Stiletto

by Daniel O'Malley

  “What’s the evaluation?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid the fact that you’ll be examining a dead supernatural creature of demonstrated malignancy makes it an automatic category C,” said Roff apologetically. Felicity shrugged. Category C meant that she would be supervised by a doctor, a lawyer, and a guard, each of them armed with a handgun and a machete. Once the observation was over, she’d have to submit to weekly medical, toxicological, psychological, and religious examinations for a month. It was inconvenient, but she’d been through worse.

  Category E would have meant she’d need to receive a series of nuclear-style decontamination scrubbings after the operation, while category F added mandatory exorcism rituals for all known religions and two weeks of an all-liquid diet. Category G required that all the aforementioned precautions take place on an isolated oil-rig facility in the North Sea with twelve marksmen pointing guns at her from a hundred meters away.

  At the level of category S, she would be automatically executed, her remains incinerated, and arrangements made for them to be removed from the planet. And there were nine higher levels of precautions beyond that, moving into the Greek alphabet.

  They came to the platform with its little tent. It looked very small and vulnerable with the great corpse of the creature rearing up behind it like an Eiger made of old fish. In a tiny antechamber, they were provided fresh coveralls that were not made of thick rubber but rather a cotton so sheer and breathable that Felicity’s scarlet knickers and bra could be seen through it.

  This is what comes of thinking you won’t be deployed in combat today, she thought dismally. Normally she wore quite plain underwear, since there was always the possibility of being sent into a combat scenario. However, waking up in the glamorous surroundings of the hotel, and somewhat intimidated by Leliefeld’s luggage and wardrobe, she’d elected to wear her very best clothing, including her undergarments. Of course, Leliefeld was wearing a suit that looked like it cost three times as much, which had somewhat spoiled Felicity’s mood.

  Felicity and her guide proceeded into the main area of the tent, where several people, also dressed in cotton coveralls, were waiting. She noted that none of them were wearing exuberantly colored underwear.

  “These are your witnesses for today, Pawn Clements. Allow me to introduce Dr. Quis, Ms. Brünnhilde Trant-Erskine-Brown, QC, and Sergeant Patrick Liar.”

  “Sergeant Liar?” repeated Felicity faintly. Sergeant Liar was a gigantic man and, unnervingly, was already holding both his service pistol and his service machete in his hands, as if ready to execute her at any moment.

  “Lyrer, with a Y-R-E-R,” he said. He spoke with a gorgeous Irish accent. “Like someone who plays the lyre.”

  “Well, that’s a lyrist, but it’s still nice to meet you,” said Felicity. “All of you.” She shook hands with the other two but not the sergeant, who was unwilling to relinquish his grip on his weapons and who didn’t seem delighted to have been corrected about his own name.

  There was a groaning sound underneath them, and they all swayed a little as the hydraulics of the platform began lifting them. The plastic roof of the pavilion squashed down a little as it came in contact with the corpse.

  Set up in the center of the platform was Felicity’s equipment, arranged in her preferred layout: a table with some paper, pens, pencils, crayons, charcoal, and a voice recorder so that she could record her impressions as soon as she emerged from her trance. A thermos of chilled cranberry juice stood by, moisture beading on its sides.

  The most important item was a piece of intricate and expensive furniture that looked like a dentist’s chair, or would have if Ferrari had been in the habit of making dentist’s chairs. It had been specially commissioned by the Checquy for those Pawns whose abilities required them to lie still for a long time. There were IV drips hanging on a rack and discreet little tanks underneath should a catheter (or worse) prove necessary. Heart, brain, lung, and gallbladder monitors were attached at the back, with the leads all coiled up.

  Felicity eased herself into the chair, and Pawn Roff set about fastening restraints around her ankles, knees, waist, and neck. They were uncomfortable, but even more disconcerting was the knowledge that the chair could be electrified if two of the three witnesses judged it necessary. It also contained a series of small explosive charges that would, if detonated, do an astounding amount of harm to the chair’s occupant while leaving any bystanders with no greater problem than sourcing an effective dry cleaner.

