Veniss Underground

by Jeff VanderMeer

“Why was this done to you?” Shadrach asked, while the Gollux skittered around impatiently and muttered under its breath.

  “They always do this to traitors—it will be done to you,” whispered John the Baptist. The meerkat whimpered, opened and closed its mouth.

  The creature lowered its head as much as it was able, so it could look at Shadrach. “I am a priest of the Church of Quin. Quin no longer wants priests for his church.”

  “I can help you down. I can . . .”

  “I'm dying. Kill me or leave me. That is all.”

  But Shadrach could not kill this Candle surrogate. He knew that if he killed this creature now, he would come all undone, would be worthless when he faced Quin. So he heeded the Gollux's pleading and continued down the path, promising himself . . . what? Nothing, really. He couldn't make such promises. His only allegiance was to the idea of the death of Quin, the life of Nicola.

  WHEN THEY reached the path of white pebbles that descended into the valley of dark fir trees—when he heard the sound of running water and saw the small bridge of red and white, half-hidden by the trees—when he smelled the thickness of the fir trees . . . then he realized he had seen the forest in Nicola's head, in her mind. And he wondered whether there really was such a place above level. What if he had entered a series of dreams in her mind—of things that actually happened, but that were distorted, unsound, mirror images. For a moment, this thought disoriented him (didn't it mean she might love him after all?). But the pebbles beneath his feet were real enough—and they scrunched against the Gollux's feet too . . .

  Over the bridge they went, where the fiddler crabs stalked red-and-black butterflies. Just beyond stood a cottage with white walls and a thatched roof. Birds had built nests from the thatch, oblivious to Quin's workings. Or had Quin made them too?

  “Is this it?”

  “Yes,” John the Baptist said, surprising Shadrach. “This is the place. Do not enter.” He looked into Shadrach's eyes. “You will not come out.”

  “What is your real name?” Shadrach said. It suddenly seemed important, after all they had endured together. “Not John, not Affliction, not Salvador. What is it?”

  The meerkat coughed blood, its tongue pale, and said a word that sounded like the chattering speech of beetles. “That is my name. My real name. It's nothing you could ever actually say yourself. It's nothing a human could ever say.”

  “You're right,” Shadrach said.

  He turned toward the Gollux and asked, “Is this the place?”

  “Yes,” the Gollux said.

  “Then lead the way.”

  INSIDE, SHADRACH found a long, empty corridor lined with blank glass cages occupied only by dust—and at the corridor's end, another remote of Quin, its sad Oriental face swaying on too long a neck. The glass cages embedded in its sallow flesh had been covered by a black panel. Surprised and unnerved by the emptiness, Shadrach kept close to the Gollux as they walked toward the Quin remote. He flipped the safety on his gun. The stillness of the empty room was more horrible than if it had been occupied by a hundred monstrosities. The Quin remote leered and bobbed at them.

  When they stood before the remote, it said, “I am Quin. What do you want with me?”

  The Gollux said nothing.

  Shadrach said, “You're not Quin. You're a remote, a construct.” He raised his gun and shot the construct through the head. The head flopped over its counter. A spackle of blood glittered on the wall behind it. It shivered. It shuddered. It slowly righted itself and rose again. “No,” it said, staring at him with a smile as its head gushed blood, “this is not me.”

  The compartment in front of the facade slid open and there, on a small reclining chair, lay a puddle of pale flesh and scar tissue. Somewhere in the mass of perpetual double chins, the wriggly, maggotlike flesh, a dozen intense blue eyes shone out from jellied orbits. A lyrical laugh issued forth from some orifice hidden from Shadrach.

  Like all creative beings, Quin, when compared to his work, failed to measure up. Shadrach felt as if he had just met a cretin who happened to be a brilliant holovid artist. If the situation had not been so tense, it would have been hilarious. He would have laughed out loud. This horrid gobbet of flesh, when he had expected a giant!

  “Surprised?” the Quin remote asked.

  “Just a little bit,” Shadrach lied.

  “What did you expect? A great head? A lovely lady? A terrible beast? A ball of fire?”

