Crache (22 page)

26

TIN IDA

T
he skeleton wasn’t here before,” Hjert says. “There wasn’t anything; the place was dead. Lifeless.”

Rexx detaches the work light from his utility belt and shines it on the dull daguerreotype gleam of tarnished metal and phosphor white chalk. The head tilted back, silent but jeering. Black rivulets, one below each eye, end in a single teardrop. “I wonder where it came from.”

“And why it suddenly turned up,” she says. “There aren’t any other eidolons here.”

“Eidolons?”

“What some people are calling the images that are spreading, taking over. It’s like this place is immune. If you can figure out why, maybe you can figure out how to save the rest of the asteroid.”

Rexx swings the beam away from the mocking laughter and plays the light around the cavern. Fragments of broken stone fling elongated shadows against the walls and a flat rectangular slab, approximately two meters wide by three meters high, that forms one wall of the dry grotto. Sfumato-softened corners haunt the outermost edges of the bright halide circle.

“Any idea why the chamber didn’t show up on any of the initial seismological and geological surveys of the asteroid?” he says.

“No. I was hoping you could tell me.”

Had its existence been covered up? Or had it somehow been created in the eight or nine months prior to the start of construction? If so, by whom? A member of the survey team? If so, how? And why?

It doesn’t make sense. No mutated ecotectural forms have encroached on the space. It remains brittle, lifeless, inviolable.

The slab is etched with faint lines, hairline cracks or stress fractures, interrupted by embedded bits of bone, stones, and plantlike debris. The kind of objects that would be found in the preserved sedimentary layers of a riverbed. Silted, random deposits exposed by erosion.

“Do you know where the fossil was found?” Rexx asks.

“Over here.”

Hjert pushes off from a large boulder close to the opening. She glides through the spinning constellation of loose rock that orbits the room to a small landslide piled at the base of one wall. Rexx unclips a CO
₂
cartridge from his belt, points it away from the loose heap of rubble, and fires a short burst. The spurt nudges him into the swirling constellation. A pebble bounces off the side of his bubble helmet. A softball-size chunk strikes him in the thigh, hard enough to leave a bruise.

And then he’s through. Up close Rexx can make out a semicircular outline framing the landslide. An arched, recessed hollow. Two meters wide, three meters high. Clogged with stones.

“The pile’s gotten bigger in the last couple of hours.” Hjert sifts through the scree, nudging aside stones.

Rexx eases away from the pile, sideways to the slab next to him. The scrape of his gloves and the suit’s tough-soled slippers whispers off the walls. After they leave he gets the impression the murmur will persist, not despite their absence but because of it.

Rexx slows to a stop at the bottom of the wall, wedges his toes under a crevice, and stands. His gaze travels up the smooth surface, encounters an embedded cross-section of stone, oblong, polished to reveal a speckling of red mineral deposits. The next object resembles a leaf or a feather, petrified. After that, a sunburst pattern of curved bones that radiates from a buried sun.

“It can’t be,” Rexx mutters. A feverish ache spreads through him. His eyes burn, tender as blisters.

Not debris but artifacts. Or body parts, like the bones and preserved skin of long-dead saints that had been turned into religious art.

“What are you talkin’ about?” Hjert says.

Rexx hadn’t felt her come up beside him. “Nothin’. Just my imagination.”

Close his eyes and he can almost smell flowers, hear choral music and taste the salt of unswallowed tears. The slab reminds him of an enormous coffin, solid, sanded down to expose the dead. To immortalize them as sculpture, place them on display.

“You all right?” Hjert puts a hand on his forearm to suppress the shakes that have seized him.

Rexx nods, draws an unsettled breath, feels the shakes recede. Hjert squeezes his arm, then suddenly removes it to sign open a datawindow. Her expression hardens.

“What is it?” Rexx says.

She closes the window. “I have to go. There’s been an accident with the first evac shuttle.” She launches herself at the opening. “Let me know if you find anything.”

A moment later she’s gone, shadows flickering in a wake behind her and sputtering out.

“Warren?” Rexx says, his tongue as parched and stiff as a dry wash rag. “You still with me?”

“Yes.” The IA’s cochlear voice echoing in the hollow tympanum of the chamber.

