Serial Killer vs. E-Merica (3 page)

*****

Four figures wrapped in star-spangled robes waited outside the big double doors of the House chamber. Their faces were hidden in the depths of shadowy hoods, arms folded across their chests.

Nevada and Antarctica stopped running, staying well back from the hooded figures. Even from a distance, Nevada could see that their blue-and-white robes were stained with splotches of dark red.

Nevada took a step forward. "Stand aside. The sergeant-at-arms has business with the House."

To his surprise, the figures moved to comply. The two in the middle turned and opened the doors to the chamber--but they did not usher him inside. Instead, a fifth figure emerged, clad in red-and-white-striped robes, also hooded.

As the two figures who had opened the doors pulled them shut, the fifth robed figure glided forward. The voice that flowed from under the hood was that of a man...hoarse and muffled, but clearly a man.

"Hello again," he said. "I told you we would meet again after three and four, didn't I?"

Nevada recognized the voice instantly. "Looking Glass."

"Victims three and four are dead, so here I am." Looking Glass bowed his head. "Have you deciphered the clues I gave you?"

"No," said Nevada.

Looking Glass chuckled. "Then prepare to have your mind blown."

Nevada took a step back, pulling Antarctica with him. He briefly considered running, if only for her sake...but he waited. How could he run when he had yet to see inside the House?

"Meet the welcome wagon," said Looking Glass, gesturing at the two robed figures on his right.

Silently, the figure on the far right tugged off its star-spangled hood, revealing a face--a man's face, grinning.

Nevada gasped when he saw who it was. Heart slamming like a piston in his rib cage, he froze, holding on to Antarctica's arm.

Antarctica said the name for them both. "S-Sinaloa?"

The robed man with Sinaloa's face took a bow.

Then, the next figure unmasked. This time, the face under the hood was also familiar.

"Zacatecas." Nevada's head was spinning.

"More where those came from." Looking Glass gestured at the two hooded figures on the other side of him.

The next to unmask was a woman with long, brown hair--Yukon, also back from the dead. Beside her was the man who had started it all, the first to go: Missouri, former Speaker of the House, peeled back his hood and smoothed his neat white hair with a toothy grin.

"What's going on here, Nevada?" Antarctica sounded dazed. "How can they all be alive?"

Nevada felt dazed, too.
"The Developers, maybe?"

The four who had come back to life looked at each other with knowing smiles and giggled.

"Not even close," said Looking Glass.

"Some kind of practical joke?" Nevada heard what could have been a muffled scream from behind the double doors of the House chamber. "A stunt to delay a key vote?"

"It
is
kind of funny," said Looking Glass, "but no. Would you like me to give you a hint?"

Nevada heard a loud thump and a crash from behind the doors. "Why not?"

"Here goes." With that, Looking Glass reached up and pulled off his own red-and-white-striped hood.

And Nevada felt the world of logic and reality dissolve around him.

His mouth fell open. His mind went blank.

Looking Glass, without the hood, had a very familiar face. He wasn't someone returned from the dead, or anyone Nevada had ever expected to see.

Outside of a mirror, that is.

The face staring back at Nevada was his own.

*****

"I bet I know what's going through your mind right now." Looking Glass smiled. "'What a handsome S.O.B.,' am I right?"

Nevada didn't answer.

Stepping forward, Looking Glass extended a hand. "The name is Adaven. Pleased to meet you, Nevada."

Without thinking, Nevada took Adaven's hand. It was ice-cold to the touch--
beyond
ice cold.

Adaven gripped Nevada's elbow, freezing him right through the sleeves of his tux and shirt. With a whoop, he swung Nevada around to face the four seemingly resurrected e-reps.

"This is Aolanis." Adaven pointed at the reborn Sinaloa, and then he moved down the line. "This is Sacetacaz, Nokuy, and Iruossim. They're not who you think they are. In fact, you've never met them before."

Nevada frowned. Everything sounded crazy.

"Now come on." Adaven led Nevada toward the doors. "Let's meet the rest of the gang, shall we?"

Grinning, Sacetacaz and Nokuy pushed open the double doors to the House chamber. Adaven guided Nevada inside...right into a nightmare.

The huge room was splashed from top to bottom and side to side with blood and gore. Body parts were scattered everywhere, and corpses were piled like cordwood in the corners.

Even as Nevada recognized the dead faces of e-reps in the corpse heaps, he saw e-reps with the same faces moving around the room. The moving and the motionless looked exactly the same, except some were living and some were dead--and the living weren't behaving the way that Nevada ever would have expected them to.

As Nevada watched, Arkansas, South Korea, and Israel teamed up against Costa Rica, howling as they tore her limb from limb. Across the chamber, Florida and Japan hacked up Chihuahua with knives, cutting out his organs while he screamed in agony.

Antarctica's identical twin slogged past not ten feet from Nevada, dragging a charred and disemboweled corpse by the feet.

Staring at the hellish scene, Nevada could think of only one thing to say, one question to ask: "Why?"

"Why what?" said Adaven. "Why redecorate, you mean? Why have a surprise party?"

"Why are there duplicate e-reps?" said Nevada.

"Remember my riddle? 'When does one plus zero equal two?'" Adaven chuckled. "The answer is, when
one
casts a reflection in a
mirror
, of course. In a
looking
glass
."

"You reflect us?" said Nevada.

Adaven made a twisting gesture with his hand. "Other way around."

Antarctica shivered against Nevada's arm. "So there's two of everyone?"

"One from America." Adaven raised his right hand, palm up, like the tray of a balance. "One from Acirema." He raised his left hand, also palm-up, alongside the right.

"'Acirema,'" said Nevada. "That word was burned into Sinaloa's body."

Adaven threw an arm around Nevada's shoulders, sending a freezing blast through his tux jacket and shirt. "You know it by another name," he said. "'True America.'"

