by David Beers
We found the water pipes and the electrical generators throughout the city. People began working almost immediately, trying to fix the pieces that had long ago fallen apart and trying to build new, improved parts. I didn't understand a bit of it, but I did my piece, carrying what they needed, fixing food, and anything else that would help them keep going.
We moved into the suites across the city, top floor rooms that had once been used for big spenders. Jerry, Paige, and I all stayed in a row of three rooms. Others chose to stay elsewhere, and I suppose it was an omen that none chose the other suites right next to us. Maybe it was their unconscious decision to be done with Jerry and those that followed him blindly.
I wanted that place to be my home; I hope you understand that. I wanted to start again, for the first time since my wife died and I left the city, I felt that I had a place. That walk across the desert, that earned me a place here—one that no one could deny. So whatever it took, I was willing to do it.
Hope. That's what I had. Hope that when Caesar returned, we might actually have some kind of life. Hope that the rest of the people here could mourn and realize that life went on. Hope that we would be happy.
Hope. A beautiful thing, but ephemeral. Hope is something with potential, but something never actualized.
Chapter Thirty-One
The dead child lay in the discarded bag. Manny placed it down when he entered the room, knowing that when he finished here, he would give his son a proper burial. First though, he needed to address things in this room.
He opened the door slowly when he walked in, taking the bag off and then standing there, listening.
Jerry slept, Manny knew that, but not often and not deeply. He might already be awake, the sound of the door opening alerting him to Manny's presence. Manny hoped that wasn't the case, but even if it was, it wouldn't be a problem. Manny was what Caesar had become and also what he could never be. Manny was the one that should have taken down The Genesis—he realized that now, clearly—but he would settle for taking down the old cyborg who killed his family.
He felt the punch coming from his right, darkness shrouding everything. Manny moved sharply back, and Jerry's fist caught only air. Manny shot forward, not caring about the darkness, not caring about how quietly and quickly Jerry had arrived at the door, only wanting to get his hands on the man, to keep him from swinging again, to keep him from doing anything ever again.
Manny caught the back of Jerry's hand as he swung through and forced it down. Manny's right hand moved fast, faster than he knew it could, the computer in his brain reacting rather than Manny's own mind. He grabbed Jerry's neck and started pushing, the old man's right hand pinned down against his leg and his throat enveloped in Manny's grip.
He slammed Jerry into the wall, plaster and sheet rock exploding around them, creating a dust that Manny could smell but not see in the darkness. Manny took his hand away from Jerry's neck and started swinging, over and over, smashing into Jerry's face. The old man tried to push back, tried to throw himself from the hole that Manny created, but he couldn't. There was nowhere to go. There was nothing to do but feel Manny's fist destroy his face.
And Manny didn't stop hitting. He felt wires poking his skin—wires from Jerry's face, that lined his flesh to keep it alive—and bringing blood to his knuckles. Still he punched.
When the old man's body started sagging underneath Manny's grip, he pulled Jerry from the hole in the wall and lifted him so they were at eye level.
He reached back and swung one last time.
Jerry's head ripped off his body, the wires that made up his spine sparked in the darkness, revealing a bit of blood that leaked from what little veins remained inside him.
Jerry stood for a few seconds—his head still connected to his body by a few wires refusing to let go, but draped across his back. He stood, unwavering, but not moving either, and then he collapsed.
Manny stood in the dark over the broken body, a smile wide and true across his face.
* * *
Paige heard the noises and felt her own room shaking, knowing that it all came from Jerry's room, which was right next to hers.
Paige heard her door open and close softly; she stepped out of bed and moved deep into a corner, hoping the darkness would shroud her from whoever had entered. The banging in Jerry's room had stopped, and now silence draped the hotel. Silence besides someone entering her room.
Footsteps moved quickly, but clearly trying to balance speed with stealth. Paige didn't move from the corner. She knew who it was, knew who had come for them, knew who had gone to Jerry's room first and was now in hers. Manny. There was no one else. The Genesis wouldn't show up and cause noises like that; no, The Genesis would send something to kill everyone in a single sweep. What went on in Jerry's room was raw strength, and if Jerry had been right, if Manny was now like Caesar—Jerry didn’t stand a chance.
She heard the person stop in the doorway to her room.
"Paige," Leon whispered.
She felt her legs almost give out. Her knees weakened and she reached for the dresser to keep from falling.
"Leon?" She whispered back, barely able to get the word out.
"You heard that?" He said, moving into the room, over to her voice.
"Yes."
"What do we do?"
Run. That's all they could do. If they stayed here and tried to fight Manny, they would die as soon as they looked at him. Silence came from the other room, and that meant only one of the two people still stood, but if it was Jerry, why hadn't he come to them? Why was it still so quiet? Because Jerry wasn't standing. Because Manny was left in that room and neither of them could do anything to help Jerry.
"We've got to get out," she said. "We've got to get everyone out."
"How? There's no one else on this floor but us.”
They didn't have time for this, didn't have time to plan. If Manny wasn't moving yet, he would be soon, and he'd start checking the rooms surrounding Jerry's.
