They headed to the office building Bobbi had mentioned, where six years ago they had pulled the last remaining Princess Doll from a twisted stack of trash. Bobbi’s group emerged like a cloud of locusts – herself and Violet and Shaper, Hepzibah, and of course Camilla with her massive sled rifle carried like a crucifix to the Golgotha of the moment. True to Bobbi’s word, Hepzibah bore a surplus Pilum surface-to-air launcher, the portable tube like a toy dangling from her brawny shoulders, a fat magazine of rockets the size of beer cans held under her arm. Two of Janelle’s people came as well, the most qualified of those who had volunteered, Yasmeen and James. Yasmeen was a technician, one of Wrench’s people. Bobbi didn’t know much about her. James had been fighting Yathi drones alongside Janelle for years now, and they’d been friends before that in the last days of the Seattle labor unions. Bobbi was grateful to know that all of Janelle’s people had volunteered, though Janelle herself wasn’t very happy about it. Bobbi knew she would have to be careful. If any of her people died in this, Janelle would probably detach again. That couldn’t happen.
They planned to set up a little entrapment net, a welcoming committee and everything, but as they emerged from the van, Shaper let out a curse.
“Someone’s got a fire going on in there,” he said, pointing to a ghostly flickering that shone from beyond the building’s battered façade.
The place looked no different from how Bobbi remembered it. Six years hadn’t changed a thing, the building burnt-out and slumping in on itself, the hole in its side where Special Tactics police had broken in via the alley. It resembled a rotting skull or a jack-o-lantern, with the guttering flame lighting up its innards.
Bobbi sighed. Dressed in fatigues again, she mentally opened a channel and sent an audio message to the rest of her comrades, her windpipe flexing against the thin membrane of the subvocal mic. “Knife, get a vantage point somewhere. You too, Bear. Report in when you’re in position.”
“I serve,” replied Bear – Hepzibah, as Camilla was Knife –the words made by a low metallic chip voice in her ear. They’d linked Hep up to a vocoder, letting her pick out what she wanted to say by mental impulse. She wanted to do her best to fit in. At the very least, she could talk over the radio.
“On it,” said Camilla, smaller, darker, clad in a sensor-absorptive camo suit, one better and closer-fitting than the bulky coveralls Bobbi had worn when she first met Tom. She disappeared. Hepzibah’s broad form trucked into the darkness across the street, a large enough target to need plenty of cover. The Pilum launcher could be easily aimed and fired from the ruin of the apartments opposite the meeting site.
The rest of them formed up, and Bobbi had them enter through the hole the cops had long ago left – carefully, feeling out with scanner hoods and combat visors, seeking any traps that might await them. They found none.
“Nothing on the ground,” she murmured over the link. “What’s the satellite say?”
“The satellite reads two heat signatures – one target and a bonfire.” Yasmeen’s voice was high and soft, music on the line. Very professional. “It looks as though he is alone, unless he’s got people around with baffler suits.” She remained in the team van, camping out with a comms box and a tiny radar console, playing guardian angel. Bobbi looked back at her sitting in the van’s open cavity, a small figure in black fatigues, wearing the headscarf and veil of her foremothers, her brows knit in utmost concentration while she scanned the readouts and murmured telemetry data to them all through the link.
“All right,” Bobbi said. “I guess we go in and say hello. Everyone ready?”
A chorus of clipped affirmatives from the rest, with Camilla and Hepzibah speaking up after a few precious moments. Damn, did they move fast!
From the holster under her coat, Bobbi drew the blunt, long-nosed form of a Serket machine pistol. The weapon was heavy as hell in her hand, built to diffuse recoil, loaded with a magazine of high-explosive rounds. Probably something similar to the guns the four Yathi unloaded on Stormy, she figured. In vain or not, Bobbi knew she’d have to try if he made a move. She inhaled, filling her lungs to near bursting before letting out the remainder of whatever fear stilled her steps with her gushing breath.
