“None of this would have been necessary if that Yaojing bitch hadn’t dragged your ex-boyfriend back here instead of the Changeling, as we had all agreed.”
“I’m surprised she would let you near Alex, after you butchered him at the Far Shores. I had thought the Church of Sleep would want the first crack.”
“You and me both.” Alistair tapped the toe of his boots against an outcropping of ice that blocked the descending stairway into the frigid basements, brilliant white and jagged. “The Yaojing didn’t make a peep, though, while we worked on Alex. Just sat there next to the chamber, eyes closed.”
“Sounds like telepathy.”
“You really think that didn’t occur to me? I was monitoring the entire time, and anyway, we didn’t even have time to take down his mental shields. The doctors were worried his mind might go if we steamrolled his defenses. There’s no way she was doing anything psychic. I’d swear the bitch is still asleep, down there.”
“Samnang Banh is a Yaojing, though, so…”
“…who knows. I get it. You just here for the view, or what?”
“The view is nice, but I have a message from John Parson, as it happens.” Emily gave him a telepathic prompt – almost like knocking on a door – and Alistair opened his shields just wide enough to accept the coded transmission she offered. “He has a job for you in Las Vegas. A Black Sun technical facility to be raided for equipment, I believe. You’ll be operating well within the realm of enemy surveillance.”
Alistair’s eyes grew distant while he reviewed the dossier.
“Is this really something I need to handle personally? The archive duplication is an interesting project, I’ll admit, but this is the sort of thing I would normally delegate. I don’t even really see why we need it – don’t we have everything we need in Busan?”
“The perils of precognitive advisors, I suppose,” Emily commiserated, smiling demurely. “John feels that we will need a backup of the archive, and the facility in Busan was designed for study, not replication. The data contained in the archive is best thought of as corrosive, and any housing requires special fabrication. You know as well as I do that the Auditors have raided most of our industrial base. Why attempt to build a new factory in secret when we can just steal everything we need from the Black Sun?”
“The Black Sun will be upset,” Alistair pointed out, reviewing the mission briefing. “They aren’t going to like losing their site.”
“Of course! That’s why John wants you to handle it. No need to keep things quiet, but the purpose of the operation needs to be concealed. The raid should look like it was intended to destroy the facility. No witnesses. Take as much of what is there as is possible, to disguise what we actually wanted. You know the drill, Alistair. John’s been patient with us both. Who are we to argue?”
“But, in Korea…”
“Between you and I, the work there is already finished. The archive is complete and already moved offsite.”
“Since when?” Alistair looked dubious. “I thought it was supposed to stay in Busan until…”
“The Auditors are aware of Busan. At this point,” Emily said, enhancing her telepathic baffles, “the base in Korea is being maintained as a distraction, a trap designed for the Auditor’s benefit. The real work will be left to you in Las Vegas, once you seize the needed equipment from the Black Sun. The true archive will be transferred to you there, directly.”
“I still don’t like the idea of deploying myself, not now. There’s way too much going on here. I’ve got an invasion of Central about halfway organized, you know, and I’m dying to try out your trick for bypassing the barrier. The archive is a big deal, I understand, but I have people for this sort of thing, even if you and John don’t.”
“Oh, I have people,” Emily said casually. “I assume John does as well, though I’m hardly his confidant. I’m afraid that John wants you to do this yourself, though, and he wants telepathic silence until he contacts you to arrange delivery of the archive for duplication.”
“Fuck, this complicated,” Alistair groused. “Can’t he just make a damn copy?”
“The technical details are a bit beyond me,” Emily fibbed, “but as I understand, the lexicon John discovered has a nasty tendency to devour both servers and technicians. He designed and constructed the archive himself, as far as I know. I’m a little surprised it can be duplicated at all.”
“Are we sure a few trigger words and some weaponized linguistics are worth all the trouble?” Alistair reviewed the dossier behind closed eyes. “I don’t really think we need another advantage to take Central. The invasion would have been successful the first time, if Rebecca hadn’t woken up at the last minute…”
“I hope you’ve come up with some sort of plan to deal with her a bit more effectively. It was a tad embarrassing, the way your whole strike force turned around and walked away on command,” Emily smiled coquettishly, while Alistair’s halo shone with anger. “It isn’t just the Auditors and the Director, you know. We have the whole population of Central to contend with. I know you and John employed the lexicon to great effect last time. Why should this be any different?”
“Analytics says the duplication process might take a few days! A lot could happen in that time.”
“I doubt it very much,” Emily said, showing just a teensy bit of exasperation. “The World Tree won’t be fully rooted for another week, or so Talia says. The invasion force is not yet in place, but the mustering has begun. There is little to be done, aside from the work of the technicians.”
“I suppose,” Alistair admitted. “What of unfortunate Alex and the Yaojing, though? If something changes…”
“Then I will be here,” Emily explained, with a reassuring touch to Alistair’s shoulder. “John Parson sent me to take your place, Alistair, in the interval that you are gone.”
With obvious reluctance, Alistair nodded in agreement.
“Okay. I’ll gather my people, and make for Vegas…”
“About your people,” Emily said, taking hold of his arm. “I need to borrow one of them.”
