Broken Pixels (Broken Realms, #4)

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21Looking at the remains of her counterpart, Mara couldn’t breathe for what seemed like several minutes. She stood unmoving, shining the light toward the tiny building that sheltered the elevator shaft that would take them to the underground railcar. Ping and Sam looked at her, not saying anything, waiting for her to react so they would know what to say.

Mara broke the silence in a flat monotone that sounded more ominous than somber. “She said that I needed more persuasion. The Aphotis did this to her just to send a message to me, that she knows where we are and what we are doing. She’s letting me know she could do the same to me—or one of you—if we stay.”

Ping looked above them and then down the alley from the direction they had entered. “Do you think she is still here? Perhaps this is some sort of trap, and she intends to attack while we are distracted. We are in a vulnerable position here—with only one way out, other than taking the elevator to the railcar stop.”

Mara shook her head. “No point in going to all the trouble of locating my counterpart and doing this just to serve as a momentary distraction. This was a warning—and a threat.”

Sam’s eyes welled up, and his face reddened as he looked at the body on the ground. “Why didn’t she defend herself? She a progenitor for God’s sake!”

Ping wrapped an arm around his shoulder and said, “Perhaps in this realm she had never learned how to tap into those abilities. Even a progenitor cannot use powers she doesn’t know she possesses.”

“Maybe she isn’t a progenitor at all in this realm,” Mara said.

“Unlikely,” Ping said. “You may be unique in each realm in which you reside, but fundamentally you are a progenitor in all them. That I’m sure of.”

“You weren’t so sure when we first met,” Mara said offhandedly, almost absentmindedly, as she stepped forward, getting ready to kneel next to the girl on the ground.

Ping held up a hand to stop her. “No, don’t touch her. There might be enough of you in her—metaphysically—to set off a reaction and force you from this realm—or worse.”

Mara pulled back and said, “What can we do for her?”

“Nothing now,” Cam said from the crook of Sam’s arm. “I can’t detect any sign of life at all. She’s just like the people at the church, except her limbs are still intact.”

Without taking her gaze from the girl, Mara asked, “So what’ll happen to her?”

“She’s young enough. They will repair her artificial body and extract new engrams from her biological one,” Cam said. “That’s all to be done at this point.”

“But she will have lost some of what she was, how her life has shaped her thus far,” Mara said.

“That’s true, but she’ll be able to adjust and have a complete life. That’s what matters,” Cam said.

“Will someone come and get her?”

“I’ve already reported her location to the authorities as well as those at the church. However, with all the disruptions in the city, it may be awhile before her body is retrieved,” Cam said.

Sam turned Cam upward to look at him and said, “We are not just going to leave her here. We can take her with us to the repository. That’s where she needs to go anyway, isn’t it?”

“It’s unlikely that her original body is stored at the same repository as mine. She would just have to be retransported again later,” Cam said.

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving without her,” Sam said.

“Sam, she’s gone. I don’t really like the idea of leaving her here either, but we need to get Cam to the repository—he’s someone we can help. She isn’t,” Mara said. “We really should leave before more trouble shows up.”

Sam shoved Cam’s head into Mara’s hands and said, “We can take Cam and her with us. Ping, grab her shoulders, and I’ll get her feet. I’m not leaving without her.”

“Sam, it’s not like this Mara is your sister.”

Her brother glared at her and, through gritted teeth, said, “She’s as much my sister as you are.”

Mara flinched.

Ping straightened and stood between them. “Taking her with us will not slow us down much. We just carry her to the elevator, to the railcar and then from the other stop to the repository. Actually it will be a few hundred feet total. Most of our walking is behind us. Why don’t you and Cam open the door, and we’ll get started?”

* * *

Inside the pill-shaped railcar that hurtled toward the repository in northwest Portland, Mara—still holding Cam’s head—and Ping sat at the front of the compartment while Sam sat at the back next to the body of Mara’s counterpart, which they had lain across several seats.

Leaning sideways and softly pressing her shoulder into Ping’s, Mara whispered, “Where did all that ‘I’m not leaving her’ stuff come from? I mean, that was a little intense, wasn’t it?”

“Sam’s perspective on his relationship with you is a bit different than your relationship with him,” Ping said.

“Meaning what?”

“You’ve only had one younger brother—this version of Sam. I would assume that, if you encountered Sam in another realm, you most likely would not consider him your brother. Look how long it took you to accept him in the first place.”

“Well, I never had my own version of Sam, but I eventually came around. What’s your point?”

“Sam had a relationship with his Mara before he met you, and he developed a relationship with you after arriving in your realm. To him, you are both his sister, just two different versions of the same person. He accepts the metaphysical truth in that, whereas you persistent in thinking that your counterparts are someone different.” Pointing a thumb toward the rear of the compartment, Ping said, “He could no more leave her body on the street than he could leave yours.”

Mara nodded toward the prone body next to Sam. “So, from his perspective, that’s his sister too.”

“That is his sister. That is you,” Ping said. “And you know something? He’s not really wrong about that.”

“I know. I know. It’s just sometimes I have trouble internalizing all these metaphysical concepts, and he seems to take it as second nature.”

“Like I said, it’s just a matter of perspective. You’ll get there. Considering it has been less than four months since the plane crash and all this started, you’re doing remarkably well.”

“Less than four months? Sheesh.”

Ping nodded. “It’s been a wild ride.” He stood and said, “I think I’ll see how Sam is doing.”

Mara’s gaze followed Ping as he walked the few feet to Sam and her counterpart.

It was almost incomprehensible to think of what they had been through in such a short time: Flight 559 going down into the Columbia River, creatures crossing over from other realms, learning about her abilities, living through the night of the zombie virus, Abby being taken by the Aphotis, flying on and fighting the dragon, meeting her niece from the future, and now understanding the realm of the robots. If all that couldn’t get these metaphysical concepts to sink in, what would it take?

“You felt her pain, didn’t you?”

Mara snapped from her reverie. Her eyes focused on the face that sat balanced on her knees. She had forgotten that she was holding Cam’s head there. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

She unconsciously reached out and rubbed Cam’s cheek with a thumb, a charred spot he’d gotten in a burning car when the dragon had attacked in her own realm. So much has happened.

His face reddened, and his cheek twitched. “I heard Ping talking about you feeling pain earlier. You felt it when the other Mara was attacked, didn’t you?” he asked.

She looked at the body across the compartment, her open wounds in her head and chest. Turning to Cam, she rubbed her own forehead with a finger and said, “What makes you say that?”

“When we access the Sig-net, each of us has a unique frequency and identifier. It’s how we are recognizable as we interact on the network. Does that make sense to you?” Cam asked.

“Yeah, sort of like an IP address on the Internet in my realm, except here people have them instead of their devices,” Mara said.

“Somewhat of an oversimplification but yes. Anyway I did a little backtracking. When you accessed the Sig-net, you used the same frequency and identifier as your counterpart. For all intents and purposes, on Sig-net, you were the same person.”

“So, when she was attacked, I felt the pain in my head and my chest.”

“Exactly.”

“It felt so real. Just like the pain you would feel in a flesh-and-blood body. If I had had an artificial body, I’d put some kind of limit in place so people wouldn’t suffer in extreme circumstances.”

“Then you wouldn’t be human, would you?”