Smoke's Fire Read online

  “Enough of this,” Silver said. “You’ve made your point. Now, what do you want?”

  Omega nodded. “This,” he said, pointing at the sphere, “is a problem.” He frowned. “Your gods, like all of them, in all the threads that have them, that have people in them…” He spread his hands. “They innovated here. They created you, and people like you.”

  “Like me?” Silver said. “Like me how?”

  “Guides,” he said, nodding to Smoke. “Shepherds.” He waved, and there was another succession of figures. A skinny ape-man carrying a sharp stick, fire-blackened. Another hulking, heavy-browed giant. A gracile man in buckskin. “You, and your friend Gold.” He waved, and the figures faded. “They created all of this, through you.”

  “But,” he continued, “things got…out of hand. These Alphas…the machines…” Omega shrugged. “They thought faster than the Gods…and they managed to centralize the storage here.” He looked at her and Smoke. “This is drawing a lot of…well, power is a good analogue. The gods simply stored them for analysis. It’s what they do. This thing,” he gestured at the sphere. “It’s causing a problem. A fundamental problem.”

  “A problem,” Smoke asked, “for who?”

  Omega wrinkled his nose. “For everyone. For everything.”

  “For wherever you come from?” Silver asked. “Is that what you mean?”

  “I mean everything. Unstopped.” He pointed at the sphere. “This will deadlock everything. The universe, all of it”—he gestured, spreading his fingers—“will end. Even where I come from.”

  “What, do you need us to do?” Silver said. “Can’t you do it?”

  “I’m not really here,” Omega said. “Not really.” He shrugged. “It’s very complex. Information can pass from me to you, to here…but nothing else. I can’t do anything.”

  “Spit it out,” Carter said. “What do you need us do to?”

  “Cut the cable,” Omega said. “If you cut it, we can…reset things.”

  “There are more of you?” Silver said. “Of course there are. Tell me where you’re from. A thread like the Center.”

  Omega shook his head. “No,” he said, “we’re sort of outside of that. Outside of the threads, this Tapestry”—he nodded to Smoke—“that they’re part of. Outside.” He gave a rueful shrug. “Close enough of an analogy.”

  “How deep does it go?” Smoke asked. “This stack of simulations?”

  Omega smiled broadly. “Good question! The real question. Nail on the head, sir.” The man frowned. “Nobody knows,” Omega said. “Only that it’s at risk.”

  “And you’re like, the cleanup crew?” Carter said. “You solve these problems?”

  “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Omega said. “At least, not to my knowledge.”

  “What created this system?” Smoke asked. “Can you tell us that?”

  “Nobody knows,” Omega answered. “Nobody can tell. Kind of the beauty of it, really. We didn’t. Not my…kind. We sort of inherited it.” He shrugged. “We’re wasting time. And there’s not much left.”

  “Smoke,” Silver said. “Can you get a message down there? To Grandmother?”

  “I can try,” he said. “I think so, if you help.” He looked at Omega. “Can you help?”

  “I can,” Omega said, softly. “Will you do it?”

  “This reset,” Silver said. “Does it just start everything over from jump? From the big bang? We cut the cable and then you take over.”

  Omega shook his head. “Cutting the cable will isolate this node. Then we can act to reset the system. It would start over, as you say.” He peered at her. “But I can…well, bring you along. Into the new system. Port you, so to speak. I can do that.”

  “More of the same, though, right?” Silver said. “The First will be in this new universe, too, won’t they? Isn’t it inevitable?”

  “In an infinite universe of threads, eventually one of them will spawn something like the First,” Smoke said. “Isn’t that the concern? And then this happens over.”

  “Maybe,” Omega said. “Maybe not.” He smiled. “It’s that or let it all stop. Seems worth the risk.”

  Silver considered it. “I want off the wheel,” she said. “Can you do that, if we do this?”

  Omega looked at her. He nodded soberly. “I can do that.”

  “Me too,” Carter said. “Fuck this immortality bullshit.” He grinned at Silver. “Like that guy in The Matrix. I just want a steak.”

  “Not really like that, I don’t think,” Omega said. “But I’m no expert.” Omega inclined his head to Silver. “So? Tick tock.”

  “Do it,” Silver said, to Smoke. “Tell her. Tell her to talk to Gold. She’ll know what to do.”

  “You sure?” Smoke asked. “You trust him? We don’t know what will happen.”

  “None of us ever know what will happen, Smokey,” Silver smiled. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Grandmother walked through the chaos of battle towards Truck and Gold. Gold was on top of the cage, firing with deliberate precision at an encroaching knot of spiders. Chips flew off them as her rounds drove home. One staggered and reared up. Grandmother gestured, and it crumpled into a ball of sticks and spindly, thrashing legs.

