11

Weezy’s mind whirled. Or maybe reeled was more like it.

They sat in the apartment’s great room, its huge windows overlooking Central Park’s Sheep Meadow. She didn’t know much about décor, but knew this place was way out of date. Guys from Interior Design would fight over the chance to do an extreme makeover. But she kind of liked it the way it was, with its dark paneling and strange curios and odd melange of mismatched paintings from all over and, perhaps, all time. A tray of sandwiches—homemade from the look of them—sat in the middle of a table set with crystal and china.

All very nice, except she was seated across from Mrs. Clevenger, a woman who had been elderly when Weezy was a kid, and should have passed on by now, but who looked not a day older than when she’d last seen her. Jack seemed to know her as someone else. He’d called her “the Lady.”

And Mrs. Clevenger was seated next to the man she’d recognized as Old Man Foster, who had aged, but was going by the name of Veilleur. She wondered how Jack hadn’t recognized him. Older, sure, but still a big man like Foster, and the blue eyes and high cheekbones were the same; even the beard was the same shape, though fully gray now.

Mr. Veilleur had announced at the beginning that he might have to excuse himself if his wife needed him. Apparently he’d given the help the afternoon off so they could have privacy.

When Weezy had asked if his wife would be joining them the old man said she was not having a good day.

She got the impression that Mrs. Veilleur didn’t have many good days.

So . . . already surreal with Mrs. Clevenger and Mr. Foster—Veilleur—there, but then Jack had launched into this tale of a cosmic shadow war between two vast, unimaginable, unknowable cosmic forces. They had no names, just the labels humans had attributed to them: the Ally and the Otherness.

She’d stifled a yawn. The old tale of Good versus Evil vying for control of Earth or humanity—its oh-so-valuable souls or bodies, or whatever. The same tale that every human culture had invented and reinvented through the ages. She’d heard it all before.

Or thought she had until Jack explained that Earth’s corner of reality was not the grand prize, just a piece—and not a particularly valuable one—on a vast cosmic chessboard . . . part of a contest between the two forces, with victory going to the one that could take and keep the most pieces. Commonly referred to as the Conflict, no one knew who was winning.

But these forces weren’t so simple as Good and Evil. More like neutral and inimical. The Ally was an ally only in so far as humanity’s purposes were in tune with its agenda, which it ruthlessly pursued. It would squash whatever got in its way with no more thought or concern than a human would give to swatting an annoying fly. As long as Earth’s corner of reality stayed in the Ally’s pocket, humanity could count on benign neglect.

The Otherness was another story. It was decidedly inimical because, in a sense, it devoured worlds, changing their realities, even their physics to an environment more to its liking. Almost vampiric in that it seemed to feed on the agonies it caused along the way. Humans shouldn’t take this personally—it did this wherever it gained control.

“The Conflict,” Jack said, “is what’s been fueling the Secret History.”

Weezy glanced at Mr. Veilleur and Mrs. Clevenger and found them nodding agreement.

She’d always suspected something like this, but to hear it from Jack, of all people . . .

She turned to him. “How do you know all this?” She pointed to the Compendium—how she hungered to dive into it—where it sat on a side table. “And how did you get hold of that?”

“Jack is one of the Heirs,” Veilleur said.

“Heirs to what?”

“To the position I held for thousands of years—leading the Ally’s forces against the Otherness.”

“Jack?”

She almost laughed, but that was because she was thinking of the teenage Jack. Then she remembered how he’d killed five men over the course of a dozen hours and it didn’t seem so ludicrous. The sweet, faithful Jack she’d snuggled up to in the bed—what had she been thinking?—had turned into a cold-eyed killer when threatened, and was now back to easygoing, affable Jack.

Two Jacks, polar opposites . . . how did they coexist?

She stared at him. “Really?”

“Really,” Jack said, sounding none too happy about it.

His expression made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the job.

“It’s a long, long story,” Veilleur said. “Back in the First Age, when the Conflict was out in the open, the Ally’s forces prevailed after a seemingly endless string of battles. As it retreated, the Otherness triggered a worldwide cataclysm that wiped out all civilization. Humanity had to start from scratch again. I was made immortal and put on guard, because the Otherness had not given up. It had its own immortal at its disposal, and we battled through the millennia. In the fifteenth century I finally trapped him and locked him away—for good, I thought. But on the eve of World War Two, the German army released him. I slew him before he could escape.

