I’m ready to execute the command, if for nothing else but to shut her up.
“Why are you afraid?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Why aren’t you?”
I hit the execute button, sending tens of millions of unfiltered memories into Cassie Sullivan’s brain.
92
HER BODY JERKS against the restraints. The fabric starts to tear; it may rip apart. Then she stiffens like someone suffering a seizure. Her eyes roll back in her head. Her jaw clenches. One of her fingernails snaps off and flies across the room.
On the monitors the sequences race by in a blur, too fast even for my enhanced vision to follow. How much data is contained in the minds of ten thousand people? What’s happening to Sullivan is like trying to stuff the solar system into a walnut. It will kill her. Her mind will blow apart like the singularity at the moment of creation.
I’ve no doubt Vosch used Wonderland to download individuals’ experiences—I’m certain he downloaded mine—I also have little doubt those experiences were purged somehow after they served their purpose. No single human being can contain the sum of all that human experience. At the least, it would shatter your personality. How can you hold on to the core of your reality in the midst of so many alternatives?
Sullivan moans. Her cries are soft, coming from deep in her gut. She’s weak. You knew better. You should have taken her place. The technology they’ve infected you with could handle this; the 12th System would have protected you. Why did you let her do it?
But I know the answer to that question. The 12th System can only enhance the human body—it is helpless against fear. It cannot give me the one thing that Cassie Sullivan has in abundance.
I thought I knew what courage was. I was even arrogant enough to lecture Zombie about it. But I had no idea what true, undiluted courage was until this moment. That unidentifiable something I saw in her eyes is part of it, the root from which her courage sprang.
My finger hovers over the abort button. Would it be an act of courage to push it? Or the final failure of my human side—the part of me that hopes when there is no hope, believes when there is no reason to believe, trusts when all trust has been broken? Would pushing the button be Vosch’s ultimate victory over me? See, Marika, even you belong to us now. Even you.
It’s over in less than five minutes. An eternal five minutes; the universe took shape in less time.
The monitors go blank. Cassie goes limp. I approach her gingerly. I’m afraid to touch her. Afraid of what I might feel. I’m in fear for my own mind, my own sanity. Plunging into a single human consciousness is dangerous enough; I can’t fathom being immersed in thousands.
“Cassie?”
Her eyelids flutter. I see the white ceiling reflected in her green eyes. And something else. Something shocking. Not horror. Not sorrow. No confusion or pain or fear. None of the things she must have found in Wonderland.
Instead, her eyes, her face, her entire body has ignited with the opposite of all those things, there all along, unconquerable, undefeatable, immortal. The root of her courage. The foundation of all life, often obscured, never lost.
Joy.
She takes a long, shuddering breath and says, “We’re here.”
93
HER FACE GLOWS. Her eyes shine. A smile plays on her lips.
“You wouldn’t believe . . . ,” she whispers. “You don’t know . . .”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t.”
“It’s so beautiful . . . so beautiful . . . I can’t. Oh God, Marika, I can’t . . .”
She’s sobbing. I take her face in my hands, begging the hub to keep me out. I don’t want to be where she is. I don’t think I could bear it.
“Sammy’s here,” she cries. “Sammy’s here.” And she strains against the frayed restraints as if she could somehow wrap her arms around him. “And Ben, he’s here, too. Oh God, oh Christ, I called him broken. Why did I do that? He’s strong . . . he’s so strong, no wonder they can’t kill him . . .”
Her eyes roam the featureless white. Her shoulders shake. “They’re all here. Dumbo and Teacup and Poundcake . . .”
I back away from her. I know what’s coming. It’s like watching a runaway train bearing down. I fight a nearly overwhelming urge to run.
“I’m sorry, Marika. About everything. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand.”
“We don’t have to go there, Cassie,” I mutter weakly. Please, don’t go there.