by JM Guillen
She sidestepped, and I saw Wyatt lying on the floor behind her. Blood covered most of the right side of his face, and he lay so still, he must have been unconscious.
We got you back to the Corvus, Michael. Anya put one hand on my shoulder and crouched next to me. They used Gatekeeper Delacruz’s extraction location to pull us out.
“Delacruz.” I spun around, still smashing my fingers against my face as if I could squish the wriggly invader. “She’s—”
“—completely lacking terrifying parasites.” She leaned up against a seat. Though a little pale, she gave me a weak smile. “But doing okay aside from that.”
“What’s wrong with him?” I dragged myself a little closer to Wyatt.
Rachel, crouched over him, held up one hand in my direction, palm out.
I stopped instantly.
“I’m running diagnostics.” Her voice seemed distant and a touch cold. I knew this to simply be her nature; Rachel always retreated into anger and frustration when one of her own got hurt. “I think I can fix this, but not if you keep yammering on.”
Two more aberrations came out of the pool. Anya placed one hand on my shoulder. They caught us completely by surprise.
“I should have expected them.” I winced at the sensation of the twitching larvae. “That was exactly the kind of bad news that gave us fits in Washington. These are the same creatures that spread the plague there.”
Yet you and Asset DuMarque killed the aberration?
“Yeah.” I nodded at her. “Gideon shot the thing with null-materia rounds. The antimatter blew it apart.”
“I don’t think it’s a plague.” Rachel had an elongated pincer tool in Wyatt’s nose. Slowly she pulled it out to reveal one of the wriggling parasites.
“That is so gross!” Delacruz shook her head.
“When the parent bit you, it infected you with sixteen different biotoxins.” She paused for a moment to place the oily tadpole into a specimen jar. “That’s part of the reason you still feel so out of sorts. It weakens you.”
“I trust you’re doing something about it?” Even I could hear the panic in my voice. Yet, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Wyatt.
I’d be surprised if he didn’t get a new scar out of this.
“I put your mecha on the job before you were done wrestling with Froggy.” Rachel turned toward me. “I had to. You don’t know what that thing did to your blood.”
“Of course you did.” I relaxed a bit and smiled in relief. “Thanks, Caduceus. I should’ve known you had things under control.”
The tiniest of smiles touched the edge of her lips before she turned back to Wyatt.
The Designates seem to agree this isn’t a plague. Anya paused. According to the archived dossier records, the symptoms of the sickness in Washington follow a significant pattern. Anya tilted her head slightly. It seems the bite of these aberrations significantly weakens the target. Then their young attempt to colonize the body.
Rachel pressed her hand flat against Wyatt’s chest, and I heard the hiss of her equipment. He lurched in place, as if he’d been hit with a defibrillator. She eased his head to one side, and maneuvered that same tool back in through his nostril.
“Colonize the body?” I blinked and my mind raced. It made sense when I thought about it. Not only had Gideon and I battled one of the monstrosi-toads in Washington, but the Facility had access to one of its victims.
A young man had been brought in, a young man I now guessed had been bitten by the aberration. After observation, the Caduceus assigned to the dossier had noted the young man’s DNA held far fewer mammalian markers than they had previously.
He had begun to transform into one of those monstrous things.
“I think it’s stopped moving.” Tentatively, I prodded at the area just below my eye.
“There are actually three of them inside you.” Rachel pulled another of the slimy things from Wyatt’s nostril. “They won’t be able to get very far. Your mecha has them nullified for the moment.”
“That’s a relief.” I rolled my shoulders and then turned my head toward Anya. “You said there were two more of the toad-strocities?”
They didn’t catch us by surprise. You had your back to the pool while you nullified that Zealator.
“So the two of you killed the others?”
Neutralizing the targets turned out to be more difficult than Asset Guthrie expected. He first attempted to destroy the aberrations’ pool.
“Smart move.” I pushed myself to a fully seated position. I felt considerably better than I had just a few moments before, which to me meant that Rachel’s mecha directives had started to kick in.
