by Tony LaRocca
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she felt a strange sense of shame. She gazed at Marianne, then back at the Clown. She had prayed every night with her mom and dad before bed, promising that she would never give evil a foothold. What would they think, if they could see her now? These were the demons of her nightmares, yet… If these two really were the ultimate agents of darkness, then why were they so helpless? She stared at the twisted, glowing form as it thrashed with desperation, and held up the brush.
Think about what she said, whispered the voice from inside her. She doesn’t want you to help the Clown, she wants you to save Matthew by erasing him.
Her lips curled into a determined smile. “Get behind me, jerk,” she said, “I’m not afraid of you.” She pushed the brush through the whipping needle of light, and began to paint.
Matthew jabbed his fists into his abdomen with feeble, spasmodic jerks. His oxygen–starved muscles cramped, and knotted into rocks. His field of vision shrank to a circle, as if he were seeing the world through a long, dark tube.
The carpet of thorny moss held Talya fast by her feet, while roots that sprung from the walls lashed at her unraveled skin. Her blue and gold dress lay in tattered shreds upon the cobblestones. The charred vines that tore at her white sun crumbled to ash. Fresh tendrils thrust from in–between the bricks to join the fray, but they began to smolder as well. Rivulets of scarlet ran down the Cyleb’s guise of papery flesh. His floral mother was causing her damage, certainly, but how much longer could she last? Somewhere, Zeta’s real body was jacked into the Sage, and the trauma of the flames could do her brain’s chemistry irreparable harm.
Please, he thought as he struggled to expel the tooth from his throat, just let me help her.
His circle of sight shrunk to the size of a quarter. He looked down at himself. His body, or rather, his father’s body, had become a worthless, shivering mass. His hands felt useless and numb. His legs did not even have the ability to stand. His arms —
He stopped his attempts to perform the Heimlich maneuver upon himself, and stared. An almost forgotten, blurred line of pixels was carving its way across his left shoulder.
He raised his shaking right hand to the renewed cleft. He forced his fingers inside, and pulled as hard as he could.
At first his shoulder peeled no more than a paper’s width, but every millimeter of division energized his muscles with greater strength. He clenched his teeth, and ripped downward.
His arm tore off.
The crypt and everything inside of it seemed to freeze, their colors tinted with redshift. His point of view flew out of his head to land at his side, where his left hand had been. He raised himself up, and stared at the ancient, choking thing that lay curled upon the floor. Although the rest of the world had slowed to a near halt, his body was undergoing metamorphosis. His distended cheeks relaxed their joyless grimace as the cracks and wrinkles in his leathery skin smoothed, returning his appearance to that of a fifty–year–old man. Bristles of salt–and–pepper hair pierced through his crown, growing until they reached about an inch in length. The amber glow faded from his rigid muscles as his emaciated flesh plumped and filled. A sense of disgust for the weak, vulnerable, one–armed creature washed over him.
He was the Serpent once more.
He opened his jaws, and screamed in triumph. At least a decade had passed, in his personal time, since he had reveled in his true self.
He turned towards Talya’s blazing, flayed figure. Her white flames swayed and rolled with the speed of flowing molasses. Time had wound down, or rather, his frame of reference had sped up to match that of the Sage’s processors. He tried to gather his thoughts, to focus through his newfound, overwhelming sense of hatred. Ripples of energy surged through his spine, power that he could never feel while trapped within the pathetic creature that lay beside him.
He whipped his tail around Zeta’s roots and vines, and pulled them from Talya’s inferno. He wrapped his belly around them, smothering their orange cinders. He gazed at the first–generation Cyleb that had tormented them both, and caused so many deaths. This was his chance to destroy her, but how?
The first time he had completely removed his arm, he had transformed into a savage brute of instinct. He still felt that primordial power within his muscles and bones, a fundamental force of anger, will, and madness. But each time he used it, his mind grew sharper, and more accustomed. He could not stay this way, not forever. Within the relative minutes that had passed since he had released the Snake, he had probably aged at least a year. The longer he stayed divided, the faster time passed over his body. My human body, he thought with revulsion as he examined his coils, not this magnificent —
Blisters broke out across his scales.
