“Pigheaded bastard, probably got fed up and took a short cut,” Sava said.
Another minute passed without a sign of his specialist. Sava grew worried. He knew Mach. Hot-headed maybe; he was never one to pout and stomp off, especially on the battlefield. Thoughts of the deserter stalking the windswept mountains for stragglers fed a slow-growing panic. He checked the radio and heard a low moan.
“Mach!” Sava yelled, tapping his radio earpiece. “What’s going on? –Where are you?”
“I-I . . . I can’t move, boss.”
“You what?”
“I can’t move! There’s something wrong with me.”
“Stay put, we’re coming to get you.”
They fanned out and headed back up the hillside, bulky silhouettes panning the mist with rifles at the ready. Calls of “Mach” modulated with the turbulent winds, stereophonic direction jumbled. The dulled shape of boulders drew the eye to inchoate Rorschach blots, basalt in the illusory shape of a man. Sava halted the squad and got back on the radio.
“Mach, let me know if you can hear this,” Sava said, firing a burst from his Vepr.
“I . . . yes . . . you’re right below me, I think,” Mach mumbled.
A few more rifle/radio checks and their Brownian search came to an end. They expected to find the slumped mass of a sick man, but Mach stood upright, wide-legged and wobbly. His eyes were red, pupils dilated with a primal terror. As if ashamed or afraid, his head was slung low, gaze fixed to the windswept ground. Sava snapped his fingers to catch the specialist’s attention. He looked up at him with tear-filled eyes.
“I can’t walk,” he cried. “They won’t move . . . my legs. The joints, they’re on fire.”
“How can you still stand?” Yakiv asked, circling the statued Mach, curious.
“It hurts too much to sit. The blood doesn’t feel right. And then there’s my hips . . . ”
“What’s got into you, Mach?” Sava exclaimed.
“It’s the radiation. I’m having a reaction or something.”
“No,” Sava shook his head in doubt. “This is something else. Radiation doesn’t cause this sort of inflammation. It has to be metal poisoning coupled with the treatment or something. Yakiv, Rudy, help me get him off his feet,” Sava ordered.
“I’m going to die this way, aren’t I?” Mach yowled.
“Stop! No, you’re not.”
Like rigor mortis, Mach’s lower body was seized, the pain unbearable. Every jostle elicited a whimper and yelp. They leaned him awkwardly against the eroded flat of a cliff, his midsection arched, joints frozen stiff to avoid the excruciating pain. Chin forced into his flak jacket, drool poured from the corners of his mouth.
“Cut his pant leg. Take off a boot,” Sava ordered.
Cutting a slit up his gray khakis revealed a scaly rash, jaundiced skin flush with streaks of what looked like hives. Black veins pushed from underneath the surface of his skin in a peculiar pattern, twisting around his calf muscle and knee joint. Sava touched the flesh and reeled back.
“What is it? Sava! What’s wrong with me?”
Sava didn’t answer, all his attention focused on maintaining composure. Mach’s leg was hot to the touch, swollen, the joints stretched and distorted into ball-like pivots.
“Mach,” Sava said, gulping a breath. “When did this start?”
“A few minutes after we left the lighthouse. I didn’t say anything—it was just my arthritis, I thought. But then there was the heat and the stiffness, all molasses and sludge. It’s the radiation reacting to that shit Morosov put inside us all, isn’t it?”
Sava shook his head, speechless.
He’d never heard of radiation sickness acting so swiftly; Mach’s affliction was more like a reaction to snake venom. Even the engineers of Old Pripyat had a day or two before Chernobyl fully cooked them. There was something else in that flooded reactor room. There had to be.
Everyone looked at each other, faces grim and brows creased. No one wanted to admit it; no one wanted to think himself the victim like Mach, helpless and pathetic. A few shook out their legs and arms, exorcising the specter of ossification to reaffirm their own limberness.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“You wanted to get back to the Crown, and so did I. I-I figured I’d deal with this misery in sickbay. I didn’t want to alarm anyone.”
“Did anyone else step in the water?” Sava asked the men.
