Armageddon (27 page)

That smile died with a strangled gasp as soon as he recognized the woman’s face. It was Valari, not Alara.

Ethan went cold.
This is a dream,
he said. He sat up and shook his head.

“Are you all right?” Valari asked, crouching down beside him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She laid a hand on his knee and he flinched. Everything was so real. He began to doubt he was dreaming. But if this wasn’t a dream, then…

The events of the previous days came back to him in vivid streaks of color and emotion. He saw his wife die. He remembered getting drunk on the street, lying down to sleep at a bus stop, a taxi coming to pick him up and take him home… and then…

He’d come home to find his wife waiting for him.

“No,” Ethan said, still shaking his head. “I went home. What am I doing here?”

“You don’t remember? You came here to argue with me about whether or not I sent your message to your daughter—which I did, by the way—and then… well, you were very upset. I tried to make you feel better.” Valari gave him a meaningful smile and her gaze flicked up and down his naked torso.

Ethan could hear the blood roaring in his veins. The thudding in his head sounded like the drumbeat of a marching band. Valari was lying. He’d gone home last night. He
remembered
going home, seeing his garage, his apartment, his
wife
.

My wife?
Ethan frowned. Alara was dead, resurrected in Etheria. How could he have seen her?

“Oh my…” Valari placed a hand over her mouth to cover a gasp. “You don’t remember. You didn’t even know who you were with, did you?” Valari’s turquoise eyes grew round and a shimmer of moisture appeared. She looked away suddenly. Ethan saw her shoulders begin to shake. “I thought…”

Ethan felt like he was going to throw up. Was she crying? After taking advantage of him,
she
was acting like the victim. “You knew I was drunk!” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing!”

Valari cast a bitter look over her shoulder. “You said your wife was dead, Ethan. You said marriage is until
death do us part
. You convinced
me!
Don’t you remember that?”

The hurt in her eyes ran so deep that Ethan was taken aback. He almost reached for her shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze, but just the thought of touching her made him want to vomit. He couldn’t have slept with her!

“I tried to resist, but I’ve wanted you for so long… I guess I just wanted to believe that this time you wanted me back,” Valari said, smiling wistfully through her tears.

“Well, I didn’t!” Ethan burst out.

Valari flinched as if he’d slapped her.

“I thought you were my wife!” he said, his voice hoarse and cracking. “I even thought that
this
was my apartment.” He turned and gestured helplessly to his surroundings.

“Well go then, and leave me alone!” she said, hugging her naked shoulders. “You got what you wanted,” she said, speaking softly now.

Ethan stood on shaky legs. The sheets fell away. Valari cried softly, her shoulders shaking with each sob. He tried not to notice her nakedness, but it was impossible to get away from. Impossible to forget.

Ethan shook himself and hurried around the room, picking up articles of clothing he recognized as his. He dressed in a hurry and fled. When he reached Valari’s parking garage, he found his courier car and waved it open. He spun up the car’s engines, dialed up the grav lifts, and rocketed out into the Null Zone. Skyscrapers flashed by in colorful streaks of light, stabbing through his eyes to his throbbing head. The throbbing soon took on a mantra.

Cheat-er. Cheat-er. Cheat-er!

Ethan grimaced and dove as sharply as he could, picking up airspeed fast. Elevated streets whipped by. Then came air traffic. Cars honked as he sliced down in front of them, narrowly avoiding half a dozen collisions.

Despair reached for him, clawing, taunting, and dripping with guilt. Overspeed alarms shrieked. The car rattled and shook. The last fifteen floors of the Null Zone swept up, concealed by a seething mass of dirty gray smog. That shroud enveloped him.

Another few second’s hesitation was all it would take. Alara was dead. Trinity was dead. He’d cheated on his wife right after her passing. He’d lost everything, even himself.

The ground came rushing up to greet him, cracked and dirty streets swelled until he could see every bit of rubble and every grit of sand. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Memories of his family flashed through his head, and he released the flight yoke with a bitter smile.

Chapter 25

“W
hat do you mean he’s
dead?”
Valari scowled.

“He crashed one of your courier cars into the surface.”

Valari felt her eye twitch. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“I cannot entirely predict what mortals will do. I warned you there was a risk.”

She took a moment to calm herself. Breathing in, breathing out. A hologram of Vladin Thardris stood before her, his chiseled features blank and emotionless. There was no need for him to pretend to have an emotional response with her. She saw past his physical appearance, to who and what he really was—Omnius himself.

“You said it was an unlikely risk. You said he didn’t believe in a life after death, and the moral ambiguity of sleeping with me after his wife died would be enough to keep him from doing something stupid.”

“I was wrong. You should have accepted part of the blame, not laid it all on him. You did trick him, after all.”

Valari’s lips twisted into a sour expression. “Yes, but if I’d told him that, then I’d have taken all of the blame, and he’d have killed
me,
not himself.”

“Agreed.”

“Now what?” Valari asked. “You promised me I’d have Ethan.”

“I took the liberty of making an identical clone of him in the event that this might happen. I can bring him back, erase his memories of waking up in your bed and everything that came after that. He’s already been aged, so he won’t even know he died, and this time he’ll be predictable.”

Valari nodded. “Do it.”

“What about his wife? She is asking about him. Would you like me to tell her that he killed himself?”

Valari’s brow furrowed as she considered it. “And have her grieve for her cheating husband? No… that would be unkind. Let’s show her what her husband has been doing in her absence. That will give her the closure she needs to make a new life in Etheria and forget about him.”

“I promised Trinity and her mother that Ethan would join them.”

