Alight (41 page)

Coyotl slides the black crown onto the withered creature’s head. Rheumy red eyes stare out with a combination of confusion and excitement. The old monster starts to cough.

“Hard to breathe…I need my mask.”

Coyotl gives him a hard pat on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Kev…in a few minutes, the mask won’t matter.”

The old one’s red eyes seem to go clear for a moment. He stares at my O’Malley.

“By the gods,” the old thing says. “It’s…it’s
me
.”

The young and the ancient lock eyes.

A low growl starts in my O’Malley’s throat, builds to a scream as he starts to thrash against his restraints.

Matilda lowers the rod.

My O’Malley again goes rigid. He shudders and bucks, tries to beg her to stop but his mouth won’t form words.

“You horrible
BITCH
,”
I roar. “Stop it or I’ll
kill you
!”

Matilda turns to me, smacks the rod down on my thigh. The charge sets my body ablaze. I try not to scream—I fail.

She lifts the rod.

“No cursing,” she says. “Children should know the rules.”

Old O’Malley is half giggling, half coughing.

“My shell is so
strong,
” he says. “So much vigor!”

Everything grows blurry as tears fill my eyes.

“
Please,
Matilda!” I’ll beg, I’ll plead, I’ll sacrifice myself, whatever it takes. “Let him go and I swear I’ll let you do it to me.”

My O’Malley’s head turns fast to face me, his features contorted with both fear and anger. “Em, no! Don’t promise them anything!”

Even now, with blood on his lips from where he bit through them, his cheeks streaked with tears, he is beautiful. How could I not have told this boy that I loved him? I am desperate for him to live, even if that means my own death.

I tear my eyes away from him, force myself to look at her.

“Matilda,
please
.” My voice is weak, subservient. “I swear, I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t fight.”

She pats my head, makes that
tsk-tsk
sound with her unseen mouth.

“Oh, my dear, you can fight all you like—it won’t make any difference.”

“Preparations complete,” Old Smith calls out. “Ometeotl?”

“Ready for instructions, Doctor,”
the room answers.

“Perform transference power-up and preflight checks.”

The entire room hums, a long droning sound that makes my hair stand on end.

Coyotl walks over to my O’Malley. The overwritten circle-star leans close, the expression of gleeful hate something I would have never thought could exist on his face.

“This is going to hurt,” Coyotl says. His words ring with a sick joy. “
So
much.”

My O’Malley can’t fight anymore. He has nothing left. All he can do is cry.

“Em, please,” he says in a whisper. “Help me.”

Sobs rack my body. I can’t do anything—I am powerless. Leader, empress, monster, friend, enemy…when it matters most, I am none of those things.

I am nothing.

I am just a circle.

I am
empty
.

Old O’Malley coughs, harder than before, struggles to draw breath.

“I hope…my old self hasn’t changed
too
much,” he says. “I was never a crybaby like that.”

Matilda laughs. It sounds like my laugh.

“Kevin, you’ve been a lying, manipulating, backstabbing
crybaby
for a thousand years,” she says. “Some things don’t change.”

The room darkens. Old Smith raises her arms, and they are bathed in color. The same lights that made Spingate glow like an angel soak into Old Smith’s cratered skin, make her look like a moving statue that has disintegrated and blackened with age.

“Ometeotl, commence final bio-scan of receptacle.”

“Scanning, Doctor Smith.”

The humming increases, almost drowns out my O’Malley’s sobs and Old O’Malley’s cough.

What little rage that still burns inside me is extinguished by a wave of hopelessness. My friend is going to die. He’s an arm’s length away, if only I could reach out to him. Right here, right now, Kevin O’Malley will cease to exist. And I can’t stop it.

“Bio-scan complete, Doctor Smith,”
the room says. “
Zero risk factors. Ready to commence upon your order.”

Old Smith lowers her glowing hands. “Commence transference.”

The humming grows louder, fills the room, bounces off the ceiling and walls.

My O’Malley thrashes, but not of his own will—his body is reacting: twitching and trembling, quivering and lurching.

They’re killing him.

The hum goes on forever. It fills my head, rattles my ears and teeth. It blocks out everything. I want my hands loose, not so I can escape but so I can drive my fingers into my ears, try to block that sound of death.

And then, the volume lowers, lowers, lowers…the humming stops.

I look at my friend. He’s on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling. His chest heaves. He blinks rapidly, shakes his head. He wiggles his nose, curls his lips, clicks his teeth as if he’s trying out his face for the first time.

Please-please-please let it have failed
…

O’Malley’s head turns toward me. He smiles—but it isn’t
his
smile.

“Hello, young lady.”

In that instant I know my friend is no more. I’m numb. I feel nothing. I am as cold as a corpse.

The monsters have won. And I’m next.

Matilda walks to his coffin. She presses a small green jewel set just behind his head. O’Malley’s restraints clack open. He sits up, stretches out his arms, rubs his legs, looks at his fingers like they are made of magic and wind. His eyes shine with wonder and awe.

“I can’t believe it,” he says. “There’s no…I feel no pain. I knew my old body hurt, but until this very moment I hadn’t realized I spent every minute of every day in pain, and now…nothing. It’s
gone
.”

He swings his legs over the side, lets his feet dangle.

The tears in my eyes make him shimmer and wave.

Matilda puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Slowly at first,” she says. “Your body is fine, but your mind must get used to moving it again.”

O’Malley brushes the hand aside, all but pushes Matilda out of the way. He slides off his coffin-table and stands.

“Praise be,” this new person says. “Praise be to all the gods, it
worked
.”

A desperate, haunting moan of anguish makes my hair stand on end. At the X, the gnarled, restrained Grownup O’Malley lifts his head. His frail lungs try to draw in air, air that is killing him. He looks around the room, disoriented.

