19

Back in Anotine’s bedroom, I had only to tell her my idea of using the technology of the metallic chair as some sort of weapon, and she immediately came up with a way it might be put to use.

“The seat and back are the only pieces that carry the charge,” she told me. “We remove the arms and legs, and then lay the effective parts in the entrance, so that when the Delicate tries to come in we can use the black box from a distance to disable him. Once he is weakened, we can finish the job with one of the cruder weapons that Nunnly comes up with.”

“Perhaps we should then fire the signal gun at him,” I said.

She shook her head. “From what you said before, the signal gun should be held for emergencies. If you destroy his face with it like you did the Fetch’s, we may not be able to use him to gain access to the Panopticon.”

“You’re right,” I said, impressed with the speed and clarity of her thought. I could see now that she had shrugged off her fear and was attacking the situation as if it were a research problem.

I followed her down the hall to the laboratory, and stood back as she moved quickly from table to table collecting an armful of implements. The way she launched into the project of cannibalizing the chair showed me why my conjecture as to her being the leader of the group was correct. Although Nunnly was the engineer, Anotine herself was a wizard with tools. She was altogether focused and graceful in her work, and when she needed my assistance, gave orders with an authoritative voice that told me I had better pay attention.

As we set the makeshift trap up in the entrance to her bedroom, I asked her how the black box was able to affect the chair parts from a distance.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said, kneeling to check our placement of the device. “The apparatus was here when I arrived long ago. I can tell you, my discovery of how it worked was rather interesting. I had always thought that the chair, being made of a metallic alloy, must have some importance beyond being another piece of furniture, but I just couldn’t find the key to its significance. One day, after long hours of research on trying to study the instant between a candlewick’s being lit and my extinguishing of it, I sat down in the chair. Back in those days, I believed my stay on the island would have a limit, and I wanted to make the most of it. Instead of simply resting, I thought it would be a good time to take another look at a certain black box with buttons I had also found here in the lab.”

I laughed. “Happy accident,” I said.

“A shocking discovery,” she said. “I think it proves something that Brisden always says: with enough time and the right degree of curiosity, all secrets will be revealed.”

“Maybe,” I said, thinking of my own problems in locating the antidote.

“The time has come for another discovery, Cley,” she said, standing up from where she had been adjusting the sections of the chair. From the manner in which she dipped her head and arched her eyebrows, I realized she wasn’t speaking hypothetically.

“What would that be?” I asked.

She paused for a moment before speaking. “It came to me before by the fountain of the pelican. You said you believed in me. Why would you have to say that? None of this is real, is it? Nunnly, Brisden, the doctor, myself, we’re all merely the afterthoughts of some other greater place, aren’t we?”

I walked over and took her hand. “Listen,” I said. “I’m from another place, and there is no one there who doesn’t wonder the same thing. We may have the curiosity, but there will never be enough time to answer that question. Live your life, Anotine. Be real for me, and I’ll be real for you.”

Her look softened, and then she smiled. “Agreed,” she said, and shook my hand.

I was going to put my arms around her, but Brisden came in then, overheated and babbling at an alarming rate. He walked directly between the two of us, pushing apart our hands, and took up a seat at the table near the back of the room. I had never witnessed the weighty philosopher practice his verbal profluence. The words came in torrents, strung together by a frayed ribbon of exotic grammar.

“… and the ineluctable presence of the not-there is evident in a materially vanquished nuance of equal parts matter without regard to structure and spiritual gravity in the falling off of the centeredness beyond the point of diminishing …”

“Brisden,” Anotine said.

He continued to spew.

She stepped over to him and smacked him across his meaty face. His head turned with the blow, and perspiration flew off. He went silent, and his lips turned down at the corners. It seemed as if he suddenly came awake, looking up at us with a dazed expression.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Tell us so we can understand,” said Anotine.

“Pass out the wings,” he said.

“The disintegration has increased yet more?” she asked.

“I almost went over the side,” he said, smiling. “I was standing about midway through the wood, and the edge was now there. It moved so rapidly, I was amazed and could not help but gape. Before I knew it, I looked down and saw the ground beneath my feet disappearing. I just managed to dig my heels in and throw myself back onto my rear end at the last possible second. Nunnly would have been beside himself had he seen me scrabbling to my feet and running—I actually ran.”

“Well?” said Anotine.

“It’s going to keep increasing in speed. I’d say we have two days at the most, taking everything into consideration.”

“Hardly enough time for me to perfect my swan dive,” said a voice from behind us.

I turned around to find the engineer standing at the entrance upon the back of the broken-down chair, holding three five-foot-long pointed shafts made of polished steel.

“How about these, Cley?” he asked, and came forward to hand me one.

“Not bad,” I said.

“They’re partially hollow inside, making them light enough to handle, but I ground down the ends to a wicked sharpness.”

“I’ll take one,” said Anotine, and he handed one over.

“Bris?” asked Nunnly.

Brisden waved his hand, begging off. “Maybe later,” he said.

“You should practice jabbing with them,” said Nunnly. “It would be a good idea to get used to the feel of them. They might also be thrown a short distance.”

“Your technological prowess astounds me,” said Brisden. “I think it’s called a spear.”

“There’s no substitute for simple elegance,” said the engineer.

It was an absurd scene, the three of us moving around Anotine’s bedroom, jabbing at the air with the silver javelins. Nunnly stood in front of Brisden and poked his an inch away from his friend’s vital areas. At one point, Anotine’s slipped out of her hand and sailed across the room to skewer the pillow to her bed.

“I wasn’t aware the plan had changed to group suicide,” said Brisden.

“Wait a second,” said Anotine, as she retrieved the spear. “Where is the doctor? He was only going to get the last shell for the signal gun.”

