The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4)

by Zachary Rawlins

  Takahiro stepped directly in Hyun-Li’s path. In a feat of strength, the stone man paused, two massive arms looming over a man who stood with not a care in the world – or more precisely, as if his attention was focused on some momentous internal dilemma that consumed his entire being. His face was screwed into a fantastic grimace, riddled with tics and dripping sweat, his body language jerky and off-balance.

  Hyun-Li glanced back at Jin. Alice started to laugh. Jin gave the stone man a nod.

  “Aha.”

  Takahiro flexed one hand, forming a fist with a look of strained concentration on his face.

  “Got it?” Alice called out, leaning her back against the stained wood exterior of the house. “Hope so!”

  Takahiro pulled his hand back and swung, smashing his fist into Hyun-Li’s stone midsection. There was a tremendous splintering sound, then vivid blue telekinetic energy tore out of Hyun-Li’s back, blood pouring from cracks in the splintered rock. Hyun-Li toppled over, shaking the ground and rattling the debris of the garden, whether from shock or injury, Jin could not say.

  “Yeah,” Takahiro said, turning over his broken fist wonderingly. “Think so. Kinda.”

  His hand was ruined, fractured bone protruding from split knuckles, fingers and thumb bent and twisted in unnatural ways. It was painful simply to witness, but it did not appear to affect Takahiro in slightest, except to surprise him.

  Alice nudged the statue’s inert head with the steel toe of her boot.

  “Seemed like his protocol worked okay.”

  “I think his protocol is supposed to protect him, too.” Takahiro studied his mangled hand and his unmarred one with equal confusion. “Some sort of telekinetic barrier that I can’t figure out, Ms. Gallow.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Hayley.” Alice waved her hand dismissively. “This doesn’t need to be pretty.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Takahiro gave his hands one last, glum look. “What now?”

  “We know what we needed to know,” Alice stepped on top of the fallen stone man, following the exaggerated curvature of his spine. She hopped down in front of Jin, landing so close that he had to take a step back to keep their heads from colliding. “The telepaths can tear whatever else they need from your puppet’s mind, once we get back to Central. All that’s left is for Jin here to tell us how he wants to die.”

  Takahiro shook his head and lowered his eyes, disappointed by the news.

  Jin cleared his throat, settling back beneath the weeping plum, which had miraculously survived the otherwise total destruction of the courtyard.

  “There is a sword, in the library...”

  Alice hooted with laughter.

  “I knew it! You fucking Japanese. Nothing ever changes. It’s always gotta be a sword. If you wanted, you know, I could just strangle you with your favorite waifu body pillow.”

  He ignored her, but felt the color rise in his face in response to her casual vulgarity.

  “…it has been in my family for generations. It is the only appropriate instrument.”

  “Oh, fine.” Alice rolled her eyes. “Hayley, can you find it for me?”

  Takahiro nodded, then struggled to open the sliding door with only one working hand. He managed it eventually, leaving Jin and Alice Gallow to regard each other, surrounded by the fragmented remains of the garden.

  “This was a crazy risk, Jin.” Alice appeared captivated by the stately procession of the clouds across the unsettled sky. “My diary says that isn’t like you.”

  “My hand was forced,” Jin answered honestly, pinching one of the curved leaves from the plum and toying with it. “I am frankly dissatisfied with my own efforts.”

  Alice slapped him on the back, chuckling to herself.

  “Eh, don’t worry about it!” Alice punctuated the sentiment with a second cheerful slap between his shoulder blades. “We all have off days. You’re still a total bastard in my book, Jin.”

  “I am glad to hear it. I would hate to think this experience had diminished me in your eyes.”

  “Aw, Jin,” Alice cooed, batting her eyes. “Nothing could diminish you in my eyes.”

  Takahiro emerged from the house, shuffling along clumsily, his body language so wrong and unfamiliar that he almost looked like a different person. The Auditor telepath – Hayley, was it? – was merciful, putting her victims to sleep before she hijacked their bodies. If it had been Jin, he would have kept them conscious, to witness the destruction of their life and betrayal of their loyalties at their own hands. He could accept that another telepath would do otherwise, but he would never understand it, subscribing to an elegant sadism that his family had indulged for generations.

