Godspeed (6 page)

“Look at me,” the doctor whispered now. “Be brave. Stay with me.”

My vision tracked over toward him, past a mind-numbing array of new machines that I could not begin to try to identify.

I finally located his eyes and was startled by the worry I found there. He appeared in twin mirror images of himself as I fought the after-effects of anesthesia and attempted to focus. My stomach lurched and I gagged, but it was far too empty to issue forth any contents.

He injected me with another syringe and the twisting in my middle soon subsided. I sighed with relief and looked up at him once more, finally able to truly take him in.

I only realized how much time had passed since I had last been conscious because of the growth of stubble upon his face. His eyes were bloodshot, the whites had turned vivid crimson, and had developed cavernous black circles beneath. They searched mine to see if there was any power to the mind behind them; the moment he saw that there was, he did something that I had not at all expected, but knew I would never forget.

He smiled at me.

It was a muted version of the standard expression, barely turning up the corner of one side of his mouth, but it was unmistakable.

The statue could feel something, after all.

His arm extended. One by one his fingers unfurled, strong and warm as they traced the outline of my face. For an instant, there was an unspoken and unspeakable tenderness, a new light in him that I had also never seen before. I wished — even knowing the desire was in vain — that I would never see anything else in him again.

“Welcome back,” he whispered. “Welcome home, little girl, to the waking world of the living.”

Though his words were meant to reassure me, by this point I could feel no such comfort. I could only ask myself again and again one question: am I truly alive?

Perhaps this was only a form of Purgatory or some other inferior, undesirable location between the worlds of the living and the dead, and I had to earn my way before I would ever be allowed to leave it for better or worse.

I became aware of another odd ticking noise and then the incessant ringing of a bell. The alarm broke the doctor's trance, and he turned
once more toward the elaborate panel of machinery beside me. All copper coils and glass tubes, it displayed several small meters, the purpose and dancing needles of which I lacked the knowledge and ability to begin to comprehend.

As I truly analyzed my environment for the first time, it became clear this was no last minute design or haphazardly configured workspace.

No, this was the doctor's domain, and he had knowledge of this machinery that I ventured to guess no one else on the planet did. It had to be the work of his singular skill and unmatched imagination.

It was blasphemous machinery — the very sort that terrified what was left of the God-fearing soul in me.

All my life, I had tried so hard to live up to every possible definition of the words ‘good’ and ‘pure’; yet here I was, the latest component, the newest cog or gear or wheel in the godless, endless advance of progress.

As surreal as the world around me seemed, I was, no doubt, still on Earth. Heaven of any sort could never allow horrors such as the one that I discovered next, and Hell, even with all its fire and fury, surely could not contain it.

“Cardiac functioning is dropping again,” Quinn announced, with renewed dread. He reached for a switch on the panel before him. Any previous trace of emotion, joyful or otherwise melted away. He was still and calm of voice, even as he spoke a simple, preemptive apology for the action he was about to take. “I'm sorry.”

He flipped the switch and I felt the resultant jolt of power surge through me. My stomach immediately convulsed again. My pulse began to pound faster, and I realized with despair that it was still the current from the machine beside me that was altering the very beat of my heart. It was still that machine that was keeping me alive, but not that machine alone.

I gasped for air and fought to raise my fingers to my chest. The doctor, with his back still turned, did not see me wrest my hand free of the restraints he had loosened, thinking I still lacked the strength to move at all.

The moment my fingertips made contact with the leads and wires, I was sickened to the depths of my soul. Was I human, still, or was I
something much darker? Was I an abomination of life that relegated me to the realm of the Forsaken… those living though already spiritually dead and eternally damned?

A single sentence screamed through my head, though I could not force my lips to form the words.

What have you done to me?

Absolute terror overtook me, as I understood the wires protruding from my chest were the source of the energy flowing through my body. They were part of me now, inextricable, unnaturally strung like unholy bootlaces through my skin, puncturing straight into my heart.

