Patricia tried to remove her helmet with her hands but couldn’t. “Uh...little help?”
“Helmet off,” I said, causing my helmet to fold back down.
“Helmet off,” she parroted me. She sighed in relief when it folded back. “I’m claustrophobic. Hate feeling trapped.”
I nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. Better than you know.” I held up the codeine. “So...?”
“First off, what’s wrong with her?” Patricia asked as she knelt next to me, facing Haywire.
“Fractured ribs and broken scapula on the left side.”
Patricia’s eyes narrowed. “That a pretty precise diagnosis. How can you be sure?”
“We’re sure,” I replied. “Perfectly. So, what dose should I give her?”
“Well, this is all wrong,” she sighed. “She needs to be lying on her left side. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but lying on the side of the fracture will help her breathe easier.”
“Okay,” I replied.
Patricia reached to move Haywire.
“Whoa! Careful!” I cautioned. “Remember your extra strength in that exoskeleton. Gently.”
She nodded. “Right.” Slowly, the pharmacist-turned-medic placed her arm behind Haywire and cradled her body as she turned her onto her left side. Haywire’s face contorted into a pained expression, but she didn’t resist.
“Can you breathe okay?” Patricia asked.
Haywire nodded. “Better. Pills please...now.”
Patricia took the box from me and slipped out two capsules. “Open up.” When Haywire opened her mouth, Patricia dropped the pills in before reaching to snatch the Gatorade from me. “Here.”
Haywire took the liquid into her mouth and gulped down the pills. “Thank you,” she said before she settled back down onto her left side.
“What about the sling?” I asked.
“It’s more important that we monitor her breathing,” Patricia replied. “If she does okay over the next hour or so, we’ll sit her up and put on the sling.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “Thank you, Patricia.”
Patricia turned to me, her eyes intensely focused. “We’ve got some time now. How about you explain what the hell is going on?”
“I-I don’t even know if I can.”
“Try,” Patricia insisted.
“Don’t bother,” Haywire said, not even attempting to turn as she spoke over her shoulder. “There’s no way she’ll believe you.”
“Uh...what?” Patricia reacted indignantly. “I just watched everyone in the world—well, other than the two of you—turn into mindless drones. The sky is purple. I’m wearing a spacesuit and hanging out with the most famous man in the world. My mind is wide open at this point.”
“Well put,” I replied with a smile. “Okay. I’ll start from the beginning.”
“And then go on till you come to the end,” Patricia urged.
I nodded.
27
Patricia sat with her back against the wall, her legs pointing at a right angle toward Haywire, who had turned slightly, propping herself up to monitor the conversation. I sat opposite to Haywire in the small room, having pushed the large vacuum cleaner out of the way to make space. Haywire and I exchanged glances as we waited for Patricia’s reaction. Whether she would accept what we’d told her or, instead, react as I had, attempting to find an alternative explanation, remained to be seen. She might even cast us as the villains, assuming we were trying to fool her for some reason, just I had assumed Haywire, John Doe and Mr. Big had nefarious alternate motives toward me. What would happen next was unclear.
“So,” Patricia began, her facial expression unchanged as she continued to stare forward, “we’re trapped?”
“For the time being,” I confirmed, “yes.”
“But you have the key to escape, right?” she said, turning to me.
“I do.”
She nodded, appearing to be somewhat reassured. “But you won’t leave because you believe there are more people like us out there—more real people?”
“Finding you confirms it,” I replied. “I have no way of knowing how many there are, but if there is even one, I can’t leave.”
Patricia turned to Haywire. “And you have friends on the outside? These...post-humans?”
“Yeah,” Haywire said, her voice still weak but gaining in strength as time passed. “They’ll know what’s happened by now. They’ll get the gates open.”
“How many of them are there?” Patricia asked.
“Only a handful,” Haywire replied, “but it doesn’t take an army of post-humans to hack a sim.”
