by James, Guy
The men who’d captured them—it was a cult, really—were experienced in this sort of thing. They’d done it before, and they would likely do it again. She knew that she’d grown soft in New Crozet, but even so, her capture had been executed expertly.
“See,” Rosemary said, “you know it’s true.”
Senna was about to say something, to contradict Rosemary somehow, when the door to the room opened.
Brother Acrisius entered, his manner that of a serpent whose belly was bloated with paralyzed prey. He was moving slowly, as if dragging himself through sludge, his body bent to one side, and one foot dragging along the floor. His helper, Saul, was with him, following close behind.
“Get up,” Acrisius said. “Now.”
Reluctantly, Senna and Rosemary stood. Senna took Rosemary’s hand and held it tight, intending to keep it firmly in her own. Brother Saul opened the cell and hauled them out of it. He put bags over their heads, and then began to pull them apart.
Their hands clung together a moment longer, the fingers interlaced and desperate to stay knitted, and then were unclasped. A moment later, the New Crozet prisoners were stumbling through darkness, the sound of Rosemary’s wheezing all that Senna could hear.
24
Brother Mardu had never been so attracted to anyone before. Ever in his life.
The peasant woman from the settlements was radiant. In fact, he found the concept of radiance inadequate to describe her appeal.
There was a glow to her that was ethereal, alien-like, and it was shining through her bruised skin and the expression of contempt on her face. She wasn’t beautiful, at least not in the conventional sense, but she had an aura of power, a feminine energy that was like a vortex pulling him toward her.
And as if that weren’t enough to draw him in, the virus was pushing him toward her with more force than he’d felt from it in years. There was something very special about this woman. Something he and the virus both needed to take and exploit and own.
He kept staring, unable to take his eyes from her. She was sheer charisma, like a lamb with flesh tender and succulent enough to lead the most hardened of vegetarians astray.
And maybe, just maybe, she was the perfect piece of meat to help him regain his footing, a steak-shaped stepping stone, moist, but with just enough firmness to get him up. If she was on his side, the Order would return to nest under his wing like an errant gosling that had realized the folly of its ways.
They couldn’t survive without him, they’d only forgotten that, of course, and needed to be reminded. The fact was, they wouldn’t survive without heirs.
They’d all die out if the asexuality and homosexuality that was running amok in the Order remained unchecked. The homosexuals he didn’t care about, they could do as they pleased, but the ones who showed no interest in sex at all, in reproducing and continuing the clan, what the hell was wrong with them?
Of course, he knew what it was, having just recently found himself freed of all things mojo, whether leadership-related, sexual, philosophical or otherwise. It was a sort of depression that had taken hold of them, and whether it had its origins in a deficiency that was nutritional, spiritual, mental, or of some other origin, he didn’t know, but he’d work to bulldoze the problem from each front until it was a pile of concentrated rubbish that could be flushed down the toilet with that blue effluent of porta-potties that they’d recently had the good fortune to acquire. It helped the smell, though it didn’t eliminate it entirely.
There was something else that could be fixed, and that was something this woman could help with. The Order’s trucks had fallen into a state of disrepair, that, frankly, Brother Mardu should’ve done something about long ago. It all added up, and it was all adding up all the time, and the shit was covering up what had been his own charisma.
It was time to flush the Order’s system, and then start anew, and perhaps—he looked at her and tried to muster some carnal desire in himself to take her and have his way with her, but it wasn’t there, and this riled him—put a child into this beautiful creature. If he could only get himself to do that, she’d come around, he was suddenly sure of it, and his disposition turned on a dime.
Confidence beat its wings against the inside of his sternum as if it were a bird trying to get out. His lean stomach sucked itself in and he straightened into an expansive pose that was almost regal, near the one he’d used to sport all the time, in the days of his greatest strength.
25
“Welcome to the house of the Order,” Brother Mardu said, his voice booming with authority and bolstered by a slight echo, “to my house. You’ll be guests here indefinitely, until the purposes of the virus, whatever they may be with respect to you, are served.”
Mardu was reclining on a leather chaise that took up the far end of his room. His was the largest room among the Order’s members, close to two hundred square feet, and it was his alone.
Senna and Rosemary were standing in front of him. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Rosemary’s head was bowed. Senna’s eyes were locked on the leader of the Order, who was finding it difficult to keep eye contact with her.
Brother Acrisius was standing near the entrance of the room, behind Senna and Rosemary. Rain was pounding on the roof, the force of the impact causing the suspended fluorescent lights to sway in their mounts.
Mardu twisted his torso, looking away from Senna again and cracking his back, grimacing as he did so. The shifting of his weight strained the deepening cracks in the leather of the chaise, drawing them out to their full lengths just shy of their breaking points.
He turned to Acrisius. “Why don’t you go play with Saul for a while? I bet he’s lonely.” In fact, he was.
Brother Acrisius winced. He’d been watching the child Rosemary and wondering at the litheness with which she moved, and what that meant about how she’d taste. “Of course.” He slunk out.
