Lifeless

by Adrianne Strickland

  “Now really isn’t the time … ” I began. Or maybe it was. Since I was about to kill her, it was the least I could allow. I shut my mouth, trying not to squirm in my straitjacket in impatience.

  “The God of Night spoke and gave the universe Darkness first,” she went on … and on. “Then Day brought Light to brighten it. Night called forth Time next, so that Light and Darkness could take turns without strife, and then Day gave Movement so they would be able to dance to the beat of Time. Next, Night made the Earth, dark and rich, and Day set a bright crown of Air over her head. Night dressed Earth in a gown of shimmering Water and Day bejeweled her in glowing Fire.”

  “Yeah, I know—” I said, trying to interject.

  “Do you?” she asked, looking at me so intensely now it was like she was seeing inside of me. And then she just continued. “Night then gave the power of Shaping, and Day gave the gift of Life, so Earth could become the Mother of All. Finally, because Day named Night for balance from the very beginning, Night spoke last, and the Word of Death came to be.” She paused meaningfully. “And Death came to the Gods first, because the two of them had given all to the universe with their Words, including themselves. They disappeared, becoming Nameless, never to be seen again. Only heard in their Words.”

  “So … ” I said. “Death came last.” I hesitated. “I actually didn’t know that. Or that the Gods were called Day and Night. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard this version of the story before.”

  “Because no one has,” Cruithear said with certainty—certainty that bordered on serenity. “Only the Gods. And now me, because I saw it—the shape.” She nodded at me. “Death was last, now it’s first.”

  I hoped that meant she would let me kill her now. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Tell me you understand.” Her soft voice took on a stubborn edge. “Tell me how it works.”

  I tried to think, to remember her story, since this was the stupid game she wanted to play right now, of all times. “If Death was last and now it’s first, that means you’re going backward, so … Life is next?” I really hoped that wasn’t what she was going for. Life was not what we needed right now, as much as I wanted to see Khaya again.

  I would never see her again, after this.

  Cruithear shook her head, sounding nearly as impatient as I felt. “No, Life belongs to Day.”

  “Right,” I said. “Right. So, counting back, the next one that belonged to Night is … ” I grimaced behind my mask. “I’m sorry, I really can’t remember.”

  She sighed. “Shaping.”

  “Got it. So … so you’re next.” Now we were on the right track. “Death to Shaping.” It sounded terrible, saying it like that, but it was what needed to happen. There was no use sugarcoating it.

  She nodded, her eyes intense from across the room.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Now can you reach me, somehow?”

  She nodded again, except her eyes dropped this time as she began muttering Words in Scots-Gaelic. Seeing what she was doing was difficult from my vantage, but it looked like the tip of her shoe, more of a slipper really, cracked a hairsbreadth. From out of that crack came what looked like a string no thicker than a hair. I could barely see it. The security cameras definitely wouldn’t be able to, especially since her feet were under the steel table.

  “Is that … ?” I couldn’t help grimacing slightly.

  “My skin?” She winced as it grew longer, shooting across the floor toward me. “Yes.” And then she continued muttering Words.

  It reached the bottom of my wheelchair and touched the tip of my black Necron boot. The material might have been death-proof, but it certainly wasn’t shaping-proof, because it split just like her slipper.

  Just before she touched me, she said, “You have to get out of here right after this, as fast as you can.”

  “Huh?” I looked up in surprise, the Word of Death ready on my tongue. The plan wasn’t for me to go anywhere after this.

  “I can’t leave this room, but you’ll be able to. The field won’t work on you.” She must have meant the invisible barrier that interacted with her monitor and knocked her out if she tried to leave the area. Of course it wouldn’t work on me, but …

  “The straitjacket sort of does, though,” I said.

  She smiled at me. It was a sweet, sly smile. Like she was sharing an amazing secret with me. And I suddenly realized she was not just a girl, but an incredibly beautiful one. Fine time to think of that, I told myself, right before you kill her.

  “Not for long,” she said. And then she touched me.

  Before I could speak the Word of Death, she spoke.

  She spoke a ton of Words in that rolling language, her voice loud and assured. Something shot into me like an electric current, seizing my muscles almost like Ryse’s stun gun. It felt like the deepest massage imaginable, crossing the line into painful, but not painful enough for me to scream. I only hissed and shuddered in my restraints.

  And then I felt it in more than my muscles. My mind was suddenly grappling with it—another presence. I heard myself gasp, though I was no longer focusing on what was happening in the room. The Word of Death roiled, twisting, mixing with this new presence in my head. And suddenly the Word of Death wasn’t only that, anymore.

  It was something else. I looked up at Cruithear in blank bewilderment, but she’d slumped forward onto the table, scattering her creations. She slid off and fell to the floor. Her red hair spread in a tangled fan around her on the white tiles, no longer held in its intricate shape. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing, either. Her green eyes stared at the ceiling.

  That was when blaring alarms went off and the door burst open … and when I remembered Cruithear had told me to run. More than a half-dozen security guards began to pour through the door, circling around me in my wheelchair but keeping a safe distance. On impulse, I strained against my straitjacket.

