Waybound (4 page)

Then Phoebe was led to the raised bier where her father lay. As she approached, all warmth drained away.

Her father had been laid out on a dark slab framed in decorative coils of burnished copper vine. His body had been rubbed from head to toe in flaking gold leaf so that he glowed like a setting sun. He looked blissful, an ancient idol, a remnant from some vanished civilization. Through her smear of tears, Phoebe could still see a cruel splotch of red marring the gold—the fatal wound on his chest where Kaspar had struck him.

An uncontrollable seizure of grief shook her.

Axial Phy guided Phoebe's hands to sprinkle the rust over her father's body. Her tears fell with the flakes. The five Covenant Overguards held the copper vines and unwound them from wide, flat seed casings. The growths were natural pulleys, and as the mehkans fed out the vines, hand over hand, the slab shifted and descended like an elevator.

She was not ready for this. She would never be ready.

Because of the soundproof shawl, all she could hear was her own rasping breath as her father sank to his final resting place.

Phoebe watched the glimmer of her father's golden form fade into the ore, the splotch of blood going black—her one and only dying light. Her mind plunged with him into darkness.

S
creeeeee. Screee.

Pain is all that's left of me. All that I am.

Greencoats found me at the Citadel. Brought me here, to their lab at the Depot. So close to the tunnel home. Yet they keep me in Mehk. Keep me on this slab. My prison.

They used to come in, with starched collars and flaking dry skin. Stank of antiseptic, masking my spoiled blood on their hands. I tried to fight. Tried to scream. Could only gurgle and splatter.

So they don't come in anymore.

Blinding lights. The white was too much, erupting in my eyes. I closed them. Didn't help. Lids too thin, transparent as insect wings.

So they took the light away.

Screeeeeeeee.

And the sound. A wall of noise that made my brain curdle. Crashing machines, hurricane fans on Computators, voices shrieking at me.

So they took the sound away. Quiet as death.

Except that squeak.

What is that? Why are they making that noise? They're doing it on purpose, trying to torture me. Bet they can read my thoughts with their machines. Know what I will do to them.

That's why they're afraid of me.

Their needles plug my arteries, long glass ones like icicles. Are they taking poison out or pumping it in? Straps on the gurney sink in deep. I feel my skin trying to grab them, to hold on.

Not skin. No skin anymore.

Nothing contains me. No boundary between in and out. I'm a heap of nerves and jellied bones plugged into their machines.

Screeeeee. Screee.

Thundering footsteps. I dare to open my eyes. Try to focus in the dark. I hear the rattling scratch of a paper suit and respirator. Gear to protect them from me. It crashes in my ears.

A figure approaches.

It's him! I knew he'd come. Feel a new acid burning my eyes.

Mr. Goodwin.

He can change this. Will fix me. Put me back together.

Something in his hands. A clipboard with a light. Scorches. Can't look. But he's walking slowly. Carefully. He knows the sound hurts. The only one who doesn't want to give me pain.

He will make me better again.

Mr. Goodwin sits in a chair next to me. I try to turn, but the tendons in my neck are pulled too tight, ready to pop. He angles his little light to see me. Mucus breath rattles my deflated lungs. I squirm on the gurney, and his paper suit rustles.

He's afraid too. Fear of this raw and dripping thing. He thought he could manage the sight of me, but how could he?

How could anyone?

Screeeeeeeee.

Still that sound. Mr. Goodwin can make it stop. I hear his pen hacking at the clipboard. Loud. But he knows that his voice would be unbearably loud. Holds the words so I can see.

“I CAME AS SOON AS I HEARD.”

I try to speak. Only a coarse, liquid grunt. Not words. I try again, a dying thing. He motions for me to relax.

“THE DIRECTORS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE DYAD PROJECT.”

My wheezing breath comes faster, toxic clouds raking my insides. The shreds of my fingers clench. He writes more.

“THEY ARE DOING THIS TO YOU.”

Rage shakes me like an electrical current. I fought the metal inside me. Consumed it. All for them. But it was never enough.

Now they hold me prisoner. Murder me, again and again.

I heave against my restraints, feel them carve into my muddy flesh. Foulness oozes from my pores, cauterizes my fists. Feel the metal in my knuckles bubble as I grasp at the straps.

Mr. Goodwin writes.

“I CAN HELP.”

The fight bleeds out of me.

Screeeeee. Screee.

“BUT I NEED SOMETHING FIRST.”

What? What could I possibly do?

“YOU WENT AFTER PLUMM.”

The name sends a twist of agony coursing through me.

It's true. I ignored my orders. Even worse, I failed.

Mr. Goodwin is angry. That's why he came—to punish me for disobeying. And I deserve it. Deserve…this. I try to apologize, but I can't untangle the words in the ruined sore of my mouth.

“IS HE DEAD?”

Instantly, I feel it. My body remembers the sensation with razor clarity. Perfection. Plumm's sternum bowing under my blow. My fist collapsing the ladder of his rib cage. Sweet death in his eyes. I had victory. But they escaped.

I thrash. Howl. Feel my tongue split in my mouth, writhe like worms. I reach my bound hand out to Mr. Goodwin and point. Veins of scorched metal peel out from under my flesh and extend toward him. Then soften and melt back into my body, searing me.

