by Greg Chivers
I hear them moving in the dark, feet pounding wet concrete in the stop-start rhythm of caution, then splashes as they draw closer. Torchlight flickers and breaks as their steps shatter the watery mirror of the floor. They move uneasily, pale faces twisted with suspicion of this strange place, but they look like they belong, their metal limbs extensions of the bunker’s dead architecture. There’s four. One hangs back in the shadows cast by the others. Two at the sides carry glowb-lights low to avoid spoiling their night vision, and peer into the darkness behind me. The one in the centre stares at the straps on my shoulders with one eye, the left side of her head covered with an ugly patchwork of circuitry that penetrates her skull. Even through the disguise of the metal I can see high cheekbones and the remains of delicate features; she was beautiful once. Perhaps that’s why she chose this.
She gestures to my burden without making eye contact. I’m invisible; either Silas didn’t tell them who I was, or they just don’t care, which is good with me. For some reason, I smile as I slide the straps of the canvas sack off my shoulder. She doesn’t notice, eyes fixed on the outline of the metal box within the cloth. Her fingers, human, close around the strap before the bag touches the water. Her other hand hovers, hesitating, over the bag’s opening, then she looks up at me as if she suddenly remembered I was here, and shoulders the pack before turning away. They all follow in her wake, torchlight dancing on the water. The sound of them disappears and my heart fills my ears. I forgot to breathe. Then I remember Shant’s words and turn back the way I came, forgetting to aim my torch, moving on instinct.
I’ve gone maybe ten metres when some of the dark in front of me solidifies into three moving bodies. They make no sound. The smallest one, the bald one who stared at me in the restaurant, smiles wide as he approaches, revealing two rows of filed teeth glinting between tribal tattoos running from his chin to his crown. He holds a finger to his lips as he passes, a silent demon’s head next to the two crew-cut killers. They ignore me completely, hypnotized by the long, fat-tubed barrels of their weapons, which seem to lead them into the dark.
My foot’s on the bottom step of the stairs up when four soft pops freeze me in position. Don’t look back. Then there’s another pop and the sound of something heavy falling. Don’t listen. Then I hear metal clash and water splash. More falling. Don’t try to figure anything out.
I turn off the torch and slide its metal grip into my belt. Maybe it’s good advice, but something tells me following it doesn’t end with me getting paid. I don’t know Shant’s plan, I’m just pretty sure not all of those noises figured in it. My foot comes off the step and dips into the water, then I start a kind of slow, wet shuffle back to the handover point. It’s quieter if you don’t let your feet leave the water.
The first thing I see is a yellow glow spilling around a corner. I pause, stopping my noisy breath. The light’s not moving. There’s no sound except water dripping from the ceiling somewhere behind me. A gentle up-slope in the floor takes me out of the wetness, and an invisible subterranean flow of air chills my feet.
Around the corner, skewed light from the dropped glowbs illuminates seven bodies. The four Mechanicals all lie face down in spreading pools of crimson, a single dark hole at the back of each head. One has a wound in the leg too. He must have tried to run. The dripping from above stipples the surface of the blood. The human half of a fine-featured face stares into nothing at my feet – the girl who took the bag from me; she must have turned slightly as she fell, some instinct twisting her away from the floor, even as the bullet in her brain turned out the lights. I guess you’ve got to be more than half Machine if you want to live forever.
From this angle the dead Cultists look peaceful, like they’re sleeping in blood, but the three other bodies, the soldiers, are different – jumbled, messy heaps of limbs that somebody just dropped here. The little guy with the teeth still has his silenced pistol gripped tight in his left hand, close to his body, and there’s something small, like a pale coin, sticking out from between his lips. His right hand stretches out to where one of the bag’s straps dangles into a slowly reddening pool of water, the fingers twisted around each other like he died halfway through giving some kind of fucked-up salute. I bend down to look at his mouth. It’s a thumbnail. His gun hand is only inches from my face and it looks like it had the manicure from hell. The big clones with the crew-cuts are sprawled either side of him like starfish, face up, eyes wide open, only the whites visible. The first thing I think when I see them laid out like that is that they had some kind of bust-up – shot each other – but then I remember the noises I heard with my foot on the steps: five pops. I got seven dead people in front of me.
