But the feelings that fill Ross are unfamiliar ones. They are not of frustration or anger, not of despair or sadness, as they have been each time before.
His feelings now are dull and empty, devoid of anything but irritation and a faint boredom. He stands with a group of the city’s survivors, but be has no regard for them either. Rather, he is a shell, armoured and invulnerable, but emotionless. He has no idea bow he became this way, but it is a transcending experience to realize it has happened. He is no longer a Knight of the Word; he is something else entirely. The humans he stands with are not a part of him. They do not meet his gaze as he looks over at them speculatively. They cower in his presence and huddle before him. They are frightened of him. They are terrified.
Then the old man approaches and whispers that be knows him, that he remembers him from years earlier His hollow eyed gaze is vacant, and his voice is flat and toneless. He looks and speaks as if be is disconnected from his body. He repeats the familiar words. You were there, in the Emerald City! You killed the Wizard of Oz! It was Halloween night, and you were wearing a mask of death! They were celebrating his life, and you killed him!
He shoves the old man away roughly. the old man collapses in a heap and begins to sob. He lies helpless in the dirt and rainwater, his ragged clothes and beard matted with mud, his frail body shaking.
Ross looks away. He knows the words the old man speaks are true, but he does not care. He has walled away all guilt long since, and killing no longer means anything to him.
He realizes in that moment that he is no longer part of the humans clustered at his feet. He has shed his humanity; he has left it behind him in a past he can barely remember.
Suddenly, he understands why the humans look at him as they do.
He is the enemy who has come to destroy them.
Ross and Stef walked slowly back along First Avenue after leaving Umberto’s, arms linked, shoulders hunched against the cold. The air was still hazy and damp and the sky still gray, but there was no rain yet. The street lamps of Pioneer Square blazed above them, casting their shadows on the sidewalk as they passed, dark human patterns lengthening and then fading with each bright new circle.
The dream had come again last night, for the first time in several weeks, and Ross was still wrestling with its implications. In this latest version of the future, Simon Lawrence was still dead, and Ross was still his killer. But now Ross was one of the bad guys, no longer a Knight of the Word, no longer even a passive observer as he had been every time the dream came to him before. He was some sort of demon clone, a creature of the Void and only barely recognizable as having ever been human.
He frowned into the upturned collar of his coat. It was ridiculous, ludicrous to think that any of this could ever come to pass.
So why was he having this dream?
Why was he being plagued with visions of a future he would never let happen?
“The state legislature is going to pass a bill before the end of the week that will cut back on state funding for welfare recipients to match what the federal government has already done in cutting back its funding to the state.” Stef’s voice was soft and detached in the gloom. “Maybe that’s what has got Simon so upset.”
“Well, by all means, let’s put more people back on the streets’ Ross shook his head, thinking of other things.
“Welfare encourages people not to work, John. You know that. You hear it all the time. Cutting off their aid will force them to get out there and get a job.”
“Good thing it’s all so simple. We can just ignore the culture of poverty. We can just pretend that poor people are just rich people without money. We can tell ourselves that educational, social, and cultural opportunities are the same for everyone. We can ignore the statistics on domestic violence and teen pregnancy and rate of exposure to crime and disease and family stability. Cut off welfare and put “em to work. I don’t know why anyone didn’t think of it before. We can have everyone off the street and working by the end of the month, I bet.”