Irina had spent the drive from the parking lot to the airport strategizing how best to get them all to New Mexico. After that, she'd done some excellent acting work on short notice as she and Jack pretended to be a nouveau-riche couple determined to charter a small jet on a whim, mostly because they could. In her opinion, Jack's performance had been somewhat stilted, no doubt because of the way he visibly itched to contact the CIA for transport.
But there was no way - none - that Irina would allow such a thing to happen.
During their flight, Sydney sat near the cockpit, flirting with the pilot in his few free minutes in an effort - apparently successful - to keep him from asking any more questions. Emily Sloane huddled at the very back of the plane, almost undone from the shock of finding out about her husband. Honestly, Irina thought; I held up better than THAT, and Emily knew half the truth already. Anyone with the sense of a duck should've been able to figure the rest out long ago. Jack did a little stretching a few rows away from Sydney, and Irina didn't blame him; her knees were aching too. There came an age after which it was inadvisable to make out while kneeling on a cement floor.
The memory of them, locked together, kissing for the first time in two decades - it washed over Irina in a pleasant, dizzying rush, and then she set it aside. No point in thinking about it now, or possibly ever again.
When she walked to the back to grab a bottle of water, Emily looked up at her, the first time she'd acknowledged any of them in hours. "Irina - may I call you Irina?"
With difficulty, Irina resisted the urge to suggest some names for Emily in return. "That's fine. What is it?"
"I wanted to ask you - I'm sorry, I know it's rude and intrusive and inappropriate, but you're the only one I can ask." Emily ran her hands through her curly hair, still working to soothe herself. In a whisper so low that Irina could barely hear it over the plane's motors, Emily continued, "Your husband - he lied to you, too."
Irina's eyes went to Jack, who was done stretching and had taken a seat. He didn't seem to have heard them. "Yes. He did."
"But he still loved you." Emily didn't ask it as a question; she knew it was true. Just knew. "Was that - was it enough? Knowing that Jack loved you, and that he thought the lies were for a good reason?"
"Enough for what?"
"Was it enough for you to forgive him? Enough - maybe enough to still love him?"
Forgiveness. What a concept, what a word. It didn't seem to have anything to do with real life, anything at all. And yet -- did the man sitting a few rows away in the airplane, the man she'd held in her arms a few hours before, have anything to do with the monster she'd envisioned and hated all these years?
"Emily, you aren't asking me about my situation. You're asking about yours." After a gulp of water, Irina continued, "Arvin Sloane is not Jack Bristow. They had different missions, different lies, different reasons. You can't judge your husband by the example of mine. And you can't base your decision about what to do next on my decisions."
"Of course not. I should've realized." Emily looked so bedraggled, so miserable, that Irina felt the faintest shades of an emotion she very rarely recognized: pity.
"This much I do know -- from this moment on, don't let Sloane choose your path. Or Sydney, or Jack, or me." Their eyes met. "Nobody has the right to guide your destiny but you."
Emily nodded. "Thank you." Strangely, Irina seemed to have said the right thing. Maybe she should try being comforting more often. Or not.
"Don't mention it." Then she went to the seat beside Jack's. His eyes were closed, and he didn't acknowledge her. Irina resolved to follow his example and get some rest. She was disciplined enough to be able to meditate wherever she was, whatever pressures she had to cope with, at any time she had a chance. You never knew when the chance would come again, or how much you might need the energy.
Just as she was beginning to slip into trance, Jack's head drooped onto her shoulder; he'd fallen asleep. Agents who didn't know how to meditate anywhere knew how to sleep anywhere.
For a few seconds, Irina simply watched him. Novels spoke of men looking younger as they slept, less touched by care. That wasn't true of Jack. His years had marked him forever, and he didn't escape them even in slumber. And yet there was something pleasant in watching him, for once, off his guard.
She would've meditated more deeply if she'd pushed him off. But Irina told herself that Jack dozing on her shoulder looked natural - like a married couple, what the pilot would be expecting - and let him stay. Besides, she didn't really mind the weight.
Was the knowledge of his love enough to let her forgive him? Enough to let her still love him?
Irina pushed the questions away. They didn't matter. In another few hours, they would use The Telling, and this world that had flowed from Jack's betrayal would cease to exist. She had to remain focused on the freedom she would gain; she couldn't afford to think about what she would lose. Freedom was all that had ever mattered, all that would ever matter, ever again.
