TBOTSG-Chapter 23

The Three Eared Rabbit, as I had called him all through my childhood, was now beside me. Much older, of course. His eyes stirred many memories in me. The double sunrise, the sea of lava, the desert, the Tulip Tower. One of those rare moments when the two suns rise at the same time. Talking to him, I realised that I had experienced it in one of his dreams.

‘A memory, more precisely, from when I was a child.’

‘But how did you connect?’ Tha asked, puzzled.

‘Thanks to Reeza,’ Sela replied. ‘That’s how I connected with my transcendental as well, with Veronica… Fox, as you call her. When the Three Eared Rabbit, Zorh’al here, appeared at Fiiuea’s court, he gave her the book of the gods. And Fiiuea sent her to her allies to devise a rescue plan. All failed… some more tragically than others. Not a single god was saved, and we suspect one might have perished in the attempt. Finally, our family is well regarded by the government, our alliance with Fiiuea being completely hidden. One day, after pulling many strings, I was invited to a symposium near Reeza’s location. That’s when I seized the opportunity and bribed a few officials to gain access to her temple. You wouldn’t have thought a goddess was kept there. Everything was dusty, old, decrepit. They had just opened the bunker where she was kept, after years and years of complete isolation – that’s how Zorh’al managed to escape, actually, because there was no longer anyone to take care of the bunker, and nuclear explosion risks had emerged. They had learned from their neighbours that it was something to avoid so they took measures. But the new people working there weren’t told what they were doing or why. Just that it was a potential hazard and had to be a secret. Otherwise no one knew anything. It wasn’t hard for me to bribe a few people there and get to Reeza. It was a room where others entered only with protective gear. I knew it wasn’t necessary, so when the opportunity arose, I sneaked in and meditated all night trying to connect with her. Obviously, I didn’t succeed.’

‘Then what did you do?’

‘I left and returned the following evening. And then the next. And so on for several good weeks, until one night I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I saw a black sky full of stars like the ones that appear for us once every 50 years. I immediately knew that I wasn’t on the Second Home anymore. When I left, my gaze stretched in front of me to a completely alien, extraterrestrial city.’

‘You had connected with Fox… but how? Why her?’

‘I can’t explain it. Reeza sent me there. So that’s where I went.’

I pondered for a moment. Reeza already existed within me. Or at least the possibility of her existence. Perhaps only by merging all these beings, times, spaces could Reeza come into being. For a second, I thought about destiny, about fate. Then I thought about love that transcends time. I was sure that’s how Sela connected to Fox, through my emotions.

‘Nevertheless, Alter intervened from my imaginary shoulder, you’ve loved so many other people.’

‘But none like her. Besides, she knew about this world. She knew it almost as well as I did because I had told her about my dreams and nightmares, and we had dissected them together trying to make sense of them. We had spent entire nights discussing the man with the tattoo on his neck who appeared to me in the light of a double sunrise.’

‘I believe,’ Sela continued after a moment, that the present, past, and future are more closely connected than we thought. Anyway, when I entered Veronica’s body, I knew nothing. Just that I had some information that needed to be transmitted in hopes that something might happen. But what information to transmit? How? I searched everywhere to get to know her better. I looked through her journals, through boxes of memories, saw hundreds of family photographs… Sure, at first I was detached and methodical, but then I began to forget. I started to feel like I knew her. I left a video message on her phone and a post-it note next to it, so she would know to access it, then I returned to my world.

‘I think she must have been terribly frightened… to find a message from herself, saying completely crazy things. Could that be when she was hospitalised?’

‘No, she had already gotten out of the sanatorium when I connected with her.’

‘And then?’ Tha asked impatiently.

‘Then I had to go home. I had exhausted any excuse to be there and we were afraid things were becoming suspicious. We didn’t want to be discovered. So, I just went home. I have to say I was disappointed. I’m not used to failing.’

‘Failing?’ Tha was surprised. ‘You connected with a transcendental and communicated a bunch of information, how could that be a failure?’

‘My goal was to find a connection with Reeza. Somehow, to figure out how to get her out of the bunker. All I had done was rummage through the belongings of a completely irrelevant person, as it seemed at the time. Anyway, I didn’t give up. I meditated a lot after I got home, with the help of substances we know facilitate transcendence, and one evening I succeeded. I connected with Veronica again. For me, it had been quite a few agonising months. For her, it had only been two, maybe three, even more agonising days. When I got there, I checked her phone to see if she had left me any messages. Then I checked the laptop… still nothing.’

‘Laptop?’

‘Like one of our electronic devices, but more rudimentary.’

