End Times, Inc. (A Great & Continuous Malignity)

by David S. Wellhauser

  This was all one for Matt, since he had never favoured the Bandwagon Syndrome; never believed because many others did; never assumed either science or religion had a comprehensive take on the nature—natures—of reality; never favoured reasoned panic to reason; never followed any one or thing. If the last years had taught him anything, it was to maintain a healthy distance and scepticism when dealing with the world of ideas, beliefs, and the collective sensibilities of either species.

  Still ticking off the list of vehicles and discussing these choices with Bart and Niran, Feargal’s phone chirruped with a text. Fishing the phone out, he looked at the headline. “It’s Jonah.” Showing this to Bart and Niran, who was leaning in from the backseat. With one eye on the road, Matt unlocked the phone and read the message; then passed this to Bart and Niran, so they could read it.

  “But he wants to meet in Seattle.” Niran’s voice was uneasy. In this there was more than a question. The wishes of Salt, for the Cody Metas, were approaching a ukase. This attitude disturbed Feargal because of the history he had with Salt. Though he trusted the Meta, more than he did anyone else at this time, there was still the unwillingness to follow Salt’s orders. He would work with Jonah, but he would not work for him. This, he knew, was causing tension with the Sansa and those considering membership. At this time, Matt was uncertain which of those he was travelling with were Sansa, which unaligned, and which a member of the Dragoste or Ajutor—or some agent provocateur working directly for Botrous.

  Then there was China.

  The dream, vision, or whatever had rattled him—deeply. Because of this he was not willing to wait or listen to alternative theories of what was going on and what should be done about it. As far as Matt was concerned, China was in Lynden and that is where he was heading. It appeared Bart and Niran understood this, their glances to one another, if nothing else, communicated the idea. So Matt waited for the objections, which would be nestled with cautious rhetoric to his plan. Bart returned the phone, and with his free hand Matt answered the text. Meet u in Portland...2 close 2 turn back now.

  “Why not Seattle?” Bart asked.

  “Left too much shit back there with Kathy and the sniper. Also, more importantly too, Seattle is going to take the full brunt of the DPs. Once that happens getting in and out without being killed by one of the militias will be difficult. On top of that, there’s just been a major engagement with the Metas—this will only inflame opinion against China and the rest of you.” It was a good argument, no less so because he had been rehearsing it. Feargal knew, eventually, Salt would pop back up and he’d need to be ready for that.

  For the moment this was his version of read.

  “Perhaps we should talk to the others—inform them at least.” Niran had a point. However, the drizzle had turned into a hard rain, so he drove a little while longer looking for some trees to shelter beneath. Instead he found a picnic area.

  As they waited the other truck pulled in and joined them in the shelter. “What is it?” Lien asked. Matt showed the others the texts; then the debate began. Soon enough it appeared there was no choice that would gainsay Matt’s decision. With Salt back in the picture, and on his way, there was considerable more disagreement with Feargal’s choice. In the end, however, the group had no choice but to submit to Matt or he would have gone on alone. With the debate done they were about to continue on when the phone rang. It was Jonah, so Matt called everyone back and put the call on speaker. He could have taken the call alone, or even rejected the call but this would have raised more questions and created even harder feelings. In the end he knew he would have to explain the call—this was simpler and less open to misinterpretation.

  “Hey, Jonah.” The rain getting harder, heavier, and louder on the fibreglass roof as he spoke. The others were gathered about Feargal in the shelter as he held the phone out in the centre of the circle.

  “We’re on speaker?”

  “Yes.” Bart answered.

  “How is everyone?”

  “Had to kill Kathy.” The flatness of Feargal’s response quieted the group. Some, perhaps, suspected a rebuke in the tone, but Matt could not be certain.

  “What...?”

  “She was a Botrous agent.”

  “Shit, you o...”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ve got the people, you should wait for me.”

  “Can’t afford to wait. The engagement is over, and they’ll be moving her soon. I may already be too late.”

