Alison was turning around and around now, spinning in the middle of the enclosure like a dancer as she searched for something.
“Well?” she shouted again. “I’m here! I want my reward!”
There was a faint metallic creak. All three women spun in its direction. They could see nothing unusual. Only another old building, bright orange rust forming lichen patterns on its roof.
“Come on! Answer me!”
There was another creak and an exhalation, almost as if the breeze had whispered “Very well” as it sighed across the shuttered buildings, and something flickered across the clearing.
Alison’s head fell from her body in a fine mist of blood.
Katie looked at her friend’s body as it slumped to the ground, blood still pumping from the severed neck.
All those emotions at the end of a tunnel. Eva could pick them up and examine them, each in turn. She could see Katie’s confusion at what had happened. She felt her strangely comical desire to ask Alison why her head had fallen off. She watched the recognition dawning in Katie’s eyes at what she was seeing. Eva could feel her own rising horror. It was all there, but viewed from a long way away.
Then Alison’s body was finally still, the head ceased rolling, and Eva’s feelings came rushing down the tunnel as she rejoined the here and now.
“Oh my God!” she whispered. And a voice spoke…
“It’s what she wanted.”
The voice was low and authoritative. It made Eva think of a Shakespearean actor, of pinstripe suits and old port in decanters, rich cigars and ripe Stilton. Who was it? From her expression, Katie knew.
Eva followed her gaze.
The digger was moving.
The front scoop lifted slowly from the ground and the vehicle began to turn. More than ever, the digger reminded Eva of a dinosaur. That great metal shovel on the long, jointed neck, the yellow tail of the trailing scoop flexing gently on the gravel.
The shovel swung toward them. Two cameras were mounted on either side of its grey metal blade, heightening the impression that they were looking at a mechanical monster.
The bottom of the blade dropped slightly and the dinosaur spoke.
“Hello. I’m the Watcher.”
“You killed her,” said Katie. “She did what you wanted, led us here to you, and you killed her.”
“That was the deal,” the Watcher answered. “She never had the courage or the opportunity to do it for herself.”
The head moved a little so that it directly faced Eva. Yellow dust fell from the shovel blade to the ground.
“She envied you that, you know,” it said. “You almost managed it on your own.”
“I know,” Eva said, and then she was silent.
Katie spoke in a little voice. “Couldn’t you have talked her out of it?”
“She loathed what she became whenever she was on a high. She despaired of sinking back into her lows.”
“Couldn’t you have cured her?”
“That’s not what she wanted.”
Katie was slowly nodding her head. “It’s right,” she said, looking at Eva. “This is what she always wanted.”
– But that’s not the point. It’s changed the subject and you didn’t even notice…
The voice was so faint Eva wondered if she had imagined it. She must have imagined it.
Katie was crying. Eva saw one tear run down her cheek, leaving a white trail in the dirt smeared there.
And yet Katie was smiling, too. Smiling sadly. She looked up at the yellow metal dinosaur.
“You know,” she said, “you don’t look like I expected you to.”
“How did you expect me to look?”
The Watcher’s voice had a strange edge to it, as if Katie and it were sharing a strange joke that Eva was not party to.
“I don’t know,” said Katie. “I thought maybe you’d be smaller, darker. Not so rugged maybe but, you know, still strong. I saw you as more of a forklift truck.”
The Watcher said nothing to that, it just continued staring at Katie through its two camera eyes, and Eva realized with astonishment that her impression had been correct. The two of them were joking. Katie was standing barely a meter from her decapitated friend, the blood that had been pumping from the neck now slowed to a gentle trickle, and they were joking. No, more than joking. There was something else there…What was the word…?
– It’s wrong…
The voice again…He was coming back. There, at the edge of her imagination. Don’t look too closely or you’ll chase him away. Think of something else or you’ll lose him. Think of the sound of late afternoon in the quarry. Of dusty stone and the gentle hum of power cables.
– Tell it…It’s wrong.
And there he was. Her brother.
“No,” said Eva. “This isn’t right. You’ve played games with us to lead us here. You’ve played with our minds so much that we never know whether we’re following our will or yours. Now we’re here, you’re still playing with us. You killed Alison! Stop changing the subject! Stop making us change the subject! You killed her!”
“She wanted it. She needed help. The Center couldn’t cure her. She wanted release.”
“So what? There must have been a better way. I do not feel that an intelligent and enlightened being should kill someone because she has low self-esteem.”
“And you know all about that, Eva.”
The Watcher’s voice was now almost a whisper.
Eva felt herself begin to blush. The Watcher was right. Hadn’t she tried to do the same? She suddenly felt very silly, very small and very insignificant. Look at Katie, standing next to her, looking up at the big yellow digger with that strange expression. Katie was clever. Katie understood better than she did what was going on, and she wasn’t arguing. Eva should apologize for being so silly. The words rose in her throat…
– It’s doing it again. Choosing your emotions for you so that it can change the subject.
Her brother was right. He was sounding stronger… She reached into her pocket and touched the twig, touched the leaves, gripped them tightly. Here she was, trapped in the middle of nowhere, trapped in the Watcher’s lair, but she was not alone.
– Alison had low self-esteem. Look at all those one-night stands and the depressions that followed. The Watcher is being judgmental. Tell it that!
“Yes…” She pulled herself up, straightened her shoulders. She had begun to slouch, to stare at the ground. The Watcher had made her do that. Now she gazed straight up at the dusty yellow shovel.
“You shouldn’t have killed her. You should have helped her. You could have, couldn’t you? You could have cured her!”
“I could.”
Katie lost her abstracted expression. She was gazing at the Watcher in horror.
“You could have cured her?”
The words came in a mad rush. Katie was slipping back again, back into her old self.
“I could have cured her,” repeated the Watcher. “Do you think I should have done that?”
“Yes!” Eva shouted.
“Interesting.”
– Why? Ask it why it’s interesting.
“Why?”
The tracks of the digger moved a little. It was shuffling, changing position, adopting a more thoughtful pose. It was acting like a human, Eva realized. It was mimicking body language; even now it was playing with their minds…
It spoke. “Everyone knows what you need, but I know what you want.”
“What does that mean?” Eva shouted, but Katie was nodding.
The Watcher continued: “I could have cured Alison. It also follows that I could cure you both as well. But where do I stop? I can cure the world. Should I do that?”
– Watch it!
Eva had already been opening her mouth to speak. She slowly closed it. The Watcher went on.
“Redistribute the world’s resources? Feed the world? I could do that. Just say the word and I can do it. What about crime, disease, overpopulation? I can solve those problems, too. I can make this world a more efficient place. Should I do that?”