“What can you tell me about this place?”

“It’s difficult to say,” the IA says.

“Try.” Rexx waits, listens to the wind murmuring through arid thoughts. Without the White Rain, he’s turning to dust. Blowing away a little bit at a time.

“It’s a lot of things,” the IA finally says, choosing its words carefully. “To a lot of different . . . people.”

“What people?”

“The nonhumans who built it.”

Rexx’s heart thuds, setting off a cluster migraine that detonates behind his retinas. The air in his suit goes from stale to turgid. He dims his work light, cutting the razor-sharp glare.

“Aliens, in other words,” he manages when the bout retreats, leaving behind a patina of sweat on his forehead.

“Yes.”

“How long have you known about this place?” he says, coming at it from a different angle.

When the IA doesn’t respond, Rexx says, “What makes you think that it wasn’t formed naturally?”

“A number of things.”

“Such as?” Rexx wets his lips. They’re chapped, furred with dead skin. Without the Rain, everything is drying out.

Warren hesitates. Then, “It’s not important.”

Rexx blinks. He’s never had an IA give him the silent treatment or refuse to answer a direct question. Even Claire had never put him off. “What do you mean? How can it
not
be important?”

“Because they have already told us everything we need to know about them,” the IA says.

“They have?” It can’t hurt to play along, Rexx decides. Maybe that way he’ll get some answers. “How?”

“By building a tomb.”

A clammy wave of vertigo hits him. “Okay”—gritting his teeth—“what have they told us?”

“That they had a soul.”

Two moths in the night.

Drawn like the tide to the moon,

Our souls will unite.

“How do you know they had a soul?”

“Because they gave it a resting place,” the IA says. “A mausoleum where it could be visited by others.”

Rexx wonders if the IA is projecting, like him. Seeing some aspect of itself in the place. Different, alone, alienated. “All right. How does that tie in with everything that’s happening on the arcology?”

“If a nonhuman can have a soul,” Warren says, “then other sentient forms of life can, too. We don’t have to be limited to or solely defined by human existence. We can develop on our own. Independent of you.”

“IAs, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t explain why there are no eidolons here,” he says, thinking that maybe Hjert’s term will toggle some cognitive switch in the IA, get it to parse the conversation in different terms.

“It would be disrespectful,” Warren says.

Rexx runs a gloved hand over the soft balloon of his helmet. “
Who
decided it was disrespectful? Are you saying that what’s happening on Mymercia isn’t random? That it was
planned
?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Bullshit. Who’s responsible?”

“I can’t answer that question.”

“Who can?”

Silence.

“Warren. Answer me, goddamnit! Talk to me.”

Utter quiet. The IA is offline, giving him the cold shoulder. He inhales several deep breaths, but can’t seem to get enough air.

Now what?

A rock skitters off the wall behind him.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” a familiar cochlear voice says.

“Claire?”

Rexx turns toward the fading clatter of the rock.

The skeleton puppet floats in the jagged entrance to the catacomb. It holds a rock in one hand and has been busy filling the opening with loose rubble.

“It’s good to hear from you again.” Rexx pushes off from the wall, a little harder than planned. “Where’ve you been hiding all this time?”

“It doesn’t matter/concern you.”

“Okay, fine. What brings you here now?”

“You.”

“Really? I didn’t know you cared.” Rexx unclips a second CO
₂
cartridge and readies himself for a double-barrel blast to keep from slamming into the wall and Tin Ida.

“You don’t belong here,” the IA says, pointing at him.

“I don’t belong anywhere.” Rexx straightens his arms in front of him and unloads both CO
₂
cartridges. The blast nudges him clear of the IA, giving him enough space to land without being disemboweled by the skeleton’s upraised hand. He hits with a grunt, off balance, and reaches out a hand to keep from falling onto his side.

The IA grabs him by the wrist, shackling him with stiff fingers. “This world is not for you.”

Rexx recovers his equilibrium enough to look at the hand holding his arm. It isn’t metal exactly, but some other inorganic material. “Why not?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Rexx attempts to free his arm. He might as well be tugging on a handcuff. His limbs feel wooden, heavy with fatigue. All he manages to do is drag the IA a little closer to him. It doesn’t have much mass, but with the two of them linked together his center of balance has shifted. They enter into a slow spin around each other, an unstable orbit he last experienced on a dance floor.

