by P A Vasey
“He’s not a machine,” she said.
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the machine Adam. The perfect but plasticky skin, the lack of ageing lines or crow’s feet or any disfigurements. A human copy, convincing, unless seen up close. I sneaked a peak through the hole again at Navarro and saw the staring eyes, bloodshot and watering. A furrowed brow. Sweaty and pale. Buzz cut hair, blotchy scalp.
Not a copy. Not a machine.
Definitely Navarro.
I reached up to unhook the chain and open the door again, and then everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
Navarro kicked the door in.
There was an explosion of broken wood and plaster as the lock and chain guard burst free. The door blew off the hinge and hammered into my shoulder. I tumbled backward, losing my feet and falling heavily over a chair. Somehow I rolled without hitting my head on the floor but crashed into the wall opposite. Navarro took a step through the entryway and Stillman raised the gun two-handed and pointed it at his head. Before she could fire Navarro launched himself at her, arms flailing and knocking the gun flying out of her hands. He grabbed her around the neck and pushed her up against the wall, and then she was lifted off the ground, pinned, trying to loosen his grip while kicking her legs against him.
I looked around for the gun but couldn’t see it, so I picked the chair up and swung it into his back as hard as I could. He staggered against Stillman, losing his grip, and she took the opportunity to punch him in the face, again and again, straight-arm punches, vicious and accurate. Blood started to seep from his nose, which had flattened against his face and looked broken. I picked up the chair again and swung it, aiming for the back of his head. It connected and there was a sickening thud as his head jerked to the side with the force of the blow.
But he didn’t fall.
He raised an arm to block Stillman’s punches and swung a fist at her at blinding speed. She just managed to see it coming and ducked, letting it crash into the plasterwork. The wall indented and cracked and when he pulled his fist out of the hole, there was blood on the paintwork and over his knuckles. Stillman ducked under his arm again and jabbed him in the kidneys, which caused him to fold over and let out a hiss like a deflated balloon. As she moved in for another punch he threw an elbow into her face, which she deflected onto her shoulder. The force must have been significant, because she span sideways and her feet gave way.
Navarro moved toward me and I held the chair out in front like a lion-tamer. His face was expressionless, his eyes soulless, black and empty.
“Pete, what the fuck are you doing?” I managed in between breaths.
In response his lips curled back in a feral grin, and there was that familiar tickling sensation behind my eyes. Fear and anxiety were being kicked around my brain, hyper-activating my adrenal glands. Sweat started to drench my skin, my heart thumped in my ears, my breathing accelerated even faster. Paralysis took hold as the fear spread throughout my body, shutting down my muscles and my nerves. I couldn’t move.
Then the voice of the Vu-Hak was in my head.
We have found you Kate Morgan
Navarro lunged forward and grabbed hold of the chair, pulling it out of my hands and flicking it away in one movement. I stared into his eyes, frozen, waiting for the green phosphorescence to flash as the Vu-Hak moved in for the kill.
Then Stillman jumped back in and got Navarro in a headlock, jerking him aggressively to the ground so he was bent in two. His reached up to scrabble for her hands but she viciously twisted and turned, using her weight and momentum like an MMA fighter.
The spell was broken and the paralyzing fear left me all at once. I grabbed his legs and pinned them down as he kicked and twitched, attempting to get out of Stillman’s grip. His fingers went up to her face and she buried her head in his neck as he tried to gouge her eyes out. She was panting hard, veins standing out like hosepipes on her forehead and temples.
“Get … my … gun!” she ground out. “There!”
Her head flicked to the doorway where the Glock was lying against the frame. It was about six feet away, which might have been six miles given that Navarro was likely to break free any second.
“I’ve got him. Quickly, Kate! He’s strong!”
I took a deep breath and crawled over his legs as fast as I could, keeping my body weight on his until the last possible moment. I pulled myself toward the door, heading for the Glock, stretching out my hand, fingers grasping. As my finger brushed the metal of the barrel, there was a sharp tug and my hair was pulled backward and my head slammed into the floor. My vision blurred as the pain lanced through my skull. I twisted and he lost his grip and I awkwardly rolled, bumping up against the wall. Stillman had her legs wrapped around his neck in some sort of judo hold, and she was batting away his hands as they now tried to grab her thighs. His face was bright red and his eyes were bulging, but still he kept swinging away, the odd fist connecting with Stillman’s chest and body. She was tiring, and I could see he was not going to tap out anytime soon, if at all.
I scrambled to pick up the gun. I had no idea if the safety was on or off but I assumed she would have had it ready to go. I held it with both hands and pointed it at Navarro. “Pete,” I screamed. “Give it up now!”
There was no response, and he kept struggling and punching, the impacts getting bigger and more frequent.
Stillman grunted, head down, “The legs. Shoot him in the legs.”
I took a deep breath. The pain in my head had somehow dulled the Vu-Hak presence and lessened the fear. I took aim at Navarro’s left shin, closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger.
The report was loud in the confined space of the corridor, and the recoil hurt my wrist, but my shot was accurate. A hole blew out of his pants, followed by a squib of blood. At this close range the bullet passed through his leg and carved out a divot on my floor. To my astonishment, there was no let up in Navarro’s attempts to get out of Stillman’s grip. Both arms and legs continued to thrash, like he was being tasered.
