by Martin Kee
Gansworth fell behind him, saying nothing.
“We are making an arrest, are we not?” said Harold.
“Yes but—” said Arthur.
“And you saw that room, did you not?”
“Yes but—”
“And you agree that the only way The Reverend is going to come with us is if we take him by force.”
“Yes, but—” Gansworth’s voice was becoming more frantic.
“And since most of the police force is still busy processing that paperwork from the Lassimir—here? Turn here? I hope you aren’t lying to me—since they are still mired in paperwork it would be weeks before anyone even presented an accusation—”
“Guards!” shouted Gansworth.
From around a whitewashed corner came two angular, armored men brandishing rifles with long bayonets. They skidded to a halt at the sight of the revolver that was now pointed at the woman’s head.
“Gentlemen,” shouted Montegut. “I know this looks like a hostage situation. And I am sure that under most circumstances you would shoot me dead. I think it is time for you to listen to what I have to say before you decide to test your aim with those rifles.”
One of the soldiers made a subtle gesture with the barrel of his gun. Harold heard footsteps come to a halt behind him as well. He raised the revolver over his head.
“I am here on official police business,” he said.
The soldier in charge asked Harold to drop his weapon. Harold saw itchy fingers around the triggers of their guns as he held up the black leather case and unlatched the strap. It unfolded like a thick black ribbon, detailed with what at first appeared to be shiny silver bits of foil. Streamers perhaps. He tossed it out onto the floor. Upon further examination, the contents became disturbingly clear.
“This,” Harold said, “belongs to the Reverend Inspector. I found it in his hotel room, in his trunk. The assistant investigator and I have reason to believe that he murdered Melissa Eleanor Montegut, my daughter.”
The captain made another hand signal and the two guards behind him receded back the way they came. The captain lifted his visor.
“Sir,” he said. “Just put the gun down and we can take you to the Reverend Inspector and clear this matter up. But we aren’t going to do it with you holding one of our staff hostage, and we certainly aren’t going to take you to see him while you are holding a revolver.”
Harold laughed. “And what exactly is keeping you from shooting me under the Reverend’s orders should I put the gun down? What is keeping you from shooting me before I can arrest the Reverend?”
“Nothing,” said the captain. “You’ll have to trust us. You said you had an arrest warrant?”
Harold paused. The guard’s eyes narrowed.
“You do have an arrest warrant, don’t you?” said the captain, taking a step forward. “Because you realize that without one, we might have a problem.”
Harold pressed the gun to the woman’s side, harder this time. He felt a small bead of sweat travel down his temple as the guard took another step forward, more confident now.
Gansworth was standing beside him now, holding his badge out for them to see.
“We had to make a decision,” said Gansworth. “We had little time to take care of the proper paperwork. You’ll simply have to take our word for it. If you let us pass, and take us to see the Reverend Inspector, we can clear this up. You have my word as an Investigator of the constable’s office of Bollingbrook.”
“I’m sorry,” said the guard. “But we only take our orders from the lab staff or the archbishop. This lab is under the jurisdiction of The Church.”
Harold had begun to hear distant footsteps echoing toward them from a hallway. He felt like a bastard as the woman whimpered in front of him.
What have I become? he thought. What has this grief turned me into?
“I just want answers,” he said, his voice cracking. “I just want to understand why they would kill my little girl.”
The words gushed out before he could stop them. He had been in total control on the boat down. He had known exactly what he would do, what he would say. But now, without a real plan, the entire situation was completely out of his control. Gears wobbled and fell all around him.
“I have a little girl too,” said his hostage, and he could feel her trembling.
He felt his grasp on the woman weaken, so he pulled her close and held the gun out at the guard.
“Back,” he said. “Back off.” But the guards had already begun to ignore him, inching closer, emboldened by his nervousness.
A door was ajar to his right. Harold shoved the woman into the guards with enough force that they fumbled their weapons to catch her. She screamed as bayonets flew out of the way.
He reached for the door and forced himself through, Gansworth tumbling in after him. A rifle went off somewhere, leaving a black hole in the otherwise pristine white tile. The door latched and Harold spun around to see Gansworth pushing a white table in front of it. Arthur turned to face him, panting.
“Were you hit?” Harold asked, feeling his own body to make sure.
“No. I’m fine,” said the young man. “I’m... I’m not sure if this table will really keep them outside.”
They rushed through another door and froze. It was as though he had stumbled into a towering picture gallery. Black and white photographs lined the wall which loomed above him. He stepped closer to a photograph and looked at the figure, their shadows stretching and twisted out from behind them. The longer Harry looked at it, the more it seemed to move, shadows growing under a setting sun.
He stepped closer, almost pressing his nose against the glass. It was moving. Imperceptibly slow, but it was moving, like a deep-sea creature behind the glass.
“Gansworth,” he said. “Come look at this.”
“Sir, I think they are getting more guards outside the door,” said Arthur.
“Nevermind the guards, Gansworth. Come look at this.”
