Trapped

by James Alan Gardner

  Yet no matter how much the mental onslaught pained the good Lucifer, I could sense no fear in its soul. The angel had embodied itself as Rosalind, wearing a radiant smile; I could feel the same beatific assurance filling the Lucifer as it touched my mind. A confidence that everything would work out for the best.

  How can you believe that? I asked. You’re hanging by a thread, yet you still think you’ll be saved?

  The answer didn’t come in words. Instead, I had a vision of the Caryatid in her classroom, watching a dog’s tongue predict she would go on a quest; I heard Rosalind’s harp playing in empty darkness; finally, I was shown again the moment in our chancellor’s suite when Opal said, “It sure is a bitch living in a universe where so many species are smarter than you.”

  What was the Lucifer trying to tell me? That the League of Peoples had anticipated this, the same way they’d foreseen the fall of Satan? That they’d arranged to bring me here because I could somehow put things right?

  If not for the haunting, we wouldn’t have discovered Rosalind’s death till many hours later—too late for any of us to reach Niagara Falls in time. If not for the prophecy, I wouldn’t have thought to call my Mends after finding Rosalind’s body. And without my Mends, without the haunting and prophecy, I wouldn’t have arrived where I was now.

  Was that it? The League had manufactured supernatural events to nudge me and my friends in the direction we’d gone?

  A wave of agreement came from the Lucifer. It believed I’d been brought here to play the hero. Me. As if I could save the world.

  Suddenly, my fink with the Lucifer broke. A moment of dizziness. Then I was back in my own body, seeing with my own eyes by the dim violet fight of the lasers. The -rod and my Element gun lay a footstep away. The mound of black grains had pulled back against the walls of the prison cube, leaving me lying in a clear space in the middle. I felt as if I’d woken inside a volcano cone, with heaps of dark ash all around me.

  I wasn’t alone on the cage’s floor. A short distance away, Sebastian lay squeezed into fetal position. He looked dead.

  Slowly, carefully, I moved across the floor to Sebastian. When I tried to touch him, my hand was thrown back as if something had shoved it away. Nanites. They’d formed a shell around him, ready to repel anyone who came close...like a ring of growling dogs protecting their fallen master. If I tried to touch the boy again, I suspected the nanites would respond with more than a harmless push.

  Now that I was closer, I could see Sebastian was still breathing. He didn’t look injured: just catatonic. And who could blame him? He’d discovered he’d bedded a monster—the monster who’d killed poor Rosalind. The boy might also have realized he’d butchered dozens of innocent Keepers at the monster’s prompting. Then there were the ugly deaths he’d seen: Impervia and the Caryatid. Enough to drive anyone into a stupor...especially a sensitive teenage boy whose head had been full of romantic notions.

  It’s devastating when you finally recognize the world is cruel. But time was running out, and Sebastian was the only one who could put things right.

  “This is it, isn’t it?” I said to the Lucifer. “Why I was brought here. I’m the boy’s don; I’m supposed to get through to him. You think I can wake him before it’s too late.”

  A rustle went through the surrounding black mound: a scratchy sandy hiss.

  I nearly gave a bitter laugh. All this way, through bullets, fire, and acid; then it turned out my role was not to slay monsters but to talk to a teenager.

  Almost as if my destiny was to be a schoolteacher.

  “Sebastian,” I said, “it’s Dr. Dhubhai.”

  The boy didn’t move. Still scrunched into a tight fetal ball.

  I tried again. “You’ve just experienced some horrible things. Worse than you could imagine. And you probably don’t understand a bit of what’s going on.”

  The gunpowder mass rustled again. I took that to mean agreement. When the Lucifer covered Sebastian, nanites must have immediately formed a shield around the boy. They’d prevented the mound from establishing a mental link; otherwise, the Lucifer could have melted into Sebastian’s thoughts and perhaps eased away the catatonia.

  “I could explain everything,” I told the boy, “but that would take time and we don’t have much to spare.”

