by M F Sullivan
A few nights after being martyred, Cassandra started getting sick again. That wasn’t right. Once a martyr’s transformation was complete, they should have felt healthier than ever. Stronger, faster, smarter. Instead, on night three, Dominia awoke from their brief state of matrimonial bliss to fine their honeymoon aborted. Cassandra shivered in the bathroom, her body around the porcelain toilet like it was the first hour of the illness over again.
Dominia forever remembered that conversation in fragmented images: the cold tile floor; the strand of hair sticking to her wife’s damp cheek; her own voice saying over and over, “Are you okay? Are you okay? Oh, Cassandra, oh, sweetheart, oh, honey, are you okay?”
Cassandra’s terrible red vomit. The sticky sensation of her forehead and shoulders; the acid stench of the bathroom as the new martyr’s quivering body recoiled against the sink. Her great doe eyes, lined with sleepless shadows, landing fearfully on Dominia’s.
“I should have told you. Oh, I should have told you— I’m so sorry.”
Her hand on her stomach. The pallid skin of her face. Cassandra lurched to vomit again, gasping for air between horrible wretches, while a million tiny things clicked into place for Dominia. The powder-soft fragrance of her bride’s skin, the perfect glow of her face, the comforting pillow of her body. A perfect kind of softness found in the swells of maternal breasts and thighs thickened just so. The thunder of terrible understanding propelled Dominia from the room until she came to her senses at the door.
“You can’t be pregnant. How can you be pregnant?” Dominia’s brain tried to make sense of this and found perfect sense in their whirlwind romance that had felt so destined, so beautiful and pure and true. She knew the truth without having to be told as Cassandra lifted her gasping head and from behind shaking shoulders wept, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry: I was pregnant when I came to you. I wanted to save my baby. It was all I had left— He was shipped off to the war, Dominia—”
“You lied to me.”
“I never lied to you! I just never knew how to tell you. I knew after I told you, nothing could be the same.”
“Because you knew I never would have let this happen! I would have made you—wait, at least.”
“That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”
Dominia had ground the heels of her palms into her eyes as if she then wished to hasten her future blindness along. Oh, Lamb, the pain. To discover their love artificial! “No wonder we rushed. No wonder it was so serendipitous and urgent. That was how you wanted it.”
“I’m sorry.” Cassandra uttered a sob that was muted by the back of the hand she pressed to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I’m so in love with you: I would never lie about that.”
Like a broken automaton, the General paced the hall. “Why would you do this? Why would you do this to me? I thought you loved me.”
“Please, I do love you. Dominia—” But more vomiting came, and with it, more weeping. Even in memory, Dominia’s ribs ached to see Cassandra suffering so. In seconds, she was by her wife’s side, hands on her shoulders as Cassandra righted herself. Carefully, the new martyr said, “I do love you. It’s true that I came to you at first because of who and what you were. But I didn’t expect—feeling the way I do. Loving you the way I do. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted to hide it, to have the baby in secret, and then…I don’t know. Find some place for it to go. I didn’t realize it would be like this, that I would feel like this.”
“Of course! Do you understand why? Do you understand what’s happening? Your baby is eating you from the inside. Your body is feeding itself to your baby. You know why pregnant women aren’t martyred? Because they die, Cassandra. The mothers and their babies, they both die.” Dominia took a sharp breath and, fire in her watering eyes, gasped, “But I won’t let you.”
“Even though I hid this?”
“No. Because you’ve made this my baby, too. And I—I have to handle this.”
The delirium of that moment. She had put Cassandra back to sleep and excused herself to get a bottle of wine; her wife still slept when she returned. Then, as now, her lips trembled to think that their happy synchronicity, that beautiful and romantic moment on the beach, was some lure to trap her forever: But what good had been her feelings when her wife suffered? At any rate, she believed Cassandra. When she said that she loved Dominia, it was true. The General felt it then, and felt it still almost a full century later as she let herself into the empty Satin Car room. She felt it, much as she felt the weight of her failed responsibility to keep her good wife, her kind wife, safe from the world’s many harms. She was glad René hadn’t returned, because only Basil saw her cry.
IX
The Dog and the Rat
René’s extended absence would not be cause for Dominia’s concern until almost too late. Without Basil, the professor might well have maintained his tenuous control of the situation. Frankly, without Basil, her journey would have been shorter and messier, but she wouldn’t realize that for several nights; and it would take far longer before she came to understand why this was. For the moment, she was occupied with a storm of distressing problems, like the absence of Cassandra’s diamond, and the thought of what happened in the United Front, which rose back every so often. All those suffering people. Or people who were, at any rate, about to suffer. She lay catatonic in the top bunk, Basil asleep on the floor and the television the solitary glow of a room, which, lacking open windows or active lights, recalled a mausoleum. The Light Rail raced the sun and always lost, but it made an impressive effort, and was a cause of major disorientation in most travelers. She would hurtle through about four time zones and emerge in Kabul before the city saw dawn. When that happened, in what condition would she be? How many eyes would she have? From minute to minute, her life was a tahgmahr such that she couldn’t keep up. The distractions of media were, for her, no more distracting from her problems than newspapers for a schizophrenic: every headline, pregnant with a threat. This was a more objective situation, however, as she watched the Hierophant’s statement on the events in Japan. The man on the old-fashioned two-dimensional set absolutely addressed her. He was thin with lack of food, had probably eschewed sleep to make himself look extra haggard. His hair looked whiter than usual, lacked sheen, and reminded her that Basil needed to eat something proper.
