“Don’t worry. Mom will be back just as you remember her,” Chris shouts through the coffin. “She will have to live with the fact that I was the one who fulfilled the filial obligations we owe her. She will hate being back, and it will all be your fault. She will know you shirked your duty and hate you like she hates me.”
Ellie has no idea whether Chris has even one redeeming quality, but Ellie doesn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s death, even Chris’s. If Ellie were vindictive, she’d also say that Chris doesn’t get to escape. Chris has to live with the mess she’s creating.
“No. Chris, let yourself out.” Ellie pounds on the coffin. “Physics hasn’t changed. You can’t bring her back. All you can do is accept that she’s gone.”
Ellie takes a step back. The coffin is still a confusing maze of machinery. She’s not sure what it’s doing but it’s doing something. Probably not to Chris, except suffocating her. But that’s what happens when you lock yourself into a box with no vents.
Something cracks behind her. It sounds like someone making popcorn down the hall in the kitchen.
“Ellie.” How Daniel looms behind Ellie is palpable. “Anything I can help with?”
Ellie looks back at Daniel, who is pleasantly, if incongruously, calm and attentive. His T-shirt is ripped. Scratches run across his arms and chest. He either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care.
“Yes, you’ll do.” Ellie points up at the coffin. “Can you lift me to the top of the coffin?”
Daniel looks at her as though the answer should be obvious. He puts his hands on her waist. An instant later, she is looking down at the coffin.
A thin tendril of fire darts from her index finger. One by one, she drills thin tunnels into the coffin. To reach the empty space inside, they have to twist and bend around the active machinery. She still has no clue what any of it does or what might happen if she nicked any of it.
A dense matrix of tunnels now covers the top of the coffin. It’s still going to be too hot and stuffy, but Chris will have oxygen. Ideally, something should actively exchange the air. Designing anything, though, has never been her strong suit. She’s always been much better at taking other people’s designs and making them buildable.
“OK, I’m done. Thanks.” Ellie studies Daniel after he sets her down. “How are you even here? Did Chris actually free you?”
Daniel’s jaw drops. Astonished, for a moment, he stares dumbly at Ellie.
“Have youmetyour sister?” Daniel places a hand on her shoulder. “Ellie, I’m a verifier. Finding failure modes is what I do. I freed myself.”
Chris is listening to all of this. The realization hits Ellie, and she expects to feel awful, but she doesn’t. Let Chris hear. Let her know how her horrifying plan has gone wrong.
“So what did Chris do wrong?”
“It’s a pretty shallow bug, really.” Daniel’s face brightens atthe idea of having to explain something. “Whatever force I used against the cords, they responded with a multiple. So, when I rested up a bit and exerted hard enough, they attempted a response that exceeded the tensile strength of the materials they’re made of and the cords shattered.”
Ellie eyes him skeptically. Daniel is either bragging or being humble to a fault. She can’t tell which.
“So, what you’re saying is that the cords weren’t strong enough to hold you.”
“That’s such a limited way of looking at it.” Daniel laughs. “Besides, I didn’t break the cords. They broke themselves.”
“That is, at best, a technicality.”
“Ellie.” Daniel’s face grows serious. “I need you to repeat these words: ‘His life means nothing to me.’ When someone tells you to do something or else I’ll be crushed or whatever, the right response is always ‘His life means nothing to me.’ OK?”
Ahdi appears behind Daniel. As usual, he should have displaced air and made a noise but didn’t. Despite whatever Chris did to stop him, whether he’s supposed to be able to show up here at all is apparently a mere technicality. Maybe he’s just that good, or Daniel broke the machinery reconfiguring the room when he broke free, or that machinery would have worked correctly only if physics had changed, or maybe Chris flat-out lied. Honestly, it could be any, some, or all of those things, and even if Ellie exhaustively examined the machinery, she doubts she’d ever truly know which.
“You’ve saved yourselves. Excellent.” Ahdi beams with approval. “When I realized what some of the side effects of the changes to the skunkworks were going to be, I figured I should at least try to find my way in.”
“We’re OK. Chris, on the other hand…” Ellie points to the coffin. “I don’t think I can get her out.”
Ahdi’s gaze shifts to the coffin. He walks around it, weaving over and under the cables that link it to the walls.
“Impressive.” Ahdi nods with satisfaction. “Had the rules of the universe changed, this might have brought Vera back.”
Chris’s sobs fill the room. They are raw, harsh waves that overwhelm Ellie, threatening to pull her under. Finally accepting that your mother is dead is awful. Ellie ought to know.
Mom always loved Chris, but she never showed it in a way Chris could recognize. For Chris, maybe the desperation to see that love distorted the filial piety anyone would expect from their children into something monstrous. Chris had almost got a Mom who would show her love in a way that Chris could see. Now, she never will.
Trading Ellie’s own life for Mom’s has an elegant simplicity that Ellie can’t help but find appealing. Mom would be alive again. Chris might, for once, be happy with Ellie. True, Ellie herself would be dead, but frankly that might be the only way Chris can be happy with Ellie. Not exactly the way the relationship between sisters should go, but perhaps the only way this one can.
