by John Shirley
She'd been trained for tough interrogations; she'd been trained to withstand torture, to think of it as an accident, like breaking your leg; to not get emotionally identified with it. She was trained to deal with it as much as anyone could be.
But when Loraine thought of that eye-tipped tendril, jabbing into her forehead...
Her stomach curled up inside her like a child shrinking away from a beating.
She heard footsteps behind her and froze, afraid it was Forsythe again. After a moment she smelled an aftershave she recognized, a honeysuckle smell, and she relaxed a little. “Dr. Helman.”
“Loraine, would you come with me, please? Oh, and—gentlemen, you may stand down.”
She turned and saw that, beyond Helman, the two black berets were approaching—the two who'd escorted the women into that courtyard.
“Sir,” the scowling one said, “General Forsythe—”
“No need for you to come along, Corporal.” Helman was trying to sound commanding but his voice was a bit shrill, his hands trembling. He seemed to realize this and put his hands too casually into his coat pockets. The coat was rumpled, as if he hadn't changed out of it, and dark smudges were under his eyes. “You may check with the general if you like. But it seems pointless—I've had full authority here all this time.”
The guards stared, but didn't try to stop them when Loraine followed Dr. Helman out of the cafeteria. She and Helman walked in silence down the hall—toward Building 4, Containment. Was he going to lock her up?
“You look as if you had as rough a night as I did,” she said. Trying to remind him that they were** caught up in CCA together.
“Certain things...” His voice was almost a whisper. He looked over his shoulder before he went on. “Certain things have come to my attention. I'm a bit alarmed. I'm afraid we may be in danger of... digressing from our real purpose, here. We've just lost two containees. And the manner in which...” He broke off, shaking his head. “You'll see.”
They passed through a metal door, overseen by a whirring camera, into Building 4. A yawning black-haired woman, a medic, was chatting with two black berets at the administration desk. “No need, no need,” Helman said, waving them away impatiently, when one of them started toward him.
He led Loraine down a side corridor, to a door marked 17-B3. He took a small device like an automatic car-door opener from his pocket, pointed it at the lock, and the door clicked, stood slightly open. Immediately, Loraine caught the familiar smell of a dead body, from inside.
He held the door open. “An unpleasant sight, I'm afraid.”
She stepped into the room...and found Conrad Pflug, Scribbler, sitting on his bunk, his back against the wall in the corner. And quite dead.
His arms were limp, palms turned upward, wrists messily torn open. A red-ink pen was still stuck halfway into the wound of his left arm—he'd used it to gouge open his veins, with such force she could see torn tendons. Scribbler's bulging, unblinking eyes stared into hers. The smell of death was in the room, sweet and ugly.
Loraine felt sick with sadness, looking at him.
“I haven't shown this to anyone else,” Helman said dully. “I have my reasons.” He sighed. “Conrad was already quite agitated. Threatening suicide. Really could not bear confinement here. Then Forsythe went in to interrogate him. I believe the general used the same methods on you. And...well, this is the result. You were stronger than Scribbler. What I really wanted to show you was this—on the wall here.”
Lines were written at a steep angle down the wall in shaky, thin, red ballpoint ink...mixed with something else.
“I gave him the red pen...and some paper. Hoping he might prophesy for us. He chose to write ow the walls...in his own blood, as he was dying.”
Most of the lines were illegible. All she could make out clearly was the door stands cracked, chain still holds. Hand in a puppet reaches through. Helman obsolete. Outliving his usefulness. When he dies, the President taken puppeteer has two hands... the Wilderness howls... CCA is a wasp nest in the walls... Sean Bleak and Forsythe will...
There was one more line—but she couldn't quite read it. Was it tear down the wall?
“It sounds...like you might be at risk, Doctor,” Loraine said. Thinking, through her distress, that this might be a chance to forge an alliance with Helman.
“Without doubt.” Helman's voice seemed slightly bleary, as if he'd been drinking. “Gulcher warned me too. And...there have been other indications. I had a session with Krasnoff this morning— he tried to warn me. Said he sawthings. Warned me about Forsythe. Krasnoff said a curious thing— that he was warning me because he didn't hate the USA! Come along.”
