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  She shook her head no.

  I talked her through pinching the space above the hidden latch, and the screen hovered above her wrist. “You can also command it with your voice, which is easiest. I just wanted you to know you can do it manually if for some reason you are unable to speak.”

  “What do I say to activate it?”

  “Activate Planck Activation Bracelet,” I said, and my screen expanded over my wrist. “And to put it back? Deactivate Planck Activation Bracelet.” My screen folded up into the empty air until it was gone.

  “Cool.” She practiced both several times, letting a giggle escape each time.

  “It’s not a toy,” I said.

  Her eyes rolled. It was something I’d witnessed more times than I realized over the years I spent watching her. Between all the crossing and the rolling, I wondered how her eyes were still able to function normally. It made me want to smile, and like the last time, I pushed the urge away. “You see how the screen is see-through, so that it gets difficult to read because you see everything beyond the letters?”

  Texi nodded.

  “Say, ‘Increase opacity.’ It’ll make it easier to read.”

  She said it, and the screen grew a black backing into it. “It looks like a floating computer!” Her eyes examined every inch of the screen, and they widened in excitement. Then there was a pause in this excitement to let in a wave of confusion. “Why doesn’t my screen respond to your commands?” It was a good question. She always seemed full of good questions.

  “Because the bracelet is connected to your Energy. It’ll only respond to your voice commands. Although there’s a failsafe for anyone to pull it up manually in case a partner has to help you Jump. Speaking of, when entering coordinates, it’s protocol to always type them in. You don’t want to accidentally say the wrong thing. One letter or number off can make a huge difference.”

  “That makes sense. When do I get to learn how to enter coordinates?” Texi asked. She was curious as always, thirsty for more things to understand before she was ready for them.

  “Baby steps. First, I’m going to put you on the Planck Web.”

  “What’s on it?” she asked.

  “Forums that contain our history. The known history of the Multiverse. All kinds of things. It’ll help you get an idea for the culture you belong to.”

  “Culture?”

  “You’re Gaian, and Gaian politics and beliefs are just as involved and volatile as those from the universe you were raised in. Be careful, though. Explore all sides of every issue you come across. Be sure to understand before you believe anything.”

  Texi sucked in a breath. “Ringo used to say that.”

  I nodded. It was a line that was part of The Manifesto, and it is widely memorized by the Saltadors as children. Love before you hate. Understand before you believe. Breathe before you speak. And think before you act. Rather than bring this up, I said, “I know. He’s a smart man.”

  “He’s a liar.” The hurt that radiated from that sentence struck me. The way she’d carried herself made me forget how painful everything must be for her. She let her guard down for just a brief moment and shoved every ounce of anger into three words. It made me want to hug her, and I reached out my hand to at least pat her on the back but stopped myself short. My reaction scared me. The last time I ever hugged someone was when I was seven and Corbin had been gone longer than normal. When I wrapped my arms around the old man, he told me it was time to move past childish impulses. That’s what my reaction was. An impulse based on pity.

  I couldn’t fall into the trap of feeling sorry for her.

  Objectivity. That was what I needed to hold on to.

  I jolted up from where I sat and walked so that I could only see out of the window. I felt the hot panes radiate under my palm and appreciated every inch of warmth. The ocean spread out in a vast expanse as my eyes followed the hawk-gulls that darted between the clouds, and I remembered we were close to an island.

  She was so engulfed in the screen that she’d completely missed my botched attempt to comfort her, and I made myself move past the moment. “To get to the forums, say, ‘Enter Planck Web.’ You’ll notice that there’s a search bar, as well as major forum tabs.”

  “It looks just like the internet back home,” she said. “Only there’s a few differences.”

  “Like?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I’d grown up reading the Gaian language, but Texi had grown up with an adapted form of English. After the Change, the Knowing adjusts our sight so we can trace texts back to their origin. It lets the letters bleed into understanding, like our brains are just readjusting to a new alphabet we can understand. Although I knew what caused the wavering letters, I was just as new to this adjustment as Texi, and it was strange to experience it.

