“I noticed,” Katya said, touching her reduced leg. “I’m sure you did your best.”
“I failed completely!”
“I didn’t bleed to death, did I?” Katya grinned weakly. “You did alright.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, patting Eerie’s head. “You too, Katya. Thanks for saving her.”
“I didn’t save anyone,” Katya said. “That was all Ms. Aoki. I got my ass kicked.”
“You took on John Parson on your own,” Alex said. “That’s pretty amazing.”
“Yeah. Feels great,” Katya said, leaning back against the pillow. “I feel like a real winner.”
***
Chandi did not bother to look up when she heard the door open.
After all, she knew who would be there.
“I’m nearly finished,” she said, her pen still scratching across the paper. “I’ve done what you asked.”
“Good,” Emily said, wearing her infuriating smile. “The next day is crucial, and I’ll need to know just exactly what I’m doing.”
“You must be careful, acting on any of this. I can give you probabilities and predictions, but nothing is certain until it has happened.”
“I’m comfortable with a bit of ambiguity. I’ve never liked the idea of fate, dear, and I feel that a flair for improvisation is one of my strong points.”
***
The truce between Adel and Eerie was tentative, but it held well enough for them to collaborate on modifying the fixed apport station that afternoon with a minimum of discomfort.
After the first few hours, he felt confident enough to resume their former roles, and started to boss her around a bit. Eerie tolerated it, because Adel had some good ideas, which sped the work.
She did not plan on giving up more than an afternoon of her remaining time, no matter how necessary visiting the Thule estate in Iceland was. Still, it needed to be done, so Eerie did her best to concentrate and make orderly progress in adjusting the apport station.
Eerie was making the best of things.
She finished a few crucial tasks, and then let Adel handle the rest of the hardware modifications.
The firmware for the fixed apport station was encrypted and secured, but that was no big deal. The source code was meant to be modified with a proprietary coding suite, and was incompatible with every commercial compiler, so that took an hour or so to work around.
By the time Alex and Emily showed up in field gear and a sundress, respectively, she was nearly done with the required coding. Once Eerie had finally accessed the source code, it really hadn’t taken much to get it ready to do the impossible. Just a few additional lines, a home-brewed firmware update pushed locally to the station, and it would all work.
She was certain of it.
“I don’t get why we need the station,” Alex said, as they approached. “Why not have Marcus take us wherever we need to go?”
“He’s an old man,” Emily reminded him. “We’ve already pushed him too far.”
“He’s not that old,” Alex said defensively. “Is he?”
“You’d be surprised,” Emily said.
“What about you, then? Can’t you just walk us there?”
“I don’t want to arrive exhausted,” Emily said. “It’s not as easy as you make it sound.”
“I don’t know,” Alex fretted. “Won’t they know we are coming?”
“Gaul is – well, was, thanks to Katya – a precognitive,” Emily said. “I assume he knows already. Hello, Eerie. Hello Adel. How goes the work?”
Eerie did not look up from her laptop.
“Fine,” Eerie said. “We are almost…”
“We have made a great deal of progress,” Adel said, hurrying to Emily’s side. “I’ve already completed the modifications to the interface, and I’m just waiting for Eerie to finish a bit of code, and then we can start replacing components in the transfer array.”
Eerie blushed with anger, but she said nothing.
Alex sat down beside her and put his arm around her. His gear was sweaty and dusty from the field, and did not smell entirely good, but it was not all that bad, either.
“Let me know if I’m in the way,” he said. “I can move.”
“No, no,” Eerie said, scooting closer. “Stay.”
“Very good work, Adel,” Emily said, touching him gently on the shoulder. “I appreciate your help.”
“Think n-nothing of it,” Adel stammered. “I’m happy to help.”
“You are sure this will work, Eerie?” Emily asked. “The Thule estate is protected by a barrier. Won’t that prevent an unauthorized apport?”
