"Well, this won"t work," he said, showing his stump. Ginger"s smile froze, and she searched his eyes. She had not found that amusing and looked as if she wanted to say so. He had put her in an uncomfortable position, and she clearly didn"t like it. "And I understand it doesn"t work on plastic."
"That is true," Ginger said, appearing relieved to move on. "Then we can"t put it here, can we?" he said, knocking on his fake forehead.
Snap, snap, snap. He popped off his combination nose and forehead appliance, exposing his eyeb.a.l.l.s and brain sac. "Guess this would be the only option, Ginger," he said in the nasal voice resulting from no covering on the nose.
"Oh! Oh, my ! Mr. Stephens, I "
"Who wants to put it there?" Steve said. "Who"ll volunteer for that ch.o.r.e? And when I wanted to display it, would I just pop my face off?"
She turned away. "I"m sure that will work. It"s totally hygienic and should cause no problem."
"I could take my mouthpiece off too, Ginger, if you want the full effect."
"Please, no."
"Well, anyway, I"m in the wrong line."
"Pardon me?"
"I"m not accepting the mark of loyalty."
"You"re not? Well, that"s not really an option."
"Oh, sure it is, Ginger. I mean, the other is a much shorter line in fact, I"ll be the only one in it. But it"s most definitely an option, isn"t it?"
"You"re choosing the, uh, the loyalty enforce "
"I"m choosing the guillotine, Ginger. I"m choosing death over pretending that Nicolae Carpathia is divine or ruler over anything."
She looked to Vasily. "Is he putting me on?"
"Sadly, he"s not, ma"am."
Ginger studied Steve, then reached for her walkie talkie. "Ferdinand, we need someone to run the facilitator."
"The what?"
"You know!" she whispered. "The facilitator. "
"The blade? You serious?"
"Yes, sir."
"Be right there." A tall, balding man with red cheeks hurried over. "You"re not taking the mark?" he said.
"Yes," Steve said, "but I thought I would try the blade first.
Please, can we just get on with this? Do I have to go through the whole ordeal again?"
"This is no joking matter."
"It"s no redundant matter either, so could you just do what you have to do and get me processed?"
"There is no processing. You just sign, stipulating that you made this choice of your own free will, and we, ah, you "
"Die "
"Yes " "Do I get some last words? "
"Anything you want."
Cheeks found the proper form, Steve signed "Pinkerton Stephens,"
and the man said, "You realize this is your last chance to change your mind."
"About Carpathia being Antichrist, evil personified? About Leon Fortunato being the False Prophet? Yes, I know. No changing my mind. "
"Dyed in the wool, aren"t we? "
"Let"s just say I"ve thought it through."
"Clearly." Steve glanced at Vasily, who had paled and held a hand over his mouth. Others in the line murmured and pointed, and now all eyes were on the strange looking wounded man in the undershirt.
Ferdinand slipped between a couple of chairs and went to study the guillotine. "They say it can be run by one person," he said.
He looked up. "Over here, Mr. Stephens."
Steve rolled to a line four feet in front of the contraption. His belly began to tighten and his breath came in short puffs. "G.o.d, be with me," he said silently. "Give me the grace. Give me the courage."
The grace came. The courage he wasn"t so sure about. He wished he were at a facility with more experience. Ferdinand had raised the blade to its full height, but as he worked with the elements at the business end of the shaft, he looked tentative and kept peeking up and pulling his fingers back.
"I think if that safety lever is set, you"re okay," Steve said.
"Oh, sure enough. Thank you."
"Don"t mention it. You can owe me."
It took Ferdinand a second, but that elicited a wry look. He set the restraining bar in place, none too easily, then found the release cord and surveyed the whole scene once more.
Kenny was asleep. Buck sat hunched before the TV, to which he had hooked his phone. Chang had devised some digital marvel to transmit the images from Colorado. A TV camera in a corner showed the entire area, and Chloe pointed.
"That"s him, Buck. He"s right there."
Buck"s chest felt heavy and he was short of breath. Steve was the only one before the guillotine, and a man seemed to be fiddling with it.
"Do you have a basket of some sort?" Steve said.
"Excuse me?" Ferdinand said.
"A container? Unless you wanted to just chase after my "
"Yes! Thank you. One moment."
Steve wanted to say, "Happy to be of service."
Ferdinand found a corrugated box that for some reason had been lined with tinfoil. Steve didn"t even want to think about why.