by Mark Jeffrey
“Could be a form of sedation,” Ian said. “Maybe this world doesn’t have anesthesia.”
Enki nodded slowly. “That is possible, though I would not recommend this method at all. It does damage.”
“Maybe the doctor had no choice,” Casey said.
Enki nodded. “Yes. We can assume nothing. For all we know, pulling these needles out will unleash a worse damage that will kill these patients.”
He waved at Sasha, Ian and Casey to follow.
It was surreal, Casey thought suddenly. Here they were, with the legendary Enki, in the flesh, in the real world with them. Actually doing things. Usually, it was the three of them and Max — or some combination of just the four of them, on their own. They’d never had someone this knowledgeable among them.
Without Enki, Casey thought, just now they may have missed half of what was happening in the medical bay. They might have started pulling those needles — and who knew what that would have done?
Still. She didn’t trust him. Not completely.
Something was wrong with him.
GUNS drawn, caution the order of the moment, Casey, Enki, and Sasha crept up to the second and then the third floor of the mansion.
Enki had told Ian to remain on guard just outside on the first floor: they did not want to be surprised from below.
In a study not unlike Johnny Siren’s during the time of the Pocket, they found a tall, lanky, bearded gentleman smoking on a pipe. He sat in a comfortable red leather chair, reading a book. When the foursome entered, he merely put the book down on the nightstand next to him.
“So you’ve come at last,” the man said without preamable. Noting the company’s confused stares, he added, “I’m the Bondsman’s Doctor. Of course you were going to come here.” He grinned a cheesy grin that made Casey want to vomit. “I’m Bogenbroom. Doctor Bogenbroom.”
“Well, hello then,” Enki replied, as if this were all normal. “I’m glad to hear that. Gets the business end of this out of the way up front.”
“Ah. The old alien,” the Doctor said, turning to him with sickly smile. “Enki, isn’t it? To use the old Sumerian or Niburian tongue?” Then Bogenbroom said something in an ancient language that made Casey’s hair stand on end. She guessed immediately that it was Niburian. Something about the way the syllables fell triggered a racial memory, something buried deep in the very structures of every human brain …
“Yes, I have many names,” Enki nodded, smiling briefly. He returned with a Niburian comment of his own: a string of short, ancient syllables.
“I’m not going to tell you anything, you know,” the Doctor said nonchalantly. “You’re going to leave here none the wiser than when you came in. If you even manage to stay alive.”
“I’ll cover the bearded wonder here,” Casey said to Sasha, nodding towards Bogenbroom. “You watch the doors.” Sasha nodded and began wandering back towards the entrance.
“But you will, you know,” Enki said. “Trust me, you will talk.”
“The Bondsman told me about you,” Bogenbroom remarked to Enki. “Told me how very old you are. Told me how you were instrumental in starting all of humanity. How interesting! All of us … people. Every person who has ever lived! We owe you everything we are. And to think I am now eye-to-eye with you! It’s not quite like meeting your maker but there is a numinous quality to it, yes, yes, indeed. Makes me feel all shivery.”
“Don’t think about moving,” Casey growled. “I will put a bullet in you at the drop of a hat.”
“Ahhhh. And Casey Cyranus, is it? Yes the Bondsman told me about you also — as well as Sasha Fwa over there. The clever girls with the clever guns.” Interesting, Casey thought. That was the same phrase Maurice had used. And by the Doctor’s use of it, Casey intuition jumped: this was the Bondsman’s phrase — he had originated it.
“Very clever,” Casey replied with a smirk. “And if you don’t tell us the who the Bondsman is, I’ll clever you into next week.”
Bogenbroom laughed. “Well, it would seem you have me cornered. There’s nowhere for me to run to.” He leaned forward with a ghoulish smirk. “Do your worstest.”
Quick as a flash, Enki raised something to his eye. Bogenbroom’s eyes tracked the sudden motion and as soon as his gaze fell upon Enki, the Doctor stiffened with sharp intake of breath and then went motionless, limp as a discarded puppet. Casey studied the object Enki was holding: it appeared to be a black marble. Strangely, it seemed like an absence, rather than an object with presence. And there was was more: there was something familiar about it.
