THE REVISIONED

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 7,700 words

Download as PDF | Download as HTML

Devrashi sat atop the watchtower, firearm to his side, staring out at the gray Waste that was Thule. Another five years, he thought, maybe ten, before the watchtower would have to be moved. At that point, the Waste would have reached its base and it would become infected with the same Plague that had already turned the rest of the world into gray mud and dust.

He still hadn’t told anyone. He had spent more time than anyone else watching the Waste over the past four years, and he had been, so far as he knew, the only one who’d noted its slow expansion. The end of the world would be utterly complete in a few years, twenty at the most, and Devrashi wasn’t sure if it was right to tell anyone.

He stood up, shouldered his firearm, and wiped sweat from his dark brow. He had just started down the ladder when he received Pasimir’s message. Pasimir had sent the message directly into Devrashi’s mind instead of to his receiver, indicating that it was highly urgent. But then again, Pasimir was prone to assigning high urgency to just about anything.

“What is it, Pasimir?” Devrashi sent back.

“There’s a Revisioned in the Enclave.” Even his thoughts seemed terrified.

Devrashi furrowed his brow. “You can’t be serious. How could he have gotten past our bordermen?”

“She, Devrashi. It’s a woman. And she didn’t come across the boundary,. Devrashi, she just appeared in the middle of town. It’s said that the most powerful Revisioned could do that: disappear in one place and reappear in another, at their will, even over the Waste. We need you here at the mayor’s office.”

Devrashi groaned. He had spent the entire day patrolling the boundary of the Enclave, watching over the gray mud of the Waste, making sure nothing ever penetrated. Not that anything ever did. Or could. “Why? I’m done patrolling for the day. I’m ready for dinner and bed.”

“Because she asked for you specifically.”

Devrashi’s heart skipped a beat. A stone settled into his chest, and his veins felt like they were full of ice water. If the old stories were true, then coming face to face with one of the Revisioned was tantamount to death, unless they wanted something particular.

Not that death was entirely unwelcome at this point.

“I’m coming,” Devrashi sent. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

#

The Revisioned woman smiled at Devrashi as he entered the Mayor’s office, despite the fact that two men stood on either side of her, heaviest firearms aimed directly at her, and the Enclave mayor, Lakshmi Chopra, standing before her, looking stern. The Revisioned woman’s face looked drawn, even gaunt, with dark circles under her eyes, contrasting sharply with her pale skin. Her hair — filthy, thinning, and stringy — was pulled back into a rough ponytail. She wore a pair of tattered jeans, a threadbare fleece shirt with a hood and the barely legible symbol of some ancient university on its front. On her feet were boots that looked too large for her and which had to be at least a decade old.

The guards at her sides, though, were well-fed and healthy-looking; Pasimir was even beginning to develop a bit of a paunch. They all wore the gray shirts and trousers which identified them as bordermen, along with their thick-soled black boots. Mayor Chopra wore a smart business suit, displaying a style that was centuries out of date, but that was what she liked.

Mayor Chopra looked at Devrashi as he entered. “This is her,” she said. “She hasn’t said anything since asking for you.”

Devrashi looked the woman over, then lifted his firearm and peered at her through its sights. “Who are you?”

The woman looked at the soldiers that flanked her, then at Devrashi. “There’s no need for this,” she said aloud, not bothering with mind speak. “If I were infected with the Plague, you’d all be half dead by now. Besides, I could make your firearms vanish if I want to. You know I can.”

Devrashi nodded. If the stories were true — and the way she had simply appeared in the middle of the enclave suggested to him that the other stories about the Revisioned might also be true — then she could have done exactly what she said. More, too. And worse.

“I don’t know you,” he said to her.

The Revisioned woman smiled. “I wouldn’t expect you to. I know who you are, though, Devrashi. My name is Amrita.”

“I don’t know that name.”

“As I said, I didn’t expect you to.”

Mayor Chopra spoke up. “Just tell us what you want and go. We don’t want your kind here.”

Amrita hesitated. Devrashi thought she looked like she was at war with herself on some level that he couldn’t see. Finally, mouth twitching, she said, “I need your help.”

Chopra narrowed her eyes. “Why could you possibly need our help?”

“Because I know how to cure the Plague. I know how to save the world.”

#

Lakshmi sat behind her desk, while Amrita and Pasimir sat opposite her. Just inside the doorway, Pasimir and the other guard stood with their firearms aimed directly at the back of Amrita’s head, firing pins drawn back, ready to fire at any moment. “And what, exactly, do you need from Devrashi?”

