by Kage Baker
“Please don’t.” Lewis swallowed hard and leaned back into his seat.
Eogan, that had been the mortal’s name. Lewis was in Ireland securing illuminated manuscripts for the Company. He’d been working at the remote monastery with Eogan. A monk had been carried off in the night by persons unknown, presumably the fair folk. The abbess, aware that Lewis had some unusual abilities, sent him out with Eogan to search and rescue if possible. They ventured into a hollow hill where the fair folk were thought to live. Lewis didn’t believe in fairies, of course, the whole thing seemed like a lark; but when he found the concealed entrance under Dun Govaun, he was so intrigued . . .
So he and Eogan went down the passage under the hill, Lewis confidently assuring his companion there was nothing to fear, until they stepped across the metal plate set in the floor, and Lewis knew rending agony for the first time in his immortal life, and then red darkness.
A confusion of impressions after that, blurred perhaps by the intensity of his fear and pain: a quiet, venomous little voice telling a story about three brothers. Two were strong and clever, but the third was weak and small, stupid except insofar as he was able to devise wonders to hide him from his brothers. The strong brothers tried to steal the devised wonders, but the weak one fled and hid himself in a cave. So did his children who came after him, and the hunt continued over the ages as the weaklings were driven to invent greater and greater wonders to keep themselves hidden, a branch of humanity lost in shadows, forgotten except in legend.
The storyteller went on to say that always the weaklings managed to keep ahead of their pursuers, until from the other end of time the strong ones came up with a device of their own: immortal servants, full of machinery, who were cleverer and stronger even than their masters. These cyborgs succeeded in finding the weaklings’ caves and robbing them.
So then they had to work harder, poor little weaklings, they had to find a way to break the cyborgs. With all the moronic intensity of their peculiar genius, they devised a disrupter field to disable biomechanicals. And Lewis, their first experimental subject, lay paralyzed in their warren, seriously damaged by the field, self-repair offline and organic components dying inside him.
But he didn’t die, not inside the hill. Eogan escaped with him, carried him out. He tried to make Eogan understand about the distress signal to Dr. Zeus, that the Company would come for him. The monk wept, tried to save Lewis by baptizing him so he’d have an immortal soul. A nice thought, but it didn’t help. His organic heart stopped. His organic parts began to die.
He looked now at the two little men. “Tell me something,” he said wearily. “Why me? It’s been two thousand years. You’re not immortals. You weren’t even born when your people caught me before. How did you know to look for me?”
“We all remember,” said the man in the cap.
“Everything,” said the man in the beret.
Lewis nodded slowly. “Hive memory? I see. And what are you going to do with me, now that you have me?”
“Take you back,” the man in the beret said. “You got away before we could learn about you.”
“Ah.” Lewis sighed. “That’s right. You were going to take me apart, weren’t you?” He felt something beading on his brow and realized it was the sweat of mortal fear. Then something occurred to him. “Wait a minute. You mean you’ve been hunting for me all these years simply because I happened to be the one you caught before?”
“Yes,” said the one in the cap.
“But you could have learned what you wanted to know from any Company operative. You mean you never tried to capture any of the others?” Lewis’s voice rose with incredulity, and he began to grin in spite of himself.
“Yes,” said the one in the cap, looking confused.
“Don’t laugh at us!” The one in the beret scowled. “You won’t laugh when we get you home, slave.”
Lewis sobered. Sweat was running down his face. He calmed himself and concentrated, trying to bring a greenish cast to his features. It wasn’t particularly difficult.
“Oh, dear, no, I’m frightened,” he assured his captors. “I’m so frightened, I think I’m going to be sick. It was Mr. Fancod, wasn’t it? You found me through him.”
“Yes,” the one in the cap said.
“But he’s stupid,” said the one in the beret with just a trace of pride. “He’s not like us.”
“No, he couldn’t be, could he? He lives with humans. Though I suppose you’re some form of humanity too—” Lewis made a choking sound and hastily pulled out a tissue. “I really am going to be sick.”
