by Arthur Stone
“I’ve got some giblets from the monsters, which I understand are currency here.”
“Right. I’m more interested in ammo, which we need a lot of. Grenades and other explosives, too. Of course, if you know a specific place where we can get some, that information can be on the table, too, and we’ll both profit from it.”
“I don’t have a place for you, but I have some ammo.”
“For your gun?”
“Not for sale. But I have some rifle ammo I’ll give up.”
“What kind of ammo, and how many rounds?”
“Eight-millimeter. About eighty rounds.”
“Nice. Those would work for a number of our guns.”
“How much will you give me for them?”
“Our prices are pretty bad here—you wouldn’t get more than thirty-five for those, even on a market day. But I’ll give you forty, and I’ll happily buy any more you find, too. We can always use more rifle ammo.”
“Wait, you mean forty spores?”
“Of course. What else would I mean?”
“So two rifle bullets are worth one spore. Is that the going price everywhere else, too?”
“It varies from stable to stable. Sometimes more, sometimes less. In fact, a good number of dealers stake their livelihood on the differences in prices. But remember that prices are high here, in our stable. Forty spores won’t get you very far.”
“I have a few spores of my own.”
“Then do what you will. I don’t care. As long as you don’t shoot that gun, not even up in the air. And don’t draw your knife on anyone, ever, or there will be consequences.”
“So I’ve heard. Here are your bullets,” said Boiler, loosening the drawstrings on his pack. Charcoal seized the opportunity to leap out and commencing the construction of a toilet in the dirt.
The hitherto stoic Dicer lit up in surprise. “Would you look at that! Where’d you get him?”
“We just ran into each other on the way.”
“Is he for sale?”
“Well, he’s not really mine. We just bumped into each other. I don’t know if he’d want to stay here, since we have quite a bond by now.”
“Too bad. Great looking cat. I have a cat, too, named Rusty, but compared to her your pet is a leopard. A tiger, even. What kind of cat is he?”
“No clue. Like I said, we just ran into each other.”
“He’d take my Rusty down. Kitty’s grown fat here, old tub of lard. So at least we have one decent cat in the stable now. I wouldn’t bet as much as a wet spore against your supercat.”
“Please do. I could use the money.”
“Speaking of, I’ll go get the payment for your ammo.”
Boiler added the new spores to his current stash. “See you later.”
“Good luck. And don’t be a stranger, especially if you find more things we could use.”
* * *
Boiler knocked on the plain wooden door, then pulled the sliding peephole open.
“Is Reader here?”
“Yes,” a muffled, friendly voice replied. “It is not locked. Take a seat, if you are here for my services.”
Inside, Boiler found a modestly-sized room, sparsely furnished. A narrow bed sat against the far wall, the folding privacy screen intended to shield it from view pushed back against the right wall. In the middle of the room he saw a table and three chairs. A crooked cabinet hutch was placed in the corner. A couple of shelves on the walls and a coat hanger made of antlers completed the understaffed ensemble. It felt a bit like a very cheap hotel, and the healer himself looked like the cheap hotel clerk. He was nineteen at most, perhaps as young as seventeen, and painfully skinny, with no muscles and shocking pallor of skin like one freshly risen from a crypt. His eyes, however, were full of life, as perceptive and precise as drilling lasers, divulging the incredible intelligence behind their devilish sparkle.
Boiler sat down, remarking on Reader’s modest lifestyle.
“A man does not need much to live,” the Reader said.
OK, Confucius. “My name’s Boiler, and I need your services.”
“I know.”
Or is it Nostradamus? “You know that my name’s Boiler? How?”
“No, not your name. I know you are a newcomer looking to learn about your abilities. And of course, about your leg—anyone can see you have endured some recent trauma.”
“Sure, but how did you know my purpose?”
“That is what I do. I know things.”
“Interesting line of work.”
“It is, in fact, anything but boring.”
“But my leg is really killing me.”
“Show me. Hmm, that does look painful. What caused this wound?”
“I thought it was your job to know things.”
“That is precisely why I am asking.
“Clever,” Boiler said. So, it’s smartass Confucius Nostradamus, he thought.
“What caused the wound?”
“A crossbow.”
“Must have been a dull bolt.”
“The dullest I’ve ever seen, with a lead tip. I’m not sure why the man used it.”
“It is a convenient option for those hunting infecteds. The tip is wide and deforms on impact, but does not break the skull. The concussion from the blow is enough to render less developed infecteds unconscious. That gives the raider time to open the ghoul’s spore sac, which kills them, as I am sure you know.”
“What’s the point? Why not use an ordinary bolt? Skewering their brains also kills them, after all.”
“Because this bolt will generally not cause bleeding, and the more developed beasts can smell blood from great distances. Ergo, the shot and the impact are silent, or nearly so; loss of consciousness is instantaneous, without so much as a growl from the target; and there is no significant bleeding. In addition, hunting crossbows are quite powerful, and a sharp bolt could go straight through the target’s cranium and continue its flight, perhaps striking an unintended target after exiting. Such as, for example, a glass window. Even if a wall of stone lies beyond, the impact will be rather loud, if not stentorian. Noise is the hunter’s enemy, and soft-tipped bolts are their defense against that enemy. So whoever used this bolt is still alive.”
