Mahama’s laughter still echoing in our ears, we stand looking at the husk he left behind as we regroup. As soon as Mercury regains his mental footing, he walks up to Jan Van Eyck’s body, and places an ungloved hand on it. Grace stands next to him, ready to act in case anything goes wrong. Lost in concentration, Mercury begins to chant. It feels like some kind of prayer, but his words are far too soft for me to make them out, and I get the feeling I wouldn’t understand them even if I could.
A few moments later, Jan Van Eyck has been reclaimed, and all that’s left is dust.
That dealt with, we head outside. The coven’s Elder needs to be notified about the recent happenings. I go and get him while the others take the sheriff across the street to where Mattie’s body is.
The Elder is a small man, with limp dark hair and round glasses. Perhaps it’s just my... unique experience with authority figures, but this guy certainly doesn’t strike me as someone in charge. He is the coven’s elder, however, so I introduce myself and explain there are urgent matters that require his attention.
“Mattie is dead,” Grace wastes no time on pleasantries as the Elder and I walk up. “And so is Jan Van Eyck.”
A look of shock comes over the Elder’s face. “What happened?” he asks in a weak voice.
“Jan Van Eyck was unstable,” Grace begins to explain. “We found him holding a smoking gun over Billy Clanton’s body. A little later, we discovered he’d killed Mattie, too. When he turned on us, my friends and I had to defend ourselves.”
“What would lead him to do such a thing?” the Elder asks.
“He was under a lot of stress, and his image was corrupt,” Frac explains.
“But, he never left the coven,” the Elder declares confusedly.
“It was probably hereditary,” Frac offers. No time or need to explain about Jan being taken over by Mahama. The Elder wouldn’t understand, anyway. The Elder nods solemnly.
After a pause, Grace addresses the elder again. “I think you should call a town meeting. My friends and I are planning to deal with the rest of the Van Eyck gang. The sheriff is planning on helping us. We’d like to offer the rest of the townsfolk a chance to help take back the coven.”
The Elder nods, still in a daze. “I’ll call everyone together.” He walks away to raise the alarm.
A few moments later, people start to trickle in, looking confused. The Elder spends a few moments explaining what we told him, and then turns the floor over to Grace.
“I’m sure that many of you aren’t happy about the things Bart Van Eyck and his gang have been doing to this coven,” Grace begins. “But things can change. My friends and I are willing to help, but this is your coven. That means it’s your fight, too.” Grace motions at the shopkeeper we had talked to earlier. “Can you round up any extra weapons?” The shopkeeper walks off to his shop, and comes back with everything we didn’t buy earlier.
“Now, those of you who want to fight, come grab something to fight with.” Grace says.
To our surprise, everyone steps forward.
One young girl, Julia, looks at the pile of weapons skeptically for a few moments, and then runs off, declaring she has an idea. A few moments later, she comes back wearing a glove covered in circuitry and wires that Fractal recognizes as a highly modified cyphering deck.
Frac’s face lights up, and he takes the girl aside, and begins to talk excitedly with her.
The meeting slowly breaks up as the covenfolk return to their daily business. It’s still half a day until the Van Eyck gang returns. In the meantime, Frac decides to take a look at the Icon. Jan Van Eyck had been the coven’s Iconotech, so Frac is understandably concerned about what havoc Jan may have wreaked on the Icon while possessed by Mahama.
Kassandra takes Mercury aside, and they’re soon lost in intense conversation. Grace takes this opportunity to bring up something that’s been on both our minds.
“We haven’t really talked about what happened in that... dream... vision... back in Jan Van Eyck’s house.” she says.
I give a half-laugh. “Who knows what that was.”
“I think it was us; what we actually feel, just... altered.”
“You know, it’s weird,” I smile. “but in a way, I felt more like myself there than I have in a long time.”
“I can see that,” Grace says. “ Things were freer, less constrained.”
“Yeah.”
Grace laughs softly and looks away. She looks as if she’s about to say something else, so I look at her quizzically.
