by wildbow
“But I’d have the drugs,” I said.
Lillian frowned. “Yes.”
“Any war machine that’s getting weaned off the Academy’s leash-drugs isn’t going to put up much of a fight if I happened to slip into its enclosure. Maybe I could have found someone to reverse engineer the drug. Maybe there could be a filter. Centrifuge thing, if the drug is heavy enough?”
“No, Sy,” Lillian said. “I can’t imagine that working.”
I nodded.
“I didn’t know that you did that,” Mary commented, voice soft.
“I’m not proud of it,” I said.
“It’s very you.”
I nodded.
“You got caught, in the end?”
“I let myself get caught,” I said. “Stayed in Radham, reached my limit, and when Dog and Catcher came sniffing around, I didn’t try to fight them. Stayed put as Catcher came into the building, didn’t budge as Catcher came to cuff me.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I said. “I missed the others. Being with them on the Academy’s terms was better than being without, on mine.”
Mary nodded. It was a reply she understood. The others gave me small smiles or nods of understanding—Gordon, Helen, even Lillian.
Jamie was the only one who didn’t. Who knew that I was telling a half truth. Or, more correctly, I was telling half of the truth.
Yes, I had gone back for the others.
But I had also gone back for my appointments. I had allowed the Academy to poison my brain once again, with my body suffering as a side effect, and I’d done it because I’d missed being sharp.
Two appointments in short succession. It had been so difficult I very nearly hadn’t come back from it.
“Sy,” Gordon said. “Vampire bat plan?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Was this one of multiple plans?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Did you have other plans you intended to use then, which might apply today? Ways to prolong the deadline?”
“Yeah,” I said. “One. But it won’t make us any friends.”
“Share?” Mary asked.
“Simple. We take someone else’s.”
“That depends on there being someone from Radham here, using an experiment,” Gordon said. “Whelps don’t count. They’re weaned.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s a long shot. But it’s a long shot in favor of having another shot at her, while she’s playing games with us.”
“I want to win,” Mary said.
“I’m with Mary on this one,” Gordon said. “It’s a stupid trick, faking us out on the pills, but she’s out-predicted us a few too many times, staying ahead of the Lambs, Hangman and Dog and Catcher. I don’t feel safe calling her on what seems to be a shitty bluff. I’m angry, I want to win and rub it in her face.”
“I agree,” Jamie said. He pushed his oversized glasses up his nose. “But we do this safely. If we have to catch a train tonight to get back in time, then we have until tonight. That’s only a few more hours. We need to find leads on Fray, figure out if there’s a way to get a legitimate source for pills, and watch our backs at the same time.”
“Easy peasy,” I said.
“I’m not so sure,” he said. “But I’d like to give this a shot, at least.”
United in crisis.
We were on more solid footing than we had been.
It made me wonder. If the positions were reversed, me in Fray’s shoes and vice-versa, would I have been able to get a good reading on my adversary? Would I know that the Lambs were fractured and falling apart? That attacking them directly would rally them, while running away for the Nth time threatened to break them?
Fray was an invisible woman. I knew her only by the maneuvers she’d made against us, the cities she chose to flee to, and the way she fled.
Jamie stepped forward. He traced his finger along the edge of the bloody handprint on the wall.
Gordon commented, “She wants us to come after her. This is a trap.”
“So is going home,” I said. “We leave, she probably won’t extend another invitation to us again. Makes me think…”
I trailed off, uncomfortable.
“Think what?” Gordon asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Incomplete thought. I’ll speak up the moment it’s put together in my head.”
Gordon nodded.
“Going by handprint and footprint, I don’t think I’ve seen anything that would fit the size of this guy,” Jamie said.
“Guy?”
Jamie nodded. He pointed at the marks on the floor. Not at blood. The attackers weren’t so messy. But at scuff marks, dust, and spots where dust was mottled. “Man. He had a lot of snow on him. Kicked up, and he’d been standing in the snow. It fell off in clumps, hit the floor, dappled the texture of the dust there. Our assailant. The head, now with a body.”
The finger moved to the floor to one side. “Hard to see now, because Mary walked on it, but I remember it as it was. Young woman. Lightweight. Tall, slender, not heavily dressed. Odd gait. Limp.”
“The stitched woman,” Lillian said.
Jamie nodded.
“No Fray?” Gordon asked.
Jamie shook his head.
Interesting.
She sent her underlings on a mission, but what had she been doing in the meantime?
Why was she staying with us?
“It’s a starting point,” Gordon said. “Now, I’ve really got to visit the little boy’s room. Then we really should get going. We’re working with a clock.”
I liked the looks on people’s faces as they transitioned from being children to being Lambs in their element. Being more anxious, or less. Expressions changing, minds switching gears.
Jamie elbowed me. Then he pointed at the door.
I nodded.
We excused ourselves and stepped outside. My eyes roved over the storybook town, looking to see if I could spy Fray spying on us.
“When you came back, you didn’t do it purely because of us,” Jamie murmured.
