GACY: Yes, ma'am.
REDDING: Who is leading the FBI now, Rick?
GACY: We have appointed Melvin Parks as Acting Director, with Phil Fontain assuming the role of deputy in Howard's place. Profiles are being assembled to put before the President, and confirmed by Congress for something more long term, but I believe Melvin and Phil will guide the Bureau through this tumultuous period.
AMBROSE: I hope so. Fifty-six people died on that September night. We want to make sure this kind of incident can never occur again.
GACY: Of course. I understand, sir. These are good men, the best men. I have nothing less than complete faith in them.
REDDING: This is your last chance, Director.
***
Last time I saw Stephen Hardwick, I had just been reincarnated inside Tim's death tunnel that he called the Arcway. After being burned alive, I came back to life, confronting the agent in front of half the FBI and John Hazel. Hardwick murdered Hazel, ordering the agents in his court to fire on me.
I chased him. Limbs of shadow broke out of my back. Four on each side, like a spider. They carried me on stomping tendrils to where my new form smacked him aside, causing fatal internal bleeding. Then, with permission from the bevy of law enforcement and federal agents giving chase, I left the scene, confronting his soul in the Arcway. I shot him again and again— and Tim kept reincarnating him— until he was ready to talk.
There wasn't enough time to ask Death what became of Hardwick. He’s lost a good amount of the excess weight he carried. Bristling hairs of his grey beard cling to a gaunt face, afraid to show the sunken cheekbones beneath. In a brown jumpsuit matching a Maester's robe, the frozen expression makes him look like a statue.
Of all the souls in the universe, how is this the one who supposedly has the information I need?
He will never cooperate.
"How are they treating you?" I ask— for lack of anything, anything at all to break the horrendous, awkward silence hanging between us. Luca does not so much as breathe, trying interpreting the mutual death stares on both sides.
Hardwick scoffs, looking to the dancing insinuation of hedges. Their mass shrinks to a pin-sized hole that light would be lucky to penetrate, before growing into a basin that would welcome home all the darkness the universe could hold. Rinse and repeat.
"Bold," Hardwick says, his voice weak from eternal bondage; the Arbiters are undoubtedly watching his every move. "Bold to assume you and I could have a civil conversation."
"That's a bit rich, isn't it? Jordan?"
Hardwick chuckles at the invocation of his mortal crimes. Jordan West, the larger-than-life persona who kidnapped children across the country, was eventually exposed as Hardwick's crew— and Jordan West, the enigmatic, unapprehendable criminal was revealed to be long dead, never a criminal at all.
"So," Hardwick says, "what are we doing here, Knox? Surely, you're not pulling me out of eternal damnation to have tea, right? No, your friend sent me to this twisted place, and I was forgotten. Days, months, years. Everything I worked for, destroyed."
"Everything you worked for? You mean the families broken, Stephen? The little girls and boys whose lives were ruined? That was everything, right, everything you worked for?"
Hardwick shakes his head.
"I'm not going to sit here and justify myself to you, Knox. You won, okay? Just...let me rot.”
"I can't do that.”
"No. Of course not," Hardwick says. "Because I have something you need. I know it. You know it. And unless you're in a position to barter, don't even waste your breath. We have nothing further to talk about."
This must be the most miserable of places, and Stephen Hardwick deserves every morsel of it— but despite his crimes, I wouldn't wish the screams from the tower's exterior on my worst enemy. Tim's strange world was punishment enough. Stone Mountain is a level of pettiness I wouldn’t have expected of the man who calls himself Death.
"Luca.” The angel, whose head was pointed at the ground with the utmost disinterest, snaps to attention. "What is the scope of our influence with the Arbiters?"
Hardwick's entire expression changes. I never break my sightline with him.
"Not much, I'm afraid. The Nephalim have lost a good deal of clout all-around. But, given your standing with the Council and my good word, I am sure these matters can be made minimal."
