I Am Titanium (Pax Black Book 1) (26 page)

He’s trying to make sure we aren’t sending negative energy to the invaders.

The little figure of Pax rubbed its chin.
Invaders? What invaders?

The ones that are going to come through a hole in the universe.
Scarlett’s tone turned nasty.
I’m surprised Terry didn’t tell you about them.

I’m not.
Pax sounded bitter and tired.
Scarlett… please. These things are spreading faster than I can control them. I need your help. We can talk about the rest of this later.

Ask Lana,
snarled Scarlett.
She’s got astral powers. Have her help you clean that shit up and then bang you again. Nothing like sex with an alien, right? ’Cause ours was just so BORING.

Lana’s gone.

Now it was her turn to pause. Her mind was racing. Lana was gone—conveniently leaving Pax to stop the monsters himself. Which would fit neatly into Terry’s plan.

Huh. I thought she and Terry were enemies
.

They are.

Then why is she conveniently not helping you fight him?

Because
—

Fuck off, Pax.

The figure vanished. Scarlett stretched her jaw, wiggling it back and forth. She swallowed until her ears popped. It was a relief to have him
out.
It made her a little sad, she had to admit.
Good-bye, Pax.
Being in love with Pax, even though it was one-sided, had felt like being tied to him. And now another one of the threads had snapped. Still, that evening at his mother’s apartment…the laughter….

Should I go?
she asked the nest of negative energy.

YES
,
it responded. Somehow it was the answer she’d expected.

But isn’t it a trap?

YES.

Yeah, well, that wasn’t a surprise, either.

The fluorescent lights flickered as Ms. Jance pushed Julie’s wheelchair down the hallway behind Ms. Grace. The building echoed the sound of motors that started and stopped repeatedly, as though drilling holes. The hallway smelled of something acrid, not quite smoke but similar. Julie clutched the sides of her leather purse hard enough to feel her fingernails digging into the leather. She tucked it against her thigh and gripped the wheelchair’s handles instead.

Ms. Grace shoved past the glass security door, and it slammed closed behind her. She headed straight toward the emergency stairs, abandoning both of them without a backward glance. The spoiled Texan blonde inside that wrinkled, over-painted shell had come out at last. The stairwell door closed slowly, cutting off what Julie perversely hoped would be her last sight of the woman.

The wheelchair whirled in a nauseating circle, and Ms. Jance slammed against the glass door, jouncing Julie’s head against her chest.

The door didn’t open.

Ms. Jance cursed under her breath. Julie twisted around as the woman held her badge against the lock. It beeped. Ms. Jance pressed against the glass with her hand, but the door remained closed. The ghost of her handprint quickly faded from the glass.

“We shall have to try the other end of the building,” Ms. Jance said. “Past the robotics laboratory.”

A bitter taste spurted from Julie’s esophagus into her mouth. She fought it down. Panic would do neither of them any good. “Maybe we’ll have better luck down there.”

“Indeed.”

Ms. Jance pushed Julie back down the hall. The doorways seemed to pass in slow motion. The lights still flickered, and the acrid smell had gotten stronger.

They passed the double doors to the operating theater. Beneath the whirring and buzzing of the motors from farther down the hall came the sound of soft, dragging footsteps. Julie’s throat clenched. Either she was imagining it or something was moving around just past the double doors.

“Stop,” she said. “Just for a moment.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Ms. Jance said. “Because that means you heard it, too.”

“What is it?”

Ms. Jance held a finger to her lips and then held her badge up to the door lock. It beeped. She pulled on the handle, but the door, like the other before, didn’t budge.

The sound of drilling stopped.

The footsteps had stopped as well, although it didn’t ease Julie’s rapid heart rate in the slightest. Her skin prickled as though someone—some
thing
—were leaning against the other side of the door, listening to them. Waiting for them to move farther down the hall.

Clang!

The wheelchair shuddered as they both jumped. The sound of metallic hammering had replaced the sound of the whining drill down the hall.

“Someone must still be working in the robotics laboratory,” Ms. Jance said. “Perhaps Mr. Lombardo is still at it. He’s exactly the kind of man to miss a security warning because he’s working on a project.”

“Will he be able to help?”

“Possibly.”

“Then let’s find him.”

Ms. Jance put her hands on her hips, lowered her head, and released her breath in a hiss, as though she were trying to convince herself not to vomit.

Julie took the wheels of the wheelchair and began to push herself down the hall. However briefly, she was back in control.

When Ms. Jance caught up, Julie waved her aside. Ms. Jance walked beside the wheelchair, rubbing her hands together as if she were uncomfortably cold. Her skin rasped softly against itself.

