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The Conformity

Page 19

by John Hornor Jacobs


  When we’ve piled the wood back in the cabin, Nelson sets to work starting the fire. Negata and Shreve watch him closely.

  Nelson strips the bark from one of the older, dryer logs and then uses a knife to whittle long, thin strips of wood from the smoother, exposed wood.

  “Why’re you doing that?” Shreve asks.

  “Kindling. Starting fires is hard work and usually done at the end of the day, when you’re tired, right?” Nelson says. Before long he’s got a pile of long, thin pieces of wood. He splits the pile in half and says, “Put aside some, because you never know when you might need it.” With the remainder he makes a small, misshapen pile in the hearth. Taking one of the longer pieces, he lights it from the lantern and then returns to ignite the pile. Then he continues to feed the fire with increasingly larger pieces of wood until it’s burning merrily.

  Later, we gather snow for water and set beans to cooking. Everyone is silent. The constant static motion of the fire has a hypnotic quality, and I find it more entrancing than a television. Shreve makes a pallet and studiously does not look at me. If I stand in front of him, he looks elsewhere. It’s only when I place my blankets by his that he glances at me. And then blushes.

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Shreve,” I whisper in his ear. “Don’t be so silly.”

  We’re silent for a long while until the beans are done. At the farm, Nelson seemed somewhat gregarious and good-humored, but now he’s quiet, and there’s never been much dialogue from Negata. We eat the beans in steaming tin cups with cheap spoons—all provided by Nelson—and listen as the fire cracks and pops. Exhaustion washes over me. It’s been so long since I’ve ridden hours upon hours, and I can feel the burning in my thighs and calves and ass. I can’t even begin to think of how Shreve feels.

  I arrange the blanket over us. Watching the fire, we push our bodies together against the cold. And sleep.

  It’s late, and the fire’s been banked but is still giving off enough light to make out the rough shape of Nelson, lightly snoring in the corner nearest the horses, and the silhouettes of Negata and Shreve sitting near each other. The air smells of woodsmoke and horse, manure and piss. It’s a swampy, moist smell that’s strong but not totally unpleasant.

  “It’s not enough that you consider solely yourself,” Negata is saying in a hushed voice. “You can become infatuated with the flesh—and this is a good thing, I think, a right thing for a boy your age. The act of negation is much like meditation. It is a lessening of all desires. Stripping away of wants. Stripping away of needs until all that is left is the naked blade—”

  “The match flame,” Shreve says. He’s got a piece of wood in his hands, and he’s slowly whittling off long, curling slices for tinder. There’s some emotion there, behind his words, but like the fire, it’s banked.

  “If that is how you view it, then yes. I consider it a blade because—” Negata pauses here. His stillness is remarkable, and the space between words makes it seem like he’s decided to stop talking altogether midstride. “A blade represents action. All paths will lead to that alone.”

  Shreve bows his head, his hands still. He shifts and pulls the blanket that’s draped over his shoulders—his cape—tighter. “Flames spread.”

  Negata thinks on that for a moment. “That is so.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve spent so much time living so many other lives,” Shreve says, huddling in on himself. He holds up the knife to the fire and looks at it. “It’s hard to … diminish. Is that the word?”

  “I do not know.”

  I don’t either, truthfully. I’m having trouble following the conversation.

  “It’s a big burden,” Shreve says. He shifts slightly. “You know, I don’t even know your first name.”

  “It is Nobu.”

  “Nobu Negata? So you are Japanese?”

  “Of course. I thought this was obvious.”

  “Not really. You don’t talk much. And you don’t really have an accent. Up until the moment I woke, you were invisible.”

  “Yes.” Negata’s voice is faintly tinted with amusement. “You once called me a ‘meatghost,’ I believe. Which is amusing, because that is what we all are.”

  “I meant you had no … no shibboleth. You had no …”

  “Soul?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  It’s quiet now except for the crackle of the fire and Nelson’s soft snores. Negata leans forward, picks up a small branch, and places it on the fire. After a moment, it catches and the interior of the cabin brightens and the shadows shift and flicker on the moldering timber walls and ceiling.

