Lesser Gods (35 page)

“Are you?”

Abruptly I was standing on the other side of the room, looking at the me with a gun pointed at the Huntington in the wheelchair. I looked down and saw I wore the rusty armor of the White Knight.

“Now, which one is the real you?” Huntington asked. “Tell me. Do you feel real? Do you still have memories of the past?”

“I don’t know how you’re pulling off these stunts, but I know they’re all illusion. My memories are real.”

That’s what I told him. But deep down inside, I wasn’t so sure. It’s one thing to know something, another to see yourself standing where you were a moment before while having your mind in a second, identical body. Was I real or imaginary? Reality had turned wrong side in.

“Put the bullet through his head,” I ordered my other self who remained standing with the pistol. “Do it now.”

My duplicate did nothing. Perhaps he was only an illusion created to confuse me. Perhaps I really do only think I’m a real boy, like some Pinocchio created by the mad Geppetto sitting in front of me.

But one thing I did know: If this continued much longer, Huntington was going to take advantage of my confusion and kill whichever was the real me.

So I drew my sword and threw it at the Huntington in the wheelchair. The tip of the blade headed unerringly for his heart. Then the sword abruptly stopped two feet from his chest, trapped by a shimmering veil of light. Then it turned and Huntington grasped its hilt.

“Almost had me.” He flexed the blade, testing it with practice strokes through the air. “So this is the Vorpal blade? Looks like it is made of sub-molecular steel. Did you know this type of metal is super-sharp and cuts like a hot knife through butter when it comes to armor. Or so I’m told.”

I backed away.

And discovered a wall behind me where the entrance to the room had been.

“Can’t have you running away.” Huntington flipped his wrist and the blade sang through the air.

I attempted to jump away, but halfway through the arch of my leap, a searing pain climbed up my body. I fell to the floor, discovering I now had only one leg. Blood gushed from the stump.

“It’s sharpness is impressive, isn’t it?” Huntington said. “If I give it a little thought, I bet I can make your wound quit bleeding. There, you see?”

And sure enough, the wound had stopped bleeding.

“Did you ever consider what makes you who you are?” Huntington said as I tried to crawl away from him. “If I cut off your leg. No, let’s make that both your legs —” The sword slashed again and I felt a chilling pain in my remaining leg. I looked down to see both legs missing. This time no blood came from the stump.

“Yes,” Huntington continued. “That’s more like it. Won’t be running off now, will you?” He kicked at my legs which were twisting about on the floor as if they had a life of their own. “You’re just full of life today. Maybe this will help.”

For the next few minutes he hacked my disconnected legs into pieces. While he was distracted with his new pastime, I tried to pull what was left of me to safety.

But before I could escape, Huntington turned his attention back toward me. “Not going away, are you?” he asked, stepping to block my path. “I have a philosophical problem for you. If we cut off your legs, suddenly they’re just so much cast-off flesh. Yet the rest of you is still you, even without your legs. Odd, isn’t it? Or if we graft them back on — please note the “if” — do you become more than you were before without your legs? Can you be less Ralph or more Ralph? There’s more to this experiment. I wonder…”

He slashed and I saw my left arm with its armor go clanging across the floor. With my remaining arm, I dragged my head and torso away from Huntington, wondering how long it would be before I died, or simply passed out from the pain.

“Hold still, will you?” Huntington demanded. “How do you expect me to conduct my experiment. One arm — and you’re still you. How very odd indeed.”

I continued my crude attempt at escape.

Another searing pain announced the cut.

“There, totally disarmed, as it were.” Huntington laughed. “Now I need to do some more hacking, otherwise I can see that your parts are going to try to rejoin you. That’s always a problem in our new world of thought. Nothing ever stays quite in place if you don’t make sure to keep it in place.”

I watched helplessly as he hacked each of my arms apart. Then he turned back to what was left of me. “Any last words?”

I remained silent, fighting back the pain and fear.

He raised the sword. “Farewell, then.”

There was a violent pain through my neck, and then I felt my head rolling across the floor. I opened my eyes.

“What?” Huntington said in mock disbelief. “Still alive? Let’s see what happens if I disintegrate you.” He grasped my head, and lifted what was left of me from the floor. Crossing to the window, he tossed me, into the pool.

I sank downward into the black water, into the silence of the depths. And then felt myself ripped apart, disintegrating into a collection of cells that was no longer aware enough to be considered an individual.

Alice Liddell

Dear Diary:

I got that terrible feeling again. The OEK has done something bad to Ralph. Something really, really bad. I don’t think I can help Ralph, but I’m going to try. I’ve created this place — I don’t know what it is. (Mom if you’re reading this — and you shouldn’t be, shame on you — and one night I go up to my bedroom and just vanish, know that I’m probably in this secret place.)

