"There’s nothing but earth below," they say, but I'll see for myself. That’s why I'm still descending through the endless tunnels I'd discovered earlier, trembling with fatigue.
The torch's firelight illuminates dirty but otherwise smooth metal walls - they’re obviously from pre-Catastrophe times. In this claustrophobic darkness I long to see the surface again, curving up and around into blue-white haze; a giant bowl around the sun.
The shaft ends in a window beneath my feet. It reveals a pure black speckled with thousands of brilliant points of light. A huge cave, surely? I decide to break through the glass.
Onwards!
The closed door looked innocuous enough, but Wouters knew the truth. Young Lambert had been in there for two days, and it had been unusually quiet for most of that time. Everyone came out changed.
Everyone.
It was interesting, he thought, how just one experience could so profoundly alter the core of someone's self-identity. Many had been broken entirely in that room.
The door opened and Lambert emerged. Unsteady, ashen, the eyes different now, but - walking. Perhaps he'd been more resilient than Wouters had given him credit for.
"Congratulations!" exclaimed Wouters. "You've completed the EU Administration and Bureaucracy Exam!"
"They sing, you see."
Dana gestured at the immense spectacle before them.
"Every star vibrates with a primary frequency - a musical note - with natural harmonics superimposed. And each is different."
"I . . ." whispered Jared.
"To have gathered so many suns, to have arranged them perfectly . . ." Dana sighed. "I wish we knew who they were."
The music filled Jared utterly; a sanctuary for his soul. He stood now in timeless peace, one of a billion enraptured faces held in thrall. Dana would tend to his living needs - and those of the others in her care.
But, sometimes, she wished she could hear.
Shooting me is - at the very least - impolite of him. I can understand why he is doing it, though. Some guards are very protective of their banks.
“Have a nice day!” I bid him cheerfully, as I Select the closest probability-line in which he’ll miss (a beautiful sepia colour, like nostalgia). The bullet drills harmlessly into the wall as I stride out the doors. Straight into her.
“Going somewhere, darling?” she asks, with that infuriating smile.
The p-lines converge into a single strand as she Blocks my options; someone racks a gun to my left. Cassandra has caught me.
Again.
Every time I manage to pull back from the edge, I leave a small part of me inescapably there. That is the cost of it; the admission paid for each visit. I can keep doing this, I know, for some time yet - but there will come a point where more of me remains than returns.
And yet - it’s such a small loss. Like the barest scrape rubbing off an atomic layer. No one will notice; I can barely feel it myself. So what price is it really, in the end?
* * *
The boy watches sadly as the hollow man drifts past.
