He speaks arrogantly. "You will not escape us."
"Really? You thought I wouldn't escape you."
He doesn't have an answer for that.
I shoot him and he troubles me no more.
5
I return to my Jeep and drive back toward the road. When I reach it there is another car waiting for me, another person. She stands by the side of the road looking up at the stars. She hardly seems to notice my approach, and only glances over as I park and walk toward her, the matrix in my hand.
Stacy Baxter. She finally glances at me and smiles.
"Hello, Alisa,"she says, and the southern accent is gone.
My finger is on the fire button. "What are you doing here?" I ask softly.
She shrugs and gazes back up at the sky. "Just enjoying the night. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Yes. Did you follow me out here?"
She pauses. "Yes."
"I see." I am a moment away from killing her. "Do you have anything else to say, Stacy Baxter?"
She looks at me again, not smiling now, just watching me, very closely. "No, Alisa Perne,"she replies quietly.
I shift uncomfortably. This death does not feel right.
"Are you one of them?" I ask finally.
She shakes her head. "Not me."
"Who are you?"
"A friend."
"No. I don't know you." I shake the weapon. "Why are you here?"
"To help you, if you want my help."
"What's your real name?"
"Alanda,"she replies." Sita."
My heart pounds. "And you are another incantation of Lundulfs?"
Sorrow touches her face. "You suffered there."
I bite my lip. "Yeah, I suffered. But what's it to you?"
She lowers her head. "Everything you have experiencedit means a lot to me."
My voice is hard. "Why? Because you know me from long ago?"
"Yes."
I fidget on my feet. I want to kill her. Logic dictates that I should. This desert is filled with monsters. Chances are she is one, too. Certainly she is not normal, and knows too much about me. Yet she does nothing to defend herself, even to plead her case, and I find it difficult to strike down the helpless.
"Do you know this weapon I carry?" I ask.
"Yes."
"I know how to use it." I pause. "I will use it."
Alanda is staring at the stars again. "Then use it."
"You are impossible. I will kill you, just as I killed the others out there minutes ago. You saw that, didn't you?"
"Yes."
I am sarcastic. "Why didn't you come to my aid? Friend?"
"It was not allowed."
"By whom?" I demand.
"You had to refuse them. To offer to end your life before they would take it from you." She adds, "You did these things."
"I did nothing but kill. Because they answered me the same way you do, with vague mumblings." I pause and sweat over the trigger. "I think you are one of them."
For the third time she looks at me, and for the first time I really see her. Her blue eyesthey are very much like my own. I could be staring into a mirror. Yet it is more than a physical resemblance. The person behind the eyes, the soul within the body, seems to reach out and touch me in a way I cannot explain. For a momentfrom this unassuming person I am threatening to destroyIfeel profoundly cherished. Suddenly she is more than a friend to me, she is a part of me. Sometimes when I looked at Suzama, I would feel this way. Occasionally, gazing at the divine child, I would sense this same expansion of consciousness, as if my mind were only a portion of a much greater mind. It is only in that moment that I realize Alanda is a spiritual being of great stature, someone who loves me more than I am able to love myself.
The matrix slips from my fingers, lands in the sand. A tear rolls over my cheek and joins it in the dust. I don't know why I cry, perhaps because I am happy. Alanda is an old friend.
Yet I don't remember her.
As I don't remember Landulf stealing my blood.
"I don't understand," I whisper.
She comes to me and hugs me, stroking my face." Sita,"she says over and over again. "My Sita."
But I am not a child. I am a monster. I cannot be comforted even if the space between us is suffused with the vitality of reunion . I cannot turn to this creature that I do not know for help or solace. In a swift move, I brush her off and step away, turning my back on her. If she wanted, she could pick up the matrix and vaporize me. But I know that is not her intention. She lets me stand silently alone. Nothing is hurried in her, I realize. She has waited long for this encounter, and I feel I have as well. Yet I feel exposed before her, and that is a feeling I have never enjoyed. I have always been the master of my own destiny, and now this angelic being comes to me in the night to tell me that I have been fooling myself. Truly, she is an angel to me, a being of light from a distant world I cannot imagine.