Bookburners The Complete Season Two

by Max Gladstone

  “Actually, yes. The village pub is full of spiders.”

  Liam really hoped that was a euphemism.

  • • •

  As Asanti and the others attempted to reach Liam through the Orb, Menchú went after the problem from the other direction, finally cornering Shah as she left Team One’s workout facility, still in her gym clothes and carrying a sweat-soaked towel.

  She tried, but did not quite succeed, to hide the line that creased her forehead when she saw him coming. “Father,” she said.

  “Commander Shah,” he nodded. “Why are you trying to throw my people under the bus?”

  To her credit, Shah did not pretend not to know what he was talking about. Then again, circumspection was seldom part of her team’s job requirements. “It’s not personal,” she said. “But it was your op; it went south, and if you think I’m going to let my people take the heat for it now, you’re dreaming.”

  “Then why aren’t you blaming me?”

  Shah made no attempt to hide her confusion. “You want me to put this on your head?”

  “I want you to do something that makes sense.”

  “If there’s a lack of sense coming out of this conversation, it’s not because of me.” Shah made to shoulder past Menchú, but he stopped her.

  “If you were covering for a botched op, you’d blame me. I was the one who brought it to Angiuli. This was my show. So why I am hearing that our acting cardinal has ‘sources’ indicating that Liam is a traitor?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “He had your report, Shah. You’re not a coward. Why are you attacking a man who isn’t here to defend himself?”

  That hit her where she lived. Menchú could see Shah vibrate with rage as she turned to face him. “If you’d read my report, you’d know I didn’t accuse Liam of anything.”

  “But?”

  “Look, I like Liam. But the fact is, I don’t know him. And neither do you.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “No, you don’t. It’s an open question whether Liam even knows Liam. Your man has spent the last nine years with a hole in his memory that even he hasn’t tried to look inside. For all we know he could have been a sleeper agent this whole time, and we just delivered him back to his programmers.”

  The worst part was that she wasn’t wrong. But still… “Isn’t that all the more reason to get him back?” Menchú watched Shah’s jaw clench at his words. “You’re not a coward,” he repeated. “And you’re no one’s puppet. Even when you had every reason in the world and the entire Society telling you to blow me and my team to kingdom come, you didn’t. This isn’t you. So who is it?”

  Shah looked him straight in the eye and said nothing.

  “How about this?You convince Angiuli that Liam isn’t expendable, and I won’t make a stink about you trying to recruit Grace to your team.”

  Shah’s eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing to stop her from asking for a transfer if she wants one.”

  “No,” Menchú agreed. “But there are centuries of custom that prevent us from poaching from each other. That’s why your late predecessor never went after Sal. There are lines we don’t cross.”

  “Do you really think my people would give up their toys to go work for you?”

  “I think you don’t want to be wondering if any of them are actually reporting to Sansone.”

  Shah grimaced, then quickly glanced down the hall as if to assure herself that they were unobserved. “I’m sorry. My hands are tied.”

  “Monsignor Fox?” No response. “But why?”

  Shah let out a long breath. “The Society has always responded to threats. It doesn’t seek them out. Asanti’s ambition is showing, and if you let her push too far, she won’t be the only one who ends up breaking.”

  This time, when she pressed forward, Menchú was sufficiently stunned to let Shah pass.

  • • •

  The spiders in the pub were disappointingly literal.

  If this was the same place where Liam had tied one on the night before, either he had been so far gone that he hadn’t noticed an arachnid invasion, or these spiders were incredibly fast workers. Given that Liam was pretty sure it wasn’t physically possible to be that drunk, he was leaning toward the latter explanation. Even if that explanation seemed to beggar belief.

  Webs hung from every possible surface inside the building. They connected the counters to the stools, the stools to the foot rails, and everything to the floor. They hung in gauzy swathes from the light fixtures, the old Guinness adverts on the walls, even between the taps behind the bar. But that wasn’t really the most disconcerting part.

  No, the worst part was that underneath the spider webs, every surface in the pub seemed faintly… alive… with the crawling, undulating bodies of thousands upon thousands of tiny spiders.

  What the fuck was he supposed to do about that?Liam had never been particularly put off by spiders before, but this was the sort of scenario that could inspire a man to develop a phobia.

  “What are you doing here, Liam?” said a voice behind him.

  Liam turned to find an Asian woman standing in the doorway, scowling at him. What was she scowling at him for? He hadn’t put the spiders in the damn pub. Liam gestured to the mess behind him. “This place yours?”

  The woman’s scowl deepened. “You know it isn’t.”

  “Well, the odds seemed low, but I don’t like to make assumptions.”

  “What are you doing here, Liam?” she asked again. “You’re wasting time. You have to get back to—”

  “Hey!” From across the village square, Christina’s shout was still loud enough to make Liam jump. But she wasn’t yelling at him. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  “Make me,” said the woman.

  Christina’s grin was terrifying to behold. “Gladly.” She turned to Liam. “She’s a Bookburner. Get her.”