Alistair frowned.
“Who?”
“Leigh Feld.”
“Again? Why?”
“Muscle,” Emily explained, with a shrug and an open smile. “I work intelligence, Alistair. The personnel I have at my disposal are spies and assassins, not fighters. Should something happen, I need someone who can handle an enraged Yaojing. Your vampire prodigy is the only one I can imagine standing a chance.”
Alistair studied her intently.
“If you must,” he said, relenting. “You owe me, though. Remember that.”
“As a down payment on that debt,” Emily suggested smoothly, “how about I provide you with one of our covert telepaths for the mission? I have prepared one of my best young psychics. He can passively monitor communications here in the Outer Dark, without giving away your presence, and in the event of an emergency, he has been implanted with an encrypted telepathic channel that relays to me directly, regardless of local suppression.”
Alistair thought it over.
“Yes, I might as well. How very thoughtful of you.”
“I recognize a man on the rise, Alistair,” Emily said, with a demure smile. “I’d like to stay on your good side.”
Alistair smiled and took her hand.
“Good to know,” he said, brushing his lips against her hand. “Let’s discuss this again, soon, shall we?”
“Yes, please.” Emily let him go with a warm smile. “Be safe, Alistair. Do not take this operation lightly.”
He grinned at her, amused, as he made for the stairs.
“Oh? Is that a premonition?”
“Call it woman’s intuition,” she said, with a wave and a smile. “If you like.”
***
The sky was split by languid lightening, a massive forked bolt grazing boldly on the dark plain, extending energetic fingers and withdrawing them reluctantly, arrogant in its semi-permanence. It seemed lik
e there should have been wind, but Alex felt nothing on his skin, not even a sense of temperature. The sky was black, punctuated by a single distant black star, so dark that it pained his eyes to look at it.
The ground was dead and broken, cratered and gouged like the surface of some lightless moon. A great broad plain extended almost to the horizon in three directions, frigid below a layer of mist the color of motor oil; in the fourth, foothills erupted from sterile ground, gradually giving way to unearthly mountain ranges whose peaks extended far past the thin atmosphere. Nestled deep within one of the larger craters, swaddled beneath a barrier, Alex saw what he initially thought was a conical building, but he gradually realized that it was in fact only the top few stories of a great building driven into the cold dust like a nail hammered deep into a board.
“Is this the Outer Dark?”
“A fraction thereof, yes.”
“This isn’t real.”
“No.” Samnang agreed. “This is a simulation of your current environs. I thought you might enjoy the scenery.”
Alex studied the distant vanguard of Horrors, luminous as jellyfish, migrating slowly across the sable plain of the sky. The great lightning bolt began its slow death, retreating to the dead ground; volunteers across the horizon jostled to take its place. Alex felt thunder in the hollow of his chest, and was troubled by issues of distance.
Across the plain, the dark mist shifted and swelled, though there was no wind.
“That’s…is that Ether?”
“It was.”
“Is something wrong with it?”
“It’s dead, Alex.” Samnang scattered the mists with a gesture of annoyance. “Depleted and disconnected. These are ruins, Alex, and they go on forever.”
He studied his hands, touched his eye. Everything was whole again, but he could remember the litany of injuries bequeathed to him, and how Eerie had screamed when Alistair cut him.
“We could have just taken a walk.”
“Not at present. You have complicated matters.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have more steel in you, boy, then was expected.” Samnang peered at him like an unfamiliar animal at the zoo. “Or perhaps my sister found a way to intervene on your behalf? With the youngest, anything is possible. You exercised your Absolute Protocol, Alex. To an extent that you might have difficulty believing.”
Samnang gestured at the plug of a building that impaled the desolate plain, tarnished metal surface covered with a stone-fungus.
“The Inverted Spire,” Samnang intoned, revealing a cross section of the lower floors with a gesture. “One of the few inhabitable areas in the Outer Dark, as far as your fragile species is concerned. Built by the Great Race in their long flight from Yuggoth; seized from the Exemplars of the Fourth Assembly in the first year of the Anathema’s arrival. Lately crowned with a World Tree,” Samnang said, pointing at something that twinkled like a compressed constellation at the tapered base of the Spire. “You are at the bottom of a hole, Alex, and bury yourself deeper by the moment.”
“What are you talking about?” Alex made no effort to disguise his incredulousness. “You people captured me, you broke into my mind. Anything that’s happening to me is your fault.”
“Wrong on all counts,” Samnang said. “The Anathema did not capture you. I captured you in the interests of the Church of Sleep. The Anathema are, at best, tools. At worst, they are an incidental inconvenience. The precarious nature of your condition made them hesitate to physically interrogate you.”
“Is it – am I hurt that bad?”
“You were badly injured, though your condition has since been stabilized, if not actually rectified.”
“Was? Fuck, lady. Could you just tell me what happened?”
Samnang smiled at what she obviously considered a win.
“General repairs had been effected,” she explained smugly. “Bleeding was stopped, shock treated, and your pulse was stabilized. Options were under consideration for the repair of the more serious injuries to your eye and your fibula when you did something unexpected, and at this point, still unexplained.”
