“You promised you wouldn’t bring his daughter and him into the fold!”
That voice was young, teenaged, outraged.
– it’s not like that, Ruth – the other voices in the collective murmured.
“Don’t lie! That’s exactly what you want to do to her – you want to squeeze them both inside the same brainspace, exactly what my mother did to me–”
– is it that bad? –
“Oh, I keep Her walled away from you. But if you wanna feel what She does to me, well, have a taste of my memories!”
Paul dropped into the drone, landing with a bone-jarring thump as the Unimancers staggered away in different directions, clutching their heads, weeping.
Was this the flux? Or something unexpected?
A Unimancer hauled him out. The body was a stocky Korean man, but it moved with an adolescent girl’s gangly motion – and his late-forties face was mapped with the pissiness of a teenager in full-blown rebellion.
“Your kid’s gone,” the girl-in-a-Korean-body said in a clear Chicago accent. “Can’t get her back. But you… well, I don’t give a shit about you, murderer, but she’ll never be free with you trapped inside the same mindspace. So get out. We’ll come to consensus eventually.”
Three of the Unimancers aimed rifles unsteadily at the soldiers, who stood there, confused. Paul felt sorry for them: they’d not been trained for ’mancy, they were completely unequipped to handle this.
Heck, Paul felt completely unequipped to handle this. Someone inside the Unimancers was rebelling – they’d broken ranks before, way back during their first encounter, disobeying their commander’s orders to capture Valentine. But that disobedience had seemed like a group effort. Now one girl appeared to be overriding the hivemind.
A young girl. Had they found another ’mancer Aliyah’s age, and absorbed her? How could one girl override the network? He’d barely understood a word she’d said.
He realized how little he understood about the Unimancers.
“Who… are you?” he asked.
“Like I’m giving you an ID to trace? Fuck off, papermancer, time’s running out. You–”
They freed Imani from her handcuffs as General Kanakia’s voice emanated from the Unimancer squadron.
“Ruth.” His voice was fond, but firm – an indulgent uncle. “Yes, Aliyah is in our control, but Paul’s the real target. He’s the one who understands broaches.”
“We understand broaches.”
“Then why haven’t you–”
The Korean man punched himself in the balls, regaining control. “You telling me the President won’t order you to bring them both into the hivemind?”
Another Unimancer spoke weakly for Kanakia, whose voice was fading like a distant radio station. “Set him free, and he’ll cut a path to hell to find her – remember what he did to New York City?”
“I’m not living with New York City in my goddamned brain. You know who I’m living with. I thought you saved me from that.”
The general’s voice fell silent… but the Unimancers nodded proudly.
Robert pulled up; the Unimancers loaded Valentine into the jeep, tossed some of their rifles in, helped Paul and Imani up.
The Unimancers turned to Robert. “Step on it, asshole. Get out before the backup choppers find you.” She smacked Valentine’s cheek, a little too hard to be affectionate. “I even left you this deadly bitch in case you need to dodge local trouble. But after that… stop doing ’mancy. Go live a quiet life somewhere. Stop your fucking amateur hour magic; you almost killed yourself today, you almost ripped open America. Jesus fuck, you dumb sack of elephant shit, how much does it take for your bloated ego to realize how incompetent you are?”
“I am not incompetent,” Paul wheezed. “You stopped me from fixing–”
She jammed a gun into his throat.
“If we see you again, I will put a bullet through your windpipe. And your kid will pull the trigger. Do not fuck with us.”
They waved Robert on. He peeled out.
Paul breathed shallowly, trying not to worsen his ribs. Everyone else fell into a mournful silence as they raced down back roads, only allowing themselves to hope once they’d lost themselves in Kentucky’s deep woods.
Imani clutched a rifle to her chest, staring straight ahead, flecks of someone else’s blood drying on her cheeks. Valentine woke sluggishly, picking open blisters on in her shoulder, wincing as she watched the last of her tattoo disintegrate into ooze.
Paul groaned as he leaned forward, dabbing the blood off Imani’s face with his handkerchief. She caught his wrist in a death grip.
