Last Guard by Nalini Singh
Divergence
Coherence, connection, bonds, that has always been the answer. We must fight to hold on to that which makes us a sentient society capable of empathy and hope and joy.
—From The Dying Light by Harissa Mercant (1947)
If enough believe, does delusion become reality? What is reality but the will of the masses?
—Discussion question: Philosophy 101
IN THE HEARTof the Substrate, an unbreakable tendril that connected two anchors sparked with blue fire that began other small fires. As they burned, the waters of the Substrate grew clearer, until parts were translucent limned with blue. Even Ager was astonished, such purity of Substrate flow unseen in their long lifetime.
Deep in the PsyNet, in the mind of an anchor unlike any other, a neosentience in danger of losing itself forever took its first clear “breath” in hundreds of years. It wasn’t Psy, changeling, or human, its thought patterns unknowable, but it watched the bond deep beneath the starlit sky of the PsyNet as a mother watches her children.
With hope. With fear. With wonder.
It sent the mind in which it hid images of a drop of water falling onto a dry seabed, a single blade of grass coming to life in a desert, a tiny iridescent butterfly in a huge rocky gorge.
Even as that mind woke and asked, “Is it enough?” another, far more twisted mind came to wakefulness.
The Queen of the Scarabs, she called herself now, though others still said the Architect. The name didn’t matter, only what she was, what she’d become. A spider with endless tentacles, endless disciples.
The Psy, those inferior minds, had stopped the first wave, but unbeknownst to all but the queen, that had been a test strike to evaluate the enemy. She’d held back many of her children, sacrificed others.
No more.
It was time to unleash their full might while the Net was in good enough shape to handle the deluge—but not so strong that it could repel so many of her children acting in concert. Because she knew what to do now. To be a true queen, she had to first rule her own kingdom.
The easiest way to do that was to take the action the Ruling Coalition had been too cowardly to complete—tear off a piece of the PsyNet, isolate it so it was an island on which the Scarabs ruled. Where she ruled.
She had everything she needed, everyone she needed. Because amongst her children were three of the bright minds needed to anchor a broken piece. So mad they were, quite out of control had she not squeezed walls around their minds that made them appear sane to their brethren, but they could do their task.
They would sit below her island and hold it up.
Are you ready, my children?
Yes, Mother.
It is time. Cut the threads, make the excision. Let the Net bleed.
