The Terminals

by Michael F Stewart

  As I read the Wiki, my supposition grew more founded with my increasing confusion. The names of the Archons were sometimes called Aeons, or Daemons, or if they were Archons there could be upward of three hundred and sixty-five of them, not seven—and I could barely remember what I did yesterday let alone three hundred and sixty-five different names. It depended on what sect of Gnosticism you belonged to.

  Whatever their names, the seven appeared to be called the Hebdomad, which was also a place. The seven spheres—or eight, if you counted what came after—Barbelo—was that the same as Charlie’s Pleroma?

  Shit. What if the general was right? How could I understand this ancient religion without understanding the primary sources of its tenets, those esoteric doctrines only recently pieced together from fragments of Demotic and Coptic script? Regardless, reading the complete Gnostic Gospels—much less understanding them—would take far longer than I had. Still, I had to try.

  I opened another browser tab and called up the Terminal database, searching for Hillar McCallum and pulling up his file. I recalled Charlie’s story of the ancient pact to track the evil Gnostics across the millennia, but I’d forgotten the name of his sect and hadn’t come across it again in my research. Waves of shivers rattled through me.

  Sethians, Valentinians, Cainites, Ophites … Hillar, it appeared, was a Borborite, which … punching it into Google … roughly translated as a filthy one.

  Why would a group call itself filthy?

  The ancient Borborites—Seth and Theudas, I recalled now—engaged in highly sexual rituals, smearing bodies with semen and menstrual blood, consuming it in a weird Eucharist. That won my filthy vote. Some even said they ate the fetuses of babies conceived during rituals. My gorge rose.

  “So you did it,” Attila said from the doorway.

  I hadn’t realized the door had opened; my hands were pressed to the sides of my head as I read.

  “I assume since I don’t see Julie anywhere that you convinced her to pass on lethal injection for the day?” Attila took a tentative step inside the room.

  “Her name’s Angelica and the general has her stashed away somewhere.”

  Confusion flashed across Attila’s face, followed by grim understanding.

  “These people really existed,” I said, and waved my hand across the screen when he raised an eyebrow. “These people rooted for wisdom in entrails. It’s sick.”

  “You’re taking her place … It’s the same as suicide, you know?” His eyes lingered on my chest. I wasn’t wearing a bra. With the tight tank and the chill, it left little to the imagination. I flushed, tucking the blanket up around my armpits.

  “It’s not suicide,” I replied more crisply than I intended. “I’m saving another woman, and I’m trying to help the man I mistakenly sent in. I’m responsible for his death, too.”

  “You’re not Gnostic,” he protested.

  “And Siam wasn’t ancient Egyptian. He just knew about it.”

  “Sometimes what people admit they believe is different from what they do believe. They aren’t even true to themselves.” Reaching my bedside, he peered at the black lettering on my wrists.

  “Charlie isn’t a filthy one,” I said. “Small gift.”

  “What’s a filthy one, anyways?” His fingers were cool even against my arm, which was still covered in gooseflesh. “I don’t know whether you’ll have that on the other side,” he said, brushing the tattooed names.

  “Don’t you say, who you are is what you’ll be?”

  “It’s meant figuratively, not literally. But I’m glad you’re listening.” He bit his lip. “If you’re going to go through with this, you should know that I lied to you.”

  I pushed the tray table backward, and the sheet fell from around my chest to pool at my waist. Attila didn’t notice, but I was keenly aware of sitting exposed in a near-transparent top. “What do you mean?” He shut the door and returned to the bed.

  “When Charlie entered the afterlife, I said that he was okay.” I stared at Attila, not giving an inch. “He wasn’t. He was in more pain than I’ve ever sensed from a Euth or a terminal. As bad as any Christian hell. Worse than the Buddhist Naraka.”

  “I didn’t think the Buddhists had a hell. If they’re bad, they just reincarnate as a worm or something.”

  “Naraka isn’t eternal damnation, but it’s pretty darn close.” His voice stayed tense and he sat on the edge of the bed. In my mind, Charlie’s pain was all the more reason to venture after him. “And you’re trying to change the subject.”