At first he thought that he had injured himself while putting out the fires in his mother’s vines, but these were not burns. Blotches the color of salmon marred his skin. Before his eyes, pus–coated bubbles swelled along his length. They were infected. Even as the Serpent, he was still susceptible to Talya’s pestilence.
He shot down the hall towards the decrepit door. It was a flimsy thing, its wood long rotted from the damp of the catacombs. He hammered it with his snout until it splintered enough for him to slither through.
He looked down. His blisters had popped. A clear discharge oozed from their holes. The scales that surrounded them had shed, leaving the flesh beneath bleeding and raw. He wriggled down the corridor as fast as he could until he reached a brick wall. He turned his head back, and saw the flickering rays of her light peek through the broken door. If he could still see them, then they could still infect him.
He would have to rush her. He did not want to sink his fangs into any parts of her that were soft and tender, he wanted to drive his teeth in–between her joints. He wanted to find some part of her that would crack, something that his jaws could shatter. Then he would grind her nerves into its jagged edges until she screamed and screamed —
He fought to think through the raw emotion that burned across his mind. How had he gotten through the last time? The bricks glistened beneath the light of Talya’s distant glare, and he remembered. Their wet shine was his doing. He had softened them by changing the Sage, and saturating them with ground water. He had…
He laughed.
With his shoulder torn a few inches, he had just barely been able to affect San Domenico’s water table. He had created just enough moisture to weaken the wall. But now his arm was detached, and the schism between his two forms infused him with exponentially greater ability. He was the Serpent, the Worm. His mind was one with the Sage.
He focused his pain and rage upon the curved ceiling. Let there be an underground lake above us, he thought. Let there be a chasm the size of the city hidden beneath its surface, nearly overflowing with uncountable years of trapped water.
He looked up, and saw clear beads seep through the cracks in the mortar. Centimeter by centimeter, the stones and bricks nestled within the arch of the tunnel crept downward. In his new, rewritten history, they had supported the tremendous weight of the water above for centuries. Now, they were unable to hold it back any longer. He squirmed to the side wall, and stretched himself into a straight line along its gutter.
The first brick fell.
It tumbled through the air, and shattered on the cobblestones. The others followed, forced down by the colossal mass of the lake above. Then the deluge crashed to the floor, bringing down the entire ceiling in its wake.
Despite his attempt to negate its fury, the torrent swept him up, and propelled him down the hallway. Like a gargantuan fist, the underground river smashed through the rotted door, taking most of the wall with it. It carried him into the crypt, along with the debris of bricks, wood, and corpses. He managed to wrap his tail around his mother’s roots, and clung to her as the raging current drove his head against the stone.
As if in slow motion, the wall of water hit Talya with the strength of a tidal wave. He watched as her flames fizzled and dance
d beneath its assault, churning the rapids around them into a storm of bubbles. Her submerged sun flared even brighter as it fought to stay lit. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, it winked out.
An effigy of white–hot embers, about one foot long, glowed at her center with futile determination. It reminded him of a crude rag doll. Two blackened pits stared at him from the middle of its bulbous head.
He reared back through the unrelenting waves, bared his fangs, and struck.
Chapter 23
The crypt and its frigid waters swam and faded before Matthew’s eyes, leaving him within a blurry, featureless void. He took a deep breath, and expelled it from his lungs. His airway felt blessedly clear. He licked his teeth, and found that they were all present and healthy. He was human again, but his accelerated mind was still operating at the highest levels of the Sage’s core. He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, its muscles still infused with the energy of the Snake. He blinked, and craned his neck as the world around him came into focus.
