by T. K. Malone
“So, shall we start where we left off?” he crooned, and she felt his hand on the back of her neck. Just the contact sent a shiver up her spine, and her rage grew again, like pressurized lava pushing at a volcano’s plug, and then she knew with certainty that Sable well-understood vengeance.
As fast as a whip’s lash, she grabbed Jevans’ hand, breaking its wrist as she snapped it back, pulling herself up by the now-dangling appendage. Staring up through the blood of two men, she slowly smiled. “How am I looking now, Doctor?” and she plunged Sumner’s scalpel into his stomach, pulling it out and along its breadth. Then she tied him to the bed and went to work on him.
After, she grabbed a smoke from his desk, sat and lit it. She watched as he whimpered. His death wouldn’t be a fast one, but he would die nonetheless. She hoped that, if there was a god, then that god would forgive her, but she wasn’t going to sweat on it. She ground out her smoke and went to leave the cabin. As she approached the door, though, she glanced back at Jevans. Sighing, she went over and tenderly placed her hand behind his neck. A jerk, and she snapped it.
“Nothing but an old softy; that’s me,” she murmured under her breath. “Nothing but an old softy.” Setting light to his paper-ridden desk, she grabbed the rest of his smokes and left, quietly closing the door to his cabin behind her.
Outside, Kin’ell was nowhere to be seen. She shrugged and walked off toward the Meyers' house. She’d run into him some time, she thought, but for now her thirst for revenge had been sated. Finally standing before the Meyers' house, Teah delved deep in search of the AI within her, wondering now at what its plan might possibly be.
22
Zac’s Story
Strike time: plus 17 days
Location: The Meyers' Retreat
Smoke billowed up from the retreat. According to Juzzo, it was Teah’s signal to attack. They’d not descended more than ten yards from the ridgetop before Renshaw appeared before them, visor raised. Zac skidded to a halt, his machine gun ready.
It wasn’t long before gunfire started whipping through the trees, slowing their advance as they sought what cover they could find, returning fire when they could and making dashes across the few clearings. Eventually, Zac caught sight of the compound itself, and realized how spread out through the forest it was. He flipped his visor up. Along what was clearly its main trail, some way off up the valley and set back from it, rose the retreat’s largest cabin. Zac guessed it had to be the Meyers’ place. He couldn’t see Teah, not from his current viewpoint, but now knew exactly where she’d be, though he’d no idea what she was up to.
Then more shots slammed into the ground and trees close by, and Zac dived through the shower of wood and earth they’d thrown up and behind the nearest trunk. He flipped his visor back down.
Zac knew the truth of that, so he inched around the trunk but was soon greeted by more intense fire.
Zac leapt out from behind the tree, miraculously dodging yet more automatic fire as he raced headlong down the hill toward the cabins, colliding with the rear wall of the first one he came to, so fast was he going. He then inched along and down its gable end, cautiously stealing a peek onto its front stoop. There, he found a crimson pool of blood, a trail of it stretching one way to the cabin’s front door, the other down its path. Zac imagined the worst, jumped the rail onto the stoop and rushed the door, bursting into the cabin.
He wished he hadn’t. Inside, it looked like an abattoir. What appeared to be the remains of a man lay naked on a table at the center of the room—naked of both clothes and skin.
“Someone’s got their psycho on,” Zac muttered to himself.
When he slipped back outside, smoke was now drifting through the trees, making it hard to see in places, then Zac realized that the heat sigs of Renshaw’s men would probably be colored enemy-red. If they weren’t careful, they’d start shooting up each other.
<’Preciate that, Zac,> Renshaw acknowledged.
They crept through the trees in the smoke’s choking mist. Down the valley, the gunfire became sporadic, then it petered out. As they passed another cabin, Juzzo kick its door in, letting off a burst of machine gun fire, then he was straight back out. He and his men repeated this as they crept farther up valley and at a closing angle to the main trail. As they got nearer to it, a hail of bullets greeted them. Zac took cover as two men appeared a little way ahead, but his next check saw them jerk backward, plumes of blood billowing out of them as they dropped to the ground.
“What the fuck’s she doing?” he whispered to himself.
Josiah Charm then asked,
Zac took his HUD off. Noodle, Billy, and the rest of his gang did the same. Zac made to walk over to Teah, but Billy grabbed his arm.
/>
“You sure about this?” he asked, his voice urgent, worried.