“Again!” Stillman shouted.
I targeted his other leg, higher up above the kneecap, and pulled the trigger twice. Two big holes ripped through the trousers and a geyser of blood shot out vertically. An artery. Crimson sprayed the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting. Within a few seconds I guessed about a liter was pooling under his leg. The human body has about five liters in total and with one fifth already gone he was looking at hypovolemic shock.
Stillman released him and pushed herself away like a crab, taking huge deep breaths and scrabbling toward the far wall. Navarro lurched to the side, collapsed, and then, using one arm, started to push himself to his feet. His leg bent out from under him and with a crack his shinbones snapped, horrifically ripping through his trouser leg. Despite all this he started to crawl toward me, mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Blood continued to pour out of his leg and he slipped on the mess but continued his advance, looking like a nightmare vision from Dante.
Then Stillman was by my side and yanked the gun out of my hand. She pushed me out of the way and fired twice into his face. The back of his head exploded as the 9mm rounds blew out, taking blood and brain and skull to complete the wall decoration. His head dropped, and he fell in a pile onto the bloody carpet.
SIX
I leaned against the wall, my heart going like a trip hammer and adrenaline coursing through my body. Navarro lay face down in the doorway, the back of his head a dark bloody mess. Behind him, blood spattered the corridor leading to my elderly neighbor’s door. Hopefully she was out of town.
Stillman edged toward Navarro and stepped gingerly over his body to close the front door. She kicked his leg out of the way as it jammed in the gap.
“Help me move him into there,” she said, pointing at my coat closet.
I was frozen to the spot; I started to shake as the adrenaline left me. What had we – had I – done? Navarro wasn’t a Vu-Hak: he was a human being. And now he was dead in my house. While I didn’t f
ire the killing shots, that didn’t make me feel any better. I had helped kill someone … someone I knew as a colleague, and maybe a friend. Did he have family, a wife maybe, and children? I didn’t think so, but I hoped not.
“Kate,” Stillman hissed. “Snap out of it. We don’t have much time. How long do you think it’ll be before the police get here?”
I nodded. “Not long.”
Every resident on this floor would be on their phones right about now, dialing 911, reporting gunshots in the Moynahan. People would be panicking, the building going into lockdown.
I still didn’t move and was fixated on Navarro’s mutilated leg, and the expanding pool of blood oozing towards the door. Stillman grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me. I managed to tear my gaze from Navarro and was struck by how calm she was.
“It’s alright, Kate. We had no choice.”
“Okay, but what are we going to do?” I said.
“Get the fuck out of here, obviously.”
“What, and just leave him in my cupboard?”
She briefly averted her eyes and then took a deep breath. “We need to lie low for a while. Re-boot. Figure out what the hell happened here.”
“We just killed someone. That’s what happened.” I was starting to panic again.
“Yes and no,” she said. “This was something different.”
She wasn’t wrong there. Navarro wasn’t one of the Vu-Hak machines, that much was clear. But he wasn’t himself.
“I sensed the Vu-Hak. It spoke to me,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “It said that they’d found me. It was controlling Navarro.”
Stillman gave me a sharp look. “Controlling him? From where?”
I pointed to the body on the floor. “From there. Inside him.”
“Like he was possessed?”
I screwed up my eyes and tried to think, tried to make sense of what had happened.
“Yes, it was Navarro’s body but his mind was all Vu-Hak. I think he was in there, but he wasn’t in charge of his actions. I also got … impressions. Like, a sadistic pleasure in getting another autonomous being to behave under your control.”
Stillman’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. They’re controlling people now? Why?”
I had no answer for that. If the Vu-Hak had been in one of their machine bodies, then nothing could have stopped it from killing us.
“Maybe there aren’t any more machines,” she said, slowly.
That pulled me up short. Adam had said that the Vu-Hak were a race of untethered consciousness. That they had forsaken physical bodies thousands of years ago. At some point before that however, they’d transferred their minds into machine constructs in order to travel unhindered through interstellar space.
“Adam told us that organic matter – and that includes those alien free-floating minds – wouldn’t survive passage through the wormhole. The machines protected them. The fact that the Vu-Hak are here means the machines are too.”
Stillman looked thoughtful. “Okay, they can’t be here without the machines.”
I nodded. “And Cain is definitely a machine.”
“Yes he is.”
We looked at each other silently.
“So where’re the other machines?” I said.
We looked at each other, letting the silence linger.
“We need to find Cain,” I said.
Together we awkwardly shoved Navarro into the cubby, and I pushed the door closed. There was a long smear of blood and brain leading from the front door to where we had deposited Navarro.
“Should we clean that up?” I said.
Stillman was already gathering her things and pulling her coat on. “No time. We should get out of here before the cops arrive.”
“Maybe we should wait for the cops?”
“You’ve got to be kidding. We can’t trust anyone now.” She walked up to me and was in my face, her almond eyes now red-rimmed. “You hear me?”
