“MAX—HELP ME!”
“Willard, is that you? Your voice sounds so different—”
The sun streaming through the silence-screen of the public booth blinded him. Max, can I trust you? I have to! Voices surrounding him:
A good knock on the head, that’s all; be up and back to normal in no time at all . . .
•
Running down a street lined with grimy cafés and stim-stores, the Gray Mountains looming to the left. He was running hard, but not breathing hard. But he didn’t know what he was running toward, or from. His head was full of sounds, voices. Tucked under his arm, a small, square box wrapped in brown spun-paper.
Tandesko sympathizers! What am I doing here with them? If I had a gun, I’d . . .
•
Max, I need your help. I need it now.
“I don’t recognize your voice. Is this Willard?”
“YES! Damn it to hell, Max!”
“Why did you leave the line before? I was trying to—”
“Never mind! Max, I—”
“Where are you, Willard? What’s wrong?”
“I’m at a public booth, and—”
And I have voices in my head and a face I don’t recognize! Max, I need you! What’s happening to me?
Look out the window of the booth, through the screen. There’s a tube-train up there. You can get away, home; you can get to Max or to anyone else.
“Max, help me! Where are you? Tell me how to get to you!”
“Calm down, Willard! Where are you? I can get to you faster than you can—”
Blurring again, out of focus: the street scene outside, the sound of Max’s voice. But another:
Love? What does it mean, anyway? Who are my friends? I need them, I need them now . . .
Max’s voice penetrated the babble in his mind. “Where are you, Willard? Tell me where you are right now.”
He gasped, “Not sure . . . don’t know . . .”
Max’s voice was a cold draft dispelling the haze. “Can you see no signs, Willard? Look and find a sign. I’ll be right here, Willard. Go and look.”
Talking to me like a child. But isn’t that what I am now? I don’t know how to find my way home. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and I need help. What’s happening? What’s this thing I’m carrying? A weapon. But why?
“Willard.” The voice was dry and calm in his ear. Tokandro Ali’Maksam, Logothian, scholar of teleology and consciousness. Calm. Calming. “If you can hear me, Willard—go and look for a street sign, or a storefront, anything that will identify your location.”
“Sign.” Of course! “Hold the line.”
There was a trace of amusement in the voice. “I’ll be here.”
•
I’ll be here, to love and comfort you, if you let me. Know that you can come back . . .
•
Blurring . . .
•
Sensation of speed, tube-express shooting him across the city, mountains looming large and close as the train rose, streaking up toward the foothills. Fingering the tiny nub on the end of his index finger. Someone to love him?
Or to kill him?
Blurring terribly, now . . .
•
Remembered in crystal clarity: Ali’Maksam, sinuous in the gloom of the near-total darkness, stretching close, reaching to join that exquisitely delicate contact that would unite their minds, not in thought so much as feeling: the contact that would let the Logothian explore the topography of his soul, the emotional and spiritual being that made him the Human he was.
If indeed he was still Human at all.
•
The weapon, cool and smooth like a slim seed in his hand. Seed of destruction for his enemies, if they tried again to kill him. But he was no longer alone. He was working with his friends, and together they would abolish the enemy from the planet, from this life.
* * *
He no longer knew who he was.
He fought like a tiger.
It was not just for his life, and not just to kill his enemy. He fought to know his enemy: to know what she was, how she thought, what she wanted. There could be others of her kind.
She’d met him at the door: a dark figure, against the glow of the light—attacking instantly.
He’d parried the attack easily; but his reflexes were off, his hand-chops flying wide, the lance of fire from his fingertip somehow missing its mark. He seemed to be working against himself. The enemy dodged and darted, a fleeting shadow across the room. He ducked, evading a heavy glass object that shattered behind him. He lifted his finger, fired, missed again. He had to hurry; he had to prevail; his friends were depending on him.
He dived across the room and tackled his foe and rolled and came up on top, hands closing around her throat.
•
The woman’s scream surfaced somewhere in the inner recesses of the mind where human and reptilian consciousness merged, where the bedeviling clamor of voices was stilled. It was a shocking scream of terror, and the intensity of it snapped him to full fighting alertness.
He drew his hands back, ready to strike out, to defend.
“Release that woman!” he demanded. He spun, rising to a crouch, taking in the surroundings at a glance: living room of an apartment—not his, but familiar. On the floor beneath him was a woman. Familiar.
