by Hugh Howey
The large man spun around, eyes wide, his bloody hands fumbling above his collar where jets of crimson stole away his pulse. Molly bit into the bag, tearing it open with her teeth. The man growled at her and reached out—
Molly crammed the spilling bag of fluids into his face, aiming for his eyes, shoving it hard before letting go. He pawed at himself, screaming, blood flying through blood, his head still level with her waist. Molly grabbed the back of his head, wrapped her fingers in his hair, and pulled down as she threw her knee up. She tried to drive her leg all the way to her palms.
There was a dull crunch. The man’s arms fell to his side and his body went still. Molly’s knee lanced out in pain. She wobbled from the exertion—fell down to her hands and knees and fought hard to not black out.
Nearby, Cat’s head rolled around, blood and gore making her look like something out of an alien horror vid. She gave Molly a nasty smile. Her teeth—the ones not missing—were covered in her own blue blood; her lips were torn in two, bifurcated like her tongue.
Cat tried to say something, and flecks of azure mist popped up into the air. Molly scurried to her side, trying to figure out which wound to tend to first and how she was going to get them out of that damned place before more people showed up. She glanced to the back of the room where Walter stood holding the door to the alley open. He waved one arm for her to hurry up.
Cat spoke again. Molly tried to tell the woman to save her energy, but the Callite’s hand came up and clutched her shirt, pulling her down with ferocious strength.
Molly turned to her; she saw a maniacal grin spread across the woman’s pulped face, saw eyes vibrant with life meet her own.
Cat whispered something. Molly leaned in closer, turned her head, concentrated on committing to memory the woman’s words, in case they were her last.
“I felt that,” the woman whispered. She let go of Molly’s shirt and smiled even broader. “I felt that good.”
26
In his snowy grave, Cole had a dream.
A final dream, perhaps.
A sequence of dreams.
He floated in space as stars rushed by, white streaks against the black. He saw his face reflected in a helmet. Molly’s helmet? He saw his own visage fishbowled in another’s visor, his lips black.
The persistent burn. His flesh on fire, a popping fire as the numbness receded, the cold draining away and exposing the agony beneath. Cole could feel his individual nerves stretched out across the cosmos, shuddering with dying sensations, electrocuting him with pain.
Dying. Lips black, reflected in a visor. Swollen or fishbowled or both.
He hung in the vacuum, surrounded by white.
Plucked. God’s fingers holding him. Lifting him.
Dangling and dying amid the fuzzy white all around him and the shady blackness of his dreams within.
••••
Flickers of non-dream. The real invading his final sleep. Strings of meat, of tendon and vessels hanging from his arm. Hanging like wire. Wire and blood everywhere.
A twitch. A thrumming pain. A dream of aching, of burning and freezing, of thawing and cooking, of hell and heaven.
A universe of pain, full of aching.
An aching.
A never waking.
••••
Cole’s life didn’t flash by—it loomed and froze. A single image. A boy, dark-skinned and poor. White teeth, but no smile. Lisboa. Portugal. Bairro de lata. Slum. Home.
He saw fury creased across a young forehead, too young to crease like that. Black furrows full of the blackest rage. Fists clenched, arms thrown wide for balance. A boy at his feet, bent in half. The image was frozen, but the boy’s leg was blurred. The boy’s leg kicked, action without motion. A frozen blur, vivid and remembered. The last kick that did it, pushing a nose back into a brain. Silencing it.
Cole didn’t need to see it. Didn’t need to see the before—the years of life abused and wasted. Didn’t need to see the after—the hours of being beat on. So much pain on either side of that frozen slice of rage. Towering stacks of pain squeezing a sliver of time, that frozen horror of violence. Of killing.
Cole didn’t need to see it. He had another life worth flashing by. A life of redemption. Of learning to love. But he didn’t get that one. Just got the brutality and error—looming and frozen.
