Cormorant Run

by Lilith Saintcrow

  The instruments hummed. A collection of small birds in a tangle of slowly undulating thornvines a few meters to their left burst into peeping cacophony, and small bony clacking noises underscored their avian conversation.

  “The fuck.” The mouth of Brood’s rifle, pointed down, swung a little as he made a small, contemplative moment. “That’s the big secret? That piece-of-shit fairy tale?”

  Tremaine’s mouth hung half open. He visibly decided it was a good thing to shut it, and did so with a snap. Tolstoy and Mako glanced at each other, the first with raised eyebrows, the second with a shrug. If the rifter had wanted to unsettle all of them even further, she’d done a pretty good job.

  “That was supposed to be classified.” Morov’s knees creaked as he rose.

  Barko surprised himself. “You think anyone here hasn’t already guessed?” The spectra was going wild, but after a little bit of calibration it would probably start making sense of everything. It was best after dark, when the sun wasn’t bouncing all sorts of energy toward the surface, but just the difference between day and night readings would be worth a pretty penny to one or two other research facilities. At least he’d get something out of this. Maybe he could even solve the riddle of how sunshine and air got through the slugwall …

  He tried to focus on the spectra. There would be no Aleks chattering over the ancient coffeemaker in the morning. None of the kid’s tripping over his own feet or isolating Manx variables in the data for fun. It had happened so fucking fast, too. Between one second and the next.

  “Hey.” Lazy-voiced, sleepy-eyed Senkin, who probably didn’t give shit or Shinobi what they were after in here as long as he drew his hazard pay, pointed. “What the fuck’s that?”

  Everyone turned, and Eschkov let out an undignified squeak.

  A queer black streak, like an oilslick, hovered around the roofs the next street over. It rippled, and the sheen on its surface was just like the slugwall—the same soap-bubble swirling, but as soon as the eyes decided it was one color or another, it changed. Red became blue, yellow became some shade there was no word for, and the whole thing made an uncomfortable sensation crawl lazily into the center of Barko’s head.

  “Just a slicker,” the rifter said. “Don’t look at it.”

  “But what is it?” Tremaine’s accent had thickened. He lifted the thergo, dreamily, and fumbled for the knobs on the side.

  “Form of plasma, near as anyone can figure.” The rifter didn’t turn around to look. “Comes out during the day when it’s clear. Gets worse when you have a group, but it’s harmless unless it hypnotizes some stupid asshole and they go wandering off. Or go killishok.”*

  “Eyes down, men.” Morov was having none of that, thank you very much.

  “How do they hypnotize you?” Barko tore his gaze away, took two steps forward and nudged Tremaine, whose blue eyes had widened as he stared, pupils dilating to eat the irises.

  The rifter made a short, noncommittal sound. “Dunno.”

  “What exactly—” Eschkov began.

  “Something like the northern lights. Radiation acting on particles in the air. That’s what Ashe thought.” The rifter sniffed a little, wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, and chose the left-hand road, heading away at an oblique angle. “Come on. Stay on this side of the intersection. I don’t like how the other side feels.”

  “Shit,” Senkin muttered. “Are we following your bitch feelings?”

  The rifter didn’t answer, just stepped carefully over the invisible boundary between “road” and “intersection,” tapping her toes twice to test the pavement. Morov breathed a term of surpassing obscenity and clapped Senkin on his meaty shoulder. Barko had to shake Tremaine to get his attention, and a funny feeling had started behind his breastbone. It was one thing to hear about the dangers inside a Rift.

  It was another thing to feel the tickle of hypnosis inside his own head, and hear a kid’s agonized, dying screams.

  26

  ANYONE UNSTABLE

  Morov sighed as he popped the heating tab on a silvery packet of ration paste. It was probably spaghetti bolognese, which he hated but always seemed to get his first night out in the field, God’s little joke played on a working soldier. “Nobody cares what you like, Tinkles.”

  God, Morov believed, was an NCO.

  “I’m just saying, it ain’t right.” Senkin scratched at his cheek, glancing at the three scientists in their corner of the dark room. His nickname came from basic training—a certain incident involving a tin roof, a full bladder, and a couple of humorless MPs.

