by wildbow
“It’s insane,” Lillian said.
“That’s unfair and at this particular moment, it’s unwarranted,” I said.
Nevermind the phantoms, or Mauer standing on the other end of the room, or my growing concern over what Fray was doing in my head. Even Evette was watching the proceedings.
Lillian spoke, shaking her head, “I don’t want to put you in a bad position, but you have to see that this is too much. You’re asking for too much.”
“No. It’s just enough. I have to believe it’s enough.”
The conversation seemed to die with that. People on the fringes of the room, well out of earshot, were shuffling around, some getting up to get fruit or bowls of oatmeal from the kitchen.
Rudy still sat in the corner like a doll that had had its limbs and face smashed against the rocks, slightly slouched, enduring what had to be agony and frustration. His gaze was fixed and serious.
Couldn’t disappoint him. We’d spent so much to get to where we had Berger. I wasn’t going to give him up like this.
I could see the student council, and I reminded myself that Davis was put out by the fact that I’d stolen his moment and his leadership out from under him, when he had been trying to negotiate with the Lambs.
I could fall from grace just as easily.
Bea was with the delinquents, normally the loudest bunch of students, and she’d managed to get the table quiet, so their din wouldn’t disturb our conversation.
The disturbance might have been welcome, frankly.
“If I may?” Berger asked.
“Please,” Lillian said.
“I can’t help but notice I’m sitting at this table while you discuss this. Among you all, discussion of loyalty, of action against the Crown…”
He trailed off, but the tone of his voice was an ominous one.
I spoke, “You know what’s at stake. You know we’re reasonably reasonable. If you step in to provide any interim surgery or alterations to help the Lambs, then we’d be literally putting our lives in your hands. We need to get to the point where the nation isn’t at risk.”
“I could turn you in the moment I’m out of your custody.”
“But you won’t,” I said. “We need you on the same page as us.”
Berger didn’t respond to that, his face a mask.
“If you had to take someone, and I’m not saying this is a solution or an answer, I’d tell you to take Helen,” Lillian said.
“Helen needs care. She’s asking for advanced care in every way except saying it outright, and knowing her, I’m not convinced she hasn’t asked and been ignored. I’m suggesting that she stay behind because I don’t know if we can give her that care. Given time, it becomes a time sink. Finding professors to work with who can even begin to understand her. Getting surgeries done, evading authorities after the fact.”
“Are we even really entertaining this?” Duncan asked. “No offense, Sy, no offense Jessie.”
Possum and the retinue of kitchen workers were venturing out of the kitchen now, with mugs and plates.
“I’d like to think we’re entertaining it, but I’m biased,” I said.
“I don’t like it as an idea,” Duncan said. “But I like the Lambs being together, and I… I suppose I respect you not being part of the core group, even if I don’t like it.”
And with that statement to punctuate things, breakfast was served. People milled about, providing this and that, there was light, polite conversation, and some posturing by Mary and the other Lambs, as foreign, hostile agents in this strange, isolated little world that Jessie and I had hewn together.
“I need fresh air,” I said.
I left my plate half-touched, and I accepted assistance from Bea, who stood behind my seat.
“Ashton, guard him?”
“I’m being guarded by Ashton?”
Ashton collected what looked to be the most colorful assortment of food items he could find, and gathered them up together in one fist so he could move chairs and open doors. Countless eyes were on him and me when we made our way to the front door.
We settled off to the right of the door. I leaned against the wall, being ginger and careful with the wound that seemed to have taken my entire back, and I fished for and found a cigarette.
Ashton provided the match.
The noise inside had crept up in volume since my exit. People were discussing, no doubt keeping an eye on the interlopers, trying to reason out relationships and patterns.
“I have phantoms in my head representing most of the Lambs,” I said. “My Ashton-phantom isn’t the strongest. I don’t think I know you as well as I could.”
“I’m not very complicated,” Ashton said.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s an outright lie.”
“It’s rude to call someone a liar,” Ashton said.
“What if it’s a compliment in disguise as a lie?” I asked.
“I think that’s silly. If you’re going to compliment, then compliment. White lies are alright, but that’s something else.”
“Black lies too,” I pointed out.
“Those aren’t a thing.”
“And green lies. And yellow lies.”
“I don’t think those are things, Sylvester.”
I puffed on my cigarette, thinking.
“Thank you for not messing up my hair,” Ashton said. “You’ve done it most of the times you’ve spent alone with me.”
“Yeah, Ash,” I said. “To be honest, I sorta had this feeling that I’d made a promise, but couldn’t remember, so I avoided it to stay safe.”
“Oh,” he said. He turned his focus toward the camp. “Yes, you did. You promised me, the second to last time you saw me.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You also pledged to be more like Good Simon and to read the books. And you said you’d do your best to act like Sadie and I got very frustrated and you wouldn’t listen. Now I know you were teasing me, but I didn’t realize it at the time.”
I narrowed my eyes even further.
“I’m telling a lie,” Ashton said.
“So I gathered,” I said. “That was good.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m having a very hard time resisting messing up your hair,” I told him.
