As the Worm Turns

by Matthew Quinn Martin

  “Is that Latin?” Becker asked, hovering over shoulder.

  Thorne nodded, her mouth suddenly as dry as the ancient books surrounding them. The floor of her stomach began to collapse under the weight of what she’d just read.

  “You can translate it, right?”

  Thorne swallowed against the brick in her throat. “It says, Only in darkness past is future’s light.”

  A grim silence hung over them. The already narrow walls started collapsing. Becker cleared her throat. “But that’s the motto of—”

  “Of the Order of Sormen.” Thorne clapped the book shut, almost as if it would bite her. There on the cover, lightly embossed in the ancient leather, was a symbol she knew well—knew well and hated. The same thing that stood guard outside the Order’s gated mausoleum headquarters. A fanged serpent entwined around the shaft of a double-bladed ax.

  Forty-Five

  Ross sat at his Go board. He’d reconstituted the unfinished game he’d played against Jackson right before the man’s unceremonious and unplanned exit from Division custody. Since Jackson’s return, Ross had invited him repeatedly to resume play. Every time, Jackson had refused. It seemed the resolution was something he was willing to take to his grave—like so much else.

  He placed a white stone on the board, wondering if it was the move Jackson would have made. In many ways, Go had defined Ross. He’d discovered it almost four decades ago, when he was just another kid from the streets of Alphabet City. Although the neighborhood had since become a model of New York gentrification, in those days, needle parks and methadone clinics were more common than chic speakeasies and craft coffeehouses.

  In the ’70s, however, diversions that didn’t involve bottle bags or blackened dinner spoons were few in Alphabet City. But Ross would often see old men playing chess on cracked concrete tables, plastic Baggies and dirty blue balloons littering the pavement by their feet. He would watch, fascinated, as they shuffled the pieces and slapped frantically at battered clocks, their own time growing ever shorter.

  At first, he’d yearned to join in. After some pestering, one of the cabal of chess players had agreed to teach him the rules. He was eight, and within a year, he was beating challenger after challenger, many with decades of experience on him.

  But it wasn’t long before Ross had soured on chess. He grew disgusted by the very nature of the game itself. Every piece shackled to a preset purpose, only able to play out the moves fate had restricted it to. Pawns sacrificing themselves to protect kings and queens—and for what? For a game.

  To Ross, chess seemed anathema to the idea of America. At least, the version of America the schools tried to drill into his head. The all men are created equal fiction penned by a man who’d literally owned other human beings. Ross grew to see chess as a relic of the same imperial past that had built this nation on the backs, blood, and bones of his ancestors. That had dragged them here, chained head to foot and stacked three deep like cordwood on the lower decks of Middle Passage slave galleys.

  He could understand chess’s allure for the ruling classes. His imagination stretched that far. Beneath the game’s sheen of cultured sophistication lurked a longing to return to such a past, one where the white pieces were always afforded the first move. But why it held such fascination for his Alphabet City neighbors was something he feared he’d never comprehend. Most who knew Ross couldn’t understand his disdain for chess. But then again, most who knew Ross didn’t really know him.

  Then, one day, when Ross was around ten, he went for a walk, venturing past the borders of Alphabet City. And in a park in Chinatown, he saw two men playing a different kind of game. He’d watched for hours before one of them noticed their observer. The man smiled and waved him over. Ross played his first match then, on the nine-by-nine grid reserved for all beginners, and he’d lost badly.

  From then on, Go had become his obsession. He devoured every tome on the subject he could find through interlibrary loan. He constructed a makeshift board, using M&M’s as pieces, and had to keep a watchful eye on them lest his sister Eugenia filch them when he wasn’t looking. His only opponent was his own mind. After a year had passed, he returned to that same Chinatown park, sought out the man who’d first taught him, and challenged him.

  Again, he lost badly.