Bobbi looked at the gun in her hand. Top of the line and all that. She’d used it on several occasions to kill plenty of drones back in the old days. She had, years ago, named it Daisy. She thought she had gotten rid of it, but like a bad penny, found it in a drawer in her desk, oiled and ready to go as if she’d fired it just yesterday.
“Let’s go.” She stepped through the breach into the ruined office structure.
He waited for her by the fire, a ribbon-thin shadow, his suit dimly reflecting the flames on its dull surface. It almost seemed to eat the light, though not so much as the unnatural alloy the Yathi used for doors and engineering. Bobbi stood in the wreckage of the old building, staring at him. Pale, impossibly thin and willowy, more of a cartoon sketch of a man than a living being, but real. His curly hair almost white now, and his face pale to match. She studied him in profile, the faint glimmering of one eye as its surface caught the firelight. Tom did not turn to meet them, but Bobbi knew he was aware of them.
“We’re here,” Bobbi said. She felt Violet behind her and to the right, in guard position. The muzzle of Violet’s gun bump against the back of her thigh. She said nothing else. Just waited.
He turned to them in time, the firelight dancing off the mop of pale curls, tinting his skin with flickering golds and bronzes. All this she had expected – but staring out of the darkness at her, beneath the fringe, eyes of polished silver set in his pale face.
“Hello,” said the thing that proposed to be Thomas Walken, its chip voice as flat as tepid water.
Bobbi shot him.
As she had expected, the Serket’s wrath did nothing to still the machine. The man-thing simply stood there as the milspec rounds flattened and went off against its shell, a burst of thunder muted only by the Serket’s integral suppressor. The explosive bullets tore holes in its already damaged suit, but otherwise merely spat bits of shrapnel into the fire, scattering cinders. Bobbi stared as they formed a helix of light that licked around the figure’s arms, spiraling around its shoulders. It did not move, and neither did Bobbi or her group. They stood there in the moment, the gunfire echoing off moldering concrete, dissolving into the endless gulf of silence that had once more rose to meet them in dark waves. He looked down at himself, then back to Bobbi. The others may well have been made of smoke.
“You shot me,” Walken said. His face betrayed a kind of calm surprise, like someone does upon finding money in an old coat. “I didn’t expect you to do that.”
Bobbi took a deep breath, fighting down the urge to shoot him again, focusing on the trembling in her hand from the recoil. She fixed him with a flat look. “What the hell did I tell you before we got here? Did I not say, you turn out to be an alien, I shoot you?”
It blinked at her. Slowly. “But I am not an alien.”
Her fingers squeezed on the grip of the Serket until her knuckles ached. “That’s for me to decide.”
He looked down at himself. Chalky gray stars marked where the bullets hand landed in vain. His suit had grown hard and glossy black as well, like polished chitin. “I thought you were kidding.”
Bobbi frowned. “I don’t do the whole cutie-jokey thing anymore.” She laid the Serket’s muzzle against her shoulder. Still warm. “You may have noticed. There’s not much in the world worth kidding about anymore as it is.” She nodded at him. “Now you know to take me seriously.”
The construct stared at her for a long moment. “Yes. I see. And if you had damaged me?”
“Then I would have damaged you,” she said, her eyes chips of hard, polished bottle glass in the firelight. “I could probably fix you again. I got people.” Bobbi’s eyes narrowed. Was this him? Perhaps, though the Yathi had the memories of their hosts. “Violet.”
“Yes, my lady.” Violet stepped forward, her gun a small, squat
monster in her delicate hand. She positioned herself between the two of them and stared up into the polished mask of its face. Her eyes cleared as she stared at him, pupils growing so large that only a millimeter of blue showed in the firelight. Somewhere inside of her, psychological models ran, arcane mathematics piecing together the subtle signs that marked the presence of an active Yathi mind. Bobbi’s hand still pulsed faintly, the buzzing in her flesh in time with the orchestra of her blood, beating on into the future, perchance to be spilled.
Violet stepped back. Her expression was unreadable. “He’s not one of them.” She sounded unsure.
Bobbi canted her head a bit. “Lucky for you.” She glanced at Violet, whose eyes had tightened into a squint. “What is it?”