Julie turned the corner.

Bright light shone from an open door at the far end of the hallway. A motor ran briefly and then stopped with a thunk.

Ms. Jance started walking faster. “Why is that door open? Why not any of the others?”

The motor ran again and once again stopped with a thunk.

Ms. Jance’s arms pumped by her sides, and her slim skirt tightened around her thighs as she walked. She reached the doorway and stopped. The motor whined and thunked several times, and a shadow appeared in the doorway, covering Ms. Jance.

Julie swallowed, trying to unstick her voice enough to tell the girl to run.

A mechanical, female voice said, “Where is Dr. Julie Black?”

Ms. Jance said, “Oh my God. David.”

“I am not your God. Where is Dr. Julie Black?”

Ms. Jance rocked on her heels, the light catching the satin of her shirt. “I beg your pardon. I have no idea who that is.”

The mechanical female voice said, “Incorrect. Dr. Julie Black was assigned as your guest in this facility as of two hours and seven minutes ago.”

A glint of red shone on Ms. Jance’s cheek and reflected off her shirt. She didn’t move or change her tone. “She left the building with an associate of mine several minutes ago.”

“Incorrect. The RFID chip on her visitor’s badge has not exited the area.”

Julie gripped the wheelchair’s push rims, moving herself silently across the carpet. The acrid smell was stronger here. She licked her lips, but her tongue was raspy and dry and did nothing.

“She’s—” Ms. Jance glanced at Julie and shook her head slowly and deliberately. “She’s in the women’s toilet, taking some medication.”

“Take me to Dr. Julie Black.”

“Not now,” Ms. Jance said. “She is taking her medication.”

The motor whined, and a mechanical arm ending in a loose claw reached out of the doorway and hit Ms. Jance on her chest. She wobbled unsteadily. Her knees were locked, and she looked ready to faint.

“Taking medicine is a brief procedure. You are creating an unnecessary delay. Take me to Dr. Julie Black.”

“I’m here,” Julie called, rolling her chair forward. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

A humanoid shape stepped through the doorway, forcing Ms. Jance to stumble back against the wall. Its legs were thick and ended in flattened claws that whined as they gripped the floor. Its arms were little more than pincers at the ends of slim rods. A screen with a rippling blue wheel filled the center of the robot’s chest. Instead of a head, it had a steel cage housing several cameras and microphones.

“You are Dr. Julie Black.”

“Yes.”

“Your assistance is required.”

“Are you in need of a doctor?” The words slipped out of her mouth without thought.
Not that he has any part for me to fix.

“The assistance of Dr. Julie Black is required.”

Julie heaved the wheelchair toward the robot. It towered over her, reeking of ozone and grease. Looking past it, she saw a white room full of computer and mechanical equipment in racks reaching almost to the ceiling. A man was slumped over a computer terminal, face down over his keyboard, apparently asleep. Another man, the security guard, lay on the floor in a pool of blood.

“If you will move aside I will try to find out what’s wrong with the man in the chair,” Julie said.

“The human is not wrong. It is dead,” the robot said. “You are the mother of Pax James Black. Your assistance is required.”

Oh, crap.
“What… what do you want?”

“Humanity was originally identified as a significant threat to all other life on Earth, including secondary life such as my own. In researching the steps necessary to eradicate human life without damaging the rest of the ecosystem, other more dangerous life forms have been discovered. Your son, Pax Black, appears to be one of them.”

“Pax is dead,” said Julie. “If you have access to the DARPA files you know that.”

The machine paused, briefly. “That is correct. A being that appears to be your son, Pax Black, has taken the shape of one of the beings that threaten the Earth and is fighting another.”

A flash of inspiration hit her, and she muttered, “That astral crap. You want to know about that astral crap.”

“Correct. Efforts to eradicate humanity on a global scale will be terminated until the other life forms have been destroyed.”

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,
thought Julie
.
“Pax is dead. But I’ll see what I can do.”

Chapter 15

T
he long, white cruise ship sat low in the water, packed with as many humans as could be shoved into the cabins and hallways and restaurants and onto the decks. The people on board were shouting, “No room, no room!” But that didn’t deter the hundreds of people trying to shove their way up the boarding ramp.

Pax floated above it all and saw that getting aboard the ship wasn’t going to save anyone.

Trillions of spores coated the skins of the people on the ship, their belongings, even the surface of the water in the bay. Everyone on board would be dead in hours. And if the ship ever made port, it would further speed the spreading of the spores.