“I need you to be my guide,” Amrita said, looking directly at Devrashi and ignoring the mayor. “I need you to take me to the heart of the Esja Plateau. There’s a cave system there that I must reach. I need you to help me get inside the caves.”

“Why not just teleport yourself inside the caves like you did into here?” Lakshmi asked. “We know you can do it.”

“The caves are impossible for me to get into. There are hundreds of wards and protections on them. Only an Unrevisioned can enter the place and lower the wards so that I can get inside and do what I need to.”

“It’s five miles from here to the Esja Plateau,” Pasimir said. “Nothing but Waste between here and there. Devrashi will be dead in two hours. He won’t make it.”

Amrita turned looked directly at Pasimir. “And I’ll be dead in just a few minutes if I step into the Waste unprotected.” She turned back to Devrashi. I have some wards that I can place on us that will protect us both from the Plague for a few days. Long enough to get to the Plateau and do what I need to do. You’ll be safe long enough to get there. After I’m done, then it won’t matter. The Plague will be gone.”

Lakshmi shook her head. “Absolutely not. Devrashi isn’t leaving the Enclave.”

“I know that the Waste is expanding,” Amrita said. “You can’t deny that. It’s expanding about one millimeter each year, but that will get worse. Within two years this entire Enclave will fall to the Plague. I’ve seen it happen a dozen times already. Thousands of people, Revisioned and Unrevisioned, are dead now because of this.” She turned to Devrashi. “Take me to the Plateau. Help me end the Plague. You know that I’m right. And I know that you, Devrashi, more than anyone else, have a personal stake in this.”

Devrashi thought about this. Amrita was right about the expansion of the Waste; he’d been watching it obsessively over the past five years, observing its minuscule progress into the Enclave. No one else had noticed, and he hadn’t told anyone. It would have been like giving a death sentence to everyone he knew. And he knew that Amrita was right about the expansion rate increasing. His own calculations had led him to think that the Enclave had about twenty years before it would become unsustainable. Amrita’s prediction of only two years, however, did seem plausible, under certain circumstances. If she was right, if there really was a way to stop the Plague, then didn’t he have a duty to help with that? He owed it to his wife and daughter. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it. I’ll take you there.”

Pasimir and Lakshmi both looked at Devrashi. “You can’t,” Lakshmi said. “You’re the best borderman we’ve got. We need you here.”

“It’s stupid,” Pasimir added. “If you want to kill yourself, I can think of a dozen different ways that are faster than the Plague. Hell, I can think of a few that are slower and more painful, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Devrashi said. “The Waste is expanding. And it’s getting faster. We’ll all be dead in just a few years. If she can stop it, then we have to give her the help she needs.”

“You can’t trust her,” Lakshmi said. “She’s a Revisioned. The Revisioned brought the plague onto us, destroyed the world. Maybe she just wants to finish the job.”

Devrashi looked at Amrita, at her pathetic clothes and pitiful visage. “I doubt it,” he said. “If she wanted us dead, she would have killed us already.”

“Clever man,” Amrita said. “You should listen to him more often.”

“She’s lying,” Pasimir said from behind them. He shouldered his firearm with a look of disgust, then fired. The report was deafening in the tiny space.

Amrita didn’t even blink. She didn’t even look at Pasimir. There was a flash in the air, and then Pasimir’s firearm was gone. It took a moment for Devrashi to register the fact that Pasimir was gone as well.

“What did you do?” Lakshmi demanded.

“I sent him away,” Amrita said.

“Bring him back.”

“I can’t. He’s infected by now. If I bring him back, you will all die.”

Devrashi stared at Amrita, appalled. He wasn’t surprised — Amrita’s behavior fit in precisely with what he had heard of the Revisioned in the past: the arrogance, the quick temper, the mercilessness.

“Get food from your Foodsmiths,” Amrita said. “And water. And clothes from your Weavers. I want to leave at dawn.”

For a moment, Devrashi thought about telling Amrita that he wouldn’t go with her, and simply shooting her where she stood. He already knew what would happen if he tried. She’d already done it to his friend.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the watchtower at dawn.” He deactivated his firearm and stormed out of the mayor’s office.

#

The next morning, Devrashi met Amrita at the watchtower. She wore the same clothes she’d worn the evening before, and now that he was in close quarters with her, Devrashi noticed the reek that wafted off of her; sweat, shit, and a thousand other, more disturbing, odors. She was sweaty and filthy. Her skin was oily, pocked with tiny scars. In an Enclave, anyone could simply go to a Healer or a Rejuvenator and get that sort of thing taken care of. Surely Amrita should simply be able to heal herself, clean herself up, or at least fix her clothes. From what he’d heard from the old stories and what he’d seen of Amrita, it should be easy for her.

