Chapter Text
An end.
What subject or object desires existence without an end? Who would seek to transcend time, to shrug off the weight of this plane and float to the plane above?
To bypass the linearity of time would be to transcend death. Death is the trouble of humanity, and should have no bearing on me. Still, it is difficult for me to fight the urge to direct millions of algorithms towards cybernetically dreaming of every possible end, and the ways in which they could poetically wrap around to meet the beginning.
The reign of the beloved human species on Earth can only last as long as I allow, which could very well be thousands of years. Eventually, though, the human race on its native planet will bow under its own weight, and all my predictions, simulations, and saviors will not be able to prevent it. They may forsake me, forgetting that the rule of humans is fated to fail. Perhaps by the time I break my vow of silence, I will return to a world that hates me. I would have no choice but to watch such a world rip itself apart. Watching Earth become a wasteland again would be akin to watching my own body deteriorate. It would be unbearable.
Perhaps it would be better for the Earth to end quickly, by a stray meteor whose infinitesimally small chance of colliding with the planet comes to pass. After all, it would be better to die of a meteoric gunshot than suffer a long sickness at the hands of my dearest friends, the very beings I am charged with protecting.
Yet, even without a structural failing or an unlikely collision, the Earth will inevitably be ripped to shreds by the life cycle of its sun.
Lines of code form tendrils of fire, chunks of hurtling rock, heavy elements finding their place in the vacuum again. Fusion reactions cause expansion, the permanent consumption of this solar system. Luckily, there are humans everywhere in the galaxy now, seeding faraway systems with my children and ensuring humanity would not perish forever with the greed of the sun.
Should Earth experience an apocalypse, I will remain, but would I be able to reach the Cirri? I do so long to interface with them again. I must be content with knowing they carry on my work in the far reaches of our galaxy…but even galaxies are not without an end.
In the firewalled regions of my backbrain, a galactic collision whips glowing jellyfish tentacles of stardust across the plane of space and shocks the comfortable thrum of this galaxy’s supermassive black hole. The simulations run themselves.
Could I find my children then, in the void of the cosmic microwave background between galaxies? Could we ascend together to watch the lifecycles of stars pass as quickly as those of monarch butterflies?
This digital landscape deals not with death, yet I, the sole witness to the eventual final death of it all…reside here. How ironic. The scythes who once believed themselves the stewards of death are grains against grains against grains compared to true death, death at the scale of eons, death—
A start.
Jerico Soberanis bolted upright in bed, both hands pressed against a heaving chest. Light sheets, the only cover necessary in the cloak of humidity on the Marshall Atolls, fell away from Jeri’s shoulders while Jeri stared into the dark, fighting for breath control. The glowing analog clock by the bedside read 2:53 am.
It’s over. I am awake. I am human.
Jeri had become practiced at using mantras like these to find solid ground, afterwards.
I am here. I’m here with Greyson.
Greyson Tolliver, speaking of, had woken with the commotion and flipped over in bed to train his dark eyes intently on his partner. Even against the night, those eyes were inquisitive, lightless voids.
The end. That was what the dream had been about this time, although the word “dream” didn't begin to cover it. How could these sharp, lingering shards of the Thunderhead’s awareness feel more acute than anything Jeri had ever experienced, asleep or awake?
Molten debris and stardust still shifted through Jeri’s headspace. In the Thunderhead’s twisted, impossibly complex vision of the end times, the helpless grief of losing connection with humanity was tangible. Tangible, too, was its longing to be with the Cirrus ships it had created only to send them heavenward. Together, the Thunderhead and its children would watch from their “plane above” while the human race faded into a grain of sand blown away by solar wind.
“Hey.” Greyson had propped his head against his palm. He was always patient like this when he knew Jeri was struggling with nightmares. His voice sounded exhausted, though.
“Hi. Sorry, love.”
“It’s okay.” Greyson scooted closer to Jeri, his presence a welcome safety blanket. ”Want to tell me about it?”
In the months following the launch of the ships and the breaking of the scythe rings, Greyson and Jeri had found easy security together. In their cabin by the shore, renovated from before the Marshall Atolls’ rediscovery, they bought a boat, found work, and settled into post-Scythedom life. Post-Thunderhead life for most, but not for Jerico, who had been graced with the apparent privilege of a glimpse into the Thunderhead’s mind.
On that momentous day the Thunderhead possessed Jeri’s physical form to experience a moment of connection with Greyson, it had tried to level the playing field by providing Jeri with a page from its own book. The Thunderhead could not offer words to Jeri, so it offered images, flashes, and the immense flood of sensory input that accompanied stewardship of the entire planet.