For a moment, the conversation turned to Tha’s and Sela’s fascination with the technology of the ancients. Looking at them, for those brief moments, I felt at home. Like when I was with Mom, with Dan, with Fox in the car. It gave me a warm feeling.

‘Finally,’ Sela resumed, we communicated a lot. We connected to each other’s worlds and after a while we began to realise what the connection was between us. Her sister met the man with the tattoo on his neck in a dream.’

‘When she called to ask if I remembered anything,’ Zorh’al intervened, and his voice made me jump, ‘I immediately realised who the transcendental’s sister was. All I had done in all those years when I had the bunker in my care was to talk to Reeza. That’s it. Whenever I had the chance, I would go to her and tell her stories from my childhood, from my youth. Trapped in that bunker with only a handful of people, our numbers dwindling with each decade, Reeza was the constant in my life and the only one who never grew tired of my stories.’

‘And those stories,’ Tha said contemplatively, ‘somehow reached Veronica’s sister…’

‘The only way that could happen was if Veronica’s sister transcended into Reeza.’

‘Or if she was Reeza,’ I said flatly, ‘and everyone turned their heads towards me suddenly and almost horrified. I could feel their heartbeats quicken. Zorh’al, especially, looked at me with a mix of disbelief and reverence. It made me feel uncomfortable. It reminded me of when Alter and I first met. I waited for someone to say something. But the news had shocked them so much that none of them seemed able to speak anymore. So I broke the oppressive silence myself.

‘Zorh’al, do you remember the double sunrise?’

‘Yes, goddess,’ he replied in a hoarse, subdued voice.

‘I’m not your goddess yet. I am her origin,’ I said, and I seemed to shock them even more, if that was even possible. ‘I together with Alter, the consciousness of this body. We will become Reeza sometime in your past. For that to happen, I must return. I believe the purpose of my coming here was not to save Reeza…

It was the first time I had given shape to these thoughts, but now that I was telling them to everyone, they made sense.

‘I came to find Alter, to merge my mind with his and become something we have never been before. Only then did the seed of godhood appear in the palace of our minds. After entering a perfect symbiosis. And now, regardless of your plan… what I must do is find a way to take him with me.’

The silence that settled in the cabin and in the palace of my mind after I spoke these words convinced me even more that this was what needed to be done, and what I was indeed going to do.

Not long after, we arrived in an area that seemed devastated by bombings. Military tents stretched across several kilometres. People dressed in dusty armours were bustling everywhere. Some seemed busy with tasks, while others, who appeared to be enjoying the calm before the storm, laughed uninhibited, grinning from ear to ear. Two completely different worlds converged in a place of death.

As we descended, we found ourselves right in front of what appeared to be the command center. A few individuals, who had been watching our aircraft with wide-eyed curiosity since it appeared on the horizon like everyone else, seemed to belong to another category. Their uniforms were pristine. One of them entered a tent. The others came forward to greet us. One man was as tall as a mountain, which struck me as unusual for a race known for its uniform height.

When the entrance to the tent opened, silence fell. The woman who emerged from within was like a goddess to her people. The first thing I noticed was the crown of liquid gold atop her head, lazily shimmering more like an aura. Then her chest armour, the only piece she wore, also made of liquid gold. It was placed over a white veil dress. As she approached, I saw that her skin seemed made of a reddish mother of pearl, much like Sela’s. It glowed in the light of the two suns. It was like a diamond, each facet reflecting light in a manner seemingly more beautiful than the last. I observed how everyone around me bowed as she exited the tent, and they remained bowed until she reached me and spoke.

‘We’ve been expecting you,’ she said with a crystalline voice that probably reached every hidden corner of the base.

She looked at me for a long moment without saying anything. Then she gestured for us to enter the tent.

Once shielded from the sunlight, I thought Fiiuea might appear more human-like, but up close her presence was palpable. It intimidated me, which amused me a little: I was an ancient being fused with an artificial intelligence in an android body resembling the people from their mythology, and I knew I would become the very goddess who created everything one could see in this world, yet this woman intimidated me. Alter, on the other hand, was focused on absorbing all the information available to him. As for Fiiuea, she seemed to him like any other woman.

‘That’s a typical example of the race,’ he commented when I tried to explain why she seemed exceptional to me.

After briefly introducing us to the generals, she led us straight to the war table without further detours or pleasantries. Sela still seemed troubled. She muttered monosyllabic responses to the questions directed at her. She appeared smaller than before. But the others had no time for her distress. And, upon reflection, probably not for their own either. They all seemed dedicated to the strategy laid out on the war table.

