Twig

by wildbow

  “Low cook temperature for a stitched,” the surgeon observed. “Rot setting in already. The wires are visible, recently implanted, with no overgrowth. A crude job.”

  He moved a flap of skin. In the lower stomach, an oblong shape was nestled in just beneath the skin, anchored to fat and stomach wall. Stretched thin enough to be translucent, it had veins running along the surface. It had been inflated.

  I saw the scalpel tremble a little as the surgeon pulled it away.

  “Two air-bladders have been discovered. One penetrated by a bullet and explosively emptied when the stitched was incapacitated. The other remains active. The examination will be terminated here, due to observable risks should rot or infestation penetrate this or any other bladders inflated with airborne poisons. ”

  He stepped away, hands raised, scalpel in one, and gave the order, “Close him up. Seal him, wrap and bag him, dispose of him. Treat the body with care.”

  The people he’d given the instructions to didn’t look very happy to be assigned the task. Not just because of the traps, but it smelled worse with every passing second.

  The surgeon went, removed his gloves, washed his hands, donned another pair of gloves, and then turned to the next body.

  “Anything I should know before examining him?” the man asked.

  “He was quick,” I said. “But he wouldn’t be booby trapped. Probably.”

  The surgeon began cutting away the mask of flesh. “Fresh. From one of ours, if I had to guess.”

  “Removed on the battlefield,” I chimed in, mostly to nettle him. “Impressive improvisational skills.”

  “Ahem. Troy? The notes. This is our second patient. Choleric, according to the label at his collarbone. The patients are named after the four humors, presumably. There are subtler signs of the same rewriting of the individual’s pattern, and similar means of grafting, likely from the same time period, suggesting they were worked on in concert. Academy level work, judging by quality. The goal varies, but the methodology matches our prior patient, Phlegmatic. Rictus smile—”

  “Because of changes to musculature and nervous system,” Lillian jumped in. “No occlusion this time, of course. I think if you look at the eyes, you’ll find…”

  The surgeon’s grip on the scalpel tightened.

  ☙

  Gunshots rang out in the distance as we entered the Brigadier’s lodge. The man was there, talking to some of his officers. Jamie, Helen, and Shipman were at the table, Helen bundled up, Jamie with a towel around his shoulders.

  Gordon handed the Brigadier the papers on Phlegmatic and Choleric. I hung back to see the Brigadier’s reaction and hear his response, while Mary and Lillian headed to rejoin the others. Lillian was smiling.

  Something told me that if I hadn’t been there for the autopsy and analysis, Lillian wouldn’t have been a troublemaker. I’d rubbed off on her a little, and the surgeon had suffered for it.

  “Gunshots,” Gordon observed.

  “Another attack from the front,” the Brigadier said. “We’re aware of the possibility that it’s a distraction. Guards are stationed elsewhere. We have eyes on all mineshafts and tunnels.”

  “It’s too quiet,” I observed.

  The Brigadier gave me a curious look.

  “It’s almost timid, isn’t it? No explosions, only bullets. Getting our attention, but nothing more.”

  “And?”

  “It feels like a distraction, rather than a proper attack. A handshake more than a ploy.”

  “The enemy’s shaking our hand? Explain.”

  I shook my head. “We expected an attack to cover another attempt at getting an assassin inside our walls. They’ve answered that expectation. They might as well have a flag unfurled saying ‘distraction’, but that’s a communication of it’s own. That they know what we’re thinking. And because they know, they can meet us halfway.”

  “They’re saying hi,” Gordon said. “To us more than to the Brigadier. They’ve recognized that the style of leadership changed. The ambush, the assassin they tried to get inside didn’t make it and hasn’t given the signal they expected. The way the posts have a different distribution of guards. Something tipped them off.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re acting like this is a game,” the Brigadier said.

  “They have only a peripheral idea of who they’re dealing with. Same goes for us,” I said. “They’re feeling things out.”

