by Jim Hines
“Kiyoko, can you open that door?” asked Jeneta.
“We can,” the three clones said together. “Are you prepared if this thing turns on you?”
Jeneta held up her phone. “‘Spirits of the Dead,’ by Edgar Allan Poe. I’m hoping it will be enough to overpower whatever these things are.”
The Kiyoko closest to the door touched an electronic keypad. The door rose soundlessly as lights came on inside.
The ansible unit sat to one side, secured to the wall with canvas straps. Wards similar to the ones Kiyoko had posted in Jeneta’s room were scrawled on the floor and wall.
Lena was next to enter, sword raised and ready to strike. A shadow emerged from the ansible, swimming through the wards and through Lena herself, toward Jeneta.
Jeneta was already reading.
Thy soul shall find itself alone
’Mid dark thoughts of the grey tombstone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness—for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.
The poem conjured faux spirits of her own that raced forth to overpower and imprison the swimmer, not by violence, but by strength of will. Sounds dulled and faded. Even her own breathing sounded faint.
Ghostly forms arose like candles surrounding the shadowy form. They radiated a sense of cold and calm, of unending rest.
The swimmer paused. Jeneta held her breath. Behind her, she heard her father shiver, brushed by the edge of the spell.
Then, with a twitch that reminded her of a shrug, the thing swam away, passing between Jeneta’s conjured spirits like they didn’t exist.
“Dammit!”
“Mind your tongue,” her father said sharply.
“Really, Dad?” The shadow swam toward a wall on the left and vanished through a door labeled “Supplies.”
“What happened?” asked Kiyoko.
“The poem didn’t work.” Jeneta pointed to the door. “It’s in there.”
Wordlessly, Lena and a Kiyoko approached the door, while the other two clones remained with Jeneta and her father.
Lena tried the door, but it was locked. She adjusted her stance and pulled harder. Metal squealed in protest as the entire knob ripped free in her hand. Lena tossed it aside, reached in to grab the latching mechanism, and tugged again.
The door swung open. Lena raised her sword. Kiyoko slipped past to turn on the light.
Gellert Nguyen huddled on the floor, muttering and drooling. Dying orchids and roses were scattered in front of him. His right fist clutched a few broken stems.
Shadows crawled over his body like ants on a fallen popsicle.
Jeneta staggered back. Her phone slipped from her hand. She heard Kiyoko call her name, felt her father’s hand on her shoulder, but none of it registered. All she could see was the mass of shadows devouring Nguyen’s mind, leaving him a hollow shell.
“Is he alive?” Lena’s words sounded far away.
Kiyoko crouched to check Nguyen’s pulse. “He is, though his pulse is slow and weak.”
“Stay away,” Jeneta whispered, imagining Kiyoko falling to the same horror that had taken Nguyen.
“Jeneta, what’s wrong?” Her father was shouting now.
Nguyen’s lips cracked. In a raspy whisper that carried as clear as a gunshot, he said, “Finish.”
Tentacles pulled free of Nguyen to reach toward Jeneta, to burrow into her thoughts and trap her and drown her and devour everything she knew.
Jeneta turned and ran.
* * *
Talulah Polk. Buford Parker. And now Gellert Nguyen.
Jeneta sat on a stone bench behind the medical tower. The small garden was another of Lena Greenwood’s projects, full of winding stone paths bordered by waist-tall cacti that were perpetually in bloom.
“Good morning.” Kiyoko stopped on the path. “Your father said you’ve been here all night.”
Jeneta glanced at the rising sun and shrugged. “I guess so.”
“You dropped this.” Kiyoko offered Jeneta her phone. A spider web of cracks spread from the corner of the screen. “It still functions.”
“Thanks.” Jeneta took the phone. Text messages from Dr. Shah, Greg, and her mother filled the lock screen. She ignored them and jammed the phone into her pocket.
“Isaac believes Mr. Nguyen was trying to determine what happened to Talulah Polk. The flowers we found with him were genetically identical to those in Talulah’s hospital room.”
