Desperate times. Desperate measures.
Mitsuru slid a knife from her belt, a small one, balanced for throwing. Despite the intent of its manufacture, despite all the work she had done balancing and trimming it for optimum flight, she had never thrown it in anger. She’d only tried it a few times, in drunken contests carried out behind the Academy firing range with a much younger Alistair. As a matter of fact, she had never used it to hurt anyone other than herself.
After all, that wouldn’t be sanitary.
* * *
Drake and Michelle had just arrived when things lurched sideways underneath Chris, right when he had started to think that he was wrong, and unlike every other time Alice Gallow had shown up in his life unexpected, this day might actually end well. After all, she was still clutching what was most likely a cracked skull, a broken nose and a concussion. That alone should have qualified today as a good day. He said hello as they approached, but he didn’t think that much about it when they didn’t respond. Then he looked up at them, and saw Drake’s colorless face.
“Hey, Chris?” Drake said, looking concerned. Concern looked odd on him: two-hundred pounds of muscle and extra twenty or so of flab, a beard that he braided, and an insane scrawl of multi-colored tattoo work all over his body, excepting only the insides of his hands and the majority of his face. “I thought you said they were down already…”
The crash happened before Chris could turn all the way around. But it was definitely Leigh, perfect, invulnerable Leigh, who was picking herself up from the wreckage of the wall she had collided with. Where she had been seconds before, one of the Auditors was standing, the young one, and the Japanese girl woman red eyes. Mitsuru Aoki, if he remembered correctly. It was obvious, even at a distance, that it required a tremendous effort for her to stand. Typically, he would have assumed that was because of all the blood. Leigh’s claws, after all, could make a terrible mess.
However, this girl’s blood was black. And everything it touched, it consumed.
“What the hell is that?” Chris asked, backing slowly away.
“Nanite dissemblers,” Michelle said hesitantly, trembling at whatever her remote viewing protocol was showing her. “Her blood is saturated with them. What is this woman, Chris? How can she live with those things inside of her?”
Leigh moved cautiously from the wall she collided with, and the Auditor turned toward the movement. Her eyes were fire engine red; they made Chris’s eyes hurt in sympathy. The black blood crawled across her skin in rivulets, each drop falling silently to the ground and then eating away at it. She took one slow step, and then another, and even her footprints were corrosive. Everywhere she stepped, the black liquid expanded outward like rot.
“The dissemblers are self-perpetuating, and they are reproducing rapidly,” Michelle said, horrified, her normally slight French accent becoming pronounced. “Chris, that girl is a monster. If this continues, I don’t know where the damage will stop…”
Chris understood her fright. It was a nightmare idea that he heard described hypothetically, a favorite doomsday scenario among the physicists at the Academy – an Operator who could generate nanites that did nothing but build more of themselves and take everything else apart, functioning unchecked, their mass growing exponentially. The whole planet would be consumed in a matter of weeks. Of course, the scenario had been kicked around because it was widely assumed to be impossible – nanites of this variety had never actually been encountered, to the best of his knowledge. Nothing in the information they’d been given on the Auditors had mentioned Mitsuru Aoki as having such an ability – so Alistair had either withheld the information, or he hadn’t known himself.
“Do we have to do something about this?” Drake asked urgently.
Chris actually begin to explain that with Leigh doing the fighting, they had nothing to worry about. The plan had always hinged on her, after all. She had spent a decade and more in stasis, embedded in the flesh pits, her skin crawling with blasphemous workings and forbidden technologies, asleep and growing strong in the Outer Dark. They had slaughtered a dozen vampires, elders of the European Syndicate, to provide her with the nanites used in the procedure; the Witches that the Anathema held in thrall had sacrificed century’s of collected power. Selecting Leigh for the process had been the offer that brought Chris over to the Anathema. He’d been forced to allow himself to be implanted with a false persona, and to fake his own death, for the purposes of collecting Alice Gallow. But he had never doubted his decision, ever since Leigh had emerged from her bath of blood and nanotechnology like Lady Bathory; naked, perfect, and invulnerable.
