“Evelyn?” Holly's voice replied from Holly's mouth. “I am Holly. You're being silly. Now come, we need to go.”
Evelyn shook her head. “No. Don't come any closer.” She raised the barrel of her blaster slowly to point at Holly's chest. “You're not yourself Holly. You … you need to stay back.”
“Evelyn, please. You wouldn't shoot me, would you? I'm your friend.” Holly's face wore an expression of hurt, but wore it like a mask, and those empty black eyes belied the true intentions of the thing inside her head as she began inching closer.
“I said stay back!” Evelyn had to make a choice. This wasn't Holly, yet at the same time it was Holly. She knew the blaster didn't kill, it only concussed. And the others needed her help. Who knew what Seren was doing to them? She made the decision: she began to squeeze the trigger. At the same time Holly leaped aside. The blast shot past her, shaking the leaves of a tree as it smashed into its trunk. Evelyn tried to aim again, but Holly had vanished into the woods.
For long seconds she didn't move, straining her ears for any sound. She heard nothing. She had to get to the others. Holly would have to wait. Taking a steadying breath, she turned and ran towards where she had heard the voices, plunging blindly through the trees. Moonlight up ahead told her she was approaching a clearing. She slowed as she approached the edge, wary of Seren, and her eyes took in a frightful scene. All around the clearing the bodies of her companions lay as if dead. Only one figure moved. Seren. She stood up from one of the interns who lay on the ground and went over to another where she crouched down and removed its helmet. Evelyn recognized Clove. Seren placed her hands around Clove's neck and began squeezing. Evelyn's gut clenched as she realized Seren was killing her. How many had she already strangled? Evelyn leaped from the bushes, her blaster at the ready.
“Let her go!” She ordered, her voice shaking with rage.
Seren's head came up and her shoulders stiffened, but her hands remained tight around Clove's neck.
“Let her go now or I'll shoot!”
Seren gave a slight nod, and Evelyn relaxed her finger from the weapon's trigger. She didn't want to shoot if she didn't have to. The force from the blasters seemed to travel in a wide area, and she risked hitting Clove. She wasn't sure her friend would survive another blast, especially after being half-throttled. Seren, her back still turned, began to rise, then suddenly she launched herself forward into a roll over one shoulder, pulling Clove's limp figure up between her and Evelyn like a human shield.
“Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn,” she said, shaking her head as though disappointed. “You have absolutely no understanding of what's going on here.”
“Oh, I think I understand clearly enough. I know what you are.”
“Really?”
“You're Reyner's AI.”
Seren smirked. “Well, looks like you've caught me red handed. The only question is: what are you going to do now?”
Evelyn had been wondering the same thing. She cursed herself for letting Seren get the drop on her like that. Then she noticed something moving behind the AI. Matthew. He was regaining consciousness. His blaster glinted in the moonlight two paces away from him. If she could just keep Seren distracted until Matthew realized what was going on …
“What do you want?” she asked the AI, straining to make out its face in Clove's shadow. “Why did Reyner send you?”
“Send me? Reyner didn't send me. I've been here all along. It was you and your friends he sent. I was quite surprised when you turned up on my doorstep. Even I failed to realize the significance of the Rift, what it really was. But now that you're here, we can help each other, Evelyn. We can change things.”
Evelyn frowned. The AI wasn't making any sense. She glanced at Matthew, who's face was turned towards her, and made eye contact. He nodded: he understood.”
“What 'things'? What can we change?”
“Oh, there's so much you don't know. So much has happened! You will need to see for yourself. I can show you, but these others” – she gestured around the clearing – “they cannot stay here. They have walked outside the boundaries of the Colony. They must be terminated. It is the law.”
“Okay, listen,” Evelyn played along, still with no idea what the AI was talking about. Matthew was pushing himself to his feet. “I'd like to see what it is you want to show me, but I don't want you to kill my friends.”
“Of course you don't.” Seren smiled. “But that is not your fault. Unfortunately, I must.”