"Come on, we have to leave," she said, stepping out from the shadows.
"Paaaiiiggeeee...that you?" The voice sang from the front of the room, from the doorway. It was Manny's voice, and yet different. It was also a lunatic's voice. A voice sounding like this was a game of hide and seek, a game where the end resulted in someone dead instead of tagged.
"Paige, where are you, dearest? We need to talk," Manny said, sounding like he was just inside the living room. "Just for a second, I promise I don't have that much to say."
Paige looked at Leon, close enough so that they could see each other. There wasn't any fear on his face; his jaw was set and he looked her directly in the eye. "Go," he said.
* * *
Leon turned around from Paige and looked toward the bedroom door. He should have killed the fucker when he had the chance. He should have walked in that room and slit his throat while he lay sleeping next to his wife and child. But all of that was in the past. Too late to do any of it.
How many hours had Leon spent thinking about his guilt, that he killed Caesars family when he told April? Too many. He walked across that desert, one foot in front of the other, wondering what life would be like for Caesar had Leon kept his fucking mouth shut. He couldn't go back to that either, though. It was too late. That's what he realized walking across the desert—there's no going back. So here he was, standing in this dark room with his best friend's lover, and a murderer twenty feet away.
He wouldn't ever have to question what he did here.
Go, he told her before turning around. He would bring Manny to the bedroom door and Paige could slip through the bathroom to the hallway and then out the front door. She would escape and maybe if Leon was lucky, he'd have a chance to kill Manny. He didn't know what the chip did to him, not really, and he didn't care either. He just needed to give Paige a chance, that was all. Then, Manny could do what he wanted. Caesar would know though, if she made it, what Leon had done. He would understand why. That's what mattered.
Leon walk
ed toward the door.
"That you, Manny? You goddamn prick!" He shouted, his voice cracking through the silence.
"Ohhhh, it's the lackey," Manny said back, moving further into the living room, closer to the door. "I was looking for Paige. Have you seen her?"
Keep coming. Keep coming.
"Sure haven't." Leon stepped closer, not quite leaving the room, wanting Manny to have to step inside, to have no view of the front door.
"I think you're llyyyyyinng," Manny said, his voice nearly sounding like a song—a sick song, a nursery rhyme for dead children. He was moving closer though, coming toward Leon's own voice.
The moonlight bled through the living room window and Leon watched as the man stepped through the door, coming to grab him. It was Manny, but also a man who looked bigger. A man whose grin said he never knew sadness because those white teeth shining out at the world were a talisman against it. A man whose eyes glinted in the moonlight, looking both black and radiant, as if some invisible energy ran through him, energy that came from wild, uncontrolled lightning. Whatever was inside this man might have memories of Manny, but it was no longer him—not even the prick that Leon had grown to hate. This person was so much worse.
"Why don't you come and find out?" Leon asked, his voice boisterous. He looked over his left shoulder and saw that Paige was gone, inside the bathroom, maybe already in the hall, maybe outside of the room and running. Running. That's what he wanted her to do, to just get away from this place.
"Oh, I know you’re lying. But we'll find out together."
Manny stood five feet away, and Leon tried to open his mouth, to say another smart-ass comment, but couldn't. He couldn't do anything at all, besides stand there and look, because steel chords ran through his entire body, locking him in place.
"Paige?" Leon asked, his voice sounding weak, wounded, and completely outside of his control.
* * *
Paige was five floors down and two away from the lobby when she heard the door open above her.
"Paige!" Leon shouted down the stairwell, his voice echoing off the walls, shooting both up and down at the same time.
It was him though, no doubt about it. Not Manny, not Jerry, not anyone else in The Named. His voice, up where she just came from, in the hallway where she had left him and Jerry, running for her own life.
"Paige, are you in here?" He sounded scared but alive. Paige stopped her descent, where she had been taking stairs three at a time, sometimes leaping half staircases at once. She didn't say anything, but stood there, looking up instead of down, wondering what to do.
"Paige, if you're there, he collapsed. He just dropped. He's still lying in the room. I'm going to wake everyone up and meet outside, if you hear me. Meet me outside!"
She waited another second, not breathing, completely unsure—but her feelings for Leon won out.
"I'm down here!" She shouted up the stairs.
"Oh, thank God," Leon said and she heard him begin walking down.
She started up the stairs too, moving toward him, wanting to find him and then leave, to get everyone outside where they could figure out what to do. If Manny had collapsed, what did it mean? Why? And Jerry? How was he? The questions swarmed through her head, blocking out even the stairs that she walked up, her mind switching from the frantic need to escape and find safety, to planning how all of them would survive this.
She found herself standing in front of Leon, her thoughts quieting.
"He's in the room?"
"Not quite," Leon said, donning a smile that she had never seen on his face before. "I brought him with me."
Paige saw the fist coming at her, but she didn't have a chance to stop it.
* * *
Paige opened her left eye. She blinked a few times, wondering why she couldn't open her right eye as well, why she couldn't see out of it. She reached up to rub it, to see if crusted blood had somehow closed it shut.
