by I. O. Adler
As a defensive measure the army was putting in place a mesh barrier that would cut the sphere off from all external communications, including laser, radio, and other electromagnetic signals. And the sphere stood open. If they isolated the section of harvester outside of the hospital, the shadow felt certain they would learn enough in a short time to advance far beyond their current level of technology.
An additional wrinkle: they had received a message from the Framework requesting contact. While the message had stopped, it meant the survivors and humankind would soon be speaking.
The shadow knew its brood on the Framework would act. But the shadow would likewise need to move quickly to keep the Cordice technology out of human hands. Then their world would be helpless, able to do little in the years to come but wait for the inevitable.
How many humans were outside? How many armed? And did any of them understand how Jenna Vincent interfaced with the harvester?
The scientist in the shadow’s grasp didn’t know.
It released her and was reaching for the closest of her colleagues when the gunshot exploded. The shadow felt a shock ripple through its body. Pain erupted from the impact. It shuddered as it tried to understand what—
A second shot struck it and sent it spiraling to the floor. It couldn’t hear anything after the loud boom. It tried to focus.
Barrett was still alive. Raving. He approached, hurrying past a computer table and gripping a handgun. He hadn’t been armed before. But the shadow understood that the soldier it had killed at the entrance may have had it among his equipment.
The shadow slipped beneath a desk as a third bullet shattered wood. A fourth and fifth shot struck a cart with drawers. Pain made thinking difficult. The crude weapon might prove lethal if Barrett found his mark a third time. The echo of the pistol’s reports and the incessant alarms were disorienting. The tent had no other exit. It would have to get past Barrett, but then it would face the other soldiers.
Trapped. No place to hide.
Barrett shoved a chair away and peered beneath the table, the weapon in both hands and poised to deliver the kill shot.
It jumped. It grasped the frame of the tent’s ceiling, only to bound down straight into the agent. Barrett tried to dislodge the shadow with one hand while keeping the gun free. The shadow poured a last charge into him. Barrett cried out. But it wasn’t enough. He still fought and the shadow had spent itself.
The familiar contact allowed the shadow to hear and understand.
“Got you. I got you, you son of a bitch. Help! It’s here! We’ve got it!”
While Barrett couldn’t grip the shadow, the shadow likewise couldn’t squirm away. Barrett would shoot it. But then the shadow realized it had one other choice.
Barrett continued to shout. And his open mouth was the perfect target. It forced itself forward, spending what little energy it had on a last push to paralyze his jaw and throat as it shoved inside, rupturing throat muscles and choking the man.
He collapsed. The shadow only had a moment to pull itself from Barrett’s mouth and slip back under his shirt as the other soldiers arrived. It couldn’t understand them. Was utterly weakened.
It had learned much. If it could avoid detection and muster its strength, it could further hamper the humans’ efforts.
Jenna Vincent was still in the hospital. And the humans believed she was their key to possessing the sphere. It would either find her and use her to take the harvester out of the humans’ hands, or kill her.
But first it needed to hide.
***
Barrett lived.
As the soldiers worked to resuscitate the fallen scientists, the shadow took refuge inside the dead man’s hazard suit, coiling around his waist and down both legs. It resisted the urge to touch the attending medic.
It needed time to recover its strength. Once the survivors from the tent regained consciousness, they would share what they had seen and they would hunt it.
They placed the body on a rolling stretcher and returned to the hospital. The soldiers wheeled the dead man through the emergency room to an elevator and rode up one floor. After passing several doors, they arrived in an exam room. A pair of armed guards waited and watched as the body was unloaded. The attendants then removed the fallen human’s clothes.
It remained inside one leg of the hazard suit as the garment was stripped away and flattened itself as the suit was thrown aside. Then when neither guard nor attendant was looking, it slid to a wall grating where warm air trickled in. It listened to the buzz of distant voices, the hiss and hum of the building, and the drone of the elevator.
The alarms switched off.
It wanted desperately to sleep and recharge. Hide. But it wouldn’t be able to do that for long. It had its mission. Serve the brood and the ones beyond the Wall.
Once it recovered its strength, it would search the hospital for Jenna Vincent.
Chapter Fifteen
Carmen realized the fatal flaw in her plan when she stepped into the elevator that would take her and Ovo to the One’s ship. Without She Who Waits, there was no assurance the One would understand anything she had to say.
She felt relief when the elevator didn’t have any buttons. That was it. No intercom. No doorbell. She wouldn’t have to face the monstrosity again. Seeing it once in the council chamber had been quite enough, and that had been in poor lighting.
What her next step would be, she didn’t know. But even facing the Melded worm wouldn’t fill her with the terror of facing the creature at the top of the elevator, which was a hundred times creepier than its giant statue likeness with the hundred eyes and the gaping maw.
She already knew it liked eating meat with bones. What if it also didn’t appreciate uninvited guests?
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.
But before she could step out of the elevator, a door materialized, sealing them in. Carmen flinched. Touched the door. And then they were moving upward.
Carmen stepped to the back of the elevator. “Let your people know where we are.”
“Why?”