“It’s Teah; it’s Connor.”
“I know, but…”
“It’s always been them, Billy. Them two and you.”
“Charming,” said Noodle.
Zac shot him a stare. “And you, Noodle.” He flipped him the bird before stepping out toward Teah.
He began the hundred yards or so between them at a slow and steady walk, smoke still drifting through the trees around them, cloaking the slopes in an eerie fog, through which came the rumble of a truck. Zac stopped and watched it emerge from the smoke and squeal to a halt about another hundred yards beyond Teah. A woman got out, then an old man; Zac was sure it was the one called Tuttle who’d been with Connor. And then another man jumped down, skinnier, one who looked like a prepper. Only the old man left the truck behind, slowly walking along the trail toward Teah. Zac remained where he was, frozen, as Byron Tuttle eventually stopped beside Teah’s still kneeling form, then he faced the big cabin, put both arms in the air, before lowering them to clasp his fingers behind his head. A little stiffly, he got down on his knees next to Teah.
“So that’s how it’s to be,” Zac said, and he strolled along to join them.
He could now see Teah was covered in blood and guts, quickly guessing who her most recent victim had been. Her new-to-him blond hair had a shade of crimson to it, as did her face, blood still dripping from her chin. He stood by her, facing the cabin where Walter, Irving, an ugly man he eventually remembered was called Jake, and Charm were all lined up on the stoop. Zac cast them a resigned smile and sank to his knees, entwining his own fingers behind his head.
“You done something new with your hair?” he asked Teah.
23
Connor’s Story
Strike time: plus 17 days
Location: The Meyers' Retreat
He felt himself being laid on the stoop, and then a part of him was ripped away again, and he knew Teah had gone. Connor’s mind questioned Sable, and she told him: “Teah must have her revenge, else she will never heal. I understand that now. It is what must be done.”
Connor accepted her words. Sable was all around him now, stretching him, trying to expand through his skin, but finding nowhere to go, the wood under him inert to her advances, the air too thin to hold her. It had happened when Teah and he had first connected, as though a switch had been flipped, and suddenly she’d reached a point of no return. Now, everything she saw was analyzed, interpolated, theorized, and added to a plan she was building within him. He knew he couldn’t contain her for much longer.
He felt himself being rolled over and wrapped in some kind of blanket. It seemed to insulate him farther from the outside world. Frustration coursed through him, anger hot on its heels.
Connor’s special awareness was now such that he knew exactly where he was. Not just which valley he was in, or his general location in relationship to the ruins of Black City, but his exact position in The Free World Empire, on the Earth itself, and farther. They took him a short way to another cabin, a small one in comparison with most, though not as small as the cellblock in which Teah had just been deposited. Connor couldn’t exactly see it, but somehow, he just knew.
Sable was nearly bursting again, that portion that had given him such sweet relief when Teah had picked him up and a part of Sable’s consciousness had spilled into her, already used up by her ever-expanding self. He heard a door slide open, then he was thrown to the floor, still wrapped in the blanket.
At first, he just unwrapped himself and lay there, taking in the room. It was formed from a white, crystaline material, one that glinted like shattered glass in the sun. He felt Sable surge but instantly become frustrated by the cloth barrier of the blanket beneath his back. He touched the floor, and like a burst dam, he felt Sable flow from him.
His pounding head then relented, though he hadn’t recognized it for what it had been. He felt her excitement at the new land she could now inhabit: the sole table along the length of the room, the chairs around it, the screen on the wall, and the very walls and floor and ceiling themselves. But then he felt her frustration when she realized it was no more than yet another prison.
And then Sable screamed.
Connor stood up, shakily, gasped a great breath, and pulled a chair from under the desk. The crystaline cladding was pulsing everywhere now, like it was ready to explode, and Connor knew she’d gobble up whatever space had been afforded her. He felt her crawl back inside him, and as she did, tiredness washed through him.
In his dream, he was exploring, poking, prodding, and searching for something. He felt himself flow out like tendrils, reaching into the sun cells that clad the roof, then down and beneath the white resin to a concrete basement, one that housed rank upon rank of batteries. He dived into them, reveling in the expanded space—but only for a moment.
