The Antarcticans (34 page)

“Joshua,” he whispered.

The two other mummified bodies moaned and murmured, but they didn’t respond to him. He touched them then quickly withdrew his hand. Beneath the fabric were swarms of small moving parts, like worms or beetles—many parts moving in different directions. “What the…?” he said to himself. He tiptoed out of the room, back into the first chamber. Victor had kicked the body off the altar, and the men were scrambling to take the lifeless corpse to the edge of the cavern. There was a large hole in the ground, and they pitched the body over the railing. They came back and headed to where Gavin was again. The whole ceremony had made him nauseous. His chair began to rise back to the small circular hole in the ceiling he had come in from. It disappeared, and then, a few minutes later, when the next body was on the altar, with the same scene playing out, he saw Joshua in the chair, being lowered through the air.

“Not this time, Victor. You won’t take the memories of my past and devour them. Let them go!” Joshua shouted. He was about fifty feet from the floor and was pointing at the new form on the altar. “That belongs to me—you have no right.”

“Well, boy, why don’t you come get it if it’s so important to you? They all make such a fine collection.” Victor grabbed a black sheet from behind him and yanked it. It fell to the floor; behind it Gavin saw small cubbies that reminded him of the key slots behind the front desk of an old hotel. The slots were filled with the same material that was on top of Victor’s staff. Victor twisted off the top of his staff and placed it in one of the empty slots then reached underneath the altar and replaced the top with a new swirling mass of dark material.

“You see, I have this wonderful assortment over here.” He pointed to a slot in the top-left corner. “I have your memories of your mother holding you as a child. Without those, don’t you feel so unloved, adrift without a parent doting on you?” he said with a cackle.

When the legs of Joshua’s chair touched down on the floor, he jumped out of the seat and ran at Victor. His arms were spread wide, and he was screaming a battle cry as he bound up the altar steps. Victor quickly replaced the black curtain in front of the slots behind him. Joshua jumped up to the top of the altar and lunged for Victor, tackling him to the ground. Victor struggled against him, his staff falling from his reach. Joshua stood up, grabbed his staff, and struck him with it, over and over. Although Victor’s head was now bloody and deformed, Joshua kept beating him, mashing his head into an unrecognizable pulp.

Gavin looked on, horrified by what was taking place. The hole that the holy men had dumped the body into began to vomit out small animals. They were the size of raccoons, with beady eyes and sharp, jagged teeth. Their legs tick-tacked over the rock that covered the floor and their little hands grabbed at the air. They streamed out, marching in a direct line toward the altar. Joshua couldn’t see them, as his rage was fixed on Victor, who was now gooey and splattered on the floor of the altar.

“Joshua, Joshua, watch out!” Gavin yelled, running in that direction.

The men around him grabbed their heads again and fell to the floor in pain.

…

Noila felt the tension in the hands of her husband and her son while she sat between them in Joshua’s room. She had shut her eyes and tried to focus on supportive and helpful prayers. She couldn’t imagine what they were seeing, but she wanted them to know she was here for them. Flickers of a cavern suddenly crossed her vision. She thought she was falling asleep, but her heart was beating fast, and she heard Lucifer move around the room.

“Lucifer? You still here?” she asked.

“Yes, Noila. I’m right here.”

“I’m seeing things, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.”

“You’re seeing some of what Gavin is seeing. His thoughts can run through you—from Gavin to you to Joshua. It’ll allow Joshua to have the strength of his father. Don’t let go, no matter how terrifying the images might be.” He began pacing in front of her. He knew how important the success of this was. He needed Noila to be clear of any distractions so she could focus on her research.

Joshua looked up, saw his father running toward him, and smiled. “Dad, you came back—yes!” He peered down at Victor, and a sudden look of shame flashed over his face.

Gavin was pointing madly at the hole in the cavern floor. He saw several of the creatures climbing the stairs at the back of the altar, behind the memory slots. Long legs, covered in exoskeletons, reached from under their plump, hairy bodies to conquer each step. Gavin reached the steps at the same time Joshua did, noticed what was happening, and jumped up to the altar.

