Truth Engine (16 page)

She was swaying in place, the lack of sustenance making her half-asleep. It was like a waking dream, and Brigid realized then that her mind was subject to drifting, was prone to lose focus unless she disciplined herself.

“Abigail was beautiful,” she said, turning back to face the stone thing. She remembered the girl's cherubic face, not yet six years old, a girl programmed to exist in
a reality that did not. “She had hair the color of honey, round apple cheeks, and her eyes were like mine—the green of emeralds.”

“No, Brigid,” Ullikummis said, stepping back and gently letting go of her. “Describe her face. Here. With your hands.” Ullikummis was gesturing to the rough floor at their feet, where the sand played in little eddies of wind.

“I don't understand,” Brigid admitted, swaying a little in the gloomy cave.

“Make her for me,” Ullikummis instructed. “A child of clay, of sand, of dust.”

Poupée de son,
Brigid remembered. Doll of dust.

“In the story, the queen was tasked to make her child from the earth,” Ullikummis reminded his companion. “And you shall do the same. Once this is done, I will grant you your freedom.”

Brigid stood there looking at Ullikummis, wondering why he would ask such a thing. Abigail was a figment of her imagination, nothing more than a trick that she had learned to see past, to escape the Janus trap she had been placed within by Cerberus's enemies, the Original Tribe. Whatever emotional bonds Brigid had felt, she had got over them, had left the child behind in her unreal world. The child had no power over her, did she? Or would Ullikummis somehow bring the sand to life, as he had the stone of the walls, the chair? Could he be making her create something with her hands that would come to life? Could hurt her? No. If he did that, she would turn Abigail, would make her her own again.

Kneeling, Brigid clenched her teeth and ran her fingers through the sand. “It's dry,” she said.

“I will bring you water,” Ullikummis told her, his
shadow looming over the floor where she knelt, “that you may make the child grow.”

And then he turned, striding across the cavern and leaving Brigid in the echoing cave. Alone, she began to picture Abigail in her mind, running her hands through the thin grains of sand.

Kane waited on the far side of the cavelike cell, listening for the noises of movement. It was so well sealed that he could hear nothing other than his own breathing and, if he stood very close to it, the swirling of the magma energies in the overhead light pool. Rosalia had offered to deal him back into the game and, despite his distrust of the mercenary woman, he was reaching the seemingly inevitable conclusion that it was the only option he had left. Kane had been in bad situations before, had suffered defeat at the hands of his enemies, had placed his life in the utmost danger. But those had been temporary things, situations where one option still remained if he looked hard enough.

Here, in this completely sealed cell, he was utterly without hope. He could be left to die here and no one would even know.

And what of Grant, his partner? What of Brigid Baptiste, his
anam-chara?
Were they in this situation, too? Had each of them been placed in solitary confinement in a cell with no door? Kane would risk everything to free them; he would sacrifice himself to save his friends if that was what fate demanded of him.

So he waited in the silent cell until eventually the strange stone door oozed back on its hidden housings, flowing like a thing of liquid, and two figures appeared
in the doorway, lit by the bubbling lava that flowed in the walls beyond.

Dylan stepped forward, his face half-hidden beneath the shadows of the hood he wore. “This is your future, Kane,” he told him. “The world changed while you weren't looking, and you've woken up to the new reality. Rejoice.”

Sitting on the floor, his back against the wall farthest from the doorway, Kane looked up and smiled. “Didn't we do this already?” he chided.

Behind Dylan, Kane recognized the slender figure of Rosalia, her mongrel dog following languorously in her footsteps.

Dylan nodded. “You will rejoice when you embrace the new reality, Kane,” the first priest of the New Order said. “It's only a matter of time.”

“Why does it matter to you so much?” Kane asked, his voice rough from dehydration.

“To me?” Dylan replied. “I serve only Overlord Ullikummis, and it matters to him. He has seen the things you are capable of, and he requires your service in the upcoming God War.”

“God War,” Kane muttered, forming the words with his dry, cracked lips. “That's what this is all heading to?”

Dylan nodded. “The sides have been chosen already, Kane,” he said. “You need to submit so that things can progress. You will lead a great army into battle against the forces of the devil Enlil. And in return you will live like a baron.”

Kane bowed his head, rubbing his hand over his face as if giving this some thought. A rough beard was forming on his chin, sharp stubble bristling against his touch. “What would this process entail?” he asked finally.
“What do I have to do to pledge my allegiance to your master?”

First Priest Dylan eased himself down on his haunches until he was crouching just a few feet away, roughly at eye level with the broken ex-Magistrate. To Kane, the man's eyes seemed alight—with madness. “There are things in this brave new world that need to be embraced if you are to become a part of it,” he explained. “These things hurt at first, but you will learn to accept them, and they in turn will become a part of you.”