He backs away in horror. But he understands what I want.

Screeeeeeeee.

He puts his pen in my hand. Try to grip it, but my bones bend. The object is so hard and unbelievably cold, sticking to my sickly corpse skin. But I don't dare let go.

Mr. Goodwin holds the clipboard for me. I struggle to work the pen. Every movement floods me with nausea. Vision is cutting out and blurred. It takes everything to write.

Letter. By agonizing letter.

Screeeeee. Screee.

The metal pen softens in my hand, fingers sink in like it's made of putty. Ink spills and puddles on the slab. The pen turns to slop. Finish writing with my fingers, smearing ink and flesh.

Mr. Goodwin's face changes. His eyes widen. I feel a shift in his breathing. He sees. Knows.

I collapse, withdraw to my waking nightmare of pain. But he is pleased. His smiling eyes are my salvation.

Screeeeeeeee
.

If he'd only do something about that…

Then I realize. He cannot hear it.

I focus on the sound. Everything else drops out. A rattling electronic hum. Feel the hot tungsten coil from a light. Smell of unwashed hair and weeks of old coffee stains. Dirt on a cheap shoe. A man, a Greencoat, watching a machine that's watching me. He's rocking back in his chair.

Screeeeee. Screee.

That's what I hear.

But why? Why can I hear what's happening…

Screeeeeeeee.

…in another room?

“Kaspar, my boy,”
Mr.
Goodwin whispers every so lightly. The sound shreds me, but I don't care. I crave his voice.
“Well done.”

And I see my one word, a mess of bloody black ink.

My word that made Mr. Goodwin happy.

TUNNELED.

M
icah breathed deep. He mashed the trigger, and bullets thudded into the iron undergrowth.

Not even close to the target.

Growling, he lowered the Dervish rifle and swept back his hair with a shaky hand. Even though the weapon was quiet as a cat sneeze, its recoil was wicked, and the rounds came out way too fast. Maybe it was broken.

Nah, that wasn't it. The truth was Micah was too weak.

The ore beneath his feet rumbled, and a chorus of clangs sounded from the nearby training field. After the funeral, he had seen the Covenant warriors practicing combat maneuvers. For a second, Micah had considered training with them, but when he saw the mehkans slamming into one another like crazed Autos in a demolition derby, he set up a training area of his own.

It was a stretch of ground behind some big dome tents and up against those tangled black growths the mehkies called tahniks. He had set up some empty lantern bags for target practice and managed to pop off a few lucky shots. But mostly his aim had gone wild, spackling the surrounding vegetation with white bonding rounds. Empty boxes of ammo lay scattered.

He tensed his trembling arms and hefted the rifle, bracing the stock against his shoulder. Micah fired again. A shuddering burst showered the tahniks and tossed him back. Not even close. Still, he kept on mashing the trigger—
click, click
. That sound, just like when he emptied this gun into Kaspar. Killed the man.

No, not a man. He was a monster. Micah had shot him dead.

But it still wasn't enough to save the Doc.

Micah hurled the rifle down as hard as he could.
No good.
He kicked an empty box of ammo.
Idiot.
He wailed on a lantern bag, pounding it with his fists, spraying sweat and spit.
Midget.

He was spent, sick in the stomach. Seeing red. But he couldn't rest. He threw himself down on the ground and started in on another set of push-ups.

Because he and Phoebe had a job to do. It was a mission from the Ona, so important, so secret they couldn't say a word to anyone. And that was only part of his duty.

Ignoring the aches, Micah scrabbled to his feet and grabbed on to the tahnik branch he had been using as a pull-up bar.

He grunted and gritted his teeth. Four. Five. Six.

Protect her.

Hot, bloody breath in his ear. The Doc's last words.

No matter what.

Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.

Promise me.

The Doc had looked so scared at that moment. At first, Micah had thought it was fear of dying, but that wasn't it. The Doc had been scared for Phoebe, stuck in Mehk, her life in the hands of some stupid servant kid.

Micah's grip slipped from the tahnik, and he collapsed on the ground, heaving for breath.

Footsteps pattered toward him.

“Oh—oh no! Are you ok-k-kay?” Dollop squeaked as he shook Micah. “Sh-should I get help?”

“I'm fine,” Micah growled, pulling from Dollop's grasp. He eased himself to a sitting position, wincing.

Dollop nudged a sealed metal case toward him. “I—I got you another one. Ju-just like you asked.”

Micah opened the box. It was full of bonding rounds.

“An-and there's more where that, um, came from. Lo-lots of stolen Foundry supplies.”

Micah looked at Dollop, noticing him for the first time. His proportions were all screwy, like a reflection in a carnival mirror.

“What's up with you?” he asked the mehkan.

Dollop glanced down at his rearranged parts. He had traded a few mismatched bits here and there to get extra bulk up top, broadening his torso at the expense of creating stubbier legs.

“Oh—oh, you know. So they don't…I-It's just so that I—”

“So you don't look like a wimp.”

Dollop flinched. “Wh-where's Phoebe?”

“Still prayin',” Micah said as he emptied the cartridges out of the case to take stock.