Warrick feinted high, then when Aubry took the bait with a sidekick, moved back to strike the shin. Aubry didn't pull the leg back straight—he hooked the heel around for a punishing kick to the jaw, and Warrick spit blood, falling to the floor.
Aubry shook his head as if he were dizzy, and set himself again. Warrick staggered to his feet. "Almost, boy," he said, gasping for breath. "You almost got me to fight you on your level. Fool thing to do. You never play the other man's game."
Screaming, Aubry leaped, changing directions in midair so that Warrick's dodge took him almost directly into the path of the true strike. Warrick ducked, but the kick grazed the top of his head, snapping it back with a sickening concussive sound.
He staggered, dropping the pipe, blood drooling from nose and cuts under his eyes—
Aubry bent over and retched on the floor.
Almost regretfully, Warrick picked the short pipe back up. He kicked the back of Aubry's knee, driving him heavily to the floor.
"You're nothing without your feelings, are you?" Aubry tried to get up, but was caught in another spasm. Warrick struck him a sharp, jabbing blow precisely under the ear. Aubry hit the ground and lay there, quivering.
Promise screamed and tried to run to him, but the other Scavengers held her back.
Warrick looked at her, wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand, and said, "Do you see? Do you understand yet? No, you don't, but it's time you learned."
Aubry raised a hand in feeble defense as Warrick grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. Aubry looked at him, face a running mask, weeping now, body shaking in impotent rage and fear, and Warrick hit him with everything he had. Aubry's head smashed to the floor and bounced once. Blood bubbled from his nose.
Warrick got down on one knee next to the prostrate man and turned him over onto his back.
"You can go now, Knight. You can leave us. Or you can stay here, because now you understand. And you can keep your drug if you want to—because now you can really see what it is. And what you have become."
Warrick rose and limped from the room. Mira's gaze was fixed on the prostrate Aubry. She started to go to him, but her brother shook his head in warning.
She and the other Scavengers followed Warrick out. Finally the room was silent, and empty except for Promise and Aubry.
Promise watched the last of them file out, then looked at Aubry. He seemed pitifully small now, sobbing his disgrace in the center of the floor, great chest struggling with the effort to breathe through a smashed nose.
She walked over to him and knelt down, laying her head on his chest. "Aubry. Oh, my God, Aubry." Somehow he found the strength to reach up and touch her hand. She took it without looking at him, smearing her face against his bloody shirt. "What's happened? What have we done to ourselves?"
She helped him up, wrapped his arm round her shoulders, taking the crushing burden of his weight, and together they managed to drag themselves from the room.
Promise washed his wounds. The soap was rough, as were her ministrations, and it must have hurt abominably, but Aubry made no sound. He merely stared up at the ceiling with eyes that didn't want to see anything ever again.
"Oh, Aubry "It seemed as if she was cleansing a dead body, trying to comfort someone who was past caring. "Please, please understand. I never meant for any of this to happen." Her hands were shaking too much, and she had to stop.
She looked at him, just looked at him. His body would heal, but would his mind? What had happened to Aubry, so proud of himself, so proud of his skills, humbled and humiliated by an old man? He had nothing left now. Nothing at all.
And neither did she.
No more dreams of dancing. None of returning home to Oregon in triumph. Of laughing in their faces. So you didn't think I could make it?
Nothing. Nothing at all except each other and their ruptured memories... and a drug that had done more to them than either could have known or believed.
She dug into the pockets of her work fatigues and pulled out a handful of the mushrooms. Small and frail, their stems broken, bluish fringe dusting the edges of the breaks. So harmless-looking. The ache within her was almost more than she could stand, the urge to swallow one, to chew another up and push the pulp into Aubry's mouth, to have something to make the bridge for them. Something. Anything.
With a regret that bordered on the deathwish, she threw them into the room's small, stinking chemical toilet.
Feeling pain as if it were her own body, not his, that was covered with wounds, she took off her clothes and came to him, loving him, giving to him for hours until he was capable of responding, until his eyes came back to life, until his hands, however weak, clutched her desperately; and then they cried.
For the first time, truly alone.
Truly together.
16. Warrior
remember waiting for Promise to throw the rope down to me. I felt angry, and eager—and sick."
The storage room was almost completely empty except for two facing chairs. Aubry paced from one end to the other, trying to dredge up some missing piece. "When I was climbing up the rope, I was concentrating on that. When I came in through the bathroom window, I started to feel sick again."
"Yes," Emil finished. "Until you actually entered the study. Then you were calm."
"Yes"
"And you remained lucid and in control until you finished killing Luis."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"How quickly did the sickness come back after that?"
"It took a while. It started almost immediately, but didn't hit strongly until I was out of the house."
"All right." Emil sat back in his chair with a squeak, watching Aubry. "I know the answer, even though it might not help. There was something in that house that broke through your conditioning. The conditioning may well have been structured to leave you a 'window 9 to operate through."
"Window?"