I bumped his arm with my shoulder. “It’s weird when you do that. Pick up a thread of conversation that we dropped a while back.”
“Sure,” he said. “You’re dodging the question.”
“Statement, not a question, Mr. Perfect Memory.”
“Implied question, Mr. Tiny Ass.”
I stabbed a finger toward his face. “Careful.”
“You’re still dodging.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “That wasn’t the only reason.”
“You’ve hinted at it before. Do I have to say it, or will you admit it?”
I shrugged, “Same thing.”
“You came back because you wanted to be a Lamb, not a real boy.”
I nodded, not looking at him, but at all of the smoke pouring up from the chimneys of the oddly similar little buildings.
“What if Fray is the same?” Jamie asked.
“She wants to be a Lamb?”
“She wants the excitement. She wants to have a brain that works differently than most, and she wants to test it. She’s been running for so long, she’s getting bored.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t buy it.”
“Serial killers do it. They develop a pattern, based on who they are and how they function. They test the limits, they get away with it, but as humans, we all have a drive to be appreciated and recognized. We need stimulus. I doubt Fray is going to sit down and read a book any more than you are. She’s looking to us to satisfy a desire.”
“No, sorry,” I said. “I respect that you’ve put a lot of thought into it, but…”
“But?”
“No. It’s too convenient. Her, suddenly developing a weakness, right here, when we need her to? The thing with the pills, to throw us off balance?”
“You think it’s a trap.”
“I’d rather go up against her assuming that she didn’t have any weaknesses at all,” I said. “I feel like anything
else would be a mistake.”
Jamie nodded. The snow continued to fall around us. I heard Gordon coming down the stairs.
“Are you saying that,” Jamie said, with a careful sort of deliberation, “because you think Fray is that good? Or are you saying it because you want to think she’s that good.”
“You think I need that stimulus you were just talking about?” I asked.
Jamie shrugged.
I bumped his arm with my shoulder. He returned the favor, hard enough that I lost my footing, going wide off the stairs leading up to the front door and putting my foot into a bush.
I was only just managing to pull my foot free, cursing Jamie, when the others emerged.
All of the Lambs together and ready.
☙
A secondary source of pills disarmed Fray’s ruse. It was something of a priority. We moved as a group, now, holding something of a formation. Jamie’s eyes scanned the crowd, Mary had one flank, Gordon had another, and Helen had the front of the group.
“Post office, three buildings down this street,” Jamie said.
“What’s the approach?” Gordon asked.
“We can do it quick, we can do it pretty, and we can do it careful,” I said. “Pick two.”
“I’d prefer—” Gordon started.
“That was a rhetorical question,” I cut him off.
“You’re a jackass.”
“We do it quick, we do it careful. We don’t want to waste time, and we’re going to watch our backs every step of the way. We’re not making friends today. We’ve already scattered a handful of delinquents around the town, and the only pretty way to get the pills we need is to go home. I don’t think any of us want to go home, do we?”
There were a few grumbles and murmurs of agreement.
“I want to go home,” Lillian said.
“Too bad,” I said, before her mouth was closed. “Helen takes point on this one. She’s pretty enough to make up for what we’re lacking.”
“Oh yay!” Helen said. “And thank you!”
“Mary, get the back door. Gordon, cover any bystanders, watch the front door. Jamie, I think there was a window.”
“There was.”
“Watch for bystanders. Keep an eye on the crowd. Fray is going to want to watch what our next moves are, so soon after the little stunt she pulled.”
“And me?” Lillian asked.
“If we need your help, something’s gone horribly wrong,” I said.
I saw movement in one of the alleyways. Whelps. Three. All larger than the runt I’d said hi to.
They were, as a weapon, a singular entity. They weren’t joined by the brain or anything like that, but they were cloned, making them functionally identical, differing only in minor ways as their environment and exposure to food allowed. One whelp alone could divide into two. Left alone, they would stalk their prey from a distance, eat things that didn’t smell of human, including foodstuffs recently handled by humans, multiply, and then when they had built up sufficient numbers, they would attack en masse. Those beaks would cut into flesh and flense it from bone. Ten whelps could devour a man in less than a minute.
They had her scent, our delinquents had the exits covered. By all rights, our quarry should have been cornered and under pressure. I fully expected her to take down the delinquents with her…
“Oh guys,” I said, interrupting my own train of thought.
“What?” Jamie asked.
“Headsman? For the head, now with body.”
“Ehhh,” Gordon said.
“It’s great!”
“Ehhhh,” he said, again.
“You lack taste,” I told him.
I picked up my own train of thought before it ran away from me. Fray most definitely had the tools to take down any of the delinquents we’d put in her way. My only hope was that there would be enough of a mess or commotion to clue us in to what she was doing.
Many of those delinquents had pets and creations of their own, after all. It wasn’t likely to be tidy when she disposed of them.
We approached the post office.
“Mail would have come in with the train,” Jamie observed. “Not all of it would have been picked up. I can’t think of a better, faster way to check what we need to check.”
“Will you give me a boost, Mary?” Helen asked.