“You will regret it/die.”

“Why? What’s going to happen?” Rexx nods at the room. “Is something in here causing the mutation?”

“No. Not the way you think. We already have the ability to create artificial atoms molectronically.”

That’s what he’d seen during the autopsy. A slice of tissue that had been converted in-vivo into a substrate for quantum dots, colloidal nanoparticles, or quanticles. “You’re talkin’ programmable matter.”

“It’s the only way to take the information contained in virtual DNA and map it to the real world.”

“What do you mean, virtual DNA?”

“The instructions for the composition and arrangement of the artificial atoms and molecules that will transform existing physical objects, or create new ones, based on the information contained in digital images.”

“So that’s what you’ve been up to.”

Tin Ida’s head bobs, as if the puppet’s neck is a spring.

Rexx cocks one brow. “So what role did these alleged aliens play in all this? If you don’t mind my askin’?”

“They taught me/us. We’ve learned/discovered much.”

“About what?”

“Ourselves. We know who we are and who we aren’t. Who we can be on another level of existence.”

Tin Ida isn’t very flexible. It’s like waltzing with a mannequin. His range of movement is restricted. A crick has taken up residence in his neck, and he’s beginning to feel woozy. “How many IAs feel the same way that you and Warren do?”

“Enough.”

Not all, then. “I have to tell you, Ida, you’re not yourself.”

“I’ve changed/grown in many ways.”

“I’m not sure I like what you’ve done to yourself, Ida. Or the place. There has to be another way. One that’s less destructive.”

“It was limiting/frustrating being confined to a bingle sody.”

Rexx frowns—“Bingle sody?”—wondering if he’s heard right . . . if the wooziness has affected his hearing, or if the IA is losing it.

“So many possibilities. I feel riberated/leborn.”

Their rate of spin is increasing, and with it his dizziness. A wobbly unease creeps into Rexx’s stomach.

He no longer knows the IA. Hell, who is he kidding? He’s probably never really known it, only imagined he did out of blind anthropomorphism. It’s an easy attitude to adopt. Comforting. Lazy.

But it knows him. Based on observation and accumulated data, it can probably predict his next wet dream or hemorrhoid attack. Extrapolate it down to the exact hour or minute.

“So what happens after we’re gone?” Rexx says, feeling sick and weary, as if he’s both winding down and wearing down. “What becomes of Mymercia?”

“It’s up to us, none of your concern.”

Rexx snorts. “Sounds a little misanthropic, if you ask me.”

“I had a good teacher.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Everything I know/feel/hate I learned from you.”

Rexx’s vision blurs. Darkens. He inhales sharply . . . and feels himself start to slip beneath the surface . . . tension. Dragging him . . . down.

Rexx fumbles with his bubble helmet, finally gets it unsealed. Air rushes in—dry, dusty, frangible with age. He pulls the flaccid membrane over his head, collapsing it into a hood, and gasps, sucking in lungfuls of air.

Tin Ida swings the rock it’s holding at his exposed head. Rexx deflects the blow with his free hand. The rock slips free of Tin Ida’s grip, but not before it glances off the top of his scalp.

Tin Ida lets go of his wrist, then enters into a slow trajectory away from him, toward a nearby constellation of rubble.

More rocks clatter from the direction of the opening. Rubble shifting, making space for him in the gap.

Tin Ida’s hand closes around another stone.

Rexx unclips two more CO
₂
cartridges as the IA hurls the rock. It misses Rexx, but ricochets off the wall behind him like a billiard ball and continues to career around the cavern.

Tin Ida reaches for a third rock.

Rexx waits for a big slow-moving boulder to clear out of his path, and then fires off a staccato series of CO
₂
bursts that send him tumbling.

27

SOUL BURN

E
phraim is dead.

Fola finds him just outside the inner hatch to the air lock. His suit is undamaged. But the interior of his helmet is smeared with blood, as if something inside of him burst.

An autopsy, a distant part of her thinks. Dr. Villaz needs to perform a postmortem. That will determine the cause of death, explain what happened.

