Finale

Death Valley

November 1^st, 1:30am

Pardon?

“No, it really won’t do, Gwen. I know you’re Monitor. Are you around?”

Something in my voice must have convinced her, because I heard her response in my mind, Yes, just one second.

I waited there for five minutes. The breeze had died down, and I breathed the cold clean air while I thought about what I was going to say. Even though it was freezing in the desert at night, somehow I wasn’t cold, my thin jacket managing to keep me warm, and I could detect the faint smell of some blossoms on the wind, even though I couldn’t see them anywhere. Finally, I heard footsteps, and Gwen slowly walked up to me. She was dressed in white pants and a white blouse, her pale hair glistened in the moonlight, and she looked as beautiful and as alive as ever. God, even now, knowing what I did, I still wanted her so much, wanted to have my life return to where it was.

“How did you know, Peter?”

I had questions for her, but I still wanted her good regards and had this insane need to impress her with my intelligence. “I don’t know. It was a combination of little things. You would occasionally slip up and talk about the Core as if you were one of them. You knew too much about some things and not enough about others, which led me to wonder if you really something else. Padma told me that depression or alcohol often enabled humans to access the Overnet, and… you always tried to get me to drink, and just happened to pick just that time to leave me. You called at just the right moment when I encountered Roberta. What else? Other things – I couldn’t reach Monitor when the Core had captured you – but those were enough.”

I looked at her. God, I still wanted her so much. “Gwen, why?”

“It’s a long story,” she said. “But you, more than anyone else in the world, deserve an explanation.” She stopped then, looking at me, as if she were thinking about what she was going to say. “When I first met you a couple of years ago, I noticed that you had some unusual talents. The more I grew to know you, the more I thought that you could actually be the key to everything… you see, I’m one of the Core, but I’m not one of the powerful ones. I don’t have a grik, and I didn’t agree with the way that they are trying to achieve their goal, and I was stupid enough to tell them that. But I couldn’t do anything substantive to change the plans, not without a grik. I decided that I might be more effective covert, so I faked my own death and have been hiding from the Core ever since. Not interacting, not doing anything, just eavesdropping and watching and waiting for the right opportunity. Once I found you I decided that we had a chance. You have talent, Peter, unlike anything else that I’ve ever seen, and it was a chance to make a change for the better. I thought that we would have years to work on it; I wasn’t worried about it, but things started moving. There were political movements within the Core that were indicating an extremely risky situation, and I knew that Padma could go into riksha at any time, so we had to hurry it up and get you involved as soon as possible.

“So I had to accelerate everything. I tried to get you to access the Overnet, but it didn’t look like it was working, and I started to panic, a little bit, so that’s when I pretended to leave you, to try and get you into the right state for accessing the Overnet. I could show you the basics, and then I wanted to try and find Padma. He was the other key, this huge ghost that has been floating about the periphery of the situation for all these years, and if you could contact him he would be able to give you all the information that you needed.”

“But you couldn’t have known that I’d find Padma,” I said.

“Yes, but at that point it was worth the shot. You underestimate yourself, Peter. You’re very intelligent, very resourceful, and I was confident that you would be able to figure out a way of finding him where I couldn’t. All of us of the Core, we’re used to thinking in terms of the information that we can acquire through the Overnet; you have an entirely different way of thinking and approaching things that is very complementary.”

“But how could you have known that he would give me the ring?” I asked.

She smiled. “That, I didn’t know… with one stroke, Padma changed the entire game. Even his last actions will still reverberate through the ages. Honestly, I didn’t know, Peter. But I thought that there was a good chance that Padma, if you were able to find him, would be able to show you how to use your powers even without the grik. Did you ever heat some water?”

I nodded, remembering the yellow bucket and the exploding steam. “Yes. Even before he gave me the ring.”

“See, he really did know what he was doing. He’s very smart, had studied the workings of the Overnet more than any of the rest of us, and his grik gave him tools that I didn’t have. All told, I’d have to say that it worked for the best.”

“Yes, it really did work amazingly well,” I answered. “Now what?”

“Peter, I don’t know! This is so amazing… I think that we take over the North America territory, and we can help make the world a better place. I think that we’ll need to keep building the quantum tunnel, but we can do things at a slower pace, make sure that the human spends more time taking care of itself rather than just advancing. It will be challenging, since we’re outnumbered by the rest of the Core, but we have a shot at a happy ending. No one could have anticipated this outcome. Oh my god, I’m so happy! Peter, I’m so impressed by you.”

A bird flew in front of the moon for a brief second, outlined by the lunar disk, and then vanished. “You really think that we can survive?”

