Amayas patted him on the back as if to reward a breakthrough.

  “Here is the implication, Royal. These Splinters are exhausting themselves by trying to hold time at a constant. They cannot do it forever. They cannot supply the same rich blood cells to all nine bodies. Time distortions will continue to grow. The Splinters will have to choose.”

  “Choose? I thought you said they weren’t alive.”

  “No, but they are AI of a sort, and their primary dictate bonds them to human life everywhere. They will have to choose.”

  “Between …?”

  “They’ll have to let the others go.”

  “Others? You mean, the eight fractures?”

  “And when they do, time will collapse in those eight. Chaos will follow. Then annihilation. Only this universe, which we call Alpha, will remain – the one for which these cubes were designed.”

  Royal felt light-headed. He grabbed Amayas for support.

  “For all the cudfrucking rings. Bonju said the Splinters would collapse the divides between universes. That’s why we were supposed to kill you and destroy the Splinters. It’s why the mission meant as much to him as us.”

  As he sorted the pieces into a manageable picture, Royal uncovered an important tidbit that had been hiding in plain sight.

  “Bonju lives in a fractured universe without a place like this, but he knew how the Splinters worked, and their danger. He figured out how to send three ships across the divide using those cubes on nav.”

  “What does this tell you, Royal?”

  “Either he already crossed the divide and he’s been here – doesn’t seem likely, somehow. Or … you crossed, and you went to him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You’re an engineered immortal like me and X. You don’t have counterparts. You could look into these cubes, just like I did. Just like you forced X to do. Then choose your path.”

  “It’s an interesting idea, Royal, but with one glaring problem. Neither you nor Exeter was able to return the same way. How many times did you try looking through the Splinter to find a path home? How many times did it reject you before you gave up?”

  Amayas was right. The journey was one-way. Years of frustration led Royal to believe he’d never return home until Bonju sought him out after detecting the Splinter’s presence.

  “Then how?”

  Amayas smiled like a man debating whether to reveal his secret.

  “I met Bonju Taron and one other. Not here, nor there. Did Bonju ever speak to you of a place called the Origin?”

  “No. What is it?”

  “He never mentioned the One Temple?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hmm. Interesting choice. Royal, my journey has been long and complicated. If I see a future that takes you to the places I’ve been, I will tell you about my journey. Until then, I need you to trust me on three matters.”

  “I’ll give it a go.”

  “First, Bonju was never your benefactor. He is your enemy. Second, the walls of the eight fractures will collapse. When is difficult to predict, but I believe we are only a few years away. Third, Bonju and others of his kind know this will happen. They are preparing a strategy. Sending you and your Talons across the divide was the first successful test of this strategy. Soon, they will be able to save themselves and open a door to the only universe destined to survive the collapse. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  It took a moment. He didn’t want to believe it possible.

  “The Swarm is coming here?”

  “And much worse. It is not just the sheer numbers but the degree of savagery. The Swarm universe, which we have designated Beta, will bring countless millions of warriors backed by not just the full force of their arsenal, but also the Orzed Confederation and its millions of Twenty Talon reserves.”

  “What? Do you mean as allies?”

  “A consolidated force, brought together by necessity. As soon as the truth is made known, the Swarm and Orzed will reach a peace accord for the first time in history.”

  “No cudfrucking way. Talons and Swarm have been killing each other for generations. More than a billion people. The Talons would sacrifice their lives before they’d allow the Swarm to cross.”

  “You’re wrong. The Talons are human. They have families. They will not surrender their right to exist.”

  Royal believed in the Talon creed drawn from the story of Dameraat, the winged creature that climbed a cliff on one talon, fighting to the end though its mission was hopeless. The creed existed only because of a generational passion to draw Swarm blood.

  “I don’t believe it. Not any of it. This is why you’ve been working in secret all these years. If you went public, no one out there would believe you, either.”

  “True. Nonetheless, you know I’m right. You are uniquely qualified to understand both sides and to know humanity at its worst. You are humanity at its worst. Without regret or remorse, you celebrate the monster inside. Now, imagine several hundred million killers like you with free reign to ravage forty civilized worlds. You have killed thousands, Royal. They will kill tens of billions and claim the Alpha universe as their own. Or …”

  Amayas looked away, as if pondering an option he dare not.

  “Or what?”

  “We kill them before they have a chance.”

  “How?”

  “At the moment, we have limited resources and manpower. I’m working on that. However, we do have a major tactical advantage.”

  He pointed through a narrow crevasse, on the other side of which lights shimmered in many colors, as if forced through a prism.

  “What’s in there?”

  “The future.”

  “You mean like the next advance in tech or weapons?”

  “No. I mean the future. As in, all events that derive from the currents of time past and present. Causality’s finished product.”

  “Wait, what? Are you saying if I go in there, I can see the future?”

  The Inventor’s smile blended bliss with reservation. He nodded.

