Limbus, Inc. Book II Page 7

  *

  Dolan gagged. The overhead light was far too bright. It hurt his sore eyes. His throat felt dry and thick. He squinted. It burned through his lids even when they were tightly closed.

  Snake Dolan licked his lips and said, “Can you please turn that off?”

  It dimmed a bit but did not go out.

  Dolan gathered himself and looked around. He could not move his body, only his eyes. He was back on the laboratory table at Limbus, but he was still fastened down. It was as if no time had passed. The room had not changed. Perhaps he’d never left? Had his physical body been here the entire time?

  The nurse was taking his blood pressure with some concern on her face. Dr. Bartlett appeared in Dolan’s vision, also looking down at Dolan. His features seemed strangely elongated. The whole world appeared distorted. Dolan figured that was likely just some side effect of the drugs they had given him. Had he experienced the whole mission in his mind? Was this some strange experiment with hallucinogenic medications? His body felt like he’d been through every inch of those missions; his muscles ached, his skin was cold, even his bare feet felt bruised and cut, but on another level, it didn’t seem like he’d gone anywhere but deeper into his own unconscious. Maybe he was imaging those other times and places.

  Hell, maybe Limbus wasn’t real. Perhaps he was just going insane.

  “Can you hear me, Snake?”

  Dolan tried to nod. His head was still firmly gripped by the machine.

  “I’m happy to tell you that you did brilliantly in both instances,” Dr. Bartlett said. “I just chatted with Recruiter Goodfellow and Mr. Cranston and they are both very pleased. Thanks to you, the two women survived and will have the necessary offspring, and thus will continue their line as required. This is what Limbus, Inc. needed to insure that certain events in the future will also take place. A job well done, son. You are a fine soldier.”

  Dolan stared at him. Was it really over? Thank God.

  “We’re about to finish up now,” Dr. Bartlett said. “Are you ready to…rest?”

  Dolan tried to speak. He wanted to discuss his bonus for a minute or two. He wanted to say that he’d changed his mind about having his mind wiped completely clean. Couldn’t they just give him some money and maybe a modest home in Montana, instead? Hell, he could still work as a mercenary if he needed to, so maybe not even a lot of money. He just wanted to remain…Snake Dolan. Or maybe they could just take the more painful memories and leave the rest. He wanted to be able to remember these two successful missions and the way he’d finally regained some self-esteem. He wanted to at least remember falling in love with Phyllis. He wanted to hold on to the faces of the good friends he’d known, living and dead.

  In the end, Snake Dolan didn’t want to lose his life after all. He tried to say so. He tried to tell them. He just couldn’t. His mouth wouldn’t work.

  The nurse put something in an IV that was hooked to his arm.

  Dr. Bartlett murmured some orders.

  Dolan did not want to die. He tried to scream. Nothing happened.

  They were going to do it. His memory, all that he was, would end now, even if his body survived. Dolan tried to beg for more time, a chance to barter, but his lips barely moved.

  Dr. Bartlett smiled down at him. “Snake, be proud. You can now sleep forever, resting assured that you have not let anyone down.”

  Dolan tried to whisper but only produced a hissing sound.

  The nurse took her eyes off of the IV rig. She shot Dr. Bartlett an odd look. Dolan felt queasy again and more than a bit high. Her face worried him. The woman was clearly emotional about doing this, which probably was not such a good sign. In fact, she seemed quite upset. Was that sadness or sympathy in her deep brown eyes? Both?

  Dolan swallowed dryly. He found a word. “Don’t.”

  Dr. Bartlett stood up and his face changed shape again. The world tilted and rolled like an old television set. “Your assignments are finished, son. Now, as we promised, it is time to erase you.”

  “Wait please.” A faint whisper at best.

  The nurse turned away. Her eyes were damp with tears. Her sympathetic reaction terrified Dolan because he was totally helpless now and unable to form a rational protest. His mouth was frozen shut. The world throbbed. The damned machine was kicking back into gear. They were going to do it, clean the slate and punch his ticket. Soon the nurse was openly crying.

  They were about to kill him.

