Lady of Mazes

Livia sat back, stu

Was it simply Maren Ellis's hothouse experiment in human culture that had been destroyed? Had Wester-haven ever really been its own place? Or had her whole life been a performance for a mad woman?

She shook her head, nauseated, and turned away to look out the window.

It took a few seconds for her to sort out what she was seeing down mere. Livia had never seen so many people crowded into one space before. She gaped at the sheer out-rageousness of it. There could be no moving through mat pressing mass. This was the crowd of sleepwalkers Lucius had spoken of; no one down there wanted to escape.

"And yet," she murmured, "you're willing to let these people be made into a machine to process 3340's thoughts."

"There is no 3340," said Aaron impatiently. "So what do you think you're looking at? Those are the ambitious, Livia, they've all chosen to leave the human condition behind. The point is that they can make that choice now. That's what being human means: to be master of your own fate. If you choose to become more than human, well, that's nothing but fulfilment. Self-actualization."

She glanced back at his newly perfected features. "Is that what you're doing to yourself? Fulfilling ... what? Aaron, I loved you for who you were."

"But not very much," he said bitterly. "You didn't love me very much, Livia."

She looked away.

"But you're right that it's too late, because that version of me is dead. I surpassed myself." He smiled a bit wistfully. "I'm finally the man I always wanted to be. Next, is to become the god I want to become."

"You're not joining ... that ... "

He nodded. "Those of us who form the Book's new kernel will put in service for a thousand subjective years — a thousand years in paradise. Then we will be allowed to muster out, into new bodies with powers equal to Choronzon's. A thousand subjective years in the kernel will only equal a few decades in real-time, Livia. And at the end of it all: godhood."

"Suicide," she spat.

"The a

No, she thought, it's no difference at all. But she no longer had the heart to argue.

They spiraled down toward the center of the crowd. There sat the eschatus machine, in a network of cables suspended above the crowd. Several figures stood on meshwork next to it. They watched as the aircars settled in to land.

"Take me back to my ship," Livia said as panic rose up in her. "Aaron, please, for the sake of everything we ever meant to one another, don't do this. If you're a sovereign individual now then you can make your own choices, you don't have to follow the orders of this thing you don't even believe exists. Let me go. Let me take the tech locks somewhere safe. Then you can do whatever you like."

He shook his head. They were landing now. "The locks can only hold us back," he said, as he swung back the canopy.

Livia sat frozen for a long time. Then, feeling so many eyes on her, she stepped out onto the metal meshwork where Filament stood with her friends, and Maren Ellis and the dejected members of her delegation.

24

"Livia, it's so good to see you. And Sophia, what a surprise, how are you?" Filament smiled with apparently genuine warmth. "I'm so glad you could attend today's event. The hopes and dreams of this, my constituency," she nodded at the crowd, "will finally be realized."

The aircars spiraled back into the sky. Livia stood on a small platform ten meters above the crowd of sleepwalkers. Now that she was closer, she could see the filmy, transparent outlines of tall spidery creatures stepping carefully over the sleepers' heads, ministering to their physical needs. Farther away, something she'd taken for a tree shifted and shook itself a little; it was one of Raven's monsters, settled in the crowd like a rock in a stream.

"What is this?" Sophia was staring out at the assembly in horror.

"Really, Filament, you don't need these people." Surprisingly, it was Lucius Xavier saying this. He had a protective hand on Maren Ellis's shoulder. EUis herself had a poisonous look on her face. Maybe the hand was there to keep her from leaping at Filament.

Filament stood with one hand against the blue curve of the eschatus machine. She pouted at Lucius. "Oh, please," she said. "It's not about me. It's all about these people and what they want. And this will be my last chance to speak on their behalf. The time for words is almost passed."

She smiled fondly out at the crowd. "But I — that is, they — hated to leave you full of misapprehensions and hate. They believe in reconciliation — well, maybe it's me and my nature as a vote. We would like to make things better between us before we transcend."

Emblaze visibly started. "Before you — what?"

"I'll be the seed around which the new 3340 crystal-izes," said Filament. "You should have figured that out, at least."

"Don't tell me all this was your idea?" asked Emblaze.

Filament preened. "Who am I, really?" she said. "I represent the Good Book. I can only do what it directs. Of course, the Book was specifically designed to go around the votes and the Government, which has always presented me with a bit of a problem. You might say I've had to ... loosely interpret what the Book wants."

Emblaze laughed. "You were rejected by the Book. It didn't need you. But you're a vote, you had to find a way to serve your constituency even if it didn't want you. The only way you could see to do it was to become the Book."

"Don't sell me short," said Filament. "There were lots of options open to me. And of all the Book's followers, only I could see deeply enough to realize where it had come from, because it's in my nature to perceive the sum of my constituents' actions. I saw that my constituency's ... style ... bore a striking resemblance to that of the rebel anecliptic who'd been destroyed just before I was born. Once I realized that co

To Livia's surprise, Cicada stepped forward. "You're crazy. Conquer the Archipelago? Topple the a

Filament squinted at him. "Do I know you?"

Aaron spoke. "By making the a

"And the a

"The a

"Caught napping?" Livia shot back. "And yet, you haven't asked me how it is we were able to return here. Whose help would we have needed?"