“Normally it would,” Eerie tapped a final key, and then looked up at Emily. “Wouldn’t it be crazy if this time, it didn’t go like that? Really crazy?”
Alex laughed.
“She can do it,” he said. “No doubt.”
Eerie blushed again, for an entirely different reason.
“If you say so,” Emily said. “When will the station be ready, dear?”
“My work is mostly done,” Eerie said. “Just a few more things. Half an hour at most.”
“The hardware will take longer,” Adel said, glancing up from the motherboard he was preparing to solder. “I wouldn’t expect it to be ready until tomorrow.”
“Adel, dear, it must be ready by the morning,” Emily said, smiling at him. “The timing is absolutely imperative. Can you promise me that?”
“Of course,” Adel said, gulping. “I promise.”
“Eerie, listen,” Alex said, looking concerned. “I don’t think you should come with us to Iceland. It might be dangerous. Why don’t you stay here and watch with Vivik? If anything goes wrong, you’ll be able to use the station to bring us back.”
“Adel or Vivik can do that,” Eerie said. “We have been away from each other long enough. We will not be apart until we have to be apart.”
“That’s fine with me,” Emily said, looking as if she found the whole situation funny. “The more the merrier, right, Alex dear?”
Alex frowned, but did not argue. He just pulled Eerie closer.
Like he always did.
Like he would do.
Like he was.
***
Alice spent half an hour looking before she finally found Rebecca. She was sitting at the edge of the lap pool in the gym with her feet dangling in the water, a cup of coffee in one hand and wad of nicotine gum shoved in her cheek.
“Hey, Becca,” Alice said, sitting beside her at the edge of the pool. “You make any decisions yet?”
“Decisions? I’ve made a million of them. I was up most of the night, dealing with refugee stuff. The Far Shores was never meant to hold this many people. There are no supplies, not even enough water. It’s better than nothing, but if we don’t get control of at least the Academy soon, we’re gonna have problems.”
“We already have problems,” Alice observed, pulling her boots off. “What about the Far Shores? You just gonna let Emily have it?”
“Fuck no! It’s ours.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Alice said, peeling off her socks and then tossing them aside with her boots. “I’m ready to kick her out right now.”
“We can’t do that,” Rebecca said. “As much as I want to reclaim the Far Shores, Emily knows how to pick her moment. We’ve got enough enemies as it is, and she’s already showed us that she’s no pushover, even without her motley band of friends.”
“Yeah. I owe her for that,” Alice said, sighing and wriggling her toes as she dipped her feet in the pool. “Among other things.”
“What other things?”
“I don’t remember,” Alice said. “Pretty sure she has an ass-kicking coming her way, though.”
“She deserves it just for messing with our Auditors,” Rebecca said. “I’m not sure what we can expect from Alex and Katya.”
“Not to mention Mitsuru.”
“Yeah, Mitzi. That’s a whole other thing.”
“Still Emil
y’s fault.” Alice smirked. “Little bitch is running us in circles, isn’t she?”
Rebecca said nothing, but she ground her gum between her molars.
“On a completely unrelated note, I had a staff member go through your field kit and take care of the laundry.”
“Yeah?” Alice shrugged. “Thanks?”
Rebecca studied her closely for a moment.
“You really have no idea what I’m talking about?”
Alice shook her head.
“Okay, then,” Rebecca said, spitting her gum into the remainder of her coffee, and then setting aside the mug. “What is up with the head in your kit bag?”
Alice grinned. The grin slowly faded when it was not returned by Rebecca.
“A head?”
“Some guy’s severed head, in your bag. Ring any bells?”
Alice chewed on her thumbnail while she thought about it. After a minute or so, she kicked her legs in frustration, splashing water out of the pool.
“I have no idea,” Alice admitted. “I think I remember something…”
Rebecca reached smoothly into her friend’s head, for the thousandth or the ten-thousandth time. It was as easy as fitting a key into a lock, a routine entry.
