“Just a few minutes,” said the man. He had a reassuring voice. It was smooth. “You didn’t hear me come in. You were otherwise occupied. What is that you’ve got there?”
“You can’t have it,” said Conor. “If you want to rob me, rob me. I have a little money somewhere. But you can’t have this.”
“I’m not here to rob you,” said the man. “What happens if you press that button, Conor?”
The pressure on his bladder, the dryness of his mouth, the emptiness of his belly, and now a headache, rising slowly from the heat that was stinging his skin and making him sweat. He felt sick. He was sick. He needed to lie down.
“I don’t know,” said Conor.
The tall man in the hat moved his head ever so slightly. “You don’t know what it does? But you made it, didn’t you?”
Conor nodded.
“How did you know what to do?”
“I’ve always known,” said Conor. “My whole life I’ve known. I had these images in my head. But I couldn’t see them clear enough until… sorry, what date is it?”
“The twenty-first,” said the tall man. “Four days before Christmas.”
Conor frowned. “That can’t be right. It was the eighth just… just a few days ago.”
“Time got away from you,” said another voice in the gloom, somewhere over by the window. It was a girl’s voice.
“Who are you?” Conor asked at last.
“No one in particular,” said the man. “We have a job to do, that’s all. We help people.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You may not,” said the girl, “but everyone else does.” She walked forward a bit, until the peripheral glow from the lamp could pick out her features. She was pretty, with dark hair. Wearing black. Seventeen or eighteen, no older. “What does the button do?” she asked.
“I told you,” said Conor. “I don’t know.”
“Then why is your finger on it?”
He looked down. There it was, his finger, resting on the big red button like it had no intention of ever moving. He frowned. He couldn’t remember putting it there and yet… yet it seemed there was no other possible place he could put it. His finger belonged on that button.
“I’m sorry,” Conor said. “I’m not feeling well.”
“Conor Delaney,” said the man, “take your finger off the button.”
And Conor almost did it. Without thinking, his finger rose a fraction before the weight of his obligation forced it back down again.
Obligation? What obligation? What the hell was going on?
“How did you do that?” he asked the man. “How did you make me do that?”
The man made a sound, like a dissatisfied grunt, and it was the girl who spoke. “How did you disobey? Did you take a name?”
“What?” said Conor. “What do you mean?”
“How did you disobey?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, do you understand? I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here.”
“They’re saying the world will end,” said the girl.
This stopped Conor for a moment. “What?”
“They’re saying the world will end,” the girl repeated. “Did you hear that?”
“Are you… are you talking about that Mayan thing? What about it? The Mayan calendar ends on the twenty-first of December. So what? It’s a calendar. They ran out of room, or they stopped calculating, or a new cycle begins again or something… I’m sorry, what does that have to do with anything? It’s nonsense.”
“Do you know what a Sensitive is, Conor?” the girl asked. “It’s a psychic. You believe in psychics?”
“No,” said Conor. “I don’t believe in astrology, either, or tarot cards, or palm reading.”
The girl nodded. “Palm reading is silly. So is astrology. Most tarot-card readers haven’t a clue what they’re doing. I met one once who assured me I had a happy life ahead of me – so she’s pretty obviously an idiot. But psychics have been predicting the end of the world, Conor, to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar.”
“So?”
“So we think the end of the world starts here,” said the man.
Conor frowned. “In Ireland? You think the end of the world starts here in this country?”
“Actually, I think it starts here in this kitchen.”
Conor blinked. “You can’t be serious.”
“I can be, but rarely am.”
“And what? You think this button kicks it all off?” Conor said, almost laughing. “You think that’s what I’ve been making? This is a box of gears and junk and things that don’t make sense! There’s not a single computer chip or piece of technology in it. It’s not connected to anything. I don’t know what will happen when I push the button, but whatever it is will happen in this box and this box alone. It’s not going to set off a chain reaction, or explode, or detonate nuclear warheads, or… It’s just a silly box.”
“A silly box that has been in your head for your entire life,” said the man.
“But now it’s out,” said Conor. “It’s not in my head any more. It’s gone. I don’t have to… I don’t have to think about it any more.”
“How’s your mother, Conor?”
The smile faded from Conor’s face.
“She’s doing well, from what I gather,” the man continued. “Responding to the treatment. She still draws on the wall, of course. Strange symbols. Strange designs. Gears and levers and a big red button.”
“My mother is ill.”
The man nodded his head in the shadows. “Like her father before her. And his father before him. Stretching back through the generations. And all of you with this design in your minds. This box. That button. But you, Conor, you’re the only one who saw it clearly enough to construct it.”
“I’ve broken the cycle,” said Conor. “I’m not going to end up in an asylum like the rest of them. I’ve done it. I’ve made it. Now I get to have a normal life. Now that my duty is almost done, I get to be free of it.”
“What duty?” asked the girl.
The headache was getting worse. He was getting hotter. He probably had a fever. “Did I say duty? I don’t know. That’s not the word I meant to use.”
