“Are you kidding me?” Shumner said, his eyes popping with emotion. “Sammy is down there and he needs our help!”
“Nothing we can do for him, lad,” Driscoll said quietly.
“We could set up a counter attack. Look how well he’s doing. We could distract them for him and he’ll win.”
I looked at the ranks of shadows. No one was going to win against them. The only hope was that they would be too distracted with Sammy to turn on us. Had they really called him to fight them? Why did they want that so badly? Could anyone guess the intentions of an alien mind?
One of the shadows shifted slightly, and I had a terrible feeling it was looking right at me.
“Run,” I whispered.
As if I’d shot off a flare gun, we ran. We hit the incline at our various top speeds. I noticed Driscoll had Sammy’s pack. We made it up the rise and gathered in a circle, backs to each other, facing out around the hill.
From where I stood, I could see Sammy clearly. He was still fighting, but his energy was fading.
Download fighting program.
Please choose program.
Martial arts and marksmanship fighting programs.
Downloading martial arts and marksmanship fighting programs. All other functions will be put on hold. Prepare mind for slaved function.
Oh shoot. I should have waited.
Wait!
Downloading...
Damn! Damn! Damn! I was too impatient and too desperate. This was really bad.
I was now down to just half my usual brain power and no implant back up. All that brain space and implant function would be concentrated into downloading the programs. Yeah, we can do that. The public doesn’t know that Matsumotos can bypass years of training by using our illegal mental implants and just know things that should require hours of practice, but we can. It’s frowned on, but it’s possible.
Is that fair? Not at all. We’re Matsumotos. Matsumotos are not fair.
Sammy stumbled. The shadow closed in. I waited for a yellow fungus to erupt into the sky. Instead, he – faded. That was the only word for it. He faded into a shadow. Somehow, rather than leaving him as permanent compost, they had absorbed him into their ranks.
I shuddered. Somehow this was worse.
“What happened to him?”
“Did they just eat him?”
“I think he’s one of them, now,” said Ian with a sideways glance at me. Yeah. That’s right, Ian. I absorbed him, didn’t I? I made him swear fealty.
I needed to think, but I couldn’t think.
Downloading...
Sammy’s death had been like some sort of honor battle. It was like they were recruiting him, rather than killing him. Is that what this is about? To test us? To recruit us?
The echo in my implant was getting worse. Louder. Almost, I could hear words shaping.
I focused inward, meditating, trying to clear my brain. Maybe if I gave my implant more room to work with it could download quicker. I was a leaf floating on the current. I focused inward. It worked for a moment, and I felt the implant taking over more of my conscious brain, but then a voice crept in.
“Vera?”
My eyes snapped open, and the calm was gone. I felt like I was trying to think through a thick cloud. The strangest thoughts floated out of the blackness, but the things I was trying to focus on kept skittering away.
The shadows were still below us. I couldn’t think. Delegate. I needed to delegate.
“Ian,” I said, “Take the lead. Get us out of here as fast as possible.”
Now why did I choose him? A memory echoed in my mind:
“Enter into our Empire with the blessing of the Matsumotos. We will defend you and yours in so far as law and justice allows. We will keep you and yours in the manner of all our citizens. Our laws shall bind you. Our military protect you. You shall be our vassal, but also our son. By the true honour and the seal of our word we bind you to us today. Welcome.”
I remembered Ian swearing fealty to the Throne of Blackwatch, but it was me who had received that vow. I had taken him on as a responsibility that day. I should have remembered that. It didn’t matter that he wanted to kill me. That happened when you were royalty. I still needed to defend him and protect him. He was my responsibility.
He issued orders with a glimmer of satisfaction in his eye. Somehow he thought he’d won some sort of competition here. Little did he know that I had just remembered my obligation – and his. I fell in behind him, and we once again ran from shadows. Down below us, they were still occupied with whatever they were doing around what remained of Sammy.
