The sledging had been fun, but his knuckles were scraped raw and bleeding. To keep himself from falling off his small, round sledge he needed to hang on to the sides, so his knuckles dragged along the snow and ice. Eventually one of the other girls, Morag, noticed him looking at his hands and loaned him some pink woolen gloves. They were thin and he looked ridiculous, but they stopped the scraping so he was very grateful.
Back in the bothy, Finn was gratified to see Trevor pull out a bag of coal from his pack. There was no wood available at the bothy and they were above the tree line. Finn guessed that was one of the reasons there was no furniture. He could imagine a desperate traveler — or a drunk one — smashing furniture to burn during the night.
Trevor pulled out a sleeping bag and then a bottle of whisky and a bottle of peach schnapps. Finn took this to mean that it was time to relax and pulled a beer out of his pack and popped the top. Maybe the bothy was not so bad after all.
After four beers, Finn was relaxed and feeling good. The cold had been banished by the little coal fire and good company.
Trevor was finishing up a joke, “—and the Invisible man says, I don’t know but my ass really hurts.”
As everyone was laughing, Finn looked over at Bex, who was sitting on her sleeping bag. She smiled and patted the portion of her sleeping bag that she was not sitting on. Finn got up from where he was sitting and clumsily sat down beside her.
She took his hand and snuggled into him.
He decided to take the bull by the horns and ask her about her boyfriend. He opened his mouth to talk when Simon appeared in front of him said, “Want some whisky? It’s single malt.”
Finn looked at Bex, who shrugged.
“Sure,” he said.
He was not sure exactly how many cans of beer he had finished off, but he did know that he was being funny. Everyone seemed to be laughing at his jokes, anyway. He also knew that his bladder was full. Very full.
The bothy was a single-room building, so he supposed that meant toilet al fresco.
He pulled himself unsteadily to his feet and tried to sneak out the window without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, he tripped on some empty cans, so everyone turned to look at him standing by the window.
“If you take a shit go on the North side of the bothy, okay? If you don’t need to shit, I would suggest you avoid the North side,” said Trevor.
Finn blushed and nodded and then fell out the window.
Now… which way was North? he thought to himself.
He decided to just head out into the heather a little and relieve himself out of view of the house.
She had been waiting in the cold and darkness for a few hours, neither of which bothered her much, when she saw him fall out of the window onto the wooden porch that fronted the bothy.
He still did not have a hat, but it looked like he had obtained some pink gloves from somewhere. Under the strong smell of alcohol she could detect the smell of blood. He must have some sort of minor injury.
She quietly circled to approach him from behind, when he stopped walking and the smell of fresh urine hit the air. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. She would not take him while he was pissing.
He urinated for a good two minutes as he muttered, “So cold, so cold.”
The stream trailed off, he packed away his pecker and jumped a couple of times to adjust himself. His unseen watcher started to move forward when a beam of light speared him from the bothy.
“All right there, buddy?” One of the others was calling him from the shack; the accent was Canadian.
She crouched to avoid the light and waited.
“Cold as a brass monkey’s testes, but otherwise fine,” he called back.
“Alright, your girlfriend was a little worried about you.”
Her target started to walk back to the shelter. He passed within a foot of his watcher without noticing her. To any but the most gifted of observers she was a slightly darker shade of dark in the night — the darkness of a black hole sucking in any stray photons in the night.
He murmured, “Girlfriend?” to himself as he passed.
This one could not be her target, he was so … unimpressive. She would need to return to the University town and see if there was another that matched the description she had been provided. Before she left she would find some misery to feed on.
She could hear him speak again as he got close to the Canadian, “I’m not, that is, she’s not my girlfriend. Did she say she was my girlfriend?”
“Nope, just my assumption. And don’t worry, I am not going to try my luck. I can see you’re into her.”
“Thanks. It is so philandering cold out here. Do you have any more of that whisky?”
“Philandering? Holy moly, you really are a little weird, aren’t you? Don’t get me wrong, I like you, but you are strange.”
“I hear that ladies like strange,” said Finn with a grin.
The Canadian laughed as they walked back to the bothy.
As the night progressed he could feel his charisma build. It seemed everything he said made the others laugh and he was talking a lot.
Bex was smiling at him and he knew — he just knew that she was not thinking of Brian, or whatever his name was.
He was about to suggest they connect their sleeping bags when suddenly his stomach convulsed. He looked around and in panic and scrambled for the window. He made it halfway out when he spewed the six beers, a few swigs of whisky and a mélange of partially digested pork pie and Pot Noodle that had made up the contents of his stomach.
He lay down outside in the blissfully cold air until he felt someone shake his shoulder.
“Come on in, Finn.”
It was Bex. He felt too nauseous to be embarrassed, so he followed her back inside.
He woke as a scream pierced his cotton-filled head like a pick axe. He sat up and saw that the bothy was empty.
He crawled to the window, feeling miserable, and looked outside.
