by JA Huss
This is a hub, not a room or a station. There are four wings that appear to branch off from here, all with double stainless steel doors. Each door has a biometric lock and each door is closed.
Except one. The one right in front of me.
It's almost closed, except for the bent piece of rubber flashing that sticks in the bottom corner where the doors should meet. Another breath and I'm standing in front of them, my fingernails gingerly prying them apart. The door slips, but I grab it again just before the weight of it and the air pressure difference on the other side can suck it closed.
If I get caught there is no telling what they will do to me.
But those labels have sevens on them.
I pull the door open, step through and let it swish closed behind me.
A high-pitched grunt in a room down the hallway stops me, my heart beating so fast it takes whole seconds for me to get it under control.
Another grunt, then a squeal.
I swallow.
Turn back, Junco. You don't want to know. You don't want to know.
I don't want to know. I really don't, but try telling that to my feet, because they're already at the open door when I finally snap back to my senses. I reach out and push the door so it can open fully. The hinges squeak a little as it swings.
The thing making the noises is small, not much bigger than a child of two or three. Her long blonde hair is wild and ratted up, her face an ugly distortion of features that make no sense, and her red coveralls remind me of the demented doll that starred in a horror screen Gideon made me watch when we were left in New York hotel alone on New Years when we were kids.
Her head swings like she can't control it well, and her eyes are crossing as she looks up at me from the bed, desperately trying to focus on me.
She's strapped down.
Finally, after several long seconds, her head is still and I can watch her gather me up in her mind.
"Who are you?" I ask.
She screams. It's not a human scream, not at all. It's the scream of a demon, of some ancient bird. The wailing pierces my ears and I fall to the ground clutching my head. "Stop!" And then I scream as well. My pain mixes with her pain and we scream.
Hands lift me to my feet and I am ushered towards the door, I look back one final time and read the chart on a table as I pass.
1397P X 1447P—Molly.
The nurse from before is frantic, she half drags, half pushes me back through the doors and into my room. She doesn't waste time with an IV, that ionspray is squirted up my nose before I even realize I'm still screaming.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Oh, God. Just make it stop. Please, I'll never ask for anything again, just make the memories go away.
No blue lights show up to deliver me from myself this time.
I pretty much burned that bridge.
"Junco?"
I bolt upright and see Lucan standing at the end of the bed.
What the fuck? "What're you doing here?"
His face is flushed and he's sweating, it reminds me of the heat in my memory. His wings are upright, in a position I'll call attack ready. I raise my eyebrows at him. "I said, what are you doing here, Lucan?"
When he speaks I understand his complexion. It's anger. He seethes at me. "I'm going to say this once, Junco. And only once. You will follow directions from this point on, you will forget this revenge scheme you're cooking up with Irin, and the two of you will do as you're told. Or else."
I jump up out of the bed and cut off his words. "Or else what? I am not your warrior, Lucan. I do not respond to threats."
His eyes change. The beautiful aquamarine is long gone and the red that appears now says I've crossed his line. His razors come out of his hands with a sickening crack and his teeth elongate into fangs.
I tuck down the fear and hold my position.
And smile.
"You think I'm afraid of you?" I run at him and spin. My kick misses and I am about to land hard on the ground when he snatches me up, only to throw me back down, making me scream out as my head slams hard and bounces back up.
He sits on top of me and forces my arms to the ground as he leans into my face. "You don't want to know what I might do, Junco. Do not challenge me. You have no idea."
The door bursts open and the girls stand there shocked.
"Out!" Lucan roars.
Lili and Irin slink away but Selia stays, waiting for me to give her an order. "I've got this, Sel. Just go."
She grunts out a laugh but still holds her position. "He's got ya pinned to the floor, Junco. I'm pretty sure you don't have this."
Lucan has me upright again before I can even process an answer. He steps away and fans out his arms. "Happy?" he asks Selia.
She takes a moment to think and then backs out, closing the door behind her.
"She's a keeper, that one," he mutters.
Selia seems awfully popular among the various higher beings involved in this whole affair. This is weird, but it's not really a great time to ponder shit like that.
I take my attention back to Lucan's face. His sweat is wafting off his body as steam now, he has literally boiled over. "Yesterday I was told Isten lives in another… place or universe or somewhere besides here. A place where I can go if I die, so do you really think I care if you kill me?"
He throws his head back and laughs. It's a giant outburst, actually.
I'm not sure what's funny.
"You had a visitor?" His eyes brighten as the laughter lingers on his face.
I just nod.
"Oh, and he told you about this place, did he? This Heaven?"
"No, not exactly. But I know it exists and I know I can't go there until I'm dead."
He watches me for a few moments, then runs his hands through his hair. "You can never go there, Junco. You're marked. The marked cannot move on. Ever."
I stand still and silent.
"Why do you think Tier refuses the Archer morph? Why would he refuse to be changed? He wants to die, Junco. He wants to die. And Archers have a very hard time doing that. You are one of us now. It cannot be undone."
I can't even speak, I just shake my head.
