PART TWO
By
Thirty-Seven
I took the cigarette and we both stood up. 192 swung his arm around, indicating a green door opposite the one we had come through. We strode out of the room and into a giant courtyard littered with beautiful statues and chrome fountains. Long expanses of emerald grass paved the ground and flowering gardens were bordered by concrete partitions ten centimeters high. The place was absolutely gorgeous and I was happier to be there than anywhere else I had been before.
I had never smoked a cigarette before and had only the vaguest idea of how it was done. I watched 192 as he cracked open his own aluminum cylinder, removed the cigarette and placed it in his mouth. He inhaled and there was a tiny burst of flame and a crackling sound as the self-lighting smoke self-lit. I attempted this and found it to be more difficult than it appeared.
I held my cigarette up to my mouth and inhaled, too hard. A substantially larger flame erupted at the end of my cigarette, terrifying me. Also, I instantly found that my lungs were full of a noxious poison gas, which sickened me.
The following is a play-by-play of the sad events immediately following the lighting of my cigarette: I yelled, “Ah!” because of the fire in my face and started coughing uncontrollably. The cigarette fell out of my mouth onto the grass. I looked down and smashed the burning white gift into the ground with my heel. Realizing what a disaster the situation was becoming, I pleadingly looked from the ruined mass in the dirt up into 192’s face only to find him terribly amused by the whole thing. It was at that instant the nausea caused by my first and only drag overtook me. My hand went to cover my mouth, which was a mistake. Vomit spewed out through my fingers and nose. I fell to my knees and planted my hands on either side of the smashed cigarette which was now drowning in the puke flowing from my face and there I was, my first day at work, puking and crying in front of my boss. Not a good first impression.
When I had stopped sobbing, I awkwardly got to my feet and apologized to 192 for wasting the cigarette. I stood there like an idiot and everything smelled like puke.
For a long moment we stood there in silence considering what was to happen next. Then 192 said with a smile, “I thought that might happen!”
THE OYSTER
It was mid-day but the sound of bullets killing in the distance was almost comforting. At least they weren’t killing her.
She set about sawing through the tough flesh and bone, removing both thumbs from each of the three men she had killed last night – she had dragged their bodies into the house. These prints might come in handy in the future she thought, and laughed out loud at the pun, lending an air of lunacy to her grim work.
When she had finished, she pulled a plastic baggie out of one of her pouches and stuffed the thumbs into it. Shoving the bag back into the pouch, she then grabbed her canteen and proceeded to drink half the water from it. She gasped for air and then drank the rest.
She avoided looking at the corpses and walked out the door. She walked down the street and snuck behind a dilapidated old house with huge holes in its walls. She approached a huge pile of ripped-apart tin roofing. The metal shrieked and made deafening slamming sounds as she tossed the sheets aside, revealing a gleaming red machine.
The motorcycle had been a gift from her husband, who rarely gave anyone anything except a reason to go to a funeral. She grabbed the handlebars and rocked the bike upright. Swinging one leg over the back, she took one last look around. She was a feared woman. Ever since her marriage to Satan, people practically fell all over themselves to stay out of her way.
She pressed her thumb onto the small oval circle next to the speedometer. The scanner recognized her thumbprint and the bike roared to life. She loved the feeling of this machine purring for her, awaiting her every command.
Her black uniform was a perfect complement to the red curve of the motorcycle’s chassis. She gunned the engine twice and took off, forgetting all about the assassins and the house and the cat-bombs. The only things that were real anymore were the bike, the wind blasting through her hair and her destination: the Red Pyramid. She kept the needle well above 90 until zooming through the Black Gates surrounding The Citadel and Satan. She had made it. She was home
THE NUMBER OF A MAN
He was home. After the incident in the courtyard, Thirty-Seven was feeling worse than he had ever felt in his life. 192 had been gracious enough to give him the rest of the day off. He had given Thirty-Seven a red disc with the number ‘37’ printed on it in gold foil and told him to follow the red lights through the red door at the far end of the courtyard.
“You can get cleaned up and come back tomorrow when you feel better.” The words sounded like roaring applause mocking an awful performance, but Thirty-Seven smiled and did as he was told.
Meanwhile, the entire smoking scene was being shown around the Marshall’s offices on hand held circular video screens with ripping laughter from one room after another, office after office.