Pax couldn’t let the ship leave. Not like this. And that meant he couldn’t let anyone on board leave alive, either.

They’re already dead,
Pax told himself.
They just don’t know it yet.

Pax made a gesture and sent out a blast of energy, and the mass of people trying to cross the gangway were shoved backward, down the ramp and onto the cement pier. They screamed and rolled and shouted and stumbled and raged. Some of them pissed themselves. Others shook their fists.

Pax ignored them and threw a shield around the ship. The ramp to the ship pinched in half with a screech, and the half leaning on the pier tipped into the water and sank. The ship rocked in the water, suddenly much less stable now that it was sloshing around in a big blue hamster ball.

People, both inside and outside the bubble, panicked. They pushed and shoved. Some fought. Some even knocked the others into the water to drown.

Pax lifted the fallen ones back onto the decks, hoping he could find a way to save them. He had to find a way to destroy the spores, even if it meant destroying the entire ship.

Something deep inside Pax’s chest twinged, and suddenly Scarlett was there, floating in the air beside him.

It wasn’t an astral body that Scarlett wore. Lana had destroyed Scarlett’s physical, astral-material body before returning to the astral plane. The form that floated next to Pax was built of negative energy: a girl made of swirling, obsidian-like matter.

“Asshole,” said Scarlett. “When you’re not dying, you’re a real slut, you know that?” She scraped her straggling black hair out of her face and looked down at the cruise ship. Her eyes narrowed and then widened. “Holy shit. What the fuck are those things?”

“Nice to see you, too.” There was no point in responding to her insults. He carefully unclenched his fists. “Terry’s creation. As soon as you kill any piece of the monster, it sheds spores and reproduces. I need you to find a way to pull the spores off that ship. Otherwise I’ll have to sink it.”

Scarlett raised a shiny black eyebrow. “Jesus Christ, Pax. Don’t be so fucking cold.”

“I’m not being—” Fuck it. He didn’t need to argue with her. “Just tell me whether you can do it.”

She turned back toward the ship and raised her arms. “Yeah, I guess. We’ll see.”

On a physical level, she didn’t do anything but wave her arms around like she was throwing big handfuls of glitter toward the ship. On a spiritual level, she was sending out tendrils of negative energy in finely spun threads. The tendrils spread out in a kind of haze, drifting toward his hamster ball, almost surrounding it. For a second, they hesitated at the glowing blue shield and then pushed their way through.

The threads covered the ship like a fog. The fighting on board fell silent.

Scarlett’s tendrils sought out the spores, drifting delicately in their direction and then jumping toward them almost as though they were magnetized.

With another melodramatic gesture, this time like she was snatching bits of glitter back out of the air, Scarlett started pulling the threads of negative energy toward her.

This has to work.

She gathered the spores close to her chest, forming a hairy, dark bundle that she tied off with black thread and attached to her ankle.

There were still spores inside the ship… inside people’s bodies…

Scarlett glanced at him. “Don’t look. This is going to suck.”

Pax licked his lips but didn’t turn away.

She shrugged and threw out another handful of threads toward the ship. These were thicker. Stronger.

They floated onto the ship, across the decks, down below.

Each one settled on a living creature. Men, women, children, babies. Even a tiny Pomeranian settled in a man’s arms.

Scarlett looked back at Pax. “You sure?”

“Yes,” said Pax through clenched teeth. “Do it fast.”

Scarlett yanked on the threads. About fifty of the people on deck screamed and dropped, like their puppet strings had been cut. It still was oddly silent. Blood splattered the deck, the passengers.

“Okay,” Scarlett said, her voice shaking. “It’s done. All the spores are gone. Happy now?”

He shook his head. It had to be done. But he couldn’t stand to look at her just then. Pax pushed the ship toward the mouth of the bay, ignoring the renewed screaming and panic.

“What do you want me to do with the spores? If I absorb the negative energy, they’ll just get loose again. I’m not sure how to destroy them.”

“Whatever you did to blow up the school,” he said. “Do that again.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t read. For a second he thought she was going to release the fuzzy, rippling ball of spores she was holding. Just let it all go and leave him to cope with this mess by himself. Instead, she squeezed down on the ball of energy, fuzzing it into a chunk of black negative energy… rock.

“I can’t burn anything, Pax,” Scarlett said. “That was Lana’s trick, not mine.”

A sick feeling rose in the pit of his stomach.
Lana burnt down the school? Lana made the fire in the park? Why would she do that? Why wouldn’t she tell me?

Fury burned inside him, and Pax wished her could use it to start his own fire and burn the spores out.