“Because it might keep us off the menu if there’s mutual accountability. That’s what brought you survivors together, isn’t it? And if She Who Waits is a prisoner, your Melded might let her use your com network to help us talk to the One.”
The elevator came to a stop. Carmen kept a hand on the wall as she experienced the sensation of near weightlessness. A series of soft thuds sounded above them. A tremor rolled through the floor.
Ovo busied himself with his devices, his throat pulsing as he made soft murmurings. “I have a message from the pro tempore executive. We are warned not to initiate contact with the One.”
“Of course not. Maybe if the request had come before you showed up with guns to lock us down, I might have listened.”
Ovo’s throat quavered.
“Did you just repeat my comment?” Carmen asked.
“Yes. You had a response. I relayed it.”
“Don’t do that. Not everything I say needs to be heard by them.” When his fur once again went flat, she added, “Look, Ovo, I’m not mad at you. Just don’t talk for me. I hate that. If your doctor in charge wants to have a conversation, tell him to release She Who Waits.”
He held his wrist closer to his face. Touched his ear. “There is a delay. My translation software doesn’t integrate well with our internal communication channel.”
Ovo held his arm as far away as possible as Sylvia Vincent’s voice blared from his wrist.
“Carmen, can you hear me? You need to get out of there.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. If you and the Melded are going to lock this place down and try to force us to go with you at gunpoint, the rest of the Framework needs to know.”
“We’re not locking this place down. She Who Waits is back and free on her shuttle. We believed she might have been responsible for jamming all the Framework communications, but it wasn’t her. We discovered that someone fried the entire ce
ntral communications network. Each ship still has their own, but the joint network will stay down until it’s repaired.”
“Explain the armed guards.”
“The Melded overreacted. It was a mistake.”
“Kind of like the Primary shooting Jen?”
“This is nothing like that. Time is tight, Carmen. I still want you with us. But you have to return. Ovo will guide you back. We’re going to get the harvester. The Framework will decide how best to use it.”
“I’m going to talk to the One first.”
Her mom’s tone had grown urgent. “Please don’t.”
“He’s part of the Framework, isn’t he? He has his statue, just like everyone else. So his say matters.”
“I see where you are. He might be listening. This is a discussion we can have once you return.”
What was she afraid of? Carmen pressed a finger to her lips. Ovo stared blankly at her. He didn’t get it. She wrapped her hands around his wrist device. Touched an ear. He tapped the interface.
“Is the communication closed?” she asked.
He double-checked. “They are not listening. But perhaps we can discuss the matter as she suggests.”
“We came this far.”
Carmen considered the elevator door and pounded on it. The noise reverberated for a moment. She heard a distant clank and a soft hiss, as if steam were shooting out of an overheated radiator. Silence. Then came a deep-throated gurgle just beyond the door, which made her shrink back to the rear of the elevator.
Ovo joined her. “He’s home.”
“Hello, the One?” she called. “It’s Carmen Vincent, the human. I wanted to speak with you.”
A buzz and soft hum began just outside. Another shudder. It felt as if the tight space were growing smaller as she imagined them precariously hanging at the top of a deep shaft. Would the pull of virtual gravity send them crashing if the box was suddenly free of whatever cable or field held it in place?
“Blorp.”
It was him. The voice was loud and easily heard. But why wasn’t he opening the door or summoning a viewscreen so they could better communicate?
“Blorp!”
More insistent. Louder.
“If you can hear me, the Melded are about to depart. They’re taking She Who Waits with them. They were trying to take her against her will. I understand the harvester is important to all of you and the Cordice are sharing it. I—”
“BLORP!”
The exclamation shook the elevator and made her cry out. It was the roar of something monstrous and ancient and extinct even before the dinosaurs ever roamed Earth. And some part of her understood the One was a creature not meant for human eyes and its voice not intended for the ears of anyone that valued their sanity.
The creature outside cut loose with a howl that made her believe the elevator was about to crash. It swayed and lurched as if some giant hand was moving it about. The pummeling wail only intensified. She crouched and pressed her hands to her ears.
“I don’t understand you!” she shouted.
Ovo was likewise hunched into a ball. He rocked back and forth.
The One’s cry stopped. Carmen’s ears rang as she expected a fresh assault. She didn’t know what else to say. Whatever tentative relationship the survivors on the Framework possessed didn’t necessarily carry over to humankind. Like the Melded, the One could do what it wished.
If this was the best diplomacy she could manage for her kind, then any type of treaty or agreement with the Framework would prove impossible. She tried to summon new words but before she could speak, something crashed into the elevator door. The light emanating from the walls and ceiling flicked out, plunging them into darkness. The elevator shuddered as the sound of tearing metal erupted around them. Whatever was outside was bending and tearing its way in.
Carmen slapped at the wall, hoping in vain there might be an invisible button she hadn’t seen.
Ovo crouched next to her. His green eye light lit up a small section of the elevator’s surface. He produced a small tool and started drilling. A burned-tooth smell filled the compartment as a stream of smoke trickled up.
“BLORP!”
Carmen felt like she was on the inside of an aluminum can that was being ripped to shreds. As she leaned forward for a better view, Ovo inserted a pin-like tip of his flashlight gadget into the freshly drilled hole.
