“She is your enemy, Poire.”

“She’s confused. What if she’s the only other human alive?”

“She wants to kill you. This is an act of self-preservation.”

Laykis was right. Of course, she was right. But Poire still felt terrible about spying on his executioner.

Moments after Khadam landed in the Cauldron, Poire severed his connection with her. And, using the grid, opened a new one with the Oracle. The Oracle was frantically surprised to hear from him.

“I cannot verify the safety of your location! Error! Please return to Kaya immediately by the safest means possible-”

“Oracle, stop. I need you to watch someone for me.”

“I am unable to verify the integrity of this connection. This channel may be compromised. Therefore, I cannot recommend this course of action-”

“It’s life or death,” Poire said firmly.

The Oracle’s lights disappeared from the grid terminal, instantly replaced with a view of the Cauldron. “If this will preserve your health, though I do not understand how it could, my sensors are at your disposal.”

With the Oracle’s numerous towers and sensors spread across the city, it was easy enough to find Khadam. He felt strangely guilty about it, watching her step off the gate, blinking into Kaya’s heady sunlight. And when she saw the huge, gathering crowds of avians, staring back at her with wide-eyed awe, he felt a jolt of memory. How had he reacted, when he first found himself surrounded by alien peoples who worshiped his every move?

His first instinct had been to run. He found himself hoping Khadam might keep a cooler head. And, indeed, when she realized the avians weren’t going to swarm her, she brushed her long black hair over her ear, uncertain and nervous. Her arms, her shoulders, her face - every exposed inch of skin glittered with another kind of implant, or cracks that implied various subdermals. Poire had never seen someone with so many augmentations - hundreds of metallic tattoos tracing over her body.

There was Ryke, running through the crowds to greet her. Poire could hear them talking, hear the Queen show the same deference to Khadam, as she had to him. It left a sour taste in his mouth. And then, the crowds began to sing a song, praising the gods.

Over the next day, Poire studied Khadam’s every move. As she walked, those tattoos changed and moved, so that her body seemed to be crawling with life. The long strand of silver running down her jaw glinted in the sunlight, and the nodes on her shoulders glowed with light. Small metal sensors, as slender as hairs, lifted from the backs of her arms and neck, sensing the air or watching the movement behind her, sometimes clicking back into place. One of her ears was made of metal, but not the other one. Why? Even her knees and elbows, which were covered by a cold suit, looked like they were artificial joints, made from a solid metal.

Why not just wear an exosuit? Why do that to your body?

Back in his conclave, which Poire had never left before, only a handful of guests ever visited from the outside. Most of them were biologists, and a few flow engineers, though these preferred to work in the back offices and lowest tiers of the habitation towers. Even Marsim, the only soldier Poire knew by name, had only a few augments. And, of course, the liquid armor, which was currently resting against Poire’s chest and back.

Khadam, on the other hand, was so heavily, artificially enhanced that she almost looked like another species. The Oracle gave him as much information as it could. Khadam’s body temperature, possible mental state (according to facial markers), and even an estimate at her age. At first, Poire didn’t think she could be more than ten years his senior… but the Oracle judged otherwise.

“How old do you think she is?”

“The identified shows signs of deep-tissue renewal and organ replacement. Age judged to be between two and six hundred years old.”

Poire could only shake his head in disbelief. Khadam wasn’t old, by human standards. A few of the directors of Poire’s conclave numbered their years in the thousands. But compared to him… It was disheartening. The wisdom, the experience, the knowledge she must have, it made him feel so small.

The Oracle followed her footsteps into the northernmost tower, where she disappeared from the Oracle’s cameras and auditory sensors. They could only follow her footsteps - going around and up for many long minutes - via the Oracle’s seismic readings.

And in the temple, Poire watched her, watching the avians pray. He saw the confusion on her face, turn to a kind of horror. And then, pity. And then, as their songs dragged on, impatience bled into her expression.

Finally, when it was over, she watched Khadam speak to the Oracle, commanding him to blast open the brickwork.

And before Poire thought to stop it, the Oracle registered a new user:

“Your name, please.”

“Khadam.”

The Oracle’s observer feed cut out.

“What happened?” Poire spoke into the terminal of the Grid.

The Oracle said to him, “The previous request is now against my administrative privacy regulations.”

Poire sent another dozen requests to the Oracle, trying to find different ways to circumvent those privacy regulations, but each time, he was met with the same infuriating robotic denial. Even trying to override the Oracle’s code did nothing.

“Any ideas?” Poire turned to Laykis. The android’s hands were clasped together in front of her. One arm, made of human-grade engineering and stainless, almost muscular metal. The other, fashioned from the crude brass and steel and hydraulic mechanics used by the cyran’s tinkers.

They were still waiting for Eolh and his new friends, or whatever they were, to reach the Heart of the Old Grid. The Keeper estimated another few hours of travel.

