by Cam Baity
This was their only chance.
“We have to find the Ona’s Bearing,” Phoebe said at last.
In a sudden inky detonation, Rhom’s dome went red. The irises of her great eye narrowed. Hot flux steam erupted.
“Self-righteous mystic, dogmatic worm she is, slave of tradition!” Rhom sputtered. “I was worshipped as a god, they groveled before me, lavished me with sacrifices, and I feasted, ahhhh, how I feasted….” Spurts of golden ink burbled amid the crimson. “But Makina was displeased with the slaughter, so the Ona turned my flock from me, curse the mouthpiece prophet! My worshippers abandoned me, left me to starve in the deep.”
Another jet of exhaust burst from the geyser holes, a noxious smell of rot and putrefaction.
“But this I know, this thing you seek…” Her voice was laced with boredom. “The Mercanteer is a reliable servant, always beseeches me with abundant gifts, so I will bargain with his pets, offer you the same exchange I do him.”
Rhom’s eye backed off, and slowly the blood-red fluid in her head drained away, leaving the horror of her mehkan organ system on full display.
“What exchange?” Phoebe asked suspiciously.
“One for one,” Rhom said flatly. “Knowledge for knowledge. I give you an answer, you give me a life.”
Although Goodwin’s earpiece had been silent since the announcement of his forced retirement, he was certain the Board was still eavesdropping on him. Surely they had more important things to attend to, like the crisis Saltern had unleashed at the Council of Nations. Obwilé had neglected to engage with the disgruntled President, so he deserved the blame for that fiasco.
A train was scheduled to take Goodwin back to Albright City in a few hours. He had been tying up loose ends, saving this moment for last—his final visit to the Dyad Research Facility.
A technician scanned his pass, and the door hissed open.
“Thank you, Wilkes,” said Goodwin kindly.
“It’s been an honor, sir.”
Goodwin entered the sterile white room. For the first time since his CHAR accident, Kaspar was sitting up.
A good sign. He might be able to handle the news.
“Hello, my boy,” Goodwin said softly.
He strode past the Omnicam that was monitoring the room. Kaspar’s disfigured body had been treated with experimental agents and covered in customized bandages, which were spotted with grease from his seeping lesions. Tubes trailed from glass needles in his veins. A single black eye was all that was exposed.
And it stared.
“I am relieved by your speedy recovery,” Goodwin whispered. “It is good to be able to speak to you without causing you pain.”
The eye blinked, slow and deliberate.
“May I sit?” he asked, settling onto a wooden stool. Goodwin eyed Kaspar’s hands, which were restrained by thick straps secured with high-index ceramic buckles.
“I…well, I have something I need to tell you,” Goodwin said quietly. “I am retiring.”
The black eye went wide.
“It was my choice,” Goodwin lied in a soothing voice. “The Foundry no longer requires my services, so I am off for Olyrian Isle. My sole regret is that we can no longer work together.”
Kaspar’s bandages bulged.
“But together, you and I achieved greatness. We touched upon something that science is only beginning to dream of.”
A new spot of black bled through his dressings.
“You are in good hands,” Goodwin said, his voice tight. “Wilkes and the others, they are going to fix you up.”
The eye narrowed.
“Please, do not worry about me,” Goodwin whispered with a smile as he glanced up at the Omnicam. He withdrew his Scrollbar. “They sent me some photos of my retirement villa. Would you like to see?”
He held his device out to show Kaspar.
“I know, I know,” he chuckled. “I do not much care for the color either, but just look at that view. Magnificent.”
Kaspar’s eye twitched in surprise as he studied the image on the screen, taking it in. Goodwin held the device closer to him, making sure he got a good look. Kaspar gurgled and blinked in understanding. Goodwin put his Scrollbar away and gently laid his hands on the straps that bound the soldier’s wrists.
“Dialsets are forbidden on Olyrian Isle, but I hope they will at least allow me to send you letters. Perhaps the Board will even keep me abreast of your progress.” Goodwin rose and wiped his eyes. “I will think of you often, my boy—of our Dyad Project. How we held Mehk in our hands. How we glimpsed the future.”
