The Reburialists

by J. C. Nelson

  Explain more.”

  We talked, through the evening, late into the night, or early in the morning. Amy’s answers came from “legend,” or “the Koran,” the “Torah,” and worse. Her passion for mythology and folk solutions left me nearly yelling at times. And yet, her eager curiosity mirrored my own. When at last I looked up at the clock and declared it time for bed, Amy bowed and wished me a restful sleep.

  When I woke, Amy was gone. A call to the commissary got me five sets of drab but at least fitting clothing delivered. I didn’t think I looked good in beige, but functional beat fashionable any day. One more call to security fetched a courier to deliver all but one of Heinrich Carson’s journals to Vault Zero. I still owed the BSI a translation, though I didn’t want to read about the man, because I didn’t want to think about his son. Once I’d gotten dressed, I found my way to BSI laboratories, and Dr. Thomas.

  “Grace,” he said, “I heard I was taking on a partner, like it or not. I’m so glad it is you.”

  “I don’t know the first thing about real lab work, but I can learn anything.” I looked at the cubicles lined up along the walls. “I’ll take the one on the end if it’s open. I have a stack of journals taller than I am to get through.”

  He took my arm and dragged me toward the elevator, one faltering step at a time. “Oh, no. You’ll need to put that aside, since you and I have much more important work to do.

  We’re going to unlock the secrets of the Re-Animus.” He led me to the Vault Zero elevator, which, to my surprise, opened for my badge. I rode down with Dr. Thomas.

  When the elevator door opened, we stepped out on the ground level of the containment zone. Just past the salt barrier, they’d brought in lights and desks, centrifuges and mainframes. An entire lab, in the most secure vault ever built.

  Dr. Thomas pointed the way. “Tell me something, Ms.

  Roberts. Can you find a better way to kill the dead?”

  Twenty-Six

  BRYNNER

  I’d intended to avoid Grace for the first couple of weeks when we got to Seattle. It wasn’t hard, since I spent most of the first few days curled up in a ball on the living room floor. I wasn’t alone in my apartment; I had grief to keep me company.

  Grief never left. Grace never came. Sure, I’d told her to stay away, but when had she ever listened to me before?

  When I could no longer lie on the floor, I found empty actions to fill the hours. Working out in the gym until I was barred from using the punching bags. Sparring with people until there weren’t any partners willing to get in the ring.

  After nearly two weeks, Director Bismuth dropped by to tell me they’d decided to honor my aunt and uncle with a full BSI funeral ceremony. Cremation, as was standard, followed by dispersal of the ashes into living water. A far better fate than most bodies possessed by a Re-Animus, burnt to ashes and then mixed into concrete.

  The day of the funeral, I dressed as my dad did. Gray BSI battle fatigues and a trench coat he wore rain or shine, cold or sun. I met Director Bismuth at her office and paced to the elevator with her. When the elevator stopped, and Grace and Amy got on, I wished I’d taken the stairs. We rode in uncomfortable silence to the bottom floor.

  And as we transferred to the secure elevator, Grace spoke. “I just want to honor their memory.”

  I nodded, wishing I could let myself hold her.

  When the elevator opened, we stepped out onto the walkway behind the director. Amy took my arm, leaning against me. The roar of falling water made me glad I knew the ceremony words by heart, though I never dreamed I’d hear them for my aunt and uncle.

  I spoke the pronouncement from memory. “For service to mankind.” Though I fought to remain focused, I couldn’t hold back the memories that flooded my mind like the raging torrent of water under foot. Flashes of Aunt Emelia standing on the porch that day my dad drove me there.

  “For sacrifice of life.” The sound of laughter around that table, on days when I wasn’t taking my anger out on them.

  I opened my mouth, but my voice wouldn’t come.

  Grace spoke from behind me, her voice trembling. “Rest in Honor. Rest in peace.”

  Director Bismuth took the metal urns and handed them to me. My hands shook as I emptied them into the water gushing beneath our feet, white ash lost in the churning foam in seconds. They were gone. My last ties to the world I grew up in. What could I do now?