  There was, he reflected, no accounting for taste.

  Takahiro handed the sword, still in its ornate sheath, to Alice Gallow, who looked it over with a chuckle.

  “If it’s okay with you, Ms. Gallow, can I skip this part?”

  Jin was stunned. He had suspected an overabundance of compassion in the invading telepath, sensed hints and indications of her qualms, but he had profoundly underestimated the extent. It took only the smallest nudge from Jin to have her scrambling for the exits.

  “Okay, kiddo,” Alice said, with a shake of her head. “You can bounce. Chike is waiting for you at the extraction point. Walk the meat on home and then go take a shower.”

  Takahiro nodded in the informal American style, which still looked extremely odd, spared a weepy glance in Jin’s direction, and then hurried out the door, as clumsy as a ten-week old puppy. They waited in silence until the sound of his footsteps faded, and then a little while longer while Jin made certain both Takahiro and the Auditor possessing him were gone.

  Alice Gallow grinned as an Isolation Field separated them from the afternoon sounds of Osaka.

  “You must have really wanted to talk,” Alice observed, sitting down in front of Jin, so close that their knees were almost touching. The sword lay in the marred grass beside her thigh, water beading on the leather wrapped around the haft. “I hope it was worth it.”

  “The matter is urgent,” Jin confirmed, shifting to lessen the strain on his back. “I apologize for the circumstances.”

  “I’m sorry for killing everybody,” Alice said, with a wink. “Hope they weren’t friends of yours.”

  “Hardly,” Jin sniffed. “The Matsumoto family are little better than thugs, and those you killed watched over me as much as they served me. It was my misfortune to be adopted into such a poor excuse for a cartel. If it weren’t for thriving business of importing prostitutes from the Philippines and Vietnam, the cartel would have been dissolved long ago.”

  “You could have written a hell of a resignation letter,” Alice observed. “Just sayin’. What’s so damn important, Jin?”

  He paused for a moment, scanning the perimeter of the Isolation Field, stiffening his defenses to the utmost extent of his abilities.

  “Several years ago, the Matsumoto cartel was approached by the Anathema...”

  “I know. I told you, I read the files.”

  “...with an offer of cooperation,” Jin continued, choosing to ignore the Auditor’s impatience. He didn’t trust her memory enough to omit any detail. “After much debate, the offer was accepted. This was before my ascent to power, so I could do nothing to prevent it. A few years later, however, I was able to arrange a diplomatic mission to Central, and covertly informed Rebecca Levy of the cartel’s potential defection.”

  “Not the Auditors, though,” Alice said, picking at the remaining grass around them. “Why?”

  “Lack of trust,” Jin admitted. “The Anathema were far too informed as to events from within Central. I knew that they must have had agents within Audits somewhere. I knew Ms. Levy personally, however, and reasoned that if she had been turned, then the battle was lost already...”

  “Solid choice, given that Alistair turned out to be a dickhead,” Alice observed, scattering torn leaves of grass on the ground. “Go on.”

  “At her reques
t, I remained with the cartel. My advancement was assured, thanks to Rebecca Levy’s covert assistance. In truth, the Anathema asked very little of the Matsumoto Cartel, aside from funding and the occasional recruitment of cartel children. Nothing so pressing that I felt compelled to stop it. I merely relayed the information and watched.”

  “Then they asked for something bad, right? What was it?”

  “The cartel. The whole of it,” Jin said, trying very hard to ignore the destruction of his garden. “The Matsumoto Cartel is to be absorbed into the Anathema. Starting, I believe, with the children. I am fortunate that my own are grown, and able to fend for themselves.”

  “Damn.” Alice’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a request, or an order?”

  “An order disguised as a request.”

  “How soon?”

  “The coming weeks. That isn’t all...”

  Alice swore and grimaced.

  “Oh, great. What else?”