Through the red door at the end of the courtyard, Thirty-Seven found a long hallway with several red doors lining each side. Each door bore a number and next to each door were the thin familiar slits, which served as keyholes.
The glowing red stripe beneath his feet stretched off down the hall and arced off, stopping in front of a door about 30 meters down the hall on the right. He followed the line eagerly, each step gaining an imperceptibly slight momentum. 17, 19, 21, he passed the doors in greater strides. 23, 27, 31, the numbers flew by. 33, 35, and here it was: 37. Elation flooded his world in this instant. It was as if his whole life had been meticulously designed to inexorably draw him towards this point in space and time, and he knew this to be true.
With anxious nerves, he slipped the disk into the slit. The door clicked and fell open a few centimeters, swinging slightly into the room. He pushed the door and stepped inside.
He was in a white cube whose entire ceiling was illuminated. Each wall was exactly six meters long and six meters high, with a single door in the center of each. Each door was white, except the red one he had just entered through. There was a slit on this side of the wall as well, next to the red door. The red disc was protruding halfway from it. He removed the disc from the slit, closed the door and examined the room.
Along the wall opposite the red door was a white dining table and three chairs were arranged perfectly to the right of that wall’s door. To the left a huge couch folded around the corner covering the entire distance between two doors on two walls. In front of the huge couch was a huge circular table, low enough to rest one’s feet on when lounging on the sofa. All the furniture was snow white.
Through the three white doors he found a washroom to the left. There was a bedroom in the center and a kitchen off to the right. Above the large bed in his room two huge digits declared the owner of this room. He was Home.
1:11 P.M.
The red dot on the screen told him that she was home. He reached over, picked up the glass and drained the whiskey. The alcohol tasted good, sweet and strong.
“The spoils of Hell on Earth.” He thought and hurled the glass into the fireplace.
This was his room with a view. Three huge triangular panes of thick glass made up its walls, the pinnacle of his Pyramid.
He watched the tiny red dot outside and the tiny red dot on the screen with the same intensity. He rose with a tired groan and headed for the spiral staircase in the center of the room where he descended, lighting a cigarette with a match as he went.
Below, in the Great Hall, Alpha Centauri (a huge man who was the Captain of the Guard and Satan’s right hand man) greeted Suicide. He had dark olive skin and curly black hair. He rarely shaved. The contours of his face and its curving lines suggested a man who laughed often and knew how to enjoy it.
“How’d it go?” Alpha asked with a huge grin as Suicide swung her leg off the bike and handed it to a nameless peon she had seen a thousand times yet never talked to.
“Great!” her sarcasm totally disguised by genuine c
harm and a sweet smile. She shook out her hair and raked her hands through it trying to get all the sand and blood out. “I need a bath!” she only half-joked looking up into that toothy smile through her tangling hair.
“Want some company?” The voice came from behind her. It was him. She spun instantly, that voice as ignorable as a shotgun blast.
He was about ten meters away, right in the doorway through which she had just ridden the motorbike. He started towards her, his steps too evenly spaced for accident or coincidence. When he was at arm’s length he stopped, staring right into the impossible awareness of her impossibly blue-black eyes.
She blinked.
He ripped the pistol from her belt. She grabbed his hand with both of hers and twisted his wrist savagely. The gun fell to the floor and he was smiling, despite the pain. She wasn’t. She held his twisted wrist and with a single flawless motion spun him around, snatched a knife from his belt and held it to his throat, twisting harder on his wrist which was now pinned tightly between her stomach and the small of his back.
He was no longer smiling.
Alpha Centauri said nothing and was afraid to move or breathe.
Suicide whispered into her helpless victim’s ear, “I could slit your throat and laugh about it in the morning.”
Satan hissed back, “I dare you!”
He felt the blade begin to move and just as it broke the skin and a drop of blood skimmed down that gleaming metal edge, she released him. She dropped the knife, grabbed his shoulder with her right hand and swung him around. As soon as she saw his face, their open mouths connected and their eyes closed.
Alpha looked away, let out a huge stifled sigh, and walked away shaking his head.
The lovers walked outside and looked beyond the Gates at the desert. That sand seemed to go on forever. Hell was a big place and always looked much worse by the light of day. There were a few makeshift cities littered across the blasted landscape but nowhere you would want to stay for very long. Over the years, almost every structure had fallen into disrepair and came closer and closer to just collapsing in on itself.
