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  “The Gaespora cut me off, you see. Severed. They could not risk your influence spreading. I am no longer a part of the shared consciousness. I feel very…strange.”

  A tear slid from John’s eye, and then another, and he was crying. This Saru had no idea how to deal with, and so she fished around the minibar for another bottle, coming back with a beautiful, gold-hued scotch. She drank, John cried, they flew.

  The sun appeared, poking his dumb head up over the black smog, and turning it gray like ash. Saru was blinded for a few minutes, before the invisible walls adjusted, and dimmed the world around them. By the time she could see again, the sun had risen above the smog and chased away the stars. She found the empty vodka bottle, positioned it as best she could, and relieved herself—sweet Jesus yes, oh thank God. John’s head darted over at the sound, and then sprung back to fix itself straight ahead, until the tinkling music had ended.

  “I apologize,” John said. He wiped at his tears. “Independence is a novel experience for me.” He held up his hand and marveled at it, like he was high as hell. And who knew? Maybe he was. “I cannot remember being alone like this before. In my own head. It is very quiet here. And also very loud. There are phantom memories. I reach for knowledge that is no longer there. In its place I find memories of my own from long ago.” He frowned at nothing, and then his face stretched into an expression of purest bliss. He laughed, heartily. “Melancholy. Sadness. Excreting water from the eyes, venting stress, mechanical relief.” He nodded to himself. The expression of bliss vanished. His features sank into misery, which hardened into resolve.

  “Options,” he said. “I do not think I ever realized there were options. They were all hiding behind the rules. So many options. Blocked by so many rules. The rules were there, blinding me, walls that hid all the options. An entire dimension of options hidden behind those walls. Then you came and you cut the brand from your flesh. I had never seen anything like it. It had never even entered my mind that such a rebellion was possible. Like an animal gnawing off its own leg to escape a trap. The shared consciousness of the Gaespora is vast, but hierarchical. Many thoughts are verboten. It should be so,” he said, assertively. “There are stupid thoughts in the lonely mind.” He knocked his fist against his skull. “Useless thoughts. Saboteur thoughts. Masochism. Rumination. Narcissism. Doubt. Annoyance. Lust. It is all stupid. And yet in that forest of stupidity was the option that I never could have seen. To cut out the brand. To escape. Your stupid thinking freed me.”

  “I’m touched,” Saru spat. “But you still haven’t given me one good reason to trust your ass.”

  “Trust,” John murmured. “Action nurtures trust. Reason buys credence. Let us not aim to trust one another so quickly. I believe we share a motive. You are now a batterer, a thief, and a fugitive. I am at the very least your accomplice. I desire to escape the grasp of the Hathaways, as do you.”

  “The difference is that when the Hathaways catch me, they’ll slit my throat, and when they catch you, you can run and hide under ElilE’s skirt.”

  “Is that what you think? I fear you gravely misunderstand the nature of the Gaespora.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “With pleasure. In the, say, apple pie of American politics, there are three major players: First and most assuredly foremost are the scions, like our dear Mistress, Priscilla. They are the sons, daughters, spawn, and spores of the American Founders—those proud industrialists who built this kleptocratic utopia. The scions are the center of the pie, the delectable filling, the owners of the land, the energy grids, the water purifiers, the factories, the fabrication dozers, the Nets, the militias, and the justice systems, such as they are. Do you follow?”

  “I know the big dicks—the Hathaways, obviously. The Koch-Husseins, the Anheisers.”

  “To name a few. Less notorious, but no less significant, is the crust of our pie: the hidalgos. Hidalgo is a catchall term for the nouveau riche, those law-bound citizens who through luck or ruthlessness have consolidated enough wealth and influence to pose a threat to one or more of the scions. Hidalgo comes from the Spanglish term hijo de algo, ‘son of something.’ It is a signal, you see, that one of these strivers has designs to expand beyond prudence; they begin to discover noble parentage.

