by Robert McKay
"Great, I'd like to read some more of his work," said Beatrix. "I'll see you at dinner tomorrow?"
"We would enjoy that immensely," said Josh. He gave her an elaborate bow. "Thank you for your company this morning. We look forward to talking to you tomorrow evening." Woolly stepped into the room and waited for Josh by the door. Josh started to walk away and then turned back. "We'll make sure Woolly approves any more books that you want to take to your friends. He's the most reasonable of the guards. Everyone should have access to books."
Beatrix doubted that Woolly would prove as reasonable as Josh thought, but she only nodded and said, "Thank you."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When Josh was gone, Beatrix ran back to her room and immediately set to work on her plan to search the west wing. Unfortunately, her planning involved a lot of staring up at the ceiling, sighing dramatically, and stomping back to her room when she found herself outside the library. Before she knew it, it was late afternoon and it was nearly time to put her plan into motion.
The plan was eloquent in its simplicity, or that's what Beatrix told herself. Despite his deceased status, Pillow Dave butted into her thoughts. She realized that he was only there because there were some emotions that she wasn't taking time to process correctly, but that didn't stop him from saying his piece.
You've basically just decided to barge in there, bold as you please, with no plan at all and hope for the best.
"No, I've left room for improvisation, should the situation go bad," replied Beatrix petulantly.
Which it most certainly will because you've got no damned plan!
"I will not be argued with by a dead pillow," said Beatrix, crossing her arms and flopping down on the bed.
You're absolutely right, because there is literally nothing to argue about.
"Fine, you're right, I have no plan. I don't have any information to go on. I just know that Josh won't be around to catch me, so that's one less thing to worry about and I don't know when he might be gone again and decide to tell me about it, so it has to be tonight." Beatrix nodded emphatically as if her logic was air tight and brooked no argument.
That also leaves one less person here who might be inclined to not have you immediately filled full of holes roughly the size of bullets, retorted Pillow Dave.
"Well, I know he doesn't want me in there. Who knows what kind of orders the guards have if they find me in the west wing."
All right, you have me there. 'Who knows' sounds like the kind of firm intelligence we need to plan what is likely a suicide mission. Knock yourself out.
With that bit of snark, Beatrix threw Pillow Dave in the closet and put the negative thoughts out of her head. There were a lot of questions she didn't have answers to, but it might be weeks before she had that kind of information, if ever. She didn't have that kind of time. If she was going to do this thing, it had to be tonight, or not at all.
For her mission she had chosen to wear her baggy Colarian grey outfit, because it gave her more ease of movement. When she was finished dressing she tucked Torch's ring in the pocket. She wouldn't lose track of it again. She hoped her change of clothes wouldn't cause any alarm. The guards never asked questions, so it was logical that they wouldn't bother asking her about her clothes. They would just pump her full of bullets. No. She pushed that thought away. She wouldn't be caught and they'd already expressed a desire to keep her alive.
No more putting it off. It was time to go. She slipped out of her room and tried to walk as casually as she could to the kitchen. She felt like a cartoon burglar creeping through the dark on tiptoe, carrying a giant bag with dollar signs on the side. All that was missing was the spotlight that would light her up when she got caught.
As usual, there was no one about in the house to see her edge nervously into the kitchen. She paced for a while, then opened the refrigerator to stare blankly at its contents until she realized how strange she was acting. She took out a container of juice in case someone was watching. If there were cameras, she was screwed, so she just had to take her chances there.
She poured a glass of juice with shaky hands and drank it down in one gulp, her eyes locked on the door that led to the west wing. Her juice gone, she was out of excuses, so she walked over and turned the knob.
It was unlocked, as she expected. It swung open silently. Without thinking, she let the knob go and it banged into the wall. The noise sounded like a gunshot in the deathly silent house. Beatrix spun around so fast it made her dizzy; a completely useless action. If someone were watching it would just make her look both ridiculous and guilty. No shouts of alarm went up, so she took three steadying breaths and gently shut the door behind her.
On the other side was just another hallway like the various others in the house. This one, however, was lined with framed pictures. Most of them depicted a female Colarian with light brown hair and a broad smile on her face. Seeing a Colarian obviously enjoying themselves was strange. In this neutral environment, even though her fur made her alien, her features weren't that different from a Nedran. Even with her fur she was beautiful. It was obvious that the person taking the photos was in love with her, even to Beatrix, who was no expert in composition. Something wasn't right about the way she looked, though. Beatrix found herself studying several of the pictures, including some where she was playing with two small children, neither of them more than five years old by her estimation.
It was when she was looking at the two children that she realized what was wrong. There were no black strips of flesh on their heads. These pictures were taken before the Colarians had joined with the symbionts. In the final picture, the whole family was together, beaming at the camera, Josh the happiest of them all. Beatrix shook her head. Josh hadn't been lying about his family and his life before the symbionts. What did that mean? Could he be trusted? No, just because one thing he said was true, it didn't mean that everything was. The photos gave her a lot to think about, but she needed more. She continued down the hall. Beatrix knew the information she needed would be behind the door at the other end, in the west wing.