His captors backed away in alarm, but not far enough.
“Please let me go to the lavatory,” Lewis gasped, rising in his seat. “You don’t want vomit on your shoes, do you?”
“No,” said the one in the cap. They let him get up but pushed closely behind him as he stumbled in the direction of the door marked HOMMES. He went in, and they crowded into the tiny space after him, so tightly packed that they were unable to raise their arms from their sides.
That was when he winked out and slammed the door from the outside, twisting the handle until the metal bent, effectively jamming the lock. He heard a splash and a faint cry from within; perhaps one of the guns had fallen into the toilet. He tore apart the nearest seat and pulled out a tubular piece of steel, which he punched through the lavatory’s door jamb as an impromptu bolt.
Even as he was doing this, however, he felt a tingling sensation and numbness in the hand that had touched the door. He backed away, terrified. Turning and grabbing his suitcase with his left hand, he ran down the aisle between the seats to the opposite end of the car. There he crouched, staring back in dread as the train rattled on through the night, and the distant lights winked out across the black fields.
Lewis flexed his hand and felt sensation returning. A hasty self-diagnostic told him that there was some tissue damage, ruptured cells, biomechanicals compromised but resetting themselves. Drawing himself up, he shoved through the exit and stood for a moment on the tiny swaying platform between the cars, expecting to see Rod Serling standing there on the point of going into a speech.
Gasping for breath, he disabled the alarm and forced the boarding door. He focused on the passing terrain and, timing it to the split second, hurled first his suitcase and then himself out into the darkness.
Being an immortal, he landed lightly on his feet and pitched forward to lie flat on the embankment until the train had roared past. Then he got up, dusted himself off, found his suitcase, and walked back along the tracks to Neufchatel.
There, on a quiet residential street, he stole an agcar. He felt rather badly about it. He hadn’t stolen anything from a mortal since that briefcase of Ernest Hemingway’s, three centuries past. He drove all night, through Normandy, through Maine, through Anjou and Poitou, where once he had been a troubadour.
At daybreak he abandoned the car in a field and walked into Bordeaux, where he caught a train that took him across the border into Biarritz, and there he checked into a very nice hotel. Having showered, shaved, and put on a fresh suit, he went down to the hotel’s restaurant and ordered lunch. His hands were still shaking.
While waiting for the regional specialty to arrive, Lewis fortified himself with a glass of real wine (France and its neighbors to the south had refused to have anything to do with the ban on alcoholic drinks, thank God) and set up his Buke. He keyed in the communication code to the Hotel Elissamburu and confirmed that a Joseph Denham was registered there. He left a message indicating he would be interested in purchasing the sofa and love seat and would call at the hotel to discuss it that afternoon. He sent the message, holding his breath; to his relief it went through, and the hotel confirmed reception.
Leaning back in his seat, he took another swallow of wine and peered cautiously at his right hand. Full sensation now; in fact, it hurt. It looked badly bruised, purpling under the surface of the skin.
He set down the wine and leaned forward again over his
keyboard, spinning the story like a cloak, wrapping the words around to comfort himself.
“I will regret having defeated you, Commander Bell-Fairfax,” sneered Diego Luna. “For I assure you, only in you have I ever found an opponent worthy of my steel!”
Edward looked along his cutlass at the wily Portuguese.
“You may find,” he drawled, “that I’m a rather difficult man to kill.”
Irún del Mar, Basque Republic
JOSEPH SAT IN THE hotel garden, all suited up as a tourist on vacation. He wore a brilliantly colored sweater emblazoned with the logo of the local pelote team, black beret, and terrorist pants. He wasn’t wearing espadrilles only because it was March. He was in a strange mood.
There were several reasons why. He hadn’t been back to what was now Inún del Mar in twenty thousand years, give or take a few centuries, and the degree to which things had changed (and hadn’t changed) was profoundly unsettling to him.