  Dolan freaked out inside, but he could not move. He’d made such a terrible mistake. He’d been saddled with pain and sadness for so long that all he’d been able to dream about was being free of it. But now, faced the prospect of losing everything he’d ever been or would ever be, Dolan completely panicked. His life was not just about loss. It would be gone, all of it. The good would leave with the bad. The beautiful would end with the ugly. There would be no more childhood wounds, happy memories, no first love, no good experiences, no buddies from the war, no civilian life, no mission for Limbus, no Phyllis, no…anything. They were going to erase him and that would be the same as performing an execution. Everything he had been or would have ever become would be…nothing. He’d just be star dust again.

  It would be as if Mike Dolan he had never lived at all.

  No!

  Dolan wanted the pain back. His pain.

  The nurse wiped her eyes and sobbed. She turned a plastic knob on the IV. The blue fluid flowed into his veins as the machine roared to life.

  Dr. Bartlett said, “Goodbye.”

  Dolan fought against the restraints but his body barely moved at all. He was still screaming in his mind but the hot feeling started all over again, as all those fiery needles punctured his skin. They had begun the final process. It was almost over. Dolan tried his best to scream in protest, to fight for who he was. He failed.

  Don’t!

  The laboratory began to fade. Dolan realized that even now, at the prospect of existential nothingness, he was still unable to cry. He was a coward. He just wanted to stay alive, to stay Mike Dolan, to keep the small shreds of dignity he’d managed to recover through the last mission. But now it was too late to change his mind. He’d made his choice.

  The awful mechanical sounds returned and so did the relentless physical pain.

  The machine was merciless as it took him away.

  *

  Horror and confusion and more silent shrieks of panic. The now familiar shift in time and space. An eternal sense of falling that finally stopped.

  The man woke up on someone’s front lawn just when the sprinklers came on. He rolled over onto his back and looked up at the stars. The pocked moon was full and devoid of pity or remorse. He felt incredibly drunk, and when he looked down at his body, he was stunned to see that he was also stark naked. He sat up and held his aching head. He could not remember where he’d been, or who he’d been with, or what he’d been drinking. Hell, the man did not remember his own name.

  The sprinkler water felt good on his aching body. He got soaked. The man got to his feet and shook off the inebriated feeling. No. He was not drunk at all. In fact, he was stone cold sober. He was just loopy from all the drugs they’d given him. He did not know who “they” were. He knew that someone had given him drugs, he was sure of that; people in white coats in some strange place with weird paintings on the walls.

  Had he been in a mental institution? Why couldn’t he remember anything? Who was he, and how had he ended up here?

  He stumbled down the sidewalk, shivering from the cold, embarrassed by his condition but determined to get off the street.

  He came to a corner and found a small strip mall flanked by huge metal trash bins. Some old clothing had been discarded by the homeless. It was wet from the recent rain. He slipped into oversized trousers and a torn jacket. The damp clothing reeked but it covered his nakedness. There was a half-empty bottle of wine sitting there. It looked inviting. He felt thirsty and he stared at it, but he did not touch a drop. He just stumbled down
the alley and out onto the next block.

  The man stopped in his tracks.

  He knew this corner. It was near his house.

  My name is Mike Dolan.

  Dolan felt something very much like the wind pushing from behind. He had a job to do, even if he wasn’t quite sure what that was. He stumbled forward. He jogged for half a block. His head cleared and he began to run. He passed by the next door neighbors’ home. All the lights were off and the half-tilled garden was marked off by wooden posts and thick twine.

  He’d need a weapon.

  Dolan saw a shovel poking up from a pile of manure. He grabbed it as he raced by. It trailed along the sidewalk with a thin scream, leaving sparks. His heart slammed in his chest and he felt a terrible sense of urgency but couldn’t have said why. He knew his name and the place to go but nothing else except that it was a matter of life and death.

  Mike Dolan ran for his life. He crossed the alley and broke through the rose bushes and into his own front yard.

  And that’s when he heard the woman call for help.

