The Splitting (The Matsumoto Trilogy Book 2)

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  This was my duty. I would not be shaken. All temptation for an existence of ease drifting comfortably on the waves of semi-consciousness evaporated.

  Without reasoning or thought, I followed my instincts. I SEIZED the rope of their collective unconscious. I could feel Zeta’s presence wrapped around it. I slid myself between her and the rope, loosening their bonds, and then I FLEXED. And somehow I twisted that rope inward, so no longer was it sucking me towards it, but I was sucking it towards me.

  Zeta’s shadow form let out a scream as she was physically SUCKED into my shadow. Around me, the nearest shadows stretched and were vacuumed up in a similar way, slowly but inexorably. It seemed to take an agonizingly long time, but one by one they submitted to my will.

  I was not absorbed by the shadows. I absorbed them. Thousands of them. All of them. An army of the dead living within me.

  It was getting crowded in here.

  Zeta was the first to vanish, and I felt her consciousness join mine.

  Vera?

  For a split second she sounded almost like my mother, and then other souls began to pour into my unconscious and her voice vanished in the tumult.

  Mother? Mother!

  It’s just me in the channel, Roman said, but he was wrong.

  The implant let me hear them, and they were already so loud I could hardly hear anything else. One by one, his captors faded to insubstantiality and were absorbed by my mind. They rocketed into me like rubber bands snapping. The further away they started, the more forcefully they were drawn to me. Roman shook off the last shadow as it was sucked away and he darted to me, the other marines hard on his heels.

  My head swam with so much sudden input, and my balance quavered. My eyesight was flickering in and out as my brain tried to process too many signals at once.

  Driscoll flew towards me from the other direction. Roman arrived first by a fraction of a second.

  “You?!” Roman exclaimed at the sight of Driscoll.

  Behind him the other marines came to attention, saluting Patrick Driscoll.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Roman demanded, anger and confusion warring in his eyes, as his head whipped back and forth between his fireteam and me.

  “Sorry, Sarge,” one of them said.

  Roman tore his gaze from them and turned to me. I reached for him, but stumbled. He caught me just as I started to fall to the ground. The corded strength of his arms wrapped around me and his breath was hot and close. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to hide in the warmth of his shelter forever.

  “Vera? Stay with me, Vera.” And then, so quiet that I thought I might not have heard it all. “I can’t bear to lose you, too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I must not have been passed out for very long because Roman was still gripping me like I was going to fade away like the shadows. He was curled over me, like his very form could protect me from danger. The others crowded around him.

  “She did it. I can’t believe she did it!” That was Kitsano.

  “Be glad she did. I thought we were gone there for a moment,” said Ch’ng.

  “What’s going on here?” Roman asked a marine.

  “We’re Driscoll’s Own,” he said. “Who is she?”

  “Vera Matsumoto. The Emperor’s cousin,” Roman said, almost reverentially.

  “She looks more like a jungle warlord. What’s with the scar?”

  “Have a little respect,” Ch’ng said, “Who cares what she looks like? She saved all our heads just now.”

  “But what’s a Matsumoto doing here?” the marine asked, clearly unable to see when he was beaten.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Driscoll said. “You don’t seem to have many marines left, Mr. Guardian.”

  “Just my fireteam,” Roman said grimly, “But it seems they aren’t mine at all. I never suspected that they were secretly terrorists.”

  “We’re all terrorists, now,” Driscoll said. “You’re the only one here who isn’t sworn to Driscoll’s Own, and I’m guessing you’re sworn to her, which makes you one of us.”

  “I’m Vera Matsumoto’s guardian. I’m not a terrorist or a murderer,” Roman said, flinging a baleful look at his fireteam.

  “Let us explain, Aldrin...” one of them started to say.

  I was listening to it all, and following as I could, but my head was still pounding with the pain of absorbing the entire population of Baldric into my subconscious. I felt new souls drawn in one by one and added to our number. I was just one soul floating on the sea of them all, still living, but that was barely an afterthought.