“What if this other post-human, the one whose head we’re in, is smarter than your friends? What if the gates can’t be opened from the outside?”
“Nobody’s that smart,” Haywire replied. “We’ll get it open eventually,” she added confidently.
“And what about her body?” Patricia asked. “Is she being guarded?”
“Who? Kali?” Haywire asked.
“Yes. Her. What precautions are you taking?”
I narrowed my eyes as I watched this exchange. Patricia was accepting the incredible, almost unfathomable scenario we’d thrust upon her and was actually analyzing it, seemingly turning it around in her mind and examining it from all angles.
“We’re not worried about her physical body,” Haywire replied, dismissing the concerns. “She can’t wake up. We won’t let her.”
“But are there guards?” Patricia asked again, insisting on an answer.
“I don’t think so,” Haywire replied, “But I can’t say for sure one way or another. We don’t have contact with the outside. They might have assigned someone, just to be on the safe side.”
Patricia nodded. “Okay.” She paused for a moment, as if mulling the situation over. Only moments later, she’d come up with a solution of her own. “Well, the answer seems simple. You should give the key to Kali.”
“What?” I reacted.
“Negotiate with her. Offer her the key in return for the conscious entities still in the sim. Make her agree to let them leave first.”
Haywire snorted before groaning in pain. She clasped her arm in front of her ribs and held tight as she answered. “Listen, lady, you don’t know Kali. She’s not going to negotiate.”
“Why not?”
“We’ve got nothing to negotiate with,” Haywire answered.
“You’ve got the key. That’s what she wants.”
“It’s a lynchpin,” Haywire corrected. “If it’s used, the sim collapses. Everyone dies, including us. You get it?”
“I get it,” Patricia replied emphatically. “Really. I do. But I don’t see any other alternative. If we throw ourselves at her mercy, I’m sure she’ll be reasonable.”
“Her mercy?” Haywire snorted again. “Stop making me laugh. It hurts.”
“I have to concur with Haywire,” I said. “If we allow Kali to know our location, we won’t survive. Throwing ourselves on the mercy of the merciless would be foolish.”
“How do you know she’s merciless?” Patricia asked, pressing the issue.
“She’s shut down sims identical to this one before,” Haywire answered. “What would make you think she’d hesitate to do it again?”
“I’ve watched her kill,” I added. “She does it with...glee. Believe me, you have no idea what we’re dealing with. The only thing she’s not capable of is compassion.”
Patricia nodded. “I see.” She paused before gesturing with her finger to Haywire and I. “And what’s the story with you two? You seem to back each other up pretty quickly. Are you an item?”
Haywire snorted again. “What? God, no. In his dreams.”
Patricia snapped her head to face Haywire. “Was that funny, bitch?”
I realized what was happening a fraction of a second too late to do anything about it. I grabbed for my gun as quickly as I could, but before I could aim it, it was driven out of my hand with a force that could only be compared
to the hand of God. I was up on my knees a fraction of a second later, reaching for my other gun, only to have it wrenched away from me by an invisible hand that broke my wrist in the process. I called out in agony as Patricia thrust my body back against the wall, pinning me in place as she gestured to Haywire, thrusting her up to her feet and against the wall opposite me.
“Is this really your type?” Patricia demanded, her visage melting, replaced by that of Kali. She examined Haywire, her expression turning to extreme disgust. “So you’re into the goth thing now, Pookie? Purple hair? You like damaged girls?”
I couldn’t reply. My eyes were wide as the force—the hand of God—pressed against my lungs, making it impossible to breathe or speak. I was being crushed to death as I watched Haywire suffer the same fate.
Kali nodded. “Well, I can’t say I understand it, but if you prefer damaged girls to me, then I’ll give you damage! I’ll make her just the way you like it.”
Haywire’s death was not quick. It was not filled with nobility. It was gruesome. It was long. I watched blood rain down from her brow. I watched her skin bubble and burn. I watched her horrified, panicked eyes melt until they ran down her cheeks like tears in hell. All the while, I suffocated.
