by VK Fox
“No duh. I hypothesize they gassed the library with something more lethal when the vault blew. There weren’t any agents inside, only support staff.”
“Sweet Jesus.” Mary said it like a prayer, “There were seven people in here.”
“Acceptable collateral to protect the vault. If she’s puppeting them, they have visual and audio as well. Keep them on the floor or destroy the eyes: she can see what they see and hear what they hear.”
Two more gunshots went off almost simultaneously and Jane smothered a sob. Don’t think about it. Do this now. Cry later. The old janitor was still struggling to stand, her jerking body frail and uncoordinated. She slipped on the wreckage and fell on her face. Jane dumped the false copy of The Once and Future King in the rubble and roughed it up a little, frantically casting about for the linked volume, kicking through the heaps of splintered acrylic.
“Mary, your mark’s back up. Two’s at nine o’clock on the stairs. Three’s at eleven o’clock in the YA section.” Sister Isadora flipped a heavy wooden table on its side and crouched behind it, but the non-lethal ammunition only gave a few seconds pause to the shambling corpses. She pulled her handgun and tapped a heavy, young man puppet twice in the head right by the Judy Blume collection. Globular, wet brains splattered the row from Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret to Superfudge. It gave no more reprieve than the rubber bullets. The zombie rocked back, rebalanced, and pressed forward, minus half its head.
Jane’s foot connected with a partial box. Inside, suspended on its sturdy wire stand, was the clay tablet with Ian’s section of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Like the science experiment eggs she and her sister tossed out their window packed in homemade padded boxes, it lay nestled inside its protective case, perfectly intact. It held Jane’s gaze like a black hole as the dead support staff closed on her friends. “Acceptable collateral” was what Olive called them. It didn’t matter that they had dreams and futures and people who loved them so much it hurt. A life was nothing compared to a linked book. Sister Mary said if they found out about Mordred, they’d execute Dahl. No discussion. A nineteen-year-old boy they’d taken from his childhood home at the age of eight. How many young men were ready to take over Ian’s link if things went badly? People were disposable to Sana Baba. Not to Jane. She put her heel through the four-thousand-year-old artifact, grinding it into splinters and dust.
A deep, low bell rang; an echo of smoky crystal and strength. The hair on Jane’s arms stood on end as the note penetrated her ears. The motion in the shadows went from shambling to swift and coordinated: tactical.
Sister Mary narrowly ducked Disc World’s The Light Fantastic, followed by Going Postal and Equal Rights. A security zombie was holed up by the Terry Prachett end cap, and he wasn’t going to run out of ammo any time soon. The barrage forced her down while a coverall-clad zombie rushed in and wrenched the shotgun out of her grasp. Sister Mary let it go, pulled out her bowie knife and cut an arch across both eyes while his hands gripped the gun. Jane tore her gaze away from the dripping blood and jelly-filled sockets, grabbing the arm of a wingback chair for support. Get it together. Her eyes locked on a corner of blue and orange peeking near the chair leg. She snatched the book and thrust it into the Tupperware golem. It barely fit.
“I’m keeping the back door clear, but it’s not going to last more than another two minutes.” Olive chimed in.
The old janitor raised her head and grinned. Jane scrambled back.
Sister Isadora bowled over between them, wrestling with a zombie cleaning lady in the broken acrylic. They both had the idea of stabbing each other with vault shards at about the same time. Sister Isadora turned to take a large clear knife to the bicep. Zombie cleaner took one to the forehead. Blood sheeted over her eyes, and she flailed blindly.
“I got it!” Jane shouted, jamming great wads of aluminum foil on top of the book, to the golem’s exorbitant joy. She crushed a few layers over the edges and stumbled as a hand grabbed the collar of her coveralls. Jerked back, Jane fumbled the golem, and the little creature hit the floor running. It zipped off along the shelves and into the darkness as rough hands grabbed the edge of Jane’s gas mask. Jane sucked in one deep breath before dead fingers tore the whole thing off and whirled her around. Her mask splintered under a booted zombie foot. Dead eyes rose from the floor to lock on her face. The necromancer could see what her puppet saw. Jane spread her hands to screen her features. Through her splayed fingers, a barely visible Sister Mary dove for something on the floor. She came up holding the linked copy of The Invisible Man.
