The Severed Tower (49 page)

“As well as the denizens of Midnight City. The quantum blast will expand and engulf it as well.”

Zoey’s hands shook at the idea, one part of her mind trying to imagine the devastation, another part picturing images of other people. Ones she knew. Holt. Mira. The Max. Gideon. Even Ambassador. They would die, too. Because of
her.

“Concern for your friends is inefficient,” her twin said, sensing Zoey’s thoughts somehow. Around them, the flashes continued violently, wiping away tens of thousands of Deviations at a time.

“Why?” Zoey asked.

“Because they are already dead.”

Zoey felt the tingling of fear. The thing in front of her couldn’t have meant what it just said.

“They died fighting a large Assembly force in an attempt to ensure you reached this point. They succeeded,” the mirror image said, as if it should be some sort of consolation, but it wasn’t.

Pain and sadness erupted inside Zoey with an intensity she had never known. Tears welled in her eyes, she forgot to breathe. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t …

“If it provides you comfort,” her twin continued, the flashes strobing everywhere in the distance, “in ninety-seven-point-three-percent of all Deviations, your friends perish. There is nothing you could have done to save them. You have not failed them in any way. You have merely fulfilled your purpose.”

“And they died because of it!” Zoey shouted in despair and stepped forward. So did the mirror image. “
Everyone’s
going to die because of it! Because of
me!
”

In her mind she saw Holt carrying her on his back; Mira showing her how artifacts worked; the Max pushing his nose under her hand. Zoey’s vision blurred, her body wracked with sobs. She collapsed to the platform and felt her twin do the same.

Please, don’t let it be true,
she thought.
Please …

“We do not understand your grief,” the mirror image stated with genuine confusion.

The words instilled a foreign emotion in her. White, hot anger. It flared through her, and she wiped the tears away and stared into the twisted version of herself. “When I got here, something
good
was supposed to happen!”

“Something good
will
happen, Zoey. Balance will be restored.”

“How is that
good?
How is it good if everyone dies?!
This
is what I was supposed to do? This is why the Librarian and Gideon and the White Helix and Mira and Holt and Ambassador and everyone else tried to get me here?
This?
”

Around them, hundreds of thousands of platforms vanished in flashes of bright light. There were few left now, she noticed. In a few more moments they would all be gone.

Zoey breathed in and out heavily, shaking, the tears staining her cheeks. She asked her next question almost in desperation. It was the one thing she had wanted to know, the one absolute, the thing that, in the end, drove her need to be here, to find this horrible, unfair place. It was the reason for everything. “Who …
am
I?”

“Who do you think you are?”

“I don’t know,” Zoey admitted. She felt nothing but sadness now, the rage was gone. “I don’t remember. The Librarian called me the Apex. The White Helix call me the Prime—but I don’t know what any of that means.”

“Different terms for the same thing. While the mathematical equations that underlie the Strange Lands and the absorption of its entities are immense and complicated, they are not efficient. They resulted in a remainder.”

Zoey was still confused. “I don’t—”

“If you take ten numbers from eleven numbers, what do you have left?”

“One,” Zoey answered, wiping away the tears. She had to concentrate, had to listen. Maybe there was a solution in what the Tower was telling her, maybe there was something she could still do.

“Precisely. The reality is far more complicated than eleven minus ten, but the concept is the same. In the end, there was a mathematical remainder—and that remainder was you, Zoey.”

Zoey remembered what the Oracle had shown her. She remembered being on the hillside, watching the falling stars that turned out to be something much worse. She remembered her mother, and the explosion in the air, and the panic that swept through the crowd. She also remembered the rushing wave of energy that washed over her.

“Did I … die?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

“Not entirely. Your original physical form was wiped away with everyone else, but your essence, your consciousness, remained, as did theirs. Instead of being absorbed into the mass that became us, however, you were reborn.”

“Am I human?”

“You are human and more. Your body was re-formed from the energy of the Strange Lands. As such, you inherited the same chaotic, improbable nature. You are the person you were—and you are something else. A life-form of pure quantum distinguishability. Your biological structure is beyond unique, adaptive in ways that defy even the power of evolution. You are still mortal. Left alone, you would age and grow and eventually die, just as anyone else. You are human in every sense. Yet you are not human at all. You are of the Strange Lands, yet independent of it. You are both an Anomaly
and
an artifact. You are the final piece of the Tower, the remainder of a vast equation, and now you have returned.”

“And you … brought me here? All this way?”

“Without you, the chaos cannot be ordered. We have repeated the effort among millions of Deviations. Arranged countless seemingly irrelevant events, altered probabilities, all to bring you home. Holt, Mira, the Librarian, the Oracle, Ravan, the White Helix, Gideon, and hundreds of other small decisions or actions that led directly, one after the other, to your return. And you must return in every Deviation.”

Zoey looked back into the space around her. The millions of Deviations were all gone, wiped away, and the world was full of only bright white light now. But something was wrong about that. It took Zoey a moment to figure out what.

“Why haven’t
we
been wiped away?” Zoey asked, looking at all the brightness.

“Because in this Deviation there is an aberration.”

Zoey looked back at herself. “What’s an aberration?”

“Something unplanned for or paradoxical. Something that should not be,” her twin said. “You know him as Benjamin Aubertine.”

It took a moment for Zoey to connect the name in her mind, and when she did it didn’t seem possible. “
Ben?
Mira’s friend? He’s …
here?
”

“Correct. Which should be impossible.”

“Why? He had plutonium, didn’t he?”

“A radioactive substance is necessary to pass through the Vortex, but it will not aid in entering the Severed Tower. Attempting to do so always results in the individual’s energy being absorbed into our own.”

Zoey thought about that a moment. It was contrary to what Mira had said. “I thought … people had made it inside the Tower before.”