“You can sit if you like,” Brother Mardu said, gesturing to the floor in front of him, which was covered by a threadbare rug, in an unpleasant shade of fusty purple. Its surface was populated by dark stains, some of which were notably crusty. A corner, the one closest to the door, was torn up pretty good, and had a chewed appearance. He waited, but they didn’t sit. He shrugged.
“You’re a spotter,” he said. “I can tell that just by looking at you.”
Everyone who’d survived the outbreak, even the overly self-critical Alan, had a little bit of spotter in them. Had they not, they wouldn’t have made it. It was this universal importance of the skill of spotting that enabled everyone to appreciate Senna’s gift for it.
Because while a good number of survivors were passable at it, she had it down to an art, and, essentially, that was what it was, an art. Others could try their hand at it, but compared to her, they all looked like fakers, their spotting a sham. The same could not be said about Brother Mardu, however.
Senna made no reply. Instead, she glanced at Rosemary to reassure herself that the girl was breathing. She was, though she’d struggled some when they were being moved with the bags over their heads. When the bags had been removed, the girl’s breathing had gotten more or less under control.
Brother Mardu went on, unperturbed by the silence. “You’re not any old spotter, either. You’re really something, one of a kind. I can tell by the way you hold yourself, the way you move, the way you breathe.” He was silent for a few moments, drifting in his thoughts.
Senna was surveying the room with her peripheral vision, trying to look like she was paying attention while actually searching for something that could help them escape.
Brother Mardu smiled and nodded. “It’s okay, you don’t have to say it. I know it’s true.”
Rosemary was beginning to wheeze. Mardu looked at her, shook his head in a way that was almost apologetic, and said, “We don’t have anything for that.”
Senna wondered if he was trying to make an offer. He wanted something from them, that much was obvious, otherwise he wouldn’t ha
ve brought them in for a private meeting. She could guess what it was, but…perhaps she couldn’t, if what he’d just done to Jack was any indication, he was utterly insane, and that made him unpredictable.
And she’d have to work with that. If there was a way to negotiate with him, offering him the information she’d gleaned during her time with the rec-crews, which couldn’t be worth much now, or offering herself in exchange for the safe passage of the children back to New Crozet, something, she’d try. If it turned out to be pointless, so be it.
“You’re from the north, aren’t you?” Senna said.
Brother Mardu nodded, the hint of a smile pulling at his lips.
“New York?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t just the accent that had given it away, but something else. Senna wasn’t sure what it was, and Mardu didn’t ask, but it was probably something in his manner that she’d keyed in on, like he was the last of a tribe and knew it, so he wore that status like a proud badge on his chest.
“How did you survive?” she asked. She wanted to get him talking, but a part of her was extremely curious. So few from New York had lived through the outbreak, almost no one, in fact.
Brother Mardu grinned, and his face grew dark. “I had help, protection.”
“Do you remember what happened to the children there?”
He shrugged. “The same thing that happened to them everywhere else.”
“Didn’t you ever wish you could help them, and by doing so, leave something behind, of yourself?” She said this in the hope of stirring empathy in him. A low percentage play, she knew.
Mardu read this in a different way than she’d intended, and he found himself incredibly turned on. He decided he could play along for a while. Let her have her foreplay, if that’s what this was. “Help them how? The virus took them. And now we’re helping it take more. We give the virus what it needs, and that’s for the greater good, so that we can all be better off. We’re bringing the Equilibrium, after all.”
Senna didn’t know what tack to take now. It didn’t help that the drugs were making her mind a fucking ball of yarn that unwound and rewound at intervals, like it was rolling back and forth over the same length of string.
Mardu was staring at her, and she had nothing. She had to think of something, offer him something.
Rosemary spoke up. “You worship the virus?” the girl asked. Her breathing was ragged and hitched at times, but her lungs were working right enough to keep her standing. There were drying tear trails on her cheeks, and she was swaying slightly, but otherwise seemed okay, considering the circumstances.
Mardu nodded and spread his hands palms-up in a gesture that said, ‘Of course. What else is there?’
He said, “Worshipping the virus is worshipping reality. We work for it, and it gives us a place to live.”
“But,” Rosemary said, her breath catching violently, “it’s a disease.”
The founder of the Order grinned. “What is?”
“The virus.”
“Is the virus the disease, or are people? And is there a difference?”
Rosemary peered at him for a moment, put her head down, and made no reply.
The virus was playing a staccato drum beat in Mardu’s head. He needed this woman. He needed her. They needed her. He had to have her.
Inspiration struck him. He said, “We’re both Orders of the Dead. We choose the virus, and you choose what’s left of people. You’ve picked the wrong horse, even though it probably looked like the right one at the time, but now you’ve got that rare chance to come over to the winning side, a once-in-a-lifetime shot at the big-time, at the real thing. Your Order of the Dead is a mistake. But that’s not your fault. Not everyone can hear the virus, not everyone can see what it’s doing, or ever hope to understand it.”
Senna stared at him, wordless.
Virus damn it all how much he needed her! She could bring them all out of this blighted stagnation. And he had to have her—the defiance in her eyes, he needed to own that. The virus commanded it. His entire being thirsted for it.