“STOP NOW.” Sister Mary’s voice was electronically amplified in the huge room. She raised the fragile paperback, open along the binding. The zombies froze. Jane held the last clean air in burning lungs.
“We are walking out. We won’t take anything else with us, but if you don’t call them off I will end this.” She shook the book, “We’ll toss it by the gate when we exit. Agreed?”
One of the Zombies took a halting step forward. Sister Mary ripped a corner off a single page and flicked it at him. He went still. All at once the zombies slumped to the ground, their magical strings cut. Sister Mary grabbed her gun, shoved the linked book in her pocket, and signaled for the others to follow.
Jane was going fuzzy—a horrible pressure building in her chest, fighting against her closed lips. She pinched her nose, covered her mouth, and staggered forward. She couldn’t tell them she didn’t know where the book was. She didn’t even know if she could make it thirty feet to non-lethal air. She might have failed, and now she might die.
Sister Isadora’s hand on her back propelled her along as her vision tunneled and vertigo closed in.
“Five more seconds. Anyone can hold their breath for five seconds!” Her chipper voice sounded close to Jane’s ear. She stumbled on wobbly legs and counted in her mind to five while her oxygen-starved lungs heaved against her hands blocking out toxic gas. The door was still distant.
“Count to five! Anyone can hold their breath to the count of five.” Jane mentally screamed five obscenities followed by “Mississippi” while stars popped in her vision. Almost there. Almost. Sister Mary ripped the door open and Jane was shoved through, stumbling across the threshold and into the clear, warm night.
Chapter Fifteen
Last January - Four Months Ago
Everest spent the weekend asking himself questions he should have asked years ago and studyed his future with both eyes open. His selfishness was obvious now that Adam was gone. Dahl didn’t even know how bad it was. Everest knew of no plan for replacement structure or leadership. Mordred might have one. The chilly reality was that a consciousness that was willing to ruin and kill children to sustain his existence was unlikely to have a more respectful and compassionate outlook towards other Sana Baba agents. Adam had only wanted to get away. He’d been willing to leave the ship burning behind him, and Everest had been collusive in his plan.
Monday morning Everest thumbed through the glossary of words in the back of an unlinked copy of his book, the book that had changed his life all those years ago. Lapine was a pretty useless language: there were only about forty words and almost all of them related to rabbit things. Everest had long suspected Richard Adams had invented the whole device so he could have his hero tell the villain to “eat shit” at the climax of the story back in a time when it would have not been socially acceptable to print those words in a novel. But Dahl’s knack for picking out language and his obsession with puzzle-solving had lit a lightbulb in Everest’s mind.
In front of the mirror he donned his fitted dress shirt and slacks for the office, and he couldn’t bring himself to meet his own eyes. Then tea, traffic, stairs, and he was back in familiar work surroundings. Everest took a few minutes to carefully copy a string of letters onto the whiteboard hanging at the back of his office, next to a small doodle of a rabbit.
An avalanche of paperwork on his desk menaced him. Everest took the top folder from the leaning stack and flipped it open: a resto
ration status report for Kennett Square. Everest thumbed through the file. Donations and memorials were not going to bring back the people the community had lost. Still, it did ease the road going forward. He should visit and get a feel for how things were progressing. It was only a few hours’ drive. Perhaps being on-site would clear his vision as well.
After the incidents last October, Sana Baba had burned a lot of midnight oil puzzling out why creatures like Bunnyman and the Jersey Devil had manifested in the forests outside of Kennett Square, PA. The word “Traveler” hung on everyone’s lips like an ill omen; an extra-natural creature powerful enough to alter reality was terrifying and serious. The barrier had been stable for so long. Why would this happen now? Was it a fluke? Who was behind it? Surely Eileen Kendle, a middle-aged nobody who’d overnight developed weird powers, was not the top dog in this fight. An uncomfortable lack of answers had come out of those investigations. Everest had peered through his second eye, but information was always an inch out of sight, like a name he could almost remember. Command informed him that a complete dearth of prophecy was unprecedented in the history of his link, as if it was somehow his failing. The situation was uneasy, like they were missing a critical piece but couldn’t even assess the shape of the gap. Everest wrinkled the edge of the page with his thumb and then tried to smooth it out again as he skimmed the document. Nothing new jumped out. He closed the folder and prepared for his meeting with Sendak and Dahl.
