Requiem (77 page)

'Can you feel
that?' Seline asked.

'…Y- yes,
Seline.'

Amidst the
confusion and veiled depths of Seline's mind, Florence touched a
point of light. It burned within her hand, its gentle heat,
igniting her pale and faded memories. Untouched nor diminished by
words, Florence felt exactly what Seline felt. Within Icarus, all
subjectivity had been pushed aside. Within Icarus, a final refuge
for love had been carved out.

'I couldn't
pretend for a moment,' said Seline, 'that forgiveness comes so
easily. As hard as I may try, I can't force the years of hate away
so easily.'

'All I wanted
was to see you one last time, to tell you I'm sorry, that it's not
your fault.'

'I know that
now,' said Seline.

'You came such
a long way. I can see it. I can feel the memories inside your head.
Much has been hidden, even from yourself. It is hard to
understand.'

'I hid a lot
from myself and from others. I believed my memories began only
after I had left Earth, after you disappeared. I forgot the things
that hurt. I drowned them and tried my best to let them die
but...'

'It's alright,
dear.'

'It's just that
when I finally surfaced, when I finally came up for air and let the
memories back in, everything went wrong; beyond wrong, beyond
words.'

'I'm sorry I
wasn't there for you, dear, in the way that I should have been, but
Icarus was out of your control. It would have found Sol, it would
have found Earth and it would have destroyed it no matter
what.'

'I know.'

'You've already
done so much more than anyone should possibly expect, dear. Let me
take it from here.'

'What? What do
you mean?'

'We don't have
much time.'

'But... that's
what I need. I need more time... in here, with you.'

A hand found
Seline's. She held it tightly. The warmth flowed into her.
Imagined? No. Real.

'I'm afraid
time is something we no longer have, dear. I've uploaded the virus
from your optics. I will set it loose.'

'Mum?'

No reply. The
hand gripped tighter.

'Mum? We can
save you can't we? We can find a way!'

'I love you,
Seline. I always will.'

The hand yanked
at hers. Seline's mind receded through the corridors of screaming
minds. She was falling away, towards a white, streaming light. At
its centre she glimpsed her own reflection. The sensations of an
aching body came back to her: the heat from her breath against the
visor, the stale smell of sweat, and a dryness in her mouth. Tears
were rolling down her face.

A light flashed
across her eyes. A violence of blue. She was back in her suit,
outside the mind of Icarus.

Oxygen at 2
percent.

Therin was next
to her with a hand on Seline's shoulder. She'd attached a small
tube from her own oxygen tank and ran it to Seline's. Seline saw
the number in her optics return to double digits.

Oxygen at 11
percent. 15 percent. 21 percent.

A sense of
weight returned to her head. She was staring, face to face with
Therin. She swallowed. The walls of her throat sheered against one
another.

'Mum?' she
croaked.

'What?'

'But I'm not
done!' Seline cried. 'I need more time!'

She turned to
the sphere of light and reached her hand out towards it. Therin
grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to face her.

'No! I need to
get back in. I need to see her again!' She continued to
struggle.

'Seline, what
are you talking about?!'

Seline pushed
Therin to the side and reached out. She touched the light but her
hand was repulsed. She tried again and again and again but could
not break through.

'Seline!'

Seline turned
wildly to Therin. 'We can save her!'

'Save who? What
are you talking about? There's no one else here.'

I love you,
Seline. I always will.

The words shot
through her system. They sunk into her heart and begged it to
relent. The strength disappeared from Seline's body. She stopped
fighting. Therin managed to pull Seline away from the light.

'Seline, what's
going on? You need to tell me. You need to start making sense.'

Seline looked
up as if she'd noticed Therin for the first time. She wasn't sure
if it was the light from the star or if Therin's defences had
dropped but the shape beneath the darkness of her eyes began to
surface. 'Therin?' she said.

Therin was
looking into tired, streaming eyes.

'Are you hurt?'
asked Therin.

'… I don't
think so. What happened?' asked Seline. 'How did you get here?'