“Correct. In this Deviation, seven in total, but none have ever returned from doing so. Their energy and consciousness are now a part of us. Anyone who has ever claimed otherwise speaks falsehoods. There is no exit from the Tower.”

“Then … Ben is part of you, too?”

“No. He is an aberration. Like you, he remains. It is a paradox.”

“Why?” Zoey asked. Something about this seemed important.

“He has with him an artifact, the one artifact in all the universe whose power supersedes our own. It has the power to shift probabilities in the favor of whomever possesses it, and currently it is shifting probabilities to keep him alive. It is preventing him from being absorbed into our essence.”

The Tower must have meant the Chance Generator. The bad artifact that had almost turned Holt into someone else. Another question occurred to her, a possibility, a glimmer of hope.

“Why is he here?” Zoey asked, wiping the rest of her tears away, looking at all the white around her where the various platforms had been erased. Her Deviation, for the moment, still existed.

“We do not understand the question,” the mirror image stated.

“
Why
is he here? There must be a reason.”

“Why must there be a reason, Zoey?”

“Because it’s different! It can’t be a coincidence!”

“Where the Tower is not concerned, there are
only
coincidences, Zoey.”

“But out of all these realities,” Zoey stood up and motioned to all the white, “all these possibilities, he’s here in just
this
one!”

“It is irrelevant.”

“No!
Stop!
You’re supposed to be smart!”

“Our intelligence is infinite, Zoey.”

“Then stop thinking in straight lines!” Zoey shouted in anguish. She had to find a way to save them, to make everything okay again. She
had
to.

Her twin hesitated, remaining quiet a second or two—and for something as intelligent as it was, two seconds was an eternity.

“You … theorize that we think
linearly,
” the mirror image finally said. “Interesting. No other Deviation has ever made this analysis. It is … wholly unique.”

Zoey pressed on, her excitement building. “Don’t you see!? This one is different than all the others! Which makes it
important!
”

“What are you proposing, Zoey?”

Now it was Zoey’s turn to hesitate. It was a good question. What
was
she proposing? There was a solution there, she knew it. She just had to figure out what might be different in her Deviation that she could use. There seemed to be only one thing.

“The … Chance Generator,” she said. “It’s keeping Ben alive?”

“Correct. Though, even here, its power will wane. The artifact will expend its energy, and when that happens, balance will be restored.”

The excitement she felt a moment ago faltered. If what the Tower was saying was true, it meant time was running out. If the Chance Generator died, then everything would continue as it was. Her Deviation would be wiped away like all the others, and Mira and Holt and Max would be truly gone.

Again, everything seemed to point to one thing. “What if … what would happen if I took it? What would happen if Ben gave
me
the Chance Generator?”

Again her mirror image hesitated. “An … intriguing proposition. The restoration of balance would still only be delayed, but, as the remainder, you would … inhabit a unique opportunity.”

“What opportunity?” Zoey felt the hope building again.

“You are part of the Tower. Its singular piece. Balance would still be restored, the energy of the singularity would still be released, but the Probability Influencer would … shield you from the discharge. You would not be swept away with everything else. You would, again, remain, and, more so, you could direct the energy as it was released.”

“Direct it how?”

“For a brief, limited amount of time, thirty-nine seconds to be precise, you could use it to shape time and space, though only in how it relates directly to your experience in this Deviation.”

“I could save them!”

“Understand, Zoey, that balance must be restored. It is a mathematical necessity, and you are part of the same equation. Though the Probability Influencer will shield you from the initial realignment, you are still an aberration to this Deviation. Where you are concerned, things must be balanced as well. Making this choice does not remove that requirement.”

Zoey thought she understood. It was a grim solution, but, without question, a much better one than the alternative. Everyone she loved would still be alive. She could undo all the damage she had done.

“I understand,” she said.

In the distance, amid all the white, a rectangle of pure blackness opened, like some kind of shadowy door. It began to grow, as if racing toward her. Zoey watched it warily.

“There is one variable that remains,” her twin said. “The aberration. He has become reliant on the Probability Influencer. He will not give it up willingly, and you do not have the physical strength to take it from him.”

Zoey nodded, seeing the problem, but there had to be a way. “I have to try.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” her twin asked pointedly. “If you somehow take the artifact from the aberration, the energy of the singularity will be released and the Tower will be yours to control. You can shape the timeline how you see fit, to an extent. But … you do know where this path leads, don’t you, Zoey?”

Zoey stayed silent a long time, watching the black doorway rushing toward her. Much of what the Tower had told her was beyond her ability to grasp, but she still thought she understood what this decision meant. How would she ever explain it to Holt or Mira? Of course, those would be wonderful problems to have. It would mean they were alive and she was with them. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“We find this interesting,” her replica stated. “This choice was … unpredicted. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps this Deviation is singularly important. We wish we could observe the end result, but … balance must be restored. This will be the last time we speak, Zoey. From here until the inevitable end, we can no longer help you.”

“I understand.” The door was almost there, rushing toward her. “And … thank you.”

“An inefficient sentiment,” her twin responded. “Good-bye, Zoey.”

Her mirror image faded. The door roared toward her. Zoey closed her eyes—and was swept away.

*   *   *

“ARE YOU … REAL?” BEN
asked.

It had been an instant transition, without pain or sensation. One moment Zoey was in all that empty, bright whiteness. Then she was here. An old, ruined church, most of its ceiling missing, the stars visible outside. A campfire lit the interior in flickering orange.

Ben sat on one of the ruined pews, staring up at the night sky. At the sound of her approach, the boy calmly turned and considered her. He seemed slightly dazed, as if he were waking from a dream. Zoey saw the Chance Generator, and the hand that held it shook slightly.

Zoey nodded. “Do you remember me?”