Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  The pilot radioed ahead to verify that we were, in fact, the chopper they were expecting. The prison told him to follow the signal man. That turned out to be a guy in a khaki uniform with lighted wands standing on the roof of one of the parking garages. Free of cars, it was a suitable spot to put the helicopter down. Except for the fact that it had no refueling facilities. Regardless, it was the spot our skids touched down. The signal man gave a Donny a wary look as he ran our BHA cards. Getting entries that matched what he was seeing for the most part, he motioned forward a couple of orderlies with a gurney. Donny’s file image had the skull mask on it, but his current state waved off the questions the guard should have asked,

  Ixa and I helped Donny onto the gurney. The orderlies looked thankful for their gloves and surgical masks at the sight of the streaks running down Donny’s cheek from under the now-saturated bandage. Donny lay on his left side, staring almost blankly off into space. His complexion had turned a decidedly unhealthy color, and, despite his elevated temperature, he’d stopped sweating entirely. I helped the orderlies push as we wheeled him into the garage elevator, then up the drive to the gate. We went through another round of identification checks.

  “Where’s his fancy skull mask?” the gate guard asked.

  “It got damaged in the scuffle,” I said. “We left it behind.” I didn’t say which scuffle, but it was still technically true. Since two of us got our challenge questions correct and Donny wasn’t exactly coherent, they eventually opened the gate and let us in. We had to wait for the outer gate to finish closing before they could open the inner gate. I wouldn’t be surprised if the system itself enforced the procedure on top of the guards’ protocols. We wheeled Donny across the outer yard and through the staff section of the prison to the infirmary.

  The infirmary was colored an antiseptic white and a pastel green that reminded me of toothpaste for some reason. Freestanding curtains walled off individual beds, with wards sealed by security doors. Gate locks like smaller versions of the main entrance protected the pharmacy and operating theater. We were directed to an isolated corner of the least occupied ward and transferred Donny to a bed there. Taking a more precise measure of Donny’s temperature, they came up with a hundred and four degrees.

  “What do we know about the disease?” The person asking the question was a short, slightly pudgy man who might have been Korean. He spoke with a hint of a southern drawl. His hair was cut short, and he had round glasses pushed so far up his nose they were almost competing with his eyes for space in their sockets.

  “Initial exposure was no more than four hours ago,” I said. “It may be supernatural in origin. Beyond that, just the symptoms you see now.”

  As the doctor put on a second set of gloves, a mask, and safety goggles, I glanced at his name tag - ‘Casey Song’. He was probably not a first generation immigrant. “I’m going to have to ask you two to remain here. If the contagion is on your clothing, we can’t have you tracking it around the facility. Also, we want to be able to treat you if you present symptoms.”

  “We understand,” Ixa said as I glanced down at my hands, uncertain if the equipment covering them was clean anymore.

  A voice from across the ward called out, “Must you haunt me even here?” The voice sounded familiar. I pulled back the curtain slightly to look at the speaker. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, he was chained to his bed. His dark red hair was shorn to less than a finger’s width in length. His amber eyes burned with hatred from their cross-shaped pupils to the corona of bruising around the left. He still had a blond soul patch on his chin. His lower lip was split near the left corner, and the outside of his left nostril was badly discolored.

  “To be honest, Victor, I didn’t even know you were here,” I said. I paused. “What happened to you?”

  “Prisoner five zero nine zero one three got into a fight with his cell mate,” Dr. Song said. “Without his enhanced strength or durability, it turned out poorly.”

  “How exactly are you suppressing powers here?” I asked.

  “If we were to open the front of his shirt, you’d find a mantle. The mantles are customized magical devices that siphon off the energy that would otherwise fuel their abilities. Without them, this prison would not be able to operate. Some prisoners have a harder time adapting than others.” Song turned back to Donny and carefully peeled off the bandage from his cheek. I turned away before I had to see what was under it.

  “If not to harass me, what are you doing here?” Victor snarled.

  “I was on vacation,” I said. “Then an emergency cropped up.”

  As a precaution, Ixa and I went through a thorough decontamination, along with all of our gear. For privacy’s sake, we did so separately. If there was anything Bluebottle had left behind that could survive the chemical scrub, I’d be worried. It smelled awful, with a chemical tang that threatened to burn my eyes out. It didn’t, but it smelled like it might. They put the pilot, the orderlies, and the helicopter through the same treatment. While it wasn’t particularly pleasant, it did restore a measure of peace of mind. The more paranoid among the prison staff suggested scrubbing down the route we’d taken. They settled for decontaminating the guards who’d touched Donny’s BHA card.

  It might be overkill, since no one else exhibited symptoms, but with an unknown disease, it was hard to be too careful. Plastic sheeting cordoned off Donny’s corner of the infirmary ward, Whatever medication they’d given him had cleared up most of his fever, and he’d regained lucidity. His color was still awful. I sat outside the plastic while Ixa conducted some form of diviniatory ritual off to another side. Donny tried to crack his dopey grin.

