by I. O. Adler
***
A day later and the doctor touched it. The shadow remained collapsed in a formless pool, one tendril outstretched where it had last been moved by a pair of metal probes. Lacerations oozed saline, which helped it keep its form.
The doctor spoke to a colleague in a harsh tone. Had her fellow soldier made a mistake? It was what the doctor was feeling that interested the shadow. Beneath the irritability was an impatient anger. Almost close enough that the shadow could see her thoughts. Just a touch and it would drink its fill. But when the touch came, the doctor was reaching into the plastic container with gloves set inside the box.
Her mask’s light would be blinding if it hadn’t closed most of its photoreceptors. The buzz of her voice grated on its nerves. A metal probe pulled at it and spread its body out beneath her gaze.
So close. Only the thick plastic shielded her. It wanted to feel more, dive deeper, see every instance of quiet rage and bottled-up resentment.
Its tendril caressed her finger.
Careless! A mistake. The shadow went limp. Had it just revealed that it was no longer comatose?
The doctor would panic. She would bark an order and the soldier would activate the sonic device and the shadow would be torn to pieces. But the doctor remained perfectly still. Said something in a soft voice. Exuded unstifled hubris driven by her ambition and curiosity. She leaned closer. Beyond the plastic shield and her hazard suit’s faceplate, the woman’s eyes gazed down at her captive.
It didn’t understand her words, but as the gloved fingers touched the shadow again, it sensed their meaning.
You’re mine.
***
The doctor and the others departed. Was it nighttime again? It sensed the humans remained close, but it took the chance to press against the case in every direction possible. It had been stuck inside its prison for days. The compartment had an electronic lock it couldn’t bust open. It remained weak, but even at full strength the shadow doubted it could force its way out.
The doctor returned hours later, and the shadow didn’t see anyone else with her. It could hear them on the radio. But the doctor began her work alone. She had her hands in the gloves, and this time the fingers held no tools.
She pressed a finger against its body. Said words in soothing tones.
From their last contact, the shadow felt stronger. It realized it might recover if the humans didn’t kill it. And now it knew that if the doctor remained in charge, it wouldn’t die soon.
Feelings like hers existed among other races of the Framework, but not the Cordice, and it knew only them and the few humans it had encountered. But this doctor?
She possessed a richness that proved overwhelming. It longed for direct contact. Imagined the possibility of serving those beyond the Wall and instead of dying in its service, thriving, finding a nutrient source, as surely this world would have many, and multiplying.
If it could escape, its purpose in keeping the humans from gaining the harvester might still be realized. And this doctor was the key.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Show me,” Carmen whispered. “She Who Waits? Let me see what’s happening.”
“We will attain visual range in a moment.”
Carmen felt herself trembling. How had she underestimated the Melded’s capacity for such evil? Her sister, her nephews, her hometown…all gone? She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
A nuke? No, please god, no.
A display appeared. It was evening on the west coast of North America and the sun had set, the last red lights dwindling on the horizon. But down below their ship, fires burned. Carmen couldn’t orient herself as they continued their descent. Too much darkness. So little light. She saw trace lines of what might be distant freeways pass beneath the shuttle’s view. But the fires burned at the center of where they were heading and they only grew larger.
She tried to understand the scale. Was half of California in flames? Several counties? Had she missed San Francisco and the Bay Area? Why so much darkness?
The shuttle flight eased to what felt like a near stop.
A blaze raged around what looked like a crashed airplane. Trees and grass around it had ignited. Smaller fires danced closer to one another along what must have been streets and inside a series of lots. Vehicles, Carmen guessed. Or they had been cars, trucks, and vans once and now were burning husks of metal. But with no other lights, she couldn’t see enough to understand where they were.
Through the flickering illumination she could make out a pair of tall shapes like twisted towers which had partially collapsed. Beyond them lay several large structures in dense shadow.
“Where are we?” she asked.
She Who Waits spoke calmly. “Near the lost section of the harvester.”
The screen brightened as if the view was now through a set of night vision goggles. It corrected a few times as the shapes grew sharp and the darkness vanished.
The sphere stood where Carmen had parked it right in front of the hospital’s emergency room entrance. Around it, the twisted towers were a pair of cranes. They each held something like a cage or net in place around and above the sphere. At least a dozen military vehicles were burning. The hospital lay beyond and the buildings were intact.
Over the parking garage hovered the Melded frigate with its multiple nodes and asymmetrical components, along with the One’s larger ship still connected to its starboard side. In the gray tones of the monitor the frigate was monstrous, like a tumorous shark with fractured teeth and random fins and bulges.
One of the fins pivoted and turned upward.
Ovo looked up from his own screen. “They’re targeting us!”
The shuttle dropped. Carmen wasn’t prepared for the maneuver and collided with the ceiling as the floor fell out from beneath her. They were racing downward now. Carmen tried to grab on to anything, the altar, a wall, even She Who Waits, but couldn’t find a handhold.
