Maxim squinted at her, but it was impossible to tell.
“Still a rookie,” Maxim grumbled. “Who puts such green troops in the field?”
“This area has already been suppressed,” the girl explained, leaning away from the pistol. “It was supposed to be a routine patrol. A safe assignment!”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
The girl hesitated, and then smiled at him, gently nudging the gun away from her face.
“I know this isn’t a good moment for either of us,” she said, looking at him intently. “I think it’s important, though, for you to know that I want to live, Maxim.”
“How did you…?”
“Mostly empathy, with a little telepathy as a bonus,” she said, pushing the gun down by his side. “I want to live. I will do anything to make that happen.”
Maxim sighed and looked down at the gun, her hand resting on top of his.
“Goddamn it,” he said, holstering the pistol. “I should have shot you first.”
“You don’t need to do that. I’m going to be very helpful,” she said, her hand still on his, for some reason. “You need to contact someone in Central, right? I can help you. I know where there’s an intact relay and a fixed apport station. I can help you avoid the patrols along the way, and help you get past the guards.”
Maxim swore to himself.
“Why should I trust you?”
“Don’t be silly! You couldn’t help yourself if you tried.”
***
Gaul sat alone in his office, looking out at the Labrador Sea, which had been full of whitecaps and swollen breakers at dawn, when he had first arrived, but was now placid and calm.
Eerily calm, Gaul thought, with absolutely no humor.
He had not slept the night before, despite the burdens of remote psychic surgery, multiple streams of thought competing for time and attention in his overheated brain. He felt the absence of the Network like a lost limb, incomplete calculations and unsupported theories lingering in his mind like phantom pain.
His chief of staff was professional and apologetic, when he interrupted Gaul to show him the broadcast of the slaughtered patrol and Maxim Yurchenko’s bloody warning. The chief of staff waited until after the telepathic broadcast was shared before admitting that Gabriela had been with the patrol, and then left quickly after the admission, to organize troops and begin a search that Gaul knew would be fruitless.
Not because that was the future he had foreseen, but rather by dint of long experience.
His precognition did not extend to family members – or, more frustratingly and mysteriously, to Emily Muir and Anastasia Martynova – and this failing had given Gaul a profound dislike for dealing with what was to him a sort of invisibility.
Gaul brooded over the children he had failed – Brandon, Lóa, and now Gabriela.
He wondered what his brother would have thought, if he had been alive to see the mess he had made of everything, and if he still would have killed himself and obligated Gaul to take over the cartel.
The night had passed slowly, poring over figures and field updates, transferring troops and securing locations, and the day was moving no faster. A telepathically repressed migraine lurked at the back of his mind, waiting to cripple him at a moment of weakness, and his implant was hot enough to cook on.
Lost in contemplation of the dead and the likely dead, the soon to be dead and the invisible, Gaul brooded over the sea, which seemed the inverse of his own mental state – still and untroubled by the world of storms and turbulence that surrounded it.
Used to the grey skies of Central, Gaul winced at the clear blue sky and the way the unobstructed sunlight pierced his pink eyes.
Don’t be so down, a telepathic intrusion suggested to him. Maybe I can help?
Your help is not required, Miss Muir, Gaul thought, shelving his active streams of thought, and disguising his shock at her ability to sidestep his defenses and early-warning systems. I had been told that the disturbance in the Ether…
Yes, yes. Long-distance telepathy is impossible. This conversation is quite painful for me, so I’d appreciate it if we could make it brief.
Whatever other lies the young woman trafficked in, the pain was real. Gaul’s migraine was already bull-rushing its way to the front of his mind, pushing aside thoughts and perceptions to make room for a skull’s worth of agony.
That’s fine by me, Gaul thought, suppressing the pain. What is it that you want?
I want to visit your family home in Iceland. I’ve heard you have the most intriguing baths there, beneath your manor, and I was thinking I would like to take the waters. Do you understand?
I’m afraid that I don’t. There is nothing beneath the house save the family crypt.
Oh, my. I know that it was a big family secret forever, but when poor Brennan Thule made his desperate play for Anastasia and imprisoned her down there, that let the cat out of the bag, don’t you think? It was not a complete surprise, in any case. There have always been rumors about your family’s eccentricities, and their possible source.
It’s never nice to find out that people are talking behind your back.
Take heart, Lord Thule. That sort of jealousy is a form of flattery.
You do not know what you are asking. The waters beneath the manor are poisoned, Miss Muir.
I am very difficult to poison, I assure you.
There are worse things than poison. Assuming you survive, you will be permanently altered by the experience. Some are driven mad.
And some become irrational. Isn’t that right? I’m prepared to roll the dice, Lord Thule.
With the disturbance in the Ether, I don’t see how you could make the trip.
Marcus has taught me all about the shortcuts. It’s a bit of a bother, true, but I think the trouble will be worth it.
You are asking a great deal, Miss Muir. What is it that you are offering in return?
I’ve just finished inventorying some of the odds and ends that I inherited, when I took residence here at the Far Shores. Are you familiar with Dr. Graaf? The scientist who did much of the pioneering work on culturing World Tree cells? He had some very interesting things in his laboratory, locked in a hidden floor safe. Very interesting.