“But it’s the one you did use,” said the man. “Do you have a duty, Conor? Is that what it feels like?”
“I’m not sure I… I…”
“That box has cursed your bloodline for hundreds of years,” the man said. “Maybe more. You were compelled to construct it, weren’t you? You didn’t have a choice. You may not even have been fully aware of what you were doing. You have a duty to that box, don’t you, Conor?”
Conor nodded. “An obligation,” he whispered.
“An obligation to that box. Why is your finger on the button, Conor? Is that part of your obligation? Once you build it, you set it off?”
Something broke in Conor’s heart, and tears came to his eyes. “I have to press it,” he said, his face crumpling. “I just have to press it once and it’ll all be over. I’ll be able to walk away and never think about it again.”
“Pressing that button will hurt a lot of people.”
“It’s just a box,” Conor sobbed.
“It’s more than a box.”
“It’s just a box, I’m telling you. It doesn’t do anything. I’m not a scientist or an engineer. I’m just a man. I’m just ordinary. I wouldn’t know how to build anything that would hurt people. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to be able to walk away.”
There was a sound outside. A car pulling up. A line of light swept in through the crack in the curtains and brushed by the man’s jaw. It looked like his skin was white as chalk, or he was wearing a mask or something.
“Be right back,” said the man, and slipped through the door.
“Who’s out there?” Conor asked.
“Some people,” said the girl. “There’s been a race to find you. We got here first.”
“What do they
want?”
There was a cry from outside, and a sudden light like a bursting flame, and then it was gone again.
“They want the box,” said the girl. “They want to sell it, or use it, or worship it. I don’t know. Some of these people just don’t make any sense to me. You look tired.”
“I feel sick.”
Outside there was another sound. Loud. Abrupt.
“Was that a gunshot?” asked Conor.
“It was,” said the girl.
“Aren’t you scared?”
“You’ve got your finger on a button that will end the world,” the girl said. “Why should I be scared of guns that aren’t even aimed at me?”
“I’m not going to end the world.”
“You’ve got your finger on the button.”
“I can barely work out how to make calls on my own phone – why do you think I know how to destroy the planet? This is ridiculous. Please leave me alone.”
“I wish we could. But if we do, you’ll press that button, and you’ll kill us all. You’ll kill my friends and my parents and my little sister. I can’t let you do that, Conor.”
“I won’t be hurting anyone. The box doesn’t do anything. It’s just a stupid box with a stupid button, but it’s been in my head for my entire life, like a constant whine in my ear. All I have to do to be rid of it is just press the thing. That’s all. Easy as that. I’ll press it, no one will get hurt, the world won’t end, and I won’t have to listen to that whine any more. I won’t have to dream about gears and symbols. I’ll be able to close my eyes and not see how one cog fits into the other. I’ll be able to live in the kind of peace that my mother never could.
“You don’t… you don’t know. You don’t know what it was like, seeing her… seeing what happened to her. Seeing how bad it got. When I was ten years old, she sat me down and told me these dreams I had would only get worse. She told me they’d consume my life, like they were consuming hers. This is my chance to escape that madness. Please, just leave me alone. This is the only chance I’ll ever have.”
“It isn’t madness you’re suffering from,” said the girl. “My friend, the one that’s out there right now fighting on your front lawn, told me what you are. You’re a conduit for an idea, an idea that was planted centuries ago. It’s grown inside the minds of your ancestors, been added to, been improved… and here, tonight, it’s finally ready. You’re not mad, Conor. Your mother isn’t mad. You’re just open to a stream of information that the rest of us aren’t.”
“So who planted it?” Conor asked. “This idea you’re talking about. Whose idea was it? The Mayans?”
“The Mayan people just foresaw the end,” said the man from beside the door. Conor hadn’t even heard him come back in. “They had nothing to do with this. We don’t know who started it. We don’t even know if ending the world was what was originally intended. All we know is that our Sensitives had visions of a man in a dark room, building a box, and when he pressed the button everything just… ended.”
“Then how did you know it was me?”
“They heard a train in the distance.”
“That’s it? That’s all?”
“That narrowed it down,” said the man. “A few other hints. A few other clues. Why haven’t you pushed the button?”
“Why haven’t I…? But you don’t want me to.”
“That’s not why you haven’t pushed it. Your finger’s on it. There’s nothing stopping you. Why haven’t you?”
“I don’t… I’m not sure.”
“It’s because you know that it isn’t just a silly box and that isn’t just a silly button. You believe us, don’t you?”
“No, I… Oh, God. I don’t know.”
“Will you give us the box, Conor?”
“What will happen then?”
“We’ll take it somewhere safe,” said the girl. “We can’t dismantle it and we can’t destroy it – something might go wrong. But we’ll take care of it. We’ll hide it away where no one will ever find it.”
“It won’t be used to hurt anyone,” the man said. “I promise.”
“And me?” said Conor. “What will happen to me?”
The man hesitated. “I won’t lie to you. You’ll probably always feel that urge to push the button. That won’t go away. You’ll have to live with it for the rest of your life.”
