Hollowgirl

by Sean Williams

  Clair forced herself to keep walking, even as the truth of what he was saying sank in. Of course that was what Clair Two had done. It made sense in terms of the world that was, and explained why Clair Two hid the details of how she had brought d-mat down. She had done it by accident, she said, but what she meant was by dying. By killing herself. By sacrificing herself in a way that she could never talk about. Because she hadn’t actually died.

  No wonder Clair Two seemed so screwed up.

  But why had Clair herself never seen it before? Zep wasn’t the smartest athlete on the starting block, for all that she liked him too much. If he had worked it out, why hadn’t she?

  Because she hadn’t wanted to. That was the only answer she could come up with. And that too made a dismaying kind of sense. Would she have been willing to do what Clair Two had done, in her place?

  Who would?

  She was glad Zep couldn’t see her real face as she grappled with this question.

  “I’ll take you to them,” Zep told Wallace, “if you promise to undo everything she did.”

  [37]

  * * *

  “CLAIR’S ONGOING EXISTENCE is a problem.” Kingdon started to say more, but Wallace waved her silent.

  “That’s something we all agree on,” he said. “Zep, are you seriously offering to show my friends here how to kill Clair? Because that’s what it amounts to. There’s a big difference between having a bad feeling about someone and putting a gun to her head.”

  Zep was in profile to Clair as she continued along her arc around the desk. She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he wrestled with the question. It was a very real one for her too. Wallace needed to be stopped, but would that justify murdering him?

  “I think . . . ,” Zep said, and he nodded his head forward, raising his hands to cup his temples. As he moved, Clair saw something behind him that she hadn’t noticed before.

  There was a doorway set in the curved white wall, to the right of the open elevator. Small, arched, it was utterly incongruous in the otherwise magnificent dimensions of the inner sanctum. It had no obvious reason to exist in Wallace’s stupendous throne room.

  As Clair tried to see what lay on the other side, her vision glitched again. This time she saw a tall man dressed in ribbed red material striding across the white expanse of the floor. His eyes were green and piercing, his hair was curly and orange, and his lips moved as though he was trying to tell her something, but she could hear no words. All she could do was watch and try not to blink in surprise as he took three long steps toward her, then vanished.

  She had no idea who he was, but she was sure that the glitch was significant. It proved that the arched doorway was important. Was it the exit, though? She didn’t want to assume something that later turned out to be wrong.

  “Think hard, boy,” said Kingdon. “Think about your duty to the human race. Occasionally there are sacrifices. Clair Hill will be one of them, one way or another. Best it happens now, before someone else gets hurt.”

  “I know,” Zep said with muscles clenching in his jaw. “I’m not going to do it for you, though.”

  “No one’s asking you to, my boy.” Wallace nodded. “You’re offering to give us the information so we’ll get rid of this pesky girl. Nice and simple. In fact, almost too simple.”

  “You think he’s lying?” asked Mallory.

  “He doesn’t have the brains to.”

  Wallace turned suddenly to address Nobody.

  “But you do.”

  Clair froze.

  And then she laughed.

  It was the first thing she thought of, the best way of covering her sudden fear.

  Did he mean “you” as in Nobody or “you” as in Clair?

  “I’m glad you find this funny, Cameron,” said Wallace, putting Clair’s mind at ease on at least that score. “Are you laughing at his expense or ours?”

  “Maybe I’m laughing at my own,” she said, because she had to say something, “for thinking that you’d be grateful.”

  “Grateful? For the chance to get ourselves killed?”

  “You can learn a lot,” said Kingdon, “from the way a person lies.”

  Kingdon was looking at Zep.

  Sweat pooled on his brow. His hands were spasmodically clenching and unclenching. Don’t do anything stupid, Clair wished she could tell him. Let this play out. It doesn’t have to end badly, just because they know you’re not telling the whole truth.

