Something falls down the wall next to him. He squints down into the corner and sees a little black thread lying lifeless on the floor. The appleseed-sized eye has turned milky and begun to disintegrate.
(Drews has stopped moving, and blood slowly spreads across the floor around him. The mass of flesh-colored needles in the middle of the corridor is now spread flat and bears no resemblance to a human. On the other side of the barred gate, Lucas sits holding his head in silence.)
It takes a frustratingly long time to put together the request package. He takes into account as many variables as possible, writes out the request script, factors for entropic allowances . . . He has to be careful about how far back to reverse entropy, lest someone having entered the facility end up never having entered it, thereby canceling out their existence. He decides to rewind to the moment right after Io appeared in the barracks, before she stepped back across into the other world. He prays she’ll stay over there this time.
(Lucas goes back down the stairs and starts trying doors in the sub-basement, looking for a portal. Locked. Locked. Locked. He returns to the foot of the stair, then abruptly sits down on the floor and rests his back against the wall. He notices the camera, gazes up into it. He can still feel the girl’s body falling apart in his arms, can still hear the little gasp she sucked in before her brain crumbled.)
Just before he executes the command, Condy realizes that reversing time won’t change much unless he also gives their past selves a leg-up. After examining the sequence of events from multiple angles for an entire twenty-seven seconds, his thoughts keep returning to Drews’ hammer.
So, for the first time, he programs a curse.
Of course, his past self will have no knowledge of these events. Neither will Drews, nor Lucas, nor Io, nor the young lady in the tank. Condy can tweak a few things, try to give them a better chance at success, but . . .
. . . there is the matter of the portals. This much entropic reversal will definitely tear open portals inside the facility. He’s now seen Lucas and Io use them to gain entry without inviting monsters in after them, but he can’t be sure that with this many portals, sharps won’t immediately fill every room.
He’s probably only fucking them all even harder. Even once he’s finished modifying the code, he hesitates to hit ‘ENTER’. There’s a good chance that once he restores the inside of the facility to a previous save point, he will be killed.
BAM BAM BAM. “Open this door!” Now that the appleseed tendrils aren’t holding the doors shut, the soldiers have escaped their barracks. A few stalk around Io’s remains and take up stations at the top of the stair; one kneels and checks Drews’ pulse while another inputs a code to open the gate.
(In the sub-basement, Lucas looks up, listens to the increasing noise coming from the stairwell. His hand lifts the gun, and then he stares at it, asking himself what to do.)
And yet, Condy hesitates.
With a booming kick, a soldier breaks down the surveillance room door. “Freeze!”
One last time, Condy’s eyes scan over the huge paragraph he’s typed out in a desktop note. No human inside the facility will have any memory of these last few minutes, but the laptop’s entropy will be unaffected. Maybe, if they survive this, they’ll read this note and understand.
“Don’t let him do anything with that fucking laptop!”
Condy feels a bullet pierce his lung but his finger is on the key
—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 all crowded up against the door, pounding on it and shouting to be let out.
Buried in Io’s backpack, the laptop lets a shrill beep. A few soldiers look her way, then stare, mouths open.
Io turns around and hurries back through. “Close that portal!” she shouts up at Zechariah. “There are soldiers—”
Within the lattice, Zechariah is shrieking in agony. The guardian’s tendrils float tentatively in the air around the writhing black pod.
“Leave him alone!” she screams, stomping toward the edge of the pit.
A tendril darts across the darkness and lays itself heavily across the top of her head. The connection is relatively faint with all the skin and hair in the way, but she hears in her mind:
More Ways Have Opened.
In the forest guardian’s psychic vision, she sees the plains to the north, at the foot of the mountain she has affectionately named Erebor. Those grassy hills were the staging ground of the invasion of Earth all those months ago — wild monsters made of needles, all pouring into the city of Gothic. Now their populations are reduced, but more migrate in every day.
