The sky was gray when they left, but the two immortals still decided to walk to the museum, feeling restless after a day spent entirely inside. Fat drops occasionally hit Machiavelli's upturned face as they wandered through the city streets. He was too busy looking at the buildings around them to mind much. After months spent in the backwoods of Montana, it felt a little disorienting to be surrounded by so many buildings and people again.
Luckily for him, Billy was paying far more attention to where they were actually going than he was. Several times, the Kid had to grab his shoulder to keep the two immortals from getting separated by other pedestrians or road blocks. "Sorry," Machiavelli apologized the second time it happened. "It just feels weird to be in a city again."
"That's because life is better out in the open," Billy told him patiently, as if this was an obvious fact. Looking around, the tactician could kind of see what Billy meant. Above them, the sky edged its way among the tall buildings, but it felt much farther away from them than it had before. They were held suspended amidst a crowd of passerby, everyone lost in their own lives. The effect was almost dizzying. People all around them were rushing off- to where, he wondered. Idly he pondered this feeling, curious if his outlaw friend felt the same thing. Perhaps this is why Billy keeps his distance.
He was surprised by the museum itself, expecting something a bit larger and more ornate. The building was quite beautiful- it held an antiquated charm- but he'd been prepared to see white marble walls of showy elegance, rather than this scholarly brick building. Much of the outer façade looked more like an old elementary school than one of the world's strangest museums. Altogether, it's incredibly ordinariness was a bit off putting.
He followed Billy inside through the front gates, tapping absentmindedly at the pillars in the wrought iron fence. They seemed to enter at just the right time- behind them, he heard the rain begin to pick up and he glanced back out at the world before slipping through the front doors. The encroaching storm was rustling the leaves of the enormous oak in the front lawn area and he made a small wish that the rain would be gone by the time they left.
The inside of the museum was again, very different from what he'd pictured. There was almost no reception area at all, the main entrance spilling almost immediately into an exhibit. "This is a strange place," he said to Billy after they bought their tickets. He stopped in the middle of the room. The front hall was open to the first two floors of the building, a black varnished staircase leading from the floor they were on to the floor above. A landing wrapped around the room. From what he could see, the walls on the second floor were lined with what appeared to be display cases full of skulls.
Surveying the room, he felt something almost electric coming off of the specimens. He was certain that at least one of them had been the skull of an immortal, feeling a peculiar sense of kinship with something in the room. He turned to look at the outlaw, who wasn't looking at the displays, but rather had been watching his reaction. "Do you feel something when you come in this room, Billy?" he asked the other immortal quietly.
The Kid smiled at him. "I do," he agreed. "I wondered if you would too."
"It feels like something is in here."
Billy ruffled his hair. "I get that every time I come in here, but I haven't figured out what it is yet." He tugged Machiavelli's sleeve, pulling him into another room, through a door the warlock hadn't noticed before. They stopped before a display case with the strange title 'A Stitch in Spine Saves Nine.' The display chronicled the changes in spinal surgery; the text in the back of the display describing what had been done in the past. Looking over the vast improvements that had been made, Machiavelli had to admit he was very lucky to have lived as long as he had. The look on Billy's face as he pressed his face to the glass confirmed a similar train of thought in his companion.
"Ugh, that's awful," Billy remarked, seemingly horrified and intrigued by one diagram. He shook his head as they moved along the room. "It is a very strange place," he continued, going back to the Italian's earlier comment. "But it's kind of cool to see all the old stuff. Especially for people like you and me, it's a way to see the parts of the world that we missed the first time around." He peered into a display of surgical tools from the Civil War. "When I was a kid, I didn't see hardly any of the world, it seems. This seems like a good way to catch up. Did you know? They have an entire section on 19th century medicine."
Both men stopped talking as they came upon a guide who was leading a group of middle schoolers through. They followed the small group, Niccolo only convinced it was okay by a few other adults who seemed to be unattached to the children.
Their guide, a petite black woman in a smart pant suit, stopped before a display of full body skeletons. The rib section of one of the skeletons was grossly expanded, unnatural in the sheer size that it took up. "As you can see," she said in a carrying voice, "we have several specimens that are a bit unusual. Often times, we hear people describe our museum as some kind of horror show." She paused. There was nervous giggling from two girls who'd obviously been caught red handed. "However, the Mutter Museum is important largely because of our commitment to showing these exhibits. Can anyone venture a guess as to why?"
One little girl in the front raised her hand. She spoke so quietly that Billy and Machiavelli, ten feet behind her, couldn't hear her response, but the guide seemed pleased. "That's correct. The Mutter Museum is first and foremost, a place for doctors and scientists to learn. Here in the United States, we have the benefit of great health resources. Most of these defects and conditions are no longer found here. However, in other parts of the world, people, especially children your age are…"
They let the group trail off in its own direction, wanting to look at the displays at a more leisurely pace. "An interesting perspective," Machiavelli said, stepping into a sort of cubbyhole space made by the displays. Billy followed him. "It does seem like people were allowed to be more different in years past. Now everyone has to fit this ideal image."
