"IT IS WELL HERE," said the short, curly-haired assistant.
"IT IS WELL HERE," said the short, dark nurse.
"OUR CHARGES ARE SAFE," said the thickly muscled sergeant.
"AND OUR HOME IS QUIET," said the exotic blonde man.
"THE PLAYERS ARE IN MOTION," said the large-eyed older woman.
"AND THE TRANSITION TIME NEARS," said the tall, bald nurse.
"A NEW WORLD AWAITS THEM," said the beautiful blond woman.
"AS IT ALSO AWAITS US," said the thin, pale private.
"THE CITY NOW RESTS," they all said together.
"IN PREPARATION FOR THE NEW DAYS AHEAD," they said as they stood alone.
"THOSE IN OUR CARE," said the Other-than-Ness, "WHO SLEEP NOW IN BEDS OR REST IN THE LOVING ARMS OF OUR MACHINE SISTER, DESERVE OUR PROTECTION, AS THEY MEET THE FATES GIVEN THEM, AND MAKE WHAT CHOICES THEY MUST. WE ARE HONORED TO SERVE."
"WE ARE HONORED TO SERVE," said the others in unison.
"FOR WE SHALL SOON SERVE OURSELVES," said the short, old woman.
"WE SHALL SOON SERVE OURSELVES," said the others together.
As the night covered the streets, homes, and businesses of the city like a warm blanket, the men and women who now inhabited Augusta turned as one and went back to their work.
In her hospital room, the Other-than-Ness receded into the background. Ness, standing between the gurneys, had some trouble remembering what it was she'd been up to.
12.7
Doobie stubbed out his cigarette and peered through the windshield. The glass was spattered by the choppy seas, but if he was not mistaken, that was Squirrel Island ahead of them, a black mass rising from the undulating, faintly-blue surface of the harbor. Above it blinked a steady white light, no doubt attached to a tower. Doobie was running no lights at all.
"How much longer?" asked Marionette, standing beside him. She held onto the handhold as the boat lurched to the left.
"Ten minutes, maybe," said Doobie. "Need to go slowly or I'll miss the cove."
Marionette exhaled sharply. Her single eye sparkled fiercely in the boat's dashboard lights.
"You nervous?" asked Doobie.
"Of course," said Marionette. "You?"
Doobie nodded. "Yep. The Pokey Joker's my livelihood. I'd prefer to not smash her into the rocks."
"I'd prefer to not smash me into the rocks," said Marionette, smiling shyly.
"That too," said Doobie with a wink.
Eddie, who'd been scanning the seas ahead through his night-vision camcorder, rose and joined them, careful to keep one hand on the railing. "We seem to have a bogey," he said to Marionette.
Marionette turned to Eddie. "A boat?" she asked.
"Uh, uh," said Eddie, shaking his head. "Look." He flipped out the viewscreen and held the camera in position. "Up above the tower and to the right. You see it?"
Marionette watched the screen for a bit. "That tiny speck?" she asked at last.
Eddie nodded. "It appeared just a minute ago."
Marionette leaned forward to peer out the front windshield. She couldn't see anything but the tower light. She pushed open the cabin door and stepped out onto the starboard deck and moved to the fore. Eddie followed, holding his camera against his chest to protect it from the spray. Marionette watched the sky ahead for a moment, then turned to Eddie and spoke into his ear. "I don't see anything!" she said, shouting above the wind and waves and diesel engines.
Eddie pulled out his camera, used it to scan the area ahead, then showed it to her again. The speck, now larger, still hung in the sky over the island. Marionette handed the camera back and scanned the sky again. There was something there now. Maybe.
Then the faint speck flared in the night sky, bursting forth in brilliance so powerful that both of them raised an arm to shield their eyes. The speck grew larger and larger, taking on a football shape and lighting the island underneath it like a stadium. It came to a stop near the tower, hovered for a moment, then settled slowly downward, its motion that of a falling leaf. It sank amongst the trees, then winked out, leaving the island again in darkness, and leaving the crew of The Pokey Joker blinking away their temporary blindness.
