In Extremis

by John Shirley

  Animus fired at a muzzleflash, and sprinted toward the larger opening. He heard gunfire from the road beyond the hedgerow—his men firing at Adversary’s soldiers—and a shout from a wounded man.

  He came to an old tree stump beside the hedgerow, went to one knee, reloading his rifle, hoping to pick off some of Adversary’s followers—perhaps wound Adversary himself, rather than kill him—his heart pounding, blood racing, the delightful energy of low embodiment racing through his nervous system . . .

  And then he saw the grenade—one of the new “Mills bombs” the British Army was using, with its segmented surface. Someone had thrown it about thirty feet behind his position, and he was able to shift to cover on the other side of the tree stump.

  But instead of falling and exploding short, the grenade stopped in mid-air—and changed direction.

  “What! That is not allowed!” he shouted, as, defying physics, the grenade flew right for him.

  He turned to run from it—and the grenade changed directions again, followed him . . . and exploded just above him, quite removing his head from his body.

  “And I am telling you, I did not interfere with that grenade!” Adversary insisted.

  They were within a small concealment sphere about a half mile over the battlefield; it looked like a cloud to the primates, far below.

  “You threw the grenade, did you not?” Animus demanded.

  “Initially—yes. I did—I threw it to confuse you, and drive you into the open. I knew it was not going to hit you. I did not cause it to change direction! Levitation discomposes my thinking center—and I always bungle it. Perhaps you were mistaken—”

  “I am not mistaken,” Animus insisted. “It changed direction in mid-air! If you didn’t do it, then who did? I’m not aware of others of our kind competing on this planet. And the primates are not gifted with telekinesis. Who, then?”

  “I felt a kind of interference,” said Adversary thoughtfully. A tugging of mental energy, from somewhere outside, tangling me with the primates. Perhaps a subtle psychic dominance. Who indeed—and why?”

  “The answer must be in why. Our competition here was cut short. Someone wanted to end our participation in this war.”

  “Who would want to interfere with us? The primates are unaware of us, and incapable of interfering. Perhaps it’s a competition vandal—there are some about, entertaining themselves. If so—they’re young, they have a short attention span. The scamp will go away if we wait long enough. There will be other wars.”

  “This war bears in it the seed of another war, to sprout in the same garden . . . We can nurture those seeds, before nesting in new primates . . .”

  Other wars inevitably came along, but they were sadly inaccessible. Animus and Adversary had to nest in new foetuses for some years while the Chinese Civil War went bloodily on, and a good many other conflicts raged without their participation.

  But then came World War Two.

  They didn’t have to foment World War Two, it had a psychotic life of its own. Still, they fanned its flames where they could, through primate embodiments. The primates were often quite puzzled by their own actions . . .

  North Africa

  A pale blue sky; a yellow horizon rippling with the noonday heat; a rolling, sandy plain; a scattering of fletchy little trees. All this the young lieutenant saw from the open hatch of the Panzerkampfwagen. He saw, too, the muscular cloud of brown dust rolling like a djinn across the land from the East: the American armor, its cavalry. One division of Eisenhower’s army.

  The young lieutenant, Otto Meterling, directed his Panzer in the front lines of Rommel’s latest attempt at feinting and flanking, but the allies were getting wise to Rommel’s methods, and it appeared they were not falling into the trap.

  Meterling loved being in the tank. Despite the dryness in his mouth; despite the taste of oil, and the thudding heat flung in his face from the metal around him. He loved the bulk of mechanical armor all about him, a metallic extension of his will, designed to crush enemies and turn their blows aside; he loved its grinding treads, its growling engine.

  Gazing out over the desert, Meterling coughed in a swirl of exhaust fumes, and rubbed grit from his eyes. He would need his goggles soon. How he loved it!

  But he knew, somehow, that his true battle this day would not be with Eisenhower’s mechanical cavalry. It would come from another direction.

  Adversary is coming . . . perhaps from the sky. Paratroopers. He is likely a paratrooper.

  Adversary . . . coming after Animus.