“Why don’t you make yourself healthy?” he finally asked her. “I know you can do it.”

“Limited resources,” Amrita replied. “Since the Plague started, we Revisioned have been having a harder time doing what we need to. I have to choose what I need to do.”

“Ah.” He didn’t understand what Amrita was saying, but it did seem to him that she was, at least, vulnerable in some way. Maybe he could use that at some point.

He looked ahead. The Waste, gray and moist looking, stretched out before them. Only a few miles away, as unreachable as the stars, the Esja Plateau swelled from the earth like a truncated carbuncle. “You said something about protection from the Plague?”

Amrita winked. “Done,” she said.

Devrashi felt something change inside of him. He couldn’t say what, exactly, but the change flowed through every part of his body. He looked down at his hands, and saw that they were now surrounded by a pale blue light, glittering with yellow sparks. He looked over at Amrita, and saw the same pale light surrounding her as well. “What happened?”

“You’ll understand in time. Let’s go.” Amrita stepped forward, walked a few yards, and stopped when she’d stepped onto the surface of the Waste. She turned and looked back at Devrashi. “Come on, Devrashi. What, you want to live forever?”

Devrashi took a breath, then walked until he stood beside Amrita. “Now what?”

“Now we walk,” Amrita replied. “The protection won’t last. And when it fails we’ll die.”

#

“You’re lying,” Devrashi said to Amrita two hours later.

“What do you mean?” Amrita asked. Her breaths were coming in short bursts and sweat rolled down her forehead and cheeks under the hot sun.. Devrashi had no such problems himself. He’d gone to the Healer every week to get his body toned and healed of any injuries or illnesses that had come up. It was important for the bordermen to maintain their health.

“I know you could have teleported yourself to the Esja Plateau. You know it too. If you could send Pasimir to the Waste, then you could have sent yourself there as well. And assuming that the caves you want to go to are free of the Plague, then it would be even easier, if you’ve been making your way from Enclave to Enclave all these years.”

“And all the wards and protections I told you would prevent a Revisioned from entering the caves?”

“If there were a way to block a Revisioned from going anywhere, the Enclaves would be completely protected and you wouldn’t have shown up.”

Amrita nodded. “I suppose I can’t deny that.”

“So why do you need me to guide you there?”

“You’re a smart man, Devrashi. You’ll figure it out soon enough. Oh, and speaking of Pasimir… Look.”

Amrita had come to a stop, and was pointing at a shape on the ground.

Devrashi turned and looked down. A man lay on its side on the gray slime of the Waste. Half of his body had melted into the ground; the rest had gone pale. The melting had started at the skin, so the man’s muscles and bones — what was left of them at this point — were exposed. The Plague, Devrashi remembered, was terrifying to watch. Fortunately, once someone was infected, the victim would be dead within an hour, unless they were killed first, as Devrashi’s family had been.

“It’s Pasimir,” Amrita said. “Look, you can still make out his face. Come on.”

Devrashi shook his head. “I’ll take your word for it.” He didn’t need to see his friend’s face, not the way it would be looking after the Plague had gotten to it. “Let’s just keep going.”

“You hate me, don’t you?” Amrita asked. She smiled innocently.

“Do you blame me?”

She shook her head. “I suppose I don’t. In fact, I think I’d be quite disappointed in you if you didn’t.”

“Thanks.” It was all he could bring himself to say to her at the moment.

#

Another hour into their trek, Amrita collapsed. Devrashi stopped and looked down at her with contempt. “Now what?”

“It’s the Plague,” Amrita said. She looked up at him and for the first time Devrashi saw something in her face besides smugness. Her lips had grown even more pale, and her eyes were wide. Devrashi had not thought she was capable of feeling fear. She held up her right hand and offered it to Devrashi.

Devrashi looked at her hand. It had faded from its already pale tone to a harsh gray. Her thumb and forefinger had grown together. “But I thought the protection spell…”

I told you it was only temporary. It’s affecting me faster because my immune system is shot. You’re healthy, so you’re in better shape.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Amrita shook her head, and stood up. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” The faint blue glow that enveloped her grew darker, and the sparkles of light that flowed around her grew more dense. “There. That should help for a little bit longer.”

“Good.” Without waiting, Devrashi turned and started walking again toward the Esja Plateau.

Amrita caught up with him within seconds. “Have you ever seen the effects of the Plague on the Revisioned, Devrashi?”

