A lifter. It seemed so strange to even contemplate. She had to keep reminding herself: they’re not monsters after all. They’re not fire-breathing dragons sent down from the heavens to burn us out of existence. They’re working for the good guys.
We’re on their side now.
Still.
First things first. Ricketts had to be—
decirculated
—isolated until someone came by to collect him. Problem was, there weren’t too many ways to do that. The MI would be useless for other field work as long as it kept him sequestered, and Clarke seriously doubted whether Freeport had had hot-zone isolation facilities even before it fell into ruin.
He can’t stay here.
She watched the monitor for a few moments, watched Miri’s jointed limbs and laser eyes putting Humpty together again. Then she called up the anesthesia menu. She chose isoflurane.
“Go to sleep,” she whispered.
Within moments, Ricketts’ wide, nervous eyes fluttered closed. It was like watching a lethal injection.
“Do you know who I am, you miserable fetus-fucker?” the demon spat.
No, she thought.
“I’m Lenie Clarke!”
The system crashed.
“Yeah,” Clarke said softly. “Right.”
She traded a dark view for a brighter one. Phocoena’s viewport looked out on a muddy plain, not quite featureless; the muddy tracks of tunneling animals, the holes of invertebrate burrows stippled the bottom. A lone crab scuttled lethargically in the dim distance.
The ocean overhead was murky green, and growing brighter. The sun must be rising.
“What...?”
She hung the headset on the armrest and turned in the copilot’s seat. Phocoena was too small to warrant a dedicated med cubby, but the fold-down bunk on the starboard side pulled double-duty in a pinch. It tucked away into the same kind of molded indentation that held the bunks on the opposite bulkhead; unlike its counterparts, though, its thicker base bulged from the wall in a smooth distension of plumbing and circuitry. When in use it folded down like a wide, short drawbridge, hung by twin monofilament threads spooled from its outer corners. Those threads, the edges of the pallet itself, and the overhanging bulkhead formed the vertices of a little tent. Isolation membrane stretched across the planes between.
Ricketts was trapped within. He lay on his side with one arm flopped against the membrane, distending it outward.
“Hi,” Clarke said.
“Where’s this?”
“We’re underwater.” She climbed back from her seat into the main cabin, keeping her head low; the curving hull didn’t leave a lot of headroom.
He tried to sit up. He had even less headroom than she did. “What am I, you know...”
She took a breath. “You’ve got a—a bug. It’s contagious. I thought it would be best to keep you isolated.”
His bruises were already healing, thanks to Miri’s attentions. The rest of his face paled behind them. “The witch?” And then, remembering: “But I brought you that cure, right...?”
“The cure wasn’t—all we’d been hoping for,” Clarke said. “It actually turned out to be something...else...”
He thought about that a moment. He pushed his splayed fingers against the membrane. The membrane stretched, iridescing.
“You saying...you saying it’s like another disease?”
“Afraid so.”
“So that explains it,” he murmured.
“Explains what?”
“Why I been so weak the last coupla days. Prob’ly still have my bike if I’d been just that much faster.” He frowned at her. “So you go around broadbanding how this germware kicks ßehemoth’s ass and how we’re supposed to like, collect it and all, and it’s really just another bug?”
“Sorry,” she said softly.
“Fuck.” Ricketts lay back on the pallet and threw one arm over his face. “Ow,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
“Yeah, your arm’s going to be sore for a bit. You were pretty badly beat up, the MI can’t fix everything just like that.”
He held up the limb and examined it. “It does feel a lot better, though. Everything feels better. Thanks.”
Clarke forced a smile.
He was up on his elbows, looking from the smaller cage into the larger one. “This whole set-up isn’t bad. Way better than that priestly meat wagon.”
It wasn’t, of course. Phocoena’s med facilities were rudimentary at best, far below what the MI could offer. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay in there for a while,” Clarke said apologetically. “I know it’s cramped, but the onboard’s got games and shows, help you pass the time.” She gestured at a headset hanging from the roof of the nook. “I can give you access.”
“Great. Better’n an oven.”
“Oven?”
“You know.” He tapped his temple. “Microwaves. Give you a fine buzz if you jimmy the doors and stick your head just so.”
Good trick, Clarke mused. Wish I’d known it when I was a kid.
Then again, maybe I did...
“What if I have to shit?” Ricketts wondered.
She nodded at a convex button set into the recessed bulkhead. “The pallet converts. Push that when you have to go. It’s pretty straightforward.”
He did, then let out a little yelp of surprise as the midsection of the pallet slid smoothly away underneath him. His ass bumped down on the wide rim of the bowl beneath.
“Wow,” he whispered, impressed out of all proportion. Another press of the button and the pallet reintegrated.
“So what now?” he asked.
Now you get to be a lab rat. Now you’ll go to some place where machines cut pieces out of you until either you die, or the thing inside of you does. Now, you’ll be grilled on how long you hung around in Freeport, how many others you might have breathed on, how many others they might have. They’ll find out about that asshole who beat you up and maybe they’ll want to interview him. Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll just decide it’s already gone too far for pleasant interviews and nice individual extractions—because after all, if we have to sacrifice you to save Freeport, surely we also have to sacrifice Freeport to save New England now, don’t we? That’s the greater good for you, kid. It’s a sliding scale. It’s concentric.
And nobody’s life is worth shit when they slap it onto the table.
She’d roll the dice. Maybe hundreds would die in flames. Maybe only Ricketts would, in pieces.
“Hello?” Ricketts said. “You here?”
Clarke blinked. “Sorry?”
“I said, what now?”
“I don’t know yet,” she told him.
Paranoid
Aaron had led to Beth. Beth had led to Habib, and Habib had led to Xander, and the whole lot of them had led to twenty thousand hectares of wasted New England countryside being put to the flame. And that wasn’t alclass="underline" According to the chatter on the restricted band there were at least three other operatives sweeping the field further south, Desjardins’s preference for low profiles notwithstanding.
Eight days now, and Seppuku was living up to the hype. It was spreading faster than ßehemoth ever had.
Xander had also led to Phong, and Phong was fighting back. Lubin had him cornered in the mouth of an old storm-sewer that drooled slimy water into the Merrimack River. The mouth was a good two meters in diameter, set into a concrete cliff perhaps three times that height. It had a tongue, a triangular spillway widening out towards the river, flanked by rising abutments that held back the banks to either side. The spillway constituted the only clear avenue of approach and was slippery with brownish-green scum.