GEMINI VENUS's Arc

Chapter 9 of 9

The dead radio sat on the bench where they had left it. The broken talisman lay beside it in two halves. Gemini Venus tried a small test run at the pillar an hour later and their left self went blank for six seconds. Then the right self did. The gap wobbled and did not settle. One more slip like that and the scar would set for good, and neither of them would ever cross back to the other. They needed hands they trusted. They needed someone who knew how to hold a room steady. They locked the lab, pulled a coat over both shoulders, and went to find Taurus Jupiter at the Hall of Mirrors. The hall was already full when they arrived. Rows of townspeople faced the front, and the mirrors doubled the crowd into a soft, endless audience. Taurus Jupiter was not on the stage. A blue-haired boy stood there instead, guitar slung across his chest, speaking without notes. Sagittarius Midheaven. Gemini Venus stopped in the aisle. His lecture was already halfway through. "Comfort is a bribe," he said. "You accept it, and you agree not to ask the next question. That is the trade. That is why the trade is offered." He looked straight at Gemini Venus in the doorway and did not pause. "Some of you came here to be soothed. Some of you came here bleeding. The soothing does not fix the bleeding. It only makes you quiet about it." Gemini Venus felt one of their selves flinch and the other lock still. They sat down in the back row and waited. Afterward, Taurus Jupiter found them near the door before they could ask. She read their face in one look and led them to a side room with two low couches and a pot of something hot. Sagittarius Midheaven followed without being invited. "You are shaking in stereo," Taurus said, calm. "Tell us what you did to yourself." Gemini Venus told them, in short sentences, both mouths taking turns. The pillar. The wolf-faced self. The scar that was starting to widen every time they ran the device. "So stop running it," Sagittarius said at once. "You already have your answer. You built the merged thing from what you refused to look at. Look at it awake, not through a machine." Taurus set a cup in each of their hands. "He is blunt. He is also right about the machine. Not right about the rest. You do not heal a split by staring at it. You heal it by choosing a room warm enough to sit in while you think." Gemini Venus agreed to a pause. No more test runs until the gap steadied. They would keep the design work on paper and meet here, in the warm room, three times a week. The scar held where it was. It did not widen further that night. The device stayed dark, and for the first time in months, both of them slept.