by Peter Hartog
Now, I felt shut off from everything, confined to a prison of boundless nothing. I was somewhere in-between, and the silence was deafening.
I was isolated.
Alone.
Something flickered at the edge of my vision, unfolding like an iris, and suddenly I was somewhere else.
My mother sat at the counter of the bookstore with Abner and my grandfather, her eyes glued to some trashy romance novel. I stood beside her. Harry and Abner were arguing. They always got into it, whatever the subject, and it ended with both agreeing to disagree. Things stayed civil that way, except when they played cribbage. Then things got nasty.
The two stood, and as my grandfather limped past, he clapped me on the shoulder with a wink and a sly grin. They wandered to the back where Abner kept his office, then shut the door.
“Hello there, Tommy,” greeted my mother with a soft smile, the kind that warmed a heart faster than a cup of Uncle Mortie’s hot chocolate. “Why don’t you sit with me and stay awhile?”
“That sounds good, Ma. I’d like that.”
I plopped down next to her with a lopsided grin. She handed me an old hardcover and went back to reading. I brought the book’s spine to my nose. The smell was divine, of worn leather, dried ink, and old paper. It reminded me of the dusty stacks in the classical collection at the university library.
I glanced at the title.
Paradise Lost.
Milton was a favorite. I flipped open the cover.
“You look so tired, honey,” she said with that frown every mother owns.
“I know, Ma. The job takes a lot out of me. Can I just stay here with you?”
“Why of course you can, my sweet, sweet boy,” she replied. She smelled of honeysuckle, homemade cookies, and endless dreams. “You can stay with me for as long as you’d like.”
The bell jingled behind me, its sound carving my calm with the sharp edge of despair.
“Guardian,” she called out. “You must rise. You must save her.”
My heart froze.
“Kate?”
“Guardian,” she urged again. “You must fight this. The drug is killing you, and time is short.”
“What are you doing here? You’re dead.”
“She shall be, if you do not act,” Kate stated, her voice drawing near.
“Ignore her, honey,” my mother’s warm, comforting hand covered my own. “She’s just a dream. Kate can’t hurt you anymore. She’s not real. She’s gone.”
I stared at the words on the page.
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
“Trust in the words,” Kate implored.
She stood behind me, but I was rooted to the spot, unable to face her.
“All that you see is an illusion of your dying mind. If you allow this to continue, you will never awaken from it.”
“But I’m finally happy. I’m content. And you left me, Kate. You died.”
“That’s right, honey,” my mother urged. “Believe in me. In us. We’re finally together. Lay down your burdens, my sweet boy. Life has been so hard on you. So very hard. But that is over now. Rest, Tommy. Be at peace.”
She pressed my hand with a reassuring squeeze. I laid my head in her lap as her gentle fingers stroked my hair, just like when I was little.
Before she died.
Before everything went to hell.
It all came back.
The image of her in the plain casket, lying in state, pale and empty.
The hollow ache of a boy’s broken heart. My heart.
The emptiness, the loneliness and the despair.
Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n, the open page read.
“What is happening to me?”
“You are dying,” Kate said, her voice fading. “And so is she.”
“Ma, this isn’t right.”
“It is, honey,” she said. “Just let go. Let it all go.”
Abner, my grandfather, and the bookstore vanished. There was only my mother and me.
“I’m here now. Lie here and rest. There’s nothing to fear. I’ll watch over you. The world has hurt you long enough. Close your eyes like a good boy. Sleep. Sleep, and dream.”
“No, no this isn’t right,” I murmured, eyes half-shuttered. “You would never tell me to give up. This isn’t real. It isn’t real!”
A sickening rush, and I was on the floor of the elevator. The bodies of the two security guards lay in a heap across from me.
Milton’s poem called to me a final time.
All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and the study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.