She waited until Alex was annoyed enough to open his mouth, intending to prompt her.
“You activated the Absolute Protocol,” she continued, infuriatingly. “That should have been impossible, given that you weren’t even conscious. Some of the personnel on the floors above managed to escape the frigid air, but everyone aside from myself in the room was killed instantly.”
“Fuck.” Alex’s hands shook. “That’s…”
“…not all!” Samnang snapped. Her voice was the opposite of her sisters – flat and lifeless, instead of musical. “The breach you made to the Ether is still active. The Inverted Spire is collapsing in on itself, and we are cocooned in a tomb of broken stone.”
“What the hell?” Alex threw his arms up in frustration. “That isn’t how this works! How could my protocol continue to work while I’m asleep? I mean, how does that even…”
He trailed off, thinking it over. A look of annoyance flitted across Samnang’s tattooed face.
“Yes?”
“Nothing,” Alex said obscurely, pinching his lip in thought. “Just a little weird.”
Samnang glared at him suspiciously, but Alex didn’t offer anything else, suddenly lost in thought.
“Weird is an understatement, in my opinion.” Samnang gestured, and the representation zoomed, until a single chamber was depicted. “You may have delayed the intentions of the Anathema, but your innate resistance to the effects of your own protocol will not be enough to stop you from being crushed to death by the collapse of the tower, or drifting into a coma and freezing to death. The first of three rather perilous dilemmas you find yourself in, I might add.”
Alex started to pace, his fingers interlaced in a knot of worry.
“That’s…fuck. Can’t they just shore up the tower, or something?”
Samnang’s smile expanded into neighboring real estate.
“They have tried, but the damage to the structure is already too great. Which brings us rather neatly to the second of your predicaments – despite being asleep, your protocol is still active...”
“You said that already.”
“…I’m not finished.” Samnang took evident satisfaction from his dismay. “You’ve been quietly converting the matter of the base of the Inverted Spire into nothing for days, expelling bedrock into the Ether.”
Alex’s face felt numb.
“That sounds…bad?”
“Very,” Samnang agreed. “Left unchecked, you will soon destroy the Inverted Spire. What happens after that, assuming you are not crushed or suffocated? Perhaps the current structure of the Outer Dark could even be altered?” Samnang appeared pleased at the prospect. “Incidentally, this debacle is forcing the Anathema to accelerate their invasion of Central, to acquire stable living space.”
Alex shook his head.
“The second dilemma you face is more personal in nature,” Samnang added. “Your protocol has been operating for days, Alex, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. You realize what that means?”
Alex froze in place, face rigid with panic.
“Need I remind you of the price you pay for operating your protocol? The sleep that you have earned will be very long this time. Think of the time just a few seconds of operation cost you. What is the rate of exchange? A moment of the protocol for a day of sleep? Do you think any of your friends will still be alive, when you finally wake up, years from now?”
“But…if I’m asleep now, then…”
“A drop in the bucket,” Samnang said indifferently. “Your current sleep might buy you a little time, perhaps a brief awakening, but your debt will not be paid so easily.”
He could not remember falling. He was sitting, without a memory of having done so, his forehead resting against his knees, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The agony in his chest was unprecedented, a crippling mixture of fear, anxiety, a
nd terrible grief.
“Do you think Eerie will wait for you?” Samnang whispered in his ear. “Do you think she will have the chance? The Anathema forces are camped beside the World Tree already, Alex. How do you think my littlest sister will fair, when they take the Academy? You have experienced the tender hospitalities of the Weir yourself. Do you think they will show her similar kindness, or greater?”
Alex moaned. He imagined that he could feel the weight of all that ice, the cold that it radiated; he pictured the bodies of the doctors, choked on supercooled air and crushed by the fallen ceiling, frozen corpses pinned to the floor by tons of debris.
“I told you that you had three problems, Alex. I have saved the very worst for last.”
“Don’t tell me! I don’t wanna know.”
“You already know, Alex.” Samnang crouched beside him, so that he could look into her verdant eyes, shining like lamps. “I am right there beside you in the ruins of the interrogation chamber, watching you sleep.”
Alex shook his head and tried to slow his breathing.
“You are perhaps familiar with the way that my sister manipulates the fabric of reality?” He looked at her in surprise. “No? How amusing. You have been the target of her manipulations more than any other, after all.”
He would have given anything to be sick. It would have been a relief.
“My own abilities differ, and are more limited,” Samnang explained ruefully. “It is in the nature of the Fey – the youngest among us is ever the strongest. I remember my own time as such, when in the green fields of Cambodia, I unmade the world…”
Alex closed his eyes. To his horror, it did nothing to prevent him from seeing.
“My greatest talents are reserved for dreams, Alex; the natural domain of a servant of the Church of Sleep. You, paramour of my sister, are very much asleep. Ériu requires contact; fortunately, I have learned to make do with proximity. It seems only fitting that we have this opportunity to get to know each other, given your interest in my sister. As her concerned family, I will obviously want to get to know you better.”
The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4) Page 6