Driscoll fell in beside me. We were tucked in tight behind Ian and I saw his ears prick when Driscoll began to speak.
“Why him? We made you leader for a reason,” he said.
“Ian McIsaac is my vassal, though he may have forgotten,” I said, “As such he owes me his loyalty, and I owe him my trust.”
Ian spat, not bothering to turn around.
“I’d forgotten that, but I remember it now,” I said.
“Still playing Matsumoto, then?” Driscoll asked.
“Not playing. It’s only playing if it isn’t real. I’ve tried to reject my blood and my duty, but I think I got it wrong.”
“Wrong?” He lifted an eyebrow.
“I think I didn’t take it far enough.”
“How far is enough?”
“For now, far enough is remembering my duty to McIsaac here. From now on, he’s under my protection.”
“Fat lot of good that will do,” Shumner muttered from behind Driscoll.
I shot him a look, daring him to remember our first meeting, and he shut up.
Download complete.
I felt a thrill of delight as my mental processes came back. My Tactical Interface snapped back in place, showing us running along the map.
“Veer a little easterly,” I told Ian.
His face went hard, but he did it.
The warmth of anticipation filled me. I couldn’t wait to try out my new skills. I noted that a tiny crosshair icon had been added to my Tactical Interface. It must be for the marksmanship download.
“Why aren’t the shadows here yet?” Ian wondered aloud.
“They’re still assimilating Sammy,” Driscoll said, “I guess they want the best and the brightest, so watch out because they’ll be after me next.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Ian replied.
Oxygen supplement at 17%, my implant reminded me.
I blinked. I had forgotten all about our air supply.
“Everyone check your air read outs,” I said. “Call them out.”
Numbers were called out. The highest was 21% The lowest was 14%. That was bad. I checked the map. It was six hours by my estimation before we reached the colony. Did we have six hours of air? Maybe, but probably not. We’d be spending the last leg of the trip in local atmosphere. I wished I’d paid more attention when the scientists listed the signs of oxygen toxicity.
“Are we going to find somewhere to fill up on air before the colony?” Ch’ng asked.
I shrugged.
“You know the planet as well as I do.”
“What happens if we run out?”
“We breathe local atmosphere, which is too oxygen-rich.”
“Isn’t oxygen good?” he asked.
“Sometimes you can get way too much of a good thing,” Ian muttered from in front of me.
I was pretty sure there was a double meaning there, and I felt a blush creeping up on my cheeks. I wouldn’t call myself a “good thing” but too much of me had spoiled both Ian and Roman’s futures. Driscoll was watching me closely, trying to pick out my reaction to Ian’s words. I betrayed nothing.
My mind raced. Where were the shadows? When would they attack next? Was the conquest of Sammy enough to satisfy them for now? And what would our depleting air quality mean when they finally attacked again? Too many questions, but the throbbing in my temples told me that I’d know those answers soon enough.
Chapter Fourteen
We walked for two more hours in silence, and I used that time to listen to the scientific recordings. I was making progress, with only a few more to go when they grabbed my interest again.
“Subterranean Exploration resumed,” a man with slick black hair, a lab coat and a nameplate reading ‘Dr. Baker’ said. “We picked up where our predecessors ended.”
Uh oh. That hadn’t gone well last time.
“We began drilling but hit large gas pockets. Once they are burned off we will commence drilling...”
“Hiro Matsumoto killed the woman I loved,” Patrick Driscoll said, suddenly.
I looked at him, surprised and struggling to focus with the excited voice of the scientist in the background. Whether I listened to him or Driscoll I’d be missing something important. Oh well, I could always listen to the scientist again later.
“Matsumotos don’t kill,” I said with no expression.
“Oh no,” Driscoll agreed, “nothing to sully those lily white hands of yours. No, you send agents and marines to do your killing. And you are ruthless. Who really kills? The one with the gun, or the one who orders it?”
