Circuit Of Heaven (43 page)

Nemo had no doubt at all the man could do what he claimed. “No thanks. Just the virus.”

Gabriel chuckled. “All for love—or nothing—eh? We’re done here. You can go catch that train now.”

Nemo almost panicked. Gabriel must be on to him, sending him on his way, with a stand-in probably waiting in the wings. “What about the virus and the download?”

Gabriel chuckled. “All done!” He gestured proudly at the equipment around them. “You could’ve stood on your head and recited the Song of Songs, and it would’ve downloaded you and implanted the virus flawlessly. Well, go on, get up. Party’s over.”

The ringing in Nemo’s ears stopped. He carefully rose from the chair, as if he might leave part of himself behind if he moved too quickly, and stepped down from the pedestal.

“You’ll need this, as well,” Gabriel said, handing him a silver vial. “Drink it between 11:30 and 11:45. You did remember not to eat, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, sure.” Actually he’d forgotten to eat, which wasn’t quite the same thing. Now he noticed how empty he was.

“The next thing you know, we’ll be waking you up here. The last thing you’ll remember is my saying, ‘Party’s over.’ I hope you were thinking pleasant thoughts.”

Actually, he’d been thinking that Gabriel was the biggest prick he’d ever met.

NEMO
CAUGHT
HIS
TRAIN
AND
SLUMPED
DOWN
IN A
SEAT
UP front by the doors. His hands were shaking, and his heart wouldn’t slow down. He wondered if it was the virus that made him feel this way. But he’d felt this before. It was fear, pure and simple. Fear of what he was about to do. Fear that he would fail.

He tried to imagine what it was like to be someone like Gabriel, so convinced of his righteousness that he could wipe out everyone in the Bin and feel no remorse, actually rejoice in it. Even in the midst of his greatest rage at the Bin, Nemo’d never wished it out of existence. He wondered, when the Bin was gone, whether Gabriel would find the release he sought, or whether he’d lose his own reason for being.

Either way, Nemo wouldn’t be in a position to know, unless the Constructs somehow maintained their connection with the Bin. He hoped so. He hadn’t had time for his good-byes. He’d never see Jonathan and Lawrence again. He hoped, somehow, they’d understand.

He was still clutching the silver vial in his hand. He opened up his hand and stared at it, nestled in his palm. If he took it, he could live in both places, two lives diverging, oblivious to each other.
Party’s over
, he thought. It would begin just then, rising from that chair. And then what? Would this resurrected Nemo glory in being the great deliverer, or hang himself from the nearest tree? He slid open the window. It came down to instinct in the end. Which way you jumped when the lightning bolt strikes. He threw the vial out the window, and it vanished in a quick, silver arc.

The door at the back of the car opened and closed, and someone came up the aisle, sliding into the seat behind him. Before Nemo could turn around, he felt cold metal press against. the back of his neck. A gun barrel.

“That was a very valuable item you just threw away.”

Nemo knew the voice. It was Rick. Ian must be somewhere close by. “Are you going to shoot me for littering? Gabriel might not like that.”

The door at the front of the car slid open, and Ian stepped through. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked Rick. “He’s no good to us dead.” Rick withdrew his gun. Ian bent down and got in Nemo’s face. He looked like a cherub with his ring of curls. “Why did you throw the antidote away?”

“Look Ian, we’re on the same side here.”

The back of Ian’s fist came out of nowhere and caught Nemo just below the eye. “Why did you throw the antidote away?”

Nemo pretended the blow hurt more than it did, stalling for time to formulate an acceptable lie. He didn’t figure he’d have many opportunities for revision. “Obviously, because I don’t want to take it. I’m committing suicide, asshole. So why don’t you just shoot me and get it over with.”

Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Suicide.” He straightened up, rubbed the side of his nose with the fist he’d just hit Nemo with. “Why?”

“None of your business. I’ve done something horrible. I want to die.”

“Suicide is a sin.”

And murder isn’t? Nemo thought. “I don’t care. I told Gabriel from the beginning I was doing this for my own reasons. I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear you shot me for being a sinner.”