  It had been building all morning; last night there had been strange, vivid dreams of many battles: of Romans in armor coming at him, while he whipped his chariot’s horses on in the service of the Pharaoh.

  And this morning he’d awakened with the taste of blood in his mouth—someone else’s blood. A memory of a fight on the Iberian peninsula, fading even as he opened his eyes. He’d had to kill the man with his teeth, when his sword broke at the hilt. A thousand years earlier.

  Just a dream. Or was it a memory, relived?

  He watched the sky. Adversary would come from the sky.

  There! An American dive-bomber, perhaps a “helldiver”, appearing as a rapacious dot against the sky to the northeast, taking shape, wings and fuselage gaining definition as it approached.

  Adversary!

  Meterling was becoming Animus, his fundamental identity surging up. He laughed joyfully—to the great puzzlement of his frightened, stifled Panzer crew.

  So Adversary thinks he has the edge here, coming from the sky! But Animus had prepared—he did not need a direct hit on that plane if he used a flak shell. Now he understood why he’d brought the shells here—these were almost unknown to the panzers. He lowered himself excitedly into the tank, and barked the orders.

  “The special shells! Load them! You wanted to know what they’re for, you’re about to find out, we’re soon to be strafed . . .”

  He broke off, staring at the rack of shells waiting for the Panzer’s cannon. It was difficult to see here, in the cramped, light-stabbed, dusty dimness, but the shells stood out unnaturally.

  They were glowing.

  They were becoming brighter, brighter . . . glimmering with red, then white light; brighter and brighter, humming within.

  “Get out!” he shouted, climbing up through the hatch—but it was too late. Once more, too late.

  The shells exploded. The tank was consumed by a hungry fireball.

  And Meterling with it.

  Drifting far over the North African desert . . .

  “And again I ask, if it was not you—who was it?”

  “I told you, Animus—some competition vandal. A child. Maybe a fivethousandish.”

  “With those skills? Seems unlikely. I only know I was blown to smithereens before our confrontation could begin. Not to mention my crew.”

  “Well yes. Not to mention them . . . would be normal.” Animus ignored this dig. “Almost thirty years as that Meterling. The f ood alone . . . unbearable .”

  “You were aware of his eating? You were that much engaged?”

  “I know—it is strange . . .”

  “Something of the sort happened to me, in my American counterpart,” Adversary admitted. “A feeling of taking part in the man more than I wanted to. I wanted to sleep and there I was, aware of his academy physics class.”

  “We’ll wait them out. This time we’ll return to the Sourceworld and fully restore. But we’ll meet back here . . . there is sure to be another war in this part of the world.” He gazed down at the desert. “I like this part of the planet. It has such possibilities. And think of the weapons to come!”

  Iraq, near the border with Syria, 2008

  Another desert; another hot day. A US Army Humvee, armoured, equipped with machine gun, heading for the patrol along the border to try and catch the Haj sneaking across. Al Qaeda, bringing in a new IED design, according to Intel.

  Crenshaw, up on the 16 MM machine gun, had only been a
Corporal for a few hours. He had been a sergeant before, but he’d run afoul of a Captain, when he’d started emerging as Animus, four days earlier, and somehow, in the time away from this planet he’d lost touch with military protocol. Or perhaps he’d inexplicably let Crenshaw’s personal feelings affect him—the white Captain had said something racist; Crenshaw was a black man from Virginia, he was touchy, and Animus had allowed him to react to the “Get your lazy black ass back out there, Sergeant” and he’d told the Captain he was a racist cracker and, soon after, the Captain had “found” unprescribed Oxycontin in his locker on a “surprise inspection.” There was a lot of noise lately about addiction to Oxycontin, and other meds, in the infantry. The Captain had accused him of dealing stolen pharms, and demoted him, “Next time, you go to the stockade!”

  The son of a bitch was probably providing the shit to a dealer himself—

  What am I doing? Why am I still involved in Crenshaw’s concerns? I’m going to fight to the death with Adversary, today . . .

  And there was Adversary: that assault rifle poking from the low, clay-colored old building fifty yards right of the dusty road. A spurt of fire, and bullets ricocheted from the Humvee.

