The Far Shores (The Central Series)

by Rawlins, Zachary

  Eerie blinked in confusion.

  “Of course,” she agreed, stunning Emily. “It’s inevitable.”

  “If you know that,” Emily said, aimlessly kicking water against a nearby wall, “then why do you stay? We both know you could leave anytime. Actually, what I hear is that you aren’t even supposed to be here anymore. You should have moved on. Why are you still in Central?”

  “Because I’m not done,” Eerie said, shrugging. “Why don’t you like me?”

  “Why would I?” Emily retorted angrily. “You don’t have any friends, you know, not really. The Director, Rebecca, Alex – they just feel sorry for you, that’s all. They don’t care about you, they pity you.”

  “Sometimes,” Eerie agreed softly. “But not always.”

  Emily checked on the breach. Nearly there.

  “I met someone who is looking for you,” Emily said, crouching close to Eerie so she could whisper. The Changeling’s neck was damp with sweat, and her breath was shallow. “Do you know who I’m talking about?”

  Eerie’s eyes swung over to study Emily, but her face hardly moved at all.

  “I don’t think we have any friends in common.”

  “Suit yourself. You’ll find out about that soon enough anyway without my help.”

  Eerie put a feverish hand on Emily’s leg as she tried to walk away.

  “Emily, don’t you want to make up?” Eerie asked hopefully, staring earnestly up at her. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “Don’t give me that nonsense.” Emily pushed past her, a pool of water following obediently behind her like a loyal pet. “Stop pretending this is something personal. I came here because I was told to, because John Parson wants some of what the Far Shores has. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Maybe,” Eerie allowed, frowning slightly. “But I’d hate to think you were mad at me.”

  Eerie stumbled hesitantly after her, apparently unsure of where else to go. Emily felt a limited sympathy for that particular situation.

  “If it matters to you so much, I’m not,” Emily said lightly. “You did what you had to do to get what you wanted. I did the same.”

  “That’s not true.” Eerie’s voice was so soft, Emily could hardly hear it. There wasn’t much room left in her head for things like that, anyway – it was consumed with the vastness of the water reservoir above them, and the pressure she created, focusing it onto a singular point, tearing the hinges of the security door free of their fastenings. The hallway echoed with the groans of stressed and fatigued metal. “I’m not the same as you. I really like Alex. I’m not using him.”

  “Are you sure?” Emily glanced back at Eerie with glee. The top hinge of the door gave way with a sound like a massive violin string snapping. “You can run away, if you want. I won’t try to stop you. If you are clever, you might dodge those freaks from the Far Shores. You could go back to whatever is left of your life in Central, until we come to take that away. Of course, you’ll have to make do without a certain someone...”

  Eerie looked at her with obvious concern on her normally placid face.

  “What do you mean? Are you doing something to Alex?”

  “Me personally?” Emily laughed. “No. But the Outer Dark has a long reach, Eerie. I wouldn’t bet on him making it through the day. Or any of the other Auditors, either. In fact, things will probably go very poorly for Central for the foreseeable future, until we finish consolidating our power. You should run,” Emily suggested lightly, feeling amused and superior, “while you still can.”

  Eerie shook her head.

  “I will see this through,” Eerie said softly. “I won’t let you hurt Alex.”

  “You won’t be able to stop us.”

  “I might.”

  The door warped as the metal cried out under the strain.

  “Why are you so obsessed with that boy, anyway?”

  Eerie shrugged.

  “I like him. That’s all.”

  Emily laughed at her.

  “There’s no point in lying to me. I know what you really are.”

  The door gave way all of a sudden, smashing against the wall and then falling flat on the wet floor of the corridor. Water rushed out from the flooded laboratory room, the hallway channeling a surge about a meter in height past them. Eerie shivered as it hit, crossing her arms across her chest and forcing her way forward after Emily, against the current.

  “No,” Eerie whispered, her musical voice pitched too low to be heard over the rushing of the water. “You would run away, if you knew.”

