All right, Aubry thought. There were people milling about down there in the street. How many of them had ever had their lives torn into fragments as he had? How many of them had any conception of what could happen to a man on his way to the grave?
"All right. I'll go. I don't have much choice."
"None of us do, Aubry."
"It's that big?"
"It's bigger," Miles said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Spiders
Wednesday, June 14
Courtney, the man from the service station, had been mistaken. The Hoopa Spider detention center's stench was not that of human corruption. It was a no-smell, the smell of chemical pots with their solid chemical deodorizers, an olfactory anesthetic that numbed the senses so strongly that it became a stench of its own.
"Concertina fence," Promise said into her radio as her skimmer coasted in to a landing. "It looks like the old days, back in the Maze. I hate it already."
"Save the hate until it has a direction, lady. We may need it yet." Leo's voice was pinched by tension and distance: he was ten miles away, outside the radius of Hoopa's security perimeter.
Rows of barbed wire stretched for miles, disappearing into the trees in either direction. Within the tangles smoldered the chemical pots, a tender mercy to passing noses.
And within . . .
The tiny bungalow on the outskirts of the camp was very clean, very neat, almost neurotically well kept. The four men who waited within were playing cards as they sat around a simple wood-burning stove. They looked at Promise as she entered as if she were something that had tumbled out of Santa's sack.
"Excuse me," Promise said carefully. "I'm looking for Templeton."
The biggest of the men stood, and he looked at Promise in a manner that left nothing to the imagination. His eyes weighed and measured each curve. "What can we do for you?"
"I talked with a man named Templeton. I talked to him on the line. He told me—"
"He's in Washington, lady. That's a long way from here."
"Smells a lot better," one of the others said, and laughed.
"You got business, you talk to Jonsie. You tell me what you're selling, I'll tell you if we're buying."
The wind shifted suddenly, horribly, and the stench hit her like a basket of dead maggots. She suddenly buckled at the knees, and had to grasp a chair. She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling to regain her poise.
The big man laughed nastily. "It gets kind of bad here sometimes, sugar. Them that does the Lord's work sometimes got to wrestle with demons."
"Templeton ..." she began weakly. "I just want to go in. I just want to talk with one of the inmates."
Jonsie pulled back. "What business do you have with this scum?"
When she managed to speak, her voice was too husky by half. "What in the hell are you talking about?"
He jerked a horny thumb in the direction of the camp. The wind had died down or changed, thank God, and the air no longer swam with corruption.
"Them. Sinners every one. Don't you listen to DeLa-courte's America Hour? Every one convicted of secret sins by the disease in his blood. God's judgment is swift, and final."
The other men in the room grunted their assent.
Promise shook her head clear, and fought to keep the disdain from her voice. "That's . . . just not true. You can catch Thai-VI by being raped. Or buying black market blood ..."
"A crime," Jonsie said dogmatically.
She spread her hands reasonably. "But not a sin."
"Ain't no difference, lady. You commit a crime, you weaken the mother country. You weaken the country, you wreck the 'Thin Line,' you're risking millions of lives. That's what got us into this in the first place."
"That's just not true." Promise pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and held it tightly over her nose. "We ran short on water. California got hit with the largest earthquake in its history. The entire Pan-Latin Federation defaulted on half a trillion dollars' worth of loans."
"The Judgment was God's," one of the other men at the table said, rising. Subtly, she had been hemmed in. Suddenly there was an image in her mind, a terrible, cyclical one. She was a prisoner. These men were prisoners as much as the poor creatures on the other side of the wire. Only they were trapped by the economics of their jobs, and the unbreakable strands of their simplistic belief structures, reinforced by that champion of the people, Sterling DeLacourte.
"Templeton ain't here. He keeps himself at a nice, safe distance." Someone behind Jonsie laughed. "What's the matter—ain't we good enough for you to talk to? We can help you—we're God's people too."
