Peter stood as the deputation neared the door. Outside, police lounged against their cars, the visors of their black-glass helmets flipped up. They were held in check by neocortical implants, like dogs on a leash, and several were gently tapping their truncheons into open palms.
The doorbell rang.
Answering, Peter found himself facing three police officers. Their faces were impassive, and might well have been carved from the same block of ice. With them was the smooth and plausible man from the Cancer Research Center.
“Hello,” the Cancer Research man said pleasantly. “I see we’re on the same team now.”
* * *
The door from the chancel to the back stairway was badly warped out of shape. There were splits through the center, and it was so badly bowed that it wouldn’t even shut properly. Sam had removed it from the frame and set it down on two sawhorses.
To do the job properly, he should soak the oaken door in water for a few days, and then weight it down between flat metal plates, to warp it back into shape. Lacking the time and tools, though, one did the best one could. So … first you move the hinges down an inch, to rehang the door lower. Then you sand down the edges where it’s sticking. A little putty in the cracks, some weatherstripping around the edges, and the job is done.
Sam whistled an old Motown tune as he sanded, enjoying the shift and feel of his muscles. He felt good, stronger than he had been in years, and all the swelling around his neck had gone down. The doctors wanted him to go through another battery of tests, but under close questioning by his sister—she was a sharp-tongued woman, was Sophia!—they admitted that he didn’t actually need them. They were just curious to know why he wasn’t dead. He was healed, though. They said so themselves.
He could feel—subliminally—the thing growing in the sanctuary, but he felt no need to do anything about it. There was enough trouble in the world, without borrowing more. And like they always said, you don’t open the oven door until the cake is done.
Fine oak dust whispered down to the floor as he handled the paper, sliding it along the door’s edge in long, firm, even strokes.
* * *
The communion wine was cheap stuff, with a metal cap that unscrewed instead of a cork. Jennifer took only a taste, but that first sip went down real smooth. It jolted through her brain like lightning, snapping synapses open and shut, setting off a cascade of images from her past:
She was back in the hospital, strapped onto a gurney. Everything was white and smelled of disinfectant and hospital food. They had cropped her long, blond hair, and were shaving the stubble that remained. When she opened her mouth to scream, someone shoved the side of his hand in, saying, “Hush, pretty baby, we’re just going to fine-tune that pretty little brain of yours.” She bit down hard and his hand tasted—
His hand tasted like her husband’s when they made love. He would touch her face gently, wonderingly, and she’d twist her head sideways to catch his hand in her teeth. Feeling like some kind of wild, free animal, she’d bite down into the flesh. It tasted of salt and sweat and curly black hairs. He was on leave from the Air Force, but scheduled to rotate back to Mauritania soon, to fly more bombing missions. He was an officer—
He was an officer, and when she saw him coming up the walk, stalwartly expressionless, she knew her husband wasn’t coming back from Africa, and she wished so hard for it to be all a mistake that it seemed the world must shudder to its core for the sheer intensity of her desire. But the officer walked right up to her door anyway, rang the bell, delivered the news. It was only as he was turning away that the air seemed to shimmer and the young officer fell to the ground, blood gushing from his nose and mouth. Half-embedded in the walkway, he struggled. She knew that he wasn’t to blame, but still the blood came out—
The blood came out the same way it did later when she left the hospital, her skull abristle with tiny silver wires and implants that were supposed to control her but did not. All the guards fell down, hemorrhaging, even those who did not try to stop her, but turned to run. The red hair and the clothing formed around her because on some cunning animal level she knew she needed them to escape. She walked—
They were good memories, and they filled up the empty spaces. The pain was real and good and brought her a step closer to being human again. She tilted the bottle and chugalugged it all down. Bubbles blorked to the top, and the bottle was empty and her head was full of thoughts.
She uncapped the second bottle.
* * *
“I shouldn’t be letting you in without the pastor’s explicit permission,” Peter fretted.