  Nineteen.

  “What now?”

  “Well, we’ve made our introductions, and seen to the help. Why don’t we go and have a little heart to heart with the owners of the place?” Alice swept her eyes across the charred rubble and scattered corpses where the surrounding warehouses had been. In front of them, the massive bulk of the former chemical plant loomed large. “I have one or two issues that I want to raise with them.”

  “Agreed,” Mitsuru said, nodding as she loaded fresh bullets into a magazine. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Report to Central. Give them a full update. I’ll go check in with Michael, see how the kids are holding up.”

  Alice left Xia and Mitsuru to watch the perimeter, glancing up at Haley’s wispy form hovering overhead like their own dedicated little angel – illuminated because she was implanting visual information in Alice’s field of view, rather than actually being visible – comforted by the knowledge that Karim and Chike were on overwatch, ready to put an armor-piercing round through anything foolish enough to move in their direction.

  She felt a certain amount of satisfaction at the preliminaries. The ambush had confirmed her suspicions as to the Anathema location. As casual as the Anathema could be about throwing their servants into a meat grinder, even they didn’t have the sort of numbers to suffer almost one hundred casualties in a feint. The remote viewers were unable to scan the abandoned chemical plant that was the suspected Anathema compound, but the info one of Haley’s dogs had turned up during a sweep of the perimeter increased Alice’s confidence. The technology the Anathema had developed to shield themselves from both remote viewing and unwanted apports was both bulky and expensive, so the likelihood of two locations in the same city being similarly fortified was slim.

  Of course, now the Anathema knew the Auditors were there, if they hadn’t had advance notice. Making the best of the situation, Gaul had dispatched teams of Operators to assist in establishing a cordon, and tasked all of Central’s remote viewers with watching the area for any signs of movement, conventional or otherwise. If the Anathema chose to flee, the Auditors could pursue at their leisure and discover whatever safe houses the Anathema had prepared. Should they decide to attack the Auditors in the open, the Anathema would forfeit the advantage of any defenses they had prepared within the structure. The more methodical and confident the approach the Auditors made, the greater the psychological pressure on whomever was bunkered inside. Gaul had given Alice only a few hours to play with, but she meant to make the most of them. She wanted to assess the physical status and morale of her team before they made a move, in any case. The kids had done remarkably well under fire, but they were kids nonetheless.

  “Hey, Haley?” Alice called out. “You doin’ okay?”

  Haley dropped several meters, to levitate just above Alice. Her luminous form looked distressed, as if experiencing signal interference, and she looked distracted.

  “I’m alright, Miss Gallow,” Haley said quietly, eyes absorbed with something that Alice couldn’t see. “I’m just worried about Derrida. I haven’t heard from him again, since that distress call...”

  “What about the Far Shores?” Alice suggested. “Could you have someone there find him, and make sure everything is okay?”

  “I asked,” Haley confirmed, looking doubtful. “They said everything was fine, but they sent someone to check. I’m still worried, though.”

  “I don’t like i
t either, kiddo,” Alice admitted. “But we have too much going on to divide our forces. I need you to deal with the situation here right now, okay? Just stick with me until I get us all home. If Derrida hasn’t shown up by then, I’ll help you find him. Deal?”

  Haley nodded, and after a moment’s hesitation, ascended again to keep watch. Alice checked one item off her list and kept moving.

  Michael had established a mini-triage area behind the ruins of one of the scorched warehouse buildings, carefully chosen to be shielded from observation or fire from within the former chemical factory. The support team had apported a couple of med techs in, one of whom was using a portable X-ray scanner on Alex’s arm, while another applied bandages to a flesh wound in Min-jun’s leg. Alice made sure her approach was casual and cheerful, radiating the confidence that her inexperienced troops required from their leader in such unknown and precarious circumstances.

  “Alexander, how you’ve grown,” Alice teased, ruffling his unruly brown hair while the med tech scurried aside. “How’s the arm?”