  Once more the black grains rustled in agreement.

  “So here’s how it is,” I said. “You’re feeling like the world is broken. Your life is ruined and nothing will ever be the same.

  “Well...you’re partly right. Good people are dead: people who never deserved what happened to them. And you’ve done some ghastly things. You were tricked into doing them, but you’ll still have to live with the memory. That’s going to hurt; perhaps forever.

  “But you know what, Sebastian? Everyone’s life is a mess. Everyone’s. We all make mistakes...and not just little slip-ups. Major mistakes that hurt us and other people. We all go down wrong paths because we don’t know better...or because we’re too lazy, lonely, and afraid to change.

  “I’ve screwed up my life just like everyone else. I’ve been a teacher ten years and I’ve never taken it to heart. Isn’t that ridiculous? I should either get out or accept where I am. No more acting like the job is beneath me.

  “And women! I can’t begin to list the ways I’ve been a fool. Staying with one woman because she was convenient...even though she and I knew the affair was a poor substitute for what we should have wanted. And for years I looked down on another woman, even though she was far more than I ever dreamed; not to mention how I was completely blind to a third woman, who must have been hurt every day by my obliviousness.

  “Those three women are dead now, Sebastian. I’ll never get the chance to make it up to them. I’d like to curl up into a ball and cry until my eyes bleed.

  “But crying won’t help. Nothing will. I can’t fix the past. I can only resolve to do better in future.

  “Are you listening, Sebastian? Can you hear what I’m saying? Because I’m going to tell you something important: something everybody knows and everybody forgets. Are you listening? Here it is. You have to confront life. That’s all. No matter how tempting avoidance may be, you have to confront fife. I know it sounds trite, like the usual nonsense teachers tell their students. But it’s true. You have to confront life. If you don’t, your problems just fester. Nothing gets cleaned up. The messes you’ve made just grow worse.

  “Believe me, I know. In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve seen people confront their fives. I’ve seen them do what had to be done...even if it meant they’d die. They faced up to necessity. I don’t claim to be a great example myself—but you know what? I’m doing it.”

  I stood...walked back to the Element gun and the -rod. Picking them up, I told the boy, “I could leave right now. I could head for the door and this big sand-heap probably wouldn’t try to stop me. If it did, I could blast my way free. Out of this cage, out of this building, out of the whole ugly mess. I wouldn’t go back to the academy—my purse is full and I can live like a king almost anywhere on Earth. No one would track me down. I’m not important enough for the Sparks or Satan to care about.

  “But I’m still here with you, Sebastian. Because you have the power to set things right. You can’t bring back Rosalind; you can’t resurrect the people who’ve died. But you can remove your dam; you can reconnect the power cables; you can save the sanity of an innocent creature; and you can foil the plans of a monster who killed the girl you loved. All you have to do is use your power—speak to those little puppies who want to follow your orders. It would be so easy. I know you’re tired; it must seem impossible to make the tiniest effort. God knows I’ve felt the same. Paralyzed. You can barely breathe, Sebastian, and I’m just some pompous adult preaching platitudes.

  “You wish I’d shut up...but I have to say something you might not have considered. About Rosalind. I’ve been thinking of her ever since last night, and the image that keeps coming to mind was the way she’d gaz
e out the windows during math class. Just staring, as if she was light-years away. I would have said she was disconnected from life: stuck in a trap of her mother’s making; wrapped up in numbness and three-quarters dead. But then she made a decision—to elope with you. Not a decision I’d agree with, and if I caught you two sneaking out, you’d both get homework detentions for the next thirty years...but it was a sign of life, Sebastian. Rosalind recognized something had to change, and she did something about it.

  “So did you, Sebastian. You and Rosalind together. It must have taken courage; and now, after horrible things have happened, maybe you’re thinking you never should have done it. But there’s no such thing as playing safe. Life might hurt, but it’s better than numbness. Rosalind knew that. So did you when you agreed to elope with her. Be brave again, Sebastian. Wake up and do something. It’ll get easier once you start. Just talk to your nanite friends and ask them to help.”

