Morte

by Robert Repino

  MORT(E) STOOD IN the Martinis’ basement again. The message about Sheba was on the wall. Sunlight entered through the windows. But it was cold, and Sheba was not there. Still, he felt relieved. The initial shocks of the device were beginning to subside. He controlled his brain’s reaction, but he was not ready to communicate yet. He no longer had a connection to the real world. He could not feel his finger stumps pressing into his hands. For all he knew, he was standing there with his mouth open, already surrounded by Wawa’s soldiers. He closed his eyes and tried to focus. Maybe he would survive this after all, even if the quarantine killed him and everyone else the next day.

  He opened his eyes. The basement had now returned to its prewar state. The graffiti was gone. Sitting in her favorite spot, in defiance of all those lost years, was Sheba. Mort(e) got closer. She rose like she had on the day he took her on a journey to the attic at the top of the world.

  IDENTIFICATION, she said. But her mouth did not move. Mort(e) felt the word travel through him.

  Now that he had arrived at his happy place, Mort(e) was unable to gain control of his mouth.

  IDENTIFICATION, the voice repeated.

  Mort(e), he said at last. OF dash 2.961630.

  Sheba shuddered like an ancient machine switched on after years of lying dormant. At one point, she even flickered like an image on television.

  COMMUNICATION ENGAGED.

  A clicking sound began, which Mort(e) interpreted as the device’s software kicking in, manifesting itself in the dream world interface he had created.

  I’m … Mort(e) stopped, remembering that he needed to speak in short, declarative sentences. The ants did not communicate in messages that began with personal acknowledgements or ended with question marks.

  Requesting description of EMSAH syndrome. That one sentence was exhausting, leaving him gasping for air.

  Sheba flickered again. BIOWEAPON HUMAN. DEPLOYED. INFECTIOUSSPREADINGCONTAGIOUS. NO CURE. DEADLY. CURE UNKNOWN.

  This was what Yojimbo talked about: you had to keep the questions simple in order to keep the fragmented answers manageable. Sheba blurted out adjectives, all telling Mort(e) what he already knew.

  Acknowledged, Mort(e) said. Sheba stopped. Requesting source of EMSAH.

  HUMANS HUMANITY HUMANKIND.

  Requesting … description of EMSAH infection.

  More clicking and flickering. Then:

  PATHOGEN CONCEPTION-INTRODUCTION TO SUSCEPTIBLE-SUGGESTIBLE SUBJECT.

  Mort(e) sighed at the jargon. Sheba stopped talking.

  Requesting description of EMSAH infection, Mort(e) repeated.

  Sheba began again. ACUTE CEREBELLAR ATAXIA CEREBRAL HYPOXIA. INSERTION POINT SELF-TRANSCENDENCE VESICULAR MONOAMINE TRANSPORTER. ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULI …

  The illusion of the basement began to disintegrate. The faces of the human soldiers appeared in flashes around Sheba.

  NEUROTRANSMITTER INHIBITOR. EUPHORIA-FLYING. LOGICAL FACULTIES DISCARDED. SUBJECT DESIRES [DESPERATE-WANTING] DEATH-LIFE. SOCIAL PATTERN REINITIALIZED. NEW CONSTRUCT …

  Death-life?

  Acknowledged, Mort(e) said. Sheba stopped talking. For a moment, the flickering images of the human soldiers stopped. Requesting explanation of death-life.

  The muzzle flashes returned as the translator processed the request, blinking in synch with the clicking noise.

  LIFEDEATH​LIFEDEATH​LIFEDEATH​LIFEDEATH​LIFEDEATH​LIFEDEATH​LIFEDEATH.

  Death-life is life-death? That doesn’t make any—

  REPEAT.

  Requesting explanation of relationship between EMSAH and death-life.

  EMSAH IS DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT DELUDEDPOLLUTEDCONTAMINATED WITH DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT BECOMES DEATH-LIFE.

  What?

  DEATH-LIFE BECOMES SUBJECT. OVERLOAD. SOCIAL REINITIALIZATION FAILURE INEVITABLE.