  “There’s truth in lies,” Clair said. “And honesty in deceit. No one in this room has ever talked in a straight line.”

  “Some less than others,” said Wallace, to her, still. To Nobody. “You don’t write. You don’t call. You follow orders I give to other people, and you ignore the ones I give to you. Then you turn up out of nowhere with this poor creature in tow. Did my good wife put you up to this for her twisted amusement, or is there something I’m not seeing? Explain, please.”

  “You’re not seeing the obvious,” said Clair, thinking harder than she’d ever thought before. If Kingdon was right about learning from how people lied, perhaps the best defense against that was to stick to the truth. “He’s here, isn’t he? With us. What does that tell you?”

  “That he has a death wish,” said Wallace. “We definitely can help him with that.”

  “You sound like a petty villain,” said Mallory to her husband. “It impresses no one.”

  “It impresses teenagers who are way out of their depth.” Wallace came around the table to put himself in front of Zep, who shifted nervously from one foot to another. “Are you going to tell me why you’re really here?”

  “He won’t,” said Clair before Zep could say anything. It was risky, but she didn’t want him to be in Wallace’s sights for too long. “You’d already know if you weren’t missing the point so badly.”

  “And that point is?” Wallace asked, frowning.

  “He’s terrified of us,” said Clair. “But it’s clear he came alone. Why?”

  “That’s obvious.” Wallace reared back and away. “It’s her. He’s doing this to impress Clair. She’s got him dancing to her tune like the jilted fool he is. That’s why she’s involved,” Wallace crowed, indicating Mallory. “The things we do for love, eh?”

  Mallory just shrugged.

  Wallace turned back to Zep. “I should send you back to Clair empty-handed to teach you a lesson—or perhaps without any hands at all, to teach her. Which do you think would be most educational?”

  “Neither,” said Clair, not sure how much more of this she could take. “The least interesting theory is that she sent him to try to trap us. So the least interesting thing we can do is punish him in return.”

  She had Wallace’s full attention again now.

  “Go on,” he said. “If you have a point, do get to it.”

  “I don’t think she sent him to trap us,” Clair said, moving closer to Zep and Mallory as she spoke. They might need to make a quick getaway and it would help if they were all together. “I don’t think she sent him at all. I think he’s here on his own steam, looking for something. Something she wants, and that she thinks we have. . . . What could that be?”

  There was only one possible answer. And there it was—a quick dart of Wallace’s gaze from Clair to the arched doorway and back again. The exit, he was thinking, and his eyes betrayed him.

  Mallory looked at Clair. She had seen it too.

  Now all they had to do was get out alive and tell the others.

  “You’re wasting your time, boy,” Wallace told Zep. “There’s nothing for you here but an unhappy ending.”

  “Do you want me to get rid of him?” Mallory asked.

  “Yes. We’re going to get rid of all of them eventually, anyway.”

  “Do it in public,” said Kingdon. “Send a message.”

  “There’s no need to kill him,” said Clair. “How will he learn if you keep doing that?”

  “You have something better in mind? Keeping him as a pet, perhaps, like I ke
ep you?” Wallace waved dismissively. “I still want to know what you’re doing back here. You’re not leaving until you’ve told me.”

  Clair froze. She was close enough to grab Mallory and Zep and they could try to rip away in time, but . . .

  Shit, she thought. They were in the middle of the room. They needed a doorway or a window. Perhaps they could drag a couple of the ridiculous chairs together and improvise an arch.

  “Do I need a reason?” she stalled, brushing her fingers through her fake-blond hair. She didn’t have to fake the way they shook.

  “I own you, body and soul,” said Wallace, the threat on his face suddenly naked and ugly. “You’ll give me a reason or—”

  Wallace never finished his threat. The elevator cage exploded, the floor kicked beneath them, and smoke and dust billowed into the room.

