Her head came up. “So you think this reality is the original one, but how can you be sure? And what’s to save? Isn’t that the grand idea behind alternate worlds . . . ? That life goes . . . on . . . ?” She paled.
“Yes, that would have been a grand unifying premise. Had it been true.” Her eyes searched his before looking to the bedroom. “She is still sleeping peacefully,” he assured her.
“Then explain.”
“I honestly do not know where to start.”
“Start with worst part. Just get it out of the way in case she wakes up.” Her impatience was concerning. Was she taking this seriously?
“We do not know the worst part.”
“Jesus, Sal. Then start with what you know.” Now she was frowning at something to the left of his head.
“We know that fractals seem able to manifest from every possible emotion or decision, yet we do not know what triggers one separation when a statistically similar set of variables does not. And we know that fractals are oblivious to the existence of other fractals and are usually visible for seconds at most.” Yours are the exception. “And the frequency with which they occur has been steadily increasing since we first began to observe the phenomenon.”
“Why is that important? Isn’t each fractal just branching off onto another path? A different reality?” Now her eyes were roving up and down his torso.
“In theory, they should be.” What did she see?
“You don’t know?”
“We suspect, but it is difficult to coordinate data. If it were not for our modulators, we would not be able to communicate at all.”
“You d-don’t mean . . . ” She swallowed. “You can talk to other versions of yourself? How many of you are there?”
“You misunderstand. There are no other versions of me . . . or my team. There are only more Servants.” Why was she looking at him like that? “What is wrong?”
“Where is your family?”
“Dispersed,” he shrugged. “We do not generate fractals, and we only know of the realities we exist within, and those that have Servants who communicate with us.”
“You’re . . . alone?”
“It happened gradually. We had time to prepare.” His throat tightened at the expression on her face. “Do not pity me, Lila. We fractured your world.”
“You don’t know that. How do you know you started this? Maybe this is natural and your modulators are what’s unnatural. Maybe it’s been going on since we crawled out of the ocean and you just didn’t see it.”
“A few believed that.”
“But not you? Why do you punish yourself?”
“Because we deserve it! If your concept of Divinity is real,
