The Curse of M

by Stevie Barry

  She scrabbled away on all fours, wincing when her knees hit the tile, and took off like a fleeing drunk. Her stomach roiled again, and she almost lost all the water she’d just drank. She slammed into the wall herself, using it to guide her in something like a straight line.

  Now what? Pure adrenaline propelled her forward, but she had no idea where she was going -- she couldn't have, not knowing where she was to begin with. What little of her mind remained her own was too focused on running to bother wondering about a destination, or what she would do when she got there. It was the running, however unsteady, that mattered.

  -- goddamn bitch --

  -- just embarrassing --

  -- break her arm for that --

  Well, shit. The hallway branched into a T ahead, and she staggered right, still using the wall for support. She'd rather not have her arms broken, thank you very much. I need a hostage. What she would do with one, or how to take one in the first place, were not answers her much-abused brain was willing to provide. Lacking that, she needed a hiding place, but no convenient closets appeared.

  She could feel people ahead of her -- a lot of people, a full-on crowd whose minds were a sea of nervousness. That was far from heartening, but maybe she could disappear into it. And maybe someone could tell her just what this place actually was, and where.

  Her right leg almost gave out under her, but the distant, thudding gait of her pursuers spurred her on. She skidded at the next corner, stumbling so badly she actually ran into the opposite wall with a heavy thud. That, she thought, is going to hurt like hell later.

  Somebody else caught her before she could actually collapse -- two someones, a man and a woman who both wore inmate garb.

  "Easy," the man said, carefully steadying her. His accent was Scottish, though he looked East Indian. He seemed to be about her age, and he was incredibly tall -- six-five at a guess. She couldn't sort his thoughts out from the maelstrom, but his expression was kind enough.

  "You look like you were hit by bus," the woman said. Hers was an accent Lorna couldn't place -- Swedish? Norwegian? Something Scandinavian. She certainly looked Nordic enough: tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, with a face an angel would have envied. Her mind was distinguishable only because she wasn't thinking in English.

  "Close enough," Lorna said, glancing anxiously around the corner. "Could we maybe move a bit? Only there's some right pissed off people after me."

  The woman gave her the blank look she was all too familiar with, but the man, miracle of miracles, actually seemed to understand her.

  "I'm not sure I want to know," he said, guiding her further into the group. It was clustered around a pair of blue metal doors, waiting…well, a little like cattle, Lorna thought uneasily. Quite a few of them looked unnaturally placid, and she wondered if they were drugged.

  "I want to know," the woman said, giving Lorna a frank appraisal. It was almost creepy.

  Lorna grimaced, casting another nervous glance behind her. She couldn't see past the rest of the group, but it also mean her pursuers couldn't see her. "I might've broken a couple noses," she said. "And maybe a kneecap. I know they were after me -- dunno why they've not caught me yet."

  Her companions exchanged a sober glance, which didn't help her nerves. "It's possible they were told not to," the man said. "The doctor who runs this place might want to see what you'll do next. Sometimes he likes to give us enough metaphorical rope to hang ourselves."

  Before she could ask what the hell that meant, the doors opened. Watching the group move through them made the cattle analogy seem more apt, though there were a fair number of people who didn't look doped to the eyeballs. Lorna herself was fast losing her high, and she was already regretting it -- the pain the drugs had kept at bay was creeping back, starting with her left shoulder and radiating out down her ribcage. Because apparently her day wasn't horrible enough already.

  The room they entered was obviously a cafeteria. Long and wide, its walls were smooth grey concrete, unpainted and unadorned, with surprisingly large windows. The dying sunlight they let in stained everything golden-red, but it didn't make the drab surroundings any prettier. The tables were long, unpainted steel, their benches probably attached and bolted to the floor. Christ, even the cafeteria in gaol hadn't been this bland.

  It was also bloody cold, and Lorna shivered as she joined the queue that seemed to form automatically. Small though she was, cold normally didn't bother her, but her clothes were thin and her feet were bare. She unbraided her hair, letting it fall heavy over her back and shoulders -- not many people seemed to realize it, but long hair could be as good as a blanket against a chill. Sure, she probably looked like Cousin It with a face, but she was marginally warmer.

