Mind Over Psyche (31 page)

Deryl turned and met their gazes. “You'll die,” he said in a small voice. “That's how it works here. He'll make it so I have to kill something—someone—or you die. And I can't kill. If I do—” His voice cracked on the
last word.

“What?” Joshua prodded as he continue
d to play.

Deryl's face scrunched with misery, but he shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was tight and small. “I do
n't know.”

Tasmae answered, her voice hushed with understanding. “Something dies in the waking world. Something of Alugiac's
choosing.”

“Someone. Get out of my mind, please Tasmae. I don't want yo
u to die!”

“No one's dying.” The music ended in an abrupt musical squawk as Joshua smashed his fist on the keyboard. “And no one's killing. We're changing the rules. Look, I'll make you a deal. Alugiac's using information from your own mind to make you believe in this world, right? Trust in us for now, and I'll come up with something so, so stupidly ridiculous that there's no
way
you could have thought it
up, okay?”

“Joshua!” Tasmae pointed at the
far wall.

The pink padded wall of the containment room had turned into a wall of molten rock. It inched tow
ards them.

Joshua didn't even waste time swearing. “All right, Deryl, th
is is it!”

Deryl gaped at the advancing lava and struggled to stand. “Help me get this straitja
cket off!”

Joshua was already pushing at the door. “It's not real, y
ou idiot!”

“Oh! Right!” The jacket disappeared. Deryl gave a short laugh of
surprise.

“Joshua, sing something!” Tasmae shouted. She, too, shoved her weight against the door. Deryl stood, but otherwise di
d nothing.

The room was starting swelter from the heat. The lava roared. Joshua shouted at his friend, “Deryl, disbelieve us out
of here!”

“I don't
know how!”

“Then disbelieve the frick
in' door!”

“A
ll right!”

Suddenly, there was empty space where the door had been. Joshua and Tasmae spilled out, landing in a tangled heap on the floor, Deryl tripping over them as he rushed out of the room. Joshua shoved himself up. His heart skipped a beat and he reached behind him for the keytar. He gasped more than sighed with relief to find it intact. “Good. Go
od start.”

“We're still in the asylum,” Tasmae accused as Deryl pulled her to
her feet.

“I'm trying!” Deryl cried, but when he saw the orderlies at the end of the hall, he nonetheless took off in the other
direction.

“Deryl! They aren't real!” Joshua shouted at his retrea
ting back.

“They are as long as he believes they are!” Tasmae replied as she ran
after him.

Joshua groaned and
followed.

Soon, they were running down hallways that had nothing to do with reality and more resembled a climax scene from the
Twilight Zone
. In one hall, a teenage boy was being worked on by paramedics while his friends blabbered, “He just looked at him! He looked at him, and he fell over!” Out of one doorway, Isaac, Deryl's elderly Jewish friend, stood in concentration camp uniform, while across the hall, another elderly gentleman shouted that Deryl was Satan's child and should have been destroyed in the womb. With each encounter, Deryl shouted a negation, yet continued running. Tasmae and Joshua ran
with him.

Joshua slowed, however, when they passed Randall Malachai with his arms around Sachiko. The chief psychiatrist was kissing her neck, and she hummed as if en
joying it.

“Wh
at the..?”

She opened her eyes, saw Joshua and mouth
ed, “Run!”

He saw a vacuum extractor in Malach
ai's hand.

She's not real!
he told himself as he took off again, but that didn't stop his stomach from
churning.

When he rounded the corner into a common room and skidded to a halt, even that was forgotten as he looked at the monster that blocked t
heir path.

The horrifyingly malformed body sported too many eyes and teeth too large. Gore dripped off its huge, twisted body. It roared incoherently and made odd bog-like squelching sounds as it moved. It wa
s hideous.

It was like some kind of monster from a B-rated horror movie—one with cheap specia
l effects.

“You've got to be kidding!” Joshua yelled over
the noise.

Yet Deryl and Tasmae stood frozen before it. It advanced, and they ste
pped back.

Tasmae held Deryl's hand and was quietly instructing him to not believe, yet she had pulled the punch dagger out of her hair. Her sword stuck out of what would be the monster's thigh, if it had had proper legs. Deryl shook and
whimpered.

“Oh, please!” Joshua whipped around the keytar, played fifteen notes, a rising chord, and three computerized “PEW
!” Sounds.