“He was using them to eavesdrop, just like he cloned Colonel Parker’s notebook?”
“Isaac was impressed with his cleverness. He also vowed to turn the man into a newt when and if he regains his senses.” Kiyoko looked around. “Flowers are part of the plant’s reproductive cycle. Are these perpetual blooms a symptom of Lena’s sexual appetite? She is a subspecies of nymph, after all.”
Jeneta snorted. “I think she just grows them because they’re pretty.”
“Ah.” Kiyoko sat. “You should sleep.”
“Can’t.” She shook her head, remembering the nightmares. Her shoulders tightened. “I thought I was ready to face those things.”
“You were ready to pursue one. From what you’ve described, it was the sight of so many swarming over Mr. Nguyen that caused you to panic and flee.”
“Thanks for clarifying that.” Jeneta rubbed her eyes. “Dad thinks we should leave New Millennium.”
“I see…” Kiyoko frowned. “Then who would finish the Mars project?”
Finish. Nguyen’s voice whispered to her again, so clearly she could see his pale lips moving as he lay on the storage room floor.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “There are plenty of libriomancers here to finish the project.”
“None of whom can do electronic libriomancy.”
Jeneta rolled her eyes. “Have you met libriomancers? Once they know something’s possible, they’ll break the universe trying to figure it out. Sooner or later one of them will get it right.”
Neither spoke for a while. Then Kiyoko tilted her head, listening to something Jeneta couldn’t hear. “Isaac would like to know if he can borrow Nkiruka. Mr. Nguyen’s corporate espionage was more extensive than we knew. He was using a set of ARClights, genetically-engineered dragonflies with biotech cameras and microphones, from the Artemis Fowl books. Apparently fire-spiders find them delicious and light up in their presence.”
Jeneta thought back to Nkiruka’s reaction the other night with Greg. She’d been burning because she wanted to hunt that dragonfly, not as a warning of the approaching swimmer. The idea of that asshole spying on her, listening in on her conversations, made her want to throw up.
Listen. Talulah’s voice now as she lay in the hospital. Colonel Parker had mumbled the same thing.
“Jeneta?”
“Nkiruka isn’t afraid of these things.”
“The ARClights?”
“The shadows I’ve been seeing.”
Kiyoko appeared to consider this. “Most likely, Nkiruka can’t perceive them.”
“She’s a fire-spider. They don’t have to perceive threats. They just know.”
“These swimmers have incapacitated three people. How are they not a threat?”
Jeneta held up a hand, trying to think. Nguyen had been using magic to listen in on Talulah’s room when the swarm took him. Colonel Parker had been poring over his enchanted notebook. If that magic was the key, why Parker and not Elizabeth Collins, who’d been on the other end of the connection?
“Parker’s notebook was acting as the receiver.” Collins had checked off each step as she tried to start the Venture, unknowingly transmitting those marks to Colonel Parker. And the attack on Jeneta had come as they created the secondary a
nsible unit. She’d seen another swimmer when she demonstrated libriomancy to Greg, working a spell that connected her textbook to thousands of others around the world.
Finish.
Dr. Shah had warned her about fear controlling her thoughts and her actions. About letting what happened with Meridiana dictate her story. “Did Isaac ever tell you what happened when he first created Smudge?”
“Isaac did not.” Kiyoko paused. “Lena, however, told me he almost burnt down his high school library.”
“That’s right. Smudge had been pulled into a new world. He was lost and scared and panicked. He didn’t start that fire to hurt anyone. It was instinct. Fear. What if these attacks are the same? An accident instead of an assault?”
“We have no evidence one way or another to judge the creatures’ motivations. New Destiny has no mention of anything resembling the creatures you describe, making it unlikely you pulled them from a book as was done with Smudge.”
“Maybe the creatures are…incomplete. I don’t know.” Jeneta realized she was standing, her fatigue gone. “But they appeared while I was creating the ansible.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“What I think they’re asking me to do. I’m going to finish that spell.”
* * *
“No,” said Isaac, simultaneously with Mmadukaaku Aboderin’s “Absolutely not.”
Jeneta had asked them to meet her at the stage in front of Franklin Tower, where this whole mess had begun. The chairs had been removed, but the stage itself remained, as did the giant screen—the latter protected by a heavy tarp to shield it from the elements, and to discourage the vampires and werewolves from hijacking it…again…for an all-night game of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.
“Three people are in the hospital,” her father continued. “Do you want to be the fourth?”
“I think they’re in the hospital because of me,” said Jeneta.
Isaac raised his hands. “I know Dr. Shah has told you this isn’t your fault. I feel responsible too, but—”
“I was standing right there.” Jeneta climbed onto the stage and walked to the center. “Talulah and I had just touched the secondary ansible unit when something or someone else touched my mind, and I panicked. Just like when I hit Kiyoko.”
Her face burned when she admitted that, but Kiyoko simply smiled and nodded for her to continue.
“Do you hear what I’m saying?” Jeneta asked. “Maybe they haven’t been attacking us. Maybe I’m the one who attacked them.”
“Attacked who?” her father demanded.
“I don’t know.” Jeneta folded her arms. “Don’t you think it’s time we found out?”
“What if you’re wrong?” She could hear the anguish in Isaac’s words, the fear. “I can’t let something like this happen to you again.”
Her father’s body was tense as iron. “I agree with Isaac. You will not endanger yourself again. You will not put your mother and me through that again.”
“This isn’t Meridiana.” They both flinched at the name. “If I’d been in a car crash, would you forbid me to drive again? I know you’re afraid. You think I’m not? Believe me, I can’t stop thinking about what happens if things go wrong. But we have to also think about what could happen if things go right.”
“I think you should let her try,” said Kiyoko.
Everyone turned.
“Why?” demanded her father. “Why should we let her risk herself?”
“Because she’s afraid, and she’s trying so very hard to break free of her fear.” Kiyoko looked at Jeneta. “Freedom is worth risk.”
“You don’t understand,” he argued. “She’s not your daughter.”
“No,” agreed Kiyoko. “She’s my friend.”
“Dad, please.” Jeneta waited until she had everyone’s attention. “These things followed me into my room. If they want to come after me, we can’t stop them. I need to do this.” She braced herself and added, “And I wasn’t asking permission.”
* * *
Another of Kiyoko’s clones fetched Nkiruka from the apartment. Jeneta opened the cage and scooped the fire-spider into her hand. Nkiruka was cool to the touch, assuring Jeneta they were in no immediate danger from whatever shadows haunted New Millennium. Or from her father, for that matter.
He hadn’t spoken a word since she’d essentially told him she was doing this whether he liked it or not. He stood like a statue at the edge of the stage, his arms folded, his eyes burning her with disapproval.
“Any time you change your mind or decide to stop, just say the word.” Isaac had insisted on helping, taking on the role Talulah had played before. The role, and the risk.
Kiyoko unlocked the lines securing the enormous tarp in place. The rest of her clones—the twenty or so who lived within New Millennium, at least—formed a loose perimeter around the stage to keep everyone back. They’d already attracted several onlookers, and it wouldn’t be long before more arrived.
Dr. Shah had come as well. She fidgeted anxiously with her necklace, but offered Jeneta an encouraging smile.
The tarp slid free, sounding like a sheet in the wind. Kiyoko gathered it to one side, then ducked behind the screen. Moments later, words appeared—the same scene she’d used before.
“Jeneta!”
She spun to see Greg Parker running toward her. Two Kiyokos moved to intercept him.
“It’s all right,” called Jeneta. “Greg, what are you doing here?”
“Dr. Shah said I should come. She said you were going to try to help my Dad.”
Jeneta glared at Dr. Shah, uncertain whether she should feel grateful or annoyed.
The therapist simply smiled again, saying, “Whatever happens, you’re not alone.”
Jeneta nodded and turned to touch the screen. Her hand shook. Her stomach was so tight she thought she might throw up.
Inhale.
She skimmed the scene and pressed harder. Felt her fingers sink into the story. Felt the warm air of New Gaia. Felt the pressure of the water that came from somewhere beyond the words.
Isaac’s hand joined hers in the book’s magic. “I can feel the ansible receiver. What about you?”
Jeneta reached deeper, concentrating on the story and rereading the words until the ansible solidified beneath her hand. “I’ve got it.”
Shadows edged her vision, swimming closer.
“What’s wrong?” asked Isaac. He couldn’t see them. Couldn’t feel the currents. The world wasn’t threatening to fall away from beneath his feet, to pull him under until he drowned.
“I’m fine. Keep going.”
The screen began to roll backward. She clung to the ansible receiver. All she had to do was hold on. Sixty seconds, maybe less, and it would be over.
Exhale.
Tendrils of shadow and magic reached through the water. Her vision narrowed, the words on the screen blurring and fading to darkness. She blinked and tried to focus, to cling to a single sentence, then a single word.
Why wouldn’t they let her finish the spell? Oh God, what if she’d been wrong? Meridiana’s laughter bubbled from the deep crevasses of her memory.
Isaac was speaking, but she couldn’t make out the words. She couldn’t feel the stage beneath her feet. Hell, she couldn’t feel her feet! Nothing but water and darkness and other minds slithering into her own.
If she didn’t break away, would she join Talulah and the others in the hospital? Or would Isaac suffer the consequences in her place?
Fear and confusion and anger and desperation wriggled through the crevasses of her brain. She was lost. Stranded and alone, sinking deeper. The pressure grew. If she didn’t break free, she’d drown.
“Nkiruka doesn’t think they’re a threat,” she reminded herself. This wasn’t Meridiana. Whatever happened, her friends would take care of her. They’d make sure she couldn’t hurt anyone. They’d keep her safe.
Inhale.
Water poured into her throat and lungs, tasting of salt and sulfur a
nd, oddly, pumpkin spice.
More shadows appeared. New eddies swirled through the water. She breathed them in.
Understanding exploded like fireworks in her mind. Awe and wonder filled her until she thought she’d burst, and when she couldn’t hold it in any longer, Jeneta began to laugh…
* * *
Jeneta had no idea how much time passed before she pulled free. She started to fall, but Isaac and her father were both close enough to catch her arms and lower her to the stage.
“Jeneta!” her father shouted, practically deafening her. “Is it you?”
She tried to answer, but succeeded only in drooling. She wiped her chin, wincing at the stiffness and cramps in her joints, and tried again. “It’s me, Dad.”
They helped her to sit, and Dr. Shah immediately began checking her over.
She squinted against the bright sun. She felt like she’d run a marathon, and she had a strange craving for salty chicken broth. “How long?”
“An hour and a half,” said Isaac. “Nkiruka spent most of that time sleeping on your shoulder. About twenty minutes ago she got bored and started hunting. I moved her back into her cage and gave her a few of Smudge’s M&Ms.”
She looked around. “Where’s Greg?”
“With his father.” Kiyoko smiled. “He, Talulah, and Mr. Nguyen started coming around shortly after you began your spell.”
“You saved them.” Her father sat across from her. From his exhausted slouch, he was as wrung out as Jeneta felt. “Are you okay?”
Jeneta beamed. “Collins was right. This was my fault.”
“What happened?” asked Isaac. “What were those shadows, and why couldn’t anyone else see them?”
“You couldn’t see them because they weren’t really here.”
“Where were they?” asked Kiyoko.
“Trapped. Because I broke the ansible spell before it was finished. You know how old-fashioned phones, if one person hung up but the other didn’t, it could tie up both lines?”
Dr. Shah frowned. “Careful what you’re calling old-fashioned, kiddo.”