Evil Ascending

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Sin admitted to himself that he liked Coyote and admired him for the cool courage with which the man had broken into his apartment the night before the storm. He appreciated Coyote's sense of loyalty to Hal Garrett and even respected Coyote's chameleon-like ability to slip into the Michael Loring identity so quickly.

  The man's belief in the giant spider story, though, disturbed him. Coyote immediately wanted to send him to Japan to chase down a murder academy run by agents of this giant daddy-longlegs. This supposed the existence of this mythical spider and the actual existence of the assassin training center. Neither of those things was assured to be anything beyond Coyote's personal fantasies.

  The mission made no sense, and it made even less sense for him to accept the job.

  The doors whooshed open and let him out across from the maglev VIP lounge.

  Well, at the very least, I can drop this file with Garrett and maybe talk with him. Otherwise, such as it is, Phoenix is my home and I'm not sure trooping off to Yakuzaland is such a winner of an idea.

  Phoenix's maglev train circuit had been designed by Nero Loring, the man who had built Lorica Industries in much the same way that Darius MacNeal had created Build-more. Each of the trains on the circuit had been custom-constructed in a triangular shape. The upper, more narrow car was serviced from the VIP lounge and only admitted those who had the appropriate passes. Down below, in the broader, less well appointed part of the cars, lesser executives and unimportant guests waited in a crowd to be shoved into the packed cars.

  Sin fished his wallet out of his back pocket and took out his Build-more identification card. He slipped it into the slot beside the doors to the lounge and took a step forward. He bumped straight into the closed doors and rebounded, a bit surprised. Looking down at the slot he saw his card sticking back out.

  A dark-haired young woman in a freshly starched gray uniform looked at him from her position in the booth beside the doors. He pulled his ID back out of the slot and pressed it against the glass. She waved a laser-pen over the barcode on it, then looked at her computer monitor. She blinked once, then turned her face to him.

  "Can I help you, sir?"

  Sin jerked a thumb at the doors. "You can open them. The mag strip must be gone from the back of my card again."

  Her face shifted into a look of snobbishly bored indifference with the ease of plastic being injected into a mold. "Sir, this is the VIP lounge. I believe you wanted the buses down on the street level."

  "What?" Sin looked at the ID card, then slapped it against the glass again. "Try scanning it now, please."

  The girl shook her head. "Sir, you have no authorization. Build-more does not show you as an employee."

  You son of a bitch! Sin ground his teeth as he clenched his jaw against the angry words he wanted to shout. You bastard! He turned away from the lounge doors, then almost whirled and drove the attaché case through the Plexiglass. He refrained, but not out of any fear for what Scorpion Security might do to him—the weight at the end of his arm gave him an idea.

  Okay, Coyote, here's your chance to score some credibility points. He crossed to a cement bench and sat. He opened the case and pulled out a manila envelope. Undoing the clasp he popped it open and smiled as he pulled another ID card from it. Picture's not the greatest, but it will do. He tossed his old card into the case along with the envelope, then snapped it shut and again approached the lounge doors.

  The attendant had already started to reach for the button that summoned security, but her hand froze in place as his new ID card slipped into the slot and the doors buzzed. Sinclair stepped through them and pulled his card from the return slot. Slipping it into his pocket, he glanced up at the video display to see when the next car was leaving, then took a seat well away from a pair of men who, though they were wearing business suits, could have gone a long way toward proving zombies did exist.

  The attendant left her booth and walked over to him. "Sir, you shouldn't be here."

  Sin rolled his eyes to heaven. "I have a valid ID, Miss. I'm in."

  She smiled nervously and lowered her voice. "No sir, that's not the problem." She gently took hold of his upper right arm. "This is just the normal lounge. If you'll come with me."

  Curious, Sin took out the ID card he'd used and looked closely at it. It resembled the one his father's corporation had issued except in three things: the corporate hologram in the corner represented Lorica, his job description was executive vice president for Special Liaison Affairs, and it had a white border around it. He'd never seen the white border before. This surprised him because, as a security officer at Build-more, he thought he had seen everything.

