“Thanks… but it’s not what’s supposed to happen.”
James’s eyes dart back and forth. “What?”
Matilda coughs.
“Listen… thank you for helping me figure out who I am… but there is one final thing…”
James looks down at his hand.
She has placed all the keys in it – Virginia’s bracer, Hank’s band, and Simmons’ keycard. Completing the set is her own titanium pendant.
“Hey now, come on, we’re doing this together…”
Matilda shakes her head.
“Despite what the A-holes think about me, only a human should access the bunker. Not me. But if you wait too long, the doors will close until the System tries again. God only knows how old you’ll be then.”
Her smile fades slightly.
“There’s only one way.”
James knows what she is asking, and he doesn’t like it.
“No. I can’t…”
Matilda’s fading smile brightens again until is the beaming one he remembers.
“I’ve been taking people’s lives for too long. It’s time to give mine. Open yourself up to me, and get in that bunker.”
James takes a deep breath, and then does the one thing he’s trained himself never to do with a Scry.
He lets his firewalls down.
Time slows to a crawl, and all he sees is Matilda’s green eyes. Nothing else. He sees the story of her life. Without words, she tells him everything. All the secrets, hopes and desires she had, when she was a human. So many plans for a teenage girl, pointlessly cut short as she walked home on a dark road.
James deactivates his barriers and opens his directories, fully connecting with the Scry. In an uninterrupted, wideband flood, she gives away everything that is her, everything the System wants her to be. James sees each of the myriad lives she’s lived, each manifestation that has tried to get this far and failed.
He removes his final barriers and opens his own memories. He is naked to his core, from his birth to this moment. He sees the world they have both left behind. Not the destroyed wasteland, but the green, vibrant planet of his youth.
In his mind, James hears Matilda’s voice.
It’s time now, James. I believe in you. I ask one thing. Remember me.
“Remember me,” he finds himself whispering.
James comes back to himself – to the world around him – to find the bunker collapsing. To see everything, like never before.
Every byte, every trace, every line of code, every class and template of the System are open to him now. Every decision and branching consequence plays out before him as he moves. Donovan tries to shout something, but he cannot hear it. James moves towards Donovan as the guards find their guns dissolving in their hands.
Donovan’s eyes track James as he approaches, but he cannot move. His smile has been replaced by an expression of confusion and utter rage. James stands in front of Donovan. Reaching into his jacket. Removing his key.
Powerless, Donovan and his guards look on as James moves beyond them, towards the bunker. As James places a steady hand on its door, Donovan’s muffled voice finally breaks through the crisscrossing, overlapping images of all possible courses, all possible outcomes.
“You think you can force human nature, James? Whatever you come up with, they’ll fuck it up. Mark my words. My way at least preserves order. Stops things from slipping into chaos.”
James turns to face him.
“I’m not going to force anything, Donovan. I’m just giving us all another chance.”
And with the last word, he enters the bunker before it vanishes.
Chapter 23: “Postmortem”
James finds himself in his old Fall Water Lake office, the place in which he’d worked so relentlessly on the System’s creation.
He’s alone, and the only sound comes from the computers that have been left running to compile code and sift through data overnight. Settling back in his office chair, he glances at the clock. 11 PM. A late start to what will be a long night.
Closing his eyes, James reflects on the journey that has taken him here… and the time he shared with a Scry along the way. Their meeting in Homestead, the battle with the slave traders, a short moment of peace in the Ohana. He recalls Babylon, Neverland, riding in a beat-up Caddy, the challenges of the Spire, the New Jersey forests, Metropolis and Tor’s Onikuma, the chaos of the Deep, Simmons’ Pyramid and the Triangle.
His mind’s eye lingers not just on the events, but on Matilda. Her silly quips and questions. Her honesty, her impulsive nature. Her fierce and brazen fighting style. Constantly calling him Gramps. James promised her one thing: That he will remember her. James takes an image of her face and stores it for safekeeping in the depths of his subconscious. A cherished gem, never to be forgotten.
With a sigh, James presses the tilde key on the keyboard and opens the computer console. One by one, he inputs commands to gain access to the repositories and directories of the System. They’ll need to be fixed, if his plan is going to work.
He doesn’t just want to restore everything. He wants to recreate the world just as it was. Before humanity entered the Cyberside.
James starts by resetting the System clock back to the year 2016. Just a few years before the rise of Fall Water Lake and the turning point for the world’s key political and social changes – changes that made humanity’s fate irreversible. He carefully reconstitutes the timeline from the System’s archives. He reverts everything to default–tweaking the settings for a world from his past that he, and everyone else, will wake up to.
Opening the System’s geolocation module, James’ starts rebuilding the landscape to suit his new timeline. He turns on the servers of all blacked-out regions, restoring cities to their original names and structures. He repopulates streets with their proper 2016 monikers – no more Devil’s Crosses, consortiums, enclaves, spires, or alliances.
Next, he examines current traffic code and indexation rules. Without the severe power drain incurred by the key holders, it appears there is enough energy to supply every Locale. James comments out segments of old code and begins replacing them with code of his own. No more traffic dependencies. No more indexation. Full freedom of movement for everyone with his new Cyberside.
James accesses the persona shell database and pulls the logs of all users who have existed in the Cyberside. Countless names are flagged as ‘anomalies’ and ‘mutations.’ He updates the code to normalize any existing errors – converting them to regular human forms. All those Scry, Puppeteers, emotion smugglers, and Hermits will start their day as managers, salesman, workers, and teachers. All able to wake up from this nightmare and start their own path. Like everyone else, they’ll have no recollection of the old Cyberside or their actions in it.
Delving into the Ocean’s deep-archive files, he has the power to reset not only the world, but all those who died within the Cyberside. Using his newfound knowledge of the System, he codes a script which parses scattered information dust and reassembles itself within the framework of the original persona. He makes sure they won’t have any memory of what happened to them when they come back online.
Almost ready to commit his changes, James pauses. He considers those who attempted to stop him on his quest, then pulls up a few key names from the encrypted Fall Water Lake files.
Starting with Virginia, he carefully restores her backed up personality from the System’s Vault. Tomorrow, after a harsh meeting, Virginia will go out for a drink and run into her old college friend. With a little bit of kindness in her life, Virginia will start to see the world differently. Within three years, she’ll share her life with her partner and two remarkable children. She’ll ultimately receive an offer to become a UN spokesperson, dealing with corporate law and high-end technology. James doesn’t write her decision into the plan, but he hopes she’ll pick whatever makes her happy.