Elation sang through him. At last … And there was still enough time: he had enough time to twist the knife. “There’s something I forgot to tell you,” he said. “Something else about the water of life. It isn’t just stable outside the body of a mer. It’s stable in the host.”
“What do you mean?” the Source rasped. “Stable for how long—?”
“Decades, at least. I’m not really sure. It’s working right now, taking the measure of your DNA, preserving every system and function in your body just the way it finds them at this exact moment. Nothing will change, everything will remain the same from now on… .”
“Then no one will need it more than once over decades,” the Source snarled. “There’s no profit in that—”
“I suppose not,” Reede murmured. “But that’s not the real problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“The real problem is what it does to you.”
“What—?” the Source breathed.
“The water of life was designed to produce longevity in mers, not human beings. The mers were bioengineered—their genetic makeup is far simpler than ours, far more streamlined. Our bodies were designed by trial and error; we’re a crude, inefficient mess by comparison.” Reede let a smile start; let the Source feel it grow, cancerous. “The water of life has a very narrow definition of ‘normal function’ for any given biological system. The only reason that human beings were able to use it to slow their own aging was because it was always breaking down. It never imposed limits on a human body for more than a day without interruption. It allowed the body the freedom it needed to change … to vary its natural cycles, its rhythms, its randomness. Chaos—” he said savagely, “versus Order.”
He pressed forward, on the cutting-edge of darkness. He could see a silhouette clearly now, as the space before him flickered, momentarily brightening. He could not tell what it was the silhouette of; but he was beyond caring. “Pretty soon your short-term memory is going to start failing. Pretty soon you’ll be living in isolation, because your immune system won’t be able to respond to an attack… . Pretty soon you’ll be perfection. The Old Empire thought they’d found perfection. That’s what destroyed them. They say perfection makes the gods jealous… .” He pushed away from the hard edge of the night, laughing as he heard the Source swear again, a guttural, viscous sound. He realized that he could see the shadow outlines of his own hands, his body, now.
“I don’t believe you,” the Source snarled, and he heard fear in it. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Reede’s mouth twisted. “‘Things change.’ Do you remember when you said that to me? I do. Now the power is in my hands. You told me Mundilfoere took a long time to die… . How long do you think you’ll take—?”
“Why is it so bright in here?” the Source shouted in sudden fury, into the air. “It’s too bright in here!”
“Blame me,” Reede said. “It’s my fault. It’s my doing, Jaakola. My virals are taking over your body and they’re taking over your entire citadel too. Soon you’ll have no defenses at all.”
“It isn’t possible—”
“Then why is it happening?” Reede whispered. Only silence answered him. ”Would you like me to stop it? What if I could still stop it, would you give me “anything I wanted? Everything? How much do you really control, how long is your reach? What secrets do you know… what’s enough to buy back your life?”
“What do you want?” the Source grated, the words like chains dragging. “What—?”
“I want you to beg. You made me beg for Mundilfoere’s life, you stinking, sadistic bastard … I want you to beg me for yours.”
“Stop it.…”
“What?”
“Stop it! Stop, stop it, by the Unspoken Name, I’ll give you anything you want, you lunatic, everything, name anything you want, just tell me there’s a way to stop it!”
Reede began to laugh. “You can’t stop it—there isn’t any way.”
He heard a strangled sound of disbelief, or rage. “You braindead puppet! You madman!” Something lunged at him across the barrier between them; he danced backward, still laughing, untouched. “You’re killing yourself too!” the Source bellowed. “You fucking lunatic, you’ll kill us all!”
“That’s the idea,” Reede said softly. “That’s what I’m here for.” He began to back away. “Your enemies are coming, Jaakola. I’d run, if I was you. I’d hide… . Not that it’ll do you any good.” He turned, moving toward the doors, able to see them now, a faint outline in darker gray.
“Kullervo!” The ruined voice shrieked obscenities somewhere behind him. The room brightened, graying like fog at sunrise, revealing the featureless wall, the doors, growing closer with every step. If he turned back, he knew he would be able to see it now—the face of his nightmares, still screaming impotently. He did not look back.
He reached the doors, and flung himself against them with all his strength. They gave way, dissolving under his impact, so that he sprawled through into the daylight beyond.
Jaakola was screaming at the guards now, screaming for them to cut him down. Reede scrambled up and lunged into the closest of them, catching him in the stomach, knocking him flat. He grabbed the man’s fallen stun rifle; even as he rolled for it seeing the other guard raise his own gun, knowing that it would be too late.
A wall of white fire blotted out the blue expanse of sky, as the meter-thick ceramic of the window behind the guard blew inward with a blinding roar. Reede flung up his arms, covering his head as a hurricane of transparent shrapnel hurtled through the space around him. He was slammed back against the wall beside the guard he had sent down, lacerated in a dozen places at once as the fragments kept falling, as time itself seemed to go into slow motion. Already—the citadel’s defenses were failing already, and somehow everybody already knew it. Gods—it was happening too fast.
He staggered to his feet, bleeding, deafened. He saw the eyes of the man who lay beside him staring up at him, wide and unblinking; saw the dagger of shattered ceralloy protruding from his skull. There was no sign at all of the other guard; as his vision cleared he saw a spray of red splattered across the far wall like graffiti. He heard more explosions in the distance, dimly; felt them through the floor as the entire structure shuddered. There was no more shouting, no screaming, no sound at all now coming from the room he had just escaped. It was dark again in there, as he looked through the doorway.
He turned back in stunned disbelief to the gaping breach in the wall, the blue vastness of the sky beyond it; saw smoke tendriling upward as the thorn forest caught fire below. Smoke stung his eyes and throat as he stooped down to pick up the guard’s rifle. He turned away again, stumbling toward the lift. He beat his fist on the callplate; laughed incredulously as the doors opened to him and he found the lift waiting.
He gave it an override command, preventing it from stopping until he had reached his destination. He slumped against the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor as the lift dropped him level after level, its velocity varying from sluggish to precipitous. He stared at his bloody, stupefied reflection gaping back at him from the polished metal, wondering whether Niburu and the others were still waiting, or had gotten clear and gone up already.
If they weren’t crazy they’d gone, they’d saved themselves. If they hadn’t, he cursed them for fools; if they had he cursed them for abandoning him when he suddenly wanted so badly to live … wanted to live, had to live, to get back to Tiamat—because he had unfinished business there. What he had left undone there was more important than life itself, even his own life—
And he knew all at once that he would not die here like this—would not, could not. That if he had to murder and maim and crawl over broken glass, he would do it, because this was not his destiny; his destiny lay on Tiamat and he had to go home… .