Familiar?
Then, she had it: the Singular Eye: a gem that cleared the illusion of separateness of identity. Long ago, it had been infused with the vibration of One-ness of all consciousness. A single thought had been burnt deep in its lattices, a single insight, frozen within a gem with a singular hurricane of passion. Jewels were amongst the densest materials known, but since all of reality was at its core an illusion, this merely signified that gems were the densest patch of the thicket of glamour that made up all things. Therefore, jewels were the best vessel for holding thought, for recording echoes of consciousness. And the Singular Eye recorded the essential union of all minds, broke through the illusion and connected the minds of any two who gazed simultaneously into its depths.
So this small jewel was what, then? Casey mused. A smaller version of it? A piece taken from the whole?
“You are the Bondsman’s Doctor,” Enki stated.
Bogenbroom’s neck muscles clenched. Veins stood out like ropes. “Yes,” he rasped, and his eyes shone with clear surprise and terror at his own mouth betraying him.
“As such, you have cared for his health. You have examined him in private. You have seen him without garment.”
“Yes.” Alarm played across Bogenbroom’s face. Clearly, he had not expected to be broken so easily. The geas upon him was absolute.
“And so you have seen him without his mask.”
“Yes!” This last was torn from his throat with a retch, from between clenched teeth.
“Then tell me,” Enki said, moving closer and turning the black marble as though tuning it for a more piercing effect, “What does he look like?”
Sweat poured from Bogenbroom like he was an addict. He shook violently in his chair, his thin form quaking, muscles spasming. His mouth opened as if to answer, but no words came forth. A tight gargling gripped him.
But he did not answer.
Enki looked perplexed. Casey wondered whether cryptomnesia had been inflicted on the Doctor, as it had been on Max. Max had not been able to answer Siren when questioned under the influence of the Singular Eye either.
Enki adjusted the dark gem in his hand once again. “Do you know what the Bondsman looks like?”
Relief seemed to flood Bogenbroom. “Yes!” A question he was more free to answer, it seemed.
“Very well then. Tell us. Describe the appearance of the Bondsman.”
“He is —!” Bogenbroom wretched and quaked. His hands clenched the armrests like he would snap them into splinters. “That is to say, he is not —!”
“Yes? Yes?”
“He is … a blur … a wash of un-color …”
“So,” Enki said. “The Bondsman is not a woman: he is a He.”
“No!” the Doctor quaked. “And yes! They are … there is no …” With great effort, he mastered himself for a sliver of a second. “Your question has no meaning!”
Enki blinked. Clearly the old Niburian hadn’t expected that.
“Is the Bondsman Max Quick?” Casey shouted at him on impulse. Sharp terror crowded Bogenbroom’s brow. He gaped into the Singular Eye, his will frayed and unwinding, spinning like a sliced rope. But he didn’t answer.
“Answer the question,” Enki rumbled, making it command through the Singular Eye. A consciousness as old as the human race, and older still fell on Bogenbroom’s mind like a mountainside sliding into the sea. The terrible eye of Enki cornered him, a whimper escaped hi
s quivering lips.
Casey felt her own mouth involuntarily open and she gagged trying to give answer.
“Yes!” Bogenbroom shouted, quivering with a strange rapture. “Oh God, yes! Soon, he will be!”
Casey’s head popped back as if she had been hit physically. She had asked the question, suspected it, but even still, some part of her hadn’t expected this answer. Could he be lying under the influence of the Singular Eye? Was that even possible?
“You say the Bondsman is Max Quick,” Enki said, somewhat irritated by this new development. “Yet you cannot tell me whether he is male or female. You contradict yourself, Doctor. Explain this.”
Again, Bogenbroom locked up. He spasmed like an epileptic. His throat expanded and contracted like a bullfrog.
Enki rebuked him sternly: “Once more. And you must answer with a name. Who is the Bondsman?”
The shaking and sweating only increased.