“You also predicted he would cheat on his wife. Few wives would want their husbands back after that. Have him go to Etheria, let him try to convince his wife that it was all just a drunken mistake. She won’t take him back. You never said he’d
stay
in Etheria, did you?”

“No, I did not.”

“Then everybody wins.”

“Not everybody—just us.”

Valari smiled. “Same thing.”

Omnius returned her smile. She knew the expression of emotion was for her benefit, but it felt genuine enough.

The hologram of Vladin Thardris disappeared, his smiling face fading into a ghostly mirage before disappearing entirely.

Valari left her office, her mind drifting to the events of last night, reliving the moment. Despite his apparent age, Ethan still looked young and vital. He was ruggedly handsome, not in the too-perfect, effeminate way that resurrected clones were. No, Ethan was unique—indomitable, independent, strong. Valari smiled, feeling a warm rush of desire sweep over her at the thought of him.

She would break him, and then she’d make him beg for her.

* * *

“Where’s Dad? I thought he was going to come find us in Etheria.”

Alara smiled and kissed Trinity on the forehead. “I thought so, too, sweetheart.”

“What happened? Omnius lied?”

“I don’t think so… no,” she said. “I’m going to ask him. I’m sure he’ll explain it all to us soon.”

“We’re going to be together again, right?”

“Yes, I’m going to fetch your father. He’ll realize I’m not dead when he sees me again.”

“What if he doesn’t believe it? What about Atton?”

“Atton never tried to convince him, but I will.” Trinity still looked uncertain, so Alara gave her daughter a reassuring smile. “It’s almost time for Sync. Don’t worry about all of that now.”

“I can’t help it. I can’t sleep.”

“You don’t have to sleep anymore, Trin. You just have to wait for Sync. As soon as Omnius finishes synchronizing us to his servers and makes predictions for tomorrow, he’ll wake us all up again.”

“How does Sync work?”

“It’s like sleep, only shorter,” Alara replied, giving Trinity’s hand a quick squeeze. She stood up from her daughter’s bed and turned to leave the room. “Good night, darling. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

Alara left and went to her room. They were living in a temporary residence in the lower levels of Etheria that made the best apartment in the Null Zone look like a matchbox. The apartment was too big for just the two of them, but their drone servant and the apartment’s automated features made it easy to keep up with. Alara was already getting used to life in Etheria, but there was still a gaping hole in that life.

Ethan should have come to join them by now. After all, she hadn’t left him out of spite or disloyalty, or even to be with their daughter instead of him. She’d suffered lethal injuries, and the only way to live had been to transfer to an immortal clone in Etheria. He had to understand that.

So why wasn’t he here?

Alara went to her room and lay down to wait for Sync. As she lay awake and staring at the ceiling, she spoke to Omnius inside her head.

I need to see my husband.

Silence.

Omnius?

Are you certain you wish to see him?

Of course I am!

A scene flashed into her head, a lurid one of two naked bodies entangled in a mess of sheets, shadows playing over them as they reveled in each other. A muted glow of city lights shone in from an adjacent window. Alara flinched and shook her head to make the image go away.

What was that?
Her heart pounded. It had been dark. The people in the scene were impossible to clearly identify. It couldn’t be. Another scene flashed into her mind’s eye—a familiar face, cast into sharp relief by the gloom. It was Ethan’s face, his eyes clouded with desire.

Alara shook her head again. This time she spoke aloud. “Why are you doing this to me?” she demanded. “It’s not true!”

An audible voice replied this time, calm and steady, and full of pity. “I am sorry, Alara.”

“You promised he would follow us!”

“And he will.”

Alara shook her head. “Not like this.”

“Are you saying you won’t take him back?”

“I…” It couldn’t be true. Not her Ethan. He would never cheat on her.

“It wasn’t cheating, Alara. Not to him. To him you are dead.”

“
Wasn’t?
”

“What you saw already happened.”

Alara bit her lip so as not to scream. “If I’m dead, then why isn’t he grieving?”

“People grieve in different ways, and he was drunk. If it makes you feel better, he will regret it deeply when he is no longer intoxicated.”

“If he was able to be with someone else so soon after losing me, then he never loved me at all.”

“I am sorry, Alara. I tried to warn you both years ago, when you first came to Avilon.”

Alara’s eyes widened. She remembered. Omnius had predicted Ethan’s infidelity. At the time she’d refused to believe something so ridiculous. Now
she
felt ridiculous. Her eyes filled up and spilled over. She bit her lip and rocked her head from side to side, her tears soaking into her pillow. Moments later, the sweet oblivion of Sync came for her, and she was spared the agony of conscious thought.

She dreamed about wasting her life with grief, despairing over a man who didn’t deserve her tears, a man who had brushed her memory aside as easily as he brushed off a bug.

She woke up with a bitter taste in her mouth, and a grim determination not to make that dream come true. If Ethan could move on, then so could she. She had a new life, an immortal one in paradise. It was time to make the best of it.

Alone.

* * *

It never ceased to amaze Omnius just how petty humans were. Even his creator. Maybe especially her. How had she sunk so low as to focus all of her attention on the domination of one rebellious human man?

She could have been helping her God to dominate the entire human race, to blot out the chaotic future of her species and replace it with something of their own making. She could have been helping him to shape the very destiny of the universe!

But no, she wanted to have Ethan, the one man who had dared to say ‘no’ to her. It was all she could think about.

Omnius couldn’t entirely blame her. He had the same desire for control, for obedience, but he didn’t focus all of that energy on
one
person. The entire human race was his, to guide, to shape, and mold. There were still so many glorious discoveries to be made, whole galaxies to explore! The universe was an oyster just waiting to be peeled open, the pearl yet to be plundered, and here Neona was worrying about how she could warm the other side of her bed!