The elevator dropped.
The sudden descent and the low gravity caused Carmen to bounce off the ceiling and slam into Ovo as he tumbled towards her. With a stomach-churning drop, they crashed back into the floor. She clung to the smooth surface as she strained her eyes to see anything.
“Blorp!”
The sound had grown distant. If it had been the One assaulting them, he wasn’t following, at least not yet. The thought of the enormous creature dropping onto the top of the elevator sent a fresh chill down her spine.
Why had the One attacked? Meat with bones wasn’t a good enough answer.
The increasing pull of gravity made hugging the floor easier. The elevator slowed. Ovo had landed next to her and was making mad chittering sounds, but his translator wasn’t on. They slowed further. Almost there.
Then from above came the booming voice. But instead of the savage cry it was a string of gibberish, the sound of a dozen voices crying themselves hoarse. The verbal cacophony felt like it was being amplified, as it carried a ringing tone that hurt Carmen’s ears.
She grasped for Ovo in the dark. “We’ve got to get out of here. Will the door open? When it does…”
He finished the sentence. “We run.”
The elevator sank the last few feet before coming to a stop. Carmen wasn’t waiting as she banged her fists on the walls, trying to remember which one had solidified, hoping it would let them free.
Ovo fumbled with the device. His light played everywhere as Carmen willed him to go faster. When he finally reinserted the gadget into the hole, the gadget went dark. He chittered irritably. Once again, no translation. He made a new panicked sound as his green eye light went out, leaving them in blackness.
“What happened?” Carmen cried.
She reached for him.
Snap!
A spark and an electric shock sent her reeling. She stumbled to the back wall while cradling her numb hand. From in front of her, Ovo let out a groan. Had he fallen?
The weird chorus from above grew louder.
Carmen eased forward with her other hand out. Ovo was breathing hard, as if hyperventilating. Perhaps the elevator had shocked him. Which meant they were trapped and helpless, and the alien creature descending towards them would finish tearing the metal box around them apart and devour them.
The door vanished.
The soft blue lights of the Framework pathways were a welcome sight. For a moment it appeared as if a glittering veil stood between them and the outside.
One of She Who Waits’ blimp bots hovered beyond the open doorway.
Ovo lay sprawled on the floor and unable to rise. His metal arms dangled uselessly. He kept trying to raise his head. Spittle dribbled from his slack mouth. But his device had dropped. Which meant he was no longer connected and hopefully no longer conducting current.
Carmen took the chance and pulled him upright. He barely got his legs under him and kept stumbling as she hauled him out of the elevator. The bot had a red translation light on. It bobbed out of the way as Carmen got Ovo moving.
The chattering babble from above them was coming. From the periphery of her vision, she saw a massive shape descending towards the statue, but she didn’t dare turn her head lest she stumble or give way to the building panic that made her want to drop Ovo and run to save herself.
The blimp bot kept swerving in her way. She Who Waits’ voice was saying something, but Carmen didn’t pause to listen. Couldn’t wait. Stopping meant dying.
She almost punted the thing.
“Designate the One.”
Carmen caught She Who Waits’ phrase t
wice as she hurried with Ovo along the pathway. They remained horribly exposed. Ovo was almost dead weight. His legs were wet spaghetti. If the giant blob moved half as fast as it climbed, it would catch up with them.
But the One’s gabbling had stopped entirely. The only sounds were her and Ovo’s panting and their footsteps on stone.
The blimp was no longer trying to trip them up. Now it hovered higher at head level. The Dragoman translator’s voice was clear.
“Designate Carmen Vincent? Designate the One has been repeating a message.”
Her lungs burned and she had a cramp. Can’t stop. But she had to slow down. Ovo at least managed not to fall as she dared turn to glance behind them.
Nothing followed.
Carmen readjusted her grip on the injured Melded. “It was trying to kill us. What else is there to say?”
“Perhaps. But designate the One’s message stands and I will deliver it. The One was repeating over and over, ‘You are not alone on the elevator.’”
“W-what?”
Carmen came to a full stop. She crouched. Wiped sweat from her face even as it stung her eyes. Ovo’s arms seemed paralyzed as he stood precariously.
“That is the message,” the bot said in She Who Waits’ tranquil voice.
“He was tearing the elevator apart trying to get to us.”
“I was not a witness to this but don’t doubt your sincerity.”
“‘You’re not alone on the elevator’? I had Ovo with me. Is that why he attacked? Is he that afraid of the Melded?”
“Designate the One’s message holds nuance. To elaborate, ‘Less than one and less than one are not alone on the vertical shaft transport.’ Does this help?”
She fought the haze in her head. The thin air wasn’t helping. A throbbing developed between her temples. First her flight from the Melded and then their experience on the elevator had left her spent.
She knew what she had experienced. The One was a monstrosity that had nearly killed them. But had it actually? Without translation, she had interpreted all its cries through the lens of her instincts, and they had told her it was a horror show from which flight was the only response. Like the Melded worm, the One had been obnoxious and loud at the council meeting and had frightened her.