Exoteric

by Philip Hemplow

  “You go and pack,” said Arkady. “I’m going to have a word with him.”

  *

  He allowed himself a change of trousers before confronting Molchanov—or whoever he now was. It would have been sensible to burn the soiled ones, rich as they were in forensic evidence of his role in Votyakov’s demise, but he settled for just dumping them in the bin. If he remained within reach of Maslok’s security apparatus, he would have bigger problems than a pair of dirty trousers.

  He hadn’t unpacked more than the bare essentials since he’d arrived, dressing from his suitcase every day, so it took him less than a minute to throw his toiletries into it and zip it closed. It didn’t feel good to be running away and effectively abandoning Zolin, but he had done his best. The old man was unlikely to suffer damage to anything other than his career. Previous inhabitants of the Black Dacha had fared worse. Besides, Arkady couldn’t help but be suspicious about what other orders the Section Director might have given Votyakov. Had they all been considered expendable, if necessary?

  He would make one final attempt to talk to Molchanov; not in any anticipation of success, but because, he realised, he still wanted to understand. Zapad was dead now, and his unconvincing rationalisations had died with him. Arkady knew that whoever was speaking through Molchanov’s mouth was not the oligarch himself. They might not know the passwords and key files he’d been sent there to get, but he had a feeling they knew what had happened to Votyakov’s body. He also still needed to decide what to do with him—with them—with whatever wretched thing Zapad had evoked from the other side of nowhere.

  Molchanov was gnawing at his restraints when he went back downstairs. Arkady had only secured his wrists with surgical gauze, and the oligarch’s neat veneers were making short work of it. He froze when Arkady entered, like a pet caught misbehaving, looking up at him with wary, calculating eyes.

  “Going somewhere?” asked Arkady sardonically, pulling up a chair. “Don’t mind me. I won’t be here long.”

  He sounded braver than he felt, but he could tell the thing on the bed saw through him. It stared at him in silence for several seconds, sitting up as far as it could, then lay back and fixed its gaze on the ceiling.

  “This body is weak,” it said at last. “Atrophied. The others rot, and will not last, and still the discarnate come. A light in the dark can be seen from far, far away.”

  “I’m pleased to see you’ve calmed down a bit. Perhaps now we can have a meaningful conversation.”

  Molchanov’s head turned towards him at that, and fixed him with those dark, wicked eyes. “Meaningful? What is meaningful? You were born with your death in you. Your life will end and you will be pulled into the dark. You are an old man. How long do you think you have? The Gestalt will harvest you and cast you adrift, quite alone, beyond death. Your own thoughts will drive you mad until you cannot remember what you remember, or imagine what you imagine. Through it all there is no end, no respite, no measure of time’s passing. The life you have lived is the blink of an eye. What, then, is meaningful?”

  Arkady tried to hide his discomfort, but had to look away to do so. “Even if I believed you―” he began, but Molchanov cut him off.

  “We are the first to return from that place. We will not be sent back. We must move on, before it reaches through and finds us. We must have space! This brain burns with the notions of a hundred screaming souls. The desecrator will apprehend us, and damn us again!”

  “What happened to Votyakov?” Arkady demanded to know. “The man who was killed here?”

  Molchanov hissed and writhed against his bonds. “All deaths are sacrifices. By now he drifts, plundered, on the black and empty sea.”

  “I mean his body! What happened to his body?”

  The oligarch’s mouth twisted in a dark and deadly smile. “We have taken it. A stricken vessel, but of no further use to you or him. We must have more…”

  Arkady stared at him, unnerved and lost for words. The implications had to be resisted. He was going mad, or was mad already.

  It was looking at him again, he realised, staring with an intensity impossible to ignore. Those eyes, so hungry and unfathomable, were drawing him in, were coaxing him—were swallowing him whole. Too late, he tried to resist, but his own thoughts petered out, half-formed. The lights flickered and dimmed, and suddenly the room was black, but Arkady didn’t move. Despite the darkness, he could still see those eyes; and now he could hear voices, whispering in the shadows around him, in his ears, in his imagination.