“At that moment, with its victory seemingly complete, the Ally released me to age. It retreated, turning its attention to hotter spots in the Conflict. But the Adversary was not finished. He was reincarnated in 1968. In response, Jack and a few others like him were conceived and prepared to take up the role of Defender should that become necessary. So far it hasn’t. We hope to keep it that way.”

She stared at him. “Jack . . . you’re immortal?”

He shook his head. “Hardly. And not going to be if I have anything to say in the matter.”

“How . . . how long has this been going on?”

The Lady said, “The Conflict began before the Earth was formed and will continue long after the Sun’s furnace goes cold.”

Weezy closed her eyes as she felt the facts and ideas and suspicions and suppositions that had filled her brain shift and expand and form new patterns. Because if all this was true—and she sensed it was—it explained so much.

And now, more than ever, she was certain that the nine/eleven attacks were part of the Secret History, which meant ultimately part of the Conflict.

But the what and how and why remained elusive.

“Okay,” Jack said, “we know who I am, we know who Weezy is, and we know Mister Veilleur.” He leveled his gaze at Mrs. Clevenger. “But who are you?” He held up a hand. “And please don’t tell me you’re my mother. I thought you were many, but was told you were only one. You’re the Lady. I thought then that you might be Gaia or Mother Earth or something like that, but you said it wasn’t that simple. So what’s the truth? You’ve popped in and out of the entire course of my life. I think it’s time I knew the truth.”

She nodded. “So do I.”

Jack leaned back and folded his arms. “You have the floor.”

“Where to begin?” she said. “Be patient with me. I have never had to explain this before. In the past when you’ve asked, I’ve said I was your mother, but that’s not even remotely true. I say that because I am female and because I am older than any living thing on this planet.” She nodded toward Veilleur. “Even our friend here.”

Weezy leaned forward, fascinated. Was Goethe’s “eternal feminine” more than just a concept? Was she a real being?

“But I am not your mother in any sense. I have never called myself Gaia, though I have called myself Herta, but I am neither. I did not create you; you created me. I do not nurture you; you nurture me.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “That’s who you aren’t . . .”

“As to who I am, perhaps another name would help. Remember what I called myself in Florida?”

“Sure. Anya.”

“Anya Mundy, to be exact.”

“Anima mundi!” Weezy said. “Soul of the world!”

The Lady smiled at Weezy. “You always were a quick one.”

Jack was shaking his head. “I was thinking of the guy who wrote King of the Khyber Rifles.”

“Helps to know Latin,” Weezy said.

He looked at her. “Another language?”

She shrugged.

The Lady said, “ ‘Soul of the world’ is closer but not quite accurate. I am, for want of a better term, the embodiment of the sentience on this planet. I was born when the interactions of the self-aware creatures on the planet reached a certain critical mass. Like any infant, I had limited consciousness at first, but as Earth’s sentient biomass expanded, so did my awareness. Eventually I appeared as a person—a child at first, then an adolescent, then fully grown.”

“The noosphere,” Weezy breathed, seeing it all come together. “Vernadsky and Teilhard were right?”

The Lady nodded. “Vernadsky originated the concept, but Teilhard was closer to the truth.”

“You’ve lost me,” Jack said.

Weezy spoke as the facts popped into her head. “Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit who theorized that the growth of human numbers and interactions would create a separate consciousness called the noosphere. Needless to say—but I’ll say it anyway—this did not endear him to the Church.”

“Are we talking cyberspace?”

“No,” the Lady said. “There is nothing electronic, nothing ‘cyber’ about it.”

“But where can it go from here?” Weezy said. “What’s the next evolutionary step?”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I sense other noospheres out there—other worlds, other realities with sentient populations—but I can’t contact them. I am bound to my creators, to humanity. But perhaps the next step will be our noosphere achieving enough breadth and depth and strength to enable it to reach out and contact other noospheres.”

Weezy had an epiphany. “And maybe that will lead to a community of interacting noospheres, which in turn will give rise to yet another level, an übersphere of collective noosphere consciousness.”

Weezy felt herself trembling inside. This was wonderful.

Jack leaned forward. “Sounds like you’re talking about God.”

The wonder of it struck Weezy dumb for a few seconds. “Yes . . . maybe someday we’ll create God.”

They all sat in silence for a moment, then something occurred to her.

“They call you the Lady. Why? Do you always appear as a woman?”

She nodded. “Always. I don’t know why. Strictly speaking, I should be considered an it, but I always appear as female. I can choose my appearance—any age, any race, any level of beauty or ugliness—but for some reason I can appear only as female. And I must appear, must be physically present in the world. I can be anywhere, but I must always be somewhere.”

