Earth Thirst

by Mark Teppo

  “Why not?” she says softly.

  “No, Mere. He's lying to us. You saw what he did to Nigel. He did that to one of his own.”

  “And you haven't?” Escobar snaps.

  He wants me to deny it; he wants me to say the words that will seal my fate. He wants me to admit my ignorance of my own history. Because that will prove his point. He knows what I have done, what actions I have taken because Mother told me to.

  Amnesiacs know.

  “You don't know anything,” he says coldly as if he can read my thoughts. “You know nothing about who we are. What we have done to become who we are. What we gave up.” His voice rises in volume. “You don't remember anything.”

  I look at Mere again, and the expression on her face is too much to bear. It reminds me of…

  I can't look at her all of a sudden, and I turn my gaze to the view, looking out at the darkening skyline of Santiago. A tiny sliver of light gets caught on the roofline of the building near us, a tiny flash of reflected sunlight that hasn't quite gone out yet.

  I remember the sun setting in the west, letting the night loose across the sky; I remember how the torches colored all their faces, turning them red with blood. I remember the feathers, the white feathers stuck to my arms and shoulders and chest. The heavy headdress, covered with more feathers. I remember the one who was there before me. The steward.

  I remember her face.

  “This is a waste of time,” Talus says, walking up behind me. “It's all buried too deep. He'll never remember. He prefers it this way. It makes him more efficient. Memory only clouds the mind. Silas doesn't want to know. He just wants to serve.” He's standing right behind me. “He just wants to do what he's told.”

  Mere's eyes are bright, imploring me to say something.

  Pieces, coming together. Grafting lemon trees. Tending gardens. Growing a sapling in pure soil.

  “Mother sent me to the island to stop you,” I say. “You were growing your own tree. You were trying to create a new Arcadia. Mother didn't want that, and so she sent me.”

  Behind Mere, Alberto is silent, but his mouth is twisted into a leer. I can see the old man in him now. I can see where he came from.

  I look at Talus next, searching his face for any sense that he wasn't the bastard I thought he was. I see nothing that convinces me otherwise and so I turn away from him, letting my gaze swing across the view once more.

  The sliver of sunlight has gone.

  I gauge the distance between the two buildings, and wonder how much wind there is at this height.

  Putting my hand on Mere's arm, I turn toward Escobar. “Jacinta Huaca Copihue.” I say the name attached to the face I now remember. “Mother sent me to kill your wife. Mother sent me to kill Hyacinth.”

  Mere was right. I needed a trigger. I needed something to force my subconscious to remember what was buried.

  And now, I remember too much.

  Escobar starts to come out of his chair. Talus is reaching for me, and all I care about is Mere's reactions to my words. Her eyes are widening, and I can't tell if it is in shock or horror.

  I hear the tiny plink of glass breaking, and then Talus's head explodes.

  THIRTY

  Talus is right about one thing, though. I know about efficiency. Escobar has been trying to confuse me, and I've been party to it enough times over the centuries that I should know better, but I let him get under my skin. Inside my head. This is the trouble with fractured memories—with all memory—you seek order. You seek structure. One of the most dangerous things an Arcadian can do is let himself be convinced something is true, because that's what will happen. We'll make it true. Our brains will fix these words—these images—into an unassailable truth.

  Their mistake is to think that this confusion will be enough, but I've been a soldier too long. I don't think about fighting any more. It just happens.

  Even before the jacketed rifle round makes a mess of Talus's head, I'm in motion. I kick at Escobar's chair, knocking it spinning. He's still half in it, and the sudden weight of the chair against his legs knocks him sprawling. I still have a hand on Mere, and I drag her with me as I back-pedal away from the mess that Talus's headless body is making on the hardwood floor.

  Another tiny circle of glass falls out of the windows and Alberto spins around, roaring in pain.