  “This is the friction of our civilization. When an individual achieves the status of a hidalgo, expansion can come only at the cost of the scions. Enter: the Gaespora. They are the pie pan. It is their thankless chore to keep the pie intact and uneaten. You may have seen my erstwhile brethren exert influence within the cities. I fear this may have given you an inflated opinion of their ability to guide human action. The cities and their charming denizens are the crumbs of the American pie. They have no bearing on politics. The Gaespora are few. They control no military of their own; that would render them an unacceptable competitor. When it comes to matters involving the scions, the Gaespora are utterly reliant on playing one scion against another to achieve their ends. This is accomplished through the assiduous collection and parsimonious deployment of information. Do you see now the role that I played, and the danger I undoubtedly face?”

  Saru digested his words, trying to capture the point. Maybe John wasn’t Gaesporan any more, but he retained their annoying habit of speaking in riddles. She thought back to the Hathaway estate, piecing together her pain-bent memories. John had stood with the mistress, and the mistress had routed her orders through him. She’d called him consigliere. He was an advisor. A butler. A confidant.

  “You’re a spy,” Saru said, marveling at her own brilliance. And not even a goddamn implant to help. “You were spying on the Hathaways for the Gaespora.”

  “A point for the detective!” John declared. “I was a spy of a fashion. A sanctioned one. Part advisor, part diplomat. The scions know that the Gaespora can communicate in ways beyond the reach of interception. They believe this ability to be the result of genetic engineering—telepathy, if you will. The scions use the Gaespora to communicate with one another without fear of their words leaving the inner circle. This ensures an equilibrium. No scion can war against another; it is impossible to gain the informational advantage necessary for victory. And most importantly, the Gaespora prevent—”

  “Third parties,” Saru interrupted, her mind racing ahead of him. “You keep all the information inside the clique. You keep out the riffraff, the, uh, hidalgos.”

  “Very good,” John said, admiringly. “You have a gift for politics.”

  “I know filth. That’s why the Hathaways will be after you. You’ve gone rogue. You know all their scandals, and their gossip, and their tech, and who’s plotting to fuck over who.”

  “Reason enough to miss me,” John said, dryly. “But there is a far greater incentive for my recapture. Priscilla is a cretinous debauchee, but her seneschals—the technocrats who maintain the Hathaway empire—are astute and pitiless. To them a rogue Gaesporan is a precious opportunity. A chance to change the rules of the game!” He pronounced this with flourish, like he was introducing a theatrical production.

  “The Hathaways have an excuse to drill into my skull and discover how the mind of a Gaesporan ticks.” John brought two fingers to his temple and made a drilling sound. “Not that my brain will yield any great secrets, severed as I am from the shared consciousness, but the seneschals cannot know that. The possibility of tapping into the Gaesporan telepathy is priceless.”

  “You win,” Saru said. Maybe John was lying, but that was a hell of an elaborate fib to spew on a moment’s notice. “I believe you, I guess. The prize is that now we’re fucked together.”

  “Yes. Our asses are conjoined in this escapade.” This seemed to delight John, and his delight was annoying her.

  “That is not a reason to be happy.”

  “Forgive me, but this whole experience is fantastically new. Not to disparage my erstwhile brethren, but membership within the Gaespora had its drawbacks. Life was regimented. I do not think I was ever allowed to make a meaningful decision. Can
you imagine?”

  “I hate to piss on your parade, but unless you can conjure up a miracle, this ‘escapade’ is coming to a bloody end pretty damn soon. We’ve got no supplies, no friends, no allies, and the entire ‘apple pie’ of America will be sniffing after us the second that freak show back at the estate reaches climax. My plan is to crash into the woods and live like savages until we kill each other out of boredom. You got anything better?”

  “I may,” John said. “First, however, you must tell me: what were you doing at the cottage?”

  “The cottage?”

  “Priscilla’s Jersey cottage, which we have just fled in magnificent style.”

  “Oh. I was trying to rob the bitch.”

  “I have been honest with you,” John said. “You could extend to me the same courtesy.”