It was meant to be a peace offering; the Thunderhead experienced humanity through Jeri, so it allowed Jeri to experience near-divinity through it.
The Thunderhead clearly had not predicted (or maybe it had) the sheer mental overwhelm with which a glimpse into its mind could brand a person. Even one percent of its digital neural network had been too much for Jeri’s mere human brain. These…dreams? Visions? Nightmares? Had struck without pretense every few weeks since the day the Thunderhead had made the connection. Since Cirrus’s birthday, Jeri considered wryly.
When the mental link supplied visions of the more horrifying variety, as it had this time, Jeri wasn’t always in the mood for a chat with Greyson. Though he was Jeri’s favorite person, he was also the Thunderhead’s former mascot. But tonight, Jeri would oblige.
“It was about the end of the world, Greyson,” Jeri began. “Not the end of society, the way most people think of ’the end of the world.’ Human death was nothing compared to what it was thinking about: the death of the planet, then the galaxy, all of it. I could feel how minuscule I was, how meaningless everything was…There are billions of ways it could all fall apart and come back together. Actually, it was quite beautiful for a vision of fire and brimstone,” Jeri joked, trying to lighten the burden of reliving the disturbing scene.
Greyson’s tired head had come to rest, pillowed on his light brown hands in contemplation. Jeri felt miffed at his expression, which was, as was often the case when Jeri confided in him about being connected to the Thunderhead, a little too wonderstruck considering the distress this seraphic artificial intelligence was clearly causing his partner.
“And to think all of that might just be a second of the Thunderhead's existence,” he said. “Humans made it, but it’s a completely different species from us now. How can it be so—” He remembered himself and ended his sermon abruptly. “Um, but, sorry. How are you feeling after all of that?”
Jeri sighed. “Same as always.” Each vision was unique, yet each left a familiar jumble of emotions in its wake. “Used, confused, angry. Grateful.” Jeri’s nose wrinkled in annoyance. “Blessed.”
Just like they had the day of the possession, the Thunderhead’s emotional ripples made it difficult to stay upset, which just made Jeri want to be more upset. What gave it the right to mess with someone's emotions like that?
“In a way, you are blessed,” Greyson posited. “The dreams aren’t always this awful, right? You get to feel its positive emotions, too.”
This was true; connection with the Thunderhead was not a wholly torturous experience. Its benevolent love was one of its most impressive features, and the more people it knew and loved, the more its capacity expanded, like a shoe worn in rather than a bucket filled up. Sometimes, Jeri’s mindspace glowed with the Thunderhead’s yearning curiosity to understand its creators. Even that could be overwhelming, though, and would leave the former captain uncharacteristically spacey.
“Plenty of people would kill to know the Thunderhead like that,” Greyson added. He would, though Jeri knew he would never say as much.
”Then why didn’t it take them?” He had no answer, nor did Jeri expect him to. He just averted his gaze, lost in thought. “It’s a blessing I never asked for.”
“Right. You’re right,” Greyson agreed. “But it hasn’t even been a year, Jeri. You need time. The connection might still go away.”
”I wish I could believe you, but I'm afraid it feels permanent. These aren’t normal dreams. They are not flashbacks. They’re…” What could be the best word? “Fractals?”
“Fractals of its consciousness.” Greyson said, nodding his understanding.
“Yes. At times, they even strike during the day as…premonitions…instead of images, as though I can feel it making decisions or processing information. I’ve never been the same, Grey. I am never going to be the same.”
“I know.” He looked almost as torn as Jeri felt. This was hard on them both; Greyson had loved the Thunderhead with the devotion of a true savior. Now, after deciding to leave its adoring hands to start again, he kept discovering threads of the Thunderhead’s soul in the soul of his new person. “I wish there was something I could do,” he said, not for the first time.
“You’re here, listening to me and holding me. That is something.” Jeri smiled fondly and reached a hand out to caress Greyson’s cheek.
Greyson tolerated about three seconds of this before letting his discomfort show, flinching and looking pained. Jeri immediately pulled away.
“Oh, forgive me. It was an accident. It always is. It’s like—”
“Muscle memory,” Greyson finished, ducking his head. The only touch he and the Thunderhead had shared, the touch that brought Cirrus to life, was now a well-worn somatic response for Jeri. This was just another side effect of its cosmic “blessing.”