  “The language. I’ve never seen it before, but I can read it.”

  “My friend Nobu tried to explain this to me. He said our brain reverts to the alphabet we are most comfortable with. Had we grown up learning Arabic of Hunana, then those alphabets would be what we saw when our brains translated the writing.”

  “Hunana?”

  “It’s a language spoken on the 987s—a blend of English and Huno. The Hunos and humans have a shared alien settlement in Andromeda in that universe.”

  Texi’s face squinched. “Riiiiight. The aliens.” She giggled. “The freakin’ aliens.”

  I pushed myself from the window and walked towards the door. She was beginning to understand the adventure of it all, and it was like I was witnessing something private and sacred blossoming in her face. It felt too intimate to be a part of. “Start with the Gaian Order, the Shadow Boxers, and the Calvary. Learn their functions first. Then, look up the Humanitarian Trials,” I said. “You can bring up the letters by saying, ‘Bring up keypad,’ or by double tapping the screen twice with two fingers. Or, if you know the topic you want to learn about, you can just say, ‘Explore the history of the Shadow Boxers.’”

  Texi nodded but didn’t look up at me. Curiosity was everywhere around her, and she moved her hand up to timidly touch the hovering screen. She took two fingers and tapped over the screen, although there was no touching the holograph. It was more like it read the intention of the movement.

  “You can also tell the screen to ‘Project’ anywhere.” I took a deep breath as a sudden tightness gripped my lungs. I knew I was giving her access to more than just answers. Some of these forums would cause her an avalanche of pain, and I hated that she’d feel any. Then I hated myself for worrying so much about her feelings. She needed to know that her potential was balanced out by an equal amount of danger. It was better to get the hurt over with now rather than to let her accidentally stumble across the feeds about her, so I said, “I have to warn you. The Humanitarian Project Trials are a part of your particular, individual history.”

  She looked up from the screen with questions written in her eyes, but she held them back. I opened the door and left her to it. What she was about to read would be cutting.

  She was about to truly understand what it meant to be a survivor of a genocide, even if it was a tiny one.

  Not even I had the strength to be in the room when that realization hit.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  As strange as his presence was, in some ways I was thankful Santiago was with us. I was smart enough to know there were things I still needed to be walked through. Learning about something through discussion and reading is so different from actually experiencing it, and I’d rarely left the boat until Nobu walked me through my first Jump. Sure, there were islands here and there that I’d escape to by rowing a tiny little boat out onto them, but my life had been pretty much water-logged. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel a sudden sense of freedom when I realized I wouldn’t be a Watcher. To know that my life would not consist of living vicariously through other people’s adventures made me happy in ways I didn’t know existed. It’s like discovering you never knew you wanted something until it was possible to h
ave it.

  And on the list of things I’d never done was taking a Culture Pulse. Despite knowing all the mechanics, theories, and terminology to taking one, I didn’t understand how all the theory came together into the act itself.

  So when Santiago said it was time to teach us how to take a Pulse that afternoon, I was more excited than I should have been. We’d let an entire two days pass in idle rest, with Texi exploring the forums and Santiago doing whatever it was that Santiago did. I was normally so patient about things, but the newness of it all made me want to stop wasting time already. I now had things to discover—to experience.

  When we landed in the Vein, I finally got to experience something I’d only been able to watch before.

  I’d never been to a concert.

  I’d never experienced young Collective Energy.

  And now I was experiencing them both at the same time.

  The music was in full swing, and some band that didn’t exist in Texi’s world nor mine, had millions of fans in this one. It was a festival of some sort, and people wore garbled costumes and face paint. The lights flooded above us, working their way into the crowd on the tails of musical notes.