He blinked his eyes open. On impulse, Connor got off the floor and went to one of the screens, where he leaned down to the floor. At his feet was a small, crystaline hatchway, its seal so perfect it was hardly visible. He prised out a small handle and pulled at it, lifting the hatch and revealing a short flight of wooden steps. Somehow, he knew they led to the basement, and he was soon standing down there amongst an array of batteries. He grabbed the nearest and toppled it, then moved on to the next, doing the same, and with the next and the next, until finally they all lay on their side, leaching acid onto the floor.
Back in the room above, he shut the hatch tight, to seal in the fumes, and went to the sliding doors, where he sank to the floor before them and lay down. Tiredness washed over Connor as the tension within him began to wither, as he waited for the battery acid to etch its way through to the re-bar, reinforcing mesh and conduits he knew would be encased beneath the basement.
Sable flowed into the many conduits the now exposed rods of rebar in the basement’s concrete floor had provided, and at last, she slipped out into the world outside. The metal walking mesh that formed the path from the cabin to the trail afforded her further progress, soon at the main trail from where she spread out in all directions, following cables and sewer pipes, until she came to a lake. She drew back at its massive volume, fearing getting lost within it, and sought another way. It wasn’t long before she found a large pipe that led all the way to the bridge she’d previously blocked.
And this time she unblocked it, knowing she would soon spread much, much farther. She quickly retreated back to her source after sensing a drain to the power she felt around her, and it took her to a large dwelling and into its various electrical systems, in particular the one used for surveillance. From one of its security cameras, she looked out over a broad trail between close-set cabins where three figures knelt. As the middle one looked up, straight at the camera, a surge of love coursed through Sable.
24
Teah’s Story
Strike time: plus 17 days
Location: The Meyers' Retreat
Soldiers spilled out of the cabin, quickly filing into a horseshoe perimeter around them all.
Teah asked the four men on the stoop, “Where’s Connor?”
The one in the wheelchair—Irving, she remembered—cleared his throat, and in a surprisingly strong voice, told her that Connor Clay was no more. “Not in any real sense,” he added.
Zac, beside her, tensed, but remained where he was, as if glued in place. “Irving,” the man then said; “I’m Irving Meyers. This is my son, Walter.” An air of expectation that his name should carry all the explanation needed seeped from the smile he then bestowed upon them. “Of course, you already know Jake and Doctor Charm. So that just leaves my granddaughter, Laura.” And Irving Meyers peered around, clearly searching her out.
Walter bent down and whispered something in his father’s ear, to which the man nodded and scowled. “Well, it appears she’s acting up; just like her mother before her.” Again Irving smiled. “Quite the naïve idealist. Now, shall we get to business?”
Teah n
odded.
“Doctor Charm and I have come to an accord, one that should keep this world in balance. He will get dominion over Australasia, Asia, blah, blah, blah—I’m sure you’re not interested in the nitty-gritty of it all. Just the bullet points, what?”
“Carving up the world, eh?” Byron said with derision. “I suppose you Brits are still trying to rule the place, even if your country has gone.”
“Gone?” Walter said, arching his eyebrows in surprise. “Not gone in the slightest. It’s still there; John O’Groats to Land’s End, as we were so fond of saying. No, if anything, the land that was Great Britain will be most perfectly suited to our little experiment. We can sandbox the AI there; see if she can’t repair the damage those bastard Cossacks have done. We can then experiment with her, test new parameters, see the extent of her wrath—so ably taught to her by Teah—and grow her into something truly daunting on their very own doorstep, something that can keep them yoked to an eternity of suffering. There, she’ll be in a prime position to build new weapons, and with them, fight new wars at a safe distance, without the need for us to get our hands dirty. What the hell do you think this is all about, eh, Byron?”
“Revenge?” Byron muttered.
Walter laughed, patting his father on his shoulder. “See father, I told you he was the bright one.” He returned his attention to Byron. “You do realize that I was fully aware you were courting my wife, that you were in love with her. You, Byron, and you alone, were responsible for her madness, for her confusion and ultimately her death. You, Byron, and no one else. So, yes, it’s about revenge.”
Byron’s jaw sagged and he paled. “You would do all that just to get back at me?”
Both Meyers smirked, but it was Walter who replied. “We would do it to inflict a long suffering upon you, an unwavering torture unto your own slow death, for what we will do is to turn her creation into a perpetual killing machine, one whose only purpose would be dealing out death to others. As to my wife’s other creation, well, Banks should soon make sure that that is well and truly destroyed.” He glanced at his watch, now seeming impatient.