Raising Stony Mayhall

by Daryl Gregory

  “Three hundred?” Mr. Blunt seemed surprised. “I knew it was low, but …” He skimmed the sheet. “The civil war has cost us perhaps thirty people, tops. And thanks to you we haven’t lost a house in years.”

  “Not to the Diggers, no.” Mr. Blunt frowned, and Stony said, “Sleepers and suicides. One of our houses in Rochester went silent because all five people in the house decided to go to sleep together. The police found them before I could send someone to check on them.”

  “You can’t be blaming yourself for this,” Mr. Blunt said. Stony didn’t answer, and Mr. Blunt said, “Most of those people are alive only because of the work you did in Deadtown, and what you’re doing now. They follow you, Stony, because they believe in you.” He smiled. “And because you have magical powers.”

  “Don’t I know it. They send me prayers, Mr. Blunt. They ask me to do all sorts of impossible things. I got an email from a woman asking me to please stop their basement from flooding.”

  “Can you blame them?” Blunt asked. “Ever since the Release—” Blunt raised a wooden hand, put a pistol finger to his forehead, and let the thumb clack down like a hammer. “When that got around, my boy, the proles got very excited. The Lump is our John the Baptist—and not just because he’d do fine as just a head on a plate—and you, my friend, are—”

  “Stop it.” Stony didn’t want to hear the word.

  Blunt shrugged. “Most of our people are anxious to do whatever you say.”

  “But they’re not listening. I ask them to hang on, but they’re checking out, Mr. Blunt. We’re on the edge of extinction.”

  Blunt walked to the window, looked out at the sea. “There must be others, living off the grid.”

  “Sure,” Stony said. “But we can’t find them. The ones who do talk to us are growing desperate. Every day I get messages asking me when the bite will start.”

  Mr. Blunt slowly looked back over his shoulder. “Messages from biters. Do you know where they are coming from?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But you haven’t sent them to me.”

  “No.”

  Mr. Blunt turned and smiled. “I wondered why you called me here. You’ve lost faith in the mission.”

  “You’ve saved the world a dozen times over,” Stony said. “If it wasn’t for you—”

  “No, if it wasn’t for us. You, me, Delia. It’s you who have ferreted out most of the Big Biters. My team and I are merely soldiers. The deliverymen.”

  “I know the blood’s on my hands,” Stony said. “I think about that every day.”

  “And now it’s bothering you.”

  “The killings have to stop, Mr. Blunt.”

  “Done.”

  Stony was surprised. “I … wasn’t sure you’d—”

  “You think I’ve enjoyed my work?”

  “No, of course not. But I thought—”

  “In thirty years I’ve arranged the destruction of forty-one LDs. I’ve personally assassinated twelve of them. No one should be asked to do such a thing.”

  “I know you didn’t ask for the job. But I thought you, well …”

  “Believed? I did once. But lately, lately …” He shook his head. “The irrationality of my position has become more difficult to reconcile. How many LDs must I kill to save them?” He removed a thick three-ring binder from one of the wicker chairs by the window and sat down, crossing his legs. Stony remembered the night he met Mr. Blunt, how surprised he’d been to see a man made of so much wood.

  “Three hundred,” Mr. Blunt said. He sounded tired.

  “Not counting the hundred and nineteen in Deadtown.”

  Blunt removed his homburg and held it on his lap. “Have you ever considered … just letting us fade away?”

  “I think about it all the time,” Stony said.

  “Really.” Mr. Blunt’s charred face could barely express emotion, but his voice communicated his surprise.

  “The world would be safer with us gone,” Stony said.

  “The living would be safer.”

  “The living are the world. They breed. They evolve. We just exist.”

  “Oh my,” Mr. Blunt said. “Envying the breeders? You’ve become a self-hating zombie, Stony. Is this some kind of mid-death crisis?”

  Stony smiled. “Maybe.”

  “Which reminds me, how is your mother?”

  “Still in prison. Ever since the Accountants busted Dr. Weiss, they’ve made her even more inaccessible—Calhoun’s lawyers can’t get to her, can’t even get the government to acknowledge that they have her. She’s still a terrorist.”

