They retreated into the main tunnel. The medic offered no advice in their stead, just rolled her eyes and dug through her kit for more supplies. Laura pulled Okane back and forth in a slow rocking motion, the way Morgan had held her years ago when she’d been sorted into the wrong class.
“What’s wrong? You seemed okay a minute ago.”
“I’m just—I was waiting. Now I don’t have to wonder. I was afraid.”
“Don’t worry. Clae didn’t teach any pushovers.”
“He died. If he was so great, how could anyone be safe? Especially someone who hasn’t worked the job for a year yet?”
“Are you trying to bring me down?”
“- - - disappeared! One minute - - - were there, and the next I looked and - - - were gone!” He sucked in a breath that rattled in his lungs like an animal’s snarl. “I thought, I was afraid, maybe, what if, where could - - - go in such a small space except down with them?” He kicked one leg. A rock bounced all the way to the closest Rexian, her silver eyes locked on them even in death. “I almost lost it when they pulled out the gun!” Now he sobbed, breathing haggard and voice breaking. “I thought - - - were still in there! I never want to be like that again! I don’t want to lose anyone else! Not the haven, not Clae, not - - -! Never, never do that again!”
“I thought you saw me going,” she mumbled.
“But where to? And when would - - - have come back? The tunnels are a mess if - - -’re not paying attention. - - - could’ve walked right back into it.”
“I’m sorry.”
She rested her head on his, at a loss. She’d never seen anyone so upset over her before. Morgan wailed about the future and Clae had hovered relentlessly, but this was uncharted territory. It frightened her. She had to swallow a lump in her throat before speaking again.
“You’re going to be stuck with me for a long time yet. And I promise I’ll be more obvious about what I’m doing next time. But you have to promise me something too. No more of this ‘I’m lucky’ bullshit. No jumping off buildings, no making yourself a target. You really scare me when you do that.”
He scoffed. “That’s different. I’m replaceable.”
“Says who?”
“Says my sister.” He glared at the dead Rexian.
Laura’s stomach twisted. “That’s not your sister.”
“How would - - - know? How many Sweepers have my blood in their veins because of that paragon? We’re gears. We’re tiny things in the machine, ready to be swapped out by Rex or Sullivans or—”
She reached with both arms to cradle his head, blocking his view.
“You are completely irreplaceable.” Her words were muffled against his head but he stopped struggling. “No one in the world is like you, and that’s amazing and it’s terrifying. I’m so glad I met you, but if you die I’m never going to find you again, and that’s one of the worst things I can imagine. If you want me to take care of myself, you have to do the same.”
After a moment, he leaned against her. “I know that, but it’s one thing to think it and another to feel it. I just … I need more time to believe that.”
24
JAILBIRDS FLY
Sometimes, Rex’s Sweeper breeding program produced duds. They didn’t happen often, maybe one in a hundred infants affected, but those children were useless. Magically impaired. They assigned the lucky ones to hard labor, abandoned by the program. Unlucky ones? No one talked about them.
Sweeper 1100106 almost registered as one of those duds. The differences between him and his fellows were obvious. They had luminous eyes; his turned out dark and had to hit the light just right to match that luster. They relied on their magic more than muscle for their jobs; while not large by any means, he didn’t have the same stick-figure I’ve-got-a-nasty-trick-up-my-sleeve build, his frame more muscular and his magic sensing not so precise. In fact, he rarely used his magic. He did it enough to get through basic training, and once the handlers stopped monitoring relied on Gin amulets for everything. He wasn’t special, but then again, none of them were. Sweepers served as simple pawns on the great chessboard of Rex’s advance to glory.
“100087, to the front! 100096, left!”
Two shapes flitted as directed, fast and dark in the fading light. The rest of the group spanned the distance between them, fifteen figures barely visible amid the trees. They’d started out with twenty-five, a month ago.
“1100104, hang left!”
Only one non-Sweeper remained. He rode on a horse near the back of the pack, voice like a foghorn. It wouldn’t be surprising if his yelling drew out the monsters.
