Then his head exploded, spraying brain matter and bits of skull across her body, and all over the Anathema, who reached for weapons and glanced around fearfully. Her arms and legs were freed, but she was incapable of lashing out. Instead, she just curled into a ball around her broken ribs and focused on trying to force air into her contracted lungs.
Another of them fell, trying vainly to breathe through a throat that was no longer entirely there. Alice felt a reluctant sympathy for his position. Then a third toppled over, the back part of his head spread across several meters of floor. The third shot finally tore a large enough gouge in the factory wall to let in the dim sunlight of the late afternoon. Alice’s ribs cried out as she rolled over, but she ignored them, extending her arm out at the final two men, who stared at the punctured wall in horror, unwilling or unable to divine their predicament. Of course, that didn’t matter, because their shadows were well defined in the pool of sunlight that entered through the breach in the wall. This time, when Alice reached for her protocol, it came to her with the eagerness of an obedient dog.
They didn’t even notice the twisting and unearthly arms that extended up out of their shadows until they had already started to disassemble them, piece by piece, leaving nothing behind but smooth, fused flesh. Then they cried out, and tried to run, but they just tumbled to the ground, too many pieces missing to manage flight. Alice watched them be consumed by their own shadows.
Thanks, Karim.
My pleasure, Alice.
Nice shot, by the way.
Again, thank you. I’m sorry that it took me so long to get into position...
Alice started the slow process of standing up, beginning by rolling onto her knees, and then waiting for the pain to recede. She could feel Haley in her mind, frantically shutting off nerve centers and pain receptors, and she allowed it with gratitude.
That wasn’t the shot I told you to wait for, though.
Karim hesitated through the psychic link. She could almost hear him cough to cover his discomfort.
About that shot, Alice...
***
“This better be good news,” Alistair warned Talia Banks as he approached the technician, raising his voice to be heard over the increasingly tooth-rattling hum of the World Tree, the pulsating light it emitted visible even when he closed his eyes. “Otherwise, we’re going to need to cancel this stage, and move to seize the alternate site instead...”
Talia looked up from the tablet she held, her face illuminated by the display, and gave him a curt nod.
“The frequency is stable; the World Tree is aligned,” Talia said, pinching her lower lip between her fingers as she studied the data. “We are ready to run, but the resonance is insufficient to reach the Outer Dark.”
“Damn it.” Alistair glanced at the tablet she offered. “What about Central?”
“Yes,” Talia said, nodding as she manipulated figures. “Just barely.”
“Okay. We’ll have to finish opening the way for the Outer Dark elsewhere, then,” Alistair said, holstering his Israeli semiautomatic with obvious relief. “Send out the recall. I need as many Anathema with me as can stand.”
“What about this site?” Song Li inquired, scanning the wreckage around them with dead eyes. “Are we abandoning it?”
“Not at all. I want you to stay. There should be plenty of corpses around for you to work with. Leigh’s still putting herself back together, but she should be up in a matter of minutes. All I need is for the two of you to hold them off long enough for us establish a connection with the Outer Dark. Then we’ll be back, with reinforcements.”
Song Li nodded, her right ear, which had been hanging by a thread of rotting flesh, plopping to the ground with the gesture. Alistair had gotten used to the vile necessities of Song Li’s presence, but that was still nearly too much for him. Talia ignored it with a professionalism Alistair couldn’t help but admire, busy sending coded retreat orders via their encrypted radio gear, while Alistair relayed the same orders on a wideband telepathic broadcast. Lady Samnang watched the enterprise with no evident concern.
Drake flickered into existence a moment later, the front of his shirt covered in blood that continued to drip from his throat. He looked bad, and Alistair hurried over to support him before he fell.
“Drake, what the hell?”
He winced and waved his hand in front of his throat – slashed wide open, Alistair could see, now the he was close, and so recently that it was still in the process of knitting.
Auditors. Alexander Warner and Katya Zharova. That little bitch punctured my trachea with needles. They left me for dead. I had to cut my own throat to get them out.
Alistair shook his head in sympathetic distress. Even for a fully transformed Anathema, that was a dire solution.
What about Michelle?
Dead. Warner froze her head solid – didn’t even bother with freezing the blood in her brain, just did the whole damn thing. Shattered when she hit the ground. Beyond recovery.
He accepted the information with a grimace and resignation. Michelle had not yet accepted her opportunity for transformation, which left her vulnerable to mortal injury. She had known the risks, but had not yet overcome her private resignations as to the transformation.
It was not a unique issue.
Despite the abundance of nanites that John Parson had procured during the raid on Central, less than half of Alistair’s forces were fully transformed. Parson was persuasive, and all of the Anathema had seen their comrades burned, gassed, buried alive, and drowned, only to reemerge stronger, but doubts and fears lingered. A little telepathic prying had identified the most common reason – a number of those who still resisted the idea feared that the death that was a necessary component of the transformation was final, and that the fully transformed were not, in fact, the same people they were before they had undergone the process. Even the doubtful acknowledged that they possessed the memories and personality of who they had been previously, but doubts lingered as to the continuity of consciousness, and, in some extreme cases, even worries regarding some nebulous concept of the “soul.”