  I kept looking over at Santiago and Texi to make sure I was doing it right. It was strange how people settle into your life as if they’d always been there. These past two days, whenever I let my brain stop overanalyzing everything, I nearly forgot this was a new dynamic. I also nearly forgot Nobu was gone or that I may not ever see him again.

  Maybe that’s why he told me when he did. He could have given me months to prepare and say goodbye, but this was cleaner. One day, I was Liam Martinez, Watcher protégé, and the next day I was meant to be the protector of humanity? There wasn’t time to miss him.

  I asked Nobu once, why Corbin left us the way he did. “Wouldn’t it have made sense for Corbin and Ringo to keep us all together and raise Texi here? Then he wouldn’t have had to go back and forth.”

  “I thought on that a lot, actually,” Nobu had said. “But I think it has something to do with balance. Keeping us separate is a failsafe. They may find one, but not the other. Like it or not, we study Texi partially in the hopes of discovering what she’s made of. Potentially, she may prove we need more like her, and our data may lead back to the discoveries that were destroyed.

  “Then there’s the problem of politics. They are constantly shifting on Gaia, but we are here, held suspended in time—away from it all. In some ways, Corbin and Ringo protect us by being the only adults with access to us. Although the Elders of the Gaian Order know we exist, they don’t know where. The last time more than a couple people had access to the whereabouts of the subjects, it leaked to the Shadow Boxers. And beyond that? You? Me? Santiago? Heck, even Texi for the purpose of this point. We were raised without being torn by the politics of our home. We cannot be swayed by sides that only wish to tear out throats of the other for the sake of the political win. We make decisions on less passioned ideals, which is why we were trained for the jobs we’ve been given. We have to remember that our entire lives have been spent preparing for this and this alone. And when the time comes and events ignite our destinies, we’ll be ready.”

  It was an odd feeling to know that my destiny was upon me.

  But in the presence of Collective Energy, for the first time, I truly felt what it meant to be a part of something bigger.

  Santiago was nervous to bring Texi to the concert after what happened the last time she encountered a population, but we needed to learn how to do a Culture Pulse. He stood in front of Texi and held his hand to his heart. Texi watched him and copied as he did. Their bodies nearly blended into the crowd of merging, swaying bodies, and I moved closer so I wouldn’t lose them. “Feel the beat?” he asked.

  I still had trouble getting used to this new control of the senses. I could tune out everything but their voices, and I knew I could enter into complete silence if I wanted to heighten a different sense. I’d read somewhere that silence had a loudness to it, but that’s just because whoever wrote it had never truly experienced a lack of sound. And when I tried it this morning, I discovered there was no roar within the realm of silence.

  Santiago moved his hand so that his finger rested on his wrist, and Texi copied him again. “Now. Your pulse. Feel it? Thump-thump. Thump-thump.”

  Texi nodded. The Energy was everywhere, and I put my own fingers on my wrist to feel the thump-thumping he was talking about.

  There it was.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  The Energy expanded over me, and my conscious was pulled out over the crowd. The dancing, the singing, the swaying. I connected to it and felt for the heartbeat of the crowd, the state, the country, the world, and beyond.

  “You’ll feel it like a cancer if it’s there. You’ll be able to see the birth of the disease and trace it from its beginning to its end,” Iago whispered, though I heard it clearly. I wondered if this would be it. We’d been on this Vein for hours, following this concert through space and time, Jumping further into the Vein when the Culture Pulse wouldn’t give way.

  I knew this was an already Explored Vein, but Santiago was making us march through the steps. It was a lesson in patience I didn’t need, but Texi did. I followed his lead and enjoyed the music, the sounds, the screaming, the singing, and everything else the night had to offer. Every vivid moment where the pulse was strong was like drinking ten shots of espresso in less than a minute. The adrenaline of life made me wish the Culture Pulse lasted longer than thirty seconds. I didn’t care that this was the thirtieth time we’d done this that day, because it was addicting. I was at the concert with them, but I was also elsewhere. I was a part of myself, but I was also part of everything else.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  “Let the Energy carry you,” Santiago said. “Don’t try to fight it. But remember, don’t try to Splice it. You can’t save it if it’s too far gone, because death is a part of life. This is not what you were designed for.” He said this each time, afraid she’d forget why she needed to show restraint. But I had an irrational want for her to save it. I hated that so many lives would dissipate into oblivion, and all that Energy would be converted into something useless and Stagnate.

