Faller

by Will McIntosh

  “God,” Melissa said, shaking her head, “the virus burned so deep.”

  In other words, “God, how incredibly ignorant you are.”

  “There’s a woman. Pointy eyes, hard and pretty at the same time. She was on my world, and two of the others.”

  Melissa laughed. Her laugh was like Storm’s, but with a bitter edge. “Kathleen Choi. Her original insisted on being dropped on the same world as you after the blackout virus had run its course, when we all ran and hid. I think she was in love with you.”

  He pictured Orchid’s distraught face as she carried his pack up flight after flight of stairs. “She still remembered everything?”

  “Yes.” Melissa licked her lips. “Do you have water?”

  Faller reached back, deftly unzipped a side pouch on his pack, produced a canteen. “Put your entire mouth around it.” Drinking in free fall was a challenge.

  After managing a drink, she handed the canteen back with a nod. “That whole time, she never let on?”

  “No.”

  “Either she was scared you’d do something rash if you knew about Ugo, or she didn’t want you to leave her and come looking for me.”

  That sounded about right to Faller. Maybe a little of both. “Why is Ugo after us?”

  “He may think we know where to find something he wants. An energy source. Also a weapon. Plus he hates you and wants you dead.”

  “Do you know where this weapon is?”

  Melissa smiled. “I do now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You wrote it on your map. You know the flag, with the number thirteen?”

  His map. Faller patted his pockets. “Where did that map go? You had it in Penny’s apartment.”

  Melissa thought about it. “I think I left it there. I’m sorry.”

  Despite knowing every line of it by heart, Faller felt an acute sense of loss.

  Melissa looked up. Faller followed her gaze, but there was nothing up there.

  “It may take them a while to rendezvous with their transportation, but eventually they’re going to come after us.” She looked down. “It’s not going to be difficult to figure out where we went.”

  She had a point. The ninja Fallers were persistent. He thought for a moment. “Let’s move laterally. They won’t know which direction we went in.” Waving to get Snakebite’s attention, he said, “Hang on to my feet. Snakebite can get Penny.” He shifted from a feetfirst position to mimic a bird in flight. Melissa grabbed his ankles, forming a train. He motioned for Storm to follow, as Snakebite got Penny to do the same with his ankles.

  It didn’t feel as if they were making much horizontal progress, but Faller knew from the times they’d tried to intercept worlds on their periphery that that was deceiving. They’d be out of sight of pursuit in a matter of hours.

  Faller’s head ached, trying to assimilate everything Melissa had told him. Each answer she gave further shifted the shaky ground he stood on.

  He looked back at Storm. Even from a distance her figure looked forlorn, as if she might dissolve into smoke and become part of a passing cloud, or melt into raindrops.

  XX

  AS THE newscasters debated President Aspen’s fitness to continue leading the country on the iPad Harry had propped in the grass, Peter closed his eyes, turned his face toward the sun. The heat on his skin felt remarkably, unbelievably good. He was so tired of those walls and the dusty, dank smell. He was sick of feeling exhausted.

  He unwrapped the white wax paper, lifted half a tuna sandwich, pried out the tomato and set it on the paper beside the other half of the sandwich.

  “You should eat that,” Harry said.

  “I hate tomatoes.”

  “You need the vitamin C.”

  “I’m taking multivitamin tablets every day.”

  Harry shook his head. “Not the same.”

  On a day when he was less exhausted, Peter would have taken pleasure in having one of their pointless debates while leaving the pathetic slice of tomato to bake in the sun, but today he picked it up without comment and shoved it back into his sandwich.

  Harry patted him on the back. “That tomato was all that stood between you and scurvy.”

  Grinning, Peter took a bite. With his mouth full he said, “I owe you my life.”

  Peter watched a gorgeous, classic incus drift overhead. It was powder blue, a flat-topped mushroom.

  “Oh, what now?” Harry asked.

  The talking heads on the news had given way to a familiar sight: MSNBC’s Special Alert graphic.