  She led him to a door near the point where the front of the train would end up when boarding began. "Your carte blanche, please," she whispered as she gently tugged at his ID card. He let go and she slipped it into a slot beside the door. The door itself slid up into the ceiling, admitting them to a dark alcove. When the door shut behind them, another opened in front, and they stepped into what looked to Sin to be a bar.

  The rectangular room had a full bar with two bartenders behind it across from him. The far end had a sound system and a dance floor complete with a revolving mirrored ball and a floor that changed colors by blocks. Tables with candles glowing softly filled the space between the door and the dance floor. Doorways leading into smaller alcoves appeared every 10 feet or so along the walls and two of them were shut.

  Sin frowned. What in hell?

  Lounging at the bar, sipping drinks from tall glasses, Sin saw a half-dozen young men and women all look at him when he came in. The attendant pressed his ID card back into his hand and smiled. "I will be leaving now, sir." Her smile broadened hopefully. "Unless you want me to stay."

  Sin shook his head to clear it, which killed her smile. She started to drift from sight, but Sin turned and thanked her. "And the door over there, at this end of the bar, that's where I board the train?"

  She nodded. "Your ID will open it for you."

  Sin thanked her again, then drifted to the bar. He glanced down at the women, then looked up at the bartender. "I never knew this was here."

  The man gave him a chummy wink. "I had you pegged as a first-timer. Yeah, you get a corp to issue you a carte blanche and anything goes. What do you want?"

  "A beer—Henry Weinhard's if you have it." Sin saw a leggy brunette who reminded him too much of an unpleasant memory named Christina approaching from farther down the bar. He held his hand up. "Just a beer, thanks."

  She stopped and returned to her stool with the sort of walk that made Sin almost regret his decision. The bartender set a sweating bottle down in front of him, then headed back to talk to the loungers, leaving Sin alone. Sin took a long pull on the beer, letting it burn its way down his throat. Giant spiders invading Phoenix? Coyote must have known this place existed and I didn't. Perhaps he does know what he is talking about.

  The nurse on the 10th floor of Phoenix General kindly directed Sin to Wing 5 and Room 42. Sin felt he probably could have found the room on his own, but his introduction to the hyperspeed lane of corporate life in Phoenix had disoriented him somewhat. While the carte blanche section of the maglev did not offer the wide range of services supplied by the lounge, it did have a small gift shop section, so he grabbed some candy to bring with him.

  Sin knocked lightly on the door as he pushed it open. "Mr. Garrett, I'm Sinclair MacNeal. I don't know if you'll remember . . ." Sin's voice trailed off as he saw he was not Garrett's only visitor.

  Garrett himself lay in an extra-long hospital bed with the back elevated at a 30-degree angle. Two intravenous feeds—one clear and the other a pinkish color—delivered liquid through one needle in his right forearm and the other on the back of his right hand. A thin, clear tube ran beneath his nose and fed him oxygen. Despite Garrett's being garbed in a hospital gown, Sin could see where the fabric pulled taut against the bandages on his stomach and chest.

  He looked alert, and the tight lines around his e
yes suggested to Sin that Garrett was not taking full advantage of pharmaceutical science's advances in painkiller technology. The big African-American man raised his left hand weakly, then dropped it in a gesture of resignation, or invitation to him to enter. "MacNeal . . . met you at fundraiser . . . your father gave $10,000."

  Letting the door close behind him, Sin nodded to Garrett and the other occupant whom he recognized. Standing in the corner, near the foot of the bed was a man who, while not as tall as Garrett, certainly massed more. Dark, tight eyes looked out at him from a lantern-jawed head that might as well have been cast in iron. The man's muscular build and even the way he held his fists balled and ready for action made Sin think of him as the model for every neosocialist hero statue he'd seen in Tirane. Looks like he's wearing the same Hell's Belles T-shirt he had on the night he came with Coyote to my apartment. Doesn't look as if he's washed it since then, either.

