XXVIII.

Vagari awoke alone in the mess hall and he was thankful. It gave him time to clear the tears from his eyes. Vagari lurched to his feet and made his way to the kitchen. He was surprised enough that they had running water in the shantytown, but more so that it seemed perfectly safe for normal humans to drink. There had to be one hell of a filtration system somewhere inside the dam that the kitchen module was hooked up to, he figured. Was it some kind of bunker they tapped into? The scavenger in Vagari wondered what else might be down there in that case – food, weaponry, people even? Though, if they knew a way in, he doubted that they’d have made their homes on top.

Vagari splashed water on his face, then stared down at his hands – monstrous things with long boney fingers and claws. They were the things of nightmares, things made for snatching children through open windows in cruel fairytales. And yet, in his nightmares they were usually human, the hands he wore before he let hell out of its cage. He cursed and shook his hands dry before prodding at the food printer. “Coffee, three sugars and two cream,” Vagari told it, not daring to get too hopeful.

“DID YOU MEAN ‘COFFEE CAKE – DESSERT-14?” the A.I. blared.

“Sure, close enough,” he replied with a shrug. “Guess liquids are out of the question.” Vagari took his cake and then sat down at one of the cafeteria’s tables to replay Brenin’s story in his mind. “A ship called the Tevat, and a messiah to guide it,” Vagari recalled from the night before, drawing allusions to ‘Noah’s Ark’. ‘The Godhead… A Jesus figure perhaps? Is it just mythological atrophy – their forefathers’ foggy retelling of things biblical?”

The ship was real, he knew that for sure. Whether or not it was the ‘Tevat’ or not, he couldn’t be sure, but it was real. The Being of Light was real too. Was she and the Godhead one in the same? Or, were they something else entirely? There were no shortages of mimics and charlatans in the world, biblical guise or not. Every town Vagari had ever been through had stories of some wanderer, some old woman, or some small child that lured unsuspecting people out into the wastes or simply close enough to eat them. The grain of salt that came with Esh’s words tasted bitter in his mouth.

Vagari hissed and slid his plate away with an irritated swipe of his hand. He could practically feel the strings tugging at his back, a feeling that repromoted that aging question of who was tugging the strings. Whose song did he dance to now? This ‘Mother’ figure, some ghost, or his own delusions? It annoyed Vagari to no end, the ambiguity of it all. Despite his sureness of the matter, there really was no hint that he was doing right, or even on the right path. “It’s like fate, isn’t it?” a voice called, drawing his attention to the entrance of the mess-unit. It was BP. “Or maybe like the breadcrumbs, like in your story? I mean, what are the chances of finding this place? Or finding clues along the way? Dr. Xu, he always scoffed at the idea of fate – really at anything unscientific… But, what else could it be?”

“Fate? I don’t believe in fate either,” Vagari said with a shake of his head, replaying the events of their journey so far in his mind. Surely enough, step-by-step, it all led them here – painting a blurry picture along the way. “Or coincidences for that matter. I know a pattern when I see one.”

“What do you mean?” BP asked, shuffling over to the table to join him.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s crazy, but…” Vagari began, retrieving his plate and cake before sliding it over to her. BP happily accepted his offering. “It’s not some universal force or some strange luck, all of… this! We’re being led, pulled along on a leash, on strings,” he suggested sharply, lingering on that last word as the tugging feeling returned with it. “Just like puppets. But, really, what’s the difference, right? From our perspective it might as well be fate.”

“What makes you say so?” BP said, swallowing the remnants of the cake slice in one satisfying bite. “Or, really, I should ask – led by who?”

“I don’t know,” Vagari admitted with a sigh. “And if there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s not knowing. But… I’ve felt a presence ever since I… ever since I found Alto. It’s more of a feeling – a feeling of fear, of aversion, and panic – but it comes from without though. I’ve felt it at key stages of our journey. That’s why I asked you if that was what you felt before, with the voice.”

“Woah,” BP uttered, eyes narrowed, looking more annoyed than shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me?! I could have, I don’t know, ‘felt’ around or something!”