  “I’m so sorry. But your sisters, Crystal and Alice, and your friend Kwang—they used to write to you all the time. Still keep in touch?”

  “I promised myself I’d never see any of them again. It’s too dangerous for them. Besides, I’m supposed to be incinerated.” Mr. Blunt either didn’t realize or chose to ignore the fact that Stony hadn’t answered the question. He sent emails to Alice at least once a month, through various anonymizer services, always using a different account. It was the smartest way he knew to do such a stupid thing. “I try to keep track of them from afar,” Stony said.

  “It’s only natural,” Blunt said. “Crystal’s daughter, what was her name?”

  “Ruby.”

  “Ruby! She must be what, eighteen by now?”

  “Twenty-one. She’s graduating from college next year.”

  “They grow up so fast. And you haven’t even talked to her, not once?”

  “You’re interrogating, Blunt. Don’t worry, I’m not risking our security.”

  “You misunderstand me. I think it would be a mistake to not contact them. If I had family, I would want to see them, now, before the Diggers burn us all.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen,” Stony said. “We’re not going to let that happen.”

  Mr. Blunt regarded him. Against the bright window he was nearly a silhouette. “So,” he said finally, “you’re going to let it happen. The Big Bite is here at last. Even the Lumpists will be relieved.”

  “No,” Stony said firmly. “Not the bite. We’re going with Calhoun’s plan.”

  “Calhoun is insane.”

  “Maybe. But the idea isn’t. At least, it’s the least insane option we have right now.”

  “Have you talked to Delia about this?”

  “Delia is onboard,” Stony said. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Delia had serious doubts, but she said that she’d follow him.

  Blunt uncrossed his legs, straightened the crease at his knees, then crossed the other leg. “I see.”

  “She wanted to be here for this conversation, but she’s on her way to contact the leadership in person. I’ll be joining her as soon as I can.”

  “You realize we could all be destroyed.”

  “Maybe. I don’t see any other choice.”

  Mr. Blunt stared into the middle distance. After a time he said, “Okay then.” He looked up. “What day is the coming-out party?”

  “We have eleven months to lay the groundwork,” Stony said. “We go public on June first next year.” He smiled. “We’re calling it D-day.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “I also have a new job for you—one that doesn’t involve killing.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ve got to meet some people on the other side of the island,” Stony said. “Let’s talk about it on the way. Wanna see the spaceport?”

  They walked out to a narrow paved road, where a yellow golf cart was parked beneath a palm tree, guarded by a trio of wild chickens. “The place is overrun with them,” Stony said. They shooed the chickens away and got into the cart. “Usually I walk everywhere, but since you’re a guest …” The island was only seven miles long and two and a half miles wide at its widest point; it was often faster to walk over the ridge than follow the switchbacks in the road. The undergrowth could get dense, but at least the mosquitoes didn’t bother with the dead. “Hang on,” Stony said,
and punched the start button.

  “What, no chauffeur?” Blunt said.

  “I gave him the day off.” He drove north, up toward the green ridge that divided the island. The air turned warmer as they pulled away from the shore, but then cooled again as they climbed the ridge. The road was walled by thick foliage, so Mr. Blunt could see nothing until they came to a break in the greenery, usually at the elbow of a switchback, when suddenly the island fell away beneath them and sky and ocean rushed in to fill the eye.

  “How do you get anything done?” Mr. Blunt asked.

  Stony laughed, and jerked the wheel into the next turn. “What do you mean?”

  “This is completely unmotivating. There’s nothing left to do here. What are you supposed to do—improve it? The only proper response is to lie on the beach like a clam.”

  “The Commander’s not into lying on the beach. Just wait.”

  A few minutes later they crested the ridge. Stony nosed the cart into a gravel overlook. “See?”

  Beneath them lay a vast plain of cement shimmering under a lens of heated air, a white beach before the blue water, like the footprint of an evaporated city.

  Mr. Blunt looked at Stony.

  “Yeah,” Stony said. “He kind of overdid it.”