“Now? Where?”
“In a few seconds, silly,” Helen said. “Inside.”
“Um,” Mary said.
“Play along,” I encouraged her.
Gordon was taking long strides forward to beat us to the door. Ever the gentleman, he held it for the ladies as they stepped inside first.
The building was empty. Fortuitous.
“Ah, hello again,” the postman said. “Little lady.”
“Hello!” Helen greeted him. She gestured at Mary, who connected the dots just in time for Helen. She offered two hands, fingers interlaced. Helen stepped up onto the hands, then onto the counter of the post office.
“Excuse me!” the postman said, looking alarmed.
Helen simply strode forward, hooked an arm around his neck, swinging around behind him, and wrapped her legs around his arms, pinning them to his sides.
He struggled, and he was a big fellow, almost capable of freeing himself, but her grip on his neck tightened. He backed up, slamming her against the wall and shelf behind them, but she simply redoubled her attack.
Mary and I both hopped over the counter, Mary’s skirt swishing around stockinged legs. Gordon was locking the door, pulling down the blind above the glass pane, while Jamie stood by the window, peering out. Mary went to the back door, locking it, while I started looking.
Behind the desk was a grid of mail slots, with mail stacked within each square subsection. Mary joined me in rifling through the mail.
“Here,” Mary said, holding up an envelope.
“Yeah,” I said. Three envelopes addressed to one person, each sent from ‘Radham Academy’. I continued looking.
Helen looked through the packages under the desk. Her search was shorter than ours. Lillian was only just reaching the postman, checking he was only passed out and not actually dead.
We weren’t complete monsters.
“No packages from Radham,” Helen said, standing straight.
“Another two envelopes here,” I said, holding them up. Helen snatched them, freeing my hand for more looking.
“One more,” Mary said. “And…”
I saw her move over to look at more slots.
“I already checked that column of slots,” I said.
“Then I’m done.”
“And,” I checked the last two boxes, flipping through envelopes. “So am I. That makes four people who are in Kensford, with ties to Radham. Anyone want to take bets on them having something?”
“No,” Gordon said. “Don’t want to take that bet. But it’s a chance.”
Jamie held out his hand as we rounded the corner. We handed over the envelopes.
Gordon opened the door, and we let ourselves out.
Quick, careful.
I saw Jamie’s slight frown as he watched over the crowd. He hadn’t seen anything yet, or he would have spoken up.
Fray was watching. Now she knew we weren’t running. Not yet, anyway.
☙
“No,” the man at the door said.
“Because we were told there was a brilliant researcher from Radham here,” Helen said, practically effervescent in attitude. “We were so hoping to see his work.”
“That would not be me,” the man said.
“Would you know who it was? We’re so short on time!”
“It’s not me, I don’t know who it would be, and you’re annoying,” he said.
The door slammed.
Helen turned around very slowly, almost dazed.
She hissed.
I gave her a very careful pat on the shoulder, from maximum arm’s length. “You’re not annoying, Helen.”
She made a sma
ll, noncommittal sound.
“That’s three down. One to go,” Gordon said. “If this falls through, we need a new idea, or we need to plan to catch the next train out of here.”
Mary spat by the side of the road. I was pretty sure I saw a bystander further down the street look horrified at the action.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Jamie,” Gordon said. “Which way to the next place?”
Jamie had his back to us. His attention was to the far side of the street.
“Jamie,” Gordon said. “Which way?”
“Shh,” I said, raising a hand.
There was a long pause. Jamie didn’t move.
I felt a pang of worry.
“Jamie,” I said, my voice soft. “What are you seeing?”
“She’s changed clothes three times,” he said. “The hair changed once. The face stays the same.”
“Fray?” Mary asked.
He shook his head.
“The stitched,” I guessed.
He nodded, pointing a finger. “She disappeared a second ago, heading east. I was trying to see her through the crowd. Blue dress, black jacket and shaw—”
I was already moving. Mary was a step behind me, and Gordon a step behind her.
We ran, and I didn’t slow a fraction as I hurled myself at the thicker part of the crowd. I turned my body sideways, I ducked low, I pushed.
She had a headstart, but she was lame.
I was spry, and I was small.
The chaos of the crowd was my medium.
Gordon and Mary were just behind me. Gordon was bigger but stronger. Mary was between us, but she had a natural grace.
I pulled ahead of the two, all the same. A part of me wondered if I wanted it more, and pushed myself harder because of it.
Considering how badly Mary wanted it, that said a lot.
“Sy!” Gordon called out. “Don’t get too far ahead! We watch each other’s backs!”
I didn’t have the breath to spare to respond.
This might be our one chance, ever.
I saw the crowd, I watched their movements, faced the choice of an alleyway or main street.
A curious, confused glance from a bystander suggested that something in the alleyway had caught his attention.
I took the cue.
I thought of the whelps and how they had died.
I knew I could be running headlong into a trap.
But I also knew, much in the same way I knew Jamie had been wrong about Fray’s motivations, that it wasn’t something Fray seemed inclined to do.