The priests had hauled out all the blue-cloth-bound mummies from the depths of the sanctuaries in both temples and dragged the struggling masses to the painted red-and-gold pathway. From within their robes, they pulled out curved swords and slashed at the blue gauze in precise, swift motions. The gauze fell in heaps to the floor beneath the bodies. Gavin watched as each one was revealed. Some were scenes of Joshua’s life that unfolded like a children’s pop-up book from the remains of the sheared strips of cloth. The space between the temples and altar were filled with 3-D clips of Joshua’s life on rerun.

Gavin saw Noila step out of one of the three-dimensional scenes and look around the cavern as if her arrival there had taken her by a surprise. She wore the same clothes she had on in the
Dragon
’s medical bay before he had suited up for mind connection with his son.

Margie stood ten feet to her left, with the blue gauze draped in ribbons at her feet. She wore a light-blue spandex suit with a jacket made of pink roses and a smattering of tiny bumblebees perched at the edges of the delicate flowers. Her hair was piled high on her head, and the pink of the jacket matched the hot-pink sparkling eye shadow she had lovingly applied over every millimeter of skin between her eyelashes and eyebrows.

“Joshy, watch it, darling. The Craminings are comin’ to get ya, hun.” Her voice was like syrup being poured over honey, a Southern drawl from the deepest part of Mississippi.

Joshua looked in her direction; rock formations were disintegrating behind her. “Margie, behind you,” he yelled back at her.

She turned, but it was too late, a boulder had broken loose and was speeding out of control right at her. She cringed and put her hands up; a yelp left her lips as the first rock took her legs out from under her. The second one, which was moving much slower, rolled over her legs and pinned her to the floor.

Joshua reacted with horror and looked at his father for help. “We have to take these images back. Victor has been stealing pieces of me and placing them here. I’ve never seen them all in the same place at once. But I understand now. If I possess my whole history, I’ll be a whole person again.”

“I trust you son, but I don’t know what to do. Tell me, and I’ll do anything to help you,” Gavin said.

Joshua reached from the altar, straining so his fingers could touch the fabric. They caught a few threads of the black curtain that covered the memory slots, and then he tottered on the edge of the altar, losing his balance until Gavin grabbed his torso, preventing him from falling into the snapping jaws of the Craminings below. Joshua got a firm grip on the curtain and yanked it off. The individual slots glowed brightly; the memories inside appeared energized and agitated. He looked back at Margie, who was struggling to push the boulder off her legs. She was crying; her one foot had lost its shoe and was poking out from the side, blue and gnarled.

“Dad, we have to help Margie,” Joshua said.

“She’s not real, Joshua. She’s just in your mind. We need to let her go. We need to let all of this go. Claim your memories and let’s leave,” he said loudly. More rocks were breaking free from the hill. A stalactite broke off from the ceiling and fell dead center in the middle of Noila. She looked through herself, touching the stalactite as it stood in the middle of her body.

“Tell Mom to get out of here. She won’t listen to me. You tell her.” He was pointing frantically at the image of Noila. “She might not know it, but she can die in here, just like anyone else.” Joshua was frantic.

“Please, Dad,” he went on. “Maybe none of this is real for you, but it’s real for me. Please go help Margie. She’s in pain—I can feel it. The Craminings eventually are going to see her and go after her,” he pleaded.

“Look, Joshua, your mother wasn’t affected, and Margie doesn’t exist—she’s a creation.”

“Yes, my creation. I have to save her.” He turned toward her and was looking over the Craminings, who were tearing and gnawing at the gauze around her body.

“Don’t go over there, Josh. Look…”

The individual memory slots began to fuse together, creating a spiral of green-and-yellow gas. Noila was pointing at the new formation happening behind the altar but couldn’t speak. She drifted through the stalactite that had pierced her and went to Margie. She knelt beside her and stroked her face, her mouth offering soothing words. Margie, shaking, reached for Noila, but her hands passed through her. “Why’s your mother paying attention to her?” Gavin said. “Joshua, take your memories. Your mom will care for Margie.”