She was grateful to leave the cell. It reeked of death.
Helman relocked it, and they went three doors down. She walked along, still feeling sick. Remembering when she'd massaged Scribbler's hand. What a vulnerable little man he'd seemed. Eager to be of use. But most of the time simply wanting to be left alone...and he ended up here, tearing at his wrists with a red pen.
Dr. Helman opened room 20-B3. Krasnoff was lying in a fetal position, in a puddle of blood on the floor. His wrists had been raggedly ripped open—the ends of bedsprings had been used. It must have taken a while.
“Oh, God,” she muttered, her gorge rising.
“Nothing else to see in there,” Helman murmured sadly, closing the door. “I'm told Forsythe took Billy Blunt in there, just after I left. I believe he induced Krasnoff to kill himself. Because he was aware that Krasnoff had warned me about what Forsythe had become...didn't want him talking to anyone else.”
“Are there others killed this way?” Loraine asked, feeling shaky.
“Not that I know of. But come along.”
They left Building 4, and passed through a windowless passage between buildings. In Building 3p he opened another door for her, Room 32, and escorted her inside.
The medium-small room was barren of furniture. Intricate magical symbols, geometric and calligraphic sigils, marked the gray-painted walls, ceiling, and floor, in black, red, and silver.
Helman looked broodingly around. “This was Forsythe's project—this room. He spent years researching the symbols, the rituals. He went far outside our protocols to do it. He decided that to really get control of the country, we needed access to the most powerful entities in the Hidden. We could learn to control them...perhaps through ShadowComm.”
Looking around at the symbols on the walls, the floor, Loraine felt a distinct inner pinching. What had happened here? She remembered the experiment notations Helman had shown her on the transport plane.
“I knew Forsythe 'when,'“ Helman went on, chuckling, tracing one of the diagrams on the wall with an index finger. “His uncle Seymour had run MK Omega's remote-viewing project. Patriot Act surveillance turned up more and more evidence of the Shadow Community—I was working in Special Interrogations for the CIA and came upon the ShadowComm files. It was data collected by an earlier paranormal-control program—the beginnings of CCA, though it was called something different then. They'd found Gabriel Bleak's family—and the boy they took to a special Remote Viewer facility. Sean Bleak. And what incredible potential there was in those files! We imagined what real control of magic could do for this country...especially in protecting us from terrorism. I took it to Forsythe, and together we pitched CCA to the Pentagon's Domestic Defense branch, and we got a pretty decent budget...And after the terrorist attack on Miami our budget doubled.”
Helman seemed to be trying to understand, himself, how he'd come to this. “And when we found the artifact in the north—oh, my dear, it presented intriguing possibilities. We could have the power of magic—but restrict it so no one else had it. I thought it might be best done electronically—give selected ShadowComm recruits a device that electronically sheltered them from the artifact. Forsythe had another plan—the specialized use of Unconventionally Bodied allies. A plan which I'm only just beginning to grasp fully. I thought! understood it.” He shook his he
ad. “I was for it when you and I had that little conference, where you met Sean, but...ah, well.”
Helman walked to the center of the room, squatted by a pentagram etched in silver on the floor, touching the lines wonderingly with the tips of his fingers. “Some of the Joint Chiefs argued for just repairing the artifact and reburying it. Those two thorns in our side, Erlich and Swanson, kept at us. But Forsythe had the ear of the president. Forsythe knew Breslin was headed for disaster, next election. So Forsythe suggested that the president might not have to have another election. And Breslin agreed. He made some deals, tripled our budget, gave us new access. Time to give the country a new direction.”
“Not just a temporary suspension of elections? President-for-life?”
“Yes. His philosophy of governance was ours. Strict social control. But without military backing, president-for-life can't be done. They're an authoritarian bunch at the Pentagon—but most of them are quite sentimental about our so-called democracy. I felt we had to turn the corner, leave the old style of government behind, to make sure America was really safe. I had family who died in Miami. Oh, yes. To me, a truly controlled society seemed like a wonderful chance to close up every rat-hole terrorists could use to get in the country, you see. We could use magic to close those rat-holes—and to give us the power to counterbalance the military. To control people like Erlich and Swanson, through Gulcher...so that the military would not oppose Breslin's new role.”