Rick stood up and came out in the aisle, the gun still in hand. It had a long barrel with a silencer on the end of it. “He’s lying. He’s going in to shack up with that whore. It’s a setup.”

Ian took a cellular phone out of his pocket and made a call. Nemo thought of all those damn things he’d tossed aside as so much junk, now that there weren’t any phone companies. But these guys had their own phone company. He wondered what else they had, and what they intended to do with it.

“Gabriel,” Ian said, “we’ve got a problem here.” He walked to the back of the car so that Nemo couldn’t hear him. Rick kept looking back at Ian, awaiting orders, probably hoping for the chance to shoot Nemo with his nice long gun. Ian walked back to Nemo and handed him the phone. “Gabriel wants to talk to you.”

Nemo took the phone and put it to his ear. “Would you call off your dogs, Gabriel? I’m holding up my end of the bargain. Your virus will be delivered.”

“Perhaps. You didn’t tell me you intended to kill yourself.”

“That’s my business, isn’t it?”

“If you’re telling the truth. Why do you want to die?”

Nemo stared at the clock at the end of the car, counting off the seconds. The lives of billions of people all came down to his ability to lie. “If you found out you’d been fucking your grandmother, wouldn’t you want to die?”

There was a long silence on the other end. “Let me speak with Ian.”

Nemo handed Ian the phone and waited as Ian listened without saying a word. He folded up the phone and slipped it into his pocket.

“We’ll just ride along with you for now, Nemo. Gabriel’s checking on a few things.”

They hurtled along. Ian drumming on the back of Nemo’s seat with a pair of pens. Rick across the aisle, watching him, his finger on the trigger. Nemo figured he was a dead man. Pretty soon Gabriel would find the sister program, and Ian’s little phone would ring. Would they shoot him right away, he wondered, or would they question him first? He considered making a jump for it, but the train was doing about two hundred miles an hour. He’d rather be shot.

And then he felt it—the train gradually slowing for Quantico. A familiar plume of smoke rose up into the sky at the horizon. The train would slow to about fifty or sixty through here before it went into a tunnel. He might make it. He eyed the door, right in front of him.

He could jump off the train, but then what? He’d never make it to D.C. on foot. He couldn’t exactly flag down another train. His head snapped up. He could see the stacks now, gradually growing taller. That’s exactly what he’d do—flag down another train.

The phone started bleating, and Ian walked to the back of the car and answered it. Rick stood up and drifted back a few paces so that he could hear. Nemo was trying to time it just right, wishing he had Rosalind here to make the call. He was going to jump immediately, as soon as the brakes kicked in, while Rick and Ian were being knocked on their butts. He figured it was his only chance not to get shot. He could feel Rick’s eyes on the back of his neck. Nemo kept his eyes on the smokestacks, calculating the angle. Now.

He reached up and yanked on the emergency cord, rolling into the doors and out into the marsh, skidding at least fifty feet in the muck, sending a shower of water high into the air, like the wake from a power boat. He struggled to his feet and almost fell down again. There was a lot more water than there had been before. He was standing in mud up to his calves. He brought up his right foot, and his boot came off, trapped in the gook. The left boot was more stubborn, but after a few yards he decided it was slowing him down and took it off. He must’ve looked like a wounded bird trying to take flight, flapping and splashing.

The train was stopped a half mile down the tracks. He could see Rick and Ian standing beside it, deciding whether to follow him or not, possibly get stranded out here in this sea of mud, when all they had to do was keep him out of the Bin. The way he had it figured, they’d decide he’d already accomplished that for them when he jumped off the train. Nemo knew they had exactly three minutes to make up their minds before the train took off and left them there. Meanwhile, Nemo tried to run.

They were still standing by the train when the faint bong of the train’s warning bell drifted across the marsh like a bird call, and Rick and Ian climbed on board. Nemo cheered silently, but he didn’t slow his pace, such as it was. It would be a miracle if he made it to D.C. at all, much less by noon. As he approached the fence, the land sloped upward and became relatively dry. He didn’t bother with trying to avoid being seen. If an alarm was raised, it would almost certainly be answered by a Construct, and he could use any help he could get. As he walked on the gravel up to the tracks, he realized he was going to need some shoes before he rode a train out of here. Unfortunately, he knew where he could get some.