  This abandoned building slumped on its foundations, a “landmark” according to the rifter, which apparently meant it was safe for the night. The sun was sinking fast, and the little bitch had already vanished twice, each time returning with a load of scavenged wood for the fire, which sat in a circle of cement excavated from moldering carpet and padding, strange opalescent rocks—again, gathered by the rifter—edging its merry crackle. Senkin continued with what they were probably all wondering. “What if she don’t come back?”

  “Then we go back the way we came.” Mako slurped at his own ration paste. His round, flat face was set in its usual phlegmatic lines, but there was a strange gleam in his black, narrowed eyes. He let his hair get longer than regs, just like Riggs, and the stiff black mass was a halo.

  For once, Brood spoke up. “Unless it changes.” He stared at the fire while squeezing a little brown glue-paste out of his own ration packet, the feathering of bleached blond tips along his dark flattop glowing a little in the dimness. “You try rearguard tomorrow and look back a couple times.”

  “Makes my skin crawl,” Tolstoy volunteered, baring nicotine-yellowed teeth in a grimace. “Road ahead of us, right? I look back and it’s grass. Like it ate it, or something. Houses look all different too.”

  Morov’s own scalp was crawling, but that could have been from sweat and dirt. Out in the field meant no time for a fucking shower. Which wouldn’t have been that bad, but Mako smelled like rancid donkey balls even on the best day. Those demo motherfucks were always greasy, though, and it was only gonna get worse, especially if tomorrow was sunny again. The ration sleeve warmed against his fingers. Technically it was supposed to heat up the entire sachet of glop, but you’d get burning hot mixed with almost-frozen if you didn’t mush it around a bit. If you mushed it, though, it became even more like baby pap.

  The fire popped, and Morov almost twitched. The scientists were busy with excitable conjectures and setting up tripods and instruments, Barko’s bald head rubbed with a couple charcoal fingerstreaks. The old man had worked with the kid; he was probably taking it hard.

  Fuck, Morov supposed he wasn’t taking it easy, either. The kid was always around, a buzzing annoyance, but Morov hadn’t shooed him off. Riggs thought the kid was a hoot, all shiny eyes and Adam’s apple, nagging with questions and burbling with conjecture.

  Snuffed, just like that. Not even twenty seconds into the Rift, which from what Morov could see was just a bunch of dead buildings and weeds. Nothing very special at all.

  Except for the way the weeds looked wrong. Except for the house they’d seen late in the afternoon, half of it afire with sunglow because it had somehow turned into glass. Walls, furniture, roof, just like a fucking greenhouse. The rifter had listened to the pleas of the scientists and taken them a little closer, and Morov saw the dividing line between glass and wood was seamless. Just zap, part of the fucking world turned into flat transparency, shivering a bit with a tiny singing noise as the wind stroked it. Sending a bullet through would probably make the whole thing fall down, and Tolstoy had looked damn tempted until Morov barked at him to get his mind back on the perimeter.

  Yeah. Except for those tiny, little things, it was just a regular walk.

  There were the rustlings in the grass, too, and the birds twittering. Except you never saw a single one. The sky held a few more of those oilslick things as it turned into afternoon, and the rifter had carefully
not looked at them past a brief glance. It was goddamn hard to keep your eyes on the ground when you knew those fuckers were floating up top.

  Brood’s dark, thick eyebrows had drawn together, and he blinked owlishly at the fire. He looked troubled, which was not normal; he was Kopelund’s pick for the team, and that made Morov … cautious. Tolstoy was a brick, and about as useful unless there was incoming fire. Mako hadn’t blown himself—or anyone else—up yet, despite numerous chances to do so, which was what you were looking for in a demo man. He’d seen action in the Balkans, too, just like Brood. Senkin just plain did not give a shit, as solid as they came. Morov had figured he didn’t want anyone unstable inside.

  Or anyone who wouldn’t obey an order.

  Don’t you worry about the rifter. That’s taken care of. Kopelund with his hands behind his back, smugly contemplating his half-open office window like he saw cheering crowds outside the glass panes.

