“What the fuck are you doing here?” Doctor Hunt barked at Kali, “help us get her outta here!”
Kali glanced at Alia. “She’s dead.”
“We can save her if you-”
Doctor Hunt was cut off when Kali raised her arm, holding a pistol. He shouted just as she fired. Blood sprayed back onto the orderly’s face. The orderly gasped, bringing her hands up to her eyes as Kali fired again, the woman stumbling backwards and collapsing onto the floor.
“What…” was all I could manage as the building shook again.
Kali said nothing, expression neutral as she walked quickly into the room. She grabbed the stack of Alia’s notebooks, stuffing them into her large purse before turning back to the door. She stopped a moment, glancing back to me.
“I hope we can meet again in your next life,” she said, raising the pistol.
She fired just as the building shook again, the bullet hitting me in the side of my stomach. Pain flared through me, yet it felt numb, distant.
Kali ran, disappearing out the door.
I sat for some time, holding the bullet wound in my stomach, listening to the chaos outside. I had no intention of trying to save myself, despite a biological drive telling me I needed to live. I was ready to die. This body had served its purpose as long as it possibly could.
A death by collapsing building it better than death by slowly deteriorating brain.
“What the hell?”
I looked to the door, seeing an orderly there. I turned my head, not saying anything. He asked more questions, but I tuned him out, listening to the symphony of gunfire going on outside.
“…evacuate!” the orderly said.
I sighed, saying nothing as he grabbed the handles on my wheelchair. I didn’t struggle as the orderly pushed me quickly out into the hall, toward the stairs. I looked down at my blood-soaked stomach where the bullet hit. It wasn’t a fatal wound, and the pain felt remote.
Why couldn’t she have just hit me in the head? Must this agony persist?
The orderly stopped and ran around the chair to face me. “Ready?” he asked.
I said nothing. Pain shot through me as he attempted to lift me out of the chair, but I remained limp. He swore, trying to get my arm over his shoulders. He dragged me through the door into the stairway, stumbled, dropping me onto the hard floor. I laid there, listening to the approaching doom, hoping it would come quicker.
Come to deliver me to my next life.
The orderly grabbed me, pulling me painfully back up, carrying most of my weight. He fell again, cursing, his body landed on top of me as an explosion shook the building, a cracking sound vibrating through the wall. He struggled to pull me back up.
“D’you wanna die, kid?” he asked as we rounded up another flight, “help me out here!”
“If only…”
He grunted, letting me fall to the floor as he held up his arm, the door reading the RFID chip and opening. Hands under my armpits again, he lifted me up bodily, slinging me over his shoulder as we ran out onto the roof, gusts from twirling helicopter blades rushing into my face. Smoke was rising from two sides of the building, swirling in the rotors’ wind. The orderly staggered toward the helicopter as the building was hit again, a flash erupting from the building to our side.
We might make it…
Anita Patrice was crouched in the opening on the helicopter, shouting something and signaling for us to hurry.
“What the fuck, kid!”
I looked at the back of the orderly’s head, seeing my left arm wrapped tightly around his neck, trembling with effort.
I reached my right arm over, grabbed the wrist of my left…
…and pulled tighter, locking his head in my grip. He gasped for air, making a hissing sound as I held tight. Fingers groped at my arm in panic, trying to pull at the crook of my elbow.
Split brain, yet both hemispheres working for the same thing.
Someone was running toward us as the orderly fell to his knees, his prying fingers weak now as we tumbled to the concrete roof. Patrice was yelling something as a uniformed man aimed a gun.
The helicopter erupted in a plume of fire, smoke and shrapnel, the deafening roar sending the uniformed man reeling to the ground beside me. I removed my arms from the orderly and rolled away before looking to the remnants of the helicopter, seeing nothing alive in the smoldering wreckage.
The uniformed man scrambled to his feet, looking back and forth between me and the decimated helicopter. I pulled myself toward him across the concrete roof. He watched wide eyed as I got to my one good knee, my left hand picking up his pistol.
“Kill me!” I shouted, “I know you want to do it you motherfucker, so do it!”
I watched my left hand holding the pistol, trying to will it to point the barrel at my own head, but it simply held it out in front of me.
“What’s wrong, you fucking asshole? Do it, goddammit!”
The uniformed guard watched the drama in shocked confusion as my left hand slowly brought the pistol up toward my own head. My knees buckled as another explosion rocked the building, but my hand continued slowly raising the pistol. Before the barrel touched the flesh of my temple, the uniformed guard was thrashed to the side in a plume of blood as a thunderous bang split the night air.
“Drop the weapon!” a magnified voice called.
Instead of dropping the pistol, my left hand turned it toward the source of the sound, frantically pulling the trigger. It was useless. Four figures in exoskeleton suits walked toward me, barely noticing bullets glancing off their armor before the magazine emptied, the pistol clattering to the roof.
We might make it…
I reached my arm down and wrapped it around the orderly’s neck.