  The light in the room flickered. For a moment, I didn’t realize what that meant; I thought Sebastian had come to his senses and done something...told the nanites to start repairing everything that needed to be fixed. Then the flicker came again and the truth struck me: the only illumination in the entire chamber was the soft violet glow from the lasers.

  The lasers flickered once more, then went out.

  Deep blackness—the thick absence of light that happens only underground. One tiny glitter remained: the red and green nuggets on the -rod I held in my hand.

  The room was utterly silent: nothing but the thud of my pulse. Then all around me, black gunpowder grains whispered against one another.

  Uh-oh.

  The cage had run out of power. No more mental shield protecting the angel from the demon. I could imagine Satan screaming in triumph as it crushed its good enemy with galaxy-sized willpower.

  A million black cellules rustled again.

  Quickly turning off the -rod and tucking it up one sleeve, I gripped my Element gun in both hands. I pulled the trigger and swung in a fast circle, spraying a bright stream of fire spiraling outward. Dark grains sizzled as the flames swept across them, but the blaze only scorched a thin layer on the outside of the mound. Underneath the blistered surface, the-Lucifer rolled itself forward like a dune in a windstorm.

  “Sebastian!” I yelled. “Wake up!”

  The boy didn’t move.

  I moved to his comatose body and stood astride him, gun ready to fire again. I’d released the trigger after the first burst, but there was enough light to see by—small patches of the Lucifer were burning, weak orange embers all around me. Those tiny fires must have caused the creature pain, but it showed no sign of being intimidated; the great black mound continued to close in, rasping as sand crept across the floor.

  “Sebastian!” I loosed another gout of flame from the gun. Roaring orange streamed forth, painful to the eyes; it cast the Lucifer’s shadow onto the room’s stone walls. I made another complete circle with the fire, then quickly switched to acid. It spattered like deadly rain, hissing when it hit hot-spots left by the flamethrower. There were more ember patches on the mound now, dozens of them...but they just made it easier to see that the bulk of the Lucifer wasn’t damaged at all. My gun could only dole out flesh wounds; and it would soon exhaust its ammunition.

  Flame. Acid. Flame. Acid. Nothing stopped the Lucifer’s steady approach. I was sure the alien mass could move faster—Jode had lashed out like lightning at Pelinor—but this was a creature who toyed with its prey. Before it killed me, Satan wanted to smell my fear.

  Flame. Acid. Then I pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

  I switched to bullets and emptied the clip. Despite the noise and muzzle flash, my barrage was as useless as firing rounds into a sandbank. When I ran out of lead, I tried hypersonics. No discernible effect; if anything, the rustling around me grew louder with gleeful anticipation.

  The battery powering the hypersonics went dead. I dropped the gun and pulled the -rod from my sleeve, pressing the activation button immediately. With luck, I’d banish a few more cellules from this plane of existence before a flood of them rushed down my throat.

  Embers in all directions. The mound towered above me, twice my height.

  “It’s okay,” I said to Sebastian—not from calm acceptance, but because I didn’t want Satan to see me panic. “Your nanites will keep you safe; and I’ll join my friends in whatever comes next. Gretchen. Oberon. Myoko. Pelinor. Impervia. The Caryatid. Annah.” I took a deep breath. “Rosalind. I’m going to die like Rosalind, Sebastian. Unless you do something.”

  Glowing embers showed the Lucifer was almost within reach. “In the name of Most Merciful Compassionate God,” I said. “Praise be to God, the Lord of all Being; All-Merciful,

  All-Compassionate, the Master of the day of judgment. Thee only do we worship and of thee do we beg assistance.”

  I lifted the -rod to swing it at the mound...then suddenly, an idea blossomed inside my beleaguered brain. Inspiration. I dropped to my knees and whacked the rod hard on Sebastian.

