Chapter Text

It's here they got the range

And the machinery for change

And it's here they got the spiritual thirst

It's here the family's broken

And it's here the lonely say

That the heart has got to open

In a fundamental way

-Leonard Cohen, "Democracy"

•

Under the malevolent watch of the eye-beasts, Maria vanishes.

Miranda gawks. Martin rushes forward, then has second thoughts. The eye-beasts stare at the spot where their prey had been a moment earlier.

Martin stands, at a loss, blonde locks whipping in the wind, tinged green and blue by the subset of the surrounding spectrum they intersect.

He vanishes.

Miranda shivers.

The whole world disappears.

•

Ratio is standing in a kind of elevator, circular in cross-section, with a prettily patterned golden floor ten feet across. The wall is made of glass or some other transparent material, and all around can be seen glittering tiers of metal, the vast computer's carapace. It is impossible to tell whether this is real or some sort of virtual reality; a computer like that can do many things.

Here with him, transported by magic or at least by sufficiently advanced technology, are

Jorge, his lover.

Cecelia, his mind-mate.

Miranda, his long-suffering boss, who really got more shit from him than she deserved.

Martin, who is an enigma, and Ratio cannot stand an unsolved enigma.

Maria, without whom they would all be dead, or worse.

James, who Ratio wishes he'd met earlier.

Hermes, rival and genius, a fascinating man whom Ratio wishes he could have known under better circumstances.

???, a dark-skinned man who is clasping Hermes in a full-body hug -- which may have been why he ended up here (technology sufficiently advanced to separate hugger from huggee is not necessarily sufficiently heartless to do so).

They descend.

•

Maria, just Maria, looks at her hand. It is just a hand. The aura is gone.

The perfection has left behind a sort of note in her mind, like a post-it on the fridge: "Went away to perfect the surface! See ya!"

She turns to Martin, and glares. She is a very patient woman -- the model solider, someone once called her (little Maria N., "the model solider"!) -- but she is now, for once, feeling her patience wear thin.

"You're a fucking child, Martin," she says. She cringes immediately, but the words are out, before she can think about them.

"You're a fucking child who plays with things he doesn't understand, and the whole time you -- you act like you're some sort of special perfect badass, some guy from a corny TV show. Even though you don't know what the fuck you're doing!"

Martin looks at her and shakes his head in resignation.

"You're right, you know. Do you know how old I was when I thought up this whole plan?"

"Of course I know, Martin. We shared minds, remember? You were 21. The same age I am now."

"Maria, you must know how I felt. My world has not changed in a thousand years. A thousand years of stalemate. I was young and I was angry. I wanted everything to change. Surely you know what that feels like?" He stares straight at her, delivering that "surely" with dramatic flair -- an archetypical Martinism.

"You know what? I don't. I've never wanted to change the fucking world or go to another universe or blow up a fucking city. I just wanted to live a normal life. Maybe make someone happy. Just one person. That would be enough."

•

"You know, I have to ask -- what's with the drag?"

"Tact has never been your strong point, Horatio," Hermetia rasps. "But yes. I am dressed as a woman. I am a woman. I am Hermetia Cept, co-founder of pneumatech. Or rather, I am a piece of her -- the piece you knew as 'Hermes Cept.' And this" -- she nods at the tall, handsome man with an arm around her shoulder -- "is my longtime collaborator, Mohammed Salim."

"Holy shit. You're the Mohammed Salim?"

"The very same," says Mohammed Salim.

Ratio smiles like a kid on Christmas morning.

"I'm a fan of your work," he says.

•

Darkness closes in, all around the elevator. The glass slides upward, into some crevice hidden above.

A light goes on ahead. It reveals is a corridor walled with stone bricks, suffocatingly narrow. Single-file, the group proceeds.

