There was a series of loud clanging noises, and then the scream of displacement. I couldn’t feel anything, but I knew the sound, and realized we must be descending. I oriented my mental map of Westminster Abbey, which was a freestanding wall of ancient-looking stone like a broken bone rising out of the ground in a large courtyard, surrounded by a thick, reinforced wall. The hover pad was not far from the building’s remnant. Everything was underground, and I knew that once we touched down I’d be wheeled onto a wide conveyor belt and sucked down into the belly of the whole place. I imagined my path as a red line that terminated in one of the small, square rooms that acted as entry points for the corpses. From these small rooms the bodies were conveyed on belts through narrow passages into the huge processing center, where the dicing and slicing was performed, largely by Droids, according to West.
If all went well, I’d end in one of the smaller rooms and not proceed past it, except under my own power, by choice-cataclysmically bad choice, maybe, but at least by choice.
An eternity passed, a numb, unreal current running through me, teasing my dead nerves into a believable imitation of pain. Then I was in motion; I could tell from the way I banged around inside the mobile coffin I’d been stuffed into, first this way and that. I did some mild calculations and decided I was being loaded onto one of the belts. According to plan, Brother West was right beside me, standing stock still and grinning mildly at nothing. He’d said that nothing ever varied in this process, that it was machinery and I was to be a cog, so he must be there, standing ready with the hypo to bring me back to life.
The motion stopped. There was a humming sound, a vague, distant sound of voices. Then something heavy slammed into my container. There was a scrape, and then a smooth, rolling sensation. I just saw eyes. As I lay there, the pain swelled up again, the spiky fish bloating, piercing every bone in my body simultaneously until I wanted to claw my eyes out for relief.
When the lid was torn off, I didn’t realize it at first, because I was staring at the black side of the container. A thought kept racing through my brain, interrupting everything until I imagined I could see the words scrolling across my field of vision in bright red letters, flashing and jumping: Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Letmeoutletmeout!
I was turned over, the sudden light stabbing down into my eyes, and Brother West’s cheerful-fucking-face filled my field of vision as it leaned over me. It was so close I kept waiting for the blast of warm breath, but of course there wasn’t any. For several long, stretched-out seconds it hovered over me, fake skin and sunglasses.
Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Letmeoutletmeout-
“We are inside, Mr. Cates,” West finally said, but there was something off in its voice. The digitally smoothed, eternally calm tone that all Monks used was frayed at the edges. If I’d had any control over myself, I would have studied its face. As it was, I continued to stare just off-center, over its shoulder. In my peripheral vision, Brother West appeared to vibrate, a fuzziness around its edges as if something vital had come off the rails inside it.
“I will now-” It hesitated, and suddenly jerked its head violently to one side, then back toward me. “I will now inject you with the antidote provided by-” Another violent spasm. “By-” Again. “By Mr. Kieth.”
It turned away and disappeared from my sight.
Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Letmeoutletmeout-
It came back, a rising wave of nerve-shredding pain, burning through everything else and leaving me a dissolved puddle with shards of glass glinting in the sudden light. Through it, like squinting through a heavy rain, I could sense my clothing being moved aside and the needle being pushed, hard, into my chest. Brother West jerked and stuttered through the whole procedure, almost dancing. I wondered, dreamily, if he was tearing my heart open, if blood was rushing out of me, if this was where I would just bleed to death, a stupid sort of death.
Its rubbery face loomed over me again. “It is done, Mr. Cates,” it said. “I wonder-” It stopped and cocked its head, as if listening to something. Then it shuddered and oriented on me again. “I wonder if you will keep your end of the bargain, Mr. Cates. I so looooongggggg long long long to die.”
It snapped back to loom over me, suddenly calm. “I wonder,” it said, the creepy calm of the Monks back in its voice. “I wonder if you would permit me to speak to you about immortality, if I may, Mr… Cates, isn’t it? It will only take a few minutes, and I would appreciate your time.”
There was a moment, a part of a second, where everything was balanced. The pain had swollen inside me until I was sure I was going to explode, just pop like a balloon, but it held steady. Brother West stood still, watching me, its face frozen in that subtle smile, all I could see. There was no noise. I still could not move.
And then the pain exploded, shattered into billions of tiny particles scattering throughout my insides, burning on and pock-marking my bones. My body stiffened, my whole existence becoming one endless cramp. I felt my heart spasm and lurch back into motion, pushing the cooling blood in my veins. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out, my lungs deflated and unwilling to move. I sat up and froze, trembling, eyes wide and staring at Brother West.
“Mr. Cates,” it said. “Let me show you an endless-”
A gunshot tore the air, and Brother West’s abdomen, so recently repaired by Ty Kieth, exploded outward in a spray of wiring and fluffy white insulation. The Monk collapsed with a strange wheezing noise. My blood felt like splinters moving through me, and I sat in a strange black metallic container, trembling and unable to move.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps approached. I was able to squeeze a trickle of air through my constricted throat. After a few more seconds, as I was slowly forcing my lungs open, hunched over and dry-heaving, a Monk entered my field of vision, stepping carefully over West. I could only see it out of the corner of my eye, but there was obviously something wrong with it: Its robes were tattered and stained, its face smudged with dirt-though it still possessed the eternally satisfied expression of all Monks.
Somehow, when it turned to me and spoke, I knew who it had once been. Shivering and still semiparalyzed, a surge of adrenaline, like fresh ice poured directly into my veins, swept through me, making me choke.
“Mr. Cates,” the thing that had once been Barnaby Dawson said, “only Monks and dead people are allowed in here. One of us is not playing by the rules.”
XXIX
MY OWN PERSONAL ANGEL OF DEATH
Outside the walls of the small room, an alarm sprang into life.
Aside from the tattered and dusty robe, Barnaby Dawson looked like every other Monk I’d ever seen. Humanoid, a uniform six feet tall, dressed in black, white fake-looking skin, eyes hidden by dark glasses. His facial expression was identical to every other Monk’s-somehow a combination of amusement, concern, and arrogance, though I wasn’t sure if I really saw or imagined it. I sat shivering, finally able to curl my hands into fists and track Dawson with my eyes, but unable to do much more than that. I couldn’t lift my arms; I couldn’t imagine fighting someone, much less a digitally enhanced killing machine. I was fucked.
It still didn’t bother me.