Kinesis Page 20

  Not to mention his stubbornness.

  Okka had been to many worlds, had taken many forms and they had all made their impressions on xir mind. But they were all separate, those lifetimes. They had vastly different architectures of knowledge, of thought, and belief. They weren't necessarily the same person that Okka was. Xe, as xemself, was attracted to the hard edges of Waverly's mind.

  Stubbornness appealed to Okka, the steadiness of one singular point of view superseding all others, and that was one reason why xe so often felt called to be an operative, a spy. Xe liked experiencing a shape, taking it on as xir own, and the contrast that made to the fluid nature of Mimica, and of the Collective.

  But at the same time, coming home had always been xir favorite part of a mission.

  So this had been that resolution, craved since before xe'd met Waverly, far too long in coming. Okka had given xemself a mission, a thing to do while locked alone in xir head, and then Okka had finally been allowed to come home. Back to a familiar place. A family.

  "Yeah," said Waverly, throwing an arm across Okka's chest. "You needed that, too, huh?" He sighed against xir shoulder. "I'm so happy to be your home."

  Okka smiled up at the universe. There were still things xe needed, things xe might never manage to get back, but if xe never did, this was a life worth living for its own sake. And that was all Waverly had meant when he'd asked whether he was enough.

  This life was a good life. Xe could be content with this life, if xe never found xir way back to the homeworld xe remembered.

  "I totally get that feel, though," Waverly said. "Needing to do more, not being able to stop and rest. That feeling that you're never doing enough to justify your existence. It's a toughie." Waverly kissed Okka's temple. "We won't give up. This is your family, your world, and I get that now. But we need to take time to take care of ourselves. Take care of each other."

  Yes, there were things Okka needed to fight for as hard as xe could. Family. Connection. Trust. People xe could rely on.

  But xe had so much of that already. Not just in Waverly, Toto and David, but of course in Nifu. She had been family for so long, and even now that the lifetime of Myrdu was past, she seemed determined to continue to be family. Xe remembered her offer of help to the Mimica who had suddenly appeared in her father's skin.

  It was the one connection from Myrdu's life that still felt solid. Xe appreciated everything Atur had done to help, but xe still wasn't sure how Atur's loyalties might fall when it came to hard questions, or reminders that Okka was Mimica. Xe was not so wary when it came to xir daughter.

  "I felt the absence of the Collective without knowing it and started a family. I've never done that before. It's not encouraged. Not built into the undercover personalities to want it. And there are safeties on our fertility when we are undercover. Myrdu… I… circumvented them." Xir glow of gratitude for everything xe had formed itself into a new thought. "My daughter will help us in any way she can."

  Waverly chuckled quietly. "Yeah. We should ask her, huh?"

  After they'd gotten dressed for the day, Okka stood in front of Waverly's tall dressing-room mirror and spoke xir daughter's name. "Nifu."

  "Is this really how you get her attention?" Waverly asked, eyebrows raised. "I'm having flashbacks to playing Bloody Mary at high school Halloween parties."

  Okka smirked. "Oh, yes, she also answers to that name."

  "Holy shit. How many kids has she scarred for life?"

  "Only those she judged deserved it."

  Nifu thrust her face through the plane of the mirror. "I heard my names." She gave Waverly a ghastly grin.

  "Oh, Jesus." Waverly put a hand over his heart and gulped for breath.

  "Come in, why don't you?" Nifu said, holding out a hand. "I have something to show you both."

  "Well now I'm thinking of clowns in storm sewers, so thanks for that, too."

  Waverly really did look disturbed, but he seemed willing enough to trust her.

  They stepped through into the Paths, following Nifu. They trailed after her, Okka holding tight to Nifu’s hand and Waverly grasping Okka’s hand, as they passed into the chaos of glimmering mirrors, the stone path under their feet the only solid, real-seeming thing in whatever non-places they walked through now.