“It’s nothing,” she says. “Let’s talk about this more later.”
It’s somehow reassuring to see Grace as confused by this as I am.
A few moments later, Mercury and Kassandra rejoin us. Mercury looks as if something is weighing very heavily on his mind. Kassandra, on the other hand, looks more at peace than I have seen her since we got to Grave’s Pass.
Before I can piece together anything about what’s going on with the two of them, Fractal comes back.
“You guys should see what I found on the Icon.” he says, sounding worried. He leads us to the Icon’s control panel. He points to a spot on the back side of one of the monitors. There, in a spot only the Iconotech could reach, was a message in the same scrawl that had covered the walls in Jan Van Eyck’s study.
‘LOOK WHAT I’VE GONE AND DONE’
“I’ve looked it over, and nothing seems out of place.” Frac says, looking over the machinery again.
“So, it’s working?” I ask tentatively.
“I can’t find anything wrong with it.” Frac assures me.
“In that case,” Grace says, “There should be time for us to take a rest in the Icon. We could certainly use it.”
A nervous feeling comes over me. Grace gives me a reassuring look.
“I’m staying out,” Frac says. “There are some preparations I want to make. The rest of you should go, though.”
“I’ll go in,” Mercury says after a moment.
“Me, too,” Grace agrees. She pauses, and looks at me. “Are you coming with me?”
I find myself smiling involuntarily. “Yeah,” I respond. “I’ll come.”
I think I see Fractal flinch out of the corner of my eye. Grace and I really should talk to him...
I pick a regeneration pod and crawl inside.
“See you in while,” Grace smiles, and closes the door. There’s no feeling of panic this time, and very soon, I find myself drifting off.
Before I know it, Frac is opening the pod. I smile up at him, pleasantly surprised not to remember anything about my time in this Icon.
“Frac, I think the Icon’s broken,” I quip. “Nothing weird happened.”
“Well,” Frac says, a wry grin on his face. “about that. I have some good news, and some bad news.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I say, the playfulness drained from my voice.
“No,” Frac says. “The good news is, you guys are fine. The bad news is, we tried to reimage Billy Clanton, and the exomorph rejected the image.”
“That... shouldn’t happen,” Grace comments, her voice full of concern and confusion.
“No, it shouldn’t.” Frac agrees. “But figuring out what’s wrong will have to wait until after we deal with the Van Eycks.”
In an effort to finalize plans, our conversation turns to a recap of the town meeting. As we’re taking a mental inventory of our weapons and recruits, we realize someone was missing. Father Valentine, the coven’s Metatron, never made it to the meeting. Grace heads to the church to see if she can find him.
As we wait for Grace to get back, Kassandra pulls me aside. She looks at me intently, and places something cold and metallic in my hand. I look down to see the gun she picked up at the shop earlier.
“I won’t need that,” she explains. “You take it, and if the time is right, use it.”
The gun feels heavy and powerful in my hand. Somehow I know that, even though I’ve never learned anything about guns, this one will do what I ask. If I fire this gun, I won’t be aiming the bullets. Alastor will.
I tuck the gun away in my hakama, and nod my thanks. Something about her catches my eye, however, and I find myself staring at her for a moment. Finally, it clicks.
She’s no longer wearing the King’s collar.
I walk away, unsure exactly what all this means All I know for sure right now is that the Kassandra we knew is most assuredly gone.
As I make my way back over to Frac and Mercury, I see Grace on her way back from the church.
“It seems as if Father Valentine decided to take his chances in the wilderness,” she explains as she reaches us. She hands Mercury a pistol and what looks like some sort of security card. “I found these in his quarters.”
“An identification card for a Megaran Government Operative,” he explains, sounding intrigued. “And this,” he says, after inspecting the gun, “is missing the firing pin.”
“He used the Icon to send some kind of message,” Grace says. “I saw that much by holding those.” she indicates the items she handed over. “All I could see clearly, though, was Father Valentine sneaking up to the Icon’s controls.”