  At the far end of the spaceport was the gantry, three hundred feet tall and still unfinished. Steel and cement buildings huddled around its base. There was no rocket ship in sight, but several of the buildings were large enough to hide one.

  “He’s serious?” Mr. Blunt said. “He’s really trying to build it?”

  “I know, I know,” Stony said. “It’s kind of Howard Hughes-y.”

  “No, it’s kind of L. Ron Hubbard. This is insane.”

  “Come on,” Stony said. “We’re supposed to meet at the Command Center.” The way down was quicker—much. Stony zipped down with the engine off, nursing the brakes and leaning into the corners, and several times Mr. Blunt had to grip the aluminum frame to stay in his seat. “At least three wheels, please,” Blunt said. Stony laughed. Between them they’d survived multiple gunshots and knife wounds. Blunt had outlived burning. One golf cart crash couldn’t hurt them.

  Stony rolled onto the surface of the spaceport. The tropical sun turned the treeless expanse into a frying pan, and Stony knew that the heat lingered long into the night. Fortunately heat, like cold, was something only breathers had to worry about.

  It took almost fifteen minutes to reach the base of the gantry and the buildings there; the huts they’d seen from the top of the ridge grew to be warehouses and offices the size of municipal buildings. The cement buildings looked like gun fortifications, or perhaps bomb test bunkers, with thick walls and long, narrow, glassless windows. Most of the buildings were empty, built in preparation for the Commander’s great project.

  They parked next to one of the finished buildings, a four-story tower with blue glass windows. Mr. Blunt climbed out of the cart, straightened his tie, and looked around. “So how far along is it?” he asked.

  “The spaceship?” Stony said. “He’s a decade away.” It had taken that long just to get the facilities in place: the gantry, the support buildings, the underground manufacturing facilities. As far as the public—and any government officials watching via satellite—was concerned, Calhoun, Inc. was investing in the commercial spaceflight industry. Zombie colonization of other planets was never going to get into a press release.

  Stony said, “They do have a ship prototype, but it’s one-third scale.”

  “You’re going to need some tiny astronauts,” Blunt said.

  “Naw, we’re just going to send the Lump.” Stony laughed again. He hadn’t laughed this much since … well, since he’d arrived at the island eight years ago. Chip wasn’t much to talk to, and Calhoun was always performing the role of the Commander, and the staff at the data center thought of him as a boss. Everyone else he communicated with online. Blunt reminded him of life in the house in L.A.—before Deadtown, before everything became so serious.

  He thought, not for the first time, How the fuck did I get here?

  “Come on,” he said. “The Commander’s waiting.”

  They entered a large, granite-tiled lobby with empty display cases and large blank spots where the TVs would display commercials for the wonders of space travel. Etched into the polished cement walls were icons mixing the nautical with 1950s science fiction: great-finned rockets, elaborate compasses, ringed planets, tall ships. Probably the wrong message to send to investors looking for high tech (and despite Calhoun’s cash, they would need outside funding to get past the prototype stage), but the Commander was a slave to his own branding, as committed to his personal style as Tom Wolfe or Leon Redbone.

  They took the middle elevator (the only one in service) up to the top floor of the tower. The room looked like a half-sized version of NASA’s Houston control room. The mandatory giant screen was in place, but the rows of desks were empty of computers and screens. By the western window was a small group of LDs. The Commander stood with his arms crossed behind him, gazing out at the empty gantry while he delivered his “promised land” spiel. Two of them were on Calhoun’s staff, but the other six listening to him were new arrivals: LDs who’d been evacuated from Pennsylvania when their safe house sponsor—a man in his early eighties—had been hospitalized. Stony had sent a team in before the sponsor died and his relatives tried to go into the house.

  One of the newly arrived LDs saw Stony enter the room and gasped; the others turned.

  Mr. Blunt looked at him. “I’ve been wanting to see this in person,” he said.