  “There is word this hour of an outbreak in Malaysia of a never before seen virus. The victims show severe disorientation and memory loss. For more we go to Angie Lo in Kuala Lumpur.”

  Harry stopped chewing. “Memory loss,” he breathed.

  They watched images of brightly dressed people clutching their heads, crying, shrieking, begging for help.

  “Now we know what Ugo’s been working on for the past three months.” Peter should have guessed. The terrible side effect of the Peterson-Jantz suppressor virus made it a perfect bioterror agent. It was remarkably hearty, and could be contracted through the air. In fact, it was almost too hearty. “But Sumatra’s right across the Strait of Malacca. They’re our allies.” Peter leaned in closer to the screen. “That whole area is a patchwork of enemies and allies. How are they planning to control the spread?”

  The whine of an aircraft engine rose in the distance, growing louder. A Harrier broke over the trees, flying low.

  A dozen of their security personnel carrying assault rifles raced to set up sheltered positions as orders were shouted back and forth. Two security people escorted Peter and Harry inside.

  “Hang on,” Peter said. “If they wanted to attack, they wouldn’t be landing in the middle of the lawn.”

  They watched the Harrier set down a hundred yards away. The engine died. Kathleen jumped out.

  Grinning, Peter jogged toward the Harrier.

  He stumbled, then slowed to a walk as Melissa stepped out behind her.

  Kathleen gave him a big hug; Peter looked over her shoulder at Melissa, who hung back.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as Harry joined them.

  “The coup is under way in Washington. Elba and her Joint Chiefs.”

  Peter pressed his hand to his cheek. “Is she going to be successful?”

  “I think so. We got out before they started lining up Aspen’s people for the firing squad.”

  Although Kathleen was speaking, Peter’s gaze kept drifting to Melissa. Her expression was tight, serious. She opened her mouth and spoke for the first time.

  “We’re here to help you in any way we can.”

  A man in blue air force fatigues stepped out of the Harrier. His otherwise handsome, square-jawed face was marred by close-set, beady eyes.

  Kathleen looked over her shoulder. “Brandon Dawson. Good people. We can trust him.”

  Peter and Dawson exchanged nods.

  “Let’s get inside,” Peter said. “We’re so close. A week away.”

  “That’s not soon enough,” Kathleen said as they headed for the door. “Elba might start nuking North Korea at any time. And Peter”—she turned, gave him a hard look—“Elba’s people released Ugo’s virus without the president’s authorization. I think that virus is a big part of their battle plan. That’s why Ugo gained so much power so quickly.”

  * * *

  PETER WAITED outside the door to their impromptu strategy room, which had once been a factory office. The far wall was dominated by a checker-patterned chalkboard, with a hook in the corner of each square to hold a key. Beneath it was a desk, a concrete-encrusted rubber boot sitting on top.

  When Melissa and Kathleen arrived, Kathleen went past him, into the room.

  “Melissa?” It came out sounding tentative; Peter cleared his throat. “Do you have a minute?”

  “I’m not sure any of us have a minute,” she said, but she stopped.

&
nbsp; “I just wanted to thank you for coming, after all that’s happened.” A lump rose in his throat; he swallowed, trying unsuccessfully to banish it.

  Melissa toed a loose piece of concrete. “If anyone can get the world out of this mess, it’s you.” She looked up. “We need to focus our attention on that.”

  Peter nodded. Her unspoken message was clear enough.

  38

  IN HIS nightmare, he’d been crawling in a tunnel, only it wasn’t so much a tunnel as a huge, greasy intestine. It went on and on, each twist opening to another short length of stinking, twitching meat. He could still smell the place—an acrid, pungent odor like vomit on coal.

  He woke with Snakebite’s hand on his shoulder. It was dark; the moon and most of the stars were hidden by clouds.

  “There’s a world below,” Snakebite said in his ear. “The others are ready.”