Close-up, I can see the guns that looked so scary are stubby little things elongated by the tubes of the silencers. What does it matter? A gun’s a gun; the bullets were real enough to kill those other four people. I’m no killer, but everybody knows a silencer doesn’t make a gun silent. If they did I wouldn’t have heard anything. Five pops.
I risk bending down to look at the soldiers for anything that could be a wound, but the black overalls cast shadows the lantern light doesn’t fill. I try playing the beam of my torch over the bodies, eyes half closed in case I see something I don’t like, but there’s nothing. It’s like they just fell down where they stood. I stand still and slow my breathing to listen for anyone else moving through the tunnels, but all I can hear is the hammer of my heart. Doesn’t matter. If someone else did this, they’re long gone by now. Anyway, why would they leave the bag?
It sits there in the middle of the little circle of death, like the guest of honour at some sick orgy, the soldiers’ hands reaching out to touch it, even in death. My lizard brain sees that thing and tells me to run. The necessity of money keeps me standing here. I lean forward, sliding the fingers of my right hand around the rough fabric of the strap. For a moment, the tension flows from my limbs. What did I think was going to happen?
Then the darkness fills me.
28.
Clementine
Seven bodies lie sprawled in what looks like a tunnel. The faces are rendered almost featureless by an intense flash. The white blur catches tell-tale glints of metal on some of the limbs – Mechanical augmentation. In death, they are visibly the broken people they must always have been, and yet even a picture of their stricken corpses fills me with fear.
‘What is this? What are you showing me?’
Hilda shuffles uncomfortably on the bed next to me. Early morning light pours through the cell’s solitary window. We are alone. She has stayed with me all night, watching for any sign of a relapse – my carer, but also my jailer. The thing is still in me: shocked, dormant, injured, I cannot tell. For now at least, I am in control.
‘This photograph was on the front page of every news feed this morning. I want you to look at it, and tell me what you see.’
At the edge of the pool of brightness from the flash, splayed almost in a circle, are the bodies of three more men, arms outstretched to touch something. The curl of the fingers summons a memory, an image from the potted history of humanity imprinted on us in the tanks – Adam reaching for God – or is it God reaching for Adam? These dead men are nothing Michelangelo would create. The smallest is bald; the outlines of tattoos covering his head are just visible in the picture. The larger two are dark echoes of each other, perhaps clones or merely soldiers honed into uniformity; it’s impossible to tell from the single shadowed image. In the foreground, almost out of view, is a ripped leather jacket.
‘Levi?’
An unfamiliar pain rises within me like bile. Panic paralyses my thoughts. For a moment, I steel myself against a resurgence of the entity that seized control of me, but Hilda’s voice cuts through my fear.
‘Don’t jump to conclusions, Clementine. It’s just one picture.’
Her hand settles on my shoulder. Her solidity is a comfort I could never have imagined in my former life. In the tanks, our knowledge was as functional as our bodies, a
nd we did not know grief or any of its debilitating cousins. They would be design failures in creatures created to fight and die.
‘We think he might be alive.’ Her words are so gentle, it seems almost selfish to feel pain. ‘The news reports said they arrested someone. They didn’t give a name.’
The printed picture trembles subtly in her hand. She is so skilled at concealing her fear, a human might not notice. The thought she is afraid unsettles me. Seven bodies in the darkness: the image reeks of death. It is almost impossible to imagine Levi alive, and yet the hope is irresistible.
‘We have to get him.’ My voice sounds flat in my ears, the emotions lost in transmission between brain and larynx. Hilda frowns at me as if wrestling with something. Her mouth opens to speak, but the catch on the door clicks, silencing her. Sister Ludmila hovers at the threshold, visibly willing herself to stand still.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt …’
‘No, I’m glad you’re here. What did you find?’
