The Last Adventure of Constance Verity (18 page)

The outlandishness of his explanation put her at ease. It was ridiculous, but she accepted ridiculous.

“Aren't you worried they'll catch on once they notice I'm gone?” she asked.

“Your ability to escape is well established. I doubt they'll be terribly surprised by your disappearance.” Root gestured toward the only door out of the room. “After you?”

She'd play along for the moment.

They walked, and the guards trailed behind them. The walkway outside the room was a steel corridor with high arched ceilings and a polish that made it gleam. Secret base construction was a specialized business, requiring ninja-like stealth, cutting-edge architecture, stylish interior decorating, and technical know-how. Connie had enough experience to know a good lair when she saw it.

“Nice. Who's your contractor? Lairs, Incorporated?”

“Yes, they cost a little bit more, but I find they're worth it. You get what you pay for.”

The pie factory above their heads was deliberately ordinary, even in its secret areas, but this secret secret base had gone all in. From the moving walkways to the clear glass elevators to the lighting that was warm and flattering, this was the work of the best. Even the logo stamped here and there had that professional touch. Many supervillains, by virtue of their egos, didn't like to subcontract out graphic design work in some mistaken belief it compromised their integrity, and it showed. If she had a dollar for every secret society that used a fist or an eye or a scorpion surrounded by a generic Latin phrase, she'd be rich. She was already rich, but she'd be richer.

This group's logo was a series of carefully arranged triangles that gave the impression of two eyes, a nose, and rows of pointed teeth. It hinted at a skull but didn't overstate.

Skulls were everywhere. Not just the masks on the guards. The nonmilitary personnel had skull patches stitched on their shoulders. The logo was painted over every door, on the floor every fifty feet. A forklift driving down the hall had a chrome skull bolted to its roof. Connie had never met anyone this devoted to skulls that was up to any good.

The tour was comprehensive, and Connie wasn't invested in it. This wasn't her choice, so why bother? She'd been shown enough lairs by enough evil masterminds that there wasn't much to make her care. There were labs, where people in hazmat suits experimented with strange chemicals. There were training areas,
where soldiers honed their skills, such as standing around and appearing quietly menacing. There were a cafeteria, a laundry room, and a rec room. Minions had to be taken care of and entertained somehow, though most tours skipped those parts.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked.

“You don't care what I think,” she replied.

“Yes, I do. If there's anyone who has the experience to assess a lair layout, it's you.”

“Solid. Little overdone on the skulls.”

“I agree, but my superiors insisted. Branding and all that. I asked if branding a secret society was such a smart idea, but it's just the way things are done. Bit silly, isn't it?”

“All in all, it's the second-best lair I've seen,” she said. “The first was in a dormant volcano outside of Albuquerque. Had a hell of a coffee bar, and I don't even like coffee.”

“I'll have to see if I can drop by some time. Perhaps pick up some design tips.”

“Good luck with that. It blew up.”

“All on its own?”

“I might have given it a nudge. That one wasn't entirely my fault, though. Here's a tip for you. Don't store your explosives stockpiles down the hall from your flamethrower robots.”

“I'll make a note of it.”

Indeed he did, taking a notepad from his jacket pocket and scribbling down the advice.

The final room of the tour was an exhibition space. It was packed with strange artifacts, both from the ancient world and
not-of-this-Earth. There were objects from the ancient past and from the far-flung future and pasts that no longer existed and futures that never would. Alternate universes, many of which Connie recognized, many she didn't. Alien treasures and things from dimensions where unnamed horrors dwelt. If the Bermuda Triangle had an attic and someone had carefully arranged that attic for visitors, this would've been it.

“And here we come to
the
room,” Root said. “The room that explains it all.”

He walked over to a giant stone tablet carved with an ancient writing. Connie could read some of it, but her Sumerian was rusty.

“This was the first piece in the collection,” said Root. “It was here that we started to see the greater pattern.”

She shook her head. “This isn't going to be another one of those prophecy things, is it?”

“Not quite.”

Root gestured toward a first edition of
Little Women
, protected behind a glass case. “Louisa May Alcott wrote out her instructions during an opium-fueled fever dream. What she saw, she tried to share with the world, but later editors erased that chapter. Admittedly, it doesn't add a lot to the story.”

He pointed to an old, faded papyrus. “The Egyptian pharaoh Ptah recorded a vision given to him by his gods. Most of the prophecy was lost, but enough remains to put the pieces together.”

He went from exhibit to exhibit. An original recording of Thomas Edison's voice that, when played backward, spoke of
terrible secrets. An alien artifact that still projected holograms with dire warnings. Incomprehensible equations by Euclid, refined by Newton, built into a machine by Babbage that clicked and clacked and stopped with a loud
sproing
with no apparent purpose other than to spell out the word
Chaos
with a quill on an arm. A journal detailing Helen Keller's last words, spoken an hour after she died. And on and on. A thousand different prophets from across the universe.

“This is a lot of prophecies,” she said.

“Every one a prediction of the inevitable end of the universe as we know it. Each a warning about that fragile thing we call existence. But more than that, a guidebook created piecemeal by thousands of different sources. Seemingly unconnected until one knows how to read it. A book instructing on the care and operation of that thing we call reality itself, encompassing all worlds, all universes, every iota of matter, every scientific and supernatural truth. Secrets of life and death, nearly incomprehensible to gods, much less inconsequential beings such as ourselves.”

He waited for Connie to swoon at the revelation. She didn't.

“Yes, yes, ultimate power. I've heard it before.”

“You misunderstand. We aren't after power. We only seek to keep the Great Engine running until it reaches its final operation.”

“I'll bite. What engine?”

“The Great Engine,” he said. “The secret cosmic purpose that drives the universe itself.”