  “Not that bad,” Alex said, with as much of a shrug as he was capable of without pulling his arm out of the X-ray. Alice was mildly surprised by his stoic affectation, but then she saw Katya hovering protectively nearby, fiddling with the wrap on her injured hand, and decided that he was probably showing off for her benefit. Typical boy, Alice thought, with a smirk. “Same arm as last time, though. Never really healed from the first bite. Weir aren’t driven to bite someone in the same place over and over again, are they?”

  “Not that I know of. Maybe you’re just lucky.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said distantly. “Lucky.”

  “Cheer up, kiddo. At least they aren’t attracted to your head.”

  Alex nodded, but Alice got the distinct feeling that his mind was elsewhere, and that they were talking about two different things. Not that it mattered – as long as he got his head back in the game before they moved on the factory, Alex could be as moody as he wanted. If Alice couldn’t expect Mitsuru to fully contain her angst, then it seemed unrealistic to expect more of a kid that probably should have been worrying about prom dates and college admission. She moved to the next table, where the other tech was poking at Min-jun’s knee.

  “What’s the deal with your knee?” Alice leaned over the tech’s shoulder to see what he was doing. “I thought you got tagged in the calf.”

  “I was. This injury is unrelated.” Min-jun turned away, looking embarrassed. “While assisting Xia with the mop-up of the remaining Ghouls, I slipped on something. I appear to have injured my knee in the fall, though I assure you, it is nothing major...”

  “A torn ligament,” the tech reported. Alice recognized him – Tyler, a remote viewer whose unique talents made him the equivalent of a living MRI. He had assisted in the triage after the Anathema raid on Central, and had been a peripheral part of her own recovery. She knew that any diagnosis he made regarding soft tissue damage was almost certainly accurate. “It’s minor now, but if he continues to walk – well, limp – on it, the results could be severe.”

  “I’m quite serious,” Min-jun said, freeing himself from Tyler’s grasp and sliding off the table. Despite his best efforts to mask it, the steps he took were marked by a slight limp and obvious pain. “I can handle it, Miss Gallow.”

  “Tyler – can he continue on with the operation?”

  “Well...”

  “I need him,” Alice admitted. “This is a big one. If his leg isn’t going to fall off halfway through, then I want him cleared.”

  “I’m fine,” Min-jun insisted, his statement ignored by Alice and the med tech alike.

  Tyler considered it momentarily.

  “I suppose,” he said reluctantly, rubbing his chin. “With the understanding that there may be lasting consequences. Nanite repair is not a panacea. This injury could linger if not treated properly.”

  Alice turned to consider Min-jun, who was clearly masking the pain when he walked.

  “It’s your call, Min-jun.” Alice knew what he would say, and she wouldn’t have pulled him, regardless. Min-jun was her only barrier tech, and along with Katya, the only one of the kids with genuine combat experience. But if he decided to stand on his own, then she was certain he would stay on his feet. She didn’t need a trainee Auditor to second-guess himself. “You up to finishing this?”

  Min-jun just nodded.

  “Good man,” Alice said approvingly, clapping him briefly on the arm. “See what you can do to stabilize it, Tyler, and give him something for the pain.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Alice went to check on Michael, who was standing over the relatively intact body of a Ghoul and staring intently, as if he had never seen one before.

  “Friend of yours?”

  “Very funny,” Michael said, not looking up from the corpse. “You have much experience with these things?”

  “Too much,” Alice said truthfully. Of course, she couldn’t remember a great deal of it, but that was neither here nor there. Her diaries made extensive mention of her history with Ghouls, all of it grotesque. “What’s bothering you?”

  “You ever see one this well fed?”

  Alice took a second look at the partial body at Michael’s feet. The Ghoul did look inordinately large and round. Ghouls, as far as Alice’s research and memory went, were generally emaciated, with every rib visible and their hip bones jutting out prominently. This particularly specimen, while missing a great deal of one leg and the entirety of the side of its face, sported a build that bordered on portly.

