Twig

by wildbow

  “I do have a plan,” Fray said. “It achieves very similar ends, but without the need for me to target and convince however many soldiers, officers, and major figures I would need to organize a true mutiny.”

  “Fantastic,” I said. “But you made a miscalculation, you’ve lost Cynthia’s help. You’re worried, because what you did have planned doesn’t necessarily work that well without her.”

  “We’ll manage,” she said. “The real question is if you’re coming with us. It doesn’t have to be permanent. Follow along, I’ll give you the books, and we can have a more in-depth conversation in the aftermath of Brechwell’s fall.”

  I didn’t respond. My mind was taking in new information, ticking over possibilities.

  “I think that would be dangerous,” Mary said. “If we came with you, how much would it delay our return to the Academy? Would we be assumed to be one of the turncoat special projects?”

  “That’s for you to decide,” Fray said. She stood straighter. “I suppose you’ll have to make do. Decide what you will, I need to focus on the matter at hand.”

  Not a mutiny, but similar in execution. What’s she planning?

  “Wait,” Mary said.

  Fray had started to walk away, Warren, Avis and the stitched girl following. She paused.

  “I said it was dangerous, I didn’t say no. If the other Lambs agree, maybe I could propose a deal.”

  “Time is short,” Fray said. “What deal?”

  “We’ll come with you, hear you out, have a serious discussion with no time limit, but…” Mary dropped her voice, “Percy dies.”

  My breath caught in my throat. I almost sputtered.

  I wasn’t the only Lamb reacting with shock. All eyes were on Mary.

  “And,” Mary continued, meeting Lillian’s eyes, “You promise to excise all portions of your work that deal with the biology of children. The ratios, the specific formulas, growth charts, scales, proportions…”

  “All of it,” Fray said. “A concrete loss of both an ally and resources, a loss in time to ensure the books are properly edited, in exchange for a discussion where there is no guarantee I’d be able to convince you all? What makes you think I’d accept?”

  Mary opened her mouth to speak, paused, and glanced at me.

  “Sylvester briefed you on me,” Fray concluded. “I see. I want to ask why you want me to kill your creator, but there’s no time. I’ll take your proposal under consideration. Excuse me.”

  Like that, she was gone.

  I blinked a few times.

  “Sylvester is a bad influence on you,” Gordon commented.

  “Probably,” Mary said. “Sorry, to throw that out there, but—”

  “You need to cut ties formally,” Gordon guessed.

  Mary nodded.

  Lillian walked past me, reaching out to give Mary a little hug, before taking Mary’s hand.

  “She’s actually considering it,” I said. “Percy is a known element, he’s one-note, only effective right now because of the ability to incorporate the work of others.”

  “You said she wanted to convince others,” Mary said. “I thought we could offer her a way to convince us.”

  “It was smart,” I said. “You hit the mark.”

  But Percy isn’t as guilty as you think he is. By letting you sign a deal paid for in his blood, I can never tell you the whole truth. You’d never forgive me.

  Well, eventually, she might, but a theoretical five-year grudge was a long time in respect to our short lifespans.

  Something to worry about later.

  “I was surprised you seemed to drop out of that conversation,” Gordon observed. He was watching the people on the other side of the room, who were watching us while they talked with Fray.

  “Me?” I asked.

  “You.”

  “Thinking,” I said. “Trying to decipher what she said.

  “Do tell. Thinking aloud is a good thing.”

  “Not a mutiny, but similar. She said she couldn’t convince that many people.”

  “Yes,” Gordon said.

  “Okay. Turn that around. What’s the bare minimum she needs, in order to turn the tide of the battle?”

  “Bare minimum?” Mary asked. “Five hundred people? Once they start shooting, they don’t know who is friendly and who isn’t, it throws everything into disarray.”

