The Long Fall Into Darkness

by Charlie Cottrell

“Well, the guy who said it thought it was true,” I replied. “But crazy people believe crazy shit.”

  “That man was as sane as you or I,” Xavier said.

  “Weren’t you brainwashed at one point?” I asked. “And what do you mean ‘was’? Is this guy dead?”

  Xavier nodded. “He died two months later in a detention cell. Bodewell was off the force by then, and this case had been shoved into the back of the filing cabinet and left to rot. But his testimony is true.”

  “So, wait, let me see if I truly understand what you’re saying here,” I said, standing up and pacing around the small bedroom. “This case centers around the supposed murder of one Gregor Cornwallis, right? Bodewell tracked his alleged killer down, arrested him, and tossed him in jail. But then Cornwallis was found two days later, walking the streets as though nothing had happened?” Xavier nodded. “And then his ‘killer,’ this Burt Warden, was later found mysteriously dead in a holding cell? And no one thought to ask around about that, or check with Cornwallis and see if he had some sort of connection to it or anything? That’s cuckoo bananas, pal.”

  “And yet, it happened.”

  “Where was Cornwallis’s body after his supposed resurrection? Did he have any siblings? Maybe a random genetic clone?”

  Xavier shook his head. “You are asking all the questions Bodewell asked at the time. Cornwallis’s body was just…gone from the morgue. We tested the revived Cornwallis’s DNA, and it was a perfect match. Not a sibling match. No, it was him. And he had no memory of being murdered by Warden.”

  “That’s just all sorts messed up,” I replied, collapsing onto the bed. “I find it really hard to believe we’ve got an immortal wandering around the city.”

  “Reality does not care what you believe,” Xavier said.

  “So, let’s go find the guy,” I said.

  “What?”

  I stood up. “Let’s go track Cornwallis down. Isn’t that what you want to do? Wouldn’t that help us figure out what happened?”

  “He disappeared about ten years ago. No one’s seen him since.”

  “Are you telling me that the two of us can’t find a guy who’s been in hiding for a decade? That’s stinkin’ thinkin’, Xavi.”

  Xavier favored me with a nasty smile. “No. I know exactly where he’s hiding. We’re going to go find him tonight.”

  * * *

  We stood on the corner of 22nd and Sterling Avenue later that night. Xavier had finally given me some coffee and food and let me take a shower, so I felt more human than I had since he’d grabbed me from Vera’s warehouse a few days earlier. The building in front of us looked more like a pile of rubble than an actual building anymore, but Xavier assured me Cornwallis was inside.

  You’d think that a collapsed building, even in Old Town, would be one of those things that the city government would want to clean up. And they had tried, as it turned out: ten years ago, when the building suddenly collapsed in on itself, they’d sent a cleanup crew with all the usual heavy equipment to remove the rubble and clear the lot. But the equipment disappeared after the first day, as did the backup equipment the city sent to replace it, and eventually the crew just gave up and left. So the rubble pile remained, all rocks and broken glass and chunks of twisted metal.

  “What, he’s under the giant pile of rocks and concrete there?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Xavier said simply. I was unimpressed.

  The feral woman, whose name I’d finally discovered was Nancy, stood with her arms crossed and an impatient look on her face. “Are we gonna kill ‘im?” she asked.

  “No. At least, that’s not Plan A,” Xavier said.

  “What is Plan A, then?” I asked.

  “We infiltrate. Find him. Ask him some questions. Get some answers.”

  “You used to be way more helpful, Xavi,” I said. “I miss your younger, more happy-go-lucky days.”

  “I was never happy-go-lucky,” Xavier replied. “Come.” He stepped toward the collapsed building. I sighed and followed, while Nancy rolled her eyes and followed.

  The steps that led up to the building’s entrance were still mostly intact, as was the building’s front door. It didn’t look like it’d been an apartment building, but rather a block of offices. Xavier wrenched the door open; it came away with a screech of tortured metal and fell off the stoop. He turned on a flashlight and started into the building. “Be quiet in here and follow my lead,” he said.

  “Yeah, ‘cause no one could’ve heard that door come off,” I muttered.