  Requesting explanation of relationship between subject and death-life.

  SUBJECT ENTERS DEATH-LIFE. OVERLOAD. DEATH-LIFE OVERRIDE. LOGICAL FACULTIES DISCARDED.

  Requesting explanation of relationship between logical faculties and death-life.

  Sheba tilted her head as if being tempted with a treat. INCOMPATIBLEIMPOSSIBLE.

  So death-life was not logical now?

  Requesting description of final stages of EMSAH.

  Sheba did not hesitate: NO-NAME WAR.

  Requesting explanation of relationship between EMSAH and Mort(e) OF 2.961630.

  Mort(e) blinked once to find himself in the Martinis’ living room, standing before the mirror. But in the reflection, Daniel’s son Michael stared at him. He wore the translator, his eyes vacant like a doll’s.

  SEBASTIAN, he said. Then he repeated it, only this time stretching each syllable out in a screeching sound, like the twisting beams of a collapsing building.

  The noise made Mort(e) wince. Sheba’s barking cut through the sound. When Mort(e) opened his eyes, he was in the basement again, his safe place. Sheba was with him once more. There was a subtlety in her voice that he recognized. It was the same impatient tone she used on that morning when she gave birth to her little ones. She was begging him to understand something, and losing hope that he would.

  The sound of it nearly made him weep like a human. He searched for a way out. The staircase was gone. The windows sealed up. The lights dimmed. Sheba vanished. In her place stood a bearded man painted in shimmering silver and dressed in a long robe. The ring floating around his head made Mort(e) recognize him: St. Jude, the little man from the medallion worn by the old female dog, Olive. He stared at Mort(e) with metal eyes, the pupils smoothed out.

  MORT(E) COULD FEEL breath moving in and out of him. The oxygen permeated his entire body and then released from random apertures along his sides. He could move several appendages at once—he waved arms above his head and stretched another pair of arms that were linked to his waist. There was nothing unnatural about it. He accepted that this was how he was put together. He realized that he was experiencing things from the perspective of an insect. An ant.

  The Queen.

  A shiver of chemical signals told him that he was in a chamber. There were others arrayed about him, standing in a semicircle. Massive worker ants. The ants held smaller ones—baby Alphas, yes—in their jaws. Their chemicals made contact with Mort(e)’s antennae, stimulating his brain with scents, sounds, written words, throbbing pain, colors—all at once.

  One of the workers offered a little one for him to inspect. Mort(e) extended his claws to the small creature. He cradled it. The Alpha spoke to him in rudimentary chemical phrases, signaling recognition and acquiescence to authority. And acceptance of whatever fate was in store for her.

  Mort(e) understood that he was not simply communicating with the Queen—he was living her memories, absorbing each moment in her thousands of years of life. This larva he held would be given the same data. It would spill outward from the Queen’s brain.

  Moments from her life flowed past him. A march through the desert. An animal devoured by a horde of the Queen’s daughters. A tunnel winding into itself, then veering into an infinite number of directions. A parade of human artifacts taken from the surface—pages torn from books, a match, a thimble.

  And then there was another Queen before him, a sickly thing, dying. The Misfit, Daughter of the Lost One.

  As their antennae touched, Mort(e) felt the agony of thousands of years of despair and solitude. The current of memories stopped, coagulating into a pool around him. Mort(e) could not control himself—he sank his jaws into his (her) mother’s head and tore it off. The claws scratched at the massive fatal wound. The Misfit’s body slumped over.

  Mort(e) saw everything now.

  He felt the Queen’s rage against the humans. It welled up inside and became a part of her. The anger stitched her exoskeleton together, kept her blood pumping all these years. Mort(e) couldn’t breathe. It was like a choir of dying human children screaming in his ear, or a white-hot flame sucking in all the oxygen around it. The Queen liv
ed with this every moment. She relived it every moment. She was shackled to the past. There was no rest. Mort(e) tried to scream. The children’s broken voices burst from his mouth. Cries for help were no good here. He was lost. His body would be a shell, his mind absorbed into the Colony. A drop of ink in a pool of water, dispersed into nothingness.

