Ilona Andrews - On the Edge

The water within the pool bubbled up, rising, twisting into a huge translucent dome.

Something bumped Rose’s elbow, and she jumped. “Jack!”

He regarded her with solemn eyes and held out his hand.

Declan passed her the knife, and she handed it to Jack. He sliced a lock from his head and tossed it into the fire. It went up in flames.

“Smells awful,” Rose said, ruffling Jack’s hair.

The water swirled, geysered up one last time, and snapped into shape.

SOMEONE was coming up the attic stairs. Georgie looked away from the picture. The attic belonged to him and Jack. It was a wondrous place. Huge piles of junk gathered against the walls: books, weapons, rusty contraptions, drawings, parchments . . . Down in the house, Rose cleaned up any hint of dirt and clutter, but here everything was messy and dusty. He liked it up here. It was quiet, and he could dream. Sometimes he imagined himself to be a pirate like Grandpa in the hull of his ship filled with treasure. Sometimes he was an explorer like Dad. Sometimes he was a demon . . .

A blond head emerged, followed by the rest of Declan. His long blond ponytail was gone, and his head looked lopsided, the hair on one side longer than on the other.

The blueblood paused for a moment, taking in the gloom and treasures, and looked at Georgie on his seat on a punching bag by a narrow window. Georgie sighed. There would be another talk about letting things die and “take their natural course.” He’d nod and do what he always did. A waste of time.

Declan crossed the floor, crouched by him, and looked at the metal frame in his hands. George offered it to Declan.

Grandpa Cletus stood in the picture. Very tall and red-headed, he wore loose dark pants and a light shirt, with a triangular hat set at a jaunty angle. A carbine, an ancient musket, rested across his shoulders, the stock held in his right hand, the barrel passing behind his neck. In his other hand, he held a long rapier, leaning on it slightly as if it were a walking stick. His eyes were alight with crazy mirth. Grandma said he looked like a grown-up version of Jack, wrapped in pirate garb. When he first dragged this picture down to show her, she clicked her tongue and said, “Fiercely loyal and utterly unreliable.” She didn’t smile for a whole day after that, and he hid the picture in the attic with the rest of his stuff.

“Grandpa,” George said, in case Declan failed to figure it out.

“I see.”

“What happened to your hair?”

“I got tired of it.”

George nodded and looked at him, waiting for a lecture.

“I’ve made something for you,” Declan said. “I’d like it if you came to see it with me.”

George followed him outside. A kiddie pool was in the middle of the lawn. Around it was a big complicated design made with rope and sticks. They climbed through the ropes. Declan stepped over the lines, while George ducked underneath, and they stood together at the rim.

A transparent dome rose in the middle of the pool, all the water bound together tightly by the magic. Within the dome sat a small settlement of crooked huts. Fields and forest surrounded it, giving way to a green plain. The top of the dome glowed with soft silvery light, and he could see every detail of the village, from the stones on the well to tiny creatures scurrying about. Shaped like little human-looking foxes with red, brown, and black pelts, the creatures went about performing small tasks, carrying water, tending the fields, fixing the thatched roofs. Georgie stared, mesmerized.

“What is that?” he asked finally.

“It’s a willworld. Do you know what a computer is?” Declan asked.

“Yes.”

“This is similar. It’s the Weird version of it, only unlike a computer, the willworld has a very specific purpose. It only does one thing, but it does it really well. I made it for my graduation project when I finished gymnasium.”

“Did it take you a long time?”

“A couple of years. The willworld itself is back at my house. This is just a facsimile . . . a copy. It’s an exact image of the device, made of water and magic and linked by magic to the original. You might say it’s a three-dimensional reflection. For all practical purposes, it’s pretty much like having the real thing at your disposal.”

George watched the foxes as they carried long stalks back to their huts. “Are they alive?”

“No. They’re magic constructs. Strictly speaking, they don’t actually exist. If you were to break the dome, you couldn’t pick one up. The whole thing would simply go dark. Look here.”

Declan walked over to the side, where a watery control panel protruded from the dome. “The willworld is a simulator. It lets you study the progress of civilization and see how it might develop. You control the world. You can make it rain or you can cause a drought. Here.” He turned a dial.

Water rose within the dome, streaming over the fields. The foxes climbed atop the huts. He turned the dial the other way, and the waters fled.

Declan tapped the keys. The inside of the dome swirled and formed a small white-walled city with gardens and carved white towers. “This is a standard city, a kind of default. Everything is going well. There is plenty of food, the weather is mild, and the civilization prospers.”

Georgie watched the city for a few minutes. Tiny foxes in bright robes lectured before their students in the gardens, strolled through the marketplace, and danced in a square while two other foxes played oddly shaped instruments.

Declan pressed another key.

“See this sign?” He pointed to a horizontal double loop in a small window. “I just set their generation length to infinity. They are now immortal. They can kill each other, but they won’t die of natural causes. I also sped things up a little, so we don’t spend all night watching a single scenario. Now this city is stored within the willworld. Anytime you wish to return to it, push this button right here and the world will be reset.”

For the first few minutes nothing happened. Then the city began to grow. It filled the fields, spreading, sprawling, growing higher and higher. In twenty minutes the city completely swallowed the dome. Streets became tunnels. Towers turned into tall contraptions. Creatures stumbled about in crowded streets. The city had grown filthy and dark, its buildings decrepit.

“What’s happening?” George whispered.

“Overpopulation. There are too many of them. There is not enough food or space. The old ones won’t die, and they keep making more children.”

In thirty minutes, the creatures began falling on the streets, crawling through the filth, searching for scraps of food. Declan reached to reset the dome.

“No. I want to see,” George said.

“It won’t be pretty,” Declan warned.

“I understand.”

Declan let it go.

Fires broke out. The creatures formed gangs and began ripping each other apart, feeding on the severed limbs.

George stumbled away from the dome and closed his eyes.

“Are you unwell?” Declan asked.

Georgie shook his head. They ate each other. The little foxes ate each other.

“Let us continue then. Take two.”

George looked at the dome in time to see the darkness swirl. The perfect little city reappeared.

Five minutes into it, one of the foxes began to cough. The cough spread, first to the neighbors, then farther, engulfing the entire city.

“The plague,” Declan explained. “They’re sick, but they can’t die. Sometimes death is the only way to stop the spread of infection. This sickness can’t quite kill them, but there is no cure.”

They watched the foxes shamble about in the dark, coughing in misery. When they started falling from exhaustion, George asked him to reset the dome.