  This didn't feel like home to Okka, not anymore. It felt distant. The way it must have to the Avlan nobles. Somehow xe knew, without Nifu, xe would be completely unmoored here.

  Nifu spoke back over her shoulder as she walked.

  "I'd forgotten all about it," she said, "but somewhere here there is a room that was here from the beginning. The records of the Lady of the Glass say that many have found it, but none can read it. If the Paths were created by Mimica, maybe you can read it?"

  "There's a good chance," Okka said. Xe looked thoughtfully at xir daughter. "I never read that far in the records."

  She shook her head, dismissing xir concern. "You had your own work to attend to. The Paths are my place, and this is the time for you to come here."

  A wall rose up by one side of the stone path, black and shining like obsidian, with circular symbols interlinked with each other carved into its surface.

  Forgotten things meant Mimica had died to keep them secret. Mimica had sealed them up and taken the memory of them away into death, leaving only a key behind to open the seal if the knowledge was needed. What secrets were so important, so dangerous that they were not even kept in the Collective in case they were needed?

  Okka ran xir fingers over the alien runes, reverently, longingly, as if by touching it, xe could join xir long-dead ancestors. Merge with them.

  Xe could at least know some of what they knew.

  You have found our paths through the stars. We think these paths best forgotten. We hope no Mimica ever has reason or opportunity to read these words. The knowledge we used to make these paths is too dangerous. After these words are written, we will die to keep these paths unknown.

  It is similar knowledge to that which allows those Mimica of the new Collectives to stay in contact with each other, even at a distance. But there is no putting that knowledge in a box and forgetting it, not now.

  If your Collective is alive and well, if no one has found the way to pull their strings, stop reading here. Go. Never return.

  Here the wall turned ninety degrees, hiding the rest of the message from sight.

  The threads that connect the Mimica of the new Collectives go down to the very hearts of their beings, into even the most basic workings of their minds. Those threads can be grasped and pulled. They are a back door that will let anyone who knows their secrets pull the entire Collective into line with their own will.

  If you already know this, if such a thing has come to pass, then and only then should you look further.

  The wall took another turn.

  These are things that the strings that bind the Collective can command:

  "This might be translated as consciousness, or the soul's connection to the body and mind. The ability to shift. There are… there are detailed technical instructions on how to go about bending an entire collective to your will. And then it goes on:"

  Go. Recover your collective. Fates and powers be with you.

  —The Dissenters.

  This frightened Okka to xir core. Xir fingers shook, now, as xe traced the ancient words.

  There was so much that could be done with this information. With this tool xe'd just been handed. This text was talking about the capability to reach directly into the minds and bodies of Mimica, and change them. Do things to them. All the things the Empress could accomplish through her Creepers—and more.

  "Hey, Okka," Waverly said, offering his hand. Offering his mind, his heart.

  Just knowing these things, Okka felt like a weapon. Xe felt like xe was too dangerous to touch xir beloved, lest he crumble.

  But they couldn't merge here, Okka remembered. Xir knowledge would stay safely locked up in xir own head until xe stepped through the glass again.
>
  Waverly's hand was warm, and his mind and heart were known and loved, and it helped.

  "A frightening weapon has been given to me," Okka said. "But I have many tasks to accomplish that cannot be done with anything less than a frightening weapon."

  Myrdu had come horribly close to uncovering some of the dynamics behind it all. The things that could pull the strings of Mimica bodies more directly and more forcefully than the Cewri's control. He'd found a way to detect and decode the filaments of communication that were the Collective. He wouldn't have been far from figuring out that these things were possible.

  Someday the cleverness of Okka's identities would be xir undoing.

  But not today. Today, it might be xir making. Everything Myrdu had accomplished in his life of study had seemed to come to naught when he learned only that the Mimica had joined the Cewri. But now, it was bearing fruit.

  They were solemn as they said their farewells to Nifu and returned to the office.

  "So," said Waverly. "Going to let me in on what that was, and why you're all gloom-and-doom about it?"