  Seated on the foot of the bed, a petite woman smiled at Sin. She had a pretty face and obviously embodied the concept of America as a melting pot. A strip of sky-blue cloth tied her dark, kinky hair back at the nape of her neck, but the bow looked a bit incongruous with the leather jacket, leopard-spot leotard and flat-bottomed ankle-boots she wore.

  Sin decided the bow's cloth had been torn from the hem of Garrett's robe and probably tied in place by the last person in the room. For a half-second, he thought she might have been related to Lilith, because they both shared mid-back length, blonde hair and a slender, long-legged form that legions of women labored fruitlessly for years to obtain. Her dark eyes and the way she clutched her arms around herself dispelled any connection between her and Lilith. In fact, because she wore a jeans skirt that hid her legs in its thick folds, and a white blouse buttoned at collar and cuffs, Sin wondered if she wasn't actually a nun visiting Garrett without benefit of her habit.

  The large man in the corner took a step out toward Sin. "You have the wrong room, MacNeal."

  Garrett again raised his left hand and the girl on the bed grabbed the large man's wrist. "Bat, I know his father commissioned the shooting. It's okay."

  Sin saw more pain shoot through Hal Garrett's eyes, but he knew it was not physical. The same assassins who had put Hal in the hospital bed had killed his wife and almost started gang genocide in the dark world that lurked beneath Frozen Shade. "I'm sorry, Mr. Garrett. I would have stopped it." He looked at Bat and added: "And if you want a piece of my father, you can hold my coat and have whatever I leave behind."

  Hal smiled as Bat retreated to the corner. "This is Natch Feral and Jytte Ravel. Chwalibog Kabat you've met."

  Sin nodded at Natch on the bed and saw that Jytte refused to make eye contact with him. Bat folded his arms across his chest and just stared smoldering holes into his head, so Sin did his best to ignore him. "Coyote sent me and asked me to give you a file."

  The mention of Coyote served to brighten both Hal's and Natch's faces. Jytte finally looked at him as if appraising him and his abilities. As Sin opened his briefcase, he noticed that Bat continued to glower at him. He pulled out the folder and extended it to Natch.

  Natch broke the seal, then reversed the folder and opened it in Hal's lap. Hal's eyes flicked back and forth as he scanned the document, then he laid back and closed his eyes for a second. He drew in a deep breath, hesitated for a second, forced himself to take in yet a little bit more air, then slowly exhaled. "Jytte, read it." His left index finger pointed forward. "Tell them."

  Jytte took the folder from him and scanned it very quickly. "Coyote has left Phoenix for a while. He wants us to stay low-profile. If something of importance comes up, we are to contact him through Mr. MacNeal here, in Tokyo." Her eyes flashed at him. "Why you, MacNeal?"

  Why me, indeed?

  Before Sin could answer, Hal shifted stiffly in bed. "Because we need to be here to work on preventing a gang war, Natch."

  "Besides, I lived in Japan for a while and I know my way around."

  "Don't be so cocky, MacNeal." Bat cracked his knuckles. "There's another reason you're going."

  Sin's eyes narrowed. "Yes?"

  "You're not connected with Coyote."

  "And?"

  Bat grinned like a cannibal in a morgue. "And that means you're expendable."

  Wandering through the Nevada badlands at night, she felt the presence of the snake well before she saw it or heard the warning buzz of its rattles. She turned and saw it in the moon-shadow of a large rock. A coiled mass of muscle, with black circles running down its tan spine, only its head and the quickly vibrating scales at the end of its tail stood out.

  The snake's buzzing increased as she reached her hand out to it. The creature's threat-panic emanated out from it as if riding the sound waves. She recognized the terror rising from it and knew instantly that this creature would strike to protect itself. Squatting down on her haunches, she pulled her hand back and stuffed both of them into the pockets of the leather flight jacket she had stolen from the base.

  Drawing in a deep breath of cool night air, she banished her fatigue and concentrated. Envisioning the snake's fear as ripples circling out from a central point, she fashioned her thoughts as a spear and drove them back through the reptile's primitive display.