‘It’s bad. Three of the lay members have been arrested on suspicion of dropping that piece of glass on Silas Mizrachi. It’s obvious we’re being victimized by the police.’
‘That’s awful, but it’s nothing we weren’t expecting. I … We …’ She looks over to me. ‘We were hoping you might have heard something about Levi while you were in the city.’
The taller woman shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry. I tried, but the police aren’t being helpful, least of all to us.’
Hilda’s mouth compresses into a line. ‘No, of course. It’s no good sitting here, waiting for miracles.’ She takes a deep breath and turns to face me. ‘Clementine, it hurts me to say this, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do for your friend. If Levi’s alive, he’s being held in a police station, under guard. He could be anywhere in the city, or he could be dead. I know you want to help him, but he is lost to us now. You have to accept that.’
‘No, I can find him.’
‘Look, I understand you’re upset, but you’re in no condition to go anywhere. It’s less than twenty-four hours since I restarted your heart. Your body needs time to recover.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean “No”?’ Ludmila cuts in. She sounds almost angry, as if my defiance was ingratitude. I turn to face her. Her expression is impossible to read, riven with contradictory emotions I cannot process into meaning.
‘Factually, Mother Hilda is wrong. My body requires no time to recover. I was designed – gene-tailored – to endure far greater stresses than defibrillation. The resultant arrhythmia self-corrected within seconds. The damaged nerve endings in my chest regrew in a little under an hour. Physically, I am optimal.’
A look passes between them, one of those coded silences I have learned to fear without knowing what they mean. Sometimes I feel like my very existence is a sacrilege to these people. A simple statement of fact about myself challenges the beliefs around which they build their existence, and yet they treat me with kindness at every turn. A sad smile ghosts across Hilda’s face.
‘It’s not just your physical health we worry about, Clementine. You are not … the thing you once were. You are more than that now; you are human. You’ve suffered a series of emotional shocks as severe as anything physical. Until you give yourself time to recover, to process what you’ve been through, you will be in a state of emotional turmoil. It’s almost impossible to take good decisions in that state.’
‘I don’t need to take any decisions. I know what I need to do.’
The door clicks shut as Sister Ludmila steps fully into the room. Hilda sighs and gestures for her to take the room’s lone seat. Her chest heaves beneath the robe, anger restrained. For a moment, she seems lost in thought; then her hood falls away as she raises her head to speak.
‘Anything you do to find him carries a risk of exposure. We can no longer assume the authorities are completely unaware of your existence or abilities.’ She turns to Hilda. ‘Honoured Mother, I understand and support your decision to help Clementine. Whatever her nature, she is an innocent. The same cannot be said of her companion. As I understand it, he is a career criminal, entirely responsible for his own predicament. He already refused the help we offered him. I cannot see any justification for the risk a rescue attempt would entail.’
Silence fills the room. Hilda looks pained. I can offer no rebuttal to Ludmila’s pitiless logic. Everything she says is right; the path of self-preservation, both for the Mission, and for myself, is clear, and yet I cannot take it. As I meet her gaze, the panic gnawing at me fades, replaced by a bittersweet certainty.
‘I’m sorry, I really am, but I have to go. I cannot ask you to support my decision, or even to understand it. After everything you’ve done for me, exposing the Mission to danger is the last thing I want to do, but I feel I have no choice.’
‘Why, Clementine?’ Hilda’s voice is soft beside me.
‘I am not certain it makes sense, even to me. If all I do is keep myself alive, my existence is pointless. I need more, or I want more.’
Moisture glints at the corners of Hilda’s eyes. Ludmila avoids my gaze. ‘He’s not worth you.’
‘No, he isn’t, but he’s what I have. If I can care for him, as you cared for me, then I am something more than I was created to be. Otherwise, you would have better turned me away when I came to your door. I would have survived, in a brutal, functional way.’
‘He wouldn’t do this for you.’