I was driven by a force beyond my conscious control to rid myself of them by any means, no matter the cost.

Quinn caught the movement of my hand out of the corner of that maddeningly sharp blue eye and shot back over to me, seizing hold of my wrist. “Don't touch those!” he barked. “The damage would be irreparable!”

I began to shiver. I was cold, certainly, but more so utterly afraid that I was now subject to a fate that was worse than death could ever have been. Had I crossed, I wondered, that immoral, inhumane line between that which constitutes life and defines truly living?

Someone fumbled loudly with a key on the opposite side of the locked door. It took a moment for Quinn to process the sound, and when he did, he finally released my arm, but with a warning.

“Don't do that again, or I'll have to put the restraints back on.” He moved toward the door and unlocked it from the inside, admitting a paler, much more worried version of Schuyler Algernon.

Schuyler held a tray in his hands and dropped the keys he'd been struggling with. Exhausted though he was, Quinn's reflexes were still sharp, and he snatched them out of the air before they could clatter to the ground.

For an instant my eyes met Schuyler's. It was difficult to ascertain, in that moment, which of the two of us was more afraid of what Quinn had done to me. Watching the last remaining drops of color drain away from his face, it seemed to me that he was.

“Did you bring what I asked for?” Quinn demanded, as he unceremoniously jammed the keys back into the pocket of Schuyler's overcoat.

Schuyler set the tray down upon the nearest clear surface and sighed. “I couldn't get it. Not without too many questions being asked.”

“Damn it, Schuyler, I told you exactly what to say and where to go, what do you mean too many questions would be asked?”

Schuyler reddened and stammered, clearly flustered. “I… I am considered to be a legitimate businessman in this city, Quinn. That might not mean anything to you, but it does mean that people take notice of what I do. I sell art and antiques. What use would I possibly have for an item like that?” He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Quinn, whispering.

Quinn backed up sharply and snapped at full volume, “I know! But there's little choice now, is there? I suppose there's no alternative but for me to obtain it myself.”

He turned to me and shook his head. “Keep very still and try to rest while I'm gone. Do not touch those wires.”

He grabbed his coat from a rack by the exit. He hurried, throwing in first one arm then the other, but again never bothering to do up the buttons. He scowled at Schuyler as he yanked the door open, yet it was to me once more that he spoke.

“If you still pray, girl, pray that your heart does not stop again before I return.”

Once the door slammed behind him, I finally spoke my first words since my alteration; amazed to find that I still sounded, at least, as though I was human.

The faint glimmer of tears shone in Schuyler's eyes the moment he heard my response to Quinn's solemn admonition.

“No one… would hear me.”

C
HAPTER
8

THERE EXISTS A KIND OF SLEEP
that one only finds when the worst sorts of pain finally begin to subside. It is a slumber that can be experienced no other way, and no alternate can ever be as welcome or as peaceful.

It was that sort of sleep that held me fast; a safe, dreamless rest that continued until the moment I felt the curious sensation of what I was certain was the warmth of someone's breath upon my face.

My eyes flew open and I gasped. The person hovering over me jumped back, nearly knocking over the table behind him in the process.

It was neither Quinn nor Schuyler; this was a face I had never seen before.

A tall young man shivered and quaked in his boots before me, apparently even more frightened of what he'd seen than I was.

I jolted my body in an attempt to sit upright, surprised by the strength of the motion even as I found my progress impeded by the restraints that Quinn had left on me. He never let me sleep without them unless he was nearby, and not even then if he was particularly tired or distracted. He was too concerned that I would unknowingly reach up and in some half-dream state fatally wound myself by dislodging the wires that facilitated my tenuous connection to life in this world.

I tried to speak to this stranger, but my voice was far too hoarse. As much as my hazy senses would allow, I took note of his appearance.

He had sandy blond hair that hung in long, layered waves almost to his shoulders. His eyes were a bright jade green, and he was wearing simple tan pants and a tailored white shirt. Nowhere near
as extravagantly dressed as I'd expect to see Schuyler or even Quinn by this point, but still obviously the boy was well tended and cared for.

