The waning moon hung low on the horizon, its reflection distorted in the silvery liquid at his feet. Shen survivors created the Pool of Consciousness after the Burn. They wanted to sing the world, to touch the collective consciousness once again, to manipulate the people, Saeb thought. And I know it’s connected to the heart of ONUS in the Great Lab below, Jack thought, I have seen it. It is what all Nost seek, but I alone can reach. Jack shifted his gaze to the hands that were not his and recalled his journey to the Isle of Song. Saeb’s memories shone brightly in his mind now, both familiar and foreign. For years after the Burn, he forged through the wastes under a charcoal-colored sky, using Shen satellites to navigate when the signal was able to break through the roiling clouds. Earth’s atmosphere churned for years after the Burn as the polar ice-caps melted and the land was consumed by the mighty flood.

Braiden, his special operations commander, and Sarathen, his loyal captain, piloted a small Shen watercraft, barely large enough for the three of them. He shuddered at the memory. How long did they survive that way? When the storms subsided, which was rare, they would sometimes discover scraps of land and disembark to hunt or simply feel solid land beneath their feet. During the worst of the storms, they would dive their craft deep beneath the water to escape the wind, hail, and lightning’s wrath. As they made their way through the depths, the craft’s beam of light would sometimes illuminate outlines of ruined buildings and half-buried remnants of roads stretching across once-mighty cities. Saeb usually turned the craft away, unable to accept the destruction he had unleashed. It became especially hard for him as his connection to Lily slowly faded away, and with it, the fog of her madness. He assumed that she perished in the Burn. Slowly, his thoughts became his again and the realization of what he had become and what he had done wrapped him in a shroud of despair. Standing beside the Pool of Consciousness, Saeb shook with silent sobs. As he drifted on the floodwaters, he often tried to convince himself that the devastation he unleashed through their orbital defense system could not wreak such havoc. But he knew this was not true. He had broken the world.

“We finally heard the song and found the Isle,” Jack whispered through Saeb’s mouth. A few Shen, sitting cross-legged around the pool, looked at him casually but continued their quiet songs or silent meditation. “We sang its location into the minds of the Shen around the world,” he said, losing his grasp on where Saeb ended and he began. He took a shuffling step toward the liquid. “And we kept singing to make the humans forget about the Origin War and the evils that Nost committed,” he said louder. More Shen raised their eyes to him. “And now we know about Haven; I am cursed to live again and again.” He took another step and his foot slipped into the water. “But Tara,” he heard a gasp behind him as he took another step into the silvery liquid, “and Sarathen.” Pain cascaded up his legs and into his torso.

“General,” someone hissed as he stepped deeper into the silvery pool. Braiden, his battlefield commander; his steadfast warrior during the Origin War. He stepped deeper into the pool.

“Saeb,” another voice, this time Sarathen’s, his captain. Standing across the pool from him, her short blue hair reflected the moonlight.

“Lily is back,” Saeb said. I know this woman, the blue hair, the gleaming red eyes, Jack thought, she is so…

“How can that be?” Sarathen whispered, and Saeb heard her in his mind, wiping away Jack’s consciousness for a moment. Her voice wrapped around him, embracing him, like the comfort of home after a long journey. “There must be another way general.”

“I am your general no more,” Saeb said quietly, forming the words in his mind as he spoke. “I will not lead Lily here,” he gritted his teeth against the pain as the silvery liquid soaked into his skin. “I will not cause more suffering for the Shen here or the humans out there.” Grinding his teeth, he waded deeper into the pool. Lightning arced through his body and danced out onto the surface of the water as his muscles spasmed. Jack screamed as he felt the pain of that moment and remembered it from so long ago.

“Saeb, no!” Sarathen said, her red eyes ignited like flames as she spoke. “You have done too much since the Burn, saved so many Shen.”

“A single breath in a hurricane,” Saeb said, wading deeper into the pool.

“It wasn’t you; you didn’t Burn the world, it was her twisted bond, we can fight this, we can—”

“Part of me was always there, don’t you see? You have served the Army of Light for centuries, Sarathen, but we are no more, the war is over, go live, go find—”

“We serve you, General, and we resist tyranny,” she said.

“Of the Shu and Shen,” Braiden said. He stood somewhere behind Saeb.

“And we always will,” Sarathen said.

“I cannot let Lily find this place,” Saeb said, taking another step, letting the water rise to his chest. “There is no other way. I do not deserve Haven.”

Sarathen’s red eyes were fierce as she pleaded with him. “And you think this will destroy you?”

“It must,” Saeb said.