  “None of the above. I'm just surprised that you seem more amorphous in the flesh than as an idea.”

  Shadrach thought he read disappointment in the glob of flesh that was Quin. Here and there, where the flesh was not translucent, Shadrach could see a nascent leg, an unborn arm.

  “Were you always this way?” Shadrach asked. He felt no sense of urgency now that he had finally found Quin, simply a bone-aching fatigue and a need for answers.

  “Not always. I was much more human. Once.”

  “What happened to you?”

  The flesh formed a grim smile, but the eyes danced in the body.

  “There is a point beyond which the human body cannot recover. I have passed that point. I have experimented on myself for too long, and I have put too much of my own tissue into my creations.”

  “You don't seem surprised to see me. Can you see the gun I'm aiming at you?”

  “Why should I be surprised? I've expected you or someone like you for a long time. I've made enemies, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. You just happen to be among the first to possess the combination of tenacity and insanity needed to find me. I assume you mean to kill me. By all means—kill me. It makes no difference. I've done what needs doing. There is no stopping it now.”

  “Do you mean the war going on outside?”

  “No, no, no. Periodically, I set them upon each other. The ones who survive breed, creating an ever-stronger strain. This time, though, it seems somewhat more permanent.”

  “Was it a game when you altered Nicholas and had Nicola taken for parts?”

  “I'm not familiar with the names. I've done something to them, obviously, and you mean to seek revenge. Please, take your revenge. But I don't know what you're talking about. My empire is a vast and sprawling thing. I cannot keep track of every misfit, every transaction. It's buried somewhere in the records, I'm sure . . . I might have played with a human named Nicholas. I might not have. Besides, how do you know I didn't create them both? If so, wouldn't you say I have the right to do with them as I please? I can see from the look on your face that they were born in a vat. I was the city's birth engineer for a very long time. I may well have created them, you know. Certainly if so, I would be the one to take care of them. To nurture them. Listen to your creator, Gollux, and kill this man now.”

  It almost caught Shadrach off guard. The Gollux—which also seemed surprised—leapt at Shadrach. But Shadrach turned in time to cut its legs out from under it.

  “The Gollux,” the Gollux said, as it writhed on the ground, “is not designed specifically for combat. The Gollux is not designed for nonquadrapedal locomotion.”

  Shadrach fried its brains out the back of its neck stump, before aiming the gun once more at Quin.

  “A pity,” Quin said. “He was a good and true Gollux—he tried to obey me. He tried to kill you. He may not even have wanted to do it. It was worth a try. I think I even surprised myself by doing that—I must want to live after all . . . You know, it's amazing how relaxed we humans become if you just drone on and on about nothing in particular.”

  “Why?” Shadrach asked.

  “Why what? Why am I a puddle of flesh? Why did I become a bioneer? Why what? You must be more specific.”

  “You cut up my lover and sold her for parts! You sent me to Lady Ellington's estate just so I would know about it!” Shadrach's shout reverberated around the room.

  The Quin remote smiled while the eyes of the failing flesh beneath watched him intently.

  “Maybe it was pleasurable, Shadrach. Maybe
it was an interesting thing to do—at the time. Maybe I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about . . . Do you honestly think that I have any reason to tell you anything? . . . Funny how easily humans lose control. My meerkats don't lose control. My meerkats make you humans look psychotic and frivolous at the same time. Perhaps I made them both—Nicola and Nicholas. Perhaps I deliberately didn't give Nicholas enough talent—so he'd have to come to me. Perhaps I watched Nicola all the years of her life, until she delivered unto me, at the right time, an unpredictable element: you. All so you would come down here and kill me. Wouldn't that be the most spectacular genetic experiment ever? To have that subtle a control? To know that much? I don't believe I have it in me . . . Perhaps none of this actually happened, and by dumb luck and persistence you reached this point entirely by your own—”

  “Shut up,” Shadrach said. “I don't believe you. You know who Nicholas was. You know who Nicola is.”

