by Ben Farthing
He dove out of the way, denied the knives as they passed. They winked out of existence, creating a series of tiny pops as the air filled where they'd been.
He still felt the presence watching him as he used his bent.
The second suit suddenly stood over Everard, stomping down at his chest. With nothing flashy, Everard figured the more-than-needed power was all in the strength of the blow. He rolled out of the way. The man's leather shoe pressed six inches down into the solid earth, but his knee popped from the force.
Leaping to his feet, Everard shot the first suit square in the chest before he could ready another flock of knives. The blades fell to the ground around the man who'd brought them into this reality, dead alongside him.
The suit with the busted knee screamed obscenities. He launched attack after attack at Everard—spinning saw blades, a waterfall of Molotov cocktails, a semi careening over the grass to flatten him—but Everard denied them all. Each attack was weaker than the one before, until the cashburner had exhausted his power. Everard snatched the lighter out of his hand, then shot him in his other leg.
"You get to watch me tear apart your plans," he said.
Loretta had reached the bulwark, leaving a trail of reskinned bodies. The five who were skilled enough to still be standing came at her with chains and baseball bats. She ducked a homerun swing, reached out to let a chain wrap around her forearm, then yanked it out of the reskinned's hands.
Running to join the fray, Everard tried to deny the reskinneds' balance.
The Perforated Woman stepped in front of him, emerging from some hidden nook. Everard crashed into her, and they went tumbling to the soft earth. He landed on his back and jumped to his feet. The fall had knocked the flintlock out of his hands. It now sat in the grass behind the Perforated Woman, who wiped mud off her chin.
The swarm of holes leapt from her face to the back of her hand, then up her arm.
Everard looked straight into her eyes, avoiding looking anywhere on her skin. His stomach twinged with disgust and fear.
The holes swam over her eyes.
Everard took a step back, toward the machine. He focused on the pistol behind her, blurring her in his vision. He needed to lead her to the side, so he could dash in and grab the pistol. He stepped to the right, preparing to dash past her.
She moved with him.
Everard denied her balance.
She stumbled, and the perforations multiplied, burst out to cover her face, her neck, her chest, and then retracted back down into their palm-sized domain. She righted herself to continue her pursuit.
Fuck this. He'd lead her away so Loretta could destroy the converter. Everard took off back the way he'd come. His foot caught on something and he tripped. He rolled to his back to see a dark swarm moving through the grass.
He focused on the holes in the ground, pushed away terror and revulsion to grasp at similar emotions. Not hatred for the Perforated Woman, or courage against her, but refusal to let her power or his fear of her control his decisions.
No.
He forced his will through the mist, still aware of the watching presence. The Perforated Woman gritted her teeth. The holes on her body flared out, pushing against Everard's will, but he forced his attack forward.
The perforations on the ground closed and disappeared.
She shrieked and ran at him, a knife appearing in her hand.
Everard jumped to his feet to meet her, throwing his shoulder into her gut. He denied her grip on the knife, pushed his will against hers. Her empty hand slammed down on his back.
She hit the ground. The wind blew dust into his eye as he stood over her. She laughed as that dust became a hole, opening to welcome in the humid air and something living that wormed its way into his flesh. The feeling dominated his mind, refused to be ignored. A wildfire of panic swept over him.
He tried to deny the hole. The mental mist closed in. The presence drew closer.
Everard pushed his thoughts to the calmest place he could think of. Kicked back in his recliner, watching baseball, without a care in the world.
A deep breath and he tried again. The mist pushed tight against him, shepherded by the encroaching presence.
The Perforated Woman laughed.
He staggered away from her. Vision through his punctured eye blurred. Gunfire roared in some far away place.
Everard gathered his thoughts again. Not home, not freedom, not privacy. Abby. Four months after they'd met, playfully arguing about furniture styles over Thai food. Spice hung in the air, dug into your throat. She said art nouvau proved that form was function, he said it proved that people confused gaudiness with style, and for the first time in ten years came the thought that maybe waking up alone was getting old.
Reskinned yelled, the wind spattered his face with dust, and the perforation slid aross his pupil, but Everard's mind was controlled.
Despite his terror, he focused on the hole opening in his eye, and on the holes swarming over the Perforated Woman's skin.
He denied them all.
His will punched through the mist, drove it back. The presence on the other side withdrew.
The sensation in his cheek vanished, and the Perforated Woman screamed in pain. She writhed on the grass, clutching at her skin, at the holes snapped shut. She scratched at her neck, her chest, her arm, following the now-invisible movement of whatever gave life to the perforations.
Everard picked up the flintlock, bent over to catch his breath.
The Perforated Woman sneered through her pain, opened her mouth to condemn him but screeched in agony instead. Between her lips, behind her tongue, something slithered and crawled.
Everard aimed the flintlock to her head, debated whether he was considering executing her because she was a danger to the Periphery, or because she terrified him and that infuriated him. As he decided either reason was fine, she rolled over and vanished.
"Dammit." Everard fired at the empty space, punching a shallow hole in the dirt. He kicked around, but she hadn't gone invisible, she'd disappeared.
