I stare at him. I’ve inadvertently backed myself into a corner. He looks strong. I don’t think I could get past him even if he didn’t have me boxed in.
“Go ahead,” I say, scanning the floor around us, looking for any kind of weapon.
“Can you tell me about ou… about your parents? I think I’ve dreamt about having a family, a childhood… a really happy childhood. Obviously my mind made the memories up. I mean, I assume. I don’t think there’s any scientific basis for—”
“Sorry to break it to you, but they were awful,” I blurt. “They were terrible to me. I was an accident. They were older, never wanted kids. I think I messed up their plans. They both died when I was pretty young. Within days of each other.”
“Oh,” he says, then looks down at the ground. When he looks up, it’s the first time he hasn’t had some kind of smile on his face. He looks more terrifying now, especially with the crisscross of shadows from all of the windows in this place. “I think I had romanticized it a bit more.”
“Yeah, well, that’s very human of you.”
He winces and a flash of anger lights his eyes, then quickly vanishes. He takes another step forward. Without even meaning to, I push myself back against the wall harder. But there’s nowhere else to go.
“This must be weird for you,” he says. “Like looking in a funhouse mirror.”
“How do you even know what a funhouse is?” I ask, disdain dripping from every word.
He stares at me with something that resembles sadness.
“I read a lot of books,” is all he says.
“Well, I guess we’re not exactly alike. I guess I’m still me.”
His smile returns. “It’s funny you say that. Ever since I woke up… in the lab… I’ve wondered about who I am. They don’t tell us much. They just immediately start training us… weapons, hand-to-hand combat, psychological warfare. They don’t focus much on our humanity. If such a thing even exists for us. None of the other Synths read books. We’re not supposed to. But I sneak them out of the Creators’ offices and read them at night with a flashlight. Like a teen boy.”
A memory of doing that exact thing floods my mind and I nearly lose my breath. It’s a memory that was completely lost until this moment. I did it more than once, with an ancient copy of Tarzan of the Apes, until my father discovered me one night and took the book away from me. I never saw it again. Never finished it.
“You don’t have to report me,” I say as lightning flashes again outside. “You don’t have to bring me in. I just want to leave the city and be left alone. I don’t have anything against the administration.”
His smile… my smile… turns sad again and he takes another step toward me. He’s so close now. Too close.
“Jonathan. Do you know why they sent me after you?”
I hadn’t thought of that. Not really. I’ve been too busy running, trying to stay out of sight. I just stare at him, waiting for the answer.
“I know you better than anyone else ever can. I may not have your memories but I know you. When I was following you… over these past few days… I didn’t even have to try very hard. I could just… feel what you were going to do next. It’s actually incredible. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I’m nervous about any other missions because I don’t think anything can ever live up to what tracking you has been like for me.”
“Please…” I say and I know how pathetic I sound. “Please. Just let me go.”
He takes another step toward me and now we’re within touching distance of each other. Every fiber of my being tells me to fight. To barrel into him and at least try to escape. I don’t move.
“I envy you,” he says quietly. “I will never be as good as you. Even if I’m stronger or faster, I’m not you. And I don’t think I’m even me.”
“You are,” I insist. “You’re you. And you can do anything you want. You don’t have to work for them. You can come with me. Or not. But you can do anything you want.”
Our smile turns sad on his face. He reaches up and puts a hand on my shoulder. I jump at the contact but his touch feels so familiar, like the ghost of a memory.
I miss Casey so much.
“I wish it were that simple, Jonathan,” he almost whispers. “I really do.”
“I’m not a troublemaker. I just want to disappear. I promise I won’t make trouble for anyone.”
“I know you won’t,” he says, and his other hand appears on my other shoulder. He doesn’t look like me, not exactly, but it’s still like looking into a mirror. A fogged mirror where you can only sort of see yourself but you’re definitely there. Or are you?
His hands move closer to my face and gently grip my neck.
“It has been an honor to meet you,” he says quietly. “The honor of my short life.”
“Wait,” I say.
“I will never truly be. And you always will. Even after you’re gone. Do you know how lucky you are?”
“Wait,” I say.
“Thank you,” he says, and then his hands are suddenly moving, he’s so incredibly strong, and there’s this snapping noise, and Oh My God I’m—
INTO THE STYGIAN DARKNESS
Heather Graham
Chapter 1
Lenore
I never thought that I—a hundred-and-twenty-pound artist—could in any way be involved with what would be known as The Salvation. And in a small way no one would ever figure.
Of course, everything is small now.
I think, in general, we—as the human race—had believed that we would go out with a big bang. That we would perish like the dinosaurs, not because of the cataclysmic arrival of a meteor on the planet, but because of the hair-trigger fury and pulse of man himself. Rage in an era when bombs could wipe out entire states in just seconds—and leave enough residue to poison the world for centuries to come.
It was a fear for me, anyway. And I wasn't the only one.
It wasn’t always so.
When I was young, I truly believed that we were heading to the great Age of Aquarius—that man was beginning to love his fellow man. I had sweet, happy parents who seemed to think that it was so—they were like living with a pair of sweet, naïve, and very charming puppets. They instilled a lot of that happiness in me.