  Well, now, that was all right, since Morov didn’t like the little bitch much. He’d had to fill out triplicates for Bechter’s eye, for Chrissake. Brood had Kopelund’s orders for the rifter, but what was to stop him having orders for the rest of them? How much blowback was acceptable to Kopelund on this mission?

  Morov had an idea, now that Brood had been attached, that the amount was uncomfortably high. At least Morov had sent off all the paperwork, including the anonymous stuff. He didn’t like the idea that maybe he was plotkarz,* but there came a time when a man had to do something. It wasn’t just Bechter’s eye; the rifter had, after all, only her own crazy to fight off a group of soldiers with.

  No, it was afterward, listening to Kope make his plans to ruin the rest of Bechter’s life, that left a sour taste in Morov’s mouth. He’d seen Kope do the same thing before, but somehow, that was just the last straw.

  A soft sliding sound was half buried under the fire’s crackle and hiss; Mako was quickest, dropping his rations into his lap and reaching for his gun. The rifter, her dark eyes back to frog-huge in her wan face, melted through the doorway leading to what had been a garage before the Event. There was an antique petroleum-guzzling car-carcass in there, quietly moldering away under the blank greenish gaze of two overgrown windows. The house was partially covered with a drift of wiry, fleshy-leaved vines starred with weird tiny, triangular brownish flowers.

  She halted, gazing at Mako like she knew what was going through his head, and for a moment her huge teeth, wide lips, and thin face made her a small animal eyeing the hunter and preparing to jump. Her wiry arms were full of dry wood, either torn from other houses or winter deadfall.

  What kind of crazy went into the Rifts in the first place, let alone snuck around out there at night? Even if they did need the fuel?

  “Fuck,” Mako said. “Make some noise, shit.” He picked his ration pouch back up.

  “So you can aim better?” Brood elbowed him. “Dumbass.”

  The rifter picked her way forward and bent, her quick little hands moving this way and that as she stacked the wood, then pressed her knuckles to her lower back as she straightened, curving backward. Morov could remember his mother performing the same move, an unexpectedly feminine pose.

  “Ms. Svinga?” The foreign scientist—Tremaine—bustled over, carrying a small megboard. His hair was wildly mussed and the firelight showed high color on his cheeks. They were creaming themselves over there. “I wondered if we could get some equipment outside, because—”

  “No.” She didn’t even wait for him to finish, just took two steps and sank into another crouch, staring at the fire. She made no move toward the bag of ration pouches set near the small blaze.

  Did she have something in her backpack? Did she eat hunched over in a corner in the Rift, a prisoner or a malnourished child guiltily swallowing all she could? She hadn’t seemed to mind in the canteen. Or were there secrets to surviving out here, caches of pre-Event food left miraculously untouched?

  “Well, why? Is there something out there?” Tremaine looked just like a ruffled little golden dog with nothing outside the window to bark at. His accent got thicker when he was excited, and he was a prissy little fuck even at the best of times, but he wasn’t a bad sort unless you were playing cards. He was a sore goddamn loser.

  Foreigners usually were.

  The rifter didn’t say anything else. She just ignored him, and finally, awkwardly, the scientist shuffled back to his compatriots. He may have muttered something nasty under his breath, too, but it was in his native tongue. Wouldn’t even call her a bitch to her face. What a skevvy.*

  Morov mushed his pouch, almost angrily. It never failed—in barracks you were bored to death, out on maneuvers you just wanted to be back under a roof, when shit went down all you did was what you’d been trained to. You couldn’t ever just be a happy asshole in your own damn living room. Not unless and until you retired, which was a long way off.

  Well, he’d signed up for the ILAC Corps, and now he was in a Rift with three slaphappy scientists, the crazy motherfucker Brood, and a couple other nutsacks he had to return to base in original condition.

  He took a mouthful of almost-hot ration paste. This time, of all times, it wasn’t spagbol. The pouch had been mislabeled. Instead, it was chicken cordon bleu, which he hated just as much.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, with feeling, and took another gulp.