He’d also been speaking Euskaran for the last week, which was enough to bend reality on its own.
Then too, he’d just received a cryptic mailing from Lewis, which probably meant that Lewis had news of some kind. It might be good news, or it might be some further tidbit about the life and exploits of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, of whom Joseph was sick of hearing. Mostly, though, he was bemused by a local phenomenon he had observed, and didn’t quite know how he felt about it.
He waved cheerily enough, though, as Lewis, looking even more gaunt than usual, came to the garden gate. “Hi,” said Joseph.
“What have you been doing, blowing up Spanish peers?” Lewis asked, regarding Joseph’s ensemble in horror. He sat down at the table.
“I’ve been trying to summon a sense of ethnic identity,” Joseph said.
“Is it working?” Lewis signaled to a waiter.
“No,” Joseph admitted. “But check this out.” He pointed at the transport trundling slowly down the street. It was a double-decker, and the upper deck was filled with some kind of sporting team, cheering rowdily and waving little pennants.
Lewis looked at them, and his mouth fell open. “Great Caesar’s ghost,” he said. “You’ve been cloned!”
“Weird, isn’t it?” said Joseph. And in fact, every person on the bus could have been Joseph or a near relation. Short and stocky to a man and woman, same black button eyes, same ironic mouth. Lewis stared at them until the waiter came, and as he looked at the mortal to order a gin martini, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Joseph appeared to be in two places at once, a very badly dressed Joseph seated at his left and a Joseph in a white apron standing deferentially to his right, waiting with a little order plaquette.
Lewis changed his mind. “Hot chocolate, please,” he said. Joseph repeated the order in Euskaran, the waiter keyed in his order and went away, and Lewis sagged backward in his chair.
“You know what’s really weird?” said Joseph. “Nobody notices.”
“Just when I thought things couldn’t get any stranger, I was proven wrong.” Lewis began to giggle helplessly.
“You don’t look good,” Joseph observed, frowning at him.
“I don’t suppose I do. I’ve had a difficult couple of days, and I’m a little short on sleep.”
“What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”
Lewis went into gales of high-pitched laughter. Passersby on the sidewalk turned toward him and frowned just like Joseph, which didn’t help. Joseph looked around uncertainly and finally reached for his water glass, preparing to dash the contents into Lewis’s face, but Lewis sobered abruptly. “Don’t. This suit is Bond Street linen,” he snapped. “And it’s my best silk tie. I’m sorry. I’m running, if you must know.”
“Christ! Somebody blow your cover?” Joseph set down the water glass.
“Yes. It was very strange. A vile-looking little idiot savant named Fancod walked into my office, modified an archives terminal with paper clips, and proceeded to break into the Company’s database,” Lewis said. “When his keepers came to take him away, he publicly identified me as a cyborg. They didn’t believe him, of course, but he’d done it all the same. Then he threw orange peel all over the floor on his way out.”
“Fancod?” Joseph stared.
“I cleaned up what I could, including the orange peel, you know procedure, and I ran.” The waiter brought Lewis’s hot chocolate, and Lewis reached for it desperately. “Oh, my, look at this, real whipped cream.”
“Bad break, but it doesn’t sound like it’s your fault.” Joseph waved his credit disk, indicating to the waiter that he was paying. “I don’t see how that could get you in trouble.”
“Mm.” Lewis gulped hot chocolate. Then on the boat two more vile-looking little idiot savants attempted to abduct me. They had some kind of disrupter pistols. I shook them off at customs and got on the train, and two more popped out of the woodwork. We had quite a little chat. I got away from them too, but not before they managed to do this. He held up his right hand for Joseph to see the bruise there. This happened seventeen hours ago.
Joseph’s eyes widened. He leaned forward and examined the bruise, which ought to have vanished within an hour of Lewis’s injury.