Sendak came in first, and Everest found he’d been so focused on the other half of this equation he hadn’t considered what to say to Ian. The big man sat in his office, looking unusually tired and haggard. Before Everest could open his mouth, Ian began speaking,
“Can you please tell me why my requests for more psychological testing for Dahl are being refused?”
Everest could. Someone up the chain didn’t want anyone looking too hard at Dahl. Neither should Ian, although he didn’t have enough information to know it. If Sana Baba discovered the linked copy of The Once and Future King was awake and through it an extra-natural creature like Mordred was wedging his foot into the door of this reality, they’d put a stop to it. Unfortunately, the stop would be a bullet in Dahl’s head. If Mordred continued to shred his mind, he would go insane. If the authorities stepped in, he would die.
The big man’s stubbornness and knack for getting policy exceptions was legendary: a combination of dogged persistence and an inability to accept rules not conforming to his outlook. Everest had read his file when he’d started managing the giant a year prior. He’d beat out a dozen other candidates for his place at the head of the line to attempt his link, not on physical markers, but because of the interview—an unprecedented scenario for Enkidu, who was considered an unintelligent beta.
Ian had secured a paternal position to eight-year-old Dahl at the age of nineteen while maintaining an active presence in the field. He’d won approval by drawing parallels between The Once and Future King and The Epic of Gilgamesh, making an argument for the stories containing complimentary themes. He reasoned if “the king was entrusted to his care,” it could yield positive benefits for Sana Baba. Everest particularly liked how he’d included a direct quote from The Epic in his written request and tied it into the Arthurian concept of a young apprentice being fostered by an older magic-user. Social Architecture had approved Ian as Dahl’s primary care provider in a matter of days.
Now Ian was using his irresistible force of determination to unknowingly kick a hornet’s nest. Everest made a snap decision and opened his second eye.
“Ian, listen to me. There are forces at work you don’t understand. The more I tell you beyond what I am about to say, the less likely we are to come out of this. I have a solution, but it’s going to take a few months, and this is a dangerous time.” In spring they would stand on a skull-shaped dais and a secret would be spoken that would save Dahl’s life. Ian would be there. They needed to make it to spring. “This is the time when things could go wrong for your son. I need you to stop making noise and just keep loving him. I know it’s a lot to ask you to trust me, but I understand family is precious. I wouldn’t put you through a loss like… like I’m living right now.”
Ian closed his eyes and let his shoulders sag, “I thought you were going to brush me off. Thank you. It’s such a weight lifted to know someone is helping.”
Unspoken words pressed in his skull. Could he keep going without breaking down? Everest paused for a few seconds before continuing in a halting voice. “Ian, thank you for visiting me when… in the hospital. Your kindness meant more to me than I can express.” Ian nodded and reached across the desk to squeeze Everest’s hand. An oddly familiar gesture, but he did it with sincerity, and it conveyed solidarity words could not.
The two men concluded their meeting, and Everest wished Ian well with his new commanding officer. After the door clicked shut, he made a few notes in the folder. Closing the file, he noted Ian’s summary sheet. The big man was classified primarily as a bruiser who was ranked as unfit for command and with a social reliability score too low to be considered for diplomacy. He was five years from retirement. Everest closed his eyes and tried to let it go. He couldn’t save everyone. Maybe Sana Baba would decide Ian’s secondary prophetic talents were useful enough to keep him on board.
Dahl entered and sat in the red leather chair facing Everest’s desk without looking at him. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hands trembled slightly. Everest’s stomach twisted. What had happened between Saturday when they were hanging out and this morning? Dahl’s eyes wandered across the office and fixed on something over Everest’s shoulder. He tracked slowly left to right. He was reading the message on the whiteboard.
