Chapter 1

  Isaac Milton

  TG: AGAIN, I AM SORRY

  TG: BUT YOU MUST DIE

  Isaac stared at the line of golden text blinking at the bottom left of his field of view.

  IM: huh

  With a flick of his wrist, he rotated himself in space. The starry abyss behind him swiveled into view. Part of the blue-green planet Ardia peeked out from behind the glinting mass of the Void Station, which turned in incessant reconfiguration like a shiny puzzle box with a mind of its own. All calm, all quiet. Isaac heard only the sound of his own breathing inside the helmet.

  IM: So was that like a threat or a piece of medical trivia?

  IM: Because I already know that I’m gonna die

  IM: In fact, I’ve even got experience

  IM: Also do you have, like, a name, or is it just “Thunder God?”

  TG: MY NAME IS RASMUS

  RA: I SUPPOSE I OWE YOU THAT MUCH

  IM: And who was that other guy? With the grey text?

  RA: YOU NEED NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH SUCH MATTERS

  RA: ALTHOUGH I SUPPOSE THERE IS NO HARM IN REVEALING

  RA: THAT IT WAS ACAR...THE CHAINED GOD

  IM: Why are you texting in all caps?

  RA: TEXTING? I AM SPEAKING

  RA: MY VOICE IS LOUD!

  RA: HA HA

  IM: Why did you need me to activate this thing?

  IM: Sorry, I’m probably bothering you with all these questions

  RA: NOT AT ALL

  RA: WHAT ARE YOUR QUESTIONS?

  IM: Well okay

  IM: Here goes

  IM: Why do you need to communicate through text?

  IM: If you’re a god, how come all you could do was bump stuff around in my station like a lame ghost?

  IM: Do you know what happened to my moon?

  IM: Where are you, like, located?

  IM: How many gods are there?

  IM: What do you look like?

  IM: Oh, do you not have a physical form? Do you, like, exist in some kind of non-corporeal dimension, and that’s why you couldn’t do much and have to speak through text? Like, like, maybe you’re digital gods, you know, computer gods like in that one book, possibly the remnants of my missing moon, which was maybe like phased away into another plane of existence! And maybe I’ll have to go there and do TRON stuff and race light bikes and all that

  RA: SO CURIOUS!

  RA: HA HA HA

  RA: I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS OF MY OWN AS WELL

  RA: BUT UNFORTUNATELY, THEY WILL NOT AVAIL

  IM: Because of, uh, me dying?

  IM: You, uh, “interrupting our story?”

  IM: ‘cause I was getting back around to asking about that

  RA: CORRECT

  RA: IN FACT

  RA: I FEAR THAT I HAVE KEPT YOU LONG ENOUGH

  CG: Indeed. All is ready.

  RA: LET IT BE DONE, THEN

  CG: Leave it to me.

  RA: GOODBYE, ISAAC MILTON

  A red light began blinking in the upper part of Isaac’s field of vision: Proximity Alert!

  IM: Thunder god? Uh, Rasmus? What’s going on?

  No response.

  IM: ARKO, what –

  A flash of light, a soundless explosion, an impact that knocked the breath from his lungs and made the void suit stiffen into vice-like rigidity. He was spinning; the world beyond his visor churned across his vision, and part of it was much too bright.

  “Stabilize!” Pressure at his waist, elbows, knees. At once all was still, silent save for his quickened breath and racing heartbeat. Something had shoved him a hundred meters from the Void Station, and now he saw it partly outlined against the planet Ardia. Debris spun, sparkling in the void, blending with the stars. An explosion?

  Green text scrolled on the left side of his vision, superimposed over Ardia. He glimpsed only a few strings as they flashed by:

  Orbit stabilizers activated

  Rerouting coolant [B.css.14-677]

  Projectile interception 91%*

  Pressure compartmentalized.

  “ARKO!” Isaac winced at how loudly his voice reflected back into his face. “What happened?”

  ARKO replied in text because Isaac had turned off the voice: A missile evaded the interception protocol.

  “What, we’re under attack!?”

  Obviously.

  “Don’t give me that!” Isaac made the imaginary piloting joysticks appear before him. He seized them and dove back toward the Void Station. “Where? Who?”

  A fleet from the Dark World, approaching visual contact now.

