No Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  I nod. This is the hard sell, part of me knows that, but still... what am I supposed to do? Shrug and say it’s not my problem?

  “Stopping them sounds good,” I say.

  Suddenly Shaw smiles. Something warm and wide, and unexpected. “Yes,” she says, “Yes it does. Now, come with me, Detective. There are a few more things I want to show you.”

  She grips the back of my wheelchair and we head out of the small bare room with its opulent horrors. I’m happy to leave. To just be in a normal corridor, in a normal building, with a normal woman in a sensible suit.

  Part of me still hopes I’m crazy, that this is some morphine hallucination. In fact, even a coma-dream might be preferable. But I’m not crazy, or dreaming. Deep down, I’m sure of it. I can see, as clearly as I see the linoleum floor tiles, the thrashing tentacles inside the man’s head, the alien body twitching inside the human one. It was real. It’s all real.

  Shaw opens a door, and abruptly the smell of the sea hits me. There’s a saltwater tang in the air. She wheels me through. A large space. The light is dimmer here, only a few lamps suspended above us. Instead the smell wells up out of a massive swimming pool set into the floor. There are shapes flitting back and forth, casting large deformed shadows over the ceiling.

  “It’s time to meet the Twins.”

  I twist, look at Shaw. “The Progeny. The Feeders. The Twins.” I nod. “I am loving the nomenclature.” Minutia. My comfort zone in times of stress. And this definitely counts.

  Shaw straightens a little, a little smile on her mouth. “Thank you,” she says. So I guess she’s responsible.

  As we get closer I can see the shadows in the pool more clearly. More than just two shapes. Not just the Twins. Unless Shaw means something more when she says “Twins” than I think she does. Can’t discount that possibility at this point.

  But then there are two heads poking from the side of the pool, long hair hanging, bedraggled over narrow shoulders.

  “Ophelia and Ephemera,” Shaw says. “But everyone calls Ephemera ‘Ephie’.”

  “Ephemera?” I look back again, quickly, eyebrows raised. As a pair.

  “That’s what Kayla, what their... foster mother calls them.” Shaw hesitates over the appellation. I’m about to ask why, but we’re close enough for the girls to call to us.

  “Hello, Miss Shaw.” Two voices, young, make a reedy chorus.

  “Hello, girls.” There is a softness in Shaw’s voice I haven’t heard before.

  The Twins are identical, black hair framing pinched faces with large eyes. Eyes like the lamps of a lighthouse— that’s what I think at first. I can see why Shaw breaks out the warm and fuzzies for them. There is something oddly endearing about them. They are not wearing bathing costumes, but rather sun dresses with bright floral patterns in pink and yellow and white that bloom out around them, oscillating in the gently rippling water.

  One of the shadow shapes twines between their slowly kicking legs. It’s a...

  “Jesus!”

  “The squid are our friends, Detective Wallace,” says the girl on the left, matter-of-fact and polite.

  “The octopuses too,” says her twin.

  “The octopuses too,” repeats the first, solemnly.

  I stare, caught between being amazed and being aghast. The water is thick with them. With tentacles and gelatinous bodies. Here and there a sucker-strewn arm breaks the water, like a diminutive sea monster come to claim the pool’s diminutive occupants. And where the hell... what the... how...? I turn to Shaw.

  “She’s not sure,” says one of the Twins before either Shaw or I say a word.

  “They were with us when we came here,” says the other.

  “There’s more now. We feed them and they have babies.”

  My mind still reels. “How” doesn’t seem as important as “why.”

  “She thinks it’s something to do with the ink.” Again the Twin answers the question before I ask it.

  “What’s the word you use, Miss Shaw?”

  They are both looking up inquiringly at her. My jaw hangs. Not a good look on me but my mind just got blown for about the fifth time today and I’m starting to have trouble bouncing back. What a bloody week.

  “Psychotropic,” says Shaw. “The ink the creatures release is a powerful psychotropic drug.”

  “That’s it,” says the Twin on the right.

  “Yes it is.”

  I open my mouth to say something, to try and put my confusion into words. “How do they...?” I manage.

