The thing behind her lurched against the wall, startling a yelp from Angel's throat. She pushed against the corpse, trying to move it off the gun, but he was too large, too heavy, too dead. She could feel the thing getting closer, could feel its breath on her neck. Who are you? she wanted to yell. What do you want?
She knew it wasn't the dark man. She knew it couldn't be. Not Norstrom, either. She knew what it was, who it was, and yet she refused to accept it. No. No no no!
And then she felt it rest its dead hand on her shoulder and she nearly fainted. She cried out, pulling one last time, wrenching the pistol free from beneath the corpse. She turned and fired, and in the lightning flash of the gunshot she saw the sum of her fears, saw what she had done, saw the entrails of the walking corpse like bloody ropes, and the gleam of the tissue retractor still in place, holding open that gaping black hole which she had carved.
How could she be alive? How could she be walking on that destroyed leg?
Angel fired again. She kept firing, cringing at the horror that seared itself into her mind with each flash — Jamie's deathly pale face, her mouth contorted in a mask of agony — until all she was doing was pulling the trigger and nothing was happening, nothing was showing in the stifling darkness.
She threw the pistol away from her. It hit nothing until it landed on the floor at the other end of the hall. Then Angel got up and ran.
Chapter Fifty Three
She was standing knee deep in water, leaning against the stiff sedge that grew beside the stream along the bottom of the valley. Her feet and legs had grown numb from the cold, but now they were beginning to hurt, so she pulled herself out, collapsing on an exposed face of a flat boulder.
How long had she been walking?
Where was she?
She couldn't even remember why she was in the stream, except maybe to wash away the blood.
She remembered seeing smoke, a thick line of it receding into the sky over a hill, flattening out, passing like the contrail of a jet. The factory had gone out of sight by then, so she realized she'd been wandering for a while and had gone quite some distance.
Now the sky was clear. Nothing but blue above and the sun beginning to touch the tips of the hills to her right. The wind was picking up. Night would soon fall.
She shut her eyes, and the images rushed back at her, as if they'd been waiting for just the right moment. Jamie's gawping mouth, her unseeing black eyes. The paleness of her skin.
One end of her trailing intestines had caught on the handle of the door, holding her back. Keeping her from—
"Oh god!" Angel wailed at the sky. "What did I do?"
The poor girl had been alive, breathing. She'd been aware when Angel shot the gun, three, four times. She'd lost count, didn't know how many had found their mark. She knew some had. She'd seen the holes made by the slugs puncturing the poor girl's flesh, the exploding tissue splattering the wall behind, the jagged edges of the bones exposed within the scorched and cratered flesh. Jamie had cried out in pain, her voice rising in that fire alarm siren sound, rising until another slug exploded through her neck, leaving little to hold up her head. She'd fallen then, Angel was sure. Almost sure. No one could have survived that.
No one could have survived that surgery, either.
Except Jamie had, hadn't she? She'd died. Her heart had ceased. She'd stopped breathing. She had died.
And yet she'd come back.
How?
She'd woken up, that's all. Not dead but only very nearly so. After the machine had gone off, when the power went out, that's what had brought her out of it. The power had gone and shut off that machine in the lab, allowing her to—
But who shut the power off?
Jamie must have been the one to pull the broom out of the door. It was her in the room with Angel.
She had attacked and killed Aston and come to let her out.
When did the power go out? Who shut it off?
Norstrom?
And who had killed the helicopter pilot? It couldn't have been either of them.
Could it have?
Angel wanted to open her eyes to erase the image, but she found that they were already open, open and staring into the endless blue. And she was alarmed by how much darker the sky had become all of a sudden. The sun was nearly gone, just a golden white fringe burning against the ridgeline, a shrinking crown of brilliant light.
She stumbled once more to her feet and tried to walk. But her legs were numb, and she fell to her knees.
Who killed the pilot?
The man had been hanging from his harness, half out of his seat, the door of the chopper swinging in the breeze, banging against his head and dangling arms. Banging. His eyes had been gouged out. Who could have surprised him like that?
Surely not Jamie. Surely not Norstrom.
Who turned off the power?
She fell, skinning her elbows and palms, and was surprised to find that she'd gotten up and was walking again. Behind her, the valley was in shadow. No factory. No smoke. No sun. The day was gone. Everything was gone.
She kept walking.
She fell.
She got back up.
And she kept walking.
* * *
"Three days," Alvin Cheong said. He shook his head, giving her a worried look. "That's how long you were out there on the steppe before you were found . . . ." He shrugged. "I'm very sorry about everything."
He stood up from the chair and began to pace by the side of the bed. "You sure you don't remember anything?"
Angel watched him for a moment. Her whole body ached terribly. She tried to flex her fingers, but even that sent a river of nausea through her.