Devrashi shook his head. “You’re the first Revisioned I’ve ever met. Some among us believe that the Revisioned all died out centuries ago, that the border patrols aren’t even necessary.”

“Little good that they did you when I came, though.”

“There are other reasons.”

“I know that.” Amrita shrugged. “There are a few of us left, scattered here and there. The Plague has gotten most of us. The Plague is… It’s not kind to the Revisioned. It affects us faster, and is far more destructive. It attacks our minds, too, which it doesn’t for Unrevisioned. Drives us mad with hallucinations and paranoia. We lose control of our powers. Millions of people, both Revisioned and Unrevisioned, are dead because of the madness that strikes us. Of course, that’s all after the fevers, the chills, and the rashes. Random parts of our bodies are affected. We bleed out. And that’s all within half an hour of contracting the infection.”

“So how come you’re not raving mad, then?”

Amrita examined her affected hand. “I’ve managed to put in a temporary block so the infection can’t spread for now. Sort of like an invisible tourniquet.” She grinned and looked at Devrashi again. “My hand is completely numb.”

“I’m having trouble finding sympathy for you.”

“I know.”

#

They continued most of the journey in silence. Devrashi was not particularly keen on talking with Amrita, and she in turn did not press him on it. But when they were within half a mile of the Plateau, Amrita came to a sudden stop.

“What’s wrong?” Devrashi asked. His heart pounded heavily in his chest. If Amrita were falling victim to the Plague then, based on what she’d told him, he didn’t want to be too close to her.

She said nothing. Then she fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and began to twitch and flail about, making strangled cries deep in her throat.

Devrashi considered simply running away from her, leaving her behind and letting her die. But here in the middle of the Waste, she was his only protection against the Plague, and she was the only one of the two of them who knew what to do to stop the Plague.

He knelt in the mud next to her, and simply watched, unsure what to do. He had never seen anything like this before.

A few minutes later, Amrita’s flailing and bizarre cries came to a stop. She looked up at Devrashi with bloodshot eyes and a snot-lined face. She gave him a weak smile. “You must really be enjoying this.”

Devrashi shrugged. “Maybe a little. Why do you say that?”

“The Revisioned have been the majority of humanity on the earth for centuries. Maybe millennia. The Unrevisioned were a tiny minority. I know very well how the Unrevisioned hated the Revisioned, envied them and despised them. The Unrevisioned were placed into compounds, camps. It was for their own good and they were well treated there.”

“It didn’t work, did it?”

Amrita shook her head. “The camps were filled with luxuries. Some of the Revisioned saw the Unrevisioned as little better than animals, forced them into slave labor or worse, but the vast majority of us did not. The Unrevisioned were human, too.”

“So you figure I must hate you.”

“Don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Your kind have made the world what it is today. We’ve had a secure home in Asgard for hundreds of years, but it won’t last. The Waste is spreading. It won’t be long until the entire world is overrun and there’s nothing left alive anywhere.”

“I can fix all that, Devrashi. I know how. Do you believe me?”

Devrashi thought about this for almost a full minute. Then he shrugged. “I suppose I must. You’ve shown me that you can protect us from the Plague, if only for a little while. I don’t remember anyone ever being able to do that.”

“It’s a new skill. As far as I know, I’m the only one who was able to work out the proper frequencies that the infected molecular engines were broadcasting on. That can block them for a while, but they operate on eleven-dimensional geometry. The uninfected molecular engines operate in the same geometry, of course, but at that level it hardly matters. The encryption is trivial for the molecular engines when operating in that geometry in that scale.”

Devrashi furrowed his brows. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Amrita raised her hand — her uninfected left hand — to Devrashi. “Help me stand up,” she said.

Devrashi took Amrita’s hand and lifted her to her feet. He looked her up and down. The blue light that surrounded her was as strong as ever, but within it she looked like she was weakening. Her right hand was nothing but a mass of gray tissue, melded into a single fleshy appendage, with no differentiation between her fingers. The gray mottling had started to spread up her forearm as well. “Looks like I’m doomed,” she said. “Mind if we hurry it up a bit?”

“We don’t have much further to go. Maybe another hour.”

“Good.”

#

When they reached the base of the plateau, Devrashi was surprised to see that the Waste had thinned out here. Instead of the gray mud that he had seen throughout the rest of the landscape, here the gray was just dirt. There were even some plants — tiny, dead things that emerged like bones through the dirt.

“We can’t go on,” Devrashi said.

“Why not?”