While he did not share their concerns, Alistair could not entirely dismiss them, either. He remembered his own death, burned on a pyre of nanite-infused wood, and it was not a pleasant memory. He had no specific memory of the moment his consciousness had dissipated – there were simply the final seconds of agony, as his eyes went out and his blood boiled inside his head, and then he had been whole again, rising from the embers, rebuilding his burned body from the ashes of his previous form. He could not say for sure that he was not another being who had simply inherited the memories and experiences of the man who had died in the fire. He did not believe in a soul, immortal or otherwise, so he could not attest to its continued existence. Frankly, Alistair found all such concerns vaguely ridiculous. He felt strongly that those who lived in the perpetually starless night of the Outer Dark, beyond the furthest extent of the Ether, should be beyond such petty concerns, and the allure of an effectively immortal body far exceeded any vague promises of an eternal soul, but he knew that to argue the point with those who doubted would be fruitless. They would come to terms with the decision themselves, or they would eventually die, thanks to their allegiance to their own fragile mortality. It meant nothing to him either way, except for the strategic import.
No matter. Michelle was lost, and Alexander Warner and Katya Zharova remained unaccounted for. Those were the facts, and all other concerns were extraneous.
“I have heard from Nick Marsh,” Talia reported, still absorbed in her tablet. “He is presently engaged with the Auditors Michael Lacroix and Xia, and unable to fall back at this time.”
“You mean he wants to kill them himself,” Alistair said. “Very well. What of Martin Cole?”
“Nothing. He must be incapacitated.”
Alistair had no more luck raising him telepathically, and no more time to wait. Martin would have to pull himself together on his own. He gave Talia
orders for Martin, to be broadcast repeatedly on the encrypted channel, waiting for him whenever he resumed consciousness.
He surveyed the forces that had assembled. It was less than a third of what he had begun the encounter with, but he judged it to be sufficient for the work that remained. It would have to be. Alistair made a quick evaluation, and then allocated his forces accordingly.
“Song Li, along with Leigh Feld, when she returns, will hold the portal. Nick Marsh and Martin Cole will engage the Auditors at a distance. The rest of you come with me, technicians included. We will need you on the other side. I assume that you will accompany us, Lady Samnang?”
She nodded at him.
“I have no interest in your conflict with the Auditors. I wish only to secure our interests.”
“And you will,” he assured her, eager to be done with the Yaojing. “I believe that what you want is already in our possession.”
“We shall see.”
He passed Drake over to one of his men. The rest were occupied in readying weapons or steeling themselves for the untested transit properties of the World Tree. Alistair realized that he would have to go first, in order to sooth their fears, and mentally cursed the timidity of his followers. When he returned to the Outer Dark – as a hero – he would demand the services of some of the older, more powerful Anathema that John Parson kept as a personal guard, rather than this motley collection of renegade Operators and recently transformed Anathema.
“We have had contact with Emily Muir at the Far Shores, and we expect our destination to be safe. Nonetheless, I want everyone prepared for potential resistance. Protect the technicians, neutralize any hostiles, secure and seal any entrances. We need to align their World Tree with the Outer Dark, and then secure it for transport. We are almost done, people...”
Alistair became aware of hostile thoughts with just enough time to move out of the way of the spray of gunfire intended for him. The technician beside him was struck down instead. Emerging from the wreckage that surrounded their machinery, Mitsuru Aoki staggered forward, the submachine gun in her hand blazing. Behind her, Alistair sensed the thoughts of Alexander Warner and Katya Zharova.
“Screw it. We don’t have time for this. They’re yours, Song.”
Alistair grabbed Talia Banks and motioned for his troops to follow, thrusting the struggling technician into the shimmering field that surrounded the World Tree, before following himself. He did not bother to see who followed.
It made no difference, after all. Even if Alistair alone survived, he would still see the mission through.
***
Surprising himself, Alex wished that he had a gun. Not that he could have hit anything with it, probably, but he would have felt a bit less exposed, charging the Anathema with something in his hands. He kept pace with Katya, secretly glad that Mitsuru had commanded them to stay behind her.
The Anathema did not react the way he expected. There was no hail of gunfire in response to their attack. Alistair threw one of the technicians into the energy field that surrounded the World Tree, before leaping through himself. After a moment’s hesitation, the remainder of the personnel scrambled to follow. Mitsuru fired until her magazine was depleted, her lip pulled back into a snarl, felling two or three of them. Only a woman with tattoos beneath her eyes and a short, pudgy man remained, and he looked in bad shape. In fact, as they moved closer, Alex would have sworn that he looked dead.
How Mitsuru remained standing was a mystery to Alex. Her leg was so badly mutilated that it was hardly there at all, dragging behind her as she shuffled forward, dropping one clip and struggling to shove another into the magazine well. Katya clutched needles in either hand. Alex held the Black Door almost open and tried to keep his head down, in case the remaining Anathema started shooting.
Katya yelled out, in pain or fear, but Mitsuru disregarded it, continuing her mangled charge and opening fire on the Anathema. Alex stopped to find Katya kicking frantically at a corpse which grasped her ankle with one rigid hand.