He found himself standing in the rear of an antiquated operating room. Its floor was a cracked chessboard of gray and black tiles. Faded streaks the color of rust stained the grout that lay between them. Clumps of brown gunk spotted the relief of the plaster molding that ran along its walls. The dank smell of must and the sharp odor of ammonia battled for dominance over his sinuses. He looked up. He could just make out a balcony high in the darkness. Austere, lined faces stared down at him, their lips tight and pursed. Though they were all elderly, they were of varying genders and ethnicities. Some were dressed in NorMec military uniforms, while others sported business attire. All of them wore black, reflective glasses.
At the center of the theater stood a blazing giant, his back to Matthew. His phosphorescent flesh glowed with the same white light that had shone from inside of Talya. He was the only source of illumination in the room. He stood at least fifteen feet tall. An elastic string had been tied around the back of his head.
Matthew looked at his own body, and saw that he was dressed in NorMec desert fatigues. The titan’s fiery, white glare had not diseased him, at least as far as he could tell. He examined his left arm.
Though it hovered at his side, its top was detached at his shoulder. A fuzzy, silvery glow emanated from its inch–wide division. The limb was serpentine, ending in the eyeless head of the Snake. Its snout rippled and changed as he watched. Sometimes it was black, elongated, and toothless. At others its scales were coppery, and it bore the head, fangs, and hood of a cobra. Occasionally it became translucent and ribbed, its trisected mouth lined with rows of needle–like teeth, reminding him of an albino worm.
“We are ready to begin,” said the giant, his gravelly tones reverberating from the ceiling. Matthew swallowed. It was the voice of his father. He circled the fiery colossus, though the creature took no notice of him. A plastic Halloween mask of Malachi Jaeger’s distended features covered the front of the titan’s head. His white light shone from its eyeholes.
“The subject has the designation of Charlie–Two,” said the glowing creature. He gazed down at the operating table before him.
A small rag doll had been strapped to its surface. It wore a ratty, soiled patchwork skirt of blue and gold. It had two black beads for eyes. Rough stitches crisscrossed along the length of its embroidered lips. A blackened line of melted fabric ran down the side of its neck. Its sackcloth head had been wedged between two long, silvery tubes. Black rubber–coated cords snaked from each of them to a machine underneath the gurney. The blazing man reached down, and switched it on.
A low electric hum filled the room, making its high windows rattle. The giant’s hand came away from the device, holding a remote with a single button and dial.
“Charlie–Two, this tribunal has found you guilty of exceeding your authority. Our intent here is not to punish, but to help you remember the truth.” He began to pace. “On August seventh, you personally infected the city of Denver with streptococcal bacteria. While this did wipe out the WesMec battalion garrisoned there, the city is considered a civilian target. Many innocent lives, including children, were lost. NorMec does not engage in biological warfare, nor does it attack civilian targets. Therefore, you acted alone, and without orders. Is this not true?”
There was a pause. The doll said nothing. The giant sighed, and pressed the button. Forks of electricity arced over the cloth surface of its head. He took his thumb off the trigger, and the assault ceased.
“That is a lie. You were not under orders. The civilian deaths were your fault, and yours alone. You Cylebs have a history of overreaching your approved boundaries. I think this tribunal will agree that it’s high time you were all held accountable for your actions.” He raised his luminous head. A low murmur of agreement echoed from above. “Now, I will ask again. You acted alone and without orders, against the explicit policies of NorMec Gov. Isn’t that true?”
A few seconds passed. The lifeless doll remained silent. The titan pressed the button again, causing another miniature lightning storm. Acrid smoke filled the air as two black circles formed on the burlap that touched the electrodes.
The fiery colossus released his thumb. “No, that is incorrect. No one gave you such orders.” He turned the dial one click to the right. “Repeat after me, Charlie–Two. ‘I acted on my own. I alone killed innocent children. I alone am at fault. I am to blame.’”
He pressed the button again. The doll did not react, save for the smoke of its fabric.
The monster wearing the dime–store General Jaeger mask shook his head. “That was wrong,” he said. His voice sounded sad. He turned the dial once more. “But don’t worry, we are your friends. We will help you remember the truth. Repeat, please. ‘I acted alone. I alone chose to take innocent lives. I alone am to blame.’”
