chapter 60 from 'The Omniconstant'

Chapter Sixty





01:05:00





Borsch Serfatti
is sitting in a corner of the ward. The other seven men are standing near the
two dead women. He is lost in deep thoughts.





Switchers, that’s what we are.  We want to change our life completely from
scratch.  Switchers, amoral, indifferent
to human grace and weakness.  The game of
power and control.





He turns to
look at his father.  Julius Serfatti
seems content, happy to be around the man he has always admired. 





What have we done, dad? We have sacrificed two
women to seal the secret of a new society. And I killed two people, one of them
used to be my girlfriend, the only woman I’ve ever really loved. Oh, Lilith,
and I killed you twice! Why did you have to turn to the other side?  What was your gnomon?





He looks
back at the bed where Lilith lies dead in a combined posture of a
semi-circle.  His eyesight line, just like
a laser beam, writes on the air the expression she had always used to hurt him.






‘My silence
inside you a stendorious voice constantly cracking your dialogues.’





He imagines
a little needle pinching Lilith’s idle heart. 






No, it is too late to hurt you, and I’ve already
done more than that. So what if I will never know what your gnomon had always
been?  To abandon me was a necessity, to
become powerful was a step, to evolve to absolute evil was a dead-end path.  We are our names, after all.  But do I know my own drive here tonight?  What am I doing here?  What is our standing now?  Are we really destined to change the world,
save it from all forms of vice, lead humanity to a new era, more spiritual?
Even if that is what Dabolmort dictates to us, with his actions today, does he
believe it too? Does he, really? He did not hesitate even for a moment to
abandon Rome with the first obstacle. 
And sacrifice the woman of his life to absorb life –or the remains of
Klotho as I have figured out- out of her. And make me and Nevo sacrifice the
one woman we have ever loved – at least I, dunno about him.





He looks at
his hands.  First at his bare, innocent
left, and then at his right hand with the microbionic glove and the secret
mechanism that transmits the nano-killers. 
He imagines a pair of golden handcuffs on his wrists.





Or am I in the cold hands of a bunch of
misogynists? A handy tool at the control and service of a ruthless man? I really
don’t know. The long future that lies before us will have to give the answers.
Hopefully soon.





Borsch
removes the glove with difficulty and looks at his bare hand after hours. Now
he knows he is still human. And that he still has a choice.





He hears
Dabolmort order Nevo to open the window shutters again.





“I guess we
are done.”  Borsch thinks loudly.





Suddenly
the ward door opens.