Wild Thing

by L. J. Kendall

  So every day, she tried to be perfect. She knew it pleased Uncle – she knew she had to be perfect, to be good enough. She so hoped she was going to be beautiful when she grew up. She was strong, and healthy, and that was real important. But somehow, she knew she had to be beautiful, too.

  Chapter 23

  Sara turned thirteen and the year ended. Approval for Harmon's radical proposal had been granted only weeks before, but Professor Sanders had been happy to withhold the news until her birthday, at the winter solstice. Harmon was sure her thoughts would turn at that time to the summer solstice ahead, so it was with considerable relief he'd been able to gift her with the good news; long before she could start planning something unfortunate.

  Her reaction had exceeded his expectations: he had never seen her so excited. Which said a lot, just in itself.

  Her face had opened in astonished delight and she'd leapt across the dining table to wrap him in a hug, much to his embarrassment and the amusement of the other three diners.

  She was an affectionate little thing, and despite the need to maintain his clinical distance, he'd felt his heart warm. He'd even hugged her in return, albeit a little awkwardly from his seated position.

  The event had quickly turned into a surprisingly communal evening in the cafeteria, as he found himself having to explain to his co-worker, Simmons – and the last two of the human orderlies, the long-suffering Dwayne and Nerida – what had so excited Sara. At first they refused to believe that Sara would be allowed to be present literally outside Godsson's cell during the annual lock-down, provided simply that she behaved well and did not attempt to disrupt things. She would, after all, be only thirteen – 'and a half!' But after laying out his rationale, they had all nodded, appearing to be genuinely impressed and agreeing it sounded potentially good for both Sara and Godsson. Though Sara herself, he noted, looked annoyed by his explanation. No doubt, she itched to point out that it was all real, not make-believe.

  He would have a quiet word with her later to explain that secretly he was relying on her to support Godsson should the attack prove real. It would fit very nicely with the stress induction system he'd put in place for her own hunting of the Institute's “invisible monster” with her bow and “magical” arrows.

  Though heaven help them all if the creature were real.

  Winter turned to spring, and spring to summer. In just the last four months, Sara's body had begun to fulfill the promise of richer curves concealed within the slender lines of her adolescent frame. So much so that another trip into the city was required, and one that again needed her actual presence: Harmon didn't wish to waste money on ill-fitting garments. It would be only the second time he had taken Sara into New Francisco.

  Today, Sara wore her favorite clothes – her huntress outfit – even though it was more than a little tight on her now and showed obvious signs of hard wear. Harmon watched her playing with the security guard's “dog” while they waited for their cab to arrive. The idea of her playing with the cyborg animal still made his hands sweat. Suppose it activated a weapon from its arsenal? It supposedly had armaments sufficient to deal with any individual here, even “Godsson” if it took him unawares.

  Still, he could almost certainly just heal her, since Sara was most unlikely to trigger a response at that level. And playing with the weaponized dog lessened the chance she would focus her attention on the Institute's walls and the act of leaving. He had been most carefully conditioning her in this regard. To her, the Institute was enough: more than a home, practically the world as far as she was concerned. He had conditioned her to this disinterest for his own convenience. Soon, though, he would need to undo it lest he end up with the magical archetype of someone scared to leave her room.

  At last, he saw the yellow cab in the distance on the curve of road leading to the main gates. He went to the security panel just inside the front doors, identified himself, and authorized the cab's entrance. As the gate swung open he re-emerged, calling Sara as he descended the steps.

  She looked up, surprised, then stilled in confusion. She took a hesitant step toward him, then stopped.

  He scowled. While conditioning her toward disinterest to the outside world was working well, his Suggestions toward obedience had not shown the same improvement. So, while one result seemed to support the effect predicted in that very recent paper from Spencer, her disobedience was evidence against it. Either way, her recalcitrance was irritating.

  'Sara!' he barked out, letting a little anger creep into his voice. 'Come here! Now!'