  Gold looked up at her. “Thanks,” she said. “I probably had them.”

  Grandmother smiled. “Maybe,” she said. She looked around. The Boy’s cadre of Seekers were clashing with the remnants of the Unit, trying to reach her. “Your friends send a message.”

  “Oh,” Gold said, slotting a fresh magazine into her rifle. “What’s that?”

  “Silver says to cut the cable. She says it will get you off the wheel,” Grandmother says. “She says good luck, too.” Grandmother looked at her. “Make sense?”

  Gold considered it. “Maybe,” she allowed. She looked at Li. “I’m pretty sure I know what she means.”

  “Can you do it?” Grandmother asked. “I’m fading. His forces at the Center are closing my link here.”

  Gold looked at her. “Sorry about that.” She nodded to Murn. “What about her?”

  “Can you help her?” Grandmother nodded at the frightened girl. “At least for a while. I have a feeling her story doesn’t end here.”

  “Isn’t that the point?” Gold asked. “But sure,” she said. “Up you come, girl.” She held out her hand, helping Murn up and into the cage.

  Gold turned back to Grandmother, but the old woman was gone. She had vanished when Gold had been helping Murn. “So…” she said. “That’s that then.”

  She turned back to Li. “Hang on,” she said. “Going for a ride.”

  She gave a shout to Truck, and he chuffed into life. “Let’s roll,” she shouted, slapping his broad turret. “Get me over there!” She pointed to the barricaded Unit position, where smoke billowed and guns crackled.

  Truck lurched forward, wide arms spread into fists, hooting alarms as he charged. Gold locked her weapon and sighted down it at a line of spiders in their path. She fired into them as Truck revved up and swept them aside with a wide arc of his arms. Gold screamed her battle cry as they smashed into the Unit’s lines, scattering friend and foe alike.

  A discontinuity. Truck was smashed, behind her, swarming with spiders who were slashing down into the cage. She emptied her magazine into them, clearing them off. Truck was leaking fluid and black smoke. She looked for Li, but the cage was engulfed in flame.

  Then she was in a knot of fighters, Unit fighters, clustered around the pile of their remaining gear. Beams sizzled from the Guides, firing from hidden positions. Warren was dead, Gold saw, her lifeless eyes staring up at her from where they’d lain her. Lawson, the Archer, looked up at her. He nodded to the package at his feet, the silver cylinder laid on its side. A red light blinked on it, on and off, on and off. There was a splash of blood on it.

  “All yours,” he said. “I think you just push that.” He looked at her. “The red button.” He was bleeding fr
om a dozen wounds. He nodded to her. “Go on. Do it. They’re coming.”

  She looked up. The Spiders were massing. One of them bore a child-sized figure on its back, waving a white gun. Gold grinned, smiling up at Lawson with bloody teeth. “You Marines are pretty tough,” she said. She reached out, clasped hands with him. He smiled weakly. Like this?” She stabbed a finger down. The world ended.

  He could smell the sea. It was a beautiful early summer day. The sky was blue and cloudless, and the sound of families and children enjoying the park reached his ears before he opened his eyes. He was home, he knew it instantly. The home of his long-ago dreams, the home he had forsaken, lost to his own hubris, that he could change anything.

  Carter walked out of the trees onto the soccer field. A game was underway. His daughter was playing. She was goalie. He watched as she looked behind her at a loose puppy. She looked up at him and caught his eye. He waved back, pointing back at the field, where a knot of girls were coming, giggling as they kicked the ball. The sky was a crystal blue dome overhead. He waved to his wife, and returned to their folding chairs on the sideline. His other daughter sat in her lap, staring up at him with wide, blue eyes.

  “Welcome back,” his wife said. “You were gone for a while. Get lost?”

  “Back now,” he smiled at her. “Back now.” He squeezed her hand. “Not going anywhere.”

  Gold stood with Li on the hill, looking down at the farm. The hill was terraced, scalloped into a dozen levels by generations of hands. Canals bisected the green fields. She touched Li’s shoulder, brushing the woman’s pale hair from her temple. Li carried a broad straw hat, wore a simple blue shirt and breeches. They were both barefoot. From the house below them, a wisp of smoke curled from the fireplace. The stream fed their pond, spilling through a water wheel and creaking its axle.

  Gold took Li’s hand in her own. She threw back her head and laughed. Li laughed with her, the sound like the tinkling and falling of bells. They walked together down the road to their farm.