  “You can shut me up permanently by killing me, Shadrach. You can do that . . . but I might be lying about everything. You'd never know. I might be the biggest liar the world has ever seen. You're caught between the desire to kill and the desire to know why. What if you could have both?”

  “The first might be enough.”

  “Ah, so you are interested. Then let's begin again: What do you want to know?”

  “What is your plan? What is it you hope to accomplish with”—Shadrach gestured at their surroundings—“all of this?”

  “Plans. Planning. At first I had no plan. At first the plan was to have no plan. But that got boring and as I came to hate humans more and more, a plan came to me. I thought to myself: the human race is obsolete. Why not make a new one? Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just crazy.”

  “Let's assume you have a plan. What is it?”

  “Why should I tell you? I'll tell you why—because it can't be stopped, that's why. The humans who live above ground haven't even thought about the implications of those ‘toys' I've made for them. They're too busy using them for prestige and to make their lives easier. They never stop to think what it all means. They could never believe in a giant fish that holds a whole world. They'd laugh. They'd scoff. Even if they saw it, they wouldn't believe it. That is why the human race is dying—too limited an imagination. No thought for the consequences.”

  “Arrogance,” Shadrach said. “You are dying.”

  “No, the human race is dying. It's had its time, and yet has done nothing but squander it, each age a fainter echo of the last. Enough, I say. Be done, I say! Let some other species have its turn.”

  “You're crazy. The world will be a better place with you dead.”

  “I happen to agree with you, Shadrach. My creations need a martyr. They need a God who art in Heaven. They need a myth of human intervention to make them whole. There is only so much you can breed into them, only so much you can do with their genes—look at me: I know. The rest is environment. The rest is religion. If you kill me, the slow unraveling of the human race begins, for this death will be the first sign, the first symbol, from which all the others derive, until one day the humans find their servants have become their masters. And if you don't kill me, be assured: I will erase all trace of you and your beloved from this city. I will find Nicola—assuming I don't already know where she is—and I will kill her.

  “I think this is a great test for you as a human being: Will you buy more time for the human race by not killing me, or will you buy more time for a single individual? I'm fascinated to see what you choose. What would Nicola think if you saved her life but sacrificed the species?”

  “Assuming you are telling the truth. Assuming that if you tell the truth, your predictions are accurate.” The pressure in Shadrach's head had grown intense. He felt as if he'd been listening to a hypnotist.

  “And think of this: If I've truly programmed Nicola, then even if you kill me and return to the surface, could you ever really trust her again? Wouldn't you always be waiting for her to betray you? . . . What are you doing?”

  “You'll see.”

  Shadrach had set his gun for a two-inch laser beam. He began to burn a hole in the glass that housed Quin. Ice water coursed through his veins. He had decided on a plan of action. No further thought was necessary.

  “Kidnapping me won't help you—those creatures out there will tear you limb from limb.”

  He was almost finished cutting the circle.

  “If you're going to kill me, this seems a very awkward way to do it.”

  The circle fell out and shattered against the floor. The Quin remote took a swipe at him from above, while Quin himself cowered in a corner.

  “I've changed my mind—I don't want to die. Not just yet. Perhaps we can reach some kind of arrangement?”

  Shadrach adjusted the beam once again, severed the remote's neck, so its head flopped impotently on the counter. So much for Quin's voice.

  Then he snatched Quin from his sanctuary, placed him on the countertop and proceeded to beat him with the butt of the gun until the weapon was slick with blood.

  From his arm, John the Baptist shuddered uncontrollably at the sight. “I wish I'd died in the closet,” he said over and over.

  Quin said nothing at all. Quin was dead.

  Shadrach pulled the meerkat off of his arm. He flicked the switch on the bomb in the meerkat's ear. He placed the head next to Quin.

  “Good-bye, John,” he said. “I'm sorry. Your kind may take over the world, but it won't be easy. It won't happen in my lifetime. It might never happen.”

  As he ran for the door, before the explosion propelled him forward and out into the forest, burning his back, he thought he heard one last muttered curse from the meerkat.

