gave a tight smile. “Josef, we’ll have to go outside. It’s not as bad as it was before—not here, anyway—and in any case, we won’t be out long. But we’ll still have to move quickly. There’s no reason to be nervous.”
“Why would I be nervous?” asked Horkai.
“Each minute out there is a day we won’t live,” said Olaf.
“That’s the spirit,” said Rasmus, but whether to him or to Olaf, Horkai couldn’t say.
He might have continued to question them, but at that moment the black-haired brother let go. Olaf grunted and planted his feet, while Rasmus tightened his arms around him and pulled back. Horkai screamed and passed out.
WHEN HE CAME CONSCIOUS AGAIN, it was to hear Olaf say:
“—not so tough now, is he?”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Rasmus responded.
Oleg had managed to roll the door up five feet or so. He rolled it up another foot, then turned around. Horkai groaned, as if just regaining consciousness.
“Awake? As time goes on, you’ll probably feel less pain,” Rasmus said.
“Probably?” Horkai said.
Rasmus smiled. “No promises,” he said. “To be honest, we don’t know all that much.”
“Why not?”
“Door’s open, time to go out,” said Rasmus. “Action not words, friend. Olaf, you’ll have to walk backwards. I’ll let you set the pace. Oleg, close up quickly and then catch up with us.”
They moved forward and through the opening. Outside was a ravaged landscape, ruin and rubble stretching in every direction, the ground choked in dust or ash. Remnants of buildings, mostly collapsed. The sky was bleak with haze, and a wind blew, hot and indifferent. All of it was pervaded by a strange, unearthly silence. Olaf, Horkai suddenly realized, was holding his breath. Looking up, he saw Rasmus had his mouth closed tight, too. He heard a crunch as the metal door slid down behind them, then Oleg’s footsteps as he came rapidly alongside Olaf, helping take Horkai’s weight.
They traveled maybe fifty yards, maybe slightly less, Olaf and Oleg moving backwards crablike and quick, Rasmus pushing them forward until they came to a web of metal girders and shattered glass. Beside it, behind a broken stretch of pediment, was a hole and within it a set of granite steps leading down into darkness. It was into this that they took him, down to a thick metal door and through it, down a winding rusted iron stairwell and into the remnants of an old library, mostly a wreck now.
The bottom level was lit by a strange glow, an artificial light of some kind that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. The light was pale, just enough to see by but little more. He saw a crowd of perhaps two dozen people, all middle-aged, who began to whisper back and forth as they came in. Rasmus nodded to them, but quickly moved past and to a scorched wooden door on the other side of the chamber.
The room inside was the same, the walls aglow, though perhaps more feebly so. It contained a desk with a single chair behind it. Three chairs faced it.
They carefully deposited Horkai in the chair behind the desk, and he spread his palms flat on the desktop to keep from falling. Then they took the three chairs facing him.
“Comfortable?” Rasmus asked. In the dim light, he looked odd, his outline fuzzy, his eyes pooled in darkness and barely visible.
“That’s not exactly the word,” said Horkai, his discomfort only slowly receding.
Rasmus nodded. He looked to Oleg, then turned to look at Olaf. “Where should I start?” he asked. And then he looked at Horkai. “Knus didn’t tell you anything?”
“Who is Knus?”
“The person who woke you up,” said Oleg. “The one you tried to kill.”
“Can’t you keep anything in your head?” said Olaf.
“Now, boys,” said Rasmus. “He’s been asleep a long time. It’ll likely take him a while to find his bearings.” He turned to Horkai expectantly.
Horkai started to shake his head, stopped abruptly from the pain. “He just tried to make me guess my name.”
“And did you guess it?”
“We didn’t exactly get that far,” said Horkai. “I don’t like guessing games.”
Rasmus sighed. “Knus was just following protocol,” he said. “He was doing his best to help.”
Horkai didn’t say anything. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Oleg and Olaf smirking at each other. Or at least he thought it was a smirk; in the low light it was hard to be certain. Meanwhile Rasmus had his fingers tented beneath his chin and, attentive, was staring at him.
“I SUPPOSE YOU’RE WONDERING why we woke you, Josef,” he finally said.
“Among other things,” said Horkai.
“It’s simple,” said Oleg. “We need you.”
“For what?” asked Horkai.
“All in good time, Oleg,” said Rasmus. He turned to Horkai. “Yes,” he said, “that’s true. We do need you, Josef. But that’s hardly where we should begin.”
“Do I know you?” asked Horkai.
“Excuse me?” said Rasmus.
“Is that my name? Why do you keep calling me by it?” asked Horkai. “Are we on a first name basis? Do I know you?”
“No,” said Rasmus, dragging the word out. “I don’t exactly know you. Or rather, I was introduced to you years ago, but I don’t exactly remember that. It’s something my father told me about. You used to know my father, back when he was in his thirties. He talked about you sometimes. He trusted you.”
“What’s his name?”
“Lammert,” Rasmus said. And when Horkai didn’t answer added, “Last name, Visser. He knew you,” he said. “He found you.”
He turned the name over in his head.
“Dead,” said Rasmus. “But, then again, most people are. He’s been dead for a long time, ever since I was a child. He would have been sixty-three this year.”
“How long have I been stored?”
“Thirty years. Give or take.”
“Thirty years?”
Rasmus nodded. “That’s why your memory’s faulty and your nerves are off—they haven’t been in use for three decades.” He looked curiously at Horkai. “How much do you remember about storage?” he asked. “Is that part of your memory hazy, too? Storage isn’t meant to be long term, is normally just a few weeks or months, rarely more than a year at most.”
“Why would you keep me under for so long?”
Rasmus looked at him strangely. “What do you remember?” he asked.
“Most of it,” Horkai lied. Why did he feel compelled to lie?
“Such as?”
“Just begin from the beginning,” said Horkai cautiously. “As you say, I’ve been stored a long time. It won’t hurt me to hear even the parts I already know again.”
Rasmus looked at him for a long time, then slowly smiled. “All right,” he said. “As you wish.” Placing a large hand on each knee, he began to speak.
4
