Thread War

by Ian Donald Keeling

  Skid? The thought emerged from the grey sludge, green and clear. He still had Krugar. Or maybe Krugar still had him. I don’t know what the hell this crap is, but we need out. Which way is up?

  Up? Why would they go . . . ? I don’t think we go up, he thought at Krugar.

  I don’t give a rat’s ass which direction we pick, let’s just get out of this. I’ve got someone else too. Johnny sensed a crimson smear. He wasn’t sure who that was. But if Krugar had grabbed a skid . . .

  Trying to keep half his thoughts on the wall pushing out from his core, Johnny reached out into the grey. It was like reaching through the sludge-pits in Tunnel. Slowly—snakes, it was slow—he found other skids. He touched Shabaz, felt a surge of relief that she was okay. Shabaz had Onna, or at least that’s what Johnny thought she said; it was hard to tell.

  He thought he had Kesi, maybe Shev; it seemed like every time he found one skid, another slipped through his arms. And, all the time, the slow creeping feeling of disgust and decay lapped at him from every side. Vape me, this is insane!

  Krugar’s voice came through the sludge. What’s that?

  What’s wha—

  The grey disappeared.

  No falling, no landing, the grey just . . . disappeared.

  “What the?” Johnny said, reflexively tonguing the roof of his mouth. He felt like he’d eaten a pile of treadgrease.

  They were in a large clearing in the woods. Not the woods around the Spike—these woods were a mix of those familiar leafy trees and the thorny trees they sometimes used around the Pipe. Like the Pipe, it was snowing. Thick, white flakes drifted down, feathering the air and blanketing the woods in a hush. “Huh,” Johnny murmured. Wherever they were, it was pretty.

  He heard a cough. Nearby, Krugar bent over, bracing himself against a tree. He hocked up a huge spitball. “Tell me you know what the hell we just went through,” the soldier said, retching again.

  Johnny’s stripe twitched. “I’ve been in the black before. That last thing . . .” He shivered. “I don’t know what the hole that was.”

  “Well, whatever it was, let’s not do that again. Ever.” The soldier straightened out and Johnny hissed in surprise.

  “Hey, you all right?”

  “I feel like shit, why?”

  Krugar looked different. There were lines around his eyes and he didn’t seem to be standing straight. And his skin looked . . . grey. “Look,” Johnny said, “I don’t have a lot of reference points on this, but you look . . . worse?”

  “How?” Krugar brought his hands up and stopped, studying them intently. He looked at both sides several times, then grunted. “Great. Don’t care for that.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t know. My hands look older. There lines on my face?”

  “Uhh, yeah.”

  Krugar shook his head. “Great.” He sighed. “I need meds.”

  Johnny was going to ask what meds were, but Shabaz came around a tree with Onna, Akash, and an indigo-blue panzer in tow. From the other side of the clearing, Trist and Kesi were treading their way. “You okay?” he asked Shabaz, plowing through the snow to her side. He wasn’t certain, but it seemed like there were grey-on-grey spots on her skin. The three skids with her looked terrible.

  “I feel like I’ve OD’d on sugar,” she said, nudging his tread. “You?”

  “Kinda feel the same.”

  “Yeah,” Shabaz said. “I’m fighting it, but this isn’t the same as last time.”

  Had Shabaz not heard Bian? Had Johnny really even seen her? “Uhh,” he said, “try attacking it slow. Like push, not punch.”

  “What do you . . . oh, wait a minute.” Her gaze narrowed in focus, then her skin began to clear, the grey gaining a shine. “Yeah, that works. How did you figure that out?”

  So that was a ‘no’ on hearing the ghost of their dead friend. “Uhh . . . just came to me.”

  She nudged him again. “Good idea.”

  Yeah, he thought as he scoped the area. The clearing was much larger than the one by the Spike, with Johnny and Krugar landing about fifty metres from the nearest edge. Trist and Kesi were halfway across, heading their way. Another duo—it looked like Shev and the crimson-chocolate skid from Trist’s crew—appeared over a small hummock. Other than that . . .

  A nasty feeling began to boil in Johnny’s stripe as he looked over the hushed clearing. There was the odd little hummock here and there, but no real cover. And the clearing wasn’t that big. “Where is everyone?” he said, his breath misting in the cold air.

