by Ann Christy
I pull the blade out quickly to avoid the inevitable gush of goo that will follow from the hole I just made. The deader begins to stutter-jerk, still in a crawling position, but no longer moving forward. There’s no time to waste, so I hold the knife in both hands right above the deader’s neck and use every bit of force I can muster to bring it down on the back of his neck, aiming for a spot between the knobs of bone showing through the thin, blue-ish skin. It goes in like it should, and I jerk the blade back and forth, widening the gap until I hear the crack of his neck bones separating.
The little, “There we go!” of victory that comes out of me is entirely beyond my control. A few more quick slices and the head is mostly off. I don’t have time to smash it up and I feel bad for the deader. It will take forever for the head to finally go inanimate if I leave it like that, and if Emily is right, and there is something of the person left inside even when they go into deader-hood, it must be hell. But I’ve got an appointment to keep.
As weird as it sounds, the encounter has buoyed my spirits. Maybe it’s because I took care of something and didn’t flinch even though I was by myself. Maybe it’s because Matt felt so comfortable with my ability to handle it that he didn’t even fire a bolt. Whatever it is, I’m far more confident. I’m a fast runner and I can do this.
I grip the cart and keep on marching. As soon as the tower is in full sight, I can tell it’s occupied by at least one person, possibly as many as three. There’s a dark shape visible between the railings in the cupola at the top and I feel eyes on me almost immediately.
Keeping my head down, eyes looking up only in quick glances to avoid suspicion, I take a few more steps. When I judge the distance right, I let the converted bike cart unbalance and tip over, spilling a tempting array of canned goods that are easily recognizable as food across the grass.
As arranged, I call out, “Oh, dang-it!” I use a higher voice register than my normal one, which sounds fake and little-girlish to my ears, but everyone else says sounds just right.
A faint banging noise—two short bangs far too precise to be natural—reaches my ears and I smile at the ground. Bingo, baby. A few birds fly out of the two trees flanking the opera house steps so I know I’m about to have some company. My leg muscles bunch in readiness for what comes next and I adjust my crouch a little while I continue to pick up cans.
From the corner of my eye I catch the glint of sunlight on glass. There’s someone standing up in the tower now, what could only be a rifle scope lifted to its head. Oh, no, I think. Please keep looking at me, not the buildings. Flashes of movement behind the glass near the doors to the opera house let me know it’s almost time for action.
It’s harder than I thought it would be to ignore the door opening at the opera house. But it’s only one man and he doesn’t look at all dangerous. Slight, balding, and wearing a perfectly normal coat over a sweatshirt, he looks like someone’s father who works at a bank.
Smart, I think, and have to suppress a smile. Get the harmless looking one to make contact.
Whatever fear I had before is gone without a trace now. More birds rise into the air in the gap between the opera house and the next building, and I get a momentary glimpse of two shapes hurrying across the gap. So, they’re going to circle and come up from behind me. Nice. That alone makes any doubt that I may have harbored that these aren’t bad guys vanish. Even if by some miracle they aren’t the ones who took Gloria, these are not the actions of non-bad guys.
I give the shooters a bit of a hint and raise my left hand to my ponytail, our sign for which way I see movement if any. Then I look up at the opera house and the diminutive man standing there. He waves tentatively when he sees my face, as if perhaps I might be the scary one in this encounter. It’s all very friendly looking and completely natural. Meeting new people is a scary business and he combines just the right amount of timidity with greeting in that wave.
Again, according to plan, I leave the cart and take off running back the way I came, but not too fast. Even if they don’t come out after me any further, they’ll come and get the lovely loot I left behind. And at least two of them have already started out, going around the back of the building where Savannah waits on the roof with her array of weapons. I’m counting on it not ending well for them.
I glance behind me and see the small man, his hand no longer raised in a wave, quickly taking the steps down the front of the opera house. He’s apparently not suspicious and going for the cart and the canned goods.
From somewhere, I hear a muffled sound, sort of like a yell cut off before it can really get going. Back at the tree where the deader’s head is still snapping its jaws at the air, I stop and get behind the trunk, peeking back the way I came.
I can’t see the glint of the rifle scope anymore, but there’s still a faint shadow to be seen in the tower. The man from the steps is almost at my abandoned cart, to all appearances unaware of anything alarming going on. He looks up, almost like he can hear my thoughts from where he is. He’s too far for me to see his eyes, just as he’s too far away to see mine, but I can tell he’s scanning the trees and benches between us and looking for me. I duck behind the tree trunk and count to ten before peeking out once more. He’s lost interest in me with food so close by and is mere steps away from the cart.
The crack of a shot comes so suddenly that I let out a yell. The man at the cart seems to fall forward in slow motion, far slower than the shots that follow. I know they’re coming from both directions, both buildings, and I can only hope they’re focusing on the man—or men—in the tower. I have no idea where these men might have stashed Gloria, but it’s a safe bet that if she can, she’ll try to get away once things go bad for her captors. I can’t see her letting a chance like that go to waste.
Of course, that’s only if she still can do anything, and we have no way of knowing if she’s even alive.