"Think about it. The administration at Death Valley wanted you as a... what do you call it? A tough guy, a ramrod. They wanted to break your will, and saw that your violent potential was tied in with your image of yourself, your need to protect your ego. So they tampered with it, made it impossible for you to get angry without becoming violently ill. But they didn't want to have to go through a lengthy reconditioning process once they broke you, so they left a window, a clear space in the conditioning, to operate through when a prearranged signal or stimulus occurred. This way, you would be completely under their control." He hitched his chair closer. "Now, Aubry—can you remember anything else about the house, anything that might not have come out already?"
Aubry closed his eyes, trying to remember any small loose end that might have crept through his awareness before. "Just the party noise and the smell of a lot of drugs in the air."
Emil looked at Warrick. "It could be anything, Kevin. Sight, sound.. .1 might go so far as to think it was a smell. Some combination of aromas that was accidentally recreated that night." He stood. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you, Emil," Warrick said. The little man nodded and left the room, his shuffling footsteps echoing in the cavernous room.
Aubry studied his fingernails, miserable. "Is that it, then? It's just gone?"
Warrick uncoiled from his seated position. "What's gone, Aubry?"
"My ability to fight."
"I don't think it's gone at all. What has been destroyed is your ability to motivate yourself with anger, with fear. Your concept of violence has been disturbed. Not your talent."
Aubry thought for a minute. "It's the same thing. Same result. I can't defend myself." He grinned ruefully. "I can't even take an old man."
"That's better," Warrick said. "Your sense of die absurd is still intact. Important. Important if we're going to help you."
"Help me... ? I don't even know why you're bothering, Warrick."
"Because I am an old man. Who are you?"
"Once," he said miserably, "I was a fighter. The best in die world."
"That wa
s your fantasy. Who are you?"
Aubry hung his head, concentrating until it ached. "I am...me."
"And what is that?"
"I don't have any words for it."
"Excellent."
"What kind of crap is this? I tell you that I've lost any sense of who or what I am, and you say 'excellent'?"
"You said you were a fighter. A fighter is one who must fight to define himself."
"All right, I'll buy that."
"But I say you're more than that. I say you're a Warrior."
"Warrior, fighter, what's the difference?"
"A fighter must fight. A Warrior is prepared to fight. In time of peace, a fighter is an unused, unwanted death machine. A Warrior, in times of peace, is a farmer, a doctor. A leader. The actions are the same, but the emotions are unified."
Aubry held up his hand, cutting Warrick's next words off. "Then he... then..." He stalked across the room. "For God's sake... listen. I can't handle getting mad. But I have to fight, Warrick. It's all I know, and without it... I'm not worth very much."
Then stop feeling anger, and just feel."
"Feel. Pull my emotions together. Man, I want so bad to see what you're saying, but I just don't know."
"Yes you do. You're a physical genius, Aubry. I couldn't begin to teach you about movement. But I can tell you that there are other ways to feel about movement, or about life. Don't ride the hate and fear. Those are just fragments of the real thing."
The real thing. An image played before Aubry's eyes—a slender figure twisting in the spotlight, lost in her own world; a flash of beauty in an ugly world, of light in the enveloping gloom.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Promise. In the auditorium." Aubry sank down on the floor, sighing. "I watched her, and I could feel something. Man, like I'd never felt it before. She moved for the pleasure of using her body. She was making love to herself up there, just letting her feeling out. And it didn't matter if there were a thousand people watching, or none at all."
"She belonged to herself?"
"Yes."
"And who do you belong to, when you use your body in hatred or fear?"
"I belong..." He opened his eyes, and they seemed clearer, and somehow lighter. A trace of moisture was running from the corner of one eye, welling up as he spoke. "... I belong to the thing I fear. To the person I hate."
"Excellent. Aubry Knight, I think that I can help you now."
Warrick bent down and picked up a two-meter wooden dowel. "You must/fee/, Aubry. Hate comes from the past, fear from the future. Pain and pleasure are now, and therefore their own trap. You have to bring the feelings together, blend them, and step away from time."
He swung the stick suddenly, and Aubry moved without thought, rolling away as it smacked against his back. Warrick followed him, swinging.
No matter where Aubry went—moving, dodging, blocking—the stick was there, striking his elbow, his ear, his fingers, with sharp jabbing blows.
Never did he hit back. Twice, in a daze of pain and fatigue, he grazed Warrick with spinning kicks. But they were perfectly controlled, and Warrick grinned at the scrapes.
Whenever Aubry faltered or slowed, the stick struck. He felt the sickness hiss in his guts. 'There is no violence here," Warrick said, "only motion and emotion."
And Warrick took him on. And on. Through every potential his body possessed. Past exhaustion and into a realm of light he had never known before. There was constant movement, constant pain and alertness, and finally a kind of ecstasy, a feeling of centering as they swirled around and around. Until it was difficult to say who chased whom, whether staff bruised body or body struck staff, until all thought and sensation melded together into the experience of Being.
Aubry woke with a start. Every muscle in his body ached, and it felt glorious. He sat up and saw Warrick crouched over him, grinning.
"Not bad at all, Aubry."
"What happened?" After a few seconds the room decided to stop spinning, and he tried to get up.
"No, rest a while yet."
"I want to keep going."