"I need your co-operation, Junco. We can all sit down and discuss the future once we know we have one. Understand?"
"That makes no sense, Lucan. Either we can die or we can't. If the High Order is coming to kill you, then how is it that you can't die?"
He turns a little but his eyes catch mine from the side. "There are far worse things than death, Junco." And then he laughs. "And don't even try blaming me for this situation you find yourself in, I would have preferred you die your natural death back in the Rural Republic, but Tier insisted you come back with him. I would've preferred that you died in Deliverance, but Sera insisted that you come back with her."
The words! Oh, holy motherfucking fuck. His words!
"And I would never have morphed you. Ever. Not the first time and most certainly not the second time. Tier would never have let me, but even without his disapproval, I would not want you to be an Archer, Junco." The last of his words are softer but somehow that makes it so much worse. Like he feels sorry for me.
I bite my lip and my brows furrows together so tightly I can feel the stress expand down to my neck. "No."
"Yes. This is what Inanna did when she made you an Archer. Immortality. You are a Goddess in every sense of the word. You will live forever, you will watch everything and everyone you ever loved die and disappear, you will find new mates, make new families, and then watch them die as well. And in the end you will be so jaded and bitter you'll look back on your life, your real human life and think all this hell you're going through right now is Heaven. You'll look back on that childhood you think was so awful and desperately wish to be that girl again. Being shot by your trainers, smacked in the mouth by your father, or losing that child who would never have survived in the first place."
"You fucking asshole! How dare you say that shit to me! You said you'd love me forever, but
this! You are such a total piece of shit! You broke me! All of you! You broke me!"
He stops, maybe to let those words in, maybe to wonder what he'll eat for dinner tonight, who the fuck knows. "No, Junco. You are not broken. This," he waves his hand at me, at my insanity, "is but a crack. The actual breaking has yet to commence."
The chill travels up my stomach and bursts out through my mouth. "What?"
"I wish you'd left Amelia that day." He turns away. "Left with that commander, what was his name?"
"Slag," I whisper.
"Right. Slag. You should have left me standing there alone against the darkness of the universe outside. But you didn't. You chose to stay, and I even warned you what it would come to. And now that we're here, you want to feign innocence? Blame this on me?"
His words come back, through all the murky ramblings in my mind, through the insane voices of dead people, and AI's, and mind readers. They are still there, ready to haunt me again.
Just remember, when we are at the end, when I am standing over you as you break in half, and I am forced to leave you with nothing, Junco – don't say I never tried to help. Don't tell me I made your life a living hell, because you will have done that all on your own.
"You're going to use me, aren't you? Use me all up and then leave me there, sprawled out and spent."
My words cause a great exhale of breath from him, as if I'm boring him, or taking up too much of his time. "Junco, please. I'm trying my best. If you would push the insanity away and just listen we'd all be in a better place when the High Order arrive. And I'm sorry for being so callous with the facts of the morph. I understand, it's big. It's the biggest thing to ever happen to you and you missed it. You have no idea what it means, so I understand the craziness."
"No." I say it again, but it comes out even weaker than before.
He huffs and loses his patience. "Listen to me! We cannot die, Junco. But we can be dissipated."
Dissipated. Both Rikan and Sera used that word. Rikan to tell me he will not allow me to dissipate Lucan, and Sera to tell me that's the way I can kill Inanna.
"It means to shatter, Junco."
His fangs are longer now, still growing, along with his razors and his anger. "You will be shattered, into billions of individual atoms, and each one holds a tag that says 'I am Junco'. They will be scattered around the Universe and you will be left to wander the darkness for eternity. Your consciousness fractured yet at the same time intact, as you spend decade after decade, century after century, millennium after millennium—billions of millennia added together—drifting alone in a sea of insanity. Until finally, one day, after so much time passes you are incapable of understanding that you exist, let alone remembering the baby you lost, the love you felt for Charlie, or the lost opportunity with Tier—all those particles will finally bump into one another in such as way that you will be whole again." He sneers at me. "At least that's the theory. If you want to know who the Devil is, Junco. I'll tell you with one hundred percent certainty, it is not me. It is one of those shattered beings who drifted for so long the quantum laws brought it back together again."
I'm a spinning mess, my world is psychosis personified.
"I am not even close to being the Devil, but those Angels coming for us? Some of them have survived the very process I just described. And one in particular has survived it many times over. They will be here soon, Junco. And they will shatter you and Inanna and my Archer brothers in a way that makes it almost impossible to return on your own. Because all of you are High Order and all of you are Fallen."
I take a deep breath and just shake my head as I look past him, out the window into the dusky red of the MR desert. "What about you? Will they shatter you?"
He smiles. It's the most evil smile I've ever seen. "No, Junco. They cannot shatter me. Believe it or not, my curse is like a shield. I truly am the captain of my soul, that is why they need you."
God, I want to be anywhere but here. Maybe we can escape, just run away and forget all of it—some ship, surely the avians must have some long-term life support ship we can take and just float out or existence in the nothingness… I look up at Lucan and know he's reading me.
