MY HEART IN STONE

PART 20:

Mikol hummed to himself as he strode along, Rachel dangling helplessly over his shoulder.

He'd taken the elevator up to the interconnected series of buildings at the base of the

tower. He was happy, thinking of the most effective way he could kill her in front of

Cort.  Perhaps he should hoist her up the flag pole and use her for target practice? Or

the parapet?  A good push off the high parapet was always entertaining on an otherwise

dull afternoon. Hmmm? Where should he lead Cort next? 

He removed her other shoe, dropping it at the bottom of the steps leading up to the high chamber of the smaller keep. He patted her bottom.  "Too bad you don't have more feet,

my dear. What SHALL I leave as a clue next time?"

She’d gone from terror to shock to anger by now, unable to struggle much against his

strong grip…oh, he was so very strong!  She’d watched his legs pump as they moved,

wanted very badly to find some chink to hit upon, but he held her in such a way as to

bounce her slightly, so that each time she tried to strike or move against one part of his

back or neck, the momentum of his swing caused her to flail helplessly.  The humming

and the removal of her shoe, done with an obscene sensuality, just added insult to injury. 

The slight jarring she suffered made manipulating the rags in her mouth much harder,

as well.  If anything, they were in danger of getting lodged further down her throat if

she moved her tongue in any other way except to hold them back. 

Then, he patted her bottom, took her second shoe off, his finger tracing a line along the

bottom of her bare foot.  This made her see white lights of fury.

First chance I get, bastard, first chance I get…

Once in the chamber, he dumped her atop a large trestle table in the center of the room.

He leaned over her, placing a palm over her eyes then removing it. "You wonder why I

have not blindfolded you?  It is so that as you die, you can see the horror on his watching

face. You wouldn't want to miss that, now would you?"  He chuckled to himself and

walked to the wall, grasping the wooden frame of a painting.  He slid the right section

of the frame up three inches, and then the bottom piece to the right.  A door completely

across the room opened.  He smiled.  He loved his toys.  Back at the table, he tore a piece

off the hem of her dress, leaving it lying behind as he carried her through the door, which

closed with a heavy click behind them, the framing of the painting returning automatically

to its correct position.

The stairs Mikol now carried Rachel down were only a single flight long, opening out to

a very narrow walkway high on the side of the smaller keep. There was no railing here and

as he made his way, he deliberately dangled Rachel dangerously over the edge. Below them

a deep pit-like area dropped away for a good 50 feet or so.  Halfway down the walk, he let

his grip on her slip so that she began to slide down his side.  Only when her ankles reached

his shoulder did he grasp her again.  "Oops!" he laughed, finishing his crossing with her

hanging there, nearly completely upside-down.  He was sorry Cort hadn't seen that bit of acrobatics, but, then, a little bit of torture was never really wasted.  At the end of the

walkway was a small square area about four feet wide. Its right edge bordered on the pit,

the left had a short flight of steps leading up to the base of Kamen's flagpole.

He lay Rachel down and pulled her apron from his pocket.  "Time to raise the skull and crossbones, me bonnie lassie," he chuckled.  "I'll have to leave you here just a moment, though."  He scooted her a bit with the toe of his black boot so that her right side hung out several inches over the edge. "Don't go anywhere, will you, until I get back?"

Singing some old pirate song, he went up the steps, attached her apron to the cords and

hoisted it aloft. A breeze caught it, snapping it fully open. He smiled. Perfect.  Arriving

back at the platform he looked down at her.  "Still here?"

Rachel found she could not do much more than lay on the ground and look up at Mikol

as he heaved the apron to.  It wasn’t that he was so intent on the ditty he sang, or the anticipatory glances around to see if they were being followed.  He wanted Cort to

follow, seemed to know he was on the chase.  She could see that.  No, there was something

in his posture, the build, the way he moved that made her stare harder now, even while

her body still twitched in its struggle to find its bearings.  As he had made his way along

the flight of stairs, Rachel’s anger had returned to stifling fear as Mikol held her over

the edge, letting her see the hard ground below, a surface that her face would surely

smack with deadening finality if he decided to let go.  And she knew by the grip he had

on her, it was never a question of if he would, merely when.