  It seemed there was more to mastering Go than memorizing stratagems laid down by generations of grand masters, as with chess. Go required a mental flexibility that could never be fully perfected. That is why, unlike in chess, no computer to date—no matter how powerful—had been able to vanquish the best human players. There was, and continued to be, more to winning the game than simple mental muscle.

  It was Go that kept Ross sane through the hell of New York City Community High School District 1, Region 9. It was Go that kept him level during his stint at Morehouse, kept him stable as a lieutenant in the infantry. It was Go that would be there for him during his days as a fresh Division recruit, plucked right from the army ranks the moment he returned from Desert Storm. The game had been with him for so long it had become part of him—or perhaps he’d become an extension of it.

  Ross gazed at the board he played on now, the one that traveled with him to nearly every assignment. The goban was a work of art. A solid, unblemished block of priceless kaya wood twelve inches thick and two centuries old. It had once belonged to a Kaigun Daisa, a captain in the Japanese navy during World War II, and before that to the man’s father and before that to generations of his forebears. Many dignitaries, heads of state, and prominent businessmen had laid countless stones on its lined surface. It had come to America at the end of the war as a trophy, and Ross had paid quite a hefty sum at auction to own such a prize.

  And what sat on it now was nothing but so much unfinished business. He removed Jackson’s hypothetical stone and dropped it back into the mulberry bowl. The game would remain in limbo for now.

  Ross heard the door swing open behind him. It banged against the aluminum siding, rattling the entire trailer. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t noticed any footsteps. That was a mistake he rarely made.

  “Agent Ross,” came Agent Diamond’s voice. Ross could hear the man’s heavy cloddish stumbling through the door. “We’ve got—”

  Ross held up a single finger, back still to Diamond. “You are tracking mud in here.”

  “Sorry,” Diamond said, already kicking off his wing tips. Ross listened as the man toed them toward the wall in a heap. “The trackers got a hit in Stamford, Connecticut.”

  “A hit?”

  “They think they’ve found her. The anomaly.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The police found a body in the back of some two-bit jack-shack massage parlor. It had been decapitated. The local five-o were joking that it might have been the work of a Highlander. Ha fucking ha, right?”

  Ross turned, silencing the man with a frosty glare. “You do have a flair for murdering the English language, Agent Diamond. I will give you that.” He rose, reaching for his neatly folded suit jacket.

  “Umm. Thanks.” Diamond shuffled his stockinged feet. “Anyway, autopsy shows that the head was removed with—ahem—mechanical force. Same as what happened with Lamb and Cogbill and all the rest.” The man rubbed the back of his neck, as if that could somehow erase the memories of what he’d seen.

  “Proceed.”

  “Yes, sir, er, Agent Ross. The first responders reported spotting a second body that the medical examiners were unable to recover. No sign of it. I think it was one of those creatures.”

  “Rapid decomposition. Makes sense. Scramble—”

  Agent Diamond cut in. “We’ve already scrambled birds. They’ve been scouring the area and think they’ve got a lock on the anomaly. The heat signature is unique, same as Asbury Park. So is the speed. Looks like she’s on the move.”

  “And where is the anomaly headed?”

  “Here. Toward New Harbor. That’s what it looks like. She’s already passed Bridgeport. At her curr
ent speed, she’ll hit this location within a few hours.”

  Ross weighed this information. The anomaly was coming here. Something was drawing it to them, but what? Perhaps the specimen they’d recovered during the attack in New Jersey, the thing’s own severed limb. Perhaps something else. He’d have to alert Dr. Kander. “Assemble a strike team immediately.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Intercept the creature when it gets here. I want that thing contained.”

  “Contained?” A look of sheer befuddlement washed over Diamond’s face. “How?”

  “Put Dr. Kander on it. I’m sure he can come up with something.” Perhaps Ross had been right to spare the doctor. He might prove useful after all.

  Diamond was gone without so much as a simple nod. Ross watched him hobble away, hopping on one foot as he struggled to put his shoes back on without stopping.

  Before he even had a chance to latch the door Diamond had left swinging, he spotted Agent Thorne trudging across the compound. She had a thick leather-bound book under her arm and Beth Becker in tow.