“You don’t get it, Dad. If Margie dies, a piece of me dies.”

Gavin shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. When she feels pain, I feel pain.” Joshua leapt from the top of the altar. The Craminings caught a piece of his leg midair and dragged him to the ground, creating a feeding frenzy among the animals. They tore through his clothes and ripped out chunks of his scalp.

“Oh, God…oh, God…help my son.” Gavin looked up to the ceiling. “Help him,” he screamed. “Help him.”

The Craminings didn’t stop. They tore further; a piece of bone in Joshua’s arm was now visible. He had stopped trying to fight them off and lay back into them as they feasted on his body.

“No, no, no, you can’t…You have to help him. Please, oh, please, God.” Gavin saw his pleas weren’t being answered. He stared at the carnage before him then felt his heart miss a beat, then stop.

From her office, Dr. Cristofari was watching the dense brain activity between Joshua and Gavin. She also was keeping an eye on Noila, who somehow had inserted herself into her son’s mind. A red circle over Gavin’s brain image the size of the bottom of her coffee mug flashed on her display; the words “Heart Failure” appeared inside them. She pulled up the emergency-response application and activated the resuscitation sequence. The robotic arms dropped from the ceiling, placed their fingers on the chests of Joshua and Gavin, and sent electrical currents through their heart muscles to restart the beating of Gavin’s heart and synchronize their electrical heart rhythms.

“The attempt to restart the heart was unsuccessful,” a voice from the ceiling declared.

Gavin and Joshua dropped out of their induced catatonic state. Noila dropped their hands and stood up over Joshua, trying to figure out whether he was okay. Dr. Cristofari burst into the room, and when the doors shut behind her, she sealed them so no one else could enter. She pulled up a virtual panel in the space over the seat Noila had been sitting in between the two beds. Warnings of abnormal brain activity, major organ failure, and imminent nervous system shutdown were being yelled at her, and voices were asking for authorization to correct the issues. Dr. Cristofari swiped the warnings from the screen and worked to reorder the sequence of events Joshua would see, and remember, so the progress she had made during the simulations wouldn’t be lost. She knew she had only a few minutes to save them both. Sweat dripped from her forehead as she furiously worked the panel in front of her. Noila moved to the other side of Joshua’s bed for fear of being struck by the robotic arms. Joshua was completely still. Noila checked but couldn’t feel a pulse through his medical suit. Lucifer was standing behind Dr. Cristofari now, looking over what she was doing. “You have to send them back in,” he said casually.

Dr. Cristofari didn’t respond; she just kept working. The robotic arms were moving over their bodies. When she pressed another button, the finger on the arm over Gavin turned into a scalpel and sliced through the suit, exposing his chest.

“Stop,” Noila cried.

“Your husband has a blockage in one of his arteries, exacerbated by the heart failure they both experienced. I can’t get his heart rhythm stable until it’s cleared. If I don’t do this, he’ll die of cardiac arrest.” Dr. Cristofari stood up and walked to the replicator in the wall. From the unit, she retrieved a syringe with a foot-long needle and handed it to the robotic arms. A picture of Gavin’s circulatory system appeared on the screen; his left descending artery was completely blocked. She tapped the artery section on the screen then used her fingers to expand the image, marking off exactly where the blockage was. She selected “Initiate” from the menu, and the robotic arm slowly inserted the needle into Gavin’s chest. Noila watched as the needle came into view on the screen as it descended into the artery. The robotic arm plunged the solution into the arterial plaque. Noila held her breath. Nothing happened; Gavin’s vitals flat lined, and he let out a puff of air. Seconds later the blockage was completely clear, and Dr. Cristofari ran a current through his heart to restore it to proper rhythm. Gavin gasped, and his heart rate returned to normal on the screen.