CHAPTER 21
Sabrina’s and Marshall’s silent battle of wits came to a halt at the front door of 542 Stanley Way. She gulped, holding Michael’s hand that felt warm in the evening chill. Zolnerowich hadn’t had the time to specify what Uriah’s “worse” was, much less how she knew that, but she had an idea, if Livingston had a Mindscape in his basement.
She stopped herself once the door was open, holding Michael back and looking him in the eyes. She’d asked Marshall if he trusted her, but perhaps the answer depended on how much she trusted him. Enough to enter the second cage?
Fists clenched, she crossed the threshold as another of the governess’s statements occupied her mind: “If you choose not to kill your son, you’ll have to kill Mr. Uriah, unless there’s a better way.” I put him in there, now I have to let him out.
The door shut. She didn’t have to turn back to know it was sealed, maybe forever.
The lights were on downstairs, shadows of two people visible from the top step. The voice of Marshall’s Libertas uttered, “Can you do us all a favor and just stay dead?”
“Dennis?”
When she reached the floor, there were indeed Uriah and a Mindscape. Jane lay on the floor, naked and unconscious. But another man sat between the Mindscape and the hemispherical machine she’d seen in the leaked video, back in the Amish village. It was the body that had fathered the boy next to her.
“Dennis, what’s going on here? What happened to Jane? Zolnerowich told me you killed Marshall.”
Uriah said nothing, his jaw dropped at the sight of Michael. Marshall appeared quite entertained at the situation. “Sabrina! Michael! Welcome to the family reunion.” He traipsed across the room to hug her.
“Get off of me at the very least until I know how the hell you’re still alive, and in two bodies at once for that matter.” She held Michael closer as his father stepped back.
“Forget that question,” said Uriah, still staring at her son. “I’d like to know who that is and why you look like you recently gave birth.”
“Let me see if I can explain,” said Marshall. “We can start by dropping the weapon, Dennis.”
Sabrina only now noticed the small EM gun in his hand. He put it to Marshall’s head. “Like hell I will! You have the nanos I need, and you’re leaving this house either dead or under arrest.”
“I could say the same about you, but let’s be honest. Who’s more likely to kill the other, all things considered?”
Sabrina almost slapped him. “Where’d your ideals go, Marshall? Did you never have them – did you never plan to reverse the vitrification?”
“I wasn’t talking about myself. But don’t you start playing the good guy.” Marshall pushed the EM gun away from his head, snatched it out of Uriah’s hand, and directed it toward him, making him breathe deeper and break into a sweat. “I’m disappointed at what you chose to do with the chance I gave you, Sabrina.”
“What chance? You made me give birth at this age and put yourself inside my son just to make it harder to see you die!”
“Sound familiar, God girl? Have a seat and we can talk about this like adults.”
They sat at a stained old poker table off to the side. “Don’t worry about Jane. You can’t tell because her hair is covering the nodes, but she’s in the Mindscape right now, enjoying my company.”
“So it’s true, then,” said Sabrina. “You’ve copied your avatar everywhere.”
“An avatar? Jesus, of course!” Uriah tried to glare at the man at his side putting a gun to his ear. “You mean to tell me that you not only screwed Sabrina and put yourself in the kid’s brain, but you’re also in almost everyone else’s mind?”
I hadn’t thought of that. Marshall lowered the gun, smiling at Uriah with his own face. “You’re smarter than I suspected. Although I wish I didn’t have to tell you how I keep from dying, since it should be obvious given your goal. I ‘have the nanos,’ as you put it.”
“Dennis, how exactly did you kill him?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I punched him, but it wasn’t strong enough to cause death.”
“Also obvious if you think about it, but I’ll let you figure that one out for yourselves.” Marshall folded his hands and took a deep breath. “Let me make one thing, if nothing else, exceptionally clear. This isn’t how I intended things to occur, in part because of the deviations of the both of your choices, but mostly because I’m a man who knows when to change his mind. When he’s wrong.”
“What was the first thing you realized was wrong?” Sabrina spat. “Your choice to virtually kill the majority of humans? Or how about torturing me in the Mindscape?”
“Deserting the woman who loves you to death is pretty low, too,” said Uriah.