Everyone from their little expedition was gathered around a bluish-white figure on the ground. He looked again and saw that the group was missing Trevor.
He scrambled out the window in his socks. He did not feel the cold and wet as he approached the group.
Claire’s screams became muffled as Simon pulled her into a hug and she buried her face in his shoulder.
Finn pushed through the small group and looked down at the frozen, naked corpse of Trevor.
“I love this pakora.”
“Yeah, the chutney’s great too.”
Finn and Bex were having dinner at the Indian restaurant. There was only one in town so, like many of the other businesses, people did not use the restaurant’s name, and they just called it “the Indian.”
Finn and Bex had been spending a lot of time together since the death of Trevor. That tragic event had drawn them closer together. No one knew exactly what happened; as far as the police could tell he had been drunk and decided to take a walk outside in the snow naked. There had been no signs of a struggle. It seemed that University life was full of tragedy this year. They tried their best to put it behind themselves. They drove back the sadness that loomed at the edge of their consciousness with humor, routine and, of course, alcohol.
“How is the review going? Can you prove that someone has been fucking with your experiments yet?” she said.
“There is definitely an effect. I am just trying to get at the variables that are making the biggest difference. I actually have a suspect.”
She leaned forward and said, “Really, do tell.”
He hesitated, “I don’t think I should, not until I am sure.”
“Oh come on, I won’t tell anyone. Please?” she batted her eyes at him and grabbed his hand over the table. He shifted uncomfortably, he would need to, ahem, relax a little before he was able to stand up.
He cleared his throat. “All right, I think it’s Dawson. Just don’t say anything to anyone, okay? If I’m wrong and he finds out he will make my life hell.” He
snorted. “Who am I kidding? Even if I am right and he finds out, my life will be hell.”
“Of course, I won’t tell a soul, but, I knew it was him. He’s such a bastard.”
“That he is. That he is,” he said. “The kicker is that Proctor wants him to review my work. So it has been a little tricky, as I don’t want to tip my hand too soon. I had to create two sets of analysis. One is a piece of feces and shows I am getting nowhere. I store that one on the department servers. The other is my real work, which I will show to Proctor when I have it bulletproof. I keep that on some disks in my bag. There should be no way for Dawson to get at it until I’m ready.”
“I have to say, this is pretty exciting stuff,” she said, “in an academic way, of course. Oh, the dramatic hissy fits that will ensue when the shit hits the fan. You have to let me know when you do the big reveal.”
“I know. I’m starting to worry about consequences already. I have reviewed about half of the experiments so far. On ninety percent of them Dawson had direct oversight of the experiment from the start and there was no detectable effect at any stage of the experiment. On another five percent he had no involvement and there were some minor effects detected. Of the remaining five or so percent, the initial findings showed a strong possibility of telepathy and remote viewing. At that stage Dawson got involved, presumably, to ensure there was the right amount of rigor in the process and, lo and behold, the effect disappeared. Actually, it more than disappeared; it reversed until there was no statistical effect. That’s the smoking gun. I can trace the reversal of the results to where he became involved. I need to get more examples. At the moment he can still argue that the initial results were due to sloppy controls that he cleaned up.”
“Could that be it? From what everyone says, he is thorough.”
“Well, I would think that was a possibility if it was not for the fact that one of the experiments was mine. Not to be too big-headed, but I design a mean experiment. That’s what gave me the idea in the first place, that there was a monkey wrench in the works. I was detecting a real effect, a strong effect, until Dawson showed up to help verify the results. I’m sure it is him, I just need to get more evidence.”
“Does anyone else know? Have you told anyone else?”
“Just you, and I can’t tell Proctor yet; it will kill him. He doesn’t exactly like Dawson, but he does respect him. They have been working together for years. This is a huge betrayal. My worst fear is that Dawson figures out that I am on to him.” He paused to eat. “You know, he may well be aware already; he seems to be watching me closely.”
“Paranoid. What I don’t get is why would he do it?”
“I’ll get to that in a sec. I called a few colleagues at other universities and asked to see their raw data. There seems to be a trend there as well. Whenever it looks like someone is going to prove a psi effect, the remaining results completely extinguish the effect. It has to be an outside influence. It has to be.”
“So what are you saying? Are you saying that there is a Dawson at every facility that is doing this research? That would be a massive conspiracy.”
“Yeah, crazy, isn’t it? But I can’t think of any other explanation. The raw data really is startling.”
“Okay then, so why has no one else noticed?”
“A lot of experiments aren’t actually very well-designed. And to be fair, the psi effect is difficult to detect. It also appears that psi is an ability that can be strong or weak in an individual. The few experiments that actually slip through the conspiracy’s net and demonstrate a psi effect can never be replicated, or they are just ridiculed by the general scientific community.”
“This is huge,” she said loudly. Some people in the restaurant looked over. She lowered her voice, “Sorry.”
“Ha, no problem, I can only imagine what they are thinking,” he said with a smile and a wink.
“Dirty bugger,” she said with a look of mock outrage on her face.