  Dolan burst up the steps with the shovel and somehow was not at all surprised when a big man in a stocking mask came out of the bedroom with a knife and an open can of gasoline. The intruder sliced at Dolan, but cut only thin air. Dolan was too fast for him. He swung the shovel. The tool whacked the man on the knee and then the left shoulder. Dolan swung again. The man dropped the knife and stumbled forward.

  As the intruder turned away, Dolan noticed an odd logo on the back of his jacket, a globe with little dots of light. The man dropped the open gas can. Gas spilled out on the floor. The pool spread rapidly. The stench filled the air.

  Dolan struck again, aiming for the back of the intruder’s head, but the man managed to roll out of the way just in time. He got up slowly. Dolan got to his feet. He could see the intruder’s eyes through the mask. They seemed oddly calm. They did not look angry or afraid. In fact they seemed vaguely…amused. The big man reached into the pocket of his jacket.

  Dolan said, “Don’t!”

  The masked man held up a cheap, plastic cigarette lighter, an old-fashioned one. He flicked it twice and dropped the flame into the pool of gas between them, which exploded instantly. Dolan dropped the shovel and stepped away from the fire. The stranger raced for the front door and escaped into the night. Gone as if he’d never been there. And Dolan let him go without a second thought.

  The woman…

  Dolan instinctively turned and ran for the back bedroom. He saw her lying there in her torn nightgown. He did not recognize her at first, but he gathered her in his arms. She was unconscious but still breathing. He looked back at the front door. The flames were in the way. Dolan could hear sirens coming. He wrapped the poor woman in the old, damp clothing and carried her naked through the flames, but he was healthy and strong and sober and running so fast, with his skin and clothes still soaking wet, that he did not get burned or experience any pain. They got outside.

  His house went up in flames behind them, but he had somehow managed to save the woman. He’d done it. He’d done it.

  Outside, on the damp lawn, Dolan rolled her around just to be sure the fire was out. The old pants he’d picked up were smoldering a bit, but so what. He checked her out. She seemed okay. In fact, neither one of them had been hurt.

  The woman’s eyes fluttered. They opened.

  And that’s when Dolan recognized her.

  Everything froze in time and space and the present vanished. Dolan felt his mind blink and somehow change channels. He had one disturbing vision of an unfamiliar white room that was packed with electronic equipment. Some people in white coats were looking down at him. A nurse was crying, but it was not because she was sad; it was because she was touched. The image went in and out of focus. It shifted until it became just a fleeting idea; just something disturbing and surreal, a half-remembered moment from a scary film, or perhaps just the vestige of a very bad dream. A faint voice in his head said, “Goodbye, Snake,” and then even the odd trace of a dream was gone.

  The house was a total loss, and so was his collection of antique weapons, but it didn’t matter. Mike Dolan remembered exactly what he’d wanted all along. He was done drinking. He was going to change as of right now, once and for all. His wife was lying there on the grass, thankfully okay, and it was all because he was sober. Phyllis was alive, and she was his entire world. Her perfume smelled wonderful.

  The fire trucks arrived, and the yard was soon filled with shouting men and flashing red and white lights. Puzzled neighbors in pajamas and robes stood in the street and stared at the two of them.

  Phyllis opened her eyes and smiled up at him. She coughed up smoke. She put his unburned bare hand on her swollen belly.

  She whispered, “You came home.”

  And Mike Dolan finally cried.

  First Interlude: Whispers in Shadow

  As Conrad read the last words on the screen, the text began to dissolve, to reform, and then Conrad was again staring at a mass of numbers, symbols, and unintelligible digital scrawl. The fire popped and crackled in the hearth, while the snow swirled outside the windows, backlit by the pale light of a gas lamp.

  He turned the story he had just read over in his mind. True, it was a wild, insane, inventive piece of fiction. But that was all it was. And yet, something deep down, back in the reptilian part of his brain, screamed out at him. In warning, perhaps. But certainly in recognition. There was something familiar that tugged at him. Then there was Limbus itself, hinted at so darkly, yet never unveiled. Whether an entity of good or evil, he could not say. And why should it matter? It was, after all, a creation of the mind. A fiction. No more real than any other.

