Against Gravity

It was clear by now that he wasn't going to get any more sleep for a while, so he pulled himself out of the cot and started to get dressed.

He felt slow, turgid, his body silent like a mausoleum, yet blood still moved through his arteries by some unfathomable means. He found his way to the kitchen and dribbled some tepid tank-water into his dry mouth. Then he turned to see Buddy watching him from the doorway.

"There were a lot more people around this place earlier," Kendrick observed. "Where have they all gone?"

"Remember when we talked to Veliz? They've gone on ahead. I was surprised to find anyone here at all when we arrived, but we're a little ahead of our own schedule."

"So why didn't we just go with them?"

"We have our own transport, remember? Besides, doing it this way makes more sense than all heading off together. That's why there's flights heading out from several different locations. Safer that way."

Kendrick stepped past Buddy, heading out through the main entrance and into a cool Californian night. He stared upwards at the sky, and after a moment heard Buddy step up behind him.

"I have my reasons for going up there," Kendrick said over his shoulder. "But don't forget that they're not the same as yours. When I went back down into the Maze I learned some things. I don't think it's as clear-cut as you seem to think."

He turned and stared at Buddy. "I think you're putting yourselves in great danger."

Buddy glared back. "You'd better explain that." -

"Robert is part of the Bright, yes, but it's a parasitical – not a symbiotic – relationship."

"Just a minute, listen-"

Kendrick pressed on. "No, you listen to me. Peter was down there, Buddy. Robert was, too. You could feel it, couldn't you?"

"What?"

"What's so hard to believe? That Robert was the only one to achieve some kind of life after death due to his augments? Or wouldn't it seem more likely there might have been others? Peter is still alive, somehow, in the same way that Robert is. He tried to get through to all of you, but Robert managed to prevent that happening with anyone but me. That's because of the treatments Hardenbrooke gave me. But here's the real kicker. If Robert Vincenzo found some way of blocking Peter McCowan's attempts at communication with all of us, what is it that Robert so badly didn't want McCowan to tell you? Something, maybe, that you really ought to know?"

Buddy struggled visibly to absorb this new information. "Hey, first you tell me we're wrong, even though we've all been seeing the same things, and now you want us all to stop because of something – someone – that only you have seen. Maybe you ought to think about that."

"Look, Draeger told me there was a way to reverse the growth of our augmentations – and I actually believe him. If he can find a way, so can other people."

Buddy shook his head. "I've heard all this before."

"Look-"

"We don't know how long something like that could take to be properly tested, and that would be an even better excuse to lock us up in the meantime. You've seen Audrey, you saw Caroline. The Archimedes is our only chance."

"If you believe in the reality of the Omega Singularity," Kendrick said carefully, "then you know it holds out for the actual resurrection, at the end of time, of everyone who ever lived. Even if we do all die, we still all get to live again someday."

Buddy threw his hands up in despair. "Christ, I know it's only a theory. I also know that what's happening up there proves at least part of it. So, no, maybe the whole human race doesn't wake up at the end of time in a far-future Heaven created by minds so advanced that they'd be indistinguishable from God. Maybe most of us just stay here and rot for all eternity, since there's no reason why any such entity should even bother.

"But now we have a chance, one that nobody else has, to give something back to ourselves when the rest of the world would rather see us conveniently dead. We'd never have to feel pain again – we can be anyone or anything we want to be, for ever. And maybe we'll even be the only human beings lucky enough to experience that."

"Hallelujah," Kendrick observed sourly.

Buddy gave him a sharp look, then headed over to his helicopter. Kendrick gazed after him for several minutes, wondering which of them was crazier.

The next time Kendrick woke, dawn was just begi

He'd dreamt that he'd been deep in conversation with Marlin Smeby, lost in some primeval tu

Hearing something clatter outside, he sat up and looked around the darkened room. Empty sleeping bags were scattered across the floor and, since almost all the rest had gone on ahead, he was alone there. He felt racked by a thousand aches and pains.

Buddy pla

He got up and stepped outside again, looking over to where the 'copter still sat. Beyond it stood a tall wooden gate leading onto the broken tarmac of a nearby street. Part of the tarpaulin had been flipped back, and a shadowy figure was kneeling next to the machine, surrounded by tools and equipment.

"Hey, how you doing?" Audrey greeted him with a grin as he approached the craft.

"I didn't know that you knew how to handle one of these things."

"Commercial rather than military, though," she explained. The black streaks of her augment-growth were vivid under the dim red light of the dawn that was creeping over LA's broken rooftops. "Buddy's catching some zees, so I'm doing a little maintenance. Couldn't sleep, then?"

"Not any longer." Kendrick glanced around. "Is it just us left?"

Audrey shrugged. "You, me, Bud – rest are all gone." She squinted at him. "You feeling okay?"

"Fine – just got up."

She shrugged again. "Don't wander off and get lost, now. Remember, not much in the way of law around here, so stick to the compound, okay?"

Kendrick nodded. "Got it."

Audrey smiled uncertainly, then turned her attention back to the 'copter's exposed i

Had someone called his name? He tensed and peered out of a window through which he could see nothing unusual. Maybe it had been Buddy he'd heard.

No: he came across Buddy in another room, curled up in a cot and fast asleep. Of course, he could have muttered something in his sleep…

There it was again: the faintest whisper, barely the suggestion of his name. Kendrick wondered if it was McCowan. Without really thinking about it, he slipped quietly through the ramshackle building until he found another door at the rear, which opened without a sound. The high fence surrounding the compound made it impossible for casual passers-by – had there been any – to spy on them.

He noticed another gate in the fence, presumably leading out onto a different street.

"Kendrick," whispered a voice somewhere nearby. He stopped, motionless. Nobody was visible.

He stepped out onto the street, moving as quietly as he could. Not McCowan: someone else? In either direction he could see rows of broken buildings, barren and lifeless.

Perhaps this was a bad idea. He should go back inside the fence.

Then Kendrick noticed the car, deep in the shadows of one building that had survived the atomic blast largely intact. His augmented senses picked the vehicle out in vivid detail, and he could see that its windows were silvered. It stood several blocks away from the compound where Audrey was still working on the 'copter.