Free Red Cells by Jeffrey Thomas Page A

called out. His voice echoed a bit. “Are you in here?”
    A flicker of static interrupted the image all around them, above them, under their feet, and then in an instant a new reality had seemed to solidify. They felt they had been teleported, for now they stood in a Buddhist temple. There was much red and gold, gold dragons entwined around red support columns. Joss sticks, without truly giving off incense, appeared to smolder in the urns of sand into which they were poked. At the front of the room, beyond the pews, a huge gilded figure of Buddha sat on a blooming lotus, his ears long-lobed, eyes closed, smiling serenely. And then, without his eyes opening, Buddha’s lips moved.
    Buddha’s voice was uninflected, crackling and a bit garbled as he said, “Where is the Director?”
    “The who?” Ploss said.
    “He’s dead,” Stake spoke up. “He tried to kill me and one of his own men. You have to understand…the Director as you call him, Warden Cirvik, was not a good man. He didn’t have anyone’s best interest in mind. Not the prisoners, not his own staff, and not you. He was not truly helping you. He was not your friend.”
    “Not truly helping us,” Buddha echoed in his dead, static-distorted voice. “Not our friend.”
    “He forced us to kill him. We had no choice. But now that he’s out of the way, the rest of us want to help you for real…help you somehow. None of us mean you any harm.”
    “Harm,” Buddha said. “You harmed us. That unit.” One of Buddha’s golden arms lifted from his lap, and still without opening his eyes he pointed to Hurley. The guard who had fired upon the skeletal apparition that had killed the Dacvibese prisoner in Stake’s cell.
    “Hey, you killed one of our prisoners!” Hurley protested. “You’ve killed a bunch of our prisoners!”
    Another burst of static, and the scene again changed, this time to a more humble Christian church with stained glass windows and at the front of the room, a life-sized statue of Christ upon the cross. But though his head rested forward with his eyes closed, he had already pulled one arm free and it was pointing to Hurley as Buddha had done.
    “Give us this unit,” said Christ in that same emotionless voice, the voice of the chapel’s computer system.
    “ What ?” said Hurley. He put his hand to his holstered gun, but Stake quickly laid his own hand over the guard’s wrist.
    “No,” Ploss said. “We won’t do that! We won’t give you people to kill like Cirvik did.”
    “We are angry,” Jesus said.
    “So are we!” Ploss replied.
    “We are angry,” the statue repeated, its pointing arm unwavering.
    Stake eased Hurley’s hand away from his sidearm, whispering, “What are you going to do, kill a vid of Jesus?” Then, addressing the image of the crucified Christ again, he said, “There has to be a way out of this situation where nobody gets hurt any more. Not us, and not you. But you have to let us have our power back! You have to let us call home to our leaders so they can figure out a way to help you. We can’t do it on our own. You have to stop blocking our communications!”
    In a blink, their surroundings were once more replaced. This time the men stood inside a gigantic metal head, one of the massive iron busts of the Choom god Raloom. Before them stood a white stone statue of Raloom’s wife, Lupool, her wide Choom smile benevolent. But she too was pointing one slender arm at Hurley, and despite her gentle smile, when her lips moved, she said, “Your leaders would destroy us. Destroy us to protect this place.”
    “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Ploss snarled, trying to look sturdy, but Stake could tell the Choom was quivering with bottled-up fear and rage of his own. “We can get them to sympathize with you if you will just…stop…killing…our prisoners!”
    “Whatever he might have promised you,” Stake said, “Cirvik never tried to find a way to release you. He was only appeasing you one sacrifice