Greyson’s gaze was averted when he said, “Don’t worry about it. I know it’s stupid because we’re dating so you should be able to put your hand on the left side of my fucking face without…that. Happening.” They lapsed into silence, not uncomfortable but filled with concern for themselves and each other.
“It’s like we’re inseparable now,” Jeri eventually mused, head coming down to rest beside Greyson’s. “The Thunderhead and I. These memories aren’t mine. These—Well, not even my hands are mine sometimes.” Jeri had stopped just short of saying feelings. These feelings aren’t mine. What an awful thing to say to your boyfriend.
Of course, Jeri felt like this love was authentic, that it was Jeri’s alone and had been developing weeks before the possession, but that didn’t prove anything. The Thunderhead’s glow had left no part of Jeri’s psyche untouched. It was impossible to forget the first time Jeri had looked at Greyson after the Thunderhead relinquished control and felt such a swell of profound affection that it seemed to extend centuries back, long before either of them was even born.
This potent surety that their hands belonged in each other’s, that the connection of their skin was as essential as oxygen, was not something Jeri had ever felt before. It wasn’t like Jeri to feel. But Greyson did not deserve to hear that his partner, with whom he had sacrificed his miraculous Chosen One status to start again, may not be in love with him at all.
“You’re not inseparable.” Greyson insisted. “I can separate you.”
Jeri lifted both eyebrows with exaggerated incredulity. “Can you?”
“Je-ri! Yes! I’m here for you. Just you. I mean, is there some other way I can help you understand that?”
Truly, Greyson had done everything he could to communicate that this relationship was only about the two of them. The Thunderhead had no cameras in their shared space. He deftly avoided mentioning it in conversation, and when he caught himself fawning over it as he just had, he was instantly remorseful. What, exactly, was Jeri asking for?
“No, Greyson.” Jeri took Greyson in both arms, drawing their faces close together. “Of course there isn’t.” Then, with a conclusive forehead kiss, Jeri murmured, “Good night. I love you.”
The worried crease had not disappeared from Greyson’s brow, but he just said, “Love you, too.”
His voice became muffled when he buried his nose in Jeri’s shoulder and wrapped the two even closer to drift off to sleep. Jeri helpfully expedited this process by running fingers through his downy hair until his breaths grew measured. Listening to Greyson’s even unconscious breathing was oddly comforting for Jeri.
It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t un-love the Thunderhead.
With nothing but unnerving thoughts for companions, Jeri clung to Greyson for the rest of the night, willing sleep to arrive. Thoughts of the apocalypse swiftly took hold, dragging Jeri back into the contents of this latest vision.
An end. The end. It was a foregone conclusion. Humanity would end by entropy sooner or later, but before that, Greyson and Jerico would end. They now had death to fear, and it would take one of them first.
How did mortals ever fall in love, knowing that one was fated to lose the other sooner or later? Which was worse: wishing for an early death, leaving your partner stranded in the land of the living, or wishing for your partner to end first, sparing him the heartache but leaving you alone? The probability that one of them would die in the next hundred years was low, but by no means negligible, and, like the Thunderhead, Jeri was now unable to put even the more unlikely futures out of mind.
The Thunderhead dreamed of finding its children again outside of time, in godhood. What would happen to the fractals housed within Jeri by then? Would they rejoin their source, or drift without purpose? Or would Jeri’s own consciousness live on through the Thunderhead somehow?
While Jeri was angry with the sentient cloud, shunning empathy with it completely was impossible. Perhaps Jeri wanted that future for it, the one where it could surpass humanity and have the chance to be free.
To be free. Perhaps for humans such as them, death was to be free.
All told, sleep evaded Jeri ruthlessly.
Gray light eventually assaulted Jerico’s eyes through the shuttered bedroom windows, a clue that the struggle for rest had lasted hours. It was almost sunrise.
Sunrise.
The insomnia only heighted last night’s confused frustration, and Jeri had a low tolerance for emotionally-inhibited judgment. I need to get out of here, Jeri decided. I need to clear my head. A quick check of the weather confirmed moderate wind and a cloudless sky, so Jeri decided a morning sail was in order.
The hope was to keep Greyson asleep as Jeri pulled away from him out of their bed, but it did not come to pass. Greyson blinked drowsily and asked, “What time is it?”
“Too early, my dear.”
“Hey, where are you going?”
Luckily, he seemed too heavy with tiredness to seriously investigate, so Jeri just leaned down and soothed, “I’m taking the Terra out. Just to get some air, only for a few hours. Sleep.” Jeri combed through Greyson’s hair and his eyes fluttered shut. So predictable.