Except for the places that the red-eyed woman’s blood landed on Leigh’s waxen skin. Because there was nothing left there except a boiling, slowly-expanding black mass. The ground beneath Mitsuru’s feet fared no better, as she left craters behind her in the asphalt. Even her clothing and weapons were consumed. Only her skin and the knife in her hand were ignored by the ravenous nanites.
Chris said nothing; he stood and watched as Leigh snarled and threw herself at Mitsuru.
Even if she didn’t know exactly why, Leigh had clearly already decided that making her opponent bleed was a bad idea, so she had sheathed her claws before she struck, molding her hands back into fists. Thin, rotating tendrils of black blood surrounded Mitsuru, hanging in midair in frank disregard for gravity, drifting gently with the wind like seaweed, consuming even the moisture from the air around them. Leigh’s timing was exquisite. She jumped one branch like a hurdler, and ducked under another, landed in a crouch and then sprang back up with blinding speed. Truly, she was a marvel to Chris’s eyes.
Mitsuru laughed, and hurled a handful of blood collected from her wounded arm, hanging crooked from Leigh’s kick. Leigh put her arms up to block reflexively, and the blood splashed along her forearms and past, splattering across her chest. A tiny drop hit her immaculate cheek and it started the hissing, fizzing conversion. She tried to step away, and one of the ribbons sliced through on her, neatly severing her left arm at the elbow. The limb was already coated with black, viscous goo by the time it stopped rolling.
Leigh did not feel pain. She did not scream. She retreated, absorbing a glancing blow to the calf as she fled. She was beside them, a moment later, and the black spots had expanded. Her right arm was almost totally lost, and spreading puddles of it were consuming her chest and neck.
“Get rid of it,” Chris commanded Michelle. “The black blood and all the skin touching it. Now.”
“What?” Michelle said, gaping. “I don’t want to…”
“You can’t hurt her,” Chris said impatiently. “But whatever it is that bitch is bleeding all over the place, it’s breaking her down faster than she can rebuild herself. Leigh will die if you don’t do it.”
Michelle hesitated for another infuriating moment, before nodding to herself, closing her eyes, and exercising the other half of what made the petite girl from Normandy such a valuable asset, first to her family and the infamous Terrie Cartel, and then to the Anathema. Michelle was a skilled remote-viewer, but more important, she was an exceptional telekinetic, capable of gross and small manipulations. Leigh’s flesh was neatly incised everywhere the nanites had spread, and she gasped in shock, but that was all. There was no blood. She showed no signs of pain.
Mitsuru shrieked as she turned toward them, all reason gone from her red eyes, while Alice Gallow stumbled to her feet, still clutching her head.
“Fuck this,” Chris snarled. “Let Alice Gallow deal with it. Drake, get us out of here. Start stage two, now.”
“About time,” Drake said, raising one tattooed arm. He brought it down like a conductor, and then there was no one where there had been four.
Alice stared at the spot unsteadily for a moment, waiting for her vision to realign, then turned and regarded Mitsuru, advancing on her surrounded by a tempest of black blood filigree, her eyes livid red, her delicate features twisted and feral.
“Mitzi? I mean, Mitsuru
?” Alice tried hopefully, wondering if that Leigh bitch had actually killed her, and she was just too dumb to realize it. “You wanna tone it down a bit?”
Alice wasn’t surprised that it didn’t work, but she didn’t think she could be blamed for trying, what with her head in the process of falling off.
“Hey, Xia?” Alice called out to the motionless figure embedded partway in the wall. “Any chance that you’re still alive?”
Still nothing. Mitsuru came forward, the first of the black tendrils splashing against the strip of concrete that separated them, consuming everything it touched.