'The same way
as you. Sear couldn't get hold of you. He couldn't find a way
through, so I'm here.'

'How... how
long have I been gone?'

'Over an hour.
When I got here you were just floating here, touching this...
whatever this thing is.'

Seline looked
at the light.

'What were you
screaming about before? You said that you could save her. What is
that supposed to mean?'

'I was inside,'
she said, gesturing towards the light.

'What? You were
inside that thing? Is someone in there?'

'That... is
Icarus. This light, this is the mind of Icarus.' She looked around
the confines of the chamber. 'This is the- the 'cerebral
chamber'.'

'How do you
know this? What have you been doing in here?'

She was tempted
to give an explanation but almost choked on the words. The final
words of her mother still rung in her ears. 'It's hard to explain,'
she said.

Therin didn't
move. She eyed Seline curiously. 'You're telling me that's it? We
came all this way for you to stand in front of a fluorescent bulb
for a few minutes?'

'I've... I've
uploaded the virus,' said Seline

'What?' Therin
looked around the chamber, expecting some kind of change to
manifest in the starlight. 'Did it work? Did it do anything?'

'I-'

'I can't see
any change.' Therin looked back to Seline. 'The virus was
incomplete, surely it couldn't have worked.'

'I spoke to
Icarus,' said Seline. 'We have to leave.'

She turned
towards the black sphere. Therin pulled her back.

'You talked to
Icarus? And then what?'

'I'll tell you
but you have to believe me that we need to leave, now.'

'Why?'

'Because Icarus
needs to leave. The longer we wait in here the more we slow it
down. We can't afford to sit here while I explain it all.'

'Explain enough
so I have a reason to believe that us leaving is the right choice.
If this is the mind of Icarus then we have to try to destroy
it.'

'Icarus is not
one mind. It is many. Billions. Hundreds of billions. They are
fighting against it as we speak. I uploaded the virus to weaken
Icarus, to distract it.'

'Distract it
from what?'

'From the one
mind that has the strength to control it.'

'Who, Seline?
Who has the strength to control it?'

'My
mother.'

'… Your mother
is in there?'

'Yes.'

'That's who you
were trying to save?'

'Yes.'

'I'm not going
to pretend that anything you've just said makes any sense but...
let's go.' Therin led the way, back through the black wall of the
cerebral chamber.

The red mist
parted before them. The entrance to the pipe they had both crawled
through waited on the far side. They moved quickly through the
channel as it closed in their wake, obscuring the black sphere once
again.

Therin looked
at Seline as if she were the one who had parted the clouds.

'Did you make a
deal with the devil in there?' she asked.

'I hope
not.'

They crawled
into the pipe. Seline expected a wave of heat to slam into her at
any moment but there was nothing. Just a hollow warmth that barely
penetrated her suit. She dabbed at her thrusters to push herself
down the pipe until she could see the break in its side where she'd
first entered.

She crawled
from the pipe. Sear was waiting, his rifle at the ready. Carex was
with him. Bodies of insectoid maintenance drones swarmed aimlessly
about him. He swung his rifle across his back and helped her from
the pipe.

'I thought I'd
lost you,' he said. 'What the hell happened in there?' He offered a
hand to Therin but she waved him away and slipped out of the
pipe.

'What are all
these drone bodies doing?' asked Seline.

'There were
hordes of these things, they were trying to repair the hole in the
vent shaft but there haven't been any for a while now.'

The surrounding
wall and vents began to shake. A gentle vibration at first that
quickly intensified.

'We need to get
out of here,' said Seline.

'Wait,'
demanded Sear. 'You need to explain what happened in there. Did you
find a way to stop Icarus?'

'Yes. I
uploaded the virus.'

'And it worked?
It couldn't have.'

'It's the bug
on the windshield. Look, there's not enough time to explain it all.
Icarus is tearing itself apart. We have to go.'

Sear looked
around at the shaking metal. He didn't move.

'She's right,'
said Therin

'You found a
way to stop Icarus? You know this for certain?'