Tom answered for the both of them. “She does not understand why she cannot find signs of insanity.”
Bobbi’s fingers tightened again on the grip of the Serket. Instinct. “Last time I checked, that shit comes out over time.”
“The seed is there.” The construct took a step forward. His eyes were Yathi silver, but he had something about him she couldn’t define. Alien to look at, but…was this him? Was this really him? “But it is safely contained. I am not insane, as far as such things can be measured.”
“It’s true,” Violet said softly. “Why are you not crazy?”
“Still trying to figure that out,” Tom said. “Though I’m afraid arrogance and unwitting misogyny is still swimming around in there. Again, I apologize. I’m working on it.”
Bobbi frowned. “You’d better be careful. I might come to like you better than the original.” She flicked a glance between the fire and the group around her, which opened up in a semicircle. Defensive, but not outwardly hostile. All eyes were on the two of them, their chieftain and this new, strange creature, waiting for a signal to strike.
Tom – Bobbi had decided to hazard referring to it by what it claimed to be, at least for the moment – stood stock still, eerily so, a living cardboard stand. “That would be good. I was much less then. We must talk, Bobbi. About many different things.”
“So talk.” She squinted. “Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of these people.”
For a moment, it appeared Tom would argue, but he swept his gaze across the faces assembled before him. “Bring your support personnel, then. The three that you left behind.”
Bobbi smiled. “They’re piped in.” No way in hell was she bringing support out into the open. “Please, go ahead.”
Tom inclined his head. “Very well.” Without further ceremony, he related the events that had transpired since he woke inside his own coffin.
No one seemed to expect the story, though they came ready to hear one fantastic gory tale or another. As he narrated his course, the group stood silently, looking on with an increasing expression of general awe. Even Bobbi, intent on keeping skepticism at the forefront of her mind, had to work hard to keep herself from slipping into the same from time to time.
“That’s a hell of a story, Tom,” Bobbi said when he finished. She took a moment to marshal herself. “But do you have any proof?”
They should have all known, but alas, with these words Bobbi managed to break the spell over her fellows, who turned as one and stared at her. He had, in a stroke, laid out everything leading up to their meeting there: his awakening in a new body, the escape from Berne, Mother’s pursuit and his meeting up with Scalli and Lionel. He had given them information that they would have easily killed for, not only for its sheer knowledge value but for its tactical usefulness. And here Bobbi called him out. It was the smart thing to do, but his story had with it a weight of authenticity that had seemingly enspelled the rest of them. Even Violet looked convinced by the end.
Walken turned to look at her. “Proof. Yes, I have plenty. You will want to contact Lionel Knightley, of course. And there is Julia Mendelson.”
Bobbi winced.” Julia-who-tried-to-kill-me-Mendelson?”
“Perhaps so.” Walken shrugged. “But all this may change. You live with people who might revert at any moment, and kill the rest of you. Why should she be any different?”
“Reversion doesn’t happen,” Bobbi said. “It never has.”
“Neither has an infected human being been able to exist sanely without its parasite,” Walken said. “Yet here I am.”
For a split second, Bobbi wanted to punch him in his stupid, porcelain face. “Point. All right, so you’re saying that Lionel has a jump on the way they transmit themselves into human minds. That’s what he’s been up to all these years since we left the Doll behind. And then…what?”
“That is what we will have to find out,” Tom replied with a slight cant of his head. His eyes fixed on Bobbi’s, clear and sharp as crystal, and she found something inside herself shying away from that gaze. It reminded her of Redeye.
“Do you think that Scalli is still alive? Do you think he might be in on all of this?”
“I believe that it is possible.” Tom nodded. “I have no reason not to.”
“That’s rich.” This from James, Janelle’s man, who like his leader carried a repurposed thermal cutter with a head like an axe. He was short but solid, a neat beard crowning his chin. He wore a black forage cap to go with his fatigues. “Who’s to say that he hasn’t been killed yet? By spider faces, or just maybe by yourself?”
Tom swung his gaze away from Bobbi to fix on James, who stood strong against it. “I have no interest in impeding his goal. He sacrificed much to leave you. Perhaps you should show more faith.”