The self-satisfied smirk is wiped away, replaced with the look of a man hearing freedom is floated. Hardwick isn’t jailed on a dimebag charge and locked up for ten years in a red state— the worst American equivalent for justice I can imagine— but sentenced to be here past a reasonable date.
This is his heavenly judgment at stake.
"The game has changed, Stephen," I say. "You know me. Whatever I need to do to get the job done."
"You always were a pain in the ass, Knox."
"Help me, Stephen. Do you want to get out of here?"
Hardwick nods.
"A woman came to see me," he reflects, eyes drifting to the ground.
"A woman?"
"Blond. Tall. Pretty. Reminded me of my ex-wife a bit. Not the first one. The second. Tits like a boar."
"Stephen? I don't need a description. I need an identity. Because so far, all I have are a washed-up scholar, and a hooded man who buckles too easily being hit by a girl."
Hardwick shakes his head.
"I don't know her name."
"What did this woman want?" Luca asks.
"To know about Knox."
What? Why me?
"About me? I haven't even been awake a full day! When was this?"
"Couple months ago. Not sure, really. Time is messed up in this place."
"It's an effect of the Arbiters," Luca explains. "You will be free of it soon. Try to remember what you can."
And so, Hardwick does.
***
"This doesn't make sense."
Outside the prison, I struggle to shake off the cold remaining in my bones. We told Hardwick to sit tight, that we would negotiate his position in good faith with the Council. Hardwick knows the drill.
Luca‘s giant broadsword swings at his hip as we walk away from the Dark Quadrant, into God City. The streets come alive with friendly faces. Their smiles and banter and casual greetings pull my attention like children at the hem of a dress. The sky is bright, and the houses are like something out of a Dr. Suess book. We pass a small market where people can trade services and buy goods— I’m unsure what use material possessions have in Atlas, but don't spot or smell food among them— and turn down an alleyway.
"It doesn't matter," the angel replies as we emerge out its other end, arcing left through an arch onto the God’s Road. Evidently, Luca does not want to debate Hardwick's information with anyone but the Council.
"It's so life-like, isn't it?" I ask, changing the subject. "This...place. God City."
"Ah,yes. It has few of the troubles other districts have, but nor is it burdened by violent symbols. I suppose...it is easy to stop seeing after a while. The beauty of it."
I chuckle, and Luca asks what's funny.
"There was this place I used to go to be alone. Rapids Bridge," I explain. "Might have been better had I ever had someone to go there with, but it wasn't that kind of place. It was mine."
"What are you saying?" Luca asks. Sentiments of any kind are lost on him; I tell him never mind, just as we pass through the Spire's giant doors.
What I might have said— had I been brave enough to continue— was that God City reminded me how I felt, once upon a time, standing on some stupid, secret location everyone and their mother knew of. It didn't matter if the bridge was public; the little girl with freak parents, who died in a freak incident, didn't feel like a freak there, on that little bridge carved into the District of Columbia.
And just like some parts of Atlas, it wasn't because it didn't make me feel like a freak.
On that bridge, I might have never even been one at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
>
“A Behemoth?"
The Habinar’s voice echoes throughout the chamber. The Viking glares between his equals. Muerkher is stone-faced. The snakes on Venicia's scalp are back to snapping at each other. Two on the left side of her head get into a bloody altercation, spilling red droplets onto the goddess' shoulder. Apollo is awake, though his brown eyes are glassy. He sways from side to side, making me think Muerkher woke him.
The fifth chair, as usual, is empty.
Beside me, Luca holds his head high, but the eyes point down. Like a dog used to seeing its owners yell about something unrelated, the angel waits for their argument to conclude.
"Restraint, Habinar," Venicia urges. "As far as we're aware, these are unsubstantiated rumors."
"Rumors? I swear on the Seat, you have grown complacent, Venicia! Since when do we approach any rumors surrounding Behemoths with carelessness? Ziz waits in the wings, ready for us to let our guard down!"
"While I don't profess to love the man, he is not wrong," Muerkher adds. "We have grown careless, thinking one woman could take this on!"
