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  “Are all of the survivors here?”

  “In this city? No. There are others like it around the world. I first used the nanos to build flying machines that could fly around and scan all dry land for survivors so we could make sure everyone had been contacted. We built the cities where the greatest numbers of people could get there as easily as possible. Some like living on the outside, like Wesley Cardinal did outside the LakePlex. Some like living in space.” He chuckled. “Many of those are people who, a year ago, knew with absolute certainty that powered flight wasn’t possible.”

  Sheila laughed. “Do people choose to move to different cities, too? Like some prefer to live in space once they learn about it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Are there a lot who want to do that? I know a lot of ships got destroyed a year ago, so I’m wondering how all them are accommodated.”

  Micah chuckled. “Follow me.”

  Sheila, wondering what was so funny about her question, trailed along behind him.

  Micah weaved his way through the crowds, and Sheila noted that he’d gradually increased his pace, pushing her to extend herself. That was a good thing; she couldn’t get stronger if she kept moving at a slow pace. Micah rounded a building and stopped, waited until Sheila caught up to him, and pointed. “We don’t need ships.”

  It was a low, circular building without walls, just a roof with pillars keeping the roof suspended. The walls, if one could call them that, looked like pale blue discs of light until she got a bit closer.

  “Micah? Are those…?”

  “Portals.” He pointed at the signage above each. “They’re always on. Each ‘side’ that you see only travels in one direction. So people coming here come out through the sides facing out, while those traveling to the same place go into the building and walk through the portal on that side.”

  She saw robots near the portal, buzzing and squeaking a new set of arrivals from a place called “Shanghai,” and people moving away from the portal and out in to the main city here. “Those robots keep people from standing right in front of the portal once they walk through,” Micah explained. “Most people still aren’t quite used to this mode of travel, and they walk through, take one step, realize that they’re actually in a different part of the world, and stop. We had quite a few cases of collisions and people getting knocked down and hurt in that manner. None since the nagging little robots started, though.”

  They had two portals for the space station; departing travelers rode up a ramp through the portal, while those arriving rode down a ramp to visit here. Sheila thought the imagery was quite clever.

  “One more thing to show you, and then I’ll show you how to get a room to sleep for the night.”

  Sheila would have happily watched people marching into and out of the portals for hours, but she followed Micah.

  The building wasn’t large, but Sheila recognized its purpose as she went inside. “Is it the original?”

  “The original Time Capsule remains aboard the space station, and is protected in a manner that won’t allow its contents to be altered, disfigured, or destroyed. But any who wish to do so can go there for a visit. This is an identical copy, and there’s a version in every city. Volunteers have been transcribing everything, people from every city, and trying to store it in a fashion that makes looking for specific things easier. There are people who tell me they think they’ll be able to get the entire contents on something the size of portable communicator at some point. Fully distributed knowledge. Incredibly powerful.”

  “That should help prevent the rise of another Damien Hyel.”

  “That’s the intent.”

  “General?” The voice was familiar, though Sheila couldn’t quite place it. “General Jamison?”

  They both turned toward the voice.

  Wesley Cardinal walked toward them from one of the portal arrival stations, and was soon followed by John, Roddy and Mary Light, and the twins.

  Hugs were exchanged all around, and Sheila was complimented on her rapidly improving health condition. Wesley told her that she looked much better without all the makeup and the wig she’d worn the last time he’d seen her.

  Sheila grinned, and was surprised that her face flushed. “So… how are things out in the rest of the world?”

  They added some detail and context to the updates she’d already gotten from Micah, and before long, the Lights excused themselves so they could grab lodging for the evening. John said he wanted to study the time capsule, and headed out shortly afterward.

  Micah looked at Sheila. “I should show you how to grab lodging here, shouldn’t I?”

  “Unless… she hasn’t eaten dinner yet?” Wesley said.

  Micah blinked. “That’s right. You haven’t eaten, have you?”

  “No, but I’m not hungry.” Sheila said, just as her stomach began growling. “Okay, maybe just a bit.”

  “I’m happy to show her where to get food, General, if you have other things to do.”

  Micah rubbed his chin. “As a matter of fact, I did want to ask Miriam a few questions. I wonder if she’s still back at the questions table?” He gave Sheila’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Let me know if you need anything, Sheila.”

  And then he left.

  Sheila glanced at Wesley. He’d caused her all manner of grief in the old life; she couldn’t deny that, and she still remembered his vicious attack on her, just before the Ravagers activated. But she’d also learned why he’d done it, and in the course of evading the Ravagers and, eventually, defeating the Thirty, she’d gotten an entirely different view of him.

  And she knew she wanted to know him better.

  She offered him a shy grin. “Wesley Cardinal, are you asking me out on a date?”

  He looked like he wanted to melt into the ground. But he straightened up instead. “Strange new world, isn’t it?” He offered her his arm.

  Sheila took it. “Oh, it’s not that strange.” She elbowed him gently in the side. “So, Cardinal, do they serve shark meat at this place you’re taking me?”