He couldn’t know the nature of what the Zealator had done. Those amphorae don’t simply contain the creatures.
“It’s as if they create some kind of aperture.” Delacruz cleared her throat.
“An aperture?” I had to admit, it wasn’t an idea I would have considered.
“A rift of some kind.” She frowned. “Threw aberrant vectors all over the hallway. I would have had you out quicker otherwise.”
When Asset Guthrie attempted to calculate the variables upon his equipment, he fired the device straight through the aperture. It didn’t affect the hallway at all.
“But where did the aperture lead to?”
I didn’t have the time or resources to complete a full scan. Anya pushed one strand of blonde hair out of her face. In perusing the ambient data, my initial conclusion is that the pool of water actually opened into another topia entirely.
“’Course it did,” Wyatt coughed. “With Brooks Brothers here, I can’t have one fucking assignment where I stay in Rationality.”
“Ha!” Sofia crowed.
“Hey there, asshole.” I scooted over to him. “You know, if you stop eating possum, you won’t get worms.”
“You, my friend, are free to go fuck yourself.” He gave me a positively horrific grin, with the blood on his face. “Possum is delicious.”
“I heard a stasis field go off.” I glanced at Anya, and then turned back to Wyatt. “I assume you closed off their little gateway.”
“Yeah,” he drawled. “For all we knew, there was another thousand of those little buggers getting ready to pour through.”
“I noticed that we still have Amir on telemetry.” I wriggled my nose, disliking the feel of aberrations my sinuses. “Anya, is that signal still strong?”
If anything, Irrational 3302 has moved closer. She gave the half-shrug I found endearing. I show no weakness or latency in the signal.
“So we’re still in this.” I nodded in thought.
“If you think we’re going anywhere immediately, then you’ve got another think coming.” Despite her words, Rachel’s tone sounded considerably more playful than I’d become accustomed to.
“Right.” I sighed. “How long do you need, Caduceus?”
“Depends upon how much you squirm.” She gave me a wicked smile as she held up the pincer tool I had just seen shoved up Wyatt’s nose.
“Oh, he’s a squirmer, honey.” Wyatt chortled as he sat up. “Better believe it.”
“Lay down, Alpha,” Rachel snickered.
“Fine.” I didn’t even favor Wyatt with a dirty look. “This feels disgusting. Whatever it takes to get them out.”
“Well, I won’t have to knock you unconscious at least.” She glanced at Guthrie. “You should have seen him when we got him through.”
“What happened to doctor-patient privilege?” Wyatt huffed but he smiled.
“So your Gatekeeper lost a good amount of blood,” Sofia said, as if reporting the weather. “Rachel here got some painkillers in me, and we got the bullets out.”
“The VM are busy getting her blood cell count back up,” Rachel added as she inserted the tool into my nose. “Wounds are patched and sealed.”
“Arrgh!” I grunted as she began to pull the first of the parasites from my nasal cavity. I felt it as she dragged the thing backward—as if the tadpole had been
halfway into my brain.
“There’s one.” Rachel gave me an almost sweet smile. “The other two are further back.”
“Fucking great,” I muttered.
“Guthrie will be up and around quicker than you will, Alpha.” She put the tool back into my abused nose. “He had the good sense to not get bitten.”
“Yeah.” Wyatt wiped the blood from his face with one of Rachel’s small towelettes. “When I woke up, I thought to myself, ‘Self, don’t let the giant frog monsters bite you today.’”
“I weally thot—” I cut off when Rachel gave me a quick tap to the forehead.
“Quiet. We can all listen to you talk after I’m done.”
I really thought if I killed the Zealator, all the bullshit would stop. That usually works, I linked.
Breaking the container did not require a person with Irrational capabilities. Anya paused. The logical follow-through there is that one does not need to be an Irrat to create one of those rifts.
“They can just have Jimmy Anygoon do it?” Wyatt muttered and seemed to chew on the idea. “That’s no fucking fair.”
