Napier's Bones (3 page)

“I don’t think—”
Dom started, but then the sky exploded in a bright flash of integers,
logarithms, algebraic formulae, more. Entire sequences plummeted from the sky,
dropping and screaming like Nazi Stukas, twisting and pulling up at the last
second to avoid hitting the ground, ripping through people, cars, buildings,
trees and birds, before climbing hard back into the sky and breaking up in
lightning-bright explosions. And even though Dom knew they were invisible to
everyone else in the park and on the street, the numbers were so powerful that
people were flinching and waving at them like they were especially pesky
mosquitoes and flies.

“Search
numbers!” shouted Billy over the din, but Dom was already ahead of him, up and
running across the grass, reeling off primes and grabbing them before they got
away, smearing them against his skin and clothes.

But that would
only help for a few minutes, he was sure. He’d never seen any patterns so
strong, so large.

The girl was
running beside him now. “What’s wrong? What are those numbers doing?” She
sounded breathless, panicked.

“Someone we’re
not prepared to meet right now is looking for us,” said Billy, squeezing in
words over Dom’s desperate counting. Dom ducked as an especially loud sequence
screeched through the air, sailing just barely over his head and bumping off
some already frazzled primes. “We won’t get away,” said Dom, panting.

The girl grabbed
his arm and pulled him to the right, pointing to the street. “My car!”

He nodded and
they both ran madly, Dom stutter-stepping twice to avoid more numbers. She
reached the little red Subaru wagon first, flung the door open and jumped in,
Dom jumping in right after her. Before he had the door shut she was peeling out
of her parking spot, forcing an oversize RV with Arizona plates to slam on the
brakes.

“Where to?” she
yelled. Even with the windows rolled up, the screaming of the numbers as they
dived was overwhelming, crashing against their ears in deafening waves.

Dom scratched
more primes on his window. “North!” yelled Billy.

The girl turned
a hard left, followed the block, then left again. Directly ahead there were
more numbers plummeting from the sky and with a brief muttered curse she turned
right, followed a one-way road that curved up a hill.

“We’re leaving
them behind,” she said, voice cracking. There were tears in the corners of her
eyes.

Dom looked back,
saw that the sky above the tabernacle was still thick with numbers, a flock of
insane numerate crows circling as they searched for prey. But many were now
streaking high into the air and flying north. Looking that way, he saw that
they were gathering, circling like a low storm cloud, probably readying for
another search.

“We can’t go
north now. She’s trying to squeeze off our escape route.”

The girl leaned
forward against the steering wheel, looked up and ahead. “I see nothing towards
the canyon. We’ll go that way.”

“How long until
we’re in the canyon?”

She passed a
slow-moving car, ignoring the horns from oncoming traffic. “Five minutes. Maybe
ten.”

“The primes
won’t last that long,” said Billy. “We’re bound to show up before we reach it.”

Dom spun around,
saw that the back seat was loaded with junk and papers. “What do you have back
here?”

She glanced
around quickly. “Stuff. Stuff to help me with numbers.” She managed to force a
wry smile. “A little obsession that guarantees I don’t ever get to keep a
boyfriend.”

Kneeling on the
seat and leaning over the back, Dom started rifling through things. “Have you
got a . . .”

“A what?”

“Fucking great!”
he yelled, turning back around. In his hands he held what looked to be almost
twenty feet of tape from an adding machine, random numbers cooing softly at
him.

“I was looking
for patterns,” she said. “But I couldn’t find any with that roll.”

“Ideal,” said
Dom. He started wrapping the tape around his waist and right arm and as quickly
as he could brought it up towards his head. Ignoring the looks he was getting
from the people in the car beside him, he started wrapping it around his neck
and head, a numerate mummy preparing to meet his own version of Osiris. The
harsh glare of the sun was now softened as it shone through the paper and ink,
and the smell of sun-baked paper was thick in his nostrils. It was small mojo,
but better than the makeshift stuff he’d been running with.

Finished, at
least as best as he could be, he then leaned down, put his head on the girl’s
lap as she drove. “Just keep driving,” he said, voice sounding hollow inside
his makeshift wrap of numbers. “We don’t want to be stuck in town waiting for
them to find us.”