  Wesley burst out laughing.

  Chapter 27

  Two Year Later

  With the ever-expanding network of cities and the portal system connecting them, there was little obvious need for traveling in any other way. Micah Jamison was one of the few who found that mode of travel preferable. They’d cloned the Light’s flying sphere, and Micah now flew around the world to see where he could be of the greatest use. His closest friends knew that he retained the sphere, in part, because it allowed him to visit Eden without exposing the island’s secret location.

  It also allowed him to visit friends who felt pulled away from the big cities, seeing in the booming populations something to avoid except where necessary.

  He spotted the dual homesteads, built halfway between the city he’d used to reintroduce Sheila Clarke to the world and the fortress of New Phoenix. He spotted the flying spheres owned by those living here. They still liked to move about and visit friends and, as families living an appreciable distance from any the global portal hubs, they certainly needed those spheres.

  Micah settled his own craft down between the two homes and disembarked.

  He was engulfed in hugs as the older set of twins crushed him in a welcoming embrace. “Hi, Uncle Micah!”

  “Hello, Jill.” Micah smiled at her as she pulled away, marveling that, at age sixteen, she was now taller than her mother. “Are you doing well?”

  “Yeah. The baby cries all night, but it’s okay. He’s fun to make faces at during the day.”

  “But his diapers smell really bad!” Jack added.

  “How would you know? You never change them!”

  Micah chuckled. They never changed.

  Jill looked at Micah again. “Has it… helped?”

  Micah’s hand went to his face.

  He’d analyzed every pattern he could find in the events leading up to, during, and after the Ravager scourge. And while the odds suggested a D
amien Hyel or Delilah Silver type leader would almost certainly emerge after a few centuries, he felt no personal threat to his existence in letting the world in on another truth. The survivors, who’d had to absorb not just the loss of massive portions of the population and the places they’d once called home, but their unwitting role in an act of selfish genocide, could use some news that qualified as interesting, perhaps good, but certainly not evil.

  They couldn’t deal with more evil.

  He’d tried simply telling people his true nature, even pulling off his right hand and showing them the wiring and metal inside, much as he’d done with Sheila Clarke three years earlier. But so many people asked to see him do that—and he suspected that it had nothing to do with wanting proof, just a desire to see something “cool”—that he’d taken a slightly more drastic approach to provide proof of his nature in a more direct manner.

  The dark ebony artificial skin continued to cover the right side of his face, and those looking at him in profile from that side might be given to think Micah Jamison was a flesh and blood human being.

  But he’d torn the fake skin from the left side of his face, revealing the metal, cabling, and lights inside, showing his “eye” and the inside of his “mouth” on that side. It was perhaps a bit extreme, and, to some, grotesque. But he hadn’t had to do the “hand thing” for several months.

  He glanced at Jill. “Parents ask me to come scare their children when they’re naughty.” He lowered his head closer to hers. “Boo.”

  Jill laughed.

  Micah turned his eyes on the home. In letting people know he was a robot, Micah also educated those who didn’t know that the Ravagers were robots as well, robots coded for destruction. He’d changed the code in all of them after they’d gotten control of the code upload mechanism; those machines would now be put to good use. Building cities. Building homes and furniture. Creating clothing.

  He suggested dividing those not used in the cities up amongst the survivors, with the offer to install specialized machines that let them communicate thoughts directly to machines that could do their bidding. Despite impressive demonstrations by people like Sheila Clarke and Wesley Cardinal, most were quite leery. They’d just seen a hidden cabal use seemingly friendly technology to nearly destroy every human life on the planet; they couldn’t fathom letting another robot inject machines inside them.

  Micah helped build apps to interface with the nanos instead. Less efficient. But much less scary for most.

  He also disabled the invisibility code. There was no legitimate need for it any longer. He conveniently forgot to mention such a capability had ever existed.

  The Lights’ home was built from nanos, of course, and that was a good thing. They’d moved here soon after the fighting ended, adding a third child a year later. Baby Deirdre was just starting to walk when little Will arrived, and the youngest member of the family kept them all entertained and, as Jill suggested, sleeping lightly at night.

  Micah had found the younger daughter’s name odd, but Roddy had said it was Mary’s idea, a tribute to a woman who had sacrificed her life to save Roddy’s, and, perhaps, a reminder not to judge too quickly.

  Wesley and Sheila lived in the house next door with their growing family, including their own set of twins, named Sandy and Diego. Micah had told them of the name of the Golden Ages-era city that stood near the spot where they’d had their first date, and they decided to name their children after the ancient town.

  Led by the twins, Micah walked into the common area located between the two homes, where the families often joined together for meals. He waved at his old friends, offering a raised eye—on the fleshy side of his face—in Sheila’s direction. She smiled and held an open palm against her bulging abdomen. It looked like her twins would have a new sibling joining them soon.

