The dead man is nearly out of frame. There are no cameras beyond that point.
Drews turns from the monitors, already almost running — and finds that Mr. Condy has rolled his chair into his path. The old man sits with hands resting in his lap, fingers interlaced. His face is pale in the dim fluorescent lights, but his mouth is set stubbornly.
“If you’re going to slaughter innocent people whose only crime is defending themselves, you’ll have to start with me,” he declares, voice shaking only a little.
There’s no time for this. Drews draws his sidearm and pushes the muzzle into the old man’s chest, making him suck in a sharp gasp and freeze in his seat. Condy squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the bullet. In an instant, he looks small and thin, barely enough of a human to kill.
Drews abruptly feels disgusted with himself, and instead draws the gun back and stands tall. “You have been surprisingly compliant since you were brought here, and so I’ll forgive this momentary lapse in sense. Now, get out of my way.”
The old man remains tensed and unmoving for a moment — and then his hands and feet are a blur, grabbing a table and shoving himself out of the soldier’s path. As the tall man walks past, Condy struggles not to unman himself even further.
“Stay here,” Drews orders from the doorway. “If I come back and find you’ve touched anything, I will shoot you.” The door slams shut, and his boot-steps recede down the corridor.
In the silence that follows, Condy balls his hands into fists. Raw fear thunders through his veins, making his wrists hot and his stomach watery. He can still feel the gun’s cold metal against his breastbone.
At last, he sits up and forces himself to chuckle. “I imagine you saw all that. How embarrassing. My own fault, too. Physical confrontation doesn’t work on that dumb bastard, but I panicked.” He rolls his chair up to the screens again.
Io darts past a camera, face ghostly-white and set with determination.
He wants to make a run for it, but can’t risk running into Drews’ people on his way out. Better to wait until the real chaos starts, for cover. He glances up into the darkest corners of the room. “You ready for a jailbreak?”
Down the hall, a group of soldiers have finished suiting up and are attempting to leave the makeshift barracks — only to find that the door won’t open.
Condy doesn’t notice; he’s watching Drews travel down the long corridors that will take him to the sub-basement gate.
A dozen appleseed-shaped eyes watch with him.
“He’s coming for you,” the old man whispers.
They know.
Zechariah sucks in as deep a breath as he can. The lattice hates this, and twists around him. It can’t quite reach high enough to engulf his head, but it wants to.
And yet, somehow, he is mentally interacting with it. The beacon whispers through his upper body at ten million words per second, and his every needle sings its concord. (His still-human lower body has been crushed, and is slowly ‘converting’ into needles.)
Lack of air makes him woozy. He shuts his eyes and focuses on the portals — digs through great stacks of them, then grabs them up and starts shoving them into a big imaginary trash can. They just fall out. He can’t squeeze them shut, and pulling them apart seems like a bad idea.
Even inside his tight-shut jaw, he grinds his teeth in frustration. If only his hands were free, he would try snapping his fingers in command.
The portals are gone.
He wallows in excited surprise, then aims his attention at another batch of portals and imagines snapping his fingers. The sound is loud and sharp in his mind, and closes the tears in an instant. This is good — closing all portals in big batches, and then focus on creating more of his own. Lucas is taking care of things inside the facility, and there are still a bunch of portals for Io to use to get back from running interference in Gothic.
Ohhhhh, wait, unless he’s just closed those. Oops.
He spams a few batches of portals around downtown Gothic, leaving them open for only a few seconds before shutting them. Eventually—
Io tumbles through one just as he’s about to shut it, and lies gasping and shaking in the dirt. Her back is bloodied, and she hugs her chest.
Zechariah squeezes his eyes shut and tries all the harder to focus on the portals, their openings and closings, their pathways. He catches glimpses of their true mechanics — for seconds at a time, he understands the spire and why it clutches at him.
But buried within his body of needles, his human mind is like a trapped animal. He screams and writhes internally, fighting against the bonds to which his body has already grown accustomed. There is no escape. There is never escape.