Groups of people occasionally erected new buildings amid the crumbling ruins of the old towns but these were so scattered that no real communities existed anywhere. Most residents of Hell set up camps close to the Citadel, seeking Satan’s protection and favor though seldom receiving either.
Others sought refuge with The Zealots, Satan’s sworn enemies, or so Satan’s army believed. The truth is that Satan’s concern over The Zealots could be summed up as scarcely more than non-existent. He knew his men hated the religious paragon of The Zealot hoard, so he did little to make them think that he felt otherwise. They were happy in their hatred so he left them to it.
Suicide and Satan now began the ritual they both adored: they would walk in a great circle around the perimeter of the Pyramid and talk about events that had transpired since last they met. It would take them the better part of half and hour or more, depending on how many times they stopped to stress points to one another.
“Satan,” she was always the first to break the silence on these walks, “why did those men try to kill you?”
He kicked the sand with one shining black boot and stared up into the sun. “For the same reason as all the others,” he stopped to stress the point, gently taking hold of her arm and looking into her eyes, “because they just didn’t know any better.”
She gripped his hand and pulled him along. He stared off into nothing and asked absently, “How did they die?” The question hung between them for three slow steps.
“Not well.” she finally admitted, thinking of the man’s gnarled face back in the decomposing house.
They walked on discussing nothing in particular. He accepted her offering of the bag of thumbs, which he held in his hand awkwardly for the remainder of their walk like some putrid sack lunch.
They completed their orbit without further incident or conversation, the pleasure of each other’s company the only real reason they ever did this. The simple satisfaction that both of them were still alive was something that neither of them ever took for granted.
They made quiet, meaningful love that night – meaningful in that it was the last time it would ever happen - under the stars in the glass room at the top of the spiral staircase. She fell asleep dreaming of warring monstrous gods who killed each other by killing themselves, causing horrendous explosions and immolations. Her murmurs were soothing to him. He, Satan, ruler of this kingdom of Hell had learned something. It seemed that even he had learned somehow to love, and he knew that he would kill to protect that love. He already had.
THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Thirty-Seven woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat. He could not remember the nightmares. He only knew that he had been running from something bent on his destruction. The relief he now felt on waking was so complete that he almost laughed.
He climbed out of his big bed in his big room and found his not-so-big closet filled with brand new clothes, as white as the walls of his brand new home.
He took his time selecting his favorites from the identical garments and whistled his way into the shower. After bathing and grooming he strolled into the kitchen and found it stocked with fresh food and clean dishes. He made himself a snack of sliced tomato and cheesy crackers then dawdled back into the living room to sit on his couch and eat.
He found a black disc, about the size of a dinner plate concealed under the top of the circular table in front of the couch. This disc was different than the ones he had been given before; it was larger, thicker and heavier. There was a thin rubber lip around the circular face on one side. It seemed to bear no visible markings of any kind.
Running his hands over its surfaces, he happened to slide a finger across the center of one face and that side lit up, and a polite chiming sound came from somewhere inside the thing.
Thirty-Seven looked at the illuminated circle and saw the familiar spinning white ankh and patchy blue sky. Holding the screen in both hands, he pressed his right thumb inwards where it rested on a cloud. The scene disappeared and the screen was momentarily a black circle again. Then a cursor appeared and pale blue letters began appearing across the center of the screen. The message read:
PLEASE INSERT IDENTIFICATION DISC
Thirty-Seven puzzled over the message for a few seconds. He held up the screen and turned it this way and that, and discovered a thin slit cut into its edge. The light finally shone in his mind and he stood up and walked across the room to the dining table where he had tossed the red disc with his name on it. He picked up the disc and walked back across the room and stood next to the couch. Picking up the screen, he pushed the disc into the slit.
A pleasant female voice instantly said, “Hello, Thirty-Seven!” and he was shocked to see a woman’s face peering out from the brilliant screen. She appeared to be waiting for a response, her eyes wide and unblinking. She smiled.
“Hello, um?” he fumbled aimlessly. The woman’s smile remained genuine.