  Then it finally happened.

  We discovered the moment, and I couldn’t help but cry out. I opened my eyes and saw the tears streaming down Texi and Santiago’s faces. I reached up to feel the same tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. It felt like I was crying ice—like my heart had been frozen then cracked into a trillion pieces. The death of a universe is like a pain I’d never felt before, because it was a collective pain. A collective sadness. A collective desperation. It’s the Knowing that something is not right, nor will it ever be again for a group of people. It was the recognition of their inevitable desire for destruction.

  “How much time?” Santiago asked. He’d already wiped away his tears as a girl stopped dancing and gave us a funny look. We’d been getting looks like this often because of our lack of costumes. Or, who knew, maybe we were the ones wearing costumes. Maybe the fashion trends on this universe were led by face-paint and strange clothing.

  My voice shook when I answered. “Eight generations.”

  “How will it happen?”

  “Let’s drop it,” I said when I noticed Texi’s face had grown several shades of pale. But that wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want to continue the conversation. I couldn’t relive the experience in words. It was as if I’d been placed on a zip-line of time to see the origin of destruction. I saw the man who started it all with one decision, and the chain-reaction decisions his Splice prompted.

  “It always starts with one,” Santiago said. “Remember that. One person can destroy everything, just as easily as one person can save everything. Energy is contagious, and ultimately you choose how you want to participate in it. These people will choose to participate in it negatively, whether the choice is passively or knowingly made.”

  “How can our bra
in take all that in?” Texi asked. “How was I able to see so much so quickly?” Again, she asked the good questions.

  I hated how the uptake of the question marks in Texi’s voice sent tingles through me. I was just so curious about her. Now that she was right in front of me, I couldn’t explain the nervousness I felt around her. In so many ways, it was like I’ve always been with her. She was like a long lost friend who’d returned to me from some imaginary reality. But I knew it was wrong to see her that way. In fact it was downright stupid.

  I focused on her question and answered, “You let the Collective Energy connect you to the Big Whisper.” At least I knew the mechanics of a Culture Pulse, but now I finally knew what it was like to actually experience it. I wished I could go back to what I didn’t know.

  “Will it Splice anymore?” she asked.

  “A few more times,” Santiago answered.

  “So that’s it?” There was an expression on her face I recognized. It held no acceptance of the situation and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, purples collided into her greens. I felt the tug of it as well, like I had an unreasonable faith that she’d know just the right pressure to put on the universe before it’d crack apart into oblivion, and I felt the irreparable rip in my soul. Knowledge can be a thief like that, and to know that I could be a part of a possible solution was tempting. All I had to do was let Texi trust herself and follow her lead, but there was still too much we didn’t know. “Don’t do it,” I said. “Even if you give it that little extra push, we cannot stay here to see it through. This is not the Optimal Path.”

  “Give the pain time.” Santiago backed me up. “It’ll get bearable. It always does.”

  Texi shook her head and pulled up the screen from her Planck Activation Bracelet. She was getting good at managing the screen size in crowds so the bracelet looked like a glowing watch. “I want to go home.”

  Santiago nodded, and then they were gone.

  I stayed in the crowd a moment longer. I wasn’t ready to leave the fading chaos just yet. I watched the dancing mass of Energy and said the Gaian Prayer to the Dying. “Be Intrepid until the end, but when that end comes, Know that it is time to submit to Peace.” Then I pulled up my own screen and disappeared into the Nothing.