  “I think this is it,” Shabaz said softly.

  “What?” He scoped in every direction. Nothing. Just him and Krugar, Shabaz, Onna, Akash and the panzer, Trist and Kesi, Shev and . . . “Ten?” Johnny hissed in disbelief. “We only got ten?”

  “I think so,” Shabaz whispered, her voice heavy with grief.

  “TEN?!” Johnny plowed through the snow to the top of a small mound ten metres away, as if that would change something. “How could we only grab ten?” he yelled, his voice echoing across the snow. “Are you kidding me? We saved—what?—five times that many, maybe ten, off the Pipe? When we didn’t know what the hole we were doing? And this time we only—”

  “Easy,” Krugar said, putting a hand on the top of Johnny’s body. “Not in front of the troops.”

  Johnny glared at him. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means don’t panic. Get angry on the inside. Don’t show it.”

  Don’t show . . . ? “Yeah,” he muttered. “Good luck with that.” He took a deep breath and looked at Shabaz. “Is that really all we got?”

  Her eyes dipped. “That’s it,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Johnny stared at the clearing: ten drops of colour in an empty field of white. He couldn’t believe it.

  For the last three months, he and Shabaz had been super-skids, having to quit the games or risk breaking them. They were so much stronger than they’d ever been, and yet all that skill and strength hadn’t meant anything.

  He caught the look of despair on Shabaz’s face and a stab of grief for her surged through his stripe. “Hey,” he said, rolling off the mound. “It’s okay. I saw you. You grabbed who you could. You had it until . . . whatever that grey was.”

  “I had hundreds of them,” she said, the words dragging through sorrow and self-recrimination.

  He blinked. That was more than even he’d managed to grab. “It’s okay,” he said again. “We got who we could.” He thought he heard Krugar grunt in approval. He looked at Onna. “You okay?”

  Her eyes bobbed in affirmation. “I think so. I feel . . . odd. What was that?”

  “Yeah,” Trist said, pulling up with Kesi. “What the hole just happened?”

  “Let’s wait for Shev to get here,” Johnny said, watching the silver-green skid and the Level Six beside him. Still no sign of any others. “Then we’ll talk.”

  “Then we’ll talk?” Trist said dismissively. “Why, do you know what happened?”

  Johnny let his second eye sit on Trist. He was exhausted and didn’t feel like dealing with Trist’s grease. “We’ll wait for Shev.” He looked at the Level One, huddling by Onna. “Are you okay?”

  The indigo-blue panzer looked like he might pop a gear. “I feel sick.”

  His skin did look a little pale, and patches of grey mottled his skin. Johnny tried to put on a brave face and said, “We’ll deal with that soon, okay?” He glanced at Shabaz. “Nice work, grabbing him.”

  She smiled an awkward smile and poked an eye at Onna. “Thank her. Pretty sure she did most of the heavy lifting.”

  “Really?” Johnny said, staring at the white-red Level Four. “You pull him through?”

  “I think so,” Onna said. “I just tried to keep him thinking of his colours and stripes. Like you always told me.”

  Always. Johnny suppressed a smile. It had been less than three months. “Well . . . nice work.” He looked back at the Level One. “Yo
u need a name.”

  His gaze widened in surprise. “What?”

  “Yeah,” Trist said. “What?”

  Vape me, I think I hate him more than Albert. “Out here,” Johnny said, “you need a name. It’s going to be important.”

  “I don’t have a name,” the One said, staring at him like he was crazy.

  “Of course he doesn’t have a name,” Trist hissed. “He’s a panzer.”

  “No such thing out here,” Johnny said firmly. “You have a name you’ve been dreaming of?”

  “Johnny,” Shabaz said, “he’s awfully young to have already—”

  “Zen,” the panzer said, his single blue stripe flaring. “I like that name.”

  Johnny laughed. “I like it too. Zen it is.”

  “Are. You. Kidding?” Trist looked like he was going to pop a gear. “You can’t let a One name himself. That’s—”

  “Enough,” Krugar barked. He trod through the snow and stopped in front of Trist. “Until we know the situation, one voice speaks.” He pointed at Johnny. “His.” He glanced at Shabaz. “And maybe her.”