  Her male companion eyed her, but no sooner had he opened his mouth than she cut him off.

  "If you make some crack about the Addams Family, I swear I'll kick you."

  The blonde woman choked on a laugh, and he held his hands up in a placating gesture.

  "Good. Now that that's out'v the way, I'm Lorna. I'd say I was pleased to meet you, but in this place I'd be a bloody liar."

  Again the woman gave her a blank stare, and she sighed. This was going to get old really fast.

  Once again, though, the man didn't miss a beat. "I'm Ratiri," he said. "And likewise. This is Katje, who doesn't always understand English."

  "That was English?" Katje muttered. "You could fool me. You look cold." Without any warning, she wrapped her arm around Lorna's shoulders, plastering her at her side. "And bony."

  Lorna stiffened. Even with her family, she wasn't big on physical contact, and she'd just been glomped on by a complete stranger. It took every ounce of willpower she had not to sock Katje in the face.

  Ratiri groaned, and pried Katje away. "Ignore her. She has no sense of personal space. Or tact. Or modesty. It's best to just think of her as a total savage."

  Katje made a wordless protest, but Lorna laughed. It was a shaky, nervous sound, but it alleviated some of her tension. It helped that her head was weirdly quiet in here; with this number of people, her mind ought to be a mess of foreign thoughts, but it just…wasn't. Was it because so many of them were drugged? She didn't know, but she wasn't going to question it. She had too many other questions to be getting on with.

  Though the line moved slowly, they were close enough to the deli that she could smell food. Somehow, though she was still slightly nauseated, her stomach managed to growl, reminding her that it had been days since she'd actually eaten. Her misfiring nerves weren't helping her nausea, either; though Ratiri and Katje both seemed to think she'd be left alone, she still expected her guards/victims to burst in, looking for vengeance. What kind of person would just leave her to a crowd, after something like that? This doctor -- and she really didn't like the feeling that either of her new friends attached to that word -- had to be a right strange one.

  She was quiet as they collected metal trays and plastic cutlery from one end of the buffet line, again letting the collective, alien thoughts wash through her mind. Sometimes, it was easier not to fight it, and she'd wished more than once that she knew how to meditate. Her bruised hands grabbed things automatically -- lasagna that actually smelled good, a small, remarkably fresh salad, and a cup of apple juice. At least the food here might not be so bad, she thought -- not that she planned to stick around long enough to get used to it.

  "Where are we?" she asked abruptly. They'd reached the end of the line, and Ratiri beckoned her to follow him to a far table.

  "I don't know," he said, "and I'm not sure anyone else does, either, except the staff. My guess is either Alaska or northern Canada."

  "No one is awake when they come here," Katje added. "I think that is on purpose." She deposited her tray on the table, and sat in one enviously graceful movement. "Were you?"

  Lorna shook her head, and winced. Maybe it was the cold, but the drugs were wearing off fast, and all sorts of pain was making itself insistently known. "I just woke up. Thought I was in a r
eal hospital at first."

  "Oh, it's a real hospital," Ratiri said, sitting beside her. "Of a sort. God knows they do enough tests."

  Lorna glanced around. Though there was conversation, it was muted, uneasy, people hunched over their trays. "They're all Cursed, aren't they?" she asked, though she thought she already knew the answer. "We're all Cursed."

  Ratiri nodded, but neither he nor Katje said a thing.

  That didn't make sense. Well, it did -- of course the Men in Grey would be stashing their captives somewhere -- but…why were they all still here?

  She ate a forkful of the lasagna, wincing when the sauce hit her split lip. It really was surprisingly good, though. "I know some'v them are drugged," she said slowly, "so there's not much chance they'd run, but what about everyone else? Are the staff like us? I'd think a big enough group'v Cursed could break their way out, guards or no."

  "There's nowhere to run to," Ratiri said quietly. "Not unless you wanted to die in the wilderness. So far as I can gather, the only way out is by air, and it would take an actual, coordinated uprising to do it. And not many here would dare try."