  “You’re worried about me,” I said softly, suddenly realizing.

  “I’m not going to let you do this. It’s hard enough watching people die when I know there is a good chance that their sacrifice can save the lives of others.” He shook his head. “There is no chance this plan will work.”

  “Why didn’t you say you liked—”

  “Because of this!” He threw up his hands, and when he started to rise, I grabbed the waistband of his pants. After a moment, he calmed. “Because you’re a terminal.”

  I drew him closer—the smell of coffee, his hair gel, lingering toothpaste. Simple smells of life and an outside world. I tasted his bottom lip. And held.

  He breathed; his eyes remained open, but he did not pull away. I engulfed his top lip, and his hands encircled my waist, drawing me lower and back on to the pillow, he overtop. His crystal knocked against the floor as his vest dropped, and he wrestled briefly with the buttons of his shirt before hauling it over upraised arms, eyes bright.

  “You sure?” he asked, looking down. Stubble ran over his slender jawbone and crowded his lips.

  For a second I hesitated, and smiled to myself. How was it a difficult decision when I’d be dead in an hour? Going terminal was one hell of a form of birth control.

  “My last meal,” I replied.

  He didn’t ask twice.

  My fingers laced in his chest hair, and as he drew my tank top upward, I arched my back and let it slide past my breasts.

  I never shut my eyes during sex, but the men I’ve been with have. Until Attila. Attila watched every part. I felt like a voyeur, but if he was self-conscious, he didn’t show it. He watched the gradual warming of my flesh, the goose bumps smoothing, the pores opening, and glistening with globules that linked to trickle over my ribs. He watched as my lips swelled from where he tugged at them. His eyes seemed like velvet as I watched him watch, neither of us smiling or talking.

  Attila was practiced, but did not linger, so that just as I had him in the right spot, he’d break away, slowing to dip his tongue into the crook of my neck. Beneath him, I was a private with an itch for the field, and just as we’d fall in again, he’d slide out, AWOL at my nipples, or sucking blood into my lips.

  Taking Attila’s wrist I swung him around so that he was face down, and I sitting on the small of his back. From here, I was in control. I waited a moment. And finally, when he began to struggle, I rolled him over and settled into a tortuously slow cadence, gradually faster, his thumbs hooked around my hips, his eyes beginning to smolder, the welts from my nails on his stomach muscles rising. Finally, me burying my face into the pillow to keep from crying aloud.

  I surrendered beside him on the narrow bunk, soaked and slippery as a semen-coated sacrificial Borborite whore. I ignored the intrusive thought.

  “Shots fired,” I said with a wry grin.

  Attila just panted and studied my face.

  Nothing stayed talk of suicide faster than sex. Nothing stayed talk in a man faster than sex.

  He started to trace the edge of my burn with his index finger, and I flinched from this new intimacy.

  “Now I’ve got work to do,” I said.

  Dopey-eyed, he rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. With his toes, he hooked the underwear still stuck in his pants.

  “Seriously.” I drew a
fresh t-shirt over me. “The general’s suspicious enough already.”

  Attila stumbled in one pant leg, and I snorted.

  “You’re like a car crash,” he said to his sandals.

  “Out,” I told him. I had another minute before his post-coital euphoria wore off.

  His buttons were askew as he worked the shirt on, and suddenly, with one foot in a Birkenstock, he stopped.

  I tried to keep focused on the computer screen.

  “Chris,” he said.

  “It was good, Attila.” I smiled at the screen. “Really nice car crash.”

  “No.” He waved an arm. “Your nose. It’s bleeding.”

  Blood tracked down the front of my shirt and spattered the bed.

  Chapter 30

  Ming had roused when the woman defecated, and again when she banged something at the roof of the ladder, clearly angered. But much of the time Ming drifted in a world of uncaring. Susan, Jake, Jackie and Luke. All dead. But now Ming woke again to their captor’s snores. The snoring sent a shot of adrenaline through Ming, and despite hanging for days, and the lack of food and water, she retained a moment’s lucidity. The woman slept.