‘Reeza must be saved,’ she declared.

She began directly, with a fervour that made me think she would speak for minutes on end. But she abruptly stopped. It was as if she wanted to control her emotions before delivering what she had to say.

‘We’ve fought fiercely up to now, but nothing we did will matter if we fail. We’ve received the meteorite analysis. When they hit, devastation will ensue. From preliminary calculations, only the underground cities will survive. But even that isn’t certain. Most civilians guaranteed space there are already on their way…”

‘That means millions of people worldwide,’ one of the generals said. ‘Billions will die if we don’t manage to save Reeza and if she doesn’t assist us.’

‘Why don’t we simply explain to them that they should release Reeza?’ I asked without realising.

‘We did, but they refuse to see the truth. Or perhaps they fear Reeza’s wrath, that she might first destroy those who imprisoned her and the atomic prison where she was held. And that is indeed risky. Reeza has the power to destroy us all. That’s why it’s important who we choose to send to get her out.’

‘Moreover,’ one of the generals added, ‘they are also plagued by paranoia. The temple is here,’ he pointed on the map, ‘and their central underground city is here.’ They seem almost adjacent to each other. It’s inconceivable to them to risk a nuclear hazard. They’ll avoid it by any means necessary. The plan is straightforward. We’ll attack on multiple fronts, alongside our allies. The desired outcome is for them to surrender and, after taking control, we would open the bunker ourselves. However, it might be too late; the meteor shower is projected in 73 hours.”

‘Therefore, parallel to this plan, because we have an ancient one connected to Reeza,’ Fiiuea said, glancing at me, ‘we will facilitate an access route through enemy lines. The goal is for the ancient one, together with Zorh’al, to attempt to save Reeza, possibly reducing the risk of retaliation. Zorh’al has assured us that Reeza can still feel… even in stasis. So perhaps we can save her before it’s too late for us.’

An aide approached and whispered something to one of the generals, who then tersely stated, ‘It’s time.’

Fiiuea headed towards the exit of the tent, and the generals followed her with grave expressions. When we stepped outside, it seemed everyone was ready for battle. All were now in gleaming armour and positioned in formations, organised into battalions as far as one could see in every direction, separated here and there by tents, machinery, or rubble. It struck me as a strange departure point, and that made me curious. Fiiuea signalled she was ready, and a kind of screen appeared in the sky, projected by several drones, upon which her face appeared almost immediately. Presumably, this was what the forces everywhere saw, given it was a massive assault, the last before potential annihilation. Everyone had solemn faces, but upon closer inspection, one could also discern worry, fear, and helplessness.

‘You already know what you all have to do. And you know you’re not fighting for yourselves, but for everyone you love… I’ve said this so many times that even I’m bored of it.’

She paused briefly to look around. Her large face projected in the sky, illuminated, seemed otherworldly. The voice echoing from all directions was the same. If I had been in a human body, my skin would probably have crawled.

‘I see some smiles. That’s good, it means we still have spirit, strength. The meteor shower threatens us with extinction. Nothing our researchers have done has yielded results. But just as together, as an army, we are stronger than when we are alone… so too are we even stronger together with our gods. The gods who made life possible on this planet. Even though many have forgotten history, and have tried to forget the gods themselves, I have not forgotten. Reeza has been with me all this time.’

She touched her pendant, and the image in the sky shifted to it.

‘I have been connected to our goddess since I was first exiled. And today, after such a long absence, I feel the pendant pulsing.’

A sound was heard as if the world itself were pulsing. And it continued to pulse.

‘It pulses because Reeza is ready to return. Today,’ Fiiueea said louder this time, with more passion. ‘Today we fight for the liberation of Reeza and the other gods.’

She paused only to give the army time to approve her in a wild chorus of guttural affirmations.

‘We fight for faith. To show our gratitude for what they have given us, even now, at the end. But we also fight for the hope they represent. Praise be the gods.’

‘Praise be the gods.’

The army chanted in unison until the words began to lose shape, and the people were in a state of exhilaration that can only be felt in the midst of a massive crowd. The chants grew wilder and were now mixed with the sounds emitted by battle aircrafts filling the horizon and heading towards us.

‘Let’s go,’ a voice said from my right.

It was one of the generals. He had around him a team of five people. None of them were in armour anymore, but in clothes that seemed made of liquid. For camouflage, Alter told me. Tha took Sela’s hand and followed the general. She seemed lost in another world. I came next, then Tha, and Zorh’al, closely followed by the team. Things seemed to move suddenly at a different speed.