Shit this sucks. I kept my mouth closed as Rachel jammed her tongs into my brain. As she pulled the second of the larvae forth, I would have sworn its tail end rested somewhere around my liver.
“Fu-huck!” I swore as she pulled the thing out. A string of mucous and blood clung to her forceps.
“One more.”
“Cab be wate jut a minid?” I waved one hand.
“I suppose so.” She set the tool down and began to calibrate her stinger interface.
I took a deep, pollywog-free breath.
Rachel laid her palm against my arm and tapped the readout. “I need to deal with the biological agents ravaging your bloodstream. Not to mention the huge, gaping wound you have in your shoulder.”
Snick! I felt the tiny pin prick as she injected me with more mecha.
“Ravaging?”
“I’m not exactly exaggerating.” She glanced up at me, her sharp green eyes serious. “Pretty nasty stuff. If you weren’t an Asset, you’d be virtually comatose after a single bite.”
“Probably makes their reproduction considerably easier.” Sofia wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“I mean, I have it under control,” Rachel continued. “But my official advice is to not get bitten anymore today.”
“But tomorrow’s okay? Can I decide who gets to bite me?”
Quit trying to trick Doc Gardener into biting you, Wyatt linked.
“I’m officially calling a moratorium on biting,” she responded. “Also on splitting up the party.”
“We weren’t exactly tryin’ to split up,” Wyatt interjected. “We got caught off guard.”
“And we can’t let that happen again.” I sniffed, trying to get the stink of rotten fish from my sinuses. “It’s completely my fault. I knew Anya would alert us if anything Irrational went on. But those guys were just straight goons.”
“Well, two of ’em were,” Wyatt said.
In actuality, all three of those men read as baseline human. I expect the one who remained at the end made use of some device or item we did not see.
“Well, he threw the amphora,” I cocked my head. “Is that what you mean?”
Not precisely. She paused, and I felt her consider her words carefully. Rationality did not shift until the last individual began to chant. Up until that point, they appeared indistinguishable from the rest of humanity.
“I don’t like that.” I massaged the back of my neck and thought. “I prefer to see our Irrats coming from further away.”
“We gotta be more careful.” Sofia stretched out her wounded leg and only winced the tiniest bit. “We can’t count on telemetry to tell us where all the bad guys are.”
I’d like to step back outside for a moment. Anya picked up the two SIGs she’d taken and sheathed them at her belt. If I spend some time modulating the resonators, I might be able to learn more.
“It’s a good idea, Anya.” I said. “Let us know what you find out, okay?”
Understood, Alpha. Anya left the Corvus.
“We still don’t have a dossier.” I settled into one of the seats and regarded the rest of my cadre. “Stone is continually attempting to raise the Designates, but as of now we have no contact.”
“This whole ‘no contact’ bullshit is the worst part.” Wyatt chewed one thumbnail. “With worldwide telemetry down, I don’t like feeling as if we’re out here, all adrift.”
“Fortunately, the Designate made our situation clear.” I met each of their gazes. “Our goal is to take down 3302. She seemed to believe we only had a limited amount of time, yet I’m unclear on why.”
“We can still do that, Mike.” Sofia favored me with a toothy smile. “I told you we had aperture locations all over this place. As soon as Sawbones Gardener says we’re good, I’ll plop us as close as possible.”
“That might be the best plan,” I agreed. “We have no data on how many Zealators are down here.”
“Tough if we have to stand against a small army.” Wyatt massaged the bridge of his nose. “But if they have the capability to spring crazy, Irrational bullshit under our noses, that’s bad news.”
“They caught us by surprise before,” Delacruz reminded him. “I don’t think it’ll go down like that every time.”
“That aberration was a piece of work.” I glanced up at them. “Even if it hadn’t bitten me, I don’t know if I could have taken it, just hand to hand. Too strong.”
“What freaks me out about Devil-Kermit is that we don’t know how many of them there are.” Wyatt paused. “Sure, I put a stasis field cap on one of their little portals. But what if they make another one? Or another thirteen?”