  He thought of Sheba dying somewhere. Sheba. Sheba would save him. If not for that thought, Mort(e) would have forgotten everything and melted away. He closed the jaws of his mechanical insect mouth. He had to speak like an ant, think like an ant. He felt himself choking. But he concentrated and at last spoke again in the chemical language of the ants:

  Requesting description of EMSAH syndrome.

  A VIRUS ENTERS a bacterium. The virus multiplies. The bacterium adapts. The virus overtakes it.

  The bacterium dies.

  A virus enters a bacterium. Many viruses enter many bacteria. Many bacteria die. Many survive. Their defensive systems adapt, destroying the virus. But the bacteria have changed. They move differently, react to outsiders with more hostility. They cling to those that are similar, exchanging nutrients with them. They grope for the light as one.

  The bacteria evolve.

  A SCHOOL OF fish. Moving as a unit, silver strands of thread in the water. They are starving. Hunted. Drawn to an ancient place. Mindlessly driven by their senses. They are picked off by predators. By disease. By exhaustion. They arrive at this sacred location, the place of their birth. Their senses confirm it, the chemicals pouring through their gills. Their brains pulse with excitement. They begin the ritual as one. Ravenous, they mate, their sperm and eggs exploding into the water, christening it with the chemical signals of their clan.

  PRIMATES DESCEND FROM trees. The leaves blot out the sun. They gather to watch a battle between the alpha male and a challenger. The alpha has ruled for three seasons, like his father before him. But this is a different time, when the trees have begun to die out. The rains have become less frequent. Predators have grown more aggressive. They smell weakness.

  The challenger waits for his opportunity. When the alpha lunges for him, the challenger dodges and pounces. The sycophants jump with delight, with the same mindless glee they would show for the alpha. The challenger seizes the advantage and pummels the leader until provoking a desperate squeal for mercy. The alpha is banished. His blood stinks of defeat. The challenger becomes the new leader. The others whoop and holler. They reach out to touch the coat of the new king. The females fawn over him, clawing at one another to claim him. The little ones offer scraps of food. The new leader holds his hands out to his subjects. He will protect them. But he will also prevent the next challenger from arising.

  A MAN KNEELS in prayer, wearing sandals and a robe. His village is under attack. An ant infestation. The elders have gone mad. They have already taken the whores to be sacrificed. But that has not satisfied their gods. So they took some of the wives, the disagreeable ones who blamed the men for the invasion. Now they have taken children to the altar. Screaming little ones, with scraped knees and elbows. The man’s daughter is dead at the steps of the altar, the last sacrifice before sundown. The high priest smears her entrails on his forehead, then wipes the gore onto the heads and shoulders of the firstborn males. A symbol of strength and purity. The others beat drums. The women wail and lament. The man is sad but hopeful. Surely this will be enough to sate the gods’ thirst for blood. Surely he will see his daughter again. They will race to each other across a breezy field of wheat. They will embrace in the shade of a passing cloud.

  Yojimbo had said this would happen. Mort(e) had gone as deep as he could, and now backed out of the layers one at a time. He passed through the membrane that led to the Queen’s lair. One moment, he was in her head, surveying her empire. The next, he was one of her daughters, a baby Alpha being presented for her communion ritual. The Queen held him, her antennae probing. And then she lifted him to her jaws and crunched down, slicing his soft exoskeleton in half. Alarms sounded. But then another signal came through from the Queen, ordering him to be still, to embrace this essential role for the Colony. Death would bring forth new life.

  MORT(E)’S MOUTH OPENED, but he could not speak. He was in the basement again. He was alone, though he could still smell Sheba. And Michael.

  He swallowed.

  DARKNESS AGAIN. ENOUGH light to see. The bunker is secure. The iron scent of blood hangs in the air. Sticking to fur and skin. A bullet has grazed Mort(e)’s right hand. Bruises and cuts on his body from the fall through the ceiling. No pain yet. That comes later.