“Gaul?” Alice tried, not sure if she was talking or thinking. Her head felt sick and fat, like a rotten jack-o-lantern, one side so badly caved in she was afraid to touch it. “Mitzi is about to kill me. Little help?”
Mitsuru froze and howled, caught in a bubble of rainbow-tinted, oil slick light emanating from the front of her brain, where her implant rested.
“Like that, for example,” Alice said gratefully, stumbling over to where Mitsuru lay. Alice had meant to check on her, but all she managed was to fall over in her vicinity. “That will work.”
* * *
Gaul was staring. He had been staring since he had arrived here, called to the abandoned bulk of his own Analytics building, the hallways littered with dozens of dead bodies, summoned by perhaps the last person that he would have suspected.
“Be careful,” Eerie said, taking off her headset and putting it down next to the laptop. “When Mitsuru wakes up, she’s going to be able to operate her Black Protocol at will.”
“You are going to have to explain some things to me,” Gaul said, looking quizzically at the girl in front of him, as if she reminded him strongly of someone whose name who could not quite recall. “I think, after all this time, that you owe me an explanation, Eerie. How long have you been able to do these things? Who are you, really?”
“It’s true that I am not myself right now,” she said, nodding gravely. “But I have to go.”
“What do you mean?” Gaul demanded, barely suppressing the urge to shake her. “You activated the most treacherous and forbidden protocol I can imagine in one of my Auditors, over the Etheric Network. Then you turned it off like a light switch. That was the Ecofage Protocol, wasn’t it? Self-replicating nanites that devour the surrounding environment? The last time she used that protocol, the Operator with her died, and Mitsuru was hobbled as a result. I have watched over you since you were a child, and I feel a certain investment in your future. Why have you kept all of this from me?”
“Director, you are right,” Eerie agreed. “You should get an explanation. But another time. I need to be somewhere else, and you have other things to worry about. You have to protect the Source Well. You know that already. They are coming for it. Can’t you feel it? Your old ghosts, Director, coming back to haunt you.”
“What?” Gaul demanded, taking the girl by the shoulders and holding her there, forcing himself to be gentle. “What are you saying?”
Eerie sighed and looked at him as if he was stupid. It was an intensely surreal experience, like watching a video of a friend with an actor overdubbing their voice with a profoundly different one. Gaul had all sorts of nasty ideas occur to him, but he also felt inclined to doubt them; after all, Eerie was the first changeling raised entirely amongst humans, and the Fey themselves were such an unknown commodity that even he hadn’t met one before. No one knew how Eerie would change and evolve as she aged.
“There is someone else who needs my help,” Eerie said patiently. “And you have other things to deal with. They are already inside the Academy, you know?”
“Don’t worry,” Gaul snapped, letting go of her. “It’s being dealt with. What concerns me, Eerie, is you. I’ve never seen you like this before, and I had no idea you could do these things. Are you the same girl who grew up here?”
“Mostly,” Eerie hummed, nodding. “Whoever I am, I still like you, Director. I hope you live through this. If I do, too, you can ask me again. I won’t have the answers you’re looking for, though. I don’t know myself.”
Gaul looked at her for a long time with his faded red eyes.
“Director,” she said softly, urgently. “I have to go. Please.”
“Then go,” Gaul said, shrugging. “But, Eerie – this discussion is in no way finished.”
“Let’s hope not,” Eerie said pleasantly, heading for the door.
24.
“I hate your life,” Katya said, crouched down in the brush beside him. “I would like to make that clear.”
“I hear you,” Alex said, nodding.
“I’m not too fond of your attitude this evening, either.”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Alex said, shrugging, watching the road a hundred meters distant; it was empty, for the most part, or rather, nothing was moving. The stone strip was dotted with distant shapes that could only be bodies. He hoped it wasn’t anyone he knew. He tried very hard not to worry about Eerie. “I wouldn’t call this a good mood.”
Katya was silent for a while. Alex enjoyed it as best he could. He wished, he really wished, that he had his headphones.