Yakiv came forward. He was with Mach in the reactor room. Pulling up his pant leg revealed nothing as extreme, just the same subdermal patterns typical of the Morosov treatment. Mach was enduring an adverse reaction to something: his body had revolted. Histamines in overdrive, his body was launching a full-blown attack on itself.
“It hurts to lay down. Stand me up, please.”
They stood him to his feet again, his position ridiculous and rigid. Sava unfurled his deflated tent and wove rope through the grommets with the staking lines to make a stretcher. Painful or not, they were going to drag Mach back to the Crown and deal with him there.
“I’m going to give you a triple dose of antihistamine. It will knock you out for the trip back, okay?”
Mach nodded.
“I knew there was a reason I was in such a goddamned hurry,” Sava sighed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
October 2163 C.E.
While doped up in one of Beyoglu’s opium dens, Uri made arrangements with a balding Macedonian to partake of the mavi babeks—the “blue dolls”—in a local bordello. Idle speculation had led him to the peculiar brothel. When the Armenian pusher described the high to Uri, he knew it had to be Illithium. With a password and a little savvy, he found the bordello’s back-alley entrance.
Half naked and sweaty from the sauna, Uri waited as the pimp concocted his specialty. A whore offered him the pipe again, but he refused. The drugs had seemed like a good idea at the time, but no longer. The numbness was mutating into unease, raising feelings of dread and helplessness as his pulse raced. He watched another whore bring the pimp a wooden case decorated with caricatured engravings from the Kama Sutra. The Macedonian opened the box, his eyes wide and eager.
“Like a Roman god!” the pimp exclaimed as he fingered the grotesquery. “You will feel like the emperor himself, no?”
Uri doubted it.
Like the Thuggee mask, it possessed a similar shape that marked it as an Illithium MEG. Somewhere in the bowels of Morosov, a ghastly assembly line worked ceaselessly. This one had a special customization that made Uri’s stomach churn.
Morosov’s gray-market designers had modified the jellyfish substrate into the shape of a tropical flower; the mask’s appendages were orchid petals instead of the Mahakali arms. In the center was an engorged pink vulva, complete with clitoris. Equipped with special ducts, the design required no chemical bath like the Kali mask. A simple application from a syringe inflated the “doll” with catalyst. Minutes later, the thing moved its floppy hydrostats as it reached to embrace him. Uri’s anxiety fused with nausea as he choked back his vomit.
The vicarious john who tried this would be dead post-coitus—he had to be—the Illithium’s growth exploding inside his skull. No doubt fueled with impotence drugs, the babbling idiot would be unable to perform. Uri imagined the scene: a room full of Balkan thugs coercing teenage sex slaves into humping a zombie while a data receiver collected the brain stream. Dressed-up victims in gaudy costumes, belly dancers, slave girls, various goddesses—mixed with a little torture and bondage—and the pornographic immersion would be complete.
As the pimp waved the writhing Illithium in his face, Uri decided his field research was over; he couldn’t go through with it. He had more than enough to complete his report. If the caliphate demanded additional details, they’d have to strap on a reconstituted jellyfish and experience the circus themselves. He’d paid the Macedonian proprietor the full fee of shekels and quickly left, dressing as he stumbled for the door. Recouping in a nearby coffee bar, he rebui
lt his sobriety with cup after frothy cup of Turkish kahve.
As the sun set, Uri strolled Balıkpazarı’s night bazaar and idly observed the crowd’s ebb and flow. Leaning against a wall, Uri watched a street artist paint the market bustle. Sold for a few shekels, the painter wasn’t particularly talented, but Uri was enthralled. He lit a cigarillo and watched the flurry of brush on canvas. It had been ages since he had seen anyone create anything.
When he got back to the flat, Miriam’s door was locked. After their trip to Maslak, she’d said little. Uri wanted to apologize, but she hadn’t given him the chance. Whatever haunted her ran deeper and darker than an off-putting gesture. He tried not to take it personally.
In the study, he set down his falafel takeout and plopped into the terminal’s articulated chair. Finished with the report, he incorporated Popov’s technical dossier with his own Illithium findings, including a quick summary of his abortive jaunt to the bordello. Like clockwork, Popov’s data package arrived on time. Uri had miscalculated the polymer poison dosage; the amount injected into the Morosov scientist was only enough to induce a mild headache. In hindsight, Uri realized a few ccs of saline would’ve provoked the same result.