Something has just opened a metric fuckton of portals there. Monsters are about to flood Gothic once more, possibly overwhelming the soldiers and fences. And Zechariah — whose screaming has gone hoarse but is no less stricken — is no longer able to control them, is being consumed by them.
I Will Bring You To Him.
You Will Take His Place.
You Will Close the Ways.
Io bares her teeth in frustration.
Slowly, she takes off the backpack and sets it in the dirt.
Lucas’ heart pounds in his chest. As he runs, he grips Drews’ stolen sidearm with both hands, keeps it pointed at the floor.
Nothing but empty corridors. No sign of Io. He turns a corner and sees a heavy metal door up ahead. It looks frighteningly secure, the kind of door meant to hold back an alien monster.
Black spines spread across its face, and there comes a shuddering clunk. The door swings inward drunkenly.
He slows to a stop and peers at the black vines, sees that they lead back down the corridor along the ceiling. There are little black eyes here and there, twitching and staring down at him. His spine turns to ice, and he wonders what fresh monster is about to attack him—
The long thorns retract from the door, clearing a path for him. They beckon him forward, then disappear back into the room, leaving only the single vine of eyes.
Slowly, cautiously, he leans forward and peers into the pitch-black room. A flood lamp sits near the door; he crouches and switches it on.
The room is alive with tendrils and their shadows. Beyond them are the tanks. Each is the size of a standing refrigerator. Two are empty and still, but the third jars back and forth, full of water and a desperate prisoner.
Black spines cover most of its surface, waving eagerly in the air. Tendrils rip and pull at the latch, frantic — and apparently blind. They’re doing damage, but are in greater danger of reinforcing the lock than opening it.
Lucas’ legs are paralyzed with horror. Adrenaline buzzes in his ears and down into his hands. He wants to pull the door shut, wants to run and hide—
As he watches, the tendrils calm down a bit and explore the lock carefully. They test and prod, feeling out its exterior shapes.
There’s no way Drews has captured a sharp that intelligent. Unless it’s as smart as a human. Or unless it’s a human, unless it’s Io’s sister, they’re keeping Io’s sister in a tank—
Despite the acid in the back of his throat, he steps forward, over the threshold and into the claustrophobic little room. There’s a cinder block on the floor; he grabs it up with a free hand and props the door open with it.
Then he approaches the tank, aims his flashlight through the dim view-pane. The unmoving figure suspended inside is hard to see through the murky water inside the tank, but after only a few moments, he curses, “Pinche psicópata, you really put a human being in there.” Louder, “If you can hear me, and if you’re still . . . If you’re not going to kill me, get those spines off the door. I don’t want to touch them.”
The needles immediately pull back from the latch, gathering at the hinges and toward the top of the tank.
Lucas swallows hard, then approaches the tank. Gingerly, he feels out the latch mechanism and pulls experimentally. With a sharp pop, a seal is broken, and orange-glitter
ing water pours forth in a violent torrent. He jumps back, but his boots are quickly soaked, and the little room begins to flood.
He holsters the gun under his belt, behind his back. There’s no higher ground or even a box to stand on, so he’s forced to pray that the water isn’t radioactive or contaminated. Everything smells like metal. “Hello? Are you in there?”
The water reaches his shins and then stops; wading closer, he pulls the door the rest of the way open.
Inside, hanging from the tank ceiling, is a large, black chrysalis. Its shape is vaguely humanoid, and it writhes slowly against its bonds.
Lucas’ heart hammers. He wonders if this trapped and cornered thing will know better than to rip him apart and fill his intestines with needles. Nothing could remain suspended in this horrible state for — didn’t Io say it’s been a month? He’s sure that would drive even the most level mind to shrieking madness.
The creature’s mouth, once frozen in a jaw-broken scream, slowly closes. Under the tight surface of the black mesh, he recognizes a human face. Pity overwhelms him, forces out his fear; he grabs the release mechanism on the tank’s ceiling and pulls.