Fractal goes over to the control panel, and types furiously for a while. Finally, he turns back to us, a look of accomplishment on his face. “Found it,” he grins, and begins to read the message. Father Valentine was worried about his own stability, and the welfare of the coven. He makes mention of Fallen Dawn, which Mercury recognizes as the Black Prism protocol for dealing with monumental biological threats. It’s the protocol that was used when dealing with what happened back in Lightsfall.
Frac gets an odd look on his face, and goes back to the keyboard. A few minutes later, he comes back, quite pale.
“There was an encrypted message within the one Father Valentine wrote,” Frac explains. “It says, ‘Now we play for keeps.’”
He pauses for a moment, and we all wait for him to continue.
“I don’t think it’s just Billy Clanton who can’t be reimaged,” Frac continues. “I think Van Eyck did something to keep anyone from being reimaged in that Icon.”
“He asked if we’d ever thought about what life would be like without Icons,” I say, remembering that uncomfortable conversation. “The answer is, a lot like it was back in Arcadia. In Arcadia, when someone died, as a general rule, they stayed dead.”
“Well, if we can’t figure out how to fix the Icon...” Frac trails off. He pauses for a moment, and then adds “And if this Icon is messed up, who knows how far it will spread.”
Any further work on the Icon will have to wait until after we deal with the Van Eyck gang. They should be showing up any time now. We head toward the gate, to take our places, and make sure everyone else remembers what to do.
I take cover on one side of the gate, and Grace takes the other. The plan is to lure them toward the center of town, and then Grace and I will close in from behind. The group of them are split up among three skiffs. Using his knack for machinery, Frac manages to remotely disable two of the skiffs before they reach the gate. Good. Facing them one group at a time will make things simpler.
The battle goes smoothly; almost too smoothly. The Van Eyck’s are dropping like flies, and no one on our side has been more than grazed. I think about the gun I have tucked away. Kassandra told me I’d know when to use it, but I’m hoping I don’t have to. If I’m using the weapons I chose myself, I can at least feel like I’m fighting on my own. So, the gun stays tucked away, to be used as a last resort.
Suddenly, the world shifts in a way that feels familiar, but that I can’t quite place. I look over, and see not Grace, but Adam. He flashes me a quick smile, and then jumps into the fight.
The final group of Van Eyck thugs arrives. There is an Oracle among their number. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kassandra stride past me. Her eyes are locked on the other Oracle; she doesn’t even seem to see anything else. I finish off the thug in front of me, and look toward Kassandra just in time to see her reach the other Oracle. Kassandra raises her hand, and her hair begins to shift colors. The other Oracle’s body crumples, her blood floating up to the daedelum in much the same manner as we’ve seen the black sand float down.
I pull my gaze away from the gruesome scene, and focus my attention on the last of the Van Eyck boys. I leap at him, knocking him into a railing. I’m about to finish him off when I see a flicker of... fear? remorse?.... in his eyes. I hesitate for a moment. My eyes drift over to Adam; I see him strike the final blow on the only other opponent, and then transform back into Grace. Grace falls to the ground, unconscious.
I kick the gun out of hand of the thug in front of me, giving him an out if he’ll take it. At this point, I’m much more concerned about seeing to Grace. Unfortunately, whatever fear my opponent may be feeling isn’t enough to keep him from trying to reach his gun again.
Enough is enough, I think to myself as I put my foot on his chest. If you insist on being a threat, I’ll have to treat you as one.
I reach down, slit his throat, and turn to check on Grace.
It appears that Grace’s problem is more emotional and mental exhaustion than any real physical injury. We give her a bed in the coven’s infirmary, and I use my minor scratches as an excuse to sit with her until she wakes up.
Before too long, I see Grace’s eyelids flutter open.
“Hi,” she says, smiling up at me groggily.
“Hey,” I respond. “Welcome back.”
Grace is silent for a moment, and I can almost hear her mind’s gears turning. “Adam was here while I was gone, wasn’t he?” she asks, more solidly awake now.