I drew strength from the words, marshaling my thoughts. The Insight coursed through me, but was distant, as if it were in another room. I clawed toward it, summoning the rage I felt for the victims of the master fetch, David Crain, Julie DeGrassi, and Orpheus. Hundreds of helpless, forgotten women and children, enslaved and murdered. Their lifeless bodies, the twisted remnants of the creature’s failed experiments, dumped down that shithole, never to be seen again. I relived the moment when we discovered the pit, visceral emotions carrying me on a seething current. The raw force of my feelings flowered, intensified. They sharpened my senses and inched me inexorably away from sweet oblivion.
Suddenly, Nine was there.
“Save her,” the little girl whispered, pleading eyes locking with mine. “Save us all.”
The Insight roared, infusing my body with renewed vigor. I levered myself off the floor and over to the control panel. The elevator hadn’t moved. By the looks of things, I’d only been down for a couple of minutes. An alarm had sounded, alerting security that the elevator had stopped on the thirtieth floor. His voice shouted over the intercom, but I didn’t respond.
I waved my hand over the panel to open the doors, then stepped into a darkened foyer, gun in hand.
“Tactical,” I whispered.
Nothing happened.
“EVI?” I called in my mind, but the AI was silent.
Scuffling sounds further in caught my attention. I crept forward, maintaining a low profile. The floor was similar in layout to Research and Development, minus the people. I came to a break in the cubicle farm to peer around the corner, gun at the ready. One of the offices along the perimeter wall was lit by the glow of a holo-phone.
The creature was inside. I heard the familiar rise and fall of its sibilant rasp.
It was singing.
Today I bake, tomorrow brew
The next I’ll have the young queen’s child.
Ha, glad am I that no one knew
That Rumpelstiltskin I am styled.
I shook my head. “Misty Mountain Hop” it wasn’t.
The master fetch danced with an object twirling in its hands, and triumphant joy on its face. It took me a second to register what it was—the last pinot bottle that had been in Tony’s wine rack. Crain’s cleaners must’ve gotten to it before Julie.
Besim lay on the floor of the office. As I watched, parts of her body twitched, as if charged with electrical current. An opaque cloud clung to her, something the Insight was unable to penetrate. Whatever lay underneath was insulated by that cloud.
“You see, my sweetling?” the creature chortled. “The last of the serum! No one, not even Orpheus, knows of its existence! Trick the police into finding our laboratory, will you? Feh. Destroy our equipment, our notes, our samples? Feh. The knowledge of the experiments resides within us! Once we are free, we shall find Orpheus and her bitch and make them suffer for their betrayal!”
It placed the bottle on the credenza next to the open briefcase with a loud thump, then knelt by Besim.
“A shame no one ever discovered your secret, my sweetling,” the master fetch purred, tracing the angles of her face with its fingers. “The truth of why you became embroiled in this game. After all, you are the mirror image of them both, are you not?”
That caught my attention. I lean
ed in a little closer.
“How amusing that your disguise distracted everyone, even your precious Guardian,” it continued. “To hide those markings, so integral to your identity, the very essence of Vellan culture! And then you adopted a human mask. Such a deliberate affront to your people! Oh ho, we know a little something-something about you, Besim Saranda! Self-imposed exile, was it not?”
Besim groaned in agony. I couldn’t imagine the pain she suffered from the ’joy saturating her bloodstream.
“Still, how did Orpheus manage it?” the creature asked with genuine curiosity. “Few are allowed into your holy city, and only at the written invitation of the Circle of Adepts. For Orpheus to have smuggled the corpse of your very own daughter out from one of the most remote places on this miserable Earth is quite a feat! Orpheus had someone on the inside, no doubt. The Adepts must have believed the traitor to be you! No wonder you fled.”
Besim didn’t respond. Her face contorted while her body shook.
“For years you’ve scoured the enclaves, so desperate to find her, without any hint of her whereabouts,” it burbled with malice. “And then one day, she appears, the ghost of your daughter reflected on the face of a murdered girl with red hair. Red, for the Al-Aquibas, the Vellan aristocracy. Your caste!”