There was a touch of sadness in Warrick's eyes. "Yes," he said quietly. "You will. But for now, rest here and think."
"About what?"
"About who you are." Warrick stood, satisfied with what he saw in Aubry's eyes. "I'll be back for you later. No one will disturb you until then."
Aubry nodded, wiping his hand over his face. He was covered with little bruises and cuts, and ached abominably. But there was something alive inside him, something he had feared was dead. "Warrick," he called. "I don't know why you're doing all this for me—"
"You will," Warrick said quietly, and left.
Aubry stood, and breathed deeply. He was exhausted and in pain. He felt as if he could sleep for a week.
But in spite of it, he began to move, twisting and contorting, filling the air with the smell of his sweat and the sound of his tortured grunts. Moved until his hands and feet were a blur of sudden shifts and torques, his breath flaming in his throat.
For the sheer, painful pleasure of it.
"I want you with me, Knight. Any objections?" Warrick stood in the doorway of the cubicle that Aubry and Promise shared. It was noticeably tidier and didn't smell of anything but soap and clean sweat.
Promise still slept, and Aubry kissed her cheek as he buttoned his shirt. "Be right with you."
He loaded his backpack and donned his work gloves. Warrick's eyes scanned the room, found the spot where several tiny droplets and a puddle of perspiration marked the spot where Aubry had done his morning exercise. He nodded.
Aubry caught it and grimaced. "Well, what in the hell are you gaping at?"
"Nothing at all. This way."
He followed Warrick out, down the narrow branching corridor that led to the main hall.
They exited the tunnel into the main artery. There were two electric tugs, each of them loaded with wire and scrap metal. The second tug was already manned. Warrick hopped into the nearest one and motioned Aubry into the adjacent seat. The cart shuddered into gear.
Aubry glanced at Warrick out of the corner of his eye. He seemed even gaunter, if possible, but his eyes burned fiercely. Every day for the past four weeks Warrick had driven him through a brutal workout session in which pain and pleasure, hatred and love somehow blended into pure feeling. Love? He stole another glimpse at the silent Warrick. What did he feel for this man who had given him so much, if not that?
Had given him so much, asking what in return? They rode on until they reached a spot where the wall had been broken out, a makeshift bridge fitted to connect the submerged building with an old storm drain. The corrugated metal bridge sagged under their weight, but didn't give. The storm drain ran with a trickle of muddy water.
What did he feel? What was happening to him? If he wasn't who he thought he was, then who the hell was he?
Warrick glanced over at the brooding Aubry. The cart hit a bump, and the scrap in the back rattled. "Stop trying to hide behind a label."
Aubry was watching the tunnel slip past. "I get up in the morning and I do my exercise, and I work, and I come home to my woman, and we share our day, and eat, and sleep. What is there in that?"
"Everything."
"Will you shut up? That doesn't make any sense at all."
"Does it have to?" Warrick laughed. Aubry was surprised that there was no momentary flash of discomfort, no nausea. He sat back in his seat, smiling in the dark.
The storm drain took a long, gradual upward slant, but instead of opening up to daylight, it dead-ended in a makeshift wall composed of sheet metal. Warrick stopped the front car and got out gingerly. "How do you feel about going outside? Topside." He paused, sniffed the air. It was different, thinner than the air in the tunnels. Fresher. Aubry caught the urge, filling his lungs deeply.
"I've got to get out, man. I've been hiding in the dirt long enough."
Warrick nodded agreement. "The dirt's a good place to hide. It's n
ot a bad place to grow, either. Ask a seed."
"Warrick, you have got to be the strangest son of a bitch I ever met in my life. Will you stop playing fortune cookie, and open the wall?"
The men from the rear car had moved up and were busy removing bolts from the false wall. They paused, and waited until they heard a light tapping sound from outside, then threw the last bolts and swung the door up on oiled hinges.
A gust of cold, deliciously fresh air blew into the tunnel. It was dark outside, still minutes before dawn would paint its glow along the eastern horizon. Mira stood in the opening, wearing a heavy coat, pinching the collar with gloved hands to keep out the frost. "Hurry up. Everything's clear."
The Ave of them hustled the carts out of the tunnel, onto the dry bed of a concrete river. Once they were out, the door was swung closed, and Aubry saw that from the outside the disguised door looked exactly like another section of concrete wall. He whistled in admiration.
"Very nice."
"Very necessary." Warrick motioned for Aubry to scoot over into the driver's seat. He himself swung around to check the cargo and lashings. Finally his narrowed eyes swept the banks of the concrete river bed, watching for the curious. Satisfied, he sat down again. "The tunnel we just came out of is too direct—it leads into the heart of our operation, and we'd rather not have everyone know about it."
"Makes sense." The lead cart bumped as it hit an inclining ramp, heading up out of the river bed. The first fingers of dawn were reaching up out of the east. "You said that you have some dealings with the gangs. What kind?"
"We get information and goods from them." Warrick grinned wolfishly. "Anything we can't get through legitimate channels we get through illegitimate ones."
Aubry returned the grin. "Makin' do."
Streetlethal Page 26