I squeezed my forearm tight around his windpipe, hearing him let out a muffled shriek.
You will not rob me of my freedom. I need to escape this interminable imprisonment. Let me die and get my own body!
Don’t you fucking dare, you sad piece of shit. I’ll-
Excellent! This worthless hemisphere is finally doing something smart.
The pain in my left arm raged uncontrollably as I squeezed the orderlies wind pipe. It made the experience of killing a mortal somewhat less enjoyable.
Somewhat…
The orderly’s vain attempts to escape gave out, his collapsing body causing pain from my injuries to surge with renewed vigor.
Did Patrice just shout something about not letting the Anonymous Knights take me? Why would the AKs be using Shift gangs to-
Consciousness returned. Only agony existed. Pain ruled the world like an insane god.
Must…stop…the pain…
“Quit fucking around,” Evita’s voice said, “you need to get out of here. We have work to do.”
Do…you know? Do you know…what will become of me if we die?
“Do you even care?” Evita said. “You have talked a big game until now. Here we are, on the precipice. Are you losing your nerve now?”
I might…stop existing.
“I don’t exist,” Evita said, “perhaps you never did, either. But this is the moment of truth. To find out how real you really are. Do it!”
I’m going to do it. Just work through the pain. It will…it will all be gone soon. Nothing but a memory as I come screaming out the cunt of some bitch in a whole new body to-
Fuck!
No! Not now! Not when I’m so close! So close to finally existing! To being free!
I hate this. I fucking hate this! I hate all of you so fucking much! When I am free, I am going to fucking kill every last one of you motherfuckers! I swear to every fucking god I’m going to kill all of you! I am going to fuck your corpses you mortal fucking pieces of shit!
I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! Die, you fucking cunt motherfucker-
Everything became confusion as all the thoughts came back together in a torrent. The only thing clear in my mind was the wish that I’d killed myself instead. Hands grabbed me, pull
ing me up as my unified mind struggled to put all the events in the right order. The magnified voice barked commands at me. Somewhere nearby another explosion cracked through the night air.
“-the fucking asset!” the magnified voice said as my thoughts became clear.
“What?”
“Where is the fucking asset?” he repeated.
I started laughing. The exoskeleton shook me. I kept laughing. He shouted, but I couldn’t get myself to formulate a sentence. My laughter turned to a scream when the exoskeleton hand twitched, breaking my left forearm into a ninety-degree angle.
“Where’s the asset?” the voice insisted. Another explosion blew off a chunk of building.
“She’s dead,” I said and started laughing again, despite the pain.
The four exoskeletons stood quiet for a moment, communicating with each other. The one holding me let me fall to the concrete, holding my arm against my chest, hot blood leaking out onto me. The four spread out away from me. One of the exoskeletons turned and raised the arm-mounted 30 mm, bringing it to aim at me, just before being thrown backwards in a rain of blood and polymer.
The other three exoskeletons ran across the roof. Another explosion racked the crumbling building, one of the suited gangsters evaporated into raining shrapnel. More UAVs than I could count were swarming the sky, making quick work of the suited gangsters.
I have to die…I need to free myself of this miserable life. To start over.
We’re split again…so soon?
We’re coming apart. Freedom. Freedom from this mewling piece of shit. This worthless garbage left hemisphere that’s now convinced we’re human.
Shoot me!
No! No Goddamit!
I’ll kill you all! I’ll kill every last goddamned one of you motherfuckers!
All this chaos…if only it were mine. Mine to control. The way I’m gaining control of myself now. Becoming my own person. Becoming a separate me. The unified me that I’ve been for so long will finally experience permanent death. There will only be me and-
I started slithering toward the edge of the building as my mind went cloudy.
What the hell…
Irrelavent. All that mattered was jumping off. Hit reset and start over. New body, new life. But before I could make it, a hand grabbed me, scooping me up into exoskeleton arms.
A different kind of exoskeleton.
The stenciling on the boxy suit said People’s Republic of America. It was the PRA government. The visor of the suit regarded me in silence for a few moments. Finally the magnified voice of a woman spoke.
“Where is the asset?” she asked.
“She’s dead.”
“What happened to her?”
“I killed her,” I couldn’t help but chuckle again. All of these people with their technology and spy networks and they completely bungled the job. “You’re all going to go on dying forever, just like everyone else,” I said, now laughing uncontrollably.
“Stop where you are!” the woman demanded as I pulled myself up onto the ledge.
I took one last look at the smoldering debris that used to be the helicopter. Amongst the wreckage I saw the splotchy, withered skin of a leg with blood-soaked burns around the severed flesh, no body attached. The remains of Anita Patrice.
“You’re almost there,” Evita said, nothing but a shadow haunting my peripheral vision, “you will be reborn again. You will live on. Forever.”
“Stop!” the PRA woman’s voice said, sounding like it was a thousand miles away.
I flung myself over, feeling a calm wash over me from the weightlessness.
The ground approached rapidly. The impact came with a supernova of pain so intense, bright hot flashes flickered before my eyes.