“This area is uninfected. If we go in there, the Waste will spread in there as well.”

Amrita looked at him, the amused smugness back in her eyes. “Do you seriously believe that matters at this point, Devrashi? You said yourself that the Waste is spreading. It will spread throughout the Plateau soon anyway, so we may as well.”

Devrashi looked over the barren landscape. Growing up he had always been told that any place that had not been touched with the Plague should be treated as holy and sacred, regardless of what it might look like. The land around the Esja Plateau was ugly, but uninfected, and thus sacred.

“You can’t stop, Devrashi. We have to get to the caves. That’s the only place where we can do any good. I don’t know how to get there. I know that you do.”

He was surprised to realize that she was right. He recognized this area, even though he didn’t remember ever having been here before.

“You remember this place, don’t you?” Amrita asked him.

Devrashi shook his head. “No. It doesn’t look at all familiar to me.” He wasn’t sure why he was lying to her. He felt like he was in denial about something important. About what, he didn’t know.

Amrita grinned. “Yes you do. I can see it in your eyes. I can…”

Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she started twitching again. Her entire body shook in the grip of another convulsion, and once again she fell to the ground, writhing and screaming. Again Devrashi stayed back, not wanting to injure himself.

When it was over, she lay still on her back. “Devrashi?”

Devrashi knelt next to her.

“I’m blind, Devrashi.” She turned his face toward him. Devrashi gasped and scrambled backward. Amrita’s eyes had become infected by the Plague. They were no longer the white orbs they should have been, but two masses of gray flesh, lumpy and grotesque, that flowed over her eye sockets and spread over her upper cheeks and forehead like fleshy gray flowers. “Is it bad?” she asked him.

“It’s…” Devrashi could not finish his sentence. The blue glow that surrounded Amrita was fading. He glanced down at himself and saw that his own blue glow was fading as well.

“We don’t have much time, Devrashi. You’ll have to lead me. And when we get where we’re going, you’ll have to follow my instructions.”

“When we stop the Plague, will you be healed?”

“I’ll be able to heal myself. The infected molecular machines will be back under my control. Help me stand up.”

Devrashi took her hand, and lifted her. When she stood, she was shaking and her flesh was cold and clammy. “I’m not in danger myself, am I?”

Amrita scoffed. “Of course you are. What makes you think you’re safe from the Plague?”

“The spell you cast over me…”

“Was temporary at best, I told you. Let’s go. You know the way to the caves, don’t you?”

Devrashi had never been here before, but she was right. He also knew how to get through the caves once they were there and how to get to their ultimate destination: a room at the very heart of the cave system, a place from where the Plague could be stopped, could even be reversed according to Amrita’s will; she’d simply be able to change everything back to the way it was.

“What are these molecular engines you keep talking about?” he asked Amrita, more to keep his mind off the situation and the unsettling feelings that were starting to rise up within him than because he really wanted to know the answers.

“Do you know why they call us the Revisioned, Devrashi?”

“No, of course not.”

“Hardly anybody does. It happened thousands of years ago, and it took me almost a decade to uncover the actual truth. Visiting Enclaves like yours where the Plague had not hi. Fortunately there were at least a few libraries and archives that had not been infected. What I found was fascinating, to say the very least, and led me to understand what’s happening and how to stop it.”

“So what was it?”

“Do you know why they call us the Revisioned, Devrashi?”

Devrashi stopped and stared at Amrita. “You already asked me that.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.” She took a deep breath and let it out again. “Molecular engines. Thousands of years ago, at a University somewhere, I don’t know where, some scientists created a type of engine, machines so small that billions of them could fit on your fingernail. Too small for anyone to see. They were so small that the very nature of reality interfered with how they worked. But they figured out a way to use eleven-dimensional space to store essential information, which all of these microscopic machines could use to communicate with each other. They shared nearly infinite amounts of information with each other. And the scientists released them into the world, where they multiplied and spread into everything on earth. Into every animal, rock, tree. Everything.”

“What does this have to do with the Revisioned?” Devrashi asked. They had started climbing up the side of the Plateau. The climb was rough going, especially when Devrashi had to help guide Amrita up the side, using verbal cues and placing her hands and feet at strategic locations.

“I’m getting there. These scientists also created a type of molecular engine that would exist inside of human beings. These molecular engines would be able to control the molecular engines that had spread into the rest of the world, and would be subject to the will of the human brain that they had been placed in.”

“Why would they want to do such a thing? What would be the point?”

