by Peter Liney
“Clancy?” she suddenly whispered, like she couldn’t believe it, that it had to be a dream. “Is that you?”
I lost all control, panic ripping through my body like exploding DNA. I heard a voice—my voice, someone’s voice—I didn’t know. I was being tugged and pulled and wrenched and pushed . . . and suddenly I knew I had to get out of there. I had to get away.
I turned and just kinda dived outta the window, crashing to the ground, picking myself up, running . . . running!
The baby was screaming back there. The woman was calling after me.
“Go back, go back! They’re non-imps!” a voice kept telling me.
“Non-imps! Non-imps!” I took up the cry as I ran through the night.
And then, of course, I understood, and the seismic shock of that realization gave me my first clear thought of the night. That wasn’t me screaming. That voice didn’t originate from me, no more than all those wayward thoughts had.
“Non-imps! Non-imps!” came the cry again, and I knew she was inside me, that the Bitch had taken me over. “Kill them!”
I kept running, ignoring her screams like she was a passenger on my back demanding to be taken to a different destination, willing myself to go on no matter what was said by the voice in my head or on my lips.
I ran through the woods as fast as I could, colliding with trees as if I wanted to, almost impaling myself on a couple of occasions. What the hell had happened back there? . . . I’d never ever sleep again! Never!
I arrived at the other side of the woods, scratched and bruised from head to toe, ’til finally the night opened up and I burst out to confront an eerily large full-blood moon. I stopped before it, not wanting to go another step or to waste a scrap of the energy I still had left inside me. For what I was about to do, I needed every last drop.
I clenched up my body, threw my head back and gave out with the loudest and longest old wolf howl you could ever imagine. It almost killed me to fill the night with such pain. It was if the animals we’d heard before had been building up to this, that this was what they’d been trying to say, the agony they’d never been able to express, no matter how hard they’d tried.
“Get o-u-t—! Get out of me . . . !”
I don’t know where I went—I just ran. It wasn’t so much about getting away as punishing myself, running myself into the ground until there was nothing left, ’til I was helpless and vulnerable, ’til the strike of a moth’s downy wing would slice the flesh from me.
Lena! Jesus Christ—Lena! How could that thing have induced me to almost do that to her? Had I been keyed at last? Was there a new level of control? I blundered on, at some point running through the creek, clumsy to the point of drunkenness; frequently falling, sometimes just staying on the ground gazing up into the sky, other times immediately leaping up, determined to use any remaining strength I had to punish myself. I was already battered and bleeding, stiff and sore, but I’d run and run until there was no more.
It became kinda vague after that, everything getting compressed and pushed up together. I can remember being on my hands and knees on the road, blood dripping from somewhere onto the pavement, and then lights . . . bright lights, coming outta nowhere, moving fast toward me as if they were about to run me over. Then they stopped a few yards away, just hanging there, staring at me outta the night like some nocturnal beast about to pounce.
“Clancy?”
I couldn’t answer, couldn’t even be sure someone had spoken.
“Clancy? What are you doing?”
A car door opened, someone walked toward me, a dark shadow loomed up out of those high beams.
“It’s me, Doctor Simon.”
I just stared at him, still not understanding. He hesitated for a moment, maybe not sure if I presented a threat or not, then kneeled down to look at me.
“Jesus, Clancy. Are you okay?”
“I tried to kill them!” I wailed, even in that moment appreciating what a relief it was to talk to someone I knew I wouldn’t attempt to harm.
“Jesus,” he gasped.
“All of them . . . The Bitch is inside me—she got in through my dreams . . . I spoke with her voice!” I cried.
“But they’re all right?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I replied, wondering if I could be sure of anything anymore.
The Doc helped me up then led me back to the Bentley, spreading a travel-rug across the passenger seat—God forbid I should get blood on his fine leather seats, no matter what the circumstances—then got me and himself inside.