  Dr. Quis, a white man of indeterminate age, facial features, and hair color, applied monitoring leads to her stomach, chest, neck, forehead, and the balls of her feet and then connected them to the machines. The sound of regular beeping filled the little pavilion.

  “Is there anything else you need, Pawn Clements?” asked Pawn Roff.

  “No, thank you,” said Felicity. She set the chair’s massaging rollers to “light pummel” and activated the machinery that reclined the seat and brought it up to the depression in the pavilion’s ceiling. The armrests lifted up until her bare hands came into contact with the plastic roof.

  And here we go.

  Felicity closed her eyes and opened her mind. Smell and sound were sucked away, and touch shouldered into the forefront. Her powers were all about physical connections, texture, substance. The light scratchiness of her suit, the liquid crawl of the perspiration on her back. She gathered herself together and pushed forward, out of her body, passing like light through the ceiling. There was a frisson as she moved through the shellac on the creature’s hide, and then she was inside.

  Odette Leliefeld may think she knows anatomy, thought Felicity, but she’s never had this perspective.

  Much to her regret, this wasn’t the first corpse she’d surveyed. When she had begun doing it, at the Estate, it hadn’t been easy. She’d felt as if she were drowning in dead flesh. The weight of a body and the flashes of its history that leaked into her psyche had actually prompted her to become a vegetarian. The Checquy, upon learning her reasons for becoming a vegetarian, had firmly told her that she couldn’t allow her work to affect her that way; it suggested an appalling lack of self-discipline. They had insisted she keep eating meat.

  It still wasn’t particularly easy, but she’d reached the point where she could delve around in a murdered corpse for an hour and then go have a hamburger without feeling any guilt or nausea. The key, as when one interacted with kindergartners, was not to acknowledge the immeasurable horror of what you were dealing with.

  Now, as she hovered inside the meat of the creature’s chin, Felicity took a moment to orient herself. First step, locate the main organs. You’re in the head, so check the brain. Navigating one’s way through a corpse was, usually, just a matter of following some universal signposts. I just hope this thing has a spine. She sent her mind coursing up a jawbone as thick as a pine tree and then traced her way along the outside skin to the nearest eye.

  Okay, and now I just follow the optic nerve to the brain. Mentally humming the theme from Mission: Impossible, she spiraled along the fleshy cable. It’s really not a good sign that I’m enjoying this more than the prospect of going back to a five-star hotel at the end of the day, she mused. Rook Thomas never actually said how long I would have to hang out with that Eurotrash Grafter and her creepy little brother. I wonder if—this doesn’t feel right, she realized. Where’s the fucking brain?

  Felicity estimated that she’d traveled about a third of the length of the creature, and not only had she not found a brain, but none of the other optic nerves had converged with hers. I know I’m in a possibly unique, probably supernatural creature, but this really doesn’t make much sense. Why would the brain be so far away from the eyes? What kind of creature keeps its brain in its arse? Apart from Pawn Bannister, she amended. If she’d had access to her arms, she’d have folded them in vexation. She settled for thinking vexed thoughts and pressed on farther into the corpse.

  Standing carefully on the creature’s back, Odette
watched as the heels of a Checquy scientist vanished into a blowhole. As it turned out, when Dr. Fielding described the hole as “big enough for a person to climb into,” what she’d meant was that it was big enough for a person to wriggle into slowly and laboriously if that person pushed his or her oxygen tank ahead first. This person also needed to be relatively slim, comfortable in enclosed spaces, and willing to be sprayed down with the world’s biggest can of lubricant. Fortunately, Odette was such a person.

  “You seriously want to go in there?” asked the support Pawn who was strapping an intricate spring-loaded knife to Odette’s greasy wrist. Several pieces of equipment had been added to her ensemble, including a slightly larger mask with headlights and a built-in communications system. “Really?” Odette couldn’t tell if his tone was genuine incredulity or the sort of snotty goading that suggested she couldn’t do this, couldn’t live up to the standards of the Checquy.

