by eden Hudson
I couldn’t hold it in anymore; I cackled.
When I finally got my laughter under control, I wiped my eyes and said, “I wonder what it would be like if she tried to influence an unbiased party into something. What do you think, Carina? Do you think you could start cold with someone you’ve never met before—someone who has no personal investment in whether you live or die—and talk them into, say, saving your life at great risk to their own?”
That got her. She clutched her stomach and laughed like she had in the hallway of that hotel in Nytundi, like she had after she stopped that teenage suicide soldier from hijacking our plane, like a little kid laughing with her best friend. The right friend this time.
That got me going again, too. The joke was on Nickie-boy.
***
We drove through the daylight—stopping only once for a potty break and to switch Carina into the driver’s seat—and made it to the symbio settlement in the pitch-black dead of night. Thanks to my almost hourly messages, they had someone waiting for us topside. The guide’s luminescent eyes glowed blue until the APC’s headlights flashed across them.
As soon as we climbed out of the vehicle, our guide stood, brushed swamp mud and dead leaves from her butt, and made a deep, welcoming bow over her clasped hands. We returned the formality.
“Night Eyes,” she said to me in lilting Anglish to accommodate Carina and Nick, “You bring two Metal Skins with you? Burrows Short Day tells us you are bringing one—a female.”
“If Burrows had checked his messages, he would’ve told you that I had a change of plans,” I said, then I switched to symbio. “The male Metal Skin isn’t wanting his female alone with me.”
The guide blinked graciously at Nick and Carina. “Welcome extended, Metal Skins. We are not allowing you to bring your weapons into our rhizome. You are understanding?”
“Welcome received,” Carina said in flawless symbio, returning the sentiment with her own fair imitation of the gracious blink. “We are understanding and respecting your wishes. Gratitude.”
“Gratitude received.” Another round of blinking and bowing.
For the next minute or so, the guide and I stood by and watched while Carina and Nick stripped off their handcannons, knuckguns, sawblades, and holsters and stored them in the APC. I didn’t see any of Carina’s glass knives on the pile. I wondered whether Nickie-boy had picked up a habit like that from his fiancée or he held with the single form of everyday carry like those goons in the Guild elevator.
When they were done, the guide said, “If you will all be following me?”
She turned and screwed open the hatch to the symbios’ bunker. “Burrows Short Day asks us to give you rest and food until he returns.”
I gave an exaggerated sigh. “Of course. I only messaged him eight times today telling him that I’m in a hurry and I wanted him here when we got here. When should we expect him back?”
“His eyes will be shining aboveground until one sitting before the sun is rising,” she said.
Which was the symbio way of saying that he’d be getting drunk with his hunting buddies until sunup. This was why I never paid informants. You couldn’t count on them for shit.
We followed our guide down the bunker’s steps into the stale air of the symbio settlement. This particular rhizome—what they called their underground collection of bunkers and tunnels—had been at the northern edge of the Upper Swamps since time immemorial. If the symbios were to be believed, the first symbio had joined with the first flet here shortly after the Earth had begun reviving.
Down rhizome, the bunker was lightless except for the glow coming from our guide’s blue eyes and the craggy parasitic flet burrowed into her spinal column.
Nick glanced at the flet, then shook his head. A second later, his shoulders and torso shivered violently. Obviously Nickie-boy wasn’t too keen on parasites. Couldn’t say that I blamed him. The interviews you read with the occasional symbio who broke free were about as disturbing as you could get. Symbios were either exposed to the flet parasite as babies or converts from aboveground. It took about eleven months for the parasite to gain full control over the host body. Our guide was technically human, but the parasite was running the show. If her mind still had access to the human she had once been, the flet made sure it stayed over in the corner entertaining itself with its own mental feces.
Our guide pretended to realize that we were walking blind down there and turned back to face us. Her glowing eyes disappeared for a moment as she blinked an apology.
“You are not seeing,” she said. “Perhaps you will want the flet to assist you?”