That door loomed before her, seeming to grow to massive proportions by the time she was close enough to reach the handle. She touched it gently, as if she expected it to burn her. Nothing happened, so she turned the knob and opened the door, taking special care to keep it from banging open. Her heart was hammering beyond all reason. Come on, Sting, she mentally chided herself. You've done tons of things that were scarier than this. This is no time to get twitchy. Stay calm and react when something actually happens.
She was in a small sitting room, lit by a couple of table lamps. An archway on the right opened into the rest of the space, which was well decorated with rich colors and beautiful blown glass sculptures on shelves. Couches and chairs were arranged close together and much more comfortable and less showy than the others throughout the house. These were meant to be lived with, rather than for entertaining. The west wing was the family wing. This is where she would find Josh's private quarters, not the military bunker she'd been envisioning.
Beatrix was suddenly overcome with the urge to flee and it had nothing to do with a worry about being caught. She felt like she was snooping in someone's private space and that was wrong, no matter her reasons for doing so. Her upbringing almost compelled her to turn around and abandon her mission. Her father's voice telling her to stop snooping changed her mind. Her father couldn't reprimand her for this because he was gone. She needed to do this for her friends that were still living. Hell, she might even need to do this for Josh himself. The more she talked to him, the more she was beginning to wonder if what he'd said about the Anthrak and Leothen might be true. He might need rescuing as much as her friends did.
She hadn't entertained the thought until now because it was dangerous to think that way. Josh and the rest of the Colarians had to be the enemy or she might just lose her mind again. She'd killed well over two hundred of them. She didn't have much choice. She was protecting her people from monsters.
If they weren't monsters, but were instead innocent victims, that changed everything and she couldn't afford that kind of shake up at this particular moment.
Blocking the mental image of Josh's smiling family from her mind, Beatrix forged ahead into the family wing of the house, finding another hallway through the arch from the sitting room. The first few doors were children's rooms; only two of them appeared lived in. The others were prepared for a larger family that never came. Beatrix passed the rest of the doors by, not caring what was in them for the moment. She knew that the door at the end of the hall had to be the master suite. It was the only place that made sense for something to be hidden. It would be kept closest to where Josh would sleep. He seemed to be protective that way, staying close to the things and people that mattered to him.
Like you, Beatrix thought to herself, picking up where she knew Pillow Dave would have. More thoughts that would have to be examined in a new light later.
Now she had to get the courage to open the door to Josh's bedroom. Every fiber of her being told her that she shouldn't open that door. After a few years as a fighter pilot she knew her body lied. When it was afraid, it told her things that weren't true in order to get her to take herself out of danger. Sometimes you had to stay in dangerous situations because people were depending on you. This was one of those times.
Unfortunately, it was also one of the times when her body knew something that her mind hadn't quite caught up to yet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It only took about half a second to realize that she wasn't alone in the bedroom. It wasn't sight or sound that told her. Just some left over instinct from when her people had been prey instead of predators. All the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. The room was dimly lit by a blue light from a strange orb-shaped lamp on the far side. The shadows in the large bedroom could have concealed a dozen armed men. She knew there would only be one.
"Hello, Beatrix," said Josh softly, his words precise and sharp as a blade. There wasn't any inflection to indicate anger or malice. They weren't even a greeting. They simply hung in the air, utterly inhuman. They made her skin crawl. Just those two words made up her mind for her. Josh hadn't been lying to her. This wasn't Josh or Arryn. This was the symbiont. The leech. Some part of her had believed Josh from the beginning. If he hadn't been the one who killed her father, she might have actually believed it when it could have saved her. Now it was too late.
The leech stepped out from a shadow in the corner on the far side of the room. A bed and a couple of chairs separated her from it. It wouldn't be hard to turn and run from the room, but there was nowhere for her to go. If she left the house, the guards would gun her down before she made it two steps. Still, it may have been preferable to waiting for the leech to get its hands on her. But that wasn't her style. If she was going to die, she wanted to die fighting, not fleeing.
"So, Arryn wasn't lying," said Beatrix, hoping to buy herself time to think.
"No, Arryn wasn't lying." It didn't move from its spot on the other side of the room, arms clasped behind its back. It watched her with Josh's cat-like eyes. The look on its face was smug. "He won't be talking to you any more though," said the leech. It reached up and tapped the black flesh glistening over both of Josh's eyes.
"You're not the same leech that was attached to him before," said Beatrix, scanning the room. While it didn't appear ready to pounce, she doubted it would let her get back to the kitchen where she could get a weapon. Maybe a chair could do enough damage to buy her some time. She inched toward one and the smug smile on the leech's face grew, its eyes glittering in anticipation. It wanted a fight. In close quarters without a weapon, there was little chance she could take it. This wasn't a fight she could win physically. She'd have to think her way out.
"We are Anthrak. We are all part of the Quorum. It was a mistake to let this body continue with a weakened link. It helped us make great progress in our goals of pairing with your species, so we allowed it to continue."