It’s sort of a dream place. Well dreamlike. But as real as sitting here typing into the computer. Just that it isn’t real. Or not in real time —time doesn’t seem to flow in it and so far the OEK hasn’t found it. I can’t put it (the place, not the OEK) into words and won’t try anymore because I’m in a hurry.

Anyway, I’m going there and I’m hoping maybe I can concentrate and somehow help Ralph.

Ralph Crocker

Imagine a colony of primordial animals, all telepathic, all intent on mating at once. That’s basically the “feel” that extended among the various cells I had become. Tiny organisms swam, dancing a complex waltz of life.

As they united, I returned to a state of semi-awareness. As if knit together in a womb where time moved at incredible speed, the gestalt that had been me struggled to reassemble the sum of my parts. Cells rejoined, tissue rebuilt, organs spasmodically positioned themselves. Fingers and limbs wriggled.

I was reborn.

My face broke through the surface of the organic soup in which I lay, and new lungs gasped for a first breath of the crisp air.

“There you are, White Knight,” a familiar voice called.

Hands that were again a part of me reached up and stroked the water from my eyes.

“You’d better get out of the water before you catch your death of pneumonia.”

I looked about for Alice and only discovered a glowing fairy zipping around my head.

I waded ashore onto the sandy beach, faintly lit by the light radiating from the creature that stood only six inches tall, not counting her gossamer wings. A blue will-’o-the-wisp with light emanating from skin and wings. I stared at her beautiful perfection a moment, then double-checked my body to be sure I was properly reassembled.

Satisfied I was in one piece and all was right, I finally spoke, “Alice?”

“In all my pint-sized glory,” the fairy replied, rising into the air so she floated at my eye level.

“I suppose I have you to thank for getting me back together.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean — reassembling me. Getting all the bloody little chunks of me back into one piece. Not even a stitch shows.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alice said, orbiting me like a hungry hummingbird eyeing a large flower. “I’ve never seen you any less together than you are right now. In fact it’s hard to imagine you being any less together than you normally are.”

“Joke all you want. But I still owe you.”

“Is this some sort of come-on?”

I laughed. “No. I’m serious. Huntington hacked me apart and tossed my head into his swimming pool. Somehow I got back together and I just figured you had — You really did reassemble me, didn’t you?”

“You must have done it yourself.”

“Seriously.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“Then who…” I wondered where that left me.

“You underestimate yourself all too often. I had nothing to do with it and if he went to all the work of trying to destroy you, I’m certain Huntington didn’t, either.”

“Maybe he did and he’s somewhere waiting to torment us some more.”

“I would sense him if he were near. He’s not. He’ll never find us here. This is our private place.”

“I was dying. Or at least I should have been.” For a moment the memory of pieces joining together and rising up out of the dark water returned. I shivered at the thought.

“You really will catch your death of pneumonia if you don’t get out of that dank armor. Come on. Let’s get your wet things off.”

“You have something in mind?” I asked with an upraised eyebrow.

“In your dreams,” Alice said, fluttering in front of my face. “You think someone six inches tall would risk sex with a beast your size? What a disgusting, terrifying thought.” Alice put her hands on either side of her face with an expression of mock horror.

I laughed as she zipped away through the air. She circled through the trees, her light darting in and out of the shadows. Then she raced back toward me, stopping inches from my face. “Besides,” she added, “I’m not that kind of girl. If I were, I’d be portraying the Birth of Venus or something equally classical yet provocative instead of being a wee little slip of a fairy. So quit your sophomoric daydreaming and remove your armor before you rust and I have to chisel you out with my two tiny hands.”

“All right already.”

“ While you’re doing that, I’ll build the fire.”

Her job went more quickly than I thought it would. A fireball fell from the sky, striking a pile of driftwood that burst into a bright bonfire.

“Remind me not to cross you,” I said. Then I took a cue from her, closed my eyes, and the armor vanished from my body. I approached the warm fire, letting it drive the chill from my bones.

We sat together there by the fire, and I told her all I knew about Huntington and what had happened. She perched on my shoulder and then we said nothing for a long time, simply watching the flames dance on the logs. As we sat by the fire, Alice slowly grew to full size, her form changing to her true self. She was no longer Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s English schoolgirl, but rather a grown and very shapely young woman.

And later that night, I discovered that, at least where I was concerned, she was that kind of girl after all.

Morning came. I basked in the sunshine that glowed warm on my eyelids, a soft cotton blanket under me. Opening my eyes and raising myself on my elbows, I discovered I was still lying on the beach next to the smoldering embers of last night’s bonfire.

So that had been real. I hadn’t dreamed it all during the night.

I sat up and looked around.

No sign of Alice.

I stood, feeling panicked. Behind me the jungle crept to the shoreline, looking like the location King Kong and his giant lizard friends would pick for an outing. How safe was this place?