“We would rather have ass-to-mouth sandblaster enemas,” I said. “You can keep your fellow glowworms in stasis, sister.”
Our guide couldn’t contain her blink of affront.
Beside me, Carina turned on her wristpiece’s light and pointed it at the floor. “These bodies are pledged to our God. We’ll manage without the flet, thank you.”
This the guide accepted more graciously. The symbio were a people used to being turned down. They even had a saying for it: “Only the blessed few are taking the light within themselves.” The guide echoed that sentiment to Carina, then led us on.
Out of habit, I memorized the layout of the path as she took us farther into the darkness. The symbio were notoriously unreliable about places and times, but they were also notoriously peaceful—unlike some heavily armed and armored religious fanatics I could mention. I just liked to be prepared in case we needed to make a fast exit without a bioluminescent guide to lead the way.
We passed a few other flet-hosts as we walked, returning their welcome blinks by holding our wristpieces to our faces and blinking back. I only knew how to get across the most basic ideas in the symbios’ blink language—I had a feeling that to fully understand the depth of some of their blinks, you would’ve had to be born a symbio or become a flet-host at a very young age—but it was obvious from the amount of eye motion the passersby and our guide exchanged that they were sharing complex conversations in the darkness.
“So, has anyone from your rhizome seen any cyborgcromancers on their trips to the surface?” Nick asked our guide as we walked. “They would’ve had human bodies with additional metal arms and legs.”
“The only Metal Skins we see are looking like you,” our guide answered.
“Are you hearing of the new tribe?” Carina prompted, her inflection just accented enough with symbio to put our guide at ease without sounding as if she were mocking them. “The Tects? Or their new god? Word of them has been reaching the Guild. This’s why we’re asking.”
Our guide blinked slowly in a way that I couldn’t decipher. “A new god? Of course, only the blessed few are taking the light within themselves… No, the only proselytizers we are greeting are coming from the Metal Skins, your Guild. We are not hearing of these Tects. Apologies.”
“Apologies received,” Carina answered in the symbio tongue. “Gratitude for your candor.”
“Has anyone from your rhizome spoken to an aid team from the Guild?” Nick asked. Then he tried to rephrase it. “Metal Skins who bring medicine and help?”
“At times they are coming through and we are giving them rest and food,” our guide said, her tone chilly.
Carina cut in on this one, too, blinking an apology. “Offense not intentional. The flet-hosts are not desiring or requiring help. The flet is euphoria and all-loving, symbiotic. The hosts are content taking the light within themselves. Only inquisitiveness intended. This Metal Skin is feeling concern for his brother because of the new tribe, not the flet. There is nothing to be fearing from the flet.”
The guide responded to Carina in a series of blinks that conveyed approval and pardon.
Out loud, she said, “The last group of Guild proselytizers stays with us during the spring floods.”
“Was Misha Beausoleil one of them?” Nick asked.
“We are not seeing this Metal Skin,” our guide said.
�
�He’s not a knight, he’s a missionary,” Nick said. Then he shook his head, disgusted with the language barrier. “A proselytizer.”
“No.” Our guide took a sudden turn, leading us into a room the size of a cargo carrier. “We are not greeting one of that name.”
“Thank—er, gratitude,” Nickie-boy said.
Her blink softened slightly. “Gratitude received.”
The soft glow of her eyes and our three wristpiece lights illuminated enough of the room to see a table set with plates of what looked like tapeworms smothered in gravy.
“Please, be sitting and enjoying the ngon,” our guide said, bowing over her folded hands again. “Spreads Forever Like the Sky is the rhizome’s best preparer of delicious morsels. Burrows Short Day requests specifically that she feeds Night Eyes and his guests.”
“Gratitude.” Carina returned the bow flawlessly, throwing in a grateful blink just to show off. Nick mimicked her bow awkwardly, but wisely avoided trying to speak with his clumsy topsider eyes.