Her foot flew up and caught the side of his head. He reeled and fell across the floor. “Wait!” he shouted, clambering back to his feet. “Someone’s in trouble!”
A heavy object thudded off his shoulder. The woman was on her feet, running. “Fucking bastard!” she screamed.
“Wait!” he croaked, bewildered. His hands tingled. He remembered the feeling of something soft under his fingers: yielding flesh. He staggered drunkenly to his feet. What had he been doing? Why was he here?
“I’ll KILL you, fucker!” she screamed, diving across the room on the far side of a polished-wood table. She was groping for something.
He blinked, rasping in a breath. Who was this woman? Where was he? She was familiar; this place was familiar; but he had to hurry and finish. . . .
Finish what?
The woman rose, holding something in her hand. She fumbled with it, pointed it at him. Her hands were shaking.
“No, wait! I can expl—” he cried.
The object flickered in her hand, and pain seared his right ear and temple. He fell to the floor—
—and remembered—
—why his hands had tingled. Remembered them closing around the woman’s neck, squeezing. . . .
I know this woman.
Fiery pain blazed in his shoulder, and he rolled, trying to get away. Got to explain! He knew this woman from—Where?
•
Willard, I care for you no matter what you think. I do love you, Rus’lem . . .
•
(Candlelight reflected in the glasses, flickering, as they talked deep into the hours of the night when only mystics and lovers were meant to stir . . .)
•
And I love you, Twig . . .
•
Dear God—
I loved her—
And I just tried to kill her—
“I have to talk to you!” he shouted, pushing himself up despite the searing agony in his shoulder.
“I’ll show you talk, shithead! You think you can—”
“Don’t shoot! It’s Willard!” He rose, hands in the air. If he could just explain. . . .
It was the clear shot the woman needed. She aimed, and fire erupted in his chest. Numbness exploded through him like a ball of smoke. His vision darkened as he fell.
* * *
Sound of a gasp.
He groaned and pushed himself up to a near-sitting position, heedless of the pain. “No!” he heard, from a voice so frightened as to be pitiable.
“W-wait . . .” he whispered, wishing he could claw away the darkness that blotted out his vision.
“DON’T MOVE!”
He tensed. “Wait. Please.”
“Wait—shit! Who are you? What are you?”
He blinked and focused, discovering light in his eyes—and saw her pointing the gun at him. Her eyes were filled with fear and fury. “Please!” he gasped. “I won’t . . . hurt you!”
She circled sideways, used both hands to steady the gun. “You were dead, damn it! You were dead! Why aren’t you still dead? Why—?” She choked off her words, glaring, maybe waiting to see if he would do something aggressive. She was a slim but athletic-looking woman, with thick dark hair and blazing golden eyes. She was clearly struggling not to panic. “Who—or what—are you?” she demanded.
Ruskin felt his reflexes beginning to return. Tall, dark figure . . . but not her . . . His gaze was trapped by hers; he remembered those eyes, slitted like a cat’s. He remembered, he had loved her.
“Answer my question,” she said with contained fury. “Or you’ll die again. And this time I’ll do more than burn a hole in you!” Her voice caught on the threat, but she was so angry, so frightened that he didn’t doubt she would try to do as she’d threatened. But he knew what she didn’t. He dropped his gaze to his chest—and saw what on any human would have been a mortal wound, closing before his eyes. She saw it, too, and her eyes widened at the sight. “Who are you?” she demanded again, but her voice was weaker this time.
Tamika. Tamika Jones.
The name materialized in his mind. Of course; yes . . .
“Tamika,” he croaked. “Don’t . . .”
She stepped sideways again, circling behind him. He tried to turn to follow her movement. “Freeze!” He swallowed and obeyed. “So you know my name. You can tell me later how you know it. Right now, just tell me who the hell you are.”
His breath escaped and he spoke almost too softly to be heard. “Willard Ruskin.”
She circled quickly in front of him. “What did you say?”
He raised his voice, which was husky, almost gravelly from fluid in his lungs. “Willard Ruskin.” He sank back onto his elbows. “I think.”
“And I’m the queen’s consort,” she growled. “Try again.”
He closed his eyes, thinking. His face: his face had changed. He didn’t know why, or how. But of course she wouldn’t recognize him. Reach back . . . “You know me as Rus’lem,” he whispered. “Rus’lem Ruskin.”
“I . . . what?” She let her own breath out in a hiss, and her eyes narrowed.