She said, “My name is Penta Tonic. I am an intelligent machine and my only desire - aside from learning absolutely everything about absolutely anything – is to assist you in the activities of your everyday life. Using this screen – which is me by the way so be careful with it – you can communicate with anyone in Eternalife, order anything you want or need; provided you have enough Worker’s Credit built up in your accounts, which I can also help you keep track of, by the way. You can play games and write novels, all right here with me as your guide. You can also use the much less interesting touch-screen interface to navigate through various tasks, but I find this person-to-person navigator extremely preferable and entertaining, don’t you?” it was a real question.
“Uh, yeah,” was all he could manage to say. He was intimidated by Penta Tonic’s forwardness and was not at all sure that he preferred the person-to-person navigation, if she was to be the other person.
Penta’s face seemed streake
d with boredom and his suspicions were realized a moment later when she said, “Well, if you need me, let me know.” Thirty-Seven watched the screen fade to black and he stood there dumbly, staring into the void.
A WAY OUT
Suicide woke up; the nightmares left strange echoes in her eyes. Nightmares last forever but your dreams all disappear, she thought, stretching the sleep out of her legs.
Satan snoozed with his back to her and she thought about stabbing him. He was the king around here and she was his queen. But what was that, to be a monarch in a forsaken land?
She had never known her sister, only heard the terrible stories of how she had died and what a whore she had been. She knew nothing of her father, and all questions about his identity were met with meaningless answers.
All she really knew of herself was that everyone she knew feared her, and given the chance in a fair fight she could probably kill anyone in the world. And there was one more thing she knew about herself, it was the one thing that truly made her real in her own eyes. It was the desire that drove her life and gave her a sense of purpose. This desire was the guiding star that invisibly pulled her here and there like an unseen god moving through the hands of a master sculptor or painter, trying desperately to strike chords in the mortal world and make some kind of a difference.
This desire that drove her was a simple one. It is a desire all feel at least once in their lives: the desire to run away, to escape, and to be FREE.
She wanted to see that Other World, that impossible realm Outside The Wall where people laughed and danced and did not murder each other’s families and themselves over trivial mysteries. She had heard of this Other World all her life, from the countless stories she demanded of the fresh Outsiders who crossed her path. Their memories were still alive, and real, still bursting with inexhaustible detail. Suicide wanted that world to be her own and she truly believed that someday she would find a way out, and away, forever.
FINAL COUNTDOWN
After meeting Ms. Tonic, Thirty-Seven had fooled around with the screen for a while without Penta’s decidedly uppity assistance. He doodled and browsed Eternalife’s contact lists. He found Maximus Agrippa near the top of the Administration’s section, a tiny photo of him, not smiling. He scrolled past the Marshall’s list, not stopping to see if Concrete 72 was smiling or not. Then he hit the list rolling out names of the Working Mass and there was his entry: ‘37’, right between ‘36’ and ‘38’. His neighbors were both women, he discovered, they were smiling in their pictures, although he found neither of them particularly attractive.
The picture next to Thirty-Seven’s name on the list was nothing short of idiotic. He was staring blankly into space while his mouth hung open slackly in an expression of pure bewilderment. He realized this photo had been taken not an hour ago by the very device he now held in his hands. Tonic must have snapped the shot just as she was fading out after explaining how the screen worked. He wrinkled his nose at the thought that Penta Tonic had intentionally taken a ludicrous picture for his profile but instead of flinging the screen across the room, he set it carefully down on his huge round coffee table and went back to bed.
Three hours later, he awoke to an awful sound. It was the exact sound of broken glass scratching across sheets of metal. An inhuman screeching, unforgivably loud and coming from the living room. He hesitated but could not stand the horrendous noise another second. He tried smashing the pillows over his head but that just turned the deafening shrieks into a muffled roar, equally intolerable. He screamed. He found himself infuriated by the cacophony. He jumped up and tore into the front room.
Silence. The instant he had opened the door, the shrieking stopped. He stood there, hair insane, looking around at nothing.
“I see you’re up!” came an impossibly distant woman’s voice that was totally impotent against the surprisingly clear ringing that seemed to emanate from wherever Thirty-Seven pointed his face.
“What?” he squeaked, unable to hear his own voice.
There was a knock at the door; it seemed to come from some other room, a mile away. “Just a minute!” he yelled, trying to hear himself.