  She seemed to come awake, but instead of running over to him, she first bent down to hug the “dog” farewell. Harmon scowled. She should not have been able to do that.

  The creature followed at Sara's side as she trotted over to him, escorting her as far as the gravel area, then stopping. Its red eyes seemed to stare knowingly, as its gaze locked on his. Not for the first time, he wondered just how intelligent the cybernetically modified animal was. Its stare was almost unsettling. He was glad to turn away from it and face the approaching vehicle.

  Sara bent down to it again. 'Bye, Faith! We're going to New Francisco! To buy presents for me!'

  As she turned, straightening up in her overly-tight “hunting” outfit, Harmon noticed the disapproving look the cabbie gave her before swinging the car round in a swift circle on the little-used area.

  But as the vehicle slowed, Sara flashed past him, angling toward it. The day was hot, but Harmon went cold as she ran straight at the moving car, then launched herself at it.

  She sailed in through the open rear window, bouncing heavily on the back seat even as the driver slammed on the brakes. The car juddered to a halt, throwing her small body forward, onto the floor.

  Harmon's mouth was still open in stunned disbelief as Sara got up from the floor looking annoyed.

  He started to breathe again. Gods! She can still surprise me.

  He moved over to the vehicle, noting that the driver's initial shock had quickly turned to cool suspicion. 'The girl seems mighty keen to get going. You in a hurry too, maybe?' he drawled.

  'I am Dr Harmon, and the over-excited young lady is my ward. If you're worried that our departure from the Institute might be… unexpected… why don't you check with them?'

  With ill grace, Harmon endured the delay as the driver used his cab-link system to do exactly that. Harmon fumed, but could hardly reprimand Sara for following the dictates of other parts of her conditioning. Even if her sheer exuberance did sometimes exceed his expectations.

  The cab swept south along the highway through the hills to New Francisco. As Sara chattered gaily at the driver, or exclaimed in delight at various farm animals dotting the fields, or leaned out and waved at the surprised occupants of the occasional car they passed, it became obvious that Harmon's concern she led too insular a life had been unfounded. This time he had the uncomfortable impression he wasn't so much taking her to the city as unleashing her upon it.

  As they reached the Golden Gate, they both stared off across the steel-gray waters. A minute later Sara broke the silence as the cab sped past the huge sign welcoming visitors to New Francisco. 'Where's Old Francisco, Keepie?'

  'It's the same place as New Francisco, Sara. There was a very big earthquake in ’44,' – the same year you were born, he mused. 'So much of “Old Francisco” was damaged – some whole districts destroyed – that after all the rebuilding, people started calling it New Francisco. The older city used to be much more crowded, though. Everything was more tightly packed back then because of all the extra people.'

  Although she had asked, Sara did not seem all that interested in his answer. Harmon stared out the window, remembering the Turmoil.

  For those who believed in signs and portents, that year had seen a surfeit of them. It had been a terrible time, the start of three unbelievably bad years. The long-feared but never expected Big One; then the first deaths from the Red Plague, followed by the Second World Storm. The fear that this was it, the world
really was ending, had loomed like a vast cloud-bank on the horizon, overshadowing everything. Hardly surprising, as the death toll grew to two billion people worldwide.

  And then the Melt virus. He shuddered at the memory of those appalling days and nights: the dreadful, oppressive fear felt by everyone, week after endless week, himself included. Wondering day by day if you would be the next victim as you mutated into some repellent parody of a human being.

  Then the final discovery that most of those billions of deaths had been caused, directly or indirectly, through the manipulations of one magically-active woman, Melisande d'Artelle…. It had been a bad time for humanity, but a terrible time to be a mage. No wonder people's first reactions still tended toward fear and distrust. Though things could become grim again soon, if Spencer's latest research in Nature was correct: that repeated exposure to a single magician really did make the recipient more susceptible to that mage's spells. He winced, knowing the outrage that the discovery would provoke. Even pedestrian healing magic would acquire a taint. And the masses were foolish beyond belief. Look at that whole business of global warming. “Why didn't the scientists warn everybody properly about the dangers of climate change?” People were fools.