The young man stepped tentatively away from the door and walked over to the wall. He leaned in toward the picture.
“What do you make of that?”
There was a loud banging at the door. The table shook as the door cracked open, making a clean black line in a universe of white. Both men turned to look, pressing their backs against the wall.
“I’m sorry I got you into this, Arthur,” said Harry with a weak laugh. “You know, I used to be a very structured man. I never would have done anything this rash.”
“It’s ok, sir,” said Gansworth. “I… I can understand. It’s been an adventure.”
“Indeed it has.”
The door crept open another inch and a gun barrel wedged its way into the opening for leverage. Voices were gathering on the other side, yelling orders and shouting through the crack. Someone told them to give themselves up and no harm would come to them. Harold chuckled at that one.
Just before the lights went out, Harold turned one last time to look at the picture. The shadow was not the only thing that had moved, he realized. The figure, a young man with long hair and a strange outfit, had moved as well. He was looking at Harry.
He was smiling.
The lights went out and the emergency power came on, but under the red light, the room was filled with more shadows than Harry Montegut could count, a forest of pink and black.
A familiar voice spoke from behind him.
“Hi Dad,” said the voice of a little girl. “You might want to close your eyes for this part.”
Harold did what he was told. What he heard was a nightmare.
Chapter 41
The events occurring around John were happening faster than he could fully comprehend. With the distraction of the gunshot and the chaos in the chamber, he hadn’t noticed the two guards who approached him from behind and now stood on either side.
“Chris,” he said, his voice low, staring into his friend’s eyes. “How many?”
“Listen to me,” said Christopher. “And I
mean this as your friend. You’ve seen this. You know what we can do. I need to know if you are with us or against us. And I need to know now.”
John took a breath, feeling the eyes of the other clergy upon him. “I can’t stand behind this. You know I can’t.”
“We’re saving souls,” said the archbishop, and to John it almost seemed like he was pleading with him. “We’re doing it to save The Church. Maybe even the world.”
“The Church doesn’t need saving. The Church runs half the world.”
Something passed over the archbishop’s face that looked like disappointment. John felt like he had caught a glimpse out of a window into a world that was much larger than he thought.
“I’m sorry you feel this way John,” he said. There was heaviness in his voice.
John felt hands grab him just above the elbows. Unconsciously, he shrugged them off, not realizing that the men had no intention of letting him go. It dawned on him then what Christopher had said. You’ve seen this. You know what we can do.
The two guards began to move John towards a doorway. His feet flailed and danced against the floor as they carried him. He thought of the man who had just been in that room, those dead eyes seeing nothing. And the screaming, it was hard to forget that.
That is going to be me in a moment, thought John. I won’t know where I am or who I am. I might not even be able to ever learn who I am.
They seated him in the same chair and bound his arms and legs with straps. A low hum seemed to emanate from somewhere behind the white tiles. The room felt smaller now that he was actually sitting inside. He looked straight ahead at the white panel, knowing Skyla was on the other side, waiting to erase him from the universe.
John heard a click as the door closed and he was alone, surrounded by bright silence. All around him, the walls began to hum, a low chorus of insanity. Fingers began to tickle the back of his mind and John thought he might scream as well.
*
When the wall slid away again, Skyla was done crying. Maybe there was a way to bring that man back. Maybe he wasn’t really gone. Maybe his shadow could be salvaged from some sort of container somewhere. Was that crazy to hope for? Was it any crazier than what she had just done?
Or maybe I am a monster, she thought.
“Are you okay, Skyla?”
She barely recognized Laura’s voice. She shook her head under the heavy goggles. She was most definitely not okay.
“Maybe we should stop,” Laura said to Ostermann from behind her. “I think she’s had enough.”
Pall’s voice became a hiss. “You want to pull the plug now, Laura? You’ve got the Pope of the South and a dozen Vatican representatives up there watching and now you decided that maybe we need to take a rest?”
He got up and went to the door. Skyla wiped a tear from her cheek. She felt guilty, violated and dirty. She saw more than they did. To them the process was just numbers to go on readings and charts, a fluctuation of energy to be measured. They didn’t see that man’s essence vanish like ash in a breeze. They were blind men, flailing a sword.
And the sword was her.
Laura patted her shoulder. “What happened?” she asked.
Before Skyla could explain, she heard yelling from the hallway. There was a loud bang from somewhere in the building and she jumped.
“Be right back,” Laura said, and left the room.
There was the scattered rhythm of running as an argument broke out in the hallway behind her. She turned in her chair to see Ostermann storming back into the room. “We’re going to have to do it again,” he said.
Skyla’s heart leapt. They were going to bring the man back. She would be able to put him back together. It was all just some horrible mistake.
The far wall slid open again, revealing a different man tied to the chair. He wore what a priest’s frock might look like if you dragged it through a muddy river. Underneath his beard, the man looked vaguely familiar. In fact, she almost cried when she recognized him.
“No,” she said, her voce shrill, pleading. “I won’t. I won’t do it. I know him!”