“Yeah,” I say, choosing to be direct and concise. Her relationship with Adam is as complicated as mine with Lenore.
“He... he helped, right?” She asks after a pause.
“Yeah,” I assure her with a smile. “He helped.”
She smiles thoughtfully for a moment, and then asks, “So, how’d it go? Who did we lose?”
I recount the battle in my head, trying to think of any casualties. “No one,” I answer with a grin.
A look somewhere between disbelief and relief comes over Grace’s face. “Good,” she sighs.
I help Grace walk to the Icon to meet up with the others. After the fight, Frac had almost immediately gotten back to work on the Icon. The look on his face says he hasn’t made much progress. Before we can even start a conversation, however, we see Julia stumbling up the street.
We rush up to her, and she stops in front of us. Her face is pale, and she seems to be only half aware that we’re there. She begins to speak incoherently, and points in the direction of the Elder’s house. Grace gently takes Julia’s arm and begins walking her toward the infirmary. Mercury and I cast each other a glance, and head toward the Elder’s house to investigate.
We find the Elder dead on the floor of his house. It looks like a stray bullet from the battle found it’s way through the window and then through his head. The shot seems more than a little unbelievable, so we take a look around the room. There’s a letter on the table with Jan Van Eyck’s name on it in Van Eyck’s handwriting. We also find a folded piece of paper clutched in the Elder’s hand. The message, written in Van Eyck’s now-familiar scrawl, reads Single Bullet Theory. Mercury scans the area once more, and manages to recover the bullet that killed the Elder.
Mercury and I take what information we have back to the others. As we walk up, I notice Frac and Kassandra are off to the side deep in conversation. We ask Grace to take a look at the stray bullet. She does, and afterwards seems pretty confident that it came from the gun of one of the thugs at the gate. So much “coincidence” still doesn’t sit well with us, however. Besides, as Kassandra is fond of reminding us these days, there are no coincidences.
It’s at about this time that Fractal walks by us, looking exasperated.
“Alright, I’ll talk to him,” I hear him mumble to himself as he passes.
As I watch him walk away, Kassandra comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. She holds out her hand expectantly, and I hand her back the gun without thinking. I turn and walk in the direction I saw Fractal headed. As I reach him, I notice Grace and Mercury have followed him, too. Frac is standing, unresponsive, gazing skyward. It looks like Grace is about to see if he can snap him out of it when we begin to hear what Frac is hearing.
“Shut it down,” Alastor’s voice rings through our heads.
“There’s got to be another way,” Frac protests.
“Shut it down,” Alastor repeats, more firmly. “They’re lost. The only way you can be sure that this doesn’t spread is to shut the Icon down completely.”
Alastor’s voice fades away, and Frac stands there for a moment, visibly fuming. Mercury and Grace fall into one of their philosophical debates. I listen for a moment, but my attention is soon diverted when I notice Frac moving away from us. I follow him, and as I thought, he heads toward the Icon.
“Can I help?” I ask, wondering if I can get him to tell me what in the world he’s thinking of doing.
“No,” he says firmly, handing me his labcoat and apron.
“OK,” I respond. If he won’t let me help, I’ll at least stay here and watch. Maybe I can do something.
“You can’t go in alone,” Grace says, as she and Mercury walk up to us. “I know you feel responsible, but you can’t put yourself at that kind of risk just to balance the scale.”
“I know it’s not the smart thing,” Frac says.
“No,” Grace agrees. “ The smart thing would be for us to leave now. But, I didn’t say I was going to do the smart thing.”
Frac blinks at her a couple of times.
“If you’re going in, I’m going in with you,” Grace confirms.
“Alright,” Frac agrees after a moment.
“I’ll go, too,” Mercury adds. He turns to look at me. “Delilah, are you okay with this?”
“Yeah,” I say. “If this is what we need to do to help, I’m with you.”
“If you insist on doing this, let me help you,” Kassandra interjects, suddenly appearing behind us. She pulls out a knife and cuts her hand. As I see the blood ooze from the cut, I’m suddenly reminded of the way Alastor used to call his summons. Kassandra dips a finger in her blood, and anoints us one by one. She leaves Fractal for last, grasping his hand.