“Something happened in Las Vegas,” Rebecca said. “What was it?”
“I met someone,” Alice said. “I met a guy.”
“You met a guy,” Rebecca said. “A bad guy?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The technicians say he’s not Anathema. Dental records don’t match any files they can pull up on the emergency network. DNA will take a while, given the circumstances, but I’m not optimistic.”
“That’s so weird,” Alice said. “I think I remember something, but it’s so vague.”
Rebecca pushed gently into Alice’s mind, horrified by what she found there. She found very little where Alice’s memories should have been, even less than she expected. Alistair had warned Rebecca years ago that Alice’s memory was physically destroyed by her protocol. It was not a matter of forgetting. Each usage of her protocol overwrote existing memories with mnemonic white noise.
Rebecca had found similar dead zones in Alex’s memories. The damage was acute, as if they had been victims of a crude surgery. There was no recovery possible in either case. They were not amnesiacs; they were erasure victims.
Rebecca had created a remote backup of some of Alice’s memories and personality with Alistair’s help, from which she could be periodically restored, but the process was impossible without Alistair’s peerless telepathic ability and the database he maintained in his own head.
There was nothing Rebecca could do but investigate the scraps left behind. She prodded and poked at the remnants.
“There’s something about sushi,” Alice said, prompted by Rebecca’s meddling. “A big fancy room with lots of windows, way up high.”
“Sounds nice,” Rebecca said. “Did you kill him?”
“I don’t remember,” Alice said. “I’m pretty sure his head was attached when we met.”
“Yeah. They usually are.”
Alice kicked her legs, sending little waves across the surface of the pool.
Rebecca took the pack of nicotine gum she had purloined from the infirmary from her pocket, and shoved two new pieces into her mouth, chewing while she rummaged about in Alice’s head, tidying up and putting things back together, like a hotel maid after the departure of raucous guests.
There were bits and pieces to pour over, but she found no answers.
The man’s face looked very different in Alice’s memory, compared to the visage of the severed head.
Rebecca lingered over his face. He seemed somehow familiar.
“So that’s it, huh?” Alice stared at herself in the pool, wearing an expression of unadulterated misery. “I’m just decapitating random guys, now?”
Rebecca put her arm around Alice, resolving to move the head from the freezer behind the kitchen to the incinerator at her first opportunity.
“I’m sure it’s not like that,” Rebecca said soothingly. “He was probably a jerk who deserved it.”
“I can’t really remember or anything, but I’m pretty sure…I don’t think he was, Becca.”
“I know you had your reasons,” Rebecca insisted, gradually wiping away what remained of the memory, along with its emotional aftermath. “You always do.”
***
Alex smiled self-consciously as he knocked on the doorframe.
“I wanted to talk,” he said unnecessarily. “Can we talk?”
Hayley sighed and put aside her tablet.
“You were really the best that they could do?” Hayley gave him a doubtful look. “We barely know each other.”
“That’s more than the rest of them could say,” Alex said. “Unless you prefer to talk to Katya?”
“No Black Sun assassins in my room, thank you very much,” Hayley said, frowning. “You can come inside.”
Alex came in, marveling privately at how clean her dorm was.
“You got your room back. And your stuff.”
“So?”
“I told you Emily would help, if you just asked.”
“Shut up. Close the door.”
He followed her instructions, still trying to choose his words.
“Okay,” Hayley said, taking out her ear buds. “What do you want?”
“I want your help,” Alex said, dismissing any thoughts of subtlety. “Well, we do, really.”
“Who is ‘we’? You and Emily? You and Eerie?”
“Eerie’s club, I guess,” Alex said. “You know.”
“Which club is that?”
“C’mon. Don’t make me say it.”
“I sort of want to.”
“Oh, come on!”
“I really wanna hear it.”
“Okay, fine. The Rescue Alex from the Outer Dark Club requests your assistance again, Hayley.”