Such as?
I’m not sharing most of it, but the part that might interest you is made of titanium and surgical steel and is exactly the right size to tuck in just above the spinal column.
The implant, Gaul thought, unable to suppress the wave of pure exhaustion that rolled through him. I always wondered what had happened to it.
I’d say that Dr. Graff has a lot to answer for. Don’t you agree, Lord Thule?
Intelligence would indicate that Dr. Graaf is incarcerated at a Black Sun science camp in the Gobi Desert.
Working on Ana’s nanite synthesis project, no doubt. Well, if that’s the case, then perhaps Dr. Graaf has already answered for his sins.
Get to the point, Miss Muir. You have an implant you can’t do anything with. I already have one, myself. Am I supposed to be interested in another?
I already know that you are interested, Emily thought. That’s not all I have to offer, however. You may be the precognitive of the two of us, but I have a premonition that something very final is about to happen to a certain resource here in Central. And once that happens, I’ll be the only source for that unique commodity.
Gaul walked from his desk to the window, but instead of looking out at the sea, he rested his aching head against the cool glass.
The invisible, he thought, and the dead.
From one perspective, I’m neither, but from yours, I suppose that I’m both, Emily thought. Isn’t that fun to think about? So, what do you think? Do you mind if a drop by for a little soak?
***
Katya opened the last can of beer while Alex crumpled an empty bag of chips. The buildings of the Far Shores were largely dark and quiet, and that bothered both of them.
“Help me out here,” Alex said, rubbing his numb
eye, unable to completely shake the suspicion that the coldness radiating from it had migrated to the adjacent soft tissue, leaching the sensation from his eyelid and brow. “What do we do next?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“You are older and wiser,” Alex said, grinning. “Plus, you know, I trust you.”
Katya muttered something that sounded like a curse to Alex, maybe in Russian – Ukrainian? – but the lift of her eyebrows made Alex think he might have pleased her.
“I’m not sure what we are supposed to do from here,” Katya said. “There seems to be no way to contact Miss Levy or the Auditors, so that route is closed, assuming we are still on their good side. I can’t get in contact with Timor or Ana, and I’m not sure that I’d want to right now, even if I could. Too many things are unsettled.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“Be quiet, asshole. I’m thinking it out.” Katya took a sip from the can, and then passed it to him. “What do you think Emily and her friends are up to, anyway?”
“I’m not sure. I think maybe they’re trying to set up their own thing, here. Emily said she had something she wanted me to do, but...”
“It’s probably something we don’t want to be involved with.”
“Maybe,” Alex said. “Maybe not.”
“How the fuck is she moving around? Isn’t that impossible right now?”
“I don’t know how she did it, but she just walked us out of the Outer Dark.”
“Walked?”
“Yeah.” Alex shrugged. “We had to hold hands.”
“I think Eerie did that, once. When we were going to the Outer Dark, looking for you. We took this long walk through a forest, for days and days, until...”
“I don’t know if it was the same,” Alex said, frowning. “This was fast. A couple minutes, max.”
“Same difference. What is it that you want to do, Alex?”
“Huh?” Alex frowned deeply. “What do you mean?”
“I mean just that,” Katya said, handing him the can. “People have been telling you what to do since you showed up in Central.”
“Even before that,” Alex pointed out, taking a sparing sip from the can, as his head was already spinning. “Being captured by the Anathema wasn’t the first time I’ve been confined.”
“You know that was your girlfriend’s idea of keeping you safe?”
Alex checked to see if she was serious.
“Wow! No. I did not know that,” Alex said slowly. “That’s a little…”
“Right? Now you get it. Eerie’s…”
“She’s not great with abstract cultural stuff,” Alex said, smiling fondly. “She takes things at face value.”
“You really are nuts for that girl, aren’t you?” Katya marveled. “I’m a little jealous. I hope I find someone willing to let me run roughshod over every aspect of their life one day.”
“That’s a little harsh.” Alex gave her a wounded look. “Don’t you think?”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s also not what we were talking about,” Alex reminded her, returning the beer to Katya. “We were talking about what I wanted.”
“Yeah?” Katya looked at him curiously. “Did you think of something?”
“I can think of several things, actually,” Alex said. “Killing Alistair is right at the top of the list.”
“Alex!”
“Come on! What did you expect? After what he did to Eerie and you, in the Outer Dark, I have to do something! Not to mention what he did to me.”
“He cut you to ribbons last time,” Katya said quietly. “If Eerie hadn’t poisoned him, she and I both would have died in the Outer Dark. I’d be happy to never see the bastard again.”
“You’re smarter than I am,” Alex said, shrugging. “Like I said.”
“I get why you’d be angry. I know what it’s like,” Katya said. “But revenge is dumb, and it isn’t like you, and I don’t like hearing you talking about that sort of thing.”
“Sorry,” Alex said, frowning. “You asked.”
“You should be worried about seeing Eerie again, you idiot,” Katya snapped. “Not revenge.”