Bang! Bang! Bang! The knock became a furious pounding. “OPEN UP!” Thirty-Seven instantly recognized Concrete 72’s unmistakably hateful tone and ran to the door. No handle. He ran his fingers over the door stupidly.
“Here!” That friendly feminine voice came from behind him, on the table. Thirty-Seven turned just in time to see the red ID disc sliding out of Penta Tonic’s side.
“The disc!” he cried out and lunged for the table.
“3 seconds, Thirty-Seven!” Concrete was really losing it now, there was a frenzy in his voice that made Thirty-Seven want to disappear, but it was illegal to disobey an officer in any way so he ran to the door.
“Three!”
Concrete was almost screaming now. Thirty-Seven freaked out and dropped the disc. “No! NO!” Thirty-Seven was beginning to see himself as a total coward, and he did not like it.
“Two! OPEN THE DOOR!”
The disc was off the floor and slipped into the slot just in time for C-72 to scream, “ONE!” right into Thirty-Seven’s helpless and desperate face which, when this happened, became very pale.
Thirty-Seven could not move. Concrete relaxed completely and said with only mild contempt, “You are late for work Thirty-Seven.”
Thirty-Seven’s stomach fell through the floor; he had heard of this. He had heard of people being hauled off to Hell for being late to work. It was a new law and not everyone was used to the concept so there were still incidents. Incidents just like this, he thought to himself as Concrete grabbed him by the arm and started escorting him down the hall in silence. When they walked out the door, Thirty-Seven had distinctly, through the ringing in his ears, heard Penta-Tonic say, “Have a nice day!"
THE WALL
“LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA VOI CHΓNTRATE”
So read the stone pillars, arches, tanks, graffiti, and emblems on uniforms surrounding the Great Gates of Hell.
There was only one road leading into or out of Hell. It was a two-lane highway that came through the Eastern Plains of Old Texas and ran all the way to the Arizona Desert, most of which was contained by The Wall, an unthinkable partition which separated Hell from the rest of the world. The highway led straight through the Great Gates, through The Wall and up to the Initiation Compound, where the Damned were filed off the bus and delivered into fate’s open arms to fight for their own survival among the rest of society’s outcast.
Each day as the Black Bus approached the Great Gates, all the driver could see at first was a thin black line on the horizon, stretching off to the left and right seemingly into infinity. As he advanced, the black line became a black stripe, growing higher slowly, ominously.
Every day was the same. He left The Dent at precisely 6:30 AM and headed west on the highway to Hell. By 3:00 PM, he would see the black stripe of The Wall rising from the horizon ahead. At around 5:00 PM on afternoons in the deepest winter months, the stripe was tall enough to block out the sun. Finally, at exactly 6:00 PM the driver would pick up the microphone and say, “Welcome to Hell.” over the intercom as the Bus passed through The Great Gates.
He would keep driving towards that Wall and straight through the tunnel, which led through to the other side. Every day he would wonder if he would ever be coming out alive again.
The gates were tall and strong, built from blackened steel six meters high encompassing a semicircle around the tunnel’s entrance. Heavily armed guards patrolled this area only. It was the only way in or out of Hell. The half-circle enclosed only about half a square kilometer of sand and barracks; this is where the guards lived as well as worked.
Huge floodlights were mounted on the exterior of The Wall. Next to these were automated turrets ready to cut down absolutely no one, since no one had ever gotten anywhere near them in their escape attempts.
The Wall itself was maddeningly impossible to contemplate. Imag
ine a man-made mountain, stretched across kilometers and over a hundred meters high, forming an absolutely impassible barrier by being hollowed out in a curve on one side; a curve that started at ground level and stretched outward and back over the head of anyone looking directly at The Wall, forming a gargantuan cave with only one face that stretched off in both directions forever. This barrier went on for almost a thousand kilometers in a great circle encompassing an immense tract of land. The desert it contained was Hell and known to consist entirely of sand, canyons, rock formations and long dead cities. The Wall was the only thing standing between Hell and the rest of the world, and it was enough. No one escaped, ever.
16
THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH
Thirty-Seven hated Concrete 72. He thought about running, but knew if he did, it would only make things worse. So much wasted, he had never loved a woman, never climbed a mountain, or plowed a field. He had never seen the ocean and even though these goals were impractical and unrealistic, he knew now that even the hopes and dreams he had held onto all his life were as dead as those bodies in the Blue Room.
