“Quey,” Natalie said and his name hit him like a jolt as his gaze left the wires and found her. “Maybe you should wait somewhere else.” He shook his head. “The corner then?” He looked toward a chair near the door and went to it. If Reggie had been there she’d have removed him completely but neither her nor Rachel were in a position to do that just now.
There was a low hum as the machine kicked on and then Natalie tapped the interface on the scanner and the arms began to glow slightly and wave over Ryla’s body. In less than a minute it was done and the machine’s holoscreen rendered a three dimensional image of what was inside Ryla.
“What are you?” Natalie asked the unconscious body on the table. She peered at the display and furrowed her brow. “This,” she trailed off. “This isn’t,” again words escaped her.
“What?” Quey asked, sitting up.
Natalie looked up at Rachel. “This isn’t real.”
Rachel looked over at the holographic image. The full body scan could display anything from a picture of Ryla naked on the table to nothing more than her bone structure and everything in between. Natalie was looking over the somewhere in between at the moment and Rachel spotted something.
“What the hell is that?” she asked, pointing.
“Some sort of wiring, but its not metal. Not really.”
“I’ve read about something like this,” Rachel offered, stepping in and scanning the image diligently. “Theoretical stuff, the kind of shit they claim could never be done but was being worked on when everyone was getting hardware implants for the new interface. Some believed this sort of thing would eliminate the hacking and virus threat that led to the implant disaster but people were so wary of the tech after that no one would touch it.”
“What’s that mean? What’s it show?” Quey asked hollowly.
Natalie looked up at the scan with wonder. “Near as I can tell she’s skin and bone and lungs and liver and heart and everything else you’d expect.”
“But?” he asked.
“But,” Rachel took to answering as both women stared down at the image. “She’s synthetic as well.”
“Her muscles, her bones, all her organs, they’ve been augmented by some sort of hybrid technology.” Natalie looked up at Ryla, “How did they do this. It’s not possible. This amount of surgery would kill her.”
“They probably didn’t use surgery,” Rachel added.
“How else could they get all that hardware in her?”
“Look,” Rachel said, pointing to the image, enhancing a section of it. “The hardware is mostly some sort of organic compound, it grows and fuses into her organs. They built her to be this way by growing her, hardware and all. Later they just added a few key elements.” See,” she continued pointing, zooming in on key areas. Natalie looked at what Rachel indicated. “It’s like she has two circulatory systems only these veins carry data instead of nutrients and blood. Probably why she likes it so cold as well. These extra parts here,” she went on, indicating a mass that ran along her spine and into her brain and another between her lungs and stomach, “they must have been added after she was born… or whatever she was. In any case they must keep her running pretty hot.”
Natalie checked and replied, “She is a bit above normal but nothing terribly noticeable.”
“She must have a way of cooling herself.” Rachel looked up at Ryla and said, “This is amazing. This sort of technology. It’s biological and synthetic at the same time.”
“Holy shit,” Natalie groaned.
“What?” Rachel asked.
“Look at this.” Rachel remained puzzled by the series of numbers Natalie was indicating. “It means… I wonder how old she is.”
“What do you mean how old she is?” Quey asked.
“I mean her entire body is regulated differently than ours. Her cell reproduction is impeccable.
“It’s the tech. The precision of a computer monitoring and regulating every aspect of her physical functioning has drastically slowed if not eliminated the subtle flaws that make a person slowly break down over time.”
“She doesn’t age like we do,” Natalie told Quey plainly.
“Probably never gets sick either,” Rachel added.
“Anything in all this that makes it easier to keep her from dying right here and now.”
Natalie nodded and she and Rachel set to work. Now that she had a clear idea of what she was dealing with, Natalie found it a lot easier to patch Ryla up. Her body, it seemed, was better suited toward survival than an ordinary human one. She seemed to lose less blood than she should and once a wound was cleared and bound it seemed to clot more effectively. By the time she was done tending to the last wound the first was already looking better.
“She’ll be down for a bit but to tell you the truth I can’t say for how long. Her body heals differently and I just don’t know. To tell you the truth I’m not even sure why she isn’t awake right now.”
Quey sat silent, looking at Ryla sleeping on the table. Rachel stepped forward, meaning to offer him some bit of comfort but then he stood and walked from the room.
Rachel and Natalie exchanged a glance.
“He’ll need some time,” Natalie offered and Rachel replied with a nod.
Air that’s been cooped up too long tends to seem heavier than the kind that moves from time to time, and has a tendency to carry an odor. What Reggie found inside that house smelled different in another way. The first breath he took unnerved him and forced his hands to adjust their grip on the rifle they held.
He moved into the empty space of the upstairs, dust hung in the air and drifted through the shafts of light streaming in through the windows. At least there’s nowhere to hide, he told himself as he scanned the room. But then he thought that meant they didn’t need a place to hide and he could feel the edge creeping up on him again as he moved through the house.
Reggie knew, just by looking at the door under the staircase, whatever was beyond it wasn’t going to be good. It was made of thick wood and there was a large metal latch running across it. The latch lifted easily, silently, and the door opened in the same manner. Beyond was a staircase leading down into a dank hole of gloom that smelled of blood, sweat, and the bitter stench of death and fear.