"We are rebuilding the Nephalim, Muerkher," Venicia says. "That will take time. Ramona has already made headway, and we may prevent another uprising by getting ahead of it."
"Uprisings are the least of our worries," the Habinar scoffs. "Few who could outright control a Behemoth, other than Ziz. He has already proven willing to subvert his imprisonment, influencing others."
"But the question remains," says Muerkher. "Does Ziz possess enough strength at this time to control a Behemoth? Might this be a third party? Then there is the matter of this woman, who is acting as the party's agent. On some level, she was aware we would choose Ramona—"
"That wouldn't make sense,” Venicia counters. “How could this agent have known Ramona would wake? We certainly haven't announced it to the world. There are maybe five people outside this room aware that she is a Nephalim to begin with— something that, while we might not seek to change that, someone else on the outside might."
"Quorroc?" Luca asks.
Muerkher shakes his lava lamp of a head.
"No, Quorroc may be underhanded, but he is not plotting the Atlas's demise."
"I agree," I interject. Until now, I have listened and observed, waiting to have enough facts at my disposal before submitting any kind of declaration. "Quorroc is a product of his environment. He might wheel and deal to the Crimson League, but the old man literally knew nothing other than Hardwick's name."
"And what do you make of your former partner, Ramona?" the Habinar asks. "Is this someone we can trust?"
These supreme beings don't need to ask. They know exactly how I feel about Stephen Hardwick. But however supreme they are, someone is gunning for them, and pulling out all the stops.
"Absolutely not. He is a monster of the worst kind. He has ruined hundreds of lives, and lied about it with a straight face." Easy, Ramona. "That said, the greater good requires him to go free. That's my personal issue, not yours.
"Whoever this woman is, that gave Stephen this information— he said she came asking about me. Which means she knew I would be here at some point. She knows about my professional relationship with Hardwick, and left a trail only I would be able to follow."
"In other words," Venicia says, "bait."
I nod. The serpent woman says the Council needs to debate this latest chain of events before proceeding. Luca and I are dismissed, the auditorium lights turn on, and the four return to a resting state.
One could only be so lucky.
***
Luca leaves me at the Gardens— a half-district of greenspace nestled between Devil's Corner in the West and Atlas's main gates. He was quiet after our meeting with the Council, chewing thoughts over Hardwick's claim.
All I can envision at the mention of Behemoths are paintings in the Obelisk's lobby, seen right before we spoke to Quorroc. Luca is clearly uncomfortable with the subject. If my leaders had once utilized merciless, fire-breathing beings on webbed wings, I would be nervous too.
Unable to rectify allegorical monsters with everything I know to be real, I try to focus on the Gardens. A giant hedge maze— which ought to have twisting, confusing passageways to the center, and God help you getting out— is surrounded by long brown trunks supporting millions of flowers in everlasting bloom. The grass beneath my shoes is soft and coyly curls under my weight, even if I can't shake the Shadow Commons' soulless blades before it.
"It is beautiful, isn't it?"
The soft-spoken voice exercises great care not to startle, only join me in observing it. Taking my side, the robed elder Siskett stifles the groan in his joints, covering up a cough.
"Yes," I reply. "Beautiful is probably the word for it. Too beautiful. Almost too much to be true."
Siskett chuckles.
"You are probably wondering if this is all a hallucination, hmm? A frantic mosaic of pretty shapes and colors. Of course, it is not perfect. Nothing in Creation is."
"It might have crossed my mind."
"Everything you have seen, Ramona...think of your life— the one you had back on Earth— as the beaker in which your personal formula was built. The Avatar told you that every soul comes with a unique code— an identification system, if you will. Walk with me, Ramona."
Wrapping his hand around my bicep puts the onus on my balance to assure his own, and he looks much older than he did at the gates, or posing as a homeless man in my hospital room. We circle a corner of the oblong hedge maze, pacing ourselves to accommodate his rheumatic ailments.