—half of Houston up in flames. We’re trying to get a reporter in now to confirm—
The vent people parted for the group, stepping back a pace from the intensity of the Cancer Man’s eyes, recognizing in them an insanity that even they had to respect. Ashod came bustling forward, and waved his pink plastic rosary in Peter’s face. “Save yourself!” he shouted. “Get down on your knees—pray for forgiveness!”
One of the police escort reached out to touch Ashod gently on the chest, and he went stumbling back, face contorted with pain.
“Peter,” the Cancer Man said. They were at the church door now, and Peter had his keys out. “Let me introduce myself. My name is William Oberg. I’d be pleased if you called me Bill.” He shook Peter’s hand. “Now,” he said, not letting go, “we’re friends, yes? I’m sure you wouldn’t mind showing your old chum where you work, would you?” He tightened his grip, and Peter gasped in pain. The police looked on with interest.
“No,” Peter said quickly. “No objection.” The pain ceased.
“Good.” Oberg let Peter open the door, then led the troupe through the narthex and into the sanctuary. He stopped in amazement.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the cops said. Another crossed himself.
The thing over the altar had grown. It was the size of a basketball now, so large that it was almost possible for the eye to fix on it and assign it some definite shape and image. But not quite. It was oddly compelling, even hypnotic. Peter seemed to remember—
“Okay, it’s pretty far gone,” Oberg said, “but we can still handle it if we can get hold of the girl.”
Peter started, and for the first time actually looked at Oberg. He could half-see into the man, see the whirling wheels and cams embedded just below the plastic flesh, the fine gold wires and wheatseed monitor lights. Oberg glanced fleetingly Peter’s way, and Peter’s breath froze within his throat. The man had no eyes! Only deep metal funnels that led from his face into a cold and lightless stacking of cryonic plates.
Peter exhaled, and Oberg shifted into a thin surface image, with no interior, as insubstantial as a hologram or a soap bubble. His movements left long, bright trails. Oh God no, Peter thought. He was flashing back. His hallucinations were rising up again, and this was not the crowd to be in under these circumstances. These fuckers were not going to show him any mercy if they discovered he was on drugs.
Luckily, they were scurrying about like automatons, and hadn’t noticed yet. Oberg was laying out elastic cords and metal restraints on the communion table. One policeman unhooked a flashlight from his belt and clambered over the presbytery. He poked the light between the organ pipes and peered within.
The two other police went into the balconies. One shimmied up a loose pew to the steeple door. From within, he called down, “Ugh. It’s ankle-deep in pigeonshit here.”
“The windows have been broken for years,” Peter said inanely. It was harder to fake a straight response than he’d thought it would be.
“Check it all out anyway,” Oberg called back. He tightened a last cinch on the communion table and stepped back, satisfied. The altar had become a restraining table, with devices to hold the legs spread wide here, the arms up and to the side there. Directly above, the thing whirled madly.
The table lacked only a victim. Oberg laid a fatherly hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Perhaps you have some idea where she might be?”
he suggested.
* * *
The second bottle of wine was on its way to her lips when the passage suddenly convulsed. The walls turned blue and lurched over on their sides. Jennifer jerked and the floor came smashing up into the side of her face. The empty bottle fell away, shattering into a thousand cobalt fragments. The half-eaten communion loaf burst into cold, blue flames.
The surviving bottle was pouring purple wine into Jennifer’s lap. Frantically, she stoppered it with her thumb. The glass was scalding cold; it stung like hornets. But she clutched it to her, and did not let go.
Sick with uncertainty and pain, she stood. Her head was abuzz with blue sparks, and the carbon smoke from the burning loaf was billowing up to fill the room. All the passages were atilt; they steepened when she tried to climb them. She had to grab one-handed at pillars and moldings and doorjambs to pull herself upward, into the icy flames.
The arm cradling the bottle spasmed with cold, and the bottle fell away. It bounced twice, spraying wine, but miraculously did not break. Jennifer stretched out, trying to retrieve it. She almost fell from her fingerhold trying, but—too far! Too far! She reached again, nearly dislocating her shoulder and wrists with the effort.