  “The other cartels,” Jin explained, “turned by the Anathema. The two of which I am aware...both received the same notice. The Anathema are preparing to absorb the remainder of the renegade cartels. You know what that means.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “Invasion,” he said flatly. “They no longer feel they need agents on the inside. They are preparing to take Central. This time, they will come in force.”

  “They did last time, too,” Alice protested. “We took care of it.”

  “That was little more than a scouting expedition,” Jin scoffed. “Weir and renegade Operators thrown into a meat grinder to see what might come out the other side. The main body of their force waits in the Outer Dark.”

  “Still…”

  “That isn’t all,” Jin admitted. “Do you recall the attack on the Hegemonic Council, during the Anathema invasion of Central?”

  “I wasn’t there, but I’ve read the reports, if that’s what you…”

  “The lexicon, Ms. Gallow. The words that command and those that consume. There is more. An entire vocabulary.” Jin looked truly shaken, skin ashen and eyes fixed on the grass between his feet. “Extracted from artifacts in the Outer Dark, I assume. John Parson himself made a study of the language, or so the rumor goes. There is a database, a linguistic archive. The first step toward large-scale utilization and deployment.”

  “Jin, no offense, but how would you know any of this?”

  “They asked to take possession of the archive, for duplication and backup. Our facility in Korea has unique technologies and machinery that could be adapted for the task. Our technicians began the preparatory work several weeks ago.”

  Alice Gallow’s face was abruptly mirthless. Jin was slightly taken aback.

  “That’s not good news. Why you gotta ruin my day, Jin?”

  “The archive will be reproduced in a matter of days, and then there will be no hope of containing it,” Jin insisted. “Central is woefully unprepared.”

  “You sure you aren’t underestimating the Auditors?” Alice looked at him quizzically. “I’ve tangled with the Anathema before – the real deal, fully transformed and dead as a fucking doornail. I came out the other side. Most of them didn’t.”

  “What of your losses?” Jin reminded her, despite the impropriety. “The Auditors and Central both suffered in your previous encounters. That is without a language of command and destruction at their disposal. The Anathema will make puppets of us all.”

  Alice spat and cursed, embarrassing him.

  “Our intelligence corroborates some of what you’re saying,” Alice admitted. “Not everything, mind you, but...”

  Jin saw his opening, and made his approach.

  “Forgive me, but I must ask after my family’s welfare,” Jin said, forcing his voice to remain calm. “My daughters and their families, they are known to the Matsumoto Cartel. They will move against them as soon as my actions are revealed...”

  “No one likes to be betrayed,” Alice agreed. “Don’t worry, Jin. As soon as Haley is back in Central with Takahiro, I’ll have Chike collect your personal effects. You can even bring the tentacle porn. Just don’t tell Rebecca. She’s sensitive.”

  “You are as maddening as I remember,” Jin said respectfully. “I have never met another Auditor like you.”

  “I’m confident you won’t.”

  “I appreciate your attention to my interests,” Jin said, supplementing the statement with a small bow. “My concern, however, is solely for my family. You know as well as I do how this encounter must end.”

  “Don’t be an ass, Jin. I’d only hang you out to dry if there was something to be gained from it.”

  “There is.” It all felt like a dream to Jin. “Should you embrace a known traitor, none of the cartels will trust you again. I knew when I contacted you that this would be the cost, and I am prepared to pay it.”

  Alice Gallow used the heel of her boot to dig another divot in the remaining tuft of grass.

  “Jeez, Jin. You’re a real downer,” Alice complained. “Now I’m all depressed.”

  “I apologize, then,” Jin said, with sincerity. “I have become weak and feeble in my old age. I only wish I could offer you some form of repayment.”

  Alice’s smile was abruptly resurrected.

  “The job is its own reward,” she said, lifting her gun from the grass nonchalantly. “Shotgun okay?”

  “The manner of my passage doesn’t concern me,” Jin said, vaguely irritable. “I only wish to assure that…”

  The shotgun discharged, punting most of Jin’s head across the garden, fragments splattering the otherwise still surface of the koi pond.

  “Tiresome motherfucker,” Alice said. “I have other things to do today, you know?”