  A directional arrow appeared in front of him, blinking red and pointing away from the Void Station. Isaac pulled up from a sharp dive just before he crashed into the station. A thrill tingled through him, and not only from the roller-coaster feel of his guts trying to sink into his shoes. Excitement! Of course, he thought. He just finished ARKO. Of course there would be a little attack, a skirmish, a test of his skills. It was the natural progression. He should have expected this, really. He turned to get a look at his attackers…

  …and the thrill faded. The word “fleet” surfaced in his memory.

  The lights were red, because of course. Hundreds, like a field of windmills at night, arrayed in a broad swath that cut the sky diagonally across his vision. The dark shapes of ships ranging from hulking masses to fighters almost too tiny to see were all set against the backdrop of lazily drifting stars.

  “Uh…” Isaac stared.

  The sky lit up. The lights multiplied: white, blue, red, green, all dancing together, growing, converging. In the baffled moment that it took for Isaac to understand what the lights meant, he nearly lost his chance to escape.

  The Void Station’s newly awakened defensive systems intercepted maybe half of the projectiles. Flickering beams of violet light no thicker than a finger darted back and forth too rapidly for the eye to follow. Stuttering bursts filled the void; chains of strung-together explosions swept through the incoming fire, blindingly brilliant. It was not enough.

  Isaac cried out in alarm as the lights of his doom filled his vision. Charlie snapped him out of it at the last second. He could be elsewhere, Isaac realized. He could decide to be somewhere else. Fueled by sheer adrenaline, Isaac focused on some place far off to his right, maybe a few miles. The lights were upon him, but in the next moment he was still alive, and he was looking at something else. Flowers of glittering brilliance bloomed in his vision: the Void Station, seen from afar, shredded into scrap by the overwhelming firepower of the Dark World fleet. What if he had been inside?

  Charlie appeared beside Isaac in kingfisher form. He was wounded; he flew awkwardly and trailed a sparkly white smoke.

  Isaac had hardly oriented himself before smaller craft swooped toward him. They were nimble fighters with red hitscan lasers, and they darted through the dark like fish in the deep sea. Isaac tried to think, tried desperately to will himself into action, into some cleverness, but all he could summon were thoughts about his own thoughts. He was muddled; his entire station was gone, just like that. What about ARKO?

  Beams of light connected him to the fish in the night, the tiny invisible fighters. He jerked the joysticks aside to twist himself away into a mindless and disorienting evasive maneuver. He couldn’t tell if it worked, but he felt a dull numb ache of the kind that would soon become burning pain. In his leg, in his side. He’d been hit? How bad was it?

  He was accelerating back toward the remains of the Void Station, which maybe wasn’t a good idea. It was still breaking apart. Shrapnel flew. He saw the big cube of ARKO dead ahead, the one with his door. The cube had been facing away from the fleet and had largely escaped destruction, unlike the station, in the spreading debris of which Isaac could identify a drifting grand piano. Charlie struggled to fly alongside Isaac, but the bird leaked a viscous stream of milky light. Isaac held out an arm, and his angel gratefully perched there. Isaac brought the bird in, hugged it close by reflex, wondering what to do as he hurtled toward ARKO’s cube. He couldn’t die here, right? That wouldn’t be right, right?

  The fleet was still there, closer. Again the sky lit up with a thousand lights. It looked like they were determined to reduce Isaac and his station to atoms. This time there were no defensive systems. This, Isaac thought, could be a Very Serious Problem. Maybe he could escape again? Do another teleport? But how far could he go? And how had he even done it in the first place?

  A voice, soft and cool as a morning breeze, whispered in Isaac’s ear. It did not speak with words; to this voice words were but needless limitation. It whispered an annunciation of its presence. I am here.

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  Isaac’s eyes were drawn upward, away from the fleet and the wrecked station, to the field of stars above. And sure enough, something was there, a bird of indeterminate size and nature, white as the sun. It flapped its wings, and the stars behind were diamond dust on dark waters, churning in the waves.

  Anzu opened its eyes.

  Just as before, Isaac’s visor darkened to blackness against the light. Just as before, that didn’t matter at all.

  Isaac saw it all in those eyes: how to shrink the cube of ARKO, take it with him. How he was supposed to learn from Charlie how to move from place to place without passing through the space between. How Anzu was not supposed to help him like this, to impart information so freely–yet that Anzu must do so now, for something had gone wrong. Interference was forcing Anzu to shelter Isaac under its wing, to protect him from something that should not be.

