Blackjack is being remarkably quiet, and when I kiss him, he seems distracted. That’s not only unusual, it’s more-or-less impossible. “Something is wrong,” I say.
“It’s just…well, this is special to me because it’s the first time I’ve been alone with you, that is, without Whirljack, since the very beginning when I was impersonating him. But at the same time, it’s so weird because I’m alone. I can’t hear the guys in my head.”
“Here’s something I don’t get. Whirljack always acts so skittish about our threesomes. Like he’s embarrassed. But he never got embarrassed when he was a single branch, and it had to be the same, right? Like when we became festival lovers, he must have had Daniel and Sloane and Evan, and let’s see, when was that? He must’ve had Mickey and Tommy there, too, right? But that didn’t seem to bother him at all.”
“Um, how do I explain? It’s like the guys inside are me, but when Whirljack is outside, he’s not. We’re not sharing then. I mean, we can talk, like through the other guys, so I always know what’s going on with him, but we’re not the same person anymore. It’s complicated.”
“What do they say? I mean, when we’re being intimate. Do they make comments?”
“Mostly they don’t say anything. They just want to experience it. But I can feel them. I can feel how happy they are. Look, Tara, I know you’ve got this thing about not wanting to lose any of us, but it’s better for everyone when you’re with someone you really like. You get along with Patrick so well, it’s fine if we can all just be him. That’s what I didn’t get at first. I didn’t realize that I didn’t have to win as long as one of us did.”
“I don’t really believe that,” I say.
“It’s true.”
“If it were, then why doesn’t Ash emanate Daniel more often?”
Blackjack looks shocked, like it’s something he just realized. He looks down at his hands. “I dunno,” he says. “I wish that I could ask someone, Dermot maybe. Or Malachi. Wow, that guy is smart! And in a useful way, not like Cuinn, who’s brilliant, but kind of a moron.”
“How is it going, the integration of the two trees? Are you guys getting along?”
He snorts. “It depends on what you mean. We all argue. But yeah, we get along, except for Lorcan. Lorcan doesn’t want to get along. You know his issues. All of the Goliath guys are great, though. I guess the big thing is getting used to so many new selves at once. And Ari – it’s kind of freaky that Ari is half of Whirljack, but he’s not half of me. You really like that guy, don’t you?”
“Now I get to explain something complicated. Right now, I’m really infatuated with him. It’s hard to think of anything else. But underneath, I love him because I know he’s Ash. That infatuation will fade, but I’ll still love him because he’s Ash.”
“But you like the other ones, too, right?” Blackjack is eager; he wants me to like them. It’s because if I like them, he wins too. It’s such a strange logic, devoid of jealousy. Not that you aren’t jealous. If I smile at someone who isn’t one of your emanations, you’ll sulk all night. I suppose it’s understandable, since you need me to survive.
No, that’s not what it’s about. That’s my old insecurities. “BJ, did you see that vision of the future me?”
His expression is stunned, and his eyes mist over. I can see his hands are shaking. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “We all saw it.”
“That thing with Patrick, when he had to decide whether or not to save the Atlas Tree – Ash loves that vision enough to die for it.”
“Yeah.” Blackjack brushes the back of his hand across his eyes. The moisture on it glistens in the sunlight. “It has to exist. It’s beauty. It’s meaning. It’s our lives’ work, bringing it into being. He loves it, loves it like I love you, but also loves it like the gardener loves the rose, loves it like the artist loves the sculpture, loves it like God might love if there is a god even beyond I and I that we didn’t make up. For a moment, I could feel what He felt, and there aren’t any limits to that love. I can’t really explain it.”
I swing my feet up onto the edge of the stone bench, and lean forward to hug my knees. “And now that we’ve figured this out, the fucking SongLuminants show up and want to destroy him.”
“I don’t think they want to destroy Him,” says Blackjack. “It’s just that they will if they feel like they have to.”
“I’d destroy them,” I say. Now it’s hard for me to control my anger, my useless rage. The SongLuminants are threatening everything that matters, but there’s nothing for me to fight, only a few silly fish. I don’t even think the SongLuminant cares about those three Floatfish. It didn’t raise a tentacle to help them during that skirmish.
There is nothing I can do. What will happen if the judgment goes badly? If you are destroyed, then will Blackjack just vanish, fade into nothingness before my eyes? I throw my arms around him, pressing myself close to convince myself that for now, he is still here.
If the SongLuminants kill you, then I swear I will raise humanity, become whatever I need to become in order to eradicate the SongLuminants. I will wipe their tyranny from the galaxy.
Is that the trick? The motivation to become that vision you love is the need to best the SongLuminants? Then Patrick’s test makes more sense. Maybe you anticipated from the beginning that I would need to go the distance alone, and Patrick’s decision was just that losing you to a terrorist attack wouldn’t be enough to force me to evolve.
That’s too bitter. I hate you for loving me, Ash.
Blackjack buries his hand in my curls, guiding my face up to look at him. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’ll be stored in my branch. The other guys can live through it later.” He says that to reassure me, but we both know what I’m thinking: this might be our last time together.