by Chloe Garner
He ate lunch with Jesse.
He had no idea what they’d talked about, but he knew he’d talked.
At one point, Jesse managed to break through the fog.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
Troy didn’t know the answer to that.
“Um,” he said, instead. It was the best he could do. Jesse frowned at him.
“How long have you been feeling weird?” he asked. Troy frowned at him.
“Does it show?”
“No,” Jesse said. “That’s what’s weird.”
Troy frowned harder at him and Jesse leaned his head in closer.
“How long, Captain?”
Invoking authority did something to trigger a deeper moment of awareness and Troy shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “This weekend, maybe.”
Jesse reached across the table and took his pulse, then shook his head.
“Need to watch that. You’ve got a lot of plates in the air. Bad time to forget how to juggle.”
And then it was Saturday and he was getting on a plane.
Olivia was psyched. She laughed and talked with Cassie like they were old friends, describing their last trip to Chicago and how unusual the DJ had been. Troy ended up on a row by himself, listening to the two of them talk the entire flight.
In Chicago they went straight to the line, carrying take-out and Cassie and Olivia swapping stories that Troy didn’t think he’d ever heard Cassie tell before. Nor Olivia, though that was hardly that surprising, he reflected.
He should have been uncomfortable, standing behind the two of them as they ate their wraps and laughed, but he was more bewildered than anything else. He had never seen Cassie get along with someone, like this. Not anyone, not ever. And Olivia seemed more at ease than she was even with Celeste. His mind kept stabbing at it, trying to fit trite explanations to it. They were both important to him, they had something in common. Whatever it was that attracted him to both of them made them more likely to get along. They were both faking it for his benefit, and he just wasn’t catching the clues.
None of them made any sense.
None of it made any sense at all.
“Oh, they opened the door,” Olivia said, standing on a toe and leaning out away from the line. “We should get in, soon.”
“I hope they have tables and a bathroom,” Cassie answered. “I need both.”
Olivia laughed.
“Me, too. But they do have tables. And bathrooms, I guess, but I never used it when we were here before.”
“Probably couldn’t open their doors without bathrooms,” Cassie said. “Code and stuff.”
Olivia nodded.
“I’ve heard the rules here are really strict.”
“Most big cities are,” Cassie agreed. The line edged forward, and then started to flow. They passed a trash can and dumped the waxed paper their food had come in, then started up the stairs to the door, awkward step after awkward step, trying not to step on other feet or get to close to other people, but acutely feeling the press of bodies behind them eagerly, waiting for their turn.
Troy handed the bouncer his ID and his money.
“Soldier, huh?” the man asked.
“Air force,” Troy told him for the second time. He motioned Troy in and Troy squinted in the transition from light to dark to find Cassie and Olivia, already headed across the open floor to a cluster of tables well away from the bar.
A few minutes later a skinny kid with neon pink hair mounted the stage and started playing. Cassie glanced from Olivia to Troy and back.
“Just the warm-up guy,” Troy said.
“I gathered,” she answered. “Are either of you going to dance?”
“I’m waiting for Whisper,” Olivia said. Troy shrugged. He would stay with Olivia. Cassie tossed an eyebrow up at them and stood, leaning over the table.
“Well, I’m going to dance,” she said, giving them an abrupt grin and walking away.
“I really never knew her very well,” Olivia said after a moment as Cassie melded into the small-but-increasing group of dancers enjoying the music.
Apparently I didn’t either, Troy thought. He shrugged.
“She’s different,” he answered. “Since she’s been back.”
“How?” Olivia asked.
He found this a challenging question to answer. More challenging was coming up with ways that she hadn’t changed. His Cassie would have been standing against the wall, her foot propped up behind her and her arms crossed. Exactly one man the entire night would have worked up the drunk courage to ask her to dance, and she would have found it patronizing and sent him away.
“I don’t know,” he told Olivia. “She’s more confident, I guess.”
Except that his Cassie had never lacked for confidence. She’d just never understood people. The only thing he’d ever seen make her insecure was when she’d failed her physical to remain in the jump program. She’d been sure she’d pass for one more year. It was the jumper’s motto: one more year.
“I’ve heard that travel will do that for you,” Olivia said, turning to rest her chin on her wrist. Troy frowned at her for a moment, then turned to watch the dancers with her.
Sure, but Cassie had been traveling her whole life. She’d never been at home anywhere, and she’d spent most of her adulthood in the jump program, and then with Jesse, doing more of the same. What was so special about the last six months?
“She’s a good dancer,” Olivia observed.
“Is she?” Troy asked. Olivia laughed.
“How could you not know that?”
“I’ve never seen her dance.”
Olivia gave him an odd look, then sighed.
“She’s really pretty, too. I’d never noticed.”
He stared harder, trying to pick Cassie out of the crowd, but he only saw her in flashes.
“I guess so,” he said. She’d always been attractive, in her defiant, separatist way, but he’d never thought of her as pretty. Olivia nodded.
“You just don’t see her right. She’s been your friend for too long.”