  The group came for Stony, arms out. The first to reach him was a decrepit LD with a missing eye and a mouthful of brilliant dentures. “It’s an honor to meet you,” he said. “An honor. A real honor.” Stony shook his hand, then greeted each of them in turn. Were they shocked by his appearance? He was always afraid of disappointing them. He’d been handsome once. The bandanna covered the most grievous wound to his forehead, but the prison beatings had taken their toll on his face.

  But no, they didn’t seem to be shocked. They didn’t seem to be seeing him at all. They wore the same glassy, awed expression that all the newcomers wore. He could have shown up in a floral print dress wearing Kabuki makeup and they would have looked at him in the same way, manufacturing their own vision of Stony Mayhall to match their desires, like conjuring the Virgin Mary out of a water stain.

  “I’m so happy you made it here safely,” Stony said.

  “Thank God you rescued us,” one of them said. “It was only a matter of time—”

  Stony noticed Calhoun staring at them. He was too much of a performer to show jealousy—and his surgically maintained face could convey only a limited range of emotions—but Stony could sense his annoyance. “You should thank the Commander,” Stony said. “It’s his vision and organization that makes all this possible.”

  One of the women had her hand on Stony’s arm. She wouldn’t let go.

  “It’s coming, isn’t it?” she asked. She was bald, with a gray-blue face that looked like it had been flattened by an anvil: crushed nose, broken front teeth, cheekbones pressed into planes. “The Big Bite?”

  Stony drew away from her. “No, ma’am. No.”

  “But you’re here. It’s time.”

  “No! There will be no Big Bite. We’re not going to attack all those people. They’re just as human as us.”

  The one-eyed man said, “But they’re killing us.”

  And the woman said, “We’ve been waiting for you!”

  Stony held up his hands: one plastic, the other dead flesh. “We’ve got another plan. And soon we’ll be able to tell you about it. But right now—” He nodded at Commander Calhoun. “Someone will show you to your new homes. You’ll be safe here. Right, Commander?”

  “Damn straight!” the Commander said. He strode forward and put a hand on the distraught woman’s shoulder. “You won’t have to worry about the Diggers here. Now, Stony and I hav
e to go, but Anna and Rafael here will show you to your new accommodations. Welcome to Calhoun Island!”

  Stony and Mr. Blunt took the cue and followed the Commander to the elevator. The Commander held out his hand: “Damn good to see you, Blunt.” The hand was gloved. Calhoun wore at all times a full Integrity Suit, from toes to fingertips, leaving only his face exposed.

  “Very good to see you, too, Commander. Quite the place you have here. A veritable Nassau NASA.”

  The Commander squinted at him. “That’s right, you like words.”

  “Yes,” Blunt said slowly. “I do.”

  Several seconds of uncomfortable silence followed. Stony said, “I was telling Mr. Blunt that you were making progress on the ship.”

  “Three years,” Calhoun said. The door slid open, and he strode into the lobby toward the front doors. Stony and Mr. Blunt quickly followed. “Three years till first launch. I guarantee it.”

  “Do you think we have three years?” Blunt asked.

  Calhoun stopped, turned. “What do you mean?” His plasticene face managed to create a frown.

  “The numbers don’t look good,” Blunt said.

  “Goddamn it,” the Commander said. “Our people have been trying to write us off for twenty years. We will make three years if we have to.”

  Outside, an SUV was waiting. A living man in khakis and a white short-sleeved shirt stood holding the passenger-side door. Franklin was one of the dozen breathers on staff on the island. He collected an astronomical salary, and his retirement benefits included immortality.

  “Mr. Blunt, it was a pleasure to see you. Stony said that he’d been needing to see his old friends, and I’m glad to oblige. We’re doing great work here. Important work. You need anything, any Goddamn thing, you let me know.”

  “Will do, Commander.”

  “And Stony! Don’t forget about the VIB flying in tomorrow. Franklin’s got the room all set up.”

  “I’ve been looking forward to it my whole life,” Stony said.

  The SUV rolled away, and Stony and Mr. Blunt climbed back into the golf cart. Mr. Blunt asked, “Let me guess: Very Important Breather?”

  “You got it,” Stony said. “Someone who can help us with D-day. You’ll meet them tomorrow.”