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Altas wondered if he and Maria were the last of the Ghosts. It had been a hundred years since he had seen any of the others, a hundred years of frustration as he searched in vain.
During this time, he mapped the galaxy, traveling the Hyperweb and various other manifestations of spacio-temporal distortions. He wanted to expand his operations to the universe beyond, but something was holding him back.
Something...
A future of blackness was all he could see for himself if he left the galaxy. Something vital was here, but he didn't quite understand what it was, why his destiny was tied to this invisible something.
During his last meeting with Maria, ten years ago at the sanctum deep within the galactic core, she seemed sad, as though she had lost something. He had asked her what, but she would not speak of it. "The past is irrelevant," she said softly. "What matters is our future."
When she said our, he caught the deeper meaning. She referred to the Ghosts. Altas had looked upward at the stars of the night sky, wondering where all the Ghosts had gone.
They were not anywhere in the Heartworlds, nor could he find them in the wilderzone or the Empire, though searching there was complicated. They were immortal, yes, powerful, certainly, but by no means omniscient. Their vision was broad, but not broad enough to see Ghosts who were hiding.
Maria had encountered Del somewhere in the Empire, and Eidolon was in the wilderzone. None of the other Ghosts were to be found, though, despite the rumors of mysterious fighters wandering the expanding frontier. Altas had traced these rumors, and caught the barest glimpse of a small ship somewhere in the Scorpius region.
Mirror Dance, Razorback and Xenogears's ship. It streaked away when he tried to chase it, though, faster than he could follow despite directly entering the Hyperweb and running down a thread.
He was beginning to come to a dangerous conclusion, and his Cybrid thoughts would not calculate the conclusion because of insufficient data.
So he had to rely on a hunch.
He was worried. Was that an accurate summation? He analyzed the processing streams flowing through his new matrix. Yes, that was accurate. It was an emotion, but not one he liked.
Jehrico waved at him, called his name. Altas stared into the spot he occupied. It was as if he had been there for hours, but Altas could not remember it.
"Jehrico," he said, reaching out a hand and grasping Jehrico's. A blast of hot air blew outward from their contact, blowing the mists of this jungle world away from them.
The air clear in a wide bubble around them, the stood and regarded each other. "Two hundred years," Jehrico noted.
"One hundred ninety-seven point five," Altas agreed, nodding gravely. "Where have you been?"
"Nowhere much. Found me a lady friend in the Empire and I was living as a human until..."
He did not need to continue. "I understand," Altas said.
"And where have you been keeping yourself, my friend?"
"Searching for the rest of you."
"Ah, I see... and I perceive it isn't going well?"
"I have seen only brief glimpses of the others for the last hundred years. The exhaust of Razor's ship out of the corner of my eye, a singularity I knew Eidolon made, orbiting a distant world, a man I think was Icey, vanishing from the Diamond Sword just as I arrived."
"Yes... I miss them too. Perhaps two will be more effective than one?"
"Perhaps."
"Is Maria anywhere?"
"I am uncertain. I spoke to her several years ago, and I got the feeling she was grieving. I have not seen her since."
"Perhaps we could find her."
"I do not know where to look."
Jehrico shook his head. "I'm sure you do."
Altas regarded him for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I have one idea."
-----
The sanctum. Wherever the Ghosts go, there is a sanctum of some type. In the very beginning, in the days of the first hideout, there was the briefing room, where Maria and Del played scarp and planned their vengeance. In Fantasma, there was Maria's hidden rooms beneath the Deep End, a dark, mysterious place where a chessboard seemed to have a life of its own.
After the Shift, there was the deep city in Mercury's core, and a small spherical chamber of crystalline metal, semiliquid but held in shape by a force field. Maria rarely made use of it; that was Jehrico's creation and Maria was not on Mercury often in those days.
Later, it was this world, near the galactic core, with the stars above blazing blue light down on the snowy ground. The heart of this world was a small, transparent dome of glass sitting on a hill.
Altas and Jehrico passed through the door to this dome, and the stars above winked out. From the outside, it was transparent, and the contents immediately visible. From the inside, it was something else.
Altas found himself floating in space, right beside the event horizon of... something. It wasn't a black hole, nor an artificial singularity like some of Ghosts regularly played with. It was too big, more massive than the known universe, in fact. Maria had described it as a universe frozen in time, perhaps their own, perhaps the one they created with their own thoughts. Altas touched it, sending ripples over the mirror-like surface, feeling his hand sink into it, though with no sensation of pressure.