••••
Something else. New. Guilt and pleasure intertwined and swirling through Cole’s mind, becoming one.
Arms waving, reaching, swimming out of the fog. Out of unconsciousness. The world, a world solidifying, congealing into the half-real, half-imagined.
A woman kissing him, her hands on his body, on his chest.
Lips touching, over and over.
Cole looked up—saw it wasn’t Molly.
Red hair. Bright. The color and flicker of fire, of precious warmth. It danced and waved all around him—it draped across his bare chest. He was naked, the girl hovering.
It felt like—
It felt like forever.
Like wholeness and emptiness, like something spilling out and refilling, like infinite desire and eternal sating, the two racing and endless, like lines stretched out through the unknown, meeting at forever.
Pleasure.
Lust laced with fear and shame.
It wasn’t Molly.
He tried to fight back, to push her off, but every movement—deflected. Every effort—turned against him. The fiery woman. Resistance became passion.
The gradual giving in. His body worn down. Exhausted. Dead. She was kissing him—he kissed back. Hands wrapped in the wild hair, pulling her down.
Skin sparked with electricity everywhere it touched, where it touched other skin. Something jolted him alive.
Alive.
Cole looked at his hands. Fiery hair slid between his fingers. Ten fingers. But he didn’t have two hands. Not anymore. A dream. It was a dream—the last firings of frozen neurons as he perished in a bank of snow.
He pushed the girl away—or tried to.
She was strong. And the more he fought, the more beautiful she became, smothering him with a longing.
Cole groaned. He wondered if this would be the last he ever felt. A parting gift for a life too soon ended.
He longed for Molly.
The lips, full and fiery, shut out his moaning, clamped down on his mouth. Biting. He felt his body betray him, betray his promises and do another’s bidding. Cole cried, tears streaming down his face. Tears that felt incredibly—powerfully—real.
Part XIV – Salvation
“To find oneself, you must first lose a piece.”
~The Bern Seer~
27
Molly gripped the spigot with the palm of her hand to avoid using her damaged fingers. She gave the valve a turn, and water gurgled out of the hose, discolored at first, then running clear. She offered the stream to Cat, who knelt beside her.
Cat pushed the hose away. “You first.”
Molly held the stream against her lips and took in a mouthful of the cool water. She shook her head, swishing it around before spitting it out, trying to purge the taste of the rag. She ran more water over her lips and drank some down, enjoying the burn of the frigid fluid. She passed the hose back to Cat, who began splashing some on her face.
Molly collapsed against the dumpster behind her and looked up at the lone and naked bulb above, which cast a sad pool of light into the alley. On the other side of the restaurant, she could hear the blare of horns and the rattle of traffic. Occasional shouts from drunks and angry pedestrians reminded her that people were out there. Civilization, going about its nighttime business. Oblivious. Meanwhile, she cowered against a dumpster in some dark alley, a seeming world away. Her body was literally drained, and she felt lucky to be alive.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” Molly said. She turned to the side and watched Walter pace up and down in the darkness, hissing to himself. “And then I need to alert the authorities, tell them what’s going
on in that place.”
Cat swished some water in her mouth, then spit it out in a pale, blue stream. She wiped her chin with one of the few clean patches of her shirt. “Those probably were the authorities,” she said.
“They were going to kill me, weren’t they?” Molly inspected the mark in her arm, wondering how many times that needle had been used. Her vein seemed red and irritated, standing out against her pale skin. She worried she was imagining things. She looked up at Cat. “They’re rigging the elections, right? They were gonna take it all—every ounce I had, weren’t they?”
Cat nodded and splashed some water on her face. She looked up at Molly. “Was at least six dead in there.”
“But why?” Molly didn’t get it. Living people gave blood forever. It was as dumb as a parasite killing its host. Didn’t politicians need to keep their constituents alive, at the very least? She started to say something to Cat about it, then saw her face as the water washed away the blood. Molly leaned forward from the dumpster and gaped at the Callite’s lips, touching her own. “Your face—!”