Late for work, what a joke! What magnificent bastard came up with that one? Sent to Hell for something so trivial; what would people think!
Concrete yanked Thirty-Seven down the hall one slamming footstep at a time towards the courtyard. 192 had been the only friendly face he had seen since leaving ELU, and he did not want to face him now that he was a spectacular failure.
They reached the door and Concrete, gracefully out of character, gently touched the door, which opened silently into the beautiful half-light of the morning as seen just before the sun decides to rise. For a moment, Thirty-Seven was alone, transfixed by the spell cast by such an impending glory. Then he was raped back to reality by Concrete’s disgustingly insidious intonation of a very simple, usually harmless phrase.
“Come on.” Coming from this maniac the statement sounded like a death sentence to Thirty-Seven, and he wondered if it was.
They marched through the garden, Concrete murdering flowers whenever possible his heavy boots leaving twisted pathetic knots of color in their wake. Thirty-Seven’s arm was going numb from the iron grip dragging him forward.
They approached the green door to the lab and Thirty-Seven felt a pang of guilt at all that had transpired: the cigarette, being late, the red pill – the red pill! He had forgotten the goddamned red pill! These things swarmed in his mind and that fucking door seemed as good a victim as any to suffer for his mistakes. He reached out and punched the door. Before Concrete knew what to do, the door opened obediently.
“Hey!” Concrete growled but said nothing else. The two entered the lab with identical scowls and 192 looked up from some documents he was puzzling over.
“Yes?” 192 asked, obviously confused by the two angry men marching into his office.
“Late.” Concrete’s voice was now bored, deadpan. He threw Thirty-Seven into the room then swiftly turned and left, stomping off through the garden.
Thirty-Seven stared incredulously after him as the door closed. Concrete never looked back. Thirty-Seven turned imploringly to 192 and found him smiling that pleasant, ironic smile. It erased all terror from Thirty-Seven’s mind.
“Am I going to Hell?” Thirty-Seven asked the question as if he did not already believe that the answer was no.
“Ha! Of course not! You’re just a student; a kid!” 192’s tone was decidedly over the top, like a comedian delivering a particularly hilarious punch line. “Kids don’t go to Hell for being late to work, only worthless old men like me . . . ” he trailed off into distant, personal thoughts.
Thirty-Seven trudged over to a stool at the big round table and collapsed into it, breathing a heavy sigh.
“I hope things get better.”
“They will Thirty-Seven, they will.”
THE INVISIBLE SEED
Suicide had walked up the grand staircase at the back of the ballroom and slipped into the hallway leading to the guest rooms. In the second door on the right, the one adorned with a small black star, she found one of Satan’s ‘guests’ huddled on the bed, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them.
She walked into the room, gliding across the floor as one does when exquisitely dressed and feels no shame for it and no forgiveness for those dressed in rags. She sat down on the edge of the bed and the girl eyed her with contempt and obvious paralyzing fear.
“Tell me your name.” Sue’s voice was a soft demand.
The girl took one huge hyper breath and was silent for several seconds, then she pursed her lips and spoke. “71,85.” She sounded out the numbers soft and slow, as if they were secrets to be kept between the two of them.
“No,” Suicide said flatly, “that simply will not do. What is your name?” She stressed the last word to give it some special meaning that 7185 could not seem to grasp. The girl sat in silence, plainly afraid.
Suicide studied the fearful girl sitting on the bed. She could not have been more than 20. Exceptionally long, exceptionally golden hair with a delicate wave exactly like that of oceanic swells moments before they peak, crumble and crash. Icy blue eyes that seemed as if they would never fade, no matter how many lies they were told or atrocities they witnessed. In fact, while looking into those eyes, it occurred to Suicide that deep inside this girl was not truly afraid of anything or anyone, and that the fear she now witnessed was merely a by-product of the girl’s upbringing, only superficially overpowering the true fearlessness within. They were the only truly unique characteristics of this young woman, who for all the rest of her was just another girl for Satan to lust over, toy with, grow weary of and possibly send away into a life not worth living, or worse.
Suicide looked into those otherworldly blues, transfixed, and said, “Your name is Mercy Screamsback.”