My last thought as I died was that it had truly been worse than Dante. Worse than Blake.
PART 3
1
WAKING UP, in this instance, was the worst thing that could have happened to me.
“Where is it?!” Kali screamed in an altered voice that would have put a banshee to shame. “Where is it?!”
I opened my eyes. She was inches from me, her formerly glowing eyes now completely black, not even reflecting light, as though they were extensions of the abyss itself. Her upper lip was curled upward at both corners demonically, the rage on her countenance taking on cartoonish proportions. Such were the terrifying advantages of controlling reality.
I was still jammed flat against the wall, but we were no longer in the subway tunnel maintenance room; rather, we’d returned to our penthouse. My body was stuck to the wall outside our bedroom, the invisible force like a car pinning me to the wall. My exoskeleton and armor were gone, not that they could have done me any good against a power like Kali’s. Other than my underwear, I was naked and vulnerable. I was, indeed, at the mercy of the merciless.
“It’s not here! You hid it! Give it to me!” Her screams weren’t just excruciatingly loud; they also burned. Her breath seared my face every time she spoke, and I cried out in pain. “Where is it? Where is it? Where is it! Goddamn you! Where?”
She reduced the pressure on my chest just enough to allow me to take in the air I needed to speak. “I-I don’t have it.”
Before I’d even seen her move, she’d slashed the razor-sharp fingernails at the tips of her claw-like fingers across my face, stunning me. I gasped when I realized that my top lip had been mostly severed and was now hanging down, flopping like a cold tentacle against my bottom lip as blood filled my mouth.
“For all the fame and fortune your doppelgänger somehow garnered, you’re really just a stupid, stupid man,” Kali spoke contemptuously.
I couldn’t reply. I remained trapped, pinned against the wall, my arms splayed out, my legs awkwardly crossed together, my mouth eviscerated to the point of uselessness. I understood, in that moment, how death could be preferable to existence. She was right. I was a stupid man for allowing myself to end up in her clutches.
“You think you can fool your God?” Kali spat. “I’ve been in control the entire time, my love, right from the moment of your betrayal.”
I winced, the nerves in my face and especially in my mouth screaming and pulsing with every beat of my heart. I couldn’t close my mouth. It filled with blood and I needed to drain it by hanging it open and tilting it to the ground, lest the blood drown me.
“I saw you with the hackers,” Kali spoke icily. “I saw that bitch’s phone call in your aug glasses. If I had any doubts, you erased them when you referred to the people from my times as ‘post-humans.’ I’d never used that term with you.”
I closed my eyes when I realized my verbal slip up.
“Even still, I gave you one last chance. I gave you the chance to show your loyalty—your decency—your humanity. But instead of doing the honorable thing, you decided to murder me.”
There was no way to speak, so I shook my head.
“No? Is that right?” Kali reacted. “What did you think they were going to do to me? Just put me to sleep? Rescue their precious cyber-persons, then shake my hand and let me go? No...this is about survival—theirs or mine. To believe otherwise is idiotic. You couldn’t possibly be so stupid. But then again...” With that, Kali stepped forward and put her clawed index finger against my lip, pressing it into the nearly severed flesh. Suddenly, an agonizingly maddening itch gripped the entire area, causing me to shake my head involuntarily before she caused an invisible vice to hold it in place. I screamed; the itch was unbearable. Even today, the memory causes me to shudder. When she removed her finger, my upper lip was healed, returned to its proper place. “You know the story of Prometheus, don’t you?” she asked me.
I nodded.
She smiled, her gruesomely exaggerated features making even that expression terrifying. “You are the post-human Prometheus,” she said, taking sick delight in bestowing the moniker upon me. “I am the post-human Zeus. But it won’t only be your liver that is pecked out every day. I’ll tear you to shreds. Every cell in that simulated body belongs to me and can be decimated, only to be reformed afterwards so I can do it again. I have you for eternity. There is no escape. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whimpered.
