Chapter Twenty-One.

Andy stood up at Sun's bedside. "Was that a gunshot?"

Sun said nothing. She was sleeping.

Andy sighed. "I really hate this place."

He took off, heading out of the infirmary and into the conference room. Dr. Gornman stood with her arms crossed, looking irritated.

"What's going on?" Andy asked her.

Gornman tutted and shook her head. "That young buffoon you brought along with you has just jeopardized the entire safety of the facility."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the idiot opened up one the cells." Her eyes narrowed. "With your wife's access fob, no less."

Andy needed to see for himself. He raced out of the conference room and into the cell block. What he saw didn't alleviate his confusion; it added to it.

Something lay on the floor, dead, bleeding, and covered in thick matted fur. Jerry was on his knees with his hands cuffed behind his back, Rimmer standing behind him, looking predictably stoic.

Kane was standing over the dead animal. The look on his face was almost trance-like.

"What the hell is going on?"

Rimmer glanced up at Andy. "Stay there, Mr. Dennison-Jones. Your wayward companion has just tried to compromise this entire facility."

Rimmer elaborated. "Kid opened up cell 5 and let the dog out."

"The bastards killed him," Jerry yelled. "They had no reason to. He was just chasing his ball. The... the bastards."

"The shooting was justified. Sergeant Rimmer will vouch for me. The beast was running straight toward us. Isn't that right, Sergeant?"

"It was. It shouldn't have been out of its cell," Rimmer said to Jerry.

"He was only on subbasement 5 because you hated him, you Nazi fucks. You have cameras all over. You could see we were just playing."

"You were playing with a werewolf, kid," Rimmer said.

"He wasn't a werewolf! Did you shoot him with a silver bullet? No! And he's dead. You killed the last one in the world, for no reason at all."

Kane cleared his throat and said, "Mr. Preston, your recent actions qualify as terrorism. Your actions could have seriously compromised this facility and its agenda. Therefore, Sergeant Rimmer is going to incarcerate you under the terms of The Patriot Act of 2001. You will remain in custody for whatever time I deem fit."

Jerry spat at the general's feet. "Do what you gotta do, bitch."

"You can't be serious," Andy said. "He's not a terrorist. He's just a kid."

"He screwed up," Rimmer said. Then he looked at Jerry. "What did you think was going to happen, kid? You were going to become best friends and run away together?"

"You're all a bunch of wankers."

"Take him away, Sergeant Rimmer," Kane ordered. "You know what to do with him."

Rimmer didn't seem happy about it, and Jerry seemed even less happy, but it only took a few seconds for Rimmer to put Jerry into a submission hold and yank him to his feet. Jerry didn't struggle as Rimmer led him away.

Kane turned his attention back to Andy. "Now, Mr. Dennison-Jones, the only question remaining is whether or not you had anything to do with this." He produced one of the blue rubber fobs from his breast pocket. "This is, after all, your wife's access fob, yes?"

"I didn't even know that Jerry had taken it. My wife nearly died. I was by her side."

"So how did he get the security code?"

"He was there when you told it to us, remember?"

Kane rolled his upper lip over his lower lip; nodded very slowly. "Okay. You're dismissed."

"What are you going to do with Jerry?"

"It isn't your concern."

Andy blew out a stiff breath. What else could he say? Jerry had apparently released a dangerous animal from its cage, and there wasn't any way to defend that.

"Just let the boy go. Send him home to face the music."

"Return to your wife, Mr. Dennison-Jones. She no doubt needs you. Let me worry about running the Spiral."

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Andy headed through the conference room and back into the infirmary. When he got there, there were a couple of nurses milling about, and he asked them if his wife had woken while he'd been gone. He'd only been gone ten minutes but it felt much longer.

"We haven't checked in on her," said the nurse. "We thought you were still with her."

Andy wasn't happy to hear that, but he had left without informing anyone, so didn't feel he had the ammunition to complain.

"Was that a gunshot I heard?" asked the nurse.

"Yes, but everything is under control."

"Thank God for that." The nurse smiled and went back to her duties.

Before Andy made it to Sun's room, he bumped into Dr. Chandelling.

"Ah, Mr. Dennison-Jones. I was hoping to find you."

"You were? Why?"

"I learned something about our Manx guest."

"Lucas?"