  “Agent Ross,” she said as she drew within earshot. “You were right.”

  “I often am,” he responded. Thorne and Becker had reached his door. “And when I’m not, no one is harder on me about that than I am. Proceed.”

  Thorne held up the book. On the cover, Ross saw the emblem of the Order of Sormen. He suppressed a smile. His opponent—his true opponent—had laid another crucial stone.

  “They are behind it,” Thorne said. “Or at least, they were at some point. Emile Lascarre was a member of the Order. He was performing experiments using the creatures and their venom. He was experimenting on people. One of them was the woman the techs pegged as a match for the anomaly, Brigid Casey, the one who disappeared eighty years ago. It’s all in here.” She thumbed the book’s cover.

  “Lascarre was the one who designed and built the ice coffin,” Becker added, eyes fierce enough to match his own. “He’s the one who put Brigid Casey in it.”

  Forty-Six

  Dr. Kander wiped blood off the rubber mallet and gingerly set it down on his steel worktable.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Jackson spit. A tooth landed on the ground between them in a puddle of bloody drool.

  Kander ignored the comment. It was just another in a long litany of tough-guy clichés the man had prattled off since coming out of the first venom coma.

  He reached into his lab coat for his pocket recorder and flicked it on. “Project Monarch, hour fifteen: Subject’s ability to withstand pain is extraordinary. Unclear if this is a skill acquired through self-conditioning, or a by-product of the venom’s transmogrification process. Moving on to phase two.”

  Kander looked at his worktable. While Jackson had been in the venom’s paralysis, he’d taken his time assembling his instruments. Some were medical in nature, others were everyday tools he’d pressed into service, and a few were his by way of the Division. The one he lifted now had been designed for self-defense, a slim black plastic box with two metal prongs protruding from one end. When Kander thumbed a switch on the side, blue bolts of electricity arced between the prongs, filling the room with the pungent scent of ozone.

  “These methods can be crude,” he admitted as much to himself as to Jackson. “But I believe that in this case, they will prove quite effective.”

  Bruises circled both of Jackson’s wrists just below the restraints. As Kander drew near, Jackson pushed farther back into the chair, scrambling to get away from the business end of the stunner.

  Kander sparked it again. He watched a line of sweat break out across Jackson’s forehead. The fear was taking over. This was a good sign. The sooner he gave in to his baser emotions, the sooner he let instinct rule, the sooner the transmogrification could begin in earnest.

  “Kander,” Jackson pleaded. “You don’t know what you’re playing with.”

  “No,” Kander admitted. “I suppose I don’t. But I intend to find out.” He rammed both probes into the inner crook of Jackson’s elbow. The man’s body went rigid, shuddering as the current rode his nervous system like a bullet train.

  The doctor eased up. Then hit Jackson with another jolt, then another, then another, and so on, until the smell of scorched skin burned sweetly in his nostrils. He looked deep into Jack’s eyes as the man tried not to scream—and failed.

  Kander stepped back. “Now, look at that,” he said in quiet triumph. “I believe we have been successful.”

  Jackson looked down. What had been his arm was now a solid mass of flesh, unformed as a lump of wax. The entire hand had merged into a single flat appendage. Jackson’s eyes were wide. Kander watched the wave of horror engulf him, and he drank it up like fine wine.

  “Stop it. Stop it,” Jackson pleaded, his lower lip trembling. Already the man’s hand was beginning to reconstitute, the crude beginnings of fingers and thumb poking from the waxy lump. “You were right. Now, just stop before—”

  “Why on earth would we stop now? We’re just beginning to tap your potential, Jack.” Kander stole a glance at the specimen. It had writhed through the entire procedure and now whirled like a dervish. It was in contact with Jackson’s baser intellect somehow, some form of nonverbal communication. “You see, Jack. It knows what’s happening to you. The anomaly must have known what was already happening to you back in Asbury Park. That’s why she spared your life.”

