Люциус Шепард - The Best of Lucius Shepard

“I understand,” said Mingolla, thoroughly unnerved.

“Do you? Do you really?” The lieutenant seemed aggravated by Mingolla’s claim to understanding. “I doubt it. I doubt you could possibly understand.”

“Maybe I can’t,” said Mingolla. “Whatever you say, man. I’m just trying to get along, y’know.”

The lieutenant sat silent, blinking. Then he smiled. “My name’s Jay,” he said. “And you are… ?”

“David.” Mingolla tried to bring his concentration to bear on the gun, wondering if he could kick it away, but the sliver of life in his hand distracted him.

“Where are your quarters, David?”

“Level Three.”

“I live here,” said Jay. “But I’m going to move. I couldn’t bear to stay in a place where…” He broke off and leaned forward, adopting a conspiratorial stance. “Did you know it takes a long time for someone to die, even after their heart has stopped?”

“No, I didn’t.” The thing in Mingolla’s hand squirmed toward his wrist, and he squeezed the wrist, trying to block it.

“It’s true,” said Jay with vast assurance. “None of these people”—he gave the corpse a gentle nudge with his elbow, a gesture that conveyed to Mingolla a creepy sort of familiarity—“have finished dying. Life doesn’t just switch off. It fades. And these people are still alive, though it’s only a half-life.” He grinned. “The half-life of life, you might say.”

Mingolla kept the pressure on his wrist and smiled, as if in appreciation of the play on words. Pale red tendrils of mist curled between them.

“Of course you aren’t attuned,” said Jay. “So you wouldn’t understand. But I’d be lost without Eligio.”

“Who’s Eligio?”

Jay nodded toward the corpse. “We’re attuned, Eligio and I. That’s how I know we’re safe. Eligio’s perceptions aren’t limited to the here and now any longer. He’s with his men at this very moment, and he tells me they’re all dead or dying.”

“Uh-huh,” said Mingolla, tensing. He had managed to squeeze the thing in his hand back into his fingers, and he thought he might be able to reach the gun. But Jay disrupted his plan by shifting the gun to his other hand. His eyes seemed to be growing more reflective, acquiring a ruby glaze, and Mingolla realized this was because he had opened them wide and angled his stare toward the emergency lights.

“It makes you wonder,” said Jay. “It really does.”

“What?” said Mingolla, easing sideways, shortening the range for a kick.

“Half-lives,” said Jay. “If the mind has a half-life, maybe our separate emotions do, too. The half-life of love, of hate. Maybe they still exist somewhere.” He drew up his knees, shielding the gun. “Anyway, I can’t stay here. I think I’ll go back to Oakland.” His tone became whispery. “Where are you from, David?”

“New York.”

“Not my cup of tea,” said Jay. “But I love the Bay Area. I own an antique shop there. It’s beautiful in the mornings. Peaceful. The sun comes through the window, creeping across the floor, y’know, like a tide, inching up over the furniture. It’s as if the original varnishes are being reborn, the whole shop shining with ancient lights.”

“Sounds nice,” said Mingolla, taken aback by Jay’s lyricism.

“You seem like a good person.” Jay straightened up a bit. “But I’m sorry. Eligio tells me your mind’s too cloudy for him to read. He says I can’t risk keeping you alive. I’m going to have to shoot.”

Mingolla set himself to kick, but then listlessness washed over him. What the hell did it matter? Even if he knocked the gun away, Jay could probably break him in half. “Why?” he said. “Why do you have to?”

“You might inform on me.” Jay’s soft features sagged into a sorrowful expression. “Tell them I was hiding.”

“Nobody gives a shit you were hiding,” said Mingolla. “That’s what I was doing. I bet there’s fifty other guys doing the same damn thing.”

“I don’t know.” Jay’s brow furrowed. “I’ll ask again. Maybe your mind’s less cloudy now.” He turned his gaze to the dead man.

Mingolla noticed that the Cuban’s irises were angled upward and to the left—exactly the same angle to which Jay’s eyes had drifted earlier—and reflected an identical ruby glaze.

“Sorry,” said Jay, leveling the gun. “I have to.” He licked his lips. “Would you please turn your head? I’d rather you weren’t looking at me when it happens. That’s how Eligio and I became attuned.”

Looking into the aperture of the gun’s muzzle was like peering over a cliff, feeling the chill allure of falling and, it was more out of contrariness than a will to survive that Mingolla popped his eyes at Jay and said, “Go ahead.”

Jay blinked but he held the gun steady. “Your hand’s shaking,” he said after a pause.

“No shit,” said Mingolla.

“How come it’s shaking?”

“Because I killed someone with it,” said Mingolla. “Because I’m as fucking crazy as you are.”

Jay mulled this over. “I was supposed to be assigned to a gay unit,” he said finally. “But all the slots were filled, and when I had to be assigned here they gave me a drug. Now I… I…” He blinked rapidly, his lips parted, and Mingolla found that he was straining toward Jay, wanting to apply Body English, to do something to push him over this agonizing hump. “I can’t… be with men anymore,” Jay finished, and once again blinked rapidly; then his words came easier. “Did they give you a drug, too? I mean I’m not trying to imply you’re gay. It’s just they have drugs for everything these days, and I thought that might be the problem.”

Mingolla was suddenly, inutterably sad. He felt that his emotions had been twisted into a thin black wire, that the wire was frayed and spraying black sparks of sadness. That was all that energized him, all his life. Those little black sparks.

“I always fought before,” said Jay. “And I was fighting this time. But when I shot Eligio… I just couldn’t keep going.”

“I really don’t give a shit,” said Mingolla. “I really don’t.”

“Maybe I can trust you.” Jay sighed. “I just wish you were attuned. Eligio’s a good soul. You’d appreciate him.”

Jay kept on talking, enumerating Eligio’s virtues, and Mingolla tuned him out, not wanting to hear about the Cuban’s love for his family, his posthumous concerns for them. Staring at his bloody hand, he had a magical overview of the situation. Sitting in the root cellar of this evil mountain, bathed in an eerie red glow, a scrap of a dead man’s life trapped in his flesh, listening to a deranged giant who took his orders from a corpse, waiting for scorpion soldiers to pour through a tunnel that appeared to lead into a dimension of mist and blackness. It was insane to look at it that way. But there it was. You couldn’t reason it away; it had a brutal glamour that surpassed reason, that made reason unnecessary.

“…and once you’re attuned,” Jay was saying, “you can’t ever be separated. Not even by death. So Eligio’s always going to be alive inside me. Of course I can’t let them find out. I mean”—he chuckled, a sound like dice rattling in a cup—“talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy!”

Mingolla lowered his head, closed his eyes. Maybe Jay would shoot. But he doubted that. Jay only wanted company in his madness.

“You swear you won’t tell them?” Jay asked.

“Yeah,” said Mingolla. “I swear.”

“All right,” said Jay. “But remember, my future’s in your hands. You have a responsibility to me.”

“Don’t worry.”

Gunfire crackled in the distance.

“I’m glad we could talk,” said Jay. “I feel much better.”