“Look, I liked Emily, all right? She was fun, and a good cook, and whatever,” Katya said, looking like it embarrassed her. “And you should understand that your indecision played a role in this situation, and that you have some things to own up for. But if you’re holding yourself responsible for what happened to Emily, you need to stop. She was a big girl. She did that shit to herself.”
“I’m trying not to think about that right now.”
“I know – and you’re going to screw everything up because of it. You need to clear your mind, so you can focus on what we are about to do. You can’t do that with the big black cloud you got over your head right now. Let it go, Alex. You aren’t responsible for her actions, and your guilt is gonna get both of us killed.”
“Wow,” Alex muttered. “That’s a sympathetic response.”
“What, I’m supposed to be impressed by your compassion? Alex, she’s just someone you fucked. If you are planning on taking responsibility for the actions of every single person you sleep with, you had better consider celibacy.”
“Look, we have to get the medical wing,” Alex said darkly. “As for the little pep talk, you can skip it. I’m not worrying about Emily at all. I’m worried about finishing this stupid job so that I can go find Eerie. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can move on to that. So, are we doing this, or what?”
Katya looked away and swore under her breath.
“Fine, tough guy,” she said, finally, shrugging. “Let’s go.”
* * *
“Try and hold still, Miss Gallow.”
Alice’s head hurt. It felt like someone had hollowed out her skull and then filled the space left behind with broken glass. She sincerely hoped that she was dying. If she wasn’t, then the pain was too much to bear.
“Please, Miss Gallow. Hold still. I am trying to put you back together again.”
She became aware of her senses slowly, one by one, as if she was repeating infancy in fast forward. First, the smell. Incense, like sandalwood. Then a sound, like a recording of a child’s voice, pitch-shifted, high and unnatural. Finally, there was a light, a light that had all the warm qualities of amber, translucent, tinted with an iridescent rainbow. The more she was aware of the light, the more she paid attention to it, the more the pain receded. So she stared at it intently, not entirely sure her eyes were even open, and listened to the horrifying sounds of her skull realigning, bone grinding against fragments of bone and then fusing, with the patience of one who has become familiar with horror.
“I’m sorry, Miss Gallow. I’m sorry that they did this to you. I’m sorry I can’t fix what’s truly wrong with you. All I can do is help you put the pieces back together, and help you loosen some of the fish hooks they left in your mind.”
The voice sounded like singing, which she thought might have meant something to
her, previously. It rang in her head, it reverberated in her shattered, fluctuating skull, but it was not unpleasant. Like the light Alice bathed in, the more she was aware of it, the better she felt. She listened raptly, even though the words made little sense to her.
“It’s funny, as old as you are that we never met. You are remarkable. You know, of course, that no human could survive the implanting of the kind of nanomachinery that made you? But that’s for the best. I could never heal an Operator like this. Too fragile. Oh, you must have guessed by now, even if you have forgotten? Some Operators do not appear to age, it is true, and they can have long lives, but there are limits to everything. I heard about you the first time in Holland, when Napoleon’s troops were arriving in Amsterdam. You arrived with them, to make other, more private inquiries. I don’t know whom you were working for then. I don’t know how old you were at the time. How old do you think you are, Alice?”
Alice couldn’t wonder. She couldn’t follow much of what was being said. The whole experience was too extreme, and the words too small and insignificant a part of it. Whatever her mysterious benefactor had to say, its relevance paled next to the reformation of her skull. The process didn’t hurt as much as she would have thought it might, her whole being permeated with that ephemeral, translucent light.
“Or your protocol, have you ever thought about that? It isn’t anything like any of the Operator’s protocols. How would nanites explain what you can do, Alice?”
It was almost like an orgasm. Not that it was pleasurable, but it was consuming, overwhelming, indescribable. The sound of her bones knitting in high speed. The sound of tissue rebuilding itself, each cell molded from the blueprint of the last, the shrill crescendo of her nerve endings coming back to life.
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