“It didn’t work,” he says. “We…we must try again. I’m still trapped in this hideous body. Oh, I hurt
so bad,
even worse than before.”

I don’t understand. It
did
work, I can see the young O’Malley and I know he is not mine.

Young O’Malley starts to laugh.

Old O’Malley’s head snaps up. For the first time, the red eyes clear all the way, blink rapidly.

“No,” he says. “This can’t be.”

Young O’Malley walks closer to his old self, does a little stumbling dance.

“Come on, now,
Chancellor
! You knew this would happen.”

The wrinkled monster looks around the room madly. I realize that he is looking for someone to help him.

“Wait,” he says. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”

Young O’Malley reaches toward Bishop, palm up. The hulking monster hands over a sheathed knife. O’Malley takes it by the hilt, then grips the sheath and pulls the blade free.

The knife—ornate, golden, bejeweled—looks exactly like the knife in the painting behind the X, the one with the young man driving the blade into the old man’s chest.

Young O’Malley smiles wide, points the tip at his former self.

“If it makes you feel better, old man, this is
exactly
how
I
thought it would turn out. Which means it’s exactly how
you
thought it would turn out, too. My, how interesting to talk to one’s self!”

The old monster pulls at the restraints, but he was weak even before this ordeal began.

“Please,” he says. “I’m not ready. It’s not
fair
. I want to live! Why did I spend a thousand years in agony if I don’t get to live?”

So much pain in that voice, so much betrayal—I almost feel sorry for him. The overwrite, it doesn’t
move
the consciousness of the old person, it
copies
it, leaving two versions. The old version remains trapped in its fragile, failing body.

Young O’Malley flips the knife in the air, catches it by the hilt. He walks closer to the X.

“Don’t be sad, Old Me. You got to live for a thousand years—I’ll get to live for a thousand more.”

From behind the fleshy folds hiding its mouth, the old monster screams nonsensical words, babbles and begs, but it does no good. Young O’Malley places the point of the knife on his old self’s chest, then leans in. The gnarled skin punctures. Red-gray blood leaks down. There is a moment of hesitation, then a
crack
as the knife punches through bone and sinks deep.

The old monster twitches.

“No,” it says in a faint hiss. “I was supposed to…to live…
forever
.”

The head droops.

The old man moves no more.

Young O’Malley—now the
only
O’Malley—pulls the knife free. He wipes the flat of the blade against his dead former self, scraping free the red-gray blood. He slips the knife back into the sheath, then slides the sheath into the belt of his black coveralls.

The lump in my throat changes, becomes a fist—I turn my head to the side just before I vomit bits of spicy meat all over my coffin’s white linen and onto the stone floor.

“Kenzie, she vomited,” Matilda says. “Is her brain all right? Does she have a concussion?”

Old Smith shuffles off the pedestal platform. Her gnarled fingers grip my face, turn my head left, then right.

“Hard to tell,” she says to Matilda. To me, she says, “How is your head?”

“It
hurts,
” I say. “So bad.”

Matilda huffs. “Like she’s going to tell you the truth, Kenzie. Don’t be gullible.”

“So your former self can lie,” Smith says. “Well, isn’t that a surprise?”

“Get her ready.” Matilda’s voice rings with eagerness. “I’m done waiting. We’re going to do it
now,
concussion or not.”

The diseased, rotten stink of Smith’s fingers combines with the acrid smell of my vomit; my stomach threatens another round. There’s no food left to throw up, but my body doesn’t care.

“Wait a little longer,” Smith says. “Matilda, you only get one chance at this, and Bishop
did
knock her unconscious.”

Smith releases me. I can still smell her fingers.

Matilda glares at Bishop. “Thank you so much for that, lover.”

Lover? The old me and the old Bishop…
lovers
?

“You wanted her here,” he says. “And here she is.”

It’s the first time I’ve heard the huge old monster speak. The sound tears at my heart. It is
his
voice, the voice of the boy who kissed me at the waterfall, the voice of the boy who—when all was lost and I was sent off on my own to die—whispered to me that he would send help. It is his voice, matter-of-fact and to the point, but it is also
not:
it is breathier, shorter…it is
tired
.

Matilda huffs in disgust. “Maybe you did it on purpose. Maybe you
tried
to hurt her so I couldn’t transition!”

Bishop says nothing.

Matilda sighs. “Fine, we will wait.” The old creature looks down at me. The mask hides the fleshy folds that in turn hid her mouth, but I know she is smiling—I can tell by her one remaining, red eye.

“Soon, my pet. Soon we will be one.”

T
he nightmare gets worse. It envelops me, makes me want to give up, to shut down forever.

My Bishop lies in the coffin to my left, where O’Malley died.

In the coffin past him, my Gaston, and in the fourth and final one, my Borjigin.

Old Bishop, Coyotl, O’Malley and a few other Grownups I don’t know dragged them in, unconscious, locked them down. They are all awake now, the sides of their coffins lowered. Borjigin sobs, seems unable to accept that Coyotl is doing this to him. My Gaston cursed at everyone until Matilda went to work on him with the rod.

He’s not cursing anymore.

We are all about to be overwritten. We will be
erased
.

Spingate is here as well. She’s shackled to a heavy ring mounted in the wall. She’s crying. She knows she can’t do anything for anyone. None of us can. We are all helpless.

The new O’Malley struts around the room, laughing and joking. Same body, different soul—he is an abomination.

The hulking, ancient form of Old Bishop stands to my left, at the head of my Bishop’s coffin. Most of the other Grownups seem shriveled, all used up, but not Old Bishop—he has their gnarled skin, red eyes, mask and metallic life-support frame, but a thousand years of life haven’t made him any less lethal.