feather

"So why doesn't she talk to me?"

"She doesn't need to. You're her — part of her, a bigger part than most, I guess, something like that. That's why you know things, understand things, know what she knows, consciously or not."

"But I'd like to talk to her."

"Why, it'd be like talking to yourself."

"I'm not her! I don't remember having some astral chat with you."

"Okay, what would you ask her?"

"How are we supposed to do this."

"Do you know?"

"No."

"Because—"

"...Because she doesn't either... shit."

"Thank you"

Silence. Who knew what was running through her head.

Nick ran to hold her. They were at the pool, nighttime, but they'd decided to let the girls sleep and come outside — Jennifer brain was running at a hundred miles an hour, she needed air.

And he needed to slow her down. She was an ocean of doubt... but not scared, and that's what he loved — made him feel like the two of them were unstoppable.

"Stop, for god's sake, I'm begging you."

"I can't, please, why are you so calm?"

"Same reason I was calm before — I have an incredible wife who won't stop until she's covered the whole world in love. Nothing's changed."

She looked at him — he was right, but it was too much to process.

"Okay... okay."

"Now we can focus on what matters."

"Yeah, okay, not like I'm going to sleep anyway, not for the next seven centuries."

"You could. You're immortal."

Jennifer froze, staring at him.

"Kidding."

She threw a patio chair at him, but she was slowing down — thank god. He got her seated at the edge of the pool, more or less by force.

"I feel terrible saying this to you... but I don't... I don't like it. There's an implication that... oh god, Nick..."

"Free will. You're saying you're wondering whether you love me, or you have to love me."

"Yes... I'm sorry."

"That's a question you can answer yourself. You know what she knows, in the end."

She thought.

"No... I don't feel it, I don't feel obligated. I fell in love with you when I saw you were a good person... before that you drove me insanely horny, but not..."

"That makes me so happy, more than you can imagine — and I know it's real because... well, would you do that to a woman? Force her to fall in love? You're her, in the end, and you would never do that... see someone else's enslavement as something desirable... that's..." The guilt was still there somewhere inside him, always would be, probably — maybe he needed it, to stay a good person, needed it to hurt so he'd remember where he couldn't let this end up. "You have to stop thinking of her as God. She's not. I don't know if there even is one. She's... a girl having a hard time."

She seemed to relax — she'd suspected it, but hearing it from someone else was different. He was glad to lift that weight off her.

"I think she saw me get born and put you nearby, and hoped for the best — that's why we knew each other long before... before it woke up."

"It would make her 'smell' worse r if she forced me...they're not really smells, are they?"

"I don't think so. I think my brain just can't process it any other way, so it interprets it as something that primal — I can't feel it the way a woman does, because I'm not one, that's my best guess anyway."

"Do you think..."

"I don't know. But I don't think so. We're not capable."

"I mean..."

"I know."

Jennifer wasn't used to being outpaced — bugged her a little; she wondered if she'd picked that habit up from the entity.

"How... lonely she must be, then."

And there it was, she'd already passed him on the right. Nice while it lasted.

His primate brain hadn't stretched that far — he'd been focused on making herself feel better, and that was it, a very masculine way of thinking, all inward. His divine enlightenment had lasted all of three hours; his wife made quick work of grounding him again. Still a monkey with a banana, marveling at a spectacular sunset without understanding a single thing about it. Maybe that was the message: You're going to serve this one until the day you die, whether you like it or not, ape. He started laughing.

"What?"

He had to explain it to her; she laughed too, hard. Everything was still fine as long as he could keep her smiling. Everything would be fine. He breathed out, relieved.

"How do I fix a problem not even all of them unified together could fix?"

"You've already tried, plenty of times — every time an angel shows up. Maybe even more times without them."

"I think she used the direct approach once — went and told an angel to snap out of it and just start loving already... and it went badly. Really badly."

"That's not your fault... hers... er, yours, the loneliness is unbearable, and... the world is full of pieces of shit."

There it was — protective mode kicking in already. She didn't want that, she needed to think clearly, not throw herself into his arms. She wondered if she was drawn to stereotypically masculine men on purpose, out of some kind of design; figured he'd be asking herself questions like that for the rest of her life now.

"We have to... make the women of the world happy, so the men get such an overdose of love they finally wake the hell up."

"I think — yeah, yeah."

"And what do we do about it — I thought about driving to the nearest town, just to see what happens, but—"

"It's not safe. Here, you bring them in, take care of them, let them explore. Out there, god knows what could happen to any woman."

"That... I just realized that's why you never mentioned your parents again. I'm so sorry, I thought it was just because Helen proved the theory — forgive me, I didn't realize you still loved them, that you don't want to keep them shut out. I'll find a way, I swear."

If he kept going down protective-mode road, they weren't going to solve anything — his legs were already starting to give.

He grabbed her hips, smiled at her, kissed her forehead.

"I like that you like that," he said, not going further — knew they needed to actually talk. Knew he could melt her with a single touch if he wanted.