He was clearly frustrated that she couldn't tell him anything. Or maybe frustrated believing that she wouldn't. He seemed to doubt her claims that the past several days were all a blank. The last thing she remembered was chasing a man to the garage of a hotel in Shanghai after he'd run out of DeBryan's hotel room. She'd acted shocked when Cheong told her she was in a hospital in Beijing and had protested when he told her she'd been found by a Mongolian family tens of kilometers from any road.
"When can I go home?" she asked. Her throat was terribly sore and dry. Her voice came out as a whisper.
"I'm working with the consulate to get you a replacement passport," he said, sighing. "But you're still too weak to travel. Dehydration, malnutrition, hypothermia." He ticked off the conditions on his fingers. "And traumatic amnesia."
He sat down again for the fifth or sixth time. "PTSD," he said. "That's what the American doctor on staff here is saying. Judging by the injuries you sustained, he believes you were kidnapped, and that's what we're letting him believe. It happens sometimes. No, no. No sign of any . . . of sexual assault. It's a convenient cover story. Keeps the police from asking any more questions about why you're really here."
"Why am I here?"
He had no answer for her. Instead, he buried his face in his gloved hands and held it there for several seconds. "I'm so sorry," he kept saying. "For whatever happened. I shouldn't have assumed you would— I should have known better. No, I think I did know, just not how bad it would be."
"And DeBryan? Where is he?"
He gave her a queer look, then abruptly rose once more from the chair. "I should let you rest. You need your rest. I'll come back tomorrow." He stared at the IV bag on the stand at the head of her bed and refused to look at her. "Get some sleep. Maybe I'll have the nurse sneak in an extra special treat for your dinner." He smiled awkwardly. "I hope you'll be able to eat."
He turned and stepped quickly toward the door of her private room.
"Cheong."
He stopped, but didn't turn. "Get some rest, Missus de l'Enfantine. We'll talk again tomorrow."
"How's DeBryan really?"
Finally, he turned. "He's . . . fine. Don't worry about him." He gave her an awkward smile. "He's off doing whatever. You know, his photography stuff."
"Tell him I said hello."
> "Sure."
"Tell him it sounds like he missed all the fun."
Cheong's half-smile faltered. He nodded once, then left.
Angel rolled over onto her side, wincing from the pain. She extended a hand from beneath the blanket and found the plastic bag with her clothes in it in the space beneath the bedside table. And from deep within the bundle, she found what she was looking for.
She shut her eyes. Cheong was lying, about everything. She was sure of it, and she intended to figure out why. She would not rest until she knew the truth about the factory and the experiments they had done there. She would expose them all, even if it meant putting her life in danger again.
And with that, she fell asleep holding the three worn stones the old man — the same old man who'd guided her to the crash site — had given her when he found her half frozen on the steppe.
Chapter Fifty Four
. . . represent a great moral and practical threat to humanity. Their callous disregard for the sanctity of life and natural biological processes, as well as their complete contempt for both local and international laws, possibly even with the full blessing of regional powerbrokers, strongly argues that these people will continue to operate with impunity in whatever dark corner of the globe they are welcomed.
And they will be welcomed, for there will always be people willing to provide them succor, often for a price, but sometimes for little more than a promise. And sometimes for nothing at all but the terror they know will follow in their path.
They must all be stopped.
As to proof of these claims, I have none that I can offer, other than my own eyewitness testimony. There is, of course, the hazmat suit which remains where I buried it, though I now realize it is proof of absolutely nothing. My video and photographs are gone; they were destroyed when my phone burnt in the factory. And anyone visiting the crash site now will see nothing more than a scorched place in the earth where a wildfire might have raged.
The rubble of the lost village, as well, will provide no affidavit of its inhabitants, other than to simply state that a settlement had once existed there. Where they went remains a mystery, and yet they did go somewhere. I have to believe that. But these are nomadic people, and even if birth records existed for them, the Chinese government would likely deny their existence as well.
As for the factory, well, I am told it was never such a thing. The building had been used for storage for the army in the last century. Wenbai Munitions. No company by the name of Goh Li Xhia ever existed. And the place was gutted by fire years before.
So what does that leave me? Three small stones which I could have picked up anywhere and a memory of an old man who may have been nothing but a ghost or the product of my own imagination.
Someday, when this is all done, when I am able to safely say it is ended, then I will return to that place and honor the dead. For the two hundred souls whose lives were worth nothing to these criminals, nothing but a series of numbers in a spreadsheet with dollar signs pasted next to each one of them. For Jian, whose sacrifice I hope someday to repay. And for the four hundred more, whose stories will finally be told— not by me, nor even in my words, but by their own voices. I will cast my stones upon a thousand ovoos and pray that all their souls may at last be at rest, beginning with Jamie Peters'.
But for now, I will find the people who did this to her. To them all. I will find them and I will stop them.
The future of the world depends upon it.