  He shook himself out of the reverie. 'Look, across there,' he said, pointing off to the south east as the row of shattered concrete pylons spotted across the bay came back into view. 'That's the Oakland Bay Bridge. It was destroyed by the earthquake.'

  Sara scampered over him to the left side of the cab, and stared out the window.

  'Be finished in a coupla years,' the driver suddenly interjected. 'They're rebuilding it. Taken 'em long enough, but.' He lapsed back into silence.

  Later, as Sara was lamenting the fact she had not been allowed to bring her hunting bow, Harmon's eyes met those of the cabbie in the rear view mirror.

  'You often take her hunting in the city?' he inquired, ironically.

  Sara pulled her head back inside, from where she'd been watching an eagle high above. 'No. Uncle says I'm too young, yet.'

  With difficulty, Harmon masked the dismay he felt as the driver went suddenly still. The cabbie's eyes met his again in the rear-view mirror, taking a careful look at both of them. Sara, pressing in against her uncle's side, smiled sweetly back at the driver while Harmon stared fixedly ahead.

  The driver opened his mouth to ask a question, but suddenly seemed to think better of it and simply turned his eyes back to the road ahead.

  A talk seemed to be in order, Harmon thought. And the sooner the better, judging from the driver's reaction.

  Chapter 24

  Finally, the summer solstice arrived. Sara's demeanor was very composed, bordering on mature, as she accompanied Harmon past all the military and FBI personnel. He was highly conscious of her small hand in his as they made their way in the late afternoon, down the stairs to basement level two and then along the passages leading to Godsson's cell. Harmon observed her closely. It was two years since they had upgraded the security and she had been forbidden to come down here. He had expected her to to be either excited, or avidly studying everything as she sought to identify weaknesses. For once, however, she surprised him by behaving with a gratifying maturity.

  For a moment, he wondered whether she could possibly have continued to visit? No. Inconceivable.

  Briefly, he considered asking Shanahan to review all the security records anyway – until he pictured the laughter that would provoke: “She's even got you believing she can work miracles now, eh, Doc?"

  It felt extremely peculiar to be introducing her to the agents who waited, alert and armed in the corridor outside Godsson's cell. There was something more than surreal in seeing the child's hand enveloped in the armored glove of each of the heavily armed men and women, soberly shaking hands. As usual for these more intense tri-annual episodes, the Director of the FBI, “Mr Smith,” was attending in person.

  Although the man's lips had turned up in something of a sneer as he too shook hands with the young girl, thankfully he said nothing.

  The three shamans, strangely, seemed to treat the introduction with genuine gravity, and he noticed that each examined her quite carefully with their Imaginal senses, before eyeing Harmon himself speculatively.

  To Godsson, he had explained earlier that Sara had become so distraught that he had been presented with a choice of either sedating her, and permanently damaging his own relationship with her, or allowing her to be present to “help” if necessary, as she had three years earlier. Harmon had simply laid out the rationale he had used to convince the higher-ups to authorize her attendance, knowing that his patient was well aware of the standard interpretation of his mostly-yearly battles.

  As he had expected, Godsson, in contrast to everyone else, grew quite vituperative, calling him ignorant, arrogant, high-handed, and uncaring for his “daughter.” Did Harmon not see the risk he took? Did he not know that these were real, if abnormal, entities intangibly manifesting within the Institute grounds, judging from what Sara had told him?

  Abruptly, though, at that point he had simply stopped talking, and Harmon was certain it was not because he knew he would be unable to convince him to change his plan, but because there was something Godsson did not wish to tell him. Some dark secret he concealed.

  Rationally, Harmon knew this was all simply part of Godsson's elaborate delusion. Knew that they argued over fantasies.

  One small part of him, though, continued to whisper, “but what if…?”