I keep my eyes on the opera house long after the shots stop, but nothing happens except that the man who fell on the cart gets back up. He’s jerky and I can see from where I’m at that the front of his sweatshirt is covered in a new, dark stain. While I watch, he picks up a can from the ground and holds it, something in his posture telling me that he’s considering it and trying to figure out why he thinks it’s food. It’s just how new in-betweeners operate.
Next we’ll need to do the hardest part. Killing them is one thing, but it isn’t final if they’re infected. And really, who isn’t infected with nanites at this point if they’ve been tussling with deaders to any extent. And these guys, if they’re willing to grab a woman, have surely been tussling aplenty.
Now, we’re faced with however many freshly turned in-betweeners. And we can’t just kill them again either. We need them. We’re going to need test subjects if I’m going to help Emily. She was insistent about it and I don’t know where else we’d get fresh ones, especially ones so clearly deserving of anything that might happen to them.
And there’s also the issue of Gloria. No one aside from Emily really believes me about Sam, about him being able to talk, but we agreed that we should try to keep one of them alive—and if not alive, then alive again as an in-betweener—in case we can’t find Gloria. Any chance at getting information can’t be ignored. It works for me. I’ll use whatever reasons they’ll agree with to keep these in-betweeners so that I can help Emily.
I remain motionless behind the tree, waiting. Matt comes up behind me, hissing my name so I don’t go after him with the knife or poker. He’s got an armful of dog catchers, their handles wrapped in old fabric so that they don’t clatter. At this point, our plan is a little nebulous. After all, we didn’t—and still don’t—know how many of them there might be or how many received their just desserts. For the most part, the plan at this point is to try to rope them up and not get killed and eaten. That’s pretty much it.
We wait to see what else might happen. We have no way of knowing if they’re all dead, or dead-ish, or if there might be more of them waiting for us to sho
w ourselves. Long minutes pass. The little guy at the canned goods has lost interest in the cans and has moved on to the leaves skittering across the ground. He lunges at whichever ones seem most life-like with every breath of the breeze. It’s almost funny.
I hear the dog clicker after an endless wait, during which I waver between being convinced our shooters are dead and we’re being surrounded, or being equally convinced our folks are just being thorough and we’ve won. Five faint clicks from somewhere above me on the roof fill me with relief and I let out a huge, pent-up breath. After a moment, I hear five more clicks. That means five humans killed and five in-betweeners rising. It also means they feel they’re in the clear and are ready to get to work corralling them.
Matt hands me a dog catcher and steps to the side so he’s in view of the in-betweener chasing leaves. He gives a short, sharp whistle and the in-betweener’s head whips around. It takes a second whistle and some movement on Matt’s part before the dead guy gets a good bead on him, but once he does, he makes a beeline for us.
Following our normal mode of operation, Matt backs up a few steps and moves his arms to keep the in-betweener focused on him. As soon as the guy steps past the tree, I slip the loop on the dog catcher around his neck and tighten it via the handle. It’s a really great tool and there’s nothing better for capturing an in-betweener so that they can’t reach you while someone else bashes in their heads.
In this case, I don’t want to bash in his brains—or rather, I do, but we need his brain intact—so we use it to keep him out of range. He really is a little guy, maybe an inch taller than me, and tiny, with little bird bones. The wrists that poke out of his sweatshirt as he reaches for me are delicate, almost frail looking. He doesn’t look like someone who would be a marauder, but you never can tell about anyone, can you?
His snarling is growing louder as he gets frustrated, and the noises he’s making are starting to sound almost like words to me. That sends me back to when Sam was like that, of looking at him through the mail slot in the door and listening to his slurred words. It makes my gut clench and I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Make him shut up,” I growl between my teeth.
Matt pulls out a rag we’ve cut just for this situation and maneuvers around to the back of the in-betweener, flips the strip over his head, and pulls it tightly, forcing his mouth open. It’s an additional safety measure and not just a way to muffle their noises. If they can’t bite down, it’s harder for them to bite at all.
“Let’s go find out where the next one is,” Matt says, eyeing me while he ties the end of the dog-catcher around a bench. The pole is too long for the in-betweener to reach the release for the loop around his neck, no matter how high-functioning he might be.
We both step out from under the tree canopy and scan the roofs of the long buildings to either side of the square. Savannah hurries to the edge of the roof, spots us, and holds up two fingers. Then she points to the other side of the building and motions for us to wait.
Gregory is squatting on the far end of the building opposite of Savannah’s. Matt hoots briefly and Gregory runs over to hold up two fingers for us as well, but instead of pointing to anyplace outside, he points toward the opera house.
It doesn’t escape me that neither of them held up the sign for seeing Gloria, a circle of fingers and thumb. Still, she might be inside the opera house.
I hope she’s still inside. And still alive.
Today - Programmed to Eat
It’s so silent that the tiny rattle of the bolt outside the door is enough to make my eyes pop open, wide awake in an instant. Whoever is messing with the door is trying to be quiet, which is just drawing out the slight noise and making it more noticeable.
