“Well, that’s nothing new,” Dr. Mercer said dismissively.
Amira picked up a photograph on the end table. A small group of scientists posed in front of a statue in Aldwych Square. Amira identified several famous faces from Stream newscasts but didn’t recognize others, despite the impressive array of badges on their lab coats. The caption below read, ‘Associates and Friends of Sentient Cosmology’.
“You’re not in this one, Dr. Mercer.”
For the first time during her visit, Dr. Mercer’s genial air faltered and he fidgeted in his chair. He eyed the photograph in Amira’s hand.
“No, I’m not, thankfully,” he said at last. “I avoided that rabbit hole, although there are many in that picture who I respect greatly. I keep it as a reminder of what happens when scientific inquiry becomes polluted by wishful thinking.”
“Some famous faces there,” Amira said. “Dr. Alvarez from Galileo, Felicity Knox from McKenna-Okoye’s space division. Competitors, right? Why are they all posing together? Is this some kind of cross-Aldwych organization?”
“Yes, and you know them,” he said. “They started recruiting at the Academy right before I left, despite many objections from faculty. They call themselves the Cosmics.”
Amira knew of the Cosmics. They had become a regular sight on the campus’s quadrangle in recent months, sweating in sleek, tailored pantsuits as they distributed pamphlets, paperbacks and free Eye downloads to passing students. A quick skim of their literature revealed it to be a New Age religion of some kind.
“Yes, the Cosmics,” Dr. Mercer said under his breath. “It started off well enough, you know, as many things do. An astrotheorist developed a theory to tie together what we know about the universe – the Quantum world, dark energy, dark matter, predictive consciousness – with a spiritual understanding of our existence. Many of the founders were ex-compound, if you didn’t know.”
“No!” Amira said, horrified.
“There are some core tenets they share,” Dr. Mercer said, pouring Amira another cup of iced tea. “The Conscious Plane, the level of existence where all things are bound together and the individual soul is subsumed into the whole. They also subscribe to multiverses, which science has all but conclusively proven exist in some form. But unlike your former community, they don’t project morality to these different realities. There is no heaven or hell concept. What was it they taught you? If you eat your peas and have many children under holy matrimony, you go to the Nearhaven, whereas if you disobey the Elders, you go to—”
“The Neverhaven,” Amira finished for him. “The shadeless and waveless world, in which the Cataclysm never ended, and the ground burns beneath your feet.” She flushed. Even years later, she could recite the Elders’ sermons to the word.
“Exactly. So the Cosmics are more benign than your Elders in that sense. But it’s dangerous to try to fill in the gaps of our knowledge with anything other than scientific proof. That is what religion has tried to do for centuries, and these Cosmics are no different, even if they use scientific jargon to make it more palatable. They’re everywhere in Aldwych now, and I fear they will try to remake the District in their image.”
“Are they involved in Pandora’s cloning effort at all, do you think?”
Dr. Mercer laughed.
“Henry will pitch me off a high cliff before Valerie Singh has anything to do with the Cosmics,” he chuckled. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not involved in some way on Pandora, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’re not interested. Watch yourself, Amira. Watch yourself, and remember what drives you and what made you one of my best, most dedicated students.”
The knot in Amira’s stomach tightened at Dr. Mercer’s warning, so starkly delivered. Her senses heightened, just slightly, as they had always done in the compound before an impending punishment – the birds chirped louder, the sun grew a little brighter through the window. The flickers of doubt that followed her from the Academy grew stronger. She was a neuroscientist, not a politician. Was she out of her depth in the political jungles of Aldwych?
They walked together along the gravel path leading to the main road down the mountain, Henry shuffling behind them. Amira stopped abruptly, facing Dr. Mercer.
“I’ll come visit again soon,” she began. “I should have come a long time ago, before all of this, but I’ve been so busy—”
Dr. Mercer raised his hand.
“Don’t worry about me here. Life is for the young. Go forth and live! And if Pandora lives up to its reputation, I suspect I’ll be hearing from you again before too long.”
On that ominous note, he turned back, leaving Amira to continue down the path to the trains, alone.
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want to go out tonight? There are some great bars down by Sullivan’s Wharf.”
Amira studied D’Arcy’s face, attempting to discern how badly her friend wanted to spend the night drinking before their first day in Aldwych. An enormous plate of Ethiopian wat lay between them, nearly stripped of injera bread and surprisingly flavorful synthetic lamb, along with a half-empty bottle of hybrid wine. The rich food left Amira sedated, dulling the anxiety of her conversation with Dr. Mercer, and the coming day ahead. She hesitated.
“Don’t you girls have an early morning tomorrow?” D’Arcy’s father called from the living room. “You don’t want to walk into those shiny buildings with hangovers.”
“I’d prefer to stay here,” Amira admitted, silently thanking Mr. Pham.
“Of course,” D’Arcy said kindly, reaching for the wine bottle, as if to formally seal the decision to stay in. Although she shared a room with Julian in the Canary House, D’Arcy visited her father for dinner at least once a week. Amira accompanied her more often than Julian did, relishing the opportunity to cook and escape the Riverfront’s exhaustive pace.
“Mind if we finish off the wine, Dad?” D’Arcy called out, refilling Amira’s glass with a wink.
“I suppose you girls have earned it.” A soft note of pride crept into Mr. Pham’s gruff voice. “Although I’ll never understand exactly what it is you do, no matter how many times D’Arcy explains it to me.”
A stevedore, D’Arcy’s father worked in Sullivan’s Wharf, loading cargo destined for the space stations. On occasion, he accompanied the cargo to the Pacific Parallel itself, the offshore platform where one of Earth’s two space elevators hurtled supplies and souls into space. Though the Stream provided countless images of the Parallel’s loading docks, anchored in choppy Pacific waters, it fascinated Amira to imagine Mr. Pham nonchalantly pushing crates, syntharette in mouth, under one of the greatest structures ever built.