He stood, staring deeply into the exposed black eye.
“Be well. There is still so much for you to achieve, but you must continue without me. Until we meet again, dear Kaspar.”
Goodwin leaned forward and gently kissed the misshapen, bandaged forehead. As he walked swiftly from the room, Kaspar released a rattling gasp. It was either tears or laughter.
He did not look back to find out which.
Rhom released her grip on Phoebe, Micah, and Gabby, and they scrabbled to their feet.
“What do you mean, ‘give you a life’?” Phoebe demanded.
“This is not the right question,” Rhom said in a patronizing sigh. Golden ink streamed into her dome, glittering like metallic snow. “You should be asking…whom will it be?”
The three of them shared a devastated look.
“The choice is yours,” Rhom rasped.
“Forget it!” Micah called out.
“You can’t do this!” Gabby cried.
“I do as I please,” Rhom gurgled.
“But why?” Phoebe asked.
“Because it is…delicious.” Her golden fluid gushed. “I could consume you all. Instead, I allow you to choose your own fate.”
“You disgust me,” Phoebe said.
The black hill of flesh rumbled. Micah and Gabby looked at her fearfully. Rhom’s tree-ring irises narrowed at Phoebe.
“The one called Plumm, masquerading as savior of Mehk,” Rhom hissed. “And yet you would be so selfish as to allow this simple dilemma to impede you? Choose, for I am hungry.”
“All right already. Give us a sec, will ya?” Micah called.
Rhom released a hot blast of moist air.
“Sit,” Micah instructed Gabby, gesturing to a withered beam protruding from Rhom’s hide.
“Phoebe,” Gabby begged. “I know what you’re both thinking, but, please—let’s discuss this rationally.”
“Sit down!” he shouted, raising his rifle. Gabby obeyed.
“Don’t do it. Please, Phoebe. Don’t let me die.”
A blissful sigh emanated from Rhom’s cavities. Her transparent head was now a twinkling dome of gold.
“It’s okay,” Phoebe reassured Gabby as Micah pulled her away. “Just give us a minute.”
Once they were out of earshot, the kids faced each other.
“So?” Micah asked, his eyes and weapon trained on Gabby.
“We have to kill her,” Phoebe said.
He was taken aback.
“Whoa,” he said. “Just like that?”
She stared hard at him. “Not Gabby. Rhom.”
Micah laughed. “Haha, that’s funny!” He glanced nervously at the swaying tentacles surrounding them, then whispered from the side of his mouth. “Pretty sure she can hear us.”
They looked up at Rhom’s eye, but the leviathan just stared, offering no sign that she had detected the threat.
“Use your gun,” Phoebe said. “Shoot her eye.”
“Please tell me you’re kiddin’.”
She knew how stupid it was.
“Well, then we have to run for it,” she offered.
“Where? Across her back? Sure, Plumm, bet we’ll get real far.” He sighed. “Funny, that Agent guy forgot to mention Rhom’s little life-eating exchange with the Mercanteer.”
“He said Rhom couldn’t be trusted.”
“Which means she might not keep her side of the barg
ain.”
“Exactly,” Phoebe grumbled.
Micah glanced at Gabby’s pale, stricken face. “What choice do we have? It’s Rhom’s rules or nothin’.”
“I’m not letting Gabby die.”
“Well, I ain’t all that eager to volunteer. How ’bout you?”
Phoebe’s head throbbed. She touched her wound—the blood was tacky, which was an improvement, she supposed.
“That’s what I thought,” Micah continued. “Now look. I ain’t any happier about this than you are, but—”
“I doubt that.”
“What’s that s’pposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” she said. “You wanted to get rid of Gabby from the very beginning. And this is your chance.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t no murderer!”
“You are if you give her to Rhom,” she insisted. “So am I.”
Micah jutted his jaw. “Well, what, then?”
Rhom’s hungry eye was upon them. It wasn’t fair. They had to make a choice, but how? There was no right way, no easy way out. They were going to lose someone no matter what.