  And also this: that all of this resulted from Isaac’s own choices, the same ones that had brought about his present state of moonlessness. Isaac sensed disapproval.

  Anzu closed his eyes. He swept down toward the fleet, and still Isaac could not say whether he was near or far. The stars swirled behind Anzu like powdery snow. The Dark World fleet, arrayed with their countless red lights, loomed like a wall, like a breaking tsunami, much closer than before. Anzu’s path took him diagonally across this scene. He plummeted like a diving falcon, and everything rippled in his wake as though the panorama of the approaching fleet were a reflection on the surface of a dark pool. The spaceships rippled in those waves.

  In what seemed a peculiar optical trick, the ripples in space froze. In a moment, without warning or fanfare, the appearance of an undulating reflection solidified into reality. All the Dark World ships were twisted, warped, folded in upon themselves as the wake of Anzu had caught them. For a long, quiet moment, all was still. Then the fleet exploded. Not all at once, and not all with cinematic spectacle. Some fell apart, their hulls no longer able to maintain integrity. Some simply shut down. But it looked like few if any of the huge cruisers maintained any kind of functionality after such sudden deformation.

  Pain, sudden and breathtaking, interrupted Isaac’s awe. He tasted mint, realized belatedly that anesthetic had been administered (again), and realized also that it wasn’t helping much.

  He had been shot, he remembered. Right. Leg, side. Right. No, left. (Ha ha.)

  And as the reality of his situation crashed back into his awareness, shaking away the mystical wonder that accompanied every act of Anzu’s, so did the realization that he wasn’t out of trouble yet. The smaller craft, the quick little fighters, the fish in the dark, they remained. Isaac was unarmed.

  With one hand, Isaac seized the projected flight control joystick and plummeted toward the field of fire and debris that had been the Void Station. His hat from Dwayne had been in there, but that didn’t seem important anymore.

  Tracer lights flickered around him, clearly visible through the dust and smoke forming a haze around the wreck. He remembered what Anzu had shown him. To move from place to place, without passing through the space between. To simply be, somewhere else, while ceasing to be where you were. Simple in concept. And that was the trick.

  Something blindsided him, slammed into his left shoulder. A chunk of debris, detritus at speed. The pulsing blast of several laser beams from the fighters pulverized it immediately afterward. Isaac realized, belatedly, that it had taken the hit for him, possibly saved his life. He considered, as he spun awkwardly in the air, that he was thinking too slowly. He wasn’t doing very well. If this was some kind of test, he might not pass.

  Which reminded him: in all this time, he’d forgotten to pray.

  Charlie chirped in his arms; somehow the sound made it into his helmet. It carried a message: Calm down, Isaac. Dwayne Hartman. What would he do?

  He would just do it, right? He would just believe that it could be done, and for that reason it would be possible for him, and he would do it. So simple, he wouldn’t even think about it. He would just…do it.

  So Isaac did it. He closed his eyes, visualized the white cube with a single door, saw himself next to it. Something happened around him, something with cubes and lines and angles, but he wasn’t paying attention. When he opened his eyes, he saw the pale cube a little ways ahead. It was like a Rubik’s cube at arm’s length.

  He reached out and grabbed it before he could second-guess himself. There it was, in his hand, with a tiny silvery arch of a door digging into his palm.

  Something nearby exploded, flashing bright and silent, shoving several tons of tortured metal in his direction.

  Again, he closed his eyes. Again, he moved, but this time he didn’t know where he was going. Some lead left for him by Anzu, some hint. Go here. You will be safe here, for a time.

  So he went.

  And just like that: a different place. Someplace dark, weightless, with lights all around, just like before. But far away; he knew that much. It was quiet.

  “ARKO,” he said, his voice breathy, “still there?”

  Affirmative.

  Isaac held up the cube that comprised ARKO’s core processors. “Any, uh, reduction in processing power?”

  I have lost contact with all Void Station systems, with the exception of your Void Suit and the food dispenser.

  “The food synthesizer?”

  Still active.

  “Weird. Can you send commands to it?”

  Yes.

  “Have it make, uh, milkshakes. Chocolate.”

  How many?

  “Until it runs out of materials or goes offline. An infinite amount of milkshakes.”

  It is possible that you are concussed. I advise you to reconsider that directive.

  “Infinite milkshakes, ARKO.”

  Understood.