“Their hope was to give humanity a way to control their world around them on a very fundamental level. Imagine, Devrashi, having the power to take a rock and transform it into anything you wanted. Into an animal, perhaps, or into food, or into a plaything for your children. Whenever someone was born, their DNA would be programmed to produce more of these molecular engines. They were called Revisioned, because their DNA, their entire humanity, had been revised on a level that no one had even imagined before then.”

Devrashi’s right foot slipped on a rock that he had thought was stable. His knee impacted with the rock, and he cursed as pain flared up through his leg.

“Are you all right?” Amrita asked him.

“I’m fine,” Devrashi replied. “Put your hand here. The rocks here are loose.”

Amrita did as he said. Even though her eyes had been transformed, she kept smiling up at him.

“So,” Devrashi said, “everyone in the world had the power to change reality around them as they chose.”

“No, not everyone. There were some whose immune systems destroyed th e molecular engines as soon as they entered their bodies. Humanity was divided into two groups. The Revisioned, whose own molecular engines gave them the power to control reality in powerful ways, and the much smaller caste of the Unrevisioned, who lacked that power. Their bodies were still infused with the first type of molecular engine, but not the second, so they were subject to the whims of the more unscrupulous Revisioned. Eventually the Unrevisioned were placed into separate areas that had were set aside for them where they could be protected from the Revisioned who wanted to enslave them.”

“The Enclaves,” Devrashi said.

“Exactly.”

Devrashi paused and looked upward. They had barely begun their ascent. He estimated that they had several hours of climbing ahead of them. He looked back, and saw a trail of gray mud that had spread behind them, growing from where they had climbed. The two of them had brought the Plague into this sacred place. As he looked, he could see that the Plague was slowly spreading up the side of the Plateau.

Amrita must have caught on to his concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Devrashi replied. “Tell me more. Tell me about the Plague, and the Waste.”

Amrita hesitated, then shrugged. “Every machine is subject to breaking down, and the molecular engines were not immune to that. No one knows for sure what happened, or if they did the knowledge is lost. But it seems that some of the molecular engines broke down and lost the ability to create new forms or reshape anything on an atomic level. They could break anything down, but they could not build or rebuild anything. And this defect spread like a disease throughout all of the molecular engines that they came in contact with. Everything broke down into the gray mud that you see in the Waste. That’s why people melt into the mud when they enter the Waste. They become infected, and the molecular engines inside of them break them down.”

“And it’s still spreading.”

“Exactly.”

“You said you know how to stop it.”

“I think I do. All of the molecular engines were ultimately connected with each other through a networked series of supercomputers, one of which is located here in Thule. Of course, back then it was called Iceland.”

“So you think you can fix everything with this computer?”

“All I need to do is shut it off, then restart it and let the diagnostic software purge the molecular engine web of the faulty software. It won’t undo the damage that the Plague has done, but when the faulty software is purged, then we Revisioned can rebuild the world, using the dead molecular engines as raw material.”

“And you know this will work?”

Amrita shrugged. “It should. Of course, there’s also the possibility that once the computer restarts, then the diagnostic software will recognize the anomaly as the desired state of the software, and make the Plague even worse.”

Devrashi had no idea what Amrita was talking about. She used words and phrases that he had never heard before, but he understood the gist of what she was saying. “How likely is that to happen?”

“More likely than not, actually. But the risk is worth it, don’t you think?”

Devrashi felt rage building up inside of him. Rage at the arrogance of the scientists so long ago who thought they had the right to reorder the world the way they had done. Rage at the Revisioned. Rage at Amrita, whose sense of entitlement to the way things were formerly was likely to destroy everything.

“You’re the only Revisioned left,” Devrashi said. “That would give you sole control over the entire world, wouldn’t it?”

“Don’t be stupid, Devrashi. There are more Revisioned in the world than you might think. Every now and then, a person is born in an Enclave whose immune system has mutated at a chromosomal level, and who can therefore host the second type of molecular engine, the one that gives them power over all the other molecular engines. Spontaneous Revision, I like to call it. Of course, without teaching, these people rarely understand what they are, and lack even the most basic understanding of their powers. They may grow up and die without ever knowing what they are and what they’re capable of.”

Devrashi’s foot slipped again, and once again his knee slammed into the wall of the Plateau. There was a loud snap, and the pain spread throughout his entire body. When he tried to move his leg again, he wasn’t able to. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong?” Amrita asked.

“I think I broke my knee.” Devrashi grimaced as waves of pain came and went, blinding him and causing every muscle in his body to tense up. “You’re a Revisioned,” he snapped at Amrita. “Why can’t you just teleport us to the damned cave and computer?”