  Ming’s arms had long ago numbed. In complete darkness, braced against the ladder cage, she worked her wrists at the metal handcuffs. Twisting them until they seemed to lubricate, one passed over her thumb knuckle and slipped out. In a minute, her second hand was free and both fell to her sides. As she leaned against the ladder cage, her legs shuddered. Blood flowed into her wrists and fingers and the pain built. She couldn’t see her hands, but with the pain came the knowledge of the sores that banded them. Her clawed fingers resisted flexing. The ladder seemed like an insurmountable mountain. She barely had enough strength in her legs to keep upright, let alone climb out of the hellhole and find help. But she must.

  With the decision made, Ming ducked beneath the ladder cage and rested her wrist over the first rung for support. As she lifted one leg, her other gave and she slipped, stumbling back against the cage; the resulting gong sent her heart into her mouth. She held her breath.

  The woman’s snores stuttered and then caught again, soon regaining a steady rhythm. This time Ming used her elbows to hold herself tight to the ladder and managed to gain another rung. Slowly, at a tortuous pace, Ming climbed. At various points she almost blacked out, as if she had risen to a great altitude. But each time, she hugged the ladder close, and woke miraculously still clinging to the rungs.

  She heard a knock against the ladder. Had the woman roused? The knock came again and the ladder shook. Ming’s heart raced, adrenaline clearing her mind. Then came a strong snore—their captor still slept! So what of the knocking?

  Anya—Ming realized—Anya was having another seizure. The jerking stopped as suddenly as it had begun and Ming readied to mount another rung when an odd glottal throb, as if someone swallowed hard, erupted from below. Ming listened and it came again, in a rhythm. It took a moment for her to decipher it. Anya was vomiting into her gag. She would asphyxiate. With no one to remove her gag, she was going to die.

  Ming looked up. A thin line of light edged a hatch above, the light doubled and blurred, the dryness of her eyes taking its toll. Below was darkness.

  The glottal throb came again, but weaker. Freedom above. Death below. Above she might save everyone, below only Anya, and then only a temporary reprieve. What should she do? What would her father do?

  Ming lowered herself a foot to the next rung. That she was forced to descend hardened her soul, but she knew it was right. Climbing down was easier than up. Soon she steadied herself with her feet back on the sticky metal floor. Anya’s sounds seemed almost distant, but Ming pawed over the hair of her friends, some shifted, others didn’t react. When she felt Alistair’s curls, she paused, traced his neck and its faint pulse beneath her fingertips before moving on.

  Anya’s gag wrapped tight to her scalp and Ming had to work her fingers beneath it at Anya’s nape and then around to her mouth. Finally, vomit leaked around the edges, hot and viscous over Ming’s fingers. Not much. She slid the gag down to Anya’s chin and bile hit the floor. Suddenly, Anya gurgled and gave a choke before taking several hiccoughing breaths. She muttered something and her breathing eased. Ming’s heart did not. The echoes of Anya’s gasps still echoed in the chamber.

  Ming’s mouth was too dry to swallow. Her eyes stinging. The reek of Anya’s barf filled her nostrils. Ming glanced up once again toward where she had seen the thin light, but it was gone. Her legs trembled at the thought of another attempt. She couldn’t do it. But maybe, maybe she could slit the woman’s throat.

  “I’ll protect you,” she whispered to where she thought Alistair hung and ducked back under the metal ring. Blind, she needed to find the knife the woman wielded and then her neck.

  Ming let her senses expand, picking out the whistling breaths of her friends and trying to separate out those of the killer. A soft snore came from the edge of the chamber. Ming took a tentative step toward the sound. Every movement seemed impossibly noisy. Whenever the killer’s breathing hitched, Ming halted and waited for it to regain its rhythm.

  Would she be able to slit a throat, she wondered. They’d done anatomy. The throat was protected by cartilage. It wouldn’t just split under a dull blade. The big artery where she’d checked Alistair’s pulse, Ming decided. That’s what she’d cut. And she took another step, before lowering herself to her knees so she wouldn’t faint. Her fingers crumpled a wrapper. The snorer stirred. Rolled.