  I run parallel to the windows, toward the shelter afforded by the book-filled partitions. It's not Alberto I'm trying to hide from; if it were just him and me, I would stay and slug it out. No, I'm getting away from what I know is coming up in the elevator behind him.

  He and Talus weren't going to kill me. They weren't going to risk getting hurt themselves. They were going to use Mere to hold me off until the strike team could arrive. And, as she and I reach the safety of the partitions, I hear the elevator ding and the sound of many boots on the floors. Alberto starts screaming at them to go after me.

  The partitions are double-sided bookcases about three meters long with thick steel casters. Heavy, but mobile. Not a bad solution for breaking up large warehouse spaces. Useful if I was trying to build a fort.

  The billiards table is equally impressive. Walnut frame with marble legs. The green wool cloth like a pristine glade of new grass. The balls are solid ivory, and I take several, stuffing extras into my pockets. The cues are nice too—solid pieces of lathed ash—but impractical against guns.

  Mere, to her credit, is right behind me. I spot a hallway leading away from the billiards room and I jerk my chin toward it, telling her to lead the way.

  The men are talking to each other as they approach the partitions, and I hear Alberto's voice in the background, maligning their inability to move quickly enough.

  The trouble with rent-a-troops: it doesn't matter how well trained they are, Arcadians will always think they move too slowly. The strike teams come at us through two of the gaps in the partitions, and the first pair open fire as they spot me on the far side of the billiards table. Their bullets wreck a number of the television screens arranged along one of the few fixed walls in the penthouse as I run for the hallway.

  The book-filled partitions form an L-shape, running from the windows for ten meters or so before making a right-angle and connecting with the wall. The narrow gap between the last partition and the wall allows access to an actual hallway, and I know it is a dead end, but it's a better space for Mere and me to be in than hiding under the billiards table, hoping no one will notice us.

  Immediately on my left as I enter the hallway is a walk-in closet nearly the same size as the rec room, and a capacious master bath. The hallway turns to my right several meters ahead, and at the turn is the master bedroom. Around the corner are several other bedrooms, and Mere is standing in the middle of this hallway, looking at me as if I know which door will lead us to safety.

  I wave at Mere to stay close to the wall while I peek in on the master bedroom. It's impressive, and worth a more measured look, but behind me is the long and straight hallway back to the rec room. Standing here, gawking, is going to be bad for my health. I sense motion behind me, and I throw one of the billiard balls as I dart out of the doorway. The ball hits one of the strike team members and he goes down heavily, and the way he sprawls on the floor suggests he's not getting back up.

  We're behind the elevator shaft now, on the opposite side of the floor, and there are four doors off this hallway. Two that will undoubtedly lead to guest rooms with good views, the one on the opposite side will mostly be a windowless—joyless—utility room of some kind. The last one is at the somewhat abrupt end of the hallway.

  “They're behind us,” I hiss at Mere. “We can't go back. These rooms”—I gesture around me—“they're not going anywhere either. We have to go forward.”

  She nods, still in shock. But she's still thinking. “It goes around, doesn't it? There's got to be a way through—a way back to the kitchen. He wouldn't build a place like this without a way to walk around, would he?”

  “Let's hope not,”
I say.

  The doors are all closed, which doesn't surprise me terribly if they aren't in use, but the door at the end of the hall shouldn't be there. According to my mental map, I'm not even halfway across the floor. There should be another space—the same size as the master bedroom, these other rooms, and the rest—on the other side of that door. So why is there a door at all?

  I step back to the turn in the hallway and risk a peek. The gunmen are alert, and all I get is a quick glimpse before someone starts shooting. A fusillade of bullets pepper the wall around the frame of the master bedroom door.

  But I get a head count. Four. And I only have two billiard balls left. I'm going to run out of ammo before I run out of targets.

  “There's no stairwell either,” Mere says. “What happens when the power goes out? Does Montoya stay up here until someone turns the power back on?”