For a moment he just sat there looking at me. “Gigi’s dead,” he finally announced, as if he thought he should get all the bad news out and over with. “Lord knows what got into her—she arrived at the camp out of the blue and tried to persuade Nora Jagger she’d always been on her side.” He finished the sentence with a shake of the head, as if there could’ve been only one result to that approach.
“I know,” I told him. “They dropped her body on the plain. Well, most of it.”
Again he lapsed into silence and I began to suspect that in some ways he was every bit as beaten-up about things as I was.
“I can’t go back again,” he blurted out, rather to my surprise. “She’ll kill anyone, for no reason at all.”
Just for a moment I actually thought he was gonna cry, he was that upset.
“So she knows where we are?” I asked, presuming Gigi would’ve told them, or maybe, God forbid, they’d tortured it outta her.
“No—she wouldn’t tell them anything. That was part of the reason she was executed.”
I don’t know why, but that upset me as much as anything: that poor kid, even staring into the face of Death she hadn’t really known where her loyalties lay. “Why are they on foot?” I asked.
The Doc laughed hollowly, as if he thought I’d never believe it. “Because of you, Clancy: you’re sport. That’s why you haven’t been keyed yet—and the same reason she doesn’t carry a weapon. You’ve really got under her skin. Believe it or not, anyone calling you ‘Big Guy’ risks being killed on the spot. She’s determined to show them how much stronger she is than you, to hunt you down the old-fashioned way and kill you with her bare hands.”
“Shit,” I grunted, not really appreciating the irony in that remark, the fact that she didn’t have “bare hands.”
“She’s mad as hell at you for killing that Bodyguard.”
I grunted, wondering if she had any idea what’d happened to the other two. “Can you get rid of this thing inside me?” I asked.
“I’ve done a bit more research,” he replied, the fact that he didn’t immediately say no, that he sounded just that little bit hopeful, almost provoking me to hug the guy—although I knew there’d’ve been hell to pay if I’d crumpled his clothes or left even the tiniest bloodstain.
“Let’s go,” I told him.
The moment we turned up the track to the farm he switched off his lights, coming to a whispering halt around the back of the barn, hustling me inside. He got to work immediately, setting up his stuff, moving with surprising speed: not a mortal anymore, but a master of medicine.
“This is a long way from proven,” he warned me.
“I don’t care.”
He began by scanning me again, checking on the implant, looking at what it’d been up to, finally giving out this exasperated sigh.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s divided up—it’s all over you.”
“Shit.”
He paused for a moment, as if unsure whether to go on or not. “I can still run the program,” he said, not sounding anywhere near as hopeful. “We can see what happens.”
It was weird: once he’d hitched me up and turned on the power, I had the distinct feeling that the computer wasn’t attached to me, that I was attached to the computer. Maybe I was imagining it, but I could feel this kinda force sweeping through me like floodwaters through drains, getting into every nook and cranny, sluicing everything away. It really was an odd
feeling—not good, not bad, just odd.
“Give it ten minutes,” the Doc told me.
I sat there with the current surging through me, feeling it getting ever stronger, soon needing a distraction to take my mind off it, “Is it her limbs you have to keep an eye on?”
“They need constant monitoring,” he explained, “checking for irritation or rejection, and of course refreshing the worms.”
“Worms?” I said, a little taken aback.
He smiled. “That’s what keeps them together, binds composite to flesh, makes them almost real—superworms. They stimulate blood- and nerve-flow.”
“Jesus.” I grimaced, remembering that time in the Infinity building when I’d caught Nora Jagger without her limbs; the animate cellulose sludge they were stored in, the way that later her arm had seemed to squirm back into place. I also remembered something else.
“When she chased me and Gigi outta the safe house and into the river that time she suddenly stopped, like she had a problem.”
The Doc studied his screen for a moment, then returned his attention to our conversation. “Maybe it was high tide? Fresh water wouldn’t trouble the worms but salt water certainly would.”