  “It’s too dangerous, I can’t...” Jonah seemed to think better of finishing.

  “Yes, it is, but there is no time to wait if I am to get her back.”

  “What of Leonor?”

  “I’ve no new info.” There was a protracted silence.

  “Alright, I’ll be in Portland.” Matt ended the call, and the group moved through the heavy rain back to their trucks.

  This is wrong.” Shasta hissed under her breath. Matt silenced her with a gesture. Still uncertain of the woman he was not prepared to take any chances—beyond the insane ones he was already taking. There was no way, as far as he could tell, they should have been able to get this close. Bart, meanwhile, had crawled up next to him and they both looked down on Lynden from a stand of trees south of the town and north of the Nooksack River. They were lying just east of British Columbia Avenue. This wasn’t a good location to be caught in; they were a good 700 metres from the nearest bridge along open fields and through a sewage treatment plant—all this along the meandering bank of the Nooksack. There’d been a lot of complaining from Bart, Niran, and Stephen about their tactical position.

  Feargal was sympathetic, he didn’t like it either, but not knowing the topography—beyond what they’d pulled up on the app—or the location of scouts, patrols, and guards there seemed little choice. It was here Matt missed Salt—he’d a natural tactical and strategic sensibility which he could not compensate for. Nonetheless, here they were and here they’d—he’d—stay. What made matters worse for the group was the sun had just come up on a cloudless morning. Once they exited the trees there’d be nothing to protect them; to make matters worse they’d left the SUVs south of the Hannegen Road Bridge. What they took was only what they could carry. Now they needed transportation, but acquiring this would expose them to the townsfolk and whatever Transhumanist/H+ elements remained in town.

  If there was a topper, it was he’d no idea where China was being held. Matt also suspected the rest either did not believe him, or had serious doubts about whether or not China was in town. This wasn’t new, though. After the conference with Jonah, the trip here was peppered with smaller and smaller groups of DPs, some from Lynden but many more from Blaine—some of these had been blinded. Others had wounds and scarring which did not follow a pattern any of their group had experience of. The wounds were unusual in that the skin was barely singed while the eyes had been melted. Another injury, which was not tracking with experience, was skin which appeared to have become disengaged from the flesh, muscle, and bone beneath this. It wasn’t so much sagging disconsolately as rippling, bulging—as from a pocket of air or gas, and blossoming with fleshy articulates of bizarre topographies. It were as if branding came not from a surgical cauterising iron but from within the bodies themselves.

  If nothing else the location of the blast had been settled.

  Lien had suggested it were as though something inside were attempting to get out, but had lacked the energy. Bart suggested these were failed mutations—transformations—but had no evidence to back this up. It was a general fear for the humans and an anxiety for the Metas. Transformations were bad enough, but if these injuries were from a weapon that was designed to transform Archaics but failed to do so completely this would create yet another subspecies of Metahuman.

  Tracking the number of alternatives to the Metahumans and Homo Sapiens was becoming a daunting task. Beyond this there was how both groups—Metas and Archaics—would relate to this new subclass. Already the notion of a subhuman categor
y was becoming a conscious element in everyone’s thinking. The historical context for this remained just conscious for those in the stand of trees south of Lynden, but a deeper, unconscious, and emotive response was welling up. Some were sympathetic with the victims, while others had empathic responses. Whatever the precise response, they both elicited a profound antipathy from the team.

  Matt supposed this would be the case around North America and would, probably, be the same with the world—where there remained any independence of thought. Where the Transhumanists had been victorious this would, not much matter. For the moment, however, their problem wasn’t the pathetic DPs they’d run into on the road; it wasn’t even the patrols they were both actively looking for and hoped not to find. For the moment they were staring across a field at the south-central outskirts of a town of just north of 12,000—not knowing where to begin looking for China. Feargal had attempted a trance—he’d been working on the technique for some time—to locate the woman. No luck. There was but one choice left, and now they needed to screw themselves up to flashing about 150 odd metres across an open, fallow field toward a barn with three vehicles parked beside it—and the sun was up. Matt cringed at the prospect.