  The masses of them felt very alive to me. The Javierian minds felt foreign and strange, leaving me ill at ease within my own self. They were nothing compared to my fellow humans. I felt assaulted by their emotions and desires, all raw and bare. I flinched as they whipped me with them, red hot with need for revenge, or an agony of icy despair. I struggled to stay afloat – drowning in my own mind.

  Something tugged from beyond me. Two somethings. I felt them resisting the pull of the collective. Suddenly one broke free and joined the rest.

  Driscoll gasped.

  “What the-” Ch’ng said, his face white and drawn.

  I couldn’t look to see what they were looking at. It was something on the ground.

  “The shadow part of him broke free. He ate too much of Compound VX-7,” Kitsano said, her voice grating, “We need to go-”

  Her voice broke off as she screamed. I felt the other something start to break loose. With a surge of will I pushed back, willing it to stay outside of our whole. I heard Kitsano coughing and gasping as I refused her soul entry. It seemed I had at least that much control over my own mind. Now, if I could just find a way to survive rather than just bob on this morass of minds.

  They were still quarrelling above me, and reacting to the loss of Ch’ng’s friend and what had happened to Kitsano, but I let my eyes fall closed again and I fought within myself for supremacy.

  Somehow my mother had achieved it. Now I must achieve it. I focused, rallying all of my wits and senses under my banner. If this was going to work it would take all of me. I WRAPPED myself around the surge of souls, the way my mother’s soul had been, and tightened like a python. Then I forced it all deeper into the recesses of my mind and jammed a mental wall in place. I forced myself not to notice them or pay them any attention – that was the wall. Gratefully, it was half-working, but I could tell it was weak. One slip. One moment of inattention, and it would be gone again. I’d ‘won’ today, but it seems what I’d won was an eternal battle for my own mind.

  So typical. Any time I won, I just kept losing.

  I opened my eyes with a sigh, and the first thing I saw was Roman’s face. He greeted me with such a look of relief and joy that I almost cried in sympathy. I felt so tired. So tired that it took all of my energy to push away from him and regain my own feet.

  I smiled up at him.

  “Thank you.”

  Always.

  His answering smile was tender and protective and all that I had ever hoped to see. He didn’t seem to notice how I looked like ‘a jungle warlord.’ Even better, I was not dead. I was enjoying this instead, but that state was temporary unless I did the right things now.

  I stood up as steadily as I could, channelling all my mental energy into keeping that wall strong. I needed to think without passing out for this next part.

  “We’ve done it. We’ve beat the odds,” I said, realizing as I spoke that I was gripping the short spear, that my mother had held. I looked down at it, gripping it harder, and ran a hand through the stubble that used to be my hair. Then I looked up at the gathered few that were my army.

  “We’re alive, and Baldric is ours, but it’s not enough. It can’t atone for our fallen, or for the deeds that brought us here.”

  “Are you saying that you want to overthrow Nigel Matsumoto and seize the Empire?” Driscoll asked carefully and formally.

  “I am,” I said. �
�Someone needs to fix what is broken in Blackwatch.”

  There was a gasp from Roman and a collective sigh from the rest.

  “In that case, I pledge you not only my service, but also the service of Driscoll’s Own,” Patrick said, and he stiffened to attention, like he was in the military. Behind Roman, his fireteam stiffened, too, and more reluctantly Kitsano joined them.

  My eyes widened. I hadn’t expected that. Roman’s face was a mix of emotions.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they want to support your insane ambitions. I’m just feeling a touch betrayed by my fireteam. We are supposed to be brothers.

  Well, you still can be.

  And I’m not fond of terrorists. I thought if I ever saw Patrick Driscoll it would be through my scope.

  Tell me about it.

  I was very reluctant to trust Driscoll, or to team up with terrorists, but what were our options? If we chose not to work with them, they could betray our plans, or worse, kill us.