  Five.

  “I don’t want to distract you, Eerie.” Vivik picked his steps carefully to avoid the puddles of rust-colored water that impinged on the path, which was itself barely visible in a light not unlike that of dawn. “I was just wondering how you navigate, if you don’t know where we are...?”

  Eerie paused to glance back at him over her shoulder. From the right angle, he could see currents of golden light that swirled about the Changeling like myriad wings, shimmering iridescent bones underneath a shifting surface of golden dust. The same metallic highlights gleamed in the depths of her dilated pupils, partially hidden by sweat-damp bangs.

  “Don’t need to, really. These are places that aren’t anymore, or never quite were.” Eerie turned her attention back to the narrow trail they followed across the ridge. “A map or atlas wouldn’t help. This is the back way around, kind of.”

  “That doesn’t...”

  He was not sure exactly what went wrong. One step was fine; the next, his ankle bent in the wrong direction. Vivik lost his footing on the loose volcanic scree, lurching forward as the stone slid beneath his boots. He tumbled toward the sheer slope to their left, a curving face of brittle rock that dropped for hundreds of meters to disappear in a thick mist, the spurs glistening like great black teeth. As Vivik lurched sideways, Katya seized the hood of his nylon jacket, yanking him backwards and giving him a case of whiplash. The sound of stone scattering over the edge of the ridge was oddly distinct, like the ringing of leaden coins falling to the ground. The fabric of his jacket tore, and the zipper dug into the soft skin of his neck as his hood stretched in Katya’s fingers. In one explosive movement, Katya wrenched him over and then down to the path. Vivik cried out as he hit the stone, the basalt slicing into his palms and fingertips.

  “Less conversation,” Katya gasped, bent double with her hands on her knees. “More not dying.”

  Eerie did a little dance of concern, while Derrida watched their slow progress with anxiety.

  “Oh. Um. Sorry. Are you...okay? Vivik?”

  Vivik studied his mangled hands sorrowfully. He was not ready to stand up quite yet, not while his legs were still quivering uncontrollably. Derrida trotted over to him and whined, pressing his cold nose to Vivik’s sore neck until Vivik broke do
wn and petted him.

  “I’ll live. Thanks to Katya.”

  “Shoulda stuck with killing people.” Katya took several deep breaths. “I don’t understand how I came to be a professional babysitter.”

  “You’re really out of breath,” Vivik observed, standing slowly back up.

  “You’re really bad at not falling off the ridge,” Katya countered furiously. “Yet I don’t criticize.”

  “That’s not what I...Eerie? Are we at altitude?”

  Eerie studied their surroundings, trying to glean their elevation by studying the air. They had encountered the path somewhere in the cool of the pine forests behind the library, and then followed it as it wound higher into the mountains.

  That bothered Vivik a little, because he knew for a fact that the peak above the Academy was the highest point in Central, by a comfortable margin. The slope continued to become steeper, however, despite Vivik’s objections.

  “I guess. It’s pretty high.”

  “That explains the headache,” Katya said. “How high are we right now?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Eerie admitted. “I’ve never been here before.”

  “Goddamn it, Eerie!”

  “Pretty high, I mean! That’s the only part of here that’s left. The mountains. The rest of it was swallowed.”

  Vivik leaned cautiously to his right, trying hard not to panic at the view that he had so recently almost become intimate with, trying to get a closer look at what he had assumed was mist, hundreds of meters below.

  “Is that the Ether?”

  “Yeah,” Eerie said, with a short nod. “The Ether has a kind of...density? There was a flood, maybe, or something like that. This is what is still exposed.”

  Vivik considered it for a moment. Still recovering from his near-death experience, he was surprised that he still had the capacity to be shocked. Then again, serious conversations with a member of a different species could have that effect.

  “The Academy is near the top of a mountain,” Vivik said numbly, glancing up at the anemic sun in the sky above them. It was nearly half again the size of the one he typically saw in the sky, and several shades redder to boot, but it produced little light and less heat. “We can see the sun there, on a good day, but Central is lower...”