Ground Zero

When Weezy had asked if his wife would be joining them the old man said she was not having a good day.

She got the impression that Mrs. Veilleur didn’t have many good days.

So . . . already surreal with Mrs. Clevenger and Mr. Foster—Veilleur—there, but then Jack had launched into this tale of a cosmic shadow war between two vast, unimaginable, unknowable cosmic forces. They had no names, just the labels humans had attributed to them: the Ally and the Otherness.

She’d stifled a yawn. The old tale of Good versus Evil vying for control of Earth or humanity—its oh-so-valuable souls or bodies, or whatever. The same tale that every human culture had invented and reinvented through the ages. She’d heard it all before.

Or thought she had until Jack explained that Earth’s corner of reality was not the grand prize, just a piece—and not a particularly valuable one—on a vast cosmic chessboard . . . part of a contest between the two forces, with victory going to the one that could take and keep the most pieces. Commonly referred to as the Conflict, no one knew who was wi

But these forces weren’t so simple as Good and Evil. More like neutral and inimical. The Ally was an ally only in so far as humanity’s purposes were in tune with its agenda, which it ruthlessly pursued. It would squash whatever got in its way with no more thought or concern than a human would give to swatting an a

The Otherness was another story. It was decidedly inimical because, in a sense, it devoured worlds, changing their realities, even their physics to an environment more to its liking. Almost vampiric in that it seemed to feed on the agonies it caused along the way. Humans shouldn’t take this personally—it did this wherever it gained control.

“The Conflict,” Jack said, “is what’s been fueling the Secret History.”

Weezy glanced at Mr. Veilleur and Mrs. Clevenger and found them nodding agreement.

She’d always suspected something like this, but to hear it from Jack, of all people . . .

She turned to him. “How do you know all this?” She pointed to the Compendium—how she hungered to dive into it—where it sat on a side table. “And how did you get hold of that?”

“Jack is one of the Heirs,” Veilleur said.

“Heirs to what?”

“To the position I held for thousands of years—leading the Ally’s forces against the Otherness.”

“Jack?”

She almost laughed, but that was because she was thinking of the teenage Jack. Then she remembered how he’d killed five men over the course of a dozen hours and it didn’t seem so ludicrous. The sweet, faithful Jack she’d snuggled up to in the bed—what had she been thinking?—had turned into a cold-eyed killer when threatened, and was now back to easygoing, affable Jack.

Two Jacks, polar opposites . . . how did they coexist?

She stared at him. “Really?”

“Really,” Jack said, sounding none too happy about it.

His expression made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the job.

“It’s a long, long story,” Veilleur said. “Back in the First Age, when the Conflict was out in the open, the Ally’s forces prevailed after a seemingly endless string of battles. As it retreated, the Otherness triggered a worldwide cataclysm that wiped out all civilization. Humanity had to start from scratch again. I was made immortal and put on guard, because the Otherness had not given up. It had its own immortal at its disposal, and we battled through the mille

“At that moment, with its victory seemingly complete, the Ally released me to age. It retreated, turning its attention to hotter spots in the Conflict. But the Adversary was not finished. He was reincarnated in 1968. In response, Jack and a few others like him were conceived and prepared to take up the role of Defender should that become necessary. So far it hasn’t. We hope to keep it that way.”

She stared at him. “Jack . . . you’re immortal?”

He shook his head. “Hardly. And not going to be if I have anything to say in the matter.”

“How . . . how long has this been going on?”

The Lady said, “The Conflict began before the Earth was formed and will continue long after the Sun’s furnace goes cold.”

Weezy closed her eyes as she felt the facts and ideas and suspicions and suppositions that had filled her brain shift and expand and form new patterns. Because if all this was true—and she sensed it was—it explained so much.

And now, more than ever, she was certain that the nine/eleven attacks were part of the Secret History, which meant ultimately part of the Conflict.

But the what and how and why remained elusive.

“Okay,” Jack said, “we know who I am, we know who Weezy is, and we know Mister Veilleur.” He leveled his gaze at Mrs. Clevenger. “But who are you?” He held up a hand. “And please don’t tell me you’re my mother. I thought you were many, but was told you were only one. You’re the Lady. I thought then that you might be Gaia or Mother Earth or something like that, but you said it wasn’t that simple. So what’s the truth? You’ve popped in and out of the entire course of my life. I think it’s time I knew the truth.”

She nodded. “So do I.”

Jack leaned back and folded his arms. “You have the floor.”

“Where to begin?” she said. “Be patient with me. I have never had to explain this before. In the past when you’ve asked, I’ve said I was your mother, but that’s not even remotely true. I say that because I am female and because I am older than any living thing on this planet.” She nodded toward Veilleur. “Even our friend here.”

Weezy leaned forward, fascinated. Was Goethe’s “eternal feminine” more than just a concept? Was she a real being?

“But I am not your mother in any sense. I have never called myself Gaia, though I have called myself Herta, but I am neither. I did not create you; you created me. I do not nurture you; you nurture me.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “That’s who you aren’t . . .”

“As to who I am, perhaps another name would help. Remember what I called myself in Florida?”

“Sure. Anya.”

“Anya Mundy, to be exact.”

“Anima mundi!” Weezy said. “Soul of the world!”

The Lady smiled at Weezy. “You always were a quick one.”

Jack was shaking his head. “I was thinking of the guy who wrote King of the Khyber Rifles.”

“Helps to know Latin,” Weezy said.

He looked at her. “Another language?”

She shrugged.

The Lady said, “ ‘Soul of the world’ is closer but not quite accurate. I am, for want of a better term, the embodiment of the sentience on this planet. I was born when the interactions of the self-aware creatures on the planet reached a certain critical mass. Like any infant, I had limited consciousness at first, but as Earth’s sentient biomass expanded, so did my awareness. Eventually I appeared as a person—a child at first, then an adolescent, then fully grown.”

“The noosphere,” Weezy breathed, seeing it all come together. “Vernadsky and Teilhard were right?”

The Lady nodded. “Vernadsky originated the concept, but Teilhard was closer to the truth.”

“You’ve lost me,” Jack said.

Weezy spoke as the facts popped into her head. “Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit who theorized that the growth of human numbers and interactions would create a separate consciousness called the noosphere. Needless to say—but I’ll say it anyway—this did not endear him to the Church.”

“Are we talking cyberspace?”

“No,” the Lady said. “There is nothing electronic, nothing ‘cyber’ about it.”

“But where can it go from here?” Weezy said. “What’s the next evolutionary step?”