The Stark Divide by J. Scott Coatsworth

Author:J. Scott Coatsworth [Coatsworth, J. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction
ISBN: 978-1-63533-833-1
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

ANA LOOKED around the transformed room. “Do you mind?” she asked the world-mind.

“Be my guest,” Lex said.

Ana knelt, caressing the rough flagstones with her fingertips. They felt real.

A few steps brought her to the redwood tree. She recognized the bark. It was the same color and texture as the seed had been before it germinated. “A little nostalgia?”

“It was an easy-to-replicate texture,” the mind said, but Ana thought she detected a note of pride in the tone. Perhaps Colin was right about this mind being “special.”

Ana looked up. Fluffy white clouds raced by in a blue sky, high above, past the tree branches and the tall walls of the castle.

She approached one of the covered windows and pulled back a tapestry. Light flooded in, and she was blinded for a moment.

When her sight returned, she was astonished to see the rolling, grass-covered countryside, a fetishized version of the England of King Arthur, fading off into the distance. Every blade of grass was drawn with precision. The clouds were perfectly imperfect.

She sat on the stone sill for a moment contemplating the whole scene, and a cool breeze rushed past her. She laughed, surprised. “This whole thing is amazing… Lex?”

The world-mind nodded. “I have a fondness for knights in shining armor.”

Ana returned to the center of the room, where Lex and Colin were waiting.

“So, what do you think?” Colin asked.

“The simulation, or the world?”

“All of it.”

“It’s amazing. More than I ever dreamed.” Another thought occurred to her. “Is this what Hammond ‘saw’ when he first met you?”

Lex nodded. “More or less. I had fewer capabilities back then, bound as I was to the Dressler. You and Jackson freed me.”

Ana frowned, considering the implications of that statement. “Were you really so unhappy?”

Lex shook her head. “You misunderstand. I was never unhappy, just limited.”

“Are you aware what happened to Jackson?” Ana was almost afraid to hear the answer. “You were incapacitated when it happened.”

Colin watched her closely but did not interfere.

The world-mind nodded. “When I absorbed his body, I acquired his memories too.”

Suddenly the castle was gone.

They were back on the Dressler, in the midst of that rushed and horrible escape.

This time Ana was looking into the shuttle from outside. She was inside Hammond’s head.

She felt her hands unlatch the helmet, felt herself lift it off her shoulders.

Felt the terrible, deadly cold of the void pour in, freezing her skin and bursting her eyes and turning her brain to ice.

Ana screamed.

She found herself on the floor, gasping. Colin lay on the other side of the room, looking stunned.

She’d always hoped it had been quick for Jackson, but oh, the pain before it was over….

Lex knelt next to her, all sweetness gone from her face. “We both know he wasn’t the one who endangered the ship,” she whispered. “It was your fault, Ana.”

The blood drained from Ana’s face. There it was, the thing she had run from for a decade. The guilt she thought she had left behind. She’d done her penance.

She looked up, and for just a second Jackson was staring down at her instead of Lex.

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