“Still bad?” Cat asked, smiling a little.
“No, I—your lips, I could’ve sworn—”
“I’m fine.” Cat bent the hose to stop the flow and handed it out to Molly. “What about you? You need a doctor? They do anything ’sides bleed you?”
Molly drank some more water and shook her head. She ran the cool liquid over the pads of her fingers, numbing them a little. “No, I just… feel a little weak. I… I’d be dead if you hadn’t come along.”
“We!” Walter hissed from the darkness.
Cat and Molly smiled at each other, complete strangers sharing a post-adrenaline moment where bonds were immediate and humor oddly enticing. Again, she marveled at how untouched Cat appeared. What had seemed a missing tooth must’ve been darkened by blood. And perhaps some of the blood on her belonged to another Callite—from a donor bag, or something. She watched as Cat reached down to adjust one of the strips of fabric around her thigh, bringing it up to hide a tattoo of some sort, a purple line that encircled her brown, scaly leg.
“So, I’m Molly,” she said, holding out her hand. “Not quite how I’d hoped to meet you.”
Cat wiped her own hand on the back of her shorts and held it out.
“Gently, if you don’t mind,” Molly said. After shaking, she held her palm up for Cat to see. “I’m what they call a frequent voter.”
“Looks like you need a lesson on haggling, I’d say. Or at least on stocking up before an election.” Cat smiled at her, looking her up and down before shaking her head. “You was just a baby when I saw you last. Hand couldn’t wrap around my finger.”
Molly froze, the column of cool water splashing from the hose to the dirt. “Do I know you?” she whispered.
“Naw. Just saw you the once, after you was born.”
There was a sound down the alley, a banging and rattling noise like the lid of a garbage can falling. Cat leaned out and looked around the dumpster while Walter hissed with alarm.
“Probably a night glyph, but we should keep trucking. Can you walk? Them two boys behind the counter won’t be out forever, and I’m certain they’ll come looking for us. Especially after how we left their friends.”
Molly nodded and let Cat help her up. “Do you have a place nearby?” she asked Cat. “My ship might not be safe.”
“No. No place. No need, really.” She frowned at Molly. “Look, I knew your dad, and for him I’m glad to help you out. But once I get you tucked away someplace, I have a few things I wanna look into. Starting with that election joint.”
“Of course,” Molly said. “And I’ll—”
Cat raised her hand. “All I’m sayin’ is that I don’t have time for helping you track down your past, if that’s why you came hunting for me—”
“No, that’s not why—”
“There’s a lot I’d rather forget than stir up, is what I mean. And if the galaxy’s endin’ soon, you’re not gonna get a lotta complaints from me.”
Molly shook her head. “It’s not like that. I just need help getting in touch with a group of people. My mom said you’d know where to start, maybe introduce me.”
Walter popped out of the shadows, tugging on Molly and Cat. “Let’ss go,” he hissed, looking down the alley.
Cat nodded and pointed the way, causing Walter to scurry off into the shadows. Molly watched him go, marveling at how at-home he seemed in the dark, grimy alley. Cat pulled her along, her gait light and full of bounce, especially for someone who had just taken such a brutal beating. Molly racked her memory for information on Callites, whether they healed faster than Humans. She was pretty sure they didn’t.
“Wait a second,” Molly said, pulling Cat to a stop. “Exactly what are you?”
Cat laughed. “What am I? If I wasn’t what I seemed, would I tell you?”
“I don’t know,” Molly said. “It’s just… I’ve seen some things lately that didn’t turn out how I’d hoped. Men that weren’t really men—”
Cat took a step closer. “Listen, you need to up and run if you suspect shit like that. Don’t stand around gabbing—”
“Are you with the Bern?” Molly took a step back as soon as she heard herself utter the question. She looked around for Walter, her thoughts flitting to the last humanoid she’d encountered with godly powers and an uncanny resemblance to what he wasn’t.