Hoisting completed, Mikol stood momentarily with his arms akimbo, as if taking one

final look around before bending to pick her up, his face turned to the sky to let the

sunlight rim his features, as if to challenge the heavens.  Then, slowly, he let his chin

fall, and as it did, the expression of utter glory changed, morphing to a deep frown as

his eyes fell upon her, the sensual mouth disappearing in a horrid line of retribution. 

His white blonde hair stood out on all ends, giving him the aura of a frayed and

destroyed halo.

She lay limp against the ground, watching him, unable to process images flashing through

her mind, her muscles shaking from the disorientation.  She had seen that change before.  Seconds did not give her time to sort any clue out because he dragged her to the far wall overlooking the surrounding forest.  She twisted as he did so, tried to bat at him with her

bound hands, snag a foothold that would slow him down, screamed fury against the rags

in her mouth, but Mikol moved as though…well, unmoved.

There didn't seem anywhere to go from here but back the way they had come as straight

ahead lay part of Kamen's outer walls.  Almost nonchalantly, though, Mikol propped her

up against the wall and hopped up into the cut-out of a crenellation. Then he reached

down, grabbing her where her wrists were bound together and hauled her up beside him. 

The drop-off here was several hundred feet.  He flopped her over his shoulder again,

ripped another piece off her skirt and hooked it over a small metal hook that protruded

from the wall.  "Like Easter eggs," he smiled.  With the ease of a tight-rope walker, he

made his way down the wall, hopping across the crenellations as though they were stepping stones. He'd tried to make sure not even Henri knew the secret of his strength and balance,

that his real name was Roy Batty and, just as Sid had escaped the loop of Virtuosity, so

had he escaped the boundaries of Blade Runner.  Such things were better kept to oneself.

Now the world below her head dropped into a vast green pit and Rachel felt her anger drop

with it, leaving her stiff with fear, every muscle draped over Mikol’s shoulder in agonizing

alarm that she would slide off his shoulder, that he would merely loose his grip, and let her

sheer off into the rustling depths below.  He was moving too fast for her to orient herself to

the keep.  All she saw now was the emerald horror of unknown rock-cliffs that would rise

 up to meet her if Mikol should suddenly decide he’d had enough of the game. 

Closing her eyes brought her disconcerting images…Cort’s face as he slept, Gerta’s face, Mikol…an avenging angel in black, sprinting, taunting…

Circling behind the main tower, he came to a small window.  It had shutters and no glass

so he merely unlatched them and swung them open. 

"Ladies first," he announced, stuffing her through feet-first.  Then he came, too, landing

lightly, one boot on either side of where she'd crumpled to the floor.  They were in a room

two stories below Cort's. 

When Mikol shoved her through the window, she was still too rattled to know which end

was up, so she crumpled as she landed, found herself on her side.  Fortunately, this was

all that was needed for the rags to finally dislodge from her gullet with a small ‘oof!’

“You asshole!” she blasted when the first full wind filled her lungs.  “You’re not gonna

win…”

Unfortunately, Mikol was fast!  He grabbed up the rags and tied them around her mouth, disabling the movement of her lips so rapidly and harshly that she could feel the cloth cut

into the corners of her mouth with each attempt to fight against them.  Her momentary

verbal freedom seemed to have unnerved Mikol, however, because he grabbed her by the

hair and lifted her up until her upper body was suspended above the floor.

"What SHALL we do now?" he mused, his tone light.  It was only the fact that he was

enjoying himself so much that kept him from killing her. He really, really wanted to kill

her.  But there was a time and a place for everything.  His eyes glittered with anticipation. 

He was completely unburdened by any sense of guilt, compassion, or mercy.  That was

not how he had been...built. 