He smiled, looking for all the world like he didn’t care. If I hadn’t known better, I might have accused him of being intentionally smug, simply to rub it in deeper.
“Sylvester,” Ashton said.
“Yes, Ashton?”
“Some people have goals, and some people have drives and mostly everyone everywhere is pushed or pulled by something. I’ve been thinking for a long time about this, and I’m thinking very hard about you in particular.”
“Sure, Ash.”
“I thought at first you were one, and then I thought you were the other, and now it feels like you’re both. Except it’s all in different directions. Are you trying to move in two directions at once by recruiting one of the Lambs? Or is this the whole goal, and are you hoping that by bringing two Lambs with you you’ll eventually have us all?”
“That last one isn’t the goal, Ashton. I just like being around the Lambs. It feels like home. I care about them and want to take care of them. I worry when I can’t see you guys. I worry when I can, like with Helen or with Mary being as angry as she is.”
“That’s just when you’re around or when we’re hunting you,” Ashton said.
Blunt, authentic honesty. Painful, but appreciated nonetheless.
“I’d like to fix that,” I said. “I’d like to make sure Helen gets the attention she needs.”
“Oh,” Ashton said.
“You disagree?”
“No. I was just thinking that we’re the only ones of a very small number who pay enough attention to Helen. And you know enough to do something about it. I can tell Duncan but I don’t think it comes across right, once the idea has gone from one shelf of my brain to another to my mouth and then to him and his understanding
.”
“I wish I could have taught you stuff,” I told Ashton.
“Well,” Ashton said, sounding put-off, “It would help if you answered the important questions I ask you.”
“What’s my goal?”
“What’s your direction?”
“Fray asked me that question a long, long time ago, when I was the same size you are now,” I told Ashton.
“What did you say?”
“Faith,” I told him. “I was pushing forward out of faith that the Lambs could be what we needed. That Lillian could.”
“Oh.”
“That feeling is still there. I want this to be true and good, but I’m not sure I trust myself. Only around Jessie—Jessie is resilient and patient, Ashton. She doesn’t put up with my guff. Everything else around me that isn’t resilient, I just break or taint.”
“But you’ve been making all of this happen,” he said.
“I’ve been trying. I was hoping to do something big with it. I have a powerful piece of information, I have hundreds of people working on my behalf, and once the message gets out, I think that number will swell. I have protection for my people and for friends… and I have very little time.”
“None of us do. Mary keeps having to get surgery, but she doesn’t like to talk about it. Lillian and Duncan might get their white coats, which might mean they have other things to do that isn’t being a Lamb, or they might not get their white coats and that might mean they stop being Lambs. Helen isn’t doing well and Ibbot isn’t treating her well. He keeps on isolating her and keeping her in the lab with him.”
“Sounds about right,” I said. I was trying to keep my tone casual, despite the fact that none of this was pleasant to hear.
“But you’re mostly okay, except for the seeing things, and Jessie’s okay, so it could be worse,” Ashton said.
I’m not okay. Neither is Jessie.
“If you want to do this ‘something big’, then you should do it while there’s time,” Ashton said.
“But,” I said, taking a puff on the cigarette. “Being expedient would mean snatching you up. Having Mary helps with any follow-up.”
“I think maybe the others aren’t so happy with that idea,” Ashton said.
“Mary isn’t interested,” I said. “It’s asking too much.”
“Yes.”
“Yeah,” I said.
The disappointment was poignant.
“Lillian is out.”
“I think kidnapping Lillian again would be a very bad idea,” Ashton said.
“Yeah,” I said. My heart was heavy at the thought. “I won’t get much use from Duncan that I don’t already get.”
“Yes,” Ashton said.
“Leaving Helen, with all the associated warts and time-consuming hassles.”
“It’s possible,” Ashton said.
I shifted position, giving Ashton a more careful glance. He wore very tidy clothes, his pants tucked into his boots, shirt buttoned up with suspenders and a pocketwatch, his hair burnished red.
“What?” he asked.
“Just thinking… I have vague recollections of sleeping on the floor in your lab, sleeping odd hours, trying to gauge the time, hiding when people came in to check on your predecessor, and then walking over to the notepad to see what they wrote down, usually with the time.”
“Okay,” Ashton said.
“Would you be willing to give me a hand? Maybe a bit more? I’m thinking I know a way to make this work a little more tidily.”
“Oh,” Ashton said. “That’s good.”
“Come on,” I said.
I led him back inside.
I was very aware that conversations that were in full swing died as my bootheels tromped on the floor. I approached the table in the center of the room where the Lambs were eating.
“Final offer,” I said.
Jessie put her face in her hands again.
“This is a good one,” I said. “Helen, with us. We get her attention and care, as best as we’re available. We get a little… flexibility in terms of how we operate.”
“Why do I have a bad feeling?” Lillian asked.
“And, downgrading my previous offer,” I said. “Instead of asking for two Lambs, I’ll ask for one and a half.”