  “Fewer,” I said. “Fewer. Didn’t one person just risk derailing this entire thing Fray was trying to accomplish? Cynthia walked away. She’s waiting to execute her own plan. Fray doesn’t know what to expect. What if… what if Fray only talked to two or three people? And the secret experiments, but…”

  I trailed off, thinking. Experiments. Why? They’re the ones who provide information, they execute critical missions, they wipe out stragglers…

  I was staring off into space the same way Fray had been, sitting a matter of feet from where she’d been standing, and smiled at the realization. The difference between her situation and mine, however, was that I was asking a question which had a very real answer. Fray had had to invent an answer.

  “Commanding officers?” Gordon asked. “They’re the only people here with enough clout.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. But if you give orders and the people you’re ordering balk, then you lose that clout. You need to convince them…”

  Weapons of rhetoric. How to make people act the way they wouldn’t normally? Rage? Easy but not applicable here. Revulsion? Took time to sell a seeming ally as truly repulsive and deserving of acts beyond the pale. Terror? No, not quite, and I couldn’t imagine a way of creating that sort of effect. Grief? Mauer had tried it, using the deaths of children to turn the people of Radham against the Academy.

  More complex emotions, then. Outrage, cornered-rat feeling, horror, empathy, desperation, devastation, disappointment…

  …Betrayal.

  I looked up, meeting Gordon’s eyes.

  Betrayal, panic. Hadn’t I just been thinking recently about how I kept going back to fire and destruction?

  “You have an idea,” Gordon said.

  I watched Avis leave the room. Ready to give the signal.

  I would’ve liked to follow behind and interrupt Avis before she could follow through, just to see the look on Fray’s face, but it would have been too obvious.

  All of the tension in the Academy’s ranks, it was building up to a crescendo. The people on the wall, guns in hand, cold, waiting for a battle to start, they were coiled like snakes, ready to strike.

  Their eyes faced forward, but when the attack came from the sides, from allied ranks, it would be pandemonium.

  “Just the commanding officers and sufficient chaos, so the rank and file look to the leader,” I said, my voice low. “And all you need to convince the commanding officers is to assure them that the blame can be pointed at the man who is nominally in charge.”

  “Who everyone hates,” Gordon said. “How do you create sufficient chaos?”

  “Without Dog and Catcher—” I started.

  Fray cut me off, from the other end of the room. “Lambs.”

  We turned our full attention to her.

  “I’m trying to convince these men that you’re trustworthy enough to have behind us,” Fray said. “It’s a hard argument to make when I’m not sure myself.”

  “Percy convinced me to hold back and treat you gently,” Mauer said. “Hearing your response to him, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just have my soldiers shoot you.”

  Some of the men shifted their grips on their guns.

  I could see the look on Percy’s face. The man looked troubled.

  “He doesn’t seem convinced.”

  “Sometimes we have to sacrifice a friendship in the name of being a true friend,” Mauer said.

  Percy scowled.

  “This would be easier if you agreed to come,” Fray said.

  “And our deal?” Mary asked.

  “If you’d rather remain here and try to convince the Academy you were
acting in their interest and not mine, feel free,” Fray said. “Otherwise, I might leave this up to the Reverend Mauer. No deal.”

  “I’m not a Reverend any more.”

  That is a problem, I mused. If there was treachery afoot, and if any experiments did find themselves in question, people would wonder about us. We were badly situated for that.

  She was genuinely nervous, now, and it came through in how ruthlessly she was throwing her weight around to remove uncertainties. Fray was a perfectionist, she overthought her plans and covered every base, until she was capable of managing any crisis that came up. But when two came up at the same time, the loose ends of the Lambs and the issue of Cynthia acting on her own, then she couldn’t be sure she had an escape route or sufficient distraction to escape. Too many angles to watch.

  That wouldn’t do, not for her.

  No, for this to be a true success, she needed to walk through a battlefield and disappear. That could only happen if she had a measure of control over every side present.

  “What do you think?” Gordon murmured.