Cat moved swiftly and seized Molly by the shoulders. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Molly attempted to pull away, but the woman’s vice-like grip held her firm and seemed to confirm what she was thinking—
“No, I’m not one of them,” Cat said. She let go and slapped Molly on the shoulder. “Now, c’mon. Walk and talk.”
Molly hesitated, rubbing her shoulder. Something rattled in the alley behind her, and she found herself hurrying forward, catching up with the mysterious woman.
“What are you, then?”
“What does it look like?” Cat peered over at her. “I’m a sodden Callite, that’s what. Well, mostly, I think.”
“You think?”
“You were born on Lok, weren’t you? How old were you when your pops took off?”
“Six. And yeah, I was born here. Almost on the other side of the planet, though.”
“Yeah, I know the place. Hell, maybe you were too young to remember, but Lok is a crazy place. There’s shit in the water.”
Molly looked over her shoulder at the receding pool of light by the dumpster. She spit to the side, the taste of the water from the hose already nasty with the hint of someone else’s blood.
Cat laughed. “Little late for that. Besides, it takes a lot before something goes wrong. And the city probably treats their shit.”
“You cuss an awful lot,” Molly pointed out.
“Yeah, well I fell in with some Drenards and I’ve been to hyperspace. Kinda narrows the expletive vocab, you know? Gotta go with the archaic shh— stuff.” Cat cupped her hands around her mouth. “Little man,” she hissed. “Next left.”
“You’ve been to hyperspace?” Molly felt her heart skip a beat; she hurried up beside Cat. “I—that’s why I came to find you. I need to get there myself.”
“What? Why’d you wanna go there? That place’ll give you one helluva migraine.”
Molly wasn’t sure what her mom wanted her divulging, but she felt like she was already erring on the side of un-caution just by being near the alien.
“My dad’s there,” she said. “Maybe a friend of mine as well.”
“Mortimor? What in the galaxy’s he doing there? Thought he slunk back to Earth years ago.”
Molly shook her head. “I don’t know.” She followed as Cat turned down another side-alley. “I’ve been told we need some special fuel.”
Cat laughed. “Yeah. That, and a hyperdrive that don’t exist. Speaking of which, you wanted to know what was in the water?”
“I have the hyperdrive, I think.”
“What
?” Cat pulled Molly to a stop, right in the middle of the narrow side-alley. Molly looked to the side and saw Walter’s diminutive silhouette framed by another well-lit and busy street.
“You have the hyperdrive?”
“The hyperdrive?” Molly repeated. “I don’t even know what that means. But according to this Byrne guy, I think I opened the hole above Palan that my mom escaped from.”
“Your mom? Parsona? Ain’t she a little… dead?”
“The ship,” Molly said, realizing it would be easier to introduce them than explain it.
“Oh, that Parsona.” Cat gave her a brief, concerned glance, as if she were thinking it’s not healthy to anthropomorphize ships to such a degree. Instead of saying anything, however, she simply turned and gazed down the dark alley for a moment. “Well, if you say you opened a door like that, then you must have the drive.” She laughed to herself, shaking her head. “Damn, that’s a clever place to put it. Ryke must’ve rebuilt it though, or someone would’ve noticed.”
Molly froze. She had a flashback to the smelly guy in her ship pointing out something in the engine room to one of his Callite partners.
“Shit,” she said, tasting the old word, which mixed well with the after-taste of the foul rag. “I think we might have a problem.”
“What’s that?” Cat asked, following along as Molly hurried off toward Walter.
“The guys on my ship,” she said, “I think they know about the drive!”
She broke out into a trot, her head balanced on the knife edge of worry and woozy.
Cat came running up alongside her—the alien’s strides easy and effortless. “These guys you keep mentioning,” she said, “they didn’t happen to smell like raw death by any chance, did they?”