It was a hard process, getting Fran inside the first suit, and it felt like it took a million years. Gunfire sounded throughout the installation, and John had to stop and check his surroundings every time he heard a noise. The hangar remained empty, though, until finally Fran was safely ensconced in a plastic cocoon that he hoped would protect her against the adverse elements of the world. The world he had always thought he knew but was in fact about to see and really experience for the first time. He lay Fran gently across the seat, then turned to grab a suit for himself...and felt the warm muzzle of a gun against his cheek.
"Hello, bit," said Malachi.
John said nothing, his synapses firing like light-speed pistons as he searched for a way to kill this man, this devil made flesh. But nothing presented itself, and John knew he and Fran were about to die.
Despair threatened to overwhelm him as Malachi smiled. "Typical. They program you so well," said the Fan. "But you’re mad. You know that, don’t you? You’re insanity just waiting to happen."
"That might hurt my feelings if it wasn’t coming from a psychotic killer."
For a moment, Malachi’s cloudy eyes grew sharp as he dug the gun further into John’s cheek. "Shut up!" Then he almost instantly calmed again. "My God tells me what to do. And I do it. I do it well." Malachi’s eyes flickered over to Fran, who still lay upright in the seat. "The sleeping princess. There’s a fairy tale about the sleeping princess in the world they wrote for you, isn’t there, bit? A woman who slept until she was wakened by a kiss?" Malachi’s eyes grew dreamy again, and he gazed lustfully at Fran.
John’s eyes moved wildly back and forth, seeking some way he could gain the upper hand. Malachi smiled at him. Smoke and dust from the fighting swirled around them, giving Malachi a Faustian appearance. He was the Devil, come to claim the souls he had stolen. John tensed, preparing to make a move that he knew would end in defeat. But he had to try. Doing nothing was surrender, and John refused to give up and allow victory to this devil cloaked in human form. He would throw himself at Malachi, and the lunatic would pull the trigger of his gun and blow John’s brains out. John knew he was no machine; he would not come back. But perhaps he would survive long enough to hurt Malachi, maybe even to kill him. He would never see Fran again, but perhaps he could purchase her life with her own.
He never got the chance.
CONTROL HQ - RUSHM
AD 3999/AE 1999
(((INTEGRITY BREACH)))
Adam emerged from the smoke that surrounded them all, jabbing his gun into Malachi’s back. His clothes were stained and spattered with blood, and he had no doubts as to what he wanted to do. He wanted to kill Malachi. The question was, would he be able to?
"Drop the weapon, Malachi."
Malachi smiled in spite of the gun digging into his back. "Remember the old days, Adam?" he said, his tone light as that of an old woman gossiping on the porch swing. "Remember when we worked together? Good times. Time for me to think and realize that I was fighting for a bunch of machines who didn’t even grasp their own nature and for a pitiful shard of humanity that should have died two thousand years ago."
Adam’s finger tightened a little bit more. "Now, Malachi. Drop it. You’re human, and if I kill you you won’t get back up."
"So arrogant," answered Malachi. "Always so arrogant, even in your pretended humility and your questions about the nature of God and what He thinks of the things you’ve done. Well, I’ve
answered
those questions. I’ve
found
God and it turns out He’s on my side."
Malachi still wasn’t moving. Adam wanted to blow him away, but he recognized the gun Malachi was holding and knew that if he shot the man, Malachi might reflexively pull the trigger. If that happened, both John and Fran would be hit. Both would die, and all that had been suffered would be for naught. He decided to try a different tack. Force could not be exerted, so though he knew it was all but futile, he decided to try persuasion.
"I do remember working with you, Malachi. I remember asking you if God loved the machines. You never answered."
Malachi stiffened, then relaxed. His finger released from the trigger of his gun, and Adam thought it might have worked. He thought for a moment that he had found whatever fragment of sanity and humanity still hid within Malachi’s soul.
The hopes were dashed when Malachi handed him the gun and said, "Shoot me."