“Did you see him?” I asked Nunnly.

“I walked him as far as his rooms and then went back to my place to get to work.”

We took the spears and the empty signal gun and set out in search of the doctor.

“He’s probably poring over his notes, still looking for the ultimate interpretation of everything,” said Nunnly, but his words did little to ease the obvious tension.

Outside, along the passageways and across the terraces of the village, the pervasive sound of the disintegration of the island could be heard, like an infinite number of bootheels treading upon an endless supply of hard-shelled beetles. I pictured the mile-long fall and could almost taste a burning mouthful of liquid mercury. That fear I had experienced on the fields of Harakun during my approach to the ruins of the city was now back with a vengeance, weakening my legs and leaving my mouth dry as dust. At one point I had to stop and take a drink from one of the fountains.

“To hell with the water,” said Brisden, as they waited for me to compose myself. “I hope no one minds if after we return to Anotine’s, I stay at least moderately drunk for the rest of this fiasco.” He lifted the empty signal gun as if it were a bottle and pantomimed a healthy draught.

“Come on, Cley,” said Anotine, “be real for me.”

I looked back at her, and she appeared focused and determined.

“I’m with you,” I said, and, after a few deep breaths, managed to carry on.

Nunnly led the way, the spear in his right hand, and suddenly materializing Hundred-To-Ones in the left. He chain-smoked through alleys and corridors, and at one point had to lean against a wall for a second to catch his breath. “Right now, I’m thinking about what fear would be like if it were a machine,” he said.

Brisden stepped up and put his arm around him, helping him back on course.

When we reached the doctor’s rooms at the bottom of a long flight of steps, Anotine called out his name. There was no reply.

“How are we going to do this?” asked Nunnly, but Anotine had already taken the initiative and passed through the entrance, holding the spear out in front of her with both hands.

The rest of us followed reluctantly, not wanting to be left alone on the terrace. Inside, the candles had not been lit and the room we entered was cast in the subtle shadows of late afternoon. Whereas Nunnly’s place had been lined with the schematics of his imaginary machines, the doctor’s walls were taken up by bookshelves crammed with hundreds of volumes. There were also stacks of books at different heights sitting here and there like a mountain range of pages and words. The passes that led between them were sometimes too narrow to fit through, and we would have to backtrack in order to find a way through the maze. Down the hallway, which ran off to the left, we found another of the dark closets like Anotine had at her place, and beyond that a larger area he obviously used as his living quarters.

We stood there in the middle of the bedroom, looking at each other. In one corner was a four-poster bed, and at the other end of the place, beneath a large window opening, sat a desk facing into the middle of the room. On the desk, I could see what remained of his sample of ocean, glowing in its lidded glass jar, and an open notebook lying next to it.

“Perhaps he took another route to Anotine’s while we were coming to get him,” said Brisden.

“The doctor has a tendency to let his mind wander,” said Nunnly, “and while it does, his body does the same. I just hope he hasn’t walked off the edge of the island, daydreaming.”

“Let’s get back, before we miss him again,” said Anotine.

“Perhaps we should check his notebook and see what he was working on before he left. It might give us an idea as to where he has gone if he wasn’t heading for your rooms,” I said.

“Allow me,” said Brisden, and he stepped behind the desk to read the open pages.

“I can see we’re going to have to keep Doctor Hellman on a leash until this is all over,” said Nunnly.

“Oh my,” Brisden said in a weak voice. “I think I’ve located him.”

We turned to him, and Anotine asked what was in the notebook.

“Not … the notebook … the chair.” Gagging as he tried to speak, Brisden doubled over with his hands grasping at his chest.

As he moved away to sit on the bed, we took his position behind the desk. Lying on the seat of the chair, like some discarded heap of pink leather, was a wrinkled pile of flesh, resting upon the doctor’s empty clothes. There were two dark eye sockets and an opening where his mouth had been. Perhaps the most gruesome detail of all was the indistinguishable area that still held his beard.

Anotine and Nunnly stepped away, both of them in shock. I meant to follow, but as I turned, I noticed something was scrawled on one page of the notebook. The writing was nearly illegible and moved in a downward slant across the page. I leaned over and made out the message: Shell in pocket.

It was necessary to step away for a few minutes before I could work up enough courage to disturb the pitiful remains. Brisden was lying back on the bed, whispering to himself at lightning speed. Anotine and Nunnly both had found places against the wall, where they had leaned back and sunk down to cover their faces with their hands. Their crying and Brisden’s babble was enough to make me insane. In addition, I played out in my mind the scenario of the doctor’s last minute. As his insides were drawn out of him, bones splintering and brain becoming oatmeal, he had the courage to lift his pen and try to help us.

I shook my head, then returned to the chair to retrieve the shell. When I pulled on a trouser leg to expose the pocket from beneath the heap of flesh, the mess came with it and spilled onto the floor. The sound of it hitting made me dizzy. I wasted no time in fishing in the pocket and bringing out the canister. Once I had it in my hand, I backed away from the desk and shouted to the others in a voice cracking with fear. “Now, let’s go!”

I went around the room and, using my foot, nudged everyone sharply and ordered them to move. Anotine was the first to come around, and she helped me rouse Brisden and Nunnly. Before we could leave, Brisden insisted that he take the glass jar of ocean as something to stand as a symbolic presence we would now find difficult continuing without. Once he had it in his hands, we dashed down the hallway and out into the village. Anotine led us through the passageways, and I was last, using my spear to prod Brisden in the rear end when he tried to slow down. Our flight was a nightmare, and at every turn I expected to see the gaping maw of the Delicate. Though I had only been told about it, it was now more real to me than anything I could remember.