Ovo grabbed her. They grasped each other as he bounced once on the floor and they tumbled to a crash couch. The shuttle turned and banked and sank again in a stomach-lurching maneuver that reminded Carmen of a roller coaster, if there were no safety harness and the designers were interested in causing whiplash and fractured bones.
When the shuttle stopped, the couch absorbed most of the shock. But her stomach wasn’t convinced, and she kept a vice grip on Ovo until a few seconds passed without motion. Finally she rose and tried to make sense of the screen.
They had landed on a rear lot behind the hospital.
“Were we hit?”
“Negative,” She Who Waits said. “The vessel is intact. The Melded didn’t fire.”
Didn’t fire. Did they not have a shot or had they declined the opportunity to take them out? If the frigate had weapons this whole time, were they holding back? She sensed her mother’s hand. Somehow her mom could reconcile attacking the army at the landing site, but still resisted hurting her daughter.
But then she remembered the nuke. “It’s all still here. You said they blew up a nuclear bomb.”
Ovo’s answer took a moment to come through the red light. “They deployed another weapon that didn’t result in a nuclear explosion. The readings She Who Waits detected could mark an electromagnetic discharge to disable electronics and radio.”
“So…they didn’t drop a bomb? What about all the fires?”
“They detonated a device most likely delivered via missile above our current position. If you want me to calculate the extent of the damage, I’d need to analyze the shuttle data, if She Who Waits lets me. But the damage to the ground and air vehicles is from the rail gun.”
She tried to recall how many fires she had seen. Dozens, surely. And how many soldiers or civilian contractors were in each vehicle?
“Later, Ovo. We don’t have time. I didn’t see any Melded. We were going too fast. But they’re down there and taking the sphere.”
Ovo appeared to be concentrating. “They have shut me out of our joined communication
channels. I can detect their signals. They’re close. They’ve left the ship.”
“She Who Waits, open the shuttle.”
Carmen flinched when the airlock doors both slid up, exposing them to the night.
The air carried the acrid reek of burning gasoline and rubber. But it was her world’s air and part of her had believed she would never breathe it again.
She headed out of the ship with Ovo following on her heels.
She didn’t know what she would do when confronting the worm and the Melded woman who had been Sylvia Vincent, but the time for talking was over.
***
The sphere was on the opposite side of the hospital. Carmen guessed going around the building along the side street would take longer than entering the hospital and finding the stairs to the ground-level exits and the emergency room. A short bridge lined with potted palms gave access to the third-floor entryway.
Carmen knew the hospital. Had taken her father there countless times over the past few years. This way to the pharmacy, general appointments, and radiology. But the automatic doors didn’t open for her and Ovo.
He stepped ahead of her and pushed on a glass door, and it swung reluctantly. Beyond lay dark halls.
“Do you have a light?” she asked.
A hesitation followed. They had no translation. She Who Waits hadn’t accompanied them. When Carmen turned to look at the shuttle, the airlock was closed.
“I’ve activated my translation app,” Ovo said.
With a nod, Ovo’s green eye spawned a cone of white illumination that brightened the way forward. The stairs were just beyond the entryway and the security station where pink-vested volunteers would help direct patients to their destination.
A spotlight punctuated the night outside, followed by the whump-whump-whump of a helicopter. It surprised her. But it also meant the army hadn’t lost all its vehicles.
A man’s booming voice thundered, “We do not wish to hurt you. Please stop any further violence. We want to speak with Sylvia—”
An explosion shook the glass and an orange flash erupted outside. After a booming thunderclap, the spotlight vanished and the darkness returned.
Carmen had ducked against a wall and waited for more, but the hospital and the world around her were once again silent. She realized she could take cover and wait it out. Surely Jenna was someplace safe. But the thought that the harvester might be the only hope for so many continued to nag at her. And how could her mother not understand what her course would cost her own world?
The door to the pitch-black stairwell clicked loud enough that it felt as if anyone inside the hospital would hear them. Ovo’s light helped, but every time he moved his head, the stairs at Carmen’s feet became impossible to see. She kept a hand on the rail as they hurried down.
From somewhere below them came muffled and distorted voices. Were the Melded inside the hospital?
The ground floor lay two flights below them.
“Turn off your light,” she hissed.
He obliged. The green eye remained a giveaway, and he had more than a few devices on his arm with their own dull glow. At least his own private spotlight wouldn’t draw attention now that it was off. He followed soundlessly behind her as she descended to the metal door. She pressed her ear against it. But between her own poor hearing and an echoey ringing from the flight, she couldn’t make out anything.
She grabbed Ovo. Leaned close. “You can hear the other Melded’s com signals, right?”
“Yes,” he whispered back. “They’re close.”
“Can they hear you?”
“I can power down my devices. Then it will prove difficult. But we won’t be able to communicate.”
“Do it. Sneaking is the only advantage we have right now.”
He made the change. Except for the green eye, his cybernetics went dark.
Slowly as she could, she eased the door open. The emergency room lobby and the elevators were nearby, lit by an odd green glow coming from outside. She guessed it was from glow sticks or chemical lights scattered about near the overhang and patient drop-off.
A shadow moved. Several shadows. The voices were harsh whispers, but she couldn’t make out the words. Not Melded. Soldiers.