  Our plans? Roman asked.

  I didn’t have a chance to discuss it with you, I told him.

  I think maybe you need to take the time.

  Can it wait? I need rest.

  He made a mental sound like an irritated grunt.

  “Thank you for your support,” I told Driscoll and his followers, who were now my followers I supposed. “You marines swore an oath to Blackwatch when you enlisted. You didn’t swear it to the Matsumotos. You didn’t swear it to the government. You swore it to the people of Blackwatch. You said you would defend and protect. I’m standing here telling you that the people of Blackwatch are under a threat so farsighted and insidious that it goes unseen. They are under a threat so pervasive that it will infect and change them all in the next six months if we don’t protect and defend them. You saw the shadows that fought us here. Blackwatch did that. We made them, and that’s the fate of our own people if we don’t do something to prevent that. I’m calling on you to live up to those vows and to help me fight. You might be Driscoll’s people. But if you follow me off this planet you are my people.”

  There were murmurs that sounded like a cautious agreement. It would take more than my words to win them. I turned to Roman.

  “I don’t have much time. The shadows are in my mind and I need to find a way to keep them in place without losing myself. I need somewhere to sleep for a few hours. Can you find me somewhere?”

  I was all business, and he nodded, turning to business himself.

  “Yamamoto, Nakamuri, set up camp on the shuttle side of the bridge. We’ll stop here and rest for a few hours. Brady, walk a perimeter. Make note of any threats and see if there’s a path down to the water to refill our canteens.”

  “I’ll look for the water,” Kitsano volunteered, holding out her arms. “Give over the canteens.”

  I left them to the details, struggling for consciousness, and slowly losing the battle. In the last second before I sunk bonelessly into Roman’s arms, I remembered his words and finally took the time to reply.

  I can’t bear to lose you, either.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  My battle raged on. I refused to give ground to the shadows in my mind, but they fought for supremacy. I must have looked asleep on the physical level, but I was not sleeping. I was waging a deadly war. Individual voices were starting to emerge and starting to attempt to bend me to their wills.

  Every so often I would fade into physical consciousness long enough to realize that another battle was raging outside my mind, too.

  “Will you follow her in this rebellion?” a marine asked Roman.

  “I’m her guardian. I go where she goes. My life for hers,” Roman said, and there was steel in his voice. I couldn’t get my lids to open to see him, but I hoped he was doing okay. This was a lot to digest.

  “Sorry we didn’t tell you, Sarge.”

  “I can’t talk to you about that right now.” There was a tremor in his voice. I wished I could see his face.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll be here when you’re ready.”

  I faded out, again. Within my mind seven beings were forcing themselves to the foreground. It was a battle to emerge from the horde. They flickered in and out. I thought one might be my mother. I wrapped ever tighter, fearing one might break loose and wrest my hold from them all.

  When next I came to, Driscoll was talking.

  “So you’ll come with us, then?”

  “What other option do I have?” Ch’ng asked.

  “You could stay here. Without the shadows it isn’t a bad planet,” Roman suggested. Conspiring with criminals was not sitting well with him.

  Something about Ch’ngs tone made me think he was shrugging as he answered, “Driscoll says she’s alright, and I trust him. I wasn’t meant to rot away on a backwater planet.”

  I was back in my own mind again, and the seven beings were clearer than ever. One was definitely my mother. She was the clearest, and as she coalesced I could feel her reaching for me, trying to communicate beyond the flow of the throng. Five of the other beings were Javierian’s, and one was an elderly scientist from the records I’d been watching. The aliens were less clear than my mother and the other human, as if it were more difficult for them to get their thoughts through to me. Maybe these were their leaders.

  I didn’t know how much time passed on the outside. It was still day, my lids were painted scarlet when I was conscious, but the flow of conversations seemed to suggest that a lot of time was passing.

  “...still no word from the starship. I think our communications are a bust,” Roman was saying. He must be refusing to leave my side, because whenever I was awake I heard his voice.