  The Brigadier looked at the commanders who he’d been talking to, and indicated for them to leave. He leaned against the front of his desk, arms and ankles folded.

  “Should we expect this to continue?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They’re breaking from pattern, just as we are. It’s hard to say. Can we share this conversation with the others?”

  The Brigadier nodded. While Gordon and I rejoined the others, the man poured himself another drink.

  “Thought exercise,” Gordon said, as we took our seats at the table. “If you were on Whitney’s side, what would you do?”

  “I’m not a fighter,” Lillian said.

  “Give it a shot,” I prodded her.

  I could see her squirm a little, uncomfortable. I’d been nice to her recently, we’d had fun with the surgeon, and she was probably lonely after all of her weeks in the school, separated from most of the rest of us.

  Now I was asking her to do something outside of her comfort zone.

  “Jamie and I were talking earlier tonight,” she said. “Looking at the resources they have, how they might use them. Peralta specializes in pain. If the winds blew differently, or if they found a way to get further up into the hills, a vaporized spray to deploy a toxin could incapacitate us.”

  “We have masks,” the Brigadier said. He’d joined us. Jamie had the papers Gordon had given the Brigadier. “Every post, all of the men have their own individual masks.”

  “There are a lot of vectors,” Shipman said. “If it could be absorbed through the skin…”

  “Or if it obscured sight,” Gordon added. “Or if having to wear the masks played a part in things? Limited vision, mist or smoke, assassins can creep in. It could be the trump card we were worried about.”

  “Could be,” I said. “But I feel as if they’re a little more cohesive than that. This isn’t slapdash. They brought in people and those people are meeting and talking. They’re discussing, making a strategy, and that woman Cynthia is at the top, somehow. I think that their movements will be more in step. Not sending in an assassin without a mask on a city they intend to gas.”

  “The assassin can steal a mask,” Gordon said.

  I made a gesture, indicating my lack of confidence, then remembered the Brigadier wouldn’t be familiar with it. Shipman either, for that matter. “Don’t think so.”

  “Alright,” Gordon said. “Jamie? What do you think is coming? What would you do?”

  “I’d continue to feel out the enemy. Go in with as much information as possible.”

  “Then?” I jumped in.

  “Then attack. Keep the trump card in reserve. You said, uh, Sy said, that their biggest strength right now is how angry the people are. The soldiers are ready to kill because they don’t have any other choice. But that fighting spirit is easily broken. They throw themselves at these walls and gates enough times without a success, they’ll lose that fervor.”

  “At which point they pull out the trump card,” I said.

  Jamie’s voice was soft, “reignite the anger and the passion.”

  “It would have to be something offensive,” Mary said.

  Jamie nodded.

  “Mary, what would you do?”

  Assassins, I thought.

  “Use the assassins,” she said. “They just lost their second.”

  “You think they’ll throw good money after bad?” I asked.

  “They’re people. They have feelings, and they just lost two of their own. Use the mineshafts, use the plague men, two assassins, and fight past any guards. C
haos in our camp, coinciding with another hard attack. Gun for our leadership, behead us.”

  Mary paused, looking at the Brigadier. “Sorry, sir.”

  The man was silent.

  “Helen?” Gordon asked.

  Helen perked up a little. “What Mary said. But no gunning. Poison. Bombs. Traps. Get to the food supply, the meat lockers we use to feed the warbeasts and other experiments.”

  “I kind of like that more, now that I hear it,” Mary said. “The attack from the inside sounds romantic in my head, but in execution…”

  “I agree,” the Brigadier said. “I’m more concerned about subtler attacks than a direct attack aimed at me and my immediate subordinates. We have people stationed as guards. We can maintain that guard, but I have to echo what I said to Sylvester earlier. People can’t maintain that level of focus for too long a time. The mind and the heart won’t have it. Mistakes will be made, people will slack, convince themselves they can.”

  “The condition of being human,” Gordon said.