“Ugh, I don’t know,” Vagari sputtered, tossing his hands up. “I didn’t believe me, why should you? I mean, I still don’t know if it isn’t just in my head. At first I thought it was me, dealing with it all, I guess… I just lost my best friend after all, but then I kept feeling it. Once more in the city, in the elevator at the lab, and again later on. But, I don’t think the feeling is the intent… I think it’s a side effect of something else – something watching.”

“Fwoo, thanks for that nightmare stinger,” BP said with a huff. “Who though? The light lady? The ‘Mother’ Dr. Xu mentioned?”

“Neither?” Vagari offered haplessly. “I’ve spoken with the Being of Light and what I felt there was something else entirely – a warmth, a comfort, familiarity. This feeling… It was the exact opposite: terror, disgust, aversion.” Vagari sighed, sliding his hands down his face. No, no I think it’s something else, some third party. I don’t know what they want, but… despite the feeling, I don’t think it has ill intent. I fell into the water, before you rescued me, and something spoke to me. I was filled with that horrible feeling and it gave me the strength to get back to the surface.”

BP scratched at her chin with the fork, pondering the situation a bit before replying with a whistle. “What do you think it wants?” she asked. “To help you? Then why the bad feeling?”

“Again, I don’t know,” Vagari hated to admit. “Something for sure. At very least it doesn’t want me dead.”

“That’s good, right?” BP replied with a crooked smile. “Really, as long as we’re doing good,” she said with a shrug, “does it really matter what they want? I mean, maybe it just wants to see you succeed, bring about that future you want? I know I do, and not just for me. I want it for Jeremy and Brenin too, for you and me, for everyone!” She huffed and propped her elbows up upon the table. “If it turns out I’m the right tool for the job, then so be it. I’ll play the game for that end.” BP smiled with those big bulbous eyes of hers and gave Vagari a thumbs-up. “And if we end up not liking what we’re being used for, we’ll just have to become the wrench in the machine, won’t we?”

“Cross that bridge when we get there, huh?” Vagari said with a smile and a curt laugh. “Fair enough, I suppose. Not much we can do about it anyways it seems. I just don’t like being a pawn in someone else’s game, for good or bad.”

“I’m not sure if there’s an option not to be,” BP offered solemnly but without the loss of her smile. “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

“Where did you hear that?” Vagari asked surprisedly. “That’s Burke, isn’t it?”

“Xu told me that actually,” BP answered, “and I believe it. So, I’d rather be the pawn of good than do nothing of my own freedom. We’re all pawns, I think, but we get to decide for whom and what cause. That’s why I chose you – your dream, your cause, it’s a good one. We may die a horrifying and painful death because of it, but you’re doing something good, unlike him.”

“You’re not a pawn,” Vagari uttered, not sure if it was a lie or not. He needed her and that was why he brought her along, but that wasn’t all. She was his friend as well, and she wanted to help. “So, boss, what now?” She pressed with a toothy smirk.

“Next, we leave,” He replied. “Xu can track the book, and me… So, every minute we stay here we put them in danger. They’re quite possibly the last uncorrupted humans alive and we can’t let that be lost.”

“I understand,” BP said, nodding firmly. “But, when it’s all over, can we come back here? To see them, and maybe get that glimpse over the wall?” Vagari smiled and mimicked her nod. “Of course,” he promised. “If we find any lost sheep on the ship, we’ll have to lead them home.”

Their departure and farewells were bittersweet. The two boys waved at them as they descended the wall back down to their ship. Both parties understood that it was for the best, that they wouldn’t be safe if they stayed or took the pair with them. But, neither of the two boys wept, seeing their leaving not as abandonment, but as hope for the return of their friends and family. They had left with no true promises, but hope was one thing Vagari couldn’t deny them. He promised himself however, that if he found any survivors, even just one of them, he would see them home to them. The dream of the waterfront, of Longborrow’s Lake, was still fresh in his mind. He could still hear her crying in the back of his mind. Vagari wouldn’t leave them behind.

The boat creaked angrily as they stepped down on it. Vagari was pleased to see their tooth anchor had done the job the real one hadn’t, and all was as they had left it. As he took the wheel and BP started the engine, he found his sense of North once more muddled by the dead demon’s influence. He groaned and pressed his forehead to the wheel. “Are you alright, Vagari?” Asked BP worriedly. “Does your head hurt? Or did we forget something up top?”

