by Mark Crilley
Billy raised his glaff rifle and took another imaginary shot.
And Mr. Hu. If Mei Jun’s seen his face in an old newspaper article, then he must be who he says he is. So why did he refuse to write the characters? It’s a clue, it’s got to be. The problem is I’ve got no idea how it fits in with all the other evidence.
Billy got up and walked a short distance from the bridge to the cliff’s edge. He leaned on the cast-iron guardrail and looked out at the murky gray-black sky.
There’s one more thing. Something I’m forgetting. It happened during the interview with the children. What was it?
Billy racked his brain for a good half hour but came up with nothing. Peering down at the treetops below the cliff, he horked up a nice big wad of spit.
Ffffwooopff!
He watched the glob of spittle fall down, down, down and finally vanish into the darkness.
This would be a pretty awesome place to try some bungee jumping. Too bad I don’t have my cord with me.
Billy checked the creatch detector again: nothing. He turned his attention to the cliff overhanging the city. Moonlight glinted off a crack running straight across the middle of the cliff.
These people better pray they never have an earthquake. That’s a fault line if I ever saw one. One good tremor and that whole cliff’s gonna come down.
He checked the creatch detector again: nothing.
Then:
DEET DEET DEET DEET
Three red dots suddenly appeared on the screen out of nowhere, no more than five hundred yards from his position.
“Rogmashers. Three of them!”
CHAPTER 17
Billy stared into the pine trees on the other side of the bridge. He couldn’t see them yet, but …
krrm krrm krrm
… he could hear them. He could definitely hear them.
“Oh, man. They’re gonna be here any second. Ana!”
He ran over, yanked the passenger-side door open, and shook Ana awake. “Three rogmashers, Ana. Three!”
“Ngh? What?” Ana had been sound asleep.
“We’ve got to set up positions, Ana. Now! They’re less than five hundred yards from town.” Billy left Ana, ran to the back of the van, and started pulling out additional weaponry.
“Five hundred yards?” Ana stumbled out of the front seat, rubbing her eyes. “Five hundred yards?” She was awake now. Awake enough to be angry. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
krrm krrm krrm
They were getting closer by the second.
“I didn’t wait! Your stupid piece-of-junk creatch detector sat there doing nothing—nothing!—until they were right outside of town.”
“That’s … impossible.” Ana joined Billy in preparing the weapons on the opposite side of the bridge, lining up hortch grenades and loading both the paragglian crossbows with fresh bolts.
“No, Ana. Impossible means something that can’t happen. This happened. This happened, and here we are totally unprepared: no sandbags, no barriers, nothing!”
krrm krrm krrm
“Calm down, Billy. We can handle this. Three rogmashers. That’s not so bad.”
DEET DEET DEET DEET
They spun around and stared in disbelief at the creatch detector: two new red dots had now appeared behind the first three.
Five.
“Oh, man, we are so going to get massacred here.”
“No, we aren’t,” said Ana as she grabbed both paragglian crossbows and ran down the road toward the woods. “We can’t wait until they get to the bridge. We’ve got to start hitting them as soon as they come out into the open. We’ll use the bridge as a fallback position.”
Billy grabbed both of the glaff rifles and took off after her. They found a couple of boulders to provide cover, aimed their weapons at the forest, and waited.
KRRRRM KRRRRM KRRRRM
They didn’t have to wait very long. The first two rogmashers marched out of the woods just seconds later: one tall, the other shorter and fat. These two were, if anything, even uglier than the rogmasher they’d encountered earlier in the woods.
BRAM BRAM
Billy struck the big one twice in the chest, sending it stumbling backward.
BRAM
He blasted the shorter one in the gut, then grabbed the other glaff rifle. By switching between the two rifles, he could cut down on the time needed to reheat the glaffurious oxide chambers.
As Billy prepared for his next shots, Ana dashed into position, took careful aim, and shot a paragglian bolt straight up at the bigger rogmasher.
fwissshhh
BOOOOOOOAM!