“There are some
skimming the streets not too far behind me,” she said, fear raising the pitch
of her voice. He felt the car accelerate more.

“Are they coming
our way?”

“Sorta.” He felt
the road dip; they were going downhill now, a fairly steep drop. There was a
long pause, and when the road levelled out again she breathed a heavy sigh.
“No. I don’t think they’re following us anymore.”

“I’ll give it a
few more minutes, I think.” He closed his eyes, relief starting to sink in, the
roll of paper rustling loudly in his ears. “I hope you don’t mind me being down
here like this.”

She tried to
laugh. “I just hope the Highway Patrol doesn’t decide to pull me over. This
would look bad enough anywhere else, but in Utah . . .” Her voice trailed off.

After
another couple of minutes, Dom asked, “What’s your name?”

“Jenna. Yours?”

“Dom.”

“Billy,”
said the shadow.

“Okay,
I’m feeling a bit weirded out,” said Jenna. “One guy wrapped in paper with his
head in my lap is bad enough, but two in the same body is too much.”

The car slowed
down, and the steady whine of tires on pavement was joined by the rumble and
pop of rocks underneath. Dom sat up and peeled the paper off his body, then
opened the door and stepped out. They were in a half-full parking lot on the
side of the highway; down below people fished at a small lake surrounded by
trees, and above and around him there were steep grey cliffs and mountains, as
close as the other side of the highway. A semi rattled by, four cars and
minivans jostling anxiously behind it. “This is part of the canyon?”

Jenna climbed
out as well, nodded. “Logan Canyon.”

“Where does this
take us?”

“Does that mean
you’ll take me with you?”

Dom frowned.
“Give me a minute, will you?” He walked over to the far side of the lot. “So
what do we do?” he asked, and immediately noticed how easy it was to say we instead
of I.

Billy scratched
his head for him, and he turned and looked back at Jenna, who was standing
watching the traffic go by. “I’ve already figured out that you aren’t the type
to just kill her and leave her at the side of the road.” Dom flinched at this;
the thought would never have occurred to him, but he knew there were numerates
out there who wouldn’t hesitate. “Take her along. We have no real idea of what
the landscape is like, how far we are from anything, and no transportation
other than her automobile.”

Dom nodded. “I
guess I can teach her some stuff.”

“But keep it
elementary, Dom. Don’t give up too much information; you don’t want her to end
up knowing all your secrets and stealing some mojo.”

“Right. And
maybe I can get rid of her when we know we’re in the clear.” He paused,
scratched his chin. “Have you noticed something weird about her?”

“How so?”

“Like a couple
of times it felt like I was looking at things from Jenna’s eyes. Just for a
tiny second each time.”

Billy shook his
head. “No, I haven’t.” He smiled. “Don’t go getting all infatuated with this
girl.”

“That ain’t the
problem,” muttered Dom. He turned and walked back to the car. “Okay, here’s the
deal,” he told Jenna. “I need your wheels, and you need my expertise, right?”

She nodded.

“Then we get in
and drive. Let’s get away from here, then I’ll take the time and teach you a
few things, all right?”

Jenna smiled.
“All right.”

“But in the
meantime,” he said as they got back in the car, “I have some other things I’m
doing. So the stuff you learn will be from following along and paying
attention, not from me pretending I’m up at the front of the class.”

Jenna backed
out, waited for two trucks to go by, then pulled back out onto the highway. “Is
my first lesson knowing when to run away?”

“Damn straight
it is.” Dom turned his head and looked back, one last check for stray numbers.
“I still don’t know the name of that woman, but I do know that I don’t want to
take her on face-to-face, especially not right now.”

“That would be
your second lesson,” said Billy, sounding dry. “Never attack a problem straight
on when you can sneak around the back way.”

Jenna did a
slight double-take, looking at Dom for a few seconds before the road twisted
and forced her attention back to driving. “Right. You told me your name is
Billy, shadow guy. Let’s make that my third lesson. Exactly who or what are
you?”

Dom felt his
shoulders shrug. It was a gesture he didn’t often make, but it seemed that his
new adjunct liked to use it quite regularly. “My name’s Billy. I don’t know
much else about myself, except that I’ve probably been dead for at least a
hundred years, probably more.”

