The Last Murder at the end of the World

EPILOGUE

Emory’s sitting on the floor of a Blackheath storeroom marking a pile of homework, while Jack and the other apprentices dig through a wall. The insects are floating gently in the fog. After a couple of days mimicking everything they saw, they seem to have calmed down. They still do it for the children, though. They seem to enjoy their laughter.

‘How long will they live for?’ asks Emory, who’s the only villager I still have any contact with.

‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I only know what Niema, Thea and Hephaestus knew. The insects are nourished by the fog. We know it’s dissipating, but I don’t know how long it will take to vanish completely. You may have to live with them for a while.’

Jack stops his drill, then goes to another part of the wall and fires it up again.

Emory comes down here every day to see her husband, and is surprised by how much better it’s made her feel. She has no idea how to make this stop, but she has faith. Niema went to such lengths to free them from human control. Surely she wouldn’t forget about these last five people, chained by her instructions.

‘Hui’s up and about,’ says Emory, talking to him over the cacophony of tools. ‘She’s in a lot of pain, but she’ll live. Clara hasn’t left her side.’

Emory marks the last sheet of homework and puts it aside, watching the apprentices work. They’ve dug straight through the concrete wall, and are now excavating the soft earth behind.

What are they doing? she wonders.

She knows it’s one last errand for Niema, but she has no idea what it is. She must have asked me a hundred times, but the answer hasn’t changed. I’m still bound by the orders Niema left me.

‘Do you know what I think?’ says Emory, walking over to her husband. Jack’s eyes are still closed, his face grubby and hair grown thick past his ears. She pushes it back lovingly.

‘Of course I do, but tell me anyway,’ I say. ‘It will pass the time.’

‘I think Thea was telling the truth about Adil. I don’t think she killed him.’

Poor Thea. She barely got beyond the farms before the fog reached her. Of course the sixty-one people who were with her survived, much to their confusion. Once they realised they were immune, they huddled around Thea, trying to protect her, but there was nothing they could do. She died thinking of Hephaestus.

‘Who do you believe was responsible?’ I ask politely.

‘I think you killed Adil, using one of these apprentices. They were the only ones down here that night, aside from me, Thea and Hui.’

‘And why would I do that?’

‘Because I don’t think any of this really was Niema’s plan,’ she says. ‘I don’t think it was Adil’s either, though you probably let them think it was. I think you’ve been manipulating events from the start, making sure everything turned out the way you wanted it to turn out.’

‘I’m bound to Niema’s will,’ I protest.

‘Adil told Matis the truth about how my mum died, but how did he know? Niema wouldn’t have told him, and I can’t imagine Thea or Hephaestus did it. That leaves you. You were the only other person on the island with that information.’

‘I’m not a person,’ I point out rather pedantically.

Emory ignores me, carried along on the flow of her suspicions. ‘After Adil’s memories started coming back, why didn’t Hephaestus kill him? He knew exactly where he was living.’

‘Benevolence,’ I offer unconvincingly.

‘I think you were the one who suggested exile to Niema, because what happened to Adil wasn’t an accident. He woke up in Blackheath because you wanted him to wake up. I think you’ve been preparing for these events for years, nudging a lot of little things into place.’

‘This sounds like it would have taken a lot of planning.’

‘Not if you can see the future.’

‘I don’t see the future, I map probabilities.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘One is maths and the other is entertainment,’ I say.

‘Whichever it is, it seems to strange to me that you let me overhear an argument between Hephaestus and Niema about their experiment when you could easily have sent me in another direction.’

The tools snap off, the sudden silence serving to derail Emory’s train of thought. The earth is crumbling where they’ve been digging, revealing a huge root, electricity crackling inside the translucent skin.

‘I’ve seen this before,’ says Emory, going towards it cautiously, eyes wide with wonder. ‘There was a vine like this outside Adil’s shack. What is it?’

‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘One part of me, at least. My root system spreads under most of the island. Abi is short for artificial biological intelligence. The biological part is what you’re looking at.’

Emory reaches out a hand, feeling a slight tremor.

‘You’re beautiful,’ she says.

‘Niema always thought so. Believe it or not, your people are built from most of the same materials.’

‘We’re family, then.’

‘Of a sort.’

Emory runs her fingers along my rough skin, surprised by the kinship she feels. My voice has been in her head since she stepped off the cable car as an eight-year-old girl. It never occurred to her that I might have a body somewhere.

Jack pushes by her with his drill, pressing it against the root.

‘No,’ cries Emory, trying to tug him away.

‘It’s okay, Emory,’ I say. ‘This is what Niema wanted.’

‘To hurt you?’

‘To kill me,’ I reply, without feeling. ‘There are a hundred and thirty-seven humans left in storage. Through me they could gain complete control of your people, whether they wake up tomorrow or in five hundred years. Once I’m destroyed that threat evaporates. You’re right, I did have my own agenda, but it was in service of Niema’s aims. She believed in the potential of your people more than anything, but she didn’t have the stomach to do what was necessary to see it realised. She wanted to put Hephaestus and Thea in a trap, but they’re clever, and cunning, and eventually their rage would have destroyed everything. For your people to thrive, the board needed to be swept completely clean. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to kill humans.’

‘But you can manipulate them,’ says Emory, starting to understand. ‘You knew that only Thea could kill Hephaestus, and that Thea’s obsession with Blackheath would doom her. That’s why you instructed Adil to bring her here.’

‘This is the world Niema wanted for you. No more secrets. No higher power. She trusted you to be better than what came before, without needing a voice in your head telling you how. When you’ve built your own civilisation, you’ll be able to wake the humans in Blackheath, and guide them. Through your example, they’ll finally learn to live peacefully. You’re the solution she always dreamed about. Not me.’

‘You were never going to put the barrier back up, were you? Even if I’d found Niema’s killer in time.’

‘The fog had to swallow the island. The humans in Blackheath can’t be allowed out before you’re ready to release them, even by accident. But I had to give Hephaestus a reason not to slaughter you all. False hope can always be depended upon for control.’

The drill whirs into life and Jack drives it through the root, fluid bursting out onto the floor.

Coldness courses through me, the thoughts of the villagers disappearing from my consciousness one by one.

‘Goodbye, Emory,’ I say. ‘You did very well.’

‘Goodbye, Abi,’ she replies. ‘I’ll make a mourning lantern for you.’

My hold on Jack and the other apprentices vanishes, releasing control of their bodies back to them. Their eyes flutter open, as they groan and yawn, looking around, awakening from a very long sleep.

‘Em?’ asks Jack, surprised, as his wife hurls herself at him. ‘What’s going on? Where am I?’

‘At the start,’ she says, crying happily. ‘You’ve arrived just in time.’