Coven

be back shortly, Wade, with some sisters. We’ll be taking you for your final acclimation regimen. And after that…it’s passion for eternity.”

“You evil fat piece of shit!” Wade yelled into the screen.

“And I’d learn to be more respectful of your superiors. Please don’t call me fat. Remember, I’m your new lord now, forever. If you’re not nice to me, I might decide to have you reassigned to one of the communal holds. The holotypes there aren’t particularly given to gender when it comes to pastime activities, if you get my meaning.”

“Aw, Jesus,” Wade groaned low in his gut.

“So behave yourself. And until we meet again…welcome.”

—YES, WADE, another voice announced. —WELCOME TO MY FAMILY.

—

CHAPTER 34

Symbols, he thought.

Jervis reminded himself to be creative. More and more, he viewed his new life as a progression of symbols. He was not so much doing things as he was wielding the hand of destiny. Everything meant something else, something deeper. But what else could the warm, black cube symbolize but death?

Besser had called it an s classtacticlepyrotechnicserviceordnance—its yield was equivalent to about five hundred kilotons. Jervis understood the importance of the Supremate leaving it behind, but…

Was he actually having doubts, after all he had done, after all the people he’d murdered?

No, it wasn’t doubt. It was despair.

Paragons don’t despair, he thought.

It was Sarah.

Jervis forced the thought shut. It was one or the other. It was destiny or sucking up to the bitch who’d dumped him. Could love be so focused as to divert him from immortality?

“No!” he shouted aloud. “No!”

I will not despair.

The pyrotechnic would kill thousands. It would kill Sarah too.

“I will kill them all,” Jervis said. “But I’ll kill her first, and I’ll do it myself.”

««—»»

Lydia retrieved her Colt Trooper Mark III from Besser’s office, where Wade had dropped it. Even though she knew it was useless, she felt she had to bring it. It was the only good luck charm for a girl who didn’t believe in luck. The office was silent. There was no sign of the exchange that had taken place earlier in the day.

Next she drove back to her apartment. Absurdly she took a shower, brushed her teeth, and put on a new uniform.

Am I really going to do this? she thought. It was still not too late to get on the interstate and blow. Something was giving her a dozen last chances to balk.

She drove the Vette to the student shop. She had the UV spotter, but she didn’t even know if it would work. When she entered the shop, she felt more asinine than scared. “Goddamn you, Wade,” she said to herself. “You better be worth this.”

Tom’s pendant hung around her neck; the extromission key felt warm in her cleavage. Her eyes scanned the wall and found the dot. One last luxurious image lodged in her mind: the Vette cruising swiftly into the next state, the top off, and Lydia behind the wheel, her hair a blond tumult in the breeze. I’m walking to my death, she thought giddily. “Oh, what the fuck,” she said.

She inserted the key into the dot and entered the labyrinth.

—

CHAPTER 35

Wade sat drenched in sweat in the hold. A lot of sisters seemed to be filing by. He knew now, they were just bred to order slaves, like drones in a bee colony. That’s all the Supremate wanted. Unifying the galaxies under one peaceful order was bullshit—he wanted brainless, obedient laborers to harvest the resources off all the planets for the material benefit of his own race, whatever and wherever that was. The Supremate was as diabolical as anyone in a position of power.

Sisters kept peeping in as they filed by. Hundreds must’ve done so thus far—where were they all going to? This was the first opportunity he’d had to see them up close without their sunglasses. Their eyes were huge silver orbs—the size of cue balls—each with a black point for a pupil. The black, he guessed, was just an inbred variation of the same material in Besser’s sensor ring, and the rods in Tom’s and Jervis’ heads, a genetic conduction relay that linked all of their minds to the Supremate. Instant blind allegiance built right in. What more could tyranny ask for?

And what of him?

Yesterday I was a college student. Today I’m an intergalactic stud. What a deal.

“What are you looking at!” he yelled at the screen. Another sister was grinning in. “How about a little privacy, huh!”

—We wish we could be you.

“Yeah? Why?”

Black veins traced faintly beneath her white chiffon skin. Her large breasts were nippleless. —We want to make babies too.

“Make tracks instead. Leave me alone. Bubblehead.”

But why did she seem so sad? She was a clone. —We’re going now. The Supremate is done with us. She smiled a last time, showing rows of glassine teeth. —Goodbye, Wade.

“Good riddance. And see a dentist. Soon.”

Then she was gone. Her strange laments surprised him; perhaps they weren’t as mindless as he thought. It wasn’t Wade they envied—it was life itself. It was love, joy, passion, creativity, all the things that their warped existence had left them without. Wade almost felt sorry for her.

We’re going now, she’d said. But going where? The labyrinth wasn’t set to leave until midnight. When Wade looked up at the screen again, the melancholy procession of sisters had ended.

Then a shadow loomed. Besser. “It’s time, Wade.”

“Time for what? Tea?”

Behind the screen’s electrostatic fog, Besser’s goateed face looked like a cross between Henry VIII and Lucifer. Two sisters stood at his side. “It’s time for immortality,” Besser said. “The Supremate wants to give you his gift now.”

“Tell him to wait till my birthday. I hate to feel obliged.”

Besser dropped the screen. The sisters’ huge eyes blinked above their grins. They grabbed Wade and pulled him out. They followed Besser down the servicepass and extromitted several times. The sisters exchanged grins as their hands roamed Wade’s body. I’m being felt up by aliens! he thought, outraged. Their curiosity grew incessant; their fingers worked into his shirt. More envy: the sexless exploring the fertile, touching that which it wasn’t. “Hey, careful with the merchandise!” Wade complained when one of the hands slid over his crotch.

Wade sensed he was higher in the labyrinth now. The servicepasses were darker, the psilight had grown dull. Warrens he’d seen glowing earlier were black now; others blinked off before his eyes. It was obvious: They were