  Shaw shrugs. “It’s something to do with the ink. I’m not completely sure.”

  “We told you that,” says the one on the left.

  “I’m Ephie,” says the one on the right.

  “I’m Ophelia,” says the one on the left.

  “Nice to meet you, Detective Wallace,” says Ephie.

  “Very nice,” says Ophelia.

  “Yes,” I say, and stare about, still trying to get some life into my hanging jaw. I kneel down, hold out a hand. I’m not sure what else to do. “Nice to meet you.”

  The Twins stare at my outstretched hand.

  “They don’t really touch people,” Shaw says.

  “Because of the psychotropic ink,” Ephie offers, helpfully. She pronounces the long word carefully, each syllable neat and distinct.

  I stay kneeling, then slowly reel in my hand. “What are you doing here?” I ask the girls finally. Because, I mean, I’m sure it’s more complicated that it looks, Shaw doesn’t seem the inhumanly cruel type... but it does looks like she has two ten-year-old girls locked away two floors beneath the ground in a swimming pool full of cephalopods and psychotropic ink.

  “Kayla brought us here,” says Ophelia.

  I remember Shaw saying the name. “Your foster mother?”

  “Our mother.” Ephie corrects me.

  “And she—” I start.

  “Careful with your words here, Detective,” Shaw says from behind me.

  My brow creases. I hear the warning loud and clear, but I’m missing something. I don’t think I’m being asked to table the conversation just for the girls’ sake. I want to ask her more, but... another time and place. Probably be better anyway. Give me a chance to process things. As much as I’m able to.

  “We help stop the Progeny now.” Ophelia plugs the hole in the conversation. She has a helpful smile. Behind her an octopus rises to the surface. Two tentacles loop over her shoulders, grip her in some loose embrace. She turns, grinning; drops beneath the surface without causing even a ripple. I watch as she tackles the creature, revolving round its globular body, some strange iteration of roughhousing.

  “We know about them,” Ephie says. “About the Progeny.” She speaks with sudden solemnity, in contrast to her sister.

  “The girls know things we can’t about the Progeny.” Shaw’s voice is businesslike now. The warmth drops away. “We have no way of detecting infected individuals. We can only hope to identify them by their actions, and the Progeny are very good at keeping those quiet. But the Twins here, they. they are able to access alternative channels of information. Ones that are not entirely clear to us at this moment.”

  “Something to do with the ink,” I offer.

  “Yes. Exactly. Their information has allowed us to track down several Progeny and eliminate them before they breed.”

  “They breed?” In some ways it just seems unfair that Shaw has added this image on top of everything else. I could have really done with getting through the day without the image of copulating mind maggots.

  “I believe you saw their spawn,” she says. And here we go: alien nookie 101. Buckle up for safety, kids.

  “When the head of an infected victim is destroyed,” Shaw continues, oblivious to my rising gorge, “the eggs are thrown out in a vast cloud. They look rather like giant fish eggs. They survive in our reality for,” she squints, “around forty-five seconds. Maybe a little less. Our best theory is that our reality is corrosive to their outer layer
s. But during that time, any eggs that land in a nearby individual’s hindbrain will nestle and hatch there. That individual will be infected.”

  “In a nearby individual’s hindbrain?” Somehow that’s both the least and the most disturbing image.

  “OK, remember when I said we exist on one reality, and the Feeders on another?”

  I nod.

  “That’s a simplification,” Shaw says. “Reality as you and I perceive it is a composite. Hundreds of realities pressed into one. The Progeny exist in some of these but not all. Which ones exactly depends on their life cycle. It’s more than you need to know now, but basically unless an egg or adult hits a suitable nesting site,” she pauses, taps the base of her neck, “they’re incorporeal. It allows them and their eggs to pass through some solid objects. For example, flesh and bone. Once they hit the nesting site, they’re corporeal and we can chop them in two.”

  “Composite realities,” I say, trying to grasp the whole. “Progeny exist on some. In hindbrain: can chop. Outside of hindbrain: can’t chop.” Reality feels loose. My mind has been expanded, and I’m rattling around inside it trying to find something I can actually grasp.