  Personally, Lorna didn't think getting lost in the wilderness would be too bad -- but then, she didn't exactly have much experience with the great outdoors. Homelessness didn't count. She didn't buy the 'too afraid' excuse, either: there were some nasty Curses out there. In a group, just how many normal people could withstand them? Shit, fear of that idea was why they'd been hunted down in the first place. Sure, her telepathy was useless, but there were people who could walk through walls, could create fire -- hell, she'd heard of a few Cursed who had caused earthquakes. Neither Ratiri nor Katje seemed like sheep, but they also seemed to dread the very word escape.

  Some of her dubiousness must have shown on her face. "You have not met man who run this place yet," Katje said. "He is…some of us think he is not human."

  Isn't that melodramatic, Lorna thought sourly. If her two victims hadn't come for her yet, they probably weren't going to, and her fading fear was joined by irritation -- at this place, the cold, her mounting pain, and especially at herself, for getting caught in the first place. "Last I checked, aliens hadn't landed when the Curses started. Is he one'v us?"

  "He's a telepath," Ratiri said. "We can't plan anything without him finding out. Some of us tried."

  Lorna twitched. A telepath? Another one? She hadn't met another like herself, and she didn't want to. Especially not one who could control himself. She'd read enough science fiction in prison to know that never ended well. "And what happened?"

  "They disappear," Katje said grimly, and popped a whole cherry tomato in her mouth.

  Lorna looked at Ratiri. "Does she always sound this dramatic?"

  "She's practically turned it into an art form. She's right, though. And, while I've only met the doctor once, I never want to do it again. He's human, but he's…wrong." He shuddered, staring down at his food. "He didn't ask questions. He just sifted through my mind, and I could feel him doing it. He might be Cursed, might be one of us, but to him we're test subjects. Once he's in your mind, he can control you. He just…takes you over."

  Well, that was more than a little alarming. Dammit. "So he what, plays Mengele with us? Bloody brilliant." She should be scared. She was scared, but she was also sore, tired, annoyed, and once again nauseated. She shoved her tray away, pressing the heels of her hands to her temples. The drone of passing thoughts might be bearable now, but it was still…wearing.

  Neither responded. They didn't need to.

  Ratiri raised his hand, but hesitated. "I can do something about your pain," he said, a little awkwardly. "May I?"

  Lorna looked at him more than a little askance. Sure, he seemed nice enough, but she'd just met him. Still, she was feeling steadily more awful. "How?"

  He seemed to read her expression with disturbing ease. "I don't need to touch you," he said. "I just need to pick at your aura."

  My aura? she thought. Sounded a bit New Age, but at this point, she'd take what she could get. "Go for it," she said, trying to mask her hesitancy.

  Privately, she thought it looked a bit ridiculous, him picking at something she couldn't see, but she couldn't argue with the results. Both pain and nausea faded to tolerable levels, her muscles relaxing and her joints loosening. She breathed an audible sigh of relief.

  "Is that your Curse?" she asked. "Because if so, it's a lot more'v a gift."

  For the first time, he smiled. 'I'd say so too, if it hadn't got me caught. Do you mind if I ask what yours is?"

  She scowled. "Telepathy, and it's bloody useless. I can't shut it off, but I can't control it, either. I just get snips and bits'v things from everyone around me. All it does is give me a headache."

  It took a moment, but Katje choked on a tomato -- the first ungraceful thing Lorna had seen her do. "That," she said, red-faced and wheezing, "is bad. Very bad. He will want to be seeing you."

  No need to ask who he was. Katje really did seem a bit of a melodramatic sort, though; whoever ran this place probably was an arsehole and a half, but Lorna wouldn't put it past Katje to exaggerate. True, Ratiri seemed much calmer, and he was downright scared as well, but this was the twenty-first goddamn century, not bloody Auschwitz. And if this doctor truly was some kind of monster, if he was so interested in her telepathy…well, Lorna could be extremely annoying if she wanted to. If she was too aggravating to deal with, he might just give up. God knew he wouldn't be the first person she'd successfully put off.