“We have to kill them all.” Her eyes held no remorse. “We’re not safe until every last Unimancer’s dead.”
Paul nodded.
Aliyah, he thought. I have to stop them from brainwashing Aliyah. That Ruth-thing, she’d been so brutal, so callous, so at ease with murder. Paul had spent his life encouraging Aliyah’s independence, and now…
YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DAUGHTER IN WAYS YOU NEVER IMAGINED
Even if the whole universe fought to deny him, how could he let her go?
Valentine hugged them both – a hug that emphasized their incompleteness: an empty space stood between them, an Aliyah-shaped hole that would not heal until they had their girl back.
Robert fidgeted at the wheel, saying nothing.
Part Two
Hans Plays With Lottie, Lottie Plays With Jane
Fifteen
Neuropeptalks
Forty-five minutes after Aliyah was kidnapped, Paul was arguing with a Walgreens pharmacist.
The clerk, a weary middle-aged white man with horn-rimmed glasses, thumbed through the prescriptions Paul had handed him.
“Neuropeptide Y?” he asked. “5-Dehydroepiandrosterone? Mister, we’re a small-town pharmacy, we don’t carry anything like that here…”
“Just look in the back,” Paul said. He didn’t look like his normal self – Valentine had wrapped him in an octogenarian retiree’s pseudoskin – but he spoke with such desperate certainty, the pharmacist shuffled off.
The pharmacist returned a few minutes later with an astonished look, clutching two small boxes. “I don’t remember ordering these.”
That’s because they weren’t there an hour ago, Paul thought. He’d rejigged the pharmacy’s orders to have these very specific medications delivered to their doorstep a month ago, waiting for Paul to pick them up. He felt that delivery’s flux crackling around him.
“They’re anti-anxiety medications,” Paul explained. “They’re getting more popular all the time.”
“Sure, sure.” The pharmacist peered into the back room, frowning; Paul could see him thinking, We have a thousand medicines, I don’t know them all.
Paul got away with a lot of bureaucromancy simply because magic was so rare. Who would leap to a crazy idea like a ’mancer fiddled with my shelves when good old forgetfulness was at hand?
The pharmacist adjusted his glasses nervously. “Now, the antibiotics, sir, not a problem. But this sheaf of pain pill prescriptions: Ativan, Valium, Oxycontin. That’s a… it’s a good load, for an out-of-towner.”
Paul gritted his teeth. “My wife and I were on vacation. She lost her luggage in the broach evacuation.”
“Sorry to hear that, sir.” The pharmacist’s words were courteous, unconvincing. “All the same, I’m afraid I’ll have to call your physician to confirm.”
YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DAUGHTER IN WAYS YOU NEVER IMAGINED
Paul clutched his head. “My daughter’s in danger and my wife is on a countdown! I’ve got two hours before the trauma sets in, and–”
Paul noticed the pharmacist quietly putting his hand over the button that summoned the police – and realized the pharmacist would have pressed it already if Valentine’s magic hadn’t made Paul look like he was one hip fracture away from the nursing home.
This was ludicrous – he had to get Aliyah back, and that meant getting medications to suppress Imani�
��s impending PTSD, and he needed his–
The pain in his sides made him sit down. He couldn’t yell with these ribs.
“Sorry.” Paul leaned heavily on his cane, sucking in shallow breaths. “Yes, of course it’s correct to call the doctor to verify a suspicious prescription. It’s procedure.” He flailed his hand, feeling as old as his disguise. “Call Doctor Paulson. He’ll confirm the legality.”
Except, Paul realized, he had to do some emergency ’mancy. Doctor Paulson was Robert, who was sitting out in the transformed Jeep in the parking lot with Valentine and Imani.
Robert had studied medicine for two years under Paul’s tutelage before Paul would do the bureaucromancy to certify him as a nurse practitioner, legally capable of writing prescriptions. Robert had complained, asking to skip the tests, asking, Why can’t you let me prescribe whatever I want?