  CHAPTER 9

  Afterward was simple enough. Afterward didn't require any thought either. He picked himself up from the bomb blast, assured himself that nothing inside the cottage could have survived it, and began to head toward the edge of the creature's mouth. He cursed the would-be thieves from which he had taken the bomb for his deafness. What had they expected? To sell tiny pieces of him and themselves to the organ bank?

  Meerkats ran past him, intent on reaching the cottage. He ignored them, and they, in their concern and panic, ignored him. He didn't even bother showing them his badge.

  At the docks, he found a saylber loitering in the water nearby and swam out to it. It began to glide away from the leviathan at a good rate of speed. As the leviathan faded into the distance, it faded from his mind as well. Of more immediate concern was the moodiness of the saylber which, after several false alarms, finally decided to submerge itself. It left Shadrach floundering about in his trench coat with the shore only barely visible on the horizon. For a few anxious minutes he thought he would drown because of his coat. Thrashing as he tried to get it off, he floated several feet below the surface. But, kicking off his shoes and contorting his arms, he managed to rid himself of the coat—and pop, breathless, to the surface.

  Luckily, any current was minimal, and he was a good swimmer. Eventually, he felt land beneath his feet. He rose from the water sodden and dripping, a sudden ghost, an echo, a shadow of who he had been. He imagined no one could see him. Who would want to see him?

  The shore had become a graveyard for the abandoned cathedral-rafts of the meerkats: black and incomprehensible and toppled over on their sides. He shot the two flesh dogs he saw sniffing around the cathedrals before they even saw him. He was not sorry at all for such premeditated violence. Rather he slaughter every living thing in his path than never see the light again. He used his gun to char one of the flesh dogs on a spit, and he ate some of the meat.

  After he had eaten, he stood up and looked around. He was alone for the first time since he had picked up John the Baptist; the absence of the meerkat on his arm made him feel as if he were missing a limb. There was no one to help him. There was no easy way to get back to the surface. There might be no way at all. But this did not deter him. His mouth was dry. He felt hollow. He felt as i
f he were dead. He decided that this was a good way to feel, after all of the hate, all of the love, that had passed through him. He wanted to be empty for a while.

  Above him, the red light from the passing train mocked him with its thin, forced smile of motion. He would have to reach the tracks and find a way out. It did not strike him as an impossible task.

  He began to climb. Boulders and outcroppings of rock barred his way. Giant purple lichen covered the rock. Tiny, stunted trees grew between there. Strange creatures slurped and wetly plopped over the rocks, their cilia gliding in synchronized motion to serve as their eyes. They startled Shadrach, but ignored him, and after a time, he forgot about them. The rhythms of the climb became automatic, the blistering of his hands a dull throb, the mechanics of his breathing as he gulped the air harsh but irrelevant. His physical body was no longer his concern.

  BY THE time he at last reached Rafter's door, Shadrach had passed through exhaustion into some other realm entirely. His arms were cut, his back still burned, his left ear bled from a bullet wound, his legs had been bruised from the punishing climbs. He shivered like Lady Ellington's fine crystal rung with a spoon.

  Once on the train tracks, it had proven just as difficult to walk to the train station, the train barreling by with alarming frequency, Shadrach reduced to molding himself into alcoves on either side to avoid being killed, shivering with the aftermath of the train's tumultuous passage. News of Quin's death had not made it to the train station—or had bypassed it entirely—and everything seemed as normal as before. At the train station, he had waited for a few hours, recovering his strength, using his Quin badge to bully a cube of food out of a vendor. The hideous figures that walked past him as he ate—these seemed as normal as anything he had seen above ground. He had almost choked with laughter. What he took for granted now was beyond anyone's expectations.

  When he felt strong enough, he had continued to make his way, level by level, to Rafter's offices. The entire time, he could feel the light above him like an irresistible force—and below the light, standing in its rays, Nicola. Or so he hoped. He hadn't bothered to conceal his gun, holding it out in front of him instead. But even when he had used his gun, there was at the heart of him only someone who wanted desperately to reach the light.