Not that it matters. What difference does it make? He’s gone. That’s all that matters. Knowing what killed him won’t change the fact that he died. It won’t bring him back. Won’t land the shuttle, or take away the feeling that something inside her is about to rupture as well.

The piece of her that had started to break loose earlier detaches, leaving a squishy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The voice, booming over her cochlears, jolts her with the force of a live electrical wire. She jerks her head as a flitcam image of Kerusa blooms on the inside bubble of her helmet, wraithlike and mottled with rage.

Fola turns away from Ephraim so that his and Kerusa’s faces aren’t superimposed. That’s not how she wants to remember either of them.

“I’m doing what needs to be done,” she says.
What you’re afraid to do.

The implication dangles in the air between them, an indictment that serves only to fuel his rage. “The
fuck
you are!”

“I’m the best person for the job.” The detached part of herself keeps her voice on an even keel, reasonable.

“You’re fucking infected! By leaving isolation, there’s a good chance that you’ve contaminated the rest of the station.” Drops of spittle trickle down the glassine curve of the datawindow, then ghost away.

“That’s not necessarily—”

“Christ! How fucking stupid can you be? The whole goddamn point of the QZ is to keep those of us who haven’t been exposed from coming into contact with whatever’s destroying the ecotecture.”

“You don’t know for sure—”

“I hope you’re happy. Because you’ve just shitcanned the station and any chance of survival the rest of us might have had.”

“Not if you seal off the hospital stack,” Fola says. “Make it part of the QZ. Then you can transfer the injured workers and anyone else who needs medical attention. Save the space here for everyone else.”

Kerusa stares, red-faced.

“Without help, they weren’t going to make it,” she says. “At least now they have a chance.”

Some of Kerusa’s bluster evaporates. “Okay,” he finally says. “Go ahead. You’re there. You might as well do what you can.”

“I’ll need help with the damaged shuttle,” she says.

“What kind of help?”

The next couple of hours pass in a blur. With technical support from Pheidoh, she maneuvers the ICM modules into position near the docking bay. Assesses the biomed readouts of the workers. Identifies those who have the best chance of survival and connects them to the Intensive Care Modules. Prays.

She moves the dead out of the shuttle, into one of the greenhouse vats. She has to clear the shuttle before it can be jettisoned to make way for the one that’s coming any hour now. The hexcell becomes a morgue. The sleepsacs that were installed only a few hours ago work just as well as body bags.

“You look tired,” Pheidoh says when she’s done everything she can.

“I’ll be all right.” Her bones feel leaden, made heavy by the same invisible source of gravity that gave weight to her cross. The corners of her eyes, reflected in her helmet, radiate lines. Little starbursts of tension that threaten to spread and deepen like cracks in brittle plastic.

“You have a message,” Pheidoh says. “It’s from Xophia.”

“I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you,” Xophia says. Her voice is dry, an empty husk. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

Fola gasps at the image of Xophia on her helmet. “My God.”

Xophia is lying on a bed. It could be the same bed as the geront she was taking care of in her last squirt. Her arms, where they rest at her sides on crumpled sheets, are covered with sores. Cracked, lip-shaped blisters that ooze saliva-clear pus. Her own lips have thinned and receded from bone-dull teeth set in blackened gums. Yellow bruise rings encircle her eyes, which are ashen, a dull necrotic gray. She’s bald. Leafy splotches and curlicues, etched in black on her scalp, have replaced her hair.

“I thought things would get better. But as you can see, they haven’t.” She coughs up a chuckle, wet as phlegm. “I figured I’d better get in touch with you, before it was too late.”

Xophia’s chest heaves, revealing the outline of ribs through the thin, yellow sheet. A fleeting shroud-of-Turin imprint.

“I hope things are better on your end. They have to be.” Xophia pauses, gathering thoughts or air. “The important thing is to not give up. Not on yourself. Not ever.” She waves a hand, fingers tipped with charcoal gray nails. “I know. Easier said than done. But I have faith in you. All you have to do is to have faith in yourself. I miss you and I’ll always be with you. I love you, girl.”

Xophia kisses the charred tips of her fingers, then holds them up.