“All in due time for your siren call…Rachel.”  He hissed.  Sunlight caught his eyes at

an angle – the irises shone colorless, bloodless, inhuman.  His hand stole to her chin

once more, thumb rubbing along the cording of her neck.  Then, with one quick flick,

he slapped her.

“Painful to live in fear, isn’t it?”  he asked, tone still chillingly calm.

The words scarcely registered, so shocking and bright was the blow of his hand on her

cheeks, like iron cracking bone.  Rachel turned her own gaze back to him, to watch for

his hands, her breath coming in short gasps around the tight rictus of the bandage in

her mouth.

Mikol simply gave her a ghastly smile…lifted his head…and began a soft croon that grew

into a howl.

Cort was trying to use the cane properly, but he was in too much of a hurry to take the

time that required and ended up carrying it more than letting it do its job.  After a quick

check through the other rooms of the medical unit and finding nothing, he and Henri  had

now just stepped out of the doors of the elevator in the main part of the western end of the castle.  Rachel's shoe lay there before them.  Henri sighed.  Breadcrumbs tended to lead

one to some oven deep in a forest.  Cort stuffed it in another of his pockets. He had kept

the first one as well, saying simply, "She may have need of them."

Henri led Cort up the steps to the upper chamber of the small keep. It was hard as steps demanded much more of his legs than walking on flat surfaces. By the time he'd gone

halfway up, he was reduced to putting both feet on each step, unable longer to bear his

weight on one leg at a time. Henri grew increasingly concerned about him. How could

he fight when he couldn't even stand? But the young man continued on by sheer willpower alone. Henri watched him with a mixture of admiration and a yearning that he himself had known a love in his life so great that everything, absolutely everything, would be risked for

it. He had not yet tuned into the fact that in his fatherly love for Cort, he was, indeed,

doing his own version of that very thing.

As soon as they entered the high chamber, they saw the piece of cloth lying on the trestle

table. "He's making damn sure we don't lose his trail, isn't he?" Cort sighed, holding the

scrap up to his cheek.  "Where would he go from here?"

"This I know," Henri smiled, immediately beginning to move the frame of the painting.

"There are things Mikol does not know that I know."  And he turned as the doorway

across the room opened. "Now we go down."

Cort paused, leaning his right hip against the large table, resting his hand over his eyes.

Oh, God, he thought, how much further? 

Henri, studying Cort, was thinking the same thing. "I could check this out by myself," he offered.

Cort lowered his hand, smiling wearily at Henri, knowing what he was trying to do. "I've

got to go, Doctor. You know I do."

Henri nodded.  He did know. "This is but a short flight," he said as the door closed behind

them. "Not many steps."

Cort leaned heavily now on the cane as he descended. Each time he put his foot down, it

felt as though his left hip were going to poke through his flesh. When he saw where the

stairs ended, saw the narrow walkway and the deep pit beside it, he almost sat back on the

stairs behind him. Oh, my God! Not even a railing. And he was finding it increasingly

difficult to keep his balance. Sometimes his left leg just started to give way on him if he

didn't bear enough of his weight on the cane. Then he looked at Henri.  The doctor's eyes

were fixed on something high above them. He followed the line of Henri's rapt gaze. 

Rachel's apron! Flying from the flag pole. What sort of mind would even think of such a

thing? Was she there? At the base of the pole? He had to see, had to know.

Henri went first and he followed, his back pressed against the stone wall. He'd not gone

more than three steps, however, when his left leg crumpled and had Henri not quickly

grabbed his upper arm, he would have fallen off the walk. "My friend," Henri said firmly,

"I am going to get you back to the stairs and then I will check this out by myself. No buts

about it."

Cort was not in any shape to object. It took several minutes even to get him back the short distance to the steps. "Sit!"  Henri ordered. "I'll be right back."

"I'm counting on that," Cort rejoined feebly, as the doctor helped him settle on the stone

stairs. He watched as Henri headed out across the walkway again, then leaned his right

temple against the stairway wall, closing his eyes. He hadn't realized that he'd slept until

he was awakened by Henri, crouching in front of him, one hand on his right knee.