Jonsie came closer. There was something smoky and nauseatingly strong on his breath. "So, you gotta deal with us. Now, you need a favor, you should offer something in return."
The door clicked shut behind her.
Aubry . . .
She shut the image from her mind.
Jenna.
She knew what was about to happen, and for a moment she resigned herself. Then another thought, one in Jenna's voice, spoke to her. A voice stronger than her fear. No. Never again. No one uses you. Not ever again.
"All right," she said huskily. Automatically her body posture changed, and the old tricks came to her. The eyes, the shoulders, the subtle play of the hands. All of the skills that she had used in years past came to her, and the men in the room were taken utterly aback. "Let's do it. Don't worry. You don't need to protect yourselves." She lowered her voice further, eager now. "Come on. I'm ready for you."
Jonsie narrowed his eyes. "I, uh . . . I think I wanna wear something."
"What are you worried about? I'm clean. You first." She stepped forward, took a strong grip on his wrist. Jonsie tore his arm away, and backed up.
"Just wait a goddamn minute. Shit, what is it with you?"
"Nothing. I just want you—all of you."
The four men exchanged uneasy glances. "Just . . . what the hell do you have, lady?"
"Nothing," she said too rapidly. "The spectrograph said I was clean." She smiled. "I tried two of 'em. They both said I was clean. Damn machines are more accurate unyway. Come on." She was urgent now.
"Keep away from me," Jonsie said. He snatched his gun from its holster. "I get it now. God damn, I nearly loll for it. Shit. When are they coming for you? Next week? Next month? You wanted to play a little Thai-VI tag along the way. Robbie—" he said to one of the other men, without turning his head. "Get this bitch in there with the rest of the freaks."
You can't get Thai-VI from just breathing the air. There needs to be sexual contact, or exchange of body fluids.
She had heard that over and over again, but now, actually beyond the camp's gate, it was difficult to remember.
From the first step she took into the area, she felt as if she were walking into alien turf. The trees looked somehow stunted, unhealthy, as if the stench were seeping into the bark, soaking up through the roots. She took one of the dented bicycles leaning in a row against the rear of the infiltration gate and peddled it out down a twisting dirt road. She didn't think that motor craft ever traversed it. There was too much dust here, the rains had smoothed the ruts too often. No, more likely food and what medical supplies the Spiders were allotted were dropped from above. Aside from that, they were probably left on their own.
She checked her pack. A few food bars, a flashlight, a set of paper clothing. "For after you start to ooze."
Nice man. In the seam of her pants was sewn a slender transmission beacon. It was her only hope, and she prayed that it would operate when the time came.
A large, gnarled tree marked with yellow paint loomed up on her left. She stopped the bike, and lowered the kickstand.
There were furtive movements behind the trees, as if the very sound of her bicycle were sufficient to disturb the peace that the Spiders had found with each other, here in the concealing darkness.
She shone her flashlight out into the night, and saw nothing, just the yellow marker that would guide her
deeper into the camp. Promise drew the slender shock prod that the gate men had given her. Small enough protection from the advanced cases, but it was something.
The ground beneath her feet was carpeted with rotting vegetation. Her clothes clung to her body, and her breath whistled in her ears as she sucked sour, rotten air.
Be with me, Aubry, she said silently, and instantly felt hideously alone. He should have been with her. This was their job, together.
But Aubry didn't believe, and Aubry had another quest.
And she had to resign herself to the fact that Aubry might never cross her path again.
The grief that coursed through her was savage and consuming, but she controlled it within seconds. This was not the time. Perhaps there was no time, would never be a time.
And in that case her mission here was even more important. If that child was the only piece of Aubry that she would ever have . . .
Now her thoughts came back to the present with jarring suddenness. Something moved out beyond the branches.
At first she would have thought it impossible to believe that the shape was human. The body had grown so corrupt that the poor creature seemed to have almost melted into the earth itself. She stifled her nausea, and played her light over the corpse.