  “Indeed.” Shaw gives me a reassuring nod. I am not really reassured. Reality seems to be fracturing right in front of me.

  I rub the back of my head. It, at least, feels reassuringly solid.

  “OK,” I say. Processing. Processing. I can almost see the progress bar in my head moving ever so slowly toward completion. I’m just praying the system doesn’t crash.

  “So,” I turn and smile at the remaining Twin. My biggest grin. It helps hold my face together. “What’s the latest word on what the Progeny are up to?”

  “Ophelia’s going to die,” says Ephie.

  Oh bloody hell.

  She offers the words up matter-of-factly, as if this is a commonplace piece of information. I turn slowly to look at her sister, slip-sliding between tentacles out in the middle of the pool.

  Bloody, bloody hell.

  Mind worms I can take. Cosmic horrors I can take. The end of the world I am doing OK on. But this. A little girl. I can’t... I mean... I don’t... Shit. Just shit.

  “Kayla can’t save her,” Ephie says, just as matter-of-factly

  I turn to Shaw. I feel completely helpless. Completely at sea. Drowning out in the Twins’ pool. Drowning tangled in strange tentacular bodies I don’t understand.

  “What—” I manage. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  And I know. I know what she wants me to do. But... shit.

  There is a muffled thud to my right. Something heavy landing softly. I turn—

  White. A line of reflected light. Brutal and simple. A blade pointed at my throat. Behind it a woman with a long sallow face. Long nose, long cheeks. Long bangs covering the eyes. A red flannel shirt over a dark green tank top.

  Oh bugger me.

  The swordswoman from the rooftop takes a step toward me, turning her blade so the edge now hangs before my bobbing Adam’s apple.

  “You feckin’ save her is what you do.” She speaks with a thick Scottish brogue. “You save her feckin’ life.”

  My eyes are focused on the blade, my ears half deafened by the thunder of my heart, yet I am still dimly aware of Shaw moving to the swordswoman’s side.

  “Ah.” She clears her throat, as if this is just an awkward moment at a dinner party “Detective Wallace, this is Kayla.”

  Steel brushes my neck. Yesterday’s stubble scrapes. “Yes,” I hear myself saying, my voice thin. “We’ve already met.”

  5

  Shaw lays her hand on Kayla’s arm. Her sword arm. I fight the urge to genuflect as the blade bobs.

  “Kayla,” Shaw says. Her voice is soft as silk. “Maybe this isn’t the time.”

  The sword doesn’t move.

  “It’s OK.” The voice comes from the middle of the pool. We all turn and look. It’s Ophelia, surfacing from her game. “I like him,” she says.

  I glance back to Kayla. She’s staring at me. A headlight glare, and I’m the bunny.

  Then she takes a step back, and a moment after she retreats, so does the blade. With a practised movement she places it in a scabbard on her back. Probably what the flannel shirt hides.

  Slowly I let out a long breath. “Jesus,” I say. “I mean...” But I don’t know what I mean. This woman stabbed me. Nearly killed me. She killed the Progeny. Which means... Shit, I’ve been hunting her for nearly six months. She’s a serial killer. My serial killer. My whole life has centered around putting her behind bars for six months. Six months. One hundred and eighty-three days of my life. Rounding up. And now I’m on the same side?

  Except... “She stabbed me.” I say it out loud. I say it to Shaw, but I don’t know if I expect her to answer. It’s not really even a question. I just feel like someone, and really it could be anyone, should apologize. My lung was punctured.

  I see it again. Her stepping out of the cloud of eggs, toward me. Coming toward me faster than I could track. Sword out. White blade. Black night. Red blood. Black vision.

  Stepping out of the cloud of eggs. Something about that seems relevant. Something niggles...

  And then—Shaw’s words. Any eggs that land in a nearby individual’s hindbrain will nestle and hatch there.

  This woman, this murderer, she was in the cloud of eggs. She was hit, infected. She must have been.

  “Progeny,” I say quietly. “Oh fuck. She’s Progeny.”