  They landed on the outskirts of a large town. It seemed deserted, but it was nighttime, so it was hard to say. Choosing a street at random they walked between windowless half buildings, empty foundations, buildings with one wall peeled away that were otherwise intact. There was something strange about the place that Faller couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  “It’s clean,” Snakebite said, his voice low.

  That was it. On other worlds there was trash everywhere. Where a building had been knocked down or damaged, there was rubble. Bricks, wood, broken glass. Faller saw blackened, twisted steel girders, and plenty of vehicles, but no rubble. Not even food wrappers.

  They turned left at the next cross street.

  “It’s like a giant vacuum sucked up everything that wasn’t bolted down,” Melissa said.

  Faller had half expected Melissa to have some explanation based on her vast store of memories, and was almost pleased that some of this, at least, was still confusing to her. What must it be like, to have memories traveling all the way back, in an unbroken chain? How different life would be.

  “Look at that. Holy shit, look at that.” Penny was pointing half a block ahead.

  It was like an invisible line. On one side, the landscape was picked clean; on the other, rubble and trash lay scattered and heaped just as on any other world.

  A lone figure stood at the divide between cluttered and clean, piling bricks into a wheelbarrow. It was a woman, slender to the point of skeletal, her back to them.

  They paused a respectful distance away. Who wouldn’t be frightened by a group of strangers coming up behind you at night, especially when one of those strangers was Snakebite?

  “Hello?” Storm called softly.

  The woman turned. “I couldn’t sleep—” When she saw them, she screamed.

  It was Orchid. A few worlds back Faller might have been startled or surprised, but now he pretty much expected to encounter an Orchid or two everywhere he went.

  Orchid took a step back, screamed again, then bolted.

  They watched her go.

  “God. This is going to take some getting used to,” Penny said.

  “I’m still not used to it,” Faller said.

  “What do we do now?” Storm asked.

  “Let’s keep walking,” Snakebite said. “If there are people living here, there’s food and water.”

  Faller looked at Penny’s legs. She was walking fine, no hint of a limp. “Your ankle seems a lot better.”

  She looked down at her feet. “Yeah. It’s like something just popped back into place.”

  “There may not be many people in this town,” Melissa said. “It looks like it was heavily bombed during the war. Most of the residents who survived would have moved to refugee camps. Kathleen made a lot more duplicates than the rest of us. She couldn’t stop. When all the duplicates took off a few hours before the apocalypse, hers looked like an army. It doesn’t surprise me that some of them would end up in peculiar places like this.”

  “If there aren’t many people here, how did they clean out so much of the world?” Faller asked.

  “I don’t know. Kathleen had serious OCD issues, so it makes sense that she’d clean up.”

  “What’s OCD?” Faller asked.

  Three women came flying out the front of a mostly intact apartment building. They headed straight toward Faller’s cadre. All three were Orchids.

  “Guns.” Snakebite squatted, drew his shotgun. Faller pulled his handgun, cursing under his breath.

  “I told you.” The voice came from behind. Faller turned. Five more Orchids were behind them, handguns raised. Half a dozen more raced toward the scene.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Faller said.

  “Drop your weapons,” a voice called from above.

  Armed Orchids were on the roofs on either side of the street.

  Snakebite’s shotgun clattered to the blacktop. Faller and the others dropped their handguns.

  Orchids approached warily from either side, chattering to each other. They were all Orchids. Every one of them.

  One raised her voice. “Where did you come from?”

  “From up above.” Faller pointed. “There are more worlds up there. We’re completely friendly.”

  The Orchids looked baffled. They exchanged wide-eyed glances as even more joined them.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Penny said. “I didn’t believe it, either—”

  “Their faces,” one of the Orchids said.

  They’d never seen a person who didn’t look like them, Faller realized.

  “Do you have food?” asked one of the Orchids who looked better fed.

  “Not much,” Snakebite replied. “We were hoping to trade with you for food and water. And if you have anyone who’s good with wounds, my friend has a bad gash on his shoulder.”

