A spectral smile twitched across Mael’s leathery lips.His intestines.
Gary could only grimace in revulsion.
They don’t understand this place, Gary. So much has changed and so quickly. They think they’re in hell and they cling to the things they know and understand.
“I imagine the same could be said of you.” It was a taunt but a half-hearted one.
Perhaps. I am a little better off than them. I have access to theeididh. It’s how I learned your language and everything else I know about Manhattan.That flickering smile again.
“I’ve only been able to see the energy, the life force. You can get information out of the network?”
Oh, yes. Our memories go there when we drop, lad. Our personalities. What our elderly friends here would call theba. It is the storehouse of our hopes and our fears. Indra’s net. The akashic record. The collected works of the human race, all available in one handy volume. You and I can read anything there, if we open ourselves to the possibility.
“You and me. Because we can still think. You need to make a conscious effort to reach into the network and the others, the, the dead out there, they can’t make that leap, not with what they’ve got for brains.”
Aye.
“But there’s a difference between you and me, as well. I can feel it. You-your energy, it’s more compact. Like a living person almost but dark like mine. I can’t explain it so well…”
You’re doing fine. The mummies and me, now, we don’t share your hunger. Our bodies are incorruptible, in the old palaver. Only natural preservatives used to maintain freshness.That twitchy smile again.Then there’s the fact that you chose this. You did it to yourself.
“I can’t be the only one, though. You found me from a distance, you must know if there are others like us.”
Mael nodded.A few. Mostly of my sort but you were not the only one to abuse yourself like this. There’s a boy in a place called Russia. Very promising. Struck down in a hit and run. He suffered for months with machines pumping his heart for him but his parents wouldn’t let the doctors pull the plug. Another one here in your country. In California, she calls it. A yoga teacher hiding out in an oxygen bar. I have no idea what that means. She had the same brilliant idea you did, but it didn’t work as well for her. Woke up with a bad headache and found she’d lost her multiplication tables and plenty more besides. Such as her name.
Gary nodded. “They might as well be on the moon. It’s funny. A couple of days ago I thought I was the only one and that was okay. Then you contacted me. It’s like I only got so lonely when I knew I wasn’t alone.” He reached into the broken display case and picked up a jewel in the shape of a jackal-headed god. It was beautiful-worked by loving hands. A made thing. All that was over now. “What happened to us, Mael? What caused the Epidemic?”
The Druid scratched his chin. Thinking hard, the gesture said. Mael was a master of body language, even with just one arm.I know what you think it was. A disease same as the grippe or the pox. Can’t say as I agree but then I just learned about germ theory a day or two ago. In my time we would have talked in terms of retribution. Judgment.
“For what?”
Take your pick, lad. For what you’ve done to the earth, I might say, but then I’m just an old tree-hugger from way back. For what you did to each other, maybe. I know that sort of thing won’t sit easy with you. In your world things just happen, eh? Accidental, like. Random. We thought otherwise. For us everything happened for a reason.
Walk with me, Gary. I have but a little time to converse with you. There’s dark work that needs doing. Fighting. Slaughtering, before this is through.
“Huh?” Gary demanded. It was all he could think to say.