  [38]

  * * *

  CLAIR LUNGED FOR Zep and pulled him down. Crouching protectively over him on one knee, she drew her pistol and tried to figure out what this development meant for their chances of long-term survival. Her heart thudded double-time.

  “I told you not to trust him,” Kingdon cried, dropping behind the desk. “But you wouldn’t listen!”

  “What’s going on?” Wallace bellowed as the air grew thick and dim around him. “What is happening?”

  Clair glimpsed shapes moving through the smoke. Some wore black, like hollowmen. Others wore red and moved like lithe ghosts. A shot rang out, making her flinch, then another. The second shot sounded less like a pistol than a balloon popping. It came again. One of the hollowmen went down, then another, bites taken out of their black-clad forms as though by an invisible creature. Blood sprayed and misted the already smoky air. Clair’s stomach rolled.

  “Time to get out of here,” said Mallory, grabbing Clair under one elbow, but Clair resisted, watching the red suits and thinking, Enemy of my enemy.

  “Who are those people?”

  “Does it matter? Remember, you look like one of the bad guys now, to them.”

  Clair peered around for Wallace, but there was no sign of either him or Kingdon. Her jaw muscles bunched at the thought that they might have escaped. There was nothing she could do about that now.

  “All right,” she said, glancing down at Zep. He was on one elbow beneath her, looking up at her with eyes wide. “You okay?” she asked him.

  “Just dandy,” he said. “Let’s leg it.”

  They stood as one, attracting fire. Clair felt something whizz past her ear, and she ducked, pulling the hood of her armor closed across her face. Zep did the same, but Mallory made no attempt to protect herself. She ran with her teeth bared like a feral animal, snarling at fate and dragging them along behind her.

  Clair had memorized the location of the arched door. She knew without checking that that was where Mallory was taking them.

  The exit, she thought.

  If there was someone on the outside, or at least something that could receive their data, they could leave. She and Zep, outside the Yard, free of Wallace and WHOLE and Clair Two and Libby and everything else that was making her life such hell.

  It was powerfully tempting, like wanting to kiss Zep even though she knew he wasn’t really thinking of her.

  But it wasn’t the plan. They needed to rip back to the prison and tell the others, and they could use the doorway to do that without leaving the Yard entirely. Once she got the reference images back to the prison, they could all escape, together. That was the way it needed to go—for personal reasons as well. She was guilty of kissing Zep now, honestly and properly, and if she had learned anything from Clair Two, it was that running from a problem only made it worse. She was running to it now, in the hope of finding a permanent solution. If she talked to Libby she could make everything right. And maybe then she would put to the test whether Zep and she were ill suited or not.

  The little arched doorway came into view through the smoke. Someone was standing in front of it, a tall, orange-haired man in a red suit, and Clair remembered with a strong sense of déjà vu the glitch vision she had received just moments ago. Even now he was glitchy, flickering in and out of sight, limbs moving jerkily back and forth, like a video jumping randomly between frames.

  Clair tasted metal.

  “Wait,” she said, tugging on Mallory’s arm.

  “Don’t stop, Clair. You’ll be out of here in a second and none of this will be your problem!”

  Clair stumbled a half dozen steps, but the flickering grew worse. Mallory and Zep were affected now too, and so was the smoke. Her own thoughts were becoming fragmented, impossible to keep in line.

  Suddenly the red-haired man was standing right in front of her. His mouth was moving, but his voice took a second to register.

  “You’re not who you say you are.”

  Clair went cold. How did he know? What had she done to give herself away? Was it the glitches?

  “Don’t listen to him,” said Mallory. Her hand on Clair’s arm was like a steel band, yanking her toward the door. They were only yards away. “This is what you want, remember? Nearly there.”

  “No, wait.” Clair was at the center of a storm of glitches. She saw people and places that couldn’t possibly be real, making her feel light-headed, almost panicky. The floating head was back, and so was the patchwork boy, his face a joyless leer. The two of them were flying high over a barren landscape striped with gray and white dunes. It looked like an alien planet, lifeless and cold. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong at all,” said Mallory. “Just a little farther and everything will be over.”