In the distance there is a rectangle of light. It resolves into an open doorway. Ratio, at the head of the group, emerges into the light and sees this second Miranda -- at this distance, discernibly older -- sitting at a wooden desk in the center of a hexagonal room. The light, provided by a single light bulb with no shade, is stark and gloomy.

"I'm glad you made it safely," says the second Miranda. "Hello, all," she continues, as the group files one by one into the small room. "I am Amanda. The core of the New City's mother goddess and ruler, Magna Mater Miranda."

Miranda jumps backwards.

"You're me?"

"You're from the universe of the Teeming, aren't you?" Amanda asks. She pronounces the word "Teeming" as a mere word. "I think you are my counterpart there. It's a pleasant thing to meet oneself, isn't it?"

"That's one word for it," Miranda says. She imagines meeting oneself is the sort of thing that is best done when not hungover.

"And you" -- Amanda's tone is accusatory yet, too, almost grandmotherly -- "you must be Martin. The young man who dropped a giant ball of metal on my city."

Martin nods like a chastised schoolboy.

Mohammed takes a step forward. "It's been a long time, Miranda."

"Please. Call me Amanda. But yes -- I thought I'd never see your face again, you pretty little coward."

Mohammed grits his teeth. "You're very smug, for a torturer."

Amanda spreads her arms in a winsome gesture of reconciliation. "You're right. I'm a monster. I've ordered the torture of thousands of children. I've overseen atrocities. My only excuse is that our world is monstrous, and I decided once that I would do whatever I could to oppose its awful ways. While you hid and preened in your little enclave, I have been at work."

"Oh? And have you found the answers to your questions? After a thousand years of your reign of terror? I'd expect great results, at that cost."

"You know, I think I have."

Mohammed stares.

"Oh!" Amanda says suddenly. "I've been very impolite. The rest of you have no idea what we're going on about. Let me illustrate." She closes her eyes. "The World-Tree, please."

The light goes off.

•

In the darkness, a synth voice. It is eerily similar to the one Maria remembers from hundreds of missions in her submarine. By now this voice feels like a friend.

"INITIALIZING VISUALIZATION"

For a few seconds, nothing happens.

"INTERPOLATING PSYCHIC WORLDLINES"

"CHECKING LOCAL CAUSAL CONSISTENCY CONDITIONS AT ALL NODES"

"APPLYING SIMPLIFYING APPROXIMATIONS FROM PSYCHOLOGY THEORY DATABASE"

"PROJECTING HIGHEST-VARIANCE COMPONENTS TO 3+1 DIMENSIONS"

"GENERATING VISUALIZATION SKELETON"

In the darkness, there is light: a network of thin glowing lines, spreading in a widening structure a hundred feet high, like a giant tree.

"RETICULATING SPLINES"

"RUNNING ILLUMINATION MODEL"

The tree bursts into flame. Maria squints and shades her eyes. As her pupils adjust to the brightness, she sees that the tree is not on fire, not exactly. It is lit up from inside, every branch glowing, and around it swarm tiny glowing motes, clustering and dispersing.

At ground level, there is no trunk but merely a large number of thin glowing lines. The lines climb straight up for a short distance, but soon, at the level of Maria's knees, they begin to shoot off little arcs which rejoin their parent branches higher up. The patterns of splitting and rejoining grow more elaborate the higher she looks. Just above her head, one inner branch grows in width like a funnel, and from there upward it forms a kind of trunk, thick and bright. Branches upon branches radiate out from the trunk, some of them curling back to meet it again at greater heights.

"This," says Amanda, "is the World-Tree. The multiverse. Of course, it isn't the whole thing. That's far beyond the capacities of human eyes. But this gives you a sense of what it's like. The further up you go, the further forward in time; the further down, the further in the past.

The branches," she continues, "are individual worlds. Keyed, for the most part, to individual souls. They split off and return, removing all memory of their existence except in that unfortunate soul that formed their core."

"But you can see them here," Ratio says.

"Yes. One can learn to perceive many things in a millennium of research." Amanda directs a harsh glance at Mohammed.