**
From the moment the four of them first saw Mt. Sebaccio, silhouetted against the pink dawn sky, Irina knew: "I've been here before."
Jack stared at her. "New Mexico? Well, you always said you wanted to go."
"But I never did. Not in this lifetime, anyway." She slowly turned 360 degrees, scanning the horizon, knowing it more intimately every second. "I always dreamed about New Mexico, always. And when I dreamed of it, I dreamed about it looking exactly like this. Not similar. Not close. Identical."
Sydney stared at her parents as she shouldered one of the backpacks Irina had purchased last night. "Wait - you said 'not in this lifetime.' What exactly do you mean?"
"I don't really know." The proper workings of The Telling should have completely erased the existence of the history that had gone before - but what if it hadn't? Had she, perhaps, nearly stopped Sloane last time? If she had caught up with him here, only a few moments too late, might she have been near enough to Sloane to share in one tiny sliver of memory about the reality that had been destroyed? Maybe her lifelong fascination with New Mexico had been more than a whim; maybe it had been her one moment of prophecy.
Supposition. Not worth their time. Irina shook off the powerful déjà vu. "We're almost there. Let's keep moving." Jack and Sydney exchanged a look, but neither of them asked any more questions.
Within an hour, they'd made their way over rough terrain to Mt. Sebaccio - the real one. In the early 1990s, Irina had made her own pilgrimage to the one in Italy, hoping to erase whatever chance she had of being the woman in Rambaldi's prophecies. By then, she'd begun to believe again, to wonder about her daughter's place in Rambaldi's work.
But here was her daughter, walking beneath the skies over Mt. Sebaccio, apparently completely unchanged. Ah, well, Irina thought. Rambaldi only said that maybe it would quench the fire. He fixed all our destinies, over and over again, but there? No guarantees.
Irina had led them to the mountain, Jack immediately behind her, with Sydney taking up the rear at Emily's side. Emily was in better shape than Irina would've suspected for a civilian, but when it came time for the rock climbing, she didn't fare as well.
Sydney, still doting on this woman not her mother, kept saying, "Are you okay? Are you sure?"
At last, Emily said, "I can do this - but I can't go as fast as the rest of you." Irina glanced down to see Emily braced at a solid Y in the rocks. "I may be indestructible, but I'm not inexhaustible."
"We can wait," Sydney said.
"No, we can't." Jack saved Irina the trouble. "Emily, can you catch up with us later?"
"I'll do my best," she promised. Irina, not caring if she did or didn't, continued on her way up. Behind her she could distinctly hear two climbers, not one. Sydney at least understood where her duty lay.
Fortunately, it wasn't a difficult ascent. Irina even had the energy to realize that it was beautiful, with the morning sun warming them, painting the rocks bluish-purple with glints of rose and gold. If she ever had vacationed here with Jack, the way she'd once dreamed of doing, she would have loved it. The old daydream rose up in her again - she and Jack, warm in the desert sun, making love on a blanket out in the open as the heat shimmered around them. That aged fantasy felt like a relic from a lost civilization, and yet the kisses she'd dreamed of were just like the ones they'd shared only a few hours ago.
Maybe this, too, was captured memory: something that had really happened between the other Irina and Jack. Irina found herself hoping so. It would be nice to think they'd fared better the last time around.
As she crawled over another ledge and saw the mouth of a cavern, she knew a jolt of recognition stronger than any before. "This is it."
She stood there, shock-still, until Jack and Sydney had joined her, one on either side. Each of them was breathing hard, each hesitating, though probably for entirely different reasons. It was Jack who finally said, "According to Emily, we'll find The Telling inside."
"How are we going to find it if we don't know what it looks like?" Sydney squinted at the cavern's mouth, which was deeply shadowed and impenetrably dark. "Or do you guys know? That would help."
"Yeah, it would," Jack agreed. "But no. Not a clue."
"I think we'll know it when we see it." Irina projected a confidence she did not wholly feel. For all she knew, this cavern might be a stockpile of dozens or even hundreds of Rambaldi devices, and as exhaustive as her Rambaldi research had been, doubtless there were many other machines she knew nothing about. And of course The Telling was the one device for which she'd never seen a design, even a sketch. Still, nothing to do but look - and face the decision awaiting them once they'd found it. "Let's go."