Everest didn’t open the file or commence with the normal debriefing items. Instead, he took on a friendly tone while he shuffled paperwork.
“How was the rest of your weekend?” Everest kept his voice conversational. What Dahl heard, Mordred heard, but Mordred didn’t know what Dahl knew. A razor’s edge for balancing.
“Fine. Allison Card and I went drinking. She’s always good for gossip.” Dahl wasn’t paying attention. He was trying to puzzle it out. The code was a simple Caesarian left shift cipher. Child’s play if you had the key. But he didn’t have the key, yet.
“I was flipping through my book this morning. You’ve read it, right?”
“Yes, when I was a child. It’s been a long time.”
“You said Ian read it to you?” Everest ventured, keeping his tone distracted and polite.
“He brought it for my tenth birthday. He always gives books as gifts and reads out loud.”
“So, you haven’t read it since you were ten?”
“Why reread books? There are too many new ones out there to spend time going over ones I’ve already finished.”
Everest kept the relief off his face. Mordred had established residence in Dahl’s body when he was fourteen, so Mordred had not read Watership Down during this iteration. Had Mordred read it during any of his previous iterations? The novel was primarily a children’s book, and Everest figured the odds were as good as he was likely to get.
“Is it laughable how I’ve always struggled with the pronunciation of Lapine? I believe there are Arabic influences, and words like Hrairoo gave me pause. I tend to mentally substitute the translations.”
Dahl turned with a slow, blank stare. Everest prayed to everyone that Dahl actually still knew Lapine and additionally would realize the translation for the name Everest was referencing was not “little thousand,” which would have made the cipher impossible to crack without a computer. Dahl’s eyes tracked back to the whiteboard briefly before patting his pockets for a cigarette, adopting a more relaxed, natural composure. His eyes occasionally passed over the cipher, stealing another glance.
N’qq mjqu dtz Ymjwj nx mtuj
“This is a smoke-free office.” Keep the banter going. Give him time.
Dahl grinned, “Want to step outside before we get started?”
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nbsp; Everest soaked up Dahl’s breathtaking smile. He’d figured it out. Frowning with faux impatience, Everest stood. “This is why I transferred you. You’re the kind to seek leniencies from friends in command.”
They walked out into the chilly, damp air. It smelled like more snow was on the way. Dahl took out a couple of cigarettes, lit up, and closed his eyes, leaning back against the brick wall. Everest stood beside him, taking the offered cigarette and gazing out over the cold, muddy campus. A few seconds later, Dahl gently took his hand. Opening his second sight, profound closeness swept into Everest’s body where their skin touched.
“We’re talking about an event that’s months in the future.” Everest tried to explain for the third time. “I can say 70% chance of success with 60% accuracy.” The percentages were numbers he invented based on instincts, but they helped people feel more comfortable with his predictions. Percentages were neat and non-menacing, sheep’s clothing for prophecies.
Evelyn Steinbeck took the book out of his hands with a small jerk, “So if I closed my eyes and guessed I’d be almost as accurate. Thanks for nothing.” She jammed the copy of Cú Chulainn back in her messenger bag. On the other hand, more cryptic predictions might garner more respect. Everest breathed in the smell of ozone and oil, letting the familiar sounds of the range wash over him. He was almost done for the day, and he ached to let all five-feet, two-inches of Steinbeck’s tiny frame stomp off and leave him in peace.
The coffee in the range break room was traditionally terrible. Everest only drank coffee out of ritual: go to the range, shoot, clean up, drink awful coffee, and banter about firearms. He wasn’t sure when the coffee had become custom, or why it couldn’t be nice coffee and instead always tasted like burned disappointment. But pledges started here at the age of eight with a .22 rifle, and coffee was part of the whole coming-of-age convention. He took another grimacing sip and forced some encouragement into his voice, “I can give you a better reading closer to the time, but you’re an expert at this. You have the video feed and images. You’ve done this, what, four times before? No one’s even looking at the book after the ceremony. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to fill the space.”