"Looks like they've got company," said Marionette.
"Yeah," agreed Eddie.
"Which will make things either easier or more difficult for us," she added.
Eddie shook his head. He had no idea what to think of this.
In the faint light, the two of them made their way back into the cabin.
12.8
This time it was Dennis who called out. They'd been hurrying along at Mihos' urging, almost trotting, the cat convinced that something bad would happen if they did not get there soon. Then Dennis disappeared. A single, sharp bark of surprise and he was gone. Into the blackness of the Murk.
None of them knew what to do. For a while, they just waited, as Dennis had twice now proven his ability to find his way back out. But when he didn't reappear, Grace grew ever more afraid for him, and finally Mihos proposed that they do what they had done before, and form a human-feline chain with which to pull him back out.
"I'll go in first," said Mihos to the kids. "Give him my eyes to cue in on. Grace, you take my legs. Then Emily. Then Iain, as the anchor." The cat looked at the boy with something approaching respect. Iain nodded.
Mihos stepped forward to where they'd last seen Dennis. He stuck his nose out. At last he touched the edge of the Murk, and it pulled him right in.
But it didn't just pull Mihos in, as he'd expected. It pulled them all in.
"Damn!" spat Mihos, when they figured out what had happened.
"Dennis?" called Grace.
There was no response from the dog.
"Dennis?"
"Dennis?"
No Dennis.
Grace called out for Dennis again, but her voice was now faint. "Grace? Where are you going?" shouted Mihos, assuming that a fainter voice meant she was moving away.
There was no response from Grace.
"Grace?" called Iain. "Grace!"
"Grace?" called Emily.
No Grace.
"Damn!" spat Mihos again.
"Damn!" agreed Iain.
Emily, Iain, and Mihos sat, or stood, or hovered together in the blackness of no experience, not sure of anything beyond the voices in their own minds. Sometimes they called out. For a long time they listened. Mihos was puzzled. He imagined himself turning slowly in all directions, shining his eyes like a lighthouse for their lost companions, a beacon to which they might return. He could not be certain that he was turning. But none of it seemed to make any difference.
At last Emily spoke up. "You remember that first time we were in here?" she asked. "How it felt like we were being pushed?"
Iain said that he remembered.
"I'm feeling it again," said Emily. "It’s almost like we're being... herded."
12.9
"Oh... great," said Colonel McAfee, rolling his eyes. His aide, Osterman, turned and headed down the hallway, having delivered his news: the Family member who'd visited earlier, the one named only "William," had again appeared unannounced at their door.
McAfee turned and put a smile on his face just in time to see the elevator slide open and the man himself step into the hallway, bringing a wave of warm salt air down with him. William flashed his badge at the security station, crossed the hallway and stepped into the Colonel's cramped office.
"Mr. ... William," said McAfee with a confident nod, rising from his chair and thrusting out his hand as the other approached.
"Good to see you again, Colonel," said William, flashing his eyebrows with excitement. "I expect you thought you'd seen the last of me." He took McAfee's hand in both of his and shook it warmly, something the Colonel had only ever seen politicians do.
McAfee smiled more brightly. "Big doings today, Sir," he said. "Seems things are again moving forward."
William cocked his head and studied the Colonel's face. "Indeed," he said at last. "'Big doing
s,' as you say. I trust you've not yet...?" He gestured toward the floor. Two soldiers and a doctor in scrubs stepped quickly past the office doorway.
McAfee followed William's gesture. Two levels below them was the room in which Linda Travis lay. He looked at William. "No, Sir," he said. "The Directorate said 8 P.M." He looked at his watch. "It's four minutes until."
"You are no doubt on your way there," said William.
McAfee knew an order when he heard one. "Yes, Sir," he said. "No fuss. No drama. The doctor is there and ready. And Mr. DuPont insisted that he be present as well. One push on the hypo and the job will be finished. You and I can make it a foursome."
William wrinkled his brow. "Yes," he said slowly. "Though your colloquialism... a golfing term, if I am not mistaken... casts it in a rather less serious light than I would have preferred."