  Saru sighed. Why? Why tell him anything? And why not? This clown might be one of the few people on Earth who would actually believe her.

  “I was tracking a girl ElilE hired me to find,” Saru admitted. “She was a girl the Blue God was supposed to have a margin with or something. I dunno, I was just doing it for the cash. I found her beneath the city. Beneath Philadelphia. There was a pit there, and a…creature made of human bodies…and a cathedral. It was full of feasters and monsters of the Hungry God. The UausuaU. I guess you know what I’m talking about?”

  “All of the Gaespora know the UausuaU.”

  “Fantastic. Anyway, the girl, Ria, she was dead, so I suppose I’m never gonna get that ten million dollars. But she came back to life so, maybe. Maybe split the difference? Five million? That sounds fair. What do you think? I guess it’s a moot point. So the girl came back to life and all these monsters started crawling out of the walls. Ria and me, well, we fought ‘em. Then this laser came down from the sky and destroyed the monsters. That’s what happened in Philadelphia. It wasn’t a terrorist attack or anything. It was the Blue God. The Blue God burned a giant fucking hole in the city.”

  Saru’s stomach was turning. She remembered the joy she’d felt basking in that destructive light. How exhilarating it had been to see her enemies burn and die, how it seemed like the whole city had come to worship at her feet.

  John nodded as though her incredibly dumb story made perfect sense to him.

  “Then what happened?”

  Saru laughed—it was too crazy to say out loud. John was taking her seriously and it scared her.

  “Then I was flying. Not in a plane, but on my own, free, rising up on a platform made of light. I saw this thing in the sky—it was like a giant chandelier. It was taking me up, like I was being abducted, like you’d see on the feeds. I felt like I was a God, like I had all the power in the world. We got higher and higher and I started to see things. I started to have these visions, but it was more than that—like what I was seeing was real, or would be, or could be real. I saw horrible things—Philadelphia destroyed, the world burning, monsters everywhere. The girl, Ria, she had been beautiful, but she started to change, to transform, like she was turning into a monster. And I felt myself changing, like my flesh and my blood were dissolving and turning into light. And there were sounds and voices screaming at me, nothing left but screams, and they were warning me, telling me things, and I couldn’t understand. It was too much…I ran. I ran away. I jumped out of the light, into the air, trying to get back to Earth. I couldn’t handle it. I was afraid. I had to get away…and…I survived. I fell to fucking Earth and I survived! You hear me?”

  She was yelling now—when had that started? She grabbed the lapels of John’s suit and jerked his face close. Her eyes were wet. Was she crying?

  “I fucking survived! I fell to the goddamn Earth from space and I woke up and I was alive! Fucking alive! You hear me?”

  Saru kissed John on the lips, and then screamed and pushed him away. She kicked at the dash and grabbed the sword, and swung it up so the point buried itself in the woodwork. She screamed and kicked and pounded on the dash, throwing a tantrum to rival that of the mistress. Then she gasped and lay panting, pushing her chair back all the way, so it reclined into a bed. John was shooting fearful glances at her and jerking his head away when their eyes met. Haha, that’s right, asshole. That’s what you’re stuck with now. A violent, piss-stained fugitive. A good decision you made. Delightful! Enjoooy! What a pair we make! Saru was lightheaded, disembodied almost, and her vision swam more than ever.

  The racing of her heart slowed, and her panting surrendered to giggled, gasping breaths. Somehow, she calmed. She felt cleansed, as though the vast, incredible fuckedness of her situation was a relief. She was so absolutely, incredibly, astonishingly fucked that nothing she could do could possibly fuck herself more. Or anyone else. She was trapped, contained, her shit storm bottled in this tin can of a plane, unable to kill or damage anyone else—well, besides John, at least. She had reached the ultimate bottom of bad decisions, and it was impossible to do worse.

  “Anyway,” Saru said, waving her hand. “I found myself in New Jersey, which at first I assumed was hell. And I just started walking. I just wanted to get away. I found this wall and flopped over it and wound up in the ‘cottage.’ I guess I didn’t want to backtrack.” She snorted.