  Faller wasn’t sure he’d call his wound bad. The throbbing had mostly subsided over the past day.

  “Take off your packs,” the Orchid said.

  Never taking her eyes off Snakebite, she grabbed each of the packs in turn and handed them off to her sisters.

  * * *

  AT LEAST it wasn’t a prison. They were moving up in the world, Faller thought, eyeing the crown molding and the ornate wooden door locked from the outside.

  “I’m trying to understand how this happened,” Penny said to Melissa, flipping her remarkably straight bangs out of her eyes. “You just stepped into a machine and spit out copies of yourselves? Why did you do this?”

  “Just drop it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Penny cupped her hand to her ear. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” She gave Melissa a pointed look. “Maybe with a little less hostility this time?”

  “Sorry,” Melissa muttered. “I’m a little agitated.”

  “Join the club,” Penny shot back. She retreated to a corner, sat cross-legged facing the wall, back straight. She pulled her ankles up over her thighs.

  “What are you doing?” Faller asked.

  “Meditating.” She inhaled deeply, let it out. “It calms me.”

  Faller shook his head, turned away. The more he got to know Penny, the odder she seemed.

  The lock on the door rattled; the door swung open.

  “Come on,” said one of the four Orchids standing outside.

  They headed away from the center of town, down a road lined with one-story buildings festooned with colorful signs. As they walked, Snakebite studied the Orchids leading them, his eyes narrowed.

  “Why do all of them carry pistols if there’s no one here but them?”

  That hadn’t occurred to Faller. If there were no threats, you’d think they’d let their guard down a bit. “Maybe they only started when we arrived?”

  “They had us surrounded two minutes after we were spotted. They were on the roof with rifles. They had to be carrying them to get there so quickly.”

  Faller nodded. The Orchids had odd patches on their shoulders. One wore a yellow one with the image of a tree stitched into it. Another had a purple one, with what looked to be a brick on it.

  “Excuse me.”
Faller caught the eye of an Orchid walking to his left. “What are the patches for?”

  She looked away.

  One of the others looked over her shoulder. “It’s how we tell each other apart.”

  They turned into a big parking lot, headed toward a huge blue and white building. As they reached the doors, one of the Orchids told four others to stand guard outside.

  “Let someone else,” one of them protested. “I want to hear.”

  As Faller was whisked inside, they were still arguing about who would stay outside.

  The roof was collapsed in several places where bombs must have hit, but the vast floor was spotless. He’d never seen such a clean floor. Words in tall letters were affixed high on the walls.

  Faller and his companions were led to five folding chairs set in the middle of the store, where dozens of Orchids were congregated.

  “I’ll bet you anything those chairs are in the exact center of the floor,” Melissa muttered. “They paced it off, walking heel to toe from the walls.”

  They did look to be perfectly centered. Faller’s Orchid had been peculiar, with her step-counting and twitches and such, but her behavior hadn’t been this extreme. Maybe when there was no one around but people just like you, your peculiarities seemed normal, so you did nothing to suppress them and they went wild.

  When Faller and the rest were seated, the Orchids—forty or so—gathered in a circle around them.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Snakebite said under his breath. “I’m not going to find my kids on this world.”

  Melissa fielded most of the questions. No one seemed to be strictly in charge. The ones who stood toward the front asked most of the questions. Faller guessed they held higher status than the others. The ones hanging toward the back were thinner, more desperate-looking.

  When someone asked how they had landed safely if they’d fallen there, Faller asked for his pack. He showed them his parachute, explained how it worked. Here and there in the crowd, multiple Orchid hands dug into the other packs and pulled out parachutes, chattering excitedly as they examined them.

  “We’d be happy to teach you to make your own,” Snakebite offered. He’d been silent to that point, no doubt watching for opportunities to extract them from an uncertain situation. Faller didn’t have a clear sense of whether these women meant them harm. The Orchids hadn’t threatened them, but it was also clear they were not free to leave.