"I thought about running blood or brain scans, seeing if you changed something in us chemically, making some kind of medicine — but we'd be in the same boat, it'd have to happen across the whole planet at once, and even then might not be safe — there are parts of the world where it'd be suicide for the women involved. But honestly the scale required to produce something like that is absurd, can't be done, we have money, but we're talking astronomical figures."

"I'd bet anything you already calculated the exact number."

"Yeah — it's roughly the combined GDP of several Western countries."

"You're incredible. Good thing you're the Avatar of femininity and not the Avatar of revenge, or we'd all be fucked."

"For all the good it does me..."

"Starting a cult or a religion's gone great in other attempts, historically."

"Don't even mention it— you know if I'd heard about this place from the outside, I'd have assumed it was a cult, and you were some creepy cult leader."

"Pretty much what Helen thought when she got here — good thing we talked about everything except sex when she landed after... after the show, what a show..."

"Focus."

"Look who's talking."

They smiled at each other, same as always.

"I don't know — unless I start manufacturing angels somehow and founding shelters, you tell me — this is overwhelming for me, I know I'm going to do it, I have to, but i expected you to be the one making the plans and I just go where you point, but if this hasn't occurred to you — to her — then it has to occur to me, or I have to hand you a key , but it would be raining upwards before that happens."

"That's... smart. Smarter than you realize."

"What, I'm an orangutan next to you?"

"A cute one — but no, the manufacturing angels part."

"We only show up every so often, and even if I wanted to, I can't manufacture them, though I'd like to try someday, you already know."

He wanted it more than ever now — hoped that day came soon.

"It actually makes sense," Helen said, behind them. Nick had gotten used to sensing where everyone was at all times, so it had caught him off guard — going to have to get used to be actively probing now instead.

"I know you wanted to talk in private, sorry, but this is too big, I had to know."

They looked at her — not angry.

"It's fine," Jennifer said. "We just wanted to let you all sleep. No secrets — we're a team. Literally, in our case."

Nick held out a hand; the girl settled into his lap.

"Hell yeah — and what a goddess of a captain."

Jennifer looked at the ground, then at Nick, who caught her eye — he didn't say a word, but the message was clear: isn't it a pain. He didn't want her carrying that weight, or any other — but he felt relieved sharing his, and felt selfish about that relief a moment later.

"So — what makes sense?"

"You. With her."

"Enough sugar, we need solutions."

"No, idiot — well, yes, but that's not what I meant."

"Then what?"

"She's... a goddess."

Jennifer buried her face in her hands — going to take some getting used to, this.

"Avatar, but yeah," Nick said quickly, saving her a little embarrassment.

"She can't understand... well, if you're our avatar full of love... you're limited."

Jennifer didn't get it — how could love be limiting? Sounded like an exaggeration, but she genuinely didn't grasp the concept. Nick did. He looked at Helen — Jennifer loved seeing the two of them together, thick as thieves — but it bothered her, not knowing what they meant while they did. Not a position she was usually in.

"Oh," he said, looking at his wife's baffled expression — she literally couldn't wrap her head around it. "She means you can't see the bad in the world. You literally make it good. You haven't seen it, haven't... been it, and never could, no matter how hard you tried. But I can. I can look where you can't. I understand it."

Helen nodded, eyes lost in the ripples on the water — the implications bothered her, but that's how it was.

Jennifer was already shaking her head.

"You two idiots. You need to let it go already. What does carrying that around get you? You need to forgive yourselves."

"If forgiveness were what the world needed from us, you wouldn't need an angel, you'd be more than enough all by yourself — or we'd all, whatever — grammatically, the universal feminine consciousness is a pain in the ass." He smiled.

"So what, then?"

"That you keep him on the straight and narrow while he... hurts himself."

Nick already knew where this was going — christ, it was hard enough living with one divine supercomputer, why send another — but he couldn't see any other path forward.

"God, I hate not knowing what you two are talking about, it's criminal."

"It's literal. I have to find out how far an angel can go, and I need you to keep me from letting it get out of hand. I have to feel the bad things, explore the limits, see what I can pull out of it — maybe I can influence men, at some point, at least I hope."

"No, please, no, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"I'm about to say something I've never been able to say to you before, and believe me, I have zero desire to say it."

"No, please, god, what are you about to — please, don't—"

"You're wrong."

The second he said it, Nick let out a sneeze. Both women stared at him.

"Shit," he said.

"What," they said in unison.

"She thinks we're right. She just told me how shut the tap all the way off."

He looked at his wife — she'd gone rigid, braced for it, but he smelled absolutely nothing. He tried opening it again — the wave of terror that hit him nearly knocked him into the pool, Helen and all. He had to shut it again immediately. He thanked her silently. Pulled Jennifer into a hug; Helen joined too.

"Relax, he can handle it, I have zero doubt," Helen whispered into Jennifer's ear, holding her arm out in front of her — the half-finished tattoo on her forearm was a feather.