I stared, enthralled by the story unfolding before me. Besim had said she was one of the Nabira-Shas, the caste of administrators and business. What the fuck was going on?
“Dyeing and cutting your hair to hide the truth,” the master fetch gibbered. “Such a simple thing, really. To the average human, you are nothing more than a curiosity, a member of the Vellan middle class. But to your own people, to those who know who you truly are, why, you are considered royalty, yes? And your dead daughter, the very progeny of Besim Saranda of the Al-Aquibas, reduced to a laboratory rat! Her genetic essence culled to create the perfect vessel for us! Do not fret, my sweetling. You shall make a suitable replacement, and your suffering shall be delicious!”
Besim’s eyes flickered open to glare at the creature with undisguised hatred. She said something, but I couldn’t hear it. The master fetch’s scornful laughter followed.
I leaned against the cubicle wall, stunned. The implications of what I’d learned raced through my mind. I wanted to pull the trigger now, end Blakely and take Besim to safety, but the angle wasn’t right, even if I had the assistance of the gun’s tactical. Looking around, I spied open floor off to the right. Somehow, I had to move the creature from the office for a cleaner shot and stay far enough away from it to avoid the goldjoy. Even at this distance, I tasted its foul bouquet.
“But now, we must escape,” it murmured. “As we anticipated, the facility’s security has been alerted. The contingency plan is required.”
It picked up the holo-phone, manipulated the display, and placed a call. Almost immediately, I sensed EVI’s return. The gun’s tactical activated in my eye, and I braced myself as a host of sensory data filled my vision.
“Mr. Kilkullen?” the walking shamble that was once a human being said, mimicking the cultured voice of Oliver Blakely.
As it spoke, I skulked over to the open space.
“Oh yes, there has been a gross mistake,” it said. “It appears Doctor Bartleman and my colleagues played a parting trick on me. And good for them, I say! Even the staff was fooled. Oh yes, the alarm in the elevator? I’m afraid a vial I carried fell from my pocket when I was jostled in the elevator. It broke, and a toxin was released. Detective Holliday and both of your men succumbed to its effects before I redirected the elevator to a different floor and escaped. I locked the elevator car here. Fortunately, none of the toxin spilled on myself or Doctor Saranda. Hmm? Oh, she’s fine, although incapacitated. Would you please inform the Environmental Safety Department? Thank you, Mr. Kilkullen. We’ll be here waiting.”
It killed the call and returned the phone to its pocket. The holo-tech dampening field didn’t reactivate.
“Come along, my dear,” it said, and secured the bottle inside the briefcase.
The master fetch bent over and hauled Besim to her feet with a strength belying its skinny frame. She hung from its wrapped arm like a deflated sex toy, arms and legs splayed and loose.
I considered my options. Kilkullen and the environmental guys were on their way, but the creature was on the move. Not a lot of time to come up with a brilliant plan.
And let’s face it, I was not that smart.
That left only one option.
“Blakely!”
The gun’s tactical showed me distances and trajectories, but the cubicle walls afforded him some cover. I could blow a hole through one, but couldn’t chance hitting Besim, either. Luring it out to me was my only choice.
“My, my, my,” the creature crowed with delight. “The Guardian lives! How extraordinary!”
“You’ll have to do better than that shitty head candy of yours if you want to take me out,” I taunted, heart pounding in my chest.
“I don’t need to,” it replied. “I have nothing to fear. You are merely human, scraps of flesh, blood, and bone. You cannot harm me.”
It moved down the aisle of cubicles, and away from the office.
“You think you’re so all-powerful, huh?” I sneered, lacing each word with contempt. “I kicked the shit out of your little toys, blew the fuck out of your goddamn laboratory, and flushed your drug operation down the toilet. I’d say I’m more formidable than you think. You don’t believe me? Then why don’t you come over here and find out!”
The master fetch paused.
“I guess that makes two of us who’ve outsmarted you,” I continued, stepping backward. “Orpheus left you to blow in the breeze. She called your experiments worthless. Flawed. And when you had Crain fix things, she knew you’d fuck it all up. So, she cut her losses, and distanced herself as far from you as she could. You’re a fucking failure, pal.”
