Dr. Mills was pumping into them. Mills himself stood behind the computer, eyes closed, a twisted smile on his lips.
'What now, God?' she asked, holding the gun in front of her.
A hand fell on her shoulder, she turned, half-expecting to see the face of God, or maybe the Miracle Woman, but it was Randy. His punch landed and her mind screamed blue and she heard the distant clatter of the gun falling to the floor just before her head cracked against the cold concrete.
FIFTY
Warm.
That was what this union was; that was what hope and faith felt like. Vicky was right. Together, you could beat back the darkness. Together, you never had to surrender or apologize.
'Oh, that's just hilarious,' Dad said, twenty feet tall now, grim smoke pouring out of his soul. 'You murder your goddamned mother and then think you get away with a slap on the wrist because now you have somebody to share the blame. That's not the way it works, Trooper.'
'You don't know everything,' Freeman triptrapped, angry now, feeling the warmth expand, watching as the bridge grew brighter beneath Dad's monstrous shape. 'You think you're God but you're just as much of a loser as I am. Worse, even. Because I never asked for this and you searched for it. You begged for it and sold your soul for it. You pulled out every trick in your sick little book, but it's nothing but a meaningless mind game. And now the game's over.'
'He lied,' Vicky said 'He never gave you a gift. He gave himself the gift.'
'Shut up, bitch bones.' Dad quivered, his mouth alive now with dark shapes that fluttered like winged creatures. 'I'm the one who controls things around here. This is a world I built.'
'Then you can fucking have it,' Freeman said. 'Because we're getting out of here. In the deadscape, nobody has to follow your rules.'
He focused, shielded himself from Dad's thoughts, sent himself out and up, and Vicky joined him, the strength of their combined triptrap going through the deadscape and back to the real, living world and through the walls of the cell into the basement:
Dad, in the flesh, at the computer.
Kracowski in pain, stomach tight, mind sick with regret.
McDonald, rolling over, mad with the visions of things he'd never expected.
Randy…
Randy?
Randy, shielded, going to McDonald, a mission to complete.
And Starlene.
Freeman and Vicky went into Starlene's head, saw only gray. And then black.
And they were back in the deadscape.
Dad stood between them again.
Freeman tried another triptrap, this time not beyond the deadscape but into it. He called to those who hid behind the darkness, those who orbited this freakish universe. The dead. The ghosts. The true rulers of this bleak land.
Vicky joined him, and the broken, sad thoughts spilled into them, the dreams and screams of those who had died in the basement, those whose souls were stitched into this fabric, those who belonged here.
A form came up from the blackness, the Miracle Woman, her light faint but unyielding, and Dad was confused for a moment, as if the playground had changed without his knowledge.
'That's right, you bastard,' Freeman said, taking advantage of the lapse. Coming on like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, his greatest role, giving in to his dark side and riding hellbent for revenge. 'If you want to play God, then you may as well meet those whose souls you own.'
The Miracle Woman ascended to the bridge, as soft as a snowflake, and the bridge grew brighter. Her eyes were healed, her face clear, her soul pure. And as she joined the bridge, it grew brighter, the world tilted yet again and a storm roared from the dark corners of the deadscape. A keening of a strange wind arose and swirled around the bridge.
The Miracle Woman's shape dissolved, shifted, the soul realigned. And Mom stood in her place.
Mom.
'Don't turn away,' Vicky told Freeman, and he looked into Mom's eyes, Mom who bore no scars, Mom who held no regrets.
'It's okay, Freeman.' Mom smiled at him. 'Vicky's right. It wasn't your fault.'
Dad swelled with rage, a hideous black disease, and hovered over Mom as if ready to collapse on top of her, drag her back into dim memory. 'What the HELL are you doing here? WHO TOLD YOU TO COME BACK? '
'Oh, didn't you know? Something I learned after you killed me. You carry your dead with you, Kenneth.'
Freeman triptrapped her, and saw the truth of it: Dad had experimented on Mom, made her a victim, too. Dad was the one who went into the bathroom with the knife, Dad was the one whose perverted flesh wanted to taste that ultimate power. Freeman triptrapped Dad who was weakened now, and saw what Dad had hidden away, that Dad had planted the memory of Freeman committing the murder, muddled in his hippocampus, and built a corrupt story.
Mom grew larger, became the Miracle Woman again, white and hot and angry, and all the ghosts of the deadscape spilled from their secret spaces, swarmed into the Miracle Woman, became a large shining globe, brighter than a billion stars, and now it was Mom, as big as the world, burning Dad, scorching him, and Dad's soul screamed and scattered and a scrap of thought flew into Freeman's mind, and Freeman and Vicky held together in the face of this strange explosion, the Big Bang of a separate universe, the simultaneous birth and death of a place that couldn't exist.
Freeman triptrapped, Vicky with him, everywhere at once, the gift grown large, and he saw Starlene blink awake, look through fogged eyes at Dad standing over the computer, her hand clawing for the pistol, then she had it and she raised to her elbow and fired at the computer, hoping to destroy it, but the shot went wide and glanced off Dad's shoulder and struck a large tank that stood against the wall.
As the tank hissed from the puncture, Freeman and Vicky triptrapped Starlene and told her together:
Run up the stairs and quick, don't worry about us, we'11 be just fine, we 're together and the bridge doesn't have to break and there's always hope with a thousand roads to healing and good-bye Then Dad's final thought cut in and Freeman wondered if Dad would ask to be forgiven.
Dad said, 'You carry your dead with you, Trooper,' and then he was gone, his brain frozen, and the deadscape shimmered, became something strange and wonderful, and he suffered the slightest fear, but then Vicky's hand, her real hand was in his as the cold settled around, the cold that seeped under the cell door, a cold that stole their breath and took away their pain. Together they said a final farewell to flesh and walked into a landscape of their own.
FlFTY-ONE
Starlene stood at the gate of Wendover, looking back at the cold stones and unblinking windows of the building. The children had been evacuated and now milled around as if it were a holiday, playing under the trees, throwing pine cones at each other, yelling as the trucks drove past and around the building. The clouds had broken up and the world was bright with autumn, full of the promise of change.
'What did you do?' Isaac asked her.
'I'm not sure. All I know is I pulled the trigger and Freeman and Vicky told me to run. I was in the stairwell and I thought they must have escaped and gone ahead because it sounded like their voices were far away. Some kind of gas was hissing from the tank, so I closed the door to the stairs, then came out and saw you guys, and the