  “I have a joke for you.”

  “All right, shoot,” I said.

  “What do you call two crows on a fence?” Donny asked.

  “I don’t know, what?”

  “An attempted murder.”

  I groaned. “That’s bad.”

  “But you smiled.”

  “It’s a defense mechanism.”

  “Will you shut up over there?” Victor snapped.

  “Is there any way to move Victor to a different ward?” I asked.

  “He’s already made too many enemies,” Dr. Song said. “He may end up serving most of his sentence in solitary for his own protection.”

  “He can’t possibly have been here that long,” I said. “We only captured him two months ago.”

  “He has a gift for pissing people off,” Dr. Song said.

  “We have a bit of a problem,” Ixa said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “The pathogen is magical in nature, that much is certain. However, it is of a type I’ve never seen or heard of before. It had its own form of magical resistances which are similarly foreign to me. This is probably because Bluebottle was trapped around the same time the Conquistadors were dismantling the Mayan civilization. The knowledge transfer never happened.”

  “So what are our options?” I asked.

  “I could attempt to dismantle the defenses, but that runs the risk of making matters worse for the Baron.”

  “Any alternatives?”

  “We find someone more familiar with the Western Traditions of magic to consult,” Ixa said.

  Victor laughed. “Good luck finding one that will help you out. You’ve locked up half of them in this prison.”

  “Who among the inmates is a magic user?” Ixa asked.

  “You’re not seriously-” I started.

  “We need to check our options,” she said. “Doctor, do you know?”

  “Well there’s that guy.” Dr. Song gestured towards Victor. “And Sidonius Colt. But, if you want an expert in magic and biomedical sciences, you’re looking at...” Dr. Song trailed off.

  Part of me knew the answer already, but I had to ask the question, “Who?”
<
br />   “Doctor Omicron.”

  “I have put maybe a handful of powered people in prison so far,” I said. “Why do I keep running into them?”

  “This is the only prison built for holding powered criminals,” Dr Song said.

  “What do we know about this Sidonius fellow?” I asked.

  “He’s more of a battle caster,” Ixa said. “I hate to say it, but Doctor Song is correct in his assessment of who we need.”

  “We need someone who isn’t a criminal,” I muttered.

  “Do you really think my father would work with you?” Victor asked.

  “It depends on what bargain he’s given,” I said. The smirk vanished from Victor’s face. He knew I was right, Omicron was a mercenary. Though ethics were merely a field of philosophical debate rather than behavioral guidelines to him.

  “Why don’t we see what he asks for?” Ixa asked.

  Part 8

  Accompanied by an escort of four khaki uniformed guards with shock batons, I almost felt like a prisoner myself. We passed through caged corridors and pedestrian locks as we crossed into the cell blocks proper. Even brightly lit and well ventilated, the place had an oppressive, suffocating aura that ground on me like a rock in a roller mill. The eyes of every orange-clad inmate turned on me as we passed along the corridor. There was nowhere in the cells that was not in direct view from the hallway, but conversely, the prisoners couldn’t be stopped from looking out.

  We were still well short of Omicron’s cell when an almost audible sneer of contempt seized my heart and threatened to make it sputter and die. The owner of the sneer rose to his full height and towered over me, looming even from the far side of steel bars. I tried not to physically shrink from him as he stepped up to the edge of his cage. He wore the prison orange as if it were a bespoke suit from his tailor. Disdain was writ across his chiseled features and yellow eyes. His complexion was the pale white of high grade marble, and his platinum blond hair was neatly coiffed. His handsome features summoned up memories of horror from deep inside me. The image of blood dripping from his hands forced its way unbidden to the fore of my mind.

  “There’s a face I haven’t seen in years,” Michelangelo said. “You look almost grown now. Daddy around here somewhere too?” One of the guards jabbed at him with a shock baton. Michelangelo stepped back before he connected.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” I said, fighting to keep my voice level.

  “I see someone plucked out one of your eyes.”

  I walked on, trying not to hurry, despite my desire to be as far from my mother’s murderer as I could manage. Of course he was here, Rockstead was the only place built to house them. But why did our route have to pass his cell? Michelangelo’s laugh chased me down the hall, tugging at the mental scars he’d left before. I was still rattled by the time we came to the cell assigned to Doctor Omicron. It was different from the others. It had no bed, and the toilet had been replaced with a different piece of hardware. I couldn’t really identify it, but it might have been designed to interface with his life support suit. Canted across the corner of the cell was a freestanding chalkboard. I had no idea what was written on it, something terribly esoteric from the looks of the markings.

  The figure holding the slip of chalk was bulky, his body cased in a piece of hardware that had reminded me of an ambulatory iron lung when I’d seen it uncovered. It was currently covered with a set of prison oranges. His previous helm had been replaced with a transparent cover of the same general shape. The hue of the material mixed with the red vapors inside to appear a darker orange than his current attire. His flayed face had been covered with a layer of synthetic skin to appear less repugnant now that it was clearly visible. The vocalizer that had been wired inside his jaw had been replaced with a different model that more closely resembled a breath mask in shape. Before I wondered why he’d changed his suit, he turned his head to look at us. It dawned on me that he had substantially greater peripheral vision in this helmet.

