Ellis stood in the same familiar dining room, but everything felt different. The Gothic décor was darker, heavier, and some classical fugue played oppressively through the same unseen speakers that Alva spoke through. If he hadn’t been there before, Ellis could have concluded that Pol had dropped him off in Dracula’s castle. The one thing he could be certain of—Vin was there.
Ellis turned back and saw Pol, still standing in the Councilor’s office. Pol waved goodbye and closed the portal. Since leaving the Geomancy Institute, Pol had seemed anxious, the promise to help find Pax forgotten. Ellis was annoyed at the breaking of the bargain, but also happy to be free of Pol. They’d just spent too much time together. Pol pretended, and might have even believed it, but their shared company hadn’t been wonderful.
Ellis called out, “Anyone home?”
“I just told Pol that Vin is here, didn’t I?” Alva replied.
“I suppose, but—”
“But that’s not what you want to know.” The words were spoken with a hint of sadness, and Ellis realized that Alva would have easily passed the AI Turing Test—the ability to fool humans into thinking they were communicating not with a machine but with another thinking, feeling person. Even though Alva had admitted to being some sort of computer, his mind refused to accept that. He imagined her as a curmudgeonly, but lovable, woman in her fifties always speaking to him from the next room. Alva was Pax’s mother.
“Is Pax here?”
“No. I’m afraid—”
“So you’ve returned,” Vin said, entering the dining room still in his Phantom of the Opera costume, which was augmented this time with a cape. Vin didn’t look happy to see him—or that might have just been Vin’s normal frown. Ellis had yet to see another expression to judge by. “Back to cause more mischief, I presume? Hate to disappoint you, but Pax isn’t here.”
“Do you know where—”
“How could I know that? How could anyone after you ripped the PICA from Pax’s shoulder? Nice bit of butchering, by the way.”
Definitely not happy to see me. “Are you saying that Pax never came back?”
“Briefly. In tears. With your murderous weapon in hand.” Vin stood before Ellis, arms folded, glaring out from behind that porcelain half-mask. “I tried talking. I tried to…but you had Pax wound tight, didn’t you? Couldn’t hear me anymore. Instead, all I saw was despair—that’s what you created. And that gun. After driving the poor thing to the brink, you put such a tool in Pax’s hands—like handing a red-label illusion to a fantasy-deprived holoholic. Isn’t that right?”
“What are you saying?” Ellis felt his stomach tighten. “You’re not—did Pax do something? Are you saying Pax—that Pax did something with my gun?”
Ellis’s heart began to pound, his hands shaking. That’s not it—please, God, don’t let that be it!
Vin walked away, three hard steps, fists clenched as if holding back a desire to kill. “Were all people in your day so stupid? That’s why you had wars, isn’t it? Wars, murders, rapes, and torture. All of you self-centered and as sensitive as the concrete you choked the planet with. A pack of cave-dwelling Neanderthals killing for food and recreation.” Vin’s voice was growing shrill, sounding more feminine, nearing hysteria. “Since you hadn’t noticed, let me explain—Pax isn’t a strong person. That’s why I live here. That’s why I put up with all this misery.”
The lights flickered.
“Don’t mess with me now, Alva!” Vin shouted, and took a step toward Ellis. The Phantom still held clenched fists.
Vin wants to hit me. You want to see insensitive? You want to see Neanderthal? Go ahead and take a swing.
“Pax has a history—a history of being weak.” Vin looked down at the dining table, opened a hand, and brushed fingertips across the surface. “Wonderful person. You don’t know—Pax would never mention it—but Pax has helped thousands of people, people beyond desperate, people who’d given up. We don’t have the violence that you did, but people still get angry. We keep it locked up, sealed inside, only it’s a poison that the mind needs to expel to save itself. With no way to purge ourselves of the hate, frustration, and anger, the result is depression and self-loathing. The ISP has been ineffectual at addressing the problem. Emotions are tricky, they say—like nerves. If nicked, a person can lose all sensation, and you could kill the desire to live altogether or create a psychopath. No one could help the really bad cases. Some of the arbitrators even came to think the condition might be contagious. Emotional diseases can be. They took to calling severe depression the New Black Plague.”
Vin looked back up into Ellis’s eyes. “Can you imagine? Living in an immortal body, faced with an eternity of pain and misery? This was the great fear of all of us. Spiraling depression on a grand and infinite scale. At least with the medieval plague there was release.”
Vin placed a second hand on the table, making small, invisible designs on glossy wood. “There was an artist. The plague was known to afflict the creative minds to a disproportionate degree, and this artist—a genius, everyone said—suffered horribly for years—suffered in secret. The problem only became known after the creative genius couldn’t take it anymore. Used a spoon to gouge out the eyes.” Vin’s hands stopped moving. “Didn’t deserve to see beauty, you see. Wasn’t worthy of the gifts bestowed. Went through six sets of eyes—the ISP just kept putting in new ones. Didn’t matter. The loss of sight didn’t alleviate the pain. Nothing did. Nothing could, because no one could ever understand the misery or the source. The isolation, the helplessness, it all fed upon itself, the well always growing deeper and darker.
“People felt sorry for the artist—pitied and avoided the poor wretch. The situation was simply hopeless, you understand. Then there was Pax—incredible, amazing Pax. When no one else could understand, could see, Pax did. Pax could enter the darkness, stand there alongside, feel it, and face it. Pax clawed out patches of light. No one else could ever understand, truly understand, but Pax did. And just knowing someone else understood—not being alone anymore—made all the difference. It took time, but that artist recovered, and Pax has done that for so many.”
Vin took a deep breath and, reaching up, lifted the mask briefly to wipe away tears. Ellis noticed small white scars.
“But such profound empathy comes at a price. Pax feels more deeply and powerfully than the rest of us. This gift is also a curse, I think. Maybe some of the plague Pax draws from people lingers. I don’t know. But Pax is so very fragile—and so sensitive—has to be—like your fingertips.” Vin lifted a hand and stared at it, fingers flexing. “If they weren’t sensitive, they couldn’t do their job, but being sensitive they’re more susceptible to pain. Pax is like that.”
Vin turned away, moved to the nearest chair, sat, and looked toward the pipe organ, eyes unfocused.
“What happened?” Ellis asked. “Why did Pax—why did you have to start living here?”
“I don’t know. Pax has never told me. I learned about it through mutual friends. Pax was in an emergency room under observation. No one knew what to do. What Pax needed was Pax—someone who could look inside and understand the demons. But there is only one Pax. Still, I couldn’t let…I volunteered to move in, to watch and protect Pax. I’d do anything, you understand—anything, only I’m not Pax. I can’t do the magic, and I watched the depression creep in. And then you came.” Vin looked up, that same frown returning. “I knew you were trouble. I could see hope in Pax and knew that was like raising an egg over hard ground. The fall would come, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t help. Pax is a treasure of untold worth…and you destroyed that.”
“Are you saying Pax is dead?” Ellis felt sick, his brand-new heart on the verge of breaking. Not again. I can’t have done it again.
“Probably.”