  Pushing up from the base of the fir trees, Matt jogged across the field—followed by Shasta’s team. It took Feargal much longer than he supposed to make the barn. Bart, just behind him, he could hear cursing beneath his breath. Momentarily they were joined by the others and with the team pressed against the side wall of the barn the back swing door of the farmhouse opened and three Metas came out armed with assault weapons Matt had never seen before—they appeared partially organic.

  “We can’t,” Matt hissed, “they’re too far away and it’s all open ground between us.” As the man spoke Bart tapped his arm with something hard. It was a suppressor. “Just screw it on—and don’t miss.” Feargal did as he was told and squeezed off a group of three. Each Meta collapsed not more than a couple of metres from their vehicle.

  Matt was hoping for keys.

  ***

  The three figures were prone and unmoving; Feargal was certain they’d remain there—having taken each with a head shot. They appeared to be wearing body armour so he had no choice. Stephen and Lien checked the Metas and waved keys above their head. At least they’d be mobile again. Niran and Bart went for the back of the house followed by Matt; then Lien and Stephen. They needed to be certain there was no one in the house that could call whoever was in town. The first and second floors were empty, but the basement door was locked. Matt kicked this in and called down—a series of muffled grunts answered.

  Calling the others, Feargal edged down the creaking wooden steps. Reaching the bottom he saw what looked like a family. All were bound and gagged; they appeared to have been tied up for some time. Lien and Bart cut them loose; sharing the water from their canteens. The wife and daughter could only be counted on for shallow hysterics, but the husband shared what he’d learned of the Metas—though he did glance, uncomfortably, several times at Bart. Taking the hint, the Meta went back upstairs to give the house a thorough check.

  “How long have you been down here?” Matt asked. He was hoping to find out what had been going on in town and for how long.

  “Several days, on and off.”

  “Do you,” Niran began, “know what’s going on in town?” The farmer, a big man of middling years, looked as though he couldn’t quite place Niran’s accent and was suspicious of this. Like many Thai his accent was fluid, almost liquid, with a lilt which remained oddly androgynous. After a beat, the farmer picked up the question.

  “There’s a lot of weird shit happening. The freaks, like your friend, were talking. Something has happened over in Blaine—didn’t happen the way it was supposed to and they are hanging around until they can figure this out. But they didn’t say how long.”

  “What sort of weird shit,” Matt asked, “are we talking about?”

  “They call it conversions.” Lien gasped and the farmer looked suspiciously at her but not as much as he had at Niran. “But something went wrong, and they all got edgy after that.”

  “Have you,” Feargal attempted to ask as nonchalantly as possible, “heard about a woman being held hostage—they may be holding her with a young girl. The girl would be about four or five?” The latter he added without much hope. The man shook his head and turned to his wife and daughter. The girl, maybe mid-teens, was already standing and attempting to help her mother—a stocky matron, a few years younger than her husband—to stand, but the deep welts on her ankles suggested the blood flow had been cut off for some time. Eventually they got the woman vertical and helped her up the stairs.

  Back in the kitchen, the farmer and his daughter were putting the matron to bed, they stood about the table attempting to decide what to do next. “We can’t sit here.” Matt was not going to stand for any more attempts to delay what needed to be done.

  “Then what do we do?” Stephen asked, but their voices suggested they’d a suspicion.

  “Split up and reconnoitre?” Bart asked, yet there was little of a question in this. Matt nodded.

  “You cannot be serious, Matt? There’re Transhumanists all over town, and if China is here there have to be worse than that.”

  “I’d say much worse.” Feargal wasn’t about to give any of them any sense of false hope. The chances of this working on any level were so small as to be as improbable as Thin Man.

  “Then,” Niran insisted, “we need to stick together.”

  “Too many new faces in one group—especially human—would arouse suspicion.” Bart responded.