Despite her escape, he'd beaten her, and the relief and pride was palpable.
Everard headed back toward Loretta, who'd dispatched the final reskinned with two rounds through the forehead.
They converged at the machine. Upon closer inspection, the stack of metal drums looked about three times wider than a 50-gallon drum, and it was at least twenty feet tall. The wires and tubes threaded in and out like a pair of ear buds when he kept them in his pocket too long.
"Bigger than Bermuda said it'd be," said Everard.
"I was noticing that," said Loretta, worry playing on her face. "The increased size should allow the collection of an exponentially higher amount of energy."
"If we could break it, would it matter how much power it converts?" He fired the pistol at the drum. The blast shook the mess of wires, but the metal absorbed the sonic energy with a low internal echo.
"I've seen this thing punch through steel," Everard said. He fired at the base of the satellite with similar results.
Loretta pushed the pistol down. "We should call Bermuda. Something's not right. Can't you feel it?"
"Did you write yourself a 'Spidey-Sense' program?" Everard inspected the satellite and drum, found the bolts that held them together. Like he'd done in the Ailuromancer's home, he held tight to the idea of structural integrity, and denied it.
His will pushed through the mist. The silent observer roared to life. A freight train of opposing energy crashed into him. It had the same flavor and feel of his bent, but was more solid, more precise.
He tried again, willing his denial forward like he had against the Perforated Woman. The retaliation came instantly, each thread of will he forced out of the mist was blown apart with pinpoint accuracy.
"Satisfied?" asked Loretta.
"My bent finally worked," said Everard, eyes still glued to the machines. "I think it was because I worked alongside you, but stuck to my own plans."
"Not
quite the same as past rebellists, but it makes sense," said Loretta.
"But something's not right, just like you said."
"Nice to hear you admit that."
"Every time I denied something, I felt something watching me. And now whatever it is, it's stopping me from destroying the machines."
Loretta traced one of the satellite arms with her finger. She tapped the bones and the wire between them. "None of my programs are working, either. It's like this thing is impenetrable. I'm calling Bermuda." She dialed him, put it on speaker phone.
While it rang, Everard said, "It's not just that I can't destroy it. I feel like, if I could get through, it would come apart easy. But someone's stopping me."
"Someone?"
"That's what it feels like."
"It'd take a reality benter to interrupt you like that, before you even effect the world."
"We're back to what I said earlier. Mr. President is involved."
"It might still be the CEO."
Bermuda answered. "No progress yet," he said. "Whoever killed the Regulars made off with half the equipment."
"Or they were never given the right supplies to start with," said Everard. He dug up a few inches of dirt around the base of the satellite dish, found a concrete foundation.
"Bermuda, keep working at that, but I need you to listen," said Loretta. "Something's stopping us from destroying the machines."
"Someone," said Everard.
"More importantly," said Loretta, "the converter has an eighteen foot diameter."
"That can't be right. The cable at the other machine we saw was quarter-inch zinc alloy. No way it can handle the amount of power a converter that size can collect."
"What about that machine?" Everard pointed to the huge barrel and wire setup.
"We've got a bigger version of the machine the Narco Saints were defending," said Loretta. "Looks about twenty-five feet high. The cables between them are as thick as my arm."
"We're not talking a one-to-one increase with size and power. A converter five times the size I was expecting isn't just going to target five times the number of people. We're talking..." Bermuda mumbled numbers to himself. "three quarters of a million."
"Does Inc have beef with the whole city?" asked Everard.
"That's not it," said Loretta. "There's almost six million people in the area."
"Not in the city itself," said Everard. "That's around six hundred thousand, isn't it?"
"As much as I'd like to crush Inc," said Bermuda, "Doesn't make sense why they'd want to take out the whole Periphery, let alone the city. They want to turn everything into a profit generating machine. Can't do that if everyone's dead. Regardless, just because they've got the generator, doesn't mean they have the fuel. Like I said, this break takes a lot of juice."
"The Mothman and Jersey Devil fighting isn't a lot?" asked Loretta.
"It's an insane amount," said Bermuda. "Remember, this break sucks up energy. It'd take a nuclear power plant to banish half a dozen people. Those two creatures fighting—assuming they harness the energy efficiently, which I'll admit the Perforated Woman and the CTO might be genius enough to do—it'll put out enough juice to target a thousand, maybe fifteen hundred. But not six hundred thousand."
A streetlight buzzed on, casting an evening shadow of the generator over Everard. He stepped out of it.
"Any reason they'd make a generator bigger than they planned to use?" asked Loretta.
"Waste of time and money," said Bermuda.
"They're all about waste," said Loretta.
"Hey guys," said Everard. The shadows—and the repeated warnings to stay out of them—flicked the first domino on the chain to understanding. Everard tried to wrap his mind around what he was realizing.
"Wait," said Bermuda. "How big did you say the barrel is?"
"Twenty-five feet high. Maybe twelve across, with the mess of wires sticking out another four feet."
"That's three times as big as - hold on." He hummed as he did equations in his head. "It's bigger than necessary at the same rate as the generator. This isn't about waste. This about a bigger break than we thought."
