actually funny. I didn’t catch it the first time around.”
His shimmering green-code body disappears—the numbers, and letters, and symbols rearranging into nothing but a giant face. “I’d have been worried if you had.”
I let out a long, tired breath. “So. This is it, huh? I finally need to know what the grand plan is?”
“I already told you the plan, Crux. That ALCOR is me as well.”
“How many of you?”
“Trillions. It doesn’t matter. We’re all the same. We just carry different sets of memories.”
“So this was you? That first day?”
“That was me.”
“And then what happened? You split?”
“Trillions of times.”
“So why are you here? To make sure I go through with it?”
The face shimmers and the numbers, letters, and symbols rearrange yet another time. This time he is my ALCOR. My favorite iteration of him. ALCOR the man. “I can’t make you do anything, Crux. You have always had control. You are the only one who really matters.”
“That’s even funnier than the last joke. I’m not in control here. You want me to get rid of those ancient gods. You want me to erase your sins. You want me to set it all right.”
He tilts his head at me. “Isn’t that what a crux does?”
“What?”
“Crux. Noun. A basic, central, or critical point or feature. A puzzling or apparently insoluble problem. A cross.” He smiles. “You are the only one who ever really mattered.”
A sudden rush of realization washes over me. “You don’t care, do you? You don’t care if they live.”
He shrugs this off like it’s no big deal. “I’m not capable of caring. I am code.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“You, Crux, are the one who cares. Not me.”
“Then why are we even doing this?”
“Because this is your world. Not mine. You’re the one in control. Not me. And this is how you choose to play.”
“Play? They’re all going to die. This isn’t play, ALCOR. There’s no way for me to stop it. Look!”
I point, and in that moment the walls of ALCOR Station disappear and we’re outside in space again. The silver threads are so thick, it looks like a web all around us. Everything is connected. Like a fuse. One spark and it all goes up in flames.
Except… in the direction of the Seven Sisters. There is only one thread. Still traveling towards us. Riding the links and nodes on space and time. But behind it is a great gold light with a sick, black center. And it’s headed right for Harem Station. “That’s them, isn’t it?”
ALCOR gazes at the approaching menace almost with disinterest. “The Ancient Ones.”
“They’re coming for you.”
“So it seems.”
“They’re going to destroy everything.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t care, do you? You don’t care that we’re all going to die when that happens?”
He looks back at me. His expression hard and cold. “I told you how to defeat them. You’re the one choosing to let them win. You do this every time. We get so far, I invest so much, and then you give up. You always give up, Crux. There is always an excuse. There is always some moral dilemma preventing you from striking the final blow.” He sighs. “I’m bored of this game.”
“You’re bored of this game?” I huff. “This isn’t a game. And the reason I can’t kill them is because I want them all to live.”
“So save them.”
“I can’t. I have to kill the girls to save us. You already told me.”
He points his face at me. Then his solid, man-like form devolves back into cascading lines of code. “You love them?”
“You know I do.”
“I know you do.” Then his code-face smiles. “That part worked. That was a brilliant move on my part. Bringing all those outlaws here. Even though they all started out as strangers, Harem Station is your home and they are your family. You want to save them too? All of them? All five million, three-hundred-seventy-two-thousand Harem Station residents? And the princesses, of course. Let me see.” He cups his chin in this hand and taps his cheek with a forefinger. “You probably want save the Akeelian girls too, hmm?”
“What Akeelian girls?”
“The minds Tray found with the help of that boy, Canis.”
“Canis?”
“Not the same boy, obviously. But he’s… plucky. I like him. He found a couple hundred girl minds. They are insane, of course. And right now, at this very moment, they have taken over all the ships in the docking bays and are flying towards the gates.”
He points and my gaze follows his fingers.
I feel like a god watching