  “Here. Out there. Across the many divides. The constantly evolving future and all its variants. Once you step through, you will become a prisoner to it. All your actions will be in service of it. The future will be your drug, your lover, your nightmare. For you, Royal, I suspect it will be the greatest time of your life.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ll recognize when you can insert your monster into the timeline of any world and slaughter both the guilty and the innocent, free of charge. Sound exciting?”

  As temptations went, Royal kept an open mind.

  “Could be fun, but what does me killing people have to do with saving the damn universe?”

  “Nothing and everything, Royal. I’ve explained enough. Walk through the crevasse. Allow the mirrors to speak. I’ll wait here. When you return, you’ll understand the scope of your path. You will be happier than at any point in your violent, destructive life.”

  “How do you know? Did you see it in my future?”

  Amayas leaned into Royal and planted a kiss on his forehead.

  “You’re going to be a great general. Go ahead, Royal. See what lies ahead.”

  His head was spinning from the rapid-fire revelations. Was that the Inventor’s purpose? Amayas seemed tired and fragile but at some level equally psychotic to Royal. Maybe more?

  Royal passed through the crevasse. He allowed the colors and their whispers to consume him.

  3

  T HEY WEREN’T MIRRORS IN THE strictest sense, though Royal saw twisted angles of his reflection. Some surfaces were translucent spears, others like pillars, but many concave. Yet most of this crystalline forest greeted him like serpentine rain on frameless windows. They sparkled in fields of ceaseless colors chasing each other in disparate streams. An avant-garde canvas. Too much, too fast, even for the sharpest mind.

  It was madness. A complete dismantling of form and function. A reckless amalgamation of the nonsensical, the psychotic, and the incomprehensible. Chaos intertwined with order. Emanating beneath it all? Infinite whispers. The thoughts, desires, fears, and ambitions of every man and woman. Their intent, their action, their consequences.

  All of causality at once.

  Royal never heard anything more beautiful.

  He knelt on both knees and allowed this boundless ocean of circuitous highways to bend their way through the crooked corners of his misshapen brain until he made sense of their perfectly pitched notes. The whispers found clarity. The colors morphed into tangible shapes. He saw people and places, their words and deeds. He tracked them across light-years and beyond the divides. He followed their scent and he saw their future.

  The mirrors taught him the rest.

  They showed him how to peer deep into the subtle folds of time to see nuance and the direct correlation between each action and reaction. They allowed him to throw aside irrelevant events and home in on individuals, whole groups, even entire societies of greatest interest. They showed him the levels of mathematical certainty and offered a storm of variants as the future unwound itself. Complex calculus simplified into the imagery of settled futures and the consequences to follow.

  He saw the future as if it were a star chart.

  Coordinates. Times. Participants.

  Most futures were sealed, like view-only holos. Yet others arrived with an open invitation, their key moments waiting for an unknown hand to shape them.

  Those are mine.

  Some futures devolved into the present while he watched. Others stood on the brink. Minutes, days, weeks, months ahead. A buffet as long as the mind dared conjure.

  “Royal.”

  Were they speaking now? Opening a door?

  “Royal. Come back.”

  Amayas held him upright as they passed through the crevasse, back into the caverns of Splinters.

  “What happened?”

  Amayas handed him a cloth to wipe his bountiful tears.

  “You were in there for an hour.”

  “What? I …”

  “You were talking to them. An actual conversation.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You will. It’s overwhelming the first time.”

  “You were right, Amayas. I’m a prisoner now, but I’ve never been happier. To know everything beforehand? And to know where I can step in to create the outcome I want? For all the rings, it’s beyond incredible. Just tell me this shit is real. It’s not a dream.”

  “What you saw in there is the language of billions of Splinters given form. Their bonds to time and human life form a complex string of algorithms which project what will happen, from mundane to historic.”

  “Are they ever wrong?”

  “Every future has a probability to exist based on present conditions. Some futures will show millions of potential outcomes, and others are fixed. Those who master the mirrors will know the difference. Based on your conversation with the whispers, I think you’re on your way.”

  “I want to know it all.”

  “You will. I’ll teach you how to use the mirrors to shape the future to our advantage. I’ll also show you how to use tethered travel from here to anywhere.”

  Royal’s excitement swelled.

  “Whoa, now. You mean like I did with the Splinter?”

  “Yes, but better. The Splinter offers a fixed number of paths.” He pointed to the mirrors. “What’s in there offers a direct route to any future, followed by a return.”

  “Direct? As in, point to point?”

  “You’ll see. I think you’ve experienced enough for a first day.”

  “No. I want more.”

  “Patience, Royal. The mirrors are brilliant, but overexposure can lead to dire consequences. We have safety measures.”

  “I’m immortal. What do I need with safety?”

  Amayas held up his black-gloved hands.

  “I’m immortal, too, but I’m not immune to permanent damage. Shin and I learned the dangers through experimentation. We crafted a system. You’ll need to obey our rules. Assuming, of course, you want to be my general in these things we’ll have to do.”

  “Hey, I can see the future now. For that shit, I guess I can handle a few rules.”

  Amayas asked him to follow.

  “It is a fair tradeoff, Royal. Hungry?”

