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When he woke up, he was still strapped down to a bed. He
was alone in a small room, something very like a cell. He
struggled against the straps, but they were firm.
He slept, he woke, he slept again. Occasionally a nurse
would come in and change the bag of fluids hanging beside
him. His head throbbed. Once when the nurse came, she
took out a small pocket mirror and held it so he could see
himself.
His head was wrapped in bandages. He hardly
recognized his own face.
“There, see,” said the nurse, and gestured to the top of
his head. “That’s where you had your accident.”
“Accident?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Where you slipped and fell.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” he said.
She smiled. “After head trauma, sometimes things can
get confused,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I know exactly what happened.”
Her smile looked painted on, fake. “I’m not supposed to
talk to you,” she said. “Those are the rules.” She backed
slowly out the door.
A few minutes later, the door opened and a man with a
hypodermic entered.
When he woke up again, he was in a different place, a
place that didn’t just look like a cell, but was one. The
bandages were no longer on his head, though a lump and a
healing wound were still there. They had unstrapped him,
had left him lying on the floor. He got unsteadily to his feet,
his muscles weak from disuse.
The room was white, without mark or other design. There
was one door, small, in the middle of one wall. High above
him and out of reach was a vid recorder. A small toilet in
the corner, a food dispenser just beside it.
He went to the door and pounded on it. “Hello!” he called.
“Hello!” Then he pressed his ear to the door. He heard
nothing.
He waited, tried again. Nothing happened. And then
again. Still nothing.
Hours went by, then days. The only noise that did not
come from himself was the clunk when food came down the
slot. There was no way for him to control when it came, no
button to push. Suddenly there was a clunk and the food
was there. He saved the containers and they slowly filled
one side of the room.
He felt like he was the last man on earth. He felt like he
was going mad.
He withdrew deeper and deeper into himself, paid less
and less attention to the outside world.
Then the dead started to return, one by one, to keep him
company. All the people whose deaths he felt responsible
for, sitting around him, judging him. There was Ada and
Field, Hendricks and Hammond, and others he couldn’t
recognize. It was just him, and his guilt, and the dead.
And then he awoke to find that he was no longer in that
room, that instead he was sitting in a chair at a large table.
His hands were cuffed to the arms of the chair. Across from
him, on the other side of the table, were Markoff and
Stevens.
“Hello, Altman,” said Markoff.
He didn’t answer at first. It was strange to be in a room
with living people, almost unbearable. He couldn’t believe it
was really happening.
“Altman,” said Stevens. He snapped his fingers. “Here,
Altman. Focus.”
“You’re not here,” said Altman. “I’m hallucinating you.”
“No,” said Stevens. “We’re here. Even if we’re not, what
will it hurt you to talk to us?”
He’s right, said Altman. What will it hurt? And then he
remembered Hennessy, dead from listening to a
hallucination; Hendricks, dead from listening to a
hallucination; Ada, dead from listening to a hallucination.
On and on and on. His eyes filled with tears.
“What’s wrong with him?” Markoff asked.
“We broke him,” said Stevens. “I told you it was too long.
We’re real, Altman. What do we have to do to prove that
we’re real?”
“You can’t prove it,” said Altman.
“Do something, Stevens,” said Markoff. “He’s not any fun
like this.”
Stevens darted forward, slapped him hard, then again.
Altman reached up and touched his cheek.
“Did you feel that?” asked Stevens, his voice gently
mocking.
Had he felt it or had he only imagined feeling it? He didn’t
know. But he had to make a choice: either speak to them or
ignore them.
He hesitated for so long that Stevens, or the Stevens
hallucination, slapped him again. “Well?” he said.
“Yes,” said Altman. “Maybe you’re real.”
And as he said it, it was almost as if they became more
real. But if he had insisted they were hallucinations, would
the reverse have happened? Would they have merely faded
away?
“That’s better,” said Markoff, his eyes starting to gleam.
“Where’s Krax?” he asked.
Markoff waved the question away. “Krax made the
mistake of becoming expendable. What we’re here to talk
about, Altman, is you.”
“What about me?”
“We had to figure out what to do with you,” said Stevens.
“You’ve caused a lot of trouble.”
“That stunt you pulled in Washington,” said Markoff. “That
was in very bad taste. I wanted to kill you for that.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Markoff glanced briefly at Stevens. “Cooler heads
prevailed,” he said. “As it turned out, they were wrong.”
“I’m the first to admit it,” said Stevens.
“You were no better once you came back,” said Markoff.