“My children,” began the sorrowful Holy Father, “it has come to my attention that Kyoto has been the site of a tragic terrorist attack.” While Dominia suppressed her annoyance, the Hierophant heaved a sigh. “An error was made in my most recent press conference: Dominia di Mephitoli, thought dead, is alive and well. I am sorry to say I have proof. If you have children, please remove them from the room.”
There followed footage already overplayed by the Japanese news: Dominia cringed to see herself sweeping out of the fog of war. The guns, the blades, the blood, the horror. Her hand rested against her forehead as she endured the scene. Why did this feel so much worse than all those military nights? Not to say those nights didn’t plague her—there was a reason she, with three-quarters of a bottle of wine in her system, already thought of ordering another while she still had the luxury. Those nights did plague her. Had plagued her. They had driven her out to the seaside to meet Cassandra that day.
It was her wife’s softening influence that had made the vicious General into such a compassionate Governess. It wasn’t hard to appear kinder than the previous governor, Dominia’s late (very late) second cousin, Trimalchio of California, who was assassinated by a South American Hunter cell early in the twenty-year conflict. In this war’s aftermath, her Father had placed her on the North American throne; the Family then began to prod her into reinstating Trimalchio’s camp system, which had, in their estimate, streamlined both labor and food production processes.
Dominia disagreed. She saw the Front as a model for how martyrs and humans might live together. The notion inspired her all the more now, nursing as she did memories of that month in which she and Cass
andra were happiest. Happiest as human and martyr, prey and predator. All the problems started when Cassandra became a martyr. Yet, being martyred never changed Dominia’s wife: her heart was, in the end, the greatest burden the poor woman was forced to endure. Martyred as an adult, she had retained intact her conscience, morals, and ethics; she had struggled to eat; and she had begged Dominia, from the instant the General was appointed Governess, to rule kindly, if only to ease Cassandra’s mind.
“Imagine all those humans are me,” she would plead.
Impossible. No other human being could be such a unique combination of heart-wrenching and heartbreaking, of inflaming and infuriating. But all those pleas over time had worked, and Dominia had been able, with her wife’s support, to stay strong on the issue of camps, of labor laws, of human health care and a real brand of universal income, which, in the General’s experience, did an excellent job of attracting large swathes of free, mobile immigrants to allow a more sporting, hunt-based system of food acquisition. The game was fairer when humans knew they’d ought not to be out at night. They were defenseless without the government streamlining undesirables into grocery stores.
Of course, not all humans were defenseless. On the train, Dominia was drawn back to reality not by the words of her Father but by the whine of the dog. Basil sat by the door with his big eyes turned to Dominia, sometimes easing up on hindquarters as though reaching for the handle.
“I was just thinking about how hungry you must be.”
As the Hierophant went on to say, “Even now, I am taking extreme measures to ensure the hasty capture and extradition of my daughter,” she rifled through René’s bag in pursuit of a necktie, the best option for a leash in a place that would never abide an unrestrained dog. All the while, Basil’s whines grew more urgent, and rose to such a frequency that they almost drowned out her Father. “Though her whereabouts are yet uncertain, I have some intelligence regarding her destination, and her means of transportation. And my instincts inform me she watches this broadcast even now.”
“I’m working on it, buddy, just a minute. I don’t know how this is going to work out…that’s a pretty nice Dining Car. Are you sure you want to— Hey!”
Incredibly, she’d caught him stretching on his hind legs, every ounce of his canine weight used to force the handle with both paws to trigger the door. The second it slid open, he was out. Teeth clenched, Dominia tossed the tie away and darted in pursuit rather than remaining to hear the words of her Father. She didn’t have to: they followed her into the hall. “If you are indeed watching this, Dominia, I beg you: please, come home. No more killing. The time in which we live is already so fraught with misunderstanding between martyr and mankind. Add not to fear, but come back home. All will be forgiven.”
The car outside was empty. Considering the hour, most people digested in the simulated beauty of the Observation Car. The rest whiled away their boredom in front of televisions, playing on phones, or gambling in the Dragon Car. Thank the Lamb for that—nobody to disturb. The dog was in a panic about something, barking as he pawed at the automatic door to the Silk Car. Though she almost caught him, he sprang like he knew where he was headed. Dominia suffered a twinge of maternal anxiety as the door slid open and they emerged upon the gangway with the transparent walls of the giant pneumatic tube all around them. Wouldn’t most animals be terrified? But Basil seemed more competent than even her. Not scared at all. What a strange animal—and stranger still because he went not after the source of distant food smell but straight to Miki Soto’s door. He gave one urgent, muted bark, then danced from leg to leg while hopping to indicate the keypad.