Jack frowned. “You can’t simply disappear, fade back into the noosphere?”

“No. The noosphere is everywhere, and I am its physical manifestation. As such, I must exist in the physical world.”

Weezy feared she might explode with . . . what? Glee? Rapture? Triumph? Vindication? But she reined herself in. She believed every word that had been said at this table, but should she? Shouldn’t she doubt? Shouldn’t she do what she had always told everyone else: Ask the next question?

Is it real, is this the truth, or does it simply seem that way because I so want to believe?

She hesitated, then steeled herself to ask.

“Can you show me a different you?”

The Lady frowned. “Normally I would not even consider such a request, but for you . . . what would you prefer?”

“How about . . .”—something way different—“an Inuit woman?”

Mrs. Clevenger blurred, then sharpened to a shorter, darker-skinned woman with almond eyes and black hair braided into two long pigtails. She looked to be in her twenties and was snuggled in a fur-lined parka.

The dog barked and Weezy looked to see a large male husky standing on four legs and wagging its tail.

“Another question,” Jack said. “You’re always with a dog. Why a dog?”

She shrugged and spoke in a younger, softer voice. “He’s my male counterpart. Just as something in the consciousness of the noosphere demands I appear as female—”

“The eternal feminine,” Weezy said. It explained so much ancient mythology.

“Perhaps. But the noosphere demands that he appear as a male dog. I don’t know why. I am supposedly his mistress, but he doesn’t always listen.”

She picked up a knife from the table and held it before her, staring at the blade as she rotated it back and forth. Then she plunged it through the palm of her other hand.

Weezy let out a yelp of shock. “Ohmygod!”

The Lady smiled. “Not to worry. I do not eat or drink, and I cannot be hurt in the usual sense.” She removed the knife and the skin immediately sealed itself. “But I can be hurt.”

She rose and shed the parka, revealing small, dark-tipped breasts.

Weezy heard Jack say, “Yikes,” but she could not take her eyes off the deep dimple in the Lady’s abdomen to the right of the navel, wide enough to admit two fingertips.

Then she turned and Weezy gasped as she saw her back. The skin was pocked with hundreds of punctate scars and crisscrossed with fine red lines connecting them. She noticed another dimple in the small of her back, similar to the one in front. For a second she thought she saw light flash within it, but that couldn’t be.

She shook her head. Couldn’t be? What did that mean anymore?

Neither Jack nor Veilleur seemed surprised, although Jack looked uncomfortable. He’d apparently seen it before.

“What . . . what happened?”

“Opus Omega,” she said, then pointed to the Compendium. “You will read about it in there.”

Again that instantaneous flash from the dimple. Weezy cocked her head and leaned a little to the right—and froze as she saw light from the window.

The dimple was a tunnel, a through-and-through passage.

Weezy didn’t ask about that . . . wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“All about it?” she asked.

The Lady raised the parka back over her shoulders. It was closed when she turned to face her.

“Much of it. The Compendium is ancient and long out of date. Jack knows some of what is not in there. He can fill you in. Study it well, Weezy.”

“And keep a special eye out for this,” Veilleur said, speaking for the first time since they’d sat down.

He passed her a slip of paper on which he’d written a strange word: Fhinntmanchca.

“What is it?”

“A legend. See what, if anything, the Compendium has to say about it.”

“I don’t think she should be wasting her time on things that never were and never shall be,” the Lady said.

Veilleur shrugged. “There’s been an Alarm about it. We can’t ignore it.”

The Lady turned to Weezy. “Absorb all you can. Use your brain to help us thwart the Adversary.”

The charge overwhelmed her. “Me? What can I do that you can’t? What can I learn that you don’t already know?”

“I have blind spots. Many things that involve the Ally and the Otherness are shielded from me.”

“Like the Fhinntmanchca, perhaps?” Veilleur said, a smile peeking through his beard.

She sighed. “Perhaps. At times I can sense the Adversary’s presence and know what he is doing—he is human, after all—but other times he seems to wink out of existence. He is active on a number of fronts now. Some are petty, involving simple vengeance, others are hidden from me. But he has a plan . . . he most certainly has a plan.”

“To do what?”

“Open the gates to the Otherness and let it flood through. And that will be the end of you and, as a consequence, the end of me. For once the Change occurs, the Ally will not want us back. By combining your knowledge of known history with the secrets of the First Age, you may find a way to impede the Adversary, or perhaps even stop him. He is fallible—he has made mistakes in the past—and therefore stoppable.”

By me? Weezy thought. Me? I don’t think so.