Trapped

Suddenly, my link with the Lucifer broke. A moment of dizziness. Then I was back in my own body, seeing with my own eyes by the dim violet light of the lasers. The ‹BINK›-rod and my Element gun lay a footstep away. The mound of black grains had pulled back against the walls of the prison cube, leaving me lying in a clear space in the middle. I felt as if I'd woken inside a volcano cone, with heaps of dark ash all around me.

I wasn't alone on the cage's floor. A short distance away, Sebastian lay squeezed into fetal position. He looked dead.

Slowly, carefully, I moved across the floor to Sebastian. When I tried to touch him, my hand was thrown back as if something had shoved it away. Nanites. They'd formed a shell around him, ready to repel anyone who came close… like a ring of growling dogs protecting their fallen master. If I tried to touch the boy again, I suspected the nanites would respond with more than a harmless push.

Now that I was closer, I could see Sebastian was still breathing. He didn't look injured: just catatonic. And who could blame him? He'd discovered he'd bedded a monster-the monster who'd killed poor Rosalind. The boy might also have realized he'd butchered dozens of innocent Keepers at the monster's prompting. Then there were the ugly deaths he'd seen: Impervia and the Caryatid. Enough to drive anyone into a stupor… especially a sensitive teenage boy whose head had been full of romantic notions.

It's devastating when you finally recognize the world is cruel. But time was running out, and Sebastian was the only one who could put things right.

"This is it, isn't it?" I said to the Lucifer. "Why I was brought here. I'm the boy's don; I'm supposed to get through to him. You think I can wake him before it's too late."

A rustle went through the surrounding black mound: a scratchy sandy hiss.

I nearly gave a bitter laugh. All this way, through bullets, fire, and acid; then it turned out my role was not to slay monsters but to talk to a teenager.

Almost as if my destiny was to be a schoolteacher.

"Sebastian," I said, "it's Dr. Dhubhai."

The boy didn't move. Still scrunched into a tight fetal ball.

I tried again. "You've just experienced some horrible things. Worse than you could imagine. And you probably don't understand a bit of what's going on."

The gunpowder mass rustled again. I took that to mean agreement. When the Lucifer covered Sebastian, nanites must have immediately formed a shield around the boy. They'd prevented the mound from establishing a mental link; otherwise, the Lucifer could have melted into Sebastian's thoughts and perhaps eased away the catatonia.

"I could explain everything," I told the boy, "but that would take time and we don't have much to spare."

Once more the black grains rustled in agreement.

"So here's how it is," I said. "You're feeling like the world is broken. Your life is ruined and nothing will ever be the same.

"Well… you're partly right. Good people are dead: people who never deserved what happened to them. And you've done some ghastly things. You were tricked into doing them, but you'll still have to live with the memory. That's going to hurt; perhaps forever.

"But you know what, Sebastian? Everyone's life is a mess. Everyone's. We all make mistakes… and not just little slip-ups. Major mistakes that hurt us and other people. We all go down wrong paths because we don't know better… or because we're too lazy, lonely, and afraid to change.

"I've screwed up my life just like everyone else. I've been a teacher ten years and I've never taken it to heart. Isn't that ridiculous? I should either get out or accept where I am. No more acting like the job is beneath me.

"And women! I can't begin to list the ways I've been a fool. Staying with one woman because she was convenient… even though she and I knew the affair was a poor substitute for what we should have wanted. And for years I looked down on another woman, even though she was far more than I ever dreamed; not to mention how I was completely blind to a third woman, who must have been hurt every day by my obliviousness.

"Those three women are dead now, Sebastian. I'll never get the chance to make it up to them. I'd like to curl up into a ball and cry until my eyes bleed.

"But crying won't help. Nothing will. I can't fix the past. I can only resolve to do better in future.

"Are you listening, Sebastian? Can you hear what I'm saying? Because I'm going to tell you something important: something everybody knows and everybody forgets. Are you listening? Here it is. You have to confront life. That's all. No matter how tempting avoidance may be, you have to confront life. I know it sounds trite, like the usual nonsense teachers tell their students. But it's true. You have to confront life. If you don't, your problems just fester. Nothing gets cleaned up. The messes you've made just grow worse.