  “Absolutely. It’s an incredible opportunity to examine a completely unknown creature.” She wasn’t certain if she was trying to persuade him or herself.

  When Fielding had mentioned the possibility, it had sounded fascinating—a new perspective on anatomy and the mechanics of life that was too good to miss. If this was the kind of work she might get to do with the Checquy, it might all be worth it.

  But she also felt she needed to prove something to the Checquy. The knowledge that they disliked her—her especially! And for no reason at all!—had ignited in Odette the desire to show them that she was worthwhile, that she wouldn’t hesitate to walk where they walked. For most of the people present, she would be the first Grafter they ever encountered. She was anxious to leave an excellent impression (if only to make up for her disastrous first few).

  Finally, there was the knowledge that doing it would really piss off Pawn Clements.

  So she’d jumped at the chance. In fact, she’d almost demanded it. Now, as she eyed the dark hole in the creature’s hide, it was beginning to seem slightly . . . unwise.

  “Going up a monster’s nose? You’re ’aving a laugh!” said the man. “’S bloody ridiculous.” Which Odette thought was pretty rich coming from a guy who, judging by what she could see through his mask, appeared to be made out of pebbles. “Now, because we’re not at all certain how well radio will go through several meters of dead animal, you’re going to be spooling this communications cable behind you.” A couple of silvery lines were already coming out of the blowhole where the two Checquy monster-spelunkers had gone in.

  “We’ll be monitoring the feed constantly, and if you ask for help or start screaming, or if we can’t hear you breathing into the microphone, then we’ll get you out.”

  “How?” asked Odette warily.

  “Oh, we’ve got people with jackhammers and whatnot standing by. Of course, we’d prefer not to use them. I mean, it wouldn’t be a very professional dissection, would it?” Odette smiled weakly. It hardly sounded like a professional rescue either. In fact, the idea of having the Checquy drag her out was far more worrying than the prospect of going in. “You’ll be fine,” said the guy. He patted her reassuringly on her greasy shoulder and then wiped his gloved hand absently on his coveralls.

  Odette gave him the thumbs-up, then awkwardly got down on her knees, holding her oxygen tank. Until she could start pushing herself forward with her feet, she would have to claw her way into the blowhole, pulling herself in by the skin of the tunnel.

  The interior of the animal was much as one would expect: close and dark and damp, with an odd smell. It was rather, Odette thought, like trying to enter a really popular nightclub on New Year’s Eve. Even with the lubricant all over her and the slicks of thick liquid that dripped out of the walls and roof, it was a damn tight squeeze.

  She took a deep breath. You wanted this, she told herself. You asked for it. And it’s a good thing that you very definitely do not get claustrophobic.

  The irregular tube was not perfectly circular—it was more of a squashed oval wider than it was tall. It was really only just about as wide as Odette herself, so she had to wriggle ahead with her hips and shoulders instead of using her arms and legs. The light from her headlamp did not seem to travel very far. Peering over the squat cylinder of her oxygen tank, she could just make out the white soles of the man several meters in front of her. She carefully scraped some of the viscous material from the tunnel wall into a little sample tube and secured it in its pouch on her sleeve. Then she rolled over (this took some very careful shifting) and examined the ceiling.

  The surface had a rubbery texture, and the mucus (at least, she presumed it was mucus) dripping down meant that soon her helmet’s mask had multiple disgusting streaks obscuring her view. Odette turned back onto her stomach and then used her well-lubricated hand to try and wipe off the mask. She managed to scrape most of the crud away, but the lubricant coating her glove smeared the faceplate and made everything look hazy.

  “The tunnel continues to slope down at approximately forty-five degrees,” came a sudden voice in her ear, and, unable to jump in the close confines, Odette settled for a sort of startled spasm.

  “Copy that,” said another voice, and she realized that the team on the surface had turned on the intercom system. She could now hear the scientists’ breathing as it echoed in her helmet.

  “Un-understood,” she added, and then wondered if she ought to have said, “Copy that,” and if all of them were rolling their eyes at her unprofessional, nonmilitary attitude.

