Page 55 of Remnants: Disruption
“Your Reliquary data suggests that your Affliction type wasn’t in our records. This led us to consider the powers you claimed to have, but, frankly, you’d be the one we base any future Death-types on.”
“I set the precedent, you mean?” I ask, glancing down at the two bodies.
“When you Commune, what is it you see?” Blair asks, cutting through my bullshit.
“Generally, their final moments,” I nod down at Mara. “Her death was pretty gruesome. There was no sound, though, which isn’t normal.”
“And Malachi’s?”
Malachi looms as close as he can in the shadow. Can I make him leave? I summoned him, hadn’t I?
“Nothing. A few flashes of light. Mostly pain. The same thing happened again here in the morgue.”
“And that’s not happened before?”
“No,” I say, damning the consequences and reaching out to Mara’s wrist.
When nothing happens, I do the same for Malachi, but it’s as if I never had powers to begin with.
Blair studies me for a quiet moment. “The only thing I can say is that there’s no evidence of an afterlife.”
Something shifts in my periphery, and I let out a soft gasp. They’re gone before I can actually identify the manifestation. That’s new. Chills vibrate down my skin, leaving a sickly feeling in my stomach.
“Religions did an about-face when the Disruption at the turn of the century,” Blair’s voice brings me back to the current conversation. Malachi is missing from the darkened corner. Mara is nowhere to be seen.
But others are still lurking just out of view. I’d been so busy with getting out of the damned NCPD that I hadn’t noticed. What had that bullet done to me?
Or am I just getting worse?
“The idea of a superhuman capable of messing with the fabric of reality itself was outside their worldview. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism survived, but they had to contend with blatant truths that their dogma was unable to propagandize against.”
Blair moves to a filing cabinet and rifles through a drawer before pulling out a bound notebook.
“You’re the first on record to claim to be able to Commune with the dead. Yet, since you’ve never been able to see them, talk to them, or hear them, it’s more than likely the afterimages you feel are because of the Affliction in their bodies.”
For a moment consider correcting them. Consider telling them that not only are the spirits vocal, but there’s one just lurking out of Blair’s own silhouette. One that I don’t even recognize.
But I don’t. I can’t.
Blair is now one of two people on this planet who know who I am, and the other one is a known terrorist. I have to cling to whoever I can, even if it means lying to them.
“So, an afterlife?” Blair asks, shrugging. “Doubtful, but I like being proved wrong.”
“And the religions?”
“After the Second Disruption and the Affliction War, they adapted. Organized religion always will. Cults, of course, became more prevalent. But that’s a topic for another day.”
I nod, unsure if that actually answered my question. I suppose that if Blair Andrews is unaware of the thinning veil, then no one else will be either.
“So, to recap, our two victims now no longer hold the marks that connected them and there’s no afterlife.”
Blair nods, a wry smile forming at their lips.
“And now you’re a free agent, free to do with that information as you please.”
My legs feel like gelatin as I stand. The room looks brighter. Like the calm before a panic attack.
“You won’t mind if I shadow step out of here, right?” I ask, glancing back at the two corpses still pulled out from the freezer.