"He took her that way, yes," Henri explained, but it is a way that we cannot follow."

"I...I can probably make it across the walkway," Cort said.

"It's not just that, Cort."

"What more is there?"

"The castle wall. He left another piece of her skirt there to show he'd gone that way."

"The wall? How...how can he take her along the top of the wall? The drop-off...."

"I know," Henri nodded, "but he is," he paused, wondering how much to say, "he is more like...Sid...than anyone knows."

Cort leaned his head against the wall again, letting his lids close.  Oh, God. That explained

so much.  But it also meant that this non-human had his Rachel. He opened his eyes half-

way, looking at Henri.  "Like Sid?"

"Only worse," Henri said.  "Much worse."

Cort closed his eyes, his whole body sagging.  Good Lord in Heaven.  What could he do

now?

"There is another way," Henri continued. "Mikol would have to follow the wall to the

back of the main tower. There is a window there he could enter through. We can get to it

from this side."

Cort didn't move, didn't respond, and Henri was afraid he'd passed out. He touched his

arm and Cort opened his eyes. "Just gathering my strength," he whispered. "That's all." 

Henri shook his head, his fondness for the young man bubbling up in his heart. He pictured

the bishop, alone and vulnerable in the middle of the chess board. What he didn't know was

his own role. Would he move like a pawn or in the more surprising manner of a knight? 

Only time would tell. All he knew was this bishop would not fall, not while he himself was

still on the chess board.

Mikol carried Rachel up the two flights to Cort's room. "I thought you might like to see

where your beloved has been staying," he said, dumping her on the cherry-wood bed.

It couldn’t be helped.  A huge sigh of relief passed from her as Mikol landed her on the

thick mattress of the bed.  Only the torture now wasn’t the numbing straps around her extremities, it was the familiar smell in the bedding, that of desert sand and pheromones,

essence she knew all too well from the shirt Cort had left behind.  Her eyes darted about

to get some sense of bearing.  It was a round room, sparsely supplied, which made the

gorgeously appointed headboard of the bed all that more incongruous.  Her sight fell on

a black starburst smudge on the wall, an oddity in itself for the smooth color of the stone. 

No, it couldn’t be helped.  She felt her body sink into covers, into that little trace Cort

had left behind and she turned her head to bury her vision in that.  That was where she

had been, deep within that embrace, protected from the outside world…

"What shall we leave as our calling card, hmmmm? And where?"  She heard Mikol ask

in rhetorical tones.  She didn’t care.  If this was how she was to be tortured, she could

stand it…for now…

"Ah, yes, the bed!  Of course.  That's precisely where he would prefer to find you, I do

believe."  He lifted one side of the mattress, sending her rolling off the far side onto the

floor.  Then he pulled the mattress and bedding completely off the bed so that only the

springs remained. Crossing to where she lay face down on the floor, he ripped a much

longer, narrow section off her skirt and, slipping it through a central spring, tied it in

a bow.

"He'll like that!" he informed her, as though he had just fixed Cort a nice pie.  He picked

her up again. Each time he touched her now, he was finding it harder and harder not to

crush her in his bare hands. She had messed up all his carefully laid plans. His fingers

literally had begun to itch with the need to strangle her.  He was not at all sure any more

that he would be able to wait for Cort to catch up to them.  Perhaps it was time for hide

and seek to end? Perhaps he should go now to where the final act could play itself out?

Rachel watched helplessly as Mikol opened up a hatch in the floor and followed the stairs downward, heedless of how her head and face bumped and scraped behind him.  She

managed to wriggle enough to keep her nose from smashing against one step, found a way

to bend sideways and latch a finger into a belt buckle to keep herself up.  Mikol tried once

or twice to remove her grip, but gave up, focusing on making his way down the long flights

of stairs.  Rachel knew he was thinking there would be something far worse for her ahead. 

A small concession would not slow him down.