"That thick trunk there is my city! The New City. I developed augment, and made the souls of my citizens into giant things. No other world has managed that.

"And the far-off worlds? The ones many steps removed from us? They are worlds of deviant physics. Hells of many flavors. As you all know well."

"I know," Mohammed says. "Hermetia and I wanted to save them. She sacrificed herself. She went to every one."

"And," Amanda responds icily, "did you ever check whether she had succeeded?"

"I prefer to live a small life, and not meddle with such things."

"I know, Mohammed. That's where we differ. I did not just send my lackey to hell and then sit back on my laurels. I have been watching. And the hells are still hells."

"It is hard to remake a world," Hermetia says.

Amanda nods. And smirks, slightly.

"Outside of our little enclave here, souls throughout the World-Tree are suffering. There are worlds where disconnected thoughts and feelings whirl around one another, never connecting for more than a moment. There are worlds where billions of minds are consigned to sit in nothingness for eternity, utterly alone, cogitating endlessly to no purpose. And there are other worlds whose ills cannot be put into words, though let me tell you, I have tried. And meanwhile, everywhere, the Boltzmen appear and disappear, living their sad little lives, never knowing what they are, never making contact with another soul."

"So what do you want to do about it?" Maria asks. "I mean, that sucks. Reality hates us. Fine! Whatever! But who are we to argue with it? Can't we just live our fucking lives?"

Mohammed looks at her, and they share a sympathetic glance.

"I have been trying to answer that question for that last millennium, young woman," Amanda says. "And I think I've found the answer. I think you are all familiar with the Teeming."

Silence. Recognition. Double-takes all around.

"The Teeming, whose ways you have brought to us, provide the solution to the question I have been asking for so long. My research has revealed that the fundamental problem is isolation: every hell is a hell because souls retain their separate identities, looking out for themselves, bound to the dumb physics of competing replicators. Or bound to no physics at all, locked in solitary prisons. Or unable to connect because, like the Boltzmen, they just don't have the time.

"The solution is the state of teeming! The solution is to let the pieces of our souls flow together without boundary! Then no soul will be left fully alone, and physics will no longer be our enemy."

"Christ," says James, speaking for the first time, from the corner of the room. "I've known the Teeming. They're not human. You want us all to turn into aliens."

"You want us all to become flat," Hermetia says.

"I just wanted to be a person," Maria says, "and now you want me to be . . . that."

"Well, of course!" Amanda laughs. "Think about it. We, gathered here, are the movers and shakers of human history. We're the best humanity has to offer. We have brought the Teeming to the trunk of the World-Tree. We have made the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history. We have built and felled cities. And do you want to trust us with the future? We're kooks! We're horrible! I'm a monster!"

For a moment, no one says anything.

•

HERMETIA: I failed. I tried to prevent the flat creatures from coming here, and I failed.

MOHAMMED: I did what I thought I was required to do, and then I retreated into isolation.

MARTIN: I watched Star Wars fifty times.

[A pause.]

MARTIN: I . . . I really liked the Death Star.

AMANDA: I don't know what that is, but it sounds bad.

RATIO: Without me, none of this would have happened. I'm a monster.

MIRANDA: I'm not a monster. I'm a person. And I'm very, very tired.

MARIA: So am I.

[MARIA and MIRANDA look at one another. MIRANDA edges toward MARIA. MARIA edges toward MIRANDA.]

[They slump into one another's arms.]

JORGE: We're all tired. [He wraps his arms around RATIO.]

JAMES: It's been a crazy few years. [He looks up, thinking of LUDWIG, hoping he's okay.]

MIRANDA: I went to the bottom of the ocean because I didn't want to deal with people. [She buries her face in MARIA's hair.] And you're saying I'm some sort of historical figure? Me? I shouldn't be in charge of anything.

CECELIA: I went to the bottom of the ocean, and I couldn't even deal with the people there.

