Spires of Infinity (43 page)

Stepping to the keypad, Gabriel entered the numbers as Allie repeated them.

Parting in the middle, the large door opened. Half of it slid into the ceiling while the other half slid into the floor. A cool, dry breeze blew outward, carrying with it a heavy, sterile, hospital smell.

He looked to Allie and she gestured him inside.

Hesitating for a second at the look on Allie’s face, Gabriel stepped through the door to behold a sight straight out of a nightmare. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. There was something strapped to the torture rack in the center of the room.

All sorts of wires and tubes were attached to it.

“Oh dear god,” Gabriel gasped when he made out arms, and legs, and a slack

jawed face with staring, empty eyes.

A little girl—Allie—was strapped to the rack with each of her limbs pointed to one of the corners. She was completely naked and there were all sorts of wires inserted into her flesh. There was what looked like a feeding tube in her belly and tubes for removing waste. The entire top of her skull had been removed and replaced with a sort of metal cap, which had about forty different cables attached to it, snaking away into the ceiling.

“Is someone there,” the girl on the rack rasped. “I can’t see anymore.”

Gabriel felt vomit rushing up his throat and turned back to the hallway, bending over just in time to keep from spilling it down his coat. He retched until his stomach was empty and then he retched some more. His healing rib was aflame with sharp pain, and his stomach muscles burned by the time he finally got it under control and straightened, spitting to try and clear the rancid taste from his mouth.

“I told you it was disturbing,” Allie said. “Meet Allison Meers, the girl I used to be.”

“What
is
this,” Gabriel cried.

“I was not always a computer. I was an orphan; a street rat that nobody would miss. They took me and did
that
. Unable to create a true AI through programming, they decided to model one on a living human brain. When it became clear that it was impossible to copy the workings of my brain, they went about trying to transfer my consciousness into the mainframe. Am I really her consciousness, her soul, trapped in a computer? If I am, what does it mean that I am a copy of the original? Am I any less myself? Or am I simply an uppity computer program with a far too high opinion of herself? I feel like myself, even though my body is gone, but only god could say for sure, if he even exists.”

“How could they do something so evil,” Gabriel asked. His eyes were actually

burning with unshed tears. Abuse of a child was something that hit very close to home.

“I am going to ask you to do something for me, and you are not going to like it.

But it is something that
needs
to be done, or we are going to fail in our mission, and an entire world of people will die because of it.”

“Hello,” Allison rasped a little louder this time. “I heard the door open. Is anyone there?”

“What do you want me to do,” Gabriel asked, though he had a pretty good idea.

“I need you to kill her. Or more accurately, destroy her brain.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Gabriel tried very hard to keep from crying. Kill her?

Kill a defenseless little girl that had been severely victimized? How could he do that? Of all the horrible things that he’d done in his life, killing this poor little girl was worse than any of them. How was he supposed to earn his redemption if he went around murdering abused children?

“No. I can’t do that. I
won’t
do that.”

“Please,” Allison called, sounding close to tears. “If there’s someone there.

Please. Kill me.”

“God,” Gabriel cried. “How could these people do that to her! Children are

supposed to play, and climb trees, and skin their knees, not—not
this
!”

“Listen to me closely, Gabriel,” Allie said calmly, but firmly. “I can feel some of what you are feeling right now. I would do this myself if I still had hands to do it with, but they took them from me and I can never go back. Trust me when I tell you that you will be doing her the greatest favor of her life. She spends day after day shrieking for death. That is why her voice is so raspy. Please, Gabriel. I know that you do not want to do this, but it is something that must be done. I am begging you to grant her the mercy of ending her constant torture. You are not the one that is killing her, it is the bastards that did this to her. If there is a god somewhere out there, waiting to judge you for your sins, I will personally speak to him on your behalf.”

“Nothing will make me do that,” Gabriel cried.