“Get off me!” Katya yelled, stomping at a head that was already terminally damaged by falling debris from the ceiling collapse. “Let go!”
“What the hell?” Alex dropped down on his knees, attempting to peel the cold fingers from her ankle. “Zombie hand?”
She cried out, and Alex saw how deeply the fingers pressed into her skin, tearing through the reinforced fabric of her fatigues and digging into the muscle. The fingers were white and bloodless, but completely rigid. Alex struggled to peel the index finger from her ankle with both hands, succeeding only in pulling it briefly back from Katya, before he lost his grip and stumbled, the finger returning to its initial position. Searching about on the ground around him, Alex found a piece of steel rebar that had come free of the fractured concrete, a hands-width thick and sharp at one end, and proceeded to batter the corpse’s arm with all of his strength. It took three swings before the arm tore free at the shoulder socket, trailing tendons like wet rope, blood seeping from either severed end. Katya fell over, clutching at her ankle as the hand continued to tighten its grip.
“Alex,” Katya yelled, face white with pain. “Do something!”
He glanced about him on the ground, but there was neither a gun nor a knife nearby. With nothing else at hand, Alex pointed the sharp end of the steel down and raised the bar above the detached hand. Katya saw what he intended to do and yelled wordlessly, shutting her eyes tight.
Alex slammed the steel rebar point first into the hand, jabbing into the flesh and shattering the thumb, so that it hung to the side, dragging along the ground, but the fingers were relentless. He took aim carefully, aware that a slight error would lead to impaling Katya’s leg instead, took a deep breath, and brought the rebar down hard. Bone splintered, and another finger was mangled, releasing some of the pressure on Katya’s leg. It took another two strikes before the hand was disabled enough to peel it away, the little finger snapping as he pulled. Katya curled into a ball, hugging her leg close.
“Katya? Are you okay?”
Alex glanced over to see Mitsuru had tossed aside her submachine gun, and instead grappled with the male Anathema directly, the bodies of the technicians she had killed earlier crawling across the factory floor toward her. He yelled to Mitsuru, tried to warn her, but his voice was lost in the tremendous throbbing sound of the World Tree.
“C’mon, Katya, we have to...”
Alex took a step forward and felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun on his heel, dislodging the grip and reaching for a gun that was no longer in its holster. Alex found himself face to face with the woman.
She had skin the color of cafe au lait, glossy black hair, eyes that burned like twin stars, and a column of intricate and foreign script descending neatly down either cheek. Her face was composed, the edge of her mouth turned up in a slight indication of a smile. Her hair was long, tied back in a glossy, braided ponytail, and she wore a sea-green robe that extended to mid-calf over loose white clothes in a style that struck him as antiquated. She carried no weapons that he could see, and evidenced no hostility.
“Alexander Warner,” she said, her voice perfectly audible despite the omnipresence and infuriating hum of the World Tree, with a slight accent he could not place. “It is early yet for us to meet, though I am pleased nonetheless.”
“What are you talking about?” Alex took a careful step away, poising himself to avoid the attack he assumed was inevitable. “Who the hell are you?”
“I am talking about things that will happen shortly. My name is Samnang Banh, though you may prefer to call me Samantha. Either is fine with me. I do hope that we can get along.”
Alex took another step back, glancing around for Katya, and not finding her. He returned his attention to the woman in front of him, debating opening the Black Door and ending their conversation.
“I don’t understand. Do we know each other?”
“Yes, but not quite yet.”
“You’re confusing me. Are you a precognitive?�
�
“No,” she said calmly. “Nothing of the sort.”
The Black Door loomed large in his mind, the cold on the other side permeating his being and causing him to shiver.
“Are you Anathema?”
“No.” She shook her head, as if to emphasize her denial. “I am not even human.”
She crumpled abruptly to the ground, and then Katya was beside him, taking a firm hold on his arm and tugging him along as if he were a child, almost pulling him off balance. Alex stumbled along beside her, taking one last look at the strange girl who was contorted on the factory floor.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Who knows?” Katya grimaced every time she put her left foot down. “I perforated her cerebellum, just to be sure. We don’t have time for this shit, Alex.”
“Right,” he agreed, throwing Katya’s arm over his shoulder so he could support her weak leg.
“Mitsuru can’t buy us infinite time.”
“I know, I know. I’m moving.”
It was true. Mitsuru was fighting desperately against several corpses. Her knife severed any limb that drew close, but Mitsuru was running out of space and gradually being overwhelmed by their relentless advance.
“Are those things...zombies?”
“No. And stop asking.” Katya winced as they stepped across a fallen technician, her ankle swollen to almost twice its usual size and bright red beneath her torn fatigues. “There are no zombies, okay? That’s Song Li. Remember the briefing?”
He did, but only at Katya’s prompting. An Anathema who could control the nanites inside others, most effectively in the dead. She had used Edward Krylov’s body to attack him once before, in the forest outside the Academy, and had taken part in the raid on Central using a female Korean body that was assumed to be her own. Her dossier noted hopefully that she was believed to have been killed by Alice Gallow during the raid. Apparently that data was overly optimistic.
The Far Shores (The Central Series) Page 56