  Liam didn’t think; he reacted. “Bookburner” hit something hardwired into his head and before even he had a chance to assess what was happening his fist was crashing into the woman’s face. Part of his mind thought maybe that should bother him, especially when he felt the small bones of her nose crunch against his knuckles and the warm gush of blood on his hand. From the time he was a boy, the notion that “real men didn’t hit girls” had been pretty deeply ingrained into his upbringing. Even if the woman in question had been launching herself toward him in a very aggressive posture at the time.

  The punch brought her up short. She lifted a hand to feel her face, surprised at the blood or the pain, or both. Maybe she’d never been hit in the face before. Liam felt bad, even if she was a Bookburner. He kept feeling bad right up until the moment she slammed into his nose with her forehead, followed up with a knee to the groin, and took off running.

  “That little—”

  He could feel Christina’s arm on his shoulder. Hear her talking. Something about not being worth it, about letting her go. Between his head and his family jewels, Liam was having trouble listening at the moment. But he got the intent.

  And yeah. Fuck that noise.

  Christina was still shouting behind him as Liam took off down the road.

  • • •

  Grace’s mind reeled as she ran down the street in what looked like a small Irish village but was probably some infuriating computer or magically generated metaphor. This body wasn’t even really her body. She was still back in the Archives. But it was hard to believe that when her nose throbbed, and her face and hand were covered in blood. Her blood.

  Ever since her transformation by a magical wax-creature, Grace was more durable than most, but it wasn’t like she couldn’t get hurt. She could still feel pain. But she shouldn’t have a bloody nose and tears pricking at her eyes because that idiot Liam hadn’t recognized her and punched her in the face. Was this what she had been like, before? No. She had never been this weak, this vulnerable. It must be an effect of the metaphor.

  She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t
going to hit her escape hatch. Sal had left this place and gotten locked out, unable to return. If Grace couldn’t reach Liam, one of the others would have to put themselves in danger, and it was Grace’s job to make sure that didn’t happen. She wouldn’t fail.

  A tree root sent Grace sprawling to the ground. Where had that come from? She was getting distracted. Sloppy.

  Still, the tree was an opportunity. Wiping her scraped palms carefully on her linen trousers, Grace leapt for the lowest branch. She could swing herself up and wait, hidden in the foliage, until Liam came running after her—if he came after her—and then get the drop on him. Literally.

  Grace caught the tree limb, lifted her feet to swing up, and came crashing back down to earth for the second time in as many minutes as the branch cracked under her weight. Now she could add a knock to the head to her list of physical complaints, and she was pinned beneath a very heavy tree branch.

  For crying out—

  Footsteps. Those were definitely footsteps. A glance confirmed: Liam’s footsteps. Although he was running unevenly, swinging his right leg a bit wide when he stepped forward. It was petty, but Grace felt a twinge of satisfaction that even though they were in Liam’s mind, it didn’t mean he got a free pass on a kick to the crotch.

  She shouted as soon as he came into range. “Liam!”

  He was running more slowly than usual too. Which was good; it gave her a longer window between when he could hear her and when they would be in hitting range again. “You have to listen to me!”

  Liam shook his head. “I don’t have to do anything, Bookburner.”

  “It’s me. Grace!”

  “Don’t really care!”

  “We’ve worked together for the last nine years.”

  “Tell me another one.”

  Grace squirmed out from under the tree branch and slowly backed away from the oncoming Liam. She only got two steps before her shoulders hit a brick wall. A brick wall? Seriously?! The terrain had chosen sides in this fight, and it wasn’t on hers.

  Of course not. They weren’t in a real place. The village was shifting to give Liam an advantage, but that gave Grace an idea. If the place wasn’t consistent from moment to moment, how thorough could the illusion be? “Liam, think about it. What do you actually remember about being with the Network since you were possessed?”

  “Possessed? I was never possessed.”

  Looked like Grace’s name wasn’t the only thing Liam didn’t remember. She improvised. “What about last week? Can you remember that?”

  “Of course.”

  “What were you doing?” He didn’t answer right away. Maybe he was thinking about her question. Or he was just winded. “How about yesterday? Can you remember yesterday?”

  Maybe he did remember yesterday. Maybe he was really pissed off about the knee to the groin. Regardless of the reason, Grace was out of time. Between one blink and another, Liam was nearly on top of her. Grace’s nose still throbbed; a dribble of blood slipped past her lips and into her mouth.

  She was not weak. She would not fail.

  Liam’s fist was swinging back to strike and there was something in his eyes that looked very close to murder. She didn’t want to know what he would to do to her in that moment. She wasn’t sure their friendship would survive.

  Grace pulled the ripcord.

  And she was back in the Archives. Her face didn’t hurt. Her hands didn’t sting. She touched her face and her fingers found no blood. She was whole and safe. She looked up to see Asanti, Menchú, and Sal.

  “It didn’t work.”

  • • •

  The woman had vanished. One moment she was there, the next he had sent his fist crashing into the brick wall that had been just behind her head.

  Neat trick, that, thought Liam.

  But where had she gone? He’d chased her all the way to the edge of the village, where there was nothing but sheep and what remained of farmers’ cottages, their filled-in windows a testament to the greed of the landlords and the poverty and ingenuity of their tenants. And also, a brick wall.