'As certain as
I can be.'

A shadow moved
behind Sear. Seline flicked on her night-vision to see another of
the maintenance drones crawl out from behind one of the pipes. Sear
followed her eyes and trained his rifle on the bug. He was about to
fire when more of the tiny insects crawled from the shadows. They
waited just out of reach.

'We don't have
enough bullets,' said Sear.

'Let's assume
you found a way to kill Icarus,' said Carex. He kept his eyes on
the tiny drones. 'How are we even going to get out of this place?
We can't go back the way we came. Even if we could retrace our
steps the drones have probably repaired the wall you busted
through.' He glanced at Seline's arm. 'And I don't think you have
it in you to break through it again.'

'One of the
drones broke my scanner as well,' said Sear. 'We wouldn't even know
if we were going the right way.'

Seline kept her
eyes fixed on the insects that continued to crawl from the pipes.
One in particular held Seline's attention. It stood on its hind
legs with its tiny arms thrashing and tapping at one of the pipes.
Its legs stopped and it leapt off the pipe and flew through the
empty space along the surface of the wall. The others, possibly
hundreds of them, did the same. Emerging from their hiding places
and swarming together like a school of fish. They moved through the
airless space, dancing and weaving.

'Why aren't
they attacking?' asked Sear.

'Because they
aren't trying to hurt us,' said Seline.

'Then what are
they doing?'

'They're
showing us the way out. They want us to follow them,' said
Seline.

'You really
think I'm going to trust those things?' said Sear.

'Don't trust
them, trust me.'

Sear looked at
Therin then to Seline.

'What happened
in there?'

'I found my
mother. She can control Icarus. She's going to lead it to a black
hole. That's as much as I can explain right now. Come on, we have
to go!' She grabbed onto Sear's hand and gave herself some thrust.
Therin followed and Carex was close behind, still refusing to take
his sights off the insects.

They followed
the insects through the cooling system, further towards the
northern point of Icarus. The labyrinth of pipes soon gave way to
large cylinders and thick plates of metal. They stretched in rows
around the surface as far as they could see, swelling with heat and
cracking under the relentless shaking.

'These are like
the heat sinks we found near the bottom,' said Therin. 'Try not to
get too close.'

They kept
themselves high above the lanes of heat and close to their tiny
escorts. They used as much thrust as they could spare, easily
manoeuvring around the large chunks of metal and broken machinery
that were now littering the space before them. Eventually, the
individual tracks of metal melded into one flattened layer. They
continued along it until the layer of metal lifted away, forming a
massive chute pointing straight up from the inner chamber,
stretching as far as they could see.

Beside them,
more pieces of Icarus were floating free, jostled loose from
whatever componentry they once belonged to, colliding with each
other in unpredictable orbits. The insects moved unhindered. Upward
they led along the walls of the metal chute.

Sweat blurred
Seline's vision, it saturated her skin, filtering into her mouth.
The taste of battery acid. Her entire body was shaking. Tense.
Rigid.

Oxygen at 15
percent.

She held her
hands out in front. Grabbed onto the edge of the giant hunk of
debris, pushed herself up. Just a little bit of thrust. The smaller
pieces tapped against her suit like hailstones. They weren't worth
slowing for. Another sheet of piping fibre. A tap of left thrust.
Just enough to clear it. Another piece. Smaller but too big to let
it hit. Swing the rifle over. Aim. Fire. Shattered. Out of bullets.
Throw the gun clear.

All about them
Icarus was tearing itself apart. Sear was about ten metres behind.
The others only just behind him. Seline wondered how long her
mother could hold Icarus off, if she could at all. After all, how
could just one mind stand against billions? Where would she find
the strength? Would she be able to-

A red light
appeared in the distance. Seline froze. The others realised what
she was looking at. It began to approach.

'It's a goddamn
sentinel,' said Carex. 'I knew this was too good to be true.' He
raised his rifle and moved in behind a large chunk of debris with
Sear and Therin. 'We walked right into a trap!'