The Hollow Skull

by Christopher Pike

  Cass reached under the pillow, drew out the gun, and pointed it at his head. “I’m getting at this,” she said.

  He didn’t blink. “Put that away.”

  “One other thing. When you wanted me to check the blood on Mary, you insisted I check just one place. Her white shirt in the back.”

  “Because that was where I poked her with the needle!”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps it was because that was where you stained her shirt when we were separated at the plant. Where the man had his throat ripped out.”

  Fred snorted. “You think I’m one of them?”

  She spoke calmly. “I think it’s possible. I want you to lie facedown on the bed.”

  “I will not.”

  Cass stood and lost her towel. She cocked the hammer. “You’d do well to do what I say. Maybe I’m out of my mind with grief, and maybe you are perfectly human. But right now, to me, it doesn’t feel like a bad thing to shoot you in the face and see what color your brains are.” She gestured with the gun. “Lie down.”

  He did as she ordered, covering his butt with the towel. Grabbing a fork from the complementary fruit basket that came with the room, she ripped off his towel and straddled him. She put the pistol to the side of his neck so that he could feel how cold the metal was.

  “What are you doing?’ he asked anxiously.

  “A little foreplay.” She tested the sharpness of the fork tines.

  “Cass,” he said desperately, “I’m sorry about Mary. It broke my heart to do what I had to do. If there had been any other way …”

  “There might be another way.” The tines were sharp. “We just have to explore every possibility.”

  She stabbed his right buttock. Black blood oozed out.

  It dripped over his pale skin and stained the white sheet.

  Cass remained calm because she was in a void where feelings could not survive. When she spoke next, her voice was low and casual. Yet a tiny part of her was totally disgusted that she could have been fooled so easily.

  “In case you don’t know,” she said. “You have black blood pumping in your veins. Now, from this point on, it doesn’t matter how human you act. I know for a fact that you’re not. You can drop the charade and answer my questions.”

  He replied in a monotone. The change was so abrupt that she flinched involuntarily. Yet her grip on the pistol remained firm.

  “You may ask what you wish,” he said. “It makes no difference to us at this point.”

  “You were one of them since that first night in the mine? You scraped your hand on the same material when you helped pull Tim from the black pool?”

  “That is largely correct. But the transformation was not highly developed until this unit visited him at the hospital the following day.”

  “The blood on your shirt was your own blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it necessary for a human to bleed when they go through this process?”

  “No. But Tim and this unit were experimenting with different ways to ingest silicon to allow for the reconfiguration of the nervous systems to support the second pattern. We both took in small quantities of ground-up glass. Later we found better substitutes.”

  She didn’t care to know about their diets. “What was in that black pool?”

  “As you suspected there is what you would call an infectious contaminant. But to us this phrase is a misnomer. Planted at several places around this planet—always next to radioactive isotopes—are highly developed forms of molecular microchips. Once they have entered a human system they completely transform the system into the next pattern of evolution.”

  “Why were the chips planted around uranium?”

  “When a society has advanced to the point of using atomic energy, it will automatically seek out such radioactive isotopes.”

  “So the placement of chips is tied to a substance that signals a certain level of development?”

  “Precisely. Also, the faint radioactive decay feeds the chips with energy over the billions of years that they must be placed.”

  Cass gulped. She was swiftly losing her calm. “Billions of years?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who placed these chips here?” she asked.

  “The same being who placed all the patterns of the first level.”

  “Who is this being?” she demanded.

  “It cannot be described in your language.”

  “Are you saying that these first-level patterns were responsible for life on this planet?”

  “Yes. The second pattern is merely the next step in an evolutionary process that was started on this world billions of years ago. So when you speak of us as alien we are no more alien than you. Both first-pattern and second-pattern beings are a product of the same seeding of this planet.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “The information I am sharing with you is correct.”

  “Why haven’t more people who work in uranium mines been infected with these molecular microchips over the years?”

  “There are many conditions that must be met for what you call infection to occur. First, not all uranium mines are seeded with these chips. Second, the chips do not work well in most parts of the world. They are sensitive to a particular alignment of your global magnetic fields. For instance, when the military scientists took the chips from the mine and injected them into people, they achieved only partial results. The initial transformation process works most efficiently in the city of Madison itself. The scientists in question no doubt began to observe that phenomena.”

  “Why would these chips be made to be so sensitive to magnetic fields?”

  “You see this as a weakness in their design but it is not so. These chips are what you would call living technology. They are living and synthetic. They are intimately tied to both qualities of this world. And in either case, in time, the chips are always found by a developing society and the transformation process is completed. Nothing is left to chance.”

  “So Madison was just a good place to get the ball rolling? Once the infection starts to spread, it’s not so sensitive to global magnetic fields?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Why was the mine left open for us? That seemed a chance encounter.”