Her knuckles whitened, weakened. Involuntarily, she let go of the doorframe, and slid four yards down the hall. The wine bottle rested on the floor curling above her, in the center of a spreading purple stain. A full quarter of its contents remained within the bottle—she could see it.
But she could not reach it. The floor lifted away from her too steeply, and could not be scaled. It was easier—much easier—to let gravity pull her down the hall, into the redness.
Into the warmth.
* * *
“No,” Peter said. “I couldn’t guess.”
But he was afraid of Oberg. And Oberg was a man who understood fear, knew its every touch and nuance, could read its track on the human face. “Is she on this floor?” he asked. “No? Upstairs, then? Downstairs? Where in the basement?”
Outside, the vent people were suddenly still. The silence was startling. Then a quick series of soft explosions went pop-pop-pop. Tear gas. With an angry roar, pandemonium broke out, shrieks of pain or rage mingling with incoherent cries of fear as the police moved in.
Like most urban dwellers, Peter had seen his share of riots in the past few years. He could picture in his mind what was happening: There would be an outer circle of police, to prevent fugitives from escaping and force them back into the fray, and two or more flying wedges to move through the mob, clubs flashing.
Oberg touched Peter gently, caressingly. His fingers scuttled up Peter’s neck like a spider, and stroked softly below one ear. “Why don’t you lead us there, hmmm?”
It was hard to concentrate. Peter trembled in confusion, caught between the vision of the riot and the touch of Oberg’s hand. He was no longer sure which was real.
Something crashed against one of the windows, an early Tiffany the congregation had always held in reserve against final bankruptcy. It smashed a small piece of emerald glass, sending splinters flying. The entire window echoed and reverberated with the blow.
“Shall we go?” Oberg said.
Miserably, Peter led them downward.
* * *
Sam was lifting the door into place when the call came. He paused in his work and cocked his head, listening. Outside, the vagrants were stirring up a fuss, but he ignored them. The call came from closer in, somewhere below.
He leaned the door carefully against the sheet music cabinet, jiggling it a bit from side to side to make sure it was steady, and went down the stairs. He paused at his supply closet to pick up the flashlight. It was a long, heavy thing, encased in a black rubber sheath. He flicked it on and off, to make sure it worked.
He was unlocking the door to the dirt basement when a small white boy caromed into his legs. “Whoah, now,” he said. “What’s this?” He put his hands on the boy’s shoulders.
“I got to see the ghost!” the child cried. Sam hoisted him into the air, let him rest in the crook of his arm. It had been a long time since he had held a child like this; not since his own son was a little boy, in fact. A long, long time.
They were not the only two to hear the call. Sheila joined them at the Lady’s side.
* * *
Peter had an awful feeling about the whole affair. He unhappily led Oberg and the policemen down. Twice he tried to turn them away, and each time Oberg had read the tension in his neck, his shoulders, and turned him back to the right path.
He didn’t even know how he knew it was the right path, and yet he did. It was getting harder to keep track of what was and was not. His vision split fuzzily in two, and he glimpsed briefly through the eyes of a nursery school child, and then one of her teachers. Alternate scenes overlay one another.
It was an awful, choking sensation. Peter was dizzied by shifting visions through the eyes of others—Sam, Jeremy, Sheila, even the police. Sometimes one, sometimes several at once. He felt their breaths in his lungs, the touch of their clothes on his skin, their thoughts running through his head, briefly there and then gone. It confused him, made him foggily unsure as to which of these many people he actually was.
The only light in the coal bin came from Sam’s flashlight, shining like an orange moon in her eyes; they were green, and Sam wanted to crouch down and raise her from the dirt but somehow (Sheila didn’t know how she knew) it was understood that she was not to be moved. Jeremy stared down with large, solemn eyes, and dug an elbow into Sam’s ribs—the sexton understood, and put him down—and Sheila fretted because she had children to tend to, a door to rehang, and none of them knew what was actually going on.