The wavelet algorithm took time, and Miriam’s microprocessor was as slow as most resurrected technology. Silicon IC design was no longer one of humanity’s priorities. According to the terminal’s clock, the compression would take an hour, then he’d have to wait for a transfer over to his console and upload to Al Fadah Madina.
Uri thumbed the silver tea bar, feeling the foil texture as he admired the Sanskrit calligraphy. Its time and the date were spot on—there was no doubt—but he didn’t have the mettle for another dance with the past. It was five years ago, the events of the day burned into his neural pathways like muscle memory: every pawn taken, every move recorded. Uri never played chess again after that game.
“Goddamn you, Sava. Why, huh?” Uri whispered.
Lieutenant Sava Valis, the dealer of nightmares, a merchant of death, he was the one behind the Illithium, the “side job” he had mentioned years ago. Tangled up with Morosov, his Alkonost deployment provided a convenient vector for his stygian scavenging, each brutal act transcribed into binary alpha-waves for playback. Uri desperately wanted to be wrong about Sava. But years later, coincidence and recall dissolved any self-delusion.
The dying Earth was short on surprises, long on letdowns. Morality was casual, convenient when necessary, and constantly evolving—or devolving—as civilization receded. In its wake, amorality filled the survival vacuum, base instincts hardened, built to endure, adapt, and overcome. Evil was fabrication. And as much as Uri tried, he found it hard to blame Sava. Alkonost had let them all down.
But Uri found it painful to be so cynical, especially with regard to a man who had once saved his life.
He stood and propped open one of the dormer windows. He lit a cigarillo and leaned against the sill. A hard monsoon was falling, the city’s canopy filled with the soothing flicker-noise of raindrops. Closing his eyes, he puffed the tobacco. Uri enjoyed Miriam’s loft, despite his aversions to Constantinople’s claustrophobia. It felt safe, and he no longer felt the need to sleep with his pistol. Warm and inviting, the flat was in contrast to Miriam herself.
The bar flashed green on the terminal, the algorithm complete. Uri moved the Illithium data package over to his console and extended its high-gain aperture to transmit. The signal was poor, but with a little boost from the battery, upload wouldn’t take long. He set the handheld device on a sofa arm near the window and went to take a shower in the study’s adjoining toilet.
When he got out, he noticed Miriam’s door slightly ajar. He toweled himself damp and threw on his trousers and tank top. Through the crack he heard the porcelain clink of a plate, the running of a faucet, and the metal shuffle of cutlery. After a minute, he quietly went about his business, making a conscientious decision to avoid the peculiar interruption. Hungry, he went for the greasy wrapping of his falafel and kababs, but noticed his meal was missing.
“I took the liberty of putting it on a plate for you,” Miriam said from the doorway. “It’s more civilized. Would you like something to drink?”
She disappeared back through the door. Uri followed. Miriam had never invited him “over” before, a gesture he didn’t take lightly. Similar to the study, Miriam’s flat was a single large room partitioned into a domicile. Simple amenities spoke of a minimalist Far East sensibility. Across from her futon, above a simple dining table, was an abstract painting dominating the room’s far wall: a Roman galley, Uri gathered, striped with oars and rigging.
“Have a seat,” Miriam said, gesturing to the table. “Eat.”
Uri sat down and started in as Miriam prepared a pot of tea at the kitchenette. She looked exhausted. Her hair was tied back and tousled, a few strands falling into insomnia-bloodshot eyes. She was wearing a set of wrinkled kurta pajamas. Uri got the impression she hadn’t changed all day.
“This painting,” Uri said, mouth half full of lamb and flatbread. “It’s interesting. I like it.”
“Watercolor and ink. I purchased it from a destitute dealer down on Istiklal Avenue. It’s supposed to be a dromon warship from Old Byzantium, sixth or seventh century A.D.—at least that’s what he told me,” she said, pouring Uri a cup of black Rize tea.
“Is it because you’re a sailor?”
