The figure split in two, revolved in lazy circles, and rejoined. Brendan squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, hoping to clear his vision, but nothing changed.
“I’m covered head to toe in solid metal. Some of these parts are mods, and some are protection. Armor, if you will. And not a seam to be found. So call me names all you want. People all over the world are getting eaten up and taken over by the filth, but not me. I’m safe. I’m the Tin Can Man.”
A deep and metallic banging reverberated in the room. Brendan thought the figure might have thumped its chest, but he wasn’t sure.
“I have some questions for you and your friends, and you’ll find it’s better for everyone if you answer them.”
Two groans—one male, one female—came from Brendan’s left. Samson and Krystal? He reached for them, but the cuff around his upper arm restrained him.
“Hey, did you hear me?”
Brendan tried to redirect his attention, tried to grab hold of the Tin Can Man’s voice, but his mind swam in molasses. The skull-headed figure had said something, but in his memory, it was only a buzzing echo.
A long, metallic sigh filled the room. “You’re no good to me like this.”
5
Brendan realized he was alone. The Tin Can Man must have left, but Brendan couldn’t remember when. He was floating, disoriented, powerless.
His mind drifted until he was not quite unconscious, but not fully awake, either.
He turned in darkness as black as the tar.
6
Brendan sat with his back to a gray, shriveled tree. Skeletal branches hung over him. The entire tree was a husk. It had been sucked dry, but of what, he couldn’t say. The ground beneath him had the same feel. It was hard as a rock, and the slightest shifting of his weight caused the dusty ridges to crumble.
A presence loomed ahead of him. He could feel it drawing him. He could feel its hunger.
Brendan stood and approached the presence, knowing its identity full well. Nothing else he’d encountered had a hunger like this.
The earth crumbled under his feet with every step. A chasm opened behind him, as if the earth barely held together. He turned ahead once again and immediately stopped.
The tar was waiting for him.
Massive, black tentacles rose over the horizon, waving in the dim, gray light. They split into a multitude of branches, which sprouted tendrils of their own, which split again and joined with other tentacles. A whole network of tar grew into the sky, even as more blackness traced a path across the ground. It moved with alarming speed, a poisonous shadow racing over the earth.
The tar sensed Brendan, and it came for him.
As Brendan watched the tar approach, he realized the hunger was not directed at him. The tar needed to feed, but had no desire to consume Brendan. What it saw in Brendan was power, not sustenance.
I know who you are, and I know with whom you travel.
The voice thundered across the expanse, bringing with it a powerful wind. Out of the corner of his eye, Brendan saw the tree bend under its force, and then break apart and turn to dust. This was the voice from his dream at Krystal’s house, the voice from his journey to Tir Anhrefnus with Alicia.
Your companion wishes to destroy this, for he finds it evil.
A form rose amid the tentacles. It had a recognizable head and body, but the waving tendrils and branching threads rendered the creature completely alien.
But there is no evil here, only hunger. To sate an appetite is not evil. The wizard you follow only sees evil because he has found something he cannot control. He does not seek justice. He seeks safety. He is not noble. He is afraid.
The voice buffeted Brendan like a hurricane, gaining strength until its power knocked him onto his back. The dusty earth gave way beneath Brendan. He plummeted into the fresh pit, and he watched the tar trace a network of paths across the sky until what little light remained was blotted out by the black infection.
Tell me which is more evil: Destruction out of hunger, or destruction out of fear?
7
Brendan started awake, partially from the shock of his dream, but also from the commotion happening a few feet away. Shouting. Echoing footsteps. Humming motors.
“It’s here!”
“How did it get through?”
“Don’t get too close!”
The voices were frantic, stepping on one another and building in a crescendo of urgency.
As Brendan wiped the sleep from his eyes, he realized that, though his world still spun wildly, much of the hazy disorientation had lifted. He took in his surroundings as the shouting continued. He supposed he should care more about what had the voices so worked up, but he couldn’t bring himself to connect with them.
Brendan turned, stiff muscles screaming. Behind him, an intricate network of hoses made of rubbery, synthetic material hung from the wall. Some dangled limp and unused, with clear liquid dribbling from their edges. A handful traveled to the cuff on Brendan’s arm, supposedly pumping chemicals into his system to keep him from focusing. Still more hoses ran into cuffs wrapped around Samson’s and Krystal’s arms.
So they were with him after all. Good. That gave them a better chance of escaping.
Brendan examined the rest of the room. It took great effort to focus on even the most obvious details. The entire space seemed to be made of metal—likely poreless to keep the tar out.
To Brendan’s left was a grate. The commotion was on the other side. Four men in black suits had circled around something Brendan couldn’t see. As he watched them, even through the haze in his mind, he realized he knew exactly what they were dealing with.
Brendan had been in Tir Anhrefnus, if only mentally. A portal had opened while he slept, and now the tar had leaked into this place, despite the Tin Can Man’s best efforts to create an impenetrable fortress.
A dark impulse in Brendan wanted to command the tar, to infect the men who surrounded it. If they were the ones who’d put him here, they had it coming. But as Brendan tried to reach out with his mind, his thoughts were too sluggish. He kept trying to connect with the tar, but failed every time. He lost focus. His mind slipped. The tar wouldn’t answer him.
