Thread War

by Ian Donald Keeling

  He’d always been fast. And he’d always had an ability to see things coming.

  He never saw this coming.

  But he was fast, and so when Torres said Al’s name—with an acute loss that Johnny never, ever wanted to feel—and started to roll forward, he immediately snapped a Hasty-Arm and grabbed hers. When she snatched it from his grip, he darted in front of her, glancing at Shabaz with one eye and keeping the other on the thing that had once been his enemy and his best friend.

  “Torres, we have to go now.” The grey thing shuffled forward and then hitched back, as if it couldn’t remember how to use its treads.

  “Get out of my way, Johnny,” Torres hissed, pushing against him. “I’m not leaving without—”

  “That’s not Al,” he said, pushing back. “Whatever it is, it’s not him.”

  “Torres,” Shabaz said. “Johnny’s right, we have to get out of here.” The thing corrected its hitch.

  Torres tore her hand from Shabaz and raised her sword. “I said get out of my way.”

  He didn’t have any choice. And he still had three years of skill on her, no matter what she’d learned out here. Faster than she could react, he snatched the light-sword, turned it, and touched her stripe. Not deep, but deep enough. She screamed, and in that moment when she couldn’t think and probably didn’t have control, he geared up as hard as he ever had from a sitting start and drove her back, even as the thing behind him reached out with a flat grey arm.

  “Johnny!” Shabaz yelled, turning to follow. “The grey!”

  Snakes. As hard as he’d shoved, he locked his treads and dug in before they spilled across the corridor to the half coated in solid grey.

  “Let go,” Torres hissed, grabbing the sword back. She lunged at him, and as he swerved to avoid the blade, she darted through the space he’d vacated. Johnny spun, terrified she would attack Shabaz, terrified that the thing that had been Al would escape—

  Someone else was already blocking the door.

  “Get out of my way, Wobble,” Torres spat, raising the sword.

  “Negatory.” And given all the pain and sorrow Johnny had heard in the machine’s voice before, that single word was the worst. “Please, friend-friend-Torres-Torres. Friend-Albert is not here. We-You must go.”

  “Wobble, I swear I’ll kill you—”

  “Then you’ll kill all of us,” Krugar said, stepping up beside Wobble, his rifle angled down. “I get it, he was your friend, and I don’t know what happened in there, but whatever it is, your friend is dead. And if you don’t think the machine hates having to tell you that, then you’re insane.”

  A moment of silence except the sword, humming. Kesi’s voice came from the stairs: “I think I hear something moving up there.”

  “Torres,” Shabaz said gently. “We have to go. That isn’t Al in there. I’m sorry, but it’s not him. And if we don’t get out of here, we’ll all end up that way.”

  Another heartbeat, then the sword came down. “Fine,” Torres said, strangling the word. “I’ll clear a path for us out of here. Stay the vape out of my way.” She turned for the stairs.

  Shabaz made a soft sound. Krugar surveyed the group, then nodded. “I’ll cover her.”

  “I’d stay out of her way,” Torg murmured. “What happened in there?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Johnny whispered.

  “Al?”

  He felt sick. He managed to grind-out the words: “It’s all grey.”

  “Ahh, snakes,” Torg said, the words collapsing from his mouth. “Is there . . . is there anything we can do?”

  Tears were falling from Shabaz’s eyes now. “We need to get out of here,” Johnny said. “Can you gather the others, maybe make sure Krugar and Torres are all right? We’ll be right behind you.”

  Torg hesitated, glancing at the space behind Wobble. Then he sighed and headed for the stairs.

  Johnny looked up at Wobble, who had his back pressed against the space Torres had carved out. “Are you keeping him in there?” he asked.

  Wobble’s lenses shifted. “Affirmative.”

  Johnny bobbed an eye. “Can you . . . can you end it?” Nearby, Shabaz made another soft sound.

  The machine didn’t move. “Affirmative.”

  The longest moment of his life. But what else was he going to do? What else was he going to say?

  “Okay,” he said.

  There was a whirring sound and the space behind Wobble briefly lit up. Then a loud keening sound, so much worse than anything Johnny had ever heard from Wobble before. Shabaz was weeping openly. Johnny . . .