"I'm afraid we must go back up these steps," Henri said regretfully. It is the only way off

this walkway." He helped Cort to his feet and held his right arm as they slowly made their

way side by side. There were no elevators in the small keep and so Cort had to go down the

long  stairs back to  the base of the building.  There was a small bench just out from the

bottom of those steps and Henri guided Cort to it.

"There's no time," Cort protested.

"If you keel over, time won't have any meaning anyway," Henri stated.

Cort knew the doctor was right. He settled onto the bench, leaning his head against the

wall behind him. He found his mind drifting back to the morning in Redemption after

he'd been beaten by Ratsy during the night. He remembered walking down that dusty

street toward Herod and his men, every bone in his body aching, his crushed right hand screaming in pain, his head throbbing from punch after punch. And he had to fight. Like

now. He could barely hold his head up and someone far more dangerous than Herod was

waiting for him somewhere in this castle. And he would have to fight him. There would be

no exploding buildings this time. This time he knew that more than likely he would die.

If he could just save his Rachel first, then that wouldn't matter.

Henri saw Cort's head loll to the side as he fell into an exhausted sleep. Good. Let him rest

a few minutes here. Henri walked out into the courtyard, looking for any sign of Mikol. He frowned at the sight of the apron still flapping from the flagpole. He really should have

taken that down, but he hadn't wanted to leave Cort long enough to do so.

He pressed his lips together. Mikol was probably still somewhere in the main tower. He

didn't really want to run into him there, but he knew Cort would insist on checking the

place out. Where? Where would be the best place to face down someone like Mikol? He

sighed, knowing that ultimately the choice would be Mikol's to make and he would have

to deal with it as best he could.

Finding no trace of Mikol anywhere, he returned to where Cort was sleeping. How he

hated to wake him up, but he knew Cort would be upset with him did he not. He sat beside

him on the bench, letting him rest a moment longer, studying Cort's quiet face. He wished

he had the right to call him 'son.' He'd never married, never had children of his own. 

Medicine had been his life. Now he found that he would be willing to die that this young

man might live. Such strong feeling was new for him, shook him a bit. He would not let

Mikol kill Cort. He simply would not!

Five minutes passed and he touched Cort's shoulder gently. Cort's head came up, several

long strands of hair caught in his lashes. He blinked them away. "Sorry," he said, "I didn't

mean to fall asleep."

Henri smiled and inclined his head toward the tower. "I imagine he is somewhere in there.

We can take the elevator. No more stairs for you today, I think."

Slowly they went down the maze of corridors leading to the elevator. As Henri pressed

the combination to make its doors open, he prayed silently, "Please let him be gone. Please

don't let him still be in the tower."

When the elevator stopped, there was still that last curving flight of stone steps up to

Cort's room, which Cort thought would be the most likely place Mikol would have taken

Rachel in the tower. He was beginning to understand how the man was leading him on,

taunting him with the fact that he had possession of the woman Cort loved.  Still, he was

not prepared for the sight of his bed thrown apart, the cloth from Rachel's skirt tied into

the springs. There was something rather obscene about the whole thing. His legs felt weak

 and he sank down on one of the chairs by the little table.  "Why...why is he doing this?"

Henri sat in the other chair. "He is full of hate, Cort. There was...so much...he wanted, and

all of it was taken from him, even the woman he loved, even his request for more...time. And

so he...left. Not like you, Cort. You were taken.  He left. Like Sid left."

"Is...is he nanotech, then?"

"No, Mikol is flesh, no wires filled with blue nanosauce. But he's not human, either, Cort,

not like us. He's...different."

"Do you know why he wanted me?"

 
"I think the bottom line of it is revenge, I really do. The humanity he was in contact with

denied him, tried to destroy him. I think he has plans for some sort of robotics with human

brain patterning. I know for years he's tried to retrieve men who were as different as

possible from him. In some perverse way, he wanted to understand them, understand you,

so that he could use your brain patterning in his robots, so that he could take the goodness

and control it, make it serve him, make it do as he wished. For him, control over something ordinary or something more like him would not have been enough. He wanted to understand goodness so he could bend it, twist it, make it be something it was never meant to be."