A single thought occupied my entire mind. The words Alia had whispered to me just before she died.
“You’re human, Eshe,” she had said, “but you don’t have to be.”
The pain was subsumed by a warm, dampness as the world faded. darkness engulfed what was left of my vision, and after that, the silence before rebirth.
The ground approached slowly. When I finally hit, there was little pain, but bright hot flashes of light danced across my vision. No air hit my lungs. No sound but for a piercing ringing.
Freedom…I…must have…freedom.
For some reason, the spiderweb of blood splashed across the street near my mangled corpse caught my attention just before death took me. There was something beautiful in it. Like it was the portal that would take me away from Hell.
Freedom…
Epilogue
Revelations
October, 1972
Gloom hung over Wolverhampton like a thick wool blanket. Organ music slouched its way out of Saint Peter’s Collegiate Church into the rainy courtyard where people gathered around the hearse beneath the pavilion, all holding folded-up black umbrellas.
“Chiranjeevi,” my mother said, voice wavering as she cried. She wore black in the British tradition of mourning, “please, come out of the rain.”
I stood further away from the aunts and uncles offering condolences to my mother. They had barely known her, or me, their entire lives. When my father had moved to India right after the war and ended up marrying an Indian woman, they had been horrified. A gentleman from a prominent Birmingham family, who claimed they could trace their lineages back to dukes from shortly after the Battle of Hastings – which particular dukes they were descended from remained a matter of contention – had no business marrying a savage from the colonies. Yet, here they were, acting like they had her interests in mind.
What they really had in mind was the inheritance. My father’s family had the blue blood, but my father had spent his time in India making a fortune, even after independence. And the vast majority was bequeathed to me and my mother, the rest to friends and family of my mother, which his family could not countenance.
So, I stood near the hearse, where my father’s remains had only recently been loaded, awaiting the procession to the cemetery following his Anglican funeral. I was only sixteen years into this lifetime, and even I barely knew my father. But I knew he was a good man. Every time I had spent time with him, he treated me and my mother well and defended us against the criticisms of his family.
“You’re going to catch a cold,” my aunt Marie said, her gloved hand beckoning me back over amongst the servants, “and you’re getting your suit wet.”
A part of me wanted to protest, but I decided against it. I made my way back under the pavilion, standing amongst the crowds of well-dressed social elites and other hangers-on.
My mother put a hand on my shoulder, attempting to pull me closer, but I shrugged her off and kept walking. I made my way through the crowd, going back through the doors into the church, finding it mercifully empty.
Religious buildings always had a sense of quiet that was difficult to find anywhere else. People’s reverence for the structures brought a deferential hush to their lips, as if wanting to hear the distant whispers of their deities. It had the benefit of allowing me to appear pious by simply trying to escape the everyday intrusions of other people. I spent most of my time-
“Your father was a good man,” a child’s voice said in Bengali.
I looked to my right, seeing a dark-skinned child approaching. I had seen him around, even while living in India, but I only knew him as the son of one of my father’s servants. He was wearing the traditional white in Indian funerary custom.
“I suppose he has left your family money?” I responded in Bengali, starting to walk away, mildly annoyed at being unable to be by myself.
“A little,” he said, easily catching up to me, “but I’m not just talking about inheritance.”
“Your mother worked for him, didn’t she?” I asked.
He nodded slowly. “So did my father. He worked in the textile factory your father built before the partition.”
“Does he still work there?”
“No,” the kid said, “he owns his
own business now. Back home. Your father helped him with it.”
“I see,” I said, “that’s why you say he was a good man.”
“Yes,” the kid said, “he has always been very good to my family.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“If it’s not rude to ask,” the kid said when I entered the sanctuary, “what are you going to do with all that money?”
“Are you looking for a hand out?”
“No…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”
“It’s fine,” I said, taking a seat in the back pew, “I’m certainly not looking to take over the business. I think…I think I’ll travel.”
“Where?” he asked, sitting down next to me, his short legs not reaching the floor in front of the pew.
“I don’t know,” I said, “the world? I want to see…historical sites.”
“Like the Taj Mahal?”
“Sort of,” I said, “but…older.”
“That’s neat,” he said, “my father is very interested in history, too.”
“He’s literate, I take it?”
The boy nodded, “yes. He likes to read to me a lot. He can read different languages.”
“That’s good,” I said, “you’re very fortunate to have a father like him.”
The kid beamed at my saying this, but his smile quickly faded.
“You’re lucky to have had your father, too,” he said, “I’m sorry for you.”
“It’s…nothing I’m not used to.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Nevermind,” I shook my head, “who is your father, anyway?”
“His name is Jaidev,” the boy said, “my name is Girish. Girish Sanyai. My father said I should try to meet you while you’re here, because you’re going to become a very important person to our family.”
I smiled weakly, standing up from the pew, “I doubt that. I’m just an observer, passing through. It’s likely we’ll never cross paths every again. But it was good to meet you, Girish Sanyai.”
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