“Stuck in a well, is she? You’re not even pretending anymore.” With a shake of her head, the General tapped the code that allowed them into a foyer with a marble floor, a small chandelier, and an artificial ivory-lined telephone table. As if she had stepped into a scaled-down mansion. The dog, without Dominia’s amazement, charged through, and she snapped from her momentary befuddlement to follow that which Basil pursued: sounds of violence.
Through the door to the left and past the tiny dining room, a miniature living area stood in terrible disarray. A coffee table covered in takeout had been upended, but it hardly obscured the dead businessman who’d just wanted to suffer at the hands of a beautiful woman. Poor guy. Who didn’t? While Dominia tutted in sympathy, she turned her attention to the struggling humans and might have felt more like an adult breaking up a couple of children if she weren’t so pissed at René, the apparent assailant, who was on top of—and throttling—Miki. For her part, the smaller human appeared as if her brain was about to go out of commission. While the dog barked in a panic, René looked up in time to see himself yanked off of Miki. He made another grab for her, but too late: blood flooded back into her brain as oxygen rushed back to her lungs, leaving the escort to gasp and cough back to consciousness while Dominia shook René by the collar.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You lying bastard, what is this? Who sent you?”
“It’s not what it looks like, Dominia,” he said, but the prostitute spoke, or tried: wheezing words, over and over. They sounded like “hiss size” or “his sighs” until, with a great cough and a clearing breath that came as Dominia worked it out on her own, Miki bellowed, “His eyes!”
The martyr’s mouth opened and shut in terrible comprehension. For the first time, she really looked into René’s eyes: and, perhaps because Dominia knew what to look for after having seen her own (a porcelain, creamy flatness), she realized Miki was right. René’s eyes, all this time, had been cyborgans made to upload video streams to the Hierophant.
The human in her grip winced when asked, “How could you?”
Whatever explanation he had drifted away. He tried being pathetic instead of making excuses. “You don’t understand, Dominia. He came to me. He forced me.”
“Of course he did. You would have to be stupid to go to him on your own. I’m not saying you aren’t stupid, of course. But anybody with half a survival instinct is going to stay far, far away from the Hierophant—and from me.”
“Not the Hierophant,” breathed René. “Cicero. You think what your old man did to you was bad? My eyes were normal before I met him—before I was busted for involvement with the refugees and the Hunters. The Hierophant was apologetic. He promised me that he would see me taken care of if I did this favor, but I—I didn’t want to do it, Dominia. You understand, don’t you? Like you said, no person would choose to do this. I was a good man, once. I ran a rescue operation, risked myself in a double life funneling refugees out of the country. But he found me. He threatened my whole operation. Threatened me. Please, Dominia, please! You’re a good woman. I hoped—I wanted to get you to Lazarus.”
“That’s what the Hierophant wants, too.” Miki clambered to her feet and smoothed the silk of her disheveled gown. Her hair, beyond repair, fell in velvet curtains as she loosed pin on hidden pin. “The Hierophant, and the Hunters. Poor Dominia’s not a tool to scoop up Mr. Popularity.”
“But I wanted to help her from the goodness of my heart.” The pleading man turned those recording eyes again upon the General “It’s true. Once I met you and learned about you, I wanted to bring you to Lazarus. To find a way to…” His expression strained. “I am sorry about your wife. I think it’s sad.”
Barely breathing, Dominia stepped away from René and half tossed him toward the door. “Did you kill that man?” She jerked her head in the body’s direction.
“It was self-defense.”
“Because he broke in,” Miki explained. “The Hierophant probably gave him access to your DIOX-I’s stream; I’m sure he’s had ready access to it the whole time that thing’s been in your head. Both he and René must have watched us while we were in the Dining Car. At least, I’d bet that’s how he got my pass code. Then, while I visited the Dragon Car, he killed my man and waited for me. If I weren’t quick as I am, I wouldn’t have escaped with my life.”
“If I decide I need to
kill you,” Dominia told him while he backed to the door, “I know where to find you. And if I decide I need to kill everyone on this train—”
“I won’t say a word to any of the staff, Dominia, believe me. I’m turning my eyes off right now, I promise!” The eerie phrase bothered her, but not as much as the notion that she had no way to verify he’d turned them off. “Oh, thank you, thank you for leaving me alive. I don’t deserve it.”
“You’re a thousand times more repulsive than him,” said Miki, nudging the corpse, then hurling a sharp-looking hair comb in René’s direction. “Get out of here if she’s not going to kill you.”
Before Basil snapped his ankle, René tried saying, “I wouldn’t have done anything to you if you hadn’t—”
A yelp—and not by any means the dog’s yelp—interrupted him, and the professor hurried out the door while Miki turned furious eyes to Dominia.
“Why are you letting him go? You really are stupid.”
“He’s harmless.”
The human, much shorter without her heels, raised her chin to show the bruises. “You’ve got to be kidding. Talk about damaging the merchandise! This is why beautiful vases are put behind glass.”
Dominia used an index finger to steer Miki’s chin back and forth under the light. Yeah, it was bad, but she had seen plenty worse; and from the look of it, René hadn’t known that the goal of strangulation was to cut off blood, rather than oxygen. Any progress was incidental. “You’ll be fine.”