It almost glowed in the dim light. The hair was gone, all gone, the flesh of the head seemed to have flowed, melted almost, into a thickened mass of swollen, running flesh.
The maggots swarmed at it. The smell was something beyond hideous.
"He's dead," a voice sniffed. She pivoted, trying to lind the speaker with her light.
"Is someone out there?"
"He's dead, he's dead, he's dead. . . ."
There was still no one standing there, but Promise searched anyway, and finally caught a small, hunched figure huddled against a tree.
"Please—don't be afraid. I need help."
"He's dead. We're all dead," the little Spider said.
Promise came closer. The figure huddled against the tree, cowering. Then, without any warning, it flew at her, screaming: "It's your fault, it's—"
Promise sidestepped, just brushed the creature with the tip of the shock prod. It responded as if all of its nerves had been linked together into a single massive ganglia, and then struck by lightning.
It flew backward into the tree, eyes wide, bony fingers wide, the impact shattering its arm with an audible crack.
It slid to the ground, whimpering, breath rasping in its throat. Emboldened, Promise took another step closer, and played her light over it.
It was a woman. Once, she must have been as tall as Promise. The disease had whittled her down, bowed her. She could scarcely have weighed eighty pounds, and her ribs were more prominent than her breasts. Her face was crisscrossed with the remnant of the crouching spider, tattooed in blacks and bloody reds across her face. It screamed to all that she was a pariah, a thing of death and disease.
"Don't . . . don't hurt. Please . . . sorry. Oh, God, so sorry ..."
Promise squashed down the disgust, the pity, everything but a grim resolve to see this through.
"I'm going to hurt you," she said. "I know how vulnerable you are to pain. Your nervous system feels little else right now. And I'll stun you until you think the devil is chewing your tail. I swear it."
"What do you want?"
"I want a man named Allred. Do you know him?"
"Thousands here. How I supposed to know ..." The creature screwed her face up in sudden grief. She stared at the dead, rotting thing stretched under the sky. "He's dead. Too weak to bury. Others don't help. You help? Please?"
"That's not in the deal. You help me first, then we'll talk about it. You're going to help me find Allred. He was a doctor."
"Doctor ..." The creature scratched at her dead eye. The one good one batted a few times, then focused. "Oh. Oh. I think I know. Doctor. Camp doctor. Yes. You follow."
"You try anything and I'll fry you."
Promise followed the misshapen creature back through the trees, and now other figures began to emerge.
They slouched back in the shadows, keeping their distance, and she brandished the stunner at them, feeling like a dreadful pied piper.
The shambling, shuffling shapes followed her. One more emerged from the pack and ran at her. The others suddenly clamored, hooting. If Promise could be dragged down . . .
But their coordination was gone, destroyed by the same disease that ravaged their flesh.
Promise had coordination. She had that, and, buried deep within her memory, the lessons of Durga.
Promise slid to the side, and went under the grasping arms, whipping the stunner at its face as she slid through.
It howled in agony, clutching at its ruined face with hands that were little more than wet claws. At a sound behind her, Promise dropped. A moss-crusted two-by-four swung harmlessly over her head, smashing into the face of another Spider. She rose, and skated back on the balls of her feet, shocked by the speed and fluidity of her reaction.
Durga.
"Well? Anyone else?" She struggled to keep the fear from her voice. "Who's next. You? You?" She pointed with the shock prod and now they knew, and kept their distance. They ringed her like creatures of another, darker, world.
She was heaving for breath, as much from adrenal rush as fatigue. O Goddess. Not much more strength. Please. Help me.
Hundreds of the spider tattoos stared at her, bunching in a colony.
"You! All of you. I'm not your enemy. Many of you received medicine from the Scavengers. My man and I ran the Scavengers. I come in peace. I just want to talk to your doctor, Allred."