  “Option one is to reassure her that the Lambs aren’t a threat. Join her, give up power and the little advantage we hold,” I said.

  “Option two?” Mary asked me.

  “We make her more unsure,” I said. “I like option two more.”

  “How?” Gordon asked.

  “Last chance,” Fray declared. “Come with us, or—”

  “There’s a problem with that,” I said.

  “I thought you’d say, not demonstrate,” Gordon hissed in my ear.

  Fray spoke, “Mauer, you can tell your men—”

  “We disarmed one of the bombs,” I said.

  She stopped.

  I saw her eyes fix onto a point in space, as she turned over the possibilities in her mind.

  She didn’t detonate every bomb in the city when she paved the way for the Brechwell Beast.

  She had the experiments patrolling the city at night, perfect for setting up more bombs. Explosions in friendly ranks, from bombs placed in the tops of attics like the one we entered, detonating through the rooftops, multiple commanders shouting that it’s friendly mortar fire, maybe even shouting about fire from once-friendly teams, the insecurity of new teams joining, unfamiliar faces, and the intelligence gathering bodies turning tail and giving false info or helping Fray navigate her way through, while all the smoke and debris blocks the view of the street…

  Pandemonium. The man at the top gets blamed for not having control of an uncontrollable situation.

  Fray looked up, meeting my eyes.

  Searching for the lie.

  But if one bomb doesn’t explode, she can’t predict the situation. The tide of the fight can’t be predicted. One side could be free to open fire on you.

  “Warren,” she said. “Find Avis. Stop her from giving the signal. Run.”

  Warren charged out of the room. The man with the cat warbeast leaned close to Fray, and got one word out before she indicated for him to go too. He and his cat fled the room.

  “Mauer,” Fray said. Her eyes didn’t leave me. “If he doesn’t say which bomb the Lambs disarmed—”

  “You’re going to have to come to us for a way out,” I said.

  I could see her thinking her way through the options.

  She didn’t get a chance to finish her train of thought.

  Nearby explosions rocked the building. Guns fired. I could see the concern on the faces of the others.

  Had Avis given the signal already?

  “That would be Cynthia, charging for freedom,” Fray said.

  Then, one by one, other explosions sounded. I could hear the tumble and crumble of falling masonry. Shouts, gunfire, distant but so unanimous that it had to be the forces arranged at the perimeter.

  “That would be your bombs,” Gordon observed, dryly.

  I cleared my throat. “Now, please, give me the damn books, Miss Fray.”

  Previous Next

  Tooth and Nail—7.15

  Mauer drew his gun. He aimed it at Lillian’s head. Just beside me, Lillian went rigid.

  “Let’s talk,” the man said.

  “Oh man,” I said. “I’ve really been looking forward to having a conversation with you.”

  “Focus,” Mauer and Gordon said, at the same time. Lillian’s whisper-quiet “Please” sounded a moment later.

  “He’s posturing,” I said.

  Mauer fired. The bullet struck hard against the wall just above Lillian’s head. She yelped.

  “Posturing with good aim,” I said.

  “Don’t tempt me,” Mauer said, his voice controlled, sounding for all the world like we were talking over tea. “Let’s focus on the matter at hand. We may need to compromise.”

  “Typically,” Gordon said, his voice dry, “A compromise involves both sides getting something, just enough that both walk away unhappy. It’s not one side threatening to take something away. You’re looking for a different word.”

  “Negotiate, then,” Mauer said.

  Gordon spread his hands. “I assume you’re threatening to pick off the Lambs one by one until the survivors agree to lead you to safety.”

  “Seems reasonable to me,” Mauer said. “Counteroffer?”

  “It won’t work,” Gordon said. “You heard us talking to Percy. If you shoot one of us, every last one of us will stare you down while you empty that gun in the rest, one by one.”

  Gordon reached up to fix his hair. He didn’t signal until his hand was at his side again. Scatter.