“Yes,” Vagari answered dryly, trying his best to shake the fog from his mind. “Our friend Esh is just reaching out from beyond the grave, is all. Doesn’t matter. We’ll just follow the dam, so lets be off! Before the allure of the food printer becomes too much to bare.”

The engine grumbled loudly as the recharged batteries brought it back to life, at very least until BP gave it a good kick, as she yanked their toothy anchor free from the plasteel brick. Moments later they were off, skirting the wall, the two waving black specks atop it quickly blurring into nothingness. BP sighed wistfully and moved to Vagari’s side. “Do you think they’ll be alright?” she asked for the dozenth time.

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“Now that we’re not there to draw Xu back there,” Vagari replied with a pause as he manned the helm, never once taking his eyes off the waves before them, “yes, I think they will be.” BP smiled the best she could before returning to the rearmost edge of the ship. There, she clung to the railing, watching the dam go by.

The next hour passed in a peaceful silence until, once more, a dark line dotted the horizon. This time, thankfully, it really was land. At very last, they had reached the eastern shore of that great lake, and as they closed in, an otherworldly landscape stretched out before them. Bordering the artificial mountain range the dam seemingly grew out of, was a wasteland of pitted orange dirt, caked and cracked under the sun. As they neared to shore, they could see where it got it’s vibrant color from. Numerous geothermal springs speckled the land inward: pools of boiling blue waters that spewed out clouds of minerals from deep within the earth. They showed brightly even in the shadow of the rockface, if only due to their piercing colors. “Wow, what are they?” BP asked as the pontoon ran aground on the shore. “They’re so pretty! And stinky… sheesh!”

“Sulfur pits, judging by the smell,” Vagari suggested. “Try not to touch the water, okay? Likely twice as toxic as the lake. You should really wear your shoes from this point on – just in case. They’re not like normal springs. We don’t rightly know what these are spilling out into the soil.”

BP nodded and plopped down on the deck to tug on her boots. They were fit perfectly but still felt wholly foreign to wear. After digging through their supplies for a change of clothes and their backpacks, Vagari helped BP with her laces. “It’s important that these don’t fall off,” he instructed.

“Yeah-yeah, I’ll keep them on,” moaned BP with a roll of her bulging eyes. “If my foot doesn’t fall off with them, jeez! Why are they so tight?”

“Again,” Vagari stated with a sigh, “it’s important that these don’t fall off – or get caught and trip you up, or any other numerous things.” He stuffed the laces inside. “Walk around. Do they feel alright?”

“Perfectly uncomfortable,” BP said with a groan, “but they fit.”

Leaving the boat behind, BP anchored it fast to the plasteel brick once more for their assumed return. Vagari said nothing to douse the fire of that assumption, even though it was one he doubted. What he didn’t doubt was that they were going into battle, which his new attire reflected to some degree. Now it was more utility than fashion: baggy black tactical pants, a matching leather vest with the back cut out, and a backpack that’s straps were bound around his waist – none of which would hinder him in the least if push came to shove. He missed the guise offered by his cloak, but there would be no time to be ashamed of his form. Shoes were also missing from his getup, a fact that BP sourly pointed out. “I’m made of tougher stuff,” Vagari announced with a pitiless shrug. “Not much can pierce even my unarmored skin, and I highly doubt Xu’s men will try and shoot me in the foot.”

“Well, that’s just not fair,” BP replied in a whine. “They feel wrong!”

“Them’s the breaks, innit?” Vagari said snidely. “If you can get a papercut, you wear shoes. You can. I can’t. You’re wearing the boots. So, once more unto the breach,” he said, prodding at her back to push her forward, “right?”

“Yeah-yeah…” BP muttered, waddling awkwardly, “once more…”

Despite being surrounded by pits of boiling water, the area had a strange coldness about it. Whether it was something mental or just the looming shadow of the descending ridge above, neither could tell. But, whatever the cause, it did nothing to halt the sweat from their brows as they zig-zagged between the gaseous pits. Silence seemed to dominate there, lending to an unease, and the sense that they were being watched from on high. BP sensed nothing, but neither could shake the feeling. Eventually, they made it past the outstretching length of the dam’s earthen anchor, leaving all signs of it behind them around a mile inland. There, the sulfur pools grew further and further apart between long strips of sand until sand was all there was. The scenery changed so fast, it almost felt like another fever dream, as if Vagari had closed his eyes, blinked, and was back in the Eastern Wastes outside the Megacity. BP and the memories reassured him that that wasn’t the truth of it.