When I thought about it, he was right, it had been high tide. Not that I could see any advantage in the information; not unless we were gonna attack her with salt shakers.
Doctor Simon saw the look on my face, the way I was turning things over, and shook his head. “She has no weaknesses. Believe me, I’d know if she did.”
“Maybe not with her prosthetics, but what about the human parts? She’s the same as us.”
“Not really.”
“What d’you mean?”
“She’s had her muscles boosted almost up to the point where they’re as hard as the prosthetics. Just about every vital organ has been changed. She scoured the City for the strongest, the biggest, the healthiest organs to enhance her function and increase her life expectancy . . . Her heart’s a real freak: it came from this young boy they picked up off the street one night.”
I don’t know why, really, it didn’t make any sense at all, but the moment those words were out of his mouth, I was utterly embraced by ice. “What boy?”
“Oh, just some street urchin. No one in particular . . . Well, I wouldn’t have thought so, not until I saw that heart.”
I was aware I was gaping at him, that I couldn’t look away no matter how hard I tried, that a thousand heavy silences had somehow been pressed into one. It couldn’t be—it was too much of a coincidence . . . but the thought had grabbed hold of me as if it’d never let go.
“The Mickey Mouse Kid?” I finally whispered.
He looked up from his screen—now it was his turn to stare. “Yes . . . Mickey Mouse! He had this tattoo . . . How did you know that?”
“Picked up in one of the streets off the Square?”
He thought for a minute. “Yes, I believe he was,” he said, staring at me, waiting for an explanation.
I damn near threw up. I damn near screamed at the top of my voice in protest at a world that would allow such an abomination. Jesus, no, no, no—! Arturo’s heart was still living, still beating—but in the body of Nora Jagger. What kinda obscenity was that?
“You knew him?” the Doc asked.
“Arturo,” I told him.
“Not Mickey Mouse?” he joked, and for a moment I almost lost it; I could’ve almost taken my rage out on him.
“He was a friend,” I told him, my voice as chilled as my heart. “More than a friend. I was with him when he died.”
“Oh,” the Doc said, now looking more than a bit intimidated. “I’m sorry—they just brought him in . . . His heart was—well, still is—a freak of nature. Especially for a boy of that age. It’s hugely enlarged.”
Both of us went quiet. The Doc’s cocktail of drugs, micro-lasers and programming, whatever, was still pulsing through me, but I couldn’t think of anything but what I’d just been told. Of all the cruel ironies: that warm, funny, loveable little guy’s heart ending up in the body of the foulest, most sadistic person I’ve ever known. And what I then realized, what made it so much more painful, was that if there was any chance at all of us surviving this, it would mean killing Nora Jagger—or to put it another way, by stopping Arturo’s heart all over again.
It was almost too much to take in, so many unbearable thoughts, so many torturous ironies, twisting their blades in my head. Who would’ve ever dreamed that little Arturo still had a hand to play in this? I mean, it was entirely appropriate that such a special little guy should’ve had a freakishly big heart, and yet entirely inappropriate that it would be used for anything but to delight us.
I knew how much it’d upset the others, especially Delilah, so I swore the Doc to secrecy. Nobody needed to know but us, and that was the way I intended to keep it. Arturo was dead and had been for over a year, the only thing that lived now was his memory, and that would live forever.
When the program had finally finished running, the Doc unhitched the various connections and put organi-plasters on the points of entry. My legs and arms continued to twitch as if some sensations were still in there looking for an emergency escape route.
He ran the scanner again, this time looking that bit pleased with himself.
“Is it okay?” I asked.
“I think we’ve got it,” he said, breaking into a smile.
I was just about to give out with a cry of relief, to thank the guy from the bottom of my heart, when he suddenly stopped and frowned. “Damn!”
“What?”
“There’s something left,” he said, pointing at the screen. “There—prefrontal cortex. It’s really dug in.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied, “but if I had to guess . . . I’d say it’s the part that gets keyed.”
