I opened my eyes to look around. Michael had brought me as far as the main hub of the station. People ran around us as if we were invisible. The room was a tangle of desks and chairs. Half-eaten sandwiches littered several tabletops. Every desk's monitor blinked in protest of the power outage. A hiss came from the main precinct hologram, and it flickered unsteadily. Hundreds of red dots littered the surface of the map, each indicating a reported crime in process.
The wide glass of the captain's central office reflected the chaos. Beside me, I heard Morningstar let out a satisfied sigh. "Beautiful."
"Behind the captain's area, there's a door," I said. "It leads to the locker room, from there you can get to the parking lot. But ... there are security cameras ... automated checkpoints ... all these cops, surely one of them will stop us..."
"Don't worry about that right now, Deidre," Michael said. "We'll take care of that."
"We?" Though I couldn't see his face, I could hear the smile in Morningstar's voice.
Michael grunted in response. He started toward the door, without another word. My head started spinning with the motion. I focused on the sight of my own shoulder. My fingers and Michael's were entwined. Blood outlined each digit of my hand, filling in the crevasses of wrinkled skin. Michael's hand was smoother than mine. I might have been beginning to hallucinate, but I swore the blood seemed reluctant to blot his perfection. Where my hand was blackened by the flow, his appeared nearly spotless.
I heard a door spring open. "After you, my dear Alphonse," Morningstar said.
Wordlessly, Michael descended the stairs. I reached up with my other hand and grabbed a fistful of Michael's jacket. I squeezed it at each step. It didn't replace a bullet to bite, but it helped.
"Don't get too familiar, Morningstar," Michael commanded. "You're mistaken if you think I trust you for a moment. For all I know, you set this whole thing up."
"Why would I do that?" Morningstar asked.
"To hurt Deidre. To separate Jibril and me. To weasel me into a position where I would ask for your help. Who knows? Maybe all this is just to aid Letouraeau. He is one of yours, isn't he?"
"That would make things easier for you, wouldn't it, Captain?" Morningstar said. His voice had a seriousness in it I hadn't heard before.
Michael said nothing. The pounding of his steps was the
only response he gave. The sharp echo in the narrow staircase sounded like a hammer. Each ringing blow felt like someone was driving a hot spike through my should der. My vision blurred from tears of pain. I held on to Michael's jacket, swaying on the fringe of consciousness.
"What if I told you Letourneau had nothing to do with me?" Morningstar said, when Michael didn't respond. "Maybe all of this is part of the plan. Did you ever consider that? What if you and I are still just puppets? It wasn't we who tasted the fruit of knowledge. It wasn't we They made in Their image."
"Your jealousy is so apparent, Morningstar." Michael's voice was a fierce growl in my ear. "You will not corrupt me."
Morningstar laughed wickedly. We had reached the bottom of the stairs, and Michael stood in front of the door. He tried to use the hand that held my legs to work the knob. His grip shifted me awkwardly; I cried out in painful protest.
"Allow me." Morningstar laughed again. This time the sound was soft, but it was still as mocking. I heard the latch click and felt a cool breeze rush in. "As for your corruption, my dear, dear Captain, it's not up to me. It's you who will decide if the flesh will corrupt the spirit or make it stronger."
Michael stood in the doorway. His breath came in sharply. "Decide?"
"Yes. Freewill, Michael. It comes with the territory. I tried to warn you earlier. Spirit united with flesh, it seems, breeds it ... like a disease. For once in your miserable existence, the choice is yours. You could make a mistake. Perhaps you already have."
"No," he whispered, still not moving.
"Yes," Morningstar said firmly. A small chuckle escaped his lips, "An interesting dilemma, isn't it? Your light has certainly shone brighter; will your darkness eclipse even mine?"
"You lie," Michael snarled.
"Sometimes Truth can be the greatest of Adversaries."
"No!" Michael shouted.
A strange sound tickled the edges of my consciousness. It reminded me of a sunny day, when my mother would hang the clothes out to dry. Eion and I would run between the sheets that flapped in the wind.
Darkness swallowed my vision; I felt myself floating away. From a distance, I heard a voice say: Forgive me, Father...
KMarshall@LINK.com
"I'm from the District Attorney's Office in New York. I'm looking for advice on a very unusual situation that we've got here. A couple of our detectives actually put their hands on hard evidence linking a power reroute hack on the New York node to a perp code-named the Mouse. They nabbed him real-time here in New York. The case against him is pretty solid. That's not the problem."My problem is with his AI. As strange as it may seem, there don't seem to be any precedents on the books about the culpability of an AI in LINK crime. Mouse's attorney wants to make the case that since the AI did the crime, the AI should do the time. Any advice?"