  “How did you get involved with Quincrux and the Society of Extranaturals?”

  “This is a large question. Larger than we have time for,” Negata says.

  “Right, we’ve got that appointment in the morning with the governor.” Shreve draws the blade down the length of the wood, curling away a slice for the fire.

  Negata raises his hand in a halting gesture. “I see your point. But we do have an appointment with some horses, and it is late now.”

  “You don’t want to say?” Shreve’s voice pitches up. “At one time, I would have just snatched it right out of your head.”

  Negata says somewhat sadly, “Ah, but that time has come to an end, has it not?”

  “Yes. All that’s over.” Shreve glances at me. My eyes are lidded, and I hope he doesn’t realize I’ve been listening to his conversation. I want to reach out, to touch him with my hands. To touch him mind-to-mind. Anything.

  But I don’t. I wait. And listen.

  “I am what is considered nisei, which means second generation. My father was issei, first generation. He was born in Kyushu, but eventually he made his way to Argentina, where I was born. My first language was Japanese. My second was Spanish. And then English.”

  “You don’t have an accent. Which is kinda weird.”

  “Yes. I’ve been told I have no accent in Portuguese as well. A natural. Very much about me is, as you would put it, weird,” Negata says. “My father was tasai, or gifted. He was, as you call it, a bugfuck.”

  Shreve snorts. It’s loud in the stillness of the cabin. Nelson’s snores stop, and he shifts and rolls over in his sleeping bag. And then begins snoring lightly once more.

  “He always told me he left Kyushu because of the flooding there before I was born, but as I got older, I learned it was due to the mó fa, the Chinese version of the Society. Above all things, Father hated the Chinese.”

  “Why?”

  “War. Always war. Japan was a very warlike nation then. And, consequently, many young men died.”

  “Seems like that is the way of it,” Shreve says, his hands working steadily on the wood, knife moving. “Wars are declared by the old and fought by the young.”

  “This is undeniable. The mó fa had approached Father and tried to recruit him, and much like you and your friend Jack, he fled. When he stopped fleeing—with my mother in tow—they found themselves in Argentina and made a life in Buenos Aires. Father was a card player. My mother, a seamstress.”

  “A card player? Ha! Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “You were probably too busy running, and most card players don’t like to play with children,” Negata says, and there’s real warmth in his voice. I don’t know if it’s him talking about his family or Shreve letting his guard down, but it’s like I’m watching two people become fast friends right before my eyes. It’s a strange sensation: I feel jealous and not a little abandoned.

  “When I was born, I was a problem for my father because, as I grew older, I could not be read. This was unspoken yet obvious. My father fretted and fought, but I was to him as water is in a hot pan. By the time I was ten, I was totally invisible to him both in psychic terms and in parenting.” He looks at me. “I am your companion, Shreve, and I will safeguard you, but I am not trying to fill your father’s shoes. Bear that in mind with what I say next.”

  “I don’t have a father. But, okay.” Th
e knife stills on the wood.

  “People like you … these bugfucks … they are racked with needs and desires they cannot control due to the loneliness and isolation their abilities bring. Is this not true?”

  After a long while, Shreve simply says, “Yes.”

  “My father picked the most obvious of vices. Alcohol.”

  Shreve goes back to whittling. I know from what he’s told me about his mother that she’s a sauce.

  “I understand,” Shreve says.

  “You must guard yourself against addiction, Shreve.”

  “Yes. That’s old news. I’ve—” He stops. Swallows hard. “My mother was the same. And I’m like her, except—”

  “Except what?”

  “I’m a thief. I—” Shreve looks at the wood and knife in his hands as if he can find an answer there. “I’ve stolen memories. The good ones. Drank the emotional content from them like a drunk cracking a can of beer.”

  Negata leans back. Watches the fire. “And you still do this?”