His needles don’t mind. Like a child with a new toy, his parasite bashes the portals together to see what happens.
With nowhere else to go, his conscious mind abruptly turns inward, shutting out all sound and light and pain. He squeezes himself down into the tiniest possible space, compressing thought and emotion and memory.
What a pointless path he’s walked to this moment. Months of lazing about in his trailer, getting stoned and watching internet videos — and by night, following Lucas on his rounds. No wonder Lucas thought him useless and weak. No amount of lifting and midnight runs and back-yard martial arts lessons could ever put him on the man’s level.
And yet, there comes dark laughter from still deeper in his brain. “He is nothing. His esteem is worthless. Only survival matters. You should know this by now, my host.”
Zechariah does his best to ignore it. Better to wallow in happier memories —Condy lecturing him on how to break into an ATM— helping a gaggle of old ladies move a dresser into a trailer — and before that, in Gothic—
A bolt of pain flashes through his head. The guardian’s vine has found a way past the defending needles and is digging in underneath his skull. That booming voice echoes across his thoughts, wordless and incoherent. Zechariah retreats from this new intruder, toward the one he knows.
A startling flash of red flame. He’s lying on the floor of a hotel ballroom. Dead weight holds him against the soft, blood-matted carpet. Most of the blood is his own. His head hurts so badly. He reaches a shaking hand over his shoulder and can’t find the back half of his skull.
He pushes himself up into a sitting position with a grunt of exertion; a corpse rolls off of him. There’s a creepy-crawly sensation penetrating his brain, and his skull makes a constant hissing, spitting noise.
He stumbles out of the fire and toward the open doors. A dark whisper in his ear: “Don’t let anyone see us. Let the wound heal.” He ignores it and walks out into the street, among crashed cars and scattered bodies. Gothic is a war-zone; he assumes that his dazed wandering will get him killed.
“Hide until you’re healed. You can’t fight until your body is whole.” After an appraising moment, “I can’t fight for you until your body is whole.”
For the first time since the Disaster, since Zechariah woke up with a head full of needles and someone else’s brain matter encroaching on his own, the young man thinks to ask, “Who are you?”
And he turns around—
Io crawls to the backpack and pulls it over, blindly sorts around inside until she finds a bottle of water. Even as she sucks it down, she feels the needles in her back reconstructing, muscle by muscle. The sensation makes her want to gag.
“Zech-riah?” she manages weakly, rolling over on her side and looking upward. “You th-there?”
The street has become crowded. Zechariah, the tow-headed stoner, is no longer alone.
There is the lattice, the needle-built interface of the portal spire. It shifts before his eyes, greedy and eager to serve — a perfect tool for invaders. Then there is the guardian of the wood, a pure-white spider wreathed in black vines. These, too, reach for him, clawing and grasping for his body and mind.
But they are both too late, for he already belongs to a parasite. The needles not only bind and invade him — they have replaced
him a little more each day since the Disaster. Worse, they whisper instincts into his ear, and obsessions, and suspicions. They know nothing but survival.
There is only one other human here, but he, too, knows infection. After all, he was the first.
This is the one who, in dying, infected Zechariah— and by infection, became him.
In the middle of the street, beset by three different aliens, Zechariah meets Kazuma.
The man is like a Japanese version of himself — tall, pale, his hair long and lank — but his blond hair is now black, his blue eyes now black holes. He lifts a hand in greeting, and his fingers are inhumanly long and pointed.
The two share an instant understanding: There is no way they can remain separate now. There’s too little left of Zechariah, and too great a need for Kazuma’s symbiosis with the needles. Already, Zechariah is awash with the sensation, the intoxicating unity that only this invader can ever experience. He is falling into Kazuma, submerged in the other’s mind.
A last few individual thoughts scatter across Zechariah’s consciousness, but there is one he holds close on his way into the dark: His experience will not end, but will merge with that glorious oneness. What a beautiful thought. What a comfort.