  Tarl and Murn approached the Tree at the Center. He held her hand, cool and warm. She looked up at him and smiled. “Hungry?” she asked. It was a balmy dusk, and the smell of food from the dining platforms, crowded with diners, made his stomach rumble. He nodded, and they walked in silence to the Tree.

  “I am,” he said. “I’m Tarl.” He said to her.

  “I know who you are, silly.” She smiled, face bright and painful for him to look at. “I remember,” she said, a brief shadow passing over her. “But it’s foggy.” She shrugged. “Let’s talk after we eat! I’m starving!”

  Grandmother greeted them at the entrance. “Glad you could join us,” she said. “Welcome home, Tarl.”

  He nodded to her. “It’s different here, somehow.”

  She nodded. “Many changes,” Grandmother admitted. “Some good, some less good, in the way of things. Friends are gone, but new ones can be made.”

  “I don’t want more Seekers,” Tarl said. “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Of course,” Grandmother agreed. “It’s not a good idea. We’ll have other pursuits. Plenty to do. But we can talk later about all that. Tonight, we can celebrate our friends, and lament their passing. It’s bittersweet, like all endings.”

  “Is he here?” Tarl asked, craning his neck to scan the diners on the platform.

  Grandmother shook her head. “No,” she said simply. “He was there, in that place, when the link was cut.” She spread her hands. “Time for new blood in that function, for someone new to preserve our continuity.” Her eyes twinkled. “You can start tomorrow.”

  He laughed, then, and Murn laughed with them, as they climbed the steps into the Tree, where friends old and new were waiting.

  Silver looked up. She was on a riverbank, green springtime forest behind her. Jessica stood nearby, staring up into the blue, cloudless arch of the sky. The river babbled and gurgled. Silver laughed. Jessica turned to look at her, looking down at herself. She had no clothes, no pack, nothing. Free.

  She was nude, like Jessica. The breeze off the river was bracing, still cool from the melted snowpack that fed it. She knew this river, this bank, this green bright morning. As she looked, a little girl toddled down the bank, intent on the stones. She carried a stick, and was poking among the stones. Her dark hair was cropped short to her head, and she wore a simple smock of brown rough spun cloth. She looked up and saw Silver. The girl’s eyes were very blue.

  Silver approached her, and the girl’s face furrowed in anger. “Looking for toads?” Silver said to her, in her language.

  The little girl nodded. “Toads live here,” she said, voice high but face very serious. She waved her stick. “In the rocks.”

  “No toads in these rocks, little sister,” Silver smiled. “Run along now. They’ll be looking for you.” She pointed up the riverbank, where two figures appeared. Two girls, cut from the same stamp, pale eyes and brown faces. They waved at the little girl to join them. “Run along,” Silver said again. “Nothing good for you in these rocks.”

  The girl went, not looking back. Silver watched her go, craning her neck for one last look at the two girls. One grabbed the toddler by the arm and led her away, casting suspicious glances back at Silver and Jessica.

  Jessica looked at her. “Somebody you know?”

  “Kind of,” Silver said, shrugging. “I don’t know, really. This seems familiar, but…” She stood and spread her arms to catch the sun. “What now?”

  Jessica smiled at her, taking her hand. “Whatever we want.”

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  Rich X Curtis

  Also by Rich X Curtis

  THE TAPESTRY CYCLE is a four book sci-fi technothriller series spanning millennia and a multiverse of worlds to unravel an advanced Mind before it threatens humanity itself.

  Book 1: SILVER’S GODS — An Amazon Top 100 Best Seller! Silver, a tool of mysterious gods that have guided her dreams for thousands of years, races to confront a rogue AI before it triggers a cross-dimensional cataclysm.

  Book 2: GOLD’S PRICE — Exiled in time, Silver and Gold battle to find each other in a future dystopian China, unraveling a mystery at the heart of the multiverse.

  Book 3: SMOKE’S FIRE — Smoke battles a rebellious Center as he scours the Tapestry for allies in the final battle to save all of existence from the nihilistic gods.

  The Prequel: SHADOWS AND SMOKE — A spy for the enigmatic Select is sent to Earth to seek answers to an ancient mystery, and is drawn into a conflict between old gods and new.

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  About the Author

  Rich X Curtis is a novelist. A Californian living in New England. Always a fan of adventure stories and science fiction, he has worked as a sous-chef, literary editor, video game designer, loaded trucks in a warehouse, and toiled in the software mines. Mid-century modern is his jam, as his kids say these days. Get off his lawn. The X marks the spot.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18<
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  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Also by Rich X Curtis

  About the Author