  27

  FLAT COPPER

  Freezing fog had moved in with sundown, and thickened until a past-midnight soup of clotted white cloudcream lapped against the slugwall. A troika of leavs, rolling through cold clouds kissing frozen earth, stabbed around their moving perimeters with harsh white light. Their yellowish fog beams weren’t supposed to reflect off water droplets as badly, but the patrol would be relying on thermascan anyway. The glare was enough to make a lookout’s eyes water, safe inside a bulletproof bubble.

  Vetch took point, loping along the slugwall’s shellpearl glimmer, Cabra pacing him with one eye on the patrol. Therma would have trouble picking them up against the wall’s stray energy flux, but if the leavs turned face-on instead of sideways there might be a glitterspike or two to give them away. The patrol began to turn, lazily, not expecting any trouble … and it was time, a rasp running across the nerves and a high flat copper taste in every mouth.

  Sabby the Pooka, sweating a haze of exuded alcohol by-products that steamed gently against the fog but bright-eyed and steady, kept his gaze fixed on Cabra’s bead-starred braids. Behind him, the fourth rifter, covering the ground with a long shambling lollop, was Il Muto, his large knitted hat flopping gently and his big rawboned hands combing the air.

  Cabra felt it first and didn’t break stride, just skipped forward two steps and tapped Vetch on his left shoulder. He immediately veered, partly from her pressure and partly from instinct, and they both hit the slugwall at the same time, a dark rosette expanding against the shimmer. Sabby hit square between them and burst through with a jolt; last of all Il Muto. He landed a good four meters away from Sabby, who had gone down in a crouch and was craning his neck; the beads in Cabra’s braids rattled and buzzed as she rolled. If she’d been just a little slower, her guts would have splattered the dirt.

  A scuttlesnake loomed, rearing up from a nest of silvery tangletape, darting forward. Its snout struck where Cabra had been a split second before, and Vetch whistled, a high sharp noise meant to give it an aural profile to latch onto, a distraction from easy prey. Metal rasped and slid, a long jointed curve of gleaming segments, and the blunt wedge-shaped head separated, foxfire glittering on triangular teeth.

  Il Muto made it to his knees, digging in his mapper; Cabra rolled again as the scuttlesnake buzzed another warning. Vetch whistled once more, a short sharp stutterburst, but it was Sabby who plunged his fist into his mapper and brought out a popper in a maglock. A brief flash of blue, the maglock whining as he thumbed it, and he tossed the palm-sized disc low and hard.

  It smacked between two segments on the rearing scuttle’s dappled belly. A flash, small booms
of tiny thunder, a sharp whiff of ozone as the metal flanks closed a circuit. The popper pumped fatal electricity through the scuttle, which fell with a crash-splat and began twitching. Vetch darted in, grabbing Cabra’s backpack, and Il Muto had a popper torch, playing the beam over the scuttle’s twitch-thrashing length.

  Sabby grabbed Cabra’s hand, pulled her upright while Vetch hauled on the backpack, helping. Il Muto crouched in the middle of his safe bubble, and they crowded him, Cabra’s breath coming high and hard, Sabby’s teeth chattering, Vetch swearing once in a low, passionless tone. The popper torch flicked off and they huddled, a creature of eight eyes, eight hands, eight feet, four backpacks, and four pulses galloping in throat and wrist and gut.

  The night on this side of the slugwall was clear and warmer than the other, though by no means balmy. Vetch raised his head first, testing the breeze. Night entries were dangerous, but getting past the patrols in the daytime was irritating as all fuck.

  Finally, when it felt right, the rifters settled in standard formation—backs and backpacks propped against each other, leaning into the comfort of other human bodies. Il Muto’s chin dropped to his sunken chest almost immediately, his breath turning to the slight sibilance of a deepening doze. The crackles from the downed scuttle had turned into formless white noise. The popper would keep working for a long time, until the scuttle’s segments separated into harmless chunks. Someone might even happen on the corpse later and scoop up the maglock and its still-glowing popper, and maybe take the fanged scuttle’s head, too.

  Cabra had first watch, Sabby’s damp blond head propped on her shoulder as he closed his eyes and dropped off.