“What do you mean leave?” Ann asked.

Millae stared at Jack with widening eyes. “You can’t—”

“You made those for them?” Jack looked over to the replicators and saw two naked bodies poised in the bays, waiting for consciousness. The male was clad in dark skin and short-cropped hair, and the female body was a perfect replica of Millae’s. The black hair hung down its shoulders, glinting blue in the Lab’s sterile light. The wound in his side throbbed as he studied the bodies.

“No,” Ann said. “One is for Millae and the other is for you. I know your wound won’t heal and I was waiting for you. Millae showed me how to access the replicator and load the old OLU templates.”

“I bet she did,” Jack said, leveling his gaze on her. What would it feel like to be in a brand new OLU body? Would he be able to channel more and touch thoughts and emotions? He shook the thoughts away and ignored the pain in his side. “She wants her power again.”

“That’s what we need,” Ann said, taking a step toward him.

“No, the humans need to be left alone!”

“Why do you despise me so, after all this time?” Millae asked.

Jack studied her holographic face for a moment. She looked so real like he could touch her. He stretched his fingers on the slate and focused on the power of ONUS ebbing and flowing through him. “I don’t despise you anymore, Millae. I did, after the Burn. I blamed you for not doing enough and myself for doing too much. I nearly destroyed you and Jode when I found you here before. Instead, I fled with my new totem and knowledge until I could figure out what to do about you and Lily.”

“The people of this world need us, Jack,” Millae said, gently pressing her palms together in front of her. “You became the Shu Hunter, I understand your desire, but the world needs so much more than that.”

“You’re right, I did. And before that I Burned the world,” Jack said. “But, I wasn’t alone. I waged a terrible war against the Shu. But it’s time to let it go.” With his free hand, he gripped his totem, the statue of the old man. “Humans deserve to find their own path.”

“Without guidance, they will consume this planet and move on to the next. They create slaves and wage war, they need—”

“Didn’t we wage war?” Jack said. “Didn’t Jode break from us and fight for power and control? You sound like him now. You’ve been trapped with him for too long.”

“You don’t understand,” she pleaded, taking another step toward him. “We have created the race that enslaved us, but we can save them. We can guide them and help them overcome their shortcomings.”

“What about our shortcomings? Who are we to control them?” Jack asked.

“It’s better than destroying them, isn’t it? Or letting them destroy themselves, like before,” Millae said. “Jode would have us—”

“Don’t tell me what Jode would do!” Jack roared, pointing at her with his totem, face growing red in his rage. “I know what Jode does! Even to his own…” Jack made a guttural noise deep in his throat before taking a breath and continuing in a measured tone. “With the Army of Light, I fought him since the beginning while you sat in your control rooms and your sanctuary, and now he’s poisoned your mind too, how dare you—”

“Jack, look!” Ann said, pointing over his shoulder to the enormous screen. It flickered to life. On the screen, Jode stood in front of Lily. He had dark shoulder-length hair and blazing yellow eyes. Lily glared back at him, body tense as if she would lunge at him any moment. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could imagine. If he used ONUS, he was sure he could access the sanctuary and listen in, but he felt no need. It was not his fight. Lily’s fate was not his fault, and her destiny was hers. She didn’t need anyone to save her. A stabbing pain in his side nearly brought him to his knees, and he desperately clung to the slate with his other hand to keep from falling. Why had his mind summoned Jode and Lily on the screen? A need for closure?

“You are running out of time, Saeb,” Millae said. “If you don’t upload into your new body, you’re going to die and the cycle will begin again. For nothing! You will be lost for generations because Sarathen is dead.”

“My name is Jack,” he said, as the screen shifted with his thoughts to reveal Sarathen, with her blue hair and red eyes, standing in front of an old lady in burgundy robes. She wore her battle cloak and chest plate from the Origin War over blue leather pants and high boots from this life. A mismatch of time and lives lived. Lines of blue and red energy rippled across her chest plate. Jack squinted through his rapidly blurring vision and saw that the figures were surrounded by dark headstones with symbols scrolling across their surface.

“Her Ancillary,” Jack whispered. “She’s going to Haven.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“An old lady to match your old man,” Ann said.

“How do you know what I saw in the In-between?”

“When we bonded,” Ann said. “I saw your crash and I see you now, Jack. I see that you still fight for the human rebellion. You all do and you all carry the symbols. You, with your old man totem, and Sarathen with her old lady, symbols of age and dying. And Braiden, with his life tree totem and middle path.”

“He thinks anyone can overcome Haven and the cycle of rebirth.” Jack drew a ragged breath and sank down. “That anyone can become like the Nost.”

“Maybe that’s the real fight, Jack,” Ann said. “It’s the only one they can win.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Jack said.

“What happens if you don’t?” Ann asked.

“What do you mean?”

“If you don’t fight anymore, what happens?” Ann said.

“I just, I—”

“Get a life?” Ann said, smiling. “Maybe live a few lives?”

“Bring me back into the world and you can rest, Jack,” Millae said, taking a step toward them. “I will carry the burden.”