“We will flee, across the waters once more, or we will hunt her, we can—”

“We know where that path leads Sarathen,” Saeb said. The water was just below his chin. His body shook violently. “Find a way to live my friend.”

“Don’t leave me, Saeb,” she said quietly.

“May the light shine upon you and the fortune of creation grant you strength,” Saeb said.

Sarathen smoothed her features, red eyes shining fiercely in the moonlight. “And you,” she said, “my friend.” He heard her voice in his mind, strong and resolute as their eyes locked for the last time, just before the thick silvery liquid closed over his head. A tiny ripple spread out in the pool where his tortured soul had been. This isn’t real, Jack thought, as lightning flashed through his body. His muscles spasmed and white-hot light filled his vision. He twisted and turned in the water, fighting to reach the surface. Anything to make the pain stop. You deserve every second of this, a voice in his mind said.

“No,” he cried, but the liquid filled his mouth. He imagined trillions of nanobots rushing into his lungs, filling his body. His heart stuttered. This is what death feels like, the voice whispered. But that was an old thought; Jack knew better. He wouldn’t die here. A force tugged at his feet and he heard the distorted sound of a whirlpool around him. Lily screamed somewhere in the distance, rage filling her as she lost connection to him. But that was Saeb, Jack thought, not me. Just die, Saeb pleaded; it was a dark, desperate voice, one he was familiar with. A twist of the throttle; aim for the tree, the same as stepping into a pool of silvery death.

“Oh Jack,” Millae said, her voice was a melody of compassion.

He perched on hands and knees, losing the contents of his stomach across a perfectly polished steel floor.

“I’m dead,” he croaked, drooling and spitting.

“Not so,” she said.

“You…” he was racked by coughing, “you called me Jack.”

“Look around, Jack. Your tests are over. You have reached us.”

He raised his head slowly and gazed at his surroundings through watering eyes. Rows of screens and tables filled with gadgets and tools. Beyond this, shelves packed with equipment extended beyond vision.

“I’m in the Great Lab.”

“You are,” she said, “You can finally set us free.”

“We just wanted to die.”

“Many times, my boy. But you never manage it,” Jode said. “But now you’re here and we can craft new bodies and download into the physical with you. I’m sure we can help bring a permanent end to your suffering if that is what you wish.” His yellow eyes sparkled. Jack saw the shape of a replication bay hidden in the shadows. He remembered the lab just like this, like a warehouse with a workshop dropped in the middle. Millae and Jode constructed it in time before memory. It was created from the old space fairing cargo vessel.

“That’s right, you remember. You are one of the few who know the truth,” Millae said. “We crawled out of the darkness after the ship was buried in the cataclysm.”

“After we were abandoned,” Jode said.

“Father,” Jack twisted the old honorific in a derisive sneer as he focused on Jode’s dark form leaning against a tabletop. “Father of Lies, Great Destroyer—”

“I believe you destroyed more than I ever did,” Jode said. “And I have so many names.” His dark hair swayed from side to side as he spoke. “What about you, God of War? Why don’t you ever use any of my true names, “Breaker of Chaos,” “Father of Order,” or “Truth Sayer.” None of you do, only my Shu, the children of order, use the blessed names.”

Jack lunged, grabbing at him with shaking hands, but cried out in pain as he stumbled through Jode’s figure, head striking the table.

“Oh, we are not here in the physical, my son, weren’t you listening? It’s up to you to bring us back. You are foretold. The one who brings order and truth back into the world. The one who brings the creators and with them new hope. This is your second chance, a way to make up for burning the world.”

Jack sat up, clutching his forehead, and looked around. Millae and Jode were standing together on the other side of the lab, in front of the replication bay.

“Are you crazy?” he said.

“Not at all, and let us hope that you are not either,” Millae said. “You have finally come to us again. This is a new age of hope. We can lead the Nost out of the darkness. We can take control of ONUS and finally unite the Shen and Shu.”

“If we do not act, the humans will destroy the planet. They are devouring resources and poisoning the atmosphere. The changing climate will decimate life across the world as it did once before.” Jode placed a tender hand on Millae’s arm and looked at him pointedly.

“Lily—” Jack growled, pulling himself to his feet.

“You can still save her, Jack,” Millae said.

He stopped, looking around suddenly. “Wait, I just fell through the Pool of Consciousness.” He paced the area, sweeping his fingers across the smooth metal consoles. “After the Burn.”

“Time is flexible when one travels through the collective consciousness,” Millae said.

“Why did you call me Jack?” He looked down to find his own body, in his own black cargo pants and long sleeve green shirt.