“I don’t know,” Hayley said, glancing at a row of pictures arranged on her bedside table. “Last time I helped you guys out, it cost me a dog. Derrida was very important to me.”
“Eerie really liked him, too,” Alex said. “She keeps telling me how cool he was.”
“He was pretty cool,” Hayley said, picking up one of the photos. “I miss him.”
“I know what it’s like,” Alex blurted out, earning a look of puzzlement. “I know what it feels like.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah! I mean, not a dog, obviously. I lost a vampire. I mean, a friend! A friendly vampire.” Alex started to sweat. “Margot Feld was my friend. You know? Losing her was hard. So, I get it. At least a little.”
“I’m not sure that’s at all the same, but it was kinda sweet,” Hayley said, laughing. “Thanks for that.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“What does your club want this time? I’m not too enthusiastic about lending you another dog.”
“It’s not that. No dogs, this time.”
“Okay.”
“We want you, instead.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Hayley shook her head. “I’m an Auditor, Alex. Unlike some people I know. Are you trying to get me in trouble?”
“I’m not! I promise. It’s just…”
“Ms. Gallow is still very angry with you, and even more so with Katya,” Hayley said. “She talks about it all the time.”
“She does? Oh.” Alex felt his stomach twist. “I’d sort of hoped she had moved on.”
“She is definitely not moving on,” Hayley said. “She might let you live, I think, but Katya’s for sure dead. I think Ms. Gallow might settle for just cutting off your fingers or something.”
“Little late for that,” Alex muttered. “Listen, this isn’t something you’ll get in trouble for. It’s totally okay. Like, if we told Ms. Gallow about it, she’d be completely fine with it.”
“Let’s go tell her, then,” Hayley said. “If she’s cool, then I’m happy to help.”
“Yeah,
okay, maybe not quite that cool, but it’s nothing bad,” Alex continued doggedly. “Ms. Gallow will never know.”
“You want me to lie to her?”
“Not, uh, not necessarily.”
“How else would she not find out? I’m deployed in the field as an Auditor right now. I don’t get free time, and I’m certainly not supposed to be out doing favors.”
“I’m trying to save Eerie, okay?” Alex stared at the carpet and felt miserable. “Something happens in a couple of days…”
“The Church of Sleep,” Hayley said softly. “I can feel it, just a little. It…hurts, I guess. I’ve never felt anything like it, and it’s been getting worse. I think all telepaths must be able to feel it.”
“It’s coming for her. For Eerie. I don’t want…I’m not going to lose her. We have a plan to stop it and save her. I’m sure it will work, but we could really use your help.”
“If you were sure, you wouldn’t be taking the risk of asking me,” Hayley said. “You know I was sent to spy on the Auditors for the Hegemony. My parents had a covert surveillance implant installed when I joined, but apparently Ms. Levy noticed right off the bat,” Hayley said. “She tore it out, so my parents had to level with me instead. A whole lot of unnecessary work, if you ask me. I don’t mind at all. None of the Auditors are trustworthy, and most of you are bad people. Except for Xia.”
“How does Xia get off scot-free?”
“None of your business. You also must know that I am terrified of Ms. Gallow,” Hayley said. “No bullshit, she just scares the hell out of me.”
“I just sort of assumed. Who isn’t scared of her?”
“That’s two good reasons not to tell me what you are up to. I’ll give you a third.”
“I really don’t need…”
“I won’t help you,” Hayley declared. “I’m not risking my life or my status for your love affair, and I barely know Eerie.”
“Okay, well, that sucks,” Alex said. “Are you sure?”
“Completely sure. Do you want to tell me your plan anyway?”
“Why not?” Alex shrugged. “I’m no fucking good with secrets.”
He told her everything, just the way that Vivik had laid it out. Here and there were flourishes that were pure Emily, but the plan was for the most part a fair representation of Vivik’s character – thoughtful, patient, and mildly infuriating.
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 68