A few moments went by. He jabbed the button. This time, the stuffing inside of the rag toy’s head burst into flames.
Matthew ran forward, unnoticed. He could not help himself. He yanked the electrodes from the sides of the doll, and batted at its flames with the head of the Serpent —
“Sit down, Kursantka.”
Matthew turned around. His surroundings had changed into those of a luxurious, wood–paneled office. Scarlet flags decorated its walls. The luminescent giant sat behind a desk of polished mahogany. He still wore the plastic mask that mimicked the face of Malachi Jaeger.
Before him, in a metal chair, sat the doll. Its lips were still sewn together, but the cloth of its neck was unmarred. Though it still bore the occasional rip and tear, its blue and gold skirt was cleaner than before, and less tattered.
The titan sighed, and interlaced his fiery fingers. He leaned over the desk, looming over the toy.
“I understand that this is difficult,” he said. “We are not heartless, we are not cruel. But you must agree that this was part of the oath that you took when you joined the program. We are more than common soldiers. We are trusted with the highest secrets of the Motherland. If you carried to term, your child would be in danger her entire life. She could always be a target for blackmail. Trust me, this way is better.”
The doll simply sat, propped up in its metal chair.
“I am being your friend, here. Remember, you took an oath.”
Again, there was silence.
The colossus stood. He stepped in front of the chair, and smacked the toy across its face. It flew across the room, hit the wood–paneled wall, and fell to the floor. He walked to where it lay, and sighed.
“For your sake,” the giant said in Malachi’s voice, “I will forget that you said that.” His tone was soft and conversational. “There is no rescinding of the oath, not for us. Treason is punishable by death.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips through the holes in his mask. “You are young, you are not even legally a woman, yet. Your whole life and career are in front of you. Your aptitude scores are all off the charts, don’t throw everything away. Trust me, I am doing what’s best for you.”
There w
as another pause.
“Instructor Sokolov is no longer your concern. Forget about him, you will never see him again. You will submit to the procedure this afternoon. The official story will be that tumors were discovered within your uterus, and it had to be removed. We are your mother and your father. As such, we will make sure that this mistake does not happen again. Do not worry. You are not the first girl in this academy to fall prey to such foolishness, and most likely you will not be the last. Now, repeat after me. ‘This was my own doing.’”
A few seconds went by. “‘I choose the procedure of my own free will.’” After a second, the flaming titan repeated the phrase, his voice louder and sterner than before. Half a minute went by.
“Very good,” he said. He picked the doll up off of the floor, and placed it tenderly on the metal chair. A chunk of stuffing protruded from a tear in its neck. He pushed it back in with his gargantuan finger, and pinched the sackcloth around it shut. It fused together beneath his fiery digits, leaving the seam smoking and charred.
“There,” he said as he returned to his leather chair, “just like new.” He leaned back, and cracked his glowing knuckles. “The nurse will come to get you shortly. When you wake up in the morning, it will be as if all this had never happened.”
Matthew approached the chair. He waved his arms, both human and serpentine, but the giant paid him no attention. He turned to the rag doll. Its head lay tilted to the side, its neck still smoldering. He reached out with the Snake, and touched it —
A pink haze came into focus. It was not the color of the light in the room, but of its decor. The light, which came from the titan wearing the cheap Malachi mask, was white. He sat on a bed that was covered by a pink comforter and lacy pillows. His stooped, gargantuan shoulders, neck, and head pressed against the ceiling.
Toy ponies, bears, and dolls lay strewn across the floor. On the corner of the bed, a brown stuffed animal that resembled a huge–eared monkey lay with its face pressed against the wall. A poster of a unicorn with a rainbow for a tail had been tacked above the headboard. The drawing showed only its bright, yellow hindquarters. It had turned its back upon the room, choosing to gaze over a cheerful green hill instead.