The creature was livid but continued to move away.
“As for me, I’m just some ordinary cop,” I pressed, sudden anger making my hands shake. “But even I got the best of you. So much for being three steps ahead of everyone else, asshole! You still think you’ll get away with this? I don’t give a damn what you are, or where you’re from, but if you believe that then you’re just another stupid fuck like all the other jerks I’ve busted over the years.”
Finally, I struck a nerve. It turned back toward me, bearing Besim and the briefcase.
“We are no failure!” it spat, hatred plain on its twisted face. “We are the pinnacle of scientific and magical achievement! And we shall deal with Orpheus in time.”
It moved into the open space with its arm wrapped around Besim’s waist, then lowered the briefcase to the floor.
“But you?” it hissed. “Experimenting on humans taught us a great deal about your physiology. We will take you with us, so you may enjoy a long life of suffering before you die.”
“We’ll see about that,” I grated, brandishing the gun. “Let her go.”
“As you wish,” it said, releasing Besim from its grasp.
I waited a breath, then fired.
And missed.
The moment my muscles tensed on the trigger, the master fetch blurred, moving faster than Crain or Marko. It flowed through the air, quicker than thought, its preternatural speed awful to behold. The bullet smashed the wall where it had been half a second before. Using the gun’s tactical, I redirected the gun and fired five more shots.
They all missed.
The master fetch laughed.
A blow to the side of my head sent the world spinning. A second punch to my gut knocked the wind out of me. The gun fell to the floor as I collapsed to one knee. Concentrated goldjoy surrounded me, filling my eyes, nose and mouth, seeping into the pores of my skin, drowning me. The lethargy deadened my body. It stood over me, shivering with delight, relishing its victory. I stared up into its soulless eyes, slack and helpless.
I’d been beaten.
The creature grabbed m
e by my collar, drawing me close. Fangs the color of midnight glistened with an awful darkness. Its fetid breath held the memories of other lives, drawn from helpless victims too weak to fight.
“We have changed our mind, Guardian,” it whispered seductively. Its tongue kissed my cheek, and my flesh crawled. “Now you will die.”
A scream pierced the room then, a primal sound that evoked anguish and grief on an unimaginable scale. The creature’s grasp loosened. I crumpled to the floor.
Head tilted back and eyes wild and unseeing, Besim knelt with both arms flung wide. She poured out her damaged soul in that scream. The very air vibrated with its power. I heard the craft and talent of her voice back at Armin’s, the passion of its duality and the strength of its conviction, but this was far different. Now it was a weapon, an outlet from which she attacked using the anger, bitterness, and pain that imprisoned her.
Reinforced windows shattered into deadly fragments. Glass erupted all around. The wind and rain swept in, churning the shards in glittering swirls, like flying daggers. As the gale crashed into us, several cut my face and hands. I cried out, rolling to the side, and covered my head. Freed from the creature, the goldjoy dissipated, wiped away by the fresh rush of wind. I found a pocket of clear air and took several gulps, scouring my body and mind.
The master fetch clamped both hands to its ears. It shrieked, although its sound was drowned by Besim’s own. The creature stood at the center of the maelstrom, glass shredding its clothing and flesh, rendering it a scarred and hideous monster, a reflection of its true self.
I gathered up my gun and moved to Besim’s side, then placed a steady hand on her shoulder. Besim’s body relaxed when she realized it was me. Her mouth closed.
“It’s all right. I’m here now. Let me finish this.”
She nodded.
I faced the master fetch. It hadn’t moved, hands still clutched to its head. Blood flowed freely from dozens of wounds, saturating the carpet.
I narrowed my eyes, raised the gun, and fired.
The bullet that burst forth blazed with white fire. It caught the creature in the chest, burning a hole the size of a coffee mug. Aghast and unbelieving, it stared at the flaming wound.