They all walked together through the cavern's mouth, into the musty cave itself. Within half a dozen steps, they were completely surrounded by blackness; half a dozen more, and Irina's eyes had begun to adjust to the dark.
And that was when she began to see the faint glint of gold, straight ahead.
Jack whispered, "Irina -"
"I see it too." They all quickened their steps, moving toward the dimly illuminated area ahead, which only seemed to get brighter and more golden every second. Irina was beginning to make out shapes now, bars and rods and plates, all in some sort of formation.
"That can't be it, can it?" Sydney quickened to a jog as she got ahead of them - then stopped short just ahead. "Oh, my God."
They stood at the entrance to a chamber so enormous - hundreds of feet high and wide - that it seemed to be the entire mountain, hollowed out. From bottom to top, it was entirely filled with one enormous, glittering machine, as intricate as a spider web and as strong as the stone that surrounded it. There were different platforms, different layers, each of which was ringed with complex machinery; still, Irina did not doubt that it was all part of one greater whole. She found herself filled with the same awe she'd known when she first visited Chartres and Rheims and Notre Dame: This was a cathedral of energy and potential, simultaneously mystical and massive, of this earth and yet greater than earthly things.
Irina shivered, realizing that Rambaldi himself had never seen this. It had been revealed only to them - to Sloane, his most twisted acolyte - and to her family.
As if they'd rehearsed it, each of them simultaneously stepped forward into the machine itself, walking toward the center. Sydney was staring upward at the topmost levels, ring upon ring of clockwork spirals, which shone brightly with sunlight that filtered in through cracks in the rock, illuminating the brass chains that hung all around like the rigging of a sailing ship. Jack mostly seemed to be paying attention to the level they were standing on, running his hands along the railings as if testing their support first of all - not a bad idea. Irina looked downward, and nearly gasped aloud when she saw Gaia, red sphere rotating, powering energy through The Telling.
She touched Jack's shoulder and gestured downward. "Look familiar?"
He nodded, then tapped one of the rods nearest them. "So does this." Irina peered at it, then realized it was the golden scepter she and Jack had stolen from the statue in Kagoshima City. The intricate carvings in its surface fit into the machine as neatly as interlocking gears.
"Of course. No wonder we never found separate plans for The Telling," Irina said. "There is no separate machine."
"All Rambaldi's works - each of them, put together - they form The Telling?" Sydney asked, obviously still lost in the moment.
To Irina's surprise, Jack smiled. "You realize there's a can opener in here someplace." Already lightheaded with wonder, Irina couldn't stop herself from laughing once; she quickly quieted herself, though she knew she was still grinning.
Sydney held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "I will never understand you people."
"We'll explain later," Jack promised.
"Oh, my God." Sydney grimaced and gestured down, one layer beneath them. At the center of a display was something that pulsed and beat - something that looked disturbingly like a human heart set in glass. "What is that?"
Jack looked equally unnerved but he said only, "Right now, we only need to figure out if it's possible to temporarily disable this thing until we can -" His eyes met Irina's. "Until we can decide what to do."
"Don't touch it." Irina had one chance - and only one - to take control of her life again and make it her own. The Telling had been used to corrupt and enslave her entire existence; it could be used to undo that corruption, to erase her slavery as though it had never been. "I've told you that we're using it. I've told you how. I don't think I should have to explain why."
"You only know one thing about the lives we led before," Jack said. "That's not enough to judge which reality to prefer."
"It's exactly enough to judge." She met his eyes evenly. Perhaps most of the other battles she'd waged against him in the previous year and a half had been a waste of time and spirit, but this one - this one was worth fighting. Victory was necessary, like oxygen, like air. "We know that there is only ONE reality that contains anything real. It's not this one. We owe it to ourselves and to our daughter to find what's real. If you're willing to live your life as a puppet - for Sloane, for the CIA, whoever it may be - I'm sure you had masters there, too. You'll find them again."
Jack stepped closer to her, warming to the fight. "The lives we've led, the history we've shared - that IS reality."
