I am just a circle.
I am empty.
Old O’Malley coughs, harder than before, struggles to draw breath.
“I hope…my old self hasn’t changed too much,” he says. “I was never a crybaby like that.”
Matilda laughs. It sounds like my laugh.
“Kevin, you’ve been a lying, manipulating, backstabbing crybaby for a thousand years,” she says. “Some things don’t change.”
The room darkens. Old Smith raises her arms, and they are bathed in color. The same lights that made Spingate glow like an angel soak into Old Smith’s cratered skin, make her look like a moving statue that has disintegrated and blackened with age.
“Ometeotl, commence final bio-scan of receptacle.”
“Scanning, Doctor Smith.”
The humming increases, almost drowns out my O’Malley’s sobs and Old O’Malley’s cough.
What little rage that still burns inside me is extinguished by a wave of hopelessness. My friend is going to die. He’s an arm’s length away, if only I could reach out to him. Right here, right now, Kevin O’Malley will cease to exist. And I can’t stop it.
“Bio-scan complete, Doctor Smith,” the room says. “Zero risk factors. Ready to commence upon your order.”
Old Smith lowers her glowing hands. “Commence transference.”
The humming grows louder, fills the room, bounces off the ceiling and walls.
My O’Malley thrashes, but not of his own will—his body is reacting: twitching and trembling, quivering and lurching.
They’re killing him.
The hum goes on forever. It fills my head, rattles my ears and teeth. It blocks out everything. I want my hands loose, not so I can escape but so I can drive my fingers into my ears, try to block that sound of death.
And then, the volume lowers, lowers, lowers…the humming stops.
I look at my friend. He’s on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling. His chest heaves. He blinks rapidly, shakes his head. He wiggles his nose, curls his lips, clicks his teeth as if he’s trying out his face for the first time.
Please-please-please let it have failed…
O’Malley’s head turns toward me. He smiles—but it isn’t his smile.
“Hello, young lady.”
In that instant I know my friend is no more. I’m numb. I feel nothing. I am as cold as a corpse.
The monsters have won. And I’m next.
Matilda walks to his coffin. She presses a small green jewel set just behind his head. O’Malley’s restraints clack open. He sits up, stretches out his arms, rubs his legs, looks at his fingers like they are made of magic and wind. His eyes shine with wonder and awe.
“I can’t believe it,” he says. “There’s no…I feel no pain. I knew my old body hurt, but until this very moment I hadn’t realized I spent every minute of every day in pain, and now…nothing. It’s gone.”
He swings his legs over the side, lets his feet dangle.
The tears in my eyes make him shimmer and wave.
Matilda puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Slowly at first,” she says. “Your body is fine, but your mind must get used to moving it again.”
O’Malley brushes the hand aside, all but pushes Matilda out of the way. He slides off his coffin-table and stands.
“Praise be,” this new person says. “Praise be to all the gods, it worked.”
A desperate, haunting moan of anguish makes my hair stand on end. At the X, the gnarled, restrained Grownup O’Malley lifts his head. His frail lungs try to draw in air, air that is killing him. He looks around the room, disoriented.
“It didn’t work,” he says. “We…we must try again. I’m still trapped in this hideous body. Oh, I hurt so bad, even worse than before.”
I don’t understand. It did work, I can see the young O’Malley and I know he is not mine.
Young O’Malley starts to laugh.
Old O’Malley’s head snaps up. For the first time, the red eyes clear all the way, blink rapidly.
“No,” he says. “This can’t be.”
Young O’Malley walks closer to his old self, does a little stumbling dance.
“Come on, now, Chancellor! You knew this would happen.”
The wrinkled monster looks around the room madly. I realize that he is looking for someone to help him.
“Wait,” he says. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”
Young O’Malley reaches toward Bishop, palm up. The hulking monster hands over a sheathed knife. O’Malley takes it by the hilt, then grips the sheath and pulls the blade free.
The knife—ornate, golden, bejeweled—looks exactly like the knife in the painting behind the X, the one with the young man driving the blade into the old man’s chest.
Young O’Malley smiles wide, points the tip at his former self.
“If it makes you feel better, old man, this is exactly how I thought it would turn out. Which means it’s exactly how you thought it would turn out, too. My, how interesting to talk to one’s self!”