  Now they all waited, tense, not quite certain when the episode would begin. The attack, as Godsson and Sara would say. The mad mage, however, was very clearly far more worked up and nervous than was normal even for a tri-annual attack, and Harmon was sure this was because he was genuinely fearful that something would happen to Sara.

  It was gratifying, if a little surprising, to see that Sara had apparently succeeded so well in gaining the madman's affection.

  For her part, she stood on the sturdy wooden bench that had been set up against the side of the corridor opposite the cell, as solemn and alert as any of the adults as she stared at the small window.

  The intercom system was turned on, the sound of Godsson's measured pacing a wearing beat against the collective nerves of the watchers.

  And at the instant of sunset, the attack began.

  The only sign was Godsson's invocation of his dauntingly-powerful protective circle, its golden light blazing forth from the small window. But as usual, the barrier appeared to offer little protection to him, and soon Godsson was writhing, twisting and dodging, muttering incantations, prayers to his heavenly father, and physically fighting something only he could see.

  Harmon saw Sara flinch, her little hands closing into white-knuckled fists, and she stared at him accusingly, the thought “why don't you go in and help him?” clear in her expression.

  She was too young to learn what had happened on the one occasion they had tried that. That would be something to share with her much later. If ever. There were limits to the stress levels he wished to subject her to.

  Seeing that no one was offering to help her “friend,” she turned her small face determinedly back to the window, squinting against the glare. He and each of the shamans stepped forward to look through the window, taking their turn at trying to See what bedeviled the solitary figure. But there was just the man, magic flaring from him as spells of daunting power shocked through the air of his cell, to no obvious effect – and with even less meaning to their strange shapings. Some, Godsson directed inwards at himself, and it was generally at those moments that his cries grew desperate.

  Though as the grunts, moans and shouts continued, they did not build and build as they had three years ago, just before Sara had interrupted. Despite himself, despite the obvious self-torture, Harmon found himself relaxing slightly. He ached for Godsson, yes: only the stoniest heart would remain unmoved. And he himself, Godsson's therapist, who knew the man's mind better than most, felt the pain more keenly. But still, t
his episode looked to be less intense even than the episode six years earlier, bucking the generally upward and worsening trend.

  Probably due to Sara's “help” three years earlier. Though whether that help had been real or simply a kind of placebo effect was impossible to say.

  He hoped it was only the latter.

  For a short while, then, Godsson's cries eased, as they sometimes did, and the man seemed to use the time to gather his breath and resolve, his hands held out before him as if he gripped something.

  Harmon jumped – everyone in the corridor did – as suddenly Sara cried out. 'That's it, Godsson! You're winning! Push her back, push her back!'

  She stood, vibrating with tension, every muscle clenched, sweat on her brow and her face red and screwed up, but she stayed where she'd been told, there on the simple wooden bench, and shouted encouragement to her friend. 'I know you can do it! Force Her back! Hurt her! Tear Her up into little pieces!'

  Sara's hands, he saw, were once more clawing unconsciously at the air, as though she imagined herself in the cell with Godsson, fighting alongside him. The image of Sara suffering the same fate as either of the previous two poor souls who had once tried that was suddenly so vivid he sagged against the wall.

  Tears streamed down her face as she continued to shout, bouncing slightly on her viewing stand as she stared inside. Harmon watched her Imaginally, noted the intense patterns of emotion, her aura vivid and reaching out slightly. Nothing magical, however. Just a small soul utterly focused on her friend in his hour of need.

  Harmon looked along the corridor, noting the emotions and auras of the shamans, the agents: all, in varying degrees, in empathic pain; suffering and emoting along with the madman raging in his cell. All except Mr Smith, who registered faint amusement.

  Harmon had always suspected the man to be emotionally impaired.

  The attack continued.

  Strangely, though, Godsson seemed to be gaining ground, gaining the upper hand rather than “winning” through sheer endurance. That served only to stir Sara to more extravagant cries of support, of caring; dare he say it, of love. Was she so desperate for affection she dreamed she could get it from the madman?