And then he is integrated, and then he is gone.
Io is finally healed enough to stand. She wobbles backward away from the pit edge, squinting up at the writhing lattice on the top platform. “Zechariah! Are you okay! Where are the portals?”
A few of the guardian’s tendrils approach her across the pit. She flinches away at first, then peers up at the one that penetrates Zechariah’s skull. Maybe she’ll be able to communicate with him, make sure he’s alright, get him to open another portal back into Gothic.
A thin, black fettuccine penetrates her scalp just above her ear. At her wincing behest, it does not penetrate or try to circumvent her skull, instead lying down flat upon it and communicating through bone.
He Has Lost Control.
You Must Take His Place.
You Must Close the Ways.
Io grinds her teeth. For the last time! Not until we save my sister and—
We Still Have Time to Avert Disaster.
You Must Close the Ways.
She looks around desperately for any other option. As much as she hates the idea of abandoning their quest, she’s worried about Zechariah. He hasn’t moved or made a sound since she arrived, and only the top of his head is visible under the black cocoon of the lattice.
Are you there? she whispers, reaching out for him.
Silence.
Io sucks in a deep breath—
LUCAS IS INSIDE THEIR BASE! he shouts in her mind. GO AFTER HIM! GO! GO!
A portal splits open space-time less than a foot away from her elbow.
She whips the black tendril out from under her scalp. Then she howls, “FUCK! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT HURTS!”
With blood in her eyes, she grabs up the backpack and dashes through—
—straight into the personnel barracks. The underground room has no windows and is dimly lit; its cinder walls are a functional powder-blue. A dozen soldiers are crowded up against the door, pounding on it and shouting to be let out.
Io turns around and hurries back through. The quick sequence of transitions make her dizzy.
“Do-over!” she calls up at Zechariah.
The portal vanishes. Another appears in front of her.
Condy is glued to the wall of screens, arms crossed. He’s just watched Drews reach the gated stair leading to the sub-basement — but instead of inputting his code and heading down, the tall man hesitates, staring through the bars.
That last sub-basement screen still shows nothing but a corridor. Condy scratches his arm nervously, eyes switching back and forth between the two monitors. Things have gone quiet outside, as if Io suddenly decided to lie low.
There, on the barracks feed. Down in the bottom left, soldiers bang on the door and shout silently to be let out. And on the far edge of the frame, Io appears out of the air, the side of her head coated in blood. She jumps in surprise, then turns and vanishes again.
Condy frowns deeply. She’s found a way into the building, but apparently can’t control it — and if she lands anywhere near Tall Dark and Murderous, she’ll be obliterated. If she can just find her way downstairs—
From behind him, a sudden footfall. “Woah!” Io blurts, instantly backing away from the figure sitting at the screens.
He whirls around to her, eyes wide. “Holy shit!”
The sight of the old man makes Io put a hand to her mouth and sob. “You’re okay!”
“So are you!”
As he stands, she jumps forward and hugs him around the waist. “I was worried they’d shoot you!”
Condy has the grace to look embarrassed. “And you cared? I haven’t exactly done you many favors.”
She pulls away, grinning up at him. “You helped them rescue me, back at the trailer camp. That’s enough to forgive a lot.”
“Even stealing your sex toy?”
“Oh! That reminds me!” She shrugs off the backpack and sets it on a table, eagerly pulls it open. “I have something of yours.”
The sight of the laptop makes Condy’s heart soar. He accepts it, hugs it to his chest. She also sets a hammer on the table, and his mind explodes with possibilities.
Io starts to say something, then stares past him. “Surveillance,” she realizes, and pushes closer to the screens. “Get me caught-up.”
Condy shakes off omnipotence and decides to focus on coming up with a plan. “Luke appeared a few minutes ago, here,” and he points out the sub-basement corridor, “and headed that way, down toward where they’re keeping—”
On-screen, Lucas reappears around the bend in the corridor. He’s carrying a human figure in his arms, wrapped in his jacket.