  Trist stared up at the soldier, flabbergasted. “And just who the hole are you? Actually . . . what the hole are you?” His third eye swung up and down Krugar’s torso.

  “Trist,” Kesi spoke up. “Hold on.” She looked at Johnny, then Krugar, then Shabaz. “You know what’s going on?” she asked Shabaz.

  “Not everything,” Shabaz said evenly. “But yeah, we know a little.”

  Kesi’s eye swung back and forth between Shabaz and Johnny, filled with mistrust. “Fine. Let’s wait for Dillac and Shev, Trist. Then we’ll hear . . . whatever.”

  “Thank you,” Johnny said, but the teal-plum skid didn’t look like she cared for his thanks.

  Shev finally crossed the clearing. “Snakes, this is thicker than on the Pipe,” he said, wheezing.

  “Yeah, this is grease, squi,” Dillac announced from behind him. “This some kind of new game? ’Cause if it is, the first part really sucks, rhi.”

  “Pretty sure it’s not a game,” Johnny murmured. “How you feeling?” he asked Shev, studying the grey splotches on his stripes.

  The white flared as Shev laughed. “Been better.” When Johnny’s stripe tilted, he added, “I don’t know, I feel a little nauseous?”

  “Yeah,” Johnny said, glancing at Shabaz. “We are going to have to deal with that.”

  “Deal with what?” Trist said. “Hey, we waited for Shev, the gang’s all here. What the hole’s going on?”

  Johnny had always taken the lead before, but he didn’t want to automatically do that with Shabaz around. He looked at her and watched a small smile quirk across her lips. “You fill them in,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Krugar hefted his rifle. “I can listen and look at the same time. What are we keeping an eye out for?”

  Shabaz peered at the dark shadows splitting the woods and the falling snow. “Well,” she sighed, “it’ll either be black-on-black or white-on-white.” She shivered. “Anything white-on-white, we need as much warning as we can get.”

  “What’s she talking about?” Zen said nervously.

  “Bad things,” Johnny said grimly. “Listen, I don’t even know where to start, but let’s try this: we’re no longer in the Skidsphere. I know that’s hard to believe,” he added quickly, as Trist opened his mouth, “but you better. Because the most important thing you need to understand is that there are things out here that want to kill us and, unlike the games, they can kill us. You die out here, it’s over.”

  “Crisp Betty,” Onna swore.

  I’m sure we’ll get to her in a minute, Johnny thought, rolling his eyes. How was he going to do this? It was the truth: he had no idea where to start. How was he going to explain the Thread? Betty? The danger they were in? He wanted to ask Shabaz what she thought, but if he showed any doubt in front of Trist . . .

  As if on cue, the yellow skid said, “This sure looks like the sphere. How do you know this isn’t just some new game?”

  That we just randomly teleported into through a bunch of grey sludge? That’s what you’re going to believe? “Look, I don’t know how long it’ll be before we have to move, and we’ve got stuff to do if we can first. Believe what you want, but if you’re smart, don’t let anything you see touch you. Let me and Shabaz handle it.”

  “Can you?” Shev said. “Handle it?”

  Maybe, Johnny thought. “Sure,” he said out loud, trying to sound confident as he examined the woods. He had no idea what direction they should go. He looked at Shabaz. “Anything?”

  “Not yet. But we had to cause a break, didn’t we?”

  As if in response, the ground rumbled beneath their treads. Johnny tensed, but it quickly faded.

  The last time they’d entered the Thread, they’d fallen out from a huge black scar in the sky. No scar in sight here, no black anywhere. And the Vies had responded rapidly last time; if they were coming, they should have seen them by now. “I don’t know. Maybe we have some time. If so . . .” He studied Zen and the grey blotches that covered the panzer’s skin. They were going to have to deal with it sometime, why not now?

  “Okay,” he said, treading over to Zen. “That black we fell through? Shabaz and I have fallen through that before. And we’ve healed what it does before. I’m going to try that with you, okay?”

  “Okay,” Zen stammered. “Will it hurt?”