“But I’m so close. I’m so close to leaving it behind.”
“We’re asking you to make a sacrifice,” the girl said. “We’re asking you to continue living with this so that the rest of the world can continue living. Please, Conor.”
More tears now, but they came silently. Conor lifted his finger from the button, and with his other hand he pushed the box slowly across the table. The girl came forward to take it. She wore a black ring, Conor noticed. For a moment it seemed to play with the shadows, and then the girl was lifting the box and stepping back, taking great care.
The last remaining dregs of strength drained from Conor’s body. He was exhausted, confused, scared, and all he wanted to do was lunge across the table and push that big red button before the girl took it away.
“Thank you,” said the man, and Conor just nodded.
The man looked down at something – a pocket watch? – and opened the door. “Two hours until midnight,” he said. “Should be loads of time.”
“Loads of time for what?” Conor asked, even though he knew the man hadn’t been speaking to him.
The girl walked slowly out, taking the box with her. Conor forced himself to remain where he was.
“There’s a woman who believes the souls of all her dead lovers are trapped in the centre of the earth,” said the man. “She wants to crack the world open to free them.”
Conor frowned. “Can she do it?”
“Yes. So we have to stop her before she kills us all.”
“But… but didn’t your psychics say that I’d be responsible for the end of the world?”
“Some of them did, yes. And some others said that she would. We’ve averted eight potential apocalypses already today, and she’ll be our last. Once midnight comes, we can relax. Then we just have to hope the Americans don’t mess up.”
“The Americans?”
“A day can last forty-nine hours around the world,” said the man, walking out and leaving Conor sitting there at his kitchen table. “A lot can happen in a day.”
I’m writing this little introduction on March 17th, 2014, and I’m taking a break from The Dying of the Light to do it. This here is the second chapter of the ninth book, and there really isn’t a whole lot for me to say about it except, y’know, if you like this, the rest is just as good!
Or if you don’t like this, the rest is better. I swear.
Um.
he flickering lights of the trashed supermarket threw deep shadows from dark places, and Stephanie stepped through it all with one hand wrapped tightly round the golden Sceptre. Rows of shelves lay toppled against each other in a domino-sprawl of scattered food tins and ketchup bottles. She caught the scent of a small ocean of spilled vinegar and glanced to her right in time to catch a flash of pinstripe. Then she was alone again in this half-collapsed maze, the only sound the gentle hum from the freezers.
She edged into the darkness and out again into the light. Slow steps and quiet ones and once more the darkness swallowed her in its cold hunger. Ahead of her, a man hovered, a metre off the ground, as if he were lying on an invisible bed. His hands were clasped on his belly, and his eyes were closed.
Stephanie raised the Sceptre.
One thought would be all it’d take for a bolt of black lightning to turn him to dust. One simple command that, less than a year ago, she wouldn’t have even hesitated to give. Davos Rhadaman was a threat. He was a danger to her and to others. He had stepped into the Accelerator and the boost to his powers had turned him violent. Unstable. He was now the enemy. The enemy deserved to die.
And yet… she hesitated.
She was not one to second-gu
ess herself. She was not prone to introspection. For the majority of her existence, Stephanie had been all surface. She was the reflection, the stand-in, the copy. While Valkyrie Cain was out playing hero, Stephanie went to school, sat at the dinner table, carried on with normal life. People viewed her as an unfeeling object. She had been an it.
But now that she was a she, things were murkier. Less clean. Now that she was a person, now that she was actually alive, she found that she didn’t want to deprive any other living thing of that same opportunity – not if she could at all help it. Which was, she openly admitted, hugely inconvenient.
Wearing a scowl as dark as her hair, she stepped out from cover and advanced on Rhadaman slowly. She took a pair of shackles from her bag, made sure the chain didn’t jingle. She kept the Sceptre pointed at him – she didn’t want to kill anyone if she could help it, but she wasn’t stupid – and chose her steps carefully. The floor was littered with supermarket debris. She was halfway there and still Rhadaman hadn’t opened his eyes.
The closer she got, the louder her pulse sounded in her head. She felt sure he was going to hear her heartbeat. If not her heartbeat then at the very least her ridiculously loud breathing. When had she started breathing so loud? Had she always breathed this loud? She would have thought someone would have mentioned it.
She was three steps away and she paused, looked around, watching for pinstripes. Nothing. Why hadn’t she waited? Why did she have to do this on her own? Did she really have that much to prove? Probably, now that she thought of it. So would capturing Rhadaman single-handedly make her a worthy partner? Would that justify her continued existence?
She wasn’t used to all these conflicting thoughts, ricocheting around in her head.
Three more steps and she reached out, shackles ready.
Rhadaman’s eyes snapped open.
He stared at her. She stared at him.
“This is a dream?” she tried, and a wave of energy threw her back.
She went tumbling, realised in some dim part of her mind that her hands were empty, and when she came to a stop she looked up and Rhadaman was standing there, holding the Sceptre.