  Inside, the floor almost immediately disappeared into a dark hole. Xavier found a secure point to tie a rope to, then began repelling down the hole. Nancy followed him, and I came after her. We dropped down into a sub-basement a few floors down. When I arrived, Xavier was breaking glowsticks and tossing them around to light up a small area.

  “He’s down here somewhere,” Xavier said quietly. “Remain on guard.”

  “Uh, this may not exactly be the best time to mention it, but I’m completely unarmed,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’ve got something I can use to defend myself, if need be?”

  Xavier dug in a pocket and tossed a pocket knife at me. “Here, take this.”

  I managed to catch the knife. “Thanks.”

  We set off into the sub-basement, keeping close together and moving slowly, on the lookout for traps. None of us really knew anything about Cornwallis, so we weren’t taking any chances. I let Xavier and Nancy go first; I definitely wasn’t taking any chances. I mean, aside from being in this hellhole in the first place.

  “Through there,” Xavier said quietly, gesturing toward a hall that split off from the main corridor with his flashlight.

  “How do you know?” Nancy hissed at him.

  “I just know.” Both of them turned to me.

  “I don’t care,” I said with a shrug. “That way is just as good as any other direction, except for maybe going back the way we came and getting the hell out of this place.”

  “No. Forward,” Xavier said. I sighed and continued to follow him down the side hall.

  Down here, things looked fairly normal, if rundown. The walls and floor were bare concrete, and while the ceiling was lower than you’d normally prefer and none of the lights were working, it didn’t feel completely oppressive. I mean, I still felt like everything was gonna come crashing down at any second, trapping me under tons of concrete and cinderblocks and slowly suffocating or smooshing me to death, but the feeling was mostly ignorable, like a fly that occasionally buzzed around your head or the urge to vote libertarian.

  What I couldn’t ignore, though, was the low-level hum of electricity that seemed to fill the air. I also noticed the hair on top of my head was starting to stand up on end. “Um, guys…” I said, concern creeping into my voice.

  “Yes, we know,” replied Xavier from up ahead. “Turn off your flashlight and move forward slowly. There’s a doorway at the end of this hall, about fifteen meters ahead.” We turned our flashlights off and slowly made our way toward the end of the hallway, where I ran face-first into the back of Nancy’s head. She growled and turned on me, grabbing me by the front of my shirt and surprisingly lifting me clean off the floor. My head bumped the ceiling.

  “Watch it,” she hissed. “I will gut you if you run into me again.” She dropped me unceremoniously back onto the floor.

  “Right, I’ll pay more attention next time I’m behind you in a pitch-black corridor,” I said, standing up and rubbing my now rather sore ass. “So, there’s a door here, right? You gonna open it, Xavier?”

  “Be quiet, both of you.” His voice came as a whisper a few paces ahead of me. I could hear the sound of metal slowly scraping metal, so I figured he must be picking the door’s lock. A faint click, and I felt more than anything else the sudden open emptiness in front of us. The room beyond must’ve been massive.

  “Come,” Xavier whispered, creeping forward. We followed, careful not to step on each other’s heels as we made our way into t
he room.

  And into a trap.

  XI.

  The door slammed shut behind me as soon as I was through it. Lights flickered to life around the edges of the room, which looked to be about the size of a decent Italian restaurant in a moderate Midwestern town like Cleveland or Des Moines. Instead of tables filled with customers eating subpar ravioli, though, the room was filled with robots.

  I’ve faced a lot of weird opponents over the years: ninjas, assassins, ninja assassins, thugs and enforcers, and one time a guy who was literally just a head in a jar. But I’d never faced off against robots.

  “Murderbots,” I said.

  Xavier gave me a weird look. “They might not be murderous robots,” he replied.

  “They have red eyes and what look like laser guns mounted on their shoulders. The only way they could be more murdery is if they started saying, ‘Exterminate!’ in a super-distorted computer voice.” I looked at Xavier critically. “These are definitely murderbots.”

  One of the murderbots rolled over to us and stopped with its laser pointed at me. “What are you doing here?” A very human voice asked from its speaker grill.

