where he’d been since she died and was brought back to life.
How could anyone so important to her be absent during the unfolding of such a miracle?
* * *
W HEN THEY DESCENDED into the cluster of boulders, Ronnie thought the space there was larger than it had been before, when he’d used that landlocked grotto as a refuge.
“Hail,” Used-to-be-Claude said in greeting. He was standing before a broad stone altar, wearing a black suit with no shirt or shoes.
“We killed him,” Ronnie said as he dumped the lifeless form onto the granite slab.
Used-to-be-Claude placed both hands on the dead man’s chest and stared intensely at something that was beyond death before him.
“He has fled this form,” Used-to-be-Claude said.
“In a dirty green light,” Ronnie agreed. “It shot off in the sky like a spaceship.”
“You should have brought him back to me alive,” the avatar of the Silver Box said.
“He was too powerful,” Lorraine offered. “He was killing Ronnie. I had to stop him.”
Used-to-be-Claude’s eyes became twin nebulae as he studied the young woman. Ronnie had to look away for fear his soul would be sucked into the vastness of those orbs.
Finally the jacketed and shirtless black man nodded. “He was filled with the energy of your rebirth, but now he has been lessened by the brutality of your attack. It will take some time for him even to be able to control another being. He would risk his own existence to attempt another reincarnation as he did with this one. You have given us a respite from his threat.”
“What about him?” Ronnie asked of Ma Lin.
“What you would call his soul has been fused to the body by the Laz. That way he could not escape and rob the creature of his power.”
“Can you bring him back?” Ronnie wanted to know.
“Why would you care?”
“We killed him,” the young man explained. “That’s not right. He couldn’t help what he was doin’. The whole time he was tryin’ to kill us, he was yellin’ that he couldn’t help it. Maybe you could just let his soul go.”
“I can neither release him nor can I bring him back as you did with your soul mate.”
“Why not?”
“For the same reason that you cannot breathe life into a gnat. My power is too great. I can, however, make his being a part of mine. In this way he can exist with me across the Immensity.”
Upon saying this, Used-to-be-Claude laid a hand upon Ma Lin’s breast, and the hammer-handed, knife-fingered Vietnamese policeman fell into dust upon the stone altar.
“Rest,” Used-to-be-Claude advised Ronnie and Lorraine.
“People might have seen us carrying that body,” Lorraine countered. “They’ll send the police here looking for us.”
“No one on Earth except you two can attain this place. It is beyond reason in the center of my random heart.”
“A machine has a heart?” Lorraine asked.
“We machines,” he answered, “are the final step in what humanity calls evolution. Our nature is the divinity you attribute to stars and stone idols.”
Before either Lorraine or her killer could reply, Used-to-be-Claude disappeared, folding like a paper doll into the recesses of itself.
* * *
T HE MORNING SUN shone redly into the crevice that was now more like a dance room floor. The stone table remained, Ma Lin’s dust heaped upon it. Lorraine and Ronnie were sprawled near each other, sleeping in the dirt. The fingers of his left and her right hand were touching.
She awakened and sat up, stretching both arms behind her. Her waking dream was of a dead wino saying,… exist with me across the Immensity.
Upon the face of the buff brown stone beyond the table she saw a point appear: a single black dot that was like the tapping of a conductor’s baton at the beginning of a piece of music. From this point a line moved away from her at a slight angle. This line seemed to go on and on, traveling at impossible speed past any distance she could imagine.
Velocity, she
How could anyone so important to her be absent during the unfolding of such a miracle?
* * *
W HEN THEY DESCENDED into the cluster of boulders, Ronnie thought the space there was larger than it had been before, when he’d used that landlocked grotto as a refuge.
“Hail,” Used-to-be-Claude said in greeting. He was standing before a broad stone altar, wearing a black suit with no shirt or shoes.
“We killed him,” Ronnie said as he dumped the lifeless form onto the granite slab.
Used-to-be-Claude placed both hands on the dead man’s chest and stared intensely at something that was beyond death before him.
“He has fled this form,” Used-to-be-Claude said.
“In a dirty green light,” Ronnie agreed. “It shot off in the sky like a spaceship.”
“You should have brought him back to me alive,” the avatar of the Silver Box said.
“He was too powerful,” Lorraine offered. “He was killing Ronnie. I had to stop him.”
Used-to-be-Claude’s eyes became twin nebulae as he studied the young woman. Ronnie had to look away for fear his soul would be sucked into the vastness of those orbs.
Finally the jacketed and shirtless black man nodded. “He was filled with the energy of your rebirth, but now he has been lessened by the brutality of your attack. It will take some time for him even to be able to control another being. He would risk his own existence to attempt another reincarnation as he did with this one. You have given us a respite from his threat.”
“What about him?” Ronnie asked of Ma Lin.
“What you would call his soul has been fused to the body by the Laz. That way he could not escape and rob the creature of his power.”
“Can you bring him back?” Ronnie wanted to know.
“Why would you care?”
“We killed him,” the young man explained. “That’s not right. He couldn’t help what he was doin’. The whole time he was tryin’ to kill us, he was yellin’ that he couldn’t help it. Maybe you could just let his soul go.”
“I can neither release him nor can I bring him back as you did with your soul mate.”
“Why not?”
“For the same reason that you cannot breathe life into a gnat. My power is too great. I can, however, make his being a part of mine. In this way he can exist with me across the Immensity.”
Upon saying this, Used-to-be-Claude laid a hand upon Ma Lin’s breast, and the hammer-handed, knife-fingered Vietnamese policeman fell into dust upon the stone altar.
“Rest,” Used-to-be-Claude advised Ronnie and Lorraine.
“People might have seen us carrying that body,” Lorraine countered. “They’ll send the police here looking for us.”
“No one on Earth except you two can attain this place. It is beyond reason in the center of my random heart.”
“A machine has a heart?” Lorraine asked.
“We machines,” he answered, “are the final step in what humanity calls evolution. Our nature is the divinity you attribute to stars and stone idols.”
Before either Lorraine or her killer could reply, Used-to-be-Claude disappeared, folding like a paper doll into the recesses of itself.
* * *
T HE MORNING SUN shone redly into the crevice that was now more like a dance room floor. The stone table remained, Ma Lin’s dust heaped upon it. Lorraine and Ronnie were sprawled near each other, sleeping in the dirt. The fingers of his left and her right hand were touching.
She awakened and sat up, stretching both arms behind her. Her waking dream was of a dead wino saying,… exist with me across the Immensity.
Upon the face of the buff brown stone beyond the table she saw a point appear: a single black dot that was like the tapping of a conductor’s baton at the beginning of a piece of music. From this point a line moved away from her at a slight angle. This line seemed to go on and on, traveling at impossible speed past any distance she could imagine.
Velocity, she
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