Cyberpunk

inside his suit. Eyes closed, Reese whispered: “Don’t talk about this.”
    Molly showed Kane where the panel attached to the city power grid, nestled in wiring like a flat egg. Kane had begun to feel the pressure of time & wanted as many pieces of the puzzle within reach as possible. Soon he would have to make his decision.
    After sunset Kane sat on his porch & watched the rain. It fell almost hesitantly, without thunder to announce it or wind to carry it. Puddles of light from neighboring windows illuminated the grass & trees.
    Reese’s suit was missing. Kane did not doubt he’d gone to the ruins. Curtis had noticed as well. Kane felt the wheel turn under him, exposing a new segment of the Circle.
    When they stole the ship from Canaveral, with the help of his uncle, Kane had known that Reese was following some elaborate purpose of his own. Without him Kane would have been helpless; Kane himself seemed to make little difference to Reese beyond his ability to provide the ship. Still Reese had taught him to navigate, led him through rigorous physical training, controlled the mission from the first. Now Kane sensed a shift in the power balance. His own time had come, his phase, his moment. Or perhaps Reese had simply diverged, entered the final stage of his own compulsion.
    Kane had rejected the idea when it first came to him. But it continued to haunt him. He thought of Reese, out in the ruins, his labors, his feats of courage & strength. He thought of the Circle & the great fourth-dimensional being outside time. Of the salt spray & the shining cup & the others who had come before him. And then he knew.
    In the darkness Kane lost sense of his own body. His limbs seemed to shrink & swell as if in a fever dream. Over it all he smelled the stale salt of the sea & high harmonies rang in his ears.
    He dressed in darkness & tucked the pistol into his jeans. Out under the dome the rain had ended. The stars were smears of brightness behind the plastic. The lights flickered as Kane switched over to the auxiliary generator, but stayed on. He disconnected the panel with a few precise gestures, hampered by the pressure of the pistol in his waistband.
    He sat in the wet grass outside Curtis & Molly’s house until the lights went out. Curtis finally emerged & headed for the air lock. Suited up, the panel in one hand, the pistol dangling from the other, Kane followed him across the desert. Taking huge strides in the reduced gravity he slowly gained on Curtis’s headlamp, now almost halfway to the ruins.
    At night the desert became an ocean. Freckles of white froth sprayed the dune tops. Imaginary ships sailed off its edge. The desert seemed to exist in all dimensionalities, to form a link or stepping stone to the incomprehensible.
    “Curtis.”
    Curtis turned, startled & Kane shot him through the helmet. Curtis’s face exploded & a fine spray of blood hissed through shattered glass as the body crumpled to the ground. Kane’s hand throbbed slightly from the kick of the gun in the low pressure. He tossed the weapon into the dirt beside Curtis’s body. Carrying the panel like a shield in his left arm, he noticed the voices had become quieter.
    Once he was into the central pit, he had little trouble finding his way. He went through the airlock & sat down beside Reese.
    “How much have you figured out?” Reese asked, not looking around. His hands rested on the carved circles as if they were dials & knobs. Perhaps they were.
    “Most of it,” Kane said. “I just came to say goodbye.”
    Reese turned, nodded. “You took the panel. Have you decided what to do with it?”
    “Not yet.”
    The doorframe now surrounded a shimmering, luminous area of force. Rainbow colors ran off it, reminding Kane of an oil slick or a huge fire opal.
    “Will you be able to come back?” Kane asked.
    “I don’t care to, either way,” Reese said.
    “Good luck.” Kane reached up from where he sat & took Reese’s hand. He felt the link between them that had never been realized.
    Reese nodded & stepped through the shimmering gateway, across billions of miles of nothingness to a new world, just as the last of the Martian builders had, while the city above was pounded into rubble. Kane continued to sit & stare at the shifting pattern. At last he got up & stood beside the opening, hesitating. He stuck one finger into the pulsing glow, felt the summer warmth beyond. And then he turned & walked away from it, the colors fading to chilly stone