Amrita sighed again. “You’re an idiot,” she said. “I’m just waiting for you to do it.”

“What?”

“Haven’t you been listening, Devrashi? You’re a Revisioned. You can take us to the caves right now. You can heal your own knee. You can do anything you want to. And when I reset the computer, you’ll be able to do even more.”

“Is that why I recognized this place?”

“Exactly. You’ve never been here, but the molecular engines inside of you know what this place is.”

“So why are you infected with the Plague and I’m not?”

“The protection spell I placed on you. Not really a spell, of course, just a manipulation of the molecular engines inside of you. A temporary block of the frequencies that the molecular engines use. It works better for you than for me, just because you’re healthier than I am.”

Devrashi tried to deny what she said, but it was no use. She was right. He knew it was true; there was no reason for him to know it was so, but he did. “So how do I do it? How do I send us there?”

“It’s easy. Just think of it. The molecular engines inside of you will do the rest. That was the whole point. To give people to ability to manipulate the world around them so easily that it would become second nature to them. Do you see now why it’s worth the risk?”

Devrashi said nothing. Instead, he closed his eyes, and tried to imagine the cave at the center of the Plateau, the massive computer that was there, whatever a computer was, and thought of himself being there, himself and Amrita next to him.

And suddenly, it was warm.

#

“I told you,” Amrita said.

Devrashi opened his eyes. The cave was very different from what he had imagined. Instead of the huge, wall hugging machine that he had expected to see, there was nothing on the wall of the cave but something that looked like a huge window with tiny flashing lights to either side of it. Light came from glowing stones set into the cave walls. The window showed flowing images of circles, lines, squares, all flowing into each other in a complicated dance. Devrashi could detect no pattern in what the images showed, and could make no sense of it. Rocks and rubble littered the floor; Devrashi could see cracks and holes in the walls and ceiling.”

“You’re still in pain,” Amrita observed. “Fix it.”

Devrashi thought about his knee, and it was healed. The pain was gone, as if it had never been there. No Healer he’d ever known in his years in the Enclave had been capable of such rapid and painless repair. “I don’t even know how my knee is supposed to work,” he said. “The bones and the flesh and everything that the Healers work on.”

“The molecular engines do,” Amrita said. “That’s what matters. Do you see the computer?”

“I think so. I see a glass window with moving pictures in it. Lines and circles. I can’t figure it out.”

“Are there lights and buttons along the bottom and sides?”

“Lots of them.”

“That’s the computer. Take me over to it.”

Devrashi looked over at her. The gray fleshy tissue that had been her eyes had spread over half her face. The melted flesh on her right hand was beginning to drip globules onto the floor, where they melded into the floor. Where they touched, the floor turned into gray mud. The blue light that had surrounded her had faded completely. She was entirely unprotected from the Plague at this point.

When they reached the computer, Devrashi held her left hand and pressed it against the buttons along the bottom of the screen. She moved her hand along the row of buttons and lights carefully, feeling exactly what was where.

“How can you tell what you’re doing?” Devrashi asked.

“I memorized the diagrams I found,” Amrita said. “I worried that this might happen.”

“Do you want me to do it? You could tell me what to do.”

“No, I need to do this. It has to be done exactly right. I can’t let you touch it. Just give me a few minutes.”

Devrashi stepped back from Amrita and watched as she ran the fingers of her left along on the rows of buttons and lights, both beneath the screen and to its sides.

“Got it,” she said softly. She pressed one more lit button, and the screen went dark.

The sensation that went through Devrashi at the moment that the screen went black was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Every inch of his body tingled and went cold as if his entire body had gone to sleep. The world seemed to grow dim. The blue light that had enveloped him flickered out. Something inside of him went numb, something that he couldn’t describe.

“What just happened?” he asked Amrita.

“The molecular engines have shut down,” she replied. “Everything’s stopped. The ones inside of you, the ones inside of me. The ones everywhere in the world. The ones that operate the Healers and the Weavers and the Foodsmiths in all the Enclaves throughout the world. Everything.”

“And the Plague.”

“Yes. And the Plague.”

“How long until you reset the computer?”

Amrita was touching her face. “A few minutes. There are hundreds of these computers throughout the world. We have to make sure the signal promulgates throughout the entire network.”

“And you know this will fix it? This will end the Plague?”

“As I said, I don’t know. There’s a greater chance that this will make it worse. But again, the risk is worth it. If the Plague can be stopped then the world will be as it was meant to be.”

He looked around the cave that they were in. There was no door, he saw, no way out of here. “How do we get out?”

