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Authors: Simon West-Bulford
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go!”
“No. Your serotonin levels are still unbalanced.”
Zachary Cox screams through my mind, and I scream along with him as scores of eyeless people with twisted faces bustle forward—Graham Adams pointing, Lisa Barclay accusing, Troy Davenport sobbing, Kriefan Mack pleading. Each one reaching for me with clawed fingers, pushing their rivals aside, desperate to tear me apart. How could I do what I did to them? But that isn’t me. Is it? Was it? I’m Salem Ben, not Orson Roth. I am not a murderer.
But I loved prying into their dying moments, adored the rush of it when I tasted their deaths.
I
felt that. I felt it just as much as Orson Roth.
I
wanted that. Didn’t I?
“Well? Did you?”
“
No!
I mean … what?”
“Did you find what you were looking for? Did you find out what was beyond death? Did he?”
“No, I was just …
He
was just a maniac.”
“Well, of course. Roth’s file did originally belong in the Maniac Sphere. I tried to warn you. Sharing in someone’s insanity and actions is not—”
“I had reasons for doing what I did. Those people cheated Fate … they … she needed … Oh, Qod.” Instinct tells me to cover my face with my hands, but the shackles refuse me the luxury. A mingling of agoraphobic and claustrophobic conflict wars in me as I am forced to stare out from my confinement and into the space of the vast Aberration Sphere.
“You still need a few minutes. Try to relax.”
“I’m fine. No thanks to you. Why didn’t you tell me Roth was a madman?”
“You knew he was a murderer. I thought it best not to tell you he was something far worse even than that. You seemed quite taken with the idea of endangering yourself when you learned of the aberrations, and telling you that Orson Roth was filed alongside people like Encore Makar the Necro-Lord or Caligula would only have sharpened your lust. How would you feel now, having awoken from Roth’s life, knowing you chose such an extreme?”
“I wouldn’t have become Roth if you’d told me.” I turned my gaze from the emerald glare of the curved walls to my feet.
Silence reigns for several seconds.
“Salem.” My name is drawn out as a long, bored sigh. “I have access to every recorded moment in the history of every cycle of the universe. I exist between the electrons that spin through each atom of your mind and, for that matter, every electron burning in the most distant stars of the most remote galaxy. I can beat you at chess, Barnam’s Hoops, and Quantum Stripes with the slowest neurons of my processing subsystems. I am your Alpha and I am your Omega and I’ve been taking care of you for billions of years. I
know
you. Why do you bother lying to me?”
“It isn’t you I’m lying to.”
My admission silences her. She knows it anyway but seems to think the banter will protect me, as if I can be distracted from my trauma and the knowledge that I’m coming to an end. By that I don’t mean death, not the physical kind anyway. The death of reason. The death of identity. My body will go on and on, but who lives within this flesh? Am I losing perspective to such a degree that I’m prepared to become a monster to find my answer? And perhaps it is even worse. Was it really the answer I was interested in, or was it the fascination of becoming a killer? This is why Qod warned me about being Orson Roth. Not because of who
he
was but because my choice might force me to face who I have become.
The hiss of hydraulic locks snaps me from my musings, and my hands and feet are freed. Cables lower me gently to the floor, and I’m grateful for the warm breeze against my face, as though somehow I had been aware of the stale atmosphere gradually building inside the WOOM through all the years of my immersion.
“Would you like to go to the Observation Sphere?” Qod asks. “Not much has changed in forty-six years, but I know how it helps you think.”
All I do is nod when the cables slide away. The metallic floor sticks to my
“No. Your serotonin levels are still unbalanced.”
Zachary Cox screams through my mind, and I scream along with him as scores of eyeless people with twisted faces bustle forward—Graham Adams pointing, Lisa Barclay accusing, Troy Davenport sobbing, Kriefan Mack pleading. Each one reaching for me with clawed fingers, pushing their rivals aside, desperate to tear me apart. How could I do what I did to them? But that isn’t me. Is it? Was it? I’m Salem Ben, not Orson Roth. I am not a murderer.
But I loved prying into their dying moments, adored the rush of it when I tasted their deaths.
I
felt that. I felt it just as much as Orson Roth.
I
wanted that. Didn’t I?
“Well? Did you?”
“
No!
I mean … what?”
“Did you find what you were looking for? Did you find out what was beyond death? Did he?”
“No, I was just …
He
was just a maniac.”
“Well, of course. Roth’s file did originally belong in the Maniac Sphere. I tried to warn you. Sharing in someone’s insanity and actions is not—”
“I had reasons for doing what I did. Those people cheated Fate … they … she needed … Oh, Qod.” Instinct tells me to cover my face with my hands, but the shackles refuse me the luxury. A mingling of agoraphobic and claustrophobic conflict wars in me as I am forced to stare out from my confinement and into the space of the vast Aberration Sphere.
“You still need a few minutes. Try to relax.”
“I’m fine. No thanks to you. Why didn’t you tell me Roth was a madman?”
“You knew he was a murderer. I thought it best not to tell you he was something far worse even than that. You seemed quite taken with the idea of endangering yourself when you learned of the aberrations, and telling you that Orson Roth was filed alongside people like Encore Makar the Necro-Lord or Caligula would only have sharpened your lust. How would you feel now, having awoken from Roth’s life, knowing you chose such an extreme?”
“I wouldn’t have become Roth if you’d told me.” I turned my gaze from the emerald glare of the curved walls to my feet.
Silence reigns for several seconds.
“Salem.” My name is drawn out as a long, bored sigh. “I have access to every recorded moment in the history of every cycle of the universe. I exist between the electrons that spin through each atom of your mind and, for that matter, every electron burning in the most distant stars of the most remote galaxy. I can beat you at chess, Barnam’s Hoops, and Quantum Stripes with the slowest neurons of my processing subsystems. I am your Alpha and I am your Omega and I’ve been taking care of you for billions of years. I
know
you. Why do you bother lying to me?”
“It isn’t you I’m lying to.”
My admission silences her. She knows it anyway but seems to think the banter will protect me, as if I can be distracted from my trauma and the knowledge that I’m coming to an end. By that I don’t mean death, not the physical kind anyway. The death of reason. The death of identity. My body will go on and on, but who lives within this flesh? Am I losing perspective to such a degree that I’m prepared to become a monster to find my answer? And perhaps it is even worse. Was it really the answer I was interested in, or was it the fascination of becoming a killer? This is why Qod warned me about being Orson Roth. Not because of who
he
was but because my choice might force me to face who I have become.
The hiss of hydraulic locks snaps me from my musings, and my hands and feet are freed. Cables lower me gently to the floor, and I’m grateful for the warm breeze against my face, as though somehow I had been aware of the stale atmosphere gradually building inside the WOOM through all the years of my immersion.
“Would you like to go to the Observation Sphere?” Qod asks. “Not much has changed in forty-six years, but I know how it helps you think.”
All I do is nod when the cables slide away. The metallic floor sticks to my
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