  “I was not expecting you to visit me,” Omicron said, his voice as resonant as ever. Though it wasn’t really his voice, was it? It was synthetic, though it sounded real.

  “This is not a social call,” I said.

  “Of course.” Omicron set down his piece of chalk and turned towards me. “What brings you to Rockstead?”

  “What do you know about Gottfried Witchbane?” I asked.

  “A German warlock who turned and served the inquisition in hunting down his own kind as a means of gaining access to their secret knowledge. Responsible for thousands of prosecutions for witchcraft, and hundreds of captured familiar and tutelary spirits. Both lauded and reviled in equal measure. Very nearly destroyed the High Western Tradition of magic.”

  “That’s the guy,” I said. Though, Omicron’s summary included more information than I’d known coming into this conversation. “One of the spirits he captured, a pestilential one, was released and infected the current Baron Mortis with a supernatural pathogen. The infirmary at Rockstead was the only suitable facility we could get him to. Given how little we know about the agent and your own areas of expertise, it was suggested that you might be able to consult on removing the pathogen.”

  “It has to be virulent if you’re going to the extraordinary step of coming to me,” Omicron said. “I’m guessing rapid onset of severe symptoms, and no time to hunt down the Community Fund’s own people to devise a course of treatment.”

  “More or less,” I said though almost clenched teeth. The more dire he painted our situation, the more extortionate I saw his demands going. This was an awful idea. I don’t even have the authority to do anything regarding his circumstances.

  “I see,” Omicron said. “I’ll help provided...”

  “Provided what?” I asked.

  “I get some fractal posters for that wall over there. It’s a bit drab. Four should do to liven it up. That’s probably less than a hundred dollars, definitely less than two.”

  “What?” I blinked, dumbfounded.

  “You know, fractals, like the Mandelbrot Set, Julia Set...”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh, the low price? I can get time off for good behavior,” Omicron said. “Hence the discount on my services.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” I said.

  “Then I’ll see what I can do.” He put his hands through a slot in the cell door. One of the guards affixed oversized manacles about the wrists of his suit.

  “Last I knew, that suit had enhanced strength,” I said. “What’s limiting that?”

  “The fact that I have no desire to be hunted again,” Omicron said.

  “Really?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “This suit is my cell, and I have been trapped within it for much longer than I’ve been here. My limited mobility within this facility does not greatly increase my discomfort.” Omicron stepped back, and the guards opened the cell. We backtracked along the route we’d taken in. For a moment, I was afraid Michelangelo was going to harass me again, but he remained seated on his bunk. We passed through the security checkpoints going in the opposite direction.

  As we entered the infirmary, Victor sucked in a lungful of air with a hiss. A glance from Omicron cut off whatever words he was forming. Omicron approached the plastic isolation chamber and held up his arms so they could be released.

  I sat on a folding chair and started rubbing my temples. A nurse checked me for signs of fever, but it came out ninety-eight point seven. That wasn’t enough of a deviation to call my temperature elevated. “Next thing you know, someone’s going to tell me Masquerade is in here too,” I said, intending it to be sarcastic.

  “He’s in the psychiatric block,” Omicron said. I slumped in my chair.

  “You’re that guy who made the demi-dragons,” Donny said, not totally coherent. />
  “Yes, that was my work,” Omicron said. “But we’re not doing that here.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “We are isolating and eradicating the pathogen that is trying to kill you.”

  The easy way in which Omicron focused on the problem at hand and acted like nothing that transpired before had happened grated on me. The analytical part of my mind pointed out that wasting time on contriteness would only imperil Donny. The less rational parts of my mind railed against it, and I had to find someplace where I wasn’t going to interfere with work I couldn’t contribute to. That turned out to be Dr. Song’s office. Eventually, I took out my phone and called Dad.

  “News?” he asked.

  “They’re still looking into treatment options. He’s still conscious, but not always lucid. We had to ask for help from one of the inmates.”

  “At what cost?”

  “A couple of posters for the cell wall.”

  “That’s not so bad.”

  “It’s Doctor Omicron,” I said. “So I’m not sure if he’s honest about wanting to accrue good behavior, or if he’s got an ulterior motive. Ixa and Doctor Song are keeping an eye on him.”

  “The thing about mercenaries is you can always trust them to do what is in their own best interest as they see it. He gets nothing by hurting your brother, but a lot from appearing to be reformed.” I wasn’t sure if Dad was trying to convince me, or himself.

  “How goes the hunt?”

  “We’re back to focusing on Bluebottle because, well, I don’t really have to elaborate. The work being done in the infirmary might be able to help should it manage to infect anyone else. We’ve got Rookhound, Jester of Anubis, Mister Thirty-Eight, and Miss Pain on its trail.”