Strevich's face hardened. "Jam it, Kyle."
"Tell me about the true forms."
Strevich didn't answer.
"Tell me about the flesh forms."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Dammit, Dave, you're leaving me disconnected here! You've got to tell me something."
"I don't have to do anything of the kind. The problem is being addressed, in our own way. It takes time, but we're handling it."
"Really?" said Kyle, the word coming out a little harsher than he'd intended. "It doesn't look that way from here."
"Walk away, Kyle," Strevich said. "You still can. When the big red, white, and blue scooper comes along to clean up all the drek, it's going to scrape you up too if you're not careful."
"No."
"Walk away. Take Beth and Natalie on a vacation," Strevich told him. "Stop worrying about everything. Watch some simsense."
"You're frizzed."
Strevich spoke in a very deliberate manner, seeming to choose his words very carefully. "I saw an interesting sim the other night. Story was unbelievable, but the effects were wizzer. You'd almost swear it was real."
Kyle eyed him suspiciously. "Do you remember the name?"
"Nah," Strevich said. "I didn't see it from the beginning, but it was by that simsense chica. The one that Bettleman liked when we were all at Quantico for extended weapons training that time. Remember?"
Kyle nodded. It was years ago, but he drought he did.
"Anyway," Strevich went on, "you should sense it. Real wiz. Real hype. I think it was her last one."
"I'll try and find it." Kyle recalled the simsense star Strevich was talking about, a beautiful dark-haired girl named Euphoria. Kyle wasn't a big simsense fan, but he remembered her. He had no idea which sim Strevich was talking about, though. Or why he was going on about it at me moment.
"Good," Strevich told him. "You do that, and I'll talk to you some other time."
Kyle nodded, still suspicious. "Later."
Strevich waved, and then disconnected. Kyle stared at the blank screen a moment, then switched the telecom system over to me hotel's own entertainment library. According to the information he'd seen, it contained thousands of new, hot, and classic simsense programs on demand for immediate viewing. He keyed in the name "Euphoria" and requested a list of her titles in the system. He had a feeling that if Strevich had been trying to tell him something, he'd know as soon as he saw the title. He never quite got the chance to see the list.
"It's called Against the Hive," came a woman's voice behind him.
Kyle threw himself forward violently and then kicked himself sideways beyond an oversized chair and down to the floor behind it. He came up quickly, Ceska vz/120 pistol in one hand, jeweled knife in the other, and half a dozen combat spells flooding his mind.
The woman was crouched low to the floor, one hand across her knee and the other on the, floor for balance. Even as she was, Kyle could tell she was tall, with shoulder-length black hair and bright silver-blue eyes that reflected the window light back at him. She wore black leather pants, a tight, midriff-revealing black leather halter top, and a long-sleeved green leather jacket. When she smiled, Kyle felt more than a little fear. She was painfully beautiful, and he had little doubt who she was.
Her bright, unblinking gaze locked with his. "Apparently, some lucky simsense producer happened to be in the right place at the right time and got footage of Knight Errant attacking a real ant spirit hive. Saved them quite a bit of money on special effects, I'd say.”
"Of course, why present the truth when you can make money selling it as fiction?" she said, standing up slowly, gracefully unfolding herself. "Not that anyone would have believed it"
"Please don't come any closer," Kyle said.
"I don't intend to. I was simply tired of crouching there."
Kyle clenched the pistol tighter and risked slipping his perception into astral space. Her aura was powerful, and odd. Its shape didn't seem to match that of the body she wore. She smiled again, and he willed his foci to life, mentally triggering the final mystical connections that empowered them. He felt the energy, the potential, arise within him as each activated in turn.
Linda Hayward stopped smiling, tensing slightly as she eyed the additions to his now unmasked aura.
He stood up carefully too, but with none of her otherworldly grace. He holstered his pistol, freeing up his hand. The knife remained drawn, but held loosely at his side.
"There," he said, as casually as he could, "thought I'd balance things out a bit."
"You are an initiate," she said.
Kyle nodded. "For some time now."
"I'm impressed." She smiled a little. "Preening for me?"
"Hardly," he told her, "since I know what you really look like."
"No," she said gravely, "you don't."
"Really?"
"I'm not at all like those things you fought at the hospital."
"No?”
She laughed, almost sadly. "I didn't take you for a monosyllabic mutterer, Mr. Teller. But your kind frequently disappoint." She looked directly at him. "Would you like me to show you what I truly am?"
"Not particularly," he said. "There, I said two words. Happy?"
"Rarely," she said. "But I think you need to be shown."
Kyle raised his blade and held it across his chest.
"Don't worry," she told him. "I'll stay over here." And she changed. Gone was her human form, in its place a giant glistening green and black insect, taller than Kyle, but lighter of build with a long, thin body and delicate legs that were almost as long. She'd become a powerful and majestic praying mantis. When she smiled, Kyle felt an almost overpowering wave of desire rush over him. He braced his body and spirit against her as she resumed her human form.
"Sorry," she said. "An instinctive reaction."
"So, you're a different kind of bug."
She winced and seemed sad again. "Mantid, if you must, Mr. Teller. And though you won't believe me, we're actually on the same side."
"Tell Mitch Truman that."
Her eyes hardened, and Kyle felt another emotion wash over him, this one far different from the last. He took an involuntary step backward and choked back the little food in his stomach as it rose.
"I did, and he believed me," she told him.
"That," Kyle said, "I find hard to believe."
"I and my sisters are not responsible for what happened to Mitchell Truman. We are enemies of the ones you seek, the ones who have him."
"Then tell me what happened."
"I'll tell you enough to send you on your way and leave all this to us."
"People keep telling me that, and I haven't listened yet."
She laughed. "You should."
"Go on."
"Generally, I and my kind find yours to be shallow, weak, ill-mannered, fearful, and devoid of worth," she told him. "We come here when the level of magic is right so that we can breed. We come here because there is more space. There are too many of us back home."
"So, don't breed."
"Ah, but Mr. Teller, it's what we do best." She winked, and Kyle began to feel a strange sensation of warmth.
"Those that you saw in the hospital, and perhaps later, use humanity as cattle. They see the possibility of using human flesh as humanity's only redeeming feature."
"Don't tell me you're different," Kyle said. "Mantids often eat their mates, if I remember my biology right."
"From consumption comes new life," she told him.
"Did Mitch know about that part?"