  Culdesac reloads his gun. The others have their orders. Red Sphinx soldiers collect weapons from the dead humans. Mort(e) approaches him. Culdesac does not need to hear any encouraging words. Mort(e) stands nearby until Culdesac finishes with the gun. “They killed Tiberius,” Culdesac says. Voice all gravelly. He has not used the name Tiberius in months. Only Socks.

  “This one’s alive, sir,” someone says. The soldiers gather around a dying human. The sound of congested, labored breathing. Frightened, exhausted eyes gaze up from the ground. There is a piece of metal on the man’s chest. A necklace.

  Everyone stares at him to see if they recognize him. From before. They do not. But the man’s fear is familiar. Mort(e) kneels down. The man reaches out a bloody hand to him. Mort(e) wonders if this is the man who fired the shot that killed Tiberius (Socks). “Lord,” the man says. “Lord, forgive these wretched creatures. They know not what they do.” Mort(e)’s eyes lock on the metal object. It is a medallion with the image of a man with a sun standing behind his head. Culdesac aims his rifle at the human. “Yes, we do, you choking liar,” he says. Culdesac fires. A spray of blood and bone. The body jerks and then lies still. A red drop covers the medallion. The silver man with the sun behind him is submerged.

  MORT(E) FELT THE urge to spit. He lay facedown in the dirt at the feet of the Alpha soldier. He coughed in order to expel the mud from his open mouth. The Queen’s hatred lifted from his body like steam, leaving him wet and shivering. It was impossible, he thought. How could she even still be alive with all that going on inside her? He hated her. He couldn’t resist adopting what appeared to be her only emotion, cultivated and harnessed over thousands of years. He hated her and he wanted her to die.

  He propped himself up on his forearms. The crowd was still watching the ships. Culdesac stood at the podium, ready to begin his speech. As Mort(e) had expected, the entire procedure had taken only a few seconds.

  “Are you all right?” came a voice behind him. A male cat and his two daughters stood nearby. Mort(e) simultaneously got to his feet and removed the device, holding it at his side, pretending it was just a hat. He caught his breath.

  “We saw you fall,” the cat said.

  “Requesting explanation—”

  “What?”

  Mort(e) had to refocus all over again. The act of standing up made him dizzy. “I’m okay,” he said at last. He inhaled deeply to fight off a wave of nausea. “I’m okay,” he repeated.

  “Do you need—”

  “No.”

  One of the little ones asked, “Daddy, why did he fall down?” In the distance, Culdesac’s amplified voice began talking about the new order. But it was all clanks and whistles and buzzes to Mort(e). He was already running home.

  Bonaparte’s cell was larger than his old room. Still, the doctor tending to him—a bear named Rigel—could barely fit inside. She had to stoop to get through the gate and could not stand up straight while she checked Bonaparte’s vital signs. It was another inexplicable case—no physical symptoms, not even a fever—but the pig had definitely lost his mind.

  Wawa waited outside the cell, in the long hallway of the detention block, wearing a hazmat suit. A respirator covered her snout. Two dog soldiers waited alongside her.

  When Rigel was finished, the soldiers locked the cell, and all four of them walked into a decontamination area, where special hoses sprayed bleach-tinged water on their suits. Rigel laughed when
she saw the crude apparatus. She asked Wawa if this was actually meant to keep the infection in or out.

  “Just tell me what you found,” Wawa said, removing her respirator.

  There was no change in Bonaparte’s condition. He was under light sedation—still awake, but his plans to defect to the human resistance would be on hold for a while.

  “So when does it start?” Rigel asked.

  “When does what start?” Wawa replied, knowing full well that Rigel was referring to the quarantine.

  A loud bang in Bonaparte’s cell prevented Rigel from responding. Wawa put her mask on again and went into the hallway, with Rigel and the soldiers trailing behind her. When they arrived at the cell, they found that Bonaparte had toppled to the floor, having flipped over his cot. He tried to stand up, still woozy from the sedatives.

  “Get up, soldier,” Wawa said.

  “This isn’t boot camp,” Rigel said. “You have to—”

  “Quiet. We’ve got enough problems around here without you running your mouth.”