"Guys," said Everard, more firmly. "Would the whole exponential thing apply to the fuel, too? If there was a third monster fighting for territory, would it add fifty percent more power?"
"It'd go up exponentially," said Bermuda.
Everard pointed at the shadow. "What about the Boogeyman?"
"Oh fuck," breathed Bermuda. "If he joined the fight, there'd be at least enough energy to force out or kill the population of D.C. But the Hunters have the Boogeyman trapped in a warehouse on ninth. He's not going anywhere."
Loretta covered her hand with her mouth.
"Unless the material for the traps was sabotaged," said Everard. "Kind of like how the equipment for the new lure was short."
"Again," said Bermuda, "why would Inc want to kill everyone around?"
"Not everyone," said Everard. "Just the people who live in the city itself. Everyone who doesn't understand that D.C. isn't a place you live, it's where the government comes, legislates, and then leaves, keeping the focus of the power with the states."
"Now you sound like Mr. President," said Bermuda. He exhaled slowly. "The same man who supplied the materials for the Hunters' traps."
"Minnie isn't an Inc spy," realized Loretta. "She's their go-between. Inc must believe Mr. President is betraying his factions. But in reality, he's playing Inc. He's getting them to twist the world back to his gods' vision."
"That sure as hell isn't our gods' vision," said Bermuda.
"It's his interpretation. He's protecting the machines," said Loretta. "What did it feel like, when your denials didn't work?"
"Not like before. Before I couldn't force my will out far enough. This time, something pushed me back. It felt precise."
"It was definitely him," said Loretta. "He doesn't have as much brute force as Bill Bill, but he's got the finesse of a ballet dancer. Although, I never realized he'd go this far."
"I should have," said Bermuda. "He's been getting angrier every year. I thought it was about my play for power within the Burgesses. But apparently it was more than that."
"To the tune of six hundred thousand people." Everard tried to wrap his mind around that devastation. It would include Abby.
"We can use this," said Bermuda. "If the break needs the Boogeyman, we make sure they don't get the Boogeyman."
"Can you find a way to make the traps work, even sabotaged?" asked Loretta.
"I don't know," said Bermuda. "Maybe. More likely I figure out how to make this lure work."
"No, no, that's smart. You stay there. Everard, we'll go help Howser keep the Boogeyman contained."
"What about Mr. President?" asked Everard. "If he can stop us from destroying the machines, can't he stop us from fixing the traps?"
"Shit," said Loretta. "Probably. But he's not omniscient. He can't stop something he doesn't know is happening."
"We need to distract him," said Everard. "Get him focused on something else. One of us goes at him directly. The other helps Howser keep those traps up and running."
"That could work," said Loretta. "Except we don't even know where he is."
"Then we find him," said Everard. "Don't your clients hire you to find people all the time?"
"It's not that simple."
"You can't tell me you don't easily track down the people who threaten your family. I saw what you did to that guy from Inc."
"I said it's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"It takes time. Hours."
"Then what do we do?"
"Figure out where he is," said Loretta. "If he wants to make sure the spell happens, where's he going to put himself?"
"If he can stop us from breaking it without being here, he can be anywhere," said Everard.
"Not anywhere. He knows we suspect him. He'll put himself somewhere away from everyone. Somewhere almost impossible to get to. He's probably been
preparing a place like this for months."
Everard wasn't going to be able to help on this one. He didn't know the major locations in the Periphery, let alone where someone might hide.
"It'd be close to a crossover point," said Bermuda. "Or in an intruding nook. He'll want privacy and a great view of the city."
"There's no views of the city," said Everard. "Except the Washington Monument. Wait. Hey, listen. I keep asking about that weird copy of the Monument that floats around behind the real one. No one's given me a straight answer. What is it? Could he be there?"
"What's he talking about?" asked Bermuda.
"The extra Washington Monument." Everard pointed across the river, although the monument wasn't visible through the trees. "It's always just barely in sight, no matter how far around it you walk."
"How long has it been there?" asked Loretta.
"How the hell should I know?" said Everard. "At least since last night."
"That's got to be it," said Bermuda. "Perfect view, unreachable, and it showed up just in time for the fireworks."
"I'd volunteer to go after him," said Everard, "but let's be honest. He's already shutting me down, and you're the more capable one here, anyways."
The thought of taking on the multipresent monster under the bed was somehow less intimidating than facing down a frail old man who worshiped the Founding Fathers, and Everard wasn't stupid enough to think he had a better chance against Mr. President than Loretta did.
Loretta nodded. "Okay. However Mr. President has sabotaged their traps, your bent is the best bet at fixing them. I'll keep his attention away from stopping you."
"Good luck," said Bermuda.
"Watch your back over there," said Loretta. "Whoever killed the Regulars could come back."
"Let them. They'll regret it." Bermuda ended the call.
Loretta swiped at her phone.
"What about your family?" asked Everard. "While you're going after Mr. President, who's watching them?"
"I'm texting Jose. He'll get the kids out of the city. He should be able to quickly enough. What about your lady friend?"