“You’re right about that,” Alex said. “I thought we were talking about things that were under my control.”
“Your priorities are all messed up,” Katya said, tossing the can into the vacant common. “What makes you think you can do any better against Alistair now?”
“I didn’t want to kill anyone the last time we fought,” Alex said, with a casual shrug that made Katya’s stomach twist with worry. “Now, I think I really do want to kill him. That’s funny, isn’t it? Eh, maybe it’s not funny at all, now that I think about it. I mean, I never had a problem with hurting people. It never bothered me. I never felt bad. They told me I killed my family,” he said, with the look of someone trying to recall a dream. “I felt bad about it, or at least I felt like I should have felt bad. That wasn’t real, though. Maybe it was guilt over what really happened, but I don’t remember any of that.”
Alex was too involved to notice Katya wincing at the mention.
“I’ve never really felt bad about anything I’ve done. I felt bad for doing something that never even happened, and now that I know it was all fake, it’s just like, why bother? I don’t think I ever really wanted to kill anyone, before,” Alex said. “I thought I did, but everyone does that. I wished people dead, but I never actually considered doing anything about it. After the Program, though, and after what happened to Margot, everything matters less to me. The only thing that seems important is Eerie, and you, and…you know. The people around me. Central, maybe. Does that make sense? Things that seemed important before just aren’t anymore.”
“That’s the whole idea of the Program. That’s what they wanted. Depersonalization.”
“Well, it worked. I killed some guy, I don’t even know if he was Chinese or Taiwanese or…I just killed him, because he was in the way, and left his body in the water for the fucking fish to eat. I barely even thought about it. I felt worse about how everything went down with Emily than I did for killing someone. I had orders, you know? I had a job to do, but that’s just how it was, it’s not the reason why. It’s a fucking joke. They locked me up for killing people who never existed, but I probably would have killed someone eventually. That’s not the Program. That’s not the Auditors. That’s just me, isn’t it? They were right to lock me up. I think I’m missing something, in my head. Something important.”
Katya hugged him, but his arms just stayed limp at his sides.
“Everything that happened to me after that night in the park with the Weir made it easier,” Alex said dreamily, “but it didn’t make me anything I wasn’t already. That’s probably why they wanted me to be an Auditor. They figured they might as well put it to use, if I was already broken. Like Ms. Gallow, or Ms. Aoki. Rebecca knows the inside of my head better than I do. She had to know.”
She squeezed him, and Alex finally seemed to notice she was there, putting his arms around her in a distracted way.
“It’s not that I didn’t want to kill anyone. I just didn’t think that I could,” Alex said. “All I needed was permission. I think about it a lot, these days. About killing Alistair. And it’s not just him, you know? That’s just for starters.”
Two
Daily life in Las Vegas was inverted from the typical city schedule, intense heat during the day and an inordinate amount of tourism making the city functionally nocturnal. In imitation of the native wildlife, Vegas residents hid indoors during daylight hours, homes and offices and car interiors all cooled just short of comfort. Only at night did the population of the city emerge, to bright lights and swimming pools and bars that never closed.
Occupying the storage unit was a bit like taking shelter inside a roasting oven. The Auditors spent the day sprawled across bunks or sitting on the smooth concrete floor, stripped to their underwear and coated with sweat. They took turns using and then refilling the makesh
ift shower, hurriedly washing and shampooing in the few minutes of lukewarm water, but there was nothing to do with their field gear and clothing after they changed aside from shoving it in a corner, and then trying to ignore the reek of body odor and smoke that the pile emitted.
The hottest part of the afternoon left them silent and grumpy. Alice sat in front of the open refrigerator, ignoring the increasingly shrill sound of the interior fan, while Xia lurked nearby, occasionally blotting his forehead and neck with tissues. Min-jun stood naked in the shower, allowing only the smallest flow of water to pour over his head and down his back. Hayley lay across the top of one of the bunk beds, her bare legs hanging off one side, a laptop open and forgotten beside her. Grigori sat beside the giant industrial fan in the corner of the room, hunched over and pale.
“It could be worse,” Alice said. “Becca could be here.”
“Ms. Levy?” Grigori barely managed to raise his head. “Why would that be worse?”
“Becca smokes,” Alice said, leaning her head back into the refrigerator and smiling. “All the time, and even more when she is bored. This place has no ventilation at all. Can you imagine?”
“That sounds awful,” Hayley said crossly, staring up at the bare ceiling. “Why would you let her smoke inside?”
“You can’t stop Becca from doing anything,” Alice explained. “She’ll just do whatever she wants to do – and what’s worse, she’ll make you like it. After a couple hours, she’ll have you asking her to light up.”
The evening took its sweet time coming. Hayley painted her nails purple, the solvent odor earning her no friends. When Hayley went to use the shower, Alice snatched the nail polish from her bunk, and after long consideration, set about applying it to her toenails.
Grigori’s eyes widened in disbelief, but Min-jun clapped him on the shoulder before he could say anything. Xia watched for a moment as Alice clumsily painted the skin around the nail of her big toe, then he shook his head and held out his gloved hand.
Alice sighed with relief and handed it over.
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 6