Three streaks of colored light zoomed down the hall and resolved themselves into caricatures of little girls with pod-like hands, and eyes and heads too large for their squari
sh bodies.

“What's the emergency, Joshua?” the pink
one asked.

Despite himself, Joshua smiled. “Think you ladies could handle that for us?” With a casual flip of his hand, he indicated the monster bearing down on hi
s friends.

“Ewww!” the blue one
squealed.

“All right!” Cheered the
green one.

“No problem at all,” the pink one said cheerfully, and the girls swooped into action, zipping right between Deryl a
nd Tasmae.

Deryl made a strangled gasp of
surprise.

Tasmae dropped h
er dagger.

“Come on.” Joshua grabbed them both by the arms and pulled them out of the way. Illusion or not, he knew very well what happened to the things around them when the girls fought evil
monsters.

“My dagger,” Tasmae protested as he shoved them unde
r a table.

“Forget it! I've got a dozen superhero theme songs. Now look, Deryl. Look hard. Then you tell me you could have thought
that up!”

Deryl watched as the streaks of pink, blue, and green zoomed around the monster, kicking, punching, shooting lasers out of their eyes, and bantering the entire time. The tension and fear on his face vanished, and he smiled
, bemused.

“Nope. That's pretty unbe
lievable.”

A horrible howl filled the room, rising to such painful volume and intensity that they covered their ears and curled up in agony. The world began to swirl around them as if it had become
a tornado.

“Couldn't you disbelieve more quietly?” Joshua shouted as the table they were huddled under was caught in the twister and vanished into
oblivion.

“This isn't
my doing!”

The world faded an
d stilled.

Once again, they found
themselves in a featureless land of gray fog and dark horizons.

“Deryl!” Joshua groaned with
annoyance.

“No. We are in the Netherworld,” Tasmae said. “The true Net
herworld.”

“Well, good, then. How do we
get back?”

YOU DON'T.

The mist before them swirled, and from it steppe
d Alugiac.

Joshua gaped. He was a short but large man, though Joshua guessed his muscle was starting to go to fat. He wore heavily brocaded, priestly robes that dazzled even in the dim flat light of the Netherworld. His hair was graying but full, and he had a goatee. He regarded them all with super
ior sneer.

He was every cliché of a supervillian Joshua could think of. He even spoke in all caps—his voice echoing and sinister, yet somehow toneless. All he needed was a white Persian cat and a garish p
inky ring.

“You can't be
for real!”

He turned his sneer directly to Joshua, gestured laconically, and Joshua found out just how real he
could be.

Blue-white barbs of electricity flashed from his hands and struck Joshua, throwing him back. He shrieked and arched in uncontroll
able pain.

*

“No!” Deryl lashed out with his mind. A mirrored shield interposed itself between Alugiac and his friend. The lightning ricocheted off it and struck Alugiac, knocking him back. He staggered, the
n laughed.

Deryl glanced fearfully at Joshua and almost sobbed with relief to see him roll weakly onto his back and shrug off the keytar, which had absorbed the brunt of the attack and was a smoking ruin. Joshua shoved it away and fell bac
k panting.

GOOD. CONTINUE, Alugiac encouraged, but Deryl had already lowered t
he shield.

“No.”

THEN THEY DIE, JUST AS THEY HAVE BEFORE. JUST AS THEY WILL AGAIN. OVER AND OVER. AND YOU WILL NEVER KNOW WHICH TIME WAS THE REAL TIME—OR EVEN WH
O IS REAL.

“Deryl!
Help me!”

“
Clarissa?”

She was there, just to the right of Tasmae: pregnant, terrified, and being held by the attacker that had escaped the police. He pressed a huge hunting knife against her throat. His eyes, so like Alugiac's, gleamed with lust and e
xcitement.

“Deryl, help me!” She squeaked, then shrieked as the knife cut into
her cheek.

“Deryl, she's not real!” Tasm
ae yelled.

Clarissa sobb
ed louder.

“I know!” Deryl said, but it was almost a whisper. He couldn't tear his eyes off her. “Taz, get Joshu
a and go!”

“No! We're in this
together!”

“Deryl!” Clarissa
shrieked.

