Kien walked into the dark interior of the store. Old Dad had plenty of money. In fact, Kien knew where the miser hid it, buried beneath a pile of cheap straw mats in a cache dug into the store's dirt floor. Right there.
As Kien looked at the spot in the floor, he was seized with the same compulsion that had once gripped him over thirty-five years ago. He took a sharp-pointed mattock down from those hanging from hooks on the wall and roughly pushed the pile of cheap mats away. He started to dig in a frenzy, cutting quickly through the cool, slightly moist soil in a spate of wild hoeing. Within moments he had dug a hole over two feet deep, and the blade of the mattock hit something that clanged with a metallic chink. He dropped the mattock, grubbed with his hands in the dirt, and pulled out a metallic strongbox that felt heavy with the weight of untold riches.
"You!" a voice squeaked in rage.
Kien looked wildly over his shoulder. It was Old Dad. "What are you doing there? What are you doing with my box?"
"I-" Kien began, confused by the blurring of memories and events unfolding before him.
"My son, a thief," the old man said haughtily. He raised the cane that he always carried and struck Kien sharply on the shoulder. Kien ducked his head like a turtle retreating into his shell and took the blow as he always did.
Old Dad struck him again and again, and something snapped in Kien. He wailed in anger and pain, reached out and grabbed the object nearest to him, and struck out wildly at his father. He felt the shock of contact run up his arms, and his father stopped beating him. He opened his eyes and saw the truth that he had hidden with a thousand elaborate lies. He saw the mattock blade embedded in the center of his father's forehead. Old Dad looked at him with astonished, already glazed eyes.
He was dead. Kien had killed him. There was only one thing to do now. He had to run. He needed money. He reached gingerly over his father's cooling corpse and lifted the key the old man wore on a thong around his neck. He put the key into his pocket and tucked the strongbox under his arm. It was heavy, heavy enough to buy him a new life and a new identity in Saigon. He could finally get out of the jungle.
He rushed out of the store and came face-to-face with Daniel Brennan. The two stared at each other like the old enemies they were.
"What are you doing here?" Kien ground out.
"Looking for something you took from me," Brennan said. His eyes went from Kien's face to the box, and he remembered what Chrysalis had told him when he'd first come to the strange place.
Kien, too, looked at the box. "This is mine," he said. "I took it to buy myself a new life."
Brennan shook his head. "It is the means of my new life," he said, advancing.
Kien looked wildly around, but there was nowhere to go. He tried to dodge past Brennan, but Brennan was too fast for him. They grappled for the box, and it fell to the ground and burst like a ripe watermelon. Golden light shone out of the box so powerfully that it nearly blinded both men.
They shielded their eyes and stared as a tall slim figure stepped out of the light. It was Jennifer Maloy, naked and beautiful and alive.
She looked around dazedly, then saw Brennan. They met and embraced while Kien crawled to the shattered remnants of the strongbox, moaning like a lost child. Brennan hugged and kissed Jennifer, wanting never to let her go, but he finally had to release her to take a breath.
" I was so lost and afraid," she said. " I couldn't find my way back to you."
Brennan smoothed her hair and smiled. "It's over now," he said. "Let's go home."
Jennifer looked around in bewilderment and finally focused on Kien, who was staring like a broken man at the smashed and empty strongbox. "What about him?" she asked.
Brennan felt totally serene. It surprised him. All of the hate and anger had been burned away, perhaps by the joy of finding Jennifer again. He wondered for a moment if somehow, some impossible way, he'd achieved enlightenment, the ultimate Zen goal of a totally self-realized man, then rejected that notion as farfetched. He was hardly worthy of such a state.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe we should just leave him." Kien looked up for the first time. "Leave me? Here?" Brennan looked at him with cold eyes. "Why not?" Kien jumped up and hurled himself at Brennan. Brennan met his furious attack calmly, serenely, simply pushing him aside, and Kien fell panting to the ground.
Brennan looked around. "This doesn't look like too bad a place to me," he said. "Probably better than you deserve."
"The jungle?" Kien cried, looking around wildly. "You don't know what I've done to escape this place! Don't leave me here!"
The desperation on Kien's face was almost enough to incline Brennan to pity. Almost. But there was little he could do about it anyway. He and Jennifer started to fade-or this strange little universe, this simulacrum built from the mortar and bricks of Brennan's memories and psyche, started to fade. They were never sure which.
But they heard Men scream, "Don't leave me here forever," and it echoed over and over again as a reedy voice crying, "ever… ever… ever…" like a condemned man questioning an unendurable sentence.
Then there was silence.
7.
Brennan opened his eyes, rubbed them vigorously, then stood and leaned anxiously over Jennifer. Her eyes fluttered, then opened, and she smiled. Brennan didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He leaned over and hugged her fiercely.
He turned and looked at the rest of the room for the first time.
Father Squid was staring at them with wide-open eyes.
Kien's body-Fadeout's body-was lying slack-mouthed and drooling on the floor. The door to the room suddenly swung open, and there was Rick and Mick, carrying a large jar tucked under Rick's right arm.
"Okay, boss," Rick said. "Here we are." They stopped, looked around, looked at each other, and said, "Oh-oh" in unison.
"We've been tricked," Mick added. "Something's wrong with the boss."
"Let's get out of here," said Rick. They dropped the glass jar as they ran from the room, and it shattered. Brennan made a move to follow them, then stopped as he saw Brutus among the remains of the glass jar. The homunculus was bloody and torn. Brennan rushed over to him and kneeled. He reached out a hand but didn't dare touch him. He knew there was nothing he could do to mend the damage his comrade had sustained.
Brutus looked up at him, barely able to see through swollen, bruised eyes. "Sorry I told where you were, boss, but I guess it worked out."
"It did," Brennan said quietly. "Did we get Jennifer back?"
Brennan glanced to his side to see Jennifer kneeling down next to him.
"You did, Brutus," she said.
"Good." His tiny body was wracked by a spasm of coughing, and he leaned back among the shards of glass. "This is damned uncomfortable," he said, and closed his eyes.
Brennan sighed and leaned back on his heels. Jennifer gripped his forearm and laid her head against his shoulder as Father Squid crossed himself and quickly whispered the prayer for the dead.
"You did very well out there," a voice said. Brennan looked up to see Trace standing over him and Jennifer. "Satisfied?"
Brennan looked at her before answering. She was a young woman-slim, dark-eyed, with high cheekbones and Indian eyes. He didn't know who she was for a moment, then he remembered. She was his mother, who had died when Brennan was very young. He didn't remember much about her, only gentle hands and soft songs sung in Spanish and Mescalero Apache.