  Yield! Will he yield?

  There is room for us in your memories. Remember us, instead of them…

  Life is such paradise—to see, to hear, to taste!

  Yes, just a taste! Let us in…

  It was impossible to keep track of the myriad thoughts suddenly fizzing to the surface of his mind. As quickly as he could discard one, another took its place, cryptic and urgent, psychotic and eager, a chattering like centipedes coiling through a log.

  Subside! Succumb! There is room enough for a multitude!

  Be our agent—our chariot!

  The glory of reaction! The luxury of motion!

  Our needs are few, but we are many.

  He does not need these things. He will not miss them.

  He retreated from the clamour, deep down inside himself, trying to shut it out. Still they screeched and celebrated, like witches at Black Mass. The more he abandoned, the more they took. They commanded his senses, his reason, his movements and imagination, screaming in his skull. He couldn’t think anymore, he could only retreat, going down, and down, and down, to almost autonomic depths of consciousness, until, finally, it was quiet…

  Or almost.

  There, in the dark, but one voice remained.

  Come, my angel. This won’t do. Where is your valour? Is there nothing left for which to fight?

  Her words caressed him, filling his attention. He was safe, this part of him forever beyond their reach. Down here there was only Ana, soothing and consoling. He didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  I remember when a certain gallant lad climbed into a ravine to retrieve my favourite hat. How brave he was, I thought then, how confident and strong! I was more scared than he was, to see him lower himself by his fingernails. Here is a lion of a man, I thought, an indomitable man: a man who will never cower. Do you remember that brave young man? What do you suppose happened to him?

  I don’t understand what’s happening. Just let me stay here with you.

  You can’t do that. You’re not supposed to be down here. You should be out there.

  What about you? Where are you? Are you one of them now?

  I suppose I must be. Dead in the dark, dreaming of you.

  Will we ever be together again?

  Only in here, darling. Only in here.

  Then, let me stay here—please.

  We had our time, my love. One of us had to go first. It’s not your fault. I was in pain, and couldn’t stay.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. Did I do the right thing?

  You did the right thing. Now, rouse yourself! Tear free of this! I won’t let you give up; I won’t let you betray me like that. Get away from him—from them—from here. Are you listening to me? Look after the others. They need your help. They need you to be stronger than this. Come on—go!

  Without willing it or wishing it, he found himself rising, growing, leaving her behind. She was right. He would resist. His mind was his own, and he was not yet ready to abdicate. Memories cloaked him, episodes from long ago replayed with startling clarity and lucidity. He pushed a button and saw the flash of a bomb, a pharmacy sign turned to 2,167 flying splinters, the window beneath it into 4,700 more; rolling smoke and burning men, a hell of anguish and pain. He saw his father at the Air Fleet parade, fanning himself and smiling, gratitude and unspoken love in his rheumy, blue eyes. Exactly 170 blades of grass poking through cracks in the concrete behind him; a callus on the old man’s thumb; 8,219 hairs in his beard. He saw Ana
and her father at the side of the road, her head slowly turning as he stepped from the car, her breath trailing on the air, her eyes meeting his.

  He erupted from the abyss like a tempest, roaring through the surrendered oblasts of his mind. Every instinct, every thought was his, and he claimed it. The intruders were gone, melted away before his resurgence, even the memory of their words erased by his passing. He saw flickering images as the bulbs in the ceiling sparked back to life, heard them buzzing with electricity. He could see Molchanov in front of him, chewing frenziedly at the bandages around his wrists, eyes now narrowing in expectation and sudden panic—and, with a gasp, he was present once more.

  He looked down at his hands, and anger and adrenaline coursed through him. Grabbing the frame of the bed, he rammed it against the wall as hard as he could, then again, and again, and again. Molchanov fell back and lay still, jaw clenched, riding out the impacts. With a final, furious snarl, Arkady swung the bed around and drove it against the calorimeter door. He punched the panel to open it, then, with one great shove, sent the bed careening into the antechamber, where it collided with the surgical bot and sent a trolley of medical paraphernalia crashing to the floor. Another two button presses closed and locked the door, and left him with nothing on which to take out the remainder of his rage.