  “Um, Avon calling?” I hazarded. Nancy and Xavier both gave me a confused look. “Hey, it’s worth a shot.”

  Another murderbot rolled up and swiveled so its laser was pointed at us, too. “I’ll only ask one more time. What are you doing here?”

  “We’ve come to ask for your help,” Xavier replied. “We want to understand you.”

  A third murderbot came up. “No,” the voice from the speaker replied. “Go away. Don’t ever come back here.”

  “But—” Nancy began, but the voice cut her off.

  “No! Leave, now!” A robot got right up in Nancy’s face, which she did not care for. Teeth bared, she growled low in her throat. Xavier threw an arm across her torso, trying to separate the woman from the robot.

  “Fine, we are leaving,” Xavier said, dragging Nancy back. We turned to see the door opening behind us. Xavier and Nancy walked through, though she looked like she’d rather leap back in and attack one of the murderbots. I followed, but stopped at the last second and turned back toward the robots.

  “Y’know, Mr. Cornwallis, I could try to say something inspirational to you right now, try to convince you to let us in and let us help you. But you’ve got murderbots, so you’re obviously not in the mood to listen to anyone. I do want to say, though, that you’re probably condemning me to a life in jail.”

  “How’s that?” the voice from the nearest murderbot asked.

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure on that myself, but Xavier tells me that understanding what happened to you all those years ago will somehow help with my situation. I don’t know what it all means, but I know I have to pursue every available avenue to the very end.”

  The murderbot seemed to consider what I’d said, insomuch as an expressionless automaton can be said to look like it’s considering anything other than cold-blooded murder. “You think I can really help? I’ve been down here by myself for years.”

  “I know, but your case was just so bizarre that there’s gotta be some angle on it we haven’t seen yet. I know it’s asking a lot, but could you trust us, just for a little while?”

  The robots were silent for almost a full minute before Cornwallis’s voice came back over the speaker. “Okay. Please follow Unit 2787.” One of the robots twirled on its treads and started for the opposite side of the room. Xavier, Nancy, and I followed from a slight distance, still not completely sure this wasn’t an elaborate trap. Though why Cornwallis would need a trap was beyond me: he already had us significantly outnumbered with his murderbots, and he could’ve easily killed us at any time since we’d walked into his building.

  So, I assumed he was on the up and up. That assumption might come back and bite us in the ass, but I was willing to take a chance if it meant getting my name cleared.

  XII.

  Cornwallis’s robots led us through a labyrinthine maze of hallways with low ceilings and passageways narrowed by stacks of newspapers moldered together into large, monolithic piles of mushy pulp and large chunks of concrete. Finally, the lead robot stopped in front of a single metal door, the paint rubbed and scraped off by time and the occasional robotic armature. The robot rolled aside, and Xavier took the lead and grabbed the door handle.

  It twisted easily in his hand and the door whispered open on well-oiled hinges. Behind the door was a small, simple room with a desk in one corner and a cot in another. Seated at the desk was a gaunt man with wispy hair drifting to and fro in the air currents of the room. At the desk were a pad of paper and a pen, with which the man – Cornwallis, I assumed – was scribbling madly. He paused for a moment, muttered something under his breath, then began writing frantically once again. We stood there watching him for a few moments before I decided to clear my throat and announce our presence.

  “Ahem.” The man didn’t look up. “Uh, he-hem.” I cleared my throat louder. Still no response from the man at the desk. Finally, I said, “Hey, buddy, pay some damn attention!” The man continued to ignore us. Xavier got frustrated and stalked toward the man, hands clenched in fists. He grabbed for the man’s shoulder and spun him around to face us.

  “Hey, jackass, you let us in, now talk to us!” The man ignored him, continuing to write on the pad of paper. Xavier jerked the pad away and threw it across the room. Pages fluttered and flapped as it slapped against the wall and fell to the floor. The pen kept moving for a few more seconds before the man seemed to realize he wasn’t writing on anything anymore. Finally, he looked up at Xavier and blinked.

  “Oh, hello,” the man said. He set the pen down on the desk and looked at Nancy and me. “Who are you?”