An orange fireball erupted just beneath the rogmasher’s jaw.
Bull’s-eye!
The rogmasher staggered backward, its knees buckling, then …
THRRUMMM
… crashed to the ground, the pulsating paragglian bolt planted squarely under its chin.
“Nice shot, Ana!”
“We’re not done yet, Billy,” cried Ana. “Keep firing! The others will be here any second!”
BRAM BRAM BRAM
Billy’s next three shots sent the shorter rogmasher reeling back, disoriented. It dropped to its knees. Ana ran in and fired another paragglian bolt straight into the underside of its chin. The rogmasher groaned, then collapsed into the middle of the road. Its massive arms flopped to the ground, then lay still.
Something’s wrong here, thought Billy. This is too easy.
The last three rogmashers lumbered out of the woods. Two of them were carrying boulders.
Billy and Ana fell back closer to the bridge, then renewed fire. Billy was able to knock the two boulder carriers back with blasts from his glaff rifle, but the third broke through and plodded forward.
“Don’t let him get across that bridge, Billy!” cried Ana as she struggled to reload her crossbows. “Do whatever it takes!”
Billy ran as fast as he could, a glaff rifle in each hand. He decided to stand his ground right in the middle of the bridge as the rogmasher approached.
BRAM BRAM BRAM
BRAM BRAM BRAM
Three shots from each of the glaff rifles slowed the rogmasher slightly, but this one was tougher than the others. After a moment’s pause it was on the move again.
Billy tossed his glaff rifles to one side and made a run for the rogmasher’s leg. He pounced on its foot and started climbing, shinnying up its calf as if he were going up a tree.
GYYOOOOOAARR
The enraged beast took a swat at Billy with one of its massive fists, but Billy crouched, leaped, and hurled himself from one rogmasher leg to the other. He landed just above the knee, caught his breath, and kept climbing.
“Billy!” Ana cried in dismay. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I guess we’re about to find out!”
Billy scaled the rogmasher’s belly and chest. Years of rock climbing back in Indiana had prepared him for making steep ascents with nothing but his bare hands and an awful lot of willpower. As for climbing something that was lurching from side to side, howling furiously, and attempting to squash him with both of its eight-foot-wide palms … well, this was definitely a first.
When Billy reached the rogmasher’s shoulder, he grabbed hold of a tuft of scraggly hair and, unhooking a hortch grenade from his belt, yanked on the hair with all his might.
GGYYOOOOOOAARRR
As soon as the rogmasher opened its mouth for a deafening roar, Billy pulled the pin on the hortch grenade and threw it straight down the rogmasher’s throat. He then zipped down the rogmasher’s back, sliding like a snowboarder (minus both the snow and the board).
When he reached the ground, he looked up just in time to see the rogmasher double over in gastric pain. It belched, long and loud, then:
PHOOOOOM
The grenade went off, sending the rogmasher toppling to the ground. Its head hit the side of the bridge, crushing a guardrail as if it were a piece of tinfoil.
Billy turned, panting, to check o
n Ana’s progress. She could hardly have done any better: a fourth rogmasher was down, with yet another direct hit to the underside of the chin. The last of the five was in full retreat, lumbering off into the woods on all fours.
The next thing Billy heard was the sound of applause. There, on the other side of the bridge, stood dozens of Huaqing’s citizens. They’d seen the whole battle and were now treating Billy and Ana to the best standing ovation they could manage. Mei Jun stepped out from among them and offered both Ana and Billy a grateful handshake.
“Amazing!” she said, her eyes open wide in admiration. “I’ve seen Affys in action before, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Incredible!”
One by one the citizens of Huaqing stepped forward to add their thanks, and before long Billy and Ana were surrounded by a throng of Chinese men, women, and children, all showering them with gratitude. “Xie xie, nimen,” they kept saying again and again. “Xie xie!” Billy recognized it as the Mandarin phrase for thank you.