But that wasn’t what certifications were for. The point wasn’t to get drugs – the point was that the certification made Robert worthy to dispense them.
His trust in certifications seemed foolish as he clutched his sides, craving painkillers. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Robert only carried his burner phone on missions, and Paul had to reroute the “official” number of Robert Paulson, APRN to this burner phone before the pharmacist finished dialing.
The act should have been trivial. A single form, filled out. Under normal circumstances, Paul would have blinked his eyes and redirected the number.
The universe no longer trusted him.
Every act of bureaucratic magic was slower after his misstep at the Morehead airport – slower, and more dangerous. He closed his eyes to envision the Verizon Custom Redirect Service form. He filled out the first name, the last name, Robert’s social security number, backdating the form to have been filed six hours ago.
He had to justify everything – and now that his family’s safety was on the line, he resented it. This so-called “magic” was almost as slow as filling out a real form, and–
The flux from finishing the redirect dimmed the lights around him.
It buzzed around him like angry wasps, seeking something to go wrong. But what else could go wrong? Aliyah was off the government books, being jetted to some nameless Refactor prison. Imani was melting down. The Morehead broach was still unstable, and the Unimancers blamed him because they refused to let him repair it.
You want a piece of me? Paul thought angrily. Go ahead, fuck with my insides.
Something new snapped in his midsection. Another rib, tearing loose.
Paul didn’t even realize he’d screamed until the pharmacist came over.
“Sir,” the pharmacist said. “Let me call an ambulance, you’re clearly–”
“I need my prescriptions.”
“But you–”
“Fill them. Please.”
The pharmacist hung up before Robert could answer. Apparently, getting this crazy old man his drugs before he code red-ed out in his shop was a priority.
Paul hissed air through his teeth, trying not to let the pain overwhelm him. He hadn’t even needed to do that ’mancy.
The pharmacist shoved the pills towards Paul, who signed the usual waivers without glancing at them. He scooped them up, dropping the cane onto the tile floor, and staggered out towards the car.
Except, he realized, he was headed across the street to the Dunkin’ Donuts. Aliyah always asked him to get a baker’s dozen, so they could call Uncle Kit and have him read their mood through donuts.
Aliyah wasn’t getting any donuts.
If he didn’t find her soon, she’d forget her love of donut-based games – the government would erase her hobbies.
YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DAUGHTER IN WAYS YOU NEVER IMAGINED
No. There was still time to fight this. And he was envisioning a weapon to aim at that terrifying hivemind, but first he had to get back to the car.
The jeep was a van, now. Valentine had backed into a garage and selected a different vehicle. She rapped her fingers on the wheel as Paul clambered into the back.
“Aliyah’s landed by now, let’s get to her–”
Paul ignored her, shoving a water bottle into Imani’s shaking hands. “Take these pills.”
Imani was so far gone, she didn’t even ask Paul what she was taking. Paul took the opportunity to slip her rifle away from her.
“Hey, if you’re handing out the fun drugs, gimme some,” Valentine said.
“Those aren’t fun drugs,” Paul told her. “Those are cortisol dampers. They’ll blunt her body’s reaction to traumatic stress. Minimize her flashbacks.”
“PTSD?” Valentine’s irritation flared, then vanished as she craned around to peer at Imani. “What happened?”
Paul swallowed a handful of antibiotics and Oxycontin, hoping Imani would answer. She didn’t. “She shot three Unimancers in the fight. Three perfect headshots.”
Valentine went pale. “But she…”
“No,” Paul said. “She’s the only one here who’s never killed anyone.”
Valentine scowled, looking at Imani with hatred. Paul didn’t understand – until he realized that look was guilt, burning a hole through Valentine’s heart. I was supposed to be the wrecking ball, that look said. I was supposed to protect Imani.
Imani gripped Paul’s wrist. “Valentine’s right. Aliyah’s still in transit. We have to go–”
“I have two motel rooms reserved,” Paul said. “We have to sleep.”