1100106 ran near the far right of the group, leaping over tangled roots and uneven ground. A young woman sprinted just in front of him; he followed the kingshound crest on the back of her uniform jacket. He felt anxious, but didn’t let it show on his face. The monster was close.
The creature appeared on the right flank, an inky shadow spreading fast along the ground and dyeing all it touched pitch black. The formation scattered. All the members sensed it immediately except the man on the horse, who wheeled the animal about in confusion.
1100106 and the woman he’d been following, 1100128, took the same route.
“128.” He broke protocol, but it was much easier to say “one-two-eight” than the entire serial number. “Are - - - prepared?”
“My carry-on supply of Eggs is gone,” she replied, eyes busy tracking the monster’s movement. “I have the blade and some bullet rounds.”
“Gun?”
“Functional.”
“Good.”
He had four amulets, two by his knees and one at each elbow, attached to bracers to help the magic flow. Without pausing he slapped one knee, and magic rushed through the bracers. With the extra power he ran twice as fast, circling around the edge of the darkness.
The infestation rose out of the dark before them, its slippery surface gone solid but wreathed in noxious cloud. The redness caught 1100106’s attention first: one ugly red eye larger even than he was, lodged in a socket of seething tar. It had taken the form of a human skull but sharper, nastier, teeth like crooked chunks of broken razors that gnashed with a horrible snap. Rock and earth tumbled as more wrenched itself free, the bend of new blackened bone and phalanges, heaving up so an entire skeleton loomed over the group. It was like an evil god, all the wrath of Kuro no Oukoku come to pass judgment on them. 1100106 froze under its eye.
128 had taken precautions. She ducked her head, eyes on the ground as she wrenched the blade from her sheath and cried, “Forward!”
The amulets of her harness rushed to obey, and she was yanked forward as if pulled in by a fishing line. She landed on another rocky outcrop, twisted, lunged again. Her blade sliced straight through the bottom of its tibia. The foot dissolved into smoke and slime. The leg moved, mauled stump shifting to goo as the whole creature turned and twisted as a true skeleton could never manage. The eye winked out of 1100106’s line of sight, and he refocused on the grass, swapped blade for gun.
128 stood on the other side of the creature, still drawing its attention. He managed to land three of his bullets into it, but other Sweepers did the same to no avail. He knelt, popped open the gun, and dug through his pack.
Where the bullets hit, the infestation lost shape, but it didn’t seem overly concerned. It swung from side to side in a slow but inevitable shamble, sending slippery blackness spattering over the ground. The Sweepers wisely kept their distance now. They’d lost five others in just this squad to acidic blackness and poisoned air. Only 128 remained in close quarters, skipping around on amulet power with a mask pulled over her face. She cut the other leg. On a human she’d have taken out an entire tendon, but infestations had no need of such things. It gave a long, low groan. The legs bubbled before liquefying. Its arms drooped. Even the skull sagged, the eye slipping to spin in the mess of its jaws before the whole thing vanished into the black puddle.
The handler whooped in victory, but no one relaxed. 128 alighted on more rocks
and squinted at its bubbling surface. She jolted in alarm, raised one hand. The larger group had no time to scatter. The blackness surged for them, growing and tumbling over itself before the skeleton surfaced again. They’d adjusted to its slower movement, so its sudden speed threw them off. It caught two Sweepers while the others fled. The first Sweeper didn’t last long. A massive hand crushed her, slowly so they could hear the scream and cracking of every bone. The other Sweeper thrashed, arms and equipment pinned as another inky appendage lifted him toward the skull. The jaws opened.