He took the stairs slowly, listening carefully to the silence, ready to react to any change. The stink grew worse the further down he went and when he was at the bottom he saw it. Across the room, near the back wall, lying on the floor at the foot of a large metal table was a small naked body in a puddle of blood. It had been abused to the point where it took him more than a set of ticks to recognize it was Rain.
“Shit,” he groaned to himself as he moved closer to and then squatted down beside her.
Her face was a swollen mass of purple flesh, with cuts above her eyes and a set of splits in her lips from when they’d collided with her teeth. Teeth he could see that were no longer there. Her body had been sliced into over a dozen times and was bruised and pale. He could see the meat of her ribs and the white bits of bone between. There were other wounds on her legs and arms that revealed bone and something in these was moving. He edged closer and saw it was maggots all ready at her in the places where the meat was peeling away like the first cuts of a holiday roast.
He’d heard of this sort of torture. They called it bugging. Tie a person down, cut deep, add stuff the wounds with bugs. Let the victim watch as the creatures slithered through their body and feel them crawling deep under the skin, devouring them slowly. It made the big man tremble.
And then there were the burns, small bits of cooked flesh where someone had jabbed at her with something hot. Whomever did this to her had enjoyed his work and taken his time with it.
Her finger moved, flicking at him and he jerked to his feet and stumbled back a set of steps. A small bit of plastic tumbled to the ground at his feet. He watched it, gaping for a long moment, then looked back at Rain, her broken body and the blood around her. She was still alive? His guts tightened a
nd his heart raced. He stepped to her. When he knelt on the floor and reached a trembling hand toward her arm it jerked, terrified by his touch. She wouldn’t last long, he knew as he watched red spittle gurgle in her mouth. She was trying to say something but had forgotten how. He’d seen this before, in a buddy who’d been hit by a landmine. Even if he raced her to a hospital, even if that basement was a hospital with the best doctors in the world, the best she could hope for was to linger on a while and finally die a few days later.
Reggie looked over at the long thin bit of plastic she’d flicked at him. It was a memory stick. He looked back at her and saw the video camera lying on the floor beside her, a thin square of plastic that was nearly submerged in her blood. That’s why she came down off the table, to collect this, to make sure it was her’s to give to whoever may come.
Reggie reached into his back pocket and retrieved his device. He jammed the memory stick into its port and loaded what was on it. He clicked play and saw it was the basement. Rain was lying in the middle of the room, still clothed and still familiar. Sticklan Stone stepped into the frame, walking from the camera to her. He knelt near her, petting her gently for a moment, whispering something Reggie couldn’t make out. Then he pulled out a knife and cut her out of her clothes. He tore the last bits of fabric from her and caressed her flesh. Anger filled the big man when he saw the sicko probe her with a finger and bring it to his nose before tasting it. That was when he shut it off.
Puzzled, he looked at the girl and pondered why she would want to give him this. The soldier in him answered and he nodded, knowing it was right. She did it because this wasn’t just a psyco’s playtime. This was torture and they would need to know what she told them.
Looking down at the girl, considering the brutality it must have taken to render her this way, it was likely she’d said plenty. He nodded and told her, “Don’t worry yourself on this none precious. I’ll let ‘em know what was said.”
Her hand began to tremble and tap feverishly, splashing slightly in the blood slowly hardening on the concrete around her. Another gurgle came from deep in her throat and red spittle bubbled up through her split lips and the bleeding holes in her gums where her teeth used to be.
Reggie puzzled for a moment then added, “Leone won’t know a bit of it, not the details.” After a moment he added, “I swear we’ll see he’s safe.”
Rain settled against the floor and died a few ticks later.
Reggie lingered beside her for spell before he heard the door slam shut and the clang of the latch falling into place. He peered up toward the top of the stairs and he knew that this was the trap. He looked down at his sheet computer and saw he had no signal down here. His eyes hardened and he began to compose a message anyway. There wouldn’t be much time once they came for him, but he’d have to manage to send what he’d learned to the others as soon as opportunity arose.
There was nothing left to do but wait, so he sat on one of the wooden chairs and did just that. It was a half hour before he heard the vehicles approaching. Reggie sighed deeply, and rose to his feet. This was it. He’d have to regulate their asses, at least long enough to send his message to the others.
Quey didn’t feel good about Reggie going off on his own. He was sitting in the bar on the first floor, at one of the tables, sipping whiskey and listening to some slow jazz. It helped him think—at least that’s what he let himself believe—but still he warned himself not to let it go too far. Last thing he needed to be was swaying at a time like this.
The truth of it was this whole mess was fraying him and though he knew the alcohol wasn’t keeping him together it was making the process bearable. He wasn’t cut out for this, and more importantly he didn’t want it. He wasn’t a soldier. He was a moonshiner at best and a scared little kid who’d lost his parents and was struggling to find a means to survive at worst.
‘I can’t do this,’ he told himself silently.