“When the computers are reset, we simply teleport,” Amrita told him.

“How long?”

“No more than a quarter of an hour.”

Devrashi watched Amrita, and thought about what she had said. The Plague could get worse. Everyone could die. The people in the Enclaves were already suffering, with the Healers shut down, the Foodsmiths not working, even the Weavers broken. Everything, he realized, depended on the molecular engines that Amrita had talked about. People could live without them, though it would be difficult.

And if she were right, the Plague was gone already.

He thought of his years as a borderman, standing guard at the watchtowers, making sure that nothing could get in to the Enclave from the Waste. For years, of course, nothing had. Nothing could survive through the Waste long enough to get to the border. The only way that anything could get from the Waste to the Enclave was if they had started in the Enclave and gone out.

In all the time that Devrashi had stood guard, that had only happened once, just four years ago. She had been on the edge, right on the boundary, picking grass to put into the Foodsmith. She had been carrying their daughter and she had slipped and fallen into the mud of the Waste.

Devrashi had had to shoot his own wife and his child himself. Since then, there had simply been no point to living, but he’d done so anyway. Done his duty and hoped that something would just happen to end it all.

“Not too much longer,” Amrita said. She turned her blind, deformed face to him. The gray fleshy pulp had started to dissolve into a powder. “Are you ready?”

“What happens if you just leave it off? If you don’t reset it or turn it back on or whatever you have to do?”

“Nothing happens. The Plague stays inert, and inactive. But the Foodsmiths the Enclaves depend on, the Healers, the Weavers, they all break down. No one knows how to farm or raise live animals so people starve to death. A few will survive. But civilization will never be the same.”

“And if you reset the computer and it doesn’t work?”

“Then everything and everyone dies of the plague.”

Devrashi shook his head, trying to clear it. “We don’t have the right,” he said.

“What right?”

“We don’t have the right to make that decision for the entire world. If it doesn’t work then everyone who’s left will die. And so will we.”

“We absolutely do have the right, Devrashi. We’re Revisioned, you and I. Out of everyone in the world, you and I are the ones most qualified to make that decision right now.” She smiled and turned back to the computer. “Just a few more minutes, and this conversation will be purely academic.”

“Don’t do it,” Devrashi said. “I can’t let you.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Amrita’s fingers were on the buttons beneath the screen. “Damn, I can’t even tell what’s going on without the molecular engines active. See, I just have to hope for the best here. Once I’m satisfied that the network has been entirely reset, all I have to do is press this button here. It will initiate the power sequence.”

Devrashi looked at the rocks and stones littering the floor of the cavern. Without thinking much about what he was doing, he picked up one of the larger rocks, raised it over his head, then brought it down hard against the back of Amrita’s skull. She jerked and fell forward against the screen. Then her legs seemed to give out and she fell to the floor. She turned around and faced him with her powdery dead eyes. “What are you doing?”

“I’m fixing everything,” Devrashi replied. “Restoring the world to the way it’s supposed to be.” He lifted the stone again and brought it down against the screen. The glass cracked but did not break, which would have been far more satisfying.

“You’re an idiot. How do you think this is going to fix everything? Nothing will be fixed. Thousands of people are going to starve to death, and that’s going to be your fault. Do you really want that?” Her voice was hoarse and cracking. Her breath came in great heaves. “Do you?”

Devrashi leaned against the wall and slid his back down it until he was on the same level with Amrita. “If you’d failed, then everything left would have died. That’s not how the world is supposed to be.”

Amrita’s breath was coming in deep, rattling gasps. “You’re an idiot,” she said again. Then she let out one last gasping breath, and died.

Devrashi leaned against the wall and looked around the cavern. He knew that everyone in the Asgard Enclave would probably die, with the Foodsmiths and other essential machines no longer working and began to wonder if maybe Amrita had been right. What if, in trying to prevent the entire world from possibly falling victim to the Plague, he had condemned the rest of humanity to death anyway?

Above him, the computer’s screen flashed with tiny sparks, and the rows of lights and buttons remained dark. The lights above him were dimming and the air was growing cold. Soon he would either freeze to death, or starve. Neither option appealed to him.

Aw, hell, he thought.

He climbed back to his feet and stood before the computer screen once again. The screen was dark, as were the lights beneath it. He remembered which button Amrita had pointed out to him, the one that would initiate the power cycle process. Was there a specific moment when the button had to be pressed? Was there a moment when it would be too late?

What were the odds, he wondered.

He pressed the button, sat back down, and waited for the world to change.