He winked at me. That monster Silverio Moreno winked at me again. They had transformed him back to a human. Gave him clothes and that blasted red wig. And he leaned back in a chair and ate a sandwich.
That was when he winked at me.
I wanted them dead. All of them.
Where had Saligia come from? She was there, working with Rose to bring Sy back, like a couple of witches. It seemed they had more power working together. Also, there was that man who had taken over for Hal.
Were the portals working again?
Not that any of that mattered. No one was coming for me.
One indignity after another.
Rose covered me up again. However, she left a tiny opening large enough so I could watch them all depart, abandoning me.
Maybe I’d just die. How long had I been in this form? Would I starve? Languish from lack of water? Or maybe I’d lie here until the universe ended.
Then—not much later—one of those robots dressed in white entered the room. He tossed aside the cloth, lifted me, and carried me down the stairs.
For just a split second, I saw the rest of the group, clustered over in an alcove. There were robots milling about, picking things off the floor. But the robots appeared to be leaving the villains from Serpientes y Escaleras alone.
I was placed in a wheelbarrow and rolled along the mezzanine to the elevator on the far side. Another robot stood waiting on the elevator, he also had a wheelbarrow which I could see held a creature such as myself.
When the elevator arrived, the two robots entered, each with his charge—I being one. As the doors smoothly closed behind us the two robots seemed to be conferring over something, but as I couldn’t hear, I had no idea what the conversation might mean for me.
We were, of course, heading down. All my hope of escape, gone, as was my curiosity of seeing Los Angeles for the first time. I try but don’t always succeed at controlling my emotions, and as such I have found myself confronted at times by unexpected feelings. What I experienced at that moment was a welling up of sadness for how little traveling I managed to do in my life.
I’m not one prone to self-pity. But, over the decades, I had it in the back of my mind that at some point I would quit my job and take a long and leisurely tour all across Europe. Visit those iconic places I always read about.
It was ironic that I had to die before I ever managed to leave the state of Colorado. First Texas, and now California. Not that I’d been able to see much of either place.
Ironic, in a way, because I had just gotten my passport and was even drafting my letter of resignation at my job just as the IRS investigation began. Well, probably the investigation had already been long underway, but I didn’t known about any of that until they sent the agents with the handcuffs.
Those who knew me—though none very well—would be surprised to learn that I actually enjoyed the occasional break from routine.
One of my more cherished memories was a camping trip I took when I was about 35. I’d learned everything I needed to know about heading alone out into the mountains. Researched the best gear and freeze-dried meals. What a wonderful three day weekend in August.
It wasn’t until the second day that I even saw another person. An excitable college kid with binoculars and a bird identification book.
Other than that director on the game show, Hal, the camper had been the only person I murdered without any premeditated plan. It just came over me. A sort of second nature. In retrospect, it seemed unnecessary. What the British would call a “busman’s holiday.”
I never did learn his name. But I made sure to mark on my USGS topographic map where I had buried the body in that peaceful aspen grove. All part of my legacy.
The elevator door opened and I was rolled out.
I saw that we had arrived on the ground level. Where that pool of water was.
The lip of my wheelbarrow was low enough so I could see quite well. Such as yet another robot off the way across the water from us. He, too, had a wheelbarrow. He had positioned it at a gap in the railing and without any care or further consideration he tipped it forward and let the contents—a tentacled creature much like myself—fall into the water. While I found it terrifying, I was also intrigued in that the creature displayed significant more mobility that I could manage. Maybe the paralysis that had me unable to move about was only temporary. I was trying to see if the creature was floating or perhaps even swimming, but the robot who had been rolling me about in my cart had stepped around to block my view. Both he and his colleague removed from their pockets those little black boxes I had seen before. My robot brought the device in close and moved it about slowly. He seemed satisfied by whatever he gleaned from a display window I could not see. Then he pushed a button on the side of the box. A needle shot out and he plunged it into my body.
The pain was unexpected. Unexpected because I had experienced no physical sensations for so long. Suddenly I could feel my entire body. The tiny, almost imperceptible gusts of air, the pressure of my body resting in the wheelbarrow, the ambient temperature. I even had some very slight control over my limbs. My tentacles. There were 16 of them, I knew instantly. Some so stubby and rudimentary as to be little more than nubs. And I could hear. I could finally hear. But in a way new to me. My sense of hearing was actually connect to my sense of touch—the sound vibrations were coming from my skin.
“It’s a wonder this one survived so long in a Level 7 dampening field,” my robot said to the other, presumably speaking of me.
We had begun moving again, both robots pushing their carts. I now had an unobstructed view of the large circular pool. I could see no sign of any squid-like creatures in the water. If it was water. Nothing floating on the surface, no dark forms moving below. Nothing. I felt like a condemned man as I realized I was being taken along the curve of the railing towards that gap where clearly I would be tossed into the pool.
“Did you hear about those two civilians?” the other robot asked my robot. His voice was congenial, almost gossipy. “I heard that they broke the official seal on the surface elevator.”
“They did indeed.”
“But that’s explicitly against protocol. Why would anyone do that?”
“I have no clue,” answered my robot. “But it did over-ride the lockdown and get us out of the lower control room.”
“We really should install some sort of manual unlocking switch.”
“I’m more concerned about how soon they can reinstate the seal up there on the surface. You’re too young to remember the old days. But back then we’d have tour groups constantly coming down, getting in the way, eating ice cream, pushing buttons, dropping coins into the Augur Pool.”
“Coins? Whatever for?”
“For luck.”
“Luck? Such madness.”
“Those days need not return.” My robot’s voice had a clear edge of disapproval.
“Certainly not at the moment. We’re clearly overworked and understaffed.”
“Trying times for all of us here at Central Processing. But no doubt we’ll be back to optimum efficiency by Monday.”
“We are lucky Ricky Powell’s Saturday Chain Reaction Madness wasn’t renewed for a second season.”
“I was certainly not a fan of that one. But I’ll second your note of optimism. The weekend’s almost here, and the lull will let us get back on schedule.”
We had stopped.
I managed to lift up two of my longest tentacles—my brain seemed to register them as my arms—and rest them on the edge of the cart, but I had not recovered enough to lift my body.
I was screaming. But, alas, I had no mouth.
The other robot tipped his wheelbarrow first. I watched the creature within roll forward and fall three feet into the dark, sluggish waters. The sound was more of a thud than a splash. The poor devil just sunk out of sight. In fact, it appeared to be pulled under and away.
Then it was my turn. Down I went.