Paul Hughes - An End

Walking and walking. The landing party followed Berlin’s lead as he went around a corner, stopped at the sight before him. Several blocks down the street, many of the buildings had been clipped off midway up, and the rubble filled the street below. No fire anymore, although there obviously had been. Dozens of half-fallen towers, sterile in this cold. There were silver bodies.

a loss so

Berlin walked toward the collapsed part of City Seven, his eyes locked on the tower where he had last seen his family.

There are no tears in phased glass.

“Do you smoke?”

It wasn’t a glare. Hannon didn’t believe that she had the energy to consciously create a glare to thrust at him. Her lifesigns were barely on-scale as it was.

“Do you mind?”

He didn’t wait for an answer but lit the smoker, sat back in his chair. The wall of phase shielding barely distorted her features. He was glad to sit back; his hair returned to resting position.

“Do you speak?”

One corner of her mouth turned up at his question, but her eyes remained locked on the tabletop between them.

“Berlin’s on the surface as we speak. As I speak.”

She gave no indication that she even recognized the name. Right hand gently traced fingertips over tabletop.

“We know that he was with you in the beginning.”

Her hand came to rest, withdrew to her lap.

“Yeah. We’ve known for quite some time.”

She opened her mouth, eyes still down. Her mouth closed as she reconsidered.

“He has no idea. We could leave him down there, you know.”

Her eyes closed.

Hannon exhaled smoke and leaned forward again, forced smile on his face. “We won’t. He’ll just go with you after sentencing.”

She looked Hannon in the eyes for the first time. “Go?”

He inhaled the smoker. “Just a little trip. We can’t kill you, but we can’t keep you here to try this again.”

Flicker of inaudible conversation. Hannon tapped his neck to cut the link. He crushed his smoker on the tabletop and stood.

“Sleep well, sweet Maire. Sentencing is tomorrow.”

Hannon left his side of the room, and the phase shielding faded to black, leaving Maire alone with her thoughts.

sleep well.

the in-dark answers with wind

do you? you know. you do.

the way that she warmed him, trees above and nothing below, forest of sky and intruding stars wondering from

Botanist.

internal tides of

“We can escape. We can

He’d known the child. Not known, but he knew who the boy had been, the little slivered, silvered boy, mimicking in uncertain gesture the children of a Pompeii of another world not yet born. A playmate of his son, beautiful son, now pressed to the sidewalk, arm shielding face, but he knew the boy. Not knew, but he knew who the boy had been.

What have I

Berlin didn’t want to go inside, shouldn’t go inside, would go inside. He had to know. Had to see with his own eyes what a planet of evidence was telling the system.

The nears followed him, the most-damaged stumbling as best they could with the biological damage of metal winds. Some fell, critical systems wounded beyond repair. They were left behind.

Why did you

Reached out with his mind, and several nears wrestled the shield-locked entry of the building open. The planet was devoid of electricity now, but it wouldn’t stop his forward progress. A plasma burst and the entry was clear, pressurized interior venting weakly into an atmosphere raped of breath. He walked in, filter slurping lazily around and behind him, sizzling as it touched the still-glowing edges of the entrance.

How could she

Hearts beating in unison. Forehead and cheeks secreting a sweat immediately whisked away and neutralized by the glass. Blinking back tears. Lick lips. The nears’ spotlights flashed to life, illuminating the foyer. There were people, but none matching the way he remembered his family. It wouldn’t be that simple. They would be above, just below the shattered top of the tower.

Elevators would be useless.

He directed the nears without words. More flashes of cutting phase, stairwell revealed. The building had closed the main entrance points automatically in the instant before the attack and the eternal loss of power. One unfortunate young man had been cleanly clipped apart by the slamming of the stairwell shield doors. Berlin didn’t know him.

Mindless walk. He would sometimes take the stairs in the days before just because. Just because. He disliked technology’s intrusion into every aspect of his life. He was a strong man, and he didn’t mind walking. On this day, he didn’t feel like a strong man. Each successive stair, each story drained him more. The paths he took through his life, each step toward this crime, this Event.

He thought too much.

we could

and there would be

but

they have to be

we have to

you know

you do

“Who’ve they sent?”

“Judith.”

“Is she—”

“She’ll do. She’s been a medium before.”

“Which time?”

“The last time. Here she comes.”

The viewer revealed the bending of galaxies toward the singularity. Flash of starburst as the planetship reassembled particle-by-particle. The transit ocean froze, shattered into infinite crystals as the end product of near-light materialized.

“Is she normal?”

“As normal as media come. Decades of experience with demigods. And in the last war,” Doctor noted the departure of Judith’s slither from her planet, “She had the chance to develop a relationship with the subject.”

“A relationship?”

“Not like that.” The slither soft-docked. “Let’s go meet her.”

Assistant shrugged its shoulders ineffectively. “I don’t know if I should—”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. She talks to gods. That’s all.”

“Right. You’re right.”

“Let’s go.”

in those days between the death of everything and the rebirth of less than humanity, it hurtled into damnation and spawned and its progeny spread outward and outward and consumed everything in their path, and before Omega, it judged that all that it had created was good and redeemable and it sent the newborns back into the blackness to save those unfortunate enough to have remained

Judith opened her eyes.

The sleep of liquid travel was disconcerting. She trusted the process, told herself to trust the process, but each time she woke up from the night between the stars, she had the urge to stand before a mirror nude and inspect herself to see if anything was missing.

That’s not where it’d be missing, Jud.

Ten fingers, ten toes, all the usual bipedal accoutrement. Little hands touched face; everything appeared to be all right there as well, except for the

Well. There would always be that.

Softdock platform extended, and the slither gently melted into the side of the warworld above System Fourteen-Seven, Planet One. Judith pulled herself out of the vacuum chair with a slurp, shook her hair around like a barker, coagulating pellets of liquispace emulsion floating freely, lazily spattering onto the walls. She pulled her hair back, squeezed more of the disgusting yet crucial slime from her coif. It was now dissipating into a high-density gas. She was dry.

“Situation?”

deity re-animated.

“Who is it?”

standard.

“Good. It’s been a while.”

plank extended.

The lock doors cycled open. Just beyond the chamber, Judith could see the disturbing androgynous faces of a Doctor and an Assistant. The Doctor held out a (claw) hand and tried to smile in that way the nearish always tried.