  He had no vaping idea how he felt. Not knowing what else to do, he turned to comfort Shabaz. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you watch—”

  “Don’t you dare,” she hissed, drawing herself up. “Apologize to Wobble if you have to, but not to me. If you could do that, I could be here to watch.” She drew a harsh, raw breath. “You had to do that. He . . . he would have wanted that. Oh, snakes, Albert.”

  A loud half-screech, half-roar of loss and rage came echoing down the stairwell. “Wobble, you should go make sure Torres is okay,” Shabaz said. Another cry. “Though she probably doesn’t need any help.” Without speaking, Wobble lifted off the ground, transformed into his knife-shape, and hovered towards the stairs.

  Johnny stared at the open space leading to the cell. He shuddered. “I don’t need to see that,” he said, rolling after Wobble.

  “Vape no,” Shabaz muttered.

  They found most of the others huddled around the top of the stairwell. “Um, Torres went up ahead, boz,” Dillac said. He looked shaken, his stripes frazzled. “She was . . . rhi, I don’t know what she was.” A scream of rage came down the hallway, followed by gunfire. It sounded like it was coming from one floor up.

  “Krugar told us to wait here,” Onna said, looking no better than Dillac. “He and Wobble followed Shabaz. Dillac’s right, she looked . . . what happened down there?”

  “Nothing good,” Johnny said, drained. “Stay tight, we’ll work our way up.” He started to roll down the hall.

  “Wait!” Kesi said. “Shouldn’t there be someone else? I thought we were here to get Albert?”

  An image came to him: a round shape, shuffling out of the darkness. Three dead eyes. A hitch in the gears, then a grey hand, reaching . . .

  “Albert’s dead,” Shabaz said, her voice sounding as drained as his own.

  “But how?” Kesi protested. “We saw that signal, how . . . ?” Her voice died as she read the emotion in Shabaz’s expression. “Sorry. Never mind.”

  If he didn’t move, he was going to scream. Johnny felt strangely flattened out, as if the world wasn’t quite real. There was gunfire and screaming . . . abruptly, he chuckled.

  Of course it wasn’t real.

  “Johnny?” Torg said.

  The chuckle got louder. Of course it wasn’t real. It was dead. Albert was dead, the one constant in his life. No, not dead, turned into something else—they weren’t even here, he’d been like that since they’d saved the sphere, why the hole had they saved the sphere? He was laughing louder now. It was all dead: Albert, the Out There, there were trillions of abandoned suns. . . .

  “WHY DID WE SAVE THE SPHERE?!” he cried aloud, and the laughter burst loose, out of control.

  “Boss?” Onna said, rolling forward.

  “It’s all dead!” A whining of gears, a flash of light. Nothing they’d ever done mattered, it was all dead—

  Shabaz appeared in front of him, all three eyes on his, her hands on his stripe. “It’s not all dead. I love you. I’m right here. I’m right here.”

  “We’re all dead already,” Johnny said, the laughter curling into a snarl. “Black, white, grey, it’s already killed us—”

  “It hasn’t killed me,” a small voice said. Zen rolled forward. “I’m still here. I don’t know why, I should be dead—I’m a panzer, that’s what we do, right? We die. Well, this world is vaping Threes and Fours and Sevens and I�
�m still here. I don’t know why, but I’m still here.”

  “Me too,” Onna said fiercely. “And I know exactly why I’m here. I’m here because of you. You came into the Combine and picked me. Vape me if I know why, but it saved my life. You saved my life.”

  “Me too,” Torg said. “Said it before, I’ll say again. I’ll say it however many times you need to hear it.”

  Whatever the hole was twisted up inside Johnny loosened a little. He glanced at Shabaz.

  “You know you did,” she said softly. Her hands were still on his stripe. “I’m right here.”

  A wave of grief washed over him and his whole body sagged. “Okay,” Shabaz said, removing a hand from his stripe and taking one of his own, “let’s get you out of here. Torg, Onna, take point. Watch out for grey patches. Kesi, Dillac, take the rear, yell if you see movement. Zen . . .”

  “Yeah,” the panzer said fiercely.