“Half?” Jessie asked, without moving her face. “Are you speaking of the new Lambs, who aren’t fully inducted?”
“Not in the slightest. I’m talking about a literal half of Ashton.”
“Oh,” Ashton said. “When you talked about me giving you a hand—you are a worse person than Sadie is, Sylvester, and Sadie is a caricature.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Mary said.
Helen wasn’t an easy creature to read. Her expressions didn’t betray much, she didn’t have body language so much as she deliberately posed at a given moment, but all the same, the phantom that lingered near her seemed calmer, the agitation of the finger or the eye movement that twitched where it shouldn’t.
But with me offering to bring her onboard, with the interplay, and most likely with a dozen other factors I wasn’t yet aware of, I sensed that she was calmer and better than before.
“You’re a bad person, Sylvester,” Ashton said.
“But you’re not saying no,” I said.
A half-dozen Lambs seated at the table jumped in to protest on Ashton’s behalf.
“If you must,” Ashton said, very stoic. “But don’t chop too much of me off. I have people I want to help too.”
Previous Next
Gut Feeling—17.6
“Alright,” I said. “How about this? Right hand, two-foot section of his stomach, skin, of course, and a section of his face and-or scalp.”
“Why are we back to the midsection?” Lillian asked.
“I like my face and-or scalp,” Ashton said.
“We’re back to the midsection because you’re vetoing the drus nodes.”
“The nodes are too blatant,” Duncan said, sounding very tired.
“I like my face and-or scalp,” Ashton said, with emphasis.
I leaned forward. “I hear you, Ashton.”
“Good. Because my creators worked very hard and I needed some extra luck to get a good face. I like my hair too and I’m worried if you take any of my scalp then it will be like messing up my hair but for good. I’m cute.”
“He is cute,” Helen said.
“Exactly,” Ashton said. “Being cute means Helen and girls like Helen like to hug me, and hugs are warm, safe, and strategically important. I don’t want to not be cute because you’re a bad person.”
Berger leaned back. “Strategically important.”
“It means his spores are working,” Jessie said.
“That was less of a question,” Berger said. “And more of a realization, far too early in the morning, that I’m sitting where I’m sitting.”
“Where else would you be sitting?” Ashton asked.
“Hold on, we’re getting off track,” I said. “How big of a danger is it really, that this hurts Ashton long-term?”
“Minimal to negligible,” Duncan said. “He’s got good bones, so to speak. There would be a recovery period, but after that he would be fine.”
“I would still like to veto,” Ashton said. “Sylvester has been messing with my hair too much. I’d like to nominate my heart for the cutting board, instead.”
“I’m fifty percent sure that would kill you, Ashton,” Lillian said. She looked to Duncan, “You’re the Ashton expert. The mucus membrane only had a point-eight translation rate, didn’t it?”
“Did,” Duncan said. “It’s point-eight-two now, they substituted in the gland from one of the failed alternate projects because it had a higher rate. Downside is Ashton complains about dry skin a lot more than he did.”
“They got around to that, then. Point eight-two, three or more days of travel, would be… survivable but exceedingly uncomfortable for those three or more days.”
“He doesn’t particularly care,”
Duncan said.
“I don’t particularly care,” Ashton echoed. “I prefer this. This is my suggestion.”
I spoke, “I suggested the face and scalp because it would be visible and hard to ignore. Carving out the kid’s heart would do a good job, except it doesn’t really help with actually doing what I’m shooting for here.”
“I suggested it because I thought it would be nice and visible and Sylvester cares about the visible,” Ashton said.
“I would rather not,” Lillian said. “Not the heart, not if something could go wrong while we’re traveling back home, delaying us. There are too many things going on in this country and in this region.”
“You’re vetoing a perfectly good heart, Ashton’s not letting me have a bit of his face or scalp, you’re saying taking the drus nodes would be too obvious. So we’re back to a limb or two—”
“One limb,” Lillian said.
“I’m getting one limb, and you’re wondering why I keep going back to a nice ten or so pounds of what Ashton’s got in his middle?”
“Hold on one second,” Lillian said. “Ten pounds?”
“Work with me here,” I said.
“You’re wanting to butcher a Lamb like he’s sitting on the chopping block. Some resistance is to be expected,” Lillian said.
“I’m just saying, I started off this argument very reasonably asking for a whole Ashton and a whole Mary. You’re the ones that are raising the stakes here in a very weird and bizarre way.”
“Yes,” Mary said, dry, “We’re the ones being weird and bizarre.”
“You are! I mean, it’s not often that I try to bargain with someone and they’re changing the terms in ever more disfavorable ways for themselves.”
“Disfavorable as a word hurts me,” Jessie said.
“It’s fine, I’m sure it’s a legitimate word,” I told her.
“You’re the one that started us on the topic of cutting Ashton up,” Lillian said.
“Yes, and I started off with a very reasonable suggestion of one whole limb, one partial limb, and forty percent of his skin. We can leave his face alone. I’m not an Academy-trained student or doctor or anything—”
“As evidenced by the fact that the Crown States aren’t a blighted crater,” Mary said.