I executed a bow and blink that made Carina’s look ugly and said, “Gratitude, as long as this ngon isn’t laced with your parasitic brothers and sisters.”
An elbow sharper than I remembered it being jabbed me in the ribs.
“Ouch!” I rubbed my side. “What’d you do, have an elbow spur installed in Soam?”
“Night Eyes is wanting to apologize,” Carina said to our guide, blinking an apology.
The guide responded with the appropriate eye motion and bowing. “Apology and gratitude received. Please be enjoying your meal.”
Then she left us to eat alone, which the symbios consider a polite gesture to guests who have just arrived and haven’t had time to talk amongst themselves yet.
Nick cleared his throat. “So, um, is there a parasite in that food?”
“Finally,” I said. “A knight with some common sense!”
“It would be glowing if there were any living flet mixed in,” Carina said, clicking off her wristpiece light. “They can’t control their bioluminescence.”
“Now ask her why she specified ‘living’ instead of just saying no, Nickie-boy.”
Nick grunted in disgust.
“Right?!” I crowed.
“It’s not technically cannibalism,” Carina said. “Their host is eating the dead flet, so it benefits the parasite, but it’s not like they’re actually eating their own people—er, own parasites.”
I sat down at the low table and dug through my bag. “Come on, Nick, I’ll split my chocolate caramel cookie-crunch bar with you.”
“Thanks,” he said, pulling out a seat across from me and sitting down.
“You’re both too picky to survive in the wild,” Carina said.
“You can get in on this too, Carina, if you’re good.” I snapped off a piece of the crunch bar and waved it at the darkness in her general direction.
A puff of exhaled air that could have been a laugh. “I’m an adult. I’m not eating candy for supper when there’s real food right here.”
“Who invited that killjoy?” I asked Nickie-boy, handing him the smaller half of the crunch bar.
He chuckled.
A grin stretched across my face. I’d gotten the stone to laugh.
Carina settled into one of the chairs next to Nick. We ate mostly without talking, each of us stopping at intervals to click on our wristpiece lights when they timed out.
***
After we had eaten and had enough time to discuss our new surroundings without our parasitic hosts in earshot, our guide returned and showed us to a bedroom about half the size of the dining room. Columns of casket-narrow bunks were bolted four high to all but one of the walls, all unoccupied so far tonight. In the corner was a bare metal toilet attached to a sink.
“Please be enjoying a brief respite,” our guide said. “When Burrows Short Day is returning, we will be waking you.”
Another round of thankful bowing and blinking ensued, then she disappeared into the darkness of the rhizome again.
Carina tossed her bag onto a bunk. Nick inspected the one she’d picked for a moment before deciding it was too small to fit two knights, then slipped his bag into the space between the bunk below hers and the floor.
I claimed a bunk on the opposite wall, then went to the exposed toilet, turned my back on the rest of the room, and took a leak. The slap of piss against the bare metal clanged unnaturally loud in the darkness, so I experimented with hitting different spots to see if their tone was higher or lower. The sounds appeared in my head as flashes of brighter and darker colors.
“Hey, Carina, listen to this.”
“That’s great, Van Zandt.”
“You didn’t even listen.”
“But I’m impressed that you know how to use a toilet. Congratulations.”
Nickie-boy snorted.
“Next time I’m going to piss in your duffel bag.” I shook vigorously and flushed, but didn’t bother zipping. I was just going to take off my pants when I got back to the bunk anyway.
After I shucked my khakis and tourist shirt, I stuck them in the Dirty Clothes side of my bag and climbed into my bunk.
Across the room, Carina said, “Um…”
“What’s up, babe?” Nickie-boy asked. He was already in his bed, left shoulder hanging off the side.
“I need Van Zandt to leave for a minute so I can use the bathroom, too.”
“Aw, does the iron stomach have a shy bladder?” I teased.
“Forgive me for preferring privacy,” Carina said. “Not everybody likes to put on a show.”