  And yet…

  Conrad felt the way he did when he needed a drink, which was ironic given that he had already had several. Instead, he decided he needed a walk, blizzard or not. He grabbed up his coat, leaving his laptop behind on the table—no one would take it—and headed out into the night.

  As he opened the door, he braced himself for the cold wind. But it did not buffet him as he expected. Yes, the snow came down in handfuls, but the wind was stilled. As he stepped out into a fall of soft velvet, he felt a warmth inside that could not be attributed to the alcohol. At least not entirely.

  He walked through the streets of that ancient city, sure to step carefully along the cobblestones. He jammed his hands into his pockets, strolling past shuttered stores and closed pubs. Always, the citadel towered over him, looming black and foreboding above.

  The night, however, was not as dark as he would have expected. The accumulated snow seemed to gather the frail light from the flickering gas lamps that lined the corridor-like streets—collecting it and reflecting it back into the night. It was unnaturally quiet though, so quiet that when he stopped walking and let the seemingly thunderous pounding of his bootfalls die away, he could almost imagine he was the only man alive, such was the titanic totality of that silence.

  Yet he was not alone. That much he suddenly knew. He could feel a pair of eyes on him, feel it as much as he would if a hand clapped down on his shoulder. He turned in place, slowly. Carefully. But as nonchalantly as he could manage. He didn’t want to appear startled or afraid. Just a student, out for a stroll.

  He saw him almost immediately. He was standing in the shadows—and in Český Krumlov, the shadows were somehow thicker than in other places. But while the man’s face was shrouded, his eyes shone in the night. Then his face was illuminated too, lit in the glow of the cigarette he was smoking. Conrad shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.

  He jumped when he heard the footsteps, sure that in that moment of shattered silence he was undone. He had been caught. This was the end. He turned in the direction of the sound, expecting to see a SWAT team or a squadron of police with guns drawn. That, however, was not what he found. Instead, it was a single man, turning the corner of the street, a load of what looked to be firewood in a sturdy leather sack slung over his shoulder. The bag was pac
ked full to bursting, and as he drew close, Conrad wondered how he could possibly manage. He seemed not to notice Conrad, but as he was about to pass, he looked up, and Conrad stumbled back in shock.

  At first, he told himself it was an illusion. Then, that the man was merely deformed. But both were lies, and he knew it. He was from a different age altogether, and not an age of men. Conrad had seen a face like that before, but only in museums.

  The man—if man he was—passed on, and a cackle split the night. The figure in the doorway roared with laughter. His unnaturally bright eyes mocked Conrad, as much as his voice ever could. His laughter had not ended when he turned and opened the door behind him, light flooding into the streets. He tossed the cigarette back into the snow, and the hiss of extinguished embers seemed to echo through the narrow alleys of the city. He looked at Conrad one more time and coughed out another laugh before turning and disappearing inside.

  Conrad thought of Van Gogh’s, probably the only place in the old city that was still open. It had been, he supposed, his destination from the beginning. But suddenly he didn’t want to keep walking. Suddenly he felt like he should be back at his computer. That he had more, much more, to discover. He turned back, the snow still falling around him. He sincerely hoped he did not see the man again.

  In this, his hopes held true. He returned to the Wolf’s Head Inn without incident. His computer still sat on the table, as did his stein of beer. But when he opened the laptop, he noticed something he hadn’t before. Another riddle.

  Priceless work of art, made without hands—

  An unparalleled treasure, as rare as the sands.

  A shiver ran down his back, and his skin became gooseflesh. He turned and looked out the narrow window. In the glow of the lamplight, specks of white swirled.

  “Just a coincidence,” Conrad whispered, even as didn’t believe it.

  His hands found the keyboard again.

  Snowflake.

  The image swirled wildly, a chaos of mad electrons flashed across the screen. A new image formed, one that looked to Conrad like some great, prehistoric beast. A dinosaur maybe, but one that swam in the sea. Then that too dissolved, and Conrad watched as the unintelligible became sentences once again. It was another story.