  “It might a bit, but you’ll feel better. I want you to pay attention, because you’re going to help. When you think you know what I’m doing, think of your colours and your name and do the same thing.” He readied himself to dive into Zen, placing a hand on one of the grey spots.

  “Hey, boz,” Dillac said, “you said you fell through the black before. What about that grey thing at the end? ’Cause panzer don’t look black, rhi, he looks grey.”

  Great, Johnny thought. The idiot’s smarter than he sounds.

  “Now would probably be a good time for everybody to shut up,” Shabaz said in a flat voice he’d rarely heard from her. Then he caught her wink at him and, suppressing a smile, he dived into Zen.

  Immediately, he realized that Shabaz was right—this skid was young. Maybe a couple of months old. Johnny was both appalled and amazed that Zen had made it this far. Keep him alive and maybe he’ll be something.

  It didn’t take long to hit Zen’s bright indigo core. Finding a few specks of black on the way in—not as many as he expected—he dealt with them easily. But the grey . . .

  The grey was everywhere, and didn’t attack the way the Vies tended to attack. It was definitely attacking, but it moved slow. It was like it coated everything; seeping in, not tearing it apart. Patches of grey, mottled and diseased, crept along Zen’s core and stripe. Johnny couldn’t remember the black ever appearing on the stripes surrounding a skid’s core; with Brolin, his stripes had remained clean until they broke apart.

  The thought of Brolin brought a wave of sorrow, which Johnny fought down. The race you’re in, he thought, trying to get under the grey at the core. After failing repeatedly, he grit his teeth, and then formed a wall and pushed slowly out. Several times, the grey slipped past or even through the wall; after the second time, he felt Zen trying to help. Panzer had heart.

  Finally, he got most of it moving towards the surface. His consciousness emerged from Zen in time to see the indigo skin regain most of its shine.

  “Betty Crisp, that was sweet,” Akash whistled.

  “I hope so,” Johnny said, studying Zen. “How do you feel?”

  “Better!” the panzer said cheerfully, stretching his Hasty-Arms. He hadn’t learned how to retract them yet. “Still a little strange.”

  Johnny cocked an eye at Shabaz. “I couldn’t get it all. Whatever this grey stuff is, it’s weird.”

  She smiled back at him. “You did fine, he looks a lot better. Do you want to switch or keep doing the others yourself?”

  “Do the others?” Trist said. “You’re not
touching me.”

  “Trist,” Johnny said, fighting a wave of anger, “we’re trying to help.”

  “Help what? I’m fine. Feel a little nauseous.” He laughed. “I feel like that most mornings after the sugarbar. Whatever that was with the panzer, don’t do it on me.”

  Johnny stared at him. He could see a grey splotch on Trist’s stripes; there was no way Trist didn’t see it too.

  He was used to travelling with skids who hated him. No matter how much Trist disliked Johnny, it was nothing compared to how much Johnny and Albert had despised one another. But even though he’d hated Albert and Albert had hated him, they’d trusted each other. Even went he felt Albert was being a jackhole, Johnny knew Al would take care of things. And he was pretty sure Albert had felt the same. Hole, he’d let Johnny take the lead saving Shabaz—he might not have liked it, but he trusted Johnny to do it.

  But Trist . . . Trist had seen what Johnny could do and wanted no part of it.

  “Same goes for me,” Kesi said. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” Johnny said, glancing at Dillac to see if he was going to protest too. The crimson-chocolate skid seemed to be distracted by a snowflake. “Look,” he said, trying to stay calm, “you don’t want me or Shabaz to heal you, fine, your loss. But get this through your treads—out here, if we don’t help each other, we die.”

  “And get this through your treads,” Trist said, surging forward, “we don’t want your help!”

  “Trist—”

  “Movement,” Krugar said suddenly.

  “What?” Johnny said.

  “Movement,” the soldier said again, pointing into the woods.

  “He’s right,” Shabaz said, scoping. She swung an eye towards Johnny.

  “There’s something back there.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Shabaz didn’t remember many specific details from her earliest moments in the Thread.

  She couldn’t remember exactly where on the Pipe she’d been when that terrifying surge of black had caught her—maybe Torg had been nearby, but she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t remember those first frantic moments in that strange, hazy-white world after the black; she couldn’t remember seeing her first Vie or Anti.