I nodded silently and grabbed my jacket and beanie from the sofa. The unreality of what had just happened was sinking in. But, considering the experience of having my memories reloaded, nothing was going to seem impossible. My house, the decorations, the keepsakes, the personal touches. None mattered now. None of them were truly mine.
“The police are going to be looking for Sara Clarke,” I said. “And unfortunately she looks just like me.”
Stillman just shrugged. “It’s a big country. I think I know just where to go to be anonymous. And to get help.”
We left the Moynahan by the fire exit and joined the pedestrian traffic heading downtown toward the city. It was dark and chilly, and there was a light drizzly rain coming off the lake. An increasing squeal of sirens could be heard as the police answered the multiple 911 calls from our building.
Stillman hailed a cab and we dived into the back seat. The leather squeaked and smelled vaguely of smoke and piss. I caught a glimpse of myself in the driver’s mirror, bags under red-rimmed eyes, blonde hair curling messily from under the beanie. The driver, a very fat Middle Eastern man, looked back and asked where we were going.
“Greyburn Cemetery,” said Stillman.
He flicked the meter on and took a wide U-turn on the street, heading south.
“Why the cemetery?” I said.
Stillman leaned close and whispered into my ear, “Fifteen minutes’ walk to the Greyhound station.”
The rain was bouncing off the sidewalks, huge globs pooling into rivers along the road.
“Why not just drop us off at the bus station?”
She gave me a withering look. “Because when the taxi driver is interviewed he won’t be able to say that he dropped two women off at the bus station, will he?”
So there we were. Fugitives, and on the run. I had to revise my thinking.
Traffic was fairly heavy, and ten minutes later we were dropped off at the entrance to the cemetery. Stillman paid the cabbie and added an average tip. Too big a tip, or no tip at all, and he might remember us, I thought. Now I was thinking like a fugitive too.
We waited until the taxi was out of sight and then headed off westwards at a fast pace. Stillman had not had time to change and was still wearing her long dark coat over the yellow cocktail dress and high heels, which were clickety-clacking along the sidewalk. She stepped on an uneven pavement edge and twisted her ankle.
“Fuck,” she said, stopping and hopping as she took the stilettos off. “I need to get out of these clothes.”
I nodded silently and looked up and down the street. Lights were flickering on sporadically, and the traffic was pretty steady. However, no malls or shopping areas looked open and we were in the wrong part of town for a high fashion raid.
“Over there, looks like no one home.” Stillman said, pointing to a couple of apartment buildings. The lower windows on the ground level were dark with half open curtains and certainly looked unoccupied.
“We adding burglary to our crimes now?” I said, only half-joking.
She gave me flat eyes and hustled us across the road toward the apartments, which up close were all grey old stone with solid-looking window frames. We turned into the nearest building and made our way up the stairs to the front door. Stillman leaned on the bell and waited as I anxiously checked passersby and traffic. After a half minute or so, she rang it again. No answer.
“We’re in luck,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Let’s get inside.”
She rummaged around her handbag and pulled out a shiny silver tool which looked like a bottle opener with multiple wires and hooks. It took her four seconds to pick the lock, and we slipped into the house. There was a musty smell of old curtains, and a not unpleasant smell of bolognese sauce. My stomach rumbled and I put a hand on my abdomen and gave it a rub. The hallway was pitch dark and so Stillman flicked the lights on. A series of low-wattage bulbs encased in old-world lampshades flickered, casting orange shadows along the corridor, which was about thirty feet long. At the end was a half-open door leading to what looked li
ke a kitchenette. On the right were doors leading to two other rooms. The left-hand wall was just picture frames, bookcases and plants.
Stillman shrugged out of her coat and popped it onto the hat stand next to the front door alongside a couple of fleeces and an assortment of winter coats.
“Stay here and keep a look out. I’ll see what I can find for us.”
She headed up the corridor and ducked into the first room on the right.
The hat stand lived up to its name, with flat caps and woolen hats, a couple of straw boaters and a fedora that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Indiana Jones. A very large black beanie with JETS on it looked more promising and so I pulled it on, tucking as much of my hair in as I could. I leaned against the front door and squinted outside. There was one dim streetlight and a few late-model sedans parked and an elderly couple walking a dog. I reflexively jerked my head back as they looked my way but when I poked my head out again they were gone.
There was a creak on the floorboards behind me and Stillman returned, wearing trainers, jeans and a sweater, which all seemed to fit her. I guess we caught a break.
“Like my disguise?” I quipped.
“You’re obviously a fan of beanies,” she said, giving me a crooked smile.
She grabbed one of the fleeces and put it on, throwing her handbag over her shoulder. There was a mirror across from the door and she stood in front of it, checking herself out.
“We good?” I said, again anxiously looking toward the front door.
She pursed her lips and frowned into the mirror. “Throw me that baseball cap?”
There were a few to choose from and she settled on a blue NYPD cap. I wondered if the owner was actually a cop, or just a supporter. Either way, I was getting twitchy and thought it was time to go.
Stillman saw me looking and nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”
I started toward the door but as I reached for the handle a shadow passed by the side window and footsteps could be heard. We pressed ourselves back into the side of the hallway behind the hat stand and waited.