It has cornered her in one of the complex’s electrical rooms. There is only one way out, and to escape, she must pass the Silencer—and that will be impossible.
The Silencer does not rush. There is no hurry. It glides across the puddled water deliberately, closing the gap. The prey pauses near the back wall; perhaps she realizes she has nowhere to run, no place to hide, no choice but to turn and face the thing that sooner or later must be faced. She veers to her right and jumps, reaching for a handhold in the three-foot space between the top of a box and the ceiling. Her hand wraps around one of the incoming lines and she hauls herself into the tiny niche.
She’s trapped.
The oldest part of its human brain is alerted before the highly advanced processor embedded in its cerebral cortex: Something is not right.
The Silencer pauses in its charge.
Item: A thick, rust-colored high-voltage cord dangling loose—cut or pulled free from the junction box.
Item: A thin sheet of water covers the floor and pools around its feet.
The processor in its brain cannot slow down time but can slow down the host’s perception of it. In the ache of time grinding to a crawl, the power line falls from the prey’s hand in a graceful, sweeping arc. The light sparks off the exposed wires as they descend languidly as snow.
Too far from the doorway to run. And the boxes on either side of the Silencer are flush with the ceiling; no open space into which it can jump.
The Silencer leaps, extending its body to its full length parallel to the ground, flying a foot above the floor, arm outstretched, fingers spread wide, its only hope to catch the crimson cord before it makes contact with the water.
The line that gracefully falls slips through the Silencer’s fingers. The light glints off the wires as they touch ground, silently, like falling snow.
96
RINGER
I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE, lying helplessly beneath the constant sterile glow.
Razor would come to me while my body fought the losing battle against the forty thousand invaders the enemy injected into it. Razor would come to me, and his coming would sustain me, the hope he offered the tether that kept me from hurtling endlessly through the void.
He died to save me, and now his child will die with me.
The stairway door slams. Boots echo on the stone floor. I know the sound. I recognize the rhythm of his stride.
That’s why the Silencer didn’t kill you. It was saving you for him.
“Marika.”
Vosch towers over me. He is ten thousand feet tall, fashioned from solid rock, an impregnable battlement that cannot be broken, that cannot fall. His azure eyes shine as he looks down on me from unscalable heights.
“You’ve forgotten something,” he tells me. “And now it’s too late. What have you forgotten, Marika?”
A child bursts through the brittle stalks of winter-killed wheat, carrying a capsule-sized bomb within its mouth. Human breath enfolds the child and everything is engulfed in green fire, and afterward nothing remains.
The pill. His parting gift in the breast pocket of my jacket. I will my hand to rise and my hand won’t move.
“I knew you would come back,” Vosch says. “Who else would have the final answer but the one who created you?”
The words die on my lips. I can still speak, but what’s the point? He already knows what I want to ask. It’s the only question I have left.
“Yes, I have been inside their ship. And it’s as remarkable as you’ve imagined. I have seen them—our saviors—and, yes, they are also as remarkable as you’ve imagined. They aren’t physically there, of course, but you’ve already guessed that. They are not here, Marika. They never were.”
His eyes glow with the transcendental joy of a prophet who has seen heaven.
“They are carbon-based like us, and that is where all similarities end. It took them a very long time to understand us, to accept what was happening here and devise the only viable solution to the problem. Likewise, it took me a very long time to understand and accept their solution. It’s difficult to ignore your own humanity, to step outside yourself and see through the eyes of a wholly other species. That’s been your particular problem from the beginning, Marika. I had hopes that one day you would conquer it. You are the closest I’ve ever come to seeing myself in another human being.”
He notices something about my face and kneels beside me. His finger presses against my cheek, and my tear rolls over his knuckle.
“I am going away, Marika. You must have guessed that. My consciousness will be preserved for all time aboard the mothership, eternally free, eternally safe from whatever may happen here. That was my price. And they agreed to pay it.” He smiles. The smile is kind, a father to his beloved child. “Are you satisfied now? Have I answered all your questions?”
“No,” I whisper. “You haven’t told me why.”