“Where is the lynchpin?”
“I have it. I’ll give it to you,” I replied.
Kali’s threatening posture didn’t abate.
“But you have to let the conscious people go first.”
Kali remained perfectly still—uncannily so—for several seconds. Finally, she straightened her back and tilted her head to the side. “For the first time, you’ve impressed me. Daring to say those words to me took enormous courage. Congratulations.”
The next part...the next part is difficult to relate. I’ve hidden it in my memory for so long, unable to bear the remembrance.
Kali held her hand up to me and flames—flames that seemed to emanate from inside her, as though she were calling forth the worst fires of hell, jetted out toward me, bathing every inch of my body and burning my flesh. It was an inferno. She lowered her hand, but I continued to burn for several more seconds that felt like hours. I went mad in those moments—absolutely mad. I would’ve told her anything to make it stop if it had continued. No human has ever experienced such torture and lived to tell the tale. It should have been lethal, but Kali was God in that sim, so I lived. I lived.
When the flames abated, I made a sound. It wasn’t a scream, nor a groan, for I had no mouth and no nostrils; the flesh had melted to seal them shut. The sound was simply agony and despair in and of itself. It was a sound that pleaded to let me die. I needed to die.
And then that horrible itch returned—the maddening sensation of trillions of tiny insects under my skin, scratching their rough surfaces against me, my flesh re-forming in the most uncomfortable, unimaginable way. The combined pain of the burn and the sensation of the itch caused me to writhe, wrenching so hard against the invisible force that pinned me to the wall that I could feel my muscles tearing under my re-forming skin. Those injuries were healed as well, the itch simply sinking deeper and suturing me back together. I relented, my body giving in, the purest despair imaginable taking hold of me, causing my body to heave in uncontrollable sobbing. Tears couldn’t run down my cheeks, however, as I had no eyes from which they could pour. The itch was in my eyes too though, torturously rebuilding my eyelids, tear ducts, and the lenses that had been seared off. A fuzzy sensation of light grew and sharpened. Before long, I could see Kali’s silhouette, just inches from my face.
“I bet you won’t dare say those words to me again,” she said in a cold, lifeless monotone.
“Kali, please,” I bellowed when my lips had been repaired enough that I could form words again, albeit muffled ones. “For the love of God! Stop!”
“Isn’t that the problem, Professor? You don’t love God, and now God is punishing you, just as you deserve.”
“I’m alive, Kali! I’m real! Please!”
“You’re not real yet,” Kali retorted. “Your level of intelligence and self-awareness is far too low for me to feel any sympathy for you. At best, you’re the smartest of the dogs. You shake paw. You roll over.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked, exasperated. “If I’m so low? So worthless? Why?”
“Because I failed to make the real you love me. This is the mistake of history. It must be corrected. I will correct it.”
“Can’t you just move on?!” I nearly screamed in the wake of the unbearable itch. I could barely think. I could see Kali’s face now, but the colors were blurred together.
She smiled, menacingly. “You’re stalling for time,” she said. “No one’s coming to save you. I’m monitoring the pathetic efforts to hack the gates by the post-humans in the real world. They’re not even close. When they do get close, I’ll destroy the gates all over the global sim, just as I destroyed the gates north of the city. They’ll never get in, Professor—never.”
“If you destroy the gates,” I managed to reply, “then you won’t be able to leave either. The lynchpin will be useless. We’ll be trapped here forever.”
Kali froze for a moment, as though in disbelief of my idiocy. Her head suddenly tilted back as she let loose a long, cold, mocking laugh. “No, my dear. I’m afraid you’re wrong—dead wrong.” She turned slightly and gestured with her hand. The china cabinet—that damned china cabinet—suddenly swung away from the wall like a door, revealing the brilliant white light of the gate behind it.
Post-Human Series Books 1-4 Page 70