The black sack drops heavily into the bottom of the tank. It’s still moving slightly, but seems to understand that he is trying to help.
He gets his hands around the hook at the crown of the chrysalis and, with a heave, drags it out of the tank. The water is draining off somewhere, but slowly; he squats awkwardly in the water in order to keep the prisoner’s ‘head’ up. He digs his fingers into the sack, trying to figure out how to open it. He can’t help but notice that the mesh is very warm, and heating up by the second—
The top of the sack opens, and a horrible flesh-rotting smell smashes Lucas in the nose. He jumps to his feet, dropping the sack into the water, and turns to the wall just in time to vomit. Only twice in his police career was he exposed to a decayed corpse, and that stench was nothing compared to this. He sucks in breaths, only to have that awful smell invade his body, making him heave and spit and cough and choke.
The water around the sack churns. Underneath furious bubbles, the surface turns from black to copper. He finally realizes why the water level is dropping: The thing is absorbing it, using the sack to filter out the bits of copper presumably included to bitter the water.
Lucas shudders and spits, trying to clean his mouth. “Are you okay?” he asks hoarsely. “Do you need—”
After an eternity of sensory deprivation, my skin tastes water and goes into a frenzy, absorbing it faster than I can filter it. It tastes so bad, and yet I can’t get enough. After endless days and nights of sipping just barely enough to sustain myself while remaining undetected, I soak my withered body in this ocean of metal.
The containment sac is nearly off. The water is a horrible weight pressing in all around me, and eventually, my thirst is no longer strong enough to keep me there.
With a panicked thrash, I explode up out of the water.
Feet. I remember having feet, standing on them. I get them under me, only to collapse into the water again. My second try lasts longer before I crash again; by the third, I’m standing, albeit on shaky knees. My hand finds the tank on my right; I’d like to obliterate it, but for now, I need something to lean on.
I’m blinded by water, gasping and spitting. My scalp has rebuilt itself, and itches horribly as hair sprouts from forehead to ear to nape. Everything, including the inside of my mouth and the small of my back, tastes like pennies. I’m going to be shitting copper for days.
I’m out.
A panicked scream tears from my throat, and I cling to the tank lest my shaking send me back into the water. Skin, I have skin now. I’m breathing air. Another childish cry whines out of my mouth. Freedom is somehow worse now, when every tiny movement and sound can send me crashing down pathways of disaster—
Behind me, muffled by water in my ears, “Do you want my jacket?”
Oh.
I’m naked.
Oh, fuck. They put me in containment naked. Drews, you sicko fucking pervert. My scream this time is outraged, ending in a shuddering sob.
Something leathery settles over my shoulders. Startled, I shrink away, nearly knocking the object off. But it’s warm, and it partly covers my nakedness. With my isolation-heightened sense of smell, I’m nearly bowled over by the scent of sweat that permeates the jacket.
I turn, still leaning heavily against the tank, and manage to slip my arms into the jacket’s sleeves. Shaking almost too hard to work my hands properly — and still suffering from a lack of skin over large parts of my body — I reach down and find that I’m now covered down to my thighs. I pull it shut in the front and cross my emaciated arms.
Breaths come easier now, interspersed with convulsive sobs — but I can feel my rational mind kicking in, sublimating my panic and grief in favor of survival. I can finally see, though my eyes are still repairing themselves. (Vitreous bodies were among the first organs I raided for water.) The room is blurry, almost as bad as appleseed-vision. I’m standing in water.
There’s a man standing a few steps away — the one who appeared outside, who opened the tank. My height. Hispanic. Mid-thirties. He watches me, probably trying to decide how to make me trust him.
“Are you alright?” he asks, and he moves a little closer.
I don’t dare try to speak yet; my vocal cords are still covered in needle scaffolding. I wonder what I must look like to him — he expected a weapon and instead gets me, rotted and trembling and not-sane.
