Peter walked just over a dozen blocks to reach the Shattergraves, heading south on State to Jackson and then turning west. Getting closer, he saw the red glow of rats the size of dogs scuttling around in the snow searching for food. Fires built by bums burned in the upper floors of abandoned office buildings. Sometimes he saw warm-red forms looking down at him.
He knew he was almost there when he stumbled over a big hunk of ice-rimed stone. Picking it up, Peter saw it was a jagged piece of black rock larger than his fist. A fragment of the former IBM Tower. Just ahead was a four-square block area of ruined buildings where the IBM subtowers had fallen, crushing other buildings and setting off gas-line explosions that tore up the downtown area.
Continuing down the snowy streets, Peter passed among huge stones, the remains of huge steel girders, and the skeletal walls of destroyed buildings. The monumental debris created a chaotic garden of unmoving shadows that extended far beyond his vision.
It was time to pull out his Predator.
Walking on another hundred meters, he came to two giant stone blocks, each ten meters high, standing on either side of Jackson Street like columns heralding the entrance to some ancient kingdom.
He entered the Shattergraves.
Working his way carefully through the rubble, Peter tried to head due west, thinking it would help him find his way out again. But streets had no meaning within the Shattergraves. Huge slabs blocked his path, and in the darkness the snow-covered concrete melded with the snow-covered asphalt, until everything looked like the ruins of walls.
When he looked back, Peter couldn’t make out which way he’d just come, but his footprints still burned hot in the cold snow. Perhaps if he found Landsgate quickly enough, he could follow his own prints out before the snow filled them. He moved forward slowly, gun in hand, moving it from side to side.
What was that? He halted suddenly, looking sharply to the left.
From behind him came a soft scraping noise. He was just turning to see when the ghoul crashed down on him, knocking Peter to the ground and flooding his nostrils with the stench of rotted flesh. The ghoul gasped for air with loud breaths, its cold, torn hands flailing at Peter’s face.
Peter was so stunned that for a moment he could only take the punches. Between blows, he saw red blurs moving not far away. The words did not form in his mind, but he knew big trouble had arrived.
Pulling his arm back, he snapped a tremendous punch into the chest of the ghoul in front of him. The ghoul immediately popped off Peter and landed in the snow a few steps away.
Peter leaped to his feet, but not before a dozen more ghouls had him surrounded. Some wore torn business suits; others ragged punker outfits. Not a single face was intact. The ghoul in the biker outfit had only one eye; the right half of the face of the woman in the torn evening gown showed muscle. Burns blackened their cool flesh.
They encircled Peter, crouched and ready to pounce if he made a move to escape. Their smiles were taut and maniacal—skulls enjoying a joke.
Peter still held his gun, but knew he couldn’t take them all out at this range. He made a frantic dash for the edge of the circle. His feet slipped on the snow, but he managed to keep his balance and went crashing through the ghouls. Rotted hands on either side of him grabbed at his arms. Their touch made him want to cry out, but he ran on past them into the shadows.
He ran wildly, careening around every corner he encountered. Moments earlier a straight and narrow path had seemed the best course, now nothing made more sense than to throw himself headlong into the maze.
He slipped and fell twice, the stones under the snow scraping his skin, the snow chilling the wounds.
Deeper into the Shattergraves he ran and ran, until he could run no more. Panting wildly, he stopped and leaned against a steel girder to catch his breath.
As his respiration became more normal, Peter also became aware of a soft light shining near him.
He turned his head, too exhausted to snap into action, and saw only a fuzzy oval of white light, about two meters long, floating off the ground just ahead of him.
“Peter?” said the light.
Peter stood up straight. He recognized the voice, but could not place it.
The light floated toward him.
Within the oval Peter saw a long, bright shape that writhed slowly. The oval seemed, in fact, to be a halo emanating from the inner, glowing object.
“You’ve changed,” said the light.
“Thomas?” Peter said, suddenly recognizing the voice.
At the moment he spoke the name, Thomas’ face seemed to take form from out of the spiraling illumination at the center of the oval. Although the source of the light had something serpentine about it, the shape remained indefinite.
Thomas smiled at Peter. His face glowed from within, his expression as boyish and innocent as when Peter had last seen him. The image, frightening at first, settled into something miraculous, even beautiful. “It is you, Peter. How are you?”
“Thomas? What happened to you?”
The head smiled bashfully. “I told you that Snake demands a lot in return for her secrets. Do you remember?”
Peter remembered something about that, talking with Thomas in his bedroom years ago, in his father’s house. “Yes.”
“Well, she wanted a lot from me. I wanted a lot from her. But what has happened to you? The last time I saw you, you did not have the blood of many lives on you.”
Peter felt naked, as if all his secrets and shame were being laid bare before this glowing form.
“I… Things have been hard. Strange.”
“I can well imagine. I can’t think of any reason why someone with your kind nature would resort to murder.”
How much did Thomas know? “What happened to you, Thomas? You left and never came back.”