  Waverly did eventually pry the basics out of xem, and then started asking curious, probing questions, like how actively the Cewri controlled the Mimica and their other slaves, whether the line of communication was constant, what form it took and how it could be interrupted, how long it would take after communication was interrupted for the Empress to reestablish her control.

  "I don't know," Okka was forced to admit. "I don't know any of this. When I was part of the slaved Collective, I was commanded not to pry into it."

  There had to be a way to use this. What could they command the Mimica to do, that the Empress could not then immediately override?

  The idea dawned on Okka like a stormy morning. Brutal, cold, but with a glimmer of hope that there would be better things to come.

  "What was that?" Waverly asked, who hadn't been paying the closest attention to Okka's thoughts.

  Okka looked at him. "I have an idea for how we might take control of the Mimica away from the Cewri," xe said. "Maybe not the whole Collecive yet, but if I can make the signal strong enough, any left here on Earth, or any who come here to fight us."

  "That's great! What is it?" Waverly frowned at xem, poking around xir emotions. "You don't look thrilled. You don't feel thrilled. Far from it, really."

  "It won't return control of the Mimica to themselves," xe explained. "That will need to wait a while longer. But it will stop the Empress from using them against their wills. It will stop… everything."

  "What will happen to them?" He frowned at Okka. "You're not gonna find some way to… insta-kill the whole bunch of 'em, are you?"

  "No," Okka said. Then xe made a face. "Well…"

  "You're scaring me here, Okka."

  "If it works the way I think it works, we can bring them back to life later."

  Even Waverly's dark skin showed half a shade paler, at that. "If it works… You can't just… We don't know how many of you there are here. How many of you we'll face."

  "No, I can't," Okka agreed. "That's why we're testing it on me first."

  Waverly's hands tightened around xirs. "Fuck. Yeah, I get you. I see the need. But. Yeah. Just. Fuck."

  "Agreed."

  They leaned into each other, contemplating the dangerous tools they would have to build and test in order to make this work.

  It would be a transmission along the same route as the Collective used to communicate, the same route as the Cewri used to control them. It would tell the bodies of all Mimica within its range, without consulting their minds, to form themselves into stable solid minerals, uniform and diamond-hard on the outside, but on the inside containing all the information that was the Mimica, all the information that stayed constant when Mimica went from one form to another. Because of what they were, because of what they could do, and because of the secrets Okka had learned in the Paths, it could all be quantified, all measured and recorded, except for one tiny reactive spark in the very core of each solid that would respond only to one command—the reversal code that only Mystery knew.

  "This is it," said Okka, patting the device they'd created. It was everything dangerous that Okka had learned in the Paths, just by its existence. But it had only two commands programmed into it. The collapse, and the reversal.

  "Are we sure?" Waverly asked.

  "As sure as we can be." Okka looked at Waverly. "If something does go wrong…"

  "It won't. You'll be right back. I promise. I promise I'll find a way to get you back."

  "David should be here," Okka continued, undeterred. "Even if it's just a delay of a minute, I know you. You will panic. Toto will help as much as he can, but I'd feel better if I knew you had David here to keep everything as sane as possible, if anything doesn't keep exactly to plan."

  Waverly blinked, trying to keep from tearing up. "Yeah, okay," he said.

  "Good," Okka said.

  If xe were being completely honest, xe would admit xe wanted David here for xir own sake, as well.

  David arrived a few minutes later, and everything was set up, so Okka prepared xemself while Waverly explained what it was they were attempting to a horrified but understanding David.

  Okka banished the counterfeit effect of the apple once more. It felt so strange that something that had been so ceremonial in Myrdu's life was becoming so casual to Okka now.

  It had to be a test of relatively substantial length, at least, both to be sure that the changes had a chance to completely take hold, and to know whether there was a sense of time passing for that tiny remaining spark.

  Okka had to know exactly what xe was subjecting xir people to.

