Dead Waters

by Anton Strout

  “Do they actually teach you anything in Other Division?” Wesker asked, stomping his way toward his office in the red-lit hallways of the Department. “Or is it always free-range chaos over there?”

  “That didn’t fit on our business cards,” I said. “ ‘Other Division’ did.”

  Wesker turned to me with a hard glare in his eyes. He went to speak, stopped himself, and then threw open his office door and headed over to a workbench on the right side of the room. The lights and power flickered on both in his office and out in the hall.

  Connor put his hand on my shoulder. “Not the time, kid.” He walked over to Director Wesker, who was busy flicking on a magnifying work lamp on top of the workstation as he set the film reel down. “What can you tell us?”

  “What I could tell you would fill up volumes,” he sneered, still fuming.

  “Hey,” Connor snapped. “This is the first time either of us has ever been attacked by a living film, so give us a break, okay? I’d say it was a first for you, also.”

  Wesker turned back to the half-unspooled reel of film and set to examining it. “I’ve at least heard of people experimenting with this before. It’s a bit of a Holy Grail among film buffs with an interest in arcana, but I’ve never actually heard of anyone accomplishing it.” He stretched a length of the filmstrip between both of his hands and held it up under the lens. He moved it up and down to watch it as if running it through a projector. “Interesting.”

  I moved closer to study the strip over his shoulder, despite the aura of go-away still radiating off of him. “What is?”

  He pushed the arm holding the lens over toward me, keeping the film in place underneath it. “Look closer and tell me what’s missing.”

  I studied several of the individual frames, all of them from the end section of the film. The spliced-in section that contained bits of other horror movies was familiar with fields of grass covered with half-dug-up graves in each panel, but I realized what was missing from each and every one of them.

  “The professor and the zombies,” I said. “They’re all gone.”

  “Exactly,” Wesker said, lying the piece down on the reel. “This section should be filled with dozens of zombies from the film, but now they’re no longer there.”

  “Of course they’re not,” Connor added. “Why should they be? All of them died in the theater, save Mason Redfield himself.”

  “You mean they’re gone from the film completely?” I asked.

  Wesker reached over to me and patted my head. “This younger generation,” he said. “They catch on so quick.”

  Before I could say or do anything, a loud haroom came from the doorway and all three of us turned. Inspectre Quimbley and Jane were standing there, looking at us.

  “Careful, Thaddeus,” the Inspectre said, walking in. “You keep petting him like that, he’s liable to follow you home.”

  Wesker pulled his hand away like I had grown quills. “No, thank you,” he said. “You can have your lapdog back now.” He wiped his hand on his pant leg, and then turned his attention back to the Inspectre. “Well? What’s the damage?”

  Jane stepped forward. “Actually, when I killed power to the building, I caused a bit of a problem with getting everything up and running again. I’ve been talking to the Department’s electrical grid with my technomancy and it’s starting to cooperate, but it may take a while for everything to fall in line.”

  Wesker changed his focus to the Inspectre, looking none too pleased. “And what about your old . . . friend?”

  The Inspectre sighed. “I’m afraid Mason Redfield is gone. We were able to take down all of the zombies that crawled out of the film, so it wasn’t a total wash.”

  “So you let him escape?” Wesker asked. He turned his fury on me, his finger pointing only inches from my face. “This is all your fault, Canderous.”

  My draw dropped. “How is this all on me?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said, “but every time I see a fiasco around here, you’re somehow involved in it.”

  “Now, Thaddeus,” the Inspectre chided. “No one just let Mason escape. He planned the whole thing perfectly, only we beat his students to the film apparently. He banked on the zombies providing enough of a distraction if his plans went wrong, thereby securing the means of his evading us. In life, Mason Redfield was quite clever, you know. And why wouldn’t he be? I practically trained him when he came into the Fraternal Order of Goodness. If you want to lay blame anywhere, you had best start at my feet.”

  Wesker gave him a tight-lipped nod. “I’ll be sure to do just that when I speak to the Enchancellors.”

