No Justice
It is not customary to fall up.
Somewhere in Mako's mind, she is aware that it is the rising motion of the escape pod, carrying her up to the sunlight, away from the Breach-
still burning against her skin, his skin, a pain he remembers before but at least no emptiness now
-but the clothing she wears is no longer the drivesuit and pilot armour – no longer the shiny black carapace, but pale blue and frilly, with a white apron and several petticoats, like the girls she saw in Tokyo the day that Onibaba changed her future. Her shoes are shiny red-
"Well," says a woman's voice, young and brisk, with the precise inflections of an upper-class English accent. "This is new. You're not dead yet."
she'll survive and live and thrive that's enough
Mako turns her head to look, the layers of her skirts fluttering beneath her as she falls up, towards the surface of the open, and the sky and air that waits for her there.
The stranger is young but her hair is white – with a single black streak that starts from her forehead and runs all the way through her neat plait. She is dressed in black – a dress much like the one that Mako is wearing – narrow-waisted, full-skirted, with petticoats and knee-high socks that run down to shiny shoes – only her entire outfit is black.
Her eyes, however, are very blue as they stare at Mako. Pale blue, like Raleigh's – but with a fiercely glowing pin-point in the centre, like a kaiju's eyes – although this women is certainly not a kaiju.
manual override completed, self-destruct in sixty
"Not dead yet," the woman says, a faint frown creasing her brow. "And not alone, either. I didn't know they could do this – in fact, I didn't think it was allowed..."
SQUEAK.
Mako blinks at the little figure that floats up alongside them. It seems to be the skeleton of a rodent, clad in a little black hoodie.
"What do you mean 'between worlds'?"
SQUEAK.
"No, I don't want a discourse on the theory of multiple—Look," the woman says, sounding short. "She's not dead, although the other one – the linked one – is close—"
dizziness, burning in his lungs, in his shoulders and back, fighting to move, he could just let go – just let himself fall the way Yancy fell
Mako catches her breath as realisation blooms within her chest. "She-who-invites," she whispers, with neither breath nor thought to name the goddess in English. "You cannot have him!" Sensei is gone, along with Chuck and so many others of her family. She cannot—will not—lose Raleigh, too!
But although Mako struggles, she doesn't manage to move any closer to the woman floating alongside her.
The pinpricks of blue in the goddess' eyes suddenly glow. IF IT IS HIS TIME, THEN IT IS HIS TIME.
Mako catches her breath as the voice resonates through flesh and bone and spirit and soul, shaking something in her loose even as the woman then huffs in a most un-goddess-like manner. "But that link shouldn't even be possible."
SQUEAK, says the rat.
"Don't 'quantum' me," she snaps. "The Auditors will have a fit. And that's never good for any of us. Emptying wee out of shoes is going to be the least of this world's prob—Oh!"
The blue spark in her eyes suddenly intensifies, and her form wavers, black lace sharpening, hardening, becoming strangely insectoid, her head swelling and flattening and becoming...alien...
The hiss rises in Mako's mouth before she can stop it. But a moment later the woman is human again – or, at least, can pass for human.
WELL, THAT WAS UNPLEASANT. She shakes her head as though to clear something from it. "It seems that this...Breach...as you call it, has leaked. Across several worlds. Including mine. Which explains what I'm doing here. And why we're dressed like this and falling up the rabbit hole. Although," she says as she looks up above them, "not for long, I think..."
Mako follows her gaze. An inky darkness looms above them.
She finds the words in English, although she suspects this...woman...would understand her no matter what language she spoke. "What is that?"
"A parting of the ways." The woman looks at her again. "I'll be seeing you again someday. Just not today..."
"Raleigh—" Mako begins and stops when the woman shakes her head.
"I'm sorry. He's out of time and I can't help him."
Mako's breath catches, despair rushing through her as the darkness envelops her.
A rocking sensation awakens her. Air hisses as the seals break and the wind whistles over her, waves slapping against the buoys of her escape pod. Tendo's voice in her ear: "Tracking's solid. Vital signs are good..."
Mako sits up on the empty sea and looks around for Raleigh, but there's no sign of him anywhere.
Later – many months later – Mako wakes from a dream. Raleigh stirs beside her in the bed, and she reaches out a hand to him, reassuring him, reassuring herself.
He rolls over and pulls her into his arms, clinging to her, his cheek against her shoulder. "I was dead."
"I know." Mako presses herself against him, warm and solid and real and alive.
He's out of time and I can't help him.
She's never told him about the death-goddess and falling up out of the Breach. He's never told her about the dream he had of a glass Kwoon and the man standing across the mat from him. The man whose clothing was made of the fabric of space, scattered with stars, and blew in a wind that Raleigh couldn't feel.
My wife tells me you're out of time. The man had a young face, but the eyes that studied Raleigh were very old. Fortunately, it is written: There is no justice, there's just us.
fin