He had an instinct to argue with that, and a stronger one not to.
“Maybe. You want a drink?”
She shot him a quick, friendly glance and nodded.
“Yeah.”
He stood, relieved for the motion and glad to have something to do for a few minutes. There was something he’d needed to do. A lot of things he needed to do, but he couldn’t get his thoughts collected well enough to do them.
What he could do was order a drink. Meander through the crowd, wait for the bartender, wait some more for the bartender, order a pair of drinks, then meander back.
He just didn’t know what he was going to do after that.
*********
Olivia danced with Cassie. Cassie danced with various other people. Olivia joined in occasionally, but she was quickly overwhelmed by the crush of people and would come back to sit with Troy when she wasn’t dancing with Cassie.
“Are you okay?” she asked at one point.
“I…” he started. Olivia was pretty. And earnest. And honest.
Her eyes, concerned for him and seeing nothing else, were unlike anything he could ever remember. The portal program made people hard. Not angry or mean, but fast, efficient, and ruthless when they had to be. Olivia was so different from that.
She was so different from everything.
“Olivia,” he started, but her head shot up and twisted hard, as if she’d heard something he hadn’t.
“He’s here,” she said.
“What?” he asked.
“Whisper,” she said. “He’s here.”
“How do you know?” Troy asked. She shook her head.
“I don’t… There he is.”
The young man was walking up the stairs to the crow’s nest carrying a box of equipment, and the room went still as people slowly pressed against the edges of the dance floor. The dancers kept on, but it was clear so
mething had changed. They were paying more attention to Whisper than they were to the music. Troy couldn’t see Cassie.
The song wound to its natural end and there was a small block of silence as the two DJs switched over with some ceremony, then the music started.
Olivia was gone.
Troy hadn’t even seen her leave.
The room took the same surreal shape it had last time, and Troy had a sense that he shouldn’t be here. The dancers were moving sculptures, weaving themselves together in a pattern that he couldn’t pick out at any given moment.
It wasn’t just that he felt like he was intruding, though he did. It was that he felt like he shouldn’t have brought Cassie and Olivia here.
He didn’t understand it. Just an instinct, a sense of something impending that he couldn’t control.
He was on alert, but he didn’t know what to watch for.
It was just a club. Just a dance floor. Just music.
Sure, it was a little less grown up than he was used to, but no one was menacing or on the precipice of violence. In that first flow of moments, it was actually as peaceful a place as he might have imagined. Everyone was too taken with the performance, too involved to be temperamental.
And yet, he was alert.
He scanned the room, standing after a minute to get a better view over the dancers and only narrowly suppressing an instinct to stand on a chair to see over the active crowd.
The walls had a few people leaning against them, one or two with cigarettes in their fingers, but that hardly seemed like a powder keg ready to go off. The bar was popular, but much less now than before. There were a few people who were off-their-feet tipsy sitting in chairs around the room, but they were lower threats for being drunk, not the thing that was alarming him.
The music thrummed and swirled, and the dancers wove into a thicker knot. It was beautiful, elegant and musical. Not the bumping and awkwardness of most dance floors.
His heart rate kept going up.
Something was wrong.
Something was wrong.
And then Cassie was standing in front of him. She gave him an odd look.
“You’ve got good instincts,” she said, scratching at her arm. She peeled something off, there and he grimaced. That was gross.
“Give me your phone,” she said. He handed it over without argument, and she stuck the membrane from her arm onto the back of his phone.
“Call Jesse,” she said. “Tell him to get here by any means necessary. Any. Means. Necessary. Tell him I said that. Okay?”
She was moving again, eyes active, but more playful than anything else. She mouthed the three words again and he nodded, going to find a relatively quiet spot.
He scratched at the back of his phone, but even though he’d just seen Cassie put the sticker there, he couldn’t find anything to peel off. He filed it for later investigation and dialed Jesse.
The Palta answered on the second ring.
“Where are you?” Jesse asked. Troy frowned and looked up at the ceiling.
“Chicago,” he said.
“What’s going on?” Jesse asked.
“I don’t know,” Troy said. “Cassie said you needed to get here. Fast.” He paused. “By any means necessary.”
“Cassie,” Jesse said. Troy nodded.
“Yeah. She’s back.”
There was a long breath.
“We have a lot to talk about,” Jesse said. Troy hesitated, pulling his mouth to the side.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Jesse said and the line went dead. Troy frowned at his phone.
They were hundreds of miles away.
It would be hours.
And then Jesse was standing at his elbow.
“What?” Troy asked.
“Let me see your phone,” Jesse answered, taking it without waiting for Troy to volunteer it. Troy opened his hand, anyway, as if a late demonstration of cooperation made it less like he was being pushed around. Jesse pulled the sticker off the back of the phone and Troy clamped his mouth shut. It had not been there a moment ago. Jesse held it up to the light for a moment, then turned down the corners of his mouth in a little shrug and put it back.
“It’s good work,” he said. “Remind me to fix it later, if I forget.”
“Fix it?” Troy asked, feeling dumb.