  “Starving. What kind of meat you have way out here?”

  “A strong selection. Shin’s army are voracious eaters with special demands. He recruited them from six worlds.”

  “Shin is their general?”

  “Perhaps army is a misnomer. They’re more like a security force or a pretorian guard. Shin has no military background, and I have too heavy a workload to train them into a proper fighting force. They’ll respond well to a soldier who knows how to kill Swarm.”

  “My first command?”

  Amayas spoke with a soft, waxen voice. It seemed gentler since Royal left the mirrors behind.

  “In time. We have many moves to play.”

  They returned to the central corridor. Soft glows awakened from recessions in the rock walls ahead of their footsteps and repeated throughout the facility. They descended two flights of stairs to the living spaces. The layered gray walls struck Royal as the original, but how far back did they go? Amayas claimed not to know, but wouldn’t he have run diagnostics? The temperature remained constant room to room, the air moist but not humid. The Inventor spoke of an energy source abutting the facility but offered no details as to its composition.

  The food processor and preserver in the small galley, on the other hand, were recent additions, along with the water recycler. Amayas said they were Chancellor designs bought from smugglers.

  “Say what you will about them, but Chancellors built to last.”

  “I wouldn’t know, Amayas. They had a good run, though.”

  “It might never have ended, if not for my parents.”

  They flash-cooked a platter of three dark meats swimming in juice, with yellow string vegetables and sweet cabbage. Royal stopped at a low-slung countertop decorated with many bottles of ornate design and shimmering liquid inside. He removed the lids and took strong whiffs. He knew which liquor to bring to the table. Royal filled his glass shy of the brim and raised it for a toast.

  “It’s all golden from here!”

  Before he threw back the first gulp, Amayas wagged a finger.

  “Royal, have you ever traveled to Kyriokos?”

  “Hardly even heard of it. Why?”

  “It’s the only planet where you’ll find that whiskey. Shin’s lone Greco recruit brought it with him. It’s known as the gut robber. I advise careful sips. I’ve never seen a man drink more than two in succession.”

  Royal didn’t mind the challenge, although he avoided the gulp. The whiskey opened him up like a series of pipes in need of serious drainage. It settled hot and turbulent in his belly. Nice.

  “If you feel the need to vomit, there are three release pods down that way past the bunks. You’ll also have access to an aeroshower.”

  Royal dug into his food.

  “I’m good to go.”

  “Shin’s guard are bunked in four rooms. Shin and I have private spaces. As will you.”

  “Sounds right, if I’m gonna be their general.”

  “Do you like to smoke, Royal?”

  “If the leaf is right. I smoked some nasty shit on Huryo. Can’t remember the name.”

  “Speak to the men. Most brought a healthy supply from home. They’ll share. Most use standard digipipes, but two prefer rolled leaf. Cigars, they’re called. It’s an ancient tradition, they say.”

  “I’ll try anything once.”

  “I believe you will.”

  Amayas ate at a more measured pace, picking at his food and watching Royal with considerable interest. Royal cleaned his plate by sopping up the gravy with the last cabbage.

  He set his fork on the plate and broke the silence.

  “So, I gotta say something. If you take offense, shoot me between the eyes. I’ll wake up in ten minutes, give or take. Lesson learned.”

  “Say whatever’s on your mind.”

  “I expected a shitload more personality from a guy who built the Splinter Alliance from scratch. You don’t seem as gung-ho as I expected. Much too relaxed.”

  Amayas drank his water.

  “A man fighting to save the universe should be what? Flailing his arms? Cheering on the troops?”

  “I was an observation. I don’t have much of a filter.”

  “A quality I like. No, Royal. What you mistake for a calm demeanor is actually a product of this place. Have you not felt the difference since you arrived?”

  “No. What am I missing?”

  “Rest your hands on the table. Tell me what you feel.”

  The sensation hit him at once: A vibration with a current running through it. When he tried to lift his hands, the base of his palms resisted, as if gently magnetized.

  “What is it?”

  “I call it the continuum. It flows through every surface. An energy field that keeps The Hold in check. This rock does not move. I don’t think it ever has. Every stellar object swirls around us on the galactic plane, but The Hold defies those forces. Over time, the continuum weighs us down, like an extra dose of gravity. There’s no physical deterioration, but we are … what’s the word? … mellowed.”

  “I don’t go for mellow. Not my speed. Is it permanent?”

  “The effects disappear minutes after you leave.”

  “So we’re in a bubble?”

  “Hidden in the deepest dark.”

  “Not on any damn star chart, I’d wager. You gonna tell me how you found this place?”

  Amayas offered an extended sigh and a brief chuckle.

  “Like all success stories, it began with a dream. The rest, I’ll tell you when I decide it matters.”

  “Then what about the Alliance? At least tell me how it figures into your plan.”

  “Soon, Royal. I think you’ll be impressed. It’s an elegant solution to a complicated problem.”

  Royal’s paranoia, well-honed over the years, kicked in. Amayas appeared hesitant to answer important questions, but he was looking at Royal like he wanted something.