  With a weary, resigned voice Lien asked the next question. “Separate and look for anyone who knows anything about her?”

  “Yes,” Matt answered, “or anyone who has heard a rumour of something strange or important going on. She won’t be far from anyone who’s in command here.” That much, if nothing else, managed to sound reasonable to the others. “We’re agreed?”

  “I’d not go that far, but let’s get it done.” Stephen answered in a low, beaten voice.

  “So, three cars—three teams.” Matt looked about. He would have liked to split Stephen and Lien up, but that wouldn’t happen so he set them off in one car to the North; then gave the next to Bart and Niran, sending them northwest. He took the last, and went northeast. There were, for what reason he could not fathom, some final instructions from Bart, but in the past he’d been useful so Matt took note. Mostly, these involved keep moving and don’t make eye-contact. There might be something to this, but not much of anything he’d not visited before.

  For the next 15 minutes he wandered down one side street after another, but met no one. It seemed that many of the residents had DP-ed out of town, he supposed south because there wasn’t much hope north and east there was a whole lot of nothing. Feargal had gotten as far as Skateway on Judson before he got a call from Lien. They’d managed to capture an H+, which was claiming knowledge of China’s location. The pair was holed up on Edson off 10th in a redbrick with white trim and a bay window—their car was out front.

  ***

  The trip over had to be done carefully. Not only hadn’t Google mapped the entire city, especially the streets he was looking for, but Matt had to be careful of any patrols which might still be about. If China was in town, then there would remain a significant Transhumanist presence—especially given the earlier defeat at Blaine. Why they had kept the woman in town was a bit of a mystery, unless there was some connection with the monitoring of the fallout from the use of the Meta-weapon in Blaine. As a result of the inadequate data, and the blind suppositions Feargal had been forced into, he felt he needed to be both reckless and cautious.

  So, how does one drive casually?

  Lynden, in appearance, was predominantly a working-class town and a farming community. The one thing Feargal noticed was the ponderous number of churches—they seemed to be everywhere. This meant that everyone was trying to get right with God, which, in turn, m
eant a suspicious populace. None of the latter appeared to be in evidence. It could have been everyone was just staying in until the madness passed them by—Matt remained uncertain of this possibility.

  More than the absence of the good folk of Lynden, with its faux-Dutch architecture and low-slung strip malls, was the absence of a Trans presence; once he turned on to Edson from 5th the question of where the people had got to was answered—if not particularly, then generally. At first the street was populated by the same shoddy businesses as he’d seen elsewhere, but further down it was residential. Doors, often though not consistently, hung open or swung listlessly on hinges in need of oiling. Front yards were strewn with abandoned suitcases, bits of clothing, and the occasional toy or doll. Why just this street, and perhaps those surrounding it, had time to evacuate he couldn’t say—nor was Feargal particularly interested.

  Crossing 10th he saw the house and the cars out front. Pulling up, the rest of the neighbourhood looked just the same as the eastern end of the street. As he jogged up the cracked walk with weeds blooming out from the decayed concrete blocks, Stephen stepped out with his AR. Lowering this he smiled and stepped aside. “Quiet out there?” He asked Feargal.

  “Didn’t see any patrols and no people—not a one.”

  “Same for us.” Following him into the living-room.

  The others were lounging on the couch, a recliner, propped against a gas fireplace, and eating a bowl of Captain Crunch, Bart, at the entrance to the hallway—off of which he could see the kitchen. The latter appeared about as ransacked as the street. In the centre of the room was a Metahuman. He was in his late 30s; of a middling build; hair dark brown—but it was difficult to be certain because the drapes were pulled and the overhead light was off; skin an almost brilliant saffron; heavy seam running from a receding hairline down their face and neck. The seam disappeared into their shirt collar; the shirt had once been white, but was now greyish. He had a barrel chest with an abdomen that was mostly flat but preparing to go to flab in a few more years. A cloth was jammed in their mouth and this had been fixed in place by duct tape.