  Something knocked into Ming’s forearm. Weak, Ming collapsed to the floor, face pressed against cold steel. Stars played in her vision.

  Rubber soles chaffed at the back of her scalp. The woman had flipped over and went on sleeping. Ming slid her hands forward and swung one in a broad arc in search of the knife. Her sleeve swept over the floor and her fingers touched the rough canvas of the bag where the woman kept her supplies. Ming dipped a hand inside, feeling for a weapon or the bottle of chloroform. She pricked her finger on a needle and bit her lip. The anesthetic was missing. She splayed her fingers on the floor and pushed herself up. Once back kneeling, she felt with her hand at the woman’s back pockets. A long lump. The knife.

  Hope surged in Ming and with it strength, the strength to plunge the blade into the woman.

  Ming slid a finger into the pocket. The woman’s breathing changed. It was as if everything had gone silent. Ming withdrew her finger, breath held. Suddenly, the woman’s legs swept back and she spun where she lay.

  Ming fell back on her hands and shuttled backward like a crab. The wind of the woman’s swipes in the air reached Ming.

  “Where are you?” the woman screeched. And in the noise of the scream, Ming reached the metal ring. There came sounds of fumbling. Ming grabbed the rung as the light flared. It waved back and forth in search of the culprit. It was erratic with fury.

  Ming worked her hands back into the handcuffs. Hanging again. As the woman neared, Ming let her weight fall against the cuffs, her head drooped and she tried to steady her breathing. She didn’t need to fake the hopeless hang of a prisoner with no will left to escape.

  The light lingered over Nate. She heard the click of handcuffs tightening. Ming flexed the muscles in her forearms and hands. The light swung to her. Its glow pained Ming’s eyes. They felt dry and fissured like clay left out too long. Everything was double as if one of her eyes was stuck and didn’t move in tandem with the other. The woman grunted and pressed the arms of the cuffs tighter before moving on.

  The light dimmed to sickly yellow. She walked in a slow ring before coming to stop back at Cordell. Ming dared a glance. Cordell’s moon face was blotchy and lines of caked blood trailed from his eyes over his cheeks.

  The flashlight had a fuzzy blur about it, distorting the woman’s expression. No longer pleasant looking, it had grown twisted and haggard. She went back to her nest of lantern and satchel
and rooted in the bag. When she returned, she held a roll of tape.

  The sound of duct tape being unwound drew Ming’s attention. She swung her chin up to watch as the tape was applied to Cordell’s forehead and wrapped about his head to tether it to the ladder. It kept his face upright, the eyes threaded open and staring at the woman. From the angle, Ming could see into the depths of Cordell’s left eye.

  The woman breathed in quick excited pants.

  “Waited long enough,” she said. “Natural death, organic, no additives.” And with the word additives she closed and tucked into her back pocket the knife she’d used to cut the duct tape.

  The reek of vomit and blood and urine and shit, now growing stale, had diminished as Ming became used to it. But she felt it sticky at her feet and heard it as the woman marched around their prison. Ming listened to her heartbeat throb in her ears and kept the pumping blood company as it counted off the remainder of her life. Her lost opportunity to save everyone settled in her guts. But she’d saved Anya, she told herself, that was something.

  When the woman’s eye was an inch from Cordell’s she switched the light back off. Past caring, Ming drifted in the darkness, thinking of the light above, and waking to the woman’s excited voice.

  “So near, so near … die …”

  And there was light, but it wasn’t harsh or glaring.

  The woman’s face was lit with it, and she seemed younger, her eyes glistening beneath lush lashes. The lines of her crow’s feet smoothed, the careworn frown gone.

  Ming twisted her head and realized the light was from Cordell. His eyes were iridescent, and the intensity growing.

  “My, my. What have we here?” the woman asked, but Cordell was silent, only his eyes communicating.

  The spark of them reflected in her pupils and for a moment before the light faded, the woman seemed warmer, not a killer at all, but a pleasant stay-at-home mom with a chef’s apron, spattered with cake batter rather than drying blood.