Billy and Ana had done it. They’d defended Huaqing from a full-scale attack by five—five!—rogmashers. Billy should have been elated. But he wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
It was too easy. Way too easy. It’s like the rogmashers were deliberately allowing themselves to be picked off. Something seriously weird is going on around here. But what is it?
CHAPTER 18
The people of Huaqing announced that they would prepare a huge morning feast to honor the heroes in their midst. Billy and Ana, using Mei Jun as translator, tried to persuade them to abandon the idea.
“We have to stay here near the bridge to keep watch,” said Ana. “We want to be sure the rogmashers are really gone and not regrouping for another attack.”
“That’s right,” said Billy. “This is no time for letting down our guard.”
Mei Jun translated their words into Chinese. Mr. Hu would not hear a word of their objections.
“Mr. Hu says they’ll make it an open-air feast,” said Mei Jun. “Right here by the bridge. You won’t have to leave your posts.”
In the end Billy and Ana had no choice but to sit by the bridge and let them proceed with their plans. All through the night the villagers prepared their extravagant meal. Folding tables and chairs were set up. Dishes of steaming hot delicacies were brought out, one by one, and artfully arranged on the tabletops. All the while the hooded beggar played his erhu, creating a strange sound that was—no denying it—not particularly pleasing to the ear.
When Ana tried to put a call through to AFMEC to request help with cleanup operations, she found the signal blocked again.
“Ana, there is something really strange going on here,” said Billy. “Someone’s messing with our equipment.”
“Slow down, Billy. We’re in the mountains, remember?” Ana pointed at the huge overhang of rock looming above Huaqing.
“Okay, well, what about your creatch detector? First it runs out of juice on a fresh power cell. Then it fails to alert us to incoming creatches until it’s almost too late.”
“You may have something there,” said Ana, pausing to give the idea serious consideration. “But it’s an older model. Could be it just needs to be replaced.”
“All right, Ana. Let’s say I’m wrong about the equipment. That still doesn’t explain why the people in this village act as if creatches aren’t even a big deal to them. Look.” Billy pointed to the bodies of the fallen rogmashers, masses of flies swarming over them in the early morning sun. “Not one person from the village has gone over to check out those bodies. Not one.”
“Billy, Mei Jun ordered them all to stay away from the bodies. It’s standard Affy procedure in China, I thought you knew that.”
She was right. There had been an outbreak of disease after a creatch op in the early fifties. AFMEC insisted it had nothing to do with creatches, but the Chinese government had instituted the so-called no contact policy anyway.
“All right. All right. Here’s the big one.” Billy took a deep breath and pointed at Ana with both index fingers, as if trying to beam the logic of his argument straight into her. “It was too easy to take down those rogmashers. Way too easy. How long did it take? Ten minutes? Fifteen?”
“Billy, those rogmashers were not easy to take down.”
“They left their weak spots totally unguarded. Like boxers who’d been paid to throw the match.”
“You’re exaggerating, Billy,” said Ana. “They were a bit clumsy, yes, but they were highly aggressive. I see no evidence of a thrown fight.”
Is she right? Is this all in my head?
Billy stood up and let out a long sigh.
Maybe she is. I just don’t know anymore.
“Can I take a break?”
“Please do,” said Ana. “You look like you really need one.”
The hooded beggar went on playing his erhu, his horsehair bow screeching out the same tuneless tune, over and over and over.
I wish he’d stop playing that thing. It’s driving me insane.
Soon the meal began. There were half a dozen round tables and one long rectangular table piled high with food. Ana and Billy were the guests of honor, seated in the center of it all. Villagers came by to thank them, each saying short phrases in Chinese, which Mei Jun translated faithfully at first. Eventually it became clear that they were all saying pretty much the same thing, and Mei Jun excused herself as translator, saying, “You get the idea.”
The food turned out to be awful, there was no getting around it.
