Twig

by wildbow

  “Hit?”

  “Thigh,” she said. She sounded oddly detached from things. No joking, no follow up comments. Like a stitched might sound.

  My mind was switching gears, thinking about the social dynamics, the challenge of dealing with a crowd of people with guns, now at high alert, convincing them to give us the man in the carriage.

  It was complicated because a part of me was stuck interpreting Mary, trying to read her. She was stuck in my head, for the time being, persistently, stubbornly occupying a portion of the mental real-estate.

  “We should go, before he gets away,” I said.

  The group of soldiers was busy trying to get a wounded, angry monster under control, simultaneously trying to locate the threat.

  Some were pointing at us. They had weapons in hand. Rifles.

  Reluctantly, my legs protesting, still a bit short of breath, I stood up. I was careful to move slower to avoid posing any threat.

  I sheathed my knife in my belt, slid down the roof, searching below for any sign of the red-haired woman before I let myself fall. I dropped down to the street, raising my hands the moment I was able. Mary was the next down, and I lowered my hands enough to help catch Jamie as he dropped down, before passing him his bag with the book. We walked as fast as we were able, hands raised.

  The soldiers weren’t pointing the guns at us, at least.

  The carriage was still there. Once we were in earshot, I’d have to give them a warning. Make something up? I could tell them a portion of the truth, show them my badge. If it didn’t convince them to arrest the man, it could make them keep the man, his carriage and us in custody until a higher-up could arrive.

  With that arrival, we’d have answers.

  But things couldn’t be that simple.

  The red-haired woman stepped out of a space between buildings, eyes fixed on us. She stopped, back to the men with the rifles, her full attention on us.

  Her eyes looked feral. She was curved and flawless in a way that made me think she was crafted rather than born. With her hood down, her hair was getting wet. She’d cast off her coat with the hood at some point, no longer wearing it.

  Definitely not a proper human being, yet something about her seemed familiar.

  Blocking our way.

  “Who are you?” I tried again.

  No answer. She backed away a step, then another, eyes still fixed on us.

  “Wound?” Mary asked, from beside me.

  I signaled with a gesture rather than speak.

  Mary threw out an arm. A knife soared through the air, straight as an arrow, aimed at the heart. The knife’s target stepped to one side, pulling one shoulder back and away to let the knife fly past her. It hit the road a distance in front of the men with the rifles, skittering, spinning, before coming to a stop.

  They recognized it, and one shouted, “Hey! You!”

  Mary tried again, not caring about the rifles.

  Another dodge, to the point that it looked easy.

  Enhanced reflexes?

  This ghost was untouchable, it seemed.

  We were drawing closer, though. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Twenty feet away, then sixteen, then twelve—the red-haired woman was retreating without running. She was a short distance from the men with rifles, enough that Mary was reluctant to throw.

  “Behind us,” Jamie said.

  I half-turned to look.

  Not just fast, but strong.

  The Easterner was directly behind us, approaching at a brisk walk. She had a small child in her arms. A grubby child, no older than six, or perhaps a malnourished eight, a girl. The girl was unconscious or dead. Again, the woman wasn’t wearing her lab coat. Only a simple black dress.

  And way, way, down the street, almost beyond my ability to make them out, I could see the others, giving chase, trying to catch up.

  Turning my attention forward, I could see the man at the carriage, turning to stare at us, his expression flat. He had longer hair and a widow’s peak, his beard cut so there was no hair on his cheeks, round specs on his nose, and a doctor’s lab coat draped over him.

  He was pulling ahead, moving. He’d been given permission to go.

  “Hold!” I called out to the riflemen. “That carriage!”

  The red-haired woman bolted, turning a hard right and sprinting for an alleyway.

  I twisted to look, saw the Eastern woman doing the same. They’d moved in the same instant, and she moved just as fast with her burden in her arms.

  We moved to give chase, Mary drawing her knife—

  —and stopped altogether as one of the men at the waypoint fired their gun. Aiming it into the air.

  We came to rest, watching as the ghosts disappeared from view, the carriage moving further down the street, beyond our reach.

  “The carriage—” I started, raising my voice.

  Another rifle shot.

  I scowled, falling silent.

  The men with guns approached, and we waited patiently as they drew near, hands raised.

  One day, we’re going to invent a better brain. Then we’re going to put that superior brain in everyone’s heads, and stupid things like this aren’t going to happen, I thought.

  I considered it for a moment, then amended the thought to add, as much.

  Bayonet blades and rifle-nozzles prodded us as they drew close.

  “Don’t suppose you could send someone after that carriage?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” a soldier said.

  “Or tell us who was in the carriage?”

  “Shut up!” he said.

  I sighed.

  We were searched, and Mary relieved of the blades they could find. When they realized they had to reach under her clothes to get at her knives, they opted to bind her hands behind her back instead. They did the same for me, rough, and were working on Jamie when Gordon’s group caught up with us.

  “It’s okay!” Gordon called out. He had his badge out and was holding it up.

  They’d already found mine in the pocket of my shorts while patting me down. It was sort of irritating that they actually gave Gordon’s a proper look.