  Jackson flexed his hand. It was almost back to normal but retained a strange sheen. “You’re insane.”

  “Insane? Perhaps. But at least I’m still human. I didn’t throw away my life hunting monsters just to end up becoming one myself!”

  Jack spit at him. A thick glob drizzled down the front of Kander’s lab coat, already flecked with blood from phase one. “You are the only monster in here.”

  Again, this was good. Jackson’s fear had overtaken him, and now his anger threatened to do the same. Soon the man would toss aside all control and toss aside his humanity right along with it. Soon he would surrender to destiny.

  Kander returned to his station. Already his mill-wheel imagination was grinding out practical applications. He pictured soldiers with the power of one of those creatures, able to wipe out entire battalions single-handedly. People who could communicate without words. Division agents who could change their appearance at will, replicate any person on earth. Beings that could survive in the vacuum of space, relying on nothing but stray bits of matter. All of that and more, much more.

  It could mean the dawning of a new age, and it would all begin here, in his ’Clave. Future generations would revere him as the architect of a new era, midwife to a new race.

  Kander clicked on his recorder once more. “Project Monarch: Phase two complete. Moving on to the final phase.”

  “Kander,” Jackson wheezed. “You have to . . . have to stop . . . this . . .”

  Kander ignored him and returned to his worktable. He bypassed the scalpels, forceps, and retractors. He ignored the blunt, information-gathering tools favored by Division interrogators and reached instead for the simplest thing sitting there: a box of table salt.

  He poured a mound into his cupped hand and held it over Jackson’s arm. The man opened his mouth to plead for mercy. But before he could, Kander dumped it on him. The skin sizzled, filling the air with the acid stench of corrosion and Jackson’s agonized cries.

  Kander watched as the flesh melted, dripping away until forearm bones were exposed. “I think you can do better than that, Jack. Come on!”

  “P-p-please . . .”

  “Don’t beg!” Kander barked. “It’s beneath you. You are the Monarch! Come on!” Kander lashed out with another ribbon of salt. Jackson screamed as it slashed against his face and chest. “Come on! Do you want to melt into nothing like those creatures you detest?” Another strike. “Do you want to end your life as a pile of protoplasm?” Another. “Just as you left so many of them?”

  Jackson’s screams were a railroad spike through the doctor’s fro
ntal lobe. But it was working. Kander looked down to see that the arm had begun to transform. The hand had retracted into a solid, fingerless club. And on the man’s chest, a thin film of milky white chitin had formed.

  The sizzling ceased, and the remaining salt slid harmlessly to the floor. Jackson’s arm and chest and half of his face were now covered in translucent scales. “Good boy,” Kander whispered.

  Jackson let out a ragged exhale. His head lolled back, and his eyes rolled to white. Kander pressed two fingers against his neck. The pulse was still there. He was alive, but the strain must have knocked him unconscious. It didn’t matter. Kander could wait. They had all the time in the world.

  A harsh buzz broke the silence. Kander headed to the intercom and stabbed the button, not happy about the interruption. “Kander.”

  “Doctor,” came a static-riddled voice. It must have been one of Ross’s drones. “Surveillance has a lock on the anomaly.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s headed toward New Harbor. Agent Ross needs you to develop a containment protocol ASAP. He also wants you to bring the specimen to the interception team. He believes that’s what’s drawing it here.”

  “Yes, I’d imagine he would.”

  “Come again?”

  “Nothing,” said Kander with a weary head shake. Of course, a tiny mind like Ross’s would assume the thing was on its way here to retrieve something as trivial as a lost body part. It was Jackson who was drawing it here—he was all but certain of that. The Queen was coming for her Monarch.

  “Tell Ross to have his monkeys use the prototypes stored in the arsenal.”

  “Prototypes?”

  “Yes, the freeze cannons I developed. Shouldn’t be too hard to locate, Agent . . .” He let go of the button before finishing. “Whatever.” Then he turned back to his work.