  A brick wall built into the side of a hill, which he supposed was why he’d never noticed it before. Had anyone noticed it? He couldn’t remember seeing it in the village surveys. Liam ran his hand along the brick side of the structure, hidden under the overhanging grassy top of the hill. It certainly provided some camouflage, but it wasn’t exactly impossible to find either. Who had been in charge of mapping this sector? Liam tried to remember, but couldn’t. He hoped it wasn’t him. Regardless, they should have noticed this place. There was a drab industrial steel door set into the bricks, with a yellow-and-black hazard sign. Must be some kind of fallout shelter, probably put in during the Cold War. A wall and door built over the mouth of a natural cave, stocked with supplies and then abandoned for the last half century, left to the rats and the bugs and…

  Yeah, that would make for quite the disruptive force in their system models. Not to mention, a comfy home for about a billion spiders. Liam shuddered at the thought.

  Better go back to the pub. Christina’s waiting.

  Except the pub was also full of spiders. It really made more sense to take on the problem at its source, if he was going to have to deal with it anyway.

  Liam’s grip closed around the handle.

  It’s probably locked—

  There was no way to know unless he tried.

  Liam pressed down on the latch. As he did so, the door shuddered and rattled under his hand. As though something horrible on the other side was battering at it. Trying to get out.

  4.

  Liam looked at the untouched beer and row of shots lined up in front of him. Why weren’t they empty by now?

  Because I don’t get blasted out of my skull anymore.

  Where had that thought come from? Excessive drinking was exactly what was called for after an encounter like the one he’d just had down by the old fallout shelters.

  What happened at the fallout shelters?

  Even now his mind shied away from thinking about it. The rattle at the door and—

  Can you remember what you did last week?… Yesterday? The Bookburner’s—Grace’s—words echoed, mocking.

  But that was different. Of course he remembered last week. He’d been… working. As for yesterday… Well, yesterday was a bit foggy, but as his hangover when he woke up attested, he had been drinking. A lot.

  Because that was a thing he did.

  The line of glasses remained untouched before him on the bar.

  • • •

  Sansone caught up to Father Menchú as he was on his way to pay a visit to Monsignor Fox. She fell into step beside him. “You can’t do this. Think it through; play it smart.”

  Menchú did not break stride. “Play what smart?”

  “You’ve talked to Angiuli, you’ve talked to Shah. Now you’re on your way to get answers from Fox. And I’m telling you, that’s going to go badly for you.”

  “What do you care?”

  “I spend my professional life cleaning up other people’s messes. I’d rather not have to do it in my own house.” When Menchú didn’t answer, she tried again. “Look, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Liam,” she said.

  “That’s not worth much,” he bit back.

  Sansone stopped walking. Since she planted herself in front of Menchú, he, perforce, stopped as well. “One of your people is missing, so I’ll let that go, but what is wrong with you?”

  “Liam is missing. Fox is setting him up as a traitor, someone has to stop him, and if you aren’t going to help, you can get out of my way.”

  “And just how are you planning to stop Fox?” Sansone asked. “Sheer force of bluster?”

  When he did not immediately answer, she knew she had him.

  “Think about it, Arturo. Fox is a blunt instrument, but if he’s setting Liam up, he’s doing it for a reason. What does he gain if the heads of the Society believe Liam is a spy?”

  “It discredits Team Three. If
we didn’t know we had a mole in our midst, it throws a shadow on my abilities as a field leader. It undermines Asanti—”

  “Your most recent op was a disaster and Asanti has done plenty to undermine herself. Fox doesn’t have to give either of you any help putting nooses around your necks. Think bigger. What else?”

  Menchú gave her a penetrating and hateful look, but he thought about it.

  “This is about Angiuli. Fox wants the powers that be to lose faith in Angiuli so that he can become cardinal instead.”

  “So glad you could catch up with the rest of us. Now do you understand why barging into Fox’s office isn’t going to make this any better?”

  Sansone was halfway down the hall when Menchú’s voice caught her. “There’s only one way to disprove the accusation about Liam. Help me bring him home.”

  “What do you want me to do? You’ve got the Orb. I’ve got a train full of people—all of whom carry internet-enabled recording devices—that I need to make sure aren’t putting the Society’s operatives on YouTube.”

  Sansone made to leave, but Menchú jogged up and caught her elbow.

  “I don’t care,” he said.

  “Don’t care about what?” she asked.

  “I don’t care that you’re busy. I don’t care what people are saying. I don’t care about the politics. I just want to get Liam back, and you’re going to help.”

  “Am I? Why?”

  “Because you don’t want Fox to be cardinal any more than I do. And because after what your team did to my team, you owe us.”

  Sansone’s expression sobered. “Desmet and De Vos’s bad acts aren’t a card that you’re going to be able to play forever. Eventually, you’re going to run out of favors.”

  Menchú returned her stare with one of his own. “I don’t care.”

  • • •

  An older woman, dark-skinned, sat down beside Liam at the bar. “Mind if I join you?”

  Liam shook his head.

  “My name is Asanti,” she said. “You look like you’ve had a frustrating day.”

  Liam grunted. “You could say that.”