There’s worse, I’m afraid. I’ve found out more than I ever ought to have known—and I remembered exactly what happened to me in Ireland—and I’m sorry to go to pieces like this, but I think the Company is out to make me disappear. Lewis drained the last of the chocolate and slumped in exhaustion.
Joseph looked around. Okay. I was confused before. Now I’m scared and confused. We need to talk somewhere. “I wouldn’t worry,” he said out loud. “You’ve always done your job. Look, you need to relax. I was just about to go catch some People’s Shakespeare. Why don’t you come along? Ever seen Shakespeare in Euskaran?”
“I can’t say that I have.” Lewis opened his eyes, remembering in amazement that he had thought everything would return to normal if he could just contact Joseph.
“Neither have I, so this ought to be interesting.” Joseph pushed back his chair and got up. “Come on.”
They walked down a few streets to a park, where a big flatbed freight hauler had been parked to make an impromptu stage. Several dozen Joseph clones stood or sat around watching the performance, which was being given by a group of young people, also Joseph clones, in worker’s clothes. The front of the truck was draped in red banners and Marxist slogans.
“They’re Communists?” Lewis asked.
“It takes a while for ideas to reach this country,” Joseph explained, embarrassed.
Lewis nodded in mute acceptance as a stalwart maiden in work boots strode to the front of the stage and held up the tree branch, decorated with a star and crescent moon cut of sheet metal, that signified this was the Wood near Athens.
Readers will have to use their imaginations to picture what Euskaran (a language that renders “I take the glass from the waitress” as “Glass the waitress the from in the act of taking I have it from her”) would do to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The performance took eight hours without counting intermissions. Plenty of time for Lewis to explain what a long strange trip he’d had and why, as he and Joseph relaxed on a park bench and fairies fought over a mortal boy.
It was almost dark by the time Lewis finished. Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed were leading Bottom away in chains of flowers.
Joseph was silent a long moment, nodding thoughtfully. These little morons, do you think they’re human? Some branch of the mortal race who became troglodytes? And with inbreeding or whatever, autistic genius became a dominant genetic trait?
And lack of fashion sense, added Lewis, shuddering.
But, you know something? I don’t think this is the Company’s doing. If the Company wanted to get you, they’d have done it by now.
You think so? But the alternative is even more frightening, Joseph. It means that the Company has an enemy out there with comparative technology, and they know about us. Me, anyway. What’s more, they have a way to disable us.
Joseph moved to one side as a stage manager climbed on the bench to hang a probe light from a tree branch. I’ll bet the Company knows a lot more about what happened toyou in Ireland than they’ve let you know. I’ll bet that’s why it took ten years to get you back online. They must have been studying what the little creeps did to you so they could work up a defense. Wouldn’t you think? I’d be really surprised if every operative recruited after that time hasn’t got some kind of protection built in. Hell, I remember being called in for an upgrade around 600 A.D.! I bet we’ve all got it now, you included.
What about this? Lewis flexed his right hand.
It’s healing, isn’t it? Whereas when they got you the first time, they fried your biomechanicals, from the sound of it. You weren’t in as much danger this time as you thought.
I’d certainly prefer to believe that.
You know what you’ve got to do now, of course: make a full report to the Company. Joseph looked hard at him. Tell them everything that happened, or it will look funny. Worse! If these people have come up with some new improved way of getting to us, or you at least, the Company needs to know so they can take countermeasures. They’ll cream the little bastards. Hell, if a Literature Specialist could outguess them, think what a team of security techs could do.
I resent that, Lewis said, glaring at the stage.
No offense, pal. But you weren’t designed for cloak-and-dagger stuff, were you? You were made to traffic in manuscripts and first editions, not dirty tricks. It’s time to step back and let the professionals take over. Joseph leaned across and patted him on the shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but this is getting real old. What do you say we go get some dinner?”
As they walked back to the hotel, Joseph transmitted: The only thing that doesn’t fit is this Fancod guy. Who the hell is he? You said he’s working for the Company? He’s got access codes? And yet he’s one of these little creepy people?