“My name is Lucas,” he says, holding his hands palm-open to indicate peace. “I’m getting you out of here. Can you walk?”
My head spins, and I nearly sink to my knees. Just a little longer. I just need some time.
“There may be soldiers on the way. We need to get moving—”
Croak, goes my throat. I cough, hack, spit, groan softly, sniffle, and then swallow. “Whhhhh-who—” I shake my head. “Who d-do you w-w-work for?”
“FEMA,” he answers without hesitation.
I start to ask something else, then pause, processing. “F-FEMA?”
“The Federal Emergency Management Agen—”
“I nn-know what FEMA s-stands for, Telenovela.” I clear my throat, relieved that my panic has taken a back seat for now. “And I’m b-both impressed and insulted by your fff-fucking absurd cover story. Who do you really work for?”
He looks confused. “How is it absurd?”
“You blew in here like Jason Bourne, and now you tell me you’re one of the hurricane people?”
“I used to work for Gothic PD, until . . . you know. Now I work security.”
“For FEMA.”
He shrugs wide. “They have things to secure, too! Look, I’m serious, there are probably soldiers storming down that corridor. We need to go.”
“Go where? Back to your government? And I don’t mean FEMA. I mean your real government.” Realization strikes me: “Or maybe a cartel. There’s no way I’m being kidnapped so you can take me to Mexico and—”
“What?” He stares at me, putting on an excellent show of being dumbfounded. “That’s not only stupid, that’s fucking racist!”
I jerk a bony thumb over my shoulder at the tank I’m leaning against. “Excuse me for my well-justified paranoia.”
He presses his lips together and takes a deep breath. “I understand that you’ve had a very hard time lately. I’m so sorry for what this asshole has done to you. You’re right; your paranoia is completely justified. But I have to make you understand: I’m an American citizen, I work for FEMA, and Io sent me. You can trust me.”
I frown at him, fighting not to get thrown off by his distraction tactics but curious all the same. “Who the hell is Io?”
Io rides the guardian’s black tendrils up over the pit, to the platform at the top of the spire. She sets her feet on its edge and, with the guardian holding her safely in place, digs at the lattice with her fingers. There are razor-sharp edges hidden in its spines
; she’s forced to armor her hands, making them large and pitch-black and clumsy.
The top of a human head is visible, though its hair is jet, not Zechariah’s blond. As she forcibly peels back the lattice, she uncovers the back of his head, then a shoulder. The material slowly yields, recognizing that it will soon have a new operator.
Her confusion and horror mount as she realizes that this is not Zechariah. Inside the lattice, he has transformed. His hair and brows are dark, his features sharp. As she frees his face, his eyes slide open. Black pinpricks stare up at her out of once-blue eyes.
He whispers a name that she has not heard in a long time.
Before her needle-transformation into Io — before the endless running and hiding — before the agony of knowing her blood-sister was locked in containment — she had called herself Veronica.
There came a final day, the last day anyone would call her that name for a very long time. It was also the day of the Army’s final expedition across Fortuna.
Veronica had designated herself a lookout, and was walking far ahead of the convoy. She crested a grassy hill and stopped, hands on her hips, looking out over the southern grasslands. More than ever, she loved the name ‘Fortuna’ for this place, and was considering bringing it up to the Director.
But first, there was this latest expedition, the farthest to date. In the southeastern distance, right in the middle of the green expanse, a black forest spread out toward a floodplain. The wood, their destination. The sight of it brought on an excitement tinged with dread.
When first brought to FOB Abbott back on Earth, Veronica had been short and white and pudgy. Months of fighting monsters on both planets had slimmed her down, but more importantly, her needle symbiote had brought with it a talent for modifying her own body. She was now a head taller, and growing every day. The researchers noticed and took measurements, but she pretended it was happening without her control.
New Night (Gothic Book 2) Page 15