Worlds War One

xxiii [Autumn]

"What is this?" Autumn asked Saanvi as Drill circled the downtown area of Tokyo.

Then Autumn flickered out of sight. She could tell when she disappeared. Saanvi's eyes looked through her, focus shifting to something behind Autumn. Before, at first, when Autumn went away, she'd been entirely gone. Like she'd skipped a second or two of existence. Winked out like a flame, then reborn from the ember of Autumn Loloma. Like those magic candles on a birthday cake that relit after being blown out. But now she started to see something when she wasn't Autumn. When she was a Ghost. When she was Pept of the A'aninin.

There was another way to see the whole world.

"You're starting to see the Way Things Really Are," Saanvi said. "There's more than one way to look at the world, Autumn."

Autumn remembered her sister Spring, memories of long ago when the Earth had been much younger. Spring had been floating in a nascent ether, then running through virgin lands, then swimming in a prehistoric sea. Spring Loloma had been twenty-five when she turned into a zombie. But Navay of the A'aninin had been created at the beginning of the universe. She has been in existence since the start of All.

Her sister had always been. Until now.

"The memories are coming back," Autumn said. "Things that happened long before...."

Saanvi nodded. "You have a lot to remember."

"I've done this before. Playing at mortality. Over and over." Autumn had flashes of previous lifetimes on Earth. Other names. Other places. "Like reincarnation."

"In a way. The concept of reincarnation originated because everyone gets glimpses of the Way Things Really Are despite the Great Dream. We all transcend the lies that we live. We're all more than the tale we tell each other. There's always another side to the story, Pept of the A'aninin."

Autumn remembered things from billions of years ago when the skies were red. The ground when it was molten. The seas when they were empty. Species that man has never even imagined. The world covered in ice. The world covered in water. The world covered in fire. Autumn remembered it all.

"It's too much," the Ghost moaned.

"It usually is," Saanvi said. "That's why they hide the truth from the masses. It's ever too much. When it rushes in all at once, it must feel like you're standing under Niagara Falls. Drowning. Deluged. I've learned the Way Things Really Are since birth, so I can't imagine learning everything in a day and facing a whole new encyclopedia of knowledge.

"But you're not the first Ghost who has awakened from the Great Dream. And you're stronger than most. More open to the uncanny than some of your brothers and sisters. You'll survive the remembering. Too much doesn't have to break you. Take in what you can and leave the rest for later."

Autumn winked out. Saanvi was gone. Badia and the soldiers disappeared. The vehicle was nowhere. She examined a world that wasn't the unsubstantial miasma of the Nowhere. The experience wasn't flipping into the other immaterial dimension, but rather remaining in the Wider World while seeing with Ghost eyes. She was studying everything in the physical world in a different way. Like a blind man dependent on the senses of hearing and feeling and smell, suddenly able to see. Her primary sense returned, showing her a world she'd been blind to for too long.

Autumn could see in every direction for a thousand miles. Nothing cluttered the landscape. Color defined the world, shades beyond what had existed in any spectrum Autumn had ever seen in the Great Dream, pulsating possibilities that each had emotion attached as if it was a painting with personality, a Rembrandt that rendered reality as a rainbow.

"I feel so alone," Autumn sighed as her mouth returned to things material.

"Interesting fact about Ghosts," Saanvi said. "There's no such thing as the number '1' in your tribe of people. They don't have a singular number in your numerical system. Ghosts believe you're never alone, that there's another side to the spirit. You are both Autumn Loloma and Pept of the A'aninin. Have you ever read that poem about footprints on the beach and Jesus carrying the wayward soul when there were times of trouble?" Autumn nodded. Her grandmother had the poem hanging on her wall. "The author was a Ghost. Because there's constantly someone who walks with you, Autumn."

Autumn had thought Saanvi was rude and crude since this adventure began, but the princess showed Autumn kindness here. She felt less alone after Saanvi said that. Less scared. Autumn knew that Saanvi's words were valid. There was no such number as 1.

"We're almost there," Saanvi said, addressing the entire squad. She tapped the electronic device screen on her wrist to show their destination on GPS. A hologram map floated in front of her face. Drill followed the route. "When we go in, let me do the talking."

"What exactly are we getting into?" Badia asked. "Is this going to be another ambush like at the Cathedral of the Key?"

"The Lost City is a civilized place," Saanvi said. "It's the only city on Earth where no one at all has ever been under the illusion of the Great Dream. Other cities are sensitive to the Way Things Really Are. New York. London. Baghdad. Jakarta. Cairo. Even in those places, the Dreamers still outnumber those awake by a hundred to one. At least. But in the Lost City, everyone has been awake all along. There are members of about every tribe, generations living together since the dawn of time. There are old families here. Old rivalries. Ancient animosities."

"Every tribe?" Fox asked. "Are there more things out there than Ghosts and Angels and the undead? And whatever it is you—" Airman Fox paused. He seemed unsure if he ought to call the princess out as something besides being Human. "I mean, what you're going to tell us about next?"

Autumn looked from Fox to Saanvi. He had almost addressed Saanvi's otherness. Autumn winked away, invisible, surveying the group through Ghostly eyes. In the direction of Saanvi Laghari, there was something different about her color. She got a different feeling from Badia, Drill, and the Misfits. Well, most of the Misfits...

Saanvi was something else. Like Autumn, but not like Autumn.

"As I told you, there were fourteen original Architects that implemented the divine design of the Wider World. Two of the Architects disappeared after the origins of the Wider World. Mot was one. The originals had to exile Johnny Rotten before decay spread across the cosmos and destroyed creation before it had barely even gotten started. Twelve Architects had remained to design the Wider World, and twelve tribes have descended from them. Humans. Ghosts. Angels. These and the other nine tribes all live together in the Lost City, a delicate ecosystem that survives because it's too old and tired to stir up real trouble."

"There will be monsters?" Quest guessed.

"Certainly, there will be things that you've never seen, Private," Saanvi said.

"Should we leave someone to secure the perimeter?" Badia asked, considering Drill. The sergeant wasn't going to handle this well.

Saanvi shook her head. "If things go the way they're supposed to, we're not coming back. We're going through."