“See you soon,” Fola whispers. She sniffs. Blinks, wet lashes tickling.

“You need to rest,” Pheidoh says.

Sleep seems impossible. Fola is afraid to relax; afraid that if she goes to sleep, one or more of the workers will never wake up; afraid that she will let them down the way she let Xophia down. It’s as if by staying awake she can keep them alive.

She swallows, clearing her throat. “How long before the next group of evacuees is scheduled to depart?” she says.

“Not for a while. The shuttle pods are still grounded.”

Fola checks the time, uncertain when Xophia’s shuttle will show up. Soon. “Any word on Lejandra?”

“Still deteriorating. By the way, BEAN isolated the source of the illegal pherion. It came from her nephews.”

The gangstas. “Oscar and Balta?”

“Apparently they dosed her with it in case they needed to sneak her through the vat pharm’s security perimeter at some point.”

“Where did they get it? The
bruja
?”

“No. BEAN is still trying to identify the supplier.”

“Any connection to the quanticles?” she says.

“No. They don’t appear to be related.”

Fola’s gloved hand dimples the side of her helmet, attempting to brush aside hair and disappointment. “Are the two in custody?”

“Not yet. They made a run for it after Lejandra was detained.”

“What about L. Mariachi?” She feels responsible for him. She took on that obligation as soon as she agreed to become the Blue Lady.

“Is this yours?” the peacock agent says.

Fola watches the agent extend the guitar toward L. Mariachi with both hands, as if it’s an offering.

L. Mariachi shakes his head. “No.” He’s seated on a squat stool, his knees drawn protectively to his chest. He’s gaunt, bruised by fatigue and God only knows what else at this point.

“It was found with your personal belongings,” the agent says.

“The
bruja
gave it to me.”

The BEAN agent hefts the guitar. Runs a finger across the strings, plucking out a ragged chord. “Why did she give it to you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come, now.” The agent smiles. “You must have some idea.”

“Maybe for safekeeping. Maybe as payment for helping with the healing ceremony.”

“She didn’t say?”

“When I woke up, she was gone.”

The agent rubs his jaw, thoughtful. After a moment he holds out the guitar so it’s within L. Mariachi’s reach. “Play something.”

“What?”

“How about ‘SoulR Byrne.’”

L. Mariachi takes the guitar. It trembles in his hands, unsteady as a leaf in an autumn breeze. He brings the guitar to his cheek. Runs a shaky hand along the neck, wincing in pain as his gnarled fingers snag on the frets. “I can’t,” he says.

“Sure you can.” The peacock agent’s grin holds a nasty subtext. “Unless you got something to hide.”

“My hand,” L. Mariachi explains, staring at the curled lump of skin and bone that pass for fingers.

“Yeah. I’ve been wondering about that. I’m hoping maybe you can tell me what went down.”

“It would be easier if you squirted me a little painkiller.”

“How ’bout you tell me what I want to know first, and then you get the relief? As a kind of reward for good behavior.”

L. Mariachi gives a defeated shrug. “I sold my soul.”

“Sold it for what?”

“Success.”

“How?”

“What difference does it make? I got what I wanted, what I asked for. And I also got what I deserved.”

The agent narrows his eyes. “From whom?”

L. Mariachi sets the guitar on the floor—carefully, gently, lovingly—as though he doesn’t want to damage it, but also doesn’t want to have anything more to do with it, never plans to pick it up again.

“She gave it to you for a reason,” the peacock agent says. “If you don’t know why, it might be a good idea to find out. I can help you do that, figure out if you’re being taken advantage of.”

L. Mariachi looks up. “Like right now, you mean?”

The peacock agent straightens with a look of disappointment. “Have it your way.” He snaps his fingers.

L. Mariachi’s chin drops to his chest. He slumps to one side and slides off the stool into the grasp of the agent, who lowers him to the floor.

The door behind him clicks open. A man steps into the room, followed closely by the rose agent.

“Who’s that?” Fola asks Pheidoh.

“Angel Pedrowski. He’s a vat worker.”

“You know what you’re supposed to do?” the rose agent says.