"No, Jack. It was all a lie. You just weren't the only one lying." His eyes flashed with something very like pain. Irina remembered the night before, the way she'd clung to Jack as the only real thing in the world - then pushed the memory away, hard. "Sydney, listen to me. We can put things right."
"Sydney, don't," Jack said. "We don't know enough to use this thing. I'm not sure anybody does."
Irina insisted, "This isn't the CIA's decision. It's ours."
"No, it's not." Sloane's voice echoed throughout The Telling. Irina spun around to see him standing at the entrance, one hand around Emily's arm. Emily, for her part, looked even more panicked than before; there was no knowing if she'd led Sloane to them or if she was, in effect, her husband's hostage. "It's not our decision, Irina. Not yours, not Jack's, not even mine. It's Sydney's decision to make. It always has been, and it always will be."
"Mr. Sloane," Sydney said, her voice small. The acoustics of the chamber carried her words perfectly, echoing off stone and brass.
"Hello, Sydney." Sloane stepped forward into The Telling itself. "I know you must have a lot of questions."
Irina watched her daughter's face shift through a dozen emotions - fear and pain and even love - before settling into a cool mask. "I'm armed," Sydney said evenly. "I'm the only one of us who is. You should know that."
"I appreciate you telling me. My guards are outside. They won't come in; I've ordered it." Sloane patted Emily's arm comfortingly as they walked deeper into the machine to stand in front of them all. "Obviously, I think we should use The Telling again. But you must have questions of your own. I'm the only one here speaking from experience, so I think I might be in the best position to answer them."
Irina would never get over Sloane's ability to do that - to justify himself so completely that he could ease not only his own conscience, but those around him. He sounded so calm, so gentle, so reasonable. "We don't need your 'answers,' you bastard."
"Mama, don't. Nobody move." Why had she let Sydney keep the gun? Her daughter only had eyes for Sloane now; she was completely focused on his face. "Is what my parents told me true? The Telling - resets history?"
"Based on one single choice," Sloane said. "You can't know all the ramifications of that choice when you make it. But then, that's true of most choices, I think."
"You did this once already? Changed all our lives back to a point before I was born?"
"Yes, Sydney. I did. I learned a lot, and I think next time - next time, we could really begin to work miracles."
"What we talked about, you mean," Sydney said. Irina cursed herself for not realizing before now that Sloane would have primed Sydney for every element of this; his preparation had been too good. "About making sure that K Directorate and the Triad lose their power. I thought you meant - well, not this."
"Those terrorist organizations never have to hurt anyone, never again." Sloane's voice was soothing. "They never even have to exist. We can do that."
Sydney looked grim. "But you said you were CIA, and you aren't. Don't try and tell me my Dad lied about this, because he didn't. What he said - too many things added up."
"No. SD-6 isn't the CIA. But I'd ask you to consider this, Sydney: the CIA is the organization that sent your father to the Soviet Union to betray your mother. They knew she was alive for years, almost a decade, before they bothered to let him know. Yes, I did leave the CIA, but I had good reasons. The U.S. government - there are limits to how far they can be trusted. Your mother knows that better than anyone."
"YOU sent me to the Soviet Union," Jack said through clenched teeth. "You extracted me without giving me a chance to save Irina too. Don't try and foist this off on the CIA."
"Dad, I'm handling this," Sydney said, voice grave. "Okay, so, I know the rough plan for what you want to do next time. But I still want to know what you did last time. Why you changed all our lives."
Irina knew this already. "He arranged for the discovery of Rambaldi's works to happen sooner."
"Your mother's right," Sloane said with a nod in her direction.
Jack said, "What you haven't explained is why."
Sloane turned from them all to look at Emily, love radiating from him as though he were still a bridegroom. "I needed the Rambaldi serum - the one that gives a human body the ability to regenerate and recover from nearly any disease or injury. I needed it for Emily."
"For me?" They were the first words Emily had been able to speak since entering The Telling chamber. "Arvin, how can this have anything to do with me?"
"You were sick." Sloane brought one hand up to Emily's face, cradling her cheek. "You were dying. Lymphoma. There was nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do. You went into remission, but it was still only a matter of time, and then, well, events got ahead of themselves." Irina didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but she was seized by the absolute conviction that - in this, at least - Sloane was telling the truth. "Last time, we discovered the serum too late. I lost you, Emily. And I knew that I was never going to lose you again."