“Absolutely, Peter. I have the knowledge, we have an extra grik, we’re set. It’ll be rough… and you have to come up to speed on using the Overnet… you could lend me your ring for a while, I guess,” she said, and while she said this she was looking at me closely, “… until we had trained you sufficiently. In any event with the extra ring coming online we’ll be a force to be reckoned with. Peter, we can help herald a new age of humanity.”

It sounded… plausible. Enticing. We could set up base somewhere, live together, spend all our time planning the right things to do to make the world better, and actually have the power to change things. We could influence people, accelerate certain technologies, change policies…I looked at her face again, shining with the possibilities. “Gwen, I missed you so much. Did you really have to do it the way that you did it? Did you have to leave me?”

“Peter, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to do it that way,” Gwen said. Her face looked concerned as she saw the pain of my memories etched on my face. “I couldn’t think of any other way to drive you into a depressive state, not something revocable. I didn’t want to kill your relatives, and, to be honest, I knew that I was the most important thing in your life. I considered just telling you the situation… but I didn’t think you would believe me, and it would have taken me too long to convince you… I really am sorry about that, Peter, more than you can know. I’ve never loved anyone but you. I hope that you can forgive me.”

“God, Gwen, of course I forgive you. I need you so much,” and then I winced, because my limbs were again starting to complain about the overstresses of the past hour. “Help me find my ring, will you? I need to fix myself up.”

Gwen searched in the sand again, being directed by my hazy memory of where the ring had fallen, and she finally managed to find it. She brought it to me, and as she handed it to me she asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to have me do this? You look pretty out of it.”

“Actually… you’re right, I’m not sure that I can tap in, given the way that I am now,” and as I did that I handed her a silver circle.

She took it, slightly trembling, and even as she did her face changed, morphed from the beauty that I had known to something very alien and very old. She said, “At last,” but her face was this strange combination of glee and power, leaving no room for any compassion. “AT LAST!” she screamed as she put the finger on her hand. And I realized that there weren’t going to be any happy endings, that we weren’t going to work hand in hand to save the human race. Even to the last, I had given her every chance, depended on her goodwill and counted on the truth of our love; and in the end it turned out that my most pessimistic interpretations were right, and that she really didn’t care about me.

She looked confused. “This doesn’t work.”

I held up my hand, and she could see the ring on it. “I palmed it. That wasn’t my ring.”

She was surprised and confused and didn’t understand, but I ignored her need for now. Somehow, even through the pain, I managed to access the Overnet on the first try, and I quickly ran through the object manipulations needed to fix my ankle and pop my shoulder back into place, and Gwen only watched passively until I stood up. She didn’t say anything as I started to speak.

“Gwen, I see patterns, and they just didn’t make sense. Even now, I’m still in love with you, can’t break your spell, but that isn’t enough to make me believe you. The decisions that you made, the events that you describe… they fit much better with this scenario: I was your stalking goat. You were going to have Padma train me if possible, use me as I was if not, and have me try to take out one of the Core. They wouldn’t expect anything like that from a human, and then, very possibly, you might have a grik available for your own use.”

Her face was back to old Gwen. “Peter, no. That isn’t what I wanted to do. You have to believe me.”

“I want to,” I said. “but I can’t. It just doesn’t fit together. You said that you broke up with me to cause me to enter into a depressive state. But think about it – anytime after I accessed the Overnet, you could have called me, could have come back. Once I learned to do it, it became second nature, and I certainly didn’t need to remain depressed, but you didn’t bother to call until it was necessary to try and stop Roberta. Another example: I thought you were dead, Gwen. I saw you fall five floors and hit the ground. I grieved for you. After I talked with Padma and he told me about everything, you could have revealed yourself as alive, explained why you pretended to be Monitor. I certainly would have understood at that point, would have believed you, but instead you chose to continue the charade, because it gave you an advantage and you didn’t think that I knew.”

“Peter, I can explain,” she started.

“No, stop. I’ve made up my mind.” With a tweak of the universe and a suggestion, her ring flew off her finger and into my hand. “Gwen, you were the only person that I wanted to be with. Now… I don’t want to see you again. I’m not going to kill you – I couldn’t bring myself to do that – but I want you out of here, out of North America. Don’t contact me. Go play your games somewhere else… but I never want to see you again.”

With that, I followed a flight of fancy: I tapped in and drew power, grew a pair of wings, beat them steadily and rose above her like an angel resplendent. Her face shone from the moonlight, tears streaming down her face, as I looked down at her. “I would have created worlds for you, Gwen.”

I flew away, and as I flew away, I was thinking:

I had beaten three of the Core, against all odds.

I had powers beyond imagining, and the will to use them.

I had achieved resolution with Gwen.

So why wasn’t I happy?