  Crenshaw . . . Animus . . . swung the machinegun around, grinning to himself, firing back, shouting directions to the driver. But the machine gun stopped firing—before it had reached the end of its belt. He looked down . . . and saw the shells were glowing.

  16 mm shells, glowing—about to explode in his face.

  He climbed frantically out, shouting a warning to the others, leaping free—not too late, this time. The ammunition exploded just behind him, bullets and pieces of the Humvee’s roof flying, whirring shrapnel, whining through the air above him as he hit the ground, rolling.

  He was instantly up, and sending a mental message to Adversary, his primate body shaking as he abandoned it.

  Animus let the body fall, switching off the heart as he went.

  He hovered broodingly over the corpse in his lightbody, as the stunned men who’d survived the explosion in the Humvee crawled out of the wreckage . . .

  He flew upward before they saw his lightbody, and extended his senses. And found the psychic trail, this time, a moment before it would have dissipated.

  Adversary—abandon your host and follow! I’ve caught the vandal!

  Up, up, through a thin, translucent layer of cloud, and another, up to where the sky became indigo with its rarity—and here they caught her.

  A female of their kind: her light-patterns inverted. They hovered to either side of her, blocking her escape, and demanded an explanation.

  She emanated a dignified resignation. “I have tried to be of help to this species of primates, these many cycles,” she said. “War is part of their condition. But you move them to greater and greater heights of confrontation. You’ll destroy them, in time. You’ll push for a final war—final for them. Not for you. You’ll destroy them all.”

  “Oh, and will we?” Adversary said, in radiant outrage. “And what of it? They are feeble, stupid, evanescent little animals. There are countless such species—most destroy themselves. They themselves wipe out ant colonies. It is much the same.”

  “Is it?” She emanated disagreement. “The primates are deeper than you have allowed yourself to see. They have a degree of sentience. I have tried to entangle you with them, so that you feel life as they do. Your selfinvolvement, your male immaturity prevents it. I’ve tried other means to discourage you, get you to move on to another world. Now I will go to the Sourceworld Committee—and it will decide.”

  “Why put us through that bureaucratic tedium?” Animus asked, flaring angrily. “The primates are low creatures; they accumulate bits and gimcracks in their dens, like the packrats they try to drive from their attics—that accumulation is the vector of their lives. They scribble a bit, and mark on walls. But they are simple-minded, temporary little things. Lower predators, with little feeling. You are wasting your sympathy on creatures who live so briefly they are gone before you’ve fully felt your concern!”

  “They have enormous evolutionary potential,” she said, glimmering patiently. “And they are marvelous animals even now, if short-lived. A fascinating species. We cannot allow you to encourage their extinction when we’re only now really beginning to study them.”

  “You know what she is, Animus?” Adversary said, disgusted. “She’s one of these ‘animal rights’ types!”

  “So that’s it!” Animus said, with a purple displeasure. “Animal rights! What about my rights? What of the rights of a Conflict Artist to experience Deep Competition? My art, my drama—this is what gives meaning to the lives of these animals, these primates we use, if they have any meaning at all!”

  “We’ll let the Committee decide . . .”

  Mountains of Western Pakistan, 2023

  Sprague was tired of using killflyers. Remote control killing was unsatisfying. The others soldiers didn’t seem to mind—they’d been raised on videogames. Sitting in the Army’s trailers, controlling the drones with computer interface, was natural to them. The only difference from videogames was that real-life guerrillas died this way.

  But Sprague wanted direct confrontation. Face to face. In person. And he’d come out into the mountains to find it.

  Confrontation. With Adversary . . .

  He climbed out of the hydrogen-cell Humvee, and set out alone across the rocky hillside, laser rifle in hand, the exhilaration building in him, as he came to full emergence . . .

  There would be no interference from the female called “Anima” this time. The Committee had compromised. He and Adversary could continue, here, if they didn’t use weapons of mass destruction. This was a valuable wildlife habitat, after all.

  And the ultimate primate war could yet come—Animus and Adversary could still take part in that. The new rule was, the primates must be allowed to bring it on themselves.

