35

“What the hell was that?” asked Dr. Dexter. Her eyes were wide and she looked terrified.

“So you finally felt it?” Briden asked. His head throbbed and he could barely stand. “It has to yell to you before you’ll hear it. I’ve been hearing it all along.”

“It’s not a person, Briden,” she said. “It’s dangerous. Maybe there’s something wrong with it. We need to shutter the project before it kills us.”

“Shutter it? Are you mad? We’re just starting to get somewhere.”

“Where we’re getting is that,” said Callie, gesturing to Istvan who was lying on the ground beside the Marker, shivering, his eyes rolled back into his head. “It’s knocked him senseless.”

“No, he’ll be okay,” said Briden. He approached him, checked his pulse. “Just some kind of fit,” he said, standing back up. “He’ll snap out of it.”

“Briden, the Marker is not a good thing. It means us harm,” said Callie.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “This is the key to our salvation.”

Callie shook her head, laughing bitterly. “You’re so obsessed, you can’t see what’s right in front of you,” she said. “You want this to be a religious experience. It doesn’t matter to you what evidence there is to the contrary or what it actually is. Evidence be damned, you’ve already decided what it is.”

Briden just shook his own head and turned away. He knelt beside Istvan and began to slap his face lightly, watching his eyes. After a moment Istvan’s eyelids fluttered and his pupils fell back into place and his jaw unclenched. “There,” said Briden. “There.” He turned and looked up at Callie. “You see? He’s just fine.”

“Fine, is he? Briden, we have to shutter the project. You need to let the commander know right away.”

Istvan was coming around, looking at Briden. The latter reached out, stroked the side of Istvan’s face. “What did you see?” he asked. “What did it tell you? What does it want from us?”

Istvan didn’t say anything.

“Briden, if you don’t tell Grottor, I will,” said Dr. Dexter. When Briden didn’t answer, she gave a little stamp of frustration and headed toward the door.

“Dr Dexter,” he finally said, just as she was reaching it.

She stopped and turned, only to find him pointing a pistol at her, slowly walking toward her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What I should have done a long time ago,” he said.

She raised her hands slowly. “You shouldn’t do this, Briden,” she said. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“Oh no, Dr. Dexter,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. Now turn around and walk. Straight through the door and across the control room and out that door, too. I’ll tell you when to stop walking. I’m in charge now.”

“Are you?” asked Callie coolly over her shoulder. “Seems like the Marker might be the one in charge.”

*   *   *

He marched her through the control room, the scientists inside stopping their work to stare in astonishment at the procession they made, and out into the hall.

They walked until they came to the security station. “I’d like to remand the prisoner,” said Briden to the man inside.

“Prisoner?” said the security officer, wrinkling his brow.

“Yes, man,” said Briden, “right here.”

“But that’s Dr. Dexter,” said the officer.

“Of course it’s Dr. Dexter,” he said. “She’s a traitor. She needs to be confined to the brig.”

The officer stared back and forth from Callie to Briden. “If you don’t do it, he’ll probably just shoot me,” she finally said.

The officer shrugged. He took her by the arm and led her into the brig and closed the door.

*   *   *

In the Marker room, Istvan lay immobile on the floor, staring up at the two horns rising far above him. Dead Conn was there, poised upon the tips, and then his mother, and then the politician he had shot, Fischer. Their faces shuffled over one another to become one face. The voice, too, seemed a blend of all their voices, a multitonal voice that seemed both high and low at once.

The other world was the real world, he now knew. It was what really mattered. But the Marker existed in both worlds; it was the thing that bridged the gap.

Do you understand now? the three ghosts that were one above him asked.

Yes, he tried to say. Yes, I understand. But the words did not come out. And yet the Marker heard him say them nevertheless.

There was movement around him—strange shadows flitting—that it took a moment for him to begin to make things out. These were the scientists, he realized slowly. Maybe four of them, maybe five, come to check on him. One pressed his fingers to Istvan’s throat and said something. Another was lifting one eyelid even higher and peering in, as if to look inside his skull. He tried to ignore them, to think of them as something like buzzing flies, but they were still there, an irritation.

We are not right, said the ghosts. Or rather, we are right, but now we must become something else. We need you to make us whole and make us new.

“Make you whole,” mumbled Istvan. “Make you new.”

“What?” said one of the scientists. “Did he say something?”

“Say something, see something,” said Istvan.

We will use you as a vessel, said the ghosts. You will take our image, the image of not only what we are but of what we might become, and you will share it.

“Share it,” mumbled Istvan.

“Did he say sheriff?” asked one of the scientists. “What would that even mean?”

We must be free, said the ghosts. We must be free.

Slowly the vision faded. Or didn’t fade so much as simply slip into the background. It was still there, the triple ghost still with its flickering faces, but the faces were changing much more slowly now, every couple of seconds rather than several times a second. And it was subdued and quiet enough that Istvan could see the scientists better, and hear them, too.

“Are you all right?” one of them asked.

Was he? What did the man even mean by that? He hesitantly nodded. One of them was holding a hand out to him, offering to help him up. He waved the hand away.

“Not ready yet?” the man said. “Sure, give yourself a moment. No point rushing things.”

“I’m staying here,” said Istvan.

“Of course,” said the man. “No reason to move until you’re ready.”

“I’ll never be ready,” said Istvan. “This is where I live.” He needed to be here until the ghosts were free, until he had accomplished his task, his purpose. A strange twinge of confusion came to him with that word, purpose. But why?

“You can’t stay here,” the man reasoned. “You can’t just stay on the floor.”

He shook his head. Of course he could stay here. Why couldn’t he?

“You’re not thinking properly,” said the man. “You’re still in shock or something. I think three of us can carry you out of here and put you someplace where you can rest.”

“I can rest here,” he said. “And there is no time for rest.”

“Come on,” the scientist said, reaching out again with his hand.

“If he wants to stay here,” said a voice it took him a moment to recognize as belonging to Briden, “then he can stay here.”

He looked over at Briden and smiled. Yes, Briden understood. Some of it, anyway. And then Briden was there kneeling beside him, eyes shining.

“It wants you to stay here?” he asked.

It? What did he mean by it? Couldn’t he see the ghosts? Istvan gestured at them, but Briden only saw the Marker.

“Yes,” he said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I understand.”

No, thought Istvan. He doesn’t exactly understand. But it didn’t matter, it was close enough. Briden would let him do what he wanted, what needed to be done. He would live here, at the base of the Marker, and he would learn from it until it had taught him all that he could know, and he would teach it the little he knew and then he would go out in the world and preach for it until everyone understood and more Markers began to arise and there was the dawning of a brighter day.