  “Hunting enemies of the Crown,” Gordon said. “You can reach out to Professor Hayle at the Tower if you need to confirm our identities.”

  “You attacked us,” the soldier said.

  Gordon gave me a look.

  “We had to stop the carriage at all costs,” I said. “All costs.”

  “And my aim is good enough that I wasn’t going to hit anyone important,” Mary said.

  “Uh huh,” the soldier said, in a way that suggested Mary’s statement hadn’t helped our case.

  All of us were panting, except for Helen, and all of us were sweaty and dirty. My hands were bleeding in places from the scrabbling, violent climbing and running on rooftops. I had a skinned knee. Jamie and Mary weren’t much better off.

  “The carriage,” I said. “Who did they tell you they were?”

  “We didn’t question him,” the man said.

  “Isn’t that your job? To question and search?” Gordon asked.

  A little too accusatory. It didn’t go over well with the soldier. Tensions and frustrations were already high between our two groups.

  “Shift change. We got updates and debrief on recent goings-on from the last shift, which pretty much is jack shit all and gossip. Last shift processed the carriage. It looked like he had papers.”

  I panted, eyes roving aimlessly, searching for clues or cues that I could use to formulate a better question, squeeze an answer out of the soldier.

  “Have you seen the cart before?” I asked.

  “In passing,” he said.

  I could have stabbed him for being so unhelpful.

  “The women,” Jamie said, voice soft. “The red-haired one and the Japanese woman with the child? Have you seen them before?”

  “Sure,” the man said.

  “Sure?” I asked. “Could you be more specific?”

  “I wouldn’t br
ook that tone,” he said, now hostile. “I’m not sure I trust any of you, yet.”

  “Please,” Helen said, stepping forward. “Children might be dying. Friends of ours.”

  Helen knew how to provoke reactions, to play the social game or change the tenor of the conversation. She put the soldier on his back foot with one deft verbal thrust and a little bit of emotion injected into her words.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” the man said, “And I don’t like not knowing what’s going on, considering it’s a part of my duties here. Perhaps you should have your turn at doing some explaining.”

  I felt the urge to stab him again.

  “Someone may be posing as a member of the Academy, using experiments to find and kidnap children from the shims,” Gordon said. “The man in that carriage is one. The two women you saw are two more. There’s also a blonde woman. They’re attractive enough to draw attention. Surely you’ve noticed them before?”

  “From a distance,” the soldier said, relenting a little. “Usually during night shifts.”

  Gordon pressed, “And the carriage? When you say you see it in passing, does that mean it usually passes through just before your shift begins?”

  “I suppose,” the soldier said.

  “Does the time you start your shift change, or is it set?”

  “It changes. You’re implying some conspiracy here?”

  Gordon nodded. “If they have a pattern of passing through when you’re busy and preoccupied, that says they know a dangerous amount of how the Academy and our military is operating.”

  Now we had the soldier’s attention.

  And now that we had it, my attention was on the people in the background. The captain’s subordinates.

  They looked uncomfortable.

  “Speak up,” I cut in.

  The captain gave me an offended look, shifting to a hostile state in a flash.

  “You,” I said, pointing at one man in the crowd. “Say what you’re thinking.”

  “Excuse me?” the captain asked, on behalf of his soldier.

  “I’m not thinking anything,” the man said.

  “Your eyes slid to one side as you said that,” I said. “That’s a sign of evasiveness. You’re lying.”

  An utter lie. His eyes hadn’t moved at all. But now he was thinking about his eyes and not his words. More pressure, on top of the attention of his captain and the rest of the squad.

  “Your buddies here are looking at you, your captain is looking, you know something and you’re not saying it,” I said. “Why?”

  “I’m not thinking anything,” he said, with even less sincerity than before.

  “Your gaze moved again,” I said.

  “It didn’t!”

  “James,” the captain said. “What’s this about?”

  “It’s not—it’s…”

  “Do we need to go to the barracks and bring others into this?” the captain asked. Now he was on my side.

  “I—no. No sir. It’s just… the women.”

  “What about the women?”

  “I’ve seen them before.”

  “Did they have kids with them?” Jamie asked.

  “Sure, but that’s not so strange, is it? Given that it’s the shims? Even when women work?”

  “Work? You mean prostitutes?” Gordon cut in.

  The man startled.

  “Yeah,” Gordon said. “That almost makes sense.”

  The captain gave him a curious look.

  “They’re weapons. Evasive ones. They’re aware of their surroundings to the point that they can avoid trouble and isolate targets, they pass as either employees of the Academy or as prostitutes, to slip past our defenses, whichever works. Individuals you don’t question, ones that can distract, or ones that you’re afraid to pay too much attention to, depending on who your commanding officer is. Probably different identities for different checkpoints and situations. Chameleons.”

  The captain’s look hardened into one of grave concern.

  “I think you should notify people further up the chain,” Gordon said. “Because this is as serious as it gets. If they’re capable of doing this, they’re capable of worse, and with a war going on, they might not just have three. Or they might have these in cities other than Radham.”

  “Stay,” the captain ordered. Then, as an afterthought, he ordered his men, “Watch them.”