  He helped carry food from the wood grill they used over to the large tables, and watched with amusement as Roddy tried with little success to spoon some mashed carrots into baby Will’s mouth. Wesley, looking to impress his friend, spooned peas into Diego’s mouth while Jill made faces at Sandy. Once they’d fed the younger children, they got them all ready for bed and tucked in, ordering Jack and Jill to keep their respective eyes on the sleeping infants and toddlers.

  The adults returned to the outdoor table.

  “How are my parents?” Roddy asked.

  “They’re well, and send their love and a request for more videos and pictures.” Jeffrey and Desdemona had been asked to help oversee some extensive repairs to the space station, given that they’d helped with portions of the original construction. Mary, who’d spent far too long jailed in the Brig with her children and who’d seen the carnage of the major battle with the Thirty there, refused to leave the atmosphere; Micah privately suspected that, though Mary’s feelings about Deirdre had softened, she’d never fully forgive her in-laws for their role in allowing her relationship with Roddy to happen. After much discussion, Desdemona and Jeffrey had accepted the work. Even with the portal system, travel with so many young children was difficult, and so they didn’t see the Wileys as often as all would like. But they were busy, engaged in challenging work that benefitted everyone, and the time between visits flew by.

  Micah fumbled his fingers together, and Mary noticed. “Something bothering you, Micah?”

  He looked up at Mary, then expanded his gaze to include Roddy. “They asked me to remember their original names, and both of yours as well.”

  “Why?” Roddy asked.

  “Because they then had me operate the memory machine. They now don’t know those names. My memory of them is the last one.”

  Roddy sat back against his chair. “Oh.” He knew his birth name wasn’t “Roddy Light,” knew that he wasn’t married to “Mary Smith,” and knew that his parents’ real names weren’t “Jeffrey and Desdemona Wiley.” All of those names had been erased from his memory, and they’d not added them back when restoring his memories of Mary. The names, apparently, still carried with them great amounts of risk in a Phoenix-dominated world, and he was better off not know them. Not yet.

  He glanced at Mary. She, too, hadn’t thought in the aftermath of Phoenix’s downfall to learn her true name. And in learning that the Wileys had asked to have that information forever stripped from their minds, they worried that, should they learn the truth, they might inadvertently reveal those names to people who’d made quite clear that they no longer wanted to know.

  Micah steepled his fingers together. “There is no need to make a decision. I will not tell you accidentally, nor will I tell anyone else, not without your explicit permission. You can always ask me, and I will answer. Or… you can ask me to forget, and I will extinguish the information from the world forever.”

  Mary glanced at Roddy. “I… I guess I just feel now like I really am Mary. Not somebody who changed her name. Finding out that other name now… it just feels like I’d be inviting another person to live inside of me.”

  Roddy chuckled. “I can completely relate to that concept, and have the same sentiment. I’m just Roddy Light now, husband to Mary, father to four beautiful children. There’s nothing about my old identity I need, that I don’t already have.”

  “Fair enough,” Micah said. “If you ever change your minds, just let me know.”

  Sheila leaned forward. “That’s not why you came to visit today, Micah.”

  “You always seem know my thoughts.”

  “I spent far too much time around you, and two months living like you, to miss obvious clues. Out with it, robot.”

  “That’s General Robot to you,” Wesley murmured.

  The others laughed.

  “I am going to say something that will seem odd, but I will explain why I make that statement.” He set his hands on the table. “I’m concerned that our victory over the Thirty was too easy.”

  Wesley opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. Then spoke. “I know you’ll explain your reasoning, General. But as someone who fought several sharks
in the ocean as part of that process, and had to survive a one-on-eleven gunfight… I don’t think I would call it easy.”

  “I have replayed all video and audio recordings I have of the events leading up to the Ravager launch. I have analyzed all of the emails and communication transcripts between and amongst the Thirty. I have found other documents relating to them, to us, our communications. There is a strange pattern in that information, and that is what drives my concern.”

  He looked up, saw the skepticism in their faces as interpreted by his facial expression translation module, and knew he had their attention. They didn’t agree with his assessment, not yet, but they would listen.

  “Here’s why: we were outnumbered, our enemy had greater resources, greater ability to thwart our actions at every step of the way, had every power our people did, and arguably more given the location of the final battle where they’d had more practice in exercising those powers. They could track our locations, monitor our conversations, intercept every email and text message.” He looked up. “How is it that we never lost a battle?”

  Sheila stared at him. “My body lived in a coma state for two months while my brain lived in a robot body. That doesn’t feel like winning to me.”

  “I certainly took a beating that nearly killed me as well.”

  “And all of us were on the run from the Ravagers,” Mary added.

  Roddy pointed. “And Wesley got bitten by a shark.”

  “You are confusing significant pain, or the near-death of an individual, with wins and losses of full battles. Sheila, you seized control of our enemy’s greatest weapon from them, both depriving them of that weapon and handing it to us. Engage in military thinking. How often would you make that trade?”