Suddenly he wanted to tell her about his brilliance in taking down the internet—the Order had once had some talented geeks in its number, who were now in the virus’s number—but he resisted. The urge to brag was weakness, and the act was weaker still.
Some things were need-to-know only, and she didn’t yet need to know. Maybe if she was in his bed one day, her security clearance would allow it, and then he’d be telling her not to impress her, but to share of himself.
Then he landed on his next move, and it was coming out of his mouth, his voice calm. It felt like playing a trump card and that felt fucking great.
“Your townspeople were made cannibals today,” he said, “and they loved it.”
26
“What?” Senna said, but as soon as the word floated from her lips, she understood, and her cheeks flushed with rage, disgust, and helplessness—it was true, and couldn’t be undone.
Mardu explained happily. “All it took was some ersatz tack traders with passable IDs to make your people see the light.” He paused to look at Senna—he’d forgotten Rosemary by now—then went on. “Do you know what ersatz means? I’ll tell you. It means fake, false, a simulation, a poor substitute.” He stopped and looked at her again. “Don’t you get it? That’s what your town is. Your New whatever-the-hell you call it. It’s a fake, a relic, a poor substitute. The world you pretend still exists is completely gone. You must know that.”
“They didn’t know what they were eating,” Senna said through clenched teeth. In her head, she was seeing the townspeople eating the tack and enjoying the hell out of it, remarking about the slight smoky tang it had.
They’d said it was the best tack they’d ever tasted, and no wonder. It turned the knot already in her stomach, tightening it, seeming to put new braids in the drugged-up cord that was living there.
Mardu went on. “It was just some fat, some delicious human grease. No need to get all bent out of shape over it. And they should’ve known it was human. When has tack ever tasted that good? Never. Never. They knew what they were eating, even if they didn’t want to admit it to themselves. You knew. You just didn’t want to think about it. You all loved the delusion. Willful ignorance. Ecstasy.”
“Why are you doing this?” Senna said. “Why the children?”
He stared at her, and the frustration almost ate him whole. She was just like everyone else. Or at least she was acting that way.
What the fuck was wrong with them all? How did they not understand it?
He took a deep breath, and, when he’d found some calm, said, “Because I have to. This isn’t a religion. If I give answers or patterns or drugs and take away the not-knowing, which can be the worst fear of all, it’s only a side effect. I move because the virus moves me, and everything else is the wake, the trail, the afterbirth. Fear is the purest emotion, and so the virus teaches, and I take it gladly and use it, for the good of the virus, and for the good of myself.”
He gestured at Rosemary. “She’s got the purest fear of all: the fear of a beautiful child. Maybe that’s why the virus takes the children for itself, but I don’t know for sure. It tells me so I do. It says it needs the children, that they’re sacred and only for the virus and not to be eaten…then so be it. All I can do is obey.”
He was speaking very calmly now, as if outside of himself. The virus was jabbering on and on in his brain, hard and fast, in and out, go, go, fucking collect two hundred dollars and go.
“Fear was always how I made my money. Fear is money. The crackheads were terrified of facing the world without their drugs. We’re all scared to death of our own reality. Some of us can deal with it. Others—a lot of others—can’t. They have to trick themselves with drugs or God or gods or human settlements like yours or whatever the hell the order of the day is. Fear is what makes people tick. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick. Tock. I know that, and the virus knows it better than anyone. And that’s why I have
to use it, because the rest of you, you just don’t see any other damned way.”
Try coffee, the virus said from her perch on his shoulder, so he did.
Coffee flows, he thought, and flies, like fluid.
Fluid.
“Reality is fluid,” he said, “and so is right and wrong.” The virus hadn’t needed to teach him that. He’d learned that lesson all on his own, and a long time ago too. If it helped you survive, if it served the higher purpose, whatever that was in your world, it could only be right.
“Right and wrong are relative. You think that what the Order does is wrong, because you don’t get it. You need to take the teachings. You might be able to see. Maybe. What we do is the greatest good there is. The highest calling. The rec-crews, the researchers who tried to find cures, those are the heretics, the blasphemers, who don’t even deserve to be taken by the virus. But, the virus, unlike humanity, forgives sins. It takes even those traitors who tried to remove it from the world.”
“It’s like a deal, okay?” he said, remembering his former life on the streets and the things Acrisius had told him about Wall Street. “And we gotta close the deal. The Equilibrium—when the virus has taken enough—Equilibrium Day is the closing.”
The coffee, the virus spat at him.
The.
Coffee.
“And you know what else? We have coffee. Just a little and stale, but enough to get some kick out of it. The real stuff. Not what you people drink in the settlements. And you know why we have it? Because coffee’s for closers. Coffee’s for closers!”
The virus was screaming it too, the declaration pinging around the inside of Mardu’s skull like he was a fucking pinball machine in a dive bar. Glengarry Glen Ross held that gem, and he’d watched the movie soon after the outbreak, in the lying low days. He’d watched a lot of movies then, had read a lot of books too. He’d learned, and he’d waited for his chance to come, for his master, to come.
