<meta content="urn:uuid:407330d4-3346-49e7-8458-fc2a002f44ec" name="Adept.expected.resource"/> </head> <body> <p class="p17"><span class="t25">Daniel James</span></p> <h1 class="h10"><a id="ncx2768"/>Chapter Twenty-Four</h1> <p class="p5"><a id="a554"/><span class="t12">These fragments I have shored against my ruins</span><span class="t13"><a href="#footpara_530" id="footcite_530">530</a></span></p> <p class="p10">The pale blue light of the television screen washed over me as I cradled the gun in my hands. The world’s media was already camped outside the hotel where the press conference was going to be held, tomorrow. Fans and followers had been queuing for the last two days, desperate for their chance to see Maas make his return, with placards bearing slogans like ‘Maas Lives’ and ‘Second Coming’. I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself reflected in the mirror. When the time came, could I do what needed to be done? The truth was, I didn’t have a choice.</p> <p class="p11">It ended like it began. I was in the back of a car, gliding through the streets, the city a blur of faceless people, labyrinthine streets, and schizophrenic signs. This time I was alone. No Elizabeth. No Sam. I had always been alone. I realised that now. And, this time, I had a gun in my jacket. The passenger door opened, and I stepped out into a cloudburst of flashing lights. I couldn’t feel my legs, but I was moving, drifting along on rails, a passenger inside my own body, weightlessly climbing up marbled steps. The doorman, dressed in red and gold, held open the glittering door for me. There were people on my periphery, following me, and up ahead there were crowds gathering, smiling, clapping, and waving. News reporters and photographers jostled for position, as cameras clicked, and pens moved, on all sides. A circle formed around me. They pushed the crowds back and parted the bodies, creating a path along the burnished wood corridor, past ornate furnishings and beneath a shimmering chandelier, leading to a set of double doors.</p> <p class="p11">Inside, there was an audience of hundreds. I reached inside my jacket for the gun, not to take it out, but to reassure myself it was still there. There would be hundreds of witnesses, but it didn’t matter. I was prepared to do whatever it took to stop Maas. The doors opened on cue, and the audience got to their feet. They began to applaud and cheer; shouting and pointing, their blank faces, vacant smiles, all focused on me as I was led to the top table, where everyone seemed to be waiting. Helena and Ophelia sat together, side by side, alongside an entourage of friends and trusted colleagues. One big happy family. I didn’t understand why they were welcoming me, but I was too focused on my mission to question it. There were three huge screens above us, ready to flicker into life and unveil Maas’s final work, cameras in the aisles, poised to transmit his vision to millions worldwide, microphones clustered together like a technological coral reef, to pick up his words and spread his message; his final artwork…</p> <p class="p11">A creation with the power to rewrite consciousness, to change the world…</p> <p class="p11">This was the day Maas had been working towards for decades. The only thing missing was the man himself. My eyes scanned the aisles, the crowd, everywhere, my skin slick with sweat and every muscle in my body tense, ready to react. I looked at the centre of the table, but there was only an empty seat. A sea of smiles looked back at me and that was when I saw it. Behind the smiles frozen into place there was a wild fear in their eyes, as if they were locked inside their bodies; terrified puppets, clapping uncontrollably. Had it already happened? Did I arrive too late to stop him? Had the bomb gone off?</p> <p class="p11">I felt anger rise up inside me. Was I the only one who could see what was happening here? I pulled the gun out from my jacket and waved it at them, but this just caused the applause to grow louder, waves of sound echoing around the room.</p> <p class="p11">‘Where is he? Where are you?’ I screamed.</p> <p class="p11">One of the men sitting at the top table stood up, smiling, and pointed a microphone in my direction.</p> <p class="p11">‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the man said, still smiling broadly. ‘I give you…Ezra Maas!’</p> <p class="p11">He was pointing at me.</p> <p class="p11">‘No!’ I shouted. ‘He’s controlling you all. Don’t you see?’</p> <p class="p11">My voice was drowned out by their cheers.</p> <p class="p11">‘What do you think is happening here? Who do you think I am?’</p> <p class="p11">I pointed the gun at the crowd again, at the guests on the top table, but all anyone did was smile.</p> <p class="p11">‘This is not a game. This is not art.’</p> <p class="p11">The huge TV screens behind me began to turn on one by one. It was time. There was an image of a long dark corridor with a light at the end. The camera moved forward towards the light, which gradually took the shape of a doorway. Inside there was a mirrored room, and a dark blur that coalesced into a man, standing with a gun to his head. It was me. In that moment, I realised I was no longer in the conference hall. I was inside the image, inside the room, inside the head of the man. The muzzle was cold against my skin, I could feel it, but I couldn’t move.</p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘Pull the trigger,’ a voice said.</span></p> <p class="p11">‘Who said that?’</p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘Do it now and it will all be over.’</span></p> <p class="p11">I tried to lower the gun, but I was paralysed. My finger began to apply pressure to the trigger.</p> <p class="p11">‘No…’</p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘Your story has reached its end,’ the voice said.</span></p> <p class="p11">‘Who are you?’</p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘You know who I am. You have always known.’</span></p> <p class="p11">‘You’re not Maas.’</p> <p class="p11"><a id="a555"/><span class="t28">‘He is a rebel. I am the voice you have heard your whole life.</span><span class="t14"><a href="#footpara_531" id="footcite_531">531</a></span><span class="t28"> You have lived between fact and fiction, always wondering what was real and what was not, always wondering if your thoughts, your actions, were truly your own, always questioning the world, yourself, everything. Now you know the truth.’</span></p> <p class="p11">‘No…this is just another game. You’re not God…you’re not the author of me, you’re not Maas and you’re not me…’</p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘I was there with you in the beginning when you took the job to write the book, when you travelled across Europe, when you fell in and out of love, when you met the writer in New York, and discovered the house in LA. I was there with you when you returned to London and caused your friend’s death, when you came home to Newcastle and found the actor, when you met the widow and fell into the hands of the cult. I warned you of danger in ways you could not understand and helped you when I could; I kept you out of Maas’s reach, all to get you here, to the end, but I’m afraid to say, this is the last page.’</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘This book never belonged to you. I needed you to write it, to help finish it, but it was my story all along.</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘You were just a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p11"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p12"><span class="t28">‘…of a reflection…</span></p> <p class="p0"><span class="t1"><img alt="img3.png" height="552" src="images/img3.png" width="261"/></span></p> <p class="p0"><span class="t1"><img alt="img4.png" height="552" src="images/img4.png" width="261"/></span></p> <p class="p13"><span class="t16">Notes</span></p> <p class="p14"><span class="t17"><a href="#footcite_530" id="footpara_530">530.</a> Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land.</span></p> <p class="p14"><span class="t17"><a href="#footcite_531" id="footpara_531">531.</a> Albert Einstein said: “Henry Ford may call it his Inner Voice, Socrates referred to it as his daemon: each man explains in his own way the fact that the human will is not free…Everything is determined…by forces over which we have no control…for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious time, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.”</span></p> </body> </html>