Nilla opened her mouth to rebuke him but then she saw charred corpses in the broken field ahead of her. She took a step closer and felt the warmth of the Source grow hot. Another step and it was painful. 'Oh,' she said. The same energy that fed her could burn her to a crisp if she got too close. Yet moving forward meant getting closer.
But then she just had it, as if her body knew what to do even if her mind was oblivious. She banked her energy'subtracted her darkness'made herself invisible. The one thing she could do that nobody else could manage. The one thing that set her apart. Instantly the warmth was gone. She stepped forward, and again, until she was even with the burnt and disfigured bodies sprawled across the rocks.
Nothing happened.
Singletary had been right. She was the only one who could go to the Source. She started to climb.
It was a far easier ascent than what had come before, though every step knocked loose showers of pebbles and dirt, eroded bits of hillside that went skittering down, pattering, pittering away from her. The handholds were stable, if the footing wasn't. In a few minutes she had reached the top of a ridge. A green-painted stegosaurus stood watch there, sculpted out of concrete. Just as Singletary had shown her.
Dinosaurs. Statues of dinosaurs. A tyrranosaur loomed over the site, while human-sized velociraptors leered out from around corners. In the middle of it all stood a dilapidated building with a sign posted next to its door.
DINOSAUR EXPERIENCE -HALL OF FOSSILS-PROPRIETOR DR. E. VRONSKI OPENING SUMMER 2006
The door opened and a man stepped out. A living man. He was mostly bald, with tiny blue eyes, intensely blue eyes. Nilla walked over to him and took the hand he extended. He had no trouble seeing her, even though she was invisible. She must be invisible'if she let her energy show, even for a moment, she would have been incinerated.
'I always imagined one of you would come. Please. We should go inside.' He lead her into a dark building full of glass display cases. Some of them were empty and collecting dust. Others held dark fossils half-buried in matrices of brown or red stone. Educational plaques hung on the walls.
'Are you Dr. Vronski?' Nilla asked.
'I was,' he told her. 'I mean' I was a paleontologist, before all this, well, you know, started. I'm the one, by the way. I'm the moron who killed off the human race.'
Nilla didn't know how to reply to that. Then she thought of something. “How can you see me? I'm invisible.”
He burbled pleasantly, as if something had tickled him. 'After a while I learned how to see it. The singularity. It's like living next to an invisible star for months and months, eventually you start wondering where all the light is coming from. You're like a shadow against that light. You know, like on a dark night, you can see a tree because its silhouette blots out the stars behind it. Come on, please, this way. You're going to kill me, right? Kill me and eat me? It's far less than what I deserve. Here.' He lead her to the top of a stairwell. 'Maybe you'd like to see it first, though. The singularity. Or maybe' something to eat.'
Nilla looked down the stairs. There was someone else down there'or maybe two people, standing very close together. They moved into the light and her mouth fell open in true horror.
'This is my wife, Charlotte.' He looked at her eyes and whispered, 'please don't say anything about her appearance. She's very sensitive.'
Monster Nation
Chapter Fifteen
Unexpected side effects, all over the news I' I did this? I can't believe it spread so far' I did this? I did it for her, only for her' forgive me' [Lab Notes, 4/2/05]
'I'm sorry that it's dead. I know you would prefer it alive.'
Vronski put down a plate in front of Nilla. A dead rat lay on its side there, one glazed eye pointed in her direction. She ate it without thinking too much about it. She was too busy trying not to look at Charlotte.