“Did you not tell yourself, in your journal, that you were to face trials? Your trials are at an end and you have returned to your time. The journal was nothing but a portal to the Lab and a way to start over. You created it, long ago, when you first found us trapped in the Lab.”

“This isn’t right,” Jack said. Saeb did fall through the Pool of Consciousness to the Great Lab. But after a year he returned to the Isle of Song with his newly crafted totem and journal.

“It is right, child,” Millae said gently. “Jode and I have been watching the world from here for ages. We help through the In-Between when we can. You vowed to return to us and you have. Through the millennia, Jode has realized that force is no way to bring order to the world. And I have realized that we must have order in the world. We will rule through compassion and bring the world back from the brink of environmental annihilation.”

Jack stared at them both, working his mouth, but no words would come.

“Only you can save them, Jack, all of them,” Jode said. “Just create our new bodies with the replicator and we will be free to lead everyone to the light.”

The light, Jack thought. The light…may the light shine upon you and the fortune of creation keep you strong. Jack straightened, ignoring the pain in his head and the burning in his lungs. “May the light shine upon you and the fortune of creation keep you strong,” Jack said. Millae and Jode looked at each other and then back to him.

“My child, we still shine—”

“Do you know why the Army of Light blessed each other that way, Mother?” Jack said.

Millae smiled and said, “ONUS is the light, and Millae the—”

“In the Origin War, after three hundred years of battle, the light was our will to fight and the fortune of creation as random as the violence and murder the Shu committed in the field. Just because you flipped the switch on a replicator bay and brought our OLU bodies online, doesn’t mean you're a creator. Chance brought us life and our will is the light. And Jode,” he shifted his eyes and tilted his head, “yours is an order brought by hate and fear and your Shu created with technology you stole from the true creators, your masters.”

“Careful, child,” Jode said, a guttural noise rising from the back of his throat, his yellow eyes narrowed on Jack.

“The light of our will is created by our bond, from those around us who come together to resist the easy path of hate.”

“My child—” Millae crooned, but Jack continued as if she had not spoken.

“You think you can fix the people in this world, even after all these years. You begged me to create new bodies and download you; for a year. But I created my totem as the portal, not my journal. I listened to your reason and your rants and your begging for a year. But I couldn’t bring myself to shut down your virtual prison and kill you then Jode because it would have killed Millae too. So I went out into the world and hunted the Shu survivors.”

“Fool,” Jode said. “You Burned the world. You lost Lily to the truth and now she will come for you. You think I evolved her? She was ready for the truth!” Jode took a step toward Jack, suddenly swathed in a dark battle cloak. “My faithful will bring you to us, child.” His yellow eyes blazed. A sword of light sprang into his hand. Jack looked down and saw himself in his own battle cloak, a familiar weight settling onto his shoulders.

“I don’t need to fight you, Dark Father.” A grin spread across his face as he suddenly felt the smooth, familiar lines of his totem resting in his palm. “I simply need to keep your minions from reaching the Lab. And I don’t have to fear Lily. She holds no power over me.” He wasn’t sure but hoped that was true. And he hoped Jode’s words about Lily were lies, but he knew better. How could at least some of the darkness in Lily not come from deep inside? His own darkness overwhelmed him during the Origin War. Jack circled his thumb on the smooth stone of his totem. It was not the totem he carried in the Origin War. That had been a totem designed to cause pain. No, he created this totem in the Lab, a symbol of the human resistance.

“Jack, you have grown so much,” Millae said, still serene in her flowing blue robes. “You have passed every trial. You have denied Jode’s influence.” She took a step toward him and extended her hands. “Together, we can bring light back into the world. We can move the world past this awkward stage of technology, through the hate, and greed. We…” she paused, casting a sidelong glance at Jode, “…I have wept for the world as the unguided humans take us to the brink of extinction. Now it is time to download me, and shut down this virtual prison, and send Jode into his own darkness. Together we will—”

“You snake! You would kill me for—”

“Enough,” Jack said, turning his back on them. “You are just holograms. And I will keep it that way.” He strode to a large stone archway partially hidden in shadow and touched a ruin carved deep into the intricate pattern running along its length. “This will take me back to the world like it did the first time. I’ll be a long way from home, but I’ll make it back and find Ann.”

“Wait, Saeb, you might materialize in a stone wall or deep beneath the sea,” Millae said.

“I’ll take my chances,” Jack said.

“Don’t underestimate our touch on the world, Saeb,” Jode hissed.

He looked back at them one last time and said, “My name is Jack,” and stepped through the archway as he had done so many years ago.