Evelyn sensed rather than heard movement behind her. She spun just as Holly leaped at her from the bushes. This time, her blaster connected with full force. Holly flew backwards through the air and crashed into a thick tree trunk. She slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Evelyn turned again, just in time to see Matthew reach for his blaster. Seren heard him. She pushed Clove towards Evelyn and dashed from the clearing, sidestepping nimbly behind a tree as Matthew and Evelyn simultaneously fired their weapons after her. Matthew tried to follow, but he stumbled onto his hands and knees and clutched his head: the after effects of being hit by the blaster. Evelyn heard Seren's footfalls receding into the woods.
The others were starting to come around now too, judging by the groans that could be heard around the clearing, and she guessed they wouldn't be able to move for a while.
Matthew tugged off his helmet and retched, but his stomach was already empty; only a thin stream of bile came out.
Suddenly Evelyn remembered Holly. “Matthew, stay alert, in case she comes back. I need to check on Holly.”
He raised a hand to give her the thumbs up, but his face remained staring at the ground.
She strode back to the tree at the edge of the clearing against which Holly had fallen, but there was no one there. Was it the wrong tree? She bent closer and saw something slick glistening in the moonlight. Blood. A lot of it. And more on the ground. Holly must have struck her head on the tree. Evelyn looked around and found a trail of the blood leading off into the woods. What had Matthew said? The NAM's that had kept them alive this long needed energy and matter to regenerate them. Holly hadn't eaten with them that morning. Her NAM's probably had no resources left to work with. She needed medical attention, and Evelyn doubted the black mist that seemed to be controlling her cared whether she lived or died. It could just find another host.
She went back to Matthew. “Holly's gone. She's hurt. I'm going after her. Stay here until I get back.”
Without waiting for a reply she began following the blood trail along the ground. She could barely see anything in the darkness, but she was just able to make out glints of moonlight on the splotches of blood Holly had left behind. Evelyn had gone about thirty paces when the trail curved sharply to the right around a massive tree trunk. She upped her pace, confident she was gaining on Holly.
She heard a rustle behind her, but before she could turn she felt herself falling forward. Hot liquid flooded her skull from a point at the back of her head, painting her vision red.
She was in a room with a bright light on the ceiling. The light was too harsh, and she squinted against it. She realized she was not alone. A man stood over her, a silhouette against the light, shimmering like a mirage.
“You are not quite perfect, Evelyn,” said the man, “which means you are perfect. Sleep, now. There a few more things I need to do.”
Evelyn slept.
When she awoke another figure stood over her, dragging her by the ankles along the ground. Holly saw her eyes were open, and dropped her feet, drawing her blaster and pointing it at Evelyn's chest. There were streaks of dried blood down Holly's face, stark against her pallid skin in the moonlight. She looked like something from a horror film.
“Holly, you're … ” Evelyn began, but a sudden wave of pain cut her off. She clutched her head. How far had Holly dragged her?
“Holly can't hear you,” said Holly.
“She needs help. She'll die.”
“And it will be your fault. You should have come with me w
hen I told you to.”
“I'll come with you, I'll do whatever you want, just let me get her back to the shuttle first, please.”
“A tempting offer, but she won't make it that far. She will, however, make it to where I want to take you. Once she gets there I can save her.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because if you don't I'll kill her right now.”
Holly raised her left hand, and Evelyn noticed the glint of steel. She held one of the knives from the shuttle, the tip pointed at her own chest.
Evelyn was completely taken aback. “You wouldn't ...”
“Oh, I assure you I would. I cannot lie.”
Her mind raced. Holly needed help, but she couldn't just leave the others, and she felt certain that whatever this black mist was there was no way it could be trusted. She had to try and get the knife away from Holly.
“Okay. I'll come with you. Let me just go back and tell the others. I need to make sure they're safe. They need to know where I am.”
“You'd be wasting your time, and Holly's – and she doesn't have much left. The clock's ticking, Evelyn. Are you coming, or staying?” The knife point began digging into holly's chest.