He wished Dusty was there with him, and for a moment he allowed himself to imagine that he was. ‘What would you do old friend,’ he thought. ‘Make a joke and convince me it was all going to work out,’ he answered for the man who never would again.
That was the thing he envied most about Dusty. He always believed everything was going to work out. Funny thing was he truly never believed he was going to die. Quey had a chuckle at that. “We’ll come out okay,” Dusty had said countless times after Quey voiced some concern about whatever bit of shadiness they were about to pull. “Might get scraped up a bit, but it’ll work out.”
Quey took another drink and he felt his sheet vibrate in his pocket. Pulling it free he looked at the screen and saw he had a new message from Reggie. It puzzled him a bit that the big man would send him an e-mail instead of calling directly but he supposed it didn’t matter. He unfolded the sheet, tapped the message and began to read through it. It took him a tick to realize what it was saying.
Well, I’m out here at the farmhouse and as Dusty used to say, I got my dick in a bit of a lion’s mouth. We were right about it being a trap and now I’m snared. Shouldn’t be long now before this thing comes to an end. I hope you’re reading this because if you are then at least the mission was successful.
I don’t think I’m coming back from this one.
So you know, I found Rain. She was down in the basement. I’ll go ahead and tell you she’s dead, better to rip that bandage off quick I think before we get to the grit of it. She was tortured. I think they set that Sticklan Stone guy on her. Sicko made a video of it but he left it behind. I attached it and I know you don’t want to but you need to watch. You need to know what she told them. I’m not going to lie to you old friend, its fucking brutal. Couldn’t watch it for long myself but I’m sitting in a room with the aftermath and it makes me glad I don’t have to.
Be strong brother. I know you waver when it comes to this stuff, but you shouldn’t. There’s a reason we follow you into lions dens and the bellies of beasts. Believe that, because you have to. For Rachel and Natalie and the kids. For me and Rain and Dusty, do your best to carry this through. As it happens, I find myself here looking back and you know what? It’s been a good run.
Do this right brother. Keep ‘em safe.
Quey felt his chest tighten and his guts churn. The tears wanted to come but there was too much anger blocking their way. Rain was dead, Reggie assured him, and near as well assured him the big man wasn’t coming back himself.
‘I’m nothing,’ Quey thought as he went through the list of the dead. Four from his crew if you counted Railen—and he would. And how many others? How many at Fen Quada? How many at the other towns the brood hit in their pursuit of him? ‘Who am I?’ he pondered, ‘to warrant all these bodies.’
He reached for his glass then smacked it with the palm of his hand. Long after it shattered against the wall he felt the sting on the tender flesh below his fingers.
“Just a fucking moonshiner,” he muttered.
‘I do not want this.’
It swarmed through his head, pawing at him with hands that meant to drag him down into despair. He didn’t let them. Tempting as it may have been, he couldn’t just lie down. Railen had died so as not to slow them down, to give them a chance at escaping Fen Quada. Dusty had fallen in a fight for their lives. Reggie had sacrificed himself to bring them the knowledge of what happened to Rain and what she told them.
Quey looked down at the sheet on the table and saw the attachment.
He wished he hadn’t tossed his glass for a moment. Reggie was right. He needed to suck it up and press forward. He couldn’t let all those bodies be a weight that stopped him.
Quey stood and collected his sheet. He swayed a bit when he first started walking, but how much of that was from booze and how much was from something else he could not say.
The elevator ride to the third floor passed without notice as his mind was elsewhere, lingering on times long gone. The doors opened on the hallway, an elaborately painted tunnel he dreaded to walk down. His feet
moved slowly and as he came to the main room he found what he expected, the remnants of his crew scattered about. Leone and Amber were on the couch while Natalie and Rachel sat at the table talking quietly. When they noticed him they stopped and stared, arrested by the woe that slathered his face.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
Leone and Amber looked over the back of the sofa. Leone…
Quey met his eyes and he did his best to hold fast. Tears shimmered but he gave them no voice and didn’t allow them to fall. His efforts were for naught, as he still gave it away without a word and he watched the boy’s face melt into dread. “I got a message,” his voice was too hollow. There was nothing he could muster to change that, no deep reservoir of strength for him to draw on. He was sapped, so he did the best he could. “It was from Reggie. Leone…” he tried to find a way to begin.
The boy was already shaking his head. Rachel’s hand had moved to her mouth and her eyes began to shimmer as she watched Quey, who seemed fragile as burnt paper standing in the entryway. Natalie swallowed hard and looked at the boy.
“Reggie found her,” he began and when he saw the bit of hope glimmer across the boy’s face he knew they were the wrong words. They would make the ones that followed all the more cruel. “She’s dead,” he blurted.
Natalie was on her feet and to Leone before he had even registered what he’d heard. Quey saw the boy’s eyes glance about and his breathing change as his heart raced and he tried to understand. His eyes flooded with tears and his shoulders heaved. It felt like someone was squeezing his chest. “What? No. What?” the boy managed. This was a dream, his mind tried to convince him. A dream of a different life. He was lost in a different reality and he needed to find his way back to the proper one.
Natalie laid her hands on his shoulders.
The Saffron Malformation Page 68