“As dictator.” She couldn't keep the disgust out of her voice.
“It really has such an unsavory sound when you say it! Well—we didn't have enough influence, enough power, to pull off a real coup. Not militarily. But magically! We might do it that way. It was exciting—a chance to remake the world!” Helman stood up. “But it's tainted now, all tainted. General Forsythe is under the complete control of a UBE—I'm convinced of it. It was his idea, after he engaged in the contact rituals in this room, to bring the elements together for the Opening ritual. But now I see it wasn't in fact his idea at all. It seems he's been...been taken over by something, by this thing he calls the Great Wrath, what the Tradition calls Moloch.” Helman grimaced, shook his head. “Whatever its agenda really is, it's not the interests of the United States of America.”
Loraine heard herself laughing softly, bitterly. “Really. You think? 'Not in the interests of the USA.' You thought you could work with the thing that looked into my mind? I looked back at 'Moloch,' Dr. Helman. I looked into that abyss. That thing has no thought of working with you. Or anyone else! Any more than you care what a chicken has on its mind before you order it slaughtered and fried.” She took a long, ragged breath. Forced away the memory of the lamprey mouths, the probing eye...
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse. “I believe you're right, my dear. You know,” he added dreamily, “in ancient times, Moloch demanded of his worshippers that they place their firstborn child into the heated brass hands of his idol... and the child burned alive there, as enormous drums beat so the parents would not have to hear their infant's screams. Yes. I have been...naive.” He turned her a heavy-lidded, feverish look, like that of a man sleepwalking through a nightmare. “Something to tell you...shouldn't be telling you this, Loraine. But—Forsythe saw your real feelings, in your mind—in your little session with Forsythe. He will not”—Helman yawned, rubbed his eyes—”not let you leave here alive. Remember that.” He shook himself, straightened, seemed to rally, looking at her more forcefully. “You need me—and I need someone I can work with. To stop Forsythe before he gives everything we've worked for...to that thing. Before he...who knows?...gives our infants to burn in Moloch's hands.”
“You want to stop him—now?” She couldn't help needling him in her bitterness. “Now that you're rethinking treason?”
He was faintly surprised. “Treason? I didn't see it as treason. I thought of it as the ultimate loyalty. But...Forsythe knows I've changed my mind...that I oppose the Opening.” He stared into space—and shrugged. “It appears that if I don't get out in time, I'm going to die here. Right here in this building. Look.” He opened his coat, showing a small automatic pistol in a rather petite shoulder holster. “Rarely carry them. But I've brought the .25 along—since I found the bodies.” He sighed. “Doubt I could hit much with it.”
“You've suspected for a while. The report you showed me—Forsythe's account...”
“I suspected. But I made up my mind that I was wrong—because being right meant the entire project had gone to hell. So I talked myself into believing that Forsythe's agenda was exactly as he said it was. Only—having talked to Gulcher and having seen what I have seen, and now the murders of Krasnoff and Pflug, valuable containees... I knew. It's more than a suspicion now.” He yawned. “I feel sleepy. Isn't that odd? With all that's happened?”
She was thinking about something he'd said. “Bring the elements together for the Opening ritual.”
It all came together for her then, with what he'd said in the conference room, that day. “A special work with Gabriel Bleak. “ Helman had told her. “Sean and Gabriel Bleak. The elements for the ritual!”
Helman nodded. “Yes. To bring Moloch.” “But the artifact...”
“We need the artifact—even Moloch needs it, once he's here. It has weakened its output enough that he can come partway into our world—think of it as a crack in the hull of a ship. A giant squid reaches through the crack—one tentacle, controlling Forsythe. Two, controlling Gulcher—though not as directly. Then three: third tentacle shows itself with influences here—like Gulcher, all that he's done—and that man in New Jersey, flinging fire about. A whole darker kind of ShadowComm, prompted by Moloch. But Forsythe wanted to use the Bleak brothers to open it the rest of the way...to let the whole beast in. And he wants to use the Wall of Force—to close that opening behind it. Keep the other entities out...so it can control our world alone. No help from the spirits of light, no competition from other demons. That which has kept it at bay—will then keep it strong. I must move
about, try to wake up a bit.” Helman stretched, like a man getting out of bed, then began to walk wobblingly back and forth in the small space, so that she had to retreat to a corner to get out of his way. “I had been told that this Moloch entity would be controlled by Gulcher. Ironic, since clearly it has a great influence over him. But of course Moloch will allow no control over it at all.” Helman's voice had started to fade as if he were slipping into a reverie.