Io makes an involuntary sound, a gasp that turns into a sob. “There she is.”
Then she notices the screen on which Drews waits at the top of the stairs, hammer in hand. She dashes for the door.
Condy turns after her, startled. “Wait, wait! He’ll kill you!”
“I have to try!” she insists, pushing open the door. “I already abandoned her once, I can’t do it again!” Then she’s gone, and the door swings gently shut behind her.
To his own surprise, Condy yearns to follow her. He has no weapons — except the hammer sitting next to her backpack, and that wouldn’t do much good, considering. Hell, even if he had a gun, he’s not sure he’d know how to fire it.
He returns to the screens and sits down, plugs in the laptop and boots it up. On a monitor to his left, there’s commotion in the barracks. The doors have apparently locked themselves. If he listens hard over the sound of the whirring computers, he can almost hear the soldiers shouting.
So much systems diagnosis to get through before he can start sending requests to his alien shopping network. Need to recalculate his goddamn coordinates first. He works as fast as he can, trying not to get caught-up in what’s going on in the feeds until he can do something about it.
Lucas reaches the door from which he emerged, only to find that it’s swung shut and is locked from the outside. He wrenches on the knob for a moment, then gives up and heads for the stair.
“No!” Condy shouts, momentarily distracted from coding. “Just stay downstairs until I can—”
Io appears behind the waiting Drews, moving stealthily, easing closer. Her hands have become long, black blades with wicked tips.
Warrior instinct alerts the tall man. He glances over his shoulder, sees her.
Switches open his hammer.
Io twists away from the blue light, covering her face, body contorting. She isn’t meant to be this close to it. Her legs fail, and she collapses.
For ten long, silent seconds, Drews stands over her, contemplating her writhing form.
Lucas appears at the top of the stairs, though still trapped behind the black-barred gate. He carries Drews’ captive
in his arms.
The tall man slams the open hammer into the wall—
The screen goes white.
“Fuck!” Condy shouts. He’s on his feet, face pushed close to the screen. “Dammit, dammit—”
Just as abruptly as it failed, the feed returns. Where Io lay, a mound of red and pink rice is slowly collapsing, spilling out of her shirt and pants and shoes. Behind the gate, Lucas is on his knees, furiously wiping and scrubbing at his arms and chest. His rescued damsel has disintegrated all over his front, and she pours down his shirt and fills his pockets like human-colored sand.
Drews stands silent, his back turned to the other man’s distress. The tall man’s shape is somehow darker in the feed, a burn in time.
Condy touches the screen, prays for Io and her sister to reconstitute, to sit up, to do something. But he already knows what he’s looking at; his mind conjures words like ‘human soup’ and ‘obliterated’. He sits down and sobs, then breaks down crying uncontrollably.
The loss of the girls is too much, this failure too complete, Drews’ victory too final. He puts his face in his hands and loses himself in grief.
(Lucas has finally remembered that he has a gun. There’s a muzzle flare from behind the bars, and Drews jerks and falls.)
There is no way to recover from this; the only solution would be to somehow reverse it.
His eye catches on the laptop, and through tears he stares at it.
“Oh,” he moans, and then he’s rushing for the surveillance room door, locking it from the inside. “Oh, please, let there be a way!”
The next few minutes are a blur as Condy focuses on the laptop’s myriad windows. He requests a bid on resurrection for Io, but the software can’t lock on to her body, either because she’s been reduced to her disparate cells (needles), or because the needles are from another dimension and icky to whoever’s doing the entropy-reversal.
He receives a bid for reversing entropy on the entire facility. (The price is high, but it’s also in a galactic currency he doesn’t yet understand, so fuck it.) He plays around with the numbers, does some napkin math, and reluctantly decides it’s the best option.
New Night (Gothic Book 2) Page 14