"So may I suggest a small experiment instead?" whispered Tibenoch, cocking his revolver.
The hall fell silent. Hanna's rage diminished, replaced with a shadow of fear. I can still see him standing there-his fists clenched, even though his face was as pale as a ghost's. It was obvious that he was more afraid than angry, and simply wanted to keep his friends' morale up. I sighed. Hanna, always thinking of others' needs before his own. I would have smiled, if not for the desperate situation we were in. Instead, I swept my gaze upwards. The room was large and well furnished, with high, barred windows and all sorts of clocks covering the walls-some of which looked quite old. Velvet armchairs stood around a huge fireplace near the center of the room, with old photographs and paintings lining the mantelpiece. It even seemed that an old edition of The New Yorker was lying on the coffeetable-I could have sworn it was from 1952. The house seemed to fit the strange person living in it-but I digress.
In any case, our chances of escaping were slim. Every opening was blocked by thick metal bars, antique, like the rest of the house. Quite a taste this man had, really. I doubted a miracle would come to save us, with the kind of luck we had. Glancing down, I saw Toni with a look on her face-one that set me on edge. The corners of her mouth were drawn down into a snarl, and her snowy teeth were bared. Her form merged and blurred, face and body lengthening. Blue sparks began to flicker around her, signalling a turn. Just when I was about to warn her-
"You."
I snapped my head around. Tibenoch was pointing his gun straight at Toni's head.
"Don't try anything funny. I'm not stupid ," he laughed. "I know exactly what you are."
Toni growled. "Bullets can't stop me, old man."
"Ah, but I have prepared for this!" he sneered, tapping the barrel. "These ones are silver."
Once again, all fell quiet-but only for a moment. Toni's astonished face gave way to terror as she saw what an enraged Hanna was about to do.
Hanna, as usual, had chosen to be his trademark self and do something incredibly, heartbreakingly idiotic.
While Tibenoch was distracted with Toni, he had crept up behind the cyborg and tackled him, knocking the revolver out of his hand. I was surprised that the man hadn't noticed this-Hanna isn't very subtle, after all. Without thinking, I ran over to aid Hanna, but before I could reach him, Tibenoch had already overpowered my friend-very, very easily. How could he have underestimated the strength of a man who was half-machine? I watched in shock as Tibenoch savagely hurled Hanna away from himself, across the room. He met the opposite wall with a sickening crack. A grandfather clock tumbled over, its ticking becoming sporadic, uneven-
-
Crack.
Hanna's body crumpled to the floor, a streak of crimson staining the wall, leading down. Toni screamed. I ran.
Hanna. No. Anyone else, no, no, no. Hanna, who had taken me in, when all was lost, when ten years of trying to remember made me want to die again. Who smiled at me when others stared. Who talked to me when others yelled.
Mad cackling filled my ears. I couldn't think, couldn't stop. Only Hannahannahannahannahannahann-
A gunshot sounded, along with more screams and the demented ticking of a hundred different clocks, laughing.
tock tick? To him?
Nothing. What was I, a dead man, to Hanna Falk Cross?
The bullet's impact knocked me facedown onto dirty carpet. Pain burst into my shoulder, slamming through rotting nerves.
At the time, the only thought going through my head was that had Hanna been the one shot, he would have felt more pain. He would have-
I pushed myself up, stumbling forward, wincing. The pain was trivial. It was dull, weak, dead. Another sign of what I was-nothing but a shadow of a living human. Shot after agonizing shot collided into my back, each one burying itself into my flesh. Every time I was hit, I tripped forward, but kept going-like those real zombies in the movies Hanna had begged me to watch with him. By the time I reached him, several of my ribs were broken. I could hardly muster the strength for another step. Finally, at the wall, I collapsed next to the unconscious Hanna and the fallen clock. I hadn't noticed that Tibenoch had stopped shooting, and that bullets were replaced with muffled groans. I finally realized that if he had really wanted to kill me, he would have shot at my head.
Experiment, indeed.
