Darwinia by Darwinia

Author:Darwinia [Darwinia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-07-11T00:37:47.368000+00:00

"Mr. Vale! That you in there?"

"Go away, Olivia, thank you."

He reached for the syringe again. I am, after all, immortal. I cannot die. The implications of that fact had grown somewhat unnerving.

This time his skin resisted the needle. Vale pushed harder. It was like probing cheddar cheese. He thought he had found the vein at last, but when he pushed the plunger the skin beneath began to discolor, a massive, fluid bruise.

"Shit," he said.

"You have to come out or I'll tell Mrs. Sanders-Moss, she'll have somebody break down this door!"

"Only a little longer, Olivia dear. Be nice and go away."

"This is not the guest bathroom! You been in there an hour already!" Had he? If so, it was only because she wouldn't let him concentrate on the task at hand. He refilled the file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Wilson,%20Robert%20Charles%20-%20Darwinia.html (184 of 354)8-12-2006 23:42:19

Darwinia

syringe.

But now the needle wouldn't pierce his skin at all.

Had he dulled the point? The tip looked as lethally sharp as ever.

He pushed harder.

He winced. There was pain, remarkably. The soft skin dimpled and cratered and reddened. But it didn't break.

He tried the flesh on his wrist. It was the same, like trying to cut leather with a spoon. He lowered his pants to his ankles and tried the inside of a thigh.

Nothing.

Finally, in angry desperation, Vale jabbed the weeping needle against his throat where he imagined an artery might be.

The tip snapped off. The sryinge drooled its contents uselessly down his open collar.

"Shit!" Vale exclaimed again, frustrated almost to tears.

The door burst open. Here was Olivia, gaping at him, and the upstart junior congressman behind her, and wide-eyed Eleanor, and even Timothy Crane, frowning officiously.

"Huh!" Olivia said. "Well, that figures."

~~

"A shot of morphine in the niggers' toilet? Uncouth, Elias, to say the least."

"Shut up," Vale said wearily. The initial effect of the morphine, if any, had worn off. His body felt dry as dust, his mind maddeningly lucid. He had allowed Crane to take him to his car, after Eleanor made it clear that he would not be welcome on the property again and that she would call the police if he tried to return. Her exact words had been less diplomatic.

"They're generous employers," Crane said.

"Who?"

"The gods. They don't care what you do on your own time. Morphine, cocaine, women, sodomy, murder, backgammon—it's all the same to them. But you can't stupefy yourself when they want your attention, and you certainly can't inject a lethal overdose into your arm, if that was what you were attempting to do. Stupid thing to try, Elias, if I may say so."

The car turned a corner. Dismal day was passing into dismal evening.

"This is business now, Elias."

"Where are we going?" Not that he particularly cared, though he felt the queasy presence of the god inside him, ramping up his pulse, straightening his spine.

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"To visit Eugene Randall."

"I wasn't told."

"I'm telling you now."

Vale looked listlessly at the upholstery of Crane's brand-new Ford. "What's in the bag?"

"Have a look."

It was a leather doctor's bag, and

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