“Answer him!” Casey shouted, knowing she had no real power to compel the Doctor. Nevertheless, she stepped forward, her guns clearly hungry to rip the air with the hot slap of lead.
“I cannot!”
“Tell me!”
“I cannot!”
“Why not?”
“There is another world beneath this one!”
Enki looked like he’d just been slapped. There it is again, Casey thought. That maddening refrain. There is another world beneath this one. It was popping up everywhere, like getting the same fortune in every fortune cookie again and again and again …
Suddenly Bogenbroom’s eyes fell on Sasha. He uttered a gargling sound, a burst of static from his diaphram. Then there was one last great rattle and screech from Bogenbroom and then he slumped in his chair.
Enki shouted, “You will answer me! You will stop this ruse! I adjure you! I command you!”
But Bogenbroom didn’t move.
Enki stepped towards him and slapped a finger on his carotid artery. “He’s dead,” Enki said, perplexed. “But I didn’t … this isn’t my doing.”
“Drop the guns, Casey!”
Enki and Casey whirled: they were stunned by the sight of Sasha, facing them from across the room.
She pointed the White Roses on them. Casey noted that the intricate gold leaf along the barrel whirled madly — filled with more frantic, frenetic energy than she had ever witnessed before from either of their irons.
“Sasha!” Casey shouted. “What are you doing?”
Sasha Fwa cackled. “I mean it. Drop’em.” She didn’t look like herself. Her hair was tangled like a mad prophet’s. And her eye ticked weirdly. And she moved jerkily, her every step soaked with stumbles …
Casey didn’t dare take her eyes off Sasha — though she longed to see what Enki’s reaction to this would be. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw Enki move —
— And guessed he was raising the black gem to his eye. The split second of panic in Sasha’s own eyes confirmed it. With a snarl, she fired at the same time Casey did.
Their bullets collided in mid-air, spinning harmlessly away in steaming mashup of flattened lead.
And again they fired together, same result. And again. And again.
Whatever was possessing Sasha was slowing her down, giving Casey just enough of an edge to read her. And she jabbed her hands each time, like she was tossing the bullets spitefully. It was sloppy, not at all what Logan White-Cloud had taught them: not at all the smooth, measured way Sasha wielded her magnificent weapon.
Fury gnashed Sasha’s teeth. She bit down on her lower lip, drawing a rivulet of blood.
Hold on a second. Was Sasha somehow … possesssed?
“It’s Bogenbroom!” Enki shouted. “He’s jumped into Sasha!”
Casey gaped. Bogenbroom was in there? Inside Sasha? But how —?
There was no time for explanations. Rage filled Casey. How dare he take over Sasha! Her friend, her best friend —!
More bullets, more intercepting fire from Casey. Although Bogenbroom did not seem to be able to access Sasha’s skill with the weapons, she was still required to be preternaturally fast to shoot bullets out of the air. Without the aid of her own eldritch guns, if she had been required to do this with a mortal gun, a gun that did not live and fuse with the soul and bone of its wielder … the task would have been impossible.
Yet she just had to give Enki enough time to raise the Singular Eye …
But before he could, Sasha slumped and fell to the ground. Her guns tumbled from her hands, dead rocks.
Like Bogenbroom …
And now Bogenbroom was dead.
If you’ve killed her, you bastard …!
Before Casey could run to Sasha, to check Sasha’s pulse, Casey heard a sharp intake of breath directly behind her, then a wet fleshy smack — and Enki’s voice cry out in surprise.
Bogenbroom filled her vision, Enki’s black gem held up to his eye.
He was alive again!
How —?
He had been dead seconds ago. Enki had confirmed it! And then he had somehow reanimated, in the chair behind Enki, and then hit Enki in the temple with a knotty, bony fist.
Blink, wink.
Through the black gem, Bogenbroom’s mind invaded hers. They were connected, they were one.
Casey’s brain exploded like a jackhammer had been driven straight through her eyeballs and out the back of her skull. Her spine snapped straight with a livewire of current flooding her every muscle. Her mouth ripped open into a perfect O, jaws quivering.