"But even if we lose, and as long as you don't shatter me, if you just do what I ask, Junco, I will be there for you. I will put you back together. You won't have to wait until your love for Tier is a long-forgotten memory and you won't have to wait for someone to search for you across eternity. I will not let them take you away and throw you into oblivion.
"I will be there, I promise I will put you back together. I will love you for thousands of years, Junco, because you'll have no one else to share it with. If you will be there for me for this, I will not let you drift. Just do what I ask."
"No." I whisper it this time.
"When I was holding you after your Archer morph I said I'd wait, Junco. And I will. If you do what I ask and I survive, then you can live your life with Tier, do whatever you want—have a family, the house, the dog for fuck's sake. Whatever." He waves a dismissive hand towards me, like the whole idea of Tier and me having this normal life is ridiculous. "Have it all. I will give it to you, Junco." He searches my eyes to see what my reaction might be, but these words are so repulsive they've yet to sink in. "And I will be there after your life with Tier is over."
I laugh and shake my head. "You're insane. This is so much bullshit I don't even know where—"
"Inanna sentenced you to Hell, Junco. This is Hell. You're there already and you can never leave. You cannot die, but you can be punished and I'll tell you right now, after billions of years, the High Order have come up with many very creative ways to punish those of us who defy them. Dissipation is but one."
"I haven't though! I haven't defied them! I don't even know who they are!"
"You defy them by existing. If Inanna would've left you a Seven, you might have come out of it OK if you agreed to scatter me. But she took the next step, took you to Hell with her. You will be punished."
I stare out the terrace window and think of Matthew's punishments. His violence was always something I could live with. I mean, it was scary, but he never disfigured me or anything. Some smacks mostly. He only punched me close-fisted once and I really fucked him up in retaliation.
I was eleven when that happened.
I feel Lucan's hands on my shoulders but I don't turn.
"You knew, didn't you? Just like Tier knew Isten would die, even after he gave him to me." I look up at him now and I count. My pain is so real and raw I need to count the scales on his armor to hold it back. "You knew I'd end up this way? As a High Order Archer sentenced to an eternity of Hell?"
"I'm sorry, Junco. I really am, and I know it's a lot to take in, but you need to forget about that for now and concentrate on the Pillars. We must have them, you must make sure Irin will comply, you must show up to your Pillar, and you must give it to me. Do I make myself clear?"
I hate that phrase. It reminds me of camp. They were forever asking me if things were clear, and ya know what? No, nothing about my life is fucking clear, thank you.
I am in Hell and I will stay in Hell for eternity.
For years I've clung to the fact that it will end, one day, once and for all, it will end. All the heartbeats will stop. And it felt powerful to know, even though I never would, that I could make it end any time I wanted. I have always, literally, had control over my heartbeats.
But now?
Caleb did not mention this but surely he would've known. "You used Isten, just like you used me. You wanted inside my mind, you wanted answers, and you used him to take that from me, didn't you?"
He sucks some air in through his teeth and sneers at me. "Isten used you."
"No. You knew he wanted another twine more than anything and you used that against him, made him love me, made me love him. And then you took him away."
"None of this has anything to do with Isten, Junco. He wanted you, yes. Tier and I decided to make his remaining days happy. You would've ra
ther he never had that special bond with you?"
"Go."
"Junco, I need your promise."
"Get out." I turn and look at him now. "Get out! I promise you nothing, Lucan. You're on your own, just like me. Maybe I'll raise that Pillar and maybe I won't, I have no idea right now to be honest. I'm gonna get my revenge, that's all I care about. I'm gonna go kill those people who started this, who made me, and I'm gonna feel a whole lot better about things when it's over. Maybe then I'll show up and raise that Pillar." It's my turn to sneer. "Or maybe I won't."
"You will show."
"Yeah? I'm sure you've seen me show up, is that it? Just like you saw me kill Kush and then slice my fucking chest open in Deliverance?"
He shrinks back a fraction, but I catch it.
"I did not see that."
"You lie! You're such a fucking liar! You saw that and everything else, too! Tier saw Isten die, he traded Isten for me, right? You traded Isten for me?"
"Who told you that?"
I grunt and face the truth I've been pushing away since before we went back to Earth to get my Siblings. "It's true. You guys gave him to me as a gift and then you took him. And not just killed him, you killed him in front of me, Lucan. You made me watch."
We stand there in silence for several seconds and then he puts a hand on my shoulder and I know it's all true. I shake him off and watch his expression when I say the words.
"I hate you." His eyes glow for a fraction and I repeat it without the malice. "I hate you. You used me. In the worst way, Lucan. You used me all up, broke me, then stepped on the pieces just to make sure I'd never be put back together again. You'll gather me up? Once I'm shattered? Well, I don't want you to come looking for me, and if you do come, I won't allow you to put me back together. Because you know what? I'd rather be floating in my own insanity for eternity than spend it with you."
He stares at me for a few seconds and then he disappears. Just like that, he's gone. Replaced by emptiness.
Like fucking hell he'll be there to gather me up. Like fucking hell. His promises are as empty as the air he left behind.