Ostermann said nothing. He reached over to her and gently closed the goggles. They clicked. “Skyla,” he said. “I’m afraid we have to.”
“No!” she demanded. “I want Laura. Bring Laura back.”
“You can see Laura after you do this.” Ostermann’s voice was coldly indifferent.
Her skin wanted to crawl off her body and run out the door. She heard herself shouting, but it all seemed distant now as the walls began to hum: deep, low, vibrating the chair she sat in. She could feel it in her teeth.
“What are you doing?” she said, looking around wildly. “I told you. I won’t do it!”
“I’m afraid we don’t have a choice, Skyla,” said Ostermann. He was muttering as he spoke. “It doesn’t matter if you want to do it or not. The machine can do it for you.”
Yes, I can, said the ancient voice, an echo in her mind, now that I have eyes.
The hum grew louder, like some massive animal living in the bowels of the facility, crawling toward her. She began to shake her head, shouting “No!” over and over, pretending that by making her voice loud enough, she could somehow break the machine.
“Skyla,” Father Thomas said. His voice was raspier than she remembered. He lifted his head and looked at her. He looked sad, broken and disillusioned.
“What are you doing here?” She asked, her lip trembling.
“I’m saving you,” he said. “Isn’t that obvious?”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You’re doing a crappy job,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks underneath the goggles. There had to be a way to free him, but his arms and legs were strapped to the chair.
“There isn’t much time,” he said. “I can hear the walls. I’m pretty sure I won’t even know who you are afterwards. If you get free, you have to stop them. This is all wrong.”
Without warning, the lights overhead went out. A klaxon sounded somewhere deep in the corridors, joined by the shuffling of panicked footsteps. Voices yelled in the distance.
“What’s happening?” she said.
But Ostermann was ignoring her. He was looking at the control panels, perplexed. He toggled a switch impotently, his brow furrowed. “It won’t stop,” he said to himself and placed a hand under his chin.
She turned her gaze back to Father Thomas just in time to see the wall panel closing over him. “No!” She yelled at the Tinkerer in the room. “Get him back! Get him back!”
“I can’t,” Ostermann said. “When the power went out, it killed a lot of the facility failsafes.” He hammered on more switches.
The shuffling of feet grew louder as Laura appeared in the doorway. “There’s been a breach,” she said. “We have to get Skyla—”
A black armored hand shoved her out of the way and slammed Laura into the wall. Two guards stormed past, their rifles armed with brilliant floodlights, blinding her. Skyla looked away, back to where Father Thomas had been, but he was gone, hidden behind a wall of interlaced light and shadow.
Her shadow. It danced in front of her, thrown against the panel like a dozen shifting doors, doors Skyla could open. She braced her foot against her chair like a sprinter. She heard someone from the observation room yell, “Stop her! She’s getting up!”
She launched herself from the chair, running full stop at her shadow as it danced on the wall. She passed through it like a waterfall. Claws and slimy, wet, indescribable things grasped at her thighs and arms as she traveled between the atoms of the wall, through the spaces in between.
And then she was through. She heard a gunshot and a loud slap as a bullet lodged in the wall where her chest would have been. She stood in the target room, a horrified Father Thomas staring at her, his eyes wild with surprise.
“You just…” he said. “You just…”
“I know,” she said, panting. “Listen, Father, I know how to save you.”
There was a combination of terri
fying sounds from outside as klaxons squawked, people yelled—and something else. Something roared, causing Father Thomas to jump in his chair.
“Open it!” someone yelled. The wall panel began to slide back.
Father Thomas wrestled with the straps. “No go on, Skyla. Run and don’t let them catch you.” He looked at her, his eyes pained.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You came this far for me, it’s the least I can do. But…” She looked back at the panel as it slid to the side, the light streamed in, painting a white square along the floor.
She turned back to face the priest. “It might be difficult.”
“Don’t say that,” he said, shaking his head. Everything he had imagined he would say when he finally found her, all poured out of him. “I believe in you Skyla. I never told you this when you and your mother went to my parish, but I always thought you were very bright. The brightest. I think you got the short end of the stick in Bollingbrook. People tend to hate or ignore what they don’t understand, but that’s beside the point…”
His words were becoming a panicked stream of consciousness, the last lucid moments of a dying mind.
She moved to the side with the panel as it slid open again. The square of shifting white light flooded the room, making John flinch. His shadow was stark on the wall behind him.
“What I’m trying to say, Skyla,” he said, “I think The Church is scared of you, of what you can do, because you can see the truth. You see what really exists beyond death and it scares them. It threatens them at the core of their power. But it saves them! Don’t you see? It forces them to grow!”
The buzzing was beginning to vibrate the back of his skull and he could feel tiny spider legs crawling up the inside of his scalp. A cold hand held a tuning fork to his teeth. John grimaced.
“So… don’t sell yourself short,” he squinted into the light. “Difficult or not…”
She focused on one of the shadows behind Father Thomas, locking her eyes on it the way a hawk chooses its prey. A landscape danced somewhere beneath it.