He got serious, “You know, I think I love you.” He made a face, “Ugh, I never said that to a non-relative before. Well, out loud, anyway.” He put his hands on his face then peeked through his fingers at her.
“This is pretty fast, Finn; you know I have a boyfriend. You would have some girls running scared right now.”
“So, just some girls; not you specifically?”
“No, I mean yes. I mean, not me specifically. I like you too. A lot. But …”
“I hate buts.”
“That is not what your friend Jonni says. Especially mine?”
He looked a little panicked, “What? You’ve been speaking to Jonni? What did he say? No, don’t tell me.” He took a deep breath and gave himself a little shake. “You said, but?”
“You’re so funny.” She smiled a little sadly, “I just don’t think I can say I love you, not yet. And I need to figure out what to do about Brian.”
“Hey, no problem, that’s fine, I just wanted you to know how I felt. I was not looking for instant reciprocation.” He took a bite of naan and managed to bite his tongue. “Scrotal sack,” he said.
“What is it with the way you swear anyway?”
“Oh, that’s easy. If you use acceptable medical terms, you can say the filthiest things and no one can really complain. Smart, isn’t it?”
“No, not so much,” she said and smiled.
Across the street from the Indian restaurant was an old grey stone building, one of many on the street. The doorway of the building was a black abyss. It seemed to be darker than the other doorways on the street, and the grey-orange light from the street lamps did not seem able to pass the recessed threshold of the doorway.
If someone had been standing in the darkness filling the doorway they would have been able to look through the window of the restaurant and see two young people dining. The female was very attractive, petite, with short, bobbed black hair, pale blue eyes and a pixie nose. The male was handsome but less distinctive, with brown hair and eyes. They were talking in an animated manner but quietly, with their heads leaning towards each other over the table. Then the male said something and covered his face with his hands, peeking through his fingers at the female.
The darkness in the doorway rippled restlessly. The entire street darkened briefly, as if someone with a dimmer switch that controlled the Universe had turned down all the street lights, the stars and the moon. When the light brightened a moment later the doorway looked the same as any other doorway on the street. Empty.
The City, Year 7872 in the Reign of Enki II
“The Special Brigades are difficult to use effectively; however, if deployed according to some basic principles, they can significantly reduce Trooper casualty rates and increase the probability of victory.”
Hael was observing the lecture from the back row of the amphitheater. As a Third Year academic and one of the Ten in his year, he spent some of his time each day observing the classes of the younger students. In his Fourth Year he would be responsible for teaching some of them. The Academy recognized that true mastery of a subject came when one was required to teach it to another. This class was of particular interest to him, as it was being taught by his older brother Lucan and his younger brother, Bral, was among the first-year students being instructed.
“The two most common Special Heavy Brigades are the Ogra and Trolla Brigades. Ogra fare particularly well on the open field against the Feral, and, once released, their rage, strength and size take a terrible toll on the enemy. They are often used to provide cover for a strategic retreat. As they are extremely difficult to control, they should never be deployed with other forces.”
Lucan was standing in the center of the floor of the sunken amphitheater. The academics were seated on curved white stone benches that circled the amphitheater in progressively higher rows, affording them all an unrestricted view of the proud and magnificent Lucan. They leant forward and fidgeting was at a minimum — the very image of an attentive class. This was not because Lucan was a particularly good teacher,
but because he was a cruel one.
To be fair, he was very good at most things. He was one of those people who would work and work to rectify any deficiencies he detected in himself. Unfortunately, this also meant that Lucan was unforgiving of weakness in others and he would go out of his way to point out those weaknesses so they could take corrective action, as he himself would.
As a teacher, he certainly knew the content well and could explain it. The problem was that he was one of those teachers who felt it was more important for his students to respect his intellect than to actually learn.
“The Trolla are more useful in siege work and fortified positions. Their strength and affinity for stonework make them formidable in the erection of fortifications, as well as tearing them down, should the Feral overtake one of our positions. They are, however, more passive and shy than Ogra. They typically attack the unsuspecting from cover and retreat with their kills to feed.”
Hael craned his neck and looked for Bral and spotted him in the first row. Although he could only see the back of Bral’s head, Hael knew him so well that the cant of his head and the way he shifted on the hard stone bench made him instantly recognizable to Hael. Hael also knew that Bral was not feigning attention like many of his peers were. Bral had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Bral, like his brothers, was also one of the Ten for his year. Hael thought he was Eight or Nine at the moment and doubted that Bral would ever make it to One; he was not ruthless enough. His strong empathy made him adept at anticipating his opponents’ moves and countering them, but it also made it difficult for him to crush his opponents completely. A master of defense, he was weak in offence.
Bral sat beside his best friend, Samael. Samael was not one of the brightest of the academics in his year, although he did have a level of low cunning. Hael was not entirely comfortable with their friendship. Bral was the latest in a series of best friends for Samael, each one of greater status than the last.
Ancient Evil (The First Genocide Book 1) Page 12