Man, these people can’t cook. Or is it because they’re isolated? Maybe Mei Jun is right.
Some dishes had no salt whatsoever; others had what tasted like a whole shakerful. Billy wasn’t hungry anyway, so he just took a few nibbles and quietly slipped the rest to a stray dog near his chair. Ana ate at least twice as much as Billy, whispering to him the whole time. “It’s very nice of them to do this for us, but these people really need to learn how to cook.”
Billy kept watching the villagers, examining them for suspicious behavior. What was it about them? He couldn’t put his finger on it. They were just somehow not … right.
If I could only bring all the info I have together, make one piece of evidence fit into the next …
Billy focused on Mei Jun’s interactions with one of the villagers next to her. Every time she asked a question, there was always that same brief delay before the answer.
What is up with that pause?
The stray dog whined for more food.
“Pipe down, boy,” said Billy, giving him a bright red chunk of barbecued pork. “I’m trying to think here.”
Mei Jun asked a question.
The dog whined.
The villager answered.
Wait a minute.
Mei Jun asked another question.
The dog whined again.
The villager answered.
Wait. A. Minute.
All at once things began to fall into place. Billy understood everything: the high-tech PA system, the long delays when people answered questions. Billy turned and looked at the dog, which was still whining whenever Mei Jun asked the villager a question.
That’s what I forgot to write down during the interview with the children: the whining stray dog. It’s the key to the whole thing!
Billy rose from his seat.
“What are you doing?” Ana said.
“I know what’s going on here, Ana,” said Billy. “I’ll show you. Keep an eye on the stray dog while I do this, all right?”
“The stray dog? Billy, what are you talk—”
“I know it sounds crazy, but just … trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
He had a plan. It was risky, and if he was wrong, he’d make a fool of himself. But he wasn’t wrong. He knew it.
Billy walked over to Mr. Hu. The hooded beggar stopped playing his erhu—only for a second, but long enough for Billy to notice—then resumed playing.
“Mei Jun,” said Billy, “ask Mr. Hu what his favorite color is.”
Mei Jun rose from her chair with a pained not-this-again look on her face. “Billy, I hardly think this is the appropriate time to—”
“Please, Mei Jun. You’ve got to do this for me. Two or three simple questions and this will all be over.”
Mei Jun translated the question.
A pause.
The dog whined.
Mr. Hu answered. Before Mei Jun could translate, Billy called out to Ana: “Did you hear that? The dog whined, right?”
“Yeah,” said Ana, a troubled look on her face. She was clearly more worried about Billy losing his mind than anything else. “What about it?”
“It’s a pattern, Ana. Watch, I’ll do it again.” Billy turned to Mei Jun. “Ask Mr. Hu something trickier. Ask him what the ingredients are in these steamed dumplings.”
Mei Jun translated the question.
A longer pause.
The dog whined.
Mr. Hu answered.
“You see how it works?” Billy said to Ana. “Question. Pause. Whine. Answer. Every time, Ana. Every time.”
Ana and Mei Jun exchanged worried glances. Billy knew they were thinking the same thing: multiple-creatch-op stress disorder. Big-time.
“Don’t you see, Ana?” Billy pointed at the stray dog. “That dog is whining because it hears something. Something you and I can’t hear. It hears messages.”
“Messages?” said Ana.
“Yeah. Broadcast from that PA system I saw the other day. Messages.”
Ana now looked convinced that Billy had finally gone off the deep end. “You think someone’s broadcasting messages … to the dog?”
“No, no, no. Not to the dog. To Mr. Hu. To everyone in this village. The dog just overhears the messages. It’s all so clear. Now we just need to figure out how he hears our questions.”
“He?” said Ana. “Who’s he?”
“I’m about to find out, Ana.” Billy circled the tables, checking under them, upsetting dishes of food. “All right, big guy,” he said, as if talking to a ghost that only he could see, “I know you’re listening in on all this. Just like you’ve been from the moment we set foot in this village.”