“Total submission?”
“Maybe,” he answered.
“That figures.”
He paused for a moment, as if looking for any compensation there might be. “But the thing is—at least for the moment, Clancy—you’re no threat to anyone.”
I could’ve celebrated, of course; I could’ve run over there and rampaged through the house, got them all up, hugged and kissed them, held Thomas in my arms, gone to bed with Lena, but after what had happened earlier, what I’d just learned about Arturo, I thought I’d leave it ’til the morning.
I spent the night in the barn, despite the Doc’s reassurances, too scared to sleep in case Nora Jagger could still invade my dreams, waiting till dawn, letting him go over first to tell them the news.
It took less than a minute for Lena to appear on the porch, Thomas in her arms, calling my name—I was running toward them before she hit the second syllable. We hugged and kissed, cried and laughed, and though I tried to apologize for the previous night, she wouldn’t listen. Soon the others came out, obviously having given us a few moments on our own—Jimmy and Delilah, Hanna and Gordie, and a rather spent-looking Nick—but we knew the celebrations had to be kept short, that Nora Jagger might appear at any moment.
We didn’t have that many options. I told them I’d been on my way to the Commune, and they all agreed it might be the one place we’d be safe (that crazy irony again: a punishment satellite affording us protection). Within minutes we were frantically packing. Lena and me warned them about how far it was, the many hills, the width of the plain, and I gotta say, Lile didn’t look that happy about it, but Jimmy was already rushing around deciding what tools and techno to take, the stuff he absolutely couldn’t live without, the glimmer in his eyes no doubt down to the prospect of being reunited with a working punishment satellite.
Gordie and Hanna helped Nick bring the bed outta the house, Miriam’s prostrate body shaking a little as they jolted it down off the porch and onto the ground. There was a brief but unquestionably awkward silence: I turned to Lena, and Jimmy and Delilah turned to me. Did Nick really intend to push her all the way, even after we’d told him ho
w difficult it was gonna be? Then again, what choice did he have? He could hardly leave her behind.
There was no actual discussion, but it soon became apparent that the Doc was coming with us. I guess preservation of his luxury lifestyle was one thing but the preservation of his buttered hide was another. Life with Nora Jagger was no longer so much dangerous as suicidal; apparently no one was safe, not even her personal physician and programmer.
Thankfully there wasn’t the same hostility toward him that there had been, especially after what he’d done for me—and let’s face it, he could’ve brought Nora Jagger and the entire Bodyguard back with him. Not that I was about to put my full trust in him, not for one minute, but I was happy to sit back and watch for any signs of a long game developing. In any case, I was quietly pleased he was coming along and I guess I don’t have to tell you why. The Doc took that fancy medical computer of his everywhere and for sure it would be accompanying him to the Commune. I was still hoping that somewhere amongst all this there might be an opportunity for him to give Lena back her sight again.
We hid the Bentley in the woods, covering it with branches like we had our first limo. The Doc was a long way from happy about it, insisting on overseeing the operation himself, making sure nobody scratched the bodywork—though I gotta say, he was that bit more resigned to the situation.
We sure looked like an odd bunch: Lena carrying Thomas in his favorite blue and white blanket, Lile being her “seeing eye,” leading the pair of them—though to be honest, at times it was hard to know who was leading who. Gordie and Hanna were riding the Typhoon Tandem, circling around us, both still a little shaken by what’d happened to Gigi—though oddly, I think it was more her than him. He’d tried to put his arm around her at one point and she’d pushed him away as if he was being somehow disrespectful.
The Doc was dressed like he was going on a country picnic, all cool in a cream linen suit, except he was carrying that very businesslike shiny black case of his. As for Jimmy, despite my warnings, he was laden down with more junk than I would’ve thought possible, like one of those ants carrying a huge leaf. And finally, and yeah, without doubt the oddest sight of all, was Nick pulling Miriam in her bed, with me following along behind to give them a push.