The obedience stones, Kane thought. That was what the dark-haired man was referring to.

“And what about my friends?” he asked.

Behind Dylan, Kane saw Rosalia subtly shake her head, warning him not to pursue this course, but he ignored her. He had agreed to accept her wisdom on this matter, on how to get out of this diabolical prison, but he still had to play it as himself—otherwise this jumped-up sod buster would get suspicious.

“My friends,” Kane repeated. “Grant, Baptiste, Domi, Lakesh—”

Dylan held up a hand to halt the list he was reeling off, and that insane smile crossed his features once more, teeth twinkling orange in the faint overhead glow of the magma pod light. “You won't need them,” he assured Kane levelly.

“Won't need…?” Kane repeated as if offended. Then he reached for Dylan, grabbing the front of the man's robe and bringing his face closer. Kane's movement was so swift that the priest didn't have time to defend himself. “These are my friends, you jumped-up little toad,” Kane snarled. “If I'm going to embrace this fucking utopia of yours I'll do it with my friends at my side.”

In the back of the cell, Rosalia leaped forward,
stamping down with her foot on Kane's outstretched forearm. The blow was enough to force Kane to break his hold on the first priest, and Dylan toppled over as he was let free.

Then Rosalia was astride Kane, a leg to either side of his slumped body, her hands stretched out to form flat edges like knives. “Careful, prisoner,” she snarled. “The future looks a whole lot bleaker when you're dead.”

Kane glared at her, seeing the flash of warning in her own eyes as the dog yipped behind her. He had to play this right, though, had to convince Dylan that he wasn't an easy mark, that this decision was something he was making as Kane, not as part of an act.

Dylan was standing once more, backing away from the scuffle and brushing down the rough material of the robe where he had fallen into the sand. “Rose,” he instructed, “let him go.”

Rosalia issued a hiss between clenched teeth before backing away from Kane, her eyes never leaving his.

Resting against the wall, Kane watched his two captors warily, before he spoke once again. “I want to see my friends,” he said, his voice grim with determination.

Dylan nodded. “You will,” he promised. “In time.”

“When?” Kane asked.

“When Lord Ullikummis deems it,” Dylan replied. Then the self-proclaimed first priest of the New Order reached into his robes, fidgeting with a hidden pouch. A moment later his hand reappeared clutching a smooth pebble no larger than a silver dollar. “Once you embrace the future, you'll see how foolish you've been. These trivialities will melt away and you'll reach a new comprehension. This I promise you, Kane.”

Kane watched as Dylan turned the stone over in his hand. Its polished surface glimmered as the orange
glow of magma played across it, faintly reflected from the lights of the corridor and the lone pod above Kane's head.

“What does it do?” Kane asked.

“It brings peace,” Dylan told him, his voice reassuring.

Kane's eyes were fixed on the stone, and he felt the fear rising inside him. Rosalia had explained how it worked, what had to happen now for Kane to be accepted into the new regime and so be given the opportunity of escape. He was to bond with the stone, which relied on organic technology the way of all things Annunaki—something grown and almost alive, yet not sentient until it was joined to something else, such as a human's nervous system. Kane would submit to this bonding so that he might free his friends. This was the plan; this was how Rosalia had proposed he be dealt back into the game, as she had put it.

“What do I have to do?” Kane asked, his voice low, fearful.

“Hold out your arm,” Dylan instructed.

He did so, and then Dylan told him to roll back the torn sleeve of his shadow suit to fully expose his flesh. Kane pushed his sleeve back so that it bunched just beneath his elbow, then held his arm horizontally as if waiting for an injection.

Dylan's robes fell around him like a blooming lotus in the flickering volcanic light of the room as he crouched down by Kane, holding the pebble between thumb and forefinger like a precious egg. Kane waited, his arm outstretched, as Dylan brought the stone seed closer to him, the light glinting off its polished surface in the gloom.

“Will it hurt?” Kane asked then, and his question was genuine, no longer a part of his innocent act.

Dylan nodded. “The future has to be born, Kane,” he said, “and birth is traumatic. But it will be brief, and the new world awaits you once it's done. You need never look back, never regret. God will be with you.”

Kane gritted his teeth as he watched Dylan bring the stone closer. Then he felt it brush against his skin, its surface cool, and for a moment the ex-Mag tensed.

“Relax into it,” Dylan advised. “Don't fight it.”

Dylan pulled his hand back slowly, leaving the stone balanced on Kane's outstretched arm. The stone was resting against his wrist now, in the groove at the heel of his hand. Kane watched as the stone sat there, doing nothing out of the ordinary. And then he felt it move, like an insect's tiny feet tickling his wrist, and he almost laughed. The movement was so slight that, in the gloom, he could not really see it. All the same, he felt it, felt as it rolled and turned, inching around in a slow turn at the base of his palm.