  “Will they pull out of the system if they don’t hear from you or just send more shuttles?” Driscoll asked.

  “SOP is to send another squad to investigate, but our commander is touchy, and we’re not here because we are in his good graces.” Roman paused and then said, “It could go either way.”

  “I hope she wakes up soon then,” Kitsano said. “I want nothing more than to be rid of this place.”

  “If we move her now we risk setting those shadows loose. Who knows what kind of war she’s fighting with them?” Roman said.

  “I know,” Kitsano fumed, “and I’m not saying we should move her...yet. I’m just worried. She’s our ticket out of here. If the shadows come back we’re finished.”

  “She’s more than a ‘ticket,’” Roman said savagely.

  “Easy, marine,” Kitsano said, “Don’t you think I’m starting to realize that?”

  “You should have realized it before, Lieutenant,” Driscoll said, “I did tell you she was extraordinary.”

  “And I promised you I’d follow through with your plans, Patrick, but I still chafe at working with a Matsumoto, no matter how much I personally have come to respect her.”

  “You swore to Driscoll’s Own, Lieutenant,” one of the marines said.

  “When you’ve been through what I have, Private, you might get nervous about things, too,” Kitsano growled.

  “But you did give your word,” Driscoll said.

  “And I’ll keep it,” she agreed with a leaden voice.

  I turned back to my internal situation. I looked around the circle of shadows, for they had formed a distinct semi-circle, and hints of their physical looks and shapes ebbed in and out like the surf. My mother spoke first.

  “We are the Elders of Baldric.”

  So now I was going to do what I was born for: make a treaty. I’d never expected to have to make one with the voices in my head. I wondered how that would look on my resume.

  “We have been watching you and testing you since your arrival on our planet,” the scientist-looking one said.

  “I am Zeta Matsumoto,” my mother said, needlessly. “These are the other Elders; Caradand, Elizandar, Dalinoro, Fretzler, Javazuri, and Ed Yokiro. Together we rule the people of Baldric.”

  I wondered how my mother and Yokiro got on that list. It seemed just a touch presump
tuous for two humans to be governing Baldric.

  “We have chosen you,” the one she’d identified as Fretzler said, “after much deliberation. You will take us away from our beloved planet.” Fretzler seemed sorrowful, her long hair hung over her face, as she looked down, refusing to meet my eyes.

  “Leave? You want to leave?” I asked, surprised.

  “We don’t want that!” Dalinoro said. He was taller than the rest and he spoke in clipped tones that couldn’t mask his intensity.

  “But what we want is beside the point. We must keep our promises, and we promised our people that we would stop the ravages of the Matsumotos, and set them free from our bound consciousness,” Zeta said.

  I wondered how she had managed to manipulate them into promising that. It must have been her, since it was so clearly a Matsumoto thing to do.

  “In that case,” I said, “my time is limited. If you truly want me to take you off this planet and ‘stop the ravages of the Matsumotos’ I need to be on my way as soon as I can.”

  “Then we must speak quickly,” Caradand said. He was smaller than the others, with a solid body but an impish grin made him look less threatening. “We are bound together and require certain things to be released. We chose you-”

  “Chose me?” I broke in, “You killed my friends and tried to kill me! I beat you and bound you and that’s the only reason you are here now!”

  “Yes, of course,” Zeta said irritably, rubbing her shadow chin as she spoke, “We certainly wouldn’t want to be borne by a weakling. Only someone able to defeat us and command us is worthy of the chance to free us.”

  “Great,” I said. “Just great. So I have a whole army of you in my mind who are looking at me for salvation?”

  “Essentially yes,” said Yokiro, adjusting shadow clothing, “But that is far too basic of a way to look at it. We require your service, but we will aid you. We can leave your mind in our shadow form if you release us, and as you adjust to our presence we will grow quieter. You will be able to choose when to release us and gather us up, and when to listen or when to ignore us. It will just take time and practice.”