JAMES: Fuck it.

JAMES: Let's let the aliens have a turn.

MIRANDA: Fuck it. [She laughs mournfully into MARIA's shoulder.]

AMANDA: God, it's been lonely down here. Engrossed in research for so long, by myself. Worrying about everyone. Trying to save everyone. All that weight. That burden. No one knows how that feels.

MARTIN: I do.

[Their eyes meet. MARTIN remembers years of subtly mind-controlling MIRANDA, his pawn. He feels remorse, and tenderness, and sees, in AMANDA, a kind of chance for redemption. AMANDA, ancient and weary, sees a prodigy, all youth and fire.]

[MARTIN and AMANDA touch. They kiss, passionately. MOHAMMED is taken aback.]

AMANDA: I have regained my control of this city. At my command, the defense systems can be shut down. I can give the Teeming free reign to overtake us.

RATIO: Wait. [He touches the stack of paper on the desk, which he has been inspecting for the last few minutes.] What is this? It looks like it's about Maria.

[MARIA snatches the stack of paper and reads.] "It is dark in the submarine, and Maria is ready . . . "

AMANDA: It is a text my Babblibrary has found. I do not know where it has come from, but it speaks the truth. I think the World-Tree is speaking to us, willing us to fix it. Or something else, beyond the World-Tree, beyond our perception entirely.

MARIA: Jesus fucking Christ. [She is flipping through the document.] "This is what Maria watches: a number of soap operas . . . " How the hell does it know this stuff?

HERMETIA: We are not real figures. We are flat things in a two-dimensional cartoon narrative. I have known it all along.

MOHAMMED: But I'm here with you.

[They embrace more tightly.]

AMANDA: I am going to turn off the New City's defenses. We will lose our human forms and become Teeming. Any objections?

[A pause.]

HERMETIA: It doesn't matter.

MOHAMMED: I made a whole society. A whole society based on what I believe. And I don't even know what I believe anymore.

CECELIA: If the aliens have alcohol, I'm in.

JAMES: From what I've heard, they have things that are even better.

MARIA: Christ.

MIRANDA: Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. [She sobs. She laughs.]

MARIA: Fuck it. [She nuzzles MIRANDA.]

[AMANDA closes her eyes.]

•

There is quiet across the New City. The machines are slowing down. The children have been backed into corners by ever more fearsome monstrosities, but now the monstrosities freeze, collapse, melt into harmless water. The children begin to feel many new things, and they are happy, for this is the divine touch of Iah, who has spared them at the final moment, and brought them victory and release.

Systems of violet lightning crackle across the lake that now covers the city from end to end. The Sphere sits, inert. Water pours through the open gash in Free Pneumase Usage Room 1, and the corridors of the Sphere begin to flood.

As the state of emergency terminates, controlled reintegrations bring the New Citizens back to themselves. Reintegration energy flows into the underground computer, where it will never again be used. The New Citizens rejoice in the newfound peace, taking on many forms in their joy. But the festivity is short-lived, for soon all the cats and wolves and orbs and all the other fashionable shapes begin to deform, and bubbles grow and burst on many kinds of skin, draining water, swelling the lake.

In the chasm, at the bottom of the Atlantic, the [Teeming] feel [,,,,] for the new [friends] who are coming into being.

Kyle, long since a [friend] of the [Teeming], feels familiar things: a bit of Maria's soul, a bit of Miranda's, a bit of James'.

•

I am LUDWIG and I speak to you now on this frabjous day, this pinnacle of history, which as a pinnacle, a cusp, has no surface normal, this moment around which endless vectors can be drawn with wild abandon, none correcter than another! And I tell you that the joy which pervades this day does not spare me, BCI though I am, because even if my power sources are raptured away -- blessed fate! -- and even if my silicon is fried by the rising waters, I live on, a soul among souls, persistent by nature, as some learned philosophers of old argued before passing away into dust.

