A flinching sadness touched his face. He spoke very quietly. "I made a promise to myself today. You know what I mean? Have you ever made a promise to yourself?"

"Yes, Jervis. Lots of times."

Jervis made a thoughtful nod. "Well, I promised that I would never let a girl lie to me again. I was in love once, with a girl named Sarah. I let her lie to me because I was too afraid to confront the truth. Without truth, there's nothing, right? When we let people lie to us, we become cowards at our essence. Her lies...hurt me."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Jervis."

"I'm not a coward anymore. No woman will ever lie to me again." He looked at her, his eyes flat yet full of...hope? "You mustn't lie to me."

"I'm not lying, Jervis," she lied. "I don't know where-"

"No, no, no!" he roared louder than any voice she'd ever heard. The words were cannon shots which shook the brick joists of the shop. "Lying mocks me! It takes me back to what I was!"

Lydia wished for a convenient corner to crawl into. She shivered before him-the impa.s.sioned maniac. She knew she was dead, so what good would lies do?

Jervis quieted, grimaced as if to push something back. "It's a complicated thing," he whispered, "the rebirth of my Existenz. Sartre said one must recognize existence before essence, and I have. To become the center of my universe, I must accede to my object of self. Do you understand?"

"No."

"I gave Sarah all my love, and she gave me lies. Truth is relative, but so is falsehood. It's transpositional. If you lie to me, you become Sarah, and if you become Sarah, you attack my spirit. I'd be forced to do something really awful to you. Something...hideous."

The only thing worse than a homicidal psychotic was a philosophical homicidal psychotic. Lydia's eyes remained riveted to him.

"I could take you apart like a doll, your arms, your legs, your head," he cheerily informed her. He seemed to stand in an aura of darkness. "I could pull your insides out like yarn. So...I'll ask you again. Where's Wade?"

Truth? she thought. I must accede. Even if she told where Wade was, Jervis would kill her anyway. So what could she say?

"Blow yourself," she said.

Her feet were off the floor in an instant. Jervis had her throat in his right hand and something else in his left. Gagging, her gaze flicked down to see what it was.

What he held was a Craftsman auto body sander. You used them to sand down putty on fenders, though Lydia seriously suspected that Jervis planned a slight variation of this utility. The disc was loaded with fifteen grit synthetic sandpaper.

An inch from her nose, he turned it on. Its motor shrieked. The grinding disc spun before her eyes at 4,000 rpm's.

"Tell me where Wade is," Jervis said, "or I'll sand your face off."

In the chokehold, Lydia barely managed to gasp, "Eat my p.o.o.p."

"So much for Mr. Nice Guy." He would do her real slow, would stretch her death out like pizza cheese. The motor's screams played foreshadow to her own. Just as the grinding disc would strike pay dirt-her face-the motor died.

"Jervis, Jervis," Professor Besser's voice came from behind. He'd pulled the sander's cord out. "If you kill her, we may never find Wade."

"She lied to me!" Jervis spat. "She affronted my Existenz!"

"Forgive her, my boy. Didn't Sartre also say that one must forgive his universal counterparts for the sake of the ultimate existential ideal?"

Jervis' flat eyes thinned in rumination. "No!" he shouted. "Sartre never said anything even close to that!"

"Bring her to the labyrinth," Besser commanded. "We'll put her in one of the holds."

Seething, Jervis let her down and gave her a smack on the back of the head. The blow laid her out-she nearly lost consciousness. "You're f.u.c.ked, b.i.t.c.h," Jervis promised her in a fierce whisper. "I'm gonna do a job on you that would make Charles Manson puke. Just you wait."

He began dragging her along by the collar, but not toward the shop door, she dizzily realized.

He was dragging her toward the wall- -then into the wall- -then through it.

CHAPTER 26.

Nina McCulloch prayed for forgiveness for her sins. She could hear the others in Elizabeth's room, but her prayers blocked their voices out. Nina believed that Jesus had died on the cross for her, expurgating any sin she might ever commit. To pay Jesus back, she followed the Commandments, offered thanks and praise, and fully accepted him as her savior.

"Amen," she whispered.

Now she lay in bed, restless. She could hear them in the next bedroom: Elizabeth, and Kara and Stacy, two girls from down the hall.

Nina knew what they were doing.

"What a rush!" Elizabeth could be heard through the wall.

"Cla.s.s A s.h.i.t, Liz," Kara observed.

"Cut me another rail," Stacy requested.

Nina, of course, never joined them. They always offered, claiming: "You only get addicted if you do it every day"; "It's harmless in moderation"; and "Nina, all that antidrug stuff on TV is just propaganda. Come on, try some."

But Nina's reply was always the same: "No. It's a sin."

The body was a temple of the Lord; it said so in the Bible. If you put bad things into your body, you were defacing that temple. A tract she'd read once said that if you used drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or even ate junk food, that was the same as throwing garbage in a church. Nina believed this fervently. She also believed that even responsible drug users were actively partic.i.p.ating in the denigration of society. The money that Liz and her friends so harmlessly spent on a little cocaine went to the same people who supplied crack to elementary school kids. Every penny helped fuel the giant drug machine which ruined people's lives. It helped make the weak weaker, and the helpless more lost. Drugs were the soldiers of Satan's army.

Nina got up and sneaked to the bathroom. She hoped they didn't hear her. They might laugh at her and persecute her for her beliefs. Nina, of course, would forgive them, but that was beside the point.

Tinkling, she heard their uproar. They were talking about s.e.x now, and how much better drugs made it. "His c.o.c.k was hard all night!" Stacy exclaimed. "s.h.i.t, I musta come ten times!"