“Maybe.” Miriam shrugged, sitting down across from him. “A few years ago, I sailed a diving crew out to Sinop, on the north coast. Norsk-Statoil sponsored the expedition, a survey of the Black Sea’s Mesopelagic methane. Five hundred feet down, past the anoxic layer, the divers discovered a sunken dromon in the silt. Perfectly preserved from the oxygen depletion, its wood deck and hull were intact.”
Uri kept eating, his attention focused on Miriam. Despite her glumness and disheveled appearance, she was hauntingly beautiful.
“Back in those days, there used to be severe storms in the southern Black Sea before the prevailing currents shut down and the salinity spiked. The ship was probably inundated by the waves. It sank perfectly upright, the sea floor’s ooze reforming its waterline.”
She poured herself a cup of the Rize. “Back up on deck, I was glued to the camera monitors, captivated. Even the mast was upright, its ripped canvas sail flapping in current. Bones were everywhere.”
“The crew?”
“Slaves. I saw the shackles still clinging to their leg bones. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So, when I saw this,” she said, motioning to the painting, “I had to have it.”
“Millennia, eh? It will probably be there longer than civilization itself at the rate things are going.”
“I like to imagine that if you raised it to the surface, dried it out, maybe added some new rigging, it might sail again. It gives me hope. I don’t know why. It just does.”
Uri wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but he nodded anyway. The room filled with an uncomfortable silence as he mopped up tahina sauce with a piece of pita, sipping tea in between bites. He looked at her, but her eyes were diverted, open and wide, staring at nothing.
“Miriam, I want to apologize for my behavior the other night in Maslak. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything,” Uri said awkwardly. “Especially about your past. I’m ignorant. Painful memories—we all have them, I know, and I was boorish. I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t a slave,” Miriam blurted.
“But your scar? Isn’t it . . . ?”
Miriam shook her head. “I wasn’t a slave,” she repeated.
“Okay,” Uri yielded. “It’s just . . . I’ve seen those scars before, beyond the frontier. It’s a Kurdish brand.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Miriam’s voice was low and firm.
Uri let it go. Miriam opened up as much as she was capable for the moment. Whatever nightmare lay in her past was deeply private. He could respect that; everyone had ghosts. Those living out in “The Empty World” of the shiekhs’ Khal Al Alam co
ped with their ordeals uniquely, with some wounds forever unhealed.
“Our flight leaves out of the airfield at Ataturk first thing the day after tomorrow. I need to get a hold of Hafiz tomorrow so we can retrieve your payload from the cistern,” Miriam said, getting up. “Are you packed, archivist?”
“I just need to get the weaponry sorted and charge my console.” She’d reverted to the “archivist” quip.
“There’s a hotplate next to the spectrometer on the bench. My console’s already charged, so . . . ” Miriam turned away. Busy at the sink, it was Uri’s cue to vacate.
“Thanks for the tea,” Uri said, closing the door behind him.
He checked his orbital console; the transmission was complete. He pulled out the thermo-voltaic charger from his kit. Just a cord attached to a paddle heat sink, it was designed to charge the battery using campfire coals or boiling water. But Miriam’s appeared custom-made, specially equipped with its own receptacle.
Uri slid the paddle into the charger and watched the console’s battery icon pulse. Checking his communiqués, he noticed an unread message received a few minutes prior. He decrypted the download and read it.
Agent Uri Vitko, we appreciate the thoroughness of your report. It’s more than we expected, and we will include the added gold in your next drop. Illithium, it seems, has many lives.
Having come across related technology during our recent procurements, we had a suspicion it was a Morosov derivative. But this confirms it. Like Egyptian pharaohs, we required Illithium’s mummification capability to make “pickleheads,” as you described them. We in the sheikhdom had a suspicion this cancerous nano-technology originated from somewhere else. So, on a rumor, we sent you out to recover the Thuggees’ mask.
Morosov is downright genius when it comes to repackaging and adapting past failures, however nefarious. We look forward to your successful delivery. If you could keep our arrangement private, Sheikh Sayyid needn’t be the wiser.
—Fawzi Al Azraq Hawat :: unknown #656-PIL-9W3 :: sent via Excelsior :: encryption clock 0.002 hrs::
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