1100106 dug through his pack with renewed urgency. He found a bullet in Sinker crimson, slid it into the gun, and snapped it back into place before aiming. The skull offered the biggest target. He pulled the trigger too late. The Sweeper barely had time to shout before the teeth descended. His legs kicked wildly but blood spurted everywhere before the bullet hit. The Sinker bullet blossomed into a flower of light; sparks flew wide before hardening into shards and swerving right back like a boomerang. This second, brighter volley cut deep and shrieked under the surface. The red eye swirled in its socket. The beast moved again, a low growl rising from its non-throat as magic glittered like boils along its ribs. Once it bit, a Sinker wasted no time. Bare seconds passed before it rooted out the amulet. The growl petered into a whine, and the whole creature burst apart in a shower of red so bright it seemed almost daytime. The infestation vanished in screams and smoke. A rattle and bang announced the amulet’s demise too. A piece whistled past 1100106 to clatter on the rocks: the fractured stone of an old cameo pendant, still spitting flame.
128 moved along the edge of the mess, examining the wreckage before announcing, “Kaibutsu exterminated.”
The verdict made them relax, but not by much. The surviving Sweepers made to move apart in search of amulet shards, but the handler barked, “Stay where you are!”
Tension again. All men frozen. All faces blank. The handler prowled among them, sneered at the creature’s remains.
“Who shot that bullet?” Silence. He rounded on them again. “I said, who shot that bullet?”
1100106 raised a hand. “I did.”
The handler walked to him, stopped only an inch away. His expression made 1100106’s insides feel like ice, but he was prime Rexian stock. He didn’t show a drop of emotion.
“Why,” said the handler, and his breath smelled absolutely rancid, “did you feel the need to waste a Sinker here?”
“I determined the situation otherwise unmanageable,” 1100106 replied coolly.
“You determined,” the handler laughed. “By what standard did you possibly determine this?”
It was a hypothetical question, of course. The handler didn’t want reasoning, just wanted to grind him into the dirt. But this same handler had no reasoning of his own. The last handler, while cruel, had played the game to win. This man played for the sake of playing and didn’t care how many pawns he lost or even, seemingly, whether they made it to the end. He gambled and lived for the thrill of the dice roll and poker tells. He wanted constant action, constant bloodshed, and when Sweepers died the stakes were high, just as he liked it. 1100106 had known many of those Sweepers, even if they never exchanged words beyond orders. The only one he hadn’t known was fresh from initial training, barely eleven years old. The newest dead lay in the blackened grass behind the handler, severed halfway down the rib cage so his organs spilled out; the rest of him from shoulders up lay farther on, affected by infestation or Sinker it was impossible to tell, and didn’t matter, but he was burned down to raw muscle and bone, the shine of gray eyes the only discernible thing as the wounds wept blood and blackness.
1100106 looked at these gray eyes as they dissolved, felt revulsion and hatred. For the Sweeper’s state. For the city that sent them here. For the handler taking pleasure in their deaths.
“My standard is - - -rs,” said 1100106, bland but with steel. It was impossible to disguise the harshness of his “you,” but while the other Sweepers’ eyes narrowed in suspicion, the inflection went entirely over the handler’s head. “It is our mission to secure the lowest island for our glorious city, by destroying the kaibutsu hive mind and eradicating its lower brethren. For this reason I stepped in to conserve the numbers of our squad, and to eradicate this lower brethren.”
“You wasted ammunition we need against the hive itself!” the handler spat.
“We will not reach the hive mind if we have no manpower to reach it with,” 1100106 replied. “Besides, every lost Sweeper takes his trove of equipment with him.”
The handler’s face grew steadily redder; he’d probably never been talked back to by one of his “dogs.” “We will reach the hive mind! All you do is break more amulets, making more infestations for our next wave to deal with!”
“Many smaller and weaker infestations are easier to deal with than the intelligent and elderly. Our forces are strong. They will overpower anything we leave in our wake.”
There was a moment of silence, and then 1100106 was grabbed roughly by the collar. He stumbled, but kept his expression immobile as the handler seethed, “Are you sassing me, you little shit? Are you questioning my authority, my orders? Mine?”
“It is Rexian teaching to never disobey orders, but in this case none were given beyond initial formation.”
He really did expect that punch to the head. 1100106 hit the ground hard, his ears ringing. The handler’s chest heaved; he cracked his knuckles.