  “One the enemy has to worry about,” I said. “It’s really the same problem they have with keeping the fires stoked, keeping the people hurt and mad. Which is really very easy, considering the spider thing. And the sterilization. And the leash. But it is a weak point for them.”

  “What are you thinking, Sy?” Gordon asked. “You’re the best to ask, when it comes to this sort of thing, I was saving you for last.”

  “Ah,” I said. “What Jamie said. We can expect another hour or two of harassment. Gunshots, maybe an explosion or two. But all this while, they’re going to be telling people, wait. Wait. Wait. Get some rest. Be prepared. Because the real attack happens later.”

  Gordon nodded. “The first attack was a foray. They forced our hand. But they didn’t commit resources or show their own hand as they did it. A big stitched here, Sy’s rifleman with the eyes, too, but none of the weapons the scientists might have been working on. The second attack, with Choleric and stitched-Phlegm, that was only a small squad. This, right here, it’s a tease, a handshake, according to Sy.”

  “And while they’re holding our hand, and our guard is down, they use their other hand and slap us full across the face,” I said. “The next attack is going to be the decider. We’re gong to find out what the plague men are, and what the scientists have been working on.”

  “We don’t seem to have a consensus,” Gordon said. “But an indirect attack seems—”

  “They’re going to attack head-on,” I said. “Full-force.”

  The Brigadier paced over to the fire, holding his drink. We watched in silence as he paced for a moment.

  He looked like he’d aged years over the course of the evening.

  I wondered how old he really was. It was a hard question to answer sometimes. There were sixty year old women who maintained the appearance of someone a third their age. Brigadier Tylor was the opposite, in a way. Fitting, for someone who existed on the periphery.

  He drew in a deep breath. He already had our full attention. “Sylvester.”

  “Sir.”

  “Your fellows have been talking about all the possible vectors of attack. Including attacks from the flank, using special weapons, and attacks from within. There’s nothing we can do to block up mine shafts.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “You’re anticipating a frontal attack. Why?”

  “Because they have no idea why the prior attack failed. We didn’t leave survivors to go back and report. As far as they know, the side roads are a deathtrap. They default to what they know and understand, and what they know is that the way is clear to the front.”

  “This current attack is a handshake, according to you. They know or assume our current organization was able to figure out their move with Phlegmatic and Choleric. What guarantee is there that they won’t change their plan here, in anticipation of a similar prediction?”

  “Ah,” I said. “That’s a fun question.”

  The Brigadier wasn’t smiling.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s no guarantee. I don’t know her well enough to predict her. But when that woman Cynthia came after Jamie, Helen, and I, and Choleric signaled for her to back off, she was champing at the bit, and only barely restrained herself from coming after us. That’s the person in my mind when I picture them coming for us. A snarling dog in a pretty evening dress with pretty hair. Someone who knows types like Choleric and Phlegm, who arrives in town with the likes of Leopold Pock and Peralta.”

  “She knows the dark underground of the Academies,” Gordon said. “The disenfranchised, the monsters who’ve lurked under the radar and avoided the likes of Dog and Catcher.”

  I nodded.

  “You believe this firmly enough that you’d put the bulk of our defenses at the front doors?” the Brigadier asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Not soon. Keep guards where they are. But I’d say that in about an hour, you’d want to start moving them to the front gate. Skeleton guards on other defenses.”

  The man turned back to the fire, then finished off his glass, which had only been one-quarter full to begin with. He placed the glass on the top of the hutch that held spare firewood.

  “I’ll trust your read on her, but I’ll manage the distribution and logistics myself,” he said.

  “Probably for the best, sir,” I said.

  Didn’t want to lose him now. Hell, he was probably right. He did know better than I did.

  “I’ve already told the others. After they let up this time, we press the attack,” he said.

  An attack against an unknown enemy.