Suddenly, Kane felt a strange kind of pain, his skin splitting at his wrist with a burning sensation. It reminded him of the way chapped lips feel in cold weather, a hotness around the wound. He watched as the stone seemed to become slightly smaller. It was sinking, he realized, sinking into his flesh, burrowing there like an insect.

Kane grunted, the noise coming from the back of his throat as he felt the discomfort at his wrist. It looked as though the stone was sinking, pushing against his flesh and parting it, to disappear within his body. It was a form of osmosis, an absorption of one thing into another, something the human body, Kane felt sure, had never been prepared to do. Yet here it was, the stone burrowing into him, being absorbed by him.

Despite the sensation of pressure on his flesh, despite the feel of ripping skin, Kane could see no blood in the
poor lighting of the room, could not feel that familiar warm trickle that would alert him to the wound. Instead, it seemed that the pebble just disappeared into his flesh, its dark round shape becoming smaller as less and less of it was left exposed.

Kane's lips pulled back and he grunted again, holding back a scream as he felt the stone scrape against the bone beneath the flesh. It was a cold, empty scraping, like the dentist's drill against a rotten tooth, a strange kind of discomfort for which Kane had no name or frame of reference.

And then, as he watched, the pebble was gone, the whole of its polished surface disappearing beneath his skin, digging into his flesh and burrowing into his body. All that remained was a lump in his skin, like a forming boil, its whitehead not yet emerged. The skin itself was pristine; there was no suggestion that it had been cut, no hint of a wound. Just the bump in his wrist, a protrusion about as big as an eyeball on his otherwise smooth arm.

Beneath his skin, Kane could feel the thing moving, securing itself, exploring the inside of his arm, his body. He reached for that bump, wanting to run his fingers over it, to feel it as it floated beneath his flesh, but Dylan grabbed his hand. Kane looked up at him, remembering for the first time in over a minute that he was not alone in the room, that this alien thing had been placed on his flesh by someone else, like a leech to suck his blood. Dylan shook his head, advising Kane with a single word of instruction: “No.”

Kane relaxed his right hand, watched as the lump began to sink into his left wrist, slowly disappearing into his flesh. Ripples appeared around that bump, concentric circles running across his skin as the stone dived deeper and deeper into his body. Kane could feel it pressing
there, nosing at the inside of his being, moving about as it sought refuge.

Suddenly, the stone was pushing inside his arm, and Kane growled in pain.

“Embrace it,” Rosalia advised from her standing position close to the open door to the cell.

Could he really trust her? Kane wondered. He had put his faith in this woman, this mercenary who had tried to kill him on more than one occasion when they had previously met. She had come at him with knives and a sword, turned a gun on him and his teammates. Yet here he was, taking her advice when she told him to submit to the will of Ullikummis's first priest, to allow himself to be joined with an obedience stone.

“I must be crazy,” Kane muttered, the words forced painfully through his clenched teeth, sweat pouring from his brow, dampening his hair. Even as he said it, he sank back, crashing against the wall as the pressure of the stone inside him built, an infectious kind of pain that spread into his muscles there, reaching across his whole body in a pattern that emanated from his left wrist.

“You'll be fine,” Dylan assured him as he heard the muttered words. “It will all be over soon enough. Wonders await.”

Then First Priest Dylan pushed himself up from the floor and stood looking down at Kane as the ex-Magistrate writhed on the floor like a beached fish, his legs kicking out as the pain gripped him.

“Don't fight it,” Dylan advised. “It will be much easier if you embrace it.”

Kane felt a coldness then, sweeping across his brow, and he realized he had broken into a sweat at some point during the procedure, while his attention had been focused on his wrist. His whole body was taut, and a
strange kind of pain ran through his muscles now, as if he were being stretched on a rack. The pressures seemed to come from everywhere, but centered on his arm.

Vaguely Kane was aware that Dylan and Rosalia had left, with the dog in tow. The cell wall closed behind them, a facade of solid rock once more, the darkness becoming deeper, more absolute.

Alone in the cave, Kane writhed against the floor, his body racked with pain. “Don't fight it,” he told himself, remembering Dylan's advice. Whatever it was, it was in him and it could fight harder, keep pushing into him until he submitted to its will.

Kane sank back, his breathing coming fast and shallow as he tried to work through the pain. He tried to relax as best he could, embrace the pain and let it play itself out in his body, let the stone attach itself howsoever it must.

He felt something changing in him as he let the stone reside there, felt a kind of inner peace come over him, the fight leaving him. Despite the pain, he felt tranquil somehow, as if he had trust in the world about him. Faith, that's what it was. He was discovering faith.