One of the Spiders hobbled forward, and another one shook its head—Promise couldn't tell if it was a man or woman—and barred the first's path.
The crowd broke, made way for a skeleton of a man with bright, bright eyes, and a livid black widow spider emblazoned on his face. "I'm Allred." He looked at her as if she were the anomaly, she the creature of myth. He suddenly drew himself up, shocked. "Oh, God. I know you. I know you. Please. Come with me."
Allred's shack was one of a hundred in a clutch. There were seven other Spiders in the room. They sat around a small stove, no different from the wood-burning stove that their guardians had crouched around on the outskirts of the camp.
"Do you know why I'm here?"
Allred stared at her. There was something cooking in a brazier in the center of the room, but the air was already crowded with Thai-VI stench, and Promise couldn't smell it. The men in the room seemed hungry. It was in their eyes, in their body language.
"The disease," Allred said as if addressing a group of interns, "depresses the appetite centers in the human brain. We starve ourselves to death. We can't keep much food down. Vitamin injections help. We can keep water down. Not much else. ... We like to smell though."
He sat, scrunched up like an accordion. He turned to face her. "Yes. I know why you're here. I don't know how you found out."
"Wu."
"Wu!" He laughed bitterly. "Don't trust him. He's the reason I'm here, you know. He found out I'd developed an alliance with . . . some others. It just wasn't allowed. This is my punishment. He . . . found a man to infect me. He found out, he found me . . ." Allred buried his face in his hand, and sobbed.
"Dr. Allred. Listen. I have to know." Promise leaned forward. "Terra Buena. I had a miscarriage."
"No you didn't," he said as softly as a whisper. His ruined face was streaked with tears. "I stole your fetus. There's no reason not to tell the truth. Damn McMar . . . damn the whole thing. Oh, God, why did I ever—"
"Yes, damn you. How could you do it? Why did you do it? Why me?"
"How could you know? I knew that . . . certain fetal abnormalities were sought by a buyer." He pressed his hands to his forehead, as if trying to squeeze the memories from his mind like paste from a tube. "Hermaphrodism. Twenty thousand dollars for a healthy hermaphrodite fetus."
"But why?"
"I don't know. But I sca
nned you, and your child, and found that your unborn child was a true hermaphrodite. I didn't know then that it was because of the Cyloxibin—the bottom fell out of the market a year later. I had you under anesthesia, and when I knew I wouldn't be interrupted for two hours, I removed the fetus and put it on life support."
"You mean froze it?"
He laughed, more nastily than the first time. "Hell, no. I wanted it to stay alive."
"What are you saying? There are fetal storage facilities across the country ..."
Allred just grinned toothlessly. "That's all I'm saying."
"Where did you send it?" she whispered.
"No," he said bluntly. "I admit to my guilt, but I won't say anything more. I want what life is left to me."
She raised the stinger, and then dropped it.
"Don't you have any children? Anything that you love? Don't you know what I'm feeling? You have to help me."
The man's ravaged face softened. "Once ... a long time ago, I saw my lover dance. She was magnificent. She was a Plastiskin. Whole-body. She could make her body float, fly. She could chameleon. I remember. I . . . would you show me? Just once, would you show me?"
Promise stood, and looked down on him, feeling nothing but pity. There was no way that she could feel the naked loathing that had been so strong within her only moments before.
She moved her hips from side to side, moving to the music in her mind. She relaxed her guard, relaxed the automatic neural blocks that kept the natural color on the left side of her body. . . .
The men in the room gasped. The women, breasts and hips ravaged into asexuality by the disease, looked at her with a naked longing that was even more intense.
Then the light blazed out, and she faceted herself, turned herself into a jewel with concentration so intense that every centimeter of her body had its own sharply defined arc and color differential. The light flew up to the ceiling and for a moment the drab walls of the cabin housed a fantasy ballroom, something from another place and time.
Then she sat down again.
Gorgon Child Page 20