  "Two minutes," xe told Waverly forcefully. "Promise me. We need to know what it's like."

  "Two minutes," Waverly said reluctantly. "I promise."

  "We'll be right here," David reassured.

  *~*~*

  Waverly couldn't even imagine how it must feel. It was probably worse than the memory he remembered from Okka, of not being able to dance at all the way xe wanted to. Being so stuck, when all xe knew from xir life before was freedom.

  Well, if they'd gotten it right, xe wouldn't sense the passage of time while the command was in effect, but still. The simple knowledge of what xe was stepping into, what could go wrong, was terrifying.

  Waverly clasped Okka's hand tightly. Okka squeezed in return, took a breath, and let go. "Do it," xe said.

  Waverly pressed enter, and the sequence ran. The transmission was sent.

  Okka folded up, all shifting angles, as if xe had suddenly been lost between the mirrors of Nifu's realm. But it stopped, a moment later, and there was only a still, small shape.

  Waverly, holding his breath, bent to pick xem up, place xem on the desk oh-so carefully. Xe was a black, slick, obsidian-like solid, substantial but not heavy, about ten inches across. A truncated tetrahedron—long words for a d4 with the corners cut off.

  Unmoving, seemingly lifeless.

  Waverly ran his fingers over the slick, unyielding surface, resenting the barrier and hoping hard.

  "Time," Toto called, and, exercising superhuman restraint, Waverly double-checked the settings one last time before hitting the button that should bring Okka back.

  He waited a long moment, hoping the chain reaction had started in the crystalline core, and was working its way out to the edges, restoring life.

  The center of one hexagonal side moved first, just a shudder, and then tentacles were blooming out everywhere, a great font of life. The cephalopoid tumbled into Waverly's arms and immediately broke the surface between their minds.

  It works. Here we are. We're okay.

  All They needed was right there between the two of Them, and all they wanted to do was touch each other, luxuriate in the fact of being free to be so close.

  "Right," David said. "Time for me to leave?"

  It wasn't even to the point of being ready for anything sexual yet. It was just… cozy. Probably looked different
from the outside, though, what with all the tentacles.

  Okka changed forms into a cheetah-sized gray felinoid with long, soft hair, and curled against Waverly's chest.

  "That better?" Waverly asked, running his fingers through Okka's fur, enjoying the sense-feedback of it, and the soft hum of the alien purr.

  David frowned. "I guess I could hang around for a little bit," he said. "You two still seem pretty wrapped up in each other, though."

  "Not the best company, huh?" Waverly guessed.

  "Not so much," David agreed.

  "It was good to have you here, to help us through that," Waverly said, with a prod from Okka, who didn't have the best vocal apparatus for English right now. "You're family. But we'll be okay now."

  "Enjoy yourselves," David said with a smirk, and saw himself out. Toto followed, with a sideways tilt of his head/hand that meant a wink, and a promise to be around if he was needed.

  Waverly just kept petting Okka for a while and buried his face in the softest fur behind Okka's ear and hummed a sweet, soft melody. Okka reciprocated by rubbing xir face against Waverly's stubbly cheek, and scratching Waverly's scalp with little nubbins of politely-filed claws (a diplomat's claws, not a fighter's, Okka's deep well of knowledge provided). The claws slipped easily in between the strands of Waverly's tightly kinked hair.

  Waverly's hummed song trailed off into a deep, contented sigh. He wiggled, settling further into his office chair.

  "Maybe David was right," he admitted. "And wow, I've got no idea how to go about seducing a giant cat, even a sapient one."

  I could teach you how to give pleasure to thousands of species, Okka thought at him with a smug sort of teasing lilt.

  "Right now I just want my Okka," Waverly said.

  I am always your Okka, xe responded. But xe shifted.

  There xe was, straddled across his lap in all xir glory, his own chubby lab partner with black hair spiked like a wicked fairy. Soft human skin, but inside that, so much more.