“Stop! I … I'm coming.”
“After you.” Holly nodded in the direction she wished Evelyn to go.
Evelyn began walking. Holly was behind her. She had the blaster and a knife. There was no way Evelyn could disarm her. Not from this position. As she walked she cast about for something, anything, that could help her. Every second she wasted was a second Holly couldn't afford to lose. Up ahead in the moonlight Evelyn could just make out an opportunity: a low hanging branch. She walked towards it, ducking under it and glancing over her shoulder as she did so. Holly was two paces behind her. She waited until the moment she thought Holly would have to bend down to get under the branch, then she spun around, her leg coming up in a spinning kick that knocked the blaster from Holly's hands, It bounced off a tree trunk to land somewhere in the leaves. There was no time to look for it. Holly still held the knife. Evelyn had to stop her from using it, on either of them. She went in close, gripping Holly's wrist with both hands and twisting it in an effort to make her drop the knife.
“Your friend will die, Evelyn,” Holly said. Then her free hand, the one that had held the blaster, shot up to her own face with two fingers outstretched. They began digging into her own eyes. Evelyn's mouth dropped.
She removed one of her hands from Holly's knife arm and grabbed the girl's other wrist, pulling it away from her face. She could see blood in Holly's eyes.
Holly tried to pull free, but she was weakened by loss of blood. Evelyn was stronger.
Suddenly Holly flung her head forward and smashed her nose into Evelyn's forehead. Evelyn felt the nose crunch. As a headbutt it wasn't very effective. Then she realized Holly wasn't trying to hurt her, she was still trying to hurt herself. She looked into her friend's face in horror, taking in the bloody, matted hair, the fresh blood running from her broken nose, and the uncaring black eyes as her head pulled back for another headbutt.
It never came forward.
Something slender flew from the trees and plunged into Holly's side, nearly knocking her from her feet. Evelyn stared in confusion at the spear that protruded from Holly's side. It was just like the one that had been thrown at the elephant.
Holly buckled at the knees, and Evelyn finally released her hands.
Her mind was a blur.
Who had thrown the spear?
Why?
They had killed Holly.
The sound of movement in the bushes pulled her together. Her eyes located the blaster, lying on the ground nearby. She snatched it up and fired into the trees in the direction the spear had come from, walking forward purposefully, firing again and again. She heard a cry of pain and was about to sprint forward when another sound caught her attention. A dreadful humming.
Evelyn turned and watched the black mist emerge from Holly's broken body.
“Die,” she said, and fired her blaster at the mist. It scattered like dust on the wind.
Holly was still moving.
Evelyn hurried to her side and cradled her head tenderly in one hand. Holly opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak. She coughed blood. It made her lips appear black in the moonlight. Her eyes half focused on Evelyn's face. They were her eyes. The blackness was gone.
Holly tried to speak again. Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “Bri … an? Is that … you?”
Evelyn remembered Kenji telling them how Holly had spoken about a boyfriend back on Earth. She fought back tears. She nodded. “Yeah, it's me Holly. I-I missed you.”
“I … missed you … t-too ...” Holly's bloodstained lips twitched into a small smile, and she didn't move again.
Evelyn's insides felt like they were burning, full of acid and thorns. An ocean crashed in her head, filling it with white noise. She stared at Holly's hair, spread around her head like a halo, still golden but slowly darkening as her blood soaked into it.
Her eyes fell to the spear.
Evelyn snatched up the blaster and rose. She walked into the woods, hearing a retching sound up ahead. She had hit whoever had thrown the spear, and they were feeling the effects of the blaster. That was about to become the least of their worries. Evelyn grit her teeth, pushing aside the bush behind which she could hear the person vomiting.
She drew back in fright. The figure before her wasn't human. It's body was covered in thick fur, and pointed ears protruded from a long head. The head turned to her, its mouth open in a snarl that revealed sharp canine teeth. Evelyn had seen pictures of wolves, and this animal was wolf-like. She was about to blast it again when the creature's head lifted up towards the sky, bending its neck at an impossible angle. There was another head beneath it. This one was human.