"Right. I had a teacher when I was in Kansas; she had quite the beard herself," Billy said, looking at some of the models. "Nobody thought it was strange. That was just the way she was made."
Rounding a corner, they found a statue of a man in a toga, clutching a staff with a snake wrapped around it. "Ah, this guy," Billy said, looking up at the statue's face. "Since I've got you here, how on earth do you say this guy's name?"
"Ah, that's Asclepius," Machiavelli said, glancing at said statue. "Greek god of medicine. Appropriate."
"You can say that, but you can't pronounce Quetzelcoatl?"
"Excuse me," Machiavelli said, smiling brilliantly, "but I think Quetzel- I think your master's name is much more complex than Asclepius's. Why can't you say his name?"
"It sounds like I have a lisp whenever I say his name," Billy mumbled, the edges of his ears turning pink. They both jumped as a particularly loud crack of thunder broke nearby.
"You know where I would like to go, Billy?" Machiavelli asked rhetorically as they worked their way down another hallway. They paused in front of a model of conjoined twins. "I'd like to go back to Pompeii. And Italy. We should go to Italy someday. You've shown me your world, I'd like to show you mine."
Billy glanced at him. "I'd like that," he agreed, a shy smile forming on his lips. He let Machiavelli talk him into some lunch at the small cantina around the corner from the museum. Over sandwiches, he prodded the Italian immortal into talking about his last experiences in Italy and then ensuing fight that had occurred between him and Perenelle. So into their conversation were the two immortals that, for a while, they forgot to eat at all.
After lunch, they moved back towards the main hall of the museum. Having made the circuit of the downstairs displays, they walked upstairs to the skull displays. "Dr. Mutter displayed these skulls for the benefit of scientists," Billy read, "in the hopes that they would help teach future pathologists the effects of everything from lifestyle to genetics on the formation of the human skull and face."
Each skull on display had a name, the person's occupation, and the cause of death listed. That initial feeling Machiavelli had felt intensified up here. He wondered which skull, if it was indeed one of the skulls, had been the immortal. Perhaps a bit egotistically, he assumed that this person must have had some importance and began ruling out some of the more menial laboring personages.
The skulls themselves came from varied personages. He read with some interest, the description below one grinning cranium. The skull had belonged to one Andrejew Sokoloff, who had died of "self-inflicted removal of testicles," he read with a shudder. The Russian had belonged to a religious sect who had practiced castration as a safeguard against 'ungodly lust.' He wondered what this sect would have thought of him, with his affairs, or worse yet, of Billy, the proverbial flower child of the free love movement.
Moving down the line, he began to notice a pattern in what at first had seemed to be some great derangement. Most of the skulls seemed to have been collected from individuals of questionable repute. For instance, upon one shelf, sailors, soldiers, sharpers, and suicides kept each other company. It made sense, he reflected, as these individuals would have been easiest to grave rob. "Do you think our immortal is among these skulls?"
"I think it's one of the skulls we're picking up on, but I'm not sure we'll be able to find which one it is," Billy said gently. "I've been here several times, over the years. I still don't know which one it is."
"It's just that there are so many specimens, I think it's throwing me off. Who do you think this one was? Why did they give up their immortality?"
"No clue," Billy said cheerfully. "You have too many questions for me, Mac. I'm a simple creature." He smiled angelically at Machiavelli.
"Let's find out how simple you are," Niccolo said smoothly, pointing to an interactive exhibit. There was a phrenology measuring tool being operated by one of the museum's staff. Working his charm, the Italian immortal managed to convince the other immortal to get his head 'tested'. Glancing at a chart next to the tool, he poked the American in the ribs as the staff member fitted the contraption on his head. "There's a section right at the top that means you have a sense of immortality. Think that's why you have that lump on your head?"
"My head is lumpless," Billy protested magnanimously, making a face as the contraption was attached to his head. He seemed fairly distracted by what the tool was doing, trying to look up to see the tool but only succeeding in moving it away from him. The man fitting it on his head seemed immune to their hilarity, probably having heard just about everything by now, Machiavelli reflected.
After some strange measurements that neither immortal could make sense of, the bored employee printed off a sheet of paper which he handed to Billy. The two immortals retreated to a bench behind a model of the muscular system before opening the paper. Machiavelli, leaning over Billy's shoulder to read, let out a little laugh. "That's actually kind of accurate," he told the outlaw, taking the paper from him. "You're an amative individual with a heightened sense of hope and benevolence. Strange that it wasn't so far off."
"Another point to phrenology," Billy joked. He glanced at his watch. "Mac, we've been here a couple of hours. You want to look around more or should we head for home?"
Machiavelli grabbed his hand to tilt the watch towards him. "Home, I think. I'm getting sleepy. We've been here quite a while."
"Alright, but we've got to stop in the gift shop," Billy said happily.
Niccolo paused on the stairs. "They've got a gift shop?" he asked rather incredulously.
"Of course." Billy threw an arm around the other immortal's shoulders. "Can I interest you in a giant colon plush?"