  We weren’t going to stand still if it came down to it. If they killed one of us, the rest of us would make a break for it, and we’d make their lives hell until the attacking forces wiped us all out.

  “Lillian won’t stand there and take it,” I pointed out. “The one you’re aiming at. She’ll freak, if she isn’t already dead.”

  Lillian shot me a horrified look.

  “Except Lillian,” Gordon agreed. “But she doesn’t have the know-how to get you out of this. She’s a supporting role. Trust me, Mauer, the only power you have in holding a gun to her head is the power to end us and end the lives of everyone else in the room by proxy.”

  Mauer didn’t waver.

  Something hit the side of the building, exploding. Not close to the windows we were near, but enough that it made everyone in the room flinch. Mauer retained his composure and balance enough that his aim didn’t falter.

  The smoke that billowed from the explosion obscured the rays of light that had been filtering out over the tops of the tables at the windows. The room dimmed.

  “He’s right,” Fray said. “We gain nothing and lose time by trying this. We have to act, now.”

  Mauer didn’t lower the gun. “Give them the books and have them lead us to safety, then. You’ve had your shot, you made promises, and those promises have been broken. If you want to contact me about moving forward with some specific elements of the plan you’ve been proposing, I’ll be open to it. For now…”

  He moved the gun away from Lillian, gesturing toward the window with the barrel. For now, the war.

  “I think it’s very possible that my plan stands and will still work,” Fray said. “Nothing guarantees the Lambs’ way is any better. I’m sorry, Sylvester, but I’m not convinced, and I’m certainly not convinced enough to give up any degree of insurance I might have.”

  “Agreed,” Mauer said.

  I spoke, “We lead you out of the battlefield by channels we specifically arranged ahead of time, to guarantee that we had a way out, Catcher might have mentioned those in his note…”

  “He did,” Fray confirmed. “I assume the timing changed in much the way the timing of your arrival was. Without your cooperation, we won’t know which shots are paving the way and which are a prelude to a barrage.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That gets you to the perimeter. Your choice whether you want to move on from there or stay put and hope there’s a window to go further.”

&
nbsp; Which there wasn’t. There was a small army beyond the most immediate perimeter.

  “You’ll guide us to North Road Main.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” I said. “But no, we won’t. The deal is to take you to the perimeter. From there, you’re on your own.”

  “North Road Main is one of three roads that leads out of the city. With the majority of forces coming from the train station to the southwest or the Academy to the northwest, it gives us an easy route out,” Fray said.

  “The perimeter, no further, in exchange for the books,” I said.

  “And the other requirements I mentioned,” Mary said. “The changes to the books.”

  And Percy, Mary had left it unsaid.

  Bullets struck one of the tables that had been propped up against the window. They didn’t penetrate the thick wood.

  “Not good enough,” Fray said, eyeing the table as it shifted slightly. “The North Road. I’ll also settle for you contacting Catcher. He can provide some assistance. I’ll write a note. If you lead us to the perimeter, there’s no guarantee we won’t find ourselves in the most dangerous, difficult to penetrate area, with you signaling your allied forces to descend on us.”

  I didn’t flinch or let my expression drop, even though I wanted to. I could see her assessing me. I’d considered the notion of luring her into a difficult spot. Halfway because I thought it would work and hand her to the enemy in a tidy little bow, halfway because I wanted to see how she worked to get out of it.

  Gordon spoke, “When we disarmed the bomb, we disrupted your ability to get to the perimeter. We’re offering to fix that, in exchange for concessions. Letting you get that far is a pretty big one. If you’re not that confident in your own plan, for getting to wherever you’re going, that’s your own fault.”

  Good old Gordon, landing the heavy blows. He was such a bother to argue with.

  “You’re moving us to a different location in the walls,” Fray said. “How do you expect us to get from one point on the perimeter to the place we want to be? What about time-sensitive elements? No, if you’re going to make that argument, then we need more.”