  To be honest, I doubted it would work—the nanites protecting the boy might resist the -rod’s effects, might even knock the rod from my hands before it made contact. But either the nanites couldn’t resist or they were smart enough to recognize I had Sebastian’s interests at heart. The -rod came down...made contact...and the boy disappeared.

  The gunpowder heap loosed a furious hiss, like a poisonous snake cheated of its prey. It hurtled toward me, no longer teasing out the moment of fear but trying to avalanche across the gap before I too escaped. The leading edge slammed against my legs, knocking me off my feet; but as I fell, I had time to swing the rod, slap my own chest with the tip...

  ...and the sandy roar fell silent. The burning embers vanished. I finished my fall and struck dust that billowed up in clouds on my impact.

  A weight clinging to my legs sloughed off: gunpowder grains that had traveled with me on this abrupt trip to wherever. They dropped limply from my clothing into the dust, all sign of malice gone.

  I looked up. I was inside another laser cage, much bigger than the one I’d just left, but still delineated by thin violet beams outlining a cube. Those beams showed this cage was still working, isolating the captured cellules from the Satanic overmind outside. It made perfect sense; since this was where Spark Lords sent bits of Lucifer, they’d erected a special holding cell to separate the parts from the whole.

  Beyond the cell ceiling, stars shone untwinkling in a pure black sky. There was no sun, but amidst the starry waste floated a large cloudy blue moon. I knew it wasn’t really a moon at all—I’d seen photographs from OldTech space missions, and I recognized the Earth when I saw it.

  My homeworld. My planet. Drifting overhead as I stood in a laser prison on the moon.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” said a voice behind me. I turned. It was Annah.

  25

  EARTHRISE

  For a moment, my heart surged with joy; then the joy was crushed by depression. “I know you’re not real,” I said. Dull weariness washed over me. “You’re just another doppelganger—a collection of all the cellules sent here over the years. I don’t know how you realized that looking like Annah would torment me...but frankly I don’t care.” I still held the -rod in my hand; I waved it in warning, like showing a cross to a vampire. “Come any closer, and I’ll hit you with this. Unless I miss my guess, that will send you back to Niagara Falls. One tap brings you here. Another returns you to wherever...”

  My voice trailed off. The Annah in front of me had brought out an identical rod. “This is the one Jode stole from Mind-Lord Priest. I was standing over Jode when I shot Knife-Hand Liz. The rod was right at my feet. I fired my gun, then dived to grab it; I used it on myself a millisecond before the Ring of Knives men tried to shoot me.”

  I stared at her numbly. Forcing myself not to believe.

  “It’s true, Phil,” she said. “I got out in time. Didn’t you notice I w
as gone?”

  “There was an explosion,” I mumbled. “Nothing but charred heaps of...” I didn’t finish the sentence. “Annah?”

  “Yes, Phil. It’s me.” She held open her arms.

  I walked forward—knowing full well it might be a Lucifer trick. But I didn’t care. If this vision of Annah transformed into a slurry of maggots that choked me to death, so be it. I was numb to fear, numb to hope, numb, numb, numb.

  She wrapped her arms around me. I laid my head on her shoulder. She kissed my hair, but said nothing.

  For a long time we just stood there, body to body. Her breath soft beside me; the smell of her skin and hair slowly working into my consciousness.

  At some point, I put my arms around her too. But neither of us spoke as the Earth slowly drifted overhead.

  We might have stood that way forever. What broke the spell was something bumping hard against my leg. I looked down and saw an amorphous black blob trying to wrap itself around my ankle. It was the size of a housecat but made of gunpowder grains that glinted in the Earthlight; I shook it off in disgust and it slid away, leaving a haphazard track in the moondust.

  Annah unwrapped her arms from me. “There are lots of those things here,” she said as she watched the blob weave away. I could see she was right; the cage held more than a dozen masses of similar size, moving apparently at random across the lunar surface. They showed no sign of intelligence—deprived of contact with Satan, they seemed as mindless as worms.