  It would be glorious, when it happened. And he was sure it would. The primates could be relied upon.

  There–a glint of sunlight from a scope, up the hillside. It was Adversary, laying for him.

  Animus had a simple plan. He would drop back, lure him into the valley, and burn away one of Adversary’s limbs. But he wouldn’t kill him right away. No. He would give him a chance to fight on.

  Animus wanted to make this one last.

  SKEETER JUNKIE

  How consummate, how exquisite: A mosquito.

  Look at the thing. No fraction of it wasted or distracted; more streamlined than any fighter jet, more elegant, than any sports car; in that moment, sexier—and skinnier—than any fashion model. A mosquito.

  Hector Ansia was happily watching the mosquito penetrate the skin of his right arm.

  He was in his El Paso studio apartment, wearing only his threadbare Fruit of the Loom briefs. The autumn night was hot and sticky. The place was empty except for a few books and busted coffee table and sofa, the only things he hadn’t been able to sell. But as soon as he’d slammed the heroin, the rat-hole apartment had transformed into a palace bedroom, his dirty sofa into new silk cushions, the heavy, polluted air became the zephyrs of Eden, laced with incense. It wasn’t that he hallucinated things that weren’t there—what was there recast into a heroin-polished dimension of excellence. The refinery, visible over the El Paso rooftops, was transformed into a Disney castle; its burn-off flames the torches of some charming medieval festival.

  He’d just risen out of his nod, like a balloon released under heavy water, ascending from a zone of sweet weight to a place of delicious buoyancy, and he’d only now opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the length of his arm over the side of the old velvet sofa. The veins were distended because of the pressure on the underside of his arm, and halfway between his elbow and his hand was the mosquito, pushing its organic needle through the greasy raiment of his epidermis . . .

  It was so fine.

  He hoped the mosquito could feel the sun of benevolence that pulsed in him.
The china white was good, especially because he’d had a long and cruel sickness before finding it, and he’d been maybe halfway to clean again, so his tolerance was down, and that made it so much better to hit the smack in, to fold it into himself.

  Stoned, he could feel his Mama’s hands on him. He was three years old, and she was washing his back as he sat in a warm bath, and sometimes she would kiss the top of his head. He could feel it now. That’s what heroin gave him back.

  She hadn’t touched him after his fourth birthday, when her new boyfriend had come in fucked up on reds and wine, and the boyfriend had kicked Mama in the head and called her a whore, and the kick broke something in her brain, and after that she just looked at him blank when he cried. Just looked at him.

  Heroin took him back, before his fourth birthday. Sometimes all the way back.

  Look at that skeeter, now. Made Hector want to fuck, looking at it.

  The mosquito was fucking his arm, wasn’t it? Sure it was. Working that thing in. A proboscis, what it was called.

  He could feel a thudding from somewhere. After a long moment he was sure the thudding wasn’t his pulse; it was the radio downstairs. Lulu, listening to the radio.

  Lulu had red-blond hair, cut something like the style of English girls from the old Beatles movies, its points near her cheeks curled to aim at her full lips. She had wide hips and round arms and hazel eyes. He’d talked to her in the hall and she’d been kind of pityingly friendly, enough to pass the time for maybe a minute, but she wouldn’t go out with him, or even come in for coffee. Because she knew he was a junkie. Everyone on Selby Avenue knew a junkie when they saw them. He could tell her about his Liberal Arts B.A., but it wouldn’t matter: he’d still be just a junkie to her. No use trying to explain, a degree didn’t get you a life anymore, there wasn’t any work anyway. You might as well draw your SSI and sell your food stamps; you might as well be a junkie.

  Lulu probably figured if she got involved with Hector, he’d steal her money, and maybe give her AIDS. She was wrong about the AIDS—he never ever shared needles—but she was right he’d steal her money, of course. The only reason he hadn’t broken into her place was because he knew she’d never leave any cash there, or anything valuable, not living downstairs from a junkie. He’d never get even a ten dollar bag out of that crappy little radio he’d seen through the open door. Nothing much in there. Posters of Chagall, a framed photo of Sting, succulents overflowing clay pots shaped like burros and turtles.