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CHAPTER 26
Nina McCulloch prayed for forgiveness for her sins. She could hear the others in Elizabeth’s room, but her prayers blocked their voices out. Nina believed that Jesus had died on the cross for her, expurgating any sin she might ever commit. To pay Jesus back, she followed the Commandments, offered thanks and praise, and fully accepted him as her savior.
“Amen,” she whispered.
Now she lay in bed, restless. She could hear them in the next bedroom: Elizabeth, and Kara and Stacy, two girls from down the hall.
Nina knew what they were doing.
“What a rush!” Elizabeth could be heard through the wall.
“Class A shit, Liz,” Kara observed.
“Cut me another rail,” Stacy requested.
Nina, of course, never joined them. They always offered, claiming: “You only get addicted if you do it every day”; “It’s harmless in moderation”; and “Nina, all that antidrug stuff on TV is just propaganda. Come on, try some.”
But Nina’s reply was always the same: “No. It’s a sin.”
The body was a temple of the Lord; it said so in the Bible. If you put bad things into your body, you were defacing that temple. A tract she’d read once said that if you used drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or even ate junk food, that was the same as throwing garbage in a church. Nina believed this fervently. She also believed that even responsible drug users were actively participating in the denigration of society. The money that Liz and her friends so harmlessly spent on a little cocaine went to the same people who supplied crack to elementary school kids. Every penny helped fuel the giant drug machine which ruined people’s lives. It helped make the weak weaker, and the helpless more lost. Drugs were the soldiers of Satan’s army.
Nina got up and sneaked to the bathroom. She hoped they didn’t hear her. They might laugh at her and persecute her for her beliefs. Nina, of course, would forgive them, but that was beside the point.
Tinkling, she heard their uproar. They were talking about sex now, and how much better drugs made it. “His cock was hard all night!” Stacy exclaimed. “Shit, I musta come ten times!”
Babylon, Nina thought, perched upon the toilet. But she mustn’t judge them; only God could judge. She couldn’t escape the thought, however, as their reverie rose: The wages for sin are death.
««—»»
Jervis fumed as Besser handed him the parcel.
“Drop this off, then meet the sister at the sciences center.”
“Yes, sir,” Jervis tensely replied. “Anything you say.”
Besser stood at the servicepoint of the detentionwarren. “And there’s one other thing the Supremate would like you to do.”
“What?”
“Kill Dean Saltenstall.”
Jervis’ brow knit. The dean was harmless. “Why?” he asked.
“He runs the college. He’s an authority figure,” Besser explained, “and authority figures offend the Supremate’s superiority; they blemish his grace. To the Supremate, the dean is a graven image. So kill him.”
Graven image? What an ego. “Right. Kill the dean.”
Besser seemed to sense Jervis’ upset. He peered at Lydia beyond the repulsion screen. “Ah, you’re angry about her. You feel I’ve injured your existential self by denying you her death.”
“Something like that,” Jervis restrained himself.
“For now we need her intact, as a lure for Wade. But afterward, Jervis, I promise you’ll have her.”
“Thank you…sir.”
“Good. Go now. Serve well for our master.”
Jervis extromitted back to his room. They’d barriered Lydia Prentiss into one of the tempholds. He’d just have to have his revenge later, and it would be sweet. He would put some holotypes in there with her and see how she liked that. Some of those holotypes had been locked up in the deep holds for years, going mad with lust in the psilight. Some had knobbed tentacles for cocks, or things that looked like big plungers wide as coffee cans. There were even a few that had multiple penises…
He walked down the hall into Wade’s room. Be creative, he thought. Creativity is the key to existential awareness. It was only a matter of time before Wade returned to his room. Jervis left the parcel where Wade was sure to see it.
Minutes later he was driving down Randolph Carter Street, past the Circle. The sister’s grinning white face beamed in the headlights. He picked her up in front of the sciences center, as instructed. —Hi, Jervis! she greeted.
Jervis nodded, gulping. The sisters gave him the willies—their monstrous kiddie grins, perpetually shaded eyes, and the unearthly giggling. How could you trust someone who giggled like that?
—Ready?
“Yeah. Where to?”
She gave him Besser’s Qwik Note, which read: “Elizabeth Whitechapel, Duke of Clarence Hall, Room 688.”
—She’s the last one. Then all we need is the holotype and we can leave.
“Leave to where, if you don’t mind my asking?”
—New kingdoms, Jervis. New pigs.
“And I get to go with you, right? Immortal?”
—Of course! We’re all immortal in the glory of the Supremate!
Jervis drove on. Something was fishy about this whole business. Why hadn’t he seen any other productionvassals around, from past procurements? There was only him. Jervis knew shit when he smelled it. Just because he was dead didn’t mean he was stupid.
—The Erblings have just given birth to two beautiful baby mutants. And Inez Packer’s insemination couldn’t have gone better.
“Glad to hear it,” Jervis muttered. If they could make their own vassals, what would they need him for in an eternal future? Am I getting screwed? “We have to stop at the dean’s first. Besser told me to kill him.”
—Oh, Good! the sister rejoiced. —I’m so hungry!
“There’s plenty of eats in back.”
The sister looked at Inez Packer’s roommate and the dead security guard. She made a face. —But I want a FRESH pig, Jervis. I want a FRESH man thing.
Wonderful. I’m stuck with the pecker eater again. Except for their size, the sisters had no distinguishing features. They were clones. He wondered how many years it had taken to hybridize them. How many crossed genes from how many planets.
A long drive lined with hundred year old oaks led to the dean’s mansion. Acres of mown, open land gave the estate a rich Dixie plantation appearance. Jervis parked next to the dean’s Rolls. The moon hung low behind wisps of clouds.
They walked casually up the pillared front steps. Jervis hocked a lunger into the topiary. An old brass door knocker stared at them, an oval bereft of features save for two wide, empty eyes. Jervis raised his hand to knock, then paused. What am I doing? Murderers don’t knock.
He bumped the heavy door face with both palms. The door jumped out of its frame and thudded to the floor. They were halfway up the winding stairs when the hall light came on.
“Winnie? Is that you?”
Jervis chuckled. “Not quite.”
The dean froze two steps out of his bedroom. He wore a maroon robe and pink pajamas. Doubt of reality drew slits into the lined, tanned face. “What the—” he stammered. “Who the—”
—Hi, Dean! the sister announced. —I’m going to eat your man thing!
Jervis smiled.
The dean fled screaming back into the bedroom. Jervis promptly knocked down the door. The clean white room lay in total contradiction to what was taking place. The bed, the furniture, and the lambent white walls coalesced into a pattern of normalcy that Jervis and the sister violated merely by entering.