  “That is odd.”

  “So is this.” Michael passed her the touchscreen that had been absorbing his attention. The display showed a high-definition, multicolor rendering of something that looked like an instructional animation for a cellular biology class. “What do you make of it?”

  “I don’t know,” Alice said, turning the screen on its side. “What am I looking at?”

  “Blood sample,” Michael groused, snatching the tablet back and zooming in on one particularly area, where a number of indented, roundish red objects and a similar group of ridged greenish structures loitered near something that looked like a tiny space probe. “Took it from this bastard a few minutes ago. Most of the cellular content is what you’d expect – hemoglobin and fungal cells, mainly – but the rest is anomalous.”

  “Those aren’t…?”

  “Yeah,” Michael affirmed. “Nanites.”

  “Oh, shit,” Alice said, horrified. “They are introducing nanites into Ghouls? Why the fuck would they do that?”

  “That’s not it. These nanites are dead and undifferentiated. I just sent the results to Vlad – he says it’s more or less what he would expect to see in a sample taken from the body of a potential Operator whose introduction proved fatal. One surge of inactive nanites that proves toxic to the system, then no further activity.”

  Alice frowned and poked absently at the image on the tablet.

  “Wait. So this Ghoul was a failed Operator?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lovely.”

  “It gets worse,” Michael said, gesturing at the numerous scorched Ghoul corpses nearby. “I’ve sampled four of them so far, with the same damn result.”

  Alice put a hand to her forehead.

  “Look, Mikey, I’m in the middle of an Op, and I don’t have the patience. You wanna just tell me what’s got you rattled?”

  “Assuming Vlad is right – and he usually is – then these Ghouls were manufactured from the dead bodies of failed attempts to create Operators. Judging from the numbers, it was probably the result of a mass introduction.” Michael glanced over at Alice, and she noticed for the first time that he didn’t look worried, as much as he looked repulsed, even ill. “I think I found our missing kids, Alice. All those potential recruits that the Anathema smuggled before we tripped over their scheme? Well, I’m pretty sure this is what happened to the failures. And, given the Anathema’s extremely sick methods of introduction an
d penchant for multiple injections, it’s probably safe to assume that the fatality rates would be high.”

  Alice joined him in his solemn survey of the carnage that surrounded them.

  “That’s a lot of bodies.”

  “Yeah.”

  “A lot of kids.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “They don’t look like kids…”

  “I asked Vlad about that.” Michael’s voice was utterly void of emotion, which was an aberration, coming from him. “He said it’s a side effect of the fungal bloom. Apparently all Ghouls look more or less alike.”

  “Then why are these ones fat?”

  “Because they aren’t starving.”

  Alice poked the Ghoul’s bloated stomach with the toe of her boot gingerly, vaguely worried that it might burst and spray her with something disgusting.

  “I don’t think I like the implication of that.”

  “Me either.”

  “Wait a minute. I thought the Ghoul thing was a fungal event – some sort of sporadic infection that just occurs from time to time, with no particular rhyme or reason. I thought Ghouls were wild, and the outbreaks were unpredictable. Isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right. Or it was.”

  “You mean…”

  Michael shrugged, then threw the tablet into the burning wreckage of the warehouse in one furious movement.

  “Could be they learned it from the Witches – they use Ghouls sometimes, after all. Could be something they discovered in the Outer Dark. Who knows? Short answer, though, is yes – I think the Anathema have found a way to inoculate corpses with the Ghoul fungus.” Michael shook his head. “This means they’ve found a way to weaponize their own fatality rate. You might remember that was the main tactical weakness to their whole philosophy.”

  Alice thought it over. Michael didn’t seem inclined to say anything else anyway – he just stood there, watching the building burn and the corpses not do anything at all, balling his fists and then forcing himself to relax, only to repeat the cycle a moment later.