“None of the above. My mistake was putting too much trust in humanity.”
“Did you trust me enough not to put a breathing spy camera in my uterus?” She looked down at Michael as if to say, No offense.
“Exactly.” Marshall observed the flickering light above him for a moment. “Let me put it this way: I made the Dethroning reversible because I had hope for humans. Not enough hope to let them try in vain to get out of the hole they’d dug for themselves, but enough to let them see what’s outside the hole once the anesthesia wears off.”
“But you’re a human as much as ‘they’ are. What makes you so special?”
“That’s my point. I still maintain that my beliefs are sound, but now it’s clear to me that I was a fool to think I could convey the beauty of my vision to distrustful people, if I wouldn’t trust another human attempting the same on me. I know I have as much to learn about the art of perfect trust – perfect fear – as others.”
“So why not give up now and tell us how to reverse the Dethroning?” said Uriah.
Marshall faced Sabrina. “Because this little lady hasn’t earned my confidence, and given the chance I suspect none of you would do better. You’ve already done worse so far, Dennis.”
“What do you mean?” Sabrina slammed a fist on the table.
“I had learned the way from someone significantly more powerful than I. I’d supposed that it would be just as fruitful to pass on that wisdom to people with less power than I have, but my attempts to do this with you two have failed. It’s not as easy for others, it seems, to learn trust by trust’s simplest, ugliest form.
“So I decided that nothing is sacred. What the teacher does with knowledge shouldn’t always be what the pupil does with it. If you’ll react not to pure fear, but to trust that knows no authority, I can work with that.” He reclined with interlocked hands. “I did just that. I leveled the playing field for the benefit of us all. Yes, I’ve made it impossible for you to kill me, but” – Marshall handed Uriah back the weapon – “I can’t kill you. At least, I wouldn’t.”
“Marshall, we’re not idiots!” she said. “You could easily kill us.” Not that she knew why she was so adamant about that fact.
Marshall shook his head. “This is what I was talking about. You just didn’t get it, did you? Ever notice how I haven’t modified your mind since you left the Mindscape? Or the lack of robots accosting you on your way here? I haven’t killed you yet. Sabrina, in the Mindscape I gave you complete power over me, and what did you do with it? You refused to show mercy.”
“Because you did the same!”
“That’s not what compassion is about.” By now his voice had taken on a thoroughly pleading, genuine tone. He wasn’t angry, just frustrated like an innocent person accused of something incredibly heinous. He stood, walking toward the Mindscape. “It would’ve been easy for you to reject your primal rage if I hadn’t harmed you. Had you overcome the challenge I set before you, I would’ve begun to trust you. I’ve been practically crying my intentions out to you by taking the form of human most vulnerable to you.” Marshall smiled at his son.
“So what’ll you do about it now?” said Uriah. “Are you prepar
ed to give up more of your power? Getting rid of your copies would be a good start.”
“Afraid not, Dennis. You, as someone infatuated with immortality, should understand that. But there is something you two can do to earn my trust. It’s simple – something you would’ve done without my asking, actually.” Lights came on from the center of the room along with the hum of active machinery. When he returned to the table, Marshall held a Mindscape node in each hand.
“No. I’m not going back in that asylum again.” Uriah got up and thrust the gun out. There was a deranged terror in his eyes.
“Dennis, stop!” Sabrina grabbed his arm. “Listen, our choices have run out. You can’t keep shooting him for years until he runs out of copies. Let’s give Marshall a chance.”
He looked at Sabrina as if she’d just asked him to let Kim Jong-il babysit Michael.
She gave him a look, with a subtle glimpse at Marshall and a shake of the head. He shut up and lowered the gun, and they turned to face Marshall. “Okay, we’ll bite. But only if you disconnect Jane from there and either give her the EM gun or destroy it.”
“Excellent!” He took Jane’s electrodes along with an extra pair and attached them to their heads, wearing Uriah’s smile of victory.
“What are we supposed to do when we get in?” Sabrina said, throwing an anxious sidelong glance at Michael.
“Just decide who lives. Feel free to tell him what Zolnerowich talked to you about, Sabrina. And you can be as honest as you want, Dennis.”