Except her arm didn't move. Not a single inch.
She tried again, with her other arm, but it didn't budge either. She tried to turn her face down, and then real panic came over her, because she couldn't move her neck either—she couldn't look down at her arms.
She tried to do everything at once, tried to talk but wasn't able to, tried to stand but wasn't able to—her mind revving up and fear completely taking over. She looked out before her, but she wasn't in any of the hotel rooms. She sat in the middle of the street, the moon shining down from the sky, with broken buildings surrounding her on all sides. A fire stood in front of her, a fire built out of shattered furniture, and she could see Leon to her right—but he wasn't moving either. He stared straight ahead, his arms at his side just like hers.
He hit her, that's why she couldn't open her eye. He hit her and now it was swollen shut and they were both sitting out here staring straight ahead like drugged up medical patients. What was happening? Manny, he had collapsed—that's what Leon said before he knocked her out.
But there weren't any answers in the space in front of her. She couldn't even move her eyes to the left or right, they were frozen in place. Only her eyelids were allowed movement, a blink when her eyes became too dry.
"You're awake."
She watched as legs appeared in front of her. Dirty jeans worn far too long, jeans that had traveled across the desert. She couldn't look up to see who it was, but then she really didn't need to, because the voice told her everything. Manny, not collapsed, not lying in some hotel room, but out here in the middle of the Las Vegas street with a fire burning to give them light.
People had to see the fire from inside their rooms, but what would they do? Would they walk out here and meet Manny, meet his crazy smile and his body that looked to have grown in size. The Genesis had to thread him with extra metal, extra strength, because he was at least fifty pounds heavier, and carried none of it around his midsection.
Manny squatted, his knees bending and his face leveling with Paige's own. This was the first time she had seen him. This man she had spent years and years with, planning and learning. Growing as individuals. And there wasn't anything left inside him. His smile glowed as bright as the fire, but more dangerous. It wouldn't leave his mouth, she felt sure of it, that even when he slept the smile lived there like worms in dirt.
"Sorry I had to use your friend," Manny said. "I didn't want to do a whole lot of running after the hike I took to get here. I'm sure you can understand, given you trod the exact same path, right?"
Paige felt her mouth loosen up, felt the muscles around her jaw relax and her tongue finally move a bit. She could talk.
"Where's Jerry?" She asked.
"Oh, I almost forgot about him!" Manny shouted, joyed beyond measure, his voice reaching up into the sky. He hopped up and walked past the fire; Paige couldn't move to see further, but watched as his back faded away, moving out into the night. He stopped, bent over, his hulking back cutting through the night like a massive machine. He stood up and started walking back to the little camp he had set up. He dragged something in his right hand and carried something else in his left, although Paige couldn't tell what either object was. It didn't matter, because whatever he brought with him, it wasn't good. It was all bad, everything around this camp, from her and her closed eye to Leon still staring straight forward, obviously unable to move; it was all bad.
But what he carried finally came into her vision, and she wished she hadn't asked about Jerry.
His right hand held Jerry's head, four feet off the ground, but still connected to his body somehow. Tears broke out from Paige's eyes onto her face, whatever force held her still hadn't stopped her ability to cry. It was awful, what she saw, the wires stretching out from his neck, even ripping through the skin and down to his shoulders, like someone stripping a house of its copper. Jerry, in all his wisdom, his leadership, his vision, being dragged across the pavement in such a manner.
Manny dropped the body next to the fire, and it fell right in front of her vision. She couldn't stop staring tho
ugh she desperately wanted to, wanted to look anywhere but at him, anywhere but at the person who taught her for the past two decades.
Manny walked to her side, so that she could see his knees but still see Jerry.
"There he is. I think he's still alive, to be honest, though I'm not sure how. Of course his communication skills aren't what they used to be, but we can't blame him too much for that—would yours be up to par if your head was almost ripped off?"
The tears rolled down Paige's cheeks and a cry escaped her mouth.
Manny stepped in front of her and knelt down, where Paige looked upon something at least as ghastly as her mentor lying ripped apart on the street. A child, a baby, in Manny's arms. Its skin a pallid green, and a smell wafting off it that made her stomach turn immediately. A dead child, whose skin was blistered across his forehead, bubbles made of green skin poking out from the child's face. The smell, the goddamn smell, how was Manny able to stand it? She felt her stomach lurching, the hold on her body not stopping it, and then food and stomach acid sprang from her mouth, dripping down her chin and onto her clothes—unable to project forward because she couldn't move.
"My new son," Manny said, positioning the child so that he could look at him. The baby's head lolled to the side, not a single muscle inside holding it up. "He had a rough go of it crossing the desert, but that's okay. I'll bury him here in a little bit and find a new one. That's the good thing about now; Dustin keeps coming back. Soon, I think, Brandi will too. Just really a blessing, you know?"
Paige spit the best she could, trying to throw the vomit out of her mouth.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" She said, her voice hoarse.