  “Brynner, words cannot convey my regret.” Director Bismuth. “I’m ready to stand beside you. With all the forces the BSI can muster.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want an army. Just a team of people I can trust.” Dad would have known where to go, where he’d find the creature responsible. Dad just knew, which is why we figured the Re-Animus called him Death that Finds.

  Director Bismuth shouted to be heard above the water. “It doesn’t matter what you want. You’ll need one anyway. In the last two weeks we’ve received one of these every day.” She drew out her cell phone and showed me a block of hieroglyphics.

  I glanced at it, then showed it to Grace. “A demand for Ra-Ame’s heart?”

  Grace nodded, her lips drawn tight. “And yours.” Tears still shone on her cheeks, slick wet tracks that ran down to the point of her chin.

  I walked to her, wanting to take her in my hands, knowing I couldn’t. “I need you to do something for me. Complete your translation. Find where Dad hid the heart.” I looked over my shoulder. “Director Bismuth, when we know where the heart is, I’ll be going after it. In the meantime, I’m going to take a trip. I’m going to Las Vegas.”

  Director Bismuth’s mouth fell open, then turned down in a square frown that resembled a snarl.

  Amy pumped her fist in the air, shouting, “Vegas, baby!”

  “A word, Mr. Carson.” The director motioned me down the hall, but I wasn’t about to budge.

  Being someone’s tin soldier wasn’t a life I wanted, for however long my life lasted. “You think I’m off to gamble? Get drunk? Go whoring? Think again. I’m going to Vegas to do something my father only did twice.”

  As I said the words, it locked into place. My mission. My purpose. “I’m going to kill a Re-Animus.”

  “You kid.” Amy looked at me with disbelief, but I’d never been more serious in my life.

  Grace put a hand on my arm. “How do you know there’s one in Las Vegas?”

  “I’ve had two weeks to lie on the floor and ask myself what I could have done differently. Two weeks to think about every single thing the Re-Animus has ever said to me. When I met it on the boat, it slipped up.”

  I had a rapt audience now. “It couldn’t resist taunting me. Called itself the Sin Eater who walks the new temple.” I brought out my phone and pulled up a picture of a hotel in Vegas. “A pyramid. A new temple. In the city of sin.”

  “Always, the old ones are undone by their talking.” Amy rubbed her hands together. “It has surely earned a final death. If you will allow, I would offer you my assistance.”

  Grace looked over to Director Bismuth. “Tell him how stupid this is.”

  Whatever problem Grace had with the director, those two would just as soon kill each other as trade looks. Dad told me that when Mom and Aunt Emelia fought, he stayed out of it.

  The director narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “No. Brynner has shown a tendency to quit when challenged. This time, I might not have—”

  “Stop.” Grace looked over to me. “Come with me. The rest of you, I don’t care if you leave, but you aren’t welcome in my lab.” She led me across the bridge and through the salt, to where an array of machines, tables, and boards stood. “Give us time. Hold off for a few months, and we’ll make so much more progress.”

  She pointed to a machine the size of a coffin. “That used to manufacture industrial diamonds. We’ve modified it to produce these.” Grace held out a box of bolts.

  “Stainless steel?”

  “Pure iron. It disrupts their control. And pressed onto the bolt, at roug
hly sixteen thousand pounds of pressure . . .” She motioned for me to smell it.

  “Sap? Amber?”

  “Artificial Amber. Field ops have been using pine stakes to kill co-orgs for decades, but now we know why they work, and why your daggers are so deadly. Odds are they were ceremonial daggers dipped in sap, used to kill Re-Animus.”

  “That is wisdom, Grace Roberts.” Amy stepped up behind me, having apparently invited herself along. “I believe those knives are sacred instruments, created by the old ones themselves.”

  Grace gave Amy a look that would have stopped a rhino at fifty paces. “You think the Re-Animus created these? To use on themselves?”