"It is beautiful, is it not?" a quiet voice sounded from somewhere. Altas tried to withdraw his hand, failed when some force took hold of it. A flash of light exploded from his arm, and he felt something slip through him, past him. He turned, to see Maria standing behind him. "Thanks for the lift."
"Anytime," Altas said dryly.
Maria was wearing a gold-colored, light armor, of peltast, according to the spectra Altas saw. A single sword in a forearm sheath glinted, as the light from the singularity reflected off the facets of unknown yellow gems in the hilt.
She drew the sword, balanced it point-upward on her left palm, regarding the singularity. Altas read the spectrum as copper, of full purity. He was puzzled: copper was a soft metal, not suitable for weaponry by any means. The gems, though, fit no spectrum in his database, and it seemed they were emitting quite a bit of energy, especially infrared.
Maria looked past him at the singularity, focusing intently. "What is it?" Altas asked.
"Xeno and Razor are in danger."
"Can I--"
"Just stand aside," she said, and Altas instantly obeyed.
Maria hurled her sword. It vanished as it struck the singularity.
"Now we wait."
-----
The wait was not long. Xenogears leapt from the singularity a few minutes later, Maria's sword-- streaked with blood-- in her hand.
"My compliments on your aim," the woman said in her quiet, modulated voice. "We were surrounded and the leader was getting ready to execute us."
"You must be more careful with the Blood Eagle. They are ruthless... and unforgiving."
"There were few enough left to forgive," Xenogears said in a satisfied tone. "On that world anyway." Her blue eyes shifted, changed color and shape. Her body thickened, elongated, as her face rippled into Razorback's. "Well," Razorback said when the transformation was complete. "We aren't welcome there anymore."
"As well," Maria said. "They are no better than most of the other enemies we have fought over the ages."
"True... at least the Cybrids had an excuse. They weren't human and didn't know any better. These guys..."
"Delithita will one day attack them openly. If that happens, we will find our old enemies again. There are those that remember the Ghosts, and those that would love to take vengeance against those we protect."
"It will be millennia before that happens," Jehrico said. "The Compact is on an axis not connected to the greater Web. No one will ever find it."
"You are wrong," Maria said. "It will be awhile, but it will happen. But there is a greater danger."
"Which is?"
"Altas?"
He exchanged a glance with Maria. So he was right after all. He disliked hunches, and disliked them more when Maria confirmed them for him. "I have been thinking," he said quietly. "There are dangers external that threaten us, but there is another, worse one. Ourselves. Specifically, our separations."
"How is that dangerous?" Jehrico asked.
"As I understand it, we Ghosts are elements of this universe that have some power over the flow of space and time. If a Ghost is too long away from the rest, we have effects like..." He paused, uncertain how to define it. "Once there was a theory that suggested that human minds create the universe, that it has no separate, larger framework of reality. While this theory is probably not accurate, we Ghosts live in a domain where our minds do indeed create our universes. If we are too long apart, our universes diverge."
"Ah, I see," Jehrico said. "And if they diverge too far, then our individual universes will be separated, and we will never be able to find one another again because we will not even be a part of this universe."
Maria nodded slowly and gestured to the singularity. "I built this, that we may always have one place in our universes in common, so that there will be a chance to return to each other. I hope, I desperately hope it never comes to pass that a Ghost is lost, because I very much doubt it will work."
"And if a Ghost is separated from the rest, he will be trapped," Altas said. "Forever alone in a universe of his own creation, with no greater reality, knowing that nothing he sees is real."
Razorback looked thoughtful, closed his eyes. "I think," he said softly a moment later, "That we are the only one who would survive such a fate."
Maria inclined her head in his direction, took the sword from his hand. "Perhaps," she said, gazing at the blade. The blood vanished, and she slipped it back into its sheath.
Jehrico touched the singularity cautiously. A little ripple drew small circles over the mirror surface. "So, knowing this, what do we do now?"
"Continue our search," Altas said.
"Return here whenever we can," Razorback added, gesturing around the sanctum.
Maria sat on the stone bench opposite the singularity, gazing into the mirrored sphere. "An ancient poet once said, 'Friends are the jewels we find along life's path," she said. "Perhaps a better way to see it is that friends are the jewels that light our way, that we never lose sight of our path."
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