“You’ll need this,” she assures him.
Frac nods confusedly and then takes his hand away. Grace, Mercury and I start toward the regeneration tubes.
“No,” Frac says. “I need your help, but I’m not going in that way.” We look at him in confusion.
“Okay,” Frac says, looking at the Icon. “I need you all to grab onto me. Shut your eyes, and think about that peaceful feeling you get as you drift off inside an icon.”
“I’ll try my best,” I say wryly, and place a hand on Frac’s arm.
“Form a picture of yourself and hold it in your mind,” Frac’s voice echoes through the darkness. I breath deeply, imagining my long hair, green eyes, pointed ears... I feel my tail tickle my leg. “Okay, open your eyes,” I hear Frac’s voice again.
The scene that greets me is incredible. What I see obviously began as the inner workings of a machine (presumably the Icon we’re now inside) but the cogs and gears seem to stretch on forever. As we walk slowly forward, Frac gives us our next set of instructions.
“Grace, you keep hold of me.” Grace nods, and tightens her grip on Frac’s shoulder.
“Mercury, I need you to keep an eye out for anything that looks dangerous.” Mercury nods sharply, and I see his eye patch flicker.
“Delilah, I need you to keep us grounded. You’re our connection back.” I assure Frac that he can count on me, and we begin moving forward.
The corridor of gears and machinery seems to grow in length and complexity as we walk. The inner workings become more and more metaphysical, but neither Frac or Mercury seem to see anything out of place.
“You’ve come a long way, Delilah,” I hear a familiar, yet quite unexpected voice. I look ahead and see Atravitus sitting off to the side.
“I still have a long way to go,” I respond, trying to refocus on following our path forward and keeping our path back open.
“The fact that you know that shows just how far you’ve come,” Atravitus replies. I smile, but don’t respond. I have no idea why he’d show up here, and I honestly don’t know how I feel about the idea that he’d approve of the path my life has taken. Besides, right now, Frac needs me to stay focused.
A short while later, Frac stops us. He moves cautiously forward, looking closely at something. He leans in, and pulls something out from between two gears.
“Got it,” he says, grasping what looks to be a grain of sand in a pair of tweezers. “Mercury, could you take off your glove and... uh, dispose of this?”
Mercury nods, takes off a glove, and holds out his hand. Frac drops the mote into Mercury’s open palm. Mercury closes his hand, and though he grimaces, the grain of sand is gone when he opens his hand again.
The rest of us turn to go, but Frac stops us. “I don’t think that’s all we were supposed to find here,” he says.
And so, we travel on a bit further. The workings of the icon are beginning to be lost in fog and haze when we notice a gauzy figure in the distance. As we get closer, it becomes clear that the figure is Mattie.
“It’s okay,” Grace says, taking Maddie’s hand. “You can come back now.” Grace’s brow furrows as she stands there for a moment, looking at Mattie. “Look,” she continues. “I know it’s tough, and things look bad right now. But, things can get better. You can move on, and make a life you want to live...” As Grace is talking, more and more faces begin to materialize out of the fog around Mattie. We’re all surprised to see another Mattie in the crowd. The figure Grace had been talking to smiles, and then all the images fade into the distance.
As we find ourselves back outside the Icon, There’s a loud pop and a startled yelp from Frac. A transistor has burned out in his right hand. He stares at his hand for a moment, and then rushes to the Icon’s control panel. He crawls deep inside, and eventually comes out holding a broken circuit. Somehow, this piece had been damaged and it hadn’t triggered any alarms in the system. The look of relief on Frac’s face says that he, at least, believes that this will fix whatever physical problems remain with the Icon.
“If that wasn’t Mattie, then who was it?” Grace asks a few minutes later, as we watch Frac fix his hand.
“She’s this Icon,” Frac explains. Then, with a thump of his chest, adds “And I’m... this one.”