“What do you think we should do?”

“Perhaps she can be reasoned with,” Laykis said, tilting the scratched, smooth mask of her face. “Perhaps you can ask for a truce.”

“She thinks I am the literal embodiment of the end of the universe. Why would she ever agree to stop hunting me?”

“If you never ask,” Laykis spoke in that even, almost smug tone of hers, “Then the answer is always no.”

Poire ground his teeth together, clenched his hands into fists. Pacing back and forth in a tight circle, as the vast array of the Old Grid spread up in a basin of metal all around him. The mist was rising again from the edges of the basin, a circular wall hiding the whole machine from the rest of Thrass.

Talking to Khadam was the last thing Poire wanted to do. But…

She was the only human being he had spoken to in the last year. In the last few millenia, even. Maybe the only other human he would ever speak with again...

“Oracle,” Poire said. “Can you connect me with Khadam?”

“Ah, the new user!” The Oracle replied in its digital singsong. “Please wait while I connect you.” And Poire’s screen was filled with a swiftly rotating circle.

Poire paced back and forth in front of the terminal. His mind raced for the right words to say. Should he be polite? Friendly? He wanted to shout at her, “What is wrong with you?” He wanted to demand that she listen to him. He wanted to start fresh.

But the circle was still spinning. No answer.

“What if she already knows where we are?” Poire said. “What if she’s coming here, right now, and we’re just wasting time?”

“How could she have found you?”

“The grid. What if she has a way to follow the trail through the grid?”

“Then why didn’t she open the gate herself?” Laykis countered.

“Yeah,” Poire said, sighing and letting his fists open up. “Right. You’re right.”

He took a long, steadying breath. Staring at the circle. Trying to pretend his heart wasn’t about to beat out of his chest.

Be nice, he thought. Be civil. Hard words win fewer friends.

The circle disappeared.

Khadam’s face appeared. Her hair was pulled back over her metal ear. Her irises were artificial - layers of illuminated semi-ciricles that spun around each other like the arms of a gate - and Poire could only wonder what she was seeing. There was a subdermal circuit, a hairline crack in her skin, running from her temple, into the corner of her eye and over the sharp bridge of her nose. There was a slight glimmer of metal, underneath her skin.

She did not bother to hide the acid in her voice. “What do you want, Destroyer?”

And just like that, all of Poire’s politeness turned to ash. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?” She barked a laugh, the metal lines running down the sides of her face flashing in some artificial light. “It’s what you are.”

It was then Poire realized he had a choice to make. He could sign himself over to this fate, and agree to become her enemy. Right here. Or, he could follow a different path. He could beg her forgiveness. He could hand himself over to her.

In another life, maybe he would have.

But these two answers came too easily. And, Poire felt in the pit of his stomach with absolutely certainty, both were wrong. She was wrong. He would not rise to take her bait, he would not give in to his emotions.

He wanted only the truth.

“You call me Destroyer. Why do you say so?”

“I have dreamt it. All humanity has seen your face again and again.” He could feel her slowly-rotating eyes analyzing every inch of his face. “At the end of every world, there you are. The Change, following in your wake.”

“What if you’re wrong? What if you have it backwards? What if this idea that you’ve latched on to, all of you, has been wrong the whole time?”

“You’re saying that all humanity is wrong?” Khadam said.

“No, not all humanity. I’m human, too.”

“Fine. One human, against the rest of us. The odds are-”

“-the odds are even. Unless you’re about to tell me there’s a secret commune of humans somewhere out in the void, that means half of humanity disagrees with you. One against one.”

Khadam squinted at him, the digital bands of her irises shrinking as her fabricated pupil grew. Her jaw flexing. And then, she actually laughed. Her dark red lips cracked open, and Poire almost expected her mouth to be filled with machines, too. But he saw only teeth, bright and even and white.

Then, her smile turned bitter.

“You think I came all this way on a whim? You have no idea how long my journey has been. I left everything behind to find you. Everyone. I came here, because I knew you would be here. Do you get that? This is what my life has become. There is nothing more important than this. And here I find you, playing savior to some species of alien half-breeds. You don’t even know what you are.”

“Destroyer,” Poire said sarcastically. “Herald of Ruin. Bringer of Change. Evil incarnate.”

“I never said evil.”

“Then what? If I don’t know what I am, tell me.”

“That’s the point,” she said through gritted teeth. “If we knew what you were, we’d have stopped you, wouldn’t we? We might’ve prevented your birth, or found your creators, or something. We had no idea where you would come from. Only that your face has haunted us. Billions of us, for centuries. I still see you, when I close my eyes. I have to dampen my own mind, just to fall asleep,” she touched at her temples. At the perfect angles of the wires drawn through her skin. “It’s not enough. I cannot rest, because of you.”