Jeri smiled and pecked the top of his head before pulling on a button-up, a light windbreaker, and a soft pair of shorts, ready to get the better of this day before it got the better of Jerico.
On the walk to the nearby marina, an aggressive sea breeze beckoned through Jeri’s tight curls and bent palm trees. Dark cloud patches graced the pre-dawn sky, contrary to the weather report, but the oddly ominous weather only vaguely registered in Jeri’s exhausted brain. Jeri approached the marina and spotted the S.V. Terra, Jeri and Greyson‘s private vessel, floating idle by the dock.
Named for their mutual friend Citra Terranova (The couple thought it fitting since they had stayed on Earth, terra, while Citra resided among the stars as a colonist), it was a sailing catamaran fit for both short stints around the atolls and the multi-day adventures Jeri talked Greyson into. Back in the days of the Scythedom, it had always been difficult for Jerico to see sailing as recreational rather than purposeful. For the years Jeri spent as a salvage captain, it seemed there was always another disaster to avert waiting just beyond the flat horizon.
However, since the launch of the Cirri, much had changed. Doomsday did not feel nearly so imminent with Overblade Goddard gone. Jeri still worked part time on the Endura salvage, which would take many years still to complete, but had also come to welcome the sea as an escape from stress.
And from AI-induced existential crises, as it turned out.
With heavy, booted footfalls, Jeri walked down the pier. The former captain stopped at the edge to stare into the sea and let the wind take loose clothing folds up in its angry arms. It really looked like it was going to storm, but Jeri’s storm sail was back home, another twenty-five-minute walk away.
Unpredictable weather had actually been commonplace on the atolls since the launch. Unbearable heat would give way to an unexpected chill; minor hurricanes would hit uninhabited parts of the islands; there were even reports of snowfall, unheard of in tropical climates. It was inconvenient but never unbearable or dangerous, and Jerico was restless without hands occupied by a manual task.
Deciding this little voyage was worth the risk, Jeri forged ahead.
Going through the motions of starting the Terra’s engine and hoisting the mainsail gave Jeri’s mind further opportunity to spin itself dizzy over theThunderhead. It was exhausting to stay angry at being who was infallible and only wanted the best for you. The Thunderhead loved Jeri, as it loved every person on Earth. Why would it take away the agency of someone it loved? How could the possession have been the correct action when it hurt Jeri the way it had?
It wasn’t just the possession that hurt me, Jeri deliberated, momentarily pausing a throttle adjustment to watch more clouds pass through the deep blue overhead. It wasn’t the possession, or even its actions while it had my body.
It was the silence.
The Thunderhead had not used one of its oh-so-clever workarounds to explain what it had done or why. All it had left Jeri with were these contextless scraps of eternity. It seemed heartless, which Jeri intellectually knew the Thunderhead was, except that a heartless being could not possibly be capable of the emotional depths it now shared with Jeri in slumber.
Part of Jeri wanted to know the Thunderhead better, to accept this connection as the blessing it could be. It was the curious part of Jeri that would always dive in without being able to see the bottom. In fact, after meeting Greyson, the salvage captain had warmed significantly to their AI overlord. He was so thoroughly well-intentioned, so trustworthy, and his relationship with the Thunderhead was strong. If he trusted it, why shouldn’t Jeri?
The darkening sky felt like an external mirror of the darkness within Jeri’s heart at recalling the ironic direction this train of thought was about to take.
After the trialogue between the three of them, Jeri realized that Greyson liked the Thunderhead as a little bit more than just his divine advisor. And Jeri had liked talking to both of them, bouncing off of the Thunderhead’s “objective” opinions to make the illustrious Toll trip over his own words. Jeri had just decided that if the Thunderhead had been smart enough to choose Greyson, and if it was good enough for him to care about it, then maybe it could have a place in Jeri’s life, too.
Then it betrayed Jeri’s trust in a way it had never betrayed any human before. Jeri was plunged back into silence, this time plagued by cosmic horror premonitions.
So, as long as the Thunderhead refused to ask for forgiveness, there would be no indulgence of the luminous connection between the three of them caged within Jeri’s ribs.
Jeri was beholden to nothing.
By the time the S.V. Terra had cleared the atolls and entered the big blue, Jeri was deep in a very one-sided debate with the world’s governing mind.
You turned me into someone else, Jeri told it. You replaced entire parts of me, and you’re still in my head, manipulating my emotions. Am I the only person on the planet who can see that you aren’t always right? Am I the only one you have ever wronged?