That last sentence didn’t sound like an interrogative. “Did you mean that as a question?”
“No. I can see that he still lives. But on occasion our visions fail to coincide with reality. The near future may seem like the recent past, or vice versa, lessening our perspicacity, or more precisely, lessening the perspicuity of the visions themselves. I see this person, and I see him alive.”
“Can you see what’s wrong with my leg?”
“To be sure.”
“Without even touching it?”
“My gift is seeing the truth, not feeling it. Besides, I would rather not soil my hands. I also perceive the multitudinous things living on your leg.”
“Yeah, sorry about that—my shower’s in an hour. So what’s wrong with my leg?”
“A cracked tibia, with chips of bone throughout. But the incident could not have befallen a more fortunate location.”
“I’m not sure ‘fortunate’ is the right word here.” Did I really just question this man’s vocabulary?
“This wound will prove self-ameliorating. Three days from now, you will no longer notice the pain, and in a month or less no scar will remain. Let the sun shine on it intermittently, or else a white spot will remain.”
“I have another question for you, as you know. Being new, I need to figure out these things the Hive has given me. Gifts. Abilities.”
“I do not charge for addressing the woes of the sick and the wounded, so I examined your leg for free. But I require compensation for this question.”
“How much?”
“As a matter of course, I accept five spores for this question. However, if you are unable to pay...”
“I have no clue whether that’s expensive or not, but I’ll pay it.”
&nb
sp; “My services are the most economical in the whole area. Even more economical than in all proximate stables.”
“They told me prices were higher here.”
“I am but a novice healer, and there are many feats I cannot as of yet attain unto.”
“Are there any other healers in town?”
“No.”
“So you have a monopoly here, which you could take advantage of.”
“I see no purpose in the swindlement of people such as yourself. The Hive has sufficient robbers without my assistance.”
“There is one ability that I’ve experienced.”
“Do not say anything. Just sit quietly, and please do remain immobile.”
Reader stood, approached Boiler, held his hands near his face, and then circled them around to his temples and to the back of his head. Boiler’s head tingled. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, but it was certainly strange. The healer repeated this gesture several times, stood motionless, and then returned to his seat and propped up his head with his arm, assuming a pose that would have made Auguste Rodin proud.
After a few minutes, Boiler couldn’t take the silence anymore. “It seems my skull is a puzzle box.”
“Close. That is not precisely how I would express it.”
“So what’s wrong with it?”
“Everything. You say you experienced an ability manifestation in the recent past?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
A piercing, mournful howl suddenly cut through the door, as if foreboding some great doom of universal import. Reader grabbed his pistol, which had been hiding under a newspaper placed on the table. Nervously, he asked Boiler about the sound.
“Relax, it’s just my cat, Charcoal.”
“Your cat? Dear God. It sounded like Godzilla, come to slaughter us all.”
“He’s not that big. Not quite.”
“Why does he howl like that?”
“He just wants to come in. He misses me, or more likely, he suspects I’m in here stuffing my face without him.”
“Let him in. I would like to see him.”
The cat made quite an impression on Reader, who asked how much he weighed.
“I haven’t checked. Over twenty pounds. Twenty-five, perhaps.”
“Where did you acquire him?”
“Everyone asks that, and I answer everyone the same: we just ran into each other.”
“Cats are a rarity here. The beasts cannot stand them. Or, more precisely, they adore them.”
“I’ve noticed. That feline charm of his has saved my ass at least twice now.”
“Meaning the transformed homo sapiens pursue him in place of you?”
“Yeah.” Sheesh.
“Tell me, how did your ability manifest?”
“A trampler was about to eat this very cat as I was lying there, my leg just shot, figuring I would outlive poor Charcoal, but only by a few seconds. I don’t know what happened next, but it was like something clicked in my head, and time just stopped. Well, not quite stopped—I could observe the raindrops gradually descending to earth. But everything else stood suspended, essentially motionless.”
Boiler realized he was inadvertently elevating the register of his speech to match Reader’s. Great. Now I’m a smartass Confucius Nostradamus wannabe. He forced himself to dial his mental adaptability down a notch. “This whole time, I could move, but it was really hard. Like I was wading through a swamp. I killed the trampler, but then lost consciousness myself. On my own, for some reason—nothing else hit me or anything. Except for that crossbow bolt in my leg, of course, but that had little to do with any of this.”
“I see. Congratulations. This is a useful ability. Those who have it are often called ‘clockstoppers.’ A mouthful, but it is straightforward enough. We may not bother to use clocks here, but we all remember them from the old world. Still, you will not hear the term spoken often. How long did this acceleration last?”
“No clue. Enough to take a few steps, at least.”
Reader was taken aback. “A few steps?”
“That’s right. What’s wrong?”
“How many steps?”