Poire’s frustrating burst like a bubble. He opened his mouth to shout at her, when the metal of Laykis’s hand fell firmly on his shoulder. She squeezed him, reminding him of what he was trying to do. Just off screen, Laykis leaned in and whispered, “Speak lightly.”

Poire closed his eyes. Inhaled. Fill his lungs with fresh air, to exhale out the anger that was rising in his throat. And spoke. “Where do your visions come from? Who is sending them?”

“Why do you assume someone is sending them?” she said.

But underneath her defensiveness, Poire could sense her unease. Maybe it was the twitch of her lip, the way the metal that ran along her jaw shifted. He could just feel it.

“You don’t know,” Poire said with certainty. “None of you know.”

“We…” She bowed her head, her hair falling down her neck. “That’s not an easy thing to answer.”

“Then how can you say what these visions are?”

“This is exactly why I don’t want to talk with you, Destroyer. You think you can change this, but you don’t even know what this is.”

“Neither do you.” Poire said. Feeling far calmer than he should have. But his serenity only seemed to fuel Khadam’s frustration.

“Where are you?” She shouted into his screen. “Tell me, and I will make your end painless.”

Now, instead of clawing him back into the emotional morass of his mind, Poire’s anger only solidified his resolve. “I know when people are holding back on me. I saw it, with the Emperor. I saw it, with my own caretakers. The directors, too. Nobody wanted to tell us what we were. And now, you’re doing the exact same thing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to hear the truth from you, Khadam.” Poire said, unable to keep his emotions in check, and not caring. His hands balling into fists again. His heart, hammering. “What, exactly, do you think I’m going to do that will bring about the end of the world?”

“That’s,” she paused. Swallowed. Her eyes darting back and forth as she searched for an answer. “That’s the problem, Poire. That’s what’s so dangerous about you. Everything you touch turns to nothing. It breaks apart. The ground upon which you walk will split open, and the disease that consumes everything will spew forth.”

“How do you know I’m not there, saving the worlds?”

“It’s you, Poire. When everything begins to change, and everything falls apart. You are there.”

“Fine,” Poire said through gritted teeth. “Then, how does it start?”

“It’s already begun.”

“What?”

“The dams are leaking. Some of them are falling to pieces, and the change is already coming through. But it’s slow, far too slow to matter. It would take them tens of thousands of years to make a difference. The universe is so wide. Except for you...”

“Tell me.”

Her voice faltered as she spoke, as if she was reliving some awful experience that was hard to even think about. “On every planet, there you are. At every scar, there you are. At every sun and moon and rock drifting aimlessly through space. We have seen you. We have dreamed of you. All of us. And in those dreams, you can feel it. You just know…”

Her voice fell, and with it, so did the raging storm inside Poire. He sagged back, defeated. Shaking his head.

“I’ve never heard any of this. Nobody ever told me...” Poire said. Searching the lines of his hands, trying to find all that destructive power hidden beneath in the rich, clay color of his palms. “They’re dreams. If I dream that I can fly, that doesn’t make it so. They’re just dreams.”

“They are so much more than that. Since the first vision, the dreams have been the same for all of us.”

“If you think a vision can tell you the future - if that’s what you really believe, and nothing I can say will change your mind - then where did the vision come from? How can it come from nothing?”

She pursed her lips, as if she was concerned with how much information she was giving away. Poire could see a thin strip of metal, running down her bottom lip, glistening in her camera’s light.

“I didn’t say they came from nothing.”

Another pause. She closed her eyes, and Poire could see the dark, almost violet circles of sleeplessness on her face.

The zealots,” she said at length. “That was our word for them, anyway. They worshiped it, when it came through. The light. The visions. The gifts from beyond,” she nodded at the gate behind Poire. “So much of what we’ve built came from the visions.”

“The gates did?”

“And so much more. Poire, I told you, you don’t understand.”

“Then tell me!” he said. “Please. I… I never got to learn.”

Khadam sighed, and Poire swore he could almost hear the metal rasping from her throat. How much of her is human, anyway?

“I’m not sure if I should,” she said. “I’m not sure if it’s dangerous to even be talking to you.”

“What if it helps?” Poire said. “What if you can change the future?”

She smiled at that, a dark, inward smile. More bitter than sweet. “That’s why I’m here, Poire. Your death will change the future.”

Poire’s throat was suddenly too dry. His chest, an empty cavern devoid of emotion. “Tell me,” he croaked.

She sighed again, and Poire thought he could see her wrapping her arms around her chest. It was hard to tell, given that he couldn’t see anything but her head.

“When the end of humanity came,” Khadam said, with the air of a tale that had been told many times. “When the end came, we were already broken. It was Seedfall that undid us. But Seedfall was not the beginning. To know that, we must speak of the First Prophet,” Khadam said. “Do you know her?”

Poire shook his head.

“The First Prophet,” Khadam said, and made a sign in the air, as if to ward off some ghastly demon. “May she never return.”