I slide off my bed into the space between the beds, slip the knife out from under my pillow, and reach up to grab Charlie with my other hand in one motion. He jerks, but doesn’t make any noise other than the crackle of the mattress cover. There’s no time to do anything more, because the door slowly opens.
A bit of moonlight shines through the window, so I can see the outlines of the door and the darker shape of a person entering the room. I can feel that person’s presence, displacing air and somehow changing the way the space feels. I brace myself to jump, ready to stab whoever it is because, let’s face it, anyone sneaking in at night probably doesn’t have my best interests at heart.
Charlie squeezes the hand I have on his arm, so I know he’s ready for me to move. Even as the muscles in my legs bunch to propel me toward the person, I hear a voice and stop.
“Psst, hey. Wake up.” Then there’s sound of someone’s toe or elbow or knee striking something hard and a vibration runs through Charlie’s bed. “Crap! Can’t we have some light here?” the voice asks in a harsh whisper.
Well, if this is an attack or anything like that, they truly suck at it, so I’m guessing it’s not.
I whisper, “What do you want?”
The person, a youngish male by the sound of the voice, lets out an eep of surprise and another voice, this time female, whispers, “Oh my god, could you be any louder?”
“Seriously, what do you want? Because you’re so loud you might as well advertise you’re here,” says Charlie as he levers himself up on his elbow in the bed.
“I checked your program!” the male voice says excitedly, moving toward the bed. My eyes are well and truly adjusted to the dark, so I can see the shape of someone with their arms extended, blindly reaching for the end of the bed.
Whoever the female voice belongs to must be at the door, because I hear the soft sound of it closing, then a tiny red LED light flares to life. With vision comes the awkward moment when we all stare at each other, the two intruders and the two prisoners, each wondering what the other will do next. Since I’m holding a knife and crouched like a lunatic, I win the creepy award, and the guy jumps back like he’s going to hide behind the woman with him.
She tosses the tiny light onto Charlie’s bed and when it moves away from her face, I recognize her. She was the guard trying not to laugh.
One point to me.
“Say what you’ve got to say. We don’t have all night,” she says and nudges the guy, who is still watching me like I could possibly be rabid, or an in-betweener.
I fold the knife closed and stand, trying to look harmless, but not really feeling it. It was a long day trapped in this room and I’m anxious to get out of it. “What did you find?” I ask.
“I can’t believe no one else thought of it. I mean, no offense or anything, but as soon as I saw it, I was like…duh. You know what I mean?”
“No, not at all,” I answer flatly.
His excitement dies back a little and he eyes me warily again. He’s the perfect picture of a computer geek, like his face should be next to the dictionary definition. It’s almost too stereotypical to be believable.
“Okay, sorry,” he says, and I hear him swallow from five feet away. “Just the basics. That program isn’t for the nanite constellation that’s causing the problems at all. It’s not about the broadcast or anything having to do with a shutdown. It’s brilliant!”
I’m confused. If it’s not about the nanites causing the problems, then what good is it? My heart sinks a little, but I figure I’m missing something crucial because he’s pretty thrilled about his news, so I ask, “And that’s good how?”
He finally catches on that he’s the only one in the room that has any clue what he’s talking about. In the dim, red light we’re all sort of staring at him, waiting for whatever this brilliant thing is to pop out and say hello.
With a wave of his hands like he’s trying to roll everything he’s said so far backwards, he takes a big breath and says, “Okay. Redo. Basically, everything we’ve done so far deals with the problem directly. That problem is the nanite types that have the factories and communications nanites that match them. We call any group like that a constellation. Trying to mess with the constellations directly doesn’t work. Nothing to do with that can work b
ecause we simply don’t have access to the program anymore. No instructions will be accepted. With me so far?”
I give Charlie a look and he shrugs, so I say, “Okay. We know what doesn’t work. Got it.”
The guy grins like I’ve understood more than he expected, which is sort of an insult, but he keeps talking. “Great, great. Alright. This is brilliant because it doesn’t even bother with the constellations. Instead, it uses early nanites, dumb ones that only worked for a while then went kaput, but the program—which is remarkably clean, by the way—makes those dumb nanites digest other nanites. Basically, any other nanite that it comes near that isn’t exactly the same gets eaten. It’s brilliant!” He throws his hands out like we’re about to sing a happy song.
“Dumb nanites, as in, the kind that fixed something specific and then went inactive?” I ask, a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach.
“Exactly!” he beams. “Actually, just like the ones you asked for, if you really did ask for some of the MBDNs. The ones for medulloblastoma? Is that what you wanted? Why do you want those anyway?”
The grim look on my face must be visible in the dim light, or else his eyes have adjusted to the dark, because his smile falters and he asks, “What?”
“I need those nanites to help someone, but I don’t want them reprogrammed or anything like that. I need them to do exactly what they’re supposed to do. Can you give them to me? Will they work if you reprogram them for everyone else?”
“Uh, yeah, I can. But that’s not how it’s going to work anyway. These nanites, they don’t have factories and they don’t communicate. That’s the point. That’s why it will work. If you want to clear someone of nanites, you’re going to have to inject them with these new nanites. The reprogrammed version will have to go directly into the bloodstream.”