  “Get off!” I said. And then for no apparent reason, I added, “Pieces!”

  And then something insane happened. The straitjacket fell away from me.

  I ripped the mask from my head and stared at the shreds of the straitjacket and at my freed hands. And then I looked down at the wheelchair. “Pieces,” I said again, shoving away from it. Its straps and buckles flew apart as I stood up, and even the chair itself collapsed under me.

  I laughed and glanced up in time to see about eight tranquilizer guns aimed at me.

  “Dull, they’re dull!” I yelled, just before the guards fired.

  The darts bounced off my undershirt, newly rounded metal tips stinging like mad, but they didn’t break skin. For a second, the guards and I exchanged looks from across the room. They were surprised.

  I nearly was too.

  Then one of them hollered, “Grab him!” and they all charged me.

  twenty-two

  The guards’ boots squeaked over the tile floor of Cruithear’s lab as they came at me all at once. They all had Necron gloves and suits on, so maybe they were hoping they could pin me to the ground before I could touch them.

  That wasn’t happening. I didn’t know how; I only knew that it wasn’t. I raised my hand.

  “Stop!” I cried.

  Somewhere in there was a Word. More than one. Because what looked like focused beams of black light suddenly spiderwebbed out from my fingertips, catching the guards at the neckline. In unison, they collapsed around my feet in matching black heaps.

  They were dead, as dead as Cruithear on the floor. I stared at my hand.

  The Word of Death couldn’t do that, or the Word of Shaping. This was something else entirely. This was Death’s physical form. It had shape. Not only that, I could shape it.

  “Gods,” I said. I should have been feeling amazement, shock, horror … but nothing was forthcoming. In any case, there wasn’t time for anything, because w
hite gas started pouring from vents into the room.

  They sure had built this place with locking it down in mind.

  “Air—only air—in a bubble around me,” I said, and it happened. A clear space formed around me in a sphere about ten feet across. I could shape air too. How handy.

  The white smoke billowed against the edges of my bubble, making it hard to see beyond. Perhaps it was tear gas, or maybe something stronger to induce unconsciousness. If they knocked me out now, I definitely wouldn’t wake up until they’d built an even stronger room than this one around me, and then chained my brain to it at the same time. I could see more guards peering through the haze in the doorway, trying to get a line of sight on me. And then I saw a more familiar, blond-haired figure step into view.

  Like me, Luft was keeping the gas away from himself and everyone else out in the hallway. He said another Word in German, and the hazy air between us billowed, clearing enough for him to meet my eyes.

  He was looking at me in disbelief. “Did Cruithear just give you the Word of Shaping?” He must have known the answer already, because he said, “How could you let her do that?”

  My voice was calm, even if my words sounded like they should be angry. “I love how people just keep assuming I ask for this shit. For your information, I was trying to kill her, not steal her Word. I didn’t even think it was possible to have two.”

  Luft glanced behind him at the people out in the hall. No doubt Swanson and Carlin were back there, and maybe a gathering army of security guards waiting to storm the room once I collapsed.

  “Neither did anyone else,” he said. He looked back in the room, at Cruithear on the floor. “Well, she’s dead, so you succeeded after a fashion. What the hell are you doing, Tavin?”

  I shrugged. “You saved me once. Consider the favor returned.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ask Carlin. Or better yet, come with me and I’ll explain on the way out of here.”

  He didn’t move. Of course, he’d have to leave Carlin if he came with me.

  “Good luck then,” I said. “And for the record, I forgive you for screwing with me about contacting Khaya.” I paused. “I think, anyway. I’ll get back to you on that.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off me this time. “How about I just ask you what the hell you’re talking about once this situation is under control?” He said a Word next, one that started collapsing my bubble of fresh air.

  “Harden,” I said. What looked like white dust flew at me, and suddenly the edge of my now-small bubble, only a foot or so in radius around me, was like hard plastic. It must have taken shape from whatever material was in the room. No doubt Luft could puncture it if he tried, but he wasn’t trying. Not yet. He was still gaping at what I had done.

  I had to get out of here, if only before my air ran out—though that was probably the least of my concerns. I spun to the wall.

  “Hole, big hole. Bigger!” I wasn’t being careful or subtle, and a giant tunnel ripped through the solid concrete—all three feet of it.

  I told my bubble to lose its shape and jumped through with my breath held. On the other side I commanded the concrete to become a wall again behind me. It did so with a grating crunch, and then I couldn’t even hear the shouting I’d left behind on the other side. Losing my balance after my leap, I fell back against the wall and had to take steadying breaths. Adrenaline was helping me power through the sedative, but the latter was still going strong.

  I looked around and found myself in an expansive cold space, stretching like a low-ceilinged warehouse to a distant opposite wall. Large, coffin-sized tanks filled the giant room. From what I could see, they held bodies suspended in ice.

  The bodies weren’t exactly coming at me, so they could wait. First things first—I looked at the monitor bracelets on my wrists.

  “Pieces,” I said.

  The black bands fell to the floor in chunks.

  The next one would be less easy. I touched the back of my neck, closing my eyes and focusing. And then, I could feel it—the shape of what was hidden there—but not with my fingers.