  Do not fear me, little brother. You would not find your venom very effective on me. She smiled as the buzz dropped in tempo. I am your ally. I am a small sun to warm you and shade to cool you. If you will guide me, I shall protect you.

  Though she composed her thoughts in words, she sent them as emotions of safety and satisfaction. The Mohave rattlesnake ceased its threat display altogether, then slowly and languidly uncoiled. Gliding forward effortlessly, the four-foot-long snake slid from the rock and approached her. It stopped two feet away and half-coiled to strike but did not begin rattling again.

  She slowly withdrew her left hand from the jacket and extended it. I am Rajani. I will not harm you.

  The creature flickered its tongue over her hand, then withdrew a bit.

  Yes, I taste different. Not your prey at all. We will be allies. She opened her jacket and unbuttoned the fatigue shirt at the waist. The snake slid forward and entered the darkness between her flesh and the rough cotton fabric of the shirt, it went all the way around her waist better than two times, its scaled hide feeling slick and warm against the flesh of her belly.

  Rajani stood slowly, waiting for the slap of rattles against her flank to warn her if she was in danger of a strike. She felt confident that the snake's venom would not hurt her because of her alien constitution, but she was not absolutely certain of that fact. Since she knew she could process food from Earth, and her parents had told her that humans and her people could produce hybrids, she realized that the basic protein chains that made up her body were the same as those found in most of the things the snake ate.

  Her two-day trek out of the base designated "Area 51" had not been an easy one. The actual escape from the base had been much easier than she expected, but she put that down to security having been arranged to keep snoopers out instead of people in. The guards directed all their attention to things happening outside.

  Emerging from the depths of the mountain, she had managed to steal the flight jacket to ward off the cold. She initially took finding it as a grand stroke of luck: It had been packed away with other warm clothing in a trunk. The barracks room was obviously used for storage—she sensed no impressions of anyone having visited the room within the last three months. She could not understand why such a valuable coat would remain forgotten when it was so cold.

  She took it, a smaller pair of boots and a boonie hat into which she stuffed her hair. Looking in a mirror in the room, she imagined seeing herself through the eyes of a human and concluded, because of the way the clothes draped her so completely, she would easily be mistaken for a juvenile wearing an adult's clothing. The benefit of the oversized clothes was that they deemphasized the fact that her head was a bit disproportionately large for her body.

  The most difficult
part of her escape came as she attempted to leave the secure portion of the base. Luckily for her, two black, bat-wing planes swooped low for tandem landings on the long airstrip. As they touched down and raced along the dry lake bed, the two air police manning the gate turned to watch.

  She took that opportunity to telepathically add in the image of a spaceship, one of the ships on which her parents had arrived on Earth, to the tableau. While that addition clearly interested them, they accepted it far more readily than she had expected. She sensed no surprise from them, and no anxiety, which is what she had largely recalled a ship's presence creating before.

  "Looks like they've got the F-42 out for night maneuvers."

  The African-American guard pulled off his cap and scratched his head. "Wonder if that thing can see the Stealths?"

  His partner laughed aloud. "C'mon, my kid's got a radar gun that can spot those antiques on the wing. The tech those onion-heads have can read it molecule by molecule."

  "I guess."

  Rajani raced out into the Nevada desert. With the term onion-head had come an undercurrent of fear and hatred. That immediately sparked a bitter memory of the fights Dr. Chandra used to have with his research assistant, Nicholas Hunt. Whenever the little man with a lopsided head had looked at her, she had sensed the same fear-based hatred, and it abated only slightly when his focus of attention shifted from her to Dr. Chandra.

  He called it prejudice. On an intellectual level she had understood how fear of the unknown and uncertainty about the future can fester into a knot of hatred for anything different and possibly superior. Because of her empathic abilities, however, Rajani had experienced the virulence of the hatred in a way that Dr. Chandra never could, and she wondered if its strength had been what warped Nicholas' features and head, instead of the childhood accident he claimed.