“That’s unfortunate,” I said, burrowing down into the covers. “I already took my pants off and laid down. I’m not getting back up.”
Carina sighed. “Please?”
“Why?” I asked. “Because you’re afraid I’ll hear you? You’ve really got some nerve, sister, expecting me to pay attention to your piss when you wouldn’t even listen to mine.”
Nickie-boy groaned softly, a few of his joints crackling and his bunk creaking as he got up. “Let’s go, breaker. Get out or I’ll get you out.”
“You’ll have to carry me; I’m already half asleep.” Then in a flash of inspiration, I grabbed my pillow and laid it over my head, smashing it against my ears dramatically. “What about this? I’m covering my ears. If I can’t hear you, the stage fright becomes redundant, right? No audio, no audience, no stage fright.”
A Carina-pause. “Fine.”
My pillow barely muffled anything. It was cupped just right to amplify the sounds that bounced off my wall.
“Huh?” I said, careful not to exaggerate and give myself away.
“Nick, will you watch him? Make sure he keeps the pillow in place?”
“Go ahead, babe.” Nick’s voice was placating, almost the sound of an adult reassuring a child that her anxieties were baseless. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
His wristpiece light clicked on, casting the shadow of my arms and pillow onto the wall in front of me.
This was something new. The Bloodslinger turning suddenly prudish at the idea of peeing in the same room as me. I felt my grin crinkle against the pillowcase. Something else, too. I was excited. My ears strained to pick up every sound.
Soft footsteps whisked across the room, then the hushed fabric sound of swamp cammies being unbuttoned. It took her a few seconds to get going—Nick’s wristpiece light bobbed slightly just before she did, so I assume she checked with him visually and he gave her a nod that I still wasn’t listening—but when the liquid sound of urine drilling against the metal toilet bowl finally started, I found my body responding. My shorts got tighter. My lungs tried to shorten my breaths.
I swallowed, and the click sounded unnaturally loud reined in by the pillow.
“Jeez, Carina, are you done yet?” I asked.
The sound stopped immediately, and my sternum hitched inward with a silent laugh. I had total power over her.
“I’m warning you now, if you’re making me hold this pillo
w over my head so you and Nickie-boy can make faces at my back, you will be sorry.”
One buckler-sized mitt dropped onto the pillow, smashing it flat against my ear. “He’s not listening.”
After another second, she continued. Nickie-boy’s hand muffled the sound much more effectively. I sighed as if this extra protection were completely unnecessary. Finally, the toilet flushed and Nick’s fat hand let go of my head.
“Am I to presume this means I can leave my sensory deprivation chamber, Your Shyness?” I said, striking exactly the right balance of irritation and teasing. I stuffed my pillow under my head and punched it a couple of times to fluff it up. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Thank you for your great sacrifice,” Carina sneered, trying to sound as tough as she would have five minutes before I found out the great and mighty Bloodslinger’s precious little bladder got stage fright. “We’re having your Cross of Service engraved.”
I grinned a wild grin that filled up the darkness.
A bunk on the wall opposite me creaked as Nick lowered his bulk into it and stretched out.
A duffel unzipped, then the ripping sound of a brush tearing through long hair started up. The image of Carina combing out her hair before climbing into her hammock in that ecotourist hovel flashed across my mind, and the old familiar pain of that poisoned knife stabbed into my throat and chest.
I lay in the absolute dark of the underground bunker with my eyes open wide, listening to her go through her nightly routine less than five feet away.
After Soam, when I had come back to Emden alone, there had been plenty of nights when I’d lain awake in five-star penthouses missing two dirty hammocks on a hot and humid sleeping porch in the middle of the jungle. It was sickening the kinds of things you could get used to.
The noise stopped, the brush was stowed in the bag, and the zipper closed. I waited for the sound of a second bunk creaking lightly as it took Carina’s weight, but I heard something else first. A soft, barely there hint of suction. Two pairs of lips trying to keep their touch a secret in the lightless black.