Free The Terminals by Michael F. Stewart Page A

himself.”
    I struggled to understand. How did he know?
    â€œSo this Jo Wentworth, she was a Valentinian and told you all this?”
    â€œHer name almost two thousand years ago was Pius. My job is not only to track the reincarnation of evil, but to train the good.”
    â€œSo you’re telling me that you met Hillar … Seth, whatever, when you weren’t Charlie Harkman but Valentinus?”
    â€œJo told me that we confronted Seth in his lair just as he was murdering his partner Theudas and in so doing, discovering the secret of a very twisted gnosis. I can barely believe this myself. But maybe I can break the cycle and enter the Pleroma.” Charlie fingered the IV in his arm. “I think I’ve always felt Hillar McCallum—part of me knew he was my duty, I suppose. Now you’re here.”
    â€œLet me get this straight,” I say slowly, trying to understand the full scope of the stakes. “By helping us, you think you might be able to prevent his reincarnation?”
    It was moments like this that made it easier to be atheist.
    He flushed.
    â€œSo … you’ll do it.” I’d discovered what he wanted, and although I should have been pleased, I couldn’t take pleasure in killing the man, no matter how many kids he might save. “This is your chance at whatever you call it … gnosis, too, isn’t it?”
    I realized that his embarrassment was not due to the strange belief that he thought he was the reincarnation of some two-thousand-year-old mystic, but rather shame. His arm lay like its own little corpse, impaled and limp on the sheet. The lives of some eighty souls hung about his neck.
    After a moment, I looked the monk in the eye—my understanding didn’t matter—this was irrelevant to the orders. He appeared to sadden further.
    â€œYou were meant to do it. You’ve been doing this for millennia.”
    His eyes flared. “I—”
    â€œEleven children, Brother Harkman, versus the few weeks you have left.” The words tumbled in a rush, and my voice rose too loud for the confines of the cell and monastery beyond.
    He regarded me. “ Months I have left.”
    â€œDo the other monks know all this?”
    The light in his eyes diminished again. I can relate to guilt. I know guilt. My own guilt would kill me, as it would kill him. Duty and guilt, so closely linked, but for a soldier this came as no surprise—what is patriotism but the repayment of debts owed to your country?
    â€œWhy’d you keep your beliefs a secret? As a monk, isn’t belief all you have?” I asked.
    â€œI’ve lived in this community for my adult life. If I admitted that I was not simply a Gnostic researcher, but a practicing Gnostic, I’d be thrown out. I love these people.” He heaved a sigh, fingers rubbing at his scalp again. “I’ve wanted to tell them. I’ve told myself I would eventually. Now it’s too late.”
    â€œNot too late to be true to yourself.”
    He paused and looked up at me. “You may feel comfortable in the jacket of your cold rationale, that I am dying and this will help children who have long lives ahead of them. But it is still wrong, and it will blacken both your soul and mine.”
    I caught my breath; it’s not every day that you are cursed by a monk, and a mystic monk at that. Then I set my jaw. “Blackened Cajun-style,” I said and smiled grimly.
    â€œOne stipulation to all this …” As he spoke, his hand went to the IV as if it were an electrical switch. “You live.”
    I waved him off. “It’s a secret organization, Brother Harkman. It stays secret because its agents die.” A flush of heat went through me, and I regretted sending the general the missive regarding Sister Angelica.
    He shrugged. “As you said, I’m dying anyway—you’re not. If I do this for you, you must agree to