He paused, sighing. "It may help if you understand how he came to this point. He was
created as a combat model, filled with the highest-level of self-sufficiency. He did his job,

did what he had been made to do. But he was also designed to live a mere four years. It

wasn't enough." He shrugged.  "It would not have been enough for me, either. He wanted

more life. As simple as that. So he went to his maker and asked if something could be done.

He was told it could not, and he killed the man. I remember his eyes as he did it. Such a

mixture of emotion, such a profound act...to kill one's maker, you know. It seemed every

human he met after that killed someone who mattered to him, wanted to kill him. So...now...

now that he's free from the loop of that, he's made a kingdom for himself where he is the

creator. It's the whole reason for the robotics...that he can create them, that he can trap

human essence in them, can command them, can end their existence at his whim. It's very... complicated, I'm afraid."

"And Rachel? Why has he taken Rachel?"

"Because you want her, Cort. And maybe even because the man who killed his own woman,

that man's love was named...Rachael. When his lover was killed by the man, the man who

was 'the good man' of the movie, I think it was then he developed his obsession with what constituted human goodness. And I expect, too, he blames your Rachel for the failure of

his original plan for you. He wants you to follow him, to try and get her back. He has no

other use for her but that. He's enjoying himself before he gets down to the business of transferring your brain patterns."
 

"And what does that involve?"

"Let's just say it no longer involves keeping you alive.  Well, not alive in any significant

way."

Cort decided not to ask what that might mean.

"Do you think he's left the tower?"

"I expect so.  He was probably in your room not all that long ago, though."

"Do you know where I might get a gun?"

Henri licked his lips. "Guns are not terribly effective on replicants like Mikol, I'm afraid.

Better if we had a cannon. Or two."

Cort's thumb circled around atop the cane. "Better than this, don't you think?"

"Yes," Henri nodded. "Better than that."  Cort's right hand rested on the tabletop. Henri noticed it was trembling with the fatigue of dragging his body so far on his injured legs.

And still they must take him further.  "There is," he continued, his eyes moving to Cort's,

"a small armory on the first floor of this tower."

"You can get us in?"

"I can."

One corner of Cort's mouth tipped up in a slight, very tired grin. "Now, Doctor?"

The armory proved to be mostly a display of medieval weaponry: swords, shields, pikes, halberds, a mace or two.  Henri led Cort past all that to a smaller cabinet and pulled out

a drawer.  There, lying on a blue velvet cloth were several handguns, mostly modern, but

among them a Colt 45. Cort reached out, taking it in his hands.  It was certainly not the

best of the selection, but was the one he felt most comfortable with.  It lay across his palms

and he stared down at it a long moment.  It always comes back to this, doesn't it? he thought.  Even here in the 21st century it came  back to that. Him and a gun.  This time, though,

there was no hesitation connected to it, no decision to be made. He would use it.

"Bullets?" he asked, raising his eyes to Henri.

Henri had his back turned, doing something quickly at another cabinet. "Next drawer

down," Henri replied, not yet turning around.

Cort fished around, finding the right cartridge box, then began loading the Colt.  How

familiar the motion of sliding the bullet into its chamber!  He didn't even need to think

about what he was doing, his fingers did it automatically.  He thought of the single bullet

Herod allowed him and a wry smile curved his lips as he slipped the cartridge box with its remaining complement of ammunition into his pocket.

By then, Henri was facing him again, holding out one of the syringes on his palm.

"What's that for?" Cort asked.

"I've been saving this one for the right time.  I think that time is probably now, Cort."

"What do you mean?"

Henri knew words like 'adrenaline' would mean nothing to the young man, so he said, "It's

an energy-booster, Cort.  It will give you a time of feeling stronger to help you through

what's coming."

Cort smiled at Henri's earnest, concerned face. "Thanks, Doc," he said, "but I think I'll

just do this under my own steam."

ON TO PART 21

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