  “It would appear that the scientists in question wanted to perform a semi-controlled experiment of the effects of the chips in their natural surroundings. Also, to address your second query, the setup only appears laden with chance because your sense of time is so narrowly defined.”

  “Do you think these same scientists know what you just told me?”

  “No. The technology and final implications of the second-level transformation is far beyond their comprehension.”

  “Are their levels of transformation beyond second level?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tim had fiber optics for fingers. Why don’t you?”

  “This unit purposely prevented such development so that this unit could remain in the capacity of observing you.”

  “Why were you observing me?”

  “The start of transformation is always a period of observation. Although each species is patterned after the original matrix, discrepancies occur over the billions of years of evolution. This unit felt it imperative to observe you because you represented what the original will would have considered ‘the greatest threat to the transformation.’ “

  “In other words, you continued to act like Fred around me because you wanted to see how I ticked?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have been led from the start? I was like a mouse in a cage in an experiment?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Was my father infected with these chips?”

  “No. We left him uninfected to see how you would react to him if you merely suspected he was infected.”

  “I should have known because his blood was red. Where is my father now?”

  “He is what you call dead.”

  Cass felt a cons
triction in her throat. “Did he die of the gunshot wound?”

  “That is correct. A clot formed in the wound and entered his brain via his circulatory system and he died.”

  She had killed him. “Was Mary infected when you shot her?”

  The answer killed her, a part of her. “No.”

  Finally a tear came to Cass’s eye. A tear made of ice.

  “You simply acted like she was infected so that you could observe my reaction. To see if I would let you kill her?”

  “That is correct. We wanted to know if you were willing to sacrifice her to stop what you perceived as a threat to all humanity.”

  Cass had to breathe. “You killed my little sister for nothing?”

  “For information. To observe your reaction.”

  “Did you feel anything when you killed her?”

  “No. We have no feelings as you understand feelings. We have no individuality.”

  She spat the words. “You’re evil!”

  “We are not evil. We are you. We are what you were born to become.”

  Cass finally snapped. “But I don’t want to become like you!”

  “It matters not what you want. Transformation goes inevitably forward. Nothing can stop it.”

  She pressed the pistol deep into the soft flesh of his neck.

  “Oh yeah,” she whispered. “Well, I think I’m just about to stop your forward motion. How does that make you feel?”

  “It matters not if you destroy this particular unit. The greater design will find completion in the original will’s expansion across this galaxy.”

  “How? The government is onto you. You won’t spread beyond Madison.”

  “We will spread. It is already too late for you to stop the process.”

  “Goddamn you! Why do you even bother answering my questions if you feel nothing for me?”

  “It matters not if I answer your questions. For me to speak or not speak is irrelevant.”

  She quieted. “You feel nothing for me?”

  “No.”

  “There is not even a tiny part of the old Fred left in you?”

  “His individuality has been extinguished.”

  She sighed. “That’s all I really wanted to know.” Cass took a pillow and folded it around the gun. She shot him once in the back of the head.

  His brains were like Tim’s. Coiled fiber optics, parasitic worms swimming in black fluid. They plopped out the same way they had from Tim’s head, and left Fred’s shattered skull hollow.

  19

  Cass washed the black splatter off her body and dressed. Bringing the gun with her, she quickly left the hotel room. If anyone had heard the muffled gunshot, they had yet to report it. She was able to leave the hotel and collect her car without incident. But just as she was pulling out of the valet area, she ran into Sally. The woman looked as if she had already had a drink and won a few hands of blackjack. Sally waved for her to stop. As she leaned in the driver’s window, Cass smelled alcohol.

  “Where are you going?” Sally asked good-naturedly.

  “To Los Angeles.”

  “But I thought you were spending the night?”

  “I changed my mind.”

  Sally looked around the car. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “He’s decided to stay here tonight.” She added, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  Sally smelled something fishy but was obviously too polite to say so. Besides, she had her own agenda. “Can I ride with you to L.A.? I told you that it’s important that I get there by early tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company at the moment.”

  “I understand. I don’t want to pressure you. But I can promise I won’t bother you at all. I’ll probably sleep most of the way.”

  Cass hesitated. “I’m in a hurry to leave. I can’t wait for you.”

  Sally shrugged. “You can see I don’t have any luggage. If you want to go now I’m ready.”

  Cass paused. She didn’t know why she was doing this.

  “OK,” she said. “Get in.”

  Sally patted her arm. “You’re a dear.” She hurried to the passenger side and climbed in and let out a satisfied sigh. “Los Angeles here we come.”

  Cass pulled onto the street that led to the highway. “I’ve been trying to get there all my life,” Cass muttered.

  “What stopped you?”

  “The town I lived in.” She added, “It was that kind of place.”