They walked into the desert, trudging along until they had to camp for the night. Then, when they woke up, they walked some more. The morning passed and the sand began to solidify, turning to stone. The dunes flattened, transforming into rocky hills and dips. It was then Vagari managed to pinpoint that strange chill in the air. Ever since they crossed ashore, there hadn’t been a single sign of life – no bugs, no birds, nothing at all. It was just as it had been in the ship graveyard, and that sense of coldness grew stronger with every passing moment. There was a demon at the heart of the place, one like Esh – one, no doubt, of unfathomable power.

Was it the ship’s guardian perhaps? Some foul thing aligned with Xu and his master to play jailer? Or was it the opposite, in that the growing feeling wasn’t because they were getting closer to it, but because it was getting closer to them. Vagari very much disliked that thought, as did BP when he voiced it. “We should be prepared if it shows,” he said firmly.

“If it’s anything like the last one,” BP asked genuinely, “what could we even do? You nearly died, and… Esh was well beyond my abilities,” she said tapping on her temple with two stubby fingers. “I don’t want to chance another one.”

Vagari freed a resigned sigh. She was right, what could they do? The demon Esh had such power under its command it caused a maelstrom and pneumatic lightning to rain from the sky. If the angel hadn’t shown up when it did, there was no doubt in his mind that they wouldn’t have left that place alive. If whatever lurked before them, sapping the world of warmth and life, was half as powerful… Vagari could only frown at the dread inducing idea. He felt around for the book in the bag at his back. Freeing it, he stared down at the demonic face carved into the tomes cover. “Well, if it does come to blows,” he said softly, daring to open it for the first time in over two-hundred years, “I’ll just have to hit harder.”

“Do you think there’s something in there that could help?” BP asked, a hint of fear in her croaking voice. “Isn’t it… dangerous?”

“I don’t know,” Vagari admitted solemnly. “It’s dangerous in the wrong hands, sure… And I can’t say that mine are the right ones, but there is power in here. So, I’ll read it, and see what sense I can make of it now.”

BP frowned the best she could, muttering, “I don’t like it. It feels wrong, like… Like there’s something attached to it, or it has a mind of its own.”

“Wait, can you sense it?” Vagari asked with knit brows. Never before had he contemplated that the book might be an entity in its own right. He admitted a sense of relief when she shook her head ‘no’.

“I don’t sense any thoughts,” BP answered, “or feelings, or anything like that, but…”

‘But…’ wasn’t very reassuring, Vagari thought, his sense of relief dwindling. “But,” he continued for her, “you do sense something?”

“Yes?” offered BP meekly. “I don’t know… I just know I don’t like the feeling it gives me. So, if you read it… please be careful, okay?”

“I will, I promise,” Vagari agreed, meeting eyes with the stone visage in his hands, while telling himself in thought, ‘I won’t make the same mistake twice.’

That night they camped in a sandstone alcove. Vagari didn’t know why he waited until he knew BP was asleep to take up the tome, but it felt right that he had. Despite the years of his life spent in search of it, simply holding with that forbidden intention in mind felt like a crime of some sort – maybe against humanity, or GOD, or maybe just the souls lost to it. Vagari ignored that feeling and opened the book. It's stone pages lit only by the glow of the shattered moon above, he was surprised how easily the words came to him after all those years. The beyond ancient words seemed to knit together in his mind at an increasingly startling pace, so much so that he quickly slammed the book closed. Vagari’s heart raced in his chest as he paused to try and shake off the unnerving feeling. Was it his alien form making him more compatible with the writing, he wondered, or was it that something BP had mentioned? Maybe the tome was a kind of entity, some unknown shade of alive, and maybe it simply wanted to be read. None of the possibilities brought him any sense of comfort.