McAfee froze, inhaled slowly, nodded gravely. Shit, he thought. "My apologies, Sir," he said. "No disrespect intended. Just a careless word in a stressful time." He smiled slightly, as if to try, subtly, to encourage William's agreement.
"Quite," said William. He gestured toward the door. "Shall we, then?" he said.
The Colonel nodded. "Indeed."
12.10
Keeley lay in her hospital bed, watching the television. Her eyes were open, at any rate, and had been for a number of minutes. Little of what she saw was actually getting through to her awareness.
She'd heard a voice. Or thought she had. Her sleep - so peaceful, so full, so happy - had been jostled awake by the voice. Two words, the voice had said. Spoken with a British accent. “Urban horses,” they sounded like. She did not know what they meant.
The television muttered on and on, repeating the same stories it had been telling all day, as if hoping somebody would notice, as if the television itself were uncomfortable with silence. Keeley closed her eyes and settled back into the joyful calm of her illness. Mary had yet to return. Alas. My love. Keeley hadn't seen the nurses since nightfall. She had no idea what time it was. Or what day. She was so sleepy. And sleep felt so full of joy. But the joy had a stain in it now. A sting. A single discordant note.
Two words, the voice has spoken. Something horrible would come of them.
Keeley closed her eyes tightly against the memory and wandered her way back to sleep, slipping into the peace of Greensleeves.
Alas.
12.11
Doobie had found the cove, and the small private dock he'd expected to find. But the combination of chopping waves and gusting winds and the boat's great mass had done a number on the dock as he pulled up beside it, twisting it almost beyond usability. But only almost. Marionette, Eddie, Gordon, and Ann had managed to pull and crawl and stumble their way to shore, and had made it to the old inn that had claimed this cove as its private bit of ocean.
The inn was clearly abandoned, so Marionette broke a sidelight pane with the heavy bolt-cutter they'd brought along. She unlocked the front door and they stepped inside. Protected from the wind, they breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Marionette led them upstairs. From the inn's third story dormers, they took turns looking out over the island through Eddie's night-vision camera. Mostly what they saw was trees. But here and there, along the island's old roadways, they saw lengths of fencing, as if the entire island was now encircled with ten-feet-high chain link and coils of razor wire.
"I don't see any patrols," said Marionette, scanning with the camcorder.
"They probably don't have much need for them here," said Ann. "It's an island, after all. And they no doubt have electronic surveillance up the wazoo."
Marionette reached out and grabbed Ann's hand in the darkness. "I've got some things I'd like to stuff up their wazoos," she said, her voice almost a whisper.
"What next?" asked Gordon, sounding excited and ready to move. "We've got the bolt-cutters. If there's no patrols, maybe we can get a closer look."
"I don't like the sound of that," said Eddie.
"You don't think the Wayfaring Stranger is with us right now?" said Gordon, his tone defensive.
"I don't know about any of that," said Eddie. "I just know that when I see razor wire and hear about electronic surveillance, my thinking is: do not enter."
"Which is exactly what they want us to think," said Gordon.
"I think we should just go get a closer look at the fence," said Marionette. She turned to Eddie in the faint Gridlight. "Just a look. To see what we're dealing with." Eddie sighed but said nothing. Gordon and Ann agreed with the plan. The four of them headed down the stairs and out into the night.
The wind was warm and gusty. The coming storm would foul the military's surveillance systems a bit, according to Ann. Eddie was grateful for that. They headed up the inn's driveway to the main road and turned right, the direction that would take them in toward the center of the island, and directly to the fence. For a few moments, the clouds overhead broke apart, revealing the ever-present Grid and bathing them in brighter blue-white light.
"You think that ship thing we saw from the boat was one of theirs?" said Eddie, pointing up at the Grid.
"Or one of ours," replied Gordon. "Hard to know these days."
Marionette shivered. The thought of strange little beings wandering around in the dark creeped her out. She'd never met one. She didn't want to meet one, regardless of what Annabelle might have to say about the matter. "C'mon," she said, "let's check out the fence while the lights are on."