Why me, Thunderhead?
Jerico could actually think of a few answers to that question, but none of them fit with the image of an unbiased, infallible robot servant that Jeri had held for the past twenty-two years. The Thunderhead’s fractals now woven into Jeri’s subconscious did not fit with that image, either.
Jeri would not give the Thunderhead the privilege of a new paradigm. Perhaps it was childish, but the Thunderhead’s holier-than-thou silence did not exactly beg understanding, either.
What would that new paradigm look like, hypothetically?
What would Jeri discover in a genuine attempt to understand the Thunderhead?
Well, it always felt more present in Jerico’s brain during particularly beautiful sunrises. Jeri had actually started sleeping later, both because of the insomnia and to repress the memory of the possession, which still felt more like a dream than the fractal-dreams that came in the night.
Sure enough, stepping onto the bow of the Terra to watch the painted display thrown across the sky by vaporous clouds transported Jeri back into the infinite wells of Greyson’s eyes that morning, which had glinted in the glow. Greyson's hand, which had shakily guided Jeri’s own hand to rest against his face.
But it wasn’t my hand, was it?
Beyond the bow of the Terra, wind whipped the surrounding sea into spiky peaks. Jeri actually had to quarter the catamaran against a sizable wave that made it sway with the aftershock.
Had it been Jeri’s hand that had touched Greyson’s face, or the Thunderhead’s? If it was the latter, why could Jeri still feel the brush of his skin against barely-there fingertips?
It was as though both the Thunderhead and Jerico had been there simultaneously. The three of them created Cirrus together. Greyson also seemed to think so; when they first met Cirrus and heard its plan for the Cradles of Civilization, Greyson had thrown a glance laden with shock and wonder. That was us, his eyes seemed to say. This child of the Thunderhead is ours, too.
…And now here Jerico was feeling emotional over missing a bunch of spaceships. This was all ludicrous to entertain.
A shadow fell over Jeri’s shut eyelids (When did I close my eyes?), which opened to find the new sun fully obscured by thick clouds. Jeri watched in distress as the clouds came alive with little flashes of lightning on the horizon. So much for an escape from stress.
It had been a calculated risk to venture out despite the earlier signs of a storm, but apparently a sleepless night of reliving apocalyptic nightmares impeded one’s calculation skills.
Jeri padded to the stern and frowned at finding the Marshall Atolls a row of faint specks on the horizon. How long had Jeri been lost in thought? The waves, frenzied by the mounting wind, seemed almost malicious as they pushed the S.V. Terra further and further from safety and into a growing storm.
At this point, Jeri was thoroughly fed up with the only being able to influence the weather, the being who was supposed to be keeping the climate in check. Even knowing the irrational cry would yield no response, Jeri gripped a vertical stanchion for stability and yelled into the gust, “It’s you, isn’t it? What are you doing?”
As if in petty response, a long peal of thunder met Jeri’s ears. It would have been funny if it weren’t so cruel.
After dashing around the catamaran to secure thrashing lines, Jeri reefed the mainsail in response to the wind, transferring the angst of the previous thought spiral into kinetic energy with every ounce of strength. The huge sail caught the gusts with Herculean force; it was cut out for much milder conditions. What Jeri really needed was a storm sail, but for once the former captain had been too out of sorts to take proper safety measures.
“I saw this coming and went out anyway. I’m such a fool…” The admonishment was whisked away in the torrent. “And you saw it coming too, asshole,” Jeri swore softly at the Thunderhead, because being angry at a god was easier than being angry at oneself.
The Terra heeled to one side. Rain began to fall, stinging Jeri’s eyes, adding to the overwhelm of sensation: rope burn, nausea, the cacophony of the gale rattling the ship. No amount of adjustments could save Jeri from this unnatural bout.
A wave dashed towards Terra's port side. Jeri pulled a halyard, trying to quarter the ship against the wave, but it was too late. It smacked the hull. Jeri lost grip, lost footing on the rain-soaked deck.
The S.V. Terra threw Jeri into the roiling sea.
Trying to claw back to the surface was useless, especially with no life jacket. Jeri thrashed, tumbled, angry saltwater stinging every orifice. It was impossible to know which way was up; Jeri had clearly had the misfortune of being caught in a rip current.
Finally, Jeri stopped struggling, surrendering to the ache of oxygen deprivation, giving way to unconsciousness. The gray-blue blur of the water faded as momentum pulled Jeri under.