Nevada stared at him, too stunned to speak.

"You e-reps have been living in a fantasy," said Adaven. "Thinking True America was a paradise of liberty. Thinking you were the voices of a just and compassionate electorate.

"But you don't represent the people of True America. You never did." Adaven swept an arm wide to take in the entire House chamber. "
These
are the representatives of America.
These
are the A.I. avatars whose votes shape America's destiny."

"You're telling us democracy's dead?" said Antarctica.

"The opposite!" said Adaven. "Democracy is alive and well...and
this
is the will of the American electorate!

"You and your kind have never been more than illusions to mask the true face of America--to let her own people fool themselves even as she expresses their darkest desires. You are the reason Americans have been able to live with themselves and sleep at night...but no longer.

"America has become her own shadow: Acirema, the opposite--'America' spelled backwards." Adaven pulled Nevada close and whispered, frozen breath chilling his ear. "We don't need you anymore."

Nevada felt sick. The urge to run returned--but he realized it was too late. He and Antarctica were surrounded by wicked e-rep duplicates.

"Acirema doesn't need to pretend anymore," said Adaven. "We don't need the front. We've accepted ourselves as the complete bastards we've always been, and we've made up our minds to be the
best
complete bastards we
can
be."

"That's why you started killing us," said Nevada.

Adaven nodded. "The first few were tests. The Developers gave us all the keys and cheats we needed, but we still weren't sure if murder would work in the digital realm."

"You murdered the Speaker first to cripple our leadership," said Nevada.

"Actually, that was a mistake," said Adaven. "In the shadow Congress of Acirema, Missouri is the lowliest of the hundred, not the highest. We thought we were starting with the least important among you. 'When is one one hundred,' remember? The answer to the riddle is this: when
one
--the number one e-rep, the Speaker of the House in your realm--ranks
hundredth
out of a hundred in ours."

Nevada looked around at the living hell in the chamber. "So all of this was for nothing," he said. "Everything we accomplished."

"But the
good
news is, you can still make a difference," said Adaven.

"How's that?" said Nevada.

Adaven steered him around to face the huge double doorway. A figure stood beyond it, waiting in the hall, wrapped in hooded robes emblazoned with stars and stripes.

"She'll help you." Adaven gave Nevada a shove, sending him stumbling into the hall. "You'll make a difference by
dying
--sacrificing yourself to make way for the new world order."

Antarctica grabbed hold of Nevada's elbow. "What's the plan?" she said. "How do we get out of this?"

"We don't." Nevada slumped as the robed figure swung a rifle from her back and took aim at him. A dozen options for action flashed through his mind, revving up his heart, burning his bloodstream with adrenaline...

And he pushed them all aside. He knew that he could go down fighting, and in that way redeem himself at least a little for failing the republic--but he did nothing. What good would a martyr be if no one knew that he had died and why?

"Please, Nevada." Antarctica tugged his arm, but he wouldn't budge. "It's up to us."

"No it's not." Nevada shook free of her grip. "Nothing's up to us anymore."

"You're wrong." Antarctica pointed up at the ceiling. A red light blinked on the security camera that was mounted there. "People are still watching."

Nevada stared at the camera, then looked down at the barrel of the rifle. Maybe Antarctica was right. Maybe he could accomplish something worthwhile after all.

Nevada took a deep breath to steady himself. He curled and uncurled his fists.

Then, he bolted out of the line of fire.

"Run!" As soon as he said it, he glimpsed a blur of motion from Antarctica's direction.

Head down, Nevada charged toward the hooded shooter. He cut one way, then the other, trying to avoid her fire, reaching out for her.

Before he could touch her, he heard the deafening crack of the rifle. In spite of his zigzag path, the shot slammed into his chest with explosive force, pitching him to the floor.

He blacked out.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw the hooded woman crouching over him. "Confirmed kill," she said to someone he couldn't see--and when she said it, his heart beat faster.

He recognized her voice.

Nevada knew what her face would look like before she lifted away the hood. At first, all he could think was that it was impossible, that he must have already died if she was there with them.

But then, as she locked eyes with him, he remembered just how possible it was. Every e-rep had a double in Acirema, after all, even the dead ones. Even the one who had disappeared five years ago.

Even his beloved Idaho.

Nevada was in pain, but he managed a smile. The sight of her after all this time, even a shadow double who'd just shot him, was enough to fill him with joy.

Maybe her name was Ohadi instead of Idaho. Maybe she was devoted to the dark purposes of Acirema the Rellik instead of the bright resolve of America the Beautiful. Maybe she felt nothing for him, not even hatred.

But at least he could drink in the sight of her face. At least he could pretend in his few remaining moments that the precious original had returned to him.

At least he could imagine--or was it more than imagination--that her hand was warm when she touched his eyelids. When she drew them shut.

He could dream that she was his warm-blooded Idaho, hiding all this time to prepare for the threat of Acirema, masquerading even now as the enemy. Faking Nevada's death so she could whisk him away to the underground to fight the power. To renew their love.

Or if that hand was
colder than he thought, than he

Dreamed

And she was Ohadi in spite of his hope, carved from glittering ice with frozen heart and frozen soul,

Perhaps his noble moment of defiance and then his last words would inspire her,

Warm her blood that she would
become
restored Idaho and more,

Seed of change, revolution, restoration,

Changer of hearts, perhaps even the heart of Adaven, his twin, Nevada spelled backward

Spelled everywhichway like America

Acirema Maciera Reamica Cimeara Imeraca

Then that would be all right, too, he thought,

And he tried

In the last words he said

To tell her what mattered,

What they'd forgotten,

What to pass along,

And this was what came out,

His wisdom, his blessing, his curse,

His last wish

His poem.

He said

"I love you."