  “He's not that stupid,” I say, thinking about the number of men who are stalking us. Five doesn't seem like enough. “There's got to be another exit.” And then I realize why the number seems off. “They're coming up the stairs,” I say.

  “Who is?”

  “The other team.” I point at the way we came. “These guys are driving us toward this door. They haven't rushed us yet, and they haven't thrown any gas or flashbangs. They want us to go through that door first. Into a kill box.”

  Mere nods that she understands what a kill box is.

  “How many do you think are on the other side of that door?” I ask Mere, flashing her a quick smile.

  “I don't know, Silas.”

  “Guess.”

  “Fifty,” she says.

  I nod back in the other direction. “There are five back there. Which seems like better odds?”

  “That way,” she says, pointing back the way we came.

  “Then that's the way we'll go.” I take her hand and we start sidling along the wall. The door at the end of the hall is inset in the wall, and there's about a meter on either side. If I have to trust one or the other to be thick enough to stop bullets, I'm going to bet on the wall. As we approach the turn in the hallway, I stop and put my mouth close to her ear. “When I tell you to, start screaming,” I whisper. “Give it all you got, okay? Think of being skinned alive or something.”

  “Or something?” she hisses back.

  “Something that takes a little while. And is truly awful, okay?”

  She looks at me.

  “What?”

  “Can I think of something pleasant first?”

  “Sure,” I say, leaning over and brushing my lips across hers. They're warm and soft, and all I can think is that I'd rather keep doing this than kill five men. “But don't think about it too long, okay?” I say as I stop.

  “Okay,” she says. A second later, before I've even had a chance to position myself to peek around the corner, she lets loose with an unholy blood-curdling shriek.

  * * *

  The penthouse is on the twelfth floor. The dance club is on the fourth. In between, it's nothing but luxury condos. The tenants are all sheep, and they start flooding for the exits when I pull the fire alarm.

  After Mere's distraction and my subsequent judicious use of billiard balls, we found a distinct lack of Montoya family members in the main area of the penthouse. The elevator never arrives, and our jaunt down eleven flights of stairs is fraught with a number of frightened residents who are either surly or terrified by the fire alarm that Mere pulled on the eleventh floor. It's good cover, and we ride it out to the street and the plaza around the building. The first of many fire trucks arrives, as well as a number of police cars, and the whole area becomes a hotbed of sirens and lights and activity.

  Mere and I slip away. We walk four blocks north and catch a cab. It's as simple as that.

  Which makes it too easy.

  She presses herself against the door of the cab, shivering—both from chills and trauma. I offer her my coat, and she doesn't seem to register its presence around her shoulders. I don't push it. I let her sit and shiver and think, clutching my coat around her shoulders.

  I lean against the other window and watch the city go by. I've got some things to think about too.

  Phoebe was on the other rooftop. She's the only person I know who could have made a shot like that. And she took it, blowing Talus's brains all over Montoya's fine hardwood floors.

  I'm more than a little curious as to why.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The cab pulls into the roundabout in front of our hotel and Mere responds to the familiar sight of the hotel facade. I get out and open her door, letting her get herself out of the car while I pay the driver. She's still in shock, stumbling like a sleepwalker through the lobby toward the elevator. I follow, keeping my distance, but still letting her know I am beside her. I get the hotel room door open, and step aside to let her in before I realize what a fool I've been.

  Someone grabs her, yanks her inside, and the door is slammed in my face. A hotel room door isn't going to stop me, and I shatter the lock assembly with my hand, smashing the door open. The gunman inside starts firing, the suppressed noise of his submachine gun nothing more than a shuddering whisper, and his bullets make a mess of the door across the hall.

  They're going to fall back since I've breached the door, and I can't imagine they're dumb enough to not have a fallback position. After the guy waiting for me to be stupid enough to stand there and let him fill me with bullets runs out of ammo and reloads, I push off from the wall next to the door of our room, and perform the same entry trick on the next room over.