  “No. Not in a long while. But I know the urge. Weird thing is, I used to look down on Moms because I had to raise Vig, my little dude, myself. And she was such a lush. I was doing her job. But then I became her.” The knife begins moving once more. “I wouldn’t want it on my highlight reel.”

  “Nor would I.”

  “And since then … shit, I’ve killed thousands. I didn’t mean to. I try to help …” Shreve throws the wood block he’s been carving into the fire, and when it lands on the coals there, they brighten and flame. He folds his pocketknife. “Every monster I’ve had to face, I’ve had to become them to survive.”

  Negata stands and moves over to his sleeping bag silently. Once he’s inside, he says, “I have nothing to say to help ease this pain except this: Children have the luxury of looking at the world simply, in terms of black and white. Good and evil. But adults must make compromises.”

  That sounds about right. Negata stills, closes his eyes.

  Shreve sits there a bit longer, staring at the banked fire.

  “There will come a time, Shreve,” Negata says softly from his bedroll. “You will have to go to face this evil that has fallen upon us all. I have done what I can to protect you, but when you must go, you must go. I do not know what gods decided that this is a war that must be fought by children, but I fear it is so. You must leave me behind and go to the fight, when the time is here.”

  “You can come with us. All you have to do is open your mind to me—”

  “No,” Negata says sadly. “I’ve spent all my life becoming nothing. I cannot become more than I am now.”

  “But …” Shreve trails off.

  Negata says no more, just remains still, and then his breath deepens and he’s asleep.

  Shreve returns to our nest of blankets and slips in beside me. The length of him presses against me, and I feel him press his lips to my forehead. I put my arms around him and share his warmth.

  The frozen world beyond these walls requires compromise. It requires us to fall. But here, with his arms around me and his face soft and quiet in the low light, his eyes closed and no sign of the wolf about him, we need make no compromise. We can be pure.

  thirty-two

  JACK

  We land in the open space of the dorm, and Tap pulls back his hood, pulls off his gloves, and stares at the remains of our room. He looks like someone’s gut-punched him. He steps over a frozen corpse, walks over to Shreve’s old bed. The wind from the great opening in the wall blows his hair as he sits down on the thin mattress.

  It’s taken us a week to reach the campus. We had to search for our old home as if we were geese or carrier pigeons. It was only when we spied a road sign pointing to Bozeman that were we able to trace the dead, empty trails of white highways below us and then thread our way back to the campus.

  The campus itself is in ruins. Some structures still stand, but it looks as though the Conformity had a tantrum after we escaped, if you can call that an escape. Buildings are crumpled and shattered, massive spills of red and gray brick, jagged snarls of shattered timber, partially cloaked in white. The canteen and admissions are rubble, along with the research and development housing. The Army barracks has been squashed flat, as well as the girls’ dorm. On the heights, the water tower lies where it fell. I’m thankful the field of human bodies below it has had a blanket of snow drawn across it, with only a few mangled limbs poking through the crust here and there. I wish I could do something for them all, but it would take months of work to get them buried. The bears and mountain lions will be well fed this winter.

  The boys’ dorm still stands, but half of our room is sheared away; the floor is jagged and buckled, the rest open to the sky. It’s a brilliant winter’s day, bright and bitter cold, throwing the whole world in sharp relief. There are three frozen corpses splattered about what’s left of the room—two men and a little girl, probably sloughed off from the soldier as it struck the building.

  “We knew it was never going to be permanent,” Ember says, inclining her head toward the ruinous view before us. “You knew, eventually, we’d go on assignment or move on.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Tap says. “I never would’ve come here if I’d thought that. I would’ve stayed with my family, even though this—” He sweeps his arm to take in me, Ember, the remains of the campus, the corpses, the existence of extranaturals in general. “—would’ve put them at risk. I love my family, goddamn it. I wouldn’t have left!”