What was the point of this questioning? I was in no place to change the Matsumotos now. They had removed me from the family and were all hoping I’d die.
“When I killed it was with a gun,” I said, still expressionless.
“Yes,” said Driscoll. And for some reason it seemed like this was his point. “Have you ever thought of being Emperor, Vera?”
The question was identical to the one Roman had asked me months ago. I paled, remembering my answer. Of course I hadn’t. I was a cousin, not in the line to become Emperor. Roman said that was because I was brainwashed.
“It’s the farthest thing from my mind,” I said, distracted again by the recording.
“We can’t explain it. Animals are disappearing. Birds. All life. They faded in front of our very eyes. What can make a five hundred kilo animal fade into a shadow while you are looking at him?”
The scientist’s voice rose to a terrible pitch, and I shuddered. They’d seen animals made into shadows. I scanned the surrounding trees. No birds. Had there been birds here? Animals? Why hadn’t I noticed that there were no animals? That was really stupid, Vera.
“Are my questions making you angry? You feel you aren’t a Matsumoto anymore? It’s not something you can abandon like an old pair of socks.”
Driscoll had misread the situation entirely. I was still scanning the landscape, racking my memory for if I’d seen anything else in these woods except shadows.
“In fact, by the end of the month you and Nigel Matsumoto will be the only living Matsumotos in all the universe.”
I spun to face him, my eyes narrowing to slits. “You can’t know that.”
“Now I have your attention,” he seemed pleased.
“Is that why you allowed yourself to be captured, Driscoll? To make sure I die here? I don’t think you have much to worry about.”
He laughed, “You have a pretty high regard for me if you think I allowed myself to be captured. No, I didn’t, but this is an opportune time.”
I stepped back, aiming the nettlegun at him, my heart pounding.
He laughed again, and around us people sped up, hoping to leave us behind if we were planning to fight. We fell to the back of the line.
“I’m not planning to kill you, Vera. No, I want you to see why your people hate you and everything you stand for.”
“If you want humility, believe me, I’ve had so much humble pie lately that it’s pouring out my ears,” I said dryly.
“Good. That’s what you’ll need.”
“I need humility and a further sense of my own failure in order to die on Baldric? Hardly. It will kill us all, the virtuous along with the vile,” I said.
“We fear that our actions have split the planet irreparably. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my time here. I didn’t even know it was possible to split the soul of a planet in two. Planets don’t have souls! We can see residents, now that we know what to look for. They are fading just like the animals, and they are everywhere...”
“No. But maybe once you realize your place you will think about helping us.”
“Helping you kill Matsumotos? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I have a bit on my plate already, and I’m not much of a killer.”
He gave me an assessing look.
“So far you’ve been killing just fine. And no, that’s not what we’re interested in. We’re interested in changing Blackwatch society forever.”
“Well, I’m all for that,” I said, still distracted by the video, “but I’m not sure how much good I’d do you as a revolutionary. I’m a touch recognizable.”
“It’s gone horribly wrong. We never could have predicted this. They’ve got Baker, and now...”
She screamed horribly then, as a shadow slid over her and a brilliant yellow fungus started to spurt out her nose, climbing into the air.
“That’s a very good trait... for an Emperor,” Driscoll said, and my eyes snapped to his face as the video silenced in my head.
“What?”
“Revolutions come and go, and people usually just kill the revolutionaries and install someone exactly like the former corrupt regime to take their place. I don’t want to be dead for nothing,” Driscoll said. Some strong emotion clouded his eyes, but I couldn’t tell what it was. “An heir who brings change – change that’s legitimate and that will actually work to benefit all the people. And no one has to die except Nigel Matsumoto.”
“And how do you plan to kill all the other Matsumotos and put me on the throne?” I said with a wry curve to my mouth.
“Think about it,” Driscoll said.
Near the front of the line people started yelling and stopped. Driscoll and I caught up.
“Command is under attack, that’s why we have to hurry. We need to back them up!” Fergus said.