  “Exactly. Who would know how to harm the old ones? Who would have more need to dispose of them?”

  I didn’t actually care who made the daggers, so long as I got to use them. “I bet it really cheeses them off when I turn their own weapons against them.”

  Amy picked up one of the bolts and turned it over in her palm. “A weapon fulfills its purpose, regardless of who wields it. You should know that better than most, Brynner Carson.”

  Grace snapped her fingers for attention. “We’re working on getting a press form that will let us do blades. Imagine if every BSI operative carried a few dozen of Brynner’s blades. But that’s not the fun part.” Grace motioned us on, to the second part of the lab.

  “We’ve learned more in two weeks than the previous two thousand years. For instance, what changes a med student from Minnesota into the world’s newest Re-Animus? We’re not certain yet, but he rambles constantly, and we theorize it has something to do with him being still alive when a microscopic amount of the Re-Animus invaded him. Instead of it winding up in control, he did.”

  “You unearth darkest magic,” said Amy.

  Grace shook her head. “Just science. We’re having ethical debates about whether or not allowing terminally ill patients test our theory is acceptable. Sometime in the next couple months, we may manufacture a Re-Animus.”

  I swore under my breath. Did she not realize how bad of an idea this was?

  Grace looked to me before continuing. “We’re working on making them, and on breaking them. With time to test, we not only know what drives out the Re-Animus, we understand why.” She pointed to a graph. “This is a graph of serotonin and dopamine levels in a normal human.”

  Waving to another graph with a lower set of lines, Grace continued. “This is from a fresh corpse animated by our friend in the box. He can’t help it. We put a corpse in the box next door, open the air valve, and in a few minutes it’s on its feet. This”—she pointed to a spike on the graph—“is the endocrine system in the host body. Which shouldn’t need to function, but we think the Re-Animus can’t control what parts of the host operate and what don’t.”

  “So what’s the blip?” I compared the two, finding nothing that made sense.

  “That would be a dopamine spike, which preceded Re- Animus control breaking down. Three and a half seconds later, the Re-Animus evacuated its host. Those religious symbols you’ve been passing around make a hell of a lot more sense now.”

  This was way too easy. “You can’t tell me you’ve adopted religion now. That you believe.”

  “Oh, I believe.” She shot a smile to Amy, who shook her head. “I believe that this corpse belonged to someone who believed. Christian, in particular. We’ve known religious worship causes dopamine and serotonin spikes in the brain for ages. It turns out . . .”

  She opened a drawer and took out a syringe. “We can manufacture instant religion for most individuals. It’s not as effective as a real response, but in a few months, every agent will carry dart guns that shoot these.”

  “There will not be a few months.” Amy looked at the ground, her voice low. “The old ones have tolerated humanity for ages, but this is your atomic bomb of weapons. When you unleash it, there will be no reason for them to hold back. And what will happen when the old ones learn of how your medicines work? They will find a way to suppress it. To remove their weakness.”

  Grace crossed her arms. “I’ll find more weaknesses. Salt. Like most things that harm them, salt disrupts electrical signals. We’re fairly sure lightning would work, too. Stun guns don’t. We tried.”

  I pointed to the waterfall. “And running water?”

  “Deionized water does exactly jack to them. Again, it’s about disrupting their control. The Re-Animus control network is horribly weak in most bodies. Even the most minor electrical pulses obliterate it. But give it enough time in a host, and it starts making cellular changes, getting stronger. Kicking it out isn’t so easy then.”

  I picked up a box of her amber-coated bolts. “So this time, when we go up against that thing, we’ll be ready?”

  Grace nodded. “Give me a few months, and I promise it’s going down for good. People tell me I started a war. Now we’re going to finish one.”

  I was done waiting for the Re-Animus to attack. Done waiting for them to commit atrocities. “I’m not waiting on the sidelines anymore. Always being one body too late to a city, one rampage behind. Those victims are someone’s family.”