“Yup,” Jesse said. “Later. Now we need to save the lives of every dancer on that floor.”
“What?” Troy asked. “From what?”
Jesse squinted.
“We need to find the royal couple.”
*********
“I’m not armed,” Troy said as they made their way back around the dance floor. Jesse was looking up at the DJ with enough intensity that Troy wasn’t sure he’d heard him.
“Wouldn’t help,” Jesse answered after an awkward beat. “They’re already hooked.”
“It is a drug,” Troy said. Jesse shook his head.
“No, not remotely.”
Troy sighed at him, and Cassie emerged from the throng again.
“It doesn’t like you,” she said, glancing once at Troy but addressing Jesse. “You put a dent in it.”
Jesse shrugged.
“How long has this been going on?”
She looked at Troy, who scratched the back of his head with both hands.
“A few months at least. Maybe longer.”
Jesse nodded.
“They should have filtered out all of the non-speakers by now.”
Cassie nodded.
“And you suck up too much rhythm. Worse than him,” she said, jerking her head at Troy. Jesse grinned.
“It’s what I’m good at.”
“Hi. How are you? Where have you been? How long have you been back? It’s good to see you,” Troy said absently, watching the dancers.
Jesse glanced at Troy.
“We need to have a conversation,” he said to Cassie.
“Yeah, yeah,” she answered. Jesse took her wrist and she stood for a moment, still feeling the music as Jesse took her pulse. He nodded.
“You okay?”
“I think so. I’m trying to take care of Olivia, but…”
“Yeah, I know,” Jesse said. “It’s a network.”
She nodded again, looking over at Troy once more. He raised his eyebrows at her and she shrugged, then looked back at Jesse.
“I can’t help you,” she said.
“You fight it from inside,” Jesse told her. “Keep them going. We’ll do the rest.”
“I’m going to have to go in deep,” she said after a moment, twisting her jaw to the side.
“You strong enough for that?” Jesse asked, looking concerned for the first time. She looked over her shoulder, then nodded.
“I can carry them for a while. Do what you have to do.”
“Good girl,” Jesse said, then let go of her wrist and nudged Troy back into motion.
“We should get everyone out,” Troy said, looking for the doors. Jesse pushed him harder, shaking his head.
“No,” he said. “The music has them. If they leave, they die.”
“What?” Troy asked. It was almost a yelp. Jesse nodded. “We need to get somewhere quiet.” He looked up, bending back to stare up at the ceiling. “Up. We need to go up.”
“Talk to me,” Troy said. “What’s going on?”
Jesse shook his head.
“Not here. Words are no good here.”
Troy frowned at him, but followed, now, as Jesse took off at a quick walk across the room to a door with a ‘stairs’ sign above it. They went up three flights before he paused to look back at Troy.
“The Dinalae are a people whose primary language is dance,” he said, peering up the stairwell to see how far it went. “Cassie and I have been there. She speaks their language, and it would seem that a fair fraction of humans have at least the capacity to… assimilate to it.”
Jesse paused, looking up the stairs again. He took a few steps.
; “Okay,” Troy encouraged. Jesse didn’t look at him as he began to speak again.
“There are no less than eight tribes of Dinalae, depending on who is doing the counting and for what purpose, and most of them are benign, welcoming to outsiders and engaged in broad trade. They learn spoken languages and become fluent in them, they live good lives and they’re generally good people.”
“Okay,” Troy said again, following now as Jesse accelerated up the stairs.
“The Burdalae, though…” Jesse said, now looking behind them. “In Burdal, a regime has been in place for a couple of centuries that’s hostile to outsiders. It’s on the wrong pole, so it doesn’t get the same traffic most of the others do, and it’s made it easier for them to form a very different culture.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Troy asked. Jesse nodded.
“The Burdalae have an elaborate wedding ceremony for the heir to the throne. It involves massive… person sacrifice, human sacrifice in this case, to celebrate the consummation of the marriage of the new royal couple.”
“The music kills them?” Troy asked.
“They’ve weaponized their language,” Jesse went on. “In susceptible species, it forms a predictive relationship with their heartbeat until it switches over, at which point it begins to hold a command relationship with the heartbeat.” He looked over his shoulder. “Which means that if the music stops, so do their hearts.”
Troy froze.
“That’s possible?”
“It’s illegal, but yes, it’s possible. It’s happening now. They’ll play a steady stream of upbeat music, gradually taking the tempo down further and further until, at the moment of ceremonial consummation, it stops. And everyone downstairs dies.”
“How do we stop it?”
“I don’t know yet,” Jesse said. “First we’re going to stop the wedding.”
“How do you know it’s upstairs?” Troy asked.
“You aren’t the only culture in the universe that likes to build pyramids,” Jesse answered ominously.
Troy followed Jesse up a few more flights, then the Palta stopped at a door and paused.
“This is it.”
“What was all of that about Cassie and networks and fighting from the inside?” Troy asked, listening hard to anything he might have been able to catch through the door. Jesse shook his head, listening for another moment before he answered.