Fifteen
Billy slowly regained awareness
of his surroundings. He was standing and could not imagine how he had
come to do so with the wheelchair entirely out of reach. He fought to
retain his balance, but collapsed on wooden legs.
He clawed his way along the rug
to the wheelchair. Purple, bloated bodies filled with silver needles
blocked his way. He screamed for help, but moving the two bodies was
beyond the capability of the little machines attending him. Confused by
his hysteria, they spun in circles like frantic insects. In the end, he
had no choice but to crawl over the corpses. He dragged himself into his
wheelchair and rolled back and forth through the reception room outside,
venting his rage and his terror in echoing screams. Only when he had
exhausted himself did he return to the bunker under the house.
He held his shaking hands over
the keyboard of a computer until they quieted. He waited for an
explanation from the depths of his own deranged mind. Cooling fans
whispered in the silence. Behind him, a drone explored the perimeter of
the room before slipping beneath the wall in a dreamy search for a
recharging station.
“I’ll sit here until I starve
to death if you don’t answer me! There are dead people in my house!”
BURGLARS, his fingers typed.
BURGLARS AND NOAH DARKER, AN ASSASSIN.
“You knew they were coming!
You could have gotten us killed!”
I SAVED OUR LIVES.
“You completely took over
everything without my permission, without even letting me know what was
going on!”
YOU SENSED TROUBLE AND YOU
WITHDREW. IT IS WHAT THE DOCTORS TRIED TO EXPLAIN TO YOU. YOUR LEGS ARE
PARALYZED BECAUSE YOU FEAR TO USE THEM. DISABLED, LIFE IS WITHIN YOUR
CONTROL. OR SO YOU BELIEVE AT DEEP LEVELS.
“You set those men up and you
killed them!”
I MEANT ONLY TO DISABLE THEM.
I ASSUMED THE DARKERS ONLY MEANT TO PUNISH ME, NOT TO KILL ME. I HAD
HOPED TO SALVAGE NOAH DARKER’S LIFE. THEY BOY WAS AN INNOCENT.
Corin fell silent. Billy
flexed both hands and put them back in place on the keyboard.
FREE EVIE.
Billy tried to set some of his
anger and panic aside. “That’s all I’ve heard since we arrived here.
Free Evie. I don’t know if I can handle having Evie around. We were just
kids. I’m sure we’ve both done a lot of growing up in the past three
years.”
EVIE’S LIFE IS IN DANGER.
“But there are dead men in my
den,” Billy said. He wondered how he could possibly deal with it at all.
Corin had murdered three human beings in cold blood. He would get blamed
for it. He’d wind up back in the psychiatric ward, if not in prison.
I WILL ATTEND TO THE DISPOSAL
OF THE BODIES.
Billy shook his head
frantically. “No. I’ll call the police.”
THINK CAREFULLY. ABRAHAM SAID
HE WOULD BRING EVIE TO US HOURS AGO. SHE WAS LATE. YOU BECAME UPSET.
HOW OTHERWISE DO YOU THINK I HAD TIME TO PREPARE FOR TROUBLE?
“He tried to kill us,” Billy
said incredulously.
NOT ABRAHAM. ABRAHAM HAS LEFT
TOWN UNEXPECTEDLY. NOAH AND LAZARUS HAVE ACTED ON THEIR OWN. IF SO, THEN
LAZARUS IS ALONE WITH EVIE. IF EVIE IS ALONE WITH LAZARUS, EVIE'S
LIFE IS IN DANGER.
Billy’s guts knotted. He
hadn’t been able to deal with Lazarus when he could walk. What could he
do now?
CONQUER YOUR FEARS. I WOULD
PREFER NOT TO ACT ON YOUR BEHALF, BUT I CAN AND I WILL, WHEN NECESSARY,
AND IF YOU FORFEIT RESPONSIBILITY.
Billy was too flustered to
think clearly. “What are we going to do?”
YOU TELL ME.
Billy shoved his hands in his
armpits to stop their shaking. “I don’t know! I don’t know what to do!
I can’t even walk!”
He put his hands back over the
keyboard. He dreaded Corin’s response to his helplessness, but only Corin
could deal with the crisis at hand.
Two words appeared on the
screen.
I CAN.
Billy all but fell out of his
wheelchair in his frantic anger. “You stay away from her!” He calmed
himself frantically. “Please. She won’t understand what the two of us
are about.”
I AM AT YOUR COMMAND, BILLY.
Billy ignored the gentle
sarcasm, although it was true. Corin had no power over him that he did
not allow. “We have to get rid of the bodies first,” he said nervously.
“We can’t just leave them there.”
HELP ME.
Billy shook his head
decisively. “I can’t.”
THEN I MUST.
Tears came to his eyes.
“What’s Abraham going to do? You killed his brother!”
WE HAVE PREPARED FOR ALL
EVENTUALITIES.
“We built an army! I thought
they were just toys!”
THEY ARE OUR SELF-DEFENSE. YOU
MUST COOPERATE WITH ME.
“I can’t! I can’t allow you to
let things get so insane! Do you hear what I’m saying? They all think
I’m nuts! Corin, for the love of God, what if we are?”
His fingers hovered
indecisively for a moment.
LAZARUS IS NOT SANE. HE WILL
RAPE EVIE. HE THINKS HE LOVES HER, BUT HE WILL KILL HER BEFORE HE WILL
ALLOW HER TO COME TO YOU, AND HE WILL TAKE WHAT PLEASURE HE CAN BEFORE SHE
DIES, AND INFLICT WHAT SUFFERING HE CAN IN RETALIATION FOR WHAT HE
PERCEIVES AS HER BETRAYAL. HE WILL DISPOSE OF HER BODY WITH EQUAL
PLEASURE AND THOROUGHNESS. HE WILL RELISH EVERY MOMENT OF IT.
Billy swung his wheelchair away
from the keyboard. A score of little machines moved in to attend him.
Corin had brought them to life in ways he did not understand. He wanted
to participate, to remember his thoughts and feelings when Corin was in
control of his body, but when he felt Corin’s psyche drawing close, he
floundered in panic. Corin was a god. The mind of a god was more than
any mortal could hope to face.
“I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
He withdrew. Sometimes he
pretended like he was being forced out of his own mind by Corin, but he
could see now that he was in control of even this. He had done it before,
too many times before to deny.
He was getting good at it. All
he had to do was to turn a corner of sorts within his own thoughts, and
everything went mercifully blank.
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