It was up to Phoebe.
Her eyes leveled at Micah, hardening like tempered steel.
“I know that look,” he said nervously. “What are you doin’?”
She turned from him and strode toward Rhom. There was a cold, calculated confidence in her step, a fearless resignation.
“Wait. No, stop!” he shouted. “Hey, I said stop!” He reached for her, but she evaded him. The fleshy ground seized his foot.
“You want a life?” Phoebe called out.
“Don’t you dare!” Micah screamed, struggling to free himself.
“You have chosen,” Rhom sighed contentedly.
“Not you!” he cried. It was too horrifying to fathom.
“I give you the most important among us. The one who brought us here, who united us, who has already changed the world of humans and of mehkans.”
“Phoebe!” Gabby gasped.
“You flatter yourself,” breathed the geyser holes. “So be it.” Debris-armored tentacles drifted toward Phoebe.
“No!” Micah screamed again and ripped his foot from Rhom’s grip. He ran to Phoebe’s side, raising his gun.
She peeled off her whist and held it aloft.
“I give you my father, Dr. Jules Plumm.”
Bursts of red bled out into Rhom’s dome. Her eye extended, focusing its compound irises on Phoebe.
Micah’s jaw dropped. He lowered the weapon.
“That is not the exchange,” Rhom hissed.
“I am Loaii. This is my whist,” Phoebe declared. “I am the first human to bear both. My father was responsible for destroying the Citadel. He died trying to liberate Mehk, and what remains of him…” A knot in her throat tensed her voice. “His memory, his life, are bound to this whist.”
Rhom’s eye was inches from Phoebe’s face. She looked into its hollow depths, like staring into a well, and felt the leviathan’s ancient, ravenous hate. But the red globs within the transparent dome had dispersed, replaced with brown and gray murk.
She had Rhom’s attention.
“The whist is a secret of the Waybound,” Phoebe said. “That must be of interest to you. Knowledge for knowledge.”
Black jelly tentacles twitched around her, their clinking hooks agleam. Buried in their flesh, Phoebe saw the tarnished skeletons of mehkan sea creatures, layered like strata.
A tentacle grabbed the whist.
Phoebe clung to it. The dream that she might once again hear her parents calling to her, the answer to the mystery of Makina’s voice—it was all contained in those rust-colored folds.
Rhom plucked the whist free and pulled it under the flux.
With a bubble and a blip, it was gone.
Micah stood beside Phoebe, waiting.
Rhom’s eye dilated. The muddy fluid within her dome drained away, replaced by a strange new hue—a placid, pale blue. The machinery of her innards slowed to a languid rhythm.
“Cricket,” came the ancient mehkan’s whispered response.
Phoebe went numb.
Hearing her father’s pet name for her in Rhom’s voice felt like corruption, like she had sold an irreplaceable part of herself.
“Silence,” Rhom said, her voice strangely distant. “Deep silence…profound suffering…these I now know….”
“Tell us,” pleaded Phoebe. “Where is the Ona’s Bearing?”
Black ink clouded her innards. “I curse her, she who took from me all that I once had,” Rhom growled. “I am not the Ona’s pawn, not like you, yet something is at work here that I do not comprehend…. I will allow it that I may one day know.”
The tentacles retracted, and the placid blue ink returned.
“The Ona was a prophet of pomp and artifice, never without her façade.” Rhom exhaled. “That which you seek fell with her, in the place where two worlds left her for dead.”
Everyone assumed the Ona had died, but after speaking to her through the Hearth, Phoebe knew that was not true. She tried to remember the story—what was it? The Ona had been attacked by the Foundry four hundred years ago by…
“CHAR,” Phoebe gasped. “But that means—”
“The Bearing is no more,” breathed Rhom. “Lost in the blights at the foot of the Shroud.” A trickle of gold appeared amidst the clear blue. The leviathan was clearly enjoying this.
“Where my Bearing once lay,” Phoebe repeated the Ona’s words. “That’s where we’re going. Please. How do we get there?”