  I don’t even see Kayla move. She is standing beside Shaw. Then I am suddenly falling, jarring against the ground, Kayla on me, holding me down. She is inches from my face, the blade pressed tight against my skin. I feel her breath as she speaks.

  “You don’t curse in front of my girls.”

  My head is pressed against the ground, cold concrete, light from the pool lamps playing around me. Ephie is holding on to the pool’s edge, staring at me, wide-eyed. A squid nuzzles at her shoulder. Her sister swims to join her.

  “That’s a bad word,” Ephie says.

  “Very bad,” Ophelia agrees.

  And of course you don’t swear in front of kids. Of course. I know that. I’m a policeman. I’m an upstanding member of society. But... But... I mean, aren’t we missing the point?

  “Progeny,” I say again, barely a whisper as Kayla presses the blade harder against my neck.

  “Apologize.” Kayla’s voice is as sharp as a second blade digging in between my ribs.

  “S...” I manage. “S... I’m s...” I don’t know if I can’t say it because I’m so scared or because I really don’t mean it. “I’m sorry,” I manage.

  This time Kayla’s sword precedes her own retreat. The blade is gone, but she remains, still staring, lip slightly curled. Then she steps back so I can actually get up.

  “Please, Detective,” Shaw says, voice still level, patient, as if dealing with irate toddlers. “Kayla is not infected. While you saw her within range for possible contamination, the Progeny have some issues with Kayla’s... particular neurology. Neurology that makes her another vital agent in our attempts to stop the Progeny.

  “You see, there is no cure to infection, Detective,” Shaw says. “The Progeny do not give up a body without killing it. So to stop the Progeny you stop the infected. Kayla is uniquely capable in this. She has dispatched hundreds of the infected. You have been seeing the results of her work in Oxford. She is quite certainly on the side of humanity On our side. And while you work for me, Detective Wallace, I will not have you question her loyalty.”

  But I miss the end of what she says, because hidden in there is, maybe of all the things I’ve heard so far today, the one that blindsides me the most.

  “Work for you?”

  “Have you not been listening, Detective? There is a war on. Our world, our reality is in danger. One of our key assets—humanity’s key assets—in that fight, a young girl, is in danger. And you’re thinking of walking away?”

  “I...” I say. Because... we
ll, I’m sort of in shock that I even have the option to choose. I’ve spent most of the time since I saw the Progeny either doped on morphine or being terrorized by the knowledge that we are most definitely not alone.

  And it is terrifying. It is. Beyond measure. When I was in that room, with that book... It makes me shudder to think about it. And Kayla is terrifying. Utterly. And she kills. Has killed. And the way she moves... How can she really be human? How can she not be... something else? It’s all too much and too big and too frightening.

  But part of me is thinking that it’s also kind of cool.

  I really need to not watch quite so many movies.

  “Look, Detective,” Shaw says as I dither. “Arthur. You’re not the first person to take an interest in Kayla’s work. But you are the first to track her down. That makes you interesting. I’ve reviewed your police record, and it’s exemplary. That makes you very interesting. And I’ve watched you today, as you absorbed what I’ve had to tell you. I want you on my team. I need you on my team. Kayla cannot defend Ophelia. I don’t know why, but that doesn’t make it less true.”

  Beside Shaw, Kayla shifts, a pent-up anger in her limbs, a desire to dismiss Shaw’s statement but an inability to do so.

  “But what Kayla can’t do,” Shaw continues, “I think you can. And I think, after all you’ve seen, you want to do it.”

  I look away for a moment, back at the door, away from the pool. It would be so much easier to walk away. In the long run. Bollocks, in the short run. Just so much easier.

  I look back at the pool. At the two girls looking at me, both smiling softly. And what I have to do is obvious really. Terrifying and exciting and obvious.

  “I’m in,” I say.

  Shaw smiles. Kayla looks away.

  “Excellent,” says Shaw. “Welcome to the team.”

  6

  And that’s it. I really am in. I’m a government agent. A member of a clandestine organization. No longer Detective Wallace, but Agent Wallace. Agent bloody Wallace. My mum would be so proud.

  Well... if I could tell her she would be proud.