“Deryl,” Tasmae's calm, authoritative voice cut though the girl's screams, “let's just go. You don't
have to—”

Tasmae's words were cut off as the strange tar-like monster, like the ones that had attacked her when Alugiac first appeared, rose from the ground at her feet and enveloped itself around her. She struggled as it immobilized her: legs, arms, shoulders. The featureless mouth surged tauntingly toward
her face.

DECIDE, DERYL. CHOOSE THE ONE TO DIE, AND I WILL LET THE OTHERS LIVE. OR GIVE IN TO ME, AND YOU CAN
HAVE ALL.

Clarissa had moved so beyond fear she couldn't even scream. Tasmae struggled valiantly, but it was obvious the creature played with her, waiting Alugiac's command. Joshua stirred and groaned faintly, too overcome by the effects of the lightnin
g to help.

CHOOSE.

“No.”

Deryl,
Tasmae teleped.
You can get us out of here
! Just go!

YES, DERYL. JUST GO. ABANDON YOUR WIFE AND CHILD. RETURN TO “REALITY” WITH YOUR ALIEN LOVER. AND KNOW THAT I WILL FOLLOW. IN YOUR DREAMS AT NIGHT, YOUR IDLE MOMENTS OF THE DAY, WHENEVER YOUR GUARD IS DOWN, I WILL BE THERE.
THAT
IS YOU
R REALITY.

“No!” Deryl shouted and a blue haze started to surround him. “I. Will. Not. Be. Your. Puppet!” With each defiant word, shields grew in size and brilliance around him until they blazed with blue light. They crackled and hummed with pent-up power. With the last word, he flung his hands toward Alugiac, and the shield bulged, expanded, and surrounded
them both.

Clarissa and her attacker
vanished.

The monster released Tasmae and dissolved into the mist. Through the blue field Deryl watched her stagger, look his way, and then rush to check on Joshua, helping him sit up. They were real. Now he knew; they were real, and he would never let them be threate
ned again.

Deryl trembled with fury and power. “You want reality?” He snarled. “Now,
I'm
your reality. I trusted you while you twisted my mind, played with my feelings, tried to forge me into some kind of weapon! You want a weapon? I'll give you a weapon!” The humming of the shields grew louder a
nd higher.

Alugiac, snarling in return, flung an attack at Deryl, but it never materialized. The shields around him reached out and absorbed the power, and it was his turn to scream and thrash as lightning danced around him, pulling energy from him instead of zapping hi
m with it.

“Deryl!” Joshua croaked. “You don't have to kill him. That's not th
e answer.”

“What alternative is there?” Deryl cried, but already, the shields had receded, leaving Alugiac weakened and on his knees, but alive. He grinned smugly at Deryl. Deryl froze. He had to end
this, but—

Deryl, beloved, Joshua is right. He is not innocent, but he has been as ravaged as you,
Tasmae teleped, sharing with him images of the Alugiac she knew before the battle that had driven him insane. She was crying, and Deryl wept
with her.

“Kyrie eleison,” Joshua chanted under his breath. Deryl realized that, hurt beyond the ability to think, his friend had reverted to one of the first sung prayers he'd learned:
God h
ave mercy.

Mercy.

Deryl knew w
hat to do.

“I'm not going to kill you,” Deryl whispered, suddenly calmer and more sure. He closed his eyes, concentrating. He held his arms out defensively b
efore him.

Triumphant, Alugiac stood again, not noticing that the lightning around him was taking on a new form:
syringes.

“I'm giving you a taste of your own
medicine!”

Like darts, the hypodermic needles pierced into him, and the Master shouted in pain and
collapsed.

Deryl strode up to him and knelt beside the now-shivering man. “It'll be okay. It's an anti-psychotic cocktail, Alugiac. Some stuff they tried to give me to keep the voices at bay. Your own Realitin, only this stuff will help you see things clearly. Even some Prozac to help you cope. Maybe, maybe you can find your way back to who you re
ally are.”

His lips trembled, and he left Alugiac, now just an old and frail heap that lay unblinking in the fog. He walked out of the shields, leaving them protectively around the man. By the time he got to Tasmae and Joshua, he was quaking so hard he could barely walk. He sank down and let himself be enveloped by their arms as he took in t
heir love.

“I want to go home,”
he sobbed.

“I can do that now,” Tasmae whispered as she stroked
his hair.

He leaned against her, relaxing into her love as she Called them to the r
eal world.