Angel clicked SAVE, then the SEND button without bothering to review her writing. Finally, she closed the lid on her laptop. She was glad to have finished the article, though she knew it really wasn't as complete as it could be. She hadn't mentioned Jamie's dark man. She wasn't even sure she believed it herself. It was one of those larger inconsistencies that felt like a part of a completely different story, a distraction. She figured whatever the truth about him was, it had died with the girl in the inferno.
Him, as well as all the terrible, inexplicable things Angel had seen and done in the darkness of that building as she made her escape. She could not include those nightmares, and not simply because no one would believe her. What had happened, she'd been partially responsible for it. She'd let her curiosity, her desperation, get the better of her. She'd fallen prey to the very same blasphemy she'd accused her captors of engaging in. She had dabbled in something she had no right to. She had allowed herself to wonder if maybe it might be possible to supplant the body's natural healing mechanisms with something wholly artificial.
And it had been possible. It had.
That's what scared her most of all.
With Aston's horrible vision of immortality whispering at her, she slipped the laptop into her bag and stood up off the park bench. The Corniche passed before her, the Old Port at one end and the Bay of Marseilles at the other.
She had come here looking for the chateau and beach where her family had stayed all those years ago, but her memory had proven faulty, and in the end she'd been unable to decide which of the half dozen homes had been the one they'd rented. Now, as one of the many ferries passed across the clear blue water to the islands of the Frioul archipelago, taking its tourists to Château d'If, she realized that it was the same fortress that she had dreamed about that night in the yurt. The sand castle her brother Jacques had built around himself had taken its form.
She hoisted her bag over her shoulder and began the long walk back to her hotel. Bicyclists and skaters zipped past her. She watched them with a sense of disquiet and urgency. They were so oblivious. Not one of them knew a thing.
Her phone rang as she skipped across the path during a break in the traffic. She drew it out of her pocket to check the number. It was unlisted.
"Allô?"
You know you can never publish it.
The ground suddenly came loose beneath her feet. The bag fell from her shoulder to catch in the bend of her wrist. It knocked against her knee. "Quoi?"
They'll come after you if they know you got away.
"Norstrom?"
The line was silent.
"It is you. But . . . how?"
I need you to do me a favor. Delete the article from your computer.
"But I already sent it to the New York Times."
They didn't get it. I intercepted it.
"You're monitoring me, my computer?" She felt her scalp prickle. "You know I can't hide this. It's too big."
You remember you promised that it was all off the record, at least for now. We're too close to breaking this open, and your going public with it would only drive them underground again.
"Who's we? The CIA?"
I already told you I'm not a spy. Now, listen, you asked about a group called 6X. I've been checking up on them. They're the group that hired you, aren't they?
She hesitated, then said yes.
Have they made contact with you since you returned?
Angel shook her head. "No. I told them I can't remember anything. I said I was done with them."
Do you have a way to contact them?
"Yes."
Good. Do so. Tell them you want back in. Say you think it'll help you remember, but don't tell them anything. That should get them to bite.
She turned slowly around, suddenly positive that he was somewhere nearby, watching her.
"And if I don't delete the article?"
She heard him sigh. I can do it right now.
"No! Wait. I— I will. Okay."
I have a feeling they're waiting for you to call. Whatever they ask you to do, say yes.
Angel shut her eyes. "I'm not— I don't think I'm ready yet."
It's been almost two months. I just read what you wrote. You are ready. And I'll be here, keeping an eye on you.
"I don't even know who you are."
It's best that way.
Angel stopped and leaned against the railing. The bay waters were achingly blue, even more so than the sky, a stark, deep blue against the blazing white of the chateaus and the ye
llow of the sand. "Did you kill Aston? The pilot? Did you help me get out?"
No.
"How did you get out?"
He didn't reply.
"Norstrom?"
Yes, I'm here.
"How did you get out?"
I . . . . To be honest, I don't remember.
"You don't remember, or won't?"
He didn't answer.
"Norstrom?"
But he had already disconnected.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
END OF PART 03
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THE FLENSE: CHINA (Part 02)
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THE LAST ZOOKEEPER
A cyberpunk story
EXCERPT
The boy pressed his forehead against the paint-chipped railing and stared at the old man as he hobbled along the walkway. He moved with extreme care, the old man, avoiding the cracks in the uneven cement. Occasionally, one of them would catch his toe, and he would stumble, let out a pained grunt, then recover and continue on. The dented metal feed bucket in his right fist swung with ponderous intent, banging infuriatingly against the tender side of his knee. Yet he bore these insults without expression.
The bones in his hand, the gnarled knuckles, ropy tendons and veins, stood out from the effort of carrying the heavy weight. The tissue-thin skin was mottled with liver spots and inhabited by the ghosts of forgotten injuries, wounds whose secret stories the boy would never know.
THE FLENSE: China: (Part 3 of THE FLENSE serial) Page 10