  “Stay in the centre, stay breathing.” When the indigo skid’s gaze fell, she added, “You already saved a life today.” Zen’s expression brightened, then another screech echoed down the hall, this one several floors up. A scattered round of gunfire.

  “All right,” Shabaz said, carrying Johnny’s arm. “Let’s get the vape out of here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  They came across the first body at the stairwell leading up. Torg dragged it away. “The bodies you can touch,” he said, sniffing in disgust. “It’s just the solid grey that’s instant.”

  Johnny stared at the thing as Torg and Onna tread up the stairs. It was larger than Krugar, but the same basic shape: two arms, two eyes, two legs. An elongated snout with teeth protruding from the upper jaw and claws instead of fingers. Its skin was pebbly and it was wearing some kind of three-quarter battle suit.

  “That’s major snaze, rhi,” Dillac muttered, following Johnny. Treading up the stairs was a little trickier than sliding down, but they managed.

  At the top of the stairwell, Shabaz tried to take his hand again, but he gently pushed her away. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m . . . well, I’m not fine, but I’m not crippled.”

  She studied him for a moment, then reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. “Okay,” she said, and rolled out front.

  There were hundreds of bodies, every one of them a creature like the one they’d seen downstairs. “Thank goodness the hallways are narrow,” Torg said, eyeing a pile of bodies. “If they’d been able to pack us into a corner . . .”

  Like downstairs, Johnny thought. If they hadn’t gotten out quickly, if the fight with Torres had gone wrong or she’d refused to leave . . . he shuddered.

  They heard a few more sporadic bursts of fire, but no more screams of rage. Finally, as they mounted the final stairwell, even the gunfire died out. Krugar came running down the corridor, scanning every junction, his rifle pointed down. “I think we got them all. Thank god for Wobble, he stopped the one horde I saw. That machine’s amazing.”

  You don’t know the half of it, Johnny thought, as the machine in question came down the hall. His entire body was smoking and covered in grey matter. Now that the battle was over, he moved with his familiar hitch.

  “All clear-clear. Wobble.” The machine didn’t look happy. Johnny knew how he felt.

  “Boz, you got a little . . .” Dillac said, grimacing. He reached out to flick the biggest piece of grey off Wobble’s shoulder, then shied away. “You know what, it’s a good look, boz.”

  “Come on,” Johnny said. “Let’s go see how Torres is doing.”

  As they rolled towards the entrance, past the window with its trillion suns—he steadfastly refused to look, he didn’t need the distraction right now—Johnny had a sudden spastic thought: they were going to find Torres, but her purple-orange skin would be grey, her eyes dead, and they would have to kill her too. Then they rounded the final corner and found Torres, alone, sitting by the exit.

  Immediately, Johnny’s heart filled with sorrow for the fierce skid. He’d gone a little spare downstairs—hole, he’d gone a lot spare downstairs. And, if anything, Torres had an even greater tie to Albert than Johnny.

  Three months ago the thought would have made him laugh—how could anyone be more tied to Albert than Johnny? Half the stories the skids told in the Skidsphere had been about Albert and Johnny, their rivalry and their hate.

  But then Albert had stayed in the Thread and the skids stopped telling stories about Albert and Johnny because Albert didn’t exist. Not in the Skidsphere. Only in the Thread, where the first time they’d arrived—falling through a darkness that wanted to kill them—there was only one skid who hadn’t been saved by Johnny.

  Torres.

  All three of her eyes were on the ground, the light-sword sheathed. Depressed into her treads, her stripe flat orange instead of its usual glossy sheen. “Torres?” Johnny said, stopping a respectful distance away.

  Her body didn’t even twitch. “I guess you got what you wanted. He’s dead now.”

  He’d half-expected it, but it hurt nonetheless. Sweet snakes, it hurt. Behind him, he saw Shabaz open her mouth and he popped a Hasty-Arm. “It’s okay, I got it,” he said, even as he felt a surge of love for the combative look she wore. What had he done to deserve that support, to deserve what she’d done downstairs?

  What he deserved was right here.

  “Torres, I am so sorry.”

  A half-snarl, half-snort of derision. “Of course you are. Did you finish it? Did you kill him?”

