“Your friend’s meds are wearing off,” Burnofsky said.
Keats picked up the vodka bottle and held it close to Burnofsky’s ruined mouth. As if he was going to pour. A ragged need transformed Burnofsky’s face.
“I believe your meds are wearing off as well,” Keats said, and set the bottle back down again.
Minako McGrath had screamed.
She had not fainted, but as she screamed something had hit her in
the back of her head, and that buckled her knees.
No one had warned her, no one had told her that the fanciful,
mythological painting on the ceiling of the dome was of a real person.
People.
It had simply been too much. She was not so delicate as all that, she had seen many people with deformities and she had never felt anything but compassion for them. And maybe, no certainly, she would come to feel that same compassion for these unfortunates. Except that these were no helpless beggars. These were the Great Souls, the ringmasters of this floating asylum, the bastards who had
kidnapped her.
She lay in her quarters. There was a bruise on the back of her
head. Someone had brought her here, someone had smeared antibiotic ointment on the back of her head, matting her hair.
She sat up. The headache was an explosion in her skull. There was singing, loud and not very good.
One mind.
Two great guides. No more war.
No more hate. It’s never too late.
Minako did not recognize the tune. She stood up and fought down a wave of nausea that almost did make her faint.
She went to the door. It was locked. She could see out into the sphere, but the door was locked. The railings were crowded with singing, banner-waving people. Through the gaps she could see that the floor of the sphere was crowded with ecstatically happy celebrants. It was all like some weird melding of rock concert, celebrity red carpet, and political rally.
The monsters were still in the elevator cage, which had come to rest just a few feet above the crowd. People reached out to touch them, tried to push their fingers through the wire. Like teenage fans with a pop star.
The song went on and on, and Minako had the distinct impression that it had been going on this way for quite some time. The sphere throbbed with it.
Finally the recorded music played a rousing finale, and the singing devolved into yells and cries and shouts of “Charles! Benjamin!” and “Benjaminia welcomes you!”
We love you!
Sustainable happiness!
Charles waved his arm expansively, soaking it all up. Benjamin was less obviously pleased. His face had endured some damage and his expression was more a scowl than a smile.
It mattered not to the admiring fanatics.
Benjamin! Our wonderful Benjamin!
Our prince!
Our guide!
Minako felt a very different sense of sickness, not nausea but terror. A chant was building, all the voices together, an inexorable rhythm.
Ben-ja-min!
Ben-ja-min!
Charles was pointing to his brother, a ringleader, cheering on the cheerers. He was deliberately drawing attention to his twin. And it seemed to be working, a little at least. The scowling Benjamin waved his arm before letting it drop to his side.
But then his eye drilled straight into Minako. He could see her. She recoiled from that terrible stare.
Only then did Benjamin smile.
Minako fell back, out of sight, and sat on her bed. This was all a nightmare. A nightmare. It couldn’t be real.
She was shaking. The sheer malevolence in that single eye.
They were going to hurt her.
The chant had changed now.
We are everyone! We are everyone! We’ll be everywhere! We’ll be everywhere!
Three men appeared at the door to Minako’s quarters. They were crewmen, not inhabitants of Benjaminia. One was the young Asian from the beach, KimKim, the one who had wanted to abuse her. But he was not leering now; he was standing very stiff and proper. The second man was older and she had never seen him before. She knew the third one was an officer; he had epaulettes on his shirt.
“You’re coming with us,” the officer said brusquely. He had an accent she couldn’t place.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
Minako backed into her room, as if that would stop them.
The officer said, “If you fight it will be worse.”
Until that instant she had not been sure she would fight. She had no weapons. She wasn’t going to win. Nor would she even manage to hurt them. But she would fight.
The two sailors stepped into the room and Minako threw the useless pamphlets at them. They reached for her and she kicked and scratched and none of it had any effect but to make her ever more enraged, enraged by her own impotence and weakness.
The younger one soon had her around the waist and threw her onto the ground. Once again a roll of duct tape was produced and wound quickly around her ankles and wrists.
“You’re all crazy! You’re all crazy!” Minako cried at the top of her lungs. “This is a madhouse!”
They tried to tape her mouth, but the older one dropped the tape and it rolled out of the door and bounced over the short lip of the catwalk to fall out of view.
“Idiot,” the officer said. “Just grab her.”
The two sailors hefted her up onto their shoulders. She kicked and squirmed and smashed her head against the young one’s temple. She contracted her stomach muscles and made them both stumble as they carried her out onto the catwalk.
For a terrible moment she thought they meant to throw her over the side. Maybe that would be better. At least then it would be over quickly.