  We watched as the man broke into a run, heading to the nearest phone or superior officer.

  “I’m exhausted,” Jamie said.

  There were a few nods. Lillian was among them.

  “It’s rare for me to have a feeling and be unable to pin it down,” Jamie said. “But does this methodology feel familiar to anyone else?”

  My eyes went straight to Mary. She had a dark look in her eyes. Before I could speak, she did.

  “Yes,” was all she said.

  Previous Next

  Lamb to the Slaughter—6.5

  “The man driving the carriage was Mr. Percy,” Mary said. “Not exactly him, the hair was a little different, but I recognized him.”

  “Appearances can be easily changed,” Hayle mused. “If anyone would recognize him, it would be you.”

  “Yes, professor,” Mary said.

  The Lambs were assembled in Hayle’s office. We were lined up in front of his desk, while the old man sat, arms folded in front of him. His hair was shorter than it usually was, more neat, and his lab coat was immaculate, without wrinkle or speck.

  The Duke’s presence reached even this far, from Claret Hall.

  Hayle glanced at me, then back to Mary. “Mary. Not to put too fine a point on things, but Sylvester reported to me at the time of your recruitment that you have a command phrase. If he utters it, you might be a liability?”

  A dark look passed over Mary’s expression, not that she’d been bubbles and sunshine a moment before. “Yes sir.”

  “Perhaps it would be best to keep you away from this altogether,” he said. “You’re collectively overdue for your appointments, which have been sporadic at best while you’ve been away, and I know there are places where we could make use of you, once those are done.”

  I wasn’t Hayle’s friend, I didn’t even necessarily like him, but I respected the man. In this, right here, he was proving he had the right to that respect. I’d communicated the situation to him, I’d asked him to take Mary on as one of the Lambs, and he’d agreed, after a long evaluation period and some research.

  I’d told him the truth. That Percy had escaped, leaving a note for Mary. Where she’d been led to think it was a command phrase to turn her into a reckless killing machine, with me doing some of the leading, it had been a genuine goodbye, meant to express to her how fond he was of her. The command phrase hadn’t existed.

  Now the man was back in the picture. He now knew, presumably, that she was counted among the Lambs. If those feelings still held true then the man posed more problems than his penchant for cloning alone.

  Hayle knew, and he was steering us away.

  “There are stirrings of a cult in the Capitol. If we—”

  “No,” Mary said.

  Hayle raised his eyebrows. “Beg pardon?”

  “I want to see this through. Please. I have to.”

  Again, he glanced at me.

  I wished he wouldn’t do that.

  I parted my lips to speak.

  “Why, Mary?” Gordon asked, before the sound had left my mouth.

  No, don’t give her a chance to justify her position!

  “Because he made me. He can unmake me, if we let him. I can’t let someone else handle this and know that if he gets away, I’ll have that hanging over my head forever. We know now that they’re slippery. These women are his new clones, with the same idea as before. Except… less intimate. Unless there’s a trick we haven’t caught on to, the only way we’re going to catch them is if we bait them.”

  “Believe it or not,” Hayle said, “the Academy has invested a lot in this proj
ect over the years. Time, effort, energy, mine above all. I would rather not have it go to waste by sending Lambs in as bait against a threat we do not totally understand.”

  “We understand!” Mary said. “That’s what we do. You’ve sent us in against worse, with frequency. We assess threats, then we devise solutions. How is this different?”

  Well. That was a problem. Mary was emotional about this.

  I had a horrible sinking feeling in my gut. Things had shifted to the point where, no matter what path we took, there was either a general sort of awful or a risk of a worse sort of awful. Hurt feelings and confusion, or danger of white lies being exposed.

  “Dog and Catcher can track them down.”

  “I’m not disagreeing,” Gordon said. “But Dog and Catcher just came back from the field. This is their time to rest. They’ll be fatigued, hurt, distracted, they’re not approaching this fresh.”

  “It’s your time to rest,” Hayle said.

  Gordon shook his head, “It’s been a while. We’ve rested. We’re raring to go. You can’t deny that this is important. This is big, if our instincts are right. I agree with Mary. I don’t share her reasons, but we can do this. We should.”

  “It is important. That’s why that I don’t want a possible liability in the field,” Hayle said.

  Mary tensed, flinching as if she’d been hit. Hayle noticed.

  More gently, he said, “I respect the work you do, Mary. It took some convincing on Sylvester’s part for me to bring you on board. That you’ve worked out as well as you have has been to your credit and Sylvester’s. I’ve never been quite so glad to have my doubts banished as they were on this.”

  “Thank you,” Mary said, relaxing a bit.

  I reached out for her hand, to hold it. She pulled away as if I’d stung her. She clasped her hands in front of her instead.

  Huh?

  Hayle continued, oblivious, “That said, there’s a danger, I want to keep you with us, and that means treating this situation with care. If we acknowledge that the Lambs are the best way to handle the task, we might need to compromise. I want you to sit this one out.”

  Good.

  “No,” she said, not an eye’s blink after he’d finished speaking.

  Glancing at her, I could see her expression. Stricken. Scared?

  This was Mary laid bare. Defenses stripped away.