“With five guns? Yeah, we’ll be stellar back up,” Ian said, red-faced.
“Stop arguing and go,” Fergus said, gesturing to the north.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, coolly.
“Command called,” Mutambi addressed me. His jaw was jutting out more than usual. “They are under attack and they need us to pick up the pace and join them.”
“We’re already going as quickly as we can,” I said, “or at least we were before this argument.”
“But we’re heading towards the colony, not Command,” Private Mutmabi said.
“We’re both headed towards the colony.”
“We need to change directions and go straight towards command.”
“We already settled this, we can’t cross the river. “
“They’ve already crossed up ahead and we can meet them on this side.”
“We’d be flying blind, we have no idea where they are,” I said, although it wasn’t technically true, since I still had a green inverted caret blinking on my map for them.
“I know. I can see it on my eyepiece computer.”
“Handy,” Ian said, “That you would be the only one to get us there, and we will have to follow your lead.”
Mutambi’s voice grew louder, “No more handy than you being given the right to lead when you were not the one chosen!”
“Enough,” I said, quietly. “We’ll course correct to meet them a little further out from the base, but we can’t afford to lose air making a beeline for them. Ian, take us more that direction.” I pointed. “And Mutambi, I designated Ian to take point.”
“Whatever,” Mutambi said, and I could tell by his glare that I’d be seeing retribution if we ever met up with Command.
We picked up the pace over the hilly landscape, which was still mostly open and sparsely treed, but growing thicker as we moved.
I scanned the waving grasses and solitary trees, thinking about how silent the land felt now that I knew about the birds and the animals. What sort of terrible thing had ou
r scientists done that turned life on this planet into shadows? And what had kept us from becoming shadows, too...except for Sammy, who shared that fate.
We were moving quicker and quicker by mutual consent without anyone speaking, our pace almost at a jog. We came up over a ridge and spread out as we moved into a dip beyond. Ian led with the marines right behind him. Driscoll and I had drifted to the rear again. He had a look in his eyes that said we were going to have another talk.
“Faster!” Mutambi urged Ian from up ahead, and I rolled my eyes. Was I seriously going to have to go up there? They were well ahead now, halfway up the hill, and I was the only straggler still at the base of the hill. Maybe I should have eaten something. The wind was picking up and Ian’s response was lost to me.
It was in that chaotic moment that they came. A herd of shadows galloped around the hill we just came from, surging through the dip. I ran towards the hill, but they were faster, surrounding me with their galloping bodies, and sweeping me up in their movement. Jostled from one spot to the next, they compelled me to follow the tide of bodies surging east.
Ian yelled something from the hillside and looked like he was going to come after me. For a moment there was a look of actual concern in his eyes. Driscoll looked on, his mouth a hard line. He was a realist.
“Go! Forget me!” I yelled, over the wind.
Ian took two steps back towards me.
“GO!” I shouted, putting all my will into my face and voice.
He stopped, seeming unsure of what to do, and took a step forward. Driscoll ran up the hill, put a hand on his shoulder, and whispered in his ear. They both looked at me with their mouths set in grim lines and then turned and ran up the hill. I tried my best to keep on my feet in the surge of bodies thundering by, but I was out of control, watching as my link to humanity ran on without me.
Chapter Fifteen
Ian glanced back one more time before disappearing over the hill, but by then I was almost out of sight, propelled by muscular shadow bodies. How in the world could something as insubstantial as a shadow cause a stampede, or carry a person along?
I had no time to think about that. I was focused only on keeping my feet and surviving the press of bodies. From the surrounding tumult various shadow-parts emerged. My new acquaintances looked like a herd of rhinos, but larger and with strange, mane-like coverings over their backs and shoulders. The features shone when the light hit them, but the rest of the time they were as opaque as velvet. I found my own terror and loneliness overwhelmed by fascination with them.
The Splitting (The Matsumoto Trilogy Book 2) Page 9