The old monster pulls at the restraints, but he was weak even before this ordeal began.
“Please,” he says. “I’m not ready. It’s not fair. I want to live! Why did I spend a thousand years in agony if I don’t get to live?”
So much pain in that voice, so much betrayal—I almost feel sorry for him. The overwrite, it doesn’t move the consciousness of the old person, it copies it, leaving two versions. The old version remains trapped in its fragile, failing body.
Young O’Malley flips the knife in the air, catches it by the hilt. He walks closer to the X.
“Don’t be sad, Old Me. You got to live for a thousand years—I’ll get to live for a thousand more.”
From behind the fleshy folds hiding its mouth, the old monster screams nonsensical words, babbles and begs, but it does no good. Young O’Malley places the point of the knife on his old self’s chest, then leans in. The gnarled skin punctures. Red-gray blood leaks down. There is a moment of hesitation, then a crack as the knife punches through bone and sinks deep.
The old monster twitches.
“No,” it says in a faint hiss. “I was supposed to…to live…forever.”
The head droops.
The old man moves no more.
Young O’Malley—now the only O’Malley—pulls the knife free. He wipes the flat of the blade against his dead former self, scraping free the red-gray blood. He slips the knife back into the sheath, then slides the sheath into the belt of his black coveralls.
The lump in my throat changes, becomes a fist—I turn my head to the side just before I vomit bits of spicy meat all over my coffin’s white linen and onto the stone floor.
“Kenzie, she vomited,” Matilda says. “Is her brain all right? Does she have a concussion?”
Old Smith shuffles off the pedestal platform. Her gnarled fingers grip my face, turn my head left, then right.
“Hard to tell,” she says to Matilda. To me, she says, “How is your head?”
“It hurts,” I say. “So bad.”
Matilda huffs. “Like she’s going to tell you the truth, Kenzie. Don’t be gullible.”
“So your former self can lie,” Smith says. “Well, isn’t that a surprise?”
“Get her ready.” Matilda’s voice rings with eagerness. “I’m done waiting. We’re going to do it now, concussion or not.”
The diseased, rotten stink of Smith’s fingers combines with the acrid smell of my vomit; my stomach threatens another round. There’s no food left to throw up, but my body doesn’t care.
“Wait a little longer,” Smith says. “Matilda, you only get one chance at this, and Bishop did knock her unconscious.”
Smith releases me. I can still smell her fingers.
Matilda glares at Bishop. “Thank you so much for that, lover.”
Lover? The old me and the old Bishop…lovers?
“You wanted her here,” he says. “And here she is.”
It’s the first time I’ve heard the huge old monster speak. The sound tears at my heart. It is his voice, the voice of the boy who kissed me at the waterfall, the voice of the boy who—when all was lost and I was sent off on my own to die—whispered to me that he would send help. It is his voice, matter-of-fact and to the point, but it is also not: it is breathier, shorter…it is tired.
Matilda huffs in disgust. “Maybe you did it on purpose. Maybe you tried to hurt her so I couldn’t transition!”
Bishop says nothing.
Matilda sighs. “Fine, we will wait.” The old creature looks down at me. The mask hides the fleshy folds that in turn hid her mouth, but I know she is smiling—I can tell by her one remaining, red eye.
“Soon, my pet. Soon we will be one.”
The nightmare gets worse. It envelops me, makes me want to give up, to shut down forever.
My Bishop lies in the coffin to my left, where O’Malley died.
In the coffin past him, my Gaston, and in the fourth and final one, my Borjigin.
Old Bishop, Coyotl, O’Malley and a few other Grownups I don’t know dragged them in, unconscious, locked them down. They are all awake now, the sides of their coffins lowered. Borjigin sobs, seems unable to accept that Coyotl is doing this to him. My Gaston cursed at everyone until Matilda went to work on him with the rod.
He’s not cursing anymore.
We are all about to be overwritten. We will be erased.
Spingate is here as well. She’s shackled to a heavy ring mounted in the wall. She’s crying. She knows she can’t do anything for anyone. None of us can. We are all helpless.
The new O’Malley struts around the room, laughing and joking. Same body, different soul—he is an abomination.
The hulking, ancient form of Old Bishop stands to my left, at the head of my Bishop’s coffin. Most of the other Grownups seem shriveled, all used up, but not Old Bishop—he has their gnarled skin, red eyes, mask and metallic life-support frame, but a thousand years of life haven’t made him any less lethal.
My Bishop stares up at him.