  The real thing she had to focus on was how to get out of here. It would probably take awhile to work out the logistics of a viable escape plan, but she didn't buy the idea of it being impossible. She doubted the others would, either, if they weren't so damn terrified.

  She jumped when a loud clatter broke the quiet. Someone a table over had flung their dinner-tray, and she swung around to scan the room. Her gaze fell on a trio of young men -- very young, in their early twenties at most. They must have just arrived, because they wore street clothes, rather than the prison-uniform: baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts, none of which looked like they'd seen the inside of a washing machine any time recently.

  Something in her went cold when she saw the tattoo one sported on his neck. It was a Russian prison tattoo, a knife with an ornate handle, and it signified that he'd killed someone while in prison. One of her old cellmates had three skulls on the knuckles of her right hand -- Svetlana, her name had been, a downright crazy Russian woman who had killed her cheating husband, his mistress, and the brother that tried to intervene. She'd explained the long and detailed history of Russian prison tattooing to Lorna, and had been baffled when Lorna didn't want one herself. This was not going to end well.

  "Why do you sit here?" he demanded, his English heavily accented. "I know what you are, what we are. Why are you cattle?"

  Oh, for Christ's sake, Lorna thought despairingly, not here. Not yet. She wished she could actually use her Curse to communicate with him, but no, of course not. God forbid it be of any use to her.

  Nobody said anything, which seemed to serve only in pissing him off. "Pathetic. We are gods. They are -- are ants. Why do you not walk out?"

  He had the right attitude, at least. She could use his help, if he'd shut up and quit drawing attention to himself. "Nyet," she said, wracking her brain for what Russian Svetlana had taught her. The woman had taken Lorna on as some bastardized combination of daughter and protégé, and Lorna had let her, because she didn't want to get shanked. It had certainly been an education. "Podozhdite. Poka ne." Wait. Not yet. God only knew what it sounded like, with her own heavy accent, but she had to try.

  He turned his head, blinking at her. "Vy govorite po-russki?"

  Okay, at least she knew that one. "Nemnogo." A little. A very, very little," she thought. "My dolzhny pogovorit' pozzhe." She meant to say 'we must talk later', and she hoped she was close enough.

  He rattled off something in Russian far too rapid for her to understand, and she shook her
head. "Pozzhe," she reiterated. Later. "Kogda my znayem bol'she." When they knew more…if they knew more.

  He actually paused, and she hoped she was getting through to him. Come on, kid, she willed. I can use you. All of you. Just don't be a bunch of flipping gobshites.

  That fragile hope was not to last. One of the others grabbed the table one-handed, and actually ripped the bolts out of the floor with a tearing screech. He lifted the entire thing over his head, and hurled it at the buffet line.

  Even some of the more drugged-up inmates shrieked at that, trying to duck when the table crashed into the counter, shattering the glass sneeze-guard. The sound echoed off the high walls, nearly deafening after so much quite.

  Katje, wiser than she looked, dove under their table. Lorna knew that if she had any sense, she'd do the same, but she was close to despair.

  "Nyet, you bloody moron!" she cried. "You'll get us all put in lockdown. You know that word, right? Where we're stuck like bugs in a goddamn bottle?"

  He gave her a look of total incomprehension -- but then, so did Ratiri, so it was likely a problem of her accent rather than his English proficiency. He shouted at her in Russian, and she shouted right back, in a bastard mix of English, Russian, and Irish. Some small part of her knew she wasn't helping matters in the slightest, but she was so infuriated that logic had gone out the window. They'd obviously been in prison before -- they had to know this was doomed to end badly.

  Fortunately for Ratiri, she evaded his attempts to restrain her when she hauled herself off the bench. More than ever did she wish there was anything at all useful about her Curse -- if she'd been able to properly use her damn telepathy, maybe she could actually convince them to just hang on a while. She couldn't understand the idiot kid, and she highly doubted he understood her, but she couldn't stop. She never had been able to, once her temper got going, no matter how disastrous the outcome.

  "Will you give over and sit down, before you get us all locked up? You're right, we need out, but for Christ's sake your timing's bloody awful. Just. Wait."