Connie rolled her eyes. “This isn't going to be some
quasi-religious, metaphysical bullshit, is it? Because I've fought enough cults worshipping weird stuff to last a lifetime.”

“We aren't a religion. We don't worship anything. We view it more as a single colossal mechanism, and all of us are parts of that machine.”

“Hate to tell you, but that doesn't sound much different than any cult I've run across.”

“The difference is that we don't believe the universe cares about us or anything we do. We don't pray to it in reverence or terror. And we think of these as tuning instructions, not sacred commands.”

“Well, why didn't you say so? That's totally different. So, who or what sent you these instructions?”

“The universe.”

“The universe that doesn't care?”

“The Mesopotamians wrote of the final operation, seeing it as the return of savage gods. Spiro Agnew, channeling the Engine during the '68 Republican National Convention, declared all life would be transformed with a great sputtering clunk as the final truth would be revealed. A sixteenth-century Chinese midwife, her name lost to time, whispered of the planets colliding like billiard balls, but after, a glorious beautiful purpose making it all worthwhile. The Prophets of the planet Yrt were so terrified of what they saw that they had themselves entombed alive rather than live with their vision. This obelisk, found floating in space, says we shall all be witness to something indescribably perfect, the next step in evolution of the multiverse itself.

“Yet each of these prophets and oracles also warned of hiccups along the way that would have to be averted. They are the check-engine light and ominous rattling of the universe, and they can't be ignored. The Engine is perfect, but it is made of imperfect parts. It needs to be maintained, or it might break down before reaching its final operation.”

“Let's say I believe you. Just for fun. I've been to the future,” she said. “The universe looks just fine there.”

“Does it? The cosmos runs on a scale beyond our comprehension. Something this vast, this unfathomable, might be broken right now. One planet rotates a second slower. One child is born a few minutes ahead of schedule. A lost civilization disappears forever, swallowed up without leaving so much as a line in a history textbook. Who would notice? It's an imperfect world. Slightly less perfect wouldn't draw much attention, but it all adds up. Things could be irreversibly damaged right now and merely taking another billion years to wind down.”

Connie studied the scroll under glass and nodded to herself.

“Your philosophy is that we're all part of a cosmic machine that doesn't care about us but that we need to maintain to see where it goes on the off chance it's something good?”

“It's not very satisfying, I agree,” said Root, “but it's the best we can hope for.”

“I know a cult that worships a god who literally wants to lick everything in the universe, so I've heard weirder theories.”

“You see the wisdom in our view?”

“No, I'm saying I've heard weirder theories.”

“I would think after all you've seen and experienced, you'd be more open-minded.”

“Being open-minded doesn't mean I'm gullible or that I've surrendered my healthy skepticism. People love thinking they have everything figured out. There's a tribe of intelligent lizards in South America who believe God is moss growing on a rock. Every day, they haul water from the sacred well three miles away and pour it on the rock to keep God from destroying the world. There's an ancient sect in Bavaria that worships the concept of baked goods.”

“We are not a cult,” said Root with a frown.

“They'd say the same thing. So, you're not a cult; you're only cult-like. Want to know what all these cults—and
not
cults—have in common? They're all devoted to solving a problem that doesn't exist with methods that don't accomplish anything. It's busy work for people confronted by a universe they have no control over. Maybe you're a little more up front about that, but it's still people doing weird things for mysterious reasons and then pretending like they've accomplished something when a volcano does or doesn't erupt.”

“You're entitled to your opinion,” he said, though he did sound hurt. “Regardless of whether you believe it or not, the Great Engine is the only purpose, and it is only through vigilance that it keeps running so that it might complete that purpose.”

“So, you're not important, except that you are. Sounds to me like you want to have it both ways. Fair enough. Where do I come in?” said Connie.

“So, you do believe?”

“No, but you do. Just how am I supposed to help you fix the universe now?”

“You don't.”

He paused, smiling, staring at her with vague expectations. She didn't give him anything to work with, so he continued as if she'd said something flippant, which she probably would have if she'd been in the mood for this.

“Your glibness is expected. The Engine is too far beyond anyone's comprehension. No one can say who started this cycle. Perhaps it was creatures wiser than us. Perhaps God Himself. Or Herself. Or Itself. Perhaps the Engine birthed itself. Or perhaps it's only a fortuitous coincidence. Whatever the cause, it has been underway for as long as even the oldest sentient species in the universe can recall.

“You're not the first to fill your particular role. Thousands have before you. It has been passed from entity to entity across the cosmos, nurtured in the souls of countless adventurers. When the time comes, the caretaker position is reharvested, nurtured, and its seeds are planted again. And so it goes, over and over and over again. Passed from candidate to candidate, directed by those who follow the secret dictates of the Great Engine. The candidates come and go. Conspiracies rise and fall. And the universe continues to chug along. Even we aren't truly masters but pawns of a greater, unfathomable purpose.”

“This is definitely cult talk,” said Connie.

“Regardless, someone must ensure that the universe continues
as it should, push things in the right direction, make the tiny adjustments that are necessary to keep everything in order. Our job is to see to it that you, or someone like you, are capable of it. You exist as a corrective measure. We see a problem. We ensure that you fix it.”

“I believe the word you're looking for is
manipulation
,” said Connie.

“Call it what you will.”

“So, why are you telling me this now?” she asked. “Why ruin your secrecy?”

“We've determined that your term of service is over. It's time to pass along caretaking to the next batch of candidates.”

“You're going to take it from me?”

“It was never yours to begin with. You're simply another host, carrying it for a short while.”

Connie sprang into action. She laid Root out with a punch, grabbed a guard's rifle away from him. She had already planned how she'd take out the other four guards, but the plan was ruined by the way they all stood in place with their weapons pointed down.