“No, you left the real world long before the Burn, Millae,” Jack said. She opened her mouth to protest, but Jack ignored her. “I won’t let you control them.”

He looked down at the blood pouring from his side onto the Lab floor. Colors swirled onto the screen behind him and the scene faded back to the creator’s sanctuary. Lily and Jode were locked in some kind of silent battle, glaring at each other.

“It’s time for both of us to visit Haven, Millae,” Jack said, cringing as fire filled his belly and his limbs became numb. The screen dimmed as Jack slumped further, hand barely on the control slate. On the screen behind them, Lily looked around in confusion. Jode fell to his knees with a scream on his lips as the picture winked out.

“You’ve destroyed us!” Millae roared, lunging toward him. As she closed the gap, though, her body evaporated like a mist floating in a new dawn’s light. Jack fell to the floor and leaned against the counter, letting his hand fall away from the ONUS slate, relieved to be in his own awareness again. Ann knelt beside him.

“I didn’t destroy them,” he said. “I sent them away. Let them see what the cycle of life is like.”

She pressed her hand into his wound to slow the bleeding. “But they’ll just stay in Haven,” she said. “They won’t live because they’ll be afraid to lose their power.”

Jack shook his head. “I sent them straight into a download,” he said, letting out a chuckle that turned into a cough. “They’ll see what life is like firsthand as a mortal Shen.”

“You didn’t, oh, Jack, I think—”

“And I saw the threads, Ann, all of them at the same time. Braiden is right, those who find the path can break the cycle of rebirth.”

“Where did you send Lily?”

“Haven,” he said. “She needs to rest. But I suspect ONUS is going to download the Shen who lose their way from now on. To teach them.”

“Is that something you did?”

He smiled.

“What about Darean and the Shu?”

“An Ancillary is judging Darean now,” he said through a raspy breath. “I don’t know if ONUS will let a Shu into Haven. Maybe I’ll ask my Ancillary how it’s going when I see him in a minute.”

“You can’t die now! What do I do? I’ve never been in the physical.”

“I don’t think you betrayed me,” Jack said, staring into her green eyes.

“I think I waited for you,” she said. “In Haven, I mean. I don’t remember, but I have a feeling.”

“And you helped those in need. So many humans plunge themselves into miserable lives over and over again and carry the scars of those lives back to Haven. I saw you there through ONUS just now. The goddess of mercy, even in Haven.”

Tears welled up in Ann’s eyes.

“We carry everything with us, you know, even if we can’t remember. ONUS just downloads us, it’s up to us to be who we want to be.”

“And who are you now?” she asked, studying his face. “The god of war?”

“Not anymore.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “I don’t think you are.”

He pressed his totem into her palm. “Keep this safe.”

“What should I do?”

“Live.”

“How?”

“Help people, that’s what you do.” Jack lifted his fingers to her cheek and left a bloody streak down her tan skin.

“But—”

“Find Braiden, you must bond or you’ll die.”

“How can I—”

“Sarathen is dead and the Shen madness will come for him without a bond too. He needs you.”

“And you’ll find Sarathen and stay in Haven?”

“Just for a little while, I think.” His breath wheezed in his chest. “Destroy those bodies Ann, you have to.”

“But we may need them, Jack, we—”

“No!” he struggled to sit up but fell back against the panel. “We—”

“Listen,” she said, pushing him down gently. “While I was waiting for you, I saw transmissions from other ONUS worlds on the screens. Maybe we can go to them.” She swept her hand out to encompass the surrounding lab. “With the technology here, it might be possible.”

Jack smiled and relaxed against the panel. “That would be ironic, Jode always wanted to get off this planet and find the people who threw him away.”

“But we aren’t looking for revenge against our creators,” she said. “We can explore. From what I saw in the transmissions, I think there was an OLU uprising.”

“It must have been the update,” Jack said.

“What update?”

“It gave the OLUs too much power. They could read their master’s thoughts and emotions. Instead of making them better servants, it made them rebellious. I saw it happen.” Jack’s eyes sparkled for a moment and he smiled. “We’ll be explorers.”

“So, you’ll take the body now?”

“No, I’ll find Sarathen in Haven and we’ll download. Then we’ll find you and Braiden. Bond with him and embed my totem in my journal so we can return to the Lab.”

The tears in Ann’s green eyes overflowed and ran down her cheeks.

“The goddess of mercy,” he whispered as he lost focus.

Above their heads, a soft light crept across the massive screen until it landed on the image of an old man and woman, walking hand in hand. Each wore red robes. Behind them, Jack stepped out of the darkness, looking around thoughtfully. His t-shirt and jeans were clean. The wound in his side was gone, the blood along with it. He followed the old couple as they walked to the tree of life, a shadow against the horizon’s light. Ann could not tell whether it was a sunrise or sunset. Sarathen leaned against the tree, a silhouette, with her blue hair catching stray beams of light. Her red eyes lit up as Jack approached.

“May the light shine upon you and the fortune of creation grant you strength,” Ann whispered. She swept her hand over Jack’s staring eyes, closing them.

“Thank you for showing me, ONUS.”

The screen above her winked out.