could move again. No longer needing to be upheld, he had fallen back a little. No longer the leader of the new line, just another cell in its growing body, but that was okay. It was okay if most of them didn’t even know he was the one who had begun this. He was just glad to have his legs moving under him of his own free will.
Somewhere behind him, Adam heard a familiar, loud whooping sound like that of a police car siren coming to life. Though that sound had always irritated, even unnerved him, he found himself grinning now—his first smile in Hades. Because he knew that for good or ill, there would soon be giant white penises painted on the walls of Hell.
7: THE CONSTRUCT
There was a door in the control room, but Vee found it locked when she attempted to open it. She had disconnected Jay from the computer now and carried the gun in her hands. The weapon said,
“Ah, there’s a button on the keyboard to unlock this door.”
Vee turned back to the keyboard, and punched the key that Jay indicated. It was labeled ESC, for “Escape.”
Shouldering a pouch of crudely stitched skin she had taken from one of the skeletons and filled with magazines of ammunition for Jay—each bullet grown from bone—Vee said, “One escape down…who knows how many more to go.”
“And just where is it you want to go?” Jay asked her as they set out through a series of twisty, cramped corridors, their low ceilings and close walls lined with pipelines and conduits thick and thin like the control room they had left behind.
Was it still an objective to find someone to free her father, or was he too irretrievably lost in madness? She decided not to think about it right now. He had waited this long in his delirium, hadn’t he?
“I just want to—see what there is to see,” Vee said.
And so they continued on through the seemingly interminable maze of corridors, some so narrow she had to stoop and squeeze through them, others now so open and large they felt like subway tunnels. Lights were set into the curved ceilings or even the walls or floor at intervals, though some of them were flickering weakly or had even gone black. And as they traveled, the woman and the weapon kept up a steady conversation.
“You saw a taste of the widespread rebellion that was already sweeping Hades then,” said Jay about the stolen memories he had shared with Vee. “There had been rebellion stirring among the Damned for some time, but there was a certain incident that seemed to set off a chain reaction among the Demons as well. A Damned man who called himself Dan Alighieri rescued a female Demon known as Chara, whom he found tortured by Damned rebels and crucified to a tree. The man and Demon fell in love. Soon, other Demons of Chara’s type fought alongside the lovers against formerly human Angels like yourself, and a breed of Celestial beings that entered Hades to help quell the uprisings. As a result of all this, it was decided to totally eliminate that particular race of Demons, though soon enough the order was given to destroy any race of Demon—and there were many—that bore predominately human characteristics. New Demons were created to replace them, at such places as the great factory city, Tartarus. Tartarus was the city you saw in the recording, that the Damned started marching toward.”
“Oh! So they didn’t know they were going from the frying pan into the fire.”
“There was indeed fierce fighting in that Demonic city. It was never to be entirely taken by the Damned and their allied Demons, though they were never ousted either. But before I tell you the fate of Tartarus, I must tell you the fate—as much as we can know of it—of the Creator.”
In a shocking transition from claustrophobic tunnel to vast open space, they had passed through a threshold onto a metal ramp that spanned a dark gulf, not only its floor but its ceiling lost in gloom, the huge shaft also seeming to vanish into infinity to left and right. As they crossed
Somewhere behind him, Adam heard a familiar, loud whooping sound like that of a police car siren coming to life. Though that sound had always irritated, even unnerved him, he found himself grinning now—his first smile in Hades. Because he knew that for good or ill, there would soon be giant white penises painted on the walls of Hell.
7: THE CONSTRUCT
There was a door in the control room, but Vee found it locked when she attempted to open it. She had disconnected Jay from the computer now and carried the gun in her hands. The weapon said,
“Ah, there’s a button on the keyboard to unlock this door.”
Vee turned back to the keyboard, and punched the key that Jay indicated. It was labeled ESC, for “Escape.”
Shouldering a pouch of crudely stitched skin she had taken from one of the skeletons and filled with magazines of ammunition for Jay—each bullet grown from bone—Vee said, “One escape down…who knows how many more to go.”
“And just where is it you want to go?” Jay asked her as they set out through a series of twisty, cramped corridors, their low ceilings and close walls lined with pipelines and conduits thick and thin like the control room they had left behind.
Was it still an objective to find someone to free her father, or was he too irretrievably lost in madness? She decided not to think about it right now. He had waited this long in his delirium, hadn’t he?
“I just want to—see what there is to see,” Vee said.
And so they continued on through the seemingly interminable maze of corridors, some so narrow she had to stoop and squeeze through them, others now so open and large they felt like subway tunnels. Lights were set into the curved ceilings or even the walls or floor at intervals, though some of them were flickering weakly or had even gone black. And as they traveled, the woman and the weapon kept up a steady conversation.
“You saw a taste of the widespread rebellion that was already sweeping Hades then,” said Jay about the stolen memories he had shared with Vee. “There had been rebellion stirring among the Damned for some time, but there was a certain incident that seemed to set off a chain reaction among the Demons as well. A Damned man who called himself Dan Alighieri rescued a female Demon known as Chara, whom he found tortured by Damned rebels and crucified to a tree. The man and Demon fell in love. Soon, other Demons of Chara’s type fought alongside the lovers against formerly human Angels like yourself, and a breed of Celestial beings that entered Hades to help quell the uprisings. As a result of all this, it was decided to totally eliminate that particular race of Demons, though soon enough the order was given to destroy any race of Demon—and there were many—that bore predominately human characteristics. New Demons were created to replace them, at such places as the great factory city, Tartarus. Tartarus was the city you saw in the recording, that the Damned started marching toward.”
“Oh! So they didn’t know they were going from the frying pan into the fire.”
“There was indeed fierce fighting in that Demonic city. It was never to be entirely taken by the Damned and their allied Demons, though they were never ousted either. But before I tell you the fate of Tartarus, I must tell you the fate—as much as we can know of it—of the Creator.”
In a shocking transition from claustrophobic tunnel to vast open space, they had passed through a threshold onto a metal ramp that spanned a dark gulf, not only its floor but its ceiling lost in gloom, the huge shaft also seeming to vanish into infinity to left and right. As they crossed
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