I leaned over. Hanna's eyelashes fluttered, though his breath was faint and ragged. A warm sensation spread throughout me, filling me with hope. He was alive. Gingerly, I placed a hand on his face, brushing a streak of blood away with my thumb. I wanted to help him, to save him, but what could I do? I was barely able to stand up on my own. As Toni confronted the changed Tibenoch in the background, and Conrad screamed at us from the door, I smoothed back Hanna's flaming hair from his face and willed him to hang on. Ignoring the biting pain in my back, I sat up and tried to figure out where Hanna was hurt. Doubtlessly Worth would know better than I.
Worth. I could hear his gruff voice from outside the house. Toni did, too, and implored Ples to let the bars down. He set to work, running to change the system as soon as possible despite his injury. I cradled Hanna's body in my arms, waiting.
-
"Really, Hanna? Really?"
Hanna's thin legs were dangling off of Worth's operating table. After a frenzied ride in Lamont's car back to the...clinic, Worth had barely managed to save Hanna's neck-again. He patched me up, too, but the extractions weren't as painful as I had expected them to be. However, I don't think I've ever been as worried about Hanna as I was in the back of that cluttered car. His face was drained of blood, his head was leaking it-part of me was sure he was going to die.
The manic ticking I had heard in Tibenoch's house seemed to echo in my head and chest, bouncing and rebounding inside of me. I suppressed any thoughts of death and madness. Hanna couldn't die. I would not let him.
In the end, Worth's skill and luck were the only things that kept Hanna from kicking the bucket. I was so grateful to the man that I could ignore the curses he was yelling at my friend.
"Yah're a STUPID, little GODDAMN IMBECILE! Yah idiot! Get OUT! Yah NEVER come 'ere again, yah hear me? NEVER! You and yah zombie boyfriend! OUT!"
As Worth slammed the door to his dingy office, Hanna weakly yelled, "He's not my boyfriend!"
"Yeah, right. Like I'm not your doctor who's constantly being driven INSANE," the voice behind the door grumbled.
Hanna looked at me sheepishly. I raised my eyebrows. I had to ask, now that Worth had mentioned it.
"Why does he think that I'm your boyfriend?"
Instantly, Hanna's eyes snapped to mine, panicked. As he spoke, however, his eyes wandered, looking anywhere but in my direction. The shorter man seemed nervous, bobbing on his heels and running a hand through his hair.
"Well I guess 'cuz we always hang out together and you always take care of me n' stuff and make me breakfast and sort of worry about me all the time and carry me when I'm hurt and take me places and maybe worth noticed 'cuz I talk...a lot?
He grinned hopefully.
My eyebrows rose to the heavens. Strange, even though I was dead, I could feel the currents of awkward tension in the air.
I had to agree with Worth.
Really, Hanna?
He seemed to sense my exasperation and tried to fix the situation. Which, of course, made it only worse.
"It's not a big deal, really!" he assured me. "Worth is just weird sometimes, he doesn't mean the stuff he says! And I only talk about you 'cause...uhhhhh...you're awesome! It doesn't matter, anyway-do you wanna go see a movie? I was thinking about seeing Harry Potter, even though we're, like, weeks late, heh! You just finished the last book, so we can see it together! Maybe I can invite Connie along, too!
Worth's door slammed open-again. "He's asking you on a date, dead guy, in case you didn't notice. Don't let him bring that pussy vampire along-she'll ruin the atmosphere." He grinned, showing yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. "Now, for the last time, GET OUT OF MY HALLWAY!"
Hanna winced, muttering under his breath, "It's not even yours." He looked up at me, and his expression changed into something more hopeful. "Please?"
I didn't know how long I could resist that pleading expression. Suddenly, I smiled. I felt that this was where I belonged-by Hanna's side, listening, walking, reasoning, living with him. I didn't have ties, connections, dates to live by. I could live in the present, learning and seeing the world-with a companion, one who cared, even about a dead man.
Just as suddenly, my vision began to grow grey at the edges. The ticking I had felt earlier intensified and thudded in my ears. My grip on consciousness became weak, and I collapsed. The last thing I saw before all went black was Hanna searching my eyes with an expression of infinite concern in his own. At that moment I realized-
I loved this man.