He didn’t have to wait long for a train to arrive. He studied it as it approached, and noticed rungs on the ends of the cars. He didn’t have to hang underneath it like a bat. The train came to a stop at the gate, and he climbed onto the front. He remembered an old video set in San Francisco, a guy hanging off a streetcar singing a song.

The train moved toward the door more slowly than he recalled. Maybe a surveillance camera had tripped an alarm, and they were shutting down. But the train kept inching along, and the door opened seconds before he thought he was going to smash into it. Inside it was exactly as he remembered, every detail. He’d been here often enough in his dreams. Before the train had even come to a stop, the cold settled into his wet clothes and into his bones. He felt as if he were encased in ice.

He had to jump from the train to clear the tracks, stumbling to his hands and knees when he hit the concrete. He peeled his hands from the floor, leaving icy shadows where they’d been. He started to stand, but decided he was better off on his knees, putting off standing on his bare feet for as long as he could. “Open the damn thing,” he muttered under his breath. “Please God, I’m freezing to death here.”

The minute the doors started rising, he moved in. The robots stayed back until the doors stopped completely. He’d have a few seconds. When he had enough room, he scurried under the doors. The whir of the door motors echoed inside, amplifying it.

There weren’t nearly as many bodies as there’d been before. The car was maybe a third full. As the door continued its ascent, he had more light, but he also had less time. He searched the shadows, but he couldn’t find what he was looking for. It was late spring. Sandals, useless little loafers, moccasins. He had to dig deeper. He pushed a couple of bodies aside and spotted a heavy work boot, ankle high. But he could only see one, laced up to the top. The whir of the door motors stopped. He had plenty of light now as the robots’ floodlights came on.

He wrapped his hands around the boot and the ankle inside it, and yanked. A man’s body slid out of the pile far enough so he could see both the legs now, both boots. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the robot at his back moving in. He had to give it something to do. He grabbed the body of a young man about his age by the belt and dragged it to the floor between himself and the robot, and started working on the bootlaces.

He could hear the little motors in the robot’s servo arms as it picked up the body from the floor, but he couldn’t think about that. He had to unlace the boots with stiff clumsy fingers. He almost had the second boot off when the robot started moving again. He grabbed at the nearest body and rolled it to the floor without looking to see whether it was young or old or male or female. He was crying now. He didn’t have time to think about why. It was just another sound. He freed the second boot, tied them together, and hung them around his neck. Now he needed clothes. He yanked on the man’s ankles again and stripped off his jeans, but he couldn’t get at his shirt, and it was light-weight cotton anyway.

The robot had both bodies now. Nemo moved to the side and let it roll in. He worked his way down the length of the car. The other robots had completed their duties and retreated to their resting positions. As he passed their jurisdictions, they started forward thinking he was another stray corpse. Finally, he found what he was looking for, a leather jacket several sizes too big for him. He stripped it off, struggling with the massive body, and stepped through the line of robots. Once he was behind them, it was as if he didn’t exist. They all watched the cars rolls into the fire.

He stripped off his wet clothes and put on the jeans and jacket. They both were huge. The sleeves hung down three or four inches below his wrists. He sat on the concrete and put on the boots. They were pretty tight, but it didn’t matter. He could no longer feel his feet. The deafening roar of the fire started, and he limped to the door, hugging himself, stamping his feet, just waiting for a train.

It came as scheduled, the heat from it as inviting as a woodstove in the dead of winter. The cars closed themselves up—like birds folding in their wings. He draped his wet clothes over the rungs and climbed onto them, his hands inside the leather sleeves. The clothes sizzled and steamed but didn’t burn through. He hung on tightly as the train quickly accelerated. The two-hundred-mile an hour wind cooled the metal down soon enough, dried his tears, and beat at him like a huge fist, until finally, with the Washington Monument peaking up over the horizon, the train began to slow and dove into the ground.

He came to a stop in a room that was the mirror image of the crematorium, only where the incinerator would be was a carousel fed by a chute sloping down from the wall above. Every once in a while, the flap at the top of the chute came open, and a body slid down to the carousel, where it was retrieved by a robot and placed on the waiting train.