“There could be an entire topia of amphibious [assholes] out there,” Sofia agreed. “Seems pretty stupid to attempt to play fuck around with an unknown quantity.”
“Play fuck around. Heh.” Wyatt shot her a grin.
As if she’d been privy to our conversation, Anya chose that moment to link, Alpha, I have retrieved some data which might impact our future plans.
That’s wonderful, Anya, I linked. I’m tired of feeling as if we don’t have enough information.
The moment that… Jimmy Anygoon broke the amphora, I registered a fluctuation within Rationality.
Jimmy Anygoon. Wyatt shook his head. Yer gettin’ funnier all the time, Petrova.
A fluctuation within Rationality has a lot more data than a Preceptor typically reports, she continued. We can show how many points the axioms of Rationality have moved, whether it is sub-Rational or super-Rational, and all manner of data regarding axiomatic obduracy and the realmwall.
Okay. I didn’t know her point was, but I absolutely believed her. The Facility was keen on overkill when it came to statistics regarding Rationality.
Alpha, in the time we have taken since Gatekeeper Delacruz first encountered the hostiles, two more of the amphorae have been shattered in the necropolis.
Two more? My eyes grew wide. Are you certain?
Within 99.87%. The readings are precisely the same.
The exact same. Rachel’s eyes went as wide as mine. They’ve created two more gateways?
These sites remain super-Rational, Anya continued. My assumption would be that they not only created two more of the rifts but that those locations remain open.
It must be Amir. I furrowed my brow. He knows we’re here. All it would’ve taken is for one of those goons to have a radio, and they could have alerted their entire organization.
I do not show significant radio traffic, Anya informed me. There is all manner of background radio radiation from the city above, but there might be quite a bit of interference as we are underground.
They may not know we’re here, Mike. Sofia toyed with her hair as she thought. This may just be part of whatever it is they have planned.
No, I think they know. I sighed. Wyatt called it right earlier. The Facility hasn’t made a move that t
hese guys didn’t know about. Now that Amir knows we’re on his tail, he’s calling in muscle.
Maybe… Wyatt paused in thought. But Delacruz’s idea holds some merit. After all, Hoss, you keep bringing up that we’re on kind of a tight timeline.
Yeah? So?
Well, I’m just sayin’ we got one of them special dates coming up real soon. And now, we find Irrats summoning up plague-frogs, right beneath the Vatican of all fucking places.
God. Rachel shook her head, horror writ large across her face. Think about how many thousands of people visit the Vatican. Now imagine them showing up here, getting infected with those… parasites, and traveling back to their home country.
People come from everywhere, Sofia agreed. Depending upon how quickly those things would make them sick, they could carry the larvae all over the world.
Speculation. I raised one hand. What we know for certain is that the Designate indicated Amir Cadavas was our target.
You can’t exactly ask the Designate, Hoss. Wyatt stared at me as if I were a legitimate fool. It’s easy to see what the danger is here.
You don’t understand him like I do. I almost snarled. Amir is an expert at misdirection. Remember, he had one of those frog-jars dropped off in the States just so he could poke at me and Gideon. He set the whole thing up as a giant ‘fuck you’ for what happened in the Yucatán.
Alpha? Rachel’s link felt cautious. Are you suggesting we should chase a single Irrat over stopping a plague?
Of course the plague is important. I waved one hand in an attempt to mollify her. But it’s a ploy.
A ploy. Delacruz didn’t seem quite convinced.
Amir wants us to run off after his little frog monsters. He doesn’t set things up so that he can lose. I turned to glare at Wyatt. Do you really think we should do what the Irrat wants?
No… The link came slowly, thoughtfully. I do think it’s very important to consider every possible outcome here.
I’m listening. I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms.
I think it’s vital that we’re willing to measure what the greater good is here. A lot of people could die.
I don’t think— I sighed. If we take down Amir, we really hurt these guys. How many times have we been in a situation where as soon as we remove the primary threat, the secondary threats fall away?