“Don’t you tell me about faith,” he growled. “Bobbi, let me take his head. This is some bullshit he’s trying to put on you!”
“James,” said Violet, her voice flat and empty. Bobbi knew that voice. It meant danger. “Be quiet.”
“I understand his reticence to believe me,” Tom continued. “Were it not for me, many of you would not ever—”
“You shut up too,” Violet said. For a moment, Bobbi thought that there would be a fight right there, but mercifully, both men complied. Violet fell silent also, looking to Bobbi for her to continue.
Bobbi inclined her head slightly to her partner before she spoke again. “All right. You want me to believe all of this, I want proof. You have to have something if you’re supposedly working with the ghost, and Lionel, and everybody else.” She fell silent again, every nerve ready for him to expose himself as some immediate threat.
Walken fixed his mirror eyes on her. “You could contact Stadil himself. Would that not be enough?”
“That’s not an option at the moment.” Bobbi folded her arms over her chest and cocked her hips. “You got anything else?”
He considered. “My comrade is nearby. Along with transportation. I could have him join us.”
Bobbi considered that. He was outnumbered, at least. “What’s he driving?”
“A plane,” Walken replied.
“No,” Bobbi said. “You’re going with us. Now. To a safe house. I got scans that I want to run on you.”
Tom gave her a quizzical look. “I would think that you would take me to your headquarters. I imagine that there are many who would want to inspect me.”
“Exactly why we’re not going,” Bobbi countered. “Now come on. Tell your people to stay the hell away, whoever they are. Even if I did believe you – which I don’t quite yet – I would be a goddamned fool to let you just sit around in my house all day with a sword hanging over us.”
“You’re right to be cautious, of course,” Walken said.
“Damned right I am,” Bobbi said with a toss of her head. “I’m not stupid, either. You may also have noticed. Now come with us. I want to get the fuck out of here. This place gives me bad dreams.”
“As you wish,” Walken replied serenely. “But I shall have to make use of a transmitter.”
alken sat in the back of the first of Bobbi’s two vans and communed with the comms box, being watched, ever so intently, by a pair of fine dark eyes through the gap of
a lovely purple silk niqab, the only swatch of color of her outfit. Black fatigues and heavy boots made her look like one of the commandos of the Iranian women’s brigades back during the American Crusades. Her eyes, however, were sharper than any sword those women had carried. As he sat there, beaming instructions to Jacinto via the satellite antenna on the roof, he felt as though she dissected him with her gaze, flaying away the suit, his synthetic flesh, and the whole of his diamond heart with bright lances of intelligence and curiosity. The instructions he sent Jacinto were simple: made contact, relaying data, stay in ready position until contacted further. Very simple. As he disengaged the comms box and his body relaxed, the woman spoke.
“You are Thomas Walken,” she said. “I have heard much about you.”
“I imagine so,” he replied with an inclination of his head. “And you are?”
“Yasmeen al-Sayif.”
Walken nodded. “Flower of the sword. Pretty. I am pleased to meet you.”
“Something like that,” she replied, her voice laced with a certain frosty amusement.
A minute or two passed before Bobbi put her head in to check on him, and, finding him done, shuttled the rest of her people into the two vans. The majority of the group rode in the van with Yasmeen, while he moved into the other van, along with Bobbi and her beautiful lieutenant. A tall, lean black man drove. Walken noted his arm, an electrically-fused Nakajima combat prosthesis, dark flesh fused to darker steel. The other woman rode up front with him, leaving him and Bobbi in the back alone, something that the two up front seemed rather unhappy about. Walken could not blame them.
The empty streets of the Old City went on with their slow death without incident as the two vans made their way along. Bobbi sat quietly, watching him from the long bench along the other side. Green eyes glittering, probing his face, his eyes. What was she thinking? Disgusted by him, or merely curious? Walken found himself uncomfortable with it all, much to his own surprise.
“The technician, she is interesting,” he said. “How long has she been with you?”
Gathering Ashes (The Wonderland Cycle Book 3) Page 42