  Tap’s shaking. He covers his face with his hands. Yeah, he’s still a dick. But now I can see what motivates him, and it’s not that different from what drives me. Strange to say, Ember—my girlfriend … no, we’ve gone beyond that. Ember, my lover—is more opaque to me now than Tap.

  There’s not much I can say to Tap’s outburst. So I switch subjects. “They evacced out of the south pass,” I say, looking down the valley—a wide view now that the whole of our dorm room has been ventilated. It’s like King Kong just ripped half of the dorm building away. “They were in Jeeps and troop transports. How long did the Conformity chase us before it—”

  “Turned off the electricity?” Ember asks. “Seemed like only minutes.”

  Tap stands, wipes his eyes. I’m very careful not to notice his tears. “Nah, it was way longer, we were just terrified. That made it feel like things were happening faster than they were.”

  “So they could’ve gotten quite a ways. We were on the switchbacks, but when you go that way,” I say, pointing to the south, “Highway 10 is right there. Once they got on the pavement, they’d be moving fast.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Tap says, pulling his hood back over his head. “The quicker we find the Liar, the quicker we can—” He stops.

  We can what? Find Shreve? Confront the Conformity? And then? Will we be dead? Will we become part of the great pulsing mass? Be consumed?

  Everything waits in ruin.

  Ember wants to sift through the rubble of the girls’ dorm to look for some of her things. Mementos. A necklace. A picture of her grandmother.

  I don’t tell her it’s pointless.

  Maybe the point is to realize it’s all gone.

  From on high, Tap and I scout the area for any signs of life. Not surprisingly, the only signs are of wildlife. The forest and animals have already reclaimed some of what once was our home. Game trails lead to piles of rubble that possibly have dens in them now. There’s big-cat shit—probably mountain lion—in the boys’ dormitory atrium, right outside Roderigo’s little office.

  Let’s check the bunkers, Tap sends in the face of wind. I could stock up on ammunition. And I’m hungry.

  I’m hungry too.

  The entrance to Bunker H is no more; the Conformity battered it to oblivion. But on the far side of the mountain, at the end of the switchback, the motor pool door stands open and we’re able to gain entrance there.

  We trudge down the long hall, into the guts of the mountain where there’s absolutely no light; we have to
resort to the matches and candles we took from the lodge to see our way back to the underground armory and cache. There’s still some MREs and weapons and ammunition, so we both stock up, taking another M14 and pistols for each of us. Tap slings a bandolier of rounds for the grenade launcher over his shoulder.

  Looking at him, I laugh.

  “What?” he asks, not far from outrage.

  “You look like a bandito. You got the bandolier, and you’re still wearing that old wool blanket cape. All you need is a cowboy hat and cigar.”

  He looks at me, the corners of his mouth curling up in an involuntary smile. “You’re not so bad, Jack.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks just yet. Help me with this bag.”

  “You gonna be able to carry all that?”

  “Don’t start, man. The doc was heavy.”

  We lug the nylon bag full of ammo and MREs back out. Tap threads his arms through the handles, making an improvised backpack, and we lift off, heading back over the mountain, back to campus. At the apex, as we’re passing over the snow-wreathed peak, the valley beyond seems strangely washed out. The firs seem dark, not green. The sunshine is bright yet brings none of the buttery color. The sky, normally blue, seems just gray. The colors are there, but only the barest hint.

  What the hell? Tap sends. In flight, it’s easier to speak mind-to-mind. Who put on the black-and-white movie?

  We make it back to where Ember waits for us in the aerie of the ruined dorm room. Tap unslings the bag, and we divvy up the ammunition and food.

  “You notice anything different?” I ask Ember, moving next to her. Sometimes I just want to ditch Tap, find some little abandoned house with a stocked kitchen and a thick woodpile, and hide away from all of this with Ember. We’d spend the rest of our lives in bed. But thinking about it makes me uncomfortable. And she’d never go for it, and I couldn’t live with myself if she did.

  “You guys look like zombies.”

  I glance at Tap and then back to her. She’s right. “It’s like the color has been leeched out of everything.”

 

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