‘Maybe not: not as the person you have encountered. But I have seen glimpses of the person he might have been. He was born as much an innocent as me, and fashioned into what he is by an uncaring world. Ultimately, the only difference between us is circumstance – the mechanisms of change wrought upon us.’
Hilda’s eyes close as she looks up. The twin tracks of moisture on her cheeks sparkle in the light from the cell’s solitary window. ‘She’s right. It is not for us to draw lines deciding who is worthy to be saved. If we help only when there is no cost, we fail ourselves.’
‘Giving food and shelter is one thing.’ Ludmila’s voice briefly becomes ragged. She draws a breath. ‘We are talking about open defiance of the law.’
The space between them thickens as the two nuns lock gazes. Hilda breaks the silence.
‘Need is need, Sister. If young Levi is still alive, we know he will not be safe in police custody. If he has encountered the thing inside the Antikythera Mechanism and survived, he will need our care. Please, go with Clementine. Keep her safe. She does not understand the city as you do.’
‘This is dangerous.’ There is no defiance left in Ludmila’s words.
‘Everything we do is dangerous, but we do what we must.’
She gives a smile meant to convey bravery and hope, gifts she imparts from her own boundless reserve. My face mirrors the expression without conscious thought, a human instinct that won’t hide the emotions swirling inside me – guilt at the danger I inflict on my benefactors, and fear of what I carry with me. The darkness in my head stirs like a memory of pain.
29.
Silas
My father used to say ‘Never do a deal with anyone you can’t have killed’, or words to that effect. He was a shit, but the principle has always served until now. Somehow, Levi Peres has defied his eminent killableness and entered the miracle business. It makes everything complicated. Acceleration pushes me back into the ministerial limousine’s soft leather embrace as it eases past the fences of the museum’s restricted zone to join the morning traffic. Dry, chilled air drifts from the ceiling vents and raises goosebumps on Sybil’s neck. She perches on the fold-down seat opposite, hands gripping a data tablet, poised to deflect blame for this latest debacle.
Her face gives nothing away as she pores through data and footage from our failed surveillance of the Gethsemane tunnels. She might be sufficiently absorbed in her analysis to be genuinely unaware of my ire, or she might be feigning it as a defensive measure. Both perfectly acceptable courses of action, but if there is a
ny guilt or tension there I should foster it. People are never better motivated than when trying to atone for something; it doesn’t even seem to matter whether it was their fault.
‘What happened?’
She blanches at my words, even though she must have been expecting them: either authentic guilt or superb acting.
‘As you specified, there were two sniper teams and a drone watching the entrances to the Gethsemane complex. Peres went in right on schedule, slightly early, in fact, and he was followed through the south lower entrance by three unknown armed figures almost exactly five minutes later.’
‘Who were they?’
‘We don’t know …’ I scowl and she flinches before carrying on. ‘… but the figures in the drone footage are a good match for the dead gunmen in the newsfeed picture. I’ve got a guy going to the morgue to ID them, but I’ll lay money they’re foreign contractors, ex-military from one of Europe’s failed states.’
‘Will you indeed? Now where does small-time drug dealer Levi Peres get the money, or even the idea, to bring in skilled muscle like that?’ Sybil’s face briefly tightens in panic. ‘Don’t worry, it was a rhetorical question.’ She must be genuinely on edge, despite the knowledge she is effectively irreplaceable at this juncture. ‘What else?’
‘We know Peres must have done the drop as specified, because the transfer of funds came through within three minutes. From that we can surmise the Machine Cult acolytes were in possession of the artefact and communicated the fact to their superiors.’
‘And then Levi’s goons killed them.’
‘Most likely. Neither the drone nor the sniper teams saw anyone else coming in or out of the bunkers. The report from the morgue should give us a cause of death within the next hour.’
‘So what killed the goons?’
She raises her chin to face me, half-lit by the arcs of data floating in the air above her tablet, nervous eyes trying to gauge my reaction before she speaks. ‘I don’t know.’