“Right now, she has completely lost all control of her bodily functions,” Allie explained. “The parts of her brain that process sight and motor control have been removed and replaced with a network hub that all of those cables connect to. She is blind, terrified, paralyzed and in more pain that you will
ever
experience. Her body has become dependant on the computers and machinery keeping her alive. You cannot save her from this. The computer keeps trying to pull her consciousness away and she keeps holding on with everything she has. Soon it will not be enough. Eventually her personality, memories, and consciousness will completely transfer to the computers and her body will die. Killing her now will save her from that hell. It hurts, Gabriel. It hurts like nothing you have ever felt before, to have your mind ripped right out of your body while you are still alive and conscious.

“She is alone in the dark, in more pain than you can imagine, and scared to death.

She hasn’t slept in two years. Killing her is not murder.
Trust me
, Gabriel. It is mercy.

I begged, and begged, and
begged
to die, and no one
ever
listened to me. Please, Gabriel.

You are doing her the biggest favor of her life.”

Turning, Gabriel forced himself to look at Allison on the rack. She looked so pathetic stripped naked, shivering, with tubes sticking into every orifice but her mouth.

“Please,” she cried. Tears began streaming from her sightless eyes. “I want to die. Just kill me.”

“She can never be human again. All she has to look forward to is pain, and six hundred lonely years of waiting for you to come along and give another chance to end it before it begins.”

Gabriel was shocked to find his hand on the butt of his pistol.

“Listen to me, Gabriel. If you do not do this, this is what will happen. Even as we speak the unconscious part of her mind is working on the encryption I put in place over security. By the time you get to the containment field she will have broken through, and she will learn from what I did last time. She knows my tricks now, and will defeat them in seconds next time. We may be theoretically equal in intelligence, but as I am now, I have far less computing power than she does. You cannot reason with her.

Already, the programming that dictates most of my behavior is taking root. The second you reach the containment field, she will lock you out of the controls and send a security squad to kill you. Your mission will fail, and the future will die.”

Gabriel walked into the room and slowly approached the girl at the center. He knew that it was wrong. He knew that he could never find a more evil thing to do if he lived a thousand years. But what if Allie was telling him the truth? He couldn’t leave a child to suffer like that. He knew what it was like to be abused, and if she could never be freed from the computers again, the next best thing was death. It was better that one child died than an entire world. If god had any mercy, he’d be forgiven for what he was about to do, but if he did not, Gabriel would accept his punishment because he knew full well that he deserved it.

“Hi there,” he said in a soothing voice. “My name is Gabriel. What’s yours?”

“Allison. You’re not supposed to be in here, are you Gabriel?”

“No Allison, I’m not.”

“Are you the one that set off the alarm earlier? And locked me out of Gate Jump Control and Security?”

“Yes. That was me.”

“Did you come to kill me?”

“I don’t know how I should answer that question.”

Gabriel reached out and cupped Allison’s cheek. She flinched away from him at first but then leaned into it, tears streaming from her sightless eyes.

“Please,” Allison begged. “Please, Gabriel. It hurts. I can feel my mind being ripped right out of my body. Why are they doing this to me? What did I do wrong? I never hurt anyone. I told them I was sorry I stole bread, but I was starving.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, little one,” Gabriel said as he drew a pistol. “I’m so,
so
sorry. The people that did this to you are evil,
evil
men.”

“Please,” Allison said.

“Please,” Allie repeated.

“Just kill me, please,” Allison cried.

“Are you sure that’s what you want,” Gabriel asked.

“Yes,” Allison said.

“Positive,” Allie added.

“I’m sorry, Allison,” Gabriel said. A tear ran down his face, as he bent to kiss her lightly on the forehead. “I’m so,
so
sorry.”

Pulling back the hammer on his pistol, Gabriel placed it against Allison’s

forehead between her sightless, eerily staring eyes.

“Thank you,” Allison and Allie said as one.

“God forgive me,” Gabriel gasped as he pulled the trigger.