  “We’re the folks you invited in to ask you questions,” I said.

  “I did?”

  Xavier, Nancy, and I exchanged a look. Were Cornwallis’s brains completely scrambled? “Uh, yeah, you did,” I said slowly. “We wanted to talk to you about the time you died?”

  “Oh,” Cornwallis said. “Which time?”

  * * *

  “This man is insane,” Xavier whispered.

  “Well, yeah, probably, but you were the one who suggested we come here and ask for his help,” I hissed back.

  “Want me to kill ‘im?” Nancy asked, an evil gleam in her eyes.

  “No!” Xavier and I snapped at the same time.

  I glanced up from our huddle to see Cornwallis still sitting there in his chair, waiting politely for his guests to pay attention to him once again. “Hey, um, Mr. Cornwallis,” I said.

  “Hal,” he replied back.

  “Okay, Hal.”

  “It’s short for Halbert,” he continued.

  “Ah.” I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that, so I didn’t. “Um, anyway, Hal, we were hoping you could help us out a little.”

  “So you said back in the changing room.”

  “The cha—what the heck is the ‘changing room’?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

  “Where you encountered my robots. That’s where I transformed,” Cornwallis said.

  I heaved a sigh of relief. “So, um, Hal, what can you tell us about the last time you died?” I asked.

  “I don’t actually remember much about when I die,” Cornwallis replied. “The rebirth is painful, though. It’s like all of my bones and muscles are stretched out and ripped apart and then reattached all wrong, then suddenly I’m awake and whole again, except I don’t remember how I died. There’s usually a new scar, though, so I have a hint.” He lifted up his shirt and showed us the patchwork collection of scar tissue that made up his torso. There were knife wounds, gunshot wounds, slashes and stabs and one that looked an awful lot like it had involved a hot poker. I know what torture feels like – I’ve experienced it more than my fair share of times – and I could suddenly sympathize more with his brain’s decision to flush memories of how he’d died right down the drain.

  “Here�
��s the one you’re talking about,” he said, lowering his shirt and pointing to his neck. We approached, cautiously, not wanting for the strange man to suddenly leap at us and maybe, I dunno, eat our flesh or something. Who knows what Cornwallis could do?

  A thin indentation ran around Cornwallis’s throat, like someone had taken a garroting wire and…

  “Were you strangled last time?” I asked. Cornwallis nodded. I turned to Xavier. “Okay, so that much checks out with the police report we took on his case. It’s really too bad he doesn’t remember anything else, because I’d sure like to know why he was strangled.” Strangulation is not an easy way to kill somebody, but it can be very personal. Who could have hated this man enough to choke him to death? Why kill someone like that? Cornwallis seemed amiable enough, murderbots notwithstanding. Had he gotten too close to information someone wanted hidden? Was it corporate espionage gone wrong? Or something even more sinister, more rotten?

  Cornwallis was still staring intently at us.

  “So, this is a gigantic waste of time,” Nancy said. “I didn’t even get to fuck up a murdering robot.”

  “Murderbot,” I corrected.

  “I have been able to piece some things together,” Cornwallis said from behind us.

  We turned to face him. “Like what?” I asked carefully.

  “I was a scientist,” he said with certainty.

  “How do you know that?” Xavier asked.

  “Well, when I revived, I was wearing a lab coat and had a lanyard with a photo ID hanging around my neck,” Cornwallis replied. “It was an ID for Shurburg Chemicals.”

  My eyes lit up. “Hey, I know someone there,” I said.

  “Someone helpful?” Xavier asked.

  “She has been in the past,” I replied. I gave Cornwallis another look. “What else have you been able to figure out?”

  “Oh, lots,” Cornwallis said, “though some of it is probably from previous lives.”

  “Still could be helpful,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

  XIII.

  Cornwallis sat and talked with me for over an hour. He didn’t remember nearly as much as he thought he did – age and repeated death could have stolen some more memories, I’m sure – but Cornwallis was fascinating to talk with nonetheless. He didn’t know how he’d become functionally immortal, but he’d done some experimenting on himself to see how far it would go.