“You want to say that to me again, you shit?”
1100106 pushed himself up again, slow and steady, and faced him. “It is my intention to achieve our goal, with or without shoddy leadership.”
Another blow. He had the sense to turn away from it this time so he only staggered instead of fell. The handler screamed something, but the click of a gun’s safety lock eclipsed it.
“Rexian code states that Sweepers defying their handlers must be put down,” said Sweeper 1100998, aiming her gun at his head. “Does the handler wish to pursue this code to the outcome, in this situation?”
The flicker of rage went out, numbed by resignation. Of course, as much as 1100106’s feelings warred over the matter, other Sweepers didn’t see it the same way. No use railing against it now. He was alone in that fight. The handler noticed this too, and he seemed pleased, even relaxed as the others took his side.
“Talk back to me one more time,” he goaded. “Just once.”
1100106 refocused on the mauled Sweeper again. The gray eyes were gone. “I apologize for my rudeness. The kaibutsu’s approach provoked irrationality. It will not happen again.”
“I’ll see to it that it doesn’t,” the handler laughed. “You. 1100998. I’ve got another order for you. If you see this one acting up again, put a bullet between his eyes.”
“As - - - wish,” said 1100998. She clicked the safety lock back into place.
“Do we have anyone else here to complain?” the handler called, spreading his arms and looking around. There was no sound or movement. “Good, because if I get word that any of you even think of doing something stupid like talking back to me, I’ll make sure you get the worse end of those kaibutsu. Fall in!”
The squad glided together into their ranks, striking the proper form even while gaps remained between them.
“About face!”
They turned. The night sky was barely discernible from the horizon.
“We make camp here!” The handler pointed at the only visible landmark: the slope of a hill with long, swaying grass. “We move now! Get the tents and the rations!”
1100106 had to wonder why they’d bothered with ranks to begin with; probably so the handler could assert his authority again. As they broke out of formation, 1100998 shouldered past him.
“- - - are no paragon,” she said. “- - - are not safe from us.”
“I know this,” he said, and he did. There was nothing else to counter with.
Tents went up, bedrolls unfurled, and rations were passed out from the wagons. 1100106 sat by o
ne of the fires with a tin in one hand and some unidentifiable cutlery in the other.
How bland, he thought as he chewed. Rex didn’t waste precious spices on Sweeper fare. So long as it was nutritious and the troops could choke it down, it worked. He didn’t even need to chew the mushy concoction, but he worked his jaw anyway and tried to imagine what “sweet” might taste like. Probably bad.
“The night is quiet.”
He looked up to see 1100128 standing there, a cup of her own rations in hand.
Despite being two years younger, 1100128 had been his near-constant companion. Small talk might be discouraged among them, but she always sat next to him in their downtime and he found her presence comforting. Everyone in the group admired her; it was hard not to, with the steel of certainty in her vibrant green eyes and formidable Sweeping skill to back it up.
She sat beside him now, surveying the scene with calculated disinterest.
“We would do well not to attract more kaibutsu,” he replied. “We’re far south, after all.”
“Closer to the hive,” she agreed. She watched him from the corner of her eye. “This excursion is supposed to be special. The one where we strike a killing blow.”
He hummed, frowned at his rations, and drank the rest. He couldn’t very well say what he thought of the matter, and she knew it. 1100128 was an expert at picking up on his moods, though, so she knew what the silence meant. She looked back at the fire.
“We had an advantage.”
“True.”
She stabbed at her rations. “What did the stray do with it?”
“No one can truly monitor a stray.”
“But one can direct her.” Her eyes caught firelight in that Magi way his refused to copy. “Will we die here without that advantage?”
“We would die even with it. The object did not belong to Rex, and chafed at their direction. It would have killed us before any kaibutsu had the chance.”
“So much knowledge. On what basis?”
“I felt its presence.” And what an awful thing it had been. Just the memory made his skin crawl.
The Monstrous Citadel Page 42