"When I cut off the part of the leech over his eye, I gave him back some of his control, allowed him to think for himself again," Beatrix said, recalling what Josh had said. More truth. "He thought differently after that and you used it to come after us."
"Just so. You're not as dim as we believed. It's good that we are in control again." It started toward her at a leisurely pace. "After it became clear that Arryn was slipping out of our control, it was no longer worth the risk. Once a suitable Partner was located to pair with this body, we discovered that he had been finding ways to leak information to you. That could have been disastrous to our cause."
Beatrix sidled further to her right, trying to keep distance between her and the leech. The chair wasn't going to be a help. It wasn't likely she could disable the leech or Josh's body with such an unwieldy weapon. She doubted the leech would stop for anything other than that. The body it inhabited was expendable. Strangely, the leech stopped coming toward her, its eyes fixed on something just behind her and a bit further to her right. She needed to distract it. "Or maybe it's too late and I already know everything needed to destroy you."
"Nonsense, he told you nothing of importance," retorted the leech flatly.
"But you're not sure. There was something you didn't understand," said Beatrix. A glance over her right shoulder found that blue lamp. Was that what the leech was staring at? Now that she was closer, it didn't look much like a lamp at all. From what she could see, the blue orb hovered above a Colarian grey pedestal with nothing powering it. It was obviously not part of the room's original decor; too grey, too techy. It was something important to the Anthrak; the reason for the warning to stay out of the west wing.
"This is true," he admitted. "There was reference to Woolly being your porcine wingman. It's pure nonsense, but we need to know what it means in case your Pairing is unsuccessful. Just to be certain that no valuable information was leaked." His smile was sinister in a way that Arryn never could have managed. "We have many ways of making your kind talk. You will tell us what we need to know."
Beatrix just gaped at the leech, her mouth working up and down, but forming no words. There was no possible way that Woolly could be her porcine wingman. Woolly did nothing but growl and glare at her any time he saw her. The leech must have misunderstood. The idea that Woolly was their ticket to freedom was ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the phrase that kept repeating itself over and over in her mind, getting louder with each repetition until she had to shout it. They were the words that Arryn said when he finally understood the porcine wingman reference. Back when he'd first promised to help her escape. She hadn't trusted him then. But now...now a fierce grin spread over her face. "When pigs fly!"
Woolly would probably kill her on sight, but she had to take the chance that Arryn had given her the information she needed right from the leech's mouth.
Beatrix lunged backward and snatched the blue orb. The world melted away around her.
She'd intended to throw the orb across the room to distract the leech. Now there was nothing in her hands to throw. Gradually, a new room came into focus as if she were stepping through a clearing fog, only the fog didn't completely clear. It hovered at the edge of her vision, an oppressive wall of Colarian grey that pushed down on her like a shroud. Out of the fog drifted dark shapes. They swam through the air, brushing against one another and then against Beatrix. With each touch came a cold splash of information that was like ice in her veins. It raced through her body until it hit her brain with the force of a bullet. The information was so random it didn't make sense until more of the slithering bodies added their touch and then their information and a picture began to form.
Beatrix tried to pull away mentally and physically. The bodies were the symbionts, leeches, Anthrak. Some part of Beatrix knew she was still in the house, holding that eerie blue orb. If she could just let go, this would all go away. It didn't help. The Anthrak worked her stationary form into their floating pattern and began to steadily brush agains
t her, never giving her a break from their icy touch or their overload of information.
Piece by piece, they were molding her brain to be a part of their singular consciousness. This was the Quorum, the basis for their entire reality. Beatrix did her best to turn against the stream. There was no way she could accomplish it. Realization crashed through her like an avalanche. In this world there was nothing but the stream, and she was only a single drop of water. She finally understood Hands' cries. The Anthrak consciousness was so pervasive it felt as if she were being erased. Inside her every cell, her every thought, her very soul, there was a creeping coat of grey ice threatening to consume her—the Anthrak.
Fear gripped her heart like a vice while the wall of grey slammed through her mind, obscuring her memories one by one. She wrapped herself around the memory of a long winter night spent reading when she was supposed to be asleep, and then was ripped away. The same thing happened to her first sparring match with Torch. Just as she was about to slam him into the mat a grey wall came down and crushed the memory flat. Every warm thought she turned to was impossible to hold for more than a fraction of a second before it was eaten by the void of the Anthrak consciousness. Her last bastion was her first memory of her father. She remembered what it was like to be small enough that her entire hand was filled by holding a single one of his fingers. It made her feel safe in a way that she hadn't felt since his death. She held onto that feeling until it, too, faded away and left her standing cold and alone in an expanse of grey. That's when they came for her identity.
She couldn't let them take it. It wasn't until they came to take it away that she truly understood what it was. Arryn had survived this onslaught for years and found a way to fight back once the opportunity presented itself. That meant it didn't truly destroy consciousness, it only smothered it. She held on tightly while her idea of self was eroded by the implacable tide of the Anthrak. She knew if she lost this fight, she would be lost forever in the Quorum. Her thoughts were eventually forced down to just one mantra. "I am Beatrix. I am Bumble Bea. I am Sting."