Michael Sullivan - Hollow World

Pax didn’t say anything.

“Pax, I’m going to stay. You might not understand it, but I belong here, I think. I was actually hoping that maybe you could join us.”

“Join you? You aren’t hearing me, Ellis Rogers. These people are murderers. They killed Geo-24. They killed Pol-789, and they’re planning on doing something much, much worse. They—”

“I know you are afraid of them, and you were right about Geo-24, but they didn’t have anything to do with that killing. Well, one of them did, but it wasn’t sanctioned. They didn’t know what that person was up to. That’s why the killer assumed Geo-24’s identity; they weren’t allowed to come back here. Warren wouldn’t forgive a murderer. Believe me, Warren has always been pro death penalty. And Pol isn’t an impostor. You’re just seeing things. You’re letting your imagination get away from you. You’re just being—” Ellis stopped himself.

Pax stood rigid, staring, shivering as if it were midwinter. “Paranoid? That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? And that’s just another way of saying I’m crazy.”

The door to the house slapped. Ellis could hear the crack echo behind him.

“Please,” was all Pax said, the word spoken in a whisper, another tear falling.

Ellis looked over his shoulder. Warren, Pol, and Dex were on the porch, looking their way. “Maybe you should go.”

The look on Pax’s face broke Ellis’s heart.

As Pax walked through the portal, as the opening to that homey space in Hollow World closed, he felt oddly drunk, dizzy even. Ellis reached out to steady himself with the fence but couldn’t feel the wood. His whole arm was numb. Then the pain exploded in his chest. No warning. A truck just hit him. Ellis collapsed, bouncing off the fence and landing on his back.

The last sight he saw was the blue sky. His last thoughts weren’t of Peggy or Isley, but of Pax, a woodstove, and maybe a dog. Yes, they definitely should have had a dog.

When Ellis woke, the blue sky was gone, replaced by a white luminescence. He was on his back. A bed. Thin mattress, thin pillow, thin blanket, with what looked like white porcelain safety rails. He was naked but warm. Maybe the mattress was heated. Maybe he didn’t need heat anymore. From somewhere came the sound of an ocean’s surf. Not loud, not harsh, but soft, gentle, relaxing.

“ Welcome, Ellis Rogers ,” a feminine voice said. No one around. The voice came from everywhere. “ How are you feeling? ”

“Feeling? I’m not feeling anything.”

“ Wonderful ,” said the soothing voice.

Stillness—total stillness, and white light, and the undulating roll of waves.

“Did I die?”

“ Yes .”

While not completely unexpected, the answer still surprised him.

So this is death? Not so bad. Could have been a lot worse. Death is a lot like a spa.

He was still breathing. Maybe he only thought he was. Residual memory or something. Maybe dying had a decompression process, a PTSD cooldown. If this was death, life was certainly cause for all kinds of stress disorders. He had to be dead. He could breathe perfectly. He took in deep breaths the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in years.

“Are you God?” he finally asked, already thinking that the feminists and goddess worshipers had it right all along.

“ I’m Maude .”

“Maude?”

“Yes .”

Ellis wasn’t sure what to make of that. All he could think of was the 1970s television show staring Bea Arthur. The thought of Bea Arthur as God was a bit disturbing, and yet he could see it in a weird way. Only the soft voice wasn’t that of the Maude from the television show. This voice was serene, gentle. More like a voice from a meditation CD. Still, Ellis had a bigger question he needed answered. He hadn’t smelled any brimstone, but he might not have reached the penthouse either. “Where am I exactly?”

“ Recovery Room 234-A, Level 17, Replacements Central Wing, Institute for Species Preservation, Wegener, Kerguelen micro continent, Antarctic Plate, Hollow World, Earth .”

“Hollow World?”

“ Yes .”

“Maude?”

“ Yes? ”

“Are you a vox?”

“ Yes .”

“I’m not dead then, am I?”

“ No, not dead. You only died .”

A portal opened and someone entered the room. Ellis had no idea who. The individual was naked, with no distinguishing marks. All Ellis knew was that it wasn’t Pax, Pol, or anyone else from the farm. This person had all their fingers. That narrowed the possibilities to only several million. Ellis actually had no idea about the population of Hollow World but imagined it to be significantly less than the billions that had roamed the continents back in the days of China and India.

Ellis’s visitor looked around, frowning. “Maude, Ellis Rogers is awake. Can we have something a bit nicer than sterile nothingness?”

The white walls and glowing ceiling disappeared, and Ellis found himself on a beach. Overhead was a cobalt sky, and at his feet was an aquamarine ocean. Sensuously curved palm trees reached into view, and billowing white clouds drifted like cotton balls. He’d had a screen saver that looked just like it called Hawaiian Dreams .

“Hello, Ellis Rogers, I’m Wat-45, your attending physician.”

“I heard I died.”

“You did—you did indeed.” Wat tapped the air, producing a wall and an input screen. He continued to tap through a series of images, while overhead a seagull cried. “But we fixed that.”

“Really? How do you fix death?”

“That’s what we do here at the ISP. We treat it like a disease—which it is.” Wat turned. “In your case, your body had shut down—massive heart failure. Your brain functions would have died, too, but they were frozen by the quick action of Dex-92876—a onetime associate here. I believe you know each other?”

Wat paused. Ellis nodded, pleased to discover he could still do that.

“Once your brain was locked up safe and secure, it was merely a matter of growing you a new heart and lungs. We actually gave you a deluxe package, a complete new set of organs, as most of your old ones were badly worn. Not surprising after two thousand years, eh?”

Wat offered him a smile, then resumed tapping on the wall. Ellis could see transparent images of organs flashing by.

“You’ve got some nice ones now. Top of the line. We augmented them to provide stronger heart walls and expanded lung capacity. You’ll be able to run a marathon twice over and hardly notice. We also inserted a molecular-level decay resistor, which won’t do much for your preexisting cells, but will ensure these new organs never need replacing.”

Ellis couldn’t help thinking about how each time he bought a new car the salesmen always mentioned the rustproofing and how important it was in Detroit. All that salt eats away at the body. With our undercoating, you get a guarantee of a long life.

“Wow—” Wat paused on an image that to Ellis looked like a Rorschach test. “Your old lungs were a disaster. You can take them home if you like, but if you prefer not to, we’d love to keep them.”

“That’s fine.” Seriously, did people keep them?

“Great.” Wat swept a hand across the wall; the images scrolled by, stopping when Wat tapped. “Ah, yes—we grafted new sections of arteries where we saw signs of impending collapse. Where the tubing was clogged, we dredged out the mess.” Wat turned again with a shocked look. “None of us could believe what we saw in there. It’s like you were pumping sludge through your circulatory system instead of blood.”