“You’re Galt’s Gulch’s Icon?” Grace asks.
“No,” Frac replies. “But, that has to do with why I need to get back there. It’s where I left my arms. And a piece of my soul.”
We sit quietly for a few moments, trying to make sense of all that’s gone on. Kassandra eventually interrupts the silence with a reminder that we’re on a time limit. We begin to prepare for the next leg of our journey. Frac repairs the skiffs that the Van Eyck gang had used, and we load one with supplies that we gather from the coven. Before we leave, Frac gives up one of his Iconography glyphs to ensure that there’s someone in the coven with at least basic knowledge of the workings of an Icon. The glyph makes it’s way to Mattie, who, after recent experiences, has developed a deeper connection to Icons.
We set out, but something still feels amiss. Kassandra especially seems to feel it, and becomes more and more agitated as we travel. Suddenly, she asks Grace to stop the skiff. Kassandra climbs off, and starts to walk away from us. Grace starts to follow.
“Stay back, Grace,” Kassandra says, an ominous tone in her voice. A startled look on her face, Grace steps back.
A few more paces away, Kassandra draws the gun that I so recently returned to her, and points it at Mercury.
“Do what needs to be done,” she demands of him, as the rest of us look on, shocked.
A few tense moments of stillness pass, followed by a flurry of movement. Mercury now stands next to Kassandra, his gun beneath her chin. I feel hot tears begin to stream down my cheeks as I struggle to understand what’s going on. A part of me wants to stop this, and is insisting there’s something we can do for Kassandra if we just keep looking. A deeper part, however, the part that keeps me frozen where I sit, is telling me that what’s about to happen is the only solution we’re going to find.
I flinch as I hear Mercury’s gun fire. Kassandra falls to the ground, a smile on her face. Mercury takes off a glove, and with his inner turmoil visible on his face, reaches down and begins to give Kassandra her “last rites”.
Grace is beside me now, her arm around me. My cheeks are still wet with tears. The body that was once Kassandra crumbles to dust and floats away on the wind. As the dust drifts, it seems to form a line of figures, starting with Kassandra and stretching on for farther than we can see. Somewhere in that line, I recognize the “Kassandra” I saw when helping hold off the deep night. The figures fade, and as the last of the dust blows away, the wind whispers one last message to us from Kassandra.
“It was never my fate to go with you any farther. I helped you get this far, but I can do no more for you. The rest is up to you.”
Eventually, Fractal manages to take the wheel and start the skiff again. We travel the rest of the way to Freedom’s Pass in silence.
Freedom’s Pass is abandoned. The whole place is deathly quiet, no sign of life anywhere. An uneasy feeling begins to grow in my gut, and I feel the hair on my tail stand on end. The sensation only worsens when we notice a shadowy figure perched atop the Icon.
“Just the people I was looking for,” the figure says, looking down at us. Now that we can get a better look, it’s obvious that we’re talking to what’s left of Father Valentine. “I want to make you an offer.”
We all look up at him skeptically, but it’s Grace who speaks first. “What kind of offer?”
“I know that recent events have left you with certain... abnormalities in your images,” whatever is inhabiting the body of Father Valentine continues. “I’m willing to correct that for you.”
“What’s the cost?” Frac asks.
“No cost,” the figure says with a smile slightly too large.
If possible, Frac eyes our would-be benefactor with even more skepticism.
“And what happens to the things that are in us?” Grace asks.
‘Father Valentine’ simply snaps his fingers in response.
The four of us look at each other, obviously all conflicted.
“You told me I had met you,” I ask, suddenly remembering a vague vision in which we had spoken with a similar figure. “What is your name?”
The figure smiles. “You can call me... no one.”
No One waits briefly for us to answer, and as he sees we’re still debating, grows impatient.
“When the group of you have reached your decision, come find me.” No One says, and then stretches out his arms and falls backwards off the Icon.
“Who is he, Delilah?” Grace asks a moment later.