Gabby’s eyes widened, and she struggled against her bonds.
Rhom’s great eye considered the kids. Then clouds of silver and gold flooded her translucent dome. She rose higher, her nauseating organ system chugging. Rhom was excited about something, and that made them uneasy.
“Join the Broken…” she wheezed, “for only your father can show you the way.”
Phoebe gasped.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Micah cried out. “That’s no kinda answer. You’re cheating!”
“You did not fulfill the exchange,” Rhom said. “Nor shall I.”
“I don’t understand,” Phoebe said. “How can my father…”
“Again,” the leviathan spoke in a hitching tone that could only be laughter, “you ask the wrong question, my dear Cricket Loaii, you should ask…why have our three become two?”
It took the kids a moment. They spun around.
A frayed cable lay by the sharp beam where Gabby had been.
Micah bolted. Phoebe ran after him. Musty geysers huffed from the holes around them—Rhom’s sinister chuckle.
The kids tore back the way they had come, racing for the boat. They balanced across masts and bounded over breached hulls. An engine sputtered up ahead. With a screech, the Sea Bullet tore away from Rhom’s shipwreck skin and sped off.
Micah raised his rifle and fired.
A flurry of rounds peppered the flux. Bullets pinged off the boat, but it was already thirty yards away. Then forty. Fifty.
Gabby was gone.
I have a secret.
They don’t know it, not yet. Think I am sedated. That’s why the Greencoats mill about, inserting needles, changing dressings. As if I am sleeping, as if I am lifeless as these pillows.
But I am aware. Ready.
I wait until the worst of the Greencoats are in the room, the ones I hate most of all—the blinking woman and the man with the harelip scar. They discuss my latest readouts from the machine.
I tear my arm from the loosened restraint. Sense their heat fade as they go pale. Smell their fear. I should barely be conscious. Should be held fast by straps and buckles.
How can I be free?
They will never know.
I snap the rest of my bindings. Yank the needles from my arteries. There is pain, but as their poison stops dripping into me, my muscles come alive.
The man with the scar runs for the door, screams that stab my ears. Have to st
op the sound. I am on him before he can reach the handle. Fling him into the glass equipment. An explosion of sparks.
He twitches on the ground.
I do not toy with the other. She dies in a red mist.
I shed my bandages, rip off wrappings that smother me.
Sirens shriek. They’re too loud, driving into my exposed brain.
I escape the wail. Doors yield before me. Crash through, toss them aside. Guards are coming, but they are slow. In the hallways, Greencoats cower and flee. They are lucky I ignore them.
I smash through the barrier that leads outside. What was muffled is now a roar. Every sensation magnified. Bare muscle fibers, raw bone, naked to the cutting air and sizzling suns.
I race through the Depot.
Head to the Control Core, glass dazzling in the daylight.
Alarms blare because they have lost me. Will never find me because I feel when they’re near. I hear them breathe from far away. Every vibration of their vehicles, their footsteps. I smell the clicking Omnicams, know the ping of their motion detectors.
My confusion is gone. I see layers of light, feel atmospheric patterns. My nerves weave into a new grid of ever-present pain. But the grime has been flushed from my mind.
My new senses are awake.
The world is mine to savor.
I reach the Control Core and climb. Metal beams yield to my touch, soften as I squeeze. Climb higher. Exposed in the light like a rat on a wire. The cursed suns sear my not-skin. Someone will surely see me pulling myself up.
Let them see.
I leave sizzling handprints on the building’s skeleton. No reach is too great—the next handhold is always in my grasp. I stretch and twist like a hallucination.
Every second their poison drains from me I grow stronger.
I arrive.
Leer through the window, cling to the frame. Muscles do not ache, they burn with desire. Watching my targets behind the glass.
The directors. They do not see me.
My bloated heart throttles. I trace the course of boiling CHAR flooding my veins. Shatter the glass with one blow, send a blizzard of shards at my prey. Their wafting fear fills my nostrils.
I leap.
They scatter.
Guards emerge, Watchmen and humans.