And then nothing much in the room seemed odd to her. Her own plight did not interest her or seem in any way dangerous. The panic she had just been feeling melted away. What a pretty room, she thought. There were lots and lots of books. And the rug held some odd pattern, she noticed then, a mathematical pattern, she was sure. The shapes and colors were like numbers and words, there were nested structures and riddles here. And beguiling interestingness whirling inside of meanings …
Yes, yes. Of course. Mild irritation at the interruption. Here are the guns. Oh, you want me to drop them. Sure, whatever. Just stop annoying me while I’m trying to figure out this cool rug.
Kick them away? Okay! Here they come … whoo! Fun how they slide. Like air hockey! And then …
Her brain decompressed, an airlock opened into a vacuum. Bogenbroom had turned his Singular Eye-enhanced gaze away and she felt like something was just uprooted out of her soul.
Immediately, her panic returned; her plight slammed home at full speed again. The Red Roses! There they were, far across the room.
She could not reach them.
As she stared mutely, the White Roses slid into place next them, muzzles nuzzling. And then Bogenbroom turned his gaze away from Sasha Fwa, who stumbled forward, and who tried desperately to remain within his sight as if keeping her eyeballs from popping out of her head depended on it.
Enki folded his arms grimly. “And what now, Doctor? Will you seek to pry from me secrets of the ages with that?”
“Why no,” Bogenbroom grinned. “This little marble would be of no use on you. With a mind as ancient as yours, I don’t doubt you would relish the chance to entwine our minds once again — why, you would overpower me again within the snap of a neuron, as you have already proven! A shard of the Singular Eye, no doubt. Am I right? Ah, I see from your flinty stare that I am.” Bogenbroom regarded the obsidian stone. “Curious. It was originally made to be a way to connect souls and share enlightenment — a way to transmit the trance state that leads to the command of the all things. It was a way to join minds, to forge deep bonds that mere words cannot hold.
“And now here you are, using it as a weapon! How diabolical of you, Enki, you, the author of the human condition! Shame, shame. Of course, I can’t be expected to be better — after all, I’m in league with the Bondsman and the Eaters of Time! But you! I expected better of you. Say. Maybe there’s a little Bondsman in you just clawing to get out after all.”
Casey started at that. Was Enki the Bondsman
after all?
Why did he avoid all the questions about where he had gotten their guns? In fact, he go so angry about that particular question that he completely shut down every time!
Yet Enki only snorted derisively. “You are a fool. The Archons will devour you in the end. As soon as you stop delivering them … food. Fear. Hate. As soon as you outlive your usefulness, you yourself will become the food. That is their way.”
“But until then, I live well, Enki,” Bogenbroom admitted. “I’m the Elite. I do as I please. You should see how fine my mistresses are! In fact …” He appraised Casey and Sasha (who had reclaimed herself and stood at Casey’s side now) “You two would make delicious additions.”
Sasha spat. “Yeah? Well the last guy who tried that with me ended up as snacktime for a pack of wolves.”
“And who was that?” Bogenbroom asked. “Max Quick? Speaking of which — where is he?”
Enki folded his arms and remained silent.
“Ah. You don’t know,” Bogenbroom deduced. “That’s alright. The Bondsman has the whole planet out looking for him, with orders to kill. He’s probably dead already.”
“Probably not,” came a voice from the window.
Two barbed wires lashed inward, grabbed Bogenbroom by the throat and yanked him to the floor. Ian, in full armor, launched himself into the room. “And never, never, ever do that to my girlfriend again!”
The Singular Eye marble slipped from his grasp and rolled across the floor. Enki deftly scooped it up. He popped it in front of his gaze and drove his mind back into Bogenbroom’s.
“So here were are again, good Doctor,” Enki said. “Except now that I know about your little body-hopping trick, I’ve erected mental barriers to prevent you from jumping into one of us again.”
For some reason, Bogenbroom giggled at that — even as he wretched for breath under the influence of the Singular Eye shard.
Casey and Sasha quickly retrieved their guns and pointed them at Bogenbroom. Ian had not let go of the Doctor’s throat. His barbed wire remained taught like a garrote.