A voice came from out of the darkness.
“Children, there is a new world growing,” it said. “It was planted by mistake and it grows like a weed—without direction. But it can be tamed and pruned—it can be reclaimed by the proper authorities.”
Now Oberg loomed out of the darkness, amusement predominant on his face. “What is growing,” he said, “is a viewpoint more than anything else. It has been contaminated by your presence, by everyone here in the church that this young lady has met. Left alone, it would become a perfect reflection of your true selves. It would be a judgment on you.”
He paused. Nobody spoke or moved. “There is a war on,” he said. The police were pale blobs behind him, clustered loosely about Peter (he glimpsed himself multiplied through their eyes). “Our government is locked in a death struggle with the evil empires of the Earth. This young woman has the potential to win that war for us. Under our direction, the world can be … turned. It can be made safe for us forever.”
He sauntered forward casually, in no particular hurry. “Please stand back,” he said. “This woman is government property.”
When Sam saw the man reach for Jennifer, he acted swiftly, without thought. His flashlight swung in a great arc at Oberg’s face as Sheila shrieked and grabbed for Jeremy, who was knocked laughing to the floor. Oberg didn’t even flinch. One of the police seized Sam and swung him about; another forced his hands behind his back and snapped handcuffs on them—Sheila saw them glint in the light cast by the flashlight that fell, forgotten, to the floor. There was a foot right by Jennifer’s eyes; it loomed enormous and she ignored it.
Peter was with them, the boy from the church office. His face was slack and bewildered. “Why didn’t you help?” Sam asked bitterly. “You could have done something!”
“Sam…” Peter said. “They wanted me to fire you, Sam.” His eyes were all dazzled with tiny, glittery stars. “I didn’t, though, I wouldn’t do it.”
The government man was bending over the lady in the dirt. He lifted her up in his arms. A policeman yanked Sam backward, away from them. But he was staring at Peter, puzzlement in his face.
“What did you do to him?” Sam demanded. Then, angrily, “Look at him! What did you do?”
* * *
It was like a procession. First came Oberg,
carrying the ghost, limp and helpless, in his arms. She stared vacantly upward. Then came the first cop, pushing Sam, handcuffed, before him. Then the second, leading Peter by the arm, and the third, with both Sheila and the child.
That was not how Peter saw it. His vision was flashing from person to person, first through a patrolman’s eyes, then out Oberg’s, then—simultaneously—his own and Sheila’s. The shifting was growing faster, and multiple views more common so that—if he could only hold it in his mind—he was seeing a comprehensive gestalt view, each person through several sets of eyes and his own.
There was a wine bottle lying on the stairs, in the midst of a spreading stain, and Oberg casually kicked it aside. It went spinning, and bounced down two steps. Sam nearly stumbled over it, and Peter (seeing it happen in five overlapping viewpoints) snatched it up in an ungainly, newborn-clumsy swoop.
Peter had no intention of doing anything with the bottle. He was just being automatically, obsessively neat. But his guard reached out and slapped it away, out of his hand, as a potential weapon. It flew downward, spraying wine in all directions. Peter watched it slowly fall through several sets of vision, bounce and disappear behind them all.
He felt a strange sense of bereavement, and permanent loss.
Outside, the roaring of the riot was rising and falling, regular-irregular, like ocean waves or streams of cars on the freeway. “Almost to the sanctuary,” Oberg commented lightly. There were people being beaten on the doorsill outside. Insanely, at least one still held a blaring radio.
—vehemently denied. Spokesmen said the nuclear strike was a preventative retrodestabilization effort. That’s a direct quote. In other—
There were wet maroon stains on Peter’s slacks and shirt, and a bit of wine still clung to his free hand. Absently, he raised it to his mouth, licked it off.
And the taste of it jolted him like an electric shock. It snapped his mind back together, reassembled it from scattered fragments, cut off the visions through the others’ eyes. He was himself again.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection Page 34