“Where are we? What’s wrong with these people?”
Agent Wyatt shrugged. “It’s always an apocalypse somewhere. It’s a world into which you do not want to escape, that’s all you need to know.”
“There’s a plague, or something? Is it worldwide?”
“What you’re seeing here is the work of a perfect bioweapon, one that quickly got out of control.”
“Perfect, meaning it killed everyone?”
“Perfect, in the sense that it didn’t. A corpse requires no further care or resources, so inflicting quick death is not the most efficient way to cripple an enemy. Instead, they developed a pathogen that would incapacitate a person within hours, rendering them unable to fight or work, requiring around-the-clock care and leaving them in that state indefinitely. And I mean decades. Wracked with pain, muscles seizing, unable to do anything but lie there and writhe as they rot from the outside in, all while leaving the brain and vital organs fully functional … until someone finally comes along and puts them out of their misery. Using the enemy’s sympathy against them.”
“That’s awful.”
“Ms. Sullivan, I need you to focus. Do you understand the gravity of the situation you and David have found yourselves in?”
“Are you seriously asking me that? Do you have any idea what we’ve been through?”
“Do you? What I’m asking, is David candid about what he does? About what he is?”
Amy started to answer, but the man at her feet said, “Water,” and she turned to kneel down over him.
She said, “Find some water.”
“Ms. Sullivan, we’re not here to intervene in—”
Amy got up and scanned the area around her, trying to find a nurse, or someone who looked like an authority figure. “Hey! Somebody! This man needs water!”
“You’re looking at the final stages of a worldwide pandemic. The system has collapsed, supplies have dried up. These people have been abandoned here, in twenty years this version of earth will be ruled by cockroaches—yet another world in which the bugs have won. That’s not our concern today. Ms. Sullivan, I suspect that David has not been completely honest about—”
“I’m not saying another word until you get this man some water.”
The agent had a look like she was entertaining a series of murderous fantasies, but ultimately decided it was easier just to comply. She reopened the doorway—which appeared right there on the turf, standing freely—and yelled for someone to get her a bottle of water. A moment later, she handed Amy a bottle of Fiji Water—a ridiculous brand drank by rich people—and Amy trickled a little into the mouth of the dying man. He sputtered and coughed, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep, or passed out. No “thank you,” no expression of relief. Just some dim awareness from deep down in the dark caverns of his misery that one part of him felt a little better.
Amy looked up at Agent Wyatt and said, “Thank you.”
She shrugged. “It hardly matters here.”
“It all matters. You’re not the cops, so you know that what happened with those kids is the work of something bigger than me or David or some random creeper around town. So are you here to help us stop it, or to get in our way?”
“You buy into David’s mythology? Monsters and ghosts and demons? And that you’re some kind of a select group of chosen ones who are humanity’s last hope?”
“Ha, nobody has ever called us that. I just try to help whoever’s in front of me. That’s enough to keep me super busy.”
“But you believe the kidnappings are the work of some kind of paranormal entity. A monster. One that only you can stop.”
“You go read up on ‘monsters’ and you know what you find? Every culture has the same ones—even civilizations who never talked to each other. Every culture has demons and vampires and stories of people who turn into animals. They all just put their own little spin on it—in Europe it’s werewolves, in Asia it’s were-bears, in Central America they’re were-jaguars. But it’s all the same because it’s all for the same reason.”
“Because they’re real, you mean?”
“No, because it’s all just an excuse for people to kill each other. Your kid gets attacked by wolves, there’s no way to get revenge on the wolves, so you blame the village weirdo. ‘I saw that guy turn into a wolf!’ All the legends can be traced back to something like that—people needing a scapegoat. They’ve found old skeletons with stakes through their rib cages, where the villagers went crazy and stabbed some poor dude because they decided he was a vampire, when he was probably just an insomniac with anemia. Witches, they were just any elderly women in the village who never got married—the men decided they were old and ugly and worthless and so they blamed them for every disease and bad batch of crops. Just burned them alive, no family to come to their defense. They didn’t have witch hunts because they believed in witches. They believed in witches so they could have witch hunts.”
“You think that’s why we’re here? To carry out a witch hunt?”
“I think you’re here for the same reason as the witch hunters. To lay blame for something you can’t understand.”
“So if you ran into what others called a monster, you would show it mercy? Protect it? Become its friend?”
“Yep, probably.”
“Even if it put the world in danger? This is not a hypothetical. I need you to understand what I’m saying. There are entities out there who will use your pity to their advantage. Look around you.”
Amy sighed and surveyed the rows of afflicted moaning around her. “Yes, Agent Wyatt, clearly the problem with the world is that we humans are just too darned merciful. Are you going to ask me questions about the actual case?”
“I already have. Step back through the door, please.”
John
“Hello,” purred the woman in the form-fitting suit and skirt, sauntering toward John along with a tanned Latino man with a beard and designer sunglasses. “My name is Agent Josaline Pussnado, my partner is Agent Sax Cocksman. To prevent you from coordinating, we are going to interview you separately, and simultaneously.”
She stared into John’s eyes and said, “You first. But I’m telling you now, if you so much as raise a threatening eyebrow in my direction, I’ll replace it with a bullet hole the size of a golf ball. Am I understood?”
John said, “You might not find me so easy to kill. But I’ve got questions of my own, so let’s get this shit over with.”
John stepped through, saw the arena full of diseased humanity, and lit a cigarette. The place smelled like a stew made from cabbage and zombie scrotums.
“So in this dimension, this is their national sport? They line up all the sick people and fans buy tickets to come see which one dies first? Disgusting.”
“Shut up,” said Agent Pussnado. “Hold still.”
She ran a wand up and down John’s body, as if searching for hidden weapons. When it passed over his crotch, it let out a threatening buzz.
John said, “Your machine is broken. There’s no metal in there. Not yet.”
“It doesn’t detect metal,” she said, glancing at his groin. “It detects danger. Now, we know your friend is behind the disappearances of those kids. The only reason we haven’t shackled him and thrown him into a deep, dark place is that we’re also sure he’s but one piece of the puzzle. Either he’s working in conjunction with something, or on its behalf.”
“And also, you’re not sure if he can be shackled.”
She didn’t respond, but John knew it was true. John said, “You think what you think purely because They want you to think it. You’re dancing right along to their tune, like those dancing cats they have in Japan.”