“I died here, Peter. I died the day I left you. I was trying to help those I could, and as I worked, I kept wondering what could make people do such a terrible thing. How could any person or group of people take it upon themselves to kill so many innocents, to cause so much grief for their survivors?”
Though Peter did not think Thomas’ words referred to him, they worked their way into his chest. They lodged there and made him uncomfortable.
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was what I wanted to heal. I wanted to find the disease of hatred and cure it. As I pulled the dying from the rubble, curing those I could and easing the deaths of those I could not, I thought. ‘But first I must understand the disease.’ The hours passed and I found myself drawing more and more upon Snake to keep up my strength. Eventually I became so weary I didn’t notice when a huge wall near me gave way. I have been here ever since.” Thomas looked left, then right, then in a low whisper said, “I can’t really say coming here was the wisest decision I ever made.” And he laughed.
“So you’re a ghost?”
“Yes. Mostly. But, being me, it’s hard to fully grasp the implications of what I am. That’s annoying, let me tell you. You think that when you die things will become clearer. I changed into this,” he said and looked down at the coiling body of light, “and now all I know about myself is that I’m… this.”
“Did you learn what you wanted to learn?”
A dark sadness passed over the face of Thomas. “More than I would have wanted to. The ghouls of the Shattergraves have given me…ample behavior for study.”
“It’s a ghoul I’m looking for.”
Thomas looked weary. “Why, Peter?”
“He was a friend of mine. I need to find him. He might be able to help me with what I want.”
“To become human?”
“Yes.”
Thomas closed his eyes and said, “Don’t go to the ghouls, Peter. Leave this quest behind and go back to the living.”
Peter hesitated, mainly because he didn’t want to upset Thomas. “Can you help me?” he asked finally. “Do you know where Dr. Landsgate is?”
“Peter, I don’t want to help you do this…”
“Please, Thomas.”
“If you want to find him so bad, then you will find him without my help. You need only wait here a few moments longer, and I promise you will come face to face with Dr. Landsgate.” Peter didn’t like the tone of Thomas’ voice. It carried a portent of doom and a weary sadness. But before Peter could examine the issue further, Thomas continued. “Peter, do you remember when we spoke many, many years ago… There was a girl…”
“Denise,” Peter said, remembering the day he realized he’d never called her back.
“Do you recall I wanted to tell you something, that day when you remembered?”
“But I was angry. And I cut you off.”
Thomas seemed relieved, and the dark mood left him. “Good. You can see that. Good. Peter, there was something I wanted to tell you. There are two kinds of women. The kind that will go out with a troll, and the kind that won’t.”
Peter thought about that. “I guess. But my problems are way past that now.”
“Yes. And what about now?”
“I want to be human.”
“Do you see any connection between the two issues?”
“Why do you talk this way? Why don’t you tell me what you want to say?”
“Life’s like that, Peter. Some things you must simply live through.”
Peter only had time to hear the words, and then whirled as the ghouls came up behind him. They threw heavy rocks into his chest and smashed them against his head. He tried to get out of the way, but there were too many of them, and they attacked from too many places. They threw rocks from the ground ahead of him. They dropped them from concrete pillars towering high overhead.
As the blows overwhelmed him, Peter looked back to call for help from Thomas, but when he turned, all he saw was Thomas shaking his head sadly.
“Good luck,” Thomas said, but Peter was already falling into a deep blackness.
It took him time to open his eyes, and a while longer to realize he was hanging upside down. When he moved, he swayed back and forth.
Holding Peter by the ankles were heavy chains looped down from an I-beam that straddled the roofless remains of a basement. Chains bound his hands behind his back. Dried blood caked his face.
The snow had stopped, the clouds had cleared, and soft blue moonlight lit the roofless basement. Scraps of metal covered the ground. Around the basement, ghouls gathered in groups of three or five. They sat on the floor, hunched over, feasting on corpses. His stomach clenching at the sight, Peter turned his gaze away. He searched around for something safer—something that might provide a means of escape, something to fend off his feeling of helplessness.
Eventually he recognized Landsgate sitting several meters away, the ghoul ensconced in a large throne made of welded metal and bones. Garbage cans roaring with fire stood on either side of the throne, the flames turning his decayed features into those of the devil himself.
Landsgate seemed lost in thought, but when he noticed that Peter was awake, he smiled, stood up, and walked over.
The feasting ghouls looked up, but when they saw that Landsgate was going to deal with the troll, they returned to their feasting. The troll was alive, and thus not very interesting.
Landsgate stepped up to Peter, and they met eye to eye. But Peter turned his face away from the ghoul, repelled by the rank smell that clung to his rotting form.
“Hello,” said Landsgate, his voice thick with malice. “People usually get tossed in here by former loved ones. What are you doing here under your own juice? Are you a bounty hunter?”
Peter didn’t know exactly how to begin. He had expected their reunion to be a bit more heartfelt.
He thought it best to get the improbable out in the open. “Dr. Landsgate. I’m Peter Clarris.”
Landsgate looked puzzled for a moment, then he exclaimed, “Good Lord!” A smile bloomed on the ghoul’s face. Deep cracks lined his lips. “I…I don’t know what to say. I really don’t. How have you been?”