  “Stop it!” Jane shouted, stepping between the two of them. “Our numbers in the Department are already far too few these days to start fighting among ourselves. Especially when we all that monster loose on the city.”

  The Inspectre reached for Jane’s right hand, taking it in both of his. “Thank you, dear girl,” he said. “It’s easy to lose sight quickly in these trying times.”

  “Hold on,” I said as something occurred to me. “Does this squash our murder investigation, then?”

  Connor looked puzzled. “What do you mean, kid?”

  “What I mean is that, technically speaking, Mason Redfield isn’t dead. We watched him walk out of here today, alive . . . ish.”

  “A ritual raising like that doesn’t come without a blood price,” Connor added.

  “Oh, I can more than guarantee that,” Wesker said. He scooped up the strand of film and rubbed the nail of his thumb against it. He pulled it away and held it up, showing that it had turned a brownish red color.

  “This whole spliced-in section of horror film has been soaked in blood,” he said. “Something tells me it isn’t his own.”

  “Ick,” I said. “Great. So how do we stop him?”

  “First things first,” Wesker said. “We destroy this piece of film.”

  “Do you think that’s going to work, Thaddeus?” the Inspectre asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, “but there is magic bound to these frames, and as far as first steps, destroying that bond is a good way to go.”

  “Do we have an expert on this or something?”

  Wesker narrowed his eyes at me. “Did you not hear me before when I said I’ve never seen this done successfully before?”

  “Right,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Sorry.”

  “Can you let me do my job, then?” Wesker asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. He stormed off to a tall cabinet on the other side of his office and threw it open. It was stocked with vials, tubes, and little clay pots that were full of a variety of colorful spell components. He bent down to the bottom shelf, pulled up a large, plastic jug, and carried it back to his workbench.

  “Do they sell bulk bloodroot at the discount clubs now?” I asked.

  “No,” Wesker said, sliding on a pair of protective gloves, “and this isn’t bloodroot. It’s nitric acid. Movie film—more commonly, cellulose nitrate—eventually deteriorates and releases the acid naturally. Using this amount should serve as a catalyst.”

  “Ah,” I said. “So naturally you just happen to have it around for office use.”

  “It also makes a fine salt substitute for spell components when mixed,” he said. “As it stands, however, it’s quite toxic. You might want to step back.” He picked up a set of gloves and a pair of goggles off the workbench and put them all on. “This might eat away your eyeballs if I splash any of it.”

  A mix of vanity and fear was enough to back me away almost before he finished his sentence.

  Wesker twisted off the cap, and then poured half the container out into a large, clear petri dish. He put it down, and then scooped up the film and lowered it into the liquid, backing away from it.

  In seconds the dish filled with swirling, bubbling activity. The mixture popped and hissed as sections of the film dissolved under the chemical attack. The acid turned from a clearish yellow to a dark, soupy mess. Only after a few minutes of fu
rious activity did it begin to settle down.

  Wesker walked back over to it, a satisfied smile on his face, no doubt loving the destructive display before him. When he reached it, however, the look vanished and was replaced with a disappointed one.

  “Look, Simon,” he said, dipping his hand into the liquid mess. “Here’s something you should be familiar with—failure.” He raised his hand, pinching a section of stillintact film between his fingers. Wesker kept pulling until a fair section of film came out of the sludge.

  “Your chemical didn’t dissolve all of it,” I said.

  “No,” he said, walking over to a sink set off to the right of the workbench. “I suspect that what survived is the spliced-in magical part.” He rinsed the section of film thoroughly before laying it down.

  “So, now what?” I asked.

  “I’m on it,” Jane said, stepping forward with a determined look on her face despite the exhaustion in her eyes. She grabbed up the remains of the filmstrip and brought it over to Wesker’s desk. She leaned over and picked up the wastebasket next to it. On top of it were the close, sharp teeth of an electronic paper shredder.

  “Jane. . .” Wesker said, but my girlfriend held up her hand, silencing him. Without another word, she slipped the film into the shredder’s jagged mouth. She laid her free hand on the top of the machine as it set into action. A horrifying sound came from the machine. Jane gave a nervous look down at it, but then bent down to it, whispering an electronic string of technomantic speech at it.

  In response, the power level of the machine kicked into high gear, grinding its teeth even harder into the film, but so did the earsplitting screeching coming from it. Smoke rose somewhere inside the gears of the machine and seconds later flame burst out of it. The shredder shook and sputtered as Jane continued talking to it, her eyes half-rolled back into her head as she tried in desperation to command it.

  I couldn’t take the sound of it or the oily haze of smoke rising from the flames licking along the top of it. I ran over and pulled the cord from the wall. Reaching for the nowmelting trash can below the device, I picked it up and ran it over to the sink before dumping the whole thing in and turning on the water. Steam hissed and rose as the sound of the machine winding down faded away and the flames died. The room became as foggy as an old London evening. When the smoke cleared, I looked to Wesker, fully expecting him to explode at Jane. Even she expected it, looking ready to flinch.

  But Director Wesker didn’t scream or shout. Instead, he walked to the sink, turned off the water, and fished through the soaking-wet remains of the machine. “A valiant effort,” he said, pulling at an end of the film splice he plucked out. It slid easily out of the nearly destroyed machine. The remaining film wasn’t remotely burnt or slashed. It didn’t even have a single scratch on it from where I stood. “Alas,” Wesker continued.

  Jane’s face sank, and she looked shaken. “I don’t think I’ve ever killed a machine before.”

  I gave her a weak smile. “First time for everything, hon.”

  She looked up at me, on the verge of tears. “I didn’t know it would make me feel so . . . sad.”

  “That’s perfectly natural,” Wesker said. Compared to the disdain he threw at me over the smallest of mistakes, his soothing demeanor with Jane was killing me. He rolled the filmstrip up with care and put it back down on the workbench. “Your technomancy gives you access to the machine world, an affinity for it. To you, they’re more than just objects.”

  Jane gave a slow nod of understanding. Feeling Wesker’s affinity for her, I put my arm around her shoulder, giving her a comforting squeeze.

  “Please do me a favor, though,” Wesker continued. His voice held the edge of his usual dark tone to it. “Next time, try to not be as impulsive as your boyfriend there.”

  Jane nodded again, still quiet in her newfound saddened state. Maybe now she would understand how I felt when shaking off the feelings I accumulated in my psychometric visions.

  “Good,” Wesker said. “Let’s leave poor impulse control to those in Other Division, shall we?”

  “Tsk-tsk,” the Inspectre said, waggling his finger at Director Wesker. “Remember what your lovely young technomancer told you about playing nice.”

  “So, what now?” I asked.

  Wesker pounded his fist on the workbench. “I will find a way to break this film, but even still, that may not be enough to stop the mad professor. For all we know, this may not even be the master print of the footage. Destroying this little section may accomplish nothing.”

  “I can help you figure that out,” Jane said, shaking off her mood, “despite evidence to the contrary.”

  She gave a nervous glance over to the sink full of smoldering wreckage, and then back to Wesker.

  The Inspectre nodded. “Good,” he said. “See that you do.” He paused and his brow furrowed as his face turned somber. “I’m truly sorry to have brought this upon all of you.” He looked up at me. “I do think, however, this calls for a revisit to Mason’s old haunts.”

  “The lighthouse?” I asked.

  The Inspectre nodded once again. “He was up to something more than just making a documentary out there and we need to figure out what. Rejuvenating himself, yes, but there is something larger at hand going on at the Hell Gate Bridge.”

  “I’ll gas up the boat,” I said, heading for the door.

  “I’m afraid it will have to wait until tomorrow night,” the Inspectre said. “The fiscal month closed today and thanks to downtown, there aren’t funds available until tomorrow to requisition it on such short notice. That said, make sure to save room for one more in the taxi before heading down to the pier tomorrow evening.”