“You meddled with experiments, caused a tremendous
amount of property damage, did everything you could to get
in the way. Once the setback occurred on the floating
compound, I thought, Well, they’ll tear him apart and
transform him into one of them, and I’ll be at home with
my popcorn and candy, watching it on the screen. But that
didn’t work either. Instead you sank a billion-dollar research
facility.”
“We almost had you killed when we picked you and
Harmon up from the boat, but Markoff wanted your death to
be the perfect thing,” said Stevens.
“Yes,” said Markoff, “the perfect thing.”
“You’re both crazy,” said Altman.
“You’ve used that one before,” said Markoff. “You need to
come up with a better insult.”
“Would you like to hear our plans?”
“No,” said Altman. “Send me back to my cell.”
Stevens ignored him. “Once we have the secret of the
Marker worked out, once we have the new Marker
replicated, we’ll share it with the public. Until then, we’ll give
them little tastes, something to prepare them for what’s
coming.”
“That’s where you come in,” said Markoff.
Stevens nodded. “Seen in that light, you have played
right into our hands. It’s not enough for just us to believe.
Since it’s a matter of the salvation of the human species,
we need to spread the belief. What better way to do that
than to start a formal religion? That way, when the right time
comes, they’ll be ready.”
“Not everybody has to know the full extent of what’s really
going on,” said Markoff. “Indeed, it’s better if only a few of
us really know the details, only a select inner circle. It’s
always better to maintain a little mystery, initiate people
slowly, gradually. Keep the power in the right hands.”
Altman found his hands were shaking. “But I got the word
out,” he said. “I went public. People will know.”
“Yes, you did,” said Stevens. “Thank you for doing that.
The word you got out was that the government is hiding
something that the people should know about. Think about
it. We’ve looked back over all the footage, all the interviews
you did. You were conflicted enough about whether the
Marker was something to be feared or something to be
studied, and so you remained vague. We can spin your
comments any way we want. By the time we’re through with
you, not only will your little stunt not hurt us: you’ll be
considered a saint. You got the word out first, Altman—
you’re the one who started it all. Everyone will believe that
you were the one who founded the religion.”
“I’ll never go along with it,” said Altman, dread rising in
him.
Markoff laughed. “We never said we needed you to go
along with it,” he said.
“Like any prophet, you’re more useful to us dead than
alive,” said Stevens. “Once you’re dead, we can let the truth
—our truth—build up around you and you can’t do anything
about it. You’ll be larger than life. We’ll write histories of
you, holy books. We’ll erase what we don’t like about you
and make you fit what we want. Your name will be forever
associated with the Church of Unitology. You’ll come to be
known as our founder.”
“Which will allow the rest of us to stay in the background
and get things done,” said Markoff. “I must admit I find it
very satisfying to think of your name leading the movement
that you tried so hard to destroy. It almost makes all the
trouble you caused feel worthwhile.”
“You’ll never get away with this,” said Altman.
Markoff smiled, showing the tips of his teeth.
“You can’t honestly believe that,” Stevens said. “Of
course we’ll get away with it.”
“You have officially become expendable,” said Markoff.
“We’ve decided to donate your body to science. We have a
particularly vicious death planned for you.”
“You’ll find this interesting,” said Stevens. “Using a
variant of the genetic material that Guthe produced, we’ve
developed a specimen that we’d be interested in having
you meet. It was made by combining the tissue of three
human corpses with the DNA. We’ve named it after one of
the corpses. We’re calling it the Krax. The results, as I’m
sure you’ll be likely to agree, are rather surprising.”
Altman tried to lunge across the desk but succeeded only
in turning over his chair. He lay there with his face pressed
against the floor.
After a moment, Markoff and Stevens got up from their
chairs and heaved him back upright.
“Krax, by the way, was lying to you when he said he didn’t
kill your girlfriend,” said Markoff. “What was her name
again? Doesn’t matter, I suppose. He did kill her. A
generally inconsistent character. Which is why he became
expendable.”
Altman didn’t answer.
“So there’s your motivation,” said Stevens. “Revenge. Kill
the Krax, and Ada’s death will be avenged. Should make
for a good show.” He smiled. “It seems fitting, doesn’t it?
An appropriate way for you to meet your end? Who could
ask for anything more?”
“You may think we’re going to throw you in there
defenseless,” said Markoff. “If you think that, you’re wrong.
We have a weapon for you.” He reached into his pocket
and pulled out a spoon, forced it into Altman’s closed fist.
“Here you go,” he said. “Good luck.”
And then, without another word, the pair stood and left
the room.
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