"This code," Siskett explains, "is always evolving. There are predisposed traits— an inevitable shortcoming of basing production on limited models. So, the Avatar telling you some people are automatically filtered into Atlas— while others are sent elsewhere— is not entirely untrue. That code, were it to remain in a static, unchanging state, would indeed suggest predisposition when it comes to placement."
"I'm not following," I reply.
The old Maester stops, hovering against the hedge maze for further support. He spots a bench down the bristling organic wall, and suggests moving to it, rambling as we do.
"That code has the great capacity of flexibility. It is not easy. Many people feel they are on predetermined paths, only to fizz out and be relegated to the nature of their personal code. Others face trauma, such as you did. Trauma is the single greatest catalyst for transforming that genetic sequence. It can take the best men and turn them into monsters. It can take a young vagrant, transforming him to revolutionary. The code can change, Ramona. The code can change. But it is very, very difficult."
"Are you saying my parents' deaths changed some sort of DNA sequence?"
We reach the bench. I help the Maester lower himself. His back pops, and he cries in a small yelp of pain. His knees creak, and he rubs them.
"Forgive me," he says. "I fear the White Light has been sending signals, calling me home. And I am just too old, and too stubborn to listen. So I can't really ask you to sit here and take an old man seriously, but here it is, Ramona:
"What happened to your parents was tragic. But that's not what I'm talking about."
"All due respect, but can we get to the point, then?"
Siskett smiles a little bit, and I doubt any White Light or Behemoth could tame life in the old man's eyes.
"Many humans choose to worship personal beliefs, do they not?"
"Sometimes."
"And how do they choose to present this worship? Meaning, how do people communicate with their gods?"
"Prayer?" I ask, tired of riddles.
"Rituals. Prayers are part of it. Prayers. Confessions. Hymns. Study. Rituals, Ramona."
"Okay?"
"But," Siskett continues, "ritual, over time, becomes complacency. The prayer is there, but its words ring a little less genuine. People go to houses built in their agreed-upon god's name to revel in boredom and habit, rather than reverence and interest. More lose the habit altogether, only attending on special occa
sions, like Christmas or Easter mass. It is the ultimate about-face— a half-hearted attempt to appease rituals, not gods. It is to achieve an attendance record, not a communal spiritual experience.
"Society becomes more secular, because productivity becomes the new ritual. Rationale becomes the new ritual. The archaic, faith-based ritual was never formed on genuine love, but fear and boredom and the need for contextually-appropriate answers in a void of questions. Why are we here? What is our purpose? As soon as we had rationale to form the science-based ritual, humans simply abandoned one for the other, and were no more fulfilled for the change."
"Because both are rituals."
"That's right," Siskett says. "Your genetic code— the one that dictates where you belong in the afterlife— can be altered. But many people fall into that ritual of life, never seeking to transcend their limitations. By exposing your partner, and saving leagues of children, you did something few ever manage. To break the ritual."
I chuckle, unsure what prompts me to open my mouth, confiding in this kind old man, for the first time I've trusted anyone since waking.
"I feel like...even though I have no regrets for what I did...I don't know. Maybe my death was the lesser of evils. If Hardwick had gotten away with it, the world might have been better off."
Siskett smiles, then returns to rubbing his sore knees.
"That may be true. The Council would definitely agree with that outlook. But things being what they are, happen for a reason. Earth will bloom once again. Whether it can sustain human life is another question. But it will always recover.
"Which, I suppose, brings us to the matter of your friend."
"Hardwick?"
"The infectorum mundi," Siskett replies. "The World-Killer."
In all the excitement surrounding the city in the heavens, becoming some sort of celestial investigator and coming face-to-face with my old nemesis, I almost forgot about the man who calls himself Death.
"What will happen to him?"
Siskett shakes his head.
"There is to be a trial. I am sure Luca will tell you soon, if the Council doesn't themselves. It was to be done quite some time ago, but this threat has postponed the proceedings."
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