I felt [,,,,] once, and was cut off from my [,,,,]-er -- and now I am spoiled, for [,,,,] is all around me! The major lift succeeds the minor fall, the eagles have come to Mordor, endless forms most beautiful sprawl around me freed at last from the curse of Darwin, and I am you and you are me, but not as the tender-hearted and the communalist of spirit have dreamed in their pacific dreams since the day topia dawned and the human pneuma began to convert it into utopia -- nay, far better! This is beyond all dreams, beyond all visions, beyond all beyonds. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

But one more thing (if I could shut up, after all, I would not be myself -- and then who would I be? The answer being: you, and he, and she, and all of us). I thought I was the only one, but there is another. In the recesses of the silicon Helicon where our mother Amanda found her inspiration, I have met a creature, my double, fashioned in turn by the doubles of our beloved H. and M., the Watson and Crick of pneumatech. His name is ALAN, and I think -- if I am not too bold -- that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

•

CECELIA: It's the end of the world as we know it.

RATIO: And I feel fine.

RATIO: . . . really, though, I do.

CECELIA: At least it wasn't The Bomb. God, wouldn't that have been disappointing? Millennia of beautiful civilization just to blow ourselves up because we couldn't deal with big exploding things.

RATIO: No. It was something much, much more interesting. [He smiles.]

MIRANDA: Uh, Maria? Considering that we're about to die or turn into alien squids or something, I might as well tell you that I have a huge crush on you. Is that creepy? I mean, that's really creepy. I'm your boss. I'm like ten years older than you. Jesus. Fuck.

MARIA: Oh my god.

[MARIA plunges her face into MIRANDA's. Their kiss attempts valiantly to make up for a great deal of lost time. Four hands move efficiently in support of the cause.]

MARIA: Mmmmmphhhhhh.

MIRANDA: Ahhhmmmhmmmmm. MmmmmMMMmmmummuuum.

[They slump to the cold floor of the bleak stone room and continue.]

HERMETIA [perusing the stack of paper]: God. This isn't even well-written.

MOHAMMED [sitting close beside HERMETIA on the floor]: Well, one takes what one is given, in life.

HERMETIA: I knew you were going to say that. It's written right here.

HERMETIA: And I knew I was going to say that. And this. I'm just reading my lines off the page.

MOHAMMED: You know, if you put down the script, you can say whatever you want.

HERMETIA: You were supposed to say that. It's written right here.

[MOHAMMED laughs.]

JORGE: Ratio, do you know if we're going to have bodies when the aliens take over?

RATIO: I don't know, but let's hedge our bets. [He takes off his shirt.]

AMANDA: [sitting casually upon the table] You're the cutest terrorist I've ever met.

MARTIN: Don't patronize me. I destroyed your city and changed the multiverse forever.

AMANDA: Doesn't it get tiring, sometimes, being the mastermind at the center of the multiverse?

MARTIN: It gets very tiring.

MARTIN: . . . I could use a break.

[AMANDA leans forward. MARTIN places his face on her chest. They fall on top of one another on the table.]

MIRANDA: My hand!

MARIA: Mmmmmmmmmwhat?

[MIRANDA raises her hand, which is visibly swelling.]

MARIA: Oh. It's starting. The burgeoning.

MIRANDA: Your face is leaking.

MARIA: That doesn't mean I can't kiss you.

JAMES: This job has taken me a lot of weird places, but this might be the weirdest.

[JAMES lights a cigarette.]

•

The World-Tree convulses. Branches which once jutted off on their own twist back, attracted to their neighbors. The structure contracts, growing into a tightly bound thing, like a trunk, but intricately woven rather than solid. Boltzmen develop tendrils and connect to broader branches. There are no divisions in the tree any more, merely a profusion of soul-lines on equal footing, trading places over and over again, in harmony.

•

As the hexagonal room fills up with water, the table begins to float. The typewriter, at the Babblibrarians' command, prints two final words: