by wildbow
“Will you promise me you won’t shoot them unnecessarily.”
“I promise. Now hand it over,” Noreen said.
“What’s going on?” Duncan asked.
“You’re doing something,” Noreen said. “I’m going to shoot you before you can do something more.”
Maurice gave Noreen a sidelong glance. “You just contradicted yourself.”
“I didn’t. This is necessary. I feel strange. My emotions are stirred up. I feel tired.”
“We just woke up.”
“And I don’t normally feel emotions like this,” Noreen said. “It’s the red haired one. Give me the gun.”
Ashton closed his eyes, and he pushed out a heavy release of aggression, of spores that wound agitate and drive others to action.
“No,” Maurice said. “It’s fine. Just stop and—”
Noreen lunged for the gun. Maurice pulled it away and used one hand to push her to the ground.
His attention divided between Duncan and Noreen, he didn’t see that Emmett was barreling toward him until it was too late.
In a moment, both Noreen and Maurice were pinned against the ground. The gun lay several feet away.
Duncan walked over to the gun to pick it up. He stuck it into his belt. “Thank you, Ashton, Emmett. I do believe that’s the first time that we’ve worked as a group.”
“You’re welcome,” Ashton said. “Abby and Lara helped too.”
“Thank you two too, then,” Duncan said.
Noreen seemed to be reserving glares for everyone present, Maurice included. Duncan opted to talk to Maurice instead.
“Where’s Sylvester?”
Ashton pushed out spores to loosen Maurice’s inhibitions and tongue.
It didn’t take long to get an answer.
“His orphanage,” Maurice finally confessed.
“His orphanage?” Ashton asked. “Lambsbridge?”
“No. It’s here, in this city,” Maurice said. “He’s collected every child with no place to go. Has a staff.”
“Soldiers,” Duncan concluded.
“And traps?” Lara asked.
“Naturally,” Maurice said.
“Naturally,” Duncan said, sounding very tired.
Ashton wished he could give Duncan a little bit of a boost in mood, but Duncan was taking drugs to counteract him. But the others seemed to be thrilled with their very first success, so he made sure to give them a little puff of happiness.
Previous Next
Black Sheep—13.6 (Lamb)
Every moment she was out in the open was a moment of restrained terror. Only her allies were to be trusted, and they were outnumbered by a hundred thousand to one.
People milled through the streets. The old were potentially demented. Other adults were healthy and strong enough to pose a danger to her, all potentially criminal.
Facts had been ingrained into her understanding and perception on a raw, structural level. Anything bigger than her was scary. Anything that moved quickly was cause for alarm. Color oft suggested poison. Prey had eyes spaced further apart, while predators had eyes placed closer together, on the fronts of their heads.
There were so very many people in this city, and almost all of them were bigger. They moved briskly this way and that, unpredictable, and Helen and Mary and Lillian and Lacey all navigated that unpredictable current with ease, while she jumped and relied on them to create a path for her to walk. Sometimes one of them would place a hand on her back or her shoulder, to help guide her. Each time, she would have to keep from jumping and unsheathing the weapons stored in her back and shoulders to retaliate.
And this milling crowd of people were sometimes dressed in bright colors, dyed sleeves and bright decorations moving quickly past her, as if they were going to swoop into her mouth or brush past her. They had eyes on the fronts of their heads, close together. Predator eyes. If she didn’t keep her gaze on the ground, then she was bombarded with the aggressive stares of the crowd.
It was easiest and best to keep her head down. Be small. Let Helen lead her, holding one of her sleeves.
Scared, she buzzed out the word, using structures in her head, chest, and the largest bones of her body. The signal went out, and she could hear the distorted reverberation as it bounced off of large objects and made its way back to her, faint.
She felt the signals in her scalp like she felt sounds in her ears. She couldn’t help but process the signals as words. Not like an echo, it came faster, from all directions, her own voice bombarding and taunting her.
Scared scared scared scared scared…
One word was enough to help draw Lara’s attention. Now she could expand on the thought. Crowds are bad, just woke up, the sun is too bright, feels like we’re walking into danger.
Again, the signal came back to her, but the signals came back at different intervals, some faint, some strong.
Crowds just sun are woke walking so into bad…
-We’re close—Lara replied. -Not too close, but close. The people with you are the strongest Lambs.—
Scariest Lambs.
-Strongest Lambs. We almost got shot. Now everyone acts like everything is normal. The sun is too bright. I want more clouds more rain.—
Nora felt reassured. This was something they did. They would echo each other’s thoughts and build on them. The sun was too bright, shining through an inconsistent mix of clouds. It was hot, and the parts of her that were human were sticking to her shroud of clothing.
The sun is too bright. I want more clouds. More rain. I feel sticky.
-Better than being sticky with blood.—
Hate blood.—Hate blood.—
Their messages nearly coincided. They both communicated amusement to each other.
Sweat stinks.
Lara’s voice was quieter. They were positioned badly. It sounded like she was shouting, which only made the next message better. -You stink.—
Well, I never!
More mutual amusement.
Helen tugged on her arm, pulling her to one side. Nora felt fear seize her. The fear redoubled when she saw why Helen had pulled on her arm. A man had a dog on a leash, and it passed within a few feet of Nora, her fear only seeming to make it more interested.
Then it was gone, moving in the other direction, well behind her. She scowled at the place it had just vacated.
“Hate dogs,” Hate dogs.
-Nasty. Filthy. Aggressive.—
“Cats too,” she said, under her breath.
“I know,” Helen said. She adjusted her hold on the cloth to give a reassuring squeeze to Nora’s largest claw. “But it’s rare a dog will hurt you.”
“Rare,” Nora said. She hunched her shoulders forward. “That means it’s just often enough to catch me off guard.”
Helen stroked her head. She heard jumbled noise at all the contact there, false positives on signals and sound, but at the same time, she didn’t mind it. The contact appealed to the part of her that was more human.
Would that part go away at some point in the future? One day she would transition to become less human and become something of a warbeast, albeit one meant more for communication purposes than for outright combat.
She would lose her skin and her diet would change. She would become far larger. She faced the possibility of losing her voice, in whole or in part, and her doctors were busying themselves with figuring out how to handle it if that happened, because that would invalidate her purpose.
Lara was going on a tangent about cats that Nora couldn’t follow. She had to focus to catch it.
-hiss and spit. Little lambs are better.—
You hiss and spit, Nora sent the message.
-Do not. Smelly Nora. Telling lies. You only have three claws on your two feet. Inferior sister!—
Slimy Lara. You secretly lick cat butts. Detestable creature!
They communicated mutual amusement, a babbling fluctuation that could be interpreted like laughter, if she really tried. But she didn’t really need to try. T
his was how they laughed.
I just screamed to this city about your secret and nobody hears. Tales of your furtive lickings reach past person and building and nobody understands, Nora communicated, along with a titter of amusement.
But the only reply was a mere, —Gone.—
Then, just like that, there was no noise but the faint echo of her own laughter finding its way back to her.
Lara had something to focus on, so she had ended the conversation there. Nora no longer had her distractions from the bustle of the crowd, the countless small and large terrors.
“I think this is the building,” Lillian said.
“It looks like it,” Mary said.
They moved off to one side of the street, where they had some limited cover but could still lean over to take a look at the building. It was tall, four floors, and situated on a corner. The intersection wasn’t right angles, however, so the building was more triangular than square in shape. Like most of the buildings in this city, it was all pale stone, more yellow than gray, with plants crawling up it. The windows were decorated.
“Plan of approach? Do you want to get involved, Lillian?” Mary asked.
“I’ll participate some. When we checked last night, it looked like nine, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” Mary said.
“And we can expect there to be more, if they’re bolstering their numbers after their losses last night.”
“Yes. Twelve, fifteen, twenty. Anything more would feel like too many, unless there’s more to this particular building than it being only a gathering place.”
Lillian nodded. “Your comfort level is twelve, I remember.”
“More or less, depending on how many there are in a room. Helen can take six. She can also take on the most dangerous threats,” Mary said. “But after last night—”
“Last night was lovely,” Helen said. “I needed last night.”
“You’re running out of clean outfits to wear,” Mary said. “You need to stop tearing them apart. Leave the inside parts of them inside them. For the sake of your wardrobe.”
Nora watched as Helen pouted.
“I like my wardrobe—I’ll miss the dress with the blue trim and the ruffly straps. But I also like inside bits.”
Mary covered her mouth, “We know where Sylvester is—”
She dropped her hand, then continued, “Given time constraints, if you come, we can’t be waiting ten minutes for Lacey to go and buy something else for you to wear. And we can’t be walking down the street in broad daylight with you dripping blood. You need to stay clean and tidy.”
Another pout, “You’re making me fight with both hands tied behind my back.”
Lillian dryly commented, “I saw you kill someone last night with just your legs. I know for a fact you can very literally kill people with both hands tied behind your back.”
“My fingers weren’t behind my back, they were in the other man’s eye sockets, silly. That’s leverage for twisting around and moving!”
“It’s true,” Mary said.
“Don’t. No, enough of that,” Lillian cut in. “When you two gang up on me, bad things happen.”
Nora felt out of place. The Lambs were made for this. Ashton and Helen and Lillian and Sylvester and even Mary had been made to do these things. But Nora and Lara and the others had been made to avoid trouble. They had been made fearful by nature so they would stay alive and be available to send messages if they were needed. They had been made dangerous and given weapons so they could protect themselves if cornered, not so they could pursue and chase and attack.
Lillian spoke with some authority. “Consensus, then, is that you’re lead, Mary, I come as a just-in-case, maybe I take out one or two or make a distraction, Helen comes and doesn’t get her clothes dirty, and Lacey stays with Nora?”
“Yes,” Mary said.
“I’m coming under protest,” Helen said. “I’m not even that fond of this dress. Ibbot bought it. Now I think about things he said every time I wear it.”
“You only have two other dresses,” Mary said. “And for all we know, we might have to get on a train to keep up with Sylvester. We might not have time to shop for clothes.”
“I’ll make do,” Helen said, firmly.
Lillian looked at Lacey and rolled her eyes.
“You’re okay here?” Lillian asked Nora and the older woman, as she bent down to access her case.
“I think we’ll manage,” Lacey said.
“Okay,” Lillian said. “Give me a hand?”
Nora watched as Lacey helped Lillian put on the sleeves. They were arms, much like the ones that might belong to a brutish stitched, but there was little fat to them, only skin and muscle, with supporting structures. Lillian winced a bit as she pushed her hands inside. She flexed the meaty hands on the ends.
She then moved her hands, flexing them as far back as they could, until the wrists stuck out further forward than the fingers, and syringe needles sprouted from the center of each palm.
Nora managed to keep from jumping.
Lillian moved one needle to her upper arm, and injected herself. She closed her eyes and let her head hang, before taking a deep breath.
Lillian wasn’t even an experiment. She was smart, she was courageous, and she knew some Academy science, but she was human. She still chose to go into danger.
Nora wasn’t sure she’d ever understand that. She envied it.
“We’ll be back soon,” Lillian said. “About…”
“Ten to fifteen minutes,” Mary said.
“About that long. Then we’ll have up-to-date information on what the Devil is doing. His people have been doing a bit too good of a job finding us, so let’s hope we can cut that short.”
“Or cut him short,” Mary said.
Lillian winced. “Or that. I hate the feeling we’re playing into Sylvester’s hands by getting embroiled in this.”
“But you also hate the fact that this is a scumbag of the highest order,” Mary said. “One that hurts kids and sells very sketchy drugs.”
“It’s not that they’re sketchy. It’s that I know what some of those drugs are, and he shouldn’t have them, or anything close to them,” Lillian said. “So for now, we’re on the same page.”
“Kill the Devil, then find Sy,” Helen said. “I want dibs on the Devil.”
“We’ve already made the rules,” Mary said. “No dibs. It makes for ugly kinds of competition.”
“But it’s romantic,” Helen said. “Imagine being able to say the Devil was brought down by the power of love.”
“Constriction and strangulation? Disembowelment? By having someone reach inside him and cause severe internal damage?” Mary asked.
“I prefer to say it’s defeat by hug,” Helen said, prim and proud, “It’s a politer, neater phrasing.”
“You’re not getting dibs,” Mary said.
The three girls walked off.
“Finally, a quiet moment,” Lacey said.
Nora wasn’t sure she was happy with the quiet moment. She wanted to hear from Lara and know that Lara was okay. Talking made her feel less anxious.
“Can I see your eyes?” Lacey asked.
Nora stepped into shadow and lowered her hood. She looked up at Lacey. She didn’t need to be prompted to move her eyes, looking up, then over, then the other direction, then down. She pulled her lower eyelids down, then her upper eyelids up.
“Good. The sun exposure wasn’t too much.”
“Gets easier,” Nora said.
“Filaments and hair are fine?”
Nora touched her head. She nodded.
“Claws?”
She flexed her hands without pulling the sleeves down. She nodded.
“Good,” Lacey said. “I wish they were all more like you.”
“I wish I was more like them.”
“Dangerous road to go down, in more than one way,” Lacey said. “Tough and often short life to lead. That’s one. Trying to be something you’re not? I’ve s
een too many people burn themselves out like that. You have to have faith in yourself.”
“I do. I just know what my self is. I was made to do something, I do it. I’m good at that.”
“I can tell you, Nora, that I’ve seen a lot of projects start out as one idea and then become something else, as the situation demands.”
“As the Academy demands.”
“Yes. Sometimes. Lillian’s sleeves there are one of those things, but it was her needs and demands that shaped what she was doing.”
A male voice cut in, “and I’m another example, aren’t I, Lacey?”
Nora froze, and immediately began signaling to Lara.
Sylvester! Sylvester! Sylvester! Sylvester! Sylvester! Sylvester!
Lacey, meanwhile, reached to her hip, turning her head, looking for the source of the voice.
“Don’t draw the gun, Lacey. Let’s not make this that kind of encounter. I’ve got a gas grenade, and civilians would get hurt, and… I’m just here to talk.”
Sylvester! Sylvester! Sylvester! Where?
Up.
Nora looked up. She saw two feet extended somewhere above her head, owned by a figure that was sitting in the windowsill.
Sylvester! Sylvester!
-Coming!- Lara replied.
Lacey followed Nora’s line of sight, sighed, and put the gun back at her waistband, extending her hands to show that they were empty.
Sylvester looked down, peeking, and then hopped down from the second floor. Nora winced at his imminent, fast approach, felt fear response mechanisms throughout her body kick into action. He landed, pivoted, and came to a stop with his back resting against the wall in front of them. He held up the canister.
She could attack. She should attack. She had the weapons. They could run from the canister.
“You look so nice with the hood down,” Sylvester said.
Nora remained silent. She looked at the boy, who was younger than Lillian. He wore dark slacks tucked into summer boots, a white button up shirt with some buttons undone, and the sleeves rolled up. A mix of sweat and oils made his black hair look wet. It had been neat not long ago, but the loose curls were pricking up, like a dozen or two dozen black fishhooks. His nose and chin were sharp, cheekbones noticeable, and eyebrows arched.
His eyes were penetrating and predatory in a way that exaggerated what she’d seen on some other people’s faces on the street, yet he wasn’t trying to threaten. Just the opposite. He avoided eye contact, turned his shoulders so he wasn’t even facing her.