  “Now, put me in contact with Grey Text Man. Or god. What was it, that Chained God?” Isaac could feel the anesthetic working now, but he also felt a little loopy. He just had to hold it together a little bit longer. Soon he’d figure out where he was, get some help. But first things first.

  Milkshakes. He giggled.

  CG: Does some aspect of your situation amuse you?

  IM: What?

  IM: Oh, it’s you.

  IM: Right, so like, I have a question

  IM: Did you do that? The attack on my station?

  IM: Was that your fault?

  CG: Yes.

  CG: Anzu’s intervention was unanticipated.

  CG: His actions ran counter to my preconceptions regarding his behavior.

  CG: Regardless, I assure you that next time the execution will be swift and precise.

  IM: By “the execution” you mean my death?

  CG: Yes.

  IM: Why do I need to die?

  CG: This conversation is over.

  IM: Is it just me?

  IM: What about the other–

  Chained God has blocked communications

  Isaac blinked at the message. “Hey!”

  EW: hey what

  IM: ...

  IM: I really need to turn off this voice to text thing.

  EW: yo i gotta run, but just a quick question

  EW: you been getting any weird texts?

  IM: Yeah.

  IM: Don’t trust them.

  IM: Like seriously, I just–oh man, I gotta tell Jim.

  EW: aight

  “ARKO,” said Isaac, “connect me to Jim.”

  IM: Jim.

  IM: Jim you there?

  IM: Well maybe you’re asleep or something, whatever, just listen: if you get any weird texts, ones that aren’t from anyone you know, just ignore them, okay?

  IM: Actually, tell me what they say.

  IM: There’s a way to reroute CHIME messages I think, like forward them...

  IM: You know what, don’t worry about that. Just...tell me what they say.

  IM: Holy smokes, this is starting to...really hurt.

  IM: Okay, see ya Jim.

  IM: Remember: don’t trust them, okay?

  He cut the connection and spoke quickly. “ARKO, where are we?”

  We are in the midst of the Ardian Defensive Fleet . I have taken the liberty of transmitting a distress signal, as you require medical attention.

  “Okay, thanks. But just to be clear, how much liberty are you able to take?”

  That which I deem “reasonable” as per my default parameters.

  “Can you…ouch…clarify?”

  I can submit the parameters for your perusal and alteration. The full data set is approximately 50,000 words.

  A leviathan swimming in the sea of lights approached as they spoke. It had been approaching for some time, but only as ARKO noted the extent of the parameters did it open a gaping maw, bright with light, and begin to swallow Isaac.

  The leviathan was of metal and plastic and things beyond. It was full of moving figures and rapidly changing lights. It sucked Isaac into a big open space, bright and clean and full of activity, and when the mouth closed, gravity gently lowered Isaac down onto a glossy plasteel floor. His helmet clacked against the bright surface.

  “Where?” he asked.

  We have arrived onboard the ADS Demarcation, currently under command of First and Second-through-Sixth Admirals Thelonius Dantalion Emberstar and Sons. Lady Stars, director of offworld military operations, is also onboard.

  “Okay.” People were crowding around him. His head was so light it felt as though it would drift away. Nevertheless, he risked it by reaching up to remove his helmet. It came off with a slight pressurized hiss. He left it on the bright floor, adjusted his glasses, and fought a sudden wave of nausea.

  “Hero of Space,” said a voice behind him. “What has happened?” The voice sent chills crawling up and down his spine. It was a cold voice, an empty whisper. The voice of someone possessed by a demon in a B-movie. No, no, the voice of a robot hissy with static. It sounded vaguely female, vaguely human, and entirely otherworldly. It made him nervous to turn around and see the source, yet at the same time he couldn’t bear not knowing what it was behind him that spoke like that.

  He turned, of course. A huge hunched figure loomed there, wrapped in nebulous robes that glittered with stars. A galactic band swept diagonally across the entirety of the figure, unbothered by interruptions like folds in the cloth. Isaac could see at once that this was one of the Ladies.

  Lady Stars moved aside to permit the passage of hurrying medical personnel. New stars came into view when she moved, leaving the old ones behind as though her robe was a window revealing something beyond.

  “Void Station…destroyed,” he said as something lifted him onto a hovering gurney.

  He clutched tightly at his possessions, the ARKO cube in one hand and a wounded Charlie in the other, as they carted him away to the medical wing.