  Grace bit her lip and looked away. I waited for her to give an answer until I was sure she didn’t have one, then patted her on the shoulder and left. I had to prepare for a war of my own.

  GRACE

  By the time I’d managed to find my tongue, Brynner was gone and I was cursing myself for not speaking sooner. I wished I felt as brave as I sounded. The truth was far less certain. Oh, we’d made incredible advances in understanding the Re-Animus problem, analyzing its control methods, and isolating weakness, but what we didn’t know bothered me more than what we did.

  I had teams of experts at my command. So while brain chemistry wasn’t my forte, I could snap my finger and get someone to explain the chart to me until I could explain it to someone else. As Dr. Thomas put it, what I really brought to the table was a desire to know and a refusal to accept anything I couldn’t prove. I demanded explanations.

  By night, I continued to puzzle my way through Heinrich’s journals. As I gained insight to the man, I wavered between calling him genius and maniac. If half the recorded kills were true, the man put every standing BSI unit to shame—before there even was a BSI. Tidbits of knowledge from the journals only led to more questions. Why did eucalyptus sap burn co-orgs? What fueled their aversion to a brown and tan zebra pattern?

  Though I swore I’d be finding a new job before, my new position in the lab made work something I loved getting up for. Over time, I’d meticulously documented every superstitious trick the field operatives used, and then attempted to reproduce them, identifying which ones didn’t, and why. Why was it that the dopamine injections didn’t work on all corpses? Why was it that sunlight, real sunlight, killed an unhosted Re-Animus every time, but artificial light only injured it?

  I could find out. Or order someone to find out, or pay someone to find out, but I needed time. Time I wasn’t going to get. I’d been afraid Brynner might do this since that horrible day his aunt and uncle died, and now no one, not even the director, seemed bent on stopping him. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t try.

  I went to Brynner’s apartment and knocked on the door. I would convince him to abandon his ridiculous plan, one way or another.

  Amy answered the door.

  At least she was mostly dressed, and that’s the best thing I could say about her. Her skin glistened, and she dumped a bottle of water over her head. “Grace Roberts, come in.” She opened the door for me. “Brynner has offered to teach me his way with blades, and I to teach him tan za’r. It is the art of movement.”

  Brynner didn’t look up, his face a mask of focused fury. He dipped a stick in a tin of red paint, and they squared off in the living room, where Brynner had pushed every piece of furniture into the kitchen.

  If I believed in God, I’d say he made those two to complement each other. Brynner brought strength and speed, but Amy, she wielded nothing like it was a we
apon. Wherever he swiped, she was one inch beyond his reach.

  They moved faster than thought, a dance like a mongoose and a snake, weaving back and forth. In one sweep, she stepped inside his arm, forced him to drop the stick. She caught it in midair, spinning out of his grasp, the stick now held like a blade.

  And raked it up along his chest, leaving a trail of red paint from his crotch to his chin. “That is how you will die, Brynner Carson. If you do not learn to move along with your enemy, you will die in the sand. Why do you hold back?”

  Brynner’s hands curled into fists. “So I don’t accidentally kill you. If I’m fighting a meat-skin, I don’t need to think, my body knows what to do. When I’m sparring, I have to measure everything. If I ram that stick through your ear, it may sting a bit.”

  “You don’t stand a chance against me.” Amy brushed the sponge edge along his chin to emphasize and walked away. “Grace Roberts, I would like your help tonight, if you do not mind.” She walked out without waiting for an answer.

  Brynner watched her leave with a smile that faded as quickly as it came.

  “You need a cigarette? A cold shower?” I didn’t mean to allow my annoyance to show. It was just that what I’d witnessed felt . . . intimate. An exchange of passion instead of bodily fluids.

  “It’s not like that.” Brynner picked up a water sponge and wiped the paint off, only making him look more smeared. “She’s incredible. Almost better than me.”

  Almost, my ass. If I had to bet, this would be one place I’d bet against Brynner every time. “She’s out of your league. I bet you aren’t used to hearing that.”