Battalions were boarding huge aircrafts that had just landed. And we were almost running towards another aircraft. This one was like a kind of armoured drone, one who looked so sophisticated that I couldn’t tell where the propulsion came from. Instead, the attached armament was completely visible and gave me a sense of fear. We all climbed quickly, quietly, and within seconds we were already airborne, everything that we have experienced before seeming like a dream now.

We were crowded together, strapped with safety belts somewhat more rudimentary than those of the bear, but still very comfortable and giving me a sense of security. False security, Alter insisted on reminding me. The general quickly briefed us on what would happen in the next few hours. The plan was for us to land somewhere near the bunker, enter, shut down the reactor, and then free Reeza. Each of us had a designated soldier for protection. I wondered if we needed them. Alter and I were probably capable of taking down all our defenders if we wanted to, but I said nothing.

After a while, I felt a deceleration, and the general told us we had arrived. But right then, something hit us. Hard. Then it exploded. I felt us propelled by the blast. In a fraction of a second, we slammed into the ground and I felt the shock reverberate through all our systems. For a brief moment, I was glad I wasn’t human. I glanced at the others, but the ship had protected them with a cocoon of foam, and they were now groggily struggling to get up.

‘Everyone out!’ shouted the general, and he was the first to manage to rise and exit through the hole blown open by the explosion in the aircraft fuselage. Then Sela, Tha, Zorh’al. After them, I followed, and behind me came the other soldiers.

Miraculously, we were all unharmed. We followed the general, who swiftly led us away from the crash site.

‘They’ve spotted us, but I don’t think they know our objective,’ he said as he gestured for us to go through a narrow alley between very low houses that reminded me of the day we arrived here.

There was an electric discharge, and then one of the soldiers dropped like a scythe had cut him down. The general signalled for us to hide behind a small structure, just tall enough to peek over if you stood fully upright. We all crouched down, soldiers securing all directions around us, while the general studied the map. He ordered the drones to be deployed. Within minutes, three drones were airborne, surveying the area. The general seemed to see what they displayed directly on his retina, as did the soldiers. Alter was contemplating how to interface with the general’s tablet to connect with the drones.

One of the drones spotted a group of armed soldiers approaching us and was shot down almost immediately. A few seconds later, the same fate befell another drone. The third one was still in the air, so the general led us down the path marked as safe by that one.

țThis route takes us away from our objective,’ he said when we stopped in an alley to reassess the situation. ‘We’re safe for now, but reinforcements will likely arrive to cut off our retreat. It could be now, or in a few minutes. The plan is to keep them occupied here while the civilians make their way to the bunker. Arh’aal, you go with them. The rest of us stay here. Take the drone with you,’ he added, handing Zorh’al his tablet.

‘No, you keep the drone,’ Sela said, surprising us all. ‘You’re outnumbered, and for us to get further away, our efforts should be concentrated here. With the war underway, they surely don’t have as many internal defence forces. So the longer you hold out, the better chance we have of slipping through unnoticed.’

The general seemed about to argue, but something in the drone feed caught his attention, so he just gestured for us to move quickly.

Arh’aal, still monitoring the drone feed, swiftly led us through back alleys away from the danger zone. We managed to resume our route just as we began hearing gunfire and electric discharges. Their battle had begun. Ours would have to wait.

The plan had worked. After 21 minutes of walking through the streets, one of them opened into a massive intersection leading to a large boulevard. On the left side of the boulevard was a temple, and on the right, a park. Zorh’al signalled us towards the park. We felt exposed. The streets were completely deserted. Perhaps all the inhabitants had been either conscripted and sent to fight, relocated to underground cities if they were among the desirable individuals, or hiding in their homes, trembling with fear of impending doom if they were simply ordinary people. We entered cautiously, looking around, wanting to observe any movement in case someone was following us. We were all on edge, and our analytical thinking seemed somewhat diminished. Alter, on the other hand, analysed maps, made plans for retreat and attack. Attack plans, however, were unnecessary because there were only four people left in the entire complex. They stepped aside without understanding what we were doing there. We locked them all in a room and then went underground, led by Zorh’al, who seemed to know the place like the back of his hand. Just as we were about to enter the bunker, we heard sounds of explosions from the outside. The war had reached here. A shiver ran down our spines, and then we entered the bunker where it was completely quiet. Zorh’al locked the door behind us. We walked for a few minutes until we reached a vast hall that was almost empty. In the middle of it stood a single capsule with a control panel right next to it. The capsule was gleaming. A pulsating brilliance, almost dazzling in the dimly lit room.

‘Reeza,’ Zorh’al said almost in a whisper, and Arh’aal fell to his knees with an exalted expression.