***
Malachi smiled as Adam’s face contorted. The old man - and Malachi noticed how very old Adam now looked; the years had not been kind to him - tensed as he bent his will to pulling the trigger. He cried out with the strain of it, and Malachi laughed. Still laughing, he took his gun from Adam’s hand, then removed Adam’s gun as well.
"Does God love machines?" he asked, repeating Adam’s question. Malachi cast a look over his shoulder at John, who stood silent and apparently dumbfounded behind him. "Why don’t you tell me yourself, if you see Him?" he said. Then he shot Adam. He used Adam’s own gun, a six-shooter he must have taken from one of the members of Malachi’s army, emptying it into him.
But careful, oh so careful, not to hit him in the head.
Adam crumpled to the iron deck of the hangar. He cried out in agony as each iron slug bit into his body.
But after the six-shooter had been emptied, Adam wasn’t dead. No, Malachi left him alive. As alive as a robot could be. But death would come soon. And Malachi smiled because after death would come madness, and that would serve as a just punishment for the man who played at understanding God; for the false prophet who had claimed to know God’s will.
He leaned down, whispering into Adam’s ear, "How could He love you? He didn’t even give you a will of your own."
Malachi turned to John.
And to Fran.
The End was coming.
CONTROL HQ - RUSHM
AD 3999/AE 1999
(((INTEGRITY BREACH)))
John watched Malachi gun Adam down, watched the old man’s body twist with the bullets’ impact, fall, and lie still. Through it all he couldn’t move, couldn’t bring himself to react to what had happened.
What
had
happened?
John’s mind still struggled with it as Malachi threw away Adam’s gun and turned back to John, pointing the weapon he had brought at him and Fran. "Adam told you you were human," he said. "Probably even rigged a scanner to ‘prove’ it to you." Malachi approached John, closing the few feet between them, his gun pointed at John’s face. "But did he explain why you’ve been so adamant about protecting Fran? Did he explain how it is you haven’t been able to kill me? You had a rifle in Gabriel’s house. Why didn’t you use it on me? Why did you just throw the lamp at me?" Malachi leaned in close to him, and John could smell the monster’s stale breath as he whispered tightly, "Because you knew I was human, you felt it, and that was my life insurance. You can’t kill a human."
John stared at Malachi, sweat from the heat and fear in the room dripping off his face. "I’m human," he said, meaning the words to come out defiantly. Instead, they came out in a high voice that sounded less like defiance than begging.
Malachi laughed, and did with him what he had done with Adam. He handed John the gun. "Shoot me, then."
John held the gun; cradled it in his hands like a fragile porcelain doll that might crack with the slightest careless movement. Malachi’s barking laugh jolted his gaze to the man’s insane eyes.
"Come on, John," Malachi taunted. "Any real human would be able to do it."
John looked at the gun, fearing what an attempt to kill Malachi would mean.
What the hell? he thought. You’ll die anyway if you don’t try.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then, slowly...he brought the gun up, savoring Malachi’s expression as the man realized he was about to die. The moment attenuated into a short eternity as his finger tightened on the trigger of the gun, pulling it to the firing point.
And then letting go.
"No," he said. "I choose not to."
"What?" Malachi’s expression twisted in a way that would have seemed almost comical had John been watching it on a TV show at home.
"If you’re human," answered John, "then human is something I don’t want to be." He nodded at Adam’s form, which lay still on the floor. "And if that’s a robot, then I’d rather be a robot. At least they have the sense to put some value on life." He saw Malachi’s eyes boil over with rage and added the kicker: "They’re closer to God than men like you ever will be."
Malachi flew at John, beating at his face, arms, chest. John didn’t do anything to withstand the attack, consciously keeping his hands loose and his arms limp. Malachi’s fists smashed at him, and John felt the pain, but it was as though it came from a million miles away, distant and unreal as the stars that had always hung in the lying sky of Loston.
Malachi paused, winded, and John spoke again. "Keep going. Prove me right. Everything you’ve ever done was twisted and hateful. You could have killed me several times, but you didn’t. Because death is too quick. You wanted me to suffer. Just like you suffer." He took a deep breath. "I feel sorry for you," he said.
