"Why is that interesting?”
"Because I have not spoken Czech in…oh my. Decades. I thought I'd forgotten it all. Apparently not."
"Czech?"
"I was born in Prague, Robby-Bobby."
“You are delirious."
"Yes, I suppose I am. And whose fault isthat, Robby-Bobby?"
"Stop calling me that. Just fucking walk, whoever you are."
I snicker. "Whoever I am. Oh, Roberto. You have never said such an accidentally and ironically accurate thing. Whoever I am. Do you know? No, you don't. You don't know who I am, Roberto. You're just…just an angry little boy with a big gun. Very silly."
My legs feel like tree trunks—wooden and inflexible. Each step hurts like a demon. My head is fuzzy, hazy, thick.
"You are far more palatable when you are not delirious. This version of you is immensely obnoxious."
I snicker again. "And whose fault is that,Robert?"
"You are going to drive me to murder just to get you to shut up."
"Is that not your plan anyway?"
"Timing, Caleb. Timing is everything."
"Caleb, Caleb, Caleb," I sing-song, unable to keep my mouth from its antics. "Caleb is dead. Caleb died in a car bomb ten years ago."
"Oh, come off it," he snaps, irritable. "You may have convinced the world, but you never fooled me."
"No," I admit. "I suppose not." I trip over a rat that doesn't seem inclined to move out of the way—oh, it's dead. Lovely. "How much longer is this hallway of horrors, anyway?"
Drip, drip, drip.
"Just keep walking."
The chatter of automatic gunfire is distant, a cacophony of echoing rattles and crackling. And then there's only one gun chattering and half a dozen answering, and then silence.
"Uh-ohhhh," I whisper. "Just us chickens, now."
"Silence, Indigo."
"Indigo," I echo. "An inspired choice, was it not?"
"Whatare you on about?" Pugli snaps.
"Indigo, Indigo, Indigo. Who is Indigo? Who was he? A captain of industry. And now? Digital ashes on the funeral pyre of obsession."
"You are mad."
"But poetically mad!" I exclaim, and then my legs give out.
My knees crush crumbling exoskeletons and old bones, and my trouser legs absorb whatever filthy liquid is on the floor.
“Damn it, man, on your fucking feet," Pugli snarls.
He transfers the flashlight to tuck it under one arm and yanks me roughly to my feet, then shoves me forward. "Walk."