“And I love you . . . I think.”
Her head rocked back in shock. She backed away from him, blinking. Her hands were shaking again as she struggled to keep the gun trained on him. As she struggled to keep tears out of her eyes. “How do you know that name?”
“It’s . . . from my middle name.” Which is? J.—Jerusalem. An image flashed in his mind of a plumpish, kindly woman—his mother, Sari Ruskin. His middle name, her maiden name. “Jerusalem. Willard Jerusalem Ruskin.”
Her anger seemed only to increase.
“I love you,” he repeated in a whisper. “I don’t know what was happening. I don’t know why I was—” Trying to kill you, he meant to say; but the words would not leave his lips.
“Damn you,” Tamika said, her voice trembling. “Damn you. I’ll ask you one more time. Who are you?”
“Willard Rusk—”
She strode forward and slapped him hard. “How dare you take the name of a man I love!” Swallowing, remembering her danger, she backed away.
His own eyes filled with tears. For several heartbeats they stared at one another in silence. “I love you,” he whispered. When she didn’t answer, he hissed, “Say something, damn it, Twig.”
She gazed at him, her whole body shaking. “I don’t know . . . who you are . . . or why you . . .” Her voice caught and she shook her head. “Why you . . . tried to kill me, but—”
“Twig—”
“But so help me—” The gun started to slip from her grasp, and she quickly caught it.
He had been pushing himself toward an upright sitting position. He froze at her movement, then straightened up slowly. He was still on the floor; she stood at a safe distance. “I won’t hurt you,” he repeated. And as he said it, he prayed that it was true.
“But you—you’re not Willard. You’re not—” She struggled to force the word out. “Rus’lem.”
He stared down at his hands. Rough, unfamiliar hands. Hands that had tried to kill the woman he loved. On his right index finger, there was a bump. A bit of burnt flesh was healing over a bit of something shiny. He had a dim memory of fire erupting from that fingertip.
“You’re not Rus’lem,” she repeated, more defiantly.
He looked up. “Twig, I am.” He closed his eyes, trying to think of how . . .
He opened his eyes. “Can you call Max? Can you reach him?”
“Max?” There was astonishment in her voice. And disapproval?
He remembered. “I know you don’t much like him. You don’t approve of him. But—”
Her head jerked. “How do you know that?” she whispered.
A trace of a smile came to his lips. “You never wanted me to know. You pretended, for my sake, to like him. But Max told me that you seemed to have an instinctive dislike of him, because he was a Logothian. Part serpent.” He didn’t know why he had just remembered that.
She lowered the gun, her face heavy with shock. Perhaps shame. “I never told that to anyone.”
“Max could tell. You couldn’t hide your feelings from him.” As she struggled to decide whether to believe him or not, he said, “Just as he will be able to tell whether or not I am Willard Ruskin. Will you call him, please?”
Tamika stared at him. “If you are—who you say you are—then how can I reach him?”
“He’s at—” Ruskin hesitated. He could not remember Max’s phone code. But he had called him; he remembered, through the blur of blackouts and frantic fear. “He’s listed in the call directory. Tokandro Ali’Maksam. Please? To prove to you who I am?”
Tamika gazed at him for a long time, before finally nodding. She crossed to the phone, keeping the gun trained on him. As she began to make the call, her brow suddenly furrowed in horror. “What’s happening to your face?” she whispered.
Before he could answer, the phone lighted, and she cried, “Ali’Maksam? This is Tamika Jones. . . .”
* * *
“The room will have to be darkened when he gets here,” Ruskin said. “You’ll have to tie me up somehow. For your own protection.”
She looked at him without answering. She was seated in a straight-backed chair with the gun in her lap. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I should call the police and have them here,” she said finally.
He said nothing.
“You did try to kill me, you know.”
“I know. I’m very sorry. I . . .”
She scowled, shaking her head. “Why is your face changing like that?”
His face felt as though it were crawling with insects. He massaged his brows, his cheekbones, trying to make the sensation stop. His face seemed to be growing thinner. “I don’t know. I don’t know why any of this is happening. I don’t know why I tried to kill you.” He looked up sharply. “You must not trust me.”
“I thought you wanted me to trust you.”
He shook his head. “I want you to believe me. But—” his voice became hard “—do not trust me. No. Not at all. Not until you’re sure. Until we know that I can be trusted.”
She stared at him, and he looked away.
Please, Max! Hurry!