Bernini let his magnetic eyes travel around the room, then they came to rest on me.

“But it’s happening again, Jeremy, isn’t it? You can feel it, can’t you? The armies of cruelty are massing. Reason is giving way to superstition, thoughtfulness to ideology, humanism to tribalism, honor to greed. Citizens become fools and savages. Crowds become mobs. Ripe for the Leviathan! Read your Hobbes! Read your Aristotle!

“No, our work is more important now than ever. Appearance is the new god. Could Lincoln become president today with his strange face? Could Roosevelt in his wheelchair? Today, the perfect mind needs the perfect body. That doesn’t occur by chance.”

“But we’re getting better,” I shouted at him. “Every generation, there’s less hate, less prejudice. More democracy, more freedom. Look at the world!-we have more law, more constitutions.”

Bernini’s eyes suddenly narrowed.

His voice turned cold.

“You dare lecture me on law? I’ve dedicated my life to law. What can the law do against barbarians? Against suicide bombers and nuclear terrorists? Can you reason with madness? A constitution is not a suicide pact. We must fight evil.”

“How? By killing people, taking their bodies? By putting yourself above the law? You’re fighting slavery with slavery. Murder with murder.”

“Don’t we send armies to fight the enemies of humanity? How many die then? Thousands? Millions? We only take three a year. That’s our oath. Three a year to stop the wars before they start.

“I am offering you the chance to join us. You and Sarah both. You can have everything. A perfect body. Infinite time. You can build on what you have and over time you will know what we know. You will be one of us. You will save millions of lives with what you’ll learn to do.”

“Look at her,” I said, my eyes on Sarah. “Look at her. You were ready to kill her. Is that what you are now?”

He waved me away.

“That was necessary.”

I thought of the books I used to read. The ideas I used to believe in.

“ ‘Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom,’” I recited. “ ‘It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.’ ” I begged Bernini with my eyes. “There is always another way.”

“See what I have seen,” Bernini growled, “and then tell me there’s another way.”

“You were supposed to teach us. Help us fight. We’re ready.”

A wave of laughter passed through the faceless crowd below me.

But Bernini didn’t laugh. His voice splintered.

“Teach you? I have seen the soul of your generation. Your television. Your video games. You are frivolous, violent, undisciplined. There is no inner life. Only selfishness, greed, amusement. No sacrifice. No duty. No honor. No virtue.”

“Then show us.” I thought of Jefferson. “ ‘Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.’”

Bernini let out something like a small cry.

His face began to tremble.

“You will not lecture me on enlightenment.” His hands were shaking. He pointed a finger at me. “My father believed in enlightenment. My true father, the father of my born body. He used to speak to me of enlightenment, read me philosophy at night. He was a gentle man. Pious. All these centuries later, I remember.” His eyes welled with tears. They spilled over and streamed down his face. “Then came the Grand Inquisition of the Church. They had to make sure his faith was real. So they burned him to death. In front of my mother and me. They burned him to death.”

He was shaking.

“Professor,” I said.

“Enough.”

“Professor,” I said softly. “What if you become the thing you’re fighting?”

“ENOUGH!” he cried.

He put his hands over his face.

“Enough.”

He stayed like that for a moment, bent over, racked.

I waited until he raised his head and faced me with clear eyes.

As always, he knew it before I even said it.

I could see my grandfather in him then. The dignity. The kindness. The two men weren’t so different.

“It’s over,” I said gently. “Whatever you choose, I’m going to destroy the machine now. Let your last act be good. Let her go.”

Bernini stared at me. I watched his face.

He was reading me.

Measuring me.

Then he turned to the executioner and nodded.

“Release her.”

The room broke into a roar of protest, fury.

“No,” the priest said.

The executioner looked from Bernini to the priest with his dull eyes, trying to find a clear order to follow.

Bernini stepped forward and grabbed at the executioner’s arm. The priest came forward too and the three of them wrestled for the knife until Bernini was forced onto his back and the priest guided it into Bernini’s chest. He gasped.

I pushed the crowbar into the largest gear of the machine and held it there with all my might as the wheel bucked and ground against the metal. Screams erupted all around me as the machine rattled and the people convulsed. The executioner tried to pull the knife out from Bernini, but he held it there with his last strength just as I held the crowbar firm against the tremendous force of the locking gears. Tormented bodies lurched toward me, crippled but clawing at me, trying to pull me off the machine, trying to tear the crowbar out of my hands. My eyes swept over the room and I saw Bernini fading, still clutching the knife into himself and away from Sarah, the crowd twisting and screaming from behind that infinite sea of masks. The leather belts of the machine strained inward, pulling the arms toward the center like a spider recoiling in on itself in fear or pain. The wires that wrapped the arms like nerves ripped apart, sending sparks through the air and lighting the whole machine in a white glow. With all my strength I twisted the crowbar in and out of the gears until the whole thing was coming down, fire running up and out toward the farthest arms. All around us, bodies began to collapse-the youngest first, the ones who had been possessed for the shortest length of time. The older ones held on, screaming in unfathomable pain. I dropped the crowbar and tried to cover my ears. Then I gave up trying to block it out and ran to Sarah, who had slid down the pole to the ground, still bound, squeezing her eyes closed. I untied her and she wrapped her arms around me. I saw a brown hand reaching out from one of the many robes on the ground. I pulled the mask off and it was Nigel, perfectly still. Sarah felt the artery in his neck. “He’s still alive,” she said. He stirred. The youngest ones were waking up. They were dazed, unaware of their surroundings. I wondered, what would they remember? How would the university cover this one up? Gas leak? Small explosion in a rich person’s secret club? Strip them down and concoct a story of sex and bad drugs and amnesia and best not to discuss these things and embarrass one’s self and one’s alma mater? And of course we hope this won’t affect your giving relationship with the university. I thought of the wall of unbroken portraits. The school had an endowment larger than the wealth of most nations. The past could always be fixed.

I told Sarah I didn’t want to be anywhere near here when they woke up.

She agreed.

We moved toward the door, trying not to trample the people under us.

Suddenly, someone grabbed my ankle.

It was Bernini. His face was pale. He looked at me desperately.

I had to lean in to hear him.

He said, “What have I done?”

Did he mean taking all those lives?

Or setting them free?

Before I could ask, his eyes went blank.