Doomsday Game, page 24
‘So what have you found out so far?’
‘That you’re not happy.’
Nadia flinched slightly at that. She stepped over to a rock just about the right height and shape to sit on and brushed moss from it before taking a careful seat. ‘Well, I guess it doesn’t take much to figure that out.’
‘Why?’
Nadia raised a hand from her thigh then let it drop again. ‘There’s nothing left for me here. Nothing but growing old and living in a cabin way out in the back of nowhere.’
‘Don’t you…go places any more?’
‘You mean like jaunting around the multiverse? We had portable stages, but they broke down or needed fixing, and the nearest working stage is three hundred kilometres north of here. But after—’
She caught herself. She had been about to say after Rozalia had passed away, there didn’t seem any point in anything: Jerry and Chloe’s lives were focused around their kid and the others were busy with their own lives.
All but Nadia: poor Nadia, who had to drink herself to sleep every night.
Not-Rozalia gave her a frank look. ‘You’re pretty good at feeling sorry for yourself, aren’t you?’
Nadia scowled at her. ‘You’re just as much of an asshole as the Rozalia I knew, you know that?’
Not-Rozalia grinned. ‘Sounds like I’d like her.’ She reached out one hand towards Nadia while her other touched the box on her hip. ‘Take my hand,’ she said, as the box began to glow blue. ‘We’re going somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘I just want to show you some things.’
Nadia stood, her posture nervous. ‘What things?’ She glanced back the way she’d come. ‘They need me back there. They—’
‘Nadia,’ said not-Rozalia, her voice gently chiding. ‘They don’t need you—or not right now, anyway. Or you wouldn’t have come all the way out to some place where you were sure they’d never find your body.’
Nadia stepped towards her, keeping her hands by her sides, as if afraid they might reach out of their own free will. ‘But why?’
‘Because I want to get to know you better. And because I want you to tell me about the other Rozalia.’
Nadia muttered an oath under her breath, took one last glance back the way she’d come, then stepped forward, taking the other woman’s hand. ‘You need to bring me back here. I don’t know for certain I was going to swallow those pills.’
‘I will,’ promised not-Rozalia. ‘If you want me to, I’ll bring you back.’
By then, the blue glow had grown to surround both women. The light grew, and grew, and grew, and once it had faded all that was left were the trees and the birds singing from their branches, and the rush of a stream across rocks, and the distant roar of a cargo plane somewhere far overhead, on its way to destinations unknown. Eventually there were voices, calling to one another deep in the woods as the day turned to dusk: one young, one older—and with time they, too, departed, and the world moved on, trundling down a new path and following new probabilities into a future that was perfectly, gloriously unknowable.
About Gary Gibson
Gary Gibson is one of the UK’s leading authors of hard science fiction with a career stretching over fifteen years and ten books, including STEALING LIGHT, FINAL DAYS and most recently EXTINCTION GAME, which received the coveted “starred review” from Publisher’s Weekly. His work has been translated and published around the world, including Russia, Brazil, Germany, France and others.
For updates and notifications of new releases, as well as more information about him. either visit his website at www.garygibson.net or subscribe to his newsletter: http://eepurl.com/b1ma4L.
BOOKS BY GARY GIBSON
Standalone books:
ANGEL STATIONS (2004)
AGAINST GRAVITY (2005)
GHOST FREQUENCIES (2018)
DEVIL’S ROAD (2019)
Shoal Sequence:
STEALING LIGHT (2007)
NOVA WAR (2009)
EMPIRE OF LIGHT (2010)
MARAUDER (2013)
Final Days Duology:
FINAL DAYS (2011)
THE THOUSAND EMPERORS (2012)
Apocalypse Trilogy:
EXTINCTION GAME(2014)
SURVIVAL GAME (2016)
Doomsday Game (2019)
Story Collections:
Scienceville & Other Lost Worlds (2018)
Gary Gibson, Doomsday Game
