It’s an idea that took root a couple of hours ago. Something I didn’t really plan on saying out loud. “Tau City.”
Her eyebrows crinkle. “Which one?”
“Our home, Jasina. I think all the bad people died. But Gemna’s still there. I think you’d be safe there.”
“Whoa.” She puts a hand on my chest, pushing me back a little. “You wanna take me home anddrop me off?”
“Well, how else can I keep you safe?”
“And expect me to… what? Just wait there, growing fat with child, until you… die or come home?”
“I hear what you’re saying, but Jasina, I won’t be able to keep you safe. I won’t be able to travel down to the Alphas, exploding Extraction Towers, with you at my side and still keep you safe without being augmented.”
She lets out a breath. “First of all, I was going to tell you to do the augmentation.”
“You were?”
“If that’s what you want. Yes. But let’s just get this straight right now. I agree, I should not take any unnecessary risks. But that doesn’t mean you get to leave me behind. It’s not going to happen. If you want to go back to Tau City, then let’s go. But once we get there, I say we blow up the God’s Tower and seal this world off forever.”
“I’ve thought about that,” I say. “And I don’t know if it’s enough. It feels like putting our heads in the sand. Which is right where we started, ya know?”
“It’s not putting our heads in the sand. It’s making a deliberate decision to let this world be. To let these gods have their game. And to stay the fuck out of it.”
She and I stare at each other for a few moments. Thinking. Picturing it. Going home. Telling our tale. Blowing up the doors to the God’s Tower. And… and what?
“How do we go on,” I ask, “knowing that the world is this great big mystery that we know almost nothing about? How do we live, each day, doing simple things that make no sense, or any difference, in the Grand Design?”
“Well… yeah. It’s… horrible. I don’t know, to be honest. It was just my first idea.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I was just getting started.”
I laugh. “Do continue, then.”
“My second idea is that… you get augmented. We leave here—together. Stay together. And play the fuckin’ game.”
“Play the Game of Gods?”
“If that’s what you’re calling it.”
“That’s what Xi calls it.”
“OK. Game of Gods it is then. I say we play.”
“To what end, Jasina? Our death?”
“Obviously not. We play to win.”
“And how do we do that?”
The smile on her face starts small, but slowly, it grows into a grin. “We choose a side, of course.”
“Xi’s side.”
“Who else? You get augmented—just like you want—and we get dealt into the game. A single Divinity Card to play with.”
I chuckle. “Divinity Card?”