  “Tiny, tiny hole,” I told my skin. “Let’s start with a pinhole.”

  Pain and blood blossomed at the back of my neck, and then even more when I shaped my flesh to push the microchip out. My work wasn’t as precise as I would have preferred, but it was fast. I plucked the thing out with my bloody fingers and flicked it to the floor. It was so small I didn’t hear it hit. But it was out of me.

  My neck was swelling and bleeding, but it was nowhere near fatal. I was too wary of reshaping it closed anyway. Even if I smoothed the skin, I’d probably just keep bleeding on the inside. So I left it, and I looked around again.

  So many tanks, and all of them with occupants. They had to be the automatons Cruithear was—had been—making. The ones Khaya was supposed to bring to life. They weren’t exactly alive, so I couldn’t kill them. But …

  I brushed the cool glass of one of the tanks with a fingertip. “Pieces. Shards,” I added, trying to get more creative. I wanted tinier pieces anyway, so no one could ever put them back together.

  The tank burst apart, raining glass, ice, and what looked like frozen shredded meat to the floor. I backed away from the mess and looked up at the entire massive space … at all of the tanks. I repeated the Words.

  The power swelled inside of me, and I wondered for a second if I would rip myself apart. But then the pressure vanished and every tank in the room exploded. Sparkling flecks of ice and glass filled the air like snow. Even if there was some red in there, it still was almost beautiful.

  I heard someone cry out. A man in black—a security guard—had entered the room about half of its length down from me. He was covering his face and yelling. Glass must have sprayed him in the eyes. But even if he couldn’t see anymore, the others following him would.

  I looked at the ground. “Tunnel,” I said.

  A tunnel dove downward, right through tile, insulation, and concrete, until it hit rocks and packed dirt. I let it level out there. Tu had shown me how to “earthworm,” what felt like ages ago, and, like with air, I could shape earth. I could shape it all. Even the Word of Death, apparently.

  Jumping into the tunnel, I discovered I’d made it a little too steep and slid half of the way down it on my ass. I’d also busted a pipe, or five, somewhere, which were spraying water and hopefully nothing else. A sewage pipe would be unfortunate, but I’d really have to watch out for gas or electrical lines since those could actually kill me.

  I closed the hole above me so no one could follow, then cursed when I realized it was pitch black. After poking smaller holes back up through the floor, I hesitated while my eyes adjusted to the limited light.

  I figured the smart thing to do would probably be to just get out of here right now, under and out of the Athenaeum. But I couldn’t leave Pie. And I would tear this hospital to pieces to get to her if I had to. Fortunately, Swanson had only taken me down a couple of hallways and one floor to get to Cruithear’s quarters. I was still relatively close to my room.

  I opened more of the tunnel and moved along it until I had to be out from under the tank room—probably underneath the room across the hall from it. I made a crude step ladder out of dirt to poke my head up through another tiled floor, the alarm screaming into my ears with renewed vigor.

  “Holy Gods.” I was in another tank-filled room, almost identical to the first. How many of these automatons did they have? It took me two tries to lift myself out of the floor, but only one attempt with the Words to make another patchwork ladder up to the ceiling. Before I climbed up into a storage closet on the floor above, I shattered every tank in that room too.

  When I poked my head out into the upstairs hallway—after reshaping the closet’s doorknob so I was no longer locked in—everything was still, except for flashing red lights illuminating the white wa
lls. The only sound was the blaring alarm.

  I recognized this hallway. It was adjacent to the one with my room. I tried to dart out of the door in a run, but instead stumbled out and had to lurch along, using the wall as support, while my legs took their sweet time. I soon grew impatient and cut across the floor, shaping a rough path through two unoccupied surgical rooms to get to my hallway. This deep under the hospital the rooms weren’t being used for anything good, so I wasn’t careful about how I did it. Although I probably wouldn’t have been careful anyway.

  When I reached my door, I peered through the observation port to make sure Pie was on the bed—she often was, when I was gone—and then I enlarged the port into more of a portal.

  I should have closed it behind me, but I was too focused on scooping Pie up off the blankets. She showered my face with puppy licks and I murmured into her fur, “We’re getting out of here.”

  “Tavin.”

  I spun to find Swanson outside the doorway, his hands raised, breathing hard. He’d obviously run the entire way. Several security guards had followed him, and their tranquilizer guns were trained on me.

  “I thought you’d come back for her. You—you can’t leave,” he stammered. “You can’t do this to me.”

  “I can’t?” I said, tightening my grip on Pie.

  He put a hand on his chest. “The City Council will think I was involved. I’ll be accused of treason.”

  I pursed my lips. “That would be a shame.”

  “And this … this is unprecedented—impossible! Tavin, what has happened to you should be studied. Two Words in one body! The world needs you. I need you.” He reached out to me through the hole in the door. As if I would take his hand and submit myself, just like that.

  “Do you realize how messed up you are?” I asked, and he flinched. “You don’t need me. You don’t need the Words. And you definitely don’t need any automatons—most of which I just destroyed, by the way.” I raised an eyebrow at him, his face disbelieving. “But if the world needs me so much, don’t you think you should share?”