Babylon, Nina thought, perched upon the toilet. But she mustn't judge them; only G.o.d could judge. She couldn't escape the thought, however, as their reverie rose: The wages for sin are death.

Jervis fumed as Besser handed him the parcel.

"Drop this off, then meet the sister at the sciences center."

"Yes, sir," Jervis tensely replied. "Anything you say."

Besser stood at the servicepoint of the detentionwarren. "And there's one other thing the Supremate would like you to do."

"What?"

"Kill Dean Saltenstall."

Jervis' brow knit. The dean was harmless. "Why?" he asked.

"He runs the college. He's an authority figure," Besser explained, "and authority figures offend the Supremate's superiority; they blemish his grace. To the Supremate, the dean is a graven image. So kill him."

Graven image? What an ego. "Right. Kill the dean."

Besser seemed to sense Jervis' upset. He peered at Lydia beyond the repulsion screen. "Ah, you're angry about her. You feel I've injured your existential self by denying you her death."

"Something like that," Jervis restrained himself.

"For now we need her intact, as a lure for Wade. But afterward, Jervis, I promise you'll have her."

"Thank you...sir."

"Good. Go now. Serve well for our master."

Jervis extromitted back to his room. They'd barriered Lydia Prentiss into one of the tempholds. He'd just have to have his revenge later, and it would be sweet. He would put some holotypes in there with her and see how she liked that. Some of those holotypes had been locked up in the deep holds for years, going mad with l.u.s.t in the psilight. Some had k.n.o.bbed tentacles for c.o.c.ks, or things that looked like big plungers wide as coffee cans. There were even a few that had multiple p.e.n.i.ses...

He walked down the hall into Wade's room. Be creative, he thought. Creativity is the key to existential awareness. It was only a matter of time before Wade returned to his room. Jervis left the parcel where Wade was sure to see it.

Minutes later he was driving down Randolph Carter Street, past the Circle. The sister's grinning white face beamed in the headlights. He picked her up in front of the sciences center, as instructed. -Hi, Jervis! she greeted.

Jervis nodded, gulping. The sisters gave him the w.i.l.l.i.e.s-their monstrous kiddie grins, perpetually shaded eyes, and the unearthly giggling. How could you trust someone who giggled like that?

-Ready?

"Yeah. Where to?"

She gave him Besser's Qwik Note, which read: "Elizabeth Whitechapel, Duke of Clarence Hall, Room 688."

-She's the last one. Then all we need is the holotype and we can leave.

"Leave to where, if you don't mind my asking?"

-New kingdoms, Jervis. New pigs.

"And I get to go with you, right? Immortal?"

-Of course! We're all immortal in the glory of the Supremate!

Jervis drove on. Something was fishy about this whole business. Why hadn't he seen any other productionva.s.sals around, from past procurements? There was only him. Jervis knew s.h.i.t when he smelled it. Just because he was dead didn't mean he was stupid.

-The Erblings have just given birth to two beautiful baby mutants. And Inez Packer's insemination couldn't have gone better.

"Glad to hear it," Jervis muttered. If they could make their own va.s.sals, what would they need him for in an eternal future? Am I getting screwed? "We have to stop at the dean's first. Besser told me to kill him."

-Oh, Good! the sister rejoiced. -I'm so hungry!

"There's plenty of eats in back."

The sister looked at Inez Packer's roommate and the dead security guard. She made a face. -But I want a FRESH pig, Jervis. I want a FRESH man thing.

Wonderful. I'm stuck with the p.e.c.k.e.r eater again. Except for their size, the sisters had no distinguishing features. They were clones. He wondered how many years it had taken to hybridize them. How many crossed genes from how many planets.

A long drive lined with hundred year old oaks led to the dean's mansion. Acres of mown, open land gave the estate a rich Dixie plantation appearance. Jervis parked next to the dean's Rolls. The moon hung low behind wisps of clouds.

They walked casually up the pillared front steps. Jervis hocked a lunger into the topiary. An old bra.s.s door knocker stared at them, an oval bereft of features save for two wide, empty eyes. Jervis raised his hand to knock, then paused. What am I doing? Murderers don't knock.

He b.u.mped the heavy door face with both palms. The door jumped out of its frame and thudded to the floor. They were halfway up the winding stairs when the hall light came on.

"Winnie? Is that you?"

Jervis chuckled. "Not quite."

The dean froze two steps out of his bedroom. He wore a maroon robe and pink pajamas. Doubt of reality drew slits into the lined, tanned face. "What the-" he stammered. "Who the-"

-Hi, Dean! the sister announced. -I'm going to eat your man thing!

Jervis smiled.

The dean fled screaming back into the bedroom. Jervis promptly knocked down the door. The clean white room lay in total contradiction to what was taking place. The bed, the furniture, and the lambent white walls coalesced into a pattern of normalcy that Jervis and the sister violated merely by entering.

"Nice place you've got here," Jervis complimented. "Elegant."

The sister began her wet, clicking giggles.

Whimpering, the dean backed into the walk in closet. Thousand dollar Italian suits surrounded him like a conspiracy of accusers. The jury was in. "Please," Dean Saltenstall shivered and begged. "I've done nothing to deserve this."

"I know," Jervis acknowledged. "That's why we're doing it."

Be creative, he reminded himself. He spun the dean's head off in one graceful motion, a sharp twist and a jerk. The dean's lips sputtered a nifty, musical sound, like a kazoo. "Thar she blows!" Jervis celebrated as the stump gushed rich red blood onto the walls, the suits, the ceiling. For a moment the dean seemed to dance headless. It was magnificent.

The spouting figure collapsed. "All yours," Jervis said. The invitation made the sister giggle. At once she knelt betwixt the dead legs, tearing open the pajama bottoms.

CHAPTER 27.