The ghoul’s callous humor stunned Peter. “Better,” he said dryly.
“I haven’t seen your father…in years. How is he?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for years either.”
Landsgate leaned in and mocked concern. “Trouble at home?” he said and laughed. “Still shuffling hopelessly after your father’s love?”
Peter decided to change the subject. “I came here because I need to know who has a lead on nanotechnology.”
Landsgate suddenly looked kinder. “And you came to me.”
“Yes.”
He put his hand on Peter’s cheek. The other man’s flesh festered from countless cuts, but Peter held back his disgust. “You came to me like you always used to come to me.”
“Yes.”
Landsgate pulled his hand back and slapped Peter’s face. “Why should I help you, you idiot?”
Despite himself, Peter felt betrayed. “I’m looking for him. I need your help.”
“Listen, why don’t you stay for dinner before you take off on your quest?”
“Dr. Landsgate…I’m…I think someone is working on a way to rebuild DNA sequences in living organisms.”
“What?”
“I think someone is combining magic and nanotechnology to make…to rewrite a cell, all the cells of a body. I could be pure human again. So could you.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“No. I suppose not. I’m a ghoul. The word ‘impossible’ has lost its weight in the past few decades.”
“I don’t understand the magic part….I really don’t know if it can be done, but I think somebody is trying to do it. And if they are, they need nanotech. It’s the only way to get to all the cells. The magic couldn’t handle all the work. No corp would ever put the money into it.”
“A corporation is working on this?”
“I…think so. Yes.”
“Most of the genetic-manipulation work dried up after the fiasco in London.”
“They’re being very quiet about it.”
“What do you want from me?”
“If someone is doing the work, they need the nanotech. I need a lead on anyone who might have prototypes to hand out.”
“What makes you think anyone has nanotech ready? That whole line of research went down years ago.”
Peter did not respond.
“All right. Some people, mostly Germans and Japanese, have been after it. But they’re keeping a tight lid on it. So many bodies ruined by research just in the twenties and thirties…” Landsgate smiled up at Peter. “And even today. Do you know how many people from the Elevated pay to have deformed relatives brought to the Shattergraves? It’s all very nasty stuff.”
He turned from Peter and walked a few steps. “God, what I would give to be human again.”
“I’ve been working on it. Ten years now I’ve been trying to figure out a way. And I think I’ve got it.”
“I haven’t seen my children in two years.”
Peter said nothing.
“You know, being a…ghoul… At first. It didn’t seem as if it was something that had to drive me from my family and my profession. I was hospitalized, of course. Everyone knew I was transforming. And almost everyone stuck it out with me. There were the wishes. They…my wife…others…didn’t say them out loud. But in those times when I regained consciousness during the…wishes hung in the air. ‘If he must change, let him become something I can love.’ But my eyes became painfully sensitive to sunlight. And the craving for meat. There was this thing inside my body, a new desire, and it said, ‘Human flesh is what you want to eat.’ It’s a craving, Peter, a desire just like some people have a sweet tooth. I want the flesh of someone who was sentient. I knew what was happening before anyone else did, and I got out. There’s a price on my head, you know. Just because of my genes. Just because of what I am.
“Oh, I know. I’m making it sound light. Comparing cannibalism to a taste for sweets. But I swear, that’s what it feels like. It’s what my body wants. I crave it. It seems immoral to you, but to me, it’s just what I need to feel content.”
Landsgate leaned closer, his noxious breath spilling over Peter’s face. “Why must I be the way I am, Peter?”
Peter turned away slightly, but spoke firmly. “Genetics. Some of us have ‘magic’ genes, genes passed on through the centuries, but active only now. My genes were for those of a troll. Yours were for a ghoul.”
“So, this condition is natural?”
Peter stopped for a moment, confused. “I…”
Landsgate leaned in again, his voice soft, as if he did not want the other ghouls to hear. “I am not an aberration. The universe dictated that there should be ghouls, and I am one. The fact that I am a ghoul is not even a condition layered onto me. It is me.”
“Yes. That’s one way to look at it.”
The ghoul’s eyes filled with tears. “How else can I look at it? I don’t kill, Peter. I eat those who have died. Society says that’s evil, and they shun me for it. But it is what I am. So now I kill to survive. Do I have a choice? I love surviving, Peter. You’re a survivor, aren’t you? You know what I mean. Here we are, thrown by the universe outside the normal bounds—and we’re still alive. We’re extraordinary.
“I am the way I am. If you were to succeed in finding a means to take my magic genes out of my body, I’d really be dead. You’d be killing the way the universe built my body. Countless generations of humanity carried these genes safely through the centuries and deposited them in me upon my conception. That’s a hell of a responsibility to take upon yourself, Peter. To give people the decision to alter all that history, to erase it, with a decision made within a single lifetime.”
“It’s my life. I’ll do as I please.”
“I doubt it.” Landsgate turned away, walking back to his throne, his head bent down. Speaking loudly, but to no one in particular, he said, “Take the troll. He is yours.”