“No!” Imani fumbled in her lap, looking for the rifle. “They have our daughter, Paul, this isn’t the time to–”
“We have been up for eighteen hours, and been on the run almost the whole time. Yes, Aliyah’s in transit, but if we race off again, we’ll fall into their next trap. That’s how they got us – rushing us into bad decisions. We’ll make a plan – we have never lost when we’ve made a plan…”
You’ve never pissed off the universe the way you did back at the air base, Paul thought–
“So we lose?” Valentine shouted, red-faced. “I don’t lose, Paul! May I remind you Aliyah is–”
“Aliyah is my daughter!” Paul yelled, and then regretted it as the pain shot through him again. He wheezed. “Don’t – make – this – about – who loves her – more. It’s strategy.”
She thumped the wheel. “Fuck strategy! We hit ’em hard, hit ’em fast! We don’t let ’em get away with this!”
“Valentine. Look at me.” Paul tapped the underside of his right eye. “Tell me you see an ounce of retreat.”
Valentine wiped her nose with the back of her hand, then bobbed her head, acclimatizing herself to a temporary retreat. “We’ll fuck them up?”
“There won’t be a SMASH when we’re done.”
Valentine closed her eyes, drawing in a breath through her nose; Paul knew how much standing down cost her. Valentine hated losing. Whenever she was outclassed at videogames, she’d spend days rooted by the television, honing her skills, unable to rest until she’d beaten her opponents…
“All right. One night. But we’d better kick ass, and soon.”
They got to the Marriott a few blocks away. Paul reached into the glove compartment, where the keys to the rooms had materialized, his signature placed on a hotel invoice.
It should have been easy. Everyone had cancelled their trips, fleeing from the Morehead broach. But even with all those vacant rooms available, rooms he’d pay for, that effort buzzsawed through his ribs.
All his ’mancy hurt now.
“Paul,” Imani said, as they staggered towards their room. “We don’t know where she is, we don’t know how the Unimancers act, we don’t know anything–”
He sat her down on the bed, put his arms around her. “It’s OK, sweetie. You’ve got this.”
“But I–”
“Every time you think of a plan, you remember their skulls shattering.”
She blinked, not comprehending what Paul had said. Then she flinched, ashamed.
“It’s OK,” he repeated.
“That’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I… I went through it when I shot the illustromancer who…” He hated saying what the illustromancer had done out loud, so instead he glanced down at the titanium blade that served as his right foot. “I shot her right over her left eyebrow. She was in an alleyway, worshipping posters of Titian’s artwork, and the posters peeled off the wall like mourners, staggering over to fall face-first into her blood. And… I dreamed, for months…”
Concentrate on Imani, he thought, realizing he’d drifted into his own flashback.
“Anyway, when I realized Aliyah had her own PTSD when she… hurt… Anathema during her magical awakening, I studied up on it. Just in case it happened to someone else I loved.”
Imani’s smile was the sun peeking out from around a storm – a promise the skies might clear again someday. “You think of everything, don’t you?”
If I thought of everything, Aliyah would be safe. “Anyway. Here’s how it’s going to work.” He reached out for the USPS packages lying on the bed; they, too, had been magically backordered. “Your goal is figuring out one thing.”
She opened the packages, looked at the books quizzically. “Honeybee Democracy? Ants at Work? Interaction Networks and Colony Behavior? Paul, these aren’t therapy books…”
“The therapy is redirecting your mind onto more productive tracks. I’ll figure out how to get Aliyah; you figure out how to disable the Unimancer hivemind.”
She flipped open the books, confused. “Why am I studying bees, Paul? Give me government studies, you can get those dossiers…”
Not now I can’t, he thought, but now was not the time to tell her.
“I’ve tried to access that information before, sweetie; General Kanakia has blocked formal studies of Unimancer behavior for decades. Whatever the Refactor does to break people down, the Unimancers keep that knowledge to themselves. They can keep good records; they’re a living brain.
“I want you to put a cancer in that brain,” Paul continued. “To break their connection. We have to smash SMASH – to show America brainwashing ’mancers is not a solution.”
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