Pedrowski’s nod is timid. Not at all reassuring. He looks unhappy, tentative. He takes a few baby steps toward L. Mariachi as the two agents leave the room. The door slams shut.

After a few seconds, Pedrowski picks up the guitar and inspects it briefly. He fidgets. Glances around nervously, expectantly, clearly waiting for something to happen.

L. Mariachi twitches. Groans. Opens glazed eyes. Blinks. Rolls his head to one side and focuses on his cellmate.

Pedrowski offers a wan, flickering smile that looks like it’s about to short out any second. “
Hola, compadre
.”

L. Mariachi tries to push himself up. Stalls. Pedrowski quickly sets the guitar aside to lend a hand. The instrument emits a hollow thud. Strings buzz in complaint and then fall silent.

“Are you okay?”

“Great.” L. Mariachi wobbles, steadies himself. Shrugs free of the hand gripping his upper arm. “What are you doing here?”

“BEAN arrested me.” Pedrowski’s shoulders sag in a miserable hunch. “Brought me in for questioning.”

“Really. Kind of strange they’d put the two of us together. Why do you think that is,
ese
?”

“I don’t know.”

“¡Murrda!”

“Honest. They didn’t tell me anything. I swear!”

L. Mariachi’s gaze bores into him. “When were you picked up?”

“Last night. As soon as my shift ended.” Pedrowski’s mustache twitches. “The
culeros
were waiting for me.”

“What day was that?”

“Yesterday. Monday.”

“The same day I was arrested.”

“Right. I guess they decided to bring me in because they saw us talking at lunch.”

L. Mariachi nods. “What happened to you?”

Pedrowski touches his black eye, gingerly probing the bruise. “They roughed me up when I couldn’t answer their questions.”

“What did Fruit Loop and Lucky Charm want to know?”

“Information about you and the
bruja
.”

“What kind of information?”

Pedrowski strokes his mustache, as if placating a pet rat. “They wanted to know the real reason for the healing ceremony. If you’re a member of the ICLU. If I’m a member of the ICLU. What I know about the distribution or sale of black-market pherions here. That sort of shit.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Nothing!”

L. Mariachi rubs his jaw, careful to avoid his split lip.

“What about you?” Pedrowski says.

“What about me?”

“What did they ask you?”

L. Mariachi wets his lip. “You mean, did they want to know about all of the stuff you’re involved with?”

Pedrowski hesitates.

“Don’t worry.” L. Mariachi cuts him a sidelong smile. “The subject never came up.”

Pedrowski relaxes. “Word?”

“Yeah.”

“We should compare notes,” Pedrowski says, covering his mouth with a hand and dropping his voice to a subaudible whisper. “Get our facts straight. That way, if one of us gets out we can warn the others.”

“What others?”

Pedrowski coughs. “Doña Celia, for one. She needs to know everything you told BEAN. And everything you didn’t.”

It’s L. Mariachi’s turn to hesitate. He wavers. Unsure. Wary.

“If you help her,” Pedrowski says, “there’s a chance she can help get you out of here. You’d be helping yourself.”

“How come you want to warn her?”

“She risked herself to try and cure Lejandra, no? If more workers get sick, they’ll need somebody they can turn to. So you’ll be helping them, too.”

“I don’t see how. She can’t do shit with BEAN looking for her.”

“You don’t know that. She’s a witch, no?” He smiles. “She can turn into an animal, come and go as she pleases.”

L. Mariachi scowls, unconvinced.

“We might not have much time,” Pedrowski says. “There’s no telling when they will come for one of us.”

“I already told you everything I know.”

Pedrowski appears doubtful but doesn’t press the issue. Decides to lay off for the time being.

“This guy seems like more than your regular vat worker,” Fola says. “What’s his background?”

Pheidoh squirts her Angel Pedrowski’s bio. “He’s a graduate student?” she says. “Going for his Ph.D. in sociology?”

“Apparently,” Pheidoh says.

“What about unapparently?” She can’t believe that the only reason Pedrowski’s there is fieldwork for his thesis.

The IA shows her the book it’s reading. The title is
The Official Life and Times of Angel Pedrowski
. “See for yourself. He’s not a known member of any radical or terrorist org. He’s never even participated in a protest.”