  I stopped and turned to look at him. “You’re coming?”

  “I’d say it was critical at this juncture, don’t you think?” He walked over to join me at the door with determination. “Mason’s back in the game now. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  I wanted to cite his advanced age, for one, but it was already too late. The Inspectre pushed past me and headed off down the hall toward his office. I watched him go, then looked over at Jane. I felt bad enough when I had put her in harm’s way; now there was my mentor to worry about, too. I gave her a parting smile. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said. “I have to get the paperwork in motion for the requisition. I’ll file it with the Enchancellors in the morning.”

  “Good luck with the bureaucrats,” Wesker said with a bit of snip to it.

  Jane gave him a look that shut her boss up. She turned back to me, giving a nervous smile. “No dying tomorrow night, okay?”

  “I’ll try not to,” I said. “I’ll let Connor steer the boat. That should lessen the odds a bit.”

  22

  I filed the requisition for the boat the next morning, and once funds were released for the new fiscal month around noon, the Enchancellors approved it and the boat was ours by nightfall. All in all, a day’s delay was a fairly speedy process, by Department standards anyway.

  To be on the safe side, we brought the F.O.G. boat into Wards Island at a different angle, one I had hoped would be less filled with aqua-zombies. Whether it was the fact that Jane wasn’t there to draw them to her or not, we got to the island without being assaulted and tied off against the broken remains of the old dock there.

  From the outside, the lighthouse looked pretty much as we had left it the other night, but since we were now there looking for the freshly reborn Professor Redfield, I had my bat at the ready as Connor, the Inspectre, and I pushed our way back in through the main doors.

  “Just as I suspected,” I said in a whisper. “Still creepy.”

  “And it just got creepier,” Connor added, just as quiet. “Look.”

  The interior of the lighthouse wasn’t the way we had left it. Most of the film equipment was gone, and what little remained was trashed, broken, or knocked over amid the old, weathered furniture.

  “Damned budget,” the Inspectre said. “We’re a day late and a professo
r short.” He gestured toward the spiral staircase that ran along the opposite wall and the three of us started up through the lighthouse. Every floor was in the same state, but other than the destruction and damage, the place was deserted. We all came back down the stairs, me at the back of the pack with my bat flipped up casually over my shoulder as we reentered the open room on the main floor.

  I slowed down as I came off the staircase, looking around the main room again.

  “Does something seem a little out of whack with the perspective in here?” I asked.

  “It’s hard to tell among all the debris,” Connor said, looking around. “What are you seeing, kid?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, following the curve of the wall. “The wall by the stairs seems a bit. . . off.” I raised my bat and traced it along the wall, tapping. The thick, old plaster chipped away as I went, turning to powder after so many years, but the sound was a solid one. Until I hit the area just below the stairs, that was. There the sound changed, the heft of my retractable steel bat echoing out in a tone different from the rest.

  “Well, well,” I said, searching along the wooden beams that ran up and down bordering the section of open wall. I stepped closer to the beam nearest me and saw the slightest hint of a break where the plaster disappeared behind the wood instead of meeting it. I pressed the section of wall and felt it give under my hand, the entire section of wall opening up into a secret room behind it.

  “Nice going, kid,” Connor said, patting me on the shoulder. “You want to go in first?”

  I shook my head. “After you.”

  “How kind,” Connor said, and headed in.

  “Not really,” I said. “I just figure if it’s booby-trapped, at least I get a few more seconds of feeling good about finding the door while you trigger it instead of me.”

  “Nice,” Connor said, slowing down as he continued into the dark behind the secret door. The Inspectre went in next and I followed, my eyes quickly adjusting to the low light. We were in a dim, windowless chamber that looked like a sinister version of the professor’s NYU office, except most of the shelves here held arcane-looking relics instead of movie miniatures. Huge gaps along them led me to believe that much of the materials there had been removed. The rest of the room had the skeletal remains of film equipment—camera lenses, light rigging, an editorial deck, but it was the arcane stuff scattered throughout that gave me the creeps.