I miss them.
But I digress.
When it all came about, mine was a kind of cool world—with lots of hope stretching before us in the years to come. I went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, which is basically an art and design school. My roommate was a gay, black man and our group of friends included Wu—a Chinese painter, Maria—a Cuban majoring in architecture, and Ali Shiraz, a gorgeous young man with a Turkish dad and a more gorgeous Danish mom. We hung around together by day, aware that we needed both talent and hard work to get where we wanted to go in our chosen fields.
I still remember meeting Stephen—he was hysterical. He walked into our dorm and stared me down. “Yeah, I’m a man!” he said, and wagged a finger at me. “And,” he added knowingly, “a black man! But,” He told me with a shrug. “You are not my cup of tea, sugar! You get my drift, right? We’re going to be okay here, right?” He did something, acting out an attack of fear and vapors, and landed on my bed and on my pillow, looking up with such a dramatic flourish that I couldn’t help but laugh. And he kept me laughing many times after, when little things—a grade I feared, a critique—had me anxious and distraught with the world.
Well, that was then. Don’t sweat the small stuff, they always said—that universal “they” we’re always talking about.
Maria Rodriguez had the room connected with ours. She was in love with Gordon—a boy back home in Miami, Florida. Her parents were very rich. She didn’t have to have a roommate. We liked to tease her and her nickname—which she’d had since she’s been a kid, she always told us with a smile—was The Jewster. Her mom was Jewish and had married a rising Cuban politician.
Wu, the Buddhist, roomed with Ali Shiraz, the Muslim. They often sounded like two ol
d men when they talked politics and the state of the world—or the quality of artists’ paint brushes and that kind of thing. Maria liked to get into those conversations too. Listening to them, you might actually start to believe that the world could be saved.
Or at least, humanity.
One night, after heading into the city for art supplies, the five of us wound up in a coffee shop with a pack of academics from NYU. That included Jeff Anderson—a medical student about to go into residency, and Tracey Harper, who was on her way to becoming a nurse anesthetist. They weren’t a duo, though they were both straight. When I met them, Jeff Anderson was pining after a theater major and Tracey was married to a guy in the armed forces.
We became friends because Jeff overheard something said about the president. Oddly enough, as a weird group of strangers, we would start talking on opposing sides, and the conversation was both enlightening and friendly. We all had our opinions—but, pretty much so, we all believed that the next big bang would come because someone had their hand on the buzzer. The amazing thing was that we could talk. Our little group represented not just the three more contentious religions of the day, but four; Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism.
Jeff was the real scholar in our group. He was an amazing man—Doctor Beautiful, really. He could definitely have been the star of a medical television series. Seriously—Patrick Dempsey had nothing on Jeff.
Maybe I did have a little crush on him, right from the beginning. Like I said, he was just beautiful.
We would meet whenever we could, most often at the coffee shop by the art store where the new Freedom Tower rose high, showing the world, of course, that the U.S. would not be cowed by terrorism.
I loved the churches there; I was obsessed with old churches and graveyards, so I would go sketch at either St. Paul’s or Trinity, and I’d often marvel that the Twin Towers had gone with such violence, while the churches and the graveyards—telling us so much about our history—survived. I knew that in World War II bombs had blasted castles and cathedrals, taking half the treasures of Europe, erasing many of man’s most industrious and historic achievements. Now, bombs, they said, were different.
Now, they left buildings—and eradicated people.
Those college days were amazing. But like all good things, they came to an end.
When what we came to know simply as The Day came, I’d been hired to restore murals at a tiny but wonderful Episcopal church on Orange, one of the Pelham Islands in Western Long Island Sound. Not many knew about St. Philip’s—actually, not many people knew the islands even existed.
The church was quaint and unusual. It was lucky that the historic board of the city had chosen to preserve it. Especially now that Orange Island was uninhabited except for a tiny city preservation office that had just opened at the tiny wharf. Sometimes, I knew, hierarchy in the Episcopal church liked to come by and use for the church for special occasions. St. Philip’s had never been deconsecrated, even when, in the late 1800s, the congregation gave up island living and moved to the ever-growing mainland of Manhattan.
It was because of that tourist office and the barely known church on that all but forgotten island that a strange spectrum of circumstances arose to put us all together again as The Day dawned. I was working on what I considered to be an absolutely amazing image of Mary and the Christ Child—it was the 13th of the month, a special day for me, and I was wondering what surprise my friends had cooked up for me when my phone rang.
Alone in the little church, I took the time to sit on one of the old pews, noting that the wood itself was indented from the dozens of people who had once come to worship.
It was Jeff—now Dr. Anderson. I was, of course, delighted to hear from him. Except, of course, that I always wanted to be cool and wonderful when he called—I had, however, just broken up with the D.J. I’d been dating—word of warning to all young women out there—don’t date a D.J. (The good; they can be lots of fun. The bad—they can be lots of fun. Just part of the job, they say, that they need to have a little of that fun with other women!)