“I had other things on my mind than counting steps. Probably a dozen or steps so.”
Reader sat silent for a moment before continuing. “Let me put this in perspective for you. I have heard of a legend of a certain clockstopper who was able to take a full four steps. To reach that ability, he doubtless consumed a whole bucket of peas over the course of his life, besides a few pearls. Are you sure your memory is correct?”
“Like I said, I wasn’t counting steps, but it was certainly more than four.”
“I have never heard the like before, especially from a newcomer.”
“The situation was an extremely stressful one. Could that have been it?”
“Excessive stress alone cannot push abilities to such an extent. You are extremely fortunate to have such a well-developed gift, right from the outset.”
“So for once in my new life, I’m in luck.”
“This is a rare, highly-valued hivegift, too, so you are doubly fortunate. Your ability is both expedient and potent.”
“Hey, praise the Hive, I guess.”
“But that is not all. What else has happened to you? I see within you the intersection of multiple lines, many tracks of ability development. And I have never seen anything similar before, nor heard of any such case. Has anything unusual happened to you? I am a healer, yes, but this confounds me. There must be some point about which you are wrong, or something that has escaped your recollection. I ask again, has anything out of the ordinary happened?”
“I’ve only been here for five days, and I haven’t had an ordinary moment the whole time. Many creatures have tried to eat me, and several of those times I was completely defenseless. I’ve been hit by rockets and grenades, shot at with all sorts of guns—in short, I haven’t had any time to do anything but run, fight, and despair. And yet, strangest of all, I’m still alive.”
“No, Boiler. Something else. Think. There must be something that occurred that is specifically connected to hivegifts. Something unusual, something that does not happen to the others who come here.”
“Not that I can think of. Except—wait, there was one thing.”
Reader leader forward. “Well? Your hesitation vexes me. What was it?”
“I’ll explain it the best I can. I managed to get my hands on a pearl shortly after arriving here. I swallowed it a little while later. Does that count?”
A tremor of unadulterated shock seized Reader’s face, even more strongly than it had at the coming of Godzillacat. “You consumed a pearl?”
“Yeah. I had collected it from a manmincer.”
“An extremely rare discovery. I have never seen someone so fortunate.”
“Before I swallowed it, I met some people. Soldier types, but not bastards. They were clearly tempted by the pearl, even though for the sake of superstition—and morality, I suppose—they didn’t want to rob me. I think they were commandos since we encountered some moles later. They were the ones who told me to swallow the pearl, partly to kill their temptation to take it.”
“Robbing a newcomer is indeed a great provoker of misfortune, but I am surprised the temptation did not prove stronger still. The chances of finding a pearl within a manmincer are quite small. In the low single digits, at best. Not to mention the chances of killing a manmincer. Elites often have pearls, yes, but while each hunt for an elite terminates in a gruesome dissection, the identity of the party being dissected is quite uncertain until the end.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Pearls are of phenomenal value. We would have difficulty finding enough things in this entire stable to exchange for a pearl, which is saying something despite our relative poverty. What color was it?”
“Black.”
“That color has the highest risk of causing complications, but it is still worth a great deal.”
“They mentio
ned the risk, but I had no idea what they were talking about.”
“A pearl is a potent substance. There is no more powerful catalyst in the whole Hive, in fact. It can make you much stronger. But it can also fail to work at all, or even change you for the worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“It can give you the appearance of an infected. Usually the effects are only external, but there are rumors of the possibility of mental transformation, too, rendering you a soulless monster, like the rest.”
“Those fuckers! How could they have not...”
“They did the right thing. No one refuses a pearl, despite the risk. Pearls make your hivegift much stronger, and sometimes they can give you additional abilities, too. Each person who comes here receives only one ability at first, and in most cases, it is useless. Sometimes, those who manage to live a long time gain an additional ability, or even a third or fourth. Such development requires decades in this place, and few people survive for such an extended period, as I am sure you have noted. Thus in most cases, additional gifts are only accessible by consuming pearls. If you have two gifts, your chances of one of them being useful are much improved. Even more so with three gifts. And so on.”
“Of course. Basic statistics.”
“And those with useful gifts live longer.”
“Also self-evident. But you mentioned something else. Do I have multiple gifts?”
“Did you consume that pearl before your ability manifested?”
“Yes, a good deal before. The pearl was on my first day here. But my time stopping ability just manifested last night.”
“Incredible. You are truly unique.”
“Mom always told me so!”
“There is a legend that circulates of a newcomer who consumed a pearl just after arriving here. He soon surpassed all others, subjugating an edger base and the entire gang of moles that served it, then set off for the Core Cluster.”
“The Core Cluster? What’s that?”
“A cluster from local legend. Located precisely in the center of the Hive. None can approach within a hundred miles of it, for the area around it is filled with the most ancient elites and scrapers. The one who reaches the Core Cluster gains authority over the Hive. That one may appear in any place he or she desires, and even exit the Hive into other worlds. Infecteds do not trouble this ruler—indeed, the scrapers themselves serve him or her.”