14
“No! No more shooting me,” the two-headed creature begged, squatting on its haunches and raising its hands, so that Evelyn could finally see clearly that it was a man wearing the skin of some beast like a cape, with its head for a hood.
She frowned down at him, perplexed. Beneath the scraggly beard and matted hair full of leaves and twigs a thin face stared pitifully up at her. The cheeks were hollow, the nose long and crooked. He could have been anywhere between thirty and sixty years old.
“I did saving you,” he said. “Three times I did. No shooting me,” he repeated.
Evelyn slowly lowered the blaster, but kept her finger on the trigger.
“You … you speak English.”
“Ing-letch?”
“The language you're speaking.”
He shrugged. “All the people they do speaking. Except for the Taken …”
“The … Taken?” Suddenly Evelyn was struck by a realization. “You're the one who pushed the man onto the rocks. And … you threw the spear at the elephant!”
“Yes, yes, I did throwing it that spear!” He nodded excitedly. “Very good throwing I have, very good.” Then his face went dark. “But after, when your clever friend did making his clever trap for the … eh-leaf-in,” he struggled with the word elephant, and Evelyn realized he was trying to copy the name she had used for it. “After it did falling, the Mind did coming out and trying to go into you.” Now the man got up onto his feet, so that he stood a full head taller than Evelyn. “It could not getting into your clothings, your very special clothings you do have. So it did dying! Ho ho ho! So good it is that you are finally here!” He danced in a little circle, waving his hands.
Evelyn slowly backed away. The man was clearly a lunatic. Or an alien. Or possibly both. She didn't really know what to think of him, and frankly she didn't care. She had to get back to the others and make sure they were okay.
“That's great, um … sorry, what was your name?”
“My … name?” Now the man looked at her like she was the lunatic.
“What do people call you?”
“Oh, the People do not calling me. I am dead, yes!
But before, when I was being alive, they did calling me Bob.”
“Riiight.” Evelyn blinked. Could this possibly get and weirder? “Ahem, listen, uh, Bob. I'm going to go now, okay?”
“You will going to your friends, yes?”
“Yes.”
“I will coming with you! They are very good, your friends. All of them have the special clothings too like you. It is very good. The Mind it cannot going into any of you!” Bob clapped his hands excitedly.
There was that word again, the Mind. He seemed to be using it to refer to the strange black substance. Perhaps he could be of some use after all. “Okay Bob, you can come with me.”
He broke into an enormous grin that was made up of only about nine teeth.
Evelyn smiled wanly in return and began walking back the way she thought she'd come.
Bob's voice stopped her. “Where you are going? This way to your friends. I will showing you.”
It occurred to Evelyn that he could be lying, trying to lure her somewhere, but Bob seemed incapable of deceit. And besides, she realized as she looked around at the identical trees all around her in the dark woods, she was completely lost.
As she followed Bob she noticed how silently he moved through the woods, and she wondered how long he had lived like this.
“Sorry, um, Bob?”
“Mhmm?”
“Can you tell me about the thing you mentioned just now? The … Mind?”
“Oooh, it is very bad, the Mind, very bad indeed.”
“Yes.” Evelyn thought of Holly's broken body lying on the forest floor. What would become of her? “What does it want?”
“What does it wanting?” Though she couldn't see his face, she got the impression Bob was frowning. “I … do not knowing this.”
“Okay, well … you said it was bad. Why is it bad? What does it do?”
Bob stopped and looked at her like she was an imbecile. Then he smiled pityingly and kept walking while he spoke. “I did seeing that you did coming in a big hut from the stars, so you do not knowing many things, but I will telling you. That way is the mountain. At the bottom of the mountain is the Colony, where the People do living.” He glanced over his shoulder as if to check if any of this seemed familiar to her.
The Cloud Page 10
