On the screen, Alexis lifted the weapon.
Under the conveyor belt, she raked the plow blade across her forearm, the searing stripe of pain bringing a moment of clarity.
M ark was right. Pain worked.
On screen, drops of blood fell from her weapon, Roland’s and Wendy’s faces were stretched and bright with anticipation, Susan’s eyes widened as she denied what was about to happen.
It really happened.
Before the jagged metal fell, the screen exploded, and the gunshot boomed throughout the factory. Briggs shouted, and Wendy stirred in the chair but didn’t get up.
I was supposed to do something.
Kill somebody.
Yeah.
She eased out from beneath the conveyor belt, took five silent steps forward as the shot’s echo died away, and swung the plow hard and high. Kleingarten was fixated on Briggs and the shattered monitor, and he was likely deaf from the resonating din. Or else he’d forgotten he was trapped in a mechanical graveyard with a bunch of rampaging monkeys.
Either way, he was vulnerable, and the vulnerable always died first.
The tip of the plow dug deep into the base of his skull, just at the top of his spinal column. He barked an “Urp” and spouted a couple of gushes of blood as he pitched forward.
She hauled the blade out of him and lifted it again, to smash him and smash him “Lex!”
She froze, blinking and trembling. “Mark?”
“You’re Seething, remember?”
Pain. Something I’m supposed to remember about pain…
She looked at the dim outline of the makeshift ax in her hand. A clot of brain and hair clung to its tip.
Then Mark had her, and she struggled to raise the ax-He bit me, the motherfucker! — and then he slapped her hard and she dropped the weapon. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
“Lex! Where’s the other pill?”
“They killed Susan.”
“You killed her, Alexis,” Briggs said. “You haven’t lost your magic touch.”
Mark slapped her again, and she came around, not all the way, but enough to remember where she was. Mark jammed his hand in her pocket and pulled out the pill bottle, flipping the cap away.
She thought she was supposed to do something, but all she could think about was the lurid home movie Briggs had made, and how they’d all staged a murder scene.
What a weird fucking research project. Pretend to kill somebody so Briggs could measure their neurochemical activity.
Mark shoved the pill in her mouth and ordered her to swallow it.
Mark was right about the pain, so maybe he was right about this.
She swallowed, and he held her as she glanced at the cage. Briggs stood behind Wendy, who looked lost in another world, or in some twisted fantasy Briggs might have planted.
On some of the smaller video monitors, shapes moved and flitted.
More people?
“It’s okay, honey,” Mark whispered, holding her close. “It hurts, but it’s okay. It’s up to you now.”
“Turn on the goddamned lights and open the door,” Roland said. “Nobody else move.”
He held Kleingarten’s gun in his fist, and Alexis wished she’d killed him while she had the chance.
CHAPTER FORTY
Roland was sick of these fuckers.
He didn’t know how many bullets the gun held, but he figured there were plenty enough for all.
He remembered everything now. Especially how that bitch Alexis had made him take the pills. Telling him forgetting was a good thing.
No, he’d rather feel alive, even if the truth hurt.
“Do it!” he yelled at Briggs. “I’m not like your other monkeys. I don’t jump every time you slip them the banana.”
“Easy, Roland,” Briggs said, and Roland was pleased the doctor sounded a little scared. The smug bastard’s cool was only an inch deep, about as far as his shriveled little pecker could penetrate.
Roland’s finger tightened around the trigger as Wendy moaned, oblivious to everything. The sight of her sweat-slick skin confused him, and he didn’t like confusion. No, he was a fucking monkey with a hard-on for revenge.
Roland fired, and Briggs’s computer exploded.
“My data!” Briggs yelled.
“Open!” Roland roared as the report echoed off the concrete walls.
“Okay,” Briggs said, unconsciously pulling his shirt closed as if that would offer protection from a bullet. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a key ring, digging a key into the hasp lock.
Roland swiveled the gun at the Morgans, but they were staying put, raking at each other’s wounds, bleeding and crazed in the faint light.
The lock popped free and Briggs swung the door open. “Now the lights,” Roland said.
He felt great, better than he had in years. Seethe was like booze and sex and cocaine rolled into one. Why the fuck was that bitch Alexis trying to keep it from them? Probably wanted it all to herself.
Probably wanted to fuck Briggs, too.
Hell, everybody else was.
Wendy.
“Turn on the lights,” Roland said, not even bothering to raise his voice. As Briggs worked the switches on the security system, Roland entered the creepy cage and knelt beside Wendy’s chair.
“I know what happens when you lose control,” Roland said to the beautiful woman. “Hell, that’s the story of my life.”
Her eyelids fluttered. “Roland?”
“Yeah, babe. We’re getting out of here.”
“Don’t do it, Roland,” Alexis said. “We need Halcyon or we’re going to do terrible things, and remember all of this. And what we did to Susan.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You’re going to lose it. You might Seethe forever.”
“I’ve been Seething since before I was born. This is just how God made me, and that’s goddamned good enough for me.”
The lights began blinking on, stinging Roland’s eyes. All their faces were pale. He picked up Wendy’s clothes and dropped them on her lap.
“Get dressed,” he said.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Make Briggs give us the Halcyon,” Alexis said, standing outside the cage and holding her husband with fierce desperation. “You can go crazy if you want, but we still have to deal with this.”
Roland felt the rage flood him, and he saw Susan’s bruised and blood-spattered body, and then he imagined Alexis with a bright red hole in the middle of her forehead.
But you can’t bury the past. Halcyon just helps you lie to yourself, and I already know how to do that.
But he could tell he was getting angry, so he kicked the base of Wendy’s chair. He grunted in pain. He might have broken his big toe, but it felt good.
That was the trick behind it all. God invented suffering because the world had no meaning without it. And without pain, you had no need for God, because you didn’t need relief. Pain served a higher purpose, maybe the only purpose.
And pain felt kind of good when you got used it.
At least it was always there when you needed it.
“All right, Briggs, give them their monkey juice, before I get tired of playing Mr. Nice Guy,” he said, his jaws tight.
Briggs moved to an old industrial locker beneath his computer and fumbled with the key. He opened it and brought out a plastic bottle about the size of a quart jar.
“That other stuff, too,” Roland said, loving his pain. “The Seethe.”
Briggs brought out a pint of clear liquid in a glass jar.
“That’s all?” Alexis said.
“He’s got to have more,” Mark said. “He promised Burchfield enough Seethe to dose an army.”
“You think this is easy?” Briggs said. “You, better than anybody, Alexis, should know you don’t just cook up this stuff in a bathtub like a meth redneck.” He lifted his hand to indicate the equipment in his office. “Look what I’ve had to work with. And now my data’s destroyed. I’ll have to reconstruct it from memory.”
“I think you’re holding out,” Roland said. “And I don’t give a shit who ends up with it, as long as it isn’t you, and as long as you never put any more of it into Wendy.”