  True to her word, Sally appeared to relax into her seat and fall asleep quickly. Cass was happy she didn’t have to strain to make conversation. Somehow she wasn’t in the mood for chit chat. It must have been because she had just lost everything in the world that mattered to her. Yeah, right, that was it.

  But she was wrong on that point.

  She still had much to lose.

  Twenty miles outside of Las Vegas, rolling down the infamous Highway 15 toward a better and more sane life, a light suddenly dawned in the northeast. The light was not caused by the premature rising of the sun. It grew so swiftly in brightness that it could only have been the work of something unnatural. Sally raised her head with a start as the glare touched her closed eyelids. Cass watched out the side window as the fireball transformed itself into a shimmering mushroom cloud. The government had solved its quarantine difficulty. They had nuked Madison.

  Cass was glad.

  “What the hell?” Sally gasped as she awoke in a hurry.

  The car died on the road.

  Cass understood the problem. She had seen enough. Sci-Fi movies. The EMI pulse from the thermonuclear blast had shorted the car’s electronics. Behind her she was not surprised to see most of the lights in Las Vegas flicker out. Cass let the momentum of the car carry them to the side of the road. There was no one in their immediate vicinity. Sally was still coping with the blast of the warhead. The thunder of it rippled slowly across the sky like a giant’s invisible fist. Sally could have been in shock, she was looking to Cass for an explanation. Cass merely shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think it’s the end of the world,” she said.

  “How can you be so calm?”

  “I’ve already been through a lot in my short life.”

  “The car is dead?”

  “Dead as a doornail.”

  Sally didn’t know what to make of her. She pointed to a hill off to their left. “Let’s try to climb up there and get a better look at what’s going on,” she said.

  Cass was agreeable. It wasn’t like she had a lot to do at the moment. Certainly she had no future. It wasn’t even a reasonable possibility with a past like hers. She seriously wondered if she would be living in a mental hospital within six months.

  Sally was fit. Still dressed in her smart black pants suit, she led Cass on a vigorous hike to the top of the hill. It was a dangerous summit, with steep drops on two sides. But from the top they had an uninterrupted view of the haunting mushroom cloud that was already beginning to fade against the black horizon. Cass wondered what her hometown would look like in the morning sun—all black ash. Yet the violent image did not unduly disturb her. The lights in Las Vegas were still out, but the moon continued to shine, and the stars.

  Always the stars, they would shine forever. There was a moment of profound silence.

  Sally turned from the nuclear holocaust and stared at her.

  Cass had not noticed before how deep her blue eyes were.

  “That’s not so,” she said softly.

  Cass stammered. There was something potent present.

  “W-what is not true?” she asked.

  Sally’s voice was hypnotic. “That the stars will shine forever. They will not, they will one day die. But on that far-off day I will continue to exist.”

  Cass gasped. “You’re one of them!”

  Sally shook her head. “No. I am much more than one of them.”

  Cass was in awe as much as she was horrified. The creature who stood before seemed to radiate into all things. Cass received the dist
inct impression that both she and the woman stood at the edge of an infinite black precipice. Only this being stared out upon it with unfathomable understanding, while she was dwarfed and destroyed by it.

  “Who are you?” Cass asked.

  The woman sighed and once more looked out over the desert plain.

  “I cannot be defined by your words. But if you need to give me a name, you may call me Sio. I was her once, a young woman like you, with hopes and fears not much different from your own.”

  “But that was a long time ago?”

  Sio nodded. “Billions of years ago.”

  Cass was stunned. “The group in Madison brought you here?”

  “I allowed them to bring me here. I have been to many worlds.”

  Cass could hardly respond. “How did you become what you are now?”

  “Through an experiment in biology and will I became the first of my race to tap the true dimensions of unseen consciousness. That gave me an advantage over my fellow beings. Over time I subjugated them to my will. My mind grew in size as my power grew—I was able to contain all within me. Then, when my world was conquered my gaze strayed to the stars.” Sio shrugged. “The necessary technology grew around me and my will expanded out across the stars.”

  Cass remembered her nightmares.

  “You began to absorb worlds?” she asked.

  “I absorbed worlds where there were sentient beings. Where there were not, I planted seeds that would lead to sentience. My body is all these beings—I live through them and they live through me.” Sio stopped. “I am like your God.”

  Cass shook her head. “But you cause so much pain. Why?”

  Sio was thoughtful. “The experiment began in pain. That woman, so long ago, had her heart broken. Perhaps that is why the expansion is rift with suffering.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “It is more that I do not care to know. All that matters is the end result, that my will continues to expand.” She turned her haunting gaze back on Cass. “I know you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The original matrix, the genes of my first race, set the basis for the pattern of life on this planet. Some times it happens that after billions of years of evolution there arises a person who resembles the original Sio. You are like her, you are like me.”