Jenna gasped,
but kept her attention on the road. “I’d say you were feeding me a line, but
maybe those screaming numbers have opened my mind a bit.”

“Dead is a
relative term,” continued Billy. “This form of immortality takes an odd shape,
I know, and is tenuous at best; I thus partake in a search for the means to
make this a permanent state, one that would also return to me a corporeal
form.” He grinned. “I’m also constantly searching, with the aid of whoever is
my current host, to find clues to my lost past.”

“Corporeal form
would mean your own body, right?” asked Jenna. “Would this be like something
out of a horror movie, where you take over someone else’s body?” She looked
pointedly over at Dom.

“Not at all. Dom
is only my most recent host. My experience can be useful to him, as his body is
to me. But our goal is essentially a common one.”

“You both want
to live forever?”

Dom shook his
head. “Later on in the learning curve, Jenna. As it is right now, everything
Billy says about his history is as new to me as it is to you. Okay?”

Jenna nodded.
“Not like I really have a choice.”

“Shall I
continue then?” asked Billy. “Or is my storytelling ability not so
captivating?”

Jenna
slowed down and inched over towards the shoulder to make sure that an oncoming
tractor-trailer would go by without sideswiping the car. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Secrets for the
numerate have been handed down, often somewhat begrudgingly, over the
centuries, perhaps even over millennia. Numeracy is the life-blood of power for
a lucky few, and the ability to find the items—what numerates like Dom these
days call the mojo—that help contain and build that power, is one of the
biggest factors in how successful you are.

“An even greater
power, and one that most numerates are never able to develop, is the ability to
fashion mojo that can hold your numerical shadow.”

“Shadow?”

“Essence, if you
like.”

“What, like a
soul?” Jenna made a rather sour face. “I had to put up with enough of that crap
when I was little and forced to go to church.”

Dom shrugged and
said, “I know, it all sounds like goofy metaphysical shit. Don’t think of it as
a soul, though. From what I’ve read, template might be a better word. Or
avatar. But ‘shadow’ is what most of us use, or else ‘adjunct.’ Sometimes
‘co-opt,’ as well, but that isn’t as common a term.”

Now
Billy nodded. “This much I know: a long time ago, when I was still alive, I set
my life’s essence into something of numerical significance. But somehow
something went wrong with what I laid out, or perhaps something happened later
on, during a transfer from one host to another. I remember enough to know some
of my name, and I still retain my numerate abilities, even though those of my
host will always supersede them.” He rolled down the window and leaned back,
let the mountain air, cooler by far than the heat in Logan, wash over his face.

“The numbers
that I put in place did their duty, although it still took a long time for my
first host to find it and to unlock the secret. So long, in fact, that we
wasted some time while I learned to handle new slang and vernacular. I can only
imagine the difficulties Napier might have had with Archimedes.”

Dom sat bolt
upright, eyes open. “Holy shit! John Napier hosted Archimedes?”

Billy shrugged
Dom’s shoulders again. “I think so.” Suddenly he smiled and slapped Dom’s knee.
“By damn, a memory! A previous host and I were acquainted with someone who knew
someone, if you understand what I mean. From what we gathered, all the evidence
seemed to point to his hosting the Greek.” He scratched his chin, thinking for
a moment longer. “I wonder if the shock of joining up with you has unearthed
any other old memories.”

“I’ve heard of
Archimedes,” interrupted Jenna. “But who was John Napier?”

“He was a
Scottish mathematician and inventor,” replied Dom. “He’s one of two men who
separately invented logarithms. There have always been whispers that he managed
to leave his shadow in all sorts of artefacts, although I’ve seen no sign that
he’s actually been brought forth. I think the gal who’s after us might have
been able to lay her hands on one of the artefacts. I’m pretty sure, even.”

“And so you
were, what, trying to steal it from her?”

Dom grinned. “If
I’d known she was there, then damn straight. She could either cough it up
happily, unlikely in the best of circumstances, or with a fight. She wasn’t the
reason I was down there in the first place, but the shit storm that came out of
my trip to the desert is why Billy and me are together like this, and why this
woman is now on my ass instead.”