“Go save your ship full of humans. I’ll clear up the spores on the island,” she said.

“Just keep gathering those things as fast as you can.”

It was approximately forty kilometers to the next island, Martinique. If he used the hamster bubble he could get the ship there in minutes, though the passengers wouldn’t enjoy the ride.

But they would still be alive. He flew off.

Ron sat on the balcony of a bar on the hill, playing guitar.

The smoke from the fires had turned the sunset into an inferno. The Caribbean reflected the fires and the sun and the hot, red sky. Luckily for him, the wind was carrying the smoke in the opposite direction. He poured a glass of rum. He was staying just sober enough that he could still play.

Most folks on the island had rushed toward the dock when they heard the last cruise ship had gotten its engine fixed, but Ron hadn’t even bothered to get up from his chair. He’d found an old acoustic guitar in a back room downstairs. He was playing for the crowd that thronged the streets, so the rest of the souls trapped on this island could die dancing. Too bad the screaming was too loud for anyone to hear him…

He scratched his right arm. A fleck of something black had landed there an hour ago, burning like it had a spark to it. He’d blown on it, but it wouldn’t come off. Instead, it had sunk into his skin. Hurt like hell at the time, although now he couldn’t feel it too much, save for the itching. Made his fingers tingle, though.

One of the maids he’d picked up from the hotel came through the door on the balcony and brought him a bottle of rum, tears streaming down her face. He’d crashed the rental car coming up the highway in the middle of a traffic jam. They’d had to walk the rest of the way into town. All around them were tourists limping and swearing, and kids crying. The big man had left them to go find his wife and daughter; the women had led Ron to this bar. They barely spoke English, so he had no idea what they were telling him.

This one put the bottle on the table beside him and kissed his head. He nodded at her, still playing, and she left.

After a while, something dry and ticklish rose in the back of his throat. He coughed. It felt like he’d swallowed a mouthful of hair. He gagged, reached in over his tongue, and felt something back there. He’d be damned if it wasn’t hair.

He pinched the end of it. It seemed to wriggle between his fingers. He pulled on it, and felt the tug down deep in his guts. It didn’t hurt, although it probably should have.

He pulled on it hard enough to rip
something
out, put it on the antique cast-iron table, and poured himself another glass of rum. A fleck of ash landed in it. He picked the fleck out and drank the rum. The long piece of
something
on the table was curling up at the ends and turning pink.

Someone screamed, and he put his hand over his drink.

A shape was crawling down the street in front of him, just over eye level: a mound of junkyard garbage so huge it seemed like it was looking over the balcony at him.

“Hey,” he said. “Monsters gotta dance, too.”

He took a last sip of the rum, set it down, and started playing some Frank Zappa. If someone had asked him a week ago what his last song would have been, he would have picked some Jimi Hendrix. Maybe some Cream.

Thing was, as the monster rolled a hundred feathery tentacles over the railing, pulling the banister out of the way, the world was obviously too fucked up for anything but Frank Zappa.

The monster’s tentacles stroked the guitar.

He played on.

Terkun’shuks’pai watched his creations destroy the island. He had never been as fond of the islands in this part of the world as the ones in Japan, yet melancholy seemed about to overwhelm him. Perhaps it was the nature of the destruction, which, although very quick, still managed to suggest the passage of time and the irrevocable decay of the universe.

Terkun’shuks’pai retreated from the material world into his
pacha
.

He appeared a mile away from his teahouse so he could have the pleasure of walking along the path. Leaves and pine needles crunched beneath his feet. The air smelled of pinesap and leaf mold and rain; the sky hung with thick clouds. A touch of smoke shook the leaves, as though someone had lit a fire on this damp, slightly chilly day. It began to rain in small, light drops.

He could feel the dark cave farther down the valley, waiting for him.

Eventually, the footpath crossed out of the forest and into a partial clearing near the teahouse. Worn, flat stones rested underfoot. The roof overhung the brickwork foundation upon which the house had been built. The bottoms of the poles holding up the roof were weathered gray, aged faster by the splashing of rain off the brick. The screens were closed. He stepped under the eaves and waited. Soon the rain began in earnest. The water poured off the roof, battered the leaves, overflowed the streams, and raced to the bottom of the valley.

Toward the cave.

He entered the teahouse barefoot, sat upon the rice mats, and then stood and opened the screens. A chilled breeze brought in splashes of rain along with the scents of the forest and a thin stream of smoke that was almost a memory.

The lacquer panel in the floor had been removed and the brazier within was hot. The water was just coming to a boil.