One silhouette appeared to be holding a rifle. No doubt the others were armed as well. So the devastation hadn’t taken them all out. But what would the soldiers do if they spotted her and Ovo?
The Melded had started shooting. The fact that the helicopter which had just been destroyed hadn’t opened fire amazed her. Would these soldiers restrain themselves now that they had suffered assault after assault?
Beyond them and the green glowing lights was the sphere. She watched for a moment. Ovo kept nudging her as if trying to lean over to see. His eye cast a faint light over her head.
“What’s that?” a soldier called. “You in the stairs! Identify yourself!”
Carmen ducked inside the door and it let out an echoing click as it shut. She turned to run, pressing Ovo ahead of her. The soldier barked another challenge. As she and Ovo hurried down the stairs, an explosion of shattering glass erupted from the emergency room. Hard smacks clattered against the walls and echoed in the stairwell. It was as if a hailstorm had focused its wrath on the hospital.
Ovo pressed her down and shielded her, but nothing seemed to penetrate the walls.
As suddenly as it had begun, the barrage ceased.
“What…what was that?”
Ovo didn’t answer as he kept his head down.
She shook him. Why hadn’t they come up with hand signals? “Turn your translator on. What. Was. That?” she asked, emphasizing each word.
He activated one of his devices. “Melded projectile weapons.”
Trying to calm her breathing, she inched back towards the door. Could anyone have survived? She eased it open and peered out. No one was standing. Someone groaned. The pitiful sound kept going as the poor soul began begging for help.
Her every instinct told her to stay put. But with her head down, Carmen slipped through the door and crept towards a wounded soldier wearing a hazard suit. A glow stick lay next to the curled-up figure, casting him in a feeble light. His face wasn’t visible through the visor. The top of the suit had been torn open. Black splotches of blood welled up around his neck and chest. He pressed quivering hands to his throat.
“Hang on!” she whispered. “I’m going to help!”
She’d need gauze or sterile pads to put pressure on the wound. That meant standing and looking around. She grabbed the glow stick. Tried not to look at the other bodies strewn about. She froze for a moment and closed her eyes to take a breath. Then she began opening the drawers of a nearby trolley cart. It was riddled with holes, as were the nearest cabinets. Medical tools, face masks, gloves, wrapped single doses of drugs, plastic bottles of what might be alcohol. Even with the glow stick, she couldn’t read any of the labels. Where was the gauze?
The wounded man made a sputtering sound.
She opened the last of the drawers. Packs of what she hoped was gauze alongside rolls of white tape and bandages. She grabbed some but then caught sight of motion. Someone was approaching past the lights outside.
A sharp voice cut through the silence.
She ducked.
The words repeated, but she couldn’t make them out. Whoever was talking sounded as if they were calling out, but the tone sounded off, distorted, and metallic. Not human. She scrambled back to the stairway door where Ovo waited.
Behind her, a lone figure stepped through the shattered doorway. Round, squat, with two tentacles on one side gripping a long weapon and another tentacle holding a pulsing device that blinked red.
He barked as if uttering a challenge or command. Again, it was unintelligible. But she knew this Melded. One of the worm’s guards. During her first encounter with him, his touch had stung Carmen and knocked her out. But with the amount of firepower the Melded were carrying, they wouldn’t need to get that close.
The Melded soldier paused above the wounded soldier. His weapon coughed. A hard smak! and the groaning stopped. Then he raised the device in his off hand and waved it about.
Ovo pulled her into the stairway. “Be silent.”
She shuddered and stifled back tears. They had to get past this Melded to make it to the sphere. But she struggled to keep down a sob and to fight a flood of panic from the execution she had just witnessed.
The door clicked shut. The soft sound might as well have been a gunshot.
Ovo moved towards the stairs going up.
“This way,” she hissed and led him down. The lower floors had maintenance exits. From there they could try for another approach to the sphere. Taking two steps at a time, she raced down the flight of stairs, and then the door above slammed open.
The metal voice screeched a command. Ovo visibly shrank and almost collided with her as she opened the door. They pushed into a hallway where an emergency light on an exit sign above them burned. Another one at a corner down the hall revealed they had one way to go unless they wanted to duck into a room.
They ran.
Halfway down the hall the metal voice blared. Ovo knocked Carmen into an intersecting corridor just as the Melded behind them opened fire.
Phump-smak! Phump-smak! Phump-smak!
The wall and ceiling behind them were chewed to pieces. A fire extinguisher exploded into a cloud of white mist.
Ovo tried to shield her as bits of plaster rained down on them. “He’s after me!”
“Looks like he’s trying to get both of us.”
“No. I stole the translator’s shuttle and rescued you and disobeyed orders to return.”
“It doesn’t matter. Run!”
The corridor had a set of doors blocking it, with another emergency light illuminating the room beyond the glass. Carmen pulled the doors open. The mechanism fought her for every inch until she and Ovo could push through. As they ran, the glass behind them shattered. Projectiles whizzed through the air. They dove for cover, scrambling behind a desk.