  “Come on, Clair,” said Zep, pulling at her other arm. “Don’t stop now.”

  “Clair? Yes, I thought so, although it seemed impossible.” The orange-haired man’s eyes were wide. “You can’t be here. You must get away from the exit before it’s too late.”

  Suddenly there was a gun in Mallory’s hand, pointing at the man’s chest. “I didn’t let you into the building so you could screw things up like this. Get out of my way or—”

  “Or what? If you do this, everyone will die.”

  “So what? We’re dead anyway.”

  He lunged at her, and they struggled for the gun while Clair struggled for her balance. The glitching was getting worse, rising up around her like a hurricane. She cried out, feeling as though she was losing herself. She seemed to be in three places at once—Wallace’s throne room, an airship high over Russia, and a makeshift hospital bed—spread so thin that she wasn’t really in any of them at all. Three ghosts didn’t make a whole person.

  Then the gun went off and Mallory slumped to the floor. The red-headed man grabbed Clair’s arm. He wrenched her away from the door so powerfully she was almost lifted off her feet, snapping her out of a state of terrified confusion.

  “What’s going on?” asked Zep. “Why aren’t we leaving?”

  “You can try, but she can’t. Not that way,” the man said. The glitching began to ease as they put distance between her and the arched door and raced for cover. Clair finally got her feet under her and took her own weight. “This must have been Mallory’s plan all along. She used both of us—me as a distraction, you as a weapon—and she very nearly got what she wanted.”

  “Got what?” Clair’s head was clearing to the point where she could think again. Mallory was shot, maybe dead. What had she almost made them do?

  “Think about it,” the man said as they crouched behind a chair that arched raptor-like over them, seeming to grasp at them with long claws. “The Yard is supposed to be a copy of the real world, but there are no doorways to other universes in the real world. The exit through that door has to be a glitch, just like you. Bring the two of you together, and what do you think will happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not sure she did either, but it was bound to be bad. And now we’re stuck here in the wasps’ nest. Damn.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Damn!” he said again.

  Around t
hem, red and black figures fired at each other from points of cover across the room. Conventional gunshots and unnatural popping sounds echoed all around them.

  “Who are you people?” she asked him.

  “My name is Evan and I’m with RADICAL,” he said. “I knew Mallory Wei from when she used to be a member. She had the right code words. We didn’t know we couldn’t trust her anymore.”

  Clair wasn’t entirely following. It didn’t matter. She knew enough about RADICAL to recognize them as allies, more or less.

  “Why can’t we go out the way you came in?” Zep asked.

  “Brought the elevator shaft down behind us. The plan was to leave the other way. We obviously can’t do that now.”

  “Not with me,” Clair said. That was the bottom line, and she didn’t shy from it. If the arched door hid a glitch that might destroy her mind—and maybe the Yard with it—but was at the same time the only way anyone could rip out of here, then that was that, really.

  She didn’t waste time agonizing over it or wishing things were otherwise. There was only one way it could go.

  Clair pulled away from Zep. “Take him with you,” she said to Evan. “Take him to where WHOLE and the others are hiding out and tell them we found the exit. You’ll find a second version of me there. Work with her. Come back and do it right.”

  He blinked, then nodded. “All right.”

  “Clair, no—”

  Zep was struggling. Evan restrained him from behind, one arm tight across his chest. Clair’s heart ached, but they were out of options.

  “I’ll signal the others,” Evan said. “Then we’ll pull back. Give us a moment to get through. You’ll find another way back?”

  Clair nodded. No one on Wallace’s side knew who she really was yet. That would give her plenty of opportunities.

  There was just one thing she needed to do before RADICAL retreated and took Zep with them.

  She leaned in close to Zep. “Look after Libby,” she said. “She’ll need you.”