Dr. Chandelling nodded enthusiastically. "All of the previous tests I conducted were fruitless. Then I had the idea of sending a picture of him to some acquaintances in the NSA. I figured if we can't find out anything about his insides, we could see if there's anything we can find about his identity. You see, I found that by cross-checking-"

Andy waved a hand. "I'm anxious to get back to my wife, Dr. Chandelling. What is it you've found?"

"Of course. I'll get to the point." Dr. Chandelling mumbled something else before producing a small tablet from the large side pocket of his lab coat. "Facial recognition software has reached a point where Internet images can be searched, and not surprisingly, the NSA does it all the time."

"So the NSA can identify people from pictures posted online?"

"Yes. Here, take a look."

Andy squinted at the shiny screen and saw a black and white photograph of a white man standing next to a man in a turban.

"This is Lucas with Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, second in command of Al-Qaeda. We believe it was taken a few weeks before 9/11." Chandelling swiped his finger on the tablet and changed the picture. "Here Lucas is again, in 1994, with Juvenal Habyarimana. Habyarimana's assassination was the catalyst for the genocide in Rwanda. Close to a million people killed."

It was definitely Lucas.

"Now here he is in a picture with Pol Pot. This picture is dated between 1978 and 1979, during the Khmer Rouge period. You know what happened then, I take it?"

"More than two million Cambodians died." Andy shook his head. "I don't understand. How could he have been present during so many awful situations? How could he know they were going to happen? Is he psychic?"

"He's much more than that." Dr. Chandelling typed something into his tablet before turning it back around so that Andy could see. "Take a look at this one."

Andy's mouth hung open. "That's... Adolf Hitler."

"Yes. And that's Lucas standing right behind him in a Shutzstaffel uniform. The United Nations have never been able to identify the man in the picture before. He has remained a mystery."

"And now we have him in subbasement 5."

Chandelling nodded slowly. "There are two things to be gleaned from this. Number one is that Lucas has been present at several truly awful human events-genocides and mass murders, wars. Number two; I will allow you to come to the conclusion on your own."

Andy stared at the tablet for a few moments; looked at the spitting image of Lucas standing behind the Fuhrer. "He hasn't aged. He looks exactly the same in this photograph of World War Two as he does now."

"Absolutely fascinating, wouldn't you agree? One more picture. Not as clear, because of its age. We had to clean it up digitally, but the NSA spooks say it is a 93% match."

Chandelling clicked on an old, faded, sepia-toned picture of a man in a Calvary uniform, perched on a horse. He was instantly recognizable by his huge mustache.

"George Armstrong Custer," Andy said.

"And look who is on a horse, to his left."

In a cavalry uniform, smiling pleasantly, was Lucas. "That's... impossible."

"Not only does Lucas have no discernable DNA, but apparently he doesn't age, and has been around since at least 1876. He apparently has met with key people involved in some major historical events that led to innumerable deaths."

Andy rubbed at his eyes with his palms. He felt exhausted. "I need to speak with Sun," he said. "I need to think this through."

"Of course," Chandelling said. "I'm going to share this with Kane. I believe the threat Lucas presents has gotten many times greater."

Andy nodded as Chandelling left.

Was Lucas over a hundred and fifty years old? It seemed impossible, but so did the majority of the occupants of the Spiral. And could this mild-mannered Manx man-so polite and soft-spoken-somehow be involved in countless deaths?

Andy wanted to ask his wife what she thought. But when he reached her room, Sun wasn't there.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Lucas clung to the steel-mesh fence and watched as the batling unfurled its wings on the other side. It still had not yet fully recovered from its injuries, but was making quick progress.

And then the fun and games will no doubt begin.

Lucas sighed. His presence here had been of his choosing, but as time passed by he was growing apprehensive.

The batling opened its eyes and glanced around. When its baleful gaze fell upon Lucas, its eyes opened yet wider. "Youuuuu."

Lucas nodded. "Aye, 'tis me."

"It has beeeeen a looooooong tiiiiiiime."

Lucas folded his arms, pressed his forehead up against the steel mesh. "It has indeed been some time. Yet our re-acquaintance has come about far too quickly for my liking."

The creature they called Bub stretched out its wings, rolled its head on its shoulders with an audible crack, and then grinned, its mouth opening like a drawer of steak knives.

"I reeeemember Gomorrah," Bub said. "Your lust for bloooooooooood was insatiable."

Lucas closed his eyes, not to reminisce but to forget-to force away the images that rushed through his mind like a blood-red waterfall. "I was a different being back then. Ignorant of many things. Many things that are clear to me now."

"What riddles dooooooooo yooooou speak, liiiiiiigght bearer?"