“Suppose we went to General Erlich, and to Congress...would you testify about all this? I mean —in a closed session?”
“Oh...if the chance comes. If it...but I'm beginning to feel... that it won't... that all my chances are over...” The words just trailed off.
Then he crossed to the door and pointed the controller at it, and the door clicked within itself. “Are you locking someone out—or me in?”
He looked at the controller in confusion. “I'm not precisely sure...why I did that. But the door is locked...can only be unlocked with another...” His voice faded again and he leaned against a wall, loosening his tie with one hand, sinking down to sit in a corner. “Do you know what I really wanted to go into, as a career?”
She looked at the door. Was it really locked from the inside? “No—what?”
“Horticulture. My father, you see—he had a large nursery. Raised flowers, of all kinds, for florists. And I rather liked it. It's why I wear those ties, with the flowers on them, hand-painted, you know. But father was ambitious for me. He pushed me to use my talents 'for the greater good'—go into government research. And then I drifted into...intelligence...1...” He seemed decidedly dreamy now. Adding wistfully, “I wonder if I should have stuck with... raising flowers.”
She went and tried the door. Locked. “Dr. Helman? Why did you lock the door?”
“To tell you the truth...I don't know. I felt under a sort of...compulsion to do it...and I'm so tired... I only wish... to sit here and...”
Then his eyes became glassy, and he stared
silently off into space.
“Give me the door opener you used. Will you please? Doctor?”
He opened his hand. There it was. She took it, turned to unlock the door. “It won't work, now,” he said. “The door won't open.” And it didn't.
***
“YOU PEOPLE KEEP TELLING me I'm lucky to be here,” Gulcher growled. “Like I'm—what does Helman say?—'empowered' by CCA. But trapped is more like it.”
They were in the windowless conference room, the same one that Dr. Helman and Sean and Loraine had used, Gulcher sitting at the table, a suppressor thrumming behind him, Forsythe standing.
“It's what ya call a matter of perspective,” Forsythe said. “Now—I'm going to bring in our guests. When we turn off the suppressor, don't you allow yourself to be distracted by the surge in connectivity. You've gotta focus. So far, I can't do much to help. It's up to you and Billy.”
So far. Gulcher wondered what he meant by that. But aloud he said, “We got to have that sick little kid in on this? I don't like the smell of him.”
“You bet 'we got to,'“ Forsythe said, winking. Just like a human being would. “That little dickens is my pride and joy.”
A beeping sounded, and Forsythe checked a PDA. “Ah—they're here. Hold yourself good and quiet, there, Troy, till we've got them in hand.”
A minute later two generals in full uniform came in. The stocky one, General Erlich, according to his name tag, had thin white hair, a comb-over, a bulldog face, was maybe sixty; the taller, stooped one, General Swanson, had a craggy face, the kind of guy with hair growing out of his nose and ears. Both of them glanced at Gulcher as if they didn't like the look of him, though he was cleaned up and wearing a white formal shirt and some slick trousers. Behind the generals came Drake Zweig, their escort; Zweig seemed to be sucking food out of his teeth as he came—maybe just ate his lunch. Which reminded Gulcher he hadn't had any yet. But his stomach was flighty, nervous. With the suppressor on, he wasn't sure where he stood. But he knew he was going to look for a chance to use his power in some way these bastards didn't expect. And he knew it could all go sideways. Bringing that kid Billy in here was dealing a wild card. “He'll be there just to make sure,” Forsythe had said, earlier. One of them would control Swanson, the other Erlich. Both an experiment and a method for getting rid of “obstacles,” Forsythe said. Killing two birds with one stone.