But even if I had still been dating the D.J., my heart would have gone pit-a-pat as soon as I heard Jeff’s voice.
I’d never gotten over that initial crush I had on him.
“Hey! How are you?” I asked him.
“Great—and you? Well, actually, I’ll be able to see that for myself in just a few minutes.”
“You will? Do you know where I am?”
“I just heard that you were close. I’m at the little office place thing by the dock. I can see you in five minutes—so they tell me. Can you come on up?”
I was stunned. “What are you doing here? I don’t believe this. I mean—you actually—really truly—know where I am?”
He laughed. “I just learned about where you are. Hell, I just learned about these islands, and that they exist. Yep. Had a call out here today.”
“As a doctor?”
“Yep. Come meet me,” he said.
“Okay! I have to come right back here. I have a lot of work implements out. Oh, and you need to see St. Philip’s here—gorgeous. It’s Gothic—all stone—and looks like a medieval castle. Don’t get me wrong—I really love my own projects. But, this place is amazing. It’s surrounded by a graveyard that was started in the early 1800s. It could be a strange kind of fortress. It’s—”
“Come meet me. I’ll see your church.”
I hung up and stared at the incredibly beautiful mural I’d been working on and smiled. “Sorry!” I said aloud to the image of Mary. “It’s Jeff. And I guess you know how I feel about him!”
So I left the church, walking first out through the lonely little overgrown graveyard. Gorgeous sculptures of angels, cherubs, and innocent little lambs graced the burial ground; family tombs stood, covered with fungus or algae—I didn’t know what the green substance was, I just knew that it added to the wonderful, haunted loneliness of the place.
A high, stone wall surrounded the whole of the place, but the gate was wide open. I didn’t know why there had been such a big, imposing wall around a church, but it didn’t matter that I left the gate open—it had been open since I’d first seen the place. There just wasn’t anyone here to come along and surprise me!
I walked along the winding path that led toward the docks. Like all else here, they needed work. But, until recently, the island had been abandoned. Now and then, along the way, I passed the foundations of a long-gone home. It seemed strange that the island had once housed a population that supported a church, but then, all those years ago, people had been more accustomed to distance and space. And the deli downstairs didn’t exist to make sure that no one ever had to cook if they chose not to do so.
The little office structure that now belonged to the historic board had once been the dock master’s office and home. Supplies had once come and gone from the island. I believe a number of the entrepreneurs on the board wanted to make the island an elite destination—a place for multi-million dollar homes. They were planning to start with tourism, and, of course, the historic little church and graveyard would become very important—tourist locations needed something to tour.
All that is now, of course, moot.
Anyway, I saw Jeff coming along the trail and raced to him, throwing myself into his arms. We were good enough friends that I could do that. He laughed, catching me.
“I can’t believe this!” I told him. “Since when do you make house calls?”
“Only on very special occasions do I do such things!” he said. He frowned. “Very special occasions; I shouldn’t have taken this call. There’s something terrible going on. The hospital is being overrun with sick people.”
“Oh—oh! How terrible. A flu going around?”
“Definitely. Weird. I don’t know what’s causing this one. Most everyone I saw at the beginning said they’d been outside—gardening, playing sports, running,” he said. He shook his head and I saw that he was really concerned—down to the bone.
“I pronounced someone dead yesterday,” he said. “And then… people stop breathing. Their hearts stop. Then… in the morgue… then they’re suddenly alive and moving again, but they can’t seem to hear anyone. Our corpse had to be restrained.”
“You mean like a zombie?” I said, my tone both mocking and incredulous.
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile.
“Let’s see this wondrous church of yours!” he said, obviously wanting to change the conversation.
Excited, I tried to fill him in on some of the history. It looked like a medieval fortress, but it had really been built in the early 1800s. Someone had been in love with gothic architecture, though. There were great arches, catwalks, flying buttresses… even a few gargoyles.
“And it’s Anglican? Sounds like someone was reproducing Notre Dame,” Jeff said.
“Well, remember, Anglicans were once Catholic. Henry VIII wanted a divorce and couldn’t get one; he had once been the ‘defender of the faithful' against Martin Luther, but, hey, he was a king. He wanted a divorce. And if you’re the king…”
“You burn a bunch of people at the stake for heresy and start your own religion!” Jeff said, grinning.
“Something like that,” I said.
We walked through the open gate and Jeff paused, turning to look around the graveyard. He shuddered and looked at me. “You work here every day—alone?”
I nodded with a shrug. “Tina Adams and Dirk Van der Ven are up at the office all the time—sometimes, way more people. They come out to see the work, what’s going on. And, I get to hire on from my list of friends, so it’s very cool!”
We reached the heavy wooden front doors of the church. I started forward, but the doors burst open—and there were people there. My friends!
“Surprise!” Stephen cried, rushing out to hug me.
They were all there. It was the best and most amazing surprise—ever! Stephen, Wu, Maria, Ali, and even Tracey Harper—now a full-fledged and well-paid nurse-anesthetist—had made it.
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