It was Jack who broke the silence that followed. "You made sure that the serum would be discovered in time to save Emily's life. It's - understandable, your need to protect her, but the countless lives you changed, the others who may have died because of what you did here -"
"Not for me." Emily shook her head violently. "I don't understand this, and I don't want to understand it. But I know I don't want this - thing - used because of me."
Sloane just smiled. "You don't know what a joy it was for me - being able to live it all again. Meeting you in that Georgetown bar, our first dates, our wedding day - I cherished everything even more the second time. That's how we're going to spend eternity, Emily. Falling in love over and over again." He turned from Emily to beam at Sydney. "And taking care of Sydney, of course."
"That's all you did?" Sydney was blinking back tears; it turned Irina's stomach to see how deeply Sloane's story had touched her. "Swear to me. On Emily's life."
"I swear it. I confess - originally, I meant to make more dramatic changes on subsequent turns of The Telling. But living this life over again taught me how close I truly was to having everything I ever wanted. My main failure was in not making you happy, Sydney. I can take care of that, next time."
"And my parents?"
Sloane shrugged. "The realities of their political affiliations and personalities don't allow for much. But I'll give them a chance. I did this time, didn't I? That happy childhood you had in Moscow was my creation."
"The hell it was." Jack looked as though he wanted to tackle Sloane, and might have done, Irina thought, were it not for Sydney standing there, holding them at all bay. "You tore our family apart just to get at Sydney."
"I believe you told your daughter that was your responsibility, and no one else's."
"You must not believe Sloane." Irina clutched Sydney's shoulder, desperate to try and get through to her daughter before it was too late. "That one change he made nearly prevented your own birth, Sydney. It meant years of prison for me, unspeakable misery for your Aunt Katya, for so many people. Just that one change! That's what comes of letting Sloane control history. If we put things back to the way they were before -"
"I've made up my mind." Sydney cut her off. She turned toward Sloane and added, "I know who I trust."
Her heart seemed to split, as if pierced by a dagger. Irina, sick with hurt and anger, wondered for one moment if she could bring herself to overpower her own daughter - but Sydney's hand was already on her gun. "Show me how this works. I'm not doing anything until I understand."
Sloane patted Emily's arm once, then stepped forward to walk with Sydney into the very center of The Telling. Irina slumped back, trying to brace herself, overwhelmed with mortal panic. She never panicked, not when there was something she could do, but to find herself powerless once more - "Sydney, think about what you're doing, please, think!" Her pleas echoed in the chamber. Sydney never turned.
Take Emily hostage, she thought. Do it now, make Sloane back down. But Emily had the serum in her blood; an immortal hostage was a useless hostage. No way out now, not without risking or even ending Sydney's life. And that was no way out at all.
Jack's hand closed around hers. When their eyes met, he said only, "I'm sorry."
"So am I." She tried to smile at him. "Maybe next time."
"Maybe."
Sydney allowed herself to be led by Sloane into the heart of the machine; surrounded by clockworks, illuminated by the ever-brighter shafts of sunlight, they looked like a priest and his worshipper, discovering the Mysteries. Between them was a flat rectangle, not unlike an open Bible. When Sloane opened it, a strange little tune began to play - haunting, mournful notes, that echoed amid the ticking and humming of The Telling's chamber.
Perhaps cued by those notes - some kind of code? - a silvery panel slid out, the form of a hand embossed within it. Irina recognized that panel, from a long-ago piece of parchment, as Rambaldi's DNA scanner. "Sydney's blood," she whispered. "That's the key."
Sloane said, "When, or if, you choose to put your hand there, I'll step back here." He patted a large semisphere of metal - the Cup of Bronze, she realized, the device Rambaldi had said affected memories. Now Irina knew that it preserved them against the changing tide of history. "I guide The Telling into doing what it does. And then the world is born anew."
"Do it." Sydney held her hand just above the DNA scanner. Jack's hand tightened around Irina's.
The music box continued to play as Sloane smiled at Sydney, as if pleasantly surprised. "You don't want to know more details about the changes I'm going to make? You have the right."
"This life - where my father betrayed my mother, where my mother's a criminal, where everything I've ever known was a lie -- I know there has to be some better way than this." Sydney's face was hard, her cheekbones and glossy hair outlined in golden beams of sunlight. "I know you're going to try and make a better world than the one we've got. And that's all I have to know."