And so Brendan rolled back and rested his head on the cold, metal ground.
A new set of footsteps joined the commotion, ringing louder on the rusted floor than any others. The sounds of struggle and panic came to a halt. Soon no sound remained but the distant hum of machinery and the flow of drugs through the tubes which snaked out of the walls.
“What’s going on?” said a voice.
A familiar voice.
Brendan rolled his head to one side again, looking through the grate to his left. There was that shining metal suit, that grinning skull helmet, and those glowing green eyes. The Tin Can Man had returned. The men in black suits froze.
“We don’t know how it got in,” said one of the men. “But we’ll contain it.”
The Tin Can Man regarded them with his frozen grin. “Good,” he said, after a long silence.
Then he turned to Brendan. He approached the grate and placed one metal hand on the bars. That wild grin and those cold, green pinpricks of light hovered on the other side of the bars, impassive and imposing.
“You did that, didn’t you?”
Brendan only stared back.
“I’ve been down here for...how long now?...five years, we’ll say. They all run together.” The Tin Can Man leaned closer until his skull almost touched the bars. “But in all those years, the filth has never gotten through our defenses. Never.”
He stomped a metal foot on the floor, and the sound reverberated long and loud.
“That’s the sound of solid metal, my friend. I personally caulked every joint in here with the stuff the government handed out like candy before they vanished. We scan everyone who comes in here more thoroughly than any hotel you’ve ever been
to. And now, after all those years and all those precautions, the filth gets through. And where does it show up?”
The Tin Can Man turned, watching the black-suited men.
“Right outside the cell of the guys who transformed the highway into a ramp with telekinesis. Now, I didn’t get to where I am by ignoring stuff like this. There’s something different about you, and I intend to find out what it is. Okay?”
Again, Brendan offered no response.
The Tin Can Man backed away. “Okay,” he said.
And then he was gone. Brendan rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, listening as the men in black suits tried to contain the tar. He allowed the drugs to carry him, even as he wondered what it would take to block their flow.
8
The next time Brendan woke, it was quiet. No nearby windows offered a view of the sun’s position, and the drugs pumping into his system kept him floating on a wave of disorientation. He didn’t know if it was late at night or high noon. He didn’t know whether it had been minutes, hours, or days since the Tin Can Man last came.
Brendan allowed his head to roll to one side, casting his gaze through the grate. The men in black suits had disappeared, along with the tar. Somehow, they’d managed to remove it.
“Are you guys awake?”
Krystal’s voice.
Brendan turned away from the grate. Krystal had propped herself into a sitting position, while Samson remained flat on his back.
“Sort of.” Brendan rattled the cuff around his arm. “Whatever they’re pumping into us is really messing with me.”
Krystal nodded. “Me, too. I can’t...” She shook her head and pressed a pair of fingers to her temple. “Things slip away. It’s a house of cards up here.”
They stared at each other, struggling against the disorienting haze.
Eventually, Krystal spoke again. “How are you holding up, Samson?”
No answer. Krystal tried to stand, but swayed as soon as she got off her knees. Carefully, she lowered herself to a seated position, patting the cuff on her arm to indicate the drugs’ impact. Still in that seated posture, she scooted across the floor until she sat next to Samson. She pressed a finger to his neck and held her hand in front of his nostrils.
With a look of relief, she said, “Still alive. Just sleeping.”
Brendan nodded, realizing he wouldn’t have cared that much if Samson had died.
Krystal looked up from the unconscious man. She held Brendan’s gaze as best she could, eyes passing in and out of focus.
“I’m afraid, Brendan,” she said. “Why did we come with him? What did we really think was going to happen?”
Brendan lay there, trying to concentrate on her words. He had no response. Even without the drugs, he’d be hard pressed to find a response.
“Samson can’t save the day forever. Even if we get out of this alive, do you really think it’s going to be easy to do whatever he thinks it’ll take to kill the tar?”
Even amid the chemical haze, Brendan’s heart dropped. If Krystal faltered, what else was there? If her fear of death became stronger than her hope for a better future, what did that mean for Brendan and Samson? Krystal was their moral compass whether they admitted it or not. Brendan wouldn’t pretend to have the purest motives for following Samson, and he got the idea Samson was driven more by some old drive to finish what he started than anything else.
If Krystal lost hope, they were rudderless.
Brendan wanted to tell her this. He wanted to give her a shred of optimism, because even if he didn’t agree with her, he found her spirit inspiring.
But he couldn’t. He wished he could blame the drugs, but even stone-cold sober, he’d be unable to free the words from their prison in his throat. So he heaved a sigh and shook his head in resignation. He rolled away from Krystal, so he didn’t have to look her in the eye.
And then those familiar heavy footsteps returned.
Brendan propped himself on one elbow and squinted into the darkness. The Tin Can Man appeared outside the cell, regarding his prisoners. His eyes cast a green glow on the bars of the grate.
“You want to go on a field trip?”