He rushed to the door and, in his haste to retreat, his fingers slipped from the knob and it took him three tries to actually grasp hold of and turn it.

He placed a single finger to his lips, and his eyes pled with me not to betray that he had been here. Whoever he was, it was clear that he was harmless, and I had a feeling that it was just as well that I go along with his silent request not to reveal to anyone that I had seen him.

We both gasped with fright as, just as he opened the door, a shadow appeared beyond it.

Schuyler sighed with exasperation and immediately a hand gravitated to one hip. “For God's sake, what have you done?”

The boy's head dropped down in shame, and Schuyler reached under his chin and lifted it gently until their eyes met. He regarded the penitent expression upon the boy's face, and the momentary anger that creased his brow evaporated as quickly as a summer rainstorm. “Well, you've finally seen what we've been hiding in here. Are you satisfied?”

The boy shook his head up and down once as Schuyler's eyes moved toward mine. I begged him, in my way, not to be cross with the young man who had caused no injury to me at all.

“Very well.” Schuyler sighed again, a different sort of a sound — one of resignation. “Do not make any more unannounced visits here, and whatever else you do, for Heaven's sake, do not let Godspeed know you have seen our guest.” He then gave the boy a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a gentle push away from the entrance to the laboratory.

“What is that?” Schuyler asked. He nodded to me as if to say he would be right back and stepped outside with the boy.

My ears barely picked up on exceptionally soft-spoken words, too difficult to make out from my location amidst the ticking clocks and machines that whirred and hummed all around me, even at lowest possible power. Then I heard Schuyler's reply spoken much more clearly — and the idea of the question that the boy had asked him brought a rising ache to my throat.

“He does what he can to control her pain,” Schuyler said, before he added, “He does the best he can for her, as he does for us all.”

I blinked back new tears, tainted liquid that stung and tasted bitterly of chemicals. How kind it was of the boy, having seen what had become of me, to consider that I might suffer.

Schuyler returned to the room and approached me wearing a much brighter expression than he had a moment before. “No damage done, I suppose.”

“Who… was that?”

“A young friend.” He began rifling through a large, ornately decorated bag, the long strap of which was slung over his broad shoulder. “No one you need worry about. I assure you he poses no threat. He was merely curious.”

“Of that… I am certain.” I tried to ask the next question that had been so much on my mind in as casual a manner as possible. “When is… Doctor Godspeed to… return?”

Schuyler grinned now and widened his eyes playfully. “Lonely for him, are we?”

Blood rushed to my face. I was certain it glowed with embarrassment.

Schuyler laughed. “So am I. He's been gone too long. He should be back soon.” He looked down at me and shook his head with much the same sympathy as the first night we had met — a kind concern that never crossed the line and mutated into the condescension that was pity.

“You poor thing. You've spent so much time on that table. We've tried to turn you, you know, in your sleep, after your… procedures.” His eyes flashed a myriad of conflicted feelings, and I wondered what turmoil dwelled within him. Like most strong emotions I had seen in him during my time here, this confusion was again replaced in an instant by a much more lighthearted look. “And here you are, still wearing a sheet.”

I shuddered. I hadn't given any thought at all to what I was wearing. Most of the time I was covered in blankets, burning with such heat that I wished I could immerse myself in water alone, as anything touching my skin only added a new dimension to my torment. I tried to lift myself up to see, but still I could not move.

“I think we can take these off, can't we?” Schuyler asked.

I was afraid that Quinn would be angry but Schuyler was already unbinding my hands and feet from the restraints that held me to the table. He rushed across the room, procured a richly upholstered pillow from a chair in the corner, and situated it behind me as he attempted to help me sit up, just a little.

“There you are.”

I looked down and blushed even more deeply to see that he had not been making a joke: I was actually wearing a sheet that had been pinned together at points, allowing, I was sure, the doctor access to the parts of me that he had renovated in order to keep my heart beating.