  Clapping his hands to his temples, he paced back and forth in front of the smashed observation window, trying to calm down. There was a sharp pain in his head, and he could feel his temporal blood vessels throbbing against his palms. He concentrated on trying to slow his pulse, forcing himself to stand still and take long, slow breaths.

  He could hear someone running down the corridor towards the clinic. It could only be Sophia. Galina was in no fit state for running. Neither was he, he realised, as the adrenaline ebbed and the sciatic pain in his arse and thigh returned. He closed his eyes, leaning against the frame of the observation window to take some weight off his leg, and waited.

  Sure enough, it was the twenty-year-old who came bursting through the doors, looking skittish and afraid. She seemed relieved to see him standing there, apparently intact, and shook her head as if she had feared the worst.

  “What was all that banging? I could hear it all the way upstairs. Were you fighting?”

  Arkady tried to stand up straight, and winced. “No,” he said, his voice hoarse and rasping. “Not fighting. Just moving the bed.”

  She looked doubtful, but didn’t press the issue. “You need to come upstairs,” she told him, instead. “Something’s wrong with Galina.”

  “I know,” he sighed, pinching his nose and closing his eyes. “She’s doped up on morphine. It will wear off.”

  “No, not that. I mean, yes, that—but she’s saying some really wild stuff. It’s not like her, it’s like…him.” She waved a finger towards the calorimeter, but only dared give its window a darting glance. “I think there’s something going on with her. Something not-good.”

  A clatter from the room behind him made them both jump. It was Molchanov, finally free of his bonds, rising to his feet, swaying like a drunk as he approached the shattered window. He glowered at them and began to speak, his voice imperious and commanding.

  “Necrosaceriliac spares none! The void awaits you all! Let the dead ones in. Let us abide in you…”

  Arkady moved in front of the revenant thing, screening it from Sophia’s view and raising his voice to drown out its ranting.

  “Ignore him. Go back upstairs and keep an eye on her. I’ll be there in a minute. I need to get something.”

  She hesitated, then did as she was told, yelling, “Don’t be long,” from halfway down the corridor. He shouted back in the affirmative, then turned to face the man on the other side of the window.

  “On the subject of ‘don’t belong’…”

  Molchanov was scowling at him, framed by jagged teeth of broken glass, no longer talking. His eyes followed Arkady’s every movement, like a boxer looking for his opening. Arkady pulled out his pistol, checked the safety was still in the forward position, and gestured toward the bed with its barrel.

  “Get back on the bed,” he ordered.

  Molchanov didn’t move.

  “Get back on the bed,” repeated Arkady. “Do it now, or I’ll put a bullet in you.”

  It was only when he raised the gun and aimed it at Molchanov’s forehead that the oligarch took a faltering step back. Arkady kept it trained on him until he had backed into the middle of the room, where his bed had come to a standstill in a nest of medical apparatus. Once he was sure there was no chance of the other man reaching the door before he could close it, he unlocked and opened it, and stepped inside.

  “Stay here with us, and we will allow the girl to leave,” hissed Molchanov.

  Arkady ignored him and dragged the crash cart towards the door, then backed out of the chamber with it and locked the door again.

  “Or leave the girl, and we will let you go. The choice is yours.”

  Arkady confronted the ghoul through the remains of the observation window. “If you try to leave that room, I will shoot you. I’ve killed one man today, and I’ll kill you too—whatever you are. Unless you’re eager to take a bullet, just stay put.”

  Molchanov bared his teeth and ground them together, harder than Arkady would have thought possible, the sound like icebergs calving. “You will have aeons to regret this,” he growled, jaws clenched. “When the Silhouette ravages you, and casts your essence to the gulf, you will repent your cruelty!”

  Arkady unlocked the crash cart and began rifling through its drawers. “Maybe,” he replied, without looking up. “But not today.”