He didn’t wait for a response. He held out a hand, and a panel in his wrist slid back to reveal a key. The Tin Can Man slipped the key into a lock, turned it, and pulled the grate open. He came a few paces into the cell until he stood over Brendan.
“You’re the one, aren’t you?” he said. “It’s you bringing the filth in here. Somehow.”
Brendan didn’t respond. Didn’t want to give this creature the honor of recognition.
“I want to show you something.”
The Tin Can Man bent over Brendan, pausing when his skull hovered inches from Brendan’s nose. He lifted a gleaming, skeletal finger.
“Don’t you try anything, now. Just because I’m within striking distance doesn’t mean it would be a good idea to throw a punch.”
He reached out with one metallic hand, gripping the cuff around Brendan’s arm. He held up his other hand, and one finger flipped back, just like Krystal’s mod, to reveal a screwdriver. The Tin Can Man pressed the tool into a small opening in Brendan’s cuff. A tiny motor whirred, and then the Tin Can Man withdrew his finger, now with a screw at the end. With his other hand, he gripped the tube feeding into the cuff and gave it a tug. It slid out of the port with ease.
Pain blanketed Brendan.
It was electricity. The instant the tube left its port, the shock passed from the cuff through Brendan’s entire body. His muscles convulsed, curling him in on himself. It felt like every square inch of him was bruising, or worse. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t open his mouth. The world grew dark, a tight circle constricting his vision.
And then something cold brushed his ear.
“Feel that?” said the voice of the Tin Can Man. “It’s electricity. I don’t have a clue how much is coming out of that cuff. You’d have to ask one of the engineers. All I know is it isn’t enough to kill you. Not immediately, anyway. If you somehow manage to get your drugs unplugged, this is what you have to look forward to. Got it?”
The electricity was relentless. Brendan’s body vibrated with pain. Saliva traced a cool path down his jaw.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, the torture ended.
The relief came so suddenly Brendan thought he’d passed out. He was dreaming, floating on a blissful plane disconnected from the cold, damp cell. But the constricted circle opened, and his muscles relaxed. The tube that had plugged into his cuff lay on the floor, discarded and dribbling translucent fluid into a drain. A new tube fed into the cuff in its place. This one came from a rolling IV pole with several fluid-filled bags hanging from the top of the pole.
Next to the pole, the Tin Can Man loomed over Brendan.
He said, “Come with me.”
9
The Tin Can Man took Brendan through a network of tunnels, following close behind so Brendan never left his sight. The creature who might once have been human held a metal hand on Brendan’s shoulder, directing him by yanking him one way or another.
They moved too quickly for Brendan to take in much detail, but he saw enough to know the tunnels were thoroughly tar-proofed. Poreless metal coated the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Brendan’s flesh puckered into goosebumps as they walked. A handful of lanterns flickered in the tunnels, spaced just far enough apart that Brendan and the Tin Can Man would walk in total darkness for a few paces before entering the circle of light cast by the next lantern.
Brendan’s muscles ached. Every step sent a fresh jolt of pain up his thighs and back. He tried to walk as gingerly as possible, to find ways of moving that didn’t set his body on fire, but every time he slowed his pace, the Tin Can Man prodded him from behind. Sometimes it was with a gentle nudge. Sometimes it was a blow that added bruises to Brendan’s already sore muscles. Sometimes it was a device which bit
into Brendan’s skin and sent more electricity coursing through his body.
The cold tunnels led to a large, circular room with more tunnels branching off of it. A pair of old, tattered chairs faced a white cube about four feet across. The scene was so stark and perfectly arranged it must have been set up specifically for Brendan to see.
The Tin Can Man led Brendan to the chairs, pushing him into one and settling into the other. He sat in silence for a moment, regarding Brendan with that frozen sneer and those glowing dead eyes.
“That gasoline car you had,” he said. “That was pretty cool. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t curious about where you’re finding gasoline. But if I’m right, and you really pulled filth out of thin air into my home...” The Tin Can Man shifted, considering the possibilities. “...well, that would really be something.”
The Tin Can Man leaned over, placing one gleaming hand on the white cube.
“When the filth came, I knew I had to do more than the government’s basic recommendations,” said the Tin Can Man. “They said we’d be fine sealing up our houses and only traveling to safe zones, and to their credit, they were mostly right. The people who followed those directions lasted longer than the people who didn’t. But after the people who didn’t pay attention to any of the warnings were all dead or infected, what came next? The filth was still hungry.
“See, when a predator goes hunting, it seeks the weakest of the pack. It’s always looking for the easiest meal. All those guys who didn’t listen to the government—they were the easiest meal. But after them, who came next? It was the guys who did what the government told them, and nothing more.
“So the way I saw it, if I didn’t want to be the easiest meal, I had to do more.
“Fast forward a few years of research, experiments, and close calls. I found this old sewer system and made it more secure than the most locked-down fortresses in the world. But there was a catch. The more secure I made it, the more power I needed to maintain it. And when the only power left is bio-power, you can only do so much. I tried hiring people to be batteries, but it was never enough. People either stopped taking my money because they were so spent, or they worked themselves to death. Literally.
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