  As she inched her way along, however, Odette began to brood less about the effort of moving and became focused on examining her surroundings. After a while, the three people inside the monster began to discuss what they were noticing. The other two were Pawn Wharton, a marine biologist, and Dr. Codman, a zoologist, but Odette’s knowledge of general anatomy proved to be far superior to theirs, and so they were all able to bring something to the conversation. Wharton was shooting video, while Codman and Odette collected samples of every solid and liquid they encountered, no matter how gross. The zoologist even bored a few little core samples.

  After about ten minutes of exhausting wriggling, they paused to take a rest. Odette put her face on her folded forearms, and tried to ignore how bad her breath was beginning to smell in the confines of her mask. Then she felt a little tremble go through the tube.

  “Did you feel that?” she asked. “Are you guys okay?” She could easily imagine one of the scientists deciding that he really didn’t like crawling and having a panic attack. It would probably be the worst place in the world to lose control.

  “I felt it, but it wasn’t me,” said Codman.

  “Nor me,” said Wharton. Both of them sounded wary but calm.

  “Feel what?” asked one of the techs on the surface.

  “It was like a little shudder,” said Codman. “Through the tube.”

  “Oh. Well, there’s no sign of anything up here,” said the tech.

  “Any thoughts? Odette?” asked Codman.

  “Um, maybe a little death spasm,” said Odette. “It could be some muscle dying or breaking down.” She peered as closely as she could at the surface of the tube and probed with her gloved hands. It felt dense and muscular. I wonder if it could clench together and seal the blowhole shut? The implications for the current occupants of the blowhole were not pleasant.

  “Do you want to come back?” asked the tech. Everyone paused. The plan had been to continue going until either their oxygen was one-third expended or they came to a place where they could turn around—a junction or chamber. Having to back out of the tube, while doable, was not an agreeable prospect. If push came to shove, they could try cutting through to another area of the monster. Pawn Wharton had a little chain saw that was apparently designed specifically for cutting through large swaths of flesh.

  “That twitch might have just been a one-off thing,” said Odette. “If it happens again, we should consider leaving.” They cautiously started moving forward once more.

  What in the hell wa
s that? thought Felicity.

  She had been gliding through the meat and been heartened to find that her optic nerve had merged with four others, which meant that she was getting closer to something, when suddenly she’d been jerked to a stop. For a few bewildering moments, her Sight would not carry her. Not forward, not backward, not in any direction.

  It was as if she’d been swimming and the water had suddenly frozen solid around her, holding her fast. Then, just as quickly, it was over. And now that she’d had time to think about it, it made her very worried.

  Was it me? She’d never had a moment like that before. Maybe I’m not ready to be doing this. A few days ago, I lost my closest friends. Maybe I should be on leave, or in therapy. Maybe I’m losing it. It was a frightening thought, but not as frightening as the other possibilities. If it wasn’t her psyche, then her powers might be going wrong. And if it wasn’t her powers, then it might be the monster she was in.

  Calm down, she told herself. It might have been a one-off thing. If it happens again, you pull back. She cautiously started moving forward once more.

  It was not a one-off thing.

  Said the tech over the intercom, “I just felt a little tremor up here on the surface.”

  Skimming through the creature’s flesh, Felicity had felt it too. She’d been brought to another sudden halt, held by a force that vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  Oh, I don’t like this at all, she thought. I’m getting out. She focused her will and sent her mind winging back in the direction it had come from.

  There’s another!” said Codman.

  “They’re not death spasms,” said Odette doubtfully. “They wouldn’t be coming more frequently.” The ripples were also increasing in intensity.

  They’re coming faster, thought Felicity. You have to get out. She gave a moment’s thought to cutting away from the nerve and heading directly through the creature’s flesh to her body. She wavered—it would get her out more quickly, but the prospect of getting lost was too frightening. Grimly, she pushed on, only to get caught by another freeze. This one lasted longer than any of the others, and she found herself counting desperately. One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three—free! She tore herself forward. Get out! Get out!