Sloane said only, "I love you, Sydney. I'm the only one who always will."
Jack made a small, strangled sound in his throat, and Irina fought the urge to scream. Sloane stepped back into position as Sydney lowered her hand, closer and closer to the panel -
--then grabbed her gun, pointed it downward and fired.
The red Gaia sphere trembled, then burst, sending a tidal wave of hot water and steam crashing out in every direction. Irina felt The Telling begin to shudder beneath them, then quake as rods and gears began popping loose, spinning free, swirling down in the tide. The machine's humming changed pitch and key, turning into a whine that could mean nothing good.
It was Emily who first shouted, "We have to get out of here!" She began running back toward the cavern entrance; Jack followed her, pulling Irina with him.
"Sydney!" Irina cried out. "Come with us!" But no, Sydney was grabbing Sloane, even as the uppermost levels of The Telling started falling apart, showering down nuts and bolts and springs and powdery stone. Why was her daughter trying to save this man? No time to wonder. Only time to move.
Of course, Irina realized as she and Jack ducked a tumbling metal girder. When Sydney kept us back, she was trying to keep us near the edge so we could make it to safety - if we can --
They were still several feet from the mountain wall when the floor began to fall from under them. Emily - a faster runner than Irina would have thought - hurdled forward, landing safely. She thrust out her hand for them. "You can make it!"
Stumbling forward, skin burning from the steam, Irina forced herself to jump; her feet just skimmed the edge of the cavern, but she made it. Jack leaped a second later. Off-balance, he slipped back and started to fall. Irina instantly lunged forward, grabbing his arm as tightly as she could, but her own handhold on the wall was weak, and she could feel Jack's weight pulling her down. Beneath him was only a chaos of water and electrical sparks and swirling metal - their eyes met, and Irina knew he wanted her to let go and save herself --
Then Emily grabbed her around the waist and towed them both back to safety. Jack fell atop Irina, who fell atop Emily, and for a moment they all simply lay there in a huddle. But The Telling was still in its death throes, and her daughter was still at the center of it.
"Sydney!" Jack shouted, peering through the haze of steam and smoke.
"I'm here!" Irina glimpsed her daughter at the far side of the cavern, seemingly as far from safety as she could possibly be, with Sloane at her side. Then Sydney grabbed one of the chains now hanging free from the top of the cave, wound it around her free arm and swung with Sloane through the wreckage to land neatly in front of her parents. "Are you guys okay?"
Irina couldn't answer her; Jack and Emily were equally thunderstruck. Behind Sydney, the last of The Telling began to collapse in upon itself, disintegrating into total wreckage.
Only Sloane spoke, his voice shaking as if just short of tears. "You have no idea what you've just done."
"It wasn't your choice to make." Sydney's eyes were shadowed, and it seemed to Irina as though she had aged years in the last day. "It was mine. And all I know is - there's no place for that kind of choice. The world can't hold it."
The five of them stared down at the devastation. Irina could feel Jack's hand gripping her own, as though she were still all that kept him from plunging down to death. Emily didn't touch Sloane; she only moved to occasionally wipe tears from her dusty cheeks. Sloane looked like a man destroyed, his face gray and suddenly old.
"It's gone," Sloane whispered. "The Telling - all those years, all that work - gone. How could you do this to me?" It was Jack who answered him, by letting go of Irina's hand and slamming his fist directly into Sloane's face.
Irina could only look down at the remnants of The Telling and see her lost chance. Always, she would be trapped in a manipulated reality, in Sloane's creation; whatever opportunity she'd ever had to escape servitude and be liberated was now gone forever. Only The Telling had the power to set her free - it had to be the greatest power imaginable, the power to change all reality -
And then Irina remembered the prophecy.
"Unless prevented, at vulgar cost, this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation."
The greatest power - that was The Telling. What power could ever be greater than the ability to change all of history? As Rambaldi had foreseen, Sydney had destroyed it, for all time.
Irina's eyes filled with tears, both of pain and of gratitude, as she realized that what had become of her and Jack didn't matter, not any more. The prophecy had been fulfilled at last.
Freedom was all that would ever matter. And their daughter was finally free.
**
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