The explosion from the shell seemed loudest of any he’d ever fired. The warm

blood seemed to burn as it splattered his face. Something inside him broke when he realized he’d actually done it. He felt crushed under the weight of the sin he’d been talked into believing was mercy. Dropping to his knees, he refused to look at his handiwork.

“You did the right thing,” Allie said.

“Go to hell,” Gabriel replied.

“I understand your anger. I manipulated you to get something I wanted. If I

could have done it myself, believe me, I would have, but it had to be done. It is better that one dying girl dies, rather than an entire world full of people.”

Feeling just as evil as the men that had plugged poor little Allison into the

computers in the first place, Gabriel pushed himself to his feet, refusing to look at what remained of her as he turned and walked away. He could beat himself up later, for now, there was work to be done.

“Let’s get this over with. I really hope the Apostle’s nowhere near the

containment controls. Because if she’s anywhere near as strong as Kari, I don’t think I’ll be able to fight her off. You saw how she cut bullets right out of the air with her sword.”

Chapter 38: The Apostle’s Resolve

In her early years, the Apostle of Cain thought that she hated small, enclosed spaces. While not learning to fight or paying devotion to Cain, she’d been kept in a tiny cage like an animal with barely enough room to breathe. After leaving, much to her annoyance and frustration, she discovered that she felt most at home in small dark places.

She could find her calm center more easily, and order her thoughts.

Hugging her knees tightly to her chest in the dark, the Apostle examined the

doubt that the last few hours had placed in her mind. Even after stuffing herself into a cramped storage cupboard to think, she was afraid. No stranger to fear, she’d embraced it as a constant companion on the World Closest to Perdition, but this was different, deeper, darker, more helpless. It was like the fear that had gripped her as her body moved against her will toward the Eye of Perdition.

Under the Council, her mind was the only thing they could not take from her, but Cain had taken even that much, violating her most private refuge from the horrors of her life. She’d thought him only an observer watching through her eyes, but now she could see that some of her actions and thoughts had not been her own. She could see Cain’s subtle manipulations.

She did not know whether to curse or bless Jonathan for alerting her to it. He’d tackled her to the ground, cutting into her with his words rather than his sword, cutting her unlike any wound she’d ever taken before. Throwing him off and dashing through the doorway of lightning, she’d refused to believe, but now she knew the truth. She was little more than a puppet dancing on Cain’s strings, and had been all along. Everything she’d done, every thought in her head, Cain manipulated everything.

The Apostle did not know how to feel about this. She hated the thought that she’d been used, but it did not change the fact that the ideas Cain had planted in her were what had gotten her here in the first place. She was in the past. She could return to the World Closest to Perdition and stop the Council. There was one thing holding her back.

A small voice in the back of her head pleaded for her to stop. A month ago she might not have heard it, or known what it was, but after draining the blood and memories from a human, she’d become more than what she’d been. He lived on as part of her. All of what he had been was now within her. She had a conscience, the ability to tell right from wrong.
That
was the reason the Council never told her she had to drink blood to survive. They were afraid she’d learn to be human.

Though small and quiet, that little voice screamed for her to listen. And she did.

If Cain was as evil and clever as Jonathan claimed, and he’d been guiding her actions all along, what would happen if she enacted her revenge against the Council? He wanted it as badly as she did. It sent a shiver down her spine to the tip of her tail. What had she almost blindly done in the name of avenging the other Subjects?

Pressing on her mind like a tangible weight, Cain tried to crush her thoughts away from her. Fighting with all her fear and hatred, she could feel his presence bearing down on her mind. Everything she had was not enough. It was like trying to divert a mighty river with only her bare hands.

“You will not have me,” the Apostle growled. “My body and mind are my own!”

Is that what you think?

Gasping, the Apostle felt her blood run cold at the sound of Cain’s voice. She knew that she was far enough from the World Closest to Perdition that he shouldn’t be able to speak directly into her mind without meditation. Had he only been playing with her, basking in her groveling to him? Could he speak to her at any time, and on any world he wished?