Tears of frustration welled from Malachi’s eyes. "Don’t you dare pity me!" he wailed. "You’re not even human! You couldn’t kill me if you wanted to, and all the rest is rationalization."
"Maybe you’re right," answered John. "But whether you are or not, I have nothing more to say to you."
The words flowed from John’s mouth without his thinking, and it felt as though he were drinking a cool draught of the purest water. All the time, he realized, since Annie had died, he had been cursing fate. He had bemoaned his plight, and shaken his fist at the heavens. Now he knew that that was the problem. He had been viewing life as a thing he was owed; as a thing he was born to have. Now he knew that life was fleeting, and often perhaps even illusory. No one could control it, and so all that he could do – all that anyone could do – was control how he reacted toward it. It was time to stop fighting a battle he could not win. Tomorrow would be tomorrow, and hard or easy, if he was alive to see it he would view it as a blessing.
This was what he had been missing all his life. This was what he had never seen when Annie had been alive. She was such a blessing to him, without struggle or pain, and when so when the pain of her passage came upon him, he was ill-prepared to cope. But now he had seen death, and life, and death again, and knew that whatever came he would honor it for the great gift it all was. No one had a right to live, life was a present, and he to spend it in bitterness or mourning was to grind it to dust underfoot.
So he would not bow to the likes of this screaming monster who wept bitter tears before him. He would not let anger or its emissaries cloud his ability to feel love. He had loved Annie, he now loved Fran. He would enjoy that as long as it lasted, and be content. Whether there was a Heaven, he could not say. Whether there was a Hell, he did not have the power to know. But he did have the power to turn his back on hate and fear and try to discover if maybe – just perhaps – Heaven was simply the name people gave to being happy right here and right now. So he would not spend one more minute talking to this angry madman who stood between him and home, between him and an existence with Fran.
Life was just too damn short for that.
He turned his back on Malachi and began unbuckling the second suit, getting ready to put it on.
A sound behind him, the ruffle of cloth on cloth, alerted him to some kind of movement. He turned and saw Malachi pull another gun out of the wraps of his clothing, saw his finger whiten as he pulled the trigger, and heard the deafening bellow of a shot resound through the hangar.
CONTROL HQ - RUSHM
AD 3999/AE 1999
(((INTEGRITY BREACH)))
Malachi fell to his knees before John. Blood poured from a spurting hole in his chest. More dripped from his lips.
"But, God was on my side," he said.
And then he died.
John looked at the man who stood behind Malachi. A Controller. He reholstered his gun, nodding at John to continue getting into the suit. Then the man turned to Adam’s body.
He saw Adam, half-delirious and fading fast, grab hold of the man who had rescued them all, and whisper, "Jason."
The man looked at John. "Get going," he said, and John did not have to be told twice.
***
Jason knelt next to Adam’s shattered body, holding the old man’s hand in his own. "Jason," Adam whispered again, seeming to pour the last of his strength into the word. "Kill me. Stop me from coming back."
Jason hesitated, but the anguish in his friend’s eyes was too much for him to bear. He removed his gun from the holster and placed it at the base of Adam’s chin, where he would destroy the thalamus on the first shot.
Adam closed his eyes, and peace seemed to sweep over him. He took a final breath, and let it out again. Then he was still. Gone.
Jason dropped his gun. He gathered up Adam’s body in his arms, and ran from the hangar, down the hall to the birthing lab. Adam began twitching before they were halfway there, and Jason knew the old man’s bones were reknitting and his veins and arteries mending inside him.
Soon, he would awake to a black future of despair.
Jason had to prevent that.
He ran to the lab, which stood still and silent and mercifully unharmed by the Fan attack. The attack itself was fading away, as though they had sensed their leader’s death and with him had gone their spirit. The fight was done, and victory for the Controllers – for life and humanity – was at hand.
Jason hurried to an empty tube and put Adam inside. The old man began to struggle a bit against him, and Jason fought to put him all the way in before slamming the door shut. He punched a button and the upload/download links coiled their way through Adam's ears, the microscopic fibers connecting with his brain and beginning the reconstruction process. Immediately Adam’s body jerked as tissue regeneration began.