  John’s face was clouded.

  “I see,” he said.

  “Do ya now?”

  “Tell me more of these visions.”

  “There’s nothing more to tell. I can hardly remember. It was like a bad trip.”

  “But it frightened you. It frightened you so much you risked self-annihilation.”

  “I guess if you have to put it like that, yeah. I wasn’t really thinking too clearly at the time.”

  “I fear your visions are important.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “As a Gaesporan, the Gods often spoke to me in ways that were beyond my ken. But they never spoke frivolously. The Blue God has acted with violence. Your visions could foretell greater violence. We must find a way for you to revisit these visions.”

  “We’ve got more important things to deal with,” Saru said, tersely. “The Hathaways have my face and my DNA. We need to find a place where we can hide, lay low, maybe for a long time until this all blows over.”

  “These goals do not exclude one another,” John said. “I know of a place where we will be safe from the Hathaways. It will also allow you to explore your visions further. There is a complication, however. Without my connection to the Gaespora, I do not know where this place is.”

  “That’s fucking wonderful!” Saru yelled. She started slamming buttons on the control panel. A blast of air hit her in the face.

  “What are you doing?” John asked.

  Now it was too hot, something was warming her seat. Saru pressed another button and the walls reappeared; she felt suddenly claustrophobic. She pressed the button again and the walls vanished.

  “I’m trying to find a map, GPS or something.” Saru turned a nob and the radio came on. She froze. She heard the word “Hathaway” spoken by a perky female voice. It was message, repeating, over and over:

  “Welcome to Hathaway Security’s Sky Defender Service: Keeping the Skies Open for Business. Due to recent terrorist activities, unauthorized flight is now prohibited. Please direct your aircraft to the nearest Hathaway-sanctioned airport, and submit to a friendly search. Activate your autopilot now to comply. Remember, your safety is our priority. Welcome to…”

  Saru turned the dial, flipping through all the radio stations. The message played on every one. John reached over and switched the radio off.

  “Ignore the message,” he said. “The scions are using the perceived terrorist attack in Philadelphia to consolidate power. If the Hathaways knew where we were they would have intercepted us already.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Saru said. “It’s never gonna end. I should have stayed. I should’ve made it easy on myself. What was I thinking?”

  “The fool dwells in the past,” John said. “The fool claims to know cause, and the fool sees the futur
e with clarity. What appears to be harmful now can be a blessing with the passing of time.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Hardly,” John said, with infuriating calm. “We cannot say where your actions or my actions will lead. I was a Gaesporan. Now I am not. Who can say if this is for my harm or for my benefit, or for yours, or for others? All we can do is act to the best of our abilities, where we are, with what we know. If your mind remains trapped in the pity of the past and the fear of the future, you cannot see the opportunity of the now.”

  “There is no opportunity,” Saru hissed. “We are fucked.”

  “A pithy analysis,” John said, dryly. “But narrow-minded. You are as limited by the routine of your thinking as I was by the rigidity of the Gaespora. Let us dissect the information you have shared with me. The Blue God protected you. The Blue God attempted to speak with you. Do you think this was an idle deed? Even if you have no desire to explore these visions, you can make use of the gifts of the Blue God. Are you so eager to squander your powers? Can you truly not fathom the rewards of a connection to such a being as the Blue God? You can protect yourself from the violence of others. You can hide yourself. Unlocking these visions may be the key to your survival.”

  Saru thought. Could that be true? Could she actually have some kind of power? The power that Ria had had? It was true her skin had shone gold, and she had survived things that definitely should have killed her. And if she could learn to control that power? Make it come at will? A shiver ran down her spine, excitement, and fear, and a note of something else—lust, or hunger.

  “You know how I can do that?” she asked.

  “I know my own training,” John said. “I know much of how the Gods exert their will upon our humble rock. I know beings who may be able to help you more.”