“I’m still not sure,” I respond. Nobody seems the obvious answer, but something about that doesn’t seem right. Still, it’s all I’ve got right now. “If it’s who I think it is, though, he’s helped me before.”
“I have to admit,” Grace says, looking me in the eye. “The idea of taking him up on his offer is appealing. And it would be a chance for you to have Alastor in your life on your terms.”
I smile to myself in amusement. I’ve never really managed to have terms.
“You know, you and Alastor aren’t exactly going to be on speaking terms if you do this,” Mercury chimes in. I nod.
“What do you think, guys?” Grace asks. “Do we take him up on his offer?”
“I made a deal,” Frac says firmly, shaking his head.
“I don’t think so,” Mercury answers.
“As much as I hate the part of me that Ja’hi represents,” Grace says, “I can’t just kill her. She’s a part of me, just as much as Adam or Jennika.”
I sit there, knowing what my answer will be, but not being able to pin down why. They wait for a moment, and then Grace turns to me. “Delilah, what do you think?”
“I think we tell him no,” I say after a moment. “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”
Some combination of our lack of information about who it is we’d be trusting, worry about the possibility of angering Alastor, concern about what such a decision would mean for the child I’m carrying, and distaste at the idea of killing Be’elzebub outright make me certain that I’m making the right decision.
“Well,” Grace says with a sigh. “That settles it. Let’s go find him.”
We walk into the chapel. The first thing we notice is a single white line running down the center aisle toward the altar. Chalk. Maybe we are dealing with Nobody after all. Out of instinct, I look around to see if any remnants of the chalk stick remain, but find none.
“And what have you decided?” No One’s voice comes from the doorway behind us.
“We appreciate the offer,” Grace says, “But I’m afraid we’re going to have to decline.”
“Pity,” No One replies. “It would have been fun.”
Then, out of nowhere, he draws a gun, puts it to his temple, and pulls the trigger. A fine mist of blood splatters the doorway, and the body that was once Father Valentine falls to the ground.
A split second later, we experience a vision. We see Grave’s Pass. Mattie is working at the Icon, trying to familiarize herself with her new responsibilities. An alarm light flashes, and she sees that the Icon is attempting to upload an image. She looks at the screen, and notices that the image appears to bear traces of Kassandra and Father Valentine. She also notices some unsettling interference for which she can’t find the source. Despite her visible misgivings, she decides to put the image in an exomorph.
A figure steps out of the regeneration pod. It takes in a deep breath, and begins to grow taller and more masculine.
The figure smiles down at a confused Mattie. “Tell me,” it asks, a numeral one appearing on it’s neck. “How does One reach absolution from here?”
My blood is still running cold as we snap out of the trance. One. I certainly wasn’t expecting that. Looking back now, I should have been. Mahama... One was his host body. Grave’s Pass... Deadgrave was the name given to the resurrected body of One used to bring back the Core. He wasn’t saying he was Nobody. He was calling himself No. One... Number One.
We pile on the skiff and head back toward Grave’s Pass as quickly as possible. Mattie looks surprised to see us, but other than that, everything appears to be normal. There’s no trace of One to be found anywhere. We walk a little outside of town and scan the horizon. Nothing.
Grace looks around, as if making sure we’re alone.
“King,” she calls out. “I want to talk to you.”
Alastor does, indeed, answer her call, and materializes in front of us. He looks at Grace with an expression half expectant, half exasperated.
“First,” Grace begins, “I want to point out that now, this is a choice.” she points at the collar around her neck.
“I know,” Alastor responds coolly.
“That being the case,” Grace continues, a little more calmly, “Would your suggestion be to follow that thing, or continue on?”
“There’s nothing for you in the direction he is going,” Alastor answers.
“Okay,” Grace agrees. “One more question. What is that thing?”
“He is everything I am not,” Alastor answers. He sounds almost afraid, and that worries me.
We pile back on the skiff, and for the second time that day, make our way towards Freedom’s Pass. Bit by bit, we’re making our way to Galt’s Gulch. I only hope we recognize what it is we need to find before we get there.