  “We follow them home, right on their heels. We can’t keep playing this game. We don’t have the resources for it, and so long as they have the scientists and doctors, they’ll always have more tricks up their sleeve. We need to squash this.”

  There was silence in response to that, but we nodded as he looked back at us. The man mas serious. There was a bit of fire on our side, now.

  I just wished it was better directed.

  We’d armed him with all the knowledge and perspective we could.

  I was already planning and plotting, not just against our enemy, but trying to work with the man. I doubted he’d budge, and we had to follow him, or find a reason to make him change course.

  “Thank you, for your counsel on the defense,” he said. “Jamie, I understand you have maps? Of Whitney, and the enemy positions therein?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’ll have a look at them, if you please.”

  We need information we don’t have, I thought. On the plague men, on the trump cards.

  We need to survive this incoming attack. We need to guarantee that our attack on them isn’t fruitless.

  What are you thinking, you snarling dog of a woman? Do you see us coming?

  Previous Next

  Esprit de Corpse—5.12

  As organized as Westmore had been at the start of the evening, things were devolving. The warbeasts were out of their cages, and every time they set foot on an area that wasn’t roadway, they left the ground torn up. Those areas soon became cesspits of mud. Stitched were gathered, but there was less rhyme and reason than before. Rank and file in hooded jackets, steaming in the rain, guns in hand. Weapons were being rolled into place, and officers were having to work harder to enforce discipline.

  It was too late in the evening. People wanted sleep, and in the absence of sleep they were smoking or sitting down at their posts—more in the posts off on the side gates and the little buildings that were housing supplies than at the gate and along the streets.

  Gordon, Mary and I chose our route to be unpredictable, weaving and winding, aiming to get a view of the areas where assassins might lurk. Now and then, Gordon would walk off a short distance and kick at a fallen set of planks or a bit of cloth, to identify anything hiding beneath. The three of us had guns in holsters, our coats on, not so dissimilar from the stitched in appearance, though we were almost half the size. I was
less than half the size, myself.

  We passed a set of doors, and Mary did the bending-down, touching the small rigging of sticks and wire under the first door. A motion of her hand indicated that it was fine. We passed to the second door. No issue.

  At the third, she gave the flat-handed gesture for negation.

  I gripped the handle of my gun.

  Gordon snapped his fingers to get Mary’s attention, then gestured at the side of the building. She and I trained our guns on the door while Gordon walked around to the side, found a way to half-climb up the building, and peered into the little window.

  As he dropped to the ground, with only the smallest splash, he drew his own gun, hurrying to join us.

  Meaning there was something to be concerned about.

  I stepped to the side of the door, back to the wall, hand on the knob, other hand holding my revolver. My eyes scanned the short street we were on, looking for trouble. Gordon and Mary were poised.

  I turned the knob. They rushed the room, while I covered their rear.

  Tense seconds passed, with no gunfire.

  “Sy,” Gordon murmured.

  I entered the building.

  A man was slumped on the floor. He was snoring softly. ‘Man’ might have been too generous. Older than fifteen, younger than twenty, with only a ghost of a beard and mustache.

  Mary bent down and picked up the little twist of wire and branch. ‘L’ shaped, not much longer than any of my fingers, it was small enough to go unnoticed, but if a door was opened, the little twist of wire would get moved across the floor. If we couldn’t find it, someone had been inside since the last time we passed through.

  “Rest well, soldier,” Gordon murmured.

  Mary sniffed.

  We shut the door gently behind us. Mary bent down to put the twist of wire back into place.

  “What was that noise you made?” I asked, my voice soft enough it was almost drowned out by the march of boots on the road a street over. Forty or fifty people, probably stitched from the noise they were making.

  “Noise?” Mary asked.

  “After Gordon’s ‘rest well’?”

  “Oh. Doesn’t matter. I kind of wanted to kick him in the ass and yell at him,” Mary said. “That kind of behavior makes me antsy. Knackering off when there’s a battle to be fought.”