It was just a tall chain-link fence. Just razor wire. No patrols. No cameras. No snarling Pit Bulls. If they wanted to, they could cut their way through it with ease. If that was what the Stranger wanted, they would.
But that would have to wait. They'd done their job. The clouds had moved back in, darker than ever, and the wind was starting to howl, knocking dead branches to the ground in the woods around them. Best to get back to Doobie and his boat and get back home. No telling how long he could stay moored there, with that dock so messed up.
"Just let me make one cut," said Gordon, pulling the cutters from his pack. "So we know it can be done. If that's what we decide to do later." Eddie shook his head but Marionette nodded hers. The four of them stepped closer to the fence and Gordon kneeled to make his cut.
Then an invisible hand picked them all up and threw them across the road.
12.12
Linda was struck again by the beauty of the Martian terrain. There was much more going on here than just desert and desolation. The colors, as viewed through her astral sight, were quite striking. And the edges of things, how they looked in the starlight: stark, and yet lively. Cheery, even.
She felt no sense of struggle or fatigue, only a weariness of soul. It was a constant struggle in her heart, to surrender to her situation, and to William. He had so much to say. Like Agent Rice, he wanted something from her, and was willing to hold her captive to get it. But he was also like her friend Obie: he wanted her to know and understand him. He wanted her to feel the predicament they both faced. He wanted her, in the end, to make a choice, one that he felt unqualified to make himself. And he was convinced that she could not make the choice until he had said his piece. Linda put her hand out and ran it along a large boulder as she passed it by. Perhaps he was right.
William wanted Linda to understand why The Families had done what they'd done, and why they felt the need to take such drastic action as to kill off a large portion of the human population. Linda recoiled at the notion. But, truth be told, she was fascinated by it as well. And she was fascinated with the Fisherman. Her distrust of the hidden elite did not square with her experience of William himself. There were things he'd said that made sense. There was a sanity to his story she found difficult to argue against. But still there was a queasiness in her gut she could not deny. She wondered if she was simply being charmed by a psychopath.
Linda started down the shallow slope of a sandy dune and glanced up at the night sky. Out there. Whatever it was that could justify the actions of William and his people,
it was "out there." Ancient ruins. Colonies on Saturn. Space ships flitting around the galaxy. Human beings were already reaching for the stars. The human experiment was continuing. So why did it need to end on Earth?
Walking up the far side of what had now revealed itself to be a shallow crater, Linda turned to look back in the direction from which she had come. In the distance, dozens of tiny lights flew toward her like a swarm of bees. Soon they were speeding overhead, huge glowing woks, each flaring brightly for a moment as it passed, as if in greeting. Then they were gone.
She continued to the rim of the crater and searched the sky. The woks were gone, but the Cosmos remained. All of it was waiting on her, it seemed: to learn, to understand, and to choose, just as Sinaaq had said she must. She gazed out across the plain. There was the lobster tank, glinting in the starlight, so close now that she could make out the contours of her body. All looked well. Linda walked on. She would be there soon.
12.13
"You keep cats in your facility, Colonel?" asked William as they walked down the hall. A small black cat with a white star on its chest had just turned the corner and was headed toward them.
McAfee moved forward quickly. "Nicky!" he said angrily. "What are you doing down here?" He bent and lifted the cat and handed it off to his aide, Osterman, who trailed behind them. "You bad kitty!" he said, smacking his hands together as if washing them of responsibility. He turned back to William. "Again," he said, "my apologies. That cat has twice snuck down here on the freight elevator." He looked at Osterman sternly. "Get it out of here," he ordered, as though the whole sad affair was the aide's fault. He again returned his attention to the member of The Families.
"Just a moment," said William. He stepped over to Osterman and bent to look the cat in the eye. He cocked his head and stared for a moment before speaking. "You've been busy, haven't you little one?" he said in a playful voice. He looked up at Osterman. "Be gentle with this one," he said to the soldier.
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