Chapter
79 Face to Face
But his soul was mad. Being alone in the
wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone
mad.-
Joseph Conrad
After the other Maries had left, Marie
ordered Stan, Barry, and Jackie to the battlements on the roof with the few
firearms that were available. She kept
Friese and Jenkins to man the Freezer and Mawacky for news. She, herself waited in the Egg Room. She knew she would come. She could feel it.
In
the distance she heard the first explosion.
She flinched at the sound. She
knew inside that one of the Marie’s had given her life for them.
Her plan had been to send the other Maries
down the mountain moving the vibrational sensors further down and away from their
previous positions. Theoretically Wally
would have located, if he hadn’t know all of their previous locations already,
where they were and sent his explosive teams to destroy them. By moving them further down, most of the
explosion teams would be cleared of their infections before they reached the
spots where they were expecting to find them.
Maybe, many of Wally’s infected army would succumb to the ploy before he
or the Toxies could figure it out.
The sound of the explosion wasn’t a great
sign. And then another one. Shit!
Jenkins shouted from the other room,
“Another Egg incoming!”
“It’s her,” Marie replied.
“Can we just leave her in there?” asked
Jenkins.
“We can try, but she can get out on her
own. I think I could now, so I’m sure
she can. She’s been at this a lot longer
than I have.”
“Let’s be polite and let her out then,”
Jenkins suggested.
He entered the Egg room and hit the
controls to open the Egg.
The other Marie in the Egg smiled at
recognition, “Hello Rian, so lovely to see you alive. Sadly, you won’t be for long. Oh, and you again, how are you Marie? Good to see you. I feel like we’re sisters of a sort. I feel a sisterly affection for you.”
“Sisterly affection didn’t stop you for
killing those other Maries.”
“Well, they were different than us, weren’t
they? Inferior. The first and the last, we share a special
bond that the others didn’t. And, I’d
say you’ve done one hell of a job killing Maries yourself this morning. How many to you lure here to their doom? They’re all going to die in just a few more
minutes.”
Her comment was punctuated by the sound of
more explosions and the rapid stinging of automatic assault rifle rounds.
She was different than the other Maries,
though in significant ways, now that Marie had a chance to examine her in the
harsh fluorescent lighting. She was in
perfect shape, a perfect physical specimen, and what was it? Ah, she looked to be a good fifteen years
younger than Marie herself.
“And, for what?” the evil Marie
continued. “This isn’t even your own
universe.”
“What?”
“Oh, dear, so new at this, aren’t you? You can’t even tell your home universe, such
a rookie mistake. No, this isn’t
it. You have never actually returned
there after your first trip. Close, this
one is very close to in many respects…but…don’t believe me? Ask Jenkins who’s the President of the United
States, he’s a limey, but he’ll know.
Tell her.”
“Roderick Pluerry.”
“Who the fuck is Roderick Pluerry?” asked
Marie.
“Exactly,” replied the evil Marie. She turned to Jenkins. “Do you have a wife and children on Earth II,
as you call it?”
“Yes, yes I do.”
She addressed Marie, “Your Jenkins isn’t
married, well except to his work. You
didn’t even go to the right Earth II on your first trip. Ha.
You met the wrong Chandler on the wrong Earth II. I love it.
You can’t have fucked this up more if you tried, Marie. You just couldn’t have. Anyway, I want to talk to you alone.”
She then turned again to Jenkins, “If you’ll
allow us this time together for our sisterly chat, I’ll tell Wally to hold up a
bit on the siege. How’s that sound? Fair?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” He looked at Marie with concern. “I’ll leave you two for a moment, Marie, if
you need me, just yell.” And he left.
“Well, Marie, isn’t this nice. Just you and me,” said the evil Marie.
“What do you want?”
“I’ve come for two reasons, the first is to
have a little chat with you, answer a few of your questions, make you an offer,
and the second, you’ll see…though I assure you…I mean you no harm personally.”
“Chat away then,” said Marie who noticed
the sound of explosions and gunfire had ceased.
“Well, first, I’d like to make you an
offer. A simple offer. I am prepared to leave one universe unharmed
and untouched for your use. I’ll remove
all traces of the Toxies from that universe.
You can have it all to yourself.”
Marie laughed at her face, “What makes you
think the Toxies will do that?”
“Oh, you don’t know? I would have thought you would have figured
it out by now. I made the Toxies. When I learned of the toxoplasma gondii in my
universe, it was after I had gained some experience in the interdimensional
world thanks to my Jenkins and company.
Like you, I have the power to change things in reality, so I jiggered
the little blighters, added quantum antennae and turned them to my use…to
expand my consciousness throughout the multiverse…to become God.”
“You’re insane!”
“Sanity is over-rated, Omnipotence and
Omniscience, not so much.”
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“We don’t exactly share the entirely same
back story, dear. For example, you fled
your Roger…I killed mine.”
“You killed Roger?”
“Your Roger is fine, I killed my Roger. So,
as I was saying, I am prepared to offer you your own personal universe, to do
what you like. Change it however you
want. There’s still so many to choose
from. So many. Perhaps, you’d like a universe where Roger
wasn’t bi-polar? I know of a couple, we
could stick you in. You could live
happily ever after. Whatever. You want Barry instead? Sure, you can even have an unmolested Chateau
de Pays m des Merveilles if you like, no problem. Though that would come with one catch…you
could only travel within the confines of your universe and it’s past and
future…but that’s a lot of times and places to explore…it would keep you busy
for the rest of your life. Anyway, think
about it, dear Marie. We’ll meet again.”
With that her yoke suit glowed and she
faded away in a mass of glowing golden light.
The explosions and gunfire resumed immediately.
“Fuck it,” she said. “I’m going after that bitch.”
And she faded from manifestation.
copyright 2017 Diana Hignutt
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