  “I didn’t kill him.” He had to stay calm here, but snakes it was hard—he felt like screaming at her or maybe joining her on the floor. “Wobble . . .Wobble finished it.”

  “Oh that’s great, Johnny Drop. Blame the machine. You jack—”

  “All right, Torres that’s enough,” Shabaz said, rolling forward.

  “Shabaz, I said I got this.”

  “No you don’t,” she said, two eyes on Torres and one on Johnny. “Not this you don’t. Not after what you had to . . .Torres, I love you like a sister, but you need to back up.”

  “Of course you’d defend him.”

  “Torres . . .” Torg said.

  “And of course you would defend him!” she screamed. “His best friend and his snug-buddy! Aren’t you glad he’s back, Torg? Back with the winning team?”

  Torg stared at her, his expression filled with sympathy and pain. “There are no teams, Torres. Just us.”

  “Just you!” She rose on her treads. “Admit it, none of you ever liked him. None of you ever listened to him, not you, not Betty, no one . . . ever . . . listened to him.” She popped a light-sword. “No one cared about—”

  A gunshot echoed down the hall. Johnny’s trail-eye went wide as he realized it wasn’t Krugar holding the gun.

  It was Dillac.

  “This is grease, squi,” he said, his voice remarkably calm as he handed the gun back to Krugar. “You think boz don’t care? Torres, what happened to you ain’t right, but you ain’t close to round on this. Boz don’t care? Rhi, panzer went spare downstairs. I thought he was going to blow sug for sure.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Torres muttered, staring at Dillac like he was mad.

  “It’s not important,” Johnny said. “This isn’t about me—”

  “No, it is important,” Onna said, coming around Shabaz. “Crisp, Torres, I can’t begin to understand how you feel, but Johnny doesn’t care any less.”

  “The hole he doesn’t.”

  “Yes, he does. This guy was important to both—”

  “This guy? This guy?!” Torres cried. “His name was Albert!” Her whole body went still, and then she wailed: “HE WAS MY ONLY FRIEND!”

  The last word echoed down the hall, filled with loss and shame. As the echo died away, Kesi rolled forward.

  “Sometimes your friends die,” she said. “Sometimes when they shouldn’t. Sometimes in ways . . . in ways they shouldn’t.” She looked at Torres and, for the first time, Johnny saw sympathy for another skid in her eyes.
“We don’t have to die with them.”

  Torres stared at her, then past her to Krugar and Zen. “Everyone else had their say, you two want in?”

  “Just . . . I’m sorry about your friend,” Zen said, blinking rapidly.

  Krugar looked down at him, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said, looking back at Torres. “That’ll do for me too.”

  The silence stretched out, then the light-sword extinguished. “There’ll be a hub somewhere nearby that will take us back to the base. Betty’s probably waiting for us there, but I don’t care anymore.” She turned on her treads and rolled out the door.

  “Give her some time,” Krugar said. “She’s tough, she’ll come around.”

  “I hope so,” Johnny said. “We need her.”

  “Well, we’re due a win.”

  Johnny chuckled, although it was devoid of humour. “I thought we were already due a win before.”

  Krugar shrugged. “Then we’re due two. Come on.”

  Torres was waiting for them in the hall. When they all emerged from the sim, she turned without speaking.

  “I-We will find us a hub-hub,” Wobble said, catching up with Torres.

  They rolled in silence. Everyone gave Johnny space, although Shabaz kept glancing in his direction even as she went from skid to skid, checking in. The sight brought a brief smile to his lips. They’d had a fight over that. A stupid one. Then again, maybe all their fights had been stupid.

  Then he thought about Peg and Bian. Okay, maybe that one wasn’t stupid—he could understand why she was upset about that. He was upset about that. They were just one more thing that didn’t make sense in a world that no longer made sense.

  Albert was dead. Albert. And Betty had killed him, or least put him a place where he would die. A place where they might follow him and die as well.

  Johnny had a real nasty suspicion about how they’d found Al. About how that red light indicating him had gone out when it did. Sure, maybe he’d been alive until then; maybe that was the moment Albert had turned grey. But there hadn’t been any of those grey things in his cell. Maybe there had been some of the solid grey, but the rest of it had been on the other side of the prison.