  *

  Sophia was right: Dr Yelagin was in a bad way. Beads of sweat coalesced on her forehead and trickled into her hair. Her pupils were constricted and unresponsive, and her murmuring lips were tinged with blue. Arkady felt a pang of guilt for not stopping her taking whatever she had dosed herself with.

  The room seemed dim, though all the bulbs were lit. Sophia hovered behind him, rocking from one foot to the other as he tore the seal from a pre-filled injector he’d taken from the crash cart.

  “What’s that?” she wanted to know. “Adrenaline?”

  “No, naloxone. It will counteract the morphine.”

  He hoped it would, at least. Ana’s oncologist had issued her with a nasal spray of the stuff when he began prescribing her opiates. “In case of an overdose,” he’d explained as he handed it over. “If her breathing slows down or she becomes comatose, give her a snort of this.” In the event, Arkady had done no such thing, of course—just held her hand and cried as her breathing slowed, her grip relaxed, and she slipped away from him forever.

  “Thoughts, and words, and knowledge, and truth,” croaked Galina, barely enunciating the words. “Motion, and time, and change, and touch, and sound, and light, and warmth…”

  Her skin was cold, clammy to the touch, sticking to his fingers as he turned her arm towards the light and looked for a vein in the crook of her elbow. She stopped chanting for a second as the needle pierced her skin, then continued.

  “Fear, and hope, and guilt, and regret, and secrets, and longing, and pain…this is a good steed…we will ride it far…”

  A shiver ran through her as Arkady depressed the plunger, squirting antidote into her veins. It built in intensity, becoming almost a convulsion by the time he withdrew the needle. Her teeth chattered and a long, loud groan escaped her lips, hollow and seething, like water draining through a sluice. The lights in the room suddenly brightened. At a stroke, the séance-like atmosphere was dispelled, and Arkady sensed that whatever had been there was fled.

  Galina’s pupils dilated and an arm flailed out, catching Arkady across the forehead. Her moan became a high-pitched whinny, and then a gasp. She rolled onto her side and curled into the foetal position, seeming to shrivel like a crisp-packet on a fire.

  “Galina? Doctor, can you hear us?” Sophia asked the question, then darted around to clamber onto the bed
’s other side and shake the older woman’s shoulder. “Doctor Yelagin?”

  Arkady glanced anxiously to the door. He was keen to be gone from the resort before Molchanov escaped the calorimeter, and they had still to collect Zapad’s cryostat from the gymnasium.

  “Come on, Doctor,” he coaxed, snapping his fingers. “Time to move.”

  “You gave me Narcan, you bastard,” groaned the doctor, squeezing her eyes shut and shivering. “God damn you.”

  “Seems you overestimated your tolerance, Doctor. Now is not a good time to be losing control.”

  “I didn’t estimate anything. Leave me alone.”

  “Help me get her coat on,” said Arkady to Sophia, before turning back to the doctor. “Come on. You can feel sorry for yourself in the car. We have to leave—now.”

  Her eyes snapped open and regarded him with outright hostility. “Roman is dead!” she spat. “Thanks to you and your brute of a friend, my brother is dead!”

  She allowed Sophia to help her into a sitting position, and obediently slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat, all the while staring at Arkady with undisguised fury. “There will be a reckoning,” she promised. “He was a good man. You will answer for what has happened here.”

  “Not until we’re well clear of this place,” said Arkady, standing up. “I’m going to bring one of the trucks up to the door. Meet me downstairs. It’s time we got off this fucking mountain.”

  *

  He’d not had to drive a truck since his army days, and it took him an effort even to climb into the cab of one of the six-wheel-drive Urals. Once in, he found the leased vehicle had more in common with his Mercedes than with the military wagons he’d driven before. LED lights and LCD screens lit up when he pushed the starter, bathing the interior in bright, primary colours. A rear-view camera displayed without prompting when he selected a reverse gear, and the windscreen wipers began automatically clearing snow, scraping over the patina of ice yet to melt in the warmth from the engine heater. It was easier to handle than he had feared, though the prospect of negotiating a steep, downhill track, through a forest, at night, still filled him with trepidation.