BP groaned in her sleep, and for a second he feared he may have woken her. The fear subsided with the continuation of her whistly snore. “It’s okay,” said the now familiar voice of the three-eyed girl. “You don’t need to be afraid of it. It was meant for you, and you it.” She, the Three-Eyed Girl, or the Being of Light, or the Godhead, they stood outside the alcove, staring up at the orbiting ruin above. Her blue eye shimmered in the darkness, reflecting the moon’s light like the eyes of a cat. “What do you mean?” Vagari asked, suspecting he knew the answer already. She smiled, knowing the hollowness of the question, but deigned to answer anyways.

“You were designed to read it,” she told him. “The knowledge is written within you.”

“Is what I’m looking for even in the damned thing?” pressed Vagari. “Or am I just satisfying a ghost’s morbid curiosity?”

“You mean Val, right?” The Three-Eyed Girl suggested idly. “Perhaps you are, but perhaps you’ll never find the answer, leaving those stones unturned.”

“Who are you, I mean really?” asked Vagari bluntly. “I know you’re not a ghost, and you’re not like any demon I’ve encountered. I can’t believe you’re just in my head either. So, are you the entity I saw in the vision, when I first touched the book, back in Eastend?”

“I AM, and I’m not,” the figure uttered. For the first time, she turned her gaze from the sky to him. “I’m a fragment, a sliver, all that being can project from their prison. Your little friend might call me a ‘node’.”

“So, you’re something like an A.I.?” Vagari hypothesized. “You’re not real, just a projected personality?”

“If that belief brings you comfort,” the girl said with a smile, “then it is so.”

“It doesn’t,” he replied flatly. “Nothing you’ve said or done has brought me comfort. Even the form you’ve hijacked – a familiar face, I assume you thought – does nothing to quell my dread. It’s cruel. The mystic poetry of it all is just cruel.”

The girl frowned, and a look of deep sadness overtook her. “Hers was the only viable connection,” the specter admitted, “the only one with strong enough ties to humanity. It was the only way to reach out to you. But, she isn’t gone either,” she continued. “She lives within me now. All she was, all her hopes an dreams, her feelings, and memories – they’re a part of me, as all Mankind was to be. She knows you did what you could, you know?”

“What was her name?” Vagari asked softly. “If she’s… If she’s a part of you now, what was her name?”

“Trois,” answered the fragment. “It’s French for three. Her eyes, her parents loved her eyes.”

Vagari whispered the name under his breath, then said, more to himself than the Three-Eyed Girl, “Nice to meet you, Trois.” He turned back to the thing wearing her face, and then asked sharply, “Who are you? Before I take another step… Because we’re close, aren’t we? I need to know exactly who you are.”

“You are close, closer than anyone’s been in a long time,” she admitted, turning her blue-eyed gaze to the lands just beyond the alcove. She rose a finger, pointing to the stary horizon. “A day further at your pace, I’d think. The connection is stronger here, but the tale is a long one… It’s the tale of humanity after all.”

“Don’t be coy, or I’ll turn around,” Vagari threatened bluntly. “I’ll leave. I wasn’t always Vagari – the wander, the monster… I was a man, Edward James Valentino. I was a scientist, a soon-to-be father. I wasn’t always the thing you see today! I wasn’t what this world made me – what I made me. And you, you weren’t always the ‘Godhead’, were you?”

“The Godhead…” the girl echoed. “I hated the worship… but it was what they needed – something to believe in, something higher than themselves. But, as you said, it didn’t start there, no. I’ll tell you what I can. I’ll tell you that I am good. I need you to believe that, not just for my sake, but for your own, for the world’s own. Believe me when I say, we are on the same side.”

“Then make me believe,” Vagari stated firmly. “There was never a villain gone by that didn’t say ‘trust me, I’m the good guy’.”

“I shall try,” she promised. “But, I wasn’t lying to you when I said it was a tale of humanity, because that is what I am. Finding who I was is finding a specific drop in the ocean after two centuries of wrathful seas… However, if this is the price for your help, I will gladly pay it unto you.” Vagari watched silently as the being stood in thought, seemingly searching within themselves. At long last, she broke her silence, saying to him, “My name was Elizabeth Zimmerman… and, I was you – a child who found their father’s gun…”