  There's a flurry under the covers as I dash through the room and I don't blame the residents of the room for pretending to be nothing more than a profusion of pillows. I yank open the sliding door to the balcony, and get outside in time to watch Mere and three mercenaries leap off the balcony of our room, letting their rappel lines guide them on their fast descent to street level.

  There are two gunmen remaining, and one of them sees me coming. He gets one burst off, and I feel a burn across my arm and side, but it doesn't slow me down. The second guy was too busy watching for me to come into the room through the front door, and he reacts too slowly to the sound of his partner dying.

  There are three rappel lines. I figure out which one Mere and her captor are on, and I yank the other two free from their hooks, letting the men on them fall. Wrapping the strap of one of the dead merc's weapon around the remaining line, I go after Mere.

  Our room looks down on the bean-shaped pool. The hotel keeps it heated, but there aren't many deck chairs out given the time of year. The two mercs whose lines I cut are sprawled on the pavement around the pool, and the third man has reached the bottom of his line and is trying to extricate himself and Mere from the rope without losing control of her. Four more men are coming from my left, all dressed in the same black BDUs.

  They're not dressed the same as the team at the penthouse, and they've got different weapons. These guys are Secutores.

  Mere gets free of her captor, sees the men coming from the left, turns to run the other way, and is grabbed again by the man who had brought her down. She yanks free, takes two steps back, and goes into the pool.

  It's a good distraction. I'm coming down fast, and I tighten my grip on the strap to slow my descent marginally. Timing the rapid passage of balconies, I kick off of one and let go of the strap, falling free the last ten meters. The guy who had brought Mere down is the cushion I'm aiming for.

  He breaks my fall, though the impact is deathly traumatic for him. I'm up and into the midst of the other four in a heartbeat. They're trying to figure out how not to shoot each other with their silenced submachine guns as I throat punch one, shatter the kneecap of another, grab the third and throw him into the fourth. Shattered kneecap is down, and I twist his neck until I feel it snap, and then I strip his weapon from him. It's an HK MP7 and not an UMP like I expected it to be. The gun is lightweight, has a laser sight and a noise suppressor, and it shoots a smaller cartridge than the .40 S&W t
hat the UMP carries. A better weapon for urban environments. I point the gun at the pair who are trying to get off each other, and pull the trigger. This one is set to semiautomatic fire. I have to pull the trigger again before the pair stop moving.

  Mere is splashing in the water, making a lot of noise. “Are you hurt?” I call out, sweeping my gaze around the perimeter of the pool. She keeps making noise, but I hear a “no!” among all the other sounds.

  I wave my gun toward the stairs at the shallow end. “Get out of the water,” I tell her.

  “Come and get me,” she sputters, which makes me smile as I pad in the direction the team of four had come from. When I reach the wall surrounding the pool and peek over, looking over the manicured landscaping to the hotel parking lot, I wonder how many men Belfast has. And their transportation plans.

  Nine men down, I count. If it is a twelve-man team, that leaves one to command and two to drive. Two vehicles. Six men each. I look for larger vehicles. Hummers. Luxury SUVs. Short buses. Anything that fits the profile.

  My side aches, and the cut along my inner arm still hurts too. The bullets grazed me, taking a bit of flesh, but I shouldn't still be feeling pain from these wounds. I slip the magazine out of the gun and raise it to my face, sniffing at the top bullet in the stack. The chemical stink makes goose flesh race down my neck and across my back.

  They've dipped their bullets in the weed killer.

  The tips are dark in the light reflecting from the pool, tiny triangles atop copper jackets. I don't like these bullets, and I shove the top of the magazine in my pants pocket and with my other hand, fumble one of the